Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	church_n	invisible_a	visible_a	3,670	5	9.2967	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65559	A sermon against neutrality whether as to the main substantials of religion or matters of injoyned order / preached at the visitation of the Reverend Doctour Cary, Arch-deacon of Exon, at St. Marie's Exon, on Friday in Easter Week, 1663 by E.W.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1663 (1663)	Wing W1516; ESTC R27060	24,015	54

comprehend all the most refined precepts of Philosophick morality the best rules of prudence the mysteries of States and Governments could I distinguish as thin as an Angel and speak as sweetly as the imaginary Suada in a word and with reverence to the Almighties wisdom had I if possible the Omniscience of God himself that knowledge alone being excepted by which he knows himself so that it might be supposed that though I knew all things else I knew not him I see not how such an Omnisciency it self could truly denominate me wise For if Wisdom be what it was ever defined the knowledge of the best and most sublime matters and there be none better than the first and chiefest good none higher than the most High then whatsoever knowledge sticks at any thing below him falls so much short of Wisdom and may no more truly be call'd so than an Heap of Rubbish may a Treasure Wherefore my Brethren whatever the particular issue of things may here below ever prove let us never repent our selves of our espoused study nor at any time slacken our diligence herein The LORD being God let us follow him the Science in which we labour delivering to us the knowledge of him let it have our utmost pains our best hours our chiefest thoughts Meditate upon these things give thy self wholly to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be 1 Tim. 4. 15. dwelling in them if thou intendest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proficiency you know whose counsel it is When Eccentrical studies for the main take up a Divine it is a thousand to one but he proves corrupt in Doctrine remiss in practice one or both but it will assuredly follow that he shall grow negligent and dull in his Office and hear ill amongst the people You will pardon the confidence of the Assertion for its Truth What we have said of matters of Christian II. faith we will say also of the Precepts of Christian life If the Law or Rules of Living which the Scripture delivers are the Law of this God then ought they and that above all other Precepts to be observed This holds still due analogy to the ground of the Prophet's argument that whosoever is God is to be followed It is most divinely observed by Plato that of the Ph●●done gods counsel or will nothing can be known without an Oracle and I will not fear to gratifie the Enemies of Scripture so far as to grant what I am sure the Christian Church will not refuse that if there be any Oracle in the world which can be proved to contain a Revelation of the divine will by so good Arguments as the Scripture may it shall be esteemed by us of equal nay of greater authority But the best Morals ever extant in the world besides what we read in Scripture bear their Authours in their faces with whose frailties every page of them is intersperst and whatsoever of virtue they teach we shall sinde the same to be either some of the lower rudiments of Christianity or at least to be had more purely from these sacred Fountains It is indeed reported of Julian that he preferred Pindar's Odes before David's Psalms and Phocylides before Solomon's Proverbs yet as he could not pretend that either of those his admired Authours were inspired by God so whosoever shall consider them together which is not the Work of a Sermon shall finde a greater disparity than of that in the Adage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of all the pretences in this case that which hath most taken in the World since our Saviour's Turcarum gens pugnacissima facile suscepit suscepit religionem moribus suis congru ntem Hug. Grot. de ver Christ Rel. l. 6. coming is the Alcoran which the Turks and their Dominions easily received as delivering a Religion suitable to the Genius and manners of the People But besides that Histories which give us its rise easily discover its imposture it most manifestly betrays it self in owning our Jesus the Saviour of the World and yet not onely denying his Death contrarily to the Relations of Heathen Writers themselves but obtruding a Rhapsody of Precepts for his which even Nature her self with that half dye she yet hath can discern to be vicious and the whole World knows to contradict the Body of that Doctrine which was divulged and received in the World as his long before Mahomet breathed About the Year 1200. came forth at Paris a Nichol. Eymeric director Inquisit p●rt 2. quest 9. sect 4. Idem Ma● Paris ad An. Dom. 1256. Book under the name of the Eternal Gospel or the Gospel of the Holy Ghost which pretended to be Melius perfectius dignius than the Gospel of Christ and did pronounce that upon its coming and promulgation Evacuaretur Evangelium Christi written by one Johannes de Parma an Italian Monk and then of the Order of the Mendicant Friers whose Order this Gospel endeavouring above all other to establish was by them for about 56. years space endeavoured to be introduced but it excelled the Gospel of Christ onely for such absurd Blasphemies as these that granting both the Son and Holy Ghost to be God yet it did assert Quòd Spiritus Sanctus accepit aliquid ab Ecclesià sicut Christus in quantum homo accepit aliquid à Spiritu Sancto Quòd Christus Apostoli non fuerunt perfecti in vitâ contemplantium Quòd vita activa jam fructuosa non est sed vita contemplativa Quòd nullus simpliciter est idoneus ad instruendum homines de spiritualibus aeternis nisi qui nudis pedibus incedunt with much more such and worse stuff Now these being the accursed and vain Doctrines of the Pretenders to another Gospel or Rule of Christian li●e what do they but in effect confirm the Gospel of our Lord in the possession of its long and justly obtained authority It being then of God let us closely follow it and think our selves no otherwise Christians than as we walk as well as speak and believe according to this Rule And then further If we receive that the Lord III. being God is to be followed we must also receive that the Vnity of the Church of this God being this God's Ordinance is to be observed at least not to be forsaken When the Scripture terms the Church Christ's Body the House of the Living God the Mother of us all it is most clear to me that whosoever forsakes the Church cannot conclude himself to be a Member of Christ's Body or Childe of God's Family And for men to content themselves with the conceit of holding union with the Invisible Church when they must needs acknowledge they desert the unity of the Visible is for them to resolve to be of no other Church but the Church of Heaven for that 's the Invisible Church though they themselves are yet in an earthly state But on the contrary That that part of the Church which is on earth is visible and

out of any design of lifting out the Lords day or it's observation which let him be accursed that shall do but of discovering it's true grounds I shall briefly lay down that parallel which a most skilful hand drew in this case contracting or adding according to present occasion There was saith my Author this ground in nature for the Lords day that a certain part of our time should be set apart for the special worship of God in publick and the like ground is there for Episcopacy that to the celebration of that worship certain persons by way of Office should be assigned who for their labours herein should be worthily rewarded Now I adde that whereas in nature there was no more particular ground for one day in seven than for one in eight or one in ten for that reason in the Commandment the Lord rested the seventh day is not intrinsecal to the nature of the thing but proceeded onely from the Will of the Lawgiver prescribing his own example as an incentive to the observation of this his Law Whereas I say there was no more particular ground for that there is in this case a particular ground in the nature of the thing that betwixt all such consecrated persons there should not be a parity or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is this That they are not all of equal ability nor of equal integrity and the State of all Churches here on earth ever was and will be such that they must depute those to teach and watch over others who have need themselves in many cases of their work to walk by the light of others eyes whose Counsels every man naturally prizing his own would have little sway if their Authours had no Authority over them which Authority is also otherwise necessary to keep all in their duty or else punish and remove them so that the People may as well cast off their Ministers as the Ministers their Bishops and we see when the one had hapned the other had very neer succeeded But to return Of the Lords day there was amongst the Jews a pattern one day in seven to be sanctified to God and the like pattern was there of Episcopacy the Government by Chief Priests Priests and Levites Ordained by God himself The Institution of the Lords day came not immediately from Christ himself on earth but from his Apostles whom he left invested with a like Authority to his own after his departure A like institution was there of this also from the same Apostles guided as well in one as in the other by an infallible spirit Which Apostolike Institution give me leave to say may be proved by as good testimonies and authorities as any thing of this nature can be yea by the very same By which we prove the Canon of the Scripture to be the Canon of the Scripture that is these Books no more and no less to be Scripture and if there be any credit to be given to Ancients and he must leave Qui au●toritatem omnem majoribus suts ad●mit sibi nullam relinquit Dr. Pria●aus Fassic Controv. ob 4. himself none who will deny all to them and be besides most miserably guilty of dishonouring his Father and Mother the order came not onely from the Apostles but was honored Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud qua● ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident aliis praesidentur by their being of it Tertullian one of the most Ancient Writers after a challenge made to the Hereticks He had a little before said of the Hereticks Edant origines Ecclesiarum suarum cvolvant ordinem Episcoporum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem c. Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Apostolica census suos deferunt sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habens Polycarpum ab Johanne collocatum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordiratum edit proinde utique caterae exhibent quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutos Apostolici seminis traduces habent De p●aescript adversus haeret Cap. 32. to shew their succession from the Apostles affirms that as to the true Church the Sees wherein the Apostles themselves had ruled were not onely then in being but had respectively a kind of preheminence and not onely so but could produce Bishops placed in them some by the Apostles some by Apostolike men that had long lived with the Apostles But we must again return to our Authour and say further The Observation of the Lords day was occasioned by that Solemn Action of Christs rising again thereupon And this was occasioned by those several Orders which were in the Church under Christ viz. that in which Christ himself was that of his Apostles inferiour to him that of the seventy Disciples inferiour unquestionably to them all The mention of that under the name of the Lords day we meet with Revel 1. once in the Revelation and under the equipollent Acts 20. 7. term of the first day of the week twice or thrice 1 Cor. 16. 2. elsewhere And no whit less obscure is the mention of the Order of Bishops under a like Apocalyptical expression of the Angel of the Revel 2 3. Chapte●s Church of Ephesus c. which by undoubted proofs hath been manifested to belong to this cause and under the name of the Ruling Elder which how contrarily to it's intent of 1 Tim. 5. 17 18. late it was interpreted of Lay-Elders by those who notwithstanding they thus interpreted would not thus fulfil the Text in their own interpretation by allowing those their ruling Elders the double honour especially that which the next words thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Ox that treadeth out the corn enforce a share with them in the Church-maintenance I leave to the judgement of those very expositors proceeding with my Authour to what Saint Paul saith to Timothy and Titus that he left the one at Ephesus to see that some taught no other Doctrine 1 Tim. 13. Which is manifestly to have inspection over the teaching Ministry and the other at Crete to set in Order things that were wanting and to Tit. 1. 5. Ordain Elders in every Church To all which we may adde the oftner mention of Bishops Presbyters or if we will give it a French-English word Priests and Deacons any where of the Lords day The obscure mention of the Lords day in Scripture was explained in the writings of the first age and particularly in Ignatius his Epistles In the like manner the obscurity of the Holy Text in this case was as by others so by the same Ignatius in all his Epistles and particularly in each of those six first which were of such Authority of old that Saint Jerome witnesseth they used even in his days publickly to be read in the Churches and have of late after a Fiery trial made of them received as well an ample Vindication from a famous Prelate Bishop Usher against whom the adverse