A93091:370
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.
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 ⟨p. 104⟩and interpretations observed) yet it is not one similar Body politically; and hence every society of believers is not a Church. Hence though it be true, that what belongs to a part of a similar body, as a part, belongeth much more to the whole; and that therefore what belongs to a particular Church, belongs much more to the whole: It is true in this sense, viz. what belongs to the part of the whole as spiritual, and so participates the nature of the whole, belongs much more to the whole, because the whole is spiritual: yet what belongs to the part as political, doth not much more belong to the whole, because the whole is not political: Exempli gratiâ, consider a particular Congregation, as a number redeemed, called to Christ, espoused to him, this much more belongs to the whole; and so if any privilege belong to them as such, much more to the whole. Yet consider a Church as a combined Body, so what belongs to this part, belongs not to the whole. For it belongs to the part to elect and enjoy constantly Pastors over it, but this doth not belong to the whole as a totum. The Catholic mystical Church is indeed the prima materia, out of which political Churches by their combination are formed; but it is no first formed political similar Church, whence every particular Church immediately participates of the nature of that whole, having in it partem talis materiae & partem formae.