Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	authority_n	church_n	credit_n	2,473	5	8.9792	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43507	Aerius redivivus, or, The history of the Presbyterians containing the beginnings, progress and successes of that active sect, their oppositions to monarchial and episcopal government, their innovations in the church, and their imbroylments by Peter Heylyn ...	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.; Heylyn, Henry.	1670 (1670)	Wing H1681; ESTC R5587	552,479	547

with the Pastors of particular flocks He was too well versed in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers as not to know that all the things which he complains of were approved and practiced in the best and happiest times of Christianity as might be otherwise made apparent out of the Writings of Tertullian Cyprian Hierome Chrysostome and indeed who not But Beza has a word for this For first he blames the Ancient Fathers for borrowing many of their Ceremonies from the Jews and Gentiles though done by them out of a good and honest purpose that being all things to all men they might gain the more And thereupon he gives this Rule That all such Rites as had been borrowed either from the Iew or Gentile without express Warrant from Christ or the holy Apostles as also all other significant Ceremonies which had been brought into the Church against right and reason should be immediately removed or otherwise the Church could never be restored to her Native Beauty Which Rule of his if once admitted there must be presently an end of all external Decency and Order in the Worship of God and every man might be left to serve him both for time and place and every particular circumstance in that Sacred action as to him seemed best And what a horrible confusion must needs grow thereby not onely in a whole National Church but in every particular Congregation be it never so small is no hard matter to conceive 25. At the Reforming of this Church not onely the Queens Chappel and all Cathedrals but many Parochial Churches also had preserved their Organs to which they used to sing the appointed Hymns that is to say the Te Deum the Benedictus the Magnificat the Nunc Dimittis c. performed in an Artificial and Melodious manner with the addition of Cornets Sackbuts and the like on the Solemn Festivals For which as they had ground enough from the holy Scripture if the Practice and Authority of David be of any credit so were they warranted thereunto by the godly usage of the primitive times after the Church was once restored to her peace and freedom Certain I am that S. Augustine imputes no small part of his Conversion to that heavenly Melodie which he heard very frequently in the Church of M●llaine professing that it did not onely draw tears from him though against his will but raised his soul unto a sacred Meditation on spiritual matters But Beza having turned so many of the Psalms into metre as had been left undone by Marot gave an example unto Sternhold and Hopkins to attempt the like Whos 's Version being left unfinished but brought unto an end by some of our English Exiles which remained at Geneva there was a purpose for imposing them upon the Church by little and little that they might come as close as might be in all points to their Mother-City At first they sung them onely in their private houses and afterwards as beforesaid adventured to sing them also in the Church as in the way of entertainment to take up the time till the beginning of the Service and afterwards to sing them as a part of the Service it self For so I understand that passage in the Church Historian in which he tells us That Dr. Gervis being then Warden of Merton Colledge had abolished certain Latine superstitious Hymns which had been used on some of the Festivals appointing the Psalms in English to be sung in their place and that as one Leech was ready to begin the Psalm another of the Fellows called Hall snatched the book out of his hands and told him That they could no more dance after his pipe But whatsoever Hall thought of them Beza and his Disciples were persw●ded otherwise And that he might the better cry down that Melodious Harmony which was retained in the Church of England and so make way for the Genevian fashion even in that point also he tells us in the same Letter to Bishop Gryndal That the Artificial Musick then retained in the Church of England was fitter to be used in Masks and Dancings then Religious Offices and rather served to please the ear then to move the affections Which censure being pass'd upon it by so great a Rabby most wonderful it was how suddenly some men of good note and quality who otherwise deserved well enough of the Church of England did bend their wits and pens against it and with what earnestness they laboured to have their own Tunes publickly introduced into all the Churches Wh●ch that they might the better do they procured the Psalms in English metre to be bound in the same Volume with the Publick Liturgie and sometimes with the Bible also setting them forth as being allowed so the Title tells us to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons but with what truth and honesty we have heard before 16. In fin● he tells the Bishops how guilty they would seem to God and his h●ly Angels if they chuse rather to deprive the Ministers of their Cures and Benefices then suffer them to go apparelled otherwise then to them seemed good And rather to deprive many hungry souls of their heavenly food then give them leave to receive it otherwise then upon their knees And this being said he questions the Authority of the Supreme Magistrate as contrary to the Word of God and the Ancient Canons for ordaining any new Rites and Ceremonies in a Church established but much more the Authority ascribed to Bishops in ordering any thing which concerned the Church without calling the Presbytery to advise about it and having their approbation in it This was indeed the point most aimed at And to this point his followers take the courage to drive on amain the Copies of this Letter being presently dispersed for their greater comfort if not also printed Some of the brethren in their zeal to the name of Calvin preferred him once before S. Paul and Beza out of question would have took it ill if he had been esteemed of less Authority then any of those who claimed to be Successors to S. Peter And therefore it were worth the while to compare the Epistles of these men with those of Pope Leo and then to enter seriously into consideration whether of the two took more upon him either Pope Leo where he might pretend to some command or Beza where he had no authority to act at all How much more moderate and discreet were the most eminent men for Learning amongst the Zwitzers may appear by the example of Gualter and Bullinger no way inferior unto the other but in Pride and Arrogancy who being desired by some of the English Zealots to give their judgement in the point of the Churches Vestments returned their approbation of them but sent it in a Letter directed to Horn Sandys and Grindal to let them see that they would not intermeddle in the affairs of this Church without their

Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenes●s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554

as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful

allure the people to adhere unto them they flatter them with an hope of an absolute Freedom and such a power in Sacred matters as should both authorize and justifie their approaches to the holy Altar without the intervention of Priest or Prelate Which being done they boldly shew themselves against Moses and Aaron and told them plainly to their faces that they took more upon them then belonged to either that all the Congregation was holy every one of them in regard that God appeared so visibly amongst them and therefore that they had done that which they could not justifie in lifting themselves above the Congregation of the Lord. In which it is to be observed that though some of the chief Princes of the House of Dan and perhaps many also of the other Tribes did appear in the Action yet it is plainly called in Scripture The Gain-saying of Korah either because the practice was of his Contrivement or chiefly carried on by the power and credit which he and his Accomplices of the Tribe of Levi had gained amongst the common people by reason of their Interests and Concernments in Sacred matters so excellent are the opportunities which are afforded to unquiet and seditious men when either by ● seeming zeal to the Worship of God or by some special place and interest in his Publick Service they are become considerable in the eyes of the Vulgar These were the first seeds of those dangerous Doctrines and most unwarrantable practices which afterwards brought forth such sad effects toward the latter end of the Jewish State when the Pharisees began to draw unto themselves the managing of all affairs both Sacred and Civil They were not ignorant of that high displeasure which God had manifestly shewn against the principal Authors of that first Sedition who under the pretence of regulating the Authority of his two Chief Ministers had put a baffle as it were upon God himself whose Servants and Ministers they were The Pharisees therefore were content that both the Chief-Priest and the Supreme Prince should still preserve their rank and station as in former times but so that neither of them should be able to act any thing of weight and moment but as directed by their counsels and influenced by their assistance For the obtaining of which point what arts they used what practices they set on foot and by what artifices they prevailed upon mens affections as also into what calamities they plunged that Nation by the abuse of their Authority having once obtained it shall be laid down at large in the following History All the particulars whereof the Reader is desired to observe distinctly that he may see how punctually the Presbyterians of our times have played the Pharisees as well in the getting of their power by lessening the Authority both of Prince and Prelate as in exasperating the people to a dangerous War for the destruction of them both the calling in of Foreign forces to abet their quarrel the fractions and divisions amongst themselves and the most woful Desolation which they have brought upon the happiest and most flourishing Church which the Sun of Righteousness ever shined on since the Primitive times Nec ovum o●o nec lac lacti similius Iupiter could not make himself more like Amphitrio nor Mercury play the part of Sociae with more resemblance then the ensuing Story may be parallel'd in our late Combustions Actor for Actor Part for Part and Line for Line there being nothing altered in a manner in that fearful Tragedie but the Stage or Theatre Change the Stage from Palestine or the Realm of Iuda and we shall see the same Play acted over again in many parts and Provinces of the Christian Church In which we finde the Doctrines of the Pharisees revived by some their Hypocrisie or pretended Purity taken up by others their Artifices to encrease their party in the gaining of Proselytes embraced and followed by a third till they grew formidable to those powers under which they lived and finally the same Confusions introduced in all parts of Christendom in which their counsels have been followed Which I shall generally reduce under these four heads that is to say The practices of the Novatians in the North the Arrians in the East the Donatists in Affrick or the the Southern parts and the Priscillianists in the Western The arts and subtilties of the Pharisees were at first suppos'd to be too Heterogeneous to be all found in any one Sect of Hereticks amongst the Christians till they were all united in the Presbyterians the Sects or Hereticks above mentioned participating more or less of their dangerous counsels as they conceived it necessary to advance their particular ends In the pursuance of which ends as the Arrians ventured upon many points which were not known to the Novatians and the Donatists upon many more which were never practised by the Arrians so the Priscillianists did as much exceed the Donatists in the arts of mischief as they themselves have been exceeded by the Presbyterians in all the lamentable consequents and effects thereof which I desire the Reader to consider distinctly that he may be his own Plutarch in fitting them and every one of them with a perfect parallel in reference to those men whose History I shall draw down from the time of Calvin unto these our days tracing it from Geneva into France from France into the Netherlands from the Netherlands to Scotland and from thence to England And in this search I shall adventure upon nothing but what is warranted by the Testimony of unquestioned Authors from whose sence I shall never vary though I may finde it sometimes necessary not to use their words And by so doing I shall keep my self unto the rules of a right Historian in delivering nothing but the Truth without omitting any thing for fear or speaking any thing in favour of the adverse party but as I shall be justified by good Authors THE CONTENTS Lib. I. Containing THe first Institution of Presbytery in the Town of Geneva the Arts and Practices by which it was imposed on the neck of that City and pressed upon all the Churches of the Reformation together with the dangerous Principles and Positions of the chief Contrivers in the pursuance of their project from the year 1536 to the year 1585. Lib. II. Containing Their manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. Lib. III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration in the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. Lib. IV. Containing Their Beginning Progress and Positions their dangerous Practices Insurrections and Conspiracies in the Realm of Scotland from the year 1544 to the year 1566. Lib. V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their