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	ordination_n	presbyter_n	9,874	5	10.5221	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45405	Considerations of present use, concerning the danger resulting from the change of our church-government	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1682 (1682)	Wing H528; ESTC R11941	9,937	23

of Episcopacy is as clear the Angel of the Church of Ephesus c. in the Revelation which hath been cleared by irrefragable evidence to belong to this matter and the Ruling Elder in S. Paul that must have double honour and Titus left in Crete to set in order the things that were wanting and to ordain Elders in every Church and many other more clear mentions of the serveral titles and officies of Bishop Preshyter and Deacon than there is of the name and duties of the Lords day The obscure mentions of that in Scripture were explained in the writings and Stories of the first age of the Church particularly in the Epistiles of Ignatius and the obscurities of the Sacred Texts concerning Episcopacy are as clearly explicated and unfolded by the same Ignatius even in every one of those Epistles of his which Vedelius as great an enemy of this Order as Geneva hath produced any after his fiery tryal of that Author hath acknowledged to be his The use of that continued from the Apostles time though not universally till the Jewish Sabbath was fairly laid a sleep till these days in the universal Church and all perticular Churches that we read of and the like use and practise of this continued universall without any exception from the Apostles time till this day in the universal Church as that signifies the Eastern and the Western Church and in each particular Church till about this last Century and in this of ours from the plantation of the Gospel till this day These are paralless enough to even the ballance and I profess to know no one more which might weigh it down on that side and to make it now seasonable to demand whether it would not be thought an act contrary to Religion whether that signifies Christian Piety or meekness or awe to all that is Sacred for any particular National Church or part thereof without any more warrant then is now offered for this present change to remove the service of God from the Lords day to any other day in the week which sure is as small a differnce as that betwixt Presbyterial and Episcopal Government can by any be conceived to be or instead of our first day of the week to set apart either an eight or a sixt day and so to change that Apostolical institution If that seem strange or be startled at as unfit to be ventured on or yielded to I shall desire the same plea may be entred for this and that conscience may be secured that either both are lawfull or that the difference is clear and the advantage on the Lords days side or that it may be resolved that this is unlawfull as well as that A fift Argument will be this That the making or yielding to this change will be a scandal very worthy to be considered in them that so yield toward those which oppose this Government as unlawful for this yielding will be an appearing acknowledgement that their contrary Pretentions are true and so a confirming them in their errour which is no light one but the same for which Aerius was and any other apposer would certainly have been anathematized and turned out of the Catholick Church for an Heretick which is one special kind of Scandalizing or occasioning the fall of our Brethren and withall a nourishing them in their uncharitable opinion not only of us but of the ancient Fathers of the Church who were all Antichristian if this be so which is another causing my Brother to offend nay a kind of countenancing that unchristian am sure unprotestant Doctrine of the lawfulness of taking up Arms against lawfull Superiours and Establisht Lawes and propagating our opinions in Religion by that means which perchance some may be betrayed to by this example others brought to believe consentaneous to Protestant Doctrine if they which are thus guilty be thus gratified which as it were a change in our Doctrine if it were really acknowledged so is it in this respect another act of Scandall if it thus aprear to be acknowledged and that which would make any Heathen Prince unwilling to embrace our Religion if this disloyal perswasion were conceived to be a part of it A sixt Argument which to me is of no small force I will yet but name and refer it to others to consider of That no man is a Priest or lawfully ordained Minister of any Christian Church but he that is called and sent by God that there is now no way in this Kingdome to have that calling or mission duly but from Bishops who are the only persons who have their power of Ordaining others given to them in their assumption to that Order by those who had it before and can drive it from the Apostles who had it immediatly from Heaven and whatsoever other power a Priest or Preshyter may be thought or said to have common with a Bishop it is yet the constant judgment of the universal Church for 1500 years that this of Ordination is not competible to one or more bare Presbyters without a Bishop and it will be easie to satisfie any reasonable man in whatsoever may be produced of sound or probability to the contrary and therefore if any Office or Order or Ministry in the Church be considerable this which is the standing well-head and spring of all the other must be thought so also Having premised these Arguments of so much weight sufficient to support the burthen designed to them I shall add ex abundante some inferior ones though they amount not so far as alone of themselves to conclude it direct irreligion yet to add to the former heap some aggravations As 1. That to yield to this change is to disclaim those blessed means of Gods providence which brought us to our Baptisme to all our spiritual life and growth that we have attained to and that is a great ingratitude to that Government 2. It is an act of pride and insolency to prefer any scheme of humane and modern invention before that which the Apostles the Primitive and for so many years the Vniversal Church had authorized and therefore I could almost adventure to believe that the framers of the Covenant had obliged themselves secretly to maintain Episcopacy by putting in those words the best Reformed Churches that I might escape thinking them so insolent as to prefer any Churches before those which they cannot but know have used Episcopacy 3. It ia a great tempting of Gods providence in not being contented with that Form which hath prospered so happily with us and the whole Christian World though subject as all that is humane or mixt with flesh is even the very grace of God in us to be abused any putting it to the adventure whatsoever inconveniences the next may be subject to Of the inconveniences that Presbytery doth infallibly bring along with it and the unreconcilableness of them with Monarchical Government in the State sufficient evidences have been given and if there were no other but this

CONSIDERATIONS OF Present Use Concerning the DANGER Resulting from the CHANGE OF OUR CHURCH-GOVERNMENT LONDON Printed by T. M. for Fin. Gardiner at the Three Roses in Ludgate-Street 1682. CONSIDERATIONS OF Present Use CONCERNING The Danger Resulting from the CHANGE OF OUR CHURCH-GOVERNMENT TO him that being satisfied in judgment of the lawfulness of Episcopal Government doth yet conceive that the parting with it is no change of Religion and consequently that the standing for it at this time when it is opposed is but the preferring the interests of some inconsiderable men before the conveniences and common Wishes of all I earnestly desire in the Bowels of Compassion to my bleeding Country and from a sincere Passionate wish that the cure of this dangerous wound may not be an imperfect cure to present some few sad considerations which I shall cast under two heads proportionable to the two parts of the former ungrounded suggestion the one That parting with the present Government is no change of Religion the other That standing for it at this time is the preferring the interests of some before the common wish of all the peace of this Nation Concerning the former I offer to consideration First whether the Government of the Church be not a considerable part of Religion That it is so I shall make appear by these Reasons 1. That Government is as necessary to the preservation of the Church as Preaching the Gospel was to the Plantation of it and that therefore it was always the Apostles practice as soon as ever they had converted a City or Province or any considerable number of Men in it to leave it in the hands of some faithful Persons to dress tend and water what they had thus planted and therefore though it were possible for a Christian to be deprived of this benefit and yet to remain Christian as to want some limbs or to abound to monstrosity in others is yet reconcileable with life and being of a Man to retain the doctrine of Christianity without any Government to be a Christian in the Wall or in the Wilderness a Stylita or Anachorite Christian in which case there is no doubt the use of the very Sacraments Instituted by Christ himself would not be necessary to Christianity yet would it be little less than fury for any to design or hope the prosperity or duration of a Church or visible society of such Christians without this grand necessary though not of single being yet of mutual preservation this principle not of essence but of continuance without which it is the learned Breerewood's observation from St. Augustine that the preservation of a Church was once by experience found to be an impossible thing no other engine being able to repair the Want or Supply the place of that A second reason may be drawn from the concurring pleas of all the most distant pretenders for the several Forms of Government in the Church as well those that have espoused the Papal the Presbyterial the Independent as those which are for the present English Form by the King and his Bishops c. all vehemently contending for the necessity of that Government which they affect in the Church and none so calm or modest in their claims as the Assertors of the English Prelacy which moderation or want of heat is sure one reason that so many Sons of this Church are now tempted to think Government so unconsiderable a thing and so extrinsecal to Christianity though this thought thus grounded be a double injustice 1. In suspecting that truth for want of asserting which is therefore not so vehemently asserted because it is supposed truth 2. In encouraging heat and violence of disputes the greatest plague in a Church by shewing them that the Eagerest pretenders shall be most heeded and that meekness shall not inherit the earth though both David and Christ promised it should A third argument may be had from the judgment of our State which hath thought fit to make the Government of the Church matter of one of the Articles of our Religion and so to joyn in honour the care of it with the care of the Doctrine and to require as strict a subscription to the establish't Government as to the rest of the 39. heads of Doctrine by which you may evidently see that to change the Government is to change the Doctrine and where Doctrine and Government both are changed can we possibly think the Religion to be the same I shall add no more Proofs of this because I conceive them unnecessary the contrary misapprehension being as I suppose not grounded by Arguments but of its own accord arising from an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an experiment which many men especially persons of quality think they have made that in their whole lives they never reaped any benefit from Government never received any accession or encrease to their spiritual weal from that as from the Doctrine and Liturgy of the Church they acknowledg to have done To this ground of misprision as being perhaps the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cause of the whole mistake it will not be amiss to make some answer 1. That many benefits we receive from Government which we do not visibly discern and that therefore when we discern our selves to have received some growth and cannot but know that it was wrought by means we should rather confess our want of sense or gratitude to the true means than imagine those not to have been the means only because we have not that sense of them 2. That those means which have been more visible to us the dispensation of the Word and Sacraments have been reacht out to us by the hand of Government to which therefore we owe our acknowledgments in the second place for our preservation and growth as to the hand of supreme previdence for our being or life spiritual 3. That if the benefits of Government have not been really very discernable and notable to all that is not yet in any justice to be imputed to any defect that way in Government it self to any barrennes in the nature or particular temper of it but to some default which will deserve observing and reforming in the Persons either of the Rulers or of those which are under rule or of a third sort whose dutie it is to be the Rulers Perspectives and Otacousticks to present to their knowledg the wants of inferiours which till they are known are not likely to be repaired The defaults in each of these severals are or may be so many and so obnoxious to common observation that it will be much more reasonable for each to resolve to amend his part for the future and so make it a business of Reformation than to charge the defaults of Persons to the defaming of Government and so to undervalue and scorn what our sins first then our phansies have defamed The comfort is that it hath been the clemency as well as the sloth or cowardice of Governours which have deprived men