Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	catholic_a	church_n	spread_v	1,934	5	10.0390	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81826	Of the right of churches and of the magistrates power over them. Wherein is further made out 1. the nullity and vanity of ecclesiasticall power (of ex-communicating, deposing, and making lawes) independent from the power of magistracy. 2. The absurdity of the distinctions of power and lawes into ecclesiasticall and civil, spirituall and temporall. 3. That these distinctions have introduced the mystery of iniquity into the world, and alwayes disunited the minds and affections of Christians and brethren. 4. That those reformers who have stood for a jurisdiction distinct from that of the magistrate, have unawares strenghthened [sic] the mystery of iniquity. / By Lewis du Moulin Professour of History in the Vniversity of Oxford.	Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680.	1658 (1658)	Wing D2544; Thomason E2115_1; ESTC R212665	195,819	444

Which indeed overthroweth all kind of excommunication for if the validity of an outward act dependeth upon the inward grace the validity of the act will be uncertain till dooms-day to those that know not whether he that hath pronounced the sentence of excommunication is endowed with the holy Ghost or no. Perkins goeth along with Calvin upon the third of the Revelation making all excommunication void which is not pronounced by one that hath the spirit For saith he to the society only of the regenerate and faithfull is it said Whatsoever ye shall bind c. 9. But were it so that every pastor excommunicating had received the holy Ghost yet the validity of all excommunication could not be thence inferred since even a man endowed with the holy Ghost except he hath received a spirit of divination may be ill informed and erre ignorantly ignorantia facti aut juris 10. Those that by binding and loosing in Heaven understand only approving of the sentence past on earth have no stronger plea for excommunication except all sentences of excommunication be the product of an infallible judgement for God is so far from approving of an unjust sentence that his will is that it should be disannulled 11. But how can it consist with reason that God at once should ratify approve and dislike a sentence pronounced on earth for they will have him to ratify in Heaven an unjust sentence passed on earth because they say his will is that the party should stand to the sentence though unjust and not intrude to the Sacrament without he be legally absolved and yet the while they say that God doth not ratify or approve of an unjust excommunication because unjust so that at once the same sentence will be valid and invalid valid because legally passed yet invalid because unjust 12. Those that by binding and loosing understand pardoning and retaining sins though they speak truth making the place Matth. 18. v. 18. parallel to that of John 20. v. 22. whatsoever sins c. yet they say nothing for excommunication which is neither pardoning nor retaining of sins It is not pardoning for then excommunication must be counted a blessing neither can it be retaining of sins for since as they say the end of excommunication is that the soul may be saved retaining of sins or rather of pardon cannot be a means to that end 13. Since excommunication is a putting out of the communion I would fain know whither that outing is from the communion of a private church or from the communion of the catholick visible church or else from the communion of the Saints which is spoken of in the Creed for I know but of these three communions If it be only a putting out of the communion of a private church then a man excommunicated in one congregation or parish is not excommunicated in the neighbour church If it be a putting out of the catholick visible church then a man excommunicated in London shall be likewise excommunicated in any part of the world And if the vertue of excommunication extendeth all over the world as indeed so it must be since it reacheth to heaven then any church or pastors of that communion whatsoever may excommunicate any one within that communion and a presbytery in Scotland may excommunicate a man in Switzerland and therefore it must not seem strange that the Pope doth excommunicate Emperours and Kings since they are of his communion 14. Excommunication cannot be a putting out of the communion of Saints and of the invisible church of which none is outed but by his falling from grace 15. Neither can excommunication be a putting out of a presbyterian church nor out of such an hierarchie as was lately in England which are but meer politick systems of many particular societies either under the magistrate of the land or under a power of magistracy assumed by common consent as is the body of the reformed churches in France for then such an excommunication were rather like a banishment or deprivement of liberty then a spirituall censure which are no more bounded and circumscribed by the limits of the magistrate then remission or retention of sins or the vertue of baptisme are 16. Neither can it be proved that those words whatsoever ye shall bind c. are to be understood of exclusion rather from the Eucharist then from the assembly or from either and that there is greater danger of corrupting good manners in receiving the Eucharist with a dissolute man then in conversing with him when as quite contrary to eat with carnall and deboist persons is a more contagious commerce then to partake of the Eucharist with them 17. Neither can they infer out of that Text whatsoever c. or any other whether a church a synod a presbytery whether one minister or two may excommunicate But if the power of excommunicating be included within the power of the keyes and of binding loosing which we have made good to belong only to the dispensers of the word and not to church-members or to lay-elders it will necessarily follow that one single pastor set over four or five thousand communicants must have power to excommunicate alone without the assistance of other ministers for every single minister having received entirely the povver of the keyes and of binding and loosing must needs also have received ability to do vvhatsoever is included vvithin that povver 18. It is to be noted that Christ doth not speak of binding and loosing of men but of things for he doth not say whomsoever but whatsoever and therefore our adversaries the Papists extend the povver of excommunication further then the presbyterians do for they excommunicate not only men but any other living creatures as Mice vvhereof Thuanus hath a notable example CHAPTER XXX That excommunication was mainly subservient to the working of the mystery of iniquity That the corrupting of the doctrine of the Eucharist made way for excommunication I Should next shew that excommunication was mainly subservient to the working of the mystery of iniquity but this I have handled at large in my Paraenesis St. Paul saith that in his time the mystery of iniquity began to work Satan was then very busy to infuse bad principles which first put forth themselves in the affectation of primacy and in the corruption of the doctrine of the Eucharist The laity had no hand in it for as Ministers have alwayes been the principall chanels to conveigh knowledge and grace when assisted by the spirit of God so when God gave them over to the guidance of their own spirits they have been still the only agents and instruments to bring in tyranny and heresy into the church The corruption then beginning at the head amongst the leaders of flocks their main care hath been to set up themselves not only over the inheritance of the Lord but also over their own fellow-labourers and collegues for the attaining of which and to seem great in the eyes of all men they

be introduced there was a great clamour and complaining amongst them as if Luther had a mind to lay again upon their shoulders that yoak which they had shaken off from their necks Some few years after having again propounded that his intent was not to put excommunication into the hands of the ministers alone but to make it an act of the jurisdiction of the whole church some seemed to consent to it but most being against it we do not read that either it was settled at all or that it was done quietly in his life time We read indeed that Luther did commend it to other churches and even at the conference or reconciliation that was made betwixt Luther Bucer and Capito he did much urge how necessary the use of excommunication might be and that Bucer declining to deliver his opinion concerning the same lest he should crosse Luther and thereby retard the main work that they were met about did only say 1. that many cities in lieu of excommunication had strict lawes to punish those that were unruly and wicked 2. that he professeth in the name of his collegues of the churches of Switzerland that they did not intend to give the Eucharist to those whom they should know to be wicked and to live in impenitency Bucer in that did but deliver the sense and practise of the Helvetian churches who at their first reformation received excommunication no otherwise then as a law of the magistrate and not either as an ecclesiasticall censure or an exclusion from the Lords Supper For so sayes Gualterus in his Homilies upon the 1 Cor. 5. The lawes of our city punish by excommunication those that are negligent in hearing of the word or in coming to the Lords Supper and those besides that by their wicked lives offend the church such they expell from their tribes lest they should keep company with others Let other towns do what they please since one discipline will not fit every place we do not envy them their felicity who receive any benefit by the use of their excommunication or rather exclusion from the Lords Supper As in the first reformation at Zurich they had not a presbyterian excommunication so neither had they a presbytery or ecclesiasticall senat distinct in jurisdiction from that of the magistrate For the same Gualterus upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians ch 12. v. 28. speaking of governments which he saith are those whereof St. Paul speaketh 1 Cor. 6. v. 12. hath these words At this day there is no need of such governours being under a magistrate let none therefore overturn the order instituted by God and trample under their feet the authority of Princes and magistrates by instituting a new senat that assumeth power empire over them But I must tarry a little longer in Germany and see what the attempt of Luther for introducing excommunication did produce after his death Matthaeus Flaccius Illyricus did yet with more eagernesse endeavour to establish excommunication and for that was perpetually at discord with Melanchthon who did not so much dislike the retaining of the Romish excommunication as the introducing of a new one for Melanchthon was such a lover of peace that he would willingly have endured the Romish Bishops should have kept their jurisdiction still so that they had parted with other abuses and practises I could make a volume if I should rehearse all the journeys and removes that Illyricus made from place to place urging every where the necessity of receiving excommunication and for that very reason was he alwayes expell'd either by the Prince or the magistrate of the place who lookt upon Illyricus as a man aiming at setting himself up under a specious pretence of setting up the government of Christ and one who continually jingled the keyes not of Gods but of his own Kingdom which he endeavoured to set up wheresoever he set footing At length partly by his much clamouring being a very eloquent and learned man and the workings of his emissaries partly for the respect that most men bore to the memory of Luther who first went about the same business there was a kind of excommunication received in many Lutheran churches agreeable as they thought to the mind of Luther as he propounded it to them and as he speaketh in his comment upon Joel ch 4. where he maketh two sorts of excommunication the one internall when God excludeth men from the assembly of the faithfull the other externall and politick like an act of magistracy placed in the whole body of the church and not in the ministers and from that excommunication they do not forbid appeals neither do they ground it upon the words of Christ whatsoever ye shall bind c. as Chemnitius and Gerhardus the best expositors of Luthers mind tell us But excommunication had not the same entertainment in Switzerland where Zwinglius begun the reformation almost as soon as Luther did in high Germany For Bullinger in an Epistle to Dathenus relates that in a conference that Zwinglius had with an Anabaptist in the year 1531. this was his opinion concerning excommunication That because churches under a heathen magistrate had no coercive power to punish wickednesse they in lieu of it took up excommunication but once having a Christian magistrate who punisheth and restraineth vices and enormities the use of excommunication ceaseth In the same Epistle Bullinger saith a church may be true that wanteth this excommunication again we maintain that there ought to be a discipline in the church but it is enough if it be administred by the magistrate Beza acknowledgeth that this was also the opinion of Musculus as we have alledged before when he saith that St. Paul would not have delivered the incestuous person to Satan if the magistrate at that time had been a Christian and a favourer of churches Gualterus as we have said but now was of the same mind with his father in law Bullinger for which Mr. Rutherfurd and Gillespie are very angry So then excommunication finding no good entertainment in Switzerland is carried to Geneva by the great man Calvin whom God permitted to be deceived in that particular lest the reformed world should have taken him for infallible There excommunication grew into a great tree that spread its branches far near into France England Scotland the Palatinat and the low-Countreys but before it could shoot out it had many rubbs and oppositions For some years before Calvin was settled in Geneva the reformation had been happily begun by Farell and Viret and yet no excommunication was thought on or practised At the first proposall he made of it many of the town flocked to the Syndics and the other magistrates as he confesseth in an Epistle to Myconius beseeching them not to part with the power and sword which God had committed to them lest it should cause seditions and indeed they proved true Prophets as we shall see by and by Beza in the life of Calvin in the year