Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	true_a	2,766	5	5.8656	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40812	A vindication of liturgies shewing the lawfulness, usefulness, and antiquity, of performing the publick worship of God by set forms of prayer, wherein several other things also of considerable use are occasionally discussed : in answer to a late book intitules, A reasonable account why some pious non-conforming ministers in England judge it sinful for them to perform their ministerial acts in publick solemn prayer by the prescribed forms of others / by William Falkner.	Falkner, William, d. 1682.	1680 (1680)	Wing F336; ESTC R24032	135,488	300

undertaking goes not so high as to urge these things against the lawfulness of Communion or joyning in the Religious Worship which is so performed 4. If some things be said in behalf of your Separation or as proofs that your withdrawing is no Separation and your dividing no Schism which till they be throughly examined and understood may seem plausible to you even this is not enough Plausible Arguments are no security to them who neglect their duty to justifie your practices without certain evidence that Communion is sinful Those who are men of any parts and learning among your selves know how easie it is to make some fair pretence and plea for almost any Error yea and to bring some subtle Arguments against any truth in the World But no Christian may hence conclude that hereupon he may safely neglect his duty of imbracing that Truth or rejecting that Error And I presume that those who are of the meanest rank among you may know that there are few causes so bad but that a Lawyer who hath used himself to pleading though he be not a person of profound skill in the Law may say something plauble in the behalf thereof But this will not justifie him who doth an injury to his Neighbour in his civil Rights Much less will the like secure you if you act against that which is really your duty to God his Church and other Christians in matters of Religion 5. In reading the holy Scriptures nothing can be more plain than that the Peace and Vnity of the Church The Precepts for Peace and Unity are plain and weighty parts of of our Christian duty is frequently and earnestly commanded and enjoyned and Divisions vehemently condemned and censured in the Christian Religion We profess our selves the Disciples of that Jesus who before his Death expressed his affectionate desire and prayer for Vnity in his Church And he declared this to be a great means whereby his Religion might be propagated and take the greater place in the World John 17.11 21 23. In Christianity while many are eager in prosecuting their Contests too highly in other things the Apostle assures us that Peace is one of the great parts in which the Kingdom of God consists Rom. 14.17 19 And he persuades to Unity in the Church with very great and affectionate earnestness Phil. 2.1 2. and urgeth the same in almost every Epistle Declaring also that they who make Drvisions contrary to this Christian Doctrine serve not our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 16.17 18. But can any persons be the better Christians by despising the weighty and frequently inculcated Precepts of Christianity Or can they be the faithful Disciples of Christ who are earnest in disobeying him even in such Precepts which besides his Authority are intended for the Honour and the progress of his Religion 6. The ancient Church zealous practisers hereof How unlike are these practices to the ancient Catholick temper of Christianity which long continued in the Church sutable to Rules of our holy Religion by the ancient Canons of the Vniversal Church they who would withdraw from the established Church (b) God Can. Eccl. Univ. can 65. and as disesteeming that would privately and without the consent of the Bishop set up another Church were under an Anathema And that the Ancient Fathers and Christians accounted the Precepts of the Gospel for Peace and Vnity to forbid and condemn Divisions and Separations from the Church and that they themselves were zealous in rejecting such practices may sufficiently appear from what I have shewed in (c) Libert Eccles p. 17 18 19 20 23 24. another Discourse But are the rules and practice of Christianity now changed and become quite different from what they were in the Primitive Times Or can any man pretend to a sufficient Warrant and Authority for altering the nature of these Duties or cancelling their Obligation 7. I know that some plead on your behalf that you are not chargeable with any blameable separation You meet indeed by your selves to perform publick worship in a different way from us as one Church may do distinctly from another but you do not censure the Church of England to be no true Church but profess to own her to be a true Church and her Communion to be lawful and therefore you are chargeable with no Schism Those Dissers not excused from schism who professedly acknowledg us to have a true Church and a true worship or unwarrantable division Now though this profession is not always made with sufficient clearness and freedom the acknowledgment thereof is so far from being a plea on your behalf that it is rather an unanswerable charge against you For you reject in your practice the Rules and Constitutions established by Authority concerning the order of the Church and its worship you generally express your dislike of our way of worship or at least your disesteem and undervaluing thereof many of you use your utmost endeavours to draw off persons from our Communion and to bring them to your Congregations and some of your chief Teachers have written their Letters to that purpose to such persons in whom they think they have any great interest some of which I have seen some years since your party frequently useth sharp censures against such pious persons who will not forsake our Church to joyn with you Your people ordinarily use reproachful expressions of our service yea concerning our Church and Ministry and so do your Teachers too frequently and if any persons forsake you and return to our Church they then fall under the load of your displeasure And because this behaviour is used towards that Church which you acknowledg to be a true Church and her Communion not sinful this is so far from justifying your practices that it renders them unaccountable and unexcusable 8. Can it be supposed The contrary proved from one end of Christian Unity that the Vnity and Peace our Saviour recommended for the gaining upon the world was only this that his Disciples and followers should all profess his Name and Doctrine but might make themselves of as many several parties as they pleased all of them openly before the world protesting their dislike of the several models the other parties embraced and also of that worship which was most publickly used and established by the chief Guides and Governours of the Church Now if all this might be done and care must only be taken that the dividing parties do not charge the main body of the Church to be no true Church or to have no true worship could this be the way to promote the honour of Religion or would it not rather make it appear contemptible And in our own present case do the enemies of the Protestant Reformation when they observe your dividing behaviour honour our Reformation because of our Vnity or do not you know that upon this account they upbraid our discord and divisions and make ill use of them And besides this