Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	call_v	church_n	pillar_n	2,921	5	10.5182	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77724	A publick disputation sundry dayes at Killingworth in Warwick-shire, betwixt John Bryan, doctor in divinity (minister at Coventry) and John Onley, pastor of a church at Lawford. Upon this question, whether the parishes of this nation generally be true churches. Wherin are nine arguments alleged in proof of the affirmative of the question, with the answer of I. O. thereunto, together with Doctor B. Reply. Also an addition of ten arguments more in further proof of the question, with an answer adjoyned in disproof thereof. Published by both their consents, as appears by the ensuing epistles.	Bryan, John, d. 1676.; Onley, John.	1655 (1655)	Wing B5245; Thomason E823_9; ESTC R207672	61,370	75

it as a Pillar c. Now Sir The Minor is evidently false the very naming of it is Confutation sufficient it being evident to behold that the Parishes of this Nation have always been and still are inclinable to whatsoever their Teachers and Rulers set up without ever questioning the truth of it except here and there a man which is nothing to our question it being of the Parishes generally Look upon them in the time of Popery and produce one Parish-Church much less all that opposed the power of the Pope but all inclinable to that wicked worship so in the time of Prelacy how conformable to that never once talking then of Presbytery and I believe as formerl● so now if the power of this Nation should enact that al should turn Independents they would obey without any general opposition and within this few years would as little think of Presbytery which you think to be truth now as they did then when he was Counted an Hereticke that believed not as the Church believed Which was then the scarlet-coloured whore of Rome and yet you let not to say they have been the Pillar of Truth defending it against all Errors which if true Presbytery is false in that the Parishes of this Nation have born Testimony to two contrary Religions Popery and Prelacy That Church that one time professeth Popery and another while Prelacy being variable according to the times in which she lives that Church is not the Pillar and ground of truth But the Parishes of this Nation have one while c. Ergo and for Revel 2. 13. When you have proved the Parishes of this Nation Pergamus I will Consider of it I know no advantage I should have gotten if the word Reply Dr. B. Church had been permitted to stand instead of Parishes but rather disadvantage because a National Church is as liable if not more to exception nor can I imagine how this could have hidden the folly of my Argument its folly to pick a quarrell the Church is nothing els but the Parishes or if you will that is the Mother these the daughters the Minor proposition which you deny will appear evident enough by considering the Apostles meaning of Pillar and Ground of Truth and applying it to our Assemblies both which I will do in few words The House or Church of God is so call'd in respect of the profession and maintenance of the true Religion of God which it both supporteth as a Pillar and maketh it openly known to others as Magistrates use to hang and affix their Edicts and Proclamations on pillars or other places of strength and firmness and here consequently is declared the Office and duty of the Church in holding and publishing the Truth and defending it against all Errors Contradictions and Corruptions and whatsoever Societies do this it s written upon those Societies with a Sun beam that they are the true Churches of Christ Now it s notoriously known that the Articles of Religion agreed upon Anno 1562. are published and consented to by all the See the answer of the Elders of the several Churches of New England to the ninth Question p. 26. and Church Covenant p. 40. Ministers endowed in every Congregation of this Nation with the silent consent also of the People and subscription of the hands of the chief of them wherein they do acknowledge no rule of Faith or Manners but the holy Scriptures no divine worship but to God only no Mediation nor Salvation but in Christ only no Conversion by Mans free will but by Gods free grace no Justification but by Faith no perfection nor merit of works with all other necessary and saving truths upon which the Church is grounded and built and which also it holdeth forth and maintaineth This alone abundantly evinceth that the Parishes of this Nation are the Pillar and ground of Truth Besides these truths are daily in most Congregations faithfully opened and applyed and whatsoever is contrary thereunto on the right hand or left convincingly confuted our Parishes therefore keeping Gods Records faithfully are his Registers and consequently his true Churches Your declaiming against the inclinableness of our People to alter with their Governors might have been spared well knowing it was the practice of the Church of Israel to do so and the Churches of Galatia how soon were they removed from him that called them into the Grace of Christ unto another Gospell to the admiration of the Apostle Galat. 1. 6. And therefore it needs be no marvell if our people so easily change from one Church-Goverment to another which they may do without prejudice to fundamental verity which though the Galathians overthrew yet they remained true Churches If you read the Epistle of Christ to Pergamus understandingly and compare our Church with that you will find that we are not worse and wherein any in that Church were praise-worthy for doing or suffering you may find some in ours not short of them From our practice agreeing with the practice of the Primitive Arg. 7. Dr. B. Apostolical Churches Those Societies that continue stedfast in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in Prayer are true Churches Acts 2. 42. but so do ours Ergo. I deny your Minor and the reason why we separate from you is upon Answ J. O. that ground you have added neither Scripture nor Reason to prove your Minor but have left it destitute of all proof you could hardly have brought a Scripture in all the Bible which in every thing both in doctrine and practice makes so directly against you as this that you have brought for you For first your doctrine is contrary secondly so is your practice for doctrine first after that Peter had preacht the Lord Christ to these men it working upon their hearts ver 37. they cryed out What shall we do the doctrine of the Apostle to them ver 38. is Repent and be Baptized and so they were ver 41. they were the same day added to the Church but you both Ministers and People go directly contrary first Baptize them at three or four dayes old and so make them members of your Church and perhaps twenty or forty years after preach Repentance just contrary to the Apostles doctrine and Gods examples 1 King 6. 7. Ephes 2. 21 22. 1 Pet. 2. 5. First you take into your house unhued stones and unsquared timber and twenty or forty years after fall to squaring them for the building Now for your practice in your fellowship the powerfull operation of the Gospell of Jesus Christ after it had workt them from the world and from themselves and one into another in the unity of the Spirit as one man it is said ver 44 45. and all that believed were together had all things common and sold their possessions c. And chap. 4. 32 34 35. and the multitude of believers were of one heart and one soul neither said any of them that ought that he possessed was

Psal 63. 1 2. You deny my Minor with the same limitation as you granted the Major God dwels not you say in the Parishes of this Nation as a Church I will to gratify and if it be possible to convince you make good that Christ dwels in the Parishes of this Nation as a Church by those three Reasons evidencing his presence amongst us For the fortifying whereof I was sparing in bringing Scripture-proof or farther reason not because I had not store of both but because I judged it needless to light a Candle to the Sun but seeing you tax me for bare Asserting you shall see me strongly Confirming each of the Reasons taking in your own restriction First I prove the Faithfull Constant Preaching of the Word to be a note of Christs presence with a people as a Church Deus 4. 7 8. So nigh unto them this speciall neerness of God is proved because they had the Law set before them i. e. fixed among them Psal 147. 19 20. By Word he means his will revealed in the Scriptures given to his Church as a most precious and peculiar treasure Zech. 8. 23. The reason why the Gentiles should joyn themselves to the Jews is because the Word was with them we have heard by your Preaching this was the great and glorious prerogative of the Jews which afterward they lost and as soon as they lost it ceased to be a Church Acts 13. 46. the Apostle witnesseth this to be the greatest privilege the Jews had Rom. 3. 1 2. If this be a peculiar privilege to the Church of God to have a standing fixed preaching of the Word among them and if no People in the world can be named that had this ordinance of preaching which were not Gods Church then this is a sure sign Secondly it appears that his working saving Grace by this Ordinance is as a sure sign 1 Cor. 14. 24 25. he will report that God is in you as a Church of a truth John 4. 22. Christ proves the Jewes to be a true Church Because Salvation might be had there out of the Church there is no salvation ordinarily If you can shew that Christ is present to Convert c. in any Societie where his word is faithfully and constantly Preached that is not his Church this Reason shall stand for invalid Thirdly the meeting mentioned Matth. 18. you deny not to be a Church-meeting therefore where a Societie meet to worship God by Prayer as you expound it or for the Administration of Church Censures as the place carries it there Christ is present as his Church Now that the Word is faithfully and constantly Preached in our Assemblyes and that Christ Converts c. by our Preaching and that our People meet together to pray in his Name is manifest to all the world that we have idle ignorant Ministers in many Congregations and a great multitude that want the power of Godliness among us c. is acknowledged but it s well known as bad of both sorts were in the Church of the Jewes and in the Apostolicall Churches which notwithstanding remained true Churches while he continued his presence and they met and joyned in his true worship till God gave them a bill of divorce and withdrew his presence and they cast off Gods true worship through obstinacie Those Assemblies that are built upon the Foundation of the Arg. 5. Prophets and Apostles are true Churches Ephes 2. 19 20. But ours are so built for they have the whole Doctrine of the Old Dr. B. and New Testament for the infallible and immoveable ground of their Faith whereby they subsist in Church-Communion I deny you Minor What you mean by these words they have Answ J. O. the whole Doctrine c. is doubtfull if by having of it you mean Christ hath left this Old and New Testament in the world for the immoveable ground of mens Faith that 's true but nothing to the purpose for if so it 's left to all men and many men may also beleeve it to be so and yet be so far from being built upon it as they walk and build directly from it If you mean that they have it in the practise of it so as they practically build upon it that 's false for such Persons are built upon it as the Apostle holds out in that Chapter such who were dead but now alive saved by Grace such who were made to sit in heavenly places in Christ Now the greater part of the men in your Parishes are such as were never spiritually alive lying in their sins still unquickned therefore they are not built upon that Foundation practically When I say our Assemblies are built upon Propheticall and Apostolicall Reply Doctrine I mean there is no other Doctrine taught or own'd with us but what hath warrant from the Old and New Testament Dr. B. if there be shew it now that hence it followes we are therefore Gods true Church is apparent from the Apostles Scope proving the Ephesians to be the Houshold of God because they were so built for that by building is meant Owning and Confessing the truth I prove from that of our Saviour Mat. 16. 18. nor can you shew any Society Confessing the whole truth of God that was not a true Church The want of Practise which you allege in the greatest part of our Members weakens not at all the force of the Argument for the very same is taxed by our Saviour in the Church of Sardis Rev. 3. 1. Thou hast a name to live and art dead the generalitie of the members of that Church were voyd o● Grace and ungodly men and yet Christ owns it for his Church in the beginning of that verse and how far the Church of Corinth and other Gospell Churches were from being built practically in your sense you have heard sufficiently and yet blessed be God we have in our Parochiall Churches a competent number of practicall Christians that walk exactly according to the rule of the Gospell for whose sakes if you had the Spirit of Christ you would I suppose acknowlege our whole Societies to be his visible Churches That Church that is the pillar and ground of truth is the true Arg. 6. Church 1 Tim. 3. 15. but so is the Church of England in respect of the profession and maintenance of true Religion which it both Dr. B. supporteth as a Pillar and maketh it openly known to others defending it against all Errors Contradictions and Corruptions whatsoever Revel 2. 13. You subtilly alter the termes of the question that the folly of your Argument may not appear instead of these words the Parishes of this Nation you say the Church of England which you ought not to have done the Argument from these words if it include the Question must proceed thus That Church which is the Pillar and ground of Truth is a true Church but so are the Parishes of this Nation in their maintaining and professing true Religion supporting

all Ordained by the good ones as you were not the case is not a whit the better seeing they Ordained not by goodness but by Office which was alike in them all Secondly you say if they were Antichristian it makes not your calling null and the reason that you gave as I remember was that some things may be wanting in the worship of God and yet not all null as you instanced I answer You hold Ordination Essential to preaching so as a man may not preach without it now the Office of the Bishop being false and they in that office Antichristian having never received call to that Office from Christ or his Church but originally from the Devill how these can by that Office make a true Minister of Christ conferring that power to another that they were never possest of themselves is a mystery This is not only a want of some but all things whereby the work should be lawfully performed Evident you say it is that your Administrators are set apart c. And that such only may Baptize Mat. 28. 18 19. to that I answer That an Ordination you have it 's true but it 's performed by such as have no authority from Christ for what they doe Neither yet doe they do it according to Christs Order as I have already proved in answer to the 5. Argument whereunto I refer the Reader being unwilling needlesly to multiply words and how you shall be able to justifie your Call manner of Entrance c. against those exceptions when I see it published for before I must not by our agreement I shall in Convenient time give the world and you an account of the strength or weakness thereof and that such may Baptize whom Christ Authorizes in Matth. 28. I grant but that Christ Authorizes only Ministers in office by Ordination if you was such as you are not I utterly deny for that text holds forth the plain contrary as presently shall be shewed Now for your Call where you make so many intricat turnings and needless tautologies many of your Quaeres being for substance one I shall first shew by what means and how we had our Call to the performance of this Ordinance and then shall answer what of yours that makes against and what is in yours not contradictory to the thing in hand when rightly shewed shall be left as not materiall thus The mystery of iniquity from the Apostles time beginning to 2 Thess 2. 7. work and after their death more and more to creep into the Church and so far prevailed by degrees through the subtilty of the Devill that the pure Lawes of Jesus came to be eaten out and the inventions of man came in their room so far prevailing till the Lord Christs Prophetical Regal and Priestly offices were justled out and cunningly undermined till at last the man of sin did get into the Temple of God shewing himself that he was God Verse 4. revenging the contempt of his wickedness and making spoil of the precious Saints of Jesus that testified against his Abomination till they were drunk with the blood of the Saints that ceased not to cry How long Lord holy and true c. then were the Inhabitants of Rev. 6. 10. the earth made drunck with the wine of her fornication and all the world wondered after this Beast in so much that she began to Chap. 17. 2. say in her heart I sit a Queen and I am no Widow c. thus being at her pitch of glory darkness ye thick darkness and a dismal Chap. 18. 17. gloomy night was spred over the world for the neglect of keeping close to the Word of Truth the Lord suffered an Eclipse by the interposition of mans inventions betwixt his truth and their sight to darken the world till his pleasures was to appear and then like the appearing of the day darkness and the clouds of Ignorance began to dissipate and he by the brightness of his coming did reveal by degrees the mysterie of iniquity and sweetly Vers 2. 8. enlighten his servants in the knowledge of his Truth by that infallible Word the Scriptures of Truth helping them by his Spirit to a right understanding thereof and by degrees giving forth the knowledge of his will each age receiving more than other as Waldenses Wickliff Hus Luther c. still more and more increasing till it was by some seen not immediatly hence here is an answer to your first demand neither yet mediatly by the help of men hence an answer to the second by means of the Scripture the Spirit of the Lord helping to a right understanding thereof that they had been cheated of that blessed though much despised Ordinance of Baptism and a contrary intruded in its room that was right neither in the Subject Manner nor End and these people seeing it their duty to practize it and knowing of it to be the will of Christ that it should be performed Resolved upon the work to reassume this Ordinance Now the Call to the knowledge of it was thus The Spirit of the Lord inlighting by means of the Scripture to the understanding of his Will They Call to the practice of it thus A company of believes assembled in the Name of Christ willing to follow him in the way of his Ordinances revealed in his Word and yet seeing their want of a personall succession and yet knowing it their duty and the will of Christ it should be performed did appoint one that was unbaptized to reassume and set again on foot this Ordinance of Christ And if any one question the lawfulness of this further than I shall have occasion to vindicate it from such exceptions as here make against it I refer him to a Treatise intituled A way to Zion sought out where all that are willing to see may First from abominable damnable absurdities that will follow if the Saints in light though they want a personal succession of this Ordinance seeing themselves deprived of this or any other Ordinance may not take it up without a Lineal succession Secondly from Scripture plainly proved where all that will not wilfully shut their eyes may see Now what of yours seemingly makes against this is first If you should say you had your Call from a Church ungathered you would proclaim your Calling Antichristian from your own principles and your selves Schismaticks by separating from a true Ministery Answer Let the reasons wherefore we judge you false Ministers in relation to the external Call which we are now only speaking of be briefly laid down and also the grounds of our reassuming this Ordinance and then let the Judicious judge whether upon the Judgement that is given of the first the like may be given upon the latter upon the same Principles We judge you false First because the very Original of your Call came from the Devill he sending the Pope the Pope the Bishops the Bishops you and seeing you still retain and stand Ministers by