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	power_n	presbyter_n	2,561	5	10.5876	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95963	The authours, nature, and danger of hæresie. Laid open in a sermon preached before the Honorable House of Commons at Margarets Westminster, upon Wednesday the tenth of March, 1646. being set apart as a solemne day of publike humiliation to seeke Gods assistance for the suppressing and preventing of the growth and spreading of errours, heresies, and blasphemies. / By Richard Vines. Printed by order of the House of Commons.	Vines, Richard, 1600?-1656.	1647 (1647)	Wing V545; Thomason E378_29; ESTC R3304	47,605	81

3. they are laid together by a very learned hand the result and summe will be this that election had the force only of a nomination presentation postulation or consent so as a Minister could not bee obtruded invitae ecclesiae upon a Church whether it would or no if they were able to put in a just exception against him for which end the person to be ordained was first to be proclaimed or as I may say asked in c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Chalced. can 6. the Church for the very reason of Cyprians d Cyprian Ep. 68. E●it Pa●n speech that the people principally have power to chuse the worthy or refuse the unworthy is rendred in the same Epistle that they do fully know the life conversation of every man And therefore it is e Diatrib cap. 11. injudiciously spoken that ordination necessarily follows election for an irrational or meer arbitrary dissent when no just exception could be put in bar against a man could no more hinder a mans ordination then such a peevishnesse now a days can hinder the marriage of one whose name is publisht in the congregation Ab ordinatoribus plebs docenda non sequenda saith Caelestinus The cloze of this point might well have beene an Apology for speaking so much of it in this place had not the Text led me to say something and the necessity of the times together with the present occasion constrained me to this prolixity For the office of the Ministery and the power thereunto belonging are very much undervalued and laid very low by many who differing among themselves in principles doe as in a common interest joyn together to cry downe and degrade them In order to a two-fold liberty The one is the liberty of prophesying or preaching as any man is able to set up the trade in opposition to which they conceive the Ministers do stand for their own livings and power sake The other is the liberty of their lusts and ways of loosenesse and these are such upon whom the feare of the Ministery is fallen whose Spirit cannot bear too free reproofe nor their courses a too close observation And hence it is that some of them having learning doe set their wits on worke to rout this office and the power thereof by bafling the evidences of the word and endeavouring to dispute the Scripture out of doores which though God hath not pleased to deliver Systematically in a way of absolute precept or demonstrative clearnesse in every particular yet ought to be regarded in the hints and consequences and implications which afford foot-hold to a good conscience and not to be out-wrangled for our ends and lusts sake as being the becke of that great God who is able to becken us all into nothing others that calculate by the Ephemerides of policy doe discover or imagine future inconveniences which may arise from the indiscretion passion weakenesse of the Ministers and if they will but goe on to play that Cannon a little further they shall find it will batter and overthrow all Magistracy or any government that is managed by men others whose tongues are sharper then their arguments fall foule upon the ministry and poure treble contempt upon it in lieu of double honour never was ministry more blessed and witnessed unto from heaven by the successe and fruitfullnesse of it in bringing in and bringing up a people unto God though some of their chickens are caught and carried away by kites or have forsaken them as duckes forsake the hen that hatched them never more contemned That which the f Collat. Carthag 3. Donatist objected sometime to Austin is now rife againe tu quis es Filius es Ceciliani an non who ordained you you are the brat of Cecilian are you not whom they pretended to be a traditor or to have given up the holy Scripture to the fire so they say to the Ministers whose sons are you is not your pedigree by lineall descent from Antichrist is not he the top of your kin he that hath but halfe an eye may see the reason why the Wolves would have the Sheep to quitt their dogs The ministry if encouraged and supported to doe their duty will be next under the Parliament who we hope will doe theirs the greatest bulwarke or banke against the inundation of errour haeresy and blasphemy whose increase is the occasion of this humiliation It is the lot of the Ministers of the reformed Churches to be grund betweene two Mil-stones in the first reformation the popish Champions fell pell-mell upon the calling of the a Non missi non vocati non consecrati Bristow motiu Ministers of the reformed Churches pretending it to be null ac proinde nulla ecclesia and consequently saith b Non ab episcopis ordinati ac proinde nulla ecclesia Greg de Valentia Tom. 4. disput 9. quest 3. punct 2. in fine Gregory de Valentia the Churches no Churches because they were not ordained by Bishops The same conclusion is now undertaken That the present Ministers in this Church are not lawfull Ministers upon a medium quite contrary that is because they were ordained by Bishops nor are those who are ordained by Presbyters in much better account with the objectours for they are in the same line of pedigree being but once more removed from the stocke great-grandchildren to the Pope The cauills of the Papists have been long agoe laid to sleepe by the answers of c Mornay of the Church chap. 11. Sadeel de legitim vocat Minister reform eccle 〈◊〉 Minist Anglicano learned men who have distinguisht betweene the corruptions in the persons ordaining or in the fieri of ordination and the substance and validity of ordination in facto esse and the very same answers which were made for the first reformers and the Ministers ordained by them are of as full force for the Ministers now in being with us and the Ministers ordained by them nor can our Ministery fall by this argument now used against us without the fall of all ministery in the Churches of Christ in all times and places where Bishops had a hand in ordination and if the Scripture doe settle the power of ordination in a Presbytery or in the Elders of the Church it can never be made good that a Bishops hand who is also a presbyter being joyned with others can anull the ordination as neither is Baptisme a nullity because administred by a Bishop and haply with some corrupt ceremony used in the administration thereof I proceed to the second point which I will touch but breifly and reserve the use of both and of that which followes untill the close of all These false teachers are they that bring in damnable Heresies Doctrine 2 Stuprant veritatem adulterio haeretico Tertull. de praescript They defloure the truth by haereticall adultery not onely those that teach without commission but such as have a calling to teach doe by doctrines

of second and third magnitude like stones in a building which be next unto or upon the foundation what these are which are precisely fundamentall and what is the boundary of them and by what certaine measure they must be measured if it exceed not my skill to determine as I dare not say but it may yet it is a worke beyond my time This only I say to the point in hand That the formalis ratio or nature of haeresie as it is distinguisht from schisme and fleshly lusts is rightly stated to consist in an errour or assertion contrary to and destructive of the faith and the degree of pravity in the errour is correspondent to the degree of impor tance of the truth that 's destroyed by it ordenied 2. The vulgar and indeed abusive acceptation of the word is an infamy or reproach which usually men flinge in the face of others at random that are not of their opinion and it s too true as a learned man saith that haeresie and schisme are two theologicall scare-crowes many times set up to scare people and affright them The strongest party of the two commonly cries out of haeresie the weakest party cry out of persecution so the Papist puts a marke or brand of haereticall pravity upon and calls all Haeretickes who are opposite to their c Spalato lib. 1 cap 10. false doctrines or filthy lusts Haeresie was taken in a large sense when the d L. Cooke his Institutes Lollards were indicted for haeresie because they held it not meritorious to goe in pilgrimage to Saint Thomas or Mary of Walsingham or when Virgilius Bishop of Saltzburg was condemned for the haeresie of holding that there were Antipodes e Apology cap. 7. Bellarmine tells K. Iames that for all his beleeving the Scriptures the three Creeds the foure great and generall Councells yet he might be an Haereticke and his meaning was because the Popes infallibility or supremacy was not in any of the Kings Creeds As the intollerable abuse of excommunication formerly made no man to value it above the price at which he could buy it off so the abuse of this name and throwing it about at randome makes it not regarded which yet is a fearfull thing in it selfe and bringing swift destruction It hath been stretcht too farre to be a brand stigmatizing true beleevers and to scare men from prying into the trueth by making it odious and it is shriveled and shrunke up too much even almost to nothing by such as are affraid to hit themselves by defining it but is there not such a thing is there not such a damnable sin why then doe such horrible sins as the sin against the holy Ghost and the sin of haeresie lye like a terra incognita undiscovered unpreacht against Seeing there is to be found in Scripture especially in the Apostolicall Epistles so much said in description of and for caution against damnable haeresies and doctrines and the false teachers which privily bring them in and bring upon themselves and many that follow their pernicious wayes such fearfull destruction That which now remains is to draw up that which hath been said into matter of use and application And first let me speak to you all who professethe Use 1 trueth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that you would be Protestants once again by declaring your selves against the heterodoxies dangerous errors of the present times for the infection spreads by reason of many that goe abroad with running sores upon them and if the Apostle when hee gave all diligence to write to beleevers of the common salvation thought it needfull for him to write to them and exhort them that they should earnestly contend for the faithonce delivered to the Saints upon this ground and reason that there were certain men crept in unawares c. Jude 3. 4. You cannot thinke it impertinent and unseasonable at this time to be exhorted to the same earnest contending for the faith for you are beset with danger on all sides the contagion is epidemicall many are distracted with here is Christ and there is Christ and are mis-led into pernicious wayes yea even some that seemed to be good eares of come are mil-dewd and almost blasted I doe therefore exhort you to consider the danger as you may easily summe it up from that which hath been said for you have heard i that there shall be false Teachers amongst you weneed not say there shall be but more suitable to our owne condition wee may say There are as it s said 1 Iohn 4. 4. many false Prophets are gone out into the world you see they are gone out I would we might see that they were come in againe 2. That these are they who bring in damnable haeresies they goe out to bring these in they are ring-leaders or as Tertullian said of Philosophers the patriarchs of haeresies 3. That they bring in these damnable haeresies privily they spawn first in quaeries or plausible beginnings the greatest Crocodile did at first lye in an egge a Franzius historia animali um Paulo majus anserino little bigger then a goose-egge b 2 Cor. 11. 15. themselves are transformed as Ministers of righteousnesse c 2 Pet. 2. 3. Rom. 16. 18. their words are composed and good their speeches are faire their artifice is d Eph. 4. 14. full of sleight and cunning craftinesse and therefore they creepe at unawares not onely into houses but into mens bosomes also 4. That haeresies are damnable and destructive poison though given in honey they arise and are made up coede Scripturarum as Tertullian saith by felling downe the goodly timber of the holy Scriptures e 2 Pet. 3. 16. wrested to the destruction of them that wrest them they turne grace into lasciviousnesse deny the Lord Jesus Christ overthrow the faith subvert the soule carry men down the stream of lust and liberty and so bring swift destruction 5. That many shall follow these pernicious wayes f Rom. 16. 18. the simple are deceived the learned are given up to g 2 Thes 2. 12. strong delusions the unstable are carried about like children with every h Eph. 4. 14. wind of doctrine Those that by profession of the truth had escaped the pollutions of the world are againe i 2 Pet. 2. 20. entangled and overcome and so the latter end of many that are carried away either by speciousnesse of errour or liberty of lust is worse then the beginning 6. That the last times shall be most of all infested with these pernicious errours k 1 Tim. 4. 1. The spirit 1 Jude 17. 18. speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shal depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits the Apostles have foretold that there shall bee mockers in the last time and by this saith m 1 John 2. 18. the Apostle we know that it is the last time because there are many Antichrists and wee may