Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	church_n	member_n	visible_a	3,184	5	9.3025	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34188	The Bishop of London's seventh letter, of the conference with his clergy held in the year 1686, upon the King's letter, dated 1685 : and directed to the two arch-bishops, with directions concerning preachers.	Compton, Henry, 1632-1713.	1690 (1690)	Wing C5673; ESTC R38823	9,075	20

Discretion requisite as is not every Man's Talent It is therefore very justly advised not to be hasty in entering upon such Undertakings but rather avoid the Invitations our own forwardness will be but too apt to draw us into It is the ready way to draw Attention and gain a sort of Applause if we do but say sharp things and Satyrical For the more slightly the Controversie is handled the better it takes provided the Argument be heightened with earnest Expressions or foolish Jesting But however this Style may be pleasing at the first Accost it can make no solid Impression to Edification which ought to be the End of all Preaching It will always be despised by wise Men and do Fools no real good And yet there is another sort of Treating our Adversaries which is still worse that is foul and reviling Language such Behaviour will either prejudice our Cause or at least render us contemptible that serve it in so dirtily THE way to avoid this in a great measure is not to affect and force controversal Points upon a Text but rather forbear till we are constrained to it by the drift of the Subject we treat upon or from the necessity of Time and Place All things are likeliest then to proceed in the most reasonable manner when they flow most easily and naturally from the subject of our Discourse For then we are most apt to do wisely and speak like rational Creatures We shall then be better composed for the putting on of a Christian Spirit in Expressions of Compassion Good Will Gentleness Modesty and whatever other Virtues may best soften and steal into Mens Hearts To tell a Man at the first salute that he is a Heretick and is damned is to provoke Choler rather than Attention and utterly to frustrate our own Endeavours by frighting away those that we would be thought to invite to us BUT as we ought to be very cautious how we enter into Controversie and very careful in the handling of it so must we by no means be discouraged from it when there is occasion It may so fall out as to be indispensibly necessary If the Plague be begun in your Congregation you must make hast with your Censers If you see it approaching or hanging over you must prepare your People with the best Antidotes you can think of For Truth tho it never fails in it self yet is it very fleeting if you are not industrious to keep it with you It is the noblest Virtue in the World and will be treated accordingly II. THE other General Denomination of these Articles is Affirmative where you are told what to do in order to the more successful discharging your Ministry And this contains four Heads 1. Catechising 2. Acquainting the People with the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church 3. The Bishops being careful not hastily to Licence Preachers 4. To use all Persuasion and Authority to stop the Licentious Practice of Profaning the Lords Day I. THE First is a Direction to the teaching of such sort of Divinity as may be most edifying And this is most justly presumed to be Catechetical so that there lies not only a Duty upon you to instruct Children in the Catechism but likewise to pursue the same Method in your Sermons to them of riper years By which means you will best improve the first Principles laid down during the time of Childhood in making your Superstructure more sutable and of a piece with your Foundation It is indeed that course which most tends to edifying And that chiefly for these three Reasons 1. BECAUSE it admits of the plainest and easiest Style For it is not perplexed with Doubts or the Improvement of refined Notions and learned Enquiries as all other Methods are but goes directly to the Point in a plain familiar way sutable to the meanest Understanding 2. IT contains the fullest and most compleat Body of Divinity It has all that is necessary and nothing superfluous Other ways of proposing Religion however they may be more elaborate and make a greater boast to the World through the contrivance of Humane Wit yet you will find their Original mean at least and sometimes base and degenerate For either it smells of the Schools or else proceeds from Arrogance Vain Glory or some such like foolish Passion I do not say this in reference to those necessary Attendants of Chronology History or the like but to the plain Doctrinal Point 3. IT has this Advantage that it is more edifying and settles Men better in the most essential Principles For if you should preach to grown Men in another Style than that by which you had instructed them in their Youth you would make them apt to despise the Foundation-Work of their Religion and conceit themselves entered upon another Ordinance They would be tempted to think the common Duties of Christianity only incumbent upon Boys And so whilst they become speculative Christians to follow their own Lusts. What swarms of Sects such Methods have visited the Church of Christ with Ecclesiastical History will tell and the sad Experience of our present Age afford too many woful Instances IT is therefore pressed with great Justice that ye should recommend to the People the most important Virtues of a true Christian Behaviour and urge them by your Example as well as Doctrin that their Practicableness as well as Excellency may the more evidently appear Ye are likewise enjoyned to warn your Flock against those Sins which are most prevalent in the present Age. For the end of all Religion is to eschew evil and do good that we may glorifie God in our Souls and in our Bodies which are the Lords IT is recommended to you to take occasion now and then in your Sermons to explain the several Offices in the Liturgy that the People may the better pray with their understanding For they are composed with that Gravity and true Devotion that they could never have fallen into that Contempt they did in the late times but that Men generally were not so well possessed of the meaning and reason of them as they ought to have been And therefore there is another thing needful to the same purpose and that is carefully and distinctly to read Divine Service For it is a Paraphrase upon the Text to read it sensibly and with a due Emphasis II. THE next is the reading the 39 Articles and the Canons yearly at least to the People which is an Injunction as early as the Canons and Articles themselves And good reason there was for it THAT which distinguishes Christians from other Sects is the Articles of our Religion the which whoever professes to believe is a Member of Christ's visible Church So that it is necessary for every Christian to be well informed of them Not that every Article in the 39 obliges to an explicit belief It is enough for many of them that they are not opposed However they are so instructive all of them that they do in short give the People