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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	book_n	church_n	minister_n	2,564	5	6.5894	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82508	A defence of sundry positions, and Scriptures alledged to justifie the Congregationall-way; charged at first to be weak therein, impertinent, and unsufficient; by R.H. M. A. of Magd. Col. Cambr. in his examination of them; but upon further examination, cleerly manifested to be sufficient, pertinent, and full of power. / By [brace] Samuel Eaton, teacher, and Timothy Taylor, pastor [brace] of [brace] the church in Duckenfield, in Cheshire. Published according to order.	Eaton, Samuel, 1596?-1665.; Taylor, Timothy, 1611 or 12-1681.	1645 (1645)	Wing E118; Thomason E308_27; ESTC R200391	116,862	145

done and with consent Answ No such order can be expected where no such order hath been wont to be exercised If any godly person hath removed from one Countrey to another and planted himselfe in Manchester have the Ministers or people whom he left sent after him or challenged him as theirs Or have the Ministers or people whom he hath come to rejected him as none of theirs because not orderly delivered into their hands Suppose the end of his removall was communion with a better people or better ministery Doth this make it the worse or more unwarrantable Is it lawfull to remove to a fatter soile when the place a man lives in is more barren Is it lawfull to remove to a purer aire when the aire one hath lived in is worse and distempers the body And is it not lawfull to remove to a purer Church The purer any Church is doth not Christ take the more delight in it And doth he not desire to be there most And why may not persons desire to plant themselves where Christ gives most of his presence And if one man may unite to such a Church that is purer may not many agree together to make such a Church that may be purer And this is all the gathering of Churches that we know of that is either taught or practised But the exception is That there is a removall of persons to other Churches without the removall of their habitations But why should this be blamed 1. If distinction of Parishes by bounds and limits be not Jure divino where is then the fault Selden of Tithes 2. Was there not liberty within this very Kingdome fromerly for persons to pay their tythes to what Minister they pleased And consequently they were not tied to the Parish they lived in but might chuse their own society and Pastor and hence it is that there are some pieces of Parishes in some places six or eight miles distant from other parts of it and whole Parishes betwixt Why therefore now should there be an abridgement 3. There are many inconveniences both to Minister and people arising hence 1. The Pastors of Parish Churches are onely at certainty what houses they have under their Ministery not what persons for they may goe which way they will leaving their houses but their houses and lands are sixed and they shall alwayes find them there 2. The members of these Churches though they have been bred up under the wing of such Churches and Pastors thereof and have taken a love and liking to the same yet if they remove from their habitation but a stones cast sometimes they must be broken off thereby from such Churches in point of Membership 3. A mans habitation may be neerer to some Church that is out of that parish and so far off from his own Parish Church that he cannot conveniently repaire thereunto must he yet be bound to his own Parish Church by his habitation 4. Suppose a man have many houses in severall Parishes and would desire sometimes to live in one and sometimes in another must he needs alter his Church membership as oft as he changeth his habitation Or can he be a member in all the Parishes where he hath houses The Apostles being not of men Answer nor by men but by Jesus Christ Gal. 1.1 b This was proper to the Apostles or Apostolick men Answ to 9. Pos p 76. T.W. to W.R. p. 67. did preach not onely without but against the peremptory command and Lawes of the Magigistrate Acts 4.17 18 21. 5.28 So did the ordinary Pastors and Teachers of those times as well as the Apostles and many of them were martyred for their labour which yet had not an immediate call from Christ as the Apostles had Reply Therefore it was not an Apostolick businesse as you would make it But you professe not such a latitude of opposition against Magistracy Answer We professe subjection to Jesus Christ Reply without any opposition at all against Magistracie though you would suggest the contrary onely thus If Magistrates command any thing contrary to Christ we rather chuse to deliver up our persons into their hands then our consciences and practices unto their commands And this we hope cannot be interpreted an opposing of Magistracy Nor doe you hold I suppose that our godly non-conformable Brethren suspended by the Bishops Answer or new-New-England Ministers deposed by their Churches to say nothing of Ministers deprived by the Parliament for Malignancie are bound by the Apostles example to execute their Ministery in the Churches notwithstanding such suspension or deposition c. We conceive you have not equally yoked the Bishops Reply new-New-England Churches and the Parliament together For 1. The Parliament challengeth not the execution of Ecclesiastical censure and yet can tell how to punish malignancie in Ministers or any others 2. The Bishops have laid claim to it and exercised it without any just or true title to it Therefore though godly non-conformable Ministers might in prudence give place to violence especially when their people deserted them and Pulpit doores were shut against them yet in conscience and in obedience to such suspensions and depositions they neither did neither ought to have done desist from the execution of their office 3. Ministers that are censured by a lawful power where ever it lies whether in their own Congregationall Churches or in a Presbytery for we will not dispute that now in this place whether the censure be inflicted justly or unjustly ought to submit thereto and forbeare the execution of their Ministery in that place till they be restored again else Ecclesiasticall government which is Christs ordinance in the Church as Civill government is in the Common-wealth might come to be undermined and subverted by pretence of unrighteousnesse in the managing of it or the peace of the Church be disturbed But wherein makes this against the Position We conceive that those very Pastors and Teachers of the Primitive Churches which continued to preach though the expresse command of the Heathen Magistrate was against it lest they should offend Christ by desisting were yet taken off from preaching when silenced by their own Churches and that upon the same ground lest they should offend Christ in persisting But you goe on to say Had you such an immediate commission sealed from Heaven Answer and such infallible direction of the Holy Ghost as the Apostles had you might more boldly imitate them therein especially if the case of living under a Christian Magistrate intending endeavouring and consusting with Divines about the Reformation of the Church and of living under a Heathen Magistrate were not much different 1. The warrantablenes ariseth not from the immediatnesse of the Commission Reply but from the truth and reality of it If a Commission be as really sealed by Christ and from heaven thought not so immediatly as the Apostles was yet it binds as truly to the execution of the work of it till it be called in as the immediate

alledged you say The Lord Jesus reproving the Angel of Pergamus Answer sends his Epistle say you not to the Angel but to the Church I adde not to the Church but to the Churches As you gather that the suffering of corrupt persons and practices was the sin of the Church and not of the Angel only so I may gather that it was the sin not of the Church only but the neighbouring Churches also It is like you intended a consutation Reply but it hath befalne you as it did the Potter in the Poet Horat. de Art Poet. amphora coepit Institui currente rota cur urcens exit qui amphoram instituens currente rota effingit urcoum For in stead of a consutation you have brought forth an addition otwo other inferences Now if you should unto this inference of the Elders adde a hundred more of your owne yet this will not prove that the inference of the Elders is injurious to the Text For still it may be doubted whether theirs or yours any of them all of them or none of them be true true inferences from the Text yea or no especially considering that the inferences you bring are of friendly compliance with that that you pretend to confute For you say not to the Church I suppose you mean the Church only for else you harp upon a harsh string in the ears of rationall men to say John writ to all the seven Churches of Asia Ergo he writ not to Perganus one of the seven but to the churches Now can you say the Lord Jesus writing to the Angel of the Church of Perganus sends his Epistle to all the seven Churches and not abuse the Text and yet must we believe it when you tell us that the Elders of New-England in saying Christ writ not to the Angel of the Church of Pergamus only but to the whole Church of Pergamus also do abuse the Text Again if the suffering of Balaamites in the Church of Pergamus was the sin of all the neighbouring Churches and that this may be affirmed by you without wrong to the Text then the suffering of them in the Church of Pergamus it self was the sin of that Church and this may be affirmed by the Elders of New-England without wrong to the Text. 2. But let us look upon the words not as they may afford matter of an argument ad hominem but as they are in themselves Two things you affirm 1. That Christ reproving the Angel of the Church of Pergamus sends the Epistle to the Churches We suppose you mean the other six Churches of Asia 2. That suffering Balaamites which is reproved in the Church of Pergamus was the sin of the neighbouring Churches also For the first 1. The book of the Revlation contains seven Epistles which were of immediate concernment in a distributive sense to seven severall Churches and many other glorrious mysteries that were of equall concernment to all the people of God These all being molded into one book as we said are sent to the seven Churches of Asia Now the Elders of new-New-England affirm that the Epistles sent to the Angels of Pergamus and Thyatira are sent by way of immediate appropriation and concernment for that is their meaning to the whole Churches of Pergamus and Thyatira Now if in this sense you affirm that Christ reproving the Angel of the Church of Pergamus sends his Epistle to all the Churches you speak to the purpose but not according to truth For 1. What a Pleonasme and redundancy if not a grosse Soloecisme in discourse and absudity it is in a book sent as an Epistle to seven Churches two severall times to mention them together vers 4. John to the seven Churches of Asia vers 11. What thou seest Rev. 1.4.11 write it in a book and send it to the seven Churches of Asia and afterwards to write severall things of a Heterogeneall nature to those seven severall Churches distributively To the Church of Ephesus write thus to the Church of Pergamus thus c. commend one condemn another admonish a third extoll a fourth threaten a fifth c. and yet that these severall Epistles should be of as immediate a concernment to all the rest as to those to which they are particularly directed 2. It will follow that Philadelphia was lukewarm with Laodicea dead with Sardis and of these two lukewarm dead Churches may be verified the Encomiasticks of Ephesus Pergamus and Philadelphia with many such consequences But if your meaning be that the Epistle sent to the Church of Pergamus in respect of that remore and generall concernment whereby it may be of use to all Christians is sent together with the rest of the Book of the Revelations to the seven Churches This though a truth will afford no contribution towards the making good of your charge against the Elders of new-New-England being that which they deny not 2. For the second it is undeniably manifest that the assertion of the Elders viz. that the Church of Pergamus was guilty of suffering Balaamites and other wicked persons is true yea the truth of this Text. But to have so much faith as to believe that all the rest of the six Churches of Asia if that be the utmost extent of neighbouring Churches in your account were guilty of suffering Balaamites and Nicolaitans yea even Ephesus and Philadelphia that are commended for not suffering those that are evill hating the deeds of the Nicolaitans and keeping the Word of Gods patience would require some further proof then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your bare assertion for the manifestation of it For if the rest were guilty why are they not blamed Why is the burthen laid only though it might be laid chiefly upon one Church when as the rest are guilty I suppose the building upon which you lay the weight of this roof is this These seven Churches were a combined Presbyterie and therefore as the government so the neglect thereof concernes all Answ If you may assume the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the thing in question as if it were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing out of question you may in time perswade the world that the Elders of New-England have forced this and many other Texts But to prove that the seven Asian Churches were governed by a joynt and common Presbyterie hic labor hoc opus est this is the businesse But suppose that such a common Presbyterie there were and that the Presbyters of all the other six Churches did endeavour the casting out of these Balaamites c. why were they then not cast out Could the Elders of Pergamus over-vote the Elders of all the neighbouring churches in a Synod And if all or at least the major part of the Elders of these seven Churches neglect why are the Elders of Pergamus only reproved Lastly we cannot choose upon this consideration but condole the sad condition of Presbyterian Churches which is such if wicked men be suffered in any particular Congregation in