Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
rest_n	bishop_n	church_n	presbyter_n	2,348	5	10.4986	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36252	A reply to Mr. Baxter's pretended confutation of a book entituled, Separation of churches from episcopal government, &c. proved schismatical to which are added, three letters written to him in the year 1673, concerning the possibility of discipline under a diocesan-government ... / by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1681 (1681)	Wing D1817; ESTC R3354	153,974	372

Bishop then challenged the same power over the Presbytery as now This I have but lately proved Or that discipline was then maintained This I do not find that you deny Nay certainly your self thought discipline maintainable under it when you professed your self ready to yield to such an Episcopacy Or that what was then performed by the same Government is still performable if men would be the same The admission of this would not oblige you to question your self or experience Nor indeed is any thing of this kind concerning antiquity as notorious to you as what men do at present in England FOR proving the great multitudes then subject to Diocesan Discipline I said That the greatness of no City was thought sufficient to multiply Bishops To this you answer 1. That Gods Institution was that every Church have a Bishop for which you quote Acts 14. 23. c. But 1. The place you refer me to has no mention of a Divine Institution for Apostolical practice is not a sufficient proof of that and this is all which is so much as intimated in this place 2. It does not as much as mention the word Bishop but that of Presbyter And though the words were granted to have been then confounded yet you know they were so afterwards when the things were certainly distinct And therefore you cannot conclude from the word Presbyter that a Bishop was meant especially in the sense wherein it was afterwards appropriated Nor 3. Is it evident that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is meant a single Presbyter in every particular Church as in a Parish but it may as well be meant of Presbyteries as Presbyters And when afterwards the Presidency of a single Monarch was introduced no Churches and Presbyteries but such as had Bishops and were Diocesan in the sense we now understand the word And if they were Presbyteries you cannot hence disprove the presidency of one over the rest as we find it soon after practised Nor 4. Is it evident that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs be meant a Parish as it concerns you to believe For the word Church is as applicable to great as small Societies and the great ones may as well be called one in their kind though they be capable of a further subdivision into many Churches of smaller denomination Thus the Catholick Church is called one in the Constantinopolitan Creed though consisting of many national and the Church of England but one national Church though consisting of two Provincial and the Province of Canterbury but one Provincial Church though consisting of several Diocesan and every Diocese but one Diocesan Church though consisting of several Parishes And even in the Scripture there are several notions of the word of different proportions There are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ which from the coherence and the Jewish notions of Assemblies seem to make up a Church and accordingly Tertullian calls an Assembly of two or three a Church though consisting onely of Laicks And yet these Churches are so little serviceable to your purpose as that I believe you would not be for confining a private Presbyter to so small a cure I am sure they are much beneath those populous Parishes which you do not seem to disapprove Supposing therefore I should grant you that every distinct Church should have a distinct Bishop yet how will you prove with the least plausibility that this Church must be understood of a Parochial one that the multitude of Bishops may answer that of Parishes Especially considering that the notion of the word for a Parochial Church will not be so easily deduced from Scripture as that for a Diocese For thus much the Independents I think do prove sufficiently that a whole Church in those times did generally meet in one place but they fail in proving distinction of Churches in Cities though never so great and populous which two put together do plainly amount to our notion not of a Parochial but Diocesan Church there appearing no footsteps in those times of any Subdivisions allotted to particular Presbyters Besides if we may believe the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here parallel with those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. l. 5. as in all likelyhood they are then a Church will be that which will extend to the Liberties of a whole City And because you find no mention of distinct Presbyters for Villages recommended to Titus's care it seems very probable that they were sufficiently provided for by those of the City and therefore that they had some dependence on them That the name of Churches was attributed first to Cities see proved by the Excellent Dr. Stilling fleet Iren. p. 2. c. 7. § 2 4. FOR that the Apostles did take care even for Villages we have the express Testimony of S. Clemens Romanus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if these words be understood as commonly they are But I confess it does not seem to me so clear that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is understood those Country Villages which are obnoxious to the Jurisdiction of the City but rather Regiones as it is translated not as Rome and Constantinople were divided into their Regiones answerable to our Wards but as it may in a larger sense signifie whole Provinces under which many Cities might be comprehended my Reasons I would give if I were not unwilling to digress much less am I satisfied with Blondell's Conjecture who conceives it to relate to the Chorepiscopi and thence concludes that they were not originally subject to the City Bishop For though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were indeed taken in the sense he is concerned it should be yet there is no necessity that it should be referred to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if distinct Bishops had been imposed over them from those of the Cities to which they were related but may conveniently enough be joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie their preaching in the Villages as well as Cities and their election of fit persons from both for Bishops and Deacons to be disposed of where they thought convenient However it were it seems very probable that the Apostles as they planted Christianity first in Cities so they seemed to have settled the Government there first and as they generally left the Villages to be converted by excursions from the Cities so it seems most credible that the influences of the Government must have followed that of the propagation of their Doctrine Certainly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by Ignatius in his Inscription of his Epistle to the Romans over which the Church of Rome is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot in the narrowest exposition choose but include a Precinct as large as our ordinary Dioceses But 5. Supposing all had been as you would have them that it had been enjoyned by the Apostles that every Parochial Church should have a distinct Bishop yet how can you

for that season but unprovided for a Storm so certainly a Magistrate ought to be prepar'd and qualified with abilities for governing a criminal and unquiet people even then when he lies under the actual obligation for exercising them especially considering it as a case so very ordinary and so probably to be expected If therefore a Bishop may not undertake the charge of a Diocese because impossible to be performed by him I may as well by the same points of reason conclude that a Magistrate may not take that of a Province or Kingdom even when in the good humour you suppose them because he must not in prudence venture on that unless he be prepared for them when vicious which you suppose impossible and therefore unfit to be engaged on And 5. You do not propose the case with any equality for if you would do so you should not compare a Prince governing a regular people and a Bishop with an irregular scandalous Diocese but have supposed the Subjects in both cases regular or in both irregular And if you will needs suppose in favour of the Prince that his Subjects are as little criminal in his Courts as you have found them where you have been acquainted to shew the possibility of his governing such a people though in a large precinct why can you not suppose in favour of the Bishop that the Subjects of his Diocese behave themselves as innocently in reference to crimes obnoxious to the publick cognizance of his Courts Is it either because that even persons so supposed equally innocent in relation to the charges of both Courts are yet more difficultly governable by an Ecclesiastical than a Secular Magistrate This is not as much as pretended I am confident not as much as plausibly proved in your present Discourse Or is it that the Supposition it self in relation to Ecclesiastical crimes is more difficult it being more rare and improbable to find a people innocent in crimes of publick Ecclesiastical than Secular cognizance If this later be your meaning I doubt neither of the reasons intimated by you will maintain you in it Not that of your own experience for I believe you would have found those good persons of your acquaintance as little troublesom to the Bishops as the King's Courts as little guilty of incestuous Marriages forging Wills and Testaments Simony c. as of any acts of secular injustice And as for the other concerning our propensity to actual deduced from the original sin you have not as yet proved this propensity greater to Ecclesiastical than Secular crimes But it is rather probable that as the crimes cognoscible in the Ecclesiastical Courts are generally more heinous so they are more easily avoidable If you have any inclination to think so for preventing it I pray remember what I have already intimated that they are not all sorts of sins against God that are cognoscible in the Bishops Courts but onely such as are great and scandalous and notorious And then consider whether it be not as easie to suppose a people innocent of great and scandalous and notorious sins against God and Religion as of injustice towards Men. For this indeed will be the true state of the question 2. Therefore it will not be so easily proved that the crimes cognoscible in the Secular Courts are so few in comparison of those that are Ecclesiastical This I have already proved before and am not willing to repeat what I have there said At present methinks your own Concessions if closely reflected on would have prevented your pretending otherwise For besides that those multitudes of persons guilty of crimes obnoxious to the Bishops Courts which I have said every impenitent sinner is not and have given my reason why I said so are I doubt guilty of many more civil crimes for which I shall onely appeal to your own experience I pray consider how many of the crimes cognoscible in the Bishops Courts are originally civil as those concerning Marriages Wills and Testaments Tithes c. which are mere arbitrary concessions of Princes in favour of the Church as protected by them And the rest that are not yet come under the Princes cognizance as the Churches Canons are made Laws of the Common-wealth and her Censures are seconded by coercive secular penalties imposed by the Prince on such as have proved refractory against her Spiritual Authority Upon which account it is impossible but that the Secular causes must needs prove more numerous as including all Ecclesiasticals and many proper to themselves besides So that this Disparity is every way unconvictive of your purpose For if you mean those persons who are so innocent of secular crimes to be different from those who are supposed so very guilty of Ecclesiasticals then there can be no just disparity pretended because there is indeed no equal comparison But if you mean the same persons in both cases then the Disparity cannot be pretended true because the Supposition is false BUT you object in favour of me That the Parish-priest is to reprove exhort and convince sinners first till he prove them impenitent and that he is to instruct the Ignorant Infidels and Hereticks which must needs considerably lessen the number of criminals who onely in case of their convicted impenitency in the use of these means should be further impleaded in that severer way of proceeding in the Bishops Courts To this you answer 1. That this is more than an executive power If it be so I do not know any that denies it you so that you have no reason that I know of to complain on that account None hinders you from reproving exhorting convincing and instructing whom you please especially such as are intrusted to you as Members of your cure But I am sure this is not more than that executive power which I said was communicated to the inferiour Clergie in opposition to that which I called decretory reserved to our Ecclesiastical Monarch for I believe you will not call this power of reproving exhorting c. decretory I believe you meant a power merely executive But you may remember that that was neither my word nor meaning nor do I for my part think this power mentioned by you to be more than that which were merely executive My reason you will suddenly understand SECONDLY therefore you answer That you desire no more at all from Bishops or any If so you need not desire it for none denies it you But you say You know no other Episcopal power over the people but thus personally to convince men and to declare to the congregation upon proof the fitness or unfitness of men for their communion by penitence or impenitence If you know no other power than this you know none at all For this power of convincing men will as well agree to the meanest Laick who has reason on his side as the greatest Bishop seeing either of them may convince if furnished with such reason but neither can without it And yet