Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	new_a	sabbath_n	12,020	5	10.1331	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50949	The reason of church-government urg'd against prelaty by Mr. John Milton ; in two books.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1641 (1641)	Wing M2175; ESTC R3223	58,920	68

that I do not feare his winning of many to his cause but such as doting upon great names are either over-weake or over sudden of faith I shall not refuse therefore to lea● ne so much prudence as I finde in the Roman Souldier that attended the crosse not to stand breaking of legs when the breath is quite out of the body but passe to that which follows The Primat of Armagh at the beginning of his tractat seeks to availe himselfe of that place in the 66 of Esaiah I will take of them for Priests and Levites saith the Lord to uphold hereby such a forme of superiority among the ministers of the Gospell succeeding those in the law as the Lords day did the Sabbath But certain if this method may be admitted of interpreting those propheticall passages concerning Christian times in a punctuall correspondence it may with equall probability be urg'd upon us that we are bound to observe some monthly solemnity answerable to the new moons as well as the Lords day which we keepe in lieu of the Sabbath for in the 23 v. the Prophet joynes them in the same manner together as before he did the Priests and Levites thus And it shall come to passe that from one new moone to another and from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before me saith the Lord Undoubtedly with as good consequence may it be alledg'd from hence that we are to solemnize some religious monthly meeting different from the Sabbath as from the other any distinct formality of Ecclesiasticall orders may be inferr'd This rather will appeare to be the lawfull and unconstrain'd sense of the text that God in taking of them for Priests and Levites will not esteeme them unworthy though Gentiles to undergoe any function in the Church but will make of them a full and perfect ministery as was that of the Priests and Levites in their kinde And Bishop An● rows himselfe to end the controversie sends us a candid exposition of this quoted verse from the 24 page of his said book plainly deciding that God by those legall names there of Priests and Levites means our Presbyters and Deacons for which either ingenuous confession or slip of his pen we give him thanks and withall to him that brought these treatises into one volume who setting the contradictions of two learned men so neere together did not foresee What other deducements or analogies are cited out of S. Paul to pro● e a likenesse betweene the Ministers of the Old and New Testament having tri'd their sinewes I judge they may passe without harme doing to our cause We may remember then that Prelaty neither hath nor can have foundation in the law nor yet in the Gospell which assertion as being for the plainnesse thereof a matter of eye sight rather then of disquisition I voluntarily omitt not forgetting to specifie this note againe that the earnest des● e which the Prelates have to build their Hierarchy upon the sandy bottome of the law gives us to see abundantly the little assurance which they finde to reare up their high roofs by the autority of the Gospell repulst as it were from the writings of the Apostles and driven to take sanctuary among the Jewes Hence that open confession of the Primat before mention'd Episcopacy is fetcht partly from the patterne of the Old Testament partly from the New as an imitation of the Old though nothing ca● be more rotten in Divinity then such a position as this and is all one as to say Episcopacy is partly of divine institution and partly of mans own carving For who gave the autority to fetch more from the patterne of the law then what the Apostles had already fetcht if they fetcht any thing at a● l as hath beene prov'd they did not So was Jer● oams Episcopacy partly from the patterne of the law and partly from the patterne of his owne carnality a parti-colour'd and a parti-member'd Episcopacy and what can this be lesse then a monstrous Others therefore among the Prelats perhaps not so well able to brook or rather to justifie this foule relapsing to the old law have condiscended at last to a plaine confessing that both the names and offices of Bishops and Presbyters at first were the same and in the Scriptures no where distinguisht This grants the remonstrant in the fift Section of his desc● e and in the Preface to his last short answer But what need respect he had whether he grant or grant it not when as through all antiquity and even in the lo● iest times of Prelaty we finde it granted Ierome the learned'st of the Fathers hides not his opinion that custome only which the Proverbe cals a tyrant was the maker of Prelaty before his audacious workman● p the Churches were rul'd in common by the Presbyters and such a certaine truth this was esteem'd that it became a decree among the Papall Canons compil'd by Gratian Ans● l me also of Canturbury who to uphold the points of his Prelatisme made himselfe a traytor to his country yet commenting the Epistles to Titus and the Philippians acknowledges from the cleernesse of the text what Ierome and the Church Rubrick hath before acknowledg'd He little dreamt then that the weeding-hook of reformation would after two ages pluck up his glorious poppy from insulting over the good corne Though since some of our Brittish Prelates seeing themselves prest to produce Scripture try all their cunning if the New Testament will not help them to frame of their own heads as it were with wax a kinde of Mimick Bishop limm'd out to the life of a dead Priesthood Or else they would straine us out a certaine figurative Prelat by wringing the collective allegory of those seven Angels into seven single Rochets Howsoever since it thus appeares that custome was the creator of Prelaty being lesse ancient then the government of Presbyters it is an extreme folly to give them the hearing that tell us of Bishops through so many ages and if against their tedious muster of citations Sees and successions it be reply'd that wagers and Church antiquities such as are repugnant to the plaine dictat of Scripture are both alike the arguments of fooles they have their answer We rather are to cite all those ages to an arraignment before the word of God wherefore and what pretending how presuming they durst alter that divine institution of Presbyter● which the Apostles who were no various and inconstant men surely had set up in the Churches and why they choose to live by custome and catalogue or as S. Paul saith by sight and visibility rather then by faith But first I conclude from their owne mouthes that Gods command in Scripture which doubtlesse ought to be the first and greatest reason of Church-government is wanting to Prelaty And certainly we have plenteous warrant in the doctrine of Christ to determine that the want of this reason is of it selfe sufficient to confute all other