A93091:422
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. Before we come to the particulars of the Reply, it is needful to clear our meaning from this mistake about the word [ordinary dispensation;] which being rightly understood, it will appear that ⟨p. 115⟩it no way cuts the sinews of the consideration as is objected. For whereas, first, you extend the opposite term, [extraordinary dispensation] to the whole general practice of the Apostles and Evangelists; and secondly, take it for granted, that their practice was not to baptize members of particular Churches: we neither intended the first, nor do we grant the second; as for the first, we acknowledge freely that the Apostles and Evangelists ordinarily and generally practiced according to common rules in this point of baptizing, as well as in other, and left their practice for our pattern, and therefore their ordinary practice in this thing we shall stick to; yet they having not only extraordinary power above Pastors and Teachers, but also having sometime an immediate call unto some acts and special guidance of the Spirit to warrant what they did, therefore there were some of their actions, especially in respect of some circumstances thereof, which ordinary Pastors (not so assisted) may not do; as in this case when they baptized in private houses, in the wilderness alone, and not in the face of a Congregation, &c. and therefore if in some few cases some do think they did not baptize into a particular Church; yet if their ordinary practice were otherwise, we ought to imitate the ordinary, not some extraordinary cases; and thus the sinews and force of the consideration remains strong, notwithstanding this word of [ordinary dispensation:] and that this was our meaning, was not hard to discern, by the Scriptures cited in the answer, to prove the seals are given unto the Church in ordinary dispensation, amongst which, Acts 2. 41, 42, 47. containing the Apostles first practice in this kind are expressed; and Mr. Ball took notice thereof, as appears by his own reference to the same afterwards, though in his printed Reply those quotations be wholly left out:
Answ. Before we come to the particulars of the Reply, it is needfull to clear our meaning from this mistake about the word [ordinary dispensation;] which being rightly understood, it will appear that ⟨p. 115⟩