Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	word_n	work_n	yield_v	136	3	6.7469	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92075	The Cyprianick-Bishop examined, and found not to be a diocesan, nor to have superior power to a parish minister, or Presbyterian moderator being an answer to J.S. his Principles of the Cyprianick-age, with regard to episcopal power & jurisdiction : together with an appendix, in answer to a railing preface to a book, entituled, The fundamental charter of presbytery / by Gilbert Rule ...	Rule, Gilbert, 1629?-1701.	1696 (1696)	Wing R2218; ESTC R42297	93,522	126

p. 22. That the Bishops Deed is the Churches Act. p. 24. That Episcopacy is of Divine Institution p. 26. That he is subordinate to none p. 27 28 35. That the Bishop is a supream Ecclesiastical Magistrat p. 43. And Majesty is ascribed to him Ibid. he is called a Soveraign and Peerless Governour p. 65. Supream and unaccountable Power is ascribed to him p. 67. These and many more such Assertions are the Stars by which his Treatises is bespangled And each of them might afford matter for a long Discourse to one who hath nothing else to do A fourth Remark is that through the whole course of his Argumentations he useth such confidence and these Pretences to conclusive and irrefragable evidence as may fright an unintelligent or unwarrie Reader while the Strength of his Ratiocinations is no way proportionable but apparent to be built on Words rather than Matter Every one knoweth that the Signification of several Words used about Ecclesiastical Things in Cyprian's time was far different from what is our modern Dialect The truth of this will I hope be more fully manifest in our considering his particular Arguments § 5. My Assertion against which his Book is levelled he seemeth to wonder at as strangely rash and a putting our being or not being Schismaticks on a desperate Issue The Assertion is a Bishop in Cyprian's time was not a Diocesan with sole Power of Jurisdiction and Ordination If he prove that we shall give Cyprian and him leave to call us Schismaticks A Bishop then was the Pastour of a Flock or the Moderator of a Presbyterie If he can prove that we separate from our Pastours or from the Presbytery with their Moderator under whose Inspection we ought to be let him call us what he will But we disown the Bishops in Scotland from being our Bishops we can neither own their Episcopal Authority nor any pastoral Relation they have to us He seemeth p. 1. to divide his Book into two parts First to take to Task what I had said to wit the words above set down 2. to add perchance something concerning our main Argument The first part he hath largely insisted on with what Strength or Success I am now to examine Of the 2 I find nothing but that p. 94. he hath fairly waved it But with confidence that he could accomplish it and leaving to the person to whom he directeth this long Letter to command him to prosecute what is left undone The Import of which is that it is much more his Inclination to write ad hominem against a particular person than ad rem for that which he taketh to be the truth of God § 6. His first work is to expose the above-mentioned Passage in my Book as yielding a large Field if one had a mind to catch at Words and that it were easie to insist on such escapes if one had a mind for it His first Remark is Suppose the word Diocess was not in use in St. Cyprian's time as applyed to a Bishops District doth it follow that the thing now signified by it was not then in use Answ Pray Sir who made that Consequence the Words cited catch at them as much as you will import no such Consequence and design no more but that which we call now a Diocesan Bishop with sole Power of Jurisdiction and Ordination was not in that Age. His next Remark is in this Question What could move him the Author of the Passage now under Debate to insinuate that we assign the sole power of Jurisdiction and Ordination to our Diocesan Bishop Answ It is a greater wonder what should move this Author to except against our thinking that they assign such Power to their Bishop seing himself ascribeth all that Power to the Cyprianick-Bishop and affirmeth him to be of Divine Institution as hath been already observed Hath he not said that the Bishops Power is Monarchial pag. 23 32. and expresly pag. 38. near the end he saith the Bishop had the sole Power of Ordination and saith it hath been frequently and fully proved by learned men that he need not insist on it and pag. 39. telleth us of Cyprian's Ordaining without asking the consent of the Clergy or People and pleading for this as the Right of all Bishops If he do not ascribe this sole Power to his Scots-Bishops then ex tuo ore they are not the Bishops that Christ instituted Nor these of the Cyprianick-Age nor these for whom the learned men that he speaketh of hath pleaded neither can I guess what kind of Animals he will make them they must be a species of Bishops that never man pleaded for but himself I suppose his Lords the Bishops will give him small thanks thus for pleading their Cause What I have now observed sheweth his Questions to be impertinent viz. When did our Bishops claim that Power and when was it ascribed to them by this Constitution When did they exercise it When was it thought necessary for raising a Bishop to all the due Elevations of the Episcopal Authority I give this general Answer to all these Questions our Scots Bishops look on themselves and are lookt on by their Underlings and by this Author as Scripture-Bishops or at least as Primitive-Bishops and the Bishops that the learned men of this and the preceeding Ages have pleaded for but our Author saith these had the Power we now speak of and therefore he must say that that Power was given them by the Institution that they do claim it and ought to claim it that it is necessary for their due Elevation If they shun to exercise it at least openly by not laying on of Hands without Presbyters it is because they know that practice cannot take nor be born with in a Nation where Parity hath been so much known and generally liked I always understood that the main thing debated between us and the Prelatists was about the sole Power of Jurisdiction and Ordination and I am not alone in this the Synod of London Vindication of Presbyterial Government pag. 24. proposeth the Controversie in the same Words So doth also Smectymnus § 8 9. and I think he will not find many if any one of either side who handleth this Controversie without respect to this Power To his Question When was it ascribed to them by the Constitution I Answer it was done with respect ●o Ordination anno 1635 in the Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical chap. 2. § 3. where the Examination of the Candidate and consequently the Power of determining who shal be ordained is laid on the Bishop and he is allowed to perform this Examination by himself or his Chaplain And for Jurisdiction a person ordained to a Charge may not Preach unless he be also licensed by the Bishop ibid. chap. 7. § 5 Nor may he refute Error preached by another unless he first ask and obtain leave of the Bishop ibid. § 7. Yea a Presbyter may not go a Journey for some time without the Bishops leave

and I think that it will not be denyed that Presbyters are Praepositi and are set over the Church he saith no more then but the Church is founded on the Bishop that is his sound Doctrine as was before explained and her Affairs are ruled by the same Praepositi that is the Bishops and others having Ecclesiastical Authority with them For Presbyters are the same with Bishops in this and that Cyprian meaneth so may be gathered from his varying the word Episcopus into Praepositus Again granting that all the Acts of the Church are ruled by the Bishop this will not prove that they are ruled by him alone His other Testimony out of what he calleth Epistle 43 is far less to his purpose Felicismus with his Faction who formerly had opposed Cyprian's Election to be Bishop in his retirement not only without him but without the Concurrence of the Presbytery or Congregational Eldership I shall not determine which of these the Church of Carthage was then governed by received some of the lapsed which I as well as my Antagonist do reckon a very disorderly Action this Cyprian doth justly blame And that on this Ground that they set up another Altar in that Church that is they threw off the Church Authority that was regularly placed in Carthage and set up another beside we also would blame them who would cast off the Authority of the Presbytery or Kirk-Session and set up another What is Cyprian's meaning is yet clearer from what our Author unwarily citeth out of his Book de unittae Ecclesiae An esse sibi cum Christo videtur qui adversus Christi Sacerdotes facit Qui se à cleri ejus Plebis societate secernit Where he describeth Schisme to be when some depart from the Rulers and Members of the Church not from the Bishop alone and that is to be understood while they keep God's way § 30. His third Preposition is that Cyprian maketh the contempt of one Bishop or undutifulness to him the original of Schisme I am so far from opposing him in this that I think when people begin to quarrel with the meanest of Christs Ministers unless his Life or Doctrine or Government give just cause that they sin against God contemn his Ordinance and are on the brink of Schisme if not Haeresie also And I am sure all that he citeth out out of Cyprian on this head amounteth to no more except a word or two which I shall a little consider When he speaketh of one Bishop I understand him of one Praeses whether in a Congregational or Classical Presbytrey and that in conjunction with them who opposeth such Authority opposeth Christ's Institution He mentioneth p. 23. as also p. 32. The Bishops Monarchical power in the Church and maketh Cyprian prove it by the Bees who have a King the Beasts who have a Captain and Robbers who have a Chiftain It is evident to any who consider Cyprian's other Writings that he never arrogated to himself a Monarchical Power over the Church for he plainly disowneth it as we shall after have occasion to shew But he is here dealing with one Pupianus who had reproached Cyprian as proud and arrogant here Cyprian defendeth himself and retorteth the same Charge of Arrogance on Pupianus in that he took on him to arraign the Bishops and Rulers of the Church and had denyed his power in the Church and he sheweth what Inconveniency it were to the Church if all this time the Church of Carthage had been governed by a Man who had no Authority and in this he bringeth the similitude of the Bees c. Will any think that Cyprian was so weak as to take this for a sufficient Argument to prove Monarchical Power in the Church he only bringeth it as a similitude to illustrate this Truth that there must be a Government in the Church and it had been ill with the Church of Carthage if so long a time they had One over them who was no lawful Ruler which is no Determination of the Extent of Cyprian's power Neither was that the Question between him and Pupianus § 31. I proceed to his fourth Proposition p. 24. The Bishop was so much the principle of Vnity the people had such Dependence on him and was so virtually in him that what he did as Bishop was reputed the Deed of the whole Church which he ruled And to confirm this he bringeth Instances that Churches were blamed for communicating with criminal Bishops and that they did not separat from them and are commended for the Bishops owning the Truth Had our Author thought fit to peruse and consider his Papers before he printed them it is like we should not have been troubled with such crude Notions For 1. How can this be reconciled to what he had a little before-pleaded concerning the horrid sinfulness of separating from their Bishop and this without any distinction or Limitation 2. He is so unwise as to add one word that spoileth all his Design viz. As Bishop for what a Bishop acteth as Bishop he acteth in the Consistory or the Presbytery and by the plurality of their Votes and that is indeed the Fact of the Church Representative and of the Church diffusive too if they shew no dislike of it But this is no Semblance of Proof of the Power of Bishops that he pleadeth for Cyprian's Rhetorical flourish in saying that when Cornelius confessed the Faith before the Persecutors the whole Roman Church confessed Is no more but that Cornelius gave a faithful Testimony to that Doctrine that he had preached among that People and that they received and did still owne is this an Argument that Cornelius had the sole Power of Church-Government in Rome Yea all this might have been said of any Member of that Church who had so confessed and the Church did not reclaim but professed the same Truth It is far less probative that Cyprian desired to suffer at Carthage rather than else where that he might in Confession be the Mouth of them all And least of all is it an Argument that he calleth them his Bowels his Body their Grief was his Grief c. We must abandon all Sense and Reason if these pass for concludent Arguments Of the same weight is what he bringeth out of Pontius of the Blessedness of the people of Carthage who suffered together with such a Bishop I beg the Readers pardon for troubling him with such silly Arguments which need no Answer § 32. His fifth Proposition that the Bishops being the principle of Vnion to his Church was held before the Cyprianick Age This I say needeth no further Animadversion for it bringeth no new thing Neither is it to be imagined that Ignatius whom he citeth meant that the sole Authority of the Bishop rather than the Doctrine that he taught from the infallible Word of God was the Principle of Vnity to the Church Or that they who belong to Christ are with the Bishop whether he teacheth Truth or