Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	aaron_n	child_n	consecration_n	21	3	10.7407	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26371	A modest plea for the clergy wherein is briefly considered, the original, antiquity, necessity : together with the spurious and genuine occasions of their present contempt.	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1677 (1677)	Wing A524; ESTC R21288	59,187	185

been ambulatory and the Holy Offices consign'd to the First-born or Chief of each Family For the Priesthood did not begin in Aaron but was translated and conferr'd upon his Family before his Consecration For those young men of the Children of Israel which offered Burnt-offerings and sacrificed Peace-offerings of Oxen unto the Lord Exod. 24.5 as they were Priests so without question they were no other than the First-born to whom the Priesthood did belong But as soon as God began to constitute a Church he began also to fix the Priesthood and appointed Aaron to minister the Publick Services And during the Levitical Dispensation the Succession of the Priesthood was continued in Aaron's Posterity and the High-Priesthood tied to the Line of his First-born the rest of his Posterity being simply termed Priests or Priests of the Second Order Now what is here chiefly to be taken notice of is Aarons Call to the Priesthood which we are assured was from God So that neither Aaron did at first nor any after him could legally take this Honour to himself But all were called of God And this Truth we find miraculously attested in the suddain and fearful destruction of those who undervalued the Priests and factiously usurp'd their Office 'T is true Aaron's Priesthood was but temporary and at the appointed Season to expire and determine yet as long as it did continue it was lawful for none but those of his Line to undertake it Because God had so ordain'd And this Divine Ordinance of the Priesthood was such an inviolable observation that even Christ when he came to give himself an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling Savour and by the Oblation of his own Body made an atonement for our Sins when Christ I say became an Aaronical Priest and put an end to that sort of Priesthood when he also became a Priest according to the Order of Melchizedeck which lasts for ever both were by Divine Appointment As the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews distinctly argues out of the Second and the Hundred and tenth Psalm But here it is worthy our remark that Jesus was anointed with the Unction of Aaron to the Sacerdotal Office and not called after the Order of Aaron for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which Tribe Moses spake nothing concerning Priesthood Heb. 7.14 or that no Priest should come of that Tribe But Jesus was made a Priest after a more ancient Order according to the Prediction of the Psalmist The Lord hath sworn and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedeck But though he were of another Order yet whatsoever Aaron did as a Priest was wholly Typical and to be fulfilled in the Messias as he was a Priest To which he had a double Title the one of Primogeniture as the First-begotten of God the other of Unction as being anointed unto that Office Now if Christ did not glorifie himself to become an High-Priest if as Man he did not advance himself to that Dignity but was thereunto advanced by God then is the Priesthood an Office to whose undertaking more is required than personal Abilities and which none of right can undertake but either by Gods immediate or mediate Call For though the meetness of the Person ought to be looked upon by men yet we cannot prescribe unto God or tell him who are fit to be heard by him in behalf of the people or whom he ought to entertain in Religious Addresses Nor are we able to yield a reason from the nature of the thing why God should accept of Aaron more than of Abiram or the mediation of any one man for many except the free pleasure of him that makes the choice But to return If the more solemn Institution of the Clergy bear date only from the Consecration of Aaron yet it plainly appears to be Divine or of Gods own appointment and during the time of the Mosaical Oeconomy was so Sacred and Inviolable that none could invade it under a gentler Penance than Sudden death or a Leprosie And long before this too I mean before the erecting of the Tabernacle or Temple and Institution of Priesthood when God was served within Private Walls and the right of Priesthood in every Family was annexed to the Primogeniture so that the First-born was Priest we read but of one contrary to custom who aspired unto it whose ambition therein would have been utterly inexcusable if the whole disposal of the matter had not been from God who loved Jacob but hated Esau and made the Elder to serve the Younger Rom. 9.12 13. But though the Levitick or Aaronical Priesthood was of Divine Institution yet being wholly Typical and consequently to determine and because it is already past and gone vve are next to enquire into the Nature and Constitution of that Clergy vvhich succeeded it CHAP. V. Of the Institution of the Evangelical Clergy WHen the Great Fulfiller of the Lavv even the blessed Author of our most Holy Faith in a most excellent manner made good that Title and being dravving to the last Stage of his life and together vvith it to put a full end to the Mosaick Dispensation and abolish both the Sacrifice and Priesthood in that of himself When vvithout a Figure the immutable Clergy of the Gospel vvas to succeed into the mutable Clergy of the Law he called those Apostles of vvhom at first he made choice and gave them Power to erect and constitute a Church and to transmit such Povvers unto others as vvere proper for the continuance and propagation of the same Novv the Commission vvhich Christ gave to the Apostles to impovver them to this end is the chief thing to be considered and vve meet vvith it at large as it vvas signed by our Saviour immediately upon his Ascension in S. Matth. 28. 18. All power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth 19. Go ye therefore and teach or make all Nations Disciples baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 20. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the World In vvhich vvords Christ first asserts and declares his ovvn Commission shovving his Apostles that vvhat he did vvas not the result of his ovvn private judgement but the exercise of that Authority vvhich vvas given him of his Father vvho had consign'd unto him a full Povver of ordering and disposing vvhatsoever belong'd to the Church of vvhich he vvas made the Prince and head upon his rising from the Grave and by vertue of that relation stood obliged to provide for the preservation and encrease thereof But hovv this should be done is the doubt to be satisfied For Christ in his ovvn Person could not make this provision for the Church because as to his humane Nature he vvas shortly to remove to Heaven and there to abide until his coming to

the Vulgus Rationally concluding That those whom they made choice of for the Service of Religion were to be raised above the common condition of men and to be freed from the Cares and Incumbrances of the World And it will not be here greatly impertinent to observe that the white Vestments of the Heathen Priests attested their Separation from the Vility of the Many and That the Ring Staff and Mitre which were the Ensigns of their Office were also known Symbols of Authority and Honour And yet in further testimony of the respect the Gentiles bore their Priests there was none no not in time of War that durst offer them the least violence or abuse Insomuch that it was gone into a proverbial phrase for a barbarous and unnatural War that it spared not the Priests but violated those very persons that carried the Holy Fire before the Army Tacitus somewhere speaking of the Priests tells us that they were not molested with the sniffling Scorns of vitious and ill-bred persons but by certain Canons and Laws were secured from all outrage and disrespect And if any thing be yet needful for a further illustration of the Gentiles carriage in this matter it is summ'd up by Cicero in the Case of the Roman Augurs The right of the Augurs saith he joyn'd with Authority is the most excellent in the Commonwealth And this I say not because I my self am an Augur but because it is just and necessary so to speak For if we enquire for their Authority what can be greater than to convene and dissolve the publick Assemblies and appoint the Solemnities of Religion What more magnificent than to have power to decree when the Consuls are fit or unfit to hold the Magistracy What can be more religious than to give Institutes to the people And yet Cicero expresly affirms all these things to have been in the power of the Augurs Lib. 2. de Legib. Nor are we to look upon the Romans to have affected Singularity in this particular for we find the Persians Egyptians and the great Lights of the Gentile World the Athenians to have equall'd or rather surpass'd the Romans in the veneration of their Priests whom they made the Guides and Counsellors of their Kings and Judges and Dividers in Secular Affairs It were easie to be numerous in Examples to this purpose and by an Induction of all the Nations in the World to prove this Reverence of the Clergy whom we read in many Nations to have lived apart from other men and to have had their Adyta or Secret Places as well as their Gods the solitary Groves where they abode signalizing the separateness of their Function But if all this should be charged upon the Ignorance and Superstition of the Heathen World and therefore no more fit to be imitated than their Polytheism and Idolatry It will then import us in the next place to consider what in this case was the practice of the Jews Gods own People whom we cannot suspect of Ignorance or Imposture being herein plainly guided and instructed of God And first it is observable that among the Jews the designation of persons for the Guidance of Religion was much more ancient than a Levitical Institution being practised by them from the Beginning For when Families made Churches as well as Kingdoms to be a Priest of the Most High God or to officiate the Matters of Religion was the Hereditary Honour and Peculiar Prerogative of the First-born or Chief of the Family For the selling of which Priviledge Esau purchased the odious Title of Profane And when the Jews were blessed with a settled Priesthood they paid it all imaginable respect beginning and determining all their publick Transactions at the Word and Decree of their Priests making the Honour of that Office the Strength of their Authority and the Cause of their Arms calling it a Celestial Dignity a Heavenly and no Earthly Inheritance And the Testimonies of what I now speak are so many and known that both the number and plainness will excuse the prosecution Nor were the ancient Jews more careful in their respect than in the choice of their Priests for we read in the Sacred Story of one of their Kings that it was reckon'd in him for a great sin that he made Priests of the lowest of the people which were not of the Sons of Levi. He consecrated whosoever had a mind without bearing any respect either to Probity of Manners or Honesty of Descent and that passing by the Line of Levi he took those who had neither Right nor Title to the Priesthood And what was yet more wicked some are of opinion that he was guilty of what the Canon Law now calls Simony by selling the Offices of the Priest to those who would give most for them And having thus briefly intimated the practice of both the ancient Jew and Gentile in relation to their Choice and Reverence of their Clergy If we should now draw down the Enquiry to the modern and present State of the World we shall find no Nation so savage and uncivilized as not to have some Officers of Religion whom they treat with Civility and make considerable in the Interest of their State and Government The present Jews and Mahumedans would furnish us with Store of Matter to this purpose if it were not already in two late Treatises concerning them done to our hands Now what has been said will enforce us to one of these Conclusions Either that the Rites of Christian Religion are more cheap ordinary and common than those of the Jews and Pagans Or those Separate Persons appointed to celebrate those Rites must have our Esteem and Reverence To say that Christian Religion is not the most Divine Mystery that ever came into the World and that all the parts thereof are in themselves the most excellent and sublime and to men the most beneficial and agreeable that ever were made known upon Earth is as false as its greatest Adversary the Father of Lyes And not to render due regard unto those who are known to be the true Ministers of Christian Religion is either to think them less worthy than the Pagans thought the Ministers of their idolatrous Ceremonies or to show our selves less Civil than the greatest Barbarians CHAP. IV. A brief account of the Institution of the Levitical Clergy THere is nothing more material in the Circumstances of Religion than that men should be ascertain'd that their Spiritual Guides have their Commission and Calling from God because a doubting thereof must unavoidably prove no small prejudice to their Authority and Success And upon this Consideration it will be necessary to enquire into the first Institution of the Clergy to the end that if we find it to be no less Divine than we have found it to be Rational the Sacred Honour of its Original might be sufficient to justifie and assert it against all contempt And looking back to the first Dispensations of Religion we find the Priesthood to have