Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
grace_n	prayer_n	spirit_n	supplication_n	3,599	5	11.3996	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64560	An apology for the Church of England in point of separation from it by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Davids.	Thomas, William, 1613-1689.	1679 (1679)	Wing T975; ESTC R33829	87,104	244

Proposition To communicate in and with the Parishes of the Church of England is not to communicate with those we are commanded by God to separate from your proof is Fallacia Accidentis The wickedness wherein we are to separate is extrinsecal accidental to the holiness wherein we communicate Were our Parishes such as you decypher them yet were it no sin to communicate in and with them for acts of necessary duty of piety but of unnecessary familiarity intimacy impiety It is no sin to communicate with such sinners Sacramentally whilst such sinners are not excommunicated The LETTER A Church that generally consists of ignorant prophane and scandalous persons and scoffers therein is a degenerate Church and not safely to he communicated with when other lawful ways are offered But such are generally the people of the Parishes of England and Wales as sad experience testifieth and so a degenerated Church Therefore not safely to be communicated with It was Gods controversie with the Church Rev. 2. 20. The ANSWER I may except against your Major Proposition For a Church is not to be estimated by the Errors the Erailties nay the enormities the prodigies of some Members but by its own Laws establishments acknowledgements and by the manners the practices of the better the sounder part saith Peter Martyr The bent of your Argument is fallacious A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter whilst you tax the constitution of the Church for the corruption of its Members However I deny your Minor Proposition which is illogically expressed and helps to shape your Syllogism a Paralogism by excrescence of terms I shall crave leave to rectifie to regulate it Let testified by sad experience be inserted in your Major Proposition A Church that testified by sad experience consists of ignorant prophane scandalous persons is not safely to be communicated with when other lawful ways are offered Let your Minor be thus framed Such are generally the people of the Parishes of England as sad experience testifieth when other lawful ways are offered I presume it was not your inadvertency to omit this Clause when other ways are offered being in this Controversie of special importance Your Minor Proposition being thus enlarged contains a charge of the Church of England and a discharge of your selves from its Communion a redress by other lawful ways offered The first part is not so properly a Proposition as an Aspersion This is to calumniate not demonstrate The Church of England generally consists of ignorant prophane scandalous persons and scoffers Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercentur Atridae The Jesuit will congratulate and applaud this invective which partly justifies Bellermines censorious condemnation It is notorious manifest to all that among Hereticks he means Protestants there is not one good gratious person You here reinforce your former impeachment of ignorance as if a separate Church were the Goshen of a new sacred Light and the Church of England were like the rest of Egypt overspread with superstitious darkness I have already endeavoured to vindicate it from this imputation To ignorant you add the brand of prophane scandalous scoffers as if your separation were like Gideons Fleece besprinkled with the dew of Heaven whilst the Church of England is parch'd with barbarism of infidelity Be it so yet be not high minded but fear lest your spiritual tumor alter the Scene remove the Candlestick Pride tainted Adam in Paradise the Angels in Heaven once blessed Spirits now damned Fiends Remember the second part of the Miracle Gideons Fleece partch'd all about it bedewed Mary Magdalen who was once possessed with Devils was afterward replenish'd with Graces These scoffers you tax may by Gods Grace mourn for their scoffs Those prophane persons who o'erflow in their cups may o'erflow in their sorrows and exchange a deluge of distempers for tears their frequent oaths and imprecations for penitent prayers and supplications And though the outward fruit be blasted to your eye yet there may be secret buds and blossoms discernible to God and acceptable in Christ notwithstanding those apparent witherings There may be deep sighs and sobs of spirit passionate yernings and pantings for Grace where there are no manifest effects of it Will you deny the balm of Gilead to these bleeding wounds of Souls The sound have no need of the physician but the sick Our captivity interests us in a Redeemer our iniquity in a Saviour who summons attracts those who are heavy laden clogged with their transgressions to be disburdned of this weight and pressure who came not to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just persons who justifie themselves but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heinous scandalous sinners to repentance that so where sin abounds for apprehension conviction as well as commission there Grace of remission may much more abound To conclude as to the first part of your Minor Proposition Those ignorant prophane persons in the Church of England are of Christs visible floor your pen is not the fan of that floor to dispel to reject them as chaff nor are they to be deemed so by you till doomed so by the Church The second part of your Minor Proposition asserts other lawful ways offered besides communicating with the Church of England degenerated Separation is no lawful way this is Petitio principii the begging not the proving of the Question This loud vaunt of other lawful ways is not unlike the Cyclops clamor in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is but an empty sound It is the grave Caveat of Dr. Kellet take it in his own expression Reasons more than ordinary will be expected by God and good men from him who leapeth out of the Church in which he was born and bred kicking at the breasts of his Mother running with the bit in his teeth his own ways He chalks out these paths as the most lawful ways and expedients First Integrity To wash the heart from wickedness A Church is ill contradicted by ill depraved men 2. To pray for and practice humility First cast out the beam out of thy own eye and thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brothers eye so likewise out of thy Mothers eye A second Expedient is conference without prejudice with learned pious Pastors of a different Opinion that truth not interest or faction may impartially be promoted If our addresses be made to our discourses held only with those who are byast with our own Tenets we must expect to be soothed applauded in our judgements not informed and rectified If after these assays having been sanctified humbled having conferred we remain yet unsatisfied he prescribes a retired mourning and silence wherein he pleads the current judgement of Jerome Ockam and Dr. Field Thus without separation may the peace of the Church and our own innocence be secured inviolable Thus with Unity and Humility of spirit may we uprightly renounce the Errors and Vices of any Members of the Church but

may be byast with a further scope more peculiarly reflecting upon Timothy that he should turn away from such offenders of steeled faces that being habitually depraved obstinately hardned they should not ineffectually be exhorted argued with The patient may be quitted when the cure is despaired Junius and Tremelius thus descant on the Caveat Estius parallels it with the Apostolical Precept to Titus 3. 10 11. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject Knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned by himself The LETTER We cannot communicate with those whom we are commanded by God to separate from without sin But scandalous and offending brethren are such as we are commanded to separate from 1 Cor. 5. 11. If not to keep company in the lesser as ordinary commerce eating much less may we in the greater The ANSWER Distinguish betwixt Separation in Communion and Conversation and there will evidently appear four Terms in your Argument which will discover it not a Fallacy only in Divinity but a Prodigie in Logick The Major Proposition is true only as to separating in Communion The Minor Proposition is true only as to separating in Conversation To prevent Ambiguity Amphibology I shall crave leave to new mould your Syllogism We may not communicate with such whom we are commanded by God to separate from in Communion But from scandalous sinners we are commanded by God to separate from in Communion Therefore we may not communicate with scandalous sinners I deny the Minor Proposition This you assay to confirm by the Apostles Prohibition 1 Cor. 5. 11. With such a one no not to eat you hence fortifie your Argument If not to keep company in the lesser as ordinary commerce and eating much less may we in the greater I answer The Topick Canon from the Lesser to the Greater is a valid proof when both are of the same Tribe of the same stock and nature when they are cloathed with the dress of the same circumstances But your instances are not Take the illustration from Calvin The one is arbitrary it is in our power not to eat with a scandalous Brother The other is necessary to communicate with him in the Lords Supper He can till excommunicated plead an interest in the Lords Table which is secund● post naufragium tabula the second plank after Shipwrack He can plead no interest in yours If the Church saith Calvin tolerate an unworthy person it is commendable to be shy of his society so far as may consist with a mans duty so that hereby no Schism no Separation as to Church Communion be introduced Aretius manifests the fallacious abuse of your Topick Maxime by this reason Private familiarity of repast with the wicked may taint in point of conversation at least tempt molest but not so for the publick Piety of the Sacrament In the one the holy encourage the impiety of the prophane in the other the prophane countenance the piety of the holy Their access if impenitent needs not scare nor divert your approach if penitent a foil to set off your lustre of Religion your joynt Prayers and Graces may be helps to purge them their defect and blemishes cannot annoy and soil you in the Sacramental Devotion Like a Bee you may suck Honey out of that Herb out of which others like Spiders extract Poyson As the fragrancy of that Oyntment deadens the Fly which enlivens the Dove The Principle Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis is no less appliable to a Sacrament than a Sermon Both admit different repugnant Operations according to the capacities of Auditors and Receivers As a reverent Auditor is not less edified because of irreverent Auditors in the same Church so a faithful Communicant is not less sanctified because an unfaithful dissolute Brother partakes of the same Table Remember the Apostles Caution wherein in the judgement of Expositors he pricks the bladder of Pharisaical censure Let every man prove his own work and then shall he have cause of rejoycing in himself alone and not in another It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not against another saith St. Chrysostom to tax to condemn him The Apostle enforceth this caution with a prediction which may unplume any spiritual Arrogance and turn the edge of any censorious rigor For every man shall bear his own burden This personal clog of guilt hath weight and terror enough to cause you and me to sigh and tremble for our selves Alas there needs no panick affrightment of being loaded and polluted with the corruptions of others in uncorrupt actions unless such only as are committed to our charge whose vitious courses may reflect stains if promoted by our neglects by our defaults The LETTER It is called a Communion 1 Cor. 10. 16 21 22. I suppose meant a Communion of Saints as far as our charity guided by the word may discern but to say That a company of ignorant Drunkards Swearers Sabbath breakers are Saints is contrary to the word of God 1 Cor. 6. 9. 1 Joh. 1. 6 9. Matth 7. 8. Let us take heed of it Esa. 5. 20. Prov. 17. 15. They profess Christ 1 Cor. 6. 15. 17. Therefore such make not the Communion A mixt Communion is not for Christ. His Members must be homogeneal or else a monster 2 Cor. 6. 14. The ANSWER To prove a Communion of Saints in the Eucharist you cite 1 Cor. 10. 16. The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ This relates to the matter of the Communion not to the quality of the Communicant You add vers 20 21. But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God I would not that you should have fellowship with devils The Apostle here brands the oblations of depraved Gentiles to damned Spirits and forbids those that communicate in a Christian Pious Sacrament to partake of a Pagan Idolatrous Feast This is remote eccentrical to our question I hope your judgement as well as your charity better guided than to rank those you separate from with Heathens Idolaters or to repute their sacrifice of thanksgiving to God to be an offering to Satan You aggravate it as a Soloecism in Religion to say that a company of ignorant Drunkards Swearers Sabbath breakers are Saints Is this your best Character to descypher a Parochial Ecclesiastical Assembly The sharpest invectives are the slightest proofs It was but a frothy confutation of a fiery Spirit in Lucian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou cursed wretch We may in these saith St. Austin to Petilianus a Donatist be alike copious but we will not be alike vain As if like those of China you fancied your selves only to have two eyes of Reason and of Religion and the rest of the World but one your first brand is Ignorant I pray