propounding of the true doctrine in decision of controversies or of constitutions of expedient or necessary to aedification are acts of religion most proper to the Bishops and presbyters the first an act of the praedication of the gospel the other an act of ecclesiastical Government The embracing of the truth and ordinances seen to be profitable together with the confirming of them by his decree and sanction or addition where he seeth it needful of a reward or mulct is the part of a Christian Prince discerning upon due search the truth and the usefulnesse of the ordinances propounded unto him whose embracing is his act of subjection to Christ and confirmation and sanction an act of his Vicary authority To make laws bestowing civil gifts or priviledges on the Church and ordaining civil punishments for offences committed against Christian religion and Ecclesiastical Canons and constituting Courts for the cognizance of such causes and the execution of those Laws is the peculiar and proper work of a Christian King which he may well doe without the authority of Bishops and presbyters but which he may best doe with their grave advice and counsel In the unanimous Votes of the Kings Majesty the honourable Houses of Parliament and the venerable convocation all Powers and interests are fully satisfied whether in decision of controversies in religion Chrysost in 2. Cor. hom 18 c. Sect. 11. or making Ecclesiastical Canons or any the like Ecclesiastical matters because they are the conjunct Votes of all the concerned Before the civil Magistrate became Christian the Clergy and people according to their severall rights concurred personally in the elections of Bishops and Presbyters and this remained in use under many Christian Emperors and Kings untill for the avoyding of contention and schismes and many abuses which became familiar to popular elections in a corrupted state of the Church and for the encouragement of Princes Nobles and others to erect and endow Churches it seemed good to Kings in their Parliaments and with the convocation or Synod of the Bishops and Clergy to ordain that Kings should present to the Colledge of Presbyters meet persons to be chosen and made Bishops and meet Presbyters to the Bishop for such Churches as they had built and endowed and that all other persons should in like manner present to the Bishop a fit person for the Church which they had endowed Patrons did indeed in some places put in whom they pleased without the Bishops consent Vide Epist Alexandr 3. ad Episcopos Angliae and for some time of publick confusion this was very usually done in England but this custome was no law as some would have it because it was an unreasonable custome and destructive to the Church and therefore always contradicted in all Councils where occasion was given to mention it All humane laws have their mixture of some bad with many good And certain it is that our Ecclesiastical laws have many imperfections and their ambiguous halting between the papal Canon-law whence their interpretation hath been wont to be fetched and the laws of the Realm is not the least which hath been one of the principal occasions of some actings which made the Clergy much abhorred by many and brought infinite calamities upon the Civil and Ecclesiastical state The ancient pure Episcopal government is much changed and the beginning of its change was not of late dayes Sect. 12. for in the fourth Century the Bishops and Presbyters began to advance Arch-presbyters and Arch-deacons to some part of the exercise of the Ecclesiastical government Optat. advers Parmenian l. 1. The first Archdeacon we read of was Caecilianus who reproved Lucilla a rich and proud woman which being thereat vexed became afterward a zealous promotrix of the Schism of the Donatists The first Arch-presbyter Greg. Nazianz. in land Basil crat that I can remember to be mentioned by the ancients was Basile who being made Bishop offered that honour to his old friend Gregory after the Bishop of Nazianzum But these were at that time but in some Churches and acted onely in place of the Bishops and Presbyters and at their pleasure whereas their power in time increased and after some hundreds of years the Canons gave them an ordinary jurisdiction erected their Courts added new names of Ecclesiastical judges as Deans Chancellors Commissaries c. and filled them with numerous attendants which were mostly to live by the sins of the people If these had been Officers onely of the civil magistrate to execute the power which is proper to him over all persons and in all causes Ecclesiastical the Church could not in reason have been charged with their miscariages but because they exercised with the former acts of the power proper to Bishops and Presbyters and in which the civil magistrate had onely a superintendency over them all their misdoings were ascribed to the Bishops and the Clergy their Courts heard the causes of excommunication adjudg'd a person to excommunication and caused a Presbyter no judge in the cause to excommunicate the party whereas Christ by his Apostles made them judges in his place as well to hear the causes of the spiritual censures as to execute the same by the sentence of excommunication The spiritual censures are spiritual remedies and the Pastors of the Church are under Christ the Physicians how then can it be congruous to imploy one that is no Physician to search and take knowledge of the diseases of the Soul and leave orâ—y the application of the remedies to the Physicians in the hearing of the causes of spiritual censures pastoral acts are to be exercised as of teaching of redargution of sin and conviction which prepare the offendor for the due and profitable receiving of the spiritual Physick which acts are all wanting where a person that is no Pastor condemneth a sinner to be excommunicated by a Pastor There is another mischief that accompanies the mixture in one and the same person of the exercise of acts purely ministerial and acts proper to the civil magistrate in spiritual causes as it is in Arch-deacons and the like that is commutation of paenance as to take so much money a Cow a Horse and the like as it hath been used be it in pretence of giving it to the poor where suspension or excommunication was by the Apostolical ordinances to have been exercised If the power proper to the ministers the power proper to the magistrate were in distinct persons this too frequent abuse would be well avoyded For the sole spiritual power is not to medle with body or purse Cudgelling whipping imprisoning fining scandalous sinners were not at all in use before the times of Christian Emperours And as to the redemption of the wholesome severities which the paenitents were enjoyned willingly to exercise upon themselves it was not used until about the end of the fift Century I might mention other mischiefs as the intollerable abuse of excommunication for very small offences
belongs unto the Bishop and therefore he was to see that all the Presbyters did their duties assigned to them and that the ministerial acts not allotted to any special Presbyter were to be done by the Bishop himself or by him whom he would appoint to do them Hierom mentions one thing proper to a Bishop Epist ad Evagriâ—m what doth a Bishop saith he excepting Ordination which a Presbyter doth not do where he maketh ordination of Presbytery to be the proper work of a Bishop which the Presbyters were not to perform except perhaps in the Bishops place and by his commission in some cases of necessity as shall be shewed hereafter not that the Presbyters had no hand in Ordination but that the principal act in it Can. 3. was onely the Bishops For the fourth Council of Carthage saith Sed sola propter auctoritatem summo sacerdot o Clericorum ordinatio consecratio reservata est ne a multis Ecclesiae Disciplina vendicata concordiam solveret Scandala geneventur Isid de Eccl. offic c. 7. Can. 5. circa an 656. when a Presbyter is ordained the Bishop blessing him and holding his hand upon his head let the Presbyters also which be present lay their hands by the hand of the Bishop upon his head And it follows in the fourth Canon when a Deacon is ordained let the Bishop alone which blesseth him lay his hand upon his head because he is not consecrated to the Priesthood but to a Service Where we are to observe that the imposition of the hands of the Presbyters is a condition antecedent requisite to the consecration of a Presbyter and so proper to it that it may not be used in the ordination of a Deacon much less of any other inferior officer the blessing is the act in oâ—dination which is appropriated to the Bishop And therefore in the second Council of Hispâ—lis the Presbyters and Deacons consecrated by a Bishop who having sore eyes could not read were deposed from the degrees which they had ill gotten a presbyter having contrary to the order of the Church read the benediction The Bishop performed in the Church the chief offices of preaching and administration of the Communion if he pleased none other being to do either in his presence but by his call sometime to shew his power or out of envy idleness or disdain he neither would himself exhort the people nor require a presbyter to do it ad Nepotianum de vita clericorum Which great fault Hierom reproves in some Churches saith he is a bad custome that the Bishop being present the presbyters hold their peace as though the Bishop envied or disdained to hear them Some other things were in some sort appropriated to the Bishop but were not made so peculiar to him as ordination was nor were they all of them so ancient priviledges nor of that weight for confirmation was the chiefest of them Greg. Epist l. 3. Ep. 26. Conc. Carth. 3. c. 32. Pseudambros in Ep. ad Eph. c. 4. which in some cases and places presbyters might and did usually perform The making of the Chrism the signing of the baptized in the forehead with the sign of the Cross consecration of Virgins of the altar c. were ceremonies of less moment and some of them of a latter institution But notwithstanding that the Bishop had in some things a propriety and in all things Ecclesiastical a principality yet the presbyters had a subordinate power ordinary or extraordinary in the one and in the other for the Bishop could ordain no presbyter without the consent of the presbyters and the imâ—osition of their hands Cyprian affirmeth that the Clergy of Rome presided with Cornelius their Bishop Cyprian Ep. ad Cornelium The fourth Council of Carthage prohibits the Bishop to hear any mans cause without the presence of his Clergy and forbids him to give Can. 22. Can. 23. sell or change any thing belonging to the Church without consent and subscription of the Clergy And that there was not so great a distance between the Bishop and presbyters as hath of latter times been kept nor as is between a presbyter and a Deacon Can. 34. Can. 35. doth appear by some Canons of the same ancient Council which ordain that the Bishop sitting in any place suffer not a presbyter to stand and that the Bishop in the Church sit among the presbyters in a higher seat but in the house must know himself to be a College or companion of the presbyters Concerning the distance between a presbyter and Deacon the Canons of the Synod say that a Deacon is minister as well of the presbyter Vide Conc. Nicenum c. 14. Arelat 1. c. 21. as of the Bishop that a Deacon in the convention of the presbyters may speak onely when he is asked and that he is not to sit but when he is commanded by the presbyter Can. 37. Can. 39. Can. 40. Therefore it may seem that if after 300 years since the decease of the Apostles at which time the power of Bishops was much enlarged there was no more difference between a Bishop and a presbyter the difference was far lesse at that time between the Bishop and the Colledge of presbyters then the birth of popery hath made between them Esai c. 3. Hierom calls the Colledge of presbyters the Bishops Senate intimating thereby that the Bishop ought to hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes in the presence and with the advise and consent of his presbyters Hence it was that l. 3. Epist 22. long before the time of St. Hierome the holy Martyr Cyprian having with consent of the Clergy of the place where he then was being absent from his own City and presbyters ordained one a reader and another a subdeacon he excuseth himself by his Letters to the Presbyters of his own Cathedral saying that nothing new was done by him in their absence but what was begun in their Common Council was promoted by urgent necessity their Council therefore that was requisite in so small a matter was much more necessary in matters of greatest weight It is opportune here to consider the famous question Sect. 8. whether in the first twenty years of the Apostles preaching something more or less the whole care of the Church did in common belong to the Colledge of presbyters of every Church where no Apostle was present nor Evangelist nor any supplying the place of an Apostle or did the care and government of every Church except where some invincible hindrance withstood belong unto one as principal and head and to the presbyters onely as his Senate and Counsellors The Ancients vary in this point Contra haeres Aerii Epiphanius and some others affirm that the office of a Bishop was instituted by the Apostles distinct from the offices of the Apostles Evangelists prophets and presbyters Ultra sacerdotium non est gradus ordinis tamen intra hunc gradum
be Presbyters are the primary Successors of the Apostles and Bishops as Bishops that is as to their presidency are onely secondary Successors of the Apostles There is no great cause of doubt whether those words abovesaid used at this time in the ordination of Bishops or Presbyters Cum Ecclesia in ordinatione sacerdotum Christum imitata ritu perpetuo eisd verbis forma illa Accipite Spiritum Sanctum quorum remiseritis peccata c. Semper usa fuerit quis ambigat idem omnino quod Christum facere c. Vasq in 3. p. disp 239. c. 4. were together with imposition of hands therein used in and from the Primitive times because they are not expressely mentioned in any ancient Author for a thousand years and above for any thing I could learn for first the Fathers do often say that imposition of hands was used in those ordinations and ought to be used as also a benediction and prayers which prayers no question were accommodated in each ordination to the distinction made by the Apostles between Presbyters and Bishops and therefore the words Receive the Holy Ghost whosoevers sins ye remit c. might be used in the prayers of the Bishops ordination for an increase of the grace and power received by them in their Presbyterial ordination and omitted in the prayers of Presbyters ordination wherein they constitute the benediction because the fulness of the exercise of the power given by the ministery of those words and other parts of their ordination is something restrained by the constitution of Episcopacy The reason why those holy men did not set down in their writings the very words of benediction spoken at the imposition of hands In 2 Cor. hom 6. and the particular forms of prayers then used is declared by Chrysostome Nota patres concilia non consuevisse explicare totum ritum Sacramentorum non enim scribebant libros rituales sed solum attigisse unam partem essentialem ex qua caetera omnia intelligerentur Bellarm de Sacram Ord. l. 1. c. 9. who speaking of Bishops beginning the Act of ordination saith That such and such words were spoken which the initiated knew for it is not lawful saith he to detect all before the profane As for the forms of Ordination which were written between the years 700 and 1000 and the forms in Clements constitutions besides that they are of small credit they are imperfect and disagree among themselves In one form of Bishops consecration the book is not remembred to be held over the head of the person to be ordained in another form there is no mention of the imposition of hands In a form of the ordination of a Presbyter the Bishop and Presbyters holding their hands on the head of the ordained it is said det orationem super eum and let the Bishop pray above him then many sorts of prayers follow Whence we may gather that the prayer to be made over him differs from the other prayers and that under the word Prayer the words of benediction which are Receive the Holy Ghost Whosoever sins ye remit c. are comprehended For those words pronounced by the Bishop as the mouth of the Church are a virtual prayer the heavenly gift signified by them Manus impositiones verba sunt mystica quibus confirmatur ad opus electus accipiens auctoritatem teste conscientia sua ut audeat vice Domini sacrificium Deo offerre Ambros in Epist 2. ad Timoth. c. 4. Homo imponit manus Deus largitur gratiam homo imponit supplicem dexteram Deus benedicit potenti dextera Ambros de dignitate sacerd a Greg. Epist l. 7. Epist 63. and to be given in the use of them being begged of God in the preceding and also in the subsequent prayers And as they are pronounced by the Bishop supplying the place and instead of Christ they are Christs benediction and a signification of his operative will in giving the Holy Ghost unto some that 's Presbyters in their ordination to authorise them to do the external acts of binding and loosing c. and to accompany those acts duely exercised in the union and communion of the truely Catholick Church and unto others that is Bishops in their ordination to authorize and enable them for the eminent universal and presidential use and administration of the power of binding and loosing before received in their Presbyterial ordination and for the sole exercise of the power of ordination and to accompany their service duely performed in the union and communion of the true Church of Christ So the words of the institution of the Lords Supper are in themselves no prayers but considered as a part of the prayer preceding them called by Gregory the great the Canon which is not reputed to be ended before those words be prolated they are a virtual prayer being presented unto God in the supplication of the Church for the obtaining of an heavenly effect in the imitation of the act of Christ like unto that effect which was granted at the act of prolation of them by Christ himself Major Angel affirm that they saw some Pontificals which were both without the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. and also without imposition of hands Therefore those omissions are no sufficient arguments to prove that the foresaid words of benediction were not used in the Primitive times We may further prove them to be then in use by this that of all the integral parts of Presbyters ordination we find nothing proper to the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ad Amphilock Can. â—1 but onely those words of benediction for the Presbyters impose their hands as well as the Bishops the Presbyters and people fast and pray with the Bishop there 's nothing left but the prolation of the words of benediction in the name and place of Christ This is confirmed by the story of the purblind Bishop who having laid his hand to ordain a Presbyter and the Presbyters their hands used the eyes and mouth of a Presbyter to read and pronounce the benediction Cone Hispal 2. c. 5. It s not said that the Presbyter read the prayers although its most likely he read them but the benediction And why surely because the prayers were the common prayers of the whole Church and the benediction onely proper to the Bishop and therefore that ordination was rejected as unlawful and invalid a Presbyter and not a Bishop having prolated the benediction and the Bishops commission was of no value because prohibited by the Canons in force at that time Above 300 years before this Bishop in the time of Athanasius all the Presbyters and Ischyras among them which were ordained by Colythus a pretended Bishop were refused to be received by the Church in that degree Athanas in apolog 2. because Colythus was proved to be onely a Presbyter whose ordination in the judgment of the Church the constitution of the Apostles had made
Ex quibusque ergo Ecclesiis quae pia quae religiosa quae recta sunt elige haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone Every Church at least every Provincial Church composed their prayers or other parts of their divine Service as seemed most conducible to their edification and after altered the same or made a new form Vide Bern. Augiens de quibud rebus ad missam pertinent c. 2. Vide Sozom. hist l. 7. c. 19. or received a form used in another Church as they pleased Spain or some part of it received the Roman Liturgy And therefore if it should seem good to the Church of England to mend their Liturgy or compose a new one if need be more agreeable to the present time they should do therein no more then the most famous Churches have done before and which can be no disparaging of the wisdome and piety of the Composers of it which intended onely to make it as fit as could be for the state of the Church in their time which I believe they performed very exactly and not to frame and impose an unchangeable form which could never prove incongruous to any possible variety in the state of the Church for this is not in the power of any persons or Churches Howsoever Ceremonies and a form of Liturgy are no more necessary for Episcopal then a Presbyterian Government which may equally erre in defect or excess or quality of the rites and divine Service Now although both the forms of government and all Ecclesiastical rites be in their nature changeable Sect. 19. because of their dependance upon variable circumstances yet some have been less subject to change or abrogation then other either because they be of smal efficacy to hurt or profit or because the hurt done by them is hardly discerned or because the circumstances which are apt to make them noxious seldome happen or because they are believed to have the Apostles for their authors or approvers Of all other Episcopacy seems least subject to abrogation First because the Churches in all parts of the world were always firmly perswaded that the institution of Episcopacy had the Apostles hand and seal joyned with the mother Churches for the confirmation of it Secondly because many believed that the Apostles never permitted the Colledge of Presbyters to ordain Presbyters in the time that they ruled in the Churches this they received by tradition to which they easily gave their assent because they found not in the Acts of the Apostles or the Apostolical Epistles that sole Presbyters ordained any except perhaps by an immediate command of the Holy Ghost which is extraordinary but with a President either an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Vicegerent of an Apostle as Timothy Titus c. whence they thought it might be very probably collected that the Apostles would have given a principality of the exercise of the power of ordination unto one Presbytet onely in every Church so as without him the whole Colledge could not ordain and would have left the government to be exercised in common equally by all if the Colledge had not so grosly abused their ruling power whereby it was seen that the Colledge had need of a President both in the Government and the Ordination which was accordingly given them by the decree of the Church approved by the Apostles St. Hierome himself hath some passages which seem to favour this opinion â—i passim omnibus Presh esses concessum ordinare tot admitterentur ad ordines quod non servaretur ordo immo potius generaretur confusiâ— ideo dispositum est Dei consilie quod solis Episcopis ordinum dispensatio aliorum officiorum ut consecratio abbatum monialium ecclesiarum consimilium concedatur Bonevent in 4. d. 25. q. 1. and therefore the Churches never suffered a Presbyter or Chorâ—piscope to ordaine except he supplied the place of a Bishop when he could not be present and the Ordination could not be delayed Thirdly The Presbyterian Government was in use in the purest purity of the Churches beginning to spread abroad over the world by the preaching of the Apostles and yet in less then twenty years space Schismes grew out of it which caused the Churches to out it and to establish Episcopacy as the best antidote against Schisme and for the restauration and maintenance of the Churches peace Now if the Presbyterian Government was uneffectuall for the preserving of peace among the most godly and consequently the most addicted to peace who can expect it should be effectuall to restore union and peace and to preserve it in Churches too full of pollutions and staines very much degenerated from the holiness of the Apostolicall times It seems a desperate and preposterous course to use that as a soveraigne Antidote in our time which had the effect of a Poyson upon the Churches in the Aposties time A hurnt Child dreads the fire and should not the weaker members of the body dread the fire that burnt the strongest and best able to resist its force Seeing the remainder of naturall corruption in the most holy Churches drew the Poyson of Scisme from the Presbyterian forme of government we cannot without high presumption think that the far higher degrees of sin remaining in us will be idle suffer grace to make of it an Antidote against Schisme Mountebanks are seen sometime to heal by improper Medicines where the strength of nature and the concurrence of some other secret causes do performe the cure and not the nature of the Physick So may the Presbyterian government have in some place the credit of healing Schismes maintaining peace when in very truth those good effects proceed from the confluence of other causes and not from the aptness of that government to effect them For it seems incredible that it should have in it an aptness to keep us in peace that had in it an ineptitude to keep the most peaceably disposed Apostolick Christians in unity and peace Whence we may conclude that although the ancient Episcopacy be in its nature changeable as being of the Churches and by consequence of humane constitution yet morally and practically it may not be abrogated without dammage to the Church which will assuredly follow if some accidentall benigne influences of some other causes do not for some time hinder its birth I am very apt to believe that the Churches which seem to use the Presbyterian government never intended by any Law deserving the proper name of a Law to settle the primitive Presbytery in their Churches whence the sad Schismes arose in the primitive times much less to abrogate the ancient Episcopacy which in the judgment of the best Christians and of the Apostles is the healer of Schismes and the preserver of peace But that they intended as they had good reason to abrogate the corrupted Hierarchy with the multitude of its oppressing attendants and as necessity compelled them seemingly
to suspend their reception of the ancient Episcopacy but in very deed receiving in some hidden sort the substance of it secretly giving that Authority to the moderator of the Colledge of Presbyters which tantamounts the Authority of the ancient Bishops This was done by them in their Emergency out of the Gulfe of the Babylonish Idolatry and Haeresies when the state of persons and Circumstances would not permit them directly and manifestly to set up the ancient Episcopacy but covertly and cloathed with the apparel of Presbytery Because the appearing of it in its native cloathing seemed to threaten an extreme danger of returning again to Idolatrous Babylon Thus when two duties became inconsistent the keeping out of Idolatry and the open and manifest use of an Ordinance inferior to the maintenance of the purity of Gods worship they did as it was their duty so far forbear the open use of Episcopacy as seemed needfull that they might preserve the truth and sincerity of the worship of God I know many writers are of another mind but the intentions of Churches are better seen in the causes of their actions and the managing of them then in the letter of a Law or in the speculative opinions of private persons Some think the present condition of our Church to be almost the same with the state of those Churches when they first began their Reformation and therefore that we stand in need of the same cure under the habit of the Presbyterian Government Surely these are much deceived first in their opinion of our present state secondly in the sequele if our case were like theirs for when we were like them in departing from Babylon we were unlike them in many other respects and needed not the habit of Presbyters but fall to purge the ancient Episcopacy from as many of the foul excrescencies which the sins of men made to grow to it as the condition of that time would permit whereby our Church kept more uniformity with the primitive Churches and by the blessing of God upon our endevour obtained more measure of the Heavenly light and of the power of Godliness in peace and that for a longer time then any part of those Churches attained unto which were necessitated to shrowd themselves under another habit of Government This I say not any way to disparage any other Church of Christ whom I honour and pray for from my heart or to ascribe any thing to our own wisdome and providence but to honour and glorifie the grace of God for his great mercies to our Church and to defend her honour against the mistakes of some But now our condition is changed our sins have brought us to misery the light and glory of our Church is turned to darkness confusion and contempt from which notwithstanding our unworthiness Gods infinite mercy which hath most gratiously restored our Soveraign Lord the King unto his Kingdomes and Subjects will be pleased I trust to deliver us and to beautifie our Church with the primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy attended by his assessors and Senate the reverend grave wise learned and pious Colledg of Presbyters to govern the house of God after the best pattern of the primitive holy orders and discipline for the obtaining whereof God would have us assisted by His grace to contribute our endevours improved to the uttermost of Christian Wisdom and moderation to be crowned with his rich blessing And because this business is about things for the most part spirituall tending to the edification of Gods house it will no doubt please our gracious King and his great Councell not to proceed in this work without the advise and counsell of them whom Christ hath ordained under Himself Minister all builders of His House least the neglect of His Ordinance and Ministers cause the Lord to blast all other Counsells and endeavours how probable soever they may seem to be in the eye of the world Give unto Casar the things which are Caesars and let the Vicegerents of Christ enjoy the things belonging to them let all interests have their due part in this weighty work and then whatsoever Government be settled what form soever of Divine service what Rites soever and Ceremonies shall be established they will with all readiness and due submission be received and embraced by all the people and all the obedient Sons and Daughters of our dearest Mother the Church of England among whom if there shall be some whose judgments cannot acquiesce in some determinations of the higher powers they will wisely consider first that in the remote conclusions of Divine maximes all good men in this our infirmity will never agree and that nature teacheth us that in controversies the resolution of the major part must be obeyed without which debates would never be ended and St. Paul saith let the spirits of the Prophets be subject to the Prophets Secondly That God hath appointed the powers civil and Ecclesiasticall in his stead to determine Ecclesiasticall controversies and to make Ecclesiasticall Ordinances from whose judgment there is no appeal but only to God by prayer Thirdly That to preserve the peace of the Church and Charity the bond of perfectness is a duty to be preferred before the duty of publick teaching divulging or preaching many of those Divine Truths whose ignorance if not voluntary doth not exclude from Heaven when that teaching or publishing doth disturb the publick peace and consequently the keeping of the peace requireth abstinence in that case from such divulging or preaching And from these considerations good men will infer that it is good for them and that it is their duty both for the sake of Gods Authority for good order sake and for Charity and peace sake out of a Conscientious regard to the higher powers to acquiesce in their determinations and to desist from opposing their private opinion to the publick judgment and pursuing their private interest to the prejudice of publick peace and Charity For which Wisedome and moderation that they may be in all let all good men pray to the onely wise and most mercifull God the Author of Truth and peace An APENDIX THe manner of the Ordination of Bishops forgotten to be shewed by me in due place is declared by the fourth Councill of Carthage in these words Can. 2. When a Bishop is ordained lay and hold the book of the Evangelists upon his head and neck and one Bishop pronouncing the Benediction over him let the rest of the Bishops present touch his head with their hands The Church never accounted any to be capable of this Episcopall Ordination that was not first ordained a Presbyter the manner of whose Ordination was that the Bishop blessing him saying receive the Holy Ghost whosoever sins you shall remitt Concil earth Can 3. c. and laying his hand upon his head the Presbyters present lay their hands upon his head by the hand of the Bishop There was a (a) Tert. de praescript c. 41. Cyprian Epist ad
Antonianum Hier. ad Heliodorum Conc. Sardicens c. 13. Canon in use in the second Century when it was made it is not known which required that every one that would be an Ecclesiasticall Officer should begin with and for some set time officiate in the lowest Office and so by degrees ascend to the Episcopacy if the Church did desire his advancement Yet we find that some laicks yea some unbaptised persons have been by the Clergy and people chosen Bishops as Ambrose Nectarius and other Paulinus in vita Ambrosij Niceph. Callist Eccl. hist l. 12. c. 12. who leaping over the inferiour offices and the time wherein they should have given proofe of their faithfulness and industry in the order of Presbytery have been Baptised made Presbyters and then Bishops within few dayes and some it may be took these two last orders in the same houre But this was very rare and by dispensation or was liable to an Ecclesiasticall censure When any under the degree of a Presbyter was by the ignorance or perversness of some Bishops ordained a Bishop nothing done by him was esteemed valid but what his former degree did warrant or a Laick might in necessity do untill he was made a Presbyter Bellarmine saith truly that it is impossible that one should be ordained a Bishop fit to officiate which was not before a Presbyter or did not take both orders together For saith he Episcopacy includes Presbytery in its essence and a Bishop no Presbyter is a figment De Sacramento Ordinis l. 1. c. 5. a Bishop being nothing else but the first or chief Presbyter Whence he doth rightly infer that the Ordination of a Bishop compared with the Ordination of a Presbyter is being in it self precisely considered inferior to it as being of no efficacy as to acts meerly Ecclesiasticall and which the civil Magistrate cannot execute Here some doubts are raised which by divers are diversely resolved As whether Christ did ordaine the Apostles in the first place Presbyters and after that Bishops and if so when was this done or if it be said that Christ made them Apostles Presbyters and Bishops in one and the same Ordination how can it be proved that Christ gave the Apostles the powers now proper to Bishops not only as they were extraordinary Officers but also as they were to have successors and not rather that Christ reserved those powers as they were to be conveyed by succession to be given in a more convenient time it is generally acknowledged that Presbyters were vertually ordained when the Apostles were ordained If Christ made the Apostles both Presbyters and Bishops in one Ordination how durst the Church alter our Saviours Ordinance as to ordain them by two actuall Ordinations whom He Himself had ordained in one virtuall Ordination to say that our blessed Saviour ordained the Apostles first Presbyters and afterwards Bishops is to affirm that which the Evangelists do not mention To Preach Baptise administer the Lords Supper to feed the Sheep to bind and loose all these offices appear by clear Testimonies of the holy Scriptures and the consent of the Catholick Church to belong to Presbyters and therefore it may not be reasonably thought that any of those places of the Evangelists which promise those powers or intimate them to be given or require the execution of them conveigh an Episcopacy to the Apostles supposed before ordained Presbyters Some say that St. Cyprian and some other of the Fathers affirm Christ in ordaining the Apostles to have ordained Bishops and that Bishops are the Apostles successors and Presbyters the successors of the 70 Disciples To these Objections the answers are ready and easie Ad Drâ—â—contiam in Ps 44. First Athanasius saith that Christ by his Apostles constituted and ordained Bishops and Augustine saith that the Church conceived Bishops neither of them writeth that Bishops were vertually ordained in the Apostles Ordination neither is this expresly said in any ancient Author In Epist 1. ad Timoth c. 3. Secondly Ambrose the contemporary or elder then the true Ambrose saith that the Ordination of a Presbyter and Bishop is one and the same this may seem strange for in his and the preceding times they were distinct but his following words declare his meaning when he gives this reason namely Cyprian ad florentium c. Epist because both Presbyter and Bishop are Sacerdotes Priests which shews that in saying that the Ordination of a Presbyter and Bishop is the same he meant quatenus Sacerdotes as they were Priests or Presbyters their ordination was the same So the other auncient Doctors which say that Christ in speaking some things to the Apostles as He that heareth you heareth me Basil constit monast c. 22. c. 〈◊〉 spake in and by them to Bishops or that in them Christ ordained Bishops did mean That our Saviour spake in and by the Apostles to Bishops not as Bishops but as they were Sacerdotes Priests and Presbyters and only consequently and remotely by the means of a subsequent Ordinance as they were Bishops that is Presbyters having a presidency over their Brethren when the Pastors of that primitive Church say that Bishops are Successors of the Apostles and Presbyters successors of the 70 Disciples their meaning was That having respect to the Distinction which the Apostles made between one Presbyter and the rest by exalting one in every Church to a presidency over the rest The President Presbyter which is the Bishop succeeds the Apostles whose Successors and the subject Presbyters succeeded the 70 Disciples in some likeness of superiority and inferiority The Fathers could not mean That the Presbyters were ordained in the Ordination of the 70. For First None of them had any good ground to affirm That the 70 either had so ample an ordinary power if they had any ordinary power as the Presbytery have or that the power they received was rather the power of an Office to continue in them Ad Rodolphum Archiepiscopum Senonens in apparandarum rerum addend post tom 7. Concil then a power only to do some acts for a certain time after which the power was to leave them although Pope Nicholas the first affirms That the 70 Disciples had the Offices of Bishops and could ordain Presbyters Secondly The Form of Ordination both in our Church and in the Roman pontificial doth manifestly shew That Presbyters were virtually ordained in the Ordination of the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection when he said Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whosesoever sins ye remit c. the which entire words are used in Presbyters Ordination and only one member of the words are used in the ordination of bishops that is Receive the Holy Ghost which words do not serve to conveigh unto them all power to remit c. which they had received in their Ordination to Presbytery but they serve to give them the power of Presidency whereby the Bishop is constituted and therefore Presbyters and Bishops as they