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A45125 The axe laid to the root of separation, or, The churches cause against it by the author who wrote in the late Times for free admission to the Lord's Supper. Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. 1685 (1685) Wing H3670; ESTC R225063 79,856 182

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THE AXE LAID to the ROOT OF Separation OR THE Churches Cause Against It. By the Author who wrote in the late Times for Free Admission to the Lord's Supper So those Servants went out into the High-ways and gathered together as many as they found both Good and Bad and the Wedding was furnished with Guests Matth. 22.10 LONDON Printed by John Leake for the Author MDCLXXXV TO THE MOST REVEREND The Present ARCH-BISHOP OF CANTERBVRY May it please Your Grace I Do not Dedicate this Book to You for any Interest I have In You or for any Preferment I seek From You who may say as the Woman with whom the Prophet sojourned I have nothing to be spoken for to the King I dwell among my own People being One that Conform Not as a Minister but go to Church as a Parishioner and Study to be quiet But I lay these Sheets at the Feet of the Church by Handing them to Your Grace in regard to the Orb You are placed in and in respect to the Subject I have undertaken I do likewise Present it to Your Grace as One I understand that do Love and will Find a Time to Read notwithstanding the Multiplicity and Weight of Your Affairs being not Lifted up with Greatness or Delighted so much in the Sun-shine even of the Court as in Retiring to the Shade of Your Books at Home Who are One consequently that is like to Read the Book and make Your Own Judgment of it and if You find any thing in it serviceable to God are in Place to Move and Promote it as if the Attempt be amiss can by Your proper Instruction appoint some sit Person to Reprove and Answer it that the Publick receive no Detriment by it I must confess I am of the Opinion That the Notion and Doctrine Of and Concerning the Church and Churches of Christ upon Earth which is generally received as Orthodox is not consistent with our Publick Practice and the Being of our Mixt Churches and could not therefore when Time was Declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all things in the Liturgy because I must then have both prevented this Book and consented to Some Thing in Point of Doctrine and Vse which will be nam'd in its Place as by a Consequence unavoidable to me does give up the Field to the Separatist And when if I may speak a Consequential Truth I am One that have become herein a kind of Martyr in my loss of all Emolument within the Church for my Resolution and Endeavour of maintaining the Churches Cause so that there does appear something Meritorious in my Nonconformity though nothing at all in My Self what if I Revive a late Motion made to Your Grace That You will hearken to those Papers of mine Entituled Three Steps in order to the obtaining my Liberty to Preach which being desired for Occasional Sermons only without Benefice Dignity Living or Lecture I have in my Third Step brought the Matter to this Issue That if You will concede to me but what any Bishop may do by Law and impune also by the Canons I may have Your License for the Vse of my Ministry and yet keep my Own Conscience in the Case Your Grace's Humble Servant The Author The PREFACE READER I Am sensible under what Prejudice I am like to write and how much more would be imputed to it if some Other served the CAVSE I do Truth and Interest went both to One Service Truth did his Master's Work in good earnest Interest labour'd only to please The Master finding his Busin●ss done and not regarding by Whom kept Interest and turn'd Truth out of Door Were I Ambitious to conciliate to me the Favor of our present Masters of the Age I might set my self on the Magnifying the Church of England in the Excellency of her Constitution of her Reformation and Glory or I might chase some the like Task But when the Advantage I seek is not my Own but That of the Publick I shall leave such Work to Those that think to g●t any thing by it My Business which is of other Vse is to make good our Churches which consist of whole Parishes and Nations that is our Mixt Churches to be Churches for all that as are warrantable from the Holy Scriptures that the Vnderstanding Sober Godly of our Brethren may be satisfied to joyn with and separate no longer from our Publick Congregations upon that Account To do this is a Matter of deeper Thoughts than most are aware of and till this Work be done as it ought unto which I can but contribute my Mite and then call in further Aid from others it will but fare with us in all our Endeavours after the Peace and Prosperity of the Church of God in this Nation as with them that have raised a fair Structure and sumptuous Building and then lose it in point of Law by mistaking the Ground upon which they set it That this is the Root of the Difference between Vs and Those that d●part from the Publick there are none but must see that have Eyes in their Head And I for my part must say moreover That having had long occasion to reflect on the Subject I could never but apprehend that the Notion which our Protestant Divines generally entertain of the Church is so narrow that unless we can lengthen our Cords and strengthen our Stakes we shall be driven out of our Tents There are Two Foundations upon which the Separatist that best understands his own Cause will lay it The One regards the Minister of the Parish the Other the People or Matter of the Church That which regards the Minister is this The Church of England consists of so many Diocesses and the Parishes are but Parts of the Diocess The Bishop is sole Pastor and the Minister but the Curate of the Bishop It follows that the Minister being no Pastor and the Church no whole or true Church this is the First Ground of Separation That which regards the People is this The Parish Churches consist of the Regenerate and Vnregenerate ex Institutione Humana The Church of Christ ex Intentione Ordinantis consists of the Regenerate only Here are two Ordinations inconsistent The Matter of these Churches inconsistent And this is the Second Ground of Separation In short Our Ministers say they are not true Pastors nor our People true Flocks according to Christ's Institution and therefore they must Separate from our Congregations and gather Others For Answer to the former Ground let us know that Diocesan Episcopacy may be considered as some hold it to be of Divine or as others hold it to be of Human Institution Of those that hold it to be of Divine Right there are some and such as are of our late Chief Men that do indeed assert the Diocesan Bishop to be the only Bishop or Pastor of Christ's Appointment to whom the Keys are committed as succeeding the Apostles and consequently that the Diocesan Churches are the only Churches
that Distinction I do not I say distribute One Thing into its Two Parts or Adjuncts but I distribute One Word or Homonymous Term into Two Things signified by it To be Vnited to Christ by his Spirit so as to Have Him a Head of Influences to me for Spiritual Life and Salvation is One Thing and to be of the number of Those who are brought under his Positive Institutions and Subject themselves to his Officers for the proper End and so Have Him as a Political Head only for External Government though it be in order to bring them on to Saving Grace and into the Mystical Church also is Another If I speak of the Seed of Abraham To be his Seed by Birth is One Thing and to be his Seed by Faith is Another It is One Thing to be an Outward Jew or a Jew by Nature and Circumcision in the Flesh and it is Another to be an Inward Jew by Circumcision in the Spirit by Grace and Keeping the Commandments of God And what a Distribution then is this Why It is Distributio Homonymi sive Equivocantis in Equivocata And the Distribution of a Genus into its Species of a Whole into its Parts of a Subject into its Adjuncts being as I count Distributiones Vnivoci This can be none of those Three Here is Idem Nomen the same Word or Term CHVRCH but Nominis Ratio Diversa the Reason of the Denomination the Conceptus Objectivus not the Same When there is One Name then there are Two Things The Things are diverse and disparate but not Two Species of One Genus or Two Parts of One Integrum or Two Accidents of One Subject there is no need of That The Political Body is One Society and the Mystical Body is One Society Both are headed by One Christ Both are Catholick and Both are One and One Person may be a Member of Both but Both are not the Same It is not a Distribution of an Integrum into its diverse Sorts of Members as I have been formerly apt to think because the Coetus then must be One when That Coetus which consists of the Regenerate and Vnregenerate and That which consists of the Regenerate Only cannot be One and the Same Coetus but Two Especially when there may be Some who are Members of the Church Mystical as being already in a State of Salvation and not yet Admitted into the Congregate or Political Body either Vniversal or Particular for so I use these Terms Act. 10.4 22 35. Rom. 2.26 27. as well as Many who are Members of a Christian Congregation but Foreigners to the Assembly of Heaven It is not a Distribution of a Subject into its Adjuncts for the same Reason which yet our Divines intend by their Terms Visible and Invisible already noted The Church which is Christ's Church is that One Mystical Body of the Elect and Regenerate only according to them distinguished into a double Respect or Consideration thereof as Invisibly or Visibly such that is as Men be Indeed or in Appearance Members of it A goodly Distribution As if we should divide Man in Specie into its Singulars Plato Socrates Paul John and the Pictures of Men when the Picture of a Man is No Man and a Visible Member No Member that is a dividing a Church-Member or Church into one that is One and into one that is None Besides that this is a Conception as before intimated that makes the Apostle understand by the Outward Jew when he distinguishes them Rom. 2. to be the Inward One according to Appearance one that appears to be an Inward One or a Jew only Putativè secundum apparentiam as they speak when nothing is more contrary to his Mind who means undoubtedly a Jew by Nature as Gal. 2. one of Abraham's Seed according to the Flesh Born a Jew and thereby having a Right to Circumcision and the Consequences of it The Formal Reason giving Being and Relation to One Church is distinct and different quite from That which Constituteth and giveth Relation to the Other I am nevertheless afraid to say likewise That it is a Distribution of a Genus into its Species because the making Two Churches specifically distinct under One Vnivocum Vnivocans will be Absonant I doubt to the General Ear though if any will make the Coetus Vocatorum the Number of the Called in Genere to be divided into the Number of the Called Effectually and of the Externally Called and then divide these as the Species into their Singulars Peter Paul Regenerate Judas Simon Unregenerate I shall be far from falling out with them who must rather declare That if they can make it good they have won our CAVSE For my part I am only pretty sure methinks of This that the term CHVRCH is Homonymous and so long as I go no farther than I do I seem to my self the more safe For thus much appears The Inward Jew hath another Relation to God than the Outward in regard to which the Outward Jew is said to be No Jew that is None as so meant when in regard to that Relation which is common to Both he was a Jew the true proper Jew and the Other but Metaphorically so having the same Priviledges thereof equal with the Other It is One thing to have One of these Relations and to have the Other is Another and the Societies to which they relate therefore are not the Same To be Called is One thing to be Elected Another The Mystical Church is the Number of the Spiritual Seed Inward Jew or Christian or of the Elect The Political Church is the Number of the Called To speak yet more exactly There is the Kingdom of Christ and there are Some Persons among them whom He Chooses to give his Special Grace and Spirit unto and thereby to make them One with Himself in another or stricter manner than the rest These Select or Elect Persons are sometimes called the Church and sometimes this whole Kingdom is called the Church This Kingdom is Vniversal or Catholick because it is over the World These Elect are Catholick because scattered here and there every where in it This Kingdom is One because they are All under One Head and Government and have One Faith and One Baptism Ephes 4.5 These Elect are One because united into a Mystical Body even so as to be said One Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 If Divines had used to distinguish these Two Things by Two Words and called the One Christ's Kingdom and the Other the Church the Matter would have been more easie But when they are Both called the Church I am forced to distinguish the word Church and tell That I understand by it Christ's Kingdom that which is called the Kingdom of God the Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel Matth. 13.44 Mar. 4.26 Act. 20.25 And if it appear that Vnregenerate Men are of This Kingdom Matth. 8.12 it is all one to me as to say They are of the Church Unto Christ's Kingdom certainly