Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	bishop_n	church_n	succession_n	1,636	5	10.2155	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47214	Veritas evangelica, or, The Gospel-truth asserted in sixteen useful questions which being seriously searched into, will open the way to find out assuredly the true and saving faith of Christ which is but one, as the apostle affirms / written by T.K. and now published by R.C.	T. K. (Thomas Kemeys)	1687 (1687)	Wing K256; ESTC R13531	80,587	135

his Pastors For this Power being a Divine and Supernatural thing a participation of the Power of Christ and of Force and Efficacy to Bind and Loose Souls to Cleanse them from Sin and to Sanctifie them no Mortal man though never so eminent in Temporal Magistracy is able to invent and ordain Means to give and impart the same And therefore strange and audacious was their attempt who in the time of Edward the VI. invented a New Form to Consecrate Arch-Bishops Bishops and Priests and to Endue them with Divine and Spiritual Power But into this Errour they fell by the singular Providence of God that thereby Infinite Sacriledges and Abuses of the Blessed Sacrament might be avoided Which would have happen'd in This Kingdom if Protestant Bishops and Ministers had been True Priests indeed Out of this Doctrine which is most True it clearly followeth that neither Luther nor any other Protestant Teacher whatsoever had or hath any True Calling or Mission from God at all For manifest it is that none of these Teachers had Extraordinary Mission from God For they could never yet shew his Broad-Seal which is the Gift of Miracles And as manifest it is that they have not Ordinary Mission from him For they cannot possibly extend the Line of their Succession beyond Luther's time or Nominate any Rank of Pastors reaching up to the Apostles Times to whom these men do succeed in the Office of Teaching the Protestant Religion Dangerous then is the state of all Protestants because really and in very deed they want True Pastors sent from God. But some will say that the Case of English Protestants is not so bad because they have Bishops who have Ordination from the Church of Rome I answer First That these their Bishops have indeed a certain shaddow of Ordination but not the thing it self because in their Ordination the same Matter and Form is not us'd by which Priestly Power is confer'd in the Roman Church But that which was Invented in the days of Edward the VI. and Ratify'd in the time of Queen Elizabeth by which Divine Power cannot be given Secondly I answer that if these English Prelates were truly Bishops and Priests indeed yet this could nothing avail them or their Followers Because this is not sufficient to True Mission from God in regard that over and above this true Faculty and Authorizing from the Ordinary Pastors of the Roman Church to Teach and Pasture the People of Christ Succession of Truth in Dogmatical Points is of necessity requir'd to Ordinary Mission from God. Which Faculty and Authorizing our English Bishops wanting they should thereby be destitute of all True Mission from God although they were indeed True Bishops as it befell the Arian and Nestorian Bishops and Priests Which having True Ordination and being Truly Bishops and Priests were notwithstanding destitute of all True Mission from God being thereof depriv'd by God and his Church in regard of their Rebellion against the Church and of the false Heretical Doctrine which they Taught For Christ would have it to be in the Power of the Pastors of his Church to deprive False Teachers of all Authority to Teach and to expel them out of his Flock that they might not ruine the Souls of his People Thirdly I answer That Protestant Pastors cannot have True Mission from the Roman Church though she would bestow it upon them Which she would never do unless they will become Catholicks and will undertake the Teaching and Re-planting of the Catholick Religion Gods Grace and the care of their own Salvation and of the Salvation of those numerous Flocks of People which follow them drawing them to enterprise so Heroical and Divine a work Which point I shew thus Either the Pastors of the Roman Church or the Pastors of the Protestant Church are False Prophets False Teachers False Explicators of the Word of God and of the Mysteries of Christ This is evident for they cannot be both Orthodoxal Teachers seeing they contradict one the other about many of the Principal Articles of the Christian Religion If the Pastors of the Roman Church be False Prophets and Heretical Teachers They have no Mission from God themselves being by him prohibited to Teach as all False Prophets are How then can they impart true and Divine Mission to others But if the Pastors of the Protestant Church be False Prophets falsely Teaching and Expounding the word of God and the Religion and Mysteries of Christ then They are wholly incapable of True Mission God himself prohibiting them to Teach because False Doctrine in matters of Faith doth tend to the ruine of Souls as is clear out of the Word of God Matth. 7. 15. And so the Roman Church if she would cannot give Protestant Bishops and Ministers True Mission and sending from God. Out of the Doctrine deliver'd in this Question which is solid and true it clearly followeth that the Protestant Religion is not truly Apostolick that is descending from the Apostles and the same that they Believ'd and Taught Though it pleases the Teachers thereof so to stile it to make it the more acceptable to their followers Even as bitter Pills are sometimes Gilt with Gold that they may the more easily be swallow'd The reason is that this Religion doth not descend from the Apostles by a continual Line of Doctors and Pastors one succeeding the other in the Office of Teaching and practising the Protestant Religion which reacheth through all Ages even up to the Apostles If any Protestant will answer to this that they esteem not their Religion Apostolick because it descendeth from the Apostles by such a Line of Succession But because it is shap'd out according to the Model of the Religion of the Apostles express'd in the Word of God so near as the Founders and Shapers thereof could guess I reply first that I will then grant that the Protestant Religion may be stil'd Apostolick in this sense when all Protestants shall be agreed among themselves which Sect of theirs is best shap'd out according to the Model of the Apostles Religion express'd in the word of God and cometh nearest to the Purity thereof That is whether the Lutherans or the Swinglians or the Calvinists or the Anabaptists or the Quakers or the new Arians or the Parliamentary Protestants or the Puritans have shap'd out their Religion best and nearest to the Purity of the Apostles times But as they will never be agreed of this the best rule to guide them in the work of shaping out Religion being but the private guess of this or that Sect-Master or Sect So I shall never be tyed to grant their Religion to be Apostolick Secondly I answer that according to this manner of proceeding every Heretick will prove his new Devices in Religion to be Apostolick If he himself may be Judge and may have leave to Sense and Expound the Scriptures as his own Guess and Conceit shall lead him Which absurd Liberty being deny'd to Protestants they can never

Church Which hitherto have been the Converters of Heathen Nations Certainly none at all And as little solid hope can Protestants have that they shall one day be gathered together by the Holy Angels and placed amongst the Elect of God For certain it is that the Elect of God are to be gathered out of the Professors of the True Faith and Religion of Christ which is but one as I have already shewed and as the Apostle affirms Ephes 4. 5. One Faith one Baptism one God and out of his True Church and Fold Which also is but one as he himself doth teach John 10. 16. And other Sheep I have that are not of this Fold Them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice And there shall be made one Fold and one Pastor Out of which words note First That Christ speaking of his Church as she was to be after the Conjunction of the Jews and Gentiles together in one Faith assures us that she should be One Fold namely under one Visible Head one Jurisdiction one Government having one Faith one Worship of God one Communion one means of Sanctification for the Flock of this Fold Note Secondly That by this One Pastor that was to be made after Christ spake these words may well be meant not only Christ himself who was then the Good Pastor ver 11. and was not so made after this time but some other Supreme Ministerial Pastor made by Christ after the speaking of these words to preserve Unity in his Church and fittingly to govern her under himself Which was no other but blessed Peter made Supreme Pastor of the Flock of Christ John 21. which Office he left to his Successors Thirdly note That the Voice of the Church of Christ preaching in all Ages to the Nations of the Earth to bring them to his Fold is the Voice of Christ by his own acknowledgement And they saith he shall hear my Voice According to that of Luk. 10. 16. He that heareth you heareth me And so Christ hath hitherto preached and doth yet preach to the Gentiles not by his own Corporal and Personal Voice but by the Voice of his Apostles and of their Successors the Ordinary Doctors and Pastors of his Church Whose Voice is his Voice because by him they are sent to teach and by him in their teaching are Guided And in like manner the sound of the Apostles doth yet go forth into all the Earth Psal 18. Rom. 10. And must go forth even till the day of Doom for a Testimony to all Nations Matth. 24. 14. Now then seeing that the Elect of God are to be gathered out of all the World and out of the Fold and Flock of Christ And that Christ verily and really hath but one Fold one Church one Faith one Flock and one Supreme Pastor under himself to guide fittingly this large Fold this great and numerous Flock spread over the VVorld And seeing also that the Protestants are neither spread over the VVorld that the Elect of God may be gathered out of them nor united to that Flock nor participants of that Faith which is spread over the VVorld nor within that Fold that is One nor under the Government and Feeding of that one Supreme Pastor of whom Christ speaketh Deplorable for the present is their Case most dangerous their State vain their Labour and fruitless their Hope And so it will ever be until they return to this Flock and Pastor again VVhich return how safely in Conscience and prudently they may make my next Question will declare Question XVI Whether Protestants or Catholicks do take the surer way to Eternal Happiness Where it is shewed That Papistry by the judgement of all Learned Protestants is a Saving Religion and consequently the securer way THe Doctrine delivered to Christian People concerning Heaven and Hell doth teach the one to be a place of such unspeakable Happiness And the other of such inexplicable Misery that no discreet Man among them will stick to say if he be asked that every Man and VVoman doth stand most deeply obliged out of their Duty to God and the natural Love they owe to themselves to take the surer way when doubt is made to gain the one and to avoid the other To take I say the surer way when doubt is made about the ways which are said to lead to Heaven or to bring to Hell. Amongst which ways two are of chief esteem the Catholick and the Protestant the Old and the New Religion Both which are said to be sure ways to Heaven yet both are doubted of The Old is doubted of among Christians only by a few of the Protestant Party who are neither of the best Learned amongst them nor of the most discreet For Learned Protestants generally hold that the Old Religion that is Papistry is a Saving Religion and a secure way to Heaven and that those which live and dye therein may be saved Here this witnessed by their own Pens and first by Doctor Covel in his defence of Mr. Hooker's Books of Ecclesiastical Polity Published by Authority Where he teacheth this at large saying Page 77. We affirm them of the Church of Rome to be part of the Church of Christ and that those which live and dye in that Church may notwithstanding be saved The same is taught by Doctor Field in his Third Book of the Church cap. 46. pag. 182. saying We doubt not but the Church in which the Bishop of Rome with more then Lucifer-like Pride exalted himself was notwithstanding the True Church of God And that it held a saving Profession of truth in Christ and by force thereof did Convert many from Errour And by Doctor Some in his defence against Penry pag. 182. saying In the Judgement of all Learned Men and all Reformed Churches there is in Popery a Church a Ministry a True Christ And pag. 176. If you think saith he that all the Popish sort which died in the Popish Church are damned you think absurdly and dissent from the Judgement of Learned Protestants Thus these Prime and Learned Protestants to whom I could add many more of later date but that it is needless in regard that all moderate Protestants do grant that Papists may be saved Yea this is the common Tenet of all Learned Protestants and of all Reformed Churches as you have heard out of Doctor Somes And not without cause in regard that Learned Protestants see well enough that if this they should deny they should not only very rashly and without any sure ground condemn to Hell all their Fore-fathers and the rest of the Christian World for above a Thousand Years before Luther not being well able to save from this Censure the Antient Fathers and innumerable other Learned Men and Holy Saints but should also lay open a fair way to plain Atheism to the utter denial of Christ and of God as my Tenth Eleventh and Twelfth Questions do very clearly demonstrate And therefore I may without danger of slander