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
A96973	Five sermons, in five several styles; or Waies of preaching. The [brace] first in Bp Andrews his way; before the late King upon the first day of Lent. Second in Bp Hall's way; before the clergie at the author's own ordination in Christ-Church, Oxford. Third in Dr Maine's and Mr Cartwright's way; before the Universitie at St Maries, Oxford. Fourth in the Presbyterian way; before the citie at Saint Paul's London. Fifth in the Independent way; never preached. With an epistle rendring an account of the author's designe in printing these his sermons, as also of the sermons themselves. / By Ab. Wright, sometimes Fellow of St John Baptist Coll. in Oxford.	Wright, Abraham, 1611-1690.	1656 (1656)	Wing W3685; Thomason E1670_1; ESTC R208406	99,151	247

all from Christ yet we work with it as it were our own stock and so glorie as the Apostle speaks as if we had not received it And thus though the sap and livelinesse which stirrs us to any spiritual dutie is really and indeed efficiently from Christ yet wee work with it as if all proceeded from our selves because wee neither receive our strength by faith nor act by faith that strength received as men acted by Christ and working in Christ being supported with the pride and self sufficiencie of our own gifts and parts whereas all true believers are emptied first of their own strength and abilitie and so walk as those who can do nothing without Christ as those who are not able to love or believe one moment more without him And therefore a true believer being thus sensible of his own insufficiencie and unabilitie doth when hee is at any time assisted in spiritual duties attribute all to Christ when he hath done he glories not in himself as of himself but as he is a man in Christ and that as he is a man in Christ he did it and no otherwise So the Apostle 2 Cor. 12. 2. 5. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago c. Of such an one will I glorie yet of my self I will not glorie but in mine infirmities And yet it was himself he speaks of but yet not in himself as of himself but as he was a man in Christ and no otherwise Wee have done with our third step or degree of Selfe-denyal the denial of our gifts and graces both natural and spiritual And as we have denied these natural and spiritual endowments so in the fourth place we must deny our very religion our christianity for Christ This seemes at the first sight a contradiction but it is onely a high expression or if you Please to call it so a new light of Self-denyal For I do not mean so to deny our Christianity as to become Jewes Turkes or Infidels but so to deny it as to resigne it up unto Christ to lay it at Christs feet so to deny it as not to rely upon it as the onely dispensation and appearance whereby God is able to reveal himselfe unto his people for can'st thou measure the waies thoughts and various appearances of God whom thou thy selfe callest infinite and unmeasurable Art thou sure he can appeare no otherwisa then according to what thou exspectest he will Call but to mind the religion of the Jewes what religion that ever was since the foundation of the world I will not except our own Christian religion was more confirmed by miracles then this what religion for it's time had the presence of God more in it set up by the peculiar appointment of the Almighty the Doctrine written in Tables of stone with his own finger the discipline in every circumstance and ceremony and Punctilio dictated not by his Spirit onely but by the expresse word of his own mouth Had the Christian religion for doctrine and discipline been as punctually set down and enjoyned the Real Presence had not erected so many stakes and gibbets nor the ceremonies of the Church raised so many armies in Christendom as we find by woful experience they have done And now what is become of all the divine right and confirmation of all the pompe and glory of the Jewish Church and religion Is it not called off all and the drosse and dung even in the very righteousnesse of it Phil. 3. 8. And the doctrine and discipline base and beggarly elements by the same Apostle Gal 4. 9. Insomuch that I here professe before you all that ever since I knew any thing of religion nothing hath more amazed and stagger'd my reason then that God should first establish and afterwards disanull the same relgion and secondly that the Apostles should set so low a rate upon should have so mean base and contemptible an esteem of any thing that was at any time set up and avowed by God Neither know I how to answer the Jew should he urge this very argument home to me then by crying out with the Apostle upon the same account and ground we now mention O the depth of the riches of the wisdome and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his wayes past finding out Rom. 11. 33. Thou seest therefore that the Jews were cozen'd who were as confident as thou can'st be that it should not be so with them as it was is it then so impossible that thou shouldest ever be deceived in what thou further expectest because thou hast gone a step or two beyond these Jewes Is that which thou hast attained and hoped for of such an enduring nature that it can never passe away The Jewes knew Christ under the law and it was a very glorious knowledge compared with any knowledg the heathen had but what became of that knowledge It vanished and became of no account as you have heard And so likewise Christians have known Christ under the Gospel and this kind of knowledg doth far excell that which was imparted to the Jewes Gospel-faith Gospel-love Gospel-obedience do infinitly surpasse any legal qualifications and performances whatsoever but with all consider this may not these Gospel dispensations passe away may not these duties be swallowed up in higher and more spiritualiz'd duties and the glory of these fall before a greater glory In all these then thou must deny thy selfe thou must resigne them up lay them all at Christs feet And how this religion of ours which we now professe must be denyed by us and be resigned up of us I shal endeavour to shew you in these following particulars First we mu●t deny all ordinances administrations so as to rest relie upon them and here first for the ordinance of ministerial preaching we must not ●est not put our confidence and faith upon that because as it is Isa 54. 13. We shall be all taught of God Now the teaching of men and the teaching of God differ as the light of the Moon and the light of the Sun that shines by the helpe of this this from it's own light The teachings of men is this Moon-light which in Gods time must vanish For this Moon-light this conveying knowledge to others by helps and meanes is to be swallowed up into the light of the Sun that God may become all in all Jer. 31. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more By the mentioning of Sun and Moon in this place God speakes to the capacity of men and points out the whole creation of night and day and that all creature-helps and meanes should fail though they were and are as glorious helps as the Sun that gives light to the

Church from whose bodie every one that separates tears off a several limb and becoms a murtherer of the whole For which reason it hath been ever the devils policie who is encouraged not so much by his own strength as our weaknesse first to divide this armie with banners and then to assault through the breach because the conquest is easier against an hundred then against a thousand especially when the combatants fight with the publick enemie against themselves and that too commonly either about a School-subtilty or Churchceremonie the usual difference being not so much in the foundation as the paint and dresse of the building nay perchance a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Scotus upon the first of the Senten censures that grand controversie about the procession of the Holy Ghost a consent of opinions in contrary terms as a sundry dialect maketh not a several language both sides speaking the same way to heaven though in a diverse tone In these cases then no separation onely let thy charitie pitie thy brothers mistreading speak it errour in him but no irreligion in that he loves God with as strong a flame though of a weaker light with as high a zeal though a lower knowledg his slips alas being to him as part of his religion Creed errs meerly least he should dishonor God Leav him not therefore for his errors in doctrine nor yet for his errors in life separate neither from a particular Church nor a particular Congregation either for the Priests sin or the peoples refuse not to take the blessed Eucharist from him or receive it with these For first what if the Priest the sacrificer be unclean is the offering so 'T is a grosse dull capaeity that can't distinguish 'twixt the worke and the instrument the weakenesse of the person and the power of the function Now as we may not separate from the Communion for the Priests folly so neither for the peoples For what though some in the Congregation be prophane Wilt thou thrust all into the pit of hell because some few walke near the brink 'T is a priveledge of the Church triumphant to be all faire and have no spot in her the best proportion'd body hath not every part of an equall comlinesse nor is beauty made up of one colour Our spouse in this booke of Canticles wears a black eye in a cleare complextion that is but her naturall beautie-speck the moon 's a glorious body for all her moles the Church a faire Lilly for all the thorns And what are those to me Can't I enjoy the sweetnesse but I must needs pricke my fingers if I admonish the sinner and detest his sin what 's anothers profaennesse to my religion Our Saviour could be of the same table with Publicans and sinners yet none of their counsell eat of their meat without tasting their gall and bitternesse And we read his Apostles did communicate with Judas and yet not with his treason partake of the Paschal Lambe without tasting the bitter herbs And now what remedy for this confus'd communion of the multitude certainely none If the Children of God come to present themselves before his Throne there seldom misses a Sathan in the mid'st as we read Job 2 no crosse or holy water can keep him out Our bells are not exorcists they may cleare the aire if you will but of no evill spirits neither is their sound so subtle to distinguish 'twixt good and bad invites not the Publican and forbids the Pharisee they both came up to the Temple at the houre of praier there seldome being a gathering together into the Arke the Church but some uncleane beast enters not the most perfect Synod on earth even that of the Apostles but had its Judas and yet these Apostles were Chist's and that Ark God's which points to my last particular the Artisan or Limmer himself that hath drawn and owes and will protect this piece implied in the particle my As the Lillie so is my Love God is in the world as the soul in the bodie life and government and as the soul is in every part of the bodie so is God in everypart of the world no quartermaster but universal Monarch a God every where every where wholly a God his power extending as well to an Ant as to a Man to an Atome as to a Citie but not in the same degree as his glorie fill'd both Moses his bush and the space about it but not with the same measure the one being too holy onely for the Prophets shoo 's the other even for his feet Thus do Common-wealths inherit a greater share of the Almightie's Providence then single families their laws being wrap'd in his decrees and their policies in his counsels plotting and contriving nothing but what meets with an Eternal thought And even amongst Common-wealths some enjoy more otherslesse of divine protection for though all Nations beare God's stampe and image yet Israel had his superscription too those tribes were writ his and none but his here was his lot his inheritance his Church and where this is you have still a greater influence of the Diety And by this right of inheritance hath God jus patronatus the perpetual Advousen of the Catholick Church and therefore well may hee say in the text my love mine for I made her there is the right of Creation mine for I made her again wash'd and cleans'd her there is the right of Regeneration mine for I bought her there is the right of Redemption mine for she is my self my Spouse there is nexus indissolubilis the right of matrimonial union And as mine to love so to defend the result and inference is natural I am thine therefore save mee O Lord was the Prophets Interest cannot stand without protection as one relation lives not without its brother the hand saies it is my head therefore I will guard it with my strength the head replies it is my hand therefore I will advise it with my counsel And thus it holds in all save where is lack of love or power but with God is want of neither not of love for he that toucheth Israel toucheth the apple of Gods eie nor of power the agent being omnipotent able to compasse his will both without means and contrarie to all Thus rather then his children shall perish either by a deluge or a drought by too much or too little water the red sea shall be divided into walls and the stonie rock into springs and if the Church hath yet any adversaries more mercilesse then water ●he earth shall open from below and burie them before dead or fire shall descend from above and make them a sacrifice without an offering God never suffering this Lillie either to be cut down by the sword or burnt up by the fire of martyrdom 'T is true it may somtimes like a nipp'd blossom hang down the head nay be driven by a winter of persecution to keep house under ground retire I mean to

will new trim and varnish it hereafter turning these lights into Glories and everlasting shines and those shadows into utter darknesse Thus have you from a rude pencil the chief lines of this Landskip of the Church and my present discourse of all which as they lie in the frame of the text where you are first presented with the lights of this piece the Lillie and the Spouse As the Lillie so is my Love The Lillie is a flower of that brightnesse not Solomon saies our Saviour exalted on his throne shin'd with that majestie as one of these humbled in the valley no● were his robes half so glorious as their leaves And as this flower excels in an outward bravery and gad●nesse of leaves so in an inward goodnesse of the stemme out-shining not onely the King but all his plants from his Cedar of Lebanus to the Hisope that groweth on the wall being of that medicinall virtue with the Herbalist idolatrous Israell might have receiv'd from hence an antidote against the Serpents sting and rebellious Pharaoh a new skin for his blister'd flesh Now though Christs spouse in the text answers all and more then hath been spoken of the Lilly yet for the present I will drawe out this paralel but onely in two lines the one pointing to the humility of Christs Chuch in the groweth of the Lilly which is but low and therefore called the Lilly of the vallies the other to her Virgine purity and innocency of life from the whitenesse of the same flower a colour nature doth die simple and so fittest for religion I 'le take my rise from the humility of Christs spouse As the lilly so is my love Aquinas his humility the lowest of acts and yet the highest of virtues would scarce speake good schoole divinity had not our Saviour preached it by his actions who not onely died but lived for our salvation teaching us a way to mount upwards by descending and to be exalted through humility Thus he that was the fullnesse of the Godhead exinanivit se emptied himselfe into a man he that dwelt in the highest regarded the lowlinesse of his Handmaiden as 't is in the Magnificat and the brightnesse of the Father became over-shadowed with a vaile of flesh And as if for a God to be borne and a Diety to enter a body were not sufficient humiliation his whole life was but the Schooles twelve rounds or degrees of humility For though we hear Christ preaching upon the mount in the 5. of Saint Matth yet were his doctrines there onely of the vallies To rejoice when men shall revile to bee exceeding glad for a persecution so the twel●t period of that sermon again to have a cheeke to receive an injury to go to law not to recover but give away a garment in the 40 ver of the same chap last of all to blesse for a curse to wish heaven to such as desire your damnation to deny even our selves that is saies a Father our great parts and eminent endowments duri sermones hard lessons and yet all tooke out by our Saviour his hand directing the same way with his voice and what he taught was but his owne example shewing he enioyn'd no impossibilities in that he acted his owne commands Thus I find him on the crosse in the greatest agony for his persecutors their blasphemies wrestling with his benedictions the Jewes curse ascending heaven and Christs blessing keeping it downe who not suffering them to enjoy their damnation resolved upon with so much plaudite acclamation his blood be upon us and our children opened the mouth of that blood into a praier and made it crie Father forgive them for they know not what they do And this my God was according to thy promise the giving of a new commandement for whereas the old runns I will visit the sinns of the fathers upon the children thy law of the Gospell proclaimes I will remit those sinns unto the third and fourth generation I will shew mercy upon thousands of them that hate me and not keepe my commandements Now for the second act of our Saviours humility the deniall of his eminent gifts what greater could there be then the forbidding his patients to declare their cure and desiring his miracles might be as invisible as his Godhead As if a miraculous health were the shame of the physitian and a Lazarus raised to life the spoiling of his practise Or else how is it we read in the Gospell of our Saviours unlocking the mouth of the dumb and then crying See you tell no man which was to tie up that organ which he had before loosed as he did in drawing the curtaine from the blind mans eyes yet commanding him not to see and take notice of his physitian or in restoring the withered hand and straitway drying it up againe in forbidding it's use and saying point not at me And therefore learn of me was our Saviours saying to his Church for I am lowly in heart Mat. 11. In heart aflecting no vain glory in my miracles no high opinion of my great parts which instructs us not to commit Idolatrie with our own bosom and to fall down to the thoughts of our hearts by which wee deifie these moulds of earth as if we could raise eternitie out of ashes or build immortalitie on pillars of dust wherefore learn of Christ to think meanly of our selvs and mistrust even what we know and this saies Aquinas refraenat animum is a bridle to curb and keep in our hot-mettel'd and unweighed minds from running upon every dangerous precipice the want of humility expelled our first parents paradise the angeltheaven and may us too from the same joyes for som mens eminencies are their vices and a good name as dangerous to them as a bad their greatest parts being made their greatest sins and the rationall soul to answer more at the last day for it's knowledg then ignorance Hence it is we hear Phisophy turned into Atheism and a deep discourse to subtle blasphemy which dares censure the holy Ghost for no good Philospher in placing the waters above the firmament cause all their elements are sublunary to dispute the first Chap. of Gen. out of the Canon for that it is no where to be found in the Physicks Thus they cry down Moses by Aristotle as i● the Divel were as great a mover of sedition in the study as in the shop they raise a Brownisticall mutiny of the Arts against Divinity setting up that to preach which never tooke Orders Nor stop we here but upon the same proud dotage of our able parts presume to remove those Land-marks in Divinity our Fathers have set to leave the old beaten way of the Church trod by so many ages of Divines and follow a peculiar tracke of our private fancy leading to the-by wayes of heresy and schisme God in his just judgement making all the travel and throwes of our braine abortive like those untimely miscarriages of the wombe not

Debter breake if your Estate be any way empaired the First that suffers the first that is blotted out of the Will is God and his legacy And if their estates encrease portions encrease and perchance other legacies but Gods portion and legacy stands at a stay Now let me from hence give you a double use as our Saviour did of his passion Christ left two uses of his passion application and Imitation he suffered for us 1. Pet. 2. 22. For us i. e. that we might make his death ours apply his death And then as if followers there he left us an example So Christ gives us two uses of the reformation of religion First the Doctrine how to do good workes without relying on them as meritorous and then example Many very many men in this Citie Whose lights have shined out before you and you have seen their good workes That as this noble City hath justly acquired the reputation and the testimony of all who have had occasion to consider their dealings in that kinde that they deale most faithfully most justly most providently in all things which are committed to their trust for pious uses from others not onely in a full employment of that which was given but in an improvement thereof and then an imployment of that improvement to the same pious uses so every man in his particular may propose to himselfe some of those blessed examples which have risen among your selves and follow that and exceede that that as your Lights are Torches and not petty Candles and your Torches better then others Torches so he also may be a larger example to others then others have been to him For herein is your Father glorified if you bear much fruit and that is the end of all that we all do that men seeing it may glorifie our Father which is in heaven that our Father which is in heaven may glorifie us by receiving us into these everlasting habitations which is the last interpretation of the words our eternal reward in heaven Of which everlasting habitations of this eternal reward I know not well what to say And indeed it is not for a finite intellect to conceive much lesse to expresse those infinite joies which God hath prepared saith the Apostle for them that love him 1 Cor 2. 9. And those that think to attein to the knowledg of these eternal habitations by speculation will be reckoned as curious searchers into God's secrets and may justly expect the reproof of the Galileans Acts 1. Why stana yee gazing up into Heaven Neverthelesse to satisfie you as far as the Scripture and the Antient Doctors of the Catholick Church warrant me I will observe this method in explaining these eternal habitations which is all one with eternal life I will first shew you what this eternal life is by the privation of it what the life of heaven is by the life of hell and then I will give you a glimpse for a full sight it is impossible what it is in its selfe For the first the privation of this life which is hell our first position or Doctrine shall be this There are some things concerning hell in which a man may goe beyond his reason and yet those things have no relation to his faith For that there is an hell a damnation an eternall life there and why it is and when it is it is clear enough from Scripture but what this damuation is neither the tongue of good Angels that know damnation by the contrary by the fruition of salvation Nor the tongue of bad Angels who know damnation by a lamentable experience is able to expresse it There are things in which a man may go beyond his reason and yet not meet with faith neither of such a kind are those things that concern the locality of hell and the materiality of the torments thereof For that hell is a certain and limited place beginning here and ending there and extending no farther or that the torments of hell be materiall or elementary torments which in naturall consideration can have no consideration no affection or appliablenesse to the tormenting of a spirit these things neither sets my reason nor the bind my faith neither opinion that it is or is not so doth command our reason so but that probable reasons may be brought on the other side neither opinion doth so command our faith but that a man may be saved though he think the contrary Our instruction therefore is that in such a point it is alwayes lawfull to think so as we find does most advance and exalt our own devotion and Gods glory in our estimation But now in the Second place when we shall have given to these words by which hell is expressed in the scripture the heaviest signification that either the nature of those words can admit in themselves or a● they are types and representations of hel as fire and brimstone and weeping and gnashing and darknesse and the worme and as they are laid together by the Prophet Isa 30. 33. Tophet i. e. Hell is deep and large there is the capacitie and extent room enough it is a pile of fire and much wood there is the durablenesse of it and the breath of the Lord to kindle it like a stream of brimstone there is the vehemencie of it when all is done the hell of hells the torment of torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibilitie of ever returning to his presence This then is our second Position of our discourse in this particular that hell is the privation of the beatificall vision of the blessed Trinity And this I shal amplifie by giveing you the several degrees of this privation First in generall for the foundation of all the rest you are to know that the torments and miseries of hell are thus described by our blessed Saviour Matt 25. 4. depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his angels In this word from me is the height of paint the extremity of torment and thus I will prove it Frst it is fearfull to undergo pain though that pain be but momentary as for instance to thrust a finger into the fire though but for the turning of a hand or to have but one single drop of brimstone fall into the eye the misery but of this single drop of brimstone were unsufferable But then Secondly for the whole man to lie under everlasting Cataracts and showers of Brimstone to have the body eternally fed upon by a fire that never goes out and the soule by a worme that never dies the misery of this as far surmounts that other as eternity exceeds time and yet this is not all For thirdly the damned sinner must go from Christ into this eternity of torment Depart from me yee cursed into everlasting fire Where the first part of the sentence is incomparably the heaviest the departing from Christ worse then the everlasting fire the intensiveness of that