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	doctrine_n	gospel_n	2,184	5	6.1231	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50915	Of prelatical episcopacy, and vvhither it may be deduc'd from the apostolical times by vertue of those testimonies which are alledg'd to that purpose in some late treatises one whereof goes under the name of Iames, Arch-bishop of Armagh.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1641 (1641)	Wing M2133; ESTC R23425	13,884	28

salutes the Sub-Deacons Chaunters Porters and Exorcists as if these had bin Orders of the Church in his time those other Epistles lesse question'd are yet so interlarded with Corruptions as may justly indue us with a wholsome suspition of the rest As to the Trallians he writes that a Bishop hath power over all beyond all government and autority whatsoever Surely then no Pope can desire more then Ignatius attributes to every Bishop but what will become then of the Archbishops and Primates if every Bishop in Ignatius judgement be as supreme as a Pope To the Ephesians neare the very place from whence they fetch their proof for Episcopacy there stands a line that casts an ill hue upon all the Epistle Let no man erre saith he unlesse a man be within the rays or enclosure of the Altar he is depriv'd of the bread of life I say not but this may be stretch'd to a figurative construction but yet it has an ill look especially being follow'd beneath with the mention of I know not what sacrifices In the other Epistle to Smyrna wherein is written that they should follow their Bishop as Christ did his Father and the Presbytery as the Apostles not to speak of the insu●●e and ill-layd comparison this cited place lyes upon the very brimme of a noted corruption which had they that quote this passage ventur'd to let us read all men would have readily seen what grain the testimony had bin of where it is said that it is not lawfull without a Bishop to baptize nor to offer nor to doe sacrifice What can our Church make of these phrases but scandalous and but a little further he plainly falls to contradict the Spirit of God in Salomon Judge by the words themselvs My Son saith he honour God the King but I say honour God and the Bishop as High-priest bearing the image of God according to his ruling and of Christ according to his Priesting and after him honour the King Excellent Ignatius can ye blame the Prelates for making much of this Epistle Certainly if this Epistle can serve you to set a Bishop above a Presbyter it may serve you next to set him above a King These and other like places in abundance through all those short Epistles must either be adulterat or else Ignatius was not Ignatius nor a Martyr but most adulterate and corrupt himselfe In the midst therfore of so many forgeries where shall we fixe to dare say this is Ignatius as for his stile who knows it so disfigur'd and interrupted as it is except they think that where they meet with any thing found and orthodoxal there they find Ignatius and then they beleeve him not for his own authority but for a truths sake which they derive from els where to what end then should they cite him as authentick for Episcopacie when they cannot know what is authentick in him but by the judgement which they brought with them not by any judgement which they might safely learne from him How can they bring satisfaction frō such an Author to whose very essence the Reader must be fain to contribute his own understanding Had God ever intended that we should have sought any part of usefull instruction frōIgnatius doubtles he would not have so ill provided for our knowledge as to send him to our hands in this broken and disjoynted plight and if he intended no such thing we doe injuriously in thinking to tast better the pure Euangelick Manna by seasoning our mouths with the tainted scraps and fragments of an unknown table and searching among the verminous and polluted rags dropt overworn from the toyling shoulders of Time with these deformedly to quilt and interlace the intire the spotlesse and undecaying robe of Truth the daughter not of Time but of Heaven only bred up heer below in Christian hearts between two grave holy nurses the Doctrine and Discipline of the Gospel Next follows Irenaeus Bishop of Lions who is cited to affirm that Polycarpus was made Bishop of Smyrna by the Apostles and this it may seem none could better tell then he who had both seen and heard Polycarpus but when did he heare him himselfe confesses to Florinus when he was a Boy Whether that age in Irenaeus may not be liable to many mistakings and whether a Boy may be trusted to take an exact account of the manner of a Church constitution and upon what terms and within what limits and with what kind of Commission Polycarpus receiv'd his charge let a man consider ere he be 〈◊〉 It will not be deny'd that he might have seen Polycarpus in his youth a man of great eminence in the Church to whom the other Presbyters might give way for his vertue wisdome and the reverence of his age and so did Amcetus Bishop of Rome even in his own City give him a kind of priority inadministring the Sacrament as may be read in Eusebius but that we should hence conclude a distinct and superior order from the young observation of Irenaeus nothing yet alledg'd can warrant us unlesse we shall beleeve such as would face us down that Calvin and after him Beza were Bishops of Geneva because that in the unsetl'd state of the Church while things were not fully compos'd their worth and learning cast a greater share of businesse upon them and directed mens eyes principally towards them and yet these men were the dissolvers of Episcopacie We see the same necessity in state affaires Brutns that expell'd the Kings out of Rome was for the time forc't to be as it were a King himself till matters were set in order as in a free Common-wealth He that had seen Pericles lead the Athenians which way he listed haply would have said he had bin their Prince and yet he was but a powerfull and eloquent man in a Democratie and had no more at any time then a Temporary and elective sway which was in the will of the people when to abrogate And it is most likely that in the Church they which came after these Apostolick men being lesse in merit but bigger in ambition strove to invade those priviledges by intrusion and plea of right which Polycarpus and others like him possest from the voluntary surrender of men subdu'd by the excellencie of their heavenly gifts which because their Successors had not and so could neither have that autority it was their policy to divulge that the eminence which Polycarpus and his equalls enjoy'd was by right of constitution not by free wil of condiscending And yet thus farre Irenaeus makes against them as in that very place to call Polycarpus an Apostolicall Presbyter But what fidelity his relations had in generall we cannot sooner learn then by Eusebius who neer the end of his third Book speaking of Papias a very ancient writer one that had heard St. Iohn and was known to many that had seen and bin acquainted with others of the Apostles but being of a shallow wit and not understanding