Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	church_n	succession_n	2,569	5	10.4652	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36252	A reply to Mr. Baxter's pretended confutation of a book entituled, Separation of churches from episcopal government, &c. proved schismatical to which are added, three letters written to him in the year 1673, concerning the possibility of discipline under a diocesan-government ... / by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1681 (1681)	Wing D1817; ESTC R3354	153,974	372

my Preface if he had thought himself obliged to speak to Answers in his Confutations But does he not know that this very same Objection was made use of by the Heathens against Christianity and by the Romanists against the Reformation that if either Christianity or Protestancy were the onely true way to Salvation exclusively to others then much the greater number of Mankind or Christians must have been out of the true way of Salvation And can he deny that the matter of fact was true that there was indeed a time when Heathens were more numerous than Christians and Romanists than Protestants Will he therefore grant that Christianity and Protestancy were not the onely ordinary true means of Salvation I know he will be far from saying so But yet he is not sensible how much himself is more concerned in the Consequence of this Discourse than I am He that in his Diocesan Ordination must have promised Canonical Obedience to his Ordinary cannot renounce our Diocesan Communion as Diocesan without some charge of sin greater than the sin of breaking his Promise of Canonical Obedience And if this sin agree to Diocesan Communion as Diocesan then certainly it must be not onely a single act of sin but a state of sin and such a state of sin as all will acknowledge destructive of Salvation so agreeing to Diocesan Communion as Diocesan it must agree to all Diocesan Communion whatsoever And if all Diocesan Communion as Diocesan be destructive of Salvation how much more uncharitable will he prove than I if to maintain principles from whence consequences will follow which will prove hurtful to faulty persons must be thought uncharitable How few are those Protestants that want Episcopal Ordination who can alone seem chargeable with the consequences of my Discourse in comparison of the whole Greek and Latin Churches and those other Forein Protestants also as well as those of our own Dominions which will be concerned in the consequences of his I might here declame as tragically as he does and retort a great part of his own Discourse upon himself if I were desirous to take advantage of this Topick against him not so much to prove his Doctrine false as to expose it as odious If he will say that he has notwithstanding charitable thoughts concerning the persons of many who differ from him in principles of their own nature destructive of Salvation Abate his affection to his party which makes him as his matter requires speak inconsistently and I think I shall allow as much candour and charity to the persons of Dissenters as he can rationally and with any consistency with any even his own principles § IX IF therefore it be granted that these consequences are no just argument to prove the principles false from which they follow it will then follow further that in order to the confutation of my principles he ought not to content himself with deducing these consequences without more distinct application to the principles themselves it will follow that even the odium of such consequences is irrational and sinful and therefore not at all regardable in conscience whatever it may in prudence No truly conscientious persons can be offended at just consequences from principles whose truth is not proved questionable especially where positive reasons have been produced for them And therefore whoever are so must for that very reason at least in this particular be presumed not to act conscienciously or consequently to be regardable on account of conscience It will follow that till he do answer more distinctly to my principles the very unkindness of the application will be rather his than mine For till he weaken the proof of my principles I shall have reason in all equity to presume them true And if he draw Inferences unfavourable to them from unconvicted principles it will be he not I that must be responsible at least for the application If therefore he will not make them less concerned than it is their Interest to be in case of real danger let him first secure them from the danger by a conviction of my principles which when he does he will have me as well as them indebted to him for the Obligation Till he do so certainly plain dealing and a fair warning is the most real office of Friendship that can be shewn in case of danger I wish I may by this intimation prevail with whosoever shall hereafter trouble themselves to answer me not to satisfie themselves with invidious clamours and evasions of a direct Answer to my principles A direct Answer would better become them as Lovers and Enquirers of truth rather than Votaries to a Party would more tend to the satisfaction of conscientious Dissenters would afford a better subject for useful information § X As for particulars there are onely two that I can know of in which indifferent Friends do think me concerned One is that he says and says it more than once that the Generality of our Saxon Bishops derive their Succession from Aidan and Finan who says he were no Bishops as Bede and others fully testifie So that he says The denying the validity of the Ordination by Presbyters shaketh the Succession of the Episcopal Church of England and proveth it on that supposition interrupted I know not how it becomes him who himself pretends Episcopal Ordination to discover his Forefathers nakedness if it had been true that is here suggested But not to expostulate with him concerning the unkindness herein shewed to his Ordainers what benefit can he do his own cause by this Objection Would it follow that his Brethren have Succession because we had fail'd of it Would it follow that Succession is not necessary because none could justifie their Claims by it Would it follow that the Right of Ordination must in course be escheated to the Presbyteries or the People or the Magistracy in case no Right could now be made out by Derivation from the Apostles If Succession be still necessary for the validity of Orders as it may be notwithstanding this Argument till he answer the Arguments produced to prove it necessary all that he can expect by using such Arguments as these will be not to satisfie us but to prove us as faulty as themselves not to quiet the consciences of those who should be afraid of Sacrilegious Ordinances but onely to make them despair of ever being quieted And therefore this is an Answer if at all fit to be insisted on yet not till he had attempted a more particular Answer But God be praised we have no need to be concerned for this Objection Bede is so far from denying Aidan and Finan to have been Bishops as that he expresly affirms the contrary Oswald King of Northumberland sent to the Elders of the Scots for a Bishop Antistes is the word in Bede's Latine and Biscop in the Saxon of Alfred Accordingly he receives Pontificem Aidanum as the Latine or Biscop as it is again in the Saxon. When

not been impleaded in those Disputes concerning the necessity of Succession Such a one would make a Conclusion odious where he could not disprove it as false would endeavour to raise the affections of his Readers where he despaired of prevailing on their Judgments would traduce the person of his Adversary where he had no hopes of obtaining his cause Such a one would be as confident as he is in general charges of Absurdities Contradictions and Wordiness c. but would withall be as cautious as he is of mentioning any particulars of such Charges Such a one would refer an Adversary to Books written before for Answers to Arguments not so much as treated of in those Books would with great boldness impose on Readers ignorant of those matters that all had been already answered there and that the onely reason why no more is answered now is onely to avoid Repetitions so that unless a new question be produced as well as a new argument there shall never want an excuse for want of a new Answer I wonder how Mr. Baxter can pretend to have answered what I have said concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost or the sin unto death or the Sacraments which yet I see are so displeasing to him or even the way of deriving their Succession from their first Separation what I have said concerning the opinion of the Schoolmen that Bishops and Presbyters differ onely in degree to shew how unsufficient that is for justifying their present Succession what I have said concerning this way of resolving the Dispute not into ancient Learning but more modern Histories of their Succession what concerning their derivation of Power from any valid act even of the Presbyteries themselves c. Should I say things so notoriously false with such confidence I confess I could not tell how to excuse my self from his uncivil Epithete of Audaciousness Such a one would slight the question that pinched him how momentous soever it might prove in its consequences and divert to others though of no use yet more capable of odium and of a popular talent of raising passion And has not Mr. Baxter who cannot find leisure to answer these Arguments wherein the Orders of his Brethren and their Sacraments and the whole comfort of their Communion are generally concerned shewn that he has a great deal of leisure to rake Church History to asperse the dead and blaspheme the living Rulers of his people for condemning Heresies when yet the generality of his Brethren themselves do not pretend to differ from us in any thing which even we call Heresie To what end is all this but to make a noise at a distance to divert us from the real debate Such a one would cavil as he does about words What can I think it else but cavil when he pretends himself so extremely ignorant in the meaning of the Terms of our Dispute When he who has lived all his Life in England and has received his Orders from a Bishop of the Church of England is yet to learn what we in England in our Disputes with his Party mean by the name of Bishop nay even by that of the Church of England If he thought himself in earnest as ignorant as he pretends why would he meddle in Disputes where he does not understand the Terms If he knows better things what charity can excuse him from the charge of Insincerity Though persons may yet causes cannot aequivocate There is but one sense of all Terms which causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to skill in causes Other senses I did not think my self obliged to take notice of in Terms of notorious signification till I found some occasion for it from the misunderstandings of my Adversaries But there is one thing that looks most like an Argument of Self-conviction which though it has been taken up by persons of worse design than he yet does withall run through the Reasoning of several of the later Books of Mr. Baxter that is that our Clergie must alone be responsible for all the scandals that any Clergie who never had any affinity with ours but that of their common office were ever guilty of What is this but in effect to acknowledge that ours are the onely real Clergie What is it but to acknowledge the conclusiveness of those Arguments which have been used by me to disprove the Title of their Ministers to the Office of real Clergie-men If they thought their own to be Clergie-men why will they not be as obnoxious to all the scandals they can rake of Clergie-men out of the Histories of Sixteen hundred Years as ours I wish I could by this Suggestion make them sensible of the disingenuity they shew in this way of Reasoning and of the mischief they do themselves and the common cause of Christianity It is strange if Mr. Baxter can ever expect to revive Parochial Discipline by such means as these of ruining Diocesan Can he ever expect to prevail with those irreligious Laicks who are on this occasion so ready to make use of this misguided zeal of his Brethren not as more orthodox than others but as a popular party to submit themselves to the Censures of his Parochial Ministers when he teaches them to despise an Authority so much more venerable than theirs on all the accounts which Mankind owns for just reasons of veneration Can he in earnest hope than an upstart Authority of Innovators too late to have their Scandals traced through any distant Histories can procure reverence with them who are told such vile things of those who upon the first division were found possessed of an Authority so much more received by a peaceable as well as a just prescription Can he expect that he can preserve that Authority in Inferiours which he endeavours to ruine in their Superiours Can he think to preserve it in those whom it seems himself dares not own for Clergie-men whilest he teaches them to asperse the very name as well as the authority of Clergie-men Can he think to preserve it in those who have no other but extraordinary ways of pretending to a Divine Authority or to pretend Charters expounded by themselves in their own favour when he teaches them to undervalue an Authority derived by all the ways by which it is reasonable to expect an Authority should be derived at such a distance Can he expect in the age we live in that the great ones will ever be induced to pay respect to the inferiour Clergie who are so unknown to our Laws when they are taught to deny it to those who have as good a Title even to legal honours as themselves Mr. Baxter may possibly ruine us if God should grant him the curse of a success on his present Endeavours but I cannot for my life conceive how he can settle us or really reform our lives or restore Discipline on such Principles as these True Latitudinarianism does onely