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	father_n	presbyter_n	3,144	5	9.8979	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47466	King William's toleration being an explanation of that liberty of religion, which may be expected from His Majesty's declaration, with a bill for comprehension & indulgence, drawn up in order to an act of Parliament.	William III, King of England, 1650-1702.; Nottingham, Heneage Finch, Earl of, 1621-1682.	1689 (1689)	Wing K580; ESTC R22778	16,192	20

over all the Statutes that concern Religion for the finding out every thing that is hard and fit to be Repealed whether it be the whole Act or the Act at Oxford or part of it as the Uniformity Act to the end that those Parts and Clauses if over grievous but to the Papists themselves being duly considered and Matters thoroughly adjusted an Act may be drawn up that should be a Repealing Act to deliver us from such Burdens altogether and that were the most Effectual Indulgence or best way to it that is imaginable And as for Comprehension then which is a matter of more Curiosity Debate and Counsel It were well that this Bill here proposed might be brought in and past for a Staying Act or Interim of Pacification until a Tryal of the Comprehended some Consults of the Comprehended and Indulged a Convocation of the Conformists with part of the Comprehended chosen into that Convocation a Revisal of the Churches Liturgy their Book of Orders their Articles their Homilies their Canons with other such preliminary matters pre-ordered may Administer the Advantage to a more compleat Act and better Establishment than can be expected at this Season I will conclude with what is apt at present Comprehension without Indulgence destroys the Separatist that is both the Papists and Sectaries Indulgence without Comprehension depopulates the Church Comprehension with Indulgence Unites the Protestants secures the Church of England and gives Ease and Safety to all People ADVERTISEMENT ALthough there was so much Care taken of the Bill of Indulgence as I have said Page 10. when drawn up that nothing needful should be left out yet am I told very newly That there is one Clause in the Act of Uniformity making Dissenters lyable to pay 100 l. for administring the Sacrament escaped their Remembrance and that it is good therefore some general Words providing a Covering for them from all Danger by Common and Statute Law unknown as well as from the Penalties of the Law enumerated were added to the Bill THE POSTSCRIPT BEfore I sent the fore-going Sheets to the Press I understood that the Bill for Indulgence was brought into the House of Lords and knowing the Contexture long since it made me speak so much of the Subscription to the Articles as I have done Since then I have seen the Bill for Comprehension which is brought in There likewise And though I cannot but in Gratitude take notice of the Candour in it that the Subscription to the Articles is waved there yet do I find Two things in it which the Nonconformists will stick at so that if they be not mended the Bill is like to do no Good. One of these things like to stick is this Declaration I A. B. do approve of the Doctrine Worship and Government of the Church of England as by Law Established c. The Government here intended includes the Hierarchy with its Officers and Offices Lay-Chancellours Officials and I know not what more we must Subscribe to when we say we approve of this Government And when the 36th Article of the Church is excepted from our Subscription in the Bill of Indulgence as known to have been so grievous to the Nonconformists from Queen Elizabeth's days untill now in regard to the Arch-Bishops and Bishops though it says only that the Book for their Consecration hath in it nothing Superstitious and Vngodly which it may not have though in something otherwise we may not approve it I wonder it should not come to be thought that such words would not down with our Nonconformists I approve of this Government Especially when some of the most Grave of them have took the Covenant for its Extirpation I shall therefore humbly beseech the House of Lords if it be not too late or if it be the House of Commons that if such a Declaration must be imposed some such words as these may be substituted in its room I A. B. do heartily approve of the Reformation made by the Church of England in her Doctrine and Worship I shall submit to her Government so far as I can with a good Conscience And I receive her Articles as conducive to Concord and containing in them all things necessary to Salvation The Other Thing like to stick is the Business of Re-ordination in regard to those that have been ordained only by Presbyters and it is to be noted that there is a Device offered in this Bill for Reconciling the Bishop and Presbyter by giving Satisfaction to Both The Bishop challenges a sole Right of giving Orders from the Canons of the Apostles as they are called and from Councils and Fathers even Jerom himself down to the Reformation And the Ministers ordained by Presbyters plead the Custom of the Reformed Churches and their Authority from Christ accounting that the Spiritual Power comes not by the Hands which are laid on him whether of Bishop or Presbyter and therefore says Hooker We breath not on the Ordained as Christ did but flows immediately the Conditions being put from Christ's Institution If the Bishop part with this Privilege he degrades himself of the Power the Church hath given him and if the Minister recedes from his former Orders he departs from the Authority Christ hath given him To reconcile both this is the Device The Bishop shall acknowledg the Person ordained by Presbyters to be a Minister already whose Ministerial Acts have been and are valid as the Acts of any other Minister and that he ordains him not therefore to the Office which he has already but admits him to the Exercise of his Ministry in the Church of England and consequently to the Emoluments that may arise to him upon that Account The Man was and is and must be a Minister of Christ before but he is no Legal Minister or not to be accounted reputed held to all Intents and Purposes a Minister of the Church of England till he hath received Imposition of Hands from a Bishop He is a Minister before in foro Dei but not till then a Minister in foro Ecclesiae Anglicanae As a Man who is a Graduate or made Doctor beyond Sea and comes to London he is and must be acknowledged a true Doctor but he shall not have Liberty to Practise till admitted into our College of Physitians I must confess my self partial in my respect to this Device for I suppose it deriv'd from Dr. Wilkins's credit into this Bill and I know from whence and upon what account he received it I will therefore say thus much for it That if this Device may be owned and acknowledged for what it is that is a New Thing or a New Institution in the Church for which an Office should be made and no trick put on the Nonconformists by it As I see no cause then why such an Ecclesiastical Institution being necessary for Peace-sake might not be Made so do I apprehend no unlawfulness in the submitting to it If any ill be in it it must lie on the part of

which any one may find who please that no Body may take Exceptions thereupon in a certain bound Book call'd The Samaritan set forth in the Year 1682. being the result of much Agitation in the House of Commons for Ease and Mitigation to the Disenters so long ago and put together by consent of such that knew best their own Grievances in this manner to lie by and serve such an Occasion The Bill for Comprehension and Indulgence WHEREAS The Peace of the State is highly concern'd in the Peace of the Church therefore at all Times but especially in this Conjuncture it is most Necessary to be preserved In Order therefore to remove Differences and Dissatisfactions which may arise among Protestants BE IT ENACTED by the King 's most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority of the same THAT if any Person shall without making any Interpretation of his own unless it be such as shall be allowed by his Diocesan which if it be Orthodox he shall do Subscribe and Declare his Assent and Consent unto and Approbation of the Articles of Religion mention'd in the Statute made in the 13th Year of the Late Queen Elizabeth except only the 34th 35th and 36th Articles and also except these Words in the 20th Article viz. The Church hath Power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith in like manner as he is already obliged to Subscribe and Declare his Assent and Consent unto and Approbation of all the said 39. Articles Every such Person shall be as capable of Taking any Degree in either University or being ordained Priest or Deacon or of being collated admitted or put into and to hold and enjoy any Ecclesiastical Benefice or Promotion as if the said Person had Subscribed and Declared his Assent and Consent unto and Approbation of all the said Articles of Religion AND be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That every Person Ordained between the Year of our Lord 1644. and the First of May in the Year 1660. according to the Form of Ordination used by laying on of Hands by the Presbytery shall be as capable of any Ecclesiastical Benefice or Promotion as if he had been Ordained according to the Form of Making and Ordaining Priests and Deacons in the Church of England And that every Person Ordained only by Presbyters since the Year of our Lord 1660. shall not be admitted to any Benefice unless he receive a Second Imposition of Hands from some Bishop to recommend him to the Grace of God for the Work or Exercise of his Office in the Place or Charge unto which he is Called and the Bishop shall frame 〈◊〉 Words accordingly AND WHEREAS by a Statute made in the 13th and 14th Year of his Late Majesty's Reign Entituled An Act for the Uniformity of the Publick Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies and for Establishing the Form of Ordaining and Consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons in the Church of England there are Two Declarations imposed upon several Persons and in such manner as is there Specified BE IT FURTHER ENACTED by the Authority aforesaid That no Person that shall hereafter be presented or collated or put into any Ecclesiastical Benefice or Promotion shall declare his unfeigned Assent and Consent to the Use of all things contained and prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer nor make and subscribe the other Declaration or Acknowledgment viz. I. A. B. Do declare That it is not Lawful to take up Arms against the King c. according to the Forms in the said Act in the 13th and 14th Year of his Majesties Reign directed and appointed But that both the said Declarations shall be wholly omitted any thing in the aforesaid Statute to the contrary notwithstanding AND be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That no Person shall hereafter be capable of being collated admitted or put into any Ecclesiastical Benefice or Promotion before such time as the said Person shall have taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance before the Bishop of the Diocess who is hereby impowred to administer the same and shall also make and subscribe the Declaration mentioned in an Act of Parliament made in the 30th Year of the Reign of King Charles the II. Entituled An Act to prevent Papists from Sitting in either House of Parliament And the Name of every Person so taking the Oath and making and subscribing the Declaration aforesaid shall be enrolled with the Day and Time of his taking the same in Rolls to be kept by the respective Bishops of each Diocess for that purpose AND be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That no Person shall hereafter be obliged to take the Oath of Canonical Obedience or to make the Subscription required by the Canons or to go to the Bishops for a License to Preach being already Lawfully Ordained any Statute or Custom to the contrary notwithstanding AND be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That from henceforth no Person wear a Surplice during the Time of Reading Common Prayer or Preaching or performing any Religious Worship in any Church or Chappel whatsoever except only in the Chappel of the Kings Majesty and all Cathedral Churches of this Realm of England and Dominion of Wales AND be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That from henceforth no Minister or other Ecclesiastical Person shall be obliged or compelled to use the Sign of the Cross in Baptism or any Parent obliged to have his Child Christened by the Minister of the Parish if the said Minister will not use or omit the Sign of the Cross according to the desire of the Parents who in that Case may procure some other Minister to do it Nor shall the Child of any Person be refused Baptism for want of any God-fathers and God-mothers so long as the Parent is present to fill their place AND be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That no Minister or Ecclesiastical Person that shall officiate in the Administration of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper shall refuse it to any person that desires to be admitted to the same although such person shall not use the gesture of Kneeling in the Act of receiving nor come up to the Comunion-Table but shall go to such convenient place of the Church where such Person is and there give it him in some other decent gesture of Ordinary use in the Reformed Churches Nor shall any Minister be troubled for the with-holding his own Act in delivery of the Sacrament from any whom he judges Notoriously Unworthy or unfit for it Nor for Suspending his Reading the Sentence of Excommunication against any of his Parish untill he be satisfied in the Case that his Crime deserves it And to the intent that Uniformity may so far as it is needful and so far as it can be still Maintained be it Enacted

all things necessary to Salvation For the Third Way It is that which if I might choose I should prefer before any as most agreeable to my Spirit for the sake of other Incumbrances like this and my Proposal shall be the putting into the Bill or such Bills a Clause for the saving a Mans Conscience though he do Subscribe and submit to such Injunctions as these are and that Clause which I would offer upon this account should be to this purpose committing the Words here and before if they offend to the amendment of the Lawyers And forasmuch as all Impositions are to be taken in the Sense of the Imposers unless some provision of Liberty Allowance or Exception be made for the Taker to do otherwise it is hereby declared That this Subscription Assent Consent Approbation is not imposed or to be impoted on any in the very Sense and Meaning of the Compilers of the Articles or Imposers whereof a Man can never be sure and hardly so much perswaded of sometimes as to act in Faith but in a Rational Construction agreeable to the Holy Scripture of the Subscribers own or of some judicious Expositor that is in the Terms of the School not in the Authentick but a Doctrinal Interpretation For the Fourth and Last Way which is That I take in this Bill in regard to the Passing it with the less Notice for it is brought-in as the Reader may see in a Parenthesis I must confess it to be some thing coincident with the third but more confined consisting in a Liberty of a Man 's own Sense for such as scruple at any Article but so as to bring his Explication to the Bishop that if it be Heretical he may reject him if Orthodox receive him and so a due Regard be had to the Consciences of such Persons and yet the Church not neglected upon that Account By this way of Providing against the Scruples of the more Considerate about this momentous piece of Conformity the Subscription to the Articles when the Provision only of the Exception of Three of them will be too short we must not understand this Bill to be drawn up so because this way is best but upon Supposition that neither of the other Proposals would be granted and also because this Bill is no new Bill now but Produced This is a Bill Printed Six or Seven Years since and at that time this way was that only which could be thought on and in this manner to be brought in as more likely to be Passed Howbeit the Scene now being altered I cannot tell but one of the other ways may pass sooner and this I am sure that some Condescention herein appears more and more necessary from that Consideration which is yet farther to be pressed the difficulty I mean at bottom which lies here The Articles of the Church must be taken in the Sense of the Church The Parliament indeed imposes the Subscription but is not the Imposer in whose Sense the Articles must be taken because it enjoyns them as the Churches Articles that is all one as enjoyning them to be taken in her Sense and that Church is the Church in Q. Elizabeth's Days when the Articles were compiled and enjoined at first And hereupon I will offer one Instance and suppose a Man to scruple the 11th Article which tells us That we are justified by Faith only I do here believe in my Conscience that the Sense wherein the Church then understood This must be the Sense of our First Reformers and that is by Faith taken Objective in sensu Correlativo not as a Work but an Instrument which in short is in such a Sense which Divines know as excludes all Works Evangelical as well as Legal from Justification I will suppose now that the Man comes to the Bishop and says He can not subscribe this Article in the Churches Sense because he verily believes this to be her Sense and that to be inconsistent with St. James who says directly to the contrary That by Works a Man is Justified and not by Faith only and therefore desires he may subscribe in his own Sense which he is ready to tender viz. That by Faith he understands Christianity or the becoming a Christian and that by Faith only he understands St. Paul's Faith without Works that is Faith without the Works of the Law or without being Circumcised and living according to the Laws and so he gives in the Sense of St. Paul for the Sense of the Article That a Man is not justified by living according to the Law but living according to the Gospel only I would ask now Whether there be not reason here both that such a Man should not be excluded for this scruple and that there should be License provided by some such Clause in the Bill for the Bishops to admit him upon this Explanation Especially seeing the Reconciliation of St. James and St. Paul is thereby made so clear as it must tempt his Acceptation As for the Roman Catholicks at last I will not baulk my Opinion The King while Prince of Orange hath expresly said in his Declaration that he Excepts not the Papists And I need not refrain my constant Thoughts I am one my self be sure that am not for Popery but must distinguish between the danger of it when it is in Dominion that is Uppermost by Law or Force and where it is in Subjugation I very much dread the One I am very gentle toward the Other In order to this I must be against the Permission of Factors for a Foreign Jurisdiction yet should not murmur if the Sanguinary Laws whereby such a Crime is made as Treason to be capital were repealed Again I am one not for the Mass and a general open tolerating its Votaries in the Publick Assemblies because all Protestants judg it Idolatry and that open Idolatry is not to be tolerated where it can be helped But for the private peaceable Recusant that enjoys his Religion to himself and meddles not with other Folks his Case is the same I judg with the Dissenters and I am still for our doing to them as we would have had them do unto us but a while ago sin only excepted Yet not altogether with the Idolater for then must ye needs go out of the World. I have no more to say now but some little about the turning the Two Bills as they were formerly in the House into One which is done by the Print from whence I took it the Reason whereof I suppose was the tediousness of the Bill for Indulgence which providing for the Case of so many and something or other being like to be omitted it seemed more easie and more safe to wrap up all these Cases together in the security of a general Suspension of the Penal Laws about Religion until a Parliament come that can have leisure by a Committee or Appointment of Two or Three Sedulous Lawyers that are fit for the Work and willing to attend it to look

the Bishop who brings in a Thing into the English Church which I confess I never read of in Antiquity and which I believe is not to be found in Christendom For a Minister of England is not Re-ordained by the French or by the Dutch to make him a Minister of the French or Dutch Church though it might be otherwise here because the Reason for it before mentioned is not there as here But as to the part of the Submitter the evil of Re-ordination lying only in the Vacating our first Ministry which is Sacriledge and here being no such matter so long as our former Ministry is publickly professed by the man himself and Bishop and whole Church there can be no Evil I say in a second Imposition of Hands as thus used only unless you will say it is a breach of the Third Commandment a taking an Ordinance of God in Vain when there is here no Ordinance of God at all but an Humane Institution for so good an end as Peace in the Church which being made the Qualification of a person for the use of his Ministry in publick and the enjoyment of a Living Who is the man that will say it is done in vain Nevertheless if this Device should happily pass Both Houses which being a New Thing and presented bare faced will rather be called a Monster and turn'd out of Doors two things must be advised One is That in the administring such an Institution Instead of these words the Bishop is appointed to use Take thou Authority to Exercise thy Ministry in the Church of England whereat the Nonconformist Minister having his Ministerial Authority already will Scruple it is better these be used Receive thou Admittance by the Imposition of my Hands to the Exercise of thy Ministry in the Church of England and in any Church in my Diocess where thou shall be called The Other is That the administrating such an humane Ordinance as this in order to Union may not be called Re-ordination which is a Name so odious in the Church in all Ages but as it is a New Thing and ought to have a New Office appointed for it so it should have a New Name also Let a Constitution or Canon be made for it and an Office or Form to administer it and let it be called Cannonical Admission And now I have said thus much This is not the thing wherein I am concern'd in my Bill To be ordained to the Office of a Minister does make a Man in common account a Minister of the Universal Church and a Minister of the Church Universal must be a Minister in her Church of England and of France and of Holland and of every Country and the Imposition of Hands to make a Man a Minister in the Church of England who was a Minister in every one before is a New Thing I have said and perhaps will be thought an Odd Thing too But to make a Man who is a Minister already of the Universal Church ●o be the Minister of such a particular place that was not their particular Minister before is no New Thing nor Odd Thing And if every Person not Episcopally ordained already shall be bound to go to his Bishop when he has such a Call for his Blessing with Imposition of Hands in reference to such a Place that is to pray for God's Blessing or Assistance of him to fulfill that Work there can be nothing of Scruple or doubt about the Lawfulness of his so doing Only I will suppose an Office here to be made as I have said before and in a Prayer fitted to the Case the Person being on his knees and the Bishop reading over him I would instead of those words before prescribed have these only brought in Whom by this Imposition of my Hands we recommend to the Grace of God for the Work unto which he is called One thing yet I must take notice of That in the Bill for Comprehension in Charles's time it came to be allowed at the Committee that the Ordination of those that were ordained only by Presbyters from 1644. to 1660. should be held good though Others were left to be Re-ordained and I cannot but be Sorry that a thing so small so equitable as that when there was no Bishops to go to for Orders should be with drawn Seeing the Testimony of an English Parliament to the Validity of Presbyterian Orders in honour to the Reformed Churches abroad were some considerable Attainment FINIS