the Angel of Ephesus trying the false Apostles which imports a Juridical Tryal the Blame laid upon the Angel of Pergamus for having them that held the Doctrin of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans which shews his Power to have cast him out upon the Angel of Thyatira for suffering Iezabel to Teach which shews that it was in his Power and that he had Authority to eject her and her Followers Ans. The Dr's Proofs of Authority in these Angels and Churches in reference to Government are good and sound and accorded to by all Divines But he has left behind him two Points of his Proof in reference to his Scope which are to use our Scottish Proverb the Tongue of the Trump and without which all his Discourse is but like Sand without Lime 1. He says They were single Persons of great Authority But he has not yet made good that they were single Persons nor offered to Answer the pregnant Grounds pleaded by our Divines to prove the contrary and that the Collective Sense of the Term Angel is most suteable to the Scripture and the Tenor and Scope of these Epistles 2 ly Supposing them single Persons he has not proved either from the Title of Angel or their Authority imported in these Epistles that it reached any further than that of Presidents or that the Authority here Instanced was Monopolized and so inhanced in them as to exclud intirely all the Pastors therefrom The contrary whereof besides the Proofs we offered in the beginning we heard the Belgick Divines make out and give Instance particularly with reference to Ephesus to the Elders or Ministers of which Church Paul committed the whole Government as the propper Governours and Bishops thereof Act. 20.28 And therefore even supposing the Angel a single Person he cannot be supposed in Contradiction to that Scripture to have had such Authority and Power as did Inhance or Exclud that of the Pastors and Bishops of Ephesus so clearly therein asserted and held out The Dr. acknowledges That what our Lord writes is not to this Angel personally but also to the People P. 422. But I pray how will the Dr. set up his March-stone and shew us the Limitation of these Instructions in Point of Government distinguishing the Person of the Bishop from the Pastors since neither the Supposition that the Bishop is a single Person will prove this nor the Honourable Title of Angel as the Dr. calls it a Title suteable to all Pastors who are Angels and Messengers of the Lord of Hosts by their Office Nor can the Dr. flee to the Refuge of the Authority supposed in these Prescriptions without a palpable begging of the Question And as for the Communicating of the Epistles to the Churches as Directed to them This is so suteable to the Angelus Praeses or to any President or Mouth of a Meeting that it hath no imaginable Strength to bear the Weight of the Dr's Conclusion The Dr's Third and last proof of our Lords approbation of Episcopal Government in these Epistles and that the Angels were Bishops of these Churches and Presidents thereof is drawn from the Testimony of most Primitive Antiquity as he calls it for which he Cites the anonymous tract of Timothy's Martyrdom mentioned Bibleotheca patrum N. 244. Shewing that Iohn Two or Three years after his return from Patmos assisted with the seven Bishops of that Province he assumed to himself the Government of it which Seven were the Angels here here Addrest these Churches lying within the Lydian or Proconsular Asia of which Ephesus was Metropolis And therefore these Seven Bishops by whom he Governed the Province of Ephesus are the Seven Angels all within that Province He adds That Austin call the Angels of Ephesus praepositos Ecclesiae Epist. 162. and the Seven Angels praepositi Ecclesiarum Comment in Rev. That Ambrose in 2 Cor. 11. referring to these Angels tells us that by Angels are meant the Bishops Ans. 1. Since the Dr. calls these Angels Bishops and Presidents over these Churches in propounding this Proof if he intend only Presidents he will fall utterly short of his design and scope of evincing that Episcopal Power which he ascribs to them a President and one who has all Authority Monopolized in him being quite distinct things If he intend by Presidents of the Churches such as are set over it in a general Sense Are not all Pastors in Scripture called such as are set over God's People and have the Tittles of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the Dr. will have them such Presidents over the Churches as had monopolised and enhanced in their persons all Authority of Government a President being of far larger extent and surely with a relation to a Church it is not all one to say such a person is President of a Church and a Sole President As it it is not all one to say such a man is Minister of London and the Sole Minister For all Ministers in the Scripture Sense are Presidents over the Churches But 2 ly since the Dr. draws his supposed demonstrative evidence of the power and Authority of these Seven Angels addrest by our Lord in these Epistles and of the nature and extent of that Office which is indigitat by the term Angel and consequently the meaning of the prescriptions given to them from Primitive Antiquity as he calls it I would know whether the Dr. will own this Principle that Antiquity or even that which he calls Primitive or the First human Testimony secluding the Scriptures or of the First Ages after the Canon of the Scriptures is the infallible Rule and Commentarie for understanding the Nature and Office of Church Officers mentioned in Scripture If the Dr. will not own this Principle his evidence by his own confession is no evidence For an evidence which will fail and not reach the conclusion is no evidence at all and in the best construction no proper evidence without restriction s and limitations added If the Dr. hold the Affirmative then I would urge him thus First If Mens Testimony or the Churches Primitive practice tho never so early must be the Key and Comment in this Case of the Scripture Sense of the Character and description of Church Officers and able solely to found our Faith and persuasion hereanent why may not also human practice and profession of the Church simply considered determin our Faith and prectice as to every Scripture Truth and duty therein held out For the Dr. can assign no difference nor upon admitting the antecedent shew the least shaddow of a ground which will limit and enervat the consequence Secondly If this be admitted I would know whether he will not thus set up an higher tribunal than the Scriptures as to the ground and Rule of our Faith and practice and in opposition to the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 2.4 make our Faith stand in mans Wisdom not in the Wisdom of God and his Power and in contradiction to the Apostle Peter 2 Pet 1.20.21 make
Scandals as also the proper Subject of the Keyes and Iurisdictional Power and of that Power in special which is called Critick The Dr. holds That Christ here established a Iurisdiction in the Church he also acknowledges That the Church here meant hath Power of Authoritative Admonition and the Binding and Loosing Power since he holds it to be the same with that Binding and Loosing Authority which our Lord promises to Ratifie in Heaven Iohn 20.23 Matth. 16.19 He understands by this Jurisdiction this Authority and Exercise of the Keyes pointed at in these Paralells Nay he acknowledges P. 443. That in the Forecited Passage Matth. 18. our Lord institut the Power of Censuring And I need not tell him that Words of Institution of any Ordinance are the proper Standart and Measure thereof and the Pattern shewed upon the Mount Now what is meant by the Church the proper Subject of the Keyes in the Dr's Sense and Pleading is the Question The Dr. will not say it is the Political Magistrat as some have alledged for he holds That our Lord spoke this to his Church as a distinct Society and having distinct Officers from the Kingdoms of the World And whereas some have alledged that we are to understand this Church of a Iewish Sanehedrin the Dr in the whole Strain and Scope of his Discourse disownes this for he asserts That in this Text our Lord is speaking to the Christian Church and establishing a Spiritual Jurisdiction therein Neither can he understand by the Church the whole Collective Body according to the general Notion of the Word for the Dr in the Strain of his Discourse makes this Power and Authority peculiar and proper to Church Officers as is evident in his Paralells above-rehearsed and the Church Representative to be the proper Subject of that Jurisdictional Power here enjoyned Now all this being evident in his own Pleading since the proper Subject of this Power is by our Lord exprest who knew best how to express it by the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Church I would fain know by what Warrand the Dr. can can make this Term peculiar to one single Person viz. a Bishop so as it must be holden to express his sole Prerogative Or where will he shew or make it appear that in any Greek Author Sacred or Prophane the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denotes one single Person If he say that by the Church the Community of Church Rulers or Bishops is to be understood viz. that all Bishops in common and every Bishop apart hath this Power and Authority I Answer this understood of Scripture Bishops or Church Officers in general and of such Church Officers of particular Collegiat Churches is easily accorded But if he mean of his Hierarchical Bishops in Bulk and of every one of such a part he both Beggs the Question and Crosses the Scope of the Place For 1. Howsoever we take the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Church whether for the Church Universal to whom Officers and a Government is given immediatly or for particular Churches to whom in a mediat Sense the same Government and Charge is given we must of necessity understand it to be given to such parts of this whole as do come under the Denomination and partake of the Nature of a Church and according to the Dr's Sense above-evinced an Imbodied Society or Juridical Court must in that Statute be understood which can never be applicable to a single Person And besides this would invert our Lords Method of Procedure and the Gradation here held out and enjoyned which is as the Dr. himself acknowledges from one to two or more and the last Result and ultimat Appeal is to the Church or the Imbodied Court of Officers with whom the Jurisdictional and Critical Power is lodged 2 ly Granting that this Jurisdictional Power in Order to the first Planting of Churches was for this end at first lodged with the Apostles yet the fore-mentioned great Rule and Fundamental Law as above Sensed and in a great Measure by the Dr. himself will still evince that the Apostles were not to Exercise it to the prejudice of the Authority given thereby to the standing Officers and ordinary Authorized Courts of the Christian Church unless they can be supposed to have had a Power Paramount thereunto For wherever a Christian Organick Chuch was gathered by vertue of this Precept tell the Church the Scandals were to be delated to the Officers thereof who consequently according to the Nature and Tenor of the foresaid Law are supposed to have the Binding and Loosing Power whatever Apostolical Authority might reach in Churches not Constitut or in way of Apostolical Direction to Churches Constitut as in the Case of the Incestuous Corinthian yet this was not Privative of but Cumulative to the ordinary Power of Collegiat Organick Churches as is often told him I might further urge the Dr. with this that that Passage Iohn 20.23 cannot but be extended to a Doctrinal as well as Iurisdictional Remitting or Retaining Binding or Loosing the Doctrinal Key as well as Jurisdictional being Primarly given to Apostles to be by them derived to Successors Our Lord in his Gift to Apostles divided them not And therefore neither were the Apostles to divide them in Devolving this Power upon and Committing this Authority to Successors And since the Dr. acknowledges that the Apostles by virtue of our Lords Commission Devolved upon Pastors the Doctrinal Authority and Committed to them that Key thus P. 427 428. why not I pray the Jurisdictional also both being inseparably tyed together Nay the Dr. himself upon the Matter yields this for he tells us ubi supra That the Command Go Teach all Nations Math. 28.19 did reach Pastors as the Apostles Successors in this Ministerial Duty and that Preaching was one of the principal Imployments belonging to the Apostolical Office And if the Apostles were to commit to Pastors one principal part of their Office why not also the less principal Besides that the Command Go Teach or Disciple all Nations will clearly includ the Jurisdictional as well as Doctrinal Key The Dr. adds ibid. That yet this Command of Preaching was not restrained to their Office since inferior Officers Preacht as the seventy Yet he adds That none Preacht but either by immediat Commission from Christ or Apostolical Ordination But I pray were any in his Sense otherwise allowed to exercise Disciplin but in this method Why will not the Dr. allow the exercise of Disciplin to the Seventy and such a Mission of Rulers consequently For Timothy whom together with the Seventy he probably Judges to have held an Evangelistick Office he pleads had Authority both to Teach and Rule And the Teachers Act. 13. he holds to be Bishops So that in his Sense Government being annexed in these instances thereunto the Lord did extraordinarly call in these times of the Church some persons who were not Apostles Therefore his Reason is insufficient to prove that the
their Doctrin and Practice they disown all dominion and Prelatical Principality in the Church and all outward grandure and greatness as inconsistent with their Office and the Office of all Gospel Ministers But to the Topick and ground of the Dr's Argument I Answer directly that the Apostles as they understood so they practised our Lords Precept in the sense we owne 1. In that they practised a compleat equality of Official Power among themselves This I hope he will not deny or if he do its easie to set all Protestant Divines in pursuit of him 2 In that they never exercised nor attempted to seek any Civil Greatness or Dominion such as the Prelats he pleads for do own as competent to their Office They knew that their Lord when but desired to give advice in a Civil Cause gave this return who made me a Iudg And declined the Imployment And that therefore neither they nor any of their Successors were to be Civil Counsellors and Spiritual Peers in Parliaments and Princes Courts 3. They disown all Dominion in one Pastor over another and discharged it earnestly Thus the Apostle Peter to be Lords over Gods Heritage 1 Pet. 5. Thus also Diotrephes affecting a Preheminence is rebuked by the Apostle Iohn And Paul owns himself and other Apostles as Stewards only in the House of God and disowns a Dominion as we have heard Next As for their Iurisdiction over subordinat Ecclesiasticks which is the Substratum of the Dr's great Answer and Question I do deny First that they exercised any Episcopal Jurisdiction properly taken over them Secondly such a Jurisdiction as did Cross this Precept The Proof of both these will fully discover the vanity of the Dr's Second Reply And First that the Apostles exercised no such Episcopal Authority over Ecclesiasticks or Churches planted as the Dr. pleads for is evident thus 1. Their Apostolick Authority connected with their Infallibility in Teaching reached to prescrib Duty to the Members and Officers of Churches consequently was cumulative thereto not privative thereof which appears in their enjoyning the exercise of Spiritual Iurisdiction as inherent in Church Officers as Excommunication 1 Cor. 5. And their owning a Spiritual Jurisdiction and Authority in Pastors both in the designations of Rulers Governours Overseers Bishops attribut to them As also in their frequent enjoyning the Peoples obedience and subjection to them as in that capacity Heb. 13.7.17 1 Pet. 5.2.3 1 Thess. 5.12.2 The Apostles did not as the Prelats invade the decisive Power of Pastors in Government but took along their decisive Votes and concurrence as we find in that Council Act. 15. where its evident that in every Point the Elders or Ministers conccurred with the Apostles in the Disquisition Sentence and decretal Letter 3. As the Apostles planted Churches with Pastors or Preaching Presbyters instructing them with Authority to Feed and Rule as Bishops or Rulers set up by the Holy Ghost so they committed the Government of the Churches to them in their last farewells without the least hint of Super-institut Officers of an higher Order So that the Apostles instructing Pastors with such Authority commanding its exercise enjoyning the Churches obedience to them exemplifying and Authorizing their interest in highest Judicatories yea making even Evangelists as Timothy pass through the Door of Presbyterial Ordination in order to the exercise of his Office Not to insist upon even Apostles submission to the Authoritative Imposition of the Hands of Prophets and Teachers when sent out upon a special Gospel Legation To which we may add the Apostles owning Pastors as Brethren Fellow-helpers Fellow-Labourers Co-Presbyters or Elders It follows inevitably 1. That as to the Perpetual Pastoral Charge the Authority of Preaching the Gospel the Administration of the Sacraments and the appendent Jurisdictional Power which by the Apostles Doctrin is a Lower Step to this and connected therewith they own the Pastors or Preaching Presbyters their Equals and their proper Successors in this Ministerial Authority consequently the ordinary Church Officers of the highest Order to whom they committed the Keys of Doctrin and Disciplin 2. That the Exercise of their extraordinary Apostolick directive Power and Authority which they could not divest themselves of while alive did no whit impeach the standing Authority of Pastors nor did it includ any Jurisdiction properly over Churches constitut and Moulded in their Organick being By Iurisdiction properly I mean such as is of a standing necessity in order to the Churches Edification in all times or such a Jurisdiction over Churches as may be supposed paramount unto or privative of the Jurisdictional Authority of Pastors and of Organick Churches Secondly That the Apostles exercised no such Authority over the Churches as did cross our Lords Precept and Prohibition is evident in that 1. Our Saviour discharged Imparity among Church Officers of the same kind and therefore this could not impeach the Apostles Authority over ordinary Officers 2. Our Lords instructing them with such a measure of the Spirit as was sutable to the First founding of the Churches and with Authority as his living and infallibly inspired Oracles to plant Churches and the Gospel Ordinances and Government therein Unless the Dr. will say that our Lords Precept did cross and contradict his design he must needs ackdowledg that the Apostles in exercising this directive Power and extraordinary Authority over ordinary inferior Officers could not cross this his Precept and Prohibition they being our Lords immediatly called infallibly inspired and extraordinarly Gifted First Messengers in order to this end Thus we have seen the vanity and insufficiency of the Dr's Second Answer But there is no end of Vanities The Dr's Third Answer is Prefaced with a very big and high Flown swelling boast That which he says baffles and exposes our Argument to all intents and purposes is that our Lord did that himself among them which now he Commanded them to do one to another And the doing of this one to another in obedience to his Command could not infer a Parity unless we Blasphemously infer that Christ and his Apostles were equal For our Lord recommends what he enjoins from his own constant and visible Practice among them that he their Lord and Master was their Servant And therefore it became the greatest among them to be Modest calm and humble toward their Brethren which would qualify them for Ecclesiastick Promotions This poor and mean Answer and Reason of the Dr's is a notion for which he is beholden to his Popish Masters And being here subjoyned to such big words brings to mind some Poetick Phrases Quid tanto tulit hic promissor hiatu And Projicis ampullas sesquipedalia verba And that of Partuâ—iunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus There 's no doubt that the Dr. has as much exposed and baffled his own Judgment and Reputation in this thrasonick weak Answer as in any thing else But to the point First I must tell him that if this Argument tending to prove from this Text
with Ministers of the New Testament Church The Moral Law being the constant Standart of Truth and Duty in all Ages our Saviour who came to fulfill all Righteousness and establish the Law was therefore concerned to vindicat the same from corrupt glosses but this bears no proportion to his Scope in the Case of the Disciples that old Ministry and Policy being now ready to evanish The Dr. proceeds to another Text and tells his Reader that we Cite 1 Pet. 5.2.3 to serve the same design We have made appear that our design in pleading this and the preceeding Texts is the same with that of Protestant Divines and that the design the Dr. serves in his Glosses and Answers is Popish as to the intentio operis at least a design to support the Popes Triple Crown with Bellamin and his other pleaders and Advocats Our Argument from this Text against the Prelatical Hierarchy is this Looking to the Apostles scope he first dehorts Ministers and none will doubt all ordinary Church Officers from the evils they are constantly tempted to viz. Covetousness Lordship usurpation and Dominion over Gods Heritage evils of a close connection and cognation that they do not Act the Diotrephes seeking Preheminence over their Brethren or affect a Masterly Dominion over the People for that both comes under the Denomination of Gods Heretage none will doubt He likewise dehorts from Reluctancy at their Laborious imployment Next there is a positive exhortation presented to Ministers viz that they be examples to the Flock that is that the Graces they Preach to others shine in their Walk and in special that of Meekness and Humility which most nearly Resembles their Glorious Master the great Shepherd of the Sheep that this appear in their conduct and Government as that of his who leadeth Gently and would not have Ministers to Rule with Rigor as those Reprehended Ezek. 34.4 Hence from the Scope and contexture it appears 1. That the Pastor Labouring in the Word and Doctrin being here addressed as the Apostles Co-presbyter and Fellow-elder is owned by him as the highest ordinary Church Officer and that this Apostle now shortly to put off his Tabernacle doth Aaron-like invest him in his Robe â—or highest Sphere of an Ordinary Minister 2 He enjoyns them to exercise Episcopal Authority As also Paul did the Elders of Ephesus Act. 20. which must respect Ordination and Jurisdiction in the full extent thereof and their equal interest therein 3. All of them are discharged to Lord it or exercise a Dominion over one another or over the Flock but to exercise a humble exemplary Ministry Hence we further inferr against the Hierarchical Prelat 1. That the Apostle ascribing this comprehensive Authority to Pastors which comprehends both the Doctrinal Key and that of Jurisdiction For I hope our Episcopal Brethren will acknowledg that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Episcopal Authority and inspection includs both he cuts off the Hierarchical Prelats pretended super-Inspection paramount thereunto Hence 2 The Pastor being found thus discribed and installed in this comprehensive Scriptural Episcopal Authority the Hierarchical Prelats Office which swallows up this Power and Authority of Pastors and arrogats to it self solely the Name and thing of a Bishop is discharged as unlawful 3 We argue a minore ad Majus against that Office from the Text thus All Masterly power of Pastors over their Flock is discharged Ergola Fortiori much more that of Prelats over Pastors themselves Now for the Judgment of Protestant Writers in corespondence to this our Sense we might exhibit a great cloud of Witnesses but of the whole we offer only these few instances The Belgick Divines make this 2. v. paralel with that which is enjoined Act. 20.28 to the Elders of Ephesus as to the Authority and exercise of a joynt Episcopal inspection competent to Pastors And the 3. v. they Translate not Exercising Dominion the very same thing which our Lord prohibit to his Apostles Pool Annot. 2. Part. doth also make the Command in this 2 v. praralel with Act. 20.28 and Ioh. 21.15.16 and Paraphrases the Command as importing both to feed and Rule and enjoining the exercise of the Doctrinal and Jurisdictional Key jointly yea and hold it to be of such a Nature as to the main designs of the Gospel as was enjoined to Peter himself and his Fellow-Apostles The Clause of taking the oversight they expone thus being Bishops or acting as Bishops over it superintending Inspecting and Watching over it viz. the Flock paralelling this with Act. 20.28.29 where such Pastoral Episcopal Feeding and Rule is enjoyned in Pauls farewell to the Elders or Ministers of Ephesus The prohibition or negative part of the Precept v. 3. not as being Lords they Expone of not exercising such Lordship and Dominion as temporal Lords paralelling this with Matth. 20.25 26. Luk. 22.25 as also with 2 Cor. 1.24 where Paul disowns Dominion and with 1 Cor. 3.5 Who then is Paul or who is Appllo But Ministers Yea even Grotius Comerarius Menochius expone the Command of Feeding v. 2. as importing Government or Rule paralelling this with Ioh. 21.15 16 17. Act. 20.28.29 The Clause of taking the oversight is generally understood of superintending and acting the Bishops Episcopum agentes Beza Piscat Valla. Erasm. Gerard says it s an allusion to their Name as if the Lord enjoined them to be Answerable to it The ensuing Verse is understood of imperious Dominion over GOD's Church Thus Piscat Menoch c. Turret Institut Theol. Part. 3. Quest. 16. Thes. 8. produces the same Text collated with 2 Cor. 1.24 as proving a prohibition of all Lordly Power to Ministers shewing that this is the prerogative of Christ the Chief Sheepherd and that in opposition to such Lordly Power Pastors are called Ministers Messengers Servants Stewards of the Mysteries of God Maccov from this Passage Collated with Act. 20.28 concludes the identity of the Episcopal and Pastoral Office Loc. Commun Cap. 82. P. 845. The Eng. Annot. upon the place do shew That such a Magisterial carriage is forbidden as is Taxed 3 Ioh. v. 9. in Diotrephes Love of Preheminence But now What is the Dr's great Answer to this Text He says It s the Apostles Commentary upon our Saviours Words and Commandment This is very true He next adds That it forbids the Spirit of Pride and Insolence as a thing very unsutable to all Power and Authority in the Church To which I Answer it is certain the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Paralel with Matth. 20. Luk. 22. where Peter learned the prohibition and imports Dominion but not Tyranical Dominion properly It being made use of by the LXX to express Lawful Dominion 2. We have told him that the positive part of the Precept refuts his gloss which the Apostle doth not thus express in the Dr's Sense not proudly or insolently Domineering but using Dominion moderatly as the Apostle would have presented the Precept if a Lawful Lordship had been allowed but
he adds in the other Branch in expressing what is enjoyned being examples to the Flock enjoining thus to Feed by Example and an Humble Ministry And this is opposit to all Dominion whatsoever and doth not discriminat one Dominion from another as is also evident in the positive part of the Paralel Precepts abovementioned We have also told him that the instance and Illustration drawn from such Princes of the Gentiles as were accounted Gracious Lords and the simple word of Rule used by Luke in the paralel confutes this Gloss and doth demonstrat that it is not proud insolent Dominion or a Dominion secundum quid and thus qualified which is only here forbidden but Lordship and Dominion simpliciter the desire whereof did notwithstanding proceed in the Apostles from some remainders of Pride and in their Case could not be exercised or assumed without a fastuous insolency it being Diametrically opposit to the Nature of their Holy Office and Function So then I argue against the Dr. from his own Principle and Gloss If Peter thus understood our Lords Precept Matth. 20. and Luk. 22. in this Sense that Pride was the Principle of their desire and of that greatness they sought and that the exercise of this greatness was prohibit as the very emanation of insolent Pride and if with all he coppied out this his Precept to Ministers from that great Command of his Lord and took his Measures therefrom he could not but look upon Pastors Lording over the Flâ—cks as proceeding from Pride and the very practice and exercise of a Domineering Tyranny yea he could not but put under this Character whatever exercise of pretended Ministerial Authority goes beyond the Limits of that humble exemplary Ministry that Ministerial diligence and service of the Lords Flocks which is enjoyned in the positive part of his Masters Command exactly coppied out in this his Apostolick Precept I further remark that the Dr. holding out the Sense of the Apostle as terminating only in this General discharging Pride and Insolency in Government without condescending upon the extent of the Negative and positive explication of the Precept and the Nature of that Power here specified and Discharged as Flowing from this Pride and Insolent Disposition and but only shewing that it is a Pride unsutable to all Power and Authority in the Church leaves room for even a Monarchy and Patriarchat and the setting up of such a Dominion in the Church as may be supposed in an abstracted Sense and in its general Nature Lawful and thus still saves the Popes Mitre from the Touch of this prohibition The Dr. holds That our exposition of those Texts was never heard of till these latter days Thus with him the Papists only have hit upon the true Ancient Exposition and Protestants have missed it Amongst many other confuting Instances he might have minded the abovementioned Passages of Bernard to Eugenius lib. 2. Apostolis interdicitur Dominatus Ergo tu tibi usurpare aude ut Dominans Apostolatum aut Apostolicus Dominatum CHAP. II. A Confutation of what the Dr. offers in Answer to the Presbyterians Argument for Parity of Pastors taken from the Official Identity of Bishop and Presbyter in the Scripture Account of the Pastoral Office THe Dr. by this time has finisht his first easie Task of Discussing our Argument from Christs Institution He will next fall upon our Argument from Scripture Consequences And that his Work here may be as easie as the first and least he should break his Word to his Friend in giving him a large History of our Arguments on this Head Of them all he is pleased to Single out one taken from the Identity of Bishop and Presbyter which he says fills all our Books Citing Smectym Ius Divin Minist Ang. Unbishopping Tim. and Tit. Altare Damasc. Durh. Dissert But surely any who have Seriously and Impartially perused these Authors and compares what they have written with that which this Man pretends to Answer may Laugh at his Prodigious Folly in Boasting of an Answer to Books which he appears never to have read or understood It were good for him that the Authors he paints his Margine with were out of the World that the Ignorant or such as never saw them might believe that this Personat Champion had made a mighty Baffling Assault upon them But all such as are acquaint with their Writings will easily discover that he is here Acting a Pedantick Nomenclator of these Authors and no more The Argument from the Identity of Bishop and Presbyter I mean an Official Identity I acknowledge is improven by these Authors and other Presbyterian Writers and am content to try Issue with him upon this Head but the Dr I find is so Loose and Perverse a Disputer that he doth not so much as offer to propose one of their Mediums and Arguments to the Scope He alledges We Argue from the Homonomy of Names of Bishop and Presbyter in the New Testament to prove the Sameness of the Office and that the Clergy of the New Testament are Dichotomised into Bishops and Deacons only in some Texts And thus in some Ancient Writers That we thus exclude the Authority of a Bishop above a Presbyter tho the Offices themselves be as much distinguished in several Texts of the New Testament as is possible He holds P. 22 23. That we found the Solidity of our Demonstration of the Identity of Bishop and Presbyter merely upon the Confusio Nominum which he represents in a distinct Character as our only Topick To which purpose he tells us we cite Act. 20.17 28. Philip. 1.1 Tit. 1.6 7. and several other places There needs no more than the Reciting of this to discover this Mans Precarious Vanity and Ignorance of this Controversie since all that are acquaint with it do know that it is not the Sameness ef Names simplely and in its self considered which the Presbyterians ground upon tho this have its own Secondary Weight but the Sameness and Identity of the Qualifications Ordination Work Duties and every other Essential of the Office Which is an Argument with more Demonstrative Nerves than that of the Sameness of Names Presbyters being in Scripture called and owned as Rulers Governors Overseers Bishops And both Ordination and Iurisdiction appropriat to them without the least Hint of Imparity among them in the Exercise thereof Tit. 1.5 Act. 20.17 28. 1 Pet. 5.2.2 1 Thess. 5.12 14. Heb. 13.7 17. 1 Cor. 5.12 1 Tim. 4.14 Now if it be thus sure the Conclusion of the Identity of the Office clearly follows And had this Man perused these Authors he might have discovered that their Arguments run to this Issue and are not merely Bottomed upon so slight a Ground as he would make such believe whose Knowledge is of a like Size and Measure with his own Yet so weak is his Cause that his Answer cannot stand before this very Argument as he propounds it at least with a due Respect to the Scope of the Places Cited which will
be evident to any who will compare their Writings with his Reasoning in this Pamphlet To give a Summary and Brief Account of our Arguments from these Scriptures cited by him and consequently of this Dr's Phantastick Vanity and Trifflings in this Matter From Act. 20. We thus Argue First That the Apostles solemnly declares to the Elders or Pastors of that Church of Ephesus that the Holy Ghost had constituted them Bishops over the Flock Whence we collect 1. That the Pastor is the true Scripture Bishop 2. That by his Office he Feeds and Rules the Flock and hath the Doctrinal and Jurisdictional Key committed to him by the Holy Ghost Next it hence follows that whatever Authority Power and Jurisdiction is imported in the Name Bishop falls within the Compass of this Solemn Command given to these Elders or Pastors who are enjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that this being essentially and intirely included in the Pastoral Office the Diocesan Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pretended Paramount Inspection over them evanisheth as a mere Chimaera especially since it excludes and inhaunces this Authority of Pastors 3. It is evident that this Charge was given to the Elders before Timothy now present with Paul and was posterior to the first Epistle directed to him for at Writing thereof the Apostle was at Macedonia And the Sacred History informs us that he came thereafter to Miletum with Timothy and gave the Elders this Charge In a Word this Charge and Command was Paul's last Solemn Charge for after this they were to see his Face no more So that these being the Apostles last Thoughts to speak so and Testamentary Instructions in Point of Church Government we have here the the Samplare and Pattern shewed by this great Apostle upon the Mount of this Divinely Inspired Model and Instructions And since the Episcopalians will not call the Gospel-Church a Speckled Bird and her Government of diverse Cuts they must acknowledge that the rest of the Apostles gave the same Directions As 1 Pet. 5. with 2 Pet. 1.14 doth furher clear From hence we further Argue First These Bishops who Feed and Rule the Flock immediatly are the Apostolick Bishops and these only Ergo the Hierarchical Prelat is no Apostolick Bishop 1. Because his pretended Episcopacy is over the Pastors he is Pastor Pastorum 2. He hath a Relation to no Flock as such We Argue Secondly from the Text thus These Apostolick Bishops have both the immediat and intire Episcopal Inspection and Power over Christs Flocks committed to them by God both the Doctrinal and Jurisdictional Key And therefore the Hierarchical Prelat stands Condemned upon a double Ground 1. As Snatching away the last from Pastors and Arrogating it solely to himself 2. In Tearing and Breaking asunder the Bond. wherewith Christ hath Tyed these Keyes And this in a double Respect 1. In the Case of the Pastor to whom he leaveth only the Doctrinal Key 2. With Respect to himself who is obliged ex Natura Ratione Officii or from the Nature of his Office to Preach the Gospel to no Flock but to Govern only Thirdly All this Scriptural Episcopal Jurisdiction is by the Apostle ascribed to these Pastors or Bishops of the Holy Ghost in Presence of Timothy while there is Altum Silentium of any Interest he had over them in this Matter Whence it may be inferred 1. They are declared and supposed the Highest Ordinary Officers of that Church having a Collegiat joynt Authority therein And 2. By clear Consequence it follows that nothing here enjoyned them inferrs or doth include a Precarious Dependence upon him in these Duties or his Supereminent Inspection over them 3. By further necessary Consequence this Authority being thus declared by the Apostle and recognosced after all the Precepts delivered to Timothy in the first Epistle written to him it cannot be supposed to contain any Super-eminent Episcopal Charge over these Pastors but a Transient Evangelistick Inspection only to pass off with that Exigent It being infallibly clear that there can be no Inconsistency or Contradiction betwixt this last Farewel Charge to the Pastors of that Church and his Directions to Timothy while residing therein Finally It is hence infallibly concluded 1. That the Apostles themselves Exercised no such Jurisdiction over Churches constitute in their Organick Beeing as is properly and formally Episcopal or of the Hierarchical Mould This Episcopal Authority being committed to the Colledge of Elders as their Essential Right and Priviledge 2. That the Apostles did not Substitute the Hierarchical Prelats or Diocesan Bishops as their Succedaneous Substitutes upon their withdrawing unless we will make the Apostle Paul to Model this Church in a Mould Hetrogeneous to other Churches And in a Word it hence follows that whatever may be pleaded as to Matter of Fact neither this nor any Church else could ever after Iure divest themselves of this Authority I mean the Church Representatives or Officers thereof in setting up such a Proestos or Prelat whose Power did encroach upon this their Authority allowed them by God From Tit. 1.5 7. The Presbyterians Argue not merely from the Promiscuous Use or Identity of the Name Bishop and Presbyter but from the Nature and Mould of the Apostles Reasoning and the Connecting Particle and Illative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which points at the very Topick and Ground upon which the Apostle concludeth that which is his Scope which necessarly inferrs an Official Identity of Bishop and Presbyter not a Nominal only For thus his Argument lyes The Presbyter or Elder must be so and so Qualified for such must the Bishop be So that the Stating of an Official Distinction betwixt the two as different Orders of Ministers breaks the Force of the Apostles Argument there being no Soundness in such Reasoning as this Inferior Officers must have such Qualifications because such are proper to the Superior Office No doubt the Holy Ghost who thus Reasons ascribes to them not only the same Name and he knew best how to express the Nature of the Things by fit Words but likewise the same Qualifications Work and Office Episcopalians will not disowne it that the Bishop hath distinct Qualifications and Work from that of the Presbyter or Pastor So that they must either acquiesce in this our Sense of his Words while purposely describing the Presbyter and Bishops Qualifications Office and Duties or Blasphemously impute unto him Incongruity of Speech and Unsoundness in Reasoning And therefore the Office of the one and the other is clearly supposed one and the same From Philip. 1.1 Where the Apostle salutes a Plurality of Bishops of that Church We inferr 1. Their proper Episcopal Relation thereunto 2. That they could not be Diocesans 1. Because the Deacons the lowest Officers are immediatly subjoyned to them And Prelatists will not say that there were no Pastors in that Church but only Diocesans 2. It is impossible there could be a Plurality of Hierarchical
Dominion of Earthly Kings The Reasons of his rejecting this Gloss he subjoyns Quia Apostoli non contendebant inter se de modo Primatus sed de Primatu ipso c. That the Apostles were not contending about the manner of a Primacy but the Primacy it self and therefore that our Lords Answer may be apposit to their Question it must needs absolutely forbid all Dominion 2. If our Lord had intended to forbid only some special kind of Dominion certum Dominationis modum he had not removed their Ambition which he is here endeavouring signally to remove since other Primacies also do Feed Ambition 3. Saith he this Phrase Not so viz. shall it be among you according to the Use of the Scripture doth import a simple and absolute Negation as Psal. 1.4.147.20 Adding that in the paralells Mat. 20. and Mark 10. it is expressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non it a sit inter vos It shall not be so among you He adds that if Christ had allowed a Dominion to Peter the Apostles had been admonished thereanent and that the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying a Service or Ministry ascribed unto them is inconsistent therewith He afterward in the next Paragraph Answers the Objection taken from the Signification of the Compound Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as importing a violent Domination shewing that the Words of themselves will not necessarly import such a thing which he proves from some paralel Texts and that they signifie a simple Dominion only which he further proves from Lukes making use of the Simple Verbs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adding in the third place that there was no need that our Lord should speak of a Dominion of this Nature because the Apostles Debate was not about a violent Domination He adds further Nec valet quod subjicitur c. It is of no weight which the Popish Adversary pleads against the Discharge of all Primacy because our Lord subjoyns He that is greatest among you since our Lord speaks not of a true Greatness in respect of the thing it self but of an Imaginary in respect of Affectation and Desire Which Matthew and Mark do expone and clear by these Words Whosoever will be great amongst you In the rest of his Reasons he hath several things to this purpose as if he had been expresly Disputing against this Surveyer as indeed upon the Matter he doth and Listeth him among the Popish Adversaries in this Point For that Point of the Persons spoken to the Surveyer tells us The Apostles were sometimes spoken to as representing all Christians Mark 13.37 In which Sense this Prohibition was not given to them which would strike at the Authority allowed among Christians Sometimes what is spoken to them concerns themselves alone in their Apostolick Capacity as Matth. 19.28 In which Sense we cannot understand this Prohibition since it would exclude all Ministers afterward Some things likewise were spoken to them as representing only Ministers as when Power of remitting and retaining Sins is given them Joh. 20. In which Sense we cannot apply this unto them since this will impeach the Superior Authority of any of them above others and their Authority over Inferior Ministers evidenced in Pauls Excommunicating Hymeneus and Alexander making Decrees for the Church of Corinth c. Ans. Whatever may be said to this Partition in it self it is certain the Enumeration is not so adequat as not to admit of a Super-numerary Some things might be spoken to Apostles which did most nearly concern them as Apostles as being immediatly directed to them and yet may have an useful reference in a Subaltern and Subordinat Sense to all the Ministers of Christ. As when our LORD said to His Apostles Ye are the Light of the World the Salt of the Earth This in some respect had a peculiar Application to them as Apostles and our LORDs Infallibly Inspired Ambassadors authorized to lay the Foundation of the Gospel Church prescribe her Ordinances and institute her Officers and several of them appointed to be the Holy Ghosts Pen-Men in writing the Scriptures in which respect the Church is said to be Built upon their Foundation But though no Ministers else could acclaim to be in this respect the Light of the World and Salt of the Earth or challenge a Right to the peculiar Priviledges of Apostles included therein it is notwithstanding certain that there is a Subordinat Application hereof unto ordinary Ministers that they are in their Capacity and Sphere the Light of the World and the Salt of the Earth and have the Honour and Duties of their Ministerial Office therein enjoyned and included as well as the Apostles had theirs 2. Since he grants the Apostles were pari honoris potestatis consortio praediti and cannot deny that our LORD bespoke them upon that Ground of an equal Official Power and as in that Capacity it follows that he bespoke Pastors whom he appointed to be in the same order of an equal Official Power and to succeed to the Apostles in their ordinary Authority The Surveyer can give no Reason wherefore our LORD discharged the impeaching this instituted Equal Power of Apostles by an Unlawful Dominion and not to have given the same Prohibition to Pastors Why a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Chief or Primat is discharged among Apostles and not also among Pastors The Surveyers Contrary Instances as he calls them of the Apostolick Authority over Ministers in the Church are palpably Impertinent and do miss the Mark. For 1. Their Authority in the first plantation of Churches can no wayes conclude what is the ordinary Authority of Pastors in the Churches ordinary and settled Government 2. Our Argument runs thus That the Apostles being placed in an equal Sphere of a Ministry were equal among themselves as Apostles formally and equal among themselves as Gospel Ministers upon this Ground But that therefore they could have no Authority Apostolical as Apostles over Inferior Officers doth nowayes follow this Supposition nor will it follow that because the Apostles were Ministers and had Authority over other Ministers that therefore there is a Lawful Official Authority of one Pastor over another because the Apostles were more than Ministers viz. Apostles and in that Capacity had that Superiority but not as Ministers simplely So that such an Argument would run cross to the common Rules It is certain whatever Authority they put furth in the Churches in fieri and in directing them in the Exercise of their ordinary Power yet in settled Judicatories they are found acting as Elders and Ministers and not as Apostles This hath been made Good in Pauls assuming the Presbytrie in the Ordination of Timothy The ordinary Elders or Ministers concurring with the Apostles in that Council Act. 15. Both in the Disquisition in the Sentence and enjoyning the Decree But sayes the Surveyer We must not distinguish where the Law distinguisheth not If notwithstanding this
Prohibition the Apostles exercised Authority over Ministers it doth not Discharge such an Authority of Pastors over Pastors Ans. The Laws of our LORD delivered in the New Testament and the Correspondent Recorded Practice thereof doth State a clear distinction betwixt the Extraordinary and Ordinary Officers and Pastors and that both with respect to the Nature and Extent of their power The Surveyer tells us the Ambition beginning among the Apostles the cure should have been applyed to them Ans. So we affirm it was in our Lords prohibiting either a Prelatical Dominion among themselves or over Inferior Officers But this could not impeach their extraordinary Inspection over the Churches which was together with their Office to pass off and die with themselves when that Case and exigency of the Church was over The Surveyers Second Counter-evidence P. 199. is drawn from 1 Cor. 12.28 God hath set in his Church First Apostles Secondarily Prophets Thirdly Teachers which is an ordinal Numbering with reference to the Object they were imployed about as Presbyterians hold upon this ground the Pastors Office Superior to the Elder Ans. Not to stand upon this his ordinal numbering nor upon an enquiry wherefore the Evangelist is excluded by the Surveyer in this Account of ordinal numbering whom we find Numbred Eph. 4.11 It is Evident that 1. This Instance is extravagant from the Point For from our Assertion that the Prohibition of Unlawful Dominion over their Fellows was given to Apostles as representing Pastors or Ministers he draws a Conclusion that thereupon will follow a Discharge of the Superior Authority of one Pastor over another he means an Official Superiority the Contrary whereof he undertakes to prove by Instances and here his great Instance is drawn from the Apostolical Authority which the Apostles exercised over inferior Officers or the supposed ordinal Numbring of Extraordinary Officers But I pray what is this to prove the Official ordinary Superiority of Pastors over Pastors or to evince their Superior Degrees among themselves Apostles Prophets Evangelists c. were placed in their several Degrees or had their special Pieces of work in the Churches Infant State therefore there ought to be the same Degrees of the Pastoral Office What Consequence is this 2. He is inconsistent with himself in this Reasoning For 1. He hath already distinguished the Apostles Official ordinary Power in the plenitude whereof he alledges Prelats do succeed them from another which he must call extraordinary else his Distinction is chimerical and must fly with one Wing And 2 He alledges some things are spoken to them alone in their Apostolick Capacity which concerned none else and thus distinguishes that capacity from the capacity of Pastors Now when he is about to prove that the Apostles qua Pastors or in that Capacity and under thus reduplication strictly and properly were above other Pastors and consequently that there are different Degrees of the Pastoral Office As if he had forgot his Distinction he draweth his Argument from the Apostolical Acts of Superiority over inferior Officers and the supposed Degrees of Apostles Prophets and others in that extraordinary Function wherein he palpably baffles his former suposition and Distinction That in the Text Cited together with the Paralel Eph. 4.11 there is a Numbering whether we call it ordinal or not of Extraordinary Officers now past off with these first times of Christianity is the consentient Judgment of sound Divines and by Consequence that no Argument can be drawn from hence for distinction of Degrees in the Pastoral Office The Surveyer P. 200. cannot understand how the Pastor having a Doctrinal Superiority over other Officers of the Congregation should in Point of Disciplin which is but a Personal application of the Word sink below his Assistants in the Session and have his Voice swallowed up by theirs But he might much more wonder at his own Principle who alledges the Pastor to have in dispensing the Word and Sacraments an Authority and Power of the same Nature with that of the Hierarchical Bishop and yet when he comes from the Pulpit and sitteth in a Judicatory with the Prelat losses all Authoriry in Government and according to the last Edition of our Hierarchical Prelacy become a mere Cipher without a Figure having no Power but to advise the Prelat and scarce that As for the Pastors Authority in the Session we say that although the higher Honour allowed to the Labourer in Word and Doctrin above the Officer who Rules only and who doth not thus Labour will allow the respect deference of a constant Presidency in the Parochial Church Judidicatory yet Ruling Elders having an Essential interest in Church Government he cannot have the sole decisive Vote though there is still access to appeal to a higher Judicatory in case of mal-Administration The Surveyers Third ground is That if Governing Superiority be inhibit to Pastors over others it is either of one over others and thus we unjustly distinguish this Monarchical Government of one while we allow the like Government of many which in an Aristocratical form may have as much of State and Command as of one If we say that he Discharged all Superiority of many or of some Number over others this will in favour of Independents destroy Presbyterian Government and the Subordination of Iudicatories Ans. This is in part already removed by what we have offered anent the Essential difference in Point of Government betwixt the Judiciary Power as Subjected in a Colledge or Society and the Monopolizing and concentring it in one Person 1. We have told him that our Lord hath Established and Instituted both the Nature and Subject of Church Power 2. Having Instituted Pastors of an equal Official Authority all Pastors as Members of the Judicatory have an Essential interest in the decisive Votes and an equal decisive suffrage therein upon this Ground so that there is a Clear exclusion of the Monopolized Government in one Person who appears excluded and Discharged by our Lords Instituted Principles and Grounds of Government since this Concentring of Government in one robs Pastors of this their Decisive suffrage excludes a free and full Conference and Debate in order to a sutable Determination by a free suffrage as is exemplified in that Council Act. 15. And therefore this Dominion of a Prelat over Pastors besides his Pompous Civil Dominion brings him palpably within the Compass of this Prohibition 3. That the Presbyterians Subordination of Judicatories cannot fall within the Compass hereof nor come under the Surveyers imputation of State and Dominion is many ways evident 1. This is founded upon the Light and Law of Nature and the Nature of all Governments 2. This is notably consistent with the Jurisdictional exercise of the Pastoral Office and the ends thereof both which the Prelatical Dominion destroys This Subordination is founded upon our Lords Institution as is evident Matth. 18. where the gradation in Point of Censure and Appeals is from the Lesser to the greater Number which
Gifts their immediat Mission their extensive Authority in the Planting and Watering of Churches as some Episcopalians who speak more cautiously than the Dr. do express and limit this Succession then it is easy to make good that the Dr. in this Branch of the Answer is as much in a Premunire and that his Answer may be easily broken with a Wedg of his own setting and that his Adversary may easily pull his Spear out of his Hand and Kill him with it For 1. His Answer to those who alledg the Apostolick Office and Power to be Temporary as suted to the Necessity and Exigence of that Time and Case of the Church without intention of deriving it into a Succession is First That this is said without so much as a plausible colour of Reason And if there be no plausible colour of Reason in denying a Succession to the Apostolick Office the Dr. in embracing this Answer is without all colour of Reason 2. He tells us That we acknowledg our Saviour institut the Apostolick Office and that in His Institution He gave no Intimation that it was but for a Season and that thus in calling the Apostolick Office such we presum to make Christs Institutions Temporary without producing the Intimations of His Will and that upon this Ground we may repeal all Institutions of Christianity c. But I pray whether doth not the Dr. in this Answer make our Lords Institution of the Apostolick Office Temporary as in its Nature suited to that Exigence of the Time and Infant State of the Church And whether he is not upon his own Ground obliged to produce the Intimation of our Lords Will hereanent And if he cannot produce it or rather doth hold it clearly intimat in the Nature of the Office it self then the Dr. must either confess our Exception and Answer to his premised Argument about a Succession to the Apostles to be valid and sound or this his Answer and Evasion to be nought and that he is therein contradictory to himself and liable to that Absurdity wherewith he charges us viz. Of making temporary and cassing all our Lords Institutions and over-ruling the Will of God by arrogant Presumption Which is the high-flown Imputation the Dr. puts upon our Answer But to bring this Matter to a short Issue and to strick out the Bottom of his great Notion and Topick The Power of the Keys or the Power of Order and Jurisdiction lying in authoritative Dispensing of Gospel Ordinances viz. The Preaching of the Word and Administration of the Sacraments together with the appendent Power of Disciplin and Government which was the substantial main Piece of the Apostolick Authority and Office and to be derived in a Succession as necessary for the Churches Preservation in all times we hold to be seated properly in the Pastoral Office which succeeds to that of the Apostles in the respect and for the end mentioned and in point of this Authority and Power we hold that any Pastor is equal to an Apostle which beside many other Reasons that might be adduced appears demonstratively by this Scripture Ground viz. That it is evident in Scripture that the Apostles in the first Constitution of Churches planted Presbyters or Pastors therein as the highest Ordinary Officers to feed with the Word and Government Acts 14.23 Tit. 1.5 with Act. 20.17 1 Cor. 5.4 12. v. compared with 2 Cor. 2.6 c. And not only so but left these Presbyters or Pastors as their immediat Successors committing the whole Government to them in their last Farewels to the Churches without the least hint of a Super-institution of any Officers of an higher Order Act. 20.17.18.28 1 Pet. 5.2 3 4. compared with 1 Thess. 5.12 13. c. Hence it may be thus Argued These whom the Apostles placed as Chief in the first Constitution of the Churches and left as their immediat Successors in their last Farewels which they gave to the Churches these have no ordinary Officers superior to them in the Church by Divine or Apostolick Warrant But the Apostles placed first Presbyters or Pastors feeding immediatly with the Word Doctrin and Government as their proper immediat Successors and to these they committed the Churches in their last Farewels Therefore the Pastor hath no ordinary superior Officer to him in Church Government by Divine or Apostolick Warrant Thus we see the utter Insufficiency of the Drs. Proof from this Argument anent the Seventy Disciples which may save us the labour of pursuing such Advantages as the Exact and Critical Disputant might have against him in his way of handling this Argument It is not clear from his Discourse whether he place these Seventy Disciples in the Office of Evangelists or of ordinary Ministers If he suppose and assert the First the Strength of his Argument is sufficiently Refuted by what is said above it being palpably absurd to infer different Degrees of the Pastoral Office from the Superiority of Apostles to Evangelists If the Second the Consequence is as absurd the many Prerogatives of Apostles above ordinary Pastors making such an Inference palpably ridiculous His Proof of the Succession of these Seventy to Apostles in their Office upon which he founds his Assertion of the Subordination of the one to the other is drawn from the Succession of Simeon to Iames at Ierusalem Philip to Paul at Cesarea Clemens to Peter at Rome In which he palpably falls short as to two essential Points thereof 1. He offers no Divine but an Human Testimony as to this Matter of Fact viz. of Dorotheus Eusebius 2. He offers no Proof from Scripture that the Persons instanced were of those Seventy mentioned Luk. 10. whom our Lord sent forth after the Twelve Apostles That the Apostles were chosen from among the Disciples or that they are first named in the Catalogue of Church Officers Ephes. 4. is a pitiful hungry Proof For the Dr. will not say that the Seventy were not also taken from among the number of Disciples or that all coming under this general Denomination were Church Officers And as to the other point of the Nomination of the Apostles first in the Catalogue of Church Officers even supposing it will import some special Prerogatives of these Twelve it is utterly remote from proving either First that these Seventy might not have been in the character of Evangelists and consequently had a correspondent Authority eo nomine Or Secondly That supposing them by their Mission to have had the same extensive Authority with the Twelve Apostles that the foresaid Prerogatives of Apostles did enervat this their Authority and Commission which was immediatly from our Lord as well as that of the Apostles and in its Nature and Extent never retracted or limited for any thing can be seen in Scripture For what the Dr. objects anent the Superiority of the Apostles over the Seventy as being in Office not in Power and Jurisdiction To which he answers That the Office including the Power must import a Superiority
all the Power of Government in the person of the Bishop excluding wholly all Presbyters from any Interest therein So that the Dr. in this unwary Citation contradicts Ignatius and himself and makes Ignatius inconsistent with himself In his next Citation of his Epistle to the Ephesians wherein Reverence is enjoined to the Bishop as the Person appointed by the Lord and Master of the Family to be his Steward He hath again Wounded himself For to be a Steward having a subaltern Service and Ministry under the Authority of the Master and tyed up to his Orders is point blanck contrare unto and toto coelo different from that Principality of the highest Degree before ascribed to the Bishop and owned by the Dr. as his and Ignatius's Sense of the Episcopal Office Sure to be a Prince and a Steward in Government are distinct things and entirely and wholly opposit if we will take the Apostle Pauls word for it who disowns a Dominion and in stead thereof and in opposition thereunto owns a Stewardship in God's Family and humble Sevice or Ministry 1 Cor. 4.1 2 Cor. 1. Ult. But now the Dr. plyes us with Inferences from these Citations Whereof the first is That these Epistles were Written not above Eight or Nine years after the Decease of St. Iohn and yet Bishops are supposed to be in all Churches appointed by Christ and his Apostles and they were lookt upon as no Members of the Church who were not Subject to them That they were necessary in the very Constitution of Churches so that they were not within the Altar but without it who were not subject to them And therefore it may be concluded there were no Churches without them I Answer that Ignatius wrot his Epistles early no body will doubt but that such trashie stuff and anti-scriptural Fooleries as are above rehearsed was written by Ignatius and was his Sense of Church Government no Man of Sense or who hath any Respect to the Memory of that Martyr will believe And we find the contrair is asserted and made good by several of the Godly Learned Not to stand upon a more critical Answer and to challenge the Dr. to prove the Universal Sense and Practice of the Primitive Church at that time from the Sense and Sentiments of this Author tho admitted unless he could prove by some Authentick Acts the Judgment of the whole Church to be correspondent thereunto and that none who either wrot not or whose Writings may be lost were of contrary Judgment which he neither attempts to prove nor will ever be able The Drs. next Inference is That since there were Bishops so early in this Age presiding over the Churches they behoved to receive several of them at least their Episcopal Orders from the Apostles since Ignatius at the writing of these Epistles had been Forty Years Bishop of Antioch an eminent Church planted immediatly by St. Peter It being the constant practice of the Apostles to ordain Elders in all the Churches they planted c. Ans. The Dr. hath not made good from these Testimonies that there were de facto and de jure such Prelats as he pleads for Nor can he from this Ground perswad any rational Man of this unless he could evince two Things which he will do ad Calendas Graecas 1. Not only that what is asserted in the Passages above rehearsed was the genuine Sense and writing of Ignatius but likewise the Sense and Judgment as well as the practice of the whole Church at that time 2. That this supposed Judgment and Practice anent such an Officer as the Bishop is correspondent to the Scripture Account and Sense of the Church Officers mentioned in the New Testament and the Apostles Doctrin and Practice in point of Church Government and the Institution of the Officers thereof which he will also find another insuperable Difficulty Again his Reason here is very odd whereby he fortifies this Inference viz. That the Apostles ordained Elders in all the Churches they planted For if the Dr. hold these Elders to be Bishops as he needs must if he speak consequentially I would fain know First What shadow of Proof he can give for this and how he can suppose that all the Scripture Elders were such For if this be asserted then it follows that Bishops were set up when there were no Elders to presid over contrary to the Sense and Pleading of his Fellows except Dr. Hammond And next I would know how the Dr. upon this Supposition will keep off the Rock of a Contradiction and that both to himself and Ignatius Since he makes Ignatius to distinguish the Bishops and the Elders and himself holds that the Elders with St. Iames at Ierusalem when the Apostle Paul went in to them were mere Presbyters or Pastors Again if the Dr. argue from their ordaining Elders to their ordaining Ignatius a Bishop as he thus disowns Dr. Hammonds Arguments and Notion who takes still the Elders for Prelats so he is obliged to prove the super-institution of Bishops over these Elders in every Church not to suppose it only else in his principles these Churches where mere Elders were placed were manck and wanted the power of Jurisdiction And since he has produced nothing from Scripture that proves such an institution of Bishops or such ordinary Officers fixed to certain Diocesses his Dream of Ignatius is as easily rejected by us as affirmed by him We read of a Church of Antioch planted by Paul and of an Eldership and Company of Teaching Prophets there who imposed Hands upon Paul and Barnabas when sent out among the Gentiles and are consequently supposed to be the subject of a Jurisdictional Power and Government But of the Apostle Peter his planting an Hierarchical Prelat of the Drs. Mould in either of the Antiochs the Scripture is utterly silent And a Supposition necessarly ensuing hereupon viz. That the Apostles planted Churches with different Moulds of Government sufficiently discovers the Absurdity of such an Opinion As for Chrysostom Tom. 5. edit Savil. p. 99. his admiring of Ignatius Dignity obtained by the Hands of Apostles laid upon him It is a very blunt and headless Proof of that Episcopal Dignity which the Dr. alledges For doth not the Dr. think that the Office of the Scripture Bishop is a great Dignity And he should prove not suppose only that Ignatius was by the Apostles installed a Bishop of his Mould or that Chrysostom understood this Dignity in his Sense which as he offers not to do so if attempting it he could not chuse but set Chrysostom by the Ears with himself who as is above cleared asserts the Identity of the Office of Bishop and Presbyter The same I repone to what the Dr. alledgeth P. 410 of Polycarp his supposed Episcopacy in Smyrna as also what is made good by many Protestant Divines viz. That the Fathers and Ancients used the Name of Bishops in a general Sense that the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or
Moderators had no Authority over the Presbytrie tho ordinarly thus termed And which clears this to Conviction Polycarp himself in his Epistle to the Philippians makes but two Orders of Ministry viz. Elders and Deacons as the Apostle Paul doth in his Epistle to the same Church and exhorts them to be subject to the Presbyter as unto God and unto Christ. And sure the Dr. will not make him cross this in his practice so that he falls utterly short of proving an Episcopacy of his Mould much more a derived Apostolat from these blind Testimonies The Dr. adds That it cannot be imagined that all Churches would have universally admitted Bishops in Ignatius's time the Apostles being alive had not some of them derived their Authority from the Apostles immediatly But 1. The Dr. hath given no shadow of proof for this universal Reception For I pray what proof is this Such and such Authors say there were Bishops in such and such Posts or rather put this general name upon such Persons Therefore the Christian Church received the Hierarchical Prelat universally or the Prelat with sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction as an Officer of Divine Institution For besides that the Dr. will never prove from the bare Assertion anent Bishops that they were of his Cutt and Mould the contrary being apparent especially in these early Times And many Fathers asserting the Identity of the Office of Bishop and Presbyter he must prove and instruct the universal Judgment and Practice of all the Churches as to the Reception of the Hierarchical Bishop of his Mould before this Assertion can be made good 2. The Dr. cannot deny Scripture Instances of the very early Reception of Corruptions in the Church both under the Law and Gospel As in the times of the Old Testament he knows the early Reception of the Idolatry of the Golden Calf by the Church of Israel together with Aaron himself but Forty Days after the delivery of the Law from Mount Sinai And besides many such Instances in the Old Testament we have Scripture Instances of the Devils sowing his Tares early in the Church of the New Testament such as the Error about the Resurrection the worshipping of Angels Justification by the works of the Law the necessity of Circumcision and other Ceremonies the Error of the Nicolaitans c. And look a little forward in the early times of the Church we will find Errors Traditions pretended to be received from the Apostles and owned by some of the Fathers themselves which notwithstanding the Dr cannot but acknowledg to be Errors Such as the Millâ—nary Error the Error of Children's receiving the Lords Supper c. whereof afterward The Dr. thinks it inconsistent with the Churches veneration to the Apostle Iohn that they should receive a new Order of Men without his Authority But this Universal reception of such an Order as the Dr. supposes is not yet proved Besides that the Dr's supposition of this impossibility of such a corruption early creeping in because of some Apostles or even of Iohn yet alive he will find not to be solid when he ponders duely the working of the Mystrie of iniquity and the Seeds of a Papacy even in Paul's time and a Diotrophes seeking Preheminence even in Iohn's time yea and directly contradicting and opposing the Holy Apostle The Dr. should know that it is not the slippery Principle of a supposed impossibility of this Nature while the Apostles were alive that we must found our Perswasion upon but the lively Oracles and living Doctrin of the Apostles is our Rule and whatever Doctrin or practice is cross thereunto tho all the Church should receive it yea tho an Angel from Heaven Preach it we ought to reject it and might call that Angel accursed For what the Dr. adds out of Bishop Taylor of Episcopacy Sect. 18. That de facto the Apostles with their own Hands Ordained several Bishops over Churches Viz Dion Areop Bishop of Athens Caius of Thessalonica Archippus of Coloss Onesimus of Ephesus Epaphroditus of Phillippi Titus of Corinth c. I Answer the Dr. does well to add the Caution if Credit might be given to Ecclesiastick History And truely this History must be of mighty force that must be believed against clear Scripture and the Credit and belief founded thereupon must needs be distinct from that Faith which God allows Nay the Drs. Credit of such History must needs set him at odds with himself For as to the First we find the Apostle Paul enjoyning the Church of Thessalonica Obedience to their Pastors jointly as their Spiritual Rulers and Governours without the least hint of any Super-eminent Prelat and enjoining to these Rulers Authoritative admonition of the Flock 1 Thess. 5.12.14 And will this Bishop and our Dr. Charge such a Contradiction upon the Apostle Paul as to settle a Presbytrie of Pastors in that Church with Authority to Rule and Govern while this Authority and Power is entrusted unto one Bishop or to take it afterward from them and put it in the Bishops Hands How I pray shall we believe such History against such plain Scripture And whether I pray deserves most our Credit the Apostles Divinly inspired Epistle enjoyning Obedience to the Pastors of that Church of Thessalonica jointly as their Spiritual Rulers and Guids or an after Apocryphal History declaring that this Authority was by the Apostles appointment monopolized in one Bishop either at that time or thereafter set up and Ordained by Paul Whether are we to believe the Scripture account of the State and Government of the Church of Ephesus as entrusted by Paul in his last farewel to the inspection and Government of the Elders jointly as the Bishops thereof Authorized by the Holy Ghost or an Historical account of Onesimus as their sole Bishop who had this Power Monopolized in him in Contradiction to the Apostles last prescriptions unto that Church either at that time or thereafter I dare pose this Dr. or any man of Sense and Candor upon it And whether upon such ground as this we might not cast off all Divine Institutions and receive all fopperies and Superstitions which Man 's wicked Heart by Satans influence might suggest The like might be said of Philippi the Apostle in the Preface of his Epistle to that Church saluting the Bishops as their Pastors in common calling all the Ministers Bishops and thus applying to them that Name and Office which the Dr. and his Fellows will needs appropriat to a Prelat And sure Paul writing by instinct of the un-erring Spirit of God gave not empty complemental Titles to these Pastors or Bishops but supposes them to have a standing joint Authority over that Church as the Spiritual Guids and Rulers thereof And it is a fearful and Gross imputation upon the Wisdom of God to suppose that either now or afterwards such a pretended Prelat as the Dr. maintains either had or was to have by Divine appointment all this Authority of the Pastors enhansed
some of you into Prison that ye may be tryed In a word what ever Characteristick of this Angel the Dr. shall produce we can make it appear to be applicable to Presbyters or Pastors First Is it a Commission to Preach and Baptize This he will grant belongs to all Pastors Is it the Power of Ordination The Scripture shews us that this is Seated in a Presbytrie 1 Tim. 4.14 Matth. 18.17 Is it the Ruling Governing Power All Ministers are such Angels All that Watch for Souls do Rule over them and all Labourers in the Word and Doctrin have an equal joynt Interest in Feeding Censuring and Ruling in the Churches over which they are set Heb. 13.17 1 Thess. 5.12 And People are accordingly to submit themselves to them Therefore this Prostasie and Ruling Power is no sole Prerogative of a single Angel or supposed Bishop Thus it was with the Church of Ephesus Act. 20. And it is much more suteable to understand the Angel of Ephesus of a Plurality of Ministers to whom in a plain Scripture the whole Government is found intrusted rather than to Explain that plain Text by a Metaphor and contrary thereunto to set up one Angel or Diâ—cesan Bishop over that Church with sole Power of Ordination and Jurisdiction The Dr. will find this our Sense of the Angel to be no new Opinion when he considers that Augustin Homil. 21. upon this Book thus takes it Expounding the Angel of Thyatira the Praepositi Ecclesiarum or Governours of the Churches So Aretas Lib. 1. Cap. 1.2.9.10 Primas in Apoc. Cap. 2. Ambros. Ambert Anselm Pererius Victorin Tirin Haym Bed Perkins Fox in his Meditations on the Revelation pag. 7 8. Pilkintoun Bishop of Durham in his Exposition of Hag. Ch. 1. v. 13. The second thing I premise is that the Dr. hath no advantage tho it be yielded that the Angel is a single Person For 1. He may be the Angelus Praeses or the Moderator Angel not the Angelus Princeps or the Lord Angel yea and the Praeses or Moderator for the time as a Speaker in Parliament Ephesus had many Angels Act. 20.28 1 Tim. 5.17 of equal Authority who were made Bishops by the Holy Ghost and set over that Church accordingly and they are spoken to in the Plural though the Angel is named in the Singular Number 2. This Angel is said to have no Jurisdiction or Superiority over the rest of the Ministers nor can the Dr. shew where this Angel is spoken to with reference to Ministers as subject to him which notwithstanding is his begged Supposition and Petitio Principii all along in this Argument 3. The Parochial and Diocesan Division of the Churches were long after this and not until the 260 year after Christ in the Judgment of best Antiquaries 4. Nothing is required of this Angel but that which is the common Duty of all Pastors Finally suppose it were granted to him that a Superiority were imported in Naming this Angel it may be a Superiority of Order Dignity or Gifts and in such Moral Respects not of Power and Jurisdiction The Dr in Order to this his Scope proposes generally the Method of his Proof shewing That he will prove that they were single Persons 2 ly That they were Persons of great Authority in these Churches 3 ly That they were the Bishops or Presidents of these Churches Before I examin his Proofs it is pleasant to consider how well this Undertaking of the Dr. answers his Scope which all along in this Dispute is to prove a Succession of ordinary Officers in the Office of Apostolat as he calls it and in their whole Power of Ordination and Jurisdiction excluding Pastors from the least Interest therein By his Principles these supposed Succeeding Prelats are the sole Governours of Churches have the sole Legislative Power wherein he says the Essence of Government consists the Power of Consecration and Ordination to Ecclesiastick Offices and that of the same Nature and Extent as he supposes the Apostles had it by vertue of their Apostolical Mission The Bishops also have by his Principles the sole Executive Spiritual Jurisdiction Monopolized in them as their peculiar Prerogative viz. as the Dr. explains it to Cite Examin Admonish Offenders Exclud from or Admit to Church Communion Censure or Absolve Bind or Loose The twelve Thrones to Judg Israels Tribes promised to Apostles he understands of the Authority of Judging and of all Spiritual Jurisdiction in the Church Visible committed to them and by them to the Bishops as their only Successors in this Authority To which we may add the Confirming of the Baptized by Imposition of Hands which he also ascribes to them as their sole Prerogative This the Dr. at large insists upon from P. 433. to P. 438. Now to prove all these Prerogatives of the Bishops and this Extensive Power so paramount to all Authority or Interest of Pastors in Government as it renders them mere Cyphers without a Figure from the seven Asian Angels Because they were single Persons or of great Authority in the Churches or President-Bishops in these Churches is such a Proof as the Simplest may Laugh at For 1. Will any Man think that their being Saluted as single Persons will prove this Extensive Authority Why may not a Senate be Saluted in the Consuls a Parliament Addressed in the Chancellor or the House of Commons in an Epistle to the Speaker 2 ly Say that they were Presidents and admit that they had Deference and Authority as such as the Consul in the Senate will this suppose or by any Shadow of Consequence or Connection inferr that they had such a Power as is here described and such as swallows up wholly and absolutly all Authority of the Members of Church Judicatories Nay the Dr. will as soon joyn the Poles together as unite this Antecedent and Consequent Besides in calling them Presidents he discovers this and confutes himself since the Terme both Name and Thing in all Languages and in the Sense of all Men is appropriat to such as are set over Juridical Courts Civil or Ecclesiastick the Members whereof are still supposed to have a Decisive Suffrage and Interest in the Government Again 3 ly The Dr. says he will prove that they were Persons of great Authority in these Churches But if he speak to the Point and prosecut his Scope he must call it Absolute and Sole Authority intirely exclusive of all Interest which Pastors or any other Church Officers may claim therein Come we to the Dr's Grand Proofs First That they were single Persons he proves from this That they are mentioned as such the Angel of Ephesus the Angel of Smyrna And thus all along Addrest in the Singular Number I know thy Works I have a few things against thee Ans. This Argument is abundantly removed by what is premised anent the Collective Sense of the Word Angel which our Lords Addressing the the Epistle to one Angel doth no whit Impugn in the sense of sound Protestant
but the People under him yet not one word to Pastors I had thought that the Clergy and Laity being distinguished by the Dr. P. 421. and both the one and the other in his Sense under the Bishops Government and inspection when he makes the Plural Address to go beyond the Bishop he would have cast an Eye upon the under-Clergy or Ministry before the People as concerned before them in these important duties or supposed Transgressions But we may easily discover the knack of the Dr's policy in this For Pleading in his Second Argument That an Authority in reference to Church Government is clearly imported in several of these directions or reprehensions particularly those addressed to the Angel of Pergamus and Thyatira in reference to Juridical Tryal conviction and Censures He was afraid least by this means he should have opened a door for Ministers claim to the Bishop's incommunicable prerogatives had he extended the plural Address to them as well as to the People Thirdly The Dr. having told us That in such plural Addresses the people under the Bishop's Government are included gives for instance that Passage Rev. 2.10 The Devil shall cast some of you into prison I should verrily think he was here concerned to specifie the Clergy and Laity and include both For it seems in his Sense all the Pastors were safe from the Thunder-clap of this warning I know not by what shield except that of the Drs. fancy and there were no prisons there for Pastors this being only spoke to the People This charge of gross folly upon his Mould of Reasoning and it is gross enough at all will is the more evident in that Answer to the Objection taken from that phrase Chap. 2.25 unto you and unto the rest in Thyatira from which passage we plead for a plural diversifying Ministers and people under distinct Comma's The Dr. will admit it by no means to to be meant of any but the People making the term you and the rest in Thyatria one and the same as distinguishing only the sound from the unsound part in that Church So that it is evident the D appropriats the Plural Phrases to the People only and consequently is exposed to the forementioned absurdities in his way and method of pleading That that Passage Chap. 2.10 doth reach the Pastors is upon several important grounds made good by Mr. Durham upon the place as 1. from the remarkable change of the singular number to the Plural 2 ly That his was a searching tryal to the Church whereof it was her concern to be warned 3 ly That the preservation of Some was as signal a consolation in such a Tryal as Isai. 30.20.21 See others cited by Pool Critic upon the place The Dr. enquires If Angels had not been single Persons why are they not mentioned Plurally as well as the People This Querie confirms what is now imputed to him That they are mentioned Plurally we have already made good in the premised Instances Yea the Dr. himself answers himself acknowledging that there is a Plurality bespoken in the Person of the Angels so that he is not only Personally Addressed But the Dr's strange Fetch is that he will allow a Plurality of the People to be Addrest and spoken to in one singular Bishop or Angel but none of the Pastors at all For which Notion I had almost said Non-sense no imaginable ground can be given but the Dr's good Will to his Hierarchical Bishop whom he would fain shape out of this Scripture which we see so rejects and baffles his Endeavours that instead of any evident ground of Answer from the Text he must needs embrace an Airy Notion of his own Brain Thus to that pregnant Passage Chap. 2.24 which we adduce to prove the Angel to be Addrest Plurally viz. To you I say and unto the rest in Thyatira Where there is a clear Distinction made betwixt the Plural you viz. the Pastors and the rest in Thyatira viz. the People The Dr. has no other Shift but that pitiful one viz. That the Ancient Greek Manuscripts leave out the Conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Read it To you the rest in Thyatira distinguishing the Seduced from the not Seduced And therefore cannot be meant of the Angel who is always Addrest in the Singular Number But 1. This Shift baffles most of all the old Greek Copies the Reading he embraces being supposed Mantytecla's Manuscript baffles all the Episcopal English Clergy concerned in our last Translation who notwithstanding all their Zeal for Episcopacy as appears in their various and unsound Translation of the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet durst not make this Adventure with the Dr but with the Current of Ancient Copies Read the Text with the Conjunction Notwithstanding that in their Preface to the Reader they assert their Diligence in Searching the Original Text. I need not stand here to recount the large Testimony and Cloud of Witnesses the Body of Protestant Divines Translators and Interpreters all concurring in this our Sense and Reading in Contradiction to the Dr's Conceit and Exception See Paraeus Arethas Ribera Dr. More who expresly taketh the you to import the Pastors Beza c. But 2 ly This Conjecture and Answer is clearly Cross to the Text For 1. The Adversative but in the beginning of v. 24. clearly limits the you here and distinguishes it from the you meant of the People in the close of v. 23. 2. The Conclusion of this verse clears this to Conviction I will put upon you none other burden hold fast Pray by what Logick will the Dr. exclud Ministers and includ the People only in this Plural Phrase Were no Ministers kept unpolluted Or were there some other burdens to be put upon them than what they had already And are they excluded from holding fast ' till Christ come what is received from him and only the People concerned herein as contradistinct from the Bishop Sure I am such absurd Consequeuces might cover with Blushes the Asserters of this Opinion I might add that even granting the Dr the Advantage of this Gloss and leaving out the Conjunction and admitting with Grotius that thus the Sound are distinguished from the Unsound in this Church the Dr. would be pitifully puzzl'd to prove that none of the Clergy as he calls them is in both these Classes and consequently that the Plural Phrase doth not stand for us even in this Discriminating Sense But this we insist not upon To proceed to the Dr's second Proof p. 423. of our Lords Allowance and Approbation of Episcopal Government in these Epistles viz. That they were Persons of great Authority This he proves from the Title of Angel shewing them to be Persons of Office and Eminency Christ also Directing to them the Epistles to be communicat to their Churches To which he adds another Proof taken from the Authority which is supposed to be exercised by some of these Angels and competent to others He gives Instance of
good of the Church in general so by their own Authority for particular Churches to which they were more particularly related Here is I must say odd and confused stuff First The Dr. supposes that the Decree Act. 15. had no previous Scripture Foundation contrar to the express tenor and scope of the place where it is evident 1. That in this Disquisition there are Grounds of the Sentence laid down yea and Scripture Grounds 2 ly The Sentence runs in these terms It seemed good to the Holy Ghost viz. speaking in the Scripture and to us 3 ly Upon these previous Scripture Grounds of Charity and Union-and the esehewing the Offence of the weak Iews apparent in the debate and disquisition the things enjoined are termed necessary things and thus supposed materially such antecedaneously to the Decree Hence 4 ly The Dr. in saying That this Abstinence he must understand it in the present Case and circumstances of time place and persons was never prohibited by any standing Law of Christianity expugns from being Laws of Christianity all our Lords Precepts in point of Love and Unity and the eschewing the Offence of the little Ones For these Rules did clearly found this Abstinence and ground the necessity thereof in the present Case and exigence Again in the nexplace The great point the Dr. has to prove is That this supposed Legislative power is the Bishops sole prerogative secluding Pastors This he proves by the Apostles together with the Elders and Brethren their comming together and determining this matter One would think this makes fair to prove the contrary The Apostles here meeting with and taking into the disquisition and Decree and into every step of the procedure the ordinary Ministers and Elders as persons interested and concerned and who are found to concur with them in enacting and enjoining the thing Decreed in order to the Churches Obedience Ay but the Dr. tells us That by consent of all Antiquity by these Elders we are to understand the Bishops of Iudea for which he Cites Dr Hammond on Act. 11. A Dr. no doubt of a like soundness with himself But 1. If the Dr. adhere to Dr. Hammonds notion of Elders he must Esteem them Bishops where ever mentioned and deny the existence of any Pastors the true Scripture Bishops at this time wherein our Dr. will and must needs justle and deal stroaks with Dr. Hammond For to omit other instances he holds the Elders present with Iames when Paul went into him to be Pastors over which Iames as Bishop of Ierusalem did preside 2 ly None can imagin these Elders to be Bishops of Iudea without the most ridiculous Forgery imaginable For in the context it is evident that at this time the Apostles were but founding and gathering Churches in Iudea settling Churches therein and taking inspection of them by their Apostolick Authority And therefore it is a strange phantastick conceit to imagine Churches by this time grown up to a Diocess in Iudea and of such a bulk and number as to have Diocesan Bishops set over them yea and Diocesan Bishops of so considerable a Number as the Elders may be rationally supposed to be at this time and in this meeting yea and these besides the far greater Number of Ordinary Teachers and Pastors which this Man will not deny the Apostles to have ordained where Churches were planted Again why I pray the Bishops of Judea only gathered here in order to this general Decree for all the Churches and no Bishops of the Gentile Churches which he will say were by this time set up Besides that looking to the occasion of this debate anent the Circumcision which had its rise from some of them that went from Judea as from the Apostles and thus troubled the Churches the design of the Gentiles appears evidently to be to send Paul to the Apostles and Elders residing at Jerusalem without the least hint of any more enlarged Advertisement of others than such as were there at that time Again the Dr. says That Apostles and Primitive Bishops made general Laws for the whole Church and Bishops particular Laws for their particular Churches Thus saith he Paul gave Rules to the Corinthians for more decent communication of the Lords Supper Strong reasoning indeed and hanging well together First he supposes the Apostles made by their Apostolical Authority the general Rules for the whole Church as proper to them with concurrence of ordinary Bishops the ordering of particular Churches being peculiar to the ordinary or Primitive Bishops And presently to prove this he puts the great Apostle of the Gentiles into the class of Ordinary Bishops in giving Rules to this Church of Corinth and wisely supposes that Pauls Apostolick Prescriptions about Right and decent Communicating concerned only this Church of Corinth and were Authorized and enacted by no Apostoick Authority nor by the Apostle Paul as in that capacity To this scope the Dr. with as much Sense and soundness instances Paul's giving Laws and Canons to the Churches of Galatia contradicting therein the Relation of these Canons to particular Churches since they did respect both the Churches of Corinth and the Churches of Galatia Of the same nature is that which he here mentions of Pauls Charge to Timothy and Titus 1 Tim. 5.7 Tit. 1.5 touching the redressing disorders and supplying defects in these Churches For besides that Paul exerced an Apostolical Authority in these Directions to the Evangelists extraordinary Officers as Paul himself which clearly excludes Director and Directed from the compass of the Dr's Argument he will not deny several of these directions at least to have been of universal concern and necessity and in this respect also as remote from his Design The Dr. adds That what the Apostles and Primitive Bishops did to be sure they had Authority to do and whatsoever Authority they had they derived it down to their Successors That Apostles and Evangelists exercised a Lawful Authority is indeed very sure and no less sure than the Dr's Argument here is loose and unsure from Apostolical directions to Evangelists to conclud the Nature and Mould of the supposed Episcopal Authority of Prelats in reference to making Laws as is above evinced since the Dr. cannot shape out nor by any twist of reason and sound consequence inferr his supposed Hierarchical Prelat with sole Power of Ordination and Jurisdiction from the Office of either Apostles or Evangelists The Dr will not have any Officer beneath a Bishop to have been allowed suffrage in any of the First Four General Councils yet immediatly after some way retracting and correcting himself he allows them a place in General Councils but tell us it was only for debate and preparing the Matter of Laws but the form of Laws he says proceeded from the Bishops suffrage This is pretty First The Dr. will never prove that in the First Councils there were Prelats of his stamp and Mould Next its strange that in Councils Presbyters were sitting for
Heresie and were to be Received in the Church at Rome in the time of Cornelius Cyprian tells us Epist. 6. compared with 46. they came before the Presbytrie and Confessing their Sins were Received Now if Presbyters had such Authority and the Episcopal Power was of this Nature and thus Limited let any Judg how the Dr's Assertion can subsist viz That in Judicatories Pastors had no decisive suffrage For the Dr's after-discourse P. 436. anent the Civil Soveraigns Decrees in case of a supposed interfeiring with the Churches Legislative Power as he calls it I shall not it being some what out of our way much digress in examining the same tho I judg it very lax and liable to considerable exceptions yea and hardly reconcilable with it self or sound sense and Divinity The Dr. holds That the Churches Legislative Power cannot reach to controll the Civil Decrees And yet holds That these Decrees cannot countermand Gods Laws Now the Dr. will not say that the Churches Legislative Power is not founded upon and Authorised by Gods Laws nay he positively asserts that it is He adds That next to the Laws of God the Soveraigns Laws are to be obeyed And thus makes the Law of God the overruling Law the Regula Regulans and paramount to those of the Soveraign And therefore by good consequence from this Assertion the Churches Legislative Power in exhibiting and declaring Gods Laws must likewise be thus Paramount thereunto and first obeyed Especially if he stand to that instance of his Act. 15. as exhibiting the Plat-form and Standart of Church Laws wherein the enacted Canon and Decree is said to be the mind of the Holy Ghost and thus a Divine Law the Authority of God being thereto interponed Yet in the very next Words he lays down this Assertion That next to the Laws of the Soveraign the Laws of the Church are to be obeyed And so here these Civil Laws are set in an higher Sphere and made Paramount to all Church Laws and this without any exception or Limitation whether they be consonant to the Divine Law or not or any Limitation of Consonancy to the Divine Law in the Laws of the Church The person who will reconcile and soudder these must in my apprehension be better skill'd than all Vulcan's Gimmerers and no doubt better seen in logical Rules and subtilties than I. So much for the Dr's First Prerogative of a Bishop as distinct from a Presbyter in the Power Legislative and of making Canons The Second Peculiar Ministry and Prerogative of the Bishop above Presbyters the Dr. tells us is To Consecrat and Ordain to Ecclesiastick Offices Thereafter the Dr. spends much discourse upon Christs Mission of the Twelve Apostles as the Father sent him including a Power of Ordination of others which he Confirms by Luk. 24.33.36 Mark 16.14 Matth. 28.16 Which Commission he tells us was transferred Originally upon the Apostolick Order So that Ecclesiastick Commissions were either given by the hands of these First Apostles or by such Secondary Apostles as were by them admitted into Apostolick Orders and these Secondary Apostles were the same with Bishops Ans. We need not spend time in resuming what is said already in Answer to this There 's no doubt but our Lord gave a Power of Mission and of Ordaining Ministers to His Twelve Apostles A Power to Plant Churches through the World and a Gospel Ministry and Ordinances in them But that by vertue of this their Mission they were to transferr their Apostolick Office and Authority to ordinary Succeeding Officers is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Quaesitum or Question which the Dr. still beggs and supposes but will never be able to prove from either the Nature and intendment of their Mission or the Power and Authority of Succeeding Officers whom they Ordained as we have above evinced The Dr's Proofs are pitifully claudicant he tells us That tho the whole Disciples were present the Apostles only Imposed hands upon the Seven Deacons Act. 6. And why not The Authoritative Imposition of Hands in Ordination is no doubt proper to Ecclesiastick Officers not to the People but where were the Succedaneous Bishops here who had solely this Power tho Ministers were present The Dr. has let us see no shaddow of this from the Text. He next tells us of Paul and Barnabas Ordaining Elders in Antioch Iconium and Lystra A mighty proof The Apostles in planting Churches ordained Ministers in them Ergo Suceedaneous Bishops have an Apostolick Authority of Ordaining derived to them solely as their peculiar Prerogative above Pastors This Consequence is denyed If the Dr. own these Elders for Pastors it should seem they had an Ordaining Power else the Apostles settled these Churches in a very mank frame and lame posture and wanting the Essentials of an Organick Church If the Dr. allow them an Ordaining Power he crosses the Scope of a proof of Succeedaneous Bishops with Power of Ordination set up by the Apostles since thus he ascribes it unto Pastors And if he deny it he is liable also to the same absurdity and that mentioned above and will cross his Notion of the Bishops Office ascribed to the Elders of Ierusalem who mett with the Apostles in that Council Act. 15. Besides if the Dr. put an Episcopal Mitre upon these Pastors or Elders and make them Bishops in his Sense it is very odd that among these little new gathered Churches such highly Authorized Diocesan Prelats were set up before any Pastors for Feeding with the Word and Doctrin For discovering the folly of which Gloss and Assertion I dare appeal to the Current of Interpreters Or if the Dr. imagin the strength of his Proof to ly in this that these Officers were Ordained by Apostles solely he should know that as we all allow an extraordinary Power in Apostles in Churches not yet Constitut not competent to Ordinary Officers so his Assertion is anent an ordinary Power of Succeedaneous or Secondary Apostles as he calls them as sole and singular in Ordination But the Dr. finds a Difficulty in his Way viz. That Paul and Barnabas were ordained Apostles of the Gentiles by certain Prophets and Teachers in Antioch Act. 13.1 2. To which he makes this Return That these Prophets and Teachers had no doubt received the Apostolick Character being ordained by the Apostles Bishops of Syria For otherwise saith he how could they have derived it And this Notion the Dr. reposes such Confidence in that he tells us There is no doubt but they had this Character But truly whether the Insipid Folly of the Objection or of the Return here made unto it be greater is a Question to me First That Paul and Barnabas were at this time and in this Action ordained Apostles of the Gentiles I believe few if ever any except the Dr did imagin I had always thought that it is evident to any who reads the Account and Story of Pauls Conversion and Call to the Apostleship by the Lord from Heaven that when
have told him before that Firmilianus saith of them that Rule in the Church quod Baptisandi manum imponendi Ordinandi possident potestatem and who these are he shews a little before viz. Seniores praepositi We have also told him that Chrysostom himself was found accused in Synod ad Quaercum Ann. 403. that he had made Ordinations with the Sentence and company of the Clergy And in the forecited Council of Carthage Canon 21. it is enacted That the Bishop Ordain not without the Clergy And Canon 2. Presbyters are enjoined to Impose hands with the Bishop The Authors of Ius Divinum Minist Evan. in the Appendix together with Smectymnus and several other Presbyterian Writers have exhibit so many clear instances of this that we need only refer the Reader to their Learned Labours for the discovery of the Drs. folly in this Assertion In the close of his discourse upon this point he tells us That this is so undenyable that tho Ierom equalize Presbyters with Bishops yet he is forc't to do it with an excepta Ordinatione Ans. If we should suppose Ierom to speak of the general custom of that time and place and neither absolutely nor Universally as to the practice or Matter of Fact far less of of a Divine Right the Dr's undenyable proof is soon overturned but especially it s Razed when we tell him that Ierom's excepta Ordinatione is well enough understood of the Bishops ordinarly assumed Chief interest in the rituals of Ordination tho Presbyters as is above cleared did intrust this to him as having a joint and essential interest in the thing it self The next peculiar Ministry of the Bishop which the Dr. assigns is The execution of Spiritual Iurisdiction viz. to Cite examin Offences before their Tribunals to admonish the Offender exclud from Church Communion or receive upon Repentance The Dr. discourses at large in proof of a Spiritual jurisdiction Established in the Church and proves it soundly from Matth. 18.16.17.18 Expounding that Clause tell it unto the Church of a Delation in Order to an Authoritative admonition and from those Passages in the context If he neglect to hear the Church let him be as a heathen c. and that other whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. Concluds well a Power in the Church of excluding from and admission into Fellowship Citing that Paralell Math. 16.19 I will give unto thee the Keyes c. which he also well explains by what is said Isai. 22.21 22. anent the Key of the Hâ—use of David i. e. the Government of his Church committed to our Lord in the Type of Eliakim's substituting to Shebna who was over the Household He expounds well the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven of the Government of the Church and the Power of Binding and loosing of admission to or exclusion from Church Fellowship All this is easily accorded But now comes the main Point and the Cardo questionis This Power saith the Dr is wholly deposited in the Episcopal Order This is soon said but to prove it hoc opus hic labor est It were superfluous here to remind the Reader how the Dr. understands the Episcopal Order or how far in a sound Scripture Sense of the Episcopal order this assertion might be admitted But to the Point the Dr. proves his Assertion from this ground that in all the forecited places it was only to Apostles that our Lord derived this Iurisdiction they alone being the Stewards to whom he committed the Keyes and Government of his Family to whom alone he promised Twelve Thrones to Rule and Govern his Spiritual Israel as the Chief of the Tribâ—s Governed the Natural Israel Math. 19.28 Upon which ground he tells us that the Heavenly Jerusalem has the Names of the Twelve Apostles upon its Gates Rev. 21.14 c. And the Twelve pretious Stones v. 19.20 Do in his Sense denote the Power and dignity of the Church As also the 144 Cubits of the Walls Measure amounting to Twelve times twelve he takes to denote the Apostles equal Government of the Church From all which the Dr. thrusts out as his project of the whole his former Notion and Topick of our Lords lodging this Jurisdiction in those of the Apostoliek Order derived from the Apostles which saith he was administrat accordingly either by the Apostles immediatly or by the Bishops of the several Churches to whom they communicat their Order Ans. All this in so far as relates to the Dr's scope is nothing but a repetition of what is already Answered I shall easily accord with him in this that as our Lord placed and left in his Church a Spiritual Jurisdiction so his Apostles were the First and immediat Recipients of this from himself I do likewise consent to the Dr. in this that this Spiritual Authority was to be continued in the Church and Transmitted to fit Administrators and was not to die with the Apostles As also there is no doubt that they were to deliver our Lords mind and the Standart and continuing measures and Rules of all the Ordinances of the House of God the Doctrin Worship Disciplin and Government thereof in which Respect they are called the Churches Foundation But in all this the Dr. has not laid one Ground-Stone of his proof which as we have often told him lyes Chiefly in these two Points 1. That the Office of Apostolat in its entire nature and extent and as exercised by the Twelve was by our Lord intended for an ordinary Function and Office to be thus continued in and transmitted to the Church and devolved on Successors who were accordingly to exercise the same Office and Power 2 ly That these Successors were so invested with this Apostolick Power and Office as they had the whole Government the Power of Order and Jurisdiction monopolized in them in so far as the Pastors and Presbyters appointed and set up by Apostles in the Churches had only the Doctrinal Key entrusted to them but not that of Government whereas both the one and the other were committed to these supposed succedaneous Apostles Now its evident that if the Dr. prove not these he says nothing And that both these are unsound and Antiscriptural Suppositions we have already made appear 1. From the many evidences and clear Scripture discoveries of the extraordinarie expired nature of the Apostolick and Evangelistick Office And 2. From the Apostles intrusting and transmitting to Pastors or Presbyters and devolving upon them both the Keyes of Doctrin and Government as their proper and imediat Successors as also from clear Scripture Grounds and instances which do evince their actual exercise of the same But next to examin a little more closely the Dr's Proofs I would gladly know of him or any of his Perswasion whether they do not look upon and understand that Text Math. 18. as containing a constant Fundamental Law and Rule given to the Christian Church to prescrib the Method of removing
Power of Government and Preaching being Eminenter contained in the Apostolick Office they did not commit the Ruling Authority to such to whom the Preaching work was intrusted Once more to reflect upon the Passage tell the Church we will find our Sense and Pleading correspondent to judicious Interpreters Dic Ecclesiae is coram multis inquit liber Musar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iustinus And that the person may have a punishment inflicted of many 2 Cor. 2.6 and the rebuke may be before all 1 Tim. 5.20 And that the person Offending may be moved by the consent and multiplicity of those rebuking him So Grotius who shews us that it was the practice among the Jews after the more privat admonition to bring the Matter to the Multitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Court of Judges who have the Power of binding and loosing as distinct from the multitude Thus Camero Simmachus Beza To the Presbytrie representing the Church whereof mention is made 1 Tim. 4. 14 Piscator Beza Camero And these whom Paul cal's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 2.6 But to proceed with the Dr he tells us next That none but such as are of the Aopostolick Order can pretend to the Jurisdictional Power since it was First lodged in the Apostles and by them immediatly exercised or by the Bishops of the several Churches to whom they communicat their Authority and Order But one should think that such to whom they committed the Chief and principal part of their Office as they did to Pastors by the Dr's Confession to such they did commit their Order in so far as unto ordinary succeeding Officers and that together with this the other subservient part of Ruling was also committed both Keyes being in their Nature as above hinted so inseparably connected And he cannot give one instance of the Apostles giving the First to Successors without the Second Nay the instances are clear of their committing both to Pastors The Elders or Ministers of Ephesus are entrusted by the Apostle Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both to Feed and Rule as Bishops Authorized by the Holy Ghost over that Church which command is by the Apostle laid upon them when taking his last farewell of the same and not a word is dropt by the Apostle of either the one or the other to Timothy their alledged Bishop The Apostle Peter enjoins the Elders as their Fellow-Elder to Feed and Rule and exercise Episcopal Authority over the Flocks A clear Demonstration compared with the preceeding Instances that these Elders and Ministers were the Apostles proper and immediat Successors in both Offices of Teaching and Ruling So that the Dr. may here see in this Scripture-Glass the Portraiture the clear Image of the Scripture Bishop and the Authentick and Original Character of the Office of these Pastors and Bishops of the Churches to whom the Apostles committed the Preaching and Ruling Work viz. the Preaching Pastors or Presbyters Shall I add a Caution and acknowledg to the Dr they were not the Bishops of his supposed Order since the Apostle discharged them to be Lords because in these simple times of Christianity the Apostles themselves were rude and not yet acquaint with the Grandure of Spiritual Lords and Lordships in the House of God But least the Dr do think this odd that I do hold the Work of Preaching and Administration of the Sacraments an higher Point of Episcopal Authority than Ruling at least if I may add only Ruling which he knows the Bishops arrogat to themselves solely not medling much with the first and that I hold the Governing Power to be appendant upon and consequent unto the Power of Order in Preaching and Administrating the Seals of the Covenant I must tell him that if this be an Errour A great one has led me into it and one of the Dr's most eminent Primary Bishops who I am sure had a Divine Authority for his Office and an Infallibility in Teaching besides It is even the great Apostle of the Gentiles who gives to Timothy this Precept The Elders that Rule well count them worthy of double Honour especially they that Labour in the Word and Doctrin wherein it is evident the Apostle allows the Labouring in the Word and Doctrin the higher Honour above Ruling yea and Ruling well But to prove that the Apostles committed this Iurisdictional Power only to the Bishops of their Order the Dr. brings the Instance of Pauls pronuncing the Sentence of Excommunication against the Incestuous Person 1 Cor. 5. shewing that he as present in Spirit had Judged i. e. saith the Dr pronunced Sentence concerning him who had done that Deed And v. 4 5. he orders them to declare and and execute his Sentence But that the Current of the Context runs Cross to the Dr's Pleading is several ways evident For 1. The Apostle blames this Church that this Sentence was not passed before and that they saved him not the Labour of this Prescription or Appointment in performing their Duty Antecedaneously thereunto It is evident he checks them that this Person was not by an Ecclesiastick Censure of such a Nature as is here intimat put away and taken from among them v. 2. 2 ly He writes to them to do it and this as an Act of their ordinary Authority proper to them as Church Officers viz. Authoritatively to deliver to Satan and that when by the Authority of our Lord they were mett together the Body of Professoâ—s being also concerned in a Consent to this Ejection And therefore they were not to meet merely to Declare or Witness what the Apostle had done before 3 ly He thus expostulats v. 12. Do not ye Iudg them that are within A convincing Proof that they had Power to Censure all that were within that Church by an Intrinsick Authority proper to them as Officers thereof 4 ly He calls this Act or Sentence 2 Cor. 2.6 A Censure or Punishment inflicted of many viz. the Church Officers not a Declaration of his previously passed Sentence I hope the Dr. will not fall into such a blunt Conceit as to make one and the same the Declaration of a Sentence passed by another and the formal Passing of a Sentence or Inflicting of a Censure or Punishment which if done warrantably as is here supposed doth necessarly import Authority in the Persons Acting Inflicted of many says the Apostle i. e. Not by all the Multitude as Independents Judge nor by one Person or Bishop as the Dr. Dreams As for his Expounding Pauls Judging this Person Censureable to be his Pronuncing Sentence it is a very gross Distortion For Paul as an Apostle infallibly Inspired by virtue of his Apostolical Directive Authority and in special as having the Care of the Gentile Churches upon him 2 Cor. 11.28 had Power to Direct and Prescribe Duty to either Members or Officers of any Churches And therefore if the Dr. will draw this Act to Exemplifie Episcopal Authority he draws upon
himself two gross Absurdities 1. That Paul had and Exemplified a standing lawful Episcopal Authority wherever such Prescriptions were exercised and to whomsoever they could reach And this Reaching over all Churches his Care being thus extended as is above cleared the Dr. makes him a standing Primat and Patriarch over them Exemplifying a sort of Patriarchal Primacy to be Transmitted in the Church 2 ly That his Apostolick Prescription of the Duties of Church Officers was not Cumulative unto but Privative of whatever Authority and Interest in Government they might acclaim or in the Exercise of the Power of Order And thus suppose the Bishop of the Dr's Mould set over the Church of Corinth had neglected his Duty as these Officers are here found faulty in this point Pauls Apostolick Direction in the Dr's Sense and Pleading nullifies his Power and proves he had none Or supposing an Archippus or negligent Minister had needed his Apostolical Direction to perform such Acts of the Power of Order as were proper to his Function Pauls Prescription of Duty by the same Reason swallows it up and makes it null Certain it is that neither could the Apostles divest themselves of this directing Power of Judging upon neglect of Duty which had been a divesting themselves of their Office nor can they be supposed without the grossest Consequences striking at the Root of all Church Authority to have by their directing or judging Power exauctorat such to whom the Direction was given of their Power and Interest in their respective Duties whether as Members or Officers of the Churches Pool Anot Vol. 2. Expound this 4 th v. of the Power and Authority of Christ concurring with them while gathered together And upon v. 5. Expounding the delivering to Satan of Excommunication and casting out of the Church They give this Reason because the Apostle speaks of an Action which might be and ought to have been done by the Church of Corinth when they mett together and for not doing of which the Apostle blames them Thus clearly Asserting the Intrinsick Authority of the Church Officers of Corinth herein and upon the same Grounds which we have Asigned To the same Scope do the Belgick Divines Expound this whole Passage paralelling it with the great Precept Matth. 18.15 Both upon v. 4 5. and upon 2 Cor. 2.6 touching the Subject of this Jurisdictional Act viz. That it was Inflicted of many they Expound of Church Governours or Officers Diodat upon Chap. 5. v. 4. thus Senses the Words That they were to perform this as the Lords Ministers by Authority received from Christ and that the Command is directed to the Pastors and Conductors of the Church being gathered together in Ecclesiastical Judgment having the Apostles Declaration instead of his Voice and Vote And to obviat such a Notion and Fancy as that of our Dr. upon this he adds That this was without doing any prejudice to the ordinary Ministry of the Church of Corinth And that Paul uses his Apostolical Power Modestly only to excite the other viz. the ordinary Power of Pastors and to strengthen it And he Expounds v. 7. not only of Purging out this Incestuous Man but all such Scandalous Kind of People who by their Infection might plunge again into the Ancient Corruption c. And upon v. 12. Do not ye Iudg them that are within He says That it is certain that a Judge cannot exercise his Jurisdiction but only over those that are within his Precinct and subject to his Tribunal Clearly Asserting a Spiritual Tribunal in this Representative Church To the same Scope he Expounds the last verse The English Annot. upon v. 2. of this Chap. in Correspondence to the Exposition and Answer premised and in Opposition to the Dr's Reasoning do shew That the Apostle finds fault with the Corinthians for that they had not Excommunicat this Incestuous Person before he had Wrote unto them and Charged them so to do because the Fact was Notorious and the Church Scandalized And upon v. 4. which mentions the Power of Christ they shew That the Power of Excommunication and Absolving is Christs and the Ministry thereof only Committed to the Governours of the Church And the delivering to Satan mentioned v. 5. they Expound by that Paralel Matth. 18.17 We need not spend time in multiplying Instances of Sound Expositors in opposition to the Dr's Sense of this place That there is here an Allusion to the Iewish Synagogue is the Consentient Judgment of the learned viz. in their Way of Excluding and casting out the Scandalous Thus Grotius Estius Hammond Simplicius Piscotor Beza c. Pareus Paralelling v. 5. with 2 Cor. 2. 6. shews that the same Persons are Authorized to Comfort and forgive him who inflicted the Censure viz. the Church Officers What we have said might be further improven from the end of the Action which was the purging out the Old Leaven and taking the Scandalous Person from among them and the Character of the Censure it self called a Punishment inflicted of Many in Opposition to the Dr's Design and Argument But the thing it self is obvious And therefore we proceed The Dr. Adduces next Paul's Threatning not to spare 2. Cor. 13. But to proceed with Ecclesiastick Censures And his mentioning Two or Three Witnesses to establish every word according to the Words of our Lord when he Institute this Power of Censuring Matth. 18. And v. 10. of 2 Cor. 13. Threatning Severity according to the Power given him to Edification And to come with a Rod He must needs saith the Dr mean Apostolical Censures and Excommunication to be Execute and Performed in his own Person in which Respect he delivered Hereticks of the Church of Ephesus to Satan 1 Tim. 1.20 It is Answered First all this is easily removed by the often Adduced Distinction of the Apostles ordinary and extraordinary Authority and of a Cumulative and Privative Exercise thereof Altho the extraordinary Power upon fit Emergents such as either the supine Negligence of Ordinary Church Officers or the more endangering spread of Offences or obstinacy of Offenders or a defect of the ordinary Church Officers in whom this Power was Lodged and Seated was alwise in readiness and to be Exercised for the Churches good and Edification yet nevertheless this Exercise as we have often told him was never exclusive of nor derogatory unto the Churches ordinary Intrinsick Authority nor except in Cases mentioned or Extraordinary Emergents without the actual Concurrence of the ordinary Church Officers And if as the Dr. says the Apostle here insinuats a method of procedure suitable to our Lords Institution Matth. 18. It could not be otherwise Besides he Threatens this severity as a proof of his Apostolick Power 2 Cor. 13.3 which some understand of his Miraculous Power to inflict Bodily Afflictions Others of his Power to cut off from the Communion of the Gospel Churches thus Pool Annot. And if the Dr. will allow that by mentioning Two or Three Witnesses he ties himself to
as a Corruption of Popery Chap 12. Now the Divine Right of the Courts and Officers we own in opposition to Prelacy being thus Asserted in these Books of Policy and in the Judgment of the Compilers thereof drawn forth from the Fountain of the Word the Model also presented and described in these Books amounting to a specifick form of Government and eversive of Prelacy the Compilers also as is said presenting it as the Divine and Scripture Pattern they must needs hold it to be a standing Form appointed by our Lord and his Apostles Again if the Dr. hold that the New Testament Oeconomy contains a specifick standing Form of Government and a Standart for all Churches while time lasts then such a Form as with Respect to the main is asserted to be consonant thereunto is asserted in so far to be not only allowable but necessary And this the Dr. must needs admit unless with Papists he will make Scriptures themselves a Nose of Wax and the New Testaments Prescriptions in Point of Government and its Oeconomy versatile and so Lax and General that it discovers no Species of Government Besides if these Reformers affirm the Pastor to be the highest Church Officer Iure Divino and that he is all one with the Preaching Presbyter then by necessary Consequence they must needs hold that by Original Authority of Christ and his Apostles all Churches ought to be Governed by a Parity of Presbyters or Pastors and that no Ecclesiastick Officer above a Presbyter can pretend to a share in Ecclesiastick Government These Assertions are of so close and clear a connection that if the Dr. attempt to cut this Gordian Knot he will fall into such a shameful Assertion as to affirm that an Officer not allowed by Christ but condemned by his own Original Authority and that of his Apostles has notwithstanding a share in Ecclesiastick Government Besides the dull inadvertency of this Assertion appears in this that he holds our Reformers did plead that their Form was allowable and not repugnant to the New Testament Oeconomy and yet not such as was recommended by our Lords Original Authority to all Churches For if he hold that the New Testament Oeconomy is a clear fixed Standart and Model for all the Churches then whatever Frame of Government is not Dissonant or Repugnant is conform and consonant thereunto and consequently not only allowable but necessary And if our Lords Original Authority prescribed this Oeconomy as a Standart and Rule for Church Government in all Ages that Model that comes up to this First Standart in so far as it comes up to it is that which the Church is to imitat in all Ages unless he will say that all Ages are not to imitat this Pattern shewed upon the Mount And in special our Reformers hold that our Saviour in the Original Prescription of this Pattern presents the Pastor or Preaching Presbyter as the highest ordinary Church Officer And therefore it is no rashness to affirm that in all times of the Church such an Officer as a Prelat Superior to Pastors is forbidden and Condemned The Dr. says That tho our Reformers affirm their Government was not repugnant to the New Testament Oeconomy they were not so rash as to affirm the Church ought to be thus Governed in all Ages So it s with this Grave cautelous Dr rashness to affirm that a Government suted to the Divine Pattern is for all Ages consequently a precipitant Assertion to affirm that our Lords Pattern is the just Standart for all Ages The Dr. will be satisfied That we plead for our Iudgment in Government which he calls a New Notion as probable but cannot endure that we plead for an absolut infallible Right and require obedience to it as due to infallible Authority This he says is worse than speculative Enthusiasm I Answer if we can produce no Scripture Warrand for that Government we own we shall be satisfied it come under the Character of a New Notion But if we can make it appear to be the Government recommended in the Scripture-Oeconomy and Pattern then as being founded upon Infallible Authority we justly challenge Obedience to it and while this Light is shut out and rejected by the Dr. and his Fellows they are justly Chargeable in so far with Speculative yea and Practical Enthusiasm The Dr's pretended Rhetorical Florish whereby he would set off this Charge upon Presbyterians taken from the similitud and allusion to the person who should threaten to knock him on the Head unless he wil affirm against his Reason and Senses that he sees such Armies in the Air as are pointed out to him Is but a phantastick Flash of his own Airy Imagination for we impose nothing Arbitrarly or Imperiously upon his Reason or any of his way but challenge the utmost attention and best Exercise of their Sense and Reason to that Scripture-Light and demonstration of our Government which we offer from the Word which had he seriously searched and pondered with an Eye to God the Father of Lights he had been otherwise and better imployed than in flinging out such Squibs and Crackets into this Countrey and in writing his folly and ignorance in such an Airy Childish Pamphlet as this is He adds P. 14. That it were better to fall into High-way-Mens hands than amongst such Spiritual Robbers But he commits this Robbery upon himself while shutting his Eyes against that Scripture-Light which has been offered upon this Point And he knows by what numerous cruel Laws and Barbarous execution thereof in the late Reigns he and his Masters our Scots Prelats endeavoured to knock down the reason and Conscience of many Thousands of this Nation both Godly and knowing in an Imperious obtrusion of their ungodly Hierarchy upon them and many wicked Vows and Oaths for upholding it The Dr. next alledges That we vainly boast of a Divine Institution of our Government and unanswered Writers in its defence but when put to produce Arguments for it we have have nothing but perplexed Probabilities intricat consequences from wrested Scriptures to offer contrary to the Uniform suffrage of the Ancients c. Ans. what Divine Warrand we plead for the Divine Right of the Courts and Officers we own is so well known to such as are acquaint with this Controversie and how solid our Scripture-proofs are and consonant to the Sense both of Ancient and Modern Writers that this Mans flanting boast can make no other impression upon them than of his procacious vanity Had he intended as a Champion indeed for his Cause to Fight not to bragg in this Pamphleting Bragadocio which any may see to be ad pompam non ad pugnam he should have fairly and formally encountred Ius Divin Reg. Eccles. Ius Divin Minist Evang. Smectym with its Vindication Mr. Baynes Diocesan Tryal in Answer to Dounham Didoclav Cap. 4. And the Scripture-Pleadings of many Forreign Divines against the Hierarchy and for the Parity of Pastors and then to have boasted having discussed
our Saviours discharging Lordly Dominion in his Church and inferred from his own exemplary Humility be bad and fallacious it has long since deceived the best ablest of Protestant Divines in Reasoning against the Papists and Papacy And if this his pretended Baffling Answer be so Mighty and Invincible as he pretends Bellarmin and the Popish Adversaries have long since Baffled our Divines Arguments with it For all know it is the very same with theirs And I must add that it seems the Dr. is so highly in Love with this Popish Notion and evasion that he has not concerned himself to notice what Baffling Replyes Protestant Divines have returned to it wherein they have discovered what an insipid impertinent evasion it is to save the Popes Mitre from the stroak of this our Lords Prohibition and Precept and consequently that of Prelats whereof we have already exhibit some instances I have told him that Turretin no doubt one of our Dr's new Minted Novelists makes it appear that the Argument from our Lords Example is an Argument non a pari sed a majore ad minus If I your Master be as one that serves much more you the Servants ought to eshew all Lordly Dominion As when he washed the Disciples Feet and thus recommended Love and Humility towards one another since he their Lord and Master had done so I know not if it be true that this Man rode in the Popes Guards but sure I am he fences fiercely for his Mitre He says our Saviour did that himself among them meaning his Exercising a Principality and Supremacy over his Church For in the Sentence he puts the Words He and Them in Emphatick distinct Characters and consequently holds that what our Lord thus Exemplified is still to be imitat in his Church Thus his Answer and Reasoning runs clearly to this Issue That which I command you I have done And therefore that which I command you is consistent with a Supremacy over my Church which I have Exercised and Exemplified And here the Popes Holiness has a fair Plea from the Venerable Dr. If Christ did that himself which he enjoyned his Disciples here then the doing of what he enjoyned was consistent with a Supremacy The Connection is clear Christ as Supreme Head and in that Capacity Exercised the same Humility Self-Denyal and Meekness which he here enjoyned But for more direct Answer I do again tell him that our Lords Scope in proposing his own Example is to Antidote their inward Pride the Root of this Desire of Unlawful Dominion and powerfully to recommend Humility and Self-Denyal as the most excellent Remedies thereof So that his first Argument runs a fortiori thus If I your Lord and Master be as one that serves and am such a Pattern of Self-Denyal and Humility among you much more ought you to Study Humility and to Guard against all Usurped Dominion and Authority one over another who are Fellow Disciples and Servants As he Reasoned Ioh. 13. If I your Lord have washen your Feet much more ought ye to wash one anothers Feet Again in the Dr's Mould of Answer I find two gross Points of Inadvertency which hardly any ordinary Capacity could fall into if we suppose the Person serious and attending to the Matter in hand and very ill beseeming one who sets to his Name a D. D. and Chartells this whole Church 1. In that he will needs have our Lords Precept and Prohibition to be levelled against an Ambitious Principle or Design but not at all to reach rather to allow that Effect and Expression thereof which our blessed Lord in down right Terms doth prohibit viz. that Dominion mentioned in the Text and which they were contending about Thus setting in Opposition things which are Subordinat as if the Dr. had forgot the common Maxim Subordinata non Pugnant And as if a bad Principle could fall under a Prohibition and not the bad Practice the Issue thereof What a Childish Conception and Weakness is this 2. He imagines that our Lords Argument of Humility while Pressing his Apostles to eshew Unlawful Dominion one over another drawn from his Practice will inferr his Arguing a pari and a Supposition of his Equality with them if we shall exclude the Dr's Hypothesis of a Warrantable Supremacy and Dominion An Imagination than which nothing can be more Sottish the Argument running clearly a majore ad minus from the greater to the less and the very Basis and Topick of it supposing and inferring the quite contrary Conclusion and Assertion So that the Dr's Arguing that upon this Ground as above Sensed we would make Christ and his Apostles equal has no more Twist of Reason in it than if one should infer from our being dehorted from Strife and Vain Glory and enjoyned Humility and Love because Christ made himself of no Reputation and humbled himself to Death the absurd Conclusion of the Equality of his Disciples and Members with himself The Dr. gives this Sense of our Lords Words and Argument in the premised Scriptures If I your Lord and Master was your Servant it becomes the greatest among you to be Humble towards Subordinat Brethren which will Qualify you for Ecclesiastick Promotion This carries with it such a clear Supposition of the Warrantableness of a Greatest or Chief among them as I dare promise him the Popes Approbation of his Commentary it being the very same with that of his great Champion Bellarmin who tells our Divines that a Dominion and Supremacy is here rather supposed than forbidden and only Humility in it's Exercise enjoyned But the Dr's petty Novelists Protestant Divines have told him that if this Gloss were true then our Lord rather Inflamed than Quenched their Ambitious Desire of Dominion and Greatness one over another since Reprehending only the Unwarrantable Method of Seeking he thus Tacitly Recommended the Thing it self as Lawful and Desireable But once more I would fain know of this Dr whether our Lord did not command an Equality or Official Sameness of Authority Apostolical among the Apostles Or if he thinks indeed that one was allowed to be in this Respect Prince and Supreme over the rest If he hold this last then I dare Appeal to all Protestants whether he has not left our Camp and is in the Tents of the Papists If he owne that our Lord here enjoyned an Authoritative Official Equality of Power among the Apostles then I would know what his Sense is of our Lords Argument Pressing and Recommending this Equality from his own Example And whether his Assigning this Sense and giving this Account of our Lords Reasoning will Blasphemously inferr that Christ and his Apostles were equal So that the Dr must either quite this Sense of our Lords Words and consequently the Sense exhibit by Protestant Divines or acknowledg the Absurdity and Futility of his own Argument and Answer and that he falls by the Rebound of his own Blow and Weapon But I am tedious in a Matter of it self plain To
imports the Church of God Those whom Luke calls the Elders of the Church of Ephesus those Paul calls the Bishops for this end constitut by the Holy Ghost to Feed the Church of God whence it evidently appears that Bishops Presbyters and Pastors are the same He adds de inde in una eadem ecclesiae simul conjunctim plures fuisse episcopos c. That it appears the Spirit of GOD placed at once and joyntly a Plurality of Bishops in one and the same Church Quem admodum ex eo quoque videri est quod Phil 1.1 Legimus Paulus ac Timotheus servi Iesu Christi omnibus sanctis qui sunt Philippi una cum Episcopis Diaconis Ecce Philippis plures simul erant Episcopi erant autem illi Seniores Ecclesiae That in the Church of Philippi a Plurality of Bishops are saluted by the Apostle who are supposed to be the same with Pastors He thus proceeds Et ubi in Epistola ad Titum Cap. 1. Legimus Hujus rei gratia reliqui te in Creta ut quae desunt pergas corrigere constituas oppidatim Presbyteros sicut ego tibi ordinaram si quis est incupatus c. Opportet enim episcopum inculpatum esse c. An non hic quoque videmus eosdem esse Presbyterum Episcopum Et 1 Pet 5. Loco supra citato tres hae voces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad eosdem ab Apostolis Scriptae leguntur unde videas Apostolorum tempore in ecclesia Christi eosdem fuisse Presbyteros Pastores Episcopos That the Apostle in the Epistle to Titus Chap. 1. shewing that he left him to place Elders in Crete who must be Blameless c. Because a Bishop must be such doth shew That the Bishop and the Presbyter are one and the same And 1 Pet. 5. the three Original Words which signifie Presbyters Feeding and Overseeing or Acting the Bishops are by the Apostle Written and Ascribed to the same Persons Whence it is evident that in the Times of the Apostles Elders Pastors and Bishops were one and the same in Gods Church He adds Est itaque prorsus indubitatum Alas this Poor Man wanted the Venerable Dr's Instructions to have Corrected this Bigotrie in prima Apostolica Ecclesia sic fuisse ab Apostolis Dispositum ut Seniores Ecclesiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Gregis Dominicae Curam gerentes Communi Opera Ministeria Docendi ac Râ—gendi obirent essentque ut ita dicam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Nulli Capiti ac Praesidi subjecti quales hâ—die quoque in nonnullis Ecclesiis Verbi Ministri reperiuntur inter quos nemo caeteris est superior Officio Potestate c. That it is beyond all Debate that the First and Apostolick Church was by the Apostles so Constitute that the Elders of the Church did Exercise a Common Episcopal Care over the Lords Flock and the same Function of Teaching and Governing the same and were therein subject to no Head or President Like unto whom are found several Ministers now in some Churches who owne no Superior in either Office or Authority c. Afterwards speaking of the Exalting of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the peculiar Name of Bishop and of Ieroms Account of this Practice viz. for Eviting of Schism which he calls Emphatically Tentatio illa that Tentation He adds Profuerit ne Consilium hoc Ecclesiae Christi melius est posterioribus saeculis declaratum quam cum baec Consuetudo primum introduceretur cui debemus omnem illam Principalium Equestrium Episcoporum Insolentiam Opulentiam Tyrannidem imo omnium Ecclesiarum Christi Corruptionem quam si Hieronimus cerneret dubio procul Consilium agnosceret non Spiritus Sancti ad tollenda Schismata sicut praetexebatur sed ipsius Satanae ad Vastanda ac Perdenda prisca Pascendi Dominici Gregis Ministeria quo fieret ut haberet Ecclesia non veros Pastores Doctores Presbyteros Episcopos sed sub Nominum istorum Larvis Otiosos Ventres ac Magnificos Princepes qui non modo non pascant ipsi Populum Domini Doctrina Sana Apostolica sed Improbissima Violentia vetant ne id per quenquam alium fiat Hoc sciz Consilio Satanae factum est ut habeant Ecclesiae pro Episcopis Potentes Dominos ac Princepes magna ex parte ex Ordine Nobilium ac Satrapum Saeculi Delectos c. Whether this Counsel or Method of Eviting Schism was profitable for the Church of Christ was more apparent to the After-Ages than when this Custom was first introduced For thereunto is owing all that Grandure Insolency and Tyrranny of those Knight-like and Princely Bishops yea the Corruption of all the Churches of Christ which if Ierom had discerned he would no doubt have acknowledged that this was not the Counsel of the Holy Ghost for the Removal of Schisms as was pretended but the very Project of the Devil to Wast and Destroy the Primitive Ministry appointed for Feeding the Lords Flock that thus the Church of God might not have true Pastors Doctors Presbyters and Bishops but under the Disguise of such Names Idle Bellies and Magnificent Princes who not only Feed not the People of God themselves with the Sound and Apostolical Doctrine but by most Wicked Violence hinders the same to be performed by any other And that by this Engyne of Satan it s come to pass that the Churches instead of true Bishops have Powerful Lords and Princes chosen for the most part out of the Order of the Nobility and Grandees of this World Thereafter he Inveighs against their Gorgeous Stoles Girdles c. which he says is to them instead of the Spiritual Armour enjoyned Eph. 6. calling them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Counterfeit Bishops and the Pastors the true ones Thus he P. 362. I must here again present to our Dr some further Account of the Sentiments of the Learned Iunius upon this Point in his Animadversions on Bellarmin ad Controver 4. de Concil in Cap. 15. Par. 9. Art 7. Non sunt Pastores Laici nec Ecclesiastici quicunque sed soli Episcopi That the Bishops only are the Pastors and no Inferior Officers He thus Animadverts and Answers Distinguenda Assumptio haec nam si anguste Episcopos ex Pontificiorum usu intelligas falsa est sin autem latius Communiterque Presbyteros Operam dantes Administratione Verbi ex Dono Vocatione Dei vera est Assumptio Recte enim Magister Sententiarum Lib. 4. Disput. 24. Excellenter inquit Canones duos tanquam Sacros Ordines appellari censent Diaconatus sciz Et Presbyteratus quia hos solos Primitiva Ecclesia legitur habuisse de his solis Preceptum Apostoli habemus enim vero si soli Episcopi Pastores essent profecto neque Episcopi faciunt officium qui non pascunt gregem c. That the premised Assertion that the Bishops
Will that this Moderator or President should have their whole Authority Concentred in him as this Surveyâ—r pleads and so as to smallow up their whole decisive Suffrage and render them mere Cyphers This he cannot but acknowledge to exceed far the mere governing the Actions of the Meeting and preserving of Order Which is the proper Work of a Moderator I might add that the admitting it is GODs Will that Ministers set over their Associat Meetings one single person to Moderat will not so much as infer that he should moderat ad vitam Since 1. This will bring under the burden of whatever abuse of his Power he may be guilty of and exclude all Help and Redress 2. This will deny the Judicatory or Meeting the Advantage and Use of these governing Gifts and Graces that may be supposed in other Members And sure the Surveyer could not but acknowledge this contrary to the Divine Law since the Gifts and Graces of every Minister are given by GOD for the Advantage of His Church and to be improven accordingly The Ministration of the Spirit saith the Apostle is given to every one to profit withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Metaphor taken as some do judge from Bees bringing all to the common Hive Thus we see that unless the Surveyer degrade the Bishops to mere Moderators this Reason is utterly remote from and absolutely short of reaching any other Conclusion The Third Ground is That it is Juris Divini by way of Approbation that the Churches in their Ministerial Combinations for Government should have one over them who hath a singular Power for prevention of Schism and Disorder and such a Power as what is Right or Wrong in the Church may be imputed to him as is manifest from the Epistles directed to the Angels of the Churches Rev. 2.3 whom Beza Cartwright Reynolds c. hold to be single persons Ans. It is not clearly discernible what strength is in this Reason beyond the former since it still runs upon the Ius Divinum and necessity of a President in Church Meetings in order to this as its native and great End viz the Prevention of Schism and Disorder And if this be the Rule and Measure of such a Presidency the Surveyer had been hard put to it to prove that this doth necessarly infer and require that it be such as swallows up the whole decisive Power and Authority of Pastors in Government And that Disorder and Schism cannot be otherwise prevented by a President than thus Authorized and that reserving to Pastors their decisive Authority and Power cannot as well reach this End 2. For what the Surveyer adds That the Power of the President must be such as what is Right or amiss may be imputed to him as using his Power Well or Badly As it may have a terrible Sound in the Ears of the Hierarchical Prelat who hath an Authority and Power extended not only to all the Pastors of the Diocess but the whole Body of the People therein as this Surveyer owns P. 194. Since he hath thus a Work and Office of such a Nature as is impossible to be managed Besides that the Charge of all the evils within the Diocess lyeth necessarly upon him So likewise it is more than this Surveyer could prove that what was well or amiss in the Asian Churches is chiefly imputed to one Person For 1. It is not enough to say that some Authors though acknowledged Godly and Learned do hold them to be single persons but the Grounds hinc inde of those who hold them to be such and of those who understand the Word Angel in a Collective Sense must be weighed in the Ballances of the Sanctuary 2. Beza's Judgment is that the Proestos or President is first advertised that by him all the rest of the Colledge and also the whole Church might have notice made to them of that which concerned them all And further that not so much as the Office of a Perpetual President can be hence inferred as that which he holds to be the Foundation of the Tyranical Oligarchy whose Head is the Antichristian Beast 3. Granting a Presidency for prevention of Schism and disorder over these Churches the Question still is to be discussed what Presidency it was And that it could not be of the Surveyers Supposed Episcopal mould is evident and by thâ— Presbyterian Writers made good from several Grounds As that 1. It cannot be made good that any directions in these Epistles respecting Government diversifie one Pastor from another or suppose his Iurisdiction over the rest 2. That without fastning a contradiction upon the Scripture Account of the Presbyter or Pastors Office this cannot be admitted Pastors having the Name and thing of Rulers Governours and Bishops attributed unto them yea and the Episcopal Power being found committed to the Pastors of Ephesus the first of the Churches here addressed in Pauls last farewell to them Act. 20. And none will deny that the whole Churches were settled in an Uniform Mould of Government That the Collective Sense of the word Angel is most sutable to the Scope of these Epistles and paralel Scriptures is above made good and needs not be here repeated The Surveyer alledges P. 193. That if single persons had not been intended they would have been compared by the Spirit of God not to single Stars but Constellations Thus this critical Master of Language will needs Teach the Spirit of God how to express himself But since he acknowledges that these Churches tho made up of several Congregations do upon the Ground of an Unity in Government come under the denomination of one Candlestick why may not also the Pastors and Ministers because of a combination in Government come under the Denomination of single Stars Besides that these Stars or Angels are as is above made good sometimes addressed plurally and thus upon the matter held out as Constellations He adds That we may as well extend the seven Candlesticks beyond the Seven Churches as the Angel beyond a single Person But the Spirit of GOD calling these Candlesticks the Seven Churches and the Stars generally the Angels of the Churches not the Seven Angels sufficiently discovers the impertinent folly of this Objection But says the Surveyer ibid. by this Collective Sense of the Word Angel we will take in the Ruling Elders as Messengers of the Lord of Hosts or else assert that these Churches had none Ans. The Divine warrand of the Ruling Elder is made good upon clear Scripture grounds and if he have a share and Interest in Church Government the Surveyer could give no reason why he might not in so far come under this Denomination as a Church Officer supposing that our Lord addresseth in these Epistles both Church Officers and Members For what he adds of Blondels Sense of the Authority of these Angels P. 6. of his Preface It is evident to any that reads it That he ascribs the Power of Presidents only unto them and holds that the Proestotes
to Pastors This Objection is above fully removed And here again we repone 1. The Infant State of the Church requiring a Temporary Super-intendency of an Evangelist and Directions from an infallible Apostle 2. Episcopalians must confess that in many Points wherein Timothy and Titus are immediatly addressed ordinary Pastors and Presbyters have a necessary and essential Interest and that therefore they must acknowledge this to be one end of these addressed Instructions that Pastors or Presbyters may have a clear Vidimus of their Ministerial Office and Duties And that by consequence the addressing of these Directions to Timothy and Titus will not exclude Pastors from the Jurisdictional Power And no more make this peculiar to these persons than the Injunctions respecting the Reading Preaching of the Word Convincing the Gain sayers and Rebuking the Scandalous solely applicable to a Prelat as his incommunicable Prerogatives The Surveyer here Cants over again the Old Song That its the greatest possible evidence that can be in such a Matter of Fact that immediatly after all the Apostles Death until the Council of Nice the Church had no other Government but that of Bishops Ans. This Assertion especially as respecting the Patriarchal Bishop of the late Edition viz with sole Power of Ordination and Jurisdiction tyed to Preach to no flock and deriving all his Power from the Civil Magistrate is so grosly absurd so palpably false that the very Repetition is a Confutation the contrary having been demonstrated by several Learned Pens The best Antiquaries confess these first times dark as to Matters of Fact But the Surveyer quite mistakes this Question which is not anent a mere Matter of Fact or the Churches Practice simplely Considered but anent the Apostolick Instructions and Institutions in point of Church Government viz what Officers the Apostles set up and Instituted in what order and Cloathed with what Authority how qualified for their Office and instructed therein how they are found to have exercised this Power when thus Instituted and set up If this be clear in the Scripture Records then no defects or aberrations therefrom either in or after the Apostles times can direct or warrand our Imitation nor can be an Infallible proof of the Rule unless we will extend this to Regulat us as to every Scripture Truth and Duty therein held out Both Scripture and Church History do give us an account of the early aberrations from the Divine Rule both in Point of Doctrin Worship and Government such as those anent the Resurrection Justification by good Works Worshipping of Angels the Error of the Nicolaitans and in Point of Government the Mysterie of Iniquity the Embryon of a Papal Primacy was working in Pauls time and early appeared in Diotrephes aspiring after a Primacy Not to stand upon the Millenary Error the Error anent the Vision of GOD and others early appearing thereafter The Surveyer will needs strengthen his Notion by the Maxim Lex currit cum praxi consuetudo est optimus interpres Legis What interpretation and Sense this is capable of in reference to Human Laws or of what use is left to the Consideration of the Gentlemen of the Long Robe But sure with respect to the Divine Law 't is dangerous and sadly lax Divinity Israels Consuetudo and early practice of Idolatrie and the Worshipping of Images as that of the Golden Calf with a pretended design to Worship the Lord Jehovah was a shrewd and gross interpretation of the Second Command The People who told Jeeremiah that they would pour out Drink Offerings to the Queen of Heaven because their Progenitors in a long tract of time had done so were much in this Surveyers Mind But the great Lawgiver who enjoyned his People not to walk after their Fathers Commandments nor Judgments though of never so Large an extent and long Continuance but after his Laws and Judgments is of another Mind Tertullians Rule and Prayer is good speaking of Custom in it self considered and simplely Surge veritas ipsa Scripturas tuas interpretare quas consuetudo non novit nam si nosset non esset Did Custom know Scripture it would be ashamed of it self and cease to be any more Upon which ground he pleads that the Eternal Light himself might arise and expone his own Scriptures The Surveyer tells us That in these preceeding grounds he hath pleaded only for the Lawfulness of Prelacy though the necessity is not denied But sure if these grounds evince any thing they prove a Necessity as well as Lawfulness If the Apostles Directions and Practice in the Institution of Church Officers pursuant to their great Masters Commission together with his supposition of the Apostolical and Christian Churches Universal Reception and Practice will not evince and prove this I know nothing will Besides that we heard him plead upon the Ground of a Divine Institution which will bear this Conclusion of Necessity not of Lawfulness only But in this proof of the Lawfulness of Prelacy the Surveyer tells us he intended to quiet the Minds of People anent the Covenant obligation against it A good Pillow of security no doubt this had been had he proved that Universally and absolutely no Oath can oblige against a thing in it self Lawful or retrench our Liberty thereanent and answered the Arguments urged by Casuists on the contrary But it is not our purpose to digress on this head He adds That if Lawful it is Juris Divini that we submit to a Lawful Human Ordinance and Command for the Lords sake Which Reason were valid had he made good that the Human Ordinance in this Circumstantiate Case had for its object a thing Lawful And that the Human ordinance is the First Rule and adequat ground of our Judging the expediency of a Practice hic nunc though in it self Lawful And further that the Human Ordinance can of its own Nature loose solemn Oaths and Vows upon the Lawgivers themselves and the Subjects against such a practice as is commanded CHAP. II. The Surveyers Exceptions and Answers which he offers to the Scriptures Pleaded by Presbyterians Examined Particularly To these Passages viz Matt. 20 25 26 with the Paralels Mark 10 42 Luke 22 25 To that passage Mat. 18 17 and Act 20 17 28 Tit 1 5 7 1 Pet 5 1.2 The Vnsoundness and Inconsistency of his Exceptions and Glosses made appear THE Surveyer having thus presented his Episcopal Strength and his great Grounds for proving Prelacy Lawful doth in the next place undertake to Answer the Scripture Arguments that are pleaded for Presbyterian Government which we shall now Consider and Examinâ— The First Scriptures he tells us P. 197. that are made use of for proving the Parity of Ministers in the Government of the Church and disproving Imparity or Superiority of any over others are Mark 10.42 Matth. 20 25 26. Luke 22.25 Where because our Lord is speaking of the Kings and Great Ones of the Earth their Exercising Dominion and Authority over their Subjects
forbids his Disciples to do so it shall not be so among you therefore it is concluded that there should be no Superiority or Governing Power of Ministers of the Church above Ministers but all should be equal Ans. These Texts have been above considered and improven It is evident that our Lord Commanded Parity of Official power among his Apostles his First Ministers and by clear Consequence the same equality among Pastors who are equal and of the same Order as Apostles were and their proper Successors in the ordinary power of Government That the Prelats acclaimed Power in Civils and Dominion over Church Judicatories brings him within the Compass of the prohibition in these Texts is above made good The Surveyer in his way of expressing our Argument seems to oppose to this Official equality of Pastors the Superior power and Authority of greater to the lesser Judicatories which is the necessary Ligament of all Government and of Presbyterian consequently But to proceed The Surveyer in his First Answer will needs question That there is at all a Prohibion in these Texts given to Christs Apostles but only a mere prediction of what was to be their Lot in the VVorld Viz. That they were not to have a Stately Glorious Pompeous worldly Superiority over others Christ assuring them they were to be dispised of the World It was as Incongruous to prohibit them to Reign as Grandees as to Charge a Man not to act the King who is assured that all his days he is to be a Beggar Ans. This pitiful Shift and Gloss out of the Road of Interpreters discovers what a desperate falling Cause the Surveyer was maintaining which needed the support of such a Conceit as this To which we oppose 1. The Circumstances and Scope of the place clearly refuting this irrational Subterfuge It is evident our Lord was here curing the Disciples Emulation and sinful Debate about Superiority and Chiefness in his Church and Kingdom and directing them both negatively and positively in the exercise of their Spiritual power as his Ministers and this in order to the preventing of mistakes in Judgment and contravention of their Practice in Reference to the Nature and Exercise of Church Government In order to which Scope the pointing at the events of Providence merely in their external Condition had been utterly extraneous and impertinent And as in this Gloss the Surveyer doth Violence to the prohibiting part of the Text so most palpably to the positive Injunction He that will be great or Chief as Luke hath it let him be as the Youngest recommending to them a Humble Ministry in Opposition to Pompous greatness 2. The Surveyers Reason is palpably absurd and impertinent for notwithstanding of our Lords warning them of their despised State in the World yet he also Instructed them in the Nature and Exercise of his Kingdom did shew he was to have a Church which is his Kingdom against which the Gates of Hell should not prevail In which Kingdom they being Officers and Governours it was necessary they should understand its nature in order to a due exercise thereof and as necessary it was their Successors should have the same knowledge The Offices in the House of GOD are truely Honourable to be counted worthy of Honour and Highly Esteemed by the Members of the Church was it not then necessary that the Nature of this Spiritual greatness and Honour in opposition to worldly Pomp should be thus pointed out The Surveyer holds there was a Prophetick Intimation that Apostles and their Successors should not have a Glorious Pompous Worldly Superiority and thus excludes from an Apostolick Succession Prelats who are Princes of the Empire and Peers of the Land and must set them in Terms of Contradiction to this his supposed Prophecy Secondly Granting there is here a Prohibition the Surveyer will consider what is prohibited and to whom For the First He tells us It is that Sort of Dominion exercised among Kings of the Gentiles according to the Notion the Apostles had of Christs Kingdom Act. 1.6 Luk. 24.21 Mat. 18.1 Mark 9.34 So that our Lord discharged Earthly Pomp Coactive Power of Worldly Kingdoms not all Superiority of one of his Ministers above others non Rem sed Modum Rei Ans. This is above Examined and Confuted We have made appear that all Masterly Power and Dominion is here forbidden as inconsistent with that Humble Ministry and Ministerial Service enjoyned in the positive part of this Precept which doth not Discriminat one Dominion from another as if one sort were allowed and another forbidden or as if Government which is in the Nature of Lordship and Dominion were Diversified and Distinguished in respect of its manner of Exercise good or bad but all Masterly Power though in its self lawful is here both as to matter and manner forbidden to Christs Ministers in the Exercise of their Authority This Man acknowledges Earthly Pomp to be forbidden and Worldly Grandure and what could his thoughts be of Prelats being a third Estate of Parliament bearing State Offices of the Highest Sort He says our Lord discharged not Rem but Modum Rei If by this Modus Rei he understand a Civil Dominion he hath cut off the Prelats Civil Rule and in so far acknowledges their Transgressing this Precept If he restrict the Sense to a Dominion which he may call Spiritual he leaves still a Latitude for the highest Extension thereof even to a Papal Primacy He tells us that a Chiefness is rather supposed than forbidden as he labours to prove P. 201. from Luk. 22.26 And thus neither the Disciples Distemper nor Emulation about a Primacy nor the Papal Pretensions thereof are ever touched by this Prohibition according to his Gloss And in this as he crosses our Lords Scope so he contradicts himself since P. 199. he asserts with Cyprian that the Apostles were Pari honoris potestatis consortio praediti had equal Power and Authority This Answer of the Surveyer wherein he embraces the Popish Distinction and Evasion upon this Text viz. That our Lord discharged that Sort of Dominion only exercised among the Kings of the Gentiles and as he expresses it non Rem sed Modum Rei brings to Mind a remarkable Passage of the Learned Turretin Institut Theol. Elenct Part. 3. Loc. 18. Quest. 16. de Regimine Ecclesiae P. mihi 164 165. Having Cited this Passage Luk. 22.25 26. against the Papal Monarchy together with the paralell 1 Pet. 5.2 And from both having inferred that Dominion in the Church is forbidden and a Ministerial Service enjoyned He brings this Popish Argument and Exception Nec dici potest apud Lucam Monarchiam Dominationem absolute non interdici sed tantum ejus modum qui non sit simulis Dominationi Politicae seu Tyrannidi Regum Gentium That is It cannot be said in the place of Luke that Monarchy and Dominion is not absolutely forbidden but only the manner thereof or such as is like to that Tyrannical
the Prelatical form inverts and destroys As for Commisions of Assemblies which the Surveyer next quibles about We say that it is no extrinsick Judicatory exercising any extrinsick power but a more Compendious meeting of the whole Assembly with their Conjunct power for the purposes delegated and limited both as to the Time and Object of their power and are accountable to the ensuing Assembly for their Administration What the Surveyer adds touching their power to punish all Ministers who will not obey their Acts c. It is palpably impertinent for no Censures or Punishments were to go beyond the Limits of their Instructions and Commission nor ever did or could Assemblies engage to own them any otherwise so that in whatever point they did Malverse the Assembly was still as an equal Judge to be Appealed unto The Surveyers Fourth Ground and Instance P. 201. is That in the Texts under Debate our Lord supposes some of his Disciples in Comparison of others were to be great and chief in respect of Power and Authority else the Speech were not to the purpose And that our Lord directs such as attained to this Chiefty and Greatness to Demean themselves Humbly and Usefully let him be as the Younger which is no Direction to Undervalue such but only prohibits an Affectation of Honour separat from the worthy Work mentioned 1 Tim. 3.1 Ans. This Popish Gloss of Bellarmin and others we have already at large Confuted which as we have above made appear establisheth and fixeth the Popes Mitre instead of Levelling against it as this Text certainly doth Protestant Divines more appositely to the Scope and Contexture have told the Papists that our Lord said not he who by my Appointment should be Chief or enjoy a Principality or Supremacy but he that from the bad Disposition of Iames and Iohn would seek this must in place thereof endeavour and emulat Spiritual Faithful Diligence in the Ministerial Duties and thus to be Chief in Vertue and Reward That this Popish Gloss of a supposed Lawful Chiefness or Principality in the Church so overthrows the Scope that it makes our Lord rather to have Inflamed than Quenched by his Answer the Ambitious Sute of the two Brethren and the Disciples Emulation thereupon That this Gloss will prove the Disciples Concernment in the Enquiry anent the Person who was to be Chief The Surveyâ—r though apparently excluding a Civil Chiefness or Kingly Power yet allows a Spiritual Principality His Caution that the Clause let him be as the Younger will not import a Direction to Undervalue such is fruitless and impertinent since the Lord recommends therein a humble Ministerial Diligence as is said The Bishops Work 1 Tim. 3. is the Work and Office of the Laborious Pastor and Scripture Bishop but the Aspiring Seeker of a Chiefness which the Surveyer would bring within the Compass of that Text is condemned with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diotrephes who aspired after the same For what he adds of the Motive drawn from our Lords Humility We have above made appear that in the Series of their Arguing he and his Fellows doth underprop by such a Notion and Gloss of this Passage a Primacy or Papacy It is enough that we add here that our Lords Exemplary Humility who is the Master of the House is in this place presented the more strongly to enforce his Servants abhorring all Ambitious Usurpation one over another since they are all Fellow-Disciples and Servants The Surveyers Fifth Ground and Counter-Instance P. 202. is this in Summ That our Lord mentioning in this Prohibition the Authority not of Kings over Chief Grandees but over their Subjects were our Gloss of his discharging all Governing Superiority admitted it would reach a Prohibition of Government over the People and therefore our Lord discharges not the Rule of one or some Ministers over Ministers but only the Lordly and Earthly Way of it Ans. As the Dominion and Arbitrary Power which our Lord here discharged is certainly such as respects both Ministers and People Church Members and Church Officers and a fortiori as reaching Church Officers because respecting Church Members Whence the Apostle Peter Copying out this Direction of his Master exhorted Ministers not to Lord over Gods Heritage So we have made appear that the Power and Dominion of the Hierarchical Bishop is such as encroaches upon the just Liberties both of Ministers and People robbing the one of their Decisive Suffrage and Jurisdictional Power the other of their just Liberty in the Call of Ministers and in other things Here again we may notice how this Surveyer overshoots still his Mark and wanders from the Point while endeavouring to prove that an Official Inequality of Pastors is not here prohibited And drawing his Proof from the supposed Superiority of Apostles over ordinary Pastors Again the Surveyer acknowledged that there is here discharged a Dominative Worldly and Lordly Government and thus the Text forces him to give a Deadly Blow to his Darling Prelats who owne the Title Name and Thing of Lordship and both Civil and Spiritual Dominion they being owned as Spiritual Lords and Lords of the High Court of Parliament The next Scripture made use of for Presbyterian Government and against Episcopacy which the Surveyer P. 203. undertakes to Answer is that Passage Matth. 18.17 If thy Brother trespass against thee c. go tell the Church c. Whence he saith we argue That Christ our Lord giving out the great Charter of censuring Iurisdiction to be exercised among his Subjects doth not give that Power to one Man a Bishop but to the Church and one Man cannot be a Church In Answer to this the Surveyer in the first place professes to disclaim Erastus way which denys an inherent Discipline and Government in the Church for correcting Offences and keeping Ordinances in Purity Which contradicts his Zealous Pleading for the Kings Ecclesiastick Supremacy in this Pamphlet as it was then established by Law and screwed up to the highest pinacle of an Arbitrary Dominion so that the Prelats were declared to Act as his Commissioners accountable to him in their pretended Ecclesiastick Administrations and the Government it self is in our Laws called and owned as his Majestie 's Ecclesiastick Government But though the Surveyer pretends to disowne Erastus way yet he spends a considerable Discourse in fighting with their Weapons In order to this Scope he tells us That a Course is here prescribed for charitable removing privat Quarrels arising among Brethren both to gain their Friendship and their Souls too from the guiltiness of the Breach of Charity which he tells us is clear from v. 21.22 And from the paralel Luk. 17.2 3 4. Hence he inferrs that our Lords Direction is in Limitation to privat Injuries and not be extended to the whole Latitude of all Offences to which this Direction cannot be extended Ans. First It is evident that our Lord here prescribs this Method of removing Offences viz. That when more privat Means reach not
be twice laid For Timothy and Titus we have above spoken to their Authority and Office and made appear that it was transient and extraordinary as that of Apostles and to be Exercised with the Authoritative Official Concurrence of ordinary Officers or Presbyters where they were Planted The Surveyers Fifth Answer and Exception P. 207. is That there is in this Text an Allusion to the Jewish Church Courts wherein there were Chief and Subordinat Rulers both in the Sanhedrin and Synagogues Ans. Unless the Surveyer can make appear that the whole Iurisdictional Power and Authority therein was so Concentred in one Person as there was nothing of it left to any of the Members and that their Work was only to give Assent unto the sole Decisive Determination and Sentence of that one Person this Answer will never help the Hierarchical Bishop whose Power was of this Nature according to our Laws If it be supposed that the Jurisdictional Power was competent to the whole Colledge in these Meetings the Passage stands still in its Condemning Force against the Hierarchical Bishop That the whole Jurisdictional Power in the Sanhedrin was Concentred in the Person of the High Priest none can without extreme Impudence assert We heard that the Learned Iunius and several others do assert that the ordinary Jurisdiction was penes concessum Sacerdotum competent to the whole Meeting of the Priests The Levits as well as the Priests were to shew the Sentence of Judgment in Matters and Questions brought before them Deut. 17.8 9 10. So Iehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19.8 9. restoring this Sanhedrin set the Levites as well as the Priests to Judge the Controversies that came before them by way of Appeal And though we find that the High Priest did pronounce the Sentence of Judgment 2 Chron. 19.11 with Deut. 17.12 this will not infer the Surveyers Conclusion of his sole Decisive Suffrage since the Moderator of an Assembly may pronounce the Sentence flowing from their joynt Decisive Votes For the Rulers of Synagogues since we read of them and of Chief Rulers in the plural Mark 5.22 Act. 13.15 compared with Act. 18.8 17. it is evident there could be no peculiar Jurisdiction lodged in one exclusive of the rest His Last Exception to this Passage is That the Remedy here prescribed was presently to be made use of upon the rising of Scandals and therefore was not for Scandals to arise a long time thereafter Ans. This first Seminarie of the Christian Church being at present under our Lords immediat Inspection there was no such Access for a present Use of this Remedy therefore this Rule and Remedy was mainly prescribed for after-times as the Charter of the Churches Jurisdiction The Author of the second part of Pool's Annot. well observes upon this Passage That we are not to understand our Saviour as speaking with relation unto the present time but the time to come and giving Laws which should take place and abide from the gathering of the Christian Church And if the Church be understood of those that have the Authority of Binding and Loosing they shew that the present Church of Apostles was to constitute particular Churches to whom when constituted in force of this precept such Offences were to be told c. The Surveyer asks Suppose Scandals then arising V. G. Iudas giving Scandal to Peter would our Lord have sent them to the Sanhedâ—in of the Jews Upon the Ground I now offered the Negative Answer is clear The Complaint was to be made to this glorious Head of the Church in whom all church-Church-Authority is truely concentred and in telling him the Church was told But the Surveyer tells us of Bucers Assertion That Christ and his Apostles were a sufficient Representative Christian Church And this Primitive Presbytrie and Representative he professes to accept well of where was no Equality of Power in the Members Ans. The Surveyer knew there was here an absolute Dominion of the Churches Glorious Head over a Society of Officers And if he will still have such a standing Pattern of a Representative Church viz. a Supreme Vicar having the Radical Authority thereof the Pope will joyn issue with him in his gladful Acceptance thereof That there was no Equality of Power in the Members contradicts his former Assertion anent an Equality of an Official Power among the Apostles unless he will put Christ the Glorious Head among these Members and degrade Him from his Head-ship He tells us further That in this Primitive Pattern there was no Inter-mixture of Lay-Elders A witty Knack and Notion indeed He hath told us P. 199. of several Classes and Degrees of Church Officers which he thinks exemplifies the continual standing Measures for the Christian Church from that Passage 1 Cor. 12.28 First Apostles Secondarily Prophets Thirdly Teachers after that Miracles and he will not doubt Evangelists likewayes are of the Number who are reckoned Eph. 4. Our Surveyer saw no mixture of these in this Presbytrie nor of the Pastor whom he distinguishes from the Apostolick Office the Bishops being with him their Successors So that the poor Man was upon the Charybdis or Scylla either to acknowledge that this Presbytrie was not so compleat as it ought to have been and thus forced to contradict what he here asserts That according to this Form all others afterwards should be framed for this will make the Pattern and after Copies manck and defective Or else if he acknowledge that in this Primitive Seminary and Embryon of Church Judicatories all ordinary Officers were not present he behoved to confess that his Charge against Lay-Elders as he calls them because not here was impertinent and groundless The Surveyer calls for such a Presbytrie to end all our Controversie That is a Presbytrie with a Head having a Soveraign Absolute Dominion over all the Members And since he would not with the Millenaries have our Lord to reign personally on Earth he here wished for a Supreme infallible Vicar to end the Controversie In his Dislike of hetrogenous Mixtures in Church Judicatories he might have reflected upon the High Commission Court with its threefold Inteâ—mixture 1. Of Members viz. His Reverend Fathers the Bishops and Lay-Lords Nobles and other States-men 2. Of Matters cognoscible and Objects of their Power viz. Scandals and Civil Crimes 3. Of the Actings of the Câ—urt like the Popes Ecce duo gladii Fyning Confyning Imprisonment As also Ecclesiastick Censures of Excommunication Deprivation c. One Remark further I add upon this Passage of Scripture The Surveyer founds his Argument upon the Allusion made to the Jewish Courts But 1. It is evident in general there are Scripture Allusions that will not so much as plead for the Lawfulness of the thing alluded to witness the Psalmist allusion to Charming and our Lords warning that he comes as a Thief 2. Should he plead for a compleat equality betwixt the Iewish and Christian Church Judicatories he would plead for an Oecumenick Bishop and fixed President over the whole
Names mentioned viz. Rulers Governours Overseers Bishops Ministers Stewards Ambassadors And next in Special that this Church of Corinth is clearly found to have been a Presbyterial Church and under the Inspection of a Presbyterial associat Ministry 1. There was a great multitude of Believers there mention being made of many Believers of many Baptized and added to the Church All whom Paul Baptized not himself consequently are supposed to be Baptized by other Ministers God likewayes having a great Harvest of Souls there much People in that City upon which Paul was encouraged to stay among them for so considerable a time as the Year and six Moneths compare Act. 18.1.7 8 9 10 11. This multitude behoved to be divided in particular Congregations 2. There is correspondent Plenty of Ministers and Preachers found there pointing it out as a Presbyterial Church and not one single Congregation first Paul stayed all this time at Corinth as a Master Builder having other under Builders Act. 18.11 1 Cor. 3.10 an occasion of their Doting some upon one some upon a second some upon a third Teacher So that there appears a plenty of Preachers there who had their several Flocks and Followers And Paul speaks of their not having many Fathers though they had ten thousand Instructers compare 1. Cor. 3. with 1 Cor. 5.14 Mention is likewayes made of a Subordination of Prophets to Prophets 1 Cor. 14.29 Considering likewayes the Division of Tongues and Languages this Church could not be one Congregation but united in a Presbyterial Classical Unity Which in a word is further confirmed from this Principle that we read of a Plurality of Churches there while the Apostle sayes Let your Women keep silence in the Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sayes not the Women in general but your Women in that Church Yet this Plurality of single Congregations in Corinth are called and owned as one Church in the Inscription of the Epistle which could not be merely upon the Ground of Heart-unity for thus they were jure-charitatis nor in regard of an Explicit Church-Covenant whereof the Scripture is silent nor in respect of the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments for these were dispensed in single Congregations severally since they could not all meet in one Congregation So that of necessity they are owned and designed as one Church in regard of one joynt Administration of Government among them by one common Presbyterie or Colledge of Elders associated for that End See Ius Divin Minist Eccles. P. mihi 206.207 208. That the Prophets mentioned 14. Ch. were ordinary Pastors and Ministers of that Church not extraordinary Officers as the Surveyer insinuats since Rules and Directions aptly agreeing to ordinary Pastors are imposed upon them for the well ordering their Ministerial Exercises is upon this and many other Grounds made good by Mr. Rutherfurd in his Due Right of Presbyt P. 466.467 The Surveyer in his next Answer is in with standing the Evidence of this Scripture driven upon the contrary extreme of ascribing the Authority and Jurisdiction here mentioned to the Apostle Paul solely He tells us That the Apostle speaks of the Sentence as proceeding from himself though the declaring and executing thereof was committed unto the Corinthians that they are charged for not mourning that the Incestuous might be taken away by such as had Power And it were improper to say a Man were to take a thing away from himself Ans. The plain reading of the Text is a sufficient Confutation of this Distortion and Gloss. The Apostle certainly reprehends this Church and imputs a Guilt to them as to Non-procedure in this Matter Now the Question is wherein their Negligence appeared And this is best seen and understood in pondering the Duty enjoyned viz. their Iudging such as were within Purging out the Infectious bad Leaven the Delivery unto Satan c. comp v. 5 7 12. with 2 Cor. 2.6 If they had no Authority hereanent why is such a Defect and Negligence reprehended This Surveyer in making them only the Promulgaters and Executers of the Apostles previous Sentence taketh the Guilt of this Negligence from the Corinthians and puts it upon the Apostle Paul The Surveyers Gloss upon the Apostles Rebuke as to their not mourning over this Wickedness viz. That they sought not with Tears to such as had Power to inflict the Censure If meant of a Power lodged in the Apostle is contrary to the Scope since they are enjoyned to deliver the Person to Satan and to put him away from among themselves But says the Surveyer the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have judged imports the Apostles sole Determination that none are taken in as Sharers with him in this Censure and imports he required only the Execution of their Sentence We have already removed this Objection the Apostles giving his Apostolick Judgment as touching the Necessity and Expediency of the Thing can no more exclude and prejudge the Authority and Interest of the Ordinary Church Officers herein than his giving his Apostolick Judgment in any other Uncontroverted Duty wherein the Persons enjoyned the same have an infallible Interest will bear such a Conclusion Suppose the Apostle giving his Judgment touching Archippus greater Diligence in his Ministry And giving his Judgment in the Point of Marriage and the Duties thereof as one that had found mercy to be faithful can this prejudge the Interest of the Persons concerned in the Duties enjoyned Or would the Surveyer have said that Pauls requiring the Obedience of Church Officers in any Point of their Ministerial Duties and shewing them that he had judged such and such things to be their Duty will conclude they had no Authority and Interest therein antecedaneously to such Judging and Enjoyning Surely not at all Nay suppose his Hierarchical Bishop set up in this Church with his arrogated Power of Ordination and Censures and that upon his Neglect of putting forth his Power Paul had thus declared that he had already judged the Necessity and Expediency of such Duties will this prove that the Bishop was destitute of all this Authority antecedaneously to such Judging or had none previous thereunto The Surveyer could not say it and no more could he assert it in this case The Apostle saith to whom you forgive any thing I do also which looks like the Apostles corresponding with the inherent Authority in these Officers so that the Apostles Judging in this Case was to prevent and obviat their Pretences of Delay and quicken them to their Duty But the Surveyer P. 213. from that Passage when you are mett together with my Spirit and the Power of the Lord Iesus inferrs That something was to be done beyond the Authority of the Church of Corinth viz. Delivering of the Man to Satan to be tormented outwardly which Paul only by his Miraculous Power could effectuat Ans. Suppose such an extraordinary Appendix distinct from the Censure it self which may be upon weighty grounds called in doubt it doth no whit
impeach the intrinsick ordinary Authority of the Church Officers in the inflicting of that Censure though this Miraculous Effect attending the same were ascribeable to Apostolick Authority Again the Surveyer in the Series of his Reasoning shutting up both the Sentence in its self and this Miraculous Appendant which two he must needs distinguish unless he totally deny the Right of Excommunication in the Churches within the Sphere of an Apostolick Prerogative renders useless and casts a blot upon several Clauses of the Sacred Text such as their Solemn Meeting together here enjoyned and that expresly in order to the delivering of the Man to Satan which doth include the intire Sentence and Punishment and that this Punishment is expresly said to be inflicted by many viz. the Church Officers as distinct from the Church Members for thus they are called in Opposition to the Collective Body Besides that the Apostle in this Passage joyning first in their gathering together and then mentioning his Spiritual Confirming Presence holds out that the first was an Authoritative gathering together the other a Confirming Approbation for their Encouragement in this Exercise of their intrinsick Power and Authority as all Sound Interpreters take it Again the Separating here enjoyned must be an Active Iudicial Separating this Person from them as the Leper and Unclean Person under the Law was thus separat from the Congregation which doth import an Authoritative Interest of Church Rulers in putting forth this Censuring Act whereas the Surveyer makes it a consequential withdrawing only from a Person already Censured The Surveyer in his third Answer tells us That though a Censuring Power were in these Church Officers it can make nothing for us unless we could prove they were single Presbyters in the Modern Notion There were Prophets here above ordinary Officers who might have this Power and it is uncertain whether ordinary Presbyters were here settled Ans. The Surveyer hath forgot that he hath acknowledged upon that Passage 1 Cor. 12. That there were here such Pastors and Teachers as will include the Bishops and likewise Presbyters Besides that the Apostle diversifies the Ordinary and Extraordinary Gifts v. 8.9.10 Likewise he knew there were in Corinth many Instructers and such as were settled in every Church Act 13.1 2 3. Compared with Ch. 14.23 Viz. Preaching Elders and Presbyters so that he could not with any Shadow of Reason suppose they were all extraordinary Officers And in a word if he asserted there were here mixed Officers he not only made the Power and Authority of the extraordinary Officers to swallow up that of the Pastors but likewise he crossed his monopolizing this extraordinary Power in the Apostle Again since he could not say the Apostle in these Injunctions doth by distinctive notes or Apostrophees diversify the Ordinary from the Extraordinary Officers in the point of this high Jurisdictional Act he baffled and excluded his First Answer And in a word giving by this Answer a Jurisdictional Power and Authority in this Act to a Collegiat Meeting of Church Officers and asserting that it was joyntly thus put forth by them he did thus bid farewell to my Lord Bishops singular prerogative in this Matter and generally in Point of Government His last Answer is That if this Power were supposed in the ordinary Church Officers of Corinth they might have had this by delegation and Commission of the Apostle But where did the Surveyer read this Commission What account can he give of such a delegated Power beyond the Essential Authority of Pastors to deliver to Satan purge out the old Leaven to meet together for this great Jurisdictional Act And why was the Apostle Paul so fatally Cross to the Diocesan Prelat as not to deliver this Commission to him But we must know this Chimerical fancy stands upon the strong Pillar of this infallible Surveyers may be or might be and this is all the proof we must expect But what is the last shift and dead lift We are told next That this Instance of the Church of Corinth is but one which cannot make a Rule without the sure knowledge of the Divine Direction which the Apostâ—les had to keep an uniform course in such extâ—rnal Mattâ—rs Ans. As none will say that the Apostles did constitute the Christian Church as a speckled Bird with a Hetrogenous or various Mixtures of forms of Government so in this Pâ—int they had their Masters great Rules and Measures prescribed to them and such Rules as overthrows the Hierarchical Bishop First We may remind the great Rule in Mat. 18. recommending a subordination of lesser to greater Judicatories pointing likewise at the Collegiat Meeting of Church Officers as the proper subject of the Jurisdictional Power in opposition to what he pleads for viz the concentring this in one Prelat Next what surer direction can we have in this Point than that the Apostles are found Establishing wherever a Church was gathered such Officers as have Names and Titles of Intrinsick Official Power and Authority ingraven upon them and are found exercising an equal Official Power in Government Thus in the Passage now debated and 1 Cor. 12.28 Comp. with Eph. 4.11 and with Act. 14.23 Tit 1.5 7. Heb. 13.7 17 1 Thes. 5.12 Presbyterian Writers do exhibit a large account and induction of these Names and Titles importing Authority Such as that of Presbyter or Elder Act. 15.2 4 with 20 17 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Pet. 5.1 A Title of Political Rulers Iudg. 8.14 Thus expressed by the LXXII Interpreters The Title of Bishop importing a Power and Charge over the Flock Act. 20.28 Phil. 1.1 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1.5.7 A word made use of also by these Interpreters to point at the Civil Magistrats Power Num. 31.14 The Title and Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Conductor Captain Governour Leader A word setting forth the Power of Civil Rulers Deut. 1.13 2 Chron. 5.1 And thus they are distinguished from the Church and Saints Heb. 13.7 17 24. The Title of Stewards over the Lords House and Family Of Pastors and Shepherds who are to feed Pedo and Pabulo a Title likewise attributed to the Civil Magistrat Isa. 24.28 comp 1 Cor. 4. 1. Luk. 12.42 Gal. 4.2 Rom. 13.2.3 Now our Lord Commanding his Apostles to Disciple all Nations or form them into Churches and the Apostles pursuant to this Commission being found to have placed such Officers in the Churches and these being found exercising a joint Official Authority in greater and lesser Judicatories either the Apostles Divine Direction herein must be acknowledged and their walking up to it in this Point of an uniform Mould of Government or their Faithfulness in the execution of their great Trust is impeached and called in Question Thu we have seen that after this pregnant Text hath tossed this Pitiful Sursveyer from one extream to another in seeking some shift of Answer and driven him upon the Pinacles and Precipies of contradictory Answers all his fantastick quiblings issueth in this miserable shift of