Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	church_n	creed_n	2,605	5	10.2206	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26728	Hieronikēs, or, The fight, victory, and triumph of S. Paul accommodated to the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas, late L. Bishop of Duresme, in a sermon preached at his funeral, in the parish church of St. Peter at Easton-Manduit in Northampton-shire, on Michaelmas-day, 1659 : together with the life of the said Bishop / by John Barwick ...	Barwick, John, 1612-1664.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1008; ESTC R16054	101,636	192

I cannot but hope that what I have yet to say in the person of this dead Prelate will have so much influence upon you all especially of the Laity as not to return without some fruit I confess I have done with my own Sermon it is more then time I should but I have still another to preach to you from this Reverend Bishop and in this I can easily presume upon your patience though I have almost wearied it already When I call this a Sermon which now I am to deliver I speak not without my warrant For when St. Gregory preached his Forty Sermons upon the Gospels he penned them all but read no more of them himself then eighteen by reason of some bodily infirmities the rest were read by his sub-Deacon or Notarie and yet all of them were then received and ever since esteemed and reputed as St. Gregories Sermons and in this sense it is that I call that which now remaineth the Bishop of DURESMES Sermon though I read it to you It is indeed the most solemn and elaborate Sermon he ever made being a profession or Declaration of his Faith with some wholsome instructions and directions to all good Christians within the Church of England though it be more particularly directed to those within his own Diocess By the time you have heard it you will finde it to be a rich supply for many things which otherwise I could not have omitted to speak concerning him It is a thing he did with much deliberation and not without some consultation with some of his Reverend Brethren and others as to the form and manner of it and when it was fitted exactly according to his own thoughts and desire he solemnly published signed and sealed it in the presence of five witnesses and annexed it as a Codicil to his Will and afterward when the shrinking of his small estate compelled him to alter his will to what it is now at his death he declared this to be a part of it which before was only a Codicil in the presence of other witnesses so that upon second thoughts it was not only owned by him but also ratified and confirmed more solemnly then before It followeth in these words 1. IN the first ages of the Church it was a very excellent custome that whensoever any was Consecrated Bishop of any Patriarchal or chief see he should by an Encyclical Epistle give an account of his Faith to his Brethren of the same order and dignity for the better strengthening of that Catholick Communion which the Bishops and Churches then had and still should preserve among themselves And this by the way was an homage as well payed as received by the Bishops of Rome in those times which is a sufficient evidence of a Coordination but could never have consisted with their now challenged Monarchy in the Church 2. And though the reason be different the design is no less necessary in this last and worst age of the Church for all Bishops whomsoever to leave some Testimony of their Faith to the world when it shall please God to take them out of it that so neither their Names may be traduced after their death nor any weak Brother misled by fathering any false opinions upon them whereof they were no way guilty 3. And this I think will be as necessary for me to perform as any other of my order in some respects though not so necessary in some other which is the cause both why I leave this short account of my self to the world and why it is no larger 4. For though I have sufficiently declared my self to the world both by my life and labours to be a true Orthodox and sincere Christian and Protestant according to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Primitive Church professed also and practised in the Church of England seeing I have been a writer above fifty years and have passed through all the orders of the Church Deacon Priest and Bishop and have been Rector of three Churches Prebendary in one Dean of two and Bishop of three Diocesses successively yet I cannot think my self secure from the malignancy of false and virulent tongues and pens after my Death more then I have been in my life and the rather because I have sustained the heavy Office of a Bishop so many years in the Church which some perverse people make criminal in it self and have by my writings discharged a good Conscience in asserting the truth against the opposites on both sides for which the Father of Lies will not be wanting to stir up enemies against me 5. I do therefore here solemnly profess in the presence of Almighty God that by his grace preventing and assisting me I have alwayes lived and purpose to die in the true Catholick Faith wherein I was Baptized firmly believing all the Canonical Scripture of the old and New Testament and fully assenting to every Article of all those three Creeds commonly called the Apostles Creed the Nicen or Constantinopolitan Creed and the Athanasian Creed which in the ancient Church were accounted the Adequate Rules of Faith and have accordingly been received as such by the Church of England 6. As for Counsels that are free and general consisting of competent persons lawfully summoned and proceeding according to the word of God Such as were the foure first viz those of Nice Constantinople Ephesus and Chalcedon I do reverence them as the Supream Tribunals of the Church of Christ upon earth for judging of Heresies and composing differences in the Church And as I utterly condemn all Heresies that have been condemned by any of them so I heartily wish that all the present differences in the Church of God might be determined by such a free general Counsel as any of those foure were already mentioned 7. The composers of those ancient differences in the Church were Bishops as it cannot be denied concerning which order I profess to believe that ●t was instituted by the Apostles who were infallibly inspired by the Holy Ghost and approved by Christ in the Revelation of St. John and consequently to be of Divine institution as I have made it evident by a little Treatise already printed and could still further manifest it by some papers not yet committed to the Press And I had never sustained the burthen of that Office above 40 years in the Church if this had not been alwayes my judgment concerning Bishops I pray God restore them again to those poor afflicted parts of his Church where either the Office or the Exercise of it is wanting 8. That the Bishop of Rome hath any more power over Bishops then other Primates and Patriarcks have in their several Sees respectively is a thing which I have often and largely disproved in my writings All that the Ancient Church did allow him was a priority of order but no supreamacie of Monarchical power And I heartily wish that this and all other differences now on foot between us and

one as St. Paul did here both in the fight of faith and course of Christianity And that again both as a private Christian and as an Apostle of Christ for the word running is a Metaphor that is applyed very significantly to both in holy Scripture St. Paul himself will be his own Expositour as to this particular in his Epistle to the Galatians where we finde that both they to whom he wrote who were private persons had run well and that he himself who was an Apostle of Christ had not run in vain Every servant of God is obliged to run the way of his Commandements when God hath set his heart at liberty but the task is doubled upon St. Paul as an Apostle of Christ because his office was concerned in it as well as his person And accordingly it is the expression of holy David that the word of God runneth very swiftly and both the Prophet Isaiah and this Apostle tell us that the feet of them that bring the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace are very beautiful Nay so swift are they and so beautiful that what the Psalmist speaks of the Heavens the most beautiful and swift of all Gods visible creatures is by St. Paul applyed to the Apostles their sound is gone out into all the earth and their words into the ends of the world and St. Chrysostome seemeth to give the priority to St. Paul before all the rest of the Apostles in this particular when he compareth his course to that of the Sun which we know cometh as a bridegroom out of his Chamber and rejoyceth as a gyant to run his course nay he preferreth it before that of the Sun for the purity of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and before that of a Bird for the swiftness and when we consider how much the light of the Gospel is to be preferred before the light of the Sun and in how short a time this holy Apostle had communicated it to all the world from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum we shall finde more of admiration in the work then of Hyperbole in St. Chrysostomes expression though he was a most excellent Oratour 3. And now I have done with those two acts which had immediate and particular relation to the Olympick games St. Pauls fighting and his running The third and last which now follows doth not as I told you import any thing peculiar in it self and yet it is of very great importance it denoteth only a super-addition of constancie and perseverance to both the other fighting and running I know very well that some expositours understand the word Faith in the common and ordinary literal sense as it signifieth the Christian faith or sound doctrine which this blessed Apostle kept inviolable though Demas and others had forsaken him in the defence of it and some would not so much as endure to hear of it But yet others and better interpreters will not allow this to be the immediate signification of the word For in my apprehension it is very strange that this word should be taken in the ordinary literal sense when all the rest of the context both before and after it must of necessity be interpreted by an Allegory It is true indeed that if by the word Faith we understand fidelity as sometimes it signifieth in holy Scripture it will be very pertinent to this place even in the literal sense and will also perfectly consist with the Allegory seeing that the faith or fidelity of any one that either fought or ran in the Olympick games obliged him to constancie and final perseverance without which there was no hope of getting the victory or obtaining the Crown for which they contended And that this is the genuine sense of the word in this place is not only probable by these reasons here alledged but may be further confirmed by the opinion of the most and best interpreters both ancient and modern and these latter again both of the Roman and Reformed Churches If you desire an instance you may have it in St. Augustine and Primasius among the Ancients and among the late writers in Cornelius a Lapide and Calvin to say nothing of the rest And now that we have seen the meaning of the word let us see how well the Apostle performed the work and that was in such a way and manner as became him to do and will become us to follow him in it For it was not the black brand of Heresie which the Jewes would have cast upon him nor the reproach of a Babler under which he suffered among the Athenians It was not the information of Ananias the high Priest nor the accusation of Tertullus the Orator It was not the conspiracy of the confederates at Jerusalem nor the fury of the zealots at Lystra or Ephesus It was not the subtilty of Elymas the sorcerer nor the violence of the Magistrates at Philippi It was not the splendour of the civil pomp in Agrippa and Festus nor the terrour of the military power in the Governour of Damascus It was not any of these nor all these nor any other thing whatsoever no not the fear of death it self that could stop him in his course or divert him from his fight while his life continued He was constant in both till his mortality put on immortality and this life was swallowed up of a better He did not give over the fight till such time as he had got the victory nor cease his running till he had obtained the prize but he kept the faith till his faith was turned into fruition he was faithful in the work till he received the wages or at least till he had got so good assurance of them as he could say in full confidence Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness c. 2. And this would bring me to the second general part of my Text but only that there still remaineth a second and more peculiar part of my task upon this first I have held you hitherto only with a Sermon I must now make it 1. a Funeral Sermon for this Reverend Prelate and 2. such a Sermon as may be useful to our selves by some brief application though I hope the former will in part supply the latter And here I know some will expect that I should as the manner is give you an account of his whole life from his cradle to his grave but therein I must be forced to frustrate your expectation Such a thing may be done where the life is but of a few years and most of that life not so much a living perhaps as a being in the world But in this case such a thing cannot be expected with any reason after so long an exercise of your patience considering of how long continuance his life hath been an hundred years wanting five and how much of that time he hath imployed in the eminent and