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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	according_a	member_n	true_a	3,485	5	4.3387	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78034	Vindiciæ veritatis: truth vindicated against calumny. In a briefe answer to Dr. Bastwicks two late books, entituled, Independency not Gods ordinance, with the second part, styled the postscript, &c. / By Henry Burton, one of his quondam-fellow-sufferers.	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.	1645 (1645)	Wing B6177; Thomason E302_13; ESTC R200279	28,751	40

in other Tracts is a summary collection of what they have gone before you in whose thread hath led you all the way through this maze but when you come as in your Postscript to minister your own Dosis and to show your self in your own element there wee finde the main ingredient to be the very gall of bitternesse which yet your first book is not altogether free of Pag. 101. you say The Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospell were to receive all such as believed and were baptized and that upon the profession of their faith and repentance without any further testimony of others unlesse they had been formerly known to be open enemies and then they were justly to be suspected till they had given publique evidence by witnesse to the Apostles and Ministers of their true conversion as concerning Paul Acts 9. 26 27. Now here I observe 1. A notable contradiction to what you say pag. 115. As Gods command to all Ministers was that they should admit all such into the Church as believed and were baptized upon their desiring it without any confession either private or publique Here I leave you to reconcile your own contradiction Vpon their profession and without any confession 2. I answer that in these dayes of professed and covenanted-for Reformation there is required the profession or confession of one speciall point of faith which in words none dare but in practice most do deny touching Christs Kingly office formerly suppressed by Antichristian tyrannie but now breaking forth from under the cloud in its native light concerning his absolute sole soveraignty over our consciences and Churches without dependence upon humane Ordinances or Nationall Lawes to prescribe such forms of Church-government as are most serviceable to the politicall ●nd● of severall States which point of faith is though not alwayes explicitly yet implicitly confessed by all those which ●ender themselves to be admitted into such Churches as are of a constitution most agreeable to the law and rule of Christ And withall an implicit profession at least of their repentance is included as having formerly lived under an Antichristian government and inventions of will-worship all which is implicitly professed and repented of by their very entrance into Church-fellowship and so much the more is repentance herein needfull because many yea most of such Conformists if not all have had their hands lesse or more either by acting or assenting or by silence and connivence in the persecution of those godly Ministers and people which stood out against that Antichristian usurpation over their consciences refusing conformity to their Canons So as in this case you confesse that our people formerly Conformists and now for the greater part but newly crope out of the shell of their bondage being brought off from their old ceremoniall service and this more by humane authority in generall so ordering then of conscience ought not only to approve themselves by the profession of their faith and repentance but to have the testimony of others also as having been formerly known to be either prest and sworn vassals or voluntiers in the Prelaticall Militia which what is it else but a continuall war against the true Church and Kingdome of Jesus Christ But you adde pag. 102. that Commission was delivered to the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel as whose place only it was by the Keyes to open and shut the doors of the Church and so to admit or refuse as they found men fitted or qualified to be made members and this you labour to prove by the practice of John Baptist Now as for John Baptist about whose gathering you have so bestirred your selfbefore and to as little purpose you may observe that those believers in Christ then to come according to the Papists Doctrine were not formed into a Christian Church or Churches as after Christs resurrection the believers were And when you come to visit those Christian Churches once constituted in their Gospel-form by the Apostles you shall finde that the power of admitting or rejecting or casting out of members was not in the Apostles or Ministers alone but in the Churches For this read 1 Cor. 5. where the whole Church of the Saints in Corinth to whom Paul wrote were to cast out the incestuous person as also afterward upon his repentance to re-admit him 2 Cor. 2. 6 7. This one instance is a sufficient president for all Churches But you alledge that of Cornelius sending to Joppa for Peter he sent not say you to the Church of Corinth true and what then Ergo none but the Minister of the Gospel hath power to admit members It is one thing to preach and instrumentally to convert souls which chiefly pertains to those that are called thereunto but in the case of Church-government of admitting or casting out it is otherwise And here let Peter himself whose words you alledge resolve us Who when the Holy Ghost so wonderfully fell on all them that heard the Word said Can any man forbid water that these men should not be baptized c. Which words imply that ifany exceptions could have ben made it was in those Jewes present to give forth their allegations why those believing Gentiles should not be admitted to become one Church with the believing Jewes So as your observations thereupon fall to the ground as that First Peter was sent to and not the Church and secondly Peter commanded them to be baptized Again this example was extraordinary in all the circumstances of it and when you have said all you can conclude nothing Your instance of the Eunuch Acts 8. 8. of Lydia Acts 16. as many other are meer extravagants We speak of Churches constituted not of single converts here and there one not yet joynted into a particular Church-body I passe by your impertinent declamatious against different opinions in the same house Do you reconcile them for Christ himself foretold of them as wee shall tell you when wee come to your Postscript which when I mention here doth not your minde misgive you But of this in due place And where you say all that believe and are baptized are by Gods command to be admitted desiring it without any confession or Covenant But what if they do not believe aright What if they not only not believe but deny and disclaime Christs Kingly Prerogative And so what if they stiffly maintain a most damnable and destructive herefie which overthroweth a main principall and fundamentall of faith If such a one as Dr. Bastwick with all his ●air flourishes of holinesse should desire to be admitted into Church-fellowship being known to be an adversary to Christs Kingly government over his Churches according to the Gospel might not the Doctors own words satisfie in case of refusall pag 102. as having been formerly known for an open enemy and persecutor of the Church and so justly to be suspected till publique evidence by witnesse given Although it cannot be imagined that the ba●e desiring

of admittance into Church-fellowship could stand with the deniall but necessarily implies a confession of Christs Kingly office in its highest degree Pag. 116. You tell us that our gathering of Churches hath no example in Scripture and as for Christs Disciples they were all sent to gather in the lost sheep of the house of Israel they went not to gather in converted amongst converted men c. Now wee cannot have a more pregnant and more warrantable example in all Scripture then this which you here alledge against us Christs Disciples gathered Christian Churches out of the Church of the Jews nor can you deny but the Jews were a Church when the Disciples gathered churches out of it Those Churches in Judea Gal. 1. 22. were gathered out of the Church of the Jewes and that Church of the Jewes generally believed that the Messias or Christ was to come And if they were a Church when many being converted were gathered out of it then much more Churches may be gathered out of Nations or Kingdomes of the world though for their generall profession of Christianity every such Nation or Kingdome be respectively called a church though the new Testament knowes no such church and then not of divine constitution as that of the Jews was even when churches Christian were gathered out of it And brother prove unto us that such as you call a Nationall Church is a church of divine institution shew us an example of a Nationall Church in all the new Testament otherwise you do but weave the Spiders web But wee say you gather converted men from among converted men and so pick out of others folds and flocks the best and fattest sheep This you do familiarly cast in our dish and yet it is never the fatter Now in this wee may justly demand of you to prove that those whom you call converted men from among whom wee gather churches be indeed so converted as they should be when as yet they come not up close to the rule of Reformation Gods Word as thereby to endeavour the setting up of Christ without waiting on men as without whom Gods Word is not a sufficient rule and as on whom wee must necessarily depend for the form and law of Reformation And yet wee deny not but many such may be godly though otherwise they are not as yet throughly convinced of this kingly government of Christ which we endeavour after nay let me go a little higher for as much as this is an undeniable yea and prime principle in Divinity that the Scripture is the only rule of faith and of worship and Church-government and this rule is no Monopoly to one man but that all and every man hath a power and priviledge to repair to this Law and Testimony to do all things according to this Word And seeing wee have all bound our selves by solemn Covenant to reform our selves and those under our charge according to the Word of God yea and every one to go before other in this Reformation tell mee now brother were it not a matter worth the while for our reverend and learned Assembly seriously to take it into debate whether the generall tying up of men to wait necessarily on the Synod for its finall resolution about Church-government be not an usurpation upon our Christian liberty and a diminution at least of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture and so consequently be not a trenching upon a fundamentall heresie as also an inhibition restraining every man in his place Ministers Masters c. from setting upon the work of Reformation and so necessitating a violation of our Covenant or a dangerous retarding of the work bringing in a sleepy carelesnesse upon mens spirits to inquire at Gods Oracle and so preparing a way for blind obedience I leave to the consideration of the wisest But in the interim to return to your Converts Do you hold all them to be converts from among whom churches are gathered Do you not allow of a difference to be put Are there not a number of both ignorant and scandalous that are not fit to come to the Lords Table See the Directory Or do you take the greatest number in England to be godly and truly converted Or are there not trow you many Parishes in England where perhaps but a few true converts are to be found And how few in comparison truly godly and faithfull Ministers are to be found for every Parish under who●e Pastorall charge two or three sheep may safely and comfortably feed among so many Goats yea perhaps Wolves Or do you make every parish to be a Church You may do well herein to deal plainly with us whether you would have so many inhabitants as are in every Parish to be so many communicants For so it seems you would have it For pag. 117. you say in the Churches of Corinth Galatia Colosse were many that walked disorderly taught false doctrine and heresies and made Schismes yet the Apostles did not bid the Christians to separate themselves from the communion and assemblies of the Saints and from the Ordinances for these mens causes c. But you may know those churches though in part accidentally corrupt yet were essentially and in their originall constitution pure and holy churches and so were never your Parochiall churches they never had a right divine constitution but meerly humane and politicall And therefore all your argumentation a dispari falls to ground and beats it self into a meer spume But pag. 118. you plead such Ministers and Churches to be true where the truth of Christ is preached received and professed If you mean the whole truth of Christ it is well But do not you know that there are three speciall visible marks of a true visible Church The Gospel purely preached the Sacraments duly administred and Discipline rightly practised all which marks together the Church of England for ought I know is yet to seek For to speak nothing here of the materialls of a true particular visible Church as visible Saints nor of the form of it so many members united into one Church-body and fellowship according to the Gospel which you can handly shew us in any of your Parochiall Congregations I will only ask you What particular visible Church you are a member of you may choose what Parish you please in England Next I ask you What Discipline you have in that your church and whether a man complaining of you to your Congregation or to your Minister for wrongs done by you and for your scandalous walking he shall find so much Discipline there as to convent you before them and justly charging you for walking scandalously to the great offence and shame of the very name of Christian Religion you shall thereupon be brought under Ecclesiasticall censure so as to have the scandall removed and the offence satisfied Good now tell me what church either Parochiall or Classicall I should go unto For suppose I have a complaint against you for which I demand

as upon a foundation you state your Question And if the foundation be not sure the superstructure cannot be secure Now Brother doe you set these two Termes Dependent and Independent at such odds as if there were a great gulfe betweene them never to come together and become one You hold of Dependent onely we hold not onely of Independent but Dependent also I shall make this cleare Your Church Dependent is so called in a two-fold relation First Because it depends for its forme of Government upon the lawes of civill States and so as the Cha●●leon receives impressions of sundry formes changeable according to the present condition of the Civill Power whether Protestant or Papist Christian or Antichristian as our Brother hath set forth so as by this meanes Christs Church and Kingdome his Spouse that woman clothed with the Sunne and having on her head a crowne of twelve starres and the Moone under her feete should her selfe be turned into the Moone as being subject to continuall changes Secondly Because your Church Dependent depends necessarily upon a combination of Presbyters of many Churches as Councels Synods Assemblies Classes without whose counsell say you nothing is to be done in any particular Church of which more hereafter On the other side The Churches which you call Independent are also Dependent First They are not otherwise Independent then first that they are not nor ought in respect of Doctrine Discipline Worship Church-Government to depend upon humane Lawes Canons Decrees Customes but onely upon Christ and his Lawes as wherein they assert and hold forth Christs Kingly Office and Government over them and doe affirme that to set up humane formes of worship and Church-Government unto which the consciences and soules of Gods people must necessarily conforme and be subject is a dethroning of the Lord Jesus Christ and a denying him to be the onely King of his Church Secondly Independent in this respect because every particular visible Church rightly constituted according to the Word of God depends not directly and necessarily upon any other Church or Churches as without whose jurisdiction call it Presbyterian or what you will it may not exercise all that power which Christ hath given to every particular Church as touching all the Offices and Ordinances thereof and that in as ample manner as if there were besides that one no other Churches in the World And yet secondly This Church thus Independent is also Dependent For as it depends absolutely upon Christ as the onely Head of this Body so as it is a member-member-church of the Catholick and a sister-sister-church of all particular Churches with which it makes up one body and one Spouse of Christ her Head and Husband so it hath a mutuall dependence upon all true Churches for communion for consociation for consultation for comfort for support though alwayes saving and retaining to it selfe all those Church-priviledges which by Christs Charter are peculiar to every particular Church and body of Jesus Christ And in case this particular Church doe any act of censure upon any who thereby shall thinke himselfe wronged and shall addresse himselfe to other Churches by way of complaint and they shall thereupon desire of that church an account of their proceedings therein this church will not refuse but as in Christian duty bound will to those Churches render a reason of that or any other their doings if questioned and lawfully required And all this in a sweet and loving way with meeknesse and feare 1 Pet. 3. 15. so as none is debarred of any such appeale Nor is any well constituted Church of Christ to be conceived so brutish or so conceited of her selfe as to thinke shee may not erre or her selfe so wise as in many difficult cases not to need the counsell of others or so inflexible as with the Stoicks Sententiam mutare nunquam nullius rei poenitere never to change their minde or judgement of nothing to repent when convinced of an error But what if one particular Church will not after all due meanes used which yet no rationall man can imagine will ever come to passe hearken to the unanimous judgement and counsell of the other Churches What is to be done Surely they may upon just cause withdraw communion from that Church which in that case is the highest censure the Churches can proceed to And if the party aggrieved complaine to the civill Magistrate the Church being called is accountable to the power Thus have I plainely clearely and fully as I conceive stated these two Termes Dependent and Independent whereby is sufficiently cleared to the view of all unpartiall Judges not possessed with prejudice our Dependent Independency or Independent Dependency from your manner of stating And for your Simile wherein you propound it for better understanding as you say it halteth down-right of all foure as being altogether Ab-simile and Heterogeneous of another nature There is a vast disproportion between a civill Government and Ecclesiasticall the one established upon mans lawes the other on Gods the one various and variable according to severall Civill States Kingdomes and Lawes the other one and the same or should be if right in all the Churches of the Saints having one Rule one Law to walke by immutable And Brother for your paralleling of your many severall Congregations in one Citie or one Division or Hundred or within such a Circuit with a great Corporation as of London where is one Lord Major and Aldermen and Common Councell and so reducing so many Churches into one Corporation as so many Companies making upone Citie I suppose you meane not that one Provinciall with his Diocesans and Priests under them should make up this Parallel But this of necessitie you must doe if you will have all the Congregations in their severall Divisions or Weapontacks to be governed by their severall Presbyteries respectively Reason requires that first you set up such Presbyters over every one of your Congregations as may be for the greatest part of them good pious learned orthodox or otherwise if the greater party be Malignant and ill affected prophane and haters of the power of Godlinesse they will over-vote the good party and so what a hard yoake will you put upon the necks of all such as be truly godly when they shall be cast out by a malignant Parochiall Congregation and going to complaine to your Presbytery they shall finde as cold comfort as formerly they have done in the Prelates Consistory But there will be a better care had of placing good Presbyters But Brother let us first see it that so your Presbyterian Government may shew us a face the more amiable and lesse formidable to all truly godly and most conscientious men But if you cannot doe this whither shall the poore soules goe which live under a prophane Presbyter or one that admits all sorts tag rag to the Lords Table with whom godly soules can no more converse then with Heathen and much lesse at that holy

we not all taken the solemne Covenant to reform our selves and others according to the word of God And to endeavour to our power to extirpate and roote out all Popery Prelacy Idolatry and Superstition out of this Kingdome And the time of this first gathering was it not then when the old service and ceremonies were in use And who hath gathered these Churches Wee Who are we that you should thus charge us As Peter and John answered Why looke yee so on us So why doe yee impute that to us which is onely to be attributed to the Gospel of the grace of God whereby our very Protestants are wonne from their old superstitions and will-worship and from under the yoake of humane formes in the matters of Christs Kingdome So as when they heare Christ is the onely King of his Kingdome the onely Law-giver of his Church and his Word the onely law and rule of all Church-government and all this demonstrated in the Word of God which they have taken a solemne Covenant in all things to follow doe you reproach us for being a people who are ready to obey Christ so soone as wee heare of him who alone is to be heard in all things whatsoever he shall say unto us And for Churches doe you Brother limit Churches to Parishes What if you finde so many hundred Parishes in England whose Inhabitants both Ministers and people are all Malignants or popishly-affected Will you have those Parishes to be so many Churches and those popish Malignants so many believers Were not this to set up Ecclesiam malignantium or Churches malignant which are no way militant but against the power of Religion and the peace of the civill State Or if there be found some one or two in each of those Parishes that have the love of Christ in them and are truly godly and whose soules are grieved to communicate with Sodome Will you not allow God to send an Angel his Messenger with a word to call them forth And doe you not know that the ancient Church of the Jewes was then a Church when the Apostles by their preaching gathered a Church out of it A Christian Church out of the Jewes Synagogue I say you but we gather Christian Churches out of Christian Churches Surely then it is Gods word that calleth Christians to come into a more reformed Church-way out of wayes more corrupt and lesse reformed Nor doe wee separate from the Churches as Christian as you call them but from their corruptions separating the precious from the vile as from something Antichristian But you will say Now are the Parishes and Churches purged no Service-book now no Hierarchy no such thing and yet wee select and choose the most principall into a Church-fellowship peculiar unto our selves To which I answer Though the Service-book Hierarchy c. be taken away yet the Parishes are not so purged of them but that most mens hearts are still hankering after that Egyptian-service and Task-masters Again all those that professe to be come off from those things yet are not resolved what Religion to take to but are ready to take up as themselves say and do what Religion men will set up over them not looking to what the Scripture prescribes and commands so as it remains that those who embrace the Word and preferre Christs Decrees before mans are those principall men whom not we but the Word of Christ doth call forth select and choose voluntarily to joyn in Church-fellowship and this not so peculiar to our selves but that when a right Reformation is set up in the severall places where they dwell they may enjoy the pure Ordinances there as I have shewed in my Vindication And if you examine who they be that have joyned themselves unto the Lord either of this parish or of other you shall find them to be for their outward estate in comparison of others none of those principall men you speak of But say you wee admit of none into our society but such as shall enter in by a private Covenant Now the very name of Covenant is become a bug-bear to many But it is mightily mistaken as I have shewed in my Vindication For it is nothing else but a declaration of a free assent and voluntary agreement to walk in the wayes of Christ with the Church whereof they are members and to perform all service of love one to another submitting themselves to the Order and Ordinance of Christ in that Church respectively So that it is not the name of Covenant that is so terrible but the Order of Church-communion and this to those only that having used to walk without a yoak as the Scripture calls sons of Belial love not to come under the yoak of Christ then which to a willing bearer nothing is more easie and sweet But lastly you say they must be allowed of by the consent and approbation of all the Congregation And I pray what harm in that Nay doth it not stand with very good reason that they who are to walk together should first be agreed together As Amos 3. 3. Can two walk together except they be agreed If therefore any one of the Congregation can object any thing as a just cause of non-admittance of a member he ought to shew it not only for his own peace but the peace of the Church Therefore to object such things as these doth it argue a spirit favouring of such a holy humility as becomes those who affect the society of Saints And when the whole church gives approbation in this kind it is both to the church and the member admitted a comfort and withall a discharge of their duty in a provident care for preventing inconveniences and scandals seeing it is easier for a guest to be kept out then to be cast out Thus much of your Question in generall which because I have met with it in the severall branches I shall need to say the lesse to those Queries which you derive from it And in truth they are rather captions then Queries and the first is answered in my former stating of the Question For the second to know those well that are to be admitted Abundans ca●tela non nocet In things weighty we cannot be too wary nor do we so much look at circumstances in conversion as the substance The third for the consent of the Congregation it is answered before So also the fourth about the Covenant The fifth for the power of the keys wee tie it not to womens girdles The sixth and last I answer that those Churches which are for matter and form true Churches and are governed according to Christs Word do set up Christ as King upon his Throne And for such as are otherwise let them consider whether they do as they ought set up Christ as King upon his Throne You proceed I have say you specified the things without any spirit of bitternesse In deed this your first book as we finde by tracing your steps