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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
country_n	city_n	great_a	time_n	6,947	5	3.3756	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74652	The peace-maker or, a brief motive to unity and charitie in religion. By W.P. D.D.	W. P.	1652 (1652)	Wing P135; Thomason E1417_2; ESTC R209452	13,834	99

Neither ought we to love him thus with an ordinary kind of love in wishing him well and doing him good for so we ought to love and doe good to all but there is a more strict tie of love that lies upon us Christians one to another and therefore although the Apostle wisheth us to doe good to all men yet especially tot he houshold of faith Gal 6 10. that is to such as be Christians Were this precept of the Apostle practised as it ought to be there would not be so much uncharitableness nor peradventure so much dissention amongst Christians Why can we not consider one another as united in this blessed name of Christian and set aside for a time those names of faction division why should we not rejoyce awhile in those things wherein we agree and not alwaies be wrangling about those things wherein we differ Of what moment those opinions are wherein we disagree I am not able to determine this I dare be bold to say that the points wherein we are friends are of far greater consequence than those are wherein we fall out And yet we so eagerly contend one with another and damn each other to the pit of hell as though our differences were very important and our agreement not worth the talking of For my part I should be loath to exclude any visible Christian Church from all hopes of salvation and if I must needs offend I had rather give account to a mercifull God for too much mildness and Charity than too much fierceness and severity yet I hope to make it appear that my opinion of Charity shall not exceed the bounds of verity A chief cause of the continuance of these dissentions is that men mind not so much the common cause of Christianity as their own particular engagements nor study how they may agree one with another as how to uphold the side they are on whereas would they set aside prejudice and partiality and cast an equall eye upon all the Churches they would not spy so many faults abroad and so few at home but would freely confess there might be greater concord amongst Christians than now there is No other Unity doe I labour for at this time but that of Charity that Christians would not for some differences in opinion pronounce such an heavy sentence upon one another as is that of Damnation If God should deal with us as wee deal with one another if he should censure us all as we censure one another I know not who should be saved The Papist damning the Protestant and some among us the Papists and both of them any other that shall differ from them both But my hope is and my hearty prayer to God shall be that he would be more mercifull to all these than they are one to another When I consider with my self the manifold distractions of Christians about Religion and the great fierceness and violence used on all sides every one thinking his own opinion truest and consequently damning all others that differ from him I could not but call to mind that prophecy of our blessed Saviour Mat. 24.12 concerning these latter and worser times Because iniquity shall abound saith he the love of many shall waxe cold for although Charity of it self be of a hot and diffusive nature yet now clean contrary to the nature of it it is in most men grown cold it being the nature of cold to contract and combine to congeal and draw into a narrow room thus is it now with our Charity For whereas like the heat in our naturall bodies it should diffuse it self into all the members thereof unto the whole Christian Church yet I know not how it hath taken cold for men contract their love now into a very small compass and narrow room that is to no more than to such who jump with them in the same Opinion about Religion leaving others who differ from them to nothing but death and damnation For not only in severall Countries but in the same Kingdome in the same City nay in the same Family there are severall Religions or at the least several Opinions about Religion reigning So that what Saint Austine complained of in his time is truly verified in these Epist 147. Thou seest saith he with how great and miserable distraction Christian houses and families are divided and troubled husbands and wives can agree well enough to goe to bed together bnt they cannot agree to goe to Christs Altar together There they swear peace one to another but here they can have no peace Parents and Children live well enough together in one house of their own but one house of Gods will not hold them both Their desire is that those should succeed them in their own inheritance who yet they think have no inheritance with Christ Masters and servants divide the Common Lord and Master of us all who yet took upon him the form of a servant that so he might free all I say never more fully verified than in these daies For in how many families shall we observe this great division the Husband goes to Church and the Wife staies at home or the Wife goes to Church and the Husband staies at home and so between Parents Children Masters and Servants The Father will give his Son the portion of his land who yet thinks he shall have no portion in the land of the living The great division of the Christian world was first between the East and West Churches and this West hath been since subdivided into the Roman and the Reformed Religion So that the division amongst Christians which is considerable is but into three parts the Eastern the Romanist and our Reformed All Christian Churches and so far forth the members of them brethren and sisters and not only Christian Churches but also Catholike and Orthodox in these points wherein they agree one with another and with the Primitive Church Why may it not be with these Churches as it was with those seven Churches of Asia which S. John wrote unto in which there were some things commendable and other things amiss they were encouraged in the former and reproved for the latter And although some of them were better than others yet you shall sacre find one of them to which he doth not say haben adversus te pauca I have a few things against thee And yet we shall find that Christ himself was in the midst of all these seven churches for he was in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks Revel 1.13 and bad in his right hand seven stars Rev. 1.16 For writing to the Church of Ephesus he maketh this one of his attributes Apoc. 21. These things saith he who who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand who walketh in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks So that our Saviour walked in the midst of all these Churches even in that luke-warm Church of Laodicea which he threatned to spue out of his mouth And let Rome tell