A57976:128
A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbytery in Scotland, or, A modest and…A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbyterie in Scotland, or, A modest and…
A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbytery in Scotland, or, A modest and brotherly dispute of the government of the Church of Scotland wherein our discipline is demonstrated to be the true apostolic way of divine truth, and the arguments on the contrary are friendly dissolved, the grounds of separation and the independency [sic] of particular congregations, in defence of ecclesiastical presbyteries, synods, and assemblies, are examined and tried / by Samuel Rutherfurd ...A peaceable and temperate plea for Pauls presbyterie in Scotland, or, A modest and brotherly dispute of the government of the Church of Scotland wherein our discipline is demonstrated to be the true apostolick way of divine truth, and the arguments on the contrary are friendly dissolved, the grounds of separation and the indepencie [sic] of particular congregations, in defence of ecclesiasticall presbyteries, synods, and assemblies, are examined and tryed / by Samuell Rutherfurd ...
London: printed for John Bartlet, 1642London: printed for Iohn Bartlet, 1642
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.
5. Parker reasoneth thus. Coactive jurisdiction as excommunication, 1is a mean of edification, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, 1 Corinthians 5. 4. Now the souls of guides (Parker saith the souls of Prelates) shall be in a wors• case, than the souls of the flock, if they be not subject to a particular Church, as Corinth: for they want that mean of edification which others have. Some say Synods are to take order with pastors, and not the Church of Believers; But Papists answer, The Bishop is to be judged by the Archbishop or Patriarch, if they shall scandalously sin, then they are to be left to the Pope, and the General Council, which cannot be had. Answer. I deny not but every pastor is subject in some things to the Eldership of the congregation, where he is, and if he were not liable to laws or censure, he were a pope, but in the matter that deserveth deprivation he is only to be censured by the Presbytery and Synods,2 for a number of believers, nay a number of Ruling Elders cannot deprive him, because they cannot ordain a pastor: for the law saith well, It is one power of the keys to ordain and to exauthorate and deprive: But no word of God will warrant a number of believers to censure ecclesiastically their pastor, not because he is their pastor and they his flock (for so the Eldership of his own congregation might not ecclesiastically censure him, which I judge to be false) but because the Church of sole believers hath not the power of the keys, and they have not power to censure any other believer, except in a private way, as fellow members of that same body: but in a constitute. ⟨p. 45⟩Church, a College of pastors and Elders only hath power to deprive or excommunicate a pastor, and there remaineth CHRISTS way of edification, that he be in this case censured by Synods. But ye will say, this is the Papists answer. I answer, it is not, for they will have the pastor censured by the Prelate, the Prelate by the Arch-Prelate, which we deny as Antichristian, for all are to be by the Church. But Synods m•y err. Then appeal to a greater Synod, for united force is stronger.