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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	5,870	5	9.6775	5	true

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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

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

Rome as to Ecclesiastical Constitution But now if this one Point of the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome were the great Foundation of the Christian Faith as it must be if his pretences to it by divine Right are true it is a very strange thing that there should not be so much as the shadow of any such Authority in all the Records of the Primitive Church Is it not very odd that when so many Controversies were started in the Christian Church both in the Apostles own time and in the Ages next and immediately following and that when Almighty God had appointed S. Peter and his Successors in the See of Rome the certain and undoubted Judges for ending all Controversies that yet none of the Apostles or Primitive Doctors of the Christian Church that labor'd so much against Schisms Heresies and Divisions should ever so much as think of or mention such an effectual nay infallible Remedy against them all One Appeal to the Bishop of Rome had put an End to all further Trouble and certainly had God vested him with that Power over the whole Christian Church they could never have been so stupid as never to have taken any notice of it And yet we find not the least mention of it for many hundred years after the settlement of Christianity in the World And perhaps the Bishops of Rome themselves had never thought of it had it not been first put into their Heads by the Bishop of Constantinople by whom it was as I shall shew in the sequel of this Discourse first claimed Some small glimmerings indeed we meet with of some honorary Preeminence or Dignity allowed to the Church of Rome upon the score of its being the Imperial City and by reason of the great resort to it of its being one of the most competent Witnesses of the true Tradition of Christianity But that it should have any Jurisdiction over any other Churches out of its own Province much more such an universal power over all Churches in the World as is now challeng'd is a Notion so utterly strange and unknown to all Antiquity that the bare silence of it alone is an irrefragable demonstration of the Novelty of the Pretence But for the greater Evidence of this thing which indeed is the first point of Controversie between us I shall make bold as briefly as I can to give Your Royal Highness a true and impartial account of the State of the Christian Church from the beginning and then of the several and gradual Alterations that were by Ecclesiastical Constitutions made in it in after times and lastly how and how late the Popes of Rome climb'd up to that infinite Authority that they have for some Ages exercised and still claim over the Christian Church And when I have done all this I may safely leave it to Your Royal Highnesses Princely Wisdom to judge what Obligation You can have in Conscience to leave the Communion of the Britannick Church for that of Rome And in the first place there is nothing more evident in all the Records of the Primitive Church than that the Apostles and first Doctors of the Christian Faith modell'd the first Settlement of Churches according to the then present State and Division of the Roman Empire For though our blessed Saviour settled the Supreme Government of his Church upon his holy Apostles and their Successors yet he no where prescribed the bounds and limits of every Man's Jurisdiction but left it as indeed the Nature of the thing required to Humane Prudence ot divide the Provinces among themselves as they should judge most convenient for the Advantage of their common Christianity And accordingly we find from the very beginning that they formed the Jurisdiction of Churches according to the Civil Judicatures of the Empire common Prudence directing them so to do not only for the more speedy Propagation of Christianity by the resort of all People to the Metropolis of the Province which they therefore constituted the Mother Church of it but that whenever the Powers of the World should come in to own Christianity the better Correspondence might be maintain'd between the States Civil and Ecclesiastical And beside this by making the Head City of every Province the Metropolis of the Church within that Province upon which the inferior Cities depended as the Centre of Communion they thereby admirably secur'd the Unity of the whole Body while every Episcopal Church exercised ordinary Jurisdiction within it self but was bound either in cases of great Difficulty or such as concerned the common Christianity to have recourse to the Mother-Church And this was apparently the Original of the Privilege and Preeminence of some Churches above others from the beginning not that they ever pretended to any Sovereignty over them in their particular Jurisdictions but only as the Centre of Ecclesiastical Unity so as to decide Controversies whenever any inferior Church appealed to them for their Advice or to summon Councils and preside over them in all Debates that concerned common Christianity And that this Distribution of Provinces and Bishopricks was setled by the Apostles seems evident from their own Writings who every where describe the bounds of Churches according to the Constitution of the Empire Thus St. Peter directs his Epistle to the several Churches of the Christian Iews with respect to so many several Provinces Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bythinia which as they were distinct Provinces in the Civil Division of the Empire so were they from that time forward so many distinct Provincial Sees in the Communion of the Church And nothing is more obvious in the Epistles of St. Paul than that whenever he makes mention of any Church he either calls it by the name of the Province it self or the Metropolis or Head City of it And as this design of conforming the Ecclesiastical State to the Civil was first set on foot by the Apostles so was it carefully prosecuted by their Successors of which we have an eminent Instance in the Apostolical Canons which though they were not compiled by the Apostles themselves yet they were by Apostolical Men and such as immediately succeeded them where it is decreed in the 34 Canon That the Bishops of every Nation should acknowledge their Primate or Metropolitan and honor him as their Head and do nothing of moment in the Christian Church wthout his consent nor he without theirs Now that this was prescribed by the Apostles themselves is evident in that as this Canon was made a very short time after their Decease so it is not a new Law but a Ratification of an old Custom as indeed most of the Apostolical Canons seem to be This was apparently the Constitution of the Christian Churches in all places of the Empire for the first three hundred years or the whole interval of time from our Saviour to Constantine that as every City was governed by its own Bishop so was every Province by its own Metropolitan in his Synod of Bishops of which

with the Church-Episcopal for it is impossible to be a Member of the Universal Church without being first a Member of some particular Church both because the Universal Church is made up of the Combination of particular Churches and because there is no way of Communicating in the Offices of Religion but under some limited Societies The Bishop then in every Diocess is as Successor in the Apostolical Office Head of the Communion within his own Diocess and for that Reason the ordinary Judge and Guide to all Christians within his Jurisdiction So false is that Calumny of which the Romanists pretend to make so much Advantage against the Constitution of the Church of England that She doth not so much as pretend to any living Judge of Faith For what Judge She owns as to the Catholic Church I may shew in its proper place But as for every particular Christian She commits him to the Care of his Bishop as his ordinary Guide and Governour in the things that concern his Salvation Now if this be the setled Constitution of the Christian Church as it was from the beginning I cannot understand how any Christian can leave the Communion of his own Bishop to communicate with any other without being guilty of Schism against the Church that he lives in For tho he may advise with any other Bishop about the Welfare of his Soul and follow his Advice as a Friend yet by the original Constitution of the Church none but his own Bishop can have any authoritative Commission for his Guidance and Instruction So easie is the Answer to that solemn Question Who is the living Judge and Guide of your Faith For if it be put to a private Christian it is plain that from the Constitution of the Catholic Church as it was setled by the Apostles that it is the Bishop under whom he lives to whom God hath committed the ordinary means of the Salvation of his Flock and promised to be assistant to him and the Successors in his Office to the end of the World This is the first visible Society or Communion of a Christian Church and was evidently laid and design'd by our Blessed Saviour in his Institution of the Episcopal Office The next is founded upon Apostolical Prescription and that is the Association of the Bishops of a Province with their Metropolitan for in the Plantation of Churches as they cut out the Communion of Christians into particular Bishopricks so they again united the several Bishopricks of every Nation into one Communion under one Head who as he is superior to every single Bishop within his Resort so is he is his Synod of Bishops Supreme Judge of all Controversies within the Province These Provincial Assemblies I have shewn were the highest Power of the Primitive Church in all Places neither indeed setting aside the Promise of divine Assistance to them is there need of any further Appeal upon humane accounts for the Controversives in Christianity are not so monstrously difficult but that a competent Number of grave and sober Men may determine well enough without calling together all the wise Men in the World and if Twenty are not sufficient to decide any Controversie I know not what Number is And as this was the standing ordinary Jurisdiction in the first Ages of the Church so the Christians of those Times suppos'd the means of Salvation sufficiently secur'd in such Hands and certainly that which was sufficient to them is so to us And as this was the highest Government in the Church for the first three Hundred Years so those more diffusive Assemblies that were afterward summon'd and that we call general Councils were really of the same nature for as a Provincial Assembly was national so were these Imperial and therefore subject but to one civil Government So that as the Empire was indeed but one great Kingdom so was the Church in it but one great Province they being both under the same extent of Government And this is the true Use of Councils whether greater or less by the Decree of the Representatives of Churches to bind those Churches that they represent And that is but a reasonable thing in all Societies that they should be determin'd by their Governours especially when they are set over them by the appointment of God himself Neither is it so very material how large Councils are as to their Obligation for whether they be greater or less they equally bind all that are involv'd within the compass of their Authority And tho there may be greater Presumption in the Decrees of the greater Councils yet are they for the most part meetings rather of Grandeur than Necessity but especially those that we call General Councils are now so difficult to be summon'd that they are become almost impracticable Whilst indeed the Roman Empire stood entire it was not so hard to convene them yet even then was it a Business of so much Time and Charges as made it too burthensom to be born by any thing less than the Roman Greatness and that too in very rare and extraordinary Cases But if so it could never then be intended for the standing and perpetual Government of the Christian Church But now that Christendom is divided into so many civil Governments the Difficulties are so great and so many through the various Interests of Princes either to promote or hinder it as to render it next to impossible Tho if it could be fairly had the Church of England would not refuse her Concurrence in it both as being assured of the Goodness of her Cause in that she owns no other Rule of her Reformation but the Practice of the Primitive and Apostolick Church and as well knowing that the greatest part of the Church of Rome would as willingly rid themselves of those Abuses that have been put upon them by the Court of Rome as we have done And this the Spanish and French Bishops had carried through even in that pack'd Council of Trent had not the Pope poured in a number of Titular Italian Bishops to over-vote them But it is none of my present Business to rake into the Faults of the Church of Rome 't is enough to my purpose to vindicate the Communion of the Church of England Granting therefore the Church of Rome to be a pure and uncorrupted Church yet because it is a Foreign Church no Man can be under any Obligation to leave the Communion of his own to joyn with that In this one point I fix the State of this whole Address and say nothing at present to persuade any Person that lives within the Communion of the Church of Rome to forsake that my only Concernment is with the Members of the Church of England to keep them to their own Church according to the Rule from the Beginning If it be objected That the Church of England be a narrow Thing in comparison of the Catholick Church I answer That the Church of England doth not pretend to be the Church Catholick but