Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	apostle_n	church_n	speak_v	2,823	5	4.8418	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59819	A discourse concerning the nature, unity, and communion of the Catholick Church wherein most of the controversies relating to the church are briefly and plainly stated / by William Sherlock.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1688 (1688)	Wing S3291; ESTC R25626	35,974	70

the Sufferings of his Natural Body extend no farther than his Mystical Body and therefore Christ is said to have reconciled both Jew and Gentile to God in one body by the cross 2. Ephes. 16. That is he has reconciled all both Jews and Gentiles who by Faith and Baptism are united in his one Mystical Body to God by his Sufferings on the Cross. So that we are not the Body of Christ and cannot be said to be the purchase of his Blood till we are united to him by Covenant This we may learn from that Analogy there is between the Law and the Gospel The legal Sacrifices especially that great Sacrifice on the Day of Expiation were typically of the Sacrifice of Christ and the Carnal Israel was a Type of the Spiritual Israel or of the Christian Church now as the Virtue and Expiation of Legal Sacrifices was applicable only to the Carnal Israel so the Expiation of Christ's Death extends only to the Spiritual Israel the Christian Church which is Christ's Mystical Body which one thing if well considered would answer all the Difficulties and silence those fierce Disputes about Universal Redemption However this shews what difference there is between bad Christians and the world of Infidels the first are visibly in Covenant with Christ and are the Purchase of his Blood and have a Covenant-right to the redemption of it and therefore are Members of his Mystical Body for none else have any right to his Sacrifice the other have no interest in him nor relation to him And if we will not allow of this I desire to know who those Children of the Kingdom are that at the last day shall be shut out But is not our Mystical Union to Christ then an Union of Spirits a participation of his Nature and Life having his Spirit dwelling in us being led by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit I answer this is our Spiritual Union to Christ this is to live in him to be quicken'd by him but it is not our Mystical Union as that signifies such an Union as makes us Members of his Mystical Body for that in a strict proper sence is only a Covenant-relation every Member of Christ's Mystical Body ought to partake of his Life and Spirit or else they are onely dead and rotten Members which shall be cut off and shall never inherit Eternal Life but such dead Members are Members still till they are cut off either by Church Censures in this World or by the Sentence of Christ in the next This Participation of the Life and Spirit of Christ is not our Mystical Union to Christ but the effect of it We cannot receive the influences of Life and Grace from Christ till we are united to him and made the Members of his Body for his Spirit onely quickens and animates his own Body and we are united to his Body by Covenant and by the Sacraments of it which convey this Divine Life and Spirit to us and therefore Baptism is our Regeneration or New Birth the beginnings of a New Life because it incorporates us into Christ's Mystical Body which puts us under the influences and communications of his Life and Spirit as when a branch is engrafted into a stock it receives nourishment and life from it So that these divine and supernatural influences are consequent upon our Union to Christ and tho' all who are united to Christ have these influences of Grace as the root naturally communicates its sap and juices to all its branches yet all do not improve it do not digest it into principles of life and action do not bring forth fruits worthy of it like dead and withered branches who cannot receive the sap and nourishment which ascends from the root and would quicken them were not its entrance stopt and hindred but notwithstanding this they are members and branches still though dead and fruitless There is no account indeed had of them Christ knows them not and does not reckon them as his and therefore the Description and Characters of the Church in Scripture are such as belong onely to living Members to those who are renewed and sanctified and quicken'd by the Divine Spirit but yet they do belong to Christ's Mystical Body tho' they are in it onely as a dead Branch is in the Vine But how can the Church on Earth and the Church in Heaven be one Church and one Body if the Church on Earth has such corrupt and rotten Members in it for the Church in Heaven has none but living and holy Members I answer the same Covenant makes them the same Church and the same Body of Christ and that there are bad Men in the Church on Earth and none but Saints in Heaven does not prove that they are two Churches but that they are in two very different states Of right none but sincere believers and truly pious men ought to be Members of the Church on Earth as well as in Heaven but the government of the Church the receiving in and casting out of the Church being intrusted with Men who cannot see the Heart or who are not careful in the Exercise of Discipline to preserve the Purity of the Church secret Hypocrites may be received into the Church and those who are openly Prophane may not be cast out of it but in the other World Christ makes the distinction and separates the Chaff from the Wheat and therefore the Church in Heaven can consist only of good Men because bad Men can find no admission there And besides this it is agreeable enough to the state of the Church on Earth and indeed cannot well be otherwise that good and bad Men should be intermixt in it because it is a state of Tryal and Discipline of Growth and Improvement Tho' bad Men as that signifies Hypocrites and Unbelievers if they were known ought not to be received into the Church yet if they be by the Influences of Grace and the Instructions of the Word and the Prayers of the Church and the Examples and Conversations of good Men and the prudent Exercise of Discipline they may be reclaimed to Vertue and become living Members of Christ's Body those who were dead before may recover a New Life by being engratted into this Heavenly Vine nay indeed tho' all men are not equally wicked yet no Man has this Divine Life but onely from Christ and the communications of his Grace which he cannot receive from Christ till he be united to him and therefore the Apostles required no other qualification for Baptism but onely Faith the very worst of Men who believed in Christ and profess'd obedience to him were received into the Church by Baptism and put under the Influences of Grace without expecting till they had first reformed their Lives which besides the Authority of the Apostles seems to me much more agreeable to the Gospel-Dispensation than that Discipline which was afterwards used in the Church when they did not immediately baptize those who profess'd to believe in Christ

and made One Body in him and considered as the Catholick Church are not the One Body of Christ nor can be under any other notion So that had the Catholick Church any Authority it could be exercised only by the whole multitude of Christians for nothing else is the Catholick Church and this is as impossible as it is for the whole multitude of Christians to meet together in one place But cannot the Catholick Church meet and act by its Representatives as Kingdoms and Common-wealths do I answer I have already proved that all the Bishops of the Church much less any one Bishop cannot represent the Catholick Church for as Bishops they are not the Church but the Governours of it under Christ and no man ever yet thought of any other Representatives for the Church and it is evident de facto that there are no other Representatives for the whole multitude of Christians never did make choice of any such Representatives and no man can be represented but by his own consent and if there could be any such Representatives made by the unanimous Vote of all the Christians in the World which I think is morally impossible yet then the highest and most soveraign Authority in the Church would be derived from the People which I suppose the Church of Rome will not very well like Nay indeed it is absolutely impossible that the Catholick Church should be represented for the Catholick Church is the whole multitude of Christians considered as the whole company or multitude now a multitude as a multitude can never be represented by any thing but itself there can be no formal nor virtual multitude but the whole entire number The Catholick Church signifies all Christians and if you leave out any of the number it is not all and therefore is not the Catholick Church Now if the Catholick Church have any Authority it must have it as it is the Catholick Church that is as it is the whole company of Christians for particular Christians have no such Authority as all men grant and therefore that which destroys the Catholick Church must destroy its Authority too and any thing less than all makes it cease to be Catholick and therefore the Catholick Church cannot be represented by a few of the whole number because a few are not all and therefore not the Catholick Church It is a different case indeed when every particular man has an original right and share in the Power and the whole power is not formally seated in the whole Body for then it may by common consent be contracted into one or more hands by particular mens giving up their share in the Government as some fancy that civil Societies were first formed but where the power is formally seated in the whole and not in particular Members as the Authority of the Catholick Church must be if it be the Authority of the Church considered as Catholick there it is evident the Authority must continue in the whole and can by no consent be put into a few hands and then it is impossible that the Catholick Church can have any Representatives nor consequently any visible Tribunal And yet that Dispute between the Church of Rome and some Protestant Divines which is managed with so much warmth and zeal about the perpetual visibility of the Church issues in this controversie about a visible Tribunal of the Catholick Church for nothing else will do the Protestant Cause any hurt or the Popish Cause any good We do say and we may safely say that there always has been and ever will be a Visible Church for while there are any men who visibly profess Christianity there will be a visible Church And what then what then Why then you must hear the Church then you must submit to the Authority of the Church then you must believe as the Church believes and receive your Faith from the Decrees and Definitions of the Church But pray why so Has every visible Church this Authority No but the Catholick Church has Suppose that but how shall I speak with the Catholick Church which is dispersed over all the World and is nothing else but the whole number of Christians all the World over Now it seems impossible for me to speak with all the Christians in the World and to know what their Belief is in all matters of controversie and though the Catholick Church is visible and part of it is to be seen in England and part in Holland and part in France c. yet no man can see it all together nor speak with all the Christians in the World together and therefore tho' the Catholick Church be visible it cannot determine any one controversie unless there be some visible Catholick Tribunal from which we must receive the Faith of the whole Church This the Papists assert and make the Church of Rome to be that visible Catholick Church or visible Tribunal of the Catholick Church to which all Christians are bound to submit Now besides what I have already proved that the Catholick Church neither has nor can have any such visible Tribunal suppose such a thing might be yet this Dispute about the visibility of the Church is nothing to the purpose for though the Church be visible it does not hence follow that the Catholick Church has such a visible Tribunal to which all Christians must submit and if the visibility of the Church does not prove one Supream Catholick Tribunal what do the Papists get by the Churches visibility or what do the Protestants lose by it The Church of Rome is a visible Church and so is the Church of England and if meer visibility give this Authority to a Church the Church of England has as good Authority as the Church of Rome because it is as visible a Church 4. In the next place I observe that the essential Unity of the Catholick Church is not an external and visible Union of an organized Body because the Catholick Church it self is not an organized Body There is and can be but one Catholick Church because the whole company of Christians is this Catholick Church but then the essential Unity of the Catholick Church does not consist in an external and visible Union of all Christians which is the Unity of civil Societies of Kingdoms and Common-wealths and other inferiour Corporations which are united under one visible Government which knits and tyes them together as Nerves and Sinews do the Members of the natural Body but though there be an external and visible Union in and between particular Churches of which more presently yet the Unity of the Catholick Church consists only in the Union of all Christians to Christ which makes them his one mystical Body This is a very material point in opposition to the Pretensions of the Bishop of Rome who will needs be the Supream and Oecumenical Pastor and Head of Unity to the Catholick Church and though the Christian World never owned him so as has been abundantly proved by