Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	east_n	south_n	west_n	5,537	5	9.2667	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94295	The due way of composing the differences on foot, preserving the Church, / according to the opinion of Herbert Thorndike.	Thorndike, Herbert, 1598-1672.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1048; Thomason E1838_3; ESTC R210159	28,326	70

more against the Rules of the Church then to take such men for Priests Bishops of such Churches as men know not how they behaved themselves in lower degrees Those that talk of the Interest of the People in Ecclesiasticall promotions without supposing this ground do allege nothing but their own dreams to bring their own dreams to pass Having this premised I must needs say I see no manner of inconvenience in that which the Presbyterians pretend for the cheif cause of their distance that is the concurrence of Presbyters with their Bishops in Ordinations and the Jurisdiction of the Church provided it be setled in that form which being grounded upon the Rule of the Catholick Church may tend to restore and advance the common Christianity Now I take the Rule of the Church to be as evidently this as the common Christianity is evident that every City with the Territory thereof be the seat and content of a Church For though it hath been used with so much difference in several parts and times of the Church that those Countries which some whiles and some where might have been cast into fourscore Churches have other whiles and else where been cast into four yet these are but exceptions to a Rule which the Law saith do not destroy but confirm it For in matters concerning the whole the Unity of the whole may as well be preserved by the concurrence of four as of fourscore The Churches that is according to this Rule the Dioceses of England have been constituted and distinguished upon occasion of the Soveraignties in which and by consent whereof the Christianity of the Nation was first planted He that considers with half an eye shall easily see how the conversion of Kent of the East and South and West Saxons of the East Angles and Mercians and lastly of Northumberland produced the foundation of English Churches For of the British foundations in the West parts of the Island from the two Forths to the Lands end the same account is to be kept the Dominion of the Britains being for some time divided into several Soveraignties He that is convicted of this truth which no man can be convicted of but he that considereth the case But who so considereth the case must needs stand convict of it will easily grant me that when the Monarchy prevailed and England came to be divided into Counties the General Rule of the Church would have required another course to have been observ'd For had the Head Town of every County been made the Seat of a Church containing that County no man that survayes the division of the Romane Empire into Churches made without the secular Power as before Constantine will deny That the division so made would have been more correspondent to the primitive forme tending to the Unity of the whole But let no man think that for the love of such a correspondence I have any itch to call in question the Unity of the Whole The alteration is great and must needs produce a great motion to ingraffe it into the Laws of the Kingdom And therefore I am not of opinion to change the Law for hope of amendment with so much appearance of danger to the being of the Whole But I am of opinion that it would be easie to erect Presbyteries that is Colleges of Presbyters in all Shire Towns which have no Cathedral Churches for the Ecclesiastical Government of the respective Counties with and under the Bishops And that so the Rule of the Church would be set on work to the best effect and purpose For those Towns have commonly Churches altogether unprovided of means through the horrible sacriledges that have passed and yet in common reason agreeing with the wisdom of Gods Spirit from whence the Rule of Episcopacy issued ought to be Nurseries of Christianity to the respective Counties And that intent cannot so well be brought to effect as by planting the wisest and those that have most of the Clergie in their lives in the most eminent places with authority next to the Chief over their respective bounds By the ministery of such persons the Offices of Gods service might so be performed in the chief places as might be a pattern for their Country Churches to follow These Presbyters might grow up by education in that discipline of the Clergie which I have recommended upon the experience of the whole Church They might live a Collegiate life in common with the care and inspection of Inferiours together with the charge of instructing or seeing them instructed in the Scriptures The Canon of the whole Church confining all degrees of the Clergie to their respective Churches might be revived by their means The superseding whereof being certainly one of the irregularities of the Papacy hath conduced much to the dissolution of Discipline in the Church For in conscience how can he that is obliged to any Church give account of himself to another to which the first is not subordinate And therefore though the Presbyteries which I propose be not Churches yet may they take account of their respective Clergie and render it to their Bishops The promotion of inferiour Orders belonging unto their account may proceed upon the account which they give The censures that are requisite to pass in foro exteriori may pass them in the first instance and from them being transmitted to the Bishop be either inacted or voided Alwaies with right of appeal to the Synod of the Province in cases of weight and in the intervals thereof to their Deputies To which purpose and in which nature the High Commission ought to be revived For as it is by no means to be allowed that the Bishops negative be any way questioned So is it no way fit that the consent of Bishop and Presbyters both be concluded in one and the same instance As for those Dioceses which are concluded within onely one County there I suppose I need not say that the Chapter of the Cathedral are by inheritance this Presbytery Now these Colleges of Presbyters consisting of those only that shall have run the whole course of their lives in the education and discipline of the Clergie is there any possible pretence of burthen upon them if the condition of single life should be required to qualifie them for their places For this were not to tye any man to single life seeing who will may go forth and be provided of a Countrey Church But it were to maintain the discipline of the Clergie in the most eminent places wherein there is a course proposed to them who imbrace it of ending their dayes in it And the course of a Collegiate life which I propose seemeth a sufficient means and advantage to overcome those temptations which in these dayes may seem too difficult for all the Clergie to undergo As for the means of supporting these Presbyteries wherein the Cure of all Parishes within the Shire Towns is provided for and included It is no difficulty to him that considers with conscience