Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	bind_v	earth_n	loose_v	5,255	5	10.5190	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56385	A demonstration of the divine authority of the law of nature and of the Christian religion in two parts / by Samuel Parker ...	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1681 (1681)	Wing P458; ESTC R7508	294,777	516

upon such appeals and challenges as these that is an evident Demonstration of their undoubted truth and reality And this may suffice for the proof of the truth of Scripture-history supposing the Books of it were written by those Persons whose Names they bear Though beside this it is no inconsiderable proof of their Integrity that Eusebius has observed in their impartial way of writing Thus onely Saint Matthew himself of all the Evangelists takes notice of his own dishonourable Employment before his Conversion and Saint Mark who wrote his Gospel from the information of Saint Peter is observably sparing in those things that might tend to the praise of that Apostle and so could not with decent modesty be reported by himself but more exact than any other of the Evangelists in the description of his shamefull Fall Thus when Saint Peter had so frankly own'd our Saviour for the Messias Saint Matthew relates our Saviour's Answer with a high Commendation of him Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jona for Flesh and Bloud hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Then charged he his Disciples that they should tell no Man that he was Jesus the Christ. Whereas in Saint Mark all these magnificent Expressions of our Saviour to Saint Peter are modestly omitted and all the Answer that is there made is no more than this And he charged them that they should tell no Man And so again though Saint Mark in all his other Relations is more compendious than any of the other Evangelists yet in the Story of Saint Peter's denial of his Saviour he is most of all circumstantial And whereas Saint Matthew and Saint Luke set off the greatness of his Repentance afterwards by saying that he wept bitterly Saint Mark expresses it more modestly onely that he wept Now when Writers pass by such things as make for their own praise and record their own Faults and Miscarriages that without their own discovery might never have been known to Posterity they are of all Men least to be suspected of falsehood and give the strongest proof in the World of their love to Truth and Sincerity So again granting that they would not stick at any falsehood to advance their Master's Honour and Reputation yet to what purpose should they forge Lyes of his Disgraces and Sufferings especially all those shamefull Circumstances that they have recorded of his Condemnation and Execution Now if we believe them in the black and tragical part of the Story why not in all For if they onely design'd to set off their Master's Greatness why do they so carefully acquaint the World with the History of his Misfortunes Why do they tell us of his great Agony before his Passion of his scourgings and Mockings of his purple Robe and reeden Scepter of the Contumelies and Reproaches that were thrown at him whilst he was hanging on the Gibbet of his being forsaken by all his Followers of his being abjured by the most zealous of them all and that without the application of Racks or Torments These things if not true to what purpose should they invent them nay if true why should they not doe what they were able to stiflle them if the onely design of their Romance had been to gain Honour to their Master So that if they were honest and faithfull in those sad Relations concerning him why not in those that carry Triumph and Reputation in them For if they had design'd to lye for his Glory they must have baulk't every thing that might any way offend the Reader And if they had design'd a Romance instead of that plain Story that they have recorded to Posterity they would have told us that Judas had no sooner given the treacherous Kiss but he was turn'd into a Stone that the Hand that struck him was immediately wither'd that Caiphas and his Accusers were struck blind that the Souldiers who supposed they had apprehended him had onely seised a Phantasm whilst he vanisht away that his Judges were befoold in all their phantastick Process against him whilst he stood invisible among them despising their Mock-solemnity In short was it in all humane Accounts much more becoming the grandeur and dignity of that Person that he pretended to be that he should not have been obnoxious to the common Miseries and Calamities of humane Life but that when by his Divine Power he had establisht his Kingdom in the World he should have return'd back to Heaven without any suffering and with all the Ornaments of Glory and Triumph This certainly had been much more proper matter for a Romance if they had design'd nothing but their Master's Greatness than to have fain'd those mixt Actions that are recorded of him in the Gospels and those that would have believed their other Reports would not have disbelieved these And therefore seeing they would not corrupt or suppress the Truth in the unpleasant part of the Story we have no ground to suspect them of the least falsehood in any other part of it howsoever in it self strange and miraculous when it is so evident that their design was real Truth and not their Master's Greatness § VIII But if we believe the Books of Scripture were not written by those Authours whose Names they bear then we must believe that either they were forged in their days or afterwards If in their days then they either own'd them as true or not If they vouched them they gave them the same Authority as if they had been indited by themselves If they disown'd them as containing Reports that they knew to be false then they themselves were obliged to discover the Imposture which having never done that is an undeniable evidence that if they were written in their time either they themselves writ them or at least approved of them But if they were written afterwards how came they to meet with such an early and universal reception in the Christian Churches We find them always own'd as the undoubted records of the Evangelists and Apostles in the most ancient Writers that lived after them nay some with them Now how is it possible that Books that contain in them matters so strange and wonderfull if they had been counterfeit and spurious and thrust upon the World after the death of those Persons whose names they pretend to bear should command such a catholick and unquestionable reputation If indeed they had pretended to have lain obscure for some time and to have been afterwards retrieved there might have been some ground of suspicion But when they are own'd as the most ancient and undoubted records of the Church

However it is evident from hence that the Apostles settled a perpetual form of Church government to which all Christian people were indispensably bound to conform and then if that form were Episcopacy and if they settled that by our Saviour's own advice with an Eye to prevent Schisms and Contentions the case is plain that Ignatius his pressing all Churches so earnestly to obedience to their Bishop was nothing else but a prosecution both of our Saviour's and their command And then that it was Episcopacy is so evident from the unanimous and unquestionable Testimony of all Antiquity that it is positively asserted by all the Ancients and not opposed by any one but that would be too great a digression from the present Argument and therefore I shall not pursue it though I have gone thus far out of my way to shew for what reasons some Men have endeavour'd to impair the credit of the Records of the ancient Church not for any real defect and uncertainty that they found in them but because they give in such clear and undeniable Witness against their fond and unwarrantable Innovations And therefore I would advise these Gentlemen as they value the peace either of the Church or their own Consciences that they would cease to struggle any longer against their own convictions renounce their Errour when they can neither defend nor deny it and not be so headstrong as rather than part with a wrong Notion or confess a Mistake endeavour what in them lies to blow up the very foundations of the Christian Faith Or to bespeak them in the Words of Saint Clement Is there any one then that is bravely spirited among you Is there any one that hath compassion Doth any one abound in Charity Let him say if this Sedition or Contention or Schism be for me or by my means I will depart I will go my way whither soever you please I will do what the Society commands onely let the Sheepfold of Christ enjoy peace with the Elders that are placed over it He that shall doe so shall purchase to himself great glory in the Lord. Thus they doe and thus they will doe who leade their lives according to the rules of God's policy This was the gentle and peaceable temper of the primitive Christians but if they thought it their duty to quit their Country rather than occasion the disturbance of the Churches peace how much more to forgoe a false or an ungrounded Opinion And therefore to deal plainly with them I shall load their Consciences with this one sad and serious truth that when Men have once rashly departed from the Church that they live under and persevere in their Schism in spite of the most evident conviction they have renounced together with the Church their Christian Faith and are acted meerly by the spirit of Pride i. e. the Devil And therefore I do with all compassion to their Souls request such Men among us impartially to reflect upon themselves and their actions and if they are convicted in their own Consciences of having made causless Schisms in the Christian Church as I know they must be by those peevish pitifull pretences that they would seem to plead in their own excuse with all possible speed to beg pardon of God and his Church and as they would avoid the Judgment and displeasure of Almighty God against Pride Envy Peevishness Contention and Sedition to make publick confession of their fault to all the People that they have drawn after them into the same sin and with all humility and lowliness beg to be admitted into the bosom and communion of this truly ancient and Apostolick Church But my tender Charity to these poor Men that I see driving with so much fury self-conceit and confidence to utter destruction has again drawn me out of my way to perswade them if it be possible to turn back into the way of peace and salvation however it is high time for me to return to my Discourse § XXXI After this great and glorious Martyr the next eminent Witness of the original Tradition of the Christian Faith is his dear Friend and fellow Disciple Saint Policarp who as he was educated together with him under the Discipline of Saint John so he out-lived his Martyrdom about sixty years and by reason of his very great Age was able to give his Testimony not onely to that but to the next period of time so that as he conversed with Saint John Irenaeus conversed with him and withall gives an account of his Journey to Rome in the time of Anicetus and of his Martyrdom under M. Aurelius which was not till the year 167. So that through the great Age of Saint John and Saint Policarp the Tradition of the Christian Church was by them alone delivered down to the third Century for Irenaeus lived into the beginning of it not suffering Martyrdom himself by the earliest account till the year 202. And this is the peculiar advantage of his Testimony beyond all others that as it was as early as any so it continued into the most known times of the Christian Church for it was under the reign of M. Aurelius that the greatest part of the Christian Apologists flourisht and beside that his great courage and constancy in suffering for the Faith proves the great and undoubted certainty of his Tradition He was familiarly conversant with the Apostles and Eye witnesses of our Lord and therefore Ignatius recommended to him the care of his Church as knowing him to be a truly Apostolical Man and so he continued his care of the Christian Church for many years with great Faith and Resolution and at last seal'd his Faith with his Bloud I shall not need to give a particular account of his Life it is enough that as he declared at his Trial he had faithfully served his Lord and Master fourscore and six years but among the Records of his Life there is none more certain or more remarkable than his own Epistle to the Church of Philippi and the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning his Martyrdom in both which is shewed his great assurance of Immortality In the first he bottoms his Exhortation to an holy Life upon no other principle than the certain evidence of their Saviour's Resurrection and firm belief of their own in the second he cheerfully resigns up his last breath with the greatest assurance of Mind concerning it in this short and excellent Prayer O Lord God Almighty the Father of thy well-beloved and ever-blessed Son Jesus Christ by whom we have received the knowledge of Thee the God of Angels Powers and of every Creature and of the whole race of the Righteous who live before Thee I bless Thee that Thou hast graciously condescended to bring me to this day and hour that I may receive a portion in the number of thy holy Martyrs and drink of Christ's Cup for the Resurrection to eternal Life both of Soul and Body in the incorruptibleness of the Holy Spirit