Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	apostle_n	church_n	corinth_n	1,463	5	10.8722	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66388	Christianity abused by the Church of Rome, and popery shewed to be a corruption of it being an answer to a late printed paper given about by papists : in a letter to a gentleman / by J.W.	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1679 (1679)	Wing W2698; ESTC R3178	13,046	24

well as the Bread in the Lords Supper then they are tyrannical that deny and forbid it In fine they that do such things are Enemies to the Kingdom of Christ and the Christian World If all this be true that a Church may fall from what it once was and be alter'd to the worse and that theirs is so then we need not spend time in disputing what Apostasie Heresie and Schism is upon which he may talk prettily and subtilly or by which of them that Church is fallen as long as fallen she is But yet to clear the matter of all wrangling Disputes I shall consider these things also and shew 2. That the Particulars are very fallacious which will appear from the consideration of the several terms 1. Most pure excellent flourishing Mother Church of all which little or nothing is said in the places of Scripture quoted by him in the Margin If we consult the Epistle to the Romans there referred to we shall find That it was so far from being at that time a flourishing Church that it is there not once so much as called a Church The Apostle directs two Epistles to the Church in Corinth and two to the Church of the Thessalonians and one to the Churches of Galatia but to the Romans he writes thus Ch. 1. v. 7. To all that be in Rome beloved of God called to be Saints as if they were yet Converts at large without any other setled Constitution than what was in the House of Aquila which he therefore calls a Church Ch. 16. v. 5. And therefore Salmeron aware of it thinks St. Paul would not call them a Church purposely because of the Factions that were there at that time betwixt the Jews and Gentiles Tom. 13. in Rom. 1. disp 7. p. 299. col 2. But if we should grant it a Church yet how doth that Rom. 1. 8. prove that it was flourishing when it 's only said there Your Faith is spoken of throughout the whole World and in Ch. 16. v. 19. for I suppose that is the other place he would refer to Your obedience is come abroad unto all Men by which doubtless no more is to be understood but that the Conversion of many to Christianity in that City was spread throughout the Roman World and did tend much to the propagation of it as that City was then the Imperial Seat This is the explication given of this place by some of their own Writers viz. Rigaltius in his Notes upon St. Cyprian Epist p. 78. and Tolet who in c. 1. ad Rom. Annot 16. calls it a true Exposition and saith it 's to be understood as 1 Thes 1. 8. As for the term Mother I hope he means not that the Gospel first came from thence for in that sense she was a Daughter and not a Mother And if any Church could pretend to any Authority from that consideration it must be Jerusalem which in this sense was the Mother of us all But if he means thereby that she was an Original and Apostolical Church planted by the Apostles or in Apostolical times for so Tertullian useth these Words alike lib. de proscript cap. 21. when he calls them Matrices Originales Ecclesiae and again Ecclesiae Apostolicae then such also was Ephesus in Asia and Corinth in Achaia c. as Tertullian there shews c. 32. and 36. of which Churches it will be hard for him to find any thing remaining and which while they did remain he must acknowledg to have fallen and been grosly corrupted And therefore Rome's being a Mother Church in this sense is no security against Apostasie Heresie and Schism 2. Apostasie he saith is a renouncing not only the Faith of Christ but the very Name and Title to Christianity This indeed is Apostasie with a Witness but as it is no more than a Branch or particular kind of it so it can be no compleat or true definition of it It being just as if he should say that Theft is the violent and forcible taking away of another Man's Goods which indeed is the highest degree of it and what we usually call Robbery but there are other sorts of Theft besides and though it be never so surreptitiously and clandestinely done it is as well Theft and a breach of the Eighth Commandment as the other So it is in the present case the highest degree of Apostasie is a renouncing the very name of Christian the turning a Renegado a Turk or Jew But that is Apostasie also when there is a departure from the Faith of Christ or from any great Article or Articles of it And so far a person may be truly an Apostate and yet retain the Name and Title to Christianity I must confess I always took those to be Apostates whom the Apostle speaks of 1 Tim. 4. 1. that depart from the Faith of Christ who yet seem to have continued in the profession of it And I am apt to believe Antichrist will be thought an Apostate and yet it 's the Opinion of many among themselves that he shall retain the name of Christian But if this will not do I must refer him to the Bulla Coenae of Paul the Fifth where it s said in the first Article of it Excommunicamus c. We Excommunicate and anathematize c. all Hussites Wicklevists Lutherans Zuinglians Calvinists Hugonots Anabaptists Trinitarians à Christianâ side Apostatas ac omnes singulos alios Haereticos c. and all Apostates from the Christian Faith and all other Hereticks c. which is doubtless spoken of such as have not nor are supposed to have renounced the Name and Title to Christianity So that either the Pope in one of his most solemn Bulls is mistaken or this Gentleman And if we take to the former as I hope he either in modesty or for a more important reason which he is privy to will allow then the Church of Rome may be fallen by Apostasie though she doth retain the Name and Title and will needs be the only Church of Christ 3. Heresie he saith is an adhesion to some private or singular Opinion or Errour in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrine of the Church Before we admit this Definition there are a great many things to be considered as first that the relation which he makes Heresie to have to the Doctrine of the Church is not current amongst themselves For many of them do say that Heresie is nihil aliud quàm Error in rebus fidei cum pertinacia Heresie is nothing else than an Error in the matters of Faith with obstinacy as Sayrus acknowledgeth in his Clavis Sacerdotum l. 2. c. 9. n. 34. and Durand is of the same mind notwithstanding what Sayrus saith of him to the contrary as appears l. 4. dist 13. Q. 5. where he makes the respect which Heresie hath to the Church to be because the Church is constituted per unitatem fidei by the unity of the Faith So that according to these the