Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	ordain_v	ordination_n	presbyter_n	4,289	5	10.5064	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45131	The healing paper, or, A Catholick receipt for union between the moderate bishop & sober non-conformist, maugre all the aversation of the unpeaceable by a follower of peace, and lover of sincerity.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1678 (1678)	Wing H3680; ESTC R5168	36,943	44

must not allow it Christian burial These are hard Instances in my mind and I could easily make up the number twenty which I believe the indifferent Reader would count reasonable exception I must distinguish therefore as I here carefully do the Ordinary appointed Prayers and Service of the Liturgy from other Matters on the By which I declare no Assent or Consent unto And when I come in or seek to come in to the Church upon the terms of Moderation I do declare my self Ipso facto a Nonconformist still to the Severity of these Impositions bearing indeed thereby only a more distinct fixed and assured testimony against them Nevertheless being sensible of the Scandal which is given to the Nation who see generally no other difference between us but our refusing to read the Common Prayer and do think us very exceeding refractory persons who will not comply in the things we can do I do resolve for one by the grace of God without turning to the left hand in doing any thing which is against my conscience for preferment or to the right in contenting my self with Suffering only and doing nothing to set my self as it were in the Market place and if any Bishop shall give me a call that is fitting into the Vineyard when I seek to them upon the termes of this Paper I shall not refuse them though it be almost the Eleventh hour with me I shall not stick out with them I believe upon the account of reading Common Prayer I will trust in Gods power it he hath work for me to do that he will give me assistance to do it and if they will not let me come in upon these termes to Labour I will trust in his Goodness that he will forgive me when I am found Idle The Nation shall see at whose door the fault Lyes by my experiment For I do professe my self one who can neither stretch my Soul beyond its staple nor yet will give off upon despondence or on the presumption onely that it will not serve me unless I do every thing to a tittle which is the prepossessed judgment of most of my brethren when they have made no tryal and which I would humbly reprove therefore by my Example For the Second Re-ordination I will here make my Remonstrance and Confession I will set things at rights between God and my Soul and between my Soul and the World I am one that was ordained by Presbyters in the late times and re-ordained since by the Bishop I was perswaded into it before I had studied the point and brought my self in distress I was fain to take such a course for relief of my Soul as nothing could have drove me to but that distress it self which I would not lye under again for the World Not that I was any way touched in my Intellectuals by it as some that never knew me have bin apt to talk ever since which I must assure them is a tale and there was no such thing I thank God in the least I have reason yet to say this because I know the temper of my mind being Melancholy and Thoughtful and so apt to be intent on any one thing that hath got into it whether of Notion or Business I do not often and I cannot somtimes recall my self from those thoughts to an attendance on the present company I am in or discourse that is going so freely as others which makes my unheedfulness lyable to the censure of those that are not used to me Besides that being One resolved generally to follow my own conscience in what I write or do whether it please or displease others the Offended who are commonly on both sides may be apt to put some such slur upon me at least while in any thing I go but in a way uncommon As Paul therefore said when Festus had got such a conceit of him so must I. I am not Mad my worthy Brethren who are strangers to me when I differ from you and from those also whom I do know in what I write or act But what I do I trust are deeds of Soberness and I speak forth the words of Truth I acknowledge the Church in her giving Orders does intend the collation of an Office to the Presbyter distinct from the Bishop that is an office without the power of Ordination and consequently if a Presbyter ordains any the Church-men must hold such an ordination to be void because the persons that confer the orders have no power to do it But I must confess my thoughts about Orders are somthing different from others I do not think that the Spiritual power or ministerial authority is conveyed to us by the hands of any but does come Immediately upon us the conditions on our part being put from the institution of Christ I apprehend consequently that whatsoever be the intention of the Church in her giving Orders such a power must be derived from Christ to the person ordained as is intended in his Institution and so long as we find not any distinction which is touched before of Order or Office though we allow one as to Degree and Eminency in the Scripture between Bishop and Presbyter the authority of one in regard to God must be the same with the other and the laying on the hands of the one be of the same validity in Ordination as the imposition of the hands of the other We do read that God hath set in his Church Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers but we find not Bishop and Presbyter enumerated as two of them I enter not into dispute here but I am one that dare not give way to the making void of my Ministry and all my ministerial acts for a dozen years or more before I was Ordained by the Bishop for that were a heynous crime for me I think to do yet will I be content as to the Exercise of my Office now to own my authority from him I was a Minister before in foro Dei Conscientiae I was made a Minister then I will account in foro Ecclesia Anglicanae I acknowledge I did ill in my circumstances to take second orders and yet was I too extream I doubt in my renunciation or in the way of my renunciation again of them If any man thinks that Orders give the spiritual power and makes us Ministers in foro Dei it is apparent that a Man who is a Minister already cannot be so made a Minister again Consequently if I have formerly writ any thing that seems to countenance Re-ordination to the Office which is good earnest my Hypotheses never favoured I do rennounce it all and those second Orders on that account I humbly crave the Churches absolution and benediction But if Orders be onely a Recommendation of us to the grace of God for the work unto which a man is called there is nothing in Re-ordination to scare any and as my second Orders may serve me for the Exercise of my Ministry when my first

change of Government The power of the Keyes is committed by Christ to the Minister or his own Officers The Bishop commits them to the Chancellour who is a Lay man and yet executes that Charge Who does doubt but if the Government were changed in this point it were lawfull Nay I do not say that a change of the Hierarchy it self of the Arch-bishop and Diocesan Bishop invested with the sole power of Ordination and Juridiction into the Primitive Episcopacy acting along in these things with the Presbyters is in it self unlawfull but that it lyes in the power of a Parliament if they please to do it When I do then thus put in my exception as to the Matter Covenanted even the Alteration of Government precisely considered and rest my self only in shewing how this Oath in the Act of Covenanting was indeed in the Complex consideration in regard to that matter obivously unlawfull as I judge and give my Reason if this shall content the Bishop and serve my turn I may have cause to acknowledge his candour but none of my brethren have any to be offended at me for what I do In the last Clause I find no need of any Exception or Interpretation That which remaines therefore now in regard to this Subscription is only to put my had to my Paper which if I obtain hereby the use of my Ministry and none can convince me of sin in it I am content to do If I obtain it not if shall suffice me to have made the tryal and the matter shall be all one in point of Conformity between God and my soul as if I were clear altogether and had put no name at all to it J H. Thus much then for the Subscription I have offered my Rule and I have proceeded to Practise which I have done in the General and in this Particular I have no more to say of that Of the former the General there are several branches mentioned before and there are some of them wherein I perceive it neeedfull to make yet some further declaration more especially Concerning the Common Prayer Concerning my Second Orders and Concerning the Church Articles And when I have also done this my work is not quite done I have something to leave then if it might be obtained on other hands For the first the Common Prayer There are many particular things little and great in some part or other of the book which I must professe really I cannot give my unfained assent and consent unto and think that any man who is severe at any time upon his Conscience can hardly choose but be startled at I remember some years since a Conformist Minister using the Common Prayer in his house gave me this reason It was required he said of all Ministers and turned me presently to this passage in the Preface before the Prayers And all Priests and Deacons are to say dayly the Morning and Evening prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause From that time I perceived I was no man for the Declaration of Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained in and prescribed by this book and also that by the shift of those words to the use I could not help my self I dare not give my consent to the use of any thing which I never intend to do I do and I shall use at home my own Prayers In the other Preface before Ordination there is a difference of Order or Office asserted between Bishop and Presbyter which was put in also in this new book on purpose when such men as Field Mason Davenant Mead Vsher do hold a difference in Degree only I cannot assent to this because I was otherwise engaged in print before this book was enjoyned and I cannot retract my opinion without conviction In the same place there is this passage but with more words And to the intent that these Orders be reverendly esteemed no man shall be accounted or taken for a Lawfull Priest or be suffered to execute the function except he be called according to this for me or bath had formerly Episcopal Ordination Reader can thy heart consent to this Art thou so assured that the nation lies under no guilt in turning out so many Ministers who were Ordained only by Presbyters as thou darest partake in the deed by thy Consent My heart I am sure will not serve me to do it In the Athanasian Creed I cannot assent to the Proeme and Conclusion by no means and God forbid they should be true The whose Creed and Articles of it I believe but I believe not that every one that don 't is uncapable of Salvation I will mention one more peculiar thing and it is a great matter that sticks with me being against my written judgement I perceive the Liturgy though all its Offices does lay the Notion of the Church upon so narrow a foundation as the Congregationall men do and I think that without some other Hypothesis we cannot defend our selves against Separation It is not upon the Christian profession in general in opposition to other Religions but upon the profession of no less than a true saving faith the child is baptized when the Sureties in the name of it self and not of its Parents do answer actually Credo Abrenuncio Having thus professed faith or repentance it is said to be Regenerate in the Office performed Upon the same profession renewed when the child comes to more years it is Confirmed No man is then admonished or presumed to be allowed to come to the Sacrament but upon an assured faith And none are burried but according to a Church judgement of Charity as Professours they are and must be accounted to go to Heaven I cannot tell well how to relish this for here is no bottom methinks for a National Church I must have such a Notion of the Church Catholick National Parochicall as a Polliceor according to the Catechisme may serve for a persons entrance into it and all the Ordinances of Worship and Discipline be means after to excite him unto grace and his duty as well as to edify him when he is holy unto Salvation This is no place I know for such a discourse Only I am not willing to be Choaked in it by swallowing this Pear of Assent and Consent In the Orders of Deacon I never approve since my self was faulty that a man does Solemnly promise to performe that Office the duties hereof being read to him when he is made Priest also at the same time and immediately casts off that Charge In the Rubricks to the Communion Baptisme and Burial if I consent to every thing prescribed or to the use of every thing there prescribed I must not deliver the Bread and Wine to a man if he scruples to Kneel at the Sacrament I must turn away his child from baptisme if he Scruples God-fathers and if the Child dies before it is Christened though the parents be my dear friends I