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
A70378	The true euangelical temper wherein divinity and ecclesiastical history are interwoven, and mixed, both to the profit and delight of the Christian reader, and moderately, and soberly fitted to the present grand concernments of this state, and church / preached in three sermons at St. Martins in the Strand ... by Jo. Jackson.	Jackson, John.	1641 (1641)	Wing J76B; ESTC R24398	51,187	243

Baptismall Laver awaited by a Dove the most peaceable of birds S. Iohns testimony of him Behold the Lambe of God A Lamb the most peaceable of beasts His Gospel an Euangelium that is Glad tidings of peace His Ministers Messengers of peace and reconciliation His Salve or Present when he came to his Disciples Peace be with you His Vale or Legacy when he went from them My peace I leave with you His threefold office all concurring to peace As a Prophet he did foretell and proclaime peace As a Priest he did earne and purchace peace As a King he did settle and confirme peace And lastly all this so luculently foretold by this our Prophet Esaias that he seemes rather i to write an history of a thing past then a prophecy of a thing to come and is rather an k Euangelist then a Prophet as S. Ierome most excellently speaketh of him And though this Prophecie shine as the Sun in the Firmament yet is there one every whit as bright as this in the second Chapter of this Prophecy at the fourth verse The words are these He shall judge among the Nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plough shares and their speares into pruning-hooks Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation neither shall they learne Warre any more A Prophecy so trapped with the ornaments of speech that two of the Latin Poets k Martial and l Virgil like bold biards have plumed it to imp their owne traine just as before the Sibylls had done by my Text but to Application Application IN applying and making use of this point it will not bee amisse to hold to the former method of shewing how to elicite and fetch out of it the five-fold profit of 1 Doctrine 2 Redargution 3 Correction 4 Instruction and 5 Consolation and having so do●e to commit both the text and Sermons on it to the blessing of Gods Spirit which must incubate and brood both to make them fruitfull The Vse of Doctrine ANd first this point is profitable to bring forth this Doctrine that Christianity is a sociable Religion The end of Christs comming was to be a Mediatour not only to unite man to God but even man to man that Christians might dwell together in one house both Ecclesiastical the Church and oeconomicall the family and Politicall the Common-wealth lye downe together in the undefiled bed of holy and chast wedlock if they either need it or will it and in any other noble and lawfull familiarities of intimacie and deerenesse eate together both the Eucharisticall Bread of the Lords Table and the daylie bread of their owne boards Lastly play together in those honest and warrantable recreations which are of good report among the Saints to fit them better for both their generall and particular callings What is the Church but a Communion of Saints the Church Militant a Communion of Saints on earth and the Church Triumphant a Communion of Saints in Heaven Coetus fidelium A company or knot of the faithfull is a short and received definition of the Church The Religion of the Jews was all for distinction and separation of both persons and things the Jew from the Gentile the holy from the prophane the cleane from the uncleane But Christ did so demolish and breake downe that partition wall that it is like the Picts wall in Northumberland scarce one stone to be found upon another Christian Society is like a Fagot one stick keepes another glowing like stones in an arch one holds and fastens another Christ himselfe being the key-stone Solitary persons as they have indeed the fewest provocations unto evill so have they the fewest incitations unto good Divine Oracles still point at lonelinesse and solitude as at an abysse of misery Begin at the beginning it is observed to my hand that in the second dayes worke of the Creation God gave no commendation of nor blessing unto it as to the rest because it was a daies worke of division m And after that a little when he played his owne Critick it was the onely quarrell hee pickt with his workmanship that man was alone all was good and very good n but this was not good o Go on Elias a great Prophet yet hee complaines of it I onely am left alone p Iobs sorrowfull Messengers make it their under song of sad tidings I am escaped alone to tell thee q Martha murmures at it Master carest thou not my sister hath left mee to serve alone r Ieremy makes his threnes take their hint and rise from it how doth the popular City sit solitary s S. Paul bemones himselfe for it t Demas hath forsaken me yea u all forsooke me w Ruth bewailes it The hand of the Lord is gone out against me the Almighty hath imbittered my soule Yea it is every widows case as well as Ruths to be x desolate and alone But what say I of Elias or Iob or the like men of like passions with our selves Christ himselfe groaned under the burden of it when all his Disciples forsooke him and fled which thing the Evangelist notes as one of the criticall passages of his Passion and the Prophet sets it out as an heightning and advancing of his sufferings that hee trode the Wine-presse alone y So as this is the summe if a man be alone he shall be in misery and againe if a man be in any misery hee shall be left alone z Solitude and misery being like water and ice the one mutually producing the other Woe and alone goe together Eccles. 4.10 Hence it comes about that S. Iohn Baptist sent two of his Disciples to Christ a Yea a greater then the Baptist did so Christ did it in the Mission first of his Twelve b and after of his Seventy c both of which sacred Colledges he sent forth by two and two So of old two were of the Embassy to Pharaoh Moses and Aaron two into Canaan Ioshua and Caleb two to restore the Temple and worship of God after the Captivity of Babylon Ioshua and Zorobabel So likewise in the New Testament we have Christ and Iohn his Precursor two are sent to Jerusalem to prepare the last Supper Peter and Iohn two Witnesses Apoc. 11.3 So farther Iohn Husse and Ierome of Prague in the Councell of Constance Luther and Melancthon in Saxony Zwinglius and Oec●lampadius in Helvetia Bucer and Capito at Argentine Calvin and Farell at Geneva Binarii omnes all by couples and twoes That if the one fall his fellow may lift him up Eccles. 4.10 Hee that separates man from man doth as much as in him lyes separate man from God For what is poore and silly man alone but a very scrich-owle and satyre a melancholick and hypochondriack creature growing pensive and thought-sick turne him into his Oratory and let him shut the Chamber doore and doth hee not often

them fall forth as Mephibosheths Nurse did him striving which should first lay downe their lives for Christs sake In the ninth Persecution under Dioclesian they sought it as eagerly as ambitious Prelates did Bishopricks Thirdly hereby they lose nothing nay were they not infinite gainers the Martyrs themselves who went the farthest in suffering and were not rent and torne only but devoured of these Wolves and Lions would not some of them not then not one of them now have saved one drop of that blood which they sold at so brave a rate have they not now for a short paine got a durable pleasure for a sinfull miserable and transitory life acquired to themselves an holy and happy eternity Objection And so might they have done too if their candle had burned to within the Socket and they gone to their graves like a rick of Corne which is white unto the harvest Answ. Perhaps so indeed and perhaps otherwise but by that path their Crowne of glory had neither beene so 1 certaine nor so 2 soone nor so 3 waighty not so certaine for alas how many are so far from suffering any thing for Christ by way of passive obedience as they will do nothing by way of active how many have out-lived their piety forsaken their righteousness and in the hot sun-shine of prosperity have ungirt and cast off that cloake which the winde of adversity would have caused them gather close unto their breast Not so soone neither and that is to be accompted for some losse when as one day in Gods Courts is better then a thousand elsewhere Not so massy for if any shall sit on Christs right hand and on his left if any shall shine as the Sun in the kingdome of the Father if any shall sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel if any shall have palmes in their hands and crownes on their heads it shall be the slaine witnesses and therefore q to be crowned with Martyrdome is the ecclesiasticall forme of speaking and S. Steven the Protomartyre of the New Testament had to his name as by divine dispensation a Crowne and hence blessed r Ignatius in his Epistle to the Romans professeth He had rather dye for Christ then raigne over all the ends of the earth Fourthly Is there any way so much to glorifie God and Christ can the members doe more honour to the head then in suffering for it or with it hath any man greater love then this to deny himselfe and lay downe his fame his riches his life for his friend Oh how doth it cry up Christ in the world that he hath such servants as can drink of the cup that he dranke of such followers as can dye for the faith of him who dyed for the love of them Fiftly and lastly there is no way or meanes whereby to make the condemnation of these ravenous Wolves and Lion rampants more just nor their doome more heavy then by suffering them to bring on their owne heads the blood of Martyrs Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints and especially such a death and of such Saints How bitter a curse that was when the Jewes imprecated themselves with His blood bee on us and on our children the event hath declared when full 1600. yeares fluxe of time now already past hath obtained no relaxation thereof and his blood is upon those upon whom his servants blood is upon Saul Saul why persecutest thou me When Zacharias the last Martyr of the Old Testament was slaine betweene the Temple and the Altar he dying said The Lord shall looke upon it and require it 2 Chron. 24.22 2 The s elench or use of redargution THe error which this point is profitable to confute and redargue is twofold First of the Jews and secondly of certaine Christians Judaizing The error of the Iews is that they stick in the barke and expound the text to be fulfilled to the very letter of it that the Wolfe and the Lamb shall indeed without any trope or metaphor at all dwell together and the Leopard and Kid lye downe together c. Whence they then infer that fundamentall and soule-splitting venome of doctrine which is directly antipodes to Christian Religion That the Messias is not yet come because these antipathies and jarres do still remaine amongst the creatures as fresh as if Adam had but faine yesterday or to day The erring and Judaizing Christians here are the Millenaries a sect of learned and criticall Christians who expect in the last thousand yeares of the Church the cream of all militant perfection and excellency of manners and that all sowernesse amongst Christians shall be absorpt of Charity and the discords of their dispositions shall be tuned up to so sweet an unison and harmony of love and sympathy as Wolves and Leopards shal cohabit with Lambs and Kids feroce and belluine men with the meek and placable Lactantius was slipt unawares into this opinion and S. Ierome doth not lightly stigmatize and animadvert him for it and not Lactantius onely but very many of good name in divers ages of the Church being taken it seemes partly with the probabilitie of the text Apoc. 20.2 Satan was to bee bound up a thousand yeeres and partly with the authority and magistrality of the first assertor of it t Papias Bishop of Hierapolis a man of that sanctity and esteeme that hee drew no meaner adherents to him thēIustin Martyr Irenaeus c. but it is sufficient to note these things with an obeliske They are dead tenets and opinions and we will not do with them as Saul and the Witch with Samuel call them up from their dorters againe 3. u The use of Correction NOw the vice or fault which this point is profitable to correct is that froward morose churlish rugged nay far more that cruell fierce inhumane belluine disposition which is not onely in naturall and wicked men but even in such as are in part regenerate and sanctified Better be beasts then like beasts and yet such are the blots and spots of our semi-conversions so great is the imperfection of our regeneration as after grace hath blunted the point and rebated the edge of our corruption yet is there still too much of the jaw of the Lyon and of the paw of the Beare in us too little of the man too much of the beast so as we may abhorre our selves in dust and ashes and cry out with Agur and David as before was mentioned Surely I am more brutish then any man and have not the understanding of a man in me So foolish was I and ignorant even as it were a beast before thee To give a touch upon each particular again there is too much of the greedinesse of the Wolfe still remaining as appeares by our rapacity by our snatching and catching at far more then is our own or can justly call us Master Too much of the Leopard