Selected quad for the lemma: mind_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mind_n	day_n	lord_n	sabbath_n	2,158	5	9.8855	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42483	Hiera dakrya, Ecclesiae anglicanae suspiria, The tears, sighs, complaints, and prayers of the Church of England setting forth her former constitution, compared with her present condition : also the visible causes and probable cures of her distempers : in IV books / by John Gauden ...	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1659 (1659)	Wing G359; ESTC R7566	766,590	810

wife mans censure yet even for these chiefly it is that some subtil and silly people do most bitterly inveigh against them and in them against this whole Church and Nation which must either be guilty with the Clergie or the Clergie must be free and unblameable with the Parlaments and whole people of the land who chose and by law imposed such orders upon themselves and their Ministers Secondly for the Clergies private failings and personal infirmities either immorall or indiscreet to which as frail men they may be subject in these they desire to be the first accusers and severest censurers of themselves which ingenuity is sufficient to silence the malice of the worst to satisfie the justice of the best and to merit the pity as well as pardon of all charitable Christians who are not strangers to their own excess or defects Thirdly Beyond these which are but personal and occasional so venial failings the Clergie of England do defie and challenge their severest adversaries to charge and convince any considerable number of them either in private parties and conventions or in more publick Synods and Convocations of having at any time conspired to broach or abet any Heresy or false Doctrine any gross Errour Schisme or Apostasy any Immorality or Exorbitancy contrary to Truth Faith and good manners That liberty which some of the Clergie conceived might honestly be indulged to such people as were tired and exhausted with hard labour in the six dayes for their civil and sober recreation on the Lords day or Christian Sabbath thereby to counterpoise those Jewish severities which they saw some men began to urge and obtrude upon Christians both as to the change and rest of that day which quarrell is not yet dead in England this I am prone in charity to believe neither arose from any root of immorality in the advisers nor intended any fruits of impiety in the publishers who were not ignorant how far in such a Toleration they did conform to the judgement and practise too of some forreign reformed Churches and to the chief instruments of their Reformation who neither did nor do even in Geneva abhor avoid or forbid modest honest and seasonable recreations to servants and labouring people on the Lords day Although for my part I confess I approve rather according to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Homily of the time and place of prayer that holy strict observance generally used by the most cautious Christians in England which yet doth allow such ingenuous relaxations of mind and motions on that day as are neither impious nor scanlous being at once far removed from Judaick rigours and from Heathenish riots which medium was the sense and practise too of the best and most of the Clergie in England as to that one point of the Christian Sabbath or Lords day which Justin Martyr calls Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so sharply objected against some of them So then as to any reall enormities of opinions or scandalous practises in Religion the Clergie of England taken in their polity and integrality neither are nor ever were guilty since the Reformation either in Doctrine Worship Discipline or Manners which justification is as clear as the noon-day's light if not our selves nor our home-bred enemies but the Reformed Churches abroad or the ancient and Primitive Churches might be our Judges None but Papists and Separatists or Anabaptists and Schismaticks have ever condemned or suspected the Church or Clergie of England of any corruption in Doctrine of any flaw in the Foundation of any fraud in holy Institutions of any allowed licentiousnesse in our Conversations of any undecency in our Devotions of any superstition in our religious Administrations in all which according to the directions of Gods Word by the assistance of Gods holy Spirit through faith in the merits and mediation of the Son of God our onely Saviour Jesus Christ we worshipped the onely true God who is blessed for ever As to the point of Church-Discipline wherein some men were so clamorous and importune as if there had been no health in this Church because it did not take their physick which it needed not as the laws had not enjoyned all those ancient severities and strictnesses of penances because neither the temper of the times nor mens spirits would bear them so the wise Bishops and discreet Ministers under them did so manage this point of Church-discipline for many years by their care and vigilancy their good doctrine and exemplary lives their fatherly monitions and charitable corrections as far as the laws gave them leave that they happily attained to the reall use and best end of all Church-discipline which is the Churches peace and preservation in purity and honour in sincerity and conspicuity of true Religion whose interests might possibly have been carried higher as to the point of Discipline if the Clergie of England had been furnished with such a latitude of power as Primitive Bishops and Presbyters both enjoyed and exercised which the softness and delicacy of this Age would hardly endure especially when once the passions novelties ambitions of men were carried on under the pretexts of Reformation and new Discipline in which some men resolved never to be satisfied till all things fell under the tuition and gubernation of their own factions unless all Church-power be in some mens hands no Church-government is worth a button Not but that the remissness of some Church-governours and the rigours of others according to their private tempers judgements and passions might sometime by their excesses or defects possibly displease more calm and moderate men as warping too much on either hand from that medium and rectitude of charity discretion legality and constancy which the Canons of the Church intended Its constitution health and peace required especially in the peevishness and touchiness of those times when many Philistins and Dalilahs lay in wait to betray and destroy the Church of England Yet amidst these seeming exorbitances of some Church-men it may with truth be affirmed and is by all experience confirmed that the state of Christian and Reformed Religion for doctrine manners and government for piety charity and proficiency was far better both in England and in Wales than it now is or is ever like to be under those sad effects to which some mens fury faction and confusion seek to reduce this Church So then the male-administrations truly charged upon some Church-governours heretofore had not so bad an influence upon this Church and the Reformed Religion as the later want of able and fit Governours after the ancient way of Church-government hath now produced every where For the defects and inordinacies of some private Ministers which can be no wonder where there were above ten thousand of them I neither approve nor patronize them in the least kind onely I plead in behalf of the whole order and function as it stood in this Churches constitution that a few Ministers faults ought not in

rewards of Valour Learning Industry Parts and as they think of Piety it self onely or chiefly bestowed on those that adhere to and symbolize with the prevailing party which is the onely rising side all others despairing to rise till the great Resurrection unlesse by power or policy they can undermine or overthrow the predominant faction In these nests of Religious differences and zealous emulations are the eggs of all civill discontents popular seditions and pernicious rebellions commonly layed and hatched to the infinite hazard and many times utter ruine of civill States which are never so safe as when all parts of them like the parts of a globe or sphere fairly correspond with each other by the unity and intirenesse of the same Religion whose content or orbe is the holy Scripture whose centre is Gods glory and whose circumference is Christian love unanimity or Charity without any of which Religion is but a Rhapsody of mens opinions passions and ambition From these holy confinements when once Christians come to divide as to their Religion they soon fall to defie to destroy yea to damne one another Every party hath such high paroxysmes of zealous hopes and presumptions for their way that they presently ascend Gods Throne and Christs Tribunall severely judging all men but themselves which judiciall and uncharitable arrogancies have as we see at this day not onely in England but in all the Christian world so filled and inflamed mens minds with cruell counter-curses and angry Anathema's against each other that if Gods last doome should echo after the clamours and censures of Christians passions we must all be damned every mothers child of us notwithstanding that we all professe to believe and serve the same God and Saviour If not every particular person of each party who may have more moderation and charity yet to be sure the froth and scumme the populacy and vulgarity of them which are alwaies boyled highest these mutually condemne each other not to a Purgatory or a Limbo onely but to a very Hell of infernall and eternall torments Thus many Protestants utterly damne all Papists as if God had no people in that Babylon of Popery the Honesty Humility and Simplicity of whose Faith Works and Hearts may bring them out of the contagion of Romes Plagues Policies and Superstitions Papists on the other side universally damne all Protestants though they hold all the ancient Creeds and Articles of Faith though they practise all Christian necessary duties and keep to the Primitive Order of the Catholick Church onely because they will not tye the keyes of Faith Conscience Scripture Religion and Church-Government to the Popes girdle or absolutely submit to him in a blind obedience against Reason Scripture and History as to the surly Jaylour rather than the safe keeper of Christian and true Religon In like manner the violent Lutherans call the Calvinists Devils and the passionate Calvinists defie the Lutherans as luke-warme Protestants and smelling too rank of Rome Look to the eager and acute Arminians the Socinians the moderne Pelagians the Anabaptists Catabaptists Familists the Seekers Ranters and Quakers As the Independent Presbyterian and Episcopall hands so these are generally full either of firebrands from hell or thunderbolts from heaven which are eagerly cast by the more violent Spirits in each others faces as Hereticks or Schismaticks as Antichrists and Hypocrites as deceived and deceiving Nor will the Zealots and bigots on any side make any great scruple if they have power to destroy those whom they account no better than desperate and damnable even in their Religion Amidst and against all which factious discriminations of Religion every Nation and Polity which either is or would seem to be wise must seek to preserve its safety by establishing some Uniformity and Unity in its publick profession For no nation is farre from misery that is pestred with variety of Religions and is fixed at no certainty The sad example of this Church and State of England besides our neighbours is an instance as unanswerable as palpable for the Church of England stood Neuter as to all the sides and factions of Christendom yet held so far Communion with Greek and Latine Reformed and Romane Lutheran and Calvinian Churches as it saw they held communion with the Scriptures and with the ancient Catholick Symbols or Councils which were the best boundaries of Christian Religion It had if not more yet as much Solidity and Sincerity Piety and Proficiency Gifts and Graces Charity and Moderation Order and Good polity as any yea all of them farre lesse of Partiality Popularity Novelty Oppression Superstition and Confusion than almost any one of them while the favour of God and man shined upon her strangely blest with Peace Plenty Honor and Prosperity while it kept its Ecclesiastick Order and Uniformity in Religion which was the chief soder or cement of civill Tranquillity This Palladium once stolne away by the Jesuitick subtilties and other factious policies how have the Temples and Towers of our Troy the Churches and Palaces of our Jerusalem the Oratories and Houses both of God and man falne to the ground not with their own age infirmity or weight but battered and subverted chiefly by those Engines which factious fury and devout ambition puts into all mens hands upon the score of their Religion a fate which still threatens all the remaines of Religion and Peace that have yet escaped if God be not so mercifull to this Land as to shew us some Balsam that may heale the Divisions and Wounds of our Church and Religion which will easily fester and inflame the body politick of any Nation for civil Peace cannot be firm where publick Piety is not sound and setled nor can any Kingdom or Common-weale be established in which true Religion is either baffled or abased by being divided and distracted But suppose that you O my Noble Countrymen and your posterity should enjoy a moments miserable prosperity and a pitifull kind of peace meerly upon the account of a meer Mahometan power and Gladiatorian Prevalency of one side possibly over-awing all other parties and pretensions of Religion or so counterpoising them by secular policies to some consistency as doth rather distort and depresse than advance or encourage the progresse of that true Piety and Christian Charity which are the surest marks of Christianity and of Gods favour to any people yet I presume you are so piously prudent as to consider First that such worldly tranquillity and prosperity are scarce worth owning or enjoying apart from that sweet harmony and fruition which goes with true Religion and flowes from it when it keeps the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace when its sacred oyntment is diffused from the head Christ Jesus not onely to the chief members of his body but even to the skirts of his clothing the use and capacity of the meanest believer in an holy Unity and happy Uniformity not onely of true Doctrine but of comely Order and charitable