Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	communion_n	hold_v	schism_n	2,955	5	9.8292	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78979	An indictment against England because of her selfe-murdering divisions: together vvith an exhortation to an England-preserving vnity and concord. Presented in a sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords in the Abby church at Westminster; at the late solemne fast, December 25. 1644. By Edmund Calamy, B.D. and pastour of Aldermanbury in London.	Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.	1645 (1645)	Wing C256; Thomason E23_5; ESTC R21745	38,703	51

grace Some are Anabaptists that say That the condition of an Infant of a beleeving Parent is as sad and miserable as the condition of an Infant of a Turke or Infidell and one of them was not ashamed to say That it is as lawfull to Baptize a Cat or a Dog as an Infant of a Christian Parent Some are Brownists that say That all our Ministery is Antichristian and our Worship and Churches Antichristian Some are of no Church at all beleeving all Churches to be falsely constituted and therefore refuse to joyne with any Church in the worship of God and waite till God raise up Apostles to plant new Churches Some beleeve that the Soule dyeth with the body and that both shall rise againe at the last day Others begin to say they beleeve that the Soule is mortall as well as the Body and that there is no Resurrection neither of Soule or Body Some plead for an illimited toleration of all Religions It would see me a wonder if I should reckon how many separated Congregations or rather Segregations there are in the Citie What Churches against Churches c. But I forbeare The Lord knows that I mention these things with a sad heart and that I doe not hereby intend to exasperate your Lordships against the persons that hold these opinions above what the Word of God doth clearely require at your hands or to uncover any nakednesse of our Deare Mother that was unknown before but onely to present before you our sad and miserable condition that thereby you may be quickned unto prayer stirred up to humiliation in a day of Fasting and Weeping and also provoked to use all Scripture helps for the suppression of these distractions For great and wonderfull are the mischiefes that proceed from these Church-divisions Give me leave to mention a few of them First Hereby Gods Name is exceedingly dishonoured and the true Religion ill spoken of Iulian that cursed Apostate railes against the Christians in his dayes and saith of them That they lived together as so many Dogs and Beares rending and tearing one another and addes Who then would be so simple as to become a Christian The very Heathen in their Interludes scoffed at the divisions that were amongst the Christians as the Histories of the Primitive times informe us to the great disgrace of Christian Religion And I wish this might not also be verified of our dayes Secondly Hereby the happy Reformation that all good people expect and long for is much hindered For as the building of Babel was hindered by the confusion of Tongues so is the building of Sion also For every man drives his owne private way of Reformation and strives to hinder all other wayes that are opposite to his way It is with us in England as it was with the Suiters in Plutarch who because they could not all of them obtaine the Virgin they sued for agreed to cut her in pieces and every one to take a bit of her We are all Suiters for a Reformation and because we cannot get such a one as may please every man hence come our Divisions by which what doe we else but agree together to cut the Kingdome in pieces and every man to take his morsell Epiphanius tels a sad story of Meletius and Peter Bishop of Alexandria both confessors of the Christian faith both of them condemned ad metalla for their profession who upon a small difference fell into so great a Schisme that they drew a partition betweene each other in the Prison and would not held communion in the same worship of Christ for which notwithstanding they joyntly suffered which dissention of theirs did cause such a rent and sect in the members of the Church that it did more hurt then any persecution of the enemie Iust so is our condition For we are here in London and in the Associated Counties shut up as in a Prison for we dare not travell beyond our line and whilest we are in prison we draw partitions one from another and separate from one another whilest we are all suffering for the same cause And this hinders Reformation more then all that the enemie can doe to obstruct it Thirdly Hereby the good cause we fight for is exceedingly disparaged For doe we not heare the enemie boasting and saying These are the men that cry downe Prelacy you see they can agree in nothing but in Anarchie and confusion Are there not many that beginne to grow weary of these warres and cold in the prosecution of the Parliaments most just cause even for this very reason because they know not amongst so many Religions as they call them for what Religion they fight Fourthly Hereby the enemie is much encouraged His hope of conquering is built upon our Divisions And therefore he doth as Medea did who when she fled a way with Iason and was pursued by her father tooke her brother Absyrtus and cut him in pieces and scattered him in the way that she fled in that so her father might be busied in taking up the scattered pieces of his sonne and she in the meane time flie securely a way Even so doe our enemies labour to cut us in pieces by our divisions for the enemie hath a chiefe stroke in our divisions that they in the meane time may securely study our ruine while we are gathering up our divided parties Fifthly Hereby the hearts of people are mightily distracted many are hindered from conversion and even the godly themselves have lost much of the power of godlinesse in their lives I say The hearts of people mightily disturbed while one Minister preacheth one thing as a truth of the Gospel and another Minister preacheth the quite contrary with as much confidence as the former And thus as Optatus saith Inter licet tuum non licet meum nutant remigant animae Christianorum While one Minister saith I and another saith No the common peoples minds are mightily distracted And many also are hindred from conversion For who will venture into a ship that is tossed with contrary waves and ready to sinke And even the godly themselves are much decayed in the studie and practise of faith and repentance and of the power of godlinesse For all their time is so much taken up with unnecessary disputations as that they have little leasure to repent and to study to increase in holinesse Inter disputandum religio amittitur The truth is Here is so much dispute about the government of Christ in our Churches as that there is little of Christs government in our hearts or houses So much dispute about the gathering of Churches as that there were never fewer gathered really to the Church then in these our dayes Sixthly By these divisions godly Ministers are mightily discouraged in so much as there are many that grow weary of their standings in Gods Church and beginne to thinke of leaving their places and of going to live in private and to shut themselves up in their

from their very childhoods they did differ one from the other and never could agree But when a common enemy came against them then Aristides comes by night to Themistocles and saith unto him Si sapimus omissâ tandem iuvenili et inani concertatione contentionem de servanda Graecia salubrem honestamque suscipiamus c. Let us leave all youthly contentions and tend unanimously to the publique good Oh that this counsell might take impression in the hearts of us Christians at this time Eightly Consider further how that the very Devils in hell agree to promote their owne kingdome If Satan be divided against Satan saith Christ how can his Kngdome stand And my Text is brought as I have said as an argument to prove that Christ did not cast out Devils by the power of Belzebub because then Satan should be divided against himselfe and seeke his own ruine which he will never doe There is peace amongst the Devils in hell And certainly there cannot be better Musicke to the Divels in hell then to see the Parliament divided against it selfe and the City divided against it selfe and the Godly Ministers divided against themselves at such a time as this is Ninthly and especially 〈◊〉 Lord Iesus Christ who is the Great Peacemaker who came into the world when all the world was at peace at whose birth the Angels sang Glory to God on high and in earth peace who when he was dying left a Legasie of peace to his people and gave his Disciples a New Commandement to love one another which was therefore called a New Commandement because it was inforced with a new example even the example of Christs love to us Who when he made that admirable Prayer Iohn 17. the chiefe part of it was that God would make his children one as he and the Father were one And he gives the reason of it vers. 21. That the world may beleeve that then hast sent me The world will not beleeve in Christ when they see Christians disagree Nothing hinders men from beleeving in Christ more then the differences and divisions of those that doe beleeve in Christ It is an excellent observation of Athanasius That the very manner of Christs death doth preach the Doctrine of Vnitie and love to Christians For Christ was not sawen asunder as the Prophet Isaiah was He was not beheaded as Iohn Baptist was There was not a bone of his broken nor any whit of his garment rent or torne And all this to teach Christians saith he to be at unitie within themselves Was not a bone of Christ broken upon the Crosse and shall all his members breake in pieces now he is in heaven Was his garment kept whole and shall his body be rent and torne in pieces This is Pauls Argument to perswade the divided Corinthians to Peace and Vnitie 1 Cor. 1. 13. Is Christ divided And why are Christians divided if Christ were not divided Why doth one say I am of Paul another I am of Apollo another I am of Cephas c. And therefore if you be Christians live in love and unitie as the Disciples of Iesus Christ that so the world may beleeve in Christ Oh that these Motives might take deepe rooting in your affections And that every one in his place would labour after Peace and Vnitie That you that are Magistrates and Iustices would bind your selves to the peace It is no discredit in this sense to be bound to the peace You are called Iustices of the Peace not because you should hold your peace when God would have you to speake but because it is your dutie to make peace and to keep peace Let all godly Ministers preach up the duty of brotherly love which is quite forgotten amongst most Christians It is a dutie quite dead and buried let us labour that it may have a speedy resurrection The Apostle saith 1 Thes. 4. 9. As touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you c. But we Ministers now a dayes need to write and preach of no duty more then this And then let all Ministers and people Pray for the peace of Ierusalem and give the Lord no rest untill he make England and Ireland a praise in the earth Let us pray for peace and fight for peace and contribute our money willingly for a peace For indeed all our fighting and all our vast expences are but as wayes and meanes to a safe and well grounded peace Let us fight for peace with peace one towards another And let us not complaine and murmur at the greatnesse of our contributions but remember the story of the old covetous Miser that hung himselfe to save charges and his man comming in unawares and seeing his Master a hanging cut the rope in pieces and thereby saved his Masters life The Master being recovered instead of thanking his man fell a chiding of him because he cut the rope in pieces and so did put him to the charges of a new rope whereas he should rather have untied it then cut it This man you will say did little deserve to have his life saved Iust such is our condition Our cruell enemies are ready to devoure and destroy us All that the Parliament doth is to cut the rope in pieces with which they would hang us And if we be put to more then ordinary charge let us not grumble at those expences which are the preservation of our lives That man is unworthy to live that murmurs to lay out a little money to save his life But here I must put in three Caveats beseech you in the first place to remember that when I speake so much for unity I would also have you to remember that Vnum verum convertuntur That unity without veriy is not a true peace but a conspiracy Omnis concordia in veritate Vnity ioyned with falshood is execrable adulterie saith Cyprian When unitie and falshood are married together it is no lawfull marriage but execrable adultery If I cannot have peace with men but I must lose my peace with God farewell peace with men that I may keep my peace with God One great reason why we have so little peace upon earth is because we seek after it more then after the glory of God in heaven You will must remember in the second place that this Vnity that we must labour after must be in a Scripture way The Primitive Church for Vnity sake and to prevent Schismes set up one Presbyter as a Bishop to rule over the rest with Maiority of power in Iurisdiction and Ordination But this at best was but a humane invention and it proved an increaser of Schisme and Division The Papists set up the Pope to preserve unitie But he is the greatest Apple of strife the Christian world hath It will be our care to studie to promote a unitie in such a way which the Scriptures hold forth and this will prosper You must also remember in the third place that our unitie