A93091:369
A treatise of liturgies, power of the keys, and of matter of the visible…A treatise of liturgies, power of the keyes, and of matter of the visible…
A treatise of liturgies, power of the keys, and of matter of the visible church. In answer to the reverend servant of Christ, Mr. John Ball. By Thomas Shepherd, sometimes fellow of Emanuel-College in Cambridge, and late pastor of Cambridge in New-England.A treatise of liturgies, power of the keyes, and of matter of the visible church. In answer to the reverend servant of Christ, Mr. John Ball. By Thomas Shephard, sometimes fellow of Emanuel-Colledge in Cambridge, and late pastour of Cambridge in New-England.
London: printed by E. Cotes for Andrew Crooke, 1652
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.
Object. 4. That which belongeth to a little part of a similar body (quâ talis) belongs to a greater part much more; and therefore if the immediate exercise of the Keys belong to a single congregation, then much more to the whole, and to any greater part of the whole.
Answ. 1 Such as say that the Catholic Church is a similar Body, had need explicate themselves. For to speak properly and strictly, by this rule every particular visible believer being a part of the whole as a totum aggregativum, must have nomen & naturam totius, and so every believer is a Church; or if they so divide this Catholic similar body, as to make a particular Congregation that can join in Gods ordinances, the minimum quod sic; then particular visible believers considered as existing out of these Congregations cannot be members formally of the Catholic visible Church.
Answ. 1 Such as say that the Catholick Church is a similar Body, had need explicate themselves. For to speak properly and strictly, by this rule every particular visible beleever being a part of the whole as a totum aggregativum, must have nomen & naturam totius, and so every beleever is a Church; or if they so divide this Catholick similar body, as to make a particular Congregation that can joyn in Gods ordinances, the minimum quod sic; then particular visible beleevers considered as existing out of these Congregations cannot be members formally of the Catholick visible Church.
2 We acknowledge the Catholic church considered as visible and invisible, is one spiritual or mystical body, yet this Catholic body is under no Catholic policy; but only in the several parts of it, (as hath been proved before) and in this respect the Church, which is spiritually one body, is politicè many bodies: so that the parts of this spiritual to•um are not distinct bodies spiritually relation, (for then every company of women are a Church body) but politicâ combination; and hence though the Catholic church be one similar body spiritually, (due cautions