Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ecclesiastical_a	person_n	power_n	3,185	5	5.2905	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61546	A discourse concerning the power of excommunication in a Christian church, by way of appendix to the Irenicum by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Irenicum.	1662 (1662)	Wing S5583; ESTC R38297	24,655	38

soever we place it if Church-officers have a power to pronounce such a person to be withdrawn from they have a power of excommunication so we consider this penalty as inflicted on the person in his relation to the Society as a Christian and withall how nearly conjoyned their civil and spiritual eating were together 1 Corinth 11.20 21. and how strongly the argument will hold from Civil to Sacred viz. à remotione unius ad remotionem alterius not from any fancyed pollution in Sacris from the company of wicked men but from the dishonour reflecting on the Society from such unworthy persons partaking of the highest priviledges of it Thus from these three Hypotheses this Corollary follows that where any persons in a Church do by their open and contumacious offences declare to the world that they are far from being the persons they were supposed to be in their admission into the Church there is a power resident in the Pastors of the Church to debar such persons from the priviledges of it and consequently from Communion in the Lords Supper 1. Because this expresseth the nearest union and closest confederation as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Grecian Common-wealths did 2. Because this hath been alwayes looked on with greatest veneration in the Church of God and therefore it is least of all fit those persons should be admitted to the highest priviledges of the Church which are unworthy of the lowest of them There remain only some few objections which are levelled against this opinion concerning the power of excommunication which from the Question being thus stated and proved will be soon removed The first is that this excommunication is an outward punishment and therefore belongs not to Church-officers but to the Magistrate 2. Because it neither is nor ever was in the power of any Church-officer to debar any offending member from publick worship because any heathens may come to it 3. It cannot lie as to exclusion from the Lords Supper because Christ is offered as spiritual food as well in the Word Preached as in the Sacrament To these I answer 1. I do not well understand what the Objectors mean by an outward punishment for there can be no punishment belonging to a visible Society such as the Church is here considered to be but it must be visible i. e. outward or a thing to be taken notice of in the world and in this sense I deny that all visible punishment belongs only to the Magistrate but if by outward be meant forcible punishment then I grant that all coactive power belongs to the Magistrate but I deny that excommunication formally considered is a forcible punishment 1. Because every person at his entrance into this Society is supposed to declare his submission to the rules of the Society and therefore whatever he after undergoes by way of penalty in this Society doth depend upon that consent 2. A person stands excommunicate legally and de jure who is declared authoritativly to be no member of the Society though he may be present at the acts of it as a defranchised person may be at those of a Corporation 3. A person falling into those offences which merit excommunication is supposed in so doing voluntarily to renounce his interest in those prviledges the enjoyment of which doth depend upon abstaining from those offences which he wilfully falls into especially if contumacy be joyned with them as it is before excommunication for then nothing is done forcibly towards him for he first relinquisheth his right before the Church-Governour declares him excluded the Society So that the offendor doth meritoriously excommunicate himself the Pastor doth it formally by declaring that he hath made himself no member by his offences and contumacy joyned with them To the second I answer That I do not place the formality of excommunication in exclusion from hearing the Word but in debarring the person from hearing tanquam pars eoclesiae as a member of the Church and so his hearing may be well joined with that of Heathens and Infidels and not of members of the Church To the third I answer That exclusion from the Lords Supper is not on the accounts mentioned in the objection but because it is one of the chiefest priviledges of the Church as it is a visible Society Having thus cleared and asserted the power of excommunication in a Christian Church there remains only one enquiry more which is Whether this power doth remain formally in the Church after its being incorporated into the Common-wealth or else doth it then escheate wholly into the Civil power The resolution of which question mainly depends on another spoken to already viz. Whether this power was only a kind of Widows estate which belonged to it only during its separation from the Civil power or was the Church absolutely infeoffed of it as its perpetual right belonging to it in all conditions whatsoever it should be in Now that must appear by the Tenure of it and the grounds on which it was conveyed which having been proved already to be perpetual and universal it from thence appears that no accession to the Church can invalidate its former title But then as in case of marriage the right of disposal and well management of the estate coming by the wife belongs to the husband so after the Church is married into the Common wealth the right of supream management of this power in an external way doth fall into the Magistrates hands Which may consist in these following things 1. A right of prescribing Laws for the due management of Church-censures 2 A right of bounding the manner of proceeding in censures that in a settled Christian State matters of so great weight be not left to the arbitrary pleasure of any Church-officers nor such censures inflicted but upon an evident conviction of such great offences which tend to the dishonour of the Christian Church and that in order to the amendment of the offendors life 3. The right of adding temporal and civil sanctions to Church-censures and so enforcing the spiritual weapons of the Church with the more keen and sharp ones of the Civil state Thus I assert the force and efficacy of all Church-censures in foro humano to flow from the Civil power and that there is no proper effect following any of them as to Civil rights but from the Magistrates sanction 4. To the Magistrate belongs the right of appeals in case of unjust censures not that the Magistrate can repeal a just censure in the Church as to its spiritual effects but he may suspend the temporal effect of it in which case it is the duty of Pastors to discharge their office and acquiesce But this power of the Magistrate in the supream ordering of Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Causes I have fully asserted and cleared already From which it follows That as to any outward effects of the power of excommunication the person of the Supream Magistrate must be exempted both because the force of these censures doth flow from him in a Christian State and that there otherwise would be a progress in infinitum to know whether the censure of the Magistrate were just or no. I conclude then that though the Magistrate hath the main care of ordering things in the Church yet the Magistrates power in the Church being cumulative and not privative the Church and her officers retain the fundamental right of inflicting censures on offenders Which was the thing to be proved Dedit Deus his quoque Finem §. 1. §. 2. §. 3. §. 4. §. 5. §. 6. §. 7. §. 8. §. 9. §. 10. §. 11. §. 12. Apud Agust de Civit. de l. 2. c. 21. §. 13. §. 14. §. 15. §. 16. Iren. p. 2. c. 3. Iren. p. 1. c. 8. §. 4. §. 17. in Luk. 6.22 §. 18. §. 19. Matth. 16.19 Iren. p. 2. ch 5. §. 5. p. 212. Acts 2.41 1 Pet. 3.21 Tit. 3.5 Acts 8.33 Isa. 22.20 Cypr. Ep. 73. sect 6. §. 20. §. 21. Heb. 9.22 §. 22. 1 Cor. 5.11 2 Thess. 3.14 §. 23. Iren. p. 1. c. 2. sect 7.