Selected quad for the lemma: head_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
head_n	body_n	church_n	invisible_a	4,247	5	10.9779	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90287	A review of the true nature of schisme, with a vindication of the Congregationall churches in England, from the imputation thereof unjustly charged on them by Mr D. Cawdrey, preacher of the Word at Billing in Northampton-shire. / By John Owen D.D.	Owen, John, 1616-1683.	1657 (1657)	Wing O803; Thomason E1664_1; ESTC R203102	68,239	187

in my Treatise as evidence that Protestants are not guilty of the breach of this union and that where any are their crime is not Schisme but Apostacy either as to profession or conversation I leave to the judgment of all candid sober and ingenious Readers for such as love strife and debates and disputes whereof the world is full I would crave of them that if they must chuse me for their Adversary they would allow me to answer in person vivâ voce to prevent this tedious trouble of writing which for the most part is fruitlesse and needlesse Some exceptions our Author laies in against the Properties of the profession by me required as necessary to the preservation of this union as to the first of professing all necessary saving Truths of the Gospell he excepts that the Apostles were ignorant of many necessary truths of the Gospell for a season and some had never heard of the holy Ghost Act. 29. and yet they kept the union of the Catholick Church And yet our Author before he closeth this chapter will charge the breach of this union on some whose errors cannot well be apprehended to lie in the deniall of any necessary truth of the Gospell that is indispensably necessary to salvation As to his instance of the Apostles he knows it is one thing not to know clearly and distinctly for some season some truths in hypothesi and another to deny them being sufficiently and clearly revealed in thesi and for those in the Acts it is probable they were ignorant of the dispensations of the holy Ghost with his marvelous effects under the Gospell rather then of the person of the holy Ghost for even in respect of the former it is absolutely said that the holy Ghost was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified I shall not pursue his other exceptions being sorry that his judgment leads him to make them that which alone beares any aspect to the business in hand he insists on pag. 99. in these words I have intimated and partly proved that there may be a breach of union with respect to the Catholick Church upon other considerations namely besides the renuntiation of the profession of the Gospell As first there is a bond that obliges every member of this Church to joine together in exercising the same Ordinances of worship when then any man shall refuse to joine with others or refuse others to joine with him here is a breach of love and union among the members of the Catholick Church and in the Particular Churches as parts of the Catholick The Reader must pardon me for producing and insisting on these things seeing I do it with this profession that I can fix on nothing else so much to the purpose in hand and yet how little these are so cannot but be evident upon a sleight view to the meanest capacities For 1. he tells us there may be a breach of union with respect to the Catholick church on other considerations not that there may be a breach of the uniō of the Catholick Church 2. That there is a bond binding men to the exercise of Ordinances so there is binding man to all holinesse and yet he denies the vilest profane persons to break that bond or this union 3. That there may be a breach of union among the members of the Church but who knows it not that knows all members of Particular Churches are also members of this church generall Our enquiry is after the union of the Catholick-Church visible what it is how broken and what the crime or evill is whereby it is broken what obligations lie on the members of that Church as they stand under any other formall consideration what is the evill they are any of them guiltie of in not answering these obligations we were not at all enquiring nor doth it in this place concerne us so to do And in what he afterwards tells us of some proceedings contrary to the practise of the universall Church she intends I suppose all the Churches in the worldj wherein the members of the universall Church have walked or do so for the universall Church as such hath no practice as to cecelebration of ordinances if he suppose it hath let him tell us what it is and when that practice was His appeale to the primitive believers and their small number will not availe him for although they should be granted to be the then Catholick visible Church against which he knowes what exceptions may be laid from the believers amongst the Jewes such as Cornelius to whom Christ had not as yet been preached as the Messiah come and exhibited yet as such they joined not in the celebration of ordinances but as yet they were as a particular congregation yea though all the Apostles were amongst them the foundation of all the Churches that afterwards were called He concludes this chapter with an exception to my assertion that if the Catholick Church be a politicall body it must have a visible politicall head which nothing but the Pope claimes to be Of this he saies 1. There is no necessity for saith he he confesses the common wealth of the Jews was a politicall body and God who is invisible was their politicall head 2. Jesus Christ is a visible head yea sometimes more visus seen of men whilst on earth though now for a time in majesty as some great Princes do he hath withdrawn himselfe from the sight of men on earth yet is he seen of Angels and Saints in heaven A. 1. I confesse God was the King and Ruler of the Jewes but yet that they might be a visible Politicall body the invisible God appointed to them under him a visible head as the Pope blasphemously pretends to be appointed under Jesus Christ 2. Jesus Christ is in his humane nature still visible as to his Person wherein he is the head of his Church he ever was and is still invisible His present absence is not upon the account of Majesty seeing in his majesty he is still present with us and as to his bodily absence he gives other accounts then that here insinuated Now it sufficeth not to constitute a visible politicall body that the head of it in any respect may be seen unlesse as that their head he is seen Christ is visible as this Church is visible He in his lawes in his word that in its profession in its obedience But I marvell that our Reverend Author thus concluding for Christ to be the politicall head of this Church as a Church should at the same time contend for such subjects of this head as he doth p. 96. namely persons contradicting their profession of the knowledge of God by a course of wickedness manifesting principles of profaneness wherewith the beliefe of the truth they profess hath an absolute inconsistency as I expresly describe the persons whose membership in this church and relation thereby to Christ their head he pleads for Are indeed these persons any better thēMahumetans as