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	prophet_n	teacher_n	471	5	9.2767	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96073	A modest discourse, of the piety, charity & policy of elder times and Christians. Together with those their vertues paralleled by Christian members of the Church of England. / By Edward Waterhouse Esq;	Waterhouse, Edward, 1619-1670.	1655 (1655)	Wing W1049; Thomason E1502_2; ESTC R208656	120,565	278

aperiunt enim quasi fontes sapientiae qui aquam non habent doctrinarum promittunt imbrem velut nubes propheticae ad quas perveniat veritas Dei turbinibus exagitantur demonum vitiorum So he Alas they are in a devious road to fame who endeavour Learnings ruine and deserve no nobler a memoriall then Scylla had whose evils were so great that there was neither le●t place for greater nor number for more That wise man of the Garamantes spake truth to Alexander Glory ariseth not from violent substraction of what is anothers but from bestowing on others what is our own the best way to be remembred for gallant is to write our memoriall in the Table Adamant of a Charity and Bounty that may outlast us I love Aemilius his gravity and imitable worth his vertuous minde and Learned head better then Aristippus his rapacious heart though it had to friend a grave countenance and a purple robe The Lord deliver the Learned from those men who would have the Name of Learned perish and their seed begg their bread and give and preserve to them such Kings and Protectors as may speak comfortably to them as God did to his He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye Thirdly Antiquity and Elder times have been Zealous for Government and Order in the Church as the Church of Christ hath no custom for contention so not for co●fusion God is order and good discipline is one way to make men conform to God as orders Law-giver S t Cyprian one of the first Fathers and a noble Martyr defines Discipline the keeper of hope the conservative of faith a good conductor in our race of Christianity a benefit reaching forth security and increase to those that embrace her and portending destruction to those that refuse or neglect her And Calvin when he disownes all Church usurpation yet concludes That the Church hath Laws of order to promote concord and defend government And reason it should be so for if God be order and his administrations be orderly as himself then disorder as nothing of his ought to be kept out of the Church to which it is peculiarly an enemy The Church is a treasury disorder robbs it 'T is a clear stream of living water disorder puddles it 'T is a fair and bright Heaven disorder clouds and inlowers it 'T is a chart virgin disorder is an impure raptor and corrupts it 'T is a precious orb of spicknard disorder like dead flies putrifies it The foresight of this made our Lord Jesus bespangle his Church with gifts to all purposes of Order and Ornnament He hath set sayes S t Paul in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers then gifts of healing Helps to Governments diversities of tongues And now I have found Church and Government both in a Scripture I hope I may without offence joyn them together Church-Government and assert that of Divine Institution I think most parties are agreed that Government Ecclesiastique as well as Civil is of God all the litigation is What this Ecclesiastique Government which is of God is By what Name and Title it is distinguished and dignified And God wot the heat and humour of peevish brains have set Paul and Barnabas as it were asunder nay hath made such a crack in Christian Eutaxie ' that as Bernardas Dyas Bishop of Calatrore said of the Church of Vicenza that may I of this Chuach of England It is so disordered that it requireth more an Apostle then a Bishop Orpheus sooner charmed Pluto and Proserpina to part with his Eurydice then men amongst us be perswaded to part with their passions though all their swellings and monstrous impregnations like that of the mountains produce only a Mouse a most ridiculous and inglorious scabb of self-conceited Leprosie One party will have Church-Discipline so precisely set down in the Word of God that nothing is left to Christian prudence to alter Others are diametrall to these and make with Cardinall Cusanus Government accountable to the times as he said Scripture was and therefore to be expounded according to the current rites and yet forsooth it is not to be meant as if the Church at one time expoundeth in one fashion and at another time in another sort a Riddle the Scripture must be expounded according to the times and the times according to which Scripture is to be expounded are now this an on that and yet the Church must not be meant to expound it in one fashion at one time and in another fashion another time There are a third sort who fix the essentials of Government in Scripture and the collaterals they admit as left to the order of the particular Churches of Christ this I take to be most safe and moderate and this S t Augustine delivers as his Opinion to Januarius long ago These things quoth be are left free there is no appointment by God concerning them prudent Christians are at liberty to conform to whatever Church they come and in which they live for whatever is enjoyned not contrary to faith and good manners ought to be submitted to for peace and civil societies sake and I saith the Father diligently considering this thorowly do deliver this as an Oracle receiving confirmation from God And truly this I judge to be the meaning of those brotherly expressions that have and ought ever to ebbe and flow from Christian Churches to each other and from the Protestant Churches especially For if the Church of England when it was under Episcopacy saved the rights of other Churches which were disciplinary and condemned them not but held correspondency with them giving them the right hand of fellowship and the other forreign Churches published their candor and approbation of Episcopacy where it was constituted and pressed obedience to it witnesse Reverend Calvi● in divers places and on divers occasions Learned Zanchy Grave Bucer Eloquent Beza Profound M●uline Accomplisht Chamier yea and multitudes of others of note in the Reformed Churches then doth this arise from that apprehension that the generals of Government being one and the same under both Disciplines Charity ought to passe the rest to the least injury of Christian Concord Farre be it from me to part whom God hath joyned together Wherein the Churches agree let them mind the things that tend to piety and unity the rest God will reveal in his good time for as Calvin after S t Augustine determines it Let every Church observe her own Customs It is profitable sometimes that Religion should have some variety so there be no ●mulation and new things be not introduced for novelties sake The Churches of Christ then have agreed upon Government as appointed by God yea and about the persons interessed in it those Bishops Presbyters and Deacons they never owned Armilustra's in which Souldiers were Priests nor Gifted men unordained for Church Officers this is of