Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	charity_n	faith_n	justification_n	4,801	5	9.5998	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85045	A discourse of the visible church. In a large debate of this famous question, viz. whether the visible church may be considered to be truely a church of Christ without respect to saving grace? Affirm. Whereunto is added a brief discussion of these three questions. viz. 1. What doth constitute visible church-membership. 2. What doth distinguish it, or render it visible. 3. What doth destroy it, or render it null? Together with a large application of the whole, by way of inference to our churches, sacraments, and censures. Also an appendix touching confirmation, occasioned by the Reverend Mr. Hanmore his pious and learned exercitation of confirmation. By Francis Fulwood minister of the gospel at West-Alvington in Devon.	Fullwood, Francis, d. 1693.	1658 (1658)	Wing F2500; Thomason E947_3; ESTC R207619	279,090	362

their opinions with those that directly and in very termes renounce it so neither savours it of much charity or indeed justice that wicked men that directly professe the faith both vocally with their mouth and really by attending on the Ordinances of God be equally condemned with Apostates and Hereticks that rase the very foundation of all religion though in works they deny him Therefore such as stand baptized into the faith of Christ and yet remaine in visible Communion with the Church and do not renounce the faith of Christ either with their mouths or in the intent and purpose of their hearts cannot onely by their disobedience or wicked lives as I shall anon labour to prove unchurch themselves or declare themselves as some would rather say to be no true members of the visible Church There are in the Church such as 1. Seem and are not 2. Are and seem not 3. Are and seeme and Distinct 6 are none visi not seen 4. Are and seem and are seene also He that is and seemes not is a David in desertion he that seemes and is not is a Judas betraying with a kisse he that is and seemes and is not seen is a Saint in a cave he that is and seems and is seen also is I presume not onely the man savingly qualified professing the same before men but our ordinary professour and Church-member that usually attends upon visible communion with the Church though wanting saving grace The same persons in divers respects may seem to be what They are Distinct. 7 They are not Or the same persons may be said in one respect to be hypocrites and in another respect true beleevers so that though we are wont to condemn all for hypocrites that professe Religion without real holinesse yet I suppose I shall not erre if I say we ought to do it not without caution and limitation I confesse that if not all that thus professe Religion without saving grace yet most of them are hypocrites in that they pretend if not seem to be what they are not viz. savingly qualified and I humbly offer whether it be not in this sense that Divines generally charge such professours as have no saving grace with the sin of Hypocrisie even because they pretend to have that Mr. Perkins speaking of temporary beleevers on Luk. 8. 13. saith these though they are not sound yet they are void of that grosse kind of hypocrisie Their mindes are enlightned their hearts are endued with such faith as may bring forth these fruits for a time and therefore herein they dissemble not but rather shew that which they have His Ep. to the Reader before his Treatise tending unto a declaration of a mans estate grace and interest in Christ or as they would say in the true mysticall invisible Church which indeed they have not But let us seriously consider can either they or we with any colour of reason or justice adjudge men to be hypocrites farther then they are so or for professing themselves to be what indeed they are though also they should professe themselves to be what they are not may not men be so far illightened as to know and beleeve the Scriptures really and yet not be so far sanctified as to believe effectually to salvation and may he not professe this faith which he truely hath though he also professe and pretend to more and is he not a true beleever and a true professour so far as he hath though false and hypocritical in professing more and to be accounted a true Beleever as to the Church visible though a hypocrite as to the Church invisible A hypocrite is one that pretendeth or seemeth to be what he is not but when men that have no saving grace pretend or seeme to be visible Church-members relatively holy Gods Covenant-people common believers c. they pretend and seeme to be what in truth they are therefore thus farre they are no hypocrites but true beleevers so far as they truely beleeve and true men so far as they professe But what they thus truely believe and what they truely are The devil is an hypocrite while he professeth himself an Angel of light but when he acknowledgeth what he truely believeth that there is a God and that he is a fearful avenger of wicked spirits and that Christ is the Sonne of God c. in this the devil is no hypocrite so what is good in wicked men is still good and what is true in them is still true notwithstanding all the evil and falshood that they are guilty of Their hypocrisie in one respect cannot destroy their reality and truth in any other In a word a hypocrite as such cannot possibly be truely a member of any Church whether it be visible or invisible for that which is false as such can never be true so he that pretends to saving grace and interest in the Church invisible if his pretence to that saving grace be false his interest in this invisible Church cannot be true and likewise he that pretends to the common faith and yet doth really renounce it cannot possibly be a true member of the visible Church yet one that is an hypocrite as to the Church invisible may in another sense be a true beleever and have a real interest in the visible Church accordingly CHAP. IV. Arg. 1. From the Etymology or the Name of the Church HItherto of the Termes of the question and the sense thereof by what I have already intimated I am bound to adhere unto the affirmative part which turneth it selfe into this Thesis The visibly Church may be considered to be truely a Church of Christ without respect to saving grace Thus I shall now proceed as the Lord shall assist me to prove from these five considerable places or heads of Argument viz. the Etymology of the Church visible Causes of the Church visible Definition of the Church visible Testimony on my side Absurdity on the contrary First then as method requires we shall set down the Etymology of the Church and argue from it The name or word signifying Church in the Greek original which is generally allowed to be argued from is known to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which primitively derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and more immediately from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contained in it both Calling and calling out a right improvement of each of these I presume wil help us with its Argument SECT I. My first Argument then ariseth from the calling that we find Arg. 1 included in the name and is indeed inseparable from the nature Primum illud quod actu eccle siam constituit est vocatio unde nomen definitionem suam accepit ecclesia enim est coetus hominum vocatorum Med. 161 162 Inter Orthodoxos qui ecclesiam definium coetum electorum vel per electos intelligunt secundum electionem vocatos vel non ecclesiam quae actu existit Medul 161 of the Church thus Arg. 1. The Church

wrong if she judge such as are not scandalous she erreth because such deserve it not if she judge such as are scandalous she erreth also because hereby she judgeth them to be within who have no evidence under their notorious scandal of their being within but indeed strong evidence to the Contrary If she judge such as are not scandalous she really wrongs the party if she judge those that are scandalous she visibly wrongs a higher Judge who hath pleased to reserve to his own prerogative to judge them that are without 2. This Doctrine involveth our interest in and dispensation of the Sacraments also in inextricable difficulties and doubtings First the Sacrament of Baptisme is thus involved children have their right unto it either in themselves or in their parents that is either from their own personal holinesse The contrary tenet viz. that no professor can be a member without saving grace will draw unavoiddifficulties with it and give such advantages to the enemies of Gods grace and the dispensation of his Ordinances that they will hardly be regained laying a corner-stone to build up the wretched doctrine of the Anabaptists Mr. Hook survey p. 37 38. or from their parents holinesse derived unto them by relation Now if the first be said it will follow from this doctrine 1. That we are to baptize them onely upon evidence of their saving faith 2. This being impossible we should ever discover before years of discretion it follows that we cannot regularly baptize an Infant 3. Yea no childe can then in his infancy be known to be a disciple to belong to Christ to be a Church-member to be borne to God c. all which are not so much obscured by Anabaptisme as clear'd by Scripture 4. Or at least the childe being baptised in its infancy upon charitable hopes if afterwards by a wicked and lewd conversation it appeare to the Church to have had no saving grace at the time of its baptisme it clearly followeth that upon the discovery of its after conversion it ought to be rebaptized for if none but such as are savingly converted enter into Covenant then none but such as are savingly converted ought to be sealed in Covenant and a seal set without a Covenant is of no effect and every one that enters Covenant ought to have the seale of initiation affixed to it 5. Nay grace I see not but according to the tenour of this doctrine that so often as a man may fall by scandal from the evidence of his saving grace and consequently thereby declare to the eye of the Church that he was never really within the Covenant or the Church and giveth penitential satisfaction for the same whereby in the judgement of the Church he entreth Covenant even so oft he must be re-baptized though it be seventy times seven 2. Againe if the childes right to baptisme depend upon the saving grace or holinesse of the parent then such as is the evidence of the parents saving grace such is the evidence of the childes being lawfully and effectually baptized so that Secondly if the parent apostatize to heresie blasphemy or any other kind of notorious profanenesse or if the parent never had any evidence at all of saving grace so farre as men may charitably judge which is all the rule the case and the present opinion will admit the childes baptisme is forthwith null Then Thirdly what remaineth but that such children when at yeares of discretion must give their own consent in person and be re-baptized or else depend in an Heathenish state of waiting for their parents returne to be re-baptized with them But Fourthly I cannot see how any one that stands baptized upon his parents account can ever be fully perswaded that he is truely baptized because he cannot be certaine of his parents Election or saving vocation so that the whole generation of Christians who stand in their baptisme by their foederal bolinesse are hereby necessarily left in doubt whether they be Christians or Heathens And lastly is not this a faire step and temptation to Anabaptisme yea truely it puts us upon a necessity of it for unlesse all our Ancestours since the first entrance of our stock into Christianity have beene really godly at the very time of their childes baptisme a thing incredible our own baptisme is unavoidably nul for where the reason and ground of Baptisme is wanting there Baptisme is invalid but according to this doctrine where saving grace is wanting in the parent the reason and ground of Baptism is wanting therefore whensoever any of our Ancestors were baptiz'd in the time of their parents unregeneracy then that persons baptisme was no baptisme but a seal set to a blanck Again the childe of a Beleever hath no next right to baptisme unlesse the parent be also a baptized-beleever therefore though the next in the line of succession unto him that through want of saving grace first rendred his childs sealing invalid were truely a Saint yet he was not a baptized Saint and consequently could not entitle his childe to baptisme much lesse can this childe unbaptized entitle the next or that the next until we descend to our own case 2. Again our interest in the Sacrament of the Supper is alike obscure and intricate by the just consequences of this doctrine For 1. Unlesse I am well satisfied of two things whereof one is very difficult and the other impossible viz. my own and my parents sincerity I may not venture to receive this Sacrament I must be satisfied of my parents sincerity otherwise I cannot know my selfe really baptized and consequently I cannot know my remote right for one that is not really baptized hath no right to the Supper of the Lord and then I must be satisfied of my own sincerity otherwise I cannot know my next right to the Supper or indeed my being lawfully i. e. really baptized either and must with all doubting Christians be deterred therefrom though the Scripture assures us to the contrary viz. that if we judge our selves if we finde our sins though we cannot find our graces if we judg not justifie or acquit our selves we shall not be judged as unworthy receivers of the Lord as those were 1 Cor. 11. 30 31 32. 2. This must needs involve the Administrator also in hazards doubtings and even necessity of sinning which I rather commend to the consideration of my Reader in the words of Reverend Mr. Baxter then my own and with which I shall conclude what hath been but rudely delivered upon this question that the end may crown the work his words are these then no Minister can groundedly administer the Sacraments to any man but to himself because he can be certaine of no mans justification being not certain of the sincerity of their faith and if he should adventure to administer upon probabilities or charitable conjectures then should he be guilty of profaneing the Ordinances and every time he mistaketh he should set the seal of God to a lie