Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	earth_n	heaven_n	loose_v	6,038	5	10.6252	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35528	Of the unity of the church a discourse written a thousand four hundred and thirty years since, in the time of Decius the persecuting emperor / by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and martyr ; most usefull for allaying the present heats, and reconciling the differences among us.	Cyprian, Saint, Bishop of Carthage.; Fell, John, 1625-1686.	1681 (1681)	Wing C7714; ESTC R29694	19,253	46

what nicer subtilty then that when this enemy found himself discoverd and defeated by Christ's coming into the world after this light appeared to the Gentiles after he broke forth with healing rays for the curing and saving mankind making the deaf hear the words of spiritual grace the blind lift up their eies to2 God the weak recover to everlasting life the lame run into the bosome of the Church the dumb loudly and distinctly pray to God when he beheld the abandoning of his Idols and that his Temples and Houses of superstition were left desolate and emty by the very great numbers that went off from his worship and embrac'd the Faith then to set on foot a new artifice even under the very title and name of Christianity to entrap the unwary He invented Heresies and Schisms to undermine the Faith adulterate the Truth and divide Unity it self Those whom he cannot detain in the darkness of the old way he circumvents by leading them in new and erroneous paths Thus he siezes and takes men out of the Church and while they imagin with themselves that they have made nearer approches to light and left behind them the Night of the world he insensibly involves them anew in thick darkness that not conforming themselves to the Gospel of Christ and the observation of his righteous laws and yet calling themselves Christians and walking in darkness they should notwithstanding perswade themselves that they were illuminated The adversary flattering them in this opinion and so beguiling them who according to the Apostle transforms himself into an Angel of light and dresses up his ministers as if they were the servants of righteousness so that they miscalling night day ruine and destruction safety and salvation obtruding despair under the name of hope pretending infidelity to be faith setting up Antichrist for Christ suggesting false but seeming probabilities frustrate the truth by subtilty This comes to pass my well-beloved Brethren while we have not recourse to the source and original of truth while we seek not for the head and Fountain and are inobservant of our heavenly masters doctrin which if well weighed and examined would supersede long discourses and arguments Truth renders the proof of our faith easie and compendious Our Lord speaking to Peter useth these words And I also say unto thee thou art Peter and upon this rock will I 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 And he said unto the same person after his resurrection Feed my sheep And altho after his resurrection he invested all the Apostles with equal power and told them all As the Father hath sent me so send I you Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye do retain they are retained yet that he might make manifest the Churches Unity his Authority so order'd it that the origination thereof should be expres'd by the mention first of one single Person What Peter was that also were the rest of the Apostles they having a like participation of honor and power yet the narration begins with Unity to signifie that the Church can be but one This Unity of the Church the holy Spirit designes in the Canticles when in the person of our Lord he thus speaks My dove my undefiled is but one she is the only one of her mother she is the choice one of her that bare her Now can he who keeps not this Unity of the Church perswade himself that he holds fast the Faith can he who contends with the Church and opposeth her have the confidence to imagin himself a member of the Church when the blessed Apostle Paul declares and points clearly at the mystery of Unity saying There is one body and one spirit one hope of your calling one Lord one faith one baptism Which unity we Bishops especially who preside in the Church ought firmly to maintain and defend that we may evidence thereby the unity and individualness of Episcopacy it self Let none decieve the brethren with a ly or corrupt the truth of our faith with perfidious prevarication There is but one Episcopacy which tho shared among as many several persons as there are Bishops in the Christian world yet each possesseth the authority entire There is also but one Church however her fruitfulness and growth is such that she spreads and increaseth to a multitude of particular churches As the beams which issue from the Sun are many and yet the light it creates by them is one and the same or as the boughs growing out of a tree are many and yet is it but one stock fastned and fixt to it's place by one tenacious root So too when many rivulets flow from a fountain whereby it seems so encreased as to become many by the plenty of water which is such as to require several channels for it's conveyance yet 't is but one water still because it all rises at and runs from one spring head Intercept a sun-beam from the body of the sun the oness of light will not admit of division If you break a bough from a tree 't will never shoot forth or grow again Cut off a river from it's fountain 't will immediatly dry up In like manner the Church being enlightned by our Lord extends it's beams thro the whole world yet is it the same light that every where appears and is entirely one however scatter'd As a tree she spreads her branches luxuriant in growth and plenteous in fruit And as a river enlarges by her course her swelling streams yet is there but one head one source one stock of all this happy plenty We are all the fruit of the Churches womb nourisht with the milk of her breasts quickned by her spirit The spouse of Christ cannot be deflour'd but continues chast and incorrupt She is acquainted but with one house and by a modest shamefacedness secures the reputation of the marriage bed T is she who preserves us unto God and leads her children to a kingdom Whosoever departs from the Church joins himself to an harlot and forfeits the promises made unto her nor can he attain the rewards of Christ who abandons his Church such a one is an Alien is profane is an Enemy He cannot have God for his Father who disowns the Church for his Mother If any one escaped in the Flood who was out of Noah's ark he may likewise be saved who is out of the pale of the Church Our Lord informs us of this saying He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth He who breaks the peace and agreement of the Church sets himself against Christ He who gathers and makes proselytes

the Divine appointment set themselves over the giddy conventiclers who without the requisite of Ordination constitute themselves governours and assume to themselves the character of Bishops without having that office authority conferred upon them Whom the holy Ghost in the book of Psalms points at when he mentions those who sit in the seat of the scornfull they are the very pest and bane of faith decieving with their serpentine glosings skilfull in adulterating the truth spitting up deadly poyson from their pestilential tongues Whose very words spred like a canker whose discourses distill poyson into the breast and heart 'T is against these the Lord lifts up his voice it is from these he restrains and calls back his wandring flock saying Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you they make you vain they speake a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that despise me The Lord hath said Ye shall have peace and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart No evil shall come upon you If they had continued in my way and hearkned to my words and had from them instructed my people I would have turned them from their evil thoughts These same persons the Lord designs and marks out again saying They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewn them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water Altho there is but one baptism they presume they may baptize Having left the fountain of life they promise baptismal grace whereby they who are immerst are not cleansed but defiled their sins not put away but rather multiplyed that new birth begets not sons to God but to the Devil Being born of a ly they are not capable of the promises of truth begot in perfidiousness they lose the grace of faith They cannot recieve the reward of peace who by their mad discord have broke the Lords peace Nor let any decieve themselves with a false exposition of what the Lord hath said Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them These corrupters of the Gospel and false interpreters of it produce the last clause and pass over the antecedent parts of the discourse remembring one piece of it and craftily forgeting the other As they themselves are divided from the Church so likewise they divide asunder an entire period of the Scripture For when our Lord advised his disciples to unanimity and peace he thus addrest to them I say unto you that if two shall agree upon earth as touching any thing they shall ask it shall be don for them of my Father which is in heaven for where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them shewing thereby that the success and force of prayer was not to be imputed to the number of supplicants but unanimity of them If two of you saith he shall agree upon earth he placed unanimity in the front and began with the agreement of peace that he might instruct us to agree faithfully and firmly together But how can he agree with any one who agrees not with the body of the Church and the brotherhood in general How can two or three be gathered together in Christs name who apparently are separated from Christ and his Gospel For we did not go out from them but they departed from us And whereas heresies and schisms had their birth and original from mens making of distinct conventicles for themselvs t is they who are desertors of the head from whence truth takes it's original But the Lord speaks there concerning the Church and speaks to them who are of it and in it that if they shall according to his command and counsel unanimously joyn in prayer tho they be but two or three gather'd together yet they shall obtain from the Divine Majesty a grant of what they ask Where two or three are gatherd together in my name there am I saith he in the midst of them i. e. of such who are simple and peaceable who fear God and keep his commands In the midst of these tho but two or three he promised he would be After this sort he was with the three Children in the fiery furnace and because they kept their simplicity towards him and continued in unanimity with one another he therefore refresht them amidst the flames as it were with a cooling breath of air or the falling of dew He was with the two Apostles shut up in prison forasmuch as they were simple forasmuch as they were unanimous He opened the prison gates and brought them into the court of the temple that they might declare that word they had before faithfully preached to the multitude When therefore he commands and saies that wheresoever two or three are gatherd together in my name I am in the midst of them he who founded and instituted the Church doth not divide men from it but upbraiding the discord of the unfaithful and recommending with his own mouth peace to the faithful he thence declares he will rather afford his presence to two or three who are met together with one heart and one mind in prayer then to very many dissenters and that more may be obtain'd by the prayer of a few who agree in what they ask then by the supplication of many whose very petitions as well as themselves are at variance against each other Upon which account when he gave a rule of prayer to his disciples he added And when ye stand praying forgive if you have ought against any that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses Nay he calls back the person who designs him a sacrifice from the very altar if he comes thither having a difference with his brother and bids him first to be reconciled to his brother and then to come again in peace and offer his gift for upon this ground God had not respect to the offering of Cain For God could not be reconciled to him who thro envy hated his brother What peace therefore can they expect who are at enmity with their brethren What oblations can they offer who strive with the Priest Can they think Christ will vouchsafe to be in the midst of them when they are gathered together whose meeting is without the Church Such if slain for the confessing of Christ would not wash away their sin even with their blood The heinous and inexpiable crime of discord is not to be purg'd away no not with death He cannot be a Martyr who is not in the Church nor can he ever come to the kingdom of Christ triumphant who here deserts it being militant Our Lord left us peace for a legacy commanded unanimity unto us and gave in charge that we should keep the unity of the spirit in the