Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	aaron_n	family_n	priest_n	101	3	6.1479	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85746	Of the authority of the highest powers about sacred things. Or, The right of the state in the Church. Wherein are contained many judicious discourses, pertinent to our times, and of speciall use for the order and peace of all Christian churches. / Put into English by C.B. M.A. The method of every chapter is added in the margent, and collected at the end.; De imperio summarum potestarum circa sacra. English.	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Barksdale, Clement, 1609-1687, translator.	1651 (1651)	Wing G2117; Thomason E1244_1; ESTC R202244	156,216	365

Election inferrs thus Yet I will not thence conclude that the right of electing Bishops is to be reduced to the promiscuous Votes of the common people for whether it be better that the Bishop be design'd at the meeting of the whole Church or by the suffrages of a few no right Constitution can be prescribed to all Churches for severall Countries have severall Laws Customes and Institutes If any in whom the right is abuse it by Tyranny they are compelled into order by the Holy Magistrate or the right of designing Ministers may be transferr'd from them to others for it is sufficient that some Elders performe that office of Electing upon command of the King or Magistrate by the advise and Counsell of men who understand what the function of a Bishop is what is the condition of that Church or People over which a Pastor is to be appointed who also can judge of the endowments the learning and manners of every one By this right Justinian as we have said Constituted a manner of Electing somewhat receding from the former usage and the antient Canons by this right after the Nicene Canon were many Bishops elected by the Clergy and the People The Lawes of Charles the Great and other Kings are extant containing divers wayes of Electing so that Bucer said most truly The form of Election is prescribed by pious Princes Let us now consider whether the Highest Power it self may make Election the question is not whether it ought to make it nor whether it be alwayes expedient to doe so but whether if it doe make Election it commit any offence against the Law Divine We say with the excellent Marsilius Patavinus The Law-giver or Prince is not by any Law of God prohibited from the Institution Collation or Distribution of Ecclesiasticall offices Whosoever affirm the contrary doe accuse of impiety innumerable pious Princes of antient and of this age which truly is a point of great temerity when no Divine Law can be produced to prohibit it as hath been abundantly by others and by us in some part demonstrated Although this might suffice for whatever is not circumscrib'd by Divine Law is within the sphere of the Highest Power yet for the desending of our sentence both reasons and examples are in readinesse The first reason is taken hence that all actions even those that naturally belong to others not having causes determined by nature we see are rightly exercised by the H. Power Naturally men choose teachers for their children and give them Guardians sick persons make use of what Physician they please Merchants elect the Curators of their Company Yet in many places Guardianship is appointed by Law alone or the will of the Magistrates Physicians are constituted by publick Order and Informers of Youth too with interdiction of others from the practice of those faculties and to the Commanies of Merchants are fit Curators also appointed by the Highest Power without blame of any any But if this right be competent to the Highest Power over those things which did belong to every one much more over those things that belong unto the People because the power of the people is devolved upon it as all men know that have any knowledge of the Lawes That sometimes there may be just causes why the H. Power should challenge to it self the Election of Pastors no wise man will deny For often errours introduced into the Church against the word of God cannot be rooted out by other means often there is no other way to avoid Schism often the suffrages of the Clergy are disturb'd with factions popular election with seditions whereof are extant many examples even of the purer times Adde in the last place that the times are now and then so boisterous that the King will hardly keep the Crown upon his head except hee have a care the Pastors may be most obedient and faithfull to him Verily all Histories doe witnesse how dearly the German Emperours paid for their abdication of this Imperiall Right That we may come to Examples it hath been shewed afore that before the Mosaicall Law and afterward among the Nations without Judaea Kings themselves enjoyed the Priesthood the Divine Law not then forbidding it at which time there can be no doubt the Priesthood might also have been committed by them to others as we read the Pontifs and Flamens were created by the Kings of Rome But among the Hebrew people after Moses Law no man except of Aarons family could be admitted to the office of a Priest nor to the service of the Temple unlesse he were a Levit. Hence is Jeroboam justly blam'd for choosing Priests who were not Levits for the Law did not allow it nor was it in the King to command Sacrifices to be offered in any place but the accustomed which after David was Jerusalem Other Functions or the places for them the King might assigne to the Priests and Levits So were some Levits appointed by David for preaching others for singing And that there should be Singers with Harps and other Instruments was God's precept by the Prophets as the application of persons to the severall offices is every where attributed to David under the name of King and after David to Solomon and Jehoshaphat the King not the Prophet by name electeth Priests and Levits whom he might send forth to the Cities of Juda to instruct them The very same thing that is here debated For as some Fathers were of opinion the right of blood in the Moisaicall Law is correspondent to the Imposition of hands in the Christian Law As then the Hebrew King may apply certain persons to a certain office and place but only such as were of Aarons family and Levits so the Christian King rightly makes a Presbyter or Bishop of a certain City but of them which are ordain'd or to be ordain'd And so did Nehemia's Lieutenant to the Persian King leave some Levits in the particular Cities others hee called forth unto Jerusalem Yea the High Priest attained not that dignity by Succession but Election of the great Synedry yet confined unto certain families which Election seemeth to have been the regall right when the Kings reigned the most learned of the Hebrews Maimonides hath observed But let us proceed with the Christians Before Constantine no man will wonder that no Christian Pastors were elected by the Emperours when the Emperours either were enemies to the Church or had it in contempt and accounted it not worthy of their care Constantine gave the force of a Law to the Nicene Canon of Election to be made by Bishops other Emperours after him did the like either by renewing the Canon or not abrogating of it And 't is manifest this manner of Election was long in use the Empire being of greater extent than that the Emperours diligence could provide for all the Churches Notwithstanding this it was lawfull for the Emperours if they pleased to Elect by themselves For seeing it

the Primacy that method was alter'd by a Councill providing that merit not seniority should Create a Bishop ordained by the judgement of many Priests to the end an unworthy person might not unadvisedly usurp the place and so become a scandall to many Hee saith the primacy of Timothy among the Presbyters is acknowledged by the Apostle Whereas some learned men would hence set up a certain circular praesidency herein they are opposed by all the antient Monuments that are extant nor doe the words of Ambrose help them for receding is all one with dying or departing And whereas the Courses of the Priests are brought hither to establish this Interpretation any one may see with half an eye how impertinent it is when those Courses make nothing toward presidency which was alwaies in the High-Priest and other Chief of their Classes But the alleged Writer his meaning is that Seniority in age or rather in Function was valued in the making of Bishops Wherein although none of the Antients be on his side yet if wee understand him of certain Churches what hee saith is not incredible For also the Archimandrits or chiese of Hermitages at the Commencement of Monachism were elected according to that Order To believe him of all Churches Jeroms testimony of the Alexandrian Custom will not permit The same Writer concerning Timothy Timothy now Created Bishop he institutes by epistle how he ought to govern the Church Concerning Titus Titus the Apostle Consecrated an Apostle and so admonisheth him to be sollicitous for the well ordering of the Church No other are the judgements concerning Titus Timothy of Epiphanius Eusebius Chrysostom Oecumenius Theodoret Theophilact Primasius as by producing their words hath been demonstrated by others Yea the Oecumenicall Synod of Chalcedon saith After S. Timothy untill now have been made xxvii Bishops all ordained in Ephefus For Antiquity did not believe what of late some with confidence aflirm that they who were Evangelists could not be created Bishops As long as they walked about the Provinces they did the office of Evangelists but when beholding in one place a plentifull harvest they thought fit to cherish it with their longer Presence doubtlesse being presidents to the Presbytery they performed all offices Episcopall Upon which reason Antiquity believed that the Apostles also were truly Bishops of certain Cities namely in those places where they made longer stay or to speak more properly where they sate by which word Luke hath very emphaticully expressed Paul's abode with the Corinthians Besides Timothy and Titus we read of others advanced by the Apostles into the Episcopall throne Concerning Evodius thus to the Antiochians writes Ignatius He first by the Apostles hands was promoted to our presidency What presidency that is is not left doubtfull by Ignatius who every where distinguisheth the Bishop from the Presbyters and preferrs him above them You must doe nothing without the Bishop but be subject to his Presbytery And in another place The reverend Presbytery being dear to God is so fitted to the Bishop as the strings to the Harp And again in another place What is the Bishop but the Prince and the Presbyters but his Counsellours This is that Ignatius who saw Christ in the flesh who lived with the Apostles who next after Evodius was Bishop in the Church of Antioch A question may be made when as their office who were over the Presbyters by a certain perpetuall dignity is so antient and approv'd by Christ himself by what name was that Honour entitled before the common name of Bishops began peculiarly to be ascrib'd unto this Presidence which as Jerom thinks began about the viii year of Nero. The antient Fathers are of opinion that those Princes of the Presbyters were stil'd Apostles And truly there remain in Cyprian and other Authours not a few obscure prints of this locution Yea Paul himself when he saith Hee was nothing lesse than the chiefe of the Apostles seems to intimate there were some other Apostles of lesser mark That the name of Angel was antiently given to him who afterward began to be called Bishop the Apocalyps evinceth For it appears the word was taken as of common use because those Letters are popularly written and the Mystery of the Starrs is explained by the appellation of Angels as being very obvious but the most simple and plain denomination seems to have been that of President for by this name Justin Martyr calls the Bishop in his second Apology Another question may be By what example Episcopall Eminence was brought into the Churches It is certain there were degrees of Priests among the Heathens that the Custom was not new to the Grecians and such as sprang from Greece we learn by the most antient discipline of the Druids One saith Coesar is President to the Druids who hath amongst them the chief Authority And how antient the Emmence of Mother Cities in matters of Religion is we learn out of Thucydides where he speaks of the Corcyreans a Colony of the Corinthians upon which passage the old Scholiast notes It was the Custome to receive High Priests from the Metropolis Strabo names one Priest of the Catti who was we make no doubt the highest and among the Burgundians the greatest Priest is mention'd by Marcellinus This custome God himself approved by the legall Constitution of the Judaical Republick when hee set up One with highest Authority over all the Priests Who although in some acts hee was a Type of Christ yet the whole Institution of this Pontificate is not to be referr'd to this end alone This eminence of one Priest served for Order also as well as the Regall Power which did also in its way adumbrate Christ Although then this example might suffice yet to me the Constitution of the Christian Church seemeth not so much expressed according to the pattern of the Temple at Jerusalem as of the Synagogues For the Synagogues were in many places without any Commanding Power as neither the Church of Christ hath any by it self Adde hereunto that wheresoever the Apostles came they found Synagogues well enough ordered even from the times if the Babylonian dispersion which if they would receive the Faith of Christ as to them the Gospel was Preached before others there was no cause why they should depart from that Government that the experience of many ages did commend nor was it any burden to the Gentiles in such a matter to accommodate themselves to the Jewish institutions Now in every Synagogue it is certaine there was one who by the Greekish Jews was call'd the Ruler of the Synagogue which name occurs frequently both in the Gospell and the Acts and every where the Prince of the Synagogue is designed by it Only one place is excepted where the word being taken in a larger sense in one Synagogue are named more Rulers that is both he who as the Hebrew Masters teach us was the Prince who answers to our Bishop