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	ordain_v	rite_n	2,072	5	10.7421	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56195	A rational account why some of His Majesties Protestant subjects do not conform to some exuberances in, and ceremonial appurtenances to the Common prayer published for the instruction of the ignorant, satisfaction of all contenders, and the churches union in Gods publick worship.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.; Stucki, Johann Wilhelm, d. 1607. Antiquitatum convivialum. Liber 2, cap. 26, De vestitu conviviali.	1673 (1673)	Wing P4048; ESTC R7507	105,873	159

due honour and worship to the glory of God and edification of faithfull people might be restored to it Yea to set out a new Masse-book by authority of Pope Pius the 5. and this Pope within few years after held it necessary and expedient to make some alterations and dispence with other things in it relating to the Kingdoms and Church of Spain and Pope Gregory the 13. within 3. years after to dispence with some other Formalities and Rubricks thereof upon the same reason And Pope Clement the 8. about 30. years after held it necessary to revise the whole Masse-book to correct the Printers errors the Mistranslations of the Epistles Gospels Psalms therein varying from the Original Text and adde new Rules Rubricks to it explaining supplying the defects of the former together with New Masses for New Saints notwithstanding all former printed Bulls Prohibitions Decrees to the contrary and the pretended Infallibility and Inerrability of their Chairs Church Councils Then by the self-same Presidents and better Reasons Your Majesty with advice of Your pious learned Divines and Parliament who have by Law established these Articles of our Churches Belief to which all Bishops Ministers have subscribed That not only Popes but General Councils may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining to GOD. That it is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one or utterly like FOR AT ALL TIMES THEY HAVE BEEN DIVERS AND MAY BE CHANGED ACCORDING TO THE DIVERSITY OF COUNTRIES TIMES AND MENS MANNERS so that nothing be ordained against Gods word Every particular or National Church hath authority to ordain CHANGE AND ABOLISH CEREMONIES OR RITES OF THE CHURCH and Liturgies too ORDAINED ONLY BY MANS AUTHORITY so that all things be done to edifying may with much more Justice Piety Prudence reform all errors mistranslations of the Epistles Gospels Psalms and obsolete or unfit expressions in the Book of Common Prayer twice altered reformed in some particulars in few years after its first Publication by Authority Acts of Parliament yea change abolish such unnecessary Rites Ceremonies attending it which have given just offence occasioned much Schism Dissention in our Church between the Protestant Members of it as well of the Clergy as Laity ever since its first establishment in the 3d. year of K. Edw. the 6. till this very day and will do so in perpetuity if not removed by your Majesties Piety and Wisdom according to the purport of your late Incomparable Declaration for which the whole House of Commons and all Your Protestant Subjects whom they represented returned Your Majesty their most cordial publike Thanks by their Speakers own mouth the blessed fruits whereof they all now hope and long to reap not only without the least prejudice to our Religion Church main fabrick of the former Liturgy but with great advantage to them all It is a received Maxim among all Polititians Artists that no human institution Laws Inventions Edifices are so absolutely exact usefull wholesom necessary but that they may upon just reasons of Policy piety sundry emergent occasions and necessities be amended altered with wisdom honour safety and publick utility Your Majesty since your most happy miraculous restauration have with great prudence and glory made some laudable alterations in Your Royal Palaces Walks Parks of Whitehall Hampton-court and in Westminster hall it self as well for Conveniency as Delight though very noble usefull compleat before without any prejudice to their Structures Foundations Soile And those Bishops Deans and Chapters who seem most opposite to the least alterations in our publike Liturgy or Ceremonies have yet very much altered improved their old Rents and Tennants likewise to which they will not be confined by Your Majesties late Declarations or Commissions yea they daily violate and dispence with the very Rubricks in the Common Prayer Book and several Acts of Parl. by selling Licenses to marry all sorts of People for filthy lucre without asking the Banes three several Sundayes or Holy-dayes in time of Divine service the People being present after the accustomed manner In reading the Epistle Gospel and second Service at the Communion Table when there is no Communion and in not receiving the Communion in their Cathedral Churches every Sunday at the least though they have no reasonable cause to the contrary as the Rubricks enjoyne them And may not your Sacred Majesty then with as much wisdom honour and all your Bishops and Cathedral Clergy-men with farre more piety justice prudence in obedience to Your late Royal Declarations and Engagements to all Your Subjects dispence with the Oath of Canonical Obedience the use of Surplisses and other Ceremonies for which there is no Rubrick Statute or known Law of the Land the reading of Psalms Epistles Gospels in the Church according to the New Translation of your Royal Grandfather of famous memory KING JAMES yea freely admit of all able godly Ministers ordained only by Presbyters during the late unhappy Differences and Confusions of Government to Benefices Fellowships Lectures Cures of Souls without a Re-ordination by Bishops as well as admit reclamed Popish Priests ordained by Bishops in the Church of Rome without the least opposition contest for future Peace Amity Unity between all Your Protestant Subjects of different perswasions in these dividing particulars To facilitate promote this much desired work I have spent my few vacant Holy-day hours in compiling this Seasonable short sober pacifique Examination consisting principally of 4 Particulars discussed in several Sections to wit the Use and Frequent Repetition of Gloria Patri standing as it and at Gospels Creeds Wearing of Surplisses with other Pontifical Sacerdotal Vestments in the celebration of Divine Service and Sacraments in the last whereof because most peremptorily insisted on from pretended grounds of Scripture Reason by many Romanists and some Protestant Prelates and Divines I have most expatiated I hope without the least offence to moderate sober Christians or your Sacred Majesty and good satisfaction to all judicious Perusers Wee all use to alter the proportion matter quality fashion number of our Garments Attires according to the several ages of our lives the seasons of the year the temper of the Climates where we live and extraordinary occasions of solemnitie joy grief or humiliation not only without offence to others or prejudice to our healths lives but with much applause and that for the necessary preservation both of health life and humane society The like we do in our Corporal Food Why may not we then use the same Liberty by your Majesties and your Parliaments publick Authority or Indulgence in the controverted Case of Ecclesiastical Garments Ornaments Food now under publick consideration provided alwayes they be decent orderly wholesom and not repugnant but agreeable to the holy Scriptures If this poor Mite humbled presented to Your all-piercing favourable Eye and Gracious acceptation as a Monument of my bounden Homage to Your Sacred Majesty at

reasons of their several institutions I finde in a spurious Deeretal Epistle attributed to Pope Stephen Anno Christi 261. this general Clause concerning Priests Vestments That the Garments wherein Priests and other Ministers of the Church ought to celebrate Divine service and minister unto the Lord ought to be consecrated and decent and applyed to none other use nor yet to be worn or touched by any but sacred Persons But what these Vestments were he particularly defines not If Surplisses or white Rochets as some conceit then they ought not to be touched by Scholars Choristers Singing-men and others who are no consecrated Priests nor in sacred Orders as they are now in Cathedrals and some Colledges in our Universities against this Popes and other his Successors Decrees This Decree the Century Writers stile idle superfluous altogether disagreeing with the word of God and savouring of the mysterie of Iniquity Flaccus Alcuinus De Divinis Officiis c. 38 39 40. Bochellus Decret Eccles Gal. l. 1. Tit. 7. l. 6. Tit. 17. Honorius Augustodunensis in his Gemma Animae l. 1. Gulielmus Durantus Rationale Divinorum l. 3. Tho. Waldensis Tom. 3. tit 4. cap. 29 30. Franciscus Zerula Praxis Episcopalis pars 1. Pontificale Missale Romanum with sundry others have large discourses concerning the several sacred Vestments of Popes Archbishops Bishops Deans Deacons Priests and particularly of Albees and Surplisses But who first introduced them into Christian Churches is a Question not resolved by them The next Authority I meet withall is the Decree of Pope Eusebius about the year 309. first recorded by Gratian and others out of him Consulto omnium statuimus ut sacrificium Altaris non inserico panno aut tincto quisquam celebrare praesumat sed in puro lined vel linted ab Episcopo consecrato terreno scilicet lino procreato atque contexto sicut corpus Domini Jesu Christi in Sindone linea munda sepultum fuit John 19. 40. Mar. 15. 46. Mat. 27. 59. Lu. 23. 53. But this Decree of his as it is forged spurious repugnant to the History of that Time the phrase tenent and practise of that Age and superstitious as the Century writers prove and style it so the reason produced by the Author of it why Priests and Clergy-men should celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar not in a silken or died but in a pure white linnen Garment made of Flax ingendred out of the earth because Christs body was buried in linen cloaths is very absurd Had Christ celebrated his last Supper or preached prayed in a linen Surplisse whiles he lived the inference had been tollerable But since he never did it for ought appears and the Evangelists precisely record that at his miraculous transfiguration only when he went apart up into a high Mountain with three of his Disciples alone from all other company his Rayment formerly of another colour because shining exceeding white as Snow so as no Fuller on earth can white them and that only till his transfiguration was past the Argument recoyles upon the Author of this Imposture with great disadvantage For 1. Christ never preached nor celebrated his last Supper in a white linen Garment or Surplisse whiles he lived Therefore no Priests Bishops or Ministers who are his Embassadors and should imitate his Example ought to do it after his death 2ly Christ did not put on these linnen Garments himselfe or to officiate in them but Joseph of Aramathea and Nichodemus wrapped his dead Corps in them to bury it Therefore Bishops Priests Deacons should never put on white Rochets or Surplesses on their backs to preach pray or celebrate the Lords supper whiles they live but only their dead Corps be wrapped up in them when they are interred 3ly These white linnen Garments wherein Christs body was wrapped were only his Winding-sheet and Grave-cloaths not a Surplesse Albee Stole or Rochet neither were they consecrated by a Pope or Bishop not worn in a Church but only in a Sepulchre yea our Saviour left them lying in his Sepulchre when he rose again John 20. 5 6 7 8. and never wore them afterwards Ergo Bishops Priests Deacons should only wear unconsecrated Winding-sheets and fine linnen Garments in their Graves when dead and there leave them when they rise again not consecrated Rochets Surplesses Albees Stoles in the Church when living 5ly Christs body was not wrapped in these linen cloaths in any relation to his Priestly office of function but only as a mere dead Corps to be interred it being the usual manner of the Jews thus to bury dead Corps as well Laymen as Priests witness John 19. 29. quoted by this Impostor Then took they the body of Jesus and wound it in linnen cloaths with the spices as the manner of the Iews is to bury compared with John 11. 44. So the Nasamones Graecians Spartians A●gives Syra●●sians Sycionians and other Nations wrapped the dead bodies of their deceased Friends in white linen cloaths with spices and balmes and so interred them Therefore if this reason be solid all Men and Women as well Jewes as Gentiles Pagans as Christians should wear white Rochets Surplisses Albees Stoles in Churches as well as Popes Archbishops Bishops Priests and Deacons because they are all alike interred and wrapped in white linnen Grave cloaths when buried in their Graves The first probable authority in any true Antiquity for Bishops Ministers and Deacons wearing white Vestments in the Celebration of the Lords Supper is that of Hierom about 410. years after Christ Advers Pelagianos l. 1. c. 9. Vnde adjungis genera vestium ornamentorum Deo esse contraria Quae sunt rogo inimicitiae contra Deum si tunicam habuero mundiorem si Episcopus Presbyter Diaconus reliquus ordo Ecclesiasticus in Administratione Sacrificiorum cum candida veste processerint Cavete Clerici cavete Monachi viduae virgines periclitamini nisi sordidas vos atque pannòsas vulgus aspicerit Taceo de hominibus saeculi quibus apertè bellum indicitur inimicitiae contra Deum si pretiosis atque nitentibus utuntur Exuviis And in his Commentariorum l. 13. in Ezech. c. 44. Vestibus lineis utuntur Aegyptii Sacerdotes non solum intrinsecus sed extrinsecu● he means their Pagan not Christian Priests Porro religio divina alterum habitum habet in Ministerio alterum in usu vitaque communi Which compared with his former passage intimates that some Ecclesiastical Persons did then wear white Vestments in the Religious publick exercise of their Ministry and Administration of the Sacrament which is further evidenced by St. Chrysostom ad Populum Antiochiae Serm. 60. Wherein he applying his Speech to the Ministers who distributed the Lords Supper to the people useth this expression Hoc vestra dignitas hoc securitas hoc omnis Corona to keep scandalous unworthy persons from the Lords Table non ut albam et splendidam tunicam circumeatis