Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	bishop_n	deacon_n	presbyter_n	11,992	5	10.2917	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43546	A sermon preached before the convocation of the clergy in Ireland at the Cathedral Church of S. Patricks in Dublin, May 9, anno 1661, at the time of their general receiving the H. Communion / by Tho. Hacket.	Hackett, Thomas, d. 1697.	1662 (1662)	Wing H173; ESTC R25047	22,156	33

the People and Priest it was transmitted first from the Jewish Schools and Synagogues whose Doctors had the uppermost rooms as our Saviour notes quipping therein their pride these loved it not dignity Else he would not have taken up his own seat among the Doctors Luke 2.46 nor would it have had a remark set upon it had their seats been promiscuous among the people for the order was that the Rabbins and Doctors sate on a Throne by themselves with their faces towards the people and their Schollers on Forms or lower seats gradually with their faces from the people towards the Hecall or Sanctuary but the People sate or lay on Mats under them within the cognizance of the Doctors and therefore t is St. Paul prescribes modest and decent behaviour in the Church because of the Angells i.e. their animadversion of their carriage The same place befits not the Scholler and the Master and thereforeiour Saviour Christ copied out the same state and respect of his Officers they who reteind the signatures of the first Church in lively Characters do punctually so express it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the Bishops Throne be set in the midst and the Presbyters sit on both sides the Deacons standing And let the people sit on the other side viz in the body of the Church whence the Scriptures calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latine Prasidents from this distinction and eminence of place And some learned men think that position of the Church triumphant signified Rev 4.4 was but a copy of the position and site which was in the Militant in the first ages From which not now seeming in considerable circumstance of place these three Corollaries do seem to me not incongruously deducible 1. That there is no such thing as a Lay-Elder in the Church there 's no place here but for the Minister and Idiot the Plebs and Ordo in Tertullians language another Herald in Scripture must be got to marshall this amphibious Novelty and assign its seat and place in the Church St. Pauls Elders must be teachers and have double honour that is of respect and maintenance which whether these shall have let the Minister consider well that admit the one if they can be as willing to digest the other 2. This exposition teaches us our place as well to as from others When the Clergy broke in upon their superiours no wonder their inferiours invaded them a propulsation of the first air sucks in the next into its place and so did our selves give the invitation to our own thrusting out for the place thus delineated did cleerly distinguish the Clergy among themselves all in but not of one place but a superior place and an inferior and so Persons so the Jewes had Priests and chief Priests a high Priest and h●s Sagan there were Rulers of the Synagogue the Officers of the 23. and Rulers of the People that is Officers of the high Court of 72. yet both sometimes called Rulers indifferently without observing this distinction we see identity of name is hence but a bad argument for a Sameness of dignity and among our Saviours extraordinary Officers there was a scale of First Apostles Secondly Prophets 1 Cor. 12. and much more among his Ordinary when St. Paul sayes the Deacon had obtained a good degree thus the Ancients paraphrase it 1 Tim. 3.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 higher Station in the Presbytery or Episcopal Chairs 3. Here 's a perfect aquator dividing the Minister and People into two hemisphaeres Confusion has laboured to make them differ by joyning them together but the Scripture preserves our liberties by retaining the ancient markes and boundaryes we are there distinguish by names qualities commissions duties maintenance and here by peculiar place but to adorn this Province were to light a Candle to the Sun Onely for conclusion let me make it my request to God for my self first and then for us all that since the people are more affected with and will be sooner concluded by sensible and visible arguments then the most real and speculative demonstrations that we would make it our business to distinguish our selves from them not onely by habit and place but by these three or four other differences with which I shall put a period to your present trouble and desire to make a beginning to our future conversation 1. That we would difference our selves from them by our callings and business as that is not of this world so we should not be but like men abstracted with the hopes and promotions of another neither drowning our selves in the agitations of this life nor devoted to pragmacy or policy Let us give up our main attendance to reading doctrine and exhortation 1 Tim. 4. 13. And not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostles Canons phrases it to the revolving the affairs of the world in our minds you know how many of the ancient Canons forbids the implication of regulars in seculars commands them wholly to attend on divine ministrations I shall but point at their instances because I doubt not better known to you than my self Ancient Canons excluded us from Merchandizing Farming Warring from being Guardians Executors studying the Law and Physick that those might not be pretences of avocation to our selves or scandal to others The Apostle to Timothy 2 Tim. 2.4 sayes no man going to War should entangle himself with the affairs of this life the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on which an Ancient thus descants the word saith he is taken from an Adder lying in the way which does first deceive us by her innocent appearance Secondly retard us by fetterring us in our course But thirdly doth sting us with Mortiferous poyson So hard a matter is it for us innocently to mingle our selves with the world 2. Go beyond them in holyness The Scripture calls us Angelis let us labour to be so in purity to heal with the tongue onely is an easie way of Physick and that which a dog can do as well as we T is the Scripture record that before the Priest went in to offer for the people he was to wash himself first in the great sea or lavour and a Jew has this note upon it that it was all made of locking-glass metal that so the Priest might see and wash off every spot in himself who was to offer up prayers for the sins of others If Moses by conversing with God once gained Divine reflections how should our faces shine that visit him daily 3. Let us be industrious vigilant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over our flocks that so the infernal Wolf may not carry away any of Christs Lambs 1 Tim. 3.2 If the Bishop was so amazed when he was to give up his account to St. John for the young man concredited to him who lapsed without his fault with what faces shall we look upon God when we must answer for those

every one of you hath a Psalm a Doctrine v. 29. Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the other judg This was not a mixt preaching of divers at one time as some persons of a separate profession have of late thought and copied But an excercise for the tryal of probationers in the Schools how far their proficencies answered either their own ambitions or their friends expectations The Pseudo St. Ambrose runs it up to a Jewish Original whose candidates for degrees and their novices too were by an Assembly of their Doctors posed and sometimes for their clearer understanding they asked them questions vicissim and their Seniors naturelly putting all together passed their grave judgments on them This account seems to untie that knot of our Saviours sitting among the Doctors and interrogating them at 12. years old Luke 2.46 which expounded for a Scholastical exercise will not seem very insolent these Jewish posers were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inquirere and by analogy to this the judging of the Prophets in the verse may be without constraint interpreted But farther ver 32. the Apostle saith The spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets i.e. not onely to the Prophets that possessed them so that they might command their own Spirit to stop when they pleased that place might be given to another Prophet to take his turn in speaking and not after the wild fury of the heathen affllations whose spirit was a storm within them forcing them with impetuous hurricans beyond the conduct of their natural bent and not conducting them by silent and pleasing gales like the waftings of the holy Spirit But it signifies a subjection of their Spirits ie their prophecies the effect of their Spirit to the judgment and discussion of other Prophets First to enquire into the verity of them or secondly to add improvements or elucidations to them sometimes a thing being revealed to one but the full extension of this in its use or latitude was to be interpreted by another As in this Chapter it appears that many of them abounded with miraculous gifts but the true Uses and Limits of them they received from the Apostles ministration who subdues them here to a true and orderly use of them And this practise reached down to Tertullians days who tells us That the pretensions to all Inspirations and his age abounded and himself was not free of such were opened before and submitted to the Censure of the Church-Rulers and according to their palate for them accepted or totally cast out And this is more then was in the Principle laid down For we see extraordinary Gifts were subject for tryal not onely to extraordinary persons as the Apostles were which slints the wonder but even to ordinary and stationary Presidents for so it was in the Prototype of the Jewish Church where their great Sanhedrim had the judgment of Prophets reserved to the discussion of their Chairs Which was the meaning of that saying not prophesie as it is vulgarly thought That a Prophet could not perish out of Jerusalem that is notlegally or judicially for violently he might Which saying of Christs has its strength founded on the soveraignty which the Sanhedrim had over the Prophets Use I. Me thinks when persons immediately inspired were so humble and free in their Regulations by Superiours those who have no claims to such an elevated sphere should not withdraw their necks from the easie and profitable yoke Christ has put upon them but be accountable to their present Ecclesiasticks for either of the Heads of Ordination and Instruction Let me freely speak a word of each before this Reverend and Learn'd Assembly not that I hope any of you need incentives to draw to this Duty but because the times we have lived in needed and perhaps the present have not had a perfect deletory of this Error 1. For Ordination However some persons may look upon it but as a perfunctory Ceremony yet the Right is of hoary Veneration and necessary Institution The Jews derive it as high as Moses's laying his hands on the 70 Elders and make it so necessary that they admitted no person into their Sanhedrim greater or less without it Which I urge in this instance because some persons thereby think they wound us with our own weapon Ordination say they being proper not to Ecclesiasticks among the Jews but to Senators of the Long Robe nay indeed to all Officers But now it is thought impertinent to the last and why then with so much acrimony and fixtness to be required from the first To which I say That as the Priesthood was an Office so it was contempered to the condition of other Offices but as it was a Divine Office so it was distinguished from the common ordination both in the substance and shadow for first the learned know that there was a different form of words in the Jews Rituals for those several kinds of Ordinations and a divers latitude expressing their power The Church Ordination was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Faculty of discerning about things bound or free And secondly the Priest had an appropriate Ceremony by the filling of his hand which we never find received into any Laick Ordination This Rite the Symbole of Office the Jews Church set at so high a rate that when in the Emperor Adrians time an Edict on forfeiture of life came for repressing Jewish Ordinations that is the continuation and succession of their Church R. Jududa for ordaining Five Presbyters and so keeping their coal alive gain'd the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Ordainer and is loaded with the titles of Most holy c. and all appellation proclaiming an honorable estimation I cannot insist here upon the several requisites they exacted from the Ordinand their questions forms of approbation or rejection their garments and expressions of joy or mourning by their white or black raiment All this is alluded to and was plainly understood by those who were contemporaries to those Solemnities Rev. 3 4 They shall walk with me in white for they are worthy i. e. approved as the Jewish Candidate was who when approved remaind walking in his white garment in the Parlour for tryal but the reprobated went out with mourning and clad in Sables nay when many of the Jewish train were discarded by our Saviour as of pomp rather than use yet this was adopted into his Family required of those that were called immediately from Heaven Acts 9.17 thought a Prophetick Trumpet had sounded his Excellency 2 Tim. 1.6 And the primitive severity was such that a temerarious intrusion into the Church without Ordination was a perpetual exclusion from the Ordination of the Church Nay the very Heathens would not ape Gods Priests and leave their Ordinations behind but retaind it in a very solemn and grave way and called it Dies Natalis the birth day of their Minister 2. For Doctrine there