under the Cognizance of their civil Courts as others are And this civil Subjection of Ecclesiastical Persons against the Papal Exemptions thereof is the main thing in the Ecclesiastical Supremacy claimed by our Kings In the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and in the Canons of King James this Supremacy is called the highest Power under God whereto all Men within the same Realms by God's Law owe most Loyalty and Obedience afore and above all other Powers and Potentates in Earth Her Majesty say the Injunctions again thereby neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority than was lately used and was of antient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the soveraignty and rule over all manner of Persons born within her Dominions of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any superiority over them By Supremacy or chief Government says the 37th Article of Religion we give only that prerogative which we see to have been always given to all godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all States and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the Stubborn and Evil-doers And the Oath of Supremacy as King James the First declared only extended to the Kings Power of Judicature over all Persons as well Civil as Ecclesiastical excluding all foreign Powers and Potentates to be Iudges within his Dominions All which plainly make the Ecclesiastical Supremacy to lye mainly in having Bishops and Ministers or the Ecclesiastical State who were broke off from it by the Papal Exemption under the same common Obligation to the civil Soveraign with other Subjects or under the Tye of civil Subjection In vertue of this civil power over their Persons as his Subjects he can command them faithfully to discharge their Duties and Functions And that not only as Subjects in civil Matters but as Ministers in divine Offices For as he is the civil Soveraign the Temporal Magistrate is the Keeper of both Tables being to keep his Subjects in Godliness as well as in Honesty as St. Paul says And is to use the civil Sword for sins against Religion as well as for sins against the State and in his way to punish Ministers for Neglect or Abuse of their spiritual Functions as well as for Breach of the civil Peace Thus good Kings as Hezekiah and Josiah employed their temporal power to cut off corrupt administrations and to reform Abuses of Worship and Religious Offices in the Jewish Church As Constantine and other good Christian Kings and Emperors did afterwards in other Nations And the 37th Article of our Church declares That by his Supremacy the King with the civil Sword may restrain the stubborn and evil-doers whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks And on this Account Constantine calls himself the Minister of God for the Coercion and Punishment of wicked Bishops And at his Entertainment of the Bishops tells them That God has appointed them the Bishops of things within the Church and him the Bishop of things without it and that it belongs to him as Bishop of Bishops to see they discharge their duties and be pious Thus the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian say That God by setting them to reign had made them the Bond both of the piety and of the external welfare and security of those who are subject to them the connexion betwixt which two their study was to preserve inviolable And in this Kings saith St. Austin according as God commands them do serve the Lord as they are Kings when they enjoyn good things and prohibit evil things in their Kingdoms And that not only in Matters pertaining to humane society but also in Matters pertaining to our Holy Religion And thus by means of his civil Power over Spiritual Persons has the King the like Power over Spiritual Acts Functions viz. as he can require and by the civil Sword compel them whom Christ has empowered thereto in his Dominions to exercise the same I mean to exercise them according to the Rules of God's Word and of their own Spiritual Function his Power lying in calling them to do their duties not to any Neglect or Breach thereof As we see was observed not only by the Godly Jewish Kings but also by the Primitive Emperors whose civil Laws and Edicts in these Matters still followed the spiritual Rules and Duties and were a secular Enforcement to drive all Ecclesiasticks to keep them not to Transgress them Our Laws do not disdain to follow the Sacred and Divine Canons the civil power in these Matters enforcing that which the Church had first prescribed says the Emperor Justinian And accordingly in the Civil Law for Restraint of Excommunications we forbid our Bishops saith he to Excommunicate any without a just Cause be shewn for it We forbid all Bishops and Presbyters saith another Law to exclude any from the Communion before Proof of such a Cause for which this is commanded to be done by the Ecclesiastical Canons So by his Imperial Power over their Persons commanding their Ministrations and limitting them therein to their own Rules And thus the King like as the Jewish Kings and Primitive Emperors were is supreme in these spiritual Acts and Administrations as in his Dominions they are all to be sped and administer'd not by independant Forreigners but by his own Subjects or as having the supream earthly Command of Bishops and Priests who are bound in civil Obedience to him as their Temporal Soveraign to exercise them when he requires it And this way he can give Final Justice to all his Subjects in all spiritual as well as temporal Matters having Authority to command his Bishops and Clergy to do it in the one as well as his Judges and temporal Ministers to do it in the other And by this power of doing it by their Means or Ministrations is his Supremacy set off Thus in the Statute for the Restraint of Appeals the King is declared to be the one supream Head endowed with plenary Power and Authority to render Final Justice in all Causes because the spirituality or his Bishops and Clergy can administer and determine all that belongs to their spiritual Offices and the Judges and other his temporal Ministers can do the like for Tryal of Property and Conservation of civil Peace The Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters doth not imply the power of the Keys which he has not but he may command those who have them to use them rightly says Mr. Mason This Supremacy is preserved if he take care that those who have the power of Ecclesiastical Censures do exercise them says Dr. Burhil He has plenary power to render final Justice that is to receive the last Appeal of his own Subjects without any fear of any
which were to show themselves Silly Sâ—eâ—p indeed and prepared for Destruction but to run away from them not to give Ear to False-Teachers and False-Propâ—â—â—s but to keep-out of their Hearing and shut their Eaâ—â— against theâ— and lastly not to strike in with those that cause Divisions but to 〈◊〉 them as St. Paul teaches and as the Rules of the Church have still required Faithful Christians to do by the Makers of Schism Bid him not God speed nor receive the Briâ—gâ—â— of False Doctrine into your Houses 2 Jo. 10 11. Beware of False-Prophets as of Ravening Wolves Mat. 7. 15. Keep not Company with Disorderly VValkers who â—dhere not to the Tradition they received of us 2 Thes. 3. 6 14. Mark â—â—â—m which Cause Divisions and Offences in breaking off and going Contrary to the Doctrinâ— which ye have learned and avoid them Ro. 16. 17. These and such like are the Scripture Riâ—â—es in these Cases Which call the Servants of Christ to withdraw themselves from those who have first seperated and withdrawn themselves from his Worship and Doctrines and instead of them to Adhere to others who as his true Ministers and faithful Pastors stick true to the same and Administer them Pure and Uncorrupt to his Church whereof I shall give a further Account afterwards PART II. Of Deprivations by Civil States or Ecclesiastical Synods Chap. 1. Of the Force of State Deprivations in the foresaid Cases HItherto I have endeavoured to mark out the cases wherein the Bishops and Pastors of Christs Church are bound to exercise their Ministerial Powers and to proceed on duly in their Administrations And to set forth the great and manifold Obligations which are incumbent on them in those Cases And having thus laid out their Obligations I shall next consider the Restraints which at such times are most pleadable in these cases by shewing 2. Secondly of what force a deprivation of state or the Preservation of External Communion and Peace in the Church ought to be in Dâ—barring them thereof 1. First One great thing that may be alledged to silence Faithful Bishops and Ministers of Gods pure worship and Righteousness and to stop the course of their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases is a Deprivation of state when the secular Power by its Laws and interdicts forbids those Ministrations and removes them from their Sees putting others into their places For Bishops and Pastors as they are Ministers of Christ so are they also Subjects of the state And therefore as some think ought not to exercise their Ministry at least not among their Subjects nor in any Diocess of their Dominions in opposition to it And in Christian Kingdoms the Church is incorporated into the state And by the Benefit of this incorporation Bishops and Pastors have their spiritual Ministrations back'd with secular Effects and Censures as Excommunication among us makes lyable to Temporal imprisonment and incapacitates from carrying on any civil suit or Action in the civil courts They have also their jurisdiction extended thereby to some secular matters as the Bishops courts are to matters of Wills Marriages Benefices c. And are encouraged therein by Secular Benefices Honours and Freeholds Now all these secular Fortifications jurisdictions and encouragements in their Ministrations conferr'd on the Bishops and Pastors of an incorporate Church are the gifts of the state and are secular additions to what Spiritual Powers they received from Jesus Christ. And what the state gives the state when it sees cause may deprive them of So that incorporate Ministrations or Administring these Spiritual Powers in the mixt and fortifyed way of an incorporate Church may seem as some will argue more subject to the state to take out of some and to put into other hands Especially considering that in grateful return and commutation for the benefit of incorporation or for being made free of the state and having the secular accessions the Church by Compromise has parted with some of its priviledges to the Civil Power Thus since the incorporation has it in compliance given up to the state the Nomination of Bishops and Metropolitanes belonging anciently to the other Bishops of the Province or to the Clergy and People of the Church And that Rules agreed on in Synods shall be no Canons till they be approved and ratified by the Prince And that there shall be no Admission or Refusal of Clerks to Cures or use of Discipline but in consistence with and under Regulation of the Kings Pâ—erogative and the Laws of the Land and the like And by these Cessions they may seem as some think to have Cut off all Power of Contesting the States Nomination or Advancement to Churches or its Deprivation and Removal from them as having by their account given up these Priviledges in way of bargain and exchange to keep on the benefits and State enjoyments of an incorporate Church But as to this Regard which they ought to have to State deprivations in bar of the foresaid Ministrations I observe 1. First that this Regard is to be press'd only under a supposed Legal and Rightful State For 't is to their Rightful Prince that as good and faithful subjects they owe all their Obedience which is call'd for in these cases What Regard they are to pay as subjects must be to his Deprivation But not if they are deprived by an Usurper set up against him who really has no Regal Authority over them but only pretends to it and assumes a Power which is none of his own Especially if he should deprive them for their Adherence to their Lawful King As if Athaliah had deprived Jehojadah for adhereing to Joash his true Soveraign or as the Reâ—ellious Parliament did depose not only the Bishops and Episcopal Clergy those Faithful Adherers to the Crown but Episcopacy it self in King Charles the First 's time For then as there is no real Authority to bind on so neither would there be any Equity or Colour of Law to back such a deprivation or to oblige the sufferers to acquiesce therein The Law which still supports the Right of the Lawful King against his Usurpation must needs support the Rights of all his Adherents against the same And as still he would be the Legal King so would they not only be the real but in Eye of Law the Legal pastors not withstanding his Forcible Removal of them And therefore there is no room for this regard to a deprivation of State on the Plea of a King de Facto or on supposal of unrighteous usurpation The Legal Right asserted still by the Publick Acts on such Revolutions will give it place to go as far as it can But as for all those who give up the Legal Right 't is not for any of them and 't is well known how considerable a part they make among the writers as well as among the practicers in this point to urge the Authority of a deprivation of State in this question 2. Secondly a Deprivation of a Lawful
state if supposed to pass on Bishops and Ministers would be no conscionable discharge from keepeng on their spiritual Ministrations against such immoralities as are set down in the aforesaid cases For Jesus Christ who gave them their Ministerial Powers requires them as his Ministers and as Pastors of his Church to exercise them for him and for the Souls of Men as I have shewn when those Cases happen And if the State forbids what he commands they are to hear or obey no state or Power on earth against him But must answer as the Apostles did to the Jewish Rulers in this Case whether it be lawful in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye Act. 4. 18. 19. 20. And thus it must needs be in men who are call'd to be his Ministers under persecuting States and to be Ministers of a Religion which is a Doctrine of the Cross and bids them expect and prepare to bear Crosses under oppressive powers as is plainly the Case of Gospel-Ministers For if they must be his Ministers and administer this Religion in persecutions they must hold on Ministring when the state where they live breaks with them and both most strictly forbids and most cruelly persecutes them for so doing And thus the First Ministers did who were to plant Christianity against all the Edicts and Oppositions of the Heathen or Jewish Magistrates And so did all the Faithful Bishops and pastors thereof who in all the succeeding persecutions of the Church stuck firm to their Ministrations against all the inhibitions and oppressive force of secular Rulers or else our holy Religion had perish'd long since and had never descended pure and perfect as it is to our days And so must all others do in any present or succeeding Tryals which as they always have done so always will seek to suppress Christs worship and Truth by suppressing the pastoral administrations thereof that by their Ministry it may not fail in the Church but be held on the same and continued down to the worlds end But this I say as to their pure spirtual Powers and Ministrations which they neither did nor could receive from the Civil State on which he never conferr'd it but which they hold independantly of Christ Jesus That is what spiritual powers they have received from Christ by imposition of Hands continued down from the Apostles for the feeding and governing of his Church by Administration of the Word of Prayers and Sacraments by leting into the Church and excluding out of it and for providing a constant succession of the same Ministrations by Empowering or Ordaining others These mere spiritual powers they must exercise as his Ministers without regard to any deprivation or inhibition of Worldly Princes For Earthly Kings cannot deprive them of these mere spiritual powers because they have them not from them but Minister therein not by theirs but by Christs Commission If Secular Princes gave them their Commissions to exercise their spiritual Authorities they might recall them If they were the fountain of these powers and could make or ordain Bishops they might have more plea to unmake and deprive them But not originally proceeding from them but from Christ himself by a way of his own prescribing in a succession of Apostolical imposition of Hands through all Ages of the Church They cannot be reversed by their deprivation Nor are the Bishops and Pastors to be debarr'd the exercise thereof in any Case where Christ requires it at their inhibition because they are Christs Servants more than theirs and must obey God rather than man But 3. Thirdly as for any Temporal accessions and enforcements of these mere spiritual Ministrations which the Church receives when once it is shone upon by earthly powers and made incorporate or free of the State These Accessions are borrowed Powers and the Gift of Princes and under the deposition of a Lawful state the Bishops and Ministers of Christ must not challenge or pretend to them As to these I observe 1. That the civil state hath Power over these Temporal Accessions secular endowments because it confer'd them When Kings and Queens turn Christians they come not in only as members to partake in these mere spiritual Ministrations but as Patrons by their secular power to back and Promote them They must shew themselves Nursing-Fathers and Nursing-Mothers as was foretold by the Prophet and serve the Lord as Kings that is by employing their Kingly Power to encourage and advance his service doing him those services which none can do but themselves as St. Austin tells them Thus to give encouragement and leisure for the Ministers to attend on these Ministrations without distraction the civil State endows them with benefices or worldly freeholds Honors and priviledges It also allots them publick and Authorized places for these Ministrations and makes Civil Laws requiring people duly to resort to them and punishing all disturbers of them and such as carry themselves indecently thereat It likewise adds a secular jurisdiction to the spiritual extending the spiritual jurisdiction to the Cognizance of Wills Marriages Benefices c. which are Civil matters and backing it by Temporal Accessions in the spiritual parts thereof making a mixture and Concurrence of Religious and civil powers in the spiritual Courts For thus the Ruâ—ricks it passes into Laws and the Canons also which are the Rules of exercising that jurisdiction it binds on the Subjects with the Kings Approbation and Ratification or with a Civil strengthing And the Spiritual censures or judgements according to these Rules it backs with civil penalties as imprisonment or with putting men under civil incapacities as to plead in an Action at Law or the like Now all these Temporal Helps and Accessions come not to the Bishops and Ministers immediately from Christ or as they are Ministers of Religion For His Kingdom is not of this world Nor was he whilst on earth any judge in civil matters Nor doth he confer any such worldly powers or grant any such commissions But all these secular benefices and fortifications in all the parts of the spiritual Ministry are the gifts of Princes They flow from their favour to the Church or from their taking upon them to be its Temporal Patrons or it's Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers And as the Bishops and Ministers of Christ hold them only by their commission So may they lose them by their recalling it So that although the state has no power either to give or to deprive the Ministers of Christ of their mere spiritual powers Yet has it a direct Authority to grant or deprive them of these Temporal Additionals And therefore the Bishops and Ministers of Christ in an incorporate Church when they are deprived by their Rightful Prince or by a Legal State must exercise their mere spiritual powers in the foresaid Cases without any of these civil effects or mixtures That is they can only Administer the Word and prayers and Sacraments
and let in members by baptism and on just cause cast them out by excommunication and ordain others that shall hold on from time to time to do the same But in discharge of these mere spiritual powers they cannot claim the establish'd places wherein to assemble for these Ministrations nor any enforcement of Civil Laws to make men duly frequent them and to hinder all from disturbing them or from demeaning themselves disorderly or irreverently at them Nor can they claim any secular benefices for maintenance of those who Minister therein nor to have any Cognizance of Wills Tyths or other Temporal matters nor to have their Canons made Regal injunctions or their Rubricks made Parliamentary Laws and the breakers thereof punishable by Civil Magistrates in their estates or Persons nor their spiritual censures to bring men under civil incapacities or make them lyable to civil punishments or the like The state that gave these Civil Accessions to the Bishops and Pastors in their incorporation has call'd them back and taken them away in their deprivation So that now to stick to Christ they must quit the benefits of incorporation and the Favor of Princes And as men left to their naked spiritual powers which no rightful state can deprive them of be content to exercise their spiritual Ministrations in the foresaid cases not as in an endowed and secularly protected but as in a persecuted or secularly destitute Church And as the state has power over all these secular endowments of the spiritual ministration because it conferr'd them So has it 2. Over some other Powers which belong'd to the Church whilst it kept separate but which it gives up to the Civil State during the benefit of incorporation with it For some powers the Church may have no necessity to insist on either for the sake of Religion or of the Souls of Men. And such powers for the greater benefit of incorporation it may be free to part with Thus provided the substance of Religion were secured and kept up among men in all necessary points of Worship and Doctrine and the main of discipline were taken care for by Canons already allowed as it was on the submission of our Church and Clergy made under King Henry the eighth the Church might be free by Compromise to agree that it would exercise no Canons already made but such as were consistent with the Kings Prerogative and the Laws of the Land And that in Case of any others a stop should be put to the proceedings of the spiritual courts by secular Prohibitions And that the Bishops and Clergy should not meet to make more or Assemble in Synod or Convocation but when summon'd thither by the Kings writ Nor any of their agreements should be given out for Canons or Orders but what he allow'd to pass under his Ratification And that after they were passed in things Dispensable on just cause in any particular case he should have the chief power to Grant a Dispensation That all Bishops coming in to Govern this Church according to the foresaid Rules and Prescriptions should be of his Nomination And that the Advancement of all Ministers to beneficed and civilly fortifyed Cures and Administrations should be according to the Rights of Patronage establish'd by the Laws and such like These and such like powers are naturally resident in the Church it self in a separate state or when it stands-upon its own bottom and is not incorporated For as a society it must have power in it self to make needful and wholesome Rules of Government from time to time and to have its Bishops and Ministers meet together as they can that they may make them and to appoint persons who shall be entrusted with the Administration thereof And accordingly whilst the Church was kept separate from the State and persecuted by it these powers were exercised by the Church and by its Bishops and Pastors under all the Heathen Persecutions During which the Clergy under their Bishops and the Bishops under their Metropolitanes were convened and met in Synods and made Canons and decided Controversies and sentenced Criminals and fill'd up vacancies in Presbyteries or Bishopricks having a New Bishop elected by the Metropolitane and Bishops of the Province or sometimes by the Clergy and People of the Diocess and the like Indeed as good subjects of the state they are bound to keep all innocent state Laws and cannot by any devised Canons of their own cast off their Obligation or forbid themselves or the Church to pay a due civil obedience by observance thereof So that they have no power in any condition of making any Church Canons which require subjects to act against innocent state constitutions Nor may they Lawfully refuse when the state calls them to meet together in Synods or otherwise but as Good Subjects are obliged to pay a ready obedience and to appear upon its summons These are only proper expressions of civil subjection from which the Church can in no state or condition plead exemption But tho' they may not disobey the state summons yet when it meddles not therewith in a separate condition they have power to assemble themselves as they can and as need requires taking care to do it in such ways as will make it least jealous of them And when Assembled tho' they can make or inforce no Canons to defeat any innocent civil constitutions they have power in such separate state to make others which are consistent with them and to exercise the other now mention'd powers as I say the Church did in the primitive persecutions But when it became incorporate and was obliged by the favors and priviledges of the state the Church by agreements partly express and partly by Tacit and practical carryed in prescription and the practice of times gave up these and such like powers residing otherwise in it self to the Civil Magistrates who were thus obligingly become its Patrons and Nursing Fathers Since the Emperors became Christians the Affairs of the Church have Depended upon them and the greatest Councils have been held and still are held at their pleasure was the observation of Socrates in the Preface to his Fifth Book of the History of the Church These it parted with to the civil power for its Greater Honor. And also to secure it of its Good Behaviour being tyed thereby to a compliance in things which it was not bound to insist on for the sake of Religion and of a Good Conscience and to prevent all jarring and interfereing with that power in whose Favor and Society it found so great benefit seeking herein to keep up that Beneficial kindness and Correspondence which is between them And these it gave up to it by Degrees and more in some places and less in others Being put upon parting with less at first and with more afterwards especially after the Papal Usurpations in the Western Church grew so very troublesome and prejudicial to Princes and their Kingdoms in point of investitures Appeals c.
Appeals particularly aimed at is that which was claimed here by the Popes of Rome They had wrested from the Crown the foresaid Soveraignty both over Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes For as to Ecclesiastical Persons they claimed an exemption for them as not answerable in Civil Courts but Cognizable only by themselves And as to Ecclesiastical Ministrations as back'd by secular benefices and Ecclesiastical Causes as mixt in the Ecclesiastical Courts with Civil Priviledges and Jurisdiction they disclaimed subordination to the Crown and asserted a supremacy to themselves therein For they made themselves supream here in investitures into benefices and preferments and to have the chief power by their Legates of calling our convecations of passing and ratifying all our Decrees Canons and Constitutions of granting dispensations from them of having their decrees take place of the Prerogatives of the Crown or of the Customs of the Realm of holding courts and of receiving Appeals from any of our spiritual courts and judicatures and the like All which civil powers over Ecclesiastical Persons and subordination of Ecclesiastical causes proceeding by the foresaid mixture of secular fortifications benefices and jurisdictions the statutes Articles injunctions and Canons of this Church and Realm about Supremacy abolish in the Popes and assert to the Crown to which they Anciently did and of right should belong So that this Soveraign Civil Power over all Ecclesiastical Persons as their subjects and this Subordination of all Ecclesiastical Causes to it because of the Concurrence and intermixture of the foresaid civil priviledges and juridictions therewith and that in opposition to the papal pretences in these points is the Ecclesiastical supremacy vested in the King by our Church and Laws The Popes spiritual Usurpation upon this Church was shaken off by asserting to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Brittish Churches Ancient and independant Primacy Which did Right to the King too it being against his Prerogative that any Foreigner who doth not own himself to be one of his Subjects should have any Power in his Dominions And his Civil Usurpation on the Crown in respect to Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes among its Subjects was thrown out by asserting of the Kings Supremacy But when the Supremacy speaks such a civil power over the persons of Ecclesiasticks as they are its subjects and such subordination of Ecclesiastical causes thereto as they are united to secular benefices and jurisdictions Yet at the same time as I have shewn doth it disclaim all pretence to meer spiritual powers or to the Soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders Of it self it can neither give nor recall them Nor stop the Ministrations thereof in any of those Cases where Christ requires them All it can do there is to withdraw its Civil incorporation from those who have these mere spiritual powers and are bound for the sake of Religion and of the Souls of Men to proceed in the exercise thereof But still that exercise and administration which hangs on anothers Commission will go on upon its own bottom and must be discharged as it can under the opposition instead of the former incorporation of state or under a civil Persecution And this continuance of such Ministrations in such Cases notwithstanding the deposition of state I think may fairly be concluded from the Concessions of those who have undertaken to plead for the Authority of state deprivations and to press them on the suffering Clergy at such times We are told by one from Mr. Mason that a state deposition of a Bishop is not by way of Degradation from his orders as if he had them not but of exclusion from the exercise thereof And that not absolutely as if he could exercise his office no where but after a sort that he should not do it as to their subjects nor in their dominions And by another that a state deprivation doth not concern the Character or Ecclesiastical Communion as an Ecclesiastical Deprivation doth but only concerns the exercise of his Episcopal Authority in any Diocess within the Dominions of that State or enjoying any Ecclesiastical Benefice in it Now since such state deprivation neither concerns the Character nor the Communion of the Church 't is plain he is a Bishop still notwithstanding their deprivation and such a Bishop as without any fault in Church Communion all good Christians may Communicate with And since his exercise of Episcopal Powers is thereby excluded only from the Dioceses and subjects of their dominions it is still the same it was as to all other places And what is the hinderance of exercising the same still in those dioceses and among that Kings Subjects One reason already cited is because he cannot exercise them in the incorporate way or in injoyment of any Ecclesiastical Benefice But besides another I conceive is suggested viz. Regard to state Authority or civil obedience Though neither the Faith nor the Communion of the Church is here concerned yet says the Learned Author last mention'd the Authority of the State is which obliges both the Clergy and Laity in these Cases So that although neither his powers are thereby vacated nor their dependance and communion with him is broken off on other accounts yet in Civil Obedience it seems by his account both Bishops and People on such state deprivation are bound to acquiesce But now if they are left in full Possession of their spiritual powers and of the communion of the Church 't is plain they cannot be debarr'd of their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases nor the people of their attendance on them in any regard to secular inhibitions or to shew Civil Obedience For we must never hear Kings against Christ or obey them when they bar us of doing what he bids us do And these Ministrations he requires and calls for in the aforesaid Cases as I have shewn and also for the peoples communion with and attendance on them And it matters not that they cannot Minister any longer in the incorporate way or under shelter of Civil Laws and enjoyment of benefices For true Ministers of Christ and of Souls must depise benefices and secular incorporations when they come in competition with his service and Minister his word and worship at their hazard and under persecutions Besides if as he owns such deprivation doth not affect the Communion of the Church it leaves the subjects of those dioceses still under the same Religious and Church Principles of dependance and communion with their Bishops as they were before it For though the state should not meddle therein the Church has Principles of this dependance and communion of its own Christ requires his Church should be one and that is by ahhereing to their Bishops whom he has made the Heads of Union And these it seems the deprivation of state doth not at all Cancel only the Authority of state as is said but not Church Communion being concerned therein So that such Bishops deprived by the state continue still to be Christs
Bishops and Heads of Union in those dioceses according to his Rules and Principles of Union And then how shall a mere command of state dissolve the tye made by him or break communion betwixt their Bishop and them Whilst Christ by conscionable obligations of Church Unity bids them adhere to their Bishop and keep one with him must they give ear to the state that bids them divide from him I think on second thoughts he will not make Church Union or the dependance of people on their Bishops so unsettled or precarious a thing as either to have no fixt and conscionable principles ingaging and holding all good Members thereto of its own or to have it in the power of a secular state when it pleases to set them aside and over-rule them CHAP. III. Remarques on the Preceding Account of the Force of State-Deprivations and instances of Deprivations alledg'd to the contrary consider'd and clear'd up FRom what I have said in the foregoing Chapters about the power of the Civil State and the effect of its Deprivations I think it may appear that the Bishops and Ministers of Christ continue still invested with their Ministerial Powers and can receive no discharge from the exercise thereof in the formention'd Cases by any State Deprivations And of this I observe from what has been hitherto discoursed 1. First That this is not to deny the Civil Power the Cognizance of Bishops and Ministers in Civil matters Allegiance 't is true is a civil matter and most nearly concerns the civil peace Indeed it is not only Civil but also Religious For when men are requir'd to Swear it and in all Churches to pray conformably to it Solemn Oaths and Prayers are most sacred and Religious Acts. And Allegiance in it self is a moral duty for due payment whereof all stand answerable to God in the last judgment as well as a civil or state-duty for which they are answerable to the state in judicatures of this world But it is such a matter of Religion I say as is also a civil matter subject to civil Cognizance or a point of State too And if this is refused to a Rightful state it is not only an offence against Morality and Religion which spiritual Judicatures and Synods may punish with Canonical Depositions But also an offence against the state which such Rightful state may punish by state punishments as it may all other state offences and in Ecclesiasticks when they are guilty thereof as in all other persons And among these punishments by Deprivation though not of mere spiritual powers the state having no Authority to take away those mere spiritual powers which it never gave yet of all that is Temporal in Church-Ministrations so as that such refusers shall no longer hold benefices and preferments or state endowments Yea and even as to those mere spiritual powers it may make them of themselves to forbear any further exercise thereof to keep state-favors and endowments to the Church when their deprivation is in a case that concerns only their own personal rights and priviledges but not the Truths or cause of Christ as was before observed But if at any time or in any Kingdom this should be refused to an Usurping State which has no Legal Right but which calls for this Allegiance Oaths and solemn Prayers and Religious services conformable thereto against him who has the Right Then such refusal is neither a Religious nor a Civil offence neither against God nor Gods Vicegerent Divine or Humane Laws but a due obedience to both And this brings on the Case of all the foresaid immoralities Damnifying Religion and endangering Souls wherein faithful Bishops and Clergy whatever they incur by standing to their Spiritual Ministrations must not let them fall â—n regard to any Deprivation of Usurping Powers Nay nor in regard to the most rightful States should they issue out against them state-deprivations to stop their Ministrations against any such like immoralities or other irreligious and endangering ways And this Limitation of the regard they ought to have to his deprivation is not to deny the Rightful Civil Soveraign any part of his just power over Ecclesiasticks But only to deny him such a power as would leave our Saviour Christ himself who is his Master as well as theirs â—o have no power over them Or such a power as should enable him to discharge them of what Christ has given in charge to them to take away what powers he confers or to loose what he has tyed on But under all this discharge of their foresaid Ministrations notwithstanding his inhibitions and deprivations it allows the Civil Magistrate as much Power over their persons to mulct banish or put them to death on just cause as they are his Subjects as over any others And to have power also over the mixt way of administrations so as to be able to deprive them though not of all exercise of their spiritual powers yet from holding or exercising them with Temporal jurisdictions effects and priviledges after the way of an incorporate Church And to have those other foremention'd Prerogatives of conveneing Synods passing Canons sending prohibitions to stop any process in prejudice of the Prerogative or of the Laws c. Which for the favor and continuance of those secular mixtures have accrued by incorporation and belong to Christian Kings And these things which are allow'd are as much as any of them can claim of Ecclesiasticks as they are Kings And on the other side those things which are denyed are such as they would abhor to challenge or desire who would own any subjection to Christ or bound their pretensions as Christian Kings 2. Secondly nor is it to set the Church above the State as the Papal Usurpation pretended to do But only to set Almighty God and his blessed Son Jesus Christ above it Not leaving subjects whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks in complyance with any the most rightful state to disobey God Nor Ministers to let fall any Services and Ministrations of Religion or cure of Souls which Christ calls them to exercise yea not only when the state is consenting but when it gain-says it and doth all it can either to disable or discourage them from it he not having thought fit to stand to the courtesy of any civil state whether or no the Ministry of saving Souls should be prosecuted and whether he should be served and have a Church on Earth But at the same time it sets God and Religion above their Power it subjects all both Laicks and Ecclesiasticks to the same in other things Allowing every rightful civil state the chief civil power over all Ecclesiastical Persons And the chief civil power over all Ecclesiastical Causes so far forth and so long as they are mixed and compounded with civil benefices and jurisdictions And a civil power to compel Church Men by civil penalties to do the duty of their Spiritual Ministrations and to hold them under a necessity of not resisting by Arms but of
Truths or Commands of Christ he is Christs true Bishop still in that Church and his faithful Peoples spiritual Head for all that unjust sentence For Christ stands by him who stands by his Doctrines and Precepts and unjust Depositions on these Accounts have no more validity in his sight than unjust Excommunications for the same Accounts have as has been already shew'd But if there is no Interposition of Synods but a mere Deprivation of State that will much less do it For there is a spiritual Subjection and Dependance of People to their Bishops especially to such as suffer for adhering to Christian Truths or Precepts which the civil State cannot break or dissolve Christ himself by his Institution has made a spiritual Relation between them and antecedently obliged his People to this Union and Adherence to them as they are vice Christi his Ministers and Vice-gerents as St. Cyprian says Kings and Civil States may come afterwards and tye this spiritual Union and Adherence faster on by temporal Dependances and Enforcements And what they lay on they may take off again But the spiritual Relation and Obligations do not depend on them but on Christ himself Religion lays them on and leaves it not in the Power of any Prince to cancel or discharge them They stood fixed whilst the Church was separate from the State before any secular Powers came in to protect it and will still continue if they turn all their Power to persecute and oppress it Nor has our Lord left it to their courtesy whether there shall be any spiritual Relation betwixt his People and their Pastors whether they shall keep up their spiritual Relation and Dependance and he shall have a Church on Earth or no as is before discoursed more at large The Learned Author of the Vindication of Their Majesties Authority in filling the vacant Sees owns the Advancement of George the Cappadocean into the place of Athanasius to have been Schismatical and an Usurpation and Breach of Catholick Communion The setting up of this Anti Bishop was by a Deprivation of State For Constantius took away the Churches from Athanasius and his Adherents which is the State-way of depriving Bishops and gave them to George the Anti-Bishop and his Adherents Nay he sends an Edict to the Senate and People of Alexandria requiring them on their Allegiance instead of sticking to him as their spiritual Head with the Affection and Dependance of Members with their united Force to persecute Athanasius And made it criminal in any Persons as Sozomen relates to harbour or conceal him And accordingly the Imperial Ministers and Praefects violently drove him and the Orthodox out of the Churches and by extream Force put George and the Arians in possession thereof And having placed this Anti-Bishop upon his Throne with all secular Cruelties and barbarous Usage compell'd the Clergy and People to acknowledge and submit to him It was also brought about by Deprivation of Synods For after the Sardican Synod which restored him Athanasius had been again deposed both by the Synod of Arles and afterwards by the Synod of Milan wherein besides a few from the East above three hundred Bishops of the West met as Sozomen says and condemned him And the setting up of George against him after this was in a Synod viz. the Synod of Antioch which declared the Uncanonicalness of his Restitution and Ordained George as a former Synod at that place had Ordained Gregory before to be Bishop of Alexandria in his Room These indeed as the Author of the Vindication suggests were Heretical Synods And Dionysius of Alba Eusebius of Vercelles Paulinus of Tryers and Rhodanus and Lucifer who at Milan protested against their Proceedings declared that thro' Athanasius the Emperor and the Arians his Enemies were striking at the Catholick Faith which the event of things and the Proceedings afterwards in the Synods of Ariminum and Seleucia verified as Sozomen observes But in way of external Judicature the Deprivation tho' of Heretical Synods must at least carry with it as much Plea as Deposition by no Synods can pretend to there being more shew of Ecclesiastical Authority in Acts of Heretical Synods than in none at all But for all this Deposition both by the Imperial Edicts and Synodical Sentences since the true Cause thereof was his firmness and constancy to the Catholick Faith Athanasius as the foresaid Author owns still kept on his spiritual Relation and the People their spiritual and Religious Obligations to and Dependance on him So that George as he says was an usurping Invader a breaker of Catholick Communion and a Ring-leader of a Schism in the Catholick Church when he set up against him And the same it would be in the case of any other Bishop deprived by the like Authority for his Fidelity and fixt Adherence to any other Truths or Laws of Christ. For his faithful Bishops must stick to him in all other Points of Christian Truth and Practice as well as in the Orthodoxy of the Nicene Faith And that against the Deprivations of all other States and Synods as well as of the Arians And their sticking to Christ in these Points can give no liberty to their Clergy and People to break off from them Their stedfastness therein must tye all faithful Members faster to them but can never be expounded as a conscionable discharge of their spiritual Obligations and Dependance on them If a Schism is made in a Church then by a defection from the rightful Orthodox Bishop thereof laid aside either by a Civil State or Ecclesiastical Synod only for his faithful Adherence to the Doctrines or Laws of Christ or by turning over to an Anti-Bishop set up against him 'T is plain the Anti-Bishops with their Makers and Adherents make the Schism They were all Members of the one Body whilst they kept subject and united to the Rightful Bishop who is the Head of it But when they broke off from him they divided themselves from the Body and formed themselves under an opposite Head into a new and opposite Body But he and his Adherents still preserve the Unity of the true Body The breakers off make the Division but they preserve their Union As those Branches do which still grow to the Tree when others are broke off from it and those Streams which still communicate with the Fountain when others are stopt and those Rays which keep connected to the Sun when others are interrupted Which Similitudes St. Cyprian makes choice of to set off the Unity of the Church and to shew that they preserve this Union who keep to the same Head and Origine What they do therefore in these Cases by sticking to each other as they did before when others break off is not to make the Schism but only not to follow and run into it And they are no more chargeable with the division for this than the General and his faithful Souldiers would be in an Army for
are not only set up but justified 1. In some particular Cases especially of general Concern CHAP. IV. More of the Cases wherein Faithful Bishops and Ministers are bound to stick to their Pastoral Powers and Ministrations THey are still more bound to this Ministration when 2. This Justification of immoral Practices is by eluding and vacating of moral Precepts opposite thereto by Doctrinal Salvo's Instances of these Salvo's How they vacate the respective moral Precepts Such Salvo's make a Change in moral Doctrine though Men still own the Duties under their general Names The Duty of Pastors to defend and bear up moral Duties against such Salvo's by their Ministrations shewn at large And this when such corrupt Salvo's are only the Doctrines of the Pastors not the Determinations of the Church They are more strictly obliged thereto if the immoral Practices justified by such Salvo's are 1. extreamly Scandaelous to Religion 2. Generally Preach'd up by Seducers Or 3. Come strongly recommended to carnal Passions and Interests chiefly if driven on by general Persecutions CHAP. V. Of the Obligations to actual Ministration which lie upon them in the foresaid Cases THese deduced from their Office and Characters as they relate 1. To God and stand in Place 1. Of his Messengers 2. Of his Ministers and Ambassadors The various Obligations laid on them thereto by this 3. Of his Co-workers 2. As they relate to Religion as they are Ministers and Stewards of its Word and Mysteries The Obligations arising hence CHAP. VI. More of the Obligations to actual Ministration which lie upon them in the foresaid Cases 3. AS they relate to the Souls of Men and are set over the Church 1. As Watch-men 2. As Overseers 3. As Guides or Leaders 4. As Pastors or Shepheards 5. As Doctors or standing Teachers of the Church As Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth Their Obligations to such exercise in the foresaid Cases from all the foresaid Characters Different Degrees in this Obligation A Spirit of Love and Zeal to Christ and his Church which stand not upon strict Terms the Spring and Principle of this Exercise How this clears the Duty of deprived Bishops and Clergy as to this Exercise on such Revolutions Answerable to this Obligation of the Pastors to afford such Ministrations at such Times is the Peoples Obligation to adhere to them and attend on them for Participation thereof PART II. Of Deprivations by Civil States or Ecclesiastical Synods CHAP. I. Of the Force of State Deprivations in the foresaid Cases THE Plea of a Deprivation of State represented in Bar of their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases Concerning which 1. This is to be press'd only under a supposed Legal and Rightful State 2. It s Deprivation is no conscionable Discharge from their Spiritual Ministrations in the foresaid Cases This is meant only of pure Spiritual Ministrations Not 3. of any Temporal Accessions and Inforcements of those Ministrations over which the State has Power because it conferr'd them As also over some other Powers belonging to the Church whilst it kept separate which it gives up to the State during its Incorporation with it These it gives up 1. with a Salvo to the Interests of Religion and of Souls 2. Only whilst it continues protected not when the State puts True Religion under Persecution CHAP. II. Of the Kings Ecclesiastical Supremacy Received and Asserted by our Church It lies not in his being invested with or having a Sovereign Disposal of the Powers of Orders But 1. in retaining his civil Power over all Persons whether Lay-Men or Ecclesiasticks In Virtue of this civil Power over the Persons of Ecclesiasticks he can command them faithfully to discharge their Spiritual Functions 2. In the Subordination of Ecclesiastical Courts and Causes wherein Ecclesiasticks are content to act subordinately on the Score of their secular Mixtures and Jurisdictions And in holding all this 3. in Opposition and Bar of all other Earthly Dependance especially of all Forreign Iurisdiction and Appeals This Supremacy excludes not Spiritual Ministrations of deprived Clergy in the foresaid Cases This may be collected from their Adversaries Concessions CHAP. III. Remarques on the Preceeding Account of the Force of State Deprivations and Instances of Deprivations alledg'd to the contrary considered and cleared up THE preceeding Account of the Force of State Deprivations is not 1. To deny the civil Power the Cognizance of Bishops and Ministers in civil Matters Nor any Iust Power over Ecclesiasticks 2. Nor to set the Church above the State as the Papal Usurpations pretend to do Nor to mistake or overlook the Condition of an incorporate Church The Deprivation of Abiathar by Solomon considered and cleared As also the frequent Depositions of the Jewish High Priests by the Roman Governours And of the Greek Patriarchs by the Turks And of the Popish Bishops by a Commission of State pursuant to an Act of Parliament in Queen Mary's Days CHAP. IV. Of Deprivations by Synods in the foresaid Cases DEprivation of Bishops most fit and pr per for Synods Their Deprivation no Discharge from Ministrations in the foresaid Cases as shown by reasons And by the Practice of the Church This is meant when Synods deprive for the cause of the Truth not of other mere Personal â—rimes where the Injured must acquiesce till relieved by regular Sentence â—hat regard is to be had to the Decisions of Synods in these Cases PART III. Of SCHISM CHAP. I. Of the Nature of Shism And of the Schism of particular Members from their own Church in throwing off Subjection and Dependance on their own Bishops OF the Union of a Society which Schism breaks One way of Uniting Societies is by Uniting them under the same Heads These in Church Societies are the Bishops Union of particular Members to their own Church is in Keeping Subject and Dependant on their own Lawful Bishops And their Schism lies in breaking off from them especially in seting up Opposite or Anti-Bishops against them So 1. in such Oppositions the Anti-Bishop and his Adherents make the Schism if the former Bishop was Orthodox and is still Rightful Bishop of the Church Of George the Cappadocian and Athanasius 2. The Unity of the Church doth not go with the greatest Numbers What distinguisheth Meetings in the Unity of the Church from Schismatical Conventicles Schismaticks too oft the more Numerous Party Much less doth it go with Places of Assemblies 3. Therefore in pressing Ecclesiastical Unity Men must be press'd to keep United to their own Orthodox Rightful Bishop not to any Opposite Bishop The Gospel Precepts of Love and Peace c. all on this Side and not to be urged the other way Such a Schism not to be cared by the Recessions of the Suffering Bishops in the foresaid Cases CHAP. II. Of the Schism of particular Churches from other Sister Churches by rejecting Fraternal Communion therewith UNity of one Body to be kept up among all particular Churches This is chiefly by the Union and Accord
Review from Rome or at Rome for all Matters Ecclesiastical and Temporal Ecclesiastical by his Bishops Temporal by his Judges says Bishop Bramhall So that the Legal Supremacy of our Kings in spiritual Matters lyes in their power of doing them all without any Interposition of Forreign Bishops who are none of their Subjects by their own Bishops and Clergy whom they can command and compel to do their duties therein as their civil Soveraigns And this way the civil Soveraignty doth not drown or swallow up the spiritual powers of Ecclesiasticks but supposes them all the while peculiarly and immediately vested therewith But only retains its own secular power over their Persons as well as others whereby it can oblige them to a due discharge of their sacred powers according to the Rules of their spiritual Functions as occasion requires It lyes moreover 2. Secondly In the Subordination of Ecclesiastical Courts and Causes wherein Ecclesiasticks are content to act subordinately on the score of their secular mixtures and jurisdictions as in Beneficiary Matters Censures and other things of that Cognizance To give more leisure and encouragement to the Ministers of Religion in attending their spiritual Administrations the civil State has endowed their spiritual Cures with temporal Benefices or Preferments And to beget a greater Regard and a more general and aweful Observance of Ecclesiastical Determinations the civil power as I before observed is annexed and mingled with the spiritual in these Causes and a Concurrence is therein made of Temporal and Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions The Matters cognizable there are not only mere spiritual but some of them of a temporal Nature Such are all Causes Testamentary or about Wills the Causes of Matrimony and Divorces and those about Right of Tythes Oblations and Obventions the Knowledge whereof by the goodness of Princes of this Realm says the Statute for Restraint of Appeals and by the Laws and Customs of the same appertaineth to the spiritual Jurisdiction of this Realm And the Canons and Rubricks which are to rule all Proceedings are not only the Prescriptions of Bishops and Priests but Royal and civil Injunctions Like as also the Antient Canons were by the piety of the Primitive Emperors We decree that the holy Ecclesiastical Canons either those passed in the four General Councils or those confirmed by them be in place of Laws says the Emperor Justinian Our own Laws will have the Divine Canons not to be of less force or effect than Laws and what the sacred Canons forbid that also do our Laws coerce and abolish says the Code And as it was in the case of those Antient Canons under those Emperors so in case of ours too under our Kings the Judgments and Sentences upon them rest not in mere spiritual but draw on temporal Effects and Incapacites which effect the Sufferers in their Persons and Estates as well as in their spiritual Concerns As subjecting them to a Writ of Imprisonment rendring them uncapable to commence or carry on a Suit at Law or the like Now for the favour of this State-Concurrence in all these Causes that under the Union of two such different Powers there may be no clashing the Church submits to act in subordination and the King in all these Causes and mixt Jurisdictions is supreme That is no Synod of Ecclesiasticks is to meet for making Canons or Constitutions but when by his Writ he convenes them Nor are any Agreements of theirs when assembled to be publish'd as Canons or Ordinances till he approves or ratifies them Nor any of those introduced formerly to be executed and put in use further than they consist with the Kings prerogative Royal and with the Laws Customs and Statutes of the Realm All which are provided for in the Statute of Submission And when Canons are thus made by his Ratification it submits also that in certain Cases which are declared by other Acts they may be relaxed by his Royal Dispensation and that as in making Canons so also in granting Dispensations from them he shall be supreme That no Persons shall be elected Bishops of beneficed and temporally endowed Churches but who have the Kings Letters missive as is provided in another Statute or who are of his Nomination That when Ecclesiasticks sit to judge in their Courts by those Laws all their Proceedings in that Judicature shall be subject to the Kings Prohibition to stop their further hearing of a Cause which by Allowance or Custom is of another Cognizance or to his Commission of Review upon Appeals made to him after they have given sentence So that in these Courts there is a subjection and subordination to the King both as to the Laws they proceed by which are the Kings Laws as not passing or being introduced without his Approbation or Sufferance and as to the Judgments there passed according to them And because of this subordination of the Bishops and Clergy in their pure spiritual Jurisdictions for the Civil Soveraigns addition of such Temporal or State Concurrence the King is declared supream in all these Causes Thus much is declared in the Passages already mention'd from the Statutes settling the Kings supremacy And thus 't is said in another Statute of the Review of the Institution of a Christian Man that King Henry 8th set it forth as supream Head of the Church of England because he call'd the Convocation together to frame and publish â—â— by his Consent And thus in his Declaration prefix'd to the 39 Articles of Religion King Charles the First sets forth his supremacy over the Church by this subordination of the Church-men and because in making any Canons or Constitutions they must have his License for their Assembling and their Orders and Agreements confirmed by his Approbation and executed all with subordination to the Laws and Customs of the Land for preservation whereof they are subject to the Temporal Prohibition And in respect of both these parts of civil power viz Both in having this civil command of spiritual persons and this civil power over spiritual causes by reason of such secular mixtures it lyes moreover in having the same 3. Thirdly in opposition and bar of all other earthly dependance especially of all Foreign jurisdiction and appeals He is the one Supream Head of all both Spiritual and Temporal next under God saith the Statute for Restraint of Appeals And the claim of Supremacy in the Queens injunctions is so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And the Thirty Seventh Article of Religion the first of King James the Firsts Canons and especially the Oath of Supremacy doth most fully disclaim and exclude all Foreign jurisdiction herein And the extending of the Kings Power of Judicature over all Persons Ecclesiasticks as well as others thereby is for excluding all Foreign Powers from being Judges in our Kings Dominions as we heard from King James's Apology for the Oath of Allegiance The Foreign jurisdiction and
the Cause of Athanasius Pope Julius gave Notice of the time appointed for it to the Eastern Bishops who had been Deposing Athanasius at Antioch and substituting Gregory in his place writing to them to send some of their number to clear the justice of their sentence and proceedings in that cause This is plain from Athanasius who says it was held after the Letters sent by Eusebius and after both the Eusebians and he himself had been cited to appear at it And also from Pope Julius 's Letters to them on the Request and at the Conclusion of the Roman Synod wherein he mentions the return of his Presbyters Elpidius and Philoxenus who were sent with the former Letter and the answer they had brought him from Eusebius and the Orential Bishops But before this first Letter to notifie the time appointed for the Roman Synod to the Orentials Julius on plain appearance that their sufferings were not for any other pretended Crimes but only on account of the Orthodox Faith had embraced the Communion of Athanasius and the other Deposed Bishops For Sozomen relates that on his receiving them to Communion he writ that Letter to the Orientals taxing their unjust sentences and attempts upon the Nicene Faith and calling them to the Synod to be held at Rome there to justifie their proceedings against them And in the Letter which the Orientals sent back to him which he received as I have now shewn before the sitting of the Roman Synod and which was read to the Bishops therein Assembled they complain of his having Communicated with Athanasius and his Adherents which they said was a Reproach cast on their Synods and an Abrogation of their sentence So that his disregard of the Synodical Deprivations of Athanasius and the other Orthodox Bishops Deposed in the Synods of Tyre or Antioch was not on account of their having been regularly reversed by any Superior External Judicature But it was as having been of no force and effect in themselves because passing on Christs Faithful Pastors for their Fidelity and Firmness to the True Christian Faith Besides when the Synod at Rome sate in the cause of Athanasius and the other Orthodox Bishops and Synodically admitted them to Communion I do not see how in the Regular way of External Judicature this could take off the Deprivations by the foremention'd Synods For the Synod at Rome was inferior in Number of Bishops Consisting as Athanasius says only of about Fifty Bishops Whereas the Synod of Tyre besides the Egyptians who came along with Athanasius Consisted of sixty Bishops met there from divers places says Socrates and the Synod of Antioch which again Deposed him and the other Orthodox Bishops consisted of Ninty seven as Sozomen reports And moreover the Synod of Rome consisted of Bishops who lived more remote and further off and were Subjects of another Prince viz. Constans Whereas the Synods which deprived them Consisted of the Neighbouring Bishops some of them Comprovincials to the accused parties and were Subjects of their own Emperor viz. Constantius whose censure may seem more concluding on the Fellow-Bishops of their own Empire So that Julius and his Fifty Bishops in the Roman Synod could not reverse the Depositions of those former Synods in Regular way of outward Judicatures But yet finding whatever other things were pretended that in reality they had been deposed in those Synods for their Firmness to the Nicene aith in prejudice whereof there lyes no power of depriving in any Synods before any Superior or more general Council had reversed their depositions in Regular way of External Judicature they took part and Communicated with Athanasius and the other Deprived Bishops And this the Faithful Aegyptians both Clergy and People had done without any regard to the Deprivation of those Synods all the time of Athanasius's forced absence from them and are applauded by Pope Julius for the same For in his Letter to the Church of Alexandria after the Synod of Sardica on the Restitution of Athanasius to his See he extols them for their firm and constant adherence to the right Faith and to him their Bishop who had been so glorious a Confessor and Maintainer thereof all the while he was violently torn from them and another obtruded on their Church in his room And like to this has been the Practice I think of all times For still as Errors and Corruptions in Doctrine Worship and Practice prevailed and became general in any places on any considerable opposition made to them by Christs faithful Ministers to silence Gain-sayers they have had the establishment of Synods And these Synods have anathematized the Truth condemned and deposed the Preachers and excommunicated and cast out the Adherents and Practicers thereof But yet the Preachers and Ministers of God's Worship and Truth have still held on their Ministrations and God's faithful People have stuck to them therein And under all the depositions and excommunications of Councils or Churches they have kept Communion with one another in these necessary Truths and Ways of God which Corrupt and Apostate Councils have anathematized Or else under that power of Error which has so often tyrannized over the Truth more especially in the Arian Persecutions and in the several steps and advancements of the Papal Corruptions the pure Worship and Doctrine of Christ had perish'd and all Face of a true and unadulterated Church had long since failed from off the Earth This I say in case of Depositions or other Censures for the Cause of the necessary Truths or Worship of Jesus Christ. In deprivations for other things or on pretence of mere personal Crimes the Case I grant may be otherwise For in them though the Sentence be unjust it is a personal Wrong and affects the sufferers themselves And in private sufferings 't is reasonable to bear much for Orders sake and to be tyed up to ways of Order for Redress So that such sufferers shall be bound to rest under the judicial Injustice till they can have it reversed in like sort as it was laid on viz. in way of Judiâ—ature or by Regular Appeals And accordingly in all depositions for such private or personal Crimes this is required by the Antient Canons If a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon say the Councils of Carthage and Sardica and the same Determinations says Balsamon are to be taken as meant of Lay-men too be deposed on pretence of his Idleness and Neglects let him not dare say they to go on or to assert his former Right of Communion during the time of his Excommunication till his Cause has had a new Cognizance and Examination or been heard over again And if before such re-hearing he presume to do otherwise he shall be judged say the Fathers at Cartharge thereby to have given sentence of Condemnation against himself But in Depositions or Excommunications for doctrinal Truths and spiritual Ministrations there is not only a Wrong to themselves but
a Wrong to Religion And there they must go on for the sake of Gospel-worship and doctrines which are Christs Cause though they would be content to suffer and sit still so far as it is their own And accordingly the Council of Constantinople entituled Prima Secunda excepts the Case of Heretical Prelates promoting or pushing on any Heresies when it requires Inferiors to stay for a synodical Cognizance before they break off dependance from their Prelates in all other Cases Though Synods therefore are the most Venerable Ecclesiastical Judicature here on Earth yet is all the Obligation and Authority of their decisions or sentences within this Compass They have no Effect or Force against the Truth as St. Paul says or against any for adhering to it So that they are to affect none who have Christ and his Truth plainly on their side Nor do their judgments and definitions bar those who are concerned to take Notice of them from examining and judging for themselves whether they strike at any part of Christian Truth and Religion before they pay Obedience to them I grant there ought to be great deference to their determination and all private Persons are to use great modesty and care in judging after them and need to look that the blow and destruction thereby made to any necessary Truth or Practice of our holy Religion be very plain before they over-look and disregard what they order But still judge they must because in all their belief and practice in these things it is not any implicit dependance on men or a blind obedience to any humane sentence or decision but observance of the Truth it self or of what Christ has appointed in his Word that must justifie them And therefore if on an humble and diligent examination and by plain evidence it appear that in their definitions of Articles or censure of Persons they strike at the Truth and seek the overthrow of any part of Religion their Acts are to be esteemed as of no effect and all concerned Parties both Clergy and People are to go on doing the same in Religious Ministration and Communion as if there were no such thing More just and authoritative Synods they will be like to seek and appeal from these in a regular way to others more general which in external way of humane judicature shall reverse their unjust sentences But suffering all in the Cause of Truth and Religion they will not desist in the mean time but go on notwithstanding any such synodical Anathema or Deprivation in true spiritual Ministrations and Communion PART III. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Nature of Schism And of the Schism of Particular Members from their own Church in throwing off Subjection and Dependance on their own Bishops BY what I have offer'd about the Authority and effect of State-deprivations yea or even of the depositions of Synods too I think it may appear how the faithful Ministers of Christ are not disabled or discharged by any such deprivations from the exercise of their spiritual Ministrations whereto they stand bound by so many Obligations in the forementioned Cases But besides the deprivation of State some think the maintenance of Unity in the Church when that is like to be broken thereby ought to stop them of that Exercise And therefore for a further clearing of their duty in those Cases I shall procede 2. Secondly to shew That the preservation of external Communion and Peace in the Church ought not to debar or put by their due discharge thereof Admit say some that it were their duty to go on in their Ministrations for the service of Religion and of Souls in those cases where this can be done in maintenance of Unity and whilst the Church continues one Yet what will you say if such Ministration must unavoidably make or keep up a Schism Do not we all own that to be one of the greatest Banes to Religion and a most sinful and mischievous thing And if otherwise they ought to be held on ought not such Ministrations to be let fall rather than a Schism shall be made or kept up in the Church thereby That there will be a Schism in the Church in such cases is most apparent And that Schism is most dreadful to the Church full of Guilt as it is both the Breach of Unity and the Bane of Charity and an In-let of continual miseries and disturbances is no less apparent But in pressing the consideration thereof upon particular persons or parties for prevention or redress it is to be enquired first who makes it That will shew who ought to mend it but if they will not it may be enquired next who else can cure it Or what the sufferers in love of peace and preferring the Publick before themselves should give up for the Cure thereof that they may duly prize external Unity but not over-value it Or if through the Error or inflexibleness which God avert of those who are the Authors thereof it be already made and cannot be remedyed all are to consider lastly how they are to carry themselves towards the Makers of it and with whom they are to hold Communion To Clear these Points I shall say something I. To the Nature of Schism to shew when a Schism is made and by whom II. To those things which may be a just ground to disunite and break off either from any Persons or Churches without blame of Schism some things not being to be born nor others to be parted with for the love of external Peaâ—e and Union III. To the Communion of good Christians under a Schism and how they are to carry it towards Schismaticks 1. First I shall say something to the Nature of Schism to shew when a Schism is made and by whom Schism lyes in Breach of Union or in Making two or many out of one Schisms says St. Cyprian which cut or break the Unity or tear and divide that which should be kept together as one Body By Schism as St. Chrysostom notes One Church is broken into many Churches and the Unity thereof is abolish'd Accordingly the Members are call'd upon to be joyn'd together in the same mind and in speaking the same things that there be no Schisms 1 Cor. 1. 10. Not to set up an Independance among themselves and act separately but with mutual dependance and conjunction that there be no schism in the body 1 Cor. 12. 25. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 schisms are usually render'd divisions as 1 Cor. 10. and c. 11. 18. This Union which Schism breaks is the union of a society For the Church is a society of men Associated and incorporated together for the work and purposes of Religion 'T is call'd a Family or †Household or City which are all words Expressive of Society St Paul Styles it the City of the living God Heb. 12. 22. And tells the Christians at Ephesus that they are Fellow-Citizens with the Saints Eph. 2. 19. This
those who had been Ordained by them Besides all this instead of Anti-bishops being absolutely null and in reality no Bishops to heal and compose the differences of a miserably harassed and divided Church on such Competitions it has been sometimes agreed that whichsoever of them were the Right on the death of either the Survivor should be owned and the Church should have no other Bishop and so all the Ordinations and Episcopal Acts therein should pass through his hands and stand on his Authority whilst he lived Thus it was at Antioch where the Church was divided into Two Parts 〈◊〉 for the cause of the Faith which was common to them both but of the Bishops as Socrates says some owning and adhering to Meleâ—ius and others to Paulinus For to heal and close this lamentable Schism it was agreed which Sozomen calls an admirable Counsel and expedient that on the death of either the survivor should hold the See alone for his Life without being confronted and opposed by the Ordination of any other Person To prevent which an Oath was exacted of all in that Church who seemed to stand fairest for the Episcopate and of Flavianus among the rest that on the death of either of the Bishops they would not be Ordain'd Bishop of Antioch whilst the other survived Which Agreement and Oath being afterwards broke by Flavianus when on the death of Meletius he was Ordained Bishop against Paulinus cost him so much trouble and difficulty as he found to get himself received for the Bishop thereof both in Egypt Arabia and Cyprus and at Rome and among the Western Bishops afterwards Thus though Men in a Schism did ill in Ordaining others yet were not those Ordinations null in themselves but really conferred the powers of Orders which the Persons might exercise if the Church pleased And when once the Persons were reconciled and had satisfied the Church for their Schism they have often been allow'd to officiate in Virtue of that Ordination without being Ordained over again by the greatest Councils and through the early and later Ages of the Church And this shews that their Ordinations were not null in themselves For if such Persons had never received any Spiritual powers in their Ordinations they had none to exercise And had the Church been of this perswasion it would never have admitted them to exercise those POWERS which it believed were never Conferred on them But though these Men even after they had faln into a Schism or others who were Ordained therein had Orders yet was it in the power of the Church to deny them the Ministerial Exercise of their Orders Men must have the Communion of the Church as well as Orders before they can exercise their Orders and minister to the Faithful in any Religious Assemblies And though their Schism doth not utterly devest or exclude them from the Powers of Orders yet it doth from the Communion of the Church without which the Faithful who are not to seek but to shun the Ministrations of Schismaticks and Excommunicate persons must not partake with them in any Exercise of Orders And to this Communion after once they have justly lost and faln from it they are to be restored again in Degree more or less and to be received to the Communion either only of Lay-members or else of Clergy and to officiate according to their former Honors as the Church pleaseth And as to this Admission and Allowance to exercise their Orders in its Communion the Church has acted variously according as it saw cause When Ordinations have been made against the Rules of Unity though the Offenders thereby received Orders yet in care of these Rules and to assert and keep up Discipline it has at some times denyed as well as at other times granted its Communion to them for their Exercise of the same Where it judged that Rigor expedient on their submission it would receive them to communicate as Lay-men But they should not be allow'd the Priviledges nor permitted to act and officiate as Bishops and Priests in her Communion nor should other Churches receive them and joyn with them as such till moreover satisfaction had been first given to those Rules of Unity in Ordinations which had been broken in theirs And this it has done not only in case of this great Rule of not Ordaining a Bishop into a full Church but also in case of other Rules which are of less Account than it is Thus of Ordination into a Church already vacant if it is made without the Metropolitanes consent the Council of Nice and afterwards the Council of Antioch Deâ—rce That the Church shall not receive such an one for a Bishop And of Ordinations at large without declaring the appropriate Church or Place wherein the Person Ordained is to officiate the Council of Chalcedon decrees that they shall be invalid Not to mention or insist also on the Council of Nice's rejecting of the Anti-bishops Ordained by the Schismatick Meletius till they were confirmed by a more holy imposition of hands as their Synodical Epistle says because there was an incapacity more than ordinary for giving Orders not only to Anti-bishops but to any others in his Case which because it may be of use in this Argument I shall give an Account of Meletius was Bishop of Lycus in Egypt under the See of Alexandria and as Epiphanius relates was next in dignity and power to Peter the Bishop of Alexandria himself And he with his Adherents broke off from the Unity of the Church and set up a Schism separating from Peter the Bishop of Alexandria and assembling for Prayers and other Divine Offices by themselves and Ordaining opposite Bishops Priests and Deacons for the erection of opposite Churches in several places as Eleutheropolis Gaza and Aelia as Epiphanius says And these separate erections of Churches and opposite Ordinations he made after he had been justly deposed by Peter in a Synod as we are assured by Athanasius who had the best Opportunities to understand the Truth of these Matters and the most cause to inquire into them and also by Socrates afterwards And that too among other Crimes for his having faln in the Persecution to deny the Faith and to sacrifice to Idols Which Crimes when any Bishop or Clergy were once convicted of by the great Rule of Church-Discipline they were never afterwards to exercise any Clerical Powers or to officiate as Bishops and Clergy but upon their Reconciliation were to be received only to Lay-Communion After such Falls says St. Cyprian 't is in vain for any to seek to usurp the Episcopacy since 't is manifest such Men can neither preside in the Church of Christ nor ought to offer Sacrifice to God Chiefly since it has been Decreed by Cornelius and by Us and by all the Bishops of the whole World concerning them that after such Offence they may be admitted to Penance and the Peace of the Church but must stand