Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	bind_v	heaven_n	key_n	4,060	5	10.1685	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91392	The true grounds of ecclesiasticall regiment set forth in a briefe dissertation. Maintaining the Kings spirituall supremacie against the pretended independencie of the prelates, &c. Together, vvith some passages touching the ecclesiasticall power of parliaments, the use of synods, and the power of excommunication.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1641 (1641)	Wing P428; Thomason E176_18; ESTC R212682	61,943	101

familiarly with them cannot stand with our owne safety or the honour of Religion or the Law of common decency but those whom we account as Publicans we doe not make Publicans whom we shun as infectious we doe not punish as rebellious their actions we doe generally detest but their persons we doe not judicially condemne Princes under the Law might not eate of the Shew bread nor approach the Sanctuary being in a polluted condition nor in case of Leprosie might they be admitted into the Congregation of the Lord so nor bastards c. but these are all instances of Non-communion not of Excommunication and the reason of Non-communion is perpetuall so that if Princes in open contempt of the Sacraments should desire them at the Ministers hands Ministers ought rather to dye than to administer them But to deny the Sacrament is not any spirituall obduration or castigation to this denyall no speciall authority is necessary neither to that authority is any coercive force internally working upon the soule granted Cain having committed an unnaturall murther was generally abhorred amongst his brethren and abandoned as unfit for humane society but this was a crime proper for the temporall sword and if this was a proper punishment it was temporall And it is plainly cleered to us that adultery it selfe by Gods Law was punished by the temporall not spirituall sword and that abscissio animae amongst the Iewes was ever spoken of corporall punishment by death the inffliction whereof was only left to the temporall Magistrate and that there was no difference observed betweene Crimes Spirituall and Crimes Temporall Non-Communion then we grant to have bin of ancient use and perpetuall but we wish great caution and circumspection to be had therein amongst Christians for as visibly prophane persons are to be rejected so no former profanenesse ought to be cause of rejection where the party with outward professions of repentance and gestures of reverence craves the mysteries at the Ministers hands as almost all Christians doe For in such case if the Sacrament then the word also may be denyed and so no manner of salvation shall be left to such as have bin formerly vitious whatsoever their present demeanour be To come now to Excommunication or the Spirituall Sword and sentence of the Church as it was used in the Primitive times yet so wee finde differences of it amongst our Divines That incestuous Corinthian which was said to be traditus Satanae as Chrysostome conceives was not ejected out of the Church by ordinary excommunication but was miraculously left to Satan ut percelleretur vulnere malo aut morbo and such was the punishment of Ananias and his Wife and of Elymas c. according to Ierom Ambrose Theodoret Oecumenius Theophylact c. This excommunication if it may be called so was a corporall punishment and there is no appearance of any internall obduration by the binding power of the Minister and it was miraculous and therefore though it was of use then when the Keyes of Church-men could not erre and when a Temporall Sword was wanting yet now it is utterly uselesse and abolisht For any other excommunication of present and perpetuall necessity in Ecclesiasticall regiment there is little proofe in Scripture it is the spirituall Scepter of our Hierarchrists without which their Empire would appeare meerely imaginary and therefore their zeale is strong for it though their grounds be weake It seemes to me a very darke deduction that the Keyes of Heaven in the Gospell must needs import reall power and jurisdiction in Church-men and onely in Church-men and that that power and jurisdiction must needs intend such a spirituall sword as our present form of excommunication is and that that sword is as miraculous as it was or as usefull as if it were miraculous and that the stroke of it is meerly spirituall and not to be supplyed by the temporall sword and that Princes are as well lyable to it as other Lay-men Ierome sayes that with God not the sentence of the Priest but the life of the sentenced party is look'd upon and regarded and sayes he Vt Leprosum mundum vel immundum Sacerdos facit Sic alligat vel solvit Presbyter It should seeme our Priests now have the same power to try and discerne scandalous persons amongst us as the Iewish had Leapers in their times and no man supposes that the Iewish Priests had any vertue or force in their judgements to purge such as were uncleane or to infect those which were cleane they were held the most fit and impartiall judges but the matter to bee judged of was visible easie and sensible So much as this no man will deny to our Ministers for if they binde and shut Heaven to persons sensibly profan not altering at all the condition of such as they binde and shut out this is no such strange Spirituall Sword and Celestiall power and supereminent dominion as they have hitherto pretended to neither is it of any such great consequence in the Church of God But if Ministers can yet by vertue of their Keyes either search into the reines and hearts of hypocrites as the Apostles did or alter the condition of such as are subject to them either by absolving or obdurating the guilty or can effect any remedy in the Church for the taking away of scandall by their spirituall power which the temporall ruler doth not effect as the Apostles may be supposed to have done This is more than the Iewish Priests ever professed this is supernaturall and wee ought to admire it I doe not beleeve that our Ministers will lay clayme to any such miraculous vertue and infallibility and if they did I hope they would give us some signes and demonstrations therof by opening Heaven to thousands and by confounding all incorrigible opposers of Religion If Nero had resorted to Peters ministery desiring to bee made partaker of the Word and Sacraments out of fraud and dissimulation Peter doubtlesse would not have refused him and cast him off without a certaine insight into his hypocrisie but if Peter did discerne his hypocrisie and reject him yet our Ministers cannot discerne the like and therefore cannot reject in the like manner With us take Excommunication as a spirituall punishment as it hardens and drives from Repentance for so the shutting of Heaven intimates and our Ministers should bee cruell to use it where they are ignorant of the heart and take it as a wholesome remedy and fit meanes to draw to repentance as corporall punishments sometimes are though it bee strange to conceite the like of spirituall yet their vertue being ignorantly applyed is no proper vertue For in case of utter impenitence and open perversenesse Heaven is shut without the Ministers power and in case of fained penitence the Ministers Key cannot open effectually though he discerne not the fraud and in case of true penitence if the Minister be mistaken yet Heaven will not remaine shut Howsoever if Priests may now

ought to be a great deal lesse and we doe the rather suspect all popish traditions and additions in Religion because wee see they make use of them for the augmenting of the power and regiment of Prelates And yet if knowledge did not abound if our Religion were more cloudie and if the Scriptures Councils Fathers and all learning were now more imperfect to us then they are I cānot imagin how an uncōfined absolute dominion of Churchmen shold be more necessary thē of Princes For if absolutenes of power be of necessary use in intricate perplexed mysteries cōtroversies yet why must that absolute power be more effectuall in Priests then Princes is not the counsel of Prelats the same and of the same vigor to solve doubts and determine controversies whether their power be subordinate or not doth meer power ad to the knowledg of Priests or is the power of Priests more virtuous for the promoting of truth then the power of Magistrates how comes this vast irreconcilable difference betwixt the government of the Church and State In matters of Law in matters of policy in matters of war unlimited power in such as are most knowing and expert does not conduce to the safety of the Common-wealth subordinate Counsells are held as available for the discerning of truth and far more available for the conserving of peace and order And who can then assigne any particular sufficient reason why matters of religion should not as well be determined in the consistory by dependent Prelates as matters of Law are by the Judges and Justices in their tribunals where they sit as meere servants to the King His third exception is That God having armed the Jewish Religion with a temporall sword and the Christian with that of spirituall punishment only the one with power to imprison scourge put to death the other with bare authoritie to censure and excommunicate there is no reason why our Church which hath no visible sword should in regiment be subject unto any other power then only to that which bindeth and looseth This reason taketh it for granted that amongst the Jewes the Church and State was the same had the same body the same head the same sword and that head was temporall and that sword was materiall This we freely accept of but in the next place without any reason at all given it as freely assumes that Christians now have only a spirituall sword in the Church as that Jews had only a temporall one A diametricall opposition is here put betwizt Jews and Christians in Church Regiment and yet no cause shewed or account given of that opposition We have very good colour to argue that without some strong reason shewed of opposition Christians ought not to bee so contrary to that excellent discipline of the Jewes which God himself ordered and to introduce I know not what spirituall rule in prejudice of temporall rule but how will Stapleton prove that amongst Christians the Church and State are two divided bodies so as they may admit of two severall heads and severall swords the one temporall the other spirituall the one yielding precedence as temporall the other predominating as spirituall This wee desire to see fortified with better proofs Hooker in his eighth booke not yet publisht has a learned cleere discourse to shew the fallacie and injustice of this blind presumption Hee allows that a Church is one way and a Commonwealth another way defined and that they are both in nature distinguisht but not in substance perpetually severed Since there is no man sayes hee of the Church of England but the same is a member of the Common-wealth nor any of the Common-wealth but the same is of the Church therefore as in a figure triangle the base differs from the sides and yet one and the self-same line is both a base and a side a side simply a base if it chance to be the bottome and to underlie the rest So though properties and actions of one doe cause the name of a Common-wealth qualities and functions of another sort give the name of a Church to a multitude yet one and the same multiude may be both Thus in England there 's none of one Corporation but hee is of the other also and so it was amongst the Jews Two things cause this errour First because professours of the true Religion somtimes live in subjection under the false so the Jews did in Babylon so the Christians in Rome under Nero in such cases true professors doe civilly only communicate with the State but in matters of their Religion they have a communion amongst themselves This now is not our case and therefore these instances are not proper amongst us Secondly In all States there is a distinction between spirituall and temporall affaires and persons but this proveth no perpetuall necessity of personall separation for the Heathens always had their spiritual Laws and persons and causes severed from their temporall yet this did not make two independent States among them much lesse doth God by revealing true Religion to any Nation distract it thereby into severall independent communities his end is only to institute severall functions of one and the same community Thus farre Hooker most judiciously and profoundly Wee must not here expect any satisfaction from our Adversaries why there should be lesse division betweene Church and State amongst the Jews and lesse use of two severall swords then is amongst us 't is sufficient that they have said it There 's no crime so scandalous amongst our Church-men or wherein they claime so much spirituall interest of jurisdiction as adultery yet amongst the Iews that crime was carnall not spirituall and its punishment was death inflicted by the Civill Judge not damnation denounced by the Priest Now if adultery in these days were better purged away and lesse countenanced in our Christian Courts then it was amongst the Jews there might something be alleaged to preferre our moderne inventions before Gods owne Statutes but when Ecclesiastiall persons shall therefore incroach upon Civill that by I know not what pecuniary corruptions and commutations vice and scandall may abound we doe strangly dote to suffer it For his last reason he says That albeit whilst the Church was restrained into one people it seemed not incommodious to grant their Kings generall chiefty of power yet now the Church having spread it self over all Nations great inconvenience must thereby grow if every Christian King in his severall Territorie should have the like power By this reason it s presumed that all the Universe ought to have but one head on earth and that Rome must be its Court and that it must be indued with Oraculous infallibilitie and so to remayne till the Worlds end and this must bee admitted out of some obscure generall Metaphors in Scripture or else God has not sufficiently provided for the wise government of his Catholike Church Man can scarce imagine any thing more mischievous or impossible then that which these goodly