Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	according_a	good_a	word_n	1,736	5	3.9879	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90729	A full ansvver to a printed paper, entituled, Foure serious questions concerning excommunication, and suspension from the sacrament, &c. Wherein the severall arguments and texts of scripture produced, are particularly and distinctly discussed: and the debarring of ignorant and scandalous persons from the sacrament vindicated.	Palmer, Herbert, 1601-1647.	1645 (1645)	Wing P233; Thomason E302_1; ESTC R200273	24,895	32

refell the affirmative I will first answer your Question then consider your Arguments on both hands To your Question then I say 1. if he professe his sincere repentance c. in such a manner as according to the Rules of Christ the Minister and Elders and those that know the scandall are bound to beleeve that he doth sincerely repent none ought to keep him back and if he were excommunicated he ought to be absolv'd and received again into the Church without delay as soon as such repentance appeares 2 But if you mean his bare saying so much without further sign of Repentance or only such sign as according to the nature of the crime no rationall man can say it is a sufficient proof of repentance the case is otherwise foradultery or incest or blasphemy there must surely be such a sense of the sinne manifested such a taking heed of the occasions and the like as may make it probable that he intends to keep his promise of a new life or else it will be a meer mockery for any one to be called before the Eldership for any scandall for a word shall excuse and acquit them although perhaps before they came thither they told their companions that they meant not to keep any such promise and if this be told to the Eldership yet they must take his single and bare word that he is sorry for those speeches as well as for his other fault and so it must be twenty times one after another Which I say were to turn all Church Discipline into a Ridiculous Folly and a hardning of sinners rather then doing any good upon them Yet for this you seem to argue with many reasons 1 God alone knowes the heart and who are his Ans They are the Scriptures words but misapplyed in this case 1 Chron 6.30 speaks of a mans secret prayers to God not of proving or approving Repentance towards men 2 Tim. 4.19 speaks of Gods knowing his elect and not at all that men are not to judge of mens repentance rather the next words plead for this let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity implying that he who doth not so in his behaviour cannot be owned among men among Christians as belonging to Christ whatever he may be in Gods secret Decree This then confirmes the Elderships power of judgeing by his departing or not departing from iniquity and not by bare and sleight words only Would you in the forementioned case of the wicked woman have taken a few words as a sufficient proof of repentance without great proof of sorrow and detestation of her selfe for so horrid a wickednesse 2 You say Ministers know not the heart nor who are Gods but may oft deem those worthy communicants who are not as close hypocrites c. and those unworthy which are not 1 Sam. 16.5 to 14. Ans You seem not to be afraid of judgeing those worthy that are not when so sleight a matter as a profession of repentance without mention of any fignes must suffice to count them worthy because God knowes the heart not Ministers But Ministers and Elders are to judge as the Apostle directs Timothy 1 Tim. 5. Somemens sinnes are manifest before-hand and go before to judgement and so their good and some follow after that is according to apparant proofe offering it selfe or discovered by time or enquiry so the judgement ought to be Samuels judgeing was not by any words or shewes of good but by a bodily comelinesse and it was a peculiar Office that hinders not but Ministers and Elders may judge by mens lives whether they be worthy of the ordinary priviledges of Christians They are blamelesse if they admit only close hypocrites because God only can judge of them But men may judge competently of mens be haviours else why sayth the Apostle Do not ye judge them that are within 1 Cor. 5.12 and that known Text. By their fruiis you shall know them and if they judge by proof and tokens and fruits of repentance according to the word they will hardly judge any unworthy who are not though this be the great Fear alledged against them 3. You say God can fuddenly change the heart in a moment before a Minister can take notice of it Act. 9.3 to 28. A. God can but what is this to your purpose By this Argument there needs not Judges with the Elders of those that are within then surely they must goe according to sufficient outward expressions and not imagine that God hath turned any ones heart before others can take notice of it And your Instance of Sauls Pauls conversion clears it Indeed there were no Ministers by when he was struck down But when Christ sent Ananias to him after a second charge to goe he was faine to avouch him a chosen Vessell and after that the Church at Jerusalem durst not own him till Barnabas brought him to the Apostles and bare witnesse that he had preacht Christ at Damascus And when sinners expresse any signe of Repentance like this though they were converted before any took notice of it blame them that refuse them But in the meane time I pray give leave to Ministers the Stewards of Christs Mysteries of whom it is required that they be found faithfull that they be so jealous over Christians with a godly jealousie and so zealous for Christs honour the honour of his Death shewed forth in the Sacrament as not to beleeve or judge them worthy who have shewed themselves unworthy upon a possibility that God can turn their hearts in an instant which is so farre from a Godly jealousie or zeale that there cannot lightly be a greater Carelesnesse or Lukewarmnesse imaginable 4. You say We must not censoriously judge one another because we stand or fall to our own Master Mat. 7.1 Luk. 6.37 Rom. 14.4 to 15. It is true but very impertinently alledged Your Texts Mat. 7 and Luk 6. forbid only private judging without or beyond just cause as to judge a man ill who seems good or judge ill when it is as possible he meant well as ill or to judge a man a wicked unregenerate for a particular failing or a man to be a Reprobate because he yet shewes no repentance and the like it is such judging as this that is forbidden not all judging unlesse you will make void as I am sure you will not all Civill Iudicature as well as all Ecclesiasticall And Rom. 14. speaks only of judging men as unconscionable or not sound Christians for forbearing or using Christian Liberty about dayes and meats and such like not at all of judging men in an Ecclesiasticall Iudicatory no more then Civill for open scandals and impenitency which also appeares by the words next after those you name yea he shall be holden up which you will not I think affirme offcandalous sinners God hath not promised to uphold or recover such as he hath to uphold weak scrupulous Consciences that do or do not things to him

A FULL ANSVVER TO A Printed Paper ENTITULED Foure serious Questions concerning Excommunication and Suspension from the Sacrament c. Wherein the severall Arguments and Texts of Scripture produced are particularly and distinctly discussed And the Debarring of Ignorant and Scandalous persons from the Sacrament vindicated Matth. 7.6 Give not that which is holy unto dogs neither cast yee your pearles before swine 1 Cor. 11.29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himselfe not discerning the Lords Body 1 Cor. 5.13 Therefore put away from among your selves that wicked person LONDON Printed by Richard Bishop 1645. A Full ANSVVER To a printed Paper entituled Foure serious Questions concerning Excommunication and Suspension from the Sacrament c. SIR YOur Questions were I suppose sent abroad in expectation of an Answer Untill you receive a better from some other hand you may please to make use of this If it satisfie not I neither challenge nor refuse a Reply Our Readers I hope will be gainers if impartiall whether you or I winne or lose Nor will I despaire of gaining you over to that Truth which as yet you acknowledge not And if my Answer be in part by way of Questions you will not blame me your selfe have led the way First then whereas in your Title you say Questions c. propounded to the Reverend Assembly and the like afterward in your Preface I ask whether you do not know that the Reverend Assembly have no power to take notice of any Questions for debate and determination unlesse ordered so to do by one or both Houses of Parliament and therefore not till then in a capacity of returning Answers to such Quaeres A friend to the Assembly should have thought of this before he had spread such a paper before all the world to their prejudice Next whether the Titles of the Reverend Assembly and our Venerable Assembly unlesse put upon them in scorne as they have been by others in a businesse which you acknowledge to be of much difficulty and requiring a very circumspect handling and upon which accordingly they have spent so much time and laid so much weight upon their desires of it might not justly have kept you from publishing in print under the guise of Questions your private judgement and it may be sudden thoughts against them without ever hearing of them Thirdly it seems strange that you professing such circumspection to be necessary in handling this point should yet so speak of it as one not sufficiently acquainted either with the Advice of the Assembly or Resolutions of the Parliament concerning it For in two maine things at least you quite mistake As first you seem to take for granted and especially Qu. 3. that it is desired the power of Suspension should be in a single Minister or in Ministers alone according to their private judgement whereas the advice and desire of the Assembly is expresly contrary they place it in the whole Eldership nor may they doe it but upon due proofe Secondly you seem to bend your strength wholly against Suspension before Excommunication as granting the latter but supposing that such an antecedent Suspension is the only thing stuck at and unfit to be established whereas the Parliament hath already agreed on such a Suspension in the case of seven sinnes by name which I presume you have heard of so that you have bestowed Arguments not only against the humble advice and desires of the Assembly but the Votes of both Houses of Parliament which I hope you will hereafter forbeare Fourthly whereas you seem to load that advice of the Assembly with many reproachfull Insinuations of an Arbitrary Vnlimited Tyrannicall Papall domineering over the Consciences and the spirituall priviledges of Christians I desire to know First whether much of this was not wont to bee said of the conscientious and zealous preaching of Practicall truths and charging sinne upon men and women in Books for things in which they had a minde to be free as Stage-playes Love-locks drinking Healths and such like Secondly why a generall power of binding Consciences by Censures purely Ecclesiasticall as Suspension questionlesse is should be more reproached for Arbitrary c. then a generall power of binding Conscience by preaching wherein certainly every Minister hath his Commission from Christ without any limitation but to keep within the bounds of the Word and the wills of men have nothing to do to restrain him Thirdly whether it be not be true way of preventing Tyranny not to deny the Power Christ hath left to his Ministers and Elders but to use it in Classes and Synods in censuring any that exercise Tyranny and if need be the Parliament may put to their help to represse Tyranny in this kinde as well as in any other Fourthly as for Papall or Prelaticall Domineering and claiming such a Power as our very Lordly Prelates never durst to claime 1. Why I pray do you borrow this curteous language from the Independents with which they most familiarly grace the Presbyteriall Government Sure you are not Independent I think or if you were you might have forborn this reproach since in this desire there was a full Harmony in the Assembly between them and the Presbyterians as became brethren that desired to see the first and maine Foundation of the Reformation surely laid which is not done till this be done which is desired 2. Papall or Prelaticall Domineering over Consciences is power 1 engrossed into one hand 2 to command things and 3 forbid things without Christs Word or 4 even against it whereas there is not here the least shadow of any such thing pleaded for but only a Power in a Community the Eldership entrusted by Christ with Church-Government to binde the Consciences of sinners by Censures who are first bound by the Word This the Prelates did not care for further then to get money or vex Consciences of men which they had power enough for by one way or other if not full out as much Power for all scandals Fifthly If all Christians may claime as one of their spirituall priviledges to come to the Sacrament till they are excommunicated or to be on no pretence kept from it if they doe desire it Then how shall the Parliament be justified as not wronging Drunkards or Adulterers and the rest of the sinners upon whom their Votes are already past in their spirituall priviledges I am confident they must either recall those Votes as not warranted by Scripture and leave all to come when they list or the same Scriptures that prove those seven sinnes to be matter of Suspension will prove altogether as much as the Assembly ever did advise or desire Fifthly you desire this matter should be setled with caution and moderation certainly as little as possible therein left to any mans Discretion Some of this you would have spared I suppose if you had seen the sundry Rules which the Assembly hath advised to be observed about this power which they

must needs imply that those who are to judge those that are within 1 Cor. 5.12 ought to keep such away from adding sinne to sinne and mischiefe to mischiefe Therefore your subordinare Question Whether a Minister by admonition and dehortation hath not discharged his full duty and conscience is soone answered In a Doctrinall way as a Preacher to him he hath but not as he is one to whom with the rest of the Eldership the Rule and Care of the Church of God is committed 1 Tim. 3. 1 Tim. 5.17 unlesse he have what in him lies judged according to proose and censured a scandalous Offender and so kept him from the Sacrament which I take it S. Paul threatens to doe to such Impenitents as he should finde when he next came to Corinth 2 Cor. 12. and Chap. 13. And your cited Text of 1 Cor. 11. saith nothing to the contrary For Ezek. 33. and Acts 20. they are spoken only of the Duty of Preaching that a Prophet or Preacher in reference to that duty hath delivered his soule when he hath given warning But so farre as he hath a further power he is not quit if he use it not Witnesse Elyrs sinne and judgement who yet gave his sonnes as grave and serious a warning as could be 1 Sam. 2. but because being a Judge he restrained them not by censures sutable to their scandals God charged guilt heavily upon him and all his Family But I wonder much I say not quâ fide but quâ curâ you say the Lyturgies of our owne and the French Churches in their Exhortations before the Sacrament both intimate and resolve what you affirme that a Minister hath discharged his full duty and conscience by admonition and dehortation When first you know that in expresse words in the Rubrick before the Sacrament in our late Book of Common prayer the Curate a single Minister is expresly charged not to admit an obstinate uncharitable person And secondly all the world knowes or may know that the Discipline of the French Churches charges Ministers with the rest of the Eldership to suspend all scandalous persons from the Sacrament when proved so before them And accordingly they doe so in all the Reformed Churches in France and all others of that Nation in Holland or elsewhere And so have done in England over since K. Edward the sixth time except in Q. Maries by the allowance of our Princes As for the Exhortations before the Sacrament they serve to warne those whose sinnes are secret and not proved and not to stand for all Discipline toward those that are notoriously scandalous I adde if it were meant to be the only barre of open scandals it would be ridiculous to such as knew themselves to be such and knew that others knew it also to say If any of you be a Blasphemer or an Adulterer c. bewaile your sinnes and come not to this holy Table c. as it was in our Lyturgy Or much more to say I excommunicate such and such as in the French Liturgy and yet I see them and know them and so doth all the Congregation and let them communicate notwithstanding The very Pagans were never so carelesse of their Sacra as to let those they counted prophane to partake in them If Christians should will not they rise up in judgement against us Your third Question is Whether unprofitable and unworthy hearing of the Word be not as great as dangerous as damning a sinne as the unworthy Receiving of the Sacrament Whereunto you adde diverse Texts Mat. 10.14.15 Mark 16.15 16. Luk. 8.18 Heb. 2.1 2 3. and 3.7 8 12. and 6.6 7 8. and after two subordinate Questions in the same Paragraph I answer to them all First to your maine Question I say That every single Act of unprofitable and unworthy hearing of the Word is not so great so dangerous so damning a sinne as unworthy Receiving the Sacrament Because 1. those sinnes are greatest upon which the Spirit of God puts the greatest weight But the Spirit of God puts no where such weight upon a single Act of unprofitable hearing For all your Texts every one of them speak only of habituall and customary and some of them only of finall unprofitable hearing But 1 Cor. 11 27 29. speaks of every single act of Receiving the Lords Supper unworthily 2. Againe whoever receives the Sacrament unworthily hath first received the Word unworthily and that it may be not once but many times and so hath added a further sinne to it But a man may receive the Word unworthily who receives not the Sacrament at all and so sins but a single sin whereas the unworthy Receiver of the Sacrament sins certainly double 3. Moreover the matter preached oftentimes is but a Particular of lesser consequence and so the sin lesse to receive it unworthily But the matter of the Sacrament is the highest of all Christianity and therefore the sin is the greater to receive it unworthily 4. Further suppose the Sermon was of the Grace of Christ and the benefit of his Body and Blood yet is it a greater fin to receive the Sacrament unworthily because in that is a further manifestation of Gods love and Christs Grace a seale to the Word Therefore to despise it and receive it unworthily is a further manifestation of obstinate impenitency unbeliefe and sleighting the Grace of Christ and the Love of God 5 Once more The Receiver of the Sacrament doth more solemnly pretend faith in Christ and owning him as his Lord then the hearer of the Word he seales outwardly to God and Christ as well as receives outward seales which the Hearer doth not by the act of his hearing for a Heathen may come in to heare 1 Cor. 14. Therefore he sins a greater more dangerous more damning sinne then any man that this or that time receives the Word unprofitably and unworthily Next if you would compare a customary unworthy hearing with a single act of unworthy Receiving and ask whether it bee not as great a sinne c. To this I shall answer by considering your two subordinate Questions which are 1 Whether Ministers upon some pretence may not as well keep the people from preaching and refuse to preach to them c And 2 What substantiall difference they can produce warranted by Scripture why they may not deny the Word as well as the Sacrament I answer First there is an expresse charge to preach the Gospell to every creature that is even to Pagans and Infidels while remayning such you will not say there is the like for giving the Sacrament while such Secondly there is a like Charge of instructing in meeknesse those that oppose themselves which will hold I beleeve even to professed Christians for they are but too often opposers and you will not say but such must still be instructed if at any time God will give them repentance c. But there is no such charge to administer the Sacrament to opposers or impenitents 3 That which

scandalous Communicant were much sooner meant then even the prophane forbearer And thus I have answered your Arguments which lead in your Question and whereby you would prove the Negative and withall part of your refutation of the Affirmative The rest I shall dispatch briefly 9. You say He eats and drinks damnation to himselfe not to the Minister or the other Communicants Ans Not to the Minister or other Communicants First If his sinne be unknown Secondly If his sinne be unproved Thirdly If hee make such shew of repentance though God knowes it to be counterfeit that by the rules of the Word he is to be judged penitent Fourthly If the other Communicants have done their duties to bring him to repentance or have him kept back Fisthly If the Minister doe what lies in him to keep him back by judging him for his part according to just proose But to the Minister also and the Communicants in their degree if he willingly consent to his comming by resusing or forbearing to use his part of power Christ hath entrusted him with to keep unworthy ones back and if the Communicants help not the Minister in a fitting manner to debarre them 10. This is not disproved by your saying he shall only beare his own burthen and give an account of himselfe to God Gal. 6.4 5. Rom. 14.12 For the Word only is your addition to the Text of Gal. 6. And no other Text in Scripture I speak it peremptorily hath any such exclusive as to discharge other men from doing their duties to reclaime impenitents by shaming them and hindring them from that which would harden them in their sinnes Neither is the Word only in the Text or sence of Rom. 14.12 relating to undeniable sinnes or open proofe of repentance or impenitence but only to his inward conscienciousnesse in using or forbearing Christian Liberty about meats and dayes as was toucht before of that a man only shall give account for himselfe to God and not for another But in open matters I am sure there were that had the rule over Christians some that Watch for their souls as those that must give an account Heb. 13.17 And those I suppose were the Ministers and Elders And the Word hath not taken that office from them since 11. And whereas you say The Administration is only the Ministers Act which is a holy and Divine Institution the unworthy participation the Parties own iniquity I answer first that there is no such Institution that a Minister must administer it to all baptized persons that offer to come and promise to leade a new life Shew me such an Institution and I yeeld you the whole cause But this I am certaine you can never doe to returne you your own words above neither expressely nor by any Scripture-consequence For if so then no man may be at all Excommunicated or kept from the Sacrament by any power left to any on earth Which yet you have not offered to assert what ever your Arguments have seemed to insinuate As for the Parallel of unworthy communicating with unworthy hearing I have already spoken I suppose enough to it and so shall not multiply more words about it at this time I have done with your Questions But have something to say to your Conclusion wherein your confidence and language rises high and you lay load enough upon that sort of men Who have not yet put off their prophesying in Sack-cloth What ever others have done In your Title and Preface the Assembly is stiled by you Reverend and Venerable But now as St. Paul speaks of himselfe that hee was as unknown and yet well known they are to you only some men that pretend to such a large unlimited Ecclesiasticall power as you cannot discern any shaddow of reason why any godly Minister should ever earnestly contend for it much lesse that any of them should resolve to give over their Minister to which Christ hath called them unlesse they can obtain such a power from the Parliament as neither Christ nor his Apostles nor the Primitive Christians in the purest times did ever exercise For are you or can you be Ignorant that in all this you strike at the Assembly the whole body who as an Assembly have presented their humble Advices and desires to the Honourable Houses and no other persons that I know of have formally appeared about the largenesse and unlimitednesse of the power to keep persons scandalous or ignorant from the Sacrament but the Assembly only And they only of which I shall now give the World some account since you have made so publike a complaint of it tendring their humble desires in a late petition were the men that expressed their sad straight in case c. and humble resolution accordingly Vnhappy men sure that contend so long so over earnestly with such an unfitting resolution for that which you cannot see any shaddow of reason for and which Christ nor his Apostles nor the Primitive Church in the purest times did ever exercise But I suppose that all men are not of your mind and that some of our Readers that were so partly heretofore have by this time seene somewhat more then a shadow of reason for what the Assembly hath desired and I have now pleaded And that though Christ did not in person exercise any power of Suspension or Excommunication at all nor the Apostles frequently that we read of Yet both Christ and his Apostles have given so faire grounds and directions for as much as is desired in either kinde of censure and that the records of the Primitive Church in the purest times speak so probably for the exercise of it in those dayes as that they will rather wonder at your confident opposition specially in such a season as this then at their desires or resolution Which latter was not by them rudely taken up or affectedly exprest but upon the nature of the businesse in hand and the pressure upon their consciences to discharge their duties in speaking out the full truth before it were too late They had before their eyes how extreamly Christ is dishonoured by those that pretend to honour him how desperately such wound and destroy their soules with that which they pretend and expect to receive for their eterhall good That this being generall throughout the Nation and no sufficient provision against it must needs be a Nationall sinne bringing and continuing Nationall judgements That God hath brought the Nation that part among whom we are into a solemn and sacred Covenant of Reformation according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches and to endeavour by all weanes the reoting out of prophannesse and whatsoever is contrary to the power of godlinesse To effect this they saw no way appointed by God nor possible in reason if the Ecclesiasticall Power of those whom Christ hath fet in his Church to govern it be limitted so as that seandalous persons of all sorts cannot be kept away From all which