Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	authority_n	church_n	person_n	1,479	5	5.0691	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55393	Quo warranto, or, A moderate enquiry into the warrantablenesse of the preaching of gifted and unordained persons where also some other questions are discussed : viz. concerning [brace] ministerial relation, election, ordination : being a vindication of the late Jus divinum ministerii evangeliei ... from the exceptions of Mr. John Martin, Mr. Sam. Pette, Mr. Frederick Woodal ... in their late book, intituled The preacher sent / by Matthew Poole ...	Poole, Matthew, 1624-1679.	1659 (1659)	Wing P2850; ESTC R33938	110,108	175

they say little to the purpose and what they do say is for the most part either nothing else but a repetition of their disproved principles or so infirme that I may safely leave things to any ingenuous reader who shall compare our arguments and their Answers Neverthelesse I will not wholly omit this task also but where I can pick up any thing that requires an answer and hath not been already dispatched I shall here take notice of it They offer divers arguments to prove this proposition That in a Church which wants officers some beleevers may lawfully ordaine without officers 1. Else ordination were unattainable for there is neither precept nor president of an ordinary officers acting in ordination out of the particular Church he is over In the places which speak of ordination to wit Acts 6. and 13. 14. 1 Tim. 5. 22. 2 Tim. 1. 6. the persons ordaining were all extraordinary and so no president for ordinary officers And for 1 Tim. 4. 14. we see nothing to convince us that it was an ordinary Presbytery Answer 1. There are divers practises lawfully used even in our brethrens judgment which yet we find no president for but such as extraordinary persons are concerned in I will instance but in one and that is excommunication which we never read practised but by the authority and concurrence of an extraordinary Officer Paul practiseth it I have delivered him to Satan And the Church of Corinth practiseth it but not without Pauls expresse command and positive warrant and concurrence 1 Cor. 5. 3 4. For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit having judged already c. when ye are gathered together and my spirit And yet our Brethren allow and inferre this as a president for the practise of excommunication by ordinary Churches and ordinary persons And therefore good reason they should allow us the same liberty 2. And the rather because this makes against our Brethren as well as us It is their own grant that Ordination is an Institution of Christ now in force and that it is to be managed by the Officers of the Church where there are such So that both they and we are thus farre agreed that ordinary Officers may ordaine Now if what they say be true then there is neither precept nor president for the Ordaining of Officers and so it followes from hence not onely that none but Officers may ordaine which we assert but also that Officers may not ordaine at all unlesse they will say Officers may do that for which they have neither precept nor president so that our brethrens argument either doth not praejudice us or else it enervates their own principles 3. The true way therefore to discern what acts of extraordinary Officers are presidentiall to ordinary and what not is this Those actions which were proper to those times those actions which were the results of extraordinary gifts those actions which were appendants to an extraordinary jurisdiction those are no presidents for us The Apostles healing the sick by anouncing with oyl their preaching without study their ordering of the Church affaires by their single jurisdiction these things are unimitable by us But now on the otherside Those actions of extraordinary Officers which are common to all the ages of the Church those which may be transacted by ordinary gifts and ordinary jurisdiction those are presidents for us The Apostles publick praying and preaching administring the Sacraments authoritative rebuking ruling censuring c. I say their acting of those things is and was ever by the Church taken to be a president for ordinary Officers acting the same things Now forasmuch as Ordination is allowed by our Brethren to be one of those New Testament practises yet to be continued by virtue of these instances c. It followes that the practice of the Apostles therein though they were extraordinary Officers is a president for us onely here is the difference wherein I am willing any indifferent man should be umpire whether it is a president for the peoples ordaining who though in things belonging to them they did act distinctly from and concurrently with the Apostles as in the businesse of Election yet never do we find them ordaining or joyning with the Apostles in the work of Ordination or whether it be not rather a president for Ministers Ordaining who are the undoubted successors of the Apostels and who did act with them in such works 4. And Lastly for that 1 Tim. 4. 14. how faintly and impertinently do they speak What if you meet with nothing that convinceth you that this was an ordinary Presbytery sure I am you meet with nothing that convinceth you they were extraordinary And it is a great deal more rationall for us to think they were ordinary persons of whom we read nothing which was extraordinary then to fancy them to be extraordinary of which we have no evidence at all the proof lies upon their side I need no positive proof to perswade me to take a man for an ordinary person he is justly presumed so to be till some indicia or discoveries of an extraordinary state break forth But now if one will assert that another is an extraordinary person he must have positive proof for it which if our brethren can bring to prove this Presbytery to be extraordinary we shall submit to them but till then they must not take it ill if we believe them to be ordinary Thus much for their first and principall Argument 2. They argue thus Those that may act in making Decrees in a Synod they may Ordaine But Believers who are not Officers may act in a Synod c. Acts 15. 2 22 23. I answer to both Propositions 1. The Major may be questioned because all those things are to be regulated by Scripture now if we have Scripture precept or example for the one i. e. for acting in a Synod which they say here is and not for the other which we have proved there is not then believers may do the one and not the other 2. For the Minor I deny that the brethren may act in making Decrees in a Synod I deny they did so in this place we read not a word of it All that we read is that the whole Church consented to the decrees and resolved upon the execution of them which they might do though they neither acted nor were present at the making of the Decrees Even as thousands consent to Acts of Parliament that have no hand in the making of them And if our brethren think to prove this they must bring better Arguments then any they have yet brought Another Argument they urge is this That Ordination consisteth in such Acts is may be done by the people The people may fast and pray and which may seem to be most doubtful they may impose hands if that be a rite still to continue as appeares from Numb 8 10. where the children of Israel laid their hands upon the Levities To this Instance the

the Ministry is better defined by relation to the Work than to a particular people Where I desire it may be observed that the Assembly did not say The Office of the Ministry is better defined by relation to the Work than to the Church in generall but than to a particular Church It was not the design of the Assembly to deny the Ministry to be a relation to the Church nor yet was it their businesse accurately to insist upon the notions of relate and correlate they never called the Work of the Ministry the correlate but only obiter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they asserted the Office of the Ministry to be better defined by relation to the Work than to a particular Church which our Brethren have not here disproved but only endeavoured to prove that the Office of the Ministry rather consisteth in relation to the Church in general than to the Work so that all their labour as to that particular might have been spared To which may be added that we must distinguish between the abstract Ministry and the concrete a Minister And although the Minister in the concrete have the Church for his Correlatum yet that the Ministry in the abstract should have relation to the Work is no more absurd then that the Office of a King should have relation to ruling which I think no sober man will deny and especially when such a thing is brought in occasionally by a person not minding nor obliged to minde the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of words it were a vanity in any man to batter down such an expression by a quaternion of Arguments which our Brethren have attempted to do To which may be added that that rule upon which their first Argument hangs viz. Relata sunt simul do mutuo se ponere tollere is true only of Predicamentall but not of Transcendentall relations such as this is whose being is not wholly respective as the Masters of the Metaphysicks inform us And the same answer also may serve for the second Argument which indeed is but the same viz. That relations must be together but the Office is a means to the Work as an end and so the Office must needs be first and therefore they are not relatives To which I answer 1. As before The rule holds not of Transcendentall relations 2. A potentiall being is sufficient in relations My knowledge of a Rose to be in the spring is related to that Rose even in winter and yet the Rose doth not actually but only potentially exist in winter The other two Arguments are trivial and therefore I shall dilate no further about them because this is a Logical and no Theological Controversie CHAP. II. III. Qu. Whether Ministers are only Ministers to their particular Flocks IN handling of this I shall 1. State the Question plainly and faithfully 2. I shall offer some Arguments for the Negative 3. I shall enquire what our Brethren have to say for the Affirmative For the state of this Question we must take notice of another Question whence it hath its rise and being to wit Whether besides particular Congregational Churches there be any other visible Political Churches mentioned in Scripture It hath till these last times been universally received in the Church of God that Besides that union and communion whereby the members of a particular Church meet together in a Congregation for the Word and Sacraments there is another union and communion whereby particular Churches do by their Delegates because in their persons they all cannot meet together combine consult and conclude in common as they judge most expedient for the good of their particular Churches This sufficiently appears from the constant practise of the Church in all ages even from the Apostles times Acts 15. and so downwards which was when ever necessity required and opportunity was offered to meet together in Synods and in common to govern all their Churches And as these meetings were greater or lesse so they received a differing denomination being called Synods Oecumenicall Provincial c. And this is at this day the judgement of all the Reformed Churches in the world some few amongst our selves being excepted and our dear Brethren in New-England both known by the name of Congregationall men so called from this their first principle That the Scripture owns no visible Church but one Congregation From hence it must needs follow according to our Brethrens mind That Ministers are Ministers only to their own Congregations As on the other side they that own another Church besides Congregational do assert that Ministers have a double relation the one to their own particular Flocks the other to the whole Church And thus much for the rise of the Question For our Brethrens mind we shall not need to go far they affirm possitively that Officers stand in relation to a particular Church onely and they deny them to be Officers to a Church universall or to any but their owne Flocks Pag. 8. But here I cannot but take notice of a weighty difference amongst our Congregational Brethren in which they should do well to be reconciled before they endeavour too eagerly to obtrude their Notions upon the world It is this Mr. Shepheard and Allen in their answer to the nine questions assert that though Ministers are Officers only to their own Flocks yet they may perform acts of their Office towards others Pag. 133. And Learned Mr. Norton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concludes that a Minister preacheth to another Congregation non tantum virtute donorum charitatis sed ex vi vocationis c. i. e. not only as a gifted Brother but as an Officer And it is sufficiently known that it is the judgement of persons of greatest note in that way among us in England Now on the other side Reverend Mr. Hooker expresly affirmeth that when a minister preacheth to another Congregation he preacheth not as a Pastour but as a gifted man Survey Part 2. P. 32. And our Brethren in this Book fall in with him and will not allow Ministers either to be Officers or to act as Officers towards any except their owne Congregation For the better clearing of the present Question I shall premise two Considerations which indeed do strike at the root of all their Objections I. That there are two waies whereby a Minister may be a Minister to the whole Church 1. Actu secundo actually immediatly absolutely and independently so that he may without any other warrant undertake to teach and govern the whole Church if it were possible This was peculiar to the Apostles and surely this is abundantly sufficient to distinguish them from ordinary Pastors 2. One may be an Officer to the whole Church actu primo habitually aptitudinally mediatly conditionally and dependingly so that he hath a jus or power to teach every where Go preach the Gospel to every Creature but may not exercise that jus or power every where but by the consent of the Church