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
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
B02447 Some queries touching excommunication published by the people of God, (termed in derision Quakers) to be considered by all the bishops and synods of this nation, or any others that may be concerned in such proceedings against them. But most especially, by the present bishop and synod of Aberdeen. Cowie, John, fl. 1683. 1682 (1682) Wing C6648; ESTC R171572 6,690 11

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

Some Queries touching EXCOMMUNICATION Published by the People of GOD termed in derision Quakers to be considered by all the Bishops and Synods of this Nation or any others that may be concerned in such Proceedings against them But most especially by the present Bishop and Synod of Aberdeen I. Quer. SEing ye alleadge ye have your Power or Authority to Excommunicate from GOD and from Christ How and after what manner have ye it mediately or immediately If immediately how can that be seing ye affirm that immediate calls are ceased generally since the Apostles dayes and seeing ye blame us for pretending to an immediate call because as you think immediate calls are ceased Again you say men may be lawfully called and authorized to Preach and do all Ministerial Offices who are but Natural and unconverted men and have no inward acquaintance and fellowship with God and such men ye allow them to excommunicate whom ye think to deserve such a censure and you say they have authority so to do and yet you cannot say they have an immediate call from God thereunto If mediately then tell us what is the first Original and rise of this mediate call and what are all the middle-steps or midses betwixt the first and the last for either the first rise and original must be the Apostles who were immediately called or some since the Apostles dayes about the beginning of the Reformation that were immediately called for all mediate calls must at last resolve in an immediate call otherwise there would be an infinite progress which is absurd If ye deduce the rise of your mediate call from those who were immediately called about the time of the first Reformation then ye must grant that the first Reformers were immediately called as the Apostles and Evangelists were which contradicts your common Principle that immediate calls are generally ceased since the Apostles dayes Again if the first Reformers were immediately called they were also immediately gifted and furnished what to say and to preach and to write for all that ever had the one had the other as you may read in the Scripture And if they were immediately gifted and furnished then they were immediately inspired and consequently what they spoke and wrote by the same was by the infallible Spirit of Truth and of the same Authority with the Words and Writings of the Apostles and Prophets which is contrare to another common Principle of yours that all writings since the Apostles dayes are but Humane and not Divine nor Divinely inspired for if divinely inspired they should be equal to Scripture and deserve to be bound up in the Canon which you will not acknowledge But if you deduce your mediate call from the Apostles who lived about 1600. years ago then I ask by what Church or Church-officers is this your mediate call descended unto you from the Apostles whether by the Church of Rome and her Bishops and Popes yea or nay Or by what other Church or Church-Officers And if the Church of Rome and her Bishops unto which only in a visible succession ye can have any colour to lay claime then I ask hath not the Church of Rome and her Bishops degenerat since the Apostles daies Have not ye your selves called Protestant-Ministers and Preachers oft Preached and Printed it That the Church of Rome for these many hundreds of years to wit the visible Church hath been an Apostate Church and her Bishops Apostates from the true Faith delivered unto the Apostles And did ye not deny her to be a true Church and on that account did not your Predecessours the first Reformers separate from her And did not the Church of Rome and her Popes excommunicate your Predecessours and such of them who once had her call she degraded them and took it away from them And to this day she denieth you and excommunicateth you all every year so that ye are all above an hundred times excommunicated by her Now are ye not ashamed to derive your call from her who is an harlot and the mother of harlots as your selves have called her and from Babylon and from the Synagogue of Satan as ye have also called her And are ye not ashamed to derive your call from the Pope of Rome whom ye have oft called Antichrist and some of the Popes of Rome by whom your mediat call is descended unto you were Witches and Necromancers as Hildebrand who was also a vile Murtherer and one of them is reported to be a Woman and vile Harlot that bear a Child in the time of her Procession and this the Protestants have objected against the Papists very often and yet these are the persons whom ye derive your mediate call from to excommunicate us from Witches from Necromancers from a Whore both Spiritually and Carnally from Babylon from the Synagogue of Satan and from Antichrist himself A strange thing that Antichrist should have a just and true Power and Authority to make and call Ministers of Christ and yet more strange that these whom Antichrist hath excommunicated above an hundred times should from him claim their Power as from their lawful Predecessour to excommunicate others Answer these plain Questions plainly and clearly and call not this Railing for it is not railing to speak the Truth not to seek to find out and discover the Truth And seing your call is mediate from the Apostles must it not be a visible call for a mediate invisible call is a contradiction and if it be a visible call must ye not visibly in a visible way by visible Successours from the very Apostles derive it unto your own time who have transmitted it visibly by Ordination and laying on of hands as the manner of your mediate call is Now that the Protestants and even the Presbyterians derive their call to the Ministrie mediately from the Church of Rome notwithstanding her Apostacie because some thorow ignorance may deny it let them read James Durham in his exposition on the Revelation see his twentie third and 24th Digressions II. Quer. WHat is the nature of your Excommunication is it a cutting us off really and totally from all the Spiritual union and communion with God and them who are truely and really the people of God where ever they are throughout the World Or is it not a real cutting off and a real separating us from them only pretended and seeming for one these two it must needs be seing there is no midst betwixt them now if it be but pretended and seeming it is false and vain neither have we nor any other cause to lay weight upon it If it be a real cutting us off and separating us from Spiritual union with God and his People then ye must needs have a knowledge of us that we are none of us in the least measure of the number of Gods People and that none of us have the least measure of true Faith true love to God true holiness and piety and how know ye that none of us