Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	word_n	2,764	5	4.2075	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53163	Moral essays contain'd in several treatises on many important duties. Third volume written in French, by Messieurs du Port Royal ; faithfully rendred into English by a person of quality.; Essais de morale. 3. volume. English	Nicole, Pierre, 1625-1695.; Person of quality.	1680 (1680)	Wing N1137AB; ESTC R41510	145,197	375

or to mingle Poyson with Consecrated Hosts that thereby they may kill the Bodies of those who receive them Thus altho the wicked Priests commit a Sacriledge through the boldness they have of insinuating themselves into so Divine Functions those nevertheless who participate of the Body of Jesus Christ by their Ministry receive no prejudice thereby 'T is not the same with the Word of God For there are not only some Priests who dishonour it by presuming to Preach it when they ought to think of nothing more then doing Penance for their Crimes and who draw upon themselves thereby the Reproach which God makes them in these words of the Kingly Prophet Peccatori autem d●xit Deus quare tu enarras Justitias mea● assumis Testamentum meum per Os tuum But there are those who poyson it by their bad Maxims or by their Passions and they who do this instead of giving life to Souls bring often death And lastly there are some who instead of the true word of God distribute only their imaginations which is not hurtful only to the ignorant in depriving them of the nourishment they have need of but deceives them wickedly by suffering them to receive as the Word of God thoughts altogether human and profane 8. We need not only apply these considerations to the present State of the Church to acknowledge that there are a great number of Christians that suffer what the Scripture calls Famam Verbi The desire of God's Word because those who are charged with this instruction instead of solid Truths drawn from this word wherewith they ought to nourish them feed them only with their own proper thoughts and vain speculations and that thence it is that the Church experiences in many places this terrible Wound wherewith God has at other times threatned to strike the Jews which the same Scripture calls Vbera Arentia The Breasts giving no Milk that is to say Pastors without light and incapapable of nourishing their people with the Doctrine of Truth which at the same time ought to stir up in us sentiments of Compassion for the spiritual misery of so many Souls motives of acknowledgment that God hath treated us more fovourably than them in giving us the knowledge of his Truth which he suffers them to be deprived of and a wholsome fright through the consideration of the little use we have made of all these helps 9. If these Sermons which please us so little of themselves did make us enter into these Sentiments they would also become as profitable to us as those which fill our memories the most with edifying Truths There are hardly any of more importance than those which may be learnt by the chastisement which God exercises upon the Church For he shews that the knowledge of Truth is not due to us that we deserve to be deprived of it that this deprivation is the just punishment of our disorders that we ought to impute to our selves this want of Evangelical Preachers that thus the faults they commit in the exercise of their ministry are in some sort ours seeing that 't is to punish us that God permits them 10. We must not imagine that we have no reason to fear as to our selves the effects of Gods wrath under pretence that we are better instructed and that we have divers ways to supply the defects of Preachers For God hath also other sorts of blindnesses to spread over us which we ought not to apprehend less If he punish us not by depriving us of the knowledge of some particular Duty in some important occasions and this deprivation is enough to make us enter into some unlucky engagements and to render all our other knowledges unuseful We have not therefore less need of his light nor less obligation to seek it And as this Light is communicated in the ordinary way by the Ministry of men no man can say he hath not need of a Preacher that is of a man who makes him understand what God requires from him 11. But there is no need that this consideration of the disorders which are committed in the dispensation of Gods word as well as in the distributing the Body of Jesus Christ apply us only to the consideration of his Justice towards the wicked it ought to fill us yet more with the admiration of his bounty towards the Elect. For 't is for them that he suffers all those prophanations with an incomprehensible patience 'T is for them he commands that his Body reside even to the end of the world upon our Altars and that it enter into the mouths of all those who would receive him without having regard to the Sacriledges that so many impious people commit in receiving it to the end that his chosen may not be deprived of this Divine nourishment which is the ordinary means of their Salvation Hence it happens sometimes that the Body of Jesus Christ remains whole years in the Churches in the hands of wicked Priests who dishonour it every day by new Impieties and receives thereby abundance of outrages on the score of disorderly Christians to the end that some poor Woman may have the means to partake thereof or to come and adore it 'T is also sometimes not there for those who compass this particular Church because they may be all impious and wicked It is there for those who shall spring from them long after It is also in consideration of his Elect that he suffers that some wicked men corrupt and prophane his word in declaring it and that he permits that men preach it to people who draw no profit from it and who become only more criminal thereby to the end that some simple Souls who shall be there present may be instructed and edified with it or at least that the Ministry being conserved some of the chosen who perhaps shall be many years after may find in these places instructions they may have need of As Piety then ought to make us adore the infinite Charity of Jesus Christ residing upon our Altars and suffering for the good of his Elect all the outrages which he received there it ought not to incline us less to adore this same Charity which makes him endure the most scornful manner wherewith his Truth is Treated whether in pronouncing or in hearing it And it is very just to conclude that it would be the heighth of ingratitude not to expose our selves for the interest of Truth to receive some evil usage on the score of men seeing that God suffers every day that this Truth be exposed to so many disdains and to so many irreverences for our good 12. Nevertheless great care must be taken to keep this consideration of faults committed by those who pronounce the word of God within its just limits lest it should carry us too far and that as there appears little Light little Unction and often little Judgment in certain Sermons it make us not conclude that the Preacher is absolutely unprovided