Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	apostle_n	church_n	particular_a	2,274	5	6.8998	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47083	Of the heart and its right soveraign, and Rome no mother-church to England, or, An historical account of the title of our British Church, and by what ministry the Gospel was first planted in every country with a remembrance of the rights of Jerusalem above, in the great question, where is the true mother-church of Christians? / by T.J.	Jones, Thomas, 1622?-1682.	1678 (1678)	Wing J996_VARIANT; ESTC R39317	390,112	653

in general and to all Nations in particular that it is not his will we should be led by strangers more than by guides of our own flesh and bloud for this cause Christ took upon him humane nature when sent by God John 17.3 to direct the world For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels for this purpose Heb. 2.16 which though greatly Holy is yet Forraign to ours and as it were of another Country and their best messages seldome received by the best Christians without fear and horrour and suspition Luk. 2.9 Math. 28.45 But he took upon him the seed of Abraham being sent unto his own John 1.11 And in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren to be the better fitted for Sympathy towards us on his part and the belief thereof on ours Heb. 2.17 18. In like manner in sending his Apostles for the conversion of Nations the first fruits in every Nation that were converted to Christ were appointed for Bishops and Teachers as soon as might be to convert their Brethren and the Supemacy over the Gentile Churches not entail'd upon a Jewish line and succession forever as our first Teachers but upon the Natives themselves in every City and Country when fitted for it to Govern and direct their people and every Province to have its own Metropolitan chief within it self and unsubordinate to Foreigners And it is likewise observed that the needs of every Country in point of food and Raiment and Physick is best supplied from within it self and whether it be for the health or interest of this Nation to delight to wear forraign Liveries above its own I shall not now dispute and but that the Witchcraft and fascination that is in errour doth Seal up the Intellect it deludes less dispute there would be with all sober minds but that we have Governours of our own Nation praised be God fitted as likely for ability and compassion to be faithful guides to their Inferiour Brethren as the greatest Angels of the Church of Rome to whom were it alwayes certain they would prove good Angels we are not so near and dear as to our own Pastors who are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh And that our own wise Kings and Parliaments have and can make as wholesom Laws for this Church and State as the Conclave ever can or did how far and how dear soever fetched and bought To alledge as the Romanists do that Christ had his fix'd Officers his Apostles and Bishops in his Church before there were any Christian Kings which cannot be denyed that St. Peter was the chief of these Apostles which also may be granted for peace-sake as to his precedence but not any Jurisdiction that the present Popes are the successors of St. Peter in all his Authority and Holiness whether they follow him as he followed Christ or not and therefore are Superiours to all Christian Kings and Princes in their own Teritories as well as at Rome in all affairs relating to Religion is such a broken Title such a far-fetch'd Etymology and derivation of Authority as only fully proves the Antichristian humour of exalting themselves above every thing that is called God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Majesty as the word may imply which is the Jaundize that overspreads the face and vitals of that Church all over but cannot satisfie the conscience of any sober English Christian to relinquish and renounce his manifest allegiance and Subjection to his own Prince and Church to whom it is due to bestow the same to his own wrong and Spiritual danger as well as Temporal upon a forraign Power to whom it is not due and to rob his King to maintain a cheat For neither are our Brittish Churches more Subject to the Chair of Rome than is the Crown of France to the Crown of Spain which it had long a mind to but never any right neither if degrees and dignities be compared are Crowns to be Subject to the Mitre but the Mitre to the Crown For Kings if Heathen are without the Church and therefore not Subject to the Pope were he a lawful Vicar of Christ for what have I to do to judge them that are without them that are without God judgeth 1 Cor. 5.12 13. neither do they forfeit their Soveraignty by being Christian Kings by any colour or pretence of St. Peters supremacy St. Peter himself being judge who writes to his fellow Elders to feed the flock of God which was among them 1 Pet. 5.1 2. and to be subject for the Lords sake to the King as supreme for so is the will of God 1 Pet. 5.1 2. There is no where less love and honour from the heart to that blessed Apostle St. Peter no not perhaps in Hell than amongst them at Rome an out-side love or Philauty for Secular ends and designs they may have for him beyond any such as the Ephesian Silver-smiths had for Diana by which they had their wealth Act. 19.24 25. or Turks for Christs Sepulcher which turns to account unto them which is not their love to St. Peter but to themselves and bellies for if they had the least love and honour from the heart in Christ to his name and dignity they would rather chuse to starve or beg than face their frauds and cheats upon all degrees of men with his name and Authority or make him a complice or an Author to all their impious Usurpations and Rebellions against the Kings both of Heaven and Earth against his mind and principles as before For St. Peter himself from whom Popes derive all the power over Kings they can pretend to yea Christ himself from whom St. Peter had his and the whole Christian Church in his divine person while he was on Earth did submit to Magistrates and Presidents acknowledging their Power to be from Heaven John 19.11 and his Kingdom not to be of this world Joh. 18.36 as his pretended Vicars cannot also be by consequence for a Deputy cannot have more Power than his Soveraign St. Paul commands every soul to be Subject or subordinate to the higher Powers Rom. 13.1 which St. Chrysostom upon the place as before extends to Apostles and Ecclesiasticks as well as Lay and with good reason for no Crime can be Treason where is no Subjection and gives the title of excellency to Festus an Heathen President Act. 26. as St. Luke to Theophilus a Christian Luk. 1.3 an evident argument that neither would have denied the title of Majesty to a King and much more to a Christian King for as Servants gained no outward liberty by becoming Christians but continued Servants after as well as before their conversion 1 Cor. 7 20 21. So neither do Kings lose their Prerogatives or Supremacy by being Christians but are to be received into the Christian Society or Church in the same degree and quality they had in the Civil or State Superiour to all Inferiour to none And the Texts therefore that command

peculiar Ministers and Levites set a part by Gods Institution on purpose who were and are the Clergy of his Clergy and Heritage and the Priests to those in speciall that were and are his peculiar people and Priest-hood Exod. 19.6 Revel 1.6 The Church it self being Laick and common compar'd to these as was the World to the Church For no less is implied in the reason of those expressions where both the Christian and Jewish Church are said to be a Kingdom of Priests as in Exodus or Kings and Priests to God as in the Revelation they being in special manner Kings and Priests and Clergy from whom the name and title is deriv'd to others for some likeness and comparison for what the Copy is that is the Original much more And if Christs mission was not from Secular but Divine Authority so neither is the Institution of the Evangelical Priesthood from man but from God being sent from Christ as he was sent from God Joh. 20.21 Bishops and Presbyters being equally from Christs own Ordination and appointment though not of equal order and degree between themselves but in several respects the one Superiour and which may seem strange inferiour likewise to the other For the better understanding whereof the distinction between Spiritual and Temporal is to be remembered and considered in its Primitive and Apostolical acception and not the modern Roman sense who confound Heaven and Earth in their notions as they do in their values and affections the one referring to the present visible world the object of sense the other to the Church or Invisible world to come wherein Christians live here by Faith the Church being more excellent than this world as eternity is more than time and yet this world more excellent than the Church which is dead unto it in the estimation of sense as is the living more excellent than the dead Eccles 9.5 whereby is discoverable the several Superiorities between Episcopacy and Presbytery in the same person in whom both are co-incident as they are in every Bishop and those Elders in Timothy who for Ruling well and labouring also in the word and Doctrine were counted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 5.17 where in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have a clavis to decide this difference for the habitude and Character of a Bishop is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ruler or Prince as the Brittains term their Arcsh-Bishop of Carleon to Monk Agustine but that of a Priest or Presbyter is the form and quality of a Subject or Servant or Labourer which two notions greatly differ like God and Creature But then their several allotments or respective worlds are to be considered wherein the one and the other are said to labour or bear Rule And clear first it is that the Presbyters labour as a Servant under Christ in his word and Sacraments is within the Vineyard of the Church and therefore belonging to Eternity as the Church it self doth and that the Rule of the Bishop in the second place is Temporal by consequence and about order in this present world and the better preservation of the Temporal out-side of the Church for to affirm it to be a Spiritual Rule over the Church in its in-side which is Eternal and Christs own Peculiar Jurisdiction were very inconvenient and unsound And this Temporal Superiority over the Temporal part of an Ecclesiastical Community as to all Causes and persons that be within it for any Society whether Sacred or Civil can no more subsist or fare well without a Governour or a Chief than a body without a head continues in Bishops by Christs establishment till the rising of the Sun that is till the Civil Magistrate of that Province become Christian whose defect they before supplied as Guardians and then it doth set or cease but Heliacally as the Stars set in the morning in deference to a greater lustre that is better able to do their work continuing still in the same firmament and Sanhedrin under his Rayes and bound nevertheless by their office and duty to be ready to shine again without him as before in case of darkness or Eclipse as was said before And it well appears how the Christian Temporal Magistrates and the Church have understood one another in reference to their several bounds and limits by those parcels of Ecclesiastical Authority the one hath resum'd as his right and the other willingly quitted and yeilded thereunto as just upon his arrivall to Supremacy in Church as well as state For we never find him offering to touch any part of the Priestly office or the Power of the Keys nor to preach or Baptize or absolve or consecrate which acts and Authorities belong to another Spiritual Kingdom farr enough out of his Temporal Dominion and Jurisdiction But several parts of Episcopal Rule and Government have been rightly assum'd and yielded to him in Generall Counsels and in our Church of England in particular wherein he is declared supreme in all Causes and over all persons Ecclesiastical which was the Original Right of Metropolitans but since held by them as was fit not as Soveraigns any more but as subordinate to their Christian Magistrates And by this Hypothesis is resolvable whether Bishops ordain Priests as they are Priests or as they are Rulers which would make for the strength and re-allyance of the Protestant Interest For Bishops cannot Ordain of themselves without Priests to assist much less can Priests Ordain without a Bishop to preside where he may be had and Christian Kings offer not to resume as their temporal right any part of the Ordination or Consecration of either sort but only nominate our Bishops in the right of Patrons or Founders or as representers of the whole Community by whom they were in the Primitive Church elected as likewise in the Brittish Therefore the Priest who is but a Labourer is Inferiour and subordinate in this World to the Bishop who is a Ruler by Divine Order and designation not to be violated by any without the guilt and scandal of being Rebells against Superiours And the Bishop in his Chair as a Ruler is Inferiour to himself in his Pulpit as Christs Labourer and Preacher in reference to the other World For it is a higher excellency to be the least in Eternity than the greatest in time to subdue sin than to subdue the World Psal 84.11 Which yet is so as to Faith and reason and the Consciences of all sober men with their own yet not as to sense or the Law and course of this present life and general Practice whereby through humane infirmity very few yet not wanting in our times have been observed to be as ambitious of the labour of Converting Souls as of the honour and command of a Rich Bishoprick though the worst and Welsey himself at their dying hour have yielded to this Truth Whereby no Inferiour Minister that is diligent in his work and calling can have

promoted by and promoting that Authority here in contempt and breac● of all the Laws and Canons of the Catholick Church and the rights of this particular And attended in the Heavens above with dismal signes and prodigies as the like was never seen before Tanta hoc ●e● pore prodigia f Platina in Gregor 1 mo quanta nunquam antea Come●es perlucidus puer quadrupes c. which last might serve as a significant Emblem of this new Religion which serv'd to make men Babes in knowledge and Beasts in heart and conscience And accompanied on Earth below so uniform are its Antichristian Symptomes with another parallel Deceiver in the East the prophet Mahomet both alike feigning the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost by a Pigeon at the Ear wherein Gregory was not taught by Mahomet who was Junior to him and born in the year of Monk Augustine's landing here But rather Mahomet might have heard or borrowed it from Gregory or both perhaps been taught the Art by one and the same Tutor But both Reignes the Mahometan and the Gregorian have much the same Epocha and Horoscope And both began to prevail the one in the West the other in the East in the duske and twilight of that long and Greenland night that was to prevail by Gods permission and secret judgement over the whole face of the Christian Church for the space and duration of eight or 900 years or more to count from the year 600 when the Western part thereof first began to the dawning of our Restoration in Henry the seventh as before The success of this Romish Plantation among us being answerable to its first manner of entrance and proving in the end the Eclipse of the true Religion before in the Land and it self a degenerate sort of Christianity falling short of sober Heathenism in many respects Of which that of St. Paul may be rightly applyed And the times of this Ignorance God wincked at but now Commandeth all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 About the dead time of this dismal long night of Popery that is about the years 900 to 1300. answering to the hours from 12. to 3. in the morning The dreams of Purgatory and Transubstantion first possess'd mens fancies and dead Ghosts and Specters and Hobgoblins began to fry and skreek in Purgatory and to cry for help from private Masses And the Franciscan and several other Melancholly Orders to walk bare-foot up and down like Noctambulon's or night walkers in their sleeps and shirts And men stumbl'd upon many Tutelar Gods and Patrons groping in the dark for the true and still us'd Candles at Noon-day throughout their Worship without any need as it were further to prove that it is a time of night amongst them And the Dreams of Nunnes and Monks were rehears'd in Pulpits instead of godly Sermons as the g Bradwardin in Prefat in lib. de causâ Dei Deriving his name or descent I suppose from Brordordhun Castle in Herefordshire belonging to the Family of the Vaughans Profoundest and greatest Clerks then hardly abstain'd from their own in their Writings and the eyes of all both Clergy and Laity sealed up in a deep sleep of implicit Faith And the Host went from Street to Street with a Bellman and the Popes Rid sleepy Kings and Emperours For in the year eleven hundred Hildebrand or Pope Gregory the seventh depos'd the Emperour Henry the fourth And another took his Crown from King John while he was nodding About the same time Canterbury o●erlay St. Davids and in Thomas Becket began to sting our Princes that had given it warmth and being But the Fornications and other works of darkness in that time are not to be nam'd or number'd the peculiar concomitant of this fleshly Haeresie as they say to this day scarce reckon'd or censur'd for a sin for its commonness amongst the chief Saints of this dark perswasion And this dark season serv'd as well for Robberies of all sorts of Goods Lands Houses Churches throughout the Isle which were secur'd and appropriated to Sanctuaries and Monasteries by the same dark Arts they were committed till about the time of Ric●ard the second several were awakned out of their first sleep with the ●●r as was Wickliff and Sir Jo●n Old-Castle Lord Cobham and the Loll●rds who were desirous to rise before it was day and to reform these abuses before it was Gods appointed time But all between that and morning fell asleep again as fast as ever till dawning of day in the Henryes 7. and 8. of Brittish race which last finding himself thin and unattended expected more respect and observation for saith he in a speech h Hall 24. H. 8 fo 205. We thought that our Clergy of our Realm had been our Subjects wholly but now we have well perceived that they be but half our Subjects for all the Prelates at their consecration make an Oath to the Pope clean contrary to the Oath they made to us so that they seem to be his Subjects and not ours And began then to take course to recover his Spiritual Subjects whom the Pope stole from him and to rouse and awaken both Court and Kingdom against the Burglaries they committed upon others in the dead of night an● to seize upon the stolen Goo●● which in England seldom ●evert to the right owners and to Discipline the whole Fraternity into better dependance upon their Soveraign burning several in the hand to make them cry God save the King instead of the Pope and as i Sinnych Saul ●x Rex some affirm arraigning Thomas ●ecket of high Treason against Henry the second after he had been prayed to in Heaven for about 400 hundred years to heal his people of the seditious influence of his Canonization By this time it was Sun-rising and the Gospel appear'd in our Horizon and in the English tongue and in Edward the 6th and Queen Elizabeth and King James after some Eclipse encreased in ful lustre to a perfect day that all eyes were open and sluggards began to rise and understand themselves and to be asham'd of their somnolent Religion yea the chief Calebs and Spies and Writers of the Roman Church by peeping into our Hemisphere and reading our Heretical Books as they reproach them became strangely alter'd and enlightened ever afterwards in stile and learning as well as our selves for the Polite World ows all its knowledge to Protestantism as it former Barbarous Ignorance to Popery but to their greater guilt and Condemnation with those in the Gospel That had eyes and would not see and ears and would not hear their hearts through love of its Idol more than God and the Truth being out of order But since the weather in our English Church hath been dark and cloudy for some years through the contrivance and malignity of some evil spirits Infesting our Air and troubling our Elements recommending poison to Grandees in Marriage Wine and Treaties to dispose them to old drowsiness and a far

succeeded the Roman should be Antichrist yet none must be Catholicks and right Christians but they alone How far they may prevail on any of our Great ones with their tale and story I cannot tell yet the generality of the Nation God be praised are not so forsaken by him as to love to be so deluded but are as deaf as Vlysses against such charms what attempts soever have been used to prepare and mollifie them by debauchery for the Imposture and ready to answer these Impostors as did the Neighbour-hood in the fable the beggar at Towns-end with his counterfeit Lame legg Quaere Pergrinum vicinia tota reclamat go to Japan or Hispaniola to set up your Stage and boast your receipts In England mens eyes are open and the mystery too well known yea the Wisest and Stoutest and most Prosperous of our Kings and Princes in former Ages our Renown'd Edwards and Henries and Elizabeth have sufficiently unkennel'd these Foxes and hunted them and their craft and their stink and their fire-brands and their trouble far out of our Church and State But when ever by a Judgement upon a Nation they light upon any that are more tractable and credulous their first attempt will be immediately like that of a Crow setting upon a young Lamb for prey to play first at the eyes to peck them both out to sink and fix Implicit Faith and blind obedience like two hollow pits instead And then the rest of the design shall be finish'd with less disturbance and every blow and Inconvenience never seen till it light and then also Conscience and Honour and Publick Peace and Truth and the Allegiance of the soul to Christ must make no objections after the Judgement is once Idolatrously resign'd yea should they offer to draw back when they see their errour and danger for to err is human to recover is Angelical to persevere is Diabolical How will these false guides grinne and shake their heads if not brew worse things in them at their departure or their return from Forreign cheats to God and their Country and the Truth How will they rip up and wound his name and honour with the Imputations of Inconstancy Weakness Apostacy Perjury and what not as the unclean Spirit tore the man in the Gospel when he was to quit possession for doing no more but what themselves as they are men and Christians ought to do in point of duty and safety upon the Eternal Allegiance of their Souls to Christ and the Truth and count it high honour and glory in great ones to lead It being in reason a greater Arrival and perfection to be wise and holy against the deceitfulness of sin and Satan than to be couragious amidst dangers Scipio and Alexander being more admir'd in Story for their Continence than for their Conquest for their Victories over Beauty than over Enemies If our Romish Pretenders had any the least descent or resemblance in bloud or temper or Spirit with the Ancient Roman Worthyes or any drop of Camillus or Scipioes bloud in their Veines who valued the honour and Sanctity of their false Gods above their lives and Empire could their great and clear Spirits thus descend to pervert the Gospel into matter of Trade and Merchandize or truel and plaister their mean and unworthy ends with the bloud of the Son of God And make his Glorious Resurrection and Ascention a Varnish for their secular usurpations And his chief Apostles and Holy Catholick Church complices and Vouchers of all their Frauds and Tyrannies and Treasons Which is manifestly done when any wrong to men or Churches as the Case was made plain in our Brittish are palliated with their Sacred Names and Authorities as the practice is as plain and common in their Romish Church towards us and all Christendom besides If it be counted miserable Ignominious Harlotry corpore questum facere how much more abominable is it to make the like Trade and sinful gain of the Gospel and Christ and their own Souls as well as those of their Brethren It were far more fair and generous in them and the lesser of the two evils to renounce and deny Christ and his Religion outright than so to profess it and to spit in the face of their Redeemer than thus to kiss him and to abuse without ceasing his most Holy Name and Faith to ●o● and deal and cheat and disturb the World as it were a less indignity to a person of honour to be denyed Quarter than preserv'd alive to tread Mor●e● or to g●ind in a Mill. Tolerabilior es● q●● mor● jubet quam qui turpite● vivere Can any sort of Christians be more real●y Heathens saving such Ambidextrous Protestants who for their present advantage and Interest can promote Popery in their Countrey though they believe it to be a false and a dead Religion and betray their own which they possess and know to be most Orthodox and sound preferring madly a superlative Carnal self before both Religions and their own truth But though those of Rome are far from Old Romans either in Faith or Fame or Bloud yet so are not we in England from the Old Brittains in either of these respects But far ou●●oing both in another good quality of containing our selves within the bounds of our Isle without great and just cause to sally out and not coveting turbulently other mens rights or their Kingdoms or Churches which is true past doubt of the Brittains in Wales and was prov'd before at large as to the English In the great and as it were second Deluge of Christendom for their Gygantick sins by Goths and Vandalls and Normans and Saxons for inundations of Nations in Mystical Scriptures are compar'd to those of Waters Rev. 17.15 wherein most other people were swept away and drown'd and their Languages and names obliterated and Scepters and Churches overturn'd our Brittains alone charg'd through and surviv'd the brunt of all Invasions and swame to Land through all those Billowes alive and safe with their Bibles in their hands and their Creed in their hearts and their own Language in their mouths living to see their Church restor'd to its old liberty and purity their Crown to their own Flesh and Bloud and the divided Island to great Brittain again Before their nunc Dimi●●is and dissolution by Incorporation with the English Nation or rather Re-union with their Loe●●●a Brethren recovering themselves through Gods wonderful mercies and Resurrections to innocent and long sufferers and his blasts and periods upon Lines of Bloud and violence in 〈◊〉 Princes and Nobles and Generality into O●a 〈…〉 again as was prov'd before di●●c●ing perhaps in names and Dialect but not in Nature and Humour and Succession to the like generous defence of their Faith and Glory being ●oth observ●d in their Dispositions for the most part to be alike Fearless and Harmless and Warlike and Liber●l and Religious and subject to Indignation and neither the one nor the other our Modern or Middle or most