Selected quad for the lemma: order_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
order_n	apostle_n	church_n	set_v	3,106	5	5.6522	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62458	A letter concerning the present state of religion amongst us	Thorndike, Herbert, 1598-1672.	1656 (1656)	Wing T1053; ESTC R5555	12,737	27

England That the Church is not to assemble for the Service of God but when there is preaching This seems to stand upon a very grosse mistake of those passages of the Apostles writings which declare the necessary means of salvation to consist in hearing the Gospel preached As if they were meant of Sermons in the Pulpit which are onely made to those that are already Christians not of publishing the Gospel to those that knew it not afore convincing them that it is true and instructing them wherein it consists Or as if those that are already Christians wanted any thing necessary to Salvation supposing them to persevere in the Christianity which they have professed Not as if their Christianity did not oblige them to hear Sermons when the authority of the Church assures them to be without offence But because the Offices of publick Praiers and the Praises of God especially in celebrating the blessed Eucharist are the end of all that instruction in Christianity which Christians receive from the Church and therefore all Preaching subordinate to the same as the means to the End And because they may be daily so frequented without offence and to the increase of the reverence of Christianity as the experience of our time shows that Preaching cannot be The second is that the first day of the week called Sunday is the Sabbath by force of the fourth Commandement An Imposture so gross that it may well serve for an instance what Faction can do with men that are sober otherwise That God by commanding the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week to wit that day on which he ended the Creation of the world and for that very reason commanding it should be thought to command Christians to keep the first day of the week on which he began the Creation and our Lord Christ arose from the dead That is that the same words of the same Commandment in writing should oblige Jews to rest on the Saturday which oblige Christians to rest on the Sunday is a thing which when this fit of frensy shall be past us will scarse be beleeved that ever any man would beleeve True it is this first day hath been observed in and ever since the Apostles time but not by vertue of that Law which their office was to declare was expired and out of date but by the Act of their own authority whereby they gave Laws to Christs Church Let us now onely compare the daily morning and evening Sacrifice of Prayer and the Praises of God established by the Order of the Church of England together with the more solemn service of Lords dayes and Festivals with a bare Sermon upon Sundaies ushered in and out with a Prayer of every mans own conceit setting aside the Heresy and false doctrine the Faction Schism the blasphemy and slander the ridiculous follies which this Sermon and Prayer may and which we have known them contain I say comparing these together the blessed reformation pretended is and ought to be accounted the abomination of desolation in comparison of that Order which it destroyeth And therefore upon this account alone those who not being invested with that ordinary Power by which the Church is inabled to correct abuses in the Church shall usurp the Power of the Church to introduce this disorder are thereby Schismaticks themselves and those that acknowledge them for their Pastors complices of Schismaticks It will be said that these Laws will be amended as it was many times said awhile since that the Parliament would settle a Ministery To this I say that those that are sent you by virtue of these Laws have every way as good authority as any the Power that made these Laws joyned with a Parliament can give to them that are not otherwise qualified by the authority of the Church That is that this Power of a Parliament together though advising with divines how the qualities of those whom they make Ministers are to be limited can do no more then this Power with advise of those Divines it useth hath done Both being Secular and able to make men their Ministers to maintain the Interest of that Government which their Power constituteth but not Ministers of the Church to maintain the interest of that Faith and service of God which it is trusted with If it be said that at the Reformation those from whom the Ministry is propagated had not received by their Ordination Power to ordain others I answer that it is agreed among all that professe the Reformation that the abuses crept into the Church were so great that particular Churches that is part of the whole might and ought to reform themselves without consent or concurrence of the whole It is also agreed among them that maintain it that there is in the Church a succession of persons indued with authority in behalf of it as well as of doctrine and of the service of God Though the succession of persons be of less consideration as subordinate to the succession of doctrine as the means to the end In this case then I say that such inabilities in persons vested with Ecclesiastical Power by the Reformation as became unavoidable by the refusal of the rest of the Church to concur in it cannot make Churches so constituted no Churches nor void the effect of those Offices which persons so qualified shall minister unto Gods people But such inabilities as became unavoidable onely for want of due information in those that undertook to reform themselves as it would be malice in man to justifie so it may reasonably be presumed that the mercy of God excuses But supposing according to the premises and the sense of all that adhere to the Church of England that the Presbyterians Ordinations tend no more to maintain the primitive faith and service of God once delivered to the Church and established in it by the Apostles then they do to maintain that which is hitherto established in the Church of England I say supposing this to imagine that an Assembly of Divines by being lawfully ordained to the office of Priests or Deacons according to the Laws of the Church of England can by commission from the secular Power make ordinations which the Laws under which they were ordained forbid is to imagin that God can inable man to sin or that a Soveraign Power can authorize the subject to rebell against it self And therefore though the qualities of persons to be sent you for Pastors may be otherwise limited by Acts which Parliaments may make yet these qualities not being derived from the authority of the Apostles sounding the Church by any act of the Church but from secular Power and Commission issued from it make them no more Ministers of the Church that are made by Assemblies of Divines and Presbyteries then those that are made by commission of Triers and ejecting scandalous Ministers That is both of them being by their creation Schismaticks and their profession not clearing them of misprision of Heresy they

is the marks of predestination whether true or false not distinguishing whether they suppose the Covenant of Grace the undertaking of it and persevering in it or not I say that you are no way secured by these Laws that the Triers themselves much lesse those whom they shall send you are not complices of this damnable Heresy I must not forget to advise you that Dell one so far of this Heresy that he hath written a Book against Baptisme it self is now and is acknowledged by these Commissioners master of a Colledge in the University whereof several fellows have been notorious Preachers of this Heresy who cannot be acknowledged a member of the Church by any good Christian The like I alledge in regard of the Sect of the Anabaptists In which point I must suppose two things First that the Christian Faith supposeth Original sin Secondly that without Baptisme there is no cure for it which depends upon the Premises that there is no absolute predestination without consideration of the Covenant of Grace which Baptisme executeth to cure it For whatsoever our Lord meant when he said unlesse ye be born again of water it is manifest that though no man can become a true Christian without the operation of the Holy Ghost yet the Grace of the Holy Ghost dwelling in a man is not granted but in consideration of his entring into the said covenant and that this onely is the cure of Original sin There is then no necessity of shewing an expresse precept in Scripturre that all Infants be baptized or that the Church from the Apostles time did Baptize all while they were Infants If the Christian Faith suppose Original sin if no cure for that but by the covenant of Grace if no execution of that Covenant but the Baptisme of the Church unlesse where the outward act is prevented by inevitable necessity after the inward desire thereof was sufficiently resolved and declared then is this necessity a constraining precept and hath been so reputed by the Church even since the Apostles which alwayes hath taken order not that all should be baptized Infants but that no Infant should die without being baptized For the diligent watch over all occasions that might carry Infants out of the world unbaptized observed by the Church from the beginning though neglected since demonstrateth no legal assurance of the salvation of such as should die unbaptized whatsoever might be presumed of Gods goodnesse over and above what he declareth But as for those that shall become obliged and engaged to the covenant of grace by being consecrated to God through the act of the Church thereby obliging it self to shew them the truth of Christianity which obligeth all to whom it is shown the necessity aforesaid together with the practice of the Church is a legal presumption of the cure of Original sin and the opening of Paradise which it onely shutteth If therefore our Anabaptists do not believe original sin they are Pelagian Hereticks If beleeving it they beleeve notwithstanding that it is cured by Predestination without the Covenant of Grace they fall into the damnable Heresy premised And seem to make not onely that Baptisme whereby they make void the Baptisme received in the Church of England a renouncing of the Christianity which they received and professed at their Baptisme but that also which they give those whom they will not have baptized while they are infants utterly void and ineffectual towards God as not pretending to bring them into Covenant of Gods Grace by Christ that is into the profession of the true Faith and of fighting against sin till death under the same which they that beleeve Salvation by Gods Predestination revealed by faith without undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace can by no means pretend to do Seeing then that the necessity of Baptisme cannot be denied but upon such a ground as voideth the Covenant of Grace and seeing the Triers are either Anabaptists themselves or complices in the same Commission with Anabaptists whereof there are in the Commission of Triers five or six that I hear of by name and how many more God knows and in the Commission for ejecting of scandalous Ministers in one County of Hertford nine of fifteen as I am credibly informed it is evident that by these Laws you are no wayes secured of having Anabaptists for your Pastors who are expressly Schismaticks forsaking the Church for that which the Church alwayes did and by consequence of the premised reasons Hereticks As the Baptisme of those men whom they pretend to send you for Pastors is by this reason void in point of right so the Eucharist which they may pretend to celebrate will be void of the effect of a Sacrament toward you but not void of the crime of Sacriledge towards God The reasons are two The first because those who have not received the Order of Priesthood shall pretend to celebrate it For the Scripture interpreted by the un-interrupted practise of the Church allows no man under the Order of a Priest to celebrate the Eucharist Not as if those who call themselves Ministers did commit this Sacriledge in consecrating the Eucharist Though the name of Ministers signifies no more then deacons and that it is truely Sacrilege for deacons to celebrate the Eucharist But because those whom the Church lawfully gives not the power of celebrating this Sacrament to though by mis-understanding those whom it gives it to may be called Ministers and ought to be called Priests their Eucharist is no Sacrament but Sacrilege The second because they know not nor acknowledge the Consecration that is requisite to the celebration and beeing of this Sacrament by the same Scriptures understood according to the un-interrupted custome and practice of the Church For the whole Church of God allowing the elements consecrated to be the Body and Bloud of Christ mystically or in the Sacrament alloweth this change to be made by the consecration before which they were onely Bread and Wine Not as if after the Consecration they were not so but because they are then become that which they were not afore to wit the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud or the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually and mystically that is in the Sacrament This Consecration being exactly maintained by the Church of England they that presume to celebrate the Eucharist without acknowledging the fame and pretending to destroy the Law by which it is exercised must be presumed not to acknowledge the necessity thereof to the being of this Sacrament And therefore they and their complices in the Communion thereof to be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ as not distinguishing a signe of mans institution from a Sacrament of Gods appointment and Ordinance As for the Office of Preaching and Praying which they pretend to in behalf of the Church I will mark you out two monstrous Impostures in all the Sects of this time The first is this ground of the blessed Reformation of Religion in