THE CASE OF THE Church of England Briefly and truly stated In the three first and fundamental PRINCIPLES Of a Christian Church I. The Obligation of Christianity by Divine Right II. The Jurisdiction of the Church by Divine Right III. The Institution of Episcopal Superiority by Divine Right By S. P. a Presbyter of the Church of England LONDON Printed for Henry Faithorne and John Kersey and sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner 1681. A Scheme of the general CONTENTS PART I. THree popular Principles destructive of the Church of England Page 1. The absurdity of Mr. Hobb's Principle that the Sovereign Power is the only founder of all Religion in every Commonwealth p. 7 Mr. Seldens account of the Jurisdiction of the Church to be meerly Civil p. 27 His account of Excommunication from Adam to Moses considered p. 37 The same from Moses to the Captivity and from the Captivity to the time of our Saviour p. 42 The same in our Saviours time and first as to its Usage p. 54 Secondly as to the Right which is proved to have been neither Judicial nor Imperial but purely Divine p. 62 Excommunication in the Christian Church proved to have been of Apostolical Antiquity p. 71 The Texts of Scripture upon which it is grounded carry in them true and proper Jurisdiction and appropriate its exercise to the Church p. 76 And that by Divine Institution not meer voluntary Confederacy p. 89 All Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction left entirely by the Christian Emperours to the Ecclesiastical State and that the Imperial Laws extant both in the Theodosian Code and Justinian are no new Laws but only the Canons of the Church ratified with temporal Penalties p. 91 PART II. AN account of the birth of the Opinion that there was no Form of Government setled in the Christian Church by Divine Institution Page 117 That our Saviour founded his Church in an imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers demonstrated this imparity proved to consist in a superiority of Power as well as Order and the Institution of it shewn to be of perpetual obligation p. 124 The Authority of the Apostolical Practice vindicated against divers exceptions The vanity and absurdity of the Objection from the ambiguity of the names Bishop and Presbyter The divine Obligation of Apostolical practice in this matter proved p. 135 The practice of the Primitive Church in the Ages next and immediately after the Apostles The pretence of the defect of the Records of the Church in the first Age falls as foul upon Christianity it self as the Form of Government p. 143 The Argument first from the defect as to places considered and confuted p. 148 Secondly front the defect as to Times and Persons p. 150 The constant Tradition of the Church proved first by the Testimony of St. Clement of Rome Secondly of Ignatius his Epistles demonstrated to be genuine p. 155 The same proved from the Apostolical Canons and the Canons proved to be of Primitive Antiquity p. 177 The Testimonies of the Ancients vindicated from the pretence of ambiguity and first in that they have not informed us whether the Succession were only of Order or of Power p. 183 Secondly In that it is not universal but whether it be or not it is sufficient in that there are no Records against it and the Records of all the chiefest Churches are clear for it p. 189 Thirdly In that this Succession is sometimes attributed to Presbyters this shewn to be apparently false and if it were true frivolous p. 203 That the ancient Church owned Episcopacy as of Divine Institution and not Ecclesiastical p. 213 St. Jeroms Authority throughly considered and turned upon himself so as to make this Objection out of him against it the strongest Argument to prove the Divine Institution of Episcopacy p. 216 The Custom of the Church of Alexandria of the Ordination of their Bishop by Presbyters refuted and the Story of Eutychius concerning it shewn to be false and foolish p. 231 If we take away the Divine Right of some Form of Church-Government it unavoidably resolves the Church into Independency and Confusion p. 243 The Government of the Church by Episcopacy as setled by Divine Right the only effectal Bulwork against Popery p. 252 A Postscript p. 263 PART I. WHEN I consider on one side with what triumph the Church of England was together with His Majesty restored with what Laws guarded with what Vigour asserted with what Zeal defended and on the other with what folly and peevishness opposed that none of its implacable Enemies have ever been able to discover any the least real Defects or Corruptions in its Constitution That by the confession of all wise men it approaches nearest of any Church in the World to the primitive Purity that it is free from all Impostures and Innovations that it does not abuse its Children with Pious Frauds and Arts of Gain nor sacrifise the Interests of Souls to its own Wealth and Grandeur that it asserts the Rights of Princes against all Priestly Usurpations that it does not enrage the People with Enthusiasm on one hand nor enslave them with Superstition on the other That its Doctrins are Pure Simple and Apostolical and its Discipline Easie Prudent and Merciful In a word that it is a Church that wants nothing but only that we would suffer her to be what she professes and desires to be When I say I considered all this with my self it could not but strike me with wonder and amazement that a Church so unanimously owned so powerfully protected so excellently constituted so approved by all wise and good men should in all this time be so far from obteining any true and effectual settlement that it should be almost stript naked of all the Rights and Priviledges of a Christian Church exposed to scorn and contempt deserted by its Friends trampled upon by its Enemies and truly reduced to the state of the Poor despised Church of England But then considering farther with my self what might be the grounds and occasions of such a wild and seemingly unaccountable Apostasie I quickly found three very prevailing Principles utterly inconsistent with the being of a Christian Church wherewith the generality of mens minds are possest and especially those that have of late appeared the most Zealous Patriots of the Church of England No wonder then if the building be so weak and tottering when it is erected upon such false and rotten Foundations so that whilst these treacherous Principles lie at the bottom of the Work it is plainly impossible to bring it to any sure and lasting settlement And t is these false and unhappy Principles that I shall now endeavour to represent and by plain reason to remove They are chiefly these three the first is that of Mr. Hobbs and his Followers that own the Church of England only because it is Establisht by the Law of England and allow no Authority either to that or any other Religion than as it is injoined by the Sovereign Power Though a Religion
the Prerogatives of Princes unless they misuse it and if they do as they go beyond their Commission so they deserve their punishment in this lâ—fe among the worst of Rebels and Traytors and are sure to have it in the next For as their Power is not only purely spiritual void of all temporal force and coercion so are they in the first place and above all things forbidden to use any violence or raise any disturbance against Government So that if any Prince think good to oppose them in the Execution of their Office and to punish them for so doing they are not to oppose him but only to sacrifice their lives in justification of their cause and submission to his will and for so doing they shall have their Reward But if they shall make use of any other Weapons whatsoever beside Prayers and Tears and Sufferings they then suffer deservedly as disturbers of the publick Peace And so much the more in that they have been so expresly forewarned by our Saviour that whosoever shall draw the Sword in his cause shall be sure to perish by it And as upon this principle he founded his Church so upon it his Apostles built it when in pure obedience to his command they preached the Gospel all the World over And if any Prince were pleased to countermand them they did not plead any exemption from the Government much less did they Libel it but only represented the Innocence and Justice of their Cause and if he were not satisfied declared their readiness to submit to his pleasure and the penalty of the Law And in this they enjoyed no other exemption from the Prerogative of Princes than what is or ought to be chalenged by every private Christian who is indispensably bound to make profession of his Christian Faith and if the Laws of his Country so require to seal it with his Blood This was the constitution of the Church and the practice of it in its first profession and is the constitution of the Church of England in its Reformation For whereas a foreign Italian Bishop had for a long time usurped wel-nigh all both secular and spiritual Power into his own hands and by an exorbitant abuse of it had enslaved the Prince and empoverished the people only to enrich himself and his own Courtiers they that were concern'd after long patience and much provocation at last resolved upon what motives concerns not us to resume their Rights The King that Power which was exercised by the Kings of Judah of old and by Christian Kings and Emperours in the primitive Church And the Bishops that Power wherewith they were as immediately entrusted by virtue of our Saviours general commission to the Apostolical Order as any other foreign Bishop or Bishops within their respective Diocesses whatsoever And to prevent all jealousie in the Prince lest they should play him the same game that his Holiness had done who in ordinc ad spiritualia had finely stript him of almost all his Temporal Jurisdiction by excepting all Ecclesiastical both Persons and Causes from his cognizance They therefore freelv declare him Supreme Governour first Over all Persons so that no Ecclesiastical Subject might as formerly appeal from his Tribunal And in all Causes so that every Subject whatsoever was bound to submit to his Decrees and Determinations so far forth as either to obey his Laws as long as he own'd and protected true Christianity as the Christian Bishops of old did to the Christian Emperours Or if he opposed it chearfully and peaceably to submit to their Penalties as they did to the Roman Persecutors And whereas from the Precedent of the Apostles in the first Council at Jerusalem the Governours of the Church in all Ages enjoyed a power of making Canons and Constitutions for Discipline and good Order yet by the example of the Primitive Church they submitted the exercise thereof to his sovereign Authority protesting in verbo sacerdotis as it is stated in that famous Act called The Submission of the Clergy That they will never from henceforth presume to attempt alledg claim or put in ure enact promulge or execute any new Canons Constitutions Ordinances provincial or other or by whatsoever other name they shall be call'd in the Convocation unless the King 's most royal Assent and License may to them be had to make promulge and execute the same and that his Majesty do give his Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf Whereby they do not pass away their power of making Ecclesiastical Canons but only give security to the Government that under that pretence they would not attempt any thing tending to the disturbance of the Kingdom or injurious to the Prerogative of the Crown Which in truth is such a submission as all the Clergy in the World ought in duty to make to their Sovereign at least in gratitude for his Protection and that without any abatement or diminution of their own Authority viz. The standing Laws of Christianity being secured to submit all other Matters to his sovereign Will and Pleasure Whereby as they would bring no damage to the Church in that this power is exercised meerly in matters of Order and Discipline if the Prince did not approve of their Constitutions it would be no difficult thing to provide for Decency some other way so they would bring great security to the State when the Prince was assured that under that pretence they would not as the Roman Clergy had done distuâ—b or undermine his Authority And as they parted not with their Spiritual Legiâ—lative Power so not with any other Power proper to their Function as the Power of preaching the Christian Religion administring the holy Sacraments and conferring holy Orders Neither did any Prince in the least ever claim or exercise any of them And because the Romanists in the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth made a mighty noise with this Objection as if by virtue of her Supremacy her Majesty had challenged a Spiritual or Ministerial Power in the Church the Queen has with great indignation disown'd any such Power and defied the Calumny And yet when she had made her disclaimour of any Spiritual Power in the Church she parted not with her Royal Supremacy over those that had it as we are particularly instructed by our Church in her 37th Article Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Title we understand the minds of some dangerous Folks to be offended we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or the Sacraments the which things the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers And lastly to mention
And therefore we do not find that the Apostles acted with a plenitude of Power till he had given them a new Commission after his Resurrection and it is remarkable that in St. Matthew 16. 19. he vests them with the power of Binding and Loosing in the Future Tense But in St. John 20. 23. after his Resurrection it is expressed in the Present Tense Then it was that he gave them that Authority which himself had exercised whilst he remain'd on Earth But then when immediately in pursuance of their new Commission the Apostles thought themselves obliged to choose one into their Order to supply the Vacancy made by the death of Judas What can be more evident than that they thought the Apostolical Office by our Saviour's Appointment distinct from and superiour to all other Offices in the Church So that it is manifest that the Form observed by the Apostles in the Planting and Governing of Churches was Model'd according to our Saviour's own Platform and after that it is not at all material to enquire whether he only drew the Model or erected the Building But whichsoever he did it is improved into an impregnable Demonstration from the undoubted Practice of the Apostles and from them the perpetual Tradition of the Catholick Church in that it is plain that they thought themselves obliged to stand to this Original Form of Church-Government For the Apostles we all know and all Parties grant during their days kept up the distinction and preeminence of their Order and from them the Bishops of the First Ages of the Church claim'd their Succession and every where challenged their Episcopal Authority from the Institution of Christ and the Example of his Apostles And now are we enter'd upon the second main Controversie viz. The Authority of the Apostolical Practice against which three things are usually alledged That neither can we have that certainty of Apostolical Practice which is necessary to constitute a Divine Right nor secondly is it probable that the Apostles did tie themselves to any one fixed Course in Modelling Churches nor thirdly if they did doth it necessarily follow that we must observe the same And the first of these is made out from the equivalency of the names Bishop and Presbyter secondly from the Ambiguity of some places of Scripture pleaded in behalf of different Forms of Government thirdly from the Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy of the Records of the succeeding Ages which should inform us what was the Apostolical Practice But as to the first I shall wholly wave the dispute of the signification of the words because it is altogether beside the purpose and if it were not our other Proofs are so pregnant as to render it altogether useless Neither indeed would this ever have been any matter of Dispute had not our Adversaries for want of better Arguments been forced to make use of such slender pretences But how impotently Salmasius and Blondel who were the main Founders of the Argument have argued from the Community of the Names the Identity of the Office any one that has the patience to read them over may satisfie himself As for my own part I cannot but admire to see Learned men persist so stubbornly in a palpable Impertinency when from the Equivalency of the words Bishop and Presbyter in the Apostles time they will infer no imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers notwithstanding it is so evident and granted by themselves that the Apostles enjoyed a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church which being once proved or granted and themselves never doubted of it to infer their beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Parity of the Clergy from the Equivocal signification of those two words is only to out-face their own Convictions and their Adversaries Demonstrations For if it be proved and themselves cannot deny it that there was an inequality of Offices from the Superiority of the Apostles it is a very Childish attempt to go about to prove that there was not because there were two Synonymous Terms whereby to express the whole Order of the Clergy But to persist in this trifling Inference as Salmasius has who when he was informed of its manifest weakness and absurdity would never renounce it but still repeated it in one Book after another without any improvement but of Passion and Confidence is one of the most woful Examples that I remember of a learned man's Trifling that has not the ingenuity to yield when he finds himself vanquish'd not only by his Adversary but his Argument Neither shall I trouble my self with other mens disputes about particular Texts of Scripture when it is manifest from the whole Current of Scripture that the Apostles exercised a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church and that is all that is requisite to the Argument from Apostolical Practice for as yet it is nothing to us whether they were Presbyters or Bishops that they set over particular Churches that shall be enquired into when we come to the Practice of the Primitive Church it is enough that they were subject to the Apostles for then by Apostolical Practice there was a Superiority and Subordination in Church-Government And therefore I cannot but wonder here too at the blindness of Walo Messalinus who in pursuance of his Verbal Argument produces this passage out of Theodoret and spends a great deal of the first part of his Book in declaiming upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the same men were call'd Presbyters and Bishops and those that we now call Bishops they then call'd Apostles but in process of time the name of Apostolate was appropriate to them who were truly and properly Apostles and the name of Bishop was applied to them who were formerly call'd Apostles Than which words beside that they contain the true state of the Question there is scarce a clearer passage in all Antiquity to confound his cause For what can be a plainer Reproof to their noise about the Equivalency of words than to be told that it is true that the words Bishop and Presbyter signified the same thing in the Apostles time but that those that we now call Bishops were then call'd Apostles who exercised the Episcopal Power over the other Clergy but that afterward in process of time they left the word Apostolate to those who were strictly and properly so call'd and stil'd all other Bishops who in former times were stiled Apostles What I say can be more peremptory against his Opinion that concludes from the equivalency of Names to the parity of Power than this that notwithstanding the words were equivalent yet the Episcopal Power was then in the Apostles whose successors in their supremacy came in after-times to be call'd Bishops And if so then is it evident that there was the same imparity of Church-Officers in the Apostles time as in succeeding Ages Nay our friend Walo is not content to make this out for us only as to the
an incomparable treasure of Ecclesiastical Antiquity And therefore omitting Daille's beloved Negative and internal Arguments which his Adversary has for ever routed with a prodigious force of reason and dexterity of learning I shall only give an account in short of the main rational point of the Controversie That is what antient Testimonies are to be alledged either for or against their Antiquity On the one side they are frequently owned and quoted by all the first general Councils and therefore must have been enacted in the Interval between the Apostles and the Council of Nice They are cited by many of the most ancient Fathers as Canons of the first and most early Antiquity And they are expresly referred to by the most famous Emperours in their Ecclesiastical Laws All which concurrent Testimony any moderate man would think sufficient to give Authority to any Writing and yet it is all over-ruled by a single Decree of Pope Gelasius supposed to be made Anno Domini 494. in which the Apostolical Canons are reckoned among the Apocryphal Books But first is it reasonable to set up the Opinion of one man against many that were more ancient and so much the more competent witnesses than himself Secondly it is uncertain whether any such Decree as is pretended were ever made by Gelasius in that we never hear any thing of it till at least three hundred years after his time Thirdly if there were any such Decree it is certain that this Passage concerning the Canons of the Apostles was foisted into it it not being found in any of the most ancient Copies and Hincmarus a Person of singular learning in his time that makes mention of this Decree of Gelasius as early as any Writer whatsoever expresly affirms that there was no mention of the Apostolical Canons in the whole Decree De his Apostolorum Canonibus penitus taâ—uit sed nec inter Apocrypha eos misit Where he expresly affirms that in the Decree these Canons were altogether omitted and ranged neither with the Orthodox nor with the Apocryphal Books This Testimony is given in with as peremptory terms as can be expressed and therefore Daillé for no other reason than to serve his cause quite inverts the Proposition and changes misit into omisit that is turns I into No. But men that can deal thus with their Authors need never trouble their heads with Testimonies of Antiquity for after this rate it is in their power to make any Author affirm or deny what they please But fourthly suppose Gelasius had made any such Decree how does that destroy the Antiquity of these Canons when he has condemned the Books of Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and Eusebius for Apocryphal And yet Tertullian lived three hundred years before the Decree and therefore why may not the Apostolical Canons be allowed their reputed Antiquity too notwithstanding that Sentence which only relates to the Authority his Holiness is pleased to allow them in the Roman Church and not at all to their Antiquity unless perhaps he designed to declare that they were not framed by the Apostles themselves as he might fancy from their Title not knowing that whatever was of prime Antiquity in the Church was by the first Writers of it stiled Apostolical as being supposed to descend from the Tradition of the Apostles themselves Fifthly will Monsieur Daillè allow this Decree of Gelasius sufficient to give any Book the Apocryphal stamp If he will then he must reject many of the best Fathers and in their stead admit the Acts of St. Sylvester the Invention of the Cross and the invention of St. John Baptists head for whilst the History of Eusebius together with the other Fathers is rejected such Fables as these are warranted by that barbarous and Gothish Decree And that is enough though there were nothing else to destroy the Authority of this mans censure his meer want of Judgment Now comparing this one pretended Testimony of Gelasius under all the disadvantages that I have represented with the express counter-testimony of so many Councils Fathers and Emperours if any man be resolved notwithstanding all to stick to it I will say no more than this that his Cause is much more beholden to him than he to his Cause And now having given this account of these Apostolical men that conversed with the Apostles themselves or immediately succeeded them in the Government of the Church if we descend to their Successours from Age to Age we are there overwhelmed with the croud of Witnesses But because they have been so often alledged and urged by learned men I should have wholly waved their citation had not our Adversaries made use of several shifts and artifices to evade their Authority And therefore though I shall not trouble the Reader with their direct Testimonies yet to shew the vanity of all our Adversaries pretences I shall endeavour to vindicate the credit of the Ancients against all their Exceptions And here the first pretence is the ambiguity of their Testimony which is endeavoured to be made out by these three things First That personal succession might be without such superiority of order Secondly That the names of Bishop and Presbyters were common after the distinction between them was introduced Thirdly That the Church did not own Episcopacy as a divine Institution but Ecclesiastical and those who seem to speak most of it do mean no more First then a succession there might be as to a different Degree and not as to a different Order Before we distinguished between Order and Power now between Order and Degree and by and by between the Power of Order and the Power of Jurisdiction But these distinctions are only the triflings of the Schoolmen whose proper faculty it is to divide every thing till they have reduced it to nothing For what does the degree of a Church-Officer signifie but such an order in the Church and what order is there without a power of Office according to its degree and therefore it is plain prevaricating with the evidence of things to impose these little subtilties upon the sense of Antiquity they good men meant plainly and honestly and when they give us an account of Apostolical Successions they were not aware of these scholastick distinctions and intended nothing else than a succession in the government of their several Churches Thus when Irenaeus gives us a Catalogue of twelve Bishops of Rome Successours to the Apostles in that See what did he mean but the supreme Governours of that Church when that was the only signification of the word Bishop in his time He never dream'd of their being stript of the Apostolical power and so only succeeding them in an empty Title in the meer name or the metaphysical notion of Bishops and they were no more if they had no more power than the rest of the Clergy But secondly This new distinction spoils the former evasion viz. That the Apostles were superiour in order not in power over the LXX but now a
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
the Bishops thereof to the number of twenty seven had been ordained in the City it self but that it seems proving a false Allegation he has given us no reason to believe him in his Tradition An Inference much like this that supposing two persons to contend for their rights and the Advocate of one of them shall in his plea alledge a false prescription his Adversary should thence conclude upon him that he had no reason to believe that there was any such Person in the world as his Client For this is the case The matter of the dispute was where the Bishops of Ephesus ought to be ordained according to the Canons At Ephesus says Leontius by constant Prescription No says the Council for many of them have been ordained at Constantinople Now is it not awkerd to infer from thence that the Council denies the certainty of the Succession it self when as the debate was grounded upon the supposition of it It being granted on both sidesas a thing undoubted that there was a succession of Bishops at Ephesus and the Controversie was only about the accustomed place of their Consecration Now from the variety of that to conclude that it is uncertain whether there were any such thing as Bishops at all is such a forced Argument as proves nothing but that we have a very great mind to our Conclusion I might proceed to the Succession in other Churches of which we have certain Records but I will not engage my self in too many particular Historical Disputes where I know it is easie if men will not be ingenuous to perplex any matter with little critical scruples and difficulties and therefore I will cast the whole of this Controversie upon this one Principle That though the Records of the Church were as defective as is pretended yet seeing all that are preserved make only for Episcopacy and that our Adversaries are notable to trace out one against it that is evidence more than enough of its universal practice and if that will not serve the turn it is to no purpose to trouble our selves on either side with any proof that may be had from the Testimony of Antiquity for if upon that account we have not any it is not possible either for them or us to have it in this or any other Controversie whatsoever Thirdly The Succession so much pleaded for by the Writers of the Primitive Church was not a Succession of Persons in Apostolical Power but a Succession in Apostolical Doctrine Whether any Persons succeeded in Apostolical Power has been already considered and therefore all that is here requisite to be enquired into is by what Persons the Apostolical Doctrine was conveyed And if it be pleaded by the Writers of the Church to have been done by Bishops as the Apostles Successours that proves the Succession of Persons as well as Doctrines But seeing this is to be done as our Adversaries instruct us by a view of the places produced to that purpose let us view them too The first is that of Irenaeus Quoniam valdè longum est in hoc tali volumine omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare successiones maximae antiquissimae omnibus cognitae à gloriosissimis duobus Apostolis Petro Paulo Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae eam quam habet ab Apostolis traditionem annunciatam hominibus fidem per successiones Episcoporum pervenientes usque ad nos indicantes confundimus omnes eos c. Where we see that whatever the Argument of Irenaeus was his design was to prove that the succession of the Apostles was conveyed down by the hands of the Bishops that were Successours to them in their several Sees So that it is evident that he designed to prove the Succession of the Doctrine by the Succession of the Doctors and therefore if he does not prove it he does more he supposes it and by the undoubted evidence of it demonstrates the truth of the Doctrine in that those Persons who were appointed by the Apostles to oversee and govern the Churches have conveyed the Apostles Doctrine down to us by their Successors And what fuller Testimony can there be of a Personal Succession of Bishops to the Apostles And yet Irenaeus does more than this he derives the Personal Succession from the Apostles down to his own time and they all succeeded the Apostles as they succeeded one another and as Linus was their Successour so was Eleutherius who sate at the same time that Irenaeus wrote and therefore if Linus was Successour to the Apostles so was Eleutherius and if Eleutherius was Bishop of Rome so was Linus So that it was one and the same thing to succeed in the Bishoprick and the Apostolical Authority And to the same purpose is the passage of Tertullian Edant origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis aut apostolicis viris habuerit Authorem Antecessorem Hoc modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habens Polycarpum à Joanne conlocatum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit proinde utique â—aeterae exhibent quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutos Apostolici seminis traduces habeant The whole design of which passage is to prescribe against the Hereticks by the Authority of the Apostolical Successours and that being expresly appropriated to single Bishops I hope I need not now dispute whether they succeeded them only in Degree and not Order or in Order only and not Jurisdiction all that I desire from this Testimony is that they succeeded them in their several Churches for though he instances only in the Church of Rome yet he declares himself able and ready to give the same account of all other Churches and by vertue of that warranted the truth of their Doctrine Than which I must confess I cannot understand what more can be desired to justifie their Succession in the Apostolical Authority Especially from Tertullian who was neither Thomist nor Scotist and so was utterly unacquainted with those fine distinctions of Degree Order and Jurisdiction but spoke like a plain and a blunt African when he called the Bishops in their several Diocesses the Apostles Successours And so all the Writers of the same Age understood by a Bishop one superiour to subject Presbyters for whatever was the signification of the word in the Apostles time it was now determined to this Order and so used in vulgar speech so that when we meet with it in their Writings we must understand it in the common sense And therefore by a Bishop we must mean the same thing from the Apostles downward and a Bishop in their time was superiour to Presbyters and the Apostles are granted to have been superiour to the other Pastors of the Church so that the Succession from first to last continued in superiority of Jurisdiction And now when this Succession is
in every Epistle he so plainly enforces his Exhortation of obedience to the Bishop purely by vertue of the command of Christ. And thus have I cleared the Records of the Church from the defect of ambiguity grounded upon those four pretences That the Succession might be only of a different degree That it is not clear and convincing in all places That where it is clearest it it meant of a succession of Doctrine and not of Persons And lastly That if it were of Persons yet Presbyters are said to succeed the Apostles as well as Bishops By which last we have already cleared the next thing objected to shew the ambiguity of the Testimony of Antiquity which was the promiscuous use of the names Bishop and Presbyter after the distinction between their Office was brought in by the Church which I have already shewn to be false and that if it were true it utterly destroys their Argument of the Identity of a Bishop and a Presbyter in the Apostles times from the promiscuous use of the names But because new Instances are here brought to prove the same thing we must follow And first as for the passages cited out of Clemens Romanus he is confessed to have written before the distinction of the names and therefore is here cited to no purpose But the great and only Testimony is that of the Gallican Church who in their Epistle to Eleutherius Bishop of Rome give Irenaeus the title of Presbyter though he had been nine years Bishop of Lyons And this looks very big if it were true but it is a meer Chronological Blunder of Blondel against the clearest Testimony of all Antiquity For first the Martyrs of Lyons in their Epistle to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia speaking of their Bishop Pothinus they give give him that Title but in this Epistle to Eleutherius they or as Blondel will have it the Church of Lyons give Irenaeus only the Title of Presbyter and both Eusebius and St. Jerom affirm that he was no more at the writing of it To all which Blondel objects that they both place the Martyrdom of Pothinus and his Frenchmen immediately after that of Polycarp and the Asiaticks which was in the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius and therefore the other was about the same time so that when Irenaeus went to Rome with the Letter to Eleutherius which was in the seventeenth year of that Emperour he had been so long Bishop But to this it is easily answered that though the Relation of these two Martyrdoms immediately follow one another in Eusebius his Cronicon and St. Jeroms Translation yet it does not at all follow that they immediately followed in time Because these two Martyrdoms are all that they mention concerning the fourth Persecution which lasted the greatest part of the Reign of Marcus Aurelius so that though one were in the seventh the other might be in the seventeenth of that Emperour and therefore we ought to follow Eusebius his more accurate account in his History who there expresly places it in the seventeenth year and withal affirms that Irenaeus was then only Presbyter rather than from so weak a surmise from the nearness of the Stories in his Chronicon to bring confusion upon the whole History especially when it so fairly clears it self in that this Letter was directed to Eleutherius who succeeded in the Church of Rome in the sixteenth year of Marcus Aurelius and in the same year that he came to that See the Gallican Persecution began and therefore it was impossible that Irenaeus could be advanced to the Bishoprick before that time so that it is like the rest of Blondels stretches to infer from a remote guess that the Persecution was in the seventh year when it is evident from the clearest Story that it was not till the sixteenth or seventeeth And now this Chronological mistake being removed this Testimony is clearly evacuated and so this business is wholly ended The last thing alledged to prove the Ambiguity of the Testimony of the Ancients is that the Church did not own Episcopacy as a Divine Institution but Ecclesiastical But of this Argument I shall choose to discourse in the last place in answer to the sententiae Hieronymi because it is the only positive Argument that they produce in their own behalf And for that reason I refer it to the last place that when I have made it appear that they have nothing material to except against what they oppose I may then shew that they have as little to confirm what they assert and both together will prove more than enough to put an end to this controversie As for the other two things that remain to shew the incompetency of the Testimony of Antiquity viz. its Partiality and Repugnancy little or no answer will serve their turn For as for the Partiality all the proof that is material to our Argument is that the Fathers judged the practice of the Apostles by that of their own times And very good reason too because they conformed the practice of their own times to that of the Apostles But if our Adversaries would infer that the Fathers had no other ground of judging of the Practice of the Apostles but meerly by the prejudice of their own customs it is only a precarious Assertion and a direct impeaching them of a more than vulgar folly and ignorance But the Fathers here glanced at are St. Chrysostom and the Greek Commentators that follow him Thus who can imagine any force in Chrysostoms Argument that the Presbyters who laid hands on Timothy must needs be Bishops because none do Ordain in the Church but Bishops unless he makes this the medium of his Argument that whatever was the practice of the Church in his days was so in Apostolical times But there is no need of that poor medium to enforce his Argument the force of it lies in the universal practice of the Church for it was never heard of that meer Presbyters took upon them the Power of Ordination and therefore the meer exercise of that Power is a manifest proof that those that had it were somewhat more than Presbyters and even St. Hierom himself who will have them sometime though when he knows not to have shared with the Bishop in all other parts and branches of Jurisdiction excepts the Power of Ordination as peculiar to the Episcopal Order And there lies the force of St. Chrysostoms Argument in the practice of the Church in all Ages not in in the custom of his own And when he is vindicated it is not to much purpose to add any thing of the Greek Commentators because they all follow him and though they may sometimes fall short in their reasonings yet it is manifest that they believed Episcopacy to have been received by the Catholick Tradition of the Church and that is all the deposition they are capable to give in this cause The last thing objected is the repugnancy of the Testimony and this is proved from
And therefore in answer to it I will at present only return these few brief Considerations each whereof will be enough to satisfie men if they will be reasonable and altogether more than enough to silence them if they will not The first ill consequence then of this Opinion is only this that it charges our Saviour and his Apostles of not making sufficient provision for the lasting peace and settlement of the Church so that had not After-ages supplied their defects in such things as were absolutely necessary to the Government of it there had been no remedy for curing or avoiding eternal schisms and divisions for according to this account of the Original of the Episcopal superiority all the world were by sad experience convinced of its great necessity for the prevention of factions and confusions Now what a dishonourable reflection is this upon the Wisdom of our Saviour and his Apostles to institute a Society of men in the World without providing a competent Government to secure its continuance in peace and unity But then secondly whilst this Conceit explodes the claim founded upon Divine Right it is forced to grant a necessity founded upon natural Reason so that acccording to it Episcopal Government is made necessary by vertue of all those Laws of God and of Nature that provide for the Churches peace and the preservation of Society For if this were the ground of that universal agreement in the Institution of Bishops that St. Jerom speaks of in his toto Orbe decretum est viz. ut schismatum semina tollerentur and if there were no remedy for the prevention of this evil whilst the Government of the Church was administred by the whole Body of the Presbyters the consequence is unavoidable that though our Saviour or at least his Apostles had no more discretion that to leave all Church-Officers in an equality of Power yet the light of Nature and the Laws of Society made it necessary to establish a superiority of one Order above another Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate pendet cui si non exors quaedam ab omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in Ecclesiis efficientur schismata quot sacerdotes The security of the Churches peace depends upon the preheminence of the Bishops power which were it not supreme and paramount in reference to the other Clergy we should quickly have as many Schisms as Priests says St. Jerom Setting aside the Authority of the man the reason and experience of the Argument it self is unanswerable For in such a vast body of men as the Clergy it is obvious to every mans understanding that considering the passions of mankind there could be no possible agreement and by consequence no Government without a superiority of power in some above others Now this is another pretty handsome reflection upon the wisdom of our Saviour and his Apostles that they were so shamefully defective in their first settlement of the Church as shewed them to be so far from being directed by any divine and infallible Spirit that they fell short of the principles of common discretion For though any man of an ordinary understanding might easily discern how impossible it was to avoid Schisms while the Power of the Church resided in the whole Body of the Clergy partly by the bandying of the Presbyters one against another partly by the siding of the People with some against the rest partly by the too common use of the Power of Ordination in Presbyters by which they were more able to increase their own Party by ordaining those who would joyn with them and by this means perpetuate Schisms in the Church when I say these inconveniences were so obvious what a prodigious neglect or weakness must it be to leave the Church through all Ages in such a shattered and tottering condition insomuch that it must unavoidably have perished had not some that came after them invented better means to prevent or redress mischiefs than they had left them For upon this it was that the graver and wiser sort considering the abuses following the promiscuous use of this power of Ordination and withal having in their minds the excellent frame of the government of the Church under the Apostles and their Deputies for preventing future Schisms and Divisions among themselves unanimously agreed to chuse one out of their number who was best qualified for so great a trust and to devolve the exercise of the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction to him so that it seems we are more obliged to those wiser and graver sort than to the Apostles for their care in preventing Schisms and Divisions through all Ages of the Church But thirdly this conceit bottoms upon no better foundation than a bold and presumptuous conjecture And there is no dealing with such men as are able to blast the credit of all the most undoubted Records of ancient times with an imaginary and sinister suspicion for when we have pursued the Succession of Bishops through all Ages of the Church up to the very times next to the Apostles it requires somewhat a bold face to tell us that though this perhaps may be sufficiently evident from the practice of the Primitive Church and of the Apostles and their Deputies yet there was a dark interval between the death of the Apostles and the time of the most ancient Fathers in which it was abolished and a new Form of Government set up but that being found inconvenient it was thought good and agreed upon in all Churches to lay that aside and restore the old Apostolical superiority These are very hard conceits especially when they cannot so much as pretend to give us any the least probable account where and when and by whom this was done And this is pretty modest to bear up so confidently against all the current of Antiquity without so much as any pretences of ground or evidence to rely upon But so it hapned once upon a time in which toto Orbe decretum est though when that time was we have no more certain knowledg than we have in what degree of Latitude this totus Orbis lies Perhaps it was as Blondel will have it about the thirty fifth year after the death of St. John and what if he had been pleased to have said the fifteenth or sixty fifth year the guess had been altogether both as learned and as well grounded However is it not a pleasant thing to tell us boldly and at all adventure in toto Orbe decretum est without so much as telling us when or where or attempting to prove the matter of Fact especially when it is plainly impossible that so universal and remarkable a change should be so unanimously agreed upon and effected and that upon such great and urgent reasons without ever being so much as taken notice of Why may we not as well discredit any Record chuse what you please by pretending there once was or perhaps might have been an unknown time in which all mankind conspired
that claims no higher Obligation confesses it self to be no Religion for none it is unless Enacted by Divine Authority The second is that of Mr. Selden and his Followers that acknowledges the standing Laws of the Christian Church to have been derived from a Divine Institution but derives all manner of Government and Authority in it from the Civil State The third is the Opinion of some Learned and Moderate Divines both at home and abroad that grant indeed the necessity of some kind of Government in the Church but deny it to have been setled and fixed by our Saviour in any one Form or upon any certain Order of men and leave it wholly at some-bodies disposal though who that somebody is they have not as yet clearly determined to appoint Officers and Governours as shall be thought most prudent and suitable to the present Circumstances of things Now upon any of these Principles it is not at all material whether we assert any such thing as a Church of England or not for they are all but so many Contradictions both to the being of a Church and to themselves at least if we pursue each party to the bottom of their Opinion they only assert the Shadow or Ghost of a Church upon such Principles as are directly inconsistent with the Fundamental Constitution of all Christian Churches and so have as it were stoln away the Church of England from itself setting up the name against the thing the Idea against the Reality and the Notion against the Practice For the first supposes a Church without Religion the second a Society without Government the third a Government without Governours And what can be more absurd and inconsistent For a Church without Religion is no Church a Society without Government is no Society and a Government that is not lodged somwhere is no Government So that though these Opinions are not equally wicked in themselves the first being open and avowed Atheism yet are they equally destructive to the Fundamental Constitution of the Christian Church as it is a Society founded not by any human Authority but Divine Right With Mr. Hobbs and his Church I shall be very brief because his Notions here as indeed they are every where are no better than gross and palpable Contradictions Neither should I spend much pains upon the second opinion because the absurdity of it is so easily demonstrable from the Nature of Society it self but seeing Mr. Selden a very Learned Person has taken infinite pains in the Argument searched all Authors and all Records to heap together every thing that might serve his cause I shall wait upon him through all the material parts of his Discourse But with the third sort I intend to treat more largely because that is the Church at this present in fashion and is become popular and plausible by the Authority of some Learned men that have owned and asserted it And therefore I shall carefully demonstrate its vanity and falsehood from our Saviours express Institution from the certain practice of the Apostles from all the most undoubted Records of the Church and lastly from the great inconveniences that would unavoidably follow upon it And when we have gained these three Fundamental points we may then and not till then proceed to farther proposals for the true settlement of the Church of England for without them whatever men may talk of it all their Discourse of a Church is no more than a Notion and a Phantasm a Platonick Common-Wealth and a World in the Moon First then as for Mr. Hobbs his Opinion it is scarce worth any mans Confutation because it so plainly confutes itself For what can be more absurd and ridiculous than to make as he does the serious Belief of Religion necessary to the security of Government and yet discover to all those that he would have brought under the Power of this persuasion that it is in reality nothing but an useful and necessary Imposture And yet into this preposterous course of Politicks does Mr. Hobbs suffer himself to be driven by his pedantick Pride and Vanity That though it be above all things necessary to the Empire of our Sovereign Lord Leviathan that the common people be abused with the Belief and scared with the dread of invisible Powers yet lest they should be tempted to think the great Philosopher himself so weak as to be betrayed into the same Opinion he Publishes a Book to all the World to no other purpose beside Flattering the Tyrant Cromwel than to declare that neither himself nor any wise man ought to regard the Tales of Religion and that they are only designed to abuse the ignorant and the silly Just as if this great Statesman should go about to fright Birds from his Corn as he speaks with an empty Doublet an Hat and a crooked Stick but yet lest the Jack-Daws should take him for one of their own silly Flock he should take special care to inform them that himself knows it to be only a man of Clouts This alone is sufficient to discover the vanity and the danger of the Hobbian Religion when it is nothing else but an open Declaration of Atheism and Impiety Though indeed this way of trifling is so natural to Mr. Hobbs that as much as he loves his own Opinions he always contradicts them And this is a plain Demonstration of the Ignorance of the pretenders to Wisdom in this Age that so Inconsistent and Unphilosophical a Writer should obtain so much Credit and Authority among them For though he have a very facetious Wit and is the Author of many pleasant sayings yet he was never Master of one Philosophick Notion But for their conviction I shall challenge them to shew me more incoherent and inconsistent reasonings than are his undoubted and Mathematical Demonstrations against the Being of God and the Principles of Religion First then would you believe that there is a God or not Mr. Hobbs gives you your choice Choose which you please he will demonstrate either by the same Topick Will you have no Deity It is manifest there can be none because there can be no first Mover because nothing can move itself and therefore when men go about to prove a Deity from the succession of Causes and Effects they prove nothing but the necessity of Eternal motion for as it is true that nothing can move itself so is it true that nothing can move any thing else unless itself be first moved Here then the Demonstration is pregnant that there can be no first Cause because nothing can move it self and because all motion is Eternal But will you have a Deity The Demonstration of it is as undeniable For he that from any effect he seeth come to pass should reason to the next and immediate Cause thereof and from thence to the Cause of that Cause and plunge himself profoundly in the pursuit of Causes shall at last come to this that there must be as even the Heathen Philosophers
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
against the Government For if the Church have no right of exercising any Discipline within it self but by the grant of the Empire then the grant of the Empire being reversed it has none at all And thus has he fairly brought this confederate Discipline of the primitive Church which he has contrived purely to avoid any Government founded upon Divine Right into down-right Rebellion And no wonder when all Confederacies against the Commands of the Sovereign Power can be no better unless when warranted by Divine Authority And now it is no wonder if after these Premises our Author begins his next Chapter with a Confession that it does not appear when the present form of Excommunication began in the Christian Church Quandonam primo discrepantia ejusmodi inter Christianae Judaicae seu vetustioris Excommunicationis effectus inciperet non quidem satis liquet Sed ante Origenis ac Tertulliani etiam Irenaei tempora juxta jam dicta effectum quoad Sacrorum communicatinis negationem inolevisse non dubitandum Though I should have thought it a sufficient proof that it descended from the Apostles when we find it in the Church immediately after them and find no beginning of its Institution especially when it could have no other because the Apostles challenging no Civil Authority they could have no other power but a cutting off from the Spiritual Priviledges of the Christian Church And here I cannot but remark it as the peculiar disingenuity of all the Adversaries both of the Government and Governours of the Church i. e. Excommunication and Episcopacy that they will allow their usage in all Ages of the Church but only that of the Apostles and because they imagine that in their time there are no demonstrative evidences of their Practice for that reason destroy their Reverence and neglect their Authority whereas had these men the common modesty of Mankind they would revere them for their so ancient and Catholick Practice and when with all their search they cannot discover any later beginning of them they would conclude it at least a very fair probability that they descended from Apostolical Prescription And in our present case one would wonder that when our Author has traced this usage both in the Eastern and Western Churches into the Age immediately after the Apostles without being able to discover any other time of its first Institution how any man should doubt of its Apostolical Antiquity What Records can be more evident than the Canons of the Apostles the Writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian that lived in the first Century after them and St. Cyprian in the second who do not only mention this Power of the Church as a thing then in common use but speak of it as an ancient Right derived from their Ancestors I shall give one Instance for all because our Author has the boldness to quote it and yet to overlook the Consequence and that is out of Irenaeus who expostulating with Victor Bishop of Rome about his rash Excommunication of the Asiatick Churches thus bespeaks him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never were any men Excommunicated after this rate Upon which our learned Author observes Excommunicationis usus qualiscunque ut ab anterioribus seculis illuc propagatus utrinque pariter tunc admittitur from hence it appears that on all sides the use of Excommunication was admitted as descending from the foregoing Ages after this could any man think it possible that when he had allowed this Testimony of Irenaeus who by his own computation flourished about Seventy years after St. John that he should ever doubt of its being an Apostolical practice Or could any man desire to reduce his Adversary to a greater absurdity than is here so frankly own'd that Irenaeus who lived in the age immediately after the Apostles should speak of this thing as the custom of former ages and yet that there should be no such custom in the Apostolical age And of the same nature is his discourse of the time when this power was first appropriated to the Christian Bishops which he confesses to be altogether unknown though he finds it in common use in the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian and that is time enough to give it right to Apostolick prescription especially when he does not so much as pretend to any Record that the Keys were ever in the Peoples hands Neither has he any ground for this Imagination but only his old conceit that among the Jews every man had this power and therefore among the Christians Whereas there is not the least ground of surmise that there was any such custom among the ancient Jews but that it was a meer off-spring of the Talmudical folly Or if there were yet it was too foolish to be admitted into the serious discipline of the Christian Church for of what use could it be when any man might Excommunicate whom he pleased and when he might be absolved from the heaviest sentence of the Court by any three persons that he could pack together such ridiculous trifling is at first view too absurd to be entertain'd in the Christian Church And as it does not appear that the People ever exercised this power de facto so neither does it that they could ever chalenge it de jure in that we do not find that our Saviour ever vested the Body of Believers in any Power of governing his Church but on the contrary that when ever he gives out his Commissions he ever addresses himself to particular Persons And thus are we faln upon the main Controversie where we ought to have begun and where we might have ended but he that pursues an Adversary must follow his motion otherwise certainly the matter of right ought to have been determin'd before the matter of Fact and therefore the first question ought not to have been whether the primitive Christians exercised any such Jurisdiction but whether they received any Commission from our Saviour for their Authority which if either proved or disproved would prevent the following dispute concerning the practice of the Church but seeing our Author is pleased to take this method we shall tread in his steps and thus he brings it in that when the Bishops had unwarrantably assumed this Power to themselves they justified their usurpation by pretended Patents made to themselves in several Texts of Scripture as the Power of the Keys and of binding and loosing and if any man hear not the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican And now to elude the true meaning of these and the like passages what infinite pains has been taken by our Author and other learned men I need not represent but whatever shifts men may invent their true meaning discovers and clears it self by this one plain and obvious consideration viz. That our Saviour had already set up his Kingdom or Society of his Church upon which supposition all these grants can signifie nothing less than a donation of Power Thus when he chooses Officers
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
that passage of Sozomen l. 1. c. 9. in which some learned men fancy they find some footsteps of this Law it is quite to the other purpose that I but now mentioned viz. the Bishops Power of determining causes by the mutual consent of Parties When this Edict was forged and by whom it is uncertain but it is probably conjectur'd by Gothofred from the Barbarity of its stile and great likeness of it to that of Constantines Donation to have been forged in the same Shop and by the same hand But if this Edict were as true as the rest are which give Bishops Power to sentence causes praeeunte vinculo compromissi yet where do we find any Edict for enabling them to enforce their decrees by Excommunication Not one syllable of that in all the Roman Laws but on the contrary the Civil Magistrates and their Officers are commanded to put the Bishops Sentence in execution Is it not then a very forced way of Arguing that because the Roman Emperours granted the Christian Bishops some jurisdiction they must of necessity have granted them the Power of Excommunication though there is no such Edict extant in all their Laws They conferr'd many Priviledges upon the Clergy in the Titles De Episcopis Ecclesiâ—s Clericis de Religione yet there is nothing in both the Codes and all the Novels to vest them with any power of Excommunication and therefore as those other they enjoyed by the Emperours favour not by any antecedent Right so seeing they exercised this Power and that not by vertue of any Imperial grant it is evident that they received their Authority from some other hand So that to conclude there cannot be a more pregnant Argument against our Author's opinion than the body of the Imperial Law in which there is not one Instance recorded that ever any Emperour pretended to this Power himself or granted it to his Bishops for from thence it unavoidably follows that if they had it at all they had it from some other Commission And thus am I come to the conclusion of this Argument for though there are many Precedents of latter Times yet I am not concern'd to justifie what was done by Huns Goths and Vandals whose practices were the meer effects of Ignorance and Barbarity and oblige us rather to pity than to follow their Examples PART II. HAving hitherto treated with the false Pretenders to the Church of England I come now in the last place to treat more amicably with some of its mistaken Friends and they are those that own a Government in it but without Governours allowing indeed that there ought to be some sort of Government establish'd in the Church but then they deny any particular Form of it to have been settled by Divine Right or Apostolical Constitution and leave it wholly to the choice and determination of Humane Authority So that though the Church of England happen to be at present govern'd by Bishops and though upon that account we may owe duty and subjection to them as our lawful Superiours yet they are not set over us by any Divine Commission but purely by his Majestie 's good Will and Pleasure who at his Restitution to his Kingdoms might have forborn to restore the then Abolish'd Order of Bishops and instead of that have establish'd some other Form of Government that he judged most suitable to the present state of things which if he had done that then had been the Church of England Now the Birth of this Opinion seems to have happened on this manner Mr. Calvin having founded his Geneva Platform upon Divine Institution as he particularly does in the Fourth Book of his Institutions Chap. 11. though some men that are more his Disciples than they are willing to own are pleased to deny it And in pursuance of this Decree Beza and all the other first Apostles of his Church having spent all their pains in endeavouring to make it good out of the Word of God the learned men that came after them both in the French and Dutch Churches because they must needs go beyond those that went before them proceeded to advance the Argument from Scripture to Antiquity and have with infinite industry sifted all the Writings of the Ancients to prove that there was no other Form of Government in the Church but by Presbyters in the first Ages of it next and immediately after the Apostles The chief Labourers in which Cause among many other less learned were Blondel Salmasius and Dallé who spent the greatest part both of their Life and Learning upon this Argument But they proceeding for the most part in a sceptical and destructive way not so much relying upon the Testimony as impairing the credit of Antiquity which it seems they supposed the best way to maintain their Argument this soon gave occasion to some Learned men conversant in their Writings to conclude against all pretences to the Divine or Apostolical Institution of any unalterable and perpetual Form of Church-Government whatsoever and so to think of allaying those Controversies about a Jus Divinum that had been lately and still were managed among us with so much heat and noise by leaving it as they say our Saviour and his Apostles did to the prudence of every particular Church to agree upon its own Form as it judgeth most conducing to the end of Government in that particular Church This is the state of the Question as they determine it and the Opinion is grown popular and plausible in great Vogue both among the Learned and Unlearned and is almost become the Rule and Standard of all our Ecclesiastical Polity In so much that there are many worthy Gentlemen as any one may observe in his ordinary Conversation that were stout and loyal Confessors to the Church of England under its Sufferings that at this time look upon it as an Arbitrary and indifferent thing And therefore in pursuance of my design in behalf of the Church of England I am obliged to examine the reasons and Principles upon which it is founded and to shew that it is so far from tending to the Peace of an Establish'd Church that it is destructive to the Being and Settlement of all the Christian Churches in the World And though here I have many learned worthy men for my Adversaries yet I hope to manage the Dispute with that Candour and Integrity that none shall have any reason to complain of any more unkindness than what is absolutely necessary to my doing right to the Church of England And this I am sure can give no Offence to good men how much soever I may chance to cross with their particular Sentiments and Opinions And as for bad men for there are of both sorts engaged in the Opinion I were not true to my own Integrity if I suffered my self to be in the least swayed by their good or bad Opinion for I write not to please but to convince them which I know as long as they continue bad is but
to provoke them And with this honest resolution I now proceed to vindicate one of the most evident but most injured Truths in the World And in it I shall be much briefer than at first I intended for when we have lopt off all that is not directly pertinent to the Enquiry as we shall reduce the Debate to a narrow compass so may we easily bring it to a speedy issue And therefore I shall purposely pass over all those things that relate only to the occasional exercise and outward administration of Church-Authority And particularly that wide argument of Dispute whether the distribution of Provinces and Diocesses were through the Roman Empire framed by the division of the Civil Government For whether it were or were not that concerns not the question of the Institution of a Ruling Clergy but only the manner or fashion of administring their Power when reduced to Practice For the extent of their Jurisdiction is is but accidental to the supremacy of their Power and whether the Circuit of a Monarchs Government be little or great it is all one as to the nature of Monarchy So that it is not at all material how the bounds of Diocesses came to be assign'd how Churches extended themselves from great Cities into the adjacent Territories till they sometimes swell'd into Provinces and how Bishops came to be subject to Metropolitans and Metropolitans to Patriarchs all which and divers other particulars though they are very copiously insisted upon by Learned men in the present Question are yet altogether useless as to its Determination because they only concern the outward and accidental Exercise and have no reference to the essential Form of Church-Government So that the only thing concern'd in our present enquiry is as Mr. Selden has rightly stated it Utrùm ex ipsâ purâ putâ Origine seu primâ ac merâ nascentis Ecclesiae Christianae Disciplinâ Episcopalis seu Ordo sive Dignitas sive Gradus Presbyterali seu Sacerdotali superior vel alius aut ei neutiquam dispar seu idem fuerit habendus That is in short whether the Church were at first founded in a superiority and subordination of Ecclesiastical Officers to each other or a parity and equality of all among themselves so that if we can prove the preeminence and superiority of one Order above all others in the Government of the Church from the beginning of it we shall thereby make good all that is essential to that Power and Authority that we challenge as proper only to the Episcopal Order and Office And this we doubt not but to perform with clear and demonstrative evidence from these three Topicks I. Of our Saviour's own express Institution II. The practice of the Apostles in Conformity to it III. The practice of the Primitive Church in the Ages next and immediatly after the Apostles And First As to our Saviour's Institution it is manifest That he founded his Church in an imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers in that he did by his own immediate Appointment authorize and set apart two distinct Orders of men for Ecclesiastical Ministries the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples whose Office if it were the same to what purpose were they distinguish'd And why when a place was vacant in the Apostolate must one be substituted by Divine Designation to complete the Number Why should not one of the Seventy without any further Election have served the turn seeing he was qualified with an Identity of Office and Order Nay to what purpose should they be reckoned apart under different Names and in different Ranks if there were no difference intended in their employments and commissions And why were they not all comprehended in one number and ranged in one Catalogue If the Twelve were nothing more than the Seventy and the Seventy nothing less than the Twelve to what purpose do we hear so oft of the Twelve and the Seventy or of the Seventy two for of that the learned dispute and not rather of the Eighty two or Eighty four For do we think that our Saviour would distinguish the Officers of his Kingdom by meer Words and empty Titles And yet the Apostleship could be nothing more if it carried in it no superiority of Office above the Seventy Some inequality we must discover and that intended too by our blessed Saviour himself else shall we never be able to give our selves any imaginable Account of their Institution And now what clearer evidence can any man demand for a Divine Right of Superiority and Subordination of Church Officers than our Saviour's own express and particular Institution Yes say they but the Inequality between the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples consisted in a superiority of Order and Office not of Power and Jurisdiction Very good This grants all that we can desire or demand to prove the Supreme Authority of the Supreme Order because every Superiour Ecclesiastical Order as such is Authoritative and therefore an eminency of Order must not only infer but include a superiority of Power seeing the Order it self as such if it be any thing is the proper and immediate seat of Authority and all the Jurisdiction of the Bishop whatsoever it is is claim'd and exercised by vertue of his Order So that if the Apostles were the highest Order of Ecclesiasticks they were for that Reason alone though there were no other the highest Judicature And in the same degrees of proportion that they were advanced above others in dignity of Title they were so in supremacy of Power because their Dignity as such is nothing elie but so much Power in the Church of God devest them of that and they immediately return to the condition of Ordinary and Unconsecrated men And the Apostles themselves were no more than all other common Believers but by vertue of their Commission to rule and govern the Church reverse that and they are degraded from their Order as well as stript of their Jurisdiction So lamentably do these learned men entangle themselves by distinguishing so vainly in this case between a superiority of Order and Power when the one is not only the very Ground and Foundation but to speak in the language of the Schoolmen from whom these Metaphysical nothings are taken the very Formality of the other and the Apostolical Power is Formally and as such the very same with the Apostolical Office So little real difference is there in this distinction that it is not possible to frame one in Notion and Conception but whoever pretends to conceive one must of necessity conceive both or conceive nothing And therefore I would very fain know wherein consists this superiority of Order and Dignity without any superiority of Power For what do men mean by Power but a right to Govern and what by Order but a superiority of some as Rulers and a subordination of others as Ruled What then is the difference between an inequality of Order and Power when they both equally signifie Superiority and Subjection
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
succession of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Constantine But to wave all other parallel Cases that which I have already propounded is irrefragable viz. That those men that beat about in the Writings of the Ancients to start sceptical pretences against the use and institution of Episcopacy would do very well to consider the consequences of this rude and licentious way of Arguing And as the Reverend and Learned Doctor Hammond long since remarked it they that so confidently reject the Epistles of Ignatius shrewdly indanger if they will stand to their own principles the credit and authority of the sacred Canon when these are vouch'd for the true and authentick Epistles of Ignatius by as strong a current and unanimous consent of the Fathers as most of the Canonical Books of Scripture And therefore it is observable that the proud Walo Messalinus does with the same ease and confidence pish away one of the Epistles of St. Peter as he does all these of this Apostolical Martyr and might in the same pert and pedantick humour and with the same evidence of Reason huff all the rest after it into the Apocryphal Rubbish But because our Adversaries main strength lies in this Objection and some ill-minded men will be hasty to seise on it for worse purposes than they intended I shall consider it in its full force and glory The defect then pretended is three-fold as to Places as to Times as to Persons 1. As to Places and here they tell us we can have no certainty without an universal Testimony For if but one place varied that is enough to overthrow the necessity of any one form of Government and therefore seeing we have not an account of what was done by the Apostles in all Churches we can have no sufficient certainty of their practice But certainly never was any thing so hardly dealt with as Antiquity by these men for unless we could be certain that every thing that was done in the Church 1500 Years agoe was recorded and made known to us by some unquestionable way all that is recorded be it never so certain and evident can be of no use for our Information If this hard condition be put upon us I must confess that we not only have no certainty of the Primitive Practice but that it is impossible that we should have any either in that or any other Record But this certainly is too rigorous proceeding with the authority of Precedents that let us produce never so many they shall signifie nothing as to their use unless we can demonstrate that there never was or indeed could be one contrary Example in the World But I am very apt to believe that all ingenuous men will be fully satisfied with this that all the precedents that are recorded are for us and therefore till our Adversaries are able to produce some against us to rest in the certainty of those Records that are preserved without a vain enquiry after what might or might not be in those that are lost And therefore our Adversaries in stead of making such wild and sceptical demands if they would prevail upon the minds of men should in the first place have proved the variety of Apostolical Practice and that indeed would have disproved the necessity of any one Form but that is a thing they never attempt When therefore we have this uniformity of practice in all Churches whose settlement is known it betrays an unreasonable partiality in men to put us upon giving an account of what St. Andrew did in Scythia and St. Thomas in India for certainly all impartial men will be satisfied with the uniform practice of all the known Churches of Europe Asia and Affrica And that is enough in answer to the first pretended defect of Antiquity as to Places The second defect is as to Times And here they fall directly upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical History and in particular upon Eusebius the Father of it who they say lived at too great a distance from Apostolical Times and wanted sufficient Records for his Information But this I must answer that I know not any Historian furnished with better and more certain accounts of the things they write of than Eusebius The Tradition of the Church being conveyed down to him in the most uninterrupted and undoubted manner possible St. Polycarp St. Ignatius St. Clemens of Rome were familiarly acquainted with the Apostles themselves Irenaeus Tatianus Theophilus Antiochenus Athenagoras Justin Martyr and many more converst with them as they did with the Apostles to these succeed Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Minutius Faelix Lactantius Ar nobius Dionysius Alexandrinus Gregorius Thauntaturgus St. Cyprian beside many other excellent Writers whose Works he enjoyed though some of them are since perish'd who all lived in the first and second Centuries after the Apostles Now out of these Eusebius collected his History and to their genuine and undoubted Writings ever refers himself to justifie his own Fidelity quotes no Author for any matter of fact but what was done in his own Age as particularly in the beginning of the second Book the Reader is desired to observe that he collected the materials of it from the Writings of Clemens Tertullian Josephus and Philo and the same Preface he might have set before every particular Book And as he always refers to good Authors so he rejects many things as counterfeit and spurious for this reason only because he finds no account of them in the Ancient Writers But beside the Writings of the Doctors of the Church and the Epistles of Bishops the Originals whereof were then reserved in the Archives of their several Churches he made very great use of the Acts of the Martyrs that were then preserved with great care and sacredness though afterwards it being the most valued part of Ecclesiastical History it was the most improved into fabulous Legends and Stories And beside all this he was furnished with many excellent materials of the First Times which alone he could be supposed to want by Hegesippus who wrote five Books of Commentaries of the Acts of the Church about the Reign of Marcus Aurelius which was scarce eighty Years after the death of St. John So that it is no better than a very rash censure of such an Ancient and Apostolical Writer to say that his Relations are as questionable as those of Eusebius himself in reference to those elder Times when he lived almost in the very eldest times and so near to the Apostles that it was scarce possible that any matter of Fact that happened in that Interval could escape his knowledg Now last of all the Heathen Records themselves were not a little useful to him as himself informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. In theâ—e times that is about the Reign of Domitian the Doctrine of the Christian Faith was so flourishing that the Heathen Writers have left exact Records of the Persecutions and Martyrdoms As for Eusebius his
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
to the Reader to judge whether he could desire or contrive more evidence for the authority of any Book than is produced for the Epistles of Ignatius St. Polycarp then who was his particular Friend and Fellow-pupil under St. John and St. Irenaeus who was Disciple to Polycarp give in full and clear testimony to the Martyrs Epistles Polycarp sent a Copy of them to the Church of Philippi as appears both by his own Epistle still extant and by Eusebius his Quotation out of it and that at a time when it was vulgarly known and commonly read in the Churches of Asia Polycarp's Epistle was never call'd in question by any good Author was immediately attested by Irenaeus read with Veneration in the Churches of Asia even to the very time of Eusebius and St. Hierom. So that I know not what more undoubted or publick Testimony Monsieur Daillé could demand for his satisfaction and indeed it is hard to conceive what more effectual evidence could have been provided to secure their Authority For when St. Polycarp's Epistle was so universally known it was impossible to corrupt it And yet in this wild Supposition is Monsieur Daillé forced at last to shelter himself he allows his Epistle it self to be of undoubted Credit and the greatest part of it to have been written by Polycarp but that a certain Impostor a little before the time of Eusebius had foisted in that Paragraph in which this passage concerning Ignatius his Epistles is found which Eusebius meeting with he took it to be of the same credit with the rest of the Epistle Which is all so very ungrounded and precarious that with the same liberty he might deny or destroy the validity of any ancient Record whatsoever but beside this the Epistle was so publick so exposed to the view of all men so known to the Learned and Unlearned that it were as easie to poison the Sea as for a private man to corrupt it Or if he would attempt to do it how was it possible for Eusebius and all the World beside to be deluded by so bold an Imposture Does not Eusebius himself inform us that it was read in the Churches of Asia at the time of his writing Did he not then know what was read there and therefore if this passage were not read could he be so stupid as to be imposed upon by one single private man against the authority of all the publick Books or if he were could all the Fathers whom Daillé will have to have followed his Dance be so prodigiously blind and careless as in a thing so known and common to be deceived by him and that no man if we may believe him should discover the mistake till Nicephorus who lived five hundred Years after him But granting the Testimony to be true he denies it to be effectual because Polycarp only says that Ignatius wrote Epistles but no where affirms that those we have are the true ones So that it seems unless St. Polycarp had written particularly against Mounsier Dailâ—é himself and declared that those very Epistles that he opposes with so much zeal were written by his Friend the Martyr it was not possible for him to give sufficient testimony to their truth And yet that could not have been a more ample proof than this amounts to For he declares not only that Ignatius wrote certain Epistles but that himself made a Collection of them and this Collection was seen by Eusebius and others of the Ancients Now when we consider the Reputation of the Martyr both for his acquaintance with the Apostles his eminent dignity in the Church the gallantry of his Martyrdom when we consider the time and occasion of his writing which was at the approach of his Death and as it were his dying Exhortation to the Churches when we consider how they were recommended by Polycarp whose Epistle was publickly read in their Assemblies is it any way credible that these true Epistles should all perish before the time of Eusebius and other counterfeit ones rise up in their room and among all those learned men that then were very inquisitive after Ancient and Apostolical Tradition none should ever discern or discover it Nay that Eusebius a man so throughly versed in all Ecclesiastical Antiquities so conversant with the choicest Libraries should be so grosly and so easily cheated by a double Imposture contrived in his own time as to take the new invented Epistles of Ignatius for the old authentick Writings of that holy Martyr and then to vouch it by a forg'd Passage foisted into Polycarp against the authority of all the vulgar Books So many hard Suppositions one would think were enough to shame any modest man out of his Opinion The second Witness to these Epistles is St. Irenaeus whose testimony is no more to be doubted of than the former being extant both in Eusebius and those pieces of Irenaeus that are preserved down to our times though most of his works are perish'd But to this Monsieur Daillé answers that Irenaeus cautiously expresses his Quotation of the holy Martyr by Dixit and not Scripsit and thence conjectures that he quotes it only as a Saying or Apothegm and not as a Citation out of his Writings But 1. There is no Record of any such Saying as this neither in that particular Quotation that is preserved could we know whom Irenaeus means did we not find the same sentence in Ignatius his Epistle to the Romans so that it is a vain and a frivolous thing to forsake that and to fetch the business from unknown and unheard of Reports And. 2. This is the very form of all Irenaeus his Quotations who never uses the word Scripsit but always Dixit But then why does he not cite some Testimony against the Hereticks out of Ignatius in whom there were so many apposite to his purpose I answer for the same reason that he does not cite other as pertinent Authors as Ignatius For out of all the Ecclesiastical Writers that lived before him he has in his surviving Works but four Quotations of which that out of Ignatius is one Neither would this way of disputing have been at all pertinent in the days of Irenaeus when the Hereticks against whom he wrote allowed no Authority to the ancient Doctors of the Church but always recurred to certain wild Apocryphal Books of their own and therefore it had been but a vain thing for Irenaeus to have prest them with this Topick The next Witness is Origen who quotes him by name but against this Testimony we have these two Exceptions First That it is at too great a distance from the time of Ignatius Secondly That those Writings in which he is quoted are none of Origens First As to the first we would grant the force of the Objection if this had been the first Testimony in the cause but following Polycarp and Irenaeus it proves the constant opinion of Learned men before Eusebius and his Impostor Secondly It overthrows Daillé's
great conceit that these Epistles appeared not till two hundred Years after Ignatius whereas by his own confession Origen writ within one hundred and forty Years Thirdly It cuts off the great pretence that Eusebius was the Founder of this mistake whereas it hereby appears that if it were one he only followed his Predecessors in it But the main of the Controversie here is the second thing Whether those Books ascribed to Origen in which Ignatius is quoted are really his or not Daillé says No but his learned Adversary has with no less than evidence of Demonstration proved they were though if he had not done it St. Jerom has done it long since who plainly tells us that himself translated them out of Origen's Greek into Latine And now after these I need add nothing of the Testimony of Eusebius and those that follow him for if he be mistaken their Authority is of no use if he be not it is of little necessity but that he is not is demonstrated from these more ancient Testimonies Though if any man desire more Witnesses I shall refer him to my learned Author who has summon'd them out of every Age from that in which the Epistles themselves were writen down to that next our own But to all the Testimonies of the Ancients what do our Adversaries oppose irst Salmasius opposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople by which says he the Authentick and spurious Books of the Church were distinguish'd and among many others the Epistles of Ignatius are censured for Apocryphal Books But to this it is replied by the Pious the Reverend and the Learned Dr. Hammond that the opinion of one Author especially of later date for Nicephorus lived not before the ninth Century was not of weight and authority enough to oppose to the consent of so many ancient Writers Secondly That the word Apocryphal which is used by Nicephorus does not always signifie Spurious but it is very often used by Ecclesiastical Writers as opposed to Canonical and so is given to Books whose Authors were never question'd only to seclude them from the Canon of the Scripture To the first it is replied by Daillé and that I must say with impertinency enough that the authority of Nicephorus is at least equal to Dr. Hammonds as if the Dispute were between them two whereas the Dispute was between Walo and the Doctor who when he had produced the Testimonies of the Fathers of all former Ages could not but think it very hard that the opinion of one late Writer should be opposed to all their Authority To the second he replies That it is true that the word Apocryphal is oftentimes opposed to Canonical yet it is very frequently too used by Ecclesiastical Writers as equivalent to Spurious and Counterfeit and that therefore the Doctor in vain takes refuge in the Ambiguity of the word But certainly it is the manifest design of these men to tire out their Adversaries with verbose Trifles For who could have expected this Answer that when Walo had argued from the word Apocryphal as if it only signified Spurious and that when to the Argument the Doctor had answer'd that it no ways follows because it as often signified not Canonical who I say after this would have expected that his Adversary should upbraid him with taking Refuge in the ambiguity of the word when the Ambiguity of the word alone was not only a full answer to but a clear confutation of the Argument But he replies secondly That some of the Books joyn'd with it are confessed by all to be Supposititious and therefore as they were censur'd for that reason so must the Ignatian Epistles But this is manifestly false and though if it were true it follows like all the rest For the Censure has no regard to their Author but whether Spurious or Genuine to their Authority and only designs to shut them out from creeping in among the Canonical Scriptures For that was the only danger it aim'd to prevent least the Books that either were or pretended to be of Apostolical Antiquity should creep into the Canon And it is plain from the Decree it self that Nicephorus intended nothing else than to determine the Canonical Books of Scripture and prevent all others that came nearest to them in Age from obtaining sacred Authority But says Daillé Pope Gelasius when he defines what Books are Apocryphal he does not confine it meerly to the Canonical Scriptures but to all other Ecclesiastical Writers not allowed of and therefore this must be the meaning of Nicephorus That is to say that because Gelasius in his Decree determines what Ecclesiastical Books of what kind soever are to be reputed Orthodox what Heterodox that therefore Nicephorus when he distinguishes the Canonical Books of the New Testament from the Apocryphal does not mean as himself declares but must be understood in the sense of Gelasius And yet when all is done there is no such Testimony but the whole Story is a meer Dream of their own who catch at any shadow that may seem to serve their turn For sirst it is certain That Nicephorus was not the Author of the Stichometria Secondly That the Author of it whoever he was did not pass this censure upon Ignatius his Epistles For we find in it only the name of Ignatius without any mention of his Epistles Which indeed cannot in Daillé's sense be call'd Apocryphal because they were never esteem'd Canonical For that is the true Original of the distinction that whereas there were some Books written by the Followers of the Apostles as Clemens Barnabas and Hermas left these by reason of their nearness to the Canonical Books should in process of time be reckoned with them the Church was careful to range them in a Classis by themselves And whereas there were many other Books that pretended to be dictated by the Apostles and written by their Disciples lest they should gain the Authority they pretended to it concern'd the Church to give them the Apocryphal Mark. Seeing therefore Ignatius Epistles were never upon either of these accounts in any probability of being accounted Canonical it would have been a needless Caution to refer them to the Apocryphal Catalogue And though to Ignatii Daillé after his usual way of making bold with his Quotations adds Omnia It is probable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be added as it is in another Index of Apocryphal Books in the Oxford Library It being the custom of some idle men of those times to make Institutions of Divinity and then fasten them upon Apostles and Apostolical men out of which as our learned Author with great probability conjectures was afterward made that Collection which goes under the name of Apostolical Constitutions Now these spurious pieces pretending to Canonical Authority it was very requisite to prevent and discover the Imposture But whatever probability may be in this Conjecture of which we stand in no need I am
sure there is as little modesty as reason in Salmasius his Argument when he opposes the single authority of Nicephorus to the concurrent Testimony of the Ancients But much less in Daillès defence especially when we consider with what state and confidence he ushers it in Ecce Auctores habemus multis ante nos seculis denatos ab omni contra Hierarchiam suspicione semotos qui omnia Ignatii scripta rotunde ac sine ullâ haesitatione ad Apocrypha relegarunt in stichometriâ Georgio Sincello in libro antiquissimo praefixâ For what confidence can be more enormous than that when these Epistles have been attested by some of the best of the ancient Writers ters to pretend to destroy their Authority by a multitude of Writers and yet produce but one and he at the distance of seven hundred Years But the last aggravation of his confidence is when he professes that he produces the authority of this Stichometria not to prove his own Opinion but only to remove the prejudice of its Novelty and yet cite no other Authors in its behalf For all the rest of his Proofs are drawn from Negative Authority in which he is no more happy than in his many one positive Testimony For when he argues that these Epistles were unknown to every Writer that does not quote them methinks it is an hard condition that he imposes upon all Authors to cite all the Books that they read But says he because of that great authority that Ignatius had in the Christian Church when any Christian Writers had any fair occasion for it it is very likely that they would have appeal'd to his Authority which because they have not done we may justly presume that there were no such Writings extant in their time This is the whole force of his Negative Argument and yet when he comes to particulars he is so unhappy as only to produce those Authors whose custom it is to avoid this kind of Quotations as we have already shewn concerning Irenaeus And so for Clemens Alexandrinus who though he is a great quoter of Heathen and Heretical Writers yet no where cites Ecclesiastical Authors unless such as he supposed to belong to the sacred Canon And so for Tertullian who too is frequent in the Testimonies of Heathens or Hereticks but scarce ever mentions any Ecclesiastical Writers and when he does it is not to prove or confute any Doctrine by their Authority And this in the last place is the case of Epiphanius who makes no mention of a great number of Ecclesiastical Writers that lived before him and when he does it in his Book of Heresies it is only in an Historical way either to spare his own pains or to justifie the truth of his own Relations out of other Histories but never as Daillé requires of him to prove the truth of his Opinion I mention no more of his Negative men who make a great shew in the Contents of his Chapter in that they are alledged altogether impertinently to his purpose because all those Passages which he imagines they were obliged to have quoted belong not to the ancient Copies of Eusebius but are taken out of the late Interpolations And now comparing the Testimonies on both sides we may very safely turn any honest man loose to judg of the Authority of these Epistles and that being once establisht we can neither have nor desire a more ample Testimony than they give us of the Primitive Practice of Episcopal Superiority The holy Martyr every where founding the Peace and Security of the Church against Schisms and Heresies upon the Bishops supreme Authority which he as our Adversaries fancy magnifies so highly though not more than the other Orders of the Church in their respective Function that they think that alone the main objection against the truth of his Epistles Though in truth setting aside all Testimonies the Argument and Spirit of them are no small proof of their genuine Antiquity Being composed of two Arguments peculiar to the first Writers of the Church a vehement zeal for Unity and a passionate sense of Immortality They were possest with a serious belief of the reality of our Saviour's Promises and therefore they lived in this World purely in order to the Rewards of the World to come And how earnestly the Author of these Epistles thirsted after it no good Christian can read without great pleasure and being affected with some workings of the same Passion And as for his way of securing Peace and Unity in all Churches by obedience to the Bishops and under them to the Presbyters and Deacons for his fundamental Rule was that nothing was to be done without the Bishop he derives it from our Saviour's Commission and Promise to the Apostles and their Successors for ever when he constituted them Pastors of his Flock and promised to be perpetually assistant to them by his Divine Providence in the execution of their Office And therefore he does not refer the Government of the Church to them for the greater Wisdom greater Learning or any other natural Advantages of the men themselves but only upon the account of our Saviour's express Institution who had sent them as his Father had sent him and had therefore engaged himself to be present with them to the end of the world so that upon that security to follow the Bishop was to follow Christ because he had undertaken to be the Bishops Guide And this being the state of the case between Ignatius and his Adversaries their Objections will not reflect upon his discretion but our Saviours Integrity and when the cause is brought to that Ignatius is secure and if any man be pleased to raise any further controversie it is only between our Saviour and the Leviathan And there I am content to leave it The next proof of the Primitive and Apostolical Practice of Episcopacy that we meet with among the Ancients is in the Apostolical Canons i. e. a Collection of the Decrees of Synods and Councils between the time of the Apostles and the Council of Nice so that they may not improperly be stiled the Code of the Canons of the Primitive Church And now concerning them the case of the Controversie is much the same with that of Ignatius Epistles for the Testimony that they give in to the Episcopal superiority is so full and plain that it is undeniable And therefore there is no avoiding them but by impeaching their Antiquity and Authority and as the state of the controversie is the same so is the success too for it has been thoroughly disputed between the said Monsieur Daillè and a very learned Divine of our own Church and that with the very same inequality of reason too I shall not give any large account of the engagement because the Books are so lately published and may be so easily perused and therefore I shall rather refer to the Authors themselves especially because I am not a little zealous to recommend one of them as
superiority of order is made equivalent to a superiority of power for that from the time of our Saviours Resurrection is granted them by our Adversaries though it is denied their Successours Thus we enlarge or abate or evacuate that Commission that God himself has given them at our own meer will and pleasure If it be convenient for our cause to assert in one place that they were vested with no superiority of Power they shall be put off with an empty superiority of order separated from power If in another that Assertion seem not so convenient to our purpose they shall be presently advanced to an absolute supremacy over the other Pastors of the Church but then that must last only during their lives and as for their Successours we are pleased to degrade them from the Apostolical both Order and Authority and allow them nothing but an empty degree of I know not what but to say no more of the difference between Order and Degree As for the distinction between Order and Jurisdiction though in one place I affirm that the Apostles were a distinct Order from the other Clergy without any superiority of Jurisdiction yet in another if my cause require it there shall be but one order in the Christian Clergy and no difference but what is made by Jurisdiction and the Bishops themselves shall be equal to Presbyters in order by Divine Right and only superiour in jurisdiction by Ecclesiastical Constitution For so I read that for our better understanding of this we must consider a twofold power belonging to Church-Officers a Power of Order and a Power of Jurisdiction for in every Presbyter there are some things inseparably joyned to his Function and belonging to every one in his personal capacity both in actu primo and in actu secundo both as to the right and power to do it and the exercise and execution of that power such are preaching the Word visiting the Sick administring Sacraments c. but there are other things which every Presbyter has an aptitude and a Jus to in actu primo but the limitation and exercise of that Power does belong to the Church in common and belongs not to any one personally but by a further power of choice or delegation to it such is the power of visiting Churches taking care that particular Pastors discharge their duty such is the power of Ordination and Church-Censures and making Rules for Decency in the Church This is that we call the power of Jurisdiction Now this latter power though it belongs habitually and in actu primo to every Presbyter yet being about matters of publick and common concernment some further Authority in a Church constituted is necessary besides the power of Order and when this power either by consent of the Pastors of the Church or by the appointment of a Christian Magistrate or both is devolved to some particular Persons though quoad aptitudinem the power remain in every Presbyter yet quoad executionem it belongs to those who are so appointed Whatever truth there is in this the Assertion is plain that our Saviour appointed but one order in the Clergy and that the difference which has since been made by the consent of the Church consists in nothing else but Jurisdiction And this is very consistent with the former Assertion that there was no difference between the Apostles and the LXX beside distinction of order when now there is no more by divine appointment than one order in the Church And yet after all this their fluttering between Order and Power Degree and Order Power of Order and Power of Jurisdiction all superiority of Order so much as it is is so much superiority of Power Thus to take their own Instance of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Athens the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the President of the Assembly was so far superiour over his Colleagues in Power as he was in Order For whatsoever was peculiar to his Office gave him some more advantage in the Government of the Common-wealth than they had for the very power of calling and adjourning Assemblies presiding and moderating in them is no small degree of Power in a Republican Government But seeing the difference between a superiority of Order and Power is thought to be made out best by these parallel Instances of Commonwealths let us run the parallel with the Apostles and the LXX for if to be superiour only in Order is to be President in an Assembly or Prolocutor in a Convocation and if this were all the Office peculiar to the Apostles then when our Saviour appointed seventy Disciples and twelve Apostles he made twelve Prolocutors over a Convocation of seventy Seeing therefore that is too great a number of Speakers for so small an Assembly it is manifest that when he separated them for a distinct Office he intended something more by an Apostle than meerly a Chairman in a Presbytery and whatever it is it is either an higher power than others had or it is nothing at all Secondly This Succession is not so evident and convinced in all places as it ought to be to demonstrate the thing intended For it is not enough to shew a List of some Persons in the great Churches of Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria but it should be produced at Philippi Corinth and Caesarea c. This I perceive to be our Adversaries darling Objection being the only matter made use of to shift off several heads of Argument This was the proof of the defect of the Testimony of Antiquity as to places and is now here the only evidence of its ambiguity and by and by will be called in as the only instance of its Repugnancy But certainly their fondness to it is not grounded upon any great vertue that they see in it but they are only forced for want of more material Arguments to lay a mighty stress upon such poor pretences as in any other dispute they would be a shamed to own For first supposing the Succession cannot be shewn in all Churches is that any proof against the Succession that can And suppose I cannot produce a List of Bishops at Philippi Corinth and Caesarea shall I thence conclude against the Succession though I have very good History for it at Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria This is such an Inference as rather shews a mans good will to his Opinion than his Understanding But I have already proved that it is highly reasonable to conclude the customs of those Churches that are not known from those that are and apparently absurd to question the Records of those that are preserved for the uncertainty of those that are not But secondly What though we do not find in all Churches an accurate Catalogue of the succession of all Bishops do we find any Instance in any one ancient Church of any other form of Goverment If we can that were something to the Argument but that is not pretended in the Exception But otherwise because the exact
the difference of some accounts concerning the Succession of some Bishops But this has been objected two or three times already and as often answered and therefore at present I shall say no more to it than only granting the truth of the Premises to mind the Reader of the weakness of the conclusion that from the uncertainty of some Persons in the Succession infers an uncertainty of the form of Government it self And now am I come to our Adversaries only positive proof in their own behalf that is the Authority of St. Jerom for though they pretend to one or two Authors more yet still at the last push St. Hierom is the only man And the sum of all that is pretended from him is this That though the Apostles exercised a superiority over the other Pastors of the Church during their own lives yet immediately upon their decease having it seems provided no Successours in that Power that themselves enjoyed the Church was every where governed by the whole Body or Common-Council of Presbyters but this Form of Government being quickly found very apt to breed Schisms and Divisions it was for the better prevention of them agreed upon all the world over to chuse one Presbyter out of the rest and settle a Supremacy of Power upon him for the more effectual Government of the Church Antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent diceretur in populis Ego sum Pauli Ego Apollo Ego autem Cephae communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur Postquam verò unusquisque eos quos baptisaverat suos putabat esse non Christi in toto Orbe decretum est ut unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris ad quem omnis Ecclesiae cura pertineret ut schismatum semina tollerentur From whence it is inferred that though this Form of Government hapned to be set up in the after-ages of the Church yet it was not upon the account of any Divine Right or Apostolical Constitution but purely upon prudential motives and by the Churches discretion that might have instituted either that or any other alterable Form as it judged most tending to its own peace and settlement Before I come to answer the whole Argument I cannot but observe what disingenuous advantage these men make of the hasty expressions of that good Father let him in the heat and eagerness of dispute but drop an inconsiderate word that may reflect upon the Records or the Reputation of the ancient Church it immediately serves to justifie all their Innovations And thus I remember Monsieur Daillé in his shallow Book of the Use of the Fathers frequently makes good as he thinks his charge against them all only by impleading St. Hierom but though he is made use of to serve them at all turns yet in this Argument they devolve the whole credit of all the ancient Church upon his single Authority And is it not very strange that two or three hasty passages of this single Father not only against the concurrent Testimony of all the ancient Church but against his own express Opinion should be seized upon with so much zeal and greediness to give defiance to all the practice of Antiquity That is bold enough but it is much more so to force all the rest of the Fathers against their own Consciences and Declarations to subscribe to his Opinion as Blondel has done who having first placed St. Jerom in the front and flourished all his sayings with large Commentaries ranges all the rest of the Fathers under his Colours excepting only Ignatius though since he too has had the honour to be admitted into the service but he has drawn them into the Party by such a forced and presumptuous way of arguing that I know not a greater Instance of the power of Prejudice in a learned man I once thought to have taken him particularly to task but his trifling is so grosly palpable that there needs no more to expose it to any mans contempt than that he can endure the Penance of reading him over And how was it possible for any man to discourse after a wiser rate that undertakes to prove that Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Eusebius Chrysostom Theodoret Theophylact were Presbyterians It is just such another design as to go about to prove that Calvin Beza Blondel Salmasius Daillé and all the other Calvinian Fathers have been zealous Assertors of Episcopacy And yet this task too some men have undertaken and I suppose will make good by the same Topicks and doubt not but they will both gain belief together Now in answer to the great Authority of St. Jerom there are many things alledged and insisted upon by learned men some plead that it is contrary to his own express and declared Opinion and therefore is not to be taken for his setled and deliberate sense of the thing but only for an hasty and over-lavish expression Others endeavour to expound him to a good sense consistent with himself and the rest of the Fathers viz. that writing against some proud Deacons that would set themselves above Presbyters he tells them that it was much the same insolence as if they should go about to prefer themselves above the Bishop in that the distance was much the same they alone being reckoned in the Priesthood with the Bishop whereas the Deacons had no higher Office in the Church than to serve Tables and poor Widows So that the difference was the same as in the Levitical Priesthood the Bishop and the Presbyters being as Aaron and his Sons who alone were accounted into the Priestly Office whereas the Deacons had only the Office of Levites that were no better than Servants to the Priests And though Presbyters at that time exercised no Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Church yet they were formerly joyned with the Bishop himself in the Government of it and shared in all acts of Power and Discipline excepting only Ordination And for this reason because they were placed so near to the highest Order that they were capable by vertue of their own Order to exercise almost all the Offices of that it was not to be endured that such inferiour Ministers as the Deacons were should prefer themselves above them Quis patiatur ut mensarum viduarum minister supra eos se tumidus efferat ad quorum preces Christi Corpus sanguisque conficitur Though this probably was all the design of St. Jerom yet because he seems to have said more than he designed I shall not contend about his meaning but shall give my Adversaries the whole advantage of his Authority and let them make the best of it Neither shall I go about to overthrow it by the contrary Testimony of the Ancients for though that were easily done the cause does not require it but granting the Authority of St. Jeroms Opinion and that it was never contradicted by any ancient Writer I will demonstrate the falshood of the Opinion it self from its own absurdity
to put an abuse upon all their Posterity As to say in this case that there once was such a season in which all the world agreed though no body knows when or where to make an universal and perpetual alteration of the Form of Church-Government But to conclude grantting these men all that they contend for I would fain know what greater advantage any reasonable man can desire either to make good the title or to enhance the excellency of Episcopal Government than St. Hierom and Blondel give us viz. that it was practised by the Apostles but that upon their decease their Authority devolved upon the Body of Presbyters which Form of Government was every where found so incompetent and inconvenient that all Churches in the world were within the space of thirty five years or thereabouts convinced of the necessity of retrieving the old Apostolical Inequality as they ever intended to secure the peace and unity of the Church This is pretty well and advantage enough to satisfie any modest or reasonable man and therefore with it I shall rest contented Only I cannot but remarque the strange partiality of our Adversaries in this cause not only to set up this absurd suggestion of St. Jerom concerning the unknown time of an universal alteration of Church-Government and that not only without the Testimony of any Record for if there had been any then it had not been unknown but against the faith of all History and the most certain Tradition of the Church there being nothing more clear in Ecclesiastical Story than the succession of single Persons in the Government of the Church from the Apostles down to his own Age especially in the greatest and most eminent Churches such as Rome Jerusalem Antiochia and Alexandria so that there could have been no such universal change as St. Jerom dreams of when in these great Churches Episcopacy was established antecedently to any such supposed alteration But beside this they oppose the custom of one particular Church and that attested only by one Author to the known practice not only of all other Churches but of that particular Church it self Thus because the same St. Jerom says with the same hast and inconsideration that there was a custom in the Church of Alexandria from St. Mark down to Heraclas and Dionysius for the Presbyters of that Church in the vacancy of the See to chuse one out of their own number and from thence-forward call him their Bishop in the same manner as when an Army makes their own General or the Deacons may chuse one out of themselves and constitute him their Arch-deacon Now I say supposing this Story to be true is it not very severe by the singular practice of one Church to overthrow the Constitution of all other Churches For what if at Alexandria they had a peculiar or a corrupt custom does that impair or destroy the Catholick practice of the Christian Church It is possible not only for one particular Church to deviate in some circumstances from their Primitive Institution but that is no Argument against a certain right Yes but say they this custom was derived from St. Mark himself But that would require some better proof than the bare Assertion of St. Jerom For it is possible there might have been a preposterous practice in after-times which he to give the more Authority to it might in his lavish heat ascribe to the Founder of it But granting the truth of the whole Story what was this custom Was it for Presbyters to ordain their Bishop St. Jerom seems willing to say so but dares not and therefore expresses himself in odd ambiguous and general terms Unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant which signifies nothing certain but that he intends not Ordination is evident by the words that immediately follow Quid enim facit exceptâ ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat Which words upon whatsoever account they are added come in here very impertinently if he had by the Story spoke of Ordination At least out of these general words nothing more can be collected than their right or custom of electing their own Bishop as was the custom of Cathedral Churches afterwards Nay that too is more than is true or can be proved for St. Jerom does not say that the Bishop was chosen by the Presbyters but out of the Presbyters so that he does not give them so much as the right of Election but only appropriates to them the capacity of being elected and that was all the peculiar priviledge of the Presbyters of that Church that they alone were qualified to succeed in the See and if any one will from hence infer as Mr. Selden is pleased to do their power not only of Election but Ordination he may thank himself and not St. Jerom for his conclusion For there is not any the least ground for the inference beside the learned Gentlemans resolution to have it so and therefore when he gives us an account of several both Divines and Lawyers that understand no more by this passage than meerly capitular Election he confutes them with no other argument than only by saying positively that they are ipst Hieronymo adversissimi But alass wise men will not quit their own Opinions only to submit to the confidence of other mens Assertions and therefore he ought either to have proved more or to have said nothing Nay so far were they from having any power of Ordination that they had not that of Election when it is so very well known that the Patriarch of Alexandria was of old time chosen not by the Presbyters but by the People so that to ascribe their Election to the Presbyters is plainly to contradict the known custom of that Church But be that as it will too it is very strange as Mr. Selden himself observes that there are not to be found the least footsteps of this Alexandrian custom in any legitimate ancient Author but only St. Jerom. For if there had been any such custom in this Church of which we have as good and as many Records as of any other Church in the world it is scarce credible but that upon some occasion or other some Writer should have taken notice of it and therefore so universal a silence cannot but bring a very great suspicion upon the truth of St. Jeroms relation at least it is very unreasonable upon the single report of one hasty man concerning the peculiar custom of one Church to renounce as our Adversaries do the known practice of all the Churches in the world beside But to avoid this heavy Objection of singularity our learned Adversary has taken vast pains to find out a second Witness and then two Witnesses we know according to our Law can prove any thing and at length he has discovered an Arabian Author and with more than ordinary joy and transport immediately publishes the particular Story by it self with large and learned Notes upon it but
not content with that he procures the translation of the whole Book and is so satisfied with it that though it were done by another hand yet he adorns the Frontispiece with his own Picture Now certainly one would take this valued piece to have been a work of prime Antiquity and undoubted Authority But as for its Antiquity the Author of it lived no higher than the tenth Century and that is so distant from the Primitive Age that he had not been a more incompetent Witness if he had lived in our own As for his Authority it is manifest that he was a very careless and injudicious Writer his whole Book being every where stuft with childish fables and absurdities and particularly this Paragraph having as many falshoods in it almost as words For whereas St. Jerom continues this custom only to Heraclas and Dionysius he continues it to Alexander the immediate Predecessour of St. Athanasius which is above an hundred years difference and beside that if such a notable change had been first made in the preferment of Athanasius we could not but have had some notice taken of it in a Person whose life and story is so well known so that Eutychius could not have begun this new custom more unhappily at any one Bishop that ever sate in that See than at St. Athanasius the proofs of whose Election by the People were debated and passed in general Council Again in the same Story he tells us that there were no Bishops in all Aegypt beside the Patriarch of Alexandria untill the time of Demetrius which is most grosly and notoriously false I might add many more proofs of ignorance that are collected by the learned Doctors Hammond and Pearson but I shall instance only in one that they have omited viz. that there were no less than 2048 Bishops present at the Council of Nice And yet from this gross mistake Mr. Selden is resolved to bring him off though he confesses there are not so many Bishops in the Christian world for says he Diocesses were not then divided as now they are but before the conversion of the Roman Empire they were of a much less extent than they were afterwards when they were modled in conformity to the Civil Government Whether the Allegation be true or not I need not now enquire for though it be true it is to no purpose for what if it is possible that there might then have been so many Bishops in the world when it is certain there were not so many at the Council of Nice in that as he confesses in the same place all the Writers that either lived in or near the same time and some of the Council it self give in a much smaller number and therefore it it is a very odd attempt to bring him off from so gross a mistake against such pregnant Evidence of what was done only by the possibility of what might have been done We will grant this learned Gentleman that there might have been ten thousand Bishops there if he please whilst we are secure that there were not many more than three hundred and therefore when his Author with some other of his Arabian Friends raise the number to above two thousand it is a manifest instance of Oriental Ignorance But waving all other Exceptions his Novelty is an unanswerable Objection though Mr. Selden to magnifie his Author is pleased to stile him the Egyptian Bede but if Bede had betrayed as much Barbarity as this Author has done he would have justly deserved the Title of the English Eutychius For it is evident that this man scraped together his Annals not out of any certain Records but out of a variety of Authors without judgment still adding to them the customs and fashions of his own age and hence it comes to pass that he so frequently contradicts himself in the same Story because whilst one Author tells it one way and another another way he follows both But still I say setting aside his Barbarity I would have excepted against Bede himself as a competent Witness of any matter of fact that was transacted at the same distance from his Age as this was from the time of Eutychius unless he had confirmed the truth of his Relation by some ancient Testimony and then it is not Bede but his Author that I rely upon and therefore unless Mr. Selden could have vouched the addition of Eutychius to St. Jerom concerning the Presbyters Ordination by imposition of hands and benediction he might have spent his pains as usefully if he had wrote Commentaries upon some of the old Welch Antiquaries who tell us what their Ancestors were doing from year to year many thousand years before the coming of the Romans And thus we see in short into what wonderful evidence the whole opposition of Episcopacy is at last resolved a vain imagination from Nicephorus Stichometria opposed to the most ancient Fathers concerning the Ignatian Epistles a supposed Decree of Pope Gelasius opposed both to the most ancient Fathers Councils and Historians concerning the Apostolical Canons an apparently false Assertion of St. Jerom opposed to all the Writers of the Primitive Church concerning the Original of Episcopacy lastly a barbarous tale of a modern Arabian concerning the Ordination of the Bishop of Alexandria by Presbyters And now if we lay all the Premises together it will I hope amount to a competent demonstration of the matter in debate For if our blessed Saviour first founded the Government of his Church in a real imparity of Church-Officers if the holy Apostles during all their time conformed their practice to his Institution and if the Primitive Church every where as far as their Records are preserved followed their prescription if no credible account can be given of the Original of Bishops unless we derive their Succession from the Apostolical Age if their Institution be as it is confessed to be necessary to the peace and unity of the Church if there be nothing to make it suspected for being meerly of humane Appointment but such bold such groundless and such disingenuous surmises as may be as well objected against all or any the best Records of Antiquity in the World If I say all this be true I hope it will be no presumption to add that it is a sufficient not only defence but proof of the Episcopal superiority against all Exceptions that are close or pertinent in Blondel Walo Messalinus Daillé or any other Authors that are worth naming or reading For as for the little People among ourselves that have for so many years waged so fierce and implacable a War against Prelatry as they call it they are so invincibly ignorant that it is utterly needless to confute and impossible to convince them And how little they were all able to perform is notorious from the great Smectymnuan Mouse that was brought forth by the clubbed labour of so many of their greatest mountains And therefore wholly neglecting them and all their poor Endeavours I have
confined my self to the discourses of men of sense and learning i. e. no Smectymnuans and have distinctly considered and I hope confuted all their material pretences against the Episcopal superiority in the Premises But as for Grammatical Criticisms and Historical Digressions they concern not us because they concern not our Enquiry And if learned men would but come up roundly and keep ingenuously to the main point of the Controversie they must rub their foreheads pretty hard to out-face the evidence of our cause But alas the custom of them all is to range up and down through the whole field or rather wood of Antiquity and pursue every thing little or great that starts within their view And they seem to make choice of this Subject rather from it to take occasion of shewing the variety of their Reading than with any design to make good the undertaking of their Title Page And it is very observable that among the many thousand Pages that have been of late years wasted in the Anti-episcopal cause it will be very hard to find half an hundred directly to the purpose And that of it self is Argument enough that they have but very little to say against it And what that is I have in the Premises fully represented for I protest that as I will answer it to Almighty God I know no other pretences that are at all pertinent or material besides those that I have considered But in the last place beside the direct and positive Argument that I have thus far pusued from ourSaviours own express Institution the undoubted practice of the Apostles and the most unquestionable Records of the Primitive Church I come to the last Topick propounded those enormous inconveniences that unavoidably result from the contrary Opinion I shall represent only two The first is this that if the Form of Government in the Christian Church be not setled by the Founder of it that then we are at a loss to know by whom it may or ought to be determined For the Society of the Church being founded upon an immediate Divine Right no Person can justly challenge any Authority in it as such unless by vertue of some Grant or Commission from the divine Founder of it If therefore those Commissions that were granted by our Saviour to his Apostles do not descend to some certain Order of men as their Successours in that Authority wherewith they were invested who shall challenge the exercise of it after their decease To this we never received any certain Answer but are only told in the general That the particular Form of Government in the Church is left wholly to the prudence of those in whose power and trust it is to see that the peace of the Church be secured on lasting foundations But then I would fain know who those are that are intrusted with this Power It would have been very well worth their pains to have determined the particular Persons expresly appointed by God to this Office Especially when it is laid down as a fundamental Principle that all things necessary to the Churches peace must be clearly revealed in the Word of God and if so then no one particular Form may be established in it by any Authority whatsoever because no one particular Form as is all along pleaded is prescribed by the Word of God and yet it is plainly necessary to the Churches peace if Government be so that it be governed by some one particular Form But yet however when we come to enquire after these Trustees to whose power it is left to see the peace of the Church secured on lasting foundations the answer is ever ambiguous and unconstant Sometimes it is the Civil Magistrate and sometimes the People But this very uncertainty where this Power is lodged is both in it self and according to the fundamental Notion of the Hypothesis that we oppose a manifest confutation of the whole design For if our Saviour have not determined to whom it appertains that is evidence enough that he never intended by this way to provide for the peace and settlement of his Church For if he had appointed such Feoffees in Trust as is imagined he would at least have left it certain who they were that he intended which not having done that is demonstration enough that it was never his intention to set any such pretended Guardians over his Church But be it where it will it is very strange that these Learned men should be so intent upon the fineness of their Model as never to consider the wild consequences of either way when reduced to practice For be it in the Civil Magistrate they would first have done very well according to their own Rule ro have searched for some Commission in the Word of God whereby our Saviour entrusted this power with him We find indeed Prophesies and Predictions that Princes should become Patrons and Protectors of his Church but that they should be vested with a Power of instituting and abolishing Church Orders and Offices at pleasure is such a wild conceit as will not find any the least countenance from the Word of God Secondly By what Authority was the Church governed from our Saviour to the Reign of Constantine when if he had appointed the Civil Magistrate Overseer of his Infant Church there was then none that cared to execute his Office Beside thirdly If Church-Officers derive their Authority in the Church from the meer appointment of the Civil Magistrate they are then only of Humane Institution and derive not their Power from any appointment of our Saviour and so are only Ministers of State and not of the Gospel But to put it into the power of any mortal man to alter the whole frame of Government in the Church as he pleases is the most improper way in the world to provide for its peace and settlement For by this means it will be ever in the power of any Common-wealth lawfully to overturn all manner of Ecclesiastical Order at pleasure If to day perhaps the Bishops either by chance or by vertue of some Grant from the Civil Government enjoy the Supreme Power in the Church it may with good Authority to morrow depose them and translate their Power to the Presbyters from the Presbyters to the Deacons from the Deacons to the People and from the People to the Pope and it would be very consistent no doubt with the wisdom of Christ in founding his Church and providing for the peace and settlement of it to leave its whole frame of Government thus at the Mercy of any mans Power or Will We have one example of this project put in practice upon Record in the Long Parliaments Midsummer-Model of Reformation when they vote June 12. 1641. that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction should be put into the hands of such Commissioners as their Worships should think fit In pursuance of which they vote June 21. that six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the
the opposition of the times the worse they are the more they require our zeal to oppose and to reform them And it is never more seasonable to assert the Rights of the Christian Church than when they are most disowned Let us but do our duty and God will do his work and let us not betake our selves to tricks and shifts upon any pretences if any such there are of loss or danger the Church of Christ subsists upon no other Politicks than Courage and Integrity Let us then be true to those two fundamental Principles of Christianity and our Saviour has undertaken for the event that the Gates of Hell much less Rome or Geneva shall never be able to prevail against it POSTSCRIPT I Have thus far adventured to state the Case of the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law in the Church of England Thereby to declare what it is that we contend for in our Disputes against all sorts of Recusants and Dissenters For it is not at all material what we oppose but what we assert and there would be no harm in Errour were it not for its Contrariety to Truth So that before we defend the Church of England it is necessary to define the true state of its cause otherwise we contend about we know not what For as for the general Term of Protestancy it is an indefinite thing so that if all the men in England that are Enemies or no Friends to the Pope of Rome may be listed under that name we have some Protestants that believe there is a God and some that believe there is none some that believe they have a Saviour and a Soul to save and some that laugh at both there are Hobbian Protestants Muggletonian Protestants Socinian Protestants Quaker Protestants Rebel Protestants Protestants of 41 and Protestants of 48. All or most of which are as different as Popery it self from the true Protestancy of the Church of England And therefore it is necessary to stick close to that both as it is established by the Law of the Land and by the Law of Christ. For unless we limit it to the Law of the Land we may in time have a Church consisting of nothing but Protestants dissenting from the established Religion that is a Church not only without but against it self And unless we derive the Authority of that Religion that is by Law established from the antecedent Law of Christ we may quickly be as we are in a fair way to be a Reformed Church of Protestant Atheists that is a Church without Religion And therefore all must be built upon this one Boâ—â—om that the Church owned by the Law of England is the very same that was established by the Law of Christ. For unless we suppose that the Church was originally setled by our Saviour with divine Authority we deny his Supremacy over his own Church and unless we suppose that the supreme Government of the Kingdom has power to abett and ratifie our Saviours establishment by Civil Laws we deny his Majesties Supremacy over his Christian Subjects and therefore both together must be taken in to the right State and Constitution of the Church of England And that do what we can will involve the Leaders of our present Separation in the guilt both of Schism and Sedition of Schism in the Church in that they withdraw themselves and their obedience from those who are vested with a power to command them by vertue of a Divine Commission of Sedition in the State in that they needlesly and without any justifiable pretence violate the Laws of the Common-wealth Though the truth is their Dissension is somewhat worse For as they manage it it is not only Sedition but Rebellion in that they do not only disobey the Laws but disavow their obligation standing resolutely upon that one Principle that no Magistrate whatsoever has any power of establishing any thing relating to the Worship of God So that the Act of Uniformity is not so much faulty for the particular matters contained in it as for the unlawful and usurped Authority of it And when the King and Parliament enjoyned the Book of Common-Prayer to be used in all Churches they challenged a Power to which they had no right and invaded the Prerogative of God himself This is the first ground of the Separation as it is stated by the chief Ring-leaders of it and it is a plain renunciation of their Allegiance as well as Conformity I can with all the streinings of Charity make no better of it and should be heartily glad if I could see them without shufling and prevarication clear themselves of so pernicious a Principle To conclude methinks Religion has been long enough trifled with in this Kingdom and after so long and so sad experience of our folly it is time to return to some sense of discretion and sobriety Before the late barbarous War we had the Scepter of Jesus Christ and the divine right of Presbytery to advance but now after the murder of an hundred thousand men that Cause has proved so ridiculous as that it is grown ashamed of it self However the pretence was great and solemn but at this time the People are driven into the same excesses against the Church no body knows for what unless it be that some men among us are too proud or too peevish to recant their Follies And therefore I conjure them in the name of God to lay their hands upon their hearts and without passion seriously to consider what it is for which they renounce the Church in which they were baptised into the Communion of the Catholick Church tear and rend it into numberless pieces and factions scare multitudes of silly and well-meaning People out of it as they tender the salvation of their souls and put the whole Kingdom into perpetual tumults and combustions about Religion and when they have considered it I shall only bind it upon their Consciences so to answer it to themselves now as they hope to answer it to their Saviour at the last day As for the foreign Reformed Churches I have said nothing of them because they are altogether out of the compass of my Argument which is confined within the four Seas and concerns only those that either are or ought to be members of the Church of England But if in any thing any other Churches deviate from the Primitive Institution they must stand and fall to their own Master And God forbid we should be so uncharitable as to go about to un-church them or renounce brotherly communion with them or to think that our blessed Saviour should withdraw the promise of his Grace and Protection from them For if every defect from his Institution should forfeit the Rights of a Christian Church there never was as we may find by the Apostles account of the Churches in their times nor ever will be such a thing as a Church in the world For in this life it is not to be expected that any thing