Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	church_n	doctrine_n	popery_n	4,964	5	10.7046	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59757	S. Pauls confession of faith, or, A brief account of his religion in a sermon preach'd at St. Warbroughs Church in Dublin, March 22, 1684/5 / by William Lord Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh.	Sheridan, William, 1636-1711.	1685 (1685)	Wing S3231; ESTC R32664	19,031	32

that Church with which they own they agree in Doctrine and is established by Law for they know not what reason but because they will I say if they did think on this and sadly reflect that whatever the Church of England either has already or may hereafter suffer through Popery is wholly due to themselves for having murdered the best of Kings and forc'd his Royal Issue to seek for safety under great necessities in Popish Countries and thereby exposed them to the dangers and temptations of the Romish Clergy who never fail to improve all opportunities for the advantage of the Church or rather Court of Rome I say if they did think on this they would now at least being so very obnoxious for their own preservation close with us in our Communion and not separate from that manner of Worship which we give to the God of our Fathers with the Apostle here in the Text which was the object and the second thing I was to speak of and leads me to the manner of his Worship which is the third particular in these words after that way which they call Heresie Whence we may first observe that it is no new thing for Religion and the Professors thereof to be traduced for Christ was scoft at as a Carpenters Son and Christianity is called Heresie and Christians Gallileans and this proceeds from the innate Malice and Ignorance that every Man has in him since the Fall which as the Spider extracts Poison out of the sweetest Flowers makes the worst interpretations of the best things and actions 2 Sam. 6.14 15 16. so that if David dance zealously before the Ark he shall not want a Michol to laugh at him and if Ezekiah destroy Idolatry some Rabshekah will not stick to say Is not this the God whose Altars Ezekiah broke down If Mary Magdalen pour a little Oil on the Head and Feet of our Saviour some Judas will be ready to say what needs this waste Constantine Joh. 21.4 for his bounty to the Church shall be called Pupillus one that needs a Guardian and Theodosius for his Piety Imbellis a Coward But as the Moon goes on silently in her course thô Dogs do bark at her so let us go on in our Religious Worship without regarding the Calumniations of our Adversaries 2. Observe That if we be morally certain that what we profess is true and according to Gods Word it matters not that the Papists call us Hereticks and the Separatists call us Papists Truth will justifie it self St. Paul you see is not offended that they call his Religion Heresie And this brings me to the fourth thing in the Text namely the Rule in these words believing all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets God who requires man to worship him has prescribed a Rule for his Direction and least this Rule might be forgotten or corrupted in tract of time by a bare oral Tradition of it from age to age he committed it to Writing for though the Word spoken be more efficacious yet the Word written is more durable therefore it was that Moses was commanded to write the moral Law in two Tables and that the Spirit in the Revelation says write and here St. Paul makes the Rule of his Faith all that is written in the Law and the Prophets It would not be proper now to dispute whether it be necessary to Salvation for a man to believe all that is written in the Old and New Testaments and therefore I shall only for resolving this Doubt and many other Objections that may follow thereupon offer these few particulars 1. That every distinct Sentence of the holy Scriptures does command and require our Belief as much as the whole or any part of them 2. That though a man may be saved without knowing all that is conteined in the Scriptures yet if he refuse to give credit to any part of them when it is revealed to him as such he cannot be saved 3. That every man is not only obliged under pain of Damnation to believe all that is Scripture when revealed to him but he is also bound to believe what is not revealed to him in preparation of mind 4. That we may and ought to infer from St. Pauls words in the Text that the Scriptures are a sufficient Rule of Faith and that there is enough conteined in them without any other additions both for our Direction and Practice Yet I deny not but that an undoubted Tradition if we were so well assured of the Truth of it by a general consent of all Ages as we are of the Truth of the Scriptures has the same Authority with Scripture for until the means of Salvation was fully perfected and the Scriptures committed to Writing Tradition was the Rule For St. Paul bids Timothy to take heed to all that he had received either by Word or Writing And though we do not with the Romanists allow Tradition to supplant the Scriptures by giving it equal Authority with them yet we allow much to an Apostolical Tradition because it may be necessary though not absolutely so to the clearing and better understanding of some intricate and mysterious passages in Scripture And this leads me to the fifth particular in my Text to wit the principal ground of his Confession in these words and have hope towards God which they themselves also allow that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust From which we may first observe That Prudence and Wisdom are consistent with true Religion for you see St. Paul says which they themselves also allow that is the Pharisees who did believe a Resurrection that by this means he might gain their favourable Opinion and so divide them and the Sadduces who did deny a Resurrection For God never gave a man Religion with design to deprive him of the use of his Reason and to make him a meer Natural He that charges his Disciples to be as innocent as Doves bids them be as wise as Serpents Mat. 16.10.17 and bids them to beware of men that will bring them into their Councils which shews that we must not with the Donatists of old and the Quakers now court the Lash and the Prison and seek for occasions of Trouble He only is the resolute Champion for Christ that will neither for fear of suffering weakly betray his Cause nor out of an ignorant Zeal run into needless dangers 2. We may observe from hence that the Hope of the Resurrection of the dead is a most powerful Argument to persuade men to believe and embrace and practise the Christian Religion For when a man seriously considers that he is not only to give an account here of what he has done and that this life does not set a period to his sufferings or rejoycings but that he shall rise again and undergo a new and impartial tryal and be for ever determined to live in eternal bliss or misery This consideration I say

Sea least his People finding them should think themselves absolv'd from their Oath And thus our Saviour Jesus Christ being to leave his Disciples obliges them to the use of his Sacraments till his return never intending to return again in humility but in glory If a dying Friend should give you a Ring as a token of his Love and charge you to keep it for his sake would you despise an instance of so great Kindness How comes it then to pass that we so little value so inestimable a Jewel as the blessed Sacraments which are the Badges of our Christianity whose Value and Dignity does not flow from the outward Elements For what is the sprinkling of a little Water the eating of a bit of Bread or the drinking of a sup of Wine But from the Ordinance and Institution of Christ just as a piece of Wax with the Kings Broad Seal stampt upon it is of more value than a thousand times so much in the Merchants Shop And truely if we would be taken for Christ's Souldiers we ought not to be ashamed of his mark the Holy Sacrament of his Body and Blood There are two things generally objected by many that are called Christians against receiving of it the one is that if they partake of it unworthily it will prejudice them Such would do well to consider that until they put themselves into a condition of Receiving it Worthily they cannot be in a condition of dying and how dangerous it is not to be always so the uncertainty of this life does shew The other Objection is That they are not yet willing to part with their Sins to which the Receiving of the Sacrament obliges them and therefore they will defer Communicating until they are Old and have a mind to repent and part with their Sins Such would do well to consider that they may fall short of the time they design for that work or if they should not that God may not give them then Grace to Repent And thus much of External Worship which I told you consists in Preaching and Hearing in Invocation and the reverent use of the Sacraments The other part of his Service is Internal that is the worship of the Spirit without which all our Preaching Hearing Praying Christning and Communicating are but like a Sepulcher outwardly beautiful but inwardly full of corruption for though the outward Form is that which approves us to Man yet it is the inward frame that justifies us to God Who does not like such Professors as * Cap. 7.8 Cap. 24.6 Joh. 4.24 Hosea compares to a half baked Cake and Ezekiel to a Pot whose scum is therein For God is a Spirit and he will nay he must be worshipt in Spirit and Truth Some there are who with Esop's Dog snatch at the shadow and lose the substance that is place the whole worship of God in bodily Exercise and external Adoration as bowing before a Crucifix in creeping to a Cross in running a bare-leg'd Pilgrimage in visiting the Reliques of the Saints in hearing of so many Masses in macerating the Flesh in hanging down the head for a day like a Bulrush in Crosses and Candles in Holy Waters and Holy Oyls in Pixes and Paxes and such like fripperies And there are others who like Lapwings make the greatest noise when they are farthest from their young ones though they pretend the greatest distance from the Papists yet come very near them in many things and place their whole Religion in running through thick and thin three or four Miles on a Sunday to hear a Man preach or rather prate nonsence in carrying a Bible under their Arms though they neither understand it nor draw any Inferences from it for the amendment of their lives and practices in condemning all as Reprobates that are not of their own Communion and in applying the intricate and misterious places of Scripture especially such as denounce Gods Judgments to those that are not of their own persuasion And if they can but prate like Parrots in the Scripture phrase and sing three or four Psalms upon a Lords Day and repeat at night the nonsence they heard the morning nay if they commend the Preacher for bawling lowd and making wry faces and thumping the Pulpit and holding forth for two or three hours and preaching off Book such stuff as is impossible for a considering person to write they conclude they have worship'd God sufficiently and that no more is required of them And truly though this is very far from being acceptable to God yet I wish we had not too just cause on the other hand to complain that internal Worship is too much slighted by us and Prayers and Sacraments too much neglected and that as in times of Popery all Religion and Worship was in a manner reduced to a Mass so now amongst us to a Sermon they seeing without understanding and we hearing without practising Thus much for the first particular to wit the Act in which I have spoken of the external and internal Worship due to God I now proceed to the second particular in the Confession and that is the Object of his Worship the God of my Fathers Observe no Saint nor Angel no Creature nor Throne no Dominion nor Power no Heathenish Diety but the only true God in Jesus Christ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God Exod. 20. and him only shalt thou serve And See thou do it not Chap. 22.9 saith the Angel in the Revelations to St. John I am thy fellow creature worship God The Manichees worship'd two Gods a God of Good and a God of Evil and the Tritheits three Gods whence they had their Name the Valentinians worship'd thirty couple of Gods and the Gentiles as St. Austin observes thirty thousand Gods thence they worship'd their adulterous Jupiter their beastly Apollo their drunken Bacchus their bastardly Aesculapius their theevish Mercury their bloody Mars their impudent Venus and their spiteful Juno De Deo uno vero as Zanchy observes And the Papists have equall'd if not exceeded the Heathens in the number of their Gods and their superstitious Ceremonies as may appear by the practice of the common people in these particulars 1. The Pagans had their several tutelar Gods for several places for Delphos worship'd Apollo Crete Jupiter Athens Minerva and Ephesus Diana And so in Popery England worship'd St. George Scotland St. Andrew Ireland St. Patrick Venice St. Mark and Millain St. Ambrose 2. In Paganism they had several Gods for several Elements as Jupiter for the Fire Juno for the Air and Neptune for the Sea And so in Popery they have Agathus for the Fire Theadulus for Tempests St. Barbara for Thunder and St. Nicholas for the Sea 3. In Paganism they had several Gods to pray to for their Cattel and their Fruit as Pan for the one Ceres for the other and Bacchus for their Wine and so in Popery they have Vrbanas for their Wine Jodocus for their Fruit Wandelinus