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
A59072	God, the king, and the church (to wit) government both civil and sacred together instituted ... and throughout all, the Church of England ... vindicated : being the subject of eight sermons, preached ... / and now published by George Seignior ...	Seignior, George, d. 1678.	1670 (1670)	Wing S2417; ESTC R19835	158,466	284

which be Devout and Honorable Women laden with sins and lead away with divers lusts Epistle of St Jude ver 19. Those that separate themselves let them pretend never so much to holiness and piety they are sensual and they have not the Spirit such are they who ver 3. while the True Apostles do contend earnestly for the Common salvation and the Faith of it once delivered to the Saints creep in unawares turning the grace of God into lasciviousness v. 8. These are filthy Dreamers or in the language of our time Mad Diviners Ecstatical Enthusiasts who despise Dominions and speak evil of Dignities ver 10. They speak evil of those things which they know not inimicum praeter ignorantem Religion as well as Learning has no enemy but the Ignorant whilst wisdom and piety are justified by their Children but otherwise what these gainsayers do know naturally we must own them since they have the faces of men to be reasonable creatures and yet as brute beasts in those things which they seem to know they corrupt themselves that is they do as much confound themselves as they do amuse others with their brain-sick imaginations Wo wo unto them says our Apostle for they have gone in the way of Cain it is but of late sad remembrance setting every mans sword against his Brother onely because their sacrifices of sin were not accepted they have run greedily after the error of Balaam for a reward whilst that gain was their greatest Godliness Oh! that they had perished in the very act of gainsaying like Corah and his Company when they exalted themselves above the Congregation of the Lord These are spots in your feasts yea though they be Feasts of charity their Love feasts in the Family of Love a private secret Conventicle feeding themselves without fear Clouds they are without water like their Master Prince of the air and yet fire if any is the element predominant and these like Salamanders can live onely in the fire they are carried about of winds tossed too and fro with every blast of false and erroneous Doctrine Trees they are whose fruit withereth nay they have no fruit that is good twice dead why do they any longer cumber the ground they are raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame and that 's nothing but mire and durt so that because of the Tempest which they have raised there are no Halcyon days the Kings Fishers cannot build their nests in these troubled waters They are stars too but not in the right hand of Jesus wandring stars oh when shall they be falling stars usque quo Domine how long O Lord just holy and true when shall it once be unto whom is reserved the blackness of darkness a darkness like that of Egypt which is to be felt the blackness of darkness for ever v. 16. These are murmurers complainers walking after their own lusts running about City Town and Countrey and they grudge if they be not satisfied their mouths speak great swelling words of vanity having mens persons in admiration because of some particular advantage or as another Apopostle has it 2 Tim. 4.3 After their own lusts they heap up Teachers to themselves having itching ears and to sum up all with that which gave me occasion to paraphrase so much upon this Epistle These are they who separate themselves they are not moved nor acted by the Holy ●host the Devil has too much power over them if St. Jude's Epistle be Scripture and I guess by this time since they find themselves so exactly described in it they could wish it out of our Bibles since this is the best character that he can afford them that they are sensual and they have not the Spirit These are they and this is the manner of them who neglect the assembling of themselves together imitating the Primitive and the Apostolical times in nothing but in the divisions and dissentions of false Brethren who do not in the least consider that they are baptized into a Christian Faith in which Faith we have these two Articles in which we believe a Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church and the Communion of Saints the Catholick Church is but One and the Communion of it throughout the Christian World is Visible and the next Article to these is the Remission of sins which we obtain and have a right to by our being Baptized and so made Members of the Body of Christ and therefore another Creed has it by way of explanation thus that we are to believe One Baptisme for the Remission of sins as if out of the Visible Communion of the Catholick Church into which we are admitted by Baptisme there is to be no Remission and for this I urge our Saviours words S. Mat. 18.17 Dic Ecclesiae Tell it to the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man and a Publican such a one whom the People of the Jews counted to be dead in their sins and trespasses Not without good reason therefore has our Church in her most excellent constitutions made this one of her wholsome laws Cannon 11th That whosoever shall affirm that there are within this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the Kings born subjects then such as by the Laws of this Land are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the name of a true and of a lawful Church let him be excommunicated and not restored but by the Arch-bishop after his repentance and revocation of such his wicked errours Surely there is somthing extraordinary in the matter or else I should not be thus earnest I would ask the Separatists of our age this one serious and sober question Have ye Souls to be saved or no little do they think into what danger they put their own immortal souls by a schism and a separation they do as much as in them lies forego the ordinary means appointed by God for their salvation Now God in his wonderful Providence has made the Administration of his Gospel to be glorious in the midst of us the light to shine bright in our Candlestick Divine Services to be dispensed and Holy Offices to be performed even in the outward Beauty of Holiness Now for a froward and a peevish generation to place the service of God in one of the most damning sins that can be committed for ought I know by that little Divinity I have been acquainted with if it be wilfully persisted in and they add Obstinacy to their Separation it may in time come up to be the unpardonable sin the sin against the Holy Ghost Schisme and Division from the Churches community Oh! what shall we say unto these men Oh more foolish then were those Galatians Who has bewitched them that they should not obey the Truth Formerly yea before our Saviours time higher then yet hitherto I have brought my proof it was Davids choice to be a door keeper in the House of God rather then to

which drives is like the Driving of Jehu somewhat too furious though the cause of God be pretended for it we may examine it by these particulars 1. Consider we the Object of such a Zeal certainly it is then reprehensible when it is of persons not of things of Men and not their Graces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They do zealously affect you you your very selves not any good that is in you or any good that is toward you A zeal of Persons and those may be of these three sorts The Clergy The Laity or Persons in a more mixed and refined Relation neither one nor the other particular so considered but a certain juncto or a knot of acquaintance First A Zeal of Persons that is of the Clergy of Ministers and Pastors just as it was in the Church of Corinth notwithstanding their so many Religious heats too certain a sign of Divisions and Schismes amongst them when some of them were for Paul some for Apollos and some for Cephas without any regard to God that gave the increase This was an argument that they were not Spiritual but Carnal It is a certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mark by which we may know those that will not indure sound Doctrine when 2 Tim. 4.3 after their own lusts they heap up Teachers to themselves having itching ears Here a giddy-headed Generation of men were to be reproved who look so much upon the Preachers countenance that they have no regard unto his message who cannot be contented with what whole some food is provided for them at home but they seek out delicacies abroad Nay many a Pastor has been prejudged before he has been heard to speak to see his first behaviour and reverential address is enough to scare a wicked sort of People out of the Congregation and then they wander after whom they tell you they can profit most by Oh! This is a formal heavy and a superstitious fellow but such a one is a precious Soul-searching Preacher as if they were the proper judges of what is best and fittest to be spoke to them and though it may be the same word of Truth which is delivered by both yet the word of God must be restrained as if it hung only at such or such a persons Lips It is an avouched Maxime in the Practice of Medice's that if we do but Fancy the Physician the Physick will work kindly but this proceeds rather from the Patients Distemper and misapprehension of things than either want of skill in the Physician or of approved vertue in the Medicine prescribed They who are able to make so exact a judgment upon the abilities of their Teachers would do well if out of a Principle of humility and self-denyal they would look more at home and examine their own hearts and not so unreasonable accuse either the Word of God or his Messengers lawfully sent unto them because they cannot as they phrase it profit under the means when the ears do itch more than they tingle it is a sign the brains are not setled and the heart is not sound there may be a zeal to heap up Teachers but such a zealous Affection in having mens persons in admiration to the Disparagement of others of the same order is not well They zealously affect you you the Clergy but not well Secondly A zeal of Persons that is of the People and that is chiefly blamed in this Text They who would have the Precepts of Moses observed to the subverting of the Christian Institution They zealously affect you you the People but not well Here we may take cognisance of the perfect humour and Design of all hot-headed Schism and Sedition it is that they may be with the Multitude and that the Multitude may follow them to do evil hence some are neither affraid not ashamed to court and complement the vices and the Factions of the People and secretly they insinuate unto them that their zeal for the purity of Religion is commendable that they do not tie themselves up too closely to humane observances is but the just vindication of their Christian Liberty and they are to stand fast to that Liberty in which Christ hath made them free forgetting all this while that our Saviours Discipline is a Yoke although it be light and though it be easie yet still it is a burden and we are to be meek and lowly and learn of him to take this yoke and this burden upon us in the sustaining of which yoke in the chearful bearing of which burden we shall find rest to our Souls It was one and the chief moral cause of the Gospel thriving so much in the World at first that the Professors of it though of different Perswasions were subject to their Heathen Emperours and Governours in the love of them and in the fear of God But a lass now the Design is quite another thing lean we but bring the People into a dislike of the Rulers that are set over them in Church or State by pretending a love and an affection for them a tender regard forsooth to the Liberty of the Subject pittying them because they are held in durance we shall soon find though not sinking under our weights and pressures that we have strength enough to break off the Yoak and cast away the Burthen nay to spurn at those who would lay it upon us But let us not be deceived such evil words and unworthy practices do corrupt good manners this is not a love to the Souls of the People but a designed drawing them into temptation and a snare notwithstanding the kindness such persons may pretend their great zeal for the People of the Lord I appeal to our own late sad experience whether the chief aim be not that they may get up themselves and ride and then most cruelly and disdainfully they trample all under foot Rohoboam's little Finger was heavier than the Loyns of Solomon we might possibly once have been chastned with Rods but they vexed us with Scorpions while they broke our easie Yokes of Wood they made for us heavy Yokes of Iron and the Iron entred into our very souls No Men they are the words of out late Martyred Soveraigne are prone to be greater Tyrants and more rigorous exacters upon others to conform to their illegal Novelties then such whose pride was formerly lest disposed to submit to the obedience of lawfull constitutions when their licentious humour most pretended a Conscientious Liberty It is not therefore for any good that is in you or to you that they are so kind they zealously affect you you the People but not well 3. A Zeal of Persons may be reprehensible when it is of Persons in a more mixed and refined relation neither Clergy nor Laity particularly so considered but a certain Junctoe or a Knot of acquaintance whose name may be the very same with those who are blamed in the Text Gnosticks that is Sciolists great pretenders to and proficients in knowledge though