Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	article_n	believe_v	creed_n	8,511	5	10.3267	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45122	An answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's book of The unreasonableness of separation so far as it concerns The peaceable designe : with some animadversions upon the debate between him and Mr. Baxter concerning the national church and the head of it.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.; Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. Peaceable design.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Of national churches.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Unreasonableness of separation.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3667; ESTC R28713	17,588	40

Head When that Article was put in the Creed I Believe the Catholick Church I would ask the Doctor Whether this Distinction of Visible and Invisible was used in the World And if it was not when it arose it could not take off any thing of Christ's Headship When both Visible and Invisible were but one he must be Head of both Again there are some Learned Men deny a Catholick Church Visible The Doctor does hold it And what if they should advance against him this Argument If there be no Catholick Visible Head there is no Catholick Church Visible But there is no Catholick Visible Head The Minor is the Doctors and the Major is to be denyed of no other but the Doctor Let us proceed to the bottom We have sounded the Doctors Invention let us try his Reason There is no necessity of such a Head sayes he for a National Consent is as sufficient to make a National Church as an Universal Consent to make a Catholick Church This is the Doctors Reason It is Consent alone makes a Church or Society though it hath no Head The Consent of a Nation makes a National Church the Consent of All Christians the Catholick Church the Consent of a Particular Company a Particular Church or Congregation This is his bottom and it is something but exceeding rawly spoken Let us understand therefore where there is a company of Persons who have no power one over another that might receive mutual Advantage if United to that end such a Company are called a Community If they agree together for the obtainment of that end to come into an Order of Superiority and Inferiority that makes it a Society or Political Body If the end be for that good which is only Temporal it is called a Common-Wealth if for that which is Spiritual it is a Church The Doctor now is to be askt What Consent it is that he means If he means by his Consent the Agreement which People make at first when they enter into Society it is true that their Consent is the Foundation but the Doctor here I hope does see that this Consent is for the having a Head and Government and the pitching upon the Sort or Manner of the Government they would have which Agreement is called the Constitution It is not this Consent therefore the Doctor should mean which is not also applicable to the Catholick Church in which he Instances whose Head and Government is not of Mans Election but of the Will of God only By the way for the National Church It is true that Particular Churches in a Nation being of Divine Appointment the Pastors or Ministers who have the Rule over their Flocks In Actu Primo that is the Right of Discipline and Censure may agree to a delegating that power In Actu Secundo or the Exercise of it for Reasons of Prudence to a Superintendent called a Bishop who shall be Supervised by an Arch-Bishop and that the Arch-Bishop Bishops and Clerks chosen out of themselves met in a Convocation shall have the Power of making Laws or Canons by which they will be Governed Upon such a Consent as this here appears a Political National Church in the Constitution wherein is an Ecclesiastical Formal Constitutive Regent Part or Head over an Organical Body for the Administration and that founded upon the true Bottom upon which all rightly constituted Societies do stand the Agreement of the Community The Regent Part here is placed not in One Person which does not need but in One Corporation or United Assembly whereof the Arch-Bishop is but a chief part as the Bishops are and I would humbly ask Mr. Baxter what he thinks of it For as for the Doctor I think not him a Competent Judge not so much because he is not versed in that sort of Study as the other is but because of his departure from himself in the Prudentials of his Irenicum and being thereby now engaged to maintain the Government of our Church to be of Divine Right he must not receive this Notion which let it shew him never so clear and firm a Ground to build the same upon does make it of Human Institution If by his consent he means the consent of every Man in particular to be of such a Church or Society it is true that a Mans consent does make him a Member so as without it he could be none but the Church or Society must be supposed to be Formed before of the Ruling and Ruled Part and his Consent to be a Member is a consent to be Ruled and to own such a Head as well as to enjoy the Benefits of such a Society This Consent is the Condition upon which he hath right to be a Member it is the Ratio Fundandi of his Membership and the Condition upon which the Ruler hath Authority over him in particular when we suppose he may otherwise be at his own choice but if a Man shall fancy that this Consent does make a Church or Society as the Form that Constitutes it as they must do who suppose a Society to be Made Formed or Constituted by this Consent without a Head or the necessity of one it is such a raw injudicious indigested Conception as could have never once swum in the Thoughts of so Learned a Person if he had a faculty for beating out a Notion so good as he has for Books and negligence toward others that endeavour it It is true there is no Political Society whether Civil or Ecclesiastical but there must be Consent and Union but it is not this Consent and Union only makes it a Church or Common-Wealth A Vicinity may have Concord nay a Herd and there is Consent in a Society in Fieri not yet Organiz'd or Unform'd There is something that gives the Name and Being and makes a Society to be that which it is in specie different from others which is not I say Consent but it is an Order of Superiority and Inferiority upon Consent that does this and that is all one as to be the Form that Constitutes the Society And Consequently when I find the Doctor being at last drawn to it come to such a Determination as this about the Point that There is no necessity of a Constitutive Head because a National Consent makes a National Church I must pronounce it such a grave Nothing such a speaking Nothing with Gravity and pretence of being Wiser too than his fellows that if he do not come to be ashamed before Mr. Baxter has done with him or has reason to be so I will be exposed to shame my self for my speaking thus freely plainly and honestly as another person perhaps would not do The truth is it is pity the Doctor did declare his Heart while he was Young against the Divine Right of Episcopacy seeing he hath occasion now for another Opinion Whether out of Prudence or Conscience whether for want of more Light then or more full Light now it is God and himself knows

perfectly assign to us such a Head as Mr. Baxter seeks But forasmuch as there is no Authority in the Convocation when they have Composed their Canons to Impose any of them upon the Church or to oblige the Conscience of any by them until they are ratifyed by the Authority of the King it is manifest both that this Hierarchy of the Nation is but of Human Right and that the King alone the Power of Legislation which proves it lying only in him is and must be the Head of the Church in this Kingdom And that this certainly is so it is declared in the Statute of Henry the Eighth That the King shall be taken for the only Supream Head of the Church called Ecclesia Anglicana To understand this The Church may be consid●red we are to know as Universal and so is Christ the Head of it and can only give Laws to it Or as Particular and so the Pastors are Heads and Rule it Or as National to wit as it is according to the Statute Ecclesia Anglicana and so the Magistrate is Head and makes Laws for it I will add There is something Essential to the Church of Christ and something Accidental That there should be Persons who Meet to Worship God and Christ and be put in Order for it is of Christ's Appointment and Necessary to his Church Of these Particular Persons and Churches the Catholick Church consists To be Particular then or Universal is of Essential Consideration to Christ's Church But to be National is of Accidental Consideration That all the People of a Land should be Christian and the Magistrate also is I say an Accidental thing to the Church which may Exist where that is not Upon which account though the Magistrate be none of Christ's proper Officers yet may he be Head of his Church and Constitutive Head of it as undet his Dominions because he is Head not in any Essential but in this Accidental Consideration of it I will now set down the Doctor 's own Words Pag. 301. We deny any Necessity of any such Constitutive Regent Part or one Formal Ecclesiastical Head as Essential to a National-Church For a National Consent is as sufficient to make a National-Church as an Universal-Consent to make a Catholick-Church In this Determination of the Point when the Doctor denyes any Necessity of such a Head I hope he is not so frivolous as to believe One in this Nation and not to tell it So long as the Church of England is a Political Church and hath a Government establish't it must have its Regent Part as well as the Part Ruled and to deny the Necessity of One is all one as to say there is None I press the Doctor Is it a Political-Church or no If it be he must find it a Head If it be not then it is only a Community of Christians amongst whom it must be supposed there is no Government as yet introduced and then shall our Ecclesiastical Laws Canons and Constitutions our Bishops and Arch-Bishops with the whole Constitution we have already be hurled in the Dust. The Doctor will be a fine Champion for the Church if he persists to say this We deny any Necessity of any such Constitutive Regent Part or one Formal Ecclesiastical Head as Essential to a National-Church The Doctor here who is posed with the Question is confounded with the Terms He should distinguish between a He●d and a Formal Ecclesiastical Head a Regent Part and an Ecclesiastical Regent Part a Constitutive Regent Part and a Formal Ecclesiastical Head of the Church of England Though a National Church hath no Ecclesiastical Head it hath a Head a Regent Part a Constitutive Regent Part under this Accidental Consideration of the Church as National though not under the Essential Consideration of it as the Church of Christ. If the Doctor had light upon it in some of his Books that the King of England represents Two Persons an Ecclesiastical Person while He presides by His Authority in the Convocation and so is Head of the Church and a Civil Person while He sits with the Parliament and so is Head of the State and upon the account of both the Fountain of all Obligation upon the Subject both from the Canons of the Church and Statutes of the Realm I cannot tell how he might have put Mr. Baxter to it But so long as the King is not indeed both Supream Magistrate and High-Priest as the Maccabees were and neither of them think otherwise of the King than Magistrate only that is Supream Coercive Governour it is this which is here said must be the Expedient to remove the Bone from between them It is said in Scripture That Kings and Queens shall be Nursing-Fathers and Nursing-Mothers to the Church As they are Fathers they are Heads As Nursing-Fathers it shews their Power is not Internal to the Church but External as Divines speak that is of another kind than that which is proper to Spiritual Fathers the Pastors or Christ's own Officers The Authority of Kings over the Church is Objective they say Circa Sacra not Formal That is it is Objectively Ecclesiastical and Formally Civil And as this is so I apprehend in like manner that the Society of Christians in a Nation as the whole Nation are such is Objectively a Church and Formally a Kingdom or Common-Wealth of Christians and so may the Christian Magistrate be the Constitutive Regent Part of it Well! But what Argument hath the Doctor to prove that there is no necessity for a National Church to have a Constitutive Head essential to it that is essential to it not as the Church of Christ but under a National Consideration He hath no Argument but brings another Instance and that is of the Catholick Church visible which he saith hath no Head neither The Doctor is miserably driven to the Wall when he is driven hither There was never any Protestant doubted but that Iesus Christ is the Head of the Catholick Church and if he be the Head of it as Universal he must be the Head of it whether Visible or Invisible But Christ is not sayes he a Visible Head Poor If this were true it is enough that he is the Head of those who are Visible but yet he is out even in this for though Christ be not Caput Visum he is Caput Visibile He is not seen on Earth but he is seen in Heaven Nay he was seen on Earth by Paul and Stephen and will Appear as he is at the Great Day And what thinks the Doctor of Christ before his Ascension was he Head then Nay did not Christ while upon Earth give Laws for his Church appoint Officers and Commission his Apostles to gather Christian Societies in the World And is not his Government over them a Visible Ecclesiastical Government where the Officers are Visible and the Members Visible and is not he the Head then of the Church Visible Are not making Laws and Appointing Officers the Rights of a