Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	ancient_a	church_n	doctrine_n	1,896	5	6.2759	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61839	Episcopacy (as established by law in England) not prejudicial to regal power a treatise written in the time of the Long Parliament, by the special command of the late King / and now published by ... Robert Sanderson ...	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1661 (1661)	Wing S599; ESTC R1745	38,560	153

the primary and most proper signification when it appeareth by some clear express and peremptory command of God in his word to be the will of God that the thing so commanded should be perpetually and universally observed Of which sort setting aside the Articles of the Creed and the Moral duties of the Law which are not much pertinent to the present enquiry there are as I take it very few things that can be properly said to be of divine positive right under the New Testament The Preaching of the Gospel and administration of the Sacraments are two which when I have named I think I have named all IV. But there is a secondary and more extended signification of that term which is also of frequent use among Divines In which sense such things as having no express command in the word are yet found to have authority and warrant from the institution example or approbation either of Christ himself or his Apostles and have in regard of the importance and usefulness of the things themselves been held by the consentient judgement of all the Churches of Christ in the primitive and succeeding ages needful to be continued such things I say are though not so properly as the former yet usually and interpretativè said to be of Divine Right Of which sort I take the observation of the Lords day the ordering of the Keys the distinction of Presbyters and Deacons and some other things not all perhaps of equal consequence to be Unto Ius divinum in that former acception is required a Divine Precept in this later it sufficeth thereunto that a thing be of Apostolical institution or practice Which ambiguity is the more to be heeded for that the observation thereof is of great use for the avoyding of sundry mistakes that through the ignorance or neglect thereof daily happen to the engaging of men in endless disputes and entangling their consciences in unnecessary scruples V. Now that the Government of the Churches of Christ by Bishops is of divine right in that first and stricter sence is an Opinion at least of great probability and such as may more easily and upon better grounds be defended then confuted especially if in expounding those Texts that are alleaged for it we give such deference to the authority of the Ancient Fathers and their expositions thereof as wise and sober men have alwayes thought it fit we should do Yet because it is both inexpedient to maintain a dispute where it needs not and needless to contend for more where less will serve the turne I finde that our Divines that have travailed most in this Argument where they purposely treat of it do rather chuse to stand to the tenure of Episcopacy ex Apostolicâ designatione then to hold a contest upon the title of jus divinum no necessity requiring the same to be done They therefore that so speak of this Government as established by Divine right are not all of them necessarily so to be understood as if they meant it in that first and stricter sense Sufficient it is for the justification of the Church of England in the constitution and government thereof that it is as certainly it is of Divine right in the latter and larger signification that is to say of Apostolical institution and approbation exercised by the Apostles themselves and by other persons in their times appointed and enabled thereunto by them according to the will of our Lord Iesus Christ and by vertue of the Commission they had received from him VI. Which besides that it is clear from evident Texts of Scripture and from the testimony of as ancient and authentique Records as the world hath any to shew for the attesting of any other part of Ecclesiastical story it is also in truth a part of the established Doctrine of the Church of England evidently deduced out of sundry passages in the booke of Consecration which book is Approved in the Articles of our Religion Art 36. Confirmed by Act of Parliament and Subscribed unto by all persons that have heretofore taken Orders in the Church or Degrees in the University and hath been constantly and uniformly Maintained by our best Writers and by all the sober orderly and Orthodoxe sons of this Church The point hath been so abundantly proved by sundry Learned men and cleared from the exceptions of Novellists that more need not be said for the satisfaction of any intelligent man that will but first take the pains to read the books and then suffer himself to be master of his own reason VII Only I could wish that they who plead so eagerly for the jus divinum of the Lords day yet reject not without some scorn the jus divinum of Episcopacy would ask their own hearts dealing impartially therein whether it be any apparent difference in the nature of the things themselves or in the strength of those reasons that have been brought for either that leadeth them to have such different judgments thereof or rather some prejudicate conceit of their own which having formerly fancied to themselves even as they stood affected to parties the same affections still abiding they cannot easily lay aside Which partiality for I am loath to call it perversness of spirit is by so much the more inexcusable in this particular by how much Episcopal government seemeth to be grounded upon Scripture-Texts of greater pregnancy and clearness and attested by a fuller consent of Antiquity to have been Uniformly and Universally observed throughout the whole Christian world then the Lords day hath hitherto been shewen to be VIII But should it be granted that all the defenders of Episcopacy did indeed hold it to be jure divino in the strictest and most proper sence yet could not the Objectors thence reasonably conclude that it should be eo nomine inconsistent with the Regal power or so much as derogatory in the least degree to that Supream power Ecclesiastical which by the Laws of our Land is established and by the doctrine of our Church acknowledged to be inherent in the Crown As themselves may easily see if they will but consider IX First that Regal and Episcopal power are two powers of quite different kinds and such as considered purely in those things that are proper and essential to either have no mutual relation unto or dependence upon the one the other neither hath either of them any thing to do with the other The one of them being purely spiritual and internal the other external and temporal albeit in regard of the Persons that are to exercise them or some accidental circumstances appertaining to the exercise thereof it may happen the one to be somewayes helpful or prejudicial to the other yet is there no necessity at all that the very powers themselves in respect of their own natures should be at that distance either of them so destructive of other but that they might consist well enough together Yea although either of them or both should claime as indeed they both may do