Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	faith_n	unity_n	4,187	5	9.2413	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62739	A sermon preached near Exeter on Cant. c. vi. v. 13 being an exhortation to all Protestant dissenters to joyn together against popery.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing T146; ESTC R1224	22,033	31

not without great sin and mischief for such a rent is a sin against the Head dividing the unity of the spirit against the body hindring of its growth wounding it with pain maiming it with impotency depriving it of perfection against particular members in that it doth with-draw that measure whereby another member should have been supplied and doth drain and divert the fulness of Christ against a mans own soul in that as a branch cut off from the Vine he must needs become dry cease to be fruitful and grow worse and worse till he return back to be a new engrafted In a word if one man cannot grow in Christ whilst another is at a stand or doth decay and wither and the very juice and chyle that doth administer unto growing be speaking of the same truth and the only way of digesting this truth to making encrease of the body be the edifying of it self in love We may easily perceive how this unity of the spirit doth constrain the Church if it be possible to maintain the unity of her Body for she cannot keep the unity of spirit without it but if she cannot possibly do so then earnestly to desire and endeavour the return of her scattered and divided Members Now to say the truth the dissenting Brethren have been alwaies sensible of the weight of this argument and to break the force or rebate the edge of it they pretend divers matters as it were for their excuse since it cannot be denied but we were first a Church or else they could not have derived from Us as they do and that we were the first in possession of the faith as viz. 1. That they agree with Us in the unity of faith believing the same Doctrine of salvation 2. In the unity of the spirit having the same desires about the saving of themselves and others 3. In the bond of charity as we are all members they say of the same Catholick Church and as Protestant Professors members of one another 4. Then that variety of opinion and union in the point of charity are not inconsistent 5. Nay that divers Order Discipline and Communion need not break the bond of charity unless by accident of mens corruptions which if they should be observed and humoured the Gospel it self could never have been preached for our Lord foretold that it would be an occasion of division 6. And for schism rightly understood that they look upon it as an heinous sin even as we do In which several pretences as they give us little cause of satisfaction so they give us a just and necessary occasion of returning somewhat more than is like to sort to their favour We must confess that when the Church is so divided that in the judgment of charity many godly persons do divide themselves from the body and in the judgment of the Church many men of eminent gifts and graces that were known to be such whilst they remained in her communion do desert her communion it cannot but prove an inexplicable inconvenience both to the Church and Them for if all believe and teach the same Doctrine of Salvation whence ariseth so much caution whom we hear such exceptions heats and scruples If we do not all believe the same Doctrine as it is to be doubted that we do not for as much as there seemeth not only to be a divers scope and drift in the pressing of many points of importance but that we fear our dissenting Brethren do not close with Us in one of the 12 articles of the Apostles Creed though some of them do not scruple at standing up when the whole is rehearsed in our Churches viz. I believe the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints putting such a construction upon it as is far from the consent not onely of our Church but of all Ages as we conceive I say how can we then grow up together into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body is fitly joyn'd together unto one encrease If they could hold still the same charity inviolable without the same Order Discipline and Communion as others do pretend whence should arise such animosities and contentions It cannot be altogether from mens corruptions as at the first propagation of the Gospel but if it do arise partly from the corruptions frailties and partialities of such as break without necessity partly from the passions of such as are offended justly as we conceive howsoever unjust or extravagant they may be when they are provoked let them joyn the whole verse together It is necessary that offences come but wo be to them by whom they come But as we conceive the nature of the thing it self doth necessarily infer a breach of charity suppose men more good or perfect than either They or We can find or our Ancestors before us or the Posterity to come for it cannot be that there should be two Communions wherein it is supposed to be unlawful for one to joyn with another but that one Party to the other must needs be as the Jew or the Samaritan But if it be granted that these two parties cannot possibly have perfect charity with one another which if the nature of the thing did not hinder the just judgements of God by reason of the violation of his own Ordinance would do it then it must needs follow that the body cannot edifie it self in love and so the Church must needs retain an earnest desire to be restored to its best estate when it was in Union for though we may remain possibly Members of the Catholick Church still yet because we doubt of our consent in the Catholick Faith we cannot be united nor joyn in perfect charity and though we be all Protestants and so members of one another we can take no greater benefit or priviledg thereby than English men when they are in civil wars with one another To deal ingeniously this is the charity of the Church she looketh upon such good men whom in charity we way esteem so in some measure as do divide and separate from Us and such as they may draw with them to belong to the body still not only of the Catholick Church but of such particular Churches from which they do recede or within whose Precincts they may chance to fall Therefore she is not rash to excommunicate them but useth all her care and power and tenderness to reclaim and to reduce them having arms ever open to embrace them and to restore them to her peace and to indulge them in what she may to oblige them the faster to her self So far are we from looking upon them as other Churches or that their schisms can make them such or as free from our charge though they renounce Us or as fallen from the hope of the Gospel with all their followers into an inevitable state of damnation though we cannot reduce them as the Papists judge of Us that we own even these as a part of the

Church of England against their wills and are ever ready to regain their good will and to reduce them to a better state for though we speak it soft and mildly we do judg indeed that these do much interrupt and disturb the way of salvation to themselves and others and do much impeach and prejudice those amongst our selves who before did run well and would yet proceed to do so if they did not object their rubbs and impediments in the way We answer further that whereas it is truely said Opinionum varietas opinantium unitas non sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Variety of opinions and unity of Opiners are not inconsistent Our Church alloweth a greater latitude in this kind than any of those that do pretend a latitude only to palliate their own restraints for amongst them if one be for Lay-Elders and another against it one for the power of Pastors another for the power of the People one for laying on of hands after baptism and another against it nay one for free-will and another for free-grace and so in certain lesser questions it hath been found enough to divide and sub-divide them into Parties Churches feuds and animosities whereas in our Church great variety of opinions may and do consist very well with the Unity of the Church Every Scholar knows how ingenious men do abound in their own senses even in the Schools and it is not at all to the prejudice of the Church but may be rather to her benefit that certain points be not carried otherwise in extremes but that there may be here a little and there a little and one to ballance with another But when this rule of variety or diversity of opinion is traduced to a contrariety of establishment they must give us leave to assume that such a diversity is utterly inconsistent with the Unity of the Church In vain therefore do they declaim in general against schism as much as we could wish being sensible of what Pamelius hath delivered viz. Schismatis nomen in Ecclesia semper ignominiosum publiceque damnatum In Tert. de praescript ad● Haeret. that the name of schism hath been alwaies ignominious in the Church and on all hands condemned whilst they defend in particular all the Sects at this day besides the Quakers to be true particular Churches that a man may safely joyn with any of them to do better that separation is no schism that the Church which imposeth though it be but things indifferent is the schismatical Church if it will not vary from her orders for the satisfaction of the weak or scrupulous and that in such cases the schismatical Churches which are so called are the truer and purer Churches of Christ and have all Church power within themselves to all intents and purposes for where can we now find a Schism which is culpable or a Church which can stand if she must vary from her order upon all demands or any possibility either of a Church or of a Schism By all which it seems that some of our dissenting Brethren do misdoubt themselves as lyable unto this charge of schism and would either cloak it neatly if they could or if it come to the worst defend that schism is no such sin as they sometimes granted and that they may lawfully live in schism especially when their maintenance ariseth that way as some have put themselves upon that exegency and so are bound to maintain that which maintaineth them framing their lives and doctrines according to their interests Not to grate any further upon that point wherein they are so tender there remaineth yet another word about the Unity of the Spirit that they have the same desires if not more intense and earnest than we our selves for the good of souls for the saving of themselves and others We do not doubt but that there is a zeal of God amongst many of them though not according unto a right knowledge not because they are more weak or ignorant than We but only otherwise perswaded or inclined howsoever it hath happened to them We trust that many of them do sincerely mean as they profess And so far as this is true we acknowledge the working of one and the same spirit in them and Us We look upon them as a part of the body and wherein they are not only not against Us but for Us that they are so far One with us But then if they do really believe that we have the same spirit amongst us or some of us at least why should they so magnifie the same spirit in themselves above the same in Us as if there were not the same power and purity of the spirit amongst Us to conveigh grace unto the hearers or to make them perfect that do come unto Us which Query we have the more reason to put home to our Brethren since they may seem now to cease from their instance upon the work of conversion a gift which they thought almost singular to themselves before as a thing below their Auditories or to preach against prophaneness wherein they were once the Boanerges's of the Age seeing their followers must be taken for no such and it may be cannot well bear it so that all their writings of late which are the reports of their Preachments to such as cannot hear them do run in a new strain which is much different from that way which they did admire and applaud before Again if they do acknowledg such an Unity of Spirit with Us how can they think or pretend as they do to be compleat without Us and to have no need of Us 1 Cor. 12.15 c. how happeneth it that they do so little weigh what the Apostle saith that one member hath need of another And if the foot shall say because I am not the hand I am not of the body is it therefore not of the body And if the ear shall say because I am not the eye I am not of the body is it therefore not of the body The eye cannot say unto the hand I have no need of thee Nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you That there should be no schism in the body but the members should have the same care one for another But if these members separate from the body can each member which is separated subsist by it self or any few that joyn together presently constitute themselves an entire Body a complete Church Or can any of their Officers which was but as an hand or a foot before make it self an heart or an head in a New Church and think that in truth they are such if they be not altogether useless Judg. 9.15 which cannot but put us in mind of Jotham's Parable and though we shall abstain from applying the prickles of it to our Brethren yet we doubt that it is this ambition of some hand or foot or other which thinks it self worthy of a better place that is one of the sad occasions