Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	catholic_n	church_n	member_n	1,642	5	8.9783	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61665	A letter to Mr. Robert Burscough, in answer to his Discourse of schism, in which ...	Stoddon, Samuel.	1700 (1700)	Wing S5713; ESTC R10151	63,414	120

to Preach Christ here so near to your Noses wherein you make your self a Judge of evil Thoughts 4. By your implicit complaint how much they exercise your Patience and Self-denial as those of old did Paul's Yet would you but lay aside your own Envy and Prejudices you might on much more comfortable Grounds conclude as the Apostle there doth that this their Preaching would be to your Advantage and Beneficial both to the Church and to your selves too V. The next Argument that you can afford us is this That we are only returned to those whom we had forsaken before and that we might do this since we had the Indulgence or the Liberty granted to us by the Law Before we meddle with this Argument let us turn it into Form after its Fellows and see how it will look then and who they are that will own it But in Syllogism it makes this Figure For a People to return to those Ministers whom they had forsaken before when they have Liberty granted them by the Law so to do is no Schism But we have now Liberty granted us to return to those Ministers whom we had forsaken before Erg. Sir It would look very ingeniously if you would now at last please to tell us from what Author of Ours you took this Topping Argugument which perhaps you think and would have others to think is one of the best we have to defend our selves with The truth is were it not for the Law that protects Us we should be badly able to defend our selves against Church-violence and doubtless there are Summer-flies enough among Us whose Devotion depends on this Liberty which the Law hath given us But had we not better Reasons to justifie our Cause against your Argumentations we should think our selves in an ill Case 'T is hardly worth our labour to follow you in all that you harrangue on this Head You say If our Separation was Sinful before we Conform'd our return to it must be Sinful And we think so too For the Law hath not alter'd the Case as to the Nature of the thing Wherefore your first Enquiry upon it is very pertinent viz. Whether our Separation before we Conformed were Sinful But instead of Enquiring you take it for granted that it was so and say 't is clear from what went before i. e. from your notion of Catholick Unity which we have examin'd and think that by this time you have little Reason to Glory in it But if this prove to be no clear evidence against us then it is not yet clear that our Separation from you is Causeless and therefore Sinful and Schismatical And we hope we have already said enough to destroy that Infant-notion of Catholick Unity in your Sense if we may but obtain an unbyassed Judgment upon it Neither do we need that Objection you here make for us That many of us were never Members of the Church of England and therefore no Deserters of it We commend you that you will be careful to raise no Objections but what you think you can Answer But you must first better prove that our Separation is Causeless and then we shall think our selves concerned to take notice of what you say Sir We are ashamed to hear a Protestant pleading so like a Papist for a Priestly Succession concluding that the Office of the Gospel-Ministry is utterly extinct without your Episcopal Ordination Had not this Antiscriptural Uncharitable Church destroying Pretension been so long ago baffled and therefore deserted by the Wisest and most Learned of your own Communion as well as by the Judgment of all Foreign Protestant Divines we should not have wondered so much at you Wherefore we shall not now Rem toties actam agere but leave you first to answer what hath been by so many and with so convincing Evidence written on this subject whose Names we need not mention to one that is so well acquainted with Books as you are In the m●an time we cannot but make a very particular Observation on the Ebullition of your Gall against the Liberty we now enjoy by the Benefit of the Law 't is well for us that this was not granted us as once by a Dispencing Power to which the late Reigns pretended but by a Better-design'd and Well advised Act of King and Parliament For to give us here a Taste of the Volatility of your Spirit of Charity you are bold to suggest that We are not the Persons that come within the intent of that Act and therefore can justly expect no savour from it because you say that Act was only design'd to give ease to Tender Consciences but ours are not of that number because not of the same Latitude with yours Oh how do your Fingers itch to be at your old Work with us again What a grief of Heart is the Indulgence which our Governours have so Graciously and so Necessarily granted us How fain would you cut us off from the Protection of the Laws under which we live as Loyally and Obediently as any of your selves And all because we have forsaken your Ceremonies and desire to Worship God in a way more agreeable to the Scripture Simplicity of the Gospel and more experimentally conducive to the Spiritual Good and Eternal Happiness of our own Souls We see by this that Paul was never in greater danger at Jerusalem on the account of his Nonconformity than We should be of You should the Government but once more let you loose upon Us. But that We are none of the Tender Consciences that come within the intent of the Act you pretend to prove by our former Conforming to you and Communion with you wherein you presume that we were then satisfied and thought it lawful Ay Sir we once thought it lawful i. e. not absolutely or in it self Sinful when we either knew no better or could get no better and we are of the same Mind still as we have once already told you and to which to avoid repetition we would referr you having for illustration of the Case first given you this Familiar Similitude 2 Kings 6.25 There was a time in Samaria when an Asse's Head was sold for Fourscore Pieces of Silver and the fourth part of a Cab of Dove's Dung for Five Pieces of Silver There was nothing so Ceremonially or Naturally unclean but was Hungrily fed upon and not one questioned the Lawfulness of it so that there were no Murder in the Case To the Hungry Soul every bitter thing was sweet But when the Siege was broken up and the Gates were opened and a Plenty of all Good Food was come should the Princes have Monopoliz'd it and by a severe Edict interdicted the free use of it and confin'd the People to the use of such things for kind and measure as they had found in their extremity would pass down with them and was just enough to keep Soul and Body together and condemn all such to Fines or Prisons or Banishment that should dare

Service of your Hypothesis and on the Judgment and Practice of the Faithful in the purest Ages alias the most Popish Ages so that you presume your Inference is clear That all those who have separated without just Cause from the outward Communion of that Church with which they ought or with which you will say they ought to hold Communion and so persisting in that Separation tho' otherwise never so Orthodox or Holy have hereby so cut themselves off from the Body of the Vniversal Church that they can do nothing that can qualify themselves or others for Communion with it So that by this your Rule of Catholick Vnity in outward Communion all those Persons and Churches that herein agree not with you are not of the Body nor united to the Head and then must necessarily be in a state of Damnation Woe be then to all those poor Churches that are to your Constitution and way of Government and Worship Strangers But by the way give us leave to ask you How it comes to pass that Baptism and Ordination received in the Church of Rome are accounted valid in your Church of England and yet Ordination in any Protestant Church that 's not of your Constitution accounted Null Or for what politick Reason is their Baptism allowed and their Ordination only Condemn'd Is it because the Church of Rome never separated from you nor you from it as all the other Protestant Churches have done Who must therefore be all abandon'd by you as Harlots that deserve to be ston'd while Rome is own'd for your Sister or your Mother and of the same Catholick Body with you Either own the Relation or renounce the Title of Protestant Will you say that these Churches were never in Communion with you and therefore did not go out from you Suppose this were true of the main Body of them that they were never in particular outward Communion with the Church of England tho' before the Reformation they were in the same Church with you and many of those and of their Children who were once actually in particular Communion with you went out from you on the same Account as we do yet supposing it otherwise How little will this help Them more than Vs as to the Oneness of the outward Communion of the universal Church in the Sense that you take it and urge it on Vs And now that we are upon Enquiries with you Pray be not offended if we ask you once more What think you of our first Protestant Reformers Before they actually separated from the Church of Rome were they not Members of that Church and in outward Communion with it If not how could they be said to separate from it But if they were let us ask you again was that Church of which they were then Members a true Church of Christ or not If not then that Church and all the Members of it was not united to the Head and consequently was no Church nor by your Rule of Catholick Vnity could do any thing to qualify themselves or others for Communion with any part of the Catholick Church and from whom then did your Church of England or any of the Reformed derive their Succession and Authority from the Apostles But if it was a true Church how could they according to your Notion of Catholick Vnity separate from it without involving themselves in the guilt of Schism with which you now charge us May we not hence conclude that to separate from a true Church of Christ that retains the Essentials of a Church is not always Schismatical nor a Solution of Catholick Vnity Will you tell us that these had a Warrant by a Call from Heaven to justify their Separation Rev. 18.4 2 Cor. 6.17 But on what Reason was this Call grounded Come out of her my People that ye be not Partakers of her Sins And doth not the same Call reach Vs as far as the Reason is the same Tho' the Sins of the Church of Rome were greater than those of the present Church of England yet what is Sin is Sin still and will by your own Concessions so far justify our Separation and on no other Account do we desire or pretend to justify it The Separatists condemn'd in Scripture and with whom you would sort Vs and so represent us to the World were Men of very ill Character as to their Morals Persons given up to Sensuality walking after their own ungodly Lusts tho' veild under a Form of Religion yet by their corrupt Lives they were visibly to be discern'd Now let the impartial part of the World judge whether this be so much our Character as the Character of those by whom we are thus Censur'd That the Fathers and Bishops of the first Ages were very jealous of the Union of their Churches and an intire Obedience to their Ecclesiastical Rulers very Passionately and sometimes Hyperbolically declaiming against Separation or setting up Pastors without the Approbation of their own Bishops is not to be denyed and for which they had some prudential Reasons The Christian Church was then in its Infancy and therefore requir'd a stricter Hand of Government over it for the preservation of its Unity in Communion the Faithful were not so well settl'd and experienced in their Way their Dangers were many ways extraordinary not only from the Heathen Persecutors but from the Jewish Bigots which were in so many Places dispers'd among them and had so troublesome and ensnaring an Influence on the young Gentile Converts Besides the many false and seditious Teachers which the Devil had Sown as his Tares almost every where among them the Orthodox Presbyters too few and generally too weak to deal with so many so potent and so subtil Enemies or to be entrusted with the Conduct of the Church without the Counsel and Direction of its prime Guides and Governours Besides the Honour and Satisfaction of Sovereign Rule and Dictatorship is what was ever very pleasing to Nature So that all these things consider'd we have no reason to wonder at the Heat of their Spirits in this Case And indeed the Church had then very great Reason to bless God for this their Zeal and most religiously to observe them in it especially while they had no cause to dissent or divide themselves on the account of any Heresies they Taught them or any disputable unscriptural Impositions that were required as the Conditions of their Communion with them There were no such Things exacted of Them as have been of Vs and our Teachers which made their Obedience easy and indisputable And you may observe that the great Reason of their Care to preserve the Unity of the Churches outward Communion was not to uphold a few unnecessary Ceremonies but to preserve the Purity of its spiritual Worship and Doctrin which was infinitely more valuable and consequential a circumstantial variety of the external Forms of Church-Administrations would have done the Church no more harm than the variety which we see in every Species