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	faith_n	teach_v	4,044	5	6.3549	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44093	A short examination of A Discourse concerning edification, by Dr. Hascard where it is inquired, how well the author of the said discourse hath proved that it is not lawful for a man to go from his parish church to meetings, that he might be better edifie [sic] / in a letter to a friend.	Hody, Humphrey, 1659-1707.	1700 (1700)	Wing H2345; ESTC R29483	16,353	30

of the Things of God being the Foundation of all Faith Love Obedience or any sanctified Affection that Ordinance which most contributes to that must necessarily most contribute to Edification It is therefore the Preaching in most Parish Churches which People look at as less tending to Edification than what they hear elsewhere being less fitted to their Understandings and Memories less awakening and Operative upon their Affections if any of them assign any thing in the Publick Worship or the Government of the Church as giving them Cause to withdraw their Presence from the former or Concurrence with the latter it is ordinarily of another Nature not for further Edification meerly Whereas Sir our Author saith p. 24. That he doth not understand what it is to be better saved or more saved We cannot help that the Apostle 1 Cor. 3. 15. Will teach him what he pretends to be so unintelligible His next Councel is p. 24. Let Edification be placed in the substantial Parts of Religion Sir We have our Religion yet to seek if Faith and Holiness be not the substantial Parts of it There is none that denieth that a right Faith and an honest Conversation is taught in our Church The Question is Whether they be ordinarily taught in all Parish Churches in the best Manner for Peoples Understanding either or Improvement in either They are certainly taught in the best manner with Reference to Edification when they are taught so plainly as all the Hearers may understand them and what is said is so proved and justified from Holy Writ that their Faith whose Object 't is not possible should be any Thing but a Divine Revelation can be founded not in the Wisdom of Mens fine Words or fallible Ratiocinations but in the Power of God and in the Wisdom of the Divine Will revealed in his Word If the Author Sir means that these Things are taught in our Thirty Nine Articles and in some particular Churches all that he can infer is That it is not lawful for us to divide our selves from the Doctrine of Faith in those Articles nor from such Places where we dwell where those Doctrines are so Preached if ever we were united to them If he means that in all Parish Churches Faith and Holiness are so pressed and preached he will find it denied by many and impossible by himself to be proved I see Sir nothing more in all the Book you sent me unless Words To draw up all in short Sir If all the Ministers and Christians on the Earth not apostatized to Idolatry be but one Church her Doctrine and Worship one and the same how is it possible that any should separate from it who adhereth to the Doctrine of it and lives in the performance of the same Acts of Worship that God is honoured by in every Part of it For it is certain that all such Persons as are Members of it neither do nor ever did Worship God in the same Place nor by the same Numerical Acts nor are under the same external Form of Church-Government and Order So as there is no pretence of Separation from the Catholick Visible Church I know no other Church but the particular Church of which an individual Person is a Member Let us consider that as signifying the whole Body of Christians wherein we live upon which Account we sometimes speak of a National Church how can a Person more separate from that than from the Catholick Church Sir who adhereth to the Doctrine of Faith owned in it and serveth God in any Part or corner of it by the same specifical Acts of Worship that whole Body of People serveth God by and in For neither do all the People in any Nation meet in the same Place to Worship God nor do the Ministers use the same Words in all their Prayers or Sermons nor do People use the same Habits and Postures in their Acts of Worship Do they mean the Particular Congregation of which Men are Members It is impossible a Man should separate from a Church in that Sense who never was a Member of it and as impossible that any should sinfully withdraw Communion from a Church in that lowest Notion that cannot without Sin have Communion with it in that or those Acts in which he withdraweth his Communion Neither is he to be called a Separatist that only withdraweth his Communion from it as to an human Tradition and is yet ready to have Communion with it in every Divine Institution It is most certain that Christ did so as to the Jews and also kept a Communion distinct from them though he did not wholly cast off Communion with them John Baptist kept a Communion with the Jewish Church yet sufficiently reflected on the Corruptions of it and neither restrained his Preaching nor Baptizing to the Synagogues or Temple This same thing so clamour'd on under the Notion of the black Sin of Schism and Separation if it signifieth any thing more than a withdrawing frome some Rites and Ceremonies of no Divine Institution no Necessity the Imposition of which and a Compliance with which some Persons judge sinful I must profefs my self not in the least Degree to understand it and if it signifies no more which of the Ten Commandments it is opposed to I cannot understand nor how to excuse him from it who did the like yet was Holy Undefiled Separate from Sinners But Sir as to what is said in this Discourse That it is sinful for a Man agreeing in all the Points of Faith in all the substantial Parts and Acts of Worship with all Christians in the World and more especially with all those in the Nation or in the Parish wherein he Lives not ordinarily to join in those Numerical Acts of Worship which the rest of the Parishioners or many of them join in because the Preaching and Praying or other Administrations of Holy Things in that Place is not such as he by Experience findeth most conducive to the Profit of his Soul either to convey to him the Knowledge of the Things of God or to affect his Heart with Love to and Zeal for God It is of all Things that which I least understand And Sir I hope it is the last Thing any shall beat into my Head If any hath a Design upon me Sir let him attempt if he can to prove that I have Soul or if any yet that Soul or Thing called so is but the Cr●sis of my Body no distinct Being from it but shall with it Die and Putrifie and never with it rise more to hear of what I have done in the Flesh. Or let him attempt if he can to perswade me that I am not with this Soul to endeavour to my utmost to Glorifie God But I hope he shall never so long as I believe that there is a God or that I have an Immortal Being within me with which I ought to glorifie this God the Eternal Concern of which I am above all Things to mind and in Order to it

us to keep to a piece of Civil Order than to look after the Salvation of our own Souls and if this were true an easie exchange might be made for a Soul In his 14 15 16 17 18 he hints us of three Mistakes Men may have as to Edification 1 When they take nice and speculative Notions for great edifying Truths Such as conjectural Notions about the Situation of Paradise of old or Hell now or about the Length of the Sword that guarded Paradise or how the Spirits above spend their time of Behemo● Wranglings of the Schools c. To make this Business short Sir Go to your Parish-Church a-while and to the next Meeting as long and let this be the Test conclude that where you hear most of these Discourses there your Soul is least edified What this Author saith here is a great Truth where there is most of these Disquisitions there is least Edification 2. A second Mistake he thinks is When Men take the Opinions of Parties for undoubted Truths essential to Salvation What here the Author means I cannot imagine Certainly there is no Truth necessary to Salvation but what is the Opinion of some Party or other If no Truth be necessary to Salvation but what is agreed by all Parties I am afraid we shall find nothing at all necessary or very little Possibly the Doctrine of the Trinity if we shut out the Socinians from the number of Christians hardly any thing else But Sir to make this Business also short our Author saith p. 16. That the Notion or Explication of Faith and Spirit Church and Grace Justification Regeneration Conversion Adoption and other things of like nature are generally deficient in our Church from those of the Separation And indeed he saith true that these are the Doctrines wherein Ministers that preach at Meetings differ from many of those that preach in Parish-Churches yet not from all but the most of them but not from the Church of England Sir again make your Ears your Judges read over distinctly the 39 Articles and the Irish Articles and our Homilies particularly those about Justification and Good Works and Images then hear Minsters on both sides and conclude that those are to be preferred as to Edification that most truly and faithfully preach according to those Articles and Homilies we will abide by that Test. His last Mistake is 3. In taking sudden Heats and Warmths for Edification As to that let them answer that are concerned p. 18. that whole Page is but reflexive and upon so false a Foundation as I am not willing to trouble my self with considering it or to foul my Fingers with such a Dunghill of meere words In his 19th Page he comes to what he calls a third Argument to prove it unlawful for Persons to leave their Parish-Churches for better Edification Because as he pretends it will cause endless Divisions Here Sir we must examine 1. The Truth of the thing 2. The proper Cause of the Effect 〈…〉 uch an Effect will certainly follow Admit Sir that in the same Family several Persons should find it better for the Improvements of their Souls in Knowledge Faith Love Obedience holy Zeal to go to several Parishes to hear their Ministers or to several Meetings what division is here It is this Day done in a thousand Families all the Members of which yet live in a perfect Unity one with another the Wife dearly loves the Husband and he again his Wife the Children truly honour the Parents and the Parents as truly love their Children the Servants honour and obey their Masters they are as tender of their Servants I pray Sir as to this point let your Eyes again here be your Judges See what Families are more decently united than those in which you will observe this different Motion when they go to hear And Sir there is obvious Reason for it it speaks Men to use some Conscience and Reason of their own when they cannot be guided by the meer Dictates and Examples of others and it is most certain that those who live most up to the Rule of Scripture and Square of Reason make the best Correlates in any Relation and those the worst who are led by Humour or the meer Dictates and Wills of others But admit Sir Division be the consequent of Persons in the same Parish going to hear in several places for better Edification as we see it is will this prove it unlawful for People to go Just as much as it argueth Christ's coming into the World necessary for the Salvation of Mankind unlawful because himself tells us Mat. 20. 34 35. That he came not to send Peace but a Sword For I am come to set a Man at variance against his Father and the Daughter against her Mother and the Daughter-in-Law against her Mother-in-Law Suppose a few particular Persons in a Parish who tho' themselves blind yet will undertake to judge of Colours through their Peevishness or Ill-Nature or their Pride and Ignorance will have all Men to be of their Last and to do as they do or they will quarrel with them nick-name them pursue them in all Courts of Judicature never let them be quiet c. doth this conclude that those who are thus hunted do any sinful thing It will rather be a presumption of the contrary Division is no necessary Consequent of Peoples not going to their Parish-Church What hath my Neighbour to do with my Soul further than to admonish me if he seeth Sin upon me Must every Man cut his Hair or Beard in the same Fashion because else his Neighbour will call him Prick-ear or Roundhead and strike him over the Face Or if he doth not must he sin I am not to be charged with a sinful Effect of my Action or Consequent rather which floweth from the Malice and Corruption of another's Heart upon my doing what I believe to be my Duty I cannot Sir but I must observe to you that strange passage of his p. 20. where he calls it a fatal Day when Liberty should be given to every Man to choose his Pastor A thing he knows so evident in Scripture so plain in all the Practice of the Primitive Church and so consonant to all Reason and Religion as nothing can be more It is an Argument that Men and Women are debauched into a lamentable Opinion of their Souls that can possibly think that they ought not to have as much Liberty to chuse Pastors for themselves as they will challenge for a Shooe-maker to fit their Feet with Shooes or for a Taylor to fit their Bodies with a Suit of Cloaths 4. Sir The Author's last Argument is fetched from the Discouragement this would give to an honest truly Christian Minister This Sir supposeth that all who inhabit within such a Parish are properly that Ministers Flock who preacheth in that Parish-Church How is that proved Nor can it be true 'till the Right of another be proved to choose a Pastor for my Soul But