A42758:311
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of…
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyterial government.An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyteriall government.
Edinburgh: printed for James Bryson, 1641Edinburgh: printed for Iames Bryson, 1641
Part 2 › Chapter 11: Objections made against the authority of Synods, answered.
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.
1Object. They who have received Christ, have received with him power and right to enjoy him (though all the world be against it) in all the means and ordinances by which he doth communicate himself unto the Church. But every company of faithful people, if they be but two or three have received Christ; therefore every such company, &c.
1Object. They who have received Christ, have received with him power and right to enjoy him (though all the world bee against it) in all the meanes and ordinances by which hee doth communicate himselfe unto the Church. But every company of faithfull people, if they be but two or three have received Christ; therefore every such company, &c.
- 1Ibid.
Answ. If by the receiving of Christ, they mean the receiving of Christ on his throne, or the receiving of him in his ordinance of Church government, then we deny their Assumption, for every company of faithful people is not a Church politically, as we have showed already. Indeed every company of faithful people who have received Christ in this manner, hath right and title to ⟨p. 201⟩enjoy him in all his political ordinances, yet not independently, but by a certain order and subordination. But if by the receiving of Christ, they mean receiving of him to salvation, or receiving of him by his Word and Spirit, we grant, that not only every company of faithful people, but every particular Christian hath right and title to enjoy him in the mystical ordinances of the Word, Prayer, &c. as often as the same can be had; yea further, hath right and title to the fruit and benefit of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the exercise whereof is committed by Christ to the officers of the Church, Intuitu Ecclesiae tanquam finis. But that every company of faithful people, who have received Christ to salvation, hath right and title to enjoy him in his political ordinances, by their own exercising of all Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and that independently, this is more then either hath been, or can be proved.