Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	true_a	2,766	5	5.8656	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27069	Which is the true church? the whole Christian world, as headed only by Christ ... or, the Pope of Rome and his subjects as such? : in three parts ... / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1679 (1679)	Wing B1453; ESTC R1003	229,673	156

you have said a word to prove that Christ instituted the Universal Head-ship of the Pope Or rather do you not overthrow it your self by such arguing seeing 1. the Headship of Rome hath not been ever in the Church as you confess 2. It never was in the Universal Church either instituted by Christ or received by the Church one hour but only for a time received by a corrupt oppressed part of the Church 3. The Pope hath cast out divers things instituted by Christ for continuance as is proved I told him that though the King were absent it is only the King and Subjects that are essential to a Kingdom the Deputy is but an Officer and not essential He replyeth 'T is so indeed de facto But suppose as I do that a Vice-King be by full authority made an ingredient into the essence of the Kingdom then sure he must be essential Ans. Yes by very good reason if he be made essential he is essential and now I understand what is your proof you suppose it to be so But if it be so in our case then the Pope is essentially so the Churches constitutive Head that when-ever he dyeth the Church is dead unless you can say as our Law doth of the King Papa non moritur and when the Church hath been two or near three years without it was no Church and when it had two or three Popes it was no Church or two or three Churches But saith W. I. This is evident in our present Subject for though all the Pastors in Christs Church be only his Officers and Deputies yet you cannot deny such Officers are now essential to his visible Church Ans. 1. When I heard the word Evident I lookt for something But I had nothing but you cannot deny it and what true Christian ever yet denyed it But I do not remember that ever I heard it disputed before affirmed or denyed He that would deny it will say that as all the Mayors Bayliffs and other Magistrates of Corporations are indeed essential parts of those Corporations and these Corporations are the noblest integral parts of the Kingdom but no essential parts of it so that if the Kingdom should be resolved into a King and meer common Subjects only it were a Kingdom still so it is in the Church Particular gathered Churches are the noblest integral parts of the Universal Church but not essential And Pastors are essential parts of those particular Churches But if all the particulars and Pastors should cease the Church would be a Church still while there is a Christ and meer Christians But this never will be in this world because Christ will not only have a Church but a well-formed organized Church Those that had rather use the word essential of the Pastors will say that as soul and body are the only essential parts of a man and yet the brain heart and liver may be called essential parts of the body as distinct from the rest because without these it is not corpus org●…nicum and so not humanum so though Christ be the only soul of the Church yet Officers may be essential parts of his body as organical capable of such a soul And though the other will reply that this is but a deceiving Metaphor Christ being not only the soul but the head and no organical Members being more than noble Integrals because if an Intellectual separation be made the Church is a Church still in such a conception Yet all this is but a Controversie of the aptitude of the word Essential in that case we are agreed that Officers shall be in the Church to the end And yet Saint Paul 1 Cor. 12. calls them but eyes and hands and never heads but reserveth that title to Christ alone yea even when he speaketh of Apostles And yet if any Officers were Essential it would be Apostles who are called Foundations and Pillars of the House but none of them the Head 2. But what 's all this to our Controversie What if Pastors were Essential to the Church viz. that there be some Doth it follow that the Bishop of Rome is any more essential to it than the Bishop of Ierusalem or Antioch If so then 1. Before Peter is feigned Bishop of Rome the Church was no Church All the while that he dwelt at Ierusalem and Antioch 2. And then if Rome were burnt or the Bishop of it ceased the Church were no Church Sir our true question is Whether a trayterous Usurper of Universal Soveraignty received by a third part of the Church and refused by all the rest be essential to the Church Not as whether the heart or head but a Scab or Cancer be essential to the body After some vain repetitions pag. 82. he repeateth the sum of his fraudulent Argument which he calls The force of his Discourse viz No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which acknowledgeth the Popes Supremacy Ergo No Congregation of Christians is Christs true Church save that Ans. I will therefore repeat the sum of my Answer viz. The word Congregation is ambiguous 1. Either it meaneth a company met together 2. Or a number of such Congregations owning one Superiour being part of the Universal Church 3. Or the Universal Church it self Accordingly I answer 1. That in the first sense a Congregation is called the same either because the same men live or because the survivors dwell in the same place or because they are of the same profession In the two first respects it is not necessary that any Congregation continue the same for men dye and places may be conquered or ruined In the third sense All true Christian Congregations in the world are of one and the same species as Christian from the beginning to this day II. In the second sense of the word Congregation I answer like as to the former The men dye the places are mutable but as to the common Christian Profession they are the same that they have been but as to the extent of Diocesses neither you nor we can deny but that they have altered Scotus Petavius and Doctor Hammond who hold that Bishops without Presbyters were first setled must hold that a Church then was but one Assembly or no more than one Bishop could speak to But de facto all agree that it was not long before they widened by degrees And in this sense the Churches of Abassia Armenia Ierusalem Alexandria c. are visible and have been from their beginning and some of them before Rome was The Churches of Ephesus Smyrna Thessalonica c. are and have been such And some Churches are visible which do not acknowledge the Popes Soveraignty that sometimes did viz. The Church of Britain in England and Scotland at first owned it not and after did receive it and after that cast it off again but it is visible and hath been from its beginnings The Churches of Denmark Sweden Transilvania and divers Countries of Germany were not

Christ had made us a King or Bishop of all the world he would have told us who must chuse him to save the men at the Antipodes their journey 2. But why pretend you then the peoples consent when you plead it unnecessary In Poland that their Diets chuse their Kings is from a known reason it is the Constitution of their Kingdom which the people agreed to and chuse many of the chusers But when did the Universal Church constitute your Cardinals to be the Electors Or which of the Cardinals are chosen by the Universal Church or any other than the Pope himself God made Bishopricks like Corporations where all may chuse the Mayor Who made them like great Kingdoms or set one over all the world where the people cannot chuse nor God made any chusers is the question R. B. 4. According to this rule your successions have been frequently interrupted when against the will of General Councils and of the far greatest part of Christians your Popes have kept the seats by force W. J. These are generalities What Popes What Councils in particular Name and prove if you will he answered R. B. What disgraceful ignorance are you forced to pretend What need I go over your Schisms What need I name any more than Eugenius the 4th deposed by a great General Council and two or three parts of the Church disowning your Pope at this day R. B. I told him how his instance even about Civil Power failed seeing the consent of a people pre-engaged to their Prince giveth not right to a Usurper W. J. The people cannot be supposed to consent freely and lawfully to an usurper c. R. B. Lawfully indeed they cannot and that 's the same thing that I affirmed you confute me by granting what I say When the Bishop of Rome hath a lawful election to be Bishop of all the world we will obey him and so we will any Prelate or Priest that hath a known lawful election R. B. Will any Diocess suffice ad esse What if it be but in particulor Assemblies W. J. It must be more than a Parish or than one single Congregation which hath not different inferior Pastors and one who is their Superior c. R. B. 1. How ambiguously and fraudulently do you answer No man can tell by this whether you unbishop all that had but one Parish or Congregation or only all that had not Presbyters under them Which ever you mean it is notoriously false and a nullifying of the ancient Episcopacy Ignatim tells you that in hi●… days one Church was known by one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons And though I think not as Dr. Hamond that all the first Bishops in Scripture-times were setled as the sole Pastors of single Congregations without any Presbyters under them yet when you consider with whom he agreeth in this viz. Dionysius Petavius and what St. Clara saith for it fathering it on Scotus we think you should not so far differ from your own Doctors as to deny all those to be true Bishops of the Scrip●…re-times who they think were the only Bishops You have a custom of calling the Apostles Bishops even Peter Bishop of Antioch and Rome Did not those first Bishops then make all the Presbyters that were under them Qu. Whether they were no Bishops till they had made those Presbyters If no then those first Presbyters had not Episcopal ordination If yea then habetur quaesitum The truth is all the ancientest Bishops were the Pastors of single Churches not near so big as many of our Parishes I have elsewhere proved this at large I instanced to him only in Gregory Neoc●…sariensis who was Bishop only of Seventeen souls when he came thither first He answereth W. J. How know you that there were no more in the Countrey adjacent 2. Know you not that he was sent to multiply Christians and make himself a competent Diocess R. B. I know the first by the consent of History that telleth us of the Seventeen in the City over whom he was set and speaketh of no more in such circumstances as would have occasioned it 2. And I believe your second but do not you see that you desert your Cause and contradict your self 1. Speak out Was he the bishop of the Infidels Were they his Church Or was he only to convert and gather them to the Church 2. Was he not a Bishop there before he had converted any one to those seventeen alone You dare deny none of this Therefore he was a Bishop before he had more Congregations than one and before he had any Presbyters to govern And here you may see how the changes that Popes and their Prelates have made in the Church constraineth them to defend them by subverting their own foundation For if those were no Bishops who had but one Congregation yea and those that had no subject-Presbyters then the first ages if not also the second except in Rome and Alexandria had no true Bishops or at least the founders were not such and their Episcopacy as they describe it hath no succession from the Apostles Truth and Error will never make a close coalition CHAP. V. Q. What mean you by TRADITION W. I. I Understand by Tradition the visible delivery from hand to hand in all cases of the revealed will of God either written or unwritten R. B. I suppose by visible from hand to hand you mean principally of the unwritten audible from ear to ear by speech But all the doubt is by whom it must be delivered by the Pastors or people or both by the Pope or Councils or Bishops disjunct by the major part of the Church Bishops or Presbyters or by how many W. J. By such and so many proportionably as suffice in a Kingdom to certifie the people which are the ancient universal received customs in that Kingdom which is to be morally considered R. B. O wary Disputant that taketh heed lest you should answer while you seem to answer Reader a Kingdom is not so big as all the world The Customs of a Kingdom may be known by the constant consent of the people of that Kingdom and if they differ about it Records and Law-booke decide it expositorily and judges by the decision of particular mens cases by such rules But can customs be known as well over all the world Yea and can matter of faith and doctrine be as easily known as practised customs Can we know as easily what are the Traditions of Abassia Armenia Syria Egypt c. as of England Can they of Abassia tell what are the true Traditions of all the Christian world that have Traditions in their own Countrey so different from ours They have many books as sacred among them by tradition which we receive not They have annual Baptism and other ceremonies by Tradition which we account to be unlawful Here I told W. I. 1. How certainly Tradition is against them when most of the Christian world