Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	bind_v	church_n	key_n	2,078	5	10.0076	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62665	The bar to free admission to the Lords Supper removed, or, A vindication of Mr. Humfreys free admission to the sacrament of the Lords Supper wherein the most materiall exceptions and objections of Doctor Drake against it in his book called A bar to free admission &c. are taken off and answered : whereunto is annexed an expostulatory speech unto them of the Congragationall way : and also an examination of the book called A Scripture rail to the communion table, by some ministers in Glocester-shire / by John Timson.	Timson, John.	1654 (1654)	Wing T1293; ESTC R25821	78,655	229

Spirit may be in such comes not within the Churches cognisance to inquire but what is agreeable to the revealed will of God and then if any of years being baptized professing the true religion be in the same incapacity as Infants or distracted it 's true there is the same exception against them otherwise not For mine own part I never knew any of years but could take and eat and drink of the consecrated signes reverently and orderly according to the institution as to the externals of that service which the state of Infants is uncapable of And mad men would indanger the abuse of the holy signes by their undecent and unreverent demeanour in those necessary acts of communion and worship And it must be granted that persons at years are not under that naturall incapacity that infants are in order to the outward form of worship Neither are Infants as such under the obligation of precepts of worship as grown persons in the Church are Nor can it be reasonably imagined that such a state of persons in the Church should be admitted actually to receive that in the discretion of the Church are no proper objects of Church censures in point of offending which grown persons in the Church are though never so ignorant And what though the Doctor say he can teach a childe of three or four years old as much or more then some of our people at years have learned all their life time A Parrat may be taught to speak words but can he make such children rationally understand what they are taught and exercise devotion from a principle of conscience in reference to religious worship as in charity we may hope of grown ones according to that little they know which may be conceived by their desires after it and their demeanour in the Sacramentall actions Moreover I doubt not but the Doctor or any other Minister of the Gospell may in a short time inform the ignorant among their people so as to make them capable of discerning the Lords body and to eat and drink lawfully in the Apostles sense though not in the sense I shall give account of hereafter All which being laid together I conceive that Church members of years most ignorant are not so uncapable of the Sacrament as Infants or mad men are and therefore the same or like ground of excepting against the one will not equally reach the other And then the Doctors often retorting Mr. H. exception doth rather discover weaknesse then adde any strength to the cause This to the first inquiry As for the other namely whether the scandalous members under Church indulgence may be equally debarred this Church priviledge with the regularly excommunicated I do not finde the Doctors judgement so expresly delivered but he seems to debar such from the Sacrament But sure to debar Church members scandalous their externall priviledge during Church indulgence and toleration they being under triall or otherwise is contrary to the judgement and practise of the independent Churches and seems irrationall and unjust to execute before a judiciall triall and sentence I confesse I am unsatisfied with their proceedings as Presbytered toward Church members of years admitted 1. They set up an Eldership whose office is very doubtfull too doubtfull to assume and exercise the keyes of Christs Kingdome especially where there is no association of Churches so that upon the matter the power of sentence is in the Pastour alone or in those whom Jesus Christ never impowered with the keys at all to binde and loose authoratively 2. They set up such a way of triall and Church examination of native Church members in order to the Sacrament the observance whereof is both their duty and their priviledge as no word doth warrant discouraging the most from indevouring after their duty and priviledge so that upon the matter they are left out without any regular casting out 3. They cause a carelesse forbearance of the Sacrament and make their suspension and excommunication upon the matter all one and the Doctor allowes all presence at every ordinance denying only the act of receiving to the worst 4. They positively suspend Church members for ignorance and such like wants and comings short of what they should be to God for which there is not the least warrant either of rule or president in divine writ 5. They make excommunication lesse then it is indeed in allowing the excommunicate presence in the congregation at every ordinance and make it more then indeed it is in dismembring Church members by it it being appointed as the last remedy to heal diseased members not to destroy them They are not thereby dismembred but to be lookt upon saith Mr. Cawdry as diseased members under cure 6. No more priviledge is allowed to Church members not approved of by the eldership though not yet under any positive sentence then is allowed to Heathens and to the excommunicate as much of priviledge in the ordinances of the Church is allowed as to Heathens All which upon triall will be found to be beside the rule I think and yet such are the consequences that flow from the Doctors own principles and premises in his Bar to free admission to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper In the next place the Doctor declares his judgement concerning a scandalous member of a congregation impresbytered presuming to receive what is to be done in such a case As first the Minister is to tell him of the sinne and desire him to forbear if that will not do then to shew him the present danger of murdering Christ and eating and drinking judgement to himself and he hath done his duty But then it may be inquired whether he mean only in case of common fame the scandall having been publick otherwise I suppose it will not be a time to nominate any members sinne or person in publique first Then secondly I question whether a scandalous member doth necessarily murder Christ and eat and drink judgement to himself in the Scripture sense whether the person be regenerate or unregenerate For he may be Scandalous and yet knowing and able to put a difference between common bread and the instituted signs in order to their end He might be drunk the week before and yet sober scrious and reverent in the act of receiving and not guilty of the body and bloud of Christ nor eat and drink judgement to himself in the Doctors sense He often distinguishes of worthy Church members and unworthy according to the judgement of visibility accounting the regenerate in the Church only worthy of admittance but not the other they not having a personall worthinesse must necessarily eat and drink unworthily and so judgement to themselves in the Apostles sense c. Now because all his conclusions seem to be deducted from meer mistakes and misapplyings of the Apostles sense 1 Cor. 11.20 to the 34. to the great perill and danger of the visible Church of Christ as causing rents and divisions therein I shall therefore make

and live unto him according to the grace they have received from him 3. That the scandalous in the Church are to be dealt with under the notion of offending brethren whom they that are spirituall ought by private admonitions and Christian counsell and wise and seasonable reproofs to restore in the spirit of meeknesse Gal. 6.1 And the person or sin of any member not to be nominated in publick while there is any reasonable hope in charity of amendment by the private means provided the offence be not already publick and infamous to all in that case I think though the offender be penitent and ashamed yet he ought to be rebuked before all that the rest may fear and the congregation be satisfied And that it is only in case of obstinacy and hating to be reformed notwithstanding all possible means used by the Church for their reformation that the authoritative act of excommunication is to be issued out against any member The Apostle did more often threaten and shake the rod then make use of it The administration of publick censures should be carried on with that solemnness and mourning over the offender that might shew a reall unwillingnesse to put the same in execution if any other means would humble and break the heart of an obstinate transgressor And though there may be in the Church a readinesse to revenge all wilfull disobedience yet a readinesse to forgive also as they shall see cause 4. That none ought to usurpe the power of the keyes of Christs visible Kingdome or take upon them the power of stewards and to be Judges of Christs subjects that have not a clear warrant in the Word for the same lest they be judged For my part I must confesse I utterly reject as impious and against all rule and order for the common members to claim an interest in the exercise of the keys either of Doctrine Sacraments or Discipline save only to be obedient in declining familiarity with those that are justly excommunicated and all communion with them in worship and to be witnesses to attest what they know against an offending brother when it is necessary to prove the fact and conviction of his obstinacy I professe I wonder that any acquainted with the holy Scriptures should plead for any other power to be allowed to any of the common members I cannot see how this should be but that some men drive on designes of their own factious framing rather to hinder the setting up of discipline then any way to advance it What dismall divisions separations and confusions what prejudices heart-burnings and bitternesse do such practises every where necessarily occasion between Pastours and their people while the better part must withdraw from the rest and set up Discipline among themselves chuse their own officers and use a language beyond the ordinary and think they are in a fine posture when alasse they are out of their station and all they do is but erecting waies of their own chusing and setting up altars to sin some of Jeroboams craft to keep the people from worshipping at Jerusalem And the truth is members that separate from the body are not like to live long What strange exorbitances very often are the consequences of such uncharitable zealous waies And how can it be avoided if the power of the keys reside in the common brotherhood but the major part of a parochiall congregation may chuse their own officers set up Discipline and judge in the Church and what reformation is then like to follow may easily be imagined Doubtlesse all Church members as such stand upon a levell in point of externall priviledges for we do not finde different priviledges of those that are members of the same Church planted together into the same visible body by baptism and so by consequence women and children ignorant and scandalous persons shall have power to judge the rest nay they may create and ordain their own officers and consequently take upon them all Gospell administrations for if the keys reside in them originally so that they may make Ministers c. then they themselves are much more such and may do the works they are to do The effect cannot be greater then the cause But they will say Object the power of the keys resides not in all but in worthy and compleat Church-members or beleevers that have the spirit of sanctification c. I know no such distinction in the Word of God Answ Look upon the Church of the Jewes they were a holy nation a kingdome of Priests a peculiar and royall people in generall without distinction of worthy and unworthy compleat and incompleat And doth not the Apostle Peter use the same words and apply them to the scattered strangers embracing Christianity 1 Pet. 2.9 And doth not the Apostle give equall titles to all those to whom he writes and to all in every place that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 1.1 2 3. If we never read of any such distinction in Moses and the Prophets nor finde any such used by Christ or his Apostles why should any plead for it in our congregations but that they would see more then all that ever were before them But the keyes were given to the twelve as beleevers Object and that which is given to them as such is given to the whole kinde of beleevers in the world Solut. That the twelve were impowered with the keyes of Christs Kingdom is beyond all dispute and that they were beleevers when they received that power is as certain but that the Lord Jesus gave the keyes to them as such is denyed And they might as well say they were given to them as men for they were men when they received them But the truth is that though there were many Disciples and beleevers beside the twelve yet of his meer good pleasure he gave the keyes of his Kingdome to the twelve only not to the rest that beleeved as well as they He hath set some in the Church Apostles Pastours and Teachers not all And we know the twelve by vertue of that authority received preached and baptized and ordered all the affairs of Christs Kingdome during their age they planted severall Churches and ordained them Elders and Deacons they were the instruments for the propagation of the Gospell in almost all places Doubtlesse after Jesus Christ had received all power in heaven and earth he put the twelve only in commission to build his Church and they ordained Elders and Deacons and gave order to some others as Timothy and Titus to ordain and directed them also to commit the same power to able and sit men in after ages to teach others c. And in the seven Churches of Asia the Angell of every Church is writ unto and blamed or commended according as they demeaned themselves in their places in opposing errour or cleaving to the truth But we never finde that the common brotherhood or membership were impowered with the keys either by