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	know_v	mark_n	2,957	5	9.4770	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46968	The true mother church, or, A short practical discourse upon Acts II, concerning the first church at Jerusalem	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.; Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703. Second five year's struggle against popery and tyranny.	1688 (1688)	Wing J847; ESTC R39039	9,628	23

may gather what sense the Christians in those days had of it that it was a great instrument of holiness and a religious tye upon them to lead a good life And therefore what reason can men now give why they neglect so holy and so usefull an Institution Have not we as much need to arm our selves against temptations to sin as they had Or are we so perfect that we are above those means of grace and those helps to a good life which they constantly used No surely Mens Consciences tell them otherwise But the truth is Men neither are nor are willing to be so holy as those Men were For if they would but examine their Hearts why they are so loath to come to the Sacrament I doubt not but the main reason which lies at the bottom is this Because it would engage them to a greater strictness of life than they are willing to undergo If they receive the Sacrament they must leave their Sins which they are loath to part with they shall be obliged to forgive their Enemies whom they had rather be revenged of in a word they shall enter into new engagements whereas they had rather be free and at their liberty Now if Men would rightly understand things these are the greatest Motives in the World to persuade them to be frequent at the Communion That it may engage us to leave our Sins that so iniquity may not be our ruine That it may restrain us from evil and prompt us to obedience That it may be a tye upon us not to undoe our selves and may further us in our way to everlasting Happiness That by the repeated exercises of loving and praising God in this holy Ordinance we may be prepared to spend a happy Eternity in those blessed Employments So that those things which make Men loath to come to the Communion are indeed if they be duly considered the greatest Arguments to draw them thither And it is a hard thing that men should be hindered and kept back from a duty by the very advantages and encouragements of it 4. The last thing in a word which they also continued stedfast and constant in was their Prayers and Religious Addresses to God both for themselves and for others as also in Praises and Thanksgivings wherein they poured out their hearts before God and made known their Requests to him and blessed him for his mercies They were instant at the Throne of Grace as being sure to be supplied from Heaven with those good things which they could not give themselves They were much in this profitable and delightfull converse with God and in paying this Worship to him which exercises all pious graces at once and gives God the honour of all his Attributes of his goodness and wisedom and power of his dominion and providence over us Thus I have given you in short a Pattern of the Primitive Piety that by beholding your first Ancestours in Christianity you may be incited to follow them and blush to see your selves come so far behind them That you may see what a Believer was and what that name signified in those days that so you may endeavour to fill up that glorious title by such holy and devout lives as they led that you may imitate them in the constancy and unweariedness of their devout Exercises continuing stedfastly in the Apostle's doctrine and in fellowship in breaking of bread and in prayers The first Christian Church must needs be a safe Pattern for us to imitate The first and most perfect in any kind is the measure and standard of all others in that kind And surely nothing could be wanting to that Church in which the Apostles were present and into which they poured forth all their Doctrine And therefore every other Church is more or less pure and perfect as it is more or less conformable to this First Church of Ierusalem which is the Mother of us all Now if we should try the Roman Church which pretends to be the onely Catholick and Apostolick Church by the marks and characters of this which we know to be Apostolick we cannot but see that it has very much degenerated and departed from it They have plainly corrupted the Apostle's Doctrine and have changed the Christian Religion into quite another thing than what it is in the Scripture They will have no manner of fellowship with other Christians unless they will submit to their Errours and Corruptions They are fallen very much beneath the Ancient Christian Charity I need not say how much They have mangled and maimed and transformed the Sacrament Instead of breaking of Bread they abolish the Bread and sacrifice our Saviour Instead of delivering the People the Cup they drink it up themselves And instead of giving them that Sacramental Bread which our Saviour left them they give them a Stone I mean the hard Doctrine of Transubstantiation As for their Prayers they are such as the Apostles and first Believers never used directed to Angels and to dead Men And such as the generality of the People cannot join with them therein for they are likewise in a dead Language which has not been spoken almost this thousand years and all over Christendom at this time not one in a hundred understands it And are not these fit men to brag of Antiquity who have so visibly departed from the First Church that was planted in the World Have they not reason to insult over us and ask us Where was our Church before Luther or Cranmer when we are able to answer them it is here in this Scripture where theirs is not to be found If we hold the first Faith which was once for all delivered to the Saints and perform the same Offices and practice the same things we are of the same Church For if we agree in these things which make up a Church neither distance of Time nor of Place can divide us or hinder us from being of the same Church This is the true Catholick Church which we always desire to be of to hold what was from the beginning and to conform our selves to that First Assembly of Christians which Ancient Churches themselves must acknowledge to be more Ancient Onely let us be sure to lead Primitive Lives and add an holy Practice to a sound Faith Or else we shall certainly perish though it be in an Apostolick Church it will save us no more than it did Iudas to be one of our Saviour's own Family THE END

Imprimatur Hic Libellus cui Titulus The True Mother Church Nov. 15. 1687. Io. Battely The TRUE Mother Church Or a Short Practical Discourse upon ACTS II. Concerning the FIRST CHURCH AT JERUSALEM LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1688. Price Two Pence THE True Mother Church Or a Short PRACTICAL DISCOURSE UPON ACTS II. c. Acts 2. 41 42. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls And they continued stedfastly in the Apostle's doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers IN this Chapter we have an account how the first Christian Church was gathered The former part of the Chapter is spent in relating to us the miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost which filled the Apostles and enabled them to speak with other Tongues And the first use which the Apostles made of these Languages wherewith they were so strangely endued was to publish the Gospel that mixt multitude which consisted of a confluence of Strangers from all Parts did every man hear them speak in their own Native Language the wonderfull works of God. And upon this occasion St. Peter made such an effectual Discourse proving that Jesus was both Lord and Christ and exhorting them to repent and be baptized in the name of Iesus that it won three thousand Souls to the Christian Religion This great Body of men added to the Disciples made the first Church at Ierusalem And accordingly the first mention of a Church actually in being is after the account given of these new Converts in the last verse of this Chapter And the Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved In the words I have chosen we have these two things I. We have an account how these men came to be Christians and the means of their Conversion Then they that gladly received his word were baptized II We have an account of their Religious Assemblies and the way of Worship used in this First and most Primitive Church And they continued stedfastly in the Apostle's doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers I. First How these men came to be Christians and the means of their Conversion Then they that gladly received his word were baptized They were wrought upon by St. Peter's Sermon they were convinced by his Discourse that Jesus whom they had crucified was the Messias and therefore according to St. Peter's direction they resolve to oppose him no longer but to cast themselves down at his feet and to own him for their Lord and Master by undertaking the Profession of his Religion Now if we observe the Heads of St. Peter's Discourse whereby he thus convinced them we shall find that he brings his Arguments either from the Miracles which our Saviour wrought which are a proof to all Mankind or from the Prophecies of the Old Testament which were an acknowledged Principle among the Jews 1. The Miracles which our Saviour wrought which were so many Divine Testimonies to the Truth of what he delivered Every true Miracle is a Testimonial from Heaven it is God's Seal to warrant our belief in that Person who is furnisht with such an extraordinary power It is an assurance to the minds of men that a Person is sent by God when he does those things which never man did as the People said of our Saviour and God does plainly own and approve that Doctrine which such a one delivers because he employs his own Almighty Power to gain credit and belief to that Person By a Miracle I mean whatsoever is above or contrary to the course of Nature and exceeds the power of it For that must needs be done by a Superior Power and cannot be attributed to any other than the God of Nature Now to say That we cannot know a Miracle when we see it because we cannot tell how far the power of Nature reaches how far natural Causes can act and no farther is a very poor and weak Objection For though we cannot assign the just bounds and limits of natural Causes how far they can act and no farther though we cannot just describe the sphere of their activity and draw a line about it yet we can tell what is out of the sphere of their activity and clearly see when an Effect does far surpass the virtue and efficacy of the natural Cause As for instance I know not how far the power of natural Causes may go to fetch a man who in all appearance is dead to life again There may be rare Spirits and Elixirs of greater virtue than I know of in this kind But I know that Talitha kumi the words that our Saviour used to the dead Maid are none of those Preparations and Restoratives we speak of I see there is no proportion at all betwixt the Means and the End betwixt the Cause and the Effect To say Lazarus come forth will not raise a man who has been dead four days and is turning to corruption That is such a Sleep out of which men cannot be awakened with a call There may be natural Causes for ought any man knows sufficient to stop the course of the Sun But it is demonstrable that the Voice of a Man can be none of those Causes Sun stand thou still in Gibeah is a very weak and incompetent means to produce such a mighty Effect This is a way of working peculiar to God alone to say Let there be light and there was light So that these are true Miracles they cannot possibly be put upon the score of Natural Causes Now our Saviour wrought a great many of these in his life time as St. Peter puts them in mind verse 22. That he was a man approved of God by miracles wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of them But then his own Resurrection was clearly the finger of God. For when a man dies whatever strange power or skill he may be imagined to have they then leave him and it is impossible that he should contribute any thing towards his rising and coming to life again And this St. Peter insists upon in the 32d verse This Iesus hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses This they were ready to justify and did afterwards with their Bloud 2. His other Arguments are plain Inferences and Deductions from several Passages of David which he undeniably proves cannot be meant of David himself though he spake them in his own person but that they were clear Predictions of Christ's Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven As you may see in the rest of his Discourse So that these men did not embrace Christianity but upon good grounds they were driven out of their unbelief by force of Argument and brought to the acknowledgment of the Messiah by clear and evident Proofs And then they readily closed with St. Peter's offer to repent and be baptized for the remission

of sins they gladly received his word and laid hold on it Our Saviour himself propounded his Doctrine to the World upon these terms he did not desire to be believed but upon sufficient Evidence Iohn 10 37. If I doe not the works of my Father believe me not He would not have men believe till they are convinced and see cause for it nor would have us captivate our understandings to any thing but the reason of the thing If we are Christians we ought to know why we are so or else we are Christians merely by chance We do not make our Religion our own but by a wise and considerate choice of it Prove all things saith the Apostle and hold fast that which is good We cannot have any fast hold even of that which is good till we have tried and examined it and find it worthy to be retained and such as we cannot part with For what we lightly take up we are apt as lightly to lay down And therefore our Saviour who would have us Christians not onely for a day or a week or a month but for our whole lives would have us believe upon so good grounds that we shall have no temptation to alter our belief As he would have us count the cost and engage in his service upon good advice lest that be applied to us which is said of the rash Builder This man began but was not able to finish St. Peter exhorts us to be ready to render a reason of the hope that is in us and that supposes our ability to give a satisfactory account of our Religion He supposes both that there is Reason for our Religion and that every one should have studied the Point and have considered the Reason that is in it And this tells us what we are to think of those men that stifle all enquiry into Religion who would have us believe upon their bare word who assume a greater authority than ever our Saviour did who are not contented unless men will captivate their Understandings to their Dictates and believe as the Church believes Thus has the Roman Church domineered over the Faith of men for several Ages This was not the way wherein Christianity was first propagated in the World. Men were then argued reasoned persuaded and convinced into it This was our Saviour's and the Apostle's method They treated men like men they used the proper Arms of Truth solid Proofs and substantial Arguments they overpowered men with Conviction and overcame the World with Demonstration As their Doctrine was true and good and such as would recommend it self to every Man's Conscience so their way of delivering it was fair and ingenuous and such a way as became heavenly Truth to be conveyed into the minds and hearts of men And this very thing would tempt a man to believe that the Romanists have made some considerable Alteration in the Doctrine of our Saviour because they take such a quite different course to propagate it And as a man would presume beforehand so he shall find it to be certainly true whenever he comes to examine their Doctrine for they have in many points transformed the wise and holy and harmless Religion of our Blessed Saviour into the quite contrary So that now indeed they must of necessity put out mens Eyes and deny them the use of their Reason before they can think of bringing men over to that Religion II. I come now to the second thing which is an Account of their Religious Assemblies and the way of Worship used in this First and most Primitive Church of Christ. And they continued stedfastly in the Apostle's doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers Of these in their order 1. They continued stedfastly in the Apostle's doctrine that is they were constant to the Apostle's teaching or instruction for that is the true sense and meaning of the words They were assiduous and attentive Hearers of what the Apostles taught This is the first and most necessary duty of Religion For how can men understand what they are to doe unless they are instructed in it Men may indeed wilfully and wickedly neglect their known duty but if they do not know it they cannot perform it if they would And therefore this has been always lookt upon as the first thing in Religion They that worshipped False Gods had nevertheless an Order of Men to instruct the People how to worship them aright to tell them how those Gods were to be served what rites and observances were proper to appease and to gain their favour and on the other hand to warn them of those things which would offend and incense these imaginary Deities And as the light of Nature prompted this course to natural Men so God himself took care to have Men instructed in those Revelations of his Will which he has been pleased to make to the World. When he gave the Law by Moses at the same time he appointed Priests whose lips should preserve knowledge that the People might enquire of the Law at their mouth And accordingly it was practised by the Iews down to our Saviour's time and after Moses was preached every Sabbath day being read in the Synagogues Nor was our Blessed Saviour wanting to make the like provision for the Christian Church for they are some of the last words which he spoke to his Apostles when he bid them teach all Nations to observe all things whatsoever he commanded them Matth. 28. the two last verses This he left at his departure hence as a Legacy to his Church And this upon the first gathering of a Church we meet with in the first place the Apostle's doctrine Now as the Apostles were carefull on their part to fulfill their Master's pleasure and command so the first Christians were as ready and forward to receive Instruction which is expressed by a very full word they continued stedfastly in the Apostle's Doctrine which implies both the assiduity and constancy of the action and that they were not wearied nor tired with it but were still fresh to this and all the other Duties And indeed what is worthy to gain and command mens attention if they will not hearken to the words of Eternal Life nor be instructed in the art of making themselves happy What can be more welcome to men or to what can they more willingly give ear than to such Discourses as instruct them in the things which belong to their everlasting happiness and shew them the way of salvation For the Gospel is what our Saviour out of the Prophet called it the preaching of deliverance to the Captives and the opening of the Prison doors to them that are bound And therefore what reasonable man who had any concern for himself and his own good would not readily embrace these glad tidings of Salvation and be very desirous to be put into a way that he might inherit Eternal Life These good Christians were of that mind and pursued this saving knowledge with