Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	holy_a	power_n	remit_v	3,131	5	10.5945	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56382	The case of the Church of England, briefly and truly stated in the three first and fundamental principles of a Christian Church : I. The obligation of Christianity by divine right, II. The jurisdiction of the Church by divine right, III. The institution of episcopal superiority by divine right / by S.P.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1681 (1681)	Wing P455; ESTC R12890	104,979	280

obstinate against their Authority every man should look upon him as an Excommunicate Person and by the sentence of the Court reduced into the state of Idolaters But also by the words immediately following Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Which words plainly declare a Power of binding in the sentence of the Church and withall who the Church is viz. The Apostles or Governours of it to whom our Saviour addresses his speech and vests them and them alone with that Authority in which he had before enstated St. Peter and promises to ratifie not the opinion of the People but their acts of Judicature when the People appeal to their Authority But neither Secondly says our Author can these words relate to the Christian Excommunication for what punishment could there then be in being accounted of as an Heathen when a great number of the primitive Christians were Heathens or such as came into the Church without Circumcision What in our Saviours time did you not take a great deal of pains in the foregoing Chapter to prove not only that then but during all the time of the Apostles all Christians were Jews but now it will serve your turn the greatest part of them were Heathens But not to insist too much upon such weak pretences it is certain that in our Saviours time all that were not Jews by Circumcision were esteemed as Heathens i. e. Idolaters and vile Persons not fit to be admitted into their Church or Common-wealth and therefore it can be of no other Import in the Christian Church Our Saviour here accommodating as he does every where the known customs of the Synagogue to the Constitution of his Church so that considering the vulgar manner of speaking at that time I cannot understand if our Saviour had design'd to establish this Power in what other words he could have expressed himself with more plainness and less ambiguity even to the capacities of the People Of the Third Text Math. 18. 18. Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth c. Though it is answer'd already as appertaining to the second our Authors account is briefly this that the words of binding and loosing are either to be taken in their large sense of all manner of binding but then it seems very strange to express one act of it by such comprehensive words and it is like describing the Ocean by a drop of Water or the Universe by an Atom Or if they are taken in the peculiar sense of the Jewish Writers they then do not signifie any Jurisdiction but only declaring what is lawful what not or answering cases of Conscience To which I answer that in whatever sense the words are taken they will include in them the power of Excommunication In the larger sense they signifie Jurisdiction and all the parts branches and appendages of it and then the Power of inflicting penalties which as is well known and our Author has often observed gives force to all the rest is to be understood in the first place And therefore he might have spared his wonder that so large a word should be taken in so narrow a sense when that narrow sense necessarily infers all other things that it does or can signifie But however to prevent this vain objection for the time to come these words are not insisted upon as limited meerly to Excommunication but as a general donation of Power and therefore of this in particular which is so considerable a branch of it And that is it which we assert that seeing by the Power of the Keys the Scripture so often expresses greatness of Power therefore the Power that is exercised by vertue of them must carry with it the full force of obligation So that the words mutually explain each other for if by the Keys given in the Sixteenth verse is signified Authority then by binding and loosing by which the acts of them are expressed in the Eighteenth verse must be understood authoritative obligation for though the word binding simply put may not infer Authority yet binding by the Keys signifies the same thing as binding by Authority And this would have prevented our Authors other notion of which some learned men are so very fond of binding only by answering cases of Conscience because though binding alone may signifie only so much yet binding by the Keys must signifie more But it is notorious that the word it self no where in the old Testament signifies any other binding than by Legislative or judicial Obligation and whereas it is pretended that in the Talmudical Writers it signifies only an interpreting of Laws without jurisdiction it is so palpable a mistake that in them it can signifie nothing less than authoritative Obligation when it is so evident that their Rabbies equal'd their interpretations to the Law it self and bound them upon the Consciences of men by vertue of the Divine Authority and under penalty of the Divine displeasure But however if our Saviour constituted his Apostles to be only Doctors and Casuists yet he has annexed Authority to their Office by the promise made at their Instalment that whatever they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven for I am sure all binding there is Obligatory so that it seems if they are Casuists they are authoritative Casuists and that is the same thing as if they were endued with proper Jurisdiction And now having as I suppose sufficiently vindicated these Texts I cannot but remark it as some defect of Ingenuity in this learned Gentleman to have wholly omitted one Text more which he could not be ignorant to have been as commonly as any of the other insisted upon in this Argument and if he would have taken notice of it would have prevented his Evasions And that is St. John Chap. 20. v. 21 22 23. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you And when he had said this ●e breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Here our Saviour gives his Apostles the same Power that he had received from his Father and then for the discharge of it the same Ability wherewith himself acted and lastly declares to them wherein lay the Exercise of it and what were the Effects of it forgiving and retaining of Sins which answers to the power of Binding and Loosing in the other Gospel And this if attended to would have prevented that poor slender Notion that the power of Binding and Loosing signifies only the Office of Interpreting or declaring what is lawful what unlawful for to retain or remit Sins as the truly pious and learned Dr. Hammond observes will not be to declare one mans sins unlawful anothers lawful which it must do if this interpretation be applied to this place After all this it will be but superfluous industry to spend pains upon our Author's Conceit wherewith he concludes this Chapter viz. That the Authority of the Church