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	particular_a	schism_n	3,730	5	9.9397	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26958	A moral prognostication I. what shall befall the churches on Earth, till their concord, by the restitution of their primitive purity, simplicity, and charity, II. how that restitution is like to be made, (if ever) and what shall befall them thence-forth unto the end, in that golden-age of love / written by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing B1311; ESTC R5743	36,590	70

securing of a Faithful Ministry and other good Effects will countervail many such Inconveniences 22. No One Church shall have the Government of Another Church And the secular Differences of Metropolitans Patriarcks c. which was set up in one Empire upon secular Accounts and from secular Reasons shall all cease And no Differences shall be made necessary among them which Christ hath not made necessary But Christian Princes shall take warning by the Greek and Latine Churches and by all the Calamities and Ruins which have been caused in the Christian World by Bishops striving who should be the Greatest when Christ decided the Controversie long ago Luk. 22. 23. As Christians hold Personal Christian Communion in their several particular Churches so Churches shall hold a Communion of Churches by necessary Correspondencies and Associations Not making a Major Vote of Bishops in Synods to have a proper Government over the Minor Part. But that by counsel and concord they may help and strengthen one another and secure the common Interest of Christianity And that he that is a Member of one Church may be received of the Rest and he that is cast out of One may not be received by the Rest unless he be wronged So that it shall not be One Politick Church but a Communion of Churches 24. The Means of this Communion shall be 1. By Messengers 2. By Letters and Certificates Communicatory 3. By Synods 25. These Synods shall as to a few Neighbour Churches be ordinary and stated And the Meetings of Ministers in them shall be improved 1. To the Directing and Counselling of one another in matters doubtful especially of Discipline 2. To edify each other by Conference Prayer and Disputations 3. That the Younger may be Educated under the grave Advice and Counsels of the Elder 4. That the Concord of Themselves and the Churches under them may be preserved But if they would grow Imperious Tyrannical Heretical or Contentious the Magistrate shall hinder their stated ordinary Meetings that it be not accounted a thing simply necessary nor used to the Disturbance of the Church or States And all Provincial National and larger Councels shall be held by the Magistrates Consent 26. He that taketh himself to be wrongfully Excommunicated in one Church shall have a Treble Remedy 1. To have his Cause heard by the Associated Pastors of the Neighbour-Churches though not as Rulers of the Bishop or Pastor of that particular Church yet as Counsellors and such whose Judgment bindeth to Concord in lawful things 2. To be admitted by another Church if it appear that he is wronged And 3. To appeal to the Magistrate as the Preserver of Justice and Order in all Societies 27. The Magistrate shall appoint some of the most Grave and Wise and Godly and Moderate of the Ministers to have a general Inspection over many Churches and to see that they be well Taught and Ordered and that Pastors and People do their Duty who shall therefore oft Visit them and shall Instruct and Exhort the Younger Ministers and with the countenance of the Magistrate and their own Seigniority and Ability shall rebuke the Sloathful and Faulty Ministers and perswade them to Diligence and Fidelity But shall Exercise no outward Force by the Sword nor any Excommunication by themselves alone or otherwise than in the fore-said Regular way 28. All Ordinations shall be performed except in case of Necessity either in the Assembly of the Associated Pastors with their President or in the Vacant Church by some of them appointed by the rest Or by the General Visiter last mentioned with a competent Number of Assistants But still an Ordination to the Ministry in general shall not be taken to be formally the same as the affixing him to this or that Church in particular No more than the Licensing of a Physician is the same with the Affixing him to a particular Hospital 29. A Catalogue shall be drawn up of some of the greatest Verities which are not expresly found in the Creed Lord's Prayer or Decalogue which as the Articles of Confession of the Associated Churches of the Nation shall serve for these Three Uses 1. To satisfie all Forreign Churches against any Accusation that they are Orthodox 2. To examine the Knowledge of such as are admitted to the Ministry by but not to be Subscribed unless only as to a general Acknowledgment of the Soundness of their Doctrine without saying that There is nothing Faulty in them 3. To be a Rule of Restraint to Ministers in their Preaching that none be allowed publickly after Admonition to Preach against any Doctrine contained in them 30. The Usurped Ecclesiastical Power of Bishops and Presbyteries and Councils which were co-ercive or imitated secular Courts or bound the Magistrate to execute their Decrees being cast out and all Pastors restrained from playing the Bishops in other Churches out of their own Charge The Magistrate shall Exercise all Co-ercive Church-Government himself and no more trust the Sword directly or indirectly in the Hands of the Clergy who have long used it so unhappily to the Disturbance of the Christian World and the shedding of so much Innocent Blood Where it may be had there shall be a Church-Justice or Magistrate in every considerable Parish who being present shall himself hear how Ministers preach and behave themselves among their People And all Ministers and Churches shall be Responsible to the Magistrate for all Abuses and mal-Administration If any Minister Preach or Pray seditiously abusively factiously railingly against tolerable Dissenters to the destroying of Christian Love and Unity or Heretically to the Danger of the Peoples Souls or shall exercise Tyranny over the People or live a Vicious Life or be negligent in his Office of Teaching Worship or Discipline or otherwise grosly mis-behave himself He shall be Responsible both as afore-said to the Associated Pastors and Visitor or Arch-Bishop and also to the Magistrate who shall Rebuke and Correct him according to the measure of his Offence And it shall appear that the Magistrate is sufficient for all Co-ercive Church-Government without all the Clergies Usurpations which uphold the Roman and other Tyrannical Societies 31. The Question Who shall be Judge of Heresie Schisme or Church-Sins shall be thus decided 1. The Bishops or Pastors of the particular Churches shall be the Judges who is to be denyed Communion in their Churches as Hereticks Schismaticks c. 2. The Associated Churches shall be Judges in their Synods or by other Correspondence who is to be commonly denyed Communion in all their Churches and what Pastors and Churches shall have the Dextram Communionis and who not 3. The Magistrate shall be the only Judge who is to be punished for Heresie or Schism c. with Fines or any Outward Corporal Penalty And no one shall usurp the others Right 32. The Magistrate shall silence all Preachers that after due Admonition so grosly mis-behave themselves in Doctrine Worship or Conversation as to be the Plagues of the Churches

took up the Sword and Pride swelled the Bishops into a Secular State and way of Rule Then it shall be Church-Government to see that the People be duely taken in the Sacramental-Covenant and learn the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue and be instructed in the Word of God and Live together in Sobriety Righteousness and Godlyness And the Pastors shall leave all Secular Matters to the Magistrates and be no more troubled nor corrupted by their use of any forcing Power Their Government shall be a Paternal Authoritative Exercise of Instruction and of Love and no more Like that of a Tutor to his Pupils a Physician in his Hospital a Phylosopher in his School supposing a Divine Commission and Rule The Church it self shall be all their Courts supposing the Magistrates and the People the Witnesses and the present incumbent Pastors be the Judges without Excommunicating and Absolving Lay-Chancellors Surrogates Commissaries or Officials And all the Materials of Contention being now gone they shall have nothing to do in these Courts but to try whether the People have learnt and understand their Cathechisms and consent to God's Covenant and Communicate in his Worship with the Church And when any are accused of Wicked Living contrary to Sobriety Righteousness and Godlyness to try whether these Accusations be well proved And if so to perswade the Offenders to Repent and by plain Scripture-Arguments to convince them of the Sin and with Tears or Fatherly Tenderness and Love to melt them into Remorse and bring them to confess and forsake the Sin And if this cannot be done at once to try again and again and pray for their Repentance And when there is no other Remedy to Declare such a one openly uncapable of church-Church-Communion and to require the Church to avoid Communion with him and him to forbear intruding into their Communion and to bind him over by a Ministerial Denunciation of God's Displeasure as against the Impenitent to answer it at the Bar of God himself as one that is under his Wrath till he do Repent And this is the utmost of the Pastoral Power that shall then be used supposing private Admonitions And this only in that Church or Congregation wherein the Sinner had before his Communion and not at a distance nor in other Churches or Parts of the World where the Pastor hath no Charge Yea this Much shall not be exercised Irregularly and at Randome to the Injury of the Flock but under the Rules and Remedies afterward here exprest 12. The Primitive-Church-Form shall be Restored And as where there are Christians enow no Churches shall be too small so none shall be greater for Number or Distance than to be one true particular Church that is A Society of Christians united as Pastor and People for Personal Communion and Assistance in God's Publick Worship and Holy Living That is so many as may have this Personal Communion if not all at once yet per vices as oft as is fit for them to meet with the Church which all in a Family cannot usually do at once So that Ignatius his Church-Mark shall be restored To every Church there is one Altar and one Bishop with his Fellow-Presbyters and Deacons And there shall no more be a Hundred or Six Hundred or a Thousand Altars to one Bishop primi Gradus and in one Church of the first Form called a Particular Church Nor shall all the Particular Churches be Un-churched for want of true Bishops nor all their Pastors degraded into a new Order of Teaching-Ministers that have no Power of Pastoral-Government Nor the true Discipline of the Churches be made a meer impossible thing whil'st it is to be exercised by one Bishop only over many hundred Congregations which do every one of them afford full work for a present Bishop Nor shall the Bishops Office be thought so little Holy any more than Preaching and Sacramental-Administrations as to be performable by a Lay-Delegate or any one that is not really a Bishop But the People shall know them that are Over them in the Lord which labor among them and admonish them and shall esteem them very highly in Love for their Work sake and shall be at Peace among themselves 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Such Bishops as Dr. Hammond in his Annot. describeth that had but One Church and Preached Baptized Chatechized Visited the Sick took Care of the Poor Administred the Lord's Supper Guided every Congregation as present in Publick Worship and privately instructed and watched over all the Flocks shall be in every Church that can obtain such 13. Where the Churches are so great as to need as most will do and so happy as to obtain many faithful Presbyters or Pastors whether they shall Live together in a single Colledge-life or Married and at a distance and whether one as the chief or Bishop shall be President and have a Negative Voice or all be equal in a Concordant guidance of the Flocks shall be left to the choise and liberty of the several Churches by mutual Consent of Pastors and People and Magistrates to do and vary as their several States and Exigences shall require And shall neither be called Anti-christian or odious Tyranny on the one side nor made of necessity to the Churches Communion or peace on the other as long as the true Pastoral or Episcopal Office is Exercised in every particular Church 14. Neither Magistrates nor other Bishops shall make the Bishops or Pastors Sermons and Prayers for him but leave it as the work of the speakers Office to word his own Sermons and Prayers and to choose a set form or no set-form the same or various as the case requireth yet so as to be responsible as after for all abuses and mal-administrations and not suffered to deprave Gods Worship by confusion or hurtful Errours or passionate and perverse Expressions But to be assisted and directed to use his Office in the most edifying ways by such kind of helps as his personal weaknesses shall require And where set-forms are used none shall quarrel with them as unlawful 15. None of the People shall have the high Priviledges of Church Communion and Sacraments bestowed on them against their Wills No more than a Man impeninent and unwilling shall be Ministerially Absolved from the Guilt of Sin For every Sacramental Administration whether of Baptism or of the Body and Blood of Christ is as full an Act of Ministerial Absolution as any Pastor can perform And what he doth to particular Persons upon their Penitence after a lapse that the Pastor doth to the whole Church at the Lords Supper And as Consent is made by Christ the Condition of Pardon and Covenant-Ben●fits which no Non-consenter hath a Title to so therefore Professed Consent is necessary to the Sacramental Collation or Investiture And those that are but constrained by the apparent danger of a Fine or Jail are not to be accounted Voluntary Consenters by the Church when the Lord of the Church will account none for Consenters

Wordly Ends. 90. And the young and indifferent sort of People in all Countrys that were engaged in neither part being but strangers to Religion and to the differences will be ready to judge of the Cause by the Persons and seeing so many of the Dignified Advanced Clergy and the more sensual sort of the People on one side and so many Men of strict lives on the other that suffer also for their Religion and hearing too that it is some Name of Preciseness that they are Reproached by will think them to be the better side And so the title of the Godly will grow by degrees to be almost Appropriated to their Party and the Title of Prophane and Persecuters to the other 91. All this while the Nonconforming Ministers will be somewhat differently affected according to the different degrees of their Judiciousness Experience and Self-denyal Some of them will think these Passions of the People needful to check the Fierceness of the Afflicters which doth but Exasperate it And therefore will let them alone though they will not encourage them Some of the younger or more injudicious hot-brain'd sort will put them on and make them believe that all Communion with any Conforming Ministers or their parish-Parish-Churches is unlawful and their forms of Worship are Sinful and Anti-christian and that they are all Temporizers and Betrayers of Truth and Purity that Communicate or Assemble with them The judicious and experienced and most patient and self-denying sort will themselves abstain from all that is Sin and as far as it is in their choice and power will joyn with the Churches that Worship God most agreeably to his Word and Will But so as that they will not be loud in their Complaints nor busy to draw Men to their Opinions in Controvertible Points nor will unchurch and condemn all the Churches that have something which they dislike as Sinful nor will Renounce the Communion of all faulty Churches lest they Renounce the Communion of all in the World and Teach all others to Renounce theirs But they will sometimes Communicate with the more faulty Churches to shew that they unchurch them not so they be not forced in it to any Sin Though usually they will prefer the purest yea ordinarily they will joyn with the more faulty when they can have no better or when the publike good requireth it They will never prefer the Interest of their Nonconforming Party before the Interest of Christianity or the Publike good They will so defend lesser Truths as not to neglect or disadvantage the greater which all are agreed in They will so preserve their own Innocency as not to stir up other Mens Passions nor to make factions or divisions by their difference They will so dislike the pride and worldliness of others and their injuries against God and Godliness as not to speak Evil of Dignities nor to Cherish in the Peoples Minds any Dishonourable injurious thoughts of their Kings or any in Authority over them They will Labour to allay the passions of the people and to rebuke their censorious and too sharp Language and to keep up all due Charity to those by whom they Suffer but especially Loyalty to their Kings and Rulers and Peaceableness as to their Countrys They will teach them to distinguish between the Cruel that are Masters of the Game and all the rest that have no hand in it and at least not to separate from all the rest for the sake of a few If they will go as far as Martin in Sulpitius Severus to avoid all Communion with Ithacius and Idacius and the Councils of Bishops that Prosecuted the Priscillianists to the scandal of Godliness it self yet not for their sakes to avoid all others that never consented to it nor with Gildas to say of all the bad Ministers that he was not Eximius Christianus that would call them Ministers or Pastors rather than Traitors They will perswade the People to discern between Good and Evil and not to run into Extreams nor to dislike all that their Afflicters hold or use nor to call things lawful by the name of Sin and Anti-christianity nor to suffer their Passions to blind their Judgments to make superstitiously New Sin and Duties in opposition to their Adversaries Nor to disgrace their Understandings and the Truth by Errours Factions Revilings or Miscarriages nor to run into Sects nor to divide Christs House and Kingdom while they pretend to be his Zealous Servants They will perswade the People to Patience and Moderation and Peace and to Speak Evil of no Man nor by Word or Deed to Revenge themselves Much less to resist the Authority that is set over them by God but to imitate their Saviour and quietly Suffer and being reviled not to revile again but to Love their Enemies and Bless their Cursers 92. The soberer sort of the People will be Ruled by these Counsels and will do much to quiet the rest But the Heretical part with their own Passions will Exasperate many Novices and Injudicious Persons to account this Course and Counsel aforesaid to be but the effect of Luke-wa●mness and Carnal Compliance with Sin and a halting between two Opinions and a Participation in the Sin of Persecutors and Malignant Enemies of Godliness And they will believe that whoever joyneth with the Parish Churches in their way is guilty of Encouraging them in Sin and of false Worship 93. Hereupon they will defame the Non conforming Ministers last described as Men of no Zeal neither Flesh nor Fish and perhaps as Men that would Save their Skin and shift themselves out of Sufferings and betray the Truth And when such Ministers acquaint them with their unsound Principles and Passions they will say of them that they speak bitterly of the Godly and joyn with the Persecutors in reproaching them 94. And they will carry about among themselves many false Reports and Slanders against them Partly because Passion taketh off Charity and Tenderness of Conscience and partly because an Opinionative Modal and Siding Religiousness hath ever more Followers and a quicker Zeal than true Holiness And partly because they will think that humane converse obligeth them to believe the Reports which those that are accounted good Men utter And partly because that they will think that the upholding of their Cause which they think is Gods doth need the Suppression of these Mens Credit and Reputation that are against it 95. But the greater part of the honest Non-conformist Ministers will dislike the headiness and rashness of the Novices and the Sectaries and will approve of the aforesaid moderate Wayes But their opportunities and dispositions of Expressing it will be various Some of them will do it freely whatever be thought of it And some of them that have impatient Auditors will think that it is no duty to attempt that which will not be endured and that it is better to do what good they can than none And some will think that seeing the Worldly Clergy forbid them to

that will not forsake all and endure Fines and Jailes rather than to be deprived of the benefits of Mystical and Visible church-Church-Communion The Magistrate therefore will Wisely and Moderately bring all the People to Hear that which is necessary to their good but will not by Penalties force the unwilling to receive either Absolutions or Communion with the Church in its special priviledges But if the Baptized refuse Church-Communion afterwards they lamentably punish themselves And if it be found meet to declare them Excommunicate it will be a terrible penalty sufficient to its proper use 16. The Magistrate will not Imprison Harm Confiscate Banish or otherwise punish any of his Subjects eo nomine because they are Excommunicate For that is to punish his Body because his Soul is punished Nor will he hearken to those unbelieving Clergy-Men that cry up the Power of the Keys as their Office and when they have done scorn it as an uneffectual shaddow of Power which will do nothing without the Magistrates force But he will himself hear and judge before he Punish and not be debased to be the Clergies Executioner to punish before he have tryed the Cause Because Clergy-Mens Pride and Passions may else ingage him to be the Instrument of their Vices and Revenge Yea as he that seeth a Man punished in one Court will be the more delatory to bring him to punishment in another for the same Crime so the Magistrate that seeth a Man Excommunicated for his fault will rather delay his civil force against that Man to see what effect his Excommunication will have Because the Conjunction of the Sword against the Excommunicate as such doth corrupt Christs Ordinance and make the Fruit of it utterly undiscernable so that no one can see whether ever it did any thing at all or whether all was done by the fear of the Sword And verily a faithful Minister that seeth a Sinner come to Confession of his fault but when he must else lye in Jail and be undone will be loath to take that Man for a true Penitent And to force Pastors to absolve or give the Sacrament to every one that had rather take it than lye in Jail and be undone is to set up such new Terms of Church Communion which Christ will give Men little thanks for Church Communion is only a Priviledge due to Volunteers and Penitents But yet the Magistrate may punish Men with Fines or other Penalties for the same faults for which they are Excommunicate having Tryed and Judged them in his own Court But not quaterus Excommunicate but according to the nature of the Crime 17. The Schools of Learning and Academies shall not Educate Youth either in Idleness Luxury or Hypocritical formality but under Learned Pious Tutors in Learning Sobriety and Piety From whence they shall not over-hastily leap into the Pastoral Office 18. None under Thirty Years of Age at what time Christ himself entered on his publick Works shall take a Pastoral Charge except in case of meer necessity of the Church no not on pretence of Extraordinary fitness But till then shall imploy themselves as Learners Catechists School-Masters or Probationers Nor shall they meddle in the Pulpits with matters of such Controversies as the Church is in Danger to be troubled with 19. Ministers shall all be commanded by the Magistrate and advised by the Neighbour Pastors to forbear all unnecessary Controversies in the Pulpits and to teach the people the foresaid Substantials the Covenant of Grace the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue the Duties of Faith Love Repentance and Obedience And shall reserve their Subtiler and curious Speculations for Schools and Theological Writings And so the Christian People shall be bred up in the Primitive Plain Simplicity of Doctrine and Religion And their Brains shall not be heated and racked with those new-coined Phrases and Subtilties which will but distemper them into a proud contentious wrangling Disease but will not be truly understood by them when all 's done And so when it is the peoples work to hear only usually the Doctrine of the Catechisme and simple old Christianity and to talk of no other 1. Their time will be employed in promoting Faith Repentance Love and Obedience which was wont to be spent in vain Janglings and strife of Words And 2. Religion will be an easier thing and consequently will be more common as cheap Food and Rayment is every ones Penny-worth And Ministers may hope to bring the generality of their People to be savingly and practically Religious Whereas the Fine spun Religion of Novelists and Wranglers that pretend new Light and Increase of Knowledge doth not only dwindle into a Cob-web of no Use or Life or Power but must be confined to a Few that can have leisure to learn to Talk in new Phrases and will but become the Matter of ignorant Men's Pride and Ostentation and make them think that they only are the Religious People and all that cannot talk as they are Prophane and not to be admitted to their Communion When as the Apostolick Primitive plain Religion without the Laces and Whimsies that Dreamers have since introduced would make Men Humble Holy Heavenly Obedient Meek and Patient and spare Men the Loss of a great deal of Time 20. The Maintenance of the Ministry shall neither be so poor as to discourage Men from devoting their Children to the Office or disable them from a total Addictedness to their proper Work by any distracting Wants or Cares or yet wholly disable them from Works of Charity Nor yet so Great as may be a strong Bait to Proud Covetous Worldly minded Men to intrude into the Ministry for fleshly Ends. It shall be so much as that the Burden of their Calling may not be increased by Want But yet not so much but that Self-denyal shall be Exercised by all that under-take the Ministry and of the Two the Burden of the Ministerial Labors with its proper Sufferings shall to Flesh and Blood seem to preponderate the worldly Advantage So greatly needful is it to the Church that all Ministers be Self-denying Men that valuing Things spiritually can practise Humility Mortification and Contempt of the World as well as preach it 21. There shall be a Treble-Lock upon the Door of the Ministry 1. Whether they are fit to be Ministers in the general the Ordainers shall judge 2. Whether they are fit to be the Pastors of this or that particular Church the Members of the Church shall so far judge as that none shall become their Pastors without their own consent 3. Whether they be fit for the Magistrates Countenance Maintenance and Protection the Magistrate himself shall judge And therefore all Three shall severally try and approve each Pastor Yet so that the Two First only be taken as necessary to the Office it self and the Third only to the Maintenance and Encouragement or Defence of the Officer And though sometimes this may occasion Disagreements and Delayes for a time yet ordinarily the