Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	baron_n	earl_n	king_n	15,398	5	3.8090	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63673	Chrisis teleiōtikē, A discourse of confirmation for the use of the clergy and instruction of the people of Ireland / by Jeremy, Lord Bishop of Down ; and dedicated to His Grace James, Duke ... and General Governor of His Majesties kingdom of Ireland.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1663 (1663)	Wing T293; ESTC R11419	62,959	104

ΧΡΙΣΙΣ ΤΕΛΕΙ●ΤΙΚΗ A DISCOURSE OF Confirmation For the use of the Clergy and Instruction of the People of Ireland By Jeremy Lord Bishop of Down Publish'd by Order of Convocation AND Dedicated to His Grace James Duke Marquess and Earl of Ormonde c. Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland DUBLIN Printed by John Crooke Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and are to be sold by Samuel Dancer next door to the Beare and Ragged-staffe in Castle-street 1663. To His Grace James Duke Marquess and Earl of Ormonde Earl of Ossory and Brecknock Viscount Thurles Lord Baron of Arclo and Lanthony Lord of the Regalities and Liberties of the County of Tipperary Chancellor of the University of Dublin Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of the County of Sommerset one of the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy-Councils of His Majesties Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Lord Steward of His Majesties Houshold Gentleman of His Majesties Bed-Chamber and Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter May it please Your Grace IT is not any Confidence that I have Dexterously performed this charge that gives me the boldness to present it to Your Grace I have done it as well as 〈◊〉 For I took not this task upon my self but was entreated to it by them who have power to Command me But yet it is very necessary that it should be addressed to Your Grace who are as Sozomen said of Theodosius Certaminum Magister orationum Judex constitutus You are appointed the great Master of our arguings and are most fit to be the Judge of our Discourses especially when they do relate and pretend to publick Influence and Advantages to the Church We all are Witnesses of Your Zeal to promote true Religion and every day find You to be a Great Patron to this very poor Church which groans under the Calamities and permanent effects of a War acted by Intervals for above 400. years such which the Intermedial Sun-shines of Peace could but very weakly repair our Churches are still demolished much of the Revenues irrecoverably swallowed by Sacriledge and digested by an unavoidable impunity Religion infinitely divided and parted into formidable Sects the People extreamly ignorant and wilful by inheritance superstitiously irreligious and uncapable of reproof and amidst these and very many more inconveniences it was greatly necessary that God should send us such a KING and he send us such a Viceroy who wedds the Interests of Religion and joynes them to his heart For we do not look upon your Grace only as a favourer of the Churches Temporal interest though even for that the Souls of the relieved Clergy do daily bless you neither are You our Patron only as the Cretans were to Homer or the Alenadae to Simonides Philip to Theopompus or Severus to Oppianus but as Constantine and Theodosius were to Christians that is desirous that true Religion should be promoted that the interest of Souls should be advanced that Truth should flourish and wise Principles 〈…〉 In order to which excellent purposes it is hoped that the reduction of the Holy Rite of Confirmation into use and Holy practice may contribute some very great moments For besides that the great usefulness of this Ministry will greatly endear the Episcopal order to which that I may use S. Hierom's words if there be not attributed a more than common Power and Authority there will be as many Schisms as Priests it will also be a means of endearing the Persons of the Prelates to their Flocks when the People shall be convinced that there is or may be if they please a perpetual entercourse of Blessings and Love between them when God by their Holy hands refuses not to give to the People the earnest of an eternal inheritance when by them he blesses and that the grace of our Lord Jesus and the Love of God and the Communication of his Spirit is conveyed to all Persons capable of the grace by the Conduct and on the hands and prayers of their Bishops And indeed not only very many single Persons but even the whole Church of Ireland hath need of Confirmation We have most of us contended for false Religions and un-Christian propositions and now that by Gods mercy and the prosperity and piety of his Sacred Majesty the Church is broken from her cloud and many are reduc'd to the true Religion and righteous worship of God we cannot but call to mind how the Holy Fathers of the Primitive Church often have declar'd themselves in Councils and by a perpetual Discipline that such Persons who are return'd from Sects and Heresies into the Bosom of the Church should not be rebaptiz'd but that the Bishops should impose hands on them in Confirmation It is true that this was design'd to supply the defect of those Schismatical Conventicles who did not use this Holy rite For this Rite of Confirmation hath had the fate to be oppos'd only by the Schismatical and Puritan Parties of old the Novatians or Cathari and the Donatists and of late by the Jesuits and new Cathari the Puritans and Presbyterians the same evil spirit of contradictions keeping its course in the same channel and descending regularly amongst Men of the same principles But therefore in the restitution of a Man or company of Men or a Church the Holy Primitives in the Council of C. P. Laodicea and Orange thought that to confirm such persons was the most agreeable Discipline not only because such persons did not in their little and dark assemblies use this rite but because they alwayes greatly wanted it For it is a sure Rule in our Religion and is of an eternal truth that they who keep not the Unity of the Church have not the Spirit of God and therefore it is most fit should receive the ministery of the spirit when they return to the bosom of the Church that so indeed they may keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace And therefore Asterius Bishop of Amasia compares Confirmation to the ring with which the Father of the Prodigal adorn'd his returning Son Datur nempe prodigo post stolam annulus nempe Symbolum intelligibilis signaculi spiritus And as the Spirit of God the Holy Dove extended his mighty wings over the Creation and hatch'd the new-born World from its seminal powers to Light and Operation and Life and Motion so in the Regeneration of the souls of Men he gives a new being and heat and life Procedure and Perfection Wisdom and Strength and because that this was ministred by the Bishops hands in Confirmation was so firmly believ'd by all the Primitive Church therefore it became a Law and an Vniversal practice in all those ages in which Men desir'd to be sav'd by all means The Latin Church and the Greek alwayes did use it and the Blessings of it which they believ'd consequent to it they expressed

in a holy prayer which in the Greek Euchologion they have very anciently and constantly used Thou O Lord the most compassionate and Great King of all graciously impart to this Person the seal of the gift of thy Holy Almighty and adorable spirit For as an Ancient Greek said truly and wisely The Father is reconcil'd and the Son is the Reconciler but to them who are by Baptism and Repentance made friends of God the Holy Spirit is collated as a gift They well knew what they received in this ministration and therefore wisely laid hold of it and would not let it go This was anciently ministred by Apostles and ever after by the Bishops and Religiously receiv'd by Kings and greatest Princes and I have read that St. Sylvester confirm'd Constantine the Emperour and when they made their children servants of the Holy Jesus and Souldiers under his banner and bonds-men of his Institution then they sent them to the Bishop to be confirm'd who did it sometimes by such Ceremonies that the solemnity of the ministry might with greatest Religion addict them to the service of their Great Lord. We read in Adrovaldus that Charles Martel entring into a League with Bishop Luitprandus sent his Son Pipin to him ut more Christianorum fidelium capillum ejus primus attonderet ac Pater illi Spiritualis existeret that he might after the manner of Christians first cut his hair in token of service to Christ and in confirming him he should be his spiritual Father And something like this we find concerning William Earl of Warren and Surrey who when he had Dedicated the Church of St. Pancratius and the Priorie of Lewes receiv'd Confirmation and gave seizure per capillos capitis mei sayes he in the Charter fratris mei Radulphi de Warrena quas abscidit cum cultello de capitibus nostris Henricus Episcopus Wintoniensis by the hairs of my head and of my Brothers which Henry Bishop of Winchester cut off before the Altar meaning according to the Ancient custome in confirmation when they by that solemnity addicted themselves to the free servitude of the Lord Jesus The ceremony is obsolete and chang'd but the mystery can never and indeed that is one of the advantages in which we can rejoyce concerning the ministration of this Rite in the Church of England and Ireland that whereas it was sometimes clouded sometimes hindred and sometimes hurt by the appendage of needless and useless ceremonies it is now reduc'd to the Primitive and first simplicity amongst us and the excrescencies us'd in the Church of Rome are wholly par'd away and by holy Prayers and the Apostolical Ceremonie of imposition of the Bishops hands it is worthily and zealously administred The Latins us'd to send Chrism to the Greeks when they had usurped some jurisdiction over them and the Popes Chaplains went with a quantity of it to C. P. where the Russians usually met them for it for that was then the ceremony of this ministration But when the Latins demanded fourscore pounds of Gold besides other gifts they went away and chang'd their custom rather than pay an unlawful and ungodly Tribute Non quaerimus vestra sed vos we require nothing but leave to impart Gods blessings with pure Intentions and a spiritual ministery And as the Bishops of our Churches receive nothing from the People for the Ministration of this Rite so they desire nothing but Love and just Obedience in spiritual and Ecclesiastical duties and we offer our Flocks spiritual things without mixture of Temporal advantages from them we minister the rituals of the Gospel without the inventions of Men Riligion without superstition and only desire to be believ'd in such things which we prove from Scripture expounded by the Catholick practice of the Church of God Concerning the Subject of this Discourse the Rite of Confirmation It were easie to recount many great and glorious expressions which we find in the Sermons of the Holy Fathers of the Primitive Ages so certain it is that in this thing we ought to be zealous as being desirous to perswade our People to give us leave to do them great good But the following Pages will do it I hope competently only we shall remark that when they had gotten a custom anciently that in cases of necessity they did permit Deacons and Lay-men sometimes to baptize yet they never did confide in it much but with much caution and curiosity commanded that such Persons should when that necessity was over be carried to the Bishop to be confirm'd so to supply all precedent defects relating to the past imperfect ministry and future necessity and danger as appears in the Council of Eliberis And the Ancients had so great estimate and veneration to this Holy rite that as in Heraldry they distinguish the same thing by several names when they relate to Persons of greater Eminency and they blazon the Armes of the Gentry by Metals of the Nobtlity by pretious stones but of Kings and Princes by Planets so when they would signifie the Vnction which was us'd in confirmation they gave it a special word and of more distinction remark and therefore the oyl us'd in baptism they call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that of confirmation was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they who spake properly kept this difference of words untill by incaution and ignorant carelessness the names fell into confusion and the thing into disuse and dis-respect But it is no small addition to the Honour of this ministration that some wise and good men have piously believed that when baptiz'd Christians are confirm'd and solemnly bless'd by the Bishop that then it is that a special Angel Guardian is appointed to keep their souls from the assaults of the spirits of darkness Concerning which though I shall not interpose mine own opinion yet this I say that the Prety of that supposition is not disagreeable to the intention of this Rite for since by this the Holy Spirit of God the Father of Spirits is given it is not unreasonably thought by them that the other good Spirits of God the Angels who are ministring spirits sent forth to minister to the good of them that shall be Heirs of Salvation should pay their kind offices in subordination to their Prince and fountain that the first in every kind might be the measure of all the rest But there are greater and stranger things than this that God does for the souls of his Servants and for the honour of the ministeries which himself hath appointed We shall only add that this was ancient and long before Popery entred into the World and that this rite hath been more abus'd by Popery than by any thing and to this Day the Bigots of the Roman Church are the greatest Enemies to it and from them the Presbyterians but besides that the Church of England and Ireland does religiously retain it and hath appointed a solemn officer for the Ministery the Lutheran and