A93091:796
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.
The like characters of a penitent and gracious carriage and confession may be observed, Act. 19. 17, 18, 19.
And seeing you have given us this occasion to lay down some grounds of our practise from the first patterns, we shall add a word or two to take away the conceit of novelty, which is imputed to us in this point as much as in any thing else. Tertullian saith in his book of prescriptions, We admit no man to any disputation about divine things, unless he first have showed us of whom he received the faith and became a Christian; and secondly, whether he admit and hold the general principles, wherein all Christians do and ever did agree, otherwise proscribing against him as an alien from the Common-wealth of Israel. And if in those times they were so strict in admitting men to disputations, no doubt much more in receiving men to Church Communion. But if this seem not full enough, take another: in the Churches of old, there were Catechumeni, instructed for entrance into the Church by baptism, with whom they took much pains in sanctifying them, before; by fasting and prayer, and often preaching to them. And for their admission, there were four things in use among them, 1. Nominis professio, 2. Scrutinium, 3. Abrenuntiatio, 4. Fidei professio. Their Scrutinium which they call Examen competentium, or the examination of such as were competent, or fitting for admission, This Examen was very strict as is observed out of Alcuinus, by learned *1 Chamier, Fiant scrutinia, ut explorentur saepius, an post renuntiationum Satanae, sacra verba datae fidei radicitus corde defixerint, i. e. Let examinations be made, that it oft may be tried, whether they have deeply fixed in the heart the sacred words of their professed faith. And what ever any may think of the strictness of that their discipline, in this point Chamier gives a large testimony, by way of approbation of the same, whose words upon it are these, Certe nemo improbare potest, seriam in tam sanctis rebus diligentiam, ne quantum ⟨p. 199⟩