Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bind_v	church_n	law_n	2,400	5	5.0344	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34675	A defence of Mr. John Cotton from the imputation of selfe contradiction, charged on him by Mr. Dan. Cavvdrey written by himselfe not long before his death ; whereunto is prefixed, an answer to a late treatise of the said Mr. Cavvdrey about the nature of schisme, by John Owen ...	Cotton, John, 1584-1652.; Owen, John, 1616-1683. Of schisme.	1658 (1658)	Wing C6427; ESTC R2830	62,631	184

the Ordering of Church Affaires which may be called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Potestas a Power which many times in Common speech goeth under the Name of Rule or Authority But in proper speech It is indeed a Priviledge or liberty an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Power rather then Authority It is a common speech usuall amongst our best Divines That the Government of the Church is mixt of a Monarchy an Aristocracy and a Democracy In regard of Christ the Head the Government of the Church is Soveraigne and Monarchicall In regard of the Rule by the Presbytery it is Stewardly and Aristocraticall In Regard of the Peoples Power in Elections and censures It is Democraticall Chap. 3. Touching the sixth Contradiction The sixth Contradiction is thus Presented 6. Examination is one of the highest Acts of Rule and therefore cannot be performed but by some Rulers Keyes pag. 16. The Church cannot Excommunicate the whole Presbytery because they have not received frō Christ an office of Rule without their officers ibid. No Act of the Peoples power doth properly bind unlesse the Authority of the Presbytery Joyne with it Ibid. pag. 36. 6. If all their officers were found Culpable either in Hereticall Doctrine Or in scandalous Crimes the Church hath lawfull Authority to proceed against them all The Way pag. 45. In case of offence given by an Elder or the whole Eldership together the Church hath Authority to require satisfaction and if they give it not to Proceed to Censure Ibid. page 101. 6. Excommunication is not an Act of the Power of office but of judgment Nor an Act of highest Rule but of supreame Judgment seated in the Fraternity Surv. part 3. pag. 45. As a Church of Brethren can not proceed to any publick Censure without the Elders so nor the Elders without concurrence of the People Preface to the Keyes pag. 4. Answer 1. Here is indeede a Discrepance in Expressions between the Way and the Keyes But it was not my Act that any such Discrepance should have been extant The truth is That many yeares agoe and some yeares before the suppressing of the Bishops in England I was seriously moved by some of our Brethren and fellow Elders here to Draw up an Historicall Narration of our Church-way together with some familiar grounds of the same briefly In short time as God Helped I dispatched it which when our brethren had perused I saw they did not close with it Yet a Brother going for England got some where a Copy of it and Presented it to some of the Congregationall way there and I afterwards heard that neither did they close with it and in particular not with that Passage which is here recited as a part of the Contradiction Which since appeareth more openly by the Asterisk put upon that Passage and upon sundry other in the Book But before I saw that and had only heard That they did not fully Accord I hoped it had met with a timely suppression rather then an impression for I heard no more of it for two or three yeares after Meane while perceiving That one maine Point of Dissatisfaction was the Authority given to the Fraternity I considered more seriously and Distinctly of the whole Power of the Keyes and expressed my Apprehensions in that Treatise of the Keyes which our brethren here did well Accept and so did the brethren of like Judgment in England and some of them were pleased to Attest it with the Preface which is now extant before it yea I have heard as well as some other of our Brethren here by some letters from England that Reverend Mr Rutherford who was a great Part of the Assembly at Westminster offered to the Dissenting brethren That if they would come up to the Treatise of the Keyes themselves would meet them there But this was sundry yeares after the Treatise of the way had been finished and carried to England and as I hoped suppressed But it seemeth some Brother there having got a Copy of it being zealous of the Authority of the Fraternity and Perceiving that their Authority was not so fully Acknowledged in the Keyes as in the Way He caused his Copy of the Way which was indeed abrupt in the entrance and imperfect otherwise to be Published in Print which when I saw It troubled me not a little as knowing That the Discrepant Expressions in the one and in the other might trouble friends and give Advantage to Adversaries Afterwards Mr Hooker coming downe from Connectiquol to consult with the Elders here about his Book He pleaded seriously for the Placing of all Church power primitively in the Body of the Church and also for their Judiciary Power of Censure over the Presbytery suitable to what I had delivered in the Way Now though I cannot say that his Reasons did prevaile with me to lter the Placing of the First Subject of the Power of the Keyes from what I had delivered in the Treatise of the Keyes yet Perceiving that some mens Judgments did more Adhere as to his Judgment so to the former course of the Way others to that of the Keyes I suffered both to stand as they did especially seeing I could not help it the Book of the Way being published without my Consent and both the Way and the Keyes being disperst into many hands past my Revoking and Refuted by some So that if the Replyer find some Discrepancy in one of these bookes from the other Let him know that the Doctrine of the Way in such few Points wherein it differeth from the Keyes was not then mine when the Keyes were published much lesse when the Way was published which was many yeares after though it had been penned many yeares before And yet take all the Discrepancyes and weigh them I will not say with Candour but with Rigour and I do not yet remember nor can I yet find any of them but they lye rather in Difference of Logicall Notion then in Doctrine of Divinity or Church Practise as I said before Answer 2. This further let me Acquaint both the Replyer and the Reader withall that sometimes there hath growne a Question amongst us whether all Excommunication be an Act of Officiaria Potestas or not some Honoraria only If of Officiaria It cannot be Dispensed by the Brethren only as the first Columne hath it If of Honoraria It may and so the second Columne hath it and then the Contradiction is not ejusdem Neither is this Censure dispensed by the brethren as I conceive one of the highest Acts of Rule which is to deliver unto Satan 1 Cor. 5. 5. but Reacheth only to cast their Elders out of Administration of office to them and out of Church Communion with them The Truth is Ego libenter in eorum me numero esse Profiteor qui proficiendo Scribunt Scribendo proficiunt which gave me occasion to Adde the third Answer given above to the first Contradiction Some things in the

remarked The first is this He supposed me to be an Independent and therefore made that charge the consequent of which supposition is much to weake to justify this Reverend Authour in his Accusation doth he suppose that he may without offence lay what he please to the charge of an Independent but he saith secondly that he tooke the word Independent generally as comprehending Brownists Anabaptists and other Sectaries But herein also he doth but delude his owne conscience seeing he personally speakes to me and to my designe in that booke of Schisme which he undertook to confute which also removes his third intimation that he formerly intended any kind of Independency c the rest that follow are of the same nature and however compounded will not make a salve to heale the wound made in his reputation by his own weapon for the learned Author called vox populi which he is pleased here to urge I first question whither he be willing to be produced to maintaine this Charge and if he shall appeare I must needs tell him what he here questions whether it be so or no that he is a very lyar For any principles in my Treatise whence a denyall of their Ministers and Churches may be regularly deduced let him produce them if he can and if not acknowledge that there had been a more Christian and ingenious way of coming off an ingagement into that charge then that by him chosen to be insisted on animos iram ex crimine sumunt And againe we have vox populi cited on the like occasion pag. 34 about my refusall to answer whither I were a Minister or not which as the thing it selfe of such a refusal of mine on any occasion in the world because it must be spoken is purum putum mendacium so it is no truer that that was vox populi at Oxford which is pretended that which is vox populi must be publicke publicum was once populicum now setting aside the whispers of it may be two or three Ardelio's notorious triflers whose lavish impertinency will deliver any man from the danger of being slandered by their tongues and there will be little gound left for the report that is fathered on vox populi And I tell him here once againe which is a sufficient answer indeed to his whole first Chapter that I doe not deny Presbyterian Churches to be true Churches of Jesus Christ nor the ministers of them to be true ministers nor doe maintaine a nullity in their Ordination as to what is the proper use and end of Ordination takeing it in the sense wherin by them it is taken though I think it neither administred by them in due order nor to have in it selfe that force and efficacy singly considered which by many of them is ascribed unto it Thus much of my judgment I have publiquely declared long agoe and I thought I might have expected from persons Professing Christianity that they would not voluntarily engage themselves into an opposition against me and waveing my judgment which I had constantly published and preached have gathered up reports from private and table discourses most of them false and untrue all of them uncertaine the occasions and coherences of those discourses from whence they have been raised and taken being utterly lost or at present by him wholly omitted His following excursions about a successive ordination from Rome wherein he runnes crosse to the most eminent lights of all the Reformed Churches and their declared Judgments with practise in reordaining those who come unto them with that Romane stampe upon them I shall not further interest my selfe in nor think my selfe concerned so to doe untill I see a satisfactory answer given unto Beza and others in this very point and yet I must here againe professe that I cannot understand that distinction of deriveing ordination from the Church of Rome but not from the Roman Church Let him but seriously peruse these ensuing words of Beza and tell me whither he have any ground of a particular quarrell against me upon this account Sed praeterea quaenam ista est quaeso ordinaria vocatio quam eos habuisse dicis quos Deus paucis quibusdam except is excitavit Certe papistica Nam haec tua verba sunt Hodie si episcopi Gallicanarum ecclesiarum se suas ecclesias à tyrannide Episcopi Romani vindicare velint eas ab omni idololatria superstitione repurgare non habent opus alia vocatione ab ea quam habent Quid ergo Papisticas ordinationes in quibus neque morum examen praecessit neque leges ullae servatae sunt inviolabiliter ex divino jure in electionibus ordinationibus praescriptae in quibus puri etiam omnes canones impudentissime violati sunt quae nihil aliud sunt quam foedissima Romani prostibulin undinatio quavis meretricum mercede quam Deus templo suo inferri prohibuit inquinatior quibus denique alii non ad praedicandum sed pervertendum evangelium alii non ad docendum sed adrursus sacrificandum ad abominandum {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sunt ordinati usque adeo firmas tecum esse censebimus ut quoties tali cuipiam pseudoepiscopo Deus concesserit ad verum Christianismum transire omnis illa istiusmodi ordinationis impuritas simul expurgata censeatur Imo quia sic animum per Dei gratiam mutavit quo ore quo pudore qua conscientia papismum quidem detestabitur suam autem inordinatissimam ordinationem non ejurabit aut si ejuret quomodo ex illius jure auctoritatem dicendi habebit Nec tamen nego quin tales si probe doctrinam veram tenere si honest is moribus praediti si ad gregem pascendum apti comperiantur ex pseudoepiscopis novi pastores legitime designentur Thus he who was thought then to speake the sense of the Churches of Geneva and France in his book against Saravia about the diverse orders of Ministers in the Church His plea for the church-Church-Authority of the Pope notwithstanding his being an Idolater a murderer theman of sinne an adversary of Christ because a Civill magistrate doth not by any morall Crime or those whereof the Pope is guilty loose his jurisdiction and Authority considering the different principles grounds ends laws Rules priviledges of the Authority of the one and the other and the severall tenures whereby the one doth hold and the other pretends to hold his power is brought in to serve the turne in hand and may be easily layd aside And when he shall manifest that there is appointed by Christ one single High-Preist or Prelate in the house of God the whole Church and that office to be confined to one nation one blood one family propagated by naturall generation without any provision of reliefe by any other way person or family in case of miscarriage and when he shall have proved that such an officer as the

way which I delivered more laxly I expresse more distinctly in the Treatise of the Keyes which followed after and some things more fully and clearely in the way cleared then in either of the former Answer 3. When I say No Act of the Peoples part doeth properly binde unlesse the Authority of the Elder joyne with it Keyes pag. 36. I would be understood to speak it as I meant it of the Elders walking without offence in the Right Administration of their office and Conversation of their lives Answer 4. When Mr Hooker saith Excommunication is not an Act of Office Power nor of Rule but of supreame Judgment seated in the Fraternity I easily grant that the Excommunication dispensed by the Fraternity is not an Act of Office-Power But it may Justly be Inquired whether Excommunication being Dispensed by the Elders with the consent of the Church be not an Act as of the Churches honourable Judiciall Power so of the Elders Office-Power and Rule in the Church For as the Pastorall Preaching of the Elders is Officiall and so Authoritative though the Preaching of other Brethren as of the Sonnes of the Prophets be not so so why may there not be the like Difference observed here To deliver unto Satan seemeth to be an Act of Judiciall Office-Power as when in another case it is said The Judge delivereth a man to the Officer and the officer casteth him into Prison Matth. 5. 25. He that casteth into Prison is an Inferiour officer The Judge must therefore be a Superiour officer that delivereth an offendour to the officer to be cast into Prison In the Excommunication of the Incestuous Corinthian where both the Elders and Brethren concurred the sentence might well be delivered in Termes that expresse an Act of highest Authority To deliver unto Satan But where the Church is called to Act against their Elders who corrupt them with false Doctrine there the Apostle Requireth the Church to mark them and Avoyd them Rom. 16. 17 18. which may expresse an Act of liberty and Judiciall Power but not of Authority CHAP. 4. Touching the seaventh Contradiction and eighth The seaventh Contradiction is thus gathered 7. It was a Sacrilegious Breach of Order That Commissaries and Chancellours wanting the Key of Order no Ministers have been invested with Jurisdiction Yea and more then Ministeriall Authority above those Elders who labour in word and Doctrine The Keyes pag. 16. 7. There is a Key of Power given to the Church with the Elders as to open a doore of entrance to the Ministers calling so to shut the doore of entrance against them in some cases c. The Keyes p. 9. Yea to Censure all their Elders without Elders The Way p. 45. as before Ans. The power given to the Commissaries Chancellors I justly called a Sacrlegious Breach of Order in more Respects than one 1. In that being no Ministers they exercised more than Ministeriall Authority over the Elders For Ministers doe not exercise Authority over Elders no nor over any Brother but with consent of the Church But these doe it without and against the Consent of the Church 2. In that they exercise this Authority even in Churches wherein they have not Received the key of Order and so stand not so much as in the Order of Members amngst them 3. In that they proceed against them not for crimes committed against the word of God but for Neglect of Popish-Canons or Humane Traditions But now no Authority allowed to Brethren either in the Keyes or in the Way cometh neere to this Breach of Order For 1. In Joyning with the Elders to open a doore of entrance to Minister's calling They put forth no Act of Authority properly so called at all but only exercise a liberty and Power orderly which they have Received from the Lord Jesus to elect their own officers As the Peoples election of Deacons Act. 6. 2. to 5th And their lifting up of hands in the choice of Elders Act. 14. 23. doth declare And when they doe shut them forth it is not without their Elders where their Elders are not wanting or not wanting to their Duty And even then they put forth no Act of Office Rule or Authority properly so called as the Commissaries doe but only an Act of Judiciall Power common to the whole Church 1 Cor. 5. 12. 2. The People do exercise this Power only in their own Church where themselves are members and have Received a key of Order 3. They proceed not against any much lesse against their Elders but for notorious offences committed against the word of God in Doctrine or life so that this Contradiction speaketh as little ad idem as any of the former Touching the 8th Contradiction The 8th Contradiction is represented thus 8. We are so farre from Allowing that Sacrilegious usurpation of the Ministers office That private Christians ordinarily take upon them to Preach the Gospell Publickly The Keyes pag 6. 8. This is ordinarily Practised in England and Allowed by the Independant Brethren Yea they being but in the Notion of Gifted Brethren no Ministers to other Congregations doe it ordinarily themselves Ans. 1. This Contradiction is not of me to my selfe but of some others who whether they be Independants truly so called I doe not know sure I am that Presbyterians and Independants are not membra Dividentia though I see that all that are not for Popery or Episcopacy or Presbytery doe commonly lurke under the style of Independancy I hope the Replyer would be loth to Renounce the Protestant Religion because there are found some contradictions and greater than these in one of them to another Ans. 2. When I call it a Sacrilegious usurpation for Private Christians Ordinarily to take upon them to Preach the Gospell Publickly to Administer the Sacraments yet this latter of Administring the Sacraments the Replyer leaveth out and so the Contradictiction is not ad idem which is a Common failing in this and the rest For I would not say that it is a Sacrilegious usurpation for well gifted Brethren where ordained Ministers cannot be had there to Preach ordinarily and Publickly especially if they be Approved by those that have Power and requested thereto by the People wherein I goe further in giving way to the Prophecying of Private Brethren than my Reverend Brethren the Prefacers to the Keyes doe who only Allow them to Preach occasionally and not ordinarily which I speak only to this end That the Replyer and others may know there is more consent and Agreement in our Judgments then they take notice of or sometimes our selves either But if Private Brethren doe Administer the Sacraments at all whether ordinarily or Occasionally It seemeth to me like the Fact of Uzziah in offering Incense CHAP. 5. Touching the 9th Contradiction The 9th Contradiction is layd out thus 9. A Particular Church of Saints Professing the Faith that is members without offices is the first subject of all the Church Offices with all their Spirituall Gifts