Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	member_n	society_n	2,075	5	9.3482	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91879	The falsehood of Mr. VVilliam Pryn's Truth triumphing, in the antiquity of popish princes and Parliaments. To which, he attributes a sole, sovereigne, legislative, coercive power in all matters of religion; discovered to be full of absurdities, contradictions, sacriledge, and to make more in favour of Rome and Antichrist, than all the bookes and pamphlets which were ever published, whether by papall or episcopall prelates, or parisites, since the reformation. With twelve queries, eight whereof visit Mr. Pryn the second time, because they could not be satisfied at the first.	Robinson, Henry, 1605?-1664?	1645 (1645)	Wing R1672; Thomason E273_16; Thomason E282_11; ESTC R200048	28,156	36

to the universall griefe is so mortally divided These are hard questions I confesse but Mr. Pryn will get the more glory when hee knowes how to answer them If the Arminians upon the improving of their studies about their other controversies or the Civill Magistrates bad imploying a power ascribed but not due to them saw their errour and amended must they be upbrayded I would be loath that Mr. Pryn should want of such encouragements of providence and mercy lest it might hinder his repentance of what I feare mee he is too highly guilty God is contented to tole us to him and to his truth even with variety of inticements and provocations fraile mankinde is dull and stupid no lesse than Gods infinite wisdome together with his unmeasurable bounty will serve to animate and raise us up to new discoveries of knowledge and obedience Take this then for your learning that whosoever attributes to any man or Magistrate a power of imposing any thing upon the consciences of others in matters of Religion doe justifie them in whatsoever they impose though it be erroneous so they impose according to their owne judgements and understandings condemning the other for not submitting though it be unto erroneous impositions for if the one may impose his owne reason must teach him what he may impose And if he have just authority to impose the other is obliged in conscience to obey and so by consequence should be engaged to submit implicitly to whatsoever superstitious ceremonies and worship were put upon him In your Epistle to the Reader you say the Independents may upon the same grounds deny the Catholicke Church an article of the Creed upon which they deny a Nationall Church as though so many more particular Churches might not as well make one Catholick as severall but yet so many fewer Nationall Churches or as though particular Christians who lived stragling in Turky or any Pagan Countries where they could not possibly be members of a Nationall Church could not possibly be members of the Catholique Church You accuse the Independents as beleeving most things with a reserve according to their present light with a liberty of changing as new light shall bee discovered to them But did ever any man so overshoot himselfe Certainly this is so high a character of the Independents compleatest posture ensuring or growing stature in the Schoole of Christ as could be applyed unto them wherein they glory not a little and place it as the only ground-worke and foundation without which they cannot grow in grace from one degree of faith unto another untill they become perfect Men perfect Saints unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ Eph. 4. 12 13. and yet your Law-Divinity knowes no better than to say this is in truth to bring a Skepticisme into Religion And whereas you say their principles dissolve all relations all subordinations and humane society it self I answer that this is even as if you should affirme a Turke not to be a man unlesse he will bee a Christian unlesse he will be a member of some Nationall Church nay of every Nationall Church since his not being of any one is all alike prejudiciall or damageable But they are the Presbyteriall and such other Prelaticall tenets which destroy and expressely murder all humane society in avouching as William Pryn with his ense recidendum and A. Stewart does that sayes whosoever is cut off or cast out of the Church must likewise be cast out and cut off from the Civill state p. 166. in 2. part of his Duply c. Sir I confesse I have spent more time and paper about your Epistles than I intended which if you and the Reader will but excuse I shall endeavour to make you amends in part by troubling you the lesse with your rusty musty rubbish of Popish times and presidents Page 1. Your first proposition is That the calling of Synods or Assemblies about Church matters belongs not to Bishops Ministers nor private or particular Congregations but to Princes or supreme temporall Magistrates and Powers So that if the Magistrate be Turkish under whose jurisdiction live many Protestant Greekes I meane such as disavow the Pope with the greatest part of his unsound doctrine If he be Popish as the Emperour of Germany with the Kings of France and Polonia in whose territories inhabit millions of Protestants all which Protestants must never meet together in Synods and Assemblies about Church affaires because those Emperours and Kings are never likely to summon Synods for them or put them in minde to doe it themselves You still quote multitudes of texts to prove your Propositions with in hopes perhaps that if one faile you another may doe the deed but you happen to be so successelesse therin as if you used still to presse the Scriptures which came first to hand ranking them in your margent whether they would or no which 't is true has stood you in stead no more than a forc't Militia does the King or Parliament yet doubtles that God with whom the Word was from the beginning and who is the very Word Joh. 1. 1. will not approve that his blessed Word should be made use 〈◊〉 and imployed so vainly impertinently preposterously rashly and irreverently Wherefore I would gladly advise Mr. Pryn for the future to insert the very words themselves of every text hee quotes in hopes that if he doe but once read them over by himselfe he will finde they make nothing to the purpose and so have ingenuity enough to leave them out After you have done belying sacred Scripture you flye for assistance unto prophane and from thence tell us by whose authority the first Generall Councells were convocated which proves nothing else but that whether it be King or Parliament that have the strongest sword or shall prevaile and get the better over the other in this Civill War the Assembly of Divines now at Westminster must sit no longer not any of their coat ever meet againe above two in company unlesse the present ruling party please lest they be tearmed a Conventicle and fall into a Pramunire But by what authority tro did the pretended Synod of Jerusalem assemble Act. 15. What Kings or Parliaments Writs or Letters-patents had they for so doing What Court countenance did they procure to second their proceedings for my part I had rather follow such a president and erre with them if you will needs esteem it such than degenerate with the weaker Christians of after ages in supplicating of Powers and Princes in such a manner whereby they should be moved to thinke I granted them such a power as God never gave them or confirmed them in supposing they had a just liberty of denying what through want perhaps of Christian courage only or the Civill powers protection I durst not put in practice without their order and commission Page 4. I am glad to finde you acknowledging a passage of the Bishops letters wherein they return

right of Christian Princes for calling such Assemblies can any wayes make legall the present sitting of the Divines at Westminster or how he can make atonement for himselfe to give occasion that both their assembling and whole proceedings may thus be called in question But p. 88. you bring in a Parenthesis which doubtlesse the Assembly will thinke had far better beene left out that the assent of the Clergy is only by way of assistance and advice not simply necessary to the Parliaments determining what is heresie however for my part I do not much dissent with you therein and if the Assembly did like as well thereof should thinke it might somewhat qualifie their over forward and eager appetites which else might too likely lead them to declare those wayes hereticall after which Paul was not ashamed to say hee worshipped the God of his Fathers Act. 24. 14. But may not both Kings and Parliaments reprove you like an unlucky Cow who having given great quantity of milke kicks it downe with her foot for contradicting your selfe and plundring them so speedily of all Ecclesiasticall power which before in a good mood you cast upon them so liberally without allowance saying p. 141. That there is the selfe same reason and equity for severall combined Churches in a Councell Synod Presbytery to have a coercive power over every particular Congregation in their limits as for any particular Congregation to claime or exercise a jurisdiction in point of direction or correction over any or every particular member of it This assertion I conceive is yet more prodigious than all your Popish presidents with which you ever were acquainted and I beleeve that never any body hereafter will so much as acknowledge you in this opinion Whereas the Title of your Booke and whole Discourse in generall ascribe all power and authority unto the Civill Magistrate both in Civill and Ecclesiasticall matters This passage gives the same unto a Synod even a Coercive that is all Power and Authority and that both in Civill and Ecclesiasticall matters provided they doe but colour and call them Ecclesiasticall for nothing of Coercive can be otherwise than Civill properly If you excuse your selfe by saying you meant a Synod ratified by Authority of Parliament I answer that you must meane a Synod so ratified by Authority of Parliament as some Presbyterians of Scotland meane when they expect that Parliaments must doe it ex officio whether they bee willing or unwilling and if your meaning had been otherwise you might have brought your comparison betweene a Parliament and particular Congregations not a Synod besides that the power of direction which you acknowledge to be in every particular Congregation towards any or every member thereof I doe not finde to bee granted them or so much as medled with by Authority of Parliament so likewise if you will have it any wayes hold parallel you must meane the Synods Canons so confirmed by authority of Parliament as that the Parliaments confirmation must still wait upon and follow the Synods beck and requisition That part of the Statute 37. H. 8. c. 17. which you bring to establish the King Head of the Church sayes That by Holy Scripture All Authority and Power is wholly given to him to heare and determine All manner of causes Ecclesiasticall and to correct All vice and sinne whatsoever and such persons as his Majesty shall appoint thereunto So that whereas a negative voice which hath beene and is still the great controversie betwixt the King and Parliament in Civill matters only this Statute 37. H. 8. c. 17. with Mr. Pryns opinion and consequences thereupon doe freely grant the King in all spirituall causes and affaires Surely if all Englishmen did agree with Mr. Pryn in this particular the King might like enough be willing for the present to part from his negative voice in Civill matters in full assurance of regaining it in recompence of Pardons and Dispensations which he might grant by virtue of his Headship of the Church with the sole authority of correcting all vice and sinne and finall determining all causes Ecclesiasticall The truth is that Christian Kings and Princes have de facto done much with Civill censures in maintenance of Religion whether right or wrong established by Law But the point is what they did or might doe lawfully de jure Whence is their power derived Surely the power of Princes pretending to the name of Christian whether Papists Lutherans Calvinists Brownists or Anabaptists and even of Turkish and Pagan Princes is all alike So that whatsoever power the best Reformed Princes can justly assume unto themselves in Ecclesiasticall affaires even Popish Kings and the Great Turk may fully pretend and act as much in and about the Churches within their Territories and neither of them be more disobeyed or resisted than the other The power is given to them as Magistrates and Princes not as Christians otherwise they might be deposed at any time if they became Antichristian which is exploded for a Popish doctrine But as Artaxerxes did not make that Decree for building of the Temple out of love or conscience unto the God of Ezra Ezra 7. from v. 21. to 26. So can it not be concluded from Kings and Magistrates interposing their Civill power about matters meerly Ecclesiasticall that therefore they might and did doe it by full authority from God since by the selfe same manner of arguing it would follow that Popery were the truest Religion because most Christian Princes as they are called have established Popery But it may have beene observed how Princes and Magistrates in all ages who have had the Sword of Justice in their keeping have for the most part beene kept in an ignorant and superstitious overawfulnesse by the Clergy of those times who still for their owne private ends prevailed with them to countenance and enforce their Constitutions by coercive meanes upon the people by which device of theirs both Prince and People became so entangled and ensnared to them by degrees that if either of them afterwards sought to withdraw themselves forth from this bondage they still found such a party of the other as was able to curb and bring them againe into subjection of Holy Church as they pretended though never so Popish or otherwise corrupt And this series of corrupted and corrupting presidents with their tyrannicall dominion over mens faith and consciences which the Apostle Paul disclaimed 2 Cor. 1. 24. Mr. Pryn produces as orthodox requiring it should bee established after the manner of Medes and Persians irrevocable and made very Scripture of ascribing by this Antick rabble of quotations as great a power unto the Civill Magistrate in spirituall matters as ever any Pope of Rome assumed unto himselfe But if the Civill Magistrate must be masters of our faith determining all controversies in Church affaires why I pray was Mr. Pryn so refractory to the Bishops who then were authorised by the Civill Magistrate of the united Kingdome which now

thanks to Valentinian and Theodosius for assembling the Councell of Illirium which sayes Vt nemo deesset volens nemo cog●tur invitus That no Bishop might be absent who was desirous to be there and none compelled who were unwilling to be present from whence followes an irrefragable consequence that their Councells Decrees or Canons did not binde all people universally but only such as of their owne accords submitted thereunto If Mr. Pryn will but procure the same just priviledge for his Independent Brethren they will have the lesse occasion of exceptions if he domineere over the volunteers of the Presbyterian party Page 87. You say The Statutes in Q. Maries dayes repealing divers Acts touching Religion in K. Edward 6. his Reigne and setting up Masse and the old Popish Liturgies againe doe sufficiently evidence the jurisdiction of our Princes and Parliaments in matters of the Church and Religion which is in effect first That this present Parliament or any other hereafter have a jurisdiction to set up Popery againe and so Judaisme or Turcisme even what they please for all Parliaments have equall power And secondly that if they doe set up Popery Judaisme or Turcisme that then all England must submit thereunto and consequently become Papists Jewes and Turkes or Hypocrites which is more worse then either for whatsoever a Magistrate especially the supreme has jurisdiction in that he may justly and lawfully put in execution and that the people may not disobey upon paine of sinning and danger of damnation Rom 13. 2. But under what colour and pretence then did Mr. Pryn refuse subjection unto Church government by Episcopacy and according to the Common-Prayer-Booke Doe not take it ill that I spur the question so soone unto you againe I may aske it oft-times before you will be able to answer once without condemning your selfe according to your principles and lawes by which you proyoke justice against the Independents Were not Episcopacy and the Common-Prayer-Booke established by Act of Parliament which had as great a power than as this present Parliament has now or any other can have hereafter Nay you say expressely p. 88. That the Statute 1 Eliz. chap. 2. for uniformity of Common-Prayer and Service in the Church and administration of the Sacraments enjoyning conformity under temporall and Ecclesiasticall punishments is an irrefragable proofe of the Parliaments power in all Church matters What was it tro that then encouraged you to withstand the jurisdiction of Parliaments when they agreed not with your owne humour and disposition which you now presse so violently upon the tender consciences of your Independent Brethren Can there appeare any other clearer reason for it to the apprehension of standers by moderate men even of Mr. Pryns best friends or any that have their wits about them than that Mr. Pryn having suffered for Christs cause as he thought to thinke more charitably of him than he doth of others upon false principles grew weary of it and resolv'd that as the Bishops domineer'd and persecuted him so he would repaire himselfe by persecuting others But did the only wise God thinke we resolve to create man after his owne Image to estate him in such a sad and execrable condition worse then that of Beasts Wolves Beares and Tygres as that hee must necessarily tyrannize or be tyrannized over both in soul body and yet it cannot possibly be otherwise if you will grant a power to Kings Parliaments or Synods to require conformity from others in any thing which is not agreeable to their consciences for if such a latitude and height of jurisdiction be granted but to the more orthodox Kings Parliaments and Synods both Papists Lutherans Calvinists and Independents pretending and really taking themselves to be the most orthodox are bound in conscience to lay claime to and put in execution this power of compelling all the world unto their uniformity and so infallibly produce the most cursed enmity and hatred betwixt all people but differing in opinion exceeding that of Cannibals or the profoundest of antipathies between any irrationall creatures whatsoever and therefore you are mightily mistaken p. 96. to be so confident that Independents would preach universall obedience and subjection under penalties Ecclesiasticall and Civill if the Parliament should establish an Independent government which are clearly incompatible and contradictory to themselves and principles the ignorance whereof though to some it may seeme as slight as easily apprehended by a willing and enquiring spirit I perswade my selfe hath not only transported Mr. Pryn himselfe but many others into multitudes of impertinencies and absurdities Oh that Mr. Pryn therefore or any one of the Presbyterian way who wishes well to godlinesse would but please to cast an eye upon John the Baptist chap. 10. and considerately give their opinion whether to be persecuted be not even the most infallible marke of the true Church and Saints of Christ notwithstanding most Christians thus persecute one another Page 94. and 109. You say the opposites to Parliaments Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction have formerly and more especially in this present Parliament addressed severall petitions to this High and Honourable Court for Reformation of the Church c. wherein under favour I conceive you have misapprehended their proceedings and intentions which doubtlesse were for the most part or best affected that the Parliament in whom they acknowledged the sovereigne power to reside would permit countenance and encourage all godly men of gifts in preaching downe Heresies errours Idolatry Popery c. many whereof had either beene formerly established by law or not permitted to be preached downe through the Prelates corruption contrary to the Law This is the best even all the Reformation which the Civill Magistrate as Civill has a capacity of compassing against all Heresies and errours which must necessarily be vanquished by the sword of the Spirit and cannot possibly be suppressed by carnall weapons or the Civill sword they may destroy the flesh but cannot properly be said to touch and worke upon the spirit Page 109. After a franticke infectious pestilentiall feaver-fit of rayling the likest that of Billingsgate you tell Mr. John Goodwin with much gravity forsooth but far more saucie ignorance that it was no lesse than high presumption for him being a meere Divine and a man altogether ignorant of or unskilfull in the ancient Rights and priviledges of our Parliament as his writings demonstrate and himselfe intimates page 5. to undertake and determine to judge of them so peremptorily and in such manner as he has done c. But how come you tro a meere Lawyer I wish you were good at that at any thing to take so much upon you in Divinity if Divinity and the knowledge of Parliamentary priviledges be inconsistent as you seeme to insinuate to pin the Gospel with its propagation and whole affaires upon Civill powers the greatest share or major part whereof which should both by your politie and divinity be submitted to is in the hands of Turkes of