Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	profession_n	visible_a	2,188	5	9.1158	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61546	A discourse concerning the power of excommunication in a Christian church, by way of appendix to the Irenicum by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Irenicum.	1662 (1662)	Wing S5583; ESTC R38297	24,655	38

should think as much of calling any thing a Law but what hath a civil sanction But I suppose all those who dare freely own a supreme and infinite essence to have been the Creator and to bee the ruler of the World will acknowledge his Power to oblige conscience without being beholding to his own creature to enact his Laws that men might bee bound to obey them Was the great God fain to bee beholding to the civil authority hee had over the Jewish Common-Wealth their government being a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make his Laws obligatory to the consciences of the Jews What had not they their beings from God and can there bee any greater ground of obligation to obedience than from thence Whence comes civil power to have any Right to oblige men more than God considered as Governour of the World can have Can there bee indeed no other Laws according to the Leviathans Hypothesis but only the Law of nature and civil Laws But I pray whence comes the obligation to either of these that these are not as arbitrary as all other agreements are And is it not as strong a dictate of nature as any can bee supposing that there is a God that a creature which receives it's being from another should bee bound to obey him not only in the resultancies of his own nature but with the arbitrary constitutions of his will Was Adam bound to obey God or no as to that positive precept of eating the forbiden fruit if no civil Sanction had been added to that Law The truth is such Hypotheses as these are when they are followed close home will bee found to Kennel in that black Den from whence they are loath to bee thought to have proceeded And now supposing that every full Declaration of the Will of Christ as to any positive institution hath the force and power of a Law upon the consciences of all to whom it is sufficiently proposed I proceed to make appear that such a divine positive Law there is for the existence of a Church as a visible body and society in the World by which I am far from meaning such a conspicuous society that must continue in a perpetual visibility in the same place I finde not the least intimation of any such thing in Scripture but that there shall alwaies bee some where or other in the world a society owning and professing Christianity may bee easily deduced from thence and especially on this account that our Saviour hath required this as one of the conditions in order to eternal felicity that all those who beleeve in their hearts that Jesus is the Christ must likewise confess him with their mouths to the world and therefore as long as there are men to beleeve in Christ there must bee men that will not bee ashamed to associate on the account of the Doctrine hee hath promulged to the world That one Phrase in the New Testament so frequently used by our blessed Saviour of the Kingdome of Heaven importing a Gospel state doth evidently declare a society which was constituted by him on the principles of the Gospel Covenant Wherefore should our Saviour call Disciples and make Apostles and send them abroad with full commission to gather and initiate Disciples by Baptism did hee not intend a visible society for his Church Had it not been enough for men to have cordially beleeved the truth of the Gospel but they must bee enter'd in a solemn visible way and joyn in participation of visible Symbols of bread and wine but that our Saviour required external profession and society in the Gospel as a necessary duty in order to obtaining the priviledges conveyed by his Magna Charta in the Gospel I would fain know by what argument wee can prove that any humane Legislator did ever intend a Common-wealth to bee governed according to his mode by which wee cannot prove that Christ by a positive Law did command such a society as should be governed in a visible manner as other societies are Did he not appoint officers himself in the Church and that of many ranks and degrees Did hee not invest those officers with authority to rule his Church Is it not laid as a charge on them to take heed to that flock over which God had made them Overseers Are there not Rules laid down for the peculiar exercise of their Government over the Church in all the parts of it Were not these officers admitted into their function by a most solemn visible rite of imposition of hands And are all these solemn transactions a meer peece of sacred Pageantry and they will appear to bee little more if the Society of the Church bee a meer arbitrary thing depending onely upon consent and confederation and not subsisting by vertue of any Charter from Christ or some positive Law requiring all Christians to joyn in Church Society together But if now from hence it appears as certainly it cannot but appear that this Society of the Church doth subsist by vertue of a Divine positive Law then it must of necessity be distinct from any civil Society and that on these accounts First because there is an antecedent obligation on conscience to associate on the account of Christianity whether Humane Laws prohibit or command it From whence of necessity it follows that the constitution of the Church is really different from that of the Common-wealth because whether the Common-wealth bee for or against this Society all that own ir are bound to profess it openly and declare themselves members of it Whereas were the Church and Common-wealth really and formally the same all obligation to Church Society would arise meerly from the Legislative Power of the Common-wealth But now there being a Divine Law binding in conscience whose obligation cannot bee superseded by any Humane Law it is plain and evident where are such vastly different obligations there are different Powers and in this sense I know no incongruity in admitting imperium in imperio if by it wee understand no external coactive power but an internal power laying obligation on conscience distinct from the power lodged in a Common-wealth considered as such An outward coactive power was alwayes disowned by Christ but certainly not an internall Power over Conscience to oblige all his Disciples to what Duties hee thought fit Secondly I argue from those Officers whose rights to govern this Society are founded on that Charter whereby the Society its self subsists Now I would willingly know why when our Saviour disowned all outward power in the world yet he should constitute a Society and appoint Officers in it did hee not intend a peculiar distinct Society from the other Societies of the world And therefore the argument frequently used against Church-power because it hath no outward force with it by the constitution of Christ is a strong argument to mee of the peculiarity of a Christian Society from a Common-wealth because Christ so instituted it as not to have it Ruled at

arise from meer consent is that Deed of Gift whereby our Blessed Saviour did confer the Power of the Keyes on the Apostle Peter as the representative in that action of the whole Colledge of the Apostles and Governours of the Church of which power all the Apostles were actually infeoffed John 20.23 By which Power of the Keyes is certainly meant some administration in the Church which doth respect it as a visible society in which sense the Church is so frequently called as in that place the Kingdom of Heaven and in all probability the administration intended here by the Power of the Keyes is that we are now discoursing of viz. the Power of Admission into the Church of Christ in order to the pardon of the sins of all penitent believers and the shutting out of such who were manifestly unworthy of so holy a communion So that the Power of the Keyes doth not primarily respect exclusion out of the Church and receiving into it again upon absolution but it chiefly respects the Power of Admission into the Church though by way of connotation and Analogy of reason it will carry the other along with it For if the Apostles as Governours of the Church were invested with a power of judging of mens fitness for admission into the Church as members of it it stands to the highest reason that they should have thereby likewise a power conveyed to them of excluding such as are unworthy after their admission to maintain communion with the Church So that this interpretation of the power of the Keyes is far from invalidating the power of the Church as to its censuring offendors all that it pretends to is only giving a more natural and genuine sense of the power of the Keyes which will appear so to be if we consider these things 1. That this power was given to Saint Peter before any Christian Church was actually formed which as I have elsewhere made manifest was not done till after Christs resurrection when Christ had given the Apostles their commission to go preach and baptize c. Matth. 28.19 Is it not therefore far more rational that the power of the Keyes here given should respect the founding of a Church and admission into it then ejection out of it before it was in being and receiving into it again And this we find likewise remarkably fulfilled in the person of the Apostle Peter who opened the door of admission into the Christian Church both to Jews and Gentiles So the Jews by his Sermon at Pentecost when about 3000. souls were brought into the Church of Christ. So the Gentiles as is most evident in the story of Cornelius Acts 10.28 who was the first fruits of the Gentiles So that if we should yield so far to the great inhancers of Saint Peters power that something was intended peculiar to his person in the Keyes given him by our Saviour we hereby see how rationally it may be understood without the least advantage to the extravagant pretensions of Saint Peters pretended successors 2. The pardon of sin in Scripture is most annexed to Baptism and Admission into the Church and thence it seems evident that the loosing of sin should be by admitting into the Church by Baptism in the same sense by which Baptism is said to save us and it is called the washing of regeneration respecting the spiritual advantages which come by admission into the Church of Christ and so they are said to have their sins bound upon them who continue refractory in their sins as Simon Magus is said to be in the bonds of iniquity 3. The Metaphor of the Keyes referrs most to admission into the house and excluding out of it rather then ejecting any out of it and re-admitting them Thus when Eliakim is said to have the Keyes of the house of David it was in regard of his power to open and shut upon whom he pleased And thus Cyprian as our learned Mr. Thorndike observes understands the power of binding and loosing in this sense in his Epistle to John where speaking of the remission of sins in Baptism he brings these very words of our Saviour to Peter as the evidence of it That what he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven and concludes with this sentence Vnde intelligimus non nisi in Ecclesiâ praepositis in Evangelicâ lege ac Dominicâ ordinati●ne fundatis licere baptizare remissam peccatorum dare foris autem nec ligari aliquid posse nec solvi ubi non sit qui ligare possit aut solvere That which I now inferr from this discourse is that the power of the Church doth not arise from meer consent and confederation both because this power doth respect those who have not actually consented to it and because it is settled upon the Governours of the Church by divine institution Thus it appears that the right of inflicting censures doth not result meerly ex confederatâ disciplinâ which was the thing to be proved The like evidence may be given for the duty of submitting to penalties or Church-censures in the members of the Church which that it ariseth not from meer consent of parties will appear on these accounts 1. Every person who enters this Society is bound to consent before he doth it because of the obligation lying upon conscience to an open profession of Christianity presently upon conviction of the understanding of the truth and certainty of Christian Religion For when once the mind of any rational man is so far wrought upon by the influence of the Divine Spirit as to discover the most rational and undoubted evidences which there are of the truth of Christianity he is presently obliged to profess Christ openly to worship him solemnly to assemble with others for instruction and participation of Gospel-Ordinances and thence it follows that there is an antecedent obligation upon conscience to associate with others and consequently to consent to be governed by the rulers of the Society which he enters into So that this submission to the power of Church-officers in the exercise of Discipline upon offendors is implyed in the very conditions of Christianity and the solemn professing and undertaking of it 2. It were impossible any Society should be upheld if it be not laid by the founder of the Society as the necessary duty of all members to undergo the penalties which shall be inflicted by those who have the care of governing that Society so they be not contrary to the Laws nature and constitution of it Else there would be no provision made for preventing divisions and confusions which will happen upon any breach made upon the Laws of the Society Now this obligation to submission to censures doth speak something antecedently to the confederation although the expression of it lies in the confederation its self By this I hope we have made it evident that it is nothing else but a mistake in those otherwise learned persons who