Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	apostle_n	bishop_n	ordination_n	3,731	5	10.1296	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76517	Remarks, and animadversions, on Mr. Keith's two sermons, being his first after ordiantion, [sic] preached at the parish church of St. George's Butolphs-Lane, London, May the 12th. 1700. on St. Luke i. 6 Now impartially compared with his former writings, setting George against Keith, and endeavouring to reconcile them, by shewing what he should have said upon the subjest. By W.B. a communicant of the Church of England.	W. B.	1700 (1700)	Wing B224; ESTC R230841	17,705	18

any are so much our Enemies that they will never be our Friends God may and can turn their Hearts 3dly 〈◊〉 must never do any Evil which will make it impossible for our Enemies to be happy they are vital parts which must in no wise be cut off unless the case is very desperate True they are Men liable to Errors but yet as I was capable of Information they are God's Image and our Flesh and Bone let us not be angry with them if they have hitherto loitered and comes to be hired at the Ninth Hour Let us imitate our Lord and Master and as he has loved us so love one another and reward them as well for one Hour as if they had laboured all the Day Yet what if our Enemies be Infidels evil and foolish or no Christians having put off common Civility and Humanity verily the greater than is their Misery but since they are not Devils being as I was capable of a recovery the more compassionable are their case therefore to be pittied for its unnatural Cruelty monstrous Inhumanity and hellish Malice to hate and prosecute any in Misery What if they be our Enemies they are Friends to many others as good if not better than our selves and can't we be satisfied with and love that which is our particular Interest if others receive Advantage by it For if the Rain that overflows me makes my Neighbours Field fruitful I ought not to and must not dislike it or if the Sun warms thousands by its heat and scorches me or the Season by which I suffer favours many others I am not to be displeased we are all God's People and Sheep of his Pasture therefore we have the greatest engagement laid upon us to mutual Kindness and Good-will nay that Christian Virtue is more innocent and doth less harm to both our selves and others and as we find by sweet experience ordinarily prevails upon others to lay aside all malicious thoughts for we are naturally prone to imitate as with the Froward to learn Frowardness and with the Loving Love and further there 's no reason imaginable to hate one that loves us because we only hate that which is evil to us but if any Person love us we can't think he doth us evil since he designs and will do us good so that if we hate such we hate our own good To conclude this Command our returning Love for Hatred quencheth the violence of it for the common Observation is if the Sun shine upon the Fire it will put it out so Love takes away the Heat and Fewel from those unnatural and consuming Fires destroying both the Parent and Nurse of Enmity viz. Hatred and Evil which would have propagated and preserved it yea this is the firm Foundation of a lasting Peace even that which passes our Understanding obtaining an answer to all our Petitions by forgiving as we would be forgiven and as St. 1 John 3.22 saith Then whatsoever we ask we shall receive of him because we keep his Commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight And these are his Commandments to believe on Jesus Christ and love one another even our Enemies as he gave us Commandment so as to be Blameless The Second Commandment which our Saviour gave his Apostles is mentioned by St. Mat. 28.18 19 20. All Power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth Go ye therefore and teach that is to make Disciples all Nations Baptizing them c. teaching them to observe all Things whatsoever I have commanded you c. In which Words our Saviour first Asserts and Declares his own Commission shewing his Apostles that what he did was not the result of his own private Judgment but the Exercise of Authority which was given him of his Father who had confirmed unto him a full Power of ordering and disposing whatsoever belonged to the Church But since in his own Person he must Ascend and leave them he gave them their Deputation by sending the Holy Spirit the Comforter to be with and Comfort them to the end of the World And since they were Mortal he gave them Power to Depute others to succeed them in them same Care and to deliver down the same Power successively to the end of the World it 's then without doubt by that Promise that our Saviour intended some Benefits to the Church which should be of no less continuance than it self So the Apostles were to be the first Dispensers of those Benefits Now the Benefits as appears from the Commission were these these First Teaching Secondly Baptising and some other Things which he had Commanded as the Taking and Eating of the Bread and Drinking the Cup which was to be a shewing of his Death to the end of the World And the Exercising Censures against the Obstinate and Sinful such as Elimas the Sorcerer as Act 13. c. Now These were either to end with the Apostles or they were not if they were then to end The Church ever since their Deaths has been without such which amounts only to this that there has been no Church since their Decease Or if they did not end with the Apostles but have always been and are still to be exercised unto the end of the World then there ever must have been and now must be fit Persons Which like to the Apostles must have a just Power to dispense these Benefits or exercise these Offices for no less can be conceived to have been intended by Christ in his Promise of being with his Church to the end Now when the great Bishop of our Souls ordained his Apostles it was according to the Tenor of his own Ordination As my Father sent me so send I you Luke 4.18 And said John 23.21 22. Receive ye the Holy Ghost The case is the fame in Matthias Saul and Barnabas as Acts 1.24 ond 13.2 and in those which the Church made Overseers or Bishops as Act. 20.28 and Eph. 4.11 and we have no reason at all to doubt but that the Spirit doth as truly tho' not so visibly assist at the present Ordaining of Ministers as then since the Church Prays for and bids them receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to such by the Imposition of Hands And since many say that the Gospel-Priesthood is left open to all that will enter it without any further Ceremony than a geting up and Ride or a jumping from the Shop-board to the Pulpit or Desk Now to the sober Consideration of such I Humbly recommend the ensuing Particulars as First Since St. Paul setting down the Nature of a Church Stiles it the Body of Christ where he means not a Similar Body such as Fire Air and Water where all the parts are alike and perform the same Office But a Body consisting of Diversity of Organs for several Faculties and Operations such a Body as is not one Member but many knit together with Unity and Charity as

REMARKS AND Animadversions On Mr. Keith's Two Sermons Being his First after Ordiantion Preached at the Parish Church of St. George's Butolphs-Lane London May the 12th 1700. On St. LVKE i. 6. Now Impartially compared with his former Writings SETTING George Against Keith And Endeavouring to Reconcile them By shewing what he should have said upon the Subject By W. B. a Communicant of the Church of England LONDON Printed for the AUTHOR and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1700. Remarks and Animadversions on Mr. Keith's Two Sermons SINCE I understand that the late Reverend tho' as yet not Right Reverend George Keith has entered into the Church as Jackdaws into the Steeple to build and hatch there entering almost undesired by any so for ought I know may dye unlamented For I believe that the Church as the Apostles did will not go to Prayers for such an other to succeed and supply in his place I never heard that the present Church had or used any such custom tho' it was common among the Churches of God in the days of old I am not insensible that that upstart Prelate which whether out of fear or trouble or both has done that Outwardly which I have some reason to think he Inwardly detests since this his Sermon was not a Recantation of his former Errors which are manifestly extant in his former Scriblings which as I understand he has neither Cryed down in Church nor Market nor caused to be Burnt by the Hands of the Common Hangman but are left us still upon Record as Authentick So that it makes me and some others think that his Judgment differs from his present Undertakings having but clattered Gideons Rams-Horns and broken Pitchers together so as to affright his Conscience and baisting it for being Scittish has made even an Ass of it by causing the poor Jade to carry a Steeple which it formerly hated and all this because Brown Bread is better than no White All wise People do think that such an one should have given some Satisfaction to the Church in general which he had forsaken and formerly so abused he might and should then have told the People that he came there to give satisfaction more than to receive any and showed himself there not for Worth or notorious Wickedness but for Weakness in not discerning and following all the Commands and Ordinances which are Truths If he had gone on and humbly craved a fair Construction and favourable Acception First of his Offences past that his readiness to acknowledge them might pass for one degree of Satisfaction and his suddain Recantation for an other so what was wanting in Ripeness should be supplied in Sincerity But since none of this was heard to come from his Mouth but only the choice of a good Text which he so mangled and tore that the sharpest Eye could not so discern as to know what it was amongst all the Tautologies and Impertinent or Nonsensical stuff which by hard and long driving he forced from it which made it seems some well-meaning Christians to get some in Commission to send an Hue-and-Cry aftert he forelorn Text so as to overtake arrest and make the best of it which I am assured was done for the Honour and Reputation of the New Convert and the languishing Church which he pretends to be a Member of But in my weak judgment any that forsakes his first or second Love can or will Never be true to his Third So having seen the Post-Boy May the 14th which pretended to give the Substance of the Sermons And on May 16. meeting with an Advertisement in which the now Holderforth repayed not only the Post-Boy but Mr. Brodford a Printer also in the currant Coin of Billingsgate which made me the more curious to inquire after his Former Pieces the Post-Boy and his Initiating which I judge should have been his Recantation Sermons not of some but all his former Errors and Mistakes whether wilfully or ignorantly committed So having mustered so many as I could get together I took the boldness upon me to compare them and so Remark on the Sermons Now since the Printer has left us Two Blank Pages the reason of which as I conjecture is because the Post-Boy has supplied us with Matter which they should have contained being as was observed such as did and doth naturally flow from the New Prophet but like the Bears young Ones being now released from the Tautological I says in time Licked into Shape and Form For if you read the Post-Boy with his opening of the Words and compare them they are the same only some Additions are made which the Printer has forgot to tell us of as he did in the Farewel Farce For pag. 6. he tells us by Tautologies as the Post-Man doth That Hypocrites are righteous before Men tho' not righteous before God and that walking signifies journying and travelling forward only by a little Licking he has changed the Words viz. travelling forward into that Phrase going forward by progressive motion which amounts to a Tautology And pag. 8. by Ordinances are understood all the Ceremonial Precepts c. called in Heb. 9.1 Ordinances of Service pertaining to the Temple Which Text and denomination I suppose the Post-Boy having only left out being no Textuary or caring to meddle with Holy Things Now the Observations he makes from the words thus opened are Three from pag. 9. to 14. First the State of the Jewish Church at that time to which the Text relates was very corrupt for some did not believe one Fundamental Doctrine others put false glosses on the Scriptures Matt. 15.3 6 7 8 9. Others had Practices corrupt and contrary to what they taught there were Sons of Belial and Rebels c. Alas this and more has this self-same Demas said of the now established Church without any Recantation as appears from his former Books viz. The Way cast up pag. 36. I cannot saith he in the least acknowledge that ever any National Church can be a true Church of Christ since they are a mixed and confused rabble of Godless Atheists it were wished that this and all others were true But men should not make such preposterous haste to make National Churches by meer humane Laws and Power bare humane Laws Edicts and Decrees will never do it for indeed this hath been the ground and rise of all Persecutions c. For those that will have a National Church will have all others to bow and joyn with them and is always a Persecuting Church it s her very Nature so must always be exceeding Hypocritical seeing she begetteth Thousands to be her Children and Members by meer Will and Power of Man which only makes Hypocrites And for the Teachers he further saith pag. 40 41 42. That they have been generally and for the most part self-seeking worldly-minded and covetous men who loved Pleasure and Riches more than God and this the Magistrates did well know and saw the best way to prevent was

Water as well as of the Spirit yea of both to make I say such Eternally Happy as the Lord himself has assured us John 3.5 so to pass by his empty and frivilous Objections where in the 3d. he has shewed himself a Pharisee p. 29 30. I 'll only take notice of the Weak and Impertinent Answers he makes to the 5th c. That it is meant of Material Water is Manifest from the Coplative and with the Ensuing Verse That which is Born of the Flesh is Flesh to which the Water-Baptism belongeth but that which is Born of the Spirit is Spirit which is not improperly call'd a Second Baptism or New Birth by the Spirit in the Adult But he further Objects p. 34. Saying Then upon the same ground Material Fire in Matth. 3.11 as well as Material Water is meant in the forecited Text which is absurd To which I Answer To be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire as Matth. 3.11 Being an Hebraism denotes only the Efficacy cy of the Holy Spirit since at Penticost the holy Spirit appeared unto them in shape of Cloven Tongues like as of Fire as Acts 2.3 So Infants which have committed no actual Sin by being washed or baptized with Water are like to the eight Souls in Noah's Ark saved as it appears from 1 Pet. 3.20 21. and p. 36. he saith That our Soviour in that Commission bid them not Baptize or Dip them in cold Water as John did but into the Name of God And p. 38. That tho' their Lord had given them a Form yet was not since as we ever heard or read of any where else used by the Apostles and that St. Paul baptizing but two or three Families yet established many Churches whose Members were never washed at all by Water And p. 42. probably most Apostles did the like Seeing that Christ's Baptism included John's and was sufficient without it and that there 's but one Baptism from Eph. 4.20 All this is but an Ipse Dixit without any Reason or Proof the contrary ●●th manifestly appear in every particular for all which the Apostles baptized were by the same Form in the Name of the Lord Jesus c. as Acts 19.5 Nor as we read did they ever Lay their Hands upon any Member as to be Baptized by the Spirit but what were either before or after Baptized with Water as Acts 10.43 44. Can any forbid Water that these should not be Baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we and he commanded them to be Baptized in the Name of the Lord. So that you may understand that the Baptizing by the Spirit was not sufficient but the Baptism of the Water must be added True St. Paul tells us Ephes 1.5 That there 's but one Baptism Answ No more there is but one Man but he consists of two necessary parts viz. Flesh and Spirit so is Baptism said to be one where our Saviour explains it thus in John 3.6 saying That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Therefore to be Christians let us take the Apostles advice to 2 Cor. 7.1 Having therefore these Promises by Water and the Spirit to be found Members and Children viz. Sons and Daughters let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the Fear of God And since as St. Peter Acts 2.39 assures us That the Promise is to us and also to our Children and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call And since there are others which differing with and dissenting from our Church do pretend to observe and walk in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord so as be thought at least blameless which alas I find being seduced with popular Examples have unwarily imbibed a groundless Prejudice against all the Children of Christian Parents which as I humbly conceive has been caused by not knowing or want of Ephod and Terephim among them so not understanding the Scriptures which they have been apt to wrest but yet I hope not to their Childrens tho' it to their own hurt And that which they have grounded their Error on is on Mat. 28.19 and some others which mentions Teaching before Baptizing and that we have no possitive Command for Initiaing Infants as under the Law and that we have neither Precept nor a Primitive President for so doing To which I Answer That in that Commission Christ had a more peculiar regard to the Persons to whom the Apostles were sent which were ignorant Superstitions and prophane therefore he mentions such Qualifications antecedant to Baptism for it was not fit that such should be admitted to a Covenant of Grace and Reconciliation with God till they with Abraham were converted and reclaimed and understood the Covenant and then as he was Circumcised they to be Baptized In short the matter was this The Adult were first to be made Disciples by a saving Faith the case of the Children was distinct to be considered afterwards when their Parents were not only Converted but well grounded or settled and then also the Church judged it safest to take Proxies or Sureties viz. some Old and steady Converts lest the Parents Apostatizing as they often did and so the Children being under their Tuition it s presumed that they would have the same Principles and Perswasion of the Parents Apostatized then the Proxies took care and trained them up in the Christian Faith And thus Infants as to the Covenant and Privileges are accounted in the state and right with their Parents Therefore as the Children of Unbelievers upon this account may in some cases be said to be partakers of their Parents Infidelity since they are like to be brought up in it and for that Reason they are denyed Baptism otherwise they are capable and may be admitted where there is sufficient Satisfaction given to the Church that they shall be educated in the Christian Religion for it would be preposterous to admit such into a Religion which they were never likely to be instructed in afterwards Now when Circumcision was thrown off which was not at the first then in all probability began the Jews to Start the case of Infants admission who by Circumcision were admitted but that being abolished their privilege would be lo●● And these Absurdities would have naturally followed as Frst That Infants under the New Covenant were in a far worse condition than those under the Old for they were entred Secondly That the Priviledges under the Gospel were to Infants straiter and narrower than those under the Law which would be abominable 3dly If it was God's Will that Infants under the Gospel should be reckoned as out of his Covenant which before were in it then it must follow that our Saviour was forgetful and unfaithful to his Church in that he never acquainted her with this alteration which is also both base and absurd Nay and this might justly raise Clamours and Complaints in the Jewish Children so as to hinder the bringing in of their Parents Indeed I must confess that Believing and Repentance in the Adult are absolutely necessary where Infidelity and Iniquity are found as in Abraham yet this doth not prove that the Infants of Believers were and are to be excluded because they cannot actually believe yea they are rather to be included and baptized as Isaac was Circumcised for the Scripture intimates that the Innocency of harmless Babes whose Original Guilt is done away by Christ who have not by actual Transgression offended such innocency is as pleasing to God and as agreeable a Qualification for the admission of such to a Covenant of Grace and Mercy by sealing it with the not Intollerable but Easie Seal of Baptism as either the Faith of an Actual Believer or the Repentance of the Penitent this may be illustrated by Examples which I shall own omit What if Infanss do not as under the Law understand the Covenant verily that is no bar for if we were but as wise in Spirituals as in Temporals we find it in no wise disagreeable to Reason that Infants are bound in Covenants to the future Performance of Conditions which they at present know nothing of nor can be capable of performing till they come to Age. This is common in Wills in settling Estates on Infant-Heirs having Guardians c. But you 'll say the Covenant is not the same Answ It 's the same in Substance tho' not in the Accidents True it differs in this The first being in Works had Circumcision for its Seal The last of Grace which has Baptism for its Acts 2.39 For the Promises is to us and our Children which that we may embrace God grant for Christ's sake Amen FINIS