Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	church_n	paul_n	timothy_n	1,351	5	10.3835	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89568	The humble answer of the Divines attending the Honorable Commissioners of Parliament, at the treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight. To the second paper delivered to them by his Majesty, Octob. 6. 1648. about episcopall government. Delivered to his Majesty, October 17. I appoint Abel Roper to print this copie, entituled The humble answer of the Divines, &c. Richard Vines,	Westminster Assembly; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655, attributed name.	1648 (1648)	Wing M757; Thomason E468_21; ESTC R204007	22,916	44

us to proceed the same way and to finde many antient rites and customs generally received in the Church counted by the antients Apostolicall traditions as neer the Apostles times as Bishops which yet are confessedly not of Divine institution and further if Timothy and the rest that are first in the catalogue were Bishops with such sole Power of Ordination and Censures as is asserted how came their pretended successors who were but Primi Presbyterorum as the Fathers themselves call them to lose so much Episcopall power as was in their Predecessors and as was not recovered in 300 years and therefore we cannot upon any thing yet said recide from that of our Saviour ab initio non fuit sic from the begining is was not so Your Majesty saith that wee affirme but upon very weak proofes that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places the contrary whereunto hath been demonstrated by some who have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and order of the severall journeyes and stations of Paul and Timothy It is confessed that our assertion that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists lies with some stresse upon this that they removed from place to place as they were sent by or accompanied the Apostles the proofe whereof appeares to us to bee of greaten strength then can bee taken off by the comparison which your Majesty makes of the Divines of the Assembly at Westminster Wee begin with the Travailes of Timothy as we finde them in order recorded in the Scripture-places cited in the Margin and we set forth from a Berea where we finde Timothy then next at b Athens fromwhence Paul sends him to c Thessalonica afteward having been in Macedonia he came to Paul at d Corinth and after that he is with Paul at Ephesus and thence sent by him into e Macedonia whether Paul went after him and was by Timothy accompanied into f Asia who was with him at g Troas and h Miletus to which place Saint Paul sent for the Presbyters of the Church in Ephesus and gave them that solemne charge to take heede unto themselves and to all the flock over which the holy Ghost hath made them Bishops not speaking a word of recommendation of that Church to Timothy or of him to the Elders And if Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus he must bee so when the first Epistle was sent to him in which he is pretended to receive the charge of exercising his Episcopall power in Ordination and government but it is manifest that after this Epistle sent to him he was in continuall journeyes or absent from Ephesus For Paul left him at Ephesus when he went into i Macedonia and he left him there to exercise his Office in regulating and ordering that Church and in ordaining but it was after this time that Timothy is found with Paul at Miletus for aftur Paul had been at Miletus he went to Jerusalem whence he was sent prisoner to Rome and never came more into Macedonia and at k Rome we find Timothy a prisoner with him and these Epistles which Paul wrote while he was prisoner at Rome namely the Epistle to the Philippians to Philemon to the Colossians to the Hebrewes doe make mention of Timothy as his companion at these times nor doe we ever finde him againe at Ephesus for we finde that after all this towards the end of Saint Pauls life after his first answering before Nero and when he said his departing was at hand hee sent for Timothy to Rome not from Ephesus for it seemes that Timothy was not there because Paul giving Timothy an account of the absence of most of his companions sent into divers parts he saith Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus Now if your Majesty shall bee pleased to cast up into one totall that which is said the severall journeyes and stations of Timothy the order of them the time spent in them the nature of his imployment to negotiate the affaires of Christ in severall Churches and places the silence of the Scriptures as touching his being Bishop of any one Church you will acknowledge that such a man was not a Bishop fixed to one Church or precinct and then by assuming that Timothy was such a man you wil conclude that he was not Bishop of Ephesus The like conclusion may be inforced from the like premisses from the instance of Titus whom we finde at a Jerusalem before he came to Crete from whence hee is sent for to b Nicopolis after that he is sent to Corinth from whence he is expected at c Troas and met with Paul in d Macedonia whence he is sent againe to e Corinth and after all this is neere the time of Pauls death at Rome from whence he went not into Crete but unto f Dalmatia and after this is not heard on in the Scripture and so we hope your Majesty doth conceive that we affirme not upon very weak proofes that Tymothy and Titus were from Ephesus Crete removed to other places In the fifth exception your Majesty takes notice of two places of Scripture cited by us to prove that they were called away from those places of Ephesus Crete which if they doe not conclude much of themselves yet being accompanied by two other places which your Majesty takes no notice of may seeme to conclude more and these are 1 Tim. v. 1. 3. Titus 1. 5. As I be sought thee to abide still at Ephesus for this cause left I thee in Creete in both which is specifed the occasionall imployment for which they made stay in those places and the expressions used I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus I left thee in Crete doe not sound like words of installment of a man into a Bishoprick but of an intendment to call them away again and if the first and last be put together his actuall revocation of them both the intimation of his intention that they should not stay there for continuance and the reason of his beseeching the one to stay of his leaving the other behind him which was some present defects and distempers in those Churches they will put faire to prove that the Apostle intended not to establish them Bishops of those places and therefore did not For the Postscripts because your Majesty layes no great weight upon them We shall not be solicitous in producing evidence against them though they doe bear witnesse in a matter of fact which in our opinion never was and in your Majesties Judgement was long before they were borne and so we conclude this discourse about Timothy and Titus with this observation that in the same very Epistle of Paul to Timothy out of which your Majesty hath endeavoured to prove that he was a Bishop and did exercise Episcopall Government there is cleare evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in ordination and for their Ruling In the next point concerning the Angels of

the Churches though your Majesty saith that you lay no weight upon the Allegory or Mystery of the denomination yet you assert that the persons bearing that name were personae singulares in a word Bishops who yet are never so called in Scripture the allegorical denomination of Angels or Stars which in the Judgement of ancient and moderne Writers doth belong to the faithfull Ministers and Preachers of the word in generall is appropriate as we may so say to the Myter and Crosierstaffe and so opposed to many expresse testimonies of Scripture And if your Majesty had been particular in that wherein you say the strength of your instance lies viz. the Judgement of all ancient of the best moderne Writers and many probabilities in the text it selfe we hope to have made it apparent that many ancient eminent Writers many probabilities out of the text it self do give evidence to the contrary To that which is asserted That these singular persons were Bishops in distinct sence whether we brought any thing of moment to infirm this we humbly submit to Your Majesties judgement and shall only represent to you that in Your Reply you have not taken notice of that which in our answer seems to us of moment which is this that in Mysterious prophetick writings or visionall representations such as this of the stars and golden Candlesticks is a number of things or persons is usually exprest in singulars and this in visions is the usuall way of Representation of things a thousand persons making up one Church is represented by one Candlestick Many Ministers making up one Presbytery by one Angell And because Your Majesty seemes to call upon us to be particular though we cannot name the Angels nor are satisfied in our judgement that those whom some do undertake to name were intended by the name of Angells in those Epistles yet we say First that these Epistles were sent unto the Churches and that under the expression of this thou dost or this thou hast and the like the Churches are respectively intended for the sin reproved the Repentance commanded the punishments threatned are to be referred to the Churches and not to the singular Angells onely and yet wee do not thinke that Salmatius did intend nor doe wee that in formall denomination the Angells and Candlesticks are the same Secondly The Angels of these Churches or Rulers were a Collective body which wee endeavoured to prove by such Probabilities as your Majesty takes no notice of namely the instance of the Church of Ephesus where there were many Bishops to whom the charg of that Church was by Saint Paul at his finall departure from them committed as also by that expression Revel. 2. 24. To you and to the rest in Thiatyra Which distinction makes it very probable that the Angel is explained under that Plurality to you the like to which many expressions may be found in these Epistles which to interpret according to the Consentient Evidence of other Scriptures of the New Testament is not Safe only but Solid and Evidentiall Thirdly these Writings are directed as Epistolary Letters to Collective Bodyes usually are that is to One but intended to the Body which your Majesty illustrateth by your sending a Message to your Two Houses and directing it to the Speaker of the House of Peers which as it doth not hinder we confesse but that the Speaker is one single Person so it doth not prove at all that the Speaker is alwayes the same Person or if he were that therefore because your Message is directed to him he is the Governour or Ruler of the Two Houses in the least and so your Majesty hath given cleare instance that though these Letters be directed to the Angels yet that notwithstanding they might neither be Bishops not yet perpetuall Moderators For the severall opinions specified in your Majesties Paper three of them by easie and faire accommodati●n as wee declared before are soon reduced and united amongst themselves and may be holden wi●hout ecesse from the received Iudgement of the Christian Church by such as are far from m●●iting that Aspersion which is cast upon the Reformed Divines by Popish Writers that they have divided themselves from the Common and received Iudgment of the Christian Church which Imputation wee hope was not in your Majesties intention to lay upon us untill it bee made cleare that it is the common and received Iudgement of the Christian Church that now is or of that in former Ages that the Angels of the Churches were Bishops having Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches In the following Discourse we did deny that the Apostles were to have any Successors in their Office and affirmed onely 〈◊〉 Orders of Ordinary and Standing Officers in the Church vizt. Presbiters and Deacons Concerning the former of which your Majesty refers to what you had in part already declared That in those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles as namely the Measure of their Gifts c. They had no Sucessors in cundem graedum but in those things which were not extraordinary as the Office of Teaching and Power of Governing which are necessary for the Service of the Church in all times they were to have and had no Successours Where your Majesty deli●●●s a Doctrine new to us Namely that the Apopost●es had Successors into their Offices not into their 〈◊〉 For besides that Succession is not 〈◊〉 into Abiliti●s but into Offic● We cannot say that one 〈◊〉 another in his 〈◊〉 o● 〈◊〉 or Patts but into his Roome and Function 〈◊〉 ●●nceive that the Office Apostolicall was 〈…〉 in whole because their Mission and 〈◊〉 was ●o and the service or work of Teaching and Governing being to continue in all times doth not render their Office Ordinary as the Office of Moses was not rendred Ordinary because many workes of Government exercised by him were re-committed to the standing Elders of Israel And if they have Successors it must be either into their whole Office or into some parts Their Successors into the whole however differing from them in measure of Gifts and peculiar Qualifications must be called Apostles the same Office gives the 〈◊〉 Denomination and then we shal confesse that Bishops if they be their Successors in Office 〈◊〉 of Divine Institution because the Apostolicall Office him so if their Successors come into part of their Office only the Presbiters may as well bee called their 〈◊〉 ●● the Bishops and so indeed they are called by 〈◊〉 of the ancient Fathers 〈◊〉 Origen 〈◊〉 and others Whereas in much the Apostle● 〈◊〉 not properly Successors into Office but the ordin●ry Power of Teaching and Governing which 〈…〉 the Church for 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 in the hands of ordinary Officers by a 〈…〉 and Commission according to the rules of 〈◊〉 and calling in the word 〈◊〉 the Bishop hath 〈◊〉 yet produced for himselfe and without which he cannot challenge it upon the 〈…〉 by the