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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	authority_n	law_n	legislative_a	2,620	5	12.4064	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on all members of Parliament anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

that however it might receive occasion from it yet the Essentials of it are such Sentiments as the Nation hath had for above the last hundred of years and that it hath upon greatest Judgment Reason and Experience confirm'd it self in and according to several Emergencies added to its securities by Law upon Law against the Regurgitations of that usurpation upon it not barely because of such Emergencies but because of that Grand Reason the very Essence of Popery hath given it whether therefore the particular Emergent hath had Dimensions Long and Broad enough for the particular Laws and Constitutions which have been made was not so much consider'd But the whole Nature of the Evil Fear'd and provided against being large enough to support such Acts it hath given Reason to all such provisions and that was the danger of the Roman Religion Resettling and Re-instating it self in a Protestant Nation as the English Nation is and hath been for so great a space Thus this Last Act for the Test setting before it only that so Full and Comprehensive Consideration of the Increase and Danger of Popery in this Nation to which the former good Laws had proved Ineffectual does therefore so Enact as that Act expresses In all which there is not the least Reference to the so much Infam'd Plot nor any Line looking toward it Till therefore there be a change in the very Essential Nature of Popery and a perfect Nullity of all the Fears arising from it made evident there must be This or That particular Accidental Cause quickning the Legislative Power of the Nation to branch out it self into more and more and further and further particular Laws that may more effectually reach the intended Point and be new in the Particulars observing where former Provisions were deficient and inefficacious which new Laws are not to be charged upon the lesser Accidental Causes but on the Irreconcileableness of Popery and its Growth to the peace and welfare of a Protestant Nation And so I have finished what I think necessary upon the Bishop's Second Reason to shew how Inconcluding it is for the Abrogating of the Test. I proceed now to the Third Reason The Test ought to be repeal'd because of the incompetent Authority by which it was enacted for it is a Law of an Ecclesiastick Nature made without the Authority of the Church contrary to the Practice of the Christian World in all Ages c. 1. This Reason rests upon these two Principal Pillars that the Power of making Decrees concerning Divine Verities is a Legislative Power given as the highest Act of Government by Christ's Commission to the Officers of his own Kingdom upon which the whole Fabrick of the Christian Church hath hitherto stood and is to stand to the End of the World and without which it must run into confusion and that to entrench upon this Prerogative of the Holy Catholick Church is to depose Christ from his Throne by disowning neglecting and affronting his Commission to his Catholick Church so that this Power cannot be usurped without Sacriledge and Blasphemy and such a daring Invasion of Christ's Kingdom as that nothing more imports Christian Kings and Governours than to be wary and cautious how they lay hands upon it 2. That the Bishops sitting in the House of Lords and to their shame consenting to this Law is not sufficient to make this Law an Act of Church Authority because it ought to have been first decreed by their own proper Authority without any Lay Concurrence and then to have come into Parliament and as they judged sit to have been abetted with Temporal Penalties a Practice never violated but by Aposlates and Rebel Parliaments And lastly because Particular Bishops sit not in Parliament by Power deriv'd from our Blessed Saviour but by the meer Grace and Favour of the King so that the exercising any Ecclesiastical Authority in that place is scandalously to betray as much as in them lies the very being of a Christian Church and profanely to pawn the Bishop to the Lord and lastly because the Ecclesiastical Power is by the Law of England setled in Convocation and therefore to enact any thing of an Ecclesiastical Nature without their consent is to betray the Rights of the Church of England as by Law established in particular as well as of the Church Catholick in general But as a Check and Limitation to all this the Episcopal Authour interposes the Civil Power may restrain the Exercise of this Ecclesiastical Prerogative as they shall judge meet for the Ends of Peace and the Interest of the Common Wealth and punish it too at their own discretion if it shall at any time entrench upon the Power of the State and it may prevent or correct Abuses I have thus collected the strength of this whole Reason without omitting any thing I could think material I have also subjoyn'd the Limitation that it may be of the use the Authour design'd it and may also be consider'd in its place to our purpose There are three Expressions I desire in modesty and reverence to this R. R. Authour to draw a Veil over 1. That Parenthetic to their shame viz. the Bishop's shame who consented to the Test-Law because it seems so much to confine on speaking Evil of Dignities and for the same Reason 2 ly upon that Except by Apostates and Rebel-Parliaments as also because I would not know the direct meaning of those words but go backward to cast a covering over them 3. On those words I draw the Curtain profanely pawn the Bishop to the Lord lest they seem rather fit to be retyr'd among the Bishops Ludicra But to the main purport and stress of the Argument I shall undertake to rejoyn these Assertions 1. That there is no such Legislative Power given by Commission from Christ to his Church or made the Foundation of it 2. That all such Pretensions of Church-Power drawn from the Practice of the Christian Church are very invalid 3. That the Law of the Test is not a Law of an Ecclesiastick Nature 4. And if it were the Church of England hath done enough in Convocation and other Church-Acts to support it 5. That the Presence of the Bishops in Parliament not protesting against it are sufficient proof of the two last Assertions 6. That according to the Bishop's own Limitation of church-Church-Power it must remain a good and necessary Law and for which the Parliament had Competent Authority I begin with the first 1. That there is no such Legislative Power given by Commission from Christ to his Church or made the Foundation of it which may be demonstrated in this manner This Legislative Power of the Church is most contrary to that Holy Book from whence we derive our Christian Sacred Religion and to the soundest Reason guided by that for by that there is nor can be any Legislative Power in matters of Divine Verity but what is immediately from Heaven either by voice from thence or by the

the Essence of Ecclesiastick Laws as they have been always Solemniz'd and Ratified in the Christian-Antichristianizing World upon light occasions But this Test presumes Two Things suppos'd before to be sufficiently certain 1. That no Romanist will deny his Transubstantiation nor consent that his Invocation of the Virgin Mary and of other Saints and that the Sacrifice of the Mass is Superstitious and Idolatrous The Test does not determine nor pretend Canonically to Define of these Things it onely proposes this as a certain Discovery of the Votaries of a Foreign Church nor does it mind to decide the Truth of those Matters It is enough to it to know who do or who do not assent to their presumed Truth and thereby to discover Men not to Decree points of Faith. 2. Nor is it Ecclesiastick but purely Civil and pertaining to the State onely whom it will judg safe to commit the Affairs of this Nation unto and into what Hands to entrust its Interests and having by more than a hundred years experience deemed it not safe for a Protestant Nation to be overgrown by a Papal Power it hath thus Resolved and Enacted not at that Time enquiring after the Truth of the Things concern'd in the Test but satisfied with the Assurance that a Roman Catholick as he is call'd will not assent to them as they are there laid Which are here onely taken notice of as matters of State and their Doctrinal Truth it supposes elsewhere to have been sufficiently Ascertain'd as shall be afterward consider'd 4. For indeed the Church of England hath both in Convocation in continual printed manifestations of its sense in daily preachings and ministrations of the Truth of the word of God abundantly and beyond all Controversie open'd explained and asserted concerning these things out of and according to Scripture so that not in a Humane Light or Determination but in the very Beams of Scripture and Divine Truth which are plainly to be seen streaming from the fountain of light the word of God there is warranty enough without any Invasion upon Christ's Kingdom or the Rights of the Officers of it supposing them what we can suppose rhem for a Parliament safely to proceed as it did supported by as many Assurances as it could desire that if the Lips of the Ministry of the Church of England preserv'd knowledge and that the Law was to be enquired at its mouth the Resolution of that Church in all those cases was sufficiently known and no injury could be done to it 5. Of this the presence of the Bishops in Parliament not Remonstrating nor Protesting against this Law his consenting however the Author judges it to their shame are security enough That they understood the Test-Law to be no Invasion of the Rights of the Church but according to the whole Doctrine and Government of it as by Law established For seeing as hath been before argued every Body nor Estate of Men in Parliament knew so quick and feelingly for themselves and specially such a Body as the Episcopacy of a Nation it can never be suppos'd they would as by a common Conspiracy agree to betray their own Rights and Priviledges having at hand always that freedom of entring their Protestations of Dissent So that although it is acknowledg'd they sit in Parliament by the Grace of the King and by the Constitution of English Parliaments and not by Power deriv'd from Christ nor as a Convocation according to the Laws of England in that case yet it is always to be forethought that they sit with their Understandings with their Consciences with their Senses with their Sentiments of Self-preservation about them and that therefore they would not be Felones de se by consenting to the Destruction of their noblest Rights and on account of which they are judg'd worthy to sit as an Estate and to vote in Parliament viz. as Bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ. 6. But lastly it can never be understood but that according to the Bishops own limitation if that be the Standard of Church-Power and Praerogative or his setting up another Power and Praerogative to mute it the Parliament have well done in this Test-Law For seeing the Civil Power may restrain the Exer●ise of Ecclesiastical Praerogative as they shall judg meet for the ends of Peace and the Interest of the Commonwealth and may punish it too at their own discretion if it shall at any time intrench upon the Prerogative of the State and that it may praevent or correct Abuses who can determine whether the States have not done according to what they might and ought to do in preventing and correcting Abuses For if they may prevent and correct Abuses they must be able to judg of them they must determine when they ly they must judge also of the best means to prevent them And what more lyable to such judgment of Abuses and to undergo the best and most effectual methods of Praevention than the things to be declar'd against in the Test as shall be manifestly prov'd in the following Reason And seeing that upon these very accounts it is notorious that even in this Nation Church Power and Prerogative hath swoln beyond all bounds and entrench'd with a vengeance upon the Power of the State why then may not the State continue the correction and punishment of it by After Acts seeing the Bishop allows these punishments at their own discretion and restrain and lock down men Certainly all the Avenues to such an Exercise and Notions again of that Power that they hav found in all Ages so destructive to the Peace and Interest of the Commonwealth And here I cannot but reflect upon the strange Irreconcileableness of the Bishop's Church-Prerogative and of the Civil Power as he hath stated it For that such a Seeing Judging Prerogative and Legislative Power that can alter make Decrees concerning Divine Verities should not know how to keep within its own bounds nor so to learn its Power but that it must be restrain'd for the Ends of Peace and the Interest of the Commonwealth and be punish'd too at discretion for its aptness to praesume and to intrench upon the Power of the State nay and beyond all this to be so extravagant that its Abuses may have need to be praevented and corrected Who can imagine Jesus Christ should be so nearly concern'd in such a Prerogative and Legislative Power as to be disown'd neglected affronted if that he be Christ risen and that the usurpation of it should lie so near Sacriledge and Blasphemy as that his Kingdom should be invaded and Himself deposed and on such an account that it should be such a Seeing and Holy Catholick Church and yet that this Civil Power that is suppos'd to know so little in Divine Verities may bind its hands punish praevent correct its Abuses What must Christ so closely importuned in it suffer in the mean time What kind of Kingdom and Power is here allow'd in the mean time What Governour would accept such

a Power as this of Christ's or how can the King of Kings Lord of Lords Prince of the Kings of the Earth be such an Underling Certainly this is is a precarious Power with a witness Surely in this state of things there must be a most profane pawning the Bishop indeed to the Lord or how can ever one Firmament bear two such Suns or the Consciences of Man ever be at rest between them both or serv two such Masters They must adhaere to one and despise the other But since the Bishop must be Reverenced as a man of Sense and Reason certenly it cannot be the Roman Holy Catholic Church that may be thus treated by the Civil Power nor is it any Protestant Civil Prince or State that hath these Powers but only a Caesar or State of the Roman Character Image and Superscription hath this Power and only on Protestant Churches under their dominion And so I pass with the Fatigue of this confounding perplexing Reason and com to the last but longest Reason which I shall yet but in brief consider The fourth Reason for which the Test-Act ought to be repealed is because of the uncertainty and falshood of the matters contained in the Declaration it self as First That there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of our Saviour's Body and Blood. And Secondly That the Invocation of Saints and of the Mother of God is Idolatrie This reason so plainly divided by the Bishop into its two parts that of Transubstantiation and that of Invocation of Saints and of the Mother of God must be distinctly considered But before I proceed upon either of them I must needs object That this Test is not fairly quoted for in so great a concern every word ought to have its due place and no pretence of keeping the substance will justifie the variation of an Iota from the very Letter except my apprehension exceedingly deceive me the Sence is much more injured than the Letter is varied Indeed the Author hath been so fair as to prefix the Text of the Act that his unfair Repetition may be convinced by it but the unwary or unthinking Reader may easily slide into Errour by it one being in the Title-page where it may miss being considered the other in the body of the Book Observ then the difference betwixt the Text of the Test and the Bishop's Quotation the Test runs thus I believe there is no c. The Bishop quotes as a proposition There is no c. It may be a much more uncertain proposition and more liable to falshood to asfirm there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of our Saviour's Body and Blood than so say I do believe There is none and so proportionably I believe is to be supplied to the second member of the Declaration viz. And I believe that the Invocation or Adoration of c. Now although I make no doubt that every Christian ought to be fully assured of the propositions themselves to be declared in the Test yet plain and down-right Doctrinal Propositions are not the proper subjects of solemn sincere Profession Testification and Declaration in the presence of God. But such solemn sincere Professions Testifications and Declarations properly fall upon the belief of a man's mind which he knows and hath judgment of as a rational man becaus they are within him for the Apostle tells us The spirit of a man knows the things that are within him So that a man's belief that is within him may be wel declared and testified even as all matters of sence and of trust and becaus they are within him known onely to himself There are therefore many just occasions to declare and testifie it to others Of which the denial of lawful Authority as a Qualification for Places of Trust and Power are justly to be accounted among the principal And this very observation as it is plain and grounded on undeniable evidence by a compute of the words of the Test set down by the Bishop himself in the Title-page and Fourth Reason page 9. does indeed make vain frivolous and of no possible avail or so much as significancie All that follows as to the Test which is the thing in quaestion and under debate and brings it into this narrow compass Whether persons so devoted to the Faith of the Church of Rome may for the ends of Peace and the Interest of a Protestant Common-wealth be secluded from Power and trust by the consent of the major part of their own particular Bodies and of each other Body or Estate of the Nation and the Supreme Prince assenting in so considerable and solemn an Act as an Act of Parliament must needs be which hath been already discours'd For which soever side of the Propositions should be true yet stil what a man within himself believes he truly knows and truly may declare and testifie And the business of the Test is not to determine as hath been said which part of either of the Proposions is true but what belief each person admitted to Trust and Power is of that so the Nation as Protestant may consult its own safety against the growth of Popery into a National strength and interest and further confirms all that hath been said That it is no Ecclesiastic Act but a pure perfect Magistratic Act as the Administring an Oath in all other cases concerning the Trust of matters of Faith is So that the affirming that those two Propositions are by this Law to be solemnly and sincerely in the Praesence of God Protested Testified and Declared is a down-right unfaithfulness not to say out of reverence to the Author Falshood in the very sight of the Sun in the sight if I may so speak of the Frontispiece of the Book which Title-Page gives of necessity the Lye to this Ninth page and is enough to discredit and to call into just suspicion the badness of the whole Cause that is so insincerely handled by a person of such a Character of Dignity and Sacredness of Office as a Christian Bishop who ought to do so much otherwise But this is not all the unfaithfulness of the Episcopal Author in recounting the Test he is arguing against for whereas the Declaration in the Act runs thus I believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ c. The Bishop represents his Proposition thus That there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacraments of our Saviour's Body and Blood. Now it is easie for every person that does but in the lest apply his mind to it to perceive that the Test leaves it free to every person to frame any Mystical Spiritual Analogical Figurative sense in his own thoughts concerning Transubstantiation and which may sufficiently satisfie and exhaust the sense of more than most words of the Greek Fathers import for it is observabl they have no word strictly Greek for Transubstantion And onely foreprize's