Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	church_n	militant_a	triumphant_a	2,791	5	11.4510	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74979	Excommunicatio excommunicata, or, A censure of the Presbyterian censures and proceedings in the Classis at Manchester wherein is modestly examined what ecclesiastical or civil function [sic] they pretend for their new and usurped power : in a discourse betwixt the ministers of that Classis, and some dissenting Christians.	Allen, Isaac, 17th cent.; Allen, Isaac, 17th cent.; Heyrick, Richard, 1600-1667.	1658 (1658)	Wing A1026A; ESTC R42720	45,307	67

tu in illa non es Vide nè tu ideo non sis nam illa erit etsi tu non sis But if your charity reach further then to your own assemblies then you make lawless persons such as will not subject themselves to your Government Saints and members at least of the invisible Triumphant Church though none of your present visible militant Church and then your charity over reacheth Again we are unsatisfied in the Word Publique the publique assemblies of the Saints What do not private assemblies please you We presume you are not against private meetings your own practice speaks the contrary But you will binde all notwithstanding your private Assemblies to frequent your publique also other wayes they shall be taken notice of What though they cannot submit to your Government Leave you no room for tender consciences The Laws of the Land have otherwayes provided And if you under color of authority will make Laws and Edicts and publish them openly in the Church for all to obey upon pain of excommunication contrary to the Laws in force whether you do it in contempt of the civill power or through ignorance of the Laws which later is rather to be supposed in a charitable and favourable construction yet in what sense soever it be taken we much question and it concerns you to look to it whether you have not run your selves into a praemunire Again whereas you say That like notice shall be taken of all scandalous persons Our next Quaere is Whether those that forsake the publique Assemblies of Saints in the 2d order may not be taken for scandalous and so comprehended in this 3d. If so Quare oneramini ritibus why do you lengthen out your paper and burden us with traditions in multiplying of orders sine necessitate ad Arthritim usque After the 2d and 3d orders against those that forsake the publique Assemblies of Saints and such as are scandalous comes in a fourth touching the Catechumenists in the first order mentioned viz. That the Minister when he Catechizeth the severall Families shall exhort such persons in them as he findes be of competent knowledge and are blameless in life that they present themselves to the Eldership that they may be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord supper But what if they will not present themselves before the Eldership The Minister must exhort and admonish them What if still they refuse Their names shall be published openly in the several congregations and they warned before all to reform That 's the 9th order Mark Men of blameless life and knowledge must be warned before all to reform But what if after all this they will not reform but continue obstinate Then no admission to the Sacrament that 's implyed in the fourth order There 's their Excommunicatio minor But that 's not all a higher censure yet They shall be cast out and excommunicated So saith the 6th and last order the great Excommunication which casteth out of the Church also and judgeth them no better then Heathens and Publicans notwithstanding all their piety and knowledge So that in brief all wilfully ignorant and Scandalous are to be excommunicated and not onely they but the knowing and blameless of life if they present not themselves to the Eldership These things premised lying sadly on our spirits and consciences as not sound and orthodox for which we cannot so readily joyn with you till further satisfaction be given us and which the publisher of your Paper promised should be given to all that did desire We therefore thought fit to signifie these our scruples to you and shall wait earnestly for a speedy satisfaction in the particulars remaining Your Brethren desirous of Truth Vnity and Peace in the Church Isaac Allen. Jo Pollett Tho Prestwich Leonard Egerton Ferdinando Stanley c. At Manchester Feb. 23. 1657. The Answer of the First Classis within the Province of Lancaster unto a Paper presented unto them at their Classical meeting Jan. 12. 1657. by certain Gentlemen subscribed by them and sundry others within the bounds of this Association Gentlemen WEE have perused your Paper and do finde in it sundry mistakes and some manifest wrestings of our plain meaning in that Paper of ours which was published in our several Congregations And wee are also sensible of the sharp reflections in it upon the Government that is committed to our mannagement and on our selves But wee shall not go about to answer you in that kinde and therefore laying aside animosities and putting away gall and bitternesse in the spirit of love and meeknesse however in faithfulnesse and plainnesse wee shall endeavor to shew you your Errors and rectifie your mistakes And wee do thus farr acknowledg your fair dealing for which wee give you hearty thanks that you addresse your selves unto us giving us thereby the opportunity both to vindicate our selves and give you a right understanding of the maters wherein you are mistaken Our leasure will not permit us to spend time about impertinencies but yet that you may not conceive wee are destitute of Civil Authority which you in your Paper minde us not to contemn and wee our selves do professedly testifie all due respects unto as in duty wee are bound wee intreat you to take notice That the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament having resolved to establish the Presbyterian Government throughout the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales did August 19. 1645. publish their directions after advice had with the Assembly of Divines for the electing and chusing of ruling Elders in all the Congregations and in the Classical Assemblies for the Cities of London and Westminster and the several Counties of the Kingdom for the speedy settling of the Presbyterian Government In these directions as may be seen pag. 8. they did ordain That in the several Counties certain persons Ministers and others should be appointed by authority of Parliament who should consider how the several Counties respectively might be most conveniently divided into distinct Classical Presbyteries and what Ministers and others were fit to be of each Classis And that they should accordingly make such division and nomination of persons for each Classical Presbytery Which divisions and persons so named for every division the appointed should be certified up to the Parliament And they further appointed That the said several Classes respectively being approved by Parliament within their several precincts should have power to constitute Congregational Elderships According to these directions the persons by them appointed for this County met and did consider how it might be most conveniently divided into distinct Classical Presbyteries and what Ministers and others were fit to be of each Classis and also made such a division and nomination accordingly and certified the same up to the Parliament All which being done according to their directions and appointment It was resolved by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Oct. 2. 1646. That they did approve of the division of the

Churches lawfull Pastors have the power of the Keys committed to them to excommunicate such offenders 3. For such as are scandalous and wicked in their lives Admonition private and publique is to be observed according to Christs rule Mat. 18. but if they still continue and will not reform the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to excommunicate such Thus far we accord in judgement touching the way of informing the ignorant and reforming wicked persons and schismatical which course is so fully warranted by the Word of God and the constant practise of the Catholique Church that we are not so wavering and unsetled in our apprehensions of the case as to submit either it or them either wholly or in part to the contrary judgement and determination of a General Council of the Eastern or Western Churches much less to a new termed Provincial Assembly at Preston wherein we no little differ from you Other parts of your Paper are full of darkness to which we cannot so fully assent till further explicated and unfolded by you For 1. Whereas you say That in the several congregations if not in all belonging to this Association there are many persons of all sorts that are members of congregations c. you seem to hint that though your grief may be general as ours for all offenders yet your censures extend onely to those who have admitted themselves members of some Congregation within your Association and yet live inordinately and will not be admonished If so then we who never were any members or associates of yours are not within the verge and compass of your Presbyterian discipline for what have you to do to judge those that are without 2. But whereas your complaint and offence taken is That many there are of all sorts who will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church but live like lawless persons out of their rank and order If by the present Government of the Church you mean your own as may strongly be conjectured you do then are we also comprehended therein and must fall within your censure and not onely we but all Papists Anabaptists and all other of what Profession and Religion soever who live within the Parish must be taken for members of some one Congregation within your Association and so driven into the common fold of Presbytery and be subject to your Government And this as we suppose is the cheif design of you in this as in other transactions of yours to subject all to your Government which you garnish over with the specious title of Christs Government Throne and Scepter Presbytery is the main thing driven at here and however she cometh ushered in with a Godly pretence of sorrow for the sins and ignorance of the times and a duty incumbent upon you to exercise the power which Christ hath committed to you for edification and not for destruction yet these are but as so many waste papers wherein Presbyterie is wrapped to make it look more handsomely and pass more currently but beware we must for latet anguis in Herbâ Object But you say For want of the vigorous exercise of this Ecclesiastical discipline ignorance Atheism and Licentiousness grows upon us and men live as lawlesse persons out of their rank and order because not subject to your present Government Sol. We pray for the establishment of such Church Government throughout his Highness Dominions as is consonant to the will of God and Universall practice of primitive Churches that Ecclesiasticall discipline may be exercised in the hands of them to whom it was committed by Christ and left by him to be transferred from hand to hand to the end of the World and shall readily joyn with you in humble addresses to his Highness and his great Council for the establishment of such a Church Government In the mean time though there may be such who as you say live as lawless persons out of their rank and order yet are they subject to law and therefore subject to punishment for though your Ecclesiastical sword cannot take hold on them the civill sword doth reach them Your Class may do well then not to contemn as in charity we hope you do not the authority of the civill Magistrate but in stead of warning all and every member belonging to them to complain to the Eldership of those that walk disorderly and will not be reclaimed to the end they may excommunicate them That they exhort them to complain to the civill Magistrate whose sword of Justice is sharper and longer and likely to work a greater reformation in the lives and manners of men by a corporal and pecuniary Mulct then any sword of excommunication or other Church censure your Eldership can any way pretend unto There are other parts of your paper do remain likewise dark which we desire may be made plain unto us for whereas you say There are many persons of all sorts c. That will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order Our Quaeres thereupon are 1. Why Government in singulari is there no Ecclesiasticall Government but yours may not another Church have its Government different from yours yet not different from that which Christ hath prescribed in his Word Calvin saith yea Scimus enim unicuique Ecclesiae c. And accordingly there are other Churches in England different in Government from yours and as good as yours But if you say yours is the Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminency as Christs own Government more immediatly and jure divino which you so much defend then why the present is there no present Government in any Church or Assembly of Saints but where your discipline is erected Are all the rest at present without Government or where hath yours been this 1500. years past till this present Hath Antichristianism so overspread the face of the Church that Christs own Government could never get footing till this present But now subjection is required thereto of all yet many of all sorts will not subject but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order Our next Quaere is What must all those that observe not your ranks and orders subject not themselves to your present Government be taken for lawless persons out of their rank and order Yea for so this close connexion of yours seems to import viz. many who do not subject but live c. In your paper you further proceed and make it an order That notice shall be taken of all persons that forsake the publick assembly of Saints We would gladly know how far you extend this Saintship this Church and assembly of Saints if to your own Church onely and such as subject themselves to your Government then S. Augustines Answer against the Donatists who would not acknowledg a Church in the World but amongst themselves may also be yours O Impudentem Vocem saith he Illa non est Quia

wee do not apprehend why this should hinder us from warning the Members of our several Congregations to make complaint to the Eldership of those that walk disorderly and will not be reclaimed to the end they may be further dealt with as the nature of their offence may deserve Wee being fully assured from the word of truth That Excommunication is Gods ordinance appointed for the reformation of the scandalous and as you your selves acknowledged in the beginning of your Paper and being a spiritual punishment for the nature and kinde of it through the blessing of God may be more available for the destruction of the flesh and the thorough humiliation of the offender then any corporal or pecuniary mulct that reaches but the outward man can be And as it was blessed with great successe for this end for many years together whilest the Church was destitute of Christian Magistrates Although in a Christian State wee see not why wee should divide what God hath joyned together Wee having not yet learned either from the Scriptures or sound reason that the conjunction of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Sword is not more likely through the same blessing of God to work a greater reformation in mens lives then either of them alone remembring that old Maxime Vis unita fortior And as touching our selves and the power wee are intrusted to exercise wee shall commit our endeavors unto his blessing in the use of his own appointed means who is able and wee doubt not but hee will make the same effectual for the ends for which hee hath appointed them But you say There are other parts of our Paper that do likewise remain dark which you desire to be made plain Although wee conceive not so of them yet wee shall as willingly go along with you to give you further answer as you to desire the same of us And therefore whereas wee having said in our Paper That there are many persons of all sorts that will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church Your first Quaere thereupon is Why Government in singulari Wee answer because it is the onely Government that at present is established in this Church by Civil Authority The Prelatical being put down and cautioned against in the humble Advice in regard of any liberty to be extended to it for the exercise thereof And there being no other Government but the Presbyterian which is our Government that is owned as the Church-Government for the whole Nation by the Civil Authority And as it is that which wee judg to be most agreeable to the will of God so also wee conceive that whatever is of Christs prescribing in any other different Government whether Episcopal or Congregational is to be found here As wee do apprehend the redundancies of them both to be taken away in this and the defects of them both to be here supplyed And however there may be differences amongst godly men concerning Church-Government which it is that Christ in particulari hath prescribed in his Word yet wee judg that the Government which Christ hath prescribed in his Word is but one As all those must say so too that not being Erastians do hold That one Church-Government or other is of divine Right But whereas you bring in Calvin saying Scimus enim unicuique Ecclesiae c. To this wee say The circumstantials of Government that are but matters of order onely and which must be suited to the time or place or persons for whom they are made and concerning which if you had quoted the place where Calvin useth these words wee believe it would appear hee speaks these being variable and so but the accidentals of Government may not be one and the same in all Churches But if Christ have prescribed a Government in his word for the substantials of it it must needs be de jure one the same in every Church And that the Presbyterian Government is that in particular which is there prescribed in Calvins judgment is so manifest by his works to the whole Christian world that it needs no proof But if the Government which Christ hath prescribed for the substantials of it be onely one then that alone is good and all other Governments differing substantially from it must needs be bad and this onely jure divino and Christs own Government and the rest not And therefore whereas in the next place you suppose Wee may assert that our Government is the Government by way of Eminency as Christs own Government more immediately and jure divino To this and to what you further hereupon do inquire wee say wee have declared already That wee call'd it the present Government because it is the onely Government setled in the Church by the Civil Power But whether it be the Government by way of Eminency and jure divino that was not the thing referred unto in the phrase wee used And as to the resolving of your doubts and scruples wee conceive it is here for us not material to go about the proving of the Jus divinum of it wee having proved That it is the Government that is established by the Civil Magistrate and which doth lay as good a foundation to evidence the lawfulnesse of your submission to it as for the lawfulnesse of your submission to the former Government and touching which wee suppose you were satisfied your exceptions lying as much against the High-Commissioners Chancellors and Commissaries then as they can do now against the office of Ruling Elders and which is the chief thing wee apprehend is stumbled at in our Government But yet if you desire to have satisfaction given you touching that which wee are not ashamed to professe viz. the Jus divinum of the Presbyterian Government wee referr you to what is so fully spoken touching this point by sundry learned Divines both of our own Church and the Reformed Churches abroad that wee know not what can be added more a The Assemblies Propositions about Church-Government The Jus Divinum by London Ministers The Provincial Synod of London their vindication of the Presbyterian Government Rutherfords due right of Presbyteries Aarons Rod by Gillaspie And yet wee do not say That there is no present Government in any Church or Assembly of Saints but where our Discipline and Government is erected intirely in all the parts of it no more then wee should deny him to be a man in whom there were a defect of some integral parts or in whom there were some superfluous members But as when Antichristianism so overspread the face of the Church in those dark times before the Reformation God preserved a Church Ministery and Ordinances though not without the mixture of many corruptions in doctrine and worship even amongst the Papists themselves So there was some of Christs Government and Discipline in the worst times though not intirely nor without the mixture of much corruption in that Discipline and Government And yet if you consult Antiquity you will

not finde that the Presbyterian Government hath lyen hid so long as that for the space of 1500 years it could never be found till this present You have heard what rule did anciently belong to Presbyters notwithstanding that through the corruptions that crept into the Church in after times the exercise of that power was long disused And the like may be said of Ruling Elders and as hath been shewed by others But it is what de jure ought to be and not what de facto is or hath been which is that which you and wee are chiefly to attend and concerning which the Scripture must be the onely Judg as wee have said before But you say now subjection to our present Government is required by us and then demand Whether all that observe not our rank and order and subject not themselves to our present Government must be taken for lawlesse persons for so say you doth this close connexion of ours seem to import viz. Many who do not subject but live c. But here you do reason fallaciously à bene conjunctis ad male divisa For in our Paper wee speak of such as did live in a sinfull and total neglect of the Lords Supper That were scandalous and offensive in their lives drunkards unclean persons and that will not subject themselves to the present Government but live as lawlesse persons And therefore the lawlesse persons wee meant and as might plainly have been gathered from our words were such who as they subjected not themselves to the present Government of the Church so they were also scandalous and offensive in their lives wee joyning these altogether whom you divide And whether such as will neither submit themselves to the Laws of God nor the Government that is settled in the Church by the Civil Power be not lawlesse persons we leave it to you to judg But yet we do here also minde you That however we do not judg all those to be lawlesse persons that do out of conscience not come up to the observation of all those Rules which are or shall be established by Authority for regulating the outward worship of God and Government of this Church being otherwise blamelesse yet both you and wee may well remember that such as should have refused to have subjected themselves to the late Prelatical Government would have been accounted in those times to have been lawlesse persons But you say When wee make it an Order that notice shall be taken of all persons that forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints you would gladly know how farr wee extend this Saintship this Church and Assembly of Saints To which wee answer as farr as the Apostle did when writing to the Church of Corinth and the Churches of Galatia hee calls them Saints and Churches notwithstanding there were some in those Churches that were leavened with unsound doctrine and grosly erroneous In Corinth some that denied the Resurrection made rents and schisms and sundry grosly scandalous In the Churches of Galatia such as mixed works with Faith in the point of Justification and of which the Apostle Paul would have those Churches to take notice even to the censuring of them they being spots to those Assemblies and however Saints by profession and in regard of outward calling being in Covenant with God and having been baptized yet answered not their profession by suitable conversation And therefore however there be sundry of the like stamp in our Assemblies wee do not therefore unchurch them or make our Assemblies not the Assemblies of Saints because of the corruption of such members And seeing our principles and practices are manifestly known to be utterly against the opinions and practices of the Donatists of old and those that have of late rent themselves from our Churches because of the scandalousnesse of the corrupt members that are found in them though the sin of these in our Churches is aggravated by giving that occasion you might well have spared your pains in transcribing out of Augustine what hee justly said unto those schismaticks that hee had to deal with Nay you might rather have gathered from our Paper That seeing wee said that notice should be taken of all those that should forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints our purpose was to have censured such as the Donatists were That wee purposed to observe and censure those that did maintain and hold up private meetings in opposition to the publick That crie down our Churches and publick Assemblies Ministery and Ordinances as you know several sorts do and who as they hold sundry grosse errors that subvert the faith so in regard of those and other their practices that in their own nature do manifestly subvert the order unity and peace that Christ hath established in his Church do justly fall under Church censure according to the rules of our Government above mentioned And that therefore wee were not altogether silent concerning either the sin or punishment of such as did err grosly in doctrinals or in discipline so as to make such dangerous rents from the Church as the fore-named Sectaries do Contrary to what you say of us in your Paper And further by such as forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints of whom wee said notice should be taken you might have gathered our meaning was that such of which sort there are but too many amongst us who out of a principle of carelesnesse sloth worldlinesse or manifest prophanenesse do on the Lords day either idle out the time or else are worse imployed when they should resort to the publick Assemblies and who as they are no friends to any private meetings for the good of their souls in the use of any private means of conference or prayer for that end So they do also Atheistically turn their backs on all the publick Ordinances forsaking them and the Assemblies where these are dispensed should be taken notice of in order to censure if there was not reformation and to neither of which sort of persons any indulgence is granted by any Laws of the Land that wee know of And if you had gathered thus much from our Paper as your mistake had been far the less so your Charity had been the more then to have reckoned us in the number of such Persons as the Donatists were And yet we did not mean That we intended to take notice in order unto censure of such who being sound in the faith and godly in life though differing from us in point of Discipline and Government had their distinct Assemblies from ours they indeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace They not being censurable by the rules of our Government as is manifest by what we have declared before Although we remember how all that submitted not to the former Government were counted schismatical Neither did we reckon these in the number of the lawless Persons we speak of who subjected not themselves to our Government and whom we account to be