Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	church_n	communion_n	particular_a	2,155	5	7.6323	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59901	A vindication of some Protestant principles of Church-unity and Catholick-communion, from the charge of agreement with the Church of Rome in answer to a late pamphlet, intituled, an agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, evinced from the concertation of some of her sons with their brethren the dissenters / by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1688 (1688)	Wing S3372; ESTC R32140	78,758	130

Princes since the Church is incorporated into the State that I meddle not with for it is not a pure Ecclesiastical Authority but must be accounted for upon other Principles Well! but I assert that Catholick Communion is a Divine Institution and then the Combination of Churches for Catholick Communion is Divine also and thus National Churches Archbishops Metropolitans Primates are of Divine Institution but had our Author transcribed the whole Sentence every Reader would easily have seen how little it is to his purpose The words are these The Patriarchal or Metropolitical Church-Form is an Ecclesiastical Constitution and therefore certainly not an immediate Divine Institution though not therefore accidental according to the Phrase of my Dissenting Adversary but Catholick Communion is a Divine Institution and therefore the Combinations of Churches for Catholick Communion is Divine also though the particular Forms of such Combinations may be regulated and determined by Ecclesiastical Prudence which differs somewhat from what we call meer Humane Prudence because it is not the result of meer Natural Reason but founded on and accommodated to a Divine Institution So that here is no Archbishop no Primate no particular Forms of Combinations of Churches of Divine Institution they are Ecclesiastical Constitutions which may be regulated and altered by Ecclesiastical Prudence but Catholick Communion is a Divine Institution and therefore that Bishops and Churches should unite for the preservation of Catholick Communion is Divine though the particular Forms of such Combinations may be determined by Ecclesiastical Prudence which is somewhat more Sacred than Humane Prudence because it is founded on and accommodated to a Divine Institution I suppose the Reader is by this time very well satisfied about our Author's Justice in his Quotations as the Prefacer speaks 7. He observes that I teach that a compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church is necessary to Catholick Communion For all Christians and Christian Churches are but One body and are thereby obliged to all Duties Offices and Acts of Christian Communion which are consequent upon such a Relation The Catholick Church is one Body and Society wherein all the Members there of have equal Right and Obligation to Christian Communion This he puts all together as One entire Reasoning though the parts of it are above three hundred Pages distant as he owns in the Margin and belong to very different things which is a very honest way of Quoting by which means we may make any Author speak what we please as the History of the Gospel has been described in Virgil's Verse The latter part of these words concern the Obligation of all Christians to Catholick Communion which what it is I have already explained In the former part he would insinuate that I make it necessary to Catholick Communion that all Churches should observe the same particular Orders Forms of Government Rites and Modes of Discipline and Worship and makes me give a very senseless Reason for it because all Christians and Christian Churches are but one Body and are thereby obliged to all Duties Offices and Acts of Christian Communion which are consequent upon such a Relation As if Christian Churches could maintain no Communion with each other unless they used the same Liturgy the same Rites and Ceremonies and were all governed by the same Ecclesiastical Canons whereas we know that all Churches in all Ages have had peculiar Liturgies peculiar Rites and Ceremonies peculiar Fasts and Feasts peculiar Canons and Rules of Discipline of their own as there are in many Cases to this day in the Church of Rome especially among their Religious Orders In the place from which he quotes these words I was Vindicating the Terms of Communion in the Church of England to be truly Catholick P. 392. There are these words For the Terms of our Communion are as Catholick as our Church is Diocesan Episcopacy Liturgies and Ceremonies have been received in all Churches for many hundred Years and are the setled Constitution of most Churches to this Day and this is the Constitution of the Church of England and the Terms of our Communion and must be acknowledged to be Catholick Terms if by Catholick Terms he means what has actually been received by the Catholick Church After much more of this Argument I add the words he quotes That though it be hard to determine what is in its own Nature absolutely necessary to Catholick Communion yet I can tell him de facto what is viz a Compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church He who will not do this must separate from the Catholick Church and try it at the last day who was in the right I am content our Dissenters should talk on of unscriptural Terms of Communion so they will but grant that the Church of England is no more guilty of imposing unscriptural Terms than the Catholick Church it self has always been and when they have confidence enough to deny this I will prove it and shall desire no better Vindication of the Church of England than the practise of the Catholick Church This is so plain that I need say nothing more to explain it that if we will live in Catholick Communion we must own Episcopacy Liturgies Ceremonies which has been the ancient Government Worship Discipline of the Church and those who upon pretence of unscriptutural Terms separate from the Church of England for the sake of such Catholick Practices by the same reason must have renounced the Communion of the best and purest and most Catholick Churches since the Apostles Days But how far I ever was from thinking that the particular Rites and Modes of Worship must be the same in all Churches and that there can be no Communion without this any man may satisfie himself who will be pleased to read some few Pages in the Vindication beginning at p. 372 where I shew how impossible it is to maintain Catholick Communion between distinct Churches without allowing of such diversity of Rites which are and always were practised in different Churches Thus I have done with our Authour's Quotations and what Agreement there is between us the Reader must judge And now he pretends to draw up my Argument against the Dissenters which he says proceeds upon Roman-Catholick Principles But I shall not trouble my self to examine whether my Arguments against the Dissenters were good or no for I have no Dispute with them now and will have none but if they ever were good they are not Roman-Catholick Principles which make them so for I have no Roman-Catholick Principle in all my Book As for what he so often triumphs in the late King's Paper I tell him once for all I will have no Dispute with Kings but if he have any thing to say let him fetch his Arguments whence he will without alledging the King's Authority to make them good and he shall have an

And whether they do right or wrong in this their own Consciences must judg in this world and God will judg in the next This is all that can be said or done in such a broken and divided state of the Church as we now see While nothing was called Heresie but the denial of some plain and acknowledged Article of the Christian Faith while there was no dispute who were Hereticks the power of deposing Hereticks was sacred and venerable and had its just authority and effect but since what is Heresie is the Controversie and the world is divided about it tho the power remains still the exercise of it grows very contemptible when a Church first coyns new Articles of Faith and then Excommunicates Censures Deposes those for Hereticks who will not believe them 4ly We are come now to the last Point wherein he says we agree viz. To give to one Bishop a Primacy for the better preserving Catholick Union and also a Superior power of Appeals and exercising some peculiar acts of Discipline under the regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons Now all this indeed I do assert and yet we are very far from agreeing in this matter For though they made no more of the Pope than a meer Primate which I doubt is not good doctrine in Rome yet there is as much difference between our Primates as there is between a National and Oecumenical Primate and consequently as much difference between our Appeals as between Appeals to Rome and to the Archbishop of Canterbury as between Appeals to the Primate of a National Church and Appeals to foreign Bishops I know he disputes very learnedly that such an Oecumenical combination of Churches and an Oecumenical Primate is more for the preservation of Cathol Unity than a National Church or Primate but this he knew I denied and therefore should not have said that I agree with them in it and who has the best reason on their side shall be examined presently By this time I suppose the Reader is satisfied how far we agree in these things I having in express words denied every thing which he has affirmed in these very Books to which he has appealed which I think is no great sign of agreement 2. It is time now to vindicate those passages which he quotes out of my Book and on which he founds this pretence of agreement between us and to do this effectually and plainly I must as I go along briefly explain some of my Principles which our Author either did not understand or did wilfully misrepresent All the sayings he has picked up and brought together from one end of the Book to t'other relate to one of these two Principles The Unity of the Church which is one Communion or the Unity of the Episcopacy 1. As for the first of these The Unity of the Church the whole mystery of it is no more but this That the whole Christian Church by the Institution of our Saviour is but one Church and this one Church is one Communion that is one Body and Society whereof all Christians are members and wherein they have a right to communicate in all Christian Priviledges and have both a right and obligation to Communicate in all Christian Duties This our Author puts in the second place tho it ought to be the first as being the Foundation of all That all Christians and Christian Churches in the world are one Body Society or Church and this is called Catholick Communion for they being all one Body they Communicate with each other in this one Body in all the Duties and Priviledges of it and what advantage he can make make of this I cannot yet guess unless he thinks that the very name Catholick being one of Bellarmin's Notes of the Church Catholick Communion must signifie the Communion of the Catholick Church of Rome My Adversaries hearing this word Communion presently concluded that I placed the Unity of the Church in some meer transient acts of Communion and disputed very earnestly against it as well they might But this mistake I rectified in my Vindication and showed them that one Communion signifies one Body and Society in which all the Members communicate with each other which I explain'd by this familiar comparison Suppose the whole World were one Family or one Kingdom in which every particular man according to his rank and station enjoys equal privileges in this case the necessity of Affairs would require that men should live in distinct houses and distinct Countries as now they do all the World over But yet if every man enjoyed the same Liberty and Priviledges wherever he went as he does now in his own House and Country the whole World would be but one House and Family or Universal Kingdom and whosoever should resolve to live by himself and not receive any others into his Family nor allow them the liberty of his House would be guilty of making a Schism in this great Family of the World And what Nations soever should deny the Rights and Priviledges of natural Subjects to the Inhabitants of other Countries would make a Schism and rent it self from this Universal Kingdom I added Thus it is here The Church of Christ is but one Body one Church one Houshold and Family one Kingdom These words our Author sets in the Front and thinks to make something of them for seeing all know that to make the whole World one Universal Kingdom it 's necessary that it be subjected under one governing Head it unavoidably follows that unless in the Catholick Church there be one Supreme Governing Head it cannot be like to an Universal Kingdom an organized politick Body Very right Had I compared the Catholick Church to an Universal Kingdom with respect to Government the consequence had been good but comparing it only with respect to Communion the consequence is ridiculous and yet this was all I intended in the Comparison as appears from the Application of it And therefore though the necessity of Affairs requires that Neighbour Christians combine themselves into particular Churches particular Congregations as the world is divided into particular Families and Kingdoms which shows that I no more subject the Church to one Governing-head than I do the World to one Universal Monarch now it is divided into particular Kingdoms yet every Christian by virtue of his Christianity hath the same Right and Priviledg and the same Obligation to Communion as occasion serves with all the Churches in the World that he has with that particular Church wherein he lives wherever he removes his dwelling whatever Church he goes to he is still in the same Family the same Kingdom and the same Church Now whether this be a good Consequence that because I make the whole Christian Church one Family and Kingdom with respect to Christian Communion that is that all true Christians have a right to Communion in all true Christian Churches in the World therefore I subject the whole Christian Church to one Supreme Governing