A93091:458
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. We grant a Church or Churches were gathered in Samaria▪ and we accept your reason as good, because they received the ⟨p. 127⟩Word, and were baptized, where (by the way) you grant what we pleaded for before, That the Apostles gathered Churches, when they baptized them: but that there was but one Congregational Assembly, lies not in us to prove, until you prove that all the believers were called a Church, or one Church, which doth not appear in the whole story, Acts 8. nor any other where that we can find; and it is very probable that as Philip converted and baptized so great a multitude at several times, and gathered them into the Church or Churches as he baptized them, so he might gather several Churches, as well as one, seeing that none doubt but that Congregational Churches are an ordinance of Christ, what ever men contend for beside. And therefore be the number of believers in Samaria as great as you would have it, it proves nothing.
Answ. We grant a Church or Churches were gathered in Samaria▪ and we accept your reason as good, because they received the ⟨p. 127⟩Word, and were baptized, where (by the way) you grant what we pleaded for before, That the Apostles gathered Churches, when they baptized them: but that there was but one Congregationall Assembly, lyes not in us to prove, untill you prove that all the beleevers were called a Church, or one Church, which doth not appear in the whole story, Acts 8. nor any other where that we can finde; and it is very probable that as Philip converted and baptized so great a multitude at severall times, and gathered them into the Church or Churches as he baptized them, so he might gather severall Churches, as well as one, seeing that none doubt but that Congregationall Churches are an ordinance of Christ, what ever men contend for beside. And therefore be the number of beleevers in Samaria as great as you would have it, it proves nothing.