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A78437 VindiciƦ 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

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an Ecclesiasticall sense for the keyes delivered unto Peter But we goe on The key of Faith say you is the s●me with the key of knowledge Luke 11.52 which the Lawyers had taken aw y. But 1. by your favour the key of Faith and knowledge are not both one if you understand it of justifying Faith A man may have much knowledge and no Faith Knowledge may in a sense be said to be the key of Faith as being the inlet or Antecedent of Faith but so Faith and knowledge are not the same 2. The key of knowledge is one thing and knowledge is another The key of knowledge is the great Ordinance of preaching you said the keyes of the kingdome of Heaven were the Ordinances of Christ as the preaching of the Word the opening and applying of it p. 2 c. But this key of knowledge here you speake of is you say common to all Beleevers but a little before this you complaine that private Christians had usurped this key to preach the Gospell c. page 6 Whereas this key of knowledge is peculiar to the Ministers of the Gospell The Priests lips keep the key of knowledge c. and Faith comes by the Word preached This was the key of knowledge which the Lawyers had taken away either by not interpreting or misinterpreting the Scripture They could not take away the peoples knowledge much lesse their Faith They might take away the key both of knowledge and Faith that is preaching as the Papists doe by locking up the Word in a strange language and ours lately did by crying and putting downe preaching 2. Whereas you say They that had the key of knowledge had power to enter into the kingdome of Heaven and it may be to open the doore to others to enter also I answer The key s given to Peter Matth. 16. were not to open the Kingdome of Heaven to himselfe for that key if a key it was he had before but to open it to others by opening and applying the Word as you said above our Saviour speaks of binding and loosing others Whose sins ye bind on earth c. and of opening for and shutting out others not himselfe Keyes are given to Stewards not properly to let in or shut out themselves but by way of Office to let in or locke out others Besides A priviledge to find an open doore to enter into the fellowship of the Church p. 11. which is passive and in plaine sense one fit to be admitted into the Church So the Epistolers p. 2. The key of knowledge hath opened their hearts that is I think preaching the key of knowledge and Faith which you describe here is common to all Beleevers even women but I beleeve you will not give them a key to open and shut heaven to others that is the key of preaching Then againe why doe you dislike the former distribution when you also make one key to be the key of knowledge and so leave one of the keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven without power contra-distinguishing the key of Faith or knowledge for with you they are both one from the key of power which fals under your key of Order Lastly whereas you say a faithfull soule by this key entreth into a state of grace and into the fellowship of the Church c. You may remember that by the Kingdome of Heaven which is the Church on Earth you understand a particular Congregation But a man may have this key of Faith or knowledge and never enter into your particular Church and so this key is given to a man out of the Church and yet you say the keyes are given to the Church I leave you to consider it These things hang not well together In the next place you come to the key of Order of which you thus write The key of Order is the power whereby every member of the Church walketh orderly himselfe according to his place in the Church and helpeth his brethren to walke orderly also But this is a strange expression of the key of Order never heard of before too generally and aequivocally spoken For Order may be taken either morally or Ecclesiastically Passively or Actively Morally so it is taken passively for a conformity in carriage to the rules of the word in Doctrine as well as discipline But Ecclesiastically it is an Active power acting upon others The very name of a key imports a power intrusted for others good and not their owne properly Every one is to keep Order but every one hath not the key of Order Order and Office in this Ecclesiasticall sense are both one None hath the key of Order but one in Office But your key of Order is common to every member of the Church The Keyes p ge 21. And that it is no more than morall or passive Order your selfe doe seeme to grant when you say The brethren stand in an Order even in an orderly subjection according to the order of the Gospell Every servant in a Family and every man woman and childe in a corporation stand in such an order and must walke orderly themselves and help others to walke orderly also but will any man say therefore these have interest in the keyes of the Family or Corporation If every member of a Congregation have this key of Order how and why are women and children excepted or are they no members of the Church or may they walke disorderly The instance of Saint Pauls walking orderly according to the orders of the Iewish Church manifests the morall sense of the word For certainly the Fraternity of the Iewes had no power of the Keyes The meaning was that Saint Paul by his conformity to some Iewish Ceremonies should manifest that he did not absolutely oppose the Rites of the Iewish Church not that he had any power of the Keyes of the government of that Church Surely the Iewes were bound all of them to withdraw from every brother that walked disorderly yet did not beleeve that that was any part of the exercise of the key of Order No more was it in those of Thessalonica when they did warne the unruly or withdraw from him that walked disorderly And this Key of Order if a Key it were was common not only to Elders and Brethren as you say but even to women and children as I said afore Of Order you say there be 2. Keyes one of power or interest another of Authority or Rule The first of these is called in Scripture Liberty c. Before I examine the particulars I shall note some few things 1. How modest errour is at first Here it is first called power mollified by interest and then by liberty after by priviledge all which are rather passive than active but afterwards it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power which though it sometimes signifies a priviledge honour or dignity Iohn 1.12 in a passive construction as given and received yet when it relates to Government or a power of the Keyes
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-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