Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	day_n	lord_n	week_n	2,982	5	9.9436	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62458	A letter concerning the present state of religion amongst us	Thorndike, Herbert, 1598-1672.	1656 (1656)	Wing T1053; ESTC R5555	12,737	27

England That the Church is not to assemble for the Service of God but when there is preaching This seems to stand upon a very grosse mistake of those passages of the Apostles writings which declare the necessary means of salvation to consist in hearing the Gospel preached As if they were meant of Sermons in the Pulpit which are onely made to those that are already Christians not of publishing the Gospel to those that knew it not afore convincing them that it is true and instructing them wherein it consists Or as if those that are already Christians wanted any thing necessary to Salvation supposing them to persevere in the Christianity which they have professed Not as if their Christianity did not oblige them to hear Sermons when the authority of the Church assures them to be without offence But because the Offices of publick Praiers and the Praises of God especially in celebrating the blessed Eucharist are the end of all that instruction in Christianity which Christians receive from the Church and therefore all Preaching subordinate to the same as the means to the End And because they may be daily so frequented without offence and to the increase of the reverence of Christianity as the experience of our time shows that Preaching cannot be The second is that the first day of the week called Sunday is the Sabbath by force of the fourth Commandement An Imposture so gross that it may well serve for an instance what Faction can do with men that are sober otherwise That God by commanding the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week to wit that day on which he ended the Creation of the world and for that very reason commanding it should be thought to command Christians to keep the first day of the week on which he began the Creation and our Lord Christ arose from the dead That is that the same words of the same Commandment in writing should oblige Jews to rest on the Saturday which oblige Christians to rest on the Sunday is a thing which when this fit of frensy shall be past us will scarse be beleeved that ever any man would beleeve True it is this first day hath been observed in and ever since the Apostles time but not by vertue of that Law which their office was to declare was expired and out of date but by the Act of their own authority whereby they gave Laws to Christs Church Let us now onely compare the daily morning and evening Sacrifice of Prayer and the Praises of God established by the Order of the Church of England together with the more solemn service of Lords dayes and Festivals with a bare Sermon upon Sundaies ushered in and out with a Prayer of every mans own conceit setting aside the Heresy and false doctrine the Faction Schism the blasphemy and slander the ridiculous follies which this Sermon and Prayer may and which we have known them contain I say comparing these together the blessed reformation pretended is and ought to be accounted the abomination of desolation in comparison of that Order which it destroyeth And therefore upon this account alone those who not being invested with that ordinary Power by which the Church is inabled to correct abuses in the Church shall usurp the Power of the Church to introduce this disorder are thereby Schismaticks themselves and those that acknowledge them for their Pastors complices of Schismaticks It will be said that these Laws will be amended as it was many times said awhile since that the Parliament would settle a Ministery To this I say that those that are sent you by virtue of these Laws have every way as good authority as any the Power that made these Laws joyned with a Parliament can give to them that are not otherwise qualified by the authority of the Church That is that this Power of a Parliament together though advising with divines how the qualities of those whom they make Ministers are to be limited can do no more then this Power with advise of those Divines it useth hath done Both being Secular and able to make men their Ministers to maintain the Interest of that Government which their Power constituteth but not Ministers of the Church to maintain the interest of that Faith and service of God which it is trusted with If it be said that at the Reformation those from whom the Ministry is propagated had not received by their Ordination Power to ordain others I answer that it is agreed among all that professe the Reformation that the abuses crept into the Church were so great that particular Churches that is part of the whole might and ought to reform themselves without consent or concurrence of the whole It is also agreed among them that maintain it that there is in the Church a succession of persons indued with authority in behalf of it as well as of doctrine and of the service of God Though the succession of persons be of less consideration as subordinate to the succession of doctrine as the means to the end In this case then I say that such inabilities in persons vested with Ecclesiastical Power by the Reformation as became unavoidable by the refusal of the rest of the Church to concur in it cannot make Churches so constituted no Churches nor void the effect of those Offices which persons so qualified shall minister unto Gods people But such inabilities as became unavoidable onely for want of due information in those that undertook to reform themselves as it would be malice in man to justifie so it may reasonably be presumed that the mercy of God excuses But supposing according to the premises and the sense of all that adhere to the Church of England that the Presbyterians Ordinations tend no more to maintain the primitive faith and service of God once delivered to the Church and established in it by the Apostles then they do to maintain that which is hitherto established in the Church of England I say supposing this to imagine that an Assembly of Divines by being lawfully ordained to the office of Priests or Deacons according to the Laws of the Church of England can by commission from the secular Power make ordinations which the Laws under which they were ordained forbid is to imagin that God can inable man to sin or that a Soveraign Power can authorize the subject to rebell against it self And therefore though the qualities of persons to be sent you for Pastors may be otherwise limited by Acts which Parliaments may make yet these qualities not being derived from the authority of the Apostles sounding the Church by any act of the Church but from secular Power and Commission issued from it make them no more Ministers of the Church that are made by Assemblies of Divines and Presbyteries then those that are made by commission of Triers and ejecting scandalous Ministers That is both of them being by their creation Schismaticks and their profession not clearing them of misprision of Heresy they

day in the world do maintain themselves to professe the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures it is manifest that these Laws provide not that they shall not be Hereticks which are sent you for Pastors Here I must not complain that whereas all that professe Faith in God by Jesus Christ though differing from the profession held forth are protected in the exercise of their Religion Pop●ry and Praelacy are excepted though it cannot be denied that both profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ Nor that those who hold the profession established by the Laws under which we were born are resused that protection which is tendred Socinians enemies of the Trinity and satisfaction of Christ who manifestly profess Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and Faith in God by Jesus Christ For my business is not to say what they that made these Lawes should have done by them but what you are to do now they are made But if it be answered that those that make these Lawes repose trust in them to whom they grant these Commissions that they will not take any to be godly men that are Hereticks To this I say that will not serve your turn for several reasons For those that professe all that the Law requires them to professe that is Faith in God through Jesus Christ and the Christian Religion Contained in the Scriptures cannot be judged ungodly for whatsoever they professe besides by any Power derived from this Law but by an arbitrary power to be exercised at the will of the Commissioners And how are you assured that no Heretick shall obtain a certificate of three Neighbours and so answer their demands that they shall have cause to think him in Gods grace However you are not warranted to trust your salvation and the salvation of those that depend on you either upon the judgement of these Commissioners or of them that make the laws If it be demanded why the secular Power and the Commissioners thereof are not as well to be trusted with the salvation of the people as those that may pretend authority from the Church the answer is ready That when you acknowledge a Pastor sent by the Church you neither trust his person nor the person of him that sends him but the Laws which the Church hath received from our Lord and his Apostles in as much as by professing Christianity so limited and according to them to exercise the function which he receiveth he becomes qualified for the charge in which you acknowledge him which Laws he that destroyes by dissolving the Corporation of the Church destroyes the trust you are to have in those whom you acknowledge your Pastors that they are not Hereticks And here I must not fail to give you notice that those Presbyterians and Independents who having departed from the Church of England upon pretence of erecting Presbyteries and Congregations do now make themselves Commissioners to execute these Laws which destroy both Presbyteries and Congregations have thereby destroyed the ground of all trust which the Church might have had in them for conduct in Christianity For what profession can it be presumed that they will hold when they hold not that for which they have destroyed the Unity of the Church which is the reason why Hereticks and Schismaticks though they may be re-admitted to the Communion of the Church upon repentance yet by the Rules of the Catholick Church cannot be re-admitted to be of the Clergie These Apostacies having made them uncapable of that trust which the Church must necessarily repose in the Clergy That you may see this is not for nothing I say further that there is among us a damnable Heresy of Antinomians or Libertines formerly when Puritans were not divided from the Church of England known by the name of Grindletonians and Etonists These do beleeve so to be saved by the free grace of God by which Christ died for the Elect that true faith is nothing but the revelation hereof and by consequence that all their sins past present and to come being remitted by this grace to repent of sin or to contend against it is the renouncing of Gods free grace and saving faith Another opinion there is which I cannot say the Presbyterians hold or require to be held but in regard their confession of Faith and Catechisme disclaimes it not and therefore allows them that hold it to be of their Faction may well be said to maintain it That for a man to beleeve that he is praedestinate to life and that Christ died for him is that faith which alone justifieth a Christian Whether of these opinions is the better or the worse or what is the difference between them let the parties dispute This I say that allowing the merits and satisfaction of Christ to the Elect for remission of sins and a title to everlasting life in no consideration but of their persons it is more reasonable to say that they can never become guilty of sin then that the remission of their sins and their right to life should depend upon the knowledge of their praedestination revealed by Faith seeing nothing is true because it is beleeved but beleeved because it is true And therefore I say that both of these opinions are destructive to the foundation of faith which the Church of England teacheth when in the Office of Baptisme and the beginning of the Catechisme it requireth all that are baptized not onely to profess the Faith of Christ but to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to fight with them till death for the keeping of Gods Commandments assuring them hereupon that they are regenerate and adopted Gods children by his Grace in Christ For he that is saved by undertaking and persevering in this canno● be saved by beleeving that he is absolutely predestinate to life without it For I must say that it is one thing to be absolutely predestinate to life another thing to be predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere till death For he that is predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere in the Covenant of Grace till death is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace in which he is predestinate to persevere And whether a man can be absolutely predestinate to persevere in it of his own free-will and voluntary choice or not is that which remaines in dispute among Divines which I suppose not here to be either true or false But to say that a man is absolutely predestinate to life and to say that he is predestinate to life in consideration of his undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace which must be the act of his own free-will and choice is to say express contradictions and to destroy the Covenant of Grace into which by the Baptisme of the Church of England every man entreth and all hope of Salvation which is meerly imaginary if not grounded upon it Seeing then that the trial upon which these Commissioners proceed