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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	church_n	great_a	2,167	5	3.1621	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85427	An apologeticall narration, humbly submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament. By Tho: Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jer: Burroughes, William Bridge.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1643 (1643)	Wing G1225; Thomason E80_7	16,409	36

at least in each congregation whom we were subject to yet not clayming to our selves an independent power in every congregation to give account or be subject to none others but onely a ful and entire power compleat within our selves until we should be challenged to erre grosly such as Corporations enjoy who have the power and priviledge to passe sentence for life death within themselves and yet are accountable to the State they live in But that it should be the institution of Christ or his Apostles that the combination of the Elders of many Churches should be the first compleat and entire seat of Church power over each congregation so combined or that they could challenge and assume that authority over those Churches they feed and teach not ordinarily by virtue of those fore-mentioned Apostolicall precepts was to us a question and judged to be an additament unto the other which therefore rested on those that allowed us what we practised over and above to make evident and demonstrate and certainly of all other the challenge of all spiritual power from Christ had need have a cleare pattent to shew for it Yea wee appeale further unto them that have read bookes whether untill those latter wrytings of the two reverend and learned Divines of Scotland set forth after our return nor much more then two yeeres since and others of no elder date from Holland and one of our own Divines more lately written with much learning and ingenuity there hath been much settly and directly or with strength insisted on to prove that governement and although assert and inculcate it they do as their opinions yet the full strength and streame of our Non-conformists wrytings and others are spent rather in arguments against for the overthrowing the Episcopall government and the corruptions that cleave to our worship and in maintayning those severall Officers in Churches which Christ hath instituted in stead thereof in which we fully agree with them then in the proofe of a combined classicall Presbyteriall government as it is authoritatively practised in the most reformed Churches And whereas the common prejudice and exception laid into all mens thoughts against us and our opinions is that in such a congregationall governement thus entire within it self there is no allowed sufficient remedy for miscarriages though never so grosse no reliefe for wrongful sentences or persons injured thereby no roome for complaints no powerful or effectual means to reduce a Church or Churches that fal into heresie schisme c. but every one is left and may take liberty without controule to do what is good in their own eyes we have through the good providence of God upon us from the avowed declarations of our judgements among our Churches mutually during our exile and that also confirmed by the most solemne instance of our practice wherewith to vindicate our selves and way in this particular which upon no other occasion we should ever have made thus publique God so ordered it that a scandall and offence fell out between those very Churches whilst living in this banishment whereof we our selves that write these things were then the Ministers one of our Churches having unhappily deposed one of their Ministers the other judged it not onely as too suddaine an act having proceeded in a matter of so great moment without consulting their sister Churches as was publiquely professed we should have done in such cases of concernement but also in the proceedings thereof as too severe and not managed according to the rules laid down in the word In this case our Churches did mutually and universally acknowledge and submit to this as a sacred and undoubted principle and supreame law to be observed among all Churches that as by virtue of that Apostolical command Churches as wel as particular men are bound to give no offence neither to Iew nor Gentile nor the Churches of God they live amongst So that in all cases of such offence or difference by the obligation of the cōmon law of cōmunion of Churches for the vindication of the glory of Christ which in cōmon they hold forth the church or churches chalenged to offend or differ are to submit themselves upon the challenge of the offence or complaint of the person wronged to the most full open tryall examination by other neighbour Churches offended there at of what ever hath given the offence And further that by the virtue of the same and like law of not partaking in other mens sins the Churches offended may ought upon the impenitency of those Churches persisting in their errour and miscarriage to pronounce that heavy sentence against them of with-drawing and renouncing all Christian communion with them until they do repent And further to declare and protest this with the causes thereof to all other Churches of Christ that they may do the like And what further authority or proceedings purely Ecclesiasticall of one or many sister Churches towards another whole Church or Churches offending either the Scriptures doe hold forth or can rationally be put in execution without the Magistrates interposing a power of another nature unto which we upon his particular cognisance and examination of such causes professe ever to submit and also to be most vvilling to have recourse unto for our parts vve savv not then nor do yet see And likewise we did then suppose and doe yet that this principle of submission of Churches that miscarry unto other Churches offended together with this other that it is a command from Christ enjoyned to Churches that are finally offended to denounce such a sentence of Non-communion and withdrawing from them whilst impenitent as unworthy to hold forth the name of Christ these principles being received and generally acknowledged by the Churches of Christ to be a mutuall duty as strictly enjoyned them by Christ as any other that these would be as effectuall means through the blessing of Christ to awe and preserve Churches and their Elders in their duties as that other of claime to an authoritative power Ecclesiastical to Excommunicate other Churches or their Elders offending For if the one be compared with the other in a meere Ecclesiastial notion That of Excommunication pretended hath but this more in it That it is a delivering of whole Churches and their Elders offending unto Satan for which we know no warrant in the Scriptures that Churches should have such a power over other Churches And then as for the binding obligation both of the one way the other it can be supposed to lye but in these 2. things First in a warrant and injunction given by Christ to his Churches to put either the one or the other into execution and 2. that mens consciences be accordingly taken therewith so as to subject themselves whether unto the one way or the other For suppose that other principle of an authoritative power in the greater part of Churches combined to excommunicate other Churches c. to be the ordinance of God yet

THis Apologeticall Narration of our Reverend and deare Brethren the learned Authors of it 't is so full of peaceablenesse modesty and candour and withall at this time so seasonably needfull as well towards the vindication of the Protestant party in generall from the aspersions of Incommunicablenesse within it selfe and Incompatiblenesse with Magistracy as of themselves in particular both against misreportings from without some possible mistakings from within too That however for mine own part I have appeared on and doe still encline to the Presbyteriall way of Church Government yet doe I think it every way fit for the Presse Charles Herle AN Apologeticall Narration HVMBLY SVBMITTED TO THE HONOURABLE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT BY Tho Goodwin Philip Nye Sidrach Simpson Jer Burroughes William Bridge LONDON Printed for ROBERT DAWLMAN M. DC XLIII AN APOLOGETICALL NARRATION OF SOME MINISTERS Formerly in Exile NOW Members of the Assembly of Divines OUR eares have been of late so filled with a sudden and unexpected noyse of confused exclamations though not so expresly directed against us in particular yet in the interpretation of the most reflecting on us that awakened thereby we are enforced to anticipate a little that discovery of our selves which otherwise we resolved to have left to Time and Experience of our wayes and spirits the truest Discoverers and surest Judges of all men and their actions And now we shall begin to make some appearance into publique light unto whose view and judgements should we that have hitherto laine under so dark a cloud of manifold mis apprehensions at first present our selves but the Supreame Judicatory of this Kingdome which is and hath been in all times the most just and severe Tribunall for guiltinesse to appeare before much more to dare to appeale unto and yet withall the most sacred refuge and Asylum for mistaken and mis-judged innocence The most if not all of us had ten years since some more some lesse severall setled Stations in the Ministery in places of publique use in the Church not unknown to many of your selves but the sinful evill of those corruptions in the publique worship and government of this Church which all doe now so generally acknowledge and decrie took hold upon our consciences long before some others of our brethren And then how impossible it was to continue in those times our service and standings all mens apprehensions will readily acquit us Neither at the first did we see or look further then the dark part the evill of those superstitions adjoyned to the worship of God which have been the common stumbling block and offence of many thousand tender consciences both in our own and our neighbour Churches ever since the first Reformation of Religion which yet was enough to deprive us of the publique exercise of our Ministeries and together therewith as the watchfulnesse of those times grew of our personall participation in some ordinances and further exposed us either to personall violence and persecution or an exile to avoid it Which latter we did the rather choose that so the use and exercise of our Ministeries for which we were borne and live might not be wholly lost nor our selves remain debarred from the enjoyment of the Ordinances of Christ which we account our birth-right and best portion in this life This being our condition we were cast upon a farther necessity of enquiring into and viewing the light part the positive part of Church-worship and Government And to that end to search out what were the first Apostolique directions pattern and examples of those Primitive Churches recorded in the New Testament as that sacred pillar of fire to guide us And in this enquirie we lookt upon the word of Christ as impartially and unprejudicedly as men made of flesh and blood are like to doe in any juncture of time that may fall out the places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with affording no temptation to by as us any way but leaving us as freely to be guided by that light and touch Gods Spirit should by the Word vouchsafe our consciences as the Needle toucht with the Load-stone is in the Compasse And we had of all men the greatest reason to be true to our own consciences in what we should embrace seeing it was for our consciences that we were deprived at once of what ever was dear to us We had no new Common-wealths to rear to frame Church-government unto whereof any one piece might stand in the others light to cause the least variation by us from the Primitive pattern We had no State-ends or Politicall interests to comply with No Kingdoms in our eye to subdue unto our mould which yet will be coexistent with the peace of any form of Civil Government on earth No preferment or worldly respects to shape our opinions for We had nothing else to doe but simply and singly to consider how to worship God acceptably and so most according to his word We were not engaged by Education or otherwise to any other of the Reformed Churches And although we consulted with reverence what they hold forth both in their writings and practice yet we could not but suppose that they might not see into all things about worship and government their intentions being most spent as also of our first Reformers in England upon the Reformation in Doctrine in which they had a most happy hand And we had with many others observed that although the exercise of that Government had been accompanied with more peace yet the Practicall part the power of godlinesse and the profession thereof with difference from carnall and formall Christians had not been advanced and held forth among them as in this our owne Island as themselves have generally acknowledged We had the advantage of all that light which the conflicts of our owne Divines the good old Non-conformists had struck forth in their times And the draughts of Discipline which they had drawn which we found not in all things the very same with the practises of the Reformed Churches And what they had written came much more commended to us not onely because they were our own but because sealed with their manifold and bitter sufferings We had likewise the fatall miscarriages and shipwracks of the Separation whom ye call Brownists as Land-marks to fore-warn us of those rocks and shelves they ran upon which also did put us upon an enquiry into the principles that might be the causes of their divisions Last of all we had the recent and later example of the wayes and practices and those improved to a better Edition and greater refinement by all the fore-mentioned helps of those multitudes of godly men of our own Nation almost to the number of another Nation and among them some as holy and judicious Divines as this Kingdome hath bred whose sincerity in their way hath been testified before all the world and wil be unto all generations to come by the greatest undertaking but that of our