A37205:121
The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of…
The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of Mr. J. Paget entitled The defence of church-government exercised in classes and synods / by John Davenport.The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of Mr. J. Paget intituled The defence of church-government exercised in classes and synods / by John Davenport.
London: printed for Rich. Chiswell and to be sold by John Usher of Boston, 1672
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Not as visible. For the Scripture doth not acknowledge a Catholic visible Church. The Catholic Church is not visible, as a Church, and the Church that is visible is not Catholic. Though the Catholic Church may be visible in its singular Members; yet so, they are not a Church: or, though it may be visible in particular Congregations;1 yet none of them is Catholic: or, though all of them, if they could meet together, may be called a Catholic Church, or general Assembly; yet so, it cannot be the first subject of the Keys, i. e. of all Ecclesiastical power: for such Assemblies,2 if possible, are extraordinary: and extraordinary Assemblies are not fit Judicatories, to hear and censure ordinary offences, or to administer the ordinary acts of Church-power. 2. If the visible Catholic Church be considered, as totum integral, which is such a whole as ariseth out of the aggregation of all particular Churches (as an Army is made up of all the several Regiments and Troops, or a Kingdom of all the Cities and Counties within it) it cannot be the first subject of the Keys, i. e. of all Church-power. For, 1. particular Churches are the Members, which give the essential causes, whence the integrity of this whole is made up; and ⟨p. 78⟩therefore, in nature, before it, as the cause is before its effect. 2. Church-Officers, with their Offices, are set ordinarily, by Christs Institution, only in such a Church, where they are called the Chosen; but that is a particular Church; Act. 14.23. Tit. 1.5. For that choice and calling is the foundation of the relation between Pastors and People, and of the duties both of the Rulers, and of the Ruled, mutually, Act. 20.28. 1 Pet. 5.2. Heb. 13.17. 3. If a Catholic integral Church ariseth from all particular Churches, as Members of it, joined together; then it must be distinct from them all, as the whole Body is a thing distinct from its several Members, then also there must be some Officer, and Ordinance, and Act belonging to it, which doth not appertain to particular Churches; as there is a General over an Army, besides the Captains and Officers of the several Regiments; and a Supreme Monarch in a Kingdom, besides the Governors in the several Corporations, and Counties: