Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	hand_n	imposition_n	ordination_n	2,839	5	9.9482	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75477	Antipharmacum Saluberrimum; or, A serious & seasonable caveat to all the saints in this hour of temptation. Wherein their present dangers are detected, and their present duties vigorously urged		1664 (1664)	Wing A3503; ESTC R229361	43,186	47

the Pharisees were so often disappointed in their attempts to lay hands upon Christ they had a strong design to do it but the Text saith They could not because of the People Mark 14.2 Acts 4.21 Mark 14.2 Acts 4.21 So the false Teachers in Jeroboams time Hos 7.6 7. were as hot as an Oven with desires and designs to draw the People to false Worship but the People were a great Lump and could not presently be leavened and therefore in the mean time till that were done the Baker slept and ceased from raising This for a time obstructed the design But here is the misery the people are materia disposita matter fit for them to work into any form if they give them but an heat or two in a plausable Sermon they are malliable and fit to be hammered into any shape Jer. 5. ult The People love to have it so And Amos 4.5 This-liketh you O house of Israel Fear of Persecution makes them comply with any thing Gal. 6.12 Can you attend lawfully and comfortably upon such a Ministry Arg. 3. upon which you cannot pray for or expect a blessing doubtless you will readily confess you may not And can you pray for or expect a blessing where you have no promise in all the Book of God to warrant or encourage you so to do 't is as clear you cannot Now produce but one promise made to the labours of such as God hath not sent A curse upon their labours you may find Jer. 23.32 and upon their gifts and parts And a prohibition of hearing them you may find Jer. 23.16 But no promise of a blessing that only attends a Ministry of Christs own sending Mat. 28.19 20. Object But hath not Christ sent them how shall we be satisfied in that Consider what is requisite and necessary in the sending Sol. or due Call of a Minister 1. Whether it be personal Qualifications described 1 Tim. 3.7 2 Tim. 3.16 17. 1 Tim. 3.2 2 Tim. 2.2 John 21.15 16 17. 2. Or free Election by the Church to which the Ministry is given See Acts 1.23 24. Acts 6.5 3. Or according to true Presbyterian Principles Ordination by Fasting Prayer and Imposition of Hands Acts 6.6 13.3 14.23 1 Tim. 5.22 4.14 2 Tim. 1.6 If the Sending or Call of a Minister consist in all or either of these than judge your selves whether these men are sent For their Gifts and Qualifications necessary to fit them for such a work let their Congregations witness who are fed upon husks and starved under them For their Election by the Church let the Godly in their respective Parishes witness whether they were elected by them or obtruded upon them and so stand upon the ruines of their own lawful and godly Pastours And for their Ordination their own Canons may inform you Wherein it is ordered 1. That they be made Deacons 2. Then after a years space they must be presented to the Bishop or his Suffragan by an Arch Deacon or his Deputy saying Reverend Father in God I present these persons to be admitted to the Order of Priesthood 3. Then after the Lettany and some Collects the Prelate asketh them Do you think in your hearts that you be truly called according to the Will of Christ and the Order of this Church of England to the Ministry of Priesthood and every one of them answers I think it 4. Then they promise reverently to obey their Ordinary and other chief Ministers of the Church 5. And then kneeling down at the Prelates feet he with the Priests present lay their hands on their heads saying Receive the holy Ghost Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained and be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of his holy Sacraments In the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost Amen 6. Then delivering to each of them a Bible he saith Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God and to administer the holy Sacraments in the Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed 7. And after all this by the Canons of 1603. none of them are to be admitted to any Ecclesiastical Living or suffered to preach except he be licensed so to do by the Arch-Bishop or Bishop of the Diocess and shall subscribe That the Book of Common-Prayer and of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons contains in it nothing contrary to the Word of God and that it may be lawfully used and that he himself will use the same And that he alloweth the Book of Articles of Religion 8. And then lastly having abjured the Covenant c. he is a compleat Priest to all Intents and Purposes Judge now what a fair and regular Call here is to the Ministry I remember Aquinas tells us that If the Artificers Hand were his Rule he could never work amiss And so if the Prelates Hand be the Rule of Ordination they cannot but be well ordained but if the Scriptures be indeed the Rule I am at a loss where to find a Text parallel to this Practice unless it be that in 2 Chron. 13.9 which I confess suits it to an hairs breadth Object But this will invalidate and nullifie the Call of our former ancient and godly Ministers for they came in the same way Yet God hath owned them and they have made full proof of their Ministry Sol. Not at all For 1. though it must be confest and themselves will not deny but there were many grand Irregularities in their Ordination yet it was comparatively a time of ignorance and darkness and in such cases God is more indulgent and the sin receives not such aggravations Acts 17.30 Heb. 5.2 Heb. 6.5 6 7. Jam. 4.17 2. As hard as the terms then were they are harder now by far several things since that have intervened which are considerable 3. They were holy men qualified with Graces and Gifts able and apt to teach which is mainly considerable in a Ministers Call 4. Lastly they generally came into their places at the desire and upon the call of the most godly persons in the places where they lived And this if they had no more makes them true Ministers in the judgement of many judicious Divines although their Episcopal Ordination should be a nullity Let us here what is said in this case by others Amesius his words are these speaking to this question In whom is this right and power of calling the Ministers he answers 1. Summum jus vocationis est penes Christum solum Ames Cas consci lib. 4. p. 233. qui est Ecclesiae caput Ministerij auctor ac Dominus Ministrorum 2. Jus delegatum non potest proprie esse vel Episcoporum Diaecesanorum vel Patranorum vel Magis tratuum qua sunt tales quia Christus qui Ministerium instituit de istis ordinibus nihil singulare prescripsit nihil novi juris ipsis communicavit et Ecclesiam sine illis optime ordinatam

reliquit 3. Jus delegatum est Penes Ecclesiam illam totam cui Minister vocandus debit inservire c. 1. The chief right of calling is the Power of Christ alone who is Head of the Church Author of the Ministry and Lord of Ministers 2. The delegated right cannot properly be either of diocesan Bishops or Patrons or Magistrates as such because Christ who instituted the Ministry prescribed nothing singular concerning those Orders communicated nothing of any new right to them and left his Church well ordered without them 3. The delegated Right is in the power of that whole Church to which the Minister that is to be called ought to serve c. Which he proves by many weighty Arguments To this I shall joyn the Testimony of that blessed man now with God Mr. Jer. Burroughs his words are these For their calling I make no question Burroughs on the 11th of Mat. 28. 2d Book p. 110. but there are many Ministers in England as they were and as they are that are the true Ministers of Jesus Christ and have a true Call from Christ Object But how can that be they hold their standing from the Bishops and so from Antichrist Answ Take it for granted that their Authority from the Bishops was wholly naught and sinful yet that doth not follow but that many Ministers that had their Ordination from them are true Ministers of Christ Why not because of that they had from them but they had their calling likewise from the People of God as well as in a seeming way from them for we will take that for granted that that they had from them there was such corruption in it that they sinned against God but yet mark that doth not nullifie their Call because they had somewhat super-added wherein they sinned against God This he farther illustrates in the same place by this similitude If a man have two Deeds or Evidences for a piece of Land and one be naught Mr. Collins vindiciae Minist p. 73. yet if the other be good and sound he hath a true Title Mr. Collings also answering this Objection Ministers had their Ordination from Bishops and they from Rome Rome is no true Church and hath no true Ministry and those that were not Ministers themselves could not make others Having inferr'd several absurdities from the Objection gives this answer Suppose the Reformers had no Ordination but the Call of the People it was a plain case of necessity and they had power doubtless to restore that Ordinance to the Church again So that as long as they were holy men so eminently qualified and fairly called by good People far be it from me to question the validity of their Call But the Case before us differs Heaven-wide from this Object But they are not worse than the Scribes and Pharisees were yet Christ commands his Disciples to hear them Mat. 23.2 3. Sol. Because this is the Achilean Argument I shall endeavour to satisfie you in this Scripture and destroy the Argument commonly drawn from this place by these plain and as I judge satisfactory replies to it 1. Those that infer from this Text a duty or a liberty of attending on or joyning with a prophane and corrupt Ministry do thereby though perhaps unawares gratifie the Popish Cause and Interest for from this very Text they draw many of their Arguments to condemn our separation from them and also to convince us of the necessity of obeying the Mandates of their Prelates and hearing their Jesuites and Monks notwithstanding their corruptions in worship and filthy sodomitical lives Huc enim torquent verba Christi saith Calvin To this sense they wrest the words of Christ And to the same sence Pareus speaks Ut hodie Papa et Episcopi clamant omnia omnia servate As the Pope and the Bishops cry out at this day all things all things they bid you do observe and doe So that by taking the words in such a large unlimitted sense we do the Cause of Christ more disservice than we are aware of 2. It is further considerable that the Arguments drawn from this Text are commonly fallacious taking it for granted that religious hearing as an act of worship is here injoyned whereas there is not a syllable of any such thing in the Text Indeed Christ bids them observe and do whatsoever they bid them but it doth not thence follow they should religiously attend on their Ministry 1. Because its evident these Scribes and Pharisees sustained a double capacity they were Expositors of the Law that we allow and they were also of the Sanedrim in a civil capacity as Rulers that appears from John 3.1.10 Acts 5.34 In this civil capacity they are most properly said to sit in Moses's Seat for the 70 Elders which made up this Sanedrim came in upon a civil score at first as appears from Numb 11.16 17. and so were joyned with Moses in the Government Now then this command seems most properly to respect them as Rulers who in that capacity both opened the judicial Laws of Moses and enjoyned the people to obey them 2. Because Christ had before warned them to take heed of their leaven i.e. their Doctrine Mat. 16.6 12. and told them they were blind Guides and what the fatal issue of them and their Disciples that followed them would be Mat. 15.14 both should fall into the ditch and that their worship was vain Mat. 15.9 and it is not like he would afterwards encourage them to attend on it 3. But admit it were so that Christ gives them liberty to hear them as Ministers though they were corrupt yet it is no good consequence that therefore we may hear any Ministers though never so corrupt in principles and practice now And the reason which destroyes this consequence is this because there is a vast difference betwixt the infant State of the Gospel-Church in the dayes of Christ on earth and its more perfect State after his death we know the first Tabernacle was then standing the Vail of the Temple not then rent in twain the Gospel-Ministry not then instituted and therefore during that State as Christ himself submitted to the Ordinances of the Law for it became him to fulfill all Righteousness so did his Disciples submit to them also yea and he exhorts others also to observe the rites appointed by it as Mat. 8.4 bids him that was cleansed to go and shew himself to the Priest and offer his Gift which the Law of Moses required But since the death of Christ and the taking down of that first Tabernacle and the institution of the Gospel-Ministry none of these Precepts bind for as Judicious Pareus on the place notes this was but Mandatum temporale a temporal Command which ceased to oblige upon the commissionating and full instruction of the New Gospel-Ministry And then it 's manifest saith he they made a Separation from the Pharisees and the Jewish Synagogue Now we are to attend upon no Ministry but of Christ's