Bishop then challenged the same power over the Presbytery as now This I have but lately proved Or that discipline was then maintained This I do not find that you deny Nay certainly your self thought discipline maintainable under it when you professed your self ready to yield to such an Episcopacy Or that what was then performed by the same Government is still performable if men would be the same The admission of this would not oblige you to question your self or experience Nor indeed is any thing of this kind concerning antiquity as notorious to you as what men do at present in England FOR proving the great multitudes then subject to Diocesan Discipline I said That the greatness of no City was thought sufficient to multiply Bishops To this you answer 1. That Gods Institution was that every Church have a Bishop for which you quote Acts 14. 23. c. But 1. The place you refer me to has no mention of a Divine Institution for Apostolical practice is not a sufficient proof of that and this is all which is so much as intimated in this place 2. It does not as much as mention the word Bishop but that of Presbyter And though the words were granted to have been then confounded yet you know they were so afterwards when the things were certainly distinct And therefore you cannot conclude from the word Presbyter that a Bishop was meant especially in the sense wherein it was afterwards appropriated Nor 3. Is it evident that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is meant a single Presbyter in every particular Church as in a Parish but it may as well be meant of Presbyteries as Presbyters And when afterwards the Presidency of a single Monarch was introduced no Churches and Presbyteries but such as had Bishops and were Diocesan in the sense we now understand the word And if they were Presbyteries you cannot hence disprove the presidency of one over the rest as we find it soon after practised Nor 4. Is it evident that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs be meant a Parish as it concerns you to believe For the word Church is as applicable to great as small Societies and the great ones may as well be called one in their kind though they be capable of a further subdivision into many Churches of smaller denomination Thus the Catholick Church is called one in the Constantinopolitan Creed though consisting of many national and the Church of England but one national Church though consisting of two Provincial and the Province of Canterbury but one Provincial Church though consisting of several Diocesan and every Diocese but one Diocesan Church though consisting of several Parishes And even in the Scripture there are several notions of the word of different proportions There are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ which from the coherence and the Jewish notions of Assemblies seem to make up a Church and accordingly Tertullian calls an Assembly of two or three a Church though consisting onely of Laicks And yet these Churches are so little serviceable to your purpose as that I believe you would not be for confining a private Presbyter to so small a cure I am sure they are much beneath those populous Parishes which you do not seem to disapprove Supposing therefore I should grant you that every distinct Church should have a distinct Bishop yet how will you prove with the least plausibility that this Church must be understood of a Parochial one that the multitude of Bishops may answer that of Parishes Especially considering that the notion of the word for a Parochial Church will not be so easily deduced from Scripture as that for a Diocese For thus much the Independents I think do prove sufficiently that a whole Church in those times did generally meet in one place but they fail in proving distinction of Churches in Cities though never so great and populous which two put together do plainly amount to our notion not of a Parochial but Diocesan Church there appearing no footsteps in those times of any Subdivisions allotted to particular Presbyters Besides if we may believe the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here parallel with those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. l. 5. as in all likelyhood they are then a Church will be that which will extend to the Liberties of a whole City And because you find no mention of distinct Presbyters for Villages recommended to Titus's care it seems very probable that they were sufficiently provided for by those of the City and therefore that they had some dependence on them That the name of Churches was attributed first to Cities see proved by the Excellent Dr. Stilling fleet Iren. p. 2. c. 7. § 2 4. FOR that the Apostles did take care even for Villages we have the express Testimony of S. Clemens Romanus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if these words be understood as commonly they are But I confess it does not seem to me so clear that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is understood those Country Villages which are obnoxious to the Jurisdiction of the City but rather Regiones as it is translated not as Rome and Constantinople were divided into their Regiones answerable to our Wards but as it may in a larger sense signifie whole Provinces under which many Cities might be comprehended my Reasons I would give if I were not unwilling to digress much less am I satisfied with Blondell's Conjecture who conceives it to relate to the Chorepiscopi and thence concludes that they were not originally subject to the City Bishop For though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were indeed taken in the sense he is concerned it should be yet there is no necessity that it should be referred to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if distinct Bishops had been imposed over them from those of the Cities to which they were related but may conveniently enough be joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie their preaching in the Villages as well as Cities and their election of fit persons from both for Bishops and Deacons to be disposed of where they thought convenient However it were it seems very probable that the Apostles as they planted Christianity first in Cities so they seemed to have settled the Government there first and as they generally left the Villages to be converted by excursions from the Cities so it seems most credible that the influences of the Government must have followed that of the propagation of their Doctrine Certainly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by Ignatius in his Inscription of his Epistle to the Romans over which the Church of Rome is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot in the narrowest exposition choose but include a Precinct as large as our ordinary Dioceses But 5. Supposing all had been as you would have them that it had been enjoyned by the Apostles that every Parochial Church should have a distinct Bishop yet how can you
in private and occasional Assemblies Presbyters were permitted to do it by leave of the Bishop without any prejudice to the Unity of the Church which was signified by the Unity of their Altar I will not mention the instances hereof in the Acts of the Martyrs which are not so secure to be trusted Ignatius and Tertullian are very clear to this purpose in the places already produced Now this account being given how notwithstanding the multitude of Communicants and though the Sacrament were the greatest obligation to meet in publick Assemblies yet much greater numbers than our Parishes might have been supplied conveniently enough from one President and one Altar it will be easie to give an account of other things For as for preaching which is now more insisted on as a reason of Church Assemblies than the Sacraments though certainly very differently from the sense of those Ages First you cannot prove that to have been so appropriated to the Bishop as that ordinary Presbyters were excluded from it All that can be pretended to this purpose is that the Exhortation with the Communion Office was then generally in the presence of the Bishop and that in his presence it was not usual for Presbyters to preach for this is the onely thing that was thought so strange in preaching of Origen before Theophilus and S. Augustine before Valerius that it was done in the presence of their Bishops and that the power of Ecclesiastical Assemblies upon what pretence soever preaching as well as other Offices was appropriated to the Bishops But 1. All private visitations and conferences which were much better suited to the exigencies of those times might undoubtedly be performed by single Presbyters and these being performed with that diligence as they were then would in a great measure supersede the necessity of publick Sermons And 2. Even for those publick preachings which had no relation to the Communion Office where that one Altar was concerned might have been ordinarily permitted them by the Bishop And 3. Even those which were connected with that Office might yet by the Bishops leave have been permitted in places distinct from the one Altar as well as the Communion it self YOUR instance of St. Patrick founding 365 Churches for I onely take notice of the more probable number and ordaining in them 365 Bishops and under them 3000 Presbyters does not methinks seem any thing to your purpose You say Here is no more Bishops than Churches I believe you meant the contrary that there were no more Churches than Bishops for this is onely to your design of having as many Bishops as Churches that is in your notion of the word as Parishes And you know though we pretend many Parish Churches may be subject to one Bishop Yet we are far from saying that there ought to be many Bishops in one Parish But admitting there were in S. Patrick's time no more Churches than Bishops yet how can it follow thence that there were no more Parishes or that the word Church in those Ages used without any restrictive Particle must signifie that onely which were equivalent to our present Parishes For you know that we do not pretend that there ought to be any more liberty for a Bishop to hold plurality of Dioceses than for a Minister to have plurality of Parishes though I will not defend all practices in both particulars so that if the word Church imply that which is Diocesan as most probably it did according to the sense of those times then we do not think there ought to be more Churches than Bishops Indeed I confess the Dioceses of those times must have been for scope of Land as much less as the number 365 is greater than 21 or thereabouts which is our number now But it is withall most clear 1. That as small as they were they were yet greater than Parishes there being about nine Presbyters to a Bishop as your self observe For your own notion of a Parish containing no more than are capable of being governed by a single person where nine persons were thought necessary there must be supposed nine times that proportion that is nine Parishes And then if you think your self obliged to abstain from that Communion where Discipline is impossible and think it impossible where the Bishop undertakes the government of any more than he is able to give an account of by his own personal care you must have conceived your self obliged as much to separate from Diocesan Communion quà Diocesan then as now and therefore should not plead those Dioceses as precedents But 2. Your own principles will warrant the enlargment of your Dioceses now for if Bishops might in the primitive times take the charge of whole Cities not because the Cities were small or the Inhabitants few but because they who owned Episcopal Authority that is Christians were so then I may say our present Dioceses may be very much inlarged since the divisions of Christians For whereas then they were all unanimous the case is otherwise how when Papists and Scots and other Non-conformists being deduced of all Sects and Opinions those onely are accounted that own our present Episcopal Authority would be so few comparatively so that you see that by Separation upon account of the too great extent of our Dioceses the inconvenience is not remedied but confirmed in consequence of your own Principles But 3. What inconvenience soever may indeed be in things of this nature is to be judged as well as reformed by the Governours whose proper care it is not to be remedied by worse such as are the undutifulness and separations of private persons from their Superiours on that account I CONFIRMED this by Argument from experience from an instance of Rome which though so great in Cornelius his time as to need the Services of above 1000 Clergie was yet at the same time under the Government of one onely Bishop To this you answer 1. That this was above 250 years after Christs Birth But this is not the question how soon it was but whether it was not when discipline was severely enough observed For from hence it follows that experience has then shewn that discipline was sufficiently reconcilable with a Diocesan Government and therefore may be so now if Governours would be equally industrious And that discipline was then observed I believe you will not deny You answer 2. That you never took all the impotent persons poor and widows in the Church to be Clergie-men and Clergie-women I shall not dispute the propriety of my expression not but that I know that the word has indeed been used in a very large sense so as to comprehend most persons relating to the Church and possibly all there enumerated both because I do not conceive the thing material to my present purpose which is onely to shew the numerousness of the Church from the multitude of Presbyters whom you will not deny to be properly Clergie-men and because I confess I too much trusted my memory in
prove that it was an Injunction of an immutable and eternally-obliging nature as it is clear that some that of abstaining from bloud Acts 15. was not For if they be not you ought not to urge them to the prejudice of superinduced Constitutions But lastly all that you can hence pretend for your purpose is onely that the having onely one Bishop in the appropriated sense in a Diocese was not conformable to the sense of the Apostles But it does not thence follow that discipline is not maintainable under such a Government which was the onely thing for whose proof I produced it You answer 2. That a particular Church was a Society of neighbour Christians convened in personal communion for Gods worship I confess personal communion was generally practised with the Bishop but I have proved it to be of whole Cities and such great Assemblies as could not be served by a single person without the assistance of a Presbytery which the Bishop had for his help and therefore could not be Parochial in the sense of the word now commonly used If you thinke otherwise when you prove it I may then and not till then be concerned to think of a further Answer YOU answer 3. That for 250 years you think I cannot prove that any one Bishop in the world save at Alexandria and Rome had more such congregations and altars than one nor there for a long time after the Apostles nor in many Churches for some hundred years longer The is the same mistake as before to think them answerable to our Parishes who did then all communicate at one altar whereas indeed the fame circuit and number of Inhabitants who had first been governed by the Bishop and his Presbytery in common no particular Presbyter having nay proper portion assigned him but by the provisional commands of the Bishop was afterwards distributed into parts proportionable to the number of the Presbytery that so every one might know his own work And I pray what essential difference is there betwixt the same Presbyteries as acting in common as they did at first with the Bishop and distributed into several divisions as they are now unless it be that this later is more convenient And if the Bishop was major universis when they acted in conjunction with him why must he be minor singulis or at least aequalis when dispersed to their several distinct Imployments If all of them when united might not attempt any thing without his consent and privity why must each of them be allowed that liberty when deprived of their united forces And if discipline was maintainable by them when by acting in common they were more remote from particular exploration why should it not be much more so when none is invited to be negligent by trusting to another as men are apt to do in cases of common concernment and when each of them has a task proportionable to his own abilities But 2. Suppose that this subdivision of the Diocese into Parishes which is all that you can pretend to have been attempted at Rome and Alexandria for by this means it fell out by accident that there were several altars under the Jurisdiction of the same Bishop had not answered the primitive example nay had been a culpable not a lawful prudential Innovation yet will you say that discipline was not maintained when it was actually however upon other accounts culpably introduced If you grant it was that is sufficient for my purpose to shew that the experience of those times has evinced the possibility of discipline under a Diocesan Government and therefore that it is practicable even now if men would but endeavour it If you say it was not you must then charge the most celebrated Churches in the purest earliest Ages with want of discipline For in Rome the first division into Titles answerable to our Parishes is attributed to Pope Euaristus who came into his See Anno Dom. 112. by the Author de Vit. Pontif. commonly ascribed to Damasus For afterwards in the two Epistles of Pius which are of better repute with Blondell than the others that bear his Name to Justus Viennens we find mention of two Titles then newly established by Euprepia and the Pastor so that I think this division there if we may trust these Authors for it and if we may not you will have no ground of charging the Romans of those Ages with plurality of Altars more than in other places will appear to have been as soon as they had any settled places to meet in For before that their meetings seem to have been ambulatory and uncertain sometimes in the Temple sometimes in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes in secret places particularly in the Coemeteria for of some of these may the passages of 1 Cor. 11. and the ancient Author of Philopatris in Trajan's time who bears the name of Lucian be understood and then it was not so convenient to subdivide into Parishes when there were not any settled places peculiarly designed and convenient for Parochial Assemblies Upon which account there will be no reason that the necessitous examples of the former Age should prejudge against the prudence and conveniences of this But the Titles mentioned by Pius as left by Legacy seem to have been perpetually alienated to the use of the Church and therefore fitter for this purpose Which if it be supposed then the antiquity of divers Altars in the same Diocese will be equal with Churches and Parishes which you do not condemn and as ancient as they could be with any tolerable convenience and you cannot blame them for being no sooner And sure you will not deny that even then and a long while after discipline was maintained among the Romanists themselves If you do you must contradict all the histories of that Age which mention the Martyrdoms of their Bishops of those Ages together with very many of their other Clergy and Laity for several Successions and the great Elogies of Tertullian and S. Cyprian and the confident Appeals to the Roman Church as well as others for the Assertion on of Apostolical Tradition used frequently by the Fathers against the Hereticks whereas a sensible decay in discipline would have weakened their credit even in Doctrinals And for the other Instance of Alexandria the first mention that we find of a subdivision there is in the time of Arius who is said to have been Presbyter of a Church called Baucalis upon which occasion Epiphanius tells us That the Churches of the Catholick Communion in Alexandria under the Jurisdiction of the same Archbishop had their particular Presbyters assigned them for the Ecclesiastical necessities of the Inhabitants which divisions were by the Alexandrians according to the custom of their Country called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it is not mentioned as an Innovation in or near his time and therefore is in all probability to be presumed much more ancient And if the custom of the eldest
Presbyters succeeding in order to the Episcopacy was in Alexandria where it seems observed as a special custom practised from the Apostles time to Heraclas who was Scholar to Origen as S. Hierom and Eutychius say it was and there ceased at S. Hierom seems to intimate then it would be very probable that this subdivision into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was introduced at least before that time of Heraclas because some reliques of that practice remained even in Arius his time whose place as Presbyter of Baucalis is made next to the Bishop So Gelasius Cyricenus speaking concerning Alexander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence also the relation in Nicephorus Calistus of the quarrel of Arius with one Baucalus being the first and second Presbyters of that Church of Alexandria which is given as an occasion of his Heresie a story very probably raised by occasion of his mistaking Baucalis the name of his Parish for the name of a Man who is made second because Arius was known to be the first For this Precedeny of Arius is no way probable to have been because of his longer standing in his office of Presbytery seeing Alexander is said expresly to have given him it who was the first that made him Presbyter for he was onely made Deacon by Achillas the Predecessor of Alexander Now Alexander himself is by Baronius thought to have succeeded Achillas in the Year 311 and if he be mistaken seems rather to erre in placing him too soon after Peter and the difference betwixt him and Arius arose about the Year 315 not above four years after too small a time to make him in course the senior Presbyter This Precedency therefore seems to be upon account of his Parish which at the first distribution had in all probability been allotted to that Presbyter who had been senior in due course of standing which therefore seems to have been introduced whilest that seniority was observed that is at least before the time of Heraclas AND how long before Heraclas his time this distinction might have been introduced you cannot tell yet I believe you will hardly say I am sure much more hardly prove that discipline failed there in the time of Heraclas or for a long time after After Heraclas how much the Church of Alexandria and himself particularly suffered for Christianity you have fully related by his Successor Dionysius in Eusebius in the time of Decius and Valerian and how severe they were in their Fasts appears from the Canonical Epistle of that same Dionysius to Basilides besides his other penitential Treatise now lost What the Alexandrians also suffered in the most bloudy Persecution of Dioclesian you may find in the same Eusebius and particularly in Thebais which by the Nicene Canon establishing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we find to have been influenced by the Alexandrian Discipline the number of Martyrs was so great as to denominate a famous Epocha which those Countries observe to this day called the Annus Martyrum or Dioclesiani Which severity is by so much the more remarkable because it followed an intervall of rest which usually corrupts that discipline which is onely voluntary and unseconded by good Laws I need not mention the Martyrdom of their Bishop S. Peter in this Persecution his very severe Canonical Epistle is sufficient to shew how rigorous discipline was then practised when in the heigth of persecution such severe Penances against lapsed persons were not judged unseasonable to be exercised on such persons over whom they had no coercive power but the obligation of the Penitents conscience I might have proceeded to have shewn the same severity still maintained in that City which you so particularly reflect on as unworthy to be made a precedent during the Prelacy of Alexander and the great Athanasius from the great Elogies given to those excellent Prelates by the Fathers and the courage shewn by them in ejecting and keeping out Arius and the very slight Exceptions urged by the Arians their Enemies against them especially in the several Synods convened in the cause of Athanasius But for evincing the general severity of the Lives of Christians that memorable Example of their great diligence in providing for those who had been formerly their severest Persecutors in the great Plague and Famine which immediately followed the Persecution of Dioclesian and venturing many of their own lives in the service when they had been deserted by their nearest Friends may be an illustrious evidence Besides the Controversie betwixt S. Pet. of Alexandria and Meletius the occasion of the Meletian Schism shews how generally the Alexandrians were affected to discipline For when S. Pet. though severe enough against lapsed persons as appears by his forementioned Epistle yet thought it a necessary Indulgence to admit Penitents to Communion during the Persecution even Priests as well as others that they might be the better animated to new occasions of sufferings Meletius opposed it and was followed by much the greater part of the Clergie Nor ought you to conclude that the like subdivision was not introduced into other Churches because we have no Records attesting it to have been so seeing there is so little extant of the Histories of those earlier Centuries much less any thing so minute and particular in describing the Customs of particular Churches as that it would be safe to argue negatively from their omission of a custom to conclude that there was none For my design it is sufficient that the ancient Dioceses had as many Presbyters besides other Clergie requisite to rule them in conjunction with the Bishop as are now thought sufficient since their distribution into particular Parishes besides the Chorepiscopi and the Clergie under them all subject to the Government of the City Bishop Which is enough to shew that the charge of a Diocese was as great then as now and much beyond what you would have it the abilities of a particular person without Parochial Subrulers 4. YOU say At Antioch the third Patriarchate Ignatius professeth that every Church had one Altar and one Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons Fellow-servants If you mean every Church at Antioch as if that or any other City in that time had more than one Bishop presiding over a Presbytery that is more than you will find in Ignatius or any Authentick Writer of that time But if you mean at Antioch as a Patriarchate that is within that circuit which was afterwards subject to the Bishop of Antioch as a Patriarch including the whole Oriental Diocese there were many Cities that had in them but one Altar with one Bishop and his Clergie that I have already granted probable but have withall shewn how little it will advantage your Cause or prejudice mine and I am not desirous to trouble you with Repetition The name of Fellow-servants I doubt you misunderstand it is indeed true if related to God that persons of all Orders in the Church are his Fellow-servants but if you
were unable to earn a livelyhood for themselves according to S. Pauls Rule already mentioned Consider 2. That even of those impotent poor none were to be charged on the Church that had believing Friends able to maintain them according to another Rule of the same S. Paul 1 Tim. 5. 4 8. by which means none were likely to have been maintained by the Church but such as might have been starved if they had not been so relieved Now considering that according to Captain Graunts Calculation of 229250 in London not above 51 were starved which he reckons as the 4000th part but with too great latitude for it is indeed the 4495th part besides a Fraction of 5 or thereabouts if his Numbers be rightly printed let 1500 be multiplied by 4495 and the summ will be 6742500 or if it be multiplied by his own proportion of 4000 it will amount to 6000000 a summ too great for the City And by all deductions that may be made for the unkindness of some Christian Friends and of most Heathen that would leave many destitute of their help for no other reason than their being Christians and of others that were maintained by the Church not for want of callings but of lawful ones as the Stage-player in S. Cyprian and the remisness of some Officers of those many entrusted in this affair who either might have not used their utmost diligence in informing themselves of the poverty and helplesness of the persons admitted by them or might have failed of the success and being misinformed after all humane diligence and have had persons sufficient either in themselves or by help of their Friends obtruded on them or all other failings imaginable for I confess moral affairs are not to be estimated by Mathematical measures yet it will be hard after all to bring the summ so low as 460000 which Captain Graunt conceives to be the whole number of Inhabitants in London much more to reduce it to the limits of the greatest Parish mentioned by you But 2. If you had indeed computed right and the number had been no greater than of one of those great Parishes you speak of yet why should not the numbers of people here mentioned be thought sufficient for a Diocese even in our modern sense For I doubt there are no Cities in the Kings Dominions that have Episcopal Sees that have 50000 Inhabitants except London Ours of Dublin which is thought by most that have seen it to be second to London for greatness and populousness is by a Bill of Mortality and an account of the Poll-money sent to Captain Graunt estimated to contain onely 30000 or thereabouts though I can hardly believe that to be our full number according to which estimation the Parishes you speak of will exceed us by two thirds more and so I believe they will equal our whole Diocese for I believe the rest of it put together can hardly exceed the proportion of two third parts to the City And can you think the same number in a Parish governable by the single unassisted abilities of a single Parish Minister and not think it so by a Bishop seconded by his Presbytery Dignitaries and Parochial Curates Or if the case of preserving discipline be harder in such a Parish than such a Diocese as certainly upon the accounts now mentioned it needs must be then I pray consider what equality is it to communicate with our Parishes indiscriminately such great ones themselves not being excepted and yet to separate as indiscriminately from our Diocesan Communion even of such as exceed not those greater Parishes in the numbers of their people though they do in numbers of their Governours And if you think that as many may meet in one place as may make up our ordinary present Dioceses as you must do if they may be conveniently included in a Parish then how can you conclude the less populousness of the ancient than our modern Dioceses from that very Topick of their meeting in one place For my part I verily believe that it is by accident not designedly that those Parishes have so vastly exceeded their ordinary proportion merely from the encrease of the trade of the City in those parts which were more thinly inhabited when the Parishes were first distributed as you may easily conjecture from the disproportion some of them exceeding other Parishes in your City an hundredfold as is observed by Captain Graunt which is more than there are Parishes in some of our Dioceses and from the disproportion of their ancient Churches when they were designed Parishes with their present multitudes and their equality with those other Parish Churches whose present Parishioners are so extremely unequal and that these vast Parishes are generally in the Suburbs where the City was very likely to encrease And therefore seeing the greatness of those Parishes seem never yet to have been approved though they were not yet amended you cannot thence conjecture what has certainly appeared false as to matter of fact that the Roman Christians were no more than one Parish under the personal and immediate care of their Bishop 10. You say When none were Christians but persecuted Voluntiers they were the holiest and best of men and you have tried that 600 such make less work for discipline than 10 of the Rabble that are driven into our Churches and choose them rather than the Gaol Upon account of which conceived disparity I presume your meaning is to conclude that one Bishop might rule a greater number than now and therefore though Diocesan Churches might indeed have been rulable by one Bishop then yet we are not thence to conclude that it may be so now But I have already shewn that Government must not be proportioned onely to the good humours of men but must be able to prevent and reform those lapses to which men easily and naturally degenerate and therefore that there must have been the same power in Governours then as now though there was not the same necessity of its actual exercise And that the Bishops power was not onely over orderly Converts but over lapsed criminals who had then more temptations to fall and being so to behave themselves refractorily against the discipline of their Church when their lapses were countenanced than now when they are discouraged by the Civil Magistrate and over the Heathens who were to be converted and severely disciplined for the trial of their veracity and securing them from a relapse And if you find it so hard a matter now to persuade such as know their duty and acknowledge their reasonableness and have a reverence of such persuaders and persuasions instilled in them by the principles of their Christian Education to the practice of what they cannot deny themselves obliged to certainly the difficulty of reclaiming Heathens must have been much greater who were as debauched in their lives as ours now and less disposed for correction in all the regards now mentioned than vicious Christians nay contrarily prejudiced not onely
my Preface if he had thought himself obliged to speak to Answers in his Confutations But does he not know that this very same Objection was made use of by the Heathens against Christianity and by the Romanists against the Reformation that if either Christianity or Protestancy were the onely true way to Salvation exclusively to others then much the greater number of Mankind or Christians must have been out of the true way of Salvation And can he deny that the matter of fact was true that there was indeed a time when Heathens were more numerous than Christians and Romanists than Protestants Will he therefore grant that Christianity and Protestancy were not the onely ordinary true means of Salvation I know he will be far from saying so But yet he is not sensible how much himself is more concerned in the Consequence of this Discourse than I am He that in his Diocesan Ordination must have promised Canonical Obedience to his Ordinary cannot renounce our Diocesan Communion as Diocesan without some charge of sin greater than the sin of breaking his Promise of Canonical Obedience And if this sin agree to Diocesan Communion as Diocesan then certainly it must be not onely a single act of sin but a state of sin and such a state of sin as all will acknowledge destructive of Salvation so agreeing to Diocesan Communion as Diocesan it must agree to all Diocesan Communion whatsoever And if all Diocesan Communion as Diocesan be destructive of Salvation how much more uncharitable will he prove than I if to maintain principles from whence consequences will follow which will prove hurtful to faulty persons must be thought uncharitable How few are those Protestants that want Episcopal Ordination who can alone seem chargeable with the consequences of my Discourse in comparison of the whole Greek and Latin Churches and those other Forein Protestants also as well as those of our own Dominions which will be concerned in the consequences of his I might here declame as tragically as he does and retort a great part of his own Discourse upon himself if I were desirous to take advantage of this Topick against him not so much to prove his Doctrine false as to expose it as odious If he will say that he has notwithstanding charitable thoughts concerning the persons of many who differ from him in principles of their own nature destructive of Salvation Abate his affection to his party which makes him as his matter requires speak inconsistently and I think I shall allow as much candour and charity to the persons of Dissenters as he can rationally and with any consistency with any even his own principles § IX IF therefore it be granted that these consequences are no just argument to prove the principles false from which they follow it will then follow further that in order to the confutation of my principles he ought not to content himself with deducing these consequences without more distinct application to the principles themselves it will follow that even the odium of such consequences is irrational and sinful and therefore not at all regardable in conscience whatever it may in prudence No truly conscientious persons can be offended at just consequences from principles whose truth is not proved questionable especially where positive reasons have been produced for them And therefore whoever are so must for that very reason at least in this particular be presumed not to act conscienciously or consequently to be regardable on account of conscience It will follow that till he do answer more distinctly to my principles the very unkindness of the application will be rather his than mine For till he weaken the proof of my principles I shall have reason in all equity to presume them true And if he draw Inferences unfavourable to them from unconvicted principles it will be he not I that must be responsible at least for the application If therefore he will not make them less concerned than it is their Interest to be in case of real danger let him first secure them from the danger by a conviction of my principles which when he does he will have me as well as them indebted to him for the Obligation Till he do so certainly plain dealing and a fair warning is the most real office of Friendship that can be shewn in case of danger I wish I may by this intimation prevail with whosoever shall hereafter trouble themselves to answer me not to satisfie themselves with invidious clamours and evasions of a direct Answer to my principles A direct Answer would better become them as Lovers and Enquirers of truth rather than Votaries to a Party would more tend to the satisfaction of conscientious Dissenters would afford a better subject for useful information § X As for particulars there are onely two that I can know of in which indifferent Friends do think me concerned One is that he says and says it more than once that the Generality of our Saxon Bishops derive their Succession from Aidan and Finan who says he were no Bishops as Bede and others fully testifie So that he says The denying the validity of the Ordination by Presbyters shaketh the Succession of the Episcopal Church of England and proveth it on that supposition interrupted I know not how it becomes him who himself pretends Episcopal Ordination to discover his Forefathers nakedness if it had been true that is here suggested But not to expostulate with him concerning the unkindness herein shewed to his Ordainers what benefit can he do his own cause by this Objection Would it follow that his Brethren have Succession because we had fail'd of it Would it follow that Succession is not necessary because none could justifie their Claims by it Would it follow that the Right of Ordination must in course be escheated to the Presbyteries or the People or the Magistracy in case no Right could now be made out by Derivation from the Apostles If Succession be still necessary for the validity of Orders as it may be notwithstanding this Argument till he answer the Arguments produced to prove it necessary all that he can expect by using such Arguments as these will be not to satisfie us but to prove us as faulty as themselves not to quiet the consciences of those who should be afraid of Sacrilegious Ordinances but onely to make them despair of ever being quieted And therefore this is an Answer if at all fit to be insisted on yet not till he had attempted a more particular Answer But God be praised we have no need to be concerned for this Objection Bede is so far from denying Aidan and Finan to have been Bishops as that he expresly affirms the contrary Oswald King of Northumberland sent to the Elders of the Scots for a Bishop Antistes is the word in Bede's Latine and Biscop in the Saxon of Alfred Accordingly he receives Pontificem Aidanum as the Latine or Biscop as it is again in the Saxon. When
this Bishop was come he has an Episcopal Seâ— provided for him so Bede most expresly Veniente igitur ad se EPISCOPO Rex lâ—cum Sedis EPISCOPALIS in Insula Lindisfarnensi ubi ipse petebat tribuit Again Monachus ipse EPISCOPUS Aidanus He elsewhere tells us the very time when he was made Bishop accepto gradu EPISCOPATUS quo tempore eidem Monasterio Segenius Abbas Presbyter praefecit Where the Saxon also gives him the Title of Bishop though it omits the particularizing of the time when he received it He therefore also gives an account of the reason why his Monastery pitch'd on him particularly as a person fit for that Imployment He tells us that thereupon they judged him dignum Episcopatu that accordingly illum Ordinantes ad praedicandum miserunt Again he is called Reverendissimus Antistes Biscop in the Saxon and praefatus Episcopus The same Title is very frequently given him cap. 14 15 16 17. l. 4. 23 27. l. 5. 23. so frequently as that I do not know whether it be worth while to transcribe each particular Instance and the Time of his Bishoprick distinctly noted So also in his Epitome at the Year DCLI Aidanus Episcopus defunctus est So extremely little occasion he had of even mistaking in this matter from Bede himself Nor could he have much greater from those others to whom he refers us who must have taken what they had from Bede if they had any Authority The Saxon Chronicon transcribes the very words of Bede's Epitome and at the same Year The like Agreement there is in those who took from him at a greater distance Turgotus Simeon Dunelmensis Malmesburiensis Huntington c. if any be yet further curious Nor is Bede and his Transcribers less clear in the case of Finan Bede is most express Immediately after the death of Aidan he subjoyns Successit verò ei in Episcopatum Finan ipse illo ab Hii Scotorum insulâ ac Monasterio destinatus ac tempore non pauco in EPISCOPATU permansit Concerning the Baptism of Peada Son of Pendan King of the Middle Angles and the Mercians Baptizatus est ergo à Finano Episcopo Duma also mentioned by Mr. Baxter was sent as Bishop of that new Colony of Christians ordinatus à Finano EPISCOPO Sigbercht King of the East Saxons was baptized by the same Finan Baptizatus est à Finano EPISCOPO And when Cedd a holy person was invited by Sigbercht for the Conversion of his People he took occasion to make a visit at Lindisfarn the Seat of the Northumbrian Bishops propter colloquium Finani EPISCOPI where he was made Bishop by Finan vocatis ad se in Ministerium Ordinationis aliis duobus EPISCOPIS Qui accepto gradu Episcopatûs rediit ad provinciam majore autoritate coeptum opus explens fecit per loca Ecclesias Presbyteros Diaconos ordinavit c. We see here how punctual Observers of the Canons these Scotish Bishops were notwithstanding our Adversaries would fain persuade us that themselves were ordained by Presbyters because the Monks of the Isle of Hii though Bishops were subject to their Abbot though onely a Presbyter as to the Rules of their Monastick Discipline for the sake of their first Founder Columba who never exceeded the Order of Presbyter But Mr. Baxter would do well to let us know what use they could have had of Bishops at all if it were not to perform some office for which no Superiority of their Presbyter Abbot in the Monastery could qualifie them without Bishops And what either then or ever was taken for so unseparable a Right of Episcopacy as Ordination If therefore they were willing their Presbyter Abbot should for the sake of Columba have all the Honour of which a Presbyter was capable and yet thought it necessary to have Bishops also for their Ordinations is not this a plain Conviction that they thought this Office of Ordination not performable by single Presbyters And how had it been an unusual Order as Bede expresly says it was that Presbyters if such onely had been meant by the name of Bishops should have been subject to the Abbot who was also a Presbyter But to fancy that the Offices of Bishops and Presbyters were confounded in those later Ages of which we are discoursing whatever they were in the Apostles is indeed a fancy so extravagant as Mr. Baxter could hardly have been guilty of if he had been either so ingenuous or skilful in Church History as he would fain persuade us But so far were those ancient Scots from invading this Right of Episcopacy that as to Ordination they strictly observed even our present Canons Three Bishops were at the Consecration of a Bishop who when he was thus consecrated and not before had that greater Authority of ordaining Presbyters and Deacons which it hence appears was not allowed to any under Bishops But to return from whence I have digressed Finan and Aidan are both of them expresly said again to have been Bishops and not onely so but the Cathedral Church of Finan is mentioned again by Bede Interim Aidano EPISCOPO de hac vita sublato Finan pro illo gradum EPISCOPATUS à Scotis ordinatus ac missus acceperat qui in insula Landisfarnensi fecit Ecclesiam EPISCOPALI Sedi congruam Again concerning the Dispute between Wilfred and Coleman Facta est autem haec quaestio Anno Dominicae Incarnationis DCLXIV qui fuit annus Oswi Regis XII EPISCOPATUS autem Scotorum quem gesserunt in provincia Anglorum annus XXX siquidem Aidanus XVII annis Finan X Coleman III EPISCOPATUM tenuere Yet after all it is very well known that our English Succession even in the Kingdom of Northumberland was not derived down to us from Coleman the last of those Scotish Bishops but from Wilfrede a Saxon who succeeded him I wish he would not write such things of such consequence and so often with such confidence without once consulting his Authors As for his other Authors he would oblige us to tell us who they are that could know any thing concerning those times but what they must have from Bede as well as we § XI The other particular is that which does indeed look most like reasoning and principles of any thing that is said by him in his whole Book And I shall endeavour to shew him all the fair dealing I can in representing what he says to the best advantage The Summ therefore of what he says seems most conveniently reducible to these Propositions 1. That the power of the Ministry is grounded on the gifts and qualifications of the person immediately so that whoever has those gifts and qualifications has thereby an essential right to the power and he that bestows those gifts does thereby bestow the power and they who cannot bestow them cannot consequently dispose of the power 2. That God alone has the disposal of these
not been impleaded in those Disputes concerning the necessity of Succession Such a one would make a Conclusion odious where he could not disprove it as false would endeavour to raise the affections of his Readers where he despaired of prevailing on their Judgments would traduce the person of his Adversary where he had no hopes of obtaining his cause Such a one would be as confident as he is in general charges of Absurdities Contradictions and Wordiness c. but would withall be as cautious as he is of mentioning any particulars of such Charges Such a one would refer an Adversary to Books written before for Answers to Arguments not so much as treated of in those Books would with great boldness impose on Readers ignorant of those matters that all had been already answered there and that the onely reason why no more is answered now is onely to avoid Repetitions so that unless a new question be produced as well as a new argument there shall never want an excuse for want of a new Answer I wonder how Mr. Baxter can pretend to have answered what I have said concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost or the sin unto death or the Sacraments which yet I see are so displeasing to him or even the way of deriving their Succession from their first Separation what I have said concerning the opinion of the Schoolmen that Bishops and Presbyters differ onely in degree to shew how unsufficient that is for justifying their present Succession what I have said concerning this way of resolving the Dispute not into ancient Learning but more modern Histories of their Succession what concerning their derivation of Power from any valid act even of the Presbyteries themselves c. Should I say things so notoriously false with such confidence I confess I could not tell how to excuse my self from his uncivil Epithete of Audaciousness Such a one would slight the question that pinched him how momentous soever it might prove in its consequences and divert to others though of no use yet more capable of odium and of a popular talent of raising passion And has not Mr. Baxter who cannot find leisure to answer these Arguments wherein the Orders of his Brethren and their Sacraments and the whole comfort of their Communion are generally concerned shewn that he has a great deal of leisure to rake Church History to asperse the dead and blaspheme the living Rulers of his people for condemning Heresies when yet the generality of his Brethren themselves do not pretend to differ from us in any thing which even we call Heresie To what end is all this but to make a noise at a distance to divert us from the real debate Such a one would cavil as he does about words What can I think it else but cavil when he pretends himself so extremely ignorant in the meaning of the Terms of our Dispute When he who has lived all his Life in England and has received his Orders from a Bishop of the Church of England is yet to learn what we in England in our Disputes with his Party mean by the name of Bishop nay even by that of the Church of England If he thought himself in earnest as ignorant as he pretends why would he meddle in Disputes where he does not understand the Terms If he knows better things what charity can excuse him from the charge of Insincerity Though persons may yet causes cannot aequivocate There is but one sense of all Terms which causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to skill in causes Other senses I did not think my self obliged to take notice of in Terms of notorious signification till I found some occasion for it from the misunderstandings of my Adversaries But there is one thing that looks most like an Argument of Self-conviction which though it has been taken up by persons of worse design than he yet does withall run through the Reasoning of several of the later Books of Mr. Baxter that is that our Clergie must alone be responsible for all the scandals that any Clergie who never had any affinity with ours but that of their common office were ever guilty of What is this but in effect to acknowledge that ours are the onely real Clergie What is it but to acknowledge the conclusiveness of those Arguments which have been used by me to disprove the Title of their Ministers to the Office of real Clergie-men If they thought their own to be Clergie-men why will they not be as obnoxious to all the scandals they can rake of Clergie-men out of the Histories of Sixteen hundred Years as ours I wish I could by this Suggestion make them sensible of the disingenuity they shew in this way of Reasoning and of the mischief they do themselves and the common cause of Christianity It is strange if Mr. Baxter can ever expect to revive Parochial Discipline by such means as these of ruining Diocesan Can he ever expect to prevail with those irreligious Laicks who are on this occasion so ready to make use of this misguided zeal of his Brethren not as more orthodox than others but as a popular party to submit themselves to the Censures of his Parochial Ministers when he teaches them to despise an Authority so much more venerable than theirs on all the accounts which Mankind owns for just reasons of veneration Can he in earnest hope than an upstart Authority of Innovators too late to have their Scandals traced through any distant Histories can procure reverence with them who are told such vile things of those who upon the first division were found possessed of an Authority so much more received by a peaceable as well as a just prescription Can he expect that he can preserve that Authority in Inferiours which he endeavours to ruine in their Superiours Can he think to preserve it in those whom it seems himself dares not own for Clergie-men whilest he teaches them to asperse the very name as well as the authority of Clergie-men Can he think to preserve it in those who have no other but extraordinary ways of pretending to a Divine Authority or to pretend Charters expounded by themselves in their own favour when he teaches them to undervalue an Authority derived by all the ways by which it is reasonable to expect an Authority should be derived at such a distance Can he expect in the age we live in that the great ones will ever be induced to pay respect to the inferiour Clergie who are so unknown to our Laws when they are taught to deny it to those who have as good a Title even to legal honours as themselves Mr. Baxter may possibly ruine us if God should grant him the curse of a success on his present Endeavours but I cannot for my life conceive how he can settle us or really reform our lives or restore Discipline on such Principles as these True Latitudinarianism does onely
For the reason produced by you seems to proceed from the nature of Government in general and therefore must proceed with the same force in Seculars as Ecclesiasticals there being no ingredient peculiarly relating to Religion much less to Christianity which might alter the case or argue a disparity For certainly Princes as well as Bishops are responsible for the miscarriage of their particular Subjects as far as they may be prevented by their moral diligence and yet you will not thence conclude that every particular must come under his immediate personal care and cognizance nor is it proved that the Bishop is otherwise obliged to such a care upon peculiar respects Besides that it is plainly against experience even in Ecclesiasticals for as it hath fallen out in some places where there were many Cities that the Bishops were proportionably multiplied as in Africa and Ireland so that it was not upon account of the impossibility of the managing the charge of much greater multitudes than the Inhabitants of those small Cities appears in that even in the very same places the greatness of no City was thought sufficient for multiplying the Bishops though it was for the inferiour Clergie I need not tell you how great Rome was in Decius his time under Cornelius and how full of Christians which required the united endeavours of 1000 Clergie as appears from the said Cornelius his Epistle to Fabius of Antioch in Eusebius yet was one Bishop thought sufficient for all nay the erecting another Altar in the same Church was thought to be formal Schism as appears from the Controversies betwixt Cornelius and Novatian and S. Cyprian and Felicissimus The same also might have been shewn in several other Cities exceeding numerous and abounding with Christians as Antioch Alexandria and Carthage c. which even in those earlier Ages when Discipline was at the greatest rigour were yet governed by single Bishops Nay whole Nations were sometimes governed by one onely as the Goths by Ulphilas and the Indians by Aedesius and the Arabians by Moses which is an Argument insisted on by some Presbyterians for shewing the probability of Ordinations by mere Presbyters Yet are there no Complaints of dissolution of Discipline in such places upon account of the greatness of their charge Which to me seem sufficient Convictions that the multitude of persons governed is not the reason of our present Neglects in that particular § IV WHEN I said that Ignatius his Epistles were question'd by the Presbyterians I never said nor intended it concerning all for I know of Vedelius his Apology for them much less did I lay it particularly to your charge so that if you had here forborn assuming to your self what was spoken of others many of whose Opinions I am confident you will not undertake to justifie there had been no occasion of this Exception That other Presbyterians and those by far the greatest number have denied them cannot be questioned § V AS for the Reasons of Nonconformity alleaged by you and your Brethren of the Savoy Conference in 1660 if I might without offence presume to interpose my own thoughts they are as followeth For the approving not onely submitting to such things as you disliked and that by an oath I am sure there are many Conformists themselves that understand no more to have been intended by the Church but an exterior submission not an internal approbation of the particulars And particularly I have been informed by a Letter from a very worthy credible person who pretends to have had it from the Bishop himself that Bishop Sanderson who was a Member of your Conference interposed those words in the Act of Parliament where it is required that Ministers declare their unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the Book of Common Prayer c. designedly that this Objection might be prevented The new Article of Faith inserted in our Rubrick I do not know nor can I now get the Book that past betwixt you at the Conference to know what you mean That Lay-chancellors were disused and that the Bishops did more consult their Presbyteries I could for my own part heartily wish But I cannot think these abuses momentous enough to warrant Schism and I know your self are for bearing with some things things that are not so well rather than the Church of God should be divided for them In brief I do not understand any of the six Particulars mentioned as the reasons that keep you off though you do indeed disapprove them both because you do not undertake to determine what they might be to others but onely what they are to persons of your mind though I confess this might be understood as a modest declining to judge of others and because you conceive piety the most likely means to unite us which could not be if we imposed any thing on you against your Consciences So that the onely one that may be presumed to have been thought sufficient by you to this purpose seems to have been another which because you intimate somewhat obscurely I do not know whether you would be willing that it should be taken notice of But however I suppose that it self does onely deprive us of your Clerical not your Laical Communion God give us all to discern the things that belong unto peace As for other Questions we may easily a wait our Lords pleasure who when he comes shall tell us all things and in the mean time preserve charity and be wise unto sobriety I hope Sir you will excuse my freedom and let me know whether I may in any thing be serviceable to you and above all things reserve a portion in your Prayers for Trin. Col. near Dublin Your unfeigned Wellwisher HENRY DODWELL LETTER II. The Contents Introduction § 1. Quest. 1. Whether the Bishop be bound to discharge his whole duty in his own person Or Whether he may not take in the assistance of others That he may granted by Mr. Baxter Quest. 2. waved by me § 2. Mr. Baxter's reasons do as solidly disprove a possibility of Secular Discipline under a Secular Monarch of a Precinct as large as a Diocese as of Diocesan Discipline § 3. Secular Monarchs as well responsible for the miscarriage of particular Subjects as Bishops and their charge is as great The Persons Crimes and Laws belonging to the care of the Secular Governour more numerous than they which belong to the Ecclesiastical § 4 5. So are the necessities to be provided for by the Secular Governour § 6 7 8. An Objection prevented § 9. Mr. Baxter's first answer refuted The Government of a Diocese may be administred without any more than three Orders § 10. The Church may for prudential reasons constitute new Officers though not Orders § 11. Mr. Baxter's second answer refuted Personal Capacity as requisite in a Prince as in a Bishop § 12. An Objection prevented § 13. Mr. Baxter's third fourth and fifth answers refuted § 14 15. His sixth answer rejected §
16. What I mean when I make the decretory power of Government proper to the Supreme and the executive onely to be communicated to inferiour Governours § 17. The decretory power of Government does not necessarily include personal or particular Exploration § 18 19. His seventh answer considered Good men need Government as well as others Their mistakes more dangerous to Government than the mistakes of others § 20. Mr. Baxter's Objection in favour of me His first answer refuted § 21. His second answer refuted Declaration is no act of power § 22. The unbecomingness of Doctrines so disparaging to Ecclesiastical Authority to Mr. Baxter as a Curer of Church-divisions § 23. The first Reformers at length sensible of the necessity of Church Authority to Peace and Discipline § 24. Mr. Baxter's uncandid character of a Prelatick Christian § 25. The use of external coercion in Religion is not to make men onely dissemblers § 26 27 28. No Discipline to be expected without a coercive power somewhere § 29. The liberty desired by Mr. Baxter inconsistent with the principles of the Ignatian Episcopacy so much recommended by himself on other occasions § 30. Inconsistent with the Discipline of the Church described by Tertullian and Firmilian § 31. Inconsistent with that of S. Cyprian No reason why Mr. Baxter should desire to disown them from being parts of his Cure who do not observe Rules of Discipline § 32. My second Argument for the Possibility of Diocesan Discipline from the actual experience of former times § 33. The notion of a Church for no more than are capable of the personal inspection of a single Presbyter not proved to be of Divine Institution from Acts 14. 23. § 34 35. His second and third answer refuted The distribution of particular Cures to particular Presbyters from whence it comes to pass that one Diocese includes many such Societies as are fitted for personal Communion is more convenient than their governing the same multitudes in common Very probably as ancient as they had settled places of Meeting How ancient in the Churches of Rome and Alexandria § 36. How vigorous notwithstanding Discipline was at that very time at Alexandria § 37. His fourth answer refuted § 38. His fifth answer refuted § 39. His sixth answer refuted § 40. His seventh answer refuted The ancient Cities of the Roman Empire that had single Bishops were generally as great and populous as now § 41 42. The Ecclesiastical Government of those Cities proportioned to the Civil § 43. Whether our Diocesans Office be a driving men to sin § 44 45 46. His eighth answer refuted Great Cities then had great numbers of Christians Instanced in the Churches of Hierusalem Samaria Antioch Antiochia Pisidiae Thessalonica Beroea Ephesus § 47. These were Churches in all likelyhood designed by the Apostles themselves as precedents for others The multitudes of Christians every where in the Roman Empire in the time of Tertullian § 48. Instances of other Churches very numerous besides Rome and Alexandria Neocaesarea Carthage The passage of S. Cyprian concerning his Contribution explained § 49 50. The ancient numerousness of Christians proved from Pliny § 51. The possibility of their meeting in the same Assemblies § 52. Several ways how greater numbers might communicate from the same Altar than could ordinarily meet in the same Assemblies § 53. S. Patrick's Dioceses not equivalent to our modern Parishes § 54. My Argument from the numerousness of the Church of Rome in the time of Cornelius His answers refuted § 55. His endeavours to give an account how the Clergie then might have been numerous though their people had been few § 56. His first five answered § 57. His sixth § 58. His seventh § 59. His eighth § 60. His ninth § 61. His tenth § 62. No Instance of Mr. Baxter's notion of a Church of a Society under the Cure of one single Priest but onely in those two Churches of Rome and Alexandria so much disowned in this very matter by himself § 63. Ulphilas Bishop of the whole Nation of the Goths Whether an Arrian § 64. Frumentius Bishop of the Indians and Moses of the Arabians The Christians of both more numerous than our single Parishes § 65. His first answer refuted § 56. His second answer refuted § 67. A Conclusory Exhortation § 68. Reverend Sir § I AS I have before expressed my sorrow for dealing in such a Controversie that divides Communion with a person of your piety and candour and from whom I am so unwilling to differ upon any tolerable terms so I am withall glad that we can still maintain an unpassionate way of debating it which for my part I conceive not onely most Christian but most useful and succesful It is onely with this design that I am willing to continue it wherein I hope you will not be displeased at me for venturing on that Liberty your self are pleased to take and which I hope through Gods gracious assistance I shall never abuse For my meaning is as much as is possible to abstain from all things personal and to insist onely on the way proposed by S. Augustine to Maximinus Ut res cum re causa cum causa ratio cum ratione decertet And here it selfe I shall endeavour to avoid the multitude of unnecessary controversâ—es that we may be more accurate in the discussion of such as shall remain § II THE principal controversie of your Letter is concerning the possibility of reviving Ecclesiastical Discipline under a Diocesan Episcopacy Where I am glad to find that the Dispute seems rather derived from your forgetfulness of your own Concessions and mine than any real difference of our Opinions when clearly and candidly explained For I can perceive onely two things questioned betwixt us through your Letter 1. Whether the Bishop be obliged in his own person to a particular care of all the Souls contained within his Jurisdiction or whether he may not assume Assistents and Coadjutors dependent on himself over whom he is to exercise the Office of a Bishop that is an Overseer not to take the whole burden on himself but to oblige them to the performance of their duty and to punish their Delinquencies 2. Whether supposing this Delegation lawful Lay-Chancellors be fit to be entrusted with it The former you seem to have yielded when you say If this had been all our Dispute whether a Patriarch or Archbishop can rule 1000 Churches by 1000 inferiour Bishops or Church-rulers I had said something Which is indeed the onely thing asserted by me in my Proofs and the very Case in practice no Bishop undertaking the particular Cure of a whole Diocese without the assistance of his particular respective Parochians When therefore you ask Whether it follows that our Church-Monarch can oversee all himself without any Suboverseers or rule them by Gods Word on the conscience without any Subrulers Sure you cannot mean that this is the Practice of our Diocesans And if your design be to assert that every
still remaining Subjects not Princes notwithstanding whatsoever Deputation that does not make them absolute and unaccountable and unobnoxious to the care and cognizance of the Supreme The Application to our present case is easily made For when I mentioned the Delegation of the Bishops power to particular Parochians I onely meant such a subordinate power for governing their respective Parishes as Viceroys and Lieutenants have under Secular Monarchs for the Government of particular Provinces but this subordinate power is so far from being the proper work of a Bishop as such as that it would make him no Bishop to suppose it in him at all That therefore which is proper to a Bishop as such that is the power of compelling the Parochians to the performance of their duties is not communicated to any Parochian and when it has been communicated to any simple Presbyters it has been counted as great an effeminacy and betraying of their power as the like case in Seculars was reputed in the Secular Princes now mentioned For this was the occasion of the Abolition of the Co-episcopi about the ninth Century that the Bishops made use of them as pretences for their own sloth in the performance of their own duties If therefore any thing of this kind have crept in in the later ages I will not defend it but onely shall desire you to remember that it is not pertinent to your design of making all Presbyters as such without any such particular deputation equal with them and that your Arguments if they proved any thing are more directly levelled against Diocesan Episcopacy as such without any such abusive deputation § XV BUT this at present may suffice to shew that that power which is by the Bishops permitted to Parish Ministers does not make them Bishops nor make them who are so properly unnecessary which methinks your self might easily have understood if you had but reflected on what your self know concerning its practice among us without such dilemmatical uncertainties which would make one think you a stranger to it The other member of your dilemma you do not prosecute whether because you forgot it or that you thought it of it self sufficiently evident I know not I suppose your Argument would have been that if the power delegated by the Bishop to the inferiour Clergy were none of his own then he could not delegate it seeing that none can justly dispose of that which is not his own To this the Answer is easie from the parallel power of Princes already insisted on that this power is the Bishops the same way as that of inferiour Magistrates is the supreme Prince's not to be executed by his own person but by others obnoxious to his election and censures which is sufficient to shew that the disposal of it is his though not the Execution § XVI YOUR sixth Answer which you call your chief one is that which I before observed to be a Concession of all that I pretended to prove that a Bishop with inferiour Church-rulers can govern a scope as large as a Diocese But when in application of it to our purpose you ask Whether it follows that our Church-Monarch can oversee them all himself without any Suboverseers or rule them by Gods Word on the Conscience without any Subrulers I wonder that you should seem so to forget the practice of our Ministers of ruling our Parishes as Subrulers under the Bishop It may be your meaning is that our Parish Ministers were not allowed a part in the Supreme Government of their Churches as if that were sufficient to deny the name of proper Church-rulers But you might have remembred 1. That my desire was that the Bishops as in S. Cyprians time so now would more communicate their affairs of any considerable importance with their Presbytery And 2. That even according to the Rubricks of our Church the Parish Minister or Curate is allowed the power not onely of dissuading which yet is all that is allowed the Church by several of our Nonconforming Brethren but also of hindering notorious ill livers and uncharitable persons from the Communion onely with a provision that they signifie such their proceedings to the Ordinary within fourteen days at the furthest which was no more than necessary for keeping them to the notion of Sub not principal Rulers This quick and easie dispatch in case of the Ministers concurrence would make one wonder at your complaints concerning the dilatory proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Courts in this affair if the Clergy could be persuaded to be unanimous and vigorous in the performance of their duty And 3. As it is plain that there are many Subrulers under Princes who are not of their Privy Council so you cannot therefore conclude the Parish Ministers not to be Subrulers under the Bishop even now because all great affairs are not originally transacted by their Council Nay 4. Your self confess Legislation it self to be communicated to the inferiour Clergy in the Lower House in Convocations when they make Canons which are Church-Laws And this which is one of the highest acts of Government being communicated to them can you yet complain of their exclusion from Government WHEN I described the Ecclesiastical Monarchy I spoke of to be such as does appropriate the decretory power of Government to it communicating onely the executive to others you bid me hold to that What your meaning is thereby I do not know for neither do you seem to persuade me to hold to it as truth seeing you afterwards seem to dislike it Nor can I think that you would have me to hold to an error that you might have advantage of disputing against me What you except against a mere Executioner's being no Governour might easily have been prevented if you had considered that the word mere was none of mine and that the executive power was by me opposed to that which is decretory that is which is absolute and unaccountable to any Superiour on earth at least within such limits Which as it may include much more power than that which your self call more than executive that of reproving exhorting convincing c. So that decretory in this sense can agree to a subject I believe your selfe will hardly affirm And indeed if you had been pleased to follow the analogy in the civil power where I do not find you so scrupulous in Ecclesiastical you would more clearly have understood my meaning and its unconcernedness in your Exceptions For in civils at least the decretory power from whence all Laws and Rules of proceeding are originally borrowed and to which all appeals in case of difficulty in their sense or partiality of inferiour Judges are finally resolved will I believe be owned by your self as proper to the supreme Magistrate And how will you call that power of the Subject as such that is as depending hereon by a more proper name than that of executive though it may withall include something decretory in affairs of inferiour concernment which though decretory
for that season but unprovided for a Storm so certainly a Magistrate ought to be prepar'd and qualified with abilities for governing a criminal and unquiet people even then when he lies under the actual obligation for exercising them especially considering it as a case so very ordinary and so probably to be expected If therefore a Bishop may not undertake the charge of a Diocese because impossible to be performed by him I may as well by the same points of reason conclude that a Magistrate may not take that of a Province or Kingdom even when in the good humour you suppose them because he must not in prudence venture on that unless he be prepared for them when vicious which you suppose impossible and therefore unfit to be engaged on And 5. You do not propose the case with any equality for if you would do so you should not compare a Prince governing a regular people and a Bishop with an irregular scandalous Diocese but have supposed the Subjects in both cases regular or in both irregular And if you will needs suppose in favour of the Prince that his Subjects are as little criminal in his Courts as you have found them where you have been acquainted to shew the possibility of his governing such a people though in a large precinct why can you not suppose in favour of the Bishop that the Subjects of his Diocese behave themselves as innocently in reference to crimes obnoxious to the publick cognizance of his Courts Is it either because that even persons so supposed equally innocent in relation to the charges of both Courts are yet more difficultly governable by an Ecclesiastical than a Secular Magistrate This is not as much as pretended I am confident not as much as plausibly proved in your present Discourse Or is it that the Supposition it self in relation to Ecclesiastical crimes is more difficult it being more rare and improbable to find a people innocent in crimes of publick Ecclesiastical than Secular cognizance If this later be your meaning I doubt neither of the reasons intimated by you will maintain you in it Not that of your own experience for I believe you would have found those good persons of your acquaintance as little troublesom to the Bishops as the King's Courts as little guilty of incestuous Marriages forging Wills and Testaments Simony c. as of any acts of secular injustice And as for the other concerning our propensity to actual deduced from the original sin you have not as yet proved this propensity greater to Ecclesiastical than Secular crimes But it is rather probable that as the crimes cognoscible in the Ecclesiastical Courts are generally more heinous so they are more easily avoidable If you have any inclination to think so for preventing it I pray remember what I have already intimated that they are not all sorts of sins against God that are cognoscible in the Bishops Courts but onely such as are great and scandalous and notorious And then consider whether it be not as easie to suppose a people innocent of great and scandalous and notorious sins against God and Religion as of injustice towards Men. For this indeed will be the true state of the question 2. Therefore it will not be so easily proved that the crimes cognoscible in the Secular Courts are so few in comparison of those that are Ecclesiastical This I have already proved before and am not willing to repeat what I have there said At present methinks your own Concessions if closely reflected on would have prevented your pretending otherwise For besides that those multitudes of persons guilty of crimes obnoxious to the Bishops Courts which I have said every impenitent sinner is not and have given my reason why I said so are I doubt guilty of many more civil crimes for which I shall onely appeal to your own experience I pray consider how many of the crimes cognoscible in the Bishops Courts are originally civil as those concerning Marriages Wills and Testaments Tithes c. which are mere arbitrary concessions of Princes in favour of the Church as protected by them And the rest that are not yet come under the Princes cognizance as the Churches Canons are made Laws of the Common-wealth and her Censures are seconded by coercive secular penalties imposed by the Prince on such as have proved refractory against her Spiritual Authority Upon which account it is impossible but that the Secular causes must needs prove more numerous as including all Ecclesiasticals and many proper to themselves besides So that this Disparity is every way unconvictive of your purpose For if you mean those persons who are so innocent of secular crimes to be different from those who are supposed so very guilty of Ecclesiasticals then there can be no just disparity pretended because there is indeed no equal comparison But if you mean the same persons in both cases then the Disparity cannot be pretended true because the Supposition is false BUT you object in favour of me That the Parish-priest is to reprove exhort and convince sinners first till he prove them impenitent and that he is to instruct the Ignorant Infidels and Hereticks which must needs considerably lessen the number of criminals who onely in case of their convicted impenitency in the use of these means should be further impleaded in that severer way of proceeding in the Bishops Courts To this you answer 1. That this is more than an executive power If it be so I do not know any that denies it you so that you have no reason that I know of to complain on that account None hinders you from reproving exhorting convincing and instructing whom you please especially such as are intrusted to you as Members of your cure But I am sure this is not more than that executive power which I said was communicated to the inferiour Clergie in opposition to that which I called decretory reserved to our Ecclesiastical Monarch for I believe you will not call this power of reproving exhorting c. decretory I believe you meant a power merely executive But you may remember that that was neither my word nor meaning nor do I for my part think this power mentioned by you to be more than that which were merely executive My reason you will suddenly understand SECONDLY therefore you answer That you desire no more at all from Bishops or any If so you need not desire it for none denies it you But you say You know no other Episcopal power over the people but thus personally to convince men and to declare to the congregation upon proof the fitness or unfitness of men for their communion by penitence or impenitence If you know no other power than this you know none at all For this power of convincing men will as well agree to the meanest Laick who has reason on his side as the greatest Bishop seeing either of them may convince if furnished with such reason but neither can without it And yet
I believe you cannot produce a precedent of that age where the word is taken for the other Clergie so that there are onely two other Senses that I can think of reducible to this purpose either for the Laity and that your self I believe will not think intelligible here that the power of remitting sins by Baptism or otherwise does agree to them or for the complex of both the Laity and the Body of the Clergie in contradistinction to the Bishop And to this his proof of the power of remitting sins given to the Apostles being also given to the Church in this contradistinct sense must have been impertinently urged from its being given to the Apostles seeing that the Church in the Apostles time must have been as contradistinct from the Apostles as the later Churches from their respective Bishops By the word Churches therefore are onely meant Orthodox Societies including Bishops as well as other members whence it will follow that the Church is onely therefore said to have this power because the Bishops have it and therefore that no Ecclesiastical Member can have it independently on them 3. Therefore that by the word Bishops to whom this power of remitting sins is given to which all other Ecclesiastical Power is consequent Presbyters are not included will appear probable if you consider 1. That though the word Presbyter and Sacerdos be attributed to Bishops properly so called yet at least in that age I believe you will hardly find that a simple Presbyter is called Episcopus Blondell himself I think will not furnish you with an Instance And 2. That these Bishops are such as are called Successors of the Apostles And that by these Successors of the Apostles single persons are understood in the language of that age appears in that when they prove Succession from the Apostles they do it by catalogues of single persons as those in Irenaeus Tertullian c. and that Bishops in the confined sense are so frequently said to be Successors of the Apostles which is not said of simple Presbyters See S. Cyprian ep 42 65 69. and the Author de Aleatoribus with many others usually produced in the Disputes concerning Episcopacy AND then for the sense of S. Cyprian he was as resolute in vindicating his own right as condescending in his practice He it is that asserts the unaccountableness of the Episcopal Office to any under God that makes the Church in the Bishop as well as the Bishop in the Church that charges the contempt of the Bishop as the original of all Schism and Heresie and parallels it with the Sin of Corah Dathan and Abiram that spares not even Presbyters themselves when presuming to act without his order but puts them in mind of his being their Superiour and charges them with rebellion when they took that liberty you desire of acting arbitrarily and independently Instances of all these kinds might have been produced if I were not afraid of being too tedeous These things may at present suffice to shew that the liberty you desire of admitting or rejecting whom you please from your own flock is not more unreasonable than dissonant from the practice of those Ages for which you profess a reverence Nor do I understand your design in the use of that liberty you desire If it be that you would have those whom you think unworthy of your flock excluded from your cure that is as improper as if a Physician should desire to be excused from visiting those who are most dangerously though not desperately sick Certainly the contrary would rather follow that as they need most so they should have most of your care It is our Saviours own saying that the whole need not a physician but the sick that is at least not comparatively and generally his greatest pains and favours were extended to those who had least deserved them Nor is their unwillingness to deal with you in affairs of this nature a sufficient reason to exempt them from your Cure for this unwillingness it self is a most considerable ingredient in their distemper and that which makes them most truly pitiable and it would be as great a piece of inhumanity for the spiritual as the corporal Physician to desert them on that pretence I am sure very different from the behaviour of Christ and his Apostles who found the World generally as much prejudiced against and unwilling to hear them concerning affairs of that nature as you can with any probability presume concerning a Christian Auditory If your meaning be not to be excused from the use of all other good means for their recovery but onely from admitting them to the blessed Sacrament which ought to be the privilege of such as are already deserving I pray consider 1. Whether though you deny them to be Christians yet their very Baptism and exterior profession of Christianity be not at least sufficient to entitle them to exterior privileges if on their own peril they will venture on them and that Sacramental privileges are but exteriour They are invited to the marriage feast and none may exclude them if they come though it is at their own hazard if they presume to do so without the marriage garment And 2. That this does at least hold till they be convicted and censured by their due Superiour and you know it is questioned whether you as a private Presbyter ought to have that power But 3. That you have a power of suspending refractory persons till you acquaint the Bishop and with him you have that power of convincing and persuading which seems as much as your self desire so that even upon this account you have no reason to complain MY second Argument was from experience even in Ecclesiasticals to which you answer that It 's hard then to know any thing and that you dispute all this while as if the question were Whether men in England speak English that therefore if you herein erre you profess your self incurable and allow me to despair of you If I had disputed from present experience in England I should have confessed your Answer proper that I had endeavour'd to conquer your sense and experience as you elsewhere express it But I wonder how you could understand me so considering that our present want of discipline was the reason of my desire of its revival whence you took the occasion of these Disputes My meaning was that in the primitive times when Bishops were indeed laborious and conscientious and were willing and desirous to do what they could do experience shewed that discipline was actually maintained under such a Diocesan Government and therefore I concluded that the multitude of persons governed was not the reason of our present neglects And what is it that is scrupled in this Discourse or need put you to those unequal resolutions of being uncurable Is it whether the number of Christians in Dioceses were equal then with what we have now This was proved in my former Letter Or that the
mean it as I doubt you do that they are Servants coequal among themselves that is clearly against the whole current of Ignatius his Epistles and against the supposition of their being distinct Orders and I believe against your own opinion concerning Priests and Deacons whom I think you will not say to be thus coequal But for what you add further as if you had it out of the same Ignatius though indeed you have not scored it as you did the former part That in this one Church the Bishop must enquire all by name even Servant Men and Maids and see that they absented not themselves from the Church whence you ask Why is not Ignatius confuted if he erred and refer me to Mr. Mede on the point I am confident that you will find no such thing in Ignatius or Mr. Mede that will need confuting For this inquiry by name need not have been performed by personal visitation of them but by Schedules delivered to him by his subordinate Clergie which if any of our Bishops would do I should be so far from offering to confute as that I should highly honour and reverence him for it BUT you say 5. That Alexandria and Rome by not multiplying Bishops as Churches or Converts needed it began the great sin and calamity which hath undone us and therefore are not to be our patern If you mean by Bishops your Parish Ministers as you seem to do who must have no greater charge than one particular person unassisted with a Presbytery may give a particular account of then sure you cannot but know that as they are by you thought singular in introducing this distinction of Altars in the same City so they must have been so in multiplying such a kind of Bishops that might attend them at least in more accurately proportioning them to the multitudes of Churches and Converts But if you mean a multitude of Parish Priests whom you would fain call Bishops independent on a principal President then it would concern you to prove 1. That Alexandria and Rome were herein singular which you will find impossible to be done And 2. That their guilt herein was not onely an occasion for occasions of evil cannot be proved evil and so unfit for being paterns but natural causes of that grand sin and calamity you so lament YOU answer or rather argue 6. That were Bishops necessarily to be distributed by Cities the Empires that have few or no Cities must have few or no Bishops and an Emperour might aliud agendo depose all the Bishops by disfranchising the Cities This does not shew the impossibility of a Bishops maintaining discipline in a City that is great and populous which is indeed our question but onely the inconvenience of scrupulously multiplying Bishops according to the multitude of Cities And that as it is not to our purpose so I know no Adversary you have in it For there are no humane Establishments whatsoever that can fit all circumstances yet are not such possible inconvenient cases thought sufficient to abrogate them though known and foreseen And therefore it were not in prudence a sufficient reason for the Church to alter her general rule of multiplying Bishops by Cities because the cases mentioned by you are but rare and improbable which kind are not taken notice of by humane Legislators They are rare for where will you find that Empire that hath few or no Cities at least in those civilized parts of the world they were then acquainted with They are improbable for the administration of justice among Subjects and the encouragement of traffick which are the Governours Interests do require such Privileges to be given to places not too distant from each other But if the inconveniences were greater than indeed they are and sufficient to persuade a deviation from such a general rule in such cases Yet 1. The Church never acknowledged any unalterable divine obligation to observe it but has always reserved a power to her self of deviating in such cases of which she might be satisfied that they were sufficiently momentous And 2. She has in such cases actually taken the liberty of exerting her own power as in those Nations which had but one Bishop though many Cities of which instances were already given and in those places where Cities too numerous and too little frequented against which she has made those express Canons that Bishops should not be placed over them nè vilesceret nomen Episcopi which those of your Persuasion do so often take notice of with offence BUT 7. You say Every Corporation Oppidum like our Market Towns was then truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if we will procure every such City with us to have a Bishop and the office of such Bishops to be to drive men from sin and not to it and to silence Blasphemers not faithful Preachers of the Gospel all our Controversies of Prelacy are then at an end But I fear though you had your desire that in analogy to Cities Bishops should be multiplied according to the number of Cities which Rule you lately seemed to dislike and that every Market Town should be accounted a City as you conceive it to have been practised among the Ancients and that Bishops discharged their duty as you have described it yet you would hardly suffer our Controversies to end so especially if you acted consequently to your own Principles For you know by the same rule that small Cities as you have described them must have distinct Bishops the greatest that are London it self for example must have but one together with the Villages about it and I doubt that would be found to be a charge as disproportionable to the abilities of a single man as some of our Country Dioceses especially here in Ireland Nay by Captain Grants Calculation London bears a greater proportion to all England than any single Diocese which is onely the 25th part Now according to your Principles our Communion quâ Diocesan that is if I understand you as exceeding the abilities of a single man is not to be embraced Therefore even in this case you must refuse to communicate with the Church of London And considering that in communicating with a particular you do communicate with all with whom that particular Church holds Communion for Communion with a particular Church is no where understood as a profession of union with her alone but also with all such whom she accounts orthodox members of the Catholick Church you must by the same sequel conceive your self obliged to decline the Communion of all particular Churches communicating with London Unless therefore you suppose a Schism of all other Churches from her you must make one from them and so be in the same condition wherein you are at present I confess you do not act consequently to this later Principle whilest you refuse not our Parish Communion which communicates with our Diocesan quà Diocesan and so I had much rather decline
quoting the place and upon consulting the place find my self to have been mistaken in two things 1. That I thought the word Clergie to have been used by Cornelius 2. That I thought that all the several sorts there mentioned Presbyters Deacons c. to have been comprized in the number 1500 whereas I now find that the later sort of the poor maintained on the charges of the Church were onely therein included Omitting therefore these mistakes which now I know I will not undertake to justifie the thing I insist on is that here are 46 Presbyters mentioned and that there were in Rome quadraginta quod excurrit Basilicae as we learn from Optatus when Victor Garbiensis was sent from Africa to be made the Schismatical Bishop of Rome which was about the persecution of Dioclesian when the Schism of the Donatists commenced Which numberof Basilicae or Parish Churches for you have already seemed to grant that Rome was then divided into Parishes may very well agree with the number of Presbyters mentioned by Cornelius There being therefore even then so many Christians in Rome as were able to make up 46 Parishes besides those of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Region adjacent subject according to the practice of those times to the Jurisdiction of the City Bishop it is plain that the Diocese was even then of a larger extent than Parochial as your self had already granted though here you endeavour to answer the arguments that are designed to prove no more than what you had granted and therefore 46 times exceeding the ability of a single person Yet I believe you will not deny but that all this number was then sufficiently governed by one Bishop without any visible decay of discipline observable in those times I know indeed that Mr. Potter in order to his own design does endeavour to prove the number of Presbyters and Titles originally derived from Cletus Euaristus Dionysius and Marcellus to have been 25. Nor shall I now digress to shew the ground of his mistake All that I shall desire you to observe at present is that his Authors are either evidently late or suspicious if pretendedly ancient not comparable in credibility to Cornelius and Optatus produced by me But if I should admit all that he pretends yet 25 Parishes themselves are too large an extent for such Dioceses as you desire that might not exceed the personal abilities of one BUT you endeavour to give some account how their Clergie might be numerous though their people were few from the conceived extraordinary exigencies of those times But neither does it appear that the exigencies were indeed so extraordinary there appearing no ground to believe any Innovation accommodated to present exigencies but rather that that had been the ordinary Government if it had were it to your purpose For the same extraordinary exigencies which then required the united helps of a multitude of Clergie made the burthen too great for one and therefore if a Bishop cannot as by your Principles he cannot undertake the government of a number too great for his personal care without prejudice of discipline it will follow that he could not do it then But it appearing clearly otherwise namely that discipline was severely maintained under a Government properly Diocesan that is including a multitude of subordinate cures it is plain that what neglects are now in that kind are not to be imputed to the Government but the Governours BUT I shall consider the disparities themselves 1. The Christians meetings were then obscure and small in houses as the tolerated Churches in London But I have already shewn you how the multitudes of Christians were according to the practises of those Ages suppliable without any unnecessary multiplication of Altars or Priests or Churches and that this multitude of Priests was not accommodated to their extraordinary meetings in houses occasionally but their solemn appointed places for Parochial Assemblies for such were the Tituli or Basilicae You consider 2. That these meetings were in so vast a City in so many distinct places But the Christians of those times were not so sparing of their pains as to scruple the distances of places in the greatest Cities for the comfort of their Synaxes for in S. Justin Martyr's time they came out of the Country to the City-meetings much more from the most distant places of the same City And therefore it is not probable that the distance of place but the multitude of the persons occasioned the multiplication of the Clergie And by the multitude of their poor 1500 not onely 1050 as you mistake you may guess at their multitudes For it was too great a proportion for the multitudes of one Parish especially where S. Paul's Rule was severely observed that none should be maintained on the Churches account but such as were poor indeed and where none should eat who did not labour if he were able Besides the treasures of that Church were thought worthy the design of the Secular Magistracy and great multitudes of poor are said to have been maintained on the Church account in the time of Pope Sixtus and S. Laurence You consider 3. The Suburbicarian Assemblies I suppose you mean the Assemblies in the Suburbs of Rome not those of the Regiones Suburbicariae which I believe you will not doubt but that they contained a number too great for a single Parish and then the former Answer will suffice that they who ordinarily came out of the Country to the City Assemblies were not likely to scruple coming to them from the Suburbs if their numbers might be entertained in one place with convenience 4. You say many Presbyters used still to be with the Bishop in the same Assembly If you mean it on solemn occasions of great concernment for the Government of the Church I confess it but you cannot thence infer that they being deducted few would remain for Parochial Cures being those being but rare they might all be spared from their Parochial Affairs But if you think that in all ordinary Synaxes such a number of them were obliged to a personal attendance on him as must distract them from their other Imployments I believe you have no ground to think so In the Form of their Offices by S. Justin Martyr you find no mention but of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sign that there was no part of the Office obliging Presbyters to be present 5. You observe that here were in all but seven Deacons But this is no argument to conclude the paucity of Believers for it was an Opinion taken up in that Age from that unsecure principle of making Apostolical Practice even in Ecclesiasticals obligatory that no Church how great soever must have any more than seven because there were no more in the Church of Jerusalem at their first Institution The words of the Neocaesarean Canon are plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that this number was not
casually taken up in the Church of Rome but upon some such designed account may very probably be conjectured because we find it observed in S. Laurence his time who being Archdeacon of Rome is called Primus è septem viris qui stant ad aram proximi c. by Prudentius And you will accordingly find constantly in the Author of the Pontifical the number of Deacons ordained by every Bishop of Rome to be less than of Presbyters and this comparative paucity of Deacons in respect of Presbyters was accounted by S. Hierom an occasion of the Deacons presumption in his Epist 85. ad Euagr. And if the form of Christs appearing in the Revelations be taken from the Bishops sitting in the Church as if I be not mistaken the most learned and judicious Mr. Thorndike thinks it is then as the 24 Elders may allude to the Christian Presbyteries derived from the lesser Sanhedrims of the Jews consisting of 24 so the seven ministring Spirits may in conformity to the septenary number of Angels so famous among the Jews as Mr. Mede proves professedly which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Apostle Heb. 1. allude to the septenary number of Deacons which were always attending on the Bishop in a readiness to execute his commands as the Angels are supposed by the Jews to do on God himself Nor need you wonder that so small a number of Deacons might be conceived sufficient to answer so great a proportion of Presbyters considering that their special Office was to distribute the Alms of the Church to such as were maintained on publick charity and to attend more immediately on the Bishops person as ordinary Executioners of his commands For I believe you will never find that they performed any service to Presbyters acting separately from their Bishop And certainly for distribution of Alms and personal attendance on the Bishop as small a number as seven might be sufficient in a great City 6. You say That many then were Presbyters that used not to preach but for privater oversight and as the Bishops Assessors This though for my part I conceive it very true seems strange to me to proceed from a person of your principles who usually teach publick preaching in Ecclesiastical Assemblies to be the indispensible duty of every particular Gospel Minister by which name they include if they do not onely mean Priests But supposing it true as I believe it was that there were several Priests who did not preach yet will not this diminish the multitude of Parishes as you seem to conceive For I believe you cannot prove that publick preaching was then accounted an ordinary parochial imployment And though it were not yet there were others equivalent sufficient to take up the time and pains bestowed on it now with equal edification such were visiting communicating exhorting persuading resolving cases of conscience and satisfying themselves concerning the lives of penitents for discerning who were fit or unfit for their communion all those Offices which were performed out of their publick Synaxes and all that were performed in them besides preaching that is their ordinary prayers their hymni antelucani their reading of the Scriptures their catechizings their general Exhortations pro re nata not designed and solemn their collections and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that though there had not been so many Preachers in our modern notion of the word yet there might have been as many Parochial Priests as Titles or Parishes 7. YOU say That the poorer sort most commonly received the Gospel If your meaning herein be to conclude that the 1500 poor were the most considerable part of Believers that you might conclude the whole number of Converts to have been small you should have remembered what poor they were such as were maintained on the publick charity that is such as were not onely poor but impotent unable to get their livings otherwise And sure you cannot but think that the multitude of other Believers upon whose charity they were maintained especially if poor themselves though able to earn a livelyhood as you seem to suppose must have been great especially considering the other expenses of their charity on the Clergie on the Martyrs and Confessors on their hospitality to strangers c. all which may be sufficient presumptions that these 1500 poor did not in any probability bear any considerable proportion to the multitudes of the Roman Church by whom they were maintained And I believe in few Cities in our Kings Dominions if any will be found so great a number of poor who by reason of impotency are thought by the Magistrates fit objects of the publick charity even in these our Ages wherein all are supposed Professors of Christianity 8. You say That none of these but the 46 Presbyters had any power in the discipline If you mean a decretory power in the sense I have explained it then I think I have proved that the 45 Presbyters themselves had it not but the Bishop alone But you can thence no more conclude the paucity of Believers in one of the Dioceses of those times than in any one of ours now when it is plain that the Bishop himself has monopolized it as your self complain But if you mean an executive or even a consultory power of giving consent or advice in affairs of discipline to be decreed by the Bishop that was so far from being confined to the Presbyters as that it was communicated to the Deacons nay to the common people themselves This might easily have been cleared from Cornelius his Contemporary S. Cyprian from whom we have the clearest account of the discipline of that Age if I had not been unwilling to be more tedeous than needs I must and because upon reflection I believe your self will acknowledge it and because it is usually undertaken by Presbyterian but especially Independent Authors Indeed there were some privileges of the Presbyters that they onely sate in the Bishops presence as S. Hierom tells us besides other distinctions in Synaxes But it is sufficient for my purpose that the execution of discipline which is the main thing which necessarily requires plurality was managed by all and that for counsel here was a number exceeding the Councils of several Princes of Dominions larger than any Dioceses But 9. You say That by all this reckoning the whole Church maintained not besides the Officers near 1000 poor we may probably conjecture that the whole Church of that Bish was not bigger than some one London Parish Stepney S. Giles Cripplegate where are about 50000 Souls But 1. You are mistaken in your account For 1. The number of the poor besides the Officers were not near 1000 onely but 1500 for the Officers are not included in that number as you suppose 2. That number of poor maintained on the publick charity does imply a greater number than you suppose For consider 1. That no poor were reckoned in that number but such as
by practical but dogmatical prejudices against the wisest and most rational exhortations as proceeding from the mouth of a Christian of whom they had conceived so unworthy an opinion by reason of the slanders raised against them then so commonly believed BUT when all is done you say two Cities under the power of great temptations are not to be our rule against Gods word and the state of all other Churches in the world and undeniable experience So that it seems you are at last diffident of your Exceptions against those two instances and yet unwilling to yield though you should be convinced of their weakness Indeed if what you pretend were true that they were against Gods word c. I should confess so great evidence sufficient to reject them But it is certainly otherwise and I believe you cannot give an instance of a Parochial Church in the sense we now understand it for such a multitude of Believers as were governable by a single Presbyter alone either in the Scriptures or in any other Church in the world excepting those two so much decried by you for the first three Centuries so far you are from proving what you seem to design that Bishops ought to be multiplied in proportion to them Your volume of proof from Antiquity of one Altar and one Bishop in one Church will not do it for I have already shewn that Church to be the Church of a whole City how great soever and therefore to have been Diocesan not Parochial And for the Argument from Experience though it will hold well enough as I have managed it that discipline has once been preserved under a Diocesan Government therefore it may be so again yet not vice versâ as you do discipline is not observed for this is all the undeniable experience you so much insist on therefore it cannot MY instance of Ulphilas Bishop of the whole Nation of the Goths which sure were greater than one Parish you seem to deny when you say he was Bishop onely of a few Goths who were presently presecuted to the death by Athanarichus ut Socrat. l. 4. c. 32. which few you say I may call a Kingdom if I please But the number were not so small as you suppose for they were converted long before they were persuaded to the Arrian Communion which was no sooner than the time of Valens when Eudoxius prevailed with Ulphilas to bring them to it For they were vanquished by Constantine and by admiration of his success against themselves were drawn to embrace his Religion to which they imputed his victories so strange beyond their expectation and accordingly had a former Bishop in their Nation one Theophilus before Ulphilas so that though even at the first the Nation that is at least the generality of them were converted to Christianity yet before the time you speak of they had a considerable time to allow for further propagation And accordingly when Vlphilas was brought over to the Arrians he is said to have separated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an expression certainly as comprehensive as that I used of a Kingdom from the Communion of the Catholick Church For his Authority is described to have been so great with the Goths as that they took his words for irrefragable Laws and yet certainly was not so great with any but converted Christians But you say They were presently persecuted to the death by Athanaricus If you mean this as an Argument that they were few because they were presently extirpated by persecution you are certainly mistaken For Athanaricus his storm lasted not long but upon Phritigernes his return who by the assistance of the Romans prevailed against them the Christian Religion again returned and was countenanced and so far advanced as that in their Invasions of the Roman Empire afterwards in Honorius his time ther Army was generally Christian which could not have probably been if they had been extirpated by Athanaricus But you say That Ulphilas was an Arian But 1. If he had been so yet that cannot weaken his Authority in our present case both because this practice of a Nations having but one Bishop is never reckoned by the Haeresiographers as a point of Arianism no nor as a singularity of the Arians themselves upon personal accounts Nay my other instances of Tiramentus and Moses were both Catholicks nay the Goths themselves whilest Catholicks had the same form of Government that is till Ulphilas was wrought on by Eudoxius Till that time not onely his Predecessor Theophilus but himself maintained the Nicene Faith in opposition to the Arian Communion and yet in all likelyhood they were not much less numerous when Catholicks than when Arians for the whole Nation which is said by him to have been reconciled to the Arian Communion were in all likelyhood none but Christians and therefore Catholicks seeing they seem at that time to have been unanimous But 2. It does not appear that he was a real Arian I confess he did communicate with the Arians and that not onely with the more moderate Homousians but also with those who owned Christ to be a creature and by degrees from communicating with the Arians the Goths afterwards used the Arian Forms of speaking and from them proceeded to embrace much of their Opinion and so at length alienated themselves from the Catholick Communion as appears in their later persecutions of the Catholicks in Italy and Africa But at first the very reason that prevailed with Ulphilas was that Eudoxius pretended the difference betwixt themselves and the Catholicks to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret shews and Sozomen censures his proceeding herein as done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as inconsiderate rather than out of any ill design And there were other deceits as disingenuous as this used by the Arians to draw such to their Communion who were known really to retain the Nicene Faith You know how the greatest part of the Latine Fathers were imposed on in the Council of Ariminum by Valens and Ursacius who read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Nicene Creed and how a Confession of their Faith was drawn up by them at Nice in Thrace and imposed on the Catholicks under the name of the famous Nicene Creed of Bithynia So that there were two reasons that in those Ages prevailed with some Catholicks to communicate with the Arians one that the first quarrel betwixt Alexander and Arius was thought onely personal not on account of any real difference at least that that betwixt the later Arians and the Catholicks was so another was that if there was any real difference yet it was rather in expressions mutually misunderstood than in things or at least in things not conceived sufficiently momentous to divide Communion As therefore you woud not I believe in your own practice have it concluded that you are an Independent or Prelatist because you are for communicating with such as are
June 26. 1673. Your sincerely affectionate Friend and Servant HENRY DODWELL LETTER III. The Contents Reasons of delaying this Answer § 1 Endeavours to prevent his displeasure § 2. Advices then against some Intimations of his of publishing our Letters § 3. My unwillingness to differ from him in any thing tolerable § 4. The Charge of SCHISM briefly stated against them § 5. A pathetical Application of all that had been said to Mr. Baxter § 6. Reverend Sir § I IT is now some considerable time since I received a short Letter of yours assuring me of your receipt of my former larger Reply to yours But partly in expectation of a larger Answer to the body of mine and partly because I thought you a little offended at my former freedom and because I was jealous how things never so innocently intended might have been understood till a little time had abated the resentment and because I was and I hope ever shall be very unwilling to give an occasion though I be conscious of no cause of disturbance to a person so pious and peaceable and who has already exposed himself so freely to the persecuting pens and tongues of the exasperated Zealots of the several parties for his desire to bring them to a mutual better understanding I have deferred my Answer hitherto § II I AM really sorry to see our misunderstandings still so continued possibly through my obscurity for otherwise I think there is nothing new objected by you but what I think I might have referred you to the several Paragraphs where I endeavoured to answer it which yet you take not the least notice of You may perceive how far I have been from any thing that might savour of arrogance how I have therefore waved those principal disputes which I perceived had principally alienated you from our Communion and how I have engaged on none but such whither you seemed your self to invite me and how even there I have behaved my self though indeed freely which I have always looked on the indispensable duty of a virtuous friend and I presumed you to be of my mind yet with all possible respect to your person and submission in matters of private concernment and acknowledgment of my mistakes where convicted I had never so much as mentioned these things if I had not been necessitated to it for your satisfaction and my own defence If I have spoken any thing which might be capable of an ill construction and may be spared without prejudice to the merit of my cause I do again most heartily retract it and submit to your own correction if you be pleased to let me know the particulars For I desire to have no other Contentions with you but that which I believe you will not be offended with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an emulation who shall most contribute to a solid peace These things I hope may satisfie a mind more displeased and less influenced with Christianity than yours whom I find very well disposed even in the height of these little resentments and I hope we shall both of us defeat the Devils policy in turning those things which he intended as provocations into grounds of a future mutual endearment § III ONE very good expedient to this purpose will be not to be too forward to publish any thing on either side both because there are several acknowledged mistakes which I would not have by any means obtruded on the publick I mean in my own papers for I do not undertake to censure yours and many things may be further cultivated and I think we may both of us be more willing to yield to truth whilest our Disputes are managed with due privacy and candour § IV I HAVE always and still do profess my self unwilling to engage in any Disputes of private personal opinions with you that may either be defended or denied without breach of mutual charity and that I have been necessitated to such unhappy ones as divide external communion though I believe they do on both sides leave room for personal charity as I am sorry for it so it is my duty to my dear Mother the Church my love to real peace which I am sorry to see you as pernicious to in your consequences as you are zealous for in your directly professed principles the very same things which have made me love and honour you that have here obliged me to contradict you And therefore I hope you will give me if not your ear yet your pardon § V IF onely Heresie could oblige to separate communion and there were no such thing as Schism then I do confess that your plea for the external communion of all that agree in matters fundamental would be more satisfactory or if all Schism were onely in the overvaluing of lesser differences But considering that God has made the Christian Church not onely a multitude of Christians agreeing in their assent to several propositions like the followers of Plato or Aristotle but a body politick consisting of Governours and Governed united in an exteriour way of profession in Creeds and Sacraments and impowered with an authority of depriving refractory persons of the benefits of Communion for the onely crime of disobedience though the instance wherein obedience were required were otherwise of no very considerable consequence And considering that all the Sects were at first subject to the Jurisdiction of the Church which was conformable to all other times and places where there has been any such society as a Church as far as History can inform us for all Blondell's vast reading and diligence when throughly examined will not afford you a different example in that very form of Government from which they separated the question will not be whether a Surplice c. be necessary to be imposed but whether the first Separators could be excused for their disobedience to a Government so firmly settled by so long and so peaceable a prescription under whose Jurisdiction themselves were born not whether Episcopacy be the form established by God as obligatory on all where they are supposed in their own liberty of choice but whether it be not lawful to submit to it or whether Subjects can be excused for their disobedience to a Government under whose Jurisdiction they are born if acknowledged as lawful though not most perfect not whether Episcopacy ought to be changed but whether Subjects could lawfully do it without the consent of Superiours whether Subjects erecting a new form of Government independent on that of the Bishop within his Jurisdiction be so much as passive obedience whether if it be not it can be an excuse from the guilt of Schism whether erecting an altar in opposition to the one altar of the Bishop be not the very notion of Schism condemned by the Church as such as soon as Ecclesiastical History informs us of any such thing as Schism in the world whether by this way of proceeding there be any security for the future against the enterprizes of any
these disingenuous Suspicions concerning me that he has referr'd him to my Books He cannot mean my two Books designodly against the Romanists but onely the last of Schism Vpon which the Controversie will be reduced to this short issue They who will have the defence of Ecclesiastical Authority to pass for Popery will judge me a Papist but they who will take the estimate of Popery from what the Laws and Church of England has condemned under that name will find no shadow for so base an Accusation I am heartily content to abide this tryal but Mr. Baxter had deale more sincerely if he who is on other occasions where there is no need so offended at others for not explaining terms not understood by the parties in different senses had been here as careful to warn his Reader that this was all he meant by the name of Popery He cannot but know that the Commonalty to whom he would make me odious by this insinuation mean far different and worse things by it than the bare defence of Ecclesiastical Authority free from any of the Romish Encroachments and Usurpations Considerat of present concernment Part 3. Ch. 9. Sect. 32. Terms of Conc. part 2. chap. 5. sect 39. Part 3. Ch. 2. Sect. 11. Part 1. Ch. 13. Sect. 2. * Since my writing of this I find Mr. Baxter once referring to the second of these Letters in his Church History but he has added nothing that I find against what had here been argued excepting his account of the small numbers of the Church of Alexandria from Mr. Clarkson which I should here have considered if that as well as the rest of the design of his Church History had not been already undertaken by an excellent and learned Friend from whom I hope the World will shortly have an account of it Let. 3. sect 3. Part 3. ch 9. sect 20. See the Summary at the end of this Reply Ibid. sect 29. Part 3. ch 9. sect 12. Ib. sect 11. Ch. 23. Ch. 28. sect 29 c. Ch. 27. Part 3. ch 9. sect 19 20. Ch. 20. sect 21. Pref. sect 11 c. Premonition Terms of Conc. p. 11. chap. 5. sect 23. Church History Part 3. ch 9. sect 4 13 Bede Hist Angl. III. 3 5. Ib. c. 5. â— 6. a Simeon Dunelm in Collect. Seldeni b Simeon Dunelm in Collect. Seldeni c Malmesb. de gest Angl. l. 3. de gest Pontif. Angl. l. 3. d Huntingd. Hist l. 3. Bede Eccl. Hist IIâ— 17 L. 3. c. 21. Ibid. L. 3. c. 22. See Bishop Bramhalls Vind. of the Church of Engl. c. 9. Bishop Pearson Vind. Ign. l. 1. c. 10. L. 3. c. 25. c. 26. Part 3. c. 9. sect 7. p. 75 Seperat proved Scismat ch 20. 15 c. § XVIII § XIX § XX. § XXI § XXII § XXIII § XXIV Prolog ad D. Stearn de Obstin Eph. 4. 11. Gal. 1. 1. Gal. 11. 6 7 8 9. § XXV a 1 Cor. 14. 29 30 31. b V. 13. c V. 34. d 1 Cor. 11. 5 6 10 13 15. e 1 Cor. 14. 30 31. f V. 26. g V. 40. h V. 29. i V. 34 35. § XXVI Rom. 12. 6 7 8. v. 7. Acts 14. 23 Tit. 1. 5. 2 Tim. 1. 6. 1 Tim. 4 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 1. 26. § XXVII a 1 Sam. 10. 9. b 1 Sam. 16. 14. c S. John 20. 20 21. § XXVIII § XXIX Ch. Hist professedly and elsewhere § XXX 1 Tim. 5. 17. Rom. 12. 6 7 8. Acts 15. 32. § XXXI Part 3. c. 9. sect 21. p. 92 Part 3. c. 9 sect 13. p 85. Ib. sect 33. p. 102 103 Ib. sect 2. p. 74 100. Ib. p. 92 90. Ib. sect 19. p. 90. Ib. sect 2. p. 74. Ib. p. 81. Ib. sect 2. p. 47. sect 29. p. 97. p. 92. Ib. sect 13. p. 85. § XXXII Pref. sect 19. 1. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A. B. a. A B. C. b. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cornel â—d Fab. Ant. apud Euseb Eccles Hist 6. 43. 1. 2. Contra Parm. l. 3. Petr. de Marca de Concord Sac. Imp. l. 3. c. 6. Mon. Soci § XVII § XVIII § XIX § XX. § XXI § XXII § XXIII § XXIV § XXV § XXVI § XXVII § XXVIII § XXIX § XXX Edit Vsser p. 3. Ep. ad Magn. p. 11. p. 17. p. 28. p. 30. p. 36. § XXXI De Baptism c. 17 Ep. 75. apud S. Cyprian p. 182. ed. Pamel p. 184. § XXXII In Concil Carthag init Ep. 4. ad Cornel. § XXXIII § XXXIV Exhort Cast § XXXV p. 54. edit Junii § XXXVI Under Domitian in the year 83 according to Eurychius Tertul. Praescr Iren. l. 3. adv Hoer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is to be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Haeres 69. N. 1. Vide etiam Haeres 68. N. 4. Act. Concil Nicen. l. 2. c. 1. § XXXVII Apud Euseb l. 4. c. 40 41. l. 7. 10 11. â— 8. c. 10 12 13. Euseb l. 9. c. 8. Epiph. Haeres 68. N. 3. § XXXVIII * The place intended is I believe Ep. ad Polycrap 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. p. 139. Ed. Vsser § XXXIX § XL. Can. 6. Concil Sandicens Can. 57. Conc. Laodic Epist 1. Pseudo-Clementin ad Jacob ep 1. Pseudo-Anacleti Dist 80. ep 3. Pseudo-Anacleti n. 2. § XLI The 15th part in Taxes 14th really p. 83 84 § XLII Polit. l. 1. c. 2. § XLIII § XLIV § XLV § XLVI § XLVII § XLVIII Sect. 37. Anno 200. Sect. 7. § XLIX * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. S. Greg. Nysser Vit. S. Greg. Thaumaturgi edit inter opera Thaumaturgi à Gerard. Voss p. 255. p. 313. ib. Pont in vit S. Cypr. fin Ep. 60. ed. Pamel § L. Apolog. 11. p. 99. Pont. vit Cypr. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strabol 11. Greg. p. 131. vide l. 18. p. 833. L. 18. Strabo ib. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ib. b Ptolem. l. 4. Greg. c. 3. c Tertullian de Pall. d Apul. Florid. e See Pamel in Tertullian de Pall. S. Cyprian epist 45 49. Conso ad Helv. c. 10 § LI. Plin. ep l. 10. ep 97. Tertul. Apol. Euseb Chron. num 2223 Oros l. 7. § LII § LIII Apol. 11. p. 97. Ib. p. 98. § LIV. § LV. Optat. Milev l. 11. cont Parm. Interp. of the number 666 c. 19. § LVI § LVII Prudent Perist in Laurent Can. 14. Conc. Neocaesar Pseudo-Euarist ep 1. Perist ubi supra Vid. Orig. tract 24. in Matth. § LVIII § LIX § LX. § LXI § LXII § LXIII § LXIV Soc. l. 1. c. 18. Ib. l. 11. c. 41. Sozom. l. 6. c. 37. Theod. l. 4. c. 37. Sozom. l. 6. c. 37. Socr. Hist Eccl. 4. 33 Soz. 4. 37. Theod. ubi suprae Of this kind of Dispensation even in matters of faith see Examples of S. Greg. Naz. S. Basil Maximus in Petr. de Marc. l. 3. de concord Sacr. Imper. c. 13. sect 10 11. § LXV Socr. l. 1. c. 19. Soz. l. 11. c. 24. Theod. l. 1. c. 23. Soz. l. 4. c. 38. Theod. l. 4. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 § LXVI § LXVII § LXVIII
the Province and having actually made enquiry after the Christians in their persecutions of them I BELIEVE the great reason that inclines you to believe the paucity of Christians in those times is that in great and popular Cities they were able to communicate at one Altar upon which account you conceive them to have been no more than what may assemble in our ordinary Parochial Congregations But you might as well have concluded whole Cities indeed nay whole Nations to have no more people in them than our ordinary Parochial Assemblies You know every clean Male in Jewry was to appear before God at the two solemn Feasts of Easter and of Tabernacles whose numbers computed by Cestius Gallus amounted to a number sure too great for a Parish and the number in Jerusalem when besieged by Titus taken there upon occasion of Easter is a plain Argument of the vastness of their religious Assemblies Nor was it onely proper to the Jews thus to confederate and unite their Commonwealth by their Conventions on account of Religion to partake of the same Altar but the same Policy was observed among the Heathens The Assemblies of whole Cities are so ordinary that it were but pedantick to give instances of them For those of Nations you may observe the Athenian Panathenaicks the Olympick Solemnities which were of all Greece and then the Panionia of the Asiatick Iones not now to mention those of the Barbarians Nor were onely Sacrifices common to these vast Assemblies from the same Altar which is more easily intelligible but speeches also were made to numbers much greater than our Parochial Assemblies which I believe you will think the greater difficulty how the Bishop who you say then was the principal if not the onely Preacher should be heard in a Multitude proportionable to a populous City Yet is this so far from being incredible as that it was in those Ages frequently practised I will not instance in places of special contrivance as that at the Roman Rostra the Theatres and Amphitheatres where many thousands sometimes 100000 or more have heard with convenience And yet it is very probable that these publick places of religious Assemblies were contrived with conveniency for that purpose Nay it is certain that the Jews had their Suggesta and Cathedrae raised on high for that end Nor shall I mention the Orations of Generals to their Armies who had the like advantages It is very clear that upon occasions not so solemn nor prepared great Routs of tumultuous people wanting heads to whom a particular address might have been confined have yet been spoken to I will not again instance in the Speeches of Petronius and King Agrippa to the generality of the Jewish Nation of which we are discoursing Scripture Examples though purely historical I find most easily admitted by you and therefore I am the rather willing to insist on them Rehoboam speaks to all Israel 1 Kings 12. 1 13 16 20. So Jehoiada makes a covenant with all the people of the Land 2 Kings 11. 17 18 20. Our Saviour preaches his Sermon on the Mount to great multitudes from several places S. Matth. 4. 25. v. 1. And several other places to 4000 at one time and 5000 at another though in wildernesses by which we may guess how much greater his Auditories were in populous Cities The Town Clerk of the Ephesians to the whole City Acts 19. 29 35. S. Paul to all the City of Jerusalem Acts 21. 30 36 39 40. And by the multitudes converted by single Sermons of the Apostles you may easily conjecture the vastness of their Auditories Which will be the rather credible when it is considered that the principal preaching of the first Propagators of Christianity was generally in places of greatest frequent such as the Temple or Synagogues or Streets or or Schools or Market-places Thus you see that it will not follow that the number of Christians must have been few if they assembled in one place for the Word and Sacraments and if the Bishop alone had preached BUT neither supposition is so very certain at least not so general as you seem to believe it For preaching we see that while the extraordinary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of prophecy lasted under which preaching was comprehended as well as prayer which by the way is observable against them who allow studied Sermons and yet complain of the Spirit 's being quenched if their prayers be other than extemporary several Prophets met and officiated in their Synaxes 1 Cor. 14. 29 30 31. so far was it then from being confined to any person Bishop or other to preach to the people And even afterwards we find preaching not always performed by the Bishop though I am apt indeed to think it was ordinarily The Catechists were usually Presbyters and Origen though a Presbyter yet preached before Bishops But for the times of persecution wherein they could not meet so numerously in one Assembly yet other provisions might have been made agreeably enough to the Principles of those Ages for supplying the necessities of much greater than parochial multitudes Such was that of reserving the species which I believe was a shift found out in times of persecution when every particular person could not get any opportunity of frequenting the Synaxes as often as he was desirous to communicate which was then daily it being the first meat they tasted This reservation is clear from S. Cyprian de laps the Author De Spectaculis among his works Tert. l. 11. and Ux. Dionys Alex. ep ad Fab. Antioch in Euseb S. Iren. to Pope Victor Now by this means very great multitudes might frequently communicate though their Synaxes were rarely and thinly celebrated that they might not give their Governours any just offence by their numerousness For by Pliny's Epistle to Trajan it appears that they did upon this account utterly forbear their feasts of charity upon his putting of the Law De Hetaeriis in force and in all probability yielded as far as lawfully they conceived they might in the Eucharist it self A second shift was that of sending the Sacraments by the Deacons to those that were absent So S. Justin Martyr expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And who knows whether the breaking of bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or from house to house as we read it Acts 11. 46. if it be meant of the Sacrament and not rather of their feasts of love may not allude to this custom I shall not now dispute it but onely observe that this practice though not grounded on this Text yet certainly used in those times might from the same Altar have communicated much greater multitudes than are contained in our ordinary Parishes But there was also a third Expedient for these numerous Communions that though indeed the Roman Altar where the blessed Sacrament was ordinarily and solemnly administred were onely one even in those populous Cities and that in the power of the Bishop yet