Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bishop_n	church_n	time_n	7,294	5	3.8646	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61665	A letter to Mr. Robert Burscough, in answer to his Discourse of schism, in which ...	Stoddon, Samuel.	1700 (1700)	Wing S5713; ESTC R10151	63,414	120

Ordained whereas it is Christ that communicates the Pastoral Power and Authority by his Charter of the Gospel the Power is deriv'd from Christ not from the Ordainers As the Major of a City has his Authority from the Charter granted by the King and not from the Recorder who invests him in his Office And yet neither is this true that an inferiour Officer may not invest one of a superiour Order in his Office else what have the Bishops to do at the Coronation of Kings unless you will make the Regal to be an Inferior Office to that of the Bishop which if you do you may next pretend to an absolving and deposing Power too But you tell us again That we do not find in Scripture That to mere Presbyters any such Authority was ever committed nor are there any Footsteps of it in Antiquity And we tell you That we find not in Scripture nor in Antiquity that this Authority was ever committed to any other than Presbyters But if you insist That they must not be mere Presbyters we Reply 1. How do you prove that either Simeon that was called Niger or Lucius of Cyrene or Manaen who were commanded from Heaven Act. 13.1 2. to ordain Paul and Barnabas were any of them at that time more than mere Presbyters as to Matter of Office 2. Where do you find in all the Books of the New Testament not only that a mere Bishop but that any one single Person whether Bishop or Evangelist or Apostle or any other besides our Lord Jesus Christ himself did ever celebrate this Ordinance of Ordination without the assistance of some others more or less of the Presbytery If you instance in Paul's ordaining Timothy with his own Hands will that prove that it was with his own Hands alone especially while he tells us so expresly in words at length and not in figures That it was done by the Hands of the Presbytery 3. We will propose you a Case which is possible tho' we hope will never be real Suppose the Churches of Christ should be reduc'd to a very few and the Bishops of these few should all turn Hereticks or Persecutors of the Orthodox and cast them out of their Communion the Presbyters retaining their Integrity These Presbyters by your Doctrin cannot ordain so much as a Presbyter to continue a Succession much less can they create a Bishop to do it Must the whole Church then be extinct for lack of a Bishop to Head them Or would you expect to have one rais'd from the Dead or sent back out of Heaven to do it 4. As for Antiquity There is nothing more clear than that in the Primitive Churches the Bishops and their Presbyters alway acted in Conjunction in all Acts of Church Discipline both of Excommunication Restauration Confirmation and Ordination And in the Banishment or Absence of their Bishops the Presbyters alone without the presence of any other Bishop did by his order and allowance which he could not have done had it not been a thing in it self lawful execute all that the Bishop was to have done in Person among them Nay St. Jerom will tell you that the Presbyters have Power to Ordain a Bishop over them and invest him with his Episcopal Authority as they did at Alexandria Sir There was a Time within the Memory of Man that Our Bishops were banished from their Clergy in England and what was the Whole Church of England then extinct and cut off from the Head Christ Doth eternal Salvation go and come with Lawn-Sleeves Yet once more you tell us That the Office which Timothy had was given him by Prophecy 1 Tim. 4.14 Or according to the Prophesies which went before of him 1 Tim. 1.18 His Ordination therefore must have been an extraordinary Thing and not to be drawn into Precedent except in parallel Cases But our Pastors you suppose do not pretend that they are mark'd out by Prophecy 1. We answer These Prophesies whatever they were concerning Timothy respected his Person and not the manner of his Ordination 2. It is very probable that the Apostles had a more than ordinary Direction relating to the choice of Ministers or Church-Officers many times in their Days Acts 20.28 It is there said That the Elders of the Church of Ephesus were made Overseers of their Flocks by the Holy Ghost i. e. as some think their Choice and Nomination was by Direction of the Holy Spirit of God And Clemens Romanus says That the Apostles in those Days ordained Bishops or Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Discerning by the Spirit and having a perfect Knowledge whom they should Ordain But what is all this to the way of Ordaining by Presbyters is an extraordinary Thing and not to be drawn into Precedent It 's probable that it had been foretold by some one or other that Timothy would be a faithful and eminent Minister of Christ who but you would have concluded from thence That his Ordination by Presbyters was an extraordinary Case 3. May you not as pertinently argue That none of the Ordinations done by the Imposition of the Hands of the Apostles are to be drawn into Precedent because these were extraordinary Cases the Apostles being extraordinary Persons who had an extraordinary and immediate Mission from Christ himself nor do we know of any Bishops that now pretend to be marked out by an immediate Call from Christ or any Prophecy of their extraordinary Vsefulness that have gone before of ' em But Sir Before you had given your self and us all this Trouble to so little purpose you had done much better to have sate down and considered how you could have answered Mr. John Owen's ten Arguments from Scripture and Antiquity Owen's Plea for Scripture Ordination proving Ordination by Presbyters without Bishops to be valid to which to save Labour of Transcribing we refer those that are willing to see much more on this Subject III. The Declamation which you make against popular Ordination we are not at all concern'd in but join with you in our hearty Wishes that they that are would deeply consider it Now to conclude this your third Section Having read out our Indictment in all the Articles of it and examin'd it after your manner you come to sum up the Evidence or what you call Evident and bring in the Bill against us that we have in all these Respects exceeded the Novatians Donatists and Meletians But before you proceed to your Damnatory Sentence we hope your Charity will take into Consideration what we have already so briefly offer'd in our own Defence and what we have yet further to plead for our selves as your following Discourse shall give us Occasion Your fourth Section in which you pretend to blow us wholly up Sect. 4. and to beat us out of all our Fasinesses and not to leave us a Rag to cover our Nakedness with is a Collection of just half a dozen of some little Things which you have pickt up some-where behind