Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	church_n	head_n	visible_a	2,242	5	10.0238	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36241	A defence of the vindication of the deprived bishops wherein the case of Abiathar is particularly considered, and the invalidity of lay-deprivations is further proved, from the doctrine received under the Old Testament, continued in the first ages of christianity, and from our own fundamental laws, in a reply to Dr. Hody and another author : to which is annexed, the doctrine of the church of England, concerning the independency of the clergy on the lay-power, as to those rights of theirs which are purely spiritual, reconciled with our oath of supremancy, and the lay-deprivations of the popish bishops in the beginning of the reformation / by the author of the Vindication of the deprived bishops.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1695 (1695)	Wing D1805; ESTC R18161	114,840	118

Constitution Upon this account it has been accounted the Interest of Societies in general that they be unanimous in defending it For this will make the Government better able to defend it self and protect its Subjects in their Rights if it have the united assistance of the whole Society not subdivided into several little Interests It has also been thought the publick Interest of Societies rather to be concluded by their Governours as to their Practice in their Judgment concerning the publick good than to be permited to embroyl their whole Bodies by forming subdivided Factions and intestine animosities which is the natural consequence of being allowed the use of their private Judgements even concerning the publick good in a Society already constituted Thus the Doctor may see how even the regard of the publick good may oblige him to hazard all that he calls Ruin in asserting the Rights of Suprem Governours by reasons anticedent to the Oath it self and independent on his pretended false Principle that Oaths are taken only for the sake of Governours These Reasons proceed though the Government of the Churches had been like many Humane Governments founded on Humane Institution and the agreeing consent of its respective Members But the reason of hazarding all for the Rights of our Ecclesiastical Superiors holds more strongly For God himself has so constituted his own Church as to oblige us in regard of all Interests to the strict dependence on our Ecclesiastical Governours As Schism is the greatest mischief that can befall any Society so a Society such as the Church is that must subsist over all the World independent on the Secular arm nay under Pesecution from it must be in the greatest danger of Schism And God has accordingly most wisely contrived his Spiritual Society so as to secure it from that danger by making it the greatest Interest of the Church in general and of all its Members considered severally to adhere to their Spiritual Monarch It is certainly their greatest Interest to keep their Mystical Communion with God the head of Christ and with Christ the head of his Mystical Body the Church But this God has made no otherwise attainable but by maintaining a Communion with his visible Body by visible Sacraments obliging himself to ratify in Heaven what is transacted by the visible Governours of the Church on Earth Thus he admits to his Mystical Union those who are admitted by the visible Governours of his Church into his visible Body and excludes from the Mystical Union those who are by the Church Governours excluded from the Union that is visible So the Apostle St. John reasons that whosoever would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion with the Father and the Son must not expect it otherwise than by the Communion with that visible Body of which the Apostle himself was a Member 1 St. Joh. I. 3. So our Saviour himself makes the despising of those who are Authorized by him to be the despising of himself and not only so but of him also who sent him And in St. Joh. XVII he makes his Mystical Union to be of Christians among themselves as well as with himself and the Father And upon this dependend the dreadfulness of Excommunication and indeed all obligation to Discipline and the Penances imposed by it in the Primitive Church But there was none in the visible constitution of the Church that represented God and Christ under the Notion of a Head but the Biship And therefore he was taken for the principle of Unity without Union to whom there could be no pretensions to Union with God and Christ. This was the Doctrine of St. Cyprians Age and not his only but of that of Ignatius and not only of Ignatius but of that which was Apostolical grounded on the Notions then received among the Jews concerning their Union with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Archetypal High Priest by their Union with the High Priest who was visible How then can the Doctor make any Interests either publick or private separable from those of adhering to our Bishops and thereby avoiding Schism by discountenancing Usurpers of their lawful Thrones § XVI The complyance with Usurpers is also therefore sinful because Usurping Bishops are really no Bishops at all The Doctor now proceeds in the 4th and last place to shew that this complyance with the new Intruders is not sinful on account of the Objection insisted on by the Vindicator that the Usurpers are in reality no Bishops at all This matter were indeed very easy if all the Vindicator had produced for his purpose had been only a saying of St. Cyprian and a saying nothing to his purpose He might then indeed wonder that the Vindicator should pretend to raise so great a structure on so weak a foundation But considering what the Vindicator had said to prove the saying true one might rather wonder at the Doctors confidence in slighting and overlooking what one would therefore think him conscious that his Cause would not afford an Answer to The Vindicator had proved it more than a saying that it was the Sense not only of St. Cyprian but of all the Bishops of that Age who all of them denyed their Communicatory Letters to such an Intruder into a Throne not validly vacated thereby implying that they did not own him of their Episcopal Colledge and therefore took him for no Bishop at all The Vindicator shewed withal that it was agreable to the Principles and Traditions of that Age derived by Tradition from the Apostles and therefore that they had reason to say and think so too The Vindicator farther proved it independently on their saying or thoughts however otherwise creditable in an affair of this kind from the nature of the thing it self that where there could be but one of a kind and two Pretenders could not therefore be both genuine the validity of one Title is to be gathered from the invalidity of the other But to what purpose is it to produce proofs if the Doctor will take no notice of them But Cornelious with relation to whose Case St. Cyprian uses this Expression that the latr Bishop is not second but none the Doctor says had never been deposed but was still the possessor which he takes for a disparity from our deprived Fathers Case He was deposed as much as it lay in the Power of the Pagan Emperour to do so He was set up not only as the Christian Bishops then generally were without his consent but notoriously against it He was as much grieved at it as if a Rival had been set up against him for the Empire And he had kept the See vacant for a considerable time after the Martyrdom of Fabianus doing all that he could do to hinder the Clergy from meeting in such a way as was requisite for supplying the vacancy Let the Doctor himself Judge what Decius could have done more for deposing him However the Doctor tells us that Cornelius was the Possessor Very true But

The Magistrate can conser no Title to Future and Eternal Rewards to Persons otherwise never so well qualified for receiving them He cannot oblige the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to ratify in Heaven what is transacted by him on Earth as the High Priest could who was in the sense of those times taken for his Authorized Representative GOD at his first permission of Kings neither suppressed the Priest hood nor united it in the Person of the King And therfore there can be no pretence that what was not otherwise in his Power was put in his Power thence forward by any particular provision or gift of GOD. How than could he pretend to to that Power How could he give or take away a Power from others to which himself could not pretend How could he suppose his Act would be ratified in Heaven Or how imagine GOD obliged by it to reject the Priest whom he as Prince was pleased to reject and accept of others who were permitted only by his Authority to officiate at GOD's Altar And what could all his intermedling in these matters signify if he cannot oblige God to ratify what is done by him if notwithstanding GOD should accept of the Person rejected by him and reject the Person obtruded by the Civil Magistrate Nothing certainly with regard to Conscience which is the principal consideration in this Case § XXXIII The ancient Jews of the Apostle's Age did believe their Priest hood available to a future and a eternal state I cannot for my Life conceive how our Adversaries can avoid the force of this Argument if the Benefits procured by the Sacerdotal Office were thought Spiritual and principally relating to a future and eternal state things perfectly out of the Power of the Magistrate and incomparably exceeding whatsoever is within it And that this was the sense of that Age I need not insist on the Article of our own Church It sufficiently appears from the earliest coaeval Monuments of that Age not only that they thought the Sacerdotal Office to have influence on the future state but that they did on that very account believe it superior to the Office of the Civil Magistrate Besides what I now mentioned concerning their agreement against the Sadduces the Two only Jewish Authors that we have undoubtedly coaeval with the Apostles Philo and Josephus are both of them sufficiently clear in these particulars That the Priests Ministry was thought available for the future state what can be clearer than those Words of Philo Where he tells us that Priests and Prophets were Men of God and therefore did not vouchsafe to account themselves of any particular City in this World or Citizens of the World in general as some of the Philosophers did but soared above all that was sensible and being translated to the Intellectual World fixed their Habitations there being registred in the City of Incorruptible Incorporeal Ideas And it were easie to shew that the Language and Notions of the N. T. concerning the correspondence between the visible Priest hood on Earth and the Archetypal Priest-hood of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Heaven and between the visible Tabernacle in Jerusalem and the true Tabernacle in Heaven not pitched by Men but God were perfectly agreeable to these Notions of Philo who was such as the Apostles were before their Conversion to the Christian Religion and that all the Benefits of their outward Ministry were thought due to this Mystical Communication with that which was Invisible by which it may appear that those words of Philo were perfectly agreeable to his avowed Principles Now how could the Magistrate pretend to promote or interrupt this Mystical communication between the Earthly and Heavenly Offices How could he therefore advance any Person to that Dignity or exclude him from it Josephus also is as clear in owning a future state which by these Principles could not be claim'd by any but on account of this Mystical Communication and consequently of that Priest hood which was thought to have a just Title to it He also expresses that state by the Laaguage of the Christians also of that Age. To these I might add the Testimony of a third Tewish Hellenist the Author of the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom He also Personates Solomom making the Temple built by himself to be a Resemblance of the Holy Tabernacle which God had prepared from the beginning Which shews that this Mystical Communication was understood even then when that Author lived who seems to have been elder than even the Apostles themselves How could the Magistrate pretend to any Right in Affairs of this nature § XXXIV And consequently did expresly own it for mor Honourable than the Magistracy it self So far is he from any Right to intermeddle in these matters that if these things be true the Priest hood must needs be own'd for an Authority of a higher nature and more Noble than even the Magistracy it self Nay this very Consequence was inferred from those Principles and own'd as true in that very Age. Philo owns it for the highest honour possible Speaking concerning the Words of Moses there mentioned Using says he an Hyperbolical Expression of Honour GOD he says is their lot with relation to the Consecrated Gifts on Two Account one of the Highest Honour because they are Partakers of those things which are by way of gratitude allotted to GOD The other because they are employed on those things alone which belong to Expiations as if they were Guardians or Gurators that is the Roman Word of the Inheritances The Similitude seems to be taken from the Roman Custom of making Tutors and Curators of young Heirs whose Estates till they themselves came to Age were said to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of such Tutors and Curators being till then at their disposal Supposing that the Revenues of GOD were so at the disposal of the Priest as the Estates of the Young Heirs were so at the disposal of the Curators This Philo takes to be the reason why GOD was pleas'd to call himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Priests as if GOD himself had been their Pupil which was indeed a very Hyperbolical Expression of the HIGHEST HONOUR that could be ascribed to Mortals But this is general only He else where expresly equals nay prefers the Dignity of the Sacerdocal Office to the Regal He equals them in that same Discourse It is manifest says he that the Law prescribes that reverence and honour to the Priests which is proper to the King In another place he prefers the Priest hood These are his Words † Priest hood is the properest reward of a Pious Man who professes himself to serve the Father whose service is better not only than Liberty but also than a KINGDOM Nor was this a singular Opinion of Philo. Jesephus also is of the same mind The Scripture it self owns the Power of Moses to have been Regal when it calls him a King in