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	hand_n	ordination_n	2,718	5	10.1610	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85989	The prelatical Cavalier catechized, and the Protestant souldier incouraged. By a missive sent to King Charles in the name of the Protestants beyond seas. Wherein these three questions are resolved. Viz. First, how inconsistent a prelaticall government is with the true Protestant religion, and with the peace and welfare of this kingdome. Secondly, how absolutely necessary it is for King Charles and his associats, to entertain peace with the Parliament at any hand, if ever he hopeth to recover or enjoy any glory or splendour of his royalty. Thirdly, which are the best means King Charles, &c. can use for obtayning an honourable peace for the present, and improving and continuing the same in time to come. Much conducing to encourage and confirme all true Protestants in the truth of the Protestant cause, especially all souldiers that are for King and Parliament. ... Presented to the Honorable Councels of Great Britain, now sitting in Parliament; and the rest of the Kings Majesties subjects. / By Eleazer Gilbert, a minister of Gods Word. Printed, and published according to order.	Gilbert, Eleazer.	1645 (1645)	Wing G706; Thomason E296_28; ESTC R200215	22,248	25

THE PRELATICAL CAVALIER Catechized and the Protestant Souldier incouraged By a Missive sent to King CHARLES in the name of the Protestants beyond Seas Wherein these three Questions are resolved Viz. First how inconsistent a Prelaticall Government is with the true Protestant Religion and with the peace and welfare of this Kingdome Secondly how absolutely necessary it is for King CHARLES and his Associats to entertain Peace with the Parliament at any hand if ever he hopeth to recover or enjoy any glory or splendour of his Royalty Thirdly which are the best means King CHARLES c. can use for obtayning an honourable Peace for the present and improving and continuing the same in time to come Much conducing to encourage and confirme all true Protestants in the truth of the Protestant Cause especially all Souldiers that are for King and Parliament Being a Work very usefull and profitable to be read of all Presented to the Honorable Councels of Great Britain now sitting in Parliament and the rest of the Kings Majesties Subjects By Eleazer Gilbert a Minister of Gods Word Printed and published according to Order LONDON Printed for Robert Leyburn and Richard Wodenothe and are to be sold at the Star under Peters Church in Cornhill 1645. with brothels and whore-houses But when did your Highnes or any of your followers taxe these men For not onely dispensing with but even selling and licensing adultery fornication Idolatry perjury c. Yea which is as it were the very essence and soule of Church Discipline Excommunication for so great was the corruption of your Bishops and their Officials that for the value of twelve pence or some other such trifling summe of money a man might either be received in or ejected and cast out of your Hierarchicall Consistory so that they have made Excommunication almost a very Chimaera and consequently have enervated extenuated or rather annihilated the whole strength and power of your Church Government Furhermore we appeal unto your Highnesse and your Associates what ungodly unjust and preposterous thing it was that these Bishops Officials being themselves but Laick men neither Prophets nor perhaps bred in the Schools of the Prophets should at their own pleasure summon up from the furthest corners of your Kingdom nay and not onely so but punish suspend and censure both the persons and doctrine of your most godly learned and orthodox Divines if either themselves or their Bishop had conceived the least spleen against them may not the Proverb be well applied to such unequall and rigid Judges Sus Minervam or may not such reverend men say unto such Laick Bishops as the Egyptian said to Moses Who made you a Judge over us In one word if your Highnesse will but with an impartiall eye behold or survey the stupendious insolencie and corruption of your Bishops Courts and their Officers these twenty yeers past c. you cannot but confesse with us that they were and are no other then a company of covetous temporizing Horsleeches come to their Consistories not so much to compose and decide differences and to preserve peace and piety amongst your people as to get mony and enrich themselves by the sins of the people whereas if this charge were committed to godly and conscionable Pastors and Ministers assisted with the Suffrages of their Elders and Deacons as it is in the government Presbyteriall all this corruption might be or at the least the most part prevented Finally that we may perswade your Highnesse c. not onely to leave but also to loath the paps of that inchanting Sorceress wee will adde this one thing more viz. the greatabuse which was committed by your Bishops in their Ordination of Ministers how contrary to the Gospell and inconsistent with the practice of a Protestant Church is it that the Ordination of many Ministers should be committed to the hands and authority of one man viz. a Bishop and that when such easie terms and so small a triall that let an Artificer or Husbandman come to a Bishop or his Chaplain upon some Ordination day provided with some perfunctory Letter or superficiall testimony from a man if but of ordinary quality always provided that he hath his fees in his hand and a black coat upon his back and then although hee were as false and wicked as ever was Judas or Cain as void of feature and good manners as was Thersites and had no more learning then had Balaams Asse He shall be admitted to the Ministerie quite contrary to Pauls charge to Timothy which was not to lay hands suddenly upon any man Not that this authority of laying on of hands or ordaining Ministers belonged to him alone as the Prelats do alleage for this is contrary to his own practice when 1 Tim. 3. 14. He would not be admitted himself without the laying on of hands of the company of the Eldership but rather to dehort him from being corrupted by the example of these men who had arrogantly assumed unto themselves this liberty and as contrary is it also to the practice of Paul and Barnabas Acts 13. 1. and these Deacons mentioned Acts 6. 6. From which Pontificiall presumption it hath come to passe that in your English Prelacy as from the Trojan Horse there have issued so many Apostolicall Preachers who being for their fees admitted to the Ministery by some Bishop without any Church stipend or maintenance are forced as it were to beg their bread from doore to doore and that not out of conscience as the Popish Mendicants but of constraint they not having so much by their calling as will supply their necessary sustenance or which is much worse sometimes to go beyond the Seas and there turne Apostates either to the Roman Nicholaitan or Lutheran superstitions or thirdly which is as bad or little better then the former or rather then they should starve some of them doe wander to Amsterdam or New England their side with some new fangled schisme Good God how abominable should this be to your Highnesse who professe your selfe Defender of the Faith How dishonourable is it to your Nation and how prejudiciall to the true Protestant Religion and professors thereof who should have amongst them all but one God one Faith and one Baptisme and who should have no more Ministers amongst them to work at their Altars but such as have a competent maintenance and are able to live by the Altar Is this the care of your right reverend Fathers to provide for their children or hath your Highnesse all this time suffered your selfe so wofully to be misled by these ghostly Vultures as to permit them so shamefully as the Pope doth to himselfe and his Cardinals Nephews to ingrosse unto themselves and their symonaicall friends neither of whom nor perhaps any of them ever dared to adventure themselves beyond the seas to see the face or learn the posture of any Christian or Protestant Church or it may be hath no more learning in them then to resolve the

9. 6 7 8 verses and in Exod. 25. 40. hee is expresly charged by God not to make the Tabernacle after any other fashion then was shewed him in the mountain but also Christ himself who was Moses prototype whom God in the 18 of Deuteronomy 15. did promise to raise up as a Prophet like unto Moses although much more excellent for Moses as a servant but Christ as a sonne Heb. 3. 5 6. Did dispose and regulate his little flock according to the will of his Father not according to the will of man nor according to his owne will as he was man but according to the will of his Father for as himself witnesseth John 5. 30. He came not to seeke his own will but the will of his heavenly Father and this kinde of government revealed in his Gospel without all question he will continue and have amongst all his chosen people to be continued untill his second comming whose voice all Christians but especially all Protestants or reformed Christians must obey unlesse they will deny Christ to be their Prophet or derogate from the worthinesle of his propheticall office one principall part whereof was not only to reveal unto his people his Fathers will concerning their redemption but also to govern and rule them in the performance and execution of that will unto the end of the world wherefore to draw the frame and authenticalnesse of a Church government from any other pattern then from Christ and his Apostles is no other then to deny both the Propheticall and Regall office of the Sonne of God who if he be a King over his people why should he not be able both to prescribe laws unto them and also guide and rule them according to these Laws so far as may conduce to his owngory and their happinesse Surely they that draw the frame and government of an Evangelicall Church under the Gospel from any other authority or build the same too much upon the placets and inventions of men who are not onely vain but vanity it selfe nor subject to deceive but also to be deceived doe but take their marks by the moon build their house upon the sand preferring Eleazer the servant to Isaac the sonne and Moses the messenger unto Christ the master and Judge of all the earth In a word to say that Christ is not as carefull of his Christian Church under the Gospel as Moses was of the Church of the Jews and that he hath not in his Gospel prescribed what kind of Magistrates Ministers and Officers hee would have and by what Laws he would have them to be governed were to make him more negligent of his people then was Numa of the Romans Solon of the Lydians or Lycurgus of the Lacedemonians all which although Heathens did prescribe wholsome Laws unto their Common-wealth which so much as to thinke of the Lord Jesus in whom were hiden all treasures of wisdome and knowledge were most damnable and blasphemous So much of the first Question viz. How inconsistent your late Church government was with the Gospel and how far it hath been of late years in your Kingdoms abused The second Question HOw inconsistent this kind of Church government is unto your Highness safety and prosperity of the Republick and consequently what a preposterous thing it is to continue the same in these Kingdoms This Question is easily resolved if you will suffer your judgment without partiality but to reflect upon these three Objects viz. First the disposition and affections of your own Subjects Secondly the reputation and expectation of Protestant Princes and Professors amongst us beyond the Seas Thirdly the condition and nature of the true Protestant Religion and Protestant Professors established and regulated by a Presbytery which without all peradventure of all Christian professions this day in the World is that which is most sound and orthodox in it self as being most free from corruption and most safe for a true Protestant Prince which undertaketh to mayntain not a Protestant Religion for so do the Kings of Poland Sweden and Denmark although corrupted with the Roman and Lutheran Superstitions but the Protestant Religion which onely is most consonant with the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles and most agreeable to that pattern of wholsome doctrine expressed in the Gospel the patronage whereof no Prince can deny that is a true Protestant unlesse it be such a Prince that affecteth tyranny and would make under the cloak of Relgion not the Word of God and welfare of his people but worldly policy and private respects to be rule of his government First then May it please your Highnesse and Confederates to cast your eyes upon the people we mean not such people whom malice corruption or covetousnes without any respect to the Word of God or a good conscience have drawne to your side but the mayn body of the two of your best Kingdoms of England and Scotland for the most and best part how exasperatly and uncontrolable are they set against this way mayntayning it for a maxime as your Associates doe No Bishop no King so they No Bishops no Popery where by the word Bishop they do not understand any of Pauls Bishops mentioned in the Epistle to Timothy and Titus for such Bishops as these they seek for and their Petition unto your Highnesse is Da nobis tales Timothaeos nos eos cib abimus auro potabimus balsamo Such Bishops as these may be well consistent with the Presbyteriall Government and by the prayers and suffrages of such Bishops before ever hee medled with a Hierarchy your Royall Father King James did enjoy many peaceable and happy days which if it had pleased our Great Land-lord might have been continued unto your Highnesse and your posterity and which wee beseech the Almighty mangre the unhappinesse of your present distempers may be continued unto you and yours as long as the Sun and Moon endureth But by a Bishop your people for the most part understand a domineering temporizing and self-seeking prelate where by the word Bishop or prelate they doe not so much conceive one particular office or individuall person of one Clergy man but collectively all his subordinate Officers Assistants and Attendants such as Deans Archdeacons Prebends Surrogates Chancelours Commissaries Registers Proctors Apparitors Chaunters Choristers Canons Pety-Canons Vergers and all their Ecclesiasticall Courts Laws Canons Orders Innovations and Ceremonies which although they were in themselves never so indifferent decent or commendable yet the Commons for the most part of both these Kingdomes are perswaded and hold it for Maxim irrefragible that dictates such a Bishop we say not such a Prines mayntaining or approving such persons or things is no other then a relike of popery a limbe of Antichrist a Wenne upon the face or a Boyle upon the blest of a true Protestant Reformed Church Nay there be many thousands of Husbandmen Artificers and Tradesmen besides people of greater quality if we be not much misinformed

event of any temporall occurrence all things falling out to all to them that sweare as to them that fear an oath we will neither think the worse of them because of their present afflictions nor the better of their enemies because of their atchieved victories The Almighty hath his own fulnesse of time for the managing and disposing all important passages under the Sunne but especially for such as doe more immediately concerne his own glory and the good of his Church and although he hath suffered the Roman Antichrist and his Catholick children for these thirty or forty years past to ride over the bellies plow and make long furrows upon the backs of these and some other Protestant Princes Psal 129. 3. yet as God is just and his Gospel true the feet of all the enemies of Protestant Religion shall slide in due time Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Deut. 32. 35. For when That seven-headed and ten-horned monster having caused the Kings of the earth to commit fornication with her Rev. 18. 3. and stirred them up by policie and machiavilisme to fight against the Lamb Revel. 17. 14. so soon as shee shall be fully drunk with the blood of the Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus Christ and also hath made these Kings drunken with the wine of the wrath of her fornication in a word when shee hath for a long time sitten upon that septicolled Citie like a Queen saying and domineering over it I am no widdow and shall see no mourning then shall there come upon her a sodain alarm as there did upon Samson Up Samson the Philistims are upon thee Up Romish Babylon for all thy strength and cunning a Lambe shal overcome thee and these Kings which thou cast been so much in love with and have been so much in love with thee they shall stand afar off because of thy torment saying alas Alas for that great City for in one houre is thy judgement come If therefore your Highnesse and your Confederates have not already given your names to this Beast and if you be not yet drunke with the wine of the wrath of her fornication For the Lords sake come out of her let not your souls come into her counsels neither be ye joyned with her Assemblies lest partaking of her truelty you partake also of her plagues For as the Lambe overcommeth and destroyeth all such as oppose and contradict him in the truth and purity of his worship so doth he in his appointed time honour crown and blesse all that in syncerity and simplicity of heart joyne with him for the mayntenance of the purity and truth of his Ordinances of which number are not onely these noble Princes so many of them as have declined that broad way and embraced this narrow way one that leads to the new Jerusalem but also the mayn body of Great Britain England and Scotland which have mutually and interchangeably Hungary ingaged themselves besides a considerable number of Reformed Protestants beyond the Seas yea and the Luther an Protestants also in Denmarke Sweden Germany Prussia c. besides the protestants of the Greek Church inhabiting the Territories of Muscovia white Russia in Poland and other places who are almost allequally engaged with us towards the curtaling of the horns of the Romish Bishop all which as we conceive if there were any firme complyance betwixt you and your Great Counsell of State might here be brought easily to reconciliable minds towards us to joyne with us in one common cause for the abandoning and abolishing all Antichristian and and unlimited Jurisdiction from the protestant Churches throughout Europe So that in all places and Dominions of Christendome there may be but one Shepherd and one sheepfold every severall Kingdome and Province thereof through the annuall and mutuall correspondence of their Princes and States and the strength of a generall Councell by their authority seasonably convocated being perswaded and throughly informed in the truth of all essentiall points that may any ways concerne our salvation and finally all that professe the name of Christ may be brought to consent together to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace that there may be but one Faith one Lord and one Baptisine one Father in us all through us all and for us all and then what an easie thing it were for a Christian King that is Defender of the Faith Inot onely to enlarge his Dominions but also to improve his just splendour and priviledges both for himself and for all that he hath relation to throughout the known world we leave to the censure of the indifferent reader But if wilfulnesse and prejudicacie have so much preposessed you and your associates that you will not thinke of any other or better way to prevent your own and your Kinsmens ruine then that which you have now in hand Wee have no more to say to you but what Mordecay said to Ester Ester 4. 13. Deliverance will be brought another way For as God is true you will finde this certain that so many of your kindred and other Protestant Princes and States that doe justly suffer for the cause of Religion if they persevere unto the end God will exalt and raise them by the same Religion and work their deliverance by no other means then by the same whereby they have suffered The fourth and last motive which we shall mention at this time is the duty which by the Law of God you owe to your people which is to shew your chiefest care and use your best means for the preservation of their lives and liberties especially seeing they are all members of that politicall body whereof your Highnesse professeth your selfe to be the head and seeing also that in them viz. in then good affections health and welfare doth consist as Samsons did in his locks your great strength and livelihood For if there be a sympathy and fellow-feeling in the body naturall in so much as when the foot is trod upon or any other member hurt the head will complain as if the injury were done unto it and so likewise in the true Church of Christ or body mysticall as the Apostle emplyeth when he biddeth us rejoyce with them that rejoyce and weep with them that weep Rom. 12. 15. And be like affectioned one towards another And again Who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not if wee say there is such a sympathy in the mysticall and naturall body why should not the same be also in the body politicall if therefore any or many members of the body of Great Britain be diseased or distempered through malignant humours which may perhaps not onely work obstructions in the pipes of government but also make the head complain and cry out for pain yet are not these members by war or any other means of this nature to be cut off from the head unlesse they prove so poysoned putrified