Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	head_n	king_n	supreme_a	4,443	5	9.1068	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34542	The remains of the reverend and learned Mr. John Corbet, late of Chichester printed from his own manuscripts.; Selections. 1684	Corbet, John, 1620-1680.	1684 (1684)	Wing C6262; ESTC R2134	198,975	272

Iowest political church but as constituted by the political union of congregational or parochial churches held also to be political under an officer of another order and the proper superior of those officers under which the parochial churches immediately are then let it be observed that a church of this frame is not properly an Episcopal but an Archiepiscopal Church For the churches whereof it is compacted are properly Episcopal being such as have each of them their own bishop pastor or elder But the divine right of such an Archiepiscopal church I leave to further inquiry As for a National church I come now to inquire in what sence it may or may not be granted In a more general notion it is some part of the universal church distinguished and severed from the rest of that body by the limits of a Nation or of a civil state or in other terms a nation of Christian churches or the Christian churches of a Nation But there are more express and special notions thereof respecting the frame of Ecclesiastical Polity which are discrepant from each other And about the being thereof in these special notions mens judgments vary Some own a national church in this sence only viz. a nation of churches or the churches of a nation agreeing at least in the essentials of christian Dectrine divine Worship and church-Government Some own a national church in a stricter sense namely the said churches not only agreeing in the points aforesaid but politically united by the same common band of Ecclesiastical Government under one head personal or collective And this stricter sence hath a subdivision for it may be understood of the churches united in a Civil Ecclesiastical polity under a civil head or supream or of the churches embodyed in the band of a polity purely Ecclesiastical under a spiritual head or supream I own the rightful being and divine warrant of a national church as united in one Civil Ecclesiastical polity under one civil head or supream either personal as in a Monarchy or collective as in a Republick And in this sence I assent to the National Church of England viz. All the churches in England politically united under one Supream Civil Church-Governour the Kings Majesty Yet it is to be understood that the partition of a church by the bounds of a nation or of a civil state is but extrinsecal or accidental to the church as such also that the union of the churches of a nation in the band of civil church-polity under a civil head is but an extrinsecal and not an intrinsecal union But I question the divine warrant of a national church embodied in the band of one national polity purely Ecclesiastical under one spiritual head or supream either Personal as a Primate or Patriarch or collective as a consistory of bishops or elders intrinsecally belonging to it and being a constitutive part of it For I find no Canon or Precedent for it in Scripture which is the adequate rule of divine right in the frame of churches and of what intrinsecally belongs thereuntò and I do not know any such spiritual head of the Church of England as for the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York they at the most can be heads but of their respective provinces and are not subordinate but coordinate to each other in point of Archiepiscopal Government however the case is between them in point of precedency Yet if the civil supream power shall constitute a person or persons Ecclesiastical to be head of a national church or the churches of a nation politically imbodied I here offer nothing against it or for it But if there be such a national constitution being but humane it is but extrinsecal and accidental to the church and being derived from the civil supream it is but a civil church-polity § 21. The subordination of particular Churches to an association or collective body of the same Churches considered I Come to enquire whether there be a subordination of churches taken distributively to an association o● collective body of the same Churches or an assembly thereof and again whether there be a subordination of that collective body to a larger association of more collective bodies or to an assembly thereof and so forward till we come to the largest that can be reached unto The association of particular churches is of the law of nature and therefore to be put in practise according to their capacity tho there were no positive law for it for they are all so many distinct members of one great body or integral parts of the Catholick church and they are all concerned in each others well being both in reference to themselves as fellow members of one body and to Christ their Head whose honour and interest they must promote each church not only within themselves but throughout all the churches to the utmost extent of their agency And they naturally stand in need of each others help in things that concern them severally and jointly Likewise that there be greater and lesser associations acting in their several spheres higher or lower the one included in the other is of the law of nature or of natural convenience for the more ample capacity and more orderly contributing of the mutual help aforesad such as have been called classical provincial and national assemblies used in one form of church-government yea and beyond this the association of the churches of many nations as far towards an oecumenical council as they are capable of convening is of the same reason But of an oecumenical association truly so called that is of all the churches in the world the moral impossibility thereof hath been spoken of before It is also by the law of nature most convenienient that in the lesser associations all the ruling officers personally meet and that in the larger they meet by their delegates or representatives chosen by all and sent in the name of all which meetings are called assemblies or synods and the convenience of meeting by delegates is that the particular churches be not for a time left wholly destitute of their guides and that there may be less trouble and difficulty and danger of disorder in the whole management Note That what is most naturally convenient hath in it the reason of necessary or is matter of duty unless when something gainsay or hinder and then indeed it ceaseth to be convenient And that there be some kind of subordination in the said associations and their respective Assemblies is of the Law of nature which requires order but as to the kind or manner of subordination men go several ways Some place it in a proper Authority or Governing power that the collective bodies of Churches have over the several Churches included in them others place it in the agreement of the several churches and some of these make this further explanation that the Canons made by Synods as they are made for the people who are subject to the Pastors are a sort of Laws and oblige by