Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	church_n	communicate_v	communion_n	1,771	5	9.7997	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63163	The Trial and determination of truth, in answer to The best choice for religion and government		1697 (1697)	Wing T2166; ESTC R10526	46,640	49

Ark wherein were preserv'd the Clean and Unclean And without Vanity I may speak it though we have too many wicked People belonging to the Church of England yet there are at the same time a far greater Number of truly pious Christians that live up to the Strictness of Religion to be found in the Communion of this Church than amongst all the Dissenters in the whole Kingdom As for the two places in Scripture produc'd for your Separation read like truly Wise Men consider the Coherence and Design of them and it will plainly appear that by the first Text is meant That Christians in the Church of Corinth shou'd not meddle with Unclean and Abominable Practices that were us'd by the Heathens in the Worship of their False Gods These they were not to touch to have no Fellowship with them in these but rather to reprove them that is in Judgment to condemn by Word to reprove and in Conversation to avoid them So that this is nothing at all touching the Duty of one Christian communicating with another though it has too often been so abus'd and mis-interpreted And for the second Text it is certainly to be understood also of Idolaters and according to most Interpreters of the Roman Idolatrous Polity and is a Command to all Christians to forsake the Communion of That Church lest they endanger their own Salvation by Communicating with her in her Idolatrous Worship And if this be the true Sense of the Words it abundantly justifies our Separation from the Roman Church but affords not the least Plea for Dissenters to separate from Ours And now I pass to THE SENTENCE YOU Latitudinarians Presbyterians Independents Seekers and Quakers You have had a fair and impartial Tryal upon an Indictment for your Opposing and unjustly Separating from the Church of England The Jury has brought you in Guilty You stand condemn'd by many Laws of this Realm You are condemn'd by the Holy Scriptures you are condemn'd by the Practice of the Church of Christ for above 1500 Years together and by that of all Reform'd Churches who were zealous for Episcopal Government us'd Liturgies and Publick Forms of Prayer had Festival Commemorations of Saints not to pray to 'em but to praise God for 'em had their Rites and Ceremonies in their Publick Worship more in Number and more liable to Exceptions than those us'd in our Church at this Day You are separated from a Church that was planted by our Lord and his Apostles water'd with the Blood of Holy Martyrs and redeem'd by the Blood of the Holy JESUS You are withdrawn from a Church that proposes no sinful Terms in all her Communion a Church wherein a Man may be as faithful a Servant of the True God as Loyal a Subject to his Prince as Honest a Man in his Dealings as good a Neighbour and as firm a Friend as can be found in any Church or Society of Men in the Christian World Therefore You Sir Anthony ' Squire Mouth Maggot and Ponteus with all the rest who are obstinate Opposers of so Excellent so Incomparable a Church You must go to the Place from whence your many Erroneous Opinions came Rome or Geneva there to be dealt with according to your Merits And the Lord have mercy upon your Souls Here follow their several CONFESSIONS Sir Ant. Here now behold upon my bended Knees I confess the Justice of the Court ask Mercy of this abus'd Corporation and bid Adieu to it and all my silly and credulous Votaries in these mournful Words Good People I own that our Rise was unjust Our Fall the Desert of Deceit and of Lust Squire O Pan aliique Dii Dat mihi ut intùs Sim pulcher I know not what God can be a Friend to me I invoke them all that tho' I appear in the darkest Colours to the Worlds Eye I may not always suffer the gloomy Storms of an evil Conscience nor be continually frighted with the Deformities of my Soul Siccinè perpetuo cruciantur crimina Luctu Hic turpem spectate virum ludibria Fati Ah scelus Ah Facinus me vix mercede potitum Sub Veneris Ouercu Threnis mea Musa reliquit I who once was a great Man amongst Poets Historians Linguists Orators especially in the Opinion of the Fair Sex have scarce a Word left to plead in my excuse I must withdraw Time and true Repentance may do much but 't is impossible I can presently retrive my lost Reputation and what signifies a Chair of State without it I 'll then make a Vertue of Necessity in this Publick Place abdicate my Office and with all Humility resign That which I cannot hold Farewel Scydromedia when I am gone Farewell for ever Judge I heartily wish that All Dissenters wou'd make such ingenuous Confessions as these two Gentlemen have now made However I shall in another Place fairly represent this their Civil Behaviour towards the Court to gain 'em a Reprieve and if possible a Pardon The first I do the latter I dare not promise Quak. Verily Friends our Light within us our Personal Light we have trusted to like an Ignis Fatuus has led us upon many perillous Boggs and amazing Precepices and there left us Presbyt Ah Brethren I that have often preach'd Hell and Damnation to others enough to scare People out of all Sense as well as Religion am now under the Sentence of Condemnation My Soul alas is like a glimmering Candle in a dark deceitful Lantern a Lantern I say whose Sides are all Dark I can give but little or no Direction to the People I have a small Degree of Light or Comfort now left to support me And Oh! I must expect less when I come to die Indep My Spirit is like very like may well be compared unto I say 't is like a poor venemous disturb'd Spider in a broken Cobweb it makes all the haste it can to escape the Broom of Impartial Justice Seeker 'T is as plain as the Sun in a Cowcumber that there are some few good meaning People among the many Sorts of Dissenters I have sought pry'd and narrowly look'd into them and truly have never been able to fix in any of their Persuasions to my content Since I foolishly departed from the Church of England in vain have I pursu'd what is not to be had in Error and Schism namely True Peace and Satisfaction of Mind Judge I observe our Phanatical Canters are very unlucky at Simile's and after all their Juggling when they come to be serious to make a right Discovery they 're at a loss Then they cry out Alas Sirs how sadly have we been cheated misled and deluded nay almost inevitably ruin'd our selves and others by forsaking the Church of England And I need use no more Words to advise the Dissenters to return speedily to that Pillar and Ground of Truth which cannot deceive them The SPEECH to the CHURCH ALL you Gentlemen Lovers of the Church of England of that most sound incomparable Religion and

in this Matter Henry I confess These are Truths not to be deny'd many Particulars to be avoided and many to be practised by every good Christian I know that the World is grown to that pass that the repeating of the plainest Texts is accounted by many as unconcluding in Divinity as in Philosophy But 't is time for us to lay aside all our Sophistry and to prefer the Wisdom of God before our own O! my deluded Brethren have we not troubled the Nation and our selves too much with unreveal'd Secrets hearkning to Fables and rejecting the Truth Have we not been for making a Church a Saint a Minister a Heaven a Christ a Light a God in our own Imagination while the Truths in Scripture are nothing worth in respect of These Have we not delighted in Tattlings Wandrings busying our selves in Things which concern us not Are not our Opinions new Opinions contrary to the Church Don't we use our Liberty for a Cloak of Disorder a Cloak to Sacrilege a Cloak to usurp the Divinest Imployments To cry All are one in Christ Jesus therefore all are one in a Kingdom a Church a Family We are all free from beggarly Rudiments the Rudiments of the Ceremonial Law therefore we are free from Ceremonies of Order and Decency among Christians therefore no Tythes to be paid no Priests to be maintain'd tho' the Priesthood of Christ be not a Levitical but long before a Levitical Priesthood a Priesthood after his Order that received Tythes a Tything Priesthood before the Levitical Law was instituted and that not for a short duration but for ever after the Order of Melchizedech We have declaim'd against Priest to destroy Minister we say Christ is an High-Priest and yet have deny'd his Ministers to be Priests of an Inferior Order Our Lives have been questioning tatling opposing railing damning Lives And truly Friends such Lives are contrary to the Light of Christ the Light of the Word or any Light but that which the Scripture calls Darkness And however we may come off before an Earthly Judge 't will be too hard for you to answer these Things at an higher Tribunal Then Brethren 't will be better for you to say Lord we have believed trusted hoped in thy Word than We have disputed question'd and contemn'd it Better for our Light to say O Lord we have receiv'd thy Prophets in thy Name give us we beseech thee a Prophet's Reward than We have slain thy Prophets revil'd and set at naught thy Ministers and their Ministry Therefore as you love your Salvation as you desire the Favour and Fruition of God if your Souls Reputations and Consciences are dear to you no more of these Things which the Light of Eternal Truth tells us we must avoid Judge What say you to the Practical Part of Religion Can you clear your selves in the foregoing Particulars Henry I wish we could do so But alas when I examin'd my Life by the Rules of Truth I found little of the Christian in me while I adher'd to my own Light For is this Brotherly Love to separate from the Church and think nothing worth our Labour but what opposeth it Is this to prefer one another in Honour when we think our selves so holy that we abhor the Congregations of Church-men think we are polluted to join in Prayer and Communion with them so wise that all Words besides our own are vain Words all Books but ours are meer Errours that we and none else have the Light the Word the Truth all Privileges Is it to live peaceably as is possible when we think it an excellency to disturb Order to find fault with every thing but our own Inventions and agree in nothing but to disturb that which is establish'd Is this the Peace we are to exercise Is this the Quietness of Illuminated Christians The True Light shews us That if we have Faith we must have it to our selves not to disturb the Church of God with it We may all be Christians and yet have our several Opinions But if we have our Opinions different from the receiv'd Opinions of the Visible Church we ought to keep them to our selves not to divulge or disperse them to disturb our Brethren How can we say that we hold fast the Profession of our Faith without wavering when we scarce know what Article of Faith we have not rejected We dispute of Heaven or Hell of any Light or Way to Heaven but that within us First We contemn'd and threw off the Bishops the Worship and Discipline appointed and approv'd by them Next We contemn'd the Presbyters which we us'd as a Means to destroy Bishops We rejected the Independents which shew'd us a different Way from Presbytery Is there any thing we now approve in any of them but the Extempore's And not them neither but as they serve a Turn Is this holding fast to seek all new to reject old Doctrines old Principles Rules and Ceremonies We are Waverers Questioners of all things Holders of nothing The Truth tells us We are to study Quietness to esteem a Minister very highly in Love for his Works sake to withdraw from every Brother that walks disorderly to follow the Churches of God But our Lives do directly oppose the Truth Nobis quiet a movere merces videbatur We have always been for Troubled Waters if we cou'd but question or contradict put an odious Gloss or Interpretation upon the Church That was a Pleasure to us We love the Clergy so well that we wou'd detain their Tythes that Poverty might make them Blessed We rail against Tythes not that we think 'em unlawful but for other Reasons We have a long time made it our Business to revile the Clergy of England to finite the Shepherds that the Sheep might be scatter'd and to draw the Hearts of the People from them Are not we to withdraw from every Brother which walks disorderly And does not he walk disorderly who walks contrary to those Duties which the Apostles have taught in their Epistles Are we not to follow the Churches of God But we have followed every Separation a Meeting-house a Desart a Secret-chamber a Schism-shop a Seducing-school any Place but a Steeple-house How do we follow the Apostles if we don 't as they require Do we practise that Lowliness Meekness and many other Christian Duties Do we agree with others as far as we can and wait till God shall be pleas'd farther to reconcile us We shou'd not permit Women to lay aside their Silence and Subjection and to become Speakers in our Seducinghouses I 'm sure they don't instruct in Meekness but question with Impudence evade by Ignorance gloss by Impertinence and conquer by no Dispute but violent Bawling and invincible Insolence Women's Disputing lost us Paradise and Women's Preaching can do no less than lose us the Truth of our Doctrine and the Peace and Safety of the Church And if my Brethren would duly consider the Plainness and Authority of these unerring Rules