Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	apostle_n	church_n	key_n	2,057	5	9.6217	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30625	A treatise of church-government occasion'd by some letters lately printed concerning the same subject / by Robert Burscough ...	Burscough, Robert, 1651-1709.	1692 (1692)	Wing B6137; ESTC R2297	142,067	330

much Art as may partly appear by this discourse of the Cardinal Prosper Sanctacrucius with the French Ambassador Paul de Foix in the presence of Thuanus You compel me Sir said the Cardinal in your favour to reveal a Mystery that hath been conceal'd with a profound veneration which is that this Court uses an exquisite Severity when there is occasion and it may be done without danger and when any man of great Quality submits to it the Cause is prolong'd with abundance of delays till the fame thereof and the terror of our name be spread over the World This Severity is so long successful as it is tamely born either through weakness or religious fear but if a Prince be held by neither with caution and great dissimulation we depart from this Rigor This was an ingenuous Confession and it shews in what wretched condition they have been who most of all dreaded the Thunder of the Vatican That the Popes and their Creatures have infringed the Prerogatives of Princes is evident beyond exception And that others who have seem'd very adverse from them have notwithstanding in this imitated their Example appears also from many instances and will not be deny'd I suppose by you who have read Spotswood's History of the Church of Scotland and have no fondness for the Presbyterian Discipline But whoever they are that take such measures and invade and grasp into their hands the Rights of the Magistrate whether they pretend to it in order to things Spiritual or for the advancement of the Scepter of Christ they make the Gospel a Carnal thing and do infinite dishonour to Christianity by their Usurpations This may be sufficient to let you see that the sentiments I have of Ecclesiastical Government intrench not on the Temporal and that when you tell me The sword knows no other edge but what the Magistrate gives it it makes nothing against me who am of opinion that the Church hath no Secular Power but what is deriv'd from Secular Princes and what may be limited or extended by them Nevertheless I affirm in the next place that our Saviour communicated some Power to his Church and particularly that he conferr'd on his Apostles such Authority as Secular Princes could not bestow For he gave them the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven He gave them Commission to absolve offenders and an assurance that their Sentence should be ratified Whose soever sins said he ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained After his Ascension they acted as his Representatives and by the Power they received from him they constituted other Officers to be Governours of Churches and to them they convey'd some Authority For Authority is implied in the Titles that are attributed to them in the Scripture and in different degrees it belongs to all Ecclesiastical Rulers Obey them that have the Rule over you says the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and submit your selves for they watch for your souls Heb. 13.17 And Clemens Romanus admonishes those who had laid the foundation of the Schism at Corinth To be subject to their Presbyters to be contrite and penitent for their former miscarriages to lay aside their arrogant speeches and to learn submission since it were better as he tells them that they should be little in the Fold of Christ than to swell with pride and fall from their hopes in him The Authority that has been assigned to the Apostles and other Pastors of the Church is commonly called Spiritual and not unfitly for it is exercis'd in Spiritual matters and relates to the affairs of another World It does not touch or hurt the Body or Life or Estate of an Offender but by accident It may be assisted by the Coercive Power of the Magistrate but that is not essential to it The administration of it is sometimes rendred more easie by the favour of Princes and sometimes more difficult by their opposition but it is the same in it self under those various circumstances It has its proper effects in the times of Persecution as well as in those that are serene and calm and it must be granted that Obedience is always due to it under the pain of God's displeasure unless one will say that his Precepts may be broken without danger or that Ecclesiastical Government is one of the most precarious useless things in the World Before I dismiss this Subject it may be fit to take notice of the Attempts against Ecclesiastical Authority that have been made by a late Writer who is suppos'd by some to be what he thought himself a man of Demonstration You are no Stranger to his Opinions amongst which this is one that Christ himself had not nor hath in this World any Regal or Governing Power Our Saviour was sent says he to persuade the Jews to return to and to invite the Gentiles to receive the Kingdom of the Father but not to reign in Majesty no not as his Fathers Lieutenant till the day of Judgment And from hence he gathers that no obedience to his Officers can be requir'd For this purpose he produces these words of Christ My Kingdom is not of this world But he certainly mistakes their sense as the Manichees did before him and the Answer may be apply'd to him which was given to them by Theophylact who observes that it is said indeed My Kingdom is not of this World and again it is not from hence But it is not said My Kingdom is not in this World or it is not here The Kingdom of Christ is not from the earth as its Cause nor is it earthly in its Nature Yet is the Earth part of his Empire and he turns about the affairs of it at his pleasure In his state of humiliation he had power on Earth to forgive sins And then it was that he said to his Disciples Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am After his Resurrection he declar'd that all power was given to him in heaven and in earth And so far is it from being true that he reigns not till the day of judgment that the Apostle says expresly He must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet If our Saviour had all Power he might delegate some part of it to his Apostles and that he did so appears from what has been said and it may be confirm'd from the Promise which he made to them that they should sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel This place I know has been made use of to prove that no Ministers of Christ have any ruling power till he comes to judgment But one that attentively considers that the Jurisdiction which is represented by sitting on Thrones commences not with his coming in Glory but with his entring into it or being in it may find reason to think he design'd to intimate to his Apostles

Action for Irenaeus tells us that Polycarp was not only taught by the Apostles but constituted by them Bishop of Smyrna And his words deserve the greater credit because he was a Hearer of Polycarp in his younger years and understood doubtless what place he had in the Church and the manner of his Advancement to it I need make no Inferences from this Example because it is so obvious that it destroys your Hypothesis CHAP. XVIII The Testimony of the Fathers is necessary for the ascertaining to us the Canon of the Holy Scripture It is as Cogent for the Divine Original of Episcopacy THere are some that will hardly hear with patience any Arguments that are drawn from the Authority of the Fathers because as they conceive or pretend it favours the Papists A thing very acceptable to the Papists could it be prov'd But we do them too much honour if we believe that the Ancient Tradition is on their side when some of the most Learned amongst them dare lay no claim to it for the support of those Doctrines wherein they differ from us and many of their greatest Bigots have found themselves so press'd by it that they have appeal'd from it to their Oracle for the time Being the Pope I mean to whom Cornelius Mussus one of their number profess'd that he attributed more credit than to a thousand Austins Jeroms and Gregories and so ends the noise of Antiquity Vniversality and Consent It is not my business here to attempt a Vindication of the Fathers any farther than it answers my present design and I shall only observe that they that despise them most are sometimes forced to serve themselves of their Authority For example Gittichius says that his Friends who had read their Books found them plunged into the profoundest ignorance hardly understanding so much as one Article of the Christian Faith but like blind men moving irregularly and with a trembling pace And such confidence he had that the Censures which his party had pass'd on them were just or rather too modest that he declares The Truth of the Christian Religion was wholly lost a little after the death of the Apostles and commends Flaccius Illyricus for comparing the Disputations of the Fathers to a Fight of Drunkards at a Feast who are not solicitous to betake themselves to their Swords but supply the want of Weapons with Dishes or Trenchers with Bread or any thing that comes to hand Yet his Friends sometimes make use of the Testimony of those whom he so impudently charges with Apostasie and Folly and whom they are wont to reproach and they depend on it in matters of great importance They prove from thence in the Racovian Catechism that our Lord rose from the dead as the Scriptures relate and that the several Books of the New Testament were written by the Persons whose Names they bear herein following the Example of their Master Socinus who argues from the unanimous consent of the Primitive Christians that the four Gospels the Acts of the Apostles c. were written by those to whom they are attributed and for this he refers us to Eusebius At other times he treated the Ancients with great contempt because they stood in the way of this Animal of Glory when he was resolv'd to make himself the Head of a Sect yet he plainly shews that for the vindication of the Authority of the Holy Scripture an assent is necessary and due to their Suffrage And others who ascribe very little to that Suffrage cannot but perceive if they will attentively consider it that when there is a dispute about some passages or parts of the Holy Scripture whether they are genuine or not one would render himself extreamly ridiculous that should reject the Testimony of the Fathers as useless on this occasion and go about to determine the Controversie and to convince gainsayers by his own Instinct or the dictates of a private Spirit But if immediately after the Apostles decease there was a general departure from that Rule of Government which they appointed if all the Primitive Bishops were Usurpers of the Rights of those whom Heaven had made their Equals and all the Presbyters upon Earth did tamely abandon that Power which God had given them and all the Christians in the World with one Consent approv'd and promoted the evil designs of the former and the treachery of the last and if we must believe that the Primitive Writers conspir'd to put a Cheat upon us in the Representations they have made of the Affairs of the Church I would then be inform'd what assurance we can have that they have convey'd to us the true Canon of Scripture For it may seem that if they were Men so extreamly Corrupt they deserv'd no great Credit in any thing and might be suspected to have made as bold with the Oracles of God as they had done with his Institution of Church-Government I make no doubt to affirm that the Testimony of the Fathers is at least as cogent for the Divine Original of Episcopacy as it is when they ascertain to us the Canon of Scripture which yet is like to suffer nothing by this comparison For if we reject them as false Witnesses when they inform us that Bishops were appointed by the Apostles we must not only believe as I have intimated already that the Pastors of the Church notwithstanding their great distance from one another and their different Customs and Interests generally hit at the same time upon the same Project to destroy that Ecclesiastical Polity which had Christ for its Founder but that every where they had the same fatal Success We must also believe that however Government is a very nice thing and is not usually changed without fears and jealousies and mighty clamours and however the alterations of the Forms of Government are so easily observed yet did the Rising Prelates give so dextrous and nimble a Turn to the Government of the Church over all the World that that there was not the least notice taken of it or else we must believe that they destroy'd all the Records of that Transaction so that no Monuments remain of their Ambition And this we must also believe against the declarations of those that were conversant with the Apostles and their immediate Successors against the informations of Martyrs and Confessors in the best and purest times and against the common faith of Christians for above a thousand years after the death of our Saviour Being thus Credulous we shall much resemble one Vilgardus of Ravenna mention'd by Glaber Rodulphus who asserted that all the sayings of the Poets ought in every point to be believ'd And when we are arriv'd at that pitch of sense no body I suppose will be much concern'd at what we contradict or care to dispute with us who are only fit for the Entertainments of Inchanted Castles Thus Sir I have consider'd your Objections against that Authority which I still think our Saviour