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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70471	A treatise of the episcopacy, liturgies, and ecclesiastical ceremonies of the primitive times and of the mutations which happened to them in the succeeding ages gathered out of the works of the ancient fathers and doctors of the church / by John Lloyd, B.D., presbyter of the church of North-Mimmes in Hertfordshire.	Lloyd, John, Presbyter of the Church of North-Mimmes.	1660 (1660)	Wing L2655A; ESTC R21763	79,334	101

propounding of the true doctrine in decision of controversies or of constitutions of expedient or necessary to aedification are acts of religion most proper to the Bishops and presbyters the first an act of the praedication of the gospel the other an act of ecclesiastical Government The embracing of the truth and ordinances seen to be profitable together with the confirming of them by his decree and sanction or addition where he seeth it needful of a reward or mulct is the part of a Christian Prince discerning upon due search the truth and the usefulnesse of the ordinances propounded unto him whose embracing is his act of subjection to Christ and confirmation and sanction an act of his Vicary authority To make laws bestowing civil gifts or priviledges on the Church and ordaining civil punishments for offences committed against Christian religion and Ecclesiastical Canons and constituting Courts for the cognizance of such causes and the execution of those Laws is the peculiar and proper work of a Christian King which he may well doe without the authority of Bishops and presbyters but which he may best doe with their grave advice and counsel In the unanimous Votes of the Kings Majesty the honourable Houses of Parliament and the venerable convocation all Powers and interests are fully satisfied whether in decision of controversies in religion Chrysost in 2. Cor. hom 18 c. Sect. 11. or making Ecclesiastical Canons or any the like Ecclesiastical matters because they are the conjunct Votes of all the concerned Before the civil Magistrate became Christian the Clergy and people according to their severall rights concurred personally in the elections of Bishops and Presbyters and this remained in use under many Christian Emperors and Kings untill for the avoyding of contention and schismes and many abuses which became familiar to popular elections in a corrupted state of the Church and for the encouragement of Princes Nobles and others to erect and endow Churches it seemed good to Kings in their Parliaments and with the convocation or Synod of the Bishops and Clergy to ordain that Kings should present to the Colledge of Presbyters meet persons to be chosen and made Bishops and meet Presbyters to the Bishop for such Churches as they had built and endowed and that all other persons should in like manner present to the Bishop a fit person for the Church which they had endowed Patrons did indeed in some places put in whom they pleased without the Bishops consent Vide Epist Alexandr 3. ad Episcopos Angliae and for some time of publick confusion this was very usually done in England but this custome was no law as some would have it because it was an unreasonable custome and destructive to the Church and therefore always contradicted in all Councils where occasion was given to mention it All humane laws have their mixture of some bad with many good And certain it is that our Ecclesiastical laws have many imperfections and their ambiguous halting between the papal Canon-law whence their interpretation hath been wont to be fetched and the laws of the Realm is not the least which hath been one of the principal occasions of some actings which made the Clergy much abhorred by many and brought infinite calamities upon the Civil and Ecclesiastical state The ancient pure Episcopal government is much changed and the beginning of its change was not of late dayes Sect. 12. for in the fourth Century the Bishops and Presbyters began to advance Arch-presbyters and Arch-deacons to some part of the exercise of the Ecclesiastical government Optat. advers Parmenian l. 1. The first Archdeacon we read of was Caecilianus who reproved Lucilla a rich and proud woman which being thereat vexed became afterward a zealous promotrix of the Schism of the Donatists The first Arch-presbyter Greg. Nazianz. in land Basil crat that I can remember to be mentioned by the ancients was Basile who being made Bishop offered that honour to his old friend Gregory after the Bishop of Nazianzum But these were at that time but in some Churches and acted onely in place of the Bishops and Presbyters and at their pleasure whereas their power in time increased and after some hundreds of years the Canons gave them an ordinary jurisdiction erected their Courts added new names of Ecclesiastical judges as Deans Chancellors Commissaries c. and filled them with numerous attendants which were mostly to live by the sins of the people If these had been Officers onely of the civil magistrate to execute the power which is proper to him over all persons and in all causes Ecclesiastical the Church could not in reason have been charged with their miscariages but because they exercised with the former acts of the power proper to Bishops and Presbyters and in which the civil magistrate had onely a superintendency over them all their misdoings were ascribed to the Bishops and the Clergy their Courts heard the causes of excommunication adjudg'd a person to excommunication and caused a Presbyter no judge in the cause to excommunicate the party whereas Christ by his Apostles made them judges in his place as well to hear the causes of the spiritual censures as to execute the same by the sentence of excommunication The spiritual censures are spiritual remedies and the Pastors of the Church are under Christ the Physicians how then can it be congruous to imploy one that is no Physician to search and take knowledge of the diseases of the Soul and leave or●y the application of the remedies to the Physicians in the hearing of the causes of spiritual censures pastoral acts are to be exercised as of teaching of redargution of sin and conviction which prepare the offendor for the due and profitable receiving of the spiritual Physick which acts are all wanting where a person that is no Pastor condemneth a sinner to be excommunicated by a Pastor There is another mischief that accompanies the mixture in one and the same person of the exercise of acts purely ministerial and acts proper to the civil magistrate in spiritual causes as it is in Arch-deacons and the like that is commutation of paenance as to take so much money a Cow a Horse and the like as it hath been used be it in pretence of giving it to the poor where suspension or excommunication was by the Apostolical ordinances to have been exercised If the power proper to the ministers the power proper to the magistrate were in distinct persons this too frequent abuse would be well avoyded For the sole spiritual power is not to medle with body or purse Cudgelling whipping imprisoning fining scandalous sinners were not at all in use before the times of Christian Emperours And as to the redemption of the wholesome severities which the paenitents were enjoyned willingly to exercise upon themselves it was not used until about the end of the fift Century I might mention other mischiefs as the intollerable abuse of excommunication for very small offences

Ex quibusque ergo Ecclesiis quae pia quae religiosa quae recta sunt elige haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone Every Church at least every Provincial Church composed their prayers or other parts of their divine Service as seemed most conducible to their edification and after altered the same or made a new form Vide Bern. Augiens de quibud rebus ad missam pertinent c. 2. Vide Sozom. hist l. 7. c. 19. or received a form used in another Church as they pleased Spain or some part of it received the Roman Liturgy And therefore if it should seem good to the Church of England to mend their Liturgy or compose a new one if need be more agreeable to the present time they should do therein no more then the most famous Churches have done before and which can be no disparaging of the wisdome and piety of the Composers of it which intended onely to make it as fit as could be for the state of the Church in their time which I believe they performed very exactly and not to frame and impose an unchangeable form which could never prove incongruous to any possible variety in the state of the Church for this is not in the power of any persons or Churches Howsoever Ceremonies and a form of Liturgy are no more necessary for Episcopal then a Presbyterian Government which may equally erre in defect or excess or quality of the rites and divine Service Now although both the forms of government and all Ecclesiastical rites be in their nature changeable Sect. 19. because of their dependance upon variable circumstances yet some have been less subject to change or abrogation then other either because they be of smal efficacy to hurt or profit or because the hurt done by them is hardly discerned or because the circumstances which are apt to make them noxious seldome happen or because they are believed to have the Apostles for their authors or approvers Of all other Episcopacy seems least subject to abrogation First because the Churches in all parts of the world were always firmly perswaded that the institution of Episcopacy had the Apostles hand and seal joyned with the mother Churches for the confirmation of it Secondly because many believed that the Apostles never permitted the Colledge of Presbyters to ordain Presbyters in the time that they ruled in the Churches this they received by tradition to which they easily gave their assent because they found not in the Acts of the Apostles or the Apostolical Epistles that sole Presbyters ordained any except perhaps by an immediate command of the Holy Ghost which is extraordinary but with a President either an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Vicegerent of an Apostle as Timothy Titus c. whence they thought it might be very probably collected that the Apostles would have given a principality of the exercise of the power of ordination unto one Presbytet onely in every Church so as without him the whole Colledge could not ordain and would have left the government to be exercised in common equally by all if the Colledge had not so grosly abused their ruling power whereby it was seen that the Colledge had need of a President both in the Government and the Ordination which was accordingly given them by the decree of the Church approved by the Apostles St. Hierome himself hath some passages which seem to favour this opinion ●i passim omnibus Presh esses concessum ordinare tot admitterentur ad ordines quod non servaretur ordo immo potius generaretur confusi● ideo dispositum est Dei consilie quod solis Episcopis ordinum dispensatio aliorum officiorum ut consecratio abbatum monialium ecclesiarum consimilium concedatur Bonevent in 4. d. 25. q. 1. and therefore the Churches never suffered a Presbyter or Chor●piscope to ordaine except he supplied the place of a Bishop when he could not be present and the Ordination could not be delayed Thirdly The Presbyterian Government was in use in the purest purity of the Churches beginning to spread abroad over the world by the preaching of the Apostles and yet in less then twenty years space Schismes grew out of it which caused the Churches to out it and to establish Episcopacy as the best antidote against Schisme and for the restauration and maintenance of the Churches peace Now if the Presbyterian Government was uneffectuall for the preserving of peace among the most godly and consequently the most addicted to peace who can expect it should be effectuall to restore union and peace and to preserve it in Churches too full of pollutions and staines very much degenerated from the holiness of the Apostolicall times It seems a desperate and preposterous course to use that as a soveraigne Antidote in our time which had the effect of a Poyson upon the Churches in the Aposties time A hurnt Child dreads the fire and should not the weaker members of the body dread the fire that burnt the strongest and best able to resist its force Seeing the remainder of naturall corruption in the most holy Churches drew the Poyson of Scisme from the Presbyterian forme of government we cannot without high presumption think that the far higher degrees of sin remaining in us will be idle suffer grace to make of it an Antidote against Schisme Mountebanks are seen sometime to heal by improper Medicines where the strength of nature and the concurrence of some other secret causes do performe the cure and not the nature of the Physick So may the Presbyterian government have in some place the credit of healing Schismes maintaining peace when in very truth those good effects proceed from the confluence of other causes and not from the aptness of that government to effect them For it seems incredible that it should have in it an aptness to keep us in peace that had in it an ineptitude to keep the most peaceably disposed Apostolick Christians in unity and peace Whence we may conclude that although the ancient Episcopacy be in its nature changeable as being of the Churches and by consequence of humane constitution yet morally and practically it may not be abrogated without dammage to the Church which will assuredly follow if some accidentall benigne influences of some other causes do not for some time hinder its birth I am very apt to believe that the Churches which seem to use the Presbyterian government never intended by any Law deserving the proper name of a Law to settle the primitive Presbytery in their Churches whence the sad Schismes arose in the primitive times much less to abrogate the ancient Episcopacy which in the judgment of the best Christians and of the Apostles is the healer of Schismes and the preserver of peace But that they intended as they had good reason to abrogate the corrupted Hierarchy with the multitude of its oppressing attendants and as necessity compelled them seemingly

to suspend their reception of the ancient Episcopacy but in very deed receiving in some hidden sort the substance of it secretly giving that Authority to the moderator of the Colledge of Presbyters which tantamounts the Authority of the ancient Bishops This was done by them in their Emergency out of the Gulfe of the Babylonish Idolatry and Haeresies when the state of persons and Circumstances would not permit them directly and manifestly to set up the ancient Episcopacy but covertly and cloathed with the apparel of Presbytery Because the appearing of it in its native cloathing seemed to threaten an extreme danger of returning again to Idolatrous Babylon Thus when two duties became inconsistent the keeping out of Idolatry and the open and manifest use of an Ordinance inferior to the maintenance of the purity of Gods worship they did as it was their duty so far forbear the open use of Episcopacy as seemed needfull that they might preserve the truth and sincerity of the worship of God I know many writers are of another mind but the intentions of Churches are better seen in the causes of their actions and the managing of them then in the letter of a Law or in the speculative opinions of private persons Some think the present condition of our Church to be almost the same with the state of those Churches when they first began their Reformation and therefore that we stand in need of the same cure under the habit of the Presbyterian Government Surely these are much deceived first in their opinion of our present state secondly in the sequele if our case were like theirs for when we were like them in departing from Babylon we were unlike them in many other respects and needed not the habit of Presbyters but fall to purge the ancient Episcopacy from as many of the foul excrescencies which the sins of men made to grow to it as the condition of that time would permit whereby our Church kept more uniformity with the primitive Churches and by the blessing of God upon our endevour obtained more measure of the Heavenly light and of the power of Godliness in peace and that for a longer time then any part of those Churches attained unto which were necessitated to shrowd themselves under another habit of Government This I say not any way to disparage any other Church of Christ whom I honour and pray for from my heart or to ascribe any thing to our own wisdome and providence but to honour and glorifie the grace of God for his great mercies to our Church and to defend her honour against the mistakes of some But now our condition is changed our sins have brought us to misery the light and glory of our Church is turned to darkness confusion and contempt from which notwithstanding our unworthiness Gods infinite mercy which hath most gratiously restored our Soveraign Lord the King unto his Kingdomes and Subjects will be pleased I trust to deliver us and to beautifie our Church with the primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy attended by his assessors and Senate the reverend grave wise learned and pious Colledg of Presbyters to govern the house of God after the best pattern of the primitive holy orders and discipline for the obtaining whereof God would have us assisted by His grace to contribute our endevours improved to the uttermost of Christian Wisdom and moderation to be crowned with his rich blessing And because this business is about things for the most part spirituall tending to the edification of Gods house it will no doubt please our gracious King and his great Councell not to proceed in this work without the advise and counsell of them whom Christ hath ordained under Himself Minister all builders of His House least the neglect of His Ordinance and Ministers cause the Lord to blast all other Counsells and endeavours how probable soever they may seem to be in the eye of the world Give unto Casar the things which are Caesars and let the Vicegerents of Christ enjoy the things belonging to them let all interests have their due part in this weighty work and then whatsoever Government be settled what form soever of Divine service what Rites soever and Ceremonies shall be established they will with all readiness and due submission be received and embraced by all the people and all the obedient Sons and Daughters of our dearest Mother the Church of England among whom if there shall be some whose judgments cannot acquiesce in some determinations of the higher powers they will wisely consider first that in the remote conclusions of Divine maximes all good men in this our infirmity will never agree and that nature teacheth us that in controversies the resolution of the major part must be obeyed without which debates would never be ended and St. Paul saith let the spirits of the Prophets be subject to the Prophets Secondly That God hath appointed the powers civil and Ecclesiasticall in his stead to determine Ecclesiasticall controversies and to make Ecclesiasticall Ordinances from whose judgment there is no appeal but only to God by prayer Thirdly That to preserve the peace of the Church and Charity the bond of perfectness is a duty to be preferred before the duty of publick teaching divulging or preaching many of those Divine Truths whose ignorance if not voluntary doth not exclude from Heaven when that teaching or publishing doth disturb the publick peace and consequently the keeping of the peace requireth abstinence in that case from such divulging or preaching And from these considerations good men will infer that it is good for them and that it is their duty both for the sake of Gods Authority for good order sake and for Charity and peace sake out of a Conscientious regard to the higher powers to acquiesce in their determinations and to desist from opposing their private opinion to the publick judgment and pursuing their private interest to the prejudice of publick peace and Charity For which Wisedome and moderation that they may be in all let all good men pray to the onely wise and most mercifull God the Author of Truth and peace An APENDIX THe manner of the Ordination of Bishops forgotten to be shewed by me in due place is declared by the fourth Councill of Carthage in these words Can. 2. When a Bishop is ordained lay and hold the book of the Evangelists upon his head and neck and one Bishop pronouncing the Benediction over him let the rest of the Bishops present touch his head with their hands The Church never accounted any to be capable of this Episcopall Ordination that was not first ordained a Presbyter the manner of whose Ordination was that the Bishop blessing him saying receive the Holy Ghost whosoever sins you shall remitt Concil earth Can 3. c. and laying his hand upon his head the Presbyters present lay their hands upon his head by the hand of the Bishop There was a (a) Tert. de praescript c. 41. Cyprian Epist ad