Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	father_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	1,582	5	9.3519	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46649	A sermon preached at the consecration of the Honourable Dr. Henry Compton, Lord Bishop of Oxford, in Lambeth-Chappel, on Sunday, December 6, 1674 by William Jane ...	Jane, William, 1645-1707.	1675 (1675)	Wing J455; ESTC R21231	23,378	49

as give us occasion further to observe the secret and mystical connexion between Arrius his Doctrin and Aerius his Discipline I do not assert that St. Ignatius was Prophetical in affording the Church throughout his Epistles such signal testimonies against both Yet surely they ought to have been well weighted by those learned men who have rejected the works of that renowned Father before they chose rather than part with a Creature of their own interest and fancy to quit the advantages of those pregnant authorities against the Socinians incomparably clearer than all the Fathers of the Church put together for the first 300 years It is not my purpose to lay the Heresie of Arrius to the charge of Aerius his followers or to inquire into the causal influence of the one upon the other But methinks this one reflection how much Socinianism which is but Arrianism improved has thriven and prospered under the influence of the Presbytery in our neighbour Nation and as 't is greatly to be suspected in our own might prove a motive sufficient to our dissenting Brethren to consider that Heresie and Schism go usually together and to renounce that Schismatical Discipline which we have seen by woful experience so notoriously to shelter an Heretical Doctrin 2. We may observe that however learned men have dissented as to the particular periods of the Commencement of either Order yet in this they all agree that a superiority of the one above the other is of Apostolical institution Which observation if any man think to elude from the authorities of Ignatius Irenaeus Origen St. Ambrose or St. Austin I desire him only to read the learned Spalatensis his Examen of their Testimonies to make him for ever ashamed of obtruding them any more Nay so evident is this in the ancient Records of the Church that the Reverend Bishop Bilson out of Eusebius Hegesippas Socrates St. Jerome Epiphanius and others has given us as exact a Catalogue of the succession of Bishops from the Apostles in the four Apostolical Sees till the first Council of Nice as ever the Roman Archives could at any time give of their Consuls or our common Chroniclers of our Kings since the Conquest From which consideration we have ground for an answer to a twofold pretence of the Advocates of Presbytery the one in taking from us the Testimony of Ignatius the other in urging against us the Authority of St. Jerome As for the first of these it is Monsieur Dailles's principal argument from the Phrase that that blessed Martyr always makes a distinction in the names of Bishop and Presbyter which the Apostolical writings do so confessedly confound with one another But if this be his highest evidence as 't is manifest from his writings that it is it is but a small advantage to his Cause and cannot possibly support it self against any one of those various Hypotheses which we just now mentioned for a solution of the doubt For first those who think that the Christian Priest-hood was originally preserved in one Order and at length by the Apostles distinguished into two though after the writing of their Epistles will rationally presume that the distinction of names took its date from the distinction of the things which Salmasius himself has owned against Petavius and that the ceasing to use the words promiscuously can never take off from our Author the credit of an Apostolical writer notwithstanding the pretended inconformity thereof to the writings of the Apostles themselves But secondly if we admit their opinion who conceive the Orders to be distinct even then when the names were common yet supposing that the Scriptures use them promiscuously there is a visible reason why Ignatius should distinguish For though two different things may sometimes indifferently pass under the same names when either they are used to express some notion or character that holds in common to them both or the subject matter determines the signification yet when in the same proposition they are both to be represented in their proper and distinct Idea according to all the laws of speaking or writing they will necessarily require distinct and proper appellations For how improper had it been to have exprest the peculiarities of several dignities in the same Stile and Character and to make a difference without a distinction How incongruous to common sense to specify three distinct Ecclesiastical Orders under the names of Presbyters Presbyters and Deacons and in inforcing the subjection of the one to the other bid Presbyters be subject to Presbyters So that upon the whole the great quarrel of our adversaries against Ignatius is this that his language is not like their opinion irrational and absurd As to their second refuge to wit the authority of St. Jerome I shall not interpose dogmatically in a Controversy in which the most able School-men and other learned Writers are so much divided It is the confident asseveration of Medina that St. Jerome and other of the Fathers agreed in the Heresie of Aerius but that the Church prudently tolerated that in the one which for different reasons it condemned in the other But upon this principle he will hardly be able to secure himself against the force of Bellarmine's reply How the Church then continued the pillar and ground of truth while She forsted Hereticks in her Bosom And how we can produce the Catholick Fathers as testifiers to the Christian Doctrin who in any one point of it symbolized with Hereticks deserted the sense of the Church and turned aside to the Flocks of the Companions And surely though St. Jerome might differ from others as a private Divine in some Interpretations of Scripture yet he so long kept himself sound as a Catholick Christian while he did not obtrude any of them against the tradition of the Apostles and the unity of the Church And therefore though I do not agree in his particular opinion as holding Church Government settled by our Savour himself in a clear and manifest subordination yet I do not desire among all the Fathers of the Church a more pregnant testimony than St. Jerome will afford us for a like imparity of Church Officers by Apostolical institution For 't is he who in his Epistle to Evagrius expressly calls it an Apostolical tradition and founded in the Old Testament that whatsoever priviledge Aaron and his Sons and the Levites enjoyed in the Temple Bishops Priests and Deacons might justly challenge in the Church 'T is he who informs us on the 23 of St. Matthew of the Apostles practice of ordaining Bishops and Presbyters in the several Provinces where they Preach'd the Gospel 'T is he who stiles the Governours of the respective Churches the Contemporaries of the Apostles by the name of Bishops as Mark of Alexandria Linus Cletus and Clemens of Rome James of Hierusalem Ignatius of Antioch and Policarp of Smyrna And though his opinion were that Bishops were postnate to Presbyters as instituted for the prevention of Schism yet I appeal to himself