Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	body_n	member_n	schism_n	3,249	5	9.8867	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60176	The shutting up infected houses as it is practised in England soberly debated By way of address from the poor souls that are visited, to their brethren that are free. With observations on the wayes whereby the present infection hath spread. As also a certain method of diet, attendance, lodging and physick, experimented in the recovery of many sick persons.		1665 (1665)	Wing S3717; ESTC R221470	11,864	25

THE SHUTTING UP Infected Houses As it is practised in ENGLAND Soberly Debated By way of Address from the poor souls that are Visited to their Brethren that are Free With observations on the wayes whereby the present Infection hath spread AS ALSO A certain Method of Diet Attendance Lodging and Physick experimented in the recovery of many Sick Persons Printed in the Year MDCLXV THE SHUTTING UP Infected Houses As it is practised in ENGLAND SOBERLY DEBATED Brethren WEE may yet call you so for our Sickness hath onely altered our condition and not our Nature although our usages bespeakes us worse Creatures we are yet men moulded of the same earth quickned by the same Spirit subject to the same Law lying under the same sins and infirmities loved with the same Everlasting Love redeemed by the same Blood entred into the same Covenant Members of the same Church partakers of the same Privileges and Ordinances Professors of the same Faith expectants of the same Hope and common Salvation with you Turn not your eyes from your own Flesh there is nothing happened unto us that is not common to Mankind what is our case to day may be yours to morrow Have pitty upon us for the hand of God is upon us and add not sorrow to affliction and when we are afflicted of God O let us not withal be forsaken of men and if our Neighbours will stand so far aloof from us as not to look upon us yet let them hear us if our persons are loathsome our reason is not so there may be danger in visiting us there is none in having compassion upon us our breath may be infectious our words are innocent hear us and then forsake us First Reason against shutting Men up for the Plague From the Communion of Saints and the practise of the Primitive Christians 1. WEre Men those sociable Creatures made thus every Man to live by himself and if the Principle of self-preservation may alter the course of Nature is this the Communion of Saints we believed is this the mutual care we ought to have one of another We can endure to read in Eusebius of Heathens who as soon as the Pestilence was among them diverted themselves and fled from their most loving and dear friends throwing them half dead in the Streets how they left the dead unburied to be devoured of Dogs to the end they might avoid death which yet they could not escape While we observe withal how Grace above Nature enabled the Primitive Christians by reason of their great love and brotherly Charity they are Eusebius his own Words not sparing themselves to cleave one to another to visit the sick of the Plague to attend them diligently to Cure them in Christ though it cost them their Lives and being full of other mens maladies took the Infection off their Neighbours and tronslated off their own accord the sorrows of their Neighbours upon themselves fulfilling indeed the common saying that friendship is alwayes to be retained In this sort the best of our Brethren departed this life whereof some were Ministers some were Deacons in great reverence among the Common People So that this kind of death for their great Piety and strength of Faith may seem to differ nothing from Martyrdom for they took the dead Bodies of the Saints whose breasts faces and hands lay upwards and closed their eyes shut their mouths and joyntly with one accord being like affectioned embraced them and prepared their Funerals their own being a little while afterward in all likelyhood prepared by others for the Living continually traced the steps of the Dead Then as the Body was one and had many Members all those Members being one body so was Christ for by one Spirit were all Men Baptized into one Body the eye said not to the hand I have no need of thee nor the head to the foot I have no need of thee yea the weaker the Members of the Church were the more care they had of them and there was no Schism in the Body each Member having an equal care one of another and so if one Member suffered all the Members suffered with it they all looking on themselves as the Body of Christ and Members in particular Then they did not Excommunicate whole Families when it pleased God to visit them no then the Elders of the Church carefully attended them prayed with them and the effectual fervent prayer of those righteous Men availed much Second Reason against the shutting up of Houses infected with the Plague From the spreading of the Infection by it BUt alas a discourse of publick mindedness to private Spirits looks like a fit of Melancholly we urge not then your duty but your Interest not so much what concerneth us as your selves alas while you by this severe course would secure you destroy your selves and that shutting up of infected Houses which you think would stop the Infection spreads it For 1. We are acted by a Principle of self preservation as well as you and therefore assoon as we find our selves or any member of our Families infected so dreadful it is to us to be shut up from all comfort and society from free and wholsome air from the care of the Physician and the Divine from the oversight of Friends and Relations and sometimes even from the very necessities and conveniences of Nature that we run as far in City and Country as our feet can carry us leaving Wives and Children to the Parishes empty walls and shops to Creditors scattering the infection along the Streets as we go and shifting it from Lodging to Lodging with our selves till at last we drop in some Alley Field or neighbour Village calling the people round about by the suddenness of our fall to stand awhile astonished at our deaths and then take their own each fearful man of us frighted from his own house killing his whole Town by surprizing them unprepared whereas were we permitted to enjoy the content and freedom of our own Habitations we might by Antidotes cure others and be cured our selves See see we infect not our next Neighbours and this sickness spreads not much in any one place but we carry it from place to place running from our home as from our places of torment and thus the Roads are visited and men travel the same way to the Country and to their long home Thus the Contagion hath reached most places round the Citty which is now as it were besieged with the judgment and encompassed with the Visitation and desolation We have not yet learned how to manage a sickness in all likelihood did persons prepare themselves upon the first breaking out of the Plague with Antidotes to visit the sick who would be very well contented to keep within doors and converse onely with their nearest Friends their Physicians and their ghostly fathers and administer to them such preservatives and other necessaries the Plague might go no further For Third Reason against shutting up Houses visited with