Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	bishop_n	name_n	presbyter_n	2,891	5	11.0050	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29210	Bishop Bramhall's vindication of himself and the episcopal clergy, from the Presbyterian charge of popery, as it is managed by Mr. Baxter in his treatise of the Grotian religion together with a preface shewing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of popery.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.; Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1672 (1672)	Wing B4237; ESTC R20644	100,420	266

saith doth not weigh one grain in the Scale of Reason Our Case-Divinity will hardly excuse this from downright Calumny But that is their only weapon and their only strength and Skill hath ever laid in idle and malitious suggestions CHAP. IV. This Plot weakly Fathered upon Episcopal Divines I Mused some while why he should rather father his imaginary design of reducing the Pope into England upon Episcopal Divines than upon any other Divines For in the first place this is certain that both Presbyterian Divines and Independent Divines and Millenary Divines and Anabaptistical Divines and each sort of their Divines if any of them may be allowed that Title have all of them and every one of them contributed more to the reducing of the Pope into England than Episcopal Divines ever did or were likely ever to do Men do naturally preferr Antiquity in Religion before Novelty Order and Uniformity before Confusion Comeliness and Decencie before sordid Uncleanliness Reverence and Devotion before Prophaneness and over-much Sawciness and familiarity with God Christian Charity before Unchristian Censures Constancy before Fickleness and frequent Changes they love Monuments of Piety and delight not in seeing them defaced and demolished they are for Memorials of ancient Truth for an outward splendor of Religion for helps of Mortification for adjuments of Devotion all which our late Innovators have quite taken away Nature it self doth teach us that God is to be adored with our Bodies as well as with our Spirits What comfort can men have to go to the Church where they shall scarcely see one act of corporeal devotion done to God in their whole lifes These are the true Reasons why the Roman Emissaries do gain ground daily upon them why so many apostate from them If the Pope have a fairer game in England he is beholden to them for it not to the Magistrates Sword much less to Episcopal Divines Some may perhaps urge that this advantage is accidental to Episcopal Divines therefore I propose a second consideration That Episcopal Divines cannot be the Popes Stalking Horses nor promoters of the Papacy without deserting their principles about Episcopacy Episcopal rights and Papal claims are inconsistent This appeared evidently in the Council of Trent in the debating of that great Controversie about Episcopal Right whether it be divine or humane Thus much the Spanish Polonian and Hungarian Divines saw well enough And consulting seriously about the Reformation of the Church they could find no better ground to build so noble a Fabrick upon than the Divine Right of Bishops as the Archbishop of Granato well observed Hist. Conc. Trid. l. 7. p. 588. Father Lainer the General of the Jesuits saw this well enough and concluded that it is a meer contradiction to say the Pope is head of the Church and the Government Monarchical and then say that there is a power or jurisdiction in the Church not derived from him but received from others that is from Christ. Hist. Conc. Trid. ibid. The Popes Legats themselves found this out at last when it was almost too late l. 7. p. 609. Octob. 19. When the question was set on foot in the beginning the Legats thought that the aim was only to make great the Authority of Bishops and to give them more reputation But before the second Congregation was ended they perceived very late by the voices given and reasons used of what importance and consequence it was For it did imply that the Keys were not given to St. Peter only that the Council was above the Pope and the Bishop equal to him who had nothing left but a preheminence above others c. the dignity of Cardinals was quite taken away and the Papal Court reduced to nothing But before the Papalins discovered this the Party bent for a serious Reformation was grown numerous and potent in the Council The Divine Right of Bishops was inserted into the Anathematisms Fifty nine of the prime Fathers voted for it besides all those whom either an Epidemical or a Politick Catarrh deteined at home notwithstanding all the disswasions and perswasions threatnings and promises and other Artifices used by the Papalins whereof the chiefest and that which saved the Court of Rome from utter ruine at that time was to represent to the Italian Bishops whose number was double to all the rest of the Christian World in that Council a very unequal composition how much they were concerned in the preservation of the Papacy as being the only honour which the Italian Nation had above all other Nations This I urge to shew that Episcopal Divines cannot be Papalins without betraying their own Principles The very name of Episcopal Divines renders this dedesign less probable Thirdly In stiling them Episcopal Divines he doth tacitely accuse himself to be an Anti-Episcopal or at least no Episcopal Divine What odious consequences do flow from thence and how contrary it is to the title of Catholick which he gives himself in the Frontispiece of this Treatise I had much rather he should observe himself than I collect Catholick and Anti-Episcopal are contradictory terms From Christs time till this day there was never any one Catholick in the Eastern Southern or Northern Churches who professed himself to be Anti-Episcopal but only such as were cast out for Hereticks or Schismaticks The same I say of the Western Church for the first 1500. years Let him shew me but one formed Church without a Bishop or the name of one Lay Presbyter in all that time who exercised or challenged Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or the power of the Keys in the Church before Calvins return to Geneva in the year 1538. after he had subscribed the Augustine Confession and Apology for Bishops and I will give him leave to be as Anti-Episcopal as he will I will shew him the proper and particular names of Apostles Evangelists Bishops Presbyters Deacons in Scriptures in Councils in Fathers in Histories if he cannot name one particular Lay-Elder it is because there never was any such thing in rerum natura for 1500 years after Christ. I will add one thing more for the honour of Episcopal Government that all the first Reformers did approve it and desired it if they could have had it Second Reformations are commonly like Metal upon Metal which is false Heraldry After the Waldenses the first Reformers were the Bohemian Brethren and both these were careful to retain Episcopacy Take their own Testimony in the Preface of their Book called Ratio Disciplinae Ordinisque Ecclesiastici in unitate fratrum Bohemorum lately translated out of Bohemian into Latine and published by themselves And whereas the said Waldenses did affirm that they had lawful Bishops and a lawful uninterrupted succession from the Apostles unto this day they created three of our Ministers Bishops solemnly and conferred upon them power to Ordain Ministers From that time this Order is continued in all their Churches until this day The next Reformers were the Lutherans These retained Bishops name and thing

in the Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark and the thing under another name of Superintendents in Germany The Confession of Saxony is subscribed by seventeen Superintendents Harm Conf. Sect. 19. p. 290. The Snevick Confession complaineth of great wrong done to their Churches as if they did seek to reduce the power of Ecclesiastical Prelates to nothing Sect. 11. p. 65. And in Chap. 33. Of the Rights of the Civil Magistrate they declare most plainly for the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Bishops There cannot be a more luculent Testimony for the Lutherans approbation of Bishops than the Augustine Confession it self cap. 7. de Potest Eccles. It is not now sought that the Government be taken away from Bishops but this one thing is desired that they will suffer the Gospel to be purely taught and release some few observances which cannot be kept without sin And the Apologie for the same Confession Cap. de numero usu Sacrament This our will shall excuse us both before God and all the World that it may not be imputed to us that the Authority of Bishops was taken away by our means I need not say any thing of the Britannick Churches He knoweth well they never wanted Bishops from their first Conversion until these late Tumults wherein our Native Country was purpled with the Blood of English Subjects to take them away by force and Rebellion The next Reformation was the Zuinglian or Helvetian in Switzerland wherein as they erected no new Bishopricks so they pulled down no old ones There was a kind of necessity laid upon them to want Bishops in their own Territories because the Bishop of Constance under whose Jurisdiction they were was of another communion and lived out of their Territories But they would gladly have had him to have continued their Bishop still They made their addresses to him they courted him they besought him to joyn with them or but to tolerate them For proof of this I produce that famous Letter written by Zuinglius himself and ten others of their principal Reformers to the same Bishop of Constance recorded in the Works of Zuinglius in all humility and observance beseeching him to favour and help forward their beginnings as an excellent work and worthy of a Bishop They call him Father Renowned Prelate Bishop They implore his clemency wisdom learning that he would be the first fruits of the German Bishops to favour true Christianity springing up again They beseech him by the common Christ by one Christian Liberty by that Fatherly affection which he did owe unto them by whatsoever was divine and humane to look graciously upon them or if he would not grant their desires to connive at them so he should make his Family yet more illustrious and have the perpetual tribute of their praises so he would but shew himself a Father and grant the requests of his obedient sons They conclude God Almighty long preserve your Excellency The last Reformation of those which he approveth was that of Calvin How farr Calvin and his Party were Episcopal or Anti-Episcopal in their desires let their own testimonies bear witness First Calvin himself acknowledgeth that he subscribed the Augustine Confession formerly mentioned or the Apology for it both which are for Bishops And in his 190. Epistle to the King of Polonia he representeth Episcopal Government as fittest for Monarchies where having shewed the regiment of the Primitive Church by Patriarchs Primats Bishops in these words Indeed the ancient Church instituted Patriarchs and gave certain Primacies to particular Provinces that Bishops might remain bound one to another by this bond of Concord He proceedeth thus As if at this day one Arch-bishop should be over the illustrious Kingdom of ●olonia c. And farther there should be a Bishop in each City or Province to attend peculiarly to the preservation of Order as nature itself doth dictate to us that in every Colledge one ought to be chosen upon whom the principal care of the Colledge should rest And in his Institutions having described at large the Regiment of the Primitive Church and shewed the end of Arch-bishops and the constitution of Patriarchs he concludeth that some called this kind of Government an Hierarchy by a name improper or at least not used in the Scripture But if we pass by the name and look upon the thing itself we shall find that the ancient Bishops did go about to devise no other form of governing the Church than that which God hath prescribed in his Word lib. 4. Inst. c. 4. Sect. 4. And in his Answer to Cardinal Sadolet on the behalf of the City of Geneva as it is cited by Archbishop Bancroft for I cannot procure the first Edition at present and in the later Editions they have made a shift to purge it out Talem nobis Hierarchiam c. If they make tender of such an Hierarchie to us wherein Bishops may retain their eminence so as they refuse not to be under Christ and have their dependence upon him as their only Head and refer themselves to him and observe such a brotherly society among themselves and be bound together with no other bond but the truth then I confess that they deserve all sorts of curses or anathemas if there be any who do not observe it with reverence and the highest obedience Lay all these together If the Law of Nature which is divine Law written in our hearts by God himself and needing no other promulgation do dictate that in every Society there ought to be one upon whom the principal care of the Society should rest If the ancient Bishops devised no other form of governing the Church by Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops than that which God had prescribed in his Word If they deserve the severest curses and anathemas who shall not regard such an Hierarchy with reverence and obedience where Christ is acknowledged to be the only Head of his Church where the Pastors are freed from all Oaths and Obligations to the Bishop of Rome let him be his own Judge what they deserve who have destroyed the Church of England Before Calvin Farellus offered the Bishop of Geneva terms to retain his Bishoprick if he would give way to the Reformation Beza his Successor was not for the divine Right of Bishops in express terms by the Evangelical Law But he was for the precedencie of one Clergy man above the rest by the Law of Nature From Geneva let us pass over into France where we find Monsieur Mouline as high or higher than any of them in his third Epistle to the Bishop of Winchester I am not so brazen-faced as to give sentence against those lights of the ancient Church Ignatius Polycarpus Cyprian Augustine Chrysostom Basil the two Gregories Nissene Nazianzene Bishops as against men wrongfully created or as usurpers of an unlawful Office The venerable antiquity of those Primitive Ages shall always weigh more with me than any mans new-fangled Institution And a little after in the same Epistle I