practice of this thing as far as I can find in those times to expel them out of their Society without variety of lesser or greater degrees but whoever were excommunicate were to all intents and purposes degraded from being Jews But herein perhaps I am mistaken and whether I am or am not I am as little concern'd as my cause to which I now return And here all that our Author has to the purpose is that Excommunication among the Jews was only an abatement of their Civil not their Sacred priviledges which if true would do very little service to his Conclusion that therefore it must be so in the Christian Church where there are no priviledges but what are Sacred but the principle it self is altogether ungrounded without Authority and without reason and that too though we understand it of his Talmudical Excommunication for as he justifies the Truth of it by no Authority so the reason he gives is as good as none viz. That those under Nidui were admitted into the Synagogue And so they were as they were admitted to civil Conversation keeping their distance of four paces and from thence alone it is reasonable to conclude that as the sentence proceeded higher so it was raised in both kinds of punishments However there is one Argument to prove the Jewish Excommunication to be a sacred as well as civil Interdiction and that so very obvious that it is impossible that our learned Author could have overlooked it had not his eyes been so wholly fixt upon his own Hypothesis And that is this that they looked upon all excommunicate Persons as no Jews or as we cited before out of the third Book of the Maccabees as enemies to the Jewish Nation and then it is sufficiently known to all men That no such were admitted to the publick service And so we come to the Period of the Christian Church which is divided into three Ages the first during the time of our Saviour and his Apostles The second from their death or the end of the first Century to the Reign of Constantine The third from the Reign of Constantine down to our own times And that Excommunication in the first age of the Church was of the same nature with that of the Jews our learned Author demonstrates because our Saviour and his Apostles practised it in imitation of their Discipline Though for my part I cannot understand how any thing can follow more plainly than that Excommunication if it were a civil punishment among the Jews must be meerly Sacred among the Christians For if the Jews took it up as our Author will have it only to supply their want of civil Government it must therefore as he rightly infers be used by them as a civil Penalty Then when our blessed Saviour instituted the same in his Church it must not be a civil but a sacred Penalty because his Church is no civil but a sacred Society If indeed Christians as Christians confederated together to maintain their secular Interests that would make temporal punishments necessary to the preservation of their Confederacy But when they enter into a Society purely to enjoy some spiritual Rights and Priviledges then all separation from the Society by way of Punishment can be nothing else than debarring them from those Rights and Priviledges So that if Excommunication among the Jews was as our Author contends the same with Out-lawry as to their civil Rights what can be more evident than that it can be no such thing among Christians because as such they have no civil Rights to lose And for this reason whereas he concludes that because Excommunication was taken up into the Christian Church in imitation of the Jewish Discipline that therefore it was the same if he had consider'd things instead of words he would have been so far from making his own Conclusion that he would have concluded that if one were civil the other was not So that when our Saviour established the Customs of his Country in his Church it is manifest from the nature of his Church which was a spiritual Kingdom that he never intended it should be exercised in any other matters than what were peculiar to his Religion or if he did that he lost his Intention And therefore it seems no better than meer obstinacy in our Author to insist upon it so importunately that Excommunication in the Christian Church must be the same with the Jewish because borrowed from it when for that reason alone it must be different because so were the Societies to which they related And he might as well have argued that the Christian Baptism was the same with that of the Jews because it is the form of Proselytism in both whereas by one men become Jews by the other Christians And of the same nature is Excommunication for as by that we are admitted into the Church so by this are we cast out of it And whereas our Author will have it to have been the same thing both among Jews and Christians because it is expressed by the same Phrases it is as absurd as if he should go about to prove that no man can be banisht out of England because he may be banisht out of France for though banishment out of both Kingdoms be the same punishment yet were their banishments out of different Kingdoms so by Excommunication among the Jews passing Mr. Seldens account of it were men cast out of the Common-wealth and all the Rights of it and among the Christians out of the Church and all the benefits belonging to it And therefore unless he could prove that there is no difference between the Christian Church and Jewish Common wealth it is in vain for him to insist thus weakly upon the fignification of words for that is determined by the nature of things and therefore where they are different there is no avoiding it but that the words by which they are expressed must signifie different things But this being premised our Author divides his Discourse into two parts First to enquire what was the use of Excommunication in the Apostolical Age Secondly upon what right it was founded as for the first he alledges several Texts of Scripture as Gal. 1. 8. Though we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be Anathema 1 Cor. 16. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran Atha But to what purpose this is past my Comprehension For the only design of the Argument is to prove that the Apostolical Excommunication was meerly Jewish as he had before proved that the Jewish was meerly civil Now can any man imagine that such dreadful Curses as these should signifie no more than a separation from Neighbours Commerce especially when it is evident that St. Paul strain'd for the highest expressions of misery and therefore to heighten his sense he supposes an impossible thing that an Angel from Heaven should teach a
great conceit that these Epistles appeared not till two hundred Years after Ignatius whereas by his own confession Origen writ within one hundred and forty Years Thirdly It cuts off the great pretence that Eusebius was the Founder of this mistake whereas it hereby appears that if it were one he only followed his Predecessors in it But the main of the Controversie here is the second thing Whether those Books ascribed to Origen in which Ignatius is quoted are really his or not Daillé says No but his learned Adversary has with no less than evidence of Demonstration proved they were though if he had not done it St. Jerom has done it long since who plainly tells us that himself translated them out of Origen's Greek into Latine And now after these I need add nothing of the Testimony of Eusebius and those that follow him for if he be mistaken their Authority is of no use if he be not it is of little necessity but that he is not is demonstrated from these more ancient Testimonies Though if any man desire more Witnesses I shall refer him to my learned Author who has summon'd them out of every Age from that in which the Epistles themselves were writen down to that next our own But to all the Testimonies of the Ancients what do our Adversaries oppose irst Salmasius opposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople by which says he the Authentick and spurious Books of the Church were distinguish'd and among many others the Epistles of Ignatius are censured for Apocryphal Books But to this it is replied by the Pious the Reverend and the Learned Dr. Hammond that the opinion of one Author especially of later date for Nicephorus lived not before the ninth Century was not of weight and authority enough to oppose to the consent of so many ancient Writers Secondly That the word Apocryphal which is used by Nicephorus does not always signifie Spurious but it is very often used by Ecclesiastical Writers as opposed to Canonical and so is given to Books whose Authors were never question'd only to seclude them from the Canon of the Scripture To the first it is replied by Daillé and that I must say with impertinency enough that the authority of Nicephorus is at least equal to Dr. Hammonds as if the Dispute were between them two whereas the Dispute was between Walo and the Doctor who when he had produced the Testimonies of the Fathers of all former Ages could not but think it very hard that the opinion of one late Writer should be opposed to all their Authority To the second he replies That it is true that the word Apocryphal is oftentimes opposed to Canonical yet it is very frequently too used by Ecclesiastical Writers as equivalent to Spurious and Counterfeit and that therefore the Doctor in vain takes refuge in the Ambiguity of the word But certainly it is the manifest design of these men to tire out their Adversaries with verbose Trifles For who could have expected this Answer that when Walo had argued from the word Apocryphal as if it only signified Spurious and that when to the Argument the Doctor had answer'd that it no ways follows because it as often signified not Canonical who I say after this would have expected that his Adversary should upbraid him with taking Refuge in the ambiguity of the word when the Ambiguity of the word alone was not only a full answer to but a clear confutation of the Argument But he replies secondly That some of the Books joyn'd with it are confessed by all to be Supposititious and therefore as they were censur'd for that reason so must the Ignatian Epistles But this is manifestly false and though if it were true it follows like all the rest For the Censure has no regard to their Author but whether Spurious or Genuine to their Authority and only designs to shut them out from creeping in among the Canonical Scriptures For that was the only danger it aim'd to prevent least the Books that either were or pretended to be of Apostolical Antiquity should creep into the Canon And it is plain from the Decree it self that Nicephorus intended nothing else than to determine the Canonical Books of Scripture and prevent all others that came nearest to them in Age from obtaining sacred Authority But says Daillé Pope Gelasius when he defines what Books are Apocryphal he does not confine it meerly to the Canonical Scriptures but to all other Ecclesiastical Writers not allowed of and therefore this must be the meaning of Nicephorus That is to say that because Gelasius in his Decree determines what Ecclesiastical Books of what kind soever are to be reputed Orthodox what Heterodox that therefore Nicephorus when he distinguishes the Canonical Books of the New Testament from the Apocryphal does not mean as himself declares but must be understood in the sense of Gelasius And yet when all is done there is no such Testimony but the whole Story is a meer Dream of their own who catch at any shadow that may seem to serve their turn For sirst it is certain That Nicephorus was not the Author of the Stichometria Secondly That the Author of it whoever he was did not pass this censure upon Ignatius his Epistles For we find in it only the name of Ignatius without any mention of his Epistles Which indeed cannot in Daillé's sense be call'd Apocryphal because they were never esteem'd Canonical For that is the true Original of the distinction that whereas there were some Books written by the Followers of the Apostles as Clemens Barnabas and Hermas left these by reason of their nearness to the Canonical Books should in process of time be reckoned with them the Church was careful to range them in a Classis by themselves And whereas there were many other Books that pretended to be dictated by the Apostles and written by their Disciples lest they should gain the Authority they pretended to it concern'd the Church to give them the Apocryphal Mark. Seeing therefore Ignatius Epistles were never upon either of these accounts in any probability of being accounted Canonical it would have been a needless Caution to refer them to the Apocryphal Catalogue And though to Ignatii Daillé after his usual way of making bold with his Quotations adds Omnia It is probable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be added as it is in another Index of Apocryphal Books in the Oxford Library It being the custom of some idle men of those times to make Institutions of Divinity and then fasten them upon Apostles and Apostolical men out of which as our learned Author with great probability conjectures was afterward made that Collection which goes under the name of Apostolical Constitutions Now these spurious pieces pretending to Canonical Authority it was very requisite to prevent and discover the Imposture But whatever probability may be in this Conjecture of which we stand in no need I am
And therefore we do not find that the Apostles acted with a plenitude of Power till he had given them a new Commission after his Resurrection and it is remarkable that in St. Matthew 16. 19. he vests them with the power of Binding and Loosing in the Future Tense But in St. John 20. 23. after his Resurrection it is expressed in the Present Tense Then it was that he gave them that Authority which himself had exercised whilst he remain'd on Earth But then when immediately in pursuance of their new Commission the Apostles thought themselves obliged to choose one into their Order to supply the Vacancy made by the death of Judas What can be more evident than that they thought the Apostolical Office by our Saviour's Appointment distinct from and superiour to all other Offices in the Church So that it is manifest that the Form observed by the Apostles in the Planting and Governing of Churches was Model'd according to our Saviour's own Platform and after that it is not at all material to enquire whether he only drew the Model or erected the Building But whichsoever he did it is improved into an impregnable Demonstration from the undoubted Practice of the Apostles and from them the perpetual Tradition of the Catholick Church in that it is plain that they thought themselves obliged to stand to this Original Form of Church-Government For the Apostles we all know and all Parties grant during their days kept up the distinction and preeminence of their Order and from them the Bishops of the First Ages of the Church claim'd their Succession and every where challenged their Episcopal Authority from the Institution of Christ and the Example of his Apostles And now are we enter'd upon the second main Controversie viz. The Authority of the Apostolical Practice against which three things are usually alledged That neither can we have that certainty of Apostolical Practice which is necessary to constitute a Divine Right nor secondly is it probable that the Apostles did tie themselves to any one fixed Course in Modelling Churches nor thirdly if they did doth it necessarily follow that we must observe the same And the first of these is made out from the equivalency of the names Bishop and Presbyter secondly from the Ambiguity of some places of Scripture pleaded in behalf of different Forms of Government thirdly from the Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy of the Records of the succeeding Ages which should inform us what was the Apostolical Practice But as to the first I shall wholly wave the dispute of the signification of the words because it is altogether beside the purpose and if it were not our other Proofs are so pregnant as to render it altogether useless Neither indeed would this ever have been any matter of Dispute had not our Adversaries for want of better Arguments been forced to make use of such slender pretences But how impotently Salmasius and Blondel who were the main Founders of the Argument have argued from the Community of the Names the Identity of the Office any one that has the patience to read them over may satisfie himself As for my own part I cannot but admire to see Learned men persist so stubbornly in a palpable Impertinency when from the Equivalency of the words Bishop and Presbyter in the Apostles time they will infer no imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers notwithstanding it is so evident and granted by themselves that the Apostles enjoyed a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church which being once proved or granted and themselves never doubted of it to infer their beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Parity of the Clergy from the Equivocal signification of those two words is only to out-face their own Convictions and their Adversaries Demonstrations For if it be proved and themselves cannot deny it that there was an inequality of Offices from the Superiority of the Apostles it is a very Childish attempt to go about to prove that there was not because there were two Synonymous Terms whereby to express the whole Order of the Clergy But to persist in this trifling Inference as Salmasius has who when he was informed of its manifest weakness and absurdity would never renounce it but still repeated it in one Book after another without any improvement but of Passion and Confidence is one of the most woful Examples that I remember of a learned man's Trifling that has not the ingenuity to yield when he finds himself vanquish'd not only by his Adversary but his Argument Neither shall I trouble my self with other mens disputes about particular Texts of Scripture when it is manifest from the whole Current of Scripture that the Apostles exercised a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church and that is all that is requisite to the Argument from Apostolical Practice for as yet it is nothing to us whether they were Presbyters or Bishops that they set over particular Churches that shall be enquired into when we come to the Practice of the Primitive Church it is enough that they were subject to the Apostles for then by Apostolical Practice there was a Superiority and Subordination in Church-Government And therefore I cannot but wonder here too at the blindness of Walo Messalinus who in pursuance of his Verbal Argument produces this passage out of Theodoret and spends a great deal of the first part of his Book in declaiming upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the same men were call'd Presbyters and Bishops and those that we now call Bishops they then call'd Apostles but in process of time the name of Apostolate was appropriate to them who were truly and properly Apostles and the name of Bishop was applied to them who were formerly call'd Apostles Than which words beside that they contain the true state of the Question there is scarce a clearer passage in all Antiquity to confound his cause For what can be a plainer Reproof to their noise about the Equivalency of words than to be told that it is true that the words Bishop and Presbyter signified the same thing in the Apostles time but that those that we now call Bishops were then call'd Apostles who exercised the Episcopal Power over the other Clergy but that afterward in process of time they left the word Apostolate to those who were strictly and properly so call'd and stil'd all other Bishops who in former times were stiled Apostles What I say can be more peremptory against his Opinion that concludes from the equivalency of Names to the parity of Power than this that notwithstanding the words were equivalent yet the Episcopal Power was then in the Apostles whose successors in their supremacy came in after-times to be call'd Bishops And if so then is it evident that there was the same imparity of Church-Officers in the Apostles time as in succeeding Ages Nay our friend Walo is not content to make this out for us only as to the
succession of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Constantine But to wave all other parallel Cases that which I have already propounded is irrefragable viz. That those men that beat about in the Writings of the Ancients to start sceptical pretences against the use and institution of Episcopacy would do very well to consider the consequences of this rude and licentious way of Arguing And as the Reverend and Learned Doctor Hammond long since remarked it they that so confidently reject the Epistles of Ignatius shrewdly indanger if they will stand to their own principles the credit and authority of the sacred Canon when these are vouch'd for the true and authentick Epistles of Ignatius by as strong a current and unanimous consent of the Fathers as most of the Canonical Books of Scripture And therefore it is observable that the proud Walo Messalinus does with the same ease and confidence pish away one of the Epistles of St. Peter as he does all these of this Apostolical Martyr and might in the same pert and pedantick humour and with the same evidence of Reason huff all the rest after it into the Apocryphal Rubbish But because our Adversaries main strength lies in this Objection and some ill-minded men will be hasty to seise on it for worse purposes than they intended I shall consider it in its full force and glory The defect then pretended is three-fold as to Places as to Times as to Persons 1. As to Places and here they tell us we can have no certainty without an universal Testimony For if but one place varied that is enough to overthrow the necessity of any one form of Government and therefore seeing we have not an account of what was done by the Apostles in all Churches we can have no sufficient certainty of their practice But certainly never was any thing so hardly dealt with as Antiquity by these men for unless we could be certain that every thing that was done in the Church 1500 Years agoe was recorded and made known to us by some unquestionable way all that is recorded be it never so certain and evident can be of no use for our Information If this hard condition be put upon us I must confess that we not only have no certainty of the Primitive Practice but that it is impossible that we should have any either in that or any other Record But this certainly is too rigorous proceeding with the authority of Precedents that let us produce never so many they shall signifie nothing as to their use unless we can demonstrate that there never was or indeed could be one contrary Example in the World But I am very apt to believe that all ingenuous men will be fully satisfied with this that all the precedents that are recorded are for us and therefore till our Adversaries are able to produce some against us to rest in the certainty of those Records that are preserved without a vain enquiry after what might or might not be in those that are lost And therefore our Adversaries in stead of making such wild and sceptical demands if they would prevail upon the minds of men should in the first place have proved the variety of Apostolical Practice and that indeed would have disproved the necessity of any one Form but that is a thing they never attempt When therefore we have this uniformity of practice in all Churches whose settlement is known it betrays an unreasonable partiality in men to put us upon giving an account of what St. Andrew did in Scythia and St. Thomas in India for certainly all impartial men will be satisfied with the uniform practice of all the known Churches of Europe Asia and Affrica And that is enough in answer to the first pretended defect of Antiquity as to Places The second defect is as to Times And here they fall directly upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical History and in particular upon Eusebius the Father of it who they say lived at too great a distance from Apostolical Times and wanted sufficient Records for his Information But this I must answer that I know not any Historian furnished with better and more certain accounts of the things they write of than Eusebius The Tradition of the Church being conveyed down to him in the most uninterrupted and undoubted manner possible St. Polycarp St. Ignatius St. Clemens of Rome were familiarly acquainted with the Apostles themselves Irenaeus Tatianus Theophilus Antiochenus Athenagoras Justin Martyr and many more converst with them as they did with the Apostles to these succeed Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Minutius Faelix Lactantius Ar nobius Dionysius Alexandrinus Gregorius Thauntaturgus St. Cyprian beside many other excellent Writers whose Works he enjoyed though some of them are since perish'd who all lived in the first and second Centuries after the Apostles Now out of these Eusebius collected his History and to their genuine and undoubted Writings ever refers himself to justifie his own Fidelity quotes no Author for any matter of fact but what was done in his own Age as particularly in the beginning of the second Book the Reader is desired to observe that he collected the materials of it from the Writings of Clemens Tertullian Josephus and Philo and the same Preface he might have set before every particular Book And as he always refers to good Authors so he rejects many things as counterfeit and spurious for this reason only because he finds no account of them in the Ancient Writers But beside the Writings of the Doctors of the Church and the Epistles of Bishops the Originals whereof were then reserved in the Archives of their several Churches he made very great use of the Acts of the Martyrs that were then preserved with great care and sacredness though afterwards it being the most valued part of Ecclesiastical History it was the most improved into fabulous Legends and Stories And beside all this he was furnished with many excellent materials of the First Times which alone he could be supposed to want by Hegesippus who wrote five Books of Commentaries of the Acts of the Church about the Reign of Marcus Aurelius which was scarce eighty Years after the death of St. John So that it is no better than a very rash censure of such an Ancient and Apostolical Writer to say that his Relations are as questionable as those of Eusebius himself in reference to those elder Times when he lived almost in the very eldest times and so near to the Apostles that it was scarce possible that any matter of Fact that happened in that Interval could escape his knowledg Now last of all the Heathen Records themselves were not a little useful to him as himself informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. In theâ—e times that is about the Reign of Domitian the Doctrine of the Christian Faith was so flourishing that the Heathen Writers have left exact Records of the Persecutions and Martyrdoms As for Eusebius his
to the Reader to judge whether he could desire or contrive more evidence for the authority of any Book than is produced for the Epistles of Ignatius St. Polycarp then who was his particular Friend and Fellow-pupil under St. John and St. Irenaeus who was Disciple to Polycarp give in full and clear testimony to the Martyrs Epistles Polycarp sent a Copy of them to the Church of Philippi as appears both by his own Epistle still extant and by Eusebius his Quotation out of it and that at a time when it was vulgarly known and commonly read in the Churches of Asia Polycarp's Epistle was never call'd in question by any good Author was immediately attested by Irenaeus read with Veneration in the Churches of Asia even to the very time of Eusebius and St. Hierom. So that I know not what more undoubted or publick Testimony Monsieur Daillé could demand for his satisfaction and indeed it is hard to conceive what more effectual evidence could have been provided to secure their Authority For when St. Polycarp's Epistle was so universally known it was impossible to corrupt it And yet in this wild Supposition is Monsieur Daillé forced at last to shelter himself he allows his Epistle it self to be of undoubted Credit and the greatest part of it to have been written by Polycarp but that a certain Impostor a little before the time of Eusebius had foisted in that Paragraph in which this passage concerning Ignatius his Epistles is found which Eusebius meeting with he took it to be of the same credit with the rest of the Epistle Which is all so very ungrounded and precarious that with the same liberty he might deny or destroy the validity of any ancient Record whatsoever but beside this the Epistle was so publick so exposed to the view of all men so known to the Learned and Unlearned that it were as easie to poison the Sea as for a private man to corrupt it Or if he would attempt to do it how was it possible for Eusebius and all the World beside to be deluded by so bold an Imposture Does not Eusebius himself inform us that it was read in the Churches of Asia at the time of his writing Did he not then know what was read there and therefore if this passage were not read could he be so stupid as to be imposed upon by one single private man against the authority of all the publick Books or if he were could all the Fathers whom Daillé will have to have followed his Dance be so prodigiously blind and careless as in a thing so known and common to be deceived by him and that no man if we may believe him should discover the mistake till Nicephorus who lived five hundred Years after him But granting the Testimony to be true he denies it to be effectual because Polycarp only says that Ignatius wrote Epistles but no where affirms that those we have are the true ones So that it seems unless St. Polycarp had written particularly against Mounsier Dailâ—é himself and declared that those very Epistles that he opposes with so much zeal were written by his Friend the Martyr it was not possible for him to give sufficient testimony to their truth And yet that could not have been a more ample proof than this amounts to For he declares not only that Ignatius wrote certain Epistles but that himself made a Collection of them and this Collection was seen by Eusebius and others of the Ancients Now when we consider the Reputation of the Martyr both for his acquaintance with the Apostles his eminent dignity in the Church the gallantry of his Martyrdom when we consider the time and occasion of his writing which was at the approach of his Death and as it were his dying Exhortation to the Churches when we consider how they were recommended by Polycarp whose Epistle was publickly read in their Assemblies is it any way credible that these true Epistles should all perish before the time of Eusebius and other counterfeit ones rise up in their room and among all those learned men that then were very inquisitive after Ancient and Apostolical Tradition none should ever discern or discover it Nay that Eusebius a man so throughly versed in all Ecclesiastical Antiquities so conversant with the choicest Libraries should be so grosly and so easily cheated by a double Imposture contrived in his own time as to take the new invented Epistles of Ignatius for the old authentick Writings of that holy Martyr and then to vouch it by a forg'd Passage foisted into Polycarp against the authority of all the vulgar Books So many hard Suppositions one would think were enough to shame any modest man out of his Opinion The second Witness to these Epistles is St. Irenaeus whose testimony is no more to be doubted of than the former being extant both in Eusebius and those pieces of Irenaeus that are preserved down to our times though most of his works are perish'd But to this Monsieur Daillé answers that Irenaeus cautiously expresses his Quotation of the holy Martyr by Dixit and not Scripsit and thence conjectures that he quotes it only as a Saying or Apothegm and not as a Citation out of his Writings But 1. There is no Record of any such Saying as this neither in that particular Quotation that is preserved could we know whom Irenaeus means did we not find the same sentence in Ignatius his Epistle to the Romans so that it is a vain and a frivolous thing to forsake that and to fetch the business from unknown and unheard of Reports And. 2. This is the very form of all Irenaeus his Quotations who never uses the word Scripsit but always Dixit But then why does he not cite some Testimony against the Hereticks out of Ignatius in whom there were so many apposite to his purpose I answer for the same reason that he does not cite other as pertinent Authors as Ignatius For out of all the Ecclesiastical Writers that lived before him he has in his surviving Works but four Quotations of which that out of Ignatius is one Neither would this way of disputing have been at all pertinent in the days of Irenaeus when the Hereticks against whom he wrote allowed no Authority to the ancient Doctors of the Church but always recurred to certain wild Apocryphal Books of their own and therefore it had been but a vain thing for Irenaeus to have prest them with this Topick The next Witness is Origen who quotes him by name but against this Testimony we have these two Exceptions First That it is at too great a distance from the time of Ignatius Secondly That those Writings in which he is quoted are none of Origens First As to the first we would grant the force of the Objection if this had been the first Testimony in the cause but following Polycarp and Irenaeus it proves the constant opinion of Learned men before Eusebius and his Impostor Secondly It overthrows Daillé's
not content with that he procures the translation of the whole Book and is so satisfied with it that though it were done by another hand yet he adorns the Frontispiece with his own Picture Now certainly one would take this valued piece to have been a work of prime Antiquity and undoubted Authority But as for its Antiquity the Author of it lived no higher than the tenth Century and that is so distant from the Primitive Age that he had not been a more incompetent Witness if he had lived in our own As for his Authority it is manifest that he was a very careless and injudicious Writer his whole Book being every where stuft with childish fables and absurdities and particularly this Paragraph having as many falshoods in it almost as words For whereas St. Jerom continues this custom only to Heraclas and Dionysius he continues it to Alexander the immediate Predecessour of St. Athanasius which is above an hundred years difference and beside that if such a notable change had been first made in the preferment of Athanasius we could not but have had some notice taken of it in a Person whose life and story is so well known so that Eutychius could not have begun this new custom more unhappily at any one Bishop that ever sate in that See than at St. Athanasius the proofs of whose Election by the People were debated and passed in general Council Again in the same Story he tells us that there were no Bishops in all Aegypt beside the Patriarch of Alexandria untill the time of Demetrius which is most grosly and notoriously false I might add many more proofs of ignorance that are collected by the learned Doctors Hammond and Pearson but I shall instance only in one that they have omited viz. that there were no less than 2048 Bishops present at the Council of Nice And yet from this gross mistake Mr. Selden is resolved to bring him off though he confesses there are not so many Bishops in the Christian world for says he Diocesses were not then divided as now they are but before the conversion of the Roman Empire they were of a much less extent than they were afterwards when they were modled in conformity to the Civil Government Whether the Allegation be true or not I need not now enquire for though it be true it is to no purpose for what if it is possible that there might then have been so many Bishops in the world when it is certain there were not so many at the Council of Nice in that as he confesses in the same place all the Writers that either lived in or near the same time and some of the Council it self give in a much smaller number and therefore it it is a very odd attempt to bring him off from so gross a mistake against such pregnant Evidence of what was done only by the possibility of what might have been done We will grant this learned Gentleman that there might have been ten thousand Bishops there if he please whilst we are secure that there were not many more than three hundred and therefore when his Author with some other of his Arabian Friends raise the number to above two thousand it is a manifest instance of Oriental Ignorance But waving all other Exceptions his Novelty is an unanswerable Objection though Mr. Selden to magnifie his Author is pleased to stile him the Egyptian Bede but if Bede had betrayed as much Barbarity as this Author has done he would have justly deserved the Title of the English Eutychius For it is evident that this man scraped together his Annals not out of any certain Records but out of a variety of Authors without judgment still adding to them the customs and fashions of his own age and hence it comes to pass that he so frequently contradicts himself in the same Story because whilst one Author tells it one way and another another way he follows both But still I say setting aside his Barbarity I would have excepted against Bede himself as a competent Witness of any matter of fact that was transacted at the same distance from his Age as this was from the time of Eutychius unless he had confirmed the truth of his Relation by some ancient Testimony and then it is not Bede but his Author that I rely upon and therefore unless Mr. Selden could have vouched the addition of Eutychius to St. Jerom concerning the Presbyters Ordination by imposition of hands and benediction he might have spent his pains as usefully if he had wrote Commentaries upon some of the old Welch Antiquaries who tell us what their Ancestors were doing from year to year many thousand years before the coming of the Romans And thus we see in short into what wonderful evidence the whole opposition of Episcopacy is at last resolved a vain imagination from Nicephorus Stichometria opposed to the most ancient Fathers concerning the Ignatian Epistles a supposed Decree of Pope Gelasius opposed both to the most ancient Fathers Councils and Historians concerning the Apostolical Canons an apparently false Assertion of St. Jerom opposed to all the Writers of the Primitive Church concerning the Original of Episcopacy lastly a barbarous tale of a modern Arabian concerning the Ordination of the Bishop of Alexandria by Presbyters And now if we lay all the Premises together it will I hope amount to a competent demonstration of the matter in debate For if our blessed Saviour first founded the Government of his Church in a real imparity of Church-Officers if the holy Apostles during all their time conformed their practice to his Institution and if the Primitive Church every where as far as their Records are preserved followed their prescription if no credible account can be given of the Original of Bishops unless we derive their Succession from the Apostolical Age if their Institution be as it is confessed to be necessary to the peace and unity of the Church if there be nothing to make it suspected for being meerly of humane Appointment but such bold such groundless and such disingenuous surmises as may be as well objected against all or any the best Records of Antiquity in the World If I say all this be true I hope it will be no presumption to add that it is a sufficient not only defence but proof of the Episcopal superiority against all Exceptions that are close or pertinent in Blondel Walo Messalinus Daillé or any other Authors that are worth naming or reading For as for the little People among ourselves that have for so many years waged so fierce and implacable a War against Prelatry as they call it they are so invincibly ignorant that it is utterly needless to confute and impossible to convince them And how little they were all able to perform is notorious from the great Smectymnuan Mouse that was brought forth by the clubbed labour of so many of their greatest mountains And therefore wholly neglecting them and all their poor Endeavours I have
case ought not to have compared the Talmudical Traditions to the Digests of Justinian but to some of the old British History not to mention the Monk of Viterbo who give us large Accounts of the exploits of their Country and the succession of their Princes from Adam to Brute without any assistance of former Records And this I take to be the case of the Talmudical Doctors in whose Reports there is nothing creditable concerning the ancient Jewish Church farther than as it is confirm'd by the ancient Writers And therefore I find no reason to accommodate their forms or customs of Excommunication to the old Jews because I find no Records of them older than themselves And for this reason I suspect it to be a great mistake in Grotius and the learned men that follow him who whatever they find in the Talmudical Writers concerning Excommunication immediately apply it to some text of Scripture as if it were originally taken thence Of which though it is not much material to my purpose I shall give a brief Account The Talmudists then had their degrees of Excommunication some say three Mr. Selden says but two neither was it inflicted only by the Court of Judicature but by any single Person and that either upon another or upon himself and that either waking or sleeping For if any man pronounced himself or his neighbour Excommunicate it was as binding as the Decree of the great Sanhedrim or if he only dream't that he was Excommunicate either by the Court or any private Person it was as effectual as if it had been done with all the formalities of Law And as any man had power to Excommunicate himself so had any Rabbi to absolve himself and if a man were Excommunicate by the great Sanhedrim he might be absolved by any three men whatsoever with divers other ridiculous Formalities which discover themselves to be meer inventions of the Talmudical Age when all sense of Religion was run into idle and useless Pageantry And therefore passing by all the rest as absurd enough of it self I can find no Traces of their several degrees of Excommunication more ancient than themselves and therefore I suspect them not to have been in Use in the ancient Jewish Discipline And though Grotius interpret several texts of Scripture by them it is manifest that he brings his Interpretation along with him from the Rabinical Writers without finding any ground for it in the Text it self as will best appear by particulars Thus that Text Ezra 10. 8. That whosoever would not come within three days according to the counsel of the Princes and the Elders all his substance should be forfeited and himself separated from the Congregation of those that had been carried away seems not to have any reference to the power of Excommunication but only an exercise of that absolute Authority that Ezra had received from the Persian King Chap. 7. 26. That whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of the King let judgment be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto Death or to Banishment or to confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment Now the Proclamation in the 10. Chap. being in pursuance of this Authority can signifie nothing but first an exclusion from the priviledges granted by Artaxerxes to the Jews which as things then stood amounted to nothing less than Banishment and then Secondly a confiscation of their Estates and because the Estates to be confiscated were to be devoted to the service of Religion the thing is expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies Consecration as well Destruction For whereas it properly and originally imports nothing but utter Ruin yet because in most cases where the People were design'd to final Destruction the Goods were reserved and dedicated to the service of God thence the same word came to signifie Destruction and Consecration Neither does that Text of Nehemiah sound any more to the purpose c. 13. 25. And I contended with them and cursed them c. which seem to signifie nothing more than as Grotius himself expresses it Nehemiam gravibus verbis etiam cum ir ae divinae comminatione usum in istos legirupas chiding with them severely and threatning them with the wrath of God Much less is that of Daniel to this purpose Chap. 12. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt i. e. says Grotius of these latter sort erunt alij in Nidui alij in Cherem For supposing with him that this passage ought to be understood of the punishment of those who under the persecution of Antiochus had Apostatised from the worship of the true God yet there is no imaginable foundation were not mens minds prepossest with Talmudical Conceits to understand it of these forms of Excommunication especially that of Nidui which was not separation but only a keeping the distance of four paces from others was certainly a very small punishment for the greatest of sins among them i. e. Idolatry And lastly to mention no more that of St. John the 9. and 22. seems least of all to the purpose That the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ he should be put out of the Synagogue Which Grotius expounds of Nidui because says he the second degree of Excommunication was not inflicted upon the followers of Jesus till after the Resurrection But it looks very uncouth that the great Sanhedrin who looked upon our Saviour as an enemy to Moses and their Religion an Impostor an Apostate a Samaritan which was much worse than an Heathen should deter the People from being seduced by him with no greater penalty than of keeping four paces distance from their Neighbours however when those that were under it were notwithstanding admitted into the Synagogue keeping their due dist ance they could not be said to be cast out of it In short when there are no footsteps of the Talmudical degrees of Excommunication neither in the Scripture nor Josephus nor in the practice of the Essenes nor in any ancient Record we have no reason to believe it was then in use but on the contrary that it was not because otherwise so obvious a thing could not have escaped their notice The truth is the plainest account we have of this thing is from the Scriptures of the New Testament as I shall shew when I come to that head particularly from their custom of casting out of the Synagogue which signifies discommoning Offenders and is commonly expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cashire out of the Society of which we have an eminent instance in the third Book of Maccabees where the Egyptian Jews excommunicated those that under the Tyranny of Ptolomy Philopator had sacrifised to Idols accounting them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as no better than enemies to their Nation This was the simple