Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	church_n	tradition_n	2,130	5	9.1915	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63706	Clerus Domini, or, A discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness, and separation of the office ministerial together with the nature and manner of its power and operation : written by the special command of King Charles the First / by Jer. Taylor.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Rules and advices to the clergy of the diocesse of Down and Connor.; Rust, George, d. 1670. Funeral sermon preached at the obsequies of the Right Reverend Father in God Jeremy Lord Bishop of Down.	1672 (1672)	Wing T299; ESTC R13445	91,915	82

Apostolical as it was an office extraordinary circumstantionate definite and to expire all that was promised should descend upon them after Christs ascension and was verified in Pentecost for to that purpose to bring all things to their mind all of Christs Doctrine and all that was necessary of his life and miracles and a power from above to enable them to speak boldly and learnedly and with tongues all that besides the other parts of ordinary power was given them ten days after the Ascension And therefore the breathing the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles in the octaves of the Resurrection and this mission with such a power was their ordinary mission a sending them as ordinary Pastors and Curates of Souls with a power to govern binding and loosing can mean no less and they were the words of the promise with a power to minister reconciliation for so Saint Paul expounds remitting and retaining which two were the great hinges of the Gospel the one to invite and collect a Church the other to govern it the one to dispense the greatest blessing in the world the other to keep them in capacities of enjoying it For since the holy Ghost was now actually given to these purposes here expressed and yet in order to all their extraordinaries and temporary needs was promised to descend after this there is no collection from hence more reasonable than to conclude all this to be part of their commission of ordinary Apostleship to which the ministers of religion were in all Ages to succeed In attestation of all which who please may see the united testimony of S. Cyril S. Chrysostome S. Ambrose S. Gregory and the Author of the questions of the old and new Testament who unless by their calling shall rather be called persons interess'd than by reason of their famous piety and integrity shall be accepted as competent are a very credible and fair representment of this truth and that it was a doctrine of Christianity that Christ gave this power to the Apostles for themselves and their successors for ever and that therefore as Christ in the first donation so also some Churches in the tradition of that power used the same form of words intending the collation of the same power and separating persons for that work of that ministery I end this with the counsel S. Augustine gives to all publick penitents Veniat ad Antistites per quos illis in Ecclesia claves ministrantur à praepositis sacrorum accipiant satisfactionis suae modum let them come to the Presidents of Religion by whom the Keys are ministred and from the Governours of holy things let them receive those injunctions which shall exercise and signifie their repentance SECT III. THe second power I instance in is preaching the Gospel for which work he not only at first designed Apostles but others also were appointed for the same work for ever to all generations of the Church This Commission was signed immediately before Christ's Ascension All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world First Christ declared his own commission all power is given him into his hand he was now made King of all the Creatures and Prince of the Catholick Church and therefore as it concerned his care and providence to look to his cure and flock so he had power to make deputations accordingly Go ye therefore implying that the sending them to this purpose was an issue of his power either because the authorizing certain persons was an act of power or else because the making them Doctors of the Church and teachers of the Nations was a placing them in an eminency above their scholars and converts and so also was an emanation of that power which derived upon Christ from his Father from him descended upon the Apostles And the wiser persons of the world have always understood that a power of teaching was a Presidency and Authority for since all dominion is naturally founded in the understanding although civil government accidentally and by inevitable publick necessity relies upon other titles yet where the greatest understanding and power of teaching is there is a natural preheminence and superiority eatenus that is according to the proportion of the excellency and therefore in the instance of S. Paul we are taught the style of the Court and Disciples sit at the feet of their Masters as he did at the feet of his Tutor Gamaliel which implies duty submission and subordination and indeed it is the highest of any kind not only because it is founded upon nature but because it is a submission of the most imperious faculty we have even of that faculty which when we are removed from our Tutors is submitted to none but God for no man hath power over the understanding faculty and therefore so long as we are under Tutors and Instructors we give to them that duty in the succession of which claim none can succeed but God himself because none else can satisfie the understanding but he Now then because the Apostles were created Doctors of all the world hoc ipso they had power given them over the understandings of their disciples and they were therefore fitted with an infallible spirit and grew to be so authentick that their determination was the last address of all inquiries in questions of Christianity and although they were not absolute Lords of their faith and understandings as their Lord was yet they had under God a supreme care and presidency to order to guide to instruct and to satisfie their understandings and those whom they sent out upon the same errand according to the proportion and excellency of their spirit had also a degree of superiority and eminency and therefore they who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Labourers in the word and doctrine were also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Presbyters that were Presidents and Rulers of the Church and this eminency is for ever to be retained according as the unskilfulness of the Disciple retains him in the form of Catechumens or as the excellency of the instructor still keeps the distance or else as the office of teaching being orderly and regularly assigned makes a legal political and positive authority to which all those persons are for orders sake to submit who possibly in respect of their personal abilities might be exempt from that authority Upon this ground it is that learning amongst wise persons is esteemed a title of nobility and secular eminency Ego enim quid aliud munificentiae adhibere potui ut studia ut sic dixerim in umbra educata è quibus claritudo venit said Seneca to Nero. And Aristotle and A. Gellius affirm that not only excellency of extraction or great fortunes but learning also makes noble circum undique sedentibus multis doctrinâ aut genere

CLERUS DOMINI OR A DISCOURSE OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION Necessity Sacredness and Separation OF THE Office Ministerial TOGETHER WITH THE NATURE AND MANNER of its Power and Operation WRITTEN By the special Command of King Charles the First By IER TAYLOR Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the First and late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the King 's most Excellent Majesty 1672. THE Divine Institution and Necessity OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL SECT I. WHen several Nations and differing Religions have without any famous mutual intercourse agreed upon some common rites and forms of Religion because one common effect cannot descend from chance it is certain they come to them by reason or tradition from their common Parents or by imitation something that hath a common influence If Reason be the principle then it is more regular and lasting and admits of no other variety than as some men grow unreasonable or that the reason ceases If Tradition be the fountain then it is not only universal and increases as the world is peopled but remains also so long as we retain reverence to our Parents or that we do not think our selves wiser than our forefathers But these two have produced Customs and Laws of the highest obligation for whatsoever we commonly call the Law of Nature it is either a custom of all the world derived from Noah or Adam or else it is therefore done because natural reason teaches us to do it in the order to the preservation of our selves and the publick But imitation of the customs of a wise Nation is something less and yet it hath produced great consent in external rites and offices of Religion And since there is in Ceremonies so great indifferency there being no antecedent Law to determine their practice nothing in their nature to make them originally necessary they grow into a Custom or a Law according as they are capable For if a wise Prince or Governour or a Nation or a famous family hath chosen rites of common Religion such as were consonant to the Analogy of his duty expressive of his sence decent in the expression grave in the form or full of ornament in their representment such a thing is capable of no greater reason and needs no greater authority but hath been and may reasonably enough be imitated upon the reputation of their wisdom and disinterested choice who being known wise persons or nations took them first into their religious offices Thus the Jews and the Gentiles used white garments in their holy offices and the Christians thought it reasonable enough from so united example to do so too Example was reason great enough for that The Gentile-Priests were forbid to touch a dead body to eat leavened bread to mingle with secular imployments during their attendance in holy offices these they took up from the pattern of the Jews and professed it reasonable to imitate a wise people in the rituals of their Religion The Gentile-Priests used Ring and Staffe and Mitre saith Philostratus the Primitive Bishops did so too and in the highest detestation of their follies thought they might wisely enough imitate their innocent customs and Priestly ornaments and hoped they might better reconcile their minds to the Christian Religion by compliance in ceremonials than exasperate them by rejecting their ancient and innocent Ceremonies for so the Apostles invited and inticed Judaism into Christianity And Tertullian complains of the Devils craft who by imitating the Christian rites reconciled mens minds with that compliance to a more charitable opinion of the Gentile superstition The Devil intending to draw the professors of truth to his own portion or to preserve his own in the same fetters he first put upon them imitates the rites of our Religion adopting them into his superstition He baptizes some of his disciples and when he initiates them to the worship of Mithra promises them pardon of sins by that rite he signs his soldiers in their foreheads he represents the oblation of bread and introduces representments of the resurrection and laboriously gets Martyrs to his cause His Priests marry but once he hath his virgins and his abstemious and continent followers that what Christians love and the world commends in them being adopted into the rituals of Idolatry may allure some with the beauty and fair imagery and abuse others with colour and phantastick faces And thus also all wise men that intended to perswade others to their religion did it by retaining as much as they innocently could of the other that the change might not be too violent and the persons be more endeared by common rites and the relation and charity of likeness and imitation Thus did the Church and the Synagogue thus did the Gentiles both to the Jews and to the Christians and all wise men did so The Gentiles offered first-fruits to their gods and their tithes to Hercules kept vigils and anniversaries forbad marriages without the consent of Parents and clandestine contracts these were observed with some variety according as the people were civil or learned and according to the degree of the tradition or as the thing was reasonable so these customs were more or less universal But when all wise people nay when absolutely all the world have consented upon a Rite it cannot derive from a fountain lower than the current but it must either be a Command which God hath given to all the world and so Socrates in Xenophon Quod ab omnibus gentibus observatum est id non nisi à Deo sancitum esse dicendum est or a tradition or a law descending from our common parents or a reason derived from the nature of things there cannot in the world be any thing great enough to take away such a rite except an express divine commandment and a man by the same reason may marry his nearest relative as he may deny to worship God by the recitation of his praises and excellencies because reason and a very common tradition have made almost all the world consent in these two things that we must abstain from the mixtures of our nearest kindred and that we must worship God by recounting and declaring excellent things concerning him I have instanced in two things in which I am sure to find the fewest adversaries I said the fewest for there are some men which have lost all humanity but these two great Instances are not attested with so universal a tradition and practice of the world as this that is now in question For in some nations they have married their sisters so did the Magi among the Persians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Tatianus in Clemens Alexandrinus and Bardisanes Syrus in Eusebius And the Greeks worshipped Hercules by railing and Mercury by throwing stones at him But there was never any people but had their Priests and Presidents of religious rites and kept holy things within a mure that the people

Presidents set over us in the Lord taking care for us labouring in doctrine spiritual persons restorers of them that were overtaken in a fault curates of souls such as must give an account for them the salt the light of the world shepheards and much more signifying work and rule and care honour But next to the words of Scripture there can no more be said concerning the honour of the Sacred Order of the Clergy than is said by Saint Chrysostome in his books De sacerdotio and Saint Ambrose De dignitate sacerdotali and no greater thing can be supposed communicated to men than to be the Ministers of God in the great conveyances of grace and instruments of God in the pardon of sins in the consecration of Christ's Body and Blood in the guidance and conduct of souls And this was the stile of the Church calling Bishops and Priests according to their respective capacity Stewards of the grace of God leaders of the blind a light of them that sit in darkness instructors of the ignorant teachers of babes stars in the world amongst whom ye shine as lights in the world and that is Scripture too stars in Christ's right hand lights set upon the Candlesticks And now supposing these premisses if Christendome had not paid proportionable esteem to them they had neither known how to value Religion or the mysteries of Christianity But that all Christendom ever did pay the greatest reverence to the Clergy and Religious veneration is a certain argument that in Christian Religion the distinction of the Clergy from the Laity is supposed as a praecognitum a principle of the institution I end this with the words of the seventh General Council It is manifest to all the world that in the Priesthood there is order and distinction and to observe the Ordinations and Elections of the Priesthood with strictness and severity is well pleasing to God SECT VI. AS soon as God began to constitute a Church and fix the Priesthood which before was very ambulatory and dispensed into all Families but ever officiated by the Major domo God gives the power and designs the person And therefore Moses consecrated Aaron agitatus à Deo consecrationis Principe saith Dionysius Moses performed the external rites of designation but God was the Consecrator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moses appointed Aaron to the Priesthood and gave him the Order but it was only as the Minister and Deputy of God under God the chief consecrator And no man taketh upon him this honour but he that was called of God as was Aaron saith S. Paul For in every Priesthood God designed and appointed the Ministery and collates a power or makes the person gracious either gives him a spiritual ability of doing something which others have not or if he be only imployed in praying and presenting Sacrifices of Beasts for the people yet that such a person should be admitted to a nearer address and in behalf of the people must depend upon God's acceptation and therefore upon divine constitution for there can be no reason given in the nature of the thing why God will accept the intermediation of one man for many or why this man more than another who possibly hath no natural or acquired excellency beyond many of the people except what God himself makes after the constitution of the person If a spiritual power be necessary to the ministration it is certain none can give it but the fountain and the principle of the Spirits emanation Or if the graciousness and aptness of the person be required that also being arbitrary preternatural and chosen must derive from the Divine election For God cannot be prescribed unto by us whom he shall hear and whom he shall entertain in a more immediate address and freer entercourse And this is divinely taught us by the example of the high Priest himself who because he derived all power from his Father and all his graciousness and favour in the Office of Priest and Mediator was also personally chosen and sent and took not the honour but as it descended on him from God that the honour and the power the ability and the ministery might derive from the same fountain Christ did not glorifie himself to become high Priest Honour may be deserved by our selves but alwayes comes from others and because no greater honour than to be ordained for men in things pertaining to God every man must say as our blessed High Priest said of himself If I honour my self my honour is nothing it is God that honoureth me For Christ being the Fountain of Evangelical Ministery is the measure of our dispensations and the Rule of Ecclesiastical Oeconomy and therefore we must not arrogate any power from our selves or from a less authority than our Lord and Master did and this is true and necessary in the Gospel rather than in any Ministery or Priesthood that ever was because of the collation of so many excellent and supernatural abilities which derive from Christ upon his Ministers in order to the work of the Gospel And the Apostles understood their duty in this particular as in all things else for when they had received all this power from above they were careful to consign the truth that although it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a divine grace in a humane ministery and that although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is He that is ordained by men yet receives his power from God not at all by himself and from no man as from the fountain of his power And this I say the Apostles were careful to consign in the first instance of Ordination in the case of Matthias Thou Lord shew which of these two thou hast chosen God was the Elector and they the Ministers and this being at the first beginning of Christianity in the very first designation of an Ecclesiastical person was of sufficient influence into the Religion for ever after and taught us to derive all clerical power from God and therefore by such means and Ministeries which himself hath appointed but in no hand to be invaded or surprized in the entrance or polluted in the execution This descended in the succession of the Churches Doctrine for ever Receive the Holy Ghost said Christ to his Apostles when he enabled them with Priestly power and S. Paul to the Bishops of Asia said The Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops or Overseers because no mortal man no Angel or Archangel nor any other created power but the Holy Ghost alone hath constituted this Order saith S. Chrysostome And this very thing besides the matter of fact and the plain donation of the power by our blessed Saviour is intimated by the words of Christ other-where Pray ye therefore the Lord of the Vineyard that he will send Labourers into his Harvest Now his mission is not only a designing of the