Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A64560
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An apology for the Church of England in point of separation from it by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Davids.
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Thomas, William, 1613-1689.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing T975; ESTC R33829
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87,104
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244
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the Saints as Fellow Members I desire to be resolved who those Saints are Not the reformed Protestants not the Primitive Christians you exclude both their Church being not separate if they be acknowledged Members of the Catholick Church they are interested in the Communion of Saints expressed in the Creed And then your separation from them amounts to a separation from the Church and the Communion specified in the Creed To ascend higher are the Apostles the Saints you own a Communion with Then prove they made such separations from Christian Congregations as you do But you admit them not the Title of Saints let me inoffensively ask for my own satisfaction if they be real Saints why not Titular If your selves as real assume the Title why may not the Apostles be indulged that privilege in regard you plead to be Saints of the same extraction especially since us to the judgment of others at least there is greater certainty infallibility of their Saintship than of yours As for your desire of company comfortably to partake the things of God those Assemblies you have quitted do afford those sacred Comforts you have deserted them for wherein sacred Ordinances are most comfortably because most charitably celebrated Being private Persons or Pastors of a Parochial Church we are principled to be Converts not Judges to exercise severity in repentance not censure to be inquisitors in our own Breasts to condemn none but our selves Religion is not tainted with Faction among us nor Zeal stained with Schism We bewail the practical prophaneness of any that the same tincture of Grace is not visible in Worship and in Life however our wickedness is not in Gilgal as to this charge God's pure Ordinances are not slurred not vitiated much less vacated rendred ineffectual by mens impure desailances unless to themselves only To the pure all things are pure The LETTER Therefore do humbly offer these ensuing grounds to your serious consideration desiring your judgement on them and thoughts of them The ANSWER I take no felicity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Nazianzens expression to mould Divinity into a Comedy I shall not by the Divine assistance fail of a serious Discussion of your Advertisements weighing them in the ballance of Reason and Religion I am not so improvident an Enemy to a numerous Family as to be peevishly wedded to clouded Tenets could I be rationally and conscienciously divorced from them I should not stick to pen my own Retractations according to the laudable Example of St. Austin The LETTER That there is a Church of God here on Earth all do agree in concerning the Matter and Form in general there is no great difference That it is coetus fidelium a company of people called out and segregated from the World by the Word to walk together in the Gospel of Jesus is granted The ANSWER The quod sit that there is a Church is uncontrolled undiscussed the quid sit what that Church is is the subject of Ancient and Modern Debates Here the Logick Rule is to be observed Ambiguous words are first to be distinguish'd then defined The Church is either Universal or Particular Grand Differences being loudly prosecuted touching the Matter and Form of both The Romanists comprehend Miscreants Reprobates for material parts and Members of the Catholick Church the Reformed allow only Elect Persons to be true and real Members of this Church yet they avouch vitious Christians nay scandalous till excommunicated to be Members of a particular visible Church but the Separatists do quite expunge raze them out The Romanists exact not as a consecutive but a constitutive essential Note as a formal mark of every particular Church Subjection to the Pope The Separatists require a Church Covenant an evidence if not assurance of the grace of every Member The Reformed Protestants dissent from both But not to tread out of your track Your Latin definition of the Church coetus fidelium is accommodated to the inward Church invisible Though an Assembly if particular be an object of Sense Believers properly are not But your English illustration of it is the Character of the outward visible Church that walk in the profession of the Gospel of Jesus If they walk whether in the Notion of Nature or Scripture if they profess they must be visible This is to shuffle together Disparata The LETTER 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saints by calling is Scripture Definition Rom. 1. 7. 1 Cor. 14. 33. but how far these terms may be understood how far extended and wherein restrained is the controversie The ANSWER I shall not except at the Etymologie nor the Scripture definition but the Restriction of it That 's the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the main hinge of the Question If you understand Saints by calling of an inward effectual vocation the Testimony is an impertinency as to our debate touching an outward visible Church If you understand it of an outward Vocation remember our Saviours uncontrolled Maxime many are called but few are chosen This suites with a mixt Communion with an outward profession take Aretius his rational descant on St. Pauls Character How are they called Saints since it is certain many Novices in belief yea notorious lewd wretches in life were among them whereto he frames a double answer They were Saints by calling because called to Sanctity and endowed with preparatory Graces Because the better part were Holy the rest were Saints in the judgement of Charity though not of Infallibility It is the Candor the Rhetorick of the Apostle that the Title might be a Lecture the name a charm to Holiness Zanchy under the name of Saints apprehends titular professing Christians but the faithful distinguish'd severed from these by the Apostle to be sincere Believers Thus your first Citation is a Nominal definition of Christians nominal professional not real habitual outwardly interested by Baptism though not inwardly regenerated Saints by destination by designation not in conversation not in the least perfection of parts much less of degrees Your second Citation 1 Cor. 14. 33. is less advantageous to advance your design God is not the Author of confusion not of dissention in the vulgar Latin not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of tumult but of peace as in all the Churches of the Saints That is in all Christian Churches that are called obliged to be Saints If you observe your separation to be the source of dissention of confusion admitting no dependance no subordination it will appear at a great distance from those Apostolical Churches of the Saints especially if you note the coherence in the Claromonte Edition approved by Beza and other Reformed Divines immediately adjoyning to the 33 verse the 36 37 38 39 40 th vers and annexing 34 35 vers to the 40 th What came the Word of God from you or to you only The ophylact thus illustrates it You are neither the prime nor the sole Believers It behooves you to entertain that with affection with submission which hath
To this Objection you frame a double resolution First as if the Apostle had reflected on their first constitution past not their present condition and qualification This is as Bembus blasphemed to make Scripture a nose of Wax You confidently boult out an unwarranted uncountenanced gloss unwarranted because it checks with the literal Grammatical expression It is to the Church of God in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Participle of the present Tense nor is there the least plausible plea for a tropical evasion to flee to an Enallage temporis Since the holy Ghost vouchsafes the same title to the Corinthians of Corinth in the 2 Ep. v. 1 of Galatia Gal. 1. 2. of Ephesus Rev. 2. 1. of Pergamus Rev 2. 12. of Thyatyra Rev. 2. 18. of Sardis Rev. 3. 1. of Laodicea Rev. 3. 14. And yet all soyl'd with scandals Do not your self vindicate an Authority of Excommunication at Corinth when this Epistle was written Where there was a true power of Excommunication you must grant a true Church The consequence is infallible Though there may in some Cases which I have already manifested be a true Church where there is not the Exercise of Excommunication the terms being not reciprocal yet wheresoever there is a lawful exercise of excommunication or a lawful right for that Exercise though diverted there is true Church As your Exposition is unwarranted so uncountenanced by Primitive by Reformed or even Romish Commentators Produce but one of any repute and your strained gloss shall pass more smooth and solemn In the mean time I shall subscribe to the universal Comment All deceive none none deceive all saith Pliny The Fathers generally flourish out the description of the present condition of the Christians at Corinth the Church of God as a perswasive spell to conjure their Unity not to be divided and their Piety not to be defiled depraved Reformed Expositors raise as a natural genuine observation on this title a reproof of your Church separation Your second Answer closeth with the former For if they must cast out then they must be a Church and the scandalous then of the Church till ejection excommunication for else they could not be cast out As for the excommunicating of their corrupt Members the Historical evidence is very scanty the sole instance is the incestuous person wherein the judgement was determined the sentence pronounced by the Apostle 1 Cor. 5. 3. but recommended to the Church of Corinth to be attested to be effectually executed Some eminent Divines both anciently and lately have conjectured That at the writing of this first Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle St. Paul had not fully establish'd the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Church of Corinth but retain'd the reins of Government in his own hands However I shall not obtrude that opinion not question the Commission of the Church of Corinth for excommunication nor can you justly the Jurisdiction of the Church of England which I have amply cleared from administring any cause of just desertion upon this account though there may be vented an unjust imputation Whether the Church of Corinth might excommunicate its own corrupt members is not controverted betwixt us But whether these being not excommunicated the sound part was bound to separate locally from the unsound in religious Exercise Let it be proved that this was effected at Corinth Et eris mihi magnus Apollo The LETTER Object Can there be a perfect Church on Earth it is compared to the Tares and Wheat a draw net a barn floor Answ. Grant it be the Church meant there which is to be proved for the preaching of the Gospel is called the Kingdom of Heaven but how came in the Tares not by Gods allowance but by the Devil and by the carelesness and negligence of the keepers of the Field Matth. 13. 39. 2. They are Tares that is something as most Expositors have it as I have been acquainted with very like to Wheat that they could hardly be discerned from the Wheat without endangering it and so far close cunning hypocrites may be left alone but that there should be no way left to cast out those that are venomous weeds which do hurt and mischief I deny I would answer particularly to each of these but I shall say only this if Christ should allow of the wicked to be taken into his Church he would contradict himself as hath been proved But Christ doth not contradict himself ergo The ANSWER The double Answer to this Parabolical Objection is like Mephibosheth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 halting with both feet First you mince it as an unnecessary concession that it is to be proved by me and assay'd to be disproved by your self In other passages in other parables recited in this Chapter the Kingdom of Heaven is the Church why not in this This is the ordinary gloss this is the Exposition of the Primitive Fathers the Donatists excepted But you offer rationally to evince the contrary The Church is not the Kingdom of Heaven because the preaching of the Gospel is This Exception is ignoratio Elenchi Both may be so titled in different considerations The Church on Earth is the Kingdom of Heaven initiate and the Kingdom of Heaven is the Church consummate the preaching of the Gospel is the efficient instrumental cause for propagating the Church on Earth for promoting to the Kingdom of Heaven and may Metonymically be so named After this Objection you Question But how came in the Tares it concerns not our Controversie to sift the Original for the admittance of the Tares but the peril of their continuance Or whether a Field because it hath good Ears ought to be quitted because it hath Tares intermingled I shall dismiss this curiosity touching the Original of the Tares as St. Austin did an enquiry touching Original sin with the pert reply of one plunged in a deep pit who being demanded by a passenger the occasion of that disaster He replyed Be sollicitous how I may be rescued out of this pit not how I came to be ingulfed in it The second part of your Answer observes the likeness of Tares to Wheat scarce to be discerned 'T is true in the blade but not in the ear The Text doth manifestly assert their manifestation But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit then the tares appeared also They were not permitted to be served before Harvest not because they were obscur'd not sufficiently discover'd but lest the pure grain should be hazarded to be rooted up being so intermingled with the Tares When this mischief of a promiscuous extirpation may be prevented Tares ought not to be suffer'd I confess but Tares do often improve to be so numerous and vigorous in such strength and multitude that they prevail above the Wheat in this case both must be reserved till Harvest to be separated Should the Church of England address it self by Ecclesiastical severity to root out the Quakers Ranters Anabaptists