Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	church_n	communion_n	creed_n	2,413	5	10.5759	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26871	Cain and Abel malignity that is, enmity to serious godliness, that is, to an holy and heavenly state of heart and life : lamented, described, detected, and unananswerably [sic] proved to be the devilish nature, and the militia of the devil against God and Christ and the church and kingdoms, and the surest sign of a state of damnation / by Richard Baxter, or, Gildas Salvianus ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1689 (1689)	Wing B1195; ESTC R2643	73,886	164

endeavour it When you say or hear all the ten Commandments you pray Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law And do you hate men for endeavouring to keep it If you come to the Lords Table you confess your sins and bind your selves in Covenant to forsake them and to live a holy life and you take the Sacrament upon it And the Liturgy warneth you to take heed that you dissemble not nor be hinderers of Gods holy word lest the Devil enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you with all unrighteousness And if you hate or oppose that holy obedience to God which you profess after all this what must be the portion of such hypocrites And in your Creed you profess to believe in God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and to hold a Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And yet do you hate Saints that obey the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and hate their Communion 10. Hath not God printed on mans nature such a sense of the difference between Good and Evil as that all Laws and Government are founded in that sense And no man loveth to be counted or called a bad or ungodly or unconscionable man A Lyar a Knave a Perjured man or a wicked man And yet do you hate men for avoiding wickedness 11. Do not you use to accuse Religious men of some sin or other Truly or falsly and think by that to make them odious And yet do you accuse them and hate them most for not sinning To be Sober Just and Godly is but to avoid sins of Omission and Commission And do you at once accuse them as sinners and hate them for obeying God and sinning no more 12. Doth it never affright you to find the Devils nature in you as hating the Divine or holy nature which is in faithful Godly men And to think how openly you serve the Devil and do his work No man that believeth there are Devils can doubt but that the hatred of God as holy and the hatred of his holy Word and Work and Servants is the Devils malignity and the opposing of them his work If he were to write you his Commandments they would be contrary to Gods and the chief of them should be Thou shalt not Love God nor serve him with all thy Heart and Soul and Might nor Love those that do so but hate deride oppose and persecute them And is it honourable openly to serve the Devil Christ tells such men Ioh. 8. That the Devil is their Father because they have his nature and that his work they do for he was from the beginning a Lyar and a Malignant Murderer and turned man from obeying God. And can you think that he loveth you or that his Service against God is better than Gods or his reward better 13. Doth it never touch your Consciences to consider that you are the Children and followers of cursed Cain and how punctually his case against Abel and yours against Gods Servants is the same By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh Heb. 11. 4. Cain hated him because God more accepted him and his offering 1 Ioh. 3. 10 11 12. In this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil Whoever doth not righteousness is not of God nor he that loveth not his Brother For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning that we should love one another Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his Brother And wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 14. Is it possible that any man can unfeignedly believe a Heaven as the reward of holy obedience and yet think we can do too much to obtain it or be too careful to make it sure Is not everlasting glory worth the cost of a holy life Or can it be too dearly bought 15. Or is it possible to believe Gods Judgment and Hells Punishment and yet to hate those that do their best according to Gods own Counsel to escape it 16. What monstrous cruelty is it in you to wish poor Souls to do that which God hath told us they shall be damned for God saith Without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Mat. 5. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 7 8. 13. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. We receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us serve God acceptably with Reverence and Godly fear for our God is a Consuming Fire Heb. 12. 28 29. Be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for asmuch as you know that your Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. This is the very tenor of the Gospel And would you wish men to damn their Souls for nothing To lose Heaven and suffer Hell for ever and all to avoid a pure and holy life What a bloody motion is this Worse than if you intreated us all to cut our own throats Let us try first whether you will do far less at our request Will you give the poor all your Lands and Estates Will you run into Fire or Water or set your own houses on fire when any will but desire it It 's like you have heard of the Woman who being tempted to adultery desired the tempter first to hold his Finger in the Fire for her Which when he refused she told him it was less reason she should burn in Hell to Satisfy his lust If you will not part with your Life or Estate when another desires you why should we part with Heaven for ever and choose Hell at your desire Yea we see that you will not leave an ill-gotten gain or a Sport or a Whore or a Drunken Cup for all the Love of God the blood of Christ and the hope of Heaven And shall we part with God and Heaven and Christ to humour you And what is it that you offer us instead of all that we must part with And to ease the pain which we must undergo Nothing or worse than nothing If we should renounce God and our hope of Heaven you cannot give us health or wealth for it Much less can you secure these or life to us till to morrow And will any thing that you can give us be better than Heaven to us Or will it make Hell tollerable Will you undertake to answer for it at the bar of God if we are charged with an ungodly fleshly life or

of the Earth are Idolaters and Heathens And do I need to say how ignorant wicked and miserable they are Many of them publickly worship the Devil as Witches do with us and he deludeth them and appeareth in divers shapes to them and ruleth them as he doth Witches And those that are more civil are strangers or enemies to Christ Six parts of the thirty are Ignorant Mahometans destroyers indeed of Heathenish Idolatry and such as take Christ for a great and true Prophet but know him not as a Saviour but equal or prefer a gross Deceiver and live under barbarous Tyrants who by violence keep them in the dark The other five parts that are called Christians alas consist most of people bred up in lamentable Ignorance mostly barbarous or debased by the oppression of Tyrants such as the Moscovites most of the Greeks the Abassines Armenians and many Eastern Sects and Nations What Ignorance the vulgar Papists are bred in in Italy Spain Germany Poland France and other Countreys and what enmity to true Reformation prevaileth in Princes Priests and People and by what Lying and Cruelty they fight against Truth and what Inquisitions Murders and inhumane Massacres have been their powerful means I need not use many words to tell And are the Protestant Reformed Churches free from fleshly worldly wicked men from ignorant malignant cruel Enemies to Truth and Piety and Peace § 3. Our Kings Dominions are the best and happiest Nations on Earth Here is most Knowledge of the Truth and most proportionably that truly Love it and live in a holy obedience thereto and fain would live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness honesty and sobriety But alas they must be contented with their own personal uprightness and reward and the peace of their Consciences in Gods acceptance But with men there seemeth to be no hopes of common Wisdom Piety Love and Peace We are all baptised with one Baptism we all profess to be the servants of one God and the faithful followers of one Christ and to believe in one Holy sanctifying Spirit and to believe the same Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God indited by that Spirit and to be of one Holy Catholick Church which is all the Members of Christ on Earth and to hold the Communion of Saints We mostly in England and Scotland agree in the Protestant Reformed Doctrine and Sacraments Our concord in profession is so great that if some men had not devised some Oaths Professions Covenants Practices and Knacks and Engines of their own which they dare not say God made to become the matter of our unavoidable dissent they could hardly have known how to pretend any difference in religion among us and hell would scarce have found any Cloak for malicious accusations enmity and discord You shall scarce meet with a man that will not speak well of Love and Peace and say that we must Love God above all and our Neighbours as our selves and do as we would have others do to us And yet is there any Enmity or Disagreement Alas how great and how uncureable § 4. Who would think that knew us not by our Profession but only by our Actions but that the three Kingdoms consisted of the deadliest Enemies to each other Of Turks and Christians of Wolves and Sheep that I say not of Devils and Men Yea Turks and Christians can live together in Hungary and all the Eastern Countreys Orthodox and Hereticks can live together in Poland Helvetia Holland c. But Protestants and Protestants cannot live together in Britain Cities and Corporations Countreys and Churches i● not Families also are distracted in enmity and more than mental feuds and war. Guelphes and Gibelines party against party studying Accusations against each other as if they were Scholars daily exercised in the School of him that is the Accuser of the Brethren All their Learning and Wit is called up and poured out to render others as odious as they are able All their power interest friends and diligence are used to ruine and destroy each other No lies or perjury with some seem unlawful to accomplish so desired an effect In all companies the discourse and converse that should be to edifie each other in Love and comfort each other by the hopes of dwelling together in Heaven is taken up with slanders backbitings scorning railing and plotting the overthrow of the best of their neighbours Innocency never wants odious or scornful names As if they were acting their part that called Christ and his Apostles and the ancient Christians Deceivers Blasphemers Enemies to Caesar Ring-leaders of Sedition that taught men to worship God contrary to the Law. Every drunkard and wicked liver can as easily make his conscionable neighbour a Rogue or a Traitor or a Schismatick or an Hypocrite as he can open his mouth and speak And to justifie all this malice is become a virtue hating the most religious is Zeal for Government and Order destroying Christs Members is standing up for the Church hunting them as Dogs do Hares or as Hawks do the lesser birds is a meritorious work of supererogation no doubt and will not finally lose its reward God is served by hating and scorning them that are serious in his service It is Religion to make Religion odious and call it Hypocrisie and to be for that which is uppermost and befriends their worldly Interest and to make him suspected of Disloyalty who is for obedience to God. Conscience and fear of sinning and of damnation is the mortal enemy to be conquered or driven out of the Land as if there were no quietness to be expected in mens minds no concord in the Church no obedience to the Clergy or the Laws no safety from Sedition till Conscience be silenced or banished and men give over fearing God or as if Christ and Caesar could not both reign but God or Princes must be dethroned And O that the sacred Tribe were innocent and none of them were the leaders in such hypocritical malignity Their Canons ipso facto excommunicate all not excepting Princes Parliaments or Judges that do but say that any of their Ceremonies Liturgy or Officers in Church Government not excepting the lowest or Lay-mens power of the Church Keys by decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions are repugnant to the Word of God And when they have ipso facto Excommunicated them all they call them Separatists for not coming to their Communion Think not the contradiction and hypocrisy incredible read but the 5 6 7 and 8. Canons and judge They have a Law and by their Law he is cut off from the Church or Christ that doth but call any of these the Inventions of Prelates sinful or say that God forbids them And the Jail must be his dwelling till he die there who in ten cases remaineth Excommunicate and doth not openly profess that he repenteth and judgeth that to be sinless which he is utterly unable so to judge When we have preached seven and seven years to

hate you as it hated me because you are not of the World but I have chosen you out of the World Marvel not if the World hate you As many as will live godly in Christ Iesus shall suffer Persecution c. Who do you think all this is spoken of It is not of you that are fleshly worldly ungodly men Who Persecuteth you for righteousness sake Who hateth revileth or imprisoneth or fineth you for living godly in Christ Jesus Do you suffer as much for reviling Preachers as we have done for Preaching What suffer you for all the Oaths that be sworn daily in Streets and Taverns and the horrid prophaneness Atheism Sadduceism Infidelity that men are guilty or If you did suffer for Whoredom Drunkenness Blasphemy is that for Christ or righteousness When the Holy Ghost saith As he that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so it is now is it such as you that he meaneth When Peter saith They speak evil of you and falsly accuse your good conversation in Christ 1 Pet. 3. 16. whom meaneth he When he saith 1 Pet. 4. They think it strange that you run not with them to all excess of ryot lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquetings and abominable idolatry who do you think he meaneth And when he saith 1. Pet. 2. 9. Ye are a chosen Generation a royal Priest-hood a holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light who is it that he meaneth You 'll say It is Christians True But is it Hypocrites Is it those that will say at last Lord we have Prophesied in thy Name and Eat and Drunk in thy presence to whom Christ will say Depart from me ye workers of Iniquity I know you not Sure false Christians are worse than Heathens 39. The way which you take against Religious persons doth shew who it is that sets you on work and what it is that is the root of your enmity As Gods Image is in the understanding will and executive power of man so is Satans and he is accordingly described by Christ to be 1. A Liar and Deceiver 2. A Malignant Hater of Goodness or Holiness and a cause of sin 3. A hurtful murderer or destroyer And these are the three ways by which Godly people are prosecuted in the world 1. Belying them is grown so common with their enemies that there is nothing scarcely so notoriously false which they will not affirm of them and it 's well if some will not preach it print it or swear it And they make one another easily believe it Till experience proved it I did not think that humane nature had been liable to such impudent monstrous lying 2. The daily business of many is by wit and diligence to draw men to hate Religious men on false pretences As plainly as Christ preacheth and urgeth Love as his great Commandment so plainly do these press and urge men to Hatred But of this before 3. And Hatred tends to Hurtfulness What plotting and labouring is there in the world to ruine and destroy each other The malignant spirit is blood-thirsty It 's strange how the unclean Devils thirst to draw or suck some blood from Witches Nothing more alienates me from the Papal Kingdom than that it lives like Leeches upon blood To read over the History of the Inquisition and of their Massacres would make Men take Toads and Adders and mad Dogs and Wolves for harmless things in comparison of some Men. If any would requite them or others with the like I hate it in Protestant or Papist The Turks conquered the Greek Empire partly by the mutinous divisions of the Christians and partly by promising them Liberty of Religion And when the Christians thought they should have that they yielded up the Empire with the less resistance And that which was so advantageous to the Infidels might well used and limited be more advantageous to the Christian Truth and Church But though good things may be used in an ill cause it is a sign of a bad cause which needeth bad means That cause which is carried on by Lying Perjury and Deceit by malignant Love-killing endeavours and by cruelty and hurtfulness and blood is thereby made suspicious to all wise men It is a wonder of impudency in Baronius Binnius and other Papists to justifie Martin a Canonized Saint for renouncing Communion to the death with the Synods and Bishops who perswaded the Emperor to draw the Sword against the Gnostick Priscillianists and themselves to defend a thousand-fold greater cruelties and murders in their own Church on the account of Religion But sin is mad self-contradiction 4. I conclude with this great truth They that hate and oppose Godly mens obedience to God do seek to silence the chief Witness of Christ and to cast out Christianity from the Earth Christianity cannot be proved to be true but by the Spirit which is its Seal and Witness This Witness of the Spirit was not only extraordinary in Languages and numerous Miracles but also ordinary in the work of Sanctification This Seal is set on all that shall be saved in all times and places The Lord knoweth who are his And let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity He redeemed us to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Iesus Christ Tit. 2. 12 13 14. By this healing work Christ is known to be indeed our Physician the real Saviour that saveth his people from their sins As man generateth man and the Father is known by the similitude of the Child and as he is known to be a good Artist that can make others such This is Christs standing Witness in all times and places And when you would turn this into scorn and cloud it with slanders or the charge of Hypocrisie and would have such judged an odious people and have them driven out of the world what do you in effect but spit in the face of Christ and crown him with Thorns and call him a Deceiver and crucifie him afresh and seek to expel Christianity from the Earth What reasonable man could believe Christ to be Christ the Saviour of the world if he did not sanctifie men and make them much better and fitter for Heaven than other men So that in this you directly militate for the Devil the World and the Flesh against God the Father Son and Holy Ghost against the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints and the Hope of Resurrection and life everlasting which if you did openly under the name of Infidels or Heathens or rather as the profest Souldiers of the Devil it were less disingenuous and hypocritical than to do it in