Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	bishop_n	church_n	presbyter_n	1,830	5	10.5915	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27030	A search for the English schismatick by the case and characters I. of the diocesan canoneers, II. of the present meer nonconformists : not as an accusation of the former, but a necessary defence of the later, so far as they are wrongfully accused and persecuted by them / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1399; ESTC R6862	28,132	47

their Church and Cause is meritorious of Salvation II. By the Passive Conformist I mean both such as go on the grounds of Mr. Sprint and think a Reformation very desirable but Conformity lawful to escape silencing and ruine and such as like Conformity for it self and wish all others did Conform but like not uncharitable censures or silencings or violence against conscionable Dissenters nor the compulsions which have caused our Church-convulsions Though the Nonconformists must needs judge these to partake in Schism so far as they own the Schismatical dividing terms of Communion which are the greatest hinderance of our Concord and will be still inconsistent with it yet as they reproach not Dissenters as Schismaticks so neither are they accounted Schismaticks by the Dissenters because they are sound and peaceable brethren and desire to live as such with others and Schism is not their disposition nor predominant We would live in greater Love and Concord with such as these than the differing Conformists have with one another III. The names of Sectaries and Separatists are of no fixed signification but vary according to the mind of the speaker But I now use them for those 1. Who appropriate the Church to some narrow Sect or Party which denieth all others to be true Churches or to have true Ministers and Sacraments 2. And next to those that though they own others as true Churches or Ministers yet hold their Communion unlawful when it is not so and renounce Communion with them on these grounds Such besides Papists are too many Prelatists that deny the Ministry Sacraments and Communion of the Reformed Churches which are not such as they yea of all Churches that have not an Episcopacy by uninterrupted Succession of Episcopal Ordination from the Apostles and that excommunicate all that do but say that there are any true Churches in England but their own And such are some Anabaptists some called Brownists or Separatists heretofore c. And the Seekers are much worse that deny all Churches and the Quakers and Ranters who revile the soundest and all true Hereticks who separate by denying some Essential of Christianity All these are Schismaticks in the judgment of all sound and sober Christians IV. By Active Canonical Conformists I mean those that are for the present frame of Ecclesiastical Government with the Liturgy and Canons and the Laws which enforce them who call usually for the Execution of those Laws V. By the meer present Nonconformists I mean such as are guilty of no other punishable errors or sins but such as the Act of Uniformity doth eject and silence us for and who declared openly their judgments about Doctrine Worship and Discipline in 1660 after a Common meeting at Sion-Colledge and another at the Savoy which is published in Print That is the Reconcilers or Peacemakers who then laboured and beg'd for Peace and Unity in vain who tye themselves to the judgment of none called Nonconformists heretofore Presbyterians Independents c. but to the Word of God and the example of the true Primitive Churches and are not for Concord only with a Sect or a dividing-party High or Low but for that Catholick Church and Communion of Saints which are in our Creed Schism being a culpable rending of Christians from each other hath a great number of degrees as it is by Apostasie from the Universal Church totally or by denying a fundamental by Heresie or as it is but by denying Integrals or but Accidents as it is but from a particular Church a Church of Gods forming or of mans As it is from a Church as if it were no Church or a corrupt Church falsly said or only a less desirable as it is from a Parish-Church a Diocesan a National c. As it is total or partial or but in some accidents from that particular Church holding Communion in all the rest As it is mental or but causeless local As it is from a Church or only from some persons in a Church-Pastor or others As it is by driving men by sinful Impositions from a Church or too easie departing with many the like differences elsewhere opened So that as all men have some degree of ignorance pride hypocrisie c. and yet are not to be denominated ignorant proud hypocrites where it is not predominant so all are defective in Love and Union and few Churches on earth are no way guilty of Schism and yet are not to be called Schismaticks where it is not predominant Almost all Churches on earth accuse each other of Schism the Papists so accuse the Greeks Protestants and all others the Greeks so accuse the Papists and Protestants as the Patriarch Jeremiah shews us and both the Abassines Jacobins Nestorians c. The Lutherans so call the Calvinists and they many Lutherans the Episcopal Presbyterians and Independents so accuse each other Sober and peaceable men must confess that most are guilty of some degree Laying by the rest our Question now is of Two Parties here the Canoneer Diocesan Conformists and the Present meer Conformists which are the ENGLISH SCHISMATICKS CHAP. II. The Case of the Diocesan-Canoneers or Zealots for Imposition of Conformity 1. THey agree not of the Essentiating Head of their own National Church whether it be Lay or Clergy King or Bishops and so are indeed of divers Churches no nor whether it have any constitutive Head or none 2. Some hold Bishops necessary to the Being of a Church and some only to the well-being of it and so agree not neither what a particular Church is 3. The former unchurch the parish-Parish-Churches and make them only parts of a proper Church the Diocesan being the lowest in a politick sense 4. They make the Parish-Priests but half Priests or Pastors denying them the Power of the Keys over their flock save in a little part 5. These deny the Reformed Churches which have no Bishops to be true proper Churches and their Ministration and Sacraments to be valid But others of them hold the contrary and so differ in their Communion with the Protestant Churches 6. Some of them say that none are true Ministers of Christ that have not Episcopal Ordination by uninterrupted succession from the Apostles And that their flocks have no title to Salvation because they have it not by Gods Covenant sealed by such a Ministry of the Sacraments 7. They hold twice Ordination sinful and yet Re-ordain those who were ordained by meer Presbyters or Rectors of Parish City Churches 8. Some Leaders grant that there were no subject-Subject-Presbyters in Scripture times nor Bishops that had more than one stated Assembly and Altar which others are against 9. They agree not of the sense of the words Presbyter and Bishops in the Scripture 10. Some of them reproach the Reformation of other Churches as the Papists do as the effect of fury and rebellion and seek to render it odious as a crime 11. Yea and the Reformation of England by K. H. 8. as the product of his filthy lust and