Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	church_n	world_n	5,052	5	4.5521	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27472	A mirror that flatters not, or, A looking-glass for all new-converts to whatsoever perswasion, Roman-Catholicks, Conformists, or Non-conformists : that is, certain sermons of St. Bernard translated into English ... : together with a preface of the translator to all new-converts ...; De conversione ad clericos. English	Bernard, of Clairvaux, Saint, 1090 or 91-1153.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1982; ESTC R5454	46,594	72

yet ceased to sin but still draws a long chain after him he is not yet made a man seeing his own poverty but he says for I am rich and want nothing when he is indeed poor and naked and piteously miserable He has nothing of the spirit of Meekness whereby he might be able to instruct those who are overtaken with a fault considering himself lest he also may not be tempted Being a stranger to tears of compunction he rather rejoyces when he has done ill and exults in the worst things To wit he is one of those to whom our Lord says Wo be to you who laugh now for ye shall mourn Lu. 6. His eyes covet Money not Justice and he looks at every high thing he miserably hungers after Dignities he thirsts after Human Glory the Bowels of Mercy are far from him he rather rejoyces in Cruelty and to play the Tyrant he counts Gain Piety Why do I speak of cleanness of heart I wish he had not wholly forgotten it as one dead as to his heart I wish he were not a seduced Dove that has no heart would to God even that which is without were but clean and that the spotted Coat which pertains to the Body were not to be found and that he did even in this part obey him that says Be clean you who carry the vessels of the Lord. CHAP. XXIX A Complaint against the Incontinent for not Revering Holy Orders I Do not accuse all but neither can I excuse all Our Lord has left to himself many thousands Otherwise if their Justice did not excuse us and the Lord of Sabbath had not left us that holy Seed we had now long ago been destroyed as was Sodom and had perished as Gomorrah Indeed the Church seems to have been dilated and even the most Sacred Order of the Clergy their number is beyond number multiplied But though O Lord thou hast made our number more yet thou hast not made our joy greater whilst there appears as great a decrease of merit as increase of number Every-where they run to Holy Orders and men without reverence without consideration meddle with Mysteries revered by the very Angelical Spirits For they are not afraid to seize upon the sign of the Heavenly Kingdom to wear the Crown of that Empire even they in whom Avarice reigns Ambition rules Pride domineers and even abominable Luxury has its principality Amongst whom also perhaps the worst of abominations appears within their Walls if according to the Prophecy of Ezekiel we would pierce the Wall so that even in the House of God we live most horridly ill For that after Fornications after Adulteries after Incests amongst some even ignominious passions and filthinesses are not wanting Would to God things which are not fitting to be done were so not done that it neither was needful for the Apostle to write these things nor for us to speak of them or that he should not be thought worthy to be believed who should say that so abominable an affection did at any time occupy the heart of man Were not of old those Cities the Mothers of this filthiness condemned before-hand by the Divine Justice and destroyed by fire Did not the fire of Hell impatient of delay by prevention devour that execrable people because their sins were specially manifest going before to judgment Gen. 19. Did not stormy showers of Fire and Brimstone absume the very earth as conscious of so great a confusion Was not the whole Country converted into an horrible lake Five heads of that Hydra were cut off but alas innumerable rose up in their place Who has built again the Cities of wickedness who has dilated the Walls of turpitude who has extended the poisonous seed Wo wo wo the enemy of mankind has scattered about the World the unhappy relicks of that sulphureous fire with those execrable ashes he has bestrewed the body of the Church and with a foul and fetid filth has besprinkled some of her Ministers Ah elect Race royal Priesthood holy Nation acquired People Who amidst thy so Divine beginnings and the first birth of Christian Religion abounding with all spiritual Graces could have believed that such things as these should ever have been found in thee With these spots they enter the Tabernacle of the Living God they inhabit the holy Temple of the Lord polluting of it having hereafter to receive a manifold Judgment for that they have such grievous Consciences and yet notwithstanding intrude themselves into the Sanctuary of God For such do not only not appease God but more incense him whilst they seem to say in their hearts He will not punish us They do indeed provoke him and make him angry with them I fear by those very things by which they ought to liave made an atonement Would to God rather than thinking to begin a Tower they would sit down and compute the cost lest perhaps they should not have a sufficient stock to perfect it Would to God they who are not able to contain would be afraid rashly to profess perfection or to promise a single life For it is truly a costly Tower and a great Word which all cannot take But without all peradventure it were better to marry than to burn and to be saved in the low degree of the faithful people than in the sublime state of the Clergy both to live worse and to be more severely judged For many not indeed all but yet many it is certain neither can they lie hid such is their multitude nor do they seek to lie hid such is their impudence many I say seem to have made use of the liberty in which they are called as an occasion of carnality abstaining from the remedy of Marriage and afterwards pouring themselves forth on all manner of wickedness CHAP. XXX An Exhortation to Repentance that being first humbled they may be afterwards exalted SPare I beseech you Brethren spare your Souls spare the Blood which was shed for you Take heed of the horrid danger decline the fire which is prepared Let there be found at length not a mock-profession of Perfection let the vertue of Piety be exhibited together with the semblance of it let there not be an empty form of a single life devoid of the truth How should Chastity but be in danger amidst Delights Humility among Riches Piety in the middle of Business Truth in much speaking Charity in this wicked World Fly out of the middle of Balylon fly and save your souls Fly to the Cities of Refuge where you may do Pennance for what 's past and obtain Grace for the present and confidently expect Glory hereafter Let not the consciousness of your sins retard you for where they have abounded Grace is wont to superabound neither let the austerity of Pennance deter you For the sufferings of this Life are not worthy the past fault which is remitted nor the present comfort of Grace which is infused nor the future Glory which is promised us In fine there

A MIRROR That flatters not OR A Looking-glass FOR ALL NEW-CONVERTS To whatsoever Perswasion Roman-Catholicks Conformists or Non-Conformists THAT IS Certain Sermons of St. Bernard translated into English wherein the Manner and Nature of the true and hearty Conversion of a Sinner unto God is fully and excellently described Together with A Preface of the Translator to all New-Converts in which is shewn that the Conversion which will make us happy in the other World is the Conversion describ'd by St. Bernard not the simple Change to such a Church Perswasion or Communion LONDON Printed in the Year 1677. THE Translator's Preface TO ALL NEW-CONVERTS MUltiplicasti gentem sed non magnificasti laetitiam Thou hast made our number more but hast not made our joy greater A great deal of noise the change of New-Converts makes and yet no great cause of joy either to themselves or to the Church Perswasion or Sect or whatever else you please to call it to which they are converted Si converteris Israel ad me convertere If ye be converted be converted unto me says the Lord of Heaven and Earth If your Conversion to the true Church of Christ as you imagin has converted your heart and soul throughly unto God you have made an happy change indeed and no doubt but there 's joy in Heaven at your Conversion but if your heart and manners be still the same as before and you have only gotten a new name and a new form of Godliness without the interior Vertue and Power of it you are as you were as to your title to Beatitude in the other life As good never-a-whit as never the better If you be a Christian Jesus Christ has told you the means and the only means to get eternal life is to love God above all things and your Neighbours as your selves If you want this no Communion with any whatsoever Church or Sect can hinder you from being eternally miserable Though no doubt seeing Religion is nothing else but a manner of living reveal'd by God Almighty to the World to dispose them for the felicity of the other life it must necessarily be highly advantageous to be of the true Religion because in that must needs be contained far greater helps than in any Sect of man's devising to beget in Souls the necessary preparations to eternal Beatitude And hence of all Religions that Religion is demonstratively from God which has the greatest and manifoldst means to fit Souls for the happiness of the other life or to make the World truly good that is pious to God charitable to one another and temperate as to the use and desires of the things of this life When those means are not by ignorance or corrupt passions abused but sincerely and seriously made use of But you thank God you are converted to the Church of Rome Et quae tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi And why so passionately desirous to see Rome But be it as it will I 'll not now dispute with you about it but at present I 'll suppose the Religion you have embrac'd to be most holy and true And yet you must give me leave to tell you as a friend your great work is still to do I know there are certain Preferments in Cambridg called Scholarships and Fellowships which none are capable of though never so deserving either for their natural Parts or acquired Learning unless they have been for some time educated in such a School Westminster for example or Eton c But coming from such a School ihough otherwise their Learning be very indifferent they are without difficulty preferred in respective Colledges of the said Vniversity But it is not so in Heaven Places and Dignities in that City of Light are not conferred upon us because we have been trained up in the Communion of such a Perswasion but because of our fitness and dispositions for them To say to the Examiner of all hearts in the day of Judgment you come out of such a School of Vertue the Protestant for example or Roman-Church will signify nothing towards your admittance to the fellowship of God and his Saints for ever It will be answered at that great day to all workers of Iniquity though not only the Church in whose Communion they died but also though even they themselves in their own persons have prophesied in the name of our Lord Jesus and wrought many wonderful things Depart from me I know you not But if you have in the time of your abode on this earth so exercised your selves in all works of piety to God and charity to your Neighbour and temperance and Christian mortification to your selves as you have nextly disposed your Soul for the beatifying sight of God by an hearty love of his Divine Majesty and cordial charity to your Neighbour and a moderate orderly desire of the things here below you need no other recommendation for your assured admittance to immutable everlasting Bliss Nor is this said to perswade any one to an indifferency of living and dying in any whatsoever Church or Communion No. God forbid But only to awaken those who seem to set their hearts at rest when they have once as they imagin found out the true Church of Christ The same I say to all New-Converts to Non-conformity or the Religion established by Law Have you more of the fear of God in your hearts than you had before Have you a more cordial charity to your Neighbour than before Have you a less esteem of the Pleasures Riches and Honours of this World than before If you have you have then reason to be glad of your change and to hope you have made a step neerer eternal Beatitude by it But if you are as greedy of Money as passionate in your desires of all sensual delights as much a Slave to Honour and the favour of men as little studious to do your indigent Neighbour good in all his wants Corporal or Spiritual as little regardful of the Divine Majesty whether out of fear or love as before your great work is still to do your Conversion that must make you live eternally is still to be made If you be converted to God and all other Conversions are to very little purpose then you have a regard to God in all your ways For as when you are converted to the Church of Rome still you have an eye to the Commands and Orders of that Church So when you are converted unto God if you be indeed converted unto him you have ever an eye unto him and think how he would have you spend your time how much upon wordly Affairs how much in Prayer and other spiritual exercises how much in moderate recreation c. You regard also God in your eating drinking and sleeping observing that Christian-mean in all these actions which you think God Almighty would have you to observe not regarding the contrary unchristian practices of the libertines you live amongst In like manner if God Almighty have