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	ordain_v	titus_n	2,698	5	10.8309	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56836	The profest royalist his quarrell with the times, maintained in three tracts ...	Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644. Loyall convert.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644. New distemper.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644. Whipper whipt.	1645 (1645)	Wing Q113; ESTC R3128	63,032	100

it We reade in the Scriptures of Elders which are members of a Presbyterie as it is written Titus 1. 5. For this cause I left thee in Creete that thou shouldest set in order things that are wanting and ordaine Elders in every City as I had appointed thee Also 2 Pet. 5. 1. The Elders which are among you I exhort who am also an Elder By which it appears that Titus had instructions to set up a Presbyterie You take the Scriptures by snatches Had you read in Titus the next verse following but one you would have had Saint Pauls meaning with his words viz. ver 7. For a Bishop must be blamelesse as the steward of God not selfe-willed c. So that it plainly appeares that Elders mentioned in the 5. verse are expounded Bishops in the 7. Or had you compared Saint Peters first verse before mentioned with his fift in the same Chapter you would have found Elders no positive but a relative word no Office but a degree of Age. Ver. 5. Likewise the younger submitting themselves to the elder the Apostle here shewing what the behaviour of the Elder Ministers should be towards God and of the younger towards them So that if either of them had set up a Presbyterie it was suddenly pulled downe againe and Episcopacie which you so much dislike placed in the roome We are so far from disliking Bishops that where there is one we desire there were twenty nay that every Church in England and Ireland had a severall Bishop Diocesan Bishops we dislike Parochiall we allow How suddenly to crosse a setled and warranted establishment your windmill fancies can make an alteration Titus c. 1. 5. had a cōmand from S. Paul to ordain Elders in every City which he interprets Bishops not in every Church or Parish which Ordinance the Church of England hath punctually observed from the Primitive times to this day But you have refractory and gaine-saying spirits spirits of contradiction that understand not the Scriptures but by your owne Interpretations alwayes stirring but never setled hating order despising Government and resisting all Authority But this Episcopall Government had her originall from Rome and being poysoned in the Root it cannot be wholsome in the Branch Ignorance is the mother of all Error Your Chronologie failes you If you carefully search Antiquities you will find your Objection against it a good Argument for it I confesse Episcopacie had her originall par●ly from Rome but in those dayes when we conformed according to the Church of Rome the Church of Rome conformed according to the Word of God Rome was then part of the Primitive Church not being above 187. yeares after Christ The Bishops of Rome were then so far from being Antichrists that most of them were Martyrs and dyed for Christ. But our Bishops have too great Revenues whereby they are occasioned to Riot pomp and glory Those Princely Benefactors whose bountifull Pieties thought nothing too much for Gods Ambassadours and therefore enlarged their Revenues so much well knew their places and callings requir'd it whose gates were to be open to all commers and bread to be given to all that wanted Their Places owe reliefe to the fatherlesse comfort to the widow supplies to the needy and succour to all that are afflicted and hospitality to all strangers No their great Revenues are greater Eye-sores then Inconveniences if not abused But these great Revenues might have been decimated and the Tenth part might have sufficiently maintained a preaching Ministry and the nine other parts might have been added to the Kings Revenues which would have made him the richest and most glorious King in Christendome and taken away the necessity of Subsidies from the Subject This is robbing Peter to pay Paul beggering the Keyes to inrich the Sword and the next way to bring a curse upon the King and all his people in generall by a generall guilt of Sacriledge The Shewbread must not be eaten but upon more necessity then God be thanked His Majesty was at that time put to The holy Oyle must not be put unto a Civil use But His Majesties pious and resolute refusall ●stereof hath in one word fully and fairely answered this Objection But Bishops have too absolute a power which gives them occasion and opportunity to be tyrannicall and to exercise an arbitrary Jurisdiction over their Brethren From the beginning I confesse it was not so neither stands it with wisdome or policy to suffer it to be so For the Government of the Church must have proportion with the Government of the State Government of severall natures in one Nation breeds confusion and that ruine We therefore being a mixt Monarchy necessarily require a mixture likewise in the Hierarchy which excledes all arbitrary power It is true absolute Monarchy and an unlimited Hierarchy are apt to fall into the distemper of Tyrannie and Democracie and a parity in Government is as apt to run into the disease of Tumult but of the two evils Tyrannie is the least by how much it is the easier to be cured A monster with one head is sooner overcome then a Hidra with many If our Hierarchy hath slipt into this irregularity it is great wisdome and reason for a Parliament to rectifie it But the King having the sole election of Bishops and so much favouring them will hardly consent to the abridgement of their power and greatnesse so that being his Creatures their power wil be upheld by him to the end that upon any difference betwixt him and his people they may be the more able to uphold him and ready to make a strong party for him so that the more their power is weakned the lesse his party will be prevalent whereby his Prerogative may want Advocates and the Liberty of the Subject no enemies His Majesty by his yeelding to the Bill of taking away their Votes in Parliament hath given a sufficient Earnest of a further Moderation of their power and no question was and will be ready to hearken to this or such like humble and reasonable Petitions for the extirpating this jelousie viz. That when any Bishop dyes or is translated he would give liberty to the whole Clergie and Freeholders of those Diocesses to choose nominate present foure learned and religious Divines most unblameable in li●e and doctrine able for government and diligent in preaching Of which foure His Majesty to prick one which maybe consecrated Bishop of the Dioces By which meanes both His Majesty and His People having an interest in him he will be equally engaged who in cases of difference may become rather a Mediator then Partaker and receiving just power from the King may execute it as uprightly amongst his people But they are Lords and lord it over Gods Inheritance Whereas 1 Pet. 5. 3. forbids it Be not Lords over Gods inheritance and Christ Luk. 22. 25. sayes The Kings of the earth exercise Lordship but

hardly understood but in our Prayers Confessive Nay scarce then A word more fit for those that can submit to the inordinate power of a Prince and crush Religion in a Common-wealth Repl. How now Cal. Does your shoe pinch you there Dare you resist who have liberty to flee Can you resist and not rebell Can you do the Act with a good Conscience not heare of the Action without impatience How willingly can a dog foule the roome and how loath to have his nose rubbed in it Did not I tell you in the Preface where you shewed your teeth that you would clap your tayle between your legs anon and run away He whose enlightned judgment there called his God to witnesse hath condemned your Cause styled you by the Name of Rebell and branded your actions with the style of flat REBELLION His Conscience then had neither Feare to pinch it nor Affection to enlarge i● nor could his Merits aime at any By-respects for his maintayning of so known a truth so doubly fortified both by the law of God and Nature REBELLION is a Trade the Devil is free of It is both Trade and Devil too No wonder Cal. to see you run so fast You know who drives you Nay he hath driven you so far beyond your senses that you hold him onely loyal that rebells and him rebellious onely that submits D. Burges cap. 3. pag. 45. lin 20. I think no wise man doubts that even in the purer times of the old Church in Israel corruptions grew in Ceremonies as well as in the substance of Gods worship and yet pry into the Scriptures never so carefully we shall not finde any of the most Zealous Saints fall on fire for Ceremonies which is worth observation Cal. A true Chip of the old block Canterbury who after he had familiarized the name of the Altar in the common eare not daring to bring in Transubstantiation with a full Tide innocently left out those words in his Service book which onely made the difference betwixt a Sacrifice and the Sacrament so that but one step more and the work had been fully done So this our Doctor not daring to urge Ceremonies too loud left the Godly should heare him sets the peaceable Custome of the former Saints betwixt him and the danger of all good mens Censure He made the example of the Saints the wall by which his creeping Popery might hold for feare of falling who had not this blessed Parliament dropt down from heaven to crush these Superstitions in their Rise had been by this as perfect a Proficient as the worst had had his high tricks his low tricks and perchance his Merry tricks too as well as his fellowes Repl. How you wonder at a sparke of fire Cal. when just now your eyes dazled at the flame Did not the Doctor in his Dedication as good as confesse himself an enemy to Anticeremonians did not your self taxe him of rank Popery and yet what a busines now you make of his creeping Ceremonies The lyar Cal. and the malitious sometimes are alike forgetfull But to the purpose If you loved the substance of Religion more you would have more lamented that sea of Christian blood that hath been shed about these Ceremenies then I find you do We contend so much about the shell that I feare we have lost the Kirnell But this know Cal. so long as you traduce your brother and thus abuse your spirituall father neither the love of God nor the God of love abides in you D. Burges cap. 3. pag. 66. line 14. Again let such as be Zealous sticklers for Democraticall or Aristocraticall discipline consider how ill the Church can be governed by one policy and the Common-wealth by another Cal. Our Doctor is growne a Machiavilian and forgets that Piety is the best Policy We living under a Monarchicall Governement in the common-wealth how he pleads for a Hierarchicall governement in the Church consequently dissallowing Democraticall or Aristocraticall Discipline which our gratious Parliament is now setting up But 't is no wonder to heare him that hath so Zealously pleaded for the Robes and vanities of the whore to apologize for her governement and● by consequent for the whore her self also Repl. When Ignorance and Folly meet how malice domineeres How this government by Bishops erected in the Apostles dayes approved by Polycarpus Saint Iohns Disciple and Irenaeus the Disciple of Polycarpus Ignatius and all those first Planters of the Gospell submitted unto by the whole Primitive Church confirmed by Lucius the first Christian King in this Island afterwards established by so many Acts of Parliament as yet unrepealed and freely and personally exercized by so many godly and learned Martyrs how this Government sticks in ignorant Cal's stomack whose forgetfull malice would make the Doctor an enemy to the proceedings and designes of Parliament whose writings were printed so many yeares before this Parliament was dream'd of As for his pleading for the whore this know had the popish Strumpet found no better friends then he she had wanted that retrograde Mercy of a Third part when the Protestant Matrone must be content but with a Fift D. Burges cap. 3. pag. 68. line 20. It was long since the Zealous Complaint of a Holy Man that men could no sooner get up their names in the world and be able readily and confidently to muster up a few places of Scripture nothing to the purpose but they thought themselves sufficient to encounter Moses himself setting upon him as furiously as Dathan or Abiram ever did Happy were this age had it none of that Temper Cal. But has that holy man no name Doctor or was it your own self The man we know not but his Intentions are apparent namely to conclude none able for the Ministry but such as have first their Ordination from your popish Bishops from whose imposition of hands they presently receive the spirit till then being neither called nor qualified brave Iuggling when the laying on of Symonaicall hands must enable a drunkard or a whore-master or worse to preach the sacred Word and administer the holy Sacraments who now by the virtue of this Hocas pocas hath a capacity to forgive sins being though formerly very ignorant now gifted more or lesse according to the gift he brings where they that are called by the secret working of Gods spirit inwardly enlightned by knowledge and especiall Revelation and able for Interpretation though never gifted with tongues were not permitted to exercize their ministeriall Function but imprisoned persecuted and pilloryed Repl. True Cal. you hit the intention right and have so plainly discovered yours too that every fool may reade it and being converted by you approve it too wherein you intimate how needlesse Ordination and Learning are to qualify a Minister and that any who finds himself gifted may execute the Priestly office Tel me Cal. may any that hath skill to make a shoe a hat or a suite professe the Trade till he be made free Your