Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A85444
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The right of the Church asserted, against the povver usurped over it. By J. Gailhard, A.M. & D.
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Gailhard, J. (Jean)
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1660
(1660)
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Wing G127; Thomason E1046_7; ESTC R208052
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21,398
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25
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that I hope it will not seem to be impertinent if from the Governours of the Church I have passed to the necessity of the Government it self for hereby I do convince of the necessity of having Governors and these to be chosen according to Gods heart and will The Prelatical Party will or must hitherto agree with us and then our work is more than half done for they will be hard put to it when we shall desire them to shew out of Scripture their Hierarchical way Let them prove Arch-bishops Deans Arch-Deacons Prebends Canons Chapters c. as we will prove Pastors Teachers Rulers and Deacons But perhaps they will have refuge to their humane right and say that many things were left to the judgment of the Church It is true of circumstantial and accidental things and cases as to the Censures which ought to be proportionable to the sins and offences whether such a man doth deserve to be suspended from the Sacrament for such a Fact and whether to be excommunicated about which yet we have certain several Rules as that of Charity Decency and Edification which we must not trangress But I do account it is a necessary thing and not indifferent who it is that must administer Church-Discipline For it is not an accidental thing as that it may be executed or not executed without any prejudice to the Church neither is it indifferent as that any one may indifferently administer it but it is thus far necessary as that every one that doth administer it must be called thereunto and every one that is called thereunto must execute it But now we must proceed and shew how they that are to govern the Church must be chosen out of the Church here by Church I understand a Body or Assembly distinct and different from the civil or political Body although somtimes one may be chosen a Ruler in the Church and be a Civil Magistrate yet he is elected not because he is a Member of the Civil but of the Ecclesiastical Body And to speak the truth every member of the Church is a member of the Civil body yet in a different respect and here from the whole and universal Church we must come to particular Congregations who must have in themselves all the right which belongs to them as parts and members of the whole For when we say that Christ hath instituted a Government in his Church we must not conclude it not to be instituted and necessary in particular Congregations because it is not said he hath instituted it in his Churches for the word Church being collective doth include all the parts and if you will Parishes or Congregations belonging to it For I say that every particular Church hath all that which is essential and necessary to a Church as it is a Church as well as the Universal Church or else it will not be a Church and therefore as Doctrine and Discipline are necessary to the Church in general so it is to every Church in particular According to this Maxim of Philosophy he that saith the whole doth also say the parts in the whole hence therefore I do by way of inference conclude that they who are to administer Church-Government in particular places ought to be chosen out of the Church in particular places and the proof of this will also confirm my former universal indefinite Proposition how the Rulers of the Church are to be chosen out of the Church My first reason to prove this is drawn from the sufficiency of the Church whereby the Church hath all things necessary to it having no need to borrow from others any thing conducing to it Herein doth the perfection of the Church appear for as it is a body distinct from other bodies so it hath within it self from Christ alone her dependency for being and well-being Nay it would not be a Church if it had not within her self all things necessary to it as it is a Church If therefore the Church be perfect in it self then she doth receive no perfection from without this perfection consists in the being and well-being of the same that is Doctrine and Discipline so that if the Church had not her Discipline within her self it would be very defective and unperfect by perfection I mean all things necessary And who could think that Christ Jesus after all that which he had done and suffered for his Church would have left somthing yet which it needs to borrow from others What his end was when he gave himself for his Church the Apostle tels Eph. 5.26 27. And in 1 Tim. 2.15 It is called the House of God the Pillar and Ground of truth And elsewhere the Spouse of Christ with whom Christ hath a conjugal communion and from him she receiveth Grace for Grace But I need not to insist upon this perfection and sufficiency of the Church within her self I will wrap it all in Davids words Glorious things are spoken of thee O City of God so that I conceive that Government being so necessary to the Church the Church hath it within her self and they that are to be Rulers must be chosen out of it The second Proof is from the Right of the Church I call the Right of the Church that which Christ hath given to the Church that which the Apostles and others after have yielded to the Church this right is the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as it is Mat. 16. Where Christ saith that he would build his Church upon Peters confession and give the Keys to the same it is then the Churches Priviledge to chuse her Governours out of her self but because the right of the Church hath several Branches and Particulars I will name some of them It doth consist I. In chusing their Ministers when they are ordained Teachers must not be forced upon a Church as that notwithstanding the dissent of the People they should be maintained in it no Patron or other may lawfully present a Minister in a Parish or maintain him in it against the mind of the Congregation This Right of the Church in this is proved by Three Reasons 1. Christ who is the Authour of Ministry hath given this right to the Church alone as we have shewed afore 2. Because Ministers were given by Christ to the Church that by an ordinary and certain manner they might be procured by the whole Church 3. If it were not so then the Church could not voluntarily submit her self to her Pastors which is as necessary in Ministers as it is in Marriage where the consent of both parties is required And truly this right hath been continued to the Church for the space almost of a thousand years after Christ as we have proved by some Instances in our Letters to a person of quality But here when we say that the people of a Church have a right to call a Minister to themselves we mean not to ordain him for Ordination is not made by every Member of the Church though
King a Prophet and a High Priest and infusing life motion and being into the Church is the only head of the Church exclusively to any other under what notion soever It is a notable saying of Gregory the great who was a Bishop of Rome because about his daies he saw some of his Predecessors had affected Supremacy over all the rest yet much different from that abominable abuse that crept in after his times He lived 600 years after Christ In his 6th Book and Epist 24. he hath these words I say confidently that any one who calleth himself or desireth to be called Universal Bishop he is the forerunner of Antichrist And I do believe that where there is an Archbishop over a whole Kingdom or the half of it he is a kind of Monarch and Universal Bishop over that whole Kingdom or part of it and the Title of Archbishop is as dangerous and as much to be avoided in such a Kingdom as the name of Universal Bishop For I account our controversie with Hierarchy here to be the same in nature which we have against Popery though in not so high a degree but this usurpation by Archbishops is so palpable so all the Hierarehical way which I am confident is not a way of Gods appointment because in no wise grounded upon Gods Word as that I will not insist on it but only upon that which hath a more specious pretence and to shew few of the grievances of Christs Church against this Hierarchical tyrannical Government We call Heaven and Earth to record that we desire nothing else but to be judged by the Word of God alone and that no customs humane inventions and traditions but Scriptures only are to be lookt upon in this controversie and therefore we stand not for any waies of our own but for the waies of God Wherefore we do abhor Bishops by way of superiority as usurpers over the right of the Church as being without Scripture and against Scripture So that God may say in this as he doth in another case They set up Church-Governors but not by me And to argue the case I would know from the Adversaries whether Bishops are different from the Ministers of the Church that is whether this be an Office by it self or what kind of difference this is To the former If it be an Office by it self then they must prove it out of Scriptures but this cannot be for in the three places of Scripture where St. Paul doth acquaint us of the Offices in the Church there is not a word of Bishops the Texts may be seen Rom. 12.6 7 8. 1 Cor. 12.28 Eph. 4.11 So that if they assert that there ought to be Bishops in the Church then they must acknowledge that the nature of Bishop is comprehended under one or other of the Offices named in these places or else they must confess that there ought to be no Bishops at all by Divine institution But the truth is the nature of Bishop is in the two former places comprehended under the name Teacher and in the last Text under the word Pastor For he cannot be called Prophet Apostle Miracle Healings c. And this truth Scripture doth hold forth in other places Acts 20.28 St. Paul said to the Elders of Ephesus Feed the flock from the word feeding comes the word Pastor over the which God hath made you overseers or Bishops so that Pastor and Bishop are one and the same They that have perused Tit. 1.7 will find that Minister or Elder and Bishop are one and the same likewise 1 Tim. 3. Neither are they Lords over the Flock if St. Peter speaks truth 1 Pet. 5. Feed the Flock Here again the word Pastor is implied so the word Elder whom he exhorteth so the word Bishop v. 2. taking the oversight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whom he saith v. 3. Not being Lords over the flock Neither must they be Lords or affect to be greater than their fellow-Pastors and Ministers for nothing can be more expresly and clearly set down than Christ Jesus forbidding his Disciples to use dominion and authority one over onother even upon this occasion when they disputed amongst themselves of superiority Mat. 20.25 I think therefore that any man especially a Minister cannot suffer upon a more righteous account than in opposition to this Supremacy and I make no question but to bring many to this truth through grace when I have shewed how godly people opposed this usurpation when it began to creep into the Church and how for this same cause some were crowned with Martyrdom Ambition being the sin of the Devil who is a murtherer from the beginning it doth infuse cruel and bloudy dispositions into those that are stained with it But when pride meets in an Ecclesiastical man as it is the most detestable so it produceth most fatal and pernicious effects Any one that is acquainted with the names of Bonifaces Leo's John's c. who ever heard of Guelphs and Guobellines may have an illustration of what I say this furious ambition did formerly rage with more violence than now that the Light of the Gospel is clearer than afore Yet although the stump be in Italy there are some little Branches of the pride of that great Harlot even amongst those that profess the Reformed Religion and it is to be wished men were now as studious to extirpate these reliques as some were at first to prevent the growth thereof That some of the Bishops of Rome were censured by the Bishops of Alexandria or Constantinople and some other places they that have been acquainted with Eusebius may testifie of it Bonifacius the third of that name who first publickly assumed the ambitious Title which the Bishops of Rome do retain did write a Letter to the Bishops of Carthage which must needs to be interpreted of Ministers for there could not be many Diocesan Bishops as they call it requiring them to have their appeal to Rome being countenanced in it by Phocas that wicked Emperor but pretending some authority out of the Council of Nice but the Bishops of Carthage called a Council the sixth of Carthage of 217 Bishops which must have been Ministers for how could so many of Bishops in the adversaries sence be found about Carthage and they disowned that pretended power of Bonifacius This Council was called in the daies of Phocas Bernard in his 2 Book to Eugenius declareth to him that he could not challenge any Dominion over the Church or other his Fellow-Pastors Hearken saith he what S. Peter saith 1 Pet. 5. Not bearing rule as Lords over the Clergy but as examples to the flock wherefore if thou wilt be a Lord thou shalt lose thine Apostleship if thou wilt be an Apostle thou shalt lose thy Lordship How fitly doth this here hit our times And they need not to tell me that this was to Popes provided I find it to be the same thing which now we condemn in the Prelates of these daies for I