Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	true_a	visible_a	7,129	5	9.3865	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63904	Charity recommended, in a sermon preached at the assizes held at Norwich, upon Thursday the 29th of July, 1686 by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1686 (1686)	Wing T3304; ESTC R5344	20,642	37

to the same Degree to which he Loved us who lived a Life laden with Reproach and Scorn and died a painful and ignominious Death for our sakes and this therefore he calls a new Commandment a Friendship so strict inviolable and Sacred that it was never heard of in the World before A new Commandment I give unto you that ye Love one another as I have Loved you that ye also Love one another by this shall all Men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have Love one to another And how very great stress the Apostles in their Writings lay upon this eminent Gift and Grace of Charity I need not tell you but shall content my self barely to take notice First That St. Paul in the Thirteenth Chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians imputes so very much to this one Grace of Charity that without it he makes all other things however Pompous or Specious they may seem to signifie just nothing at all Though I speak saith he with the Tongue of Men and Angels and have not Charity I am become as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal and though I have the Gift of Prophecy and understand all Mysteries and all knowledg so that I could remove Mountains and have not Charity I am nothing and though I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor and though I give my Body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing Secondly Whereas most other Miraculous Gifts and Graces were in due time to cease having done the Errant upon which they were employed which was to give sufficient evidence and such as without willful blindness could not be resisted to the Truth and Divine Authority of our most holy Religion yet Charity was still to remain to the very end of the World So that whereever there is a true Church of Christ there must be a charitable Spirit visible and reigning in it Charity saith he never faileth but whether there be Prophecies they shall fail whether there be Tongues they shall cease whether there be Knowledg it shall vanish away And again a little after And now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity As it were to answer that Passage in St. John There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three that bear witness in earth the spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one For in this partition of St. Paul Faith answers to the Blood it is Faith in a crucified and bleeding Saviour Hope to the Water or the Sacrament of Baptism in which we make Profession of this Faith and of the Hope that is in us which is built upon it And Charity which is the best and most peculiar Gift of the Holy Ghost that answers to the Spirit which is a Spirit of universal Friendship and Love the essential root and spring and source of Kindness abstractum in concreto the utmost mercy compassion and good-will assuming a Person and breathing forth its likeness upon every Subject capable of receiving it Faith and Hope are like Pisgah with respect to Canaan they afford us a prospect of the Land of Promise but they are not the Land flowing with milk and honey themselves but Charity in its utmost perfection and extent is that which in other words we call Salvation and Heaven it is the single Food and it affords the mutual relish and enjoyment of God and Angels and of the spirits of just men made perfect through all the vast Periods of an eternal Duration But wo to us vile wretches and miserable sinners if without Charity there be no true Church nor any true Disciple O generation of vipers that we are who shall deliver us from the wrath to come or will it not be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon for Chorazin and Bethsaida nay for Gomorrah and for Sodom too at the great and dreadful Day than for us who professing outwardly the Religion are yet so far removed from the inward Spirit of Christ and as if we had reason to blush and be ashamed of him and of his Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation have cast away the Badge of Charity that Men might not know us to be his Disciples We are unjust in our Dealings uncharitable in our Censures irreconcileable and implacable in our Animosities turbulent and uneasie in our Tempers contentious and litigious in our Conversations false to our Promises treacherous to our Friendships hypocritical in our Pretences and yet we pretend to be Christians all this while Nay so very far have we revolted from the true Christian Spirit so far is it now from being thought the Characteristick and essential Mark of a Christian to be of an humble meek and charitable Disposition that even Religion it self or at least the vain pretence and colour of it is made the fatal Bone of Contention and the Apple of Strife We quarrel about that very thing which was intended to unite us and which hath made no Promises but to Unity and Peace to the candid quiet and ingenuous frame of Spirit as if the nature of our Profession were inverted since the Apostolical Times when it was pronounced as a certain Maxim If any Man among you seem to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own Heart that Man's Religion is vain We mistake Brawling and Contention for Zeal and when our Tongues are set on fire of Hell we imagine them tipt and sanctified by a Coal from the Altar not but that every Man ought to be very obstinate in what he firmly believes upon his best Enquiry to be the very Truth every Man 's own Conscience being without question his only rule and measure of Action and to relinquish or disown that of whose truth we have all the inward assurance our present light is capable of giving us is to betray the great Pillar and Principle of Life by which all Humane Society is supported which is bound up in truth and consists in the faithfulness of its Members to each other But there may be a Charity every whit as obstinate as the most fierce and most intemperate rage and Humility will stand its ground and gain upon its Adversaries by gentle but resistless Motions when Clamour an● Passion shall be put to silence and will be ashamed o● themselves or if there appear reason sufficient to persuade it Humility can own a conquest without shame and is easily induced to change its mistaken Sentiments for the better when Passion though it be inwardly convinced yet blushes nay faints and even dies to think of being reconciled But though I have said what I believe to be true That every Man's private Conscience is his only private and personal measure of Action yet I would not by any means be so interpreted as if I were about to insinuate That the non-execution of Laws against religious Dissenters

persons he Chastiseth us so lightly that it is plain he desires our amendment not our destruction but when the Punishment is never so severe yet still there is a gracious meaning and intention in it for the good of the Universe which is infinitely more precious to him than the safety of any single person whatsoever that other People warned by our Example may hear and fear and do no more so wickedly So that his Anger is indeed but an effect of his Love and that which we call his Wrath and his Iudignation is in truth nothing else but a particular and distinct branch of his infinite and incomprehensible Mercy Or Secondly when such things as these are spoken of him in Scripture they are to be referred to the purity of his Nature to which all sin hath the greatest incongruity that any two things can have to one another not that there ariseth any painful or tormenting sense to trouble or disquiet his enjoyment of himself but only according to an humane way of speaking the Holy Scripture in this case ascribes those passions to God which good Men upon the like occasion experience in themselves when they see his Divinity Blasphemed his Altars Profaned his Churches Sacrilegiously rob'd and spoil'd his Priesthood persecuted or neglected his Laws disappointed and frustrated by Enthusiasm or by open Wickedness affronted his Religion and his Honor trampled under foot either by Schism and Heresie on the one hand or by Licentiousness and Lewdness on the other And to this purpose there are two things very remarkable First That though the Scripture be sometimes very fierce in the Denunciation of Gods Anger against Sin yet it frequently dilutes and blends those sharp expressions with kind and gracious assurances of his Love and tells us plainly that it is this alone which is truly agreeable and suitable to his Nature but that the other that is his Anger or that which in the administration of his providence hath the outward semblance and appearance of it is a thing which is put upon him by the necessities of Justice and that he finds no other Complacency or satisfaction in the Punishments he inflicts but what arises from the inward sense and consciousness of those gracious ends for which those unwilling severities are designed Secondly It is to be observed that God in Scripture is not always represented as Angry and incensed at sin but sometimes as laughing at it and treating it with contempt and scorn and indeed both of these are ascribed together to him in that Prophetick rapture of David in the second Psalm Why do the Heathen rage And the people imagin a vain thing the Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Rulers take council together against the Lord and against his Anointed saying let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us he that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure not that these two passions are indeed consistent or competible together at one and the same time they being directly opposite and contrary to each other nor that God whose Nature is perfectly impassible is really capable of either of these habits or dispositions of mind But by the later of these was signified that just and condign Punishment that was in the fullness of time to overtake those Kings and Nations that were Enemies to the Gospel of Christ and opposed Christianity by bitter Persecutions notwithstanding all the innocence and the reason of its Principles and notwithstanding all that supernatural Evidence of Signs and Miracles and extraordinary Gifts by which it received its confirmation from above and by the First of them by Gods Laughing and Scorning at the vain designs of Men that reject the offers of his Grace and endeavor to no purpose to reverse his immutable Decrees is meant that his happiness cannot be injur'd or impair'd by any attempt of ours that he is not to be disappointed in his intentions or designs by any humane Policy or Strength that he despises disregards and perfectly sets at nought such vain imaginations of the Sons of Men that his Nature is impassible inaccessible irresistible that when he stretches out his mighty Arm it is not an Arm of Flesh that can oppose it and that he is no otherwise concerned at the wickedness of Men than only to punish and restrain it by his Providence and by the Eternal measures of his Power and Justice And thus I have shewn more largely than I intended what the Nature of God is that he is a Merciful and Gracious Being slow to Anger and of great Pity that he delights not in Punishment and that in the midst of Judgment he remembers Mercy that the Emanations of his Goodness are truly Natural and Congenerous to him but that his Judgments are only Secondary things things that are not inflicted for themselves but for ends of Mercy and Compassion for amendment and example for preserving the Government of the World from moldring into Anarchy and Confusion and keeping it from falling foul upon it self and this though it may be sufficient to have shewn by the plain Instances already produced yet there is a greater instance than all this yet behind and that is his sending his Son into the World to be a Propitiation and Attonement for us miserable Sinners who lay in darkness and in the shadow of death and he when he came to shew us that he was the true and genuin Offspring of so Gracious a Father the peculiar Character which is given of him in Scripture is that he went about doing Good and this was the general strain and drift of all his Miracles he did not spend his time in removing of Mountains or in calling the Sun out of its place or in any other thing that might create wonder without any real use but he healed Diseases and he cast out Devils he restored the Lame to their Feet the Blind to their Sight the Paralytick to their full Strength and Youthful Vigour his Miracles were exactly like his Doctrine useful and practical not vain puffy Ostentatious things performed to raise Wonder and Astonishment in the spectators without any real Benefit or Advantage and when he left the World he left his Spirit behind him with his Disciples which was not only a Spirit of Instruction to guide them into all necessary and saving Truth a Spirit of Courage to support them in and under Persecution a Spirit of Power to work Supernatural and extraordinary effects for the propagation and spreading of the Gospel but also a Spirit of Dilection and Love to unite them to one another and to him their Head and though this mutual Love and Helpfulness to one another in our frail condition of humanity be a thing that is tied upon us by reasons of Interest and by principles of Nature yet in a more peculiar and distinguishing manner he made