Theological Works of Herbert Thorndike, Vol. 4 PDF Download

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ISBN: 9781331324904
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Excerpt from Theological Works of Herbert Thorndike, Vol. 4: Sometime Prebendary of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster And, upon this account, I have truly said elsewhere, as I conceive it, that the corporation of the Church is founded upon the privilege, which God hath granted all Christians, of assembling themselves for the service of God, though supposing that the powers of the world should forbid them so to do. For this privilege consists in nothing else, but in that command which God hath given His Church, of serving Him with these offices. Whereupon it necessarily ensues, that, notwithstanding whatsoever command of secular powers, they are forbidden to serve God in the communion of them that are not of the Church; seeing they cannot he commanded to serve God in the communion of the Church, but they must be forbidden to serve God in the communion of them which are not of the Church. And upon this ground stands all the power, which the Church can challenge, in limiting the circumstances and conditions upon which men may communicate in these offices. Which as it may justly seem of itself inconsiderable to the world and the powers that govern it; so, when those powers take upon them to establish the exercise of it by their laws, if they maintain not the Church in that power, which of right and of necessity it had from God before they professed to maintain Christianity, they destroy in deed that, which in word they profess. But if they take upon them to maintain it in the right, which originally it had, to limit the said circumstances by such rules, as by the act of secular powers become laws to their people; then must the power of the Church become as considerable, as it is indeed in all states and commonwealths, that retain the Christianity which they had from the beginning, in this point. This being the ground, and this the matter, of ecclesiastical laws, and the sacrament of the eucharist being that office proper to Christianity, in order to the communion whereof, all laws, limiting the circumstances and conditions of the said communion, are devised and made; it seems requisite to my design, in the first place, to void those controversies concerning the same, which all men know how much they have contributed to the present divisions of the Church. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.