Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	aaron_n	apostle_n	way_n	22	3	4.9462	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70471	A treatise of the episcopacy, liturgies, and ecclesiastical ceremonies of the primitive times and of the mutations which happened to them in the succeeding ages gathered out of the works of the ancient fathers and doctors of the church / by John Lloyd, B.D., presbyter of the church of North-Mimmes in Hertfordshire.	Lloyd, John, Presbyter of the Church of North-Mimmes.	1660 (1660)	Wing L2655A; ESTC R21763	79,334	101

l. 4. c. ult Hierom affirmeth that many things which are by tradition observed in the Churches have usurped to themselves the authority of a Divine law as in baptism to immerge the head thrice and then to tast the concord of milk and honey Adversus Luciferianos to signifie infancy and on the Lords day and in all the Pentecost not to pray kneeling nor to fast Constantine the great exhorteth all to embrace the decree of the Nicene Council concerning the set time of the celebration of the Feast of Easter as a gift of God and a Commandement sent down from heaven Euseb de vita Constantini l. 3. c. 18. Edit Basil 1570. for whatsoever is decreed in the holy Councils of Bishops that ought to be ascribed to the divine will Hierom in another place saith let every one judge the precepts of the ancients to be Apostolical laws Hierom. Ep. 28. It is not to be doubted saith Leo Bishop of Rome but that every Christian observance is of divine erudition and that whatsoever is received by the Church into a custome of devotion Serm. 2. de jejun Pentecost proceeded from the Apostolick tradition and the Doctrine of the holy Spirit The Fathers use very frequently to affirm some institutions or rites to be divine or Apostolical because they seemed a greeable to and their lawfulness demonstrable by the old Testament the Gospels or Apostolick Epistles So the Lent Fast is by them said to be of Apostolical and Divine tradition because it seems an imitation of the Fast of Elias and of Christ and Monachism is affirmed to be Apostolick because it hath an appearance of being an imitation of John the Baptist Amalar. Alcuin Pontifical Damas c. yet many ancient writers make Pope Telesphorus who flourished Forty years after the decease of St. John the Apostle to be the author of the Quadragesimal Fast although indeed it had a much later beginning and affirm Paul and Anthony to be the Fathers of Monachism So that many institutes were counted Apostolick because some example or reason of the Scripture did seem to warrant them Whence Hierom and others intimate Hierom. in vita Pauli that Episcopacy was instituted in imitation of Aaron and his Sons or of the Apostles and 70 Disciples affirming Bishops to be successors of aaron and the Apostles and Presbyters the successors of the Sons of Aaron and of the 70 Disciples Fourthly it is a certain truth acknowledged by all the learned that the Apostles were authors as well of local and temporary or universal and temporary ordinances rites or ceremonies as of universal and perpetual for they were inspired by the Holy Ghost infallibly to discern both what the present condition although variable of some or all the Churches required and what upon reasons arising from unvariable grounds and circumstances was needful to be observed in all the Churches of Christ Polycarpus a hearer of the Apostles and by St. John made Bishop of Smyrna celebrated the Pasche in the fourteenth moon and so did the rest of Asia and some of the East observing it the same time with the Jews moved thereto by the countenance and example of St. John the Apostle but Anicetus Bishop of Rome who flourished in the life time of Polycarpus and generally the Churches of the West kept the Feast at another time and on the Lords day induced thereto as they affirmed by the tradition and example of St. Peter the Apostle We cannot with reason and charity think that either Polycarpus with the Asians and East or Anicetus with the Western Churches Apud Euseb Iren. could be ignorant of the time when Peter in the West or John in Asia observed that Feast Polycarpus being an eye witness of what the Apostle St. John did and Anicetus being a hearer of the hearers of Clemens who was contemporary with the Apostle St. Peter or that they would considerately speak and perseveringly maintain an untruth imputing a fact to either Apostle which he had not done especially seeing the untruth on either side might have been confuted by a thousand witnesses wherefore we must judge this to be an evident example of a variable apostolick institution I might instance in part of the Apostles decree in the 15 chapter of the Acts of the Apostles of things strangled and blood but least I move scruples in weak consciences which they cannot easily be rid of I will only commend to the consideration of the judicious the judgment of some ancient writers quoted in the margent August contra Faustum l. 32. c. 13. Et tractcti contra graecos in biblioth patr to 4. pag. 1308. et 1318.1319.1320 There be many rites which the Fathers held to be Apostolical which in the times of the same Fathers were in many places altered or neglected as the three immersions in baptisme the repairing of neighbour Bishops to the people where a Bishop was wanting there to ordain one in the presence of the people not to fast in the dayes of Pentecost and some other which prove that according to the judgment of those Fathers the Apostles guided by divine inspiration made some decrees alterable and which were upon just reasons accordingly changed or disused and therefore if it were proved that the Apostles by divine motion were the primary Auctors of Episcopacy and not the Church yet if it cannot appeare to be a constitution built upon perpetuall reason and in its nature independing upon variable circumstances it may possibly be changed by the Church Here it may be demanded by what members of it self did the universal Church abrogate the Presbyterian and institute Episcopal Government and what power was taken from the Presbyters by that abrogation For answer to these demands we must distingnish between the power given to ministers to doe some things as to preach baptize ordain Pastors excomunicate absolve c. and secondly the free exercise of those acts and thirdly the regulation of the exercise of them as to the persons about whom time when the place where the manner decency c. To the regulation belong 1. The making of laws concerning the due exercise of the power agreeable to the divine laws and secondly the superintendents of the execution and thirdly the executors of them As for the power it doth not appear that any of that was taken from the Presbyters or their Colledge by the institution of Episcopacy if they were deprived of any part of it can 13. that must be the ordaining of Presbyters but the Council of Ancyra seems to demonstrate that the power of ordaining Pastors did and doth remain in them which they did exercise by the leave Et Synod Antioch c. 16. vide Vasque in 3. p. Disp 143. c. 4. and in the place of the Bishop which Could not at his pleasure give them but supposed the power continuing in them The words of the Council be these according to the Greek Original and not their vulgar

wicked livers and Haereticks but it was not of the Church it was no part of the constitution of the Church although it did labour to insinuate and work it self into it it may be granted as very probable that the mystery of iniquity in particular and those dead members and by them working upon the Churches might more vitiate the Churches of the second century then the Churches in the first century and the Churches in the third century more then the Churches of the second and so of the rest to the end of the fifth century but that in any part of that time it prevailed so far as to become a part of the Ecclesiasticall Doctrine Discipline Liturgy or Ceremonies universally received and used is rather a surmise of an excess of jealousy then an opinion grounded upon probable reasons it is so far from being an approved truth After the year 500. and the division of the Empire and establishment of the Kings 2 Thes 2.3 Revel 17.12 13.16 which were to give their power and strength to the Beast and which in due time were to burn the Whore of Babylon the Churches grew generally more and more corrupt the civill and Ecclesiasticall confusions attending the Warrs in the severall Provinces giving advantage to the mystery of Iniquity to mingle it self first with the Discipline and Ceremonies and after with the publick Doctrine whereby first superstition then Idolatry and lastly Heresies took place in the publick profession of the Churches so that in persons who knowingly swallowed the good and bad together the infection of the mystery of Iniquity hindred the operation of the good portion of the whole lump and working the effect of its poyson into their vital parts corrupted and destroyed them And therefore these latter Churches were not by the first reformers of our Church proposed for patterns as the former were which preserved the purity of Doctrine Discipline and Ceremonies without the addition of any thing causing Superstition much less Idolatry or Haeresy Our Church hath separated the Pretious from the Vile the good of Doctrine Discipline and Rites from the pestiferous and noxious additions and now if either the abuse of prosperity or the iniquity of the late times hath added any evil quality to any of our Ecclesiasticall things or made us incapable of good by some Rite or particle of the Discipline or Liturgy or if any defect appear to be in our former reformations and especially if any of these have happened in any Rite of adoration wherein is the greatest danger it is not to be doubted but that all these things will be carefully looked into and whether by omission explanation or otherwise the Discipline and Rites by the help and blessing of God shall be reformed according to the best patterns and as shall most conduce to the godly unity and peace of the Church and Kingdome What do I speak only of future Reformation seeing the deep Wisdome and the most sincere piety of his Sacred Majesty hath by the blessing of God upon his Royal indeavours found out the best temperament for the healing of the present distempers and by his gratious Declaration hath established a most happy Interim the fittest that could be devised for the preparing different apprehensions and affections unto an unity meet to entertain the best form of a Christian Church which the infirmities of these last dayes of the last time can well bear The Regicides of late had proceeded far in breaking down this our House of God Psal 74. 1 King 6.7 with their iron tooles their Axes and Hammers but as it is said of King Solomons Temple that there was neither Hammer nor Axe nor any toole of iron heard while it was in building so our blessed Solomon in reedifying this decayed house of God doth the work without all iron instruments without all unpleasing sounds it goeth on sensim sine sensu and it is and will be the glorious effect of his Majesties incomparable providence guided by the most gratious direction of God cunctando restituisse rem But some of them which will read this small tractate may therein observe some passages which suppose the Church of England without the benefit of any proceedings of his Majesty towards her restauration and may therefore be ready to censure the Author as he well deserved if he had not this just Apology namely That he can make it good by many witnesses of worthy persons of known integrity that this treatise was ready written five months agon at the least at which time the Author could only write of the state and condition of things as they were then and not as they would be in times to come If any object It had been better if ever to have published this at that time for which it seemes more convenient to which I say That the Conscience of mine own infirmities retarded and had almost hindred the publication thereof But partly my desire to contribute my poor mite towards the restauration of Gods House prevailed with me partly believing the truth of that saying of Clemens of Alexandria that the science of preaching is in a manner Angelical and whether it be exercised by the tongue or hand writing profiteth either way and knowing my self to be not far from the time when the strength of voyce may decrease I thought it not amiss to put it to the trial by this beginning whether I might hereafter with any hope of acceptance and profit attempt to recompence the defect which if I live may likely happen in my voyce with the labour and pains of preaching by the pen. Some may think that I have made no good choise in preferring the judgment of St. Hierome a Presbyter and not well affected as many think to Episcopacy before the opinion of Epiphanius a Bishop and the elder of the two Aerius maintained that neither the Apostles were nor the Churches could lawfully be the authors of the preferment of a Bishop above the Presbyters and therefore he departed from the Communion of the Catholick Church and became an Independent Presbyter of an independant Congregation First I must deny that Hierome was disaffected to good Bishops or to the Episcopal dignity His works do abundantly testify that he bad in singular honour both the one and the other only he often reproveth and that sharply the Ambition Covetuousness and other vices of many Bishops which not he only but others before him and in his time even Bishops themselves did performe with no less sharpness and severity See one among others Gregory who was created Bishop of Sasimis executed his function in Nazianzum and after was advanced to the Arch-Bishoprick of Constantinople this Arch-Bishop wisheth there were no prerogative of the Throne nor Prelacy which saith he had indeed in former times been desired of good and prudent men but which now to shunne is counted an act of singular prudence What is this wise and holy Arch-Bishop for the abrogation of Episcopacy root