A93091:403
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.
Fourthly, although it be said by some Divines, that as faith is the internal form of the church, so profession of faith is the outward form, and that therefore bare profession of saith makes a member of the visible church, yet this must be understood according to the interpretations of some of them who so speak, for there is a double profession of faith; Personal, which is acted severally by particular persons; and common, which is acted conjointly in, and with a Society: The first makes a man of the catholic number of visible Saints, and so fit matter for political church-society: the other makes a man of the political church formally and completely; and in this latter sense profession of faith is the external form of a visible church, but not in the other.
Fourthly, although it be said by some Divines, that as faith is the internall form of the church, so profession of faith is the outward form, and that therefore bare profession of saith makes a member of the visible church, yet this must be understood according to the interpretations of some of them who so speak, for there is a double profession of faith; Personall, which is acted severally by particular persons; and common, which is acted conjointly in, and with a Society: The first makes a man of the catholick number of visible Saints, and so fit matter for politicall church-society: the other makes a man of the politicall church formally and compleatly; and in this latter sense profession of faith is the externall form of a visible church, but not in the other.
Now that in and to this subject so professing, the seals and other ordinances belong may, be proved thus:
Argum. 1. First, the seals and other Church-ordinances must either belong to the Catholic church as such, or to the particular Church: but these cannot belong to the Catholic in actual dispensation whereof we now speak: Ergo. For that Church which is uncapable of actual dispensation of seals, censures, &c. is uncapable of the participation thereof in an orderly and ordinary way; But the Catholic number of visible believers as Catholic, and out of particular Societies, are not capable of dispensing the same; Ergo.