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	member_n	schism_n	3,619	5	9.7876	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54003	A just rebuke to one & twenty learned and reverend divines (so called) being an answer to an abusive epistle against the people call'd Quakers subscrib'd by : Thoman Manton, Thomas Jacomb, John Yates, John Sheffield, Anthony Palmer, Thomas Cole, Thomas Doelittel, Richard Baxter, William Cooper, George Griffith, Matthew Barker, John Singleton, Andrew Parsons, Richard Mayo, Thomas Gouge, William Jenkyn, Thomas Watson, Benjamin Needler, William Carslake, Stephen Ford, Samuel Smith / by William Penn.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1674 (1674)	Wing P1131; ESTC R208998	24,420	33

be impertinently Tautological and say the same thing in four pages five times over to fix an Odium in the Minds of People against us What is this but to do what you condemn But the Truth is you have so well exprest the Matter for your selves that an unwary Reader would think you equally Enemies to Separation and Reviling those you separate from But of a●● men this Language is most infufferable from you who have transcended in the Guilt of those things you seem so heartily to censure You are made up of Presbyterians and Independents let me a little Expostulate with you Argumentum ad hominom I will begin with you who are called Presbyterians Are you not Separatists from the Church of England You know you are And pray what is the Ground of your Separation Is it Difference in the Essentials of Religion you know you say it to be only in some matters of Discipline for this you have divided your selves and smartly vindicated your Separation witness Galaspee in Scotland and Smectimnaeus in England Was it not a great Reason of the Wars that divided so many Famili●s shed so much Blood and exhausted so great a Treasure Did it not lay Episcopacy in the Dust and excite the Parliament in these very Terms Elijah opposed Idolatry and Oppression so do ye Down with Baal's Altars Down with Baal's Priests Do not I beseech you consent unto a Toleration of Baal's Worship in this Kingdom upon any Politick Consideration whatsoever Which is as much as to say Away with the Arch-Bishops Bishops the wh●le Ministry and Worship of the Church of England Again The Morthes of your Adversari●s are opened against you that so many D●linquents that is to say Royalists are in Prison and yet but very few of them brought to their Tryal Did he mean to relea●e them And saith another of your eminent Brethren be●ore the Commons Aug. 28. 1644. Ye cannot Preach nor Pray them down directly and immediately Well That which the Word cannot do the Sword shall To render which saying authentick the Apostle is brought in two lines after I could set out this part of your Story to the Life but at this time shall forbear nor do I delight in this but since I must needs mention Your Separation how can I do it without telling who it was you separated from And can I do it more candidly then in your own Words I wish there had been no need for it Only from hence you may observe your sort of Dislike of Separation and how notably Presbyterians revile even Men that are one with them in the Essentials of Religion Behold a short Instance of your Carriage to the Church of England you separated from Let us now take a short view of your Treatment of those that dissented from you You shewed the Independents the way first to separate upon Conscience and then to plead Conscience for Separation and how reasonable it was that Conscience should be Tolerated Are you constant to your selves Do you give what you will take No such matter But let us hear you Matters of Religion says Dr Corn Burges in his Sermon before the House of Commons Novemb. 5. 1641. ly a Bleeding all Government and Discipline of the Church is laid in her Grave and all putredinous Vermin of bold Schismaticks glory in her Ashes making her Fall their own Rising to mount our Pulpits That the Independents are concern'd under the term Schismaticks Dr Cawdrey bestows an whole Book upon it which is Entituled INDEPENDENCY a great Schism yet some of these great Schismaticks are some of the One and Twenty Reverend Worthy Divines I find another of your Brethren Octob. 22. 1644. that tells us of Parliamentary Heresies saying You are the Anabaptists and you are the Antinomians these are your Errors if they spread by your Connivance Was not this spoaken like a Man of Charity one that disdain'd not the Communion of other Christians that are not altogether of his Mind A Virtue commended by you in your Epistle Another eminent Person of your Way before the Parliament Sept. 12. 1644. We are grown beyond Arminianism Brownism Anabaptism we are come to the down-right Libertinism that every man is to be left to the Liberty of his own Religion An Opinion most pernicious and destructive saith he And another of your Brethren in his great Zeal before the House of Commons 1644. styles them Bastard Imps of the Whore of Babylon Though you know that many of you plead a Romish Succession for your Ministry and consequently that you ministerially descend of what you call the Whore think on 't as you will But all this is exceeded by a zealous Presbyterian who in his Book called The Gangraen c. Part 1. p. 91. querieth thus Shall the Presbyterians Orthodox Godly Ministers be so cold as to let Anabaptism Brownism Antinomianism Libertinism Independency come in upon us and keep in a whole skin when Arch-Bishops Bishops c. hazarded the loss of their Preferments to withstand the Toleration of Popery Where not only Anabaptists and Independents are rendred unworthy of a Toleration by this great Presbyterian but their Perswasion rendred more intolerable then Popery I would ask G. Griffith M. Barker R. Mayo M. Palmer T. Cole who help to make up the One and Twenty Learned and Reverend Divines if this Man was a Wasp or a Bee one that had more of Sting or Honey Well what 's his Resolution Let 's therefore saith he fill all Presses and cause all Pulpits to ring and so possess Parliament City and whole Kingdom against the Evil of Schism and a Toleration that we may no more hear of a Toleration nor of separated Churches being hateful Names in the Church of God AMEN ' AMEN All I shall say of the Man is this he was hearty in his Work and what he did he did with all his Might Another of them runs so high that he impeacheth Gamaliel for a loose Naturalist a Time-serving Polititian a second Achitophel and only because he was for Toleration when you know the rest of the Jewish Counsel were for Persecution If you will not believe me peruse I. Words Sermon before the Commons 1645. How agrees this with your present Desires of Indulgence and Thanks for it Let me say there is the same Exception against you upon this Doctrine as any other sort of Dissenters But as ill as this man thought of Worthy Prudent Gamaliel his Counsel hath been strong and sea●onable even in Presbyterian Apologies But lest you should reject these Evidences of your rank Severity to others though for minute Differences as being but the Opinion of 3 or 4 men I will conclude with the Judgment of the Presbyterian Ministers in the City of London presented in a Letter to the Assembly of Divines sitting at West minster 1645. INDEPENDENCY is a Schism they draw seduce our Members from our Congregations a Toleration of it will be follow'd with inevitable Mischiefs They erect

separate Congregations under a separate and undiscover'd Government The refuse Communion with our Churches in the Sacraments And are such men fit to commend Christian Communion to others who themselves break it and impeach one another at this bitter rate for doing so But what follows The Godly painful Orthodox Ministry will be discouraged and despised the Life and Power of Godliness will be eaten out by frivolous Disputes and vain Janglings it is too much to be doubted lest the Power of the Magistrate should not only be weakened but even utterly overthrown considering the Principles and Practices of Independents together with their Complyance with other Sectaries sufficiently known to be Anti-magistratical Hereby we shall be involved in the Guilt of other Mens Sins and thereby be endangered to receive of their Plagues It seems utterly Impossible if such Toleration should be granted that the LORD SHOULD BE ONE AND HIS NAME ONE IN THE THREE KINGDOMS This seriously consider'd let me ask you if you did not think these Independents either so Ignorant or so Bad as to be unworthy of your Communion with them or being so much as tolerated in their separated Communion from you Certainly if so small a Difference as that which remains between you and the Independents finds not Charity enough with you to be tolerated not only the Quakers have no Reason to expect Toleration from you had you Power in your hands But there is great need that you should be ashamed of Censuring others or being so Narrow-spirited as not to Commune with People of a different Perswasion in Matters confessedly of greater Moment then that upon which you have exercised so much Gaul That You that are INDEPENDENTS have thought the Presbyterian Unworthy of your Communion it is needful only that we put you in mind of your Separating from them and sitting down in distinct Congregations under a different Discipline and Administration of Ordinances The Reason of which if we will believe the Presbyterians in the Account they gave to the Parliament was because you esteem them Prelatical Tyrannical and Anti-christian in their Ministry An ancient Acquaintance of mine who had more Learning and Discretion then to be one of your Learned and Reverend Divines in his Book against D. Cawdrey doth ●ffirm That Ministry that cometh through Romish Succession and is no Ministry without it can be no better then a Romish Ministry and the Truth is I am of his mind J. Cotton Brownists Apol. J. Cann ancient Independents also writ in Defence of Separate from National Communion From hence and that second great War between you and the Presbyterians who should inherit what you had joyntly gotten from another Party are none of the clearest Proofs to us of your Brotherly Love and Christian Communion though a great Check to both of you for your turning Judges who are such notorious Criminals and yet I will not say but the Presbyterians Fury was your Provocation In short As the Reason you have both render'd of your Separation from the Church of England and One from Another is Greater Purity of Worship and Discipline so We had never separated our selves from you but upon the same Principle And if this will not serve your turn when You that are Presbyterians have given better Satisfaction to the Church of England for your separate Communion and when You the Independents have in the like Case answer'd the Presbyterians and the Anabaptists you We shall we hope not be wanting to our selves in any necessary Vindication of OVR CAVSE I am sorry you have given me Occasion to remind you of your Separation among your selves However this deserves the Notice of all Impartial Readers that though you were so Bitter and all Wasps one against another for your Separation yet that now you are Confederated against us without any Provocation then such as was the Cause your selves pretended for your own Separation So that to use your own Words with better Reason You are the Men that have no Honey nor Sweetness of Spirit except for your selves And I must needs say that notwithstanding your Reflection upon us as Destroyers of Christian-Communion you have been so fond of your own Apprehensions that many of your Way have lost the Friendliness so commendable in Civil Society and some no small Preachers neither have vehemently dehorted their Hearers from so much as conversing with us no not about the Lawful Things of this World so far as may be avoided nay one of them was so extravagant as openly to profess He had rather his Hearers should go to a BANDY-HOUSE then to a Quakers Meeting To such a Degree of Bitternes are some of you arriv'd for all your Pretences to Charity I am sure if you had had any Regard to those Natural Truths you are forc'd to confess make up Part of our Religion viz. To do as you would be done by remembring that for all these Things God will bring you to Judgment you would never have dealt o●t such hard Measure to us and it cannot be too much lamented that men will not make the best of their Accord so far as they do accord I mean what you do if you mean what you writ viz. That God so hateth the Evil as yet to approve and love all that is Good and that his Servants should not dispraise all in those whom they dislike For We own ONE GOD we fear him as well as own him and through his GRACE are enabled to perform the Works of Righteousness whose Fruit is Peace We believe this Grace is communicated to us through Jesus Christ our Lord that he is the Only and Compleat Saviour as well from the Pollution as Guilt of Sin that without his Holy ●pirit we cannot please God that therefore it is Reverently and Incessantly to be waited for to inform inable and conduct us through the whole Exercise of our Life respecting our Duty towards God and Man we also believe that there is an Eternal State for Sheep and Goats Godly and Vngodly and a Day in which God Almighty will judge the Secrets of all Men by Jesus Christ rendering to every Man according to the Deeds done in the Body And this we do believe without any Mental Reservation whatever and find dayly Comfort both in Believing and Living accordingly nor do I know that you in any thing contradict this in Words at least Now that your Zeal for your Way of Religion should transport you beyond all Natural Tenderness or Affection as the Apostle renders it your Duty to every Man as he is God's Workmanship and then glory in so great a Vice as a Christian Virtue by terming it Godly Zeal c. which is no more but an Unwarrantable Heat for your particular Perswasions I must needs say is a great Way off from that Moderation that the Apostle exhorts us to make known to all Men It is an ill Way of admiring Grace which destroyes Nature and such I must needs say some of yours is or hath