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	heresy_n	schism_n	2,940	5	9.8144	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43805	The necessity of heresies asserted and explained in a sermon and clerum / by the author of the Catholic balance and published as a consolatory to the Church of England in the days of her controversie ...	Hill, Samuel, 1648-1716.	1688 (1688)	Wing H2010; ESTC R32969	19,436	34

THE NECESSITY OF HERESIES ASSERTED and EXPLAINED IN A SERMON AD CLERVM By the Author of the Catholick Balance And published as a Consolatory to the Church of England in the days of her Controversie Exod. 14.13 And Moses said unto the people Fear ye not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which he will shew to you to day For the Aegyptians which ye have seen to day ye shall see them again no more for ever IMPRIMATUR Concio haec cui Titulus The Necessity of Heresies Asserted July 14. 1688. H. MAVRICE LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVIII 1 COR. II. 9. For there must be also Heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you HE that sedately considers the whole extraction and process of Evil and the more prevalent diffusion of Vice and Lewdness against all the dictates of Vertue and Piety while the lenity of the Divine Providence seems cessant and unprovoked and that discerns the strength and operation of External Temptations unto evil the passive easiness of our Tempers to admit them the prodigious looseness of motion in all our Animal Affections and their delusive influence upon our Understandings and our Wills and that examines what originals gave being to the Malice of the Apostate Legions of Darkness to alienate them from their God and to sollicit our subversion likewise by indiscernible methods of Imposture must necessarily fall into Origen's Resolution That if any Subjects discussible among men be hard to be traced the Generation of Evil must be reckoned as one of them And yet as if the natural difficulties of our understanding herein had not been sufficient even the Scriptures themselves seem to multiply our Perplexities while notwithstanding the fundamental truth of this Religious Principle That God is not the Author of any moral Evil they yet proclaim unto us not only a natural but a moral necessity of Sins and Offences Thus our Saviour preacheth a natural necessity of them It must needs be that offences come but wo be to him by whom the offence cometh And my Text averreth a moral necessity of Heresies and Divisions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For there must be there ought to be there is need that there he Heresies Nay that which more astonisheth is that the very Mediator of our Peace the great Henoticon of the whole World in reconciling all Mankind in one Body unto God of whose days it was prophesied that the Lamb should lie down with the Lyon tells his Apostles at their first mission That he came not to give peace but a sword to set a man at variance against his Father and the Daughter against the Mother c. And when we consider the malevolent nature of those Seeds of Discord in matters of Religion against all Societies either Sacred or Secular and the blessed means of Eternal Life also that these Mischiefs should become necessary and the result of Christianity it self seems a stupifying Riddle and that which fills me with all horror gives colour for the publick allowance of all Heresies and Blasphemies whatsoever Since then I am intangled in a Text so intricate and withal so necessary to be explained I must offer you the Petition that Origen made to his dear Ambrose in his adventure against Celsus That you would give me your Prayers to the Supreme Fountain of Wisdom that he may so invigorate me from above and shed his heavenly Dews upon my present Meditations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the savour of this Discourse may administer grace unto the Hearers and be like the savour of a Field which the Lord hath blessed The weight then of this Text puts us upon a threefold Enquiry I. What Heresie is II. What Necessity there is of Heresies III. What use we are to make of them I. Heresie then literally and generally importing Division in Philosophy among the Greeks signified the separation of Men into different Schools and Parties upon the account of different Doctrines and Opinions without any form of Excommunication Execration or Extermination from common and friendly Society Among the Jews Heresie consists in varying from and neglecting the Traditions of their Rabbins and is by them prosecuted with the severest Curses and Anathemaes whatsoever The Divisions that have appeared in the Christian Profession are by St. Basil the Great in his first Canonical Epistle to Amphilochius distributed into three Classes viz. Parasynagogues Schisms and Heresies The first are Uncanonical Assemblies of men unto voluntary and irregular Exercises of Religion under the pretence of a more active Zeal Schism is a breach of Peace Union and Orderly Government in the Church under the wanton Claims of a greater Liberty Heresie is an insurrection against the Church and her Doctrines derived from the Scriptures and universally received from the beginning under the imputation of falshood or deficiency and the ostentation of a purer and more perfect Knowledg Which being the greatest of all Religious Confusions and by the Apostolick and Canonical Discipline exposed to the strictest Censures of the Church will need some Characteristick Description to the end that we may at present aggravate the doubt how so vile a Monster should become necessary to the Church that so directly intends her dissolution Tertullian chargeth the Hereticks of his Age with many Irregularities against both Discipline and Morals That they made no distinction between Heathens Catechumens or Christians but imparted their Mysteries equally unto all That they reputed Simplicity to be prostration of Discipline That they kept Communion with all Parties against the Church That they were all proud and all pretended knowledg The very Females how pert and daring to assume the very Offices of the Hierarchy That their Ordinations were rash light and unconstant that sometimes they set up Novices sometimes Men engaged to the World sometimes the very Apostates of the Church That they had one Bishop to day and to morrow another That he that was a Deacon to day to morrow sunk to a Reader And he that was to day a Priest to morrow reversed to a Lay-man for that with them the Laity assume the Services of the Priesthood That their whole preaching was not to convert Heathens but pervert true Christians not to build any thing but destroy the Church That they conversed with Magicians Juglers and Sorcerers Thus far Tertullian Nay that which is most remarkable Heresie was at first the issue of Sorcery the Grand-father thereof being Simon Magus who transmitted his Sorcery and Heresie together to his trusty Disciple Menander who in both out-did his Original and thus descended all the various Brood of the Gnosticks and other like Vermin who took their Names from the respective Founders or Principles of their several Impieties They blasphemed the Creator Moses and the Prophets vilified and corrupted the New Testament at their pleasure forged false Gospels and Writings for Canonical and set up