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	militant_a	4,766	5	11.7120	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65556	The Protestant peace-maker, or, A seasonable persuasive to all serious Christians who call themselves Protestants that laying aside calumnies, and all exasperating disputes, they would pursue charity, peace, and union, as the only means (now left us) of safety and reformation of the publick manners : with a postscript, or notes on Mr. Baxter's and some others late writings for peace / by Edward, Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1682 (1682)	Wing W1513; ESTC R38252	74,674	136

to obey As to those of us who have obeyed the Laws we desire only thus much charity from Dissenters which we will surely repay good measure pressed down shaken together and running over we desire I say only thus much charity that we may not all of us be thought to have acted blindfold or upon corrupt inducements There is a multitude of us can in the fear of God profess we have again and again considered the Ecclesiastical Laws and according to our duty as we believe we have been and are obedient not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Conscience we can say not meerly our own but others of whom we are and must be tender And we doubt not but in this our obedience we please God and are not unserviceable unto Men. We hope further we are able to approve our selves to the Great Judge of all in the several fore-mentioned Particulars at least according to that equitable allowance which our gracious God through Jesus Christ gives to humane infirmities and which the best of us all must crave even in our best Actions Now as to those who withdraw from us We call not into question the sincerity of their intentions we neither are nor desire to be Judges thereof We profess we generally judge the best and where we cannot so judge we suspend our judgment But we desire them to resume and reiterate the consideration of the Rectitude of their Cause For we must acknowledge and avow we neither could see nor have been shewen any warrant which makes it lawful to any much less their duty as many pretend to separate from that Church which neither urges nor receives any Article of Faith but what must be confessed pure which worships God by no Office more or less than what is of his own institution and the forms thereof not dissonant to his word whose Government if the sense of Christendom in all Ages till within this hundred and few more years and of the Generality of it still interpreting Holy Scriptures may be heard is truly Apostolical and in fine whose Discipline though forced in some things to truckle under the iniquity of times suffers few or none to be so bad as they would and encourages all to be as good as they can If it be lawful to separate from such a Church where shall we find that from which we may not separate And where then will be an end of Divisions In the Church of Corinth where were sundry greater Disorders and Corruptions tolerated than can be pretended amongst us that we know of the Apostle does not tolerate but severely reprove their Divisions and both censure the Authors of them as Persons to be avoided and the Abettors as Carnal Then lastly as to the Management of this departure we passionately beseech and in the Lord conjure all who are guilty of withdrawing that they will consider whether the Circumstances either of making or maintaining it be warrantable or indeed well excusable Particularly and briefly Suppose things stood so that Separation were their Duty yet is Theirs without Ostentation as all Duties ought to be Do not they publickly value themselves thereupon and despise others Are not they in their own Language The Saints and the rest of the Nation Those who are without the People of the World not to take up more odious Names Again admit Separation from us were lawful yet is theirs without scandal Without scandal to the weak of their own Church without scandal to the weak of Ours Without scandal to Papists or scandal even to Jews Without scandal to men of all Religions or scandal to men of None The good God be merciful unto us and deliver Christian men from Partiality and Self-flattery But I must Contract 2. My Second Exhortation shall be That being satisfied in Conscience touching the Right or Lawfulness of our own engaging in all points of our Cause or as some had rather speak touching the Excellency and Superlativeness of the way we are in we would not spoil a good Cause by our ill Management That the Religious amongst us are Divided at present there is none who sees not Nor that all the Petty Divisions are reducible to these three Grand ones Papists Regular Protestants and Non-Conforming Protestants The Cause or way of the First I do declare I judge no Power on Earth no nor with all reverence be it spoken of Heaven it self can make just For God cannot Ly that is contradict himself The Doctrine they teach profess and if we will credit them believe is against express Scripture the Analogy of Faith and the Consent of the Ancient and true present Catholick Church And indeed in divers Points also against Sense and Reason the common Principles of Mankind And too much of their Morals is no better The Cause or Way of the Second is just if any under Heaven I need not speak my mind again I do not say there is nothing amongst us defective nor that there is nothing which may be amended nor again that there is no mismenagement or no evil People amongst us I do not believe there is or will be ever such a Church on Earth That accusation to the end of the world will justly ly against the Purest Church I have a few things against thee Revel II. 4. 14 20. But I must avow I know not that Church which would take the Mote out of our Eye that has not a Beam in her own The Cause of the Third must be acknowledg'd by all indifferent and considerative men at least doubtful For he is void of reason who shall deny that disputes with the lightest Probabilities are manag'd against it and such which with the most rational persons turn the Scales Possibly to some of them who have espoused it it may not seem doubtful But whatever my Charity may induce me to think it in any of them were I my self a mainteiner of it I could not judge it in my self any thing less than Formal as well as Material Schism But for the present we 'll not dispute the Point Admit it to be lawful I only move that it be not mismanaged that Good men would not prosecute a lawful Cause in an unlawful manner or by undue means and so intangle themselves and Cause in Injustice and Iniquity Having then concluded the Cause of the Regular Protestants good and excellent and for the present admitted though not granted that of the Nonconformists to be lawful there is chiefly a double mismenagement which I must tax at present and that on both sides for I would not be partial and which the Exhortation in hand proceeds against 1. The former of which is Overcharging one another This besides that it renders us guilty of sin and makes still our matters worse does further expose us Both to our Common Enemies and create to them sweet Sport and to our selves Scorn and Contempt The Nonconformists charge us most unjustly with Popery Give me leave to beseech these our Accusers

and much worse as far as worse can be amongst such an Heterogeneous Body as this Should we yield to any one of these we were yet as far from gaining the rest as we are now from uniting all Take those two which I called the Elder Parties of the Dissenters How impossible a thing is it for them to agree what will satisfie them They had a numerous Assembly gathered together of themselves mostly which sate many years Did they agree then upon any common terms of Union betwixt themselves Or are they agreed since Let any produce the Accommodation if they can and if not let it be confest that there is Schism amongst even these Again take either of the Parties single Let them shew us what Christian Church upon the face of the Earth owns them as they are broken off from the Establisht Church of England and as indeed they broke down its Order Form of Worship Discipline and whole Frame to their Power Let them shew us I say what Protestant Church owns them as such for a Church or as such holds Communion with them If one of the Parties should answer The Kirk of Scotland the Reply is obvious The Establisht Church of Scotland was the same in effect with that of England and fell by the same hands And as to what the Answerers mean by the Kirk 't was only a Member of the Pars rea a very guilty part of themselves or of the accused Body It is well known there is extant an Harmony of the Confessions of all the Reformed Churches throughout Europe to shew the World their Christian Agreement and Communion In that Collection are extant with universal Approbation two Confessions of the Church of England as by Law it then stood and blessed be God now stands establisht two I say because different in Form but of the same Substance and very near of the same date We can some of us remember the time when the forementioned Assembly compiled also a Confession of Faith and a good Latinist excellently translated it and in that form it was sent abroad with a desire and design to have it inserted in the then new Edition of the Harmony of Confessions But the Foreign Churches stood constant to the Two old ones and rejected the new Judge hence what Church of England they own and whether they hold Communion with that People as a Church whose Confession they would not admit They well saw the Admission of it had destroyed the Harmony that is as well rendred the Collection contradictious in it self as brought too just an imputation of Schism upon the Reformation Further in a word What security can there be from partaking in Schism and indeed as it may happen Heresie too in the Communion of that Church the Form and Order of whose Worship and Administration of Sacraments is not certainly known nay according to their very Constitution is no where twice the same all being left to the gifts and discretion of the Minister who is declared unfit for his Office if he need and consequently will use a constant Form What man can say with any other than an Implicite Faith and therefore what Church will ever declare that they hold Communion or agree in Worship with such a People Herein this Generation of men has departed even from all the Foreign Presbyterian Churches themselves who all have their certain Orders and Forms of Publick Worship It were tedious to pursue more Particulars give me leave to sum up what has bee said on this Head Can it be expected and much less demanded by men of reason that we should relinquish and renounce a Constitution which has made us famous amongst Forreign Reformed Churches and has past their Approbation from the beginning to unite with men who are at a greater distance from one another if you respect at least the several Sects than perhaps we are from them all the very soberest Party of all whom as they would be thought if we would go about to agree to we shall not find as far as I can see one Protestant Church would recommend them to our Fellowship by having first owned them as a Church or having held Communion with them nay we are not sure that we can in Conscience hold Communion with them that is joyn in and consent to their Worship one hour our selves Can this I say be expected or demanded from us It cannot surely Some Circumstantials may be on our hand abated or relaxed and had been doubtless long ago if Men of eager and inflexible Spirits had not hindred but the main Constitution we may not recede from What most of the Dissenters would be at No Liturgy no Episcopacy no Uniformity c. may not be cannot be without Schism Wherefore again to take up my Exhortation Let us resolve upon yielding spirits Let us move towards one another in order to meeting We of the Establisht Church do not say there is nothing amongst us which may be amended Again we do not say there is nothing among you which is to be approved My Exhortation to you here only is That as far as your Cause has any thing good in it you would not blast that good and the hopes of its taking by an Universal stiffness and while you insist on things which are questionable and in the judgment of most others but your selves not sit to be granted keep open the breach to our Common Destruction The only steps by which we can mutually move to Peace I with all submission conceive to be these 1. That we would all seriously betwixt God and our own Consciences severally study Self-denial one of the great Lessons our Lord taught us and that with a peculiar eye and regard to Accommodation One man perhaps must deny himself of a certain kind of Popularity and Vulgar esteem Another of an Idiosyncrasy or particular humour though perhaps that not so much natural as contracted A third of somewhat else All of whatsoever good Conscience tells us is less valuable than Common Union 2. That the soberest of the Dissenters would Categorically and sincerely publish what of the Establisht Order they can agree to 3. That they would actually do and teach their Followers to do what they in Conscience judge lawful If these Points might be obtained certainly in a very short time a Consultation of things would be resumed And then let those be blamed who would not hear and do Reason But if these and such Discourses as these may not be heard if we of the Church must only be Calumniated still as the great Enemies to a Publick Peace and no means will take for the sweetning and allaying the heights of those Spirits we have to deal with we can all of us only expect the fruit of Contention and that is Confusion and every Evil Work one James III. 1● part of which will be as already intimated our Common Ruin And let it be considered beforehand when we shall have again ruin'd our selves by our

and as to Religion you are safe for you are sure of True Sacraments a saving Ministry the best sort of Worship and what not Ah my Brethren These however in themselves golden Pipes and sacred Conveyances of Grace to those who use them aright are yet in themselves and as the World goes Faciles Parabiles ritus a Godliness easie to be had and which may prove as destructive as easie to be come by when the outward injoyment hereof is the great matter of our Acquiescence But to examine this Cheat a little more narrowly as well for the more effectual delivery of men from it as the clearing the Point in hand That Divisions have brought men to place Godliness in matters most contrary to its nature Admit I place true Religion and so Godliness very much in being of this or that Church I say the Church I am of is either a True one or a False one one that holds to or one that has broken off from Catholick Unity If the later I am then in a Schism by being of it And then by placing Godliness in being of this Church what do I do but place it in Schism An hopeful sort of Godliness indeed And if the former if the Church in adhereing whereto I reckon my self Godly be a true one that is a sincere Member of the true Catholick Church I am never a whit the godlier by my mistake in over-valuing the Communion of the Church For 't is great odds as the stream of mens spirits runs but that my Zeal for such dearly beloved Church transport me into such admiration of it that either I shall confine Salvation to it and insist so far on the necessity of Communion with it as to forget Catholick Charity by which means again I am fallen into Schism though of a different sort from that before mentioned and still placing Godliness in being of this Church thus strictly I place Godliness in Schism Or else rest in the meer injoyment of those advantages and preeminencies I apprehend by it running a round of external Duties and Observances but little or not at all concerning my self as to a real changed heart and renewed spirit and then the Godliness with which I please my self lies only in some Formalities and Church Priviledges which come naturally under what the Apostle styles a Form of Godliness and which he says a man may have and deny its Power that is be void of Holiness without which no man can see the Lord. And is not this as pernicious a mistake Alas alas my Brethren 'T is not the Communion of Saints can save men though it be both our Duty and Interest to maintain it A man may be damned in the purest Church on Earth for a Carnal worldly heart or a disorderly unholy life however our Divisions may delude us into contrary Fansies This kind of men we have spoken of are commonly Zealots of one side or t'other But there are another sort which are Lukewarm indifferent generally to all Religions and Churches in particular Some Religion perhaps they think 't is fit there should be for the better managing the people and if in their judgment they do proceed to any Specialties possibly they will tell you 't is expedient there should be several Religions that every man may find one the profession whereof will suit his Humour A policy not unlike unto which the Church of Rome has now a long time used in inventing and maintaining so many Religious Orders Now as they before-mentioned place● Religion and so Godliness or our Duty to God in being of what they apprehend to be Gods true Church so these Secondly place it in seeming to be of such or such a Church or Party for in reality and as far as Religion ●s Religion they neither believe nor own any such thing nor consequently any Church at all The other perhaps addicted themselves to Factions and Parties out of Conscience though haply erroneous and in the sincerity of their hearts these out of humour or interest seem to do so for the present and when either humour or interest vary then farewel such espoused Party or Religion And now let us put the Question in plain English and as plainly answer it What do these men place Godliness in Verily in an Atheistical humoursome Hypocrisy And is it not true that our Divisions foster and confirm these Wretches Atheistical vein They seem to themselves rationally defensible in disbelieving all Religion and our several Churches Testimonies thereof because the Witnesses are not agreed amongst themselves In a word and to conclude this particular of misplacing Godliness or deceiving our selves as to its whole nature It is sure Godliness primarily consists in a serious Belief of the Being and Nature of God and in an intire Resignation to him whence most naturally and sweetly slow all its inward and outward acts But we have above made it evident Divisions have brought Christendom to that pass that some men place Godliness in such Practices which resolve into Schism others in Formalities and Providential Advantages others in Atheistical and Humour some Hypocrisie and not a few are there of each of these sorts Now what can be more contrary to real Godliness than all these By what we have said therefore of the misplacing of Godliness it appears Divisions so vitiate the spirits of private men as to destroy real Godliness that is the first part of Holiness in them 2. Though the Dammage Godliness must sustain in misplacing wholly its nature is the greatest we can imagine yet certainly it suffers not a little by the mixture of Heterogeneous additions and on the other hand by detraction of some of its Integral Parts or Offices And is it not evident that since the Christian Church has been thus rent in pieces by Divisions each Party as if in their own defence and in justification of their proceedings has made it their business to stand by themselves and pursuant hereto most have been running further and further from one another into the strangest Extreams Which distance must be confest most chiefly visible in Articles of Faith and Offices of Divine Worship Both these on some hands have been wisely multiplyed on others as prodigiously and not without the most dreadful Sacriledge diminished and retrenched From the multiplication of Articles of Faith amongst the Papists Believing with the Multitude is become only a blind Obedience and Resolution of submission to the Church From the like multiplication of Divine Ordinances the Publick Worship with them is mostly Pageantry and Ceremony and Private Devotion little else but some Lip-labour Bodily Exercise or small Money-matter Amongst those who call themselves Protestants there are a People who have run into contrary heights and after denying some Articles of Faith and laying aside others as useless have rejected all positive worship of God all Prayers Sacraments yea even the Ministry of the Word as belonging only to a lower State and Oeconomy than that they are in I

Materials in my poor judgment are very defective and without very considerable advances never like to take I no whit at all doubt but Mr. Baxter was the main Authour of the Petition for Peace and the Reformation of the Liturgy said to have been tender'd about the same time and publisht A. D. 1661. The style and whole tenor of them abundantly bespeaks so much to me Now if out of these and his later Pieces we view what he offers or proposes towards Union it will appear to be such as might tempt men to think he treats like those who never intend to come nearer to an agreement 1. A Liturgy indeed he would possess us he is for but when he comes to particularize Not one Office no not one Prayer of the Old Liturgy except the Lords Prayer nor so much as the Ancient Face Order and Structure thereof must be left And it is observeable what the Petition for Peace styles Alterations and Additions to the Liturgy when it comes to be presented is intitled A Reformation of the Liturgy and indeed bears proportion perfectly to the Reformation they made of the Church which destroy'd its identity and visibility and is clearly and intirely a new Frame and even that so proposed or designed that it would have been little more than a Direction this being generally the style of the Rubricks if without offence I may so call them Prayer to be performed in these or the like words pag. 25. Then shall the Minister use this or the like Prayer pag. 51. In the very Office of Consecration of the Elements in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Let the Minister bless them in these or the like words pag. 52. Let the Minister pray thus or to this sense pag. 56. and conclude with this or the like blessing pag. 58. In the Burial of the Dead pag. 72. His power shall be suited to the occasion No Form of Prayer being there so much as directed So too upon Days of Publick Humiliation Thanksgiving Anniversary Festivals No form at all pag. 73. Besides so great variety of practice in the Order of Consecrating and Distributing the Elements is permitted in this Draught to the Discretion of the Minister as must necessarily have bred great d●sorder and discontent In a word so universal innovation and such unlimited liberty they could never expect would be admitted This had been to confess the old Liturgy obnoxious beyond all reason and conscience and our selves guilty of all the M●schiefs which arose by the opposing it and by the methods used for the abolishing it I no whit doubt but divers parts of it as elsewhere I conceive my self to have manifestly proved were in use even in the Apostles days I mean taken up from their mouths as having been frequently and in ordinary course used by them and that they have been continued in the Church ever since Now Prayers of such Antiquity such Primitive simplicity and fervour I may add of such Purity too were it not for no other reason but some mens perhaps unreasonable dislikes to be thrown out I could speak much here touching their intrinsick real excellency and perfection not only as to particulars but as to the main body And I find something as to this Point confest ingenuously by Mr. Baxter himself Third Part of Plea pag. 9. Having saith he perused all the Forreign and Ancient Liturgies extant in the Bibliotheca Patrum I doubt not but our own is incomparably better than any that is there Yet pag. 219. he complains of such failings in it that it is a Worship which we i. e. he and his Nonconforming Brethren cannot in Faith be assured God accepteth That there was never any thing purely of Humane Composure but had some failing or defects in it we readily acknowledge neither did our Church ever require whatsoever he in the Page last cited and other of his Party scrupulously pretend such a Subscription to any of her Books no not to the Correctest Translation of the Bible it self which was to be taken in any other sense This is a common Temper understood in all such Subscriptions But that our Liturgy has more failings or faults in it than either their Extemporary Conceptions or the stated Forms which they presented I must crave their pardon if I peremptorily deny I have not undiligently compared those Forms of theirs with our own and whether it be the daily use of our own for many years according to that wholsome Rubrick to all in Holy Orders which has naturalized them to my spirit or whether by so frequent reading hearing and minding them I see more intimately into their Sense and Emphases than I do into those which I have read but twice or thrice or for some such reason I know not but this I profess God bearing we witness that it is the sense of my soul I can find nothing in theirs which comes so naturally near unto my heart as our own Prayers do What have they so humble easie comprehensive and emphatical in every part as our General Confession Almighty and most merciful Father So Pathetical as well as comprehensive also as our Litany And to pass over other parts the Communion Service is in my poor sense of Devotions most incomparable What could the Wit of Men or Angels devise fitrer to introduce the Celebration of that Holy Ordinance than the distinct Rehearsal of the Commandments each Communicant in the hearing of every Commandment having occasion given him to examine or reflect upon his examinations of Conscience touching his sins against that Commandment and betwixt God and his own heart in his thoughts to confess them and in conclusion after every one with his own mouth to beg distinct pardon for the sins which occur to his mind against that Commandment and for Grace as distinctly against such and such sins for the future And all this usher'd in too with a Prayer which would raise any Soul that were not sensless as well to a strict enquiry into his Conscience Almighty God to whom all hearts be open c. 't is in vain therefore to flatter our selves with an half-scrutiny or Confession as to the impartial cleansing his Soul from all reserves of sin And waving other parts to proceed to the Prayer for the State of Christs Church Militant and the Commemoration of and praising God for the Triumphant or those who are departed this life in his faith and fear without which commemoration it appears not that the Ancient Church did ever Communicate To proceed I say to the General Confession in behalf of all the Communicants and that most comfortable Absolution annext and then to the Sursum Corda the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gloria in Excelsis which three last will certainly reach home for Antiquity to the Apostles days what more Seraphick than these And how mean is what they would have substituted in the room hereof at least comparatively Again besides the Materials of our Prayers the very Form and