neighbouring Churches shall join together that at least there might be a maintenance for each Colloque and that rather than fail the 5th Penny of the Alms-money be set apart for this use if it may be conveniently done CONFORMITY It appears by the 14th Canon of the Synod of Epaum Assembled in the Year 517 That it was practis'd at that time just as our Discipline prescribes for it appoints to him of the Clergy that shall have received any Gratification and Present from the liberality of the Church wherein he liv'd that he should return it back again if he be advanced to be Bishop of another Church it appears to me this cannot be understood but of the assistance was given him during the time of his studies seeing that from the very moment any one entred into the Service of a Church he was to have his support and maintenance from it It was in this regard Theodolphus Bishop of Orleans permitted the Priests of his Diocess in the Year 797. to send their Nephews or some of their Relations unto the School he names which they shall like best there to be Taught and Educated There 's something like this in the Seminaries which the 2d Council of Toledo as 't were founded in the Year 530. and the 4th of the same place An. 633. Can. 23 or 24. Tom. 4. Conc. Page 588. Not so much as the Council of Trent but made a Decree in the 29th Session Anno 1563. for the Establishing these Seminaries Tom. 9. Conc. Page 409. cap. 18. V. In each Church there shall be appointed Propositions of the Word of God amongst the Scholars according as the convenience of the place and persons shall permit where the Pastors shall be present as well to preside as to direct and help the said Students CONFORMITY The Exercises here prescrib'd have no other scope but to fit and prepare Students in Divinity for Preaching and to put them in a condition to Preach the Gospel to Edification with profit which agrees very well with the Establishments of the Synods of Chalons and Meaux which we cited on the first Article CHAP. III. Of ELDERS and DEACONS ARTICLE I. IN those places where the Order of Discipline is not yet Established the Election as well of Elders as of Deacons shall be made as well by the common voice of the People as of the Ministers but where the Discipline is already established it shall pertain to the Consistory with the Pastors to make choice of the fittest Persons by ardent Prayers to that effect And the Parties shall be expresly nominated publickly in the Consistory and to those which shall be chosen the Office shall be read to the end they may know the business they are to be employed in If they consent to it they shall afterwards be nominated to the People two or three Sundays that so the consent of the People may also intervene and if there be no opposition the third Sunday they shall be publickly admitted by solemn Prayers they standing before the Pulpit and so shall be setled in their Office subscribing the Confession of Faith and the Ecclesiastical Discipline but if there be opposition the Matter shall be decided in Consistory and if it cannot be there determin'd the whole shall be transmitted to a Colloque or Provincial Synod CONFORMITY Having treated of Ministers and the Schools where they ought to study to attain to the Office of the Holy Ministry it follows in order to speak of those which partake with them of the care in Governing the Flock That is of Deacons and Elders which amongst us are Secular persons serving in the Church and distinguished from Ministers or to speak with the Fathers from the Clergy it is then of these two sorts of Persons and of their Election that I am to treat in examining this Article according to the design and intention of the Compilers of our Discipline I 'll begin with the Deacons which as every body knows are of Apostolical institution In effect we find in the 6th Chapter of the Acts That the Apostles giving themselves up wholly to the Preaching of the Gospel they desir'd the Church of Jerusalem to chuse out certain persons of good repute for Wisdom and Piety that they might commit unto them the care of the Poor which they express by serving of Tables that by this means they might the more conveniently attend to Prayer and Preaching of the Word St. Chrysostom observes on this place that this was the first establishing of Deacons the very name not being till then known that is in the Christian Church as for the Jewish Church they had their Deacons as Epiphanius writes in the Heresie of the Ebeonites which is the 30th they were called Azanites and thence probably 't was that the Apostles took the Original of Christian Deacons and they called them so because they served at Tables and at the distributing of Money to the Poor It was to that time those which followed St. Chrysostom and wrote of the first institution of Deacons writing on the Acts of the Apostles as Beda and Orcumenius have refer'd it As for Lay-Elders such as ours be I do not find their institution in Scripture as that of the Deacons is found as for the Elders of the Christian Churches whereof there is mention made in several places in the New-Testament I am fully persuaded that by them is to be understood Pastors themselves which were called indifferently Elders or Priests and Bishops I do not except that famous passage chap. 5. vers 17. of the 1st Ep. to Timothy It is certain that these Elders were all of the same Order that is to say They were all Pastors but because there were several in the same Church and that some were sitter for Preaching the Word than others they gave them different employments according to the diversity of Gifts in my judgment there needs no other proof of this Truth than the right of Precedency which St. Paul attributes indifferently to all which he would not have done had they not been all of one Order the Greek word also which he uses ordinarily imports a precedency which is due only to Pastors which the Ancients frequently design by this name particularly Justin Martyr But notwithstanding this I make no question but the Original of our Elders is very Ancient and that it approaches very near to the Apostles days if they be not rather themselves the Founders of them and what confirms me in this Opinion is that they establish'd in the Church a Government like that of the Synagogue a Christian Presbytery instead of a Jewish one and as there were Elders amongst the Jews which had share in Governing the Synagogue it is very probable that there were also Elders amongst the Christians People which had part in that of the Church if not at the very first birth of Christianity at least there was as soon as the number of them was increased in so great a manner for then it was
Fasts an order which we exactly follow and which is grounded in that Jesus Christ nor his Apostles have not prescrib'd in any place of the New Testament on what dayes one should or should not fast as St. Austin has observ'd in his 86 Epistle to Casulanus IV. Those Churches which have been accustom'd to make publick Prayers on certain dayes may keep the order they have for a long time happily used and others may conform thereunto according to the means which God shall please hereafter to give them and as their Edification shall require CONFORMITY This Article has no other Scope but to establish an intire Conformity in the Churches as to what regards the Exercises of Piety and Religion can 27. Tom. 1. conc Gal. p. 199. near hand as when the Council of Epaume in the year 517. ordain'd that in the out Provinces for celebration of Divine Offices the same Order should be observ'd as is by the Metropolitan the same thing was concluded the same year in Spain in the 1 Council of the Synod of Gironda can 55. To. 3. conc pag. 806 and Anno 633 in the 2 Cannon of the 4 of Tolledo To. 4. conc pag. 582. and in the year 465 a Council of Vannes had appointed that throughout the whole Province the same Order and Rule for Divine Offices and for singing of Psalms should be observ'd V. There shall no Prayer or Sermon nor publick Alms be given at Burials to shun Superstitions and those which accompany the Corps shall be exhorted to behave themselves with modesty during the time meditating according to the object before their Eyes as well the miseries and shortness of this life as the happiness of the life to come CONFORMITY All pretence towards superstition whereunto Men are too apt to incline is in this Article endeavour'd to be avoided VI. Because Mourning don 't consist in Apparel but in the Heart Believers shall be warned to demean them therein with all Modesty rejecting all Ambition Hypocrisie Vanity and Superstition CONFORMITY This last Article prescribes Modesty and excludes Hycoprisie and Ambition which were generously opposed by the Primitive Christians CHAP. XI Of BAPTISME ARTICLE I. BAptism administred by one that has no Vocation is absolutely Void CONFORMITY The Author of Apostolical Constitutions contents not himself to forbid Women to Baptise he also prohibits all Lay Persons because they are not called to it in effect having employ'd the Ninth Chapter of the Third Book to shew that Women should not Baptise he thus begins the Tenth Neither do we suffer a Lay Person to Exercise any Priestly Function as to offer Sacrifice that is to say to celebrate the Sacrament or to Baptise or impose hands or to give the Benediction whether more or less for none takes to him this honor but he enjoys it which is called of God St. Basil was of no other Mind as the Jesuit Petau confesses in his Notes upon St. Epiphanius where he says St. Basil seems to have believed that Baptism conferr'd by Lay persons was Null and to speak the Truth this Holy Doctor speaking of the Opinion of St. Cyprian of Firmilian Pag. 351. and others which taught that all those ought to be Re-Baptis'd which had been Baptis'd by Hereticks he saith Epist ad Ampluit can 1. To. 3. p. 21. That they had appointed they should be purisied anew by the true Baptism of the Church no more nor less then if they had been Baptis'd by Lay Persons St. Basil would not have spoke after this Manner had he not been perswaded that Baptism administred by Lay Men is not true Baptism As for Baptism administred by a Woman cap. 17. p. 231. Tertullian had before condemn'd it in his time in his Treatise of Baptism and had shewn that they were not permitted to teach nor to Baptise St. Epiphanius in the Heresie of the Collyridians which is the 79 in order inlarges much in proving the same thing to stop the rashness of Women who would undertake to Baptise pag. 1059 1060. observing also that the Holy Virgin had not this power for if she had it Jesus Christ might have been Baptis'd by her rather than by John Baptist The fourth Council of Carthage made this Decree Anno 398 That a Woman should not presume to Baptise It is not then to be wonder'd that St. Epiphanius in the forty two Heresie observes as a thing blameable Tom. 1. conc can 〈…〉 That the Arch-Heretick Marcion permitted Women to Baptise II. A Doctor in the Church cannot Preach nor administer the Sacraments unless he be both Doctor and Minister CONFORMITY This Article is but a continuance of the former for seeing a Doctor in quality of a meer Doctor hath no vocation to Preach the Word nor to administer the Sacraments it is unquestionable the Baptism which he shall confer shall be no other than that which shall be administred by a Meer Lay Man to do it Lawfully he must not only be a Doctor but also a Minister III. A Jew or Pagan of what Age soever he be ought not to be Baptised before being well Instructed in the Christian Religion and that it appears they are so by their Confession CONFORMITY There 's nothing in this Establishment but what was practis'd in the Antient Church St. Justin Martyr testifies in his second or rather his first Apology that the Christians of those times would not Baptise those who would turn to their Communion until after they had believed and were throughly perswaded of the Truth of their Doctrine and moreover promised to live conformable to the holiness of their Laws and profession Pope Victor the 1 ordain'd towards the end of the second Century as the Pontifical Book saith in his Life that in case of Necessity one may Baptise all those that turn from Paganism to Christianity either in a River or in the Sea or in a Fountain or in a Lake upon condition nevertheless that in the first place they should give an Account of the Christian Faith and make an open Confession of it The Ten Books of Recognitions falsly attributed to St Clement Disciple of the Apostles are very ancient but forged and writ before Origen who liv'd in the third Century in the VI of these Books at the end we read St. Peter Baptised near the Sea Those which had fully received the Faith of our Lord and Saviour that is to say those which believed in him and which had been Instructed in the knowledge of his Gospel St. Jerom expounding these words of our Saviour to his Apostles Math. 28.19 Go teach all Nations baptising them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost St. Jerom observes In cap. 28. Mat. Tom. 6. pag. 66. the Apostles taught them first and that after having instructed them they baptised them with Water for saith he It cannot be that the Body should receive the Sacrament of Baptism unless the Soul has first received
be done by approbation of the Synod which shall put another in the place of him they send away Thence it is that Pope Gellasius the first doth not always simply condemn these Translations but only then when they are made without cause Hinemar Archbishop of Rhemes in the Ninth Century authorizes these Changes when there is good cause for them or necessity and that 't is done by Order of the Synod and he also produces sundry instances of this practise I do not mention the first Epistle of Pelagius the second who establishes or rather approves for the like motives these kind of Translations because I am perswaded 't is false and spurious XXXI When a Minister is persecuted or for some other cause cannot exercise his Office in the Church whereunto he was appointed he may be sent elsewhere by the said Church or an exchange shall be made of him for some other for a time by the consent and good liking of both the Churches But if the Minister will not submit to the judgment of both Churches he shall impart the reasons of his refusal to the Consistory and there it shall be judged if they are sufficient and if they are not found to be so and that yet the Minister persists to refuse the said Office the difference shall be transferred to the next Provincial Synod or to the Colloque if the Churches are of one and the same Colloque CONFORMITY The ancient Christians which had foreseen the inconvenience which regards our Discipline in this Article have made divers Rules to remedy it In the year of our Lord 347 the Council of Sardis in these terms set down the words of their last Canon If violence be done to a Bishop and that he be cast out unjustly through malice for the Discipline he has exercised or for the Catholick Faith which he confessed or for the truth which he defended and that being innocent and flying from danger he comes to another Church let him not be hindered to abide there until such time as he can return and that an end be put to the trouble which he suffers for it would be cruel not to receive with all humanity and good will him which suffers persecution 〈◊〉 20. The Council of Chalcedon which forbids to quit the Church one has served in from the first time of ones promotion Excepts those which having been constrained to forsake their Country have passed into another Church according to which Gregory the First established a certain Bishop call'd John which had been driven away from his Church by the Enemy which had taken possession of the place I say he setled him in another on condition to return back to his former Church as soon as it recovered its ancient liberty It was also in the same manner he served Agnellus Bishop of Fundi which upon a like occasion he preferred to the Church of Terracina the same was practised in France in the IX Century in regard of Actard Bishop of Nants the City having been sack'd and plundered by the Brittans and Normans he was made Archbishop of Tours as Hinomar affirms who lived in that time and at large relates the History in his 45 Epistle which we cited on the foregoing Article and all that he blames in Actard is That he would have held both Churches of Tours and Nants contrary to the prohibition of the Council of Chalcedon excepting this he approves that when a Pastor is persecuted and driven from his Church he should be provided of another The Frier Blastares is of the same judgment and he supports it by the 13 and 22. Canons of the Council of Antioch in Syntagm Lett. A. Cap. 9. pag. 22. XXXII Ministers may with their liking be lent by the Consistory as the Edification of the Church shall require but the Loan shall not be made without the advice of two or three Ministers or of the Colloque if it be for more than six Months CONFORMITY St. Paul saith Charity is the bond of perfectness and all those of one Communion being to be united by this Sacred Bond they are bound in conscience upon all occasions to shew reciprocal marks of sincere and true love and because there are none more sensible than those which have for their scope and aim our instruction and consolation they cannot be mutually refus'd without violating the Laws of Christian Charity It was by such a principle that when there was among the Primitive Christians any Church destitute of a Pastor That next unto it was obliged to take care and visit it from time to time to impart unto it Instructions and Consolations There are several Prescriptions to this purpose in the Monuments of Ecclesiastical Antiquity particularly in St. Gregory's Epistles and all these Rules in effect amount to what 's here prescrib'd in our Discipline XXXIII Ministers lent when the time for which they were lent is expired they shall return to the service of the Churches from whence they went CONFORMITY When a Church for some time borrows the Ministry of a Pastor which is setled in another Church which consented to this Loan there 's no need to doubt but that when the time of Loan is expired he may re-enter into the Church which lent him and which in lending him did not disclaim their Right in him In the Primitive Church at the very instant a Flock was provided of a Pastor he that visited it in the time of its Widowhood that is to say whilst 't was without a Conductor returned no more to it and exercised the Functions of his Ministry no where but in his own Church XXXIV If in one year after the time of Loan is expired the Church don't re-demand its Pastor he shall belong to the Church which borrowed him always provided the Minister willingly consents thereunto but if he be not willing he shall submit to the direction of the Colloque or Synod of the Church to which he had been lent And this rule also shall be in force for the Ministers which by reason of Persecution shall flye to other Churches and the persecution ceasing not being demanded by their former Churches in a years time the which shall commence after the warning which shall have been given to the said first Churches by the said Ministers CONFORMITY Because it may so sall out that a Church which shall have lent one of her Ministers does not recall him after the Expiration of time for which he was lent no difficulty is made of translating him wholly to the Church which had borrowed him the silence of the other being then look'd upon as a kind of Consent Which also is to be appli'd to those which joining themselves to other Churches by reason of Persecution are not redemanded by theirs when the Persecution is over for on these occasions it is as much as if they had granted unto them those Letters of Congé which the Ancients called Dimissoria's with the which a Church-man could serve in another Church in