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	rome_n	9,289	5	7.3911	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26975	Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied to England / written by Richard Baxter for promoting peace ... and for the fuller explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661, and of the Kings gracious declaration about ecclesiastical affairs ... and for further explication of his treatise of episcopacy ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing B1329; ESTC R13726	59,031	82

of Knowledge and Gifts rather than a setled Superiority of Office and whether any Pastors might not do all their Ordinary continued work But besides the singularity of that doubt I was soon convinced of an Official Superiority and Disparity not only because a Judas had been one but because the number of Twelve in Superiority was to be kept up by the choice of his Successor even one from among those that had been Witnesses of Christs Words and Works as well as he And by Pauls being made a thirteenth Apostle when the Gospel was to be carried further than to the Jews And his claim of Apostolical Power and Priviledges § 17. Especially because I find Christ Mat. 28. 19 20. describing the General Office as well as the Particular even going into all the World to Disciple whole Nations as well as to teach them to observe Christs Commands promising to be with them to the end of the World § 18. And also because it is apparent that Preaching the Gospel to Heathen and Infidel Nations is a Work still to be done and for want of men purposely appointed to do it the progress of the Gospel hath been wofully stopt Few doing any thing in it but Mr. Eliots and a few honest men in New England and they say some of the Dutch and the Jesuits and Fryers that do it corruptly Particular Church Work is below this § 19. And I am fully confirmed when I find that the Apostles themselves setled a General sort of Ministers in Superiority and General Work to succeed them As Christ himself by his Spirit made Barnabas an Apostle so he gave to his Church also Evangelists who were General helpers of the Apostles and were put in a state of Disparity and Superiority Sil as and Mark and Luke and Apollos and many more are named The texts that mention the General Office and Superior power of Timothy and Titus are so well known and oft cited that it 's needless to repeat them The charge of setling and overseeing many Churches as in Crete and of caution in Imposition of Hands receiving accusations rebuking sharply ruling them well ordaining Bishops and Deacons and much more the like I never thought Saravia and the Kings Arguments in the Isle of Wight well answered Mr. Prins and the common answer is that these were not Bishops but Evangelists I grant it but that confirmeth me For the name Bishop was then ordinarily appropriated to fixed particular Church Elders But our question is not de nomine but de re an Apostle Evangelist were above such Bishops Call them Apostles as Dr. Hammond proveth that the Fathers oft call them or call them Evangelists or Arch Bishops or General Bishops or Diocesans or Provincial Bishops it is not the name that is our Controversie It proveth that the Apostles did settle a sort of General Overseers to gather and take care of many inferior Bishops and Churches to succeed them in the ordinary part of their Office § 20. But another argument fixeth me in this opinion and that is that when it is fully proved that Christ instituted such a Disparity and Superiority he that will affirm that this doth not now continue and bind us must prove the repeal or revocation or prove that he did make this establishment but for a time and how long that was But Scripture plainly asserteth that he then appointed the foresaid Disparity and hath any as plainly proved that he repealed it or confined it to that Age It is not proved that I have seen And to assert this without proof is 1. To make Christs Institutions to signifie but what mans fancy thinks meet and make us the Masters of his Laws before we will be ruled by them 2. It is a charging Christ with temerity or dishonourable mutability as Instituting one form of Church Ministry and Government for one Age and changing it presently for another 3. It seemeth a dangerous taking Gods Name in vain by affirming such a mutability of him and change of his Laws without any proof 4. It defameth the state of his Church when it was under Persecution and when Heaven and Earth after rejoiced in its deliverance as if all that time it had been corrupt by owning the foresaid Disparity And it 's dangerous Presumption to Father on God that which he never did and never owned § 21. But no doubt but the Circumstances of this Superior Office or degree of Ministry are undetermined by God save as by General Rules and may be altered As 1. Whether there shall be One only or Two such General Ministers in one and the same Diocess or Province Christ sent out his Preachers by two and two Paul and Barnabas and Paul and Silas and Barnabas and Mark went out by Couples Peter and Paul were together at Rome And Grotius and Dr. Hammond think that for the first times till the Christian Jews and Gentiles became one Communion the great Cities Rome Alexandria Antioch c. had each two Congregate Churches and two Bishops were it but for language sake And as I think the Jewish and Gentile Christian Ministers during the time of Miraculous Gifts while no Christian Magistrates Ruled were the two Witnesses mentioned in the Apocalypse so I conjecture that Peter and Paul were the radical instances of them And when two join together it may take off envy from each Yet this is undetermined in Scripture and left to humane Prudence If two cannot agree how will such agree others § 22. The Scots had at first a General visiter that was really a General Bishop But the Visitors aspiring and abuse changed that way But I am told that in Ulster in Ireland each Classical Synod chuse two Grave Divines and send them out to Preach in any Congregation in that Classis where they see cause As where there are young raw men or men suspected of Heresy or men of scandalous fame and to admonish and counsel such and to tell the People that if they had any thing against their Ministers they should tell them and they would try them in the Classical Synod I think this is real and laudable Episcopacy whatever name it have § 23. It is also undetermined how large the Diocess be of the said General Minister while he excludeth not Inferiors As Prudence would teach the Apostles to Preach in several Countreys and not all in one when they left Jerusalem So Natural Reason teacheth Men still to divide and know their several Provinces § 24. It is undetermined how long each one shall stay in one City or place As Paul did long at Ephesus § 25. And it is left to Prudence how many subordinate Pastors and Churches there shall each oversee so they overthrow not the said subordinate Officers and Churches § 26. And it is left to Prudence what secular Lands or Riches they shall have called Glebe And what secular honour they shall have As to be Barons and Lords or to sit in Parliaments though Reason saith that

cause efficientis And the Kingdoms chief in Meliority in genere causae finalis it is false that the King who is singulis major is Universis Minor in Authority or Jure regendi But it is true that the King tho singulis melior melioritate Relativd is not universis melior for finaliter the King was made for the Kingdom rather than the Kingdom for the King And yet both King and Kingdom are made by God and for God that is for his Will or Pleasure and his Glory and Honour And as it is the Honour of Gods Soveraignty Wisdom and Justice that is glorified in the Magistracy so even the honour of Magistracy is part of the final meliority As Gods Love glorified in the common good is another part of it And so God is the Beginning and the End and All in All. And this is the Rulers Interest § 6. The People have no Jus regendi Governing Authority to use themselves or to give to others So false is the Principle of Mr. Hooker and Laud and many others that make them the Fountain of Power They have the Power called strength in which a Horse excelleth a Man but not Authority If any Nation be Democratical it is not because men are born with any right to Political Government but only to Private Self-government But because Contract hath so ordered the Form of Government And indeed tho a City may be Democratically Governed I know not how any great Nation can possibly be so So that I think there is scarce any true Democracy in the World For to chuse Governours is not to Govern And those that by the People are chosen are an Aristocracy Rome was not all the Roman Empire What right then had the Populus Romanus to Govern the Empire This was not like Democracy where the Majority of the whole body Governs The same I may say of Venice as they Govern all that are under them It is truely an Aristocracy § 7. Mankind is by dullness and sloth so far drowned in Ignorance that the great concerns of Souls Bodies and Kingdoms are disordered and almost hopelesly confounded by the ignorance of those that will be the Rulers of them I. Soul matters and Church matters are ravelled by Ignorant Proud Self-conceited Priests and have been so above 1300 years The things of Religion being mysterious and Students Dull and Impatient of hard Study II. The Diseases and concerns of the Body are so abstruse that if among one thousand that practise Physick there be ten that do not kill any of their Patients they escape well that escape their Hands All the Neighbours about us hurt us not because we trust them not But Physicions kill far more than Enemies III. And I would it were not so with Politicians who will be the determiners of the affairs of Kingdoms and Churches where an error may be pernicious to the Society and Nation The best Politician that ever I knew was wont to lament that Lawyers and Divines usually studied what the Law of the Land saith and what Gods Law saith and never well studied what a Law in genere is what Government and the several Causes of it are and being Ignorant in Political Doctrine understand not the words or things that they talk of And all through uncapableness and sloth § 8. How commonly do such dispute the foresaid case whether the Prince or People be the chief without distinguishing Majority and Meliority How oft do they speak of their different Right without distinguishing separate or distinct from opposite How oft do they falsly tell us that the People are the Fountain of Power And how oft do they tell us that Government Monarchical or Aristocratical are a meer Trust and Rulers only the Peoples Trustees without distinguishing what is of God in it and what is of man and what trust God committeth to them and what men commit And what power people have by Nature and what by Contract § 9. I have oft proved that Political Government of Societies is so far different from Self-government that it is not the contribution of the Self-governing power of individuals given up to one that maketh political power It 's fully proved 1. In that God is the prime Soveraign from whom all Power is given There is no Power but of God 2. And God hath gone before man and hath instituted Government himself by the Law of Nature and of Scripture and hath not staid for man to do it How can man be the Fountain of that which God hath instituted before him He hath not left man to his own choice whether he will have Government or not but hath prevented him by the obligations of Necessity and Command 3. And God hath made Universal Political Laws for Societies and Legislation is the first part of Government 4. And he maketh Rulers as his Ministers and instituteth their Office in specie to be for the promoting of obedience to his own Law and for his Glory and the common good So that it is of Gods institution I. That there be humane Governors as Gods Officers II. That finally they be for his Glory and the common welfare III. And that materially they take God's Laws for the prime Laws of their Government As that they punish sins against the Ten Commandments according to their weight And thus far they are God's Trustees And if the People forbid any of this it is but Nullity and Rebellion against God But the People are Proprietors and may limit the Ruler in the dispose of their Propriety And they have the choice of the Person or Line and Family that shall rule them who it shall be and whether One or Many or How many For these and other circumstances God hath not previously determined save that his Providence making some one by Conquest or strength to be only able to rule and protect them imposeth on them a necessity of consenting to that One. And in these things the Ruler is the Trustee of the People but not in the former so that in the prime essential parts of power the People are but the Objects and the King is to them in different degrees the Trustee of God for the People as the Shepherd is his Masters Trustee for the Sheep and not the Trustee of the Sheep The same I say of true Pastors of the Churches God hath specified their Office tho' the People may circumstantiate it § 10. Princes having the Power of Legislation even about the undetermined circumstances of Religion as well as things secular and also to enforce Obedience to God's Laws all Subjects are bound to obey them herein yea tho' they so far mistake as to chuse the circumstances that might have been better chosen if they command not sin For who doth any thing so well but it might have been done better For instance should they chuse a tolerable but less perfect Version and Meeter of Psalms or Translation of Scripture or form of Publick Worship or Time Place Utensils Ministers