Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	church_n	invisible_a	visible_a	1,968	5	9.3548	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56600	An answer to a book, spread abroad by the Romish priests, intituled, The touchstone of the reformed Gospel wherein the true doctrine of the Church of England, and many texts of the Holy Scripture are faithfully explained / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Symon, Lord Bishop of Ely.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1692 (1692)	Wing P745; ESTC R10288	116,883	290

Doctrine There are no Papists but confess that the most excellent parts even of the visible Church in this world are invisible or hidden For none but God who searches the heart can know certainly who are truly good men and not hypocrites And there are no Protestants who maintain that they who profess the Christian Religion who are the Church have ever been hidden and invisible But this they say that this Church hath not been always visible free from corruption and that it hath not been at all times alike visible but sometimes more sometimes less conspicuous Now these men by the Visibility of the Church mean such an illustrious state as by its glory splendor and pomp all men may be led to it This is it and no more which Protestants deny And Mr. Chillingworth hath long ago told them that the most rigid Protestants do not deny the Visibility of the Church absolutely but only this degree of it For the Church hath not always had open visible Assemblies and so might be said to have been hidden and invisible when they met under ground and in obscure places There is nothing in the Texts of Scripture which he quotes contrary to this much less expresly contrary V. Mat. 14 15. The first of them V. Mat. 14 15. is manifestly a precept to the Apostles setting forth the duty incumbent upon them by their Office that they might gather a Church to Christ So the before-named Menochius interprets those words Ye are the light of the world who ought to illuminate the world by your Doctrine and Example You ought not to be hid no more than a City can be which is seated on a hill Men do not light a candle much less God to put it under a Bushel Our Saviour saith he exhorts his Disciples by this similitude that they should diligently shine both in their words and in their example and not be sparing of their pains or of themselves by withdrawing themselves from the work but communicate their light liberally to their neighbours But after the world was thus illuminated by their Doctrine which they could not always neither Preach in publick but some times only in private houses Christians were forced to meet together in some places and times very secretly not being able always to hold such publick visible Assemblies that all men beheld them and what they did The second we had before to prove the Church cannot err XVIII Matth. 17. and now it is served up again to prove it was never hid and this not expresly but by a consequence and that a very sensless one For whoever said or thought that no body can see a Church when it is not visible to every body It 's members no doubt see it even when it is invisible to others Any man may be seen by his Friends when he lies hid from his Enemies And a Church is visible in that place where it is planted and by them that belong to it though strangers perhaps take no notice of it especially those that are at a distance from it In the third place we have mention of the Gospel but not a word of the Church 2 Cor. IV. 3 4. which he puts in such is his honesty contrary to the express words of ours and of all Bibles Nor doth the Apostle deny the Gospel to be hid but expresly supposes it 2 Cor. IV. 3. that it is hid from those whose minds are blinded by the god of this world who shut their eyes against the clearest light even the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ One would think this man besides himself when he bids us behold the censure of St. Paul upon those who affirm the Gospel can be hid when his words are a plain supposition that it was hid to some people Not indeed because they could not for it was visible enough in it self but because they would not see it And I wish there be not too many of this sort in that Church for which this Writer stickles The last place is an illustrious Prophecy of the setting up the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ II. Isa 2. Which was very visible in its beginning when the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles and by them the Law that is the Christian Doctrine went out of Sion and the word of the Lord that is the Gospel from Jerusalem But did not always continue so when grievous Persecutions arose for the Gospel's sake and drove the visible Professors of the Religion into obscure places And I hope he will allow those Scriptures to be as true as these which say there shall be an Apostacy from the Faith and that the Church shall fly into the Wilderness 2 Thess II. 3. XII Revel 6. which is not consistent with such a visibility of the Church as this man dreams of As for the Prophecies which mention a Kingdom of Christ particularly VII Dan. 14. VII Dan. 14. they point at a state of his Church which is not yet come and when it doth come will be with a vengeance to the Roman Church Whose present state will be utterly overturned to make way for the setting up of Christ's Universal and Everlasting Kingdom Which is to be erected when the Mystery of God is finished X. Revel 7. XI 15. and that cannot be till Babylon that is Rome be thrown down XVIII Revel 2. XIX 1 2 6. And we are so far from thinking this Kingdom will be invisible that we believe it will be the most illustrious appearance that ever was of Christian Truth Righteousness Charity and Peace among men He bids us as his manner is see more in other places But if they had more in them than these we should have had them at length And his Fathers also some light touches of which he gives us just as he found them in a cluster altogether word for word in a Book called The Rule of Faith and the Marks of the Church which was answered above LXXX years ago by Dr. J. White who observes * VVay to the True Church Sect. 23. that when Origen whom upon other occasions they call an Heretick saith The Church is full of VVitnesses from the East to the VVest he speaks not of the outward state or appearance thereof but of the truth professed therein Which though clear to the World when he said so yet doth not prove it shall be always so for a Cloud of Apostacy might and did afterward obscure it St. Chrysostome doth not mean that the Church cannot be at all darkned but not so as to be extinguished no more than the Sun can be put out For he could not be so sensless as not to know that it had been for a time eclipsed When St. Austin saith They are blind who see not so great a mountain He speaks against the Donatists who confined the Church to themselves as the Papists now do And he justly calls them blind who