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	jurisdiction_n	presbyter_n	3,202	5	9.9978	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02549	An humble remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament, by a dutifull sonne of the Church	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1641 (1641)	STC 12675; ESTC R210029	12,040	46

sound experience informe us that things indifferent or good having been by continuance and generall approbation well rooted in Church or State may not upon light grounds be pulled up But this holy calling fetches its pedegree higher even from no lesse then Apostolicall and therefore in that right Divine institution For although those things which the Founders and prime Governours of the Euangelicall Church did as men went no further then their own persons yet what they did as Apostles is of an higher and more sacred consideration and if as Apostolike men they did upon occasion enact some temporary things which were to die with or before them yet those things which they ordained for the succeeding administration of the Church which they should leave behinde them in all essentiall matters can be no otherwise construed then as exemplary and perpetuall Now if to this Text we shall adde the undoubted Commentary of the Apostles own practises and to this Commentary we shall super-adde the unquestionable glosse of the cleare practise of their immediate succeslors in this administration continued in Christs Church to this very day what scruple can remain in any ingenuous heart but if any one resolve to continue unsatisfied in spight of reason and all evidence of history and will wilfully shut his eies with a purpose not to see the light that man is past my cure and almost my pity The good God of heaven be mercifull to such a mis-zealous obstinacy Certainly except all histories all Authors faile us nothing can be more plain then this truth Out of them we can and doe shew on whom the Apostles of Christ laid their hands with an acknowledgement and conveyance of Imparity and Jurisdiction we shew what Bishops so ordained lived in the times of the Apostles and succeeded each other in their severall charges under the eies and hands of the then living Apostles We shew who immediately succeeded those immediate successors in their severall Sees throughout all the regions of the Christian Church and deduce their uninterrupted Line through all the following ages to this present day And if there can be better evidence under heaven for any matter of fact and in this cause matter of fact so derived evinceth matter of right let Episcopacy be for ever abandoned out of Gods Church But if these be as they are certain and irrefragable Alas what strange fury possesseth the minds of ignorant unstable men that they should thus headily desire and sue to shake off so sacred and well grounded an Institution But I hear what they say It is not the office of Episcopacy that displeases but the quality The Apostles Bishops and ours were two Theirs was no other then a parochiall Pastor a preaching Presbyter without inequalitie without any rule over his brethren Ours claims an eminent superiority whether in a distinct order or degree and a power of Ordination Jurisdiction unknown to the Primitive times Alas alas how good people may be abused by mis-information Heare I beseech you the words of truth and confidence If our Bishops challenge any other spirituall power then was by Apostolique Authority delegated unto and required of Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the seven Asian Churches some whereof are known to us by name let them be disclaimed as usurpers and if we doe not shew out of the genuine and undeniable writings of those holy men which lived both in the times of the Apostles and some yeares after them and conversed with them as their blessed fellow-labourers a cleare and received distinction both of the names and offices of the Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as three distinct subordinate Callings in Gods Church with an evident specification of the duty and charge belonging to each of them Let this claimed Hierarchy be for ever hooted out of the Church And if the bounty of religious Princes have thought meet to grace this sacred function with some accession of titles and maintenance far be it from us to think that the substance and essentiall parts of that Calling is ought impaired or altered by such gracious munificence And although as the world goes these honors cannot ballance the contempt of those eminent places and that portion which is now made hereditary to the Church cannot in the most of these dignities after all deductions boast of any superfluity yet such as they are if any man have so little grace and power of selfe-government as to be puffed up with pride or transported to an immoderation in the use of these adventitious favours the sin is personall the calling free which may be and is managed by others with all humble sociablenesse hospitall frugality conscionable improvement of all meanes and opportunities to the good of Gods Church I may not yet dissemble that whiles we plead the divine right of Episcopacy a double scandall is taken by men otherwise not unjudicious and cast upon us from the usuall suggestions of some late Pamphleters The one that we have deserted our former Tenet not without the great prejudice of Soveraignty for whereas we were wont to acknowledge the deriving of our Tenure as in fee from the beneficent hand of Kings and Princes now as either proudly or ungratefully casting off that just dependence and beholdingnesse we stand upon the claime of our Episcopacy from a divine Originall The other that whiles we labour to defend the Divine right of our Episcopacy we seeme to cast a dangerous imputation upon those Reformed Churches which want that Government Both which must be shortly cleared The former had never been found worth objecting if men had wisely learned to consider how little incompatiblenesse there is in this case of Gods Act and the Kings both of them have their proper object and extent The office is from God the place and station and power wherein that office is exercised is from the King it is the King that gives the Bishoprick it is God that makes the Bishop Where was it ever heard of that a Soveraigne Prince claimed the power of ordaining a Pastor in the Church this is derived from none but spirituall hands On the other side who but Princes can take upon them to have power to erect and dispose of Episcopall Sees within their own Dominions It is with a King and a Bishop as with the Patron and the Incumbent The Patron gives the Benefice to his Clerk but pretends not to give him Orders That this man is a Minister he hath from his Diocesan that he is Beneficed he hath from his Patron Whiles he acknowledgeth his Orders from the Reverend hands of his Bishop doth he derogate ought from the bounty of a Patrons free presentation No otherwise is it with Episcopacy which thankfully professes to hold at once from God and the King Its calling of God its place and exercise of Jurisdiction of the King And if it be objected that both some former and Modern Divines both abroad and at home borrowing S. Ieromes phrase have held the superiority of Bishops

over Presbyters to be grounded rather upon the custome of the Church then any appointment of Christ I must answer First that we cannot prescribe to other mens thoughts when all is said men will take liberty and who can hinder it to abound in their own sense But secondly if they shall grant as they shall be forced that this custome was of the Church Apostolicall and had its rise with the knowledge approbation practise of those inspired Legates of Christ and was from their very hands recommended to the then present and subsequent Church for continuance there is no such great dissonance in the opinions as may be worthy of a quarrell The second is intended to raise envy against us as the uncharitable censurers and condemners of those Reformed Churches abroad which differ from our Government Wherein we do justly complain of a sclanderous aspersion cast upon us We love and honour those Sister-Churches as the dear Spouse of Christ we blesse God for them and we doe heartily wish unto them that happinesse in the partnership of our administration which I doubt not but they doe no lesse heartily wish unto themselves Good words you will perhaps say but what is all this faire complement if our act condemne them if our very Tenet exclude them for if Episcopacy stand by Divine right what becomes of those Churches that want it Malice and ignorance are met together in this unjust aggravation First our position is onely affirmative implying the justifiablenesse and holinesse of an Episcopall calling without any further implication Next when we speak of Divine right we meane not an expresse Law of God requiring it upon the absolute necessity of the being of a Church what hinderances soever may interpose but a Divine institution warranting it where it is and requiring it where it may be had Every Church therefore which is capable of this forme of Government both may and ought to affect it as that which is with so much Authority derived from the Apostles to the whole body of the Church upon earth but those particular Churches to whom this power and faculty is denied lose nothing of the true essence of a Church though they misse something of their glory and perfection whereof they are barred by the necessity of their condition Neither are liable to any more imputation in their credit and esteeme then an honest frugall officious Tenant who notwithstanding the profer of all obsequious services is tied to the limitations and termes of an hard Landlord But so much we have reason to know of the judgement of the neighbour Churches and their famous Divines that if they might hope to live so long as to see a full freedome of option tendred unto them by Soveraigne Authority with all sutable conditions they would most gladly embrace this our forme of Government which differs little from their owne save in the perpetuity of their {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Moderator-ship and the exclusion of that Lay-Presbyterie which never till this age had footing in the Christian Church Neither would we desire to choose any other Judges of our calling and the glorious eminence of our Church so governed then the famous Professors of Geneva it selfe Learned Lectius for a Civilian and for a Divine Fredericus Span●emius the now renowned Pastor and Reader of Divinitie in Geneva who in his Dedicatory Epistle before the third Part of his Dubia Euangelica to the incomparable Lord Primate of Ireland doth zealously applaud and congratulate unto us the happy as he conceiveth flourishing estate of our Church under this Government magnifying the graces of God in the Bishops thereof and shuts up with fervent prayers to God for the continuance of the Authority of the Prelates of these Churches Oh then whiles Geneva it self praiseth our Government and God for it and prayes for the happy perpetuation of it let it not be suffered that any ignorant or spightfull Sectaries should openly in their Libels curse it and maliciously brand it with the termes of Unlawfull and Antichristian Your wisdomes cannot but have found abundant reason to hate and scorn this base and unreasonable suggestion which would necessarily inferre that not Christ but Antichrist hath had the full sway of all Gods Church upon earth for these whole sixteen hundred yeares A blasphemy which any Christian heart must needs abhorre And who that ever hath looked into either Books or men knows not that the religious Bishops of all times are and have been they which have strongly held up the Kingdome of Christ and the sincere truth of the Gospel against all the wicked machinations of Satan and his Antichrist And even amongst our owne how many of the Reverend and Learned Fathers of the Church now living have spent their spirits and worne out their lives in the powerfull opposition of that Man of sin Consider then I beseech you what a shamefull injustice it is in these bold sclanderers to cast upon these zealously-religious Prelates famous for their workes against Rome in forraigne parts the guilt of that which they have so meritoriously and convincingly opposed If this most just defence may satisfie them I shal for their sakes rejoyce But if they shall either with the wilfully-deafe Adder stop their eares or against the light of their owne consciences out of private respects beare up a known error of uncharitablenesse this very paper shall one day be an evidence against them before the dreadfull Tribunall of the Almighty What should I urge in some others the carefull peaceable painfull conscionable managing of their charges to the great glory of God and comfort of his faithfull people And if whiles these challenge a due respect from all well-minded Christians some others heare ill how deservedly God knows and will in due time manifest yet why should an holy calling suffer why should the faults if such be of some diffuse their blame to all Farre far we know is this from the approved integrity of your noble Justice whiles in the mean time unlesse your just check doe seasonably remedy it the impetuous and undistinguishing vulgar are ready so to involve all as to make innocence it self a sin and which I am amazed to think of dare say and write The better man the worse Bishop And now since I am faln upon this sad subject give me leave I beseech you to professe with how bleeding an heart I heare of the manifold scandals of some of the inferiour Clergy presented to your view from all parts It is the misery and shame of this Church if they be so foul as they are suggested but if I durst presume so far I should in the bowells of Christ beseech you upon the finding of so hateful enormities to give me leave to put you in mind of the charitable example of our religious Constantine in the like case you cannot dislike so gracious a patterne I plead not for their impunity let them within the sphere of their