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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	false_a	spirit_n	try_v	3,332	5	9.2261	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26356	The care of the peace of the church, the duty of every Christian in a discourse upon Psalm 122, 6, wherein the main pleas, for separation are examined and the true causes thereof shewed ... / by Tho. Adderley ... ; to which is annexed a letter, briefly shewing the great danger and sinfulness of popery, written to a young gentleman (a Roman Catholick) in Warwick-shire.	Adderley, Thomas, b. 1648 or 9.	1679 (1679)	Wing A509; ESTC R20224	39,054	53

a little false glory be of weight enough to be put in the scale against the peace of the Church If they have not an infallibility amongst them equal with that of Rome they will think that they might be mistaken and deceived Let them view that place of St. Paul and apply it to themselves 1. Cor. 13.11 When I was a Child I spake as a Child I understood as a Child I thought as a Child but when I became a man I put away Childish things If these and such like considerations will not work upon them to renounce and forsake their former errors for fear of losing their reputation of being called wavering men and time-servers and the like certainly they are of a quite different strain from the Apostles who rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Gods sake Acts 5.41 and are to be ranked amongst those timerous rulers of the Jews John 12 Who believed on our Saviour Christ but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him being lovers of the praise of men more then of the praise of God And thus have I now shew'd you what are the true causes and reasons of the separation from our Church and consequently of the disturbance of it's peace and unity as to the teaching and leading part of our dissenters I proceed now to speak of the second sort of our dissenters those that forsake the publick assemblies and so disturb the unity and peace of the Church viz the well meaning but ignorant and deluded vulgar As first of all the first cause or reason of these persons dislike of our Church and consequently of their separation from it is prejudice whereby I mean that which proceeds from education It is certainly true that nothing makes a deeper impression upon us nothing is more hardly routed out then those documents and instructions which we receive in our infancy and Child-hood Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem testa diu The vessel retains a gust or tincture of that liquor that was first put into it The first principles we imbibe are not commonly written in sand to be defaced by every blast of wind but they are commonly as durable as if they were engraved with an iron pen in brass or marble It is a common expression amongst us that possession is an eleven points of the Law But sure enough that person that hath the education and training up of Children in any Religion hath odds enough against any other that shall come after him for while the wax was warm and soft he clapt his seal upon it and that impression we know cannot easily be altered Prejudice is so sore an evil that it will render the most convincing testimonies ineffectual And of this the Jews in rejecting the Messias is an everlasting instance There was not so much as one single circumstance either of time or place of lineage or descent of Doctrine or miracles which their own writings had foretold him by but he answer'd it exactly But they having imbibed an opinion that the Messias was to be a great temporal Prince that should fight their Battels and free them from all slavery because they could not discover this in him they therefore became blind as to all other Characters If then it fared so ill with our Saviour himself upon the account of prejudice what wonder is it if the Church of England be despised and rejected too upon the same score How commonly hath this Church which is absolutely the best reformed Church throughout the whole world been branded with the odious names of superstition and Popery from which as I have shewed she is the most innocent and free How commonly have persons in our late sad times been trained up in an utter abhorrence of her How frequently have we found some persons so prejudiced and incensed against her that if we go about to undeceive them and to give them better information they will look upon us as their utter enemies and they are ready to cry out to us as the possessed did to our Saviour in the Gospel what have we to do with you Are you come to torment us altogether forgetting that caution of St. John 1. John 4.1 Of trying the spirits whether they be of God or no and that for a very good reason which he hath there laid down because there are many false Prophets that are gone out into the world Most sad it is to think that poor Souls should be so obstinate and so resolutely unwilling to hear good instructions and that they should be thus afraid of those that mean nothing but their good They have been taught from their cradle to think ill of this Church and in that they think themselves wise enough and who is he that can be admitted to instruct them But alas this is that which will highly aggravate their fault and make it indelible For upon this account it was that our Saviour told the Pharisees John 9.41 If ye were blind ye should have no sin but now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth This then Isay is the first cause or reason of these persons dislike of our Church and consequently of their separation from it viz prejudice Secondly A second cause or reason of these persons dislike of our Church and consequently of their separation from it is the want of Christian charity I mean charity for their Governors which if it could once be received and entertained amongst those many Gospel-graces which they think themselves to be the only possessors of we might then have some hopes of seeing them come into our Churches and there to profess and hold the same faith with us in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace Sure I am that if we should go into any of the separated congregations and confused assemblies a great part of that multitude could give us no good account of that concourse if we should question them about it And if some of them should tell us that they are there met together to worship God yet I am confident that like that uproar that was stirred up by the Silver-smiths at Ephesus Acts 19 the more part of them could not tell wherefore they should come to worship God here rather then in the publick and solemn assemblies Perhaps some of them might tell us that there they have pure ordinances and a true Gospel-worship and that in our Churches there is nothing but superstition and Popery a mixt worship and a serving of God after the Commandments of men But then if we ask them further what they mean by superstition and will-worship and by serving God after the Commandments of men and the like they are as little able to give us any good account as the Child that is yet to learn his A. B. C. Like Parrots they have only learnt the expression and the found but as for the true sense and meaning of the words that they are altogether strangers to And to

our Saviours feet with a pound of Spikenard which says the Text was very costly Judas cryes out of a wast tells them that the Ointment might have been sold for an hundred pence and given to the poor Here indeed was a fair pretence viz charity to the Poor But St. John the Evangelist tells us that this was but a meer out-side a meer pretence and that covetousness was the true cause of his muttering against it for this he said says St. John not that he cared for the poor but because he was a Thief and had the bag and bare what was put therein John 12.6 And so too we have a great deal of reason to think that the real causes of the separation from our Church and of the clamor that is made against it are quite otherwise then what is commonly pretended It will be worth a while therefore to search a little into the true causes of our divisions because we shall thereby discover the true images of things through those dark mists which cunning but ungodly men have endeavored to cast before the eyes of the vulgar we shall hereby discern how sadly the ignorant but well-meaning vulgar are deluded with meer pretences and that while their teachers cry conscience conscience it is meerly their own lusts that promote and carry on divisions in the Church But because those that separate and divide from our Church are commonly distinguished into a two-fold rank and order the teaching and leading men and the silly and deluded vulgar we shall therefore reckon up the causes under a two-fold head and shew that some of them are to be appropriated to the one and some to the other And least those leading men who think themselves some body in their own conceit should take it in great dudgen if they should be put off to the last and that we may not offend them in this we shall therefore speak to them in the first place 1. First then the first cause or reason of these persons separating from the Church and consequently disturbing the peace and unity of it may be an ambitious and aspiring spirit There is no question to be made but that there have been and are still many such men in the world who viewing themselves in a false glass do Pigmalion like fall in love with their own parts and from an overweening conceit of them they will not only adore them themselves but expect that all the world should adore them too and those that do not see as much in them as they do in themselves they conclude that all such are blinded by emulation and envy From this over-weaning conceit of themselves comes a fancy that none are so worthily deserving of the more honorable places in the Church as they And when they come to make suit and claim for such places if they happen to be put by and others perhaps more deserving to be preferred before them This very thing shall presently put them into a rage they will forthwith bethink themselves of a revenge they will hereupon study how to make themselves considerable at the cost of those who they judged did consider them too little And hereupon they will contrive some fair pretence to draw a party after them and make a faction Thus we are told how that Arrius missing of a prelation to the order and dignity of a Bishop Alexander being preferr'd before him he broatch'd and troubled the Church with an heretical opinion whereby he denyed the Divinity of our Saviour Christ And some conceive that the occasion of Tertullian's defection from the true Faith and of his fall to Montanism was because that after the death of Agrippinus he sufferr'd a repulse and was put by the Bishoprick of Carthage I could produce divers instances of the like kind were it at all needful But it is much to be thought that our present age will afford too many that it would turn us out too many persons who have chose to set up a party against the Church and to be leaders of a faction meerly because they might not be Governors of it and could not satisfie or content themselves with what their Governors thought them deserving But what a sad thing is it and how unchristian too for men who pretend to be holyer and more conscientious then others to abuse and delude the world so grosly as to pretend that their separating from the Church is upon the account of conscience when it is meerly from an over-weaning conceit of their abilities that they are wiser and better then others and will therefore disturb the peace of the Church if they are not preferred before others Is this humor in the least answerable to our Saviours Command of Learning of him who was lowly in heart Matth. 11.29 Or doth it any ways answer his Apostles charge that in lowliness of mind we esteem others better then our selves Phillip 2.3 Certainly had they not quite laid aside and forgotten some of the weightier precepts of the Gospel they would quickly lay aside that vain fondness they have for themselves they would cast an eye upon their deformities as well as upon their excellencies and then they would begin a little to contract their plumes and think others as good if not better then themselves and no longer disturb the peace of the Church upon this account because they have not those honorable places in it which they vainly and groundlesly think they do deserve Secondly a second cause or reason of these persons separating from the Church and consequently disturbing the peace and unity of it is interest or the desire of gaining riches and money what sin is there indeed that the charming force of these will not perswade some men to Judas betrayed his Master for Thirty Pieces of Silver and the Husbandmen in the parable instigate and prompt each other to murder and to kill the heir to get the inheritance to themselves The love of money says the Apostle is the root of all evil 1. Tim. 6.10 And therefore why may it not be supposed to be the root of this evil we are now speaking of viz of the disturbance of the peace of the Church Nay he that reads but the next words following in the Text forenamed will find that the Apostle hath asserted as much himself The love of money says he is the root of all evil which while some have coveted after they have erred from the Faith And the same Apostle St. Paul hath left an instance of it upon record 2. Tim. 4.10 Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present world There is no question but that some of those Doctrines which make the partition wall betwixt us and the Church of Rome somewhat higher and which they are so zealous to maintain are oweing meerly to interest and to the profit they get by them As I could instance in their Doctrines about purgatory about pardons and indulgences their Praying for the Dead and such like which would certainly fall to