Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	abraham_n	faith_n	work_n	983	5	7.3635	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26906	The cure of church-divisions, or, Directions for weak Christians to keep them from being dividers or troublers of the church with some directions to the pastors how to deal with such Christians / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing B1234; ESTC R1684	258,570	520

their controversies when they are weary of contending and will give you the honour of healing the wounds which their rash injudicious zeal hath made DIRECT XXI The Pastors who will preserve the peace of the people must not contend among themselves Especially they must take heed that they engage not in any needless enmity against any of those Divines who for their learning or piety are most highly reverenced in the Church FIrst When Pastors fall into parties they alwayes draw the people with them some will take one part and some another If the Officers divide the souldiers will certainly be divided And though one of the dividing parties may get the advantage of the sword and suppress the other they are nevertheless in the way to increase the schism while the people will think never the worse of the party which is afflicted and trodden down Schismes are most commonly begun or at least formed among the Pastors And among them the cure must be begun and principally performed And when the wound is made it must not be despised but the threatned issues must be foreseen and the necessity of a cure apprehended and scarce any pains or cost must be thought too great to quench the fire The proud and carnal person who thinks all is well if he can but secure his interest and by spurning at dissenters make them seem contemptible doth cast oil upon the flames and may himself feel the greatest heat at last And he that can stand by as unconcerned and deny his service to Love and Peace and to the wounded Church lest it cost him too dear may soon find that he hath lost even that which he hath thought to save O that the Peace-makers would cry aloud and sound the retreat to contending Pastors and O that God would rebuke that pride and carnality self-conceitedness and love of worldly things which will not suffer them yet to hear Secondly And especially when those that are most reverenced and valued by the zealousest Christians are envied or afflicted by the rest it ever tendeth to divisions in the Church For the sufferings of such will never abate their esteem with those who honour them And if fear should stop their mouths for a time the fire will still burn within and be too ready to break out into more open schisms when opportunity serveth them Yea the Churches of old have found great cause to be very tender how they used such reverenced valued Pastors though they should fall into any errour and sometimes to connive or bear with much lest they should occasion a far worse disease by the imprudent curing of a lesser And I dare be bold to proclaim to the contentious Pastors of all the Churches wheresoever that True Piety Love Humility and Prudence can happily heal a great many of dissentions which to the carnal uncharitable proud and imprudent seem uncurable and by their malignant-medicines are still exasperated a●d made worse But alas this quarrelsome distemper in Ministers hath had such pernicious effects upon the Church and is still going on to more confusion that it deserveth and calleth for our common lamentation And if we must lament it with despair as an uncurable disease I fear we must with equal despair lament the Churches ruines and the consumption of Religion For how can we expect that the people should hear if the Pastors be obdurate and remediless And who shall cure them if their Physicians themselves be they that do infect them I speak not against the necessary defence of Truth so be it that it be truth indeed which we defend and that the defence be indeed necessary and that the manner be suited to the end and to the nature and rule of Christianity But the itch which caused the Churches scab is of a different description For fi●st it proceedeth from a salt acrimoni●us humour in the blood Not that there is no blood in our veins which hath better principles and qualities But alas it is tainted with this c●rroding salt which hath bred our leprosie As if Christ had made us the salt of the earth not to preserve the world from putresaction but to bite and fret all that we have any thing to do with yea and those that we have nothing to do with and by the salt Ca●a●●hs of our back-bitings and peevish censures and reproaches to bring the Church of Christ into a consumption There is in many of us a love and zeal for Truth in the general and no wonder if we are but men But when we meet it we know it not but ●evile it and scratch it by the face As the Jews did long for the coming of the Messiah but when he came they knew him not but crucified him as a deceiver and blasphemer their prejudice fixing them in the dungeon of unbelief Mal. 3. 1 2 3. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple ●ven the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sope and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purifie the sons of Levi What abundance of the zealous ●●nourers of Tristh are daily employed in revising and contradicting it As they do by Peace even prosecute it to the death by the most perverse oppositions and unpeaceable principles and practises while they cry up nothing more than Peace And do they deal any better by Holiness it self He that is for a Holiness which consisteth not in Love to God and man to God for himself and to Man for his sake is like the Heathens who are zealous for a God but he must be made of something unlikest to him that is God indeed Or like the Mahometans who are zealous Musselmans or believers but it is in the most gross deceiver And he that will promote Love by sna●ling and barking at all that are strangers to him and not of his own house shall at last partake of the fruits of such Love as he promoted And he may as wisely hope at last to bring the Church to Peace also by werrying it by splenetick censures and divisions in despight of the experience of our present age and of all the world What ever is done against LOVE is done against Holiness and against God and against the Life of the Church And therefore if any Love-killer do call himself a servant of Christ and a friend to Holiness or to the Church he must first prove that murdering it is an act of friendship and a service acceptable to Christ One would think by their practise that some men took Abrahams trial for their Law and accounted it the work of justifying faith to kill the Church and offer it up in sacrifice to Christ But before they bring us to believe that such a sacrifice is acceptable to him who offered himself a sacrifice for the Church and who calleth for a