Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	catholic_n	communion_n	schism_n	6,320	5	10.0691	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31454	A preparation for martyrdom a discourse about the cause, the temper, the assistances and rewards of a martyr of Jesus Christ : in a dialogue betwixt a minister, and a gentlemanhis [sic] parishioner.	Cawdrey, Zachary, 1616-1684.	1681 (1681)	Wing C1648; ESTC R8822	35,036	47

Babylon Min. I shall readily as far as I am able comply to your Pious desire not because my fears keep equal pace with yours for to me still there is hope in Israel as to this thing but because the considerations which such a Subject will lead us to will be a great advantage to us Living and Dying The Method I will observe in my Discourse shall be this I. I will endeavour to shew you what sort of Cause it is that will make a Martyr namely To suffer for Christs Name and for Righteousness sake II. I will shew how a Martyr must be qualified as to his Temper and Practice III. What promises God hath made both of Consolations and Supports here and of rewards hereafter to his Suffering Saints Parish Sir I am glad we are come to this sweet Theme and shall attend diligently praying to God to guide your Tongue for my Direction and Consolation in the ways of the Gospel Min. Amen He therefore suffers for Christs Name and for Righteousnes sake I. Who suffers for refusing to strengthen the hands of Wicked Men in their Wickedness by his Consent or Example II. Who suffers for Promoting the Churches Peace III. Who suffers for the Exercise of warranted Religious Worship or refusal of Communion in Idolatrous and Sinful Worship IV. Who suffers for contending for the Faith and Truth once delivered to the Saints First He Suffers as a Martyr who Suffers because he will have no Fellowship in the unfruitful Works of Darkness nor run to the same excess of Riot with others who Suffers because he is ready when Sinners intice him to answer with David Depart from me ye Evil doers for I will keep the Commandements of my God is Gods Martyr For certainly if we Suffer on this account because we will by our professed obedience to God's Law give testimony to his Sovereignty and to the Equity and Excellency of that Rule he hath appointed to his Rational Creatures we may justly be stiled God's Martyrs And in particular if we Suffer for Fearing God and the King and not medling with those who are given to change but that in Conscience towards God we retain our Loyalty to our Sovereign it is a Suffering for Righteousness sake Parish But will the Suffering in the Cause of strict Moralities in title Christians to Martyrdom Min. Yes For Morality or Conformity to the Moral Law in our Duty to God and Men for God's sake is so great a part of the obedience of Faith given to the Rule or the New Creature that he who Suffers rather than he will offend against the Moral Law In Conscience that God who made him and Christ who Redeem'd him requires that he should live by that Rule in order to God's Glory his own and others good is God's and Christ's Martyr And be assured of it Good Men shall not want occasion of Suffering on that account especially in such days and places wherein almost every thing is countenanced but Piety and Virtue Next If you Suffer for promoting the Peace of the Church and opposing Schisms and Divisions amongst Brethren you Suffer for the Name of Christ and you cannot want occasion of Suffering if than be your design so long as the Zeal for or against our English Littleismes flames out at the top of every Chimney Parish Indeed it is easily observable that those good and moderate Men who have endeavoured to remove the Fewel of our present Contentions are as violently assaulted by the fierce Men the Bigotts on both sides as if they were the declared Enemies of both the Contending Parties however I resolve through the Grace of God to follow your Example and Doctrine herein both to pray and strive for the Peace of Jerusalem by all lawful means For I believe if I should dye at the Stake for the Profession of the most precious Truths of the Gospel and yet be a divider of Christ's Church I should be condemned to be a Firebrand in Hell by the Prince of Peace Min. But when I press you to contend for the Peace of the Church I mean not only the Peace of the particular Society of Christians amongst whom your Residence and Cohabitation calls you to communicate in Publick Worship But also to promote the Catholick Unity of the Catholick Church by vertue of which it is That every Baptized Christian Professing Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ and bringing sufficient Evidence or Credentials of his Christianity may as a Member of that one Body under Christ the Head Challenge the Priviledge of Communion in all the Ordinances of Christ with any Society of Christianst or partionlar Church where ever he happens to live or occasionally to come For if any Society of Christians shall impale themselves by mutual Compacts or by setting up other new and unnecessary Terms of Communion with them so as to exclude from their Communion other Christians cohabiting with them or coming to them they are therein Schismatical especially if those Terms be such as the Neighbor or Stranger-Christian cannot comply to without wrong to his own Conscience I do indeed judge that if the Terms of Communion required though new and narrower then Christ hath required to make us Members of his Catholick Church be such as I can comply to wihout Sin I ought not to disturb the Peace of the particular Church where I am by a stiff opposing of them especially if I have sufficiently protested my Right and Priviledge as a Member of the Catholick Church to have Communion allowed me without such Imposals For my Christian Liberty gives me a Latitude to become all things not sinful to all men And though a particular Church may be Schismatical in imposing such new and narrow Terms of Communion with her as Christ never imposed to make us Members of his Catholick Church yet if I separate causlesly that is where I can Communicate without Sin I am Schismatical also so that at the same time a Church may be Schismatical in imposing unecessary Terms of Communion and a particular Christian may be Schismatical in refusing Compliance to those Terms if he can comply to them without Sin Parish Sir I thank you for by this Information you have contributed not only to make easie to me my Compliance to just Ecclesiastical Laws which I did something scruple on conceit that my yielding betray'd my Christian Liberty but also to enlarge my special Brotherly Love to all Christians as Members of the same Body with me under Christ our Head and you have given my Conscience a latitude and my Heart a readiness to join in worship with any Christian where ever I come and may be admitted and to receive readily as much as in me lies any Christian to Communion with me and with that Society of Christians amongst whom I Cohabit and Communicate Min. Next if you suffer for not complying to sinful Worship such as is forbidden by God as unworthy to be offered up

write all that Tradition Doctrine common to all Mankind and also what was peculiar to Abreham's Posterity so that no part of the Traditional Doctrine necessary to Salvation was left unwritten And the Prophet afterwards having more particular Revelations about the time place and other circumstances of the Conception Birth Preaching Miracles Death Resurrection and Ascension of the promised Seed penned them likewise So that the great Tradition that the Jewish Church was to derive down from Generation to Generation was the writings of Moses and the other divinely inspired Penmen as the intire Rule of their Faith in the Messiah to come So also what was necessary to be believed of what our Lord Jesus Christ come in the Flesh Taught and ordained did and suffered is intively collected in the Scriptures of the New Testament and no Doctrine of Christ necessary to be believed nor Institution of Christ necessary to be obeyed is left out of the said Holy Writings to be derived down by Oral Tradition and therefore it is an intollerable injury done to Christians to deny them the liberty of Reading the Scriptures in their own Tongue And an abominable Cheat is put upon the Christian world in pretending that Part of the Rule of Faith is left to be derived down by the Churches Tradition yea so that what Doctrine was not defined by the Church that is the Pope or Council or both to be de side and part of the Tradition to day may yet be so to morrow and so be made then necessary to Salvation which was not necessary before Parish I apprehend now the good warrant we have to stick to the Scriptures as the only and intire Rule of Faith and I hope by the grace of God I shall not forsake that sure Word But Sir still if we yield what the Romanists claim that there is appointed by God an Infallible Judge of the sense of the Scriptures to whose definitions all are bound to consent our Rule would be no Rule to us without the concurrent judgment of such an Authentick Interpreter Min. But it can never be proved that Christ hath appointed such an Authentick Interpreter of Scripture and infallible Judg of Controversies And besides the ridiculous perverting of Scripture by Popes to bolster up this and their other pretensions is sufficient evidence to any man that will use his eyes and his reason that the Pope is no such Judge And indeed if Gods Spirit cannot speak plain in his Word but he must need an Interpreter how can the Pope or Church speak so but they must also need an Interpreter and that Inpreter must need another Interpreter and so on in Insinitum Therefore we believe the infinitely Gracious God hath so made known his mind about Mans Salvation in his word that no man who prays to God earnestly and humbly for the assistance of his Spirit and useth serious attention and pondering of the Scripture comparing Scripture with Scripture and applies himself to the help of learned and pious Men and Ministers when he needs the same can dangerously err in necessary points of Faith and yet learned Men and Ministers convince him of the sence of Scripture who seeks their assistance not in the strength of their Authority and Infallibility but in strength of that Light in which they are inabled by God to represent the Truth But I must not inlarge upon this Head I refer you if you need farther satisfaction to what the Reverend and Learned Dr. Stillingsleet Dr. Tillotson or Mr. Poole in his Nullity of the Roman Faith Mr. Baxter and others have writ upon this Subject Parish I am well satisfied I pray you proceed Minist Next you are warranted to bear Testimony even unto Blood against the Popes Supremacy challenged over the whole Church nay in a manner over the whole World And that you may be satisfied that so you ought to do consider that the Pope claims no less than these Prerogatives following First That he as Saint Peters Successour and Christs Vicar is the Head of the Catholick Church on Earth and the first Subject of all Ecclesiastical power So that whatsoever Power of Order or Jurisdiction any Bishop Presbyter Lay-Chancellour or other Official doth exercise is derived say the Romanists from the Pope That he can dispence with Vows and Oaths grant Pardons and Indulgences yea if he decree Vertue to be Vice or contrarily none are to question it nor doth any Appeal lye from him Nor can any Prince or State or Church constitute any Order or reform any abuse in matters Ecclesiastical but by delegation from the Pope That he as Christs Vicar who is King of Kings may depose Kings for Heresy or for favouring Hereticks or for any Male-Administration or other pretended unfitness of the Person to Govern That he can absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and give to whom he will the Empires and Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them as the Divel Matth. 4. said he could do For thus Popes have practised in this part of the old world oft and in the new also Pope Alexander 6th Giving Peru and Mexico to the Kings of Spain and Portugal Parish If this be his claim then every one is warranted to oppose it unto death it being such an abominable usurpation of an Authority that Christ never gave and a most unsufferable inchroachment on both the Civil and Religious Rights both of Princes and private men both Christians and Heathen And he is a Traytor to Christ and a betrayer of his own and others Rights who yeilds to it and methinks there is nothing in Popery of more dangerous consequence to be yeilded and yet nothing more groundlesly challenged nor that can more prejudice unconverted Heathen Princes against Christianity than this Doctrine That they who before were Supreme must be Subordinate to the Pope when they turn Christians For first It can never be proved that Christ gave any such power to St. Peter or if he had it cannot be proved that St. Peter's personal priviledges are derivative to his Successours nor yet that the Pope of Roma is his Successour rather than the Bishop of Antioch or Jerusalem no nor yet can it be proved that the present Pope is the rightful Bishop of Rome by uninterrupted Success when from St. Peter as they claim there having been so many Heretical wicked Schismatical and Simonaical Persons who have possessed that Seat This and more I remember you told me was said against it by the very humble learned and pious Dr. Barrow late Master of Trinity Colledg in Cambridg in his absolute and incomparable discourse on this Subject But I pray you give me a reason why all the Kings of the Earth do not rise up against the Pope in defence of their own and their Subjects Right Minist The Scripture tells us Rev. 17. 2. They are made drunk with the Wine of the fornications of the great Whore and intoxicated with the pompousness of her superstitious Worship and