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A47280 The sober conformists answer to a rigid conformists reasons why in this juncture no alteration should be made in the government of the Church of Scotland. Ker, William. 1689 (1689) Wing K346; ESTC R8036 26,163 32

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Evade the Force of them without either derogating from the Episcopal power which we mantain against Presbyterians or Homologating the Papal power which Papists maintain against Protestants We grant the Papal power to be very much Adapted for Wordly Pomp Power and Policy but upon that very score deny it to be a Government becoming the Church becau●e Christ expresly dischargeth his Apostles and in them all their Successors to exercise Dominion as the Lords of the Gentiles do over them This Answer to Papists is an Argument so plate against our selves that ingenuously I am not fully satisfied with our subtile Evasions of it And though that of Dr. Burnets in his Latter Dialogues be the best I have yet seen that nothing is prohibited in these words but the Exercise of Civil Power by any Church Officer over the Church and so nothing of the Papal power is condemned by it but the Usurpation of a Temporal Dominion over Princes Yet s eeing this leaves his Ecclesiastick Supremacy under which the subtile Jesuits Comprize all the Power he Exercises untouched and uncondemned by the clearest Scripture Argument we have against it which all Reform●d Divines make use of even the Episcopal themselves in their writings against the Papal Tyranny in Ecclesiasticks as well as Civils I nothing doubt but the present Zeal of that great Man against Popery would disclaim this evasion frankly as the effect of his former eagerness against Presbytery hurrying him to a Critici sm so favourable to Popery And when I have considered the extent of the Paralel place 1. Pet. 5.3 and the particular Application in Reference to Spirituals which the Apostle Paul makes 2. Cor. 1. last I cannot look upon that otherwise then an oversight in the Doctor notwithstanding of my singular Es teem of Him and his Writings But the truth is if we consider seriously the aptitude of Episcopacy for preserving the Dignity and promoting the Interest of the Clergy its similitude to the Civil Government and Conformity to the Carnal conceits men have of the Church of God are even as it fares with Popery both its greatest advantage and disadvantage its greatest advantage recommending it to Carnal men who measure all things by their Carnal Imaginations and Inclinations and its greatest disadvantage discommending it to Conscientious men who meas ure all the concerns of the Church by the unerring Rule of the Word of GOD and judge of them by their influence on and usefulness for the Edification of their Souls And alace the odious effects of Episcopacy in Scotland especially since it was last introduced are so recent and obvious that if any witty Presbyterian shall be at the pains to rake up this Dunghil I am afraid such an intolerable stink shall be raised as no Aptitude which our Government hath to what is good or can pretend to have will be either Regarded or Believed by any who are Judicious far less Sober and Conscientious For Sense and Experience are more convincing than all the Reasons in the World. But to be more particular ye say its found by Experince to be the best adapted for preservation of Order Presbyterians will answer That what ever be its apparent Aptitude for this yet it is in effect it self an alteration of the primitive Order observed in the Church which did gradually resolve at last into a total innovation of the Churches Order by a papal supremacy which it hath exchanged for a Caesario-papatus in Scotland lest the Church should not be still monstruous with two heads one under another And it is indeed a hard Question Why Order in the Church which we say cannot be without prius posterius inferius superius doth not equally require a Pope or King under CHRIST over Bishops as a Bishop under CHRIST over Presbytry Or why a parity amongst Bishops should not be thought as inconsis tent with Order as a parity among all Pastors But neither doth the Presbyterian Government want its Order of superius inferius for amongst them single persons are subject to Church Judicatories and a lesser Church Judicatory still to a greater c. In which Order seeing there is not only that ah inferiore ad superius but a minore ad majus it is most agreeable to the Church as it is the Body of CHRIST immediately depending upon CHRIST its Head. And I confess ingenuously when they have argued that feeding of Souls by dispensing the Word and Sacraments is the sublimest piece of a Church Mans imployment that all power of Church Officers is only Ministerial under CHRIST the Head and Lord of his Church that though he be the political as well as Mystical Head of the Church who as its King and Lawgiver might be expected would not leave it without Directions how it should be governed yet there is no institution of a Diocesan Episcopacy that was ever pretented to be so clear as the Directions given concerning the Office of a Deacon the lowest Office in the Church But the checks given by him to the first appearances of an inclination to pre-eminency among his Apostles are clearly recorded in Scripture and finally that the lodging of all Ecclesiastick power of Ordination or Jurisdiction in the single person of a Bishop doth not sute with the immediate Dependance of the Church the Body of CHRIST upon CHRIST the Head of it When they have Argued thus I say and urged each of these Arguments at length I have been extreamly puzled to vindicat the Episcopal Order and the superiority of one Pastor above another All I could say was That Bishops are as necessary to oversee Pastors as Pastors to oversee People and they easily stopped my mouth not only by retorting the equal necessity of a pope to oversee Bishops But by shewing also that all Pastors were subject to the censure of Church Judicatories which could not easily be guilty of connivance and partiality towards the ignorant and scandalous as Bishops and which by their solemnity impartiality have as great and venerable an Authority as a Bishop by virtue of his large Benefice Lordly Titles and pompous Train can have Yea I have been almost perswaded to be a presbyterian when they have reasoned that seing we confess the highest Ecclesiastick power on Earth to be in an Oecumenick Council and yet allow not of any further power in him that preceeds than like that of a presbyterian Moderator in a Presbytry-synod or National Assembly and not like that of a Bishop in a Diocesan Synod for fear of a pope Why do we not also acknowledge Ministers to be subject to inferiour Judicatories of the like frame and an inferiour and lesser Judicatory to a superiour and greater still forward till we arrive at an Oecumenick Council as the highest Judicatorie of all immediately and solly subject to CHRIST as the Body to the Head without any Diocesan Bishop over the se inferiour more than a pope over his supreme Judicatorie as being the most equal and