Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	act_n	bishop_n	church_n	2,413	5	4.3810	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33596	An ansvver to a book set forth by Sir Edward Peyton, knight and baronet carrying this title A discourse concerning the fitnesse of the posture necessary to be used in taking the bread and wine at the Sacrament / by Rodger Cocks ...	Cocks, Roger, fl. 1630-1642.	1642 (1642)	Wing C4874; ESTC R13366	12,324	26

the authority of the Ordinary the Bishop the Canon because it is not confirmed by Act of Parliament I answer first that your inference is not good Are all things unlawfull that are not confirmed by Act of Parliament Surely then many indifferent actions must needs be unlawfully performed Hath the King hath the Church no authority in these things what then shall become of government if there be no Parliament But it may be you desire such a time as the Israelites had when there was no King in Israel but every man did that which was right in his own eyes b Secondly I answer that your assertion is not true there is an Act of Parliament for that and other Ceremonies entituled An Act for the uniformity of Common Prayer and prefixt as an Introduction to the Service Booke but I beleeve you have taken little notice of it because you are not much affected to the Booke it selfe Againe whereas you say Kneeling is not commanded in the Rubrique surely you doe but take the matter upon trust and that hath deceived you for the words are plaine that the Receiver must take the Sacrament kneeling I will repeat them that the truth may the better appeare Then shall the Minister first receive in both kindes himselfe and next deliver it to other Ministers if any be present and after to the people in their hands kneeling What can be more plaine Certainly if you did not take the matter upon trust as I said before it must needs be that either you did not looke so far or over-looke it Your disallowing of the Canon cannot make it of no validity for it is confirmed by the King whom we acknowledge Supreame in causes as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill yea the power thereof is further ratified by a clause mentioned in the latter part of the Act made for the uniformity of Common Prayer This three-fold cord then cannot be broken by you strain a hard as you can And yet let me advise you as a friend not to strain too far lest by this means you doe not onely forfeit your judgment but your estate for the Act being still in force may lay hold upon you But to follow you as you proceed you urge us next as if we did we know not what with many demands concerning the object you should kneel unto and some of them very poore and ridiculous you cannot without much prejudice to your own judgment conceive us to be so simple as to require you to kneele to the creature whether it be the Minister or the Sacrament but what that should be which may hinder you from kneeling unto God I am not I confesse quick sighted enough to perceive yes say you for if that be required why did not the Disciples kneele I answer first it is not of absolute necessity that wee should in all things imitate the Disciples next I affirme that with all the skill you have you cannot clearly and fully determine whether they did kneele or no Touching the forme of administration what if we shall affirme for all your negative that part of it is a prayer I doubt not we shall make it good well enough doe you your selfe examine it a little better and you cannot if you will confesse a truth but conclude it to be so I will repeat the former part for that only is materiall to the purpurpose The Body of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soule into everlasting life The later part is by you vainly added for who did ever conceive that to be a Prayer But if it be a Prayer say you the words should run thus I pray God to preserve thy body and soule to eternall life Why so I see no such necessity Is not that of the Apostle Paul to Timothy c The Lord give thee understanding in all things a prayer for Timothy because he doth not say I pray the Lord to give thee understanding in all things Consider what I say and the Lord give you a better understanding Nor is it convenient for all your cavill that the Minister should kneele at the time of Administration though the Receiver doe seeing the former subordinately under Christ our Saviour imparts the blessing the latter takes it ministerially from him Suppose the King nay let it be some Vice-gerent or Generall under him be to bestow the Order of Knight-hood because he must kneele that takes the honour must he doe so that gives it Or to come neerer to the present question consider this in matter of Ordination for though it be no Sacrament it is a holy action because he must kneele who receives Orders must he doe so that doth ordaine him who sees not the manifest absurdity of this consequence It is sufficient that the Minister himselfe receiving first according to appointment doe take the Sacrament upon his knees And why I pray you may you not kneele to Christ when you receive what necessity is there that your kneeling to him should make him to be corporally present in the Sacrament when you take the holy Communion more then he is at other times when you pray unto him My Lord of Yorke and it is much that you should vouchsafe to give him that title confesseth no such thing as you quote him for Yea in the Page following he is directly against you For he affirmes out of approved Authors that it is a matter of conveniencie for every Countrey to use such Ceremonies as they shal think fit d Your Proposition that we ought to follow Christ in all things is too generall S. Augustine will tell you otherwise and so will all other Orthodoxe Divines They will affirme we ought not to imitate him in his Miracles but in his Morals For though the one may entitle us to obedience the other cannot acquit us from presumption In the next place you come upon me like a fencer But Venia tua give me leave to tell you in a friendly manner your Venies are but triflings in a cause so serious I feare your sharp as little as your foils for unlesse your weapons be and I hope they are not tincta Lycambaeo sanguine I see no great danger in them an indifferent judgment may easily blunt their point and turn their edge Howbeit I thanke you for your friendly advertisement for praemonitus praemunitus forewarn'd forearm'd and however you may seeme to your selfe an iuvincible Goliah yet I a little David dare enter the lists with you First you make a flourish not with a two-handed but with a two-edged sword nay with that which is sharper then any two-edged sword e The Word of God Such a weapon I grant as being well handled is not to be resisted but you doe onely flourish it and make a shew of striking that which you doe not come neere Your Argument runs thus That gesture is best which was used by the Apostles but the Apostles used this gesture therefore it is the best

For if the Israelites receiving onely a message of their corporall deliverance by the ministery of Moses bowed their head and worshipped y surely we have greater reason when we receive an undoubted pledge of our spirituall deliverance by the death and passion of our blessed Saviour to humble our selves to Almighty God and upon our knees to offer up the sacrifice of praise thanksgiving We know that men doe many times upon their knees receive temporall favours from the hands of mortall Princes Without doubt then it will become us to receive with all submission and reverence this spirituall favour from the hands of immortall God the great King of Kings That Epistle of S. Aug. by you cited for the abolition of indifferent Ceremonies helps you little unlesse you will say he doth which he doth not contradict what he had delivered in the Epistle immediately going before For there he gives this rule to Ianuarius Nulla disciplina est in his melior gravi prudentique Christiano quàm ut eo modo agat quo agere viderit Ecclesiam ad quamcunque forte devenerit z In these things no discipline can be better for a grave and wise Christian then to demeane himself in that manner the Church doth to which it is his hap to come And he confesses he tooke this rule from S. Ambrose Tanquam à coelesti oraculo as from some heavenly Oracle Therefore if you would be indeed as you desire to be accounted a grave and wise Christian you must observe that discipline which is enjoyned by the Church wherein you live And indeed in that Epistle you cite he is so far from disallowing the rule before mentioned that he doth highly commend it affirming of it that it is una saluberrima regula retinenda a the onely wholsome rule to be observed Your last Argument to take away Kneeling at the Sacrament is drawn from the avoiding of an inconvenience It is say you an occasion of scandall and offence I answer The best actions may be so but then the offence is in those that take it not in those that give it But I would fain know of you if sitting or standing should be substituted in the place of kneeling for you seeme to be indifferent for either of these and I think would not care what the posture were so it were any other how these could be used without scandall For I perswade my selfe that as they would give more occasion of offence so they would give occasion of offence to more then kneeling doth In this the greater number sure will side with us To say nothing that whereas you can pretend onely the bond of charity we have besides this the bond of duty even the command of Authority which as Beza observes doth impose a kind of necessity b Calvin also affirmes that where the doctrine is sound and pure and the Ceremonies tend to a civill decencie and honesty it is fit rather to submit unto them then to dissent about them c especially if the greater number carry it Now suppose all the congregations in the Kingdome were united into one and the matter were to goe by votes I presume I may safely affirm that where you have ten for sitting or standing severally nay for both joyntly we for kneeling shall have an hundred This reason therefore of yours is of no validity seeing scandall would not be lessened but encreased by this meanes You draw now to a conclusion and so would I too for I am even wearied with following you in such a confused course but that I meet with one thing which will detain me a while Indeede a good Christian nay a good Subject though a Heathen could not passe by it without offence Are the names of Kings thinke you fit things to be plaid upon or to be stigmatized by the pens of private persons if not what meanes your new coind word Carolicall Minutius records of Mercurius Tresmegistus that even the Heathen because he was a great Philosopher would not use his name without great reverence Is there not as much respect due to Kings as to Philosophers Suetonius reports of Augustus Caesar he wrote to the Senate of Rome to take order that his name might not absole fieri be worn thread bare among the common people by their frequent and triviall using of it And can our King then take it wel at your hands you should abuse his name and that in so serious and weighty a matter as Religion Surely when I consider this I cannot a little wonder at your inconsiderate boldnesse nay irreligious impietie For if a Subject may not revile his Prince no not in his thoughts d much lesse is he to doe it in his words especially in such as proceede not from suddain passion but from mature deliberation and being committed to the presse are exposed to a publique view I could never heare that his Majesty is any way tainted in Religion you may justly be suspected therefore I shall rether follow that Church which is if I may lawfully repeat the terme you use Carolical then that which is Peytonicall that is rather the Doctrine and the Discipline of the Church of England then the fancies and factions of some few Sectaries and Schismaticks And now I will shut up all with an inversion of your conclusion Seeing kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament is in it selfe a Ceremony that is indifferent seeing it is as judicious Hooker terms it the gesture of pietie e nay as Beza himselfe acknowledgeth doth carry a shew of pious reverence f seeing it is enjoyned by authority and that of the King of the Church of the State seeing it is practised by the generality seeing it is refused only by some few out of singnlarity Qui nisi quod ipsi faciunt nihil rectum existimant as Saint Aug. speaks g who thinke nothing to be right but what they doe themselves you ought not to require at my hands an administration of the Sacramen unto you standing or to be offended with me or any other who rebus sic stantibus shall refuse to satisfie your desire that he may comply with the authority of the Church Mart. 15. 1642. Imprimatur Tho Wykes FINIS a Eccles. 12. 12 b Judg. 17. 6. c 2 Tim. 2. 7. d Pag. 133. e Heb. 4. 12. f In Epist ad Ephes. g Epist. 119. Cap. 15. h 118. Epist. Cap. 2. i Thes. Belg. 3. art 6. k 1 Cor. 14. 40. l In Rom. 14. 5 m Li. 4. cap. 10 sect. 32. n Cent. Helvid o Colos. 2. 9. p 1 Cor. 1. 13. q qui bene distinguit bene direct r Exod. 20. 5. s 1 Kings 8. 55. t Philip 3. 4. u Luke 17. 16. w Revel. 7. 11. 11. 16. x Colos. 4. 2. y Exod. 4. 31. z Epist. 118. Cap. 2. a Aug. Epist. 119. Cap. 18. b Epist. 24. c Epist. 254. d Eccles. 10. 20. e Ecclesiast polit. lib. 5. f Epist. 12. g Epist. 118. Cap. 2.