Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	apostle_n	church_n	time_n	1,642	5	3.9468	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30650	A vindicaton of churches, commonly called Independent, or, A briefe answer to two books the one, intituled, Twelve considerable serious questions, touching church-government, the other, Independency examined, unmasked, refuted, &c. : both lately published by William Prinne ... / Henry Burton ...	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.	1644 (1644)	Wing B6176; ESTC R20892	61,118	78

of Christ under his onely jurisdiction and government So as herby great mischiefes may redound even to the purest Church when once things come to be carried by the vote of a generall or Classicall Assembly of Divines swaying things besides the Rule and stretching them beyond their line And therefore famous was that saying of Nazianzens * That he never saw any good to come of generall Councels because commonly Camelion-like they change their hue with the nearest object complying with the condition of the present times and State as suppose Prelaticall Spirits should turne to be your Presbyterians or as when in case the Lord Christ shall resume his Kingdome over his Churches in a civill State we should perhaps see some of your Presbyterians as fast to turn Independants were the preferments sutable But some may object that one Church standing by it selfe is more subject to fall into errour then when combined with other Churches To which I answer That every particular Church injoying its own freedome without any injoyned combination with other Churches may much longer preserve it selfe from danger of errour when it hath its free choise in matters of difference or difficulty to consult onely with those Churches which it knows to be most sound and orthodox then when it is fast bound and incircled with this or that combination of Churches being in number twelve or twenty or more or lesse whose votes must carry every controversie according to the severall humours of such and such at all adventure And brother Prynne the world is not so plentifull of sound spirits as to supply every Hundred in the Land with twelve or twenty able and godly Ministers to be of a combination Nay you may observe what poore shifts are used for the supplying of places with godly and able Ministers which are grown so geason that the City now is faine to be supplyed with plundered countrey Ministers in stead of their out-cast Malignants And suppose all these to be as good as they should be where shall those country-places be supplyed And besides such is the penury of good Ministers if not of care to provide better if possible that such as are for their demerits cast out of one place are for I wot not what merits put upon some other people where their good qualities are not knowne Being such as verifie the Proverb {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} They change their mansion but not their manners And besides all this he is one very meanly gifted now adayes that will be wooed and won to take a Benefice under a hundred or sixescore pounds And brother why should godly Ministers indeed be yoked with such earth-wormes and Mammonists as are in some Parishes and as some of your Presbyterian combinations would necessitate us unto If you say if things goe amisse in lesser Classes they may be remedied in a generall Assembly then I say there is the like reason of a generall Assembly that there is of all the severall classes put together For totius partium eadem est ratio if all the members be corrupt so also must the whole body be Therefore the case must needs be hard when one or two Churches in a classis or combination that are sound should be bound to the decisions of the rest being unsound and so for the generall Assembly in the like proportion The fifth Question It is reduced thus That whose grounds and reasons tend inevitably to endanger overthrow and embroyle Ecclesiasticall or civill formes of Government ought not to be suffered But such is the Independent church-government it tends inevitably c. Therefore it ought not to be suffered I deny the Assumption The grounds and reasons of true church-government do not in their own nature tend to the indangering overthrowing and embroiling of Ecclesiasticall or civill formes of Government Horm confess sect. 11. of the confess of A●spurg art 7. Power Ecclesiasticall no more hindreth the civill then the skill of musicke neither is it to be confounded with civill And ibid. They to wit the Prelates transforme the church into a humane Government For they would doe all in imitation of civill Government But if they produce any such effect it is onely accidentall and the maine cause is in such Ecclesiasticall or civill bodies when they shew some antipathy in their constitution to Christs kingdome and government by their opposing or oppressing of it Hereupon Christ saith * Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth I came not to send peace but a sword And it was the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdome both by Christ and his Apostles for which they were exclaimed against and persecuted as troublers of the State both Ecclesiastick and Politick as movers of sedition and perverters of the people and the like And will you thereupon conclude that the preaching of the Gospel and setting up of Christs kingdome in his churches is a troubler of the State and a mover of sedition and a seducer of the people because Hierarchicall Government hath an Antipathy with Christs Spirituall Kingdome and Church-government The sixth Question The summe where of is That which from the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel downwards till this present age had no being in the world can doubtlesse be no Church-Government of Christs or his Apostles But such say you is the Government of Independent Churches Therefore not Christs or the Apostles Church-government I deny your Assumption And for further answer thereto I referre you to my Answer to your third and fourth Question where is cleerely proved that all the Churches founded and planted by Christ and his Apostles were in themselves respectively absolute and free Churches which though they had communion with all their sister-Sister-Churches yet you can never prove your classicall or Synodicall Jurisdiction of either a Provinciall Church as you call it or a Generall Counsell over every particular Church to have the least footing or beeing at all in the Scripture 2. In the Ecclesiasticall Histories for the first 200. yeers we finde as was noted above sufficient ground for it but none for the combined coercive Presbytery let that be shewn afterwards indeed as times grow worse you finde your P●r●archall Metropoliticall Prelaticall Nationall Provinciall church-governments Generall and Provinciall councels subordination and subjection of the lesser Churches to the greater by which very meanes the Papall Antichristian kingdome came gradually to be erected as is noted before but can you shew us the least print of one footstep in the Word of God of any such Hierarchie or of any such subordination and subjection of one Church to another And if the mystery of iniquity began to worke even in the Apostles own times which was the very Hierarchie it selfe in the affection of Primacy as we see practised by Di●trepes who is noted to bee {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a lover of Primacy or preheminence and

serve for Christ will not have his people to be wandring sheep when they may have a fold nor to be individua vaga when they may be reduced to order The ninth Interrogatory This Interrogatory lays a charge upon Independents for refusing to admit to the Lords Supper such as are not notoriously scandalous nor grossely ignorant but professe repentance c. which you say is a very uncharitable arrogant yea unchristian practise contrary to Christs own example in admitting Iudas to the Lords Supper Also to that of Paul 1 Cor. 11. you calling it also a transcendent straine of tyrannicall usurpation over soules and consciences and Gods Ordinances worse then our most domineering Lordly Prelates c. yea Lording over Christ himselfe and more then ever the Apostles did but onely by their extraordinary calling c. I answer in one word omitting your copious aggravations and sharp censures that we look further then to a generall profession and conversation namely to their faith in Christ that it be sound intire and whole and namely whether they hold him to be as the onely Prophet and High Priest so the onely Prince of his People the onely Lord and Lawgiver to every mans conscience and over every Congregation or Church of his Saints If they thus acknowledge not Christs kingly office as well as his other offices we doe not we dare not receive them And what have they to do with the seales that refuse by covenant to own Christ for their King As for Judas he received the sop not the supper for after the sop he went out * immediately saith John So as it appeares the other Evangelists relate some other passages by a hysteron proteron as is not unusuall in Scripture story And none of them saith that he received the Supper And suppose ●e did the Churches Censure had not yet past upon him onely John by a secret signe knew he was to be the traytor For that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. 28. that was a true Church though now disordered and the Apostle refers the redressing of their abuses to themselves The case is otherwise here so as all your accumulated calumniations fall to ground And concerning the Apostles extraordinary calling if we must expect the like calling we must not in the meane time admit of any either to Baptisme or to the Lords Supper neither should there be any gathering of Churches at all as some from hence doe gather Besides what shall the authority be that Luther gathered the Churches by and those that followed him and what lawfull gathering then have the Reformed Churches For your marginall note of Moses David Solomon about setling Religion by Gods own direction herein you come home to that I said before alledged against your unlimited law But in that you now restraine by their example all Church-government to the Civil Magistrates you must make it out by holding close to the rule that is To settle Religion by Gods own direction as you here confesse and not to elect erect a forme of Religion and Church-government such as they shall conceive sutable c. as before you told us And Moses David Solomon were all types of Christ who put an end to all such And while you there exclude the Priests from having any thing to doe in Reforming or advising What will the Assembly say to you But they may advise you will say But the Priests might do nothing but according to Gods prescript law no more then Moses David Solomon And if the Priests as you say had no ruling votes then by this reckoning what votes do you allow the Assembly-men in their mixt Committees with the members of Parliament or in the Assembly it selfe Reconcile these I pray you The tenth Interrogatory This Interrogatory questions or rather as all the rest concludes that that Text Mat. 18. 15 16 17. is not meant of any Ecclesiasticall censure as of Excommunication but onely of the civill Court of Justice Brother if you did speake hereas a Divine and not meerly as a lawyer you would not have against the judgment of most learned Divines ancient and modern and not Papists c. so interpreted this place And what speak I of Divines The Text it selfe is its own clearest Interpreter For it is immediatly added v. 18. Verily I say unto you whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall bee loosed in heaven Which is without controversie spoken of Church-censure or of the power of the Keyes in exercising Church-discipline as that Matth. 16. 19 is spoken of doctrine as the learned Calvin well observeth So as this very context cleareth the former to bee meant of Church-censure as it was among the Jewes You alledge on the contrary that learned Lawyer whom wee all honour for his learning Good brother I could wish that all this zeale of yours against Independents might not arise from any jealousie as if Church-censures should prejudicate or trench upon your pleadings at the Barre of civill justice Farre be it that we should have our motion beyond our own Spheare Content your self with your own Orb and we shall confine our selves to ours I dare warrant you Again to what purpose do you urge this interpretation of this Text against us Do not all the Presbyterians expound it so And if this Text which is made the great pillar of Presbyterian excommunication be taken off you leave no more to a Classis then we scil. to consult and advise And with this foot you have dashed all the milk you gave them The eleventh Interrogatory This Interrogatory is to perswadeus that in that Assembly or Evangelicall Synod as you call it Acts 15. the Apostles voted not as they were Apostles infallibly guided by the holy Ghost but rather as they were in their ordinary capacitie as Elders and chiefe members of it Whereupon producing your six reasons for it you peremptorily conclude that this is an undeniable Scripture-authority for the lawfulnesse use of Parliaments Councels Synods under the Gospel upon all like necessary occasions and for their power to determine controversies of Religion to make Canons in things necessary for the Churches peace and concernment maugre all evasions exceptions of Independents to elude it But let us examine your six reasons why the Apostles sate not as Apostles but as ordinary Elders c. Where first we lay this ground for the contrary scil. that they sate as Apostles because not ordinary Elders as Elders can say It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us But the Apostles as Apostles might say so because in any doctrinall point they had the promise of the Spirit to bee led into all truth as upon whom the Church was to bee built Eph. 2. 20. Secondly if they sate as ordinary Elders then their decrees did no further bind then as they might appeare to agree with Scripture otherwise Elders as Elders may bind the conscience let the decree bee