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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	bishop_n	church_n	read_v	2,708	5	6.4210	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46649	A sermon preached at the consecration of the Honourable Dr. Henry Compton, Lord Bishop of Oxford, in Lambeth-Chappel, on Sunday, December 6, 1674 by William Jane ...	Jane, William, 1645-1707.	1675 (1675)	Wing J455; ESTC R21231	23,378	49

for a witness that the remedy bears date from the disease even from that time when it was said at Corinth which was surely in the Apostles days I am of Paul I am of Apollos I am of Cephas as appears in his Comment upon Titus Surely therefore St. Jerome never dreamt that Episcopacy was Antichristian nor ever designed to effect that from evidence of Scripture which has been since attempted by the power of the Sword Ignatius his advice for the subjection of Presbyters to their Bishop suited well enough with his Principles as indeed it did with those of all Christendom besides till at last mens interest led them on as to urge Presbytery from St. Jerome so to quote St. Paul for Rebellion 3. But thirdly from the consideration of this great variety of Opinions to salve this confusion of names it may perhaps be seasonable to enquire whether there be really found in Scripture such a Communion of names as is pretended I am conscious that herein I advance an Hypothesis against many great and justly venerable Names And therefore I shall only humbly propose a twofold distinction for the clearing those places of Scripture which concern the point in question The first is between the Universal Church and those particular Provinces wherein Churches were planted under their respective Rulers In the former respect I grant that the word Presbyter is indifferently applied to the Chief Governours of the Church and that they are the same persons who are in one place called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which word whether it were Translated into the Church from the Jewish Synagogue or else taken from Age which brings experience and consequently fits for Government was in those days rather an appellative of dignity than a distinctive character of an Office And therefore generally in the Acts of the Apostles while Jerusalem and Christendom were in a manner of the same extent the word Presbyter which in particular Churches was still a title of Honour had hear a more ample and undetermined signification But if any of our adversaries take advantage from this concession I desire him only to consider that the Apostles are oftner called by the name of Deacons than the chief Governours of the Church by the name of Presbyters As Deacons of God and of Christ 1 Thess 3.2 Deacons of the New Testament 2 Cor. 3.6 Deacons of the Gospel Ephes 3.7 Deacons of righteousness 2 Cor. 11.15 Deacons of the Church Col. 1.25 I confess that our Translation in these and other parallel places always read Ministers in stead of Deacons as is observed in thirty places in the vulgar Latin of St. Jerome yet it is the very same word which is rendred Deacons in the Epistles of Timothy and Titus Which containing Apostolical Directions for the management of Particular Churches de statu Ecclesiastia compositae as Tertullian speaks distinguish Church Orders by their Names and Titles as well as their Offices and Powers And therefore thought in respect of the Universal Church the principal Rulers are sometimes stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signify their Superiority over the Brethren sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to denote their immediate Ministration and attendance upon Christ the great Bishop of our Souls and Apostle of our profession Yet nothing will follow from hence but that in particular Churches they might be both limited and restrained the one to the second Order of Priests the other to the Attendants upon the Bishops So that this observation gives the same ground for Deacons to contest with Presbyters as it does for Presbyters with Bishops And thence because the Apostles and the Brethren are indifferently called Disciples they will by this way of arguing strengthen the pretence of the Independents and as 't is worded by a learned Writer hold the stirrop to the Congregations to throw themselves out of the Saddle But secondly If this Communion of names be pretended in particular Churches as at Philippi Ephesus and Creet I shall crave leave with Epiphanius to make another distinction o particular Churches from one another For he in his Refutation of Aerius his Argument drawn from the Communion of names objects to him his not understanding the Histories of the Primitive plantation of Churches asserting That at the first forming of them which could not be perfected in an instant there were in some places Bishops without Presbyters and in other Presbyters without Bishops which could be no inconvenience for a small space of time since those who planted them were sufficiently enabled to supply the defect of either He never observed this confusion of names which has been since pretended as neither did any that went before him but thought this one consideration to be valid enough to convince his adversary both of errour in Interpreting Scripture and of Ignorance in the Monuments of the Church But granting all that we have hitherto asserted and moreover that the objection from the plurallity of Bishops mentioned at Ephesus and Philippi be fully taken off upon this presumption that in the Apostles days there were more Bishops than one in a City 'till a more perfest Coalescence was at length made between the Jewish and the Gentile Converts yet notwithstanding it may be still demanded What is all this to the case before us For here in a particular Church the Church of Ephesus the same persons in the same Speech are called both Presbyters and Bishops To which I answer that if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denote the universal Church my first distinction holds good But if not I have the Testimony of Irenaeus an authority next to Apostolical to extend the word Church beyond the City of Ephesus and Bishops and Presbyters beyond one Order of the Clergy For so he writes in his Third Book and Fourteenth Chapter In Mileto enim Convocatis Episcopis presbyteris qui erant ab Epheso a reliquis proximis Civitatibus To which the late Vindicator of Monsieur Daillee seems to return an answer by giving Irenaeus the lye A Divi Lucae narratione seorsim abit But surely when St. Paul says vers 25 All you among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdom of God he seems to intimate a greater extent than the single City of Ephesus will amount to and consequently to give us some ground for a reconcilement between Irenaeus and St. Luke And therefore I shall make no other use of our Authors reply than to observe another instance of the hard fate of the Fathers of the Church however ancient and Apostolical when they cross mens Interests and Opinions For if we urge them with Ignatius he is spurious and suppositious and therefore to be rejected if with Irenaeus he is false and fabulous and so not to be believed I have thus far explained the difficulty arising from the phrase of the Text and therein justified my dissent from our English Translation in reading Bishops instead of Overseers And as the Reverend Fathers of our Church at His Majesties Restauration thought fit to change the place which this passage of Scripture formerly had in the Book of

A SERMON Preached at the CONSECRATION Of the HONOURABLE Dr. HENRY COMPTON Lord Bishop of OXFORD IN LAMBETH-CHAPPEL On Sunday December 6. 1674. By WILLIAM JANE B.D. Student of Christ-Church and Chaplain to his Lordship LONDON Printed by W. Godbid and are to be sold by R. Littlebury at the Kings-Arms in Little-Britain 1675. To the Right Reverend Father in God HENRY LORD BISHOP of OXFORD My Lord ALthough I am too conscious of the manifold defects of this poor Discourse to lay any claim to your Lordships acceptance as the encouragement of its Publication yet I have had such great experience of your Lordships favour as to conceive some hopes that it may find the same shelter with its Author under your Lordships patronage and protection When I first received your Lordships command which engaged me upon this duty I esteemed it a great Honour than my own ambition could ever have aspired to It was happiness enough for me to bear any part how inconsiderable soever in that days Solemnity which in the judgement of all who have a real kindness for the Church was so signal an argument of Gods Care and Providence over it But since by my intire resignation of this weak performance as I was in duty bound to your Lordships Judgement it is no longer at my own disposal and that which I thought too mean to attend your Lordships CONSECRATION has been thought fit to live with the remembrance of it I have this further favour to request for it that I may be allowed to thrust it forth into the world under your Lordships Name I shall only add my unfeigned desires to the God of Heaven that as he has been pleased in this declining Age to raise up to his People such an able instrument of his Glory so he would go on to give success to your Lordships designs answerable to the expectation of your Country and the necessities of his Church Which shall ever be the daily Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships Most humbly devoted Chaplain WILLIAM JANE ACTS 20.28 Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood WE read in the 17th vers of this chap. that St. Paul sent from Miletas to Ephesus and called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Elders or Presbyters of the Church In this vers which contains a considerable part of his Visitation Sermon he tells them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops This seeming confusion of Names in this and other places of Scripture indiscriminately applied to the Pastors and Officers of the Church was the pretence of Aerius though Pride and Ambition were the reason to inferr a like communion in the dignity of Bishop and Presbyter and a total parity in their Office And though this is surely a very slender argument to any considering men to violate the unity of Christians and to cashier that form of Government which ad been received universally in the Church from the Apostles days unto their own upon a pretence that Antichrist begun betimes yet neither is it so slight and despicable but that it has exercised the greatest Wits in all Ages even those in which it cannot be pretended that Truth was twisted with design in endeavouring a probable solution of it For to omit the interpretation of some that such as were Presbyters when St. Paul sent for them he here consecrates Bishops by telling them that the Holy Ghost had made them so as being a groundless and arbitrary conjecture if we consult those Opinions which carry the greatest vogue and reputation in the World we shall scarce find one in which two have consented when we have excluded those from the number who do not pretend to deliver their own sense but professedly transcribe from others The immediate question wherein our Authors are divided is Whether Bishop and Presbyter were two distinct Orders at the time of the writing the Books of the New Testament or in a small space of time after the one were superadded to the other Those who defend the latter are further subdivided as far as the subject will admit For we are told on the one hand that the names of Bishop and Presbyter were once promiscuously given to the inferiour Order of the Clergy which were afterwards used with distinction when for the future preventing of Schism Episcopacy was introduced upon it● which seems to be the Judgment of St. Hierome And with greater probability on the other that they were indifferent appellations of the higher Order of Church Officers to whom the name of Bishop became then appropriate when upon the increase of their charge by the multitude of their Proselites inferiour Presbyters were universally admitted in some measure to ease them of the burthen An opinion with infinite accuracy and variety of learning first cleared and defended by the Reverend Dr. Hammond They who have pitcht upon the defence of the former part of the main Question That both Orders were Coaeval and distinguished from one another by their Author at the Primitive institution of them are yet more divided in their explications For some tell us which Dr. Hammond admits for probable that the world Presbyter is the Scripture appellative of the inferiour Order of the Clergy whereas both were common to the Bishop in as much as both Offices designed by them were eminently vested in him St. Chrysostom on the contrary thinks it no inconvenience at all that the distinction of Offices should remain inviolate notwithstanding the confusion of names Whereas a third Opinion sufficiently distinguished from the other two asserts that Bishop and Presbyter were common denominations of the second Order of Priest-hood those whom we now stile Bishops being at that time called Apostles A Comment first suggested by Theodoret and since maintained by the Judicious Hooker in the days of our Forefathers and with a little variation by the learned Thorndike in our own I have not produced these Opinions to compare them with one another or to examin the several claims which each of them pretends to truth but only considering them jointly to make these few remarques upon them all And first our Assertors of the Presbyterian Hierarchy may do well to consider whose Cause it is which is with so great eagerness maintained by them No the Cause of God or of his Church but of a noted Heretick infamous upon the records of Epithanius St. Austin Philastrius and other Fathers of the Church for the point in question and consequently branded for the same by the Church it self whose Judgments those Fathers expressly testifie He who was notorious in his own time for the great disturber of the word is now set up by our pretended Disciplinarians for the great Champion of Truth Nor do they so much help themselves by saying that Arrianism was Aerius his Heresie and indeed Epiphanius calls him an Arrian altogether