Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	faith_n	jesus_n	lord_n	9,726	5	3.7449	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75899	An admonitory letter vvritten by an old minister of the new combinational church, and sent to divers ejected minsters of those parts in which he lives. In which is not boldly and barely affirmed, but also offered fairly to be confirmed by unanswerable arguments. I. The right constitution of a combinational church. II. The corruptions that crept in upon it from the parochial, cathedral, provincial, national, and oecumenical Roman church. III. Who were the heads of these several churches, and what were the qualities of them. Published I. For to inform the ignorant. II. For to reduce the errant.		1658 (1658)	Wing A599; Thomason E934_1; ESTC R207674	9,007	16

godliness I was really perswaded that a little pains might prove not only acceptable but advantagious to a person that was so puzzled about that particular for to hear and to have it not alone boldly and barely affirmed but also fairly and firmly confirmed by unanswerable arguments that it fell to that foul and fearful degeneration under which it now doth or should groan and for which it hath good cause to grieve by no fewer then by five distinct degrees whereof the first was into a Parochial the second into a Cathedral the third into a Provincial the fourth into a National and the fifth was into an Oecumenical or a Roman Catholique Church The first rise of the rottening of the Church was its falling from a pure though poor Presbyterial Church which in respect of its Primitive constitution was composed and made up of living stones namely lively Members and laborious Ministers being fastned and firmly knit unto the Lord Jesus as their only head by faith and one to the other by a Fraternal covenant of servent love according to the pattern which was proposed and prescribed in both Testaments Isa 44.5 Jer. 50.5 Ezek. 20.37 Zach. 11.7 10 14. 2 Cor. 8.5 Ephes 2.13 19 22. Coll. 2.2 19. 1 Pet. 2.5 Into an impure and unpolished Parochial Church at that time when ceasing to elect and ordain either a Teather a Pastor a Ruler or Deacon and Deaconess or Widow in conformity to the heavenly Canon Rom. 12.7 15.4 16.1 compared with 1 Tim. 3.1 Tit. 1.5 6. it was well content to admit and accept of a Parson a Vicar a Warden an Overseer of the poor and a Midwife by which wisedom of the flesh being no better then enmity against God within a short time after the dayes of the Apostles Christs spiritual house and growing as well as living Temple was turned and transformed into a carnal and dead Town or apostatizing Parish the very beginning and breeding of which Parochial Church is seen to have been in the time of Polycarpus and Ireneus one of them being an Elder of the Church at Smyrna and a Disciple of John the Evangelist and the other a Pastor at Lyons and a Disciple of that Polycarpus as any man may easily perceive that will peruse what is to be observed in Eusetius his Ecclesiastical History the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of the fourth Book with the three and twentieth and four and twentieth of the fifth Book The second degree of the Combinational Churches corruption was the Cathedral Churches generation which did presume to alter and to elevate the places and appellations of the Teacher Pastor Ruler and Deacon into those unscripture-like titles of Lord Bishop Dean Chancellor and Arch Deacon who ventured to usurp the Power of excommunication against the Members and Ministers of many congregations in their Synods and Councils contrary to what was practiced in that Orthodox Pattern Act. 15.24 which is laid down and left as well for the imitation as information of after-Ages whose work it was by Scripture-proofs to confute souls-subverting positions and to confirm Christian Doctrines without using any manner of authority to censure any mans person being that that is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thess 3.15 The Babe-age of which usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arrius in the reign of Constantius and Constance the sons of Constantine the Emperor as 't is to be seen in Socrates Scholasticus the second book the third chapter compared with the two and thirtieth chapter of the second Book or Evag. the sixth chapter of the first Book The third degree of the Presbyterial Churches degeneration was its climbing up to the style of a Provincial Church whose Pastor was not afraid nor ashamed to assume the name and Office of Arch Bishop and Metropolitan leaving the servile and subservient titles of Prebend Surrogate and Vicar general as terms good enough to the inferiour officers his underlings of which proud and profane Pest-house that Austin who was sent from Gregory the last of good Bishops and the first of the evil Popes of Rome is reputed and recorded to have been the Father and Founder in this land even then when he was both st●fly and stoutly opposed by the Monks of Bangor in the year of our Lord 596. and in the reign of King Ethelbert witness Fox his Martyrology page 119. together with the rest of the English Historians and Evagrius lib. 2.8 The fourth famous degree of the Combinational Churches infamous defection was its notable naughty inlarging its self into a National Church when and whence without coutroversie arose that Jewish imitation and irregularly religious observation of five frivolous and foundationless customs and traditions of which the first was of National times as the fisty years festivals or holy working dayes Cursed-mass Candle-mass The second was of National places as the consecrated Meeting houses Porches Chancels and Church-yards The third was of National persons as the Universal Preachers Office-Priests and Half Priests or Diocesian-Deacons The fourth was of National pious performances as stinted Worship Choristers singing of Psalms with all the Rubrique postures And the fifth was of National payments or spiritual profits as Offerings Tithes and Mortuaries All which faithless and fantastical fashions were the illegitimate legal off-spring of National Parliaments in this and the neighbour Nations witness the publique Acts Statutes and other Ordinances in that behalf The fifth and highest degree of Church-deformity is the Oecumenical Church otherwise called Roman Catholike the which in the apprehension of I know not how many Kingdoms is the very best though in the judgement of Christ Jesus in the Scriptures it is the very basest because the beast●est and the most blasphemous of all the Bastard-Church constitutions that ever were till now witness what is written Rev. 13.1 3 5 6. Whose Pastors and other Presbyters yea sin-pardoning Pope Cardinals Abbots with others were owned and acknowledged for to be and thereby not a few if not of the summoned Councels yet in several Synods in sundry countries insomuch that Churches abominable iniquities were so encreased over their heads and their trayterous trespasses were so egregiously grown up to heaven as that the long-forbearing Lord could no longer forbear but was put upon it and as it were necessitated for to take vengeance on their inventions as on Aarons golden calfe and Samuels grievous connivency at the evils of his sons spoken of Psal 99.6.8 Much respected Sir MAy not any one to whose Inwards the knowledge of these particulars is come ingeniously confess that his very soul is clearly convinced of the mighty and manifold corruptions which have crept into are cherisht within and contested about by many yea by too too many Christians of too too many Churches And may not I though a stranger to my neerest