Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	authority_n	new_a	testament_n	2,897	5	7.9529	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51420	Episkopos apostolikos, or, The episcopacy of the Church of England justified to be apostolical from the authority of the antient primitive church, and from the confessions of the most famous divines of the reformed churches beyond the seas : being a full satisfaction in this cause, as well for the necessity, as for the just right thereof, as consonant to the word of God / by ... Thomas Morton ... ; before which is prefixed a preface to the reader concerning this subject, by Sir Henry Yelverton, Baronet.	Morton, Thomas, 1564-1659.	1670 (1670)	Wing M2838; ESTC R16296	103,691	240

yet the Apostles who were guided by an Infallible Spirit setled Episcopacy in them all There was not in a Monarchy Episcopacy and in a Republick Presbytery but one and the same in both And this is matter of Fact and hath greater Authority to attest it than any humane story of that Antiquity which all mankind admits for Truth And for to affirm that though this be true this Government is alterable if the Magistrate judg it not so conducing to Piety as another he sets up What is it but to say that God did not foresee what contingencies would fall out in succeeding Ages and that the Apostles did not know what would advance true Religion and Piety in succeeding Ages so well as Magistrates that follow who are easily blinded and deceived when it conduceth to their Temporal Interest But if we must fansy nothing to have a lasting Reason but what we judg to have so I doubt this Atheistical Age will quickly lay aside all Institutions of Christ by judging them as some openly do of all Religion not to be of a lasting necessity Besides he that shall affirm that nothing can be a Medium to bind the Consciences of men as of Divine right unalterably but what is founded on Divine Testimony in some sense speaks true but if this be included in the assertion that this must be obvious to every capacity that is obliged to obey this divine Right 't is false For upon that account the Scripture it self should not bind those who have not understanding enough to know how they are admitted as such For to say the Scripture is the word of God because my Conscience which in plain English is nothing but my Opinion tells me so is no better an Argument than every Turc hath for his Alcoran But if there is a necessity to prove the Scripture to be Divine viz. the Reception of these books by the Catholick Church then he who hath not sense nor Learning enough to find out the truth of this must either admit the Scripture of divine Authority when the reason why it is so is not obvious to his understanding or else all illiterate people are not obliged to believe the truth of its Doctrine and obey it Now let us apply this to Church-Government If the same Authority which tells us these books are Canonical Scripture tells us withall that the very Apostles the Penmen of the New Testament did settle such a Government and if we find the following Age practiced it allow it to be dubious in Scripture which certainly it is not yet is not there as sufficient assurance that that Government was settled by the Apostles and so in some sense of Divine Right and so unalterable as we have to admit for Scripture the Revelation or any other book that ever was questioned Now for to affirm that Antiquity is not a sufficient ground for our assent unless we have a full assurance that the succeeding Ages did not vary from what the Apostles delivered or that they could not mistake in the delivery What is it but to say we must have greater Authority for matter of Fact than what a fact can have and doth not this Opinion destroy the Authority of Scripture totally For if the Churches delivery of such books as the writings of the Apostles be not sufficient for a rational man to ground his assent that these books were their writings and so Divine unless we have assurance that she could not mistake in the delivery of those books we must either believe the Church incapable of Errour in the delivery of Scripture or else we have no assurance to ground our Assent Now to believe a Church incapable of Errour savours little of Reason and to believe her only incapable in the delivery of Scripture savours much of Partiality But if we must understand the Church for by Church here I mean the Governours of it to be a wise sober body of pious and rational men and so by consequence that they would receive no books as the writings of inspired men but such of whose Authentickness they had rational Grounds as perhaps the very authentique Letters under the Apostles own hands which Tertullian mentions or some other good Authority And if this be sufficient reason to gain our assent Why is not the same Reason as sufficient for the Apostolical Government as for the Apostolical writings I confess 't is beyond my reach But if the Apostolical practice be sufficiently attested then to affirm 't is not enough to bind continually unless it be known to be God's mind it should do so is either to say the Apostles knew not the mind of God or else would not reveal it For certainly we have much more reason to say their practice binds unalterably than any one can have to say it doth not For we have much more reason to demand of these men some mind of God why we should change Apostolical Practice than they have of us why we constantly practice what the inspired Apostles did Neither do I understand how an Argument from Apostolical practice must suppose a different State of things than what they were when the Apostles established Governours over Churches For why should not we imagine the Apostles did constitute what they practiced And certainly he must be as infallible as the Pope pretends too that is sure any Exposition of Scripture that contradicts or concurs not with Apostolical practice is true if there can be any rational Exposition of those Scriptures which concurs with that practice And he who shall not believe there are such Expositions and though not infallible yet sober and I dare say much surer than any to the contrary must condemn all the Antient Fathers of the Church as ignorant and irrational men and believe some new fancies of men of Yesterday and the dotings of some idle Haereticks of greater Authority than those great lights of the Catholick Church And now to argue from some few practices in the Apostles times which were laid aside such as the Holy kiss c. that therefore any Constitution may is just such an Argument that if a circumstance a Ceremony may be changed the whole Substance may too unless a man will affirm there is no more need of a standing succession of Church-Governours than there is of the most minute practice in those daies But here I expect it should be said What necessity is there of a Succession of Ministers A ministry is necessary but to think that every Minister must as some in derision say draw his Pedegree from the Apostles that is a narrow principle and fit only for Bigots to believe and such as are easily deceived with the Great names of Antiquity and Catholique Tradition I confess I was sorry when I considered this Opinion to find that the French Ministers when they maintained their vocation to be lawful unto which Cardinal Perron made his Reply lay this down for their first Argument That if there was no other

't is owned by him for his But afterwards when the Covenant was hotly pressed and a compliance to forein Reformed Churches pretended our Bishop renewed his former Discourse made several additions to it and where he found it necessary took occasion to answer both Salmasius and Blondel and so it swelled to the Volume it now is This was by his Lordship committed to my charge either to publish or not as I thought fit And truly I had once determined still to have kept it by me hoping that the wonderful Restauration both of our King and Church would have made all Disourses of this Nature unnecessary but since it hath pleased Almighty God to suffer these Troublers of Israel still to continue amongst us their disturbances and separations I thought it a du●● I owed to the Memory of this Blessed Bishop to publish this Discourse which I did not doubt but might do God and his Church some service But before I would attempt so great a Work I communicated both my Design and Book to the Most Reverend Father in God Gilbert Lord Archbishop of Canterbury who was pleased not only to approve the Work but command the speedy publishing of it This immediately put me upon the Examination of the several Quotations I found in it having most of the Authors by me fearing that either through the mistake of his Lordships hand which was not very easie to be read or the negligence of the Transcribers some Errours might creep in the places cited and I dare assure the Reader that for all the Works which I have by me and I want but few they are exactly true The Method used in this Discourse is a way our Bishop had been very successful against the Papists and I hope may prove so against our Adversaries of another kind which is the Testimony of Reformed Divines in the Churches beyond the Seas to our Episcopal Government which they do not only commend but admire and wish for Nay divers ef them expound those very Texts of Scripture which are urged for Bishops as we do so that if our Dissenters will believe any sort of men but themselves they must be convinced with this kind of Argument It seems to me I confess extreamly strange that in these last and worst times some men should so applaud themselves and their own phansies as to condemn what went before them even in the most pure Primitive Church I find not in all my little reading any that set himself against that Sacred Order till Aerius who lived about the middle of the fourth Century And Epiphanius says who gives us the most ample Relation of him this his Errour arose out of Emulation that Eustathius was preferred to a Bishoprick before him who most of all desired it And truly I could wish secular Interest such as want of a Bishoprick Applause with a Party self-justification in former mistakes and an unwillingness to let the world know they were formerly deceived did not with-hold many amongst us from doing that which I doubt not they are more than sufficiently convinced they ought to do And I do heartily wish since Conscience is the thing pretended that they gave some assurance 't was Conscience and not Interest prevailed with them by their peaceable Passive Obedience to our Laws and not to fill our streets with their unreasonable complaints against our Government and Governours and still to seduce a sort of empty people of great Faith and little Sense who are in the right only because they are sure they are in the right And although 1600 years possession is more than a sufficient lawful Title for any to plead A thing so unquestionable that no man hath yet produced any sufficient Authority to the contrary Yet there are two learned Pens Salmasius and Blondel who have attempted rather to shew their Wits and Reading than their Reason in this Controvesie The first of these when he undertook the task wrote not under his own Name as if it was what he was commanded to write a thing frequent to the Professors of Leyden than what he himself either believed or would perswade others to do And in all his Discourse he is in that violent heat that he hardly gives Dionysius Petavius that learned Jesuite any other Name than Inepte Fatue He answers the Greek Fathers who affirm that in the Apostles time a Bishop was superiour to a Presbyter that it is a ly and upon no other account but because he expounds the Apostles words after a different manner than what Antiquity did And in any Controversie that concerns the Church he continues this temper For to the Learned Doctor Hammond who calmly defended the Churches Power of the Keys against some of his Objections he gives no other Title but Nebulo in Anglia shewing neither respect to the Learning nor to the quality of the Doctor who as he confessed was Chaplain to his late Majesty And yet this great Magisterial man with the same confidence as he denied the Divine Right of Episcopacy so he doth the Authority of the 2d Epistle of St. Peter affirming the first only for genuine and truly I wonder not much at it for certainly he who shakes the Authority of the Tradition of the universal Church takes away the only Argument to prove any Book to be Canonical when any Sect or Heresie shall question it But I the more willingly pass this over since in his own Name in his Defensio Regia he seems to alter his Opinion For D. Blondel He who shall look into his Discourse will find it to be a great Collection of Various Readings and if Fame be true collected at first to be the Materials of a Discourse he intended for Episcopacy But the misfortune of our Church turned his weapon another way But after all he only affirms that Bishops and Presbyters were equal in degree till the 136. of Christ which if you consider is a very small time after the Apostles For St. John died as both Eusebius and St. Hierome tells us in the 102. of Christ so then according to him their was but 34 years distance But to me truly he proves not that For he who will consider the Epistle before his Book will find all he affirms is that in that short time the Senior Presbyter in the Colledge was their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Praesident and that when he died the next in Age succeeded him What then I pray doth this make to his purpose If he had given us any Testimony that though this Office fell to him by his Age he immediately entred upon it without any Consecration by the Imposition of Episcopal hands he had done something but of this not one word He only tells us this course was altered over the whole world velut Conspiratione factâ as if done by a Conspiracy And what was this Alteration This he tells us out of Hilary's Comments on St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians which commonly

writing against that grand Antiepiscopal Presbyter Aerius told him That the Superiority of Bishops above Presbyters was founded in the word of God An Author under the name of Ambrose speaking distinctly of Bishops saith That they held the person of Christ and therefore our behaviour before them ought to be as before the Vicars of the Lord. And again That the Bishop is ordained by the Lord the light of the Church Another under the name of Augustine as hath been said judged it a matter that none could be ignorant of That Bishops were instituted by Christ who instituted Bishops when he ordained the Apostles whose Successors the B●shops are Hierome thus far agreeth with him to wit That Bishops in the Catholick Church supply the place of the Apostles And what else meant that which hath been before alleadged out of the Canon of six hundred Fathers in the general Council of Calcedon which judgeth The Depression of a Bishop down to the degree of a Presbyter to be in it self Sacriledg But do any Protestant Divines of remote Churches consent to any Divine Right SECT III. That two eminent Protestant Divines grant this Supposition which is the ground of the said Truth THis grant and concession is freely yielded unto us by Beza who speaking of Episcopacy saith If it did proceed from the Apostles then certainly I should not doubt to attribute it wholly as all other Apostolical Ordinances to divine disposition Another who is also a professed Advocate for the Presbyterians granteth as freely as the former That if Episcopacy be from the Apostles then doubtless it is of Divine Right But that Episcopacy had its Apostolical institution hath been sufficiently ratified unto us through this whole Discourse both from Testimonies of Antiquity from general Consent of Protestants of Reformed Churches and above all from the clear Evidence of the Scriptures themselves the Repetition whereof would be superfluous the rather because these our foresaid Opposites will ease us of that labour for Mr. Beza himself confesseth That it is a Custome not to be reprehended of setting one of the Presbyters over the rest which was used saith he from Mark the Evangelist in the Church of Alexandria So he Now then whether we say with Hierome That this Episcopacy was in Mark because the first Bishop or in Anianus who was constituted by Mark as Eutychus relateth or with Beza that it was from Mark as a thing irreprehensible It must needs be judged to be from the Ordinance of the Apostles and consequently Divine We have yet somewhat more SECT IV. That Episcopal Prelacy hath been directly acknowledged by Protestants of remote Churches to be of Divine Right 1 LUther proves this directly and Categorically saying That every City ought to have its proper Bishop by Divine Right grounding his Argument upon Titus 2.5 Who was commanded to ordain Elders in every City which Elders saith he were Bishops as Hierome witnesseth and the subsequent Text doth manifest Yea and St. Augustine describing a Bishop concurreth with them saying It was a City as if he should have said it was not a mere Presbyter but a Bishop which is here spoken of because Bishops were over Cities Thus far Luther his Tractate being a Resolution his Sentence the Conclusion and his words plainly distinguishing Bishop from mere Presbyter and alleadging from Scripture a divine Right of Episcopal Function as clearly as either our Opposites can dislike or we desire Accordingly Bucer a man of great Learning and Piety saith That these three Orders of Ministers in the Church Bishops Presbyters and Deacons were for institution from the Holy Ghost and for Continuance perpetual even from the Beginning The learned Professor in the Palatinate Scultetus hath Professedly and Positively concluded Episcopacy to be of Divine Right by as he saith efficacious Reasons clear Examples and excellent Authorities And he hath been as good as his word as in divers foregoing Sections hath been made manifest upon which Subject likewise a most learned Belgick Doctor wrote a whole book urging therein very many Arguments both from Scripture and Antiquity and assoiling the Objections to the contrary Aegidius Hunnius Divinity Professor in the University of Marpurg speaking of Episcopacy in the Apostles times saith That Paul did ordain Titus General Superintendent that is Archbishop of all the Cretian Churches and thereupon concludeth That the Order and Degree of Episcopacy is a thing not lately invented but received in the Church even from the very times of the Apostles Wherein he is seconded by Hemingius a very Learned Divine whose Observation upon Titus 1. v. 5. is That to the end that Anarchy might be avoided and all things done Decently and in Order the Apostle would have some one to ordain Ministers to dispose all things in the Church and to take care lest Haeresie should arise The worthily renowned Doctor Gerard speaks no less than the former proving Episcopacy as distinct from Presbytery to be of Divine Right not only in respect of the Original as proceeding from the diversity of Gifts but also in regard of the End The avoiding of Dissension and Schism in the Church Yea and even the Church of Geneva it self will afford us a Testimony or two from the pen of the Mirrour of Learning Mr. Isaac Causabon who tells us That three Orders of Ministers in the Church Bishops Presbyters and Deacons are founded upon the Testimony of plain Scriptures And again That Bishops are the Vicegerents of the Apostles Thus these learned Protestants Nothing now remaineth but that nam finis coronat opus we have as the Seal of this Truth the Approbation of Christ himself SECT V. That Episcopal Prelacy had the Approbation of Christ himself after his Ascension into Heaven NEver did nor could any deny but that every of the Angels of the seven Churches of Asia had the Approbation of Christ himself after his Ascension into Heaven that Book wherein they are mentioned being called the Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Author delivered by an Angel to John as unto Christs Scribe commanding him to write the seven Epistles and to direct them to the Angels of the seven Churches two of which Angels Christ commend●th in the same Epistles for the good discharge of their Function And is not Commendation Testimonial enough and an Argument of his Approbation The other five Bishops being more or less Delinquents are reprehended for Neglect of their Cure And is not Reproof of the Neglect of Duty in the Officers a Justification and Approbation of their Offices Finally as those which are faithful in their Offices are continued so they that were obnoxious are threatned To be removed except they did repent So that here is no Displacing of any for a first Offence nor yet an Eradicating the whole Order for the particular Abuses of some For he that calleth for Repentance and Amendment of