A92138:1059
The divine right of church-government and excommunication
The divine right of church-government and excommunication: or a peaceable dispute for the perfection of the holy scripture in point of ceremonies and church government; in which the removal of the Service-book is justified, the six books of Tho: Erastus against excommunication are briefly examined; with a vindication of that eminent divine Theod: Beza against the aspersions of Erastus, the arguments of Mr. William Pryn, Rich: Hooker, Dr. Morton, Dr. Jackson, Dr. John Forbes, and the doctors of Aberdeen; touching will-worship, ceremonies, imagery, idolatry, things indifferent, an ambulatory government; the due and just powers of the magistrate in matters of religion, and the arguments of Mr. Pryn, in so far as they side with Erastus, are modestly discussed. To which is added, a brief tractate of scandal ... / By Samuel Rutherfurd, Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Published by authority.The divine right of church-government and excommunication: or a peacable dispute for the perfection of the holy scripture in point of ceremonies and church government; in which the removal of the Service-book is justifi'd, the six books of Tho: Erastus against excommunication are briefly examin'd; with a vindication of that eminent divine Theod: Beza against the aspersions of Erastus, the arguments of Mr. William Pryn, Rich: Hooker, Dr. Morton, Dr. Jackson, Dr. John Forbes, and the doctors of Aberdeen; touching will-worship, ceremonies, imagery, idolatry, things indifferent, an ambulatory government; the due and just powers of the magistrate in matters of religion, and the arguments of Mr. Pryn, in so far as they side with Erastus, are modestly discussed. To which is added, a brief tractate of scandal ... / By Samuel Rutherfurd, Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Published by authority.
London: printed by John Field for Christopher Meredith, 1646
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Erastus. I grant before any come to age, be baptized, he is to be examined, whether he understand the Doctrine of saith, and assent to it with his heart: I grant it is profitable that young ones be examined, before they be admitted to the supper, but I deny God hath for either of those instituted a Presbytery. But there is no ground that a Presbytery must try wicked men, ere they be admitted to the Lords supper.
Ans. 1. We owe Erastus thanks for granting this; but what if the aged be sound grossly ignorant, and uncapable of the seals? and some wicked men will trample the seals as swine, and yet they desire the seals. Erastus said before, such should not be admitted; who1 should debar them; either the Church of believers, or those that are over them in the Lord, or the Magistrate must debar them: if the first and second be said, Erastus cometh to find some use for a Presbytery; if the Magistrate be an heathen, he cannot examine or debar any from the seals. Let Erastus answer, if he be a Christian, how can it be denied; but if the Magistrate by his office is to steward the bread to one of the children, not to another, but he is a steward to cut and divide the word, and seals both aright; and how could Paul make it one of the properties of the Pastor, 2. Tim. 2. to cut the word, and by the same reason to distribute the seals aright, if it depend upon another officer by his office to command ⟨p. 383⟩him to divide it to this man, whom he hath examined, and findeth in his mind qualified, and not to this man? We judge the Elders of the New Testament do agree in this common and perpetual morality, that both are to put difference between clean, and unclean, holy, and unholy, though many things were unclean to the Jews, that are not unclean to us, and that the Church hath yet a power to bind and loose, Mat. 16. 9.