Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	believer_n	church_n	visible_a	1,349	5	9.2573	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35696	Jus Cæsaris et ecclesiæ vere dictæ or, A treatise wherein independency, presbytery, the power of kings, and of the church, or of the brethren in ecclesiastical concerns, government and discipline of the church : and wherein also the use of liturgies, tolleration, connivence, conventicles or private assemblies, excomminication, election of popes, bishops, priests what and whom are meant by the term church, 18 Matthew are discoursed : and how I Cor. 14. 32. generally misunderstand is rightly expounded : wherein also the popes power over princes, and the liberty of the press, are discoursed / by William Denton ...	Denton, William, 1605-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing D1066; ESTC R9164	326,898	268

and Judicature one of the other is not denied by any Protestant Divines that I know of and it is or ought to be as little gain-said that it could not then be otherwise And why Christ knew that the Messengers which he sent to gather a People to himself out of Saracens and Insidels Jews and Gentiles by perswasive means only were to build up his Church within the Bosom of Kingdoms which were and would continue avowed Enemies to his Gospel every where for a long time then to come And therefore he gave them such Doctrines and such Commissions for Doctrine and Discipline as they might any where publish and exercise in a quiet and peaceable manner the Subjects of no Common-wealth being any where therein concerned in goods or person by vertue of that spiritual regiment whereunto Christian Religion once embraced did make them lyable And indeed if they had not a Government within themselves they could have none at all concerning Christian Religion For Princes and all Nations were then professed and bitter enemies to Christian Religion which Government did also extend it self unto small matters even such as were otherwise impleadable and remediable in the Civil Courts and Judicatures of the Kingdome or State though heathenish wherein and under whom they lived as Subjects Dare any of you saith St. Paul having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the Saints do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the world and if the world shall be judged by you are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters 1 Cor. 6.1 2. So that upon the whole matter the Sum total of Religion that Christ committed to his Apostles and they to their successors consisted in the Doctrin and Discipline thereof viz. to preach him and him crucified and to perswade others to become Christians through the belief of one Lord one Faith and one Baptisme and when once admitted by the door of Baptism into the Christian Church then to become and to be accounted Members of the visible Church Christian As for Discipine that concerns moral righteousness and honesty of life and their contraries unrighteousness and dishonesty and therefore Christ gave them this General Precept viz. to love one another even our neighbours as our selves and if any did transgress the Vertues and Laws which belong unto moral righteousness and honesty of life which are not proper and peculiar unto Christian men as Christians but as Men what then the transgressors were first privatly to be admonished if the offence were private those that sinned openly were to be rebuked openly if they did not then repent and amend then to be admonished by two or three if still they remained incorrigible then to acquaint that Congregation of Christian Brethren of which they were Members and if still they continued refractory after private and publick Admonitions Warnings and Prayers then not to own them as Brethren nor to keep company with them with such no not to eat with them and in the end to pursue them as if Publicans and Heathens as not being worthy of the Name and Profession of Christians which they had put on they not living to the adorning but to the shame of the Gospel And this is the sum of the whol Government or Discipline which Christ after the death of the Apostles who having gifts extraordinary had also powers extraordinary which died with them left to his Church for ought appears by any Scripture extant And what need of more For if the Ministers of the everlasting Gospel have liberty to Instruct break Bread Baptize and Pray the Civil Christian Magistrat hath sufficient power by Gods own Ordinance to order all the rest § To me indeed it seems marvelous nay monstrous that out of so plain so intelligible so easily practicable directions for the Government of Christian Churches that so various so meerly wordly and pompous nay imperious and impious forms of Church Government should be drawn into use as have been hundreds of years practised both in the Eastern and Western Empires and all held forth to be according to the Gospel when in truth they all differ from the true Gospel Discipline as far as the East is from the West they being all degenerated into meer worldly forms set up for meer worldly self-ends and interests If any man can more plainly make out any other form from the Gospel it would be a favour my self I must confess to be Impar Negotio it is past my understanding Indeed to me it seems wonderful whilst I consider that though Histories are ful and plain how and when the several forms crept in and got Accruments partly by the supineness and negligence of the Brethren of their own Rights and Priviledges partly by the craft and subtlety of proud covetous and ambitious Clergy and partly by the carelesness of Princes who not willing to trouble themselves with the care of Religion devolved it upon others that they should yet endeavour to keep us hoodwinkt though they know that our eyes are now open If there be any other Gospel-form of Government let it plainly appear without offering violence to any Texts of Scripture if not why should we be wiser than Christ our Head and Lawgiver God only is truth and all men are subject to errors what remains but that all his Servants and more especially the Priests of the most high God whose lips above others should more especially preserve knowledg do abandon humane errors and fals superstructures and keep the praecepts of God only that they may remain stedfast in the truth only § Some are of opinion that there is no need at all of any Ecclesiastical Government as distinct from the Civil if Christian and Orthodox and if there be that yet the Body of the Church is to govern it self and not the Clergie or Officers the Body they are to teach them their duty but the provisionary coercive and executive power is seated in the Body and not in the Pope or Presbyter I know the grand objection against Independency is that it is destructive to Government and tends to Anarchy a meer slander rather than a just objection for if rightly considered it would be found the least Chagreen to any Civil Government of any Ecclesiastical Government at this very day in use in any Nation and if not mistaken I have Christ who was the Wisdom of the Father and his Apostles to justify me herein For the Government that is herein stated may be exercised under any Government how averse soever to Christianity it self without clashing or interfeering therewith And if Christ left no other Government as for certain he did not why should we pretend to be wiser than Christ himself The same was exercised by the Apostles and long after and how incroachments of power were gained to the Clergy Stories are full Vide Fra Paolo Sarpi his Treatise of Beneficiary Matters § On the contrary how thwarting Popish or Presbyterian Governments are to

p. 369. taken away these words is no Riddle their Excuse is ready at hand viz. That they are not in the New Testament but of many other words which are found in the Breviaries and not in the New Testament it is said they come ex Traditione Apostolicâ and so they will tell us that however the Evangelists do not affirm it yet it comes by Tradition that old and bold Imposture that these words were directed to Peter Now then here ought to be some distinction by which there may appear a difference between this Tradition and the others which when it is made yet all will be too little to excuse that for many hundred years it was not so read and consequently so believed of all Catholicks for so many Ages that it was spoken particularly to Peter Dic Ecclesiae So that they must needs equivocate in the Noun Church and interpret it Dic tibi ipsi i.e. Tell it to thy self To this purpose we have a more signal corruption not of their Breviary but of the Gospel it self For in the Gospel Translated into Persian by Xauerius it is added after Dic Ecclesiae and if he refuse to hear the Church then tell it Romano Pontisici to the Pope of Rome and if he refuse to hear him let him be an Heathen c. yea yet farther it will be a Sence so palpably wrested to understand by the Church one sole Person and that not so much because the Noun it self cannot bear it as for that Christ himself interpreting it in the words immediately following saith Vbi sunt duo vel tres Where there are two or three gathered together c. So that it is apparently cleared that he understood by the Church a Congregation of two or three at the least assembled in his Name But grant them what they vehemently contend for viz. That Christ said to Peter himself Tell the Church yet for that very reason Peter himself was sent unto some other persons constituting a Church and therefore by the Term Church Peter could not possibly be meant or intended § It is objected out of John 9.12 That the Scribes and Pharisees did in Christs time thrust such as they deemed Offenders out of their Synagogue which they will needs have to be Excommunication and that the same power was bequeathed unto the Church Christian is Mat. 15.20 That they did so may be true but that they had good warrant so to do out of Moses I find not A Separation of the Leper from the Company of men and of the unclean from coming near the Holy Places are things Moses prescribeth but Excommunication no where that I know of A Bastard might not enter into the Congregation of the Lord unto the Tenth Generation Deut. 23.2 Nor yet the Ammonites or Moabites v. 23. But the Children of the Edomites and Egyptians were received in the Third Generation v. 8. Aliens were not admitted to be of the Number of the Lords People and any Uncleanness of the Flesh did separate for a season the Jews themselves from approaching near to the Congregation or Tabernacle of God but neither of these is Excommunication The Strangers which were not yet admitted could not be rejected the Natural Insirmities and Uncleanness of the Body as Leprosie Pollution Touching of the Dead c. are made Remembrances of our Corruption not Causes of Excommunication For greater Sins committed God appointed Corporal punishments for Wrongs he required Recompence for smaller Matters he accepted Sacrifices of Confession and Repentance other Censures in Moses I know none at least that will amount unto Excommunication The casting of Men out of their Synagogues was first devised by the Pharisees to serve their proud and aspiring humor for that the chiefest power of the Sword was translated unto Strangers and the highest Dignity remained unto the Sadduces Jos Antiq. lib. 18. c. 20. and though sharply pursued by them against Christ and his Disciples yet was it no spiritual course but rather a temporal loss of all such Honours Offices Priviledges and Freedoms as the parties had in Church or State where they lived and a plain adjudging them to imprisonment Scourging and such other Chastisements as the Synedrion by their Laws might and did inflict unto which I presume no Ministers of the Gospel will pretend or lay any claim St. John reports c. 19. v 38. That Joseph of Arimathea was Christs Disciple but secretly for fear of the Jews And c. 12.42 That many of the chief Rulers believed on him but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be cast out of their Synagogue now Believers in Christ could be in no dread or fear of the Spiritual Curse and Excommunication of the Pharisees for that they excommunicated themselves when they forsook the Jewish Church and became Christians they better understood their Interest in Christ than so wherefore this casting out of the Synagogue if not wholly Civil yet at least was intermixed with the Civil Regiment and the terror thereof wholly proceeded from the power of the Sword confirmed by God to the Council and Elders of that Commonwealth which the Pastors of Christs Church may not usurp nor challenge unless the Civil Magistrate do Counsel and Authorize their Doings and if so yet questioned by some As for that other Phrase viz. He shall be cut off from the midst of his People so often used in the Law and so often and strongly insisted upon by some to express a kind of Excommunication and Anathematization I must take leave to dissent from them also that are so perswaded of the Sence of this Exposition Moses himself not the Rabbins is the best Expositor and out of him not out of them Proofs are to be sought In Levit. 18. God threatning Incest Adultery Sodomy Buggary and Offering Children unto Moloch concludeth v. 29 that whosoever shall commit any of these Abominations shall be cut off from among the People i.e. shall die the death as is expressed Levit. 20.3 4 17. Whoever shall give his Children unto Moloch shall die the death the People of the Land shall stone him to death and if the People of the Land kill him not then will I set my face against that Man and his Family and cut him off So for Incest they shall be cut off in the sight of their People i.e. openly put to death So likewise for any wilful breach of Gods Law The person that doth ought presumptuously c. therefore shall he be cut off from among his People i.e. suffer death When this kind of Speech is referred to the Magistrate then Execution is enjoyned when to God then it is a Commination denounced that he will plague and root them out and their Remembrances from the People of God Nahum 3. Jer. 11.22 23. Ezek. 14.8 13 21. Ezek. 21.28 The Separation mentioned Ezra 10.8 11 12. And Nehemiah's chasing away some that married strange Wives Nehem. 13. were joyned with Forfeitures of all their Goods