A57976:715
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.
2. It is vain to press similitudes while they blood, for Christ properly is the bridegroom and husband of his Church, Eph. 5 6, 27. John 3. 29 Rev. 19. 9. Rev. 21. 9. Is•. 54 5. Pastors are but the [Greek or Hebrew] under suitors for the bridegroom, John 3. 29. This is Popish doctrine to make such a relation betwixt a mortal man and an independent Church. Pope Enaristus and Calix•us saith, while the Bishop liveth, the Church can no more be given to another, without his consent, nor the wife can be given to another then to her own husband, without his consent. And so said Innocentius the third therefore at the consecration, after imposition of hands (saith Vasquez) and anointing of the Bishop, and delivering to him a staff, a consecrated and blessed ring is put on his ring-finger in token he is married to the Church; but what have we to do with such trash as this? For in a word, the comparison of a marriage in this point is either Popish or unseasonable, or both; because the mutual consent betwixt A. B. and his wife, being essentially marriage, as the Canon Law, Divines, and sound Casuists acknowledge, it maketh A B. a husband, and also the husband of such a wife during their ⟨p. 263⟩life-time; but election of the people that A. B. be their Pastor, and A. B. his acceptation of the Church as his charge, maketh him not both a Pastor, and also the Pastor of that Church; because the ordination of the Presbytery maketh A. B. formally and essentially a Pastor, I mean a called Pastor under Christ; but the election of the people and his consent doth not make him a Minister, but doth only appropriate him after he is made a Minister to be the Minister of such a Church, and so the comparison halteth in the main point for which it is alleged; therefore A. B. is made indefinitely a Pastor for the Church, and is obliged to labour the conversion of all, within and without the bounds of his Church, in as far as he is a Pastor: But forasmuch as the Church thinketh good to appropriate his Ministry to this particular congregation, for the more commodious congregating and gathering of the sheep of Christ, he is not so their Pastor, as he cannot exercise Pastoral acts towards others also, neither doth the place,