Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	communion_n	member_n	separation_n	3,098	5	9.7439	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78437	Vindiciæ clavium: or, A vindication of the keyes of the kingdome of Heaven, into the hands of the right owners. Being some animadversions upon a tract of Mr. I.C. called, The keyes of the kingdome of Heaven. As also upon another tract of his, called, The way of the churches of Nevv-England. Manifesting; 1. The weaknesse of his proofes. 2. The contradictions to himselfe, and others. 3. The middle-way (so called) of Independents, to be the extreme, or by-way of the Brownists. / By an earnest well-wisher to the truth.	Cawdrey, Daniel, 1588-1664.	1645 (1645)	Wing C1640; Thomason E299_4; ESTC R200247	69,538	116

are still but where they were What if the Presbytery or Church will not submit to their determination or Declaration for it is no more what remedy hath the Church against their erring hereticall scandalous Presbytery If the Synod have a power of censure then againe you destroy your Independency No The Church may withdraw from them So they might before they consulted the Synod nay they were bound to doe it in your way without consulting the Synod But you may call to mind your former thoughts In your other Tract you give them full power to censure their Officers without any Officers as hath more then once been said above And thus your second answer is also answered already You say Excommunication is one of the highest acts of Rule The way p. 101. and ergo cannot be performed but by some Rulers Yet you contradict this f●●●ly in your other Tract when you say In case of offence given by an Elder or by the whole Eldership together the Church hath Authority marke that Authority which in this Booke you oft deny to require satisfaction of them and if they doe not give due satisfaction to proceed to censure according to the quality of the offence And yet which is strange me thinks here you resolve the cleane contrary The Church cannot excommunicate the whole Presbytery because they have not received from Christ an office of Rule without their Officers But now if this reason be good then on the other side it might seeme reasonable That the Presbytery might excommunicate the whole Church Apostate because they have received from Christ an office of Rule without the Church No say you They must tell the Church and joyne with the Church in that censure But this is to say and unsay For if the Church must joyne with them then the Church hath received some peece of an Office of Rule which was before denyed If you say they have not received any Office of Rule without their Officers This may imply that with their Officers they have received an Office of Rule which all this while you have seemed to deny allowing them a Liberty but no Rule or Authority And whereas you say They must tell the Church but that cannot be when the Church is Apostate I rejoyne this makes it reasonable to me That there is another Church to which they must tell the offence by way of appeale or else both an erring Presbytery or an Apostate Church have no remedy to recover them instituted by Christ and so the Church a multitude or a Presbytery is not so well provided for as one particular member But you have found a remedy The Church wants not liberty to withdraw from them Is not this even tantamount with excommunication Is it not the execution of that sentence to withdraw especially in your way Excommunication is the contrary to communion Now how doth the Church communicate their Elders Take your owne words As they set up the Presbytery The Keyes p 17. by professing their subjection to them in the Lord so they avoid them that is in sense excommunicate them by professed withdrawing their subjection from them according to God And this is as much as any people doe or need to doe to persons excommunicate unlesse you grant them a power to the very Act and decree of excommunication which as you have clearly done in your other Tract so you doe here giving them a power more than Ministeriall even a Kingly and more than a Kingly power when you say They rule the Church by appointing their owne Officers and likewise in censuring offenders not only by their Officers which is as much as Kings are wont to doe but also by their owne Royall assent which Kings are not wont to doe but only in the execution of Nobles Satis pro imperio 5. The last Liberty of the Church is Liberty of communion with other Churches which is seven wayes exercised c. To this I say in generall This is rather communion of Saints than communion of Churches because in your way every Church is independent and hath no Church-state in relation to any but it s owne members We suppose this communion is the liberty or priviledge of every Christian by vertue of his interest in the generall visible Church and not by any peculiar interest in a particular Congregation He that is a professed Christian and baptized hath a right to all the Ordinances of God where ever he find them As of old he that was a Citizen of Rome or so borne was a freeman through all the Romane Empire and enjoyed the priviledges of a Roman A Christian is a free Deacon in any part of the Christian world A Citizen with the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.19 And this to me seemes reasonable upon these grounds 1. Because every Christian not yet in a particular Church or Congregation is at liberty to joyne himselfe to any Church tyed by no obligation to one more than another 2. Because it is lawfull for any member of a particular Church upon just reasons to leave that Church and to joyne himselfe to another and nothing can hinder his removall or communion with another Church except he be scandalous c. 3. It was the custome of the first times before Congregations were fixed to adde them to the visible Church were their number lesser or greater and give them communion in all the Ordinances of Christ 4. Because the whole visible Church is but one City one Kingdome though for orders sake divided into severall Corporations It is not so in civill respects A Citizen of one Corporation cannot goe and set up trade in another because they have their severall Charters But in the City of God the Kingdome of Christ there is but one Charter for all and no more is required to admit a man a member of any Congregation but that he professe himselfe a Christian and live accordingly Your New Covenant to tye men to your particular Church that he may not remove without a generall leave will I feare prove a snare and a tyranny worse than yet we can imagine 1. But come we to your particulars First by way of participation of the Lords Supper the members of one Church comming to another Church c. But 1. Why doe you instance in this Ordinance only Have not their children occasionally borne there a liberty also of Baptisme Where neither of the parents can claim right to the Lords Supper there their Infants cannot claime right to Baptisme The way p. 81. Nor the childe of an excommunicate person p. 85. The rather because Baptisme is not administred with respect to this or that Church but to the generall visible Church Unlesse you hold that a man or childe is baptized to no Church but that particular and an Infidell to all the rest Yet some of your brethren will hardly baptize a childe of any but a member of their owne Church which is next doore to

Anabaptisme 2. I aske by what power of the keyes doe your Pastors admit a member of another Church to partake of the Lords Supper in yours Or in what relation doth your Pastor stand to that member of another Church You say Pastor and Church are relates and he is a Pastor to none but of his owne Church Either then to administer the Lords Supper to a member of another Church is no Pastorall act but may be done by a gifted brother Or else a Pastor and his Church are not so relates but that he is a Pastor beyond the limits of his owne Congregation which yet you doe deny 3. You are also very sparing in granting this liberty For you adde In case neither himselfe nor the Church from whence he comes doe lye under any publicke offence But what if that party be free from the guilt of that offence Shall the innocent suffer for the nocent what charity what justice is in this 4. But your reason I like very well For we receive the Lords Supper not only as a Seale of our Communion with the Lord Iesus and with his members in our owne Church but also in all the Churches of the Saints Whence I inferre then it is not any favour dispensed by you to a member of another Church but a dignity or priviledge common to every member of that body by vertue of that membership and not with respect to his particular Church membership And I pray is not Baptisme also a Seale of our Communion with all the members of Christs body Why then may you not admit the children of the members of any Church to be baptized by your Pastors upon just occasion as well as to admit the parents to the Lords Supper Nay further If the Sacraments be Seales of our communion with all the members of Christ why doe you not admit any true Christian and his children to the communion of the Sacraments though they be not as yet admitted members of any particular Congregation How dare you deny any member of that Body communion with its fellow-fellow-members when it hath union and communion with the Head Consider it 2. A second way of your communion of Churches is By way of recommendation as Paul in the behalfe of Phoebe c. But this is so farre from being any part of the power of the Keyes that it is a duty which a Church or party owe to any Christian that is godly not by vertue of any particular Church-membership but by the common interest of Christianity yea by the common right of humanity even to an honest Heathen according to the ninth Commandement which requires us to beare true witnesse to our brother if we be thereto required The letters are only declarative of the good behaviour of the party occasioned to remove to such a place Was this thinke you a part of the power of the Keyes delivered to Peter and the rest of the Apostles Besides if there be any vertue in these letters to admit a member into communion is there not a like vertue in them to excommunicate one ungodly And if these letters dimissory have power to admit a member of one Church to be a member of another without any new covenanting have they not the like power to admit the Pastor of one Church to be a Pastor of another Church without any new Ordination which yet I beleeve you doe not practise 3. By way of Consultation and 4 by Congregation into a Synod But what is all this to the power of the Keyes If upon Congregation and consultation of other Church-Officers there be not a binding power it is rather a latch of a doore which may be opened and shut at any bodies pleasure than a Key to let in or locke out with any Authority But of the power of Synods more hereafter 4. A fifth way is The liberty of giving and receiving mutuall supplyes one from another gifted men or benevolences c. I conceive first these are rather duties of common charity than of Church liberty or any power of the Keyes And I desire to know what those gifted men were that the Church of Antioch sent to other Countries Were they not Apostles or Prophets or Teachers in Office Then they were Pastors or Teachers by Office before they were sent before they were elected or ordained by the Churches to which they were sent Thereupon it followes that a Pastor or Teacher because you may say a Pastor relates to his owne flocke a Teacher so was Barnabas Acts 13.1 is a Teacher to the generall visible Church not to the particular Church only as you hold And then againe a Teacher quâ Teacher may preach to another Church and convert Heathens and not as a gifted brother only as you sometimes speake A sixth way is By way of mutuall admonition when a publicke offence is found amongst them One Church may send to admonish another and if that Church will not heare take two or three other Churches and if not heare them then withdraw c. This admonition is a duty of every brother at least of every Christian as a Christian and no power of the Keyes at all And let it be considered that the place Matth. 18.15 16. Those two or three are not considered as a Church-body but as a sufficient number of witnesses to joyne with a brother offended c. agreeing in a duty of brotherly love c. The way p. 53. doth not make the admonition of one or more brethren any power of the Keyes but a duty only concerning every man in order to the censure of the Church But if one or more Churches may proceed with a Church-offending as private persons with an offending brother why may they not take the third step as the last remedy to excommunicate her being obstinate as the Church doth an obstinate b●o her No Because the Churches are all of equall authority But so are all the members of a Congregation of equall authority yet the whole may excommunicate him And if there be as much church-Church-communion between Churches as there is between members of a particular Congregation I see no reason why many Churches assembled in a Synod may not as well excommunicate an obstinate Church as a Congregation a particular member If you deny excommunication of a Church others will and doe deny excommunication of a member and say non-non-communion or withdrawing is as much as can be done And if you say the Churches may withdraw communion I demand first what is that in effect but excommunication wanting only a Synodicall Decree yet page 25. you say A Synod hath power to determine to withdraw communion from an offending Church And is it any more in the excommunic●tion of an offending brother They doe but determine all shall withdraw communion from him This is therefore but a meere Logom●chie 6. The last way of Communion of Churches is by way of prop●gation or multiplication of Churches But 1. This is rather a division of Churches

either themselves or the Ordinances 4. It seemes not justifiable that Elders should withdraw and carry away the Ordinances from a company of erring Brethren The Prophets of old did not so but continued still to preach though the people were obstinate For this is the remedy to cure their obstinacy and so the Apostle directs 2 Tim. 2.25 26. In the close of this Chapter you propound a question If the Elders have this power of Rule how are they then the servants of the Church You answer by a similitude A Queen may call her servants her mariners to conduct her over Sea yet they being called by her to such an Office she must not rule them in steering their course c. If such be the case between the Church and her Elders as you say it is I see little or no difference between you and the Brownists For they make the Church a Queen and the Elders but her servants called by her to such an Office to exercise the power of the Keyes in her name You say here The Elders rule the Church from Christ and so from their call and above sect 7. The Church condiscending to the information of the Elders what the Law of Christ is it is a further act of the Elders power to give sentence against the offender Just as the Mariner when the Queene who hath called him to that Office tels him she is resolved to goe to such a place puts her command in execution by steering his course to that place CHAP. VI. Of the Authority of Synods IN that you acknowledge Synods as an Ordinance of Christ and set downe the causes of assembling Churches into Synods we shall easily agree with you The maine controversie is about their power Concerning which you move three questions 1. Q. What power it is they have received which you thus resolve Not only to counsell and give light but also to command and enjoyne things to be beleeved and done But this as was noted in your Prefacers Epistle is but an empty grant For you meane it rather materially than formally by any Authority the Synod hath to bind them to obedience or censure Yes formally you say from the authority of the Synod which being an Ordinance of Christ bindeth the more for the Synods sake But the great scruple is To make their counsell the more weighty and acceptable but not to invest them with more rule or authority The way p 51. what kind of Authority this is whether it differ specifically from the power of a single Pastor or of a Congregationall Presbytery or only gradually as a greater testimony for so some of yours understand it If in this latter sense I see not how it can be called an Ordinance of Christ or authority distinct from the Authority of one single Pastor For he hath Authority ministerially to declare and command people what God commands and declares to be his will with all Authority And this seemes to be your meaning for you say A truth of the Gospell taught by a Minister bindeth to faith and obedience not only because it is Gospell but also because it is taught by a Minister for his callings sake Now suppose 20 or 40 or more Pastors met together teach and declare a truth of the Gospell enjoyne it to their severall Congregations by way of a Decree I aske what difference is there between this Authority of theirs and the Authority of any one of them single If you say none but graduall then I say they have no Authority as a Synod but as Pastors If you say specificall that is juridicall whereas a Pastors is but doctrinall you yeeld the cause as we would have it But then they have a power not only of decreeing which one Pastor hath not but also of censuring upon the disobedience of the people which you will not easily grant Againe I thinke you take the authority of a Presbytery in a Congregation to be an Ordinance of Christ and to differ not only gradually but specifically And the authority of a Pastor or Teacher or Ruling-Elders single Now it may seeme strange if a Synod be an Ordinance of Christ as you grant that a single Presbytery should have a juridicall authority to decree and censure and yet a Synod which is a Presbytery of Presbyteries should have but only a doctrinall authority You may rather deny Synods to be an Ordinance of Christ and call them as your Prefacers call the first Synod of the Apostles a Consultation or if you will a Reference by way of Arbitration for deciding of controversies c. Which the particular Churches unlesse they bind themselves by promise need not stand to but may plead their owne Liberty But say you they have a power if they cannot heale the offenders to determine to withdraw communion from them This power all the Brethren have as to withdraw from their owne Elders apostate so from other Churches obstinate against their admonitions Or if you place any emphasis in the word determine that is to decree a separation from them then you give them a juridicall power which is aequivalent with the power of excommunication whereof withdrawing is but the execution 2. Q. How far the Fraternity may concurre with the Elders in the power of the Synod You resolve it in 3 particulars 1. They have liberty to dispute their doubts among the Elders Acts 15.7.12 The place I thinke is much mistaken The disputation for ought appeares was amongst the Apostles and Elders before the Brethren not by the Brethren And when in v. 12. the whole multitude are said to keep silence it proves not that they did dispute For 1. certainly that had been too much confusion for a multitude to speake all at once 2. Their silence now argues not that they disputed before Acts 21.40 22.2 the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no more but this they were quiet or held their peace from noise or murmurings usuall with multitudes as at an Assizes we feare it they hearkened attentively 2. They had liberty to joyne with the Apostles and Elders in approving the sentence and determining the same as the common sentence of them all That they had a liberty to joyne in approving the sentence is no more than the multitude at an Assizes have to joyne with the Judge in approving of his sentence But that they joyned in determining the same as the common sentence of them all is far more than the multitude have at the Assizes and is as full Authority as the Elders have And yet this you presently deny when you say Yet the Authority of the Decrees lay chiefly if not only in the Apostles and Elders● The Apostles and Elders did no more but joyne with Iames in determining the sentence as the common sentence of them all 3 They had liberty to joyne with the Apostles and Elders in chusing and sending messengers and writing Synodall Letters in the names of all If you meant no more

Churches So perhaps would the Presbyteriall Churches But the question is what is to be done if the Officers of the particular Churches be dead or hereticall who then shall doe those acts Either the Synod must doe it but that you refuse or a Classis The way p. 50 51. or a Presbytery of another Congregation but that you also deny as having no warrant Then it followes the Brethren without Officers must both ordaine Elders Page 100. and excommunicate offenders which you fully grant in the other Tract But as clearly contradict in this as is evident in the former Chapter If it be said for Synodicall Ordination that Matthias was so called to be an Apostle Acts 1. you answer It appeares not they acted them in a Synodicall way But I pray Sir remember what you said above concerning that Synod Acts 15. That it rise up to be a Synod or generall Councell by the Apostles presence they being Elders of all the Churches So it may be said of that Assembly Acts 1. the Apostles presence and the whole Church then extant there assembled made it a Synod and if so then in a Synod there was an Apostle ordained If I may use that word of an Apostle which I may the better to doe by your grants who urge the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Keyes p. 12. he was voted by the common suffrages of them all And if an Apostle much more a Deacon or other Officers as Acts 6. in another like Assembly The other instance of the Presbyters imposing hands upon Paul and Barnabas Paul and Barnabas were ordained to that Office of Apostleship by the imposition of hands of some Officers or members of the Church The way p. 45 was not indeed an Ordination properly so called though you call it a separation of them to the worke of the Apostleship nor in a Synod but in a particular Church yet it was in a Presbytery of Prophets and Teachers perhaps of severall Churches there occasionally met and yeelds us this instruction That Elders of one or more Churches may impose hands that is ordaine in your sense Elders imployed in other Churches for so were Paul and Barnabas Whence we would inferre two things more 1. That if a Classis or Presbytery may ordaine then may a Synod ordaine 2. That however the people or Brethren have no power to ordaine or impose hands for those were Prophets and Teachers that imposed hands on Paul and Barnabas To conclude this Chapter whereas you said The Synod Acts 15. did dispense no censure against the false Teachers an evident argument they left the censure to the particular Churches I answer This is an Argument like the former They dispensed no censure ergo they had no power perhaps they revoked their errour and repented and so there was no need However the Synod could not censure them till they knew them obstinate What was after done we know not CHAP. VII The first Subject of all this Power and of Independency LEtting passe what is said of Christ the soveraigne Subject of all power as out of all question we consider only what you say of Ministeriall power 1. Propos A particular Church or Congregation of Saints is the first subject of all the Church-offices with all their spirituall gifts and power 1 Cor. 3.22 c. But under favour all the Texts produced to prove the Proposition are mistaken or misapplyed The first 1 Cor. 3.22 is not spoken to the Church of Corinth or any other particular Church as a peculiar priviledge unto them but either of all Saints in the world or of those in the Church of Corinth as Saints not promiscuously of the whole Church as a Church consisting of good and bad For was Paul and Apollos was life and death were things present and things to come given to wicked men and hypocrites in that Church was Paul an Apostle and Cephas another given as a peculiar priviledge to the Church of Corinth only Yea is not this meant of the invisible mysticall Church and not of any particular Church For the second 1 Cor. 14.23 you say Theirs was such a Church of whom it is said They came altogether into one place But we have told you at the beginning this was not such a Church as you described A Congregation of Saints professing the faith without their Officers which I thinke you meane here also for these things are taken out of The way p. 1. This was a Church that had many Officers The third Text 1 Cor. 12.28 is not meant of a particular Church For I pray were the Apostles set in the Church of Corinth only as a particular Church Were not they Ministers of all and given to all Churches Your labour about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some to referre it to the Apostles is but a meere criticisme for let it be some or which it matters not For those Apostles or Prophets were not set in the Church of Corinth as the first subject thereof but in the generall visible Church so the paralell place Eph. 4.12 is necessarily meant of the Church of Saints or the body of Christ generally or indefinitely not of this or that particular Church What weake proofes are these for a proposition of so great concernment as being the very foundation of the Independent Government But you read of no Nationall Church nor Nationall Officers given to them by Christ Yet say we we reade of Officers more than Nationall given to the Churches even universall as Apostles and Prophets And some thinke we reade of Nationall Officers such was Titus for Crete as an Evangelist though we take these to be extraordinary 2. We read of Nationall Churches living under one common government as the Churches of Galatia yet but one Church and the Church of Ierusalem had many Congregations yet but one Church And if many Congregations may be called one Church in a City why all the Congregations in a Nation may not be called one Nationall Church I see no great reason Not indeed in a typicall sense as the Church of the Jewes was a Nationall Church 3. You grant that the Officers of particular Churches of a Province or Nation may meet as a Synod by an Ordinance of Christ Iohn speaks of the dimensions of many particular Iewish Churches combining together in some causes even to the communion of a thousand Churches and all of them will have such mutuall care and yeeld such mutuall help and communion one to another as if they were all but one Body The Keyes p. 56. and there determine and enjoyne things for all their Churches and this Synod you call a Church of Churches Now are not those Officers Officers to all those Churches and may not they be called Nationall Officers in a candid sense It is therefore a meere Logomachy to dispute whether there be a Nationall Church or Nationall Officers or no But the Officers themselves say you and the Synods themselves and all their power

to every Church-act it s an easie thing for them to bring in Anarchy being alwaies the greater number and so to swallow up the votes of the Elders as Brownists doe That Ministeriall Doctrinall Authority should be severed from the power of excommunication in some parties we never doubted because excommunication is an act of jurisdiction which is common to many but Doctrinall Authority is an affluxe of Order But to sever Rule and Authority from the power of concurrence to excommunication and censures as they doe in the people is a meer nullity of Rule and Authority too That the power of excommunication should be inseparably linked to a Congregation they would faine illustrate by a knowne comparison As the custome is in our Land The sentencing of a man to death is not by Lawyers nor by Iudges alone but by his Peeres a Iury of men like himselfe Their similitude still halts on the maine legge For who are the Iudges with them but the Presbytery and who are the Iury but all the Brethren But this is not so in a Corporation All the City are not the Delinquents Peeres but a select dozen of men Now suppose a man be accused as an offender in a Corporation shall the whole City be his Peeres or Iury to try him have they any such interest or priviledge is their consent or dissent regarded So the parallell required If a brother deserve censure he shall not be judged by the Pastors alone or with the Elders chosen by the people as his Iury for the Government of the Congregation but all the people are to be his Peeres or Iury This were strange to see in a City and would breed nothing but Anarchy and confusion So in the Church That Christ hath not betrusted a generall Assembly of Elders with that power he hath done the Congregation is begged not proved The reason is invalid Because say they they are abstracted from the people But that 's not true for the people are there representatively in their Elders who are able to represent the case of the offender with all the circumstances as fully as if all the people were there present But Christ say they would have this Tribe of men the brethren personally concurring not by delegation alone not to the execution only but even to the legall sentence also of cutting men off This is all begged and is the question And it is as if they should say in the parallell instance God would have all the Corporation personally concurring to the legall sentence or cutting off a malefactor not by delegation only as the Iury doe nor to the execution only which were a strange confusion So that as at the Assizes the multitude of the people present have no concurrence to the legall sentence c. but the Iudge and Iury only so the Brethren are to have no concurrence to the legall sentence of excommunication except to yeeld obedience in the execution but the Elders only and so the parallell is full And to conclude if the distance of the Presbyteries Clasficall c. may necessitate the censure to pertaine to the particular Congregation because of the circumstances better knowne to them By the same reason every Towne where a malefactor lives should have the Sessions kept amongst them because there the person and fact is better knowne and not one man to be absent from the censure Nay a man being to be excommunicated out of a particular Church is excommunicated out of all Churches therefore all the Churches must be present at the censure VINDICIAE Clavium OR A Vindication of the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven CHAP. I. What the Keyes be and what their power 1. THat by the Kingdome of Heaven is meant both the Kingdome of Glory which is above and the Kingdome of Grace which is the Church on Earth I easily grant But I only desire in the beginning of this discourse to be informed what you meane by the Church Whether 1. The invisible and mysticall Church of true Beleevers opposed to Reprobates or 2. The Catholicke visible Church opposed to Heathens or 3. The particular Congregation of Beleevers associated in church-Church-communion as you use to speake If we may guesse at your meaning by the whole proceeding of this Tract or by your discovery of your selfe in the other Discourse called The way of the Churches in New-England which though it was published after this of the Keyes yet was written and went up and downe in the darke before it I thinke you meane it in the latter sense for a particular Congregation For your first Proposition there gives us this Resolution That the Church which Christ in the Gospell hath instituted The way p. 1. and to which he hath committed the Keyes c. it coetus fidelium a combination of godly men commonly called a particular visible Church But of all the rest this is the most improbable sense of our Saviours words Mat. 16.19 For 1. By the Kingdome of Heaven on Earth he meanes that Church of which he had spoken before in v. 18. But that was either the Catholicke visible Church or rather the invisible mysticall Church for that only is built upon the rocke and against that the gates of hell shall never prevaile whereas particular Churches may faile 2. The kingdome of Glory the one part of the meaning of the Kingdome of Heaven is not contradistinguished to a particular Congregation but to the generall visible Church on Earth opposed to the World by your selfe The Keyes p. 2. On Earth that is say you in the Church on Earth for he gave him no power to bind in the World 3. That Church was there meant say you the way p. 1. whereof Peter was one But Peter was not a member of such a particular congregation for there was none such extant when Christ spake these words to Peter 4. You say againe it was that Church unto which Peter or any offended brother might tell the offence and have it censured But that was never done in a Church of Saints Beleevers without officers neither was the church of Corinth such a church as you described before for that had Officers who authoritatively might censure the incestuous person yet you joyne them both together 5. It was say you a Church who all met in one place for the administration of the Ordinances of Christ But the Ordinances of Christ are not to be found much lesse administred in a Church of Beleevers without Officers 6. When you say Christ committed the Keyes to the Church that is a particular Congregation you must meane it either Subjectivè or Objectivè If you meane it in the latter sense That the Keyes are committed to the Church as the object of the exercise of the Keyes that is for the use and good of the Church you say true but nothing to the purpose In this sense the Keyes are given first and more immediately to the invisible mysticall Church All are yours whether Paul c. then