Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	heathen_a	let_v	publican_n	2,742	5	10.9981	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A19987	Doomes-Day: or, A treatise of the resurrection of the body Delivered in 22. sermons on 1. Cor. 15. Whereunto are added 7. other sermons, on 1. Cor. 16. By the late learned and iudicious divine, Martin Day ...; Doomes-Day	Day, Martin, d. 1629.	1636 (1636)	STC 6427; ESTC S109431	470,699	792

saith hee would have none to gather when he came because it would tend both to his and to their shame if they should be found unready Vnreadinesse is a fault in all the parts of Christianitie and there was no man that ought to be so forward as they therefore he prayes them to do it before hand These are the parcels of this Text. Of these things briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance 2 Motive from the Churches authority First concerning the motive from the Church It hath alway beene a strong argument that is taken from the Churches authority He that heares you heares me and he that scornes you scornes me saith our Lord Christ and tell it to the Church and if he will not heare the Church let him be to thee as a heathen and a publicane or sinner Hee that will not do as the Church doth he is out of the Church of God he is a banished man from heaven and a cast-away from all hope of salvation This argument therefore must be of speciall consideration with us what the ancient Church hath done before times we must follow their steps if we meane to partake of the reward that they and we both looke for We see that antiquitie is a great and a maine reason to induce any good understanding for if the Church of God have authoritie to perswade all her children and those that follow after certainly then the ancientest Churches are of the greatest authoritie Now the Church of Galatia was a more ancient Church then Corinth Therefore the Apostle alledgeth the authority of that Church to bring this on So we see also in persons not only in Churches but in particular persons Rom. 16.6 Salute Andronicus and Iunia that were before me in the Lord they were Christians before Saint Paul therefore Saint Paul gave them honour as his predecessors as his glorious and honourable Ancestors that were in the Lord before him Therefore hee saith honour them and salute them much So in this case Galatia was the more ancient Church therefore it was to be the rule of Churches afterward in all good things in all things belonging to the propagation of the Gospell to the maintenance of a good conscience The authoritie of the Church is the greatest argument one of them under heaven and it is certaine if our mother Church which was once the Church of Rome if it had not proved extreamly cruell and tyrannous in her proceedings there ought no Church to have fallen away from her communitie for by separation from her if she had continued a true mother they had separated from their father too the God of all comfort the God of heaven and earth for a man cannot have his fathers blessing if he go from his mothers bosome but now when all things were turned to pride to worldly covetousnesse to ambition and vaine glory and their own greatnesse without the true aime and without respect to the right end when all was turned to pride and selfe-love that they would depose Kings and Princes out of their seats and kingdomes it grew then to be a monster and ceased to be a mother and thence it is not lawfull to have any communion with them that are so blasphemous But else I say if they had continued in that modest humilitie which they were first bred in Rome a true Church 500 yeares after Christ continued in for the space of foure or five hundred yeares surely the authoritie of the Church had beene a rule for the whole world for where they do well the Apostle makes a law from their doings As the Churches of Galatia do so do ye 2 What the Church of Galatia was Secondly here is to bee observed what this Church of Galatia was it was a famous but yet it was but a poore Church it was so famous in zeale that the Apostle protests that they would have given him their eyes to have done him good wherein he signified their infinite ardor and fervencie to the Gospell of Christ at his first comming although afterwards by his absence they were seduced and drawne away by circumcision by some creeping Iewes that stole in among them But as it was famous for the greatnesse of the graces of the spirit so it was but meane in condition Therefore the Apostle might well draw an argument from it for the Corinthians could not object and say What do you tell us of Galatia Galatia is a potent kingdome a rich kingdome full of meanes and full of glory above our Citie but this they could not do for it appeared to all the world to be but a poore place a place of no trafficke except it were a little in the Euxine sea for it is a middle-land place And although the countries of Asia-minor whereof Galatia is one can maintaine themselves Galatia in Asia minor yet for any great superfluitie and abundance to send to others they cannot do it especially the Citie of Galatia which is excluded and kept from the Pamphilian Sea by the border of the South which lyeth betweene it and Pamphilia So we see here that according as God hath given Churches meanes and abilitie so they should exceed those that are poorer the richer sort must do after a rich manner and if the poore should at any time seeke to transcend them it were a shame to them that are greater and more able The Citie of Corinth it was the Mart of all the world Corinth the Mart of the world Hom. Iliad 2. therefore Homer in his time which was one of the ancientest Writers that ever was among the Heathen there is none like him in his second Iliad he saith three times over Rich Corinth The reason of it is because of the scituation which is betweene two seas from whence all the traffick of the world flocked flowed to it Therefore it followed that seeing the Church of Galatia had farre lesse meanes then Corinth and yet they had done thus Therefore Corinth must much more obey this precept And it is a lesson that I would that men of sence and reason would lay to their owne consciences both in the Church and in their private persons for we have a great number of poore Churches even in this Citie that are sessed oft times to pay farre more then richer places do and there are many poore persons that are truer pay-masters that pay scot and lot better then many greater men do which the Apostle intimates here to be a shame it is a shame that poore Churches should go before rich it is a shame that Galatia should go before Corinth and exceed them it is a thing that God will have a saying for and these great ones that have their thousands and their ten thousands about them and yet they will not pay that which belongs to their poore officers to their poore servants such as belong to them poore Church-men that will not pay that which belongs to them

whose Name he makes profession Adversarii multi the adversaries bee many adversaries without any cause adversaries to them that bee their friends this is the case of the Gospel as our Lord Christ saith I am come to save you I come to heale you I come to redeeme you from all misery and you seeke to kill me a man that hath done good to you And St. Paul saith Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth Such grosse and senslesse adversaries the Gospel must looke for absurd men 2. Thess 2. 2 Thess 2. I beseech you brethren pray to God for us that wee may bee delivered from absurd men senslesse men that will not know their owne good men that know not who comes to doe them service strange adversaries that will fight against their benefactors such are the adversaries of the Gospel I paid that which I never tooke they rewarded me evill for good saith David to the great discomfort of my heart but the servant is not above his Master if our Lord have beene served thus we must not thinke much to taste of the same cup of which he hath drunke before us Againe this must teach all men that travaile in the cause of Christ to have the world in no estimation but to account it as an inraged beast that speaks and doth and kicks as a child that hath no wit nor sense that scratcheth the Nurses duggs from which it receives milkc Wee must thinke to be in the middest of Lions as our Lord Iesus saith in the middest of Wolves Behold I send you forth as Lambs in the middest of Wolves be yee therefore wise as Serpents and simple as Doves And here there are two sorts of men greatly to be blamed First those of former times that could not indure opposition but when the adversaries began to rise they would fall into the Wildernesse and live like Hermits men of great gifts and of excellent perfections yet they could not indure opposition being tender hearted and of weake spirits they could not beare the malice of the multitude but would keepe themselves away and would leave the places wherein they might have done great good they left them to be invaded by Foxes and Wolves to destroy the vineyard of the Lord. This I say was culpable in them because they came short of the spirit of St. Paul that was not daunted with the multitude of adversaries but he would goe so much the rather by how much the adversaries were greater and more in number for there bee many things in the world in the aboundant company of the adversaries which are so far from affrighting as that they give greater incouragement As the Poet saith the Shepheard speaking there of the cold Winter and of the North-wind hee saith that hee feared them as little as the Wolfe feares a number of sheepe or as the Land-flood doth feare the banks in a river So it was in the high and gracious spirit of the Apostle and those that were like unto him for St. Paul was called comparatively the Wolfe of Benjamin and in a good sense because the sacrifices were offered in the Tribe of Benjamin the Temple being in the Tribe of Benjamin it was called a ravening Wolfe because it devoured the bodies of the beasts that were offered in sacrifice So St. Paul that was of the Tribe of Benjamin was compared to a Wolfe as Gregory Gregory Augustine and Austin give the reason because he did eate up the sacrifices of the Heathen people as St. Peter in the vision was bid to Arise kill and eate this was the power that the Apostle had in the Church to devoure the wickednesse of the people and to change and digest it into their owne stomacks Now as the Wolfe cares not how many sheepe there be in a fold for when hee comes to steale if the shepherd and his dog be away hee takes more comfort in a great many then to see a handfull of sheepe he knowes that if their were ten times so many they could doe him no harme being fearefull creatures therefore he rejoyceth So the children of God are compared to Wolves to Lions to creatures that are victorious and conquering they are so farre from a sheepish and fearefull and base and cowardly disposition for the faculties and abilities of their adversaries that they take the more delight to see the adversaries many And as the great floods when the snow is melted upon the mountaines or when there hath beene a great Land-flood when it f●lls from the hills it scornes to be compassed in within banks but it overflowes and over-runnes all and makes new conduits new sourses and new channels where there was never any before So the mighty streame of the Gospel by the Apostles it could not bee contained within the banks and common limits that the Philosophers and naturall men could afford but it over-ranne all with a mighty current and flood upon the world with the sacred influence of it the hearts and mindes of them were watered that were never possessed of it before That kind of Monasticall Heremiticall life it is nothing agreeable to the profession of St. Paul in this place that for feare of danger will convey themselves into woods into caves and cells and alienate themselves from their worke and labour because they are afraid of opposition the spirit of St. Paul riseth the greater As the Palme-tree the more weight is laid upon it so much the more it strives and heaves against it so the Spirit of God in this Apostle and in all true Christians it is never so frolick nor they are never so high-spirited as when they see the malice of their adversaries most pregnant and most furious against them Secondly it blames those men much more 2 Sort blamed that in the time of prosperity when there are many adversaries yet they will not shew themselves but lie on their pillowes of pleasure and seeke to bee quiet they will have no man speake against them they will incurre no mans hatred or ill-will but they will hold the truth of God to themselves in the bosome of their owne conscience and never open it or stand for it These men are farre worse then the former for indeed the former had some good pretence because there was way-laying lying in wait for their lives and conspiracy against them to take them away from the earth therefore they thought it fittest to yeeld to the time and to reserve themselves unto a better occasion But when men shall live in their prosperity and have peace round about them and shall see the adversaries come and creep in craftily and sow false doctrine hereticall doctrine and things that savour of the old dregs and reliques of Antichristianisme and they themselves have excellent gifts and meanes to refute and confound these things and yet because they will not abridge themselves of their pleasure they will set some young novice in the place that is able to