Iowest political church but as constituted by the political union of congregational or parochial churches held also to be political under an officer of another order and the proper superior of those officers under which the parochial churches immediately are then let it be observed that a church of this frame is not properly an Episcopal but an Archiepiscopal Church For the churches whereof it is compacted are properly Episcopal being such as have each of them their own bishop pastor or elder But the divine right of such an Archiepiscopal church I leave to further inquiry As for a National church I come now to inquire in what sence it may or may not be granted In a more general notion it is some part of the universal church distinguished and severed from the rest of that body by the limits of a Nation or of a civil state or in other terms a nation of Christian churches or the Christian churches of a Nation But there are more express and special notions thereof respecting the frame of Ecclesiastical Polity which are discrepant from each other And about the being thereof in these special notions mens judgments vary Some own a national church in this sence only viz. a nation of churches or the churches of a nation agreeing at least in the essentials of christian Dectrine divine Worship and church-Government Some own a national church in a stricter sense namely the said churches not only agreeing in the points aforesaid but politically united by the same common band of Ecclesiastical Government under one head personal or collective And this stricter sence hath a subdivision for it may be understood of the churches united in a Civil Ecclesiastical polity under a civil head or supream or of the churches embodyed in the band of a polity purely Ecclesiastical under a spiritual head or supream I own the rightful being and divine warrant of a national church as united in one Civil Ecclesiastical polity under one civil head or supream either personal as in a Monarchy or collective as in a Republick And in this sence I assent to the National Church of England viz. All the churches in England politically united under one Supream Civil Church-Governour the Kings Majesty Yet it is to be understood that the partition of a church by the bounds of a nation or of a civil state is but extrinsecal or accidental to the church as such also that the union of the churches of a nation in the band of civil church-polity under a civil head is but an extrinsecal and not an intrinsecal union But I question the divine warrant of a national church embodied in the band of one national polity purely Ecclesiastical under one spiritual head or supream either Personal as a Primate or Patriarch or collective as a consistory of bishops or elders intrinsecally belonging to it and being a constitutive part of it For I find no Canon or Precedent for it in Scripture which is the adequate rule of divine right in the frame of churches and of what intrinsecally belongs thereuntò and I do not know any such spiritual head of the Church of England as for the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York they at the most can be heads but of their respective provinces and are not subordinate but coordinate to each other in point of Archiepiscopal Government however the case is between them in point of precedency Yet if the civil supream power shall constitute a person or persons Ecclesiastical to be head of a national church or the churches of a nation politically imbodied I here offer nothing against it or for it But if there be such a national constitution being but humane it is but extrinsecal and accidental to the church and being derived from the civil supream it is but a civil church-polity § 21. The subordination of particular Churches to an association or collective body of the same Churches considered I Come to enquire whether there be a subordination of churches taken distributively to an association o◠collective body of the same Churches or an assembly thereof and again whether there be a subordination of that collective body to a larger association of more collective bodies or to an assembly thereof and so forward till we come to the largest that can be reached unto The association of particular churches is of the law of nature and therefore to be put in practise according to their capacity tho there were no positive law for it for they are all so many distinct members of one great body or integral parts of the Catholick church and they are all concerned in each others well being both in reference to themselves as fellow members of one body and to Christ their Head whose honour and interest they must promote each church not only within themselves but throughout all the churches to the utmost extent of their agency And they naturally stand in need of each others help in things that concern them severally and jointly Likewise that there be greater and lesser associations acting in their several spheres higher or lower the one included in the other is of the law of nature or of natural convenience for the more ample capacity and more orderly contributing of the mutual help aforesad such as have been called classical provincial and national assemblies used in one form of church-government yea and beyond this the association of the churches of many nations as far towards an oecumenical council as they are capable of convening is of the same reason But of an oecumenical association truly so called that is of all the churches in the world the moral impossibility thereof hath been spoken of before It is also by the law of nature most convenienient that in the lesser associations all the ruling officers personally meet and that in the larger they meet by their delegates or representatives chosen by all and sent in the name of all which meetings are called assemblies or synods and the convenience of meeting by delegates is that the particular churches be not for a time left wholly destitute of their guides and that there may be less trouble and difficulty and danger of disorder in the whole management Note That what is most naturally convenient hath in it the reason of necessary or is matter of duty unless when something gainsay or hinder and then indeed it ceaseth to be convenient And that there be some kind of subordination in the said associations and their respective Assemblies is of the Law of nature which requires order but as to the kind or manner of subordination men go several ways Some place it in a proper Authority or Governing power that the collective bodies of Churches have over the several Churches included in them others place it in the agreement of the several churches and some of these make this further explanation that the Canons made by Synods as they are made for the people who are subject to the Pastors are a sort of Laws and oblige by
THE REMAINS OF THE REVEREND and LEARNED Mr John Corbet Late of Chichester Printed from his own Manuscripts LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1684. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER HERE thou hast the Remains of the Reverend and Learned Mr. Corbet late of Chichester Those that knew him say That he was a man endued with the wisdom that is from above that is first pure and then peaceable gentle meek moderate and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie Therefore it is conceived that any thing which he had designed for publick use may be well accepted of by all those that desire to follow after peace with all men so far as is consistent with purity Whether the design of these Remains of his be not to vindicate the truth and to promote purity first and then peace is left to thee to judg after thou hast impartially perused and considered them in the fear of God and if in any measure they conduce to so good an end it is hoped thou wilt be thankful to God for the benefit which the Church of Christ and therein thy self mayst receive by the use of them Thou hast them just as they were left under his own hand if himself had lived to publish them thou mightest possibly have had them better Polisht but it is not thought fit that any other person should take upon him to alter any thing in them There are printed of this Authors and sold by Thomas Parkhurst The Kingdom of God among men together with a Tract of Church Unity and Schism Self-employment in Secret containing Evidences upon Self-Examination Thoughts upon painful Afflictions Memorials for Practice OF THE CHURCH § 1. Of the Church and Ministry as related to each other WHETHER the Church or the Ministry be first in nature is to be considered that for the more orderly handling of both we may know which of them to begin with For that seems to require the precedency of handling that hath the priority of nature or the being whereof is presupposed to the being of the other Now some have thus resolved it As the question whether the Hen or the Egg be first is resolved by the Creation That God made the Hen first so is the Question Whether the Church or Ministry be first by the consideration of the first Institution of Christ And it appears that the Ministry was first Instituted or at least that it was first in existence In setting up the Christian Church Christ set up the Ministry first to convert men or make them Christians Moreover the Ministry as taken for the collective body of Ministers is a constitutive part of the Church considered not entitativè but organicè as some Phrase the distinction that is not as a meer company of Believers gathered to Christ but as a Political Society or Spiritual Commonwealth in this World And the Constitutive parts should be distinctly treated of before the Whole that is constituted of them On the other hand the Church is the end of the Ministry Eph. 4.11 and in design or intention before it and consequently the Ministry hath a respect of subserviency to the Church and is Adapted to the state thereof Likewise the Ministry is in the Church as the lesser in the greater as a part in the whole as a thing residing in the seat of its residence as Stewardship in a Family This indeed holds principally and perpetually of the Church Universal 1 Cor. 12.28 Moreover the Ministers power and vertue is theirs as they are the Churches which indeed hath the propriety of them and their Ministerial gifts as being all under God and Christ finally for its behoof Upon these considerations I shall discourse first of the Church and then of the Ministry § 2. Of the Church its Name and Nature THE word Ecclesia is noted to signifie 1. An Assembly called together by a Superior 2. Any multitude gathered into one place 3. According to the use of the holy Scripture a certain multitude that retain the Name as well when they are a part as when they are met together An Assembly at large is called Ecclesia but Appellativè but they that are now so called by special appropriation of the word are a Society standing in a special Relation to God as his devoted People and that both when they are assembled and when they are apart and whether they be the Universal Society of Gods People or the particular Societies that are the integral parts of the Universal The word Church is the English of Ecclesia in its appropriated signification and it is taken divers ways but all agreeing in the aforesaid Notion 1. For the whole Company of Gods Elect comprising the uncalled and the Militant and the Triumphant Eph. 5.25 26. 2. For the whole Company of the faithful both Militant and Triumphant Col. 1.18 Heb. 12.23 3. For all professors of the Faith of Christ or visible Christians Acts 5.11 Acts 8.3 Acts 12.1 4. For the Catholick Visible Church as a political Society 1 Cor. 12.28 5. For the particular Churches parts of the Catholick as comprising the Church Officers and the people or Community of the faithful as the Church at Corinth 1 Cor. 1.2 The Churches of Galatia Gal. 1.2 and in many other places 6. For the members of the Church or Community of the faithful as distinct from their spiritual Rulers Acts 15.4 22. 7. For the Governours of the Church as distinct from the governed Mat. 18.17 18 19. 8. For a Church-Assembly come together for Divine Worship 1 Cor. 14.19 34. 9. For the faithful in some one family Rom. 16.5 Philem. 2. if it do not signifie a Church meeting in those houses These several acceptions of the word agree in the said common Notion of a number of People associated in a peculiar and Spiritual Relation to God yet the said Notion is more noble and compleat in some of them than in others Besides all these there is the vulgar use of the Word for the House set a part for the Church to meet in for Gods Publick Worship And no doubt but the Word may be lawfully so used it being a trope in ordinary use to put the name of the persons contained upon the place containing as also the name of the place containing upon the persons contained But that there is any such use of the word in Holy Scripture to me is not evident As for the Text 1 Cor. 11.22 Have ye not houses to eat and drink in or despise ye the Church of God it seems not to me to be inferred from it For the Church of God there said to be despised may be understood rather of Gods People assembled § 3. The Church is a Society distinct from the Commonwealth IT hath been well noted That there can be no greater Evidence of real distinction than actual separation And the Church and Commonwealth are separate wheresoever there
is a Christian Church in a Commonwealth that is not Christian indeed in that Case the Christians taken personally are members not severed from the Commonwealth but parts of it but the Spiritual Society which they make is no part of it but really severed from it When a Commonwealth becomes Christian the Church is not to be looked upon as swallowed up in the Commonwealth but they remain distinct Societies notwithstanding the intimate conjunction that is between them and they differ in their kind and formal state from each other The foundation upon which the Commonwealth rests and its constitutive parts formally taken are of another nature than the foundation on which the Church rests and its constitutive parts formally taken The former is immediately founded in humane Laws and Compacts and Essentially made up of several orders and ranks of men diversly indued with temporal qualifications powers and liberties joyned by Civil Bands and Subordinate one to another but the latter is immediately founded in Divine Laws not only natural but positive and Essentially made up of several orders and ranks of men spiritually distinguished and indued with spiritual qualifications Powers and Liberties joyned by Spiritual Bands and Subordinate one to another Hereupon none become Members of the Church merely as Members of the Commonwealth and none become Cives or Members of the Commonwealth merely as Members of the Church and they that are deprived of the Rights of the Commonwealth may still injoy the Priviledges of the Church and they that are deprived of the Priviledges of the Church may still injoy the Rights of the Commonwealth Indeed a Christian Commonwealth ultimately intends those high and excellent ends which the Church doth nextly and immediately viz. The Glory of God and the Eternal happiness of men and procures the same in its own way as the Church doth in its way And the Magistrates and Officers of a Common-wealth must proceed by the Rules of Christianity in their Civil Administrations as well as the Ministers of the Church in their Sacred Administrations and they are the Servants of Christ the Mediator not only as Christians but as Magistrates And Christianity doth influence its professors considered as Members of the Commonwealth as well as of the Church In these respects such a Commonwealth hath attained a more excellent State and exists in a more perfect mode than other Commonwealths Nevertheless the Church is another and higher thing than that higher mode of the Commonwealth as Christian and hath an Essentially different Polity being a Society of another foundation and specifically different Constitution It is questionable to say the least whether the Civil Power of the Commonwealth and the Spiritual Power of the Christian Church may lawfully reside in the same person I do not now speak of that Power in the Church which is objectively Ecclesiastical but formally Civil such as is the Kings Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons Ecclesiastical within his Dominions but of Power formally Spiritual And if both Spiritual and Civil Power may lawfully reside in the same person yet that person tho naturally but one would be politically two and the People subordinate to him in those two capacities tho they be the same persons yet they would be two Societies distinguished in their Essential forms When the Commonwealth fails the Church may still subsist and when the Church fails the Commonwealth may still subsist The Commonwealth of the Jews that was a Theocracy suffered an Intercision during the Babylonish Captivity yet their Church then remained tho it were greatly wounded it was not extinct And afterwards when they were no Commonwealth of themselves but a Province of the Roman Empire their Ecclesiastical Society and Polity stood intire till it was to give place to the Christian Church § 4. Of the Church as Visible and Invisible THE notion of Visible and Invisible must not here be taken strictly for that which is or is not the object of seeing only but of other sensitive perception or of any humane intuition All other Societies of men admit not this distinction because they are constituted in their formal being by things that do appear outwardly But this of the Church is constituted in its formal being primarily by things that in themselves do not appear outwardly and but secondarily by things that appear as expressions of the things that in themselves appear not The Church is a Society of regenerate persons joyned to the Lord Christ as their Head and to one another as fellow-members by a mystical union through the Holy Gost residing in them all and through faith unfeigned towards God in Christ and holy love toward one another justified sanctified and adopted to the inheritance of Eternal Glory Now the said Qualifications Relations and Priviledges being in themselves hid from mens knowledg and judgment do primarily constitute the Church which is thereupon in its primary consideration a Society Mystical and Invisible It is also a Society of persons professing Christianity or Regeneration and externally joyned to Christ and to one another by the profession of unfeigned faith and love and by the Symbols of that profession and partakers of the external Priviledges belonging to it And according to this external Constitution which is necessary tho it be not primary it is named Visible So then the Church Invisible and Visible are not two Societies but the same Society distinguished by its divers formal considerations and constitutions the one primary the other secondary and the former is not for the latter but the latter for the former These two distinct considerations or modes or forms of the same Society are not commensurate to each other but the Church in its Visible form is of a larger extent than in its Invisible form For many profess Christianity or Dedication to God in Christ that are not really that is heartily and intirely so dedicated This Society as understood in the compleat notion thereof cannot be extended any further then its primary that is its Invisible form doth reach Whatsoever lies without that compass is but the shadow without the substance the image without the life thereof And therefore all they that are joyned to it meerly according to its Visible form are of it not adequately univocally and simply but inadequately analogically secundum quid They that upon their credible profession are of this Society but analogically as to the external form only have just Right and Title to its external Priviledges according to their capacity and disposedness before them that can discern and directly judg only of things that appear outwardly so that if men debar them of those Priviledges they do them wrong For tho God allows them not and thâ—y have no right in his judgment which is always according to truth and not bate appearance yet he hath commanded men to admit them and consequently given them right before men Credible profession in whatsoever degree higher or lower can ground but a judgment of charity
and purely as a Priest or Minister of the Gospel And that which doth not lessen the holiness of a Christian doth not lessen the holiness of a Minister Indeed Ministers are more strongly obliged than others to keep themselves chast in body and mind because whereas others are under a single they are under a double Obligation therunto both as they are Christians and as they are Christs Ministers But the chastity to which they are obliged is the common duty of all Christians Only where there is a greater engagement to chastity there is a greater aggravation of the sin of uncleanness And it concerns Ministers more than others that they break not the Common Laws of Christianity in this regard because thereby they give a greater scandal than others Moreover Marriage is no more a hinderance to Ministers than to all Christians in their acts of devotion For all are required to exercise themselves unto godliness to pray always watching thereunto with all perseverance And such exercises as require abstinence from conjugal embraces as extraordinary prayer with fasting do alike concern Clergy and Laity Notwithstanding this evidence of Scripture and Reason for the Honesty of Marriage in the Clergy the Policy of Hypocrites and the Superstition of honest minds hath so far prevailed against it as to make it no better than Incest and worse than Fornication § 19 There is no more reason to restrain the Clergy from second Marriages than from the first For there is commonly as great reason impelling to a second Marriage as to the first And there is no more impurity or uncomeliness in the second Marriages of Clergy-men than in the first The Matrimonial acts of second Marriages have no more blemish nor unseemliness in them than those of the first There is no reason to restrain the Clergy more than the Laity from second Marriages For if it may be sanctified to the one it may as well be sanctified to the other also if it may be necessary for the one it may be also as necessary for the other And the Matrimonial acts of second Marriages are no more uncomely in a Clerick than in a Laick No reason can be given why there ought not to be as great a chastity in every Christian as in a Bishop Every Christian is in a true sense a Priest to God and a devoted person The Priests under the Law were expresly forbidden to take a Wife that was a Whore or prophane or a woman put away from her Husband Lev. 21.7 And good reason there might be for prohibiting a Priests marriage with a divorced woman because the Law of Divorce was but of divine sufferance to the Jews for the hardness of their hearts as our Saviour saith The High-Priest was expresly forbidden to marry a Widow ver 14. Some of the said Prohibitions were most probably in reference to a ceremonial sanctity peculiar to the Mosaick dispensation But neither the High Priest nor other Priests were forbidden to marry a second Wife upon the death of the first I see no reason to conceive that by the Text 1 Tim. 3.2 any thing is forbidden in a Bishop which is lawful in other Christians By the husband of one Wife the Apostle means one that is not married to two Wives at once according to the custome of the Jews and other Eastern Nations and one that hath not married a second Woman after he hath put away the first without lawful cause or that hath not taken one that was unlawfully put away by another according to the custom of the Western Nations § 20. The forbidding of the innocent party to marry after a just divorce was another groundless and unreasonable prohibition Now the crime of adultery is the ground of a just divorce Matt. 19.9 Whosoever putteth away his Wife except it be for fornication and shall marry another committeth adultery Here the putting away of a Wife and the marrying of another is declared to be the committing of Adultery except it be for Fornication This by the most unquestionable Rule of interpretation shews that if a man put away his Wife for Fornication and marry another he doth not commit adultery For this is the case expresly excepted from the general proposition and therefore exempt from the guilt therein expressed and unless such an exemption were thereby signified the exception were in vain And it is to be further noted that the excepting of the case of Fornication must refer more especially to the later clause of marrying another because by the bare putting away of a Wife in any case without proceeding further there is no committing of Adultery Therefore it is the marrying of another in the said case of exception that is designed to be exempted from the said guilt Hereupon those general propositions about the same matter Mark 10. Luke 16. must according to a just interpretation be limited by the exception here expressed which must be necessarily there understood Howbeit upon an unjust divorce for the innocent or injured party to marry another we do not find it lawful For Christ declares Mart. 5 21. Whosoever putteth away his Wife sâ—ving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery and whosoever marrieth her that is divorced committeth adultery Here he seems to resolve That he is an Adulterer that marrieth the innocent party that is put away and that the first contracted relation is not dissolved by the unjust divorce and that the woman unjustly put away ought to stay unmarried in hope of being reconciled to her husband until such time as his Adultery in any kind and in particular in the marrying of another Wife doth set her at liberty § 21. For the further clearing of the point here discussed it is to be noted in what sense the Marâ—iage-bond is dissolved and in what sense it is not dissolved by Adultery Certain it is that the said bond is not dissolved ipso facto by the said crime so that the conjugal relation immediately ceâ—seth and conjugal famillarity thenceforth becomes unlawful Nâ—vertheless the bond is so far dissolved that the offending-party hath forfeited the relation and all the consequent Rights thereof and the injured party is no longer bound to continue the relation and the consequent duties thereof if he will take the forfeiture and so the bond is actually dissolved and the relation ceaseth by his will yet he is bound to proceed in it regularly and according to publick order Whereas it is said by many That the allowed divorce doth not signifie the breaking of the conjugal bond in the substance but a relaxation thereof as to conjugal duties it to be noted that the question put to our Saviour by the Pharisees was about putting away as to the Matrimonial bond For there was no other putting away among the Jews nor among the Romans nor other Nations among whom Divorce was in use Besides to speak of a putting away and of a being at liberty from bed and board and all Matrimonial duties and