Selected quad for the lemma: diversity_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
diversity_n	church_n	faith_n	unity_n	1,026	5	9.9897	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44476	A tract concerning schism and schismatiqves wherein is briefly discovered the originall causes of all schisme / written by a learned and judicious divine ; together with certain animadversions upon some passages thereof.	Hales, John, 1584-1656.; Page, William, 1590-1663.	1642 (1642)	Wing H278; ESTC R2860	21,883	35

for if the discretion of the chiefest Guides Directors of the Church did in a point so triviall so inconsiderable so mainely faile them as not to see the truth in a subject wherein it is the greatest marvaile how they could avoide the sight of it can we without the imputation of great grossenesse and folly think so poore spirited persons competent Iudges of the questions now on foot betwixt the Churches pardon me I know not what Temptation drew that note from me ANIMADVERSION Thirdly about keeping of Easter say you anciently all the world were Schismaticks A strange assertion to lay such an heavy imputation upon all those auncient worthies Had they been thus guilty it had been the part of a dutifull sonne to have made some apology for them and to have covered his Fathers nakednesse But a farre greater crime it is thus to accuse them without a cause The best of it is I shall not haue occasion here to excuse their error but to defend their innocencie For first their difference is not about a point that concerneth Faith or Good manners but only the outward discipline and government of the Church about the keeping of a solemne feast And that not whether we should keep it or no for all agreed well enough that it ought to be kept but about the time of keeping it whether at this or that time which is a matter of farre lesse moment The occasion of this difference briefly was thus St Peter and his successors at Rome kept Easter the Sunday after the foureteenth Moon But S. Iames and many of his successors at Ierusalem being all of them Ministers of the circumcision the sooner to win their brethren the Iewes condescended to keep their Easter as the Iewes did 14o Lunae Which diversity of observation continued for the space of 200. years neither Church censuring or condemning one another for it Till at the length Victor Pope of Rome would needs take upon him to bring all those Easterne Churches to his custome and excommunicate them for not yeelding whereupon grew the Schisme So that although at the first they kept Easter diversly for a long time together yet so long as there was no breach of charity between them there was no Schisme by your own confession who tell us that Schisme offends against charity as Heresy against truth So then whiles they were charitable one to another all the world were so farre from being Schismaticks that no part of it could be justly thus branded The Schisme indeed began when the Pope would needs rashly and unadvisedly excommunicate those Easterne Churches with whom he had nothing to doe But then was not the whole world but only Victor and his partizans the Schismaticks according to you who unjustly divided themselves from the other side the East Churches continuing their old custome without any Schisme at all yet some of them not forbearing to tell Victor of his unadvised and unjustifiable action For shall we not allow to severall Churches especially when they have no dependency one upon another their severall rites and observations but they must be all Schismatick for it You may as well call both these Churches Schismaticks for this also because the one Church fasts on Saturday the other fasts not the one administers the Eucharist in unleavened the other in leavened bread These and such like points concerne not the body of the Church but her garments now although her body must be but one yet her garments are of divers colours Nay as one saith very well diversitas rituum commendat unitatem fidei The unity of faith doth more gloriously appeare amidst the diversity of ceremonies and rituall observations I wonder if one of our refined spirits now a daies who is animo defaecato had lived in those times what could he have done to avoid this Schisme how could he have chosen but be a Schismatick on one side or another I conceive how he should have escaped by you to wit to joyne with neither side by keeping no Easter at all for with you it is an error to think that an Easter must be kept which position being put in practise will prove the greatest Schime of all thus to divide ones selfe from all the Christian world For although these holy Fathers differed for a while amongst themselves about the time yet they all agreed against you about the thing it selfe and not only the Orthodoxe but the very Hereticks of those times kept an Easter Not so much as the Novatians who called themselves Cathari the Puritans of the Primitive Church but an Easter they had though they were very indifferent about the time of keeping it And the whole Christian world ever since hath duely observed the keeping of Easter But you take no notice of this only your eare is to excuse those Fathers the best you can And you can find but this one way to doe it That we charitably suppose that all parties did what they did out of conscience a thing which befell them through the ignorance of their guides for I will not say through their malice and that through the just judgement of God because through sloath and blind obedience men examined not the things which they were taught but like beasts of burthen patiently couched downe and indifferently underwent whatsoever their superiors laid upon them Doe you call this an excusation and not rather an heavy censure and accusation both of Priest and People in those purer times For what a dishonour is this to the Pastors and Prelates then that they who lived so neare the Apostles should be such ignorant guides Nay what a disparagement is it to the very Apostles themselves that they should choose such ignorant guides that could instruct the people no better For some of these you speak of certainly were the immediate successors of the Apostles themselves They have been accounted hitherto men not only of conscience but of learning knowing and understanding pious and devout men in many of them the gift of doing miracles still remained I cannot with patience speak against this imputation But you are as bold with the people by accusing them of sloath and blind obedience and to be beasts of burthen because they did not examine what they were taught Whereas this good people had well learned that they should not they could not be wiser then their teachers and they had been newly taught from St Pauls own mouth that they were to obey those that had the rule over them and submit themselves Which was not a blind but a wise discreet holy and dutifull obedience But you it seems will teach the people another lesson to wit to guide their guides And they are now apt enough to learne it For they begin to practise it apace But you inferre upon these weak premises By this you may plainly see the danger of our appeale to antiquity for resolution in coutroversed points of faith and how small reliefe we are to expect from thence For