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A70390
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A sermon preach'd at Turners-Hall, the 5th of May, 1700 by George Keith ; in which he gave an account of his joyning in communion with the Church of England ; with some additions and enlargements made by himself.
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Keith, George, 1639?-1716.
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1700
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Wing K209; ESTC R14185
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28,024
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34
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that it belonged to Timothy being the Bishop of Ephesus as he is expresly called the First Bishop of Ephesus at the end of the second Epistle to him to whom the Church Treasure made up of the Gifts of the People was entrusted to provide for the Presbyters under him a necessary Maintenance which manner of practice continued in the Church the Bishops having the dispose of the Churches Treasure within their several Precincts during all that time the Church had no Christian Magistrate to Countenance her and long after III. He writes to him as an Ecclesiastick Ruler and Judge that had power to hear and examine Accusations brought against Presbyters and accordingly to judge after due Evidence of two or three Witnesses which plainly shews his Power of Jurisdiction over Presbyters 1 Tim. 5. 19. IV. He gives him a most solemn Charge before God the Lord Jesus Christ and the Elect Angels that in the exercise of the Power of Judicatory he act impartially without Favour or biass of Affection not preferring one before another ver 21. V. He writes to him as one having Power of Ordination to Ordain Elders by laying on of Hands and cautions him to lay hands suddenly on no Man ver 22. VI. He writes to him in his second Epistle to stir up the gift of God that was in him by the putting on of his Hands together with the Hands of the Presbytery or Eldership viz. some other Apostles that might jointly with St. Paul lay Hands on him 1 Tim. 4. 14. for that the Presbytery here mentioned was a Colledge only of Presbyters is a bare alledgment viz. when he ordained him the first Bishop of Ephesus as appears from the end of the second Epistle 2 Tim. 1. 6. VII He willeth him that he commit to faithful Men who shall be able to teach others also those Things that he had heard of him among many Witnesses which behoved to be some peculiar Things relating in great part to Rules of Discipline and Church Government which were not fit either for Heathens to hear or Novices in the Faith who yet might hear the common Doctrines of the Christian Faith preached in the Christian Assemblies VIII Writing to Titus he presupposeth him Bishop of the Cretians as appears from the end of the Epistle to him and tells him why he left him in Crete That he should set in order the things that are wanting and ordain Elders in every City as he had appointed him I know no reason why these should be thought Lay-Elders i. e. such as were not to Preach I find none such either here or any where else in the New Testament How could Titus exercise this Authority in such a spacious Island where many Cities were and Christian Congregations set up if he had been only a single Presbyter And if the other Presbyters had equal Power with him why did not he write to him and them jointly Whether in the Ordination of Presbyters others jointly did not lay on Hands with the Bishop is not the present question but whether it is to be found in Scripture or Church History that any Number or Colledge of Presbyters Ordained any without a Bishop presiding over them IX He telleth him that the Mouths of such Teachers as were unruly and vain Talkers and Deceivers and who taught things which they ought not for filthy lucre sake must be stopped which plainly shews his Authority to depose and silence false Teachers as well as to Ordain Sound and Worthy X. He telleth him of his Authority to judge who is a Heretick and how after the first and second Admonition if he amend not he ought to reject him By these Instances plainly collected out of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus it may I think appear to all impartial persons that well and duly consider them that both Timothy and Titus were Bishops and had a Superiority of Power and Jurisdiction over the Presbyters in the Churches of Ephesus and Crete as well as of Ordination I know W. Prynne hath printed a Book which he called the Unbishoping of Timothy and Titus which I have read but I find not that he hath either sufficiently answered the Arguments brought from Scripture to prove that they were Bishops or given any sufficient Arguments to the contrary I have also seen another great Book of his giving a Historical Relation of the evil Practises of many Bishops all which if true saith nothing against the Office But I could write a great Book threefold greater giving a Historical Relation of many good Things Bishops have done in the World Many Bishops both in the early and latter Ages have been eminently exemplary in Holiness of Life and all Christian Virtues and for divers Ages succeeding the Apostle's Days were blessed and happy Instruments to preserve the Truth and Purity of the Christian Doctrine in the World and the Unity and Peace of the many Churches in it hindring Schisms and curing them that did threaten to arise Cutting down with the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God even the Doctrinal Word outwardly delivered in the Holy Scriptures as they were mightily assisted by the Holy Spirit so to do the monstrous and vile Heresies that sprung up from time to time oppugning the Christian Faith wherein Almighty God blessed them with great Success and this they did partly by their particular Writings Treatises and Epistles as well as Sermons and partly by their assembling in great Numbers in Synods and Councils to condemn them and that many times to the danger of their Lives under persecuting Kings and Emperours some whereof were Heathen and some Arian and Eutychian Such who are but ordinarily well acquainted with Antiquity and Church History cannot be ignorant that the Government of the Church from the very days of the Apostles in all the famous places of the World where Christianity came to be planted was by Succession the which did lineally descend for four hundred years from the Apostles days and upwards and in divers places to this Age. There are two places of Scripture in the Old Testament which divers of the Fathers understood of Episcopal Government as it was to be set up in the Church under the New Testament as Psal 45. 16. being a Prophecy concerning Christ's Church and his Government in the same by Church Officers Instead of thy Fathers i. e. the Apostles who were the Founders of the New Testament Church and were her Fathers shall be thy Children i. e. their Successors in the Government of the Church after their Decease whom thou maiest make Princes in all the Earth The other Place is in Isaiah 60. 17. I will appoint them Bishops in Righteousness and Deacons or Ministers in Faith as Clemens Bishop of Rome quotes it in his famous Epistle to the Corinthians but as the Septuagint hath it is thus And I will give thy Princes in Peace and thy Bishops in Righteousness Ignatius who conversed with St. 〈◊〉 the Apostle and as his Disciple and Bishop of Antioch being committed by him writeth thus to the Church of Smyrna let the People be subject to their Deacons the Deacons to the Presbyters the Presbyters to the Bishop and the Bishop to Christ as he is to his Bishop Policarp also was constituted by St. John Bishop of Smyrna who both suffered Martyrdom as Church History giveth 〈…〉 saith lib. 3. cap. 3. We have to remember them who were appointed Bishops by 〈…〉 qui ab Apostalis 〈◊〉 sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis Successoret eorum usque ād nos the Apostles in the Churches and their Successors even 〈◊〉 us This Irenaeus was Bishop at Lyons and lived within about a hundred years after St. John It is acknowledged both by ancient Writers and later yea by some 〈◊〉 and particularly by David Paraeus that the seven Angels of the seven Churches of Asia to whom St. John wrote were the seven Bishops set over those seven Churches also it is very probable that St. John himself had planted all these seven Churches and did constitute the Bishops in them Hierom whom the Adversaries of Episcopacy think that he favoureth in opposition to the Episcopal Authority plainly granteth that the Power of Ordination is lodged in the Bishop saying quid enim facis excepta ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat i. e. for what doth the Bishop that the Presbyter may not on ought not to do except Ordination Epist ad Euagrium And the sense affirmeth that from Mark the Evangelist until Heracla 〈…〉 Bishops there the Presbyters of Alexandria did name him Bishop one among themselves elected and placed in a higher degree but he doth not say that they ordained him And both Hierom and Clemens Romanus long before him did make a paralel betwixt the High Priests Priests and Levites in the Jewish Church and Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the New Testament Church what Aaren and his Sons and the Levites were in the Temple saith he the same in the Church may Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons challenge unto themselves Hier. ad Eugr. And how universal the extent of Episcopacy was in all the Churches and to what end it was appointed he further declareth in that same Epist it was decreed in the whole world that one chosen out of the Presbyters should be placed above the rest to whom all care of the Church should belong and so the Seeds of Schism be removed Thus far I think I have made it appear that in none of the Particulars above mentioned the Dissenters have any advantage above the Church of England but that what advantage there is to be found either from Scripture or Church History and Antiquity lieth on her side FINIS
therefore cannot be saved by the Terms of it But God in his great Mercy has given us a better Covenant the Covenant of Grace and Peace in and through the Knowledge and Faith of Jesus Christ as he is the Word made Flesh or God incarnate the Terms of which are gentle and easie and full of Consolation God thereby declaring that he will pardon the Sins of all that sincerely repent and truly believe the Gospel of Christ and sincerely resolve and endeavour to keep his Commands and give to them eternal Life the which Terms God has graciously promised to help every one of us to perform by the Offer and Gift of his Holy Spirit as it accompanies the preaching of the Gospel But these new Terms of the Covenant of Grace the Light as it is an universal Principle in all Men by whatsoever Name they will call it or whatsoever Worth they will ascribe to it both Scripture and common Experience doth tell us doth not teach them He sheweth his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel He hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his Judgments they have not known them Psal 147. 19 20. The Jews had this Advantage over the Heathen World that unto them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. the exceeding great and precious Promises 2 Pet. 1. 4. which the Heathen World to whom the Gospel was not preach'd had not and we have that Advantage now that the Jews then had But the Gentiles being without the Gospel are said to be without God and Christ in the World Ephes 2. 12. i. e. without an Interest in God and Christ and without Hope Aliens and Strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel The highest Acts of Obedience to any Light within us without the Gospel and without Faith in Christ crucified and rais'd again do not denominate us the Children of God nor prove us to have any just Title or Claim to the eternal Inheritance for whosoever are the Children of God they are so by Faith in Jesus Christ as the Scripture expresly declareth Gal. 3. 26. And the Gospel requireth that to obtain Salvation we must confess with our Mouths and believe with our Hearts that God hath raised Christ from the dead Rom. 10. 8 9. even him who died for our Sins who was delivered for our Offences and rose again for our Justification But the Light within as it is an universal Principle teacheth not Men these things these great Mysteries of our Salvation these lively Oracles these great and precious Promises nor these great Fundamentals of the Christian Religion such as the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity the Incarnation of the Word the perfect Atonement and Satisfaction that Christ hath made to the divine Justice and Law for our Sins by his bloody Passion and Death his Ascension and Exaltation and Mediation for us at the right hand of God in the glorified Nature of Man consisting of a glorified Soul and Body and that he is to be the Judge of the Quick and the Dead Also there are divers positive Laws and Precepts of the Gospel that the Light within as it is an universal Principle teacheth us nothing of The Knowledge and Faith of all these things are given us by the written Word preached and read outwardly and by the special Illumination of the Holy Spirit inwardly working in us a firm Persuasion and Faith of them giving us a savoury understanding and relish of them and great Joy and Consolation through hope by the Knowledge and Faith of them It proceeds from great Ignorance and Errour in many that they will not allow any real distinction betwixt the common Illumination given to all Mankind and the special Illumination given to Believers in the crucified Jesus Some will allow a distinction in degree but not in kind or specie but I say they differ in kind or specie though both come from one and the same Fountain the Father of Lights from whom all good Gifts flow both natural and spiritual and supernatural because they discover differing Objects i. e. differing Truths by way of Object that differ from these few Truths discovered by the common Illumination specifically or in kind for whatever Truth or Truths the common Illumination discovers to Heathens of the Being and Power and Providence of God as Creator and the Duty of Mankind to him as such the holy Scriptures without and the special Illumination of the holy Spirit within discovers far other and greater Mysteries of Truth in the inestimable Love of God by the Redemption of the World through Jesus Christ and the Duty that we owe to God and Christ thereby in the Belief of his Word and Promises the Obedience to his Commands and especially all and every of them given under the New Testament as that of Baptism and the Supper Obedience and Subjection to Christ's Government and Discipline he has established in his Church and to all whom he has set up to have the Rule over us in his House and Church But whereas they plead for the Sufficiency of the Light within and its Dictates without the means of Scripture and all outward teaching to qualifie Men to be Christians and Saints and Heirs of eternal Salvation from Jerem. 31. 33. where God promised to put his Law in the inward parts making the Law writ or put in the heart Jerem. 31. 33. to be the same and of the same extent and the same manner of heart and manner of writing with that in Rom. 2. 15. This is a miserable Mistake and a very gross and mischievous Errour That in Jerem. 31. 33. respects the People and Church of God but that in Rom. 2. 15. respects the Heathen World The Law writ in the hearts of the Heathen World teaching the moral Duties of Temperance Justice and general Piety towards God as Creator is I grant without the means or help of Scripture and antecedent to it but so is not the Law or Laws of God writ in the hearts of Believers whether Jews or Gentiles who believe in the crucified Jesus peculiar to the Christian Dispensation as Obedience to the Faith of the Gospel and to the positive Ordinances and Institutions of Christ of Baptism and the Supper and others aforesaid these Laws are not writ in our hearts without Scripture nor antecedent to Scripture but posterior to Scripture and by means of Scripture These positive and peculiar Laws of the Gospel writ in the hearts of true Believers and deeply printed and engraven in them are no other than the Copy or Transcript of the Laws outwardly writ or printed in the holy Scriptures which come to be transcribed into our hearts by what we daily and frequently hear preached to us and read out of the holy Scriptures and what we read our selves out of them the Spirit of God working with our Industry and Labour in our hearing and reading and well pondering and meditating what we hear or read causing it to take deep