Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	administer_v	sacrament_n	true_a	6,250	5	5.3715	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36486	An examination of the arguments drawn from Scripture and reason, in Dr. Sherlock's Case of allegiance, and his Vindication of it	Downes, Theophilus, d. 1726.	1691 (1691)	Wing D2083; ESTC R5225	114,324	80

Opinion notwithstanding his customary Complements of Nonsense and Trifling But it is more material to observe that the Doctour seems by this Account to have been more busie against the Oaths while he refused them than he is willing to acknowledge He disclaims being ever engaged in any Faction against taking the Oaths or making it his business to dissuade Men from it or seeking out Men to make Proselites but confesses only that he declared his Thoughts against them when he was asked But it seems to be a little more for a Man to be a Party to the Printing of a Book tending to dissuade Men from taking the Oaths and to make Proselites against it for him to wish it were actually printed to urge the printing it as soon as possible and to direct whither a Copy should be sent If this be more than what the Reverend Doctour would seem to own he may have forgot that he was so far engaged in one Overt-Act for the making Proselites against the Oaths and it would be more charitable for him to distrust his own Memory than to cast a Slander upon the Inventions of his Neighbours I would beg your leave to add one thing more with regard to the Doctor 's Raillery against the Notion of Presumptive Consent He says it is a very pretty Notion and serves a great many good turns i● makes Laws makes Treason and gives Authority to the inauthoritative Acts of a King de facto It serves a great many good turns so that the Dr. looks upon it as a Notion fit for no purpose but to serve a turn and one would think then that he above all Men should not ever have made use of it to serve his turn upon occasion And yet if we look back into his former Writings we shall find that no other Authour has served himself of this Notion in a more peculiar manner than the Reverend Dr. In his Vindication of his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet he asserts the Validity of the Ordinations by me●r Pres●yters in the foreign Reformed Churches which have no Bishops And upon what does he ground the validity of their Orders Why truly upon the Force and Authority which the Presumptive Allowance of the Church has in Cases of Necessity He takes some pains to prove that the Church's Consent may be presumed to these Ordinations from the Reasonableness of the Thing and from the Practice of the Church in parallel Cases but makes no Difficulty in the least to conclude that the Church's presumed Consent has sufficient Force and Authority to make these Ordinations by mere Presbyters and the Administration of the Sacraments by Persons ordained by them valid and effectual His word● are If the Church may be presumed in Cases of Necessity to allow Persons to perform such religious Offices and Minist●ries as otherwise 〈…〉 are not qualified to perform then this very Allowance supplies the Incapacity of the Person● and does virtually confer that Authority upon him which in other Cases he had not And 〈…〉 consider his farther prosecution of this Argument it will appear that the Doctour would make as little difficulty to assert that the Administration of the Sacraments by mere ●aymen in a Church where they have no Bishops or Pres●yters to administer them is mad 〈…〉 valid and effectual by 〈…〉 of the same Presumptive Allowance of the Church No 〈…〉 will the Dr. be pleased to look back upon his way of arguing in that Treatise and see ho 〈…〉 all his present R●●ll●●y ●● directly levelled against it The Presumptive Allowance o● the Church is a very pret●y No●ion and serves a great many good turns it makes 〈…〉 and it makes Prie●●● it makes Orders conferred by simple Presbyters true Orders and it makes the Sacraments administred by Persons who have not Episcopal Ordination nay even by mere Laymen true Sacraments and it makes a Church without Bishops nay without Bishops or Presbyters a true Church it gives Authority to the inauthoritative Acts of Ordaining in mere Presbyters and to the inauthoritative Acts of Administring the Sacraments in Persons ordained by Presbyters nay eve● in Laymen where they have no Bishops or Presbyters Does now the Dr. take this Raillery for a sufficient Confutation of his own pretty Notion of the Church's Presumptive Allowance If he does not why must we take it for an Argument against Bp. Sanderson's Notion of the Presumed Consent of the King de Ju●e Can the Church's Presumed Consent do all this and must the King 's Presumed Consent do nothing And whence is it that the Dr. asscribes so great Force and Authority to the Church's Presumed Consent He grounds it upon the Church's Power to dispense with positive Institutions in case of Necessity and by her own Approbation and Authority to supply the Defects and Irregularities of such Administrations But why must the Church have such a Power Why Because otherwise the Power of the Church is more defective than of any other Society of Men. Then other Societies of Men i. e Civil Societies have such a Power by the same reason as the Church has it and if this Power in the Church implies so great Force and Authority in the Church's Presumed Allowance then the same Power in the State implies as great Force and Authority in the Civil Magistrate's presumed Consent I do not look upon it as so very strange that the learned Dr. should contra●ict himself thus at the distance of 7 Years because in that time a man may become another Person and his very Principle of Vnity i. e. his Self-consciousness may be changed But it looks ●ery odly that others should be lashed with the Dr's Raillery and run down with his Confidence for no other Reason but that the Dr. is not at leisure to review his Writings 7 Years backward and so forgets and contradict● his old Notions He is very free to say he hath renounced no Principle bu● one that ever he taught but ever is a very long time and within a little more than 7 Years we find the learned Dr. tripping and renouncing one more pretty Notion besides that Principle He declares now that for his part he lays no stress upon a Presumed Consent but then he was pleased to lay the greatest stress upon it to make it the ground of the Validity of the Orders and Sacraments in the foreig● Reformed Churches which have no Bishops and consequently the ground of the very Being of those Churches Now he is pleased to expose the Notion which then did him such 〈…〉 Service as a Notion good for nothing but to serve a turn And is not this very pretty 〈…〉 after all the Dr. himself seems to be the onely P●rson who hath made use of this Notion to serve a turn for he ●aid the greatest stress upon it once when it was for 〈…〉 but declares he lays no stress upon it nay thinks sit to ridioule and explod● it ●ow that it is not for his turn

into the Authority of the People to make Kings which it is unjust for God himself to over-rule and alter for a legal Entail is nothing more than the Authority of the People and if the People have Authority to make Kings they will challenge as much Authority to unmake them A Legal Entail may be founded on the express consent of the People or upon a long continued Prescription which implies a full Consent and derives a good Title of Inheritance both before God and Man but though the Right be founded on Consent yet the Authority of Government is only from God The People have Power to consent and when they have consented Reason and Equity do dictate that they are bound to observe their own Pacts and Covenants But to speak properly this Obligation does not arise from Consent and Reason but from the Authority of God for Obligation is the effect of Law and nothing can be Law without the Sanction of superior Authority which in the Laws of Nature such as that is which requires that the People stand to their Pacts and to those Forms of Government which they have entred into can be God alone And thus as the Authority of Government proceeds from God so the Obligation of the People to adhere to that Entail which their Consent has made does proceed only from God's Sanction of that natural Law which makes their Consent irrevocable and for that Reason though they have some Power in making Kings they have none to unmake them But then if Consent be necessary to Right and God's Authority is not convey'd without Right Is not this to say that the Right of Government is not derived from God without the Consent of the People For if God cannot make a King without the People or against their Consent declared by their Laws the Authority must be derived from the People not from God or at least if it be God's Authority yet God cannot give it himself without the People nor otherwise than as they have directed him by their Laws And this says the Doctor is very absurd and what those Persons abhor the Thoughts of who insist so much upon a legal Right But where is this horrible Absurdity Is it that God cannot make a King without the People That indeed is an Absurdity but asserted by no one the Question is what God wills or does and not what he can doe He can make a King out of Stones he can make him without the People without any Instruments and without any antecedent Right but this he never does and what he can do is nothing to the purpose But does it not then follow that the Authority must be derived from the People not from God derived from the People onely as Instruments but then God cannot give it himself without the People which indeed is a self-evident Consequence for if God cannot make a King without the People it follows plainly that God cannot give Authority without the People He adds nor otherwise than as they have directed him by their Laws He should have said as God himself has directed for the Direction or Obligation of Laws proceeds from God alone But where are we Is it not his own Doctrine that God does never make Kings without the Consent of the People No matter whether this Consent be Law or no it obliges the People and Providence never sets up a King without it and how then can he acquit himself of these imaginary Absurdities If he says the Consent of the People is the effect of God's Choice is his Instrument or the Sign of his Conveyance of Authority the same say I for a legal Entail and his own Distinctions will answer his own Arguments 3. To justifie the Doctrine of Allegiance to Usurpers he urges this Argument That it is founded on the same Principle as the Doctrine of Nonresistence and therefore both must be true and false for it is founded on this Principle that God makes Kings and invests them with his Authority which equally proves That all Kings who have received a Sovereign Authority from God and are actually in the Administration of it which is the only Evidence we have that they have received it from God must not be resisted This Reason depends upon his former Proofs and falls together with them it is finally resolved into this Assertion that they who are in the actual Administration of Sovereign Power have received Authority from God An Assertion which makes all Usurpers the Ordinance of God which divests Charles I. and II. of God's Authority and assigns it to the Rump and Cromwell which gives the Sanction of divine Right to the greatest Wickedness and Injustice which is contradicted by almost all Divines and Lawyers by the Voice of Nations and by the Doctour himself for he acknowledges that God's Authority is not always annexed to the actual Administration of Sovereign Power Here he asserts that it is the only Evidence we have of the receiving Authority from God yet when he comes to account for Cromwell he confesses it is no Evidence and makes the Consent of the People to be the onely evidence of it We grant that Non-resistence is founded on God's Authority communicated to Sovereigns but we say that it is always communicated with Right that all just Rights are established by God's Authority that actual Administration is onely matter of Fact which is different from Right and that Usurpers may have it by God's permissive Will which is no Conveyance of Authority But Non-resistence it seems is Nonsense unless it be founded on this new Principle if it must be so who can help it We must acknowledge that Dudley Diggs's Dr. Fern's Dr. Hammond's Bishop Sanderson's Archbishop Bramhall's Defences of Non-resistence are Nonsense for they defend it upon another Principle which is more that all the Church of England Writers for at least ●0 years together even Bishop Stillingfleet Doctor Sherlock and the other Worthies of the Age have erred in the Foundation of Non-resistance and have preached nonsensically and writ nonsensically for it and which is more yet that no one Writer of the Church of England before the late Revolution has defended the Doctrine of the Church upon that Principle which by a new Light is discovered to be the true Foundation of it I cannot believe this without Demonstration but for that I am sent to the Clouds and to the unsearchable Abyss of Providence What the Doctour urges about receiving Authority from the People is answered already the 13th of the Roman● is also considered and Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book is fully vindicated from his Glosses and I am not now at Leisure for Repetition 4. To say that when the Divine Providence has removed one King and set up another we must not pay the Duty of Subjects to him if he have no legal Right is to deny God's Authority to remove Kings or set up Kings against humane Laws This he propounds as a 4th Reason