the opposition of the times the worse they are the more they require our zeal to oppose and to reform them And it is never more seasonable to assert the Rights of the Christian Church than when they are most disowned Let us but do our duty and God will do his work and let us not betake our selves to tricks and shifts upon any pretences if any such there are of loss or danger the Church of Christ subsists upon no other Politicks than Courage and Integrity Let us then be true to those two fundamental Principles of Christianity and our Saviour has undertaken for the event that the Gates of Hell much less Rome or Geneva shall never be able to prevail against it POSTSCRIPT I Have thus far adventured to state the Case of the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law in the Church of England Thereby to declare what it is that we contend for in our Disputes against all sorts of Recusants and Dissenters For it is not at all material what we oppose but what we assert and there would be no harm in Errour were it not for its Contrariety to Truth So that before we defend the Church of England it is necessary to define the true state of its cause otherwise we contend about we know not what For as for the general Term of Protestancy it is an indefinite thing so that if all the men in England that are Enemies or no Friends to the Pope of Rome may be listed under that name we have some Protestants that believe there is a God and some that believe there is none some that believe they have a Saviour and a Soul to save and some that laugh at both there are Hobbian Protestants Muggletonian Protestants Socinian Protestants Quaker Protestants Rebel Protestants Protestants of 41 and Protestants of 48. All or most of which are as different as Popery it self from the true Protestancy of the Church of England And therefore it is necessary to stick close to that both as it is established by the Law of the Land and by the Law of Christ. For unless we limit it to the Law of the Land we may in time have a Church consisting of nothing but Protestants dissenting from the established Religion that is a Church not only without but against it self And unless we derive the Authority of that Religion that is by Law established from the antecedent Law of Christ we may quickly be as we are in a fair way to be a Reformed Church of Protestant Atheists that is a Church without Religion And therefore all must be built upon this one Boâ—â—om that the Church owned by the Law of England is the very same that was established by the Law of Christ. For unless we suppose that the Church was originally setled by our Saviour with divine Authority we deny his Supremacy over his own Church and unless we suppose that the supreme Government of the Kingdom has power to abett and ratifie our Saviours establishment by Civil Laws we deny his Majesties Supremacy over his Christian Subjects and therefore both together must be taken in to the right State and Constitution of the Church of England And that do what we can will involve the Leaders of our present Separation in the guilt both of Schism and Sedition of Schism in the Church in that they withdraw themselves and their obedience from those who are vested with a power to command them by vertue of a Divine Commission of Sedition in the State in that they needlesly and without any justifiable pretence violate the Laws of the Common-wealth Though the truth is their Dissension is somewhat worse For as they manage it it is not only Sedition but Rebellion in that they do not only disobey the Laws but disavow their obligation standing resolutely upon that one Principle that no Magistrate whatsoever has any power of establishing any thing relating to the Worship of God So that the Act of Uniformity is not so much faulty for the particular matters contained in it as for the unlawful and usurped Authority of it And when the King and Parliament enjoyned the Book of Common-Prayer to be used in all Churches they challenged a Power to which they had no right and invaded the Prerogative of God himself This is the first ground of the Separation as it is stated by the chief Ring-leaders of it and it is a plain renunciation of their Allegiance as well as Conformity I can with all the streinings of Charity make no better of it and should be heartily glad if I could see them without shufling and prevarication clear themselves of so pernicious a Principle To conclude methinks Religion has been long enough trifled with in this Kingdom and after so long and so sad experience of our folly it is time to return to some sense of discretion and sobriety Before the late barbarous War we had the Scepter of Jesus Christ and the divine right of Presbytery to advance but now after the murder of an hundred thousand men that Cause has proved so ridiculous as that it is grown ashamed of it self However the pretence was great and solemn but at this time the People are driven into the same excesses against the Church no body knows for what unless it be that some men among us are too proud or too peevish to recant their Follies And therefore I conjure them in the name of God to lay their hands upon their hearts and without passion seriously to consider what it is for which they renounce the Church in which they were baptised into the Communion of the Catholick Church tear and rend it into numberless pieces and factions scare multitudes of silly and well-meaning People out of it as they tender the salvation of their souls and put the whole Kingdom into perpetual tumults and combustions about Religion and when they have considered it I shall only bind it upon their Consciences so to answer it to themselves now as they hope to answer it to their Saviour at the last day As for the foreign Reformed Churches I have said nothing of them because they are altogether out of the compass of my Argument which is confined within the four Seas and concerns only those that either are or ought to be members of the Church of England But if in any thing any other Churches deviate from the Primitive Institution they must stand and fall to their own Master And God forbid we should be so uncharitable as to go about to un-church them or renounce brotherly communion with them or to think that our blessed Saviour should withdraw the promise of his Grace and Protection from them For if every defect from his Institution should forfeit the Rights of a Christian Church there never was as we may find by the Apostles account of the Churches in their times nor ever will be such a thing as a Church in the world For in this life it is not to be expected that any thing
saying which is so triumphantly insisted on to blast the whole credit of Antiquity that it is difficult to find out who were the Successors of the Apostles in the Churches planted by them unless it be those mentioned in the Writings of St. Paul it is evident from his own words that the difficulty arises not from the deficiency but from the too great plenty of Successors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For he had a thousand Helpers or as he was wont to call them Fellow-Souldiers So that the reason why it is so difficult to assign whom he appointed to preside over the Churches that he converted is because he had such an innumerable company of followers that whom he set over what Churches it is not possible to define than as himself has happened to name particular Persons as Timothy Titus Crescens Clemens Epaphroditus c. which alone are a sufficient evidence of the Apostles care to settle Successors in the greater Churches However this passage can by no means be made use of to blast the credit of Antiquity as to the matter in debate because it concerns not the uncertainty of the form of Government but only of the Persons who succeeded in the Apostolical Form in some particular Churches And that alone is answer enough to the third defect as to Persons viz. That granting the Catalogues of the first Bishops to be defective that is no proof against the certainty of Episcopal Government unless at the same time that we cannot find the Bishop we could find some other form of Government Nay further those particulars that we have are a sufficient Testimony to the general Truth that we assert in that it is attested by all the Records that are remaining and that is enough to satisfie any reasonable or impartial man especially when in the greater and more known Churches we have as certain an account of the Succession as we have of the Bishops of England from the Reign of Henry the VIII to Charles the II. But that concerns the Argument of Personal Succession which though I have prevented I may consider in its proper place At present in order to the confuting of this Objection from the defect of Time I shall shew that we have as certain and uninterrupted a Tradition of the matter in hand as the most curious and diffident enquirer can demand for his full satisfaction And first What can be more ancient or is more evident than the Testimony of Clement of Rome in his famous Epistle to the Corinthians where exhorting them above all things to Peace and Unity which indeed was the main Argument in the first Writers of the Church one chief way that he propounds in order to it is that every man keep his Order and Station where beside the Laity he reckons up three distinct Orders of the Christian Clergy which he expresses by an allusion as was the custom of the Apostolical Writers to the Jewish Hierarchy viz. The Office of High Priest Priest and Levite The passage is very full and pregnant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The High Priest has his peculiar Office assign'd him and the Priest has his Station bounded and the Levites have their proper Ministries determined and the Lay-man is obliged to his Lay-Offices My Brethren let every one in his Place and Order worship God with a good Conscience not transgressing the settled Canon of his Duty according to the rule of Decency Where it is manifest that he describes the several Ministries of the Christian Church at that time by alluding to the Offices of the Mosaick Institution For why else should he conclude with this Exhortation And therefore my Brethren let every one of you keep his own Order unless this distinction of Officers concern'd the Corinthian Christians So that though it be expressed by alluding to the Ordinances of the old Jewish Institution yet it is a description of the present state of the Christian Church among those to whom he writes otherwise it were very impertinent to exhort them to keep those Stations if there were no such among them But the great Witness in this cause is that brave Martyr St. Ignatius Pupil to St. John and by him ordain'd Bishop of Antioch and chief Bishop of Asia who whilst he was in his way to his Martyrdom being sent from Antioch to Rome to be devoured by wild Beasts in his journey wrote several Epistles to several Churches in which he gives such a plain Account of the Constitution of the Hierarchy in his time by the Orders of Bishop Presbyter and Deacon as plainly demonstrates it to have been of Apostolical Antiquity And this is so evident that there is no way of avoiding the Testimony but by flatly denying it And therefore our Adversaries will upon no terms allow these Epistles to be genuine and take infinite pains to prove them if it be possible supposititious so that this is become the great point in this Controversie and has been eagerly disputed by many Learned men on both sides The two last that engaged in it are a learned Prelate of our own and the famous Monsier Daillé in whose Books the whole cause is not only contain'd but I am apt to think decided For though Daillé was a Person of more Judgment Temper and Learning than most of his Brethren yet they were strangely overborn by the strength of Prejudice and it is plain to any man that ever look'd into him that he was first resolved upon his Opinion and then right or wrong to make it good and because he was well aware that these Epistles alone were so clear and full a Testimony to the Apostolical Antiquity of the Episcopal Order that they plainly prevented all Attempts and Arguments against it he therefore set himself with all vehemence and made it the business of his Life to destroy their Credit and with infinite pains sifted all the Rubbish of Antiquity to find out every shred and atom of a Criticism that might any way be made use of to impair their Reputation Yet after all this Drudgery are his Exceptions so plainly disingenuous and unreasonable that they would fall as well upon any other ancient Record whatsoever not only that ever has been but that ever could have been though upon no other score than purely that of its Antiquity But this Cause hath breath'd its last in this man and this advantage we have gain'd by his zeal to maintain and his ability to manage it that it has put an utter end to this Controversie in that all his forces have been rebuked and overthrown with such an irresistible strength of Reason and Learning that for the time to come we may rest secure that never any man of common Sense or ordinary Learning or any Modesty will dare to appear in such an helpless and bafled Cause For the particulars I refer to the learned Authors themselves but as to the general Argument I shall give a brief and distinct account of it and then leave it
whereby he has obliged all the Members of it to the open profession of the Christian Faith and to Communicate in the Sacraments and all other Ordinances of publick Worship which Society is so far from having the least Dependence upon the Civil Power that it was at first Erected not only without the Allowance but against the Edicts and Decrees of all the Powers of the Earth and subsisted so apart from all Kingdoms and Common-wealths for above 300 years all which time though it borrowed no Force or Assistance from the Imperial Laws yet by vertue of our Saviours Divine Authority it obliged all Christians to embody together into a visible Society Which Obligation is not only distinct from but antecedent to all humane Laws that require the same thing And therefore in a Christian state men are not Christians by vertue of the Law of the Common-wealth but it is the Law of God that constitutes the Being and Formality of a Christian Church Now this being granted me which cannot be denyed without denying the foundations of the Christian Faith the whole cause of Erastianism is run upon a palpable Contradiction For if the Church be a Society founded upon Divine Right it must have at least as much Power of Government within it self as is necessary to its own Peace and Preservation otherwise it is no Society much less of any Divine Appointment And if it be indued with a Power of Government it must have a Power of inflicting penalties upon Offenders because without that the common sense of mankind will tell us that all Government is ineffectual And then as it is a Society so it is no civil Society as appears by our Saviours own Declaration that his Kingdom is not of this World and by the fundamental Principle of these men that for that very reason maintain it cannot be indued with any juridical Authority From all which viz. That it is a Society but no civil Society that every Society must have Government and all Government a Power of inflicting Penalties what can more demonstratively follow than That its Penalties are distinct from those that are inflicted by the civil Power and if so that then Excommunication in the Christian Church whatever it is must be something distinct from all civil Inflictions So that methinks Mr. Hobbs his Notion is much more Coherent with it self for whilst he allows the Church no Right of Society but what is granted it by the civil Government it is but reasonable that the Power upon whose Charter it subsists should retain to it self the Authority of governing it according to the Laws and Rights of its own â—â—stitution But to derive all its Rigâ—â— of Society from God and at the same time allow it no Power of Government but from the State is that gross Contradiction I charge them with in that Society without Government is no Society So that this one Notion That the Church is a spiritual Corporation distinct from the Common-wealth and antecedent to its being embodied to it prevents and anticipates all the Erastian Arguments because that alone plainly infers that it must be endued with a jurisdiction distinct from the civil Government And indeed the main Dispute depends upon this one Principle Whether the Church be a Society founded by Divine Institution if it be that alone vests it with a Power of Excommunication if it be not it is in vain to strugle against Conclusions when we have once own'd the Premises for then are we clearly return'd back to the Church of Leviathan that stands uponno other Foundation than that of humane Laws Now upon this immoveable Principle I joyn Issue with our learned Authour and shall wait upon him through all parts of his Discourse and through all Ages of the world as he has divided them into six Epochas 1 From Adam to Moses 2 From Moses to the Captivity 3 From the Captivity to our Saviour 4 From our Saviour to the end of the first Century 5 From the end of the first Century to the Reign of Constantine 6 From Constantine to our own Age of all which he has endeavour'd severally to prove that there was either no such thing as Excommunication in Use or if there were that it was a meer humane Invention First he undertakes to prove that there was no such punishment as Consistorian Excommunication in all the interval from the Creation to Moses For whereas it is the custom of some zealous men to fetch all things from the beginning of the World they have here it seems exemplified this matter in the Fall of Lucifer from Heaven in the expulsion of Adam from Paradise and in the banishment of Cain from the Society of mankind Now in answer to these he replies two things First that these punishments were not properly Excommunication Secondly that if they were examples are not enough to make a Divine Law I will freely grant him both and yet infer from hence what is enough to my purpose The necessity of Government to the preservation of Society and of inflicting penalties to the preservation of Government When it appears from hence that even God himself who is endued with infinite Wisdom and Power has no other moral way but this to govern the world And that is all that in this part of the Dispute can be material to our present Argument for the Dispute being divided into two parts Whether there be such a punishment as Excommunication and Whether the Power of inflicting it be appropriate to certain Officers of our Saviours appointment I suppose no man ever pretended to prove that our Saviour at the beginning of the World instituted an Apostolical order of men for the government of Religion so that here all the Controversie that can be is Whether there were not an absolute necessity of some jurisdiction in this as well as all other matters of humane life and for it we have our Authour 's full suffrage proving in his first and second Chapters that the sons of Noah and the Patriarchs who lived before the Law must have had their Courts of judicature tam circa Sacra quà m Profana from the nature and end of Society in that without this Power it must unavoidably fall into disorder and confusion Utrum aurem praefecturae fuerint illis tunc temporis juridicae tametsi nulla omnino restarent earundem in sacris literis alibive vestigia non magis esset dubitandum quà m utrùm in societatem vitae civilem coalescerent tunc ipsi atque animalia ut genus humanum reliquum essent politica rectèque ac honestè pro seculi persuasione vivendi rationem omnino inirent atque ut Dubia Lites Controversiae cum effectu civili i. e. judiciorum executione dirimerentur scelera ac delicta cohiberentur adeoque in Officiis contineretur quisque suis curaret And therefore he makes all Government to be establisht by the Law of Nature as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of all humane Society Which
that passage of Sozomen l. 1. c. 9. in which some learned men fancy they find some footsteps of this Law it is quite to the other purpose that I but now mentioned viz. the Bishops Power of determining causes by the mutual consent of Parties When this Edict was forged and by whom it is uncertain but it is probably conjectur'd by Gothofred from the Barbarity of its stile and great likeness of it to that of Constantines Donation to have been forged in the same Shop and by the same hand But if this Edict were as true as the rest are which give Bishops Power to sentence causes praeeunte vinculo compromissi yet where do we find any Edict for enabling them to enforce their decrees by Excommunication Not one syllable of that in all the Roman Laws but on the contrary the Civil Magistrates and their Officers are commanded to put the Bishops Sentence in execution Is it not then a very forced way of Arguing that because the Roman Emperours granted the Christian Bishops some jurisdiction they must of necessity have granted them the Power of Excommunication though there is no such Edict extant in all their Laws They conferr'd many Priviledges upon the Clergy in the Titles De Episcopis Ecclesiâ—s Clericis de Religione yet there is nothing in both the Codes and all the Novels to vest them with any power of Excommunication and therefore as those other they enjoyed by the Emperours favour not by any antecedent Right so seeing they exercised this Power and that not by vertue of any Imperial grant it is evident that they received their Authority from some other hand So that to conclude there cannot be a more pregnant Argument against our Author's opinion than the body of the Imperial Law in which there is not one Instance recorded that ever any Emperour pretended to this Power himself or granted it to his Bishops for from thence it unavoidably follows that if they had it at all they had it from some other Commission And thus am I come to the conclusion of this Argument for though there are many Precedents of latter Times yet I am not concern'd to justifie what was done by Huns Goths and Vandals whose practices were the meer effects of Ignorance and Barbarity and oblige us rather to pity than to follow their Examples PART II. HAving hitherto treated with the false Pretenders to the Church of England I come now in the last place to treat more amicably with some of its mistaken Friends and they are those that own a Government in it but without Governours allowing indeed that there ought to be some sort of Government establish'd in the Church but then they deny any particular Form of it to have been settled by Divine Right or Apostolical Constitution and leave it wholly to the choice and determination of Humane Authority So that though the Church of England happen to be at present govern'd by Bishops and though upon that account we may owe duty and subjection to them as our lawful Superiours yet they are not set over us by any Divine Commission but purely by his Majestie 's good Will and Pleasure who at his Restitution to his Kingdoms might have forborn to restore the then Abolish'd Order of Bishops and instead of that have establish'd some other Form of Government that he judged most suitable to the present state of things which if he had done that then had been the Church of England Now the Birth of this Opinion seems to have happened on this manner Mr. Calvin having founded his Geneva Platform upon Divine Institution as he particularly does in the Fourth Book of his Institutions Chap. 11. though some men that are more his Disciples than they are willing to own are pleased to deny it And in pursuance of this Decree Beza and all the other first Apostles of his Church having spent all their pains in endeavouring to make it good out of the Word of God the learned men that came after them both in the French and Dutch Churches because they must needs go beyond those that went before them proceeded to advance the Argument from Scripture to Antiquity and have with infinite industry sifted all the Writings of the Ancients to prove that there was no other Form of Government in the Church but by Presbyters in the first Ages of it next and immediately after the Apostles The chief Labourers in which Cause among many other less learned were Blondel Salmasius and Dallé who spent the greatest part both of their Life and Learning upon this Argument But they proceeding for the most part in a sceptical and destructive way not so much relying upon the Testimony as impairing the credit of Antiquity which it seems they supposed the best way to maintain their Argument this soon gave occasion to some Learned men conversant in their Writings to conclude against all pretences to the Divine or Apostolical Institution of any unalterable and perpetual Form of Church-Government whatsoever and so to think of allaying those Controversies about a Jus Divinum that had been lately and still were managed among us with so much heat and noise by leaving it as they say our Saviour and his Apostles did to the prudence of every particular Church to agree upon its own Form as it judgeth most conducing to the end of Government in that particular Church This is the state of the Question as they determine it and the Opinion is grown popular and plausible in great Vogue both among the Learned and Unlearned and is almost become the Rule and Standard of all our Ecclesiastical Polity In so much that there are many worthy Gentlemen as any one may observe in his ordinary Conversation that were stout and loyal Confessors to the Church of England under its Sufferings that at this time look upon it as an Arbitrary and indifferent thing And therefore in pursuance of my design in behalf of the Church of England I am obliged to examine the reasons and Principles upon which it is founded and to shew that it is so far from tending to the Peace of an Establish'd Church that it is destructive to the Being and Settlement of all the Christian Churches in the World And though here I have many learned worthy men for my Adversaries yet I hope to manage the Dispute with that Candour and Integrity that none shall have any reason to complain of any more unkindness than what is absolutely necessary to my doing right to the Church of England And this I am sure can give no Offence to good men how much soever I may chance to cross with their particular Sentiments and Opinions And as for bad men for there are of both sorts engaged in the Opinion I were not true to my own Integrity if I suffered my self to be in the least swayed by their good or bad Opinion for I write not to please but to convince them which I know as long as they continue bad is but
in every Epistle he so plainly enforces his Exhortation of obedience to the Bishop purely by vertue of the command of Christ. And thus have I cleared the Records of the Church from the defect of ambiguity grounded upon those four pretences That the Succession might be only of a different degree That it is not clear and convincing in all places That where it is clearest it it meant of a succession of Doctrine and not of Persons And lastly That if it were of Persons yet Presbyters are said to succeed the Apostles as well as Bishops By which last we have already cleared the next thing objected to shew the ambiguity of the Testimony of Antiquity which was the promiscuous use of the names Bishop and Presbyter after the distinction between their Office was brought in by the Church which I have already shewn to be false and that if it were true it utterly destroys their Argument of the Identity of a Bishop and a Presbyter in the Apostles times from the promiscuous use of the names But because new Instances are here brought to prove the same thing we must follow And first as for the passages cited out of Clemens Romanus he is confessed to have written before the distinction of the names and therefore is here cited to no purpose But the great and only Testimony is that of the Gallican Church who in their Epistle to Eleutherius Bishop of Rome give Irenaeus the title of Presbyter though he had been nine years Bishop of Lyons And this looks very big if it were true but it is a meer Chronological Blunder of Blondel against the clearest Testimony of all Antiquity For first the Martyrs of Lyons in their Epistle to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia speaking of their Bishop Pothinus they give give him that Title but in this Epistle to Eleutherius they or as Blondel will have it the Church of Lyons give Irenaeus only the Title of Presbyter and both Eusebius and St. Jerom affirm that he was no more at the writing of it To all which Blondel objects that they both place the Martyrdom of Pothinus and his Frenchmen immediately after that of Polycarp and the Asiaticks which was in the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius and therefore the other was about the same time so that when Irenaeus went to Rome with the Letter to Eleutherius which was in the seventeenth year of that Emperour he had been so long Bishop But to this it is easily answered that though the Relation of these two Martyrdoms immediately follow one another in Eusebius his Cronicon and St. Jeroms Translation yet it does not at all follow that they immediately followed in time Because these two Martyrdoms are all that they mention concerning the fourth Persecution which lasted the greatest part of the Reign of Marcus Aurelius so that though one were in the seventh the other might be in the seventeenth of that Emperour and therefore we ought to follow Eusebius his more accurate account in his History who there expresly places it in the seventeenth year and withal affirms that Irenaeus was then only Presbyter rather than from so weak a surmise from the nearness of the Stories in his Chronicon to bring confusion upon the whole History especially when it so fairly clears it self in that this Letter was directed to Eleutherius who succeeded in the Church of Rome in the sixteenth year of Marcus Aurelius and in the same year that he came to that See the Gallican Persecution began and therefore it was impossible that Irenaeus could be advanced to the Bishoprick before that time so that it is like the rest of Blondels stretches to infer from a remote guess that the Persecution was in the seventh year when it is evident from the clearest Story that it was not till the sixteenth or seventeeth And now this Chronological mistake being removed this Testimony is clearly evacuated and so this business is wholly ended The last thing alledged to prove the Ambiguity of the Testimony of the Ancients is that the Church did not own Episcopacy as a Divine Institution but Ecclesiastical But of this Argument I shall choose to discourse in the last place in answer to the sententiae Hieronymi because it is the only positive Argument that they produce in their own behalf And for that reason I refer it to the last place that when I have made it appear that they have nothing material to except against what they oppose I may then shew that they have as little to confirm what they assert and both together will prove more than enough to put an end to this controversie As for the other two things that remain to shew the incompetency of the Testimony of Antiquity viz. its Partiality and Repugnancy little or no answer will serve their turn For as for the Partiality all the proof that is material to our Argument is that the Fathers judged the practice of the Apostles by that of their own times And very good reason too because they conformed the practice of their own times to that of the Apostles But if our Adversaries would infer that the Fathers had no other ground of judging of the Practice of the Apostles but meerly by the prejudice of their own customs it is only a precarious Assertion and a direct impeaching them of a more than vulgar folly and ignorance But the Fathers here glanced at are St. Chrysostom and the Greek Commentators that follow him Thus who can imagine any force in Chrysostoms Argument that the Presbyters who laid hands on Timothy must needs be Bishops because none do Ordain in the Church but Bishops unless he makes this the medium of his Argument that whatever was the practice of the Church in his days was so in Apostolical times But there is no need of that poor medium to enforce his Argument the force of it lies in the universal practice of the Church for it was never heard of that meer Presbyters took upon them the Power of Ordination and therefore the meer exercise of that Power is a manifest proof that those that had it were somewhat more than Presbyters and even St. Hierom himself who will have them sometime though when he knows not to have shared with the Bishop in all other parts and branches of Jurisdiction excepts the Power of Ordination as peculiar to the Episcopal Order And there lies the force of St. Chrysostoms Argument in the practice of the Church in all Ages not in in the custom of his own And when he is vindicated it is not to much purpose to add any thing of the Greek Commentators because they all follow him and though they may sometimes fall short in their reasonings yet it is manifest that they believed Episcopacy to have been received by the Catholick Tradition of the Church and that is all the deposition they are capable to give in this cause The last thing objected is the repugnancy of the Testimony and this is proved from
to put an abuse upon all their Posterity As to say in this case that there once was such a season in which all the world agreed though no body knows when or where to make an universal and perpetual alteration of the Form of Church-Government But to conclude grantting these men all that they contend for I would fain know what greater advantage any reasonable man can desire either to make good the title or to enhance the excellency of Episcopal Government than St. Hierom and Blondel give us viz. that it was practised by the Apostles but that upon their decease their Authority devolved upon the Body of Presbyters which Form of Government was every where found so incompetent and inconvenient that all Churches in the world were within the space of thirty five years or thereabouts convinced of the necessity of retrieving the old Apostolical Inequality as they ever intended to secure the peace and unity of the Church This is pretty well and advantage enough to satisfie any modest or reasonable man and therefore with it I shall rest contented Only I cannot but remarque the strange partiality of our Adversaries in this cause not only to set up this absurd suggestion of St. Jerom concerning the unknown time of an universal alteration of Church-Government and that not only without the Testimony of any Record for if there had been any then it had not been unknown but against the faith of all History and the most certain Tradition of the Church there being nothing more clear in Ecclesiastical Story than the succession of single Persons in the Government of the Church from the Apostles down to his own Age especially in the greatest and most eminent Churches such as Rome Jerusalem Antiochia and Alexandria so that there could have been no such universal change as St. Jerom dreams of when in these great Churches Episcopacy was established antecedently to any such supposed alteration But beside this they oppose the custom of one particular Church and that attested only by one Author to the known practice not only of all other Churches but of that particular Church it self Thus because the same St. Jerom says with the same hast and inconsideration that there was a custom in the Church of Alexandria from St. Mark down to Heraclas and Dionysius for the Presbyters of that Church in the vacancy of the See to chuse one out of their own number and from thence-forward call him their Bishop in the same manner as when an Army makes their own General or the Deacons may chuse one out of themselves and constitute him their Arch-deacon Now I say supposing this Story to be true is it not very severe by the singular practice of one Church to overthrow the Constitution of all other Churches For what if at Alexandria they had a peculiar or a corrupt custom does that impair or destroy the Catholick practice of the Christian Church It is possible not only for one particular Church to deviate in some circumstances from their Primitive Institution but that is no Argument against a certain right Yes but say they this custom was derived from St. Mark himself But that would require some better proof than the bare Assertion of St. Jerom For it is possible there might have been a preposterous practice in after-times which he to give the more Authority to it might in his lavish heat ascribe to the Founder of it But granting the truth of the whole Story what was this custom Was it for Presbyters to ordain their Bishop St. Jerom seems willing to say so but dares not and therefore expresses himself in odd ambiguous and general terms Unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant which signifies nothing certain but that he intends not Ordination is evident by the words that immediately follow Quid enim facit exceptâ ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat Which words upon whatsoever account they are added come in here very impertinently if he had by the Story spoke of Ordination At least out of these general words nothing more can be collected than their right or custom of electing their own Bishop as was the custom of Cathedral Churches afterwards Nay that too is more than is true or can be proved for St. Jerom does not say that the Bishop was chosen by the Presbyters but out of the Presbyters so that he does not give them so much as the right of Election but only appropriates to them the capacity of being elected and that was all the peculiar priviledge of the Presbyters of that Church that they alone were qualified to succeed in the See and if any one will from hence infer as Mr. Selden is pleased to do their power not only of Election but Ordination he may thank himself and not St. Jerom for his conclusion For there is not any the least ground for the inference beside the learned Gentlemans resolution to have it so and therefore when he gives us an account of several both Divines and Lawyers that understand no more by this passage than meerly capitular Election he confutes them with no other argument than only by saying positively that they are ipst Hieronymo adversissimi But alass wise men will not quit their own Opinions only to submit to the confidence of other mens Assertions and therefore he ought either to have proved more or to have said nothing Nay so far were they from having any power of Ordination that they had not that of Election when it is so very well known that the Patriarch of Alexandria was of old time chosen not by the Presbyters but by the People so that to ascribe their Election to the Presbyters is plainly to contradict the known custom of that Church But be that as it will too it is very strange as Mr. Selden himself observes that there are not to be found the least footsteps of this Alexandrian custom in any legitimate ancient Author but only St. Jerom. For if there had been any such custom in this Church of which we have as good and as many Records as of any other Church in the world it is scarce credible but that upon some occasion or other some Writer should have taken notice of it and therefore so universal a silence cannot but bring a very great suspicion upon the truth of St. Jeroms relation at least it is very unreasonable upon the single report of one hasty man concerning the peculiar custom of one Church to renounce as our Adversaries do the known practice of all the Churches in the world beside But to avoid this heavy Objection of singularity our learned Adversary has taken vast pains to find out a second Witness and then two Witnesses we know according to our Law can prove any thing and at length he has discovered an Arabian Author and with more than ordinary joy and transport immediately publishes the particular Story by it self with large and learned Notes upon it but
setling of Church-Government but July 9. that nine of the Laity and three or the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their monthly meetings for that purpose that five of the Commissioners shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places and that if any of the nine Commissioners should die or resign that five or more of them are to chuse another presently Thus far they proceeded under the Government of Midsummer-Moon but about the beginning of the Dog-days they vote that no Clergy-man shall be of the Commission and that the Committee shall be empowered to appoint five of the Clergy in every County under them to grant Ordinations Now all these Proceedings as ridiculous as they are and destructive of the very Being of a Church yet had the King joyned with his Parliament had upon this Principle been justifiable And so it will be in their power to vote up and down what Orders and Offices in the Church they please to day Episcopacy to morrow Presbytery next day Independency then a Committee and that of Lay-men too and if they please at last to abolish all Orders of the Clergy in that there are none by this Principle established by Divine Right these are excellent models of Church-Government and admirable methods of providing for the peace and settlement of it But if this trust be vested in the People beside that this too would require some proof out of the Word of God before it be granted and that it is liable to all the former inconveniences in that the putting the power of the Church into their hands makes the peace and settlement of it to depend upon the most giddy most ignorant and most uncertain thing in the world Besides all this I say this is so far from destroying any divine and unalterable Form of Church-Government that it sets up the Socinian model of Independency for F. Socinus was the first founder of it by Divine Right In that according to it all Societies of Christians are by our Saviour entrusted with a Power within themselves of electing of Church-Officers and governing Church-Affairs as they shall judge most conducible to Peace Order and Tranquillity which is the exact model of Independent Government Now this model if they will own it is not the Church of England that they plead for but Independency and if it is that they assert let them say so and not carry on the Cause of the Congregational Churches under the name of the Church of England but if they disavow it as they all do I shall only challenge them how to avoid it But to conclude this Argument in this one Principle do all the Enemies of the Church lay their ground-work that there is no known and setled Seat of Ecclesiastical Power and therefore that whoever happens to have its present possession seeing he never received it by any Commission from our Saviour he may without any offence against the standing Laws of Christianity be deposed from it The inconvenience whereof is so great that it seems to me a very forcible Argument from the nature and necessity of the thing it self for some certain divine establishment of Church-Government in that without it it is plainly impossible either to secure any peace or exercise any Authority in the Church because whoever obtains it has it not from any divine Commission and if no Commission then no Authority However I cannot but admire that those learned men who take away the divine right of some particular Form of Church-Government have not all this while been aware that they run us into all the exorbitancies and confusions of Independency in that when they have once removed the settlement by Divine Right they leave it do what they can entirely in the Peoples power to set up their own Form of Government Seeing then that unless the Christian Church be subject to Government it can be no more than a Rabble and a Riot Seeing unless the Government thereof be vested in some certain Order of men it must be for ever obnoxious to unavoidable disorders and confusions and seeing it was with particular care setled by our Saviour on his Apostles and conveyed by the Apostles to the Christian Bishops as their proper Successours I cannot see how the Divine and Apostolical Right of Episcopacy if the providence of God had designed to make it unquestionable could have been made more evident either from Common Reason or Catholick Tradition But secondly As the taking away of the divine and perpetual Right of Episcopacy does on one hand open a door for Independency so it does on the other for Popery For next to rescuing the Kings of England from the Usurpation of the Popes of Rome upon their Crowns under the pretence of an oblique or direct Supremacy over them and the reforming of many Superstitions both in Worship and Doctrine the main design of our endeavoured Reformation was to assert and retrieve the Rights of the Episcopal Order against his illegal encroachments For whereas the Original Government of the Catholick Church was vested in the Apostolical Order whereby as every Bishop had supreme ordinary Power within his own Diocess so a general Council of Bishops had supreme Power over the Universal Church So that whatever priviledges or preheminences were granted to the Bishops of particular Churches by Ecclefiastical Constitution yet their essential Power was equal and could no way exert it self as to the Catholick Church but in Council and so the Church was governed for many hundred years till the Bishop of Rome taking advantage of those peculiar priviledges and preheminences that were granted to his See as the seat of the Empire did by degrees assume to himself an absolute Sovereignty over all the Pastors of the Universal Church transferring all Ecclesiastical Government to the Court of Rome where it was managed by himself and his Officers with all the arts of Tyranny and Oppression And here first began the breach our reforming Bishops at first not disputing the preheminence of his See because that concerned not them which he had for a long time enjoyed in most other parts of the Western world and perhaps might still have done would he have been contented with it But alas they were no more fond even of the Title of Patriarch as great as it was than they are of their mock Title of Servus servorum Domini Nothing less would satiate their ambition than a sole and absolute Sovereignty over all and to this purpose they impudently applied all those promises that our Saviour made to his Apostles and their Successors of being for ever present with and assistant to them in the exercise of their Office to the Popes Person and they having once assumed this Power resolved to keep it and for many Ages reigned absolute Monarchs over the Christian World And here I say