Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	catholic_n	particular_a	unite_v	2,960	5	9.8739	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

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-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

Ordinance where they must be made companions with such kinde of Saints as Job would not set with the dogs of his flocke And if any whose conscience is not so strong to digest such hard bits as others of the common multitude are who either see no difference at all between the precious and the vile but account all alike Saints at least when but at the Sacrament or have such Sepulchre-wide throats as they can swallow a Camell when a tender and more narrow conscience is apt to be choaked with every Gnat What shall this poore soule doe Doth he rather withdraw from the Ordinance then he can endure to see it so prophaned and so partake with the prophaners then he heares A Schismaticke Now if you have not a good Presbytery where shall he goe to complaine He may goe and appeale higher you will say And what if the higher the worse Good Brother either provide the people of the Land an honest godly Presbytery that may be as so many Angels to gather out of Christs Kingdome every thing that offends or else let there be a tender care of tender consciences and some provision made for them that they may not be scandalized by being forced to be the companions of the scandalous And therefore Brother you that professe so much solicitous care to poore bodies let some drops of your charity fall upon their soules And at the least and last extremity call in that Postscript of yours and suppresse it in the Presse that it may never see the Sunne as wherein you proscribe all those that are not of your Dependent Presbytery for you tell us it is to come forth a fortnight hence in the which it will be proved that it is the duty of all christian Magistrates Parents Masters of families and all such as truly feare God to yeeld their hand for the suppressing of heresies and all novelties in Religion if they really desire the glory of God c. And what you meane by your heresies and novelties in Religion is obvious to all by this your Booke already come forth Independency is heresie and novelty in Religion and what not that nought is Now did ever proceed out of the mouth of a quondam-Martyr and one newly brought out of a balefull prison such a fiery breath as this Oh Brother remember thy selfe and repent and let the world know that thou hast made a better use of afflictions then so fiercely to run on in such a course as to wreck the malignity of a prison upon thy best friends the seed of whose love so liberally sowne upon thee and thine expected another-gates harvest then nettles bryars and thornes But you bring the Scripture for you Come on Brother let you and me try it out by the dint of this sword And truly I shall by the helpe of my God make no long worke of it You spend above eleven sheets wherein you have woven sundry long threaden Arguments to measure out your Dependent Presbytery as holding parallell with the line of Scripture Now you must pardon me if I shall assay according to an old Proverbe with one stroake of Phocions hatchet to cut in two the long thread of your Alcibiadian fluent and luxuriant Rhetorications For answer First let me aske you a Question Whether those many Congregations you so call you doe not understand to be so many distinct and particular intire Church-bodies or Churches respectively If they be tell us if each of these Churches be 〈◊〉 its prime and proper notion an intire Church without or before it be united in such a Presbyterian Combination and Government as you speake of And if so whether it be de esse or de bene esse of the being or onely well-being of each particular Church so to be united and combined into a Church-collective of many Churches into one If you say it is of the being of a Church to be yoaked with other Churches as into one then what being had that Church in Abrahams family seeing there were then no other Churches in the world but that And if that were extraordinary as perhaps you will say then say I when Churches are multiplied and combined into one whether is this Church collective Dependent or Independent If Dependent then not an entire Church but subordinate unto or depending upon some greater Assembly But come we to the highest of all a generall Counsell of all the Churches in the world is this now a Church Dependent or Independent If Independent then there may be a Church Independent in the world and so the first particular Church in the world was no lesse an Independent Church in reference to other Churches And if all Churches in one Oecumenicall Councell as one Church be Dependent then whereupon Dependent Or is it a Dependent on it selfe That were blasphemy to say it Whereon then Surely on the Scripture or nothing All Churches then are Dependent upon the Scripture necessarily not so necessarily one Church upon another whether particular or generall Ergo all particular Churches being not necessarily dependent one upon another nor one upon many but absolutely dependent upon the Scripture for their ultimate or finall resolutions are no lesse Independent upon other Churches because all the Churches in the world put together cannot of themselves give forth an infallible Oracle as to say this wee command to be beleeved and observed This is Antichrists voyce Volumus jubenius The Church or Churches may shew their reasons from Scripture and labour to perswade but cannot binde them upon faith or conscience this the Holy Ghost and Scripture can onely doe But I come briefly to your Arguments whereby you would prove your Classicall Presbyterian Government and so upward The patterne hereof you take from the Christian Church at Jerusalem Hereof many arguments or rather words and tantologies you multiply and toyle your selfe and vex your Reader withall which you might have reduced to one It is in summe this In Jerusalem were many Christian Congregations and all these made but one Church and so were governed by one Presbytery But that Church at Jerusalem being the prime Apostolicke Church is a patterne for all succeeding Churches Ergo all Church-government ought to be regulated by that and consequently by a Presbytery over many Congregations For as for your indefinite enumeration of those multitudes baptized by John Baptist and by Christs Disciples we take no notice of them unlesse formed into a Church or Churches but following the expresse Scripture the first formed Church wee finde in Act. 2. which though consisting of five thousand yet it was one intire particular Church and not Churches and they continued daily {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} with one accord in one place together ver. 2. and in the Temple ver. 44. 46. growing from a hundred and twenty Act. 1. 15. to three thousand more Chap. 2. 41. and then in all five thousand Chap. 4. 4. and all these but one Church which assembled together

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

to heare the word in the Temple and though they wanted a convenient place so spacious as wherein to breake bread or receive the Lords Supper all together so as they were constrained to sever themselves into divers companies in severall private houses to communicate yet this severing was not a dividing of the Church into so many distinct formall Churches or Church-bodies being but so many branches of one and the same particular Church which though you call so many Congregations yet properly so many Churches they were not And therefore you never read The Churches at or in Jerusalem but The Church at Jerusalem And this no Nationall Church neither witnesse those Churches in Judea Gal. 1. 22. Whereupon I answer to your Argument and first to your Proposition I deny that those Congregations you name are so many Churches properly so called having their distinct Officers and members united into one Church-body respectively This I put you to prove And without proving it your 11 or 12 shee●… spent about this Argument prove to be meere wast paper And for your Assumption that the Church at Jerusalem as being a prime Apostolicke Church is therefore a patterne for all succeeding Churches and therefore for a Classicall Presbytery over many Churches you must first prove your Proposition as before that there were many Churches in Jerusalem constituted in their distinct formes and bodies Secondly it being no more then one entire particular Church and not any Diocesan or Provinciall Church or the Presbytery thereof Classicall as you would beare us in hand it is a patterne for all particular Churches in succeeding ages and yet by your favour not so perfect a patterne as no Apostolicke Church besides it should also come in to make up the patterne compleat For we are necessarily to take all the Churches in the New Testament together to make up one entire perfect Church patterne For in the Church at Jerusalem we finde election of Officers but we finde not expressed that part of Discipline for casting out of corrupt members as in the Church of Corinth and so in the rest For the Churches were not brought forth to full perfection in one day Their very constitution had a graduall growth The Church at Jerusalem had not at first Deacons till there was a necessitie and the largenesse of the Church required seven Deacons which is no patterne for every Church to have seven Deacons The summe is to make up a compleat patterne not onely the Church at Jerusalem but that of Corinth of Ephesus those of Gal●tia that of Philippi and the rest are to be conferred together that each may cast in its shot to make up the full reckoning that so what is not expressed in one may be supplied by the rest to make one entire platforme For the Scripture consists of many Books as so many members in one body one member cannot say to another * I have no need of thee Againe the Church at Jerusalem if it must be a patterne for all other Churches then in this that all other Churches must be subject to some one Church because Act. 15. things in question were there debated and determined and sent to other Churches to be observed But for as much as that Church at that time in those things was infallibly guided by the Holy Ghost wherewith the Apostles there were inspired in which respect their resolutions were with Authoritie It pleased the Holy Ghost and us that which no particular Church since the Apostles could ever say it followeth that the Church then at Jerusalem remaines not in all things a patterne for other Churches for a patterne must be in all things imitable and perfect Lastly for Appeales so much agitated and pressed I have said enough before and elsewhere as in my Vindication to vindicate the right use of that in point of Church matters And so I passe briefly from your first Question to your second which is concerning the manner of gathering of Churches and admitting members and Officers Viz Whether Ministers of the Gospel may out of already congregated Assemblies of believers select and choose the most principall of them into a Church-fellowship peculiar unto themselves and admit of none into their societie but such as shall enter in by a private covenant and are allowed of by the consent and approbation of all the Congregation This is your generall stating of your Question and out of the wombe thereof there doth issue a numerous brood no lesse then six Queries or if you will to usurpe your owne usuall expression so many sucking Questions hanging at the dugs of their damme your generall Question For answer to all in their order But before I answer let mee premise thus much Brother I well see and that without spectacles that among all those Independents whom you so familiarly hurle stones at and cast up dust yea durt in their faces I am not the least object in your eye as by many palpable passages in your Booke doth appeare And therefore I shall crave leave that I may have the favour to represent and personate all those my Brethren the Ministers whom Giantlike you revile and challenge and warre against under the name of Independents as taking this take upon my selfe alone in answering this your Question about gathering of Churches First then to your generall stating of the Question You say it concernes the manner of gathering Do you imply here the lawfulnesse of the matter of gathering by questioning onely the manner Your words may seeme to import so much But I will not quarrell a word I come to your Question viz. Whether Ministers of the Gospel c. Surely if any then Ministers of the Gospel may gather Churches and that for two reasons first because by the Gospel the Ministry thereof Churches are gathered to Christ Secondly because we read that the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel have by their Ministry gathered Churches Therefore no question but if any then Ministers of the Gospel may gather Churches to Christ I but out of already congregated Assemblies of Believers to select and choose the most principall of them Indeed this is something to purpose But tell me Brother who is it that doth this You apply it to us all and to me in particular But I deny that I so doe and I dare say the like for others And can you prove all those Parishes out of which Churches are so gathered as you say to be Assemblies of believers But they all professe to be Christians True so doe all Papists Ergo are all Popish Parishes Assemblies of Believers So as if Ministers of the Gospel should by their preaching convert sundry Papists of severall Popish Parishes to become a Church of Christ should they gather such a Church out of so many Assemblies of believers But say you wee gather Churches out of Assemblies of believing Protestants Why Brother doe you not know this to be a time of Reformation And have