Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	church_n	pastor_n	teacher_n	2,892	5	9.1963	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10342	A sermon vpon part of the prophesie of Obadiah touching the destruction, as of Idumæans, so of Papists; and meanes whereby it must be wrought: preached at Saint Maries in Oxford by Iohn Rainoldes, on the 28. of October last. 1584.	Rainolds, John, 1549-1607.	1584 (1584)	STC 20623; ESTC S106047	14,278	33

not haue left some grapes Howe are the things of Antichrist sought out his secret things are searched Howbeit as S. Paul though he were assured that al who sailed with him sheuld escape aliue yet said that they could not escape except the mariners abode in the ship so though it be certaine that Antichrist and his members shalbe cōsumed yet cannot that be except they be set vpō by warriours For god doth worke by meanes ordinarily And this is the meanes that he hath ordeined for the atchieuing of that conquest as we sawe before in the Ambassadours message Arise let vs rise vp against her to battaile The warriours whose seruice the Lord doth vse therto are all his seruants in a sort his people most willing in the day of his armie but speciallie Preachers and Ministers of hys worde For his worde is the rodde of his mouth the breath the sword wherby he doth destroy his enemies ministers are souldiours by whose hand he weeldeth it For which cause their function is cōpared to warfare in that it is written by S. Paule Who goeth to warrefare any time at his owne cost And No man that warreth entangleth himselfe with affayres of life that hee may please him who hath chosen him to be a souldiour And God saith of thē by the Prophet Esay I haue set watchmē vpon thy walles O Ierusalem which all the day and all the night continually shall not cease The watchmen and warriours therefore of the Lorde the keepers of hys Church the conquerours of his enemies the spoylers of the Idumaeans the consumers of Antichrist and Antichristian impes are ministers of his word Pastors Teachers who to please him by whō they are chosen souldiours should not bee entangled with affaires of life to discharge their dutie should bee sent foorth and kept on publike cost to preserue their flocke shoulde watche day and night continually ouer it The lesse marueile is it if in our English Churches Antichrist and Edom bee not consumed yet nay if they attempt to consume vs if by Popish pollicies by superstitious tokēs by blasphemous writings by trayterous libels and conspiracies they vndermine our state if they take craftie counsaile against the people of God and say Let vs possesse his habitations by inheritance if they looke for a day when they may crie once againe rase it rase it to the foundation thereof in a word if they raunge through the land like woolues sucke the blood of sheep and lambes sith the shepheardes fayle the watchmen are a sleepe the warriours doo not fight through want somewhere of will somewhere of abilitie Of will where they entangle themselues with such affaires as draw them from their warfare and are not content to be watchmen in Ierusalem but they must haue a watchmanship in Caesarea too or if they haue one flocke alone yet doo not fee●… it but take their ease in Sion Of abilitie where there is not sufficient prouision for trayning of men to make them good souldiours nor maintenaunce sufficient to finde them being trained that setting all other cares of life apart they may attend their charge wholy To them heere amongest vs who through want of will are backwarde in this seruice of the Lorde God of Hoastes so much hath been spoken so often so earnestlie both out of this and other places that I am halfe ashamed againe to solicite them with Precept vpon precept Precept vpon Precept Notwithstanding as I haue read that when wee had gotten Calice from the Frenchmen there was one appointed to put them in remembraunce from time to time of Calice in all their solemne meetinges for State-consultations till they had regained it so I am perswaded that til the amendement of this fault bee woone it is most conuenient for the Lordes remembrancers in all our Church-assemblies to wish it to be thought of Wherefore to put you in minde euen nowe also of our Spirituall Calice I beseeche you fathers and brethren whom it toucheth nowe at length to regarde the state of the Soules the precious Soules of men committed to your charge whose blood if they perishe for lacke of that attendaunce which you ought to giue them will crye for sharper vengeaunce then did the blood of Abel Or if my perswasion cannot preuaile with you yet let his preuaile whose prayer hath preuailed for you who died himselfe that you might liue who saide and all thinges were created whose word the winds and seas obey Consider the function that hee hath called you to the dutie laide vpon you the reward if you do it the punishment if you doe it not Who is saith hee a faithful and wise Stewarde whom his master maketh ruler ouer his housholde to giue them their portion of meat in due season Blessed is that seruant whom his master when he commeth shall finde so doing verily I say vnto you he shall make him ruler ouer all his goods But if that seruant say in his hart my master doth deferre his cōming and begin to smite the seruants and maidens and to eate and drinke and to bee drunken that seruants master wyll come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an houre that he is not ware of and will cut him in peeces and giue him his portion with the vnbeleeuers Our Sauiour the sonne of God the king of kinges Lord of Lordes hauing entertained men and women of all degrees to be his houshold seruants is carefull to feede them with conueniēt food y t they may serue him in their vocatiō frutefully This food is the doctrine of his holy word which must bee deuided in diuers sorts vnto his seruāts according to their diuers states some to be fed with milk some with strong meat some humbled with y e law some raised with the gospell each to haue his portion of meat most wholesome for him Nor only must they haue it but haue it too in due season as oftē as they need it which is so oftē that y e holy Ghost to shew the cōtinuall necessitie thereof doth will it to be giuen them in season and out of season For as mens bodies should loose their temporall life vnlesse as they decay still so they were repaired with sustenance of meat and drink in like sort mens soules are fainting stil also to their hazard of life eternall vnlesse they be refreshed with the food of Gods word Wherefore that his seruants and maidens he not famished the master of the houshold hath made you his stewards to minister meat vnto thē If you behaue your selues as wise stewards faithful wise in discerning what portiō of meate they need eche and when faithfull in giuing it to them in due season your master shal come who now is absent as it were and gone into a farre countrie but he shal come againe and fill you with blessednesse he shal make you rulers ouer al

of Pastours Teachers of the Church were husbanded in such sort to the Lordes aduauntage that we need not feare his sentence of y t vineyard m that he wil let it out to other husbandmen Then should not so many raw vntrained souldiours receiue the Lords pay who doo him small seruice in the day of battaile And yet there were lesse cause to complaine hereof if they who bee trayned were procured to serue him But the imprest money wages due to thē the liuings I mean appointed for their maintenāce are so impaired minished that being not able therwith to finde themselues in souldiourlike state they refuse the calling or if they vndertake it they are distracted from it with cares how to supply their need Wherby it cōmeth to passe that n y t Leuites flying ech into his land for lack of their portions the house of God is forsaken And to fill their roomes others are takē who wil be hired for least not according to the Prouerbe Best is best cheape but to the cōmon practise Best cheape is best Who though not to serue the calues of Dan and Bethel yet are made Priestes as those by Ieroboam o of peeces of the people not of the sonnes of Leui. Who if they had the grace p should say I am no Prophet I am a husbandman and returne to that trade which their friendes haue taught them Who are not endued with necessary gifts for the prophets duty and therefore howsoeuer men haue called them to it God hath not called them For whom God calleth vnto anie function them endueth he with giftes to performe it as Bezaleel to make his taberbernacle Ieremie to doo his message the Apostles to preach the Gospel So the flock of Christ is desolate of shepheards and his campe of souldiours while such haue the places as cannot strengthen the weake heale the sicke binde vp the broken nor destroy his enemies with the two edged sworde defend his subiectes A great cause here-of are Patrones of benefices For wheras the interest of choosing the Pastor belonging of old time to the Congregation is now conueyed to them because their predecessours did benefit the Church some way and therefore were put in trust as Patrones of it they a number of them do deale with the matter as Polymestor did with Polydore that is as euill gardians doo with their wardes and turne their patronage into pillage The lust of their hartes hath defiled their handes with the sacriledge of Acan to take gold siluer and Babylonish garments of the spoiles of Iericho consecrated to God Or if not with so foule sacrilege as his was because their Predecessours gaue some of it perhaps yet w t the sacrilege of Ananias Sapphira yea though themselues had giuē it If they thinke to couer their profane dealing with Acans conueyance by hyding the pray or to wash their handes with Pilates pretense that they are giltlesse of it they gaue y ● aduowsōs freely to friends or seruants they deceiue thēselues For God is not mocked And he wil finde thē out in a day when they looke not for him and in an houre that they are not ware of bring them to shame with more dreadfull punishmēt then either he did Acan or Ananias Sapphira Wherfore I hartely beseech the young Gentlemen that be here present all that are or shalbe Patrones hereafter in a religious reuerence and feare of the Lord to keepe themselues pure frō this abomination At least to remember the miserable ende of Richard the vsurper who beeing made Protector of the King and Realme got the realme himself robbed the King of it That if they deeme their patronage to be meerely ciuil the goods of benefices to be as common mens not sacred to the Lord yet being made Protectors therof of y ● Pastors they follow not his fault whose ende they detest Though the very truth is which I wish they weigh too that the Churches goods allotted to the maintenance of Pastors teachers are not profane but sacred and therefore the sinne of them who purloyne them is sacrilege not theft wherein God is spoyled as himself pronounceth Will a man spoile God that ye doo spoile me And ye say wherin doo we spoile thee in tithes offerings Howbeit if church-liuings were impouerished by none but by Patrones the case were not so euill because it is against the law But they are distressed also beside other pensiōs incōbrances by Appropriatiōs as y e lawyers term thē or as they are named commonly impropriations Whereof the condition is the more grieuous for that in many parishes there is not a Vicar well sufficiently indowed to doe diuine seruice instruct the people and keep hospitality which yet the law cōmādeth if it were obeied Iosias in thē eighth yere of his raigne began to seek the God of his father Dauid in the twelfth yeere he began to purge Iuda and Ierusalem from the hye places and the groues and the grauen images and the molten and in the eyghteenth yeere hee sent Saphan and others to repayre the house of the Lord his God Reformations of disorders cannot be made al at once chiefly when the Church hath of long time beene ouergrowen with them as then it had vnder idolatry and hath with vs vnder Popery King Henry the eight a Prince of noble memorie began to sett foorth the holy worde of God And his sonne another Iosias had he liued began to purge England from Images and Masses and Massing-altars and superstitions I doubt not but our gratious Queene and soueraine Lady desireth in the steppes of her father and brother to adde this vnto them that workemen be maintained for repairing of the Church But it lieth not in her Highnes alone to bring it to effect the Lordes and the Commons haue a stroke in it Wherefore seeing now a Parliament is sūmoned to be helde shortly let vs desire God in humblenes of spirit to encline their hearts that although it be with losse of some part of their owne commodities yet they will folow k the zeale of the Israelites for the tabernacle of assembly And as the religious professours of the truth haue shewed that Church-liuinges appropriated to others should in cōscience finde the Pastors of the Church so God graunt that they who haue the authority may see it with a single eye and bring it to passe with an vpright hand Martin Bucer in his godly requestes and aduises presented to King Edward treating of skilful Pastors to be ordained throughout the realme saith that their maintenance ought to be required of them who receiue the profits of the parishes by appropriation or any other way Bishop Pilkinton vpon Aggaeus complayning that the Pope robbed parishes to feed his moonkes wisheth that the Gospell may restore that iustly which he tooke