Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	ecclesiastical_a	person_n	power_n	4,607	5	5.1125	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36889	The great efficacy and necessity of good example especially in the clergy recommended in a visitation sermon preached at Guilford / by Tho. Duncumb ...	Duncumb, Thomas, d. 1714?	1671 (1671)	Wing D2610; ESTC R22681	23,511	37

what St. Paul has set so punctually before our eyes 1 Tim 4.16 Take heed into thy self and unto thy Doctrine continue in it for in doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee But here now I would not all this while be mistaken by such as are not of my own Calling and Profession as if my Masters Commission were so confin'd to those of my own Coat as that it reacht not others too of another calling No I am to charge your all by all that 's dear unto you even as you are Christians that you also be examples of Believers in Word in Conversation in Charity in Spirit in Faith in Purity If we who are your poor devoted Servants preach up Charity and Purity to you in our Pulpits and then sincerely endeavour a more lively expression and representation of them in our Practises and you in the mean time let all get no further then the eyes and ears what I pray is this but to make your own Condemnation the greater What our Saviour then said to some others we may say to you John 17.22 If we had not come and spoken unto you you had not had sin but now you have no cloak for your sin Think not then that God fends you such shining lights for to sport and play withal but rather to improve them Think not that God sends you such burning lights too only to make you a little luke warm but rather that your little spark of grace that your smoaking Flax may by them become an enlarged Flame Think not that the high and holy God sends his Ambassadors for you to laugh at but to make your mourn penitently for those very sins which otherwise will send you mourning perplexedly into infernal flames Think not then That God sends his silver Trumpets sounding daily in your ears only to lull and lay you asleep but rather to rouse and awaken your duller Souls from the sleep of sin unto some higher measures and degrees of of activeness for God and the saving of your immortal Souls Oh Sirs beware of barrenness and sterility after so much labour bestowed upon you You know the fate of the fruitless Figtree Beware then I say after all our weeping over you like some Cloth you shrink not in the wetting Believe me this will send many of us away with Tears in our Eyes to our Graves but your selves I fear with stings in your Consciences Oh then let us all but Officers especially belonging to the Church drive at that eminency of Holiness and Purity that becomes persons in such places of Ecclesiastical Authority Let not your Courts be called Spiritual whilst their Officers appear but Carnal Let not your Consciences tell you at death you had once an opportunity to make those more exemplary by your power whom we of the Clergy could not make so by our preaching yet you either cowardly or corruptly conniv'd at all their obstinacies and wilful affronts offer'd to the Church The Jews I have read had their Terriculamenta Corvorum Certain gastly formidable Pictures or Images set by their Altars to fright away offensive birds but the learned Selden tells us of a complaint of a later Rabbin That when the birds saw these Images or Pictures did them no harm they would commonly steal flesh away from the Altars and sit upon their heads to eat and dung on them when they had done The moral is easie and familiar How happy then were it for the Church and the whole Nation too were all their respective Officers better Examples of Believers themselves in Word Conversation and Charity and in a discreet execution of the Laws without cowardice or corrupt partiality Then I am apt to think we should not have some of our Church-wardens so unmindful of their Oaths and others so unfaithful to their promises as I fear we have many in our Parishes You are all by your places and offices obliged to serve the Church either by the Oath you have taken or the promise you have made Methinks then you should see your selves the more obliged to execute your authority without the least wilsul connivance or partiality But alass how frequent and familiar is it amongst many of you to present only some poor impotent cleeted Delver but pass by the more responsible luxurious Dives how common I say is it with many of you to present your poorer Neighbors whilst you suffer your brutish Betters to make their Chambers their only Churches upon the Lords day and rhe Alehouse or Tavern the chiefest places of resort all the week after Have not many of you a scandalous sort of Superiours such as they be about you who propagate Atheism Irreligion and open prophaness in your Parishes by their daring Oaths Cursings and new coyn'd execrations with many other unchristian practises Oh! then wrong not the Church the Nation and your own Consciences by being such timerous respecters of persons Disgrace not your papers of Presentments with wrapping up in them only the shreds and rags of your Parish since you may so easily find Silks and Sattins enough to supply them and indeed were the spots and stains better rub'd out of these I cannot but think there would be more of the beauty of holiness amongst the rest of your meaner Inhabitants Would you be so piously couragious as to top the luxuriant branches of these taller Cedars you would quickly find the courser Shrubs growing under them to thrive the better Would you weed these scarlet poppies out of your Parishes without partiality you would hardly find so many scarlet sins reigning amongst us would you I say but pull off this green and flourishing Ivy which clings and hangs about the body of the Church as if it lov'd and supported it when indeed nothing less I am sure the Church would flourish the better for it I am far from the design of exasperation but this one thing more I must venture amongst you Let scandalous Great ones know you stand as much upon your Consciences as they upon their supposed Honour and indeed it s a shame to see them draw their Swords to justifie their Credit such as it is and your selves such heartless Cowards in defence of your Consciences to keep them such as they should be Remember it 's the notion of one greater than the greatest of them all no less a person then our late Royal Master in his Icon. Basil where he tells us 'T is dangerous very dangerous gratifying any faction much less such a one as this in a kingdom to the violation of a known law I have one errand more and that 's from the Dead to you the Church-wardens of our Parishes and indeed could the Dead be as effectually summon'd from their silent graves as you have been from your houses to attend this Visitation I doubt not but that many of them would have met some of you here this day with their juster Presentments and Complaints against you not for that they envy you

be unto God 〈…〉 savour of Christ 2 Cor. 2.15 and unto men of Christianity in its greatest Power and Purity Let no man ●●spise thy Youth But be thou an Example of the Believers That is It 's not enough for thee to content thy self with being a bare Example of meerly moral civiliz'd men though this be very valuable in it self but rather raise thy Soul to some higher pitch of Piety and Profession and look upon thy self especially in the place where thou art as highly concern'd to be no less than a lively Pattern too of the nobler and more excellent Persons even of the Believers those Heav'n-born Souls those bright and sparkling Jewels of Heavens Bosom● of whom the World is not worthy Heb. 11.38 and who keep themselves unspotted from the World Jam. 1.29 These these are the Darlings of Heaven whom thou art carefully to teach and to build up more and more in their most holy faith by thy own more holy and exemplary Lift Thou art to 〈◊〉 them all such an exact Copy and Transcript of an heavenly Nature and Disposition as that thou mayst not ●●em to lack any part or particular appertaining to it but rather whatsoever it really is in Word whatsoever in Charity in Spirit in Faith and in Purity than especially thou ar● bound to shew and to confirm Believers in by way of Eminency It seems by all this St. Paul would have his Timothy and so all others too in his Place and Heavenly Employment not to be like the dry and sapless stumps of the grove always at a stand but like the more juicy thriving Plants of the Garden keeping not onely their a●ore spriteful verdure but shooting forth too into some higher measures of exemplary improvement and perfection He would have all such as are called to serve at the Altar not only barely to keep their sacred fire from going out but to be exemplary too in blowing it up into some higher and hotter flames than ever yet it had before Indeed like his most excellent self when he tells the Philippians 3. Philip 13.1 I count not my self to have apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before The Text then you see My Reverend Brethren seems to be nothing more than our Lure or rather Alarm calling us all to a greater measure and degree of Sacerdotal exemplariness and perfection awakening us too out of all that scandalous torpor and oscitancy out of all those empty professions and formalities we are too too apt to allow our selves in and to put our people off withal in all our respective Duties and Services for you plainly see St. Paul thinks it not enough for Timothy to be a meerly speculative notional Divine a great Casuist and Critick 2 Tim. 3.15 an excellent Textuary or one mighty in the Scriptures for so Timothy was unless he prove a good Expositor too upon them in his life All these accomplishments indeed he looks upon as very laudable and illustrious in their kind and place but unless this Gold be well grac't with the Enamel the Rubies and precious Pearles of an excellent Spirit a visible Charity Faith and Purity 't will never have that countenance or acceptance that becomes an Ambassador of the most high God nor yet that sparkling taking beauty that becomes a Jewel fixed in the sacred bosom of the Church Wherefore St. Paul adviseth Timothy and in him all of us above all to approve and present our selves upon the open stage of the world as Examples of Believers in word in conversation in charity in spirit in faith and in purity The Text then seems to exact and call for our stricter thoughts and reflections upon these four following Particulars it presents us withal The first is the very great but greatly neglected Duty of Sacerdotal Exemplariness indispensably incumbent upon all such of us especially who are prime Rulers or yet but inferior Officers of the Church in these words But be thou an example Thou especially O Timothy who art in a place of special trust and Ecclesiastical Authority Secondly We have a just Enumeration of all those more choice and singular instances and particulars wherein Timothy and so all others too in his Sacerdotal sacred circumstances ought especially thus to appear and present themselves as eminent patterns and examples and they are no more or less than six but such as are ready to make us all bright and victorious in the eyes of all our severest Adversaries viz. We must be examples of Believers in word in conversation in charity in spirit in faith and in purity Thirdly We have the specification of those particular persons to whom Timothy is thus oblig'd to be an example and lively pattern in all these heavenly perfections and they are Believers such it seems as walk so stedfastly by faith 1 Cor. 4.8 that they look not at the things which are seen 11 Heb. 13. but confess rather that they are Pilgrims and Strangers on earth 2 Cor. 8.5 Such as have so given themselves to the Lord as that 1 Phil. 21. to them to live is Christ These are the persons before whom St. Paul would have his Timothy to walk as such a burning and shining light in all places and in all his practises as that they may from thence derive fresh strength and encouragement to sight the good fight and to run the race that is set before them with joy and faithfulness Fourthly We have a special motive impli'd enforcing this so great a Duty of Sacerdotal Exemplariness impos'd in these words Let no man despise thy youth importing nothing more than this That if Timothy made not himself thus an example of Believers ●n word in conversation and charity in spirit in faith and in purity he went the ready way especially being but a young man to be made himself by others an example of publick scorn reproach and infamy And now having presumed to give you this plain account of the words and as plainly paraphrased them too for the better advantage of the more narrow vulgar capacities under me I doubt not but you all see your graver selves not a little concerned in them and my self too unavoidably oblig'd to stir up all your purer minds by way of remembrance of the First Remarkable in in the Text and that is The great Duty of Sacerdotal Exemplariness Indeed a Duty never more needful from the creation than in this our present age and generation an age that flyes at all Learning an age matchless and incomparable for knowledge an age that seems to be even surfeited with our Sermons and now inquires and looks into nothing more than the lives the faults and defects of the Clergie In my prosecution then of this so important a point I hope 't will not appear either unseasonable or unprofitable if I endeavour an humble suggestion of what I know your more acute and piercing judgmnets and better experience hath