Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	church_n	true_a	visible_a	19,269	5	9.3685	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86680	An addition or postscript to The vindication of the essence and unity of the Church-Catholick visible, and the priority thereof in regard of particular churches. In answer to the objections made against it, both by Mr. Stone, and some others. / By Samuel Hudson ...	Hudson, Samuel, 17th cent.	1658 (1658)	Wing H3263; ESTC R202480	42,930	59

of their own souls and the good of others I intend not to carp but shall give as candid an interpretation as may be of their words I suppose by Saints they mean visible Saints Saints by dedication and consecration and not absolutely of Saints by regeneration for as they have no certain rules to judge thereof in others so also they can never be sure they are in a true Church but will still be scrupulous in their communion and cannot dispense or communicate in faith but doubtingly They are also very tender in expressing the form or as some will have it the Cement of this particular society and therefore have left out the word Covenant either explicite or implicite and so I hope they intend to let in parochial Congregations into the definition though not independent for there is such a mutual union among them For mutual worship I suppose they mean joining in publick worship and not as we speak of mutuall duties between man and wife to be performed to each others but worship performed by them jointly to God But I marvell that this definition mentions not any relation of this particular Church to some officer or officers to whom they should subject themselves and by whom they should be taught edified and governed and who should be Gods mouth to them and their mouth to God I am loth to be too bold or peremtory in guessing at their meaning but haply it is because they intend to put the keys of discipline into the body of this Congregation which can exercise them without officers or because they can set up un-ordained private members to preach and pray among them and so make up their mutual worship also without an officer or Ambassadour of Christ to whom is committed the word of reconciliation for indeed that is the scope of their book though they do acknowledge that there ought to be such officers or haply they feared to be unchurched again by the death of such an officer if they had put him into their definition They say also that the end of this mutual union is for the edification of their own souls but that must imply them all truly converted but I mervail that they make no provision in their definition for the education instruction and conversion of children born members of their Congregation and servants of their members seeing by Gods appointment and the usage in Old and New Testament the parent or master brings his whole family into covenant aswel as himself and a part of the Ministers office is to go to the lost sheep of the house Israel to convert unconverted persons as well as edifie converted They say nothing also of their mutual inspection and watching over one another for which this way is so highly cryed up above others haply it is because their members dwel so far remote in so many parishes that they see it is impossible to do it They grant an universal company of Saints in a reformed sense comprehending every individual Saint-member thereof whether formed into fellowship or unformed but as Saints not as Churches of Saints I acknowledge it is true the particular visible believers are the matter of the universal Church whether formed into Congregations or no for that is but a secondary accidental relation that betideth them and enters not into the essence of their Christianity It is true their particular membership of this or that Congregation coms by their union with it but were they not members and subjects of Christs political visible Kingdom before any such union and initiated into it by one of his officers yet not as a particular officer of a Congregation for none are baptized into a Congregation but as by an indefinite officer of the universal visible Church of Christ And an indefinite officer in relation to his imployment and general object is equivalent to a general and that is the prime relation of a Minister and that to a particular Congregation is secondary as it consists of a parcel of the universal Church over whom he takes especial actual constant care and charge They say the World is universal of which all creatures are a part yet did a man stand where he might see all Countries and all crearures he should see but a particular world really particular but intellectually universal Answer If by particular world they mean in relation to a general world it is not true for one particular cannot make up an universal and there was never any world but this one But if by particular they mean an individual integral world it is true and that is it which I contend for in this Vindication that the universal or Oecumenical Church cannot put on the notion of a Church in genere but of a great individual integral and so both the world and universal Church are whether a man stands where he can see them or no they are integraliter universale as Ames calls the universal Church It is true that they say did a man stand where he might see all the Corporations and all particular civil societies of men he might acknowledge the general nature of Corporations existing in either of them or the integral nature rather and from them all abstract a general nature and yet deny an universal Corporation consisting of them as parts thereof But this comes to pass because the several Corporations or polities are constituted by several Charters granted from several sovereigns under several laws But the universal Church hath but one Charter from one sovereign under the same systeme of laws and the officers indefinite officers in reference to their imploiment to which they are called by Christ and may exercise the same towards any of the subjects of that whole Ecclesiastical body as they have opportunity and a call which the officers of the several civil Corporations cannot do They answer that text 1 Cor. 12.28 God hath set in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets c. which is usually brought to prove an universal visible Church by paralleling it with what is said ver 18. God hath set the members every one in the body And if that will not conclude a Catholick body neither will the former conclude a Catholick Church I answer the difference between them is great for the several bodies though they may have a general consideration and notion put upon them or abstracted from them rather of body in genere yet are they not united together into one individual body by any external bond they are not integrally one but only generically or specifically one But the universal Church is united into one body by a visible external bond yea bonds of the same Sovereign the same Laws the same Covenant the same Initiation and enrowlment and the same indefinite Officers over it And this is the primary consideration that coms upon it before any particular distinctions into Congregations which consist of parcells of that great body And therefore that which the Apostle saith ver 27. ye are the body

once bound themselvs by marriage promise or indenture they may compel them to hold so and to obey and reform themselvs So is the case between Christ and his visible Church Secondly it is objected that we are not fit matter for a Church and therefore not fit to be made Churches or to be joined withall Answer was there not as unfit matter in the Jewish Church before Christs coming and yet the Church for the essence of it was the same then and now yea was there not as unfit matter in the Churches in the Apostles time at Corinth and Phillippi c see the texts before named and tell me if we have worse matter then there was and yet what the Gospell there saith it saith to them that are under the Gospell Give an instance of any man or woman that ever professed beleef in and subjection to Christ in all the New Testament that ever was denyed admission into the visible Church or that was cast out meerly for want of the power of godliness The Apostles instructed informed reproved and sought to amend them and if they were hereticall or notorious and obstinate excommunicated them and that we allow and could heartily wish were still done and hope may in due time Doth a shepherd turn the diseased sheep out of his flock quite and feed only the sound ones no he is to strengthen the diseased and heal the sick and bind up the broken and bring again that which was driven away and seek up that which is lost Ezek. 34.4 Indeed it is requisite he should separate the scabbed and diseased from the rest for a time lest they infect the rest and then having cured them to put them together into the same fold Ministers are sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as Christ commandeth Mat. 10.6 and not to feed the sound ones only that went not astray and what manner of people Christ meant by those lost sheep I need not tell you such I believe as many in our age would have passed by as the Priest and Levite did the wounded man in the parable or counted goats rather then sheep Yea but the members of the Churches in the New Testament that grew so corrupt did not appear so at their admission into the Church Ans We know they were new Converts to the faith of Christ and immediately admitted by baptism even by thousands of a day and that when they were men grown without any strict enquiry of the truth of grace in them and without any waiting for experience of their godly conversation Philip baptized Simon the Sorcerer after his profession of his belief in Christ who yet was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity and of all men one would have thought he should have been well tryed first but was not And the Apostle saith of some members in the Church of Corinth that they had not the knowledg of God he spake it to their shame Surely if they had had it at their first admission into Church they would not have lost it afterward under the Ministry of their teachers Indeed they might corrupt in manners or in judgment but not lose their knowledg and grow sotts But there is a great deal of difference between a Church at the first constitution of it when possibly they may pick choice members as they did at first in N. E. when they went over thither men converted by the Ministry in Old England before they went thither and a successive Church in after ages which consist of a new generation and seed of the former aetas parentum pejor avis tulit nos nequiores mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem The Churches succeeding the Apostles age were not so pure as in the Apostles times and yet then they were bad enough and I fear the succeeding Churches in N. E. will not prove altogether so pure and eminent for sincerity of grace and holy conversation as their first were and yet our brethren do not hold that corrupt members in such a successive Church doth unchurch them and alas that is our condition in this nation the Lord in mercy reform and amend us Thirdly it is objected against us that we are not rightly constituted because we want an explicite Congregational covenant and so the true form Answer Thus you see I am inforced to return to speak of the Covenant again But I answer that all our Brethren for the Congregationall way do not unchurch us for want of that and I think I may clear our Brethren in N. E. from that aspersion and some of our Brethren at home who have lately written require but a mutuall agreement for joint worship of God and I am sure that may be found in our Congregations and both have been and might be more but for these new scruples put into their minds For my part I am not against an explicite Covenant in our Congregations but wish they were as willing to it as they are in many places willing to come to an agreement with their Ministers for their tithes if they can get advantage thereby as most what they do abundantly For by such a covenant I conceive they should be more bound to their Ministers as well as their Ministers to them and it might haply be a means to cause them to submit the better to our instructions reproofs admonitions inspection and discipline but I dare not stamp jus divinum upon it neither do I find any hint of it in Scripture or primitive times and therefore cannot believe there was any but that they stood bound by their general Covenant to submit to the Ministers that were set over them in the Lord in their several places Neither dare I think it is that which gives people right to Gods Ordinances nor that it can divolve such a priviledge upon the members that enter into it to invest them with the power of the keys to admit members make officers to invest and divest them and have all Church power radically in themselvs I know M. Stone doth not make it the form of a particular Congregation but the Cement rather but truly as it is used or abused rather by many about us I fear it wil prove but untempered morter For first people are so eager of it that some people will join with Antipaedobaptists Millenaries and fift monarchy-men or any sect so they may but be in a covenant Secondly it is raised up as a partition wall between them and all the rest of the Churches of Christ though they be in implicite covenant and agreement together and with their Pastors so that they will not communicate with them though never so religious reformed and eminent Congregations nor suffer any of them though never so godly and so acknowledged by them to communicate with themselves They will not baptize any of our children nor suffer us to baptize any of theirs nay they will not so much as stay to see any of our children baptized if they be occasionally