Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	true_a	visible_a	8,046	5	9.4741	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52054	A sermon preached to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and Court of Aldermen of the city of London, at their anniversary meeting on Easter Monday April 1652, at the Spittle wherein the unity of the saints with Christ, the head, and especially with the church, the body, with the duties thence arising, are endeavoured to be cleared : tending to heale our rents and divisions / by Stephen Marshal ...	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1653 (1653)	Wing M782; ESTC R206697	37,461	44

Lutherans had had many disputes to see if they could fetch off one another from their principles and could not do it the Calvinists even the holiest and learnedst of them such as Calvin Beza Martyr Zanchy Vrsin Pareus have offered to owne them as brethren as Churches of Christ and would have been willing to heare them to receive Sacraments with them the rigid Lutherans refused it and cry out From communion with the Calvinists Good Lord deliver us Now say I the Schisme was on the Lutherans part if the Lutherans had offered it and the Calvinists had rejected the Schisme had laine on the Calvinists part Bring it yet nearer many of these opinions are got in among us especially about free-will Infant-baptisme formes of Church-government c. and we should not refuse communion with any of them supposing their lives unblameable If they will hold communion with us I say if they will for ordinarily erroneous persons are proud and must have all mens sheaves bow down to theirs and will close only with teachers and companies according to their owne lusts but if we in a spirit of Christian love would have peace and they refuse it then both the errour and schisme lyeth at their doore But against all this it may be and is objected What a speckled bird would you make a particular church Suppose the church you should be an Officer unto should be such a medly of some holding the morality of the Lords day some denying it some for Infant-baptisme some condemning it some like the Presbyterian-government others are for the Episcopal others like a Congregational better then either of them some would have their children baptised others are utterly against it some of them Calvinists some Lutherans to have a Church made up of all these would not this be a reproach to you to be a Pastor to such a flock To which I answer what reproach would it be to me to be Pastor of such a Church as Jesus Christ is a head of If the Church of Christ wherein his Spirit rules to whom he is a head and which shal be saved be made up of all these what reproach if prejudice did not blinde mens eyes could it be to any of us to have such members to be members of our Congregations But doe you then intend a toleration of all these opinions would you have Lutherans and Anti-sabbatarians Anabaptists and others tolerated among us I answer first what the Magistrates office is about toleration or non-toleration I have nothing to doe to meddle with at this time my doctrine confines me to speake only of Church forbearance and upon that account I answer if by toleration you meane an approbation of these God forbid we must approve of no errour we should all seeke to make one another imbrace every truth of Christ But if by toleration you meane a not cutting them off unlesse they lay downe their errours and renounce them that indeed I plead for we should hold Christian communion with them for Christ thus beares with them and will have us beare one with another and as it is in our naturall body if a man have an ulcer in his hand or his leg if ordinary medicines wil not cure it he wil wait till the strength of nature work out the humour or till by the providence of God he can light of some more happy medicines then yet have been propounded but he will not cut his hand or his leg off so long as it may be any wayes usefull to him so is the case here Thirdly Some will yet object indeed if you meane to bear with them for a while till the truth hath been set before them that they have all meanes of conviction it wil be granted but suppose all paines have been taken the truth hath been propounded they have been reasoned with and they still hold the same then they may be judged obstinate and self-condemned I answer plainly faith as it is the imbracing of any particular truth is as well the gift of Gods Spirit as that faith whereby we receive Christ for our Saviour no wisdome or rhethoricke of man can ever make a man receive the faith of any one doctrine of Christianity till Gods Spirit inable him and it is a far easier matter to non-plus a man in disputing then it is to clear his understanding and inable him to receive a truth and when such persons do appeal to the searcher of hearts that it is meer want of light which hinders them from being of one minde our Christian love which ever judgeth the best should rest satisfied especially when their lives are unblameable we must not take upon us to be Lords of their faith and therefore after many disputes and conferences between the dissenting Churches in Germany when they were not able to dispute one another out of their principles as I before noted the Calvinists propounded to hold an amicable Christian communion one with another and if in a fair debating way they could afterward satisfie one another well and good in the meane time they would wait till Christ would give more light and upon this account the Calvinists and Lutherans in Polonia doe at this day live in concord both of them retaining their opinions And in truth we all professe to doe the same toward them for I hardly know any amongst us but confesse the Helvetians Lutherans c. are true Churches notwithstanding their errours Now say I shal a company associated in such and such opinions bee counted a true Church and shal not a particular man who holds the same points be counted a true visible member or shal we hold communion with them in Germany and shal we deny it to our brethren in England God forbid that the exercise of our Christian charity and communion should vary according as Regions vary If whole Churches be owned because of their faith and holinesse of life notwithstanding their errours to be true visible Churches then one man that hath those errours may goe for a true visible Christian because of his faith and holinesse And in truth they who are the brethren of our elder brother are our brethren wil we nil we and we shal repent if we use them not as brethren Yet againe it wil be said but Paul did wish they were all cut off that troubled the Galatians I answer But mark who they were they were such who brought such a doctrin that he profest if they imbraced it Christ would profit them nothing they who would set up a new Christ a new way of salvation to seek justification by their own works he prayed they might be cut off but he never wished it for errours of a lower nature But lastly some may yet demand and say What if they who hold such Opinions joyn in communion with you and in your communion make it their worke and practise for errour is very Pragmatical to draw all the rest of your company

which Jesus Christ hath made to bee both duties and pledges of love among his people are truly and properly guilty of the sin of Schism the nature of this sin of Schism lying properly in this that it is against Christian love and hereby also you may learne the difference between Heresie and Schisme Heresie is a false opinion which destroyes faith but Schisme is either an opinion or practice against charity The first of them which is against faith tends to rend off from Christ the head The second which is against love tends to the rending off from the body This for the nature of it In the next place let us consider the greatnesse of this sin and the rather because in truth the name and charge is grown so common amongst us as formerly the name of Puritan was that many make no account of it whether they be charged justly or unjustly with it but who ever considers of it according to the sense of the Scripture wil find that the sin of Schisme is a most hainous sin The greatness of it not easily set forth in words whether you consider it in the nature of it or the effects of it In 1 The nature of it its contrary to one of the highest ends of Christs great undertaking which is that all his people should bee one he dyed to that end to make them one with himselfe and one with one another he begged it of his Father that they should be one now this sinne tends to frustrate this great designe of Jesus Christ And secondly It is contrary to all the Commandements of Christ for all the Commands which he hath given to his people for the ordering of their conversation himselfe tels us That the end of the Commandement is love 2 If we consider the effects of it they are most dreadful and mischievous For first it is wonderfully dishonourable to Jesus Christ for whereas he holds out to all the world that his people are one house one body one city which is at unity compacted together c. this is a publick confutation of it makes Jerusalem appeare as a Babel a City of confusion a Kingdome divided wherein is nothing but disorders and tumults and the like And as it is dishonourable to Christ so it wonderfully hinders and destroyes the edification of the Church both the edification of them who make the Schisme and the edification of them from whom the rent is made depriving them of that spiritual good they might and should receive and supply from and to one another for though Iesus Christ the head be the only fountaine of our spiritual life yet it is as true that Christs usuall way of exercising strengthning increasing and perfecting it is in the fellowship of the body that by what every joynt supplyes the whole may be increased so that if we weigh it seriously we must conclude That as nothing within the bounds of the Church more argues a conformity to the spirit of the Gospel then the study of unitie peace and concord so few things more argue an opposition to Christs worke and his peoples good then this spirit of division But the third is the greatest question who are guilty of it and before I enter upon this discovery give me leave to premise this that in our dayes it is in this point of Schisme as it was of old in the primitive Church in the first point of Heresie what opinions the Ancients would make odious they would brand with the name of Heresie and thereby sometimes very truths of Christ were condemned as Heresies so it is at this day in the point of Schisme the Papists cry downe all who professe Christianity through the whole world as Schismaticks who joyn not with and subject not unto the Church of Rome The Prelatical party usually account all Schismaticks who are not under the Church-government of Bishops come among them who are for the Presbytery many of them call all Schismaticks who joyn in any other way the Congregational men as they are called have the same esteeme of them who depart from them and goe into another way I premise this only for this end that you may hence conclude that doubtlesse sometimes the name is given where it should not be given Now let us returne to our Question Who they are that are guilty Answ. Truly with sorrow I must reply It is a hard thing to say in our sad dayes who is not guilty as in Common-wealths where the bands and sinews of Civil government are cut asunder no conjunction or associating of a people into or under government Politicians say that in such times Every man is at war with every man every man is an enemy to every man so the Lord for our sinnes hath poured this evil upon us that we lye in confusion almost every man is divided from every man and so deep hath the malady taken root that many are in love with it and like their very divisions and as it is in popular tumults no man will heare any man but still the confused noyse goes on so in truth is it with us we are not willing to heare of agreement he is almost an enemy who would labour a pacification or reconciliation The Lord have mercy upon us our divisions are very great and sad but as a generall declaiming against sin never converted a man from sin untill he bee convinced that himself be guilty of this or that sin so my declaiming against Schisme in generall wil not heal it until I discover more particularly who they are that are guilty of it And to this I answer first negatively all departure separation and denying to joyn in Ordinances from some such as call themselves Christians is not Schisme the Israelites separation from Jeroboams Calves was no Schisme if the faith of a people be heretical or their worship be idolatrous the Lord bids his servants come out from such a people I adde further that although the faith of a Church be sound and the worship pure for the substance yet if that Church or Company wil presse some such things which others cannot practise without sin and which unlesse they will practice though against their consciences they must be under intollerable persecution as losse of state life c. or spirituall anathematisme unjust excommunications or the like to with-draw from such a people provided that still they will retaine those truths which are held by that persecuting Church and be ready to perform what Christian duty of love lyes in their power towards them this with-drawing is no Schism it is no more then Christ and his Disciples did to the Church of Jerusalem and no more then the Lord hath bid his people do when they are persecuted in one place to with-draw and flye to another 2 I answer positively they who are guilty of the sin of Schisme may be reduced under two heads Some are guilty