A57976:391
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.
7. Argument. 1If the wickedness of a Church have such influence as to pollute the public worship, and to defile these that communicate in the worship, so as they must separate therefrom, and if the unconverted preacher be not to be heard, as a lawful Pastor. Then also we can communicate in no Church, where there are lurking hypocrites; But both these are against the word of God, Ergo separation from the Church in that kind must be against the word of God also. The proposition is clear: If the sins of these that hear, and communicate with me, defile the worship to me, they defile it whether I know their sins or no. If a pest man eating with me, defile my meat; the meat is infected to me, whether I know it or no, and if I be obliged to know it, and know it not, my ignorance is sinful, and doth not excuse me. Now certainly no believer is obliged to know the latent hypocrite, it was no sin in the eleven Apostles, that they knew not Judas to be the traitor while God discovered him. The assumption I prove, an unconverted man may be a called Pastor, whom we may lawfully hear, as Judas was a chosen Apostle, so Mat. 7. 22, 23. Phil. 1. 16, 17, 18. Also it were lawful to be a member of no visible Church, if the sins of unknown hypocrites should defile the worship, because in the net and barn-floor there are always bad fish and ch•ffe. 2Judge then if M. Barrow teach judiciously. If the open sins (saith he) of Ministers or people defile not word and Sacraments administrated ⟨p. 146⟩by them, why hath God said the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord? Prov. 15. and that the wicked may as well kill a man, as a bullock, and what the defiled •riest toucheth is defiled, their prayers and sacraments are not the Ordinances of God. Answ. Except by Anabaptists, I never read the Scripture so perverted; the praying, preaching, sacraments of a defiled Priest, and an unconverted man, to himself, but not to others, are abominable, and sin before God; whether they be censured by the Church or no, whether they be known to be defiled and polluted sinners in the state of nature, or not known; because their persons are not reconciled in Christ to God, as all our Divines prove, as Augustine and Prosper proveth against Pelagians,