Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	faith_n	rome_n	4,081	5	7.0107	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56388	A discourse sent to the late King James, to persuade him to embrace the Protestant religion by Dr. Samuel Parker, Late Lord Bishop of Oxford ; to which are prefixed two letters ; the first, from Sir Leolyn Jenkins, on the same subject, the second, from the said bishop, with the discourse ; printed from the original manuscript papers, without observation or reflection.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.; Jenkins, Leoline, Sir, 1623-1685.	1690 (1690)	Wing P461; ESTC R5913	25,687	36

Being of a Christian Church Of this nature were the several Patriarchates so that whatever Power the Bishop of Rome can challenge by virtue of his Patriarchical Dignity is of an humane Original and so not necessary to the Constitution of a Christian Church Nay tho he once had such a Power yet upon the Dissolution of that Civil and Ecclesiastical Government that gave it him it ceases with it For it was granted him by the Emperors and Imperial Councils and so extended only to the Subjects of the Empire for they could not give him any Power in other Princes Dominions The Empire therefore being broken into many independent Kingdoms the Patriarchate dissolves with it because otherwise a Foreigner would have an Authority in all Princes Dominions to the Prejudice of the Sovereign Power which is the first thing that Christianity disclaims and therefore is principally inconsistent with it But however if the Pope have his old Patriarchical Power still he had it not of old over us and therefore cannot have it now and though he have yet it is but of Humane Institution And then we are a true Church without it and if we are then can no Man be obliged in Conscience to forsake the Communion of this Church that is setled as all other Churches were by the Apostles to join with one another only for the sake of some alteration made in it by Humane Authority And thus having truly and impartially laid before Your Royal Highness the State of the Christian Church especially as to the prime Controversie between the Church of England and the Church of Rome concerning the Guide of Faith I have so great confidence in the Power of Truth over an upright and generous Mind as to flatter my self with some Hopes of settling Your Royal Highnesses Conscience in the Communion of this truly ancient and Apostolical Church Nay I hope not only to see You a Zealous Son but an eminent Patron of the best but most abused Church in the Christian World so as to be the principal Author of rescuing her from those horrid Indignities and Oppressions that she daily suffers from the Barbarity of popular Atheism and Profaneness But whatever the Success of this small Endeavor may prove it is not a little Satisfaction that I reap from having done my Duty to Your Royal Highness and mine own Conscience For I have no other design than to promote the Salvation of Your Soul and my own But though I am so fully conscious to my self of mine own Integrity yet when I reflect upon what I have done I blush and am confounded in my self at the Presumption of obtruding my crude Thoughts upon the Wisdom of a Mighty Prince and therefore had utterly stisled them after they were finished had not the great Fame of Your Highnesses Princely Candor emboldned me to present them as being at least secure of a gracious Pardon to a well-meant Presumption I intended when I had shewn the No-Necessity of Comminion with the Church of Rome upon his own Terms because its Pretences are a manifest Usurpation upon the Christian Church in the next place to have represented the gross Abuse that his Holiness puts upon Christianity by pretending some way or other directly or indirectly to a temporal Power over Sovereign Princes whereas to pretend to it by virtue of any Power deriv'd from our Saviour only over Subjects is no less than Blasphemy my against him but over Princes it adds to that Rebellon So that how many Notes soever there may be of a true Church this is an infallible Note of a false one But then considering with my self that Your Royal Highness is the second Branch of an Imperial Family and Heir to several Crowns I thought my self obliged according to my Resolution declar'd in the beginning to wave the Advantage of this Argument because Your Highness is here a Party and it concerns Your worldly Interest more nearly than Your Conscience to which alone I have made bold to make this Address and in it I assure my self that 〈◊〉 the Kingdoms in the World would weigh nothing And therefore without giving Your Royal Highness any farther trouble more than once more of craving Pardon for this great Presumption I shall submit the Consideration of the Premises to Your 〈◊〉 and impartial Thoughts and daily pray for Your Happiness both here and hereafter and while I live shall ever be Your Royal Highnesses Most Humble and Devoted Servant FINIS Epist. 52. Mr. Beveridge

Members at their own entire liberty to choose their Religion as they please without being accountable to the Church for it These I must confess are very common Opinions among us but then they are very new too and as great Strangers to the Church of England as to the Church of Rome being at first started about his Majesties Return when some young Men that had been fanatically Educated seeing the Church of England Restored and either having a mind to its Preferments or to bring themselves off from the Principles of their Education pretended that there was no such thing as any particular Form of Church-Government setled by our Saviour or his Apostles and therefore that it was left entirely to the power of the Civil Magistrate to Establish what Form He Himself liked best And for that Reason and for that alone seeing his Majesty was pleased to restore Episcopacy they thought it their Duty to submit to that as to all other Civil Laws and Constitutions But alas these are not Church but State-Divines and not only Traytors to the Liberties of the Church of England but profest Enemies to the very Being of a Christian Church which as such subsists merely upon our Saviour's own Charter and Institution by virtue whereof all Christians are bound to associate in a visible Society and to submit to the Decrees and Ordinances of those Governors that he hath set over it This I say is the first Principle of a Christian Church and is owned by all Men that either own any such thing as a Church or understand what they mean by the word So that the only true State of the Controversie in this Case between Church and Church is to discover how the Government of the Catholick Church was at first setled by our Saviour how it descended to after Ages and who at this time stick closest to the Primitive Institution And for Your Highnesses full Satisfaction herein I will make a faithful Representation of the true State of the Primitive Church and then compare the present Constitution of the Church of England and the Church of Rome and thereby shew how enormously the Church of Rome notwithstanding all its high Pretences hath departed from it and how honestly the Church of England endeavors to keep to the original Platform and when I have done this I shall with all Humility submit it to Your Royal Highnesses Wise and Impartial Judgment For I know that in matters relating to Your Souls welfare You design nothing but Truth and the best way to secure it This I am assured of not only from the fam'd Integrity and Generousness of Your Princely Temper that scorns to admit of the Alloy of Secular Interest into the great Concerns of Conscience but by that great Courage and Resolution You have shewn for the Maintenance of Your present Perswasion whatever that is to Your great Detriment and Disadvantage of Your Affairs in this World But though I think it most apparently Your present Interest to quit that Church yet I think it too a very Ignoble as well as Irreligious Attempt to make that an Argument for it And I am afraid That is one of the highest Prejudices that Your Royal Highness may have conceived against the Church of England that some Men in it have insisted upon Your worldly Interest too much in a point of Conscience And yet if by a true and sincere Account of things I can bring Your Conscience over to the Church of England though I shall not bring Your Conscience to Your Interest yet I shall make them meet for if that were satisfied it is obvious on which side the Advantage lies And though upon the Supposition of Conscience being satisfied Interest might be admitted as an accessional Motive yet I shall entirely wave all worldly Considerations and disdain any Assistance that is Foreign to the cause of Religion and if I did not I am sure Your Highness would And therefore I shall only humbly crave leave to represent the true State of the Christian Church and from thence remonstrate to Your Princely Wisdom that Your Highness can have no Reason either as a Christian Man or a Christian Prince to concern Your Self for the Interest or join with the Communion of the Church of Rome and that on the contrary you have all the Reason in the World upon both Accounts to love and value the Church of England First then Christianity supposes the Temporal Power of Princes Civil Government being setled in the World by the general Providence of God antecedently to our Saviour's particular Institution And as he found it so he left it with an express declaimor of any Pretence to it in the first place declaring that the Kingdom that he came to establish was not of this World that is that he was not invested with any Temporal Jurisdiction And the truth is if he had laid claim to any such Power his Religion had stood upon no better foundation than Mahumetanism it self that was at first propagated and hath been hitherto maintained merely by the Power of the Sword But the Design of our Savior's Institution was pure and unmix'd Religion and therefore abetted it Self and its Laws with no other Sanctions than only the Rewards and Punishments of the Life to come And the same Power that he exercis'd himself he devolv'd upon his Apostles from them to descend upon their Successors to the End of the World so that all their Power whatever it is is of the same Nature with that which himself claim'd whilst on Earth that is purely spiritual and void of all temporal Coertion And for this Reason it is evident that if any Church pretend to any such Power by Virtue of his Grant or Commission that it is not only a Contradiction to the Nature of Christianity but an Atheistical Abuse put upon the whole Design of his Institution Now upon this Supposition there are and must be in all Kingdoms and Commonwealths where Christianity is entertained and protected two distinct Jurisdictions so as that if one entrench upon or invade the other it is an equal Violation of Christianity for if the temporal Prince assume to himself the Exercise of that Power that is peculiarly invested in the Officers of the Church instead of governing the Church he destroys it when every Church as a Church is capable of no other Government but what is purely spiritual and delegated to it by our Saviour's special Commission after the full Settlement of the Power of Princes And the same Violation of Christianity is it if any of the Governors of the Church should challenge any such Power by Virtue of our Savior's Authority for that were to turn a spiritual into a temporal Kingdom Now these two Powers being so plainly distinct both in their Nature and Original they must continue so notwithstanding the Union of Church and State into one Society For if the Prince take upon him the sole Government of the Church as such he acts not only

unquestionable from all the clearest Records of Antiquity their Succession especially in the most famous Churches being derived by the most ancient Writers from the Apostles themselves and was as easily and certainly known to those Men that have transmitted it to us as any learned Man may know the Succession of the Archbishops of Canterbury from the Reign of Queen Eliz. to this time But as this Power was at first given to the Apostles so was it equally divided among them so that every one exercis'd supreme Power within the Bounds of his own Jurisdiction and all together in the Catholick Church or as S. Cyprian states it that as there was but one Church founded by Christ throughout all the World but this Church was made up of several distinct Members so was there but one Episcopacy and that consists in the Agreement and unanimous care of all Christian Bishops So that the whole Body of the Church was governed by the whole Body of the Apostles and their Successors but the several parts of it were allotted to the Charge of single Bishops who governed them with particular Care but so as to have regard to the Peace and Unity of the Whole This is the only Notion that this wise and good Man than whom there is not a more eminent Example for both upon Record seems in all his Writings to have had of the Catholick Church And as for the Apostles who were the first Representatives of it I cannot find the least Footsteps in all the holy Gospels of any particular Prerogative granted to one above the rest It is true indeed that our Savior often addresses himself to S. Peter in particular but then it is evident that this is done upon particular Occasions and as evident too that all the great things that are occasionally spoken of him are in the Scripture ascrib'd to all the other Apostles Thus whereas Matth. xvi our Savior gives him the Keys of Heaven upon his confessing him to be the Messias He vests all the Apostles with the same Power and that with particular solemnity Iohn xx 21. And whereas he stiles S. Peter the Rock or Foundation upon which he would build his Church the same Title is given to all the Apostles in other Scriptures as Ephes. ii 20. Built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Iesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone And Revel xxi 14. The Wall of the City had twelve Foundations upon which were the Names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. And in all the Gospels unless when he applies himself particularly to S. Peter upon the Occasion of his Zeal and Forwardness in the Faith our Savior invests them all with an equal Power especially when he gave them their grand Commission to convert all Nations Matth. xxviii 19 20. So that the Men of the Church of Rome strein the Scriptures with too forc'd a Violence when out of such slight and accidental Occasions of our Savior's particular Speeches to S. Peter they would settle such great and high Privileges upon his Person so as to make him sovereign Lord of all the other Apostles and sole Monarch of the Universal Church This Foundation is too slight for the Weight of so great a Building and so big a Claim requires somewhat a clearer Evidence of Title and if our Savior had intended any such absolute Sovereignty to S. Peter and made that the Fundamental Principle of his Church certainly he would have declared it a little more expresly and not have left so weighty a Point to be merely surmis'd out of occasional Discourses of which there are such easie and obvious Reasons to be given without his ever intending any such design So that in truth to make so much Noise as the Romanists do about the personal Privileges of S. Peter upon such poor and slender Pretences is at once to impose upon the Wisdom of God as if he had laid the Foundations of his Church so slightly and to affront the Understandings of Men as if they thought them so weak as to be persuaded to any thing by such poor and precarious Arguings But yet however I will grant more than can with any decent modesty be demanded from these Texts and yield that our Savior designed some considerable Precedency to S. Peter above all the other Apostles Yet what is this to that omnipotent Sovereignty that his Holiness challenges over the whole Christian Church who takes upon himself not only the supreme but almost the sole Disposal of it whereas it is too well known that S. Peter after the Privileges granted to him was commanded by an Order of the other Apostles Acts viii 14. which could never have been done if his Power had been Monarchical over them all Neither do we find him any where exercising any such Sovereignty over them for tho by reason of his ready Faculty of Speech he was usually the first Speaker yet we do no where find that he either challeng'd or practis'd any other Precedency So that tho he was the first that delivered his Opinion in the Council of Ierusalem yet it was S. Iames that determined and pronounced the Decree in that he was Bishop of the Place as is undeniably evident from the most undoubted Records of Antiquity Which yet he ought not to have done if S. Peter had been endued with the same Superiority over all the rest of the Apostles that the Bishop of Rome challenges over all the other Bishops of the Christian Church But not to insist upon these remote and obscure Footsteps of S. Peter's Primacy in the Scriptures I will freely grant him out of the Holy Text it self some considerable Precedency tho when I have done that too what is it to the Bishop of Rome more than it is to the Bishop of Antioch or Alexandria or the Bishops of several other Places in which S. Peter first planted the Christian Faith so that the Bishops of all those Places have as fair a Title to be S. Peter's Successors as the Bishop of Rome And yet this great point I shall be so civil as to admit and grant that the peculiar Right of Succession to the Privileges of S. Peter if any such there were was appropriated to the See of Rome but still What is this to that universal Jurisdiction that is challenged by the Bishops of this to this See as the supreme and infallible Governors of the Catholick Church For after all other Disputes 't is this that is the only dividing Point between us 't is this that is the only Fundamental Article of their Church 't is this for which they load us so heavily with their honorable Titles of Hereticks and Schismaticks And so no doubt are we if his Holiness be vested by Divine Right with that universal Supremacy that he challenges over the whole Christian Church In a word if we take this one Controversie away I for my part know no other difference between the Church of England and the Church of