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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	church_n	true_a	visible_a	12,702	5	9.3716	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56177	A legal resolution of two important quæres of general present concernment Clearly demonstrating from our statute, common and canon laws, the bounden duty of ministers, & vicars of parish-churches, to administer the sacraments, as well as preach to their parishioners; with the legal remedies to reclaim them from, or punish and remove them for their wilfull obstinacy in denying the sacraments to them. By William Prynne Esq; a bencher of Lincolns Inne; to whom these quæres were newly propounded by some clients.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1656 (1656)	Wing P3995; ESTC R219602	25,257	35

monstrous Impostures Hypocritical Delusions yea grosse Absurdities execrable to God and all honest Christian men enabling Ministers to receive the whole Tithes Dues of their Parishioners yet exempting them from the moity at least of their Pastoral Duties to which the Laws of God and the Land oblige them We lately decryed it as an impious Solecism excuse in our old lazy non-preaching Parsons and Vicars that they alleged they were instituted only to read common P●ayers Homilies and administer the Sacraments but not to preach to their Parishioners In the Bishop of * Dunkelden and other Lordly Prelats that they were ordained Bishops only to govern the Church confirm and ordain Ministers but not to preach or administer the Sacraments And shall we now after all our late pretences of Reforming their abuses and declamations against their Idlenesse admit our New Parochial Incumbents to plead they are only half-Ministers bound solely to preach but not to Baptise administer the Lords Supper Catechise visit the sick Marry Bury as all their Predecessors did If any Gentlemans hired Shepherd should neglect to fold his Sheep or look them out when stray'd and then plead he was only bound by his office to feed keep them in their pasture Or if his hired Cook should tell him that as his Cook he is bound only to boyl but not to rost his meat or bake his Venison or should his Laundress affirm she was hired only to m●ke his Bed and sweep his Chamber but not to wash his Linnen or starch his bands or cuffs Or his Groom maintain he was by his place obliged only to dress his horses give them hay but not to water or carry them their provender would not all deride these their absurd irrational allegations and their Master cudgell them to the performance of all the parts of their respective duties or else turn them presently out of Service And will God or men then indure that their Ministers of the Gospel especially when pretending extraordinary eminency Diligence and Saintship above other of their Brethren should thus juggle with them to their faces as openly to affirm they took the ●ole cure of their souls only to reap all their Dues Tithes and to feed them with Gods word in the Pulpit of which the * unconverted unbaptized heathens are capable as well as Christians but not with Christs Sacramental body or bloud at the Lords Table whereto professed Christians only have a right 1 Cor. 10. 16. to 20. c. 11. 22. to the end To instruct their aged but not baptize their Infant or catechize their younger Parishioners Yea that they took upon them their Pastoral Cure only to shear their fleeces but not to own them as any part of their Church or ●lock or discharge the duty of a Pastor towards them unlesse they will unmodel themselves from a Parochial Church into a private Congregational conventicle Those who have hearts of * Adamant or faces of Brasse Publikely to make such an untheological irrational illegal unministerial Plea as this so diametrically contrary to the very essence of their Pastoral Function duty and to their painfull Predecessors practices in all ages Churches to our blessed * Saviours own prastice precepts and his description of a true and good Shepard John 10 yea to the definition of a true * visible Church wherein the word of God is truly preeched and the Sacraments duly administred may justly fear they are no true Shepards but rather theeves robbers hirelings because they withhold from their flocks the Sacrament of their Spiritual Regeneration yea the Body Bloud Cup of our Lord Jesus Christ the g chief Shepard of the Sheep who bequeathed it to them as their chiefest Legacy at his death though themselves stile and confesse them to be the very * seals of the Covenant of Grace which they hold forth unto them only as a Blank without a Seal refusing to set these Seals unto it when importuned by their people upon any terms but conformity to their own new Church-wayes thereby making the very * Sacrament of Christian love and union a meer Seminary of Schism contention division separation And because they entred not by the door into the Sheepfold that is by any legal form of admission to their whole pastoral cure but climbed up some other new way only to preach unto their people rather as to a company of unconverted Heathens than a Christian Church till new minted into a segregated Congregation collected out of sundry Parishes though never so remote but not to give the Sacraments to them upon any terms h which they ought to do yet not to leave their preaching undone which though it be the first and chiefest part of their Ministry yet it is not the quarter part of their Pastoral function as Scriptures and our Laws resolve If A. object that he hires another to baptize and give the Lords Supper sometimes to his Parishioners though he do it not himself his judgement and conscience being to the contrary I Answer 1. This is a clear confession that it is a part of his own duty else why should he hire another to discharge it in his stead 2. This proves the former Objection that he was admitted only to preach a meer fiction 3. If he refuse to do it himself out of conscience as a thing utterly unlawfull in his Iudgement for him to administer unto his Parishioners whilest in a Parochial way with what conscience can he hire another to do that in his behalf and right which himself holds sinfull unlawfull for himself to do Doubtlesse a sincere purely tender conscience will never hire or authorize any other to discharge that office for him which himself holds utterly unlawfull unevangelicall nor dare accept or retain a Parochial Cure upon any terms to gain the fleece so long as he disclaims the constitution as Antichristian and the flock as none of his Pasture sheep 4ly Such a poor tender conscience would rather resign its Parochial charge to avoid all appearance of evill of scandal and still the checks arising in it that grieve the Spirits wound the consciences or disquiet the Peace of the generality of his Parishioners by the personal neglect of his duty in not communicating with them at the Font and Lords Table as his real flock or as one speritual bread and body with them as he ought to do 1. Cor. 10. 16 17. and that only upon this ground because they will not conform to the new Independent Guarb against our Lawes for which they can produce no text no colour of Authority from scripture Antiquity or reason to warrant the seclusion of any from the Sacraments that are under their Parochial cure 5ly The discharge of this part of his duty by such a person or in such a manner as gives no satisfaction to our Lawes nor his parishioners is no Satisfactory plea before Gods or mans tribunal since he can no more conscientiously