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A94272 A treatise of the schism of England. Wherein particularly Mr. Hales and Mr. Hobbs are modestly accosted. / By Philip Scot. Permissu superiorum. Scot, Philip. 1650 (1650) Wing S942; Thomason E1395_1; ESTC R2593 51,556 285

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this supreme obliging power in matters of faith and manners and upon the same ground hath always esteemed such hereticks in a damnable condition who have not as well beleeved or adhered to her proposals in faith in one subject as in another and as well to the end of the world as in the primitive times But they say that the burden of Christian religion will be greater then of the Jewes and intollerable if all are obliged to every declared truth in the Church which is contrary to Christ who saith Mat. 11. that his yoak is sweet and his burden is light This is easily answered in order to the Community of Christians whose implicite faith in the superstructures is sufficient according to the generally taught and received doctrin of Doctors Pastors indeed and Doctors have higher obligations to be able to give an account of their faith which obligation is much alleviated by the Synopses of Faith which the Church clearly and yet very contractedly propounds to keep them principally from misunderstanding the holy mysteries of our faith This is the weightiest objection which I finde in Mr. Hobb's besides those which I shall presently touch St. Chrysostome in his 10. homily upon St. Mathew in the person of Christ complaines of Mr. Hobbs Nolite de difficultate conqueri quesi qui doctrinam meam molestam esse dicatis we must not say Christ's doctrin is troublesome least with the Capharnaits we be committed abire retro to be put in the back side of Christ's book Surely St. August found Christian religion in another posture then Mr. Hobbs would have it in his 5. Chapter to Volusian Where he saith that Tanta est Christianarum profunditas literarum ut in eis quotidie proficerem si eas solas ab ineunte pueritia usque ad de erepitam senectutem maximo otio summa studio meliori ingenio conarer addiscere c. He experienced the mysteries of Christianity far to transcend the synagogue he esteemed his whole life though it were imployed in nothing else not to suffice for a perfect understanding of Christian profundities surely they were not so vulgar as Mr. Hebbs would have them There was among the Jewes a difference in points of faith some were ut adirces as the foundation of the rest the denying whereof would have destroyed the whole law others as rami branches where the danger was not so considerable These R. Menassieth in the beginning of his Treatise of the creation of the world declareth So in Christian Religion some things are simply necessary without which heaven is not to be gotten as the faith of Christ c. which our school-men place sub necessitate medij that is as absolutely necessary of which sort there are not so many Other things are necessary onely ex suppositione that is upon supposition that they are made known to us or sufficiently declared then there is necessitas praecepti a command to imbrace them and surely this is no great burden I will also touch that impertinent objection of the Socinians that the Church of Christ is a congregation of all Christians or of all who beleeve in Christ and not of any select body of them and consequently there are no hereticks to be declared so by any sentence of the Church but onely those are hereticks who by their own judgement are such as the Apostle speaketh That is such who against their own judgment do resist known truths not such who by a councel or body of men are declared such This to beleevers is easily made evident to be impious First That Christ hath a Church he hath said it that he also hath instructed her with a regitive power he hath also said it and said both together in these words Dic Ecclesiae and therefore addeth to such as obey not her decrees si eam non audierit sit tibi tanquam Ethnicus et publicanus we must complain to the Church for emergencies and she hath power to excommunicate if we obey not If this be true as it is in other crimes and causes it will easily conclude in the chiefest crime of heresie else we must blasphemously say that Christ hath made provision for the lesser difficulties and not for greater which is to condemn his omniscience or providence Again this regitive power is confirmed in the acts and attributes to the Holy Ghost Spiritus Sanctus vos constituit Episcopes regere Ecclesiam Dei Of this the new Testament in doctrin and practise is aboundant Further that the Church hath power to declare hereticks is evident besides the immediate consequence of it out of Christs words related out of the doctrin and practise of the Apostles They did teach how or did institute the manner post secundam monitionem to declare and excommunicate for heresie they also did declare de facto hereticks as is evident in almost all their Epistles and the Apocalipss and did forbid all commerce with them which is to excommunicate which they did for their false and seditious tenents or innovations in faith as is clear in the texts whence it followeth first that the Church hath this power as first Simon Magus for teaching it lawful to buy the Holy Ghost Secondly the Jewish Christians who taught it lawful to use Sacramental circumcision under Christ were excommunicated by St. John c. Whence it followes secondly that the Church is not a body of all Christians but of all who do joyn in the unity and integrity of faith else if declared by the Church to be hereticks they are no longer of her because by authority derived by Christ they are cast out of her Their own interior guilt will serve to accuse them in the Court of God in Heaven but it is the judicatory act of the Church upon their pertinacy which condemneth them in Earth and this sentence is confirmed in Heaven Quaecunque alligaveritis c. Mr. Hobbs in his 18. Chapter n. 2. requires two vertues necessary to Salvation Faith and Obedience Faith hath no other latitude in her acts then to beleeve Jesus to be Christ n. 5 6. and so forward Besides internal faith he saith that there is necessarily required a profession of many other articles which summarily are contracted compacted into that we call the Creed As he had touched before Chap. 17. n. 21. and afterward more fully in his Annotations to the number 6. Yet he esteemed not Christians bound to beleeve but to profess these if required This seems a bull in Christianity to be bound to profess in matter of belief what I am not bound to beleeve yet this he asserts Chap. 18. n. 6. necessary to salvation out of title of obedience That is I am bound to profess that I do beleeve what I am not bound to beleeve I propound this to Mr. Hobb's second thoughts he boggles much upon it in his Annotations utters evident contradictions and yet he comes not off Nay he saith ch 18. n. 14. that it is enough if one endeavour
remaining obedient to the civil Magistrate can be guilty of Schism because they do so far subject Ecclesiastical persons and causes to civil magistracy that they do scarcely acknowledge any Ecclesiastical power at all contradistinct from the Temporal in a Christian Common-wealth except in things internal as Mr. Hobbs holds Chap. 17. n. 21 22. c. though afterwards he gives some smal nothings to them he will have the Prince supreme even in spirituals c. 18. n. 13. and therefore they must depend on the Prince in the use of all and at last in his last chapter and number he repeales all he had granted The truth is he is so zealous in his structure of a civil Common-wealth wherein he hath some excellent things that he either neglects or reduceth the spiritual common-weath or Church almost to a Platonical inexistent Idea Reason tells us that as natural so moral powers and offices are known to be specifically different and not onely numerically distinct by their several operations the difference of operations is known by their several objects or sometime by the very several tending to the same specifical object as Philosophers know Now the offices of ecclesiastical and civil magistracy are obviously known to have these ways to declare their real and specifical differences St. Paul in his fifth chapt to the Hebrews even from the very beginning sufficiently declares it from their operations and objects and tells us that the Priest is taken to his office from amongst men by men is understood the temperal power from whence this other power is severed by St. Paul I wish the ingenuous Reader to peruse it all and compare Mr. Hobbs his grounds to St. Paul and what I annex in the ensuing discourse I am sure besides scriptures the judgement o● ancient Christians was fa● otherwise There were bounds for ecclesiastical and temporal magistracy alwayes acknowledged great Athanasius in his Epistle to these who observe Solitary life to this purpose reciteth and applaudeth an● epistle of Hosius of Cordub● to Constantius the Arriar● Emperor Cease I beseech thee and remember that th●● art mortal fear the day of judgment intermeddle not with ecclesiastical matters neither do thou command us in this kinde but rather learn them of us to thee God hath committed the Empire to us he hath committed the things that belong to the Church and as he who with malicious eyes carpeth thine Empire gainsayeth the ordinance of God so do thou also beware least in drawing to thee Ecclesiastical matters thou be made guilty of a horrible crime It is written give ye the things that are Caesars to Caesar and the things that are Gods to God Therefore neither is it lawful for us in earth to hold the Empire neither hast thou O Emperor power over incense and sacred things This extent is far beyond internals or Mr. Hobb's limits St. Ambrose also to Valentinian in his fifth book of Epistles in his oration of delivering up of Churches Valentinian by ill advise of his mother Justina an Arrian required to have one Church deputed in Milan for the Arrians saith thus We pay that which is Caesars to Caesar and that which is Gods to God Tribute is Caesars it is not denied The Church is Gods it may not verily be yeelded to Caesar because the Temple of God cannot be Caesars right Which no man can deny but it is spoken with the honour of the Empire for what is more honorable then that the Emperor be said to be the Son of the Church for 〈◊〉 good Emperor is within the Church not above the Church He is diametpically opposite to Mr. Hobbs Out of these and infinite other texts or monuments of antiquity it is most clear that all Christians grounded upon Scriptures as they conceived did beleeve that the Church taken rigidly and strictly was understood to consist onely of spiritual men and a city or a common-wealth did and doth import a body of Christians considered as not consecrated to divine service and functions but as members of the civil or temporal body and that therefore though as civil persons they were subject onely to this or that city or country namely in civil or temporal things yet in Ecclesiastical they might be subject to Ecclesiastical power though sometimes seated in forrain countries Spiritual things are not circumscribed by place and consequently my own temporal Prince according to St. Ambrose might be a fellow subject with me in this which depends not at all upon the temporal power but is wholy of another and a higher nature though Mr. Hobbs denies it which I wonder at reason me-thinks will necessarily carry us to prefer spiritual before temporal and therefore St. Peter in his first Epistle Chap. 2. calls temporal magistracy a human creature that is in a peculiar way derived from man But St. Paul Acts 20. speaking of Ecclesiastical magistracy saith the Holy Ghost hath placed you to rule the Church of God and St. Ignatius contemporary to the Apostles gives us his own and the sense of Christians in those days when he exhorts the people of Smyrna in his Epistle to them first to honour God next the Bishop and then the King They are not therefore in the sense of Christians the same thing a Bishop and Christian King nor their office the same the one tending immediately to things which belong to God in order to souls The other immediatly to things of this world namely to the external peace of Subjects though secondarily with reference to God also but the Ecclesiastical by supernatural mediums the other properly by natural which is more remote and indirect and therefore St. Paul to the Hebrews cap. 5. saith this power is conversant circa ea quae ad Deum sunt which is no where simply asserted of the other and in the law those are called Sors Domini in a peculiar strain And to speak truth Mr. Hobbs had done very well if he had taken St. Paul along with him in framing his new model of a Christian City who distinguisheth each members office very often All authority is not in the Princes but Hebrews 13. lay people are commanded to obey their Provosts and to be subject to them c. where he sufficiently distinguisheth the Tribunals No Christian can be ignorant of the authority which the Holy Ghost giveth to Praelates regere Ecclesiam Dei to govern the Church of God so that this spiritual government is of God and it is a government and therefore not onely declarative or instructive as Mr. Hobbs saith even of Christ himself c. 17. n. 13. but it is a regitive power els S. Peter had most heavily transgressed his commission in adjudging Ananias and after his wife Saphira to present death for a spiritual crime St. Paul in his excommunicating the fornicator St. John and the rest had abused their power also which I touch in the seventh Chapter who went beyond pure declaration of their guilt expected not the cities sentence in it Mr.