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
A62739	A sermon preached near Exeter on Cant. c. vi. v. 13 being an exhortation to all Protestant dissenters to joyn together against popery.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing T146; ESTC R1224	22,033	31

not without great sin and mischief for such a rent is a sin against the Head dividing the unity of the spirit against the body hindring of its growth wounding it with pain maiming it with impotency depriving it of perfection against particular members in that it doth with-draw that measure whereby another member should have been supplied and doth drain and divert the fulness of Christ against a mans own soul in that as a branch cut off from the Vine he must needs become dry cease to be fruitful and grow worse and worse till he return back to be a new engrafted In a word if one man cannot grow in Christ whilst another is at a stand or doth decay and wither and the very juice and chyle that doth administer unto growing be speaking of the same truth and the only way of digesting this truth to making encrease of the body be the edifying of it self in love We may easily perceive how this unity of the spirit doth constrain the Church if it be possible to maintain the unity of her Body for she cannot keep the unity of spirit without it but if she cannot possibly do so then earnestly to desire and endeavour the return of her scattered and divided Members Now to say the truth the dissenting Brethren have been alwaies sensible of the weight of this argument and to break the force or rebate the edge of it they pretend divers matters as it were for their excuse since it cannot be denied but we were first a Church or else they could not have derived from Us as they do and that we were the first in possession of the faith as viz. 1. That they agree with Us in the unity of faith believing the same Doctrine of salvation 2. In the unity of the spirit having the same desires about the saving of themselves and others 3. In the bond of charity as we are all members they say of the same Catholick Church and as Protestant Professors members of one another 4. Then that variety of opinion and union in the point of charity are not inconsistent 5. Nay that divers Order Discipline and Communion need not break the bond of charity unless by accident of mens corruptions which if they should be observed and humoured the Gospel it self could never have been preached for our Lord foretold that it would be an occasion of division 6. And for schism rightly understood that they look upon it as an heinous sin even as we do In which several pretences as they give us little cause of satisfaction so they give us a just and necessary occasion of returning somewhat more than is like to sort to their favour We must confess that when the Church is so divided that in the judgment of charity many godly persons do divide themselves from the body and in the judgment of the Church many men of eminent gifts and graces that were known to be such whilst they remained in her communion do desert her communion it cannot but prove an inexplicable inconvenience both to the Church and Them for if all believe and teach the same Doctrine of Salvation whence ariseth so much caution whom we hear such exceptions heats and scruples If we do not all believe the same Doctrine as it is to be doubted that we do not for as much as there seemeth not only to be a divers scope and drift in the pressing of many points of importance but that we fear our dissenting Brethren do not close with Us in one of the 12 articles of the Apostles Creed though some of them do not scruple at standing up when the whole is rehearsed in our Churches viz. I believe the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints putting such a construction upon it as is far from the consent not onely of our Church but of all Ages as we conceive I say how can we then grow up together into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body is fitly joyn'd together unto one encrease If they could hold still the same charity inviolable without the same Order Discipline and Communion as others do pretend whence should arise such animosities and contentions It cannot be altogether from mens corruptions as at the first propagation of the Gospel but if it do arise partly from the corruptions frailties and partialities of such as break without necessity partly from the passions of such as are offended justly as we conceive howsoever unjust or extravagant they may be when they are provoked let them joyn the whole verse together It is necessary that offences come but wo be to them by whom they come But as we conceive the nature of the thing it self doth necessarily infer a breach of charity suppose men more good or perfect than either They or We can find or our Ancestors before us or the Posterity to come for it cannot be that there should be two Communions wherein it is supposed to be unlawful for one to joyn with another but that one Party to the other must needs be as the Jew or the Samaritan But if it be granted that these two parties cannot possibly have perfect charity with one another which if the nature of the thing did not hinder the just judgements of God by reason of the violation of his own Ordinance would do it then it must needs follow that the body cannot edifie it self in love and so the Church must needs retain an earnest desire to be restored to its best estate when it was in Union for though we may remain possibly Members of the Catholick Church still yet because we doubt of our consent in the Catholick Faith we cannot be united nor joyn in perfect charity and though we be all Protestants and so members of one another we can take no greater benefit or priviledg thereby than English men when they are in civil wars with one another To deal ingeniously this is the charity of the Church she looketh upon such good men whom in charity we way esteem so in some measure as do divide and separate from Us and such as they may draw with them to belong to the body still not only of the Catholick Church but of such particular Churches from which they do recede or within whose Precincts they may chance to fall Therefore she is not rash to excommunicate them but useth all her care and power and tenderness to reclaim and to reduce them having arms ever open to embrace them and to restore them to her peace and to indulge them in what she may to oblige them the faster to her self So far are we from looking upon them as other Churches or that their schisms can make them such or as free from our charge though they renounce Us or as fallen from the hope of the Gospel with all their followers into an inevitable state of damnation though we cannot reduce them as the Papists judge of Us that we own even these as a part of the

optantibus ipsis Dii faciles nocitura toga nocitura petuntur militia Juven Sat. 10. or with which should he not be offended Is not this the reason therefore of such a distracted State Do not the same pray against the peace and settlement which they do pretend to desire And hath not God sometimes answered their importunity by giving their own requests to their utter disappointments that they might be convinced of their own vanity in their intermedling so much as they do with his Providences And yet they will not learn to be wise unto sobriety but still they seem never to pray with more spirit such as it is than when they pray against their Brethren 3. The third and last loss which I shall mention is also most invaluable our charity is distracted and abated which the poor do sadly feel of our civility is disturbed so that men do not dare to become free in conversation till they have sufficiently proved the company our neighbourly love is abated and instead of a friend which one had before it may be he hath an enemy or but a faint-hearted kindness or an hollow pretence of some good will consisting rather in some good wishes than he were but such at his former friend would have him to be that he might love him whose love at best is not without its rigour But I will also spare to dilate my self on this point that at least on one side charity may remain the sounder The last reason why the Church doth so earnestly desire the return of her scattered and divided Members Reas 3 is the great benefit and content that she should find therein which is 1. The delight of love The Shulamite was passionately beloved for her good parts and beauty which the Daughters of Jerusalem do acknowledg when they say Return return ô. Shulamite that we may look upon thee and the Shulamite understands no other when she answereth What shall ye see in the Shulamite We acknowledge the like and we will tell you with your favour what we would see in you We would see and be partakers of your knowledge and of your gifts of understanding in the Scriptures We would see your zeal for God and for his Sabbaths and for his Ordinances We would see your charity towards your neighbour whom you would not have seen heretofore to sin at least to commit a sin unto death but you would have aided and admonished him howsoever you think your selves to be excused since of being your Brothers keepers We would see the strictness of your lives and of those of your families We would hear your Readings Prayers Instructions Catechisings and other good Conferences that were wont to be there fit to edifie and to minister grace unto the hearers We would over-hear your private prayers and devotions in your Closets where you were wont to strive with God for the pardon of your sins and for the obtaining of his holy Spirit to sanctifie you throughout in body foul and mind We would see your first love again if it be possible and those fruits which you then brought forth worthy of amendment of life This is the beauty which the Church would now see in the return of the wandring Shulamite whether it be as in the dayes of old that if so she might admire and cherish her 2. The beauty of array which hath much decayed since our Congregations have been diverted our Families divided our People scattered We can no more see men coming with their whole Train to the House of God as they were wont to do And that was a beauty in the Streets of our Jerusalem We cannot see their order here where their seats are void so that our Churches look like great Houses that are specious to behold without but being unfurnished within afford the colder comfort We cannot hear their voices in his holy Temples singing aloud and praising God making also melody in their hearts so keeping time on earth with the Saints and Angels that are in heaven Much less can we meet them as we used to do at the Lords Table at that Feast of Feasts the only Feast of Loves that Feast of marrow and of wine refined on the Lees. Psal 42.4 And when we remember these things to use the Psalmists words we pour out our souls within us for we had gone with the multitude we went with them to the House of God with the voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holiday These are the daies that would return ô Shulamite with thy return Then if any unbeliever or any other bearing evil will to Zion should look into our Assemblies he might be apt to be striken and to be driven to confess that surely God were amongst us or in the midst of us But now if he look in here what shall he see but a despicable emptiness and if he go there a more contemptible multitude for want of order which is the beauty of holiness 3. Lastly Would but our divided Members return again as Brethren unto the body of our Church we should then come to have the strength of two Armies Gen 49.4 whereas we are now unstable and weak as water and cannot excel we should then become strong and invincible and might boldly write upon our banner Deus nobiscum quis contra nos God is with us who can stand against us The gates of hell shall not prevail neither policy nor power nor any weapon that is form'd against us We should then renew our strength like the Eagle our youth should return to us as in the day when we came up out of the land of Egypt in the beginning of the Reformation we should have strength within and the blessings of peace with it we should become a terror unto foreign Nations which do now despise us and mark us out for a prey in the day of their power and of our weakness Have we forgotten our deliverences from the power of Spain and Austria and the Pope of Rome our Victories in Ireland our Aids that we were then enabled to afford to Henry afterwards the Great King of France and to the then poor distressed States of Holland Having at the same time a Superintendency over all the Councils in the Realm of Scotland and an influence upon divers of our Neighbours with such a firm peace at home that we hardly read of any insurrection worthy to be mentioned in four and fourty years and upwards Nay the benefits of that blessed reign of Queen Elizabeth did extend to propagate a longer peace unto posterity than ever Albion knew before And if we have not yet forgot those flourishing dayes of our renown let us now remember that they were the rewards of an unanimous Reformation when the heart of the people rose as one man to establish the Protestant Religion as one Religion in the midst of us And oh that any one could promise me such another spirit to arise in England in these dayes of