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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
A43711	Bonasus vapulans, or, Some castigations given to Mr. John Durell for fouling himself and others in his English and Latin book by a country scholar.	Hickman, Henry, d. 1692.; Durel, John, 1625-1683.	1672 (1672)	Wing H1908; ESTC R34462	60,749	139

Reverence and Obeysance towards the East at our coming in or going out of the Church that the Rule of Charity prescribed by the Apostle may be observed i. e. That they which use this Rite despise not them who use it not and that they who use it not condemn not those that use it And how will the Presbyterians rejoyce to read those high commendations of the Bohemian Churches 'T is said page 64. That they are the first that Reformed Religion from Popery to True and Primitive Christianity and page 99. 't is said Happy had been all the Christian word if as the said Churches were the first that Reformed themselves from Popery the way of their Reformation had been followed by all others who Reformed after them This his high Opinion he confirms by the Testimony of Learned Za●chy and might also have confirmed it by the Testimony of Luther Well! this being supposed must not the Presbyterians carry the day they think they must and therefore one of them not many years since Translated Comenius into English as making very much for that Plat-form they aimed at Indeed in the Order of those Churches I find Lay-Presbyters and which is more Lay-Presbytresses and Eleemosynaries answering to the Presbyterians Deacons Officers I know they have called by the name of Antistites which may be rendered Bishops but every one of them to submit himself to the judgment not only of his Colleagues but also of the Conseniours and to admit admonition Counsels and reproof from them and these Conseniours are together with their Antistites to exercise Discipline upon Ministers The Lords day those Churches keep as strictly as the Presbyterians contend to have them kept Baptisme they administer without the sign of the Cross with them none are thought to belong to the Pastoral Cure of Ministers but those who do with good will submit themselves to that Unity and Order whereas among us every one must be a Church Member or else go to the Common Goal and that which answers unto Confirmation amongst them is performed only by the Minister and before every Sacrament the Master of a Family and his Household come to the Minister and are by him examined some few Holy-dayes indeed are kept in these Churches but so that when Divine Service is ended people go to their work as upon other dayes There is no order among them to abstain from the works of their Calling on the Saints day or to keep the Evening before Fast so that these Churches are as Presbyterian as Presbyterians themselves can desire what was it then that moved Mr. Durell so transcendently to extol them page 46. He tells us That those Churches that first Reformed from Popery receive the Communion kneeling and it is true they do so but they did not do so from the beginning In the year 1494. they received the Communion standing but were forced to leave off that gesture because their Persecutors were the more bitter upon that account and would not this be a goodly Argument think you the Bohemian Church to avoid persecution receives the Sacrament kneeling therefore it is conformable with the English Church that persecutes all who do not receive the Sacrament kneeling I but when these Churches did joyn with those of Major Polonia and Lithuania it was unanimously forbidden to receive that blessed Sacrament sitting because among other Reasons that unmannerly and irreverent gesture was peculiar to those Miscreants the Arrians amongst them and they made this observation That the custome of sitting at the Lords Table was first brought into some of their Churches by those who most miserably falling from their Communion did renounce the Lord who redeemed them wherefore they intreat and exhort all their Company and Bretheren that they would change sitting into standing or kneeling For this Mr. Durell refers us to a general Synod celebrated 1583. But every one that looks into the Harmony of Confessions will see that Mr. Durell hath not dealt fairly for first He leaves out a Parenthesis of the Synod in the which it is expresly said That that gesture of Session with others is free Secondly Whereas the Synod saies that Session was brought in potissimum malo Auspicio This Mr. Durell Translates was first brought in I grant indeed that in another Synod to which this Synod doth refer celebrated 1578. it is expresly said That they who fell off to Arrianisme were the first Authors of sitting in their Churches but that Synods words Mr. Durell does not Translate and therefore has Translated either ignorantly or dishonestly Let it also be observed that this Synod does pray and beseech people to leave off sitting not command them under the pain of Excommunication yea this Synod by allowing what was done in the former Synod does determine That it is unlawful to smite Godly men with Ecclesiastical Descipline because of external Rites Let me also add that the Fathers of this Synod were under a mistake when they said That no Church in Europe anno 1583. did use sitting at the Lords Table and Mr. Durell is much more mistaken if he thinks that any Socinians first brought up the custome of sitting amongst us here in England for what if Dr. Owen said truly when he confuted the Socinians That Socinianisme had generally spread it self into the Nation yet sitting had been used before Socinianisme so spread it self I never heard that there was a Socinian either in the Assembly or in the two Houses untill that one Mr. Free got among the Commons who for his Blasphemies was cashiered that House as I have somewhere read Had Mr. Durell pleased he might have consulted a Catechisme made by Thomas Beacon Prebend of Canterbury and Printed cum Privilegio 1563. in which Catechisme the Learned Divine and Godly Confessour saith That if sitting at the Lords Table which was then used in certain Reformed Churches were recived by publick Authority and common Consent and might be conveniently used in our Churches he could allow that gesture best And Mr. Robert Nicholls in a Discourse of kneeling in the act of Receiving long since presented to Bishop Morton but not printed till 1660 would have informed him That in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Raign standing was Ordained at Coventry and Northampton by her Majesties Commission and kneeling abolished But there was another thing perhaps that might move Mr. Durell to be so superlative in the commendation of the Bohemian Churches namely a Crotchet got into his head of calling an Assembly of forreign Divines that should all give their suffrage for the Discipline and Rites of the English Church which Crotchet did so please him that he begins to call that Assembly page 200 and Comenius the only surviving Bishop of the Bohemian Churches he will give the Honour to speak first and accordingly doth bring him in pag. 202 203 204 205. with a long Harangue of words in the commendation of Unity or Order but is so uncivil to the aged Bishop as not to allow him

in five of which he most grosly abuses him The first is That all Reformed Churches have Liturgies This I say follows not from any words of Capellus if Mr. Durell say it doth his Logick is his own let him make use of it The second is That the Liturgy of the Church of England is judged by this great man to be not onely pure and free from all Popish Superstition and Idolatry but also from all such things as were onerous and troublesome or which did contribute but little to the Edification of the Church as well as other Reformed Churches Twenty Cart-ropes will not pull this observation out of Capellus his words He onely speaks of the Liturgy made by the first Reformers of our Church which vastly differs from the present Liturgy that Mr. Durell takes upon him to defend The third Observation is of all most marvellous thus worded If these Liturgies ought to recede as little as possible from that of the Primitive Church as he doth intimate undoubtedly the Liturgy of the Church of England is the best and most perfect of them all If Mr. Durell will have this observed we will observe it as the issue of an over-confident fancy yet humbly praying that he would allow us to think that this observation hath no relation in the world to any words of Capellus If he may be judge our Liturgy differs more from the Primitive Liturgies then the Liturgy of any Reformed Churches for he sayes Primitive Liturgies were most brief and most simple consisting of a few prayers c. Now if we should grant our Liturgy to be very simple certainly it is not very brief nor does it consist of but a few Prayers let Mr. Durell officiate according to it Morning and Evening which I never knew any Conformist to do and I will be bold to say his Sermons afterwards shall not be over tedious The fourth Observation is That of all who call themselves Reformed the Presbyterians are the first that ever left off the use of set Forms of Prayer Capellus hath not the word Presbyterians in his work nor am I certain whom Mr. Durell understands by them perhaps he means the English Presbyterians but how came they to be Presbyterians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Capellus was too wise a man to say that they were the first that left off set Forms of Prayer he knew well enough unless he onely was a stranger in Israel that many years before the Assembly met at Westminster set Forms of Prayer had been laid aside and condemned as unlawful by huge multitudes who were angry with the old meer Nonconformist because he would not seperate from the English Church as well as endeavour a Reformation of some things The fifth Observation is That the many reasons for which the Presbyterians had rejected the Common-Prayer Book are very light and almost of no moment at all 'T is true that Capellus hath written something to this purpose but it is the same Capellus who hath written so many bug-bear words against our English Bishops in his Theses de descrimine Episcopi Presbyteri de vario Ecclesiae regimine the former Theses he concludes thus That there was no cause why the Bishops and their Patrons should so greatly insult and onely not grow insolent against those whom invidiously they called Puritans and Presbyterians And let it be observed that if the Presbyterians had onely reproved and not cashiered the Common-Prayer Book their Reasons might have been sufficient notwithstanding any thing Capellus saith to the contrary Sixthly Mr. Durell would have it observed That the Presbyterians themselves who are the known Authors of the Directory are in Capellus his Judgment a froward peevish and superstitous Generation of men Capellus does indeed call the Composers of the Directory morose and froward but seems unwilling to call them superstitious and the same Capellus had commended them for shaking off the Yoke of Episcopacy in his Theses de Vario Ecclesiae regimine Sect. 24. Let Mr. Durell when he puts out next English these words for they seem framed according to the Heart of the Presbyterians and let him then also tell us why he calls the Presbyterians the known Authors of the Directory That Assembly that presented the Directory to the two Houses was as to most of its Members when first called Hierarchical and under an Oath of Canonical obedience there are not very many of them living at present of them diverse conform and are as deeply engaged to use Liturgical worship as Mr. Durell himself let him therefore when he has opportunity enquire of them whether they consented to have the Liturgy cashiered and how they came to fall in love with it again and what made them so fearful least the old subscription should choak us when as they themselves can swallow these new ones that are far bigger and more bulky By this time I hope it is come to my turn to make some observations upon the Theses of Capellus and my Observations may be the fewer because I have already suggested so many and the first thing I observe is That the men against whom Capellus was so not could not be the English Presbyterians unless they were falsly represented to him for these are his words pag. 710 711. They with whom we have to do bewray a manifest enough hatred against Formula's of Symbols or Confessions of Faith and of Catechism and the both antient and recent use and custome of them received in the Christian Church If these are the men he had to deal with then had he nothing to do with the English Presbyterians no men having more contended for Confessions of Faith and Catechisms in set words than they Secondly I observe that he represents himself and his fellow Professors as not condemning or inhibiting a free use of Prayers composed by Ministers themselves Nay these are his words pag. 713. We plainly think it both lawful and consentaneous that they who can do it should discover their gift and industry in praying as in preaching this onely we will that the use of such prayers ought not to hinder the Liturgy constituted by publick Authority and to take away and abrogate all use of it out of the Church And a little after he adds We deservedly condemn the rigour of those who under pretext of a praescript Form of Liturgy do study to eliminate out of the Church all use of Prayers conceived by Ministers themselves Let Mr. Durell consider whether this Damnatory sentence do not fall upon many of his own Patrons and Abettours Thirdly I observe that when the Professor comes to contract what he had said he determines concerning Formula's as if Smectymnuus had too much influenced him for he saith first That they are not absolutely in every time and place and with all men necessary because the Christian Church wanted them for some time and it does not appear from sacred or exotick History whether the Jewish Church did not want them before Christ and