A93091:842
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.
First, there is a difference between the unjust leaving or casting off a Minister, without all orderly proceedings against him, and the unjust deposing him in an orderly way of Church censure: if the question be taken in the first sense, he remains every way and in every respect by right a Minister as he was before, except he reject them, and so dissolve the relation that was between them. But if the question speak of an orderly censure of deposition unjustly, then we judge of that case as we would do in any other, censure of a member by excommunication, & therefore we say, he is still a Minister, in foro interno before Christ, for clavis errans non ligat. Secondly, in respect of that Church he hath still right truly to minister to them, and is their Minister though unjustly hindered in the execution of his Ministry, as a member unjustly censured hath a true right to the Ordinances, and membership, though unjustly hindered from the same, though in foro externo, we grant to them or in their account he is no Minister, as a person excommunicated is to them no member.
First, there is a difference betweene the unjust leaving or casting off a Minister, without all orderly proceedings against him, and the unjust deposing him in an orderly way of Church censure: if the question be taken in the first sense, he remaines every way and in every respect by right a Minister as hee was before, except he reject them, and so dissolve the relation that was between them. But if the question speak of an orderly censure of deposition unjustly, then we judge of that case as we would do in any other, censure of a member by excommunication, & therefore we say, he is stil a Minister, in foro interno before Christ, for clavis errans non ligat. Secondly, in respect of that Church he hath stil right truly to minister to them, and is their Minister though unjustly hindered in the execution of his Ministery, as a member unjustly censured hath a true right to the Ordinances, and membership, though unjustly hindred from the same, though in foro externo, we grant to them or in their account he is no Minister, as a person excommunicated is to them no member.
Thirdly, in respect of other Churches, if it doth appear unto them that he is unjustly deposed, they may and ought to esteem him still, and receive him and have communion with him, as a true Minister of Jesus Christ, in the Church he doth belong to, as they may do with a member unjustly cast out, but till that appear unto them, they cannot so esteem and honour him, (being orderly deposed but must at least suspend their judgment till the case be cleared.