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	rome_n	succession_n	9,910	5	9.8153	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60612	Two sermons preached at two publick assizes for the county of Svffolk, in the sheriffalty of Will. Soame of Hawleigh, in Suffolk, Esq. by Will. Smyth, D.D., Pr. Nor. and vic. of Mendlesham in Suffolk.	Smith, William, b. 1615 or 16.	1674 (1674)	Wing S4283; ESTC R21663	29,870	126

neither Miracles as Christ and his Apostles nor imposition of hands as the Church hath always practised as in the first so in all following Ages to evidence his Commission is a spirit not of God whatsoever excellencies of qualification may otherwise be pretended and they that are guided by him and have not considered it to trial follow him in sin if they understand it in great wickedness Now the contrary mark of false Prophets is declared by our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 7. they come to you in sheeps cloathing they come come voluntarily and are not sent And St. Paul Act. 20.29 characterizeth them with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enter in Grievous Wolves shall enter in that is voluntarily assume the Office not called sent or placed by order or commission Such are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separated by God in the Order of the Church Rom. 1. but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jude 19. such as separate themselves by their own presumption and intrusion Such as these we are not to trust to as being spirits that are not of God The next means of enquity is to understand by whom such imposition of hands have been made and executed and then the mark of the true spirits of God is to be separated and ordained to their Offices by such persons who by a continued chain or line of succession can securely derive their Commission from the person of Christ. From whom as from our common Parent there is an holy seed under the new Covenant though not annexed to a Family as that of Aaron yet to an holy Calling for a perpetual spiritual propagation Now the end of this Chain is in the hand of God who sent Christ who sent his Apostles As my Father hath sent me so send I you Joh. 20.21 The Apostles to maintain that succession did in their respective charges appoint and ordain successors with engagement that they should still propagate the Office of the Gospels holy Priesthood as it appears by St. Pauls order to Titus I have left thee at Crete to ordain Elders in every City Tit. 1.5 Hence it is that our Saviour tells his Apostles Lo I am with you to the end of the World Matth. 28. that is not with them onely in their persons but in their successors also who should proceed directly from their spiritual loyns And for this reason it is that the Ancients unbiassed Judges in this Enquiry have taken such care and were observed to be so curious in Marshalling the successions of the Bishops of the principal seats of Christianity for which Epiphanius gives this reason after he had exactly recorded the very names of the several successions Let no man wonder that we so carefully recite such things and names for per haec enim semper claritas ostenditur they are an evidence of the truth of our holy Calling and consequently of the Church it self Now as to the present Church of England we have had this blessing from God that both for the earliness and uninterruption of the line of our successions no Church in the Christian World can pretend to a better evidence and that Rome it self after all her insultations must be content with one much more perplext and doubtful as might easily be made appear And I am morally assured of this comfort that there is no Bishop nor Priest of the Church of England but may and ought to believe his spiritual pedigree as truly derived from the Person of Jesus the first Bishop and Priest of the Gospel as any Prince can make his title to his Crown or any Noble man to his honour and inheritance by a succession from Ancestors of farr shorter Antiquity and continuance But of this honour and blessing the two Milstones as the great Archbishop calls them our Enemies on either hand have endeavoured to deprive us First The Romanists would fain blend our succession by the vain Fable of the Nags-head-Ordination But Mason and incomparable Bramhall have so perfectly baffled that idle and groundless story that their late more learned Controverters have wholly laid it aside and so needs not the trouble of a particular Confutation On the other hand our Fanaticks do chuse to question and decry it because the line ran through the time in which Romish superstition prevailed But to this I answer That succession is as by acts of Propagation and the Roman Corruptions could have no more power or influence on our Ecclesiastick Generation then the unworthiness of a Parent in begetting a Child or of a Priest in baptizing it And we know the succession of Mankind is not interrupted in the one nor Christian Profession in the other But to conclude grant that some of our spiritual Ancestors were so corrupted yet it is more honourable to have had a bad great Grandfathers Grandfather then to have no known Father at all or that the worst of Fathers should be our immediate Predecessor On the other side the contrary mark of the spirits that are not of God is as our Saviour intimates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 24.11 they shall arise as without mission so without succession or propagation by which the Churches lawful Pastors lineally descend They arise as the smoak ascends that darkens the Sun and the Air Rev. 9.2 or like the Beast armed for mischief with heads and horns Rev. 13.1 or like the Tares of the field which the husbandman never sowed that is they shall climb unto their Offices by the steps of Ambition or are raised up to them by popular favour and voice of tumultuous Assemblies who commonly if permitted as St. Paul observes love to heap to themselves their own Teachers 2 Tim. 4.3 whom they keep and govern and by whom they may always be uncontrollably humoured and observed But let them be made by whom they please they are not constituted by Gods order and so not of God The third and last Character in concurrence with the former to direct our trial of spirits is that such spirits are then demonstrably of God who teach and maintain the doctrines of God Men may be false Prophets by false Doctrines as well as by false Callings And the Arian Priests were such by their heretical principles as well as the Arian Presbyters by their unlawful Ordinations But because the whole circle of the differing parties from the Romanist to the Quaker do all make claim and center in this pretence that their several doctrines are of God and lest we should seem barely to presume and assert our own to be so as most of Adversaries use to do and not sufficiently demonstrate that they are so Therfore it is just and necessary that we endeavour to find out such marks that may signally distinguish the doctrines that be of God from those that are not and then see how farr the doctrines of the Church of England stand in agreement with them 1. First then Those are the doctrines that are of God which as to the fundamentals of

Faith are either expresly declared or evidently deduced from the holy Scriptures and none to be believed as such but those that are so And as to the super-fundamental Articles of Doctrine contrived for the common peace and order of particular Churches such as are our 39 Articles and as the Confessions of other Churches ought to be so accounted if they be not refutable by the Scriptures and the analogy of Faith nor be contrariant to right reason ought also to be reputed the Doctrines of God 2. But then secondly Because God was pleased so to deliver his truths in Scripture for reasons before mentioned to which many more might be added with some obscurity though not so much so by it self as made so by the moral infirmities of mens understandings therefore Christ did provide and immediately send another guide which the Apostles themselves did seem to stand in need of though they were blest with Christs personal instructions and that was the Holy Ghost which he promised should guide them into all truth Joh. 16.13 And lest it should seem to have concerned the Apostles onely in their time it was also promised to abide with them for ever Joh. 14.16 that is for the benefit of their successors and the whole Church to the end of the World Therefore whosoever would afterward understand the doctrines which were of God was obliged not onely to be governed by his own private reading the Scriptures and judgment upon them but also to enquire for and to submit to the conduct of Gods Spirit wheresoever it was to be found Now this is principally to be understood as to cases in controversie and to difficult places but as to the fundamentals of the common Faith and rules of Holy Life as they are plainly set down in Scripture and easily discoverable to every honest mind so every man ought to be encouraged to a constant reading of them for the confirmation of his Faith and government of his Life 3. Therefore thirdly and lastly Our next enquiry is to understand where those promises were or are fulfilled and where the guiding Office of the Holy Ghost was or is executed and performed that men may attend to it and be guided by it in all cases of different perswasions and professions that they may know which are of God The Romanists would engross it to the Churches of their Communion onely and that by as an infallible a conduct as the Apostles enjoyed it But because this pretence hath been so lately examined and sufficiently baffled I shall only enquire how some Popes themselves should be recorded to have been notorious Hereticks as particularly Liberius and Honorius and then how he that relies on that pretence can reasonably think himself secure The Fanaticks on the other side if as to us they may be thought altogether to be of two sides lay claim to it by an especial particular light given to them of God or as the soberer sort of them by a private sufficient assistance from God in the use of the best mears they can for the understanding the Scriptures But there needs no other confuration of this pretence but their certain disappointment that have trusted ' o it made evident by their own unconstancy of opining and the perpetual disagreements of those that have made that claim There is but one more that I know of was ever pretended to and indeed then which I cannot imagine any other that can with any shew of reason be offered in satisfaction to this Enquiry and that is the Holy Ghosts guidance of the universal Church in all Ages and places to be observed in those doctrines and interpretations of Scripture according to the famous rule of Vincentius Lirinensis which claim to Primitive Antiquity universal Profession and Consent Quod ubique quod semper quod ab emnibus hoc vere proprieque catholicum cap. 30. So that the sum of this Enquiry is that those are the doctrines of Christ and his Apostles which have been received as such in the first and purest Ages and that have continued to be acknowledged as such by the most universal Consent and Profession Against the absoluteness and unexceptionable exactness of this rule of Vincentius whatsoever may be alledged or granted it must for ever stand uncontrolled till any other rule can be produced or imagined which I think no man hath pretended to attempt that may in any degree demonstrate the promises of the Holy Spirit guiding into all truth Now this is the Glory of the Church of England and which hath made her the envy of all her dissenting Neighbours round about her that in all her Doctrines Government and Worship she alone can offer her self to this most reasonable and antient Rule to be tried and judged to which no other Church in the World dare pretend to submit Therefore it is that all those doctrines wherein we differ from the Church of Rome cannot be from the conduct of Gods Spirit and so not the doctrines of the Spirits that are of God because they want the first part of Vincentius his rule that is succession from primitive antiquity And therefore the great Archbishop offered this challenge p. 382. That if any Jesuite can prove that by a visible continued succession to this day either Transubstantiation in the Eucharist the Eucharist in one kind or Purgatory or Worship of Images or Prayers in an unknown Tongue with divers other points have been so taught I for my part will yield the cause As to the private opinions of some ancient Fathers as those of Tertul Orig. St. Austin and others though they had antiquity yet they wanted universal consent and so were maintained against that part of the evidence of being the Doctrines of God And then as to the new opinions of these times so strongly contended for by our present dissenters such as concern their new models of Government manner of Worship and several opinions as they stand in opposition to the present established Church of England could not be from Christ and his Apostles and they that teach them not the spirits that are of God because they want all the marks of Gods Spirit as having neither primitive Antiquity nor universal Consent Profession or Practice and we challenge them to shew it if they have any which if they do I shall willingly sacrifice all that I have said against them to shame and Recantation All the Arguments that I know they have to tempt them from their conformity to this excellent Church is either ignorance because they understand it not or perverseness of humour and discontentedness of mind which in some men must for ever be gratified by opposition or else an habitual dislike which they call tender Conscience which we may then believe to be sincerely pretended when we see the same tenderness expressed in the most considerable practices of Christianity and Holy Life as Justice Mercy Obedience to Authority and the like as well as in the declining a poor innocent Ceremony or formation of substantial Worship no where forbidden by God and commanded by the just Laws of men This is the third and last mark and Character of the Spirits that are of God to whose conduct we may entrust our souls and that is such as teach the Doctrines that are of God And now you see by the transient applications that I have made and the clear evidence of the matter it self upon what a sure foundation the present constituted Church of England stands above any Profession of Christianity in the World As to my endeavour of offering all the marks of a true Church and its Ministry I thank God I can testifie to him that I have with-held no evidence that I know of that may discover the truth nor offered any thing in my applications of them to our own which my soul hath not as faithfully dictated as my Tongue expressed Time gives me not leave to offer any further applications onely I desire and pray to God that those that yet truly adhere to this Church may by what I have said find reason to love and honour it and the true Spirits of God within it more and more and that those that are departed from it may timely and seriously consider upon what slender evidence they have done it and may speed their return to it as to a Church that hath all the marks of God and Characters of truth upon it And I hope there be many amongst us that have so much compassion for them as to be willing if God Almighty should grant it as a condition of so great a mercy to be something that may resemble St. Pauls noble Charity when he wished himself accursed that is at least to be deprived of the happiness of an outward Profession of Christianity to bring the Romans to it Rom. 9.3 that such our dissenters were returned in mind and practice to serve God with us with one heart and mouth Which God grant for Jesus sake FINIS