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	holy_a	word_n	6,560	5	4.2187	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64128	A sermon preached at the consecration of two archbishops and ten bishops, in the Cathedral Church of S. Patrick in Dublin, January 27, 1660 by Jeremie Taylor ...	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1661 (1661)	Wing T391; ESTC R23465	25,378	54

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Mark as of him that is Servant of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Iohn such a principality as he hath that washes the feet of the weary traveller or if you please take it in the words of our Blessed Lord himself that He that will be chief among you let him be your Minister meaning that if under Christs Kingdom you desire rule possibly you may have it but all that Rule under him are Servants to them that are rul'd and therefore you get nothing by it but a great labour and a buisy imployment a careful life and a necessity of making severe accounts But all this is nothing but the general measures I cannot be useful or understood unless I be more particular The particulars we shall best enumerate by recounting those great conjugations of worthy offices and actions by which Christian Bishops have blessed and built up Christendom for because we must be followers of them as they were of Christ the recounting what they did worthily in their generations will not onely demonstrate how useful how profitable how necessary Episcopacy is to the Christian Church but it will at the same time teach us our duty by what services we are to benefit the Church in what works we are to be imployed and how to give an account of our Stewardship with joy 1. The Christian Church was founded by Bps not onely because the Apostles who were Bishops were the first Preachers of the Gospel and Planters of Churches but because the Apostolical men whom the Apostles used in planting and disseminating Religion were by all Antiquity affirm'd to have been Diocesan Bishops insomuch that as St. Epiphanius witnesses there were at the first disseminations of the faith of Christ many Churches who had in them no other Clergy but a Bishop and his Deacons and the Presbyters were brought in afterwards as the harvest grew greater But the Bishops names are known they are recorded in the book of Life and their praise is in the Gospel such were Timothy and Titus Clemens and Linus Marcus and Dyonisius Onesimus and Cains Epaphroditas and St. Iames our Lords Brother Evodius and Simeon all which if there be any faith in Christians that gave their lives for a testimony to the faith and any truth in their Stories and unless we who believe Thucydides and Plutarch Livy and Tacitus think that all Church story is a perpetual Romance and that all the brave men the Martyrs and the Doctors of the Primitive Church did conspire as one man to abuse all Christendom for ever I say unless all these impossible suppositions be admitted all these whom I have now reckoned were Bishops fixed in several Churches and had Dioceses for their Charges The consequent of this consideration is this If Bishops were those upon whose Ministery Christ founded and built his Church let us consider what great wisdom is required of them that seem to be Pillars The Stewards of Christs Family must be wise that Christ requires and if the order be necessary to the Church wisdom cannot but be necessary to the Order For it is a shame if they who by their Office are Fathers in Christ shall by their unskilfulness skilfulness be but Babes themselves understanding not the secrets of Religion the mysteries of Godliness the perfections of the Evangelical Law all the advantages and disadvantages in the Spiritual life A Bishop must be exercis'd in Godliness a man of great experience in the secret conduct of Souls not satisfyed with an ordinary skill in makeing homilies to the people and speaking common exhortations in ordinary cases but ready to answer in all secret inquiries and able to convince the gainsayers and to speak wisdom amongst them that are perfect If the first Bishops laid the foundation their Successours must not onely preserve whatsoever is fundamental but build up the Church in a most holy Faith taking care that no Heresie sap the foundation and that no hay or rotten vvood be built upon it and above all things that a most Holy life be superstructed upon a holy and unreproveable Faith So the Apostles laid the foundation and built the vvalls of the Church and their Successors must raise up the roof as high as Heaven For let us talk and dispute eternally vve shall never compose the controversies in Religion and establish truth upon unalterable foundations as long as Men handle the vvord of God deceiptfully that is vvit designes and little artifices and saecular partialities and they will for ever do so as long as they are proud or covetous It is not the difficulty of our questions or the subtilty of our adversaries that makes disputes interminable but We shall never cure the itch of disputing or establish Unity unless we apply our selves to humility and contempt of riches If we will be contending let us contend like the Olive and the Vine who shall produce best and most fruit not like the Aspine and the Elm which shall make most noyse in a wind All other methods are a beginning at a wrong end And as for the people the way to make them conformable to the wise and holy rules of faith and government is by reducing them to live good lives When the Children of Israel gave themselves to gluttony and drunkenness and filthy lusts they quickly fell into abominable idolatries and St. Paul says that men make shipwrack of their faith by putting away a good conscience for the mystery of faith is best preserv'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a pure conscience saith the same Apostle secure but that and we shall quickly end our disputes and have an obedient and conformable people but else never 2. As Bishops were the first Fathers of Churches and gave them being so they preserve them in being For without Sacraments there is no Church or it will be starv'd and die and without Bishops there can be no Priests and consequently no Sacraments and that must needs be a supream order from whence ordination it self proceeds For it is evident and notorious that in Scripture there is no record of ordination but an Apostolical hand was in it one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the chief one of the superiour and Ruling Clergy and it is as certain in the descending ages of the Church the Bishop always had that power it was never denyed to him and it was never imputed to Presbyters and St. Hierom himself when out of his anger against Iohn Bp. of Ierusalem endeavoured to equal the Presbyter with the Bishop though in very many places he spake otherwise yet even then also and in that heat he excepted ordination acknowledging that to be the Bps peculiar And therefore they who go about to extinguish Episcopacy do as Iullan did they destroy the Presbytery and starve the Flock and take away their Shepheards and dispark their pastures and tempt Gods providence to extraordinaries and put the people to hard shifts and turn the