practice of this thing as far as I can find in those times to expel them out of their Society without variety of lesser or greater degrees but whoever were excommunicate were to all intents and purposes degraded from being Jews But herein perhaps I am mistaken and whether I am or am not I am as little concern'd as my cause to which I now return And here all that our Author has to the purpose is that Excommunication among the Jews was only an abatement of their Civil not their Sacred priviledges which if true would do very little service to his Conclusion that therefore it must be so in the Christian Church where there are no priviledges but what are Sacred but the principle it self is altogether ungrounded without Authority and without reason and that too though we understand it of his Talmudical Excommunication for as he justifies the Truth of it by no Authority so the reason he gives is as good as none viz. That those under Nidui were admitted into the Synagogue And so they were as they were admitted to civil Conversation keeping their distance of four paces and from thence alone it is reasonable to conclude that as the sentence proceeded higher so it was raised in both kinds of punishments However there is one Argument to prove the Jewish Excommunication to be a sacred as well as civil Interdiction and that so very obvious that it is impossible that our learned Author could have overlooked it had not his eyes been so wholly fixt upon his own Hypothesis And that is this that they looked upon all excommunicate Persons as no Jews or as we cited before out of the third Book of the Maccabees as enemies to the Jewish Nation and then it is sufficiently known to all men That no such were admitted to the publick service And so we come to the Period of the Christian Church which is divided into three Ages the first during the time of our Saviour and his Apostles The second from their death or the end of the first Century to the Reign of Constantine The third from the Reign of Constantine down to our own times And that Excommunication in the first age of the Church was of the same nature with that of the Jews our learned Author demonstrates because our Saviour and his Apostles practised it in imitation of their Discipline Though for my part I cannot understand how any thing can follow more plainly than that Excommunication if it were a civil punishment among the Jews must be meerly Sacred among the Christians For if the Jews took it up as our Author will have it only to supply their want of civil Government it must therefore as he rightly infers be used by them as a civil Penalty Then when our blessed Saviour instituted the same in his Church it must not be a civil but a sacred Penalty because his Church is no civil but a sacred Society If indeed Christians as Christians confederated together to maintain their secular Interests that would make temporal punishments necessary to the preservation of their Confederacy But when they enter into a Society purely to enjoy some spiritual Rights and Priviledges then all separation from the Society by way of Punishment can be nothing else than debarring them from those Rights and Priviledges So that if Excommunication among the Jews was as our Author contends the same with Out-lawry as to their civil Rights what can be more evident than that it can be no such thing among Christians because as such they have no civil Rights to lose And for this reason whereas he concludes that because Excommunication was taken up into the Christian Church in imitation of the Jewish Discipline that therefore it was the same if he had consider'd things instead of words he would have been so far from making his own Conclusion that he would have concluded that if one were civil the other was not So that when our Saviour established the Customs of his Country in his Church it is manifest from the nature of his Church which was a spiritual Kingdom that he never intended it should be exercised in any other matters than what were peculiar to his Religion or if he did that he lost his Intention And therefore it seems no better than meer obstinacy in our Author to insist upon it so importunately that Excommunication in the Christian Church must be the same with the Jewish because borrowed from it when for that reason alone it must be different because so were the Societies to which they related And he might as well have argued that the Christian Baptism was the same with that of the Jews because it is the form of Proselytism in both whereas by one men become Jews by the other Christians And of the same nature is Excommunication for as by that we are admitted into the Church so by this are we cast out of it And whereas our Author will have it to have been the same thing both among Jews and Christians because it is expressed by the same Phrases it is as absurd as if he should go about to prove that no man can be banisht out of England because he may be banisht out of France for though banishment out of both Kingdoms be the same punishment yet were their banishments out of different Kingdoms so by Excommunication among the Jews passing Mr. Seldens account of it were men cast out of the Common-wealth and all the Rights of it and among the Christians out of the Church and all the benefits belonging to it And therefore unless he could prove that there is no difference between the Christian Church and Jewish Common wealth it is in vain for him to insist thus weakly upon the fignification of words for that is determined by the nature of things and therefore where they are different there is no avoiding it but that the words by which they are expressed must signifie different things But this being premised our Author divides his Discourse into two parts First to enquire what was the use of Excommunication in the Apostolical Age Secondly upon what right it was founded as for the first he alledges several Texts of Scripture as Gal. 1. 8. Though we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be Anathema 1 Cor. 16. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran Atha But to what purpose this is past my Comprehension For the only design of the Argument is to prove that the Apostolical Excommunication was meerly Jewish as he had before proved that the Jewish was meerly civil Now can any man imagine that such dreadful Curses as these should signifie no more than a separation from Neighbours Commerce especially when it is evident that St. Paul strain'd for the highest expressions of misery and therefore to heighten his sense he supposes an impossible thing that an Angel from Heaven should teach a
false Religion which says he if he should let him be Anathema i. e. says our Authour keep him not Company a dreadful punishment to an Angel As for the second Text it is so high a Curse that all Authors are at a loss for its meaning though among all the Conjectures about the signification of Maranatha I think none more probable than that of Grotius Eâ voce oratur Deus ut quamprimum talem maleficum seductorem tollat ex hominum numero It was a casting out of the Church attended with a prayer to Almighty God to take the Offender out of the World which was rarely done and only in such cases as is here supposed when men were not only wicked but powerful Agents and Instruments of Wickedness as in the case of Julian whom the Christian Church did not only Excommunicate for his Apostasie but because beside that he set himself to destroy Christianity they prayed to God that for its preservation he would speedily remove him out of the World But whatever it signified it was something more than a meer Restraint of familiar Conversation or it was nothing at all For what punishment could it be to any man who disown'd Christianity to be deprived of the Conversation of Christians in an heathen City where the Religion was a Novelty and when their Company was so far from being desirable that it could only expose a man to contempt and scorn But however granting this slender Interpretation of these Texts what can be more absurd than that the Apostle only by vertue of a Jewish Power should Excommunicate all that opposed our Saviours Religion both when he had no such Power and when the Jews were the main enemies that opposed it And yet that is the only thing that our Author undertakes in this Chapter That there was then no Excommunication in the Christian Church but by vertue of the Jewish Authority The last instance of Apostolical Practice is St. Pauls proceeding against the incestuous Corinthian which one would think is as clear a Precedent of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as could have been left upon Record And yet this must be rejected as a miraculous and extraordinary case and is not to be understood for the power of Excommunication but for the then Apostolical power of inflicting Diseases though nothing can be expressed in plainer words than St. Pauls commanding the Corinthians to put such an one from among them for what else can that signifie than to expel him their Society And what if any miraculous Effect followed it that was not the punishment which the Apostle injoyn'd the Corinthians to inflict upon the Offender for they were not as is agreed on all hands endued with any such Power But all that he required of them was to cast him out of their Church and therefore in his second Epistle upon the offending parties Repentance he counsels them to restore him 2 Cor. 2. And that whatever delivering to Satan may otherwise import was all the Jurisdiction they exercised as gather'd together in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles Spirit and if any extraordinary inflictions ensued upon this sentence that was only a Divine Ratification of the Churches decree But when upon this occasion the Apostle enjoyns the Corinthians not to accompany no not so much as to eat with scandalous Offenders that says our Author signifies no more than Davids saying Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked And I have not sat with vain persons neither will I go with dissemblers this brought no alteration upon the state of Offenders but only signifies the Resolution of particular men as to their Conversation It is very true that a mans Resolution is his Resolution but then a Command too is a Command And that whatever Davids case was is the case here where St. Paul commands them in the name of the Lord Jesus and by his Apostolical Authority to expel all wicked pretenders to Christianity out of their Society And that it is plain was a manifest change of their state in the Christian Church or the same thing with Excommunication But this for the Usage as for the Right our Author will allow none but what was purely Judaical or Imperial and this he proves very largely both because at first all Christians were Jews and none else were admitted into the Church but Jewish Proselytes so that notwithstanding their Christianity they continued the same national Interest and exercised the same acts of Government of which Excommunication being one it was common both to the Believing and Unbelieving Jews That is his evidence of the Jewish Title to Excommunication his proof of the Imperial is this That the Emperors in their Edicts by which they granted or abated their Priviledges understood both Jews and Christians and therefore by vertue of their grants the Christians as well as Jews enjoyed their old power of Excommunication But to what purpose all this I must confess I cannot divine For it is true that the Christians and Jews then kept up the same National Interest but what is that to Excommunication in the Christian Church which was both distinct from that of the Jews and concern'd no civil Rights And that is our only enquiry what that Excommunication was that was peculiar to Christianity For when the Christians continued among the Jews as to their civil Society the question is that seeing notwithstanding that they exercised this power among themselves as Christians whether that must not be distinct from the same Act as exercised among them as Jews For as our Author informs us they were Jews to all intents and purposes Nisi exceptis rebus illis quibus à Judaeis non credentibus necessariò atque è disciplinâ Christianâ singulari divinitus praescriptâ discriminarentur that is to say they were Jews to all intents and purposes but of Christianity Upon such preposterous absurdities are men forced when they will right or wrong maintain their own Prejudices We are at great pains to prove that the Christians had no discipline by Divine Right and that what they had they had in common with the Jews and now after all we except only that which was peculiar to the Christians and that too instituted by Divine Right And thus I find that our Author is forced every where upon this Argument to contradict his Assertion in a Parenthesis Thus Chap. 13. p. 494. Quidnam ibi quo minus tum regimen circa tam sacra Christiana quà m prophana publicum tum ipsa excommunicatio ut ante causis tantum aliquot novis pro persuasionis discrimine introductis utpote inter mores Judaicos illibata undiquaque ab illis exerceri nec aliter debuisset Our whole design is to prove that there was no Excommunication among the primitive Christians but that of the Jews nor none among the Jews but what was purely civil and now at last we except in a Parenthesis as it were by the by
all cases that came in upon the account of their new Persuasion that is to say all cases that concern the Christian Church So p. 207. Et qui annis proximius sequentibus è Gentilibus sine Judaismi Proselytismi Christi disciplinam amplexati sunt Judaeorum nihilominus nomine ita simul cum reliquis Judaeis paritâ—r veniebant eorumque diu juribus aliis non paucis ita utebantur ut non videatur omnino dubitandum quin inter jura illa etâ—am hoc de excommunicatione Judaica quantum ad species ejus seu gradus nam quantum ad causas necessum erat ut alitâ—r se res haberet quod nemo non videt pariter à cunctis ut ante pro re nata adhiberetur But if the causes for which Excommunication was inflicted in the Christian Church were as the Parenthesis informs us of a different nature from those for which it was inflicted among the Jews then without any farther dispute it is evident that the exercise of the Christian Excommunication was distinct from that of the Jews So lastly to mention no more p. 225. Nec disciplina illa apud eos alia quam Judaismus vere reformatus sen cum fide in Messiam seu Christum rite conjunctus Unde Judaei omnimodi quantum ad hanc rem in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credentes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non credentes tribui solebant We are here proving that there was no discipline in the Christian Church but what was in the Jewish state before Christianity but now it is the discipline of reform'd Judaism i. e. of Christianity But passing by these humble concessions or rather contradictions it is enough to our purpose that though all Christians were Jews all Jews were not Christians so that though the Christians enjoyed the same Rights in common with the Jews yet they must have some Rights peculiar to themselves as Christians Non aliter as our Author expresses it atque is qui Civis Romani aliusve Reipublicae seu sodalitii aliâ—ujus socius jura pristina retinet utcunque in persuasionem aliquam inter suos singularem pro libitu transeat In the same manner as a Citizen of Rome retains his former Rights notwithstanding he enters himself into any new Society to which ought to be added that the rights of the Society into which he enters himself are distinct from those wherewith he was antecedently vested as a Citizen of Rome And therefore all this long discourse is quite beside the purpose that because the Christians enjoyed the same priviledges with Jews that therefore they enjoyed none as Christians which is to say that there are no Christian Priviledges And so is that of the Edicts of the Roman Emperors who it seems knew nothing of the difference between Christians and Jews What then was there none because the enemies or strangers to the Church were unacquainted with its peculiar Constitutions And yet here too our Author is quite beside the purpose not only in matter of Right but in matter of Fact as to the Authorities he alledges the first and chiefest whereof is the Edict of the Emperour Claudius for the banishment of all Jews from Rome by vertue whereof says he Aquila who was a Christian was banisht too and very good reason because he that was a Christian was a Jew too and if he was banisht as a Jew it is no matter whether he were a Christian or not when the Edict was made against the whole nation of the Jews His other instance is out of Celsus who objects it both against the Christians and Jews that all that great difference they made about their Messias was about a very trifle But does Mr. Selden think that Celsus his Authority is sufficient to prove it so If he does then I must confess that Celsus and himself seem to have been much of the same opinion for he frequently tells us that the Christians and Jews were the same men only that those were believers these unbelievers as if the difference were as inconsiderable as Celsus made the coming of the Messias But if his Authority be not sufficient as I suppose no good Christian will grant it is especially in this case then it 's here alledged apparently to no purpose And whereas he adds that Origen answers that the Jews who believe in Jesus do not withstanding live according to the Laws of their Nation he ought to have added too that they live according to the Laws of their Messias For it was that great and sacred Law of the Gospel that made a vast difference between a Jew and a Christian which was so great that it was not greater between a Jew and a Gentile But however if there were any difference at all it spoils all our Authors discourse that proceeds upon this only principle that there was none which is so absurd that it has all along forced him upon the forementioned cowardly contradiction viz. That there was none but what was made by Christianity But suppose that the Christians exercised a Jurisdiction among themselves by vertue of the imperial Edicts to the Jews as he tells us what if they had never been authorised by any such Edicts would they have had no Authority to censure or Excommunicate scandalous Offenders Did St. Paul proceed against the incestuous Corinthian by the grant of Claudius to the Jews to govern themselves by their own Laws and Customs If he did not then he acted by vertue of some other Authority if he did then when any of the following Emperours reverst this Edict the Authority of St. Paul in this matter had ceased What then became of the Church when Nero presently after forbad the exercise of Christianity or any part of it in the Roman Empire was not then Excommunication in the Christian Church an unlawful thing No says our Author because this Decree was made against the Christian Church in particular and therefore did not deprive them of those priviledges that belonged to them in common with the Jews But however upon this principle it is manifest that it debarred them of this Power as peculiar to the Christian Church and then whatever Jurisdiction they exercised as Jews they had no right of exercising any Discipline in the name of the Lord Jesus as St. Paul commands the Corinthians And then all the Ecclesiastical Discipline that was executed in the times of their several Persecutions was open Rebellion against the State But beside what if he had been pleased to reverse all priviledges granted to the Jews then the power of Ecclesiastical Discipline must have ceased among Christians And lastly when he adds for his last reserve for keeping up a Discipline in the Church contrary to the commands of the civil Power the confederacy of the primitive Christians who obliged themselves by mutual compacts and covenants to submit to the Discipline of the Church he should have consider'd that all such confederations were upon his principles nothing less than conspiracies
arises from meer consent or voluntary confederacy for beside as I have shewn that all such Confederacies are upon his principles downright Rebellion it is manifest that if our Saviour appointed Officers over his Church and vested them with a power of Government that then he has brought all the members of it under an Obligation to submit to their Authority antecedent to their own consents But though we had no such clear evidence of this Divine Institution yet I am sure we have not the least footsteps in Antiquity of this confederate Discipline He tells us indeed of Compacts and Covenants that the Primitive Christians are said to have made among themselves but he could have told us too that these Compacts were nothing else but the celebration of the Eucharist at which they were wont as all devout men do to renew their vows and resolutions of Obedience to the Laws of their Religion And this Confederacy we all know is founded upon a Divine Institution and not only this but all other Assemblies for the publick Worship of God To which all Christians are bound by an Obligation higher than meerly their own consent and such a Confederation we grant the Church still to be a company of men Covenanting among themselves to worship God according to the Ordinances and obey him according to the Laws of the Gospel But then they are bound by the Command of God both to take this Covenant and to keep it And this is all the confederacy I know of unless we must believe Celsus his Calumnies for he too is quoted upon this occasion in the Primitive Church so that whereas our Author every where compares the confederate discipline of the Christians with that of the Jews in their dispersions it is manifest that the Jews had no other engagement beside their own mutual consent whereas the Christians were particularly obliged to enter into their Confederacy by God himself and this difference is so manifest that I shall say no more of it And now having thus firmly establisht the Churches Power upon Divine Right that supersedes all farther enquiry into the practice of after-Ages For in matters that are determined by Law all Presidents are either nothing to the purpose or to no purpose if they are against the Command they are nothing to the purpose being only so many Violations of the Law If they are for it they are to no purpose because they derive all their goodness and authority from the Law it self and therefore can give it none Thus if the power of Excommunication be founded upon the Command of God the contrary practice of all the Princes in Christendom is of no weight against the Word of God if it be not the practice of all the Churches in the World can never establish a Divine Command So that the controversie concerning matters of fact from the Reign of Constantine to our own Times the matter of Law being already clear'd from our Saviour's Time carries in it more of Ostentation than Usefulness But because our Author has been pleased to prosecute it so largely and with so much learning and confidence we are obliged to follow him especially when it is so notorious even from his own relations that the whole practice of Christendom unless perhaps in some enormities of the worst and most barbarous Times runs directly cross to his design First then he presents us with many Instances out of the Imperial Law whereby the Emperors exercised this Authority themselves but to all this himself immediately gives a sufficient Answer without making any Reply viz. That such Excommunications were meerly declaratory whereby they only declared their detestation of such Persons or Doctrines or rather declared their assent to the Sentence already denounced by the Church for I do not find that they ever made any new Ecclesiastical Laws of their own but only adopted the Canons of Councils into the Laws of the Empire and added to the Anathema's of the Church what civil Penalties they deem'd most sutable to the Offence The Theodosian Code is an excellent collection of the Constitutions of sixteen Emperours ab Anno Dom. 312. or the first Year of Constantines Conversion ad Annum 438. when it was compiled by the command of Theodosius junior in all which I think I may safely challenge any man to assign one Law relating to Religion that was not antecedently determin'd by some Council Almost all the Laws of this nature are contain'd in the 16th Book under their several Titles De fide de haereticis de apostatis c. in all which whoever will be pleased to peruse them he will find that the several Emperors enacted nothing but meerly in pursuance of Ecclesiastical Canons adding for the most part to Excommunication in the Church the punishment of Outlawry in the State Thus for example Theodosius the Great in that famous Ecclesiastical Edict published by him in the second year of his Reign and the first of his Baptism and therefore stiled by the Interpreters of the Justinian Code filiam primogenitam only established the Nicene Faith Ut secundum Apostolicam disciplinam evangelicamque doctrinam Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti unam deitatem sub parili Majestate sub piâ Trinitate credamus And when the Year after he published another Edict to the same purpose he vouches his Law by the Authority of the Nicene Council as may be seen Tit. 5. de Haereticis Leg. 6. So that his design was not to make any new Law but only to abet an ancient Law of the Church with a civil Penalty as he concludes his Edict that Offenders against it should not only be obnoxious to the Divine Veneance denounced by the Council but should also be punished at the Emperors pleasure for that I suppose to be the meaning of Motûs nostri ultione plectendos But the most express Ratification of the Canons of the Church is that Edict of Theodosius the Younger to the Governour of the Eastern Illyricum Anno Domini 421. Omni innovatione cessante vetustatem Canones pristinos Ecclesiasticos qui nunc usque tenuerunt per omnes Illyrici Provincias servari praecipimus Tum si quid dubietatis emerserit id oporteat non absque scientiâ viri reverendissimi sacrosanctae legis Antistitis urbis Constantinopolitanae quae Romae veteris praerogativâ laetatur conventui sacerdotali sanctoque judicio reservari 'T is not material whether this Law refer to the Canons of the General Councils or to the particular Canons of that Province which is a Dispute among learned men For be it this or that it is manifest that the Emperor design'd to follow the Decrees of the Church and to refer Ecclesiastical Controversies to its own judgment and determination Having intimated this account of the Theodosian Code I need add nothing of the Justinian because it only repeats all the Laws of the former that were not obsolete as may be seen not only by comparing the Books themselves but
no more whereas the witty and learned Cardinal Perron run upon the same mistake and it is a mistake that they all wilfully run upon King James in his Reply le ts him know that though Christian Kings and Emperours never arrogated to themselves a power of being Sovereign Judges in matters and controversies of Faith yet for moderation of Synods for determinations and orders establisht in Councils and for discipline of the Church they have made a good and full use of their Imperial Authority And that for this very good reason that very much concerns all Princes that they might see and judg whether any thing were done to the prejudice of their Power or the disturbance of the Commonwealth And much more to the same purpose And therefore for further satisfaction I shall refer the Reader to the excellent Discourse it self It is enough that I have given a plain and easie account of the distinct powers of Church and State and shewn that whoever denies the distinction disowns Christianity that our Saviour has vested his Church with a Power peculiar to it self that the Church has in all Ages exercised it that the Christian Emperours never denied it and lastly that the Church of England and the Reformed Princes thereof have remarkably own'd it But Thirdly Constantine and his Successors took upon them the Title of Pontifex Maximus to which according to the Constitution of the Roman Empire appertain'd the supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdâ—ction By virtue of which Authority they granted to the Church among other Priviledges this power of Excommunication in the same manner as Claudius and other Heathen Emperours gave leave both to Jews and Christians to govern themselves by their own Laws and Customs And though the Emperour Gratian refused to wear the Pontifical Habit as a piece of Pagan Superstition yet it no where appears that he refused the Dignity it self And this Discourse our Author prosecutes with much Zeal and Learning But what do these men make of the Christian Church or rather of Christ himself that he should make no other provision for its Government than to leave it wholly to the superintendency of Heathen Priests This is such a wild conceit in it self that I must confess I could never have imagin'd any learned man could ever have made use of it against the Constitution of the Christian Church And yet this learned Gentleman is not only serious but vehement and confident in it he urges it over and over and though he repeats every thing that he says so that indeed one half of his Discourse is nothing but a Repetition of the other yet here he doubles his Repetitions and every where lays this Principle as the foundation of the practice of all After times But can any man believe that Constantine the Great took upon him the power of Government in the Christian Church if he really believed in Christ himself by virtue of a Power derived from the Usurpation of Julius Caesar Or that he could imagine that the Heathenish Priestly Power belong'd to him after his owning Christianity when by that the whole frame of the old Roman Religion was declared to be Idolatrous so that the Roman High Priest was nothing better than the supreme Head of Idolatry An Honour certainly which no Christian Emperour would be very fond of astuming to himself Julian indeed challenged both the Title and the Dignity as the greatest Ornament of his Imperial Crown but the Reason was because he was so vainly fond of the Pagan Religon But how any man of common sense that had renounced Paganism should yet own himself High Priest by virtue of that Religion that he had renounced seems too great a Contradiction for any man of common sense to believe But what if they accepted of the Title as our Author very well knows they did of Divinity it self or rather what if it were customarily given to them by others For I met with no other Monuments of it but some old Complemental Inscriptions so that it being a customary Title of Honour it might easily for a time pass in the crowd of the other Imperial Titles For it seems it continued not long being rejected by Gratian who lived about fifty Years after the Conversion of Constantine And though our learned Author affirms that the pious Emperour only refused the Vestment but not the Dignity it is very obvious to any man of much less understanding than himself that the Emperour could have no reason to refuse one but for the sake of the other for the Case is plain that there was no superstition in the Vestment but only upon the account of the Office and for that reason there was little if any use of the Title afterwards But lastly the Power of Judicature was first granted to the Bishops by the favour of the Christian Emperours and especially by an Edict of Constantine the Great whereby he grants the Bishops a full Power of hearing and determining all causes Civil as well as Ecclesiastical and withal declares their Decrees to be more firm and binding than the sentence of any other Judicature and from this great indulgence of the Emperour it is not to be doubted but that among other forensique penalties they made use of Excommunication Of the inference I shall give an account by and by but as for the Edict it self if it could do any service to our Authors design it at last proves supposititious as is fully proved by Gothofred in his excellent Edition of the Theodosian Code his reasons are too many to be here recited I will give but one for all viz. That this Law is contrary to all the Laws of the Roman Empire for though several Emperours do in their several Novels give the Bishops Power to decide causes by way of Arbitration or the consent of both parties which Power they enlarged or contracted as they pleased and to this all the other precedents produced by our Author relate yet that one party should have liberty of appeal from the civil Court at any time before judgment given without the consent of his Adversary is such a wild and extravagant priviledg as is inconsistent with all the rules of the Imperial Law And yet that is the only design of that Edict Quicunque itaque litem habens sive possessor sive petitor erit inter initia litis vel decursis temporum curriculis sive cum negotium peroratur sive cum jam coeperit promi sententia judicium eligit sacro-sanctae legis Antistitis ilico sine aliqua dubitatione etiamsi alia pars refragatur ad Episcopum cum sermone litigantium dirigatur Which I say is such an absurd liberty as would utterly destroy all the Power of the civil Magistrate if the humour or perversness of any man could so easily baulk their sentence But beside the absurdity of the Law it self there is no such Edict extant in the Justinian Code nor any mention of it in any ancient Writers of Ecclesiastical History For as for
succession of Persons in any Bishoprick has not been preserved with that care and diligence that it ought or might have been to conclude that therefore there was no certainty of the Episcopal form of Government is the same thing as to conclude that there never was any ancient Monarchy in the world because in all their Histories there are some flaws or defects or disagreements as to the names of Persons in the succession But we think it enough that where we find an established Monarchy though we meet with some intervals of History in which the Princes names that then reigned are uncertain or forgotten and meet with no Records that the Government was at that time changed into a Common-wealth to conclude that the Monarchy was all along preserved And that is the case of Episcopal Government in the Church in that in all times and places where and when Records have been preserved we find the same Form practised and therefore ought to conclude that the same was observed in those short intervals of time if we suppose there were any such in which they were lost Though I do not find that the Register of particular Persons is so defective as is pretended but that in most Churches their very names are accurately enough recorded Thus first for the Church of Jerusalem in which we find a succession of fifteen Bishops before its destruction attested by the best and most ancient Writers of the validity of whose Testimony we have no reason to doubt For it is no Objection that so many Bishops should be crouded into so narrow a Room that many of them could not have had above two years time to rule in the Church When almost all that time the Jews were in Rebellion against the Romans continually provoking them by their Insurrections to the utmost severity both against Jews and Christians for as yet the Romans understood no difference nor were they broken into any open division among themselves all these Bishops being as formally circumcised as any of the most zealous Retainers to the Jewish Religion So that it is no more wonder that so many Bishops should succeed in so short a time than that such an incredible number of Jews should perish by the Sword But secondly It is less material to enquire as Scaliger does where the Seat of the Bishops of Jerusalem was from the time of the destruction of the City by Titus till the time of Adrian For what if he had no Palace was he no Bishop Or what if we cannot tell where he assembled his Flock was there no Church Perhaps it was in a Cockloft at Pella but because we cannot tell where it was was it no where And therefore to return the Quere Was there then a Church of Jerusalem If there was whether Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent or all together I would fain know where it was and if you cannot tell me conclude as you do that there was no Church at all And so he has answered his own little Objection himself that the Church follows the Bishop and is not confined to stone Walls and therefore that the Church of Jerusalem was then at Pella though there was no such place as Jerusalem as at this day the Patriarchal Seat of Antioch is at Meredin in Mesopotamia and that of Alexandria at Grand Cairo As for the succession at Antioch I find not the least ground to doubt of its truth for I think it no objection that though it be clear it is not certain whether they succeeded St. Peter or St. Paul for be it either or both or neither it is all one so it be any that is enough that there was a succession though we did not know the particular Founder of the Church in whom it began and whoever of the Apostles it was whether one or more they had Apostolical Authority over it and whoever succeeded them succeeded in the same form of Government As for the Church of Rome all the difficulty is about the succession of Linus and Clemens being both reckoned in the first place but the conjecture is very probable that Clemens succeeded St. Peter in the Church of the Jews as Linus did St. Paul in the Church of the Gentiles and that surviving both Linus and Cletus that succeeded him till the union of the two Churches he governed both For whatever ground there is for the conjecture that there were separate Churches of Christian Jews and Gentiles in other Cities there is a very probable foundation for it at Rome in the Apostolical History Acts xxviii where St. Paul expresly declares to the Jews that from thenceforth he would preach only to the Gentiles and so in all probability gathered a distinct Church of them by themselves And therefore it is observable that in that famous passage of Irenaeus in which he derives the succession of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter and Paul down to Eleutherius his Cotemporary that he speaks not of the Church of Rome in the single number but Ecclesiae Petro Paulo Romae fundatae canstitutae as if they had been several Churches And to this purpose it is a pretty observation of Mr. Thorndike that St. Pauls being buried in the Way to Ostia and St. Peters in the Vatican as we understand by Caius in Eusebius seems to point them out Heads the one of the Jewish Christians the other of the Gentiles in that the Vatican was then the Jury of Rome and notorious for the Residence of Jews But though these first Records could not be fully made out we have no reason to doubt of the History but rather to suspect some mistake in after-times or the omission of some circumstance that might if it had been recorded have removed the difficulty For it is very hard that when Irenaeus to mention no more gives us a Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter down to the time when himself was at Rome and who lived not at a greater distance from St. Peter than we do from the first Archbishop in Queen Elizabeths Reign that we should suspect the whole truth of his Relation because we cannot give an account of all the particular circumstances of the Succession This I say is too hard dealing with any ancient Records though the conclusion is much harder that because we have no certainty of all the Persons that succeeded in Church-Government and of the particular manner of their Succession that therefore we have no certainty of the particular Form of it notwithstanding we have no Record of any form but one As for the Church of Alexandria there the Succession is acknowledged to be clearest as indeed it is unquestionable only it is imputed to the choice of Presbyters but of that in its proper place the evidence of personal Succession is enough and all that is pertinent to our present debate And the succession of Ephesus might have been as unquestionable but that one Leontius pleads at the Council of Calcedon that all
Kingdom that he has the only Power of ordaining Priests and interpreting Scripture That Moses and Constantine by vertue of their Kingly Power made the Scriptures Canonical and all the rest which is no more than to say That there can be no Law of God because there can be no Law beside the Law of man And therefore it is needless to pursue them singly only I cannot but observe that when he makes teaching any Doctrin against the Will of the Sovereign Prince to be a certain sign of a false Prophet he has obtain'd his design of insinuating that both Moses and our Saviour were manifest Impostors in that they both proceeded contrary to the Commands of the present Powers and that is the true Account of Mr. Hobbs his Religion That though they were indeed Impostors and Rebels to the State yet having had the Fortune to gain Authority in the World and being own'd by the Laws of Christendom they ought to be acknowledged by all men as Divine Persons as they pretended to be And as his honourable notion of mankind was that notwithstanding all their pretences to Justice and Honesty they were only a pack of dissembling Knaves so his notion of a Christian Church is nothing else than an association of Atheistical Hypocrites professing Christianity but not believing it He had better have said that there is no Church at all And so when he tells us that it is lawful for a good Christian to deny his Christian Faith when his Sovereign commands him he had better have expresly said that there is no such thing as a good Christian at all For the Reason he gives that profession with the Tongue is but an outward thing and no more than any other Gesture whereby we signifie our Obedience which may be honestly done so we hold firmly in the heart the Faith of Christ this Liberty if once allowed would authorize all the Villany in the world for Perjury it self is but an external thing and will by this means become lawful so a man believe in his heart the contrary to what he says with his mouth But when to this he adds that indeed such Persons as have a calling to Preach are obliged if called to it to suffer Martyrdom for their Religion but none other no more being required of private Christians but their own Faith He little considers that by this new kind of priviledge that he out of his great kindness grants the Clergy he has contradicted his whole design For if they may lawfully persist to death in Preaching the Gospel contrary to the Commands of the civil Sovereign then the case is plain that all Subjects are not bound to profess that Religion which the Sovereign enjoyns which once granted the whole cause of Leviathan is overthrown And as by this particular kindness to the Clergy he has run himself upon a flat Contradiction to his whole Design so has he renounced his Argument against Martyrdom For when he proves that a Christian may deny his Faith because profession is but an outward Ceremony it is no more in a Clergy-man and therefore as lawful and innocent in him as in any other However they are very much obliged to him for this singular kindness and civility to them especially at that time when they enjoyed this his priviledg so highly as they did at the time of publishing his Book All the Orthodox Clergy being then treated with a more barbarous cruelty than the ancient Christians were by any of the Heathen Persecutors great numbers of them being then stinking to death in the holes and bottoms of rotten Ships And therefore when the Clergy were in that woful Condition for him so impertinently to suggest as he does immediately after That no man is required to die for every Tenet that serves their Ambition or Profit to speak very gently this was not done like a Gentleman And Mr. Hobbs could not have taken a more unseasonable time to revile the Clergy than he did For whilst they were in Prosperity indowed with good Revenues and entrusted with great Power if he had fall'n upon them then Envy might have been some ground for his Malice But at that time when they were trampled upon by the very Scum of the People ruin'd and undone he could have no other Temptation to do it but meer Hatred and Malice to the Function it self But however though it be a foolish thing for any man to die for the Ambition or Profit of the Clergy yet it was a truly noble thing both of the Clergy and others to sacrifise their Lives and Fortunes in the Cause of their lawful Prince against Rebels and Traytors And it will be an eternal blemish upon Mr. Hobbs's Name and Memory that when beside the general duty of Loyalty he had received many particular Favours and Obligations from his Prince he should not only desert him himself but should publish this Book on purpose to persuade the whole Nation that it was so far from being any way bound to adhere to their lawful Prince that they were brought under an Obligation of Allegiance and Loyalty to the then brutish Usurper whom he flattered to so high a degree of Tyranny as to advise him to require of all men not only a Submission to his brutal Power but an Approbation of all his wicked Actions a thing so infinitely vile and dishonourable that it exceeded the wickedness of the Tyrant himself Now men of these irreligious Principles are so far from being fit Members of a Christian Church that they are not worthy to live in any humane Society in that they blow up the foundations of all Government as well as Religion For Loyalty or a sense of duty to lawful Governours is founded upon no other Principle than the Obligation of Conscience towards God So that those men that set Subjects loose from that turn them loose to Rebellion And therefore though the notion of a Deity be nothing else than an empty Doublet an Hat and a crooked Stick set up by Princes to scare fools to Obedience it concerns them to keep those men out of their Fields who go about to destroy the Reverence of their Scare-crow However these men are not to be admitted to any Disputes about Church-government who will not allow any such thing as a Church when the Dispute proceeds only upon that Supposition And therefore I shall leave them to enjoy the vanity of their own Conceits and proceed to the second Adversary who grants a Church founded by Divine Right but no right of Government within it self And as in the former we have seen the power of Ignorance joyn'd with Pride and Vanity so here may we see the Impotency of Learning joyn'd with Prejudice and Passion For this learned Gentleman has spared for no pains in this Argument he has ransackt all Authors and all Languages to serve his Cause he set aside many years for composing his Work and indeed seems to have made it the main design of his Life And
under him and gives the Keys of his Kingdom into their hands what can that possibly signifie but their Power of Government in and over the Society especially when it was so familiar a thing in Scripture to express power by Keys and our Author himself has observed it and proved it by a multitude of Instances But then says he this Power of opening and shutting the Kingdom of Heaven is exercised by preaching the Doctrine of the Gospel by administring the Sacraments by admitting fit Persons into it by Baptism and by not admitting such as are unfit and by retaining such as are already admitted That is to say our Author will allow the Governors of the Church all other Acts of Jurisdiction but only this one of Excommunication notwithstanding that it is evidently implyed in them all Thus if the Governours of the Church be entrusted with a Power of Judging what Persons are fit to be admitted then certainly if they perform not those conditions upon which alone they are admitted it must be in the Power of those who let them in to turn them out So plainly does the Power of Baptism infer that of Excommunication and the Power of judging who are fit members of the Church infer both So that the Gentlemen of the Erastian persuasion would have been much more consistent with themselves when they would not give the Church all the Acts of Power if they would have given it none at all for they are inseparable And therefore the learned and pious Mr. Thorndike has very judiciously observed that the Leviathan has done like a Philosopher in making the question general that is general indeed though by so freely and generously declaring himself he has made his Resolution more subject to be contradicted But yet they that only dispute the Power of Excommunication as they are of the same opinion so are they pressed with greater difficulty only they express not so much of their meaning for they are nevertheless to give an account what Right the secular Power can have to appoint the Persons that shall either determine or execute matters of Religion to decide controversies of Faith to administer the Sacraments than if they resolved and maintain'd all this as expresly as the Leviathan hath done And in the same manner does the following Text explain it self If he hear not the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican if we will observe upon what subject our Saviour was then discoursing for though our Author to make the matter appear the more ambiguous has given us a large Critical account of the words that signifie Church in all Languages if instead of that he had only minded our Saviour's Discourse he must have seen that by the Church here could be understood nothing but the Christian Church this being one of the Laws whereby he would have the Subjects of his Kingdom to be govern'd But our Author tells us that the Notion of the Christian Church was not then understood it being a thing to come and it is not likely that our Saviour in a matter of familiar and daily use should direct them to such a means as no mortal man could possibly understand To which it is very easie to answer that all our Saviour's Discourses procede upon the supposition of the being of his Church He began at preaching the Kingdom of Heaven and all his Sermons and Instructions after that are but so many Laws and Institutions for its Government and therefore our Saviour's Words are so far from being doubtful or obscure that they were not capable of being applied to any other Society than that which he was now establishing in the World And whatsoever was the vulgar meaning of the word Ecclesia yet when used by our Saviour it can be applied to no other company of men but that of his Church and it was so far from being then a new word or a new notion to the Apostles that our Saviour had sometime before used the same Expression to St. Peter Upon this Rock I will build my Church which he promised him as a peculiar reward of his forward Faith Now it cannot be supposed that our Saviour would make his promises to his Friends and Servants in unintelligible Language and therefore it must be supposed that the Notion of the Christian Church was an intelligible thing But if this will not do our Author proceeds that this Text gives no jurisdiction to the Church but only directs private Christians how they shall behave themselves toward Offenders as if the Emperour should have made an Edict that if any Subject should not submit to the decree of his Prefect he should be accounted by his fellow Subjects as no member of the Common-wealth this gives the Prefect no new Power but only concerns the opinion of the People Very true but it supposes his old Power and so if our Saviour had antecedently vested his Church with this Power this was no new grant but only a supposition of a former one if he had not then this was their Patent when he refers his Subjects to their Judicature But whatever may be the Notion of the Church what is there says our Author in the following words Let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican that sounds like Excommunication either in the Jewish or Christian use of it Nothing at all in the Jewish for Heathens were never Excommunicate as having never been of the Society neither were Publicans put out of the Synagogue upon the account of their being Publicans But though Heathens were not Excommunicate Persons yet Excommunicate Persons were as Heathens and that is so plainly the meaning of the words that nothing but meer peevishness could have made the exception and it is the same as if our Saviour should have said of an Apostate let him be unto thee as an Infidel and our Author should have replied upon him How can that be When an Infidel is one that was never a Member of the Church and an Apostate once was And then as for the Publicans though they durst not at that time Excommunicate them for that reason for fear of the Romans yet it is notorious that they thought them worthy of it and that they were esteem'd as no better than scandalous Sinners Heathens and Idolaters But this supposed too it is no act says he of the Church but every private man who was hereby permitted to treat the Offender as a vile Person But this act of his supposes the power of Judicature in the Church for this advice relates to the known power of the Sanhedrin that were wont to Excommunicate refractory Offenders and thereby to put them into the state of Heathen Men And such it seems was to be the Authority of the Apostles who were the great Sanhedrin in the Christian Church as appears by the plain design of our Saviour's discourse when he refers all Christians to their Judicature and commands them that if any man be
obstinate against their Authority every man should look upon him as an Excommunicate Person and by the sentence of the Court reduced into the state of Idolaters But also by the words immediately following Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Which words plainly declare a Power of binding in the sentence of the Church and withall who the Church is viz. The Apostles or Governours of it to whom our Saviour addresses his speech and vests them and them alone with that Authority in which he had before enstated St. Peter and promises to ratifie not the opinion of the People but their acts of Judicature when the People appeal to their Authority But neither Secondly says our Author can these words relate to the Christian Excommunication for what punishment could there then be in being accounted of as an Heathen when a great number of the primitive Christians were Heathens or such as came into the Church without Circumcision What in our Saviours time did you not take a great deal of pains in the foregoing Chapter to prove not only that then but during all the time of the Apostles all Christians were Jews but now it will serve your turn the greatest part of them were Heathens But not to insist too much upon such weak pretences it is certain that in our Saviours time all that were not Jews by Circumcision were esteemed as Heathens i. e. Idolaters and vile Persons not fit to be admitted into their Church or Common-wealth and therefore it can be of no other Import in the Christian Church Our Saviour here accommodating as he does every where the known customs of the Synagogue to the Constitution of his Church so that considering the vulgar manner of speaking at that time I cannot understand if our Saviour had design'd to establish this Power in what other words he could have expressed himself with more plainness and less ambiguity even to the capacities of the People Of the Third Text Math. 18. 18. Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth c. Though it is answer'd already as appertaining to the second our Authors account is briefly this that the words of binding and loosing are either to be taken in their large sense of all manner of binding but then it seems very strange to express one act of it by such comprehensive words and it is like describing the Ocean by a drop of Water or the Universe by an Atom Or if they are taken in the peculiar sense of the Jewish Writers they then do not signifie any Jurisdiction but only declaring what is lawful what not or answering cases of Conscience To which I answer that in whatever sense the words are taken they will include in them the power of Excommunication In the larger sense they signifie Jurisdiction and all the parts branches and appendages of it and then the Power of inflicting penalties which as is well known and our Author has often observed gives force to all the rest is to be understood in the first place And therefore he might have spared his wonder that so large a word should be taken in so narrow a sense when that narrow sense necessarily infers all other things that it does or can signifie But however to prevent this vain objection for the time to come these words are not insisted upon as limited meerly to Excommunication but as a general donation of Power and therefore of this in particular which is so considerable a branch of it And that is it which we assert that seeing by the Power of the Keys the Scripture so often expresses greatness of Power therefore the Power that is exercised by vertue of them must carry with it the full force of obligation So that the words mutually explain each other for if by the Keys given in the Sixteenth verse is signified Authority then by binding and loosing by which the acts of them are expressed in the Eighteenth verse must be understood authoritative obligation for though the word binding simply put may not infer Authority yet binding by the Keys signifies the same thing as binding by Authority And this would have prevented our Authors other notion of which some learned men are so very fond of binding only by answering cases of Conscience because though binding alone may signifie only so much yet binding by the Keys must signifie more But it is notorious that the word it self no where in the old Testament signifies any other binding than by Legislative or judicial Obligation and whereas it is pretended that in the Talmudical Writers it signifies only an interpreting of Laws without jurisdiction it is so palpable a mistake that in them it can signifie nothing less than authoritative Obligation when it is so evident that their Rabbies equal'd their interpretations to the Law it self and bound them upon the Consciences of men by vertue of the Divine Authority and under penalty of the Divine displeasure But however if our Saviour constituted his Apostles to be only Doctors and Casuists yet he has annexed Authority to their Office by the promise made at their Instalment that whatever they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven for I am sure all binding there is Obligatory so that it seems if they are Casuists they are authoritative Casuists and that is the same thing as if they were endued with proper Jurisdiction And now having as I suppose sufficiently vindicated these Texts I cannot but remark it as some defect of Ingenuity in this learned Gentleman to have wholly omitted one Text more which he could not be ignorant to have been as commonly as any of the other insisted upon in this Argument and if he would have taken notice of it would have prevented his Evasions And that is St. John Chap. 20. v. 21 22 23. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you And when he had said this â—e breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Here our Saviour gives his Apostles the same Power that he had received from his Father and then for the discharge of it the same Ability wherewith himself acted and lastly declares to them wherein lay the Exercise of it and what were the Effects of it forgiving and retaining of Sins which answers to the power of Binding and Loosing in the other Gospel And this if attended to would have prevented that poor slender Notion that the power of Binding and Loosing signifies only the Office of Interpreting or declaring what is lawful what unlawful for to retain or remit Sins as the truly pious and learned Dr. Hammond observes will not be to declare one mans sins unlawful anothers lawful which it must do if this interpretation be applied to this place After all this it will be but superfluous industry to spend pains upon our Author's Conceit wherewith he concludes this Chapter viz. That the Authority of the Church
And therefore these Persons that relie so much on this distinction would have done very well to have considered with themselves wherein consists the Essence of Order when separated from Power which if they had done they would soon have discerned that they had only deceived themselves with an idle and an empty Word However it were worth their while to define what it was that was peculiar to the Apostolical Order beside the Supreme Government of the Church especially when as it is acknowledged by all Parties the Apostles enjoyed during their own lives the supreme Power in the Government of the Church and that the Parity of Presbyters arose not till after their Deaths they having appointed no Successors in their Apostolical Supremacy From whence what can be more apparent than that their Office could not possibly consist in any thing less than a superiority of Power over all the other Pastors of the Church And now when our Saviour himself has thus expresly Establish'd the Government of his Church in an imparity of Order and Power what farther Prescript would men have for the continuance of his own Establishment That alone is sufficient to prescribe to all Ages and Nations and if any man shall dare to remonstrate to its Obligation he must have confidence enough to presume that he is indued with more Wisdom or entrusted with more Authority than our Saviour himself For otherwise he cannot but think that he is obliged in Conscience and Modesty too rather to esteem this Model than any one of his own or any others Contrivance Yes but though it be proved that the Apostles had superiority of Order and Jurisdiction over the other Pastors of the Church by an Act of Christ yet it must further be proved that it was Christ's intention that Superiority should continue in their Successors or it makes nothing to the purpose For a bare Divine Command say they is not sufficient to make a Law immutable unless there be likewise expressed that it is the Will of God that it should always continue No no you are too nice and shie of your Obedience in this particular Case and may upon the same ground set your selves loose from all the Laws of the Gospel that are not enjoyn'd with an express declaration of their being Immutable and thereby you have quit your selves of the greatest part of your Christian Duty For we shall find but very few Precepts either of our Saviour or his Apostles tied with this double Knot and it seems without that they are not strong enough to tie any man to Obedience Neither do I see how upon this Principle we can avoid that frivolous Objection of the Socinians against the perpetual necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism viz. That seeing it was Instituted by our Saviour only to pass men from Judaism and Gentilism to Christianity it is therefore now of no necessity among Christians unless our Saviour had declared that it was his Will and Intention that it should always continue in his Church Especially when this Ceremony was taken up from the practice of the Synagogue where when any man had once renounced Heathenism and entred himself into the Jewish Church it was never after repeated in any of his Posterity but they were all by vertue of their Fore-fathers Baptism esteem'd as born in a state of Holiness and Regeneracy But however this general Principle is so far from Truth and Sobriety that it is a plain thrusting our own Presumptions upon the Will of God which being once declared it binds us for ever till himself is pleased to reverse it his meer Institution is its own perpetual Obligation and whatever he commands no Power can take it off but that which bound it on And therefore it is a vain scrupulosity if I may call so sceptical a pretence by that name to require of him not only to fasten his Laws by enacting them but as it were to clinch them too by declaring their perpetuity In all other Cases but this it is supposed that whatever he commands he commands for ever till he declares the contrary for though his Positive Laws be revocable in themselves yet being revocable only by God himself and his own Power since he hath already in his Word fully revealed his Will unless therein he hath declared when their Obligation shall cease they continue Irreversible It therefore being once granted that the Apostles had a superiority of Jurisdiction by an Act of Christ it plainly follows that without any farther declaration of its perpetuity their Power is irreversible Especially when the Rule whereby we are left to judg of the mind and intention of the Law-giver is the Reason of the Law viz. That the Reason continuing the Law should remain in force though I cannot see of what use this should be to those who will give leave to demand no other reasons of any Divine Positive Laws beside the Will of the Law-giver For if that be the only reason of the Law then it is in vain to pretend to judg of it by any other But yet however I shall close with them upon their own Principle and to save farther trouble I would only put them to assign what particular Ground and Reason there was of establishing a Superiority and Subordination of Church-Officers then that is ceased for all succeeding Ages of the Church and till they can give themselves and us some competent satisfaction in this desire them to acquiesce in our Saviour's Institution But alas this was never so much as attempted and is manifestly impossible to be perform'd for that man no doubt would make wise work of it that should undertake to give the World a satisfactory Account of the particular Grounds and Reasons that should make an inequality of Power in Ecclesiastical Officers necessary in our Saviour's Days and needless ever since But if this cannot be done as it is certain at first view that it never can then certainly the meer Institution of our Saviour in a matter of so great moment to the Church is sufficient of it self to pass a perpetual and indispensible Obligation upon all Ages of it And now upon these Grounds that I have already obtain'd from our Saviour's express Institution I need not dispute with our Adversaries for that is one of their little shifts whether the Missions of the Apostles and the Seventy were only Temporary For whether they were or were not it is from thence evident what Model of Government our Saviour framed for his Church and that is all that is needful to my purpose And therefore I will freely grant that our Saviour's design in Life-time seems to have been not so much to found Churches himself as to have prepared and instructed his Disciples how to do it after his departure So that he rather made a Specimen of the Constitution of his Church than erected any standing Fabrick of it For the Foundations of it were to be laid in the evidence of his Resurrection from the dead
Apostles themselves but as to their immediate Successors whom they employed in the settlement of Churches and to whom they committed the Apostolical Power for their Government and these too he proves were stil'd Apostles such as Titus Timothy Epaphroditus Clemens Linus Marcus so that not only the Apostles but the Evangelists as they call'd them were distinguish'd from the other Clergy and endued with a superiority of Power over their respective Churches and hereby we gain the authority of Apostolical Practice not only for themselves but for their Companions and Successors which does not only extend our Argument but joyns together the practice of the Primitive Times of which we have certain Records with that of the Apostles and so prevents all their fond Dreams of an unknown Interval immediately after the death of the Apostles for if these Apostolical men supplied their Places it will be very easie to find out who supplied theirs Neither thirdly need I trouble my self with any long dispute concerning the Obligation of Apostolical Practice for whether or no meer Apostolical Practice be obligatory by vertue of their Example is very little material to our Enquiry for some things are too trifling or too transient in their own Natures to deserve to pass into prescription but it is enough in this case that what the Apostles did was in pursuance of our Saviour's Institution and that in a matter of perpetual concernment to the Church and they who require to the Obligation of such an Apostolical Practice an express Law to declare their intention that it should bind for ever are guilty of the same phantastick niceness as they that require the same for the perpetuity of every Divine Law and therefore have been consider'd already And for that reason I shall add nothing more to what I have already said as to this particular than to grant that whatever the Apostles either commanded or practised upon some particular temporary and occasional Cases was not sufficient to found any universal and unchangeable Obligation because the reason of the Precept was apparently transient and the goodness of the action casual But otherwise if there were any Prescript or Practice of theirs though it were not founded upon any Divine Institution that did not relate to peculiar Occasions and Circumstances but are or may be of equal usefulness to all Places Times and Persons that is a certain and undoubted evidence of their constant and unabolishable Obligation And therefore here I shall only put them to their former task to assign what particular ground and reason there was of establishing a Superiority and Subordination of Church-Officers in the times of the Apostles that is ceased in all succeeding Ages of the Church and till they can discharge this Task advise them not to depart rashly from so sacred and venerable a Prescription But that which improves the Argument both from our Saviour's Institution and the Apostles Practice into a complete Demonstration is the practice of the Primitive Churches in the Ages next and immediately succeeding the Apostles For if the Government of the Church were by our Saviour founded upon Divine Institution in an inequality of Church-Officers and if the first Governours of it thought themselves obliged to keep close to its Original Platform and if their immediate Successors conceived themselves as much obliged to observe the same as imposed upon them by the Command of Christ and deliver'd to them by the Example and Tradition of his Apostles that certainly may serve for a very competent proof of its necessity and perpetuity Now then as for the power and preheminence of the Episcopal Order it is attested by the best Monuments and Records of the first and most remote Antiquity and we find such early instances and evidences of it that unless it descended from the Apostles times we can never give any account in the World whence it derived its Original And this brings us upon the main sanctuary of our Adversaries viz. The defectiveness of Antiquity in reference to the shewing what certain Form the Apostles observed in settling the Government of Churches and here they run into a large common place of the deep silence of antiquity and the defectiveness of the Records of the Church in the interval next and immediately succeeding the Apostles But here in the first place I must desire them to consider that if this Objection be of any force against the certainty of Apostolical Tradition in this particular it will utterly overthrow all the testimony of the Ancients as to all other matters of Faith and particularly as to the certain Canon and Divine Authority of the Scriptures for if they are not as is pretended competent Witnesses of the practice of the Apostles because of their distance from the time of the Apostles neither for the same reason are their reports to be relied upon with any confidence as to the certainty of any of their Writings It is not to be expected that I should here reprent how false this exception is de facto and how unreasonable de jure either against the Constitutions or the Authentick Epistles of the Apostles it is enough that they stand and fall together so that whoever opposes the Divine and Apostolical Form of Church Government as delivered to us by the Primitive Church does upon his own principles defeat and reject all the proofs of the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures in that those sceptical grounds and pretences he is forced to urge against one fall as dangerously on both And this may serve to prevent and invalidate the force of their Argument without answering it when if they should deal as rigorously in any other case as they are pleased to do in this the most certain and undoubted Records cannot escape the severity of their censure Though our comfort is that neither of them are liable to such wild and wanton Objections in that as I shall shew the Tradition of the Church was always constant and uninterrupted and that there was no such Chasm as is pretended between the times of the Apostles and the next Christian Writers For to say nothing here of the Canon of the Scriptures though the men of that Age left us no formal Histories and Catalogues of the succession of Bishops in all their several Sees wherewith some men unreasonable enough upbraid us when it is so manifest that it was at that time too young for that care in that as yet there was scarce any succession Yet were they no less than Apostolical men that vouched the Apostolical Order and Jurisdiction of Bishops and this one would think enough to satisfie any modest or ingenious man of their Institution from the beginning When it is asserted or rather supposed by the very first Writers of the Church that were capable of attesting it So that whoever can withstand their Evidence is proof against all Evidence of matter of Fact and may if he please laugh at all the Tales and Legends that are told concerning the
saying which is so triumphantly insisted on to blast the whole credit of Antiquity that it is difficult to find out who were the Successors of the Apostles in the Churches planted by them unless it be those mentioned in the Writings of St. Paul it is evident from his own words that the difficulty arises not from the deficiency but from the too great plenty of Successors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For he had a thousand Helpers or as he was wont to call them Fellow-Souldiers So that the reason why it is so difficult to assign whom he appointed to preside over the Churches that he converted is because he had such an innumerable company of followers that whom he set over what Churches it is not possible to define than as himself has happened to name particular Persons as Timothy Titus Crescens Clemens Epaphroditus c. which alone are a sufficient evidence of the Apostles care to settle Successors in the greater Churches However this passage can by no means be made use of to blast the credit of Antiquity as to the matter in debate because it concerns not the uncertainty of the form of Government but only of the Persons who succeeded in the Apostolical Form in some particular Churches And that alone is answer enough to the third defect as to Persons viz. That granting the Catalogues of the first Bishops to be defective that is no proof against the certainty of Episcopal Government unless at the same time that we cannot find the Bishop we could find some other form of Government Nay further those particulars that we have are a sufficient Testimony to the general Truth that we assert in that it is attested by all the Records that are remaining and that is enough to satisfie any reasonable or impartial man especially when in the greater and more known Churches we have as certain an account of the Succession as we have of the Bishops of England from the Reign of Henry the VIII to Charles the II. But that concerns the Argument of Personal Succession which though I have prevented I may consider in its proper place At present in order to the confuting of this Objection from the defect of Time I shall shew that we have as certain and uninterrupted a Tradition of the matter in hand as the most curious and diffident enquirer can demand for his full satisfaction And first What can be more ancient or is more evident than the Testimony of Clement of Rome in his famous Epistle to the Corinthians where exhorting them above all things to Peace and Unity which indeed was the main Argument in the first Writers of the Church one chief way that he propounds in order to it is that every man keep his Order and Station where beside the Laity he reckons up three distinct Orders of the Christian Clergy which he expresses by an allusion as was the custom of the Apostolical Writers to the Jewish Hierarchy viz. The Office of High Priest Priest and Levite The passage is very full and pregnant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The High Priest has his peculiar Office assign'd him and the Priest has his Station bounded and the Levites have their proper Ministries determined and the Lay-man is obliged to his Lay-Offices My Brethren let every one in his Place and Order worship God with a good Conscience not transgressing the settled Canon of his Duty according to the rule of Decency Where it is manifest that he describes the several Ministries of the Christian Church at that time by alluding to the Offices of the Mosaick Institution For why else should he conclude with this Exhortation And therefore my Brethren let every one of you keep his own Order unless this distinction of Officers concern'd the Corinthian Christians So that though it be expressed by alluding to the Ordinances of the old Jewish Institution yet it is a description of the present state of the Christian Church among those to whom he writes otherwise it were very impertinent to exhort them to keep those Stations if there were no such among them But the great Witness in this cause is that brave Martyr St. Ignatius Pupil to St. John and by him ordain'd Bishop of Antioch and chief Bishop of Asia who whilst he was in his way to his Martyrdom being sent from Antioch to Rome to be devoured by wild Beasts in his journey wrote several Epistles to several Churches in which he gives such a plain Account of the Constitution of the Hierarchy in his time by the Orders of Bishop Presbyter and Deacon as plainly demonstrates it to have been of Apostolical Antiquity And this is so evident that there is no way of avoiding the Testimony but by flatly denying it And therefore our Adversaries will upon no terms allow these Epistles to be genuine and take infinite pains to prove them if it be possible supposititious so that this is become the great point in this Controversie and has been eagerly disputed by many Learned men on both sides The two last that engaged in it are a learned Prelate of our own and the famous Monsier Daillé in whose Books the whole cause is not only contain'd but I am apt to think decided For though Daillé was a Person of more Judgment Temper and Learning than most of his Brethren yet they were strangely overborn by the strength of Prejudice and it is plain to any man that ever look'd into him that he was first resolved upon his Opinion and then right or wrong to make it good and because he was well aware that these Epistles alone were so clear and full a Testimony to the Apostolical Antiquity of the Episcopal Order that they plainly prevented all Attempts and Arguments against it he therefore set himself with all vehemence and made it the business of his Life to destroy their Credit and with infinite pains sifted all the Rubbish of Antiquity to find out every shred and atom of a Criticism that might any way be made use of to impair their Reputation Yet after all this Drudgery are his Exceptions so plainly disingenuous and unreasonable that they would fall as well upon any other ancient Record whatsoever not only that ever has been but that ever could have been though upon no other score than purely that of its Antiquity But this Cause hath breath'd its last in this man and this advantage we have gain'd by his zeal to maintain and his ability to manage it that it has put an utter end to this Controversie in that all his forces have been rebuked and overthrown with such an irresistible strength of Reason and Learning that for the time to come we may rest secure that never any man of common Sense or ordinary Learning or any Modesty will dare to appear in such an helpless and bafled Cause For the particulars I refer to the learned Authors themselves but as to the general Argument I shall give a brief and distinct account of it and then leave it