Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
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A34016
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A letter with animadversions upon the animadverter on the Bishop of Worcesters letter by J.C. ...
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Collop, John.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing C5393; ESTC R21084
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8,081
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16
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the Kings power is that the Bishops are good Subjects and good Christians or that they have a preheminence in power that there may not be as many Schisms as Priests Sure the Kings interest stands not with the Devils and a Tyrants to divide by Sects least all may unite against Him but to unite all that they may agree in the service of God and of him who is Gods Vicegerent Thirdly Bishops are little useful to support the Regal Dignity being the greatest enemies to Soveraignty intermedling in Civil affairs and mangling the Church Authority in Church matters leaving the King nothing of Supremacy Had not this trifler been lost as much to good Books as Brains he might have learned of the most eminent B. Saunderson That derived power is so far from destroying the original from whence it is derived as it rather confirmeth and establisheth it The farther it is extended so it be regular the more it serveth to illustrate the honor of the original since the efficient cause is best known by the greatness of the effect For Propter quod unumquodque est tale illud ipsum est magis tale And did not the valor of this Champion proceed only from his ignorance when Protestant Bishops only profess maintain and submit to Regal Supremacy he could not thus whiffle to no greater purpose then the calling of his Brains into question Page 3. The Bishop cannot be Pastor of all the Congregations in his Diocess For since a Bishop cannot otherwise discharge his duty then by Substitutes the Bishop of Rome may as well oversee a Million of Churches as the Bishop of Worcester Five hundred Most Logical and profound A Steward who oversees laborers may with a like faculty employ encourage and take account of five thousand as five He forbears to urge the contrary practise of Paul and Peter hopes the Bishop not angry he calls them not Saints who need no honor from the Popes Calendar The Saintship sure belongs to Peters not St. Peter He need not believe the Scripture since the Pope calls it the Word of God or there was a Saviour he had Apostles and those were Bishops since it comes but from tradition and that from the Pope and who knows how far the Bishop of Rome hath put in his foot into the Pot Page 4. Here this Ridiculum caput tortures in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overseers or Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 overseeing or acting like Bishops not like the Bishop of Worcester Lording over Gods heritage but as patterns to the flock Strange Overseers who have no power over deceitful workers He takes no notice of St. Pauls course like the Bishops which he took with Alexander the Copersmith with Demas Philelus and Hymeneus does only tanquam Canis ad Nilum â—ap and away But sure they need not fear Crocodiles who are what we call Crocodiles the worst of Dissemblers The next trouble is Who come in by the wrong door are called Thieves and Robbers He who would be angry with Christ Ignatius would scarce please with a who doth any thing without the Bishops Licence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serves the Devil nor St. Cyprian with his Unum scire debes siquis cum Episcopo non sit in Ecclesiâ non esse That he who is not with the Bishop is not in the Church The Church maintaining the Ordinations of Presbyters for meer nullities in themselves cannot own their Ordinations without renouncing the Catholick Church Omnis Ecclesia appellata est virgo as St. Austin He who commits a rape by entring by force may be intituled to punishment not matrimony though this fumivendulus A. would have Presbyterian Ordination as little to be impeached as marriage Oh but Christ silenced the Scribes and Pharisees with Arguments only which the Bishop can never do In this only the Mythologist is to be believed We have an honest Fathers word for it St. Austine with a quid promobis exercitatissime Scripturarum si quid defenderis negetur si quid negaveris defendetur Tit contra nihil promoves nisi vocem perdis in declamatione nisi bilem suscitas de blasphematicis All the learning of this most Reverend Prelate gains nothing beside the anger of blasphemous Schismaticks That the Bishops says Presbyterians preach sedition and treason is most false and directly contrary to their declared principles It would be worth the inquiry whether this Declaration was ever in England or Scotland or Calvin made it at the Expulsion of the lawful Prince the Bishop of Geneva The Pharisees taught blasphemy yet our Saviour like the Bishop did not go about to prohibit them by force This Sciamachist will forget both our Saviours power and the Kings and that he called Bishops the Kings subordinate Ministers and rarely infers Sedition Treason and Blasphemy must be all preached and tolerated or else the Bishops usurpe a power Christ never gave and at the last day as our Grand Polemick Christ will not thank them for the exercise of it He seems much concerned in the Bishops distinction about the Act of Indempnity and Act of Oblivion that the King by it only pardoned the corporal punishment but the Church had not nor ought not to forgive the scandal till honorable amends were made her by Confession and Recantation It is evident as the incomparable Thorndike observes that the whole Church was governed by Bishops and that not against Gods Law for then there could have remained no Church and therefore the pretence of Governing the Church by Presbyters is a breach of unitie unless a part may give law to the whole which who do so are by so doing Schismaticks then how should that communion be counted a Church which receive Schismaticks as Schismaticks viz. without renouncing positions destructive to faith obligations for their future not infringing the unity of the Church St. Austine to the Donatists objections that the Church received their Apostates without rebaptizing them could have had no answer had he not had this That the Church received them not as Donatists but converted from Donatists and not refusing to make a profession I wish Mr. B. ejusdem farinae sodales these Donatists for so they were pleased to call themselves Gifted persons would make such professions or else what assurance can be given a Church that when they preach they open not their mouths only to widen our differences Page 8. As for the Chain of Consequences which the Bishop links and ties together as from diversitie in external Rites ariseth dislike from dislike enmity from enmity opposition then Schism in the Church and Sedition in the State the Church cannot be safe without unitie nor unitie without uniformity nor uniformity without a rigorus imposition is a Rope of sand and the parts of the Chain as little hang together as Sampsons Foxes before they were tyed together by the tayls which course the Bishop doth imitate not forgetting to put the Firebrand into the comparison Mentiris Bellarmine Learnedly and Politickly
A LETTER WITH Animadversions upon the Animadverter On the BISHOP of VVorcesters Letter By J. C. M. D. Mentiri nescio Librum Si malus est nequeo laudare Juv. Sat. III. London Printed for M. B. 1661. A Letter with Animadversions upon the Animadverter on the Bishop of Worcesters Letter SIR I Have perused the Pamphlet and with it return you some slight Animadversions upon the slightest of Animadverters He who called Presbyterians Demicasters in Divinity was too superlative in his title of Honor since with their great cry there is no wooll only dirt and bristles Few have run mad in these later times who have not supposed all the world so beside themselves as this phrensie-inspired Animadverter who hath intituled the most sober learned and reverend Prelate â—o his own and the passions of his Cock-brained party Were St. Paul alive and should ask again the question Shall I come with a rod or in love he had undergone the Presbyterian censure and with as much ease as an Arch-Presbyter made a Papist of Grotius or the Synod an Heretick of Dr. Hammond they would have made both of the Apostle Page 1. The Bishop by the learned Animadverters concession hath the better of Mr. Baxter Hinc spargere voces The Goliath of the Philistins is faln and see now what weapons are brought to revenge the Champion even tongues sharp as razors and words like two edged swords Page 1. If heat be not mistaken for zeal the Dog-days may prove dangerous This may be no useless Adnimadversion to the Animadverter Hector adest and with him Bedlam and Billingsgate rush into battel the occasion of the grand quarrel being no other then that the Bishop speaks truth and tells us Page 2. Kings and Bishops must stand and fall together and all who are enemies to the one must be enemies to the other He knows the much talked of Axiom and the advantage to be taken by the late wars is in his judgment for the Order of Bishops a passionate lover of the Kings Person and Government yet being called to speak truth contrary to humor and interest must needs say 1. It is clear from story that Kings were in all parts of the world in their most flourishing estate before ever Bishops were heard of and what hath once been no reason can be given why it may not with the same terms of convenience be again Our puny Historiographer sure calculates all time from the reign of Oliver and dates Episcopacy only from this happier Restauration or the flourishing of all Princes must be from Paganism when Subjects were Slaves Kingdoms only splendid Robberies and Dirt and Blood went only to the composition of Kings The Satyrists Ad generum Cereris may inform their flourishing condition Yet Rome had a Pontifex Maximus and could this pretender to story be capable of any History he could not be ignorant that the Romans attributed Success to their Piety and to the care of the Gods the conquest of them they called Barbarous Nations A Moses had Aaron an assistant the Jewish Nation always an High Priest the Primitive Christian Emperors Bishops nay Patriarchs and Papa signifies nothing but Pater Patriarcharum Even the Turks in policy have a Mufti and no Christian Nation was before the Reformation without a Bishop nor since hath any wanted beside that whose zeal is as cold and barren as their Country and Religion consists only in Rapine and Blood Now for a Sophomore or half-witted fellow to maintain Arguments against things evident to Sense and Reason what is it but cum ratione insanire to deny fire to be hot water moist snow white to renounce our Senses to gratifie our Phancies and believe any thing beside our own experience When experience verifies the exercise of Episcopal Jurisdiction by Protestant Bishops was for eighty years so far from diminishing the power or eclipsing the lustre of English Princes that Royal Power was only then triumphant when Bishops by Princely favor enjoyed Courts Jurisdictions Honors Priviledges according to former Grants of ancient Kings and the Laws and Customs of our own Nation On the contrary the miseries of Germany Rebellions in France Scotland c. the meditating the death of Queen Mary in England the ruine of Queen Mary of Scotland the menacing Queen Elizabeth and her Council the excommunicating and violence put on King James the Rebellion against and after that the Murder of King Charles do all of them instruct Geneva an instiller of strangely loyal and Prince-preserving principles The prevalency of the Smectymnuan faction by lopping off what they called Luxuriant Branches of Episcopacy made an easie way to take away Root and Branch and soon after to verifie the Aphorism No Bishop no King And now King and Bishops are restored to their just power and God hath heard graciously the weak Prayers of an oppressed party beyond the loud-crying Perjuries Sacriledges and oppressions of their enemies we cannot misdoubt what troubles the Animadverter so inseparable a dependance so strict an Union betwixt King and Bishops that Hypocrisie and Disloyalty may no longer reign in them nor Perjury Sacriledge and Oppression exercise an arbitrary soveraignty over us Secondly saith he Bishops as they are by Law established in England are purely the Kings subordinate Ministers in the management of Ecclesiastical Affairs which His Majesty may confer on what order of men He pleases It is very injurious therefore to the Kings Authority to aver He could not otherways uphold and maintain it then by preserving the undue and as some think the Antichristian Prelation of His inferior Officers Monster of deep Sense and Reason This is no ordinary Call which makes him speak such strange truths against Humor and Interest Page 2. Much he saith he is in his judgment for the Order of Bishops a passionate lover of the King and his Government Sute having run out of his wits to make room for an heretical spirit he must obey the impulsion that he may be the fitter Champion for Mr. Baxter producing Arguments of no more consequence then his The Kingly Office will prove as undue and Prelation be thought as much Antichristian as this of his Inferior Officers since Nihil dat quod non habet and as the Animadverter Bishops are purely the Kings subordinate Ministers in the management of Ecclesiastical Affairs The Presbyter and Independent suppose they have sufficiently confuted whatsoever they mislike if they pronounce it Popish or Antichristian Yet in this as in other things they symbolize with the Papists and divide the branch of Antichristianism The Presbyterian Consistories claim as ample and absolute Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over Princes and power to excommunicate them as Papists challenge due to the Pope Independents exempt their Congregations as Pontisicians their Clergy Our Bishops and Conformists pretend neither Jurisdiction over the King nor Allegiance to be withdrawn from him but in all matters either Ecclesiastical or Civil acknowledge him to have the supreme power The injury then to