Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	catholic_n	church_n	universal_a	1,773	5	9.0565	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34675	A defence of Mr. John Cotton from the imputation of selfe contradiction, charged on him by Mr. Dan. Cavvdrey written by himselfe not long before his death ; whereunto is prefixed, an answer to a late treatise of the said Mr. Cavvdrey about the nature of schisme, by John Owen ...	Cotton, John, 1584-1652.; Owen, John, 1616-1683. Of schisme.	1658 (1658)	Wing C6427; ESTC R2830	62,631	184

own and allow p. 44. sure not without Equivocation I have before owned this Caution as consistent with my present Judgment as expressed in my Booke of schisme and as it is indeed wherein lyes the appearance of Contradiction I am not able to discerne Doe not I in my Booke of Schisme Declare and prove that men ought not to cut themselves from the Communion of the Church That they ought not to rent the body of Christ that they ought not to break the sacred bonds of Charity Is there any word or tittle in the whole Discourse deviating from these Principles How and in what sense Separation is not Schisme that the nature of Schisme doth not consist in a breach of Charity the Treatise instanced will so farre declare as withall to Convince those that shall Consider what is spoken that our Authour scarce keeps close either to Truth or Charity in his framing of this Contradiction The Close of the Scheme lies thus I conceive they ought not at all to be allowed the benefit of private meeting who willfully abstaike from the publick Congregations As for liberty to be allowed to those that meet in private I confesse my-selfe to be otherwise minded I remember that about 15 yeeres agoe meeting occasionally with a learned Friend we fell into some debate about the liberty that began then to be claimed by men differing from what had been and what was then likely to be established having at that time made no farther enquiry into the grounds and reasons of such liberty then what had occurred to me in the writings of the Remonstrants all whose plea was still pointed towards the advantage of their owne interest I delivered my Judgment in opposition to the liberty pleaded for which was then defended by my learned Friend Not many yeares after discoursing the same difference with the same Person we found immediately that we had changed Stations I pleading for an Indulgence of liberty he for restraint whether that learned and worthy Person be of the same mind still that then he was or no directly I know not But this I know that if he be not Considering the Compasse of Circumstances that must be taken in to settle a right Judgment in this Case of Liberty and what alterations influencing the Determination of this Case we have had of late in this nation he will not be ashamed to owne his Change Being a Person who despises any reputation but what arises from the Embracing and pursuit of truth my Change I here owne my Judgment is not the same in this Particular as it was 14 yeeres ago j and in my Change I have good Company whome I need not to name I shall only say my Change was at least 12 yeares before the Petition and Advice wherein the Parliament of the three Nations is come up to my judgment And if Mr Cawdrey hath any thing to object to my Present Judgment let him at his next leisure Consider the Treatise that I wrote in the yeare 1648 about Toleration where he will find the whole of it expressed I suppose he will be doing and that I may almost say of him as Polycteutus did of Speusipus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And now Christian Reader I leave it to thy Judgment whether our Author had any just cause of all his outcryes of my inconstancy and selfe-Contradiction and whether it had not been advisable for him to have passed by this seeming advantage of the designe he professed to mannage rather than to have injured his owne Conscience and Reputation to so litle purpose Being sufficiently tired with the consideration of things of no relation to the Cause at first proposed but this saith he this the independents this the Brownists and Anabaptists c. I shall now only enquire after that which is set up in opposition to any of the principles of my Treatise of Schisme before mentioned or any of the propositions of the syllogismes wherein they are comprized at the beginning of this Discourse remarking in our way some such particular passages as it will not be to the disadvantage of our Reverend Authour to be reminded of Of the nature of the thing enquired after in the third Chapter I find no mention at all only he tels me by the way that the Doctor's assertion that my Booke about Schisme was one great schisme was not non sense but usuall Rhetoricke wherein profligate sinners may be called by the name of sin and therefore a Booke about Schisme may be called a schisme I wish our Authour had found some other way of excusing his Doctor then by making it worse himselfe In the fourth Chapter he comes to the businesse it selfe and if in passing thorough that with the rest that follow I can fix on any thing rising up with any pretence of opposition to what I have laid down it shall not be omitted for things by my selfe asserted or acknowledged on all hands or formerly ventilated to the utmost I shall not againe trouble the Reader with them such are the positions about the generall nature of Schisme in things naturall and politicall antecedently considered to the limitation and restriction of it to it's Ecclesiasticall use the departure from Churches voluntary or compelled c all which were stated in my first Treatise and are not directly opposed by our Authour such also is that doughty Controversie he is pleased to raise and pursue about the seat and subject of Schisme with it's restriction to the instituted worship of God pag. 18. 19 so placed by me to distinguish the Schisme whereof we speake from that which is naturall as also from such differences and breaches as may fall out amongst men few or more upon civill and rationall accounts all which I exclude from the enjoyment of any roome or place in our consideration of the true nature of schisme in it's limited Ecclesiasticall sense The like also may be affirmed concerning the ensuing strife of words about separation and schisme as though they were in my apprehension of them inconsistent which is a fancy no better grounded than sundry other which our Reverend Authour is pleased to make use of His whole passage also receives no other security than what is afforded to it by turning my universall proposition into a particular what I say of all places in the Scripture where the name or thing of schisme is used in an ecclesiasticall sense as relating to a Gospell Church he would restraint to that one place of the Corinths where alone the word is used in that sense However if that one place be all my proposition is universall take then my proposition in it's extent and latitude and let him try once more if he please what he hath to object to it for as yet I find no instance produced to alleviate it's truth He much also insists that there may be a separation in a Church where there is no separation from a Church and saith this was at first by

institution therefore in that which is so only by call not to any end of joynt worship as such of any union that which consists in the profession of the saving truths of the Gospell and so there may be a schisme in the Catholick Church and so those Presbyterians that reforme their Congregations and do not administer the sacraments to all promiscuously shall be guilty of Schime and indeed as to me what else he pleaseth for my inquiry concernes only the precise limited nature of Schisme in its evangelically ecclesiasticall sense Neither shall I at present alloting very few houres to the dispatch of this businesse which yet I judge more then it deserves consider the scattered ensuing passages about Ordination Church Government number of Elders and the like which all men know not at all to belong unto the maine controversy which was by me undertaken and that they were against all lawes of disputation plucked violently into this contest by our Reverend Author One thing I cannot passe by and it will upon the matter put a close to what I shall at present offer to this Treatise having said that Christ hath given no direction for the performance of any duty of worship of soveraigne institution but only in them and by them meaning particular Churches he answers that if I would imply that a Minister in or of a Particular Church may performe those ordinances without those congregations he contradicts himselfe for saying a particular Church is the seate of all ordinances but why so I pray may not a particular Church be the seat of all ordinances subjectively and yet others be the object of them or of some of them but saith he if he meane those ordinances of worship are to be performed only by a minister of a particular congregation what shall become of the people I suppose they shall be instructed and built up according to the mind of Christ and what would people desire more But whereas he had before said that I denyed a Minister to be a Minister to more then his own Church and I had asked him who told him so adding that explication of my judgment that for so much as men are appointed the objects of the dispensation of the word I grant a Minister in the dispensation of it to act ministerially towards not only the members of the Catholick Church but the visible members of the world also in contradistinction thereunto he now tells me a story of passages between the learned Dr Wallis and my selfe about his question in the Vespers 1654. namely that as to that question An potestas ministri Evangelici ad unius tantum ecclesiae particularis membra extendatur I said that Dr Wallis had brought me a challenge and that If I did dispute on that question I must dispute ex animo although I grant that a Minister as a Minister may preach the word to more then those of his owne congregation yet knowing the sense wherein the learned Dr VVallis maintained that question it is not impossible but I might say if I did dispute I must do it ex animo for his bringing me a challenge I do not know that either he did so or that I put that interpretation on what he did but I shall crave leave to say that if the learned Dr VVallis do find any ground or occasion to bring a challenge unto me to debate any point of difference between us I shall not wave answering his desire although he should bring Mr Cawdry for his second for the present I shall only say that as it is no commendation to the moderation or ingenuity of any one whatever thus to publish to the world private hearesaies and what he hath been told of private conferences so if I would insist on the same course to make publication of what I have been told hath been the private discourse of some men it is not unlikely that I should occasion their shame and trouble yet in this course of proceeding a progres is made in the ensuing words and Mr Stubbes who is now called my Amanuensis who some five yeares ago transcribed about a sheete of paper for me and not one line before or since is said to be employed or at least encouraged by me to write against the learned Dr Wallis his Thesis being published this is as true as much of that that went before and as somewhat of that that followes after and whereas it is added that I said what he had written on that subject was a scurrilous rididulous piece it is of the same nature with the rest of the like reports I knew that Mr Stubbes was writing on that subject but not untill he had proceeded farre in it I neither imployed him nor encouraged him in it any otherwise then the consideration of his papers after he had written them may be so interpreted and the reason why I was not willing he should proceed next to my desire of continuance of peace in this place was his using such expressions of me and somethings of mine in sundry places of his discourse as I could not modestly allow to be divulged the following words to the same purpose with them before mentioned I remember not nor did ever think to be engaged in the consideration of such transgressions of the common rules of humane society as those now passed through Reports heresayes talkes private discourse between friends allegations countenanced by none of these nor any thing else are the weapons wherewith I am assaulted I have heard I am told if reports be true t was vox populi at Oxford is it not so I presume he will not deny it are the ornaments of this discourse strange that men of experience and gravity should be carried by the power of these temptations not only to the forgetfulnesse of the royall law of Christ and all Gospell rule of deportment towards his professed Disciples but also be ingaged into wayes and practises contrary to the dictates of the law of nature and such as sundry heathens would have abhorred For my owne part had not God by his providence placed me in that station wherein others also that feare him are concern'd in me I should not once turne aside to looke upon such heapes as that which I have now passed over my judgment in most heads and articles of Christian Religion is long since published to the world and I continue through the grace and patience of God preaching in publick answerably to the principles I doe professe and if any man shall oppose what I have delivered or shall so deliver in print or in the pulpit or in divinity lectures as my judgment I shall consider his opposition and doe therein as God shall guide with evill surmises charges upon hearesayes and reports attended with perpetuall excursions from the Argument in hand I shall no more contend Some few observations on scattered passages will now speedily issue this discourse Pag. 112. To that Assertion of mine that if Rome be no