Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	build_v	peter_n	rock_n	30,238	5	9.7701	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30391	A modest survey of the most considerable things in a discourse lately published, entituled Naked truth written in a letter to a friend.; Selections. 1685	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1676 (1676)	Wing B5835; ESTC R16335	27,965	32

Bishops only Presidents This is of no force for that Father had no occasion given him to reckon up the several Functions in the Church when he was writing an Apology for the Christians to the Roman Senate in which he gives a plain and simple account of their Faith and Worship but it had been to very little purpose for him to have told the Roman Senate what were the several Orders of Church-Offices among them And it is not improbable that both he and Tertullian might have used the Term President the rather because it would be the more easily understood by the Romans than either Bishop or Priest The sixth objection is from St. Cyprian who calls himself Praepositus or President But neither does this signifie much for we are to consider the sence of Authours not so much by some terms or words they use as by the formal accounts they give us when they come to treat expresly on any subject Therefore when we would examine that Father's opinion in this matter we are neither to consider what in modesty he writes to his Flock or Clergy nor what terms he makes use of but the sure way is to see what his sense of the Episcopal Authority was when he formally treated of it upon it's being questioned and to this we have reason to appeal St. Cyprian's Counsel was asked by Rogatian another Bishop concerning the censure of a Deacon who had carried himself insolently toward him to whom St. Cyprian writes that by the vigor of his Episcopat and the Authority of his Chair he had just power to have avenged that insolence instantly And toward the end he says these are the beginnings of Hereticks and the rise and attempts of ill meaning Schismaticks that they may please themselves and despise their Bishop with a swelling pride So men separate from the Church so a prophane Altar is set up without and so men rebel against the Peace of Christ and the divine Ordinance and Unity These words St. Cyprian writes like one that prophesied of the age we are born in and if he does not assert the Power of Jurisdiction to the height I leave to every ones eyes And the same Saint in another Epistle challenging the insolent presumption of some Priests hath these words There is no danger which we ought not now to fear our Lord being thus offended when some of the Priests who neither are mindful of the Gospel of their place or of the judgement to come and consider not that there is a Bishop set over them do assume all to themselves to the reproach and contempt of him that is set over them which was never at all done by any that went before us And another of his Epistles which is about the same subject concerning the Lapsed that had fallen in the persecution begins with these words Our Lord whose commands we ought to fear and observe when he was settling the Bishop's honour or authority and the rule of his Church says to Peter I say thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church c. From thence through the Revolution of times and successions the Ordination of Bishops and the account of the Church hath run down that the Church should be constituted upon Bishops and every Act of the Church should be governed by these Presidents or Praepositi as that Authour would have them called though he seems not to have considered that by this Saint they were not bare Overseers but had the whole power lodged with them Since then this is founded by the Divine Law I wonder at the bold rashness of some that wrote to me as they did since the Church is made up of the Bishops the Clergy and all that stand i. e. in the Faith or stand in the Worship And if in all these places St. Cyprian that lived within 140. years of the Apostles does not very formally assure us that both the full Authority was in the Bishop and that this was settled by Christ so that there remains no room for any shift or answer I appeal to you and every unprejudiced Reader But there is yet a clearer and less suspected testimony in St. Cyprian's works in an Epistle which the Clergy of Rome wrote to him when their See was vacant after Fabian's death from which we may judge what sense the Priests of that age had of the Episcopal Office These are their words after the death of Fabian of most noble memory There is no Bishop yet constituted among us by reason of the difficulty of affairs and the times who should regulate all these things and must consider the case of the Lapsed with authority and advice Can any thing be more evident than at that time which was but 150. years after the Apostles were dead it was acknowledged by the Priests that they had no full Authority to govern the Church when they wanted a Bishop Now if the difference between Bishop and Priest be only by Commission they being both the same Order then certainly in a vacancy the Priests have a full power But here we see the greatest company of Priests then in the Christian world did not think they were of the same Order or had the Authority of a Bishop even in a sede vacante The seventh objection is That Presbyters are ordained in the same form in which Christ ordained his Apostles Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose sins yo forgive they are forgiven them This must either prove nothing to the purpose or too much for if there be any strength in this consequence it must amount to this That all ●●esbyters are of the same order the Apostles were of which certainly that Authour will think is too much The answer to it is given by St. Paul that there are diversities of operations administrations and gifts but it is the same God the same Lord and the same Spirit for all these worketh that one and the self same Spirit And since it is both by the authority and assistance of the Holy Ghost that all these offices are derived and discharged it is no argument to prove the Offices are the same because we pray that all may receive the Holy Ghost it being necessarily to be understood that every one receives it in his own order Nor do the following words of forgiving of sins prove any more but that both these offices are empowered to that equally For it is acknowledged that a Priest gives absolution as well as a Bishop but from their being both authorized equally in one thing it is somewhat a strange kind of inference to conclude there is nothing else which a Bishop has authority to do that is not competent to a Priest The last objection is from the inconvenience that must needs follow on our asserting Bishops and Priests to be of different orders since this must condemn and un-church all the foreign Churches which were indeed a very severe and uncharitable censure I know this is very popular

any man's reasoning faculties are not sound that sees not a necessary series of truths hanging closely together in this contexture So that it is plain the Arians and our Modern Plotinians who are indeed more ingenuous than the Arians were did not think the Word that was made Flesh was truly God And now let any Man judge if there can be a greater and weightier matter than whether Jesus Christ were God by Nature or only a Creature Nor can a mistake rise higher than to believe Him to be a meer Man who is the Eternal Son of God or Him to be the Eternal Son of God who was only a meer Man This controversie was not only speculative but practical for our apprehensions and belief must direct our acts of worship and adoration if Christ be only a Man we cannot have that veneration for Him that confidence in Him or love to Him which we offer to the great God For there can be no Idolatry in the World so great as the worshipping a meer Man with the same adoration both inward and outward that we offer up to the Father This is sure if any thing can be the giving God's Glory to another On the other hand if He be the great God and of the same substance with the Father it is the most irreverent irreligious and ungrateful thing in the whole World not to offer that adoration which is due to Him equally with the Father He having so signally commended and expressed his love to us So that this is a matter not only of speculation but of practice This may suffice to satisfie any body how just reasonable and necessary it was for the Council of Nice to make their Definition in this matter that so a Test might be found out for discriminating the Catholicks from the Hereticks I am as far from a desire of multiplying new Creeds and Subscriptions as any man alive but if there be not some in the Church how soon may a conspiracy be laid and formed within the bosom of it that lying secret under general expressions till it be ripe and strong at length as out of a Trojan-horse shall burst forth to ruine and subvert Religion It is indeed a high tyranny of the Church of Rome that has added Anathemaes to her Canons about lesser and disputable points but except there be Foundations laid on which all the builders of the Church must edifie we shall soon grow worse than a Babel for we shall build with divided Languages and Tongues For what he says about ceremonies and all other controverted heads among us I shall only offer you one or two considerations The first is that in all such Rents as are now in our Church it is a very unreasonable demand to desire any thing that is established should be changed without a very great cause for to love changes for changes sake is an argument of a light unsettled mind And mutations in things external work much on the vulgar who seldom looking beyond what they see and hear are apt to be much startled at any visible alteration This made our blessed Saviour in his new Dispensation alter outward things as little as was possible Therefore he sanctified two Rites that were familiar to the Jews to be the two great Sacraments of his Gospel that so the Jews might be as little startled as might be But if there did appear great and just causes to change things that are indifferent there is no doubt but the Fathers of our Church and our Legislators the King and His two Houses of Parliament would examine them very deliberately If then the Authour of that Paper offers any reasons for a change he must take care they be very good and material ones I hope he will not insist on the so often baffled objections against them There is but one new reason can be offered and that is an agreement of a considerable body of our Dissenters to desire such concessions upon which they being granted they would enter into the Communion of the Church when this is once done then such a step were made as must needs set all men to very deep and serious considerations to ballance the evils of Schism the danger of Popery the relaxing all order and the abounding of all impiety among us which those who have made the Schism are deeply guilty of It is the duty of all men to lay these things home to the Consciences of such as separate from us that they may not stiffly keep up a breach thorough which so much mischief flows in upon us but may in colder blood review what is past and come to make such offers as may encourage those who love peace and moderation to drive on so desired a work But to expose the dignity of a Church and of constitutions settled by so long a prescription to the scorn of every bold Dissenter can have no other effect but to encourage them in their Schism and heap contempt upon our selves when we prostitute Law and Authority to such affronts Then do those that divide boast as if we distrusted our Cause or were afraid either of the strength of their Reasons or of their Party and they stand their ground the more firmly because they see us quitting ours and are confident that if they can weather out a few more blasts we will leave the field entirely to them This makes their pride swell and their demands become endless and unsatisfiable But if their Stomachs were so far down that they had the Humility and honesty to confess they had been mistaken in some things and were now resolved to go as far towards the repairing our breaches as their Consciences could allow and did propose a clear Scheme of what they would submit to and on what terms they would again enter into the Communion of the Church then I am confident such candid dealing will find an entertainment beyond what they can justly hope for And that upon very good reasons for we ought to make another account of the modest scruples of such as are indeed tender Consciences than of the presumptuous demands of insolent Sectaries And it is most just that propositions this way ought to begin from them they are Subjects and the Laws are settled and they gave very just cause both to Church and State to be displeased with them and to distrust them and so they ought to address for favour upon such reasonable terms that the insolence of their demands may give no new grounds of irritation and offence And till then all that is incumbent on us of the Church is first to live and labour so as to outdo all these appearances of good among them which have wrought so much on the vulgar then to pray the God of Peace that he would of his infinite Mercy and compassion to these divided Churches pour down a Spirit of Love and Peace on all men and in fine to do all that lies in us to convince those that separate of the evil of