we differ he indeed saith much to little purpose and finally giveth away his Cause or as he merrily telleth his Adversary pag. 62. l. 3. 6. 47. he useth it as Sir Christopher Blunt's head was used after his apprension first healed and then cut off For 1. in his lib. 3. Where he speaketh of the power of Ordination he not only confesseth that it is in Presbyters with the Bishops and that the Bishops have but a superiority of power therein but is angry with his Adversary for supposing the contrary saying ch 3. p. 68. But where good Sir do I say they must have the sole power in Ordination which you have so oft objected and now again repeat make you no conscience of publishing untruths Cannot Bishops be superiour to other Ministers in the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction which is the thing which I maintain unless they have the sole power so p. 64 c. Therefore he granteth that extraordinarily in case of necessity Presbyters may Ordain that is without a Bishop page 69. and page 108. he giveth this reason for the validity of their Ordination Because Imposition of hands in Confirmation of the Baptized and Reconciliation of Penitents were reserved to Bishops as well as Ordination and yet in the absence of Bishops may be done by Presbyters And that the Papists themselves grant that the Pope may license a Presbyter to Ordain Presbyters If therefore saith he by the Popes license a Presbyter may Ordain Presbyters much better may a Company of Presbyters to whom in the want of a Bishop the Charge of the Church is divolved be authorized thereto by necessity And if all this be so no doubt but the Power of Ordination is in Presbyters as such though they are not to exercise it alone nor without or against the Bishop And so formerly they were not to Preach or Baptize nor Congregate the Church without him For why cannot a Lay-man Ordain with the Bishop but because he hath no such authority And Cap. 5. as to the power of Jurisdiction he saith the same p. 110. 111. I deny not Presbyters which have charge of souls to have Jurisdiction both severally in their Parishes and jointly in Provincial Synods And I have confessed before that Presbyters have with and under the Bishops exercised some Jurisdiction I grant that Godly Bishops before they had the countenance and assistance of Christian Magistracy and direction of Christian Laws used in all matters of moment to consult with their Clergy This was practised by Cyprian Ambrose also in 1 Tim. 5. 1. teacheth that there was a time when nothing was done without the advice of the Presbyters which therefore by Ignatius are called the Counsellors and Co-assessors of the Bishops Which course if it were used still as it would ease the Bishops burden very much so would it nothing detract from their superiority in Governing And page 115. The thing which I was to prove if it had been needful was that whereas Presbyters did Govern each one the People of a Parish and that privately the Bishop Governeth the People of the whole Diocess and that publickly So that both Ordination and Jurisdiction belong to the Presbyters Office though in the exercise of it they must be governed themselves Is not this the very sum of Archbishop Usher's Model of Primitive Episcopacy which we offered his Majesty and the Bishops at first for Concord and the Bishops would not once take it into their Consideration nor so much as vouchsafe to talk of it or bring it under any deliberation When alas we poor undertrodden Persons not only desired to be low our selves but yielded to submit to all their heights their Lordships Parliament dignities grandure and to let them alone with their real sole Ordination and Jurisdiction over us poor Presbyters and to have taken as much care of the People as they would so we could but have obtained any tolerable degree of Government to be setled in each particular Church either in all the Presbyters or in one Bishop and not have had all the particular Churches deprived of Bishops and all the Pastoral Jurisdiction But our great Controversie is handled by Bishop Downame in his second Book wherein he laboureth to prove that the Bishops Church or rather Charge was not a Parish but a Diocess And first page 4. he giveth us a scheme of the Scripture acception of the word Church as preparatory to his design In which there are many Texts cited not only without any shew of proof that they speak of what he affirmeth them to speak but contrary to the plain scope of the places And he tells us that the word Church is used in Scripture for the Church Militant Congregated in an Universal or Occumenical Synod And offereth us not one Text for instance which he doth though injuriously for all the rest Nor is there any that so speaketh He tells us that the word is used particularly to signifie the Church of a Nation in the singular number but could name no such place as to any Church since Christ but only the Jewish Church Acts 7. 38. And he saith it is used to signifie particularly and definitely the Church of a Nation in the plural number And is not this a strange kind of Allegation The Scripture speaketh of the Churches in a Nation Therefore it useth the word for the Church of a Nation in the plural number Is one Church and many all one with him Would he have applauded that man that would have said that such an Author useth the word College for the College of an University in the plural number because he named the College in an University and this to prove that an University is one College Had it not been better said The New Testament never useth the word Church for all the Churches in one Nation since Christ definitely but ever calleth them plurally Churches Therefore to call them all One National Church is not to imitate the Scripture His first Instance is Rom. 6. 4. All the Churches of the Gentiles A sad proof of a National Church What Nation is it that the word Gentiles signifieth No doubt the Gentile Churches were in Gentile Nations But that doth not prove that the Christians in any Nation are ever called in Scripture since the Jews Nation One Church but Churches His next instance is 1 Cor. 16. 1. The Churches of Galatia And the rest are all such v. 19. 2 Cor. 8. 1. Gal. 1. 2. 22. The Churches of Asia Macedonia Judaea But I hope he intended no more than to tell you that the Christians of several Nations are never called a Church but Churches as having any sort of Union than National He giveth many instances when the word Church is used definitely to signifie the Church of a City and Country adjoyning But to prove it used to signifie several Churches in City and Country adjoyning but one only Two Texts he alledgeth to prove that the word Church is used
counted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine compared with 1 Cor. 9. 14. Gal. 6. 6. which shew that preaching the Gospel was their work as well as Ruling the Churches under them as 1 Cor. 12. 28. Eph. 4. 11 12. Rom. 12. 7 8. intimate Acts 20. 17 28. He sent to Ephesus and called the Elders of the Church Take heed to your selves and to all the flocks over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers or Bishops to feed or rule the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud v. 31. Therefore watch c. v. 35. So labouring ye ought to support the weak Acts 11. 30. They sent it to the Elders by the hands of Barnabas and Soul Acts 15. 2. 6. 22 23. To the Apostles and Elders And the Apostles and Elders came together to consider Then pleased it the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church The Apostles Elders and Brethren send greeting See v. 25 28. Acts. 6. 4. The decrees which were ordained of the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem Acts 2â— 18. The day following Paul went in with us unto James and all the Elders were present 1 â—im 4. 14. Neglect not the gift which is in thee which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery 1 Pet. 5. 1. The Elders which are among you â—exhort who also am an Elder Feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight or Episcopacy thereof not by constraint but willingly Neither as being Lords over Gods heritage but being ensamples to the flock And when the chief Shepherd shall appear 2 Joh. 1. The Elder to the Elect Lady Whether those Texts 1 Tim. 5. 1. Rebuke not an Elder v. 19. Receive not an accusation against an Elder speak of an Elder by Office or by Age is uncertain if it be by Office the other Texts describe them Jam. 5. 14. Is any man sick Let him call for the Elders of the Church All these Texts shew that every Church had Elders by the institution of the Holy Ghost That they were the Teachers Worshippers Rulers and were among the people present with their flock personally doing their Offices c. And the Scripture mentioneth no other that I can find And of this I have Dr. Hammonds full confession Annotat. in Act. 11. dissert before cited with all those whom he mentioneth of his party and mind And as for them of the contrary opinion they tell us that in Scripture times the Names Presbyter Bishop were common And that the word Bishops sometimes signified all the Presbyters the Bishops as Presbyters and the Subpresbyters as in Phil. 1. 1 2. And that the word Presbyters sometimes signifieth the Bishops only and sometime both conjunctly But they are none of them able to give us any one instance with proof of a Text which speaketh of Subject Presbyters I mean subject in Order or degree to Bishops of the single Churches and not subject to the Apostles and General officers And while we prove that God appointed such entire Presbyters as are here described and they cannot prove against Dr. Hammond or us that any one text speaketh of a lower order or rank I think we need no other Scripture evidence CHAP. XIII The same confirmed by the Ancients AS for Humane testimony the heap is so great brought in by Dav. Blondel that I have the less mind to say any more of it But shall only besides all that is said before on the by recite a few of those testimones which most convinced my own understanding in the reading of them in the Authors themselves leaving others to take what they see best out of Blondels store I. I know that somewhat may be said against what I shall first cite but I think not of sufficient force I begin with it though not first in time because first in Authority The 1. Concil Nicaen in their Epistle to the Church of Alexand. and all the Churches of Egypt Libya and Pentapolis thus decree concerning those that were Ordained by Meletius as Socrat. lib. 1. c. 6. translated by Grynaeus Hi autem qui Dei gratia vestris precibus adjuti ad nullum schisma deflexisse comperti sunt sed intra Catholicae Apostolicae Ecclesiae fines ab erroris labe vacuos se continuerint authoritatem habeant tum Ministros ordinandi tum eos qui clero digni fuerint nominandi tum denique omnia ex lege instituto Ecclesiastico libere exequendi Now ordaining Ministers and nominating men for the Clergy are acts which if any shew Presbyters to be Rulers in the Church Obj. 1. Perhaps it is Bishops ordained by Meletius that are here spoken of or Bishops with the Presbyters respectively Answ There is no more in the Text but this They decreed further touching such as were entred into holy Orders by his laying on of hands that they after confirmation with more mystical laying on of hands should be admitted into the fellowship of the Church with this condition that they should enjoy their dignity and degree of Ministry yet that they be inferiour to all the Pastors throughout every province and Church Moreover that they have no authority to elect the Ministers approved by their censures no not so much as to nominate them which are to execute the Ecclesiastical functions nor to intermeddle with any thing touching them that are within Alexanders jurisdiction without the consent of the Bishop of the Catholick Church And then they add as afore that those that fell not into Schism as they did shall have authority to Consecrate Ministers and nominate such as shall be thought worthy of the Clergy Now that it is Presbyters and not Bishops that are here spoken of appeareth 1. In that it is without any note of eminency said to be such as were entred into Holy Orders 2. In that it is such as so entred by the Laying on of Meletius's hands Wherereas a Bishop must be ordained by the hands of three Bishops And the Schism of one of the three would not have frustrated the Ordination if the other two stood firm in the Catholick Union 3. Because it is the priviledge of Presbyters that is denyed them Though they be not degraded they are to be below all other Pastors in every Church which cannot be that they shall be Bishops below all Presbyters 4. Because the consent of the Bishop of the Catholick Church where they shall come is necessary to their officiating But if it could have been proved that Bishops had been here included yet while Presbyters also are included it will not invalidate the testimony But indeed here is no such proof I confess that Nicephorus a less credible Author seemeth to apply it to Bishops Ordained by Meletius But no such thing can be gathered out of Sozomen either Tripart lib. 1. c. 18. where he describeth Meletius and his party or Tripart lib. 2.
when vacant by the Bishops death Now all these lived together as in a little Colledge thus the Churches were planted and the Gospel disseminated through the world But at first every Bishop had but one Parish yet afterwards when the numbers of the Christians increased that they could not conveniently meet in one place and when through the violence of persecution they durst not assemble in great multitudes the Bishops divided their charges in lesser Parishes and gave assignments to the Presbyters of particular flocks which was done first in Rome in the begining of the 2d Century And things continued thus in a Parochial Government till toward the end of the 2d Century the Bishop being chiefly intrusted with the cure of Souls a share whereof was also committed to the Presbyters who were subject to him and particularly to be ordained by him nor could any ordination be without the Bishop who in ordaining was to carry along with him the concurrence of the Presbyters as in every other act of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction Pag. 308. 309. Corruptions broke in upon Church Officers especially after the 4th Centurie that the Empire became Christian Which as it brought much riches and splendor on Church employments so it let in great Swarmes of corrupt men on the Christian Assemblies And then the Election to Church offices which was formerly in the hands of the people was taken from them by reason of the tumults and disonders that were in these Elections which some time ended in blood and occasioned much Faction and Schism And Anâ—bitus became now such an universal sin among Churchmen that c. Pag. 310. I do not alledge a Bishop to be a distinct office from a Presbyter but a different degree in the same office c. Pag. 320. As for the sole power of ordination and Jurisdiction none among us claime it but willingly allow the Presbyters a concurence in both these Pag. 322. That whole frame of Metropolitans and Patriarks was taken from the division of the Roman Empire which made but one great National Church Pag. 331. I acknowledged Bishop and Presbyter to be one and the same office and so plead for no new office bearer in the Church The first branch of their power is their authority to publish the Gospell to manage the worship and dispence the Sacraments And this is all that is of Divine right in the Ministry in which Bishops and Presbyters are equal sharers but besides this the Church claimeth a power of Jurisdiction of making rules for discipline and applying and executing the same All which is indeed suitable to the common laws of societies and the general rules of Scripture but hath no positive warrant from any Scripture precept And all these Constitutions of Churches into Synods and the Canons of discipline taking their rise from the divisions of the world into the several provinces and beginning in the 2d and beginning of the 3d. Century do clearly shew they can be derived from no Divine original and so were a to their particular forme but of humane constitution Therefore as to the managment of this Jurisdiction it is in the Churches power to cast it into what mould she will But we ought to be much more determined by the Laws of the land In things necessary to be done by Divine precept since no power on earth can Council the authority of a Divine Law the Churches restraints are not to be considered Pag. 335. I acknowledge that without Scripture warrant no new offices may be instituted Pag. 337. I am not to annul these ordinations that pass by Presbyters where no Bishop can be had And this layes no claime to a new office but only to a higher degree of inspection in the same office whereby the exercise of some acts of jurisdiction are restrained to such a Method And this may be done either by the Churches free consent or by the Kings authority Pag. 348. In Augustines time it appears from the journal of a conference he had with the Donatists that there were about 500 Bishopricks in a small tract of ground Pag. 30. Observe the Bishops were to be ordained in the presence of the people where every one might propose his exceptions yet the popular Elections were not wholly taken away and at least the peoples consent was asked Pag. 41. Vossâ—is from all the manuscripts of Damasus his lives of the Popes shewes that S. Peter ordained both Linus and Gletus Bishops of Rome and after some enquiry into the matter he concludes that at first there were three Bishops in Rome at once Linus Cletus and Aneneletus in the next succession he placeth Cletus Anencltus and Clemens Pag. 48. Among the Jewes where ever there were an hundred and twenty of them together they did erect a Synagoguge Pag. 49. At a conference which Augustine and the Bishops of that Province had with the Donatists there were of Bishops 286 present and 120 absent and 60 Sees vacant And there were 279 of the Donatists Bishops Pag. 51. The Gothick Churches are said to be planted 70 years before Ulphilas their first Bishop came to them Pag. 50 He she weth the like of the Scots By the streine of Ignatius Epistles especially that to Smyrna it would appear that there was but one Church at least but one place where there was one Altar and Communion in each of these Parishes which was the Bishops whole charge Pag. 56. The enlarging of the Diocesses hath wholly altered the figure of Primitive Episcopacy That the Bishops were chosen by the people and by the Clergy and people and at last not obtruded without the peoples consent Father Paul Saript de Beneficiis oft tells you and I have fully proved by many Canons in my abstract of Church-history of Councils FINIS * Where Dr. Allestree was bred His next Neighbor a Cosins Tab. 3. b Cosins Tab. 4. c Cosins Tab. 5. d Cos Tab. 6. e Cos Tab. 2. f Cos Tab. 8. g Cos Tab. 2. Tab. 8. h Cos ibid. i Cos ibid. k Cos Tab. 2. l Act of Uniform That Parish Priests have no Governing power see Dr. Zouch as also that the King is the Ecclesiastical Supream m Cos Tab. 13. n Cos Tab. 11. Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5. ☞ Vid. Epist 2. Edict Anacleti de forma provinciali Metrapol c. Turrian pro Epist decr c. 24. De novitate hujus formae leg Blondel cont Decr. p. 1. 27. who giveth full testimony of it cont Anaclet Ep. 2. 41. Leg. Vitaâ— Ambros per Baron August li. de opera Monecheâ—â—â—n Invit Ambros per Baron Vit. Ambros per Baron Socrat l. 3. c. 15. Theodoret Eccles Hist l. 1. cap. 10. Leg. Valentiniani Valentus Legem seu Literas in Theodoreti Eccl. Hist l. 4. c. 7. Hestor Andaeanorum c. 9. Messalianorum c. 10. cum interpretatione D. Hookeri li. 7. p. 66. de Audio Euseb l. 8. c. 1. Dr. Hanmer's Translat p. 144 145. Socrat. l. 2. c. 3. Id. ib.
Pastor must be as bad 2. And as to his appeal to the discipline of the Ancients I leave the Reader to the deceit of this mans arguings 1. If he cannot find it fully proved in this Book that the Churches of the ancient Bishops were not so big as our greatest Parishes as to the number of Souls much less as our Diocesses 2. And if in my abstruct of Church-History of Bishops and Counsels I have not fully proved that Discipline was neglected corrupted or overthrown dy degrees as Bishops-Churches overswelled When we read such doleful complaints in History Fathers Counsels and their Canons of the corruption of the Churches is this the true use to be made of all that we must be like them and not blame them lest we open the nakedness of our Fathers 3. And if men can make themselves willingly so blind as by a story that the Fathers did such things among People and circumstances which we know not to renounce common experience that it is not now any where done nor can possibly be done If men can be so ignorant what our Parishes and Diocesses are and what a Bishop and Chancellor do and can do Let such err for I am unable to cure them any more than if they were confident that my Lord Major can Govern all the Families of London as their Masters by stewards without Family-Masters or that one Physitian or one Tutor could serve instead of many for the City Indeed they that have as low an esteem of true Discipline as Mr. D. in his Letter seems to have may easily believe that a few men may do it And those Papists that can let the Church be the sink of common uncleanness and a Nursery of Ignorance Vice and Prophaneness so they may but keep up their Wealth and Ease and Honour by crying up Order Government and Unity may accordingly believe that no more knowledge Piety or Discipline is a duty than serveth the ends of their worldly Dominion I must again give notice to the Reader that whereas the Common Objections of the greatness of Bishops Churches in the second Centurie are fetcht from the instances of Rome and Alexandria I have answered even those two in the beginning of my Breviate of Church-History to which I must refer you and not again repeat it here I know that poor ingnorant Persons must expect such a shameful Cant of old reproach as this to cheat them into the hatred of Christs Church order and Government into a love of Clergie bondage a scornful smile shall tell them Mr. Baxter would have as many Bishops as Parishes and a Pope in every Parish when men think one in a Diocess too much When every ignorant or rash Priest shall be the Master of all the Parish and you have no remedy against his Tyranny what a brave reformation will this be And such a deceitful scorn will serve to delude the ignorant and ungodly But if they truly understood the case they would see the shame of this deriding objection 1. A Pope is a Monarch or Governour of the world and a Diocesan of a multitude of Parishes And sure he usurpeth not so much who will be but the Church-guide of one A man is abler to guide one School Colledge Hospital or Family than a hundred or thousand without any true Master of a Family School Colledge c. under him 2. Why is not this foolish scorne used against these foresaid relations also Why say they not every Master maketh himself a Pope or Bishop to his own house and every School-Master to his School whereas one Master over a thousand would do better with bare Teaching Ushers that had no Government 3. Let it be remembred that we would have no Parish Pastor to have any forceing power by Fines Mulcts Imprisonments c. But only to prevaile so farr as his management of Divine authority on mens Consciences can prevail And we would not have Magistrates punish men meerly because they stand excommunicate or because they tell not the Clergy that they repent True excommunication is a heavy punishment fitted to its proper use and not to be corrupted by the force of the Sword but to operate by it self And valeat quantum valere potest He that despiseth it will not say he is enslaved by it But is this all that the Bishops desire 4. We would have no man become the Pastor of a Church without the peoples consent if not choice no more than a Physician should be forced on the sick And as the Servant that consenteth to be a Servant consenteth to his Masters Authority and he that consenteth to a Physician consenteth to be ruled by him for his health and neither take this for a slavery So he that consenteth to a Pastor consenteth to his Pastoral conduct And if he think it to his injury he may choose 5. And yet we believe that the Magistrate may constrein Atheists Infidels and such as refuse all proper Church Communion to hear Gods word Preached and make all the Parish allow the Teacher his tythes and maintenance due by Law But he may force no man to Receive the great gift of the Body and Blood of Christ or a pardon delivered and sealed by Baptism or the Eucharist and to be a member of the Church as such against his will For none but desirous consenters are capable of the gifts so that the same Minister may be the common Teacher of all the Parish and yet the Church-Pastor only of fit consenters And when Sacraments are free and no Minister constrained to deliver them against his Conscience nor any unwilling man to receive them who is by this enslaved 6. And if a Church-Pastor do displease the Church and the main body of them withdraw their consent we would not have any man continue their Pastor while they consent not but disclaim him Though in case of need the Rulers may continue him in his Benefice as the publick Preacher if the people be grosly and obstinately culpable in refusing him 7. And we would have that Parish Pastor to have no power to hinder any other Minister from giving any one the Sacrament whom he denyeth it to or that refuseth it from him Though he that for a common cause is cast out of our Church should not be received by others till he repenteth yet that holds not in all private causes between the particular Pastor and him nor in case of unjust excommunication And other Ministers must judge of their own actions whom to receive and an injuring Minister may not hinder any other nor the injured person from communicating elsewhere 8. And we would have Parish Churches be as large as personal communion doth require or allow and every Church to have divers Ministers and if one be chief or Bishop and the rest assistants and if three or four small Parishes make one such communicating Church we resist not 9. And we desire frequent meeting or Synods of neighbour Pastors and that there every single
swear that they are duties or may be done as of humane obligation by those that cannot say they are of Divine obligation 55. We hold that the first Churches that did divolve all arbitrations of differences among Christians upon the Pastors did that which brought no great present inconvenience when the People were but few and the Pastors had sufficient leisure but that which prepared for the degenerating of the Ministry and the Churches lamentable corruption And therefore that they should have foreseen this and done as St. Paul directed them and referred matters to any fit wise man among them And when they saw the mischief they should have quickly reformed it as Silvanus Bishop of Troas aforementioned did And that if there were Lay Elders in any of the ancient Churches as one passage in Origen and one in Ambrose and this of Silvanus in Socrates have made some think they were truly Lay and appointed only to such Arbitrations as these and such other Animadversions over the rest as Lay-men may do A help that I once tryed and found to be very great 56. We hold that when Constantine gave the Clergy the sole Power of Judging the Causes Civil and Criminal of all the Christians he shewed more ignorant zeal than true discretion and did let in a pestilence into the Church and that instead of that he should have only left Arbitrations to mans free choice and have set up a Christian or Righteous Magistracy to whom both Bishops and all other Christians should submit 57. We hold that when Christians so multiplyed as that they grew uncapable of Personal Communion at one Altar it was the duty of them and the Bishops to have ordered them into new Churches whcih should every one have had its proper Bishop or plenary Pastoral Office among them and not to have kept them all still in the name of one particular Church infimi ordinis when they were uncapable of the nature and end 58. We hold that it was sinfully done to make a new Office or Order of subject Presbyters that had not the Governing power of their perticular Churches neither alone nor conjunct but had only the power to Teach and Worship the Government being reserved only to the Bishop of another called a Mother Church 59. But we believe that this came not in till many hundred Years after Christ and that but by slow degrees and that after subordinate Churches and Altars were invented and set up yet the Pastors under the name of Presbyters had much of the Governing power of the Keys though with and under the Bishop of the Mother Church 60. The deposing of all the first rank or Order of Bishops which were before over each particular Church the making of a new Office of half Presbyters the making of Churches of a new species as being under a new sort of Officers the making Archbishops who should have many Churches and Bishops under them to become the Bishops of the lowest rank having none under them but above all these the making of the Pastoral work especially discipline become utterly impossible by putting that into one mans hand that cannot be done but by many or many hundred these and such like are the things that we can neither swear to nor approve 61. We hold that though the Magistrate may shape his part of the Church Government variously according to the Interest of the common good yet that the Spiritual or Pastoral part should not have been molded into the shape of the Civil Imperial Government And that so doing did give the Papacy that countenance which is the ground of its usurpation 62. For we hold that the essential constitution of the Pastoral Office and its work and the essential constitution of the Church Universal and of Individual or particular Churches are all of Divine unalterable Institution And that all Laws of Christ for such Constitution and for Administration are unalterable by man Though we hold that Circumstancials and Accidentals are alterable as being not setled by any Divine determination As e. g. how many Ministers shall be in each Church which of them shall be more regarded than the rest as being of greater wisdom how ost and when and where they shall assemble with many the like 63. We hold that as all Christians ordinarily should have personal Communion in particular Churches so those Churches and their Bishops should hold such Communion as is needful to their strength and concord and the common good 64. This Communion of Churches is to be held internally by Concord in the same Faith and Love and Religion and externally by the same profession and instrumentally 1. by Messengers and Letters and 2. by Delegates and Synods when there is need which as is said for Time Place Numbers Provinces Orders are left to humane Prudence 65. If any that divide the Country into Provinces will settle Synods accordingly and settle over them Presidents for the ordering of their proceedings and will give power to one above others to call such Synods and will call these Provinces or Nations or Empires by the name of Provincial National or Imperial Churches and the Bishops so exalted by the name of Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs c. We contend not against this as unlawful in it self though we easily see the accidental danger being taught it by long and sad experience so be it 1. that none of these be pretended to be of Divine Institution but of humane determination 2. and that they meddle with nothing but such accidentals as are left to humane prudence 3. and that they equal not their humane Association with the Christian Worshiping Churches which are of Christ's Institution 4. and that much less they do not oppress their brethren and tyrannize nor deprive the particular Pastors and Churches of their proper priviledges and work But alas when were these Rules observed by humane Churches 66. The Canons of such Synods or Councils of Bishops may be made Laws indeed by the Civil power and they are if just obligatory to the people by virtue of the Pastoral Authority of the Bishops But as to the particular Bishops they are only Agreements and no proper Laws the Major Vote of Bishops being not proper Governours of the rest and bind only by virtue of Christ's General Laws for Love and Concord 67. The Pastoral power is not at all Coactive by secular force on body or estate but only Nunciative and perswasive commanding in Christ's name as authorized by him and executed no otherwise than by a Ministerial word and by with-holding our own acts of Administration and denying our Communion to offenders Nor did the Apostles themselves pretend to any other than this power of the Word for the Keys are exercised but thus excepting what they did by Miracle And if Bishops would go no further they would work on none but Voluntiers and their usurpations might be the more easily born 67. And indeed we are fully perswaded that none but Voluntiers are â—it for the
many Churches without Bishops under him and of half-Presbyters how little he saith the Reader will soon see yea how much on our side 4. As for Hooker till his 7th Book came lately out we had nothing in him considerable of this subject And in that Book it self so little to the purpose as to our foresaid two Controversies as is next to nothing nor worthy a Reply In his § 2. p. 4. He attempts that which few do to give us the definition of a Bishop which is A Bishop is a Minister of God unto whom with permanent continuance there is given not only power of Administring the Word and Sacraments which power other Presbyters have but also a further power to Ordain Ecclesiastical persons and a power of Chiefty in Government over Presbyters as well as Lay men a power to be by way of Jurisdiction a Pastor even to Pastors themselves And then he distinguisheth of Bishops at large or indefinite and Bishops with restraint and saith he meaneth the later And so you have what must be expected from Mr. Hooker for the information of you what Episcopacy he pleads for Where it is obvious how fraudulently through oversight or partiality I know not he dealeth For whereas he durst put no more into the definition of Episcopacy about Jurisdiction but a power of Chiefty in Government over Presbyters as well as Lay-men yet would not tell us whether Government of Lay-men under the Bishop belong to the Presbyters or not His words seem plainly to imply it what use else is there for his Chiefly and as well as Lay-men And yet twice over he would name nothing but Teaching and Sacraments which belong to the Pastor as a Pastor in general leaving it as a thing which he would neither affirm nor deny whether Pastors Governed their Flocks Yet all that Decantate Book turneth on the Hinges of this lame Definition which hath other defects which I pass by And without this we cannot know what Subject he disputeth of Whereas Saravia well noted and acknowledged three Essential parts of the Ministry in General Mr. Hooker who leaveth out one of them and yet durst not deny it should have told us whether he include it or not seeing it is the matter of most of our difference and we take him for no Pastor or Presbyter that is without the power of Government nor that to be a true Church in sensu politico that hath no other Pastor 2. And when as one part of his Adversaries deny not at least the Lawfulness of one Bishops superiority in a single Church as far as his description speaketh but only in many Churches no nor one Archbishops power over many Churches that have their own Bishops but only his power to depose all the Bishops of particular Churches and turn them all into one Diocesan Church his Definition visibly reacheth to no other sort of Bishops but such as we oppose not and so he saith nothing at all against us to any purpose through all his Book For where after he confidently tells us that the extent of his Jurisdiction alters not the Species it is but barely said and by his leave I shall fully prove the contrary anon And pag. 4. l. 7. He confesseth that de facto Many things are in the state of Bishops which the times have changed Many a Parsonage at this day is larger than some ancient Bishopricks were It 's well confest And I shall try among other things whether the Name of a Bishoprick will make a Parsonage and a Diocess to be ejusdem speciei and whether magnitude do not make a specifick difference between the Sea and a Rivulet or a glass of water or between a Ship and a Nut-shel And whereas page 6. He undertaketh to prove a Coercive Power in Bishops either he speaketh according to the common use of men or not If not he would not be understood Qui non vâ—lt intelligi debet negligi If he do then by Coercive he must mean by Outward force upon the body which is false and is proper to the Magistrate Parents or Masters and is disclaimed by all sober Protestant Divines yea by Papists as not at all belonging to the Pastoral Office Though we easily grant that Pastors may Coercere by nord and so may Presbyters sure yet no otherwise but by word For Excommunication and Degradation as far as belongs to them are but words and an after forbearing of their own acts of Communion But this is not the common use of the word Coercive as applyed to Government by way of distinction How much wiselier doth the more Learned and judicious Bishop Bilson still distinguish by the Power of the Word as differing from the Magistrates Coercive or by the Sword Yet note that page 8. § 5. l. 7. He is brought to acknowledge that All Churches by the Apostles erected received from them the same Faith the same Sacraments the same Form of publick Regiment The Form of Regiment by them established at first was that the Laity be subject to a College of Ecclesiastical persons which were in every such City appointed for that purpose These in their writings they term sometime Presbyters and sometime Bishops To take one Church out of a number for a pattern what the rest were the Presbyters of Ephesus as it is in the History of their departure from the Apostle Paul at Miletum are said to have wept abundantly all which speech doth shew them to have been many And by the Apostles exhortation it may appear that they had not each his several Flock to feed but were in common appointed to feed that one Flock the Church of Ephesus for which cause the phrase of his speech is this Attendite gregi Look to all that one Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops These persons Ecclesiastical being termed then Presbyters and Bishops both c. And page 9. he saith The outward being of a Church consisteth in the having of a Bishop Then the Brownists must carry it that our Parishes are no true Churches but parts of a Church because they have no Bishop Only a Diocesan Church hath a Bishop Therefore only a Diocesan is a true Church which anon shall be proved to be but Humane And page 12. He thus expoundeth Hierome as holding Episcopacy alterable The Church hath power by Universal consent upon urgent cause to take it away if thereunto she be constrained through the proud tyrannical and unreformable dealing of her Bishop Wherefore lest Bishops forget themselves as if none on earth had authority to touch their states let them continually bear in mind that it is rather the force of custome than any such true heavenly law can be shewed by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear that the Lord himself hath appointed Presbyters for ever to be under the Regiment of Bishops in what sort soever they behave themselves Let this consideration be a bridle to them Let it
As for Petavius I need not confute him for he granteth me most as to matter of Fact that I desire as I shall after further shew His Fundamental Assertion is That the two Offices of Bishops and Presbyters were both placed in the same person in the Apostles days at which Salmasius justly laugheth For what is that but to say that then there was no such person as a Subject Presbyter much less as our half-Presbyters And Salmasius justly congratulateth his concession that solo confensu hominum vitandi schismatis gratia unus enumero Episcoporum eorundemque Presbyterorum electus est qui praeesset caeteris Quod nemo dici prohibet Nam etsi Episcopalis ordo jure divino introductus est non eodem tamen illo jure decretum est ut unus in singulis civitatibus Ecclesiis esset Episcopus sed Ecclesiae authoritate conciliorumque sanctionibus viz. It was only by Mans consent and for the avoiding of Schism that one was chosen out of the number of Bishops who also were Presbyters to be above the rest This saying none forbiddeth For though the Episcopal Order was introduced by Divine Right yet was it not by the same right decreed that One should be a Bishop in each City and Church but by the authority of the Church and the sanctions of Councils Of this sober Jesuit more anon 8. The Learned Bishop Andrews in his Epistles to Pet. Molinaeus hath said somewhat but in his Scheme Printed at Oxford 1641. before the Treatises for Episcopacy much more But as to his Description of the Jewish Form we dare not thence gather that Christians may imitate them while we know that the cessation of the Jewish Policy and Law is so largely pleaded for by Paul and that Christ is the perfect Lawgiver to his Church and that we must not add or alter on pretence of supposed parity of reason And as to his Reasons for Diocesanes from the New Testament though the well ordering of them make them very taking yet when examined they are no other but what we have found and answered in others 9. The truly Learned Reverend and Godly Primate Usher in the same forementioned Collection of Treatises hath one of the Original of Bishops and Metropolitans and another of the Proconsular Asia But 1. The utmost which he pleadeth for is no more than we acquiesce in as that it was his Model or Reduction published since by Dr. Bernard which we humbly offered to his Majesty as the means of our common concord And he hath himself told me his Judgment that Bishops and Presbyters differ not as two Orders but in Degree And that Ordinis est Ordinare or that he that hath the Order hath intrinsical power to Ordain though he is regularly to do it under the Bishops oversight And therefore it is not invalid and null but only irregular or schismatical when it is done disobediently against the Bishop and so may be disabled in foro exteriore which Dr. Bernard also hath published of him and Dr. Mason in the same Treatise fullier proveth And he took Presbyters to be Governours of the Flocks and the Synods of Bishops to be but for Concord and not to have a proper Governing power over the particular Bishops as he hath himself expressed to me Him therefore that is for us we need not confute And yet I must confess that the great Argument which he and Bishop Andrews and Saravia and all others use from the title of Angel given to the Bishops Rev. 2. and 3. did never seem of any weight to me nor moved my understanding that way at all Believing that Tyconius his old Exposition mentioned by Austin is liker to be true and that indeed it is neither one Prelate nor all the Clergy but the whole Churches that is meant by the Angel of the Churches For the Prophecy coming by Vision the word Angel is mentioned in the Vision phrase and oft in that book is by all confessed to signifie collective Bodies and more than single Individuals As Usher de Babilone himself holdeth that by the false Prophet in the singular number is meant the Roman Clergy It would be more tedious than necessary to recite the instances in that Book I therefore who because of its obscurity am apt to be distrustful of almost all Arguments that are fetcht from the dark Prophecies of Daniel or the Revelations am little satisfied with this from the name Angel And who can believe them that say Timothy was then the Bishop of Ephesus and so excellent a person as that none was like minded as described by Paul and yet that Christ had this against him that he had lost his first love and must remember from whence he is fallen and repent and do his first works or be rejected Rev. 2. 4 5. And in a word that the Apostles who placed holy persons in the Ministry had set such over those eminent Churches as were neither hot nor cold and had the rest of the faults that are mentioned by Christ And the whole style of the Text doth easily prove this Exposition against theirs Rev. 2. 2 4 7. As the praises and dispraises there seem to referr to the whole Church so v. 7. what can be more express than Hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches And v. 10. Behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tryed and ye shall have tribulation ten days be thou faithful c. And again v. 11. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches which is repeated and spoken to every one of the seven v. 14 15. It is liker to be the whole Society than the Bishop that is reproved for having false Teachers and Hereticks among them and are called quickly to repent And v. 20. that suffered the Woman Jezebel to teach For the Bishops could not hinder false Teachers but by Excommunicating them and disswading the People from hearing them But the People could have done more even refused to hear them V. 23. And all the Churches shall know seemeth to intimate that this was written to the Church V. 24. Unto you I say and to the rest in Thyatira as many as have not this Doctrine and have not known the depth of Satan c. Was this spoken to the Bishop only Chap. 3. v. 1. Was it the Bishop of Sardis only that had a name to live and was dead and that was warned to be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die whose works were not perfect before God that must remember how he had received and heard that had a few Names in Sardis c. And so of the rest Obj. But it is said Chap. 1. v. 20. The seven Stars are the Angels of the seven Churches and the seven Candlesticks are the seven Churches Ans And what can a man gather hence to satisfie himself in this point whether the sense be
shall by the people be appointed only let the Sheep-fold of Christ live in peace with the Presbyters appointed over it By which words it is evident that it was such a particular Ovile or Church where the Will of the people might be declared as a matter that bore much sway But who can think that this is spoken of many Congregations where the peoples Will could not easily be signified 6. And it is farther manifest in that it was but for the sake of one or two that the Church of Corinth moved this sedition against the Presbyters called also Bishops pag. 62. Now how many Congregations that Church consisted of where the interest of one or two was either so far concerned or so powerful it is easie to conjecture set all these together and judge impartially I add though out of season that it was none of the Apostles meaning that those whom they made Bishops of such single Churches without a subject Order of Presbyters should make such an Order of subject Presbyters and make themselves the Bishops of a Diocesane Church without any Bishops under them For pag. 57. he saith And our Apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ knew that contention would arise about the name of Episcopacy and for this cause being endued with perfect fore-knowledge they appointed them aforesaid and left the Courses or Orders of After-Ministers and Offices described that other approved men might succeed in the place of the deceased and might execute their Offices So that it was the same places and the same Offices which those ordained by the Apostles had in which others must succeed them which therefore were described by the Apostles and not into others To confirm my Exposition of Clemens note that Grotius himself Epist 182. ad Bignon giveth this as a reason to prove this Epistle of Clemens to be genuine Quod nusquam meminit exortis illius Episcoporum authoritatis quae Ecclesiae consuctudine post Marci mortem Alexandriae atque eo exemplo alibi introduci coepit sed plane ut Paulus Apostolus ostendit Ecclesias communi Presbyterorum qui iidem omnes Episcopi consilio fuisse gubernatas that is Because he no where maketh mention of that excelling authority of Bishops which began to be intrduoced at Alexandria by the custom of the Church after the death of Mark and in other places by that example But he plainly sheweth as the Apostle Paul doth that the Churches were governed by the Common Council of Presbyters who were also Bishops Note also as aforesaid that Doctor Hammond in Dissert granteth as to matter of fact that Clemens speaketh but of the Bishops of single Congregations whom he also calleth Presbyters there being no other in the Church of Corinth II. My next Witness is Pius Bishop of Rome in Epist Justo Episcopo in Biblioth Patr. Tom. 3. pag. 15. mentioning only Bishops and Deacons of which Doctor Hammond making the same Concession still granteth that hitherto Bishops had but single Churches Of this more anon III. My next and greatest Witness is Ignatius in whom to my admiration the Diocesanes so much confide as that quasi pro aris focis they contend for the authority of his Epistles I am as loth to lose him as they are therefore I will not meddle in Blondel's controversie against whom they say Doctor Pierson is now writing In his Epistle to the Philadelphians he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is to every Church one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbytery and the Deacons my fellow servants I am not able to devise apter words to express my sense in He saith not this of some one Church but of all nor yet as of an accident proper to those times of the Churches minority but as of the Notes of every Churches Individuation or Haecceity as they speak The Unity of the Church is characterised by One Altar and One Bishop with the Presbytery and Deacons If 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were out it would not alter the sense being plainly implied Bishop Downame's Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it signified Christ is so forced and contrary to the evidence of the Text that his own party quite forsake him in it and he needeth no confutation For who ever before dreamed that the Unity or Individuation of each particular Church consisted in having one Christ who is the common Head of all Churches One Christ to every Church and one Bishop would signifie that every Church must have one several Christ as well as one several Bishop Nor is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so used by the Ancients except when the Context sheweth that they speak by allusion of Christ Master Mede's plain and certain Exposition and Collection I gave you before the same with ours As for them that say that many Congregations might per vices come to one Altar to communicate I answer 1. Let them make Churches as big as can thus communicate and spare not though there be necessary Chappels or Oratories besides 2. But remember that every Church used to worship God publickly and to communicate at least every Lords day and that there was but One Altar to each Church and therefore but one Communicating Congregation Doctor Stillingfleet in his Schismatical Sermon is for my Exposition Object It is meant of one Species of Altars and not one Individual Answ Then it is meant also of one Species of Bishops in each Church and not of one Individual Object The practice of the Churches after sheweth that they took it not for a sin or Schism to have several Altars in a Church Answ I talk of nothing but matter of fact it was the note of One Church when those Epistles were written whether the Author was mistaken de jure or whether after Ages grew wiser or rather had fewer Bishops and more Altars for the sake of Carnal Interest I judge not The same Author Epist ad Smyrn saith Ubi utique apparet Episcopus ibi multitudo sit quemadmodum utique ubi est Christus Jesus illic Catholica Ecclesia as Usher's Lat. Trans or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnis exercitus coelestis And the Context sheweth that this multitudo or plebs is the Church which the Bishop overseeth Therefore ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia fuit and so every Church had a present Bishop So in Epist ad Magnes he bids them All unitedly or as one run together to one Temple of God as to one Altar to one Jesus Christ So that every Church had one Temple and one Altar to which as a note of their Union in Christ the whole Church must unanimously come So in Epist ad Trull he saith Et Episcopus typum Dei Patris omnium gerit Presbyteri vero sunt consessus quidam conjunctus Apostolorum coetus sine his Ecclesia Electa non est Nulla sine his Sanctorum Congregatio nulla Sanctorum Collectio Et postea Quid vero aliud Sacerdotium est vel Presbyterium quam sacer
arbitrabatur And cap. 25. Cum ipso semper Clerici una etiam domo mensa sumptibusque communibus alebantur vestiebantur Yea he ordered just how many Cups in a day his Clergy-men with him should drink and if any sware an Oath he lost one of his Cups Through God's Mercy sober Godly Ministers now need no such Law By this it evidently appeareth that the Church which he and his Presbyters ruled was not many hundred but one Congregation or City-Church There being no mention of any Country Presbyters that he had elsewhere as far as I remember And when Augustine was dying the People with one consent accepted of his choice of Eradius to be his Successor Epist 110. pag. 195. To recite all that is in Austin's Works intimating these Church-limits would be tedious XX Epiphanius's Testimony I have before mentioned as produced by Petavius that there were few Cities if any besides Alexandria in those Countries that had more than one Congregation and particularly none of his own And Doctor Hammond trusteth to him and Irenaeus to prove that the Apostles setled single Bishops in single Congregations in many places without any Sub-Presbyters XXI Socrates l. 5. c. 21. saith The Church of Antioch in Syria is situate contrary to other Churches for the Altar stands not to the East but to the West Which Speech implieth that besides Chappels if any there was but one Church that was notable in Antioch while he calleth it The Church at Antioch without distinction from any other there XXII Socrates l. 7. c. 3. tells us a notable story of Theodosius Bishop of Synada who went to Constantinople for Power to persecute Agapetus the Macedonian Bishop in that City But while he was absent Agapetus turned Orthodox and his Church and the Orthodox Church joyned together and made Agapetus Bishop and excluded Theodosius who made his Complaint of it to Atticus the Patriarch of Constantinople a wise and peaceable Man who desired Theodosius to live quietly in private because it was for the Churches good May such causes oft have such decisions and Lordly troublesome Prelates such success By which story you may guess how many Congregations both Parties made in Synada XXIII Socrates l. 7. c. 26. tells us that Sisinnius was chosen Bishop of Constantinople by the Laity against the Clergy And cap. 28. Sisinnius sent Proclus to be Bishop of Cyziâ—um but the People chose Dalmatius and refused him And this custom of the People's Choice must needs rise at first from hence that the whole Church being but one Congregation was present For what Right can any one Church in a Diocess have to chuse a Bishop for all the rest any more than the many hundred that are far off and uncapable to chuse XXIV Sozomen's Testimony even so late is very observable lib. 7. cap. 15. who mentioning the differences of the East and West about Easter and inferring that the Churches should not break Communion for such Customs saith Frivolum enim merito quidem judicarunt consuetudinis gratia a se mutuo segregari eos qui in praecipuis Religionis capitibus consentirent Neque enim easdem traditiones per omnia similes in omnibus Ecclesiis quamvis inter se consentientes reperire posses And he instanceth in this Etenim per Scythiam cum sint Civitates multae unum dâ—ntaxat hae omnes Episcopum habent I told you the reason of this Rarity before Apud alias vero nationes reperias ubi Pagis Episcopi ordinantur Sicut apud Arabes Cyprios ego comperi He speaketh of his own knowledge No wonder then if Epiphanius be to be interpreted as Petavius doth when in Cyprus not only the Cities had but one Church but also the Villages had Bishops To these he addeth the Novatians and the Phrygian Montanists And let none think their instances inconsiderable For the Montanists were for high Prelacy even for Patriarchs as in Tertullian appeareth And the Novatians were for Bishops and had many very Godly Bishops and were tolerated by the Emperors even in Constantinople as good People and Orthodox in the Faith And Novatus was martyred in Valerian's Persecution as Socrates l. 4. c. 23. saith XXV Even Clemens Roman or whoever he was that wrote in his name Epist 3. sheweth that Teaching the People is the Bishop's Office and concludeth in Crab p. 45. Audire Episcopum attentius oportet ab ipso suscipere doctrinam fidei Monita autem vitae a Presbyteris inquire a Diaconis vero ordinem Disciplinae By which Partition of Offices it is evident that the Bishop only and not the Presbyters then used to preach to the Church and that the Presbyters though ejusdem ordinis and not Lay-Elders used to instruct the People personally and give them Monita vitae and that they were all in one Church together and not in several distant Churches XXVI Paul himself telleth us that Cenchrea had a Church and the Scripture saith They ordained Elders in every Church And though Downame without any proof obtrude upon us that it was under the Bishop of Corinth and had a Presbyter of his to teach them yet of what Authority soever in other respects the Constitutions called Clements or the Apostles be they are of more than his in this where lib. 7. cap. 46. in that old Liturgy Lucius is said to be Bishop of Cenchrea ordained by the Apostles XXVII Gennadius de viris illustr l. 1. c. 10. saith that Asclepius was Vici non grandis Episcopus Bishop of a Village not great XXVIII Saith Cartwright Four or five of the Towns which were Seats of the Bishops of the Concil Carthag which Cyprian mentioneth are so inconsiderable that they are not found in the Geographical Tables XXIX And faith Altare Damascen p. 294. Oppidum trium Tabernarum Velitris vicinum was a Bishop's Seat for all the nearness and smallness of the Towns And Gregor lib. 2. Epist 35. laid the Relicts of the wasted Church to the Bishoprick of Veliterno Castrum Lumanum had a Bishop till Gregory joyned it to Benevatus Bishop of Micenas and so had many Castra ordinarily Remigius did appoint a Bishop within his own Diocess when he found that the number of persons needed it Viz. apud Laudunum clavatum Castrum suae Dioeceseos Of Spiridion the Bishop of Trimithantis I spake before XXX Theoph. Alexand. Epist Pasch 3. in Bibl. Pat. To. 3. concludeth thus Pro defunctis Episcopis in locis singulorum constituti In urbe Nichio pro Theopempto Theodosius In Terenuthide Aisinthius In oppido Geras pro Eudaemone Pirozus In Achaeis pro Apolline Musaeus In Athrivide pro Isidoro Athanasius In Cleopatride Offellus In Oppido Lato pro Timotheo Apelles And the nearness and smallness of some of these sheweth the Dioceses small The same Theoph. Alex. saith Epist Canon Can. 6. De iis qui ordinandi sunt haec erit forma ut quicquid est Sacerdotalis ordinis consentiat eligat tunc Episcopus examinet
Prelacy to be so made And were they Christians or no Christians that made the Diocesane Form If Christians were they orderly Christians or rebellious If orderly how happened it that they were of no Church themselves when the Apostles setled so much of Church Form and Order as I have before named If rebellious they were a dishonourable original of Diocesanes And if the Church Form be not of Divine institution then the Church it self is not For forma dat nomen esse And so the cause is given up to the Brownists by these Learned moderate men so far as that there is no Church in England of Divine institution Were it not that when in general they have said that no Church Form of Government is so Divine they again so far unsay it as to confess the Parith Churches or Congregations with their Pastors to be of Divine institution and of continued necessity All that is to be said by and for them is this That the Apostles were the makers of the English or Diocesane Form but not of that only but of the Presbyterian and Independent also and so made no one necessary but left all indifferent Or that they made one of these Forms as mutable allowing men to change it Answ But 1. I have proved what they made Let them prove that they made any other of a different sort not subordinate or supraordinate if they can 2. And let them prove the mutability of that which they made and their power to change it which they assert Till one of these is proved we are or should be in possession of that which was certainly first made I am bold to conclude this argument with the speech of a bold but a wise and holy man Joh. Chrysostome de Sacerdotio lib. 3. pag. mihi 48. cap. 15. And when some Bishops have obtained that prefecture of a Province not belonging to them and others of one FAR GREATER THAN THEIR OWN proper STRENGTH CAN BEAR THEY CERTAINLY BRING TO PASS THAT THE CHURCH OF GOD SEEMETH NOTHING TO DIFFER FROM AN EURIPUS or a confused turbulent changeling thing pag. 49. AND DO NOT THESE THINGS DESERVE GODS THUNDERBOLT A THOUSAND TIMES ARE THEY NOT WORTHY TO BE PUNISHED WITH THE FIRE OF HELL NOT THAT hell WHICH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES THREATEN TO US BUT EVEN OF ONE THAT IS FAR MORE GRIEVOUS Forgive the words my Lords They are not mine but Chrysostome's or if you will not forgive the citing of them I will bear it as he did the like Only I will abate you in my prognostication or sentence that far sorer hell fire than the Scripture threameth supposing this will be sharp enough even for the most dispersing silencing persecuting Prelate and imputing those words to honest Chrysostome's vehement Oratory And I 'le tell you what went next before these words And they do not only take in the unworthy into the Priesthood but they cast out the worthy For as if they had agreed both ways to spoil the Church of God and the first cause were not enough to kindle the wrath of God they add the second or worse to the former For I judge it equally pestilent to drive out the Profitable and to take in the unprofitable which certainly they do that the flock of Christ may from no part either find consolation or be able to take breath O what would this man have said had he lived now in England CHAP. XI Argument 3. From the destruction of the order of Presbyters of Divine Institution and the Invention of a new order of Sub-half-Presbyters in their stead ARGUMENT III. THe office of Presbyters instituted by the Holy Ghost containeth an Obligation and Authority to Guide by Doctrine Worship and Discipline the flocks committed to their care But the office of a Diocesane being one only Bishop over many score or hundred Congregations is destructive of that office of Presbyters which containeth an obligation and authority to Guide by Doctrine Worship and Discipline or the exercise of the Church keys the flocks committed to their care Therefore the office of such a Diocesane is destructive of the office of Presbyters instituted by the Holy Ghost The Major is thus proved by the Enumeration of the Acts which contain the general office and by the proof of the General power extending to those Acts viz. 1. They that had the Authority and Obligation to exercise the Church keys in the Scripture sence had the authority and obligation to Guide their flocks by Doctrine Worship and Discipline But the Presbyters of the Holy Ghosts institution had the authority and obligation to exercise the Church keys in the Scripture sence Ergo they had authority and obligation to Guide their flocks by Doctrine Worship and Discipline 2. Again The office which contained an Authority and Obligation to Teach Exhort Rebuke publickly and privately to judge of persons baptizable and to baptize them to Pray Praise God and administer the Lords Supper to the Church and to judge of them that are to receive it to watch over them privately and publickly to Excommunicate the obstinately impenitent and absolve the penitent doth contain authority and obligation to Guide that flock by Doctrine Worship and Discipline But such is the Office of Presbyters as instituted by the Holy Ghost Ergo c. Here note 1. That I am not now medling with the Questions Whether such Presbyters hold this power in subordination to any superiour Bishops nor whether there lie any appeal from them to a higher power in the Church 2. Nor am I now questioning Whether in Scripture sence Bishops and Presbyters are all one in Name or thing 3. But that which I maintain is 1. That there is no proof in Scripture that God ever instituted any order of Presbyters which had not the forementioned power of the keys 2. And that God did institute such an Order of Presbyters as had that power de nomine de re And 3. That the Diocesane Office destroyeth such and setteth up others in their stead What God instituted I will prove 1. Out of the Scripture records 2. Out of the History of the Church which long retained them in some degree CHAP. XII That God instituted such Presbyters as had the foresaid power of the Keys in Doctrine Worship and Discipline and no other proved by the Sacred Scriptures THat God instituted such Presbyters and no other I shall prove by the enumeration and perusal of all the Texts of Scripture which mention them viz. as instituted in the New Testament and now in force Act. 14. 23. When they had Ordained them Elders in every Church Compared with Tit. 1. 5. That thou shouldest Ordain Elders in every City as I had appointed thee 7. For a Bishop must be blameless as the steward of God And his power is described v. 11 13. Ch. 2. 1 7 15. and 3. 10. intimate it Compare this with 1 Tim. 3. 1 2 5 6. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Let the Elders that rule well be
day 3. The remaining respects which the people had to the Prelates and their way was a hinderance to us that desired to meddle herein with none but consenters 4. A great number of Sectaries raised by the distastes of the Prelates wayes did also hinder us 5. Yet it was than possible and feasible to Ministers that were wise and willing to do so much as might very much attain the ends of discipline though not so much as they desired 6. But is this an Objection fit for the Prelatists to make or doth it not encrease their condemnation what would you say to a Physician a Pilot a Schoolmaster that should say It is not an hundred Physicians that can do what should be done for all the Patients in this City nor an hundred Pilots that can well govern all the Navy nor an hundred School masters that can well Govern all the Schools in the Diocess Therefore I will get them all turned out and I will be the only Physician with my Apothecaries the only Pilot with my Sâ—amâ—n the only Schoolmaster with my Monitors and Ushers my self for the work can be but left undone Such rule the Churches must have while God for our sins will suffer it The doing it per alios is oft enough answered before Obj. V. Many Parish Ministers are young and raw and unfit to govern Ans 1. They are unfit who make this Objection who bring and keep such in and cast so many hundred out that are better however ignorant malice slander them 2. This also may be said against their preaching much more For 3. They may Rule with others when they cannot preach by others 4. There may be appeals to the next Synod or Prelate if you will have it so Obj. VI. You would have a Priest to be a Pope in his Parish Ans I can call this Objection no better than gross Impudency For 1. It s a Contradiction A Pope is a Head of the Universal Church And so it is saying that we make every Minister a Head of the Universal Church to his Parish 2. We desire more Presbyters than One in a Church 3. We desire Appeals to the next Synod and is that to be a Pope 4. Is not one Minister as able to Rule a Parish without the help of assistants and Synods as one Prelate to Rule many hundred Parishes who likely is a worse man than the Minister Impudent pride will perhaps say no. CHAP. XXI The Magistrates Sword is neither the strength of Church discipline nor will serve instead of it nor should be too much used to second and enforce it THese three assertions I will prove distinctly 1. The Magistrates Sword is not the chief strength of true Church discipline I add this because this is the Prelatists last Objection that its true that the Keys are but brutum fulmen and a leaden sword without the Magistrates For almost all men will dispise it Who will come to our Courts if they may choose Who will regard our Excommunications Do not the people now despise them what then would they do if they had their wills when we have excommunicated the Schismaticks They will Excommunicate us again The greatest Prelatists who write to me and speak with me use these very words themselves To which I answer 1. If we prove that Christ hath instituted discipline and that for such noble ends as aforementioned it is little less than blasphemy thus to reproach it As if Christ had no more Power Wisdome or Goodness than to ordain so vain and unprofitable a means to such high and necessary ends 2. The objection doth but express a carnal mind which regardeth only carnal things and thinketh as basely of all others as if nothing moved them but the interest of the flesh And as if Gods favour or displeasure and the authority of his word and Ministers were of no force or regard even with the Church of Christ 3. The objection inviteth Kings to put down all Bishops except Preachers and Magistrates For why should they put the people to so great charge and trouble especially when they love the Prelates so little as to keep them up to wield a Leaden Sword and to brandish a brutum fulmen and to make a noise to no more purpose yea to rob the Magistrate of the honour of his proper work and to make the deluded people believe that those things are done by a brutum fulmen which really are done by the Civil power 4. This objection bitterly reproacheth all the ancient Churches and Bishops and all General and provincical Councils and all the Cannons and ancient discipline of the Churches As if they had troubled the world to no pupose and all their discipline had been vain 5. The objection is notoriously confuted in that the Discipline was more powerful and had better effect before Constantius time than afterwards and was much more strictly exercised against sin And that which so long did more without the Sword than afterward by it doth not receive its efficacy from the Sword 6. A naturarei there is as much of Divine Authority as much of the power of his Precepts Prohibitions Promises and threatnings as much of Heavenly inducement as much of the terrors of Hell as much of internal goodness of holyness and evil of sins as much of Soul interest in what the Minister propoundeth for mens conviction as there is when it is backt with the Magistrates Sword And if all these have no force Christianity must be a dream and able to do no good in the world which better beseemeth Julian Celsuâ— or Porphyry Symmachus or Eunapius to say than a Bishop 7. By this objection the Prelatists openly confess that their Churches consist of men so carnal as are not moved by Divine authority without the Sword And consequently what Pastors they have been to the Churches and how they have governed them and what they allow us to expect from their discipline for the time to come 8. By this Objection they condemn themselves and justifie the Nonconformists For why should we Swear that we will never endeavour any alteration of so brutish an Office as if the King and Parliament could not take down such an useless thing And why should so many hundred Ministers be forbidden to Preach Christ for not assenting consenting and Swearing to such a vaine and brutish power 9. By this they give up their cause to the Presbyterians and Independents Confessing that their discipline is uneffectual when as we that plead for another frame desire not the Magistrates Sword to interpose and desire to use discipline on none but Volunteers And either the discipline which we desire hath some efficacy or none If none what need they fear it or hinder it or silence so many hundred Ministers and write and strive and all to keep men from using such a brutum fulmen which can do no harme But if they confess that our discipline hath efficacy and theirs hath none what do they but directly
parts requisite thereunto or had not as yet attained to maturity of years being not much past their nonage as we have known some of them to be or in all respects undeserving persons And yet men of age and experience eminent for learning and piety must stand unveiled before such as these to receive directions and commands from them to whom they were able and fit to give the same who through the just judgment of the Almighty have since been as much and more scorned than they do now scorn others every way their superiour but in place Here he citeth such like words also even from Bishop Andrews Gonc ad Cler. with his prediction of the fall of their order for their vicious lives So p. 6. To this specious design an open way seemed to be made by the great profaness and vicious living of the opposite party who while they were zealous for conformity to the ordinances of men and thought a main part of Christian duty to depend upon the observation of them did allow themselves carnal liberty inviolating the precepts and commandements of God And this they did as from the inbred corruption which is common to all men so likewise from a private spirit of opposition against the adversaries of their cause And p. 10 11. Speaking of advantages against the Bishops and their party saith he This perchance was not the meanest that they might thus check and shame the open prophaness gross impiety irreligion and sin of their professed adversaries The which to speak truth was so eminent oft times and notorious in many of them as might startle a meer natural Conscience to hear or behold it and cause therein an abhorrence from their courses so opposite as well to right reason as sanctifying grace much more in a mind inlightened though with the smallest ray of Evangelical truth For what could be more strange or hateful to men in whom was any spark remaining of common grace or moral virtue and who were not wholly possessed with Atheism and carried on with fullest bent to libertinism and ungodly practice than to hear those that professed themselves the followers of Christ scoffing at the purest acts of his worship blaspheming or prophaning his holy name by causless Oaths fearful imprecations direful execrations and such like speeches not to be expressed again without horror and amazement And not only so but glorying likewise in this their abominable wickedness and in other of like damnable nature in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine and strong drinks revellings wherein they thought it strange that others ran not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of them How much did this their apparent and overdaring impudence in sin commend and grace the seeming Saint-like conversation of their adversaries of some of them we cannot without manifest breach of charity judge of them otherwise than that they were simple harmless well meaning men who being offended and not without cause at the corruption of the times and scandalous lives of many in the sacred office of the Ministry And indeed their strict conformity in other respects to the precepts of the Gospel with their constancy in suffering for the defence of their cause did argue as much to moderate men and not possessed with prejudicate hatred of their opinion and persons For such as these could never be induced to entertain a good conceit of them no not in the least measure but judged their best actions to be counterfeit and false and thought their greatest suffering to proceed from pride and contumacy of spirit Now as it comes to pass between those that extreamly hate one another that they endeavour as much as in them lieth to be unlike each other in manner of life so it fared in this case And p. 27. 28. The slack hand of ecclesiastical discipline was another cause of the general ignorance and prophaness of these times which reached no further for the most part to the inferior Clergy how peccant soever otherwise than in disconformity to Episcopal orders Provincial or Synodical Constitutions touching external government Neither did it call people to a due account if any of their proficiency in the knowledge of Christ Jesus or censure them for non-proficiency therein yea scarcely for gross and scandalous crimes if they were persons known to be well affected to the present Government And of the change since in 1653 when Bishops were down he saith p. 29. I can speak it on my own knowledge that a Town of good note in the Western parts of the land not far distant from the Sea heretofore famed for all manner of riot and disorder by this course of late years hath been reduced to that order and discipline that it is a rare matter to see a man there at any time distempered with wine and strong drink or to hear a rash Oath proceed from any mans mouth no not when there is most frequent concourse of people thither from all the neighbouring parts Such changes through Gods mercy were not rare till Prelacy returned Reader I cite the words of this author so tediously because many would perswade those that knew not those times that none of this was true on either side And because the Author was a very high Prelatist writing openly against their adversaries 1653. VI. Dr. Gauden after Bishop of Worcester Hiera spist pag. 287. saith I neither approve or excuse the personal faults of any particular Bishops as to the exercise of their power and authority which ought not in weighty matters to be mannaged without the presence Council and suffrages of the Presbyters such as are fit for that assistance The want of this S. Ambrose S. Hierome and all sober men * justly reprove as unsafe for the Bishops and Presbyters and the whole Church For in multitude of Counsellors is safety and honor I am sure much good they might all have done as many of them did whom these touchy times were not worthy of And p 262. 263. They have taught me to esteem the ancient and Catholick Government of Godly Bishops as Moderators and Presidents among the Presbyters in any Diocess or Precincts in its just measure and constitution for power paternal duty exercised such as was in the persecuting purest and primitive times Just such we offered them in Bishop Ushers Model p. 263 I confess after the example of the best times and judgment of the most learned in all Churches I alwayes wished such moderation on all sides that a Primitive Episcopacy which imported the authority of one grave and worthy person chosen by the consent and assisted by the presence Counsel and suffrages of many Presbyters might have been restored or preserved in this Church And this not out of any factious design but for those weighty reasons which prevail with me Add to this what he saith in Hookers life of the late Bishops and remember that this man was one of the Keenest Writers against the adversaries of the Bishops in his
than could meet in one Assembly and had allowance to Communicate in their sub-assemblies yet were they appointed on certain great and solemn Festivals to Communicate all with the Bishops at the chief City Church which sheweth that the sub-assemblies then were few and small 39. Thus was the Apostles Order by degrees subverted and whereas they settled distinct Churches with their distinct Bishops no Bishop having two Churches under him that had not also their proper Bishop now One Church was made of many without many Bishops sub-Presbyters first in the same Church being introduced at last sub-Churches also were set up And when they should have done as we do with Bees let every new Swarm have a new Hive and should have multiplyed Bishops and Churches homogeneal as sufficient numbers of Converts came in instead of this the City Bishops kept all under them as if they had been still one Church yet not as Archbishops that have Bishops under them and kept their sub-Presbyters as their Curates to officiate in the several Churches that had all no Bishops but One. 40. The causes of this were apparently most of the same which are mentioned before for the making of sub-Presbyters Especially 1. The selfishness of the Bishops who were loth to let go any of the people from under their superiority Because it was more honour to rule many than one single Congregation and he was a greater man that had many sub-Presbyters and whole Assemblies at his command than he that had not And also many afforded greater maintenance than a few And 2. the same Reasons that made men at first set up one Presbyter as Bishop over the rest to avoid Divisions and to determine Arbitrations did now seem strong to them for the keeping up the Authority of the City Bishop over the sub-Assemblies round about them 3. And Cities only having been possessed of Bishops for many Years if not Ages before there were Christians enow to make up Country Churches both the Bishops and the City Inhabitants easily overlooking the Reason of it took this for their Prerogative and did plead Prescription As if Schools being planted only in Cities first the Cities and Schoolmasters should thence plead that none must be setled in Country Villages but what are ruled by the City School-Masters And thus the Cities being far the strongest and the Interest of the Citizens and Bishops in point of honour being conjunct and none being capable of a Country charge but such as the City Bishops at first Ordained to it because then there were no other Bishops without resistance it came to pass that both Churches and Presbyters were subjected to the City Bishops 4. And it greatly advanced this design that the Churches which were planted in the Roman Empire did seek to participate of all secular honour that belonged to the place of their Residence And as Dr. Hammond hath largely opened though not well justified did form themselves according to the Model of the Civil Government so that those Cities that had the Presidents or chief Civil Rulers and Judicatures in them did plead a right of having also the chief Bishops and Ecclesiastical Judicatures And thus not only Cities ruled the Country Villages but in time the distinct powers and pre-eminences of Archbishops Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs and the Roman chief Patriarch or Pope came up And the Pagan Common-wealth and Christian Church within the Roman Empire and the neighbouring parts that were influenced by them had a great resemblance 41. But that which most notably set up this exsort swelling and degenerate Prelacy was the mistaken zeal of Constantine together with his Policy and the ambition of Christians and Bishops that were gratified by it For 1. As Constantine perceived that it was the Christians that were his surest strength and when the Heathen Soldiers turned from one Emperour to another as they were tempted he knew that if he only did own the Christians they would unanimously own him and be constant to him so also his Judgment and Zeal for Christianity did concur with his Interest and Policy And as all the Secular and Military Rulers depended on him for honour and power throughout the Roman world he thought it not seemly to give the chief Christians who were the Bishops less honour than he did to the Heathens and to common men Nor did he think meet to deny to the Christian Churches such priviledges as might somewhat set them higher than his other subjects 2. And the Bishops and Christians coming from under long scorn and contempt and coming newly from under the cruel Persecution of Dioclesian and affrighted anew by Maxentius and Licenius they were not only glad to be now honoured and advanced but greatly lifted up with such a sudden wonderous change as to be brought from scorn and cruel torments to be set up above all others As we should have been had we been in their case and it 's like should no more have feared the ill consequents of too much exaltation than they did 3. And the Christian people thought that the exaltation of their Bishops was the honour and exaltation of their Religion it self as well as of their persons 42. Whereas as is aforesaid the Christians had commonly stated the power of Arbitrating all their Civil differences in the Bishop alone when the Apostle intimated that any Wise man among them as such was fit for that business it grew presently to be accounted a heynous crime or scandal for any Christians to go to Law before the Civil Magistrate And Constantine finding them in possession of this custom did by his Edict confirm it and enlarge it decreeing that all Bishops should be Judges of all the Christians causes by consent and that no Civil Judge or Magistrate should compel any Christian to his bar Insomuch that in Theodosius his days when one of Ambrose his Presbyters had a cause to be tryed he denyed himself to be a Christian that he might have it decided by the Civil Magistrate that was Christian also So that even Christian Magistrates might not judge unwilling Christians but the Bishops only Yet had not the Bishops then the power of the Sword but decided all as Arbitrators and enforced their Sentences with rigorous penances and Church-censures By which means 1. many the more turned Christians without the Faith and Holiness of Christians that they might both partake of the Christians honour and immunities and specially that they might be free from corporal penalties for their crimes And who would not do so if it were now our case 2. And by this means the rigorous penalties of the Church by penances were the more easily submitted to as being more easie than corporal pains and mulcts And when thus by the Laws and countenance of so great an Emperour the Bishops were made the Judges of all that were Christians at present and all that would turn Christians that desired it it is easie to understand 1. what a Lordship they must needs
this power do not degrade the Presbyters nullifie the Churches under them and depose the ancient sort of Episcopacy quantum in se and set up another Humane sort of Churches called Diocesan and of Archbishops turned into Bishops infimi gradus in their stead together with a new Species of half-Presbyters 1. How far Whitgift's Disputations against Cartwright are guilty of this overlooking the true Question I leave to the Reader Only I must say for him that when his Adversarie standeth most upon the denial of all superior Episcopacy it was his part to prove what was denied And I need say no more than that Whitgift oft professeth as Dr. Stillingfleet hath collected out of him that God hath in Scripture prescribed no one sort of Church-Government And therefore not the Prelatical 2. I do not expect that ever this Controversie should be handled by two more judicious Adversaries than Saravia and Beza were And as Beza protesteth against a Parity and pleadeth for a Prostasie desireth that which he calleth Divine Episcopacy tolerating and submitting to that which he calleth Humane Episcopacy and flatly opposing only that which he calleth Satanical Episcopacy So Saravia professeth p. 1 2. p. Defens 4 5. that the General nature of the Evangelical Ministry common both to Bishops and Presbyters containeth these three things 1. The Preaching of the Gospel 2. The Communication of the Sacraments 3. The Authority of Church-Government And only pleadeth that in this last the Power of Bishops and Presbyters is not equal but the Bishops power is principal in Government Which granteth the main Question which we Nonconformist now contend for And I confes that Saravia's Writings were the first and chief that brought me to suspect that the Apostles have Successors in the point of Government as being but an ordinary and durable part of their Office which Argument he hath better managed than any man else that I have seen And p. 12. ib. He granteth that the 70 Disciples were not under the Government of the 12 Apostles He granteth that chosen Seniors of the Laity may be great Assistants in the Government Yea Def. 1. 8. p. 83. He saith that in the absence of Paul and his Assistants the Churches of Crete were wholly ruled till Titus Ordained them Pastors by such Elders A senioribus quos ratio natura in quavis Societate dat non Ordinatio quales sunt natu majores quotquot aliqua virtute in populo excellunt quibus deferre natura omnes gentes docuit quibus addo eos quos tunc temporis passim dona Sp. sancti venia excitabant sed nulli loco alligabant And no wonder for he affirmeth that in times of publick corruption of Doctrine any man that is learned and able and fit must propugne and defend the truth as he hath ability and opportunity or else be judged for hiding his talents as the unprofitable servant pag. 23. cap. 2. Yet doth he most improbably imagine that Rome and Corinth had no proper Pastors when Paul wrote his Epistles to them When as Paul had dwelt a year and half at Corinth when it was the practice of the Apostles to Ordain Elders in every Church and when among the Corinthians there were so many Prophets Instructers Speakers of Languages Interpreters c. that Paul is fain to regulate and restrain them in their Church-meetings that they might not over-do and hinder one another And yet were these People without any proper Pastor Without a Prelate it's like they were Yea when Paul directeth them to deliver the incestuous man to Satan and to exercise Church-discipline upon others that were scandalous doth not this intimate that they had among them such as were impowred to do it If only transiently and occasionally they could Worship God publickly and deliver Sacraments and Govern the Church but transiently and rarely How did they spend the Lords days when those transient guides were absent Did the major part of the people who Saravia thinketh were to exercise the foresaid Discipline also Consecrate and Administer the Sacrament or publickly pray and worship God without a Pastor Were they every Lords day to deposit their Collections and have no Pastors and so no Church-Assemblies Had they so many Sects and false Teachers to trouble them and yet no Pastors When Clem. Rom. so shortly after writeth so much to reconcile the Pastors and People that disagreed And when Paul tells the Romans and Corinthians what Officers God setteth in the Church is it like there was none fixed among them And I must note how great a charge he layeth on the Bishops when Resp ad N. p. 10. Art 12. He saith that the Bishop is aequè imo magis proprius singularum Ecclesiarum sua Dioceseos Pastor illis qui ibi praesunt resident utpote ad quem cura praecipua illorum locorum pertineat The Bishop hath more Charge or Care of all the Parishes in his Diocess than the present Pastors have O dreadful undertaking Ad quem prima praecipua Cura omnium incumbet ita ut ipse suum agnoscit gregem singulis quibus manus imponit c. How many hundred thousand individuals then hath the Bishop of London this particular Charge of whose names he never heard and whose faces he never saw Oportet enim Episcopum omnes quantum fieri potest qui ipsius curae commissi sunt nosse The Bishop must know all his Flock if possible And must he have a Flock then which he cannot possibly know nor never saw one of a hundred or thousand of them with any particular knowledge at least And Cont. quaest Resp Beza p. 103. He approveth of Zanchy's judgment that Ceremonies and things indifferent be left free and the Churches free in them And Defens p. 286. He saith Primum Episcoporum omnium Presbyterorum unum esse Ordinem Constituo I maintain that there is one Order of all Bishops and Presbyters Therefore they cannot differ but Gradu as a Deacon and Archdeacon And again ib. p. 286. Ministerii autem Evangelici unitas probatur ab horum unitate ut ita loquar identitate Eandem enim veritatis doctrinam omnes Orthodoxi docent eadem Sacramenta Ministrant eandem censuram exercent tantum Provinciarum est inaequalitas graduum diversitas The Unity of the Gospel Ministry is proved from the Unity or as I may say Identity of these All that are Orthodox teach the same true Doctrine Administer the same Sacraments exercise the same Censures Only there is an inequality of Provinces and a diversity of degrees Thus the most Learned and rational Defender of Prelacy giveth away their Cause 3. Bishop Bilson a most Learned and judicious man also saith more for Episcopacy than any of our late Writers and in my judgment saith more against the Office of Ecclesiastical Elders distinct from Pastors than can be answered But to our two main Questions before-mentioned of a Bishop over
power 10. That this vain separating Power of Order and Jurisdiction is the whole Foundation of Popery § 7. p. 36. passiâ—â— 37 c. 21. He frequently calleth that the Essential power in which Bishops and Presbyters are equal and so taketh the rest but for Accidental 12. He thus describeth the Bishops power of Jurisdiction c. 3. p. 39. § 13. About those things which are constituted in the Church only by Humane Ecclesiastical Right there is in the Church true Jurisdiction not necessarily depending on the Sacred Order it self if there be any at all separate from Order Such as Licensing a Bishop to Ordain in anothers Diocess c. For these acts are not Actus Sacri neque spirituales neque attingunt directè quicquam supernaturale sed sunt merè temporales circa rem externam temporalem qua est mera applicatio c. These are not Sacred nor Spiritual nor touch any thing directly that is Supernatural but are meerly Temporal and about an External and Temporal matter Et his solis verum est c. So that it is most evident that as God hath left to Humane Prudence the Ordering of some Modes and Circumstances of Worship and Discipline and Church Order and by his General Laws so Spalatensis thought that all the Bishops proper Jurisdiction lay in these things which were of Humane Right and that all things of divine appointment were equally belonging to the Presbyters Where again I desire it may be observed 1. That Magistrates may determine of such things and so make void or needless such an Episcopacy 2. That it is most certain that many things of External Order belong to a Presbyter to determine as to one that is the Conducter of the Sacred Assemblies As what Text to preach on what Method to use what Chapter to read where and at what hour the People shall meet how long they shall stay what Tune to sing a Psalm in and abundance of the like So that even that Jurisdiction which he excepeth to the Bishop is common to him with the Presbyter that officiateth And all that can be pretended is that it belongeth to him to determine such Circumstances as equally belong to many Churches which yet Synods of Presbyters may do as effectually for Concord 3. That indeed there is no true Ecclesiastical act which tendeth not to Internal Spiritual effects Publick Admonitions and Confessions as well as private are for the humbling of the Sinner and the exercise of Repentance and Excommunications and Absolutions in publick are not only nor chiefly for the external Order of the Church but for the preserving of the peoples souls from sin and for the warning of others and for the preserving in their minds a due esteem of the holiness of our Religion and the necessity of holiness in us and to convince those without that God's Laws and Ways and People are more holy than those of the World This is a clear and certain truth and therefore according to Spalatensis Presbyters must in publick as well as private Admonitions and Absolutions and Excommunications have equal power with Bishops except as to the ordering of the Circumstantials of it Which though he sometime seem to reserve for the Bishop yet to do him right when he doth so he â—â—th that it is a mixt power As it is the exercise of the Keys it is Essential to the Sacred Office common to both but as it is a prudential determination of Circumstances according to Humane Right directly and principally for outward and not for inward effects it is the Bishops Jurisdiction So that really he maketh the Bishop as such to be but the Master of Order and Ceremonies where the Magistrate doth not do it himself and where it belongeth not to the Officiating Pastor as such His cap. 4. is to prove that the power for Internal Effects of Grace in the Church by External acts is exercised only Ministerially by Ministers as such Instanced cap 5. in Baptisme cap. 6. in the Lords Supper cap. 7. in Confessions and Penance and cap. 9. in that Fxcommunication which is the exercise of the Keys for he mistaketh in excluding Baptism from the Keys which indeed is the first use for intromission Cap. 12. He again purposely sheweth who are the Ministers of each Ordinance And first again Vindicateth his Uniting of Order and proper Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical as before § 4. p. 465. He confidently saith that to him it is a most certain thing that the power of Order is of the Word Sacrament and Keys and that it is plena tota integra fully totally intirely in every Bishop and lawful Prosbyter § 22. p. 472. He saith that Confirmation is neither a true Sacrament but a part of the Ceremonies of Baptism nor is it at all of Divine but of humane Ecclesiastical Institution nor doth it suppose any special power given by God to him that administreth it for any special supernatural effect But the Church for honour reserveth this Ceremony to the Bishop And § 24. He saith And why are Bishops so rigid that they will not permit to their Parish Ministers the Faculty of Confirming specially when they themselves come very seldome into those Parishes to visit And verily those Bishops which have large Diocesses of Christians in the Turkish Dominions as my Arch-Bishoprick of Spalato ought if this Ceremony were of any great account to give their Parish Ministers there living free power of Confirming Yea if the Bishops deny it them the Parish Ministers may and ought to exercise this Ceremony by their own Authority And here I will tell Posterity that if we could have but got our Prelates c. to have Confirmed to us but one Word which the King granted us pre tempore only in his Declar. of Eccles Affairs viz. that Confirmation as a solemn Transition from Infant Church-State into the Adult should be but by the Ministers CONSENT as knowing his People better than the Bishop that never before saw them or heard of them or examined them it had healed one of the greatest of our Breaches But our Concord was not thought worth this little price Though there is not in all the places that ever I lived in one Person of an hundred if five hundred that I can hear of that ever was Confirmed or ever sought it or regarded it And yet their Rubrick saith that we must not give the Lords Supper to any that are not Confirmed or ready for it Yet have we no power to require of any Man a Proof or Certificate of his Confirmation nor can we know whether he be Confirmed or not Nor can we refuse any at the Lords Table that refuseth to be examined by us whether he be ready to be Confirmed save Infants And in that 12. chap. § 25 26 27. p. 473. Spalatensis again sheweth that the Power of the Keys for binding and loosing belongeth to Bishops and Presbyters as Ministers And though he reserve the Publick use of
saying at most and if it be given If not able his ability must be plainly deficient as to the decision of our main controversie of the difference between Bishops and Presbyters which dependeth on it If unwilling he was unwilling to give us any solid satisfactory decision of this Case 2. Being his Neighbour I wrote in his Life time a Confutation of that Assertion that the ordained received their Office and Power properly from the Ordainer as the neerest Efficient of it in my Disput of Ordination in my Disput of Church-Government and I proved that the Power or Office is immediately from Christ and that the Ordainers do but design the Person that shall receive it and Ministerially deliver him possession by an investing Sign 3. Either the Office of a Presbyter is of Divine Institution or of Humane Either fixed by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles immutably or made and alterable by the Bishops If the Office be of Divine institution and fixed for the Churches constant use whether by Christ immediately or by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles than it is not in the Bishops Power to Altar it And so whatever the Ordainers please to give them is none of the measure of their Power As the Arch-Bishop may Crown or anoint the King and yet not give him what Power he please Or rather as it is of Divine appointment that the Husband should be the Governour of the Wife And she that chooseth him and he that Marrieth them cannot alter it nor do they give him his measure of Power as they please but suppose him endowed with that by God and do only choose the Person that shall receive it and Ministerially invest him in the Possession of it And if the Priest that marrieth them should by any words Contradict or limit this institution of God it were a Nullity and invalid If he do but say I pronounce you Husband and Wife He therefore pronounceth the man to have that Power of a Husband which God hath given him though he vainly say after you shall have but so much or so much of it And so it is in present Case If God have made the Ministerial Office he hath made it something constituted of its essential parts And if so what man hath Power to alter it But if it be humane yea and made by the Bishops then I confess they may alter it or destroy it And if a Presbyter have what power the Ordainers please to give him every Ordainer may alter the Office and make a new Species of Church Ministers at his pleasure Prove that and our dispute is at an end But Papists Greeks and Protestants are agreed against it 4. If Presbyters receive that which he calleth the first Power which he would not deny though he would not grant it is all that at present I am pleading for it And it isall that in their ordination they receive as he saith as to the Word and Sacraments If then the Office of a Presbyter continue the same Power of the Keys as to Excommunication and Absolution as it doth of administring the Word and Sacraments at present I rest satisfied with this In which Learned Spalatensis and those that go with him cannot be confuted For this proveth that their Divinely-instituted Office Essentially containeth this Power of the Keys though to be exercised under the inspection of a Superiour 5. And if this Inspection would prove that they have not the Power or that their Office or Order is therefore distinct it will also prove that Bishops have not the Power of the Keys because they exercise it under the Inspection of Metropolitans Arch-Bishops Primates or Patriarchs And also that they are of a distinct Order from all these And that a Physition hath no Power to Guide or Govern his voluntary Patients in order to Cure and that he is off a distinct Office from the Colledge and President because he is under their inspection And are not all Bishops under the Government of the King as well as Physitions and other Subjects And have they no Power of the Keys because he ruleth them And as a Presbyter might do nothing without the Bishop so no one Bishop could do any thing without other Bishops For he had no Episcopal Power till they ordained him And as to after Government or that which he calleth the grant of a Second Power 6. Is it any thing but Humane License to Exercise the Power of Office of Divine institution before received And is not the Magistrates License as necessary to the Bishop and the Presbyter too as the Bishops is to the Presbyter 7. And I take it for undenied among Christians that humane Power of Government extendeth but to the Ordering and not the Nulling of a Function instituted by God It is not referred to King or Bishop whether there shall be a Preaching or none Sacraments or none Church discipline and exercise of the Keys or none no more than whether there shall be a Scripture and Divine Law a Christ a Heaven and whether men shall be good or bad saved or damned But only by whom and when and how this Divine Function shall be so exercised as may best attain the end as to those circumstances not determined of by God and not contradicting Gods Institutions Therefore if the Bishops say that the Preachers of the Gospel shall be silenced perhaps by hundreds or thousands while the necessity of the Peoples Souls is undeniable their Authority in this should hinder no man from going to Preach further than their violence hindreth And so by his own Rule it must be as to Discipline if Discipline be a Work belonging to a Presbyter And as Spalatensis saith of Confirmation the Presbyter should do it though the Bishop rorbid him 8. The Second Power which the Presbyter must receive from the Prelate for Teaching Worshipping and Governing the Plock is either 1. For the exercise of it in General to any fit persons or else for the limitation of him to such a particular Flock 2. And it is either a General License or power at once given to do all his Work or to do this of Government whenever there is cause or else it is a particular License for each particular act 1. We deny not but that as a Physician Licensed to practice is not thereby made the Physician of this or that Person Hospital or City but have a particular Call for such an Exercise or Application of his skill So an Ordained Minister of Christ hath no prepared Object on which to Exercise a Pastoral Office but by a particular Call to such a Flock But however you Censure our simplicity for it we are resolved to believe till you say more against it 1. That the same may be said of a Bishop too and therefore by your Argument when this Bishop is fixed in a particular Flock he receiveth a second power as you call it and so without it hath not the power of the Keys any more than the
Presbyter and so must be of a distinct Order from the Bishops that give him his second power And who giveth them theirs And if you rise to a Patriarch or Pope what Superiour of another Order giveth them their second Power 2. That institution or fixing a man before Ordained to a particular Flock doth not make him of another Order or Office nor is a new Ordination nor is he as oft Ordained and made of another Office as he changeth his Flock or receiveth a new License from the Bishop or the King from whom I had rather have it 3. That the People as well as the Bishop if not much more do give the Minister this opportunity for the exercise of his Office as the Patient chooseth his Physician And yet it is my Opinion that this will not prove that the People are his Governours much less that they give him a new Order or Office And of old the People chose their Bishops themselves It will be as much honour for you Learnedly to prove that there were no Kings in the World till Bishops made them as to confute D. Blondels Historical proof of the Peoples ancient choice of their Bishops 2. And as to a General License I will thank the King for it yea or any man that hath power to hinder me that he will give me leave to Preach and Exercise my Office But I do not think that every man that doth not hinder me when he can doth give me power And if a Bishop be so extraordinary good as not to silence nor hinder a Minister from Preaching Christ I do not think that this man is an Usurper in Preaching the Gospel for want of a License or second Power Nor yet in exercising the rest of his Office where he and the People do consent These things seem plain to us and they that whether by Learning or the Love of Riches and Honour and Domination are made wiser than we may suffer such Fools gladly while themselves are in re vel spe Rich Honourable and wise 3. And what is Ordination but a General Investiture in the power of performing the Ministerial Office And why may not the General Power or License be given at once as at twice I think Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and Administer the Holy Sacraments and the Discipline of the Church when thou art thereto lawfully called that is hast opportunity and fit Objects is a General License And a Man may presently Exercise this Office on Consenters Unless the sence be Take thee power when it shall be given thee 3. But if it be a Particular License that is here meant by the grant of second power I confess that there is somewhat considerable in it and that in old time the Bishop and his Clergy living together and meeting in the same Church the Presbyters like our Parish Curates now were in all the Worship of the day and in their privater Ministry to the People to be ruled by the Bishop and to Modifie and Circumstantiate all as he directed them And so may it be again But sure a Minister is not to travel an hundred miles to the Bishop to know whether he shall visit this sick man or give the Sacrament to the other and to know what Chapter he shall read and such like If it be not a General License that is meant it must needs suppose the Bishops presence 9. And seeing the Bishops may License a Presbyter to use the Keys the opening of this will help our understandings about the nature of the Bishops Office There is no act of Jurisdiction which they do not Ordinarily commit to others The sentence of Excommunication and Absolution is ordinarily decreed by a Lay-Chancellor And Spalatensis saith that Episcopal Jurisdiction may be done by a Lay Delegate The same sentence is Pronounced in Court by a Lay-Man or a meer Presbyter The same sentence is published in the Church by a Presbyter or Deacon And a Prince may give a License to exercise the Ministry to which we were Ordained I enquire then 1. Whether the granting of this Episcopal Power be a making that Man a Bishop that it 's granted to If so a Bishop a Presbyter and a Chancellor are all of one Office when thus impowred If not so then a Lay-man or one of another Office may have power to do the Work of the Bishops Office And what is the Office tell me if you can beside Authority and Obligation to do the Work A Lay-man and Presbyter may by the Bishop be Authorized and Obliged to do the Work of a Bishop and this ordinarily as an Office For so they do Ergo a Chancellor and a Presbyter may be made really a Bishop and yet in their esteem remain a Lay-man and a Presbyter still And is not that a Lay Office which a Lay-man may be Commissioned to do If a Lay-man were but Commissioned to do the Work of a Presbyter to Teach a Church ordinarily to Administer the Sacraments and to Excommunicate and Absolve in foro internae poenitentialis either it would make the Man a Presbyter or it would be a Nullity And if it be not so with the Bishops Office what is the Reason Is it not because it is not of Divine Specification and Institution but Humane and therefore mutable or such as Men may parcel out and commit to Lay-men by pieces as they please So much to Dr. Hammond's Appropriation of the Power of the Keys in that Treatise As to his Annotations I shall have occasion to recite them hereafter among those that give up the Diocesan Cause as opposed by us and therefore shall here pass them by His Dissertations against Blondel have a Premonition about Ordination which though most confident I shall manifest when I come to the point of Ordination to be most weak and indeed have done it before his death in my Disput of Ordin His first Preliminary Dissertation of Antichrist of the Mystery of Iniquity and of Diotrephes I will not be so needlesly tedious as to meddle with any further then to say that I will believe Dr. Hammond here and in his Annot. on 2 Thes 2. when I am fallen into so deep a sleep as to dream 1. That the famous Coming of Christ and our gathering together to him which is a great Article of the Christian Faith is but Titus his Destruction of Jerusalem and that the reward promised to all that love his appearing is meant to all that love the said Destruction of Jerusalem 2. And that this Destruction was not to be called nigh or at hand which fell out so few Years after 3. And that the Gentiles of remote Countries were so shaken in mind and moved about a Question of a few Years distance of the Destruction of the Jews more than about Christ's coming to the Common Judgment 4. And that the Gnosticks were indeed such terrible Persecutors of the Church who were dispersed Subjects when their Doctrine was but that they
livers But men that more fear to sin against God who can cast both soul and body into Hell than to lie in prison perhaps it is such Ministers as now are silenced for not saying subscribing or swearing as they are bid or it is some Church-Wardens who fear that they should be guilty of Persecution or Perjury which in their opinion are neither of them things indifferent if they should take the Oaths with the Articles that sometimes are offered them Or perhaps it is some one for not receiving the Sacrament either when a troubled Conscience maketh them fear lest they should eat and drink damnation to themselves or from a Minister or with a Church which they think the Scripture commandeth them to avoid whether such be in the right or in the wrong no wonder if they refuse to repent though they suffer when they fear a greater suffering from God Obj But the Minister of the place though he excommunicates none may seek to bring the sinner to repentance and may satisfie the Church of the justness of the excommunication Ans 1. In the nature of the thing they go together and are the work of the same persons And therefore Tertullian assureth us that in his time Discipline was exercised in the Church-meeting when they had been worshipping God 2. Who is either so fit or so obliged to satisfie the Church of the Act as he that doth it and hath examined all the Cause A parish Minister cannot bring any unwilling person to come over to speak with him not that we would have him have a forcing power but he cannot do his own Ministerial part which is to refuse to be the Pastor of such a man as refuseth to speak with him at all or to take him for his Pastor nor to forbear himself to give him the Sacrament so that he that neither heard the examination of the Cause by the Chancellor nor perhaps can have any speech with the person or at least with the Accuser or any of the Witnesses is very unfit to justifie another mans act and to satisfie the Church that it is well done much less to exhort the offender to repent who to him perhaps if he vouchsafe to speak to him will justifie his own cause when he cannot call witnesses to convince him And to speak to that which is our common case we have few persons excommunicated that ever I saw or knew of in forty years time save only the Conscientious persons beforementioned And when the parish Minister oft taketh them for the godliest persons in his Parish and the Bishop or Chancellor excommunicates them as Impenitent schismaticks how shall such a parish Minister justifie that and satisfie the person or people of the justice of it which he himself lamenteth as a hainous sin which tendeth to the dissipation of his flock But I come nearer to enquire into this officiating per alium by which an absent Bishop is supposed to do his office in the several Parishes of his Diocese 1. That alius or Official is either a Layman or a Clergyman 2. If a Clergyman he is either one of the same Order with the Bishop or another 3. Either it is the meer accidentals of his sacred function which he committeth to another or the proper Acts of it 4. Either it is pro hac vice in some case of necessity or it is as by an ordinary stated Official 1. If it be a Layman and the work be but Accidental or Extrinsick to the sacred function I grant that he may do it But for such works we need no Bishop For what a Layman may do when he bids him he may do when the King or his Magistrates bids him This is not the thing in question But if it be a proper Pastoral Act this Layman that doth it either receiveth from the Bishop power and obligation to do it or not If not he cannot do it as his Official If he do then he is a Pastor or Bishop himself and is Ordained and so no Layman For I provoke any dissenter living to tell me wherein the sacred office or any other lieth but in a Power or Authority and an Obligation to do the proper works of that office so that undeniably here is a contradiction And if any were of opinion that pro tempore in a case of necessity a Layman might do any Ministerial sacred act as Preach Baptize Consecrate the Sacrament of Christs body and blood excommunicate absolve c. 1. I answer if that were true if would but prove that those Acts are not proper to the sacred function in such a case of necessity as single Acts but only as ordinarily and statedly done by one separated to them 2. And therefore this would not at all concern our case which is not about extroardinary Acts in cases of necessity but about an ordinary stated course by Courts Chancellors and Officials 2. But if the Agent or Official were not a Lay Chancellor but a Clergyman if he be of the same Order with the Bishop than I grant all for it granteth me all even that every Church should have an ordinarily present Bishop But if he be supposed to be but of an inferior Order then I proceed as before either the Bishop giveth him power and obligation to do the proper work of the Bishop or not If not he is not hereby enabled to do it If yea then he hath thereby made him a Bishop For to be a Bishop is nothing else than to have Authority and Obligation to do the proper work of a Bishop But if it be but an Accidental or a common work which another may do it is not that in question nor do we need the Office of a Bishop for it Moreover either the Bishop pro hic nunc was himself obliged to do that Act which he committeth to another or not he but the other was by office obliged to do it If he himself was obliged to do it he sinned in not doing it If he were not it was not truly his act or part of his office work nor did he do it by another but that other did only his own work for which not the Bishop but he shall have the reward Obj. But doth not he that sendeth his servant to pay a debt himself in Law-sense pay it per alium what another doth as his Instrument reputatively he doth himself Ans I grant it because it is none of the debtors proper work nor is he at all obliged to it to bring the money and deliver it himself but to cause it to be delivered Therefore in sending it he doth all that he is obliged to do and when another is his instrument it is supposed that he is not obliged himself to do that which his instrument doth but only to cause the doing of it by himself or an Instrument as he please so that stil this is nothing to the case of a work that is proper to the Bishops Office Obj. But we therefore
more than they did nor ordain any other Presbyters than Bishops 2. That if Bishops were the Institutors of Presbyters as distinct from them by a Power of parcelling out their office to others than Bishops yet have power to make more sorts of sacred Ministers by subdivision of their power They may make one office only to Preach and another only to baptize and another only to pray and another only to administer the Lords Supper and another to Excommunicate and why not another to ordaine and so ordination shall not be proper to a Bishop And so a Chancellor that hath the parcel of excommunicating and absolveing is as true a Clergy man and of as high original as a Presbyter 3. But that which Dr. Hammond betaketh himself to at last in his Answer to the London Ministers is as miserable a shift as ever a poor cause was reduced to that had never stood if it had not been more beholden to the Sword than to such foundations he durst not say that the Presbyters office is not of Divine institution And yet it was not instituted in Scripture times But it was instituted in Saint Johns time by him a lone after the writing of his Gospel which according to Jerome was about a year or two before he dyed and the Revelation which according to Jrenaeus li. 5. was about four or five years before he dyed And so all the Bishops power of ordaining subject Presbyters dependeth 1. On one Apostles Institution 2. Not proved at all by Scripture 3. But only by Church-History which hath not a syllable of such a thing as that Saint John did institute the Presbyters office â—â—â— And this is feigned to be done by Saint John many years after Peter and Paul are said to be Bishops of Rome and James of Jerusalem and Peter of Antioch and Mark of Alexandria Yea about thirty two years after Mark was put to death according to Eusebius see then what proof the Doctor giveth us that even at Rome and Alexandria all that time there was no Bishop over Presbyters nor any that ever ordained a Presbyter that was not a Bishop 3. But suppose the Divine institution be proved of Bishops ordination of subject Presbyters let these three things more be noted 1. That at least we have brought it to the Ancients measure that excepta sola ordinatione except only ordination here is no work for to make a Bishops office of but what a Presbyter may do 2. That in this ordination they themselves acknowledg that the Presbyters may joyn even in imposing hands which is the note of Superiority the lesser being blessed by the greater and so Presbyters also by Epiphanius's leave do generare patres And Bishops have not the sole power of ordination but the chief 3. And whether a chief power in investing men in the Ministerial office do make a distinct order or office de nomine let them contend that please dere if this wereall we were agreed For my part I had rather that Bishops had not only a chief power as moderators But even a Negative voice in ordination yea and in Removals and fixing of Ministers than not For in so weighty a business two Locks and Keyes to keep out bad men are surer than one And the poor silenced Nonconformists have yielded to much more than this But yet there remaineth one part of the Diocesans work to be considered viz The judging of Heresie and Schism and the silencing suspending and degrading of Ministers that deserve it The Question is whether this be not proper to the Prelates office And here no man can wish us to swallow the terms of the questions whole without distinguishing as if they signifyed but one thing 1. As judging is 1. Either private by discerning ones own duty which belongeth to every private man 2. Or publick for the deciding of a controversieâ— and this as 1. Civil 2. Or properly Ecclesiastical so in several manners and to several ends Private men Magistrates and Pastors may judge of Heresie c. 2. And as for suspending silencing and degrading either 1. It signifieth some Correction by the Sword or force and that undoubtedly belongeth only to the Magistrate and to no private man nor Clergy man at all as such 2. A Private man and much more a Congregation may and must refuse a notorious Intolerable Minister whether Insufficient Heretical or wicked and Malignant they must withdraw from him and not take him for their guide and Pastor nor trust their Souls upon his care and conduct If Cyprian had never said Plebs maximum habet potestatem vel sacerdotes dignos eligendi vel indignos necesandâ— the Law of nature saith enough as it doth warrant a man to refuse an unskilful or malicious murdering Physician And Scripture requireth every man to take heed of false Teachers and deceivers and from such to turne away 3. To silence a false Teacher by Argument by word or writeing belongeth to every man that is called to contend earnestly for the faith and to answer a fool according to his folly 4. To perswade him by Argument to give over Preaching or to reform his errours 1. A private man may do it privately 2. Any Minister of Christ may do it both ex charitate ex officio authoritate as a Minister of Christ in his name For as a Physician doth medicate another Physician not as another man but as a Physician and a judge doth judge the cause of another Judge not as a private man but as a Judge so a Minister of Christ doth Preach to a Minister and perswade him not as a private man but as a Minister not as his superiour but as a Messenger of Christ who is his Soveraigne 5. Yea to Command such a man ex authoritate Nuâ—â—ii vel Ministri by Ministerial authority in the name of Christ to forsake his Heresie and wickedness or to forbear the Sacred Ministry belongeth to Ministers of the same office For if a Minister Preach or speak to another Minister as a Minister himself and in Christs name then no doubt but he may command in Christs name which is but by Ministerial office to publish the Commands of Christ No doubt but he may say to another Minister I Counsel yea Command you in the name of Christ by vertue of my office and his word to forbear Adultery Theft Blasphemy Heresie or else to forbear the Sacred Ministry Yea he may say thus with due reverence to a Bishop so that for a silencing by Reason or force or by Ministerial authority and command as from Christ there is no need of the office of a Diocesan 6. The question therefore is whether we must have a Bishop to silence men by bare Authority without convincing effectual argument satisfying his Conscience or else by a distinct Superior Authority more powerful than the Ministers And 1. Seing the Diocesan as such hath not the Sword it is certain that he silenceth no further than he prevaileth
called Of which sort were abundance of Christians towards each others Bishops in former ages and such are the Papists now towards you So that neither Papist nor Protestant that I ever knew silenced by you doth forbear upon Conscience of this your pretended authority at all And what a silencing power is that which scarce any man would be ever silenced by You cannot choose but know this to be true 2. And really should Magistrates themselves be so servile to you as to silence all Ministers by the Sword whom a Prelate judgeth to be silent while he knoweth not whether it be deservedly or not God forbid that Protestants like the Popes sheald make Kings to be their Executioners or hangmen A meer Executioner indeed is not bound to know or examine whether the sentence was just or not though in most cases to forbear if it be notoriously unjust but what a King or Magistrate doth he must do as a publick Judge and therefore must hear the cause himself and try whether he be really guilty or not and not only whether a Bishop judged him so Else Magistrates will either be involved in the bloody sin of persecution as oÌ„ft as a Prelate will but command them and so must be damned and help to damn others when Prelates please Or else it is no sin for a Magistrate to silence all the holyest Ministers of Christ to the damnation of thousands of ignorant untaught Souls so be it the Prelates do but bid him and he keep himself unacquainted with the cause And next they must obey the Counsel at Laterane sub Inoc. 3. And exterminate all subjects out of their Dominions though it be all that are there and must burn Holy-Christians to ashes because the Pope or Prelates bid them 3. I need not make also a particular application of this case to the people When they know nothing but wise and sound and holy in the Doctrine or life of their Pastors and God bids them know such as labour among them and are over them in the Lord and highly esteem them in Love for their work sake they will hardly be so debauched as to violate this command of God as oft as a Diocesan will but say I know some Heresie or Crime by your Teacher which you do not and therefore he must Preach no more and you must no more use his ministry Were I one of these people I would be bold to ask the Diocesan Sir what is the Heresie or Crime that he is guilty of If he refuse to tell me I would slight him as a Tyrant General Counsels told the people of the Heresies for which they did despose their Pastors If he told me what it was I would try it by Gods word If I were unable I would seek help If the Diocesan silenced my Teacher and ten neighbour Bishops wiser than he did tell me that it was for Truth and Duty and that the Heresie was the Bishops I would hear my Teacher and believe the other Bishops before him without taking them to be of a higher order The objections against this and what is before said shall be answered in the next Chapter You see when it is but opened how the Diocesans power vanisheth into the air CHAP. XIII That there is no need of such as our Diocesans for the Unity or the Government of the particular Ministers nor for the silencing of the unworthy IT stuck much in the minds of the Ancient Doctors and Christians that Episcopacy was necessary to avoid Schism and discord among the Ministers and the people and that it was introduced for that reason And I am so averse to singularity in Religion that I will not be he that shall gainsay it A double yea a treble Episcopacy though I cannot prove instituted of Christ yet will I not contradict because one sort I cannot disprove and the other two I take to be but a prudential humane determination of the Circomstances of one and the same sacred Ministerial office-worke 1. That which I cannot disprove as to a Divine Institution is a General Ministry over many Churches like the Scors Visiters at their Reformation who as Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists in the durable parts of their office were by a conjunction of Scripture evidence and Divine authority of office to perswade Pasâ—ors and people to their several duties and to have a chief hand in ordaining and removing Ministers 2. That which I will not contradict antiquity in is a Bishop in every particular Church to be as the chief Presbyter like the chief Justice on the bench or one of the Quorum as our Parish Ministers now are in respect to all their Curates of the Chappels under them 3. And I would not deny but at all Ministerial Synods one man may be Moderator either pro tempore or for continuance as there is cause These two last are but Prudential circumstances as Doctor Stiling fleet hath proved And in all these I like the Discipline of the Waldenses Bâ—â—emian and Polonian Churches But no Government of the Presbyters no concord no keeping out of Heresie requireth such as our Diocesans 1. Who put down all the Bishops of the particular Churches under them 2. And pretending Spiritual Power Govern by the force of the Magistrates Sword 3. And obtrude themselves on the people and Pastors without their consent and against their wills being by multitudes taken for the enemies of the Church 4. And visibly before the world introducing so many bad Ministers and silencing so many faithful ones as in this age they have done Without them we have all these means of concord following 1. We have a clear description of the duty of Ministers and people in Gods word 2. We have Ministers to Preach up all these duties by Office 3. The people are taught by Scripture what Ministers to choose 4. We find it natural to the people to before Learned and godly Ministers though many of them be bad themselves And though it be not so with them all yet the sober part do usually perswade the rest So that in London and else where those Parishes where the people choose had usually far worthier Pastors than the rest especially than those in the Bishops presentation 5. The people are obliged by God to marke those Ministers that cause division and contention and avoid them 6. The Ministers are bound to give notice to the people of false teachers and Schismaticks and to command them to avoid them And themselves to renounce Communion with them after the first and second admonition 7. These Ministers may have correspondence by Synods to keep up concord by agreement among themselves So we have over all a Christian King and Magistracy who are the rightful Governours of the Clergy as well as of all other subjects and may constrain the negligent to their duty and restrain the Heretical Schismatical and wicked from their sin And may not all this do much to keep up Concord 2. What our Diocesans really
one of our Parishes And let the Bishops take as big a Church as they will do all this for and spare not 5. And the Deacons bringing the consecrated Bread and Wine to the absent in token of Communion with the same Church and Bishop sheweth that there were not under him many other absent Congregations that had no other Bishop of their own Nor did the Deacon carry it to such Congregations through the Diocess In a word here is a full description of a Congregational Church and Bishop Saith Master Mede before cited of these words As the Jews had their Synagogues so perhaps might they have more Oratories than one though their Altar were but one there namely where the Bishop was Die solis omnes c. here he cites these words Namely as he there tells us to celebrate and participate of the Holy Eucharist Why was this but because they had not many places to celebrate in V. Tertullian is as plain and full Apol. c. 39. Corpus sumus de conscientia religionis disciplinae unitate spei foedere Coimus in Coetum Congregationem ut ad Deum quasi manu facta precationibus ambiamus orantes Cogimur ad divinarum literarum commemorationem Certe fidem sanctis vocibus pascimus spem erigimus fiduciam figimus disciplinam praeceptorum nihilominus inculcationibus densamus Ibidem etiam exhortationes castigationes censura divina Nam judicatur magno cum pondere ut apud certos de Dei conspectu summumque futuri judicii praejudicium est siquis ita deliquerit ut a Communicatione orationis Conventus omnis Sancti Commercii relegatur Praesident probati quique Seniores c. And de Corona Milit. cap. 3. Eucharistiae Sacramentum in tempore victus omnibus mandatum a domino etiam antelucanis coetibus nec de aliorum manu quam praesidentium sumimus And further Aquam adituri itidem sed aliquando prius in Ecclesia sub antistitis manu contestamur nos renunciare Diabolo pompae angelis ejus In all these words and many more such in Tertullian it is evident 1. That then a Church was a Congregation met for holy Worship and not many hundred Congregations making one Church primae ordinis 2. That this Church had ordinarily a Bishop present not present in one Congregation and many hundred without 3. That the Bishop baptized and took the Confessions of the Baptized and performed the ordinary Worship and administred the Lords Supper Doctor Hammond himself maintaineth that it is the Bishop that Tertullian speaketh of 4. That Discipline was exercised in those Church Assemblies and therefore the Bishop was present 5. They took the Sacrament from none but the Bishops hand save that the Deacon distributed it as from him which proveth that the Bishop was present when ever the Sacrament was administred 6. They had these Assemblies every Lords day All which set together plainly sheweth that then every Church had a present Bishop ordinarily and was no more than one Congregation met for such Communion as is described VI. And even in Cyprian's time the alteration was not great Epist 68. Edit Goulart p. 201. he saith Propter quod plebs obsequens praeceptis dominicis Deum metuens c. i. e. For which cause the people that are obedient to the Lords Commands and fear God ought to separate themselves from a sinful Prelate or Bishop and not to be present at the Sacrifices of a Sacrilegious Priest seeing they have the greatest power either of chusing worthy Priests or of refusing the unworthy which very thing we see coming down by Divine Authority that the Priest the people being present be chosen or appointed before the eyes of all and by the publick judgment and testimony be approved worthy and fit And so going on to prove the Divine Right hereof he addeth which was before done so diligently and cautelously the people being all called together lest any unworthy person should creep into the Ministry of the Altar or the place of Priesthood For that the Unworthy are sometimes ordained not according to the Will of God but according to the presumption of Man and that these things are displeasing to God which come not of legitimate and just Ordination God himself doth manifest by the Prophet Osee saying They made themselves a King but not by me And therefore it is diligently to be observed and held of Divine Tradition and Apostolical Observation which with us also and almost all the Provinces is held that for the right celebrating of Ordinations all the next Bishops of the same Province do come together to that people over whom the Bishop or Prelate is set and that the Bishop be appointed them or assigned the people being present who fullyest know the life of every one and have throughly seen the act of every ones Conversation which also we saw done with you in the Ordination of Sabinus our Colleague that the Office of a Bishop was given or delivered him and hands imposed on him in the place of Basilides by the suffrage of the whole Fraternity and by the judgment of the Bishops that had met together and had sent you Letters concerning him And before Sect. 4. Deus instruit c. God instructeth and sheweth that the Ordinations of Priests that is Bishops ought not to be done but under the Conscience that is present sight and consent of the assisting people that the Laity being present either the crimes of the bad may be detected or the merits of the good predicated and that Ordination be just and legitimate which was examined by the suffrage and judgment of all The Case is so plain in Cyprian that Pamelius himself is forced thus to confess Non negamus veterem Electionis Episcoporum ritum quo plebe praesente immo suffragiis plebis eligi solent Nam in Africa illum observatum constat ex electione Eradii successoris D. Augustini de quo extat Epistola ejus 120. In Graecia aetate Chrysostomi ex lib. 3. de Sacerdot In Hispaniis ex hoc Cypriani loco Isidor lib. de Officiis In Galliis ex Epist Celestini p. 2. Romae exiis quae supra diximus Epist ad Antoniam Ubique etiam alibi ex Epist Leonis 87. Et perdurasse eam consuetudinem ad Gregor 1. usque ex ejus Epistolis Immo ad tempora usquâ— Caroli Ludovici Imperat. ex 1. lib. Capitulorum eorundem satis constat Verum Plebi sola suffragia concessa non electio quae per subscriptionem fieri solet Hoc enim potissimum tunc agebatur ut invito plebi non daretur Episcopus From hence now the quantity of their Churches may easily be gathered 1. The people must be present 2. And this must be All the people the whole Laity of the Church 3. They give their testimony of the life of the ordained 4. They are supposed all to know his conversation 5. This is the
5. UPon the Review finding some considerable Evidences from Councils before omitted some shall be here added 1. The Roman Clergy called a Council at Rome Bin. pag. 158. c. saith that in the Interregnum they had the charge of the Universal Church and Cyprian wrote to them as the Governors of the Church of Rome when they had been a year or two without a Bishop And their Actions were not null 2. A Carthage Council with Cyprian condemn even a dead man called Victor because by his Will he left one Faustinus a Presbyter the Guardian of his Sons and so called him off his Sacred Work to mind Secular things Did this favour of Bishop's Secular Power Magistracy or Domination 3. How came the Carthage Councils to have so many hundreds in so narrow a room or space of Land but that every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corporation or big Town had a Bishop Anno 308. at a Carthage Council the very Donatists had two hundred and seventy Bishops And at Arles two hundred Bishops heard the Donatists Cause 4. The Laodicean Council decreed Can. 46. that the Baptized should learn the Creed and on Friday repeat it to the Bishops or Presbyters which implieth that a Bishop was present with every Church And Cap. 57. It is ordained that thenceforth Bishops should not be ordained in small Villages and Hamlets but Visiters should be appointed them But such Bishops as had heretofore been there ordained should do nothing without the Conscience of the City Bishop Which implieth 1. That every big Town had a Bishop 2. And Villages before 5. Epiphanius Haer. 68. pag. 717. c. saith That Peter separated from Meletius in the same room and as Meletius went to the Mines he made new Bishops and gathered new Churches so that in several Cities there were two Bishops and Churches Which implieth that they were Congregations for Personal Communion 6. The Nicene Council cap. 8. alloweth Rural Bishops then in use whom Petavius proveth to have been true Bishops 7. Greg. Nazianz. pag. 528. c. sheweth how Churches were enlarged and changed when the strife began between Mea Tua Antiqua Nova Nobilior Ignobilior Multitudine Opulentior aut Tenuior 8. After Lucifer Calaritanus ordained Paulinus Antioch had long two Bishops half being his Flock and half cleaving to Meletius 9. Nazianzen had in the great City of Constantinople but one of the small Churches the Arians having the greater till Theodosius gave him the greater And those Hearers he was Bishop over 10. A Council at Capua ordered that both the Bishops Flocks in Antioch under Evagrius and Flavian should live together in Love and Peace 11. Many Cities tolerated Novatian Bishops and Churches among them and oft many other Dissenters Which sheweth that but part of the City were one Church 12. The Council at Carthage called the last by Binius decreed that Reconciliation of Penitents as well as Chrisme and consecrating Virgins is to be done only by the Bishops except in great necessity For how many Parishes can a Bishop do all this and all the rest of his Office And when Christians were multiplied they that desired a Bishop where was none before might have one But else aliud Altare is again forbidden to be set up 13. Another Carthage Council decreeth Can. 15. That the Bishop have but vile or cheap Houshold-stuff and a poor Table and Diet and seek Authority or Dignity by his Faith and desert of Life Can. 19. That he contend not for transitory things though provoked Can. 23. That he hear no Cause but in the presence of his Presbyters else it shall be void that is sentenced without them unless confirmed by their presence Note this being a constant work required a constant presence and it is not a selected Chapter of Presbyters that is named And must those of many hundred Parishes dwell in the City or travel thither for daily Causes of Offenders c. Can. 28 30. Bishops unjust Sentence void and Judgment against the absent 14. A Council at Agathum Can. 3. saith If Bishops wrongfully excommunicate one any other Bishop shall receive him Which implieth that the wronged person lived within reach of a Neighbour Bishop's Parish For it doth not bind him to remove his Dwelling And leave to go daily twenty or forty Miles to Church is a small kindness And I have already cited Can. 63. If any Citizens on the great Solemnities Easter the Lord's Nativity or Whitsuntide shall neglect to meet where the Bishops are seeing they are set in the Cities for Benediction and Communion let them for three Years be deprived of the Communion of the Church So that even when Churches were enlarged yet you see how great a part of them met in one place 15. Divers Canons give the Bishop a third or fourth part of all the Church Profits And if those Churches had been as big as our Dioceses it would have been too much of all Conscience 16. A Synod at Carpentoracte decreed that the Bishop of the City shall not take all the Country Parish Maintenance to himself Which implieth as the former that his Country Parish was small 17. A Council at Orleance Anno 540. decree Can. 3. about ordaining a Bishop that Qui praeponendus est omnibus ab omnibus eligatur The Dioceses yet were not so large but that All met to chuse 18. So Concil Byzazen saith it must be By the Election of all 19. Another at Orleance Anno 545. saith No Citizen must celebrate Easter out of the City because they must keep the principal Festivities in the presence of the Bishop where the holy Assembly must be kept But if any have a necessity to go abroad let him ask leave of the Bishop Here is but one City Assembly and Individuals must be known to the Bishop and ask his leave to go abroad And Can. 5. saith A Bishop must be ordained in his own Church which he is to oversee Which implieth that he had but one Church and Country Chappels 20. Another Orleance Council hath the like deposing all Bishops that come not in by common consent And requiring them both in their Cities and Territories to relieve the Poor from the Church-House Let us have such Dioceses as the Bishop can do this for and we consent 21. A Synod at Paris Can. 8. says Let no Man be ordained a Bishop against the Will of the Citizens nor any but whom the Election of the People and Clerks shall seek with plenary Will None shall be put in by the Command of the Prince c. 22. King Clodoveus called a Synod at Cabilone which Can. 10. decreeth That all Ordination of Bishops be null that was otherwise made than by the Election of the Comprovincials the Clerks and the Citizens 23. The Const Trul. Can. 38. sheweth how the unhappy changes were made decreeing That whatever alteration the Imperial Power shall make on any City the Ecclesiastical Order shall follow it And so if the
change in their Church Orders Either it was part of the Apostolical Commission and work to settle Church Offices and orders for Government or not as to the species if Christ had not before done it or to settle it by revealing what Christ did command them either from Christ's mouth or the Spirits inspiration to â—â—tle the Catholick Church as Moses did the Jewish If it were none of their Commissioned Office work then it was none of John's And then it is done so as may be yet undone But if it were John's work it was Theirs And if theirs why did they not perform it Even while they had that promise Matth. 15. 20 21. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name c. And If two of you agree of a thing c. If you say that there was no need till they were all dead I answer It is a Fiction The greatest numerous Church at Jerusalem had more need of more than One to officiate among them and so had Ephesus Antioch Coritnb c. than most Churches else had in St. John's days And were all the Apostles so negligent and forgetful 2. What proof is there that St. John did make this change It is either by Scripture that it is proved or by History 1. Not by Scripture For 1. No Scripture mentioneth S. John's doing it 2. Dr. Hammond and his followers confess that it was not done as can be proved in Scripture times And Chronologers suppose that there was but a year or two between his death and the end of Scripture times that is the writing of his Apocalypse And is it probable that he began so great a Change the last year of his life 2. And History maketh no mention of it at all For I am ashamed to answer their nonconcluding reason from St. John's bringing a young prodigal to a Presbyter to be educated or his Ordaining Presbyters when it is no more than is said of the other Apostles Let them give us if they can any Satisfactory proof that S. John alone a year or two ere he died made this new species of Presbyters and Churches that we may believe it to be of God But blind presumptions we dare not trust 3. None of the Ancient Churches Councils or Doctors that ever I could find did ever hold that Subpresbyters were instituted by St. John alone and these changes made by him How then shall we think that men of yesterday can tell us without them and better than they and contrary to them the history of those times 4. By as good a course as this what humane corruption may not be defended and Scripture supposed insufficient to notifie Gods Church-institutions to us When there is nothing said in Scripture for them the Papists or others may say that S. John made this or that Change when all the rest were dead But why must we believe them 5. And the Church hath rejected this plea already long ago When Papias pleaded that he had the Millenary Doctrine from St. John himself and when the Eastern Churches pretended his Authority for their time of Easters observation here was incomparably a fairer shew of St. John's Authority than is produced by Dr. H. in the present case And yet both were over-ruled by the Consent of the Churches II. And that it cannot be proved to be the Apostles intentions that their establishment herein should be but temporary and left to the will of man to change I have largely proved in my Disput 1. of Church Government long ago I now only say 1. That which the Apostles did in execution of a Commission of Christ for which he promised and gave them his infallible Spirit was the work of Christ himself and the Spirit and not to be changed but by an Authority equal to that which did it But such was the setling of the species of Churches and Elders Ergo c. The Commission is before recited from Scripture and so is the promise and gift of the Spirit to perform it 2. Where there is full proof of a Divine Institution by the Apostles and no proof of a purpose that men should afterward change it or that this institution should be but for a time and then cease there that Institution is to be supposed to stand in force and the repeal cessation or allowed mutation to befeigned But there is full proof of a Divine institution by the Apostles that Preesbyters with the power of Government were placed over single Churches and no other saith Dr. H. And there is no proof brought us at all of either Repeal Cessation or Allowance for mutation Ergo c. They confess de facto all that we desire viz. 1. That there was then none but single Churches or Congregations under one Bishop 2. That there were no Subpresbyters Let them now prove the Allowance of a Change 3. That supposition is not to be granted which leaveth nothing sure in the Christian Churches and Religion But such is the supposition of a change of the Apostles Orders in these points Ergo. If the after times may change these Orders who can prove that they may not change all things else of supernatural institution As the Lords day Baptism the Lords Supper the Bible the Ministry yet remaining c. And if so nothing is sure Object Christ himself instituted these and therefore they may not be changed Answ 1. It was not Christ himself that wrote the Scripture but his servants by his Spirit 2. Christ himself did that mediately which his Apostles did by his Mandate and Spirit Matth. 28. 20. The Spirit was given them to bring all things to their remembrance which he had spoken to them And to cause them to Teach the Churches all things which Christ had commanded them And as Christ made the Sin against the Holy Ghost to be greater than that which was but directly against his humanity and as he promised his Disciples that by that Spirit they should do greater works than his so that which his Spirit in them did establish was of no less authority than if Christ had personally established it 4. By this rule the Prelates themselves may be yet taken down by as good authority as the Apostles other settlement was changed For if it was done by Humane Authority there is yet as great Humane power to make that further change Wherever they place it in Kings Bishops or Councils they may yet put down Bishops by as good authority as they put down what the Apostles set up and may set up more new orders still by as good authority as they set up these half-presbyters And so the Church shall change as the Moon 5. That which is accounted a reproach to all Governours is not without proof to be imputed to God and his inspired Apostles But to make oft and sudden changes of Government is accounted a reproach to all Governours Ergo For it is supposed that they wanted either foresight and wisdom to know what was to be
mean time they observe not the peoples mindes and lives much lesse do they reforme them Nor do they take care how the people grow in the knowledge of God the faith of Christ and in true Godliness They apply not themselves to the study of the Scriptures nor perswade the people to read them in their houses they neither take care of the poor and strangers nor visit the sick as little caring how and with what faith they depart And thus they discharge their Ministry neither faithfully prudently nor profitably It is indeed of great moment that they bring not strange Doctrine into the Church but teach the Scripture Doâ—â—rine and that they use not superstitious rites but are not content with simple administration of the Sacraments according to the custome of the Primitive Church But in this they are to be blamed that they do things right and profitable not from the hearts but sleightly as on the by and what is accordingly to be else done by a faithful Minister they wholly neglect While they thus Minister they do not indeed bring Errour and superstitions into the Churches as in the foregoing ages was done But in the mean time inclining to the other extreme they take the course which by degrees will bring the people into that indifferency in Religions which is the most pestilent and to drink in Epicurism the waster and extniguisher of all religion Wherefore I beseech them in the Lord that they fully performe and discharge their Ministry and not thus by the halves Thus far he describeth our ordinary better sort of the Clergie but not our Bishops And Pa. 431. They that labour more to keep up the authority of Bishops than to save the people when they cannot convince the Ministers called by the Magistrate of error do raise a question about their calling being themselves neither lawfully chosen nor called saying what Suffragane ordained you minister what Bishop called you to the office As the Priests by Christ They questioned not his work which they could find no fault with but his power so these where they cannot by Gods word defend their own errours and abuses nor disprove our true doctrine they fly to the Episcopal power and authority as if they did passess any such umblamable and lawful power when they neither discharge the office nor have the power of true Bishops wherefore let no true sincere Minister of Christ regard the barking of these men but as content with the testimony of his Conscience and his calling to teach by the Lawful Magistrate go on in the Lords work with alacrity of spirit Here he addeth the manner of their calling at Bern by the election of the Pastors and confirmation of the Magistrates and reception of the people that you may know what he meaneth by the Magistrates Call And p. 436. having told us that Christianity falleth where the election and Pastoral care of the Ministry falleth he addeth But now they that endeavour to put out the light of truth boast much of the power of Bishops Arch-Bishops Metropolitanes Patriarcks and the Roman Pope where if you urge them to it they are not able to prove by any truth of divine institution that so much as this first ministerial power of Ministring in the Church is in those Bishops Arch-bishops Metropolitanes Patriarcks or Pope that is in these Church Lords Satrapes Let them prove that these are true Ministers of Christ I strive not about Episcopacy simply in it self whether it be to be numbred with Christs true Ministers But the controversie is whether such Bishops as our age too patiently tolerateth are to be numbred with Christs true Ministers It is greatly to be feared lest in the day of judgment they will hear that dreadful word from God Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not I have added more of Musculus then directly concerneth the point now in hand because I would take him all together And because the Helvetians are not accounted Presbyterians I add Bullinger Decad. 5. Serm. 3. p. mihi 377. 378. and Serm. 4. p. 383. Where he sheweth that Diocesan Bishops have not the sole power of ordination that Presbyters and Bishops were the same and had the same work and the horrid abuses that came into the Church by the degenerating of Episcopacy And Decad. 5. Serm 10. p. 491. that in latter Ages Prelates and Bishops snatching by tyranny that power of excommunication to themselves which before was used by the Pastors in Synods in common and sacrilegiously using it against the first institution had tarned a wholesome medicine into deadly poyson and made it abaminable to good and bad But I may not recite all Wagundus was no Presbyterian being superintendent of Magdeburgh first and after of Wismaria and after of Jene and after Bishop Pomeraniensis nor yet Math. Iudex yet go they the same way as may be seen Sytagm p. 1049. de excom p. 1114. de Eccles p. 1135. de Minist Should I cite all that is said by those that never were called Presbyterians about the degeneration of Episcopacy the largeness of their charge the ruine of discipline by their tyranny ambition and grasping wealth and titles when they neither will nor can perform the work I mean by Luther Melancton Illyricus Chytraeus Tzegedine Bucer Zuinglius Oecolampadius Gryneus Aretius Gualther Pet. Martyr Paraeus Chenmitius Pelargus c. I should but over-weary the Readers patience I only add that if the Churches of France Belgia Geneva and the rest of the Presbyterians and the Churches of Transilvania Hungary and formerly Poland that were Orthodox and Bobemia Brandenburgh Saxony the Palatinate c. that set up another sort of Episcopacy had found that the old or English species would have done the Ministerial works it is not credible that they would all have rejected it III. The third part of that experience which I alledge is the Bishops own 1. This is signified by their confessions before named Ar. Bishop Ushers reasons for the ancient use of Episcopacy with their Presbyters who shall be acknowledged true Church Governours over their flocks is fetcht from the need of so many to the work And Mr. Stanley Gower late of Dorchester was wont to profess being long intimate with him that he professed to him that he took a Bishop to be but primus Presbyterorum of the same order and every Presbyter a Governour of the flock And when he asked him why then he would be a Primate as he was he told him that he took it not for any part of his office as instituted by Christ but for a Collateral Dignity which the King was pleased to bestow on him for the more advantageous discharge of his Spiritual Office What Bishop Jewels opinion was to the like purpose is plain enough in his works Bishop Reignolds that now is professed to me his opinion to be the same when he took the Bishoprick and when he saw Dr. Stillingfliets book that no form of Church Government is
unworthy to have Communion with any orderly well governed Congregation of believers because of their loose and scandalous manner of living which because they could not redresse they did pretend at least they were bound thus to shun and avoid as hateful to God and to good men Wherefore ye did not carefully seperate between the precious and the vile but consulting with flesh and blood what ye were to do in this case thought in humane Policy to break the power of one party by strengthening the hands of the other or not binding and restraining them with the Cords of Ecclesiasticall discipline Thus while you opposed Profaneness against Schism or did let that loose at this or secretly favoured and upheld it in hope to suppresse the later by the former the one grew too strong by the violence of opposition for your selves and both for the Church in order to peace and holiness As for your labour in the work of the Ministry how little it hath been for many years together it is even a shame to mention some of you wholly exempting your selves from this necessary burden of their calling for ease and pleasure Others supposing it a task and employment too low and inferiour for them The rest for the most part slightly or seldome bearing it with their shoulders and laying it aside presently as that which concerned other men and not themselves any longer than they listed And thus far had been pardonable with men had care been taken to see this work duely performed by the Clergy But alas there were not wanting of you who did not only wink at the wilful neglect of their inferirour bretheren in this point of Ministerial duty But did countenance and favour such as were most peccant therein judging them most averse from faction who were least conscious Of Preaching to the peole and fairest friends to the present Government who were loose enough God knoweth in their office and conversation Whence it came to pass that very many who were for you in the time of Tryal were ignorant and dissolute men dishonourable to your party and indeed to the Christian Religion which they did continually profane by their words and workes So unsuitable is humane policy with Evangelical simplicity and unsuccesful when it is used to support the regiment thereof And instead of sending forth meet Labourers into the Lords harvest fit Pastors into his flock you sent those that were idle Shephards loving to slumber given to sleep altogether like your selves careless of the Lords Heritage either unwilling if able or if willing unable or neither willing nor able rightly to divide the word of truth giving them their portion in due season As for those to whom God had given both ability and will to preach the word ye permitted them not the free use and exercise of their gifts but forbade them to teach the people as oft as they saw it convenient or necessary for their Edification And though you did at first commend to them the way of Catechizing the younger sort yet afterwards I know not upon what grounds or for what reason you so far limited and restrained the Minister in this pious and profitable practice that ye did in a manner take away the key of knowledge or make it useless for them so that they could not enter in thereby And pag. 69. of this I am assured that nothing was reformed afterward in your ordinations it being as free and indifferent for all who came as ever p. 70. 71. 72. The like excuse some frame for the gross corruptions of your prerogative Courts for commutations unjust partial and unreasonable Censures of Excommunication for unlawful to say no more suspension of the meaner sort from ordinances of Jesus Christ for non payment or rather disability of paying pecuniary mulcts and fees imposed on them and without Equity exacted of them by your prophane and greedy officers They pretend the power of the Chancellour to be distinct and separate from that of the Bishop in many points of spiritual Jurisdiction and so exempt from it and uncontroulable by it however proving illegal and exorbitant in the proceedings there of And surely it may seem strange to any considerate person that ye who did so much strain your authority for the introuducing of new Ceremonies into the Church of Christ savouring of superstition and begetting jealousies in mens minds of Popish innovations intended by you without prudence or Conscience and used it so rigorously for the enforcing of the old upon many ill affected to the observation of them absolutely requiring conformity to the Church Liturgy in every point of all men notwithstanding rebus sic stantibus profligata disciplina some former thereof were not appliable to divers persons would not extend it to the utmost measure for the rectifying those great abuses which had by insensible degrees crept in and corrupted the true Primitive discipline But Court employments State flattery and sinful Complyances with great persons were the main lets which hindred you from the due discharge of your office both in preaching the word and exercising the Rod of Christ according to his mind and will while ye thought in carnal reason such means as these most effectual for the acquiring and retaining of your greatness and despised those which the prudent simplicity of the Gospel did offer and commend unto you Wherefore it is no wonder if vice did reign there where flattery did abound and that in the chief Ministers and Messengers of truth if injustice and oppression did bear sway If men were secure in their sins where peace was proclaimed where a prophane Company heard nothing for the most part decried in the Pulpit but Faction from which perhaps alone they were free And what could be expected from the common people but blind ignorance love of pleasures more than God when ye their chief Leaders caused them to err not only through your negligence but also by your example And I would to God some of you had not proved false and deceitful to your brethren whom ye perverted from the way of truth and peace by your own departing from it continuing fast friends to the world ye were carnal your selves and walked as men shewing them the way to heaven with hearts and eyes fixed upon earth For who more immoderate in their care for the things of this life than you Who more eager in the pursuit of riches and honor more tenacious in withholding good from the owners thereof than your selves Who were more set upon the usual course of enriching above measure and raising your families on high If a dignity or office fell within the Compass of your Diocess who was presently judged of you more worthy to possess and manage it than a Son or a Nephew or a Kin'man or an Allie though they were many times altogether uncapable of the honor and trust to which ye preferred them in the house of God either they wanted ability of
2. c. 5. That were for seventy years after their conversion without a Bishop Vlphilas being the first 4. Columbanus was no Bishop but a Presbyter and Monk nor his Successours that yet Ruled even the Bishops as Beda noteth Hist. li 3. c. 4. 5. Hâ—here solet ipsa Insula Rectorem semper Abbatem Presbyterum cujus jure omnis provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitatâ— debeant esse subjecti juxta exemplum primi Doctoris illius Columbani qui non Episcopus sed Presbyter extitit Monachus And these Presbyters did not only ordaine as being the only Church Governours but they sent Preachers into England and ordained Bishops for England at King Oswalds request as Beda at large relateth Eccles Hist l. 3. c. 3. 5. 17. 21. 24 25. The Abbot and other Presbyters of the Island Hy sent Aydan ipsum esse dignum Episcopatu ipsum ad erudiendos incredulos indoctos mitti debere decernunt Sicque illum ordinantes ad praedicandum miserunt c. Successit vero ei in Episcopatu Finan ipse illo ab Hy Scotorum insula ac monasterio destinatus c. 17. cap. 25. Aydano Episcopo de hac vita sublato Finan pro illo gradum Episcopatus a Scotis ordinatus missus acceperat c. So cap â—4 c. You will find that the English had a Succession of Bishops by the Scotish Presbyters ordination And there is no mention in Beda of any dislike or scruple of the lawfulness of this course Segenius a Presbyter was Abbot of Hy cap. 5. when this was done And cap. 4. it appears that this was their ordinary custome though in respect to the Churches that were in the Empire it be said to be more inusitato that Presbyters did Govern Bishops but none questioned the validity of their ordinations And the Council at Herudford subjecteth Bishops in obedience to their Abbots And the first reformers or Protestants here called Lollords and Wicklifists held and practised ordination by mere Presbyters as Walsingham reports Hist Angl. An. 1â— 89. and so did Luther and the Protestants of other Nations as Pomeranus ordination in Denmark shews and Chytraeus Saxon Chron lib. 14. 15. 16. 17. 5. Leo Mag. Epist 92. cited by Gratian being consulted a rustico Narbonensi de Presbytero vel Diacono qui se Episcopos mentiti sunt de his quos ipsi clericos ordinârâ—nt answered Nulla ratio sâ—vit ut inter Episcopos habeantur qui nec a clericis sunt electi nec a plebibus expetiti c. yet thus resolveth of their ordination Siqui autèm Clerici ab ipsis Pseudo Episcopis in eis Ecclesus ordinati sunt quae ad proprios Episcopos pertinebant ordinatio eorum cum consensu judicio presidentium facta est potest â—ata haberi ita ut in ipsis Ecclesus perseverunt So that the mere consent of the proper Bishops can make valid such Presbyters ordination 6. Fâ—licissimus was ordained Deacon by Novatus one of Cyprians Presbyters Schismatically yet was not his ordination made Null by Cyprian but he was deposed for Mal-administration See Blondel p. 312. 113. 7. Firmilian in 75 Epist apud Cyprian Saith Necessariò apud nos fit ut per singulos annos seniores praepositi in unum conveniamus ad disponenda quae curae nostrae commissa sunt ut si quae graviora sunt communi consilio dirigantur This shews that communi consilio importeth a consenting Governing Power c. Omnis potestas gratia in Ecclesus constituta ubi praesident majores natu qui baptizandi manum imponeâ—â—â— ordinandi possidâ—nt Potestatem If any say It is only Bishops that Formilian speakes of I answer 1. He had a little before used the word Seniores the same in sense with Majores natu here as distinct from Praepositi to signifie either all Pastors in general or Presbyters in special 2. When he speakes of Majores natu in general they that will limit it to Bishops must prove it so limited and not barely affirme it 3. The conjunct acts of the office disprove that It was the same men that had the power of baptizing 8. The great Council of Nice the most reverend Authority next to the holy Scripture decreed thus concerning the Presbyters ordained by Melitius at Alexandria and in Egypt Hi autem qui Dei gratiâ nostris precibus adjuti ad nullum Schisma deflexisse comperti sint sed se intra Catholicae Apostolicae Ecclesiae fines ab erroris labe vacuos continuerint authoritatem habeant tum ministros ordinandi tum eos que clero digni fuerint nominandi tum denique omnia ex lege instituto Ecclesiastico libere exequendi If any say that the meaning is that these Presbyters shall ordain and Govern with the Bishops but not withoutthem I am of his mind that this must needs be the meaning of these words or else they could not be consonant with the Church Canons But this sheweth that ordination belongeth to the Presbyters office and consequently that it is no nullity though an irregulrity as to the Canons when it is done by them alone Socrat. lib. 5. 6. cap. 6. 9. It is the title of the twelfth Canon Concil An cyrani Quod non oportet Chorepiscopos ordinare nisi in agris villulis Now either these Chorepiscopi were of the order of Bishops or not If they were then it further appeareth how small the Churches were in the beginning that had Bishops even such as had but Vnum Altare as Ignatius saith when even in the Countrey Villages they had Bishops as well as in Cities notwithstanding that the Christians were but thinly scattered among the Heathens But if they were not Bishops then it is apparent that Presbyters did then ordain without Bishops and their ordination was valid And the Vafrities of the Prelates is disingenious in this that when they are pleading for Diocesan Churches as containing many fixed Congregations then they eagerly plead that the Chorepiscopi were of the order of Presbyters But when they plead against Presbyters ordination they would prove them Bishops Read Can. 10. Concilii Antiocheni 10. Even in the daies of ignorance and Roman Usurpation Bonifacius Mogunt alias Wilfred Epist 130 Auct Bib. Pat. To 2. p. 105. tells Pope Zachary as his answer intimateth that in Gente Boiariorum there was but one Bishop and that was one Vivilo which the Pope had ordained and that all the Prebyters that were ordained among them as far as could be sound were not ordained by Bishops though that ignorant usurping Pope requireth as it seemeth that they be reordained unless Benedictionem ordinationis should signifie only the blessing or confirmation of their former ordination which is not like For he saith Quia indicasti perrexisse te ad gentem Boiariorum inâ—enisse eos extra ordinem ecclesiasticum viventes dum Episcopos non habebant in Provincia nisi
teach them not to disdain the advice of their Presbyters but to use their Authority with so much the greater humility and moderation as a Sword which the Church hath power to take from them This is Mr. Hooker And page 14. He confesseth that according to the Custom of England and a Council at Carthage Presbyters may impose hands in Ordination with the Bishop though not without him So that by this they have the the power of Ordination to though he have a Negative Voice in it And indeed if all Ordination must be done by one of a Superiour Order who shall Ordain Bishops or Archbishops or Patriarchs or the Pope And page 18. He saith Most certain truth it is that Churches Cathedral and the Bishops of them are as glasses wherein the face and countenance of Apostolical antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen Which is it that we also affirm every City or Church having a Bishop and Presbytery of their own And whereas page 19. He saith If we prove that Bishops have lawfully of old ruled over other Ministers it is enough how few soever those Ministers have been how small soever the circuit of place which hath contained them If this be so we grant you enough when we grant Parochial Bishops But no where doth he more palpably yield our Cause than page 21 22. where to Cartwright's Objection that the Bishop that Cyprian speaketh of is nothing else but such as we call Pastor or as the common name is Parsons and his Church whereof he is Bishop is neither Diocess nor Province but a Congregation which met together in one place to be taught by one man He hath no better answer to this than to tell us that If it were true it is impertinent and that it is not true because Cyprian had many Presbyters under him so as they might have every day change for performance of their duty And he never once attempteth to prove that Cyprian had more Churches yea or Assemblies than One but only that he was over the Presbyters in one Church or Assembly and as an Archbishop was over Bishops The same thing which I submit to but nothing against the things that I assert against him A Parson may have divers Curates under him and not divers Churches much loss a thousand that have no other Bishop And whereas page 33. It is objected that many things are innovated in our Discipline as imposing Ministers on the People without their consent Bishops Excommunicating alone Imprisoning c. His answer is that the Church may change her customes And on that ground alloweth the Ordination of Presbyters alone because the Church can give them power For he goeth in Church-matters as he doth in point of Civil Government on his false supposition that all Power is Originally in the whole Body saying page 37. The whole Church visible being the true Original subject of all power it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than Bishops alone to Ordain Howbeit as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary ways What is more contrary than Saravia Tract de Obedient and Hooker in their Principles of Government From hence also page 38. He inferreth the no necessity of continued Succession of Bishops in every effectual Ordination And it is very observable which he granteth for it cannot be denied The Power of Orders I may lawfully receive without the asking consent of any multitude but the power I cannot exercise upon any certain People against their wills And page 38. He cannot deny but the ancient use was for the Bishops to excommunicate with the College of his Assistant Presbyters but he taunteth Beza for thinking that this may not be changed These are the men that build upon Antiquity and the Custom of the Universal Church And page 69. when the Canons for Bishops spare course of living are objected he saith that those Canons were made when Bishops lived of the same Purse which served as well for a number of others as for them and yet all at their disposing Intimating the old Course when every Church had its Bishop and inferiour Clergy But Innovation is lawful for our Prelacy And now he that can find any thing in Hooker against the points which I defend or for that Prelacy which I oppose any more worth the answering than this that I have recited let him rejoyce in the perfection of his eye-sight And if thus much be worthy to be confuted or such as this let them do it that have nothing else to do So ridiculous is the Challenge of one that glorieth to write a Book with the same Title of Ecoles Policy who insultingly provoketh us to write a full Confutation of Hooker who saith so little to the main point in Controversie our Diocesan Form of Prelacy and writeth his whole Book in a tedious Preaching stile where you may read many leaves for so much Argumentation as one Syllogism may contain that I think I might as wisely have challenged himself to conâ—â—ue Mr. Fâ—x's Book of Martyrs or Baronius his Annals almost or at least may say as Dr. John Burges doth of Mr. Parker another sort of Parker his Book of the Cross which Dr. Ames saith was never answered that if any will reduce that gawdy Treatise into Argument it being indeed almost all made up of the fruits of Reading History Sentences c. of purpose to confute them that said the Nonconformists were no Schollars he should quickly have an Answer to it So if any will reduce all that is in Mr. Hooker's 8 Books in tedious Discourses into Syllogism which is against what I maintain I believe it will not all fill up one half or quarter of a page and it shall God-willing be soon answered In the mean time the popular Principles of his First and Eighth Book subverting all true Government I have already confuted elsewhere in my Christian Directory 5. Bishop Downame hath said much more to the main Points in the defence of his Consecration Sermon and as much as I can expect to find in any But 1. as to the mode he is so contrary to Hooker that being a very expert Logician he wasteth so much of his Book about the Forms of Arguments and Answers that he obscureth the matter by it and ensnareth those Readers who do not carefully distinguish between Matter and Words and between the force of the reason and the form of a Syllogism And he so adorneth or defileth his Style with taunts insulting scorns and contemptuous reproaches that it is more sutable to the Scold sat Billings-gate than so learned and godly a Divine and occasioneth his Adversaries to say You have here a taste of the Prelatical Spirit 2. As to the matter of his first Book I am of his mind against meer ruling Elders He and Bilson have evinced what they hold in that But as to the points in which
with the Conscience either of the Minister to be silent or of the people not to hear him or of the Magistrates to silence him by force Now to do this either he must prove to them from the word of God by argument that each of these are thus far obliged by God or else that God hath made him as Diocesan the Judge and they are bound to do it because he bids them do it For the first as is said it belongeth to every Minister even with office-authority to tell both Magistrates Minister and people their duty in the name of Christ Thus God hath commanded Adulterers Hereticks c. To forsake their sins or forbear the Ministery and commanded me to publish this in his name even to particular persons But thou art an Adulterer Heretick c. go c. Or God commandeth me to tell the people that it is their duty to avoid a Heretick and the Magistrate that it is his duty to silence him by force Therefore I require this of you in his name 2. But if the Diocesan claim a Superiour Nuntiative power as one more to be believed than the Minister this is 1. But to the doing of the same work which a Minister may do 2. And he must prove that Superiour credibility 3. But Ministerial conviction is efficacious according to the evidence that is brought to do the work If the hearer believe not that the Major is Gods word that an Heretick e. g. must give over Preaching Or if he deny the Minor but thou art an Heretick it is not a Bishops word that will convince him but a Minister that is better at proving it may do more Obj. but we will command him to be silent Ans And he will deride you and command you to be silent again Obj. Then we will convince the Magistrate of his duty to silence him by force Ans 1. That was not the way for 300 years after Christ And what was Episcopacy for till then 2. What if the Magistrates believe you not will you convince him by Scripture or by your Authority over the Magistrate It by Scripture a wiser Presbyter can do that better or as well If by authority of that anon Obj. But at least we will convince the people that it is their duty to forsake that Preacher Ans Again I say if you will do it by Scripture a Minister can do it as well And thus many Ministers now do silence the Diocesans and Conformists that is they perswade the people not to hear them or own them But if by authority it must come to this at last that you are made by God the Judges and this must be believed And remember still you silence no further than you perswade the Conscience to believe that God hath given you this authority And 1. I ask whether it be ever likely that you will silence any Hereticks false Teacher or Schismatick this way by making him take you for one authorized by God to forbid him to Preach For it must be in one of these three cases or all that you have this power 1. Either to silence him as a Heretick that is no Heretick or not proved such 2. Or to silence him as a Heretick that notoriously and provedly is a Heretick 3. Or to silence him as a Heretick in a doubtful case to others but judged Heresie c. by you 1. In the first case neither the injured person nor any that know that you injure him will or must obey you Else a malignant Prelate might silence all the holiest and worthiest Ministers of Christ and it would be at such mens mercy whether Christ should have Churches or the people should be Christians or be saved I am one of the 1800 that have been silenced by better authority than the Prelates alone and yet I think I am bound in Conscience to exercise the Ministry which I received whatever I suffer to the utmost of my opportunity And if the Sword streightened my opportunity no more than my Conscience of the Diocesans Prohibition I should be but very little hindered 2. In the 2d case of notorious Heresie all good Christians are bound by God to avoid such a man though you never silenced him yea though you licensed him yea though you commanded them to hear him And so Magistrates are bound to do their duty in restraining him Can you deny this Must the peoples Souls be poysoned and damned till the Bishop please to take away the poyson and to save them must the Magistrate let Hereticks alone till it please the Diocesan to judge them 2. And in this case no sober Christian will deny that a Presbyter ought to call upon people and Magistrates to do their duty as well as the Diocesans Yea and to command men in Christs name to avoid a notorious or proved heretick Obj. But a Presbyter cannot examine the case and so get proof Ans He may examine it as far as Reason with Ministerial authority will perswade the guilty or the witnesses to be examined And his care of the Church and the peoples Souls obligeth him so to do And a Prelate cannot bring men by sorce to examination or witnessing 3. But let his guilt be never so notorious to others is it like that the person himself will be silent through Conscience of obedience to a Prelate Consider 1. that if he will not obey a Minister that sheweth him the word of God it is unlikely that he will obey a Prelate that saith I have authority to silence you 2. A Heretick doth not know that he is a Heretick nor any erroneous person know that it is an errour which he believeth For it is a contradiction to err in judgment and to know it to be any errour And then 1. He knoweth that his office is durante vita and that he is bound not to cease it without cause 2. He knoweth that you have no power to silence Orthodox Preachers as Hereticks but those that are Hereticks indeed 3. He taketh himself for Orthodox and you for the Heretick 4. And all his followers are of his mind How then will you silence a Heretick without the Sword If you convince him of his errour you shall not need to silence him for he will leave his errour rather than his Ministry But if you convince him not of his errour you will hardly convince him that because of that errour he must be silent nor convince his followers that they must not hear him 3. All the question therefore that remaineth is whether in unknown doubtful cases you are the Judges of Heresie Errour Schisin and of mens unworthiness to Preach And here 1. I need not tell you that by this way you can never silence either the Arrians or any that deny your authority Of which sort you know are most that you silence in this age and Nation No nora Donatist a Novatian or any one that is for the office of Bishops but taketh you for no Bishop as being unduely