Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	church_n	holy_a	6,819	5	4.8029	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B20531	English Presbytery, or, An account of the main opinions of those ministers and people in England, who go under the name of Presbyterians published for the vindication of divers noble and worthy persons, who by papists, and their adherents are without any ground aspersed with that name : and also of those who indeed do hold those principles, appealing to the judgement of all sober Christians, what there is of falshood or unpeaceableness in them.	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1680 (1680)	Wing C5315; ESTC R9925	10,428	16

preserve the Unity Peace and Purity of the Church which are the great ends of that Government 2. Secondly That the Ultimate Judgment of the Will of God revealed in Scripture as to any persons particular practice is his own practical Judgment or Conscience after a due Enquiry into Scripture and comparing Scripture with Scripture and hearing and weighing the Judgments of others as to things the believing or not believing doing or not doing of which may render his soul guilty before God And that although a man's Conscience may err as any other creature may yet no Christian ought to act contrary to the dictate of it whether it dictateth upon probable or demonstrative Arguments in obedience to any man but ought rather patiently to suffer any thing shall be imposed on him for not doing 3. That where any things in the Worship of God are of necessary use though they have been abused to the Worship of Idols yet the use of them is to be retained and the abuse only taken away but where the use of any thing in the Worship of God is not necessary if it hath been ordinarily used in an Idolatrous Worship it ought to be wholly disused especially if it giveth an offence to any considerable number of Christians nor can the commands of any Superiours legitimate the use of any such Rites Figures Habits or Actions Superiours being obliged in the first place by the will of God not to command them and being as much under the Royal Law of Love as private persons These are the Fundamental Principles of all those truly called Presbyterians from which flow all their different Apprehensions relating to the Worship of God the Church the Ministers of it and the Ministrations in it The Censures and Power of the Keys which I shall now more particularly declare Concerning Divine Worship 1. DIvine Worship so far as it concerneth the outward man being nothing else but the homage of the creature paid to his Creator with respect to his excellency and as an indication of the more internal homage of his soul they can allow nothing as an Act or Mean or Mode of True Worship under the Gospel but what Christ hath prescribed or exemplified by himself or his Apostles or is justified by some Precepts or Examples in the New Testament Christ having abolished both the Typical and Carnal Ordinances by which it pleased God to command his peoples expression of their homage to him under the Old Testament And the New Testament mentioning only Prayer and Praise Reading Preaching and Hearing of the Word Administring and Receiving Baptism and the Lord's Supper they can allow these and these alone to be the Acts of Worship unless others can be shewn there 2. The Word of God directing the Form and Manner of Receiving and Administring both Sacraments they believe they ought to be administred and received according to those Forms and no other adding only the Word and Prayer and Praise which are general acts of Worship applicable in the use of any creatures The Word of God also directing the matter both of Prayer and Preaching and prescribing no Forms of words for either but requiring Ministers to study to stir up their gifts and as they have received them so to minister the same They believe that Ministers are both to preach and pray in the exercises of those gifts which God hath given them for that end and to administer the holy Sacraments according to his direction without any unnecessary variation In keeping close to Christ and his Apostles Precepts and Practice they know they cannot err But they believe that varying from it they must err Not allowing God the prerogative which every creature challengeth to prescribe his own homage and reflecting upon the Wisdom of Christ as if he had not known his Father's will or not faithfully revealed it and the Apostles as worshiping God in an imperfect manner in the most pure and primitive times 3. They believe that nothing in the Worship of God which is idle and superfluous is lawful it being too solemn an action to trifle in And that nothing can be added by man for Edification the Spirit of God alone being authorized to direct means in order to that end and that no Action Rite Figure Habit or any thing of that nature can be religiously used by vertue of any Civil command Nor can they understand how actions can be done in the solemn Worship of God meerly in obedience to man without confounding of things Civil and Sacred and setting up Man's posts by God's posts and Man's thresholds by God's thresholds and endangering peoples superstitious apprehensions in a short time as is abundantly proved by the Popish Worship that these things are indeed acts of Worship and upon that account acceptable unto God So that they have no small apprehension that they less err who through ignorance establish such things as parts and acts of Worship than those who require them to be mixt with true acts of Worship but require them only under the notion of acts of homage and obedience to men 4. More particularly they do not think any gestures forms actions figures habits or any such thing not necessary from the light of nature or a Divine Precept if they have been ordinarily used in the Idolatrous Worship of the Papists are lawful to be used by them in the Worship of God because they believe Papists most gross Idolaters and find themselves confessing it upon supposition that there is no Transubstantiation And as God severely forbad the Jews all Idolatrous usages in his Worship so the Apostle determineth the unlawfulness of Idolothytes and in this they have the Judgment of Tertullian very copiously But they otherwise judge of what is of Divine Institution though so abused by Idolaters and of what hath been used by them as conveniencies for Religious actions though no more proper to them than to such as are civil such as capacious buildings c. 5. They do believe Preaching to be the Explication and Application of the holy Scriptures in order to Faith and Holiness and that it ought to be by comparing Scripture with Scripture and Reason working upon Scripture Principles and that those who only discourse moral propositions proving them from meer natural Principles and the Opinions of Heathen Philosophers and the Testimonies of Men are very far from discharging the duty of Ministers in Preaching of the Gospel as those also who deliver their discourses in a stile and phrase not understood by their hearers and serving only to please and tickle the Ears Concerning the Church 1. THey believe that the term Church in a Religious sense is to be interpreted only by the Scriptures and applyed only to a number of people whom the holy Scriptures dignifie by that Title and that we had not known the term but for the Scriptures as appropriated to a Religious Society 2. They believe that according to the Scriptures the Church most strictly and properly signifieth that number

of people of whom Christ is the Head and who are his Members to whom belong the promises of all spiritual things and of Eternal Life and Salvation and this is the Church Invisible for the Lord alone knoweth who are his part of whom are in Patriâ their souls being already with Christ in glory who are therefore called the Church Triumphant having conquered all their Spiritual Enemies part of them yet in Via in the way towards Heaven or being chosen of God are daily coming into that way in which they have and shall have the certain conduct of the Spirit of God until they come to their Journeys end but till that time will be fighting the good fight with the World the Flesh and the Devil and are therefore called The Church Militant 3. God alone knowing these they believe that all those who have given up their names to Christ and are baptized in his name making an outward profession of Faith in the Doctrine of the Gospel and Obedience to the Precepts of it make up the Visible Church and are in Scripture called the Church and Churches and herein they agree with the ninteenth Article of the Church of England which truly saith That the visible Church of Christ is the Congregation of the Faithful in which the pure Word of God is Preached and the Sacraments duly administred according to Christ's Ordinance in all those things that are of necessity requisite to the same That the whole number of these scattered over the whole world make the Universal Visible Church and that the number of these in any Nation make up the National Church of this or that Nation 4. They believe that Christ hath appointed Ministers of the Gospel for Officers to this Visible Church who may Preach the Gospel and Baptize in any parts of it but can only exercise an ordinary jurisdiction in those particular parts of it over which God hath given them a particular Oversight as Pastors and Teachers the exercise of Acts of Jurisdiction requiring a particular knowledge of persons Opinions Knowledge and Conversation which no single person can have as to all the Members of the Visible Church 5. They believe that Ministers ought to be made by those that are Ministers ordinarily first proving those that desire that Office whether God hath called them to it by fitting them with his gifts and graces for the performance of the several acts of that Office Then solemnly setting them apart to it by Fasting and Prayer and Imposition of Hands not as a token of their then receiving the Holy Ghost as the Apostles used it but as a token of their separation to the work of the Ministry In a total corruption of the Ministry or a want of Ministers they believe that a faithful people may prove and set apart persons to the Ministry that no Ordinance of God may be lost which he hath given to his Church so that none to prove their Ministry need run to an Apostolical Succession impossible to be satisfactorily made out by the greatest pretenders to it which are the Papists or pleaders for it 6. They believe persons thus set apart to the Ministry are fully authorized to Preach the Gospel and to baptize in any place where they are called to it and to administer the Lord's Supper when they shall be fixed in any Congregation that they may administer it knowingly to persons that are able to discern the Lord's body and whose conversations are such as they may charitably judge them members of Christ who shall not eat and drink unworthily as also authorized to joyn with other Ministers in setting apart of Persons to the Ministry and to exercise Acts of jurisdiction in their fixed congregation admonishing the erroneous ignorant and scandalous withholding the Lords Supper from them till they give some evidence of their Reformation and casting them out of the Communion of the Church if after admonitions instructions and patient waiting they shall at last appear contumacious 7. They believe that Ministers of the Gospel are bound to pray and to preach in the exercise of those abilities which God hath given them for the work of the Ministry and to administer the Sacraments and acts of Jurisdiction according to the rule God hath set them in his Word and no otherwise for they are Ministers of Christ not of men and Stewards of the mysteries of God of whom it is required that they should be faithful 1 Cor. 4. 2. 8. They believe any number of Christians living in the same City so agreeing or in the same Parish or Neighbourhood may call or chuse any persons to be their Pastor and Teacher or Pastors and Teachers who may either singly or joyntly take the care of such a flock and perform all Ministerial acts towards them either meeting in one or more places for worship ordinarily provided such persons be either Ministers before proved and set apart to the Ministry or so set apart before they take upon them that Pastoral charge of such People but we believe no Person can be so called and set apart according to the rule of Scripture but he who is sound in the faith of an unblameable life apt to teach and furnished with abilities both to pray and to preach and that all callings of other persons ought to be reversed and adjudged Nullities 9. Our Saviour having determined Ministers to be the Salt of the Earth and that if the Salt hath lost its savour it is good for nothing but to be thrown upon the dunghill They do believe that he hath left a power both in the Church if there be no Christian Magistrate and with the Christian Magistrate who is to be a nursing Father to the Church if any called to or placed in the Ministry appear to be Unsound in the Faith scandalous in his life Insufficient for his work Or negligent in the performance of it to admonish such persons and in case he reformeth not to remove him from the Ministry who may for no other cause be removed from it either by the Magistrate or the Church 10. They believe That no Minister can be over more places than he can discharge his Duty to and he can reside amongst and that all Ministers ought ordinarily to reside with their People or so near to them that they may perform the several acts of his Ministry to them and that he can delegate that trust to no others Being himself but a delegate from Christ 11. They do believe by the Law of Christ no Minister of the Gospel is Superiour to or hath further power than another but all are equally obliged and authorized to Pray and Preach and Baptize and to give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in that due order which the Scriptures have prescribed c. 12. But in regard That the Judgment of persons fitness or unfitness for the receiving the Supper of the Lord is a matter of great moment they cannot judge it the will of God that it should