Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	ecclesiastical_a	jurisdiction_n	2,674	5	9.0374	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41192	A view of an ecclesiastick in his socks & buskins, or, A just reprimand given to Mr. Alsop, for his foppish, pedantick, detractive and petulant way of writing	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1698 (1698)	Wing F764; ESTC R476	85,805	132

and Virtuous but to the Civil and the Well-bred part of Mankind I could readily both bear with and esteem any Man that sheweth Zeal for his Theological Belief whether he be in the right or wrong provided he doth not express Virulence and in the room of exercising Charity doth not exert Wrath and Malice nor in the place of Arguments invent and advance Reproaches and Calumnies But I do both thank God and take Pleasure in my self to find that I am by Education Principles and Temper carried into the greatest Aversation imaginable of those who in Discourses on Subjects of Divinity where only Scriptural Authority strong Reason and Modesty of Expression should be allowed abandon themselves to the Licentiousness of Drollery Satyr Pasquinade and Calumny And who when they should be sober Disputants turn Buffoons Marphorio's or Revilers Nor are a Jack-Pudding on a Mountebank Stage or a Mercenary Droll at a Bartholomew-Fair or a Knight of the Post at the King's-Bench-Bar in the Garb and Quality of a credible Evidence more disagreable and displeasing Objects to me than to see an Ecclesiastick metamorphosed into a Comedian a Divine transform'd into a Merry-Andrew a Minister of the Gospel of Truth and Meekness chang'd into a Fabulous Romancer and a Petulant Reviler and a Theological Disputant turn'd a Pasquin and a Satyrist Whereunto all that I will here subjoyn and with which I will close this Head of Accusation and Reprimand of Mr. Alsop is that the Carriage and Behaviour of Him and of Mr. Williams toward those of the Congregational Perswasion is no less shapen and moulded but whether intentionally or not I will not say to the Abuse Perversion of the Liberty which the Dissenters have by Law obtain'd first into their Reproach and Dishonour and then into their Ruine than the Freedom which Julian the Apostate granted to the Various Sects of Christians under his Reign was by him designed both to their Destruction and the Extirpation of the Christian Religion For as that Cunning and Wise tho Malicious Emperor against Christianity Tolerated all the Dissentient Parties of that Religion not out of Favour to it or them but upon an hope and Prospect of their Qnarrelling with their Reviling and their Endeavouring to Destroy one another so both Mr. Alsop and Mr. Williams se●m to make it their Province to abuse the Liberty which hath been Graciously and upon Honest Prudent and kind Inducements Vouchsafed unto Dissenters into that Occasion of Envy Strife and Rancour among themselves and into a Provocation as well as an opportunity of Maliciously Slandring and defaming a Considerable part of the Body of Dissenters as Heterodox and in reality Subverters of the Christian Faith the Charge of Antimonianism importing no less and of some of them as Treacherous and Disloyal Conspirators against His Majesties Person and the Government which both must and ought according to all the Measures of Wisdom and Justice produce as the Consequent and Event a Repeal of the Statute by which they are possessed of Freedom with Respect to their Religious Assemblies and Pastoral Exercises and do stand Covered from all Obnoxiousness to those Mulcts and Penalties whereunto they were by former Laws liable upon the single Foot of Conscience and Religion Or the least thing which this Buffoonry Petulant and Defamatory way of Writing must in Reason effect will be the Rendring them the Subjects of the Scorn and Derision of those of the National and Establisht Church So that I do not wonder if some of the greatest States-Men as well as of the Principal Dignitaries of the Prelatical Way do think that they who were at the Helm in the Reign of Charles 2d were wonderfully Mistaken in their Politicks of Suppressing Dissenters and of destroying Non-conformity to Episcopacy and their Church forms and discipline by Rigorous Laws and Statutes which only Served to make them Stifle and Conceal their Passions one against another and upon the Encouragement of their Numbers to unite and Combine into a Faction Inimicous to the State as they were before unfriendly to the Church Whereas if the Way of Indulgence had in that Reign been fallen upon and pursued some of the Presbyterians who have Popes as well as Bishops and Arch-Bishops in their Bellyes would long er'e this have run into the Road of arriving at Mitres and of Grasping the Crosier Staff if for no other Reason than that of using the Butt End of the Latter to knock those of the Congregational Way on the Head instead of Applying the Crook for drawing them gently and with meekness either into their own or a Nationall Communion I will not discover at present whom I know of Court Pensionartes among the Presbyterian Ministers nor what their Respective Pensions have been seeing I am well assured that they were not Originally granted in order to promote Quarrels among themseves nor to be the Sallaries of Buffoons Fabulists or Revilers but partly to Relieve men of true Piety and of Singular Worth whose parts and merit made them Capable of the most Honourable and Beneficial Stations in the National Church if their Principles would have allowed their Qualifying themselves to have accepted of them and partly to purchase and restrain some little but stirring and peevish Ecclesiasticks among them from being Demagogues against the Government and to gain them to be Panagyrists for it and render them Partizans Zealots and Advocates for it's Support instead of their turning Satyrists to disparage it and of reassuming the Practise of beating their Ancient Tune again upon the Pulpit Drum And forasmuch as some Reverend Pastors and Brethren who have enjoyed Some Advantages of knowing more of the little Arts and Tricks which have been used and I am afraid Still are to render your Principles and Way and Consequently your Persons and Churches the objects of State Jealousie I shall therefore in a word or two shew the Friendliness of your principles I might say beyond those of some other Dissenters to Civil Government and that if your Tenets were but duly understood you would be never Suspected provided you be true unto and act Conformably unto them as persons who can or will Encroach upon or supplant the Authority and Jurisdiction of Magistrates And as I do reckon that Church Frame and Form of Ecclesiastical Regimen and Discipline to have most of a Divine Impression and Stamp upon it which is of all others the Friendliest to Politial Authority and is the furthest from Interfering with true Magistratical Power so I have not the best Opinion of that Scheme of Church-Government which erects Dominium in dominio which is the Constitution in a Neighbouring Church and to whose Pattern some People covenanted to conform as the best in all the Reformed Churches and against the Natural Effects whereof in its Genuine Execution they who bear the Temporal Sword are not secure in their Seats of Power without being at the Expense of finding now and then a new pair of Shooes to accommodate

such Ecclesiasticks for Travelling as do but vigorously exert their Church and Disciplinarian Principles For the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ not being of this World it necessarily followeth that the Institutions by and upon which he hath erected his Church and the Rules which he hath prescrib'd for its Regulation can neither be such as may Infringe the Authority nor weaken the Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate whose Establishment and Ruling Power as he took for granted so he came not to subvert but to confirm them Nor was it inconsistent with the Wisdom and Goodness of our Holy and Blessed Lord to have made it the Duty of Men and Women to embrace the Christian Faith and to aggregate themselves into Church-Societies in all Nations and Dominions whatsoever and at the same time to persevere in an Obedience to the Civil Laws of their several and Respective Soveraigns and Rulers if what he requir'd of them as so many Corporations of Believers had not been eminently Amicous as well as reconcileable to the various Forms and Schemes of Political Government And thence it was that the Apostle St. Paul having once and again put the Divine Sanction upon the Duties owing by Subjects to Rulers without making the least Abatement in the Obligations of any by reason of their being Christians notwithstanding that the Secular Rules and Measures by which Nations were then govern'd favour'd more of Despoticalness in some places than they did in others he doth also not only adjudge all Disobedience to just Laws to Punishment by those whose Office it is not to bear the Sword in vain but doth brand all Usurpation upon the Magistratical Power with a Vergency to Antichristianism and thereby declares both that all Principles introduced into Church Frames and Ecclesiastical Schemes of Discipline of a Tendency to weaken and supplant the Civil Authority are dissonant from and opposite to the Institutions of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that all Trespasses of that Hue and Alliance are departures from the Rules of the Gospel as well as they are Crimes against the Statutes and Pandects of Nations So that upon the foremention'd Scripture Hypothesis of Church Power your Principles Reverend Pastors and Brethren of the Congregational way are plainly such that if conform'd unto you can never become the Objects of the Jealousie of the Civil-Magistrate nor deserve to have that Liberty withdrawn which is now vouchsafed you And which the Dissenters having gotten at first into a Precarious Possession of thro' a Dispensing Power claim'd by King James they are more indebted unto that than they are aware of for the being establish'd in it by a Law under this Reign For Gentlemen as your Principles seem no ways disagreeable to the Nature of a Christian Church tho far be it from me at present to give them the Preference to those of the National Communion so they are neither exerciseable beyond the Circumference of Ecclesiastical Fellowship nor do they any ways extend to what is the Subject or Object of the Magistrates Jurisdiction For as the Essence of a Church as it is a Society distinct from other Communities is to be a consenting Association of Men and Women upon such prescribed Holy and Evangelical Terms both of Faith and Obedience in order to the Enjoyment of Spiritual Priviledges and the becoming entitled to special Divine Mercies and Blessings so the whole Authority challeng'd by those of the Congregational Perswasion over their Members is to exact of them a Compliance with those Terms both in point of Belief and Practice or otherwise to seclude and debar them from all share in the Priviledges which Christ has settled upon them alone who do observe them And as all therefore which those stiled Independants do make Penal in their Ecclesiastical Discipline is meerly the precluding unqualified Persons and Members who walk disorderly from any Portion in those Benefits and Priviledges which Christ hath vested in his Church as it is a Society chose out of the World and distinct from Secular Communities which consequently reacheth to nothing that lies properly within the Sphere of the Magistrate so they do not even inflict that save upon those who in their consenting Association with them submitted to be so treated if they answer'd not the Terms which Christ hath made the Qualification for and the Conditions of a Right to an actual Participation in such and such Blessings and Priviledges 'T is possible that what I have been now delivering will by some be accounted a Digression from the Subject that I am upon and which if it so were I do nevertheless hope every discreet Reader as well as you Reverend Pastors and Brethren will easily pardon tho' as to my self I can neither think nor own it to be one Because of the Provocation as well as the Occasion administred for it and that not only thro' Mr. Alsop's and Mr. William's traducing a Congregational Pastor who is known to act as uniformly to his Principles as any Man whatsoever but by reason of Mr. Williams's slandering all who will not espouse his Heterodoxies in Divinity who are by much the Majority of those who are of the Congregational Perswasion and justifie his Treacherous because Surreptitious Clandestine and disguised abandoning of the commonly receiv'd Doctrines of the Reformed Churches in Momentous Articles of Faith as being therefore Instruments in the Breaches for that is the Term which his Breeding and Modesty have taught him to express a not acquiescing in his Arminian and Socianizing Notions by upon design of Sacrificing the common Interest i.e. of the King and Kingdom thro' a Subversion of the Government P. 86. of his Answer to the Report But beginning to grow weary of raking in a Kennel and being no ways ambitious either of Emulating or Imitating that Hero among the rest of whose Celebrated Works the cleansing the Augean Stable was not the least labourious and toilsome tho neither the most honourable in it self nor grateful to the Senses I shall only insist upon one Head or Topick more in Mr. Alsop's late Writings namely that instead of confining Himself to Points of Doctrine that were to be debated or to those Matters of Fact which he might either really believe would be subservient to his Passion and Revenge or which he might Romantickly imagine were Controvertible between him and Mr. Lobb he hath most impertinently foolishly immorally and irreligiously indulged himself in Detractions and Invectives that are meerly Personal And which respect neither Doctrinal Errors nor Historical Mistakes in his Adversaries but at the most either Bodily Defects shortness in those Mental Perfections which some may be furnish'd with Failures in Punctilio's of Courtship little Oversights to which both the best and wisest of Men are incident or Aspersions founded upon palpable Lyes Nor do his Personal Obloquies and Defamations terminate meerly in Laicks and those of the mean Populace but they are levell'd against Ministers of the Gospel and Persons of deserv'd Esteem and Reputation