Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	catholic_n	church_n	unity_n	4,815	5	9.7580	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62739	A sermon preached near Exeter on Cant. c. vi. v. 13 being an exhortation to all Protestant dissenters to joyn together against popery.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing T146; ESTC R1224	22,033	31

not without great sin and mischief for such a rent is a sin against the Head dividing the unity of the spirit against the body hindring of its growth wounding it with pain maiming it with impotency depriving it of perfection against particular members in that it doth with-draw that measure whereby another member should have been supplied and doth drain and divert the fulness of Christ against a mans own soul in that as a branch cut off from the Vine he must needs become dry cease to be fruitful and grow worse and worse till he return back to be a new engrafted In a word if one man cannot grow in Christ whilst another is at a stand or doth decay and wither and the very juice and chyle that doth administer unto growing be speaking of the same truth and the only way of digesting this truth to making encrease of the body be the edifying of it self in love We may easily perceive how this unity of the spirit doth constrain the Church if it be possible to maintain the unity of her Body for she cannot keep the unity of spirit without it but if she cannot possibly do so then earnestly to desire and endeavour the return of her scattered and divided Members Now to say the truth the dissenting Brethren have been alwaies sensible of the weight of this argument and to break the force or rebate the edge of it they pretend divers matters as it were for their excuse since it cannot be denied but we were first a Church or else they could not have derived from Us as they do and that we were the first in possession of the faith as viz. 1. That they agree with Us in the unity of faith believing the same Doctrine of salvation 2. In the unity of the spirit having the same desires about the saving of themselves and others 3. In the bond of charity as we are all members they say of the same Catholick Church and as Protestant Professors members of one another 4. Then that variety of opinion and union in the point of charity are not inconsistent 5. Nay that divers Order Discipline and Communion need not break the bond of charity unless by accident of mens corruptions which if they should be observed and humoured the Gospel it self could never have been preached for our Lord foretold that it would be an occasion of division 6. And for schism rightly understood that they look upon it as an heinous sin even as we do In which several pretences as they give us little cause of satisfaction so they give us a just and necessary occasion of returning somewhat more than is like to sort to their favour We must confess that when the Church is so divided that in the judgment of charity many godly persons do divide themselves from the body and in the judgment of the Church many men of eminent gifts and graces that were known to be such whilst they remained in her communion do desert her communion it cannot but prove an inexplicable inconvenience both to the Church and Them for if all believe and teach the same Doctrine of Salvation whence ariseth so much caution whom we hear such exceptions heats and scruples If we do not all believe the same Doctrine as it is to be doubted that we do not for as much as there seemeth not only to be a divers scope and drift in the pressing of many points of importance but that we fear our dissenting Brethren do not close with Us in one of the 12 articles of the Apostles Creed though some of them do not scruple at standing up when the whole is rehearsed in our Churches viz. I believe the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints putting such a construction upon it as is far from the consent not onely of our Church but of all Ages as we conceive I say how can we then grow up together into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body is fitly joyn'd together unto one encrease If they could hold still the same charity inviolable without the same Order Discipline and Communion as others do pretend whence should arise such animosities and contentions It cannot be altogether from mens corruptions as at the first propagation of the Gospel but if it do arise partly from the corruptions frailties and partialities of such as break without necessity partly from the passions of such as are offended justly as we conceive howsoever unjust or extravagant they may be when they are provoked let them joyn the whole verse together It is necessary that offences come but wo be to them by whom they come But as we conceive the nature of the thing it self doth necessarily infer a breach of charity suppose men more good or perfect than either They or We can find or our Ancestors before us or the Posterity to come for it cannot be that there should be two Communions wherein it is supposed to be unlawful for one to joyn with another but that one Party to the other must needs be as the Jew or the Samaritan But if it be granted that these two parties cannot possibly have perfect charity with one another which if the nature of the thing did not hinder the just judgements of God by reason of the violation of his own Ordinance would do it then it must needs follow that the body cannot edifie it self in love and so the Church must needs retain an earnest desire to be restored to its best estate when it was in Union for though we may remain possibly Members of the Catholick Church still yet because we doubt of our consent in the Catholick Faith we cannot be united nor joyn in perfect charity and though we be all Protestants and so members of one another we can take no greater benefit or priviledg thereby than English men when they are in civil wars with one another To deal ingeniously this is the charity of the Church she looketh upon such good men whom in charity we way esteem so in some measure as do divide and separate from Us and such as they may draw with them to belong to the body still not only of the Catholick Church but of such particular Churches from which they do recede or within whose Precincts they may chance to fall Therefore she is not rash to excommunicate them but useth all her care and power and tenderness to reclaim and to reduce them having arms ever open to embrace them and to restore them to her peace and to indulge them in what she may to oblige them the faster to her self So far are we from looking upon them as other Churches or that their schisms can make them such or as free from our charge though they renounce Us or as fallen from the hope of the Gospel with all their followers into an inevitable state of damnation though we cannot reduce them as the Papists judge of Us that we own even these as a part of the

poor souls staggered by reason of the peril and were forced by fear to comply somewhat with the Heathen Sacrificers which much afflicted them in their consciences and they afterwards most humbly sought the peace of the Church and to be restored to her Communion But one Novatus a Presbyter opposed their restitution and upon the question raised a division in the Church and after that pretending unto more purity erected another Church if such a pretension may be but so named in opposition to the General Assembly calling themselves the Church of Martyrs So did he seek to scatter or divide those poor Members which the Church would have gathered and set in joynt by repentance and confession and such holy discipline as was necessary both to comfort them in respect of the time past and to confirm them for the time to come and many of these that were thus restored became afterwards constant even unto the death It was to be known therefore by the point of charity if there were no other evidence which was the true Church and the other hath left to this day by the special providence of God the mark of heresie and schism upon it self which is never to be obliterated Once again and so to surcease from further instances About the year of our Lord 356. towards the latter end of the reign of Constantine the Persecution having long ceased for his Reign was long there arose one Donatus who wrote somewhat after the copy of Novatus and the Arians supplying the rest by occasion interest the humour of the Africans and his own ambition He condemned other Churches as impure rebaptized such as joyned unto him and entitled salvation unto them alone And these have also left the like mark and brand upon their followers for ever Let the Sects of latter times whose names I spare repute amongst themselves or give account to the world if they think fit what their judgment is concerning these Parties or those Churches or what they think concerning this Antiquity whereof we speak which is of the first and best times if there be any to be approved in their sense or concerning the posterity that is to come what they think or what these would have them judge or whether they make any matter of it about themselves I have done with the in-artificial arguments that are so called which yet should be the strongest by reason of such authority whereon they do rely but that power and authority may not be divided from one another which those that are given to division do affect and that you may the better hold my method whilst I my self do not shew to affect dividing from the common way I proceed to the reasons of the point If you would know why the true Church doth so earnestly desire the return of her scattered and divided Members some of her reasons are these that follow The first is the unity of the spirit Reas 1 that doth inspire the whole body enforcing unto unity love and sympathy mutually and reciprocally in all the Members This unity of the spirit is the great and earnest desire that is put into the hearts of all Saints in their conversion to save themselves and others 1 Tim. 4.15 and to edifie one another in their most holy faith Now because there is but one way to save our selves and the same is the way to save others also this maketh the desire of the Church the more intense to gather and to bind unto it self all that do belong unto the election of grace To enlighten them that are yet in darkness to confirm the weak to stir up them that faint and are like to yield to weariness and to reduce them that go astray for there is but one Lord one Faith one Hope one Baptism and one Truth The way to save our selves is to walk in this Unity by one and the same spirit so that we come to save others by the same Acts whereby we save our selves and by the Communion of the body come to receive those benefits which we could not attain unto by a solitary faith or private life Wherefore the desires of the Church for unity cannot but be intense and earnest being thus conversant about the common salvation which is much endangered and disturbed by division insomuch that even they that are in the right way can scarcely be saved by reason of the breaches impairments and decayes of piety which the others make Now true it is that this one spirit which is given unto all that do believe is distributed amongst them according to variety of gifts and measures but the same that are given unto every one to profit himself the same are also given unto him to edifie another whether they be gifts of knowledge or gifts of grace as they use to distinguish the gifts of sanctity from any other kind God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith Ro. 12 3. c. and we are every one members one of another having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us according to the proportion of faith And 1 Cor. 12.4 c. the manifestation of the spirit is given unto every man to profit withal There are diversities of giftes but the same spirit God hath so tempered the body together that one member shall have need of another that there should be no schism in the body but that the members should have the same care one for another And again it is said Eph. 4 11. c. that there are divers gifts given for the perfecting of the Saints for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledg of the Son of God unto perfect men unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ That speaking the truth in love we may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh encrease of the body unto the edifying of it self in love From which and many other passages in the writings of this Apostle that which we have said may seem to be abundantly proved and many other things might be inferred and applied fit to be seriously considered and layed to heart as viz. That the gifts and graces of private men are not only profitable but necessary to the Church as well as those of her Ministers or Elders and that the measures of faith and hope and love and zeal are distrubted unto every one according to the exigency of the Church the Body which is the fulness of Christ and that by such graces we are more strongly joyned unto one another than by any other gifts though they be of miracles That one Member cannot want another or divide it self from the Body but that a rent and schism will follow in the Body