Selected quad for the lemma: universal_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
universal_n	church_n	visible_a	whitaker_n	4	3	13.7257	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26886	Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending them against several sorts of opponents, especially against the second assault of that pious, reverend and dear brother Mr. Thomas Blake / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing B1212; ESTC R39868	418,313	558

but as a wooden leg to the body I am almost confident that in turning over all his bookes he can produce but few such testimonies Had he said the Catholick Church instead of the universal I believe he might have found many I think that scarce any man will deny that the universal Church is visible yet Whitaker as largely makes good that the Catholick Church is invisible If I be now sent to my Dictionary to see whether Catholick and Vniversal be both one the one a Greek word the other a Latine I confess it is so in Grammer but not in their use of it that handle the question of the Church Catholick in this manner c. Answ. Wonderful Confidence● Readers take warning by Mr. Blake and me and for our sakes be not over credulous no not in the most palpable matters of fact You hear Mr. Blakes confidence and now you shall hear mine Whether I can cite many such testimonies is partly apparent already Melancthon Calvin Beza Vrsine Polanus Paraeus Piscator Zanchy Junius and I think I may add an hundred more do promiscuously use the terms Catholick and Vniversal here and commonly joyn them thus Ecclesia Catholica seu Vniversalis I profess I mention that which mine eyes have many a time punctually observed and I further profess that I never to this day to my best remembrance did read one Author nor hear of one till M. Blake here speaks it that did distinguish between the Catholick and Universal Church and though I may not say that no man ever did so as having not read all yet I will say I do not believe that ever one reputed wise and Orthodox did so and I think Mr. Blake would have proved it from some one if he could I take this therefore to be a most injurious reproach to our Divines Name us one man if you can that ever was guilty of this ridiculous distinction yea or one Papist that had the front to charge them with such a thing It is well known that our elder Reformers use to plead against the Papist that particular Churches are visible but that Ecclesia Catholica seu Vniversalis is invisible though you stick not to say that scarce any man will deny the Universal Church to be visible and that our latter Divines do speak more cautelously and say that both particular and Universal Church are quoad formam externam visible and yet both are well reconcileable in sence but your dinstinction I never met with before Pag. 156. I must profess that in perusing all Mr. Blake's book I found but one place that at the first reading might seem to an impartial man of intellectuals no stronger than mine to be a successful confutation of any one of my Arguments and that is the next where repeating my Argument that the distribution of the Church into visible and invisible is but of a subject into diverse adjuncts therefore the members that are meerly visible are indeed no part c because adjuncts are no part of the essence he answers The consequence might as fairly have bin that these members which are invisible are no parts c. I confess at the first view its a pausible answer but open it and the inside is no better than the rest For my argument takes the adjunct as conjunct with the reason of the denomination and Invisible is not a real adjunct but a negative denomination and so the argument is thus The Church is called Invisible from its internal essential form which is invisible and it s called visible but from its external accidental form which is visible therefore those Members that are meerly visible note I said Meerly are but Equivocally called members of the Church because they participate only of the accidental form and not at all of the essential Thus argue the Protestants ordinarily against Bellarmine And now where is Mr. Blakes splendid answer Invisibility is but an adjunct no more than visibility true and not so much neither But the Reason of the denomination or the thing denominated Invisible is that which Protestants call the essence and that called visible is but an Accident in their account Whereas pag. 157. you take the Church to be an integrum and that the meerly visible Members are parts yea and the visible to be the Church most properly it is notorious that you side with the Papists therein against the stream of Protestant Divines Though the thing it self I shall not now debate it being meerly a Controversie de nomine that we have in hand and I mention the words of Divines because that custom is the Master of speech and therefore have no better meanes that I know of to decide such kind of Controversies As to what you say pag. 132. I reply again that which is Real may have an equivocal name and men will know this yea and Children too when you have talkt your utmost And as to what you say page 139.140 about Equivocal Covenanting I say as I did of Faith Take Covenanting in General and so a wicked man doth properly Covenant ex parte sui with his tongue But take it for the Christian Covenanting which entitleth to baptism and denominateth us Christians which is a consent to Gods terms on which he offers Christ and life and so all the covenantings of the ungodly are but equivocally called Covenanting with God in Christ If you will not believe me at least regard Dr. Kendals long dispute on such a point in his second volume on a mistake intended against me and answer him before you persevere And as for Gods act of Covenanting with them I say He is not actually in Covenant with them or obliged to them but only still doth offer them his Covenant Reader I suppose I should do but an unnecessary and undesired work if I should thus give a particular Reply to all the rest of such passages as the forementioned in Mr. Blakes book And therefore having enough of such work already I shall forbear and here dismiss thee An account of my Reasons why I make no answer to Mr Robertson nor a more particular Reply to Mr. Blake or Dr. Owens appendix as they were given heretofore in a Letter to a Reverend Friend Though most of my Reverend Brethren that have written to me of that subject do advise me to forbear particular Replies to the words of others because the matter is so much obscured or disadvantaged through the verbal quarrels and they only desire me to handle the point of Title to Sacraments in some just Disputations and to take in that of Mr. Blakes which best deserveth a Reply whom I have obeyed in these Disputations yet because some few others are of a contrary minde I shall lay down my reasons why I do not yield to their desires which is not only because it is impossible to please men of contrary expectations and because they are the fewer but also because to me their reasons seem less weighty and the work which

for my learning what advantage or profit a dead corps is in capacity to enjoy I think none at all but these have much every way Ans. Thus you argue or you say nothing If unregenerate Saints Church-members c have much advantage and a corps have no advantage then they are not Equivocally called Saints Church-members c. as a corps is called a man But c. The consequence is not only false but too gross Advantage or disadvantage are nothing to the nature of Equivocals 2. In its kinde a Corps may have advantage It may be stuck with flowers perfumed emblamed and kept from stinking as ungodly men are by their common Gifts for the sake of those with whom they do converse 3. An Ape is capable of advantage and yet if you call him a man it is a more Catachresticall Equivocation than to call a corps so An embryo or rude beginings of a mans body before it receive the soul it is capable of advanatage in order to Manhood and yet is but Equivocally called a man Mr. Blake If such Equivocation be found in the word Saint then the like is to be affirmed of the word Believer and Believers having their denomination from their faith that is equivocall in like manner and so the common Division of faith into Dogmatical or Historical temporary miraculous and justifying is but a Division of an Aequivocum in sua Aequivocata which I should think no man should affirm much less Mr. Baxter who makes common and special grace to differ only gradually and then as cold in a remiss degree may grow to that which is intense so one Aequivocatum may rise up to the Nature of another animal terrestre may become Sydus Coeleste Ans. 1. It s no good consequence because the word Saint is Equivocal therefore the word Believer is so 2. Our dispute is not about the sence of the word Faith or Believer in General but about the Christian Faith in special from whence a man is to be properly called a Christian and upon the profession whereof he is to be baptized for I told you once already that as Faith is taken in General so your lower sort of faith is truly and properly Faith and so is believing in Mahomet To distinguish Faith into Divine and Humane and into Christian and Mahometan c is not aequivoci in sua aequivocata divisio But to distinguish the Christian Faith which entituleth to Baptism into saving Faith and that which is short of it is aequivoci in sua aequivocata 3. If you thought No man had been guilty of this conceit whether that thought do more disparage the said assertion or your self I must not be judge but I take it as if you had said I thought no man had written against Bellarmines definition of the Church 4. As to your No Man much less Mr. Baxter as I know not the reason of your thought unless you indeed take me not only to be No Man but to be somewhat distinct both from a man and no man so I am as little satisfied with the Reason which you alledg For 1. It is a Gross untruth unworthy a Divine and a Brother that I hold common and special Grace to differ only gradually And that this should be deliberately published even after I had given the world in print so full an account of the mistake of this accusation from another once and again this is yet less ingenuous and doth but tell us what we must expect from Brethren when passion is predominant I never affirmed any more than this that there is a Moral specifick difference between special and common Graces founded in a Natural Gradual difference I manifested in print that Dr. Kendall who writeth against me on this occasion doth not only say the same thing but profess that others differ not from me and resolveth his dispute into a reprehension of me for pretending a difference Yet after all these writings my reverend Brother Mr. Blake sticks not to affirm to this and future Ages in print that I hold Only a Gradual difference without any more ado And of such dealing I may say his Book is too full 5. Your reason is no reason I hope you think not either that your Animal terrest●e Sydus caeleste differ but Gradually nor yet that there are no Equivocals that differ only in Natural degrees who knows not that in many hundred cases a Degree may vary the species Mr. Blake If Juda's faith was only Equivocal then the unclean spirits were Equivocal likewise Ans. A consequence as well fortified with proof of Reason as much more of your book is Yet I take the boldness to deny it Mr. Blake I shall never believe that an Equivocal faith can cast out a reall devil Answ. 1. You are not able to make good your word for you have not wholly the Command of your own belief I am as confident that you will believe it 2. But if you will not that 's no good argument to us that the thing is false 3. An Equivocal faith is a Real faith why then may it not cast out a Real Devil that is be a Causa sine qua non for no faith doth properly effect it I hope you will believe that the finger of God can cast out a real devil and yet I hope you think that Gods Power is but Equivocally called His finger Mr. Blake The Apostle tells us of Faith to the removal of mountaines void of Charity if this were Equivocal faith those must be Equivocal mountaines Still the like proof you may as well say If it be Equivocally called Gods finger then it must Equivocally be called a devil that is ejected We need better proof Mr. Blake pag. 153. bringeth Du-Plessis Wollebius Gomarrus Hudson Paraeus Ames saying that good and bad are in the visible Church Ans. Have you to do with any man that denyeth it But you know they distinguish between In the Church and Of the Church and 2. that they Judge not of the visible as you do And therefore you do but fraudenly pag. 156. make it my opinion as joyning with Bellarmines unjust charge that the visible Church is no true Church but Equivocally so called and that there are two Churches c. Do but you quit your self of the charge of making two Churches as well as all and we shall do well enough for that And for the other part of your charge our Divines say that there are in the visible Church 1. those that belong to it as Invisible 2 hypocrites and reprobates the former say they are properly members of the Church in its proper sense the latter are only seeming members and the Church visible is called a Church in respect to the former And the visible is denominated but from an Accidental and not the essential form Their words before cited shew this Mr. Blake And whereas Mr. Baxter saith that other Divines generally plead that Hypocrites are not true members of the universal Church