Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	apostle_n	bishop_n	ephesus_n	3,999	5	11.0253	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29779	The late converts exposed, or, The reasons of Mr. Bays's changing his religion considered in a dialogue : part the second : with reflections on the life of St. Xavier, Don Sebastian King of Portugal, as also the fable of the bat and the birds.	Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5061; ESTC R13424	82,114	78

for it For if St. Ierom's word may be taken all the Apostles except St. Iohn and St. Paul were Married and when the famous Controversie of the Celebration of Easter was so warmly disputed between the Eastern and Western Churches Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus alledges the example of seven of his Progenitors who had successively governed that See to justifie his own practice Were the Primitive Christians then of the first and purest Ages uncapable of living up to that height of self-denyal and Austerity which the worst men recommended and the worst times cou'd practice Or did the Christian Church require as long a time to arrive to the height of Spiritual perfection as it had to ascend to its temporal greatness Were their Appetites more ungovernable in the ten first Centuries or did the succeeding Ages light upon more effectual restringents to subdue ' em Yes certainly Mr. Bays they did For as I take it the sanctifying Miracles of Whip cord were not so Universally acknowledged then as afterwards nor St. Francis's receit for an erection by running into a heap of Snow so generally made use of and then the virtue of a long Pilgrimage the carrying about one this Saints Thumb and that Saints set of Teeth the Praying before such an Image or such an Altar but above all the recommending ones self to the Virgin Marys protection were not things of so universal practice and approbation in the earlier times And perhaps after all the gift of continence was not to be bestow'd upon the Church Militant till the sacrifice of the Mass was born that only an immaculate Priesthood might be concerned with that immaculate Sacrifice or till the Popes had planted Heaven with store enough of Submediators to implore a sufficient stock of Grace for their Friends here upon Earth Indeed Pope Siricius towards the end of the Fourth Century in his Epistle to the Spanish Clergy quotes this sorry place out of Scripture to fright 'em from their Wives Si secundum Carnem vixeritis moriemini to which citation we 'l only oppose another Text of the same Apostle melius est nubere quam uri and so we 'l leave him However by this single passage Mr. Bays you may perceive with what eagerness and fury your infallible Guide snaps at any solitary Text in the Bible which he thinks will countenance any of his innovations or make for his purpose A Puny Courtier never waited with half that impatience for a gracious nod or a merciful wink from a rising Favourite as infallibility it self waited here for one lonely unguarded place in the New-Testament to back his Cause I don't question but the Old Gentleman turned over the whole Book from Genesis to the Revelations with as much concern as ever you did Mr. Bays to find out Nick-names for your Absolon and Achitophel But what advantage has he done his cause by producing this Text Why none at all but the greatest disservice imaginable Si secundum Carnem Vixeritis moriemini Why it destroys Celibacy and Fornication the heir apparent of Celibacy to all intents and purposes and I don 't at all question but that the unerring Intelligencer if he had slept a little and consulted his ●illow wou'd have been of another opinion next Morning but it seems he was fully resolved to shew his infallibility one way or another and he has done it with a witness for he 's most infallibly in the wrong Upon the whole Mr. Bays and I hope you have good nature enough to forgive me this small digression I make this observation that Saint Peters successor can steer his Ecclesiastical Mackarel-boat with a side wind if occasion serve from any part of the Bible whether Canonical or Uncanonical 't is all a case A little Scripture at Rome I dare engage will go farther than Copper mony in Ireland 't is not at present the commodity of the place and I am very well satisfied that a man with a foot or two of Scripture nay rather than fail with an ell of Tobit and the Maccabees for we ought in Conscience to make allowances for Apocryphal ground to purchase a dozen of the best Acres in the Vatican planted with the most Apostolical Traditions And this is a mysterie which I cannot comprehend For if the notion of Infallibility will solve all the Phaenomena's of your Religion why for God's sake do you take sanctuary in the Bible and if the Bible is necessary to support your pretentions why do you so shamefully discard and abandon it when it has done your business This way of proceeding is so very brutal and ungenerous that it puts me in mind of a late Monarch that was brought to his Throne and settled in it by a certain well-meaning Church and when he thought he had no farther occasion for her very decently laid her aside for all her former services As the case stands at present your Savoy-Divines are as glad to be own'd by a Friend in the New-Testament as a needy Courtier is of being own'd by a City security but I profess I don't see the necessity of such a Conduct What other people may think I don't know but I had much rather take the invocation of Saints upon honest Infallibilities word for it than with Bellarmine deduce it from that passage of Iob And he shall pray for thee And a thousand times sooner take the Half-communion upon the same credit than pretend to justifie it as Bishop Fisher has done out of Give us this day our daily bread 'T is the most unaccountable nonsense in my opinion that a man can be capable of to subpoena half a score witnesses to appear for him at Westminster-Hall that when they are examined tell a clean contrary story and so ruine his Cause and this Mr. Bays I take to be the case of your own Polemics they freely upon all occasions as is manifest from their late Pamphlets endeavour to prove all their Tenets out of the Bible yet they manage the matter so indiscreetly that every Tradesman can charge 'em with false inferences and indeed after all their attempts the holy Pen-men will scarce be perswaded to serve an apprenticeship to the modern trade of misrepresenting Now I cou'd acquaint 'em Mr. Bays with a certain method that shall preserve their reputation in all companies let 'em pretend to Miracles among the Indians to Antiquity among the Quakers to Holiness of Life among the Ranters to Unity among the Independants to Loyalty and Good Works among the Presbyterians to Decency of Worship among the Adamites to Learning among the Anabaptists and to the Merits of their Faith among the Socinians Let e'm quote Scripture before Physitians quote the Fathers before Ladies talk of Councils before Souldiers and conjure up the Trinity before those that don't believe Transubstantion Let 'em pretend to Austerity of Living among the Beaux of the Town to Universality among the Muggletonians and what must be carefully observed to Tradition only among the Courtiers for they

honesty of such a proceeding but if it be so very fair and lawful as you pretend I wou'd advise you then Mr. Bays when you next summon a National Synod of our Rivers to set the Severn in the Speakers Chair and not the Thames for he by vertue of his original as springing our of the Brittish Mountains ought certainly to have the priviledge of sitting above the Thames that has the misfortune to be born in a Valley But now to the first institutor of Celibacy I am as loth Mr. Bays to show my little reading out of Fathers and Councils as a City Alderman is of showing his Young Wife at the Play-house or at the Mall not that I am afraid of being plundered of what I have but methinks convincing a Poet out of Fathers and Councils looks as awkwardly as if a man should think to quicken a lazy Water-man with a Greek Verse or two out of Apollonius's Argonautics but because we cannot possibly avoid it we 'll be unmannerly that way as seldom as we can The first Pope then that ever recommended it with any effectual vigour to the World was that Euroelydon of Italy Pope Gregory the Seventh alias called Hildebrand and indeed he deserves to go under more Names than one that had a greater share of wickedness in his temper than one wou'd have thought any one single mans nature had been capable of But because it is a good secure way to rail with Insallibility on ones side as a late worthy Gentleman has expressed himself let us hear his character from the sacred Council of Brixia He was then in the judgment of that numerous assembly a superstitious observer of Dreams and Prodigies a Magician a Negromancer a Monster given up to all the excesses of Pride and Cruelty and finally one for the best jest he was ever guilty of is still behind one that by the assistance of the Devil had aspir'd to the Apostolical Chair I had often heard Mr. Bays that the Spanish and French Factions had a great influence in the Conclave and pretended now and then as an opportunity served to a disposal della Spirito Santo but never imagined that the old Gentleman in black had any vote amongst the Gentlemen of the Purple till this lucky passage convinc'd me Bays Upon my word Mr. Crites I won't stay a minute longer with you if you make any more such reflections upon the Sacred election Crites This was likewise the same person Mr. Bays that so solemnly delivered that unfortunate Emperour Henry the Fourth and all the Bishops that received investiture from him into the hands of the Devil for no other reason in the World but only justifying the Imperial Prerogative against the Papal usurpations and lastly to compleat his character he that branded the Married Clergy by the scandalous name of Nicolaitans What were the blessed effects of that forced Chastity which was so vigorously enjoyn'd under this Pontificate a man may easily learn out of Aventinus Sigebertus and the other Historians of that barbarous age and they they were as followeth The Bishops were continually quarrelling with the Priests the Priests not to be behind hand with 'em were continually reproaching the Bishops and the Laics very devoutly fell foul upon both They trod the Sacrament under foot that had been consecrated by the married Priests they burnt their Tithes they sanctified the Altars which had been profaned by 'em with Holy Water Above all there sprung up a goodly harvest of Fornication Incest Murder and Adultery and yet all this while unless his Infallibility was notoriously belyed Pope Gregory kept a more than ordinary correspondence with his dearly beloved Mathildis There are some other remarkable frolics to be found in the life of this Ecclesiastical Leviathan as his drinking a health to the Devil his throwing a Consecrated Hostie into the fire for not resolving him a certain question which he put to it that I purposely omit as things that are rather fit for the pennance of a Scavenger than the consideration of an Historian Let us now come over into England to see how matters succeeded here Much about the time that Hildebrand was so busie to promote this affair beyond the Alpes Anselm Arch-bishop of Canterbury advanced it at home and by vertue of his Archiepiscapal authority deprived all the Married Priests throughout the Kingdom of their Ecclesiastical promotions There had indeed in the time of the Saxons when the Benedictine Order what by their pretended Miracles and what by the outward austerity of their Lives spread apace several efforts been used by Odo and Dunstan by Ethelwold Bishop of Winchester and Oswald Bishop of Worcester in the year 963 to eject the Married Priests out of Colleges and Churches and substitute Regulars in their room But however as this was not put in Execution in all places so likewise the seculars were not constrained to leave their Wives and preferments but only at their own discretion But Anselm copying from the furious Hildebrand proceeded farther in the matter for he not only compelled 'em to part with their Wives which unchristian rigour the Saxon Bigotts in all their zeal never practised but also what was the more mortifying case of the two forced 'em to part with their preferments We are now at leisure to observe the consequences of this worthy Institution As it happen'd Mr. Bays upon our prohibiting the Exportation of unwrought Wools that the Hollanders immediately set up several new Manufactures of their own So here when the Religious were forbidden to have any more commerce with the Women as necessity you know forces people upon desperate attempts they began to Trade amongst themselves In short this Italian Decree of Celibacy introduced the Italian sin of Sodomy which occasioned so many horrid complaints that Anselm found himself obliged to Convene another Council at London where very severe Laws were enacted against it The punishment as Roger Hoveden tells us was Excommunication ipso facto not be got off but by Absolution from a Bishop only and that not to be procured at an easier rate than a swinging Pennance But the Monks shortly after taking occasion to acquaint the Arch-bishop with the fatal inconveniences that in all probability wou'd ensue upon the Publishing of this Decree in asmuch as it wou'd lay open and discover to all the World a Sin that was scarce known or heard off before out of a Cloyster he was Piously prevail'd upon to call it in Thus you see Mr. Bays that in those Conscientious times it was thought better so permit People the liberty of Incest Sodomy Adultery and Fornication or at least to leave 'em under an unavoidable necessity of committing such Brutalities than repeal the unsanctify'd Canon which occasioned them What were the first Motives which influenced the Western Patriarchs to abridge their Clergy of that liberty which the Apostles left 'em in is not difficult to Conjecture 'T is certain they can make no pretences of Antiquity or Tradition