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
A77477	Sound considerations for tender consciencies wherein is shewed their obligation to hold close union and communion with the Church of England and their fellow members in it, and not to forsake the publick assemblies thereof. In several sermons preached, upon I Cor.1.10 and Heb.10.25. By Joseph Briggs M.A. vic. of Kirkburton, in Yorkshire	Briggs, Jos. (Joseph)	1675 (1675)	Wing B4663; ESTC R229475	120,197	291

necks they are properly stiled children of Belial their hellish design is clean contrary to the Text to cause divisions and offences amongst you 2. As it is necessary to prevent divisions that you submit to the same Government so that you walk by the same rule What is that It is either Principal or Subordinate Principal even the Law and the Testimony the sacred Scriptures Subordinate even according to the Scriptures the rules and canons and Customes of the Church without a due respect to both these rules in their right places it is impossible Christians should speak all the same things but there will be divisions among them I dare assert and think it not difficult to maintain by the Scriptures as well as clear reason that there is an obligation upon the members of that Church in which they were born baptised and bred up to submit unto and obey the rules and canons and customes thereof if they be not able to prove them contrary to the Scriptures or the clear light of natural reason in us or at least such conclusions as are properly directly and evidently deduced from them There is much in that argument of the Apostle to confirm the sober-minded herein p 1 Cor. 11. If any man be contentious we have no such custome neither the Churches of God And in that of our Saviour If the Offender will not hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican and again he that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Do not think I ascribe to the Church any Popish infallibility or call for any blind obedience unto it O no if any of its rules or injunctions appears to be contrary to the Word of God like Nebuchadnezzar's to the three Children to fall down to his Image or Darius his to Daniel not to pray to any other God or the High-Priests to the Apostles not to speak in the name of Jesus then must we answer with them whether must we obey God or man judge ye But then we must not deny our obedience to such Church rules and canons as repugnant to God's Word upon light surmises and slender presumptions this were to speak evil of the things we know not q Jude 10. O no r As I take it this is the excellent Bishop Sanderion in one of his Sermons No worse for that as in the Courts of Civil Justice men are not ordinarily put to prove themselves honest men but the proof lieth on their accusers part and therefore it is sufficient for the acquitting any man in soro externo that there is nothing of moment proved against him it being requisire to the condemning a man that there be a clear and a full evidence against him So in these moral trials when enquiry is made into the lawfulness or sinfulness of our Churches rules and customes and our Governours commands it is sufficient to warrant them if there can be nothing produced from express Scriptures or sound reason against them and to condemn or disobey them upon remote consequences and weak deductions though it be from Scripture-Texts can ne'r be excused of rashness and unrighteousness Sure obedience is an unquestioned duty obey them that have the rule over you saith the Apostle for they watch for your Souls and therefore unless it be manifest that their Lawes and injunctions be against the Word of God all our questions are but carpings and needless stumbling blocks laid in our way by the Troublers of Israel The safest way is obedience which also is absolutely necessary among Christians that they may speak the same things and that there be no divisions among them Then 3. More particularly still to this end that as Christian Brethren ye may speak the same things without divisions it is necessary that ye all joyn in the same form of prayer praise and manner of worshipping God It was David's earnest desire O magnifie the Lord with me Psal 34.3 and let us exalt his Name together And the Holy Ghost in the Acts mentions this Uniformity in the Churches Infancy and time of her first love to be one chief cause of its prospering and inlarging Acts 4.24 The multitude of Believers lifted up their voice in praises with one accord Acts 4.24 The people with one accord gave heed to the things that Philip spake Acts 8.6 And it s a great part of the blessedness of the heavenly Jerusalem Rev. 4.10 that the Elders sing with one voice unto the Lord. So doth the Apostle make it his earnest prayer for the Romans Rom. 15.6 that they might be like minded one towards another that with one mind and with one voice they might glorifie God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and with one mouth too while men think to glorifie God in several ways and several forms it is scarce intelligible how they can do it in this desirable manner with one mind and with one mouth so many several ways so many several mouths and that can never tend to the glory of God The Apostles expression intimates that like-mindedness unanimity and uniformity are very subservient to the glory of God What an honour is it to the God of Israel when all Israel came in as one man to do him worship when that admirable variety of Gifts and Administrations and Offices that are in his Church do not jar and clash one against another but sustain and mutually supply out of their stores the wants each of other and all conspire together in their several kinds to glorifie God What else is musical harmony but concord in discourse variety in consort it makes the musick full and delightful when there is a well-ordered variety of voices and instruments in it but if all instruments were perfectly well tuned yet if the men could not agree what to play but one would have a nimble Galliard another a frisking Jig another a grave Air and if all of them should be so wilful as without yielding to the rest to scrape on his Tune as loud as he could what a hideous hateful noise may you imagine would such a mess of Musick be no less odious to God and equally grievous to every godly man it is when such Vices as these are heard in the Church of God I am of Paul and I of Cephas 1 Cor. 1.12 and I of Apollo When one Pamphleteer will have the Church governed after this fashion another after that when one Mountebank in Religion will have this way of Worship and form of Prayer another that to the great scandal of the Reformed Religion and the manifest dishonour of God Surely beloved such an Uniformity as of all Christian Members of the same Church to be of one mind and worship God in one place and in one way and form and manner with one accord would be the most beautiful and comely and happiest thing in

loth to deny themselves as in effect to acknowledge they was formerly in an error and in the wrong It s pride that make some desire to go in some singular way and loath to go on in a beaten tract wherein they may be obscured in the throng with Theudas they are ambitious to be some body with Simon Magus to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some knowing or Zealous person they would be taken notice of by their neighbours as a stricter sort of livers and would be eminent though by the infamy of Schism or separation To be called of men Rabbi Rabbi is inchaunting musick to any Pharisee and the very essence and constitutive parts of a Schismatick is the esteem of himself and the contempt of others I am not as this Publican was the Pharisees voice whose very name signifies separation and our modern separatists do but eccho the same note when they pronounce these Church assemblies and the members thereof heretical or carnal from whom they withdraw themselves r Esa 65.5 they say as those in Esay Stand of come not near me for I am holier then thou But let it be remembred that while the Pharisee lookt so fastidiently on the poor Publican he renounc'd communion in prayers much more acceptable to God then his own and the observation is truly applyable in our case The Transcendant purity and Saintship and holiness which our Separatists boasts of being if brought to the touch but a more sublimated wickedness And their pretence for spiritually being onely verified in spiritual pride By their fruits of rebellion disobedience to and contempt of Magistracy and Ministry rash censures mallice evil speakings and bitterness headiness treasons high maindedness and the like fruits you may know them So this pride is another partition wall that Satan useth to divide us from God and one another and to make men forsake the Assemblies of the Church 3. It is the manner of some also to forsake them out of curiosity this is that baneful weed which the divel made shift to steal even into Paradise which hath ever since affected the richest soils the most pregnant understandings I do not altogether mean that speculative curiosity about the mysterious parts of our religion though that be a notorious mean also to propagate Heresies when men will not be soberly wise but will attempt to find out the depths of those mysteries which God hath thought fit to make secret prying into the Ark of the secret counsells of God But that curiosity of men which is usually about those little trifling notions and thin aerial speculations which do not at all tend to make men wiser to salvation Men are not content to know those divine truths which tend to Godly practice therefore they think such preachers as insist of them dry and insipid and forsake them to follow those who will offer them nicer speculations be they never so unprofitable to the great end of Salvation s vide The Decayes of Christianity in the causes of disputes Besides there is another curiosity that is deep in the guilt of drawing men from the Assemblies to which they belong A curiosity to hear strange preachers they have itching ears their ordinary food do not please them a new besome sweeps clean an uncouth bit is for their palates a Minister of the best gifts cannot please them long as the Athenians were all for enquirng of news so are these men all for novelties In a short time they distaste the ministry of their ordinary Pastors and so to please the distempered palates of their fickle souls they must needs be gadding abroad to hear every upstart Mountebank that is near them and so this is one great reason of their forsakeing their ordinary assemblies as the manner of many is 4. Another reason hereof is covetousness and interest the great Idol to which the world bowes as the Apostle saith they that will be rich fall into divers temptations so do they fall into this sin among the rest Some men will be rich therefore out of respect to their profit they absent themselves from the Assemblies of the Church they must needs spend some Sabbaths in going to Fairs or going jorneys or makeing bargains or meeting customers or looking to some house business they cannot get their living they say by coming to Church and when they come they must needs leave a great part of their family behind them for some worldly advantage or other These are like those in Malachi t Mal. 3●4 That said it is in vain to serve the Lord and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances And others there be in the world that make a show of religion and piety that have no other end in their broaching and maintaining Schisms and separations from the assemblies of the Church then their proper advantages They make divinity an handmaid religion a stalking horse to a policy Jeroboam made the Golden Calves become more venerable Deities when he found them sit to serve his jealousies and Matchiavels policy that states and persons should secure themselves of religion was a common practice long before it was a rule In the Old Testament we read of mercenary Prophets that turned the office into a trade that divined for money and even for handfuls of Barley and pieces of Bread And in the New St. Paul speaks of deceivers that speak things they ought not for filthy Lucres sake u Titus 1.11 And the same Apostle declaiming against the love of money as the root of all evil he reproves it from its having made men erre from the faith x 1 Tim. 6.11 And it is St. Peters prediction that the most damnable Heresies even the denying of the Lord that bought them should be introduced by those who through covetousness should make Merchandize of their Proselytes y 2 Pet. 2.3 And is it not plain how mens itching ears in this Age do invite many Mountebanks in Religion to try experiments upon them when men Nauseats Old truths and Old teachers because they are acquainted with them and embrace Doctrines and broachers of them because they are new when men love such teachers and are bountiful to none but such as they love how can it be doubted but some will suit themselves to their disciples humours to gain money to themselves when by sowing tares they can immediately reap Gold our age hath given us sufficient experience hereof would God that this way of divelish traffique were at an end And doubtless as there be many leaders so are there many Disciples in the separation in whom covetousness and self interest reigns exceedingly and by it they are animated in their obstinate continuance in their erronious waies so as to stop their ears to the charmes of sound doctrines charme they never so wisely Now O that such would consider what the character of infamy is that remaines yet upon Achan that he troubled Israel to inrich himselfe And on Balaam that he