Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	bishop_n	church_n	ordain_v	4,727	4	9.0001	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52038	An expedient to preserve peace and amity, among dissenting brethren. By a brother in Christ	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1647 (1647)	Wing M754A; ESTC R204591	29,957	42

circumstances thereof we have also the word of man as infallible as mans can be for that we may take upon good trust to be morally infallible which proceeds from men who neither deceive nor are deceived Now I suppose that the Parliament hath so fully declared their sincerity and discharged their trust in establishing this government that the most opposite thereunto cannot admit of such an unworthy thought as if they intended to impose any government upon the people which in conscience they thought not most agreeable to Gods word which as it cleareth them from the least suspicion of deceiving so it is also manifest that they have used the best and most approved means allowed to mortall man not to be deceived For in this waighty worke they have begun with the invocation of Gods infallible Spirit which is the Author and leader into all truth and have assembled Learned and religious men of the holy calling to enter into free deliberation and debate of that kind of Church-government which they should find most consonant to Gods word and if after all this we can imagine they have erred in their decrees How can we without presumption conceive the judgement of any private men to be more infallible Now if any shall think that this kind of government in every part thereof is established with such a perpetuall decree that it can never be changed We must know that many things may be infallibly true yet not alwayes necessary to be continued True in the Author of truth and true in the means of truth and yet may be laid aside when they are no longer usefull for edification an example hereof we may see in the ceremoniall Law which being appointed by God himselfe no man will doubt but it was infallibly true and being abolished by the same power that ordained it no man need doubt but that it was justly removed Infallibility doth not alwayes inferre immutability Things are not onely continued for their truth but also for their goodnesse and fitnesse and applicablenesse to present use So long as the Ceremoniall Law was to indure it was of divine infallibility needfull for the Church of the Jewes and during that time immutable by any power but divine but when the Evangelicall Law succeeded which by fulfilling ended the Ceremoniall the worship of God became more spirituall leaving the decencies circumstances and outward manner to the humane infallibility of the Magistrate set in authoriiy by God whose decrees in such matters are unchangeable by any inferiour power yet alterable by the same power that decreed them Moreover the Papists object against our doctrine that before Luther it was not known in thy world and the Prelates object against our discipline that before Calvin it was never known by both with aspersions they think to disgrace our doctrine and our discipline putting upon them the stamp of novelty as though they were but inventions of men But as our doctrine hath been sufficiently asserted against their calumnies to be the very doctrine of the spirit of God left recorded in the holy Scriptures So it is also plain that this government of Gods Church by the Presbytery was known and practised in the world before either Popery or Prelacy was in being both which are indeed novelties and the very spawn of corrupted men It is clearly demonstrated from the bosome of Antiquity That the Apostles and Evangelists knowing the mind of Christ did in all Cities and places where they collected Churches ordain a Colledge of Presbyters called the Presbytery with equall power to feed and govern the same This form of government continued in the Primitive Church about 1500 yeares in puritie and parity Afterwards by pride and contention of the leaders Bishops were set up above Presbyters and when that equality was once broken there was no stop Then Metropolitans were put above Bishop and Patriarks above Metropolitans and at the last whereunto all tended they brought forth that man of sin or son of perdition the Pope who perked above all and hath ever since contrary to the rules of Christ and his Apostles maintained by fraud fire and blood a prodigious tyrannie and oppression in the Church B●t there is one testimony more which we can produce as a cleare light out of the very darknesse and dungeon of popery when there was no day of knowledge in the Christian world but all was overspread with Antichristian error and that was about 500 yeares ago when God moved Waldo a Citizen of Lions to discover the impostures of the popish Church who drawing after him many disciples were persecuted by the bloody Synagogue and driven from the society of men into mountains among beasts which they found lesse savage then their own kind there they multiplied into many Congregations and spreading themselves into divers places were called by divers names Then they found it necessary that the worship of God might be perfect among them to establish a discipline and government over all their Churches In which deliberation they had no pattern to follow no steps to tread in no helps from stories or records of antiquity which were all destroyed or corrupted Their onely guide and light to direct them was the word of God which the world was never able to extinguish and by his divine power was preserved among them There they sought and there they found the platform of their discipline and what was it no other then Presbyterian every Congregation governed by Pastors Elders and Deacons and as occasion required by a combination of them into Synods Councells and Assemblies Now if this way was practised among them wherein they were onely led by divine light How unjustly do some despise it as a novelty others reject it as a humane ordinance When as our own age also searching in the same holy monuments hath pitched upon the same discipline as in them held forth to the Churches of God Me thinks this would move the spirits of meek and sanctified men not to be wise above sobriety nor contest against such a cloud of witnesses For if the Primitive Apostolicall times the middle age of the Church under persecution and now the last generations wherein we live have all by the light of Gods word and guidance of his spirit concurred in one and the same discipline Why should any combine against it or suffer themselves to be perswaded rather to disturb the peace and unity of Gods Churches then yield a Christian conformity thereunto 3 But against this power of the Magistrate it may be further objected that although power be given him over the bodies and estates and outward adjuncts of men yet the conscience is the peculiar Court of God wherein man hath nothing to do but by intrusion when the body lies in prison the Judge by a habeas corpus can remove it but when the conscience is under bond no Judge can send a habeas conscientiam to deliver it and having no power to release he can have none to bind it

wrapped up in generall precepts it behoveth us to learne from his deputies upon earth asking councell of the Lord what his mind and pleasure is and such for the most part are the outward rites formes and circumstances of his Evangelicall worship these things fall within the compasse of order and decency which are rather civill notions then devine yet as Armies in the field easily fall into a rout not well arrayed so assemblies in the Church and Churches in the Common-wealth prove but rude and tumultuous meetings if they be not decently ordered a lute or violl is seen plaid upon but there is much adoe to tune many instruments into one consort private Christians may dispose of themselves in their owne houses but when they meet in a publike body they must be tuned by the publike Magistrate the world would never have stood without societies nor can societies hold without government neither can there be any government where some rule not and some obey all the question is to set due limits and bounds to the civill government wherein I conceive that there is the selfe the same measure betwixt the Magistrate and the conscience for as the word of God bindeth the conscience to obey so it prescribeth the Magistrate to governe otherwise if as the high Priest forbad the Apostles to teach in the name of Jesus so the Magistrate shall impose any thing upon the people contrary to divine law or the word revealed the case is plain that we ought to obey God rather then men These rubbs thus remooved in our way I shall proceed to the solving of such objections as are commonly made by those brethren that challenge a liberty and exemption from this lawfull obedience 1. First they build upon our owne ground alledging that since the nature of conscience is so free and voluntary in it self it must needs be a manifest violation of her freedome to constraine her by laws or penalties or impositions of men To which I answer that we must remember to put a difference betwixt the constraint and the restraint of mens consciences no law nor power of man can constraine the conscience in her voluntary act to goe against her owne light or approve that which she condemneth or say to her self conscience I lye no she may and ought rather to suffer then undergoe such a constraint but the lawes of man may so farre restrain their liberty that she produce not the act of her private sence and freedome into hurtfull effects such as may endanger and disturbe our christian and publike peace it hath bin alwaies observed that it is as naturall and appetitions for error to beget error opinion to spread opinion as for one kind to generate and multiply the same insomuch when an erronious conscience will not be limited nor contained within it self it may and ought to be restrained and inhibited from infecting others and dispersing the contagion 2. Secondly it may be againe objected that although it be granted nothing can bind the conscience but the pure word of God yet forasmuch as no word of Scrirture is produced expresly confirming this from of polity and Presbyterian government which we are commanded to obey it will plainly follow that the consciences of men are therein left unto their liberty To give a full answer hereunto it would be necessary to take the frame of this government in pieces as the Levites did the Tabernacle when they removed their Tents and then bring it piece by piece to the light of Gods word to see what is thereby confirmed and what unfirmed But because this is already done by divers worthy brethren of the holy calling I shall forbeare to insert their volumes into these few sheets and shall onely say that this kind of government is either expresly or by good consequence included and allowed by the Scripture as not repugnant to it in any thing Of the Presbytery it selfe where the government is inherent I heare no question made but that it is expresly mentioned in the Scripture the main doubt and difference is whither it be Independent in particular Congregations subordinate to Synods and Assemblies as the urgencies and occasions of the Church may require Those Brethren that maintain Independency of single Congregations stand upon a ground feeble and unfirm saying that in the Apostles time there were no other Churches but onely congregationall in which alone all government was confined This assertion will hold no further true then in such Churches as were gathered whiles Christ was upon earth then indeed we may conceive that the first Evangelicall Church consisted in the congregation of the Apostles and afterwards of the Disciples but when Christ ascended into heaven and the holy Ghost descended upon earth we shall find that when the multitude of believers increased so much in severall Cities as one Congregation could not contain them their manner was to distribute themselves into severall meetings accordinp to the commodity of their habitations in the said Cities or else as it might most stand with their safety Now th' Apostles themselves and their coadjutors th' Evangelists and other Founders of Churches under them did usually constitute and ordain Elders in every City but not in every Congregation who had power in common and colle●gially to teach and govern the whole flock though severally congregated in the same City Thus we read of the Elders of Hierusalem of Antiochia of Ephesus of Corinth of Philippi and many mo where the numbers of the faithfull were inlarged Whereby it appeareth that in the Apostles times and the times succeeding those primitive Churches were City Churches consisting of divers Congregations and not congregationall as is pretended Independent within themselves True it is the City church was commonly independent within it selfe but thereof the reason was because the Cities in their civill policy were free and unsubjected otherwise the government of the City Church reached as farre as the jurisdiction of the City If all this be true as it is made most evident by the unpartiall searchers of Antiquity we may herein observe a pattern though not a precept for the subordination of Churches for if in the Apostles time a City church consisted of many congregations by the same proportion according to the increase of Beleevers a Provinciall Church may consist of many Cities and a Nationall Church of many Provinces and the Catholick Church of many Nations the lowest step was laid by the Apostles the highest step is a point of our belief and from the lowest to the highest there is no passage but by gradations which is the scale of that government now held forth by Parliament But to this may be replyed All this that you say is but conjecturall and that hath no power to bind the conscience which must have a word infallible to rest upon To this I answer That for the substance of this government wee have the infallible word of God whereof neither part doubteth for the frame and