Episcopal Throne and giving the other Possession thereof and barbarously enforcing submission and adherence to them from the Clergy and People as was done by Philagrius Syrianus and Heraclius to omit others But these Stateinhibitions and deprivations coming on him his Adherents not for any other Crimes alledged which were shameless Falshoods and assumed meerly as pretences but in reality only for his being a stout Asserter of the Orthodox Faith he still went on preaching and ministring the same and for all these State-ejections was stuck to therein by the faithful Aegyptians and by the Orthodox in all other places And thus also our own Ancestors continued to do on the States turning upon them and under Forfeiture of Incorporation and all the Penalties of a Bloody Persecution forbidding them to go on administring the Word and Worship of God according to the Reformation thereof made by King Edward in Queen Maries time For being to administer this Word and Worship in duty to God and in care of Souls they set light by the Benefits of Incorporation and civil Advantages and paid no regard to State-deprivations or inhibitions but went on faithfully to administer the same though at the â—eril of their Lives I Grant the desire of keeping on the publick benefits of incorporation may many times be a Reason for Bishops and Ministers voluntarily to rest under State-deprivations and inhibitions when 't is a Case only of personal rights and priviledges Such deprivations and inhibitions often affect persons only and not things when on the deprivation of one the same Ministrations would be kept up by others As was done in the depositions of High-Priests so common in later times among the Jews and of Patriarks so ordinary at present among the Greeks and may happen in other places In all which there is only a change of persons but no change in ministrations the Church being lead on in the same necessary Worship Doctrine and Practice under both And here to prevent a breach with the state and to keep on the way of spiritual ministrations with the benefit of Secular Accessions the Bishops and Pastors of an incorporate Church where it is not like to do the Church more hurt by an utter loss of its liberty in these points than the incorporation desired will compensate may think there is more cause for the Churches sake to rest under state-deprivations They may esteem it their parts to quit their own particular interests to advance the Churches and believe that the keeping on the publick benefits of incorporation will abundantly compensate for the wrongful encroachment made by such deprivation on a private person But in Cases which concern not only the personal rights and priviledges of Pastors but the substance of Religion or the safety of Souls and where Christ requires they should exercise their ministrations as I have shewn he doth in the foresaid Cases They must not let them fall in regard to any inhibitions or deprivations even of their Lawful Princes They must here slight all worldly benefit of protection and be willing if need require to undergo a persecution And go on faithfully in their ministrations as their bounden duty requires and as in these Cases Gods Faithful Ministers have done in all times 2. Secondly what is so given up by the Church for abridgement of its own power in spiritual ministrations is only whilst it keeps united to the state and receives protection not when it is separated from it again or falls under persecution Its recessions as I noted were on consideration of State benefits and as a grateful return for them whilst it was suffer'd to enjoy them They are all upon the score of its union and so cease when the State breaks off and turns it up to it self again For being made separate it is no longer under any former tyes of incorporation but acts again with the powers of a separate condition And thus it is when instead of protecting the State puts any necessary points of Doctrine or Worship or part of their ministration under persecution When it separates its protection it separates it self It drives out the Church when it drives out any of those things which the Church must stick to at all perils and when instead of incorporating or civilly protecting the ministrations thereof it falls to incorporate and to protect the ministration of error and wickedness in their place It disfranchises pure Worship and Doctrine when it enfranchises errors and corruptions contrary to them And by turning to persecute the necessary ministrations of pure Religion it breaks it self from them and thence forward they are no longer one but become two again So that whatever regard and complyance the Bishops and Ministers of Christ may shew to such deprivations and inhibitions of the State whereinto they are incorporated whilst it inhibits no necessary Ministrations to Religion or to the Souls of Men but in discharging all those they injoy the priviledges and protection thereof Yet are they not to be discharged thereby from ministring to the same in all the foresaid or other like Cases nor to be debarr'd of any of their spiritual powers after once the state breaks with them and instead of yielding them the benefits of incorporation puts them under persecution But then they must exercise these ministrations only according to what they have Received from Christ and from the Canons of the Church so far as they do not interfere with any innocent State Laws which restrain them as Good Subjects Not with any Civil fortifications and State Accessions CHAP. II. Of the Kings Ecclesiastical Supremacy Received and Asserted by our Church ANd all this agrees well with the Ecclesiastical Supremacy own'd by our Church and claimed by our Princes conformable to what was ascribed to and claimed by the Godly Kings among the Jews and the Godly Emperors in the Primitive Church Whose Ecclesiastical Soveraignty lyes not in their being invested with or in their having a Soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders But in retaining their Civil Soveraignty over all persons whether Laymen or Ecclesiasticks And in the subordination of Ecclesiastical courts and causes which are content to act in subordination on the score of their secular mixtures as in beneficiary matters censures c. And for Cognizance of either of these either of persons or causes in barring all Foreign Appeals 1. First It lyes not I say in their being invested with or having a Soveraign Disposal of the powers of orders For these our Kings do not pretend to have in their power or to be powers subjected and inherent in themselves But to be proper and Peculiar to spiritual persons Thus King Henry the eighth when he asserts his own Regal Supremacy over the Church leaves all proper spiritual powers and Functions to spiritual persons and in the statute for restraint of Appeals declares the spiritualty sufficient and meet to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such
offices and dutys as to their Rooms Spiritual doth appertain And Queen Elizabeths injunctions disclaim all challenging of any Authority and Power of Ministry of Divine Service in the Church by Vertue of the Supremacy And the 37th Article of Religion declares That thereby we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or of the Sacraments And the Statute of Queen Elizabeth says The Oath of Supremacy shall be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in the Queens Admonition annexed to her Injunctions They are the Ministers of God in their Dominions as St. Paul says But that is as Kings not as Priests So that the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters doth not imply the Power of the Keys which the King has not says Mr. Mason And by the Supremacy we do not attribute to the King the power of the Keys or Ecclesiastical Censures as Bishop Andrews observes We never gave our Kings the power of the Keys or any part of either the Key of Order or the Key of Jurisdiction purely spiritual says Bishop Bramhall And this bounding of their Claims and Pretences of Power is suitable to what we find among those Godly Jewish Kings and Christian Emperors to whom our Churches Articles and Canons about Supremacy refer As to the Jews it appertaineth not unto thee O Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the Priests that are consecrated thereto say the Priests to King Uzziah when he would assume to himself the Priests Office for which God miraculously smote him with a Leprosie upon the place 2 Chron. 26. 16 18 19 20. And the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him to serve and minister unto him and to burn incense says King Hezekiah to the Levites 2 Chron. 29. 11. And the like appears of the godly Christian Emperors who were told by their Holy Bishops and profess'd of themselves That they were no Priests and that their power of Empire did not swallow up the Sacerdotal powers God hath intrusted the Affairs of the Kingdom in your hands but those of the Church in ours And as we may not lawfully take upon us to act as Kings so neither have you Authority O Emperor to burn incense or usurp the Priests Office said the Great Hosius in his Epistle to the Emperor Constantius To you it appertains externally to punish but to us to judge and determine what is Heretical and impious say Elusius and Sylvanus and the other Bishops to the same Constantius The Royal Purple makes men Emperors but it doth not make them Priests says St. Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius As Christians and Godly Emperors they used their Imperial Power and Soveraignty about Church-Matters But that was not privative to deny the Pastors of the Church or to bereave them of their Power but Cumulative to add the Imperial Power which was of another kind to the Spiritual thereby to back their Acts and to make them bind the faster Thus when they sent Count Candidianus to the Great Council of Ephesus the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian declare in their Letter to the Council That it was to keep good Order and to see fair Debates but with Orders not to intermeddle in determining Questions of Faith and Ecclesiastical Matters which say they is lawful only for the Bishops And when the Emperor Marcian came in person at the passing the Definitions of the Great Council of Chalcedon it was not as he tells them in his Speech to the Council to make Demonstration of his own Power therein but to give greater firmness to what they had done in the Exercise of theirs Which he doth by Ratifying the same by secular Penalties as by Banishment of Citizens Disbanding of Souldiers and Deposition of Clery and by other Punishments after the Determinations of the Council had been read and the Bishops had owned and subscribed the same before him When the Imperial Purple came to confirm a Pastoral Act it gave a new Authority to that which had Authority in it self before or as Justinian speaks in his Confirmation of the Episcopal Sentence or Anathemaon Zoaras which says he having a validity from it self or Authenticalness of its own the Crown makes yet more valid or of more Authority by adding to it a secular Penalty The Episcopal or Spiritual Authority is by too many unjustly slighted and therefore the Secular Authority is both humbly call'd in and piously comes in to its help since those irreligious Contemners of the Spiritual Power will stand more in awe of the Secular Coming in by their Secular Authority to help and back the Church in those things wherein men would otherwise contemn the Authority of the Bishops as the Fathers express it in the Council of Carthage So that the Imperial Power even whilst employ'd about Church-Ministrations all the time supposes but doth not swallow up the Pastoral Powers nor doth its Ecclesiastical Supremacy lye nor was ever thought so to do either by our Church or by those Times whereto it refers in their being vested with or having a soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders But 2. Secondly it lyes 1. First In retaining their civil Power over all Persons whether Lay-men or Ecclesiasticks The Civil State was first in Being and men were Subjects of the State when Christianity came to be proposed to them and planted among them The Church is in the Common-wealth not the Common-wealth in the Church as Optatus says And when men became Members or Ministers of the Church they did not thereby cease to be Subjects of the State or owe ever the less Duty unto it Let every Soul be subject unto the Higher Power is meant of Ecclesiasticks as well as others It takes in all tho' an Apostle tho' an Evangelist tho' a Prophet or whosoever else as St. Chrysostom notes And therefore Princes may lay their civil Commands and inflict their civil Punishments upon Ecclesiasticks as well as upon their other Subjects They may put them under Fines or Imprisonments or banish them out of their Dominions or any parts thereof as Claudius did the Jews from Rome or as Domitian did St. John into Patmos where he wrote his Revelations and as Constantius and Valence did the Orthodox Bishops in the Arian Persecutions And true Pastors are bound to submit to this like as other Subjects are either from Heathen or Heretical Emperors and even in hard and unjust Cases as in the foresaid Instances And if any under sentence of Banishment inflicted on certain Persons not on the whole Cause return into his own Country without Leave of the civil Power if being caught he suffer for it he dies not as a Christian but as a Malefactor says St. Cyprian So that Bishops and Ministers are no exempt Persons but are to own their Kings as their civil Soveraigns and are as much bound to pay Obedience to their civil Laws and are
under the Cognizance of their civil Courts as others are And this civil Subjection of Ecclesiastical Persons against the Papal Exemptions thereof is the main thing in the Ecclesiastical Supremacy claimed by our Kings In the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and in the Canons of King James this Supremacy is called the highest Power under God whereto all Men within the same Realms by God's Law owe most Loyalty and Obedience afore and above all other Powers and Potentates in Earth Her Majesty say the Injunctions again thereby neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority than was lately used and was of antient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the soveraignty and rule over all manner of Persons born within her Dominions of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any superiority over them By Supremacy or chief Government says the 37th Article of Religion we give only that prerogative which we see to have been always given to all godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all States and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the Stubborn and Evil-doers And the Oath of Supremacy as King James the First declared only extended to the Kings Power of Judicature over all Persons as well Civil as Ecclesiastical excluding all foreign Powers and Potentates to be Iudges within his Dominions All which plainly make the Ecclesiastical Supremacy to lye mainly in having Bishops and Ministers or the Ecclesiastical State who were broke off from it by the Papal Exemption under the same common Obligation to the civil Soveraign with other Subjects or under the Tye of civil Subjection In vertue of this civil power over their Persons as his Subjects he can command them faithfully to discharge their Duties and Functions And that not only as Subjects in civil Matters but as Ministers in divine Offices For as he is the civil Soveraign the Temporal Magistrate is the Keeper of both Tables being to keep his Subjects in Godliness as well as in Honesty as St. Paul says And is to use the civil Sword for sins against Religion as well as for sins against the State and in his way to punish Ministers for Neglect or Abuse of their spiritual Functions as well as for Breach of the civil Peace Thus good Kings as Hezekiah and Josiah employed their temporal power to cut off corrupt administrations and to reform Abuses of Worship and Religious Offices in the Jewish Church As Constantine and other good Christian Kings and Emperors did afterwards in other Nations And the 37th Article of our Church declares That by his Supremacy the King with the civil Sword may restrain the stubborn and evil-doers whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks And on this Account Constantine calls himself the Minister of God for the Coercion and Punishment of wicked Bishops And at his Entertainment of the Bishops tells them That God has appointed them the Bishops of things within the Church and him the Bishop of things without it and that it belongs to him as Bishop of Bishops to see they discharge their duties and be pious Thus the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian say That God by setting them to reign had made them the Bond both of the piety and of the external welfare and security of those who are subject to them the connexion betwixt which two their study was to preserve inviolable And in this Kings saith St. Austin according as God commands them do serve the Lord as they are Kings when they enjoyn good things and prohibit evil things in their Kingdoms And that not only in Matters pertaining to humane society but also in Matters pertaining to our Holy Religion And thus by means of his civil Power over Spiritual Persons has the King the like Power over Spiritual Acts Functions viz. as he can require and by the civil Sword compel them whom Christ has empowered thereto in his Dominions to exercise the same I mean to exercise them according to the Rules of God's Word and of their own Spiritual Function his Power lying in calling them to do their duties not to any Neglect or Breach thereof As we see was observed not only by the Godly Jewish Kings but also by the Primitive Emperors whose civil Laws and Edicts in these Matters still followed the spiritual Rules and Duties and were a secular Enforcement to drive all Ecclesiasticks to keep them not to Transgress them Our Laws do not disdain to follow the Sacred and Divine Canons the civil power in these Matters enforcing that which the Church had first prescribed says the Emperor Justinian And accordingly in the Civil Law for Restraint of Excommunications we forbid our Bishops saith he to Excommunicate any without a just Cause be shewn for it We forbid all Bishops and Presbyters saith another Law to exclude any from the Communion before Proof of such a Cause for which this is commanded to be done by the Ecclesiastical Canons So by his Imperial Power over their Persons commanding their Ministrations and limitting them therein to their own Rules And thus the King like as the Jewish Kings and Primitive Emperors were is supreme in these spiritual Acts and Administrations as in his Dominions they are all to be sped and administer'd not by independant Forreigners but by his own Subjects or as having the supream earthly Command of Bishops and Priests who are bound in civil Obedience to him as their Temporal Soveraign to exercise them when he requires it And this way he can give Final Justice to all his Subjects in all spiritual as well as temporal Matters having Authority to command his Bishops and Clergy to do it in the one as well as his Judges and temporal Ministers to do it in the other And by this power of doing it by their Means or Ministrations is his Supremacy set off Thus in the Statute for the Restraint of Appeals the King is declared to be the one supream Head endowed with plenary Power and Authority to render Final Justice in all Causes because the spirituality or his Bishops and Clergy can administer and determine all that belongs to their spiritual Offices and the Judges and other his temporal Ministers can do the like for Tryal of Property and Conservation of civil Peace The Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters doth not imply the power of the Keys which he has not but he may command those who have them to use them rightly says Mr. Mason This Supremacy is preserved if he take care that those who have the power of Ecclesiastical Censures do exercise them says Dr. Burhil He has plenary power to render final Justice that is to receive the last Appeal of his own Subjects without any fear of any
Review from Rome or at Rome for all Matters Ecclesiastical and Temporal Ecclesiastical by his Bishops Temporal by his Judges says Bishop Bramhall So that the Legal Supremacy of our Kings in spiritual Matters lyes in their power of doing them all without any Interposition of Forreign Bishops who are none of their Subjects by their own Bishops and Clergy whom they can command and compel to do their duties therein as their civil Soveraigns And this way the civil Soveraignty doth not drown or swallow up the spiritual powers of Ecclesiasticks but supposes them all the while peculiarly and immediately vested therewith But only retains its own secular power over their Persons as well as others whereby it can oblige them to a due discharge of their sacred powers according to the Rules of their spiritual Functions as occasion requires It lyes moreover 2. Secondly In the Subordination of Ecclesiastical Courts and Causes wherein Ecclesiasticks are content to act subordinately on the score of their secular mixtures and jurisdictions as in Beneficiary Matters Censures and other things of that Cognizance To give more leisure and encouragement to the Ministers of Religion in attending their spiritual Administrations the civil State has endowed their spiritual Cures with temporal Benefices or Preferments And to beget a greater Regard and a more general and aweful Observance of Ecclesiastical Determinations the civil power as I before observed is annexed and mingled with the spiritual in these Causes and a Concurrence is therein made of Temporal and Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions The Matters cognizable there are not only mere spiritual but some of them of a temporal Nature Such are all Causes Testamentary or about Wills the Causes of Matrimony and Divorces and those about Right of Tythes Oblations and Obventions the Knowledge whereof by the goodness of Princes of this Realm says the Statute for Restraint of Appeals and by the Laws and Customs of the same appertaineth to the spiritual Jurisdiction of this Realm And the Canons and Rubricks which are to rule all Proceedings are not only the Prescriptions of Bishops and Priests but Royal and civil Injunctions Like as also the Antient Canons were by the piety of the Primitive Emperors We decree that the holy Ecclesiastical Canons either those passed in the four General Councils or those confirmed by them be in place of Laws says the Emperor Justinian Our own Laws will have the Divine Canons not to be of less force or effect than Laws and what the sacred Canons forbid that also do our Laws coerce and abolish says the Code And as it was in the case of those Antient Canons under those Emperors so in case of ours too under our Kings the Judgments and Sentences upon them rest not in mere spiritual but draw on temporal Effects and Incapacites which effect the Sufferers in their Persons and Estates as well as in their spiritual Concerns As subjecting them to a Writ of Imprisonment rendring them uncapable to commence or carry on a Suit at Law or the like Now for the favour of this State-Concurrence in all these Causes that under the Union of two such different Powers there may be no clashing the Church submits to act in subordination and the King in all these Causes and mixt Jurisdictions is supreme That is no Synod of Ecclesiasticks is to meet for making Canons or Constitutions but when by his Writ he convenes them Nor are any Agreements of theirs when assembled to be publish'd as Canons or Ordinances till he approves or ratifies them Nor any of those introduced formerly to be executed and put in use further than they consist with the Kings prerogative Royal and with the Laws Customs and Statutes of the Realm All which are provided for in the Statute of Submission And when Canons are thus made by his Ratification it submits also that in certain Cases which are declared by other Acts they may be relaxed by his Royal Dispensation and that as in making Canons so also in granting Dispensations from them he shall be supreme That no Persons shall be elected Bishops of beneficed and temporally endowed Churches but who have the Kings Letters missive as is provided in another Statute or who are of his Nomination That when Ecclesiasticks sit to judge in their Courts by those Laws all their Proceedings in that Judicature shall be subject to the Kings Prohibition to stop their further hearing of a Cause which by Allowance or Custom is of another Cognizance or to his Commission of Review upon Appeals made to him after they have given sentence So that in these Courts there is a subjection and subordination to the King both as to the Laws they proceed by which are the Kings Laws as not passing or being introduced without his Approbation or Sufferance and as to the Judgments there passed according to them And because of this subordination of the Bishops and Clergy in their pure spiritual Jurisdictions for the Civil Soveraigns addition of such Temporal or State Concurrence the King is declared supream in all these Causes Thus much is declared in the Passages already mention'd from the Statutes settling the Kings supremacy And thus 't is said in another Statute of the Review of the Institution of a Christian Man that King Henry 8th set it forth as supream Head of the Church of England because he call'd the Convocation together to frame and publish â—â— by his Consent And thus in his Declaration prefix'd to the 39 Articles of Religion King Charles the First sets forth his supremacy over the Church by this subordination of the Church-men and because in making any Canons or Constitutions they must have his License for their Assembling and their Orders and Agreements confirmed by his Approbation and executed all with subordination to the Laws and Customs of the Land for preservation whereof they are subject to the Temporal Prohibition And in respect of both these parts of civil power viz Both in having this civil command of spiritual persons and this civil power over spiritual causes by reason of such secular mixtures it lyes moreover in having the same 3. Thirdly in opposition and bar of all other earthly dependance especially of all Foreign jurisdiction and appeals He is the one Supream Head of all both Spiritual and Temporal next under God saith the Statute for Restraint of Appeals And the claim of Supremacy in the Queens injunctions is so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And the Thirty Seventh Article of Religion the first of King James the Firsts Canons and especially the Oath of Supremacy doth most fully disclaim and exclude all Foreign jurisdiction herein And the extending of the Kings Power of Judicature over all Persons Ecclesiasticks as well as others thereby is for excluding all Foreign Powers from being Judges in our Kings Dominions as we heard from King James's Apology for the Oath of Allegiance The Foreign jurisdiction and
Appeals particularly aimed at is that which was claimed here by the Popes of Rome They had wrested from the Crown the foresaid Soveraignty both over Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes For as to Ecclesiastical Persons they claimed an exemption for them as not answerable in Civil Courts but Cognizable only by themselves And as to Ecclesiastical Ministrations as back'd by secular benefices and Ecclesiastical Causes as mixt in the Ecclesiastical Courts with Civil Priviledges and Jurisdiction they disclaimed subordination to the Crown and asserted a supremacy to themselves therein For they made themselves supream here in investitures into benefices and preferments and to have the chief power by their Legates of calling our convecations of passing and ratifying all our Decrees Canons and Constitutions of granting dispensations from them of having their decrees take place of the Prerogatives of the Crown or of the Customs of the Realm of holding courts and of receiving Appeals from any of our spiritual courts and judicatures and the like All which civil powers over Ecclesiastical Persons and subordination of Ecclesiastical causes proceeding by the foresaid mixture of secular fortifications benefices and jurisdictions the statutes Articles injunctions and Canons of this Church and Realm about Supremacy abolish in the Popes and assert to the Crown to which they Anciently did and of right should belong So that this Soveraign Civil Power over all Ecclesiastical Persons as their subjects and this Subordination of all Ecclesiastical Causes to it because of the Concurrence and intermixture of the foresaid civil priviledges and juridictions therewith and that in opposition to the papal pretences in these points is the Ecclesiastical supremacy vested in the King by our Church and Laws The Popes spiritual Usurpation upon this Church was shaken off by asserting to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Brittish Churches Ancient and independant Primacy Which did Right to the King too it being against his Prerogative that any Foreigner who doth not own himself to be one of his Subjects should have any Power in his Dominions And his Civil Usurpation on the Crown in respect to Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes among its Subjects was thrown out by asserting of the Kings Supremacy But when the Supremacy speaks such a civil power over the persons of Ecclesiasticks as they are its subjects and such subordination of Ecclesiastical causes thereto as they are united to secular benefices and jurisdictions Yet at the same time as I have shewn doth it disclaim all pretence to meer spiritual powers or to the Soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders Of it self it can neither give nor recall them Nor stop the Ministrations thereof in any of those Cases where Christ requires them All it can do there is to withdraw its Civil incorporation from those who have these mere spiritual powers and are bound for the sake of Religion and of the Souls of Men to proceed in the exercise thereof But still that exercise and administration which hangs on anothers Commission will go on upon its own bottom and must be discharged as it can under the opposition instead of the former incorporation of state or under a civil Persecution And this continuance of such Ministrations in such Cases notwithstanding the deposition of state I think may fairly be concluded from the Concessions of those who have undertaken to plead for the Authority of state deprivations and to press them on the suffering Clergy at such times We are told by one from Mr. Mason that a state deposition of a Bishop is not by way of Degradation from his orders as if he had them not but of exclusion from the exercise thereof And that not absolutely as if he could exercise his office no where but after a sort that he should not do it as to their subjects nor in their dominions And by another that a state deprivation doth not concern the Character or Ecclesiastical Communion as an Ecclesiastical Deprivation doth but only concerns the exercise of his Episcopal Authority in any Diocess within the Dominions of that State or enjoying any Ecclesiastical Benefice in it Now since such state deprivation neither concerns the Character nor the Communion of the Church 't is plain he is a Bishop still notwithstanding their deprivation and such a Bishop as without any fault in Church Communion all good Christians may Communicate with And since his exercise of Episcopal Powers is thereby excluded only from the Dioceses and subjects of their dominions it is still the same it was as to all other places And what is the hinderance of exercising the same still in those dioceses and among that Kings Subjects One reason already cited is because he cannot exercise them in the incorporate way or in injoyment of any Ecclesiastical Benefice But besides another I conceive is suggested viz. Regard to state Authority or civil obedience Though neither the Faith nor the Communion of the Church is here concerned yet says the Learned Author last mention'd the Authority of the State is which obliges both the Clergy and Laity in these Cases So that although neither his powers are thereby vacated nor their dependance and communion with him is broken off on other accounts yet in Civil Obedience it seems by his account both Bishops and People on such state deprivation are bound to acquiesce But now if they are left in full Possession of their spiritual powers and of the communion of the Church 't is plain they cannot be debarr'd of their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases nor the people of their attendance on them in any regard to secular inhibitions or to shew Civil Obedience For we must never hear Kings against Christ or obey them when they bar us of doing what he bids us do And these Ministrations he requires and calls for in the aforesaid Cases as I have shewn and also for the peoples communion with and attendance on them And it matters not that they cannot Minister any longer in the incorporate way or under shelter of Civil Laws and enjoyment of benefices For true Ministers of Christ and of Souls must depise benefices and secular incorporations when they come in competition with his service and Minister his word and worship at their hazard and under persecutions Besides if as he owns such deprivation doth not affect the Communion of the Church it leaves the subjects of those dioceses still under the same Religious and Church Principles of dependance and communion with their Bishops as they were before it For though the state should not meddle therein the Church has Principles of this dependance and communion of its own Christ requires his Church should be one and that is by ahhereing to their Bishops whom he has made the Heads of Union And these it seems the deprivation of state doth not at all Cancel only the Authority of state as is said but not Church Communion being concerned therein So that such Bishops deprived by the state continue still to be Christs
of mistake and Ignorance Of Zeal against Popery alledg'd therein The Con 〈…〉 PART I. Of the Duty of Pastors to Exercise their Spiritual Powers and to afford the People Orthodox and Holy Ministrations CHAP. I. Of the Differences here Treated of and of the Schism consequent thereon REvolutions of States and Kingdoms when they have put them into the Possession of New Masters are wont to bring on New Oaths of Allegiance for Security of the New Possessors and also to bring on Alterations of Publick Prayers and Liturgies so far at least as concerns the Cause and Interest of the Governing Persons that Religious as well as Civil Offices and Ministrations may espouse and serve their Cause who have got the Power into their Hands These Impositions of such New Oaths and of such Alterations and Ordering of the Publick Worship pursuant to the Design thereof are usually followed with Acts of State for Deprivation of those Bishops and Clergy who Refuse and Stand off from the same and for Substituting opposite or Anti-Bishops and other Clergy that will conform thereto into their Places And when these are executed accordingly especially in much disputed Cases it may be an afflictive Sight to many good Christian Minds in just acknowledgement to the extraordinary and perhaps generally celebrated Merits of Some and in due Compassion to the hard Measure of all the Sufferers But it will be much more impressive and lamentable on the Score of that terrible Rent and Schism thereby like to ensue in such Churches which is so generally and deservedly dreaded and bewailed by all Sincere Promoters of Unity and unfeigned Lovers of Peace and of the Prosperity of the Church This Breach being thus made on One Side The Sufferers will be press'd to Submit in Regard to the Deprivation of the State And moreover supposing themselves injured they will be put in Mind of the justly magnified excellency of the Desirableness and Necessity of Unity and will be call'd upon as Good Pastors who prefer the Flock before themselves to give up Private Claims to Publick Peace and Personal Quarrels and Pretences to the Advantage and Edification of the Church And this Preference of Peace to private Interests they must own to be the Duty of all good Pasters and as becomes such profess to set these things above all Worldly Profits and Considerations being ready when call'd thereto To lay down even their Lines for the Sheep after the Example of the Great Shepheard And 't is not improbable but that at such times they may wish withal that their Admonishes had been as ready to follow this Advice as they are to give it and had like good and conscionable Christians reflected seasonably and seriously themselves upon these Duties of Peace and Unity before they had acted so much against them in rushing Head long as they may alledge into that Breach which in the End the generality see so great cause to lament but which the Sufferers have no Power to Remedy Or that in Just and Necessary Remorse for what they have done they would penitently return whence they are fallen and seeing their Error so unhappily over-looked before by coming into the old Paths re-unite themselves to then Brethren again But on the Other hand they will be ready to put their Brethren and Accusers in Mind that neither a State Deprivation nor a Synodical Deprivation had there been one can discharge a Bishop from standing up to keep off Damage and Danger to Religion and to the Souls of Men or from preventing their being nursed up in immoral Practices and Devotions And that True and Faithful Pastors are not so straightly bound to keep up external Unity and Peace as to keep up necessary Truth and Righteousness and holy and unpolluted Worship in the Church Their Charge is first To provide against all things that endager or destroy the Souls of Men and damnifie Religion and when that is done then to look how they may provide against all Schism or breach of external Unity with their Compastors or Brethren but never seek to salve and secure this by letting those alone Besides as to Peace and Union instead of carrying themselves off from Truth and Righteousness at such times or any good People off from them they will alledge that they oblige all who will make Conscience thereof and observe them as they ought to stick to them For the Unity which Christ requires is to keep united upon the Profession of true Doctrine and holy Worship not of any damnable Errors and Corruptions thereof And under our own Lawful and Canonical Bishops and Pastors not under any opposite or Anti-Bishops and Pastors Schismatically set up against them and violently intruding into their Places The determination of this Debate at all such times on all such Emergencies is both of highest account and of most general Concernment And the design of these Papers is to set down those things whereon in my Judgment the clearing of it must depend and by the help whereof Sincere Christians in such Divisions may be enabled to resolve both what is the Duty of the Sulfering Bishops and Clergy in those Cases and also what is the Peoples Duty and with which of the concern'd Parties Men who desire nothing so much as to please God and to keep a good Conscience ought to unite and joyn themselves As to the deprived Bishops and Clergy at such times the question is Whether not withstanding their Deprivation they are Bound still to go on in the Exercise of their Ministry Or sitting down under it and letting fall their Spiritual Ministrations they Should content themselves to keep United the Anti-Bishops and to their Adberents as Lay Communicants If it be their Duty still to insist on their Spiritual Powers and as they can and at their Perils to exercise their respective Ministrations those Churches are unavoidably left in a State of Flagr anâ— Schism For the opposite or Anti-Bishops are set up against them in their respective Churches as New Heads And if the Old Ones are not only still in place and Bishops of their Flocks 〈◊〉 and still bound to stick thereto and to act as Heads of those Churches each Church will stand divided between Two Heads which drawing opposite Parties and Members after them must unavoidably make two Bodies and roâ—d one into two Churches And besides one having the Protection and Countenance of the State and the other wanting it they must not by divided and separate Ministrations One in the way of an Incorporate Church encouraged by Legal Places and Preferments and foâ—â—â—fied by secular Laws and Priviledges But the Other in the way of a Destitute or Persecured Church stript of the Publick Churches and of secular Benefices and of all Temporal Aids and Methods directing and fortifying the Spiritual Jurisdiction in the Ecolesiastical Courts and left meerly to its Spiritual Powers When the State deprives them they must take up with what is independantly and originall their own and
and let in members by baptism and on just cause cast them out by excommunication and ordain others that shall hold on from time to time to do the same But in discharge of these mere spiritual powers they cannot claim the establish'd places wherein to assemble for these Ministrations nor any enforcement of Civil Laws to make men duly frequent them and to hinder all from disturbing them or from demeaning themselves disorderly or irreverently at them Nor can they claim any secular benefices for maintenance of those who Minister therein nor to have any Cognizance of Wills Tyths or other Temporal matters nor to have their Canons made Regal injunctions or their Rubricks made Parliamentary Laws and the breakers thereof punishable by Civil Magistrates in their estates or Persons nor their spiritual censures to bring men under civil incapacities or make them lyable to civil punishments or the like The state that gave these Civil Accessions to the Bishops and Pastors in their incorporation has call'd them back and taken them away in their deprivation So that now to stick to Christ they must quit the benefits of incorporation and the Favor of Princes And as men left to their naked spiritual powers which no rightful state can deprive them of be content to exercise their spiritual Ministrations in the foresaid cases not as in an endowed and secularly protected but as in a persecuted or secularly destitute Church And as the state has power over all these secular endowments of the spiritual ministration because it conferr'd them So has it 2. Over some other Powers which belong'd to the Church whilst it kept separate but which it gives up to the Civil State during the benefit of incorporation with it For some powers the Church may have no necessity to insist on either for the sake of Religion or of the Souls of Men. And such powers for the greater benefit of incorporation it may be free to part with Thus provided the substance of Religion were secured and kept up among men in all necessary points of Worship and Doctrine and the main of discipline were taken care for by Canons already allowed as it was on the submission of our Church and Clergy made under King Henry the eighth the Church might be free by Compromise to agree that it would exercise no Canons already made but such as were consistent with the Kings Prerogative and the Laws of the Land And that in Case of any others a stop should be put to the proceedings of the spiritual courts by secular Prohibitions And that the Bishops and Clergy should not meet to make more or Assemble in Synod or Convocation but when summon'd thither by the Kings writ Nor any of their agreements should be given out for Canons or Orders but what he allow'd to pass under his Ratification And that after they were passed in things Dispensable on just cause in any particular case he should have the chief power to Grant a Dispensation That all Bishops coming in to Govern this Church according to the foresaid Rules and Prescriptions should be of his Nomination And that the Advancement of all Ministers to beneficed and civilly fortifyed Cures and Administrations should be according to the Rights of Patronage establish'd by the Laws and such like These and such like powers are naturally resident in the Church it self in a separate state or when it stands-upon its own bottom and is not incorporated For as a society it must have power in it self to make needful and wholesome Rules of Government from time to time and to have its Bishops and Ministers meet together as they can that they may make them and to appoint persons who shall be entrusted with the Administration thereof And accordingly whilst the Church was kept separate from the State and persecuted by it these powers were exercised by the Church and by its Bishops and Pastors under all the Heathen Persecutions During which the Clergy under their Bishops and the Bishops under their Metropolitanes were convened and met in Synods and made Canons and decided Controversies and sentenced Criminals and fill'd up vacancies in Presbyteries or Bishopricks having a New Bishop elected by the Metropolitane and Bishops of the Province or sometimes by the Clergy and People of the Diocess and the like Indeed as good subjects of the state they are bound to keep all innocent state Laws and cannot by any devised Canons of their own cast off their Obligation or forbid themselves or the Church to pay a due civil obedience by observance thereof So that they have no power in any condition of making any Church Canons which require subjects to act against innocent state constitutions Nor may they Lawfully refuse when the state calls them to meet together in Synods or otherwise but as Good Subjects are obliged to pay a ready obedience and to appear upon its summons These are only proper expressions of civil subjection from which the Church can in no state or condition plead exemption But tho' they may not disobey the state summons yet when it meddles not therewith in a separate condition they have power to assemble themselves as they can and as need requires taking care to do it in such ways as will make it least jealous of them And when Assembled tho' they can make or inforce no Canons to defeat any innocent civil constitutions they have power in such separate state to make others which are consistent with them and to exercise the other now mention'd powers as I say the Church did in the primitive persecutions But when it became incorporate and was obliged by the favors and priviledges of the state the Church by agreements partly express and partly by Tacit and practical carryed in prescription and the practice of times gave up these and such like powers residing otherwise in it self to the Civil Magistrates who were thus obligingly become its Patrons and Nursing Fathers Since the Emperors became Christians the Affairs of the Church have Depended upon them and the greatest Councils have been held and still are held at their pleasure was the observation of Socrates in the Preface to his Fifth Book of the History of the Church These it parted with to the civil power for its Greater Honor. And also to secure it of its Good Behaviour being tyed thereby to a compliance in things which it was not bound to insist on for the sake of Religion and of a Good Conscience and to prevent all jarring and interfereing with that power in whose Favor and Society it found so great benefit seeking herein to keep up that Beneficial kindness and Correspondence which is between them And these it gave up to it by Degrees and more in some places and less in others Being put upon parting with less at first and with more afterwards especially after the Papal Usurpations in the Western Church grew so very troublesome and prejudicial to Princes and their Kingdoms in point of investitures Appeals c.
of the respective Bishops and Pastors thereof All Orthodox Bishops and Churches keep this up 1. By Receiving each others Members as if they were their own Members 2. And in like sort by refusing each others Schismaticks And Excommunicates And admitting each others Reconciliation and Re-union of Members Of Communicatory Letters fox those Purposes CHAP. III. Of just Grounds to break off Communion Particularly of making impious and unlawful Things or unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments the Terms of their Communion JUst Ground to break off Communion from any Churches 1. When they put impious or unlawful Things into their Sacred Offices Reasons hereof Faith and Worship spoke of as the great Ligaments which Bind us to any Church 2. More still if they admit none to Communion in the good Parts unless they particularly concur in the corrupt ones too 2. A Second Ground is if they make unrighteous Usurpations the Condition of their Communion CHAP. IV. Heresie a just Ground to break off Communion CHrists first end was to Publish a Religion Next to Incorporate â—â— into a Church or Society for the Profession of it Christian Doctrine the Foundation of Church Society and Unity So we are not Bound to Associate or Unite with any longer than they keep to this Doctrine but are discharged by their Heresie And on the Evidence of the Fact it self before Synodical Sentence This Liberty 1. For the People and Clergy towards their own local Guides and Bishops 2. For Clergy and People of one Church towards those of another And on Defections from grand and necessary Doctrines of Practice as well as of Faith Chiefly when the Ministerial Defence of either is no longer allow'd in their Communion Being thus set loose from their own Erring Bishops and Clergy they are free to Unite with others who are Orthodox And those others are free to receive them Canonical Rules against intermedling in others Diocess c. no hindrance thereto Rules of Unity not pleadable by such Defectors for vniting with them The Guilt of making the Schism lies on the Defectors Should their Brethren come over that would not Cure but make the Breach from the Catholick Church wider CHAP. V. Of the Communion of good Christians or with whom they are to joyn in Divine Offices under a Schism THeir Obligations to stick to their Orthodox Rightful Bishops and to stand off from the Anti-Bishops and their Adherents in the foremention'd Cases As reta â—â—â—ing their Baptism they may own the Schismaticks as Brethren but as being in a Schism they must stand off from their Communion A great Sence of the Obligations to shuâ— the Communion of Schismeticks and corrupt Teachers in the first Times This was most when Charity was at the hight This will bar Communion 1. with the Electors and Ordainers of such Anti-Bishops 2. With their Clergy and People or the Assemblies of their Diocess 3. With other Bishops and Churches who take their part and communicate with them 4. With the Bishops of a Province who turn over to an Anti-Primate or opposite Metropolitane Of Provincial Union and the Rules for Maintenance thereof 5. When Curch Divisions are made for opposite Ways of Worship and Tenets Men will Unite with such as are of their own Mind and hold Communion with those who are for the same way of necessary Worship and Tenets with themselves CHAP. VI. Of Ordinations of Anti-Bishops which tho' always Schismatical are not always Nullities OF St. Cyprians saying the Anti-Bishop is not Secundus but Nullus That Anti-Bishops are real Bishops and their Ordinations are not Null in themselves but were admitted in the Novatians by the Council of Nice In the Donatists by the Roman and African Councils The same shown in several other Cases Tho' Men have Orders yet they cannot exercise the same in Assemblies of the Faithful without the Communion of the Church Such Offenders Received sometimes to Clerical sometimes only to Lay-Communion as the Church saw Cause The Case of the Anti-Bishops ordain'd by the Schismatick Meletius Ecclesiastical Laws and Discipline asserted or abated in such Receptions as was judged most expedent for the Church The Donatists made Schism to take away the Powers of Orders and are opposed therein by St. Austin How St. Cyprian and the Africanes of his Age seem to have done the same which St. Basil disliked in them Altho' their Nulling the Ministerial Acts of Schismaticks seems to be only in the Way of Asserting Discipline and Canons by denying Communion to them in their Churches not that they thought them Null in themselves How the Admission of Ordination of Anti-Bishops Consists with the Bishops being the Principle of Unity and is not against the Nature of the Spiritual Monarchy A Difference as to this between Secular and Spiritual Monarchies And of Local Limitations in conserring Orders CHAP. VII Of the Excusableness of the Peoples receiving Ministerial Offices from Men in Schism rather than live without any at all THis wants the Malignity of Schism The Excusableness thereof shewn 1. From the Nature and Importance of the things themselves Where of the great Importance of Publick VVorship or of Communion in Ministerial Offices 2. From the Abatements God himself has been willing to make on such Necessity in other like Duties 2. From the Practice of Gods People under the greatest Schisms This Necessity being thought to Legitimate it 1. Among the Ten Tribes whose Ministrations were all in a Shism 2. VVith the Schismatical Novatians in the height of the Arian Persecution 3. In the Schismatical Extirpation of Episcopacy among us in the great Rebellion 4. Under the Schism of Forreign Churches where the Protestants have no Bishops Of the Abatements the Church has made where it had great Reason in the Point of Shunning the Communion of Schismaticks and Excommunicate Persons especially before they were Sentenced by the Church The same Equitably Applicable to this Case How both a due Sence of the Criminallness of Schism and Exercise of publick VVorship is provided for by this Means CHAP. VIII Of Communicating in like Necessity where there are some Prayers Sinful in the Matter of them To concur or go along in any unrighteous Petition or Thanksgiving is most Unrighteous and Prophane Of mixt Prayers where the Mixtures are Idolatrous c. Or where some Immoral Petitions are added to a Service not exceptionable on any other Accounts Of Bearing such Immoral Mixtures whilst they do not particularly concur therein but express Dissent from the same and resorting still to the Assemblyes where they are used in Care of â—â—eping Peace and Union Of Bearing the same for the Necessity of having some Ministerial Offices in want of other Opportunityes Mere Presence at such Immoral Addâ—tions no interpretative Profession of Concurrence thereâ—n Chiefly if Dissent be shewn by some external Sign Of these Concessions of favour and ease All highly concern'd to take the Right way in the Points here Debated Unsofe should they take the wrong to trust to the Plea
and Devotions those few deprived Bishops and Clergy in any Kingdom who suffer for standing out against the same when the most run into them cannot but see Men generally Nursed up therein For as to the Practice of those Immoralities carnal Reasons and the course of the Times and the Terror of the present Powers will make them go down with most Men. And their Spiritual Guides will nurse and train them up therein if once they themselves are generally got in to go along therewith and to do the same Nay when a general Persecution is raised to drive on the unwilling and to force them to comply for external Interests they will then stand ready to carry on the same with regard to Conscience If any start or stand off when consulted they direct and perswade them to come in as they see they themselves have done and tell them it will be no matter of Guilt or of Spiritual Danger to them And when once they are got in they speak and Preach Peace to them that they may feel no Remorse for so doing nor Harbour any Thoughts of Returning And to take off all apparant Inconsistence from the Commands of God and the Duties of Religion about Oaths and Obedience to Governours and Common Justice and not coveting or invading other Mens Goods or Rights and the like that are ready to fly in their Faces and bear hardest on what they have done They start doctrinal Salvo's for all these Precepts to cover their own Ways from falling under the same and to prove there is no Sin therein notwithstanding all the seemingly plain and Literal Opposition which those Precepts and Duties bear to them And then as to these same Immoralities in publick Worship and Devotions if these ways should really prove Immoralities at such Times they are plainly Nursed up in them because they are part of the Daily Prayers and on Occasion are the fet Fasts and Thanksgivings in all the publick Churches and Assemblies The authorised and establish'd Guides and Pastors every where then observe and use them such States not Authorizing and Establishing but Depriving the Refusers thereof and put them into the Peoples Mouths if they will follow and say after their Leaders And this is to be train'd and nursed up in such Devotions in such sort as People are trained up in any Devotions by their Guides that is by being convened and call'd to them and in the publick Ministration lead on therein the Pastors part as to this lying in Leading as the Peoples doth in Following them So that the People in such cases are generally trained and nursed up in these Practices and Devotions Which if for want of Legal Right or Just Title in their New Governour and for the Continuance of the same in his Competitor they prove Unrighteous and Immoral Ones they would be nursed up in Immoral Practices and Devotions And what Obligation that would lay on the Suffering and Deprived Bishops and Clergy of those Countries for Pastoral Ministrations will appear by Considering 2. Secondly what Provision good and Faithful Pastors ought to make against such Dangers and Corruptions by the Exercise of their Ministry which shall be treated of in the Ensuing Chapters CHAP. III. Of the Cases wherein faithful Bishops and Ministers are bound to stick to their Pastoral Powers and Ministrations NOw if under such Revolutions for want of such Right and Title in the New Governor and for continuance of the same in his Competitor all the foresaid Practices and Devotions are unrighteous and immoral in themselves this Exercise of their Ministrations for provision and spiritual supply of all conscionable Adherers to Truth and to Morality in Practise and Devotions is to be expected of them from the reality and obligation of things If they think them to be so and they are such in their Judgments 't is to be expected from Men of their apprehensions and for them to act so is but to be true to their own Convictions If their Brethren own the ejected Prince to have Legal Right still or to be King de jure they ought to expect no other from them since that alone makes all the foresaid immoralities and they can do no less if they will act according to that Principle which is owned and professed by themselves The only Ground whereon in Truth they could be exempted from this Exercise and therefore on which alone it can with Reason be desired or expected from them is the Translation of the Legal Right which would remove these immoralities So that they can only blame them for this Exercise who believe the Translation of this Legal Right nor can they make it appear that they blame them with Justice but by clearing this Point and making Proof thereof Their Obligations to exercise their Powers and Ministrations at such times are to provide against the wants and dangers of the Souls of Men and against the corruptions of Religion And that which will be ready at the same time to be alledged against it will be the Inhibition and Deprivation of the New State and the appearance of rending the Church thereby which is then become united under other Pastors put into their place or of making of a Schism And therefore to give a clear Prospect and for making a truer Judgment of the Obligations which they stand under to this exercise on such Revolutions I think it may be of use to consider 1. In what Cases the good and faithful Bishops and Ministers of Christ are Bound to stick to their Spiritual Powers and Pastoral Ministrations and what Obligations they have to do so 2. Of what force a Deprivation of Estate or the Preservation of external Communion and Peace in the Church ought to be in debarring them thereof 1. First I shall consider in what Cases the good and faithful Bishops and Ministers of Christ are Bound to stick to their Spiritual Powers and Pastoral Ministrations and what Obligations they have to do so 1. I shall First speak to the Cases wherein they are Bound to stick to their Spiritual Powers and Pastoral Ministrations and are to go on acting as Bishops and Pastors Now this they are Bound to when there is need of it in the Cause of Religion and for the safety of the Souls of Men. For these Ministerial Powers are Sacred Trusts And the very end why they are intrusted with the Bishops and Pastors is that thereby they may take care of Religion and the Peoples Souls and provide for the needs thereof So that they are always to be trustily Exercised when these stand in Need of them or whenever the Souls of Men will be Endanger'd and Religion Damnified by the Pastors omitting such Exercise and Ministration in the places where they are concern'd I say they are bound then to provide such Ministrations For the Part of Bishops and Pastors is not like that of mere Lay Christians to communicate as they can in what is provided for them by others But as Pastors they are
which were to show themselves Silly Sâ—eâ—p indeed and prepared for Destruction but to run away from them not to give Ear to False-Teachers and False-Propâ—â—â—s but to keep-out of their Hearing and shut their Eaâ—â— against theâ— and lastly not to strike in with those that cause Divisions but to 〈◊〉 them as St. Paul teaches and as the Rules of the Church have still required Faithful Christians to do by the Makers of Schism Bid him not God speed nor receive the Briâ—gâ—â— of False Doctrine into your Houses 2 Jo. 10 11. Beware of False-Prophets as of Ravening Wolves Mat. 7. 15. Keep not Company with Disorderly VValkers who â—dhere not to the Tradition they received of us 2 Thes. 3. 6 14. Mark â—â—â—m which Cause Divisions and Offences in breaking off and going Contrary to the Doctrinâ— which ye have learned and avoid them Ro. 16. 17. These and such like are the Scripture Riâ—â—es in these Cases Which call the Servants of Christ to withdraw themselves from those who have first seperated and withdrawn themselves from his Worship and Doctrines and instead of them to Adhere to others who as his true Ministers and faithful Pastors stick true to the same and Administer them Pure and Uncorrupt to his Church whereof I shall give a further Account afterwards PART II. Of Deprivations by Civil States or Ecclesiastical Synods Chap. 1. Of the Force of State Deprivations in the foresaid Cases HItherto I have endeavoured to mark out the cases wherein the Bishops and Pastors of Christs Church are bound to exercise their Ministerial Powers and to proceed on duly in their Administrations And to set forth the great and manifold Obligations which are incumbent on them in those Cases And having thus laid out their Obligations I shall next consider the Restraints which at such times are most pleadable in these cases by shewing 2. Secondly of what force a deprivation of state or the Preservation of External Communion and Peace in the Church ought to be in Dâ—barring them thereof 1. First One great thing that may be alledged to silence Faithful Bishops and Ministers of Gods pure worship and Righteousness and to stop the course of their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases is a Deprivation of state when the secular Power by its Laws and interdicts forbids those Ministrations and removes them from their Sees putting others into their places For Bishops and Pastors as they are Ministers of Christ so are they also Subjects of the state And therefore as some think ought not to exercise their Ministry at least not among their Subjects nor in any Diocess of their Dominions in opposition to it And in Christian Kingdoms the Church is incorporated into the state And by the Benefit of this incorporation Bishops and Pastors have their spiritual Ministrations back'd with secular Effects and Censures as Excommunication among us makes lyable to Temporal imprisonment and incapacitates from carrying on any civil suit or Action in the civil courts They have also their jurisdiction extended thereby to some secular matters as the Bishops courts are to matters of Wills Marriages Benefices c. And are encouraged therein by Secular Benefices Honours and Freeholds Now all these secular Fortifications jurisdictions and encouragements in their Ministrations conferr'd on the Bishops and Pastors of an incorporate Church are the gifts of the state and are secular additions to what Spiritual Powers they received from Jesus Christ. And what the state gives the state when it sees cause may deprive them of So that incorporate Ministrations or Administring these Spiritual Powers in the mixt and fortifyed way of an incorporate Church may seem as some will argue more subject to the state to take out of some and to put into other hands Especially considering that in grateful return and commutation for the benefit of incorporation or for being made free of the state and having the secular accessions the Church by Compromise has parted with some of its priviledges to the Civil Power Thus since the incorporation has it in compliance given up to the state the Nomination of Bishops and Metropolitanes belonging anciently to the other Bishops of the Province or to the Clergy and People of the Church And that Rules agreed on in Synods shall be no Canons till they be approved and ratified by the Prince And that there shall be no Admission or Refusal of Clerks to Cures or use of Discipline but in consistence with and under Regulation of the Kings Pâ—erogative and the Laws of the Land and the like And by these Cessions they may seem as some think to have Cut off all Power of Contesting the States Nomination or Advancement to Churches or its Deprivation and Removal from them as having by their account given up these Priviledges in way of bargain and exchange to keep on the benefits and State enjoyments of an incorporate Church But as to this Regard which they ought to have to State deprivations in bar of the foresaid Ministrations I observe 1. First that this Regard is to be press'd only under a supposed Legal and Rightful State For 't is to their Rightful Prince that as good and faithful subjects they owe all their Obedience which is call'd for in these cases What Regard they are to pay as subjects must be to his Deprivation But not if they are deprived by an Usurper set up against him who really has no Regal Authority over them but only pretends to it and assumes a Power which is none of his own Especially if he should deprive them for their Adherence to their Lawful King As if Athaliah had deprived Jehojadah for adhereing to Joash his true Soveraign or as the Reâ—ellious Parliament did depose not only the Bishops and Episcopal Clergy those Faithful Adherers to the Crown but Episcopacy it self in King Charles the First 's time For then as there is no real Authority to bind on so neither would there be any Equity or Colour of Law to back such a deprivation or to oblige the sufferers to acquiesce therein The Law which still supports the Right of the Lawful King against his Usurpation must needs support the Rights of all his Adherents against the same And as still he would be the Legal King so would they not only be the real but in Eye of Law the Legal pastors not withstanding his Forcible Removal of them And therefore there is no room for this regard to a deprivation of State on the Plea of a King de Facto or on supposal of unrighteous usurpation The Legal Right asserted still by the Publick Acts on such Revolutions will give it place to go as far as it can But as for all those who give up the Legal Right 't is not for any of them and 't is well known how considerable a part they make among the writers as well as among the practicers in this point to urge the Authority of a deprivation of State in this question 2. Secondly a Deprivation of a Lawful
Which made them more sensible of the advantage of having these powers quietly and uncontestedly lodged in their own Hands These it might safely part withall during the incorporation as retaining still what it could not part with viz a Power of standing by all Necessary Points of worship and Doctrine and of doing what is necessary for the Souls of Men and as being also fitted all the time in the main with what is needful in Point of Discipline And its parting with them was in way of Compromise and Bargain as a grateful Return for the benefits and priviledges of its Enfranchisement and Incorporation or on consideration of its enjoying a Freedom not only of exercising spiritual ministrations but of exercising them in the way of an incorporate Church viz. in holding Benefices and in being back'd therein by secular Jurisdiction Laws and Priviledges And whilst these benefits of Incorporation are held on in favour of the Truth the cession of the Church in these Points is to be held on too and not to be resumed back again Protected and incorporate Bishops and Pastors must be content to claim Episcopal and Pastoral powers under the recessions and limitations of an incorporate Church Thus our Articles and Canons receive and assert the Ecclesiastical Supremacy of our Kings which contains the foresaid Church-Recessions And denounce Excommunication ipso Facto to those that Deny any part of our King 's Legal Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Causes or his having the same Authority therein as the Godly Kings had among the Jews or Christian Emperors had in the Primitive Church And accordingly in our Form of Ordaining Bishops they profess to think themselves call'd to this Ministration according to the Will of Jesus Christ and the Order of this Realm and promise to censure and punish the unquiet and disobedient within their Diocesses according to such Authority as they have by God's Word and as to them shall be committed by the Ordinance of this Realm But now all this giving up these or the like powers to the State for the sake of this Incorporation and in way of bargain and compromise or other abridgement of its own ministrations is 1. With a Salvo to the Interests of Religion and of the Souls of Men. They cannot give away any thing to make themselves wanting in any necessary service unto them nor part with their powers of ministring to Souls to build and nurse them up in pure Worship Doctrin and Practice These Powers are a Sacred Depositum which if they imbezzle or yield up in complyance they are false to God and to mens Souls and thereby betray both them and their own Holy Fâ—â—ction And their Acts also are nullities wherein they offer or promise to do the same For they are Acts against an antecedent Obligation which are wicked in the making as Herods Oath was to gratifie Herodias in the Baptists Death and the Jews Conspiracy and Oath to kill St. Paul But they are null as to the Obligation of performance as is agreed in the case of all contracts and promises to do unlawful things or things evil or forbidden in themselves They can neither discharge themselves I say nor receive any discharge from Princes of exercising these Powers where Christ requires they should exercise them for the Service of Religion of Souls as I have shewn he doth in the fore mentioned cases In Stewards it is required that they be found faithful in dispensing out these Ministrations as he orders not in suppressing them contrary to Order 1 Cor. 4 2. Necessity is laid upon me and woe be to me is here the Scripture denunciation if they preach not the Gospel or fail trustily to discharge that Ministry they have undertaken 1 Cor. 9. 16. No earthly Powers by confering on them the benefits of Incorporation get any Authority over Christs Ministers to discharge them of Ministring to their Master in these matters For this would be to give the civil power which ought to keep under Christ a power over him It would turn them from Nursing Fathers who by giving it a civil enfranchisement undertake to protect the true Religion into devouring Wolves who seek to make a prey of it It is expresly declared against by the Apostles who appeal to the common sense of mankind Whether they are not bound to obey God rather than men Act. 4. 19. 20. And would leave no ministrations of true Gospel Worship and Doctrin under any Christian state which should fall from any necessary parts thereof and begin to persecute them as the Arian Emperors did in the Persecutions they rais'd against the Orthodox and as Popish Princes did in like violences used by them at any time against our Protestant Brethren or Ancestors Than which nothing can be worse calculated for any Church of God but especially for the Christian Church which is to continue a Church in persecution and to bear up Christian Worship and Doctrin by due ministrations of both when any powers of this World fall from protecting most violently to bear them down And this in all times has been the Opinion and Practice of God's faithful Ministers when the State which by Incorporation should have back'd and strengthned them therein fell to discharge and bar them of their ministrations in these cases Thus God's Faithful Prophets and Ministers did in the Jewish Church who approved themselves glorious Confessors and Martyrs in administring God's Word and true Worship when the State fell to break in upon them and instead of backing and protecting them in those ministrations according to the purport of incorporation fell violently to discharge and drive them from officiating any longer therein Thus likewise Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria Paulus of Constantinople and other Bishops did in the Arian Persecution The civil State had then received the Church into it self endowed it with civil Edicts and enfranchisements And the deprivation and ejection of these Bishops out of their Churches particularly of the Great Athanasius was with State-Concurrence and for State-Causes or Pretences Among other Articles Athanasius was charged with Contumacy against the Emperour in refusing to appear upon his Edict at the Synod of Caesarea And with a Treasonable Design to stop the yearly Transport of Corn from Alexandria to Constantinople on which suggestion he was banish'd to Tryers by Constantine Not to mention the Accusation of his having impos'd on the Aegyptians a Tribute of Linnen Cloath and having conspired with one Philumenus against the Emperour and having Treasonably corresponded with the Traytor Magnentius and usurped the Imperial Prerogative by holding the Festival Dedication of the great Church of Alexandria without the Emperours Warrant and the like And his Deposition and Gregories and Georges Advancement to his See by Synods were seconded by Acts of State having the Approbation and Justification of the Emperors and the Assistance of Prefects as well as the ‖ Imperial Letters violently forcing one out of the
Bishops and Heads of Union in those dioceses according to his Rules and Principles of Union And then how shall a mere command of state dissolve the tye made by him or break communion betwixt their Bishop and them Whilst Christ by conscionable obligations of Church Unity bids them adhere to their Bishop and keep one with him must they give ear to the state that bids them divide from him I think on second thoughts he will not make Church Union or the dependance of people on their Bishops so unsettled or precarious a thing as either to have no fixt and conscionable principles ingaging and holding all good Members thereto of its own or to have it in the power of a secular state when it pleases to set them aside and over-rule them CHAP. III. Remarques on the Preceding Account of the Force of State-Deprivations and instances of Deprivations alledg'd to the contrary consider'd and clear'd up FRom what I have said in the foregoing Chapters about the power of the Civil State and the effect of its Deprivations I think it may appear that the Bishops and Ministers of Christ continue still invested with their Ministerial Powers and can receive no discharge from the exercise thereof in the formention'd Cases by any State Deprivations And of this I observe from what has been hitherto discoursed 1. First That this is not to deny the Civil Power the Cognizance of Bishops and Ministers in Civil matters Allegiance 't is true is a civil matter and most nearly concerns the civil peace Indeed it is not only Civil but also Religious For when men are requir'd to Swear it and in all Churches to pray conformably to it Solemn Oaths and Prayers are most sacred and Religious Acts. And Allegiance in it self is a moral duty for due payment whereof all stand answerable to God in the last judgment as well as a civil or state-duty for which they are answerable to the state in judicatures of this world But it is such a matter of Religion I say as is also a civil matter subject to civil Cognizance or a point of State too And if this is refused to a Rightful state it is not only an offence against Morality and Religion which spiritual Judicatures and Synods may punish with Canonical Depositions But also an offence against the state which such Rightful state may punish by state punishments as it may all other state offences and in Ecclesiasticks when they are guilty thereof as in all other persons And among these punishments by Deprivation though not of mere spiritual powers the state having no Authority to take away those mere spiritual powers which it never gave yet of all that is Temporal in Church-Ministrations so as that such refusers shall no longer hold benefices and preferments or state endowments Yea and even as to those mere spiritual powers it may make them of themselves to forbear any further exercise thereof to keep state-favors and endowments to the Church when their deprivation is in a case that concerns only their own personal rights and priviledges but not the Truths or cause of Christ as was before observed But if at any time or in any Kingdom this should be refused to an Usurping State which has no Legal Right but which calls for this Allegiance Oaths and solemn Prayers and Religious services conformable thereto against him who has the Right Then such refusal is neither a Religious nor a Civil offence neither against God nor Gods Vicegerent Divine or Humane Laws but a due obedience to both And this brings on the Case of all the foresaid immoralities Damnifying Religion and endangering Souls wherein faithful Bishops and Clergy whatever they incur by standing to their Spiritual Ministrations must not let them fall â—n regard to any Deprivation of Usurping Powers Nay nor in regard to the most rightful States should they issue out against them state-deprivations to stop their Ministrations against any such like immoralities or other irreligious and endangering ways And this Limitation of the regard they ought to have to his deprivation is not to deny the Rightful Civil Soveraign any part of his just power over Ecclesiasticks But only to deny him such a power as would leave our Saviour Christ himself who is his Master as well as theirs â—o have no power over them Or such a power as should enable him to discharge them of what Christ has given in charge to them to take away what powers he confers or to loose what he has tyed on But under all this discharge of their foresaid Ministrations notwithstanding his inhibitions and deprivations it allows the Civil Magistrate as much Power over their persons to mulct banish or put them to death on just cause as they are his Subjects as over any others And to have power also over the mixt way of administrations so as to be able to deprive them though not of all exercise of their spiritual powers yet from holding or exercising them with Temporal jurisdictions effects and priviledges after the way of an incorporate Church And to have those other foremention'd Prerogatives of conveneing Synods passing Canons sending prohibitions to stop any process in prejudice of the Prerogative or of the Laws c. Which for the favor and continuance of those secular mixtures have accrued by incorporation and belong to Christian Kings And these things which are allow'd are as much as any of them can claim of Ecclesiasticks as they are Kings And on the other side those things which are denyed are such as they would abhor to challenge or desire who would own any subjection to Christ or bound their pretensions as Christian Kings 2. Secondly nor is it to set the Church above the State as the Papal Usurpation pretended to do But only to set Almighty God and his blessed Son Jesus Christ above it Not leaving subjects whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks in complyance with any the most rightful state to disobey God Nor Ministers to let fall any Services and Ministrations of Religion or cure of Souls which Christ calls them to exercise yea not only when the state is consenting but when it gain-says it and doth all it can either to disable or discourage them from it he not having thought fit to stand to the courtesy of any civil state whether or no the Ministry of saving Souls should be prosecuted and whether he should be served and have a Church on Earth But at the same time it sets God and Religion above their Power it subjects all both Laicks and Ecclesiasticks to the same in other things Allowing every rightful civil state the chief civil power over all Ecclesiastical Persons And the chief civil power over all Ecclesiastical Causes so far forth and so long as they are mixed and compounded with civil benefices and jurisdictions And a civil power to compel Church Men by civil penalties to do the duty of their Spiritual Ministrations and to hold them under a necessity of not resisting by Arms but of
Naming of Bishops Conveneing them in Synods Ratifying of Canâ—ns Dispensing with them and the like after once a rightful state breaks the incorporation and puts the true Church from state-protection and endowments into a state of persecution For then the Church and State are divided again as they were in the days of the Ancient Canons and so they may be free as Bishops then were to exercise those powers by the Rule of those Canons as they can and as in prudence they shall see cause But whilst the protection and incorporation holds for the sake whereof it laid down its claim to those powers and suffer'd them to become the States-Prerogatives the Bishops and Ministers are not to pretend to them And so whilst the Church enjoys such incorporation our own Church by its Articles and Canons disclaims the exercise of these powers by it self and confirms them to the Crown as I formerly observed Thus are the Recognitions which Ecclesiasticks ought to make of the Supremacy of Princes and all the Regard they ought to bear to the incorporation of the Church fairly consistent with their Faithful discharge of their Spiritual Ministrations after the State has deprived them in the foresaid Cases They stand bound to Christ there to exercise the same by manifold obligations as I have shewn And no deprivations of Princes though they be Soveraign Governors of all their Subjects and have endowed and incorporated the Chuch can disable or discharge them from it And from this state of these matters it may be easy to clear and take off the Force of those instances which are brought of state-deprivations without the concurrence of Ecclesiastical Synods and to shew they are of no force in the foresaid Cases The instances chiefly insisted on are the Deposition of Abiathar by Solomon and the frequent sometimes Annual depositions of their High-Priests by the Romans when Judea fell into their Hands the depositions of the Patriarks of the Greek Church by the Turks and the deprivation of Queen Maries Popish Bishops by a commission of State pursuant to an Act of Parliament without a Synod at the beginning of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth 1. First as for Abiathar whom for conspiring with Adonijah Solomon is said to have thrust out from being Priest unto the Lord 1 King 2. 27. it doth not appear that Solomon did remove him from the dignity and office of High Priest but only from the exercise thereof For after this sentence was passed upon Abiathar and after Joab the General also his complice and conspirator had been sentenced and suffer'd death and Benajah was made General in his place 1 King 1. 28. 34 35 Abiathar is still reckon'd as Partner with Zadock in the High-Priest-hood 1 King 4. For so in the reckoning up of Solomons Officers when Benajah the Son of Jehojadah was over the Host 't is added and Zadock and Abiathar were the Priests v. 4. And as for the debarring him the Exercise of his High-Priests Office that was the natural and inseparable consequent of his Banishment from Jerusalem to Anathoth for his Life For the exercise of that Office was local and fixed to Jerusalem and the Temple In the Temple were all the Priests tyed to officiate whose Ministrations he was to direct and in that was the Holy of Holies whereinto once a year he himself in Person and he alone was to enter and offer the Blood of Expiation and there was the Mercy Seat before which he was to stand with the Urim and Thummim to consult God upon occasion The Exercise of which Ministrations with others required his Personal Residence and could not be discharged by him living in another place So that the banishing him from Jerusalem by mere natural consequent without need of spiritual Jurisdiction excluded him from the Exercise of the High-Priests-Office And this Banishment Solomon inflicted on him as his civil Soveraign for his Trayterous Conspiracy with Adonijah and on like Cause any other lawful Soveraign may do the same And without doubt he not only consented to this Amotion but was thankful for it and that instead of being sent to Anathoth he was not sent out of the World as by Law his Fact deserved So that Abiathar had nothing to contest in his Case nor any mind to do it being justly lyable to suffer so much more at the hand of the civil Power than it was pleased to inflict on him And then as for Zadock who held the High-Priesthood in his Room and whilst he was living that doth not appear to have been by a New Creation For before this extrusion of Abiathar he had been created Partner Vicar or Suffragan with him in the High-Priests Office in Davids time Thus in the reckoning up of Davids Officers they are put together as filling this place Sheva was Scribe and Zadock and Abiathar were the Priests 2 Sam. 20. 25. And hast thou not there with thee Zadock and Abiathar the Priests says David to Hushai when in his flight from Absalom he sent him back into the City to defeat the Council of Achitophel 2 Sam. 15. 35. chap. 17. 15. And in carrying back the Ark into the City David gives command to Zadock the Priest about it 2 Sam. 15. 25 27. and the Text adds Zadock therefore and Abiathar carryed the Ark of God again to Jerusalem joyning them as Partners in this great Act of the Pontifical Charge v. 29. He also commits to Zadock the Priest the anointing and proclamation of Solomon which was another Act thereof 1 King 1. 32 34 38 39. And this is plainly asserted by Josephus who says That Zadock was first created High-priest in the Reign of David And therefore on Abiathars exclusion by Solomon that Zadock only came in to have the High-priesthood and to act therein alone He was then Sagan or Suffragan and Vicar to Abiathar as Grotius and Vatablus conceive When Abiathar therefore by his Banishment for Life in just Punishment of his Treason was incapacitated for any further Exercise of his High-priests-office on such debarring of his Pontifical Exercise there was no new Ordination of another into his Place But Zadock who had been created his Partner in the Priesthood before on his Partners Loss of this Exercise was to exercise the whole himself So that the Authority of a Deprivation of State to unmake one and to make another to be a Bishop in their dominions during his Life is ill-fetch'd from this Instance For neither doth Abiathar plainly appear to have been despoyled of the Honour of the High-priesthood tho' by Banishment for Life he was of the Exercise thereof by Solomon Nor Zadock to have been first advanced and created High-Priest by him but to have been Ordained thereto by the spiritual Powers of the Sanhedrim to whom that Ordination and Investiture did belong in Davids Time Besides 2. Secondly in these alledged State-deprivations of the Jewish High-priests either of Abiathar by Solomon or after they
a Breach to maintain a Quarrel against Truth and Righteousness And in that they must go by themselves for none who will take any due care of their precious Souls ought to bear them company So there can be no Re-union till they return from their wicked and ungodly Schism to the way of Truth and Righteousness which they had forsaken CHAP. V. Of the Communion of good Christians or with whom they are to joyn in Divine Offices under a Schism HAving said thus much to shew on any division of Churches whilst faithful Pastors stand firm to their Ministrations in the fore-mentioned Cases who make the Schism and who can cure it I now proceed 3. In the Third place to Treat of the Communion of good Christians under a Schism and how they are to carry themselves towards Schismaticks As for their Communion 't is plain in division between Right and Wrong both as to the Church-Heads and Religious Doctrines and Worship they ought to take the right side As they who are at the Head of that are the Canonical and Rightful Bishops they are bound to communicate with them For the Rightful Bishops being the true Heads of Union the Members must keep true to their Head and hold Communion therewith And this they are ty'd to by all the Gospel-precepts about Union which require their being one or one Body or keeping the Bond of Peace in Churches For this Unity and Peace of Churches must bind them to keep united and at Peace with their Bishops who under Christ are the Governours and Spiritual Heads thereof And by that grand Vertue of Charity so often and earnestly required of the Members and that above all things that they may edifie or build up one another into a spiritual Society For this Charity which is the Bond to bind the Members together not only in private Affections but into one common Body or Church must bind them all to these Rightful Bishops who are the Heads and Rulers of that Body that by keeping united to those Bishops they may keep one Society and not be broken into several Societies And accordingly St. Cyprian presses that Charity which St. Paul makes so necessary to the acceptance of all other Vertues even Faith or Martyrdom it self as indispensably obliging all good Christians to keep in the Communion of their true and rightful Bishops as I observed before And as these true and rightful Bishops are at the Head of necessary Gospel-worship and Doctrines when their Opposers fall off from them good Christians are yet more bound to hold to their Communion They are tyed thereto then not only for the rightful Bishops but also for pure Worship and necessary Truths sake For true Christians must seek to communicate in these And that must be by communicating in the Ministrations of those Pastors which hold to them Besides these in any competition arê Christ's true Shepherds and trusty Watch-men and faithful Guides and uncorrupt Teachers and faithful Ministers because they are the Men who faithfully minister his Word and give his Warnings and dispense that Food which is to keep those Souls alive whom he has given them the Care of And all these are no idle Characters but speak answerable Obligations in the People as I have shewn before to attend on their Ministrations and unite themselves to them And this the Scripture requires in those Precepts which command us in glorifying God to have one mind and mouth to be perfectly joyn'd together in the same mind and judgment and speak the same things and the like For this speaking the same is speaking the same with those who speak right not with those who speak wrong And this Union of minds and judgments must be in uniting with men of Orthodox minds or that hold all necessary Christian Doctrines For if any fall off from these we must not be of one mind with them but of different minds I add moreover that Association and Union of Church-Members under Bishops is for visible Profession and Ministration of pure Worship and Doctrine And therefore they must unite with those Bishops who profess and administer the same Yea their care of their own Safety no less than the love of Truth will make them fly to such Pastors As the Saylors do to the next safe Port when their own is sanded or the Travellers to the next secure Inn when their old one is beset with Thieves as St. Cyprian observes in this Case And as they are thus to hold Communion and unite themselves to those rightful Bishops who keep to pure Worship and Doctrine So are they on the other hand to stand off from those who make the Schism to maintain a sinful Worship or corrupt Doctrine I do not say they are to look on these Schismaticks and Defectors as quite faln from the Relation and Title of Brethren A Schismatical or Excommunicate Christian is still a Christian not an Infidel or Heathen And whilst they continue Christians they retain though not so much Claim as others yet some Claim to Christian Brotherhood albeit they have lost their Claim to Communion Have no Company or Communion with the segregated Man saith St. Paul yet count him not as an Enemy but admonish him as a Brother 2 Thes. 3. 14. 15. And Optatus calls the Schismatical Donatists Brethren tho' they would not call the Catholicks so or be call'd so by them And says that they can not but be our Brethren though they are no good Brethren because we and they have one spiritual Nativity Their Baptism which is the Christians Birth being a valid Baptism though administred in a Schism and the Catholick Church as St. Austin says thereby generating Sons uâ—to God which Sons must be our Brethren For Brotherhood they looked on as consequent on Nativity and going along with it but Communion as going with spiritual society and conversation Though at other times by Brotherhood they understood not only the spiritual Nativity but also the spiritual society and communion of Brethren And then Hereticks and Schismaticks were shut out from that Name and Salutation But though as not having faln from their Baptism and Christianity they may on the score of their common Nativity still admit them to be Christian Brethren Yet as being schismatical and defecting Brethren they must reject and stand off from their Communion They must disown the erroneous and schismatical Bishops and Ministers disclaiming all Ecclesiastical Dependance upon them And hold off from their Religious Assemblies and not come to joyn in their Prayers and Sacraments and sacred Offices Church-communion lying mainly in joyning in these Assemblies and sacred Offices as Excommunication lyes in the excluding and debarring from the participation thereof They are to avoid them as they are Associates or Adherents of Anti-Bishops and makers of a Schism For the Scripture-direction is to mark those which cause Divisions and Offences and to avoid them Ro. 16. 17.
And if any man is disobedient and refractory to church-Church-powers which he is to the height who throws them quite off and sets up others against them to note that man and to have no company with him 2 Thes. 3. 14. And Schisms or Sedirions the Apostle reckons among Works of the Flesh which exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven So that they who would secure that must be careful not to joyn or partake with them Gal. 5. 20. 21. Especially if to the Guilt of Schism they also add that of Heresie which the Apostle also there ranks among the deadly Works of the Flesh or make Parties especially consummate them by setting up of Anti-Bishops to head destructive Errors or a defection from Gods pure Worship and Doctrines If any turn bringer of false Doctrines bid him not God speed nor receive him into your houses which were to be partakers of his evil Deeds says St. John 2 Jo. 10. 11. Thus St. Paul bids them look to the Judaizers and avoid them Phil. 3. 2. And St. John when he went to bath himself at Ephesus leaped out of the Bath unwash'd when he espyed the Heretick Cerinthus declaring he would not stay with such an Enemy of the Truth as Irenaeus reports from Polycarp Yea and Polycarp himself as he adds refused the Heretick Marcion any friendly commerce or fraternal salutation So studiously cautious says he were the Apostles and their Disciples of entring into any communion so much as of discourse with those who adulterated the Truth And of this Obligation to shun the communion of Schismaticks and corrupt Teachers Christians had a great sense in the first and best Ages of the Church Thus St. Ignatius that blessed Martyr and Contemporary of the Apostles when he bids the Sheep to follow the Shepherd and tells them they who are Gods and Jesus Christs will go with their Bishop to caution them against siding with any who set up against him tells the Philadelphians that if any will turn follower of him who makes a Schism he has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven And St. Cyprian is abundant therein When New or Anti-Bishops set up opposite Altars he is full of Zeal against the Impiety and Wickedness thereof 'T is adulterous says he 't is impious 't is sacrilegious whatsoever is so set up by the madness of men in violation of the Ordinance of God He who leaving the true Bishop sets up another Altar and presumes to celebrate another Prayer or Divine Service different from his bears Arms says he in another place against the Church and resists Gods Ordinance he is an Enemy of the Altar and a Rebel against Christs Sacrifice for the Faith he is persidious for Religion he is sacrilegious he is an undutiful Servant an impious Son an Enemy instead of a Brother And having set out these Schismatical Associates as so full of Sin and Provocation he warns all who would be careful of their own Innocence or safety to stand off from the Communion of such Men. A People that would fear God and keep his Commandments saith he must not mix it self or joyn in the Sacrifices of such sacrilegious Dividers Avoid those Wolves says he again who seek to separate the Sheep from their Shepherd warning against those five Presbyters who were then forming a Schism and soon after set up one of themselves viz. Fortunatus an Anti-Bishop against himself at Carthage If they will perish in their Schism let them be alone in perishing Let them remain alone without the Church who have broke off from it Let them alone be without the Bishops who have rebell'd against the Bishops But depart you from such Men and be not ye Partakers with them therein The Lord admonishes us adds he to depart from such Men. And If they are to be held as Heathens and Publicanes who only contemn the Church according to the Words of our Lord Mat. 18. 17. much more are the setters up of false Altars and unlawful Priesthoods to be held as such because they are plain Rebels and profest Enemies thereof And besides their shuning these opposite and false Altars and keeping firm to the true he tells them is necessary to give them the benefit of Christian Communion For whosoever assembleth otherwise saith he than under the rightful Bishop doth not get but scatter abroad If any are not with the Bishop they are not in the Church And 't is a vain flattery and self-deceit for any who have not Peace and Communion with their Bishop to fancy it is the same thing and that they may still have the Benefit of Ecclesiastical Communion by creeping in privately and being admitted by others set up against him Such was the sense which the Holy Apostles had instill'd and which the Primitive Christians had carefully retained of their strict Obligations to keep united to their own Orthodox rightful Bishops and to shun the Communion of all Schismatical Opposers of them or of Heretical Teachers And this shunning of such Communion must not be looked upon as the effect of Anger or Peevishness or as an Expression not of Religion but of meer human Passions which took place in the Church as Charity grew cold and wore off For this was most in the days of the Aposties themselves and of their Contemporaties and their nearest Successors as may appear from the fore cited Scriptures and Testimonies of Ignatius Irenaeus and Cyprian When Charity was the highest as it will be confest to have been in those times they were the choicest in their Communions and stood furthest off from all Schismaticks and Hereticks refusing them the Commerce not only of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Ministrations but even of Civil Offices and Respect And this by the direction of those Apostles St. Paul and St. John who abounded more than any in pressing Charity not bearing to keep company or to eat with them as St. Paul to give them the common salutation of God speed or to receive them into their Houses as St. John who would not so much as stay in the Bath with Cerinthus nor his Disciple Polycarp give the Salutation to the Heretick Marcion as I observed from Irenaeus So that Charity when at the height was highest towards God for sustaining his Worship and Doctrine visibly bearing it up by the Church and in the Unity thereof But was not for being any ways wanting to a Church-Profession and Maintenance of them in tenderness and complyance to those who defected from them But Christians abated of these first Rigours in shuning all Commerce with such Persons as the first Charity and Zeal for pure Doctrine and Worship grew less and as they were driven thereto especially in point of civil Commerce by Hereticks and Schismaticks growing more numerous and through the lamentable Divisions of Christendom lying intermix'd in all places which render'd the former renunciation of civil Commerce as less adviseable so less practicable in