Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	5,870	5	9.6775	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26184	Three letters to Dr. Sherlock concerning church-communion wherein 'tis enquired whether the doctor's notion of church communion be not too narrow and uncharitable, both to dissenters, and men of larger principles / by a lay-man of the Church of England ...	Atwood, William, d. 1705?; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1683 (1683)	Wing A4183; ESTC R11681	18,335	41

secular Interest continues a Communicant with this Church is more a Member of the Catholick Church than such as are above described 7. Query Whether as the Catholick Church is compar'd to a Body of Men incorporated by one Charter upon supposition of a possibility of the Forfeiture of a Charter to the whole Body by the miscarriages of any of the Officers Does it likewise follow that the Miscarriages of Church-Officers or the Church Representative as I remember Bishop Sanderson calls the Clergy may forfeit the Privileges given by Christ to his Church or at least may suspend them As suppose a Protestant Clergy taking their Power to be as large as the Church of Rome claim'd should deny the Laity the Sacraments as the Popish did in Venice and here in King John's Time during the Interdicts Quid inde operatur But more particularly I shall make Observations upon these following Positions 1. You say Our Saviour made the Apostles and their Successors Governors of his Church with promise to be with them to the end of the World 2. That 't is absurd to gather a Church out of a Church of Baptiz'd Christians 3. That the Independents separate from Catholick Communion by adding a New Covenant no part of the Baptismal Vow For the first I desire to be satisfied in these Particulars 1. Whether our Saviour's Promise of Divine Assistance did not extend to all the Members of the Church considering every Man in his respective Station and Capacity as well as to the Apostles as Church-Governors for which you may compare St. John with St. Matthew 2. Therefore Query Whether it signifies any thing to say there is no Promise to Particular Churches provided there be to Particular Persons such as are in Charity with all Men and are ready to communicate with any Church which requires no more of them than what they conceive to be their Duty according to the Divine Covenant 3. Whether if the Promise you mention be confin'd to the Apostles as Church-Governors it will not exclude the Civil Power 4. What was the extent of the Promise Whether it was to secure the whole Church that its Governors should never impose unlawful Terms of Communion or that there should never be a general defection of all the Members of the Catholick Church but that there should always be some true Members But secondly you say 'T is absur'd to gather a Church out of a Church of baptized Christians By which I suppose you mean that Men ought not to separate from such and live in a distinct Church-Communion from any Church of baptized Christians which I conceive needs explaining But as it was worded I desire to know 1. Whether it is absurd for Protestants to live in Church-Communion with each other in France separating from the Papists whose is the National Church 2. Whether the Civil Power did not make a lawful Reformation and Separation from the Popish Church in England 3. Whether as in the Primitive Times there was but one Bishop and consequently but one Church in a City there are not now as many Churches within the National as there are Bishopricks 4. Whether is it more absurd that there should be Independent or Presbyterian Churches within the National than that there should be so many Bishopricks 5. Suppose it possible for every of their Congregations to be a Church with sufficient Church-Officers and Power then may they not communicate with a sound part of the Catholick-Church without actual Communion with the National And consequently all that you have said of their Schism will fall 6. Admit they bring but colourable Proof for this yet if it be enough to make honest-minded Men believe it dare you say that those who so believe are no true Members of Christ's Body For God's sake Sir consider this and think with your self whether your Charity exceeds that of the Romish Church 3dly You suppose that the Independents exclude themselves from Catholick Communion by requiring of their Members a New Contract no part of the Baptismal Vow-Upon this I ask 1. Whether any Obstacle to Catholick Communion brought in by Men may not be a means of depriving Men of it as well as Covenant or Contract 2. If it may which I suppose you will not deny will you not then upon this account make the Church you live in more guilty than you do the Independents Baptism you own is the only thing which admits into the Catholick Church but they require no New Covenant at Baptism ergo they admit into the Church without any clog or hindrance of humane Invention But Query Whether if an adult Person may not be received to Baptism without being sign'd with the sign of the Cross Which some at least may honestly scruple especially such as read the Canon which explains the sense in which 't is used How is this justifyable upon your Ground Lastly I take leave to ask a few Questions about the meaning of your Text and Context 1. Query Whether to say ye are the Body and ye are of the Body be the same 2. Whether therefore the Individual Church of Corinth is not here made an entire Body of which every Christian in Communion with it was a particular Member 3. And whether 't is absurd that our Saviour should have a Metaphorical Body which is in him and he in it Where-ever there is a number of True Believers following all the Institutes and exercising all the Discipline which they can have according to the best of their understanding and means 4. Whether when Schism is in the 25th Verse used in opposition to having the same care for one another it does not shew that Schism consists not in the dividing Communion through difference of Opinions but through want of Charity and that care which Christians in the same Neighbourhood ought to have of each other After all that I have offer'd to your consideration I must own that these are the sudden thoughts of one who believes he may be saved without understanding the Notion of Church-Government as 't is intreagu'd between Clergy-men of all sides And believes the Church of England to be a True Church notwithstanding it and the Romish might formerly have been Antichristian though a learned London Minister pretends not to understand how then this should come to be true Jan. 30. 168. The Second LETTER SIR NOT doubting your candor and integrity I went to Church this day with full expectation of your attempting at least to clear your way from the Objections I had sent you before you expatiated upon your as I may call it uncharitable Hypothesis Surely every thing which I urged is not to be contemned but I must needs say I could not meet with one Passage in your last Sermon which look'd like so much as an offer towards my satisfaction Wherefore I conjure you as a Protestant Divine to answer my Doubts categorically For which end I hope you will not refer me to what Mr. D or any profest Papist

it So when Men are considered barely as Christians no more ought to be thought necessary for them as such but what makes them capable of Salvation But if we consider them as joining together in a Christian Society then many other things are necessary for that end For then there must be Authority in some and Subjection in others there must be Orders and Constitutions whereby all must be kept within their due Bounds And there must be Persons appointed to instruct the Ignorant to satisfy the Doubting to direct the Unskilful and to help the Weak It belongs to such a Society not barely to provide for Necessity but Safety and not meerly the safety of particular Persons but of it Self which cannot be done without prudent Orders fixing the Bounds of Mens Employments and not suffering every pretender to Visions and Revelations to set up for a new Sect or which is all one a new Order of Religious Men. This I should think were enough not only to justify me but to draw to my side all the moderate Church-men yet that it may not be said that I bring but one Doctor 's Opinion against another I shall take in the Suffrage of the worthy Dean of Canterbury and that delivered very solemnly in the presence of his Sacred Majesty I do assure you says that great Man in his Sermon at Court I had much rather perswade any one to be a good Man than to be of any Party or Denomination of Christians whatsoever for I doubt not but the belief of the Ancient Creed provided we entertain nothing that is destructive of it together with a good Life will certainly save a Man and without this no Man can have reasonable hopes of Salvation no not in an infallible Church if there were any such to be found in the World But since the setling the true Notion of Schism will go a great way towards the satisfying our Enquiries in this Matter it may not be improper to transcribe some part of Dr. Stillingfleet's sense of it where he vindicates the Church of England from the imputation of Schism The Being of the Catholick Church says he lies in essentials for a Particular Church to disagree from all other Particular Churches in some extrinsecal and accidental Things is not to separate from the Catholick Church so as to cease to be a Church but still whatever Church makes such extrinsecal things the necessary Conditions of Communion so as to cast Men out of the Church who yield not to them is Schismatical in so doing for it thereby divides it self from the Catholick-Church and the Separation from it is so far from being Schism that being cast out of that Church on those terms only returns them to the Communion of the Catholick-Church On which ground it will appear that the Church of Rome is the Schismatical Church and not Ours For although before this imposing Humour came into particular Churches Schism was defin'd by the Fathers and others to be a voluntary departure out of the Church yet that cannot in reason be understood of any Particular but the true Catholick Church for not only Persons but Churches may depart from the Catholick Church and in such Cases not those who depart from the Communion of such Churches but those Churches which depart from the Catholick are guilty of the Schism Three LETTERS to Dr. Sherlock upon his Sermons concerning Church-Communion Reverend Sir NOT doubting but you will be willing to stoop to the capacity of the meanest of your Auditory I who have often heard you with great satisfaction and I hope not without edifying thereby take leave to intimate to you as nigh as I can in your own words what I conceive to have been the substance of your Discourse this last Sunday upon I Cor. 12. 27. Now ye are the Body of Christ and Members in particular And to propound some Queries which perhaps you may think fit in some part at least to take notice of in your further progress upon this nice Subject However I hope you will candidly interpret this friendly Intimation from one who is a Member of the same Church with you and is as hearty ●●● his desires of a firm Union amongst Protestants as any Man can be And therefore is the more concern'd at any Discourse which may represent all Dissenters as such as Men depriv'd of the ordinary means of Salvation and consequently to be in as bad a case as the Moral Heathens And as most Men of such Notions believe or would infer in a worse condition than those of the Romish Communion Which I hope was not in your Intention how liable soever your Assertions may seem to that Interpretation Not but that many things which you then taught us are of a far different import Be pleas'd to take your own again with as little alteration of the words or order in which they were delivered as may be without the Repetition of many things whereby 't is convenient to lengthen out a Sermon You may remember that you told us That The Church is a Body of Men separated from the World and united to God and themselves by a Divine Covenant That 't is an entire Body and every Member united to the whole Church by Christian Communion That our Saviour ordained the Apostles and gave the Government of the Church to them and their Successors with a promise to be with them to the end of the World That there can be but one Church where all Priviledges and Duties are common And but one and the same Institution of God's Appointment That the Gospel-Covenant is the Foundation of the Christian Church God only can make a Church not Man's Invention The only way God has of forming a Church is by granting a Church-Covenant and investing some Persons with power of receiving others according to the Terms with such Rites as they are pleas'd to institute As that can be no Church which is not in Covenant with God so he can be no Member who is not visibly admitted into Covenant You farther observ'd under distinct Heads 1. That a Covenant-State and a Church-State is the same 2. Every profess'd Christian received into Covenant is a Member 3. Nothing else is necessary to make Members but Baptism 4. A Church-State cannot depend upon humane Contract or Covenant 'T is God's Covenant which is in our Church required of the Adult The Independents found their Church upon humane Contract which they will not say is any part of the Baptismal Vow 5. 'T is absurd to gather Churches out of Churches of Baptiz'd Christians 6. The Doctrine of the Unity of the Church confirm'd from the Notion of a Charter to any Body Politick They who are not admitted into the Corporation have no right to the Privileges and are Usurpers if they exercise any Act belonging to the Members God considers all Men as united into one Church or Body has made no Covenant with Geneva or England in particular The only thing that