Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	bishop_n	church_n	presbyter_n	6,432	4	10.8614	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52038	An expedient to preserve peace and amity, among dissenting brethren. By a brother in Christ	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1647 (1647)	Wing M754A; ESTC R204591	29,957	42

circumstances thereof we have also the word of man as infallible as mans can be for that we may take upon good trust to be morally infallible which proceeds from men who neither deceive nor are deceived Now I suppose that the Parliament hath so fully declared their sincerity and discharged their trust in establishing this government that the most opposite thereunto cannot admit of such an unworthy thought as if they intended to impose any government upon the people which in conscience they thought not most agreeable to Gods word which as it cleareth them from the least suspicion of deceiving so it is also manifest that they have used the best and most approved means allowed to mortall man not to be deceived For in this waighty worke they have begun with the invocation of Gods infallible Spirit which is the Author and leader into all truth and have assembled Learned and religious men of the holy calling to enter into free deliberation and debate of that kind of Church-government which they should find most consonant to Gods word and if after all this we can imagine they have erred in their decrees How can we without presumption conceive the judgement of any private men to be more infallible Now if any shall think that this kind of government in every part thereof is established with such a perpetuall decree that it can never be changed We must know that many things may be infallibly true yet not alwayes necessary to be continued True in the Author of truth and true in the means of truth and yet may be laid aside when they are no longer usefull for edification an example hereof we may see in the ceremoniall Law which being appointed by God himselfe no man will doubt but it was infallibly true and being abolished by the same power that ordained it no man need doubt but that it was justly removed Infallibility doth not alwayes inferre immutability Things are not onely continued for their truth but also for their goodnesse and fitnesse and applicablenesse to present use So long as the Ceremoniall Law was to indure it was of divine infallibility needfull for the Church of the Jewes and during that time immutable by any power but divine but when the Evangelicall Law succeeded which by fulfilling ended the Ceremoniall the worship of God became more spirituall leaving the decencies circumstances and outward manner to the humane infallibility of the Magistrate set in authoriiy by God whose decrees in such matters are unchangeable by any inferiour power yet alterable by the same power that decreed them Moreover the Papists object against our doctrine that before Luther it was not known in thy world and the Prelates object against our discipline that before Calvin it was never known by both with aspersions they think to disgrace our doctrine and our discipline putting upon them the stamp of novelty as though they were but inventions of men But as our doctrine hath been sufficiently asserted against their calumnies to be the very doctrine of the spirit of God left recorded in the holy Scriptures So it is also plain that this government of Gods Church by the Presbytery was known and practised in the world before either Popery or Prelacy was in being both which are indeed novelties and the very spawn of corrupted men It is clearly demonstrated from the bosome of Antiquity That the Apostles and Evangelists knowing the mind of Christ did in all Cities and places where they collected Churches ordain a Colledge of Presbyters called the Presbytery with equall power to feed and govern the same This form of government continued in the Primitive Church about 1500 yeares in puritie and parity Afterwards by pride and contention of the leaders Bishops were set up above Presbyters and when that equality was once broken there was no stop Then Metropolitans were put above Bishop and Patriarks above Metropolitans and at the last whereunto all tended they brought forth that man of sin or son of perdition the Pope who perked above all and hath ever since contrary to the rules of Christ and his Apostles maintained by fraud fire and blood a prodigious tyrannie and oppression in the Church B●t there is one testimony more which we can produce as a cleare light out of the very darknesse and dungeon of popery when there was no day of knowledge in the Christian world but all was overspread with Antichristian error and that was about 500 yeares ago when God moved Waldo a Citizen of Lions to discover the impostures of the popish Church who drawing after him many disciples were persecuted by the bloody Synagogue and driven from the society of men into mountains among beasts which they found lesse savage then their own kind there they multiplied into many Congregations and spreading themselves into divers places were called by divers names Then they found it necessary that the worship of God might be perfect among them to establish a discipline and government over all their Churches In which deliberation they had no pattern to follow no steps to tread in no helps from stories or records of antiquity which were all destroyed or corrupted Their onely guide and light to direct them was the word of God which the world was never able to extinguish and by his divine power was preserved among them There they sought and there they found the platform of their discipline and what was it no other then Presbyterian every Congregation governed by Pastors Elders and Deacons and as occasion required by a combination of them into Synods Councells and Assemblies Now if this way was practised among them wherein they were onely led by divine light How unjustly do some despise it as a novelty others reject it as a humane ordinance When as our own age also searching in the same holy monuments hath pitched upon the same discipline as in them held forth to the Churches of God Me thinks this would move the spirits of meek and sanctified men not to be wise above sobriety nor contest against such a cloud of witnesses For if the Primitive Apostolicall times the middle age of the Church under persecution and now the last generations wherein we live have all by the light of Gods word and guidance of his spirit concurred in one and the same discipline Why should any combine against it or suffer themselves to be perswaded rather to disturb the peace and unity of Gods Churches then yield a Christian conformity thereunto 3 But against this power of the Magistrate it may be further objected that although power be given him over the bodies and estates and outward adjuncts of men yet the conscience is the peculiar Court of God wherein man hath nothing to do but by intrusion when the body lies in prison the Judge by a habeas corpus can remove it but when the conscience is under bond no Judge can send a habeas conscientiam to deliver it and having no power to release he can have none to bind it