Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	covenant_n	new_a	testament_n	3,153	5	9.2672	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35038	Analepsis, or, Saint Peters bonds abide for rhetorick worketh no release, is evidenced in a serious and sober consideration of Dr. John Gauden's sense and solution of the Solemn League and Covenant : so far as it relates to the government of the church by episcopacy / by Zech. Crofton.	Crofton, Zachary, 1625 or 6-1672.	1660 (1660)	Wing C6984; ESTC R7749	30,761	39

Nerve that the abjuration and exclusion of it runs us on such a Rock of Schisme I see not how those Churches though their want be through necessity of times and distress of affairs put upon them can be owned in the union of the Catholique Church for essentials unto union must not only be reverenced in others but enjoyed by themselves It is Sir worth enquiry what he means by the Catholique Church for besides the vulgar appropriation of it to Rome and affection our late Prelates had to that term his Note That the abolishing of Episcopacy is no small wall of partition newly set up to keep all Papists from due Reformation makes me jealous the Cassandrian accommodation is yet in the Bishops intention and endeavour upon which they would not put that reproach scandal scruple or affront as to be without Bishops of paternal authority but if so happy is that Church whose Reformation carrieth them furthest off Romes Superstition in discipline and worship as well as doctrine His eighth Answer or Suggestion is a Rhetorical swada and insinuating plea which hath wholly lost its force by the uncertainty of the object If conscience be erroneous we shall easily grant that it is equal and ingenuous Loyal and Religious to red●ce and confine it Erroneous conscience must be rectified which yet must not and will not be straiter than the proper and genuine sence of the Covenant will admit but as for that extravagant disloyal unlawful enormous and Schismatical sence against which he declaimes in which it could neither be lawfully taken nor honestly kept it must be determined by an Explication of his All Episcopacy and full demonstration of a sence so qualified before there can be any more strength in his Rhetorick than in his Reasons I must Sir be free to tell him the Covenant doth expressely binde against the Fabrick and very form of the late Hierarchy in England not its abuses exccesses or defects only though not against the use of any thing which was good and fit to be used in the succeeding form to be established nor do I understand it to be such an unreasonable and irreligious Ametrie transport for men to Covenant against all the right use of things that are good but not necessary because of the abuse incident to them as he doth suggest though the Covenant is not guilty of such obligation But more of this in his direct Answer Having assaulted the Covenant with his fierce battery and alarummed it with his frightful Ecchoes The Covenant authority proved not only pretended by examples in the old Testament he proceeds to level to the ground all those faire but fallacious pretences as he deems them drawn to fortifie the Covenant from Scriptures examples wherein the Jewes sometimes solemnly renewed Covenant with God c. And the main and only Morterpiece he lets flie is That it was that express Covenant which God himself had first made with them in Horeb and Mount Sinai punctually prescribed by God to Moses and by Moses as their Supream Governour or King imposed upon them this they sometime renewed after they had broken it by their Apostacy to false and strange gods Unto the enforcement whereof we must desire the Doctor to demonstrate That the Law of Moses or Covenant in Horeb was not only the Rule and Dictate of what matter they should Covenant but the express Covenant which was or did consist in the exact recital and Repetition of that Law of the ten Commandements as the very form thereof so as that they never varied or altered it according to their special defections in the particular points of their l●ves and that this was the formal Covenant between God and the people in the times of Joshuah and before Israels defection on from God or that this was the Covenant between God the people and King and between the people and their King in the dayes of Jehoiadah Or that this was the express Covenant made in the point of the Sabbath and the putting away strange wives in the times of Nehemiah These several occasions and special obligations do bespeak them to have been Covenants conformed as to the matter of them to some part of the ten Commandements but as to their forme and manner of expression to have been squared by themselves But whatever was the matter or forme of their Covenanting I imagine it will not be denied that the taking or renewal thereof was their own political Act done by their own will and power at the time and on the occasion their own condition did require and dictate and so our Covenant warranred for matter by the Word of God is by their example justified to have been a pious and prudent action within our own power to performe though for the form of it it be not any Divine dictate or Soveraign prescription yet better to be esteemed than the petty composition of a few politick men Nor is there any strength in that we were not Apostatized to false and strange gods unless he will affirm no defection short of Apostacy from the true to false gods is a sufficient ground or occasion on which to renew Covenant which I think neither right reason or Religion will allow shall not gradual defections be restrained and total Apostacy be superseded by a seasonable Solemne League and Covenant Surely then Joshuah was too preposterous in working Israel into Covenant with God on a jealousie or rational conjecture of their future Apostacy and had England no need to Covenant when they were posting in doctrine especially in worship and discipline to Romes Superstition and Tyrannie Can any man consider the corruptions continued in England since the Reformation and so defended that nothing but a soveraign Remedy could remove them nay the very Retrogradations of the Reformation by a return of many expelled Rites and Prelatical power and say because she yet owned the true God she had no need to Covenant If covenanting be an Act within mans own power and choice and defection from God and his wayes inchoated or suspected be a just ground and occasion Englands covenanting is fully fortified by Scripture and Reason and the pretences thereof no way found fallacious His last Suggestion in his indirect Answer is of no force for admit that there is no precept or pattern for such a Covenant in all the New Testament which directs us as Christians and leaveth us to the D●ctates of Nature and discoveries of the Old Testament in more publique and political Acts which concern us as a Kingdome or Church National or in the succeeding ages of the Church Will it therefore follow that such covenanting is sinful the Primitive Churches never were of such extent in the enjoyment of such power under such publique defections and in such capacitie of covenanting as we have been Must we enquire what hath been done in the Christian Churches to do that and no more without regard to what may be done the condition of the Church requiring

ΑΝΑΛΗΨΙΣ OR Saint PETERS BONDS abide FOR RHETORICK Worketh no RELEASE Is evidenced in A serious and sober consideration of Dr. John Gauden's sence and solution of the Solemn League and Covenant SO FAR As it relates to the Government of the Church by Episcopacy By ZECH. CROFTON Josh 9. 19. VVe have sworne unto them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them London Printed for Ralph Smith at the Bible in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange 1660. TO THE HONOURED Sir LAWRENCE BROMFEILD Knight and Colonel in LONDON Honoured Sir YOU have been pleased in order to composure of our unhappy differences to suggest unto a grave and learned Divine a considerable case of conscience Relating to Church-Discipline viz. The consistency of Episcopacy with the Solemn League and Covenant and you have thereby produced his Resolution unto the loosing of Saint Peters Bonds as he is pleased to Entitle it You may Sir remember it is Solomons experienced Rule It is a snare or stumbling stone to devoure holy things Pro. 20. 2● and after vows to make enquiry How to keep or retract them saith Mercer for that indeed many times the Resolution proveth more entangling than the Obligation I wish that this were not found the unhappy fate of Dr. Gawden his sence and solution of the Covenant in point of Episcopacy Truly Sir according to that little skill that I have in things of this nature this Resolution to your enquiry is so sadly shipwrackt on the uncertainty of the object in advertency of expression and imbecillity of answer and Argument those three Rocks that lay-way conscience-satisfaction that it cannot arrive at its desired haven but notwithstanding its Angelical voice will leave Saint Peter as fast fettered as it found him If Sir I may do it without offence I would make bold to discover it that some other attempt for Saint Peters rescue may be undertaken First Uncertain proposal of the object Sir there is not a greater danger to be shunned by a Casuist than a mistake or uncertain proposal of the object or Ratio formalis of the obligation scrupled and to be discharged whereby the scrupulous conscience doth easily start from the most pinching Conclusions that are put upon it and herein Sir if I mistake not the Dr. is very unhappy for he propounds the object or Ratio formalis of the Covenant under the general term Episcopacy the which he well knoweth is owned as an appellation common to all and every the Governours of the Church Acts 20. 28. who are in Scripture denominated Bishops and by good demonstration Bishop and Presbyter have been asserted to be synominous titles of Church-Officers and are found to have been so used in the Primitive times of the Church and Writings of the Fathers The true sence of Episcopacy consistent with the Covenant and in this sence the Episcopacy which he supposeth to be the object of the Covenant intends only the Government of the Church by the Ministers and Officers thereof who may and must in their several Assemblies ordinis causâ have a President or Moderator to Regulate and dispose all things which belong to order as in all policy to the Chair belongeth and if this be it he means by his Episcopacy Primitive Regular Reformed and paternal Episcopacy which I could easily imagine when I observe the Emphasis of his universal discretive All Episcopacy page 9. and elsewhere oftenmentioned and that in an opposition to some Episcopacy abjured and fit to be extirpated and that it is explained by the adjuncts Reformed and Regulated as it ought to be as page 8. and opposed to an Episcopacy the confessed Subject of abusive excesses and defects not only in the execution of its authority through the faults and infirmities of some Bishops and their instruments who possibly were not so worthy and good or not so wise and discreet as became Christian Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours of Christs Church but also in the very inconveniency of its constitution and Customs in England p. 10. In both which he confesseth page 21. there needeth an honest and ingenuous Reformation of Episcopacy beyond the former excessive or defective constitution or execution of it And more particularly by that Explication which is annexed in page 14. The efficacious conjunction of it with Presbyterie according to the Reduction of the most reverend Primate of Armagh and the considerations of the Lord Verulam offered to King James if I say this be the Episcopacy he means I humbly conceive in his Book he doth sudare de nugis labour to little purpose for so farre is any intelligent Covenanter from looking on their looking back to the Primitive Catholick and Universal government of this or any other ancient Churches to endanger the turning of them into Pillars of Apostacy as Lots wife was into a Pillar of Salt that they judge an arrival at it to be their Zoar in their escape from Sodom and hereof he might have assured himself by what page 22. he professeth himself to know to have been the sence of the Learned men in the late Assemby of Divines and by Mr. Marshal's Declaration that the Covenant was levelled at the Despoticum Tyrannicum Regimen there are no Covenanters that know any thing of the true nature of Presbytery but they will embrace this Episcopacy as not only consistent with but the very complement of the Covenant as to that point and Article and will confess this is not only the honest but literal and complexive meaning of it and with him will condemn them for rigid Bigots and virulent spirits to be slighted not striven with who conceive themselves bound against such a Primitive Reformed and Regular Episcopacy under such a reduction as I conceive would prove the formal corruption of the Episcopacy covenanted against and I hope he will finde few very few such Covenanters in England But if Sir by Episcopacy he mean as I must confess I am jealous he doth that frame and fabrick by which the man of sin was made manifest did advance himself in the Temple of God The vulgar and late acceptation of Episcopacy repugnant to the Covenant above not only all his fellow Ministers or Bishops but even Magistrates all that were called God which was by his appearance and exaltation innovated into and obtruded on the Churches of God in these Nations on the fall of the Monks of Bangor and was so exercised that Anselm whom Laude succeeded as in place so in property and almost power did appear papa alterius mundi wherein Bishops as a species or kind of Ministers different and distinct from Presbyters and so Superior to them not only in point of Order but Office and Authority together with all that Hierarchy by which it was executed all which his terms do too plainly suggest when he speaks of the Episcopacy which England sometimes had was lately desproyed the legal Episcopacy pa. 19 an Episcopacy wherein the Bishops are distinct