Selected quad for the lemma: diversity_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
diversity_n	age_n	church_n	divers_a	435	5	10.5947	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43554	Theologia veterum, or, The summe of Christian theologie, positive, polemical, and philological, contained in the Apostles creed, or reducible to it according to the tendries of the antients both Greeks and Latines : in three books / by Peter Heylyn.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1654 (1654)	Wing H1738; ESTC R2191	813,321	541

power to do Non tam stultus sum ut diversitate explanationum tuarum me laedi putem quia nec tu laederis si nos contraria senserimus This was St. Hieromes resolution to St. Augustine in a point between them equally full of piety and Christian courage And of this temper was also Pope Sixtus the fift as stout and resolute a Prelate as ever wore the Triple Diadem and one who lived in the worst Ages of the Church of Rome when most ingaged in self-interresses and maintaining factions Of whom it is notwithstanding said by Cicarella non multum pugnare ut sua vinceret sententia sed potius ab aliis si ita res ferret facile passus est se vinci And to this blessed temper if we could attain diversity of opinions and interpretations so they hold the analogy of the faith may adde as much to the external beauty of the Church of Christ as it did ornament and lustre to the Spouse of Christ that her cloathing though of pure gold was wrought about with divers colours or wrought with curious needle-work as it after followeth But it is time that I look back upon our Saviour sitting at the right hand of God in whatsoever sense we conceive the words and sitting there to execute the Sacerdotal or Priestly function and so much of the Regal also as is to be discharged and exercised by him before his coming unto judgement Of which two functions by Gods grace I am next to speak The Attribute or Adjunct of the Father Almighty which we finde added to this branch of the Article hath been already handled in its proper place and therefore nothing need to be said here of it CHAP. XIII Of the Priesthood of our Lord and Saviour which he executeth sitting at the right hand of God wherein it was fore-signifyed by that of Melchisedech in what particulars it consisteth and of Melchisedech himself WE told you in the beginning of our former Chapter that they which do consider Christ in his several offices and did reduce each several office to some branch or other of the Creed did generally refer his office of high Priest unto this branch of sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty For being advanced to such a place of nearnesse to the throne of God he hath no doubt the better opportunities as a man may say of interceding with God in behalf of his people and offering up the peoples prayers to the throne of grace which are the two main parts of the Priestly function And yet this sitting at the right hand of God is not precisely proper and peculiar to him as he is our Priest but that he claimes the place also as he is our King and there doth execute so much of the Regall office as doth consist in governing his holy Church untill the coming unto judgment Certain I am that David findes him sitting on the right hand of God in both capacities as well King as Priest and so doth represent him to us The Lord saith he said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstoole That David by those words My Lord meaneth Christ our Saviour is a thing past question We have the truth it self to bear witnesse to it the Lord himself applying it unto himself in his holy Gospels And that he meaneth it of Christ both King and Priest is no lesse evident from the rest of the Prophets words which do immediately follow on it For in the very next words he proceedeth thus The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion Rule thou in the middest of thine enemies Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power In which assuredly he looks upon him in his regal function And no lesse plainly it doth follow for the Priesthood also The Lord hath sworn saith he and shall not repent thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech Touching the Regal office though here also executed we shall more fully and more fitly speak in the following Article that of his coming to judge the quick and dead the power of judicature being the richest flower of the regal diademe The Priesthod we shall treat of now T is the place most proper Christs Priesthood and his sitting at the right hand of God being often joyned together in the holy Scripture Nay therefore doth he sit at the right hand of God that so he might with more advantage execute the Priestly office Every Priest saith the Apostle standeth dayly ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sinnes But this man that is Christ our Saviour the high Priest of the new Testament after he had offered one sacrifice for our sins is set down for ever at the right hand of God From hence forth tarrying till his enemies be made his footstool And in another place to the same purpose thus We have such an high Priest that sitteth on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens A Minister of holy things and of the true Tabernacle c. Being therefore in this place to speak of the Priesthood of CHRIST we will consider it in all those particulars which may make the calling warrantable to himself and comfortable unto us To make it warrantable in respect of himself we must behold him in his calling in his consecration and finally in the order it self which was that of Melchisedech to which he was so called and consecrated To make it comfortable in regard of us we will behold him in the excercise of those three great duties wherein the Priesthood did consist viz. the offering of sacrifice for the sins of the people the offering of prayers in behalf of the people and lastly in the act of benediction or of blessing the people To these heads all may be reduced which concernes this argument and of all these according to the method now delivered which I think most natural a little shall be said to instruct the reader First for his calling to the Priesthood it was very necessary as well to satisfie himself as prevent objections For Christ our Saviour being of the line of Iudah he could not ordinarily and of common right intermedle with the Priestly function which was entailed by God to the house of Aaron and therefore he required a special and extraordinary warrant such as God gave Aaron and the sons of Aaron to authorize him thereunto No person whatsoever he was was to take this honour to himself but he that was called of God as Aaron was as St. Paul averreth Now such a calling to the Priesthood as that of Aaron our blessed Saviour had and a better too for he was called to be an high Priest after the order of Melchisedech Where this word called imports more then a name or title as if he were called Priest but indeed was none but a solemne calling

Nullum Schisma non sibi aliquam confingit haeresin ut rectè ab Ecclesia recessisse videatur as St. Ierom notes it we have no reason to exclude him absolutely from the Church of Christ For so long as he falleth not into dangerous error but holds by the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which the Church is built on He is and may be still a member of the Church of God though not of this or that particular Church or Congregation from which he hath disjoyned himself by his wilful folly nor yet so absolutely and fully of the Church of God as they who do communicate entirely in all things necessary As long as the Schismatick retaineth the profession of the Christian Faith in all the Fundamental Points and Articles of it gives ear unto the Word and receives the Sacraments according to the institution of our Lord and Saviour and performs other acts of Religious Worship though in a separate Church or Congregation of his own assembling I dare not shut him out from the hopes of Heaven or rashly say He is no subject of the Kingdom of Grace He may be still a member of the Militant Church and one day have his part in the Church Triumphant notwithstanding his offence in separating from his Fellow-Christians in case he do it not out of pride and against the clear light of his own Conscience But the Church from which he makes his separation may lawfully proceed against him as a great offender for breaking the bond of peace and unity which ought so carefully to be preserved in a Church well constituted With Hereticks the case is worse though not quite desperate for they not onely violate the Churches peace but wilfully defend some pernicious Error which tends to the destruction of the Faith it self So Haeresis aliquod dogma perversum habe● saith the same St. Ierom. But here we must distinguish first of Heresies before we venture to resolve of the point in Question it being so That neither every erroneous opinion may be called an Heresie nor every Heresie of it self is so great and capital as to exclude the man that holds it from the Church of Christ. Many in all ages have been branded and condemned for Hereticks because they were not wholly of the same opinions with those of greatest reputation in their several Churches though oftentimes in matters of inferior nature in which diversity of opinions might have been admitted whom it were both uncharitable and unchristian too to bar from all their right and interess in the Christian Church Nay granting that the Heresie be in Fundamentals not taken up upon mistake but wilfully and maliciously invented for some private ends yet in regard they still retain amongst them the profession of other Divine verities which they hold and believe in common with the rest of the faithful for should they erre in all points of the Christian Faith they were no longer to be called Hereticks but Apostate Infidels they pertain still unto the Church and were so counted and esteemed of in the strictest times An Argument whereof may be that when an Heretick recanted of his sin and heresie and sought to be again admitted to the Churches Ordinances he was not entred as at first by the door of Baptism nor any of his acts made void if a Priest or Minister which he had done by vertue of his holy orders And so far were the Antients from this new opinion of making Hereticks no members of the Church at all That the Rebaptization of an Heretick or of such as had been formerly baptized by Hereticks was counted an error in St. Cyprian and afterwards condemned for Heresie in those that wilfully maintained it upon his Authority The stories of those times make this plain enough especially St. Augustine's works against the Donatists where this point is very fully handled and with his resolution in it I conclude this controversie Isti in quibusdam rebus nobiscum sunt in quibusdam à nobis exierunt c In some things saith the Father they are with us still in others they are departed from us In those things wherein they agree with us they are a part of that great building whereof the chief Corner-stone is Christ our Saviour In those wherein they disagree they are parted from it And if they draw any more unto them even they are fastned in those joynts to the rest of that Body c. In qua nec illi separati sunt in which their Teachers are not separated from that Sacred Body But yet although the Romanists are extreamly out in excluding all whom they call Schismaticks or condemn for Hereticks from having any place in the Church of Christ to make the more Elbow-room for themselves The Donatist and his followers are more out than they in making none but the Elect to be members of it and so monopolizing the whole Kingdom of Heaven to their faction onely In which it is most strange to see with what precipitancy and inadvertency many in the Reformed Churches of great name and credit not looking into the design and ill consequents of it have labored to promote this Tenet as most true and Orthodox especially after Iohn Wicliff and Hus his follower had set the same on foot again in these latter ages That Wicliff was of this opinion is evidently to be seen in Thomas Waldensis who doth not onely so report him but doth his best endeavor to confute him in it And that Hus also taught the same is no less evident by the proceedings had against him in the Council of Constance in which amongst others of his doctrines they condemned this one viz. Unicam esse sanctam universalem ecclesiam eamque Praedestinatorum Vniversitatem that is to say That there is one onely holy Universal Church which is the general body of Gods Elect. Thus they nor did there want some reason which might move them to it For noting many Errors and Corruptions in the Church of Rome which made them think it very unsafe to communicate any longer with it and being withal unwilling to be so esteemed of as men out of the Church They fell upon this new way to bear off that blow by making the true Church of God to be always invisible because consisting onely of Elect and praedestinate persons which were known onely unto God But on what grounds soever it was first excogitated the fame and piety of the men have so indeered it to the Doctors of the Calvinian Churches and others which profess most enmity to the Church of Rome that generally they make no other definition of the Catholick Church than that it is the Body Collective of Gods Elect. Ecclesia est coetus hominum ab aeterno electus à Deo ad vitam eternam as Vrsine in his Comment on the Palatine Catechism Ecclesia est coetus hominum sanctorum qui ex gratuita Dei electione vocati sunt in unionem cum Christo 〈◊〉