Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	christian_a	church_n	faith_n	1,944	5	5.0013	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53660	A plea for Scripture ordination, or, Ten arguments from Scripture and antiquity proving ordination by presbyters without bishops to be valid by J.O. ... ; to which is prefixt an epistle by the Reverend Mr. Daniel Williams.	Owen, James, 1654-1706.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.	1694 (1694)	Wing O708; ESTC R32194	71,514	212

Notion of the Ius Divinum of Episcopacy as a superiour Order was first promoted in the Church of England by Arch-Bishop Laud. Dr. Holland the King's Professor of Divinity in Oxon was much offended with Dr. Laud for asserting it in a Disputation for his Degrees he checked him publickly and told him He was a Schismatick and went about to make a division between the English and other Reformed Churches This Prelate had inured his Tongue to say Ecclesia Romana and Turba Genevensis Cressy who apostatized to the Romish Church conceives that the reason why Episcopacy took no firm rooting in the Consciences of English Subjects before Archbishop Lauds time was because the Succession and Authority of Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Orders received from the Roman Church was never confidently and generally taught in England to be of Divine Right His Disciples since have rectified that Errour by obliging all the Conforming Ministers to subscribe That Episcopacy is a distinct Order and that it is manifest in God's Word that it is so This goes beyond the determination of the Council of Trent And to make the Fabrick lasting which was built upon this new Foundation all Ministers must be sworn to support it and that they will not remove one Stone out of the Building by any endeavours to alter the Government as established in Church and State The Substance of this Oath as it relates to Ecclesiastical Government is the same with the c. Oath which was imposed in the year 1640. only it includes also the Civil Government and requires Passive Obedience and Non-resistance in all Cases whatever which rendred it acceptable to the Powers then in being and gave them incouragement to trample upon Fundamental Laws and Constitutions as presuming upon the security of an Oath that neither they nor any commissioned by them must be resisted upon any pretence whatsoever The Proofs brought for this distinction and superiority of Order are so very weak that scarce two of the Asserters of Episcopacy agree in any one of them No Scripture no primitive General Council no general Consent of primitive Doctors and Fathers no not one Father of note in the first Ages speak particularly and home to this purpose The Point of Re-ordination began to be urged here in Arch-Bishop Laud's time his Influence was such and the Cause then in hand did work so powerfully upon good Bishop Hall himself that he adventured as Mr. Prin tells us to Re-ordain Mr. Iohn Dury though he had been before Ordained in some Reformed Church But from the beginning it was not so The old Church of England did not require Re-ordination as is now done In King Edward the Sixth his time Peter Martyr Martin Bucer and P. Fagius had Ecclesiastical Preferments in the Church of England but Cranmer whose Judgment of Episcopacy we have seen before never required Re-ordination of them He was most familiar with Martyr nether did he censure M. Bucer for writing that Presbyters might Ordain Iohn à Lasco with his Congregation of Germans was settled in England by Edward the Sixth's Patent he to be Super-intendent and four other Ministers with him and though he wrote against some Orders of our Church was with others called to Reform our Ecclesiastical Laws In Queen Elizabeth's time Ordination by Presbyters was allowed as appears by the Statute of Reformation c. 13 Eliz. cap. 12. It cannot refer to Popish Ordinations only if at all For 1. the words are general Be it enacted that every person which doth or shall pretend to be a Priest or Minister of God's holy Word The Title of Minister of God's holy Word is rarely used among the Papists and in common use among the Reformed Churches The Ministry with the Papists is a real Priesthood and therefore they call their Presbyters Priests And it 's an old Maxim Non est distinguendum ubi Lex non distinguit 2. The Subscription seems to intend those that scrupled Traditions and Ceremonies which the Papists do not For the assent and subscription required is to all the Articles of Religion which only concern the Confession of the true Christian Faith and the Doctrine of the Sacraments By this they gave Indulgence to those that were not satisfied to Subscribe all the Articles absolutely because the Approbation of the Homilies and Book of Consecration were included in them which are no Articles of the Catholick Church but private Articles of the Church of England as Mr. T. Rogers observes Therefore the Statute requires Subscription only to the Doctrine of Faith and of the Sacraments By the way I cannot but take notice of the following Clause in that Statute If any Person Ecclesiastical shall advisedly maintain or affirm any Doctrine directly contrary or repugnant to any of the said Articles and being convented before the Bishop of the Diocess or the Ordinary or before the Queen's Commissioners in Causes Ecclesiastical shall persist therein and not revoke his Errour or after such Revocation eftsoons affirm such untrue Doctrine such maintaining or affirming or persisting shall be just cause to deprive such Person of his Ecclesiastical Promotions And it shall be lawful to the Bishop of the Diocess or the said Commissioners to deprive such a Person so persisting and upon such Sentence of Deprivation pronounced he shall be indeed deprived Quaere Whether the Profession of Arminianism be not directly contrary to the Seventeenth Article of Predestination and Election to the Tenth Article of Free-will and to the Thirteenth of Works preparatory to Grace and if so Whether the Guilty do not deserve Deprivation by this Statute The best of it is they are like to meet with favourable Judges who will not be over-strict to mark the Errours of those who do but write after the Copy they have set before them Surely the Case is altered from what it was formerly It was Baro's unhappiness that he lived in a peevish Age for when he delivered himself unwarily in favour of those Opinions the Heads of the University of Cambridge sent up Dr. Whittaker and Dr. Tindal to Arch-Bishop Whitguift that by the interposition of his Authority those Errours might be crushed in the Egg. Hereupon Baro being obnoxious to this Statute was expelled the University and the Lambeth-Articles were made which come nothing short of the Determinations of Dort But tempora mutantur nos mutamur in illis But to return from this short digression some that were Ordained by Presbyters were admitted to the Publick Exercise of their Ministry and had Preferment in the Church of England without Re-ordination in Queen Elizabeth's time Mr. William Whittingham was made Dean of Durham about 1563. though Ordained by Presbyters only Mr. Travers Ordained by a Presbytery beyond Sea was Seven years Lecturer in the Temple and had the Bishop of London's Letter for it In his Supplication to the Council printed at the end of Mr. Hooker's Eccl. Polit. he saith One reason why he was Suspended by Arch-Bishop