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
A60612	Two sermons preached at two publick assizes for the county of Svffolk, in the sheriffalty of Will. Soame of Hawleigh, in Suffolk, Esq. by Will. Smyth, D.D., Pr. Nor. and vic. of Mendlesham in Suffolk.	Smith, William, b. 1615 or 16.	1674 (1674)	Wing S4283; ESTC R21663	29,870	126

neither Miracles as Christ and his Apostles nor imposition of hands as the Church hath always practised as in the first so in all following Ages to evidence his Commission is a spirit not of God whatsoever excellencies of qualification may otherwise be pretended and they that are guided by him and have not considered it to trial follow him in sin if they understand it in great wickedness Now the contrary mark of false Prophets is declared by our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 7. they come to you in sheeps cloathing they come come voluntarily and are not sent And St. Paul Act. 20.29 characterizeth them with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enter in Grievous Wolves shall enter in that is voluntarily assume the Office not called sent or placed by order or commission Such are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separated by God in the Order of the Church Rom. 1. but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jude 19. such as separate themselves by their own presumption and intrusion Such as these we are not to trust to as being spirits that are not of God The next means of enquity is to understand by whom such imposition of hands have been made and executed and then the mark of the true spirits of God is to be separated and ordained to their Offices by such persons who by a continued chain or line of succession can securely derive their Commission from the person of Christ. From whom as from our common Parent there is an holy seed under the new Covenant though not annexed to a Family as that of Aaron yet to an holy Calling for a perpetual spiritual propagation Now the end of this Chain is in the hand of God who sent Christ who sent his Apostles As my Father hath sent me so send I you Joh. 20.21 The Apostles to maintain that succession did in their respective charges appoint and ordain successors with engagement that they should still propagate the Office of the Gospels holy Priesthood as it appears by St. Pauls order to Titus I have left thee at Crete to ordain Elders in every City Tit. 1.5 Hence it is that our Saviour tells his Apostles Lo I am with you to the end of the World Matth. 28. that is not with them onely in their persons but in their successors also who should proceed directly from their spiritual loyns And for this reason it is that the Ancients unbiassed Judges in this Enquiry have taken such care and were observed to be so curious in Marshalling the successions of the Bishops of the principal seats of Christianity for which Epiphanius gives this reason after he had exactly recorded the very names of the several successions Let no man wonder that we so carefully recite such things and names for per haec enim semper claritas ostenditur they are an evidence of the truth of our holy Calling and consequently of the Church it self Now as to the present Church of England we have had this blessing from God that both for the earliness and uninterruption of the line of our successions no Church in the Christian World can pretend to a better evidence and that Rome it self after all her insultations must be content with one much more perplext and doubtful as might easily be made appear And I am morally assured of this comfort that there is no Bishop nor Priest of the Church of England but may and ought to believe his spiritual pedigree as truly derived from the Person of Jesus the first Bishop and Priest of the Gospel as any Prince can make his title to his Crown or any Noble man to his honour and inheritance by a succession from Ancestors of farr shorter Antiquity and continuance But of this honour and blessing the two Milstones as the great Archbishop calls them our Enemies on either hand have endeavoured to deprive us First The Romanists would fain blend our succession by the vain Fable of the Nags-head-Ordination But Mason and incomparable Bramhall have so perfectly baffled that idle and groundless story that their late more learned Controverters have wholly laid it aside and so needs not the trouble of a particular Confutation On the other hand our Fanaticks do chuse to question and decry it because the line ran through the time in which Romish superstition prevailed But to this I answer That succession is as by acts of Propagation and the Roman Corruptions could have no more power or influence on our Ecclesiastick Generation then the unworthiness of a Parent in begetting a Child or of a Priest in baptizing it And we know the succession of Mankind is not interrupted in the one nor Christian Profession in the other But to conclude grant that some of our spiritual Ancestors were so corrupted yet it is more honourable to have had a bad great Grandfathers Grandfather then to have no known Father at all or that the worst of Fathers should be our immediate Predecessor On the other side the contrary mark of the spirits that are not of God is as our Saviour intimates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 24.11 they shall arise as without mission so without succession or propagation by which the Churches lawful Pastors lineally descend They arise as the smoak ascends that darkens the Sun and the Air Rev. 9.2 or like the Beast armed for mischief with heads and horns Rev. 13.1 or like the Tares of the field which the husbandman never sowed that is they shall climb unto their Offices by the steps of Ambition or are raised up to them by popular favour and voice of tumultuous Assemblies who commonly if permitted as St. Paul observes love to heap to themselves their own Teachers 2 Tim. 4.3 whom they keep and govern and by whom they may always be uncontrollably humoured and observed But let them be made by whom they please they are not constituted by Gods order and so not of God The third and last Character in concurrence with the former to direct our trial of spirits is that such spirits are then demonstrably of God who teach and maintain the doctrines of God Men may be false Prophets by false Doctrines as well as by false Callings And the Arian Priests were such by their heretical principles as well as the Arian Presbyters by their unlawful Ordinations But because the whole circle of the differing parties from the Romanist to the Quaker do all make claim and center in this pretence that their several doctrines are of God and lest we should seem barely to presume and assert our own to be so as most of Adversaries use to do and not sufficiently demonstrate that they are so Therfore it is just and necessary that we endeavour to find out such marks that may signally distinguish the doctrines that be of God from those that are not and then see how farr the doctrines of the Church of England stand in agreement with them 1. First then Those are the doctrines that are of God which as to the fundamentals of