Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	discipline_n	doctrine_n	4,176	5	6.2312	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62715	A call to the Shulamite, or to the scattered and divided members of the church delivered and published upon occasion by Thomas Tanner.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.	1674 (1674)	Wing T139; ESTC R30157	22,246	32

of some other more agreeable as the parties grieved do conceive to the word of God or if they cannot do that aedificare imperium in imperio to separate from the Church and exercise among themselves such divers disciplines as the several free people will admit What a bustle have these opinions made throughout the Land rending in the Body before they rent from it 2. There is a pain of convulsion which is a rending in the bowels of the Church by such as do yet continue in her body and hold with her Communion but are ready to gnaw their passage out by their working Thus it was when some of our Members were taught as if it were hardly lawful to hear some of our Ministers at least not to live under their Ministry to go abroad far and wide to hear and to communicate only in some choicer Congregations yet abhorring separation because as then it may seem there wanted strength to bring forth those issues which the Teachers did desire hoping better of the product then the event did shew 3. Lastly there is a pain of distraction which the Church doth suffer and which hath long continued partly whilst the several dividing Members struggled with one another which should give the law unto the rest at least which should have preeminence partly since the Church hath recovered some consistency with a poor subsistence howsoever envied through Gods especial grace and mercy till we do forfeit it again by our miscarriages in the several Banners that are hung out from divers Forts refusing to be reduced upon any reasonable terms that can be offered Which pain is the more grievous to the Church the Mother of peace in that she is both forced to contend with her own children and is also rent by her own bowels of compassion and fearful of the issue As when the Israelites had vanquished the Tribe of Benjamin which we have not yet done fearing to proceed unto extremities The people of Israel came to the house of God and lift up their voices and wept sore and said O Lord God of Israel why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be to day one Tribe lacking in Israel This alas is our complaint at this day not a Tribe or two but they speak as if of twelve we had but two remaining They speak it may be according to their passions but we with the pain of compassion added unto this of our distraction must needs acknowledge and lament the sad diminutions which we have suffered and do still suffer in our Body which having lost its Members can neither go with ease nor take repose in any posture And this brings me from the pain of sense to the pain of loss to mention also the threefold loss which the Church sustaineth by these divisions 1. The first is the loss of power unto edification our divisions have plucked up the flood-gates and made profaneness overflow like a deluge and behold they say look what the people are whom we have left who could have abode amongst them whereas the people was not such before whilst the laws might be executed and the Discipline of the Church was revered and the gravity of Ministers was held in some respect Is not all Religion or at least the power of it become contemptible so that now it is in vain to go about to restrain any mans practice by fear of censure he doth not value it or to bind any mans conscience by the power of any sound doctrine He hath received dissolute principles He is not to be moved by love or fear Our divisions have demolished all these and layed them low and men do now pretend a binding conscience to commit such sins as we were bound in conscience to restrain them from if we were able fot since our divisions have erected that plea of liberty of conscience men of no conscience have serv'd their ends of it and if all parties now were to be numbred the greatest part would be found to be that which is of no party but to live as they list without a law and I had almost said without God in the world too Besides all this has not Popery had as fair play as it could wish and so strange an encrease in a short time as to amaze us now and strike a real terror not into vain apprehensions as they have made use of it as a scare-crow heretofore but into the soberest minds amongst us And we may thank our divisions for this too Yet our Brethren that have divided us have still declared themselves to be no less enemies unto Popery than unto Prophaneness But see how they have been over-wrought and to what a pass we are all brought who do but want the power of the Papists to unite us in Religion and to reduce us unto better manners and to more obedience unto Governments Oh sad disease that needeth such a remedy from such a sad and fearful revolution Good Lord deliver us 2. A second loss is that of Intercession when the men of Nineveh joyn'd unanimously in one request God Almighty favour'd them with an eminent return of mercy yet they were aliens from the Covenant of promise But did ever the Children of Israel cry unto the Lord and he did not hear them Did they ever murmur and he did not plague them What should I say as a mortal man about the unsearchable judgments of Almighty God If we agree in any one desire as for peace and settlement can we agree to come into any one place or to take with us words to ask it at his bounteous hands Can we ask it with any fervour whilst we have reserves about the terms whereupon we do desire it or can we expect that he should answer cold uncertain and lukewarm Petitions Is not this the cause that we are spiritually disarmed even as the Philistins dealt by the Israelites so that there is neither sword nor shield amongst us whereby we may prevail with God for any blessing upon us or our Posterity That the Heavens are as brass which our divided prayers cannot pierce That such clouds of blackness are impendent over us But if we pray to God for divers things such indeed as are contrary and inconsistent with one another what returns can we expect Here is an Assembly praying down with this down with that There is another praying Not so Lord but establish this and restore that only in this they may possibly agree Any thing rather than that which is Which side should God Almighty hear or with which should he not be offended Is not this the reason therefore of such a distracted State Do not the same pray against the peace and settlement which they do pretend to desire And hath not God sometimes answered their importunity by giving their own requests to their utter disappointments that they might be convinced of their own vanity in their intermedling so much as they do with his Providences And yet they

to the utmost let others observe that the use whereof they are if they be of any good use is but the same of which they were before in their proper places and being distorted to the places which they usurp they do but move like members out of joynt and will soon be impaired for want of the body notwithstanding their pretences to completeness among themselves And we could shew of how little use men of eminent gifts and parts before have been for many years since they left their stations in the Church the leaving of us as we conceive occasioning the dereliction of the spirit unto them so that they are left to themselves in matters of great concern to their own good and the good of others But I will conclude my answer and this first reason with applying of a passage of St. Augustine upon that place Little children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now are there many Antichrists They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us Non possunt exlre for as nisi Antichristi c. None saith he can go out of the Church but Antichrists They which are not contrary unto Christ cannot go forth for he which is not contrary unto him doth abide in his Body and is accounted a member Whosoever do not abide with us but do go out it is manifest that they are Antichrists And how is that to be proved by their lye Who is a lyer but he that denieth that Iesus is the Christ Let us ask the several Hereticks of our times what Heretick do you find that denieth Iesus to be the Christ Some as he proceedeth are gone out from us and are become Donatists Let us ask them whether Iesus be the Christ they presently confess that Iesus is the Christ. If therefore he be the Antichrist that denieth Iesus to be the Christ neither can they call Us Antichrists nor We them because we both confess the same Wherefore if neither call one another Antichrists we are not gone out from one another we remain in Unity But if we remain in unity Quid faciunt in hâc civitate duo altaria What mean two divers Churches in this City Quid faciunt divisae domus What means the scattering of houses divisá conjugia husband and wife going two waies Quid facit communis lectus divisus Christus What meaneth this that husband and wife are one in all but Christ saith he we must confess the truth Are they gone out from Us or We from them God forbid that it should be We from them for We have the Testament of the Lords Inheritance saying I will give thee the Nations for thine Inheritance whosoever doth not communicate with this Inheritance he is gone forth and in fact and deed he is against Christ though in word he do confess him Such as act preposterously for Christ and for the Cause of Christ do but hinder where they make a shew to help and pull down where they seem to build or at least build that which must be pulled down again although they may possibly work with a good intention But under this pretext there are many that do act from a different temper which is one thing that our Brethren will be loth to bear and therefore I will compound with them for some abatement that they may hear my next reason with the more patience The true Church doth earnestly desire the return of her scattered and divided Members by reason of her sense of pain and loss through such dissipation or division she doth not feel nor yet conceipt herself to be compleat without them but rather maimed and deprived The Physical Philosopher saith that dolor est solutio continui pain is the solution or division of that which was entire As if it be a wound or rent the parts are distermined from one another if it be a bruise the circling of the blood and spirits are interrupted from which ensueth an ach or a sting in the parts affected or in the whole body which is called pain The Members of the Church may be divided either by a bruise or a wound or a dislocation or in a word by dismembring in each of which degrees the Church doth suffer a divers pain or loss It is a bruise when heresies are broached which tend to division It is a wound when a breach is made thereby It is a dislocation when the Church comes by this means to lose her influence so that she cannot move her limbs It is a dismembring when the part unsound is either cut off by censure or cutteth of its self by rashness Because I cannot touch upon all the cases there is a threefold pain and a threefold loss which are worthy to be mentioned 1. There is a pain of inflammation in the Church when certain Tenents are given out that tend unto a new way contrary to the constitution or establishment And though in truth there be no time nor place wherein the enemy doth not cast abroad the wild-fire of heresie and schism yet at sometimes the minds of men are more disposed than at others to receive these sparks and to kindle in combustion When the Arrian Heresie first brake forth there arose every where saith my Historian no small tumult for then a man might have seen not only the Presidents and chief Rulers of the Churches inveighing one against another with opprobrious terms but also the lay-multitude severed asunder into two parts the one favouring the one side the other favouring the other side and the case became so hainous and so shameful that the Christian Religion came to be derided openly even in the publick Plays and Shews And has it not happened thus amongst us by reason of some factious Doctrines that have been far and wide dispersed We allowed a great latitude unto opinion before according unto every mans sense and conscience and now we come to tax other points which tend to division and do not come within the Verge of that latitude though the maintainers of them do pretend indeed that they ought to do We must not doubt to instance in a few particulars instead of all the rest What could follow but a miserable inflammation when there were subjects apt to receive such opinions as some of these viz. That our National Church is no true Church or if it be a Church in any sense that it is improperly so called That it hath no power of binding or loosing That her Members have no obligation to continue in her Communion but rather to come forth from it even as out of Babylon That there can be no Communion with Congregations that are so mixed and which cannot choose but to continue so whiles they are under such a government And in fine that the work of Reformation doth require the subverting of such a Government and setting up