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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78437	Vindiciæ clavium: or, A vindication of the keyes of the kingdome of Heaven, into the hands of the right owners. Being some animadversions upon a tract of Mr. I.C. called, The keyes of the kingdome of Heaven. As also upon another tract of his, called, The way of the churches of Nevv-England. Manifesting; 1. The weaknesse of his proofes. 2. The contradictions to himselfe, and others. 3. The middle-way (so called) of Independents, to be the extreme, or by-way of the Brownists. / By an earnest well-wisher to the truth.	Cawdrey, Daniel, 1588-1664.	1645 (1645)	Wing C1640; Thomason E299_4; ESTC R200247	69,538	116

to every Church-act it s an easie thing for them to bring in Anarchy being alwaies the greater number and so to swallow up the votes of the Elders as Brownists doe That Ministeriall Doctrinall Authority should be severed from the power of excommunication in some parties we never doubted because excommunication is an act of jurisdiction which is common to many but Doctrinall Authority is an affluxe of Order But to sever Rule and Authority from the power of concurrence to excommunication and censures as they doe in the people is a meer nullity of Rule and Authority too That the power of excommunication should be inseparably linked to a Congregation they would faine illustrate by a knowne comparison As the custome is in our Land The sentencing of a man to death is not by Lawyers nor by Iudges alone but by his Peeres a Iury of men like himselfe Their similitude still halts on the maine legge For who are the Iudges with them but the Presbytery and who are the Iury but all the Brethren But this is not so in a Corporation All the City are not the Delinquents Peeres but a select dozen of men Now suppose a man be accused as an offender in a Corporation shall the whole City be his Peeres or Iury to try him have they any such interest or priviledge is their consent or dissent regarded So the parallell required If a brother deserve censure he shall not be judged by the Pastors alone or with the Elders chosen by the people as his Iury for the Government of the Congregation but all the people are to be his Peeres or Iury This were strange to see in a City and would breed nothing but Anarchy and confusion So in the Church That Christ hath not betrusted a generall Assembly of Elders with that power he hath done the Congregation is begged not proved The reason is invalid Because say they they are abstracted from the people But that 's not true for the people are there representatively in their Elders who are able to represent the case of the offender with all the circumstances as fully as if all the people were there present But Christ say they would have this Tribe of men the brethren personally concurring not by delegation alone not to the execution only but even to the legall sentence also of cutting men off This is all begged and is the question And it is as if they should say in the parallell instance God would have all the Corporation personally concurring to the legall sentence or cutting off a malefactor not by delegation only as the Iury doe nor to the execution only which were a strange confusion So that as at the Assizes the multitude of the people present have no concurrence to the legall sentence c. but the Iudge and Iury only so the Brethren are to have no concurrence to the legall sentence of excommunication except to yeeld obedience in the execution but the Elders only and so the parallell is full And to conclude if the distance of the Presbyteries Clasficall c. may necessitate the censure to pertaine to the particular Congregation because of the circumstances better knowne to them By the same reason every Towne where a malefactor lives should have the Sessions kept amongst them because there the person and fact is better knowne and not one man to be absent from the censure Nay a man being to be excommunicated out of a particular Church is excommunicated out of all Churches therefore all the Churches must be present at the censure VINDICIAE Clavium OR A Vindication of the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven CHAP. I. What the Keyes be and what their power 1. THat by the Kingdome of Heaven is meant both the Kingdome of Glory which is above and the Kingdome of Grace which is the Church on Earth I easily grant But I only desire in the beginning of this discourse to be informed what you meane by the Church Whether 1. The invisible and mysticall Church of true Beleevers opposed to Reprobates or 2. The Catholicke visible Church opposed to Heathens or 3. The particular Congregation of Beleevers associated in Church-communion as you use to speake If we may guesse at your meaning by the whole proceeding of this Tract or by your discovery of your selfe in the other Discourse called The way of the Churches in New-England which though it was published after this of the Keyes yet was written and went up and downe in the darke before it I thinke you meane it in the latter sense for a particular Congregation For your first Proposition there gives us this Resolution That the Church which Christ in the Gospell hath instituted The way p. 1. and to which he hath committed the Keyes c. it coetus fidelium a combination of godly men commonly called a particular visible Church But of all the rest this is the most improbable sense of our Saviours words Mat. 16.19 For 1. By the Kingdome of Heaven on Earth he meanes that Church of which he had spoken before in v. 18. But that was either the Catholicke visible Church or rather the invisible mysticall Church for that only is built upon the rocke and against that the gates of hell shall never prevaile whereas particular Churches may faile 2. The kingdome of Glory the one part of the meaning of the Kingdome of Heaven is not contradistinguished to a particular Congregation but to the generall visible Church on Earth opposed to the World by your selfe The Keyes p. 2. On Earth that is say you in the Church on Earth for he gave him no power to bind in the World 3. That Church was there meant say you the way p. 1. whereof Peter was one But Peter was not a member of such a particular congregation for there was none such extant when Christ spake these words to Peter 4. You say againe it was that Church unto which Peter or any offended brother might tell the offence and have it censured But that was never done in a Church of Saints Beleevers without officers neither was the church of Corinth such a church as you described before for that had Officers who authoritatively might censure the incestuous person yet you joyne them both together 5. It was say you a Church who all met in one place for the administration of the Ordinances of Christ But the Ordinances of Christ are not to be found much lesse administred in a Church of Beleevers without Officers 6. When you say Christ committed the Keyes to the Church that is a particular Congregation you must meane it either Subjectivè or Objectivè If you meane it in the latter sense That the Keyes are committed to the Church as the object of the exercise of the Keyes that is for the use and good of the Church you say true but nothing to the purpose In this sense the Keyes are given first and more immediately to the invisible mysticall Church All are yours whether Paul c. then

Churches So perhaps would the Presbyteriall Churches But the question is what is to be done if the Officers of the particular Churches be dead or hereticall who then shall doe those acts Either the Synod must doe it but that you refuse or a Classis The way p. 50 51. or a Presbytery of another Congregation but that you also deny as having no warrant Then it followes the Brethren without Officers must both ordaine Elders Page 100. and excommunicate offenders which you fully grant in the other Tract But as clearly contradict in this as is evident in the former Chapter If it be said for Synodicall Ordination that Matthias was so called to be an Apostle Acts 1. you answer It appeares not they acted them in a Synodicall way But I pray Sir remember what you said above concerning that Synod Acts 15. That it rise up to be a Synod or generall Councell by the Apostles presence they being Elders of all the Churches So it may be said of that Assembly Acts 1. the Apostles presence and the whole Church then extant there assembled made it a Synod and if so then in a Synod there was an Apostle ordained If I may use that word of an Apostle which I may the better to doe by your grants who urge the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Keyes p. 12. he was voted by the common suffrages of them all And if an Apostle much more a Deacon or other Officers as Acts 6. in another like Assembly The other instance of the Presbyters imposing hands upon Paul and Barnabas Paul and Barnabas were ordained to that Office of Apostleship by the imposition of hands of some Officers or members of the Church The way p. 45 was not indeed an Ordination properly so called though you call it a separation of them to the worke of the Apostleship nor in a Synod but in a particular Church yet it was in a Presbytery of Prophets and Teachers perhaps of severall Churches there occasionally met and yeelds us this instruction That Elders of one or more Churches may impose hands that is ordaine in your sense Elders imployed in other Churches for so were Paul and Barnabas Whence we would inferre two things more 1. That if a Classis or Presbytery may ordaine then may a Synod ordaine 2. That however the people or Brethren have no power to ordaine or impose hands for those were Prophets and Teachers that imposed hands on Paul and Barnabas To conclude this Chapter whereas you said The Synod Acts 15. did dispense no censure against the false Teachers an evident argument they left the censure to the particular Churches I answer This is an Argument like the former They dispensed no censure ergo they had no power perhaps they revoked their errour and repented and so there was no need However the Synod could not censure them till they knew them obstinate What was after done we know not CHAP. VII The first Subject of all this Power and of Independency LEtting passe what is said of Christ the soveraigne Subject of all power as out of all question we consider only what you say of Ministeriall power 1. Propos A particular Church or Congregation of Saints is the first subject of all the Church-offices with all their spirituall gifts and power 1 Cor. 3.22 c. But under favour all the Texts produced to prove the Proposition are mistaken or misapplyed The first 1 Cor. 3.22 is not spoken to the Church of Corinth or any other particular Church as a peculiar priviledge unto them but either of all Saints in the world or of those in the Church of Corinth as Saints not promiscuously of the whole Church as a Church consisting of good and bad For was Paul and Apollos was life and death were things present and things to come given to wicked men and hypocrites in that Church was Paul an Apostle and Cephas another given as a peculiar priviledge to the Church of Corinth only Yea is not this meant of the invisible mysticall Church and not of any particular Church For the second 1 Cor. 14.23 you say Theirs was such a Church of whom it is said They came altogether into one place But we have told you at the beginning this was not such a Church as you described A Congregation of Saints professing the faith without their Officers which I thinke you meane here also for these things are taken out of The way p. 1. This was a Church that had many Officers The third Text 1 Cor. 12.28 is not meant of a particular Church For I pray were the Apostles set in the Church of Corinth only as a particular Church Were not they Ministers of all and given to all Churches Your labour about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some to referre it to the Apostles is but a meere criticisme for let it be some or which it matters not For those Apostles or Prophets were not set in the Church of Corinth as the first subject thereof but in the generall visible Church so the paralell place Eph. 4.12 is necessarily meant of the Church of Saints or the body of Christ generally or indefinitely not of this or that particular Church What weake proofes are these for a proposition of so great concernment as being the very foundation of the Independent Government But you read of no Nationall Church nor Nationall Officers given to them by Christ Yet say we we reade of Officers more than Nationall given to the Churches even universall as Apostles and Prophets And some thinke we reade of Nationall Officers such was Titus for Crete as an Evangelist though we take these to be extraordinary 2. We read of Nationall Churches living under one common government as the Churches of Galatia yet but one Church and the Church of Ierusalem had many Congregations yet but one Church And if many Congregations may be called one Church in a City why all the Congregations in a Nation may not be called one Nationall Church I see no great reason Not indeed in a typicall sense as the Church of the Jewes was a Nationall Church 3. You grant that the Officers of particular Churches of a Province or Nation may meet as a Synod by an Ordinance of Christ Iohn speaks of the dimensions of many particular Iewish Churches combining together in some causes even to the communion of a thousand Churches and all of them will have such mutuall care and yeeld such mutuall help and communion one to another as if they were all but one Body The Keyes p. 56. and there determine and enjoyne things for all their Churches and this Synod you call a Church of Churches Now are not those Officers Officers to all those Churches and may not they be called Nationall Officers in a candid sense It is therefore a meere Logomachy to dispute whether there be a Nationall Church or Nationall Officers or no But the Officers themselves say you and the Synods themselves and all their power