5. UPon the Review finding some considerable Evidences from Councils before omitted some shall be here added 1. The Roman Clergy called a Council at Rome Bin. pag. 158. c. saith that in the Interregnum they had the charge of the Universal Church and Cyprian wrote to them as the Governors of the Church of Rome when they had been a year or two without a Bishop And their Actions were not null 2. A Carthage Council with Cyprian condemn even a dead man called Victor because by his Will he left one Faustinus a Presbyter the Guardian of his Sons and so called him off his Sacred Work to mind Secular things Did this favour of Bishop's Secular Power Magistracy or Domination 3. How came the Carthage Councils to have so many hundreds in so narrow a room or space of Land but that every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corporation or big Town had a Bishop Anno 308. at a Carthage Council the very Donatists had two hundred and seventy Bishops And at Arles two hundred Bishops heard the Donatists Cause 4. The Laodicean Council decreed Can. 46. that the Baptized should learn the Creed and on Friday repeat it to the Bishops or Presbyters which implieth that a Bishop was present with every Church And Cap. 57. It is ordained that thenceforth Bishops should not be ordained in small Villages and Hamlets but Visiters should be appointed them But such Bishops as had heretofore been there ordained should do nothing without the Conscience of the City Bishop Which implieth 1. That every big Town had a Bishop 2. And Villages before 5. Epiphanius Haer. 68. pag. 717. c. saith That Peter separated from Meletius in the same room and as Meletius went to the Mines he made new Bishops and gathered new Churches so that in several Cities there were two Bishops and Churches Which implieth that they were Congregations for Personal Communion 6. The Nicene Council cap. 8. alloweth Rural Bishops then in use whom Petavius proveth to have been true Bishops 7. Greg. Nazianz. pag. 528. c. sheweth how Churches were enlarged and changed when the strife began between Mea Tua Antiqua Nova Nobilior Ignobilior Multitudine Opulentior aut Tenuior 8. After Lucifer Calaritanus ordained Paulinus Antioch had long two Bishops half being his Flock and half cleaving to Meletius 9. Nazianzen had in the great City of Constantinople but one of the small Churches the Arians having the greater till Theodosius gave him the greater And those Hearers he was Bishop over 10. A Council at Capua ordered that both the Bishops Flocks in Antioch under Evagrius and Flavian should live together in Love and Peace 11. Many Cities tolerated Novatian Bishops and Churches among them and oft many other Dissenters Which sheweth that but part of the City were one Church 12. The Council at Carthage called the last by Binius decreed that Reconciliation of Penitents as well as Chrisme and consecrating Virgins is to be done only by the Bishops except in great necessity For how many Parishes can a Bishop do all this and all the rest of his Office And when Christians were multiplied they that desired a Bishop where was none before might have one But else aliud Altare is again forbidden to be set up 13. Another Carthage Council decreeth Can. 15. That the Bishop have but vile or cheap Houshold-stuff and a poor Table and Diet and seek Authority or Dignity by his Faith and desert of Life Can. 19. That he contend not for transitory things though provoked Can. 23. That he hear no Cause but in the presence of his Presbyters else it shall be void that is sentenced without them unless confirmed by their presence Note this being a constant work required a constant presence and it is not a selected Chapter of Presbyters that is named And must those of many hundred Parishes dwell in the City or travel thither for daily Causes of Offenders c. Can. 28 30. Bishops unjust Sentence void and Judgment against the absent 14. A Council at Agathum Can. 3. saith If Bishops wrongfully excommunicate one any other Bishop shall receive him Which implieth that the wronged person lived within reach of a Neighbour Bishop's Parish For it doth not bind him to remove his Dwelling And leave to go daily twenty or forty Miles to Church is a small kindness And I have already cited Can. 63. If any Citizens on the great Solemnities Easter the Lord's Nativity or Whitsuntide shall neglect to meet where the Bishops are seeing they are set in the Cities for Benediction and Communion let them for three Years be deprived of the Communion of the Church So that even when Churches were enlarged yet you see how great a part of them met in one place 15. Divers Canons give the Bishop a third or fourth part of all the Church Profits And if those Churches had been as big as our Dioceses it would have been too much of all Conscience 16. A Synod at Carpentoracte decreed that the Bishop of the City shall not take all the Country Parish Maintenance to himself Which implieth as the former that his Country Parish was small 17. A Council at Orleance Anno 540. decree Can. 3. about ordaining a Bishop that Qui praeponendus est omnibus ab omnibus eligatur The Dioceses yet were not so large but that All met to chuse 18. So Concil Byzazen saith it must be By the Election of all 19. Another at Orleance Anno 545. saith No Citizen must celebrate Easter out of the City because they must keep the principal Festivities in the presence of the Bishop where the holy Assembly must be kept But if any have a necessity to go abroad let him ask leave of the Bishop Here is but one City Assembly and Individuals must be known to the Bishop and ask his leave to go abroad And Can. 5. saith A Bishop must be ordained in his own Church which he is to oversee Which implieth that he had but one Church and Country Chappels 20. Another Orleance Council hath the like deposing all Bishops that come not in by common consent And requiring them both in their Cities and Territories to relieve the Poor from the Church-House Let us have such Dioceses as the Bishop can do this for and we consent 21. A Synod at Paris Can. 8. says Let no Man be ordained a Bishop against the Will of the Citizens nor any but whom the Election of the People and Clerks shall seek with plenary Will None shall be put in by the Command of the Prince c. 22. King Clodoveus called a Synod at Cabilone which Can. 10. decreeth That all Ordination of Bishops be null that was otherwise made than by the Election of the Comprovincials the Clerks and the Citizens 23. The Const Trul. Can. 38. sheweth how the unhappy changes were made decreeing That whatever alteration the Imperial Power shall make on any City the Ecclesiastical Order shall follow it And so if the
brought And much he hath elsewhere which granteth that the Presbyters are Church governours though not in equality with the Bishops V. Dr. Field lib. 5. c. 27. shewing how the Apostles first limiting and fixing of Pastors to particular Churches was a giving them Jurisdiction saith this assigning to men having the power of order the persons to whom they were to minister holy things and of whom they were to take the care and the subjecting of such persons to them gave them the power of Jurisdiction which they had not before And As another of my Rank cannot have that Jurisdiction within my Church as I have but if he will have any thing to do there he must be inferiour in degree to me so we read in the Revelation of the Angel of the Church of Ephesus c. So that with him a Bishop is but one of the Presbyters of the same Rank having the first charge of the Church as every Incumbent in respect to his Curates and so above his Curates in Degree And As the Presbyters may do nothing without the Bishop so he may do nothing in matters of greatest moment without their presence and advice Conc. Carthag 4. c. 23. It is therefore most false that Bellarmine saith that Presbyters have no power of Jurisdiction For it is most clear and evident that in all Provincial Synods Presbyters did sit give voices and subscribe as well as Bishops And the Bishops that were present in General Councils bringing the resolution and consent of the provincial Synods of those Churches from whence they came in which Synods Presbyters had their voices they had a kind of consent to the decrees of General Councils also and nothing was passed in them without their concurrence And Chap. 49. The Papists think that this is the peculiar right of Bishops But they are clearly refuted by the universal practice of the whole Church from the beginning For in all Provincial and National Synods Presbyters did ever give voice and subscribe in the very same sort that Bishops did whether they were assembled to make Canons of Discipline to hear Causes or to define doubtful points of doctrine And that they did not anciently sit and give decisive voices in General Councils the reason was not because they have no interest in such deliberations and resolutions but because seeing all cannot meet in Councils that have interest in such business â—but some must be deputed for and authorized by the rest it was thought fit that the Bishops So here are Bishops authorized by Presbyters as their Deputies in the greatest affairs in General Councils He proceedeth to prove this by instances Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. c. VI. Even Archbishop Whitgift maintaineth as Doctor Stillingfleet hath collected Iren. pag. 394. that No kind of Government is expressed in the word or can necessarily be concluded thence No form of Church Government is by the Scriptures commanded to the Church of God or prescribed And Doctor Stillingfleet there citeth many testimonies to prove this the judgment of the Church of England And if so it must be only men and not God who make any difference between a Presbyter and a Bishop in the point of Jurisdiction VII Bishop Bilson Perpet Govern p. 16. c. 391. saith The Synod of Antioch which deposed Paulus Samosat as Eusebius sheweth lib. 7. c. 38. in Concil Eliber about the time of the first Nicene Council sate Bishops and Presbyters even 36. In the second Concil Arelat About the same time subscribed twelve Presbyters besides Deacons So in Concil Rom. sub Hilario Gregor where 34 Presbyters subscribed after 22 Bishops And in the first sub Symmach where after 72 Bishops subscribed 67 Presbyters So in the third fifth and sixth under the same Symmachus Felix had a council of 43 Bishops and 74 Presbyters The Concil Antisiod c 7. saith Let all the Presbyters being called come to the Synod in the City Concil Tolet. 4. c. 3. saith Let the Bishops assembled go to the Church together and sit according to the time of their Ordination After all the Bishops are entred and set let the Presbyters be called and the Bishops sitting in a compass let the Presbyters sit behind them and the Deacons stand before them Even in the General Council at Lateran sub Innoc. 3. were 482 Bishops and 800 Abbots and Priors conventual saith Platina Thus Bilson and more VIII To the same purpose writeth the Greatest Defender of Prelacy Bishop Downam Def. lib. 1. c. 2. sect 11. pag. 43 44. and the places before cited out of him professing that the Bishop hath but a chief and not sole jurisdiction IX Bishop Ushers judgment is fully opened in his Model which we offered to the King and Bishops in vain and which he owned to me with his own mouth X. Because the citing of mens words is tedious I add that All those whom I cited Christ Concord p. 57 c. to shew that they judge the Presbyters Ordination may be lawful and valid do much more thereby infer that they are not void of a Governing power over their own flocks viz. 1. Dr. Field lib. 3. c. 32. 2. Bishop Downam Def. lib. 3. c. 4. p. 108. 3. Bishop Jewel Def. of Apol. Part 2. p. 131. 4. Saravia De divers Min. Grad cap. p. 10 11. 5. Bishop Alley Poor mans Libr. Prelect 3. 6. p. 95 96. 6. Bishop Pilkington 7. Bishop Bridges 8. Bishop Bilson Of Subject p. 540 541 542 233 234 c. 9. Alex. Nowel 10. Grotius de imper 11. Mr. Chisenhall 12. Lord Digby then a Protestant 13. Bishop Davenant Determ Q. 42. p. 191 192. 14. Bishop Prideaux cont de Disciplin Eccles p. 249. 15. Bishop Andrews 16. Chillingworth To which I add 17. Bishop Bramhall in his Answer to Mileterius's Epistle to the King 18. Dr. Steward's Answer to Fountains Letter 19. Dr. Fern. 20. Mason at large 21. Bishop Morton Apolog. XI Spalatensis is large to prove the power of the Keys to belong in common to Presbyters as such I cited the words before Lib. 5. c. 9. n. 2. c. 2. n. 48 c. XII Even Gropperus the Papist pleadeth in the Council of Trent for the restoring of Synods of Presbyters instead of Officials the thing so much detested in England as that all we undergo must rather be endured yet saith Gropperus Restore the Synodals which are not subject to so great corruption removing those Officers by whom the world is so much scandalized because it is not possible that Germany should endure them The Spaniards and Dutch men willingly heard this but not the rest Hist p. 334. lib. 4. XIII The opinion of Paulus himself the author of that History is so fully and excellently laid down of the Original of the Bishops grandeur and of the manner of introducing the Ecclesiastical Courts by the occasion of Pacifications Arbitrations and Constantines Edict as that I intreat the Reader to turn to and peruse p. 330 331
than could meet in one Assembly and had allowance to Communicate in their sub-assemblies yet were they appointed on certain great and solemn Festivals to Communicate all with the Bishops at the chief City Church which sheweth that the sub-assemblies then were few and small 39. Thus was the Apostles Order by degrees subverted and whereas they settled distinct Churches with their distinct Bishops no Bishop having two Churches under him that had not also their proper Bishop now One Church was made of many without many Bishops sub-Presbyters first in the same Church being introduced at last sub-Churches also were set up And when they should have done as we do with Bees let every new Swarm have a new Hive and should have multiplyed Bishops and Churches homogeneal as sufficient numbers of Converts came in instead of this the City Bishops kept all under them as if they had been still one Church yet not as Archbishops that have Bishops under them and kept their sub-Presbyters as their Curates to officiate in the several Churches that had all no Bishops but One. 40. The causes of this were apparently most of the same which are mentioned before for the making of sub-Presbyters Especially 1. The selfishness of the Bishops who were loth to let go any of the people from under their superiority Because it was more honour to rule many than one single Congregation and he was a greater man that had many sub-Presbyters and whole Assemblies at his command than he that had not And also many afforded greater maintenance than a few And 2. the same Reasons that made men at first set up one Presbyter as Bishop over the rest to avoid Divisions and to determine Arbitrations did now seem strong to them for the keeping up the Authority of the City Bishop over the sub-Assemblies round about them 3. And Cities only having been possessed of Bishops for many Years if not Ages before there were Christians enow to make up Country Churches both the Bishops and the City Inhabitants easily overlooking the Reason of it took this for their Prerogative and did plead Prescription As if Schools being planted only in Cities first the Cities and Schoolmasters should thence plead that none must be setled in Country Villages but what are ruled by the City School-Masters And thus the Cities being far the strongest and the Interest of the Citizens and Bishops in point of honour being conjunct and none being capable of a Country charge but such as the City Bishops at first Ordained to it because then there were no other Bishops without resistance it came to pass that both Churches and Presbyters were subjected to the City Bishops 4. And it greatly advanced this design that the Churches which were planted in the Roman Empire did seek to participate of all secular honour that belonged to the place of their Residence And as Dr. Hammond hath largely opened though not well justified did form themselves according to the Model of the Civil Government so that those Cities that had the Presidents or chief Civil Rulers and Judicatures in them did plead a right of having also the chief Bishops and Ecclesiastical Judicatures And thus not only Cities ruled the Country Villages but in time the distinct powers and pre-eminences of Archbishops Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs and the Roman chief Patriarch or Pope came up And the Pagan Common-wealth and Christian Church within the Roman Empire and the neighbouring parts that were influenced by them had a great resemblance 41. But that which most notably set up this exsort swelling and degenerate Prelacy was the mistaken zeal of Constantine together with his Policy and the ambition of Christians and Bishops that were gratified by it For 1. As Constantine perceived that it was the Christians that were his surest strength and when the Heathen Soldiers turned from one Emperour to another as they were tempted he knew that if he only did own the Christians they would unanimously own him and be constant to him so also his Judgment and Zeal for Christianity did concur with his Interest and Policy And as all the Secular and Military Rulers depended on him for honour and power throughout the Roman world he thought it not seemly to give the chief Christians who were the Bishops less honour than he did to the Heathens and to common men Nor did he think meet to deny to the Christian Churches such priviledges as might somewhat set them higher than his other subjects 2. And the Bishops and Christians coming from under long scorn and contempt and coming newly from under the cruel Persecution of Dioclesian and affrighted anew by Maxentius and Licenius they were not only glad to be now honoured and advanced but greatly lifted up with such a sudden wonderous change as to be brought from scorn and cruel torments to be set up above all others As we should have been had we been in their case and it 's like should no more have feared the ill consequents of too much exaltation than they did 3. And the Christian people thought that the exaltation of their Bishops was the honour and exaltation of their Religion it self as well as of their persons 42. Whereas as is aforesaid the Christians had commonly stated the power of Arbitrating all their Civil differences in the Bishop alone when the Apostle intimated that any Wise man among them as such was fit for that business it grew presently to be accounted a heynous crime or scandal for any Christians to go to Law before the Civil Magistrate And Constantine finding them in possession of this custom did by his Edict confirm it and enlarge it decreeing that all Bishops should be Judges of all the Christians causes by consent and that no Civil Judge or Magistrate should compel any Christian to his bar Insomuch that in Theodosius his days when one of Ambrose his Presbyters had a cause to be tryed he denyed himself to be a Christian that he might have it decided by the Civil Magistrate that was Christian also So that even Christian Magistrates might not judge unwilling Christians but the Bishops only Yet had not the Bishops then the power of the Sword but decided all as Arbitrators and enforced their Sentences with rigorous penances and Church-censures By which means 1. many the more turned Christians without the Faith and Holiness of Christians that they might both partake of the Christians honour and immunities and specially that they might be free from corporal penalties for their crimes And who would not do so if it were now our case 2. And by this means the rigorous penalties of the Church by penances were the more easily submitted to as being more easie than corporal pains and mulcts And when thus by the Laws and countenance of so great an Emperour the Bishops were made the Judges of all that were Christians at present and all that would turn Christians that desired it it is easie to understand 1. what a Lordship they must needs
have as to the kind of power 2. How their Office must degenerate from purely spiritual into secular or mixt 3. And how numerous their Flocks and large their Provinces would soon be And here you must note these things 1. That the Bishop of every Church was made Judge of these causes not alone by himself but with his Presbyters or Clergy who judged with him 2. That yet this power was not then taken to be any essential or integral part at all of the Pastoral Office but an Accidental work which Lay-men might do as well as Pastors and that it was committed to the Bishop only as the best able for Arbitration because of his abilities and interest and that as a matter of meer convenience and also for the honour of his place 3. That therefore this Judging power for ending strife and differences might be alienated from the Clergy and done by Lay-men where there was cause 4. And that the Bishop had so much more power than the Presbyters that he could commit it from them to Lay-men All this that one instance of Silvanus in Socrates lib. 7. cap. 37. and in Hanmer cap. 36. whose words were thus Silvanus also no less expressed in his other acts and dealings the good motion of his Godly mind For when he perceived that the Clergy respected nothing but gain in deciding the Controversies of their Clients O woful Clergy he thenceforth suffered none of the Clergy to be judge but took the supplications and requests of suiters and appointed One of the Laity whom for certain he knew to be a just and godly man and gave him the hearing of their causes and so ended quietly all contentions and quarrels And the likeliest way it was You see here 1. that when Princes will needs make the Clergy Magistrates to honour them the wise and good men of the Clergy will return such power to the Laity as usually fitter for it 2. And that it is no wonder that when Law-business is cast upon the Clergy if they grow worse than Lawyers in covetousness and injustice 3. And yet this was not a making Lay-men to be Chancellors that had the power of the Keys For Silvanus did only appoint Lay-men to do Lay-mens work to arbitrate differences but not to excommunicate nor to judge men to excommunication as they do now 4. And this was not a making of Ecclesiastical Elders that were not Pastors and therefore it is no countenance for such but it was a prudent casting back that work on the Laity which good Emperours had in imprudent piety cast upon the Clergy that each might do his proper work 5. But this was but one good Bishop that was so wise and honest and therefore it proved no general reformation This Judicial power went so far and took up so much of the Clergies time that the Synod Taraconens was after this put to Decree Can. 4. that the Clergy should not judge Causes on the Lords day and Can. 10. that no Bishop or Clergy-man should take rewards or bribes for Judgments And the Canons so deterred Christians from seeking Justice from the Civil Judicatures that they had few but Heathens to be Judges of Yea the Christians thought so hardly of the Judges themselves for punishing men by the Sword when the Bishops even for murder it self did punish them but with Penance that they doubted sometime whether those Christians that exercised Magistracy or Civil Judgment after Baptisme were not therefore to be taken for sinners as is visible in Innocent 1. his Epist to Epist 3. to Exuper Tholesan cap. 3. in Crab. Tom. 1. p. 459. And before in Silvester's Concil Rom. apud Crab Vol. 1. p. 280. Can. 16. it is Decreed Nemo Clericus vel Diaconus aut Presbyter propter causam suam quamlibet intret in curia quum omnis curia à cruore dicitur immolatio simulachrorum est Quod siquis Clericus in curiam introicrit anathema suscipiat nunquam rediens ad matrem Ecclesiam A Communione autem non privatur propter tempus turbidum And Constantine is said to be a Subscriber with 284 Bishops 45 Presbyters and 5 Deacons And in former Counc sub Silvest Nullum Clericum ante judicem stare licet I know that Duarenus and Grotius describe not the Bishops power as so large as the Canonists do But Duarenus confesseth that Theodosius made a Law that lites omnes controversiae forenses ad judicium Ecclesiae remitterentur si alter uter litigatorum id postularet That all strifes and controversies forensick should be remitted to the judgment of the Church if either of the contenders required it And that Charles the Great renewed and confirmed the same Law Duar. lib. 1. p. 8. And Grotius de Imper. sum pol. p. 236. saith This Jurisdiction by consent the Bishops received from Constantine with so great power that it was not lawful further to handle any business which the Bishops sentence had decided that is saith he remotâ appellatione And he there sheweth that three sorts of Jurisdiction were by the Emperours given to the Bishops 1. Jure ordinario and so they judged of all matters of Religion and which the Canons reached which went very far in heinous crimes 2. Ex consensu pâ—rtium when the parties chose the Bishop for their Judge Vid. Concil Chalced. c. 9. 3. Ex delegatione which yet went further And even to the Jews such kind of power had been granted But of this whole matter of the Rise of such Prelacy their Courts and power Pardre Paulus hath spoken so well and truly in his Histor Concil Trident. pag. 330 331 c. that I would intreat the Reader to turn to it and peruse it as that which plainly speaketh our judgment of the History now in question Read also his History of Benefices 43. The countenance of the Emperour with these honours and immunities having brought the World into the Church or filled the Churches with Carnal temporizers the numbers were now so great that quickly the great Cities had many Parish Churches and the Country Villages about had some so that now about 400 or 500 Years after Christ most Bishops of great Cities had more Churches than one even several sub Assemblies and Altars as dependant on their Mother Church 44. Yet were their Diocesses which at first were called Parishes somewhat bounded by the Canon and Edicts which decreed that every City where there were Christians enow to make a Church should have a Bishop of their own and that no Bishop except two who bordered one on Scithia a rude unconverted Countrey and the other on the like case of which more in due place 45. And then every oppidum or populous Town like our Market-Towns and Corporations was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City and not only a few among many that have that name by priviledge as it is in England now So that even at this height of Prelacy about 500 600 or 700 Years after Christ they
Chancellors did only these accidental works or Lay Elder either and meddled not with the sacred power of the Keys we should not be so quarrelsome as to condemn their undertaking unless it were for the abuse 47. We doubt not but in a Church that hath many Pastors those that are young and weak should much submit to the elder and more able and be as far ruled by them as the difference of age experience and abilities without a difference of Office doth require 48. And we doubt not but where Temples and Church-maintenance are at the dispose of Patrons People or Magistrates they may give them to some one Pastor as the present possessor so that no other shall have part but by his concession And this difference there is between the Parson and his Curates in our Parishes and an accidental superiority and inferiority thereby without a difference of Office 49. If Magistrates or Councils or Custome should in each particular Church that hath many Pastors give one a Governing that is a negative voice among the rest in the management of the affairs of that Church so that the rest should not go against him or without him as Archbishops now are over Bishops and Archpresbyters were formerly over Presbyters and Archdeacons over Deacons and Presidents over Colleges and Courts of Justice without claiming a distinct Office though the sad experience of Mens inclination to Church-tyranny make us doubtful whether we should wish for such an inequality yet would we not unpeaceably disturb or quarrel with such an Order when it is settled Our Parish Order aforesaid being indeed but such 50. Whether God himself hath appointed another sort of Bishops who may be better called Archbishops as Successors of the Apostles in the Ruling part of their Office and whether these have not a Power above particular Church Pastors in Ordinations and in the oversight of the Pastors themselves and in the Care of many Churches I have long ago confessed is a Case of too much difficulty for me to determine On the one side though the Apostles have no Successors in the extraordinary and temporary part of their Office yet Church-government being an ordinary and permanent part as doctrine is I can hardly think that when we find one Form of Church-government instituted by Christ himself and continuing till the end of that Age that we should presume to say that this Form then ceased and another must succeed it without good proof What we find enacted and setled must stand till we can prove it abrogate And unless it were a thing which in the nature of it were temporary it seemeth a harsh imputation of mutability to feign Christ to set up a Church-government which should be in force but for an hundred years And on the other side it puzleth me 1. to find it so hard to prove that the Apostles themselves did indeed exercise any Office power over other Pastors which one may not do towards another over and above that which accrewed to them from the meer extraordinary advantage of their gifts and Apostolical proper work 2. And to find it so obscure whether they settled any as their Successors in that superiority of power which they had 51. But being in such doubt and being uncertain whether such Arch-Bishops or Apostolical Successors in the points of Ordination and oversight of many Churches be of Divine right or not I resolve not to contend against any such Order nor to disobey any just commands of such nor to reproach the custome of the Churches 52. And though I know that Pastors should not unnecessarily be diverted by any aliene works yet if it please the Magistrate to commit some of his power of Church-government by the Sword about things extrinsick to the Pastoral Office into the hands of some Ministers as his Officers and if he call them Bishops and command us to obey them and if he make them Barons and endow them with Lordships and great revenues though I see the great peril to the Church from hence by reason of mens pride and worldliness yet will I not reproach this Order nor deny any just obedience to any such Officers of the King 53. If any acknowledging the Pastors of each Church to have the whole Pastoral Office and power of the Keys of that Church which he overseeth shall yet affirm that the aforesaid superiour General Bishops or Arch-Bishops have a superiour power of the Keys and therefore shall have the decision of controversies that arise in particular Churches between the Pastors and the People and that appeals may be made by the people to them and that they may visit the particular Churches at their pleasure and have power to censure the particular Bishops or Pastors when they deserve it or to Ordain Ministers remove them and depose them as there is just cause by bare sentence and the peoples consent and all this jure divino as Successors to the Apostles in their Government or to such Archbishops or General Bishops as Timothy and Titus I shall not contend against any of this for the reasons aforesaid being uncertain of the thing in question But if I must be put to subscribe that I believe all this to be true as if it were an Article of my Faith the same uncertainty would forbid me 54. And here I must take occasion to say that I take unnecessary Subscriptions Declarations Promises and Oaths to be one of the chiefest of the Devil's Engines to divide Christ's Churches and to fish out those Ministers that make conscience of perjury and lying and to turn them out of the work of Christ and to leave in those that do not when Conscience can find but any shifting pretence And how fit such are for the Sacred Ministry and whose servants really they are and how they are like to do Christ's work and what a Case the Churches will be in that have such and what the effects will be with the common people and how the lovers of Godliness will resent all this and what else will follow hereupon I leave to the Reader that hath the brains of a man or ever opened his eyes to mark what is done abroad in the World or that ever read with observation the things that in other Ages have befallen the Churches or that knoweth what relation light hath to darkness good to evil and Christ to Belial I think that the Articles of our Faith and the matters of our practice are so to be distinguished as that there is a necessity of Believing the former and therefore we may be called to profess that we do Believe them And for the other the Agenda we must be called to Do them and if they be plain and necessary duties of our Religion being to be Believed to be Duties before we do them we may sometime be put to profess that Belief But duties of humane imposition or of doubtful nature may be done as things lawful by thousands of peaceable men that cannot say or
many Churches without Bishops under him and of half-Presbyters how little he saith the Reader will soon see yea how much on our side 4. As for Hooker till his 7th Book came lately out we had nothing in him considerable of this subject And in that Book it self so little to the purpose as to our foresaid two Controversies as is next to nothing nor worthy a Reply In his § 2. p. 4. He attempts that which few do to give us the definition of a Bishop which is A Bishop is a Minister of God unto whom with permanent continuance there is given not only power of Administring the Word and Sacraments which power other Presbyters have but also a further power to Ordain Ecclesiastical persons and a power of Chiefty in Government over Presbyters as well as Lay men a power to be by way of Jurisdiction a Pastor even to Pastors themselves And then he distinguisheth of Bishops at large or indefinite and Bishops with restraint and saith he meaneth the later And so you have what must be expected from Mr. Hooker for the information of you what Episcopacy he pleads for Where it is obvious how fraudulently through oversight or partiality I know not he dealeth For whereas he durst put no more into the definition of Episcopacy about Jurisdiction but a power of Chiefty in Government over Presbyters as well as Lay-men yet would not tell us whether Government of Lay-men under the Bishop belong to the Presbyters or not His words seem plainly to imply it what use else is there for his Chiefly and as well as Lay-men And yet twice over he would name nothing but Teaching and Sacraments which belong to the Pastor as a Pastor in general leaving it as a thing which he would neither affirm nor deny whether Pastors Governed their Flocks Yet all that Decantate Book turneth on the Hinges of this lame Definition which hath other defects which I pass by And without this we cannot know what Subject he disputeth of Whereas Saravia well noted and acknowledged three Essential parts of the Ministry in General Mr. Hooker who leaveth out one of them and yet durst not deny it should have told us whether he include it or not seeing it is the matter of most of our difference and we take him for no Pastor or Presbyter that is without the power of Government nor that to be a true Church in sensu politico that hath no other Pastor 2. And when as one part of his Adversaries deny not at least the Lawfulness of one Bishops superiority in a single Church as far as his description speaketh but only in many Churches no nor one Archbishops power over many Churches that have their own Bishops but only his power to depose all the Bishops of particular Churches and turn them all into one Diocesan Church his Definition visibly reacheth to no other sort of Bishops but such as we oppose not and so he saith nothing at all against us to any purpose through all his Book For where after he confidently tells us that the extent of his Jurisdiction alters not the Species it is but barely said and by his leave I shall fully prove the contrary anon And pag. 4. l. 7. He confesseth that de facto Many things are in the state of Bishops which the times have changed Many a Parsonage at this day is larger than some ancient Bishopricks were It 's well confest And I shall try among other things whether the Name of a Bishoprick will make a Parsonage and a Diocess to be ejusdem speciei and whether magnitude do not make a specifick difference between the Sea and a Rivulet or a glass of water or between a Ship and a Nut-shel And whereas page 6. He undertaketh to prove a Coercive Power in Bishops either he speaketh according to the common use of men or not If not he would not be understood Qui non vâ—lt intelligi debet negligi If he do then by Coercive he must mean by Outward force upon the body which is false and is proper to the Magistrate Parents or Masters and is disclaimed by all sober Protestant Divines yea by Papists as not at all belonging to the Pastoral Office Though we easily grant that Pastors may Coercere by nord and so may Presbyters sure yet no otherwise but by word For Excommunication and Degradation as far as belongs to them are but words and an after forbearing of their own acts of Communion But this is not the common use of the word Coercive as applyed to Government by way of distinction How much wiselier doth the more Learned and judicious Bishop Bilson still distinguish by the Power of the Word as differing from the Magistrates Coercive or by the Sword Yet note that page 8. § 5. l. 7. He is brought to acknowledge that All Churches by the Apostles erected received from them the same Faith the same Sacraments the same Form of publick Regiment The Form of Regiment by them established at first was that the Laity be subject to a College of Ecclesiastical persons which were in every such City appointed for that purpose These in their writings they term sometime Presbyters and sometime Bishops To take one Church out of a number for a pattern what the rest were the Presbyters of Ephesus as it is in the History of their departure from the Apostle Paul at Miletum are said to have wept abundantly all which speech doth shew them to have been many And by the Apostles exhortation it may appear that they had not each his several Flock to feed but were in common appointed to feed that one Flock the Church of Ephesus for which cause the phrase of his speech is this Attendite gregi Look to all that one Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops These persons Ecclesiastical being termed then Presbyters and Bishops both c. And page 9. he saith The outward being of a Church consisteth in the having of a Bishop Then the Brownists must carry it that our Parishes are no true Churches but parts of a Church because they have no Bishop Only a Diocesan Church hath a Bishop Therefore only a Diocesan is a true Church which anon shall be proved to be but Humane And page 12. He thus expoundeth Hierome as holding Episcopacy alterable The Church hath power by Universal consent upon urgent cause to take it away if thereunto she be constrained through the proud tyrannical and unreformable dealing of her Bishop Wherefore lest Bishops forget themselves as if none on earth had authority to touch their states let them continually bear in mind that it is rather the force of custome than any such true heavenly law can be shewed by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear that the Lord himself hath appointed Presbyters for ever to be under the Regiment of Bishops in what sort soever they behave themselves Let this consideration be a bridle to them Let it
of the Churches of Asia had no Bishops but Parish Presbyters under these seven Bishops he should prove it and confute Dr. Hammond that is so contrary to him had he then lived Till then we take it as a contemptible incredible assertion that Asia had but seven Bishops and yet a multitude of Churches If he mean only that these seven were Archbishops his impertinency is too palbable Particularly he saith The Church of Ephesus Smyrna c. Contained a great City and the Country belonging to it c. Ans We talk of Churches under Churches and he talketh only of Cities and Countries Again I say Let him take his Diocess of Infidels Houses and Ground we know no such Churches Page 46. He saith Cenchrea was subject to the Church of Corinth and never had a Bishop of their own But not a syllable of proof It is not a Family Church which we speak of therefore he need not here have mentioned that But a Church associated for ordinary Communion in God's publick worship which cannot be celebrated without a Pastor Let him prove that Cenchrea was such a Church and yet had no Bishop In § 6. p. 49. He would prove that the Circuit of a Church was in the Intention of the Apostles or first Founders the same from the beginning befor◠the division of Churches as after Which I shall in due place disprove His reasons are 1. Because the whole Church since the Apostles days hath so understood the intention of the Apostles Ans 1. This is not proved 2. I shall anone prove the contrary that the Apostles had no intention that Churches should be defined by the limits of the place and Country nor did they themselves ever appoint any such bounds to any one Church and say so far it shall extend Nor did they ever take any but Christians in any Circuits for Members of the Church And I shall prove that all Churches were but such as I described single Churches with their Bishops at the first and that some Villages had Bishops four or five hundred years after And his own Reason that Churches followed the Civil Form proveth the mutability of their bounds seeing the Civil Forms were mutable His next Reason is because that division of Churches which was 300 or 400 Years after Christ with their Limits and Circuits were ordinarily the same which had been from the beginning as divers Councils testifie Ans Those Councils mean no more than that it had been an old or setled Custome as many Learned men have proved And if they could be proved to mean that from the Apostolical plantations the bounds of all the Diocess were set I marvel that any man could believe them But they say no such thing as were it not tedious to the Reader an examination of each particular would shew Else no new Churches and Bishops must be setled in the World but those that the Apostles converted in any Cities between or near them For the unconverted Cities in the inter-spaces were as much those Bishops Diocesses as the Villages of equal distance And then the making of new Cities would have made one a Bishop of many Cities contrary to the Canons His third Reason is that the Distribution of the Churches usually followed the division of the Common wealth Ans 1. If so as is said they must be various and mutable All the World was not divided just as the Roman Empire was And the Imperial divisions had great changes 2. I think it lost labour to dispute with him that holdeth this assimilating the Church to the Civil Form was of Divine Apostolical Institution If any can think so let him give us his proof that the Church Constitution must vary as Monarchical Aristocratical and Democratical States do As Empires and free Cities do And that from the King to the Constable we must have a correspondent Officer And that the Papacy as Capital in the Roman Empire was of Gods Institution And that an Emperour King or popular State may change the Form of the Churches as oft as they may the Form of their subordinate Governments Are not these small Reasons to prove that when the Apostles planted Bishops in all single Churches they intended that those Bishops should be the sole Bishops of many hundred Churches when they should be raised in the Circuit of ground which now is called their Diocesses But more of this in due place But next he appealeth to mens consciences Whether it be not unlikely that there was but one Congregation belonging to these famous Cities towards the end of the Apostles days Of which more afterward In Chap. 4. p. 69. He argueth The Presbyteries ordained by the Apostles were appointed for Diocesses and not to Parishes Therefore the Churches endued with the power of Ecclesiastical Government were not Parishes but Diocesses Ans Our Question is Whether they were single Churches as before defined or only One Diocesan Church made up of many such single Churches 1. If by Presbyteries be meant many Presbyters a College or Consessus I deny the Consequence because every Church that had Government had not such a Presbytery But one Bishop or Pastor did serve for some of the lesser Churches and yet that one had Governing power 2. I deny the Major It was single Churches that had then many Elders set over them 3. Reader it seemeth to me no small disparagement to the Diocesan Cause that the grand Patrons of it so extreamly differ among themselves Dr. Hammond holdeth that in all the Scripture times no one Church had any Presbyters at all save only one single Bishop This Bishop Downame seemeth to hold that every Governed Church had a Presbytery And no one and every one extreamly differ Yet either of them would have censure him that had gain-sayed them His proof of the Antecedent is this They who were appointed to whole Cities and Countries to labour so far as they were able the conversion of all that belonged to God were appointed to Diocesses not to Parishes But c. Ans Is not here frustration instead of edification to the Reader for want of defining a Diocess and a Parish I thought we had talkt of a Diocesan Church and here is a Diocess described which may be a single Church or no Church at all as the Bishop pleaseth Here is not so much as any Christians much less Congregations of them mentioned as the Bishops Flock But many an Apostle Evangelist and Converting Preacher hath been set over Cities and Countries to labour mens Conversion as far as they were able before they had converted any or at least enow to make a Church and after that before they had converted more than one Assembly The Jesuits in the Indies thus laboured in several Provinces before they were Bishops of those Provinces or called them Provincial Churches But now we perceive what he meaneth by a Diocess even a space of Ground containing Inhabitants to be converted if we can I will shorten my Answer to the
Hammond think they prove that Rome and other great Cities then had more Bishops than one by reason of the peoples diversity in Languages c. As Peter of the Circumcision and Paul of the Uncircumcision 4. Eusebius mentioneth not this as a certainty but with an it's said which is the usual note of his uncertain reports of which he hath not a few as is commonly confessed 5. Dr. Hammond is so far from believing this that many Parishes were committed so early to Presbyters under one Bishop that he thinketh there is no proof that any such Presbyters were in being in the Scripture times And though we confess that Alexandria and Rome had divers Churches in them long before other places there is no proof or probability that it was so in the Apostles days And l. 3. c. 4. Eusebius expresly saith But how many and what sincere followers have governed the Churches planted by the Apostles it cannot be affirmed but so far as may be gathered from the words of Paul And c. 19. he mentioneth in the singular number the Church not the Churches of Rome Antioch and Jerusalem And l. 4. c. 11. he saith Celadion succeeded Mark in the Church of Alexandria But he saith l. 5. c. 9. that Julianus was chosen Bishop over the Churches of Alexandria And c. 22. Demetrius came in his place And l. 6. c. 1. Demetrius took upon him the oversight of the Congregations there And c. 35. Dionysius received the Bishoprick of ruling the Churches in or about Alexandria c. Ans 1. So long after it is not denied but that Alexandria had more Assemblies than one 2. Yet it is most likely that by the Churches in and about Alexandria Eusebius meant the Churches under the Archbishop of Alexandria which had Bishops of their own 3. Before they had a Temple there might be several lesser Meetings in the City which were but as our Chapels or the Independants Meeting in several Houses at once when yet the Church was but one because they were associated for Personal Communion 4. When the Parishes were divided to several Presbyters yet then each Presbyter had the true Episcopal Office as to the People though not the Name and though they were under a superiour Bishop that is they had the whole Office of a Presbyter or Pastor to Govern the People as well as Teach them and Worship with them And so there was then no Parish like ours which is but part of a Diocesan Church and no Church of it self as the Bishops Form it because it hath but a half Pastor 5. And is not the case of all other Churches in the World that to this time were but single Churches more considerable than the case of Rome and Alexandria which differed from all the rest Obj. But all the rest did the same as soon as they had People enow to make many Churches Ans 1. I have told you Grotius and Dr. Hammond think that there were more Bishops than one in a City for some time 2. This multiplication was not till long after in the third Century and with most in the fourth when it was no wonder that the Church fell into the Imperial Form And when they did so the Roman Primacy arose with the rest 3. Yet even then the Presbyters were Episcopi gregis and had the true full Pastoral power as to their Flocks as aforesaid So that there were no Bishops that yet deposed the Presbyters as now Page 125. He saith Neither was this a thing peculiar to the Bishops of Alexandria but common to others Ignatius was Bishop not only of Antioch but of Syria Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons was Bishop of the Churches in France c. Ans 1. This openeth the former case These were not Diocesanes deposing all the Episcopos gregis and become sole Bishops but Archbishops that had under them Bishops in each particular Church Yet note that it is the French Synod of Bishops which Euseb ib. l. 5. c. 23. Iren. is said to oversee as it 's said ibid. that Palmas did so among the Bishops of Pontus in their Synod and that Victor was President in the Bishops Synod at Rome and Theophilus of Caesarea and Narcissus of Jerusalem in the Palestine Synod Which is nothing to our case It is further said that Optatus saith that in Rome were 40 Churches and that Theodoret had 800. Ans 1. It is granted that in Optatus's days Rome had 40 which is nothing to our case in hand 2. In those 40 so late there were no half Presbyters but as this Doctor confesseth they had not only a joynt power in Governing the Flocks but in Ordination too 3. I confess Theodoret's case seemeth strange and though of late date is so incredible as contrary to the case of other Churches that I do the rather for that clause believe that Epistle to Leo to be a forgery or corrupted at least And besides this Reason I have these also for it 1. Because he himself saith that Cyrus where he was Bishop was but two days journey from Antioch Hist Sanct. Patr. de Juliano And he that knoweth how great the Diocess of Antioch was will not easily believe that a Town within two days journey to Monks that went on foot was like to have eight hundred Churches in it at that time 2. And we know out of whose shop Theodoret's Epistles come Nicephorus saith he read above 500 of his Epistles Baronius saith there is a Book in the Vaticane containing 150 of them Metius translated these into Latine But saith Rivet Crit. Sacr. l. 4. c. 21. p. 455. the Reader must remember that they have been kept all this while in the Adversaries Cabinets and by them are brought into light and into Latine so that they have no authority further than other History confirmeth them 3 Especially seeing Leontius de Sectis saith as Baronius confesseth that Hereticks fained Epistles in Theodoret's name And Bellarmine de script Eccl. mentioneth one that hath his name in Concil Ephes that neither Theodoret nor any Christian is to be charged with 4. And that this one Epistle to Leo should be cull'd out of all the rest to be alone Printed after Theodoret's Works sheweth the design and what credit is to be given to it 5. And I shall anon cite much out of Theodoret himself to shew the improbability that Diocesses had then so many Churches And so much as a just confutation of Bishop Downame not as referring to other men with whom he dealt but to the cause which we have in hand And that I answer not the whole Book is because I know of no more in it than what I have culled out which needeth an answer as to the cause which I defend Of which I make the judicious Reader Judge 6. Bishop Hall's Defence of Episcopacy meddleth so little with the point now in Question that I have no need to say any thing to it more than is already said And he granteth all that I desire 7.
alterable policy And 2. That this Opinion rose as early as he pretendeth 3. And that these Ancients were not deceived â—â—t our English Bishops rather Bilson Jewel c. who took Patriarchs and Metropolitanes as such for Creatures of Humane Original While Ignatius his being Bishop of a Church in Syria shall prove him the Bishop of all Syria and the Church of God dwelling in Syria in Antiochia shall be equivalent with the Church in Antiochia governing all Syria I shall not undertake to hinder such men from proving any thing that they would have believed His Cap. 6. of the promiscuous use of the Names of Bishop and Presbyter and Cap. 7. that prepareth the stating of the Controversie need no answer but to say that we deny not but where a single Presbyter was he had himself the power of Governing that Church but where there were many though all had the full Office severally they were bound to use it in Concord And whether one amongst them shall have a precedency or guidance of the rest we think as Dr. Stillingfleet hath proved to be a matter alterable by humane prudence according to the various condition of the Churches And if any take both such Bishops and Archbishops to be Jure Divine with Dr. Hammond it will be somewhat to his Cause but nothing to ours Cap. 8. he openeth his conceit which in time I shall shew doth yield us the whole Cause that every place of Scripture which mentioneth Bishops or Presbyters meaneth Diocesan supereminent Bishops only And first he proveth it of the Elders Bishops of Ephesus Acts 20. because the whole flock is meant of all Asia Fully proved because Irenaeus said as he thought that the Bishops were convocate from Ephesus and the nearest Cities But 1. Irenaeus saith not Bishops only but Bishops and Presbyters conjoining them as two sorts and not Bishops or Presbyters as the Doctor doth 2. The nearest Cities and all Asia we take not for words of the same importance 3. We take not your bare word for the validity of the Consequence that because the Bishops of several Cities were there therefore it is all Asia that is singularly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Flock and not each Bishops Flock respectively q. d. Each of you look to your several Flock 4. We think if you calculate the time Acts 20 and 21. and consider Paul's haste Acts 20. 16. that few impartial men will believe that Paul's Messengers that were wont to go on foot did so quickly go all over Asia and so quickly get together all the Bishops of Asia to Miletum unless they all resided at Ephesus as our English Bishops do at London and Governed their unknown people by a Lay-Chancellour 5. And Irenaeus ibid. p. 312. saith Et omnia hujusmodi per solum Lucam cognovimus we know all such things by Luke alone pretending no other Tradition And if it be in Luke it is yet to be thence proved 6. But he pleadeth our Cause too strongly by supposing that each City then had a Bishop without any subject half Presbyter and so that no such Office was yet made Cap. 9. Of Timothy's Episcopacy concerneth not our Cause Though I hope that neither he nor his Church were so bad as the Angel or Church in Rev. 2. is described And it 's easier to answer the strength of Dr. Hammond than for him to answer the Evidence brought by Prin in his Vnbishoping Timothy and Titus to shew the itinerant life and Ministry of Timothy contrary to the life of a fixed Bishop And if non-residency have such Patrons and Timothy have taught men to leave their Churches year after year and play the Pastor many hundred Miles distant it will make us dream that non-residence is a duty And if all these years Timothy's Metropolitan Church at Ephesus had no ordained Presbyter but Passengers that fell in I blame them not or wonder not at least that they lost their first love for it 's like they seldom had any Church Assemblies to Communicate and Worship God together Cap. 10. Cometh to the case of Philippi Phil. 1. 1 2. And 1. § 3. he saith It is manifest that Epaphroditus Bishop of Philippi was at Rome with Paul when he wrote this Epistle and he supposeth that there were yet no Presbyters but Bishops And so when Paul wrote to all the Saints which are at Philippi with the Bishops and Deacons he meant to those that are not at Philippi where there was no Bishop but in other Cities of Macedonia that had every one a Prelate without ever a Presbyter under him With some this expounding may go for modest if not true Two probable Arguments I object against his improbable Expositions of this Text and that Acts 20. before mentioned 1. Where did he ever read that all the Province of Macedonia was called Philippi and the Saints said to dwell at Philippi that dwelt all over Macedonia 2. Where did he ever read in Scripture many Episcopal Churches under one Metropolitan called One Church in the singular Number as in Acts 20. 28. or One Flock either 3. Will any knowing man deny that he contradicteth not only Hierom and Theodoret but the common Exposition of the Fathers by this his odd Opinion And is it not gross partiality for the same man that can so easily cast off the judgment of almost all the Ancients at once to lay so much of the whole stress of his Diocesan and Metropolitan Cause upon the Fathers assertions yea doubtful reports and to take it for so immodest a thing in others to deny belief to them in such uncertain matters But he setteth Epiphanius his words against Aerius against them all Even that Epiphanius who ordained in the Bishop of Jerusalem's Diocess to his displeasure and that combined with that Theophilus Alexand. of whom Socrates writeth such horrid and unchristian practices to root out Chrysostom and raise a flame in the Church of Constantinople who liker a mad man than a sober Bishop came from Cyprus not only into the City but the Church where Chrysostom used to officiate to inflame his people and declame against and censure their Bishop to whom he was an inferiour and that parted with him in a wrathful Prognostick and dyed by the way home And yet even this one man saith nothing to his advantage but that the Apostles placed Bishops only with Deacons in some Churches that had not fit men to make Presbyters of which we not only grant but doubt whether ever they made any but Bishops though in great Cities there were many of them And § 8 9 10. when it seemed to serve his turn he yet further gratifieth us by granting yea maintaining that one Congregation had not two Bishops yet nothing hindreth but that in the same City there might sometimes be two distinct Assemblies converted by two Apostles perhaps of distinct dialects and rites and these governed by distinct Bishops with a divided or distinct Clergie which is almost as much
Tryal by the Holy Ghost Cap. 5. § 5. He now acknowledgeth that where many were at first Converted not always the first but the fittest was chosen Bishop And how prove you that he and his Flock were no Church The same he maintaineth § 11. And after from the choice usually made by suffrages and other reasons well confuteth the former conceit when he took it to be Blondels but sure he could not believe that they were Ecclesiae nondum natâ— or future Believers that chose Bishops by Suffrages But having so fully in this Chapter confuted his former as Blondel's opinion I doubt not but Blondel is in this as easily reconciled to him as he to himself and meant no more but 1. That the Apostles used not to make Bishops of the first Converts simply but to choose them out of the ancient grown and proved Christians 2. And that being so chosen not he that was first Baptized but he that was first ordained had the presidence in the Conâ—essus of their Presbyters Which the Dr. might easily have seen and spared his insulting upon the contrary supposition But let it here again be noted that § 9. he expresly and confidently asserteth all that I now desire viz. That Clemens doth speak of that time of the Churches beginning in which there were not yet many Believers and therefore without doubt neither Presbyters instituted If he means no Subject Presbyters or if he means not many in a Church but one Bishop I desire no more For then no Bishop had more Church Assemblies than one nor any half Presbyters were ordained by the Apostles For Clemens doth not tell us what the Apostles did in the beginning of their Preaching only but giveth us this as an account of all their course in settling Offices in the Churches where they came Cap. 6. He confesseth that Clemens mentioneth but two Orders Bishops and Deacons and we would have no more and § 4. is over angry with Blundel for gathering hence that he did not do as those that from the Jewish Elders or Priests or the 70 gather another order what is there in this Collection that deserveth the sharp words of that § Cap. 7. Whether Clemens well cited Isai 60. 17. we need not debate But if yet any think that the Dr. hath not fully granted us our Cause let him take these additions § 7. He well gathereth from Clemens that this form of Government founded in Bishops and Deacons in each Church being setled by Men entrusted by Christ is no less to be ascribed to Gods Command than if Christ himself had constituted Bishops and Deacons in every City Let who dare then approve of the alteration by the Introduction of another Order of Priests And § 8. He noteth also out of Clemens that the foresight of the contention that would be about Episcopacy caused this establishment of Bishops and Deacons No doubt God foreknew both that the popular sort would oppose Government and that the Monarchical Prelates would depose all the Bishops of the same Church save themselves and the Arch-Prelates would depose all the Bishops of particular Churches and set up half Priests in their stead And he doth well not to pass the following words in Clemens though hard yet plainly subverting the Doctors opinion that from this same foresight the Apostles constituted the foresaid Bishops and Deacons in every Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. ac descriptas deinceps ministrorum officiorumque vices reliquerunt ut in defunctorum locum alii viri probati succedere illorum munia exequi possent as Pat. Junius translateth it The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can allow no such doubt as shall make this much of the sense to be questionable 1. That upon the foresight of the Contentions about Episcopacy the Apostles made by the Spirit an established Description of the Orders and Offices which should be in the Church not only in their times but afterwards 2. And that the approved men that should hereafter be ordained should succeed in those same Orders which the Apostles had established and described even to the same Work or Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. That the Apostles thus setled or described no mungrel or half Priests but only Bishops and Deacons nor any Churches that had not each a Bishop and Deacon 4. Therefore no such half Priests should be brought in but only such as the Apostles instituted or described I can scarce speak my thoughts plainlier than by the Doctors next words § 9. It is evident that by the immediate impulse of the Spirit of God Bishops were constituted Deacons only joyned to them in every Church and so at Corinth and the rest of the Cities of Achaia And that by the command of the same Divine Prophesie or Revelation successors were assigned to them after their departure not a new order invented Christ thus consulting and providing for the Churches peace c. And § 14. he well granteth 1. That the form of Church Government was no where changed by the Apostles and so no middle order instituted by them 2. That through all their Age and when they were consummate in the middle under their Disciples the Government of every Church was in the power of the Bishops and Deacons in common But whereas § 13 c. he layeth this as the ground of his Cause 1. That it was not the Church at Corinth alone but of all Achaia that Clemens writeth to under this name 2. And that there were not many Bishops in one Church but one to each of these particular Churches I desire the Reader 1. To try impartially whether in all the Drs. Book there be one word of cogent Evidence to prove what he saith yea or to make it credible or likely 2. To consider these Reasons following for the contrary 1. As is said whether Scripture custom of speech will allow us to call all the Churches of a Region A Church in the singular Number Shew one Text for it if you can 2. Whether any ancient Ecclesiastical use of speech will allow us to say that the Churches of Achaia dwell at Corinth as Clemens speaketh p. 1. 3. Whether I have not proved from 1 Cor. 14. c. that the Church of Corinth had more Ministers or Clergy men or Pastors in it than one in Paul's time And therefore was not without so soon after 4. Whether it be credible that when it was but one or two Persons p. 62. by whom or for whose cause the Preâ—byters were ejected that it is like either this one or two were members of more particular Churches in Achaia than one or two Or that all the Churches of Achaia would so far own one or two mutineers in a particular Church as to cast out many of their Ministers for their sakes 5. Yea when Clemens whole scope intimateth that this one or two did this because they aspired after Power or Preeminence themselves Could they expect themselves to be made the Rulers of more
than one or two Churches 6. And what was the cause of this one or two like to touch the Bishops of the other Churches And what Cognisance was all Achaia like to have of the cause of one or two distant persons so as for them to rise up against their own Bishops 7. If it was not all nor many Pastors that were thus turned out as Clemens words import why should all Achaia be called seditious and blamed for it 8. Doth not the common Law of Charity and Justice forbid us to extend those words of reproof to a whole Province which cannot be proved to extend farther than to a single Church and principally toucht but one or two 9. I have before proved that Paul by the Saints at Corinth meaneth but one Church Therefore it 's like that Clemens doth so too 10. The Bishops and Deacons that Clemens speaketh of were set up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cum consensu totius Ecclesiae or as the Dr. will needs have it applaudente aut congratulante tota Ecclesia indeed with the good liking Pleasure or Approbation of the whole Church And shall we be perswaded that all the Cities and Countrey of Achaia were that whole Church which approved or consented to these particular Pastors that were put out Or that had Cognisance of them or acquaintance with them 11. He expresly saith pag. 62. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Church of Corinth for the sake of one or two moved Sedition against the Presbyters And why doth he never say it was the Church of Achaia 12. p. 63. He supposeth the Person Emulating to be a Believer of power in explaining Doctrine wise in judging of Speeches c. And would have the concern'd Person say p. 69. If the Sedition be for me and the Contention and Schisms I will remove I will be gone wither you will and will do what the People pre-determine of or command only let the Flock of Christ with the Presbyters set over them live in peace And is it like that the Flock that this Person must say so to was all Achaia 13. And p. 73. He requireth those that begun the Sedition to be obediently Subject to the Presbyters and not to their Bishop onely And is it like to be the Bishops of other Churches through all Achaia that this one or two is required to Obey and be in Subjection to I have given my Reasons to prove that these Presbyters were in the One Church of Corinth Compare his if you can find them to the contrary and Judge Impartially as you see cause Cap. 8. Hath nothing that concerneth us but the recitall of his grand Concession lest we should think that in Clemens days the great Bishop of Corinth or any in Achaia had any more Church-assemblies than one to whom he could do all the Pastoral Offices himself he thus concludeth § 9. Indeed mention is found only of Bishops with Deacons constituted in each City sometimes under the Title of Bishops sometimes of Presbyters there being no token or foot-step at all appearing of such as we now call Presbyters c. To which I wholly agree though not that there was but one Presbyter in Corinth Cap. 9. He is offended much with Blondel for reproaching Hermas and yet using his Testimony As if a Hereticks or an Infidels Testimony might not be used in point of History And § 14. he again cometh to his supposition of Bishops without Subject Presbyters as if it served his turn more than ours Cap. 10. About Pius words hath nothing that I find the cause concerned in Cap. 11. Is of little moment to us both parties have little that is cogent but velitations about dubious words Cap. 12. Is but about the sense of the word applyed to Ireneuâ— which Dr. H. taketh here and by many after to mean a Bishop and wonders that Blondel pleadeth for a parity of order from a common Name But it is not so much without reason as he maketh it For if Bishops and Presbyters were in the first times called by one Name and the highest Person in the Church then was ordinarily known by the name Presbyter and the appropriating of Bishop to one sort and Presbyter to another came afterwards in by such insensible degrees that no man can tell when it was it sounds very probable that it was the true Episcopal Power or the same Office and Order that was first commonly possessed by them to whom the name was Common And so much of Dr. Hammond's Dissertations wherein I must desire the Reader to note 1. That I meddle not with other mens Causes nor particularly with the question Whether one man in each Church had of old a guiding superiority over the rest of the Presbyters Nor yet whether the Apostles had such successors in the General care of many Churches such as Visiters or Arch-Bishops but only 1. Whether every Presbyter were not Essentially a Bishop or Governour of the Flock having the power of Keys as they call it in foro interiore exteriore both for resolving Consciences and for Church-order 2. Whether every particular Church which ordinarily communicated together in the Lords Supper and had unum Altare had not one or more such Bishops 3. Whether it was not a sinful corrupting change to bring in another Species of Presbyters and so to depose all the particular Churches and Bishops and set up a Dioâ—esane Bishop inâ—â—â—is ordinis with half Churches and half-Priests under him in their stead 2. And note That as it concerned me not to speak to all that the Doctor hath said so I have carefully chosen out all that I thought pertinent and of a seeming weight as to the cause which I mannage and have past by nothing in the whole Book which I thought an understanding Reader needeth an answer to There is yet the same Authors Vindication of his Dissertations to be considered But I find nothing new in them to be answered by me nor that I am concerned for the Cause in hand any further than to give you these few Observations 1. That again p. 5. he saith That by observing the paucity of Believers in many Cities in the first Plantations which made it unnecessary that there should by the Apostles be ordained any more than a Bishop and Deacon one or more in each City and that this was accordingly done by them at the first is approved by the most undenyable ancient Records 2. That p. 7. he again well averreth that the Jewish and Gentile Congregations occasioned several Churches and Bishops in the same Cities And p. 14. 15. That Timothy was placed by Paul Bishop of the Gentiles at Ephesus and S. John and another after him Bishop of the Jews Pag. 16. He thinketh that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus or Angel when Rev. 2. was wrote Pag. 17. From Epiphanius he reckoneth above 50 years from the Revelation of John Rev. 2. to the writing of Ignatius's Epistles By which we may Calculate the time when the
called Of which sort were abundance of Christians towards each others Bishops in former ages and such are the Papists now towards you So that neither Papist nor Protestant that I ever knew silenced by you doth forbear upon Conscience of this your pretended authority at all And what a silencing power is that which scarce any man would be ever silenced by You cannot choose but know this to be true 2. And really should Magistrates themselves be so servile to you as to silence all Ministers by the Sword whom a Prelate judgeth to be silent while he knoweth not whether it be deservedly or not God forbid that Protestants like the Popes sheald make Kings to be their Executioners or hangmen A meer Executioner indeed is not bound to know or examine whether the sentence was just or not though in most cases to forbear if it be notoriously unjust but what a King or Magistrate doth he must do as a publick Judge and therefore must hear the cause himself and try whether he be really guilty or not and not only whether a Bishop judged him so Else Magistrates will either be involved in the bloody sin of persecution as oÌ„ft as a Prelate will but command them and so must be damned and help to damn others when Prelates please Or else it is no sin for a Magistrate to silence all the holyest Ministers of Christ to the damnation of thousands of ignorant untaught Souls so be it the Prelates do but bid him and he keep himself unacquainted with the cause And next they must obey the Counsel at Laterane sub Inoc. 3. And exterminate all subjects out of their Dominions though it be all that are there and must burn Holy-Christians to ashes because the Pope or Prelates bid them 3. I need not make also a particular application of this case to the people When they know nothing but wise and sound and holy in the Doctrine or life of their Pastors and God bids them know such as labour among them and are over them in the Lord and highly esteem them in Love for their work sake they will hardly be so debauched as to violate this command of God as oft as a Diocesan will but say I know some Heresie or Crime by your Teacher which you do not and therefore he must Preach no more and you must no more use his ministry Were I one of these people I would be bold to ask the Diocesan Sir what is the Heresie or Crime that he is guilty of If he refuse to tell me I would slight him as a Tyrant General Counsels told the people of the Heresies for which they did despose their Pastors If he told me what it was I would try it by Gods word If I were unable I would seek help If the Diocesan silenced my Teacher and ten neighbour Bishops wiser than he did tell me that it was for Truth and Duty and that the Heresie was the Bishops I would hear my Teacher and believe the other Bishops before him without taking them to be of a higher order The objections against this and what is before said shall be answered in the next Chapter You see when it is but opened how the Diocesans power vanisheth into the air CHAP. XIII That there is no need of such as our Diocesans for the Unity or the Government of the particular Ministers nor for the silencing of the unworthy IT stuck much in the minds of the Ancient Doctors and Christians that Episcopacy was necessary to avoid Schism and discord among the Ministers and the people and that it was introduced for that reason And I am so averse to singularity in Religion that I will not be he that shall gainsay it A double yea a treble Episcopacy though I cannot prove instituted of Christ yet will I not contradict because one sort I cannot disprove and the other two I take to be but a prudential humane determination of the Circomstances of one and the same sacred Ministerial office-worke 1. That which I cannot disprove as to a Divine Institution is a General Ministry over many Churches like the Scors Visiters at their Reformation who as Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists in the durable parts of their office were by a conjunction of Scripture evidence and Divine authority of office to perswade Pasâ—ors and people to their several duties and to have a chief hand in ordaining and removing Ministers 2. That which I will not contradict antiquity in is a Bishop in every particular Church to be as the chief Presbyter like the chief Justice on the bench or one of the Quorum as our Parish Ministers now are in respect to all their Curates of the Chappels under them 3. And I would not deny but at all Ministerial Synods one man may be Moderator either pro tempore or for continuance as there is cause These two last are but Prudential circumstances as Doctor Stiling fleet hath proved And in all these I like the Discipline of the Waldenses Bâ—â—emian and Polonian Churches But no Government of the Presbyters no concord no keeping out of Heresie requireth such as our Diocesans 1. Who put down all the Bishops of the particular Churches under them 2. And pretending Spiritual Power Govern by the force of the Magistrates Sword 3. And obtrude themselves on the people and Pastors without their consent and against their wills being by multitudes taken for the enemies of the Church 4. And visibly before the world introducing so many bad Ministers and silencing so many faithful ones as in this age they have done Without them we have all these means of concord following 1. We have a clear description of the duty of Ministers and people in Gods word 2. We have Ministers to Preach up all these duties by Office 3. The people are taught by Scripture what Ministers to choose 4. We find it natural to the people to before Learned and godly Ministers though many of them be bad themselves And though it be not so with them all yet the sober part do usually perswade the rest So that in London and else where those Parishes where the people choose had usually far worthier Pastors than the rest especially than those in the Bishops presentation 5. The people are obliged by God to marke those Ministers that cause division and contention and avoid them 6. The Ministers are bound to give notice to the people of false teachers and Schismaticks and to command them to avoid them And themselves to renounce Communion with them after the first and second admonition 7. These Ministers may have correspondence by Synods to keep up concord by agreement among themselves So we have over all a Christian King and Magistracy who are the rightful Governours of the Clergy as well as of all other subjects and may constrain the negligent to their duty and restrain the Heretical Schismatical and wicked from their sin And may not all this do much to keep up Concord 2. What our Diocesans really
shall by the people be appointed only let the Sheep-fold of Christ live in peace with the Presbyters appointed over it By which words it is evident that it was such a particular Ovile or Church where the Will of the people might be declared as a matter that bore much sway But who can think that this is spoken of many Congregations where the peoples Will could not easily be signified 6. And it is farther manifest in that it was but for the sake of one or two that the Church of Corinth moved this sedition against the Presbyters called also Bishops pag. 62. Now how many Congregations that Church consisted of where the interest of one or two was either so far concerned or so powerful it is easie to conjecture set all these together and judge impartially I add though out of season that it was none of the Apostles meaning that those whom they made Bishops of such single Churches without a subject Order of Presbyters should make such an Order of subject Presbyters and make themselves the Bishops of a Diocesane Church without any Bishops under them For pag. 57. he saith And our Apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ knew that contention would arise about the name of Episcopacy and for this cause being endued with perfect fore-knowledge they appointed them aforesaid and left the Courses or Orders of After-Ministers and Offices described that other approved men might succeed in the place of the deceased and might execute their Offices So that it was the same places and the same Offices which those ordained by the Apostles had in which others must succeed them which therefore were described by the Apostles and not into others To confirm my Exposition of Clemens note that Grotius himself Epist 182. ad Bignon giveth this as a reason to prove this Epistle of Clemens to be genuine Quod nusquam meminit exortis illius Episcoporum authoritatis quae Ecclesiae consuctudine post Marci mortem Alexandriae atque eo exemplo alibi introduci coepit sed plane ut Paulus Apostolus ostendit Ecclesias communi Presbyterorum qui iidem omnes Episcopi consilio fuisse gubernatas that is Because he no where maketh mention of that excelling authority of Bishops which began to be intrduoced at Alexandria by the custom of the Church after the death of Mark and in other places by that example But he plainly sheweth as the Apostle Paul doth that the Churches were governed by the Common Council of Presbyters who were also Bishops Note also as aforesaid that Doctor Hammond in Dissert granteth as to matter of fact that Clemens speaketh but of the Bishops of single Congregations whom he also calleth Presbyters there being no other in the Church of Corinth II. My next Witness is Pius Bishop of Rome in Epist Justo Episcopo in Biblioth Patr. Tom. 3. pag. 15. mentioning only Bishops and Deacons of which Doctor Hammond making the same Concession still granteth that hitherto Bishops had but single Churches Of this more anon III. My next and greatest Witness is Ignatius in whom to my admiration the Diocesanes so much confide as that quasi pro aris focis they contend for the authority of his Epistles I am as loth to lose him as they are therefore I will not meddle in Blondel's controversie against whom they say Doctor Pierson is now writing In his Epistle to the Philadelphians he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is to every Church one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbytery and the Deacons my fellow servants I am not able to devise apter words to express my sense in He saith not this of some one Church but of all nor yet as of an accident proper to those times of the Churches minority but as of the Notes of every Churches Individuation or Haecceity as they speak The Unity of the Church is characterised by One Altar and One Bishop with the Presbytery and Deacons If 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were out it would not alter the sense being plainly implied Bishop Downame's Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it signified Christ is so forced and contrary to the evidence of the Text that his own party quite forsake him in it and he needeth no confutation For who ever before dreamed that the Unity or Individuation of each particular Church consisted in having one Christ who is the common Head of all Churches One Christ to every Church and one Bishop would signifie that every Church must have one several Christ as well as one several Bishop Nor is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so used by the Ancients except when the Context sheweth that they speak by allusion of Christ Master Mede's plain and certain Exposition and Collection I gave you before the same with ours As for them that say that many Congregations might per vices come to one Altar to communicate I answer 1. Let them make Churches as big as can thus communicate and spare not though there be necessary Chappels or Oratories besides 2. But remember that every Church used to worship God publickly and to communicate at least every Lords day and that there was but One Altar to each Church and therefore but one Communicating Congregation Doctor Stillingfleet in his Schismatical Sermon is for my Exposition Object It is meant of one Species of Altars and not one Individual Answ Then it is meant also of one Species of Bishops in each Church and not of one Individual Object The practice of the Churches after sheweth that they took it not for a sin or Schism to have several Altars in a Church Answ I talk of nothing but matter of fact it was the note of One Church when those Epistles were written whether the Author was mistaken de jure or whether after Ages grew wiser or rather had fewer Bishops and more Altars for the sake of Carnal Interest I judge not The same Author Epist ad Smyrn saith Ubi utique apparet Episcopus ibi multitudo sit quemadmodum utique ubi est Christus Jesus illic Catholica Ecclesia as Usher's Lat. Trans or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnis exercitus coelestis And the Context sheweth that this multitudo or plebs is the Church which the Bishop overseeth Therefore ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia fuit and so every Church had a present Bishop So in Epist ad Magnes he bids them All unitedly or as one run together to one Temple of God as to one Altar to one Jesus Christ So that every Church had one Temple and one Altar to which as a note of their Union in Christ the whole Church must unanimously come So in Epist ad Trull he saith Et Episcopus typum Dei Patris omnium gerit Presbyteri vero sunt consessus quidam conjunctus Apostolorum coetus sine his Ecclesia Electa non est Nulla sine his Sanctorum Congregatio nulla Sanctorum Collectio Et postea Quid vero aliud Sacerdotium est vel Presbyterium quam sacer
and one Bishop XIII In a Roman Council sub Silvest it 's said Ab omni Ecclesia eligatur consecrandus Episcopus nullo de membris Ecclesiae intercedente omni Ecclesia conveniente nulli Episcopo liceat sine cuncta Ecclesia a novissimo gradu usque ad primum ordinare Neophytum Silvester Papa dixit A nobis incipientes moderamine lenitatis judicare commonemus ut nulli Episcopo liceat quemlibet gradum Clerici ordinare aut consecrare nisi cum omni adunata Ecclesia si placet dixerunt Episcopi placet What can be more fully said Let the Bishop to be ordained be chosen by all the Church no one of the Members of the Church being wanting and all the Church meeting together Let it be lawful for no Bishop without the whole Church to ordain Not to ordain or consecrate any degree of Clergy-Man but with the whole Church together in one And how great then were the Churches when even at Rome and all about it The whole Church united and every member could meet together at every Ordination and Consecration I scarce know how a testimony can be plainer XIV The Concil Sardic which first began to befriend the Grandeur of the Roman Bishop was it that first forbad Bishops to be ordained in small Villages yet note that even there it was not absolutely forbidden to all Villages but only to such Villages and small Cities where one Presbyter was enough But they allowed a Bishop to the Cities Quae Episcopos habuerunt siqua tam populosa est Civitas vel Locus mark Locus as distinct from Civitas qui mereatur habere Episcopum So that if there were but people enough for more than one Presbyter they allowed them a Bishop And Can. 14. It is decreed that As no Lay-man must be above three Weeks from Church so no Bishop from his own Church at another place Whereas if a Bishop have many Churches or many hundred or a thousand he could be but at one in a Year or two or three or more if he did nothing but travel from parish to Parish Only in the next Canon those that have Farms or Lands in the Country are dispensed with for three Weeks to be absent from their own Churches so they go to another XV. In the Epistle of the 1. Concil Nic. ad Eccles Aegypt in Crab. pag. 262. T. 1. Presbyters were to be made Solummodo sivideantur digni populus eos elegerit condecernente simul designante maxime Alexandriae Civitatis Episcopo Still the people that had the choice were no more than could meet to chuse And even in the Arabick Canons ascribed to this Council by some of late it 's said Can. 72. Sic Episcopi Sacerdotes si Civitates suas Altaria propter alia majora relinquerent male facerent which shews that each City even then had but one Altar or Meeting for Sacramental Communion though when these were written there were other Churches in Villages that had Altars And in Pisan Can. 57. Archi-presbyter in absentia Episcopi honoretur tanquam Episcopus quia est loco ejus sit caput Sacerdotum qui sub potestate ejus sunt in Ecclesia The Bishop then was but such a Head of Priests in the same Church as an Arch-Presbyter might be in his absence And Cap. 9. The Vote of the whole Diocess without the Arch-bishop shall not serve to chuse a Bishop though all gathered together XVI The Concil Vasense granted leave for Presbyters to preach and Deacons to read Homilies in Country Parishes which sheweth both that Bishops were the ordinary Preachers to their whole Flocks before and that these Parishes were yet but new and perhaps but Chappels that yet had not Altars and the Lord's Supper XVII Binnius in Concil Ephes 1. To. 2. cap. 20. saith Dalmatius told the Emperor that there were six thousand Bishops under the Metropolitan sent to the Council that were against Nestorius And there was a great number on the other side with Johan Antiochen who cast out Cyril and Memnon How great think you were these Bishops Dioceses XVIII Concil Carth. 3. cap. 39. 40. in Crab some would have had many twelve Bishops at each Bishop's Ordination but Aurelius desired it might be but three because Crebro pene per diem Dominicum ordinationes habemus they had Ordinations almost every Lord's day and Tripoli had but five Bishops How big were these Dioceses where the Bishops could meet almost every Lord's day for Ordinations and five under Tripoly was an exceeding small number And cap. 40. If a Bishop were accused at his Ordination the Cause was to be tried In eadem plebe cui ordinandus est And surely it was not to be in many hundred Congregations at once or per vices XIX Concil Antioch before this Can. 5. pag. 321. in Crab Siquis Presbyter aut Diaconus Episcopum proprium contemnens se ab Ecclesia segregaverit seorsum colligens Altare constituit vel in secunda edit privatim apud se collectis populis Altare erigere ausus fuerit c. This sheweth 1. That the Presbyters then joyned with the Bishop in the same Church 2. And that then each Church had but one Altar and to erect another Altar elsewhere was to set up another Church Can. 8. Presbyteri qui sunt in agris Canonicas Epistolas dare non possunt Chorepiscopi autem dare possunt This sheweth that then the Country Villages had Chorepiscopos with Presbyters Can. 10 Qui in vicis vel possissionibus Chorepiscopi nominantur quamvis manus impositionem Episcoporum perceperint ut Episcopi consecrati sint tamen Sanctae Synodo placuit ut modum proprium recognoscant ut gubernent sibi subjectas Ecclesias earumque moderamine curaque contenti sint This sheweth that then the Churches in Villages had their Bishops though under the City Bishops Can. 16. A Bishop that put himself into a vacant Church without the consent of a perfect Council where must be the Metropolitane must be cast out etsi cunctus populus quem diripuit eum habere delegerit which sheweth that the whole people were no more than could meet to chuse him Can. 17 18 21. imply the same Episcopus ab alia Parochia non migret ad aliam nec sponte sua insiliens nec vi coactus a populo nec ab Episcopis necessitate compulsus Maneat autem in Ecclesia quam primitus adeo sortitus est A Church and a Parish are here the same and no greater than that the people could be the compellers which implieth their concurrence which could not be in a Diocess of many hundred Churches but in one only Can. 23. The Goods of the Church are faithfully to be kept which also are to be dispensed by the Judgment and Power of the Bishop to whom is committed the people and the souls that are congregated in the Church and it 's manifest what things belong to the Church with the
arbitrabatur And cap. 25. Cum ipso semper Clerici una etiam domo mensa sumptibusque communibus alebantur vestiebantur Yea he ordered just how many Cups in a day his Clergy-men with him should drink and if any sware an Oath he lost one of his Cups Through God's Mercy sober Godly Ministers now need no such Law By this it evidently appeareth that the Church which he and his Presbyters ruled was not many hundred but one Congregation or City-Church There being no mention of any Country Presbyters that he had elsewhere as far as I remember And when Augustine was dying the People with one consent accepted of his choice of Eradius to be his Successor Epist 110. pag. 195. To recite all that is in Austin's Works intimating these Church-limits would be tedious XX Epiphanius's Testimony I have before mentioned as produced by Petavius that there were few Cities if any besides Alexandria in those Countries that had more than one Congregation and particularly none of his own And Doctor Hammond trusteth to him and Irenaeus to prove that the Apostles setled single Bishops in single Congregations in many places without any Sub-Presbyters XXI Socrates l. 5. c. 21. saith The Church of Antioch in Syria is situate contrary to other Churches for the Altar stands not to the East but to the West Which Speech implieth that besides Chappels if any there was but one Church that was notable in Antioch while he calleth it The Church at Antioch without distinction from any other there XXII Socrates l. 7. c. 3. tells us a notable story of Theodosius Bishop of Synada who went to Constantinople for Power to persecute Agapetus the Macedonian Bishop in that City But while he was absent Agapetus turned Orthodox and his Church and the Orthodox Church joyned together and made Agapetus Bishop and excluded Theodosius who made his Complaint of it to Atticus the Patriarch of Constantinople a wise and peaceable Man who desired Theodosius to live quietly in private because it was for the Churches good May such causes oft have such decisions and Lordly troublesome Prelates such success By which story you may guess how many Congregations both Parties made in Synada XXIII Socrates l. 7. c. 26. tells us that Sisinnius was chosen Bishop of Constantinople by the Laity against the Clergy And cap. 28. Sisinnius sent Proclus to be Bishop of Cyziâ—um but the People chose Dalmatius and refused him And this custom of the People's Choice must needs rise at first from hence that the whole Church being but one Congregation was present For what Right can any one Church in a Diocess have to chuse a Bishop for all the rest any more than the many hundred that are far off and uncapable to chuse XXIV Sozomen's Testimony even so late is very observable lib. 7. cap. 15. who mentioning the differences of the East and West about Easter and inferring that the Churches should not break Communion for such Customs saith Frivolum enim merito quidem judicarunt consuetudinis gratia a se mutuo segregari eos qui in praecipuis Religionis capitibus consentirent Neque enim easdem traditiones per omnia similes in omnibus Ecclesiis quamvis inter se consentientes reperire posses And he instanceth in this Etenim per Scythiam cum sint Civitates multae unum dâ—ntaxat hae omnes Episcopum habent I told you the reason of this Rarity before Apud alias vero nationes reperias ubi Pagis Episcopi ordinantur Sicut apud Arabes Cyprios ego comperi He speaketh of his own knowledge No wonder then if Epiphanius be to be interpreted as Petavius doth when in Cyprus not only the Cities had but one Church but also the Villages had Bishops To these he addeth the Novatians and the Phrygian Montanists And let none think their instances inconsiderable For the Montanists were for high Prelacy even for Patriarchs as in Tertullian appeareth And the Novatians were for Bishops and had many very Godly Bishops and were tolerated by the Emperors even in Constantinople as good People and Orthodox in the Faith And Novatus was martyred in Valerian's Persecution as Socrates l. 4. c. 23. saith XXV Even Clemens Roman or whoever he was that wrote in his name Epist 3. sheweth that Teaching the People is the Bishop's Office and concludeth in Crab p. 45. Audire Episcopum attentius oportet ab ipso suscipere doctrinam fidei Monita autem vitae a Presbyteris inquire a Diaconis vero ordinem Disciplinae By which Partition of Offices it is evident that the Bishop only and not the Presbyters then used to preach to the Church and that the Presbyters though ejusdem ordinis and not Lay-Elders used to instruct the People personally and give them Monita vitae and that they were all in one Church together and not in several distant Churches XXVI Paul himself telleth us that Cenchrea had a Church and the Scripture saith They ordained Elders in every Church And though Downame without any proof obtrude upon us that it was under the Bishop of Corinth and had a Presbyter of his to teach them yet of what Authority soever in other respects the Constitutions called Clements or the Apostles be they are of more than his in this where lib. 7. cap. 46. in that old Liturgy Lucius is said to be Bishop of Cenchrea ordained by the Apostles XXVII Gennadius de viris illustr l. 1. c. 10. saith that Asclepius was Vici non grandis Episcopus Bishop of a Village not great XXVIII Saith Cartwright Four or five of the Towns which were Seats of the Bishops of the Concil Carthag which Cyprian mentioneth are so inconsiderable that they are not found in the Geographical Tables XXIX And faith Altare Damascen p. 294. Oppidum trium Tabernarum Velitris vicinum was a Bishop's Seat for all the nearness and smallness of the Towns And Gregor lib. 2. Epist 35. laid the Relicts of the wasted Church to the Bishoprick of Veliterno Castrum Lumanum had a Bishop till Gregory joyned it to Benevatus Bishop of Micenas and so had many Castra ordinarily Remigius did appoint a Bishop within his own Diocess when he found that the number of persons needed it Viz. apud Laudunum clavatum Castrum suae Dioeceseos Of Spiridion the Bishop of Trimithantis I spake before XXX Theoph. Alexand. Epist Pasch 3. in Bibl. Pat. To. 3. concludeth thus Pro defunctis Episcopis in locis singulorum constituti In urbe Nichio pro Theopempto Theodosius In Terenuthide Aisinthius In oppido Geras pro Eudaemone Pirozus In Achaeis pro Apolline Musaeus In Athrivide pro Isidoro Athanasius In Cleopatride Offellus In Oppido Lato pro Timotheo Apelles And the nearness and smallness of some of these sheweth the Dioceses small The same Theoph. Alex. saith Epist Canon Can. 6. De iis qui ordinandi sunt haec erit forma ut quicquid est Sacerdotalis ordinis consentiat eligat tunc Episcopus examinet
unless you will have them Hear as the Papists will have them Pray they know not what And though some might say that though they be of divers Assemblies yet they might have onely One Bishop to Rule them I answer 1. Dr. Hammond is more ingenuous and acknowledges that the diversities of congregations and languages inferred a diversity of Churches and Bishops with their distinct Clergy 2. And all Antiquity made Preaching or Teaching his flock as essential to the Bishops office as Governing them of which next But he could not teach several Churches whose language he understood not VIII Antiquity made the three parts of the Bishops office Teaching Worshipping and Governing to be of the same extent as to the subject society under him It was one and the same Church which he was ordinarily to Teach to guide in worship prayers praise sacrament and to Rule by discipline supposing still that we speak of a meer Bishop and not an Archbishop I should weary the Reader to cite numerous testimonies for so notorious a thing But it is known that the said Bishop neither is nor can be the Ordinary Teacher and Guide in worship to a Diocese of a multitude of Churches but to one or few at most And he that peruseth ancient writers shall find that the Bishop was not only to be a raâ—e or extraordinary Teacher of his whole flock but the Ordinary one not only to send others but to do it himself till the enlargement of Dioceses changed the custome IX Another evidence is this In the first two Centuries Deacons and Bishops were ever officers in the same Church But Deacons were never then officers in more Churches or stated assemblies that had Sacramental Communion than one therefore Bishops were not officers in more No proof can be given of any Deacons that had the care in their places of many Churches Parishes or Societies of Christians And when Dioceses were enlarged it is notable that the Presbyter that was the oculus Episcopi in the Diocese is called the Archdeacon Because originally he was but indeed a Deacon the chief Deacon who was with the Bishop in one and the same Church It being then inauditum for a Deacon to belong to many X. Another evidence is The Great number of Bishops who out of a narrow space of ground did usually assemble in the ancient Synods I told you before out of Crab of Sylvesters number at Rome Binius also hath the like words Sylvester collegit in gremio sedis suae 284 Episcopos and that 139 of them were ex urbe Roma vel non longe ab illa A hundred thirty nine Bishops in Rome and not far from it had not such Dioceses as now Cyprian saith lib. 1. Ep. 3. that Privatus was condemned in Synodo Lambesitana by 90 Bishops which was before Christianity was countenanced by Emperours and were under persecution yea long before Cyprian wrote that Epistle For the examining of every ordinary cause of an accused Presbyter sex Episcopi ex vicinis locis six Bishops from the neighbour places not from 40 or fourscore miles distance were to hear and determine and three Bishops for the cause of every Deacon Concil Afric Can. 20. so that no doubt but their Bishops were as near as our Market Towns at least even when so few of the people were Christians as that all that space afforded but one great Congregation The sixth provincial Council at Carthage had 217 Bishops whereas the General Council at Trent had long but 40. A Council of Donatists Hereticks not so numerous sure as the Catholicks at Carthage mentioned by Augustine Epist 68. about an 308 had 270 Bishops And when there were so great a number of Heretick Bishops how many were there of the Catholicks and Donatists and all other sects set together This one heresie had enow to become persecutours of the Catholicks beating them with clubs putting out the peoples eyes by casting vineger mixt with lime into them dragging them in the dirt And yet they were the smaller number and complained of persecution and some Circumcellions killed themselves to make the Catholicks odious as persecutors Occisos auferunt luci vivis auferunt lucem Quod nobis faciunt sibi non imputant quod sibi faciunt nobis imputantinquiunt Clerici Hippon ib. ad Januarium Certainly here were Churches no bigger then than our smaller Parishes And Augustine cont Gaudentium saith there were innumerable Bishops in Africa that were Orthodox And it was but a corner of Africa that were Christians and in the Roman Empire here meant Victor Uticensis in persecut Vandal sheweth that in that part of Africa 660 Bishops fled besides the great number murdered imprisoned and many tolerated The like may be said of Patricks Irish Bishops before mentioned and many others who plainly were Parochial Bishops XI Another evidence is The way of Strangers communicating then by way of Communicatory Letters or Certificates from the Church whence they came which were to be shewed to the Bishop of the Church where they desired to communicate But was it many hundred Churches that they must thus satisfie or must they travail to the Bishop with their Certificate before they must communicate in any one Church within 20. 30. 40. or 50. miles of him Doubtless an impartial Reader will think that it was but a Bishop of the same City-Church which he desired Communion with to whom the Certificate was to be shewn See what Albaspinaeus saith of these Letters ex Concil Laodic c. 41. Concil Antioch c. 1. Concil Agath can 52. Concil Eliber c. 58. in his observat p. 254 255. XII Another evidence is the ancient phrase describing a Schism by Altare aliud erigere to set up another Altar or to set up Altar against Altar And to separate from that Altar was to separate from that Church which implyeth that there was but one Altar in a Church and multiplying Altars was multiplying Churches XIII Another evidence was the late division of Parishes The idle story of Evaristus dividing Parishes at Rome Gers Bucer hath fully confuted It is most certain that except at Alexandria and Rome it was long before they were divided Sir Rog. Twisden Histor Vindicat. c. 3. p. 9 10. saith that it was under Theodore A. B. C. that Parochial Churches began mark Began to be erected here in England and the Bishop of Rome greatly reverenced in this nation c. out of a MS. in Trinity Hall Cambridge And it was 668 as Beda tells us before Theodore was Ordained Bishop The evidence in history of the Lateness of Parish divisions is past doubt And whereas the usual answer is that there may be Dioceses without Parishes I answer It is not the Name Diocese that is the thing in question but the Church-state While there was but one Altar there was but one place of ordinary Church Communion in the Lords Supper And when there were more places with Altars erected they could not be nor were long without
done or Power to maintain it To make Laws and seâ— up Churches Officers and Orders this year and to take them down and set up new ones a few years after seemeth levity and mutability in man And therefore must not without cause and proof be ascribed to God And the rather because that Moses Laws had stood so long and the taking down of them was a scandal very hardly born And if the Apostles that did it should set up by the Spirit others in their stead to continue but till they died this would be more strange and increase the offence 6. There was no sufficient change of the Reason of the thing Therefore there was no sufficient reason to change the thing it self if Prelates had had Authority to do it If you say That in Scripture times there were not worthy men enow to make Subpresbyters and Bishops both of I answer It is notoriously false by what Scripture speaketh 1. Of the large pourings out of the Spirit in those times 2. Of the many Prophets Teachers Interpreters and other inspired speakers which were then in one Congregation Act. 13. 1 2. And 1 Cor. 14. Insomuch that at Corinth Paul was put to limit them in the number of speakers and the exercise of their gifts 2. And it 's known by history and the great paucity of Writers in the next age that when those miraculous gifts abated there was a greater paucity of fit Teachers proportionably to the number of Churches than before 3. And who can prove that if there had been more men the Apostles would have made a new Order of Presbyters and not only more of the same Order 2. Obj. But the Churches grew greater after than before Answ 1. Where was there three Churches in the whole world for 300 years so numerous as the Church at Jerusalem is said to have been in Scripture 2. If the Churches were more numerous why might they not have been distributed into more particular Churches 3. Or how prove you that Presbyters should not rather have been increased in the number of the same Order than a new Order invented 4. This contradicts the former objection For if that Churches were so small and few before it 's like there might have been the more gifted persons spared to have made two Orders in a Church 5. And what if in Constantine's days the Churches grew yet greater than they did in the second or third age compared to the Apostles will it follow that still more new Orders may be devised as Subpriests were 7. There are worser reasons of the change too visible And therefore it is not to be imputed to a secret unproved mental intention of the Apostles In Christs own time even the Apostles themselves strove who should be the greatest False Apostles afterward troubled Paul by striving for a superiority of reputation Diotrephes loved to have the preeminence Sect-masters rose up in the Apostles days Acts 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Some caused Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which they had learned Rom. 16. 17. In Clem. Rom. time the Church of Corinth was contending about Episcopacy and superiority even Lay-men aspiring to the chair Peter seemeth to foresee what Pastors would do when he forewarneth them not to Lord it over Gods heritage 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. Victor quickly practised the contrary when he Excommunicated the Asian Bishops See Grotius his complaint of the early and ancient pride contention and tyranny of the Bishops De Imper. sum Pot. p. 360 361. Novatian with Novatus quickly shewed this spirit if they be not wronged at Rome and Carthage and so did Felicissimus and his partners against Cyprian What stirrs were there for many ages between the Cecilians and the Donatists What horrid work was there at the Concil Ephes 1. And Concil Chalcedon Concil Eph. 2. between the contending Bishops on each side The reading of the Acts would make a Christians face to blush What strife between Anthymius and Basil for a larger Diocese What work against Nazianzen to cast him out of Constantinople What sad exclamations maketh he against Synods and against these Names and Titles of preeminence and higher seats wishing the Church had never known them And yet he was angry with his friend Basil for placing him in so small a Bishoprick as Sosunis What abundance of Epistles doth Isidore Pelusiota write to Eusebius the Bishop and Sosimus and the other wicked Priests detecting and reproving their malignity drunkenness and horrid wickedness And how sharply doth he lament that a faithful Ministry is degenerate into carnal formal Tyranny and that the Bishops adorned the Temples under the name of the Church while they maligned and persecuted the Godly who are the Church indeed How lamentable a description doth Sulpit. Severus give of the whole Synods of Bishops that followed Ithacius and Idacius And in particular of Ithacius himself as a fellow that made no conscience of what he said And what did Martin think of them who avoided all their Communions to the death and would never come to any of their Synods Especially because by stirring up the Magistrate against the Priscillianists they had taught the vulgar fury to abuse and reproach any man that did but read and pray and fast and live strictly as if he were to be suspected of Priscillianism which Hooker himself complaineth of Pref. And Ambrose also did avoid them What bloody work did Cyril and his party make at Alexandria What a man was Theophilus after him What work made he against Chrysostom What a Character doth Socrates give of him What insolence and furious zeal did Epiphanius shew in the same cause in thrusting himself into the Church of Chrysostom to stir up his hearers to forsake him Hierom had a finger in the same cause His quarrels with Johan Hierosol with Ruffinus his abusive bitterness against Vigilantius c. are well known The multitudes of Canons for preserving the grandeur of Patriarchs and Metropolitanes and Prelates on one side and for keeping small Cities without Bishops ne vilescat nomen Episcopi and for restraining Pride self-exaltation enlargement of Diocese encroachment on each other on the other side do all shew the diseases that needed such a Cure or that had such a vent In a word the Bishops never ceased contending partly for their several opinions and errours and partly for preeminence and rule till they had brought it to that pass as we see it at this day between Rome and Constantinople and the most of the Christian world From all which it is most apparent that Pride and Contention were cured but in part in the Pastors of the Churches And that the remaining part was so strong and operative as maketh it too credible that there were ill causes enow for enlarging of Dioceses and getting many Churches into one mans power and setting up a new Order of half-subpresbyters And that the event of
prescribed in Scripture professed that it was always his opinion And joyned with us in our proposals for Bishop Ushers Model Dr Stillingfleet in his Irenicon hath said so much against the Jus Divinum of our Prelacy as can never be answered I have talked with many of the Bishops and Episcopal Conformists my self of these matters and I do not remember that ever I spake to one accounted a Learned man that did not confess when driven to it that the Greatness of the Diocesses and the Chancellors Government by the Church Keyes were causes of so great a lapse of discipline as is to be groaned under And can shew us no probability it possibility of restoring it while it so stands And yet they would have us subscribe and swear never to endeavour any alteration of the Church Government not excepting in our place and calling by petition or otherwise no though the King commanded us Bishop Hall in his Mod. Offer doth confess the faultiness and desires reformation and in his excellent Peace-maker would take up even with a presidencie durante vita as sufficient to reconcile us Dr. Hammond himself oft complaineth of the lapse of discipline and the clergies and peoples vices thereupon The Liturgy wisheth the godly Discipline restored but doth it not as if in our case it could not be done Abundance of their Writers lament the scandals of clergy and people which have abounded of which I shall say somewhat more anon 2. And this is yet plainlier confessed by the Actual omission of discipline We need not to dispute whether that can or be ever like to be done by our Prelacy which is no where done and never was done no not by any one man of them not excepting the very best so that if they had not come neer the Erastian opinion in their hearts and thought this use of the Keyes to consist but in bare Teaching or the rest to be of no great need it had not been possible that they should have quieted their Consciences Or at least if they did not do it by saying I cannot help it It is not long of me As Bishop Goodman layeth it on the King in the case of Chancellours and most lay it on the Church-Wardens and Ministers for presenting no more But all must confess that little is done besides the troubling of Nonconformists It is not one of a thousand in a Diocesse I am confident that ever is brought under the excercise of Church discipline that ought to be Nor one of many thousand that should be so according to the ancient Canons of the Churches If I should give no other instance than the ordinarie neglect of all Gods publick worship Preaching Prayer and Sacraments in publick Churches or any other Religious Assemblies I do not think but ten thousand persons in this Diocesse and twenty thousand if not fourty in London Diocesse are guilty that were never questioned by the Church I may therefore argue thus That which never was done by any one Bishop in England being the confessed work of their office is naturally or Morally Impossible to be done or if it have a possibility it is as bad as none when it never was once reduced into act But the true exercise of Church discipline on all or the hundredth or many hundredth person that it is due to was never done by one Bishop in England that can by any credible History be proved since the deformation or reformation Ergo. The strength of the Major is plain 1. From the Bishops own mouths who use to praise themselves as the Wisest Learn dst and best of the Clergie and therefore fitter to be trusted with the Government of the Church than all or any of the Presbyters though but under then And they would take it heynously if we question their wisdom conscience or honesty and if they are all or most so good sure it is long of the state and constitution of their places and not long of their persons that their very proper work is made but a shaddow and a dream 2. But though this be but ad homines yet really we have had very worthy and excellent persons to be Bishops what a man was Jewell Arch-bishop Grindal had Godliness enough and resolution too to make him odiâ—s and favoured Lectures and Preaching c. Enough to bring him down if Cambden Godwin or Fuller are to be believed but never could do this work of discipline upon one of hundreds or thousands under him We had an excellent Arch-Bishop-Abbot afterwards good enough to be reproached by Heylin and to suffer what I need not mention but never able to do this work What Learned Judicious worthy men were his Brother Robert Abbot and after him Davenant Bishops of Salisbury And how good a man was peaceable Bishop Hall so Usher in Ireland Moron and many more But no such thing was done by any of them what should I say now of Bishop Reignolds and Bishop Wilkins Men Learned and extraordinary honest in these times But let any man enquire whether any such thing as the discipline in question is exercised on the thousandth Criminal in their Diocese Indeed we have heard in Bishop Reignolds Diocese of a great number censured for Nonconformity And it is his praise that it was not his doing but his Chancellours though heretofore Judge Advocate in Fairefaxes or Cromwells Army And to say now that it is long of Church-Wardens Chancellours c. Is but to say that the Church is corrupted the Episcopal discipline almost quite cast out and all the remedy is to say It is long of somebody Like the Physician whose Praise was that his patients dyed according to the rules of art or the nurse whose praise was that though most of the Children perished it was long of themselves or somebody else IV. But the fullest experience which so far satisfieth me that all the books in the world cannot change me in this is my own and the rest of my Brethren in the Ministry I have lived now through Gods wonderful mercy threescore years wanting lesse than four In all this time whilst the Bishops ruled I never heard one man or woman called openly to repentance for any sin nor one ever publikely confess or lament any sin Nor one that was excommunicate in any Country where I came except the Nonconformists Nor did I hear of any but one man to my remembrance who did formal penance for Fornication I doubt not but there have been more But the number may be conjectuâ—ed by this I lived under a great number of drunken and ignorant Curates that never preached and Schoolmasters my self and many more were round about us that were never troubled with discipline or cast out I never lived where drunkards and swearers were not common but never one of them underwent the Churches discipline But those that met to fast and pray and went to hear a Sermon two miles off when they had none at home But yet this is the last
Did it preserve the Kingdome of Navar to the right Lord What should I say more of this after the copious instances of H. Fowlis and after that volume of W. Prin. of the English Prelates Treasons Read it and judge 2. What people more peaceable and obedient to their superiors for instance than the Helvetian Ministers have been who yet have no such thing as Bishops 3. Dr. Pet. Moulin Junior one of your selves in his answer to Philanax Angl. hath said enough to confute most of the Calumnies against the Reformed Churches in this point 4. Who knoweth not that even in the ancient Churches and that when Episcopacy was thriving apace yea and by and among the Bishops themselves yea some that were good men and are now Sainted yet tumults seditions rebellions and contentions troubled the Churches and the Emperours and Magistrates as frequently as of later times which I mention not to abate the honour of those better Christians but 1. To shew you that all this was done under Prelacy and therefore it was not want of Prelacy or aversness to it that is to be taken for the cause 2. That these distempers were found in the best times and among the purest Churches and therefore are not to be now thought strange or taken for a mark of a bad religion I will not repeate what I said but even now of the horrid tumults and blood shed at Alexandria their cruel Murdering of Hypatia and the insurrection and sedition even of the Holy Monks and Saint Cyrils Sainting of the executed actor of violence on the Governour What work his Predecessor Saint Theophilus made against Saint Chrysostome how Epiphanius acted his part how Saint Hierome was of their party how even the Orthodox Bishops in several Synods opposed and deposed those two excellent Bishops of Constantinople Gregory Theol. and Chrysostome hath been said before Even at the Election of Chrysostome Theophilus went about by all means to discredit him and to preferr to the place one Isidore a Priest of his own Church And that you may know how Loyalty prevailed against the owning of Tyrants when they got the better you shall further hear why Theophilus set so much by this Isidore because he undertook for him a perillous piece of service saith Socrates li. 6. c. 2. viz When the Emporour Theodâ—sius waged War with Maximus the Tyrant Theophilus sent Presents directed to the Emperour with two Letters one to Theodosius and one to Maximus charging Isidorus to present him that got the better with the gift and one of the Letters Isidore being careful of his business went diligently about this feat got him to Rome and hearkeneth after the Victory But his fetch was not long ere it was found out for his Reader that accompanyed him stole away his Letters Whereupon Isidore being afraid to be taken with the manner took his heeles in all hast to Alexandria This was it that made Theophilus labour so carnestly for Isidore But all that were of the Emperours Court preferred John to the Bishopprick And afterwards when as many charged Theophilus with heynous crimes and presented to the Bishops then present libells and Articles against him some for this thing and some for that Eutropius one of the Emporours Chamber having gotten the Articles and Inditements shewed them to Theophilus bad him choose whether he would Create John Bishop or stand at the Barr and answer to the Crimes that were laid to his charge Theophilus was so afraid with this that presently he consented to the installing of John What would have been said of one of us now if we had not only complyed with a victorious Tyrant but also so jugled with presents and double Letters before hand I did my self disowne Oliver Cromwel openly to his death and yet because after twelve years possession of the Usurpers I did but Dedicate two Bookes to his Son Richard whom I never saw nor heard from only to encourage him to befriend truth and unity against Papists and Sectaries who then threatened all and this when the Royalists themselves gave out that he was Really for the restoration of the King this is made the odious Crime in me as a thing deserving greatest Infamy Do I need to recite how great Leo himself and other Roman and Italian Bishops owned the Barbarian Conquerours No wonder than if they too early took Theodoricus for their King set over them by God who was a better man than the rest and had at last a better Tittle Saith Socrates further li. 6. c. 7. When the Common-wealth of the Roman Empire was tossed with these troublesome stormes of Rebellion such as were promoted to the reverend function of Priest hood were at distraction among themselves to the great slander of Christian Religion Then was one set against the other the original of which pestilent Schism came from Egypt and the occasion was as followeth There was a question broached a little before whether God were a body made after the likeness and forme of man Or whether he were without body and void of all Corporal shape Hereof there arose sundry contertions and quarrels While some affirmed this and others that Some of the rudest and unlearned sort of Religious men thought that God was Corporeal and of the forme and figure of man But the greater part condemned them with their Heretical opinion affirming that God had no bodily substance or shape Of which opinion was Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria so that in the hearing of the whole Congregation he inveighed bitterly against the Contrary The worshippers of Egypt understanding this left their Religious houses came to Alexandria flocked about Theophilus condemned him for a wicked person and sought to bereave him of his Life Theophilus being made privy to their Conspiracy was wonderful pensive devised how he might scape their hands and save his life As soon as he came into their presence he saluted them Courteously and said thus to them When I fasten mine eyes on you methinks I see the lively face of God With these words the rash heat of the unruly Monkes was delayed and they said If that be true that thou sayest that the Countenance of God is no otherwise than ours accurse then the works of Oregen For divers of his books do impugne our opinion But if thou refuse to do this assure thy self to receive at our hands the punishment due to the impious and open Enemies of God Nay saith Theoph. I will do that which seemeth good in your eyes Thus you see what the Monks were But will you see what Theophilus was It followeth The Religious houses in Egypt were overseen of four worthy men Bretheren Dioscorus Ammonius Eusebius and Eutburmus Their great fame and excellency made Theophilus force them out of their beloved solitude and make Dioscorus a Bishop and two other to live with himself At last their Consciences were pricked perceiving that the Bishop was set upon heaping and hoarding of mony and that all their labour
Bishops have been Arch-hereticks and the cause of tumults and dissensions The very reading over the acts of the General Councils especialy Eph. 1. and 2. Calced is tremendous It was to be a Bishop that Maximus made so pestilent a stir at Constantinople and Alexandria against Gregory Theolog. Yea they tell us themselves that it was because he could not be a Bishop that Aerius spake against Bishops so pestilent a thing hath the desire of such Bishopricks been Theodotus the Bishop would not so much as joyn in Prayer with Basil morning or evening because he had but communicated with Bishop Eustathius upon his fair professions Basil Epist 43. Admir ad Terentium Comit. The contention between such excellent persons as Eusebius Caesar while Bishop and Basil while Presbyter was very sad and scandalous The contention between Basil and Euthemius about the extent of their Diocess was no less The People of Caesarea would have torn in peices Eusebius the President the Emperors own Unkle for Basils sake if he had not hindred them The Church of Neo-Caesarea wrangled with Basil for his Psalmodie and even avoided him as if he had been an Heretick see Basils Epist ad mer. 4. to Julian what language he there ufeth to the Emperour Not that I judge him but wish you to judge equally of the actions of those times and ours See Basil Ep. 82. Theodor. l. 5 c. 19. The Antiochians for a Tax under Theodosius the great did tumultuate and kill the Magistrates and destroyed the Statue of Placilla the good Empress In the West good Ambrose at Milan was not silenced as we are but by an Orthodox Emperour desired and commanded to deliver the Arrians possession but of one Church and he refused to do it and to forsake that Church or Temple or deliver the Vessels till they should be taken by force Vit. Ambros per Baron p. 6. whereas we all left our Churches at a word Nay though he would not resist the Emperour he would rather die than deliver up the Church When he was celebrating Gods Worship he was fain to break off to rescue an Arrian Priest out of the hands of the Orthodox people who had laid hold on him For which multitudes were laid in prison and Irons and accused of Sedition and great Calamity followed to the Church and this from Valentinian an Orthodox Emperour Ambrose saith when he refused to deliver up the Temple Eâ—qua sunt Divina Imperatoriae potestati non esse subjecta If Baronius say true but mine I shall yield to him But we hold that even Temples as well as Bishops though dedicated to God are under the Civil power of the Empour When Ambrose was desired but to quiet the people he answered It is in my power not to stir them up but it is God that must quiet them So great was his interest in the people that the Emperour said he was a Tyrant and that the people would deliver himself bound to him if Ambrose did but bid them Yet had Ambrose been the man that had gone on his Embassie to Maximus and kept him from coming into Italy in pursute of Valentinian which made Ambrose say Non hoc Maximum dicere quod Tyranus go sum Valentiniani qui se meae legationis objectum queritur ad Italiam non potuisse pervenire And because the late revolutions in England are made by some Prelates the pretence for the silencing of the 1800 Ministers of whom one of ten never medled with Warrs being fallen again on this case of Maximus let it be noted how like he was to Cromwel saving that it was not the Sectaries but the Bishops that he studyed to please and rise by When Gratian the Emperour befriended the Priscillianists Maximus to please the Bishops persecuted them to the death When Valantinian by Justina the Empresse meanes did persecute or trouble Ambrose for refusing to deliver a Church to the Arrians and also other Orthodox Bishops as well as Ambrose Maximus gave to Ambrose and the Bishops the Honour of keeping him out of Italy and letting Valentinian scape Yea wrote his Letters to Valentinian for the Orthodox Bishops telling him how grievous a thing it is to persecute the Ministers of God and when under his father they went for faithful Ministers Quae tanta mutatio ut qui antea sacerdotes nunc sacrilegi judicantur Iisdem certe praeceptis Iisdem Sacramentis dilatis Eadem fide credunt qua antea crediderunt An put at Venerabilis mihi serenitas tua conceptam semel in animis religionem quam Deus ipse constituit posse evelli And proceedeth to shew what disorders and contentions must needs follow when there be a shew of persecuting Christians and Ministers Upon this message of Maximus Valentinian being afraid of him the persecution ceased and Ambrose must be sent again on the Embassage to Maximus to stop him But when as the Bishops of France and Germany owned him and Ambrose would not communicate with those Bishops no more than Martin saith he cum videret me abstinere ab Episcopis qui communicabant ei vel qui aliquos devios licet a side that is the Prescillianists ad necem petebant jussit me sine mora regredi See here that Ambrose as well as Martin separated from the Communion of the multitude of Bishops for owning Maximus and for seeking to the Magistrate to draw his sword against the Priscillianists whom Sulp. Severus calleth Gnosticks When as many among us have by words and writing provoked Rulers to draw the sword against us that differ in no one point of doctrine from the Articles of the English Church And the said Maximus and the Bishops did so close that only one Hyginus a Bishop is mentioned and Theognostus besides Ambrose and Martin that rejected Maximus and refused Communion with the Synod and Bishops and was banished also for so doing By which you may see 1. That Bishops can comply with usurpers that will be for them as much as Presbyters 2. And that all is not unwarrantable separation or schism which Bishops call so when these three shall separate from so many And saith Baron in vita Ambros Maximus ut Tyranni nomen vitaret perinde atque fidei Catholicae tuendae causa bellum illud suscepisset in hereticos pugnam convertit Catholicos sacerdotes quibus valuit honoribus officiis est prosecutus p. 24. Maximus raiseth that war for the Orthodox Bishops to save them from the persecution of their lawful Prince and sets himself to do them all the honor he could and to pull down the hereticks And these were the Halcionian daies which Ambrose himself declareth and magnifieth even when Maximus had supprest the Arrians En tempus acceptabile quo non hiemalibus perfidiae caligantis pruinas annus riget nec altis nivis c. ibid. Reader was not that time more strange than ours that Ambrose must be so loyal as to save his Prince and Country from a usurper and yet
Bishop and his Chancellor and other Officers are over us all The Magistrates Civil Governmeut of the Church I shall not meddle with as having no exceptions against it The Sacerdotal or Spiritual Power called the Power of the Keys determineth who shall be Members of the Church and partake of its Communion and exerciseth other acts of Spiritual Discipline of which more anon This power is said to be in Archbishops and Bishops in foro ecclesiae publico vel exteriore though also in the Governed Presbyters in foro privato interiore as they may privately comfort a penitent person and declare God's promise of the pardon of his sin The Archbishops have it in eminency As also the power of confirming the Election of the Bishops of their Provinces and the power of Consecrating Bishops with two others and the power of Convocating Provincial Synods upon the Kings Prescript and of moderating in them The power of receiving Appeals and of Visiting the whole Provinces yea to receive Appeals from the lower Judges omiting the middle ones and to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in any vacant Diocess under them They have power of Dispensation in all Causes not judged contrary to Gods word wherever the Pope had power and where the Pope had not power if the King or Council permit it them They may dispense with the Eating of flesh on Fasting-days with Marrying without previous publication with divers irregularities and sometime may abolish simoniacum ambitum They may grant Commendams and Dispence with Non-residence and with the keeping of divers Churches called Benefices in several Cases and with a Sons succeeding his Father and with Lay-mens possessing the Church-maintenance called Prebends The Bishops who take place in Parliament of other Barons as the Archbishops do of Dukes are all chosen really by the King who nominateth in a Writ to the Dean and Chapter the man whom they must chuse who pro forma do chuse him never contradicting the Kings Nomination Their proper Office consisteth in the powers of Order and of Jurisdiction as they distinguish them Their power of Order is threefold 1. To Ordain Priests and Deacons 2. To Consecrate Churches and Burying places 3. To Confirm Children after Baptism when they can speak and say the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and others that were not Confirmed in their Childhood Besides that they may be Privy-Counsellors Lord-Keepers of the Great Seal Lord Treasurers Embassadours c. Their ordinary Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction extendeth 1. to the Interdiction of Divine Offices 2. to publick Admonitions and Penances 3. to suspension from the Sacrament and from ingress into the Church and 4. to Excommunication and Absolution and 5. to Anathematisms And as to Ministers 1. They may Sequester Benefices 2. They may Suspend ab officio beneficio and forbid them to Preach or Pray Or grant License to such as shall be tolerated to Preach 3. They may deprive 4. And depose Ministers by sentence verbal and degradation actually This Church Jurisdiction of Bishops is distinguished into Voluntary and Contentious The Voluntary extendeth to abundance of things granted them by Statute and by Common Law which I pass by That which they claim both by Municipal Law and Ecclesiastical is 1. The probate of the Testaments of the dead 2. The granting Administration of Goods to the next of Kin 3. Keeping the bona caduca where none claimeth the Inheritance 4. To receive Reasons of Administring and to be Judges of them 5. To confer Benefices or Institute such as others present 6. To grant Induction to the Instituted 7. To receive the Fruits of vacant Benefices 8. To allow the Vicar a fit proportion 9. To grant Letters Dimissory or Testimonial 10. To Visit their Diocess once in three years In which Triennial Visitation they usually go to one Town in a County and never see the face of the people in the many score or hundred Churches about them and thither they summon the Ministers and the Church-Wardens and Sides-men Where one Minister preacheth and then the Ministers must dine with the Bishop and in Court he or his Officer giveth a Book of Printed Articles containing a multitude of particulars which the Church-warden must swear to present by where because of the quality of them some Church-Wardens refuse and others because of the number some saying it is unlawful to undo their Ministers and Neighbours by such Presentments as for omitting a Ceremony for preaching or keeping a Fast in private c. and some saying it is impossible to keep the Oath and some saying that if they do it they shall be hated of their Neighbours Whereupon those that refuse are prosecuted to punishment And the rest take the Oath and Articles but not one of many doth present accordingly though the Canon enquires after the perjured And many that fear perjury or persecution themselves do hire some poor man to be Church-Warden in their stead that will venture upon all I must intreat the Reader to peruse some of their Books of Articles especially such as Bishop Mountagues and Bishop Wrens to see what was then enquired after Dr. Zouch de Jud. Eccless p. 37. § 1. Part. 3. saith Ad judices quod attinet statuto ordinatum quod personae conjugatae dummodo Doctores Juris Civilis fuerint qui ad officium Cancellarii Vicarii Generalis Officialis vel Commissarii à Majestate Regia Archiapiscopo Episcopo Archidiacono aut alio quocunque potestatem habente deputati sunt omnem Jurisdictionem Ecclesiasticam exercere quam libet censuram sive coercitionem â—rrogare possint This Jurisdiction of Bishops is exercised either Universally by a Vicar General usually a Lay-man or qarticularly by a Commissary And when he please the Bishop may do it himself The other part of their Jurisdiction is called Contentious And here the Bishop may himself judge in some Cases but in the ordinary course of Jurisdiction a Civil Lawyer called his Chancellor is the Judge This Chancellor is and must be a Lay-man which even Bishop Goodman of Gloucester Myst Rel. Epist I have it and can produce it at this time under the Kings own Hand and Seal wherein he forbids that any Church-man or Priest in Holy Orders be a Chancellor and this was the occasion of all the corruption of the Spiritual Courts For Chancellors live only on the Fees of the Court and for them to dismiss a Cause it was to lose so much blood See further in him a Papist Bishop of a Protestant Diocess complaineth in Print that he could not get Reformed This Chancellor keepeth an Ordinary Court in the form of a Civil Court where are Advocates for Council and Proctors for pleading Certain men called Apparitors whose name is commonly a scorn among the people do from abroad the Country bring them in Accusations and Summon the persons accused besides those that by Plaintiffs are accused Here are judged Causes about Church Materials and Causes Criminal which he that
were but as if every Corporation or Market-Town in England had a Bishop who ruled also the adjacent Villages For though when they began to swell it was once decreed by one Council that Villages and every small City should not have a Bishop lest the Name of a Bishop should grow vile or cheap yet this was but with this addition those Villages or small Cities where there was not a sufficient number of Christians whereas Gregory at Neocesarea thought seventeen a sufficient number to have a Bishop And the Canons that every City should have a Bishop remained still in force 45. Yet was it for about 440 Years so far from these great Bishops to usurp the Sword or any coercive or coactive power on mens Bodies or Estates that they unanimously held that the Magistrate himself was not to punish mens Bodies for Heresie or a false Religion Till at last the bloody violence of the Circumcellian Donatists did cause Augustine in this to change his mind and think them meet for the Magistrates coercion 46. When Bishops grew carnal and ungodly and more regarded the keeping up their Power Parties and Opinions than Charity they beganto distrust the Spiritual Weapons of their warfare and instead of true vigilancy against errours and confutation of them by clear reason and a holy life they fled to the Rulers to do it by the Sword But though Ithacius and Idacius with their Synod of Bishops excited Maximus to take this course against the Priscilianists yet not only St. Martyn did therefore to the death avoid their Synods and Communion and petitioned the Emperour for the Hereticks peace but even St. Ambrose also at Milan would have no Communion with those Bishops that had done this thing 47. About the Year 430 or after Cyril at Alexandria did lead the way and actually used the Sword against the Lives Estates and Liberties of Offenders An example which others quickly followed And easily did he step from the great Judicial Power before described to a forcing power the preparations being so great and the Emperour so ready to exalt them and the people of Alexandria so turbulent and inclined by pride and passion to such ways 48. As the Prelacy thus swelled so the Churches grew suddenly more corrupted with all manner of Vice The Bishops began with sorrow to confess unto the Hereticks that the greater number in the Churches were naught When they should chuse their Bishops they could seldom agree but frequently instead of holy peaceable Votes did turn to Devilish rage and blood-shed and covered the Streets and Church-floors with the Carkasses of the slain especially in the Case of Damasus and others at Rome and oft at Alexandria and Constantinople Frequently they fell into fewds and fought it out and murdered people by multitudes Even the strict holy Monks of the Egyptian Desarts were as forward as others to fighting blood-shed and sedition Even in their ignorance for such a paultry and sottish an Opinion as that of the Anthropomorphites as that God hath the shape and parts of a man so that they forced that deceitful treacherous Bishop Theophilus Alexandr to flatter them and curse the Books of Origen not for his errours but for the opposite truth and to take on him to hold as they did When God tryed them with a Julian who did persecute them very little they reproached him to his face and tryed his patience as well as he did theirs The Antiochians scornfully bid him shave his Beard and make Halters of it In a word when Constantine had brought the World into the Church the Church grew quickly too like the World 49. But it was not the people only but the Pastors both Prelates and Presbyters that grew licentious wicked proud contentious turbulent and the shame of their Order and Profession and the great disturbers and dividers of the Churches except here and there an Ambrose an Augustine a Chrysostome a Basil a Gregory an Atticus a Proclus and a few such that so shined among a darkened degenerate Clergy as to be singled out for Saints Abundance got these great and tempting Prelacies by Simony and more by making friends to Courtiers And not a few by Carnal compliances with the people what abundance of most sharp Epistles did Isidore Pelusiota write to Eusebius the Bishop and to Sosimus Martianus Eustathius c. of all their horrible wicked lives and yet could never procure their Reformation What abundance of Epistles did he write against them to other Bishops and yet could not procure their correction or removal What a sad character doth Sulpitius Severus give of the Bishops that prosecuted the Priscilianists and in particular of their Leader Ithacius of his own knowledge What abundance of Prelates are shamefully stigmatized by Socrates Sozomen Theodoret Euagrius c When a Rebel rose up against his Prince and got but the stronger party and possession how quickly did they flatter him and own him I find but one Bishop besides St. Martin in all France and that part of Germany that disowned Maximus that murdered Gratian The rest applauded him for their own ends Nor in that part of Italy I find not any besides Ambrose and one Hyginus that disowned him Not that I think it my part to condemn all the holy Bishops who professed subjection to Usurpers in possession Even holy Ambrose could write to the odious Tyrant Eugenius Clementissimo Imperatori Eugenio concluding Nam cum privato detulerim corde intimo quomodo non deferrem Imperatori When I honoured thee a private man from the bottom of my heart how can I but honour thee being Emperour And how far have the Roman Bishops gone in this even to Phocas and such as he When good Gregory Nazianz. was chosen and settled Bishop of Constantinople and loved and honoured by a good Emperour yet was he rejected though he easily yielded even by the Synod of Bishops in the arrogancy of their minds because that he came not in by them With what pride what falshood what turbulency did Theophilus Alexand. carry on all his business with the Monks and for the deposing of Chrysostome And how arrogantly and turbulently did Epiphanius joyn with him and even Hierome make himself partaker And how easily did he get a Synod even where Chrysostome lived to second them such lamentable instances are more easie than pleasant to be cited And that Episcopacy which was set up to prevent Heresie and Divisions did afford the Heads of most of the Heresies and Divisions that befell the Churches How few of all the Heresies mentioned by Epiphanius after that Prelacy was in force were not Headed and carried on by Prelates And when the Arian Heresie sprung up by a Presbyter the Prelates so numerously received it that they seemed to be the far greater part if not the main body of the Imperial Church Witness the perverting of many Emperours the many Councils at Sirmium Ariminum c. And the many new Creeds which Socrates and Hilary
teach them not to disdain the advice of their Presbyters but to use their Authority with so much the greater humility and moderation as a Sword which the Church hath power to take from them This is Mr. Hooker And page 14. He confesseth that according to the Custom of England and a Council at Carthage Presbyters may impose hands in Ordination with the Bishop though not without him So that by this they have the the power of Ordination to though he have a Negative Voice in it And indeed if all Ordination must be done by one of a Superiour Order who shall Ordain Bishops or Archbishops or Patriarchs or the Pope And page 18. He saith Most certain truth it is that Churches Cathedral and the Bishops of them are as glasses wherein the face and countenance of Apostolical antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen Which is it that we also affirm every City or Church having a Bishop and Presbytery of their own And whereas page 19. He saith If we prove that Bishops have lawfully of old ruled over other Ministers it is enough how few soever those Ministers have been how small soever the circuit of place which hath contained them If this be so we grant you enough when we grant Parochial Bishops But no where doth he more palpably yield our Cause than page 21 22. where to Cartwright's Objection that the Bishop that Cyprian speaketh of is nothing else but such as we call Pastor or as the common name is Parsons and his Church whereof he is Bishop is neither Diocess nor Province but a Congregation which met together in one place to be taught by one man He hath no better answer to this than to tell us that If it were true it is impertinent and that it is not true because Cyprian had many Presbyters under him so as they might have every day change for performance of their duty And he never once attempteth to prove that Cyprian had more Churches yea or Assemblies than One but only that he was over the Presbyters in one Church or Assembly and as an Archbishop was over Bishops The same thing which I submit to but nothing against the things that I assert against him A Parson may have divers Curates under him and not divers Churches much loss a thousand that have no other Bishop And whereas page 33. It is objected that many things are innovated in our Discipline as imposing Ministers on the People without their consent Bishops Excommunicating alone Imprisoning c. His answer is that the Church may change her customes And on that ground alloweth the Ordination of Presbyters alone because the Church can give them power For he goeth in Church-matters as he doth in point of Civil Government on his false supposition that all Power is Originally in the whole Body saying page 37. The whole Church visible being the true Original subject of all power it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than Bishops alone to Ordain Howbeit as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary ways What is more contrary than Saravia Tract de Obedient and Hooker in their Principles of Government From hence also page 38. He inferreth the no necessity of continued Succession of Bishops in every effectual Ordination And it is very observable which he granteth for it cannot be denied The Power of Orders I may lawfully receive without the asking consent of any multitude but the power I cannot exercise upon any certain People against their wills And page 38. He cannot deny but the ancient use was for the Bishops to excommunicate with the College of his Assistant Presbyters but he taunteth Beza for thinking that this may not be changed These are the men that build upon Antiquity and the Custom of the Universal Church And page 69. when the Canons for Bishops spare course of living are objected he saith that those Canons were made when Bishops lived of the same Purse which served as well for a number of others as for them and yet all at their disposing Intimating the old Course when every Church had its Bishop and inferiour Clergy But Innovation is lawful for our Prelacy And now he that can find any thing in Hooker against the points which I defend or for that Prelacy which I oppose any more worth the answering than this that I have recited let him rejoyce in the perfection of his eye-sight And if thus much be worthy to be confuted or such as this let them do it that have nothing else to do So ridiculous is the Challenge of one that glorieth to write a Book with the same Title of Ecoles Policy who insultingly provoketh us to write a full Confutation of Hooker who saith so little to the main point in Controversie our Diocesan Form of Prelacy and writeth his whole Book in a tedious Preaching stile where you may read many leaves for so much Argumentation as one Syllogism may contain that I think I might as wisely have challenged himself to conâ—â—ue Mr. Fâ—x's Book of Martyrs or Baronius his Annals almost or at least may say as Dr. John Burges doth of Mr. Parker another sort of Parker his Book of the Cross which Dr. Ames saith was never answered that if any will reduce that gawdy Treatise into Argument it being indeed almost all made up of the fruits of Reading History Sentences c. of purpose to confute them that said the Nonconformists were no Schollars he should quickly have an Answer to it So if any will reduce all that is in Mr. Hooker's 8 Books in tedious Discourses into Syllogism which is against what I maintain I believe it will not all fill up one half or quarter of a page and it shall God-willing be soon answered In the mean time the popular Principles of his First and Eighth Book subverting all true Government I have already confuted elsewhere in my Christian Directory 5. Bishop Downame hath said much more to the main Points in the defence of his Consecration Sermon and as much as I can expect to find in any But 1. as to the mode he is so contrary to Hooker that being a very expert Logician he wasteth so much of his Book about the Forms of Arguments and Answers that he obscureth the matter by it and ensnareth those Readers who do not carefully distinguish between Matter and Words and between the force of the reason and the form of a Syllogism And he so adorneth or defileth his Style with taunts insulting scorns and contemptuous reproaches that it is more sutable to the Scold sat Billings-gate than so learned and godly a Divine and occasioneth his Adversaries to say You have here a taste of the Prelatical Spirit 2. As to the matter of his first Book I am of his mind against meer ruling Elders He and Bilson have evinced what they hold in that But as to the points in which
they forsake him or refuse to use him and Excommunicateth a man when they avoid his communion and declare him unmeet for communion In all which the Church useth her own right but taketh not away another mans Then for the Canonical Enquiries after faults and impositions of Penence or delays of absolution he sheweth that both the Canons and Judgments by them being but prudential Determinations of Modes and Circumstances bound none but Consenters without the Magistrates Law except as the Law of Nature bound them to avoid offences He should add and as obedience in general is due to Church-guides of Christ's appointment And how the Magistrate may constrain the Pastors to their duty Chap. 10. He sheweth that there are two perpetual Functions in the Church Presbyters and Deacons I call them Presbyters saith he with all the Ancient Church who feed the Church with the Preaching of the Word the Sacraments and the Keys which by Divine Right are individual or inseparable Note that And § 27. He saith It is doubtful whether Pastors where no Bishops are and so are under none though over none are to be numbered with Bishops or meer Presbyters § 31. His counsel for the choice of Pastors is that as in Justinian's time none be forced on the People against their wills and yet a power reserv'd in the chief Rulers to rescind such elections as are made to the destruction of Church or Commonwealth Chap. 11. § 10. He sheweth that Bishops are not by Divine precept And § 1. That therefore the different Government of the Churches that have Bishops or that have none should be no hindrance to Unity And § 10 11. That some Cities had no Bishops and some more than one And that not only in the Apostles â—ays but after one City had several Bishops in iâ—â—tation of the jews who to every Synagogue had an Archisynagogus Page 357. He sheweth that there have been at Rome and elsewhere long vacancies of the Bishops See in which the Presbyters Governed the Church without a Bishop And saith that all the Ancients do confess that there is no act so proper to a Bishop but a Presbyter may do it except the right of Ordination Yet sheweth p. 358. that Presbyters ordained with Bishops and expoundeth the Canon thus that Presbyters should Ordain none contemning the Bishop And p. 359. He sheweth that where there is no Bishop Presbyters may Ordain as Altisiodorensis saith among the Schoolmen And questioneth again whether the Presbyters that have no Bishops over them be not rather Bishops than meer Presbyters citing Ambrose's words He that had no one above him was a Bishop what would he have said of our City and Corporation Pastors that have divers Chapels and Curates under them Or of our Presidents of Synods or such as the Pastor of the first Town that ever I was Preacher in Bridgnorth in Shropshire who had six Parishes in an exempt Jurisdiction four or five of them great ones and kept Court as ordinary like the Bishops being under none but the Archbishop And § 12. He sheweth that there was great cause for many Churches to lay by Episcopacy for a time And p. 360. he saith Certainly Christ gave the Keys to be exercised by the same men to whom he gave the power of Preaching and Baptizing That which God hath joyned let no man separate But then how should Satan have used the Churches as he hath done And he sheweth of meer ruling Elders as he had done of Bishops that they are not necessary but are lawful and that it may be proved from Scripture that they are not displeasing to God and that formerly the Laity joyned in Councils Only he puts these Cautions which I consent to 1. That they be not set up as by God's command 2. That they meddle no otherwise with the Pastoral Office or Excommunication than by way of Counsel 3. That none be chosen that are unfit 4. That they use no coactive power but what is given them by the Soveraign 5. That they know their power to be mutable as being not by Gods command but from man And Chap. 11. § 8. He delivereth his opinion of the Original of Episcopacy that it was not fetcht from the Temple pattern so much as from the Synagogues where as he said before every Synagogue had a chief Ruler 14. As for J. D. and many other lesser Writers Sir Thomas Aston c. who say but half the same with those forementioned it is not worth your time and labour to read any more Animadversions on them 15. But the great Learned M. Ant. de Dominis Spalatensis deserveth a more distinct consideration who in his very learned Books De Repub. Eccles doth copiously handle all the matter of Church-Government But let us consider what it is that he maintaineth In his lib. 5. c. 1. he maintaineth that the whole proper Ecclesiastical Power is meerly Spiritual In cap. 2. that no Power with true Prefecture Jurisdiction Coaction and Domination belongeth to the Church In c. 3. he sheweth that an improper Jurisdiction belongs to it Where he overthroweth the old Schoolmens Description of Power of Jurisdiction and sheweth also the vanity of the common distinction of Power of Order and of Jurisdiction and maintaineth 1. that Power of Jurisdiction followeth ab Ordine as Light from the Sun 2. That all the Power of the Keys which is exercised for Internal effects although about External Matters of Worship or Government belongeth directly to the Potestas Ordinis 3. That the Power of Jurisdiction as distinct from Order and reserved to the Bishops is but the power about the Ordering of External things which is used Principally and Directly for an External Effect that is Church order § 5. p. 35. 4. That it is foolish to separate power of Order from any power of Jurisdiction whatsoever that is properly Ecclesiastical it being wholly Spiritual 5. The Episcopal Jurisdiction not properly Ecclesiastical he maketh to consist in ordering Rites and Ceremonies and Circumstances and Temporals about the Church and about such Modal Determinations about particular persons and actions as are matters of humane prudence which have only a General Rule in Nature or Scripture 6. By which though he hold Episcopacy Jure Divino that it is but such things that he supposeth proper to the Bishop which the Magistrate may determine and make Laws for as Grotius and others prove at last and himself after and as Sir Roger Twisden hath Historically proved to have been used by the Kings of England Histor Def. Cap. 5. 7. That all Ecclesiastical power whatsoever is fully and perfectly conjunct with Order page 36. 8. That this plenitude of power is totally and equally in all Bishops and Presbyters lawfully Ordained and that it is a meer vanity to distinguish in such power of Order Plenitudinem potestatis a parte solicitudinis 9. That this equal power of the Bishop and Presbyter floweth from Ordination and is the Essential Ordinary Ministerial
maintaining that the word Presbyter in the places of the New Testament cited by him doth mean only a Bishop that is a Pastor of one only Congregation that had no Presbyter under him but Deacons and that no mention is made by the Apostles of other Presbyters § 6. And he gratifieth us with Epiphanius his Reasons § 4. because as yet there was not a multitude of Believers And that the Elders that Paul speaketh to Timothy of ordaining and rebuking and those that were worthy of double honour were only Bishops that had no subject Presbyters Whether they were set over the Churches as Moses was over Israel with a design that they should make subordinate Officers under them I shall enquire in due place Cap. 20. He goeth over most of the other Texts in the New Testament that mention Elders shewing that they mean such Bishops and that even at Hierusalem the Elders Acts 15. were not our new half Priests but the Bishops of all the Churches of Judaea and so of others here again repeated by him But it sticketh with me that these Bishops having no subject Presbyters are found so oft in the Metropolitane City and so oft in travel and so oft many hundred Miles from home that I doubt it was but a few Churches in the world that kept the Lords day and assembled for publick Worship or had any Sacraments frequently but lived as the Atheists and impious contemners of Church-Communion now do or else that with the Fanaticks we must hold that Lay-men or Deacons did play the Priests in all Church Offices Cap. 21. He vindicateth that one remaining Text Jam. 5. 14. which mentioneth Presbyters visiting the sick as meant only of Bishops and not of mungrel Priests And so being secured that these were never found in the Scripture times and consequently no Bishop except Archbishops that had more worshipping Churches than one we must look who presumed to institute another Office And here § 3. he perswadeth us to be so civil to Ignatius as thankfully to acknowledge him the first Patron of our Office-dignity intimating that there is no earlier proof of the invention of this mungrel Office than the Epistles of Ignatius Cap. 22. He tells us that the word Presbyter is also taken for Bishops by Polycarp Papias Irenaeus Tertullian and Clemens Alexand. so that our cause will be carried beyond Scripture times But again finding so many Bishops with Polycarp I doubt he maketh Bishops too unwearied Travellers and too great non-Residents and Gods Publick Worship too often interrupted by their absence Cap. 23 24 25 26. He speaketh of Deacons the word and Office which we have now no business with but to note that cap. 26. § 8. he is again at Epiphanius allowing a single Bishop without Presbyters but not without Deacons because he cannot be a Bishop without Deacons which I believe not nor do our Prelates but without subject Presbyters he may better than with them And § 10. he excellently argueth from the Epistle to Timothy that seeing Paul instructeth him in all things belonging to the Church of God 1 Tim. 3. 15. and yet never mentioneth these Medioxumos Presbyteros mungrel or middle Priests it is plain that the reason is because none such were instituted when the Apostle wrote To which I add nor afterward by the Apostles as far as can be proved and therefore never should have been Cap. 27. He speaketh of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 1. and 2. and 1 Tim. 5. shewing that these Women were in Orders Of which I have no mind to contend so that by the Name it be not inferred that they are she-Bishops and that they argue not as a Preacher did since we were silenced I can name the Man and place from St. John's Epistle to the Elect Lady to prove that there were Lord-Bishops in the Apostles daies viz. an Elect Lady supposeth an Elect Lord But there are no Elect Lords but Elect Lord-Bishops Ergo We have not yet seen all Dr. Hammond's confutation of our Diocesan Prelacie In his fifth Dissertation we have more Cap. 1. He speaketh of Clemens Rom. and whereas we think that the confusion among Historians came partly from the little notice that came down from those times of such particulars and partly from the identity of the Office of Linus Cletus and Clemens being all Bishops at once of a great Church the Half-Presbyters being not yet ordained he gratifyeth us by proving that not only at Rome but also in Antioch Ephesus Corinth and Jerusalem there were more Churches than one with their several Bishops Even one of the Jews and one of the Gentiles how the local Diocese were then divided is hard to tell and where it was that one Apostle had Power of the Keys and where not I shall improve this Concession in due place Cap. 2. Of Clements Epistle he first takes notice of the Inscription to the Church of God dwelling or sojourning at Corinth The same Phrase as Philip. ◠1 2. And by this Church he proveth by confident affirming that all the Churches of Achaia are meant And that the same is to be said of Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians he unresistibly proveth by saying that Quisquis eas vel leviter degustaverit tuo scilicet gustu hoc omnino pronunciandum esse nobiscum statuet Nec igitur de hac Clementis ambigi poterit And so all that Controversie is ended But though without Scripture proof imagination might handsomely feign that the many Churches of Achaia are called singularly the Church of Corinth as one because of the Unity of the Metropolitane yet 1. I would have heard somewhat like reason for and some instances of the use of such a speech as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church of God dwelling or sojourning at Rome to the Church of God dwelling or sojourning at Corinth And why and where and by what good writers all Achaia is called Corinth or all Macedonia Philippi or all the Cities about it indeed as the County of Worcester the County of York of Warwick c. are usual Titles so may the Church of York Worcester Warwick be in the Diocesans sense But whoever said of all the County or Diocess To the County Diocess dwelling at York Worcester Warwick As if all the Countrey and Towns belonging to that Circuit were called Warwick c. 2. Doth not his own proof evidently confute him 2 Cor. 1. 1. To the Church of God which is at Corinth with all the Saints which are in all Achaia Are the last words Tautological doth with signifie no addition at all If by the Church which is at Corinth be meant all the Churches and Christians in Achaia what sense is there in the addition of with all the Saints which are in Achaia O what kind of proof will satisfie some Learned Men 3. Was it all the Churches of Achaia that the incestuous person 1 Cor. 5. dwelt with and that are chidden for suffering him
Office of half-Presbyters began to be invented according to his own Computation That pag. 21. passim his supposition of the 24 Bishops of Judaea sitting about the Throne of James Bishop of Jerusalem and his other supposition of their being so ordinarily there And of the Bishops of Provinces in other Nations being so frequently many score if not hundred Miles off their people in the Metropolitane Cities when the people had no other Priest to Officiate doth tend to an Atheistical conceit that the Ordinary use of Sacred Assemblies and Communion is no very needful thing when in the best times by the best men in whole Countreys at once they were so much forborn Pag. 26. Again you have his full and plain Assertion That there were not in the space within compass of which all the Books of the new Testament were written any Presbyters in our modern Notion of them created in the Church though soon after certainly in Ignatius time which was above 50 years after the Rev. they were Pag. 60. He supposeth that whoever should settle Churches under a Heathen King among Heathens must accordinly make the Churches gathered subordinate to one another as the Cities in which they are gathered were though Heathen subordinate to one another of which more in due place Pag. 76 77. He saith that As Congregations and Parishes are Synonimous in their Style so I yield that Believers in great Cities were not at first divided into Parishes while the number of Christians in a City was so small that they might well assemble in the same place and so needed no Partitions or Divisions But what disadvantage is this to us who affirm that one Bishop not a Colledge of Presbyters presided in that one Congregation and that the Believers in the Regions and Villages about did belong to the care of that single Bishop or City Church A Bishop and his Deacon were sufficient at the first to sow their Plantations For what is a Diocess but a Church in a City with the Suburbs and Territories or Region belonging to it And this certainly might be and remain under the Government of a single Bishop Of any Church so bounded there may be a Bishop and that whole Church shall be his Diocess and so he a Diocesan Bishop though as yet this Church be not subdivided into more several Assemblies So that you see now what a Diocess is And that you may know that we contend not about Names while they call the Bishop of one Congreation a Diocesane we say nothing against him A Diocesan in our sense is such as we live under that have made one Church of many hundred or a thousand But Reader be not abused by words when it is visible Countreys that we talk of As every Market-Town or Corporation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City in the old sense so the Diocess of Lincoln which I live in at this reckoning hath three or fourscore Diocesses in it and the Diocess of Norwich about 50 Diocesses in it c. That is such Cities with the interjacent Villages Pag. 78. He saith When they add these Angels were Congregational not Diocesan they were every of them Angels of a Church in a City having authority over the Regions adjacent and pertaining to that City and so as CHURCH and CONGREGATION ARE ALL ONE AS IN ORDINARY USE IN ALL LANGUAGES THEY ARE Thus were Congregational and Diocesan also What follows of the paucity of Believers in the greatest Cities and their meeting in one place is willingly granted by us I must desire the Reader to remember all this when we come to use it in due place And you may modestly smile to observe how by this and the foregoing words the Dr. forgetfully hath cast out all the English Diocesans While he maketh it needful that the Cities be Ecclesiastically subordinate as they are Civilly and maketh it the very definition of a Diocesan Bishop to be a Bishop of a City with the Country or Suburbs belonging to it But in England no lesser Cities ordinarily at least nor Corporation-Towns are at all Subject to the great Cities Nor are any Considerable part of the Countrey Subject to them nor do the Liberties of Cities or Corporations reach far from the Walls or Towns So that by this Rule the Bishop of London York Norwich and Bristow would have indeed large Cities with narrow liberties But the rest would have Diocesses little bigger than we could allow to conscionable Faithful Pastors But he yet addeth more p. 79. he will do more for our cause than the Presbyterians themselves who in their disputes against the Independents-say that Jerusalem had more Christians belonging to the Church than could conveniently meet in one place But saith the Dr. This is contrary to the Evidence of the Text which saith expresty v. 44. that all the Believers were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meeting in one and the same place The like may be said of the other places Act. 4. 4. and 5. 14. For certainly as yet though the number of believers increased yet they were not distributed into several Congregations Will you yet have more p. 80 81. When the London Ministers say that the Believers of one City made but one Church in the Apostles days he answereth This observation I acknowledge to have perfect truth in it and not to be confutable in any part And therefore instead of rejecting I shall imbrace it and from thence conclude that there is no manner of incongruity in assigning of one Bishop to one Church and so one Bishop in the Church of Jerusalem because it is a Church not Churches BEING FORECED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHURCHES THERE WERE MORE BISHOPS I am almost in doubt by this whether the Dr. were not against the English Prelacy and he and I were not of a mind especially remembring that he said nothing against my disputations of Church Government written against himself when I lived near him Observe Reader 1. That even now he confessed that a Church and Congregation is all one 2. And here he confesseth that where there were more Churches there were more Bishops and his words Because it is a Church not Churches seem to import that de jure he supposeth it is no Church without a Bishop and that there should be no fewer Bishops than Churches And then I ask 1. Where and when do all the Christians in this Diocess of above an hundred miles long Congregate who meet but in above a thousand several Temples and never know one of a thousand of the Diocess 2. Doth not this grant to the Brownists that the Parish Churches are no Churches but onely parts of the Diocesane Church 3. And then if it be proved that the Diocesane Church form is but of humane invention what Church in England will they leave us that is of divine institution This is the unhappiness of overdoing to undo all and of aspiring too high to fall down into nothing And doth he not speak
much to the same purpose p. 87. One City with the Territories adjoyning to it being ruled by one single Bishop was to be called a singular Church And therefore that which is said to be done in every Church Act. 14. 23. is said to be done in every City Tit. 1. 5. Tâ—e sum of which observation is only this that one City with the Territories adjoyning to it never makes above one Church in the Scripture Style And yet he largely proveth the contrary that there was one Church and Bishop of Jewish Christians and one of Gentiles whereas a Province or Countrey or Nations consists of many Cities and so of many Episcopal Sees or Churches The like he hath again p. 90 § 53. But whereas p. 88. â—e would Prove that a Province or Nation of many Churches may be called one Church because the Churches in all the World are so called in our Creed and in the Scripture I answer That he can never prove that many Churches are ever in Scripture called one save only the Universal Church which is but one being Headed by one Head even Christ The Universal Church as he said before of a Church compared to Persons is One Collective body as a Political Society related to Christ or constituted of Christ and all Christians And a particular Church is one as constituted of the Ministerial Pastors and People But find any Text of Scripture that calleth the Churches of a Nation or Province one Church in all the new Testament if you can In pag. 103. he giveth Reasons for his singularity in interpreting so many Texts of Scripture and sheweth that as the Fathers differ from each other as Tirinus sheweth so we may also differ from them and I know not of any Expositor that ever wrote that hath more need of this Apology than Grotius and he And I mislike not his Reasons But then how unsavoury is it for the same person to expect that we should in reverence to one expository word in Irenaeus and another in Epiphanius forsake the common sense of the Fathers where they do agree or that we must bow to every ancient Canon But I would not have him thought more singular than he is lest when I have answered him the Prelatists forsake him and say that they are still unanswered therefore I crave the Readers special observation of his words p. 104 105. I might truly say that for those minute considerations and conjectures wheren this Doctor diffâ—rs from some others who have written before him as to the manner of interpreting some few Texts he hath the Suffrages of many of the learnedst men of this Church at this day and as far as he knows OF ALL that embrace the same cause with him Of which I only say that if he do but minutely differ from others and not at all from the most I hope my confutation of him will not be impertinent as to the rest But if he lay the very stress of his cause upon novel Expositions of almost every Text which mentioneth Bishops Presbyters Pastors and quite cross the way of almost all save Petavius that ever went before him then think whether that cause stand on so firm ground as some perswade which needeth such new foundations or ways of support at this Age in the judgement of such learned men as these Pag. 119 120 121. He proveth that Diocesane Bishops are the only Elders of the Church which James adviseth the sick to send for supposing the City Churches even of Jerusalem to be yet no bigger than that one Bishop and a Deacon who yet was not this Visiter of the sick might do all the Ministerial work Where I confess he quite outgoeth me in extenuating the Churches in S. James's time If the Church of Jerusalem had seven Deacons I will not belive him pardon the incivility that they had but one Presbyter And pardon me a greater boldness in saying if he had tryed but as much as I have done what it is to do all the Pastoral work for one Parish of 2 or 3000 Persons in publick and private he could not possibly have been of this Opinion Nor do I think it likely that when it is a singular Person that James bids send for the Elders of the Church but that it implyeth that the Church where he was had more Elders than one I confess that if it had been spoken either to Persons plurally or of Churches plurally the phrase might well have signified the single Elders of the several Churches But to say to each sick man singularly Let him send for the Elders of the Church singularly in common use of speech signifieth that there were many Elders for that man to send for in the Church And whereas he asketh whether a sick man must send for the Colledge of Presbyters I answer that a sick man may well send for the Presbyters or Ministers either one after another as there is occasion or more than one at once if need require for his Resolution If we say to a sick man in London send for the Physicians of the City and let them advise you c. it signifieth that the City hath more Physicians than one and that he may advise with one or more at once oâ— per vices as he findeth Cause and no man would speak so to him if London had but one Physician and Norwich another and York another c. And when p. 121. he supposeth the Objection that they have a mean opinion of visiting the sick because they say it is not the Bishops work which he well maketh it to be methinks this should suit with no English Ears who will quickly understand that they speak de facto of our Bishops to whom a sick man may send an hundred or fifty or twenty Miles to desire him to come presently and pray with him if his disease be a Phrensie which depriveth him of his Wits and all about him be as mad And the Bishop with us may be said to visit the sick of his Diocess as a man may be said to weed a Field that plucketh up a weed or two where he goeth or to build a City because he knockt up a Naâ—l or two in his own House Pag. 120. It is observable which he saith Indeed if it were not the Bishops work to visit the sick how could it be â—y the Bishop when other parts of his Office became his full Employment commited to the Presbyter For 1. he could not commit that to others if he first had it not in himself And 2. This was the only Reason of ordaining inferior Officers in the Church that part of the Bishops taâ—k might be performed by them Ans Either he believed that the Office of a Subject Presbyter or Order as they call it was instituted by God and setled in the Church as necessary by his Spirit and Law or not If he do then Qu. 1. Whether the work of these Presbyters after the institution be not the work of their own
King will make every Market Town a City it shall have a Bishop And if he will make but one or two cities in a Kingdom there shall be but one or two Bishops And if he will make one City Regent to others that Bishop shall be so Thus Rome Constantinople c. came by their Superiority But Hierome telleth us the contrary that the Bishop of Tanais or any small City like our least Corporations was of equal Church-Dignity with Rome or the greatest 24. The same Council Can. 78. repeateth that All the Illuminate that is Baptized must learn the Creed and every Friday say it to the Bishop and Presbyters I hope they did not go every Friday such a Journey as Lincoln York or Norwich Diocess no nor the least in England would have put them to nor that the Bishop heard as many thousands every Friday as some of ours by that Canon should have heard 25. Anno 693. at a Toletane Council King Egica writeth a Sermon for them and therein tells them that Every Parish that hath twelve Families must have their proper Governor not a Curate that is no Governor But if it be less it must be part of another's Charge 26. Anno 756. Pipin called a Council in France whos 's Can. 1. is that Every City must have a Bishop And as is beforesaid every Corporate Town was a City 27. In the Epitome of the old Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carolus Magnus published by Canisius the eighth Antioch Canon is Country Presbyters may not give Canonical Epistles but the Chorepiscopi By which it appeareth that the Chorepiscopi were Bishops as Petavius proveth in Epiphan Arrius And Can. 14 15. That No Bishop be above three Weeks in another City nor above two Weeks from his own Church Which intimateth that he had one single Church And Can. 19. That when a place wants a Bishop he that held them must not proudly hold them to himself and hinder them from one else he must lose that which he hath 28. The same Canons say Can. 94. If a Bishop six Months after Admonition of other Bishops neglect to make Catholicks of the people belonging to his Seat any other shall obtain them that shall deliver them from their Heresie So that 1. The Churches were not so big but that there might be divers in one Town 2. And converting the People is a better Title than Parish Bounds 29. It is there also decreed That no Bishop ordain or judge in another's Parish else it shall be void And they forbid Foreign Judgments because it is unmeet that he should be judged by Strangers who ought to have Judges of the same Province chosen by himself But our Diocesanes are Strangers to almost all the People and are not chosen by them See the rest Also another is that every Election of Bishops made by Magistrates be void yea all that use the Secular Magistrate to get a Church must be deposed and separated and all that joyn with him Also if any exact Money or for affection of his own drive any from the Ministry or segregate any of his Clergy or shut the Temple 30. A Council at Chalone under Carol. Magn. the Can. 15. condemneth Arch-Deacons that exercise Domination over Parish-Presbyters and take Fees of them as matter of Tyranny and not of Order and Rectitude And Can. 13. saith It is reported of some Brethren Bishops that they force them whom they are about to ordain to swear that they are worthy and will not do contrary to the Canons and will be obedient to the Bishop that ordaineth them and to the Church in which they are ordained Which Oath because it is very dangerous we all agree shall be forbidden By which it appeareth that 1. The Dioceses were not yet so large as to need such subordinate Governors as ours have Nor 2. Were Oaths of Canonical Obedience to the Bishop and Church yet thought lawful but forbidden as dangerous 31. A Council at Aquisgrane under Ludov. Pius wrote an excellent Treatise gathered out of the Fathers to teach Bishops the true nature of their Office which hath much to my present use but too long to be recited 32. Upon Ebbos Flight that deposed Lud. Pius the Arch-Bishoprick of Rhemes was void ten Years and ruled by two Presbyters Fulk and Hotho who were not then uncapable of governing the Flock but it is not like that they governed Neighbour Bishops 33. Canisius tells us of a Concilium Regiaticinum and Can. 6. is That the Arch-Presbyter examine every Master of a Family personally and take account of their Families and Lives and receive their Confessions And Can. 7. That a Presbyter in the absence of the Bishop may reconcile a Penitent by his Command c. Which shew that yet Dioceses were not at the largest 34. A Council at Papia Anno 855. order yet That the Clergy and People chuse the Bishops and yet that the Laity on pretence of their electing power trample not on the Arch-Presbyter and that Great Men's Chappels empty not Churches 35. Yea Pope Nicholas Tit. 8. c. 1. decreeth that no Bishops be ordained but by the Election or Consent of the Clergy and People When they became uncapable of the ancient Order yet they kept up the words of the old Canons 36. This is intimated in the old Canons repeated at a Roman Council Anno 868. That if Bishops excommunicate any wrongfully or for light Causes and not restore them the Neighbour Bishops shall take such to their Communion till the next Synod Which was the Bishop of the next Parish or Corporation and not one that dwelt in another County out of reach And Can. 72. Because the Bishops hindred by other business cannot go to all the Sick the Presbyters or any Christians may anoint them How big was the Diocess when this Canon was first made Who would give his business rather than Distance and Numbers and Impossibility as the reason why the Bishop of London Lincoln Norwich c. visit not all the Sick in their Dioceses 37. Anno 869 till 879. was held a Council called General at Constantinople The Can. 8. is Whereas it is reported that not only the Heretical and Usurpers but some Orthodox Patriarchs also for their own security have made men subscribe that is to be true to them the Synod judgeth that it shall be so no more save only that Men when they are made Bishops be required as usual to declare the soundness of their Faith He that violateth this Sanction let him be deprived of his Honour But these later instances only shew the Relicts of Primitive Purity and Simplicity more evidently proved in the three first Centuries 38. And he that will read the ancient Records of the Customs of Burying will thence perceive the extent of Churches Doctor Tillesly after cited affirmeth pag. 179. against Selden that The Right of Burial place did first belong to the Cathedral Churches And Parish Churches began so lately as now understood having no
other Churches I have before cited a Canon which gave leave to Presbyters to preach in the countrey villages intimating it was rare heretofore 2. Filesacus saith ibid. p. 562 563. Sed ut quod res est libere eloquar illo aevo anteriore cum Parochiae vox vulgo etiam pro Dioecesi usurpatur that is for all the Bishops Charge credo Presbyteros Parochianos dictos fuisse non aliter ac siquis Dioecesanos pronunciaret hoc est In hac Parochia seu Dioecesi ordinatos titulatos But surely whilst Presbyters rarely preached there were either Churches that had no preaching which cannot be proved or else few Assemblies that had not Bishops Obj. But then you make Lay Elders of the Presbyters Ans They were the abler sort of Christians ordained to the same Ministerial or Sacerdotal Office as all true Ministers are But few of them being Learned men and able to make long Sermons were imployed only as the Bishops assistants as elders are among the Presbyterians who if they would but ordain those Elders and let them have power over the word and Sacraments though only to exercise it under the Bishops or chief Pastors guidance when there was cause they would come nearest to the ancient use XXIII And it seemeth to me an evidence that the Churches then were usually but as narrow as I assert that the Presbyters were to abide with the Bishop and attend him in his City Church For if you suppose them able to Teach or guide a flock themselves as some were such as Augustine Macarius Ephrem Syrus Tertullian c. it is scarce credible to me that the Bishop would suffer such worthy persons to sit among his Auditors when there were many countrey congregations that needed their help For that the Church was so supplied with Preachers as that besides all these Presbyters in the Bishops Church there were enow for all the rest of the countrey Parishes as now is contrary to all the intimations of Church-History And therefore when we read of so many Presbyters with the Bishop before we read of many or scarce any elsewhere surely there were no people that needed them XXIV And yet though great Cities had many with the Bishop I may add that the paucity of Presbyters under the generality of Bishops sheweth that their Dioceses then were but like Parish Churches with their Chappels Or else Aurelius and the other Bishops in the Carthage Council needed not have been in doubt whether those Bishops that had but one or two Presbyters should have one taken from them to make a Bishop of which was yet affirmatively decreed because there may be more found fit to make Presbyters of where it 's hard to find any fit to be Bishops I will speak it in the words of the learned Bishop Bilsons Perpet Govern c. 13. p. 256. In greater Churches they had great numbers of Presbyters In smaller they had often two somewhere one and sometimes none And yet for all this defect of Presbyters the Bishops then did not refrain to impose hands without them The number of Presbyters in many places were two in a Church as Ambrose writeth on 1 Tim. 3. sometimes but one In the third Council Carthag when it was agreed that the Primate of that City might take the Presbyters of every Diocese and Ordain them Bishops for such places as desired them though the Bishop under whom the Presbyter before lived were unwilling to spare him Posthumianus a Bishop demanded what if a Bishop have but one only Presbyter must that one be taken from him Aurelius the Bishop of Carthage answered One Bishop may Ordain many Presbyters but a Presbyter fit for a Bishoprick is not easily found wherefore if a man have but one only Presbyter and fit for the room of a Bishop he ought to yield that one to be Ordained Posthumianus replied Then if another Bishop have a number of Clerks that others store should relieve him Aurelius answered Surely as you helped another Church so he that hath many Clerks shall be driven to spare you one of them to be ordained by you A Diocese such as is intimated here we do not strive against XXIV Another evidence is that when ever we read of persecution turning the Christians out of their Churches you ever find them gathered into one Congregation when they could have leisure and place to meet in and usually a Bishop with them unless he were banished imprisoned or martyred and then some Presbyter supplied the place or unless they were scattered into many little parcels And you find no talk of the persecution of multitudes of Countrey Presbyters afar off but of the Bishop with his City Presbyters and Church To which add that it was One Church still which rejected obtruded Bishops and refused to obey the Emperour who imposed them All this is manifest in Gregory Neocaesar his flight with Musonius and the state of his Church In the Case of Basil and of Lucius the obtruded Bishop at Alexandria and in the Case of Antioch before described and of Rome it self It 's tedious to cite numerous testimonies in a well known case If Alexandria was in such a case or near it I hope you will doubt of no other Churches And that with this you may see what Conventicles the Christians kept when the Emperours forbad them and how resolutely the Bishops preached when the Emperours silenced them I will recite the words of Baronius himself and in him of Dionysius Alexandr apud Euseb lib. 7. c. 10. c. 17. and Cyprian ep 5. c. in Baron ad an 57. p. 542. that those who cry out against Preaching and Conventicles when they are but strong enough to drive others out of the Temples may better understand themselves Siquando c. If at any time so vehement a persecution did arise that the Christians by the Emperours edicts were utterly excluded from the Churches and assemblies notwithstanding little regarding such things they forbore not to come together in One in holy assemblies whithersoever there was opportunity This Dionys Alexand. Bishop witnesseth writing to Germanus when he mentioneth the Edicts of Valerian forbidding the Assemblies But we by Gods assistance have not abstained from our accustomed Assemblies celebrated among our selves Yea I my self did drive on certain brethren to keep the assemblies diligently as if I had converst among them And he writeth the same also to Hierax when he was banished When we were persecuted by all and put to death we celebrated the Feast with joyful minds and any place appointed us for several sorts of sufferings as the woods the desert solitudes the tossed ships the common Innes the horrid prison did seem fit to us in which we might keep our solemn Assemblies with the greatest joy That they held their Assemblies and offered sacrifice usually when it was permitted them in the prisons Cyprian witnesseth But the Acts of the holy Martyrs do fullier signifie it especially those most faithful
ones called Pro-Consular which were taken by the publick Notaries Certainly the Gravel-pits afforded them advantage for the celebrating of their publick Assemblies in the time of persecution especially at Rome where in the digged gravel there remain many subterraneous ample recesses Though when the persecution was vehement they were thence also excluded as the letters P. Cornelii ad Lupic Episc Vien testifie saying Christians may not missas agere keep their meetings for Church worship publickly no not in the vaults or pits So much of the Churches and publick assemblies of the Christians c. saith Baronius Which Polyd. Virgil secondeth c. 6. yea the Bishops durst scarce be seen in the streets so hot were the persecutions as Euseb lib. 6. cap. 31. Therefore as I before noted they had yet no capacious Temples as Illyricus well gathereth Catalog Testi verit p. 112. But they began to have days of peace and liberty under Alexand. Severus Gordian Philip Galienus Flavius Claudius Aurelianus Probus and then they did enlarge their too small rooms to that described by Euseb lib. 8. c. 1. XXVI Another evidence is that Monasteries were built before Chappels and Countrey Parish Churches and far more numerous so that we frequently read of Monasteries under a Bishop with their Abbot or Presbyter when we read little or nothing of Parish Churches in the Countries under him And if these had been as common why are they not as much mentioned in the ancient records of the Church The Egyptian Monks and those in Judaea and those in Britain in Beda and the life of Hierome Fulgentius and abundance such witness this XXVII Another evidence is the Canons that none but a Bishop must publickly reconcile a penitent nor pronounce the blessing in the Church c. Of which before in particular Canons XXVIII Another evidence is that Presbyters or Bishops were not to remove from the Places they were Ordained in But those places of old were single Churches usually in Cities with the suburbs that could come to the same Church as Dr. Field saith Concil Arelat 1. cited by Spelman pag. 40. because we had 3 Brittish Bishops there In quibuscunque locis ordinati fuerint Ministri in ipsis locis perseverent And ipse locus was not a circuit of 40 or 50 or 100 miles long but the Bishops Parish or Vicinity Of the Bishops not removing without a Synod many Councils speak XXIX Another evidence is that the Canons which take down the Chorepiscopi and turn them to periodeutae Visitors or Itinerants and which forbid the making of Bishops in small Cities or villages 1. Were of late date 2. And were in aspiring times and had a reason answerable ne vilescat nomen Episcopi 3. And therefore intimate that it was otherwise before as I have before shewed XXX A Separatist or Schismatick was then known by his withdrawing from his proper Church and so was an Apostate or deserter And he that stayed away certain days was to be excommunicate And they that fall into sins and never present themselves to the Church to shew their penitence even when they fall sick and desire Communion shall not have it till they shew fruits worthy of repentance faith Concil Arelat 1. Can. 22. But 1. in our way when the Church that I am of is an hundred miles long and hath above a thousand Parishes who can tell when a man is at the Church and when he is not unless you make half a years work to examine the matter in a thousand Assemblies 2. And a man may wander and never be in the same Assembly once in three years and yet be still in his own Church because the Docese is the Church 3. Unless the Bishops presence as well as remote relation be necessary And then no man cometh to Church but he that cometh where the Bishop is for ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia And the Parish Church is with them no Church unless equivocally as a Community For as Learned Dr. Field saith and they must all say None are to be ordained but to serve in some Church and none have Churches but Bishops all other being but assistants to them in their Churches Lib. 5. c. 27. p. 139. Therefore they call the Parish Priests the Bishops Curates and Dr. Field maketh the Bishops Church or Diocese and a particular Church all one If then one Parish priest of a thousand be an Arrian Antinomian Socinian Papist Seeker c. he that separateth not from that one Priest and Parish meeting separateth not from his Bishops Church nor any particular Church For his Church is a countrey which while he is in he is no Separatist if he joyn with any part of it XXXI But my greatest evidence which I trust to above all the rest is The greatness of the Bishops work which no mortal man can truly and faithfully discharge and do for a Diocese in the opposed sence nor for more than one of our greater Parishes I have recited some of the particulars before and I shall again have occasion to do it more at large I now only name these parts 1. To be the ordinary Baptizer or still present with all that are Baptized to anoint their nostrils c. as aforesaid 2. To be the Confirmer of all the baptized in all the Diocese 3. To be the ordinary preacher to his flock and to expound the Scriptures to them 4. To be the only publick reconciler or absolver of all penitents 5. To be the publick Priest to be the Guide of the people in publick worship and to administer the Lords Supper 6. To take particular account and care of all the peoples souls and admonish teach and exhort them as there is special need 7. To be the Excommunicator of the impenitent or ever one and the chief 8. To Ordain all Ministers and Subministers 9. To oversee and rule the Clergy 10. To receive all Oblations Tithes Gifts and Glebes and be the distributer of them 11. To visit the sick in all his flock 12. To take a particular care of all the poor the sick the strangers the imprisoned c. as their Curator 13. To keep almost daily but constantly weekly Assemblies for all the publick offices 14. To keep Synods among his Colleagues Bishops and Presbyters 15. To try and hear Causes with the Bishops and Synods and with his Presbyters at home about all scandals c. that come before him of which one Town may find him work enough the convincing and gentle reproof and exhortation will take up so much time 16. The looking after and convincing or confuting Hereticks 17. The reconciling disagreeing neighbours 18. The confecting of oyl and holy bread c. to furnish all his Presbyters with 19. The Benediction of Marriages and Solemnizing of Funerals with a multitude of other Ceremonies 20. And besides all this the right government of his own house And if he had Children the education of them 21. The oversight of all the Schools
in our eyes And of such I have oft wondred that the common people should usually choose far better than the Prelates do But the truth is Wisdom and Goodness have their witnesses even in the consciences of natural men which Faction Pride and Fleshly interest doth bribe or silence and cannot endure 3. But what 's all this to us We plead not now for the necessity of the peoples Elections but only for their consent If the Patrons as now or the Clergy as formerly be the Nominators or Electors yet should the peoples consent be acknowledged necessary in the second place 4. For who is fitter to choose or refuse or consent at least than he whose everlasting interest lieth at the stake It is their own soul that must be saved or damned And in good sadness do these Diocesans love the souls of all the people better than they love their own Do you make them believe this by not seeing one of a thousand or many hundred of your flock once in all the time of your lives Doth the silencing of so many Ministers shew it Christ will have all men at age in Covenanting Baptism and the Lords Supper to be Chusers or Refusers for themselves because as Clem. Alexandr Strom. 1. saith they have free will and it is themselves that must have the gain or loss that must be in heaven or hell for ever What if a Prelate a Parliament a Patron or a forefather chuse Masspriests or Hereticks for us must we accept the choice Is this our bewaring of false prophets and of the leaven of the Pharisees and our trying all things and letting no man deceive us c. 5. But how unfit is this objection for a Prelates mouth or pen Are you the Church Governours Is all this contention that you may have the Keys alone without the parish Ministers And is this the fruit of all your Government that the common Church members are so mad so bad so untractable that they are not fit to be free Consenters to them that are to Teach and Guide them to salvation Who then is this Church Ruine and Abomination long of but your selves who have and only will have the Keys Have you not fine Churches and members that are not fit to choose no nor consent to their own Guides Why do you not take care that the Churches by discipline may be better constituted As none should be Pastors who are not fit for the duty of Pastors so none should be members who are not fit for the duty of members It 's excellent Government inded to keep such in the Church as are unfit to be there and then fetch an argument from their unfitness for their neglect of their duty and your depriving them of their power As if you should choose none but ideots or most such to be Jury men and then argue thence that they are unfit for so great a trust and so the people must lose their liberties 6. There are among the ignoranter sort of the people usually divers sober and good men and the rest use much to hearken to them Obj. But what if the people will not consent to any but a Heretick or intolerable person Answ 1. The former answers serve to this You do fairly to keep such people in the Church But as the Foreigner wondered in Henry the Eighth's days to see at once some hanged for being Papists and some burnt for being Protestants and cried out Dii boni quomodo gentes hic vivunt So it is such another case to see at once the same Prelates forcing the unwilling into the Church and to the Sacrament as if this would or could save them if their Church be salvation in despight of them even on pain of undoing and perpetual imprisonment And yet Excommunicating and casting out those that are willing to stay in As if Consent were a mark of an aliene and a reprobate and unwillingness the mark of worthiness 2. Such as you here describe are not fit to be members of a Church If they will not Consent to Church priviledges and duties they should be without the doors And you may force them to hear Teaching whether they are willing or not But you cannot make them Godly nor bring them to heaven nor give them right to Church Communion and Sacraments whether they will or not So much of Election and Consent 2. Moreover the Ordination differeth from that of Gods institution For Presbyters are now Ordained commonly neither by Archbishops Bishops or Presbyters of Christs institution in their way 1. The Bishops themselves profess that they Ordain not as Presbyters For they say such have no power of Ordination 2. They are not Bishops of Christs institution as is before proved but of another species which half themselves confess to be but humane 3. They are not Archbishops because they have no Bishops under them And so having not their power of Ordination as Officers of Gods making they have no power from him to Ordain Obj. By these two last differences you seem to give up the Cause to the Separatists Answ The Prelatists do so but so do not we 1. Because whether the Prelates will or not the people ex post facto do Consent to every worthy Pastor 2. Because we judge of Parish Ministers as God describeth them and therefore as true Bishops and consequently take the Prelates for a kind of Archbishops whatever they call themselves 3. And there is no honest Minister but hath the Consent of some neighbour Ministers and of the People And though imposition of hands be a laudable Ceremony yet it is not that but mutual Consent of themselves and the Pastors and People in which their external call consisteth as is before said II. The different Correlates and Termini make different Relations The Churches which the ancient Presbyters were related to were true entire Churches however their work might be parcelled among the members But according to the Prelates platform each Presbyter hath his charge over no Church of Christ at all but only over a hundredth six hundredth or thousandth part of a Church having no more to do with all the rest than if they were of another Diocese III. But I come to the point intended That they take from the Presbyter his essential Obligation and Authority appeareth 1. In general they commonly affirm that the Governing power belongeth not to them and that they are but the Bishops Curates By which they mean not only that the Bishops rule them but they say that the Bishop doth Teach all his Diocese per alios even by these his Curates And accordingly they have lately blotted out of their Litany Bishops Pastors and Ministers of the Church and have substituted Bishops Priests and Deacons lest the Priests should be supposed Pastors But they altered not the Collect for all Bishops and Curates And they have put out of the Office for Ordination of Priests Act. 20. 28. Now what a Presbyter doth in the person of the Bishop
willing minds these things are plain Church Discipline hath its effect on the Consciences of men and these things take as they come with spiritual life light and love We see in our Preaching how much all work is lost which is done proudly unskilfully and marred in the manner And true Pastoral discipline must work just as Preaching must do it being but a more particular application of the same word to persons and carses Athanasius Patriarcha Constantinop in his fifth Epistle for the residence of Bishops Bibl. Patr. T. 3. p. 159. saith of constant preaching Haec nocte dieque debent singuli Pastores gregibus suis inculcare quae tam necessaria sunt quam est respirare animanti Necessarium inquam omnia judicia testimonia Dei denunciare ita ut ab hoc est prosperitas opulentia And in his three last Epistles he counselleth the Emperor to force those Bishops to Preaching and Vigilancy that will not do it without force And indeed unjust Excommunications most hurt the Excommunicators Read Nicon's Epistle ad Euch de injusta Excommunicatione proving that an unjust Excommunication bindeth not another but falleth on the Excommunicators head But the sad truth is that it 's usual with the Prelates to confess the vanity of their own Spiritual power and to call it a leaden sword which would but be despised if it were not backt with the Magistrates sword which is the very thing they trust to But of this anon III. And lastly let it be considered objectively what work it is that every Bishop hath to do and then you shall see whether it be possible 1. As to the number of Sins in specie 2. As to the number of Sinners 1. Such sins as are in other Countries and as are condemned in Scripture are among us also 1. As to Intellectual evils we have ignorant persons who neither know what Christ or Christianity is or what a Sacrament is or what are the Essentials of Faith We have Atheists that think there is no God or say so at least we have more Infidels that deride Christ and Christianity we have impious persons who make a mock of Godliness we have Quakers and Familists and Seekers who either deny the Scripture to be Gods word or true or say Scripture Church and Ministry are lost or turn Scripture into an Allegory or that prefer the light within every man Heathens and all as sufficient without it and Enthusiasts and true Fanaticks who trust to inward Revelations and impulses instead of Gods word We have Papists we have Antinomians Libertines and more Sects which the Bishops themselves can name you and overcharge 2. And for more voluntary sins we have almost all the breaches of all the commandments We have open enemies of preaching praying sacraments family duties catechizing the Lords days holy observation Common scorners of those that fear to sin and diligently seek God We have if the Bishops could know them malignant persecutors that would force Gods servants to most odious sins that hinder Christs Ministers from doing the work to which they are devoted and from preaching to sinners the Gospel of Christ and calling them to Repent and live We have idolaters false worshippers blasphemers perjured persons common prophane swearers and cursers and liars and we have children despisers and dishonourers of their parents and servants of their masters and subjects of Princes and Rulers and whether of Bishops and Pastors let the Bishops judge Profane families husband and wife living in open enmity or wrath we have murderers fighters railers such as maliciously seek the ruine of others great and small oppressors thieves defrauders adulterers and fornicators filthy speakers gluttons drunkards such as waste their lives in gaming plays and idleness false-witnesses Simoniacal bribe-takers subverters of justice to say nothing of the notorious effects of gross uncharitableness covetousness and pride These and more than these are here 2. And for the number of sinners 1. Conjecture by the number of persons 2. And then by the commonness of the sins 1. I have before oft told you that some Dioceses have many hundred Parishes some above a thousand and in the lesser sort of these Parishes commonly there are in some 50 in most 100 or 200 families and in the greater and Market Towns there are in some of the lesser about 1000 souls in the middle sort about 2000 or 3000 or 4000 and in the bigger about 5000 or 6000 and some few 10000 And in the greatest Parishes of all in London some 20000 some 40000 some 50000 and it is said in some many thousands more 2. And for the sins 1. The Bishops themselves say that Atheism Infidelity and derision of Scripture and Religion aboundeth among such as I will not name 2. They say themselves that Rebels and Quakers and Seekers and Enthusiasts c. are so many as that they know not what to do with them 3. They say themselves that Papists so increase as that they give out their hopes to swallow up all 4. One sort which they call Schismaticks as being against their interest they really exercise their power against and find that this one sort are more than they know what to do with 5. The number that malignantly labour to make all seriousness and diligence in seeking God to become a scorned hated thing and make it to seem meer self-conceitedness and hypocrisie and to keep people from obeying God is so great as we cannot reckon them 6. The number of the grosly ignorant is lamentably great 7. Common swearers and cursers are usually met with in our ordinary converse 8. How common drunkenness is let lamenting Parents grieved wives and beggered families tell you 9. Whether fornication and adultery rarely heard of till of late comparatively be now grown common if not in fashion I leave the Prelates themselves to judge 10. To pass by all the rest Whether serious credible Repentance though not expressed by the ancient severe penances be now a common thing for these or many other sins I am content that any English man be judge that ever laboured to bring men to Repentance and knoweth what Repentance is And now by this conjecture 1. How many thousands I say not the Bishop who puts it off but the Lay-chancellor hath to stand at his bar at once if discipline were tolerably exercised 2. How many years the accusers and offenders were like to wait before a cause could be heard 3. Or how spiritually powerfully meltingly this Lay-man that never preached is like to draw all these thousands to Repentance 4. What the Sinner and the Church shall do till the year come that they can be heard 5. Whether it be possible for any such thing as true Pastoral conviction exhortation discipline to be ever exercised on them at all whilest that new sins even heinous ones are still committed and the Bishop or Chancellor or Surrogate that had a thousand or ten thousand sinners at once to speak to when he could deal but
call us to seek the alteration which we are required to abjure 10. Lastly by this objection they shew themselves too ignorant of the nature of Church and discipline and Sacrament and Ministery Or else they would better know how far Volunteers are proper objects of Church discipline and have the right to the privileges and Communion of the Church II. The Magistrates Sword will not serve instead of Church discipline 1. Else Christ would not have instituted another office for it 2. Else it might serve also instead of Ministry Preaching and Sacraments 3. The nature of it tendeth not directly to convince men of Errours to lead them into truth to move them by heavenly motions and to bring them to true repentance and godlyness But this will be fuller proved under the next and is confessed by all save the Erastians III. The Magistrates Sword should not be used too forwardly or too much to second or enforce Church discipline much less to be its life and strength and inseparably twisted with it I mean 1. No unbeliever should be forced to say he is a Believer and to professe the Christian faith 2. None upon such profession should be forced to be Baptized 3. None that hath no right to Church Communion in the Sacrament should be forced to receive it 4. None that Apostatizeth from Christ should be forced falsly to professe that he is still a Christian 5. None that are at age should be forced to stay in the Church by local presence or relation as a member of it who is not willing and the practice of the Papists who force no Heathens to be Christians but afterward force Christians by fire and Sword and burn them that were Hereticks Schismaticks or Apostates is self contradicting and self condemning God having left man as much unto his own choice for continuing as for Entring into the Church And as for Obedience to Rulers Infidels may owe it to Christian Kings as well as Christians And none but Magistrates can use the Sword to punish either 6. No Magistrate should punish a Mans body meerly because he is Excommunicate and so punished already Nor should he be made a meer executioner to the Bishop without hearing trying and judging the Cause himself in order to his own execution 7. No Magistrate should force an Impenitent sinner to lie and say he doth repent that thereby he may be admitted to the Church Communion and Sacrament but it is the force of Gods word that must try his Repentance But yet I acknowledge 1. That Magistrates and Parents and Masters may force their Subjects to use those means which tend to make them Christians as to hear Preaching Conference or disputations or to read convincing books But with these two Cautions 1. That it be but when it is like or hopeful to do more good than harme 2. That it be by wise and moderate means of constreint and not hang or burn them to convert them 2. Accordingly Magistrates Parents and Masters may use the like force with their Subjects who are Christians to cause them to use the foresaid meanes of hearing and Reading and conference for the cureing of their dangerous errours or sinful lives 3. And I doubt not but Magistrates may punish men Corporally for their crime according to the nature of them and even for the same that the Church hath excommunicated them If one be excommunicated for Treason Murder Theft Swearing Prophaning the Lords day and holy things c. it followeth not that the Magistrate may not also meddle with him 4. And we doubt not but Magistrates may Restraine false Teachers from seducing others and drawing them from God to sin 5. And the Magistrate may and ought to encourage Ministers in the use of the Church Keyes and to preserve them from the violence of wicked men 7. And they may make a difference in their favours and rewards between Christians obedient to God and their Pastors and Infidels excommunicate in penitent ones and Apostates by denying honors and preferments and rewards to the worse which he giveth to the better sort of men But yet as to the Cases before denied especially the forcing men by fire sword and imprisonment to say they believe and repent and to take the Sacrament and other Church priviledges and making this the strength of Church discipline I have all this against it 1. No force should be used to the hindering and destruction of Christs ordinance of discipline and his Church Laws But such it would be in the case in hand For Christs fundamental Covenant is that the true willing penitent and believer shall be a member of his Church or those only that credibly profess to be so at age He that will may freely drink of the water of life Nemo invitus fit Christianus so that to say that any man hath right to the mystical Church priviledges but Consenters or any man hath right to the visible Church priviledges but credible Professors of consent is to contradict the very condition of the Covenant of life which is the sum of all the Gospel It s true you may compel some men to duty but you cannot compel them to be happy But to force them by perpetual Imprisonment confiscation and the sword to say that they are Christians or repent consent or are willing and so to give them absolution and Church-communion is to make Christs ordinance of none effect For true discipline is to make them penitent and willing and then to use them as such But 1 It is not credible that that person is truly penitent and willing to be a Christian or have Church-communion who will not be perswaded to consent by all that can be said by the Pastors from the word of God but yet on the rack or to prevent undoing will say I consent This is contrary to the nature of true Repentance 2. Or if it did not make this forced consent utterly incredible yet it utterly crosseth the ends of Church discipline which is to discern the voluntary penitent which force so obscureth that no man can tell whether the person be credibly penitent or not If I left a Legacy to so many that are Lovers of the Church and its Communion and my Executors should get the Magistrate to hang or Imprison or undo certain men that are accused as Enemies of the Church unless they will say we Love the Church I think my Will would be ill performed if those men had my Legacy that were forced to say so 2. No man should be forced to his own sin and distruction But he that is forced to take the Sacrament when he is unwilling and had rather be without it in likelihood is forced to his sin and destruction For even the Liturgy telleth the unworthy that they eat and drink damnation to themselves and that the Devil may enter into them as he did into Judas And who is unworthy if the unwilling are not 3. Force is not fitted to cause love and willingness therefore
so pious as to be persecuted by his Prince and he and his brethren saved by that same usurper and openly give praise to God for the great felicity of the Church which it received by that same usurper whom he so resisted Iâ— it not pity that things should be so strangely carried And that yet you may see more into this business Paulinus in vit Ambros p. 40. tells us that Maximus took just a name to himself as Cromwel the Protector did Maximus Procuratorem se reipublicae nomine praefuisse confiteretur He would rule as the Procurator of the Common-wealth Well! But this is not all the Usurpers that rose up in those daies Eugenius soon becometh more terrible than he who once was but a Schoolmaster And how doth this loyal S. Ambrose carry it when he had got of Theodosius a pardon for all that took part with Maximus even his Army except two or three yea and benefits too yet did not this holy loyal man think it sinful to write thus to the Tyrant Eugenius Epistol l. 2. p. 103. Clementissimo Imperatori Eugenio Ambrosius Episcopus Bishop Ambrose to the most Clement Emperour Eugenius And thus concludeth In his vero in quibus vos rogari decet etiam exhibere sedulitatem potestati debitam sicut scriptum est cui honorem honorem cui tributum tributum Nam cum privato detulerim corde intimo quomodo non deferrem Imperatori i. e. But in these matters where it becometh us to petition you we must also give the diligence due to power as it is written honor to whom honor tribute to whom tribute For when I honored you when you were a private man from the inwards of my heart how should I not honor you an Emperour Reader do not only judge of my two Epistles to Rich. Cromwell by these passages but even of theirs that submitted to Oliver himself and yet Judge of the inferences that are raised by our accusers Should I but recite the words of submission of Bishops to usurpers yea of Gregory the Great and such of the highest note it would be over tedious to the Reader who I doubt will think that I have been too long in this unpleasant History already 2. But this I must need add ad homines 1. That it hath been the Bishops themselves that have been the grand cause of our Church divisions and separations what advantage they have given the separatists I shewed before I am sure in the Congregation where I once was teacher and the Countrey about nothing that ever came to pass hath so inclined the people to avoid the Prelates as their own doing especially the silencing and reproaching their ancient teachers whom they knew longer and better than the Prelates did 2. That it was a Parliament of Episcopals and Erastians and not of Presbyterians who first took up Armes in England against the King 3. That the General and chief Officers of the Parliaments first Army were scarce any of them at all Presbyterians but Episcopal by profession saving some few Independants 4. That the Lord Lieutenants of the several Counties were almost all Episcopal save three Independents 5. The Major Generals of the several By-armies in the Counties were almost all Episcopal 6. The Assembly of Divines at Westminster were all save eight or nine Conformable 7. Most of the Episcopal men of my acquaintance took the Covenant that could keep their places by it or at their composition 8. I knew few of them that took not the engagement it self against King and house of Lords meerly for liberty to travail about their business when we that ran a greater hazard by refusing never took it but many were cast out of their Churches and their government in the University Colledges for refusing it These and many more such unpleasant things I have fully proved elsewhere being constrained by the false accusations of implacable men to mention that which I had far rather silence 9. And what hand the Londoners the Presbyterian Ministers and Gentlemen and people had in bringing in the King was once known and acknowledged And General Monks Colonels and Captains were so many of them Presbyterians when they cast out the Anabaptists from among them in Scotland and marcht into England and restored the King that as I knew divers of them to be such so far as I could learn from others the chief strength of them were such or so inclined 10. And though many of the Parliament were supposed Presbyterians long after who were Episcopal at the raising of the Army yet could not the late King Charles I. be rejected and judged and put to death till most of the Parliament were violently secluded and imprisoned by the Army And as soon as they were but called together again it was they in Parliament and Council of State that opened the door for the Kings restitution But while the matters of the Church of Christ and the decision of religious controversies and the liberty of Christs Ministers to preach his Gospel must be laid upon state revolutions and where Bishops that can neither accuse Christs Ministers of heresie ignorance negligence covetuousness pride nor scandalous immoralities shall run to the old methods and perswade Kings that these men are not for their profit that they are pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the people that they prophecy not good of Kings but evil and that they would set up another King one Jesus and therefore are not Caesars friends these malicious projects may silence Ministers and prosper while our sins are to be punished and the peoples contempt of the Gospel and their ingratitude are to be chastised But the wicked servant that saith my Lord delayeth his coming and beateth his fellow servants and eateth and drinketh with the drunken will see that his Lord will come in a day that he looked not for him and will cut him a sunder and give him his portion with hypocrites for their dead Image of Religion will not save them there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Matth. 24. 48 49 50 51. CHAP. XXIII Four douâ—le charges I have now proved against the foredescribed Diocesane fâ—rm of Government the least of which alone is enough to prove it utterly unlawful 1. THat it overthroweth the ancient Species of Churches and setteth up another sort of Churches in their place and sets up one Church of that kind instead of many hundreds 2. That it overthroweth the ancient office of a Presbyter by taking away one part of his work viz. Government which as much belongeth to him as the rest And maketh a new office of subject Presbyters which Cod never made 3. That it overthroweth the ancient sort of fixed Episcopacy as distinct from Itinerants and Arch-bishops taking down a thousand or very many Bishops even the Bishops of particular Churches and instead of them all setting up but one over all those Churches as if all Bishops were put down and the Archbishops only take all their charges
Socrat. l. 7. c. 44. Joh. 5. 22. Gen. 3. 15. Joh. 17. 2. Mat. 28. 18 19. Eph. 1. 21 22. * The London Ministers Thanksgiving to the King is to be seen in Print As also their desire of B. Usher's Primitive Model of Government * Now 18 years this being written 9 years ago Whitgift â—aâ—avia Vid. p. 104. 110 111. 120 121. 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. Bilson Hooker answered as far as our cause requireth Remember also that Hooker's third Book is written to prove that no one Form is commanded in Scripture Therefore not the Prelatical How little doth this agree with Dr. Hammond ☞ And yet must I sweat never to consent to any alteration Bishop Downame Answered He fell after under the frowns of Bishop Laud himself his Book of perseverance being prohibited * Ambrose in Eph. 4. Aug. qu. in vet N. Test q. 101. Cypr. l. 3. ep 17. Concil Carth. Graec. c. 43. Carth. 2. c. 4. Conc. Arausic c. â— * The Prelates pretence for innovation All the cause is laid on Magistrates †Doth a publick Church Pastor govern but privately what meaneth he by that which can be good sence A private man may rule privately that is by Counsell Judicium publicum is the Officers judgment †In my Treat of the true way of Concord I have also disproved the Instances of Rome and Alexandria Bish Hall Petavius Bish Andrews B. Usher †Lib. 3. c. 30. de Doctrin Christian which Augustine seemeth to approve The Dispute at the Isle of Wight John Forbes Grotius ☞ Be it known to posterity that if the Prelates would have granted us but so much liberty our distracted Churches might have had Concord J. D. c. M. Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis †Yea never into one Parish of ten or twenty ☞ ☜ Dr. Hammond answered The Annotations * Quemad modum hodiâ— ab aliquâ—t seculâ—s Antioch in a sides Patr. noâ— est in ea uâ—be unâ—â— nomen habet sed in Meredin ad ripaâ—n Châ—bar in finibus Mesopotainae Jos Scaliger Animad in Euseb pag. 211. Yet I confess that he that converteth many caeteris paribus is fittest to be chosen for their Pastor on which account Greg. Nazianz. was chosen at Constantinople for the Success of his Ministry against Arianism And in my Church-History I have told you of a Council that decreed that if a Bishop neglected to turn any of his City from heresie he that converted them should have them for his flock which sheweth that there might on just cause be then more Bishops and Churches than one in a City and that they were not necessarily measured by the compass of ground but Churches might be mixt among each other as to habitation on such occasions â—â—â—â— Chrysostom de sâ—cerdotio cap. 17 p. 57 Even about so small a part of a Bishops or Pastors charge as the care of Virgins saith But if any one say that there is no need of a Bishop to meddle with such things as these Let him know that upon him will fall all the cares of Virgins duty and so all the accusation which shall be cast on Virgins And therefore it is much better if he administring the business himself he shall be void of those causes which he must susteine by others offences thus leaving that administration to live in fear of giving account or being judged for the sins which others do commit Adde also that he that performeth this office by himself transacteth all with great facility But he that is necessitated to do it by the vicarious labour of others besides that it is a great business to him to perswade all mens minds well to performe the work certainly he himself hath not so much remission of his labour by abstaining from that office as he must sustaine business and troubles from them that resist and strive against his judgment and opinion And if so great a Bishop as the Patriarks of Constantinople must not do so small a part of his work per alios alas what a life do our Diocesans live â—â—at Christ Mat. 18. in his â—â—â—l the Church â—â—anâ—th â—â—ll the congregation assembly or multitude and not only â—â— tell an absent Diâ—â—â—san Bishop when â—erâ—aps â—ne â—â—â—â—â—â— 20 4â— 6â—â—â—les to tell him see Grotius himself in his Aâ—â—t on the Text and his â—â—â—â—ort of sertullian and others See also Eâ—â—â—mus on the place And many others say the same though some would have the Church to be only the Bishop or as others the Presbytery Ruâ—herfords contrary reason is but a fallacy viz. The same Church that must be heard must be told but it is not the Congregation but the Elders that must be heard Ergo c. Ans The Church consising of the Pastor and people must be told and they have all ears that without confuson can hear at once but they cannot without confusion all speak at once therefore one must speak for all For this argument would equally prove that it is not any Presbytery or Court or many Ministers that should be told if it be but one that is to speak to the â—inner And it is not necessary that theâ— all speak to him As the chief Judge speaketh for all the Bench and the Prosecutor for all the Synod and yet the Court or Synod may be complained to so is it hear The samâ— man â—ay see with two eyes and hear with two ears and yet speak but with one tongue yet this reason once deceived me Seeing then that Christ instituted thus much of discipline in each particular Church it is clear that by his iâ—stitution every particular Church associated for presential Communion should have one or more â—â—â—tors authorized for so much discipline which is that which we plead for * Disput of Church Gover 2. That unjust excommunications bind not see the judgment of the most approved casuists in Bapt. Fragoso de Regim Reipub. p. 1. l. 1. pag. 112. Col. 2. Gregor Sayrus To. 2. l. 1. c. 17. num 2. 5. 8. c. And indeed they conclude that out of the case of scandal Magistrates Laws unjust materially that is to the Common hurt or that are against common good bind not in Conscience ut Id. Fragoso ib. p. 112. n. 234. 336. Wâ—â— citeth the consent of Silvest Tabien Bald. Bartol Hostiens Doctorum Communiter So that Mr. John Humfrey is not singular in his resolution of this Case though I gave him many cautions and limitations in the Letter part of which he hath printed in the end of his book 2 Cor. 5. 19. Act. 26. 18. Mat. 28. 20. * Hierome saith he dyed in the eighth year of Nero. aid â—oi Scaliger Anim. in Euseb Dorothaeun resutantem pag. 195. 1. Petavius 2. Bishop Downame 3. Master Mede 4. Bilson 5. Grotius 6. Bishop Jeremy Tailor 7. Doctor Hammond 8. All the Divines in the same Cause Cyprian in the Separation of Feliciss and sive Presbyters Epist 44. ed. Goul pag. 93. saith Deus unus
Christus unus una Ecclesia Aliud Altare constitui aut Sacerdotium novum sieri praeter unum Altare unum Sacerdotium non potest ☜ Cypr. l. 1. â—p 66. Tit. 1. 5. Ordain Elders in every City A Village saith Euseb l. 5. c. 16. Vid. Baron an 233. n. 10. It is the eighth Canon in Crab. Vid. Petavium in Epip haeres 69. p. 276 277 278 c. The chief Champion of Prelacy strongly proveth that the Chorepiscopi were true Bishops * Leg. Altare Dam. pag. 290. Saith D. Field l. 5. c. 28. In Antiquity a Parish contained the Citizens and all such Borderers as dwelt near and repaired to any chief Church or City A Diocess both then and now importeth the Villages Churches dispersed in divers places aâ—der the Regiment of one Bishop Mark this tâ—â—e use of the words against what Downame and others â—â—etend I know the learned Albaspinaeus laboureth to prove that the Agapae were not at the sacrament and in that place But he thinketh that they were meetings of the whole fraternity and it s like no house was much greater than the Church-house so that this makes no difference So Sr. Hen. Spelman Concil p. 152. saith in Theodor. time about An 672. Parish divisions here began Seld. of Tythes proveth that the division of Parishes in England began but about 700 years after Christ And Dr. Tillestly doth not deny the time but thinketh that though Patrons as Selden saith might probably begin this yet Bishops also had a hand in it Of this see an excellent Tract of Church Benefices by Pad Paul Sarpi translated by Dr. Denton confirming many things beforesaid And it is a considerable proof which Dr. Tillesley against Selden saith p. 179 The right of a Bâ—â—ial place did first belong to the Cathedral Church and herein the custome of our Kingdom and others was not different And if the Diocese was such as that all were to be buryed at the Cathedral it was not so big as â—â—â—â— of our Parishes in London which are fain to take other ground for buryal and their Church will not hoâ—â— the tenth part of the living as auditors Leg. plura apud Gers Bucer pag. 231 232 233 234 235. I may add also as anther evidence that in the beginning for a considerable time Confirmation was closely joyned to Baptism and therefore ordinarily none were Baptized but by a confirmer or in his presence And the Bishops say that only Bishops did confirm And if so then let it be considered to how large a Diocese a Bishop could be present at every Baptism Yea if Confirmation had been at a greater distance seeing all that were baptized were confirmed it is easy to know for how many one Biâ—hop cannot do this Did our Bishops use it they would know I do not think that in this city one person of 50 or 100 is confirmed though the Bishop dwell among them Perhaps in some Dioceses not one of 1000 for we rarely hear of any at all * In the subscrâ—ptions of Councils you shall find sometime a Bishop and one Deacon sometime a a Bâ—shop and a Presbyter as at Arles id Spelman p. 42. * not many Churches See Leo 1. Epist 88. p. 158. So Lib. poenitential Theodori Cantu in Spelman p. 155. Concil Arelat 1. c. 21. Conc. Lâ—od c. 57. c. 4 5. Aqu. 1. 2. q. 18. art 3. 5. 10. q. 72. art 9. Cajet Medin ib. Act. 2. 1. 42 44 46. Heb. 10. 22 c 13. 7 17 24. Act. 14. 23. Act. 20. 1 Thes 5. 12 13. 1 Cor. 5. 14. per tot 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. 1 Tim. 3. Tit. 1. 5 c. 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. 1 Cor. 11. Mat. 28. 19 20. Mat. 18. 15 Tit. 3. 10. Yet I doubt not that they were not to Consecrate Ministers alone without the Bishop Epist 28. p. 64. Edit Goulartii The next Epis 7. is worthy to be read of all that suffer for the truth to keep them from pride unruliness and scandal and so is the 8. See Instances in Blondel §. 3. p. 183 184. Note it is not consilio but concilio And c. 30. he sheweth instances of Concil Antisiodor c. 7. Tarrac c. 13. Concil Tolet. 1. ex Gregor l. 4. ep 88. Synod Eliber c. * King James Dr. Low Ep. Bridges Cosins Sutliffe Crakenthorp Hales Chillingworth c with Chemnitius and many Lutherans and Calvinists * By this judge how big the Diocese was * But no one in all the land was appointed to this day In the new Rubrick is added If he humbly and heartily desire it But if he will but say so the Priest must not judge These are not our Bishops * Now neâ—r sixty five I have â—ately heard two excommunicated for teaching School and being married without License and a thiâ—d no cause named * As they that toâ—â—e the Covenant unwillingly now maintaine that therefore it binds them not * Thâ— ophilus â—â—â— Sisters sâ—n and successor * What should such Religious men be now called that had no more knowledge so great errour and so great fury and tumultuating â—â—â—eâ—lion * Saith Dr. Hanmer in his Margin This â—ishâ—p hath more fellows in the world * Ithaciaâ—â— * Most of the prophane * 1. Yeâ— but thâ—â— did by persecuting the â—est 2â— They could not because they were Diocesans and would not because too may of them hated the best * The deâ—oist * O good Bishops * Very true * Marke what they were sequestred for * Marke * Leave iâ— to God to judge of the secrets of â—he heart †He maketh our Prelates no sober men See Stillingfleets Iren p. 379. c. * The story of Eranistus dividing into Titulos much less proper Parishes is confuted by the most knowing isistorians
tended to gathering they would no longer dwel with him but got them into the desert As soon as Theophilus understood that they abhorred his manner of living he was wonderfully incensed and promised to work them a displeasure and being prone to anger and revenge bestirred himself against them and endeavoured by all means to work them mischief And he began to despight Dioscorus the Bishop for it grieved him to the gutts that the Worshippers made so much of Dioscorus and reverenced him so highly To beshorter than Socrates Theophilus not knowing else how to be revenged set the Monks against him and his Brethren and accuseth them of holding contrary to the Scripture that God had no body hands or feet and so taketh on him to be of their opinion till he had set them altogether by the cars And the ignoranter Monks being the greater number he took their side and so they went first to it by zealous reproaches one part calling the other Originests and the other part calling them Anthropomorphites and at last it came to a deadly Battel And saith Socrates Theophilus perceiving that his fetches framed after his will went with great power towards the Mount Nitria where there religious houses stood and aided the Monks against Dioscorus and his Brethren And the Religious men thus beset with great danger had much ado to save their lives Socr. l. 6. c. 7. Did ever Presbyterians commit such an unchristian and inhumane vilany as this by such false dissimulation and malice And here we see how the quarrel began against Origens Works not for the passages that are truely culpable but for the sounder parts and how it came to pass that Chrysostome was not so forward to condemn them as his Condemners did require him to be Theodoret. lib. 4. Hist Eccl. c. 13. Tells us that when the Emperour Valens his order was brought to Eusebius Samosatenus for his removal and banishment Eusebius tels the Officer That if the People should know it they would drown him in the River Euphrates and therefore contrived to slip away by night What would they say if our Churches were such as this orthodox Episcopal Church was Theodor. lib. 3. c. 13. The Virgins openly sung in reproach of Julian the Emperour Ratae illum consceleratum tyrannum contemnendum esse omnium irrisione ludendum judging that wicked Tyrant to be contemned and made a mocking stock by all And yet he was a lawful Emperour and none of the cruellest Persecutors Theodor. l. 3. c. 13. When the People of his Church had found out Eusebius their banished Bishop they earnestly perswaded him to return contrary to the Emperors Edict and not to suffer his flock to be left to the Wolves which were the Bishops set over them by the Emperour And is not this more than the people are now condemned for who only hear the Ministers privately Cap. 14. When the Emperors Arrian Bishop was set over them not one of all the People rich or poor servant or labourer husbandman or Artificer man or woman young or old would come as they used to the Church nor come in sight of the Bishop nor speak with him But though he lived very modestly he came to the Church place alone They would not bathe with him nor bathe in the same water but throw it first into the Channel when he left the City this was Eunomius Do our hearers deal as harsshly as this Afterward when Lucius was set over them the Children in the streets did burn their ball because his Asses feet had touched it Id. ib. c. 16. When the Bishop of Edessa was removed and another set over them the people frequented private meetings in the Suburbs And when the Emperour commanded his Prefect Modestus to take Souldiers and disturb them and drive them away the women ran with their Children hoping to die with them And Eulogius the Presbyter asked Was the Emperour made Priest when he was made Emperour And how the Presbiters and People of Antioch continued their meeting whether the Emperour would or not though he disturbed them by Soldiers Theodor c. 17. Basils answer to the Prefect when he offered him the Emperours favour was that Children were to be so talk'd to but Men bread up in divine studies would suffer any death rather than suffer one syllable of divine Truth to be blemished Quod autem ad Imperatoris amicitiam c. But as for the Emperors friendship I much value it saith he joyned with godliness but if it want that I say it is pernicious In one of us this answer would have been enough to make us seem as bad as it made Basil esteemed good Id. 11. c. 19. When the forenamed Lucius was made Bishop of Alexandria and Peter their Bishop put out the People would come to the Church place though he persecuted them as he had done the other omnes pariter ceperunt Lucium convitiis lacerâ—re they all began to tear Lucius with revilings because he persecuted the Monks of Egypt Id. l. c. 38. Audas a Bishop in Persia demolished their Temple or Pyreum by violence For which the Emperour of Persia killed him and destroyed all the Christian Churches Id. l. 4. c. 21. When Moses was desired by Queen Mavia to be her Bishop among the Saracens he would not let Lucius ordain him because he had persecuted good men But said to him Quis impius non tua causâ conventus Ecclesiasticos petulanter insectatus est Quis e laudatorum virorum numero non parte exulavit Quam immanitatem barbaram malefici abs te in dies singulos admissa non superarunt Do Nonconformists speak more harshly to our Bishops Theodoret himself frequently calleth Julian a Tyrant cap. 22. The Heathens kept their Feasts openly Telis autem Apostolicae doctrinae propugnatoribus tyrannus iste se hostem praebuit And when he was dead they openly rejoyced at his death Id. cap. 30. l. 4. With what bold language doth Izaak tell Valens of his fighting against God and casting out his Ministers and Gods fighting against him and what he would be sure to meet with at the end if he kicked against the pricks Lib. 5. c. 17. The Christian people of Thessalonica rose and killed some of Theodosius his Officers which provoked him by his Souldiers to kill seven thousand of them for which Ambrose brought him to do open pennane To mention all the blood shed at Rome as at Damascus election and else and Constantinople and Alexandria would be tedious even that which was shed on the account of Bishops Lucius Calaritanus was a pious Bishop but so hot for separation from those that had been Arrians that he is numbered for it with the Hereticks though an orthodox Bishop The Novatians were Episcopal and so were the Donatists and yet how have they been judged of for their Schism I need not tell Apollinarius father and son Paulus Samosatenus Nestorius Dioscorus Eusebius Nicomed Theodorus Mopsuest and how many more