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	succession_n	9,913	5	9.7671	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94295	The due way of composing the differences on foot, preserving the Church, / according to the opinion of Herbert Thorndike.	Thorndike, Herbert, 1598-1672.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1048; Thomason E1838_3; ESTC R210159	28,326	70

course be taken that all Christians may frequent that which shall appear to be indeed the service of God instead of the Masse Let no Preachers flatter themselves with an opinion that they shall ever make Christians so perfectly Jewes as to perswade them to dress no meat on the Sundayes If Servants must stay at home to dress meat on Sundayes and for other occasions they must stay at home besides that will not the way to repair that breach be to injoyne several Assemblies in all Parish Churches upon all Sunday mornings that several Persons of several Estates and qualities may have opportunity to attend the publick service of God at several hours of the same Sundayes and Holy-dayes For though I understand very well that this would impose upon the Church that is upon my hrethren of the Clergie a greater burthen than an afternoons meal of a Sermon which all men know is furnished of the cold meat of the forenoon yet I would have the Word cleared of this imposture that reigneth that two Sermons every Sunday is the due way of keeping the Sabbath among Christians or of advancing Gods publick service I will not here dispute that the Lent-Fast was instituted by the Apostles But this I maintain to be evident that the Fast afore the Resurrection of Christ is and was as antient as the Feast of his Resurrection and that more antient than the keeping of all Lords dayes in the year being meerly the reflection of that one all the weeks of the yeaar Nor will any man that knows what he sayes ever question that the inlarging of it to forty dayes is a just Law voluntarily undertaken by the whole Church not to be condemned without the like mark of Schisme For since the World is come into the Church is there not manifest reason that more time should be taken for the expiating of more sins which are the sins of more people to prepare as well the Elder to renew their Christianity by communicating at Easter as the yonger to be confirmed and come first to the Communion at Easter now they are baptized Infants Which in former ages was the time of their first coming to Baptism As for the Wednsdayes and Fridayes if we shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless our Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharises And if it be evident as evident it is that the Scribes and Pharises prescribed Mundayes and Thursdayes for dayes of less solemne Assemblies then the Sabbath How shall we enter into the Kingdom of Heaven if in despite of the whole Church which hath hitherto used Wednesdayes and Fridayes in lieu of Mundayes and Thursdays used by the Synagogues we void the Law of England by which they are in force Of the Ceremonies the same is to be understood Not because it can be within the compass of common reason to imagine that the same Ceremonies have continued from the time that the Church was persecuted into holes and caves of the Earth to this time in which the question is of setling Christianity by the Law of this Kingdom It were want of common understanding to think that the same could serve But because so few and so innocent as we use cannot be condemned without condemning not only Gods whole Church but also Gods antient people who will evidently be found in the same cause One thing hath been cast forth in barre to all this which we must not swallow whole unless we mean to impose upon our selves It is the pretense of complying with the Reformed Churches For it is evident that there are four forms of Reformation extant One according to Luther another according to Calvine the third is that of the Church of England and in the last place though first for time because least known and protected by no Soveraign I name that of the Union in Bohemia For we are to know that the followers of John Husse having sent Deputies to the Council of Basil they accorded to reunite the Nation upon four Articles The chief whereof was the Communion in both kinds They that stood to the accord are to this day called thereupon Calixtin or sub utraque in Latine But another part of those that were at distance thinking themselves betrayed by their Deputies in that accord proceeded to settle themselves in a form of Religion and the service of God by that which they held the pure truth of God in all points that had been disputed The Emperour Ferdinand I. King of Bohemia having subdued his subjects there that rose with the Protestants in Germany cast a good part of these out of the Country who finding shelter in Polonia and Prussia there planted and propagated their form till the troubles of our time when by the Emperours victory in Bohemia and the late troubles in Poland they seem to be at a loweble though they impute it to the decay of their first discipline They that would reform the Church of England professing already that Reformation which it found best will they not first show us reason why we are to leave Luther for Calvine For if they mean his form when they talk of conforming us to the reformed Churches because of the Scotts Presbyteries they must have better arguments then either the learning or the Christianity of the Scottish Presbyterians will yeild to perswade us They say those that framed the Reformation in England beeing bred under Melancthon among the Lutheranes followed them much an end in the order and form which they prescribed But is that any reason for any change before it appear which is in the right I freely profess I find Melancthon the better learned and the more Christian spirit But the Church of England which in divers points differeth from both why should it be thought to follow either for any reason but as either agrees with the Catholick Church And for that I prefer the Unity of Bohemia before both For they had the rule of Vincentius given them to take their measure by the consent of the Catholick Church and these things which have allwayes and every where been professed and practised in it And had they done nothing but what is justifiable by that Rule I should not blame them for that which I blame in them most But where they agree not with Luther and Calvine wherein do they not agree with the Church of England In particular they sent all over the World to inform themselves of a visible succession of Bishops whose profession was such that they might derive the Ordination of Bishops for their Churches from their hands They took the superstitions of the Greekes to be such that they could not own it from them In that I think they were in the wrong For I doubt not the Greekes would have granted them Ordination onely under the profession of the Catholick Church and that had been enough But thinking themselves in a strait of necessity they chose twelve by lots And hearing that the Waldenses lived in

Austria under Bishops deriving their succession from the time of Constantine and therefore from the Apostles they sent them thither to be Ordained protesting against their weakness in going to Masse for fear The protestation was admitted and the persons ordained Bishops Now I take not upon me to maintain the truth of that information concerning the succession of these Bishops whereupon they proceeded But they being reasonably perswaded of it and not knowing how to proceed otherwise through a mistake which they could not overcome and setling themselves upon an innocent presumption why should the effect of these Ordinations seem questionable For under these Bishops they have subsisted from that day to this And with what conscience is it demanded for conformity to the Reformation that we acknowledge them Priests who are ordained against Bishops If we do not we shall condemn those Reformed Churches which have no Bishops Is it the fashion that a man quit his Cloke because his fellow hath none Or is it any thing else to renounce a good Title because they cannot plead it There was a good expedient in the ancient Church to refer things to God which could not be decided without a breach in the Church Let their zele against the abuses of the Church of Rome be counted pardonable with God which caused them to think the Order of Bishops a support of Antichrist when as the Papacy is visibly raised upon the rights of Bishops which it ingrosseth Let the difficulty of procuring Ordinations and having Bishops render them excusable to God Those that are ordained by Presbyters against Bishops on purpose to set up Altar against Altar how can we count them ordained refusing the concurrence of the Church to their Ordinations They that would ty us to comply with the Reformation are first to show us that the Unity of Bohemia is no part of it And that their Reformation is not to be preferred either before that of Luther or that of Calvine For can we acknowledg the Ordinations of Presbyters against their Bishops and not condemn them that sought all over the World for Bishops to ordain them Bishops that the Bishops so ordained might ordain them Presbyters But not only in this prime point of our differences but also in the difference of the Clergy from the people in the three Orders of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the matter of Justification and the Eucharist of Confirmation and Penance of the Festivalls and Fasts of the Church one of divers Orders and institutions of less consequence their profession agreeth with the ancient Church and the Church of England where it departeth from both Luther and Calvine In the matter of Penance though with much humility they tell the Lutheranes roundly they have but one of the keyes viz. that of loosing but bind not as pronouncing absolution without injoyning of Penance The discipline of Geneva they magnify indeed as they find it described by Bodine in his method of Histories But they distinguish not whither they mean the civill discipline which the Lawes of that State inforce or that which the Power of the Keyes exercised there according to Calvine doth constitute For the Civill Law of a Christian State especially no bigger then that of Geneva may settle such a discipline over the outward man as may restrain from the outward act of sin without mortifying the inward man to the inward love of it The late Usurpers Army we have seen well disciplined against the ordinary vices of the Camp Who appearing now to have been then enimies to their Country are thereby discovered not to have followed the reward of Christians but of Souldiers And the Lawes of Christian States by the means of Christianity which they maintain may reach to the mortifying of sin and the quickning of righteousness at the heart But of themselves being Civill Lawes and proposing no further reward or punishment then that good which a mans Country signifies they reach no futther then the outward man for the better or for the worse Nor is it of any greater consequence to Christianity that the outward act of sin or virtue is repressed or incouraged by the rewards and penalties of Civill Lawes But when the discipline of the Church takes place he who forfeiteth his Christianity by gross sin that is notorious forfeiteth also Communion with the Church and recovereth it not till the presumption be no less notorious that he hath recovered his Christianity Now Communion with the Church is the consequence of our Baptism which intitleth us to life everlasting Therefore it is not duely forfeited without forfeiting the effect of Baptisme our right to life everlasting So our right to heaven depending upon the Communion of the Church the discipline of the Church must needes reach the inward man as effectually as any outward application can reach the heart which is invisible For the presumption is grounded upon visible workes of Penance the effects of that invisible disposition without which they could not be constantly brought forth Whither or no this discipline be visible at Geneva I will not pronounce This I undertake that comparing the Doctrine of Calvine with their Orders they need not set a value upon the Power of the Keyes exercised according to his Doctrine in comparison of the same exercised according to their own Orders So that supposing not granting that the Lawes of the Church of England being the Lawes of the primitive Catholick Church are to be changed for conformity with the Reformed Churches it followeth not therefore that they are to be changed for those of the Churches reformed according to Calvine Certainly the receiving of the Communion kneeling having been one of the Adors of their Reformation from the beginning and so stiffly insisted upon by them in Poland they that pretend to change the Law of England in that point for conformity with the Reformation think they have not men but beasts to to deal with The Church of England in the Commination against sinners hath declared a great zeal for the renouncing of that ancient discipline of Penance which was in force in the primitive Church And certainly the Church of England is not the Church of England but in Name till the power of excommunication be restored unto it which there was not nor ever can be sufficient cause to take from any Church But the discipline of Penance though depending upon the Power of excommunication is as much to be preferred before it as it is more desirable to bring men to the Church then to shut them out of it If prejudice faction have not more to do in the pretenses of this sin then the truth of Christianity and zeal to advance it it is a point that cannot be neglected in any deliberation of Reforming the Church I cannot render a more visible reason why so godly a zeal in these that first prescribed our Reformation to the restoring of penance hath now been improved by their successors then the partialities which sprung