then they rather by custome then by the Lords disposition So Augustine writing to Hierome although saith he according to the names of honour which the use or custome of the Church hath kept a Bishop be greater then a presbyter yet Augustine a Bishop is in many things inferior to Hierome a presbyter So modestly and humbly doth the most pious and wise Bishop Augustine write unto the holy presbyter Hierome his elder in years and his inferior in dignity They that affirm Episcopacy to be instituted by a Council do not mean a Council taken in a proper sense but for the unanimous votes of the Churches decreeing the same thing upon the same grounds and reasons which are the principal things respected in a Council and it is truely said illud unumquodque dicitur quod est principalius in eo Fourthly it seems consequent to Hierom's above-cited discourse that it is not certain which some affirm that Bishops were set over the Churches before the time wherein St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to Timothy or his Epistle to Titus c. out of which Hierome proves the identity of Bishops and presbyters and the government of the Church by the Colledge of presbyters But of the exact time of the institution of Bishops it 's not much material to know seeing all agree it was made in the time of the Apostles By some of those places cited by him it 's likely he intended onely to prove the name Bishop to be common at that time as well to presbyters as to their superior Ecclesiastical officers But it might be thought that Hierome in this matter contradicts himself In cataloge Scriptorum Eccles in Jacobe because elsewhere he saith that James the brother of our Lord was statim quickly after our Lords passion ordained by the Apostles Bishop of Jerusalem and that he ruled that Church for 30 years until the seventh year of Nero unto this difficulty another may be added shewing a seeming contrariety in this learned Father's speeches concerning the institution of Bishops which is that here he affirmeth the Episcopacy to be an Ecclesiastical and so an humane constitution and in another place that it is an Apostolical tradition It is not hard to reconcile these seeming contrary expressions Epist ad Evagrium for first we must consider Episcopacy or government by one as chief among the presbyters to have been either extraordinary managed by one extraordinary person which was not by any ordinary rule of the Church to have a successour or ordinary in the hand of one person which by a Canon of the Church was to have a successour an Apostle present in any Church had power over the presbyters and the preheminence in all sacerdotal duties above them in that Church Of Apostles some were primary as the twelve other secondary and these were either indeed as well as in name A postles or onely because they were conversant with the Apostles and their helpers and many times left by them in some Churches or sent to them as their Vicegerents such were Timothy Titus Linus Clemens c. all these by their Apostolical function or by vertue of their Vicegerency had the principal rule in the Churches wherein they abode even then when in all other Churches the Colledge of the presbyters took the care of all having no Superior constantly resident over them Afterward when upon occasion of the presbyters abusing their power by reason of the Apostles absence to the be getting of Schismes the Churches by Apostolical consent agreed to give in every Church a principality to one presbyter above the rest which in some time after had the name of Bishop made proper to him and was made an ordinary officer in all Churches then the Apostles and their Vicegerents in the Churches of their residence had the power over the Colledge of presbyters not onely by their Apostleship or Vicegerency but also by the new decree and institution of an ordinary Episcopacy Now because it was thought fit by the Apostles that James should reside at Jerusalem and that not long after the ascension of our Saviour it might truly be said that he was then ordained that is constituted Bishop extraordinary in that place for some particular reasons taken from consideration of some particular condition of that place whose Episcopacy afterward was continued for the general reason of preventing Schismes and consequently of an extraordinary Episcopacy was made an ordinary Episcopacy which was to pass to successors The same proportionably must be said of the Episcopacy of St. Peter in Rome and Antioch of Timothy in Ephesus of Titus in Crete of Linus and Clemens in Rome and so of others all of which were first Bishops extraordinary and after the general decree they were also made as ordinary Bishops in the Churches where the decree found them extraordinary Bishops Hierom doth in many places speak as one that supposed Bishops to be above Presbyters before the making of that decree but his meaning was not that ordinary Bishops were before it for then he had contradicted himself but the extraordinary If the rest of the Fathers be so understood as it is not very improbable but that many of them may the seeming difference between him and some of them may be perhaps in the main reconciled Theodoret saith that Bishops in the life time of the Apostles were called Apostles the name of the extraordinary Bishops being also communicated to the ordinary Bishops who also had some appearance of being Vicegerents unto those twelve general Pastors of the universal Church while they lived as they were counted their successors after their decease As to the other seeming contrariety in St. Hierom's writings affirming the ordinary Episcopacy to be of Ecclesiastical and humane institution and also of Apostolical tradition it is easily answered First That the ordinary Episcopacy is not a primary tradition of the Apostles but of the Churches to whose decree the Apostolical approbation added no new sanction but ratified the authority of the Churches as prudently exercised in making that constitution Secondly that decree may be said to be of Apostolical tradition because their extraordinary Episcopacy and the extraordinary Episcopacy of their Vicegerents established by them were patterns which the Churches had an eye unto for their direction and encouragement in the framing of that decree hoping that the good of peace preserved where the extraordinary Episcopacy was placed would be best maintained in all Churches when the like government should be setled in all to continue by succession 3. Thirdly the ancient Fathers affirm many ecclesiastical observances to be of divine or Apostolical institution or tradition upon other grounds then may beget a certain belief of their being truely divine or Apostolical Augustine saith that whatsoever the universal Church holdeth and is not found in following Councils constituted but always retained is most rightly believed to be delivered by the Apostolick authority De bapt contra Donatist l. 2. c. 7.
twelfth successor of Peter Polycrates who was 65 years in the Lord when he wrote his Epistle unto Victor Bishop of Rome concerning the time of the celebration of the PÃ sche which was about the year of our Lord 197 whereby it appeareth that he began to flourish about 50 years after the death of John the Apostle if not much sooner if he was come to years of discretion before his Baptism Polycrates I say who was so near the times of the Apostles saith that he was the eighth Bishop of Ephesus Now it is acknowledged by all that in the time of Victor a Bishop had the preheminence over the Presbyters in every Church and therefore it is consequent that Polycrates by the seven Bishops preceding him in Ephesus meaneth not single Presbyters but such Bishops as were in the Church at the time of his writing that Epistle to Victor If the principality of the Ecclesiastical regiment had been in the Colledge of Presbyters until the death of the Apostles and after their decease the principality of that government was committed to one and not before surely Polycrates Irenaeus and Hegesippus had egregiously prevaticated in attributing the principality of one to some part of the time of the Apostles which they living with thousands who must have seen and consented to that change made after the Apostles decease if any such had been then first made could not be ignorant of But that these holy men were not unfaithful in their relation doth evidently appear by this namely that all the Fathers none contradicting agree with them affirming Bishops having in an ordinary way a superiority over Presbyters to have been ordained in the times of the Apostles Concerning Arch-bishops Sect 6. omitting the guesses of some ancient Doctors concerning the Archiepiscopacy of Mark Timothy and Titus we may find some intimation of their being in the end of the second century partly by the act of Victor Bishop of Rome in his attempt to excommunicate the Churches of the East and partly by a passage in Tertullian where he saith the Bishop of Bishops hath made a decree c. but certain it is that before the year of our Lord 250 wherein Cyprian Bishop of Carthage flourished l. de pudicitia c. 1. Arch-bishops were ordained in the Church For Cyprian writeth that there were many years and a long age since many Bishops convening under Agryppinus Bishop of Carthage decreed Epist ad Jubâ—in ad Cornel. l. 4. Epist 8. c. and in one of his Epistles to Cornelius Bishop of Rome he saith that his adversaries boasted saying that twenty five Bishops of Numidia would come to Carthage who would make unto themselves a Bishop there Among these Arch-bishops who were such indeed but not yet in name that we can find in any approved auctor of that age were some more eminent then other each of which had some Arch-bishops subordinate to them which in following times were called primates for in a province was one chief City under which were divers mother Cities which had lesser Cities under them In these were the Bishops in the Mother-cities were the Metropolitans or Arch-bishops in the first the Primates priviledges made some variations Of Primates and Metropolitans the Council of Nice saith it is manifest that if any be ordained without the will and conscience of the Metropolitane Bishop this great and holy Council hath decreed he ought not to be a Bishop And in another Canon the ancient manner or custome doth last in Egypt Lybia and Pentapolis that the Bishop of Alexandria have the power of all these for the Bishop of Rome hath a like custome in like manner also at Antioch and other provinces let the due honour proper to every Church be preserved to it These Primates and Arch-bishops had no power in things proper to the cognizance of a Bishop in his own Diocess but onely in those things whereof the Canons of the Church had committed to them the hearing and Judgement or which were of concernment to many Diocesses And this is it which Cyprian meaneth where he saith Epist ad Quintium none of us Bishops doth constitute himself to be a Bishop of Bishops or doth compell this Colledge by tyrannical terror to the necessity of obeying seeing every Bishop hath according to his own liberty and free will that he may not be judged by another Adrian the Emperour Apud Vopisum in Saturnino who reigned from the year of our Lord 117 to the year 135 writeth in a certain Epistle horrible untruths against Christians as that there was never a Presbyter of the Christians which was not a Mathematician a Southsayer c. that the very Patriarch when he came to Egypt was by some compelled to adore Serapis by others to adore Christ that they which said themselves to be Bishops of Christ were devoted to Serapis It seems this Emperour had taken notice that Christians had Ecclesiastical officers whereof some were-called Presbyters some called Bishops and perhaps that the Bishop of Alexandria was over all Egypt c. and Bishops thereof and therefore calls him by the name of a like civil Magistrate Patriarch which was afterward used by Christians in a like sense but too much hath been said to shew that it was ordained in the times of the Apostles that the principal authority in every Church should be in one Presbyter advanced above and over the rest unto whom in a short time after the name of Bishop was made proper This truth is so clear and written as it were with capital or uncial letters in the writings of all the ancients that he that runneth may read it in them In the next place it should be considered whether that Ordinance constituting Episcopacy made in the Apostolical times was not in proper sense an Apostolical constitution Sect. 7. and if so whether therefore it be unalterable But that this matter may be better understood it is convenient first to speak of the Authority and Power given to the Bishop what it was and how ample in those times De baptisme c. 17. Tertullian gives us some information in this point when he saith that the chief Priest which is the Bishop hath the right or power of giving Baptism then the Presbyters and Deacons but not without the authority of the Bishop for the preservation of the honour of the Church which remaining safe peace is safe maintained For the understanding of this we must consider that where the exercise of the power of preaching baptising c. in such place and among such persons was not by some ordinance of the Church determined to this or that particular Presbyter there it pertained to the Bishop to do it and not to any other without his leave yea the very Ordinances and Canons could not be made without his consent and authority as their principal author under Christ In Epist ad Titum c. 1. For as Hierom saith the whole care of the Church
wicked livers and Haereticks but it was not of the Church it was no part of the constitution of the Church although it did labour to insinuate and work it self into it it may be granted as very probable that the mystery of iniquity in particular and those dead members and by them working upon the Churches might more vitiate the Churches of the second century then the Churches in the first century and the Churches in the third century more then the Churches of the second and so of the rest to the end of the fifth century but that in any part of that time it prevailed so far as to become a part of the Ecclesiasticall Doctrine Discipline Liturgy or Ceremonies universally received and used is rather a surmise of an excess of jealousy then an opinion grounded upon probable reasons it is so far from being an approved truth After the year 500. and the division of the Empire and establishment of the Kings 2 Thes 2.3 Revel 17.12 13.16 which were to give their power and strength to the Beast and which in due time were to burn the Whore of Babylon the Churches grew generally more and more corrupt the civill and Ecclesiasticall confusions attending the Warrs in the severall Provinces giving advantage to the mystery of Iniquity to mingle it self first with the Discipline and Ceremonies and after with the publick Doctrine whereby first superstition then Idolatry and lastly Heresies took place in the publick profession of the Churches so that in persons who knowingly swallowed the good and bad together the infection of the mystery of Iniquity hindred the operation of the good portion of the whole lump and working the effect of its poyson into their vital parts corrupted and destroyed them And therefore these latter Churches were not by the first reformers of our Church proposed for patterns as the former were which preserved the purity of Doctrine Discipline and Ceremonies without the addition of any thing causing Superstition much less Idolatry or Haeresy Our Church hath separated the Pretious from the Vile the good of Doctrine Discipline and Rites from the pestiferous and noxious additions and now if either the abuse of prosperity or the iniquity of the late times hath added any evil quality to any of our Ecclesiasticall things or made us incapable of good by some Rite or particle of the Discipline or Liturgy or if any defect appear to be in our former reformations and especially if any of these have happened in any Rite of adoration wherein is the greatest danger it is not to be doubted but that all these things will be carefully looked into and whether by omission explanation or otherwise the Discipline and Rites by the help and blessing of God shall be reformed according to the best patterns and as shall most conduce to the godly unity and peace of the Church and Kingdome What do I speak only of future Reformation seeing the deep Wisdome and the most sincere piety of his Sacred Majesty hath by the blessing of God upon his Royal indeavours found out the best temperament for the healing of the present distempers and by his gratious Declaration hath established a most happy Interim the fittest that could be devised for the preparing different apprehensions and affections unto an unity meet to entertain the best form of a Christian Church which the infirmities of these last dayes of the last time can well bear The Regicides of late had proceeded far in breaking down this our House of God Psal 74. 1 King 6.7 with their iron tooles their Axes and Hammers but as it is said of King Solomons Temple that there was neither Hammer nor Axe nor any toole of iron heard while it was in building so our blessed Solomon in reedifying this decayed house of God doth the work without all iron instruments without all unpleasing sounds it goeth on sensim sine sensu and it is and will be the glorious effect of his Majesties incomparable providence guided by the most gratious direction of God cunctando restituisse rem But some of them which will read this small tractate may therein observe some passages which suppose the Church of England without the benefit of any proceedings of his Majesty towards her restauration and may therefore be ready to censure the Author as he well deserved if he had not this just Apology namely That he can make it good by many witnesses of worthy persons of known integrity that this treatise was ready written five months agon at the least at which time the Author could only write of the state and condition of things as they were then and not as they would be in times to come If any object It had been better if ever to have published this at that time for which it seemes more convenient to which I say That the Conscience of mine own infirmities retarded and had almost hindred the publication thereof But partly my desire to contribute my poor mite towards the restauration of Gods House prevailed with me partly believing the truth of that saying of Clemens of Alexandria that the science of preaching is in a manner Angelical and whether it be exercised by the tongue or hand writing profiteth either way and knowing my self to be not far from the time when the strength of voyce may decrease I thought it not amiss to put it to the trial by this beginning whether I might hereafter with any hope of acceptance and profit attempt to recompence the defect which if I live may likely happen in my voyce with the labour and pains of preaching by the pen. Some may think that I have made no good choise in preferring the judgment of St. Hierome a Presbyter and not well affected as many think to Episcopacy before the opinion of Epiphanius a Bishop and the elder of the two Aerius maintained that neither the Apostles were nor the Churches could lawfully be the authors of the preferment of a Bishop above the Presbyters and therefore he departed from the Communion of the Catholick Church and became an Independent Presbyter of an independant Congregation First I must deny that Hierome was disaffected to good Bishops or to the Episcopal dignity His works do abundantly testify that he bad in singular honour both the one and the other only he often reproveth and that sharply the Ambition Covetuousness and other vices of many Bishops which not he only but others before him and in his time even Bishops themselves did performe with no less sharpness and severity See one among others Gregory who was created Bishop of Sasimis executed his function in Nazianzum and after was advanced to the Arch-Bishoprick of Constantinople this Arch-Bishop wisheth there were no prerogative of the Throne nor Prelacy which saith he had indeed in former times been desired of good and prudent men but which now to shunne is counted an act of singular prudence What is this wise and holy Arch-Bishop for the abrogation of Episcopacy root
denote confirmation alone but any other perpetual ordinance of God wherein this ceremony was to be used by the authority of the Apostles exampled and practise They which say that this ceremony was to last no longer in use then God was pleased to continue the miraculous operations usual in the Apostolick times seem to impute inconsiderateness to the Apostle in reckoning that one of the fundamentals of Religion which was not to be perpetually continued in the militant Church but we are assured that the Apostle being moved by the Holy Ghost could not speak inconsiderately and that every fundamental of Christian Religion shall continue in Christs Church unto the end of the world as this ceremony both in confirmation and in ordinations of Pastors hath hitherto been alwayes used in the universal Church and without doubt will so continue unto the end of time Pastors are called in the Apostolical Epistles by two other names Sect. 4. that is Bishops and Presbyters the Apostleship contained in it self the pastoral offices and therefore an Apostle was also called a Bishop and Presbyter The first mention of Pastors by the name of Presbyters of Elders is in Acts 11.30 where the Church of Antioch is said to have sent relief by Barnabas and Saul unto the Elders of the Churches in Judaea in the time of the great dearth which was in the days of Claudius Caesar in the 15 Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we finde the controversie concerning the necessity of circumcision and keeping of the Law of Moses brought by Paul and Barnabas before the Apostles and Elders or Presbyters in the Church of Jerusalem to be by them determined We see in the chapter of the Acts how that Paul with some of the brethren went in unto James and all the elders were present whence we may observe that the Apostles did not discuss and end the controversie concerning circumcision and keeping of the Law without the presence of the Presbyters of the Church where they then were nor did James alone heat Paul but together with his Presbyters did both hear him and give him that seasonable Councel to purifie himself for the avoiding the offence of the beleiving Jews which were numerous in Jerusalem Here ariseth a question Sect. 5. whether St. James was head of the Presbyters of the Church of Jerusalem onely as he was an Apostle having his ordinary residence in that Church or also as having an ordinary authority over the Presbyters which was to be continued to successors over the succeding Presbyters it is certain that as an Apostle he was the head of the Presbyters having a superiority over them but as the Apostleship was not to pass to successors so neither was his authority to be conveyed to any in succession but to be terminated with his life it is more then probable that at that time he was their superior onely as an Apostle settled in that Church neither had we need to conceive him in any subsequent times to become their head in any other sense then this if the unanimous testimony of the ancient Doctors of the Church did not constrain us to be of another judgment unless we will reject the witness of the Catholick Church constantly persevered in from the beginining of the second Centuary after our Saviours birth unto this day For the Fathers do constantly affirm that St. James was for some time before his decease Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem not onely in the sense of the word Bishop common to an Apostle and every Presbyter but in the sense which soon after the time of Clemens Romanus was appropriated to it that is signifying such a Presbyter as had a superiority over all the rest of the Presbyters of the same Church to continue in him during life and to be transferred to some other after him Hegesippus an Historian Apud Euseb hiss l. 4. c. 21. Ibid. l. 3. c. 29. who flourished about the year 170 relateth that after the death of St. James Simon Cleopa being chosen Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem one Thebulis began to corrupt the Church with vain Doctrine because he was not made Bishop there And the same Historian writeth that Simon Cleopa lived Bishop of that place until the times of Trajane the Emperor under whose government Simon suffered Martyrdome and John the Apostle died by which testimony of an historian who lived within 60 years after the death of the Apostle St. John it plainly appeareth that Simon was not after the death of St. James brother of our Lord constituted onely a single Presbyter of that Church nor James before him head thereof only as an Apostle or an extraordinary governour but that both were ordinary rulers of the whole Church as well Presbyters as the other members thereof Clemens Alexandrinus Paedagog l. 3. c. ult Strom. 6. who lived before the year of our Lord 200 makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter saying that in the Scriptures some precepts pertain to Bishops some to Presbyters and some to Deacons and in another place that a Presbyter doing and teaching according to Gods will although he be not on earth honoured with the first chair shall sit on the 24 thrones judging the people and a little after he saith that here in the Church the provections or proficiencies of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be imitations of the angelical glory Tertullian who flourished in the year of our Lord 200 De Monogamia c. 11. mentions an use in his time of asking leave of the Bishop of the Presbyters and of the Deacons to marry Elsewhere he calls upon the Hereticks to shew the beginnings of their Churches and so to reckon the order of their Bishops running from the beginning by successions that the first Bishop have an Apostle or an Apostolical man for his auctor or antecessor as the Church of Smyrna relates Polycarpus to be placed there Bishop by John the Apostle and the Church of Rome reporteth Clement to have been ordained there by Peter the Apostle Adversus Valentin c. 4. In another place the same author saith that Valentinus because he was ingenious eloquent had hoped an Episcopacy De Baptismo c. 17. and being angry that another by prerogative of Martyrdome had obtained it he departed from the Church In another place he hath this observation viz. the emulation of Episcopacy is the mother of Schismes Adversus haeres l. 3. c. 3. apud Euseb l. 5. c. 18. I must not forget the testimony of Ireaaeus who affirmeth of himself that he was a hearer of Polycarpus who was not onely taught by the Apostles and conversed with many of them which saw the Lord but was also by the Apostles in Asia Advers haeres l. 3. c. 3. Edit Paris 1567. in which is the Church of Smyrna constituted a Bishop the same Irenaeus doth enumerate the Bishops of Rome which succeeded one another from Peter unto Eleutherius who was the
belongs unto the Bishop and therefore he was to see that all the Presbyters did their duties assigned to them and that the ministerial acts not allotted to any special Presbyter were to be done by the Bishop himself or by him whom he would appoint to do them Hierom mentions one thing proper to a Bishop Epist ad Evagriâ—m what doth a Bishop saith he excepting Ordination which a Presbyter doth not do where he maketh ordination of Presbytery to be the proper work of a Bishop which the Presbyters were not to perform except perhaps in the Bishops place and by his commission in some cases of necessity as shall be shewed hereafter not that the Presbyters had no hand in Ordination but that the principal act in it Can. 3. was onely the Bishops For the fourth Council of Carthage saith Sed sola propter auctoritatem summo sacerdot o Clericorum ordinatio consecratio reservata est ne a multis Ecclesiae Disciplina vendicata concordiam solveret Scandala geneventur Isid de Eccl. offic c. 7. Can. 5. circa an 656. when a Presbyter is ordained the Bishop blessing him and holding his hand upon his head let the Presbyters also which be present lay their hands by the hand of the Bishop upon his head And it follows in the fourth Canon when a Deacon is ordained let the Bishop alone which blesseth him lay his hand upon his head because he is not consecrated to the Priesthood but to a Service Where we are to observe that the imposition of the hands of the Presbyters is a condition antecedent requisite to the consecration of a Presbyter and so proper to it that it may not be used in the ordination of a Deacon much less of any other inferior officer the blessing is the act in oâ—dination which is appropriated to the Bishop And therefore in the second Council of Hispâ—lis the Presbyters and Deacons consecrated by a Bishop who having sore eyes could not read were deposed from the degrees which they had ill gotten a presbyter having contrary to the order of the Church read the benediction The Bishop performed in the Church the chief offices of preaching and administration of the Communion if he pleased none other being to do either in his presence but by his call sometime to shew his power or out of envy idleness or disdain he neither would himself exhort the people nor require a presbyter to do it ad Nepotianum de vita clericorum Which great fault Hierom reproves in some Churches saith he is a bad custome that the Bishop being present the presbyters hold their peace as though the Bishop envied or disdained to hear them Some other things were in some sort appropriated to the Bishop but were not made so peculiar to him as ordination was nor were they all of them so ancient priviledges nor of that weight for confirmation was the chiefest of them Greg. Epist l. 3. Ep. 26. Conc. Carth. 3. c. 32. Pseudambros in Ep. ad Eph. c. 4. which in some cases and places presbyters might and did usually perform The making of the Chrism the signing of the baptized in the forehead with the sign of the Cross consecration of Virgins of the altar c. were ceremonies of less moment and some of them of a latter institution But notwithstanding that the Bishop had in some things a propriety and in all things Ecclesiastical a principality yet the presbyters had a subordinate power ordinary or extraordinary in the one and in the other for the Bishop could ordain no presbyter without the consent of the presbyters and the imâ—osition of their hands Cyprian affirmeth that the Clergy of Rome presided with Cornelius their Bishop Cyprian Ep. ad Cornelium The fourth Council of Carthage prohibits the Bishop to hear any mans cause without the presence of his Clergy and forbids him to give Can. 22. Can. 23. sell or change any thing belonging to the Church without consent and subscription of the Clergy And that there was not so great a distance between the Bishop and presbyters as hath of latter times been kept nor as is between a presbyter and a Deacon Can. 34. Can. 35. doth appear by some Canons of the same ancient Council which ordain that the Bishop sitting in any place suffer not a presbyter to stand and that the Bishop in the Church sit among the presbyters in a higher seat but in the house must know himself to be a College or companion of the presbyters Concerning the distance between a presbyter and Deacon the Canons of the Synod say that a Deacon is minister as well of the presbyter Vide Conc. Nicenum c. 14. Arelat 1. c. 21. as of the Bishop that a Deacon in the convention of the presbyters may speak onely when he is asked and that he is not to sit but when he is commanded by the presbyter Can. 37. Can. 39. Can. 40. Therefore it may seem that if after 300 years since the decease of the Apostles at which time the power of Bishops was much enlarged there was no more difference between a Bishop and a presbyter the difference was far lesse at that time between the Bishop and the Colledge of presbyters then the birth of popery hath made between them Esai c. 3. Hierom calls the Colledge of presbyters the Bishops Senate intimating thereby that the Bishop ought to hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes in the presence and with the advise and consent of his presbyters Hence it was that l. 3. Epist 22. long before the time of St. Hierome the holy Martyr Cyprian having with consent of the Clergy of the place where he then was being absent from his own City and presbyters ordained one a reader and another a subdeacon he excuseth himself by his Letters to the Presbyters of his own Cathedral saying that nothing new was done by him in their absence but what was begun in their Common Council was promoted by urgent necessity their Council therefore that was requisite in so small a matter was much more necessary in matters of greatest weight It is opportune here to consider the famous question Sect. 8. whether in the first twenty years of the Apostles preaching something more or less the whole care of the Church did in common belong to the Colledge of presbyters of every Church where no Apostle was present nor Evangelist nor any supplying the place of an Apostle or did the care and government of every Church except where some invincible hindrance withstood belong unto one as principal and head and to the presbyters onely as his Senate and Counsellors The Ancients vary in this point Contra haeres Aerii Epiphanius and some others affirm that the office of a Bishop was instituted by the Apostles distinct from the offices of the Apostles Evangelists prophets and presbyters Ultra sacerdotium non est gradus ordinis tamen intra hunc gradum
ordmem contingit esse distinctionem dignitatum officiorum quae tamen novum gradum vel ordinem non constituunt ut Archipresbyter Episcopus Archiepiscopus Patriarcha pontifex summus qui ultra sacerdotium non addunt ordinem nec gradum novum sed solum dignitatem officium ita Episcopatus prout concernit ordinem sacer dotti benè potest dici ordo sed prout distinguitur contra sacerdotium dicitur dignitatem quandam vel officium Episeopi annexum non est propriè nomen ordinis nec no vus character imprimitur nec nova potestas datur sed potestas data ampliatur unde sicut non recipit alias claves sic nec alium ordinem hoc sensit magister Hugo de S. Victore Magister sententiarum Bonavent in 4. dist 24. q. 3. Et postea non ita propriè dicitur aliquis ordinari cum promovetur in Episcopum sicut cum promovetur in sacerdotem sed magis propriè dicitur consecrari postea non datur ibi nova potestas sed solùm potestas ligandi solvendi ampliatur Solis sacerdotibus datur in ordine sacerdotali potestas clavium scilicet quantum ad solvendum ligandum quasi mediatoribus inter Deum subditos Si objiciatur quod magis couvenit potestatem clavium dart Episcopo in consecratione Episcopi dicendum quod nequaquam quia Episcopus non dicitur novum ordinem nec in consecrationem Episcopi datur novus ordo sed tantum ampliatur potestas Alex. Halens to 4. de potest clavium q. 20. m. 8. a. Probatum est scilicet disp 140. c. 1. inquit Vasques quod Hieronymus nullam constituat differentiam jure Divino inter Episcopatum Presbyterium sed censeat jure tantum ecclesiastico discrimen fuisse introductum In 3. p. disp 142. c. 8. Ego sanè inquit Vasques suspicor vehementer S. Thomam existimasse consecrationem cum qua confertur potestas Episcopajis jure humano esse introductam In 3. p. disp 143. c. 2. and that in all Churches where fit men for that office were found they were ordained and set over the presbyters and that the Senate of presbyters did alone govern onely in some Churches where no man was found fit to be made a Bishop Hierom and some other taught Episcopes solae ordinatione superiores esse Presbyteris Chrysost in 1. Ep. ad Timoth. hom 11. Postea unus est gradus S. Hierom in 1. Ep. ad Tim. c. 3. that the Apostles left at the first the whole care of every Church where none of them or their Vicegerents or Evangelists resided unto the body of the presbyters of each Church which exercised all Ecclesiastical powers in common until the presbyters began to divide the flock and to make of one Church many Independent Congregations For the avoiding of which inconvenience the Churches unanimously agreed to commit the principal care of every Church unto one presbyter without whose consent the rest of the presbyters were not allowed to exercise any part of their Ecclesiastical function In Ep. ad Tit. c. 1. vide gloss dist 23. c. legimus and to that advanced presbyter some ministerial acts and also the name of Bishop were after some time appropriated Before Sidings in Religion saith Hierom were made by the instinct of the Devil and that it was said among the people El Amalarium de Eccles offic l. 2. c. 13. Et Steph. Eduens Episcopum de sacramento altaris c. 9. I am of Paul I of Apollos c. the Churches were governed by the Common Council of the Presbyters but after that every Presbyter thought those whom he baptised to be his and not Christs it was decreed in all the world that one chosen out of the Presbyters should be set over the rest unto whom all the care of the Church should appertain and so the seeds of Schismes should be taken away A little after he affirmeth that at the first the care of the Church was equally divided among many and yet a little further having cited out of 1. Epist to Tim. and the Epist to Titus and the Epist to the Philipp c. these saith he were said that we might shew that the ancient Presbyters were the same with Bishops but by little and little that the plants of dissention might be plucked up In quos delinquentes nonnunquam Episcoporum Presbyterorum censura desaevit Hier. ad Demetriad all the sollicitude was delated to one Therefore as the Presbyters know themselves by the custome of the Church to be subject to him who is set over them so let Bishops know themselves to be greater then Presbyters more by custome then by the truth of Divine dispotision and ought in common to rule the Church imitating Moses who when he might have alone ruled the people yet chose other with whom he would judge them The words of this ancient Father need no explication for they say plainly that every Church meaning wherein no extraordinary minister resided Apostle or his Vicegerent was at the first governed by the Colledge of Presbyters and that their dividing one Church into many Independent Congregations Quare in Ecclesia baptizatus nisi per manus Episcopi accipiat Spiritum Sanctum id factum reperimus ad honorem potius sacerdotii quā ad legis necessitatem Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate ac veneratione consistit cui si non exors quaedam ab hominibus omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in Ecclesiis efficientur schismata quot sacerdotes Inde venit ut sine chrismate Episcopi jussione neque Presbyter neque Diaconus jus habeat baptizandi quod frequenter si tamen necessitas cogit scimus licere laicis Hier. contra Lucifer first that we can find in Corinth after in many other places put a necessity upon the Churches to provide a convenient remedy against so dangerous a disease which remedy was the committing of every Church to one chief minister to whom the rest were to be subordinate in the manner before specified Here observe 1. that according to St. Hierom every Bishop ought to rule the Church in common with the presbyters 2. that Hierom saith that the decree of making one chief in every Church was in all the world whereby he intimates this institution of Bishops to have its beginning after the planting of the Churches in most parts of the then known world 3. that he affirmeth that Paulatim by little and little or by degrees the care of every Church was committed to one which doth insinuate that the decree instituting a Bishop was not in a Synod of the Apostles or Churches but enacted in every Church first in some then in other and in a short time in all over all the world in such manner as a general custome is created and therefore he saith that the Presbyters are subject to the Bishop by the custome of the Church and the Bishop greater
l. 4. c. ult Hierom affirmeth that many things which are by tradition observed in the Churches have usurped to themselves the authority of a Divine law as in baptism to immerge the head thrice and then to tast the concord of milk and honey Adversus Luciferianos to signifie infancy and on the Lords day and in all the Pentecost not to pray kneeling nor to fast Constantine the great exhorteth all to embrace the decree of the Nicene Council concerning the set time of the celebration of the Feast of Easter as a gift of God and a Commandement sent down from heaven Euseb de vita Constantini l. 3. c. 18. Edit Basil 1570. for whatsoever is decreed in the holy Councils of Bishops that ought to be ascribed to the divine will Hierom in another place saith let every one judge the precepts of the ancients to be Apostolical laws Hierom. Ep. 28. It is not to be doubted saith Leo Bishop of Rome but that every Christian observance is of divine erudition and that whatsoever is received by the Church into a custome of devotion Serm. 2. de jejun Pentecost proceeded from the Apostolick tradition and the Doctrine of the holy Spirit The Fathers use very frequently to affirm some institutions or rites to be divine or Apostolical because they seemed a greeable to and their lawfulness demonstrable by the old Testament the Gospels or Apostolick Epistles So the Lent Fast is by them said to be of Apostolical and Divine tradition because it seems an imitation of the Fast of Elias and of Christ and Monachism is affirmed to be Apostolick because it hath an appearance of being an imitation of John the Baptist Amalar. Alcuin Pontifical Damas c. yet many ancient writers make Pope Telesphorus who flourished Forty years after the decease of St. John the Apostle to be the author of the Quadragesimal Fast although indeed it had a much later beginning and affirm Paul and Anthony to be the Fathers of Monachism So that many institutes were counted Apostolick because some example or reason of the Scripture did seem to warrant them Whence Hierom and others intimate Hierom. in vita Pauli that Episcopacy was instituted in imitation of Aaron and his Sons or of the Apostles and 70 Disciples affirming Bishops to be successors of aaron and the Apostles and Presbyters the successors of the Sons of Aaron and of the 70 Disciples Fourthly it is a certain truth acknowledged by all the learned that the Apostles were authors as well of local and temporary or universal and temporary ordinances rites or ceremonies as of universal and perpetual for they were inspired by the Holy Ghost infallibly to discern both what the present condition although variable of some or all the Churches required and what upon reasons arising from unvariable grounds and circumstances was needful to be observed in all the Churches of Christ Polycarpus a hearer of the Apostles and by St. John made Bishop of Smyrna celebrated the Pasche in the fourteenth moon and so did the rest of Asia and some of the East observing it the same time with the Jews moved thereto by the countenance and example of St. John the Apostle but Anicetus Bishop of Rome who flourished in the life time of Polycarpus and generally the Churches of the West kept the Feast at another time and on the Lords day induced thereto as they affirmed by the tradition and example of St. Peter the Apostle We cannot with reason and charity think that either Polycarpus with the Asians and East or Anicetus with the Western Churches Apud Euseb Iren. could be ignorant of the time when Peter in the West or John in Asia observed that Feast Polycarpus being an eye witness of what the Apostle St. John did and Anicetus being a hearer of the hearers of Clemens who was contemporary with the Apostle St. Peter or that they would considerately speak and perseveringly maintain an untruth imputing a fact to either Apostle which he had not done especially seeing the untruth on either side might have been confuted by a thousand witnesses wherefore we must judge this to be an evident example of a variable apostolick institution I might instance in part of the Apostles decree in the 15 chapter of the Acts of the Apostles of things strangled and blood but least I move scruples in weak consciences which they cannot easily be rid of I will only commend to the consideration of the judicious the judgment of some ancient writers quoted in the margent August contra Faustum l. 32. c. 13. Et tractcti contra graecos in biblioth patr to 4. pag. 1308. et 1318.1319.1320 There be many rites which the Fathers held to be Apostolical which in the times of the same Fathers were in many places altered or neglected as the three immersions in baptisme the repairing of neighbour Bishops to the people where a Bishop was wanting there to ordain one in the presence of the people not to fast in the dayes of Pentecost and some other which prove that according to the judgment of those Fathers the Apostles guided by divine inspiration made some decrees alterable and which were upon just reasons accordingly changed or disused and therefore if it were proved that the Apostles by divine motion were the primary Auctors of Episcopacy and not the Church yet if it cannot appeare to be a constitution built upon perpetuall reason and in its nature independing upon variable circumstances it may possibly be changed by the Church Here it may be demanded by what members of it self did the universal Church abrogate the Presbyterian and institute Episcopal Government and what power was taken from the Presbyters by that abrogation For answer to these demands we must distingnish between the power given to ministers to doe some things as to preach baptize ordain Pastors excomunicate absolve c. and secondly the free exercise of those acts and thirdly the regulation of the exercise of them as to the persons about whom time when the place where the manner decency c. To the regulation belong 1. The making of laws concerning the due exercise of the power agreeable to the divine laws and secondly the superintendents of the execution and thirdly the executors of them As for the power it doth not appear that any of that was taken from the Presbyters or their Colledge by the institution of Episcopacy if they were deprived of any part of it can 13. that must be the ordaining of Presbyters but the Council of Ancyra seems to demonstrate that the power of ordaining Pastors did and doth remain in them which they did exercise by the leave Et Synod Antioch c. 16. vide Vasque in 3. p. Disp 143. c. 4. and in the place of the Bishop which Could not at his pleasure give them but supposed the power continuing in them The words of the Council be these according to the Greek Original and not their vulgar
translation it is not lawful say the Fathers of that Synod for the Choropiscopi Countrey or Village Bishops not for the Presbyters of the City to ordain Presbyters or Deacons unless that be committed to them by the Bishop being absent in another Diocess by his letters And therefore the Churches decree constituting Episcopacy abridged the Presbyters whether dividedly or conjunctly considered but onely in the exercise of their power Surely it must be beleeved that no ordination would be made by the Apostles excelling the ordination which our Saviour celebrated breathing upon his Apostles c. and giving them a comission to teach c. with promise to be with them unto the worlds end whereby the Presbyters were virtually ordained and comissionated astruly as the Bishops and therefore received thereby as much power as they in respect of the kind and nature which hinders not but that the exercise of some part of it might be taken from many of the persons ordained But some perhaps may say that Christ in that ordination ordained in the Apostles some as elder Brethren and others as the younger yet hence it will follow that the kind and nature of the ordination is the same in all as the nature of the Father is in all his Sons and that onely a principallity in the having and exercise of it belongs to the Bishops which is granted Others may say farther that Christ in ordaining the Apostles did virtually ordain some as the Sons of the Sons of the Apostles and others as their grand-children if this can be well proved it will indeed evince that the power of ordination as well as the exercise of it is proper to the Bishops but until it be made clear that this was the primary meaning and intention of Christ in that Act of ordination and not an effect onely of a consequent occasional providence of the Apostles and Churches it is probable that the power of ordination remaineth still in the presbyters restrained in the use by the canon of the Churches and Apostles The members of the Church which made the decree of Episcopacy and limited the use of the Eclesiastical power in the presbyters were the greater number of the presbyters themselves which remained in the unity of the mystical body with the greater part of the people and the Authors of it by way of approbation and confirmation were the holy Apostles The Apostles and Presbyters in the effecting of it exercised the ordinary Vicary Authority Basil constit mona c. 22. which they had as being by their ordination made the Vicegerents of the blessed Mediator Christ Jesus considered only as Mediator according to his own saying he that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me the saying of the Apostle we are Embâ—ssadors for Christ and we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God 2. Cor. 5.20 That authority when it is duely exercised ought to be obeyed And because presbyters may erre in the using of it a spirit of discerning noxious doctrines and constitutions is given to Christians to examine and trie Bas l. reg 72. c. 1. with command to reject the evil and receive the good which good if the major part refuse being by their Pastors propounded to them Aug. de temp serm 143. they may do it upon their peril as they will answer it to God unity and peace interceding and forbidding that no Ecclesiastical constraint or censure proceed against the civil higher power or the major part of the people It is therefore requisite that constitutions to be made laws in the Church be by the leave of the supreme magistrate if he be a Christian propounded to the people that their consent being given the ministerial authority may make them laws Ecclesiastically obliging if no higher authority hinder Before these Law-makers constituted Episcopacy every singular Presbyter was to act according to the directions and rules of the Presbyterian Colledge which was the Church Law-giver and superintendent of the execution having the supreme dignity under the Mediator and preheminence in all things properly Ecclesiastical What is spoken concerning the Colledge of Presbyters must be applied proportionably to the several bodies of them in the Diocesan provincial imperial or universal Church The decree constituting Episcopacy took from the Colledge its high dignity and preheminence and conferred it upon one and so divided the exercise of the Legislative power among the Bishop and the Colledge that the one might not duely use it without the other For although the dignity and precedency of the Bishop may give more weight to his vote yet is the Vicary authority which cannot be separated from Presbyters as long as they be Presbyters as truly exercised in their votes whether in deciding controversies of faith or making of Canons c. as it is in the Bishops vote Which is manifest as by many testimonies of antiquity so by the practise of our English Synods which are conformable in the substance to the best and most ancient constitution of Councils The superintendency which the Colledge had over the execution of all Ecclesiastical duties and ordinances was chiefly in the Bishop yet so as without his Presbyters he could not regularly hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes as before was shewed out of the fourth Council of Carthage and might be further demonstrated out of St. Cyprian and other ancient writers Every suprem civil power on earth as Gods Vicegerent Sect. 10. is bound to advance and preserve the true Religion so far as the light of nature can manifest it or divine revelation doth make it known unto him so that a King which hath embraced Christian Religion which alone is the true Religion is obliged to maintain it and to cause that the Christian duties be by all in their several stations and charges duely performed and therefore a Christian King is a law-giver above the Ecclesiastical Law-makers but so that he ought not to hinder the due exercise of their legislative power and make laws purely or properly Ecclesiastical without their concurrence in Counsel and consent but by his Laws and power partly to cause them to meet for the due exercise of their duty partly to maintain and strengthen their right proceedings in performance of their office and lastly if their Edicts be cosistant with the peace of the common-wealth and meet for the edification of the Church to perfect and make them full and complete laws by putting the hand and seal of his highest Vicary authority as Gods Vicegerent to the resolves of the subordinate Vicary authority of the Vicegerents of our blessed Mediator as Mediator God and man the Lord Jesus Christ God is a God of order and hath ordained that this unity and harmony between these two authorities should be firmly kept otherwise by a supine neglect of duty or by an exorbitant usurpation on either side the unity and peace both of Kingdome and Church are equally in danger of being broken The
propounding of the true doctrine in decision of controversies or of constitutions of expedient or necessary to aedification are acts of religion most proper to the Bishops and presbyters the first an act of the praedication of the gospel the other an act of ecclesiastical Government The embracing of the truth and ordinances seen to be profitable together with the confirming of them by his decree and sanction or addition where he seeth it needful of a reward or mulct is the part of a Christian Prince discerning upon due search the truth and the usefulnesse of the ordinances propounded unto him whose embracing is his act of subjection to Christ and confirmation and sanction an act of his Vicary authority To make laws bestowing civil gifts or priviledges on the Church and ordaining civil punishments for offences committed against Christian religion and Ecclesiastical Canons and constituting Courts for the cognizance of such causes and the execution of those Laws is the peculiar and proper work of a Christian King which he may well doe without the authority of Bishops and presbyters but which he may best doe with their grave advice and counsel In the unanimous Votes of the Kings Majesty the honourable Houses of Parliament and the venerable convocation all Powers and interests are fully satisfied whether in decision of controversies in religion Chrysost in 2. Cor. hom 18 c. Sect. 11. or making Ecclesiastical Canons or any the like Ecclesiastical matters because they are the conjunct Votes of all the concerned Before the civil Magistrate became Christian the Clergy and people according to their severall rights concurred personally in the elections of Bishops and Presbyters and this remained in use under many Christian Emperors and Kings untill for the avoyding of contention and schismes and many abuses which became familiar to popular elections in a corrupted state of the Church and for the encouragement of Princes Nobles and others to erect and endow Churches it seemed good to Kings in their Parliaments and with the convocation or Synod of the Bishops and Clergy to ordain that Kings should present to the Colledge of Presbyters meet persons to be chosen and made Bishops and meet Presbyters to the Bishop for such Churches as they had built and endowed and that all other persons should in like manner present to the Bishop a fit person for the Church which they had endowed Patrons did indeed in some places put in whom they pleased without the Bishops consent Vide Epist Alexandr 3. ad Episcopos Angliae and for some time of publick confusion this was very usually done in England but this custome was no law as some would have it because it was an unreasonable custome and destructive to the Church and therefore always contradicted in all Councils where occasion was given to mention it All humane laws have their mixture of some bad with many good And certain it is that our Ecclesiastical laws have many imperfections and their ambiguous halting between the papal Canon-law whence their interpretation hath been wont to be fetched and the laws of the Realm is not the least which hath been one of the principal occasions of some actings which made the Clergy much abhorred by many and brought infinite calamities upon the Civil and Ecclesiastical state The ancient pure Episcopal government is much changed and the beginning of its change was not of late dayes Sect. 12. for in the fourth Century the Bishops and Presbyters began to advance Arch-presbyters and Arch-deacons to some part of the exercise of the Ecclesiastical government Optat. advers Parmenian l. 1. The first Archdeacon we read of was Caecilianus who reproved Lucilla a rich and proud woman which being thereat vexed became afterward a zealous promotrix of the Schism of the Donatists The first Arch-presbyter Greg. Nazianz. in land Basil crat that I can remember to be mentioned by the ancients was Basile who being made Bishop offered that honour to his old friend Gregory after the Bishop of Nazianzum But these were at that time but in some Churches and acted onely in place of the Bishops and Presbyters and at their pleasure whereas their power in time increased and after some hundreds of years the Canons gave them an ordinary jurisdiction erected their Courts added new names of Ecclesiastical judges as Deans Chancellors Commissaries c. and filled them with numerous attendants which were mostly to live by the sins of the people If these had been Officers onely of the civil magistrate to execute the power which is proper to him over all persons and in all causes Ecclesiastical the Church could not in reason have been charged with their miscariages but because they exercised with the former acts of the power proper to Bishops and Presbyters and in which the civil magistrate had onely a superintendency over them all their misdoings were ascribed to the Bishops and the Clergy their Courts heard the causes of excommunication adjudg'd a person to excommunication and caused a Presbyter no judge in the cause to excommunicate the party whereas Christ by his Apostles made them judges in his place as well to hear the causes of the spiritual censures as to execute the same by the sentence of excommunication The spiritual censures are spiritual remedies and the Pastors of the Church are under Christ the Physicians how then can it be congruous to imploy one that is no Physician to search and take knowledge of the diseases of the Soul and leave orâ—y the application of the remedies to the Physicians in the hearing of the causes of spiritual censures pastoral acts are to be exercised as of teaching of redargution of sin and conviction which prepare the offendor for the due and profitable receiving of the spiritual Physick which acts are all wanting where a person that is no Pastor condemneth a sinner to be excommunicated by a Pastor There is another mischief that accompanies the mixture in one and the same person of the exercise of acts purely ministerial and acts proper to the civil magistrate in spiritual causes as it is in Arch-deacons and the like that is commutation of paenance as to take so much money a Cow a Horse and the like as it hath been used be it in pretence of giving it to the poor where suspension or excommunication was by the Apostolical ordinances to have been exercised If the power proper to the ministers the power proper to the magistrate were in distinct persons this too frequent abuse would be well avoyded For the sole spiritual power is not to medle with body or purse Cudgelling whipping imprisoning fining scandalous sinners were not at all in use before the times of Christian Emperours And as to the redemption of the wholesome severities which the paenitents were enjoyned willingly to exercise upon themselves it was not used until about the end of the fift Century I might mention other mischiefs as the intollerable abuse of excommunication for very small offences
of old condemned in the Canons of the Church under pretence of contumacy or the like But I am weary of raking in this puddle Concil Aurelian 5. c. 2. Leo. Epist 87. where the many dependences upon those Courts seemed to require exorbitances that every one might have a tolerable livelyhood If the excrescencies which the corruptions of the times made to adhere to the primitive Episcopacy were cut off and the spiritual jurisdiction restored to the Bishop and Presbyters it is not to be doubted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. munus baptizandi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost in 1 Cor. hom 3. but that our brethren who dislike the Episcopacy in its present constitution and the more because they took an oath whether well or ill I let go to endevour the abrogation of it would be abundantly satisfied with the Apostolical Episcopacy where one was ordained for the union strengthening of the jurisdiction of Presbyters for the defence of which Episcopacy they had taken a former oath in the solemn Protestation which as taken lawfully and in lawful things maketh all contrary oaths unlawful to be after either taken or kept Although the Apostles ordained no governing Elders besides the Bishop and preaching Elders yet the primitive Episcopacy will well bear that some lay Elders be joyned to the Presbytery and in every parish where fit persons may be had to help the Bishop and Presbyters in the inspection of manners in the instruction of the ignorant in brotherly admonitions and teproofs and in giving notice to the Bishops and Presbyters of the scandalous offences to be proceeded against in an Ecclesiastical order and also to represent the people and vote for them where their consent is requisite Here I desire it may be noted that when I spake of Presbyters which were the Senate of the ancient Bishops Conc. Neocaesar cum Ep. 7. Zachariae papae ad Bonifac. c. 4. c. 15. Et Concil Meldens an 845. c. 54. I understood not all and every one subject unto the Bishop but the more ancient grave pious learned discreet and moderate of them for such were the City Presbyters in the old times which alone usually and mostly were the Bishops assessors in the spiritual judicature and which therefore in some places and specially in Rome obtained the name of Cardinal Presbyters Some dislike the civil honour wherewith godly Kings have dignified our reverend Prelates Sect. 13. truely if the taking of it had made them less able to fulfil the office of preaching the Gospel or did widen the distance between them and the Presbyters or made them less accessible by or condescending to their flock or ecclipsed the veneration due to their CoÌ„-presbyters or involved them in civil affaires which all the ancient Canons forbid the addition of that honour were not to be liked but it is evident enough to the eye of every impartial judgement and the lives of many most holy Bishops have made it good that if any of these evils happen'd from the receiving of that dignity as too often hath been seen it proceeded from the evil of the person and not from the innocent honour which wâ—s conferred upon them by pious Princes out of their love to Châ—â—â—â— and his Ambassadors the better to preserve them from the contempt of the wicked who regard no goodness besides the civil and worldly and to enable the better to maintain the great interest which in civil things belongs to the Ecclesiastical estate and that the great Council of a Christian Kingdom should not sit without giving the Ambassadors of Christ an honourable place and priviledge among them that in them Christ might be seen to be the more present and their ready spiritual Council might prevent some proceedings not well agreeing with the interest of religion and the laws of Christ which without them might more easily happen But what was done in a heat may be undone in a milder temper Irenaeus who was born within very few years after the decease of the Apostles saith that the Church nourished such presbyters of whom the Prophet saith I will give thy Princes in peace and thy Bishops in righteousness where this ancient Father doth shew that Bishops be princes And so doth Hierom upon the place the prophet saith he calleth the future princes of the Church Bishops Esa 60.17 Secund. 70. interpret It is then very congruous that the Christian Kings set over these Ecclesiastical princes and by their ministery made partakers of the caelestial dignities should in a certain way of retribution dignifie them with some eminent degree of civil honour which cannot be well supported without some proportionable revenue The Holy Scripture tells us that it is a more blessed thing to give then to receive Surely God would have every of the presbyters of the Church enabled for that blessed work of giving over and above a convenient maintenance for Wife and Children which the Apostle supposeth to be in their families for whom they are bound to provide or in the judgment of the same Apostle to be deemed to have denied the faith and to be worse then infidels And if every Presbyter ought to be thus provided for if possible then the elder Brethren should have a double portion besides the proportion which their civil dignity doth require and where any of the rest are indued with more excellent ministerial gifts it 's very convenient they should have a larger measure of the matter and instruments requisite for the fuâ—l exercise of their more excelling vertues What the revenue of the reverend Bishops is I do not know but I have good reasons to assure me that it is not excessive at which any would grudg or envy except the sacrilegious truckers which would have the reverend Clergy live upon their leavings and scraps Certain it is that the maintenance of many hundreds of Pâ—â—sbyters is so small that they can scarse feed and cloath their Families so that when they die many Hospitals might be filled with their poor Wives and Children And if no better provision be made for the poor Cures and Vicarages it were an eminent work of charity to erect and endow Hospitals proper to poor Ministers Wives and Children This starving of Christs Ambassadours is the shame and great sin of the Kingdome But now it is the hope and expectation of all good men that his sacred Majesty and the most honourable houses of parliament will provide a remedy for this miserable disease of the Church for it 's onely an act of parliament that can surely sweetly and fully cure it There be not a few who complain against the canonical oath Sect. 14. concerning which I can find no mention until about the year 813. wherein the Fathers of the second Council of Cabilon say it is spoken of certain of our brethren that they compel them whom they are to ordain to swear that they will do nothing
against the Canons and that they will be obedient to the Bishop c. which oath because it is dangerous we do all with one consent ordain that it be prohibited A Canon of a Council celebrated an 1355 comes to my mind which saith lest the faithful whō the divine piety was mercifully pleased to put under a light burthen and a sweet yoke should be burthened with the weight of sin by reason of their transgressions against the Canons we ordain that the provincial constitutions of our predecessors and those which shall be hereafter made oblige not the trangressors to sin ad culpam but onely to punishment ad paenam Whether the moderation of these Synods be worthy of imitation I leave to others to judge Many have entertained a great fear Sect. 15. which hath alienated their minds from all Episcopacy namely that an innumerable company of unnecessary and burthensome ceremonies be inseparable concomitants of Episcopal government Indeed the fear is not vain and without ground if we respect the degenerated Episcopacy as it is if we regard the primitive which hath and will be contented with very few if need be Witness Gregory the great who saith that it was the custome of the Apostles Greg. Epist l. T. Ep. 63. to consecrate the Eucharist using only the Lords prayer with him agrees Walifridus Strabus it is the relation of our Ancestors saith he that the Mass was wont to be made in the first times as now in the Good Friday De rebus Eccl. c. 22. i. e. after the Lords Prayer and the commemoration of Christs passion as himself hath taught us the communion of the body and blood of our Lord was given to all that were prepared About forty years after the death of St. John the Apostle Justin Martyr relates In Apolog. ad Auton that when the people of the City and Countrey adjacent met together on the Lords day the Reader read out of the Apostles and Prophets and then the President made a Sermon upon the Scripture then read which ended all stood up to prayer which done they kissed one another then bread and wine and water were offered to the President which he having received prayed again and gave thanks as he was able which ended the people said amen Then the Deacons gave the consecrated bread wine and water to every one present to receive and they carried the same to the absent Here we have the substance of the ancient Liturgy of the Church in use at that time short and sweet Where the Lords prayer was not alone used in the consecration as in the Apostles time but also the Bishops prayer whereof the words as he was able may imply either that he prayed as well as his memory would serve him to utter a premeditated prayer without book or that he prayed as devoutly as he could which is the best construction of them So that hence it may not appear whether it was a read or a premeditated and memorially delivered prayer The same old author saith concerning Baptism as many as believe those things to be true which have been told and taught them by us and promise to live accordingly are instructed to pray fasting for the pardon of their sins we fasting and praying with them and then they are by us brought to the water and regenerated as we our selves were in the name of the Father and our Saviour Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost being washed in the water Then we bring them to the Brethren who are met together making common prayers for themselves the baptized and all other wheresoever c. We are to note that he mentions a Reader which whether he were a Presbyter or a Deacon or a distinct degree instituted by the Church cannot be gathered from his writings which are now extant In the end of the second Century the Reader appears to be a distinct degree the ordinations of Haereticks saith Tertull. are rash light unconstant therefore one is with them to day a Bishop and another to morrow De praescript haeret c. 41. he is to day a Deacon which shall be the next day a Reader he is to day a presbyter which is the next day a Laick And it is to be seen in Cyprian about the year 250 2. Epist 5. l. 3. Ep. 22. that he ordained Aurelius and Saturus Readers in his Church and Optatus a subdeacon At the same time Cornelius Bishop of Rome writing to Fabius saith Apud Euseb l. 6. c. 42. that in the Church of Rome there were of Presbyters forty six of Deacons seven of sub-deacons seven of Acolythes 42 of Exorcists Readers and Porters 52 of Widows and Poor above 1500 all which the Church fed Here we find Exorcists and Readers both which were in Justin Martyrs time about the year 150 to be reckoned among the Clergy of the Church of Rome and the Reader distinguished from the Presbyter and Deacons After this about the year 400 the distinct ordinations of Bishops of Presbyters of Deacons of Sub-deacons of Acolythes of Exorcists or Readers and of Porters or Dore-keepers and of Singers are set down in the fourth Council of Carthage Conc. Carth. 4. c. 1. ad 10. It must not be imagined that any of these besides a Presbyter and Dore-keeper was in every Parochial Church but only in the Cathedral or mother Church of the Diocess and in some such parochial Churches as were able to maintain a greater or lesser number of them And therefore it seems hard to lay upon one minister in the parish Church the burthen of all the offices to be born by himself alone which in the Cathedral were executed by many As to read every Lords day all the service first and second being a thing above the strength of most if the Sermon be not omitted as the Bishops and Presbyters bordering upon the times of the Apostles with the peoples consent committed the office of reading the holy Scriptures in the Churches to men of an inferior ordination so their successors shortly after committed the office of teaching the Catechumens to the like persons but more learned and apt to teach Both these as also some others were separated from the Laicks and destinated for the Presbytery They were the Bishops and Presbyters Scholars bred up by them for the high and sacred ministery and advanced thereto if they became capable and the Church had need of them So that Readers and Catechisers were incomplete preachers of the Gospel until by the higher and divine ordination Christ breathed upon them giving them the Holy Ghost which made them complete preachers who do not perform a complete act of preaching unless with the publishing of the text wherein the Readers help them they also publish an exposition and exhortation thereupon as Justin Martyr did and the succeeding ancient Fathers who grounded their Homilies or Sermons upon a portion of the Scriptures then read before them One ordinance of God is not to
be made to thrust another out of the Church but reading and prayers and preaching c. ought to be so proportioned to the time appointed for them and the strength of them that officiate that no necessity that may be prevented may compel to the omission of any divine ordinance that ought to be performed In the sixt Council of Constantinople at which time much corruption was crept into the Churches the Fathers present in it commanded that the Bishops and Presbyters should dayly preach Gan. 19. especially on the Lords day It is commanded by another Council that if a Presbyter cannot preach by reason of sickness Conc. Vasens Can. 4. sub Leone 1. that a homily or sermon of one of the ancient Fathers be read by the Deacon In another Council it s thus decreed that if the Bishop be not at home or is infirm or is not able for some other cause yet never let on the Lords days or Festivals any want to be of one which may preach the Word of God so as the vulgar people may understand Concil Maguntiac c. 25. circa an 813. The Primitive Bishops were preaching Bishops and usually preached every Lords day as we see in Justine Martyr and in Festival days in the principal fasting days in Lent as we find in Ambrose Chrysost Augustine and others But I must return to speak of the Ceremonies of the Church The Ceremony of standing and not kneeling in prayer on the Lords days and the days between Easter and Whitsontide was in use in the Apostles days and instituted by them Apud anthorem Christian resp resp 115. as Irenaeus the hearer of Polycarpus Auditor of the Apostle John doth testifie In the time of Tertullian about the year 200 many other Ceremonies are mentioned by him which we find not in any approved Author before him spoken of and are affirmed by him to descend from the Apostles as the signing of the forehead of the baptized with the sign of the Cross besides Tertull. de corona militis c. 3. the usual signing with the same sign upon sundry occasions the tasting after Baptism of milk and honey the use of having Suerties for Infants to be baptized De Bapt. c. 7. 18. the annointing of the baptised with oyl Offering for the faithful deceased which was thus the friends of the deceased offered bread and wine in their behalf for the use of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and the Priest by faith in prayer in the celebration of the Eucharist presented to God the Father the sacrifice of Christ once offered by him and which was in some manner present in the Sacrament beseeching him for that most holy and perfect sacrifice sake to take away the remainder of sin from the soul departed which was not taken away in this life both as to the guilt and inhaerency of it and to grant to the soul the promised present blessed rest and in the day of judgment to make the person partaker of the publick justification and possession of full faelicity Before the receiving of the Lords Supper they kissed one another with the holy kiss the sign of true love and peace which we are sure was used in the Apostles dayes and seems to argue strongly for the use of significant Ceremonies The Easter and Pentecost were the set and solemn times of the administration of the Sacrament of Baptism de bapt c. 18. I need not speak of Confirmation of the observation of the Feasts of Easter and Pentecost of the fast in the days of our Saviour's death and burial of the less perfect and voluntary fasts of Friday and Wednesday Tert. de jejun c. 2. which be in part before touched for my purpose is not to make an exact collection of the ancient rites but of such as may give some light to see whence those Ecclesiastical Ceremonies which have been and partly are used in our Church took their beginnings As concerning the gesture of the body used in the prayers of the Church de Orat. c. 12. it was kneeling or standing this last on the Lords dayes Tertul. l. 2. ad uxor c. 9. de Monogam 6.10 and in all the Pentecost For as Tertullian saith it is a most irreligious fact to pray to God sitting before him unless we upbraid Him that prayer hath wearied us Concerning Matrimony De Veland Virg. c. 11. de pudicitia c. 9. Ambros Ep. 70. Nazianz. Epist 57. in Tertullian's time they defired of the Bishops presbyters Deacons and Widows leave to marry they were married by a Bishop or presbyter the woman used a Vaile they joyned their right hands kissed and Tertullian doth also seem to intimate the use of a ring it is certain it was in use in Isidors time and before Isidor de Eccl. offic l. 2. c. 19. the Bridegroom saith he gave a Ring to the Bride which was put upon her fourth Finger We may gather from Tertullian De bapt c. 9. Apolog. contagent c. 30. that the Lords prayer was commonly used in the publick prayers of the Church for he calls it the legitime and ordinary prayer which saith he being laid as a foundation we may build upon it the petitions which our particular cases require He shews that our private prayers wherein we express to God our particular wants and desires must not be loud not altogether set formes but prompted to us without such monitor by our own hearts which alone can tell us our particular necessities When we pray saith Cyprian let the Father acknowledge the words of his Son Cypr. de orat Dom. And we do saith he the more effectually obtain what we ask in Christs name if we ask using his own prayer Hom. 42. ex 50. The Lords prayer saith Augustine is dayly said at the Altar of God in his Church The fourth Council of Tolet. Can. 9. called it a Quotidian a dayly prayer and commanded it to be said by the Clergy not onely on the Lords days but every day both in the publick and private duty Concerning prayer de orat dom Cyprian hath these remarkable words when we stand to prayer saith he our mind must be onely upon that it prayeth and therefore the Priest premising a preface before the prayer prepares the minds of the Brethren saying Lift up your hearts that the people answering We have unto the Lord may be admonished they ought to think on noâ—hing but the Lord By which words we learn two things First that in Cyprian's time which was 250 years after our Saviour's birth set forms of publick prayers were used in the Churches Secondly that the people had other answers besides Amen to make to the minister in the solemn prayers of the Church De bono perseverantiae c. 13. de Spir. lit c. 11. Augustine discovereth what followeth those words of the publick prayers mentioned by Cyprian the Priest said saith St. Augustine let us give thanks to
our Lord God to which the people answered it is meet and right so to do and then the Priest went no saying it is very meet right c. Out of Authors now extant who flourished in the three first Centuties no more that I can remember concerning the divine service of the Church and the Ceremonies pertinent to our purpose is mentioned then what hath been already touched But the holy writers of the fourth Century and downward do affirm both that many other rites have been used in the three first Centuries whereof some were instituted by the Apostles as they write others by some Bishops of Rome and that many more were added in the fourth Century One reason why the Ceremonies increased in the fourth Century may be this because then the Church more flourished in prosperity then any time before and it might be thought convenient that the external glory of the Church should be proportioned to the glory of the Empite now made Christian The use of singing Psalmes and Hymnes in the Churches Epist 119. may as St. Augustine saith be defended out of Scripture seeing of this we have so profitable instructions examples and precepts of Christ and his Apostles But the manner of singing was various l. â— c. 8. hist Socrates relateth that Ignatius having in a vision seen Angels singing Hymnes Anthemewise unto the praise of the Holy Trinity delivered that manner of singing Psalmes unto his own Church in Antioch which was generally received thence by the Greek Churches and then by the Latines and West first by Ambrose in the fourth Century and after by the rest of the Western Bishops The Rubrick in our Common-prayer Book before Te Deum laudamus we praise thee O God hath these words that the people may the better hear in such places where they do sing there shall the Lessons be sung in a plain tune after the manner of distinct reading and likewise the Epistle and Gospel This Rubrick puts me in mind of a place in St. Augustine's Confessions l. 10. c. 33. where he saith that it was often told him that Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria made the reader of the Psalm to sound with so mean bending or turning of the Voyce that he might be nearer a pronouncer then a singer Epist 119. And in another place he saith when the Brethren are met in the Church when is it not time of singing holy songs unless it be the time of reading or preaching or of prayer c. By which words it seemeth that the Chapters Epistle and Gospel were not sung in those dayes And in truth any manner of singing them seemeth incongruous The Fathers use to reprove the abuses which were too often found in singing Psalms in the Churches especially that they were many times more pleased with the sweetness of the voyce then the divine matter or when onely a few of the Church did sing that they so sung that few understood what they sung In Epist ad Ephes c. 5. Let the servant of the Lord saith Hierome so sing that the words which he reads may more please then the voyce of him singing It is no perfect singing nor pleasing to God when mens hearts do not sing unto the Lord as well as their voyces I will not speak of singing with Organs in the Churches not that I think that God refuseth to be heartily praised in and with the use of them but because they were not brought into the Churches until much later times The Doxology Glory be to the Father to the Son and to the Holy Ghost for ever c. is by St. Basile proved to be used from the Apostles times both out of Clemens Rom. Irenaeus Orig. Gregor Thaumaturg Dionysius Rom. Dionysius Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Basil de Sp. S. c. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. and the Evening-candle light thanksgiving which had been used time out of mind of man wherein they said We praise the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit of God But this Doxology with the addition as it was in the beginning c. was first a Epist Hier. ad Damasum Conc. Vasens c. 7. ordained to be said in the Divine Service of the Church after the Psalms by Damasus Bishop of Rome about the year of our Lord 370. He first commanded b Greg. l. 7. Epist 63. inter Ep. Hier. Aug. de temp serm 151. de can observant praeposit 23. Gregor l. 7. Epist 63. Conc. Vasens c. 5. Radulfs Vigres de can observant praeposit 23. Alleluia to be used in the Roman Church following therein the Liturgie of the Hierosolymitane and Greek Churches Kyrie eleison and Christe eleison Lord have mercy and Christ have mercy often repeated were in imitation of some greek Liturgies received into the Romane Divine Service-book by the authority of Pope Sylvester about the year 330 saith Radulphus Tugr which many years after were omitted and at last restored by Gregory the great The collection of the Episties and Gospels for the whole year into the form like that in present use is attributed to Hierom and by Pope Damasus commanded to be read in the Churches The Symbole or Creed composed in the first Council of Constantinople was by the same Pope Damasus ordained to be said or sung after the Gospel Rupert l. 2. c. 21. Strab. c. 22. It was received into the â—ivine Service in Spain by the command of the third Synoâ— of Tolet. The reasons brought to prove the Apostles or the Nicene Creed to have been said in the Liturgies of the fourth Century or before are of small weight and therefore I omit them How Damasus can truely be said to have enjoyned the singing or saying of the Creed and yet that it was not sung at Rome until about the year 1014 is easily answered if we conceive his command to be directed unto all other Churches subject unto him Berno de offic myssae c. 1. Vide Conc. tolet 3. c. 2. excepting Rome for that special reason which Berno relates Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the time of the celebration of the Lords Supper Hierom. l. 1. dial contra Pelag Chrysost in Matt. hom 83. Conc. Carthag 4. c. 41. Et vide respenss Leonis 3. ad missos caroli M. sub Conc. aquisgranens used the white garment which we call the Surplice whether it was in use before the fourth Century is not related by any approved author living in those times Prayers composed after the manner of our Litany are to be seen in the Liturgies of Chrysostome and Basile In their time * Chrys in Ep. ad Eph. hom 14 24. glory be to God on high c. and †Idem in Epist ad Coloss hom 3. holy holy holy Lord God of Sabboth were wont to be said in the Divine Service Chrysostome saith that the Bishop was wont often in the time of the publik worship of God to say to the people
* in 2 Cor. hom 18. in Ep. ad Coloss hom 3. Peace be unto you and that the people answered And with thy spirit The same author relating how the people did in another part of the Service answer the minister saying Let us give thanks to our Lord God it is meet and right say the people so to do addeth †Chrysost in 2 Cor. hom 18. in 2. Epist ad Corinth hom 2. why should any marvel that the people should thus in the publick prayers speak with the Priest seeing they send up unto Heaven with the Cherubims and Caelestial powers those holy Hymnes one reason of this is in the same place intimated by Chrysostome which is to manifest unto the people that the prayers of the Church are not proper to the minister but theirs also by joyning with him in them which is more fully testified by their proper prolation of some part of them then onely by their presence and saying Amen Another reason may be the same which the same Father giveth of the Deacons exciting the people saying Let us pray and let us pray more fervently and the reason is because the Soul is wont to slumber in a long prayer Tâ—â— Fathers of the Council of Bracar require the Bishop or Prâ—â—â—yter to salute the people in due place in the Divine service saying the Lord be with you to which the people should answer and with thy Spirit which ceremony saith the Council all the East retained as delivered by the Apostles The Song of the three Children was generally received into the Liturgies of the Churches in this fourth Century Conc. toletam Ep. c. 13. It is a tradition that the Hymne Te Deum landamus c. We praise thee O God We acknowledge thee to be the Lord c. was comdosed by Ambrose and sung by Ambrose and Augustine after his Baptism Anastasius Bishop of Rome enjoyned all to stand at the reading of the Gospel after which followed the custome of standing at the reading of the Creed Hierome writing against Vigilantius affirmeth that in all the Churches of the East when the Gospel was to be read candles were lighted the sun shining not surely to drive away darkness but for a sign of gladness In the time of these last named Doctors the Feasts of Saints were more in number and celebrated with more solemnity then in former times Therein the Feast of our Saviours Nativity was generally observed and in the ancient Fathers sense said to be instituted by the Apostles whereas no approved Author of the former Centuries make mention of it Chrysostome in a sermon of his preached by him not long before the year 400 affirmeth Chrysost serm in natalem that Feast not to have come to the knowledge of the Churches among which he lived but ten within years before the preaching of that Sermon Tert. de idololatria c. 14. Vide Georgium in locum alios And many Learned men collect from Tertullian that in his time no other Feasts were commanded to be celebrated in the Churches that he knew of save onely the Lords day Easter and Pentecost I say not this out of any dislike of this holy Feast Ubi multorum strages jacet subtrahendum est aliquid severitati ut addatur amplius charitati vide conc Rom. 3. an 1099. or any other which we receive from those ancient times which without the adherent abuses I do heartily wish to be celebrated with due solemnity but by this example to shew that every thing had not a beginning in the Apostles time which is affirmed to be thence derived and descended by the testimony of some Fathers who were both in this matter and other things deceived by the counterfeited Canons and constitutions and other writings bearing the names of the Apostles 〈◊〉 Clemens Romanus or Dionysius Areopag whereof none â—â—re written before the year 300 yet being not well examined were received as genuine by Epiphanius and some other old Doctors of the Church We read in this fourth Century of divers consecrations and benedictions which we do not read to be used in the former times Sect. 16. as of consecrated Churches Altars Paschal Wax-candles c. and we find therein more regard and honour given to a Chrysost in Epist ad Rom. hom 32. relicks of Saints to the sign of the Cross to the b Nazianz in laudem Gorgoniae in laudem Basilii Altar or Communion Table the Bible and the c Chrysost in Eph. hom 3. In Epist ad Orthodox in apoleg 2. Vessels used in the Divine Service and the like then we can see to be given them in former ages yet piously without passing the bounds which in those things Christian religion had determined excepting perhaps in some particulars which humane frailty might extort from them Willingly to break the holy Communion Cup who can say but that it is a very great offence it was as it was said in Athanasius to do impiously against Christ to commit a sin then which none was greater Against the Carelesseness of these times in the administration of the Lords Supper August hom 26. ex 50. Et Cyrill Gatech Mystagog 5. the faying of Augustine is worthy of observation with what care or solicitude saith he do we observe when the body of Christ is ministred unto us that nothing of it fall to the ground from our hands It is likely that Tertullian spake before him to the same purpose we take it heavily saith he that any of our Cup or Bread fall to the ground Gregory Nazianz. treating of the Birth of our blessed Saviour saith Adore the Manger wherein he was laid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. orat in Christi nativitatem Hieron ad Marcellam ut commigret Hieros idem in Epitaph Paulae The cross and the sign were had in no less honour Without the sign of the Cross saith Augustine neither Baptism nor Confirmation nor the Lords Supper can be rightly as to the customes and Canons of the Church in those times performed The Cross was kissed people fell down before it d Paulinus l. 2. Epist 3. Chrysost in act hom 12. adored it yet Ambrose saith of Helene the mother of Constantine the great that she found the title of the Cross and adored the King Christ surely not the wood that is the errour of the Gentiles Minutius long before Ambrose said in the name of all Christians we do not worship the Cross We see then that in those days the Cross was adored by Christians and yet that it was not adored by them It was adored by an Ecclesiastical adoration which was wont to be exhibited to things or persons accounted excellent by reason of some dignity and notable usefulness in being occasions causes or instruments of some very singular benefit it was not adored by an adoration proper to God Aug contra Faustum Manich l. 20. c. 21. Super Genes quoest 60.
between the one adoration and the other and the beholding the same acts of worship to be done to God and a sacred thing doth puzzle the ignorant and unwary that either his zeal is as much to the creatures adoration as to the Creators or mingles in his mind both the adorations whereby the best is debased and corrupted Some may say may we not bow to God and kneel to him at the altar without danger It is soon answered That without doubt we may and must do so and in so doing our mind doth not intend the altar as the object of our bowing The danger is in bowing to the altar for then we make it the object to which we bow It may be demanded if the Magistrate make the naming of the name Jesus the name of the Saviour of the world to be a sign when in the divine service we must bow to the person of the Lord Jesus God and man and not to the name Jesus may we not without danger so do I answer first That it is our duty to bow our hearts and also in convenient time and place to bow our bodies to the man Jesus Christ in the unity of the divine person And this is intended in Philip. 2. Secondly to bow our bodies at the naming of the name of Jesus is no duty that we are bound unto It is indifferent then to bow or not to bow as it is at the naming of the name of Christ Thirdly if the magistrate command us either at the naming of the name Jesus or at the naming of the name Christ in the divine service to worship Christ God and man by bowing unto him and not intending the name Jesus or Christ as an object of our bowing it is our duty to obey our Superiours command Fourthly from the bowing at the name the vulgar easily fall to the bowing to the name These adorations of the Cross c. inward and outward may not be counted divine or properly and of their own nature religious because no rule of true religion doth require them but they are properly Ecclesiastical because the Churches did sometime create them and as things Ecclesiastical and things any way made pertinent to religion are counted religious things so may these adorations be accidentally called religious There is not that kind and degree of excellency in the Cross Communion-Table or name Jesus or in any such sacred thing which may in proper sense merit and require that mental regard from us which should of right be testified by those acts of worship Neither do we find that the Churches acknowledged any obligation upon them to make any Canon requiring those adorations but onely as circumstances then were a congruity to command their use under which command and judgement of the Church individual persons were to acknowledge those sacred things worthy those honours Wherefore if it please our Superiors to continue the use of these Ceremonies which are so easily abused it will be very necessary to state and determine the right use of them and to point at the dangers to be avoided and to command that the cautions be at set times read in the Churches that none may erre for want of knowledge or by forgetfulness The discreet followers of the holy ancient Fathers of the Church are worthy commendation but their apes are ridiculous To sow the foul raggs of some late slovenly School-men to the comely garment of our Church as the misinterpreters of the text in Philip. 2. have attempted is an act disgraceful to the authors derogating from the honour and dignity of our dear Mother and introductory of unwarrantable adorations being pretended to be commanded by Almighty God For if it be once obtained that the adoration used to the name Jesus is of divine institution it will by the necessity of like reason follow that the bowing to the cross and the Communion-Table and especially to the holy bread and wine is a duty which of divine right doth belong unto them But it is time to proceed to speak of some other Ecclesiasticall Customes of the fourth Century Sect. 17. whereof one was derived from former times Chrysost in 2 Cor. hom 2. that in the Churches no Our Father was said in the prayers so long as the Catechumen and Penicents for whom special prayers were made were permitted to stay in the Church Concil Leodicen can 19. Et Chrysost in Eph. hom 3. Aug. de temp ser 38. Amalar. de Offic missae c. 19. Vide concil Valentin c. 1. After their departure out of the Church began the second divine Service and prayers proper to the faithful among which was the Lords Prayer most of the rest were subservient to the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper When that Sacrament was to be administred which was then usually every Lords day they offered bread and wine for the use of the Sacrament instead of which we have offerings for the poor and the Bishop or Presbyter went from the Pulpit or place where he prayed for the penitents or his seat to the Communion-Table where it is to be noted that he had not so long and difficult a journey to go as in most parochial Churches the minister hath to pass from his reading Pew or Pulpit through a throng of people to the holy Table and therefore there is good reason to spare him that labour in the days wherein is no Communion Persons excommunicated were nor received into Communion of any Prayers in the Church Conc. Ancyram can 6. 25. Conc. Nicen. 6.11 no not with the Catechumens until they had humbled themselves before the Bishop and earnestly besought that they might be made partakers of his councel concerning what was needful to be done by them to the perfecting of meet repentance in them and whereby they might give sufficient proof thereof for the satisfaction of the Church offended by their transgressions promising to follow his counsel and to perform the enjoyned pennance Upon this serious petition and promise the Bishops and Presbyters enjoyned such works of unfained humiliation to be done by them as they thought most agreeable for their case and condition and praying for them admitted them to the number and order of the Penitents When these had fulfilled the enjoyned works of humiliation to be performed by them in that order then they were admitted to the Communion of the prayers proper to the faithful and after the works of repentance which were commanded to be done by them in that rank they were admitted to the Lords Supper wherein was the perfection of Communion Conc. Nicen. c. 12. If any Penitent in the course of humiliation was in an eminent and iminent danger of death it was alway provided by the Fathers of the Church that perfect Communion with the Church of God without which Church is no salvation should be granted him in the participation of the body and blood of our blessed Saviour except the governours of the Church had observed in
Ex quibusque ergo Ecclesiis quae pia quae religiosa quae recta sunt elige haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone Every Church at least every Provincial Church composed their prayers or other parts of their divine Service as seemed most conducible to their edification and after altered the same or made a new form Vide Bern. Augiens de quibud rebus ad missam pertinent c. 2. Vide Sozom. hist l. 7. c. 19. or received a form used in another Church as they pleased Spain or some part of it received the Roman Liturgy And therefore if it should seem good to the Church of England to mend their Liturgy or compose a new one if need be more agreeable to the present time they should do therein no more then the most famous Churches have done before and which can be no disparaging of the wisdome and piety of the Composers of it which intended onely to make it as fit as could be for the state of the Church in their time which I believe they performed very exactly and not to frame and impose an unchangeable form which could never prove incongruous to any possible variety in the state of the Church for this is not in the power of any persons or Churches Howsoever Ceremonies and a form of Liturgy are no more necessary for Episcopal then a Presbyterian Government which may equally erre in defect or excess or quality of the rites and divine Service Now although both the forms of government and all Ecclesiastical rites be in their nature changeable Sect. 19. because of their dependance upon variable circumstances yet some have been less subject to change or abrogation then other either because they be of smal efficacy to hurt or profit or because the hurt done by them is hardly discerned or because the circumstances which are apt to make them noxious seldome happen or because they are believed to have the Apostles for their authors or approvers Of all other Episcopacy seems least subject to abrogation First because the Churches in all parts of the world were always firmly perswaded that the institution of Episcopacy had the Apostles hand and seal joyned with the mother Churches for the confirmation of it Secondly because many believed that the Apostles never permitted the Colledge of Presbyters to ordain Presbyters in the time that they ruled in the Churches this they received by tradition to which they easily gave their assent because they found not in the Acts of the Apostles or the Apostolical Epistles that sole Presbyters ordained any except perhaps by an immediate command of the Holy Ghost which is extraordinary but with a President either an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Vicegerent of an Apostle as Timothy Titus c. whence they thought it might be very probably collected that the Apostles would have given a principality of the exercise of the power of ordination unto one Presbytet onely in every Church so as without him the whole Colledge could not ordain and would have left the government to be exercised in common equally by all if the Colledge had not so grosly abused their ruling power whereby it was seen that the Colledge had need of a President both in the Government and the Ordination which was accordingly given them by the decree of the Church approved by the Apostles St. Hierome himself hath some passages which seem to favour this opinion â—i passim omnibus Presh esses concessum ordinare tot admitterentur ad ordines quod non servaretur ordo immo potius generaretur confusiâ— ideo dispositum est Dei consilie quod solis Episcopis ordinum dispensatio aliorum officiorum ut consecratio abbatum monialium ecclesiarum consimilium concedatur Bonevent in 4. d. 25. q. 1. and therefore the Churches never suffered a Presbyter or Chorâ—piscope to ordaine except he supplied the place of a Bishop when he could not be present and the Ordination could not be delayed Thirdly The Presbyterian Government was in use in the purest purity of the Churches beginning to spread abroad over the world by the preaching of the Apostles and yet in less then twenty years space Schismes grew out of it which caused the Churches to out it and to establish Episcopacy as the best antidote against Schisme and for the restauration and maintenance of the Churches peace Now if the Presbyterian Government was uneffectuall for the preserving of peace among the most godly and consequently the most addicted to peace who can expect it should be effectuall to restore union and peace and to preserve it in Churches too full of pollutions and staines very much degenerated from the holiness of the Apostolicall times It seems a desperate and preposterous course to use that as a soveraigne Antidote in our time which had the effect of a Poyson upon the Churches in the Aposties time A hurnt Child dreads the fire and should not the weaker members of the body dread the fire that burnt the strongest and best able to resist its force Seeing the remainder of naturall corruption in the most holy Churches drew the Poyson of Scisme from the Presbyterian forme of government we cannot without high presumption think that the far higher degrees of sin remaining in us will be idle suffer grace to make of it an Antidote against Schisme Mountebanks are seen sometime to heal by improper Medicines where the strength of nature and the concurrence of some other secret causes do performe the cure and not the nature of the Physick So may the Presbyterian government have in some place the credit of healing Schismes maintaining peace when in very truth those good effects proceed from the confluence of other causes and not from the aptness of that government to effect them For it seems incredible that it should have in it an aptness to keep us in peace that had in it an ineptitude to keep the most peaceably disposed Apostolick Christians in unity and peace Whence we may conclude that although the ancient Episcopacy be in its nature changeable as being of the Churches and by consequence of humane constitution yet morally and practically it may not be abrogated without dammage to the Church which will assuredly follow if some accidentall benigne influences of some other causes do not for some time hinder its birth I am very apt to believe that the Churches which seem to use the Presbyterian government never intended by any Law deserving the proper name of a Law to settle the primitive Presbytery in their Churches whence the sad Schismes arose in the primitive times much less to abrogate the ancient Episcopacy which in the judgment of the best Christians and of the Apostles is the healer of Schismes and the preserver of peace But that they intended as they had good reason to abrogate the corrupted Hierarchy with the multitude of its oppressing attendants and as necessity compelled them seemingly
to suspend their reception of the ancient Episcopacy but in very deed receiving in some hidden sort the substance of it secretly giving that Authority to the moderator of the Colledge of Presbyters which tantamounts the Authority of the ancient Bishops This was done by them in their Emergency out of the Gulfe of the Babylonish Idolatry and Haeresies when the state of persons and Circumstances would not permit them directly and manifestly to set up the ancient Episcopacy but covertly and cloathed with the apparel of Presbytery Because the appearing of it in its native cloathing seemed to threaten an extreme danger of returning again to Idolatrous Babylon Thus when two duties became inconsistent the keeping out of Idolatry and the open and manifest use of an Ordinance inferior to the maintenance of the purity of Gods worship they did as it was their duty so far forbear the open use of Episcopacy as seemed needfull that they might preserve the truth and sincerity of the worship of God I know many writers are of another mind but the intentions of Churches are better seen in the causes of their actions and the managing of them then in the letter of a Law or in the speculative opinions of private persons Some think the present condition of our Church to be almost the same with the state of those Churches when they first began their Reformation and therefore that we stand in need of the same cure under the habit of the Presbyterian Government Surely these are much deceived first in their opinion of our present state secondly in the sequele if our case were like theirs for when we were like them in departing from Babylon we were unlike them in many other respects and needed not the habit of Presbyters but fall to purge the ancient Episcopacy from as many of the foul excrescencies which the sins of men made to grow to it as the condition of that time would permit whereby our Church kept more uniformity with the primitive Churches and by the blessing of God upon our endevour obtained more measure of the Heavenly light and of the power of Godliness in peace and that for a longer time then any part of those Churches attained unto which were necessitated to shrowd themselves under another habit of Government This I say not any way to disparage any other Church of Christ whom I honour and pray for from my heart or to ascribe any thing to our own wisdome and providence but to honour and glorifie the grace of God for his great mercies to our Church and to defend her honour against the mistakes of some But now our condition is changed our sins have brought us to misery the light and glory of our Church is turned to darkness confusion and contempt from which notwithstanding our unworthiness Gods infinite mercy which hath most gratiously restored our Soveraign Lord the King unto his Kingdomes and Subjects will be pleased I trust to deliver us and to beautifie our Church with the primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy attended by his assessors and Senate the reverend grave wise learned and pious Colledg of Presbyters to govern the house of God after the best pattern of the primitive holy orders and discipline for the obtaining whereof God would have us assisted by His grace to contribute our endevours improved to the uttermost of Christian Wisdom and moderation to be crowned with his rich blessing And because this business is about things for the most part spirituall tending to the edification of Gods house it will no doubt please our gracious King and his great Councell not to proceed in this work without the advise and counsell of them whom Christ hath ordained under Himself Minister all builders of His House least the neglect of His Ordinance and Ministers cause the Lord to blast all other Counsells and endeavours how probable soever they may seem to be in the eye of the world Give unto Casar the things which are Caesars and let the Vicegerents of Christ enjoy the things belonging to them let all interests have their due part in this weighty work and then whatsoever Government be settled what form soever of Divine service what Rites soever and Ceremonies shall be established they will with all readiness and due submission be received and embraced by all the people and all the obedient Sons and Daughters of our dearest Mother the Church of England among whom if there shall be some whose judgments cannot acquiesce in some determinations of the higher powers they will wisely consider first that in the remote conclusions of Divine maximes all good men in this our infirmity will never agree and that nature teacheth us that in controversies the resolution of the major part must be obeyed without which debates would never be ended and St. Paul saith let the spirits of the Prophets be subject to the Prophets Secondly That God hath appointed the powers civil and Ecclesiasticall in his stead to determine Ecclesiasticall controversies and to make Ecclesiasticall Ordinances from whose judgment there is no appeal but only to God by prayer Thirdly That to preserve the peace of the Church and Charity the bond of perfectness is a duty to be preferred before the duty of publick teaching divulging or preaching many of those Divine Truths whose ignorance if not voluntary doth not exclude from Heaven when that teaching or publishing doth disturb the publick peace and consequently the keeping of the peace requireth abstinence in that case from such divulging or preaching And from these considerations good men will infer that it is good for them and that it is their duty both for the sake of Gods Authority for good order sake and for Charity and peace sake out of a Conscientious regard to the higher powers to acquiesce in their determinations and to desist from opposing their private opinion to the publick judgment and pursuing their private interest to the prejudice of publick peace and Charity For which Wisedome and moderation that they may be in all let all good men pray to the onely wise and most mercifull God the Author of Truth and peace An APENDIX THe manner of the Ordination of Bishops forgotten to be shewed by me in due place is declared by the fourth Councill of Carthage in these words Can. 2. When a Bishop is ordained lay and hold the book of the Evangelists upon his head and neck and one Bishop pronouncing the Benediction over him let the rest of the Bishops present touch his head with their hands The Church never accounted any to be capable of this Episcopall Ordination that was not first ordained a Presbyter the manner of whose Ordination was that the Bishop blessing him saying receive the Holy Ghost whosoever sins you shall remitt Concil earth Can 3. c. and laying his hand upon his head the Presbyters present lay their hands upon his head by the hand of the Bishop There was a (a) Tert. de praescript c. 41. Cyprian Epist ad
Antonianum Hier. ad Heliodorum Conc. Sardicens c. 13. Canon in use in the second Century when it was made it is not known which required that every one that would be an Ecclesiasticall Officer should begin with and for some set time officiate in the lowest Office and so by degrees ascend to the Episcopacy if the Church did desire his advancement Yet we find that some laicks yea some unbaptised persons have been by the Clergy and people chosen Bishops as Ambrose Nectarius and other Paulinus in vita Ambrosij Niceph. Callist Eccl. hist l. 12. c. 12. who leaping over the inferiour offices and the time wherein they should have given proofe of their faithfulness and industry in the order of Presbytery have been Baptised made Presbyters and then Bishops within few dayes and some it may be took these two last orders in the same houre But this was very rare and by dispensation or was liable to an Ecclesiasticall censure When any under the degree of a Presbyter was by the ignorance or perversness of some Bishops ordained a Bishop nothing done by him was esteemed valid but what his former degree did warrant or a Laick might in necessity do untill he was made a Presbyter Bellarmine saith truly that it is impossible that one should be ordained a Bishop fit to officiate which was not before a Presbyter or did not take both orders together For saith he Episcopacy includes Presbytery in its essence and a Bishop no Presbyter is a figment De Sacramento Ordinis l. 1. c. 5. a Bishop being nothing else but the first or chief Presbyter Whence he doth rightly infer that the Ordination of a Bishop compared with the Ordination of a Presbyter is being in it self precisely considered inferior to it as being of no efficacy as to acts meerly Ecclesiasticall and which the civil Magistrate cannot execute Here some doubts are raised which by divers are diversely resolved As whether Christ did ordaine the Apostles in the first place Presbyters and after that Bishops and if so when was this done or if it be said that Christ made them Apostles Presbyters and Bishops in one and the same Ordination how can it be proved that Christ gave the Apostles the powers now proper to Bishops not only as they were extraordinary Officers but also as they were to have successors and not rather that Christ reserved those powers as they were to be conveyed by succession to be given in a more convenient time it is generally acknowledged that Presbyters were vertually ordained when the Apostles were ordained If Christ made the Apostles both Presbyters and Bishops in one Ordination how durst the Church alter our Saviours Ordinance as to ordain them by two actuall Ordinations whom He Himself had ordained in one virtuall Ordination to say that our blessed Saviour ordained the Apostles first Presbyters and afterwards Bishops is to affirm that which the Evangelists do not mention To Preach Baptise administer the Lords Supper to feed the Sheep to bind and loose all these offices appear by clear Testimonies of the holy Scriptures and the consent of the Catholick Church to belong to Presbyters and therefore it may not be reasonably thought that any of those places of the Evangelists which promise those powers or intimate them to be given or require the execution of them conveigh an Episcopacy to the Apostles supposed before ordained Presbyters Some say that St. Cyprian and some other of the Fathers affirm Christ in ordaining the Apostles to have ordained Bishops and that Bishops are the Apostles successors and Presbyters the successors of the 70 Disciples To these Objections the answers are ready and easie Ad Drâ—â—contiam in Ps 44. First Athanasius saith that Christ by his Apostles constituted and ordained Bishops and Augustine saith that the Church conceived Bishops neither of them writeth that Bishops were vertually ordained in the Apostles Ordination neither is this expresly said in any ancient Author In Epist 1. ad Timoth c. 3. Secondly Ambrose the contemporary or elder then the true Ambrose saith that the Ordination of a Presbyter and Bishop is one and the same this may seem strange for in his and the preceding times they were distinct but his following words declare his meaning when he gives this reason namely Cyprian ad florentium c. Epist because both Presbyter and Bishop are Sacerdotes Priests which shews that in saying that the Ordination of a Presbyter and Bishop is the same he meant quatenus Sacerdotes as they were Priests or Presbyters their ordination was the same So the other auncient Doctors which say that Christ in speaking some things to the Apostles as He that heareth you heareth me Basil constit monast c. 22. c. 〈◊〉 spake in and by them to Bishops or that in them Christ ordained Bishops did mean That our Saviour spake in and by the Apostles to Bishops not as Bishops but as they were Sacerdotes Priests and Presbyters and only consequently and remotely by the means of a subsequent Ordinance as they were Bishops that is Presbyters having a presidency over their Brethren when the Pastors of that primitive Church say that Bishops are Successors of the Apostles and Presbyters successors of the 70 Disciples their meaning was That having respect to the Distinction which the Apostles made between one Presbyter and the rest by exalting one in every Church to a presidency over the rest The President Presbyter which is the Bishop succeeds the Apostles whose Successors and the subject Presbyters succeeded the 70 Disciples in some likeness of superiority and inferiority The Fathers could not mean That the Presbyters were ordained in the Ordination of the 70. For First None of them had any good ground to affirm That the 70 either had so ample an ordinary power if they had any ordinary power as the Presbytery have or that the power they received was rather the power of an Office to continue in them Ad Rodolphum Archiepiscopum Senonens in apparandarum rerum addend post tom 7. Concil then a power only to do some acts for a certain time after which the power was to leave them although Pope Nicholas the first affirms That the 70 Disciples had the Offices of Bishops and could ordain Presbyters Secondly The Form of Ordination both in our Church and in the Roman pontificial doth manifestly shew That Presbyters were virtually ordained in the Ordination of the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection when he said Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whosesoever sins ye remit c. the which entire words are used in Presbyters Ordination and only one member of the words are used in the ordination of bishops that is Receive the Holy Ghost which words do not serve to conveigh unto them all power to remit c. which they had received in their Ordination to Presbytery but they serve to give them the power of Presidency whereby the Bishop is constituted and therefore Presbyters and Bishops as they
be Presbyters are the primary Successors of the Apostles and Bishops as Bishops that is as to their presidency are onely secondary Successors of the Apostles There is no great cause of doubt whether those words abovesaid used at this time in the ordination of Bishops or Presbyters Cum Ecclesia in ordinatione sacerdotum Christum imitata ritu perpetuo eisd verbis forma illa Accipite Spiritum Sanctum quorum remiseritis peccata c. Semper usa fuerit quis ambigat idem omnino quod Christum facere c. Vasq in 3. p. disp 239. c. 4. were together with imposition of hands therein used in and from the Primitive times because they are not expressely mentioned in any ancient Author for a thousand years and above for any thing I could learn for first the Fathers do often say that imposition of hands was used in those ordinations and ought to be used as also a benediction and prayers which prayers no question were accommodated in each ordination to the distinction made by the Apostles between Presbyters and Bishops and therefore the words Receive the Holy Ghost whosoevers sins ye remit c. might be used in the prayers of the Bishops ordination for an increase of the grace and power received by them in their Presbyterial ordination and omitted in the prayers of Presbyters ordination wherein they constitute the benediction because the fulness of the exercise of the power given by the ministery of those words and other parts of their ordination is something restrained by the constitution of Episcopacy The reason why those holy men did not set down in their writings the very words of benediction spoken at the imposition of hands In 2 Cor. hom 6. and the particular forms of prayers then used is declared by Chrysostome Nota patres concilia non consuevisse explicare totum ritum Sacramentorum non enim scribebant libros rituales sed solum attigisse unam partem essentialem ex qua caetera omnia intelligerentur Bellarm de Sacram Ord. l. 1. c. 9. who speaking of Bishops beginning the Act of ordination saith That such and such words were spoken which the initiated knew for it is not lawful saith he to detect all before the profane As for the forms of Ordination which were written between the years 700 and 1000 and the forms in Clements constitutions besides that they are of small credit they are imperfect and disagree among themselves In one form of Bishops consecration the book is not remembred to be held over the head of the person to be ordained in another form there is no mention of the imposition of hands In a form of the ordination of a Presbyter the Bishop and Presbyters holding their hands on the head of the ordained it is said det orationem super eum and let the Bishop pray above him then many sorts of prayers follow Whence we may gather that the prayer to be made over him differs from the other prayers and that under the word Prayer the words of benediction which are Receive the Holy Ghost Whosoever sins ye remit c. are comprehended For those words pronounced by the Bishop as the mouth of the Church are a virtual prayer the heavenly gift signified by them Manus impositiones verba sunt mystica quibus confirmatur ad opus electus accipiens auctoritatem teste conscientia sua ut audeat vice Domini sacrificium Deo offerre Ambros in Epist 2. ad Timoth. c. 4. Homo imponit manus Deus largitur gratiam homo imponit supplicem dexteram Deus benedicit potenti dextera Ambros de dignitate sacerd a Greg. Epist l. 7. Epist 63. and to be given in the use of them being begged of God in the preceding and also in the subsequent prayers And as they are pronounced by the Bishop supplying the place and instead of Christ they are Christs benediction and a signification of his operative will in giving the Holy Ghost unto some that 's Presbyters in their ordination to authorise them to do the external acts of binding and loosing c. and to accompany those acts duely exercised in the union and communion of the truely Catholick Church and unto others that is Bishops in their ordination to authorize and enable them for the eminent universal and presidential use and administration of the power of binding and loosing before received in their Presbyterial ordination and for the sole exercise of the power of ordination and to accompany their service duely performed in the union and communion of the true Church of Christ So the words of the institution of the Lords Supper are in themselves no prayers but considered as a part of the prayer preceding them called by Gregory the great the Canon which is not reputed to be ended before those words be prolated they are a virtual prayer being presented unto God in the supplication of the Church for the obtaining of an heavenly effect in the imitation of the act of Christ like unto that effect which was granted at the act of prolation of them by Christ himself Major Angel affirm that they saw some Pontificals which were both without the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. and also without imposition of hands Therefore those omissions are no sufficient arguments to prove that the foresaid words of benediction were not used in the Primitive times We may further prove them to be then in use by this that of all the integral parts of Presbyters ordination we find nothing proper to the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ad Amphilock Can. â—1 but onely those words of benediction for the Presbyters impose their hands as well as the Bishops the Presbyters and people fast and pray with the Bishop there 's nothing left but the prolation of the words of benediction in the name and place of Christ This is confirmed by the story of the purblind Bishop who having laid his hand to ordain a Presbyter and the Presbyters their hands used the eyes and mouth of a Presbyter to read and pronounce the benediction Cone Hispal 2. c. 5. It s not said that the Presbyter read the prayers although its most likely he read them but the benediction And why surely because the prayers were the common prayers of the whole Church and the benediction onely proper to the Bishop and therefore that ordination was rejected as unlawful and invalid a Presbyter and not a Bishop having prolated the benediction and the Bishops commission was of no value because prohibited by the Canons in force at that time Above 300 years before this Bishop in the time of Athanasius all the Presbyters and Ischyras among them which were ordained by Colythus a pretended Bishop were refused to be received by the Church in that degree Athanas in apolog 2. because Colythus was proved to be onely a Presbyter whose ordination in the judgment of the Church the constitution of the Apostles had made
Whosoevers sins ye remit they shall be remitted Thus far Hierome The powers promised unto St. Peter in Matth. ch 16. and the powers given unto the Apostles when our Saviour breathed upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost c. and the powers mentioned in the 18 chap. of St. Matthew supposed before given or to be in a special manner given in time to come are one and the same powers Chrysost de sacerdotio l. 3. Ambros l. 1. deâ—â—aenit c. 1. 6. Hier. ad Heliod de vita solit Athanas serm in illud pâ—â—ofecti in pagum c. Cypr. de simplicit Praelat and so taken to be by the Doctors of the Primitive Church which they do unanimously acknowledge to be given unto the Apostles both in right and possession as to the essential parts of the powers before Christs death although there is some seeming variety among them concerning the punct of time before his death wherein Christ gave them declaratively unto them and the immediate subject to whom they were given Considering their sayings concerning this matter and comparing them together and so expounding them that they may agree with the Scriptures and among themselves these following assertions may be gathered from them First They do not deny the said powers to have been given as to their essentials unto the Apostles when he called them to the Apostleship and gave them the name of Apostles For they could not think that Christ gave them the name of the office without the office it self And it appears that the Apostles preached and baptised before the promise of them was made unto Peter They received with the name of Apostles the powers to minister all the doctrine and means of salvation which Christ intended in due time to deliver unto them Act. 1.24 25. Act. 26.16 And therefore when the Sacrament of the Eucharist was instituted they needed not a new ordination but onely a signification of Christs pleasure that they should use the power before given them in the administration of this ordinance which is but an extention of the power to a new object Secondly they agree Chrysost in Joh. hom 85. Cyprian de simplicit Praelatoruus Aug. de Trinitate civitate Dei c. 4. quaest ex vet Novi Testam c. 93. that all the Apostles received those powers when our Saviour breathed upon them c. and that this was a solemn ordination of them giving them more grace to accompany their ministery then they had in their first call and less solemn ordination or in the subsequent manifestation thereof before his death This is the more proper ordination of the ministers of the new testament the full original and seminal tradition of the ministerial powers whereby all future ordinations of the like kind are sanctified and for these causes our Saviour iterated their ordination to the pastoral extraordinary and ordinary offices and the rather least his death might be thought to have made void their first more secret and covert ordination Some late writers think that Christ lest his ascension into heaven might seem to have nullified the second ordination did ordain the Apostles the third time in the day of Pentecost Hier. epist ad Hedib q. 9. but it s more likely that he did then onely complete their ordination in the measure of extraordinary and ordinary gifts of the spirit enabling them and in them the succeeding Pastors for the better execution of their pastoral functions Thirdly the fathers agree also in this that Christ gave equal power and authority unto all the Apostles and made them all ministerial rocks and fundations Cyprian de simplicit Praelat gave unto them the Keyes of the heavenly Kingdome and gave them with the Keyes in their hands unto the Church Aug. de verbis Domini serm 11. de doct Christ l. 1. c. 18. for whose aedification onely they and their successors were to use them The eyes are not more the bodies then Pastors and their Keyes are the Churches and as the body cannot see but by the eyes so the Church cannot enter into heaven by any other member under Christ of the mystical body without the service of the Pastors opening with their Keyes the gates of heaven for her As the Apostles were ministerial rocks so was Peters confession an instrumental rock and in a second place the confession and preaching of the rest of the Apostles were so too by the means of which rocks the Church is built upon the foundation of foundations the principal rock our Lord Jesus Christ Hilar. in Math. Can. 11. Matth. 16. Yet Peters confession was not without a great reward He had the first promise of the Keyes to be given unto him after Christ's resurrection with the more abundant measure of the grace of the Holy Ghost which he then received with the rest of the Apostles yet so that he was the first in order which received them before the rest He had a name given him by our Saviour from the principal rock Ambros serm 89. Cyprian de habiiu virgin He was made the first in order and head of the Apostles the first ministerial rock and his preaching was made the first instrumental rock He was made the first preacher to and convertor of the Jews and Gentiles Joh. 10. Ambros ser 47. De Petro vide Aug. retract l. 1. c. 21. Ambros de incarn Dom. sacramento Cypr. nbi sup ad Antonianum the Apostle and Pastor of the first Christian Church after Christs ascension which was the mother of all other Churches And because it was believed that he had his choycest and longest residence in Rome wherein by his ministery the Gospel was first planted that Church was counted the Princess of Churches the mother of Churches as he was accounted and called the Prince of the Apostles All these priviledges did serve to shew the unity of the Church and the unity of the holy ministery and ministers thereof and to commend unto all the sons of the Church the preservation of unity in doctrine worship Discipline and charity There be many particular Churches of Christ yet all but one Church as Peters Church was one there be many Bishops and Presbyters yet as Peter was alone the Apostle of the first Church which represented all the succeeding Churches Basil constitut Monast c. 22. so the many ministers of the Gospel are one in Peter and the ministery one in him And as the Churches and ministers were one in their fountains and roots so they ought to preserve the like unity among themselves the ministers imitating the faithfulness of Peter and the flock imitating the obedience and holiness of the Church of Peter If Rome had persisted in and contented her self with the doctrine of St. Peter and not added thereto Idolatry superstitions and haeresies we would gladly have owned and honoured her Bishops as the prime successors of Peter and the Church of Rome as the
hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. to be an other part thereof and both these parts to constitute the whole essence of the ordination As if our Saviour had made the Apostles Presbyters by two distinct ordinations the one before his death and the other after his resurrection whereof the first if we will without reason believe them made them Priests the second gave them the power of binding and loosing and made them complete Presbyters As concerning the ordination of Bishops Divines saith Vasq do not well agree at what time they were ordained In 3. p. d. 242. c. 7. Some think that Christ ordained them when he said Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins ye remit c. this opinion is justly rejected by Vasques unless it may be made good that Bishops and Presbyters had one and the same ordination for all grant that Presbyters were ordained by those words Other imagine Peter alone to have been imediately ordained by our Saviour and the rest of the Apostles by Peter c. so Bellarmine and others but this assertion doth not please Vasques and we cannot be pleased with such figments Others doe conceive our Saviour to have ordained them Priests and Bishops when he said Do this in remembrance of me This opinion is as false as the last Some think them ordained in the day of Pentecost and Vasques himself thinks them to have been ordained when Christ said unto them Go teach all nations c. which is as groundless an opinion as any of the rest Whereas in truth when they were ordained Apostles they were made Presbyters having the pastoral powers which were to be transmitted to successors and were also made extraordinary Bishops having as essential to their extraordinary function of Apostleship an extraordinary presidency and superintendency over the use and exercise of all the pastoral offices but were not made Bishops which were to be succeeded until they themselves by confirming the prudent choice of the Churches had instituted Episcopacy The Schoolmen found the Laicks impower'd by commission from Rome c. to excommunicate Hence they distinguish between the power of the Order and the power of jurisdiction We gather from the holy Scriptures and the practice of the Primitive Church that excommunication was ordained to be a mean to bring a person guilty of some scandalous sin committed after Baptism to the degree of repentance and humiliation meet first to receive pardon of sin through faith in Christs blood Secondly to satisfie and edifie the Church by good example in proportion to the offence given and harme done by his bad example Thirdly to take away the evil propensity the skars and blots made in the Soul by the sin committed and to restore the offender to the degree of purity of Soul and consequently of communion with God and of Gods love to him which he enjoyed before his fall which are obtained when God is glorified and pleased by the humiliation in proportion to the dishonour done to God and the divine displeasure incurred by sin Fourthly to receive more strength to make the penitent able to stand and avoid the like fall in time to come In the first four Centuries after our Saviours birth a full absolution was not granted to any Penitent except in case of necessity until the Bishop and Presbyters judged his repentance and humiliation to have restored him to Gods grace and favour Cyprian ad clerum De Presbyteris qui temerè pacem lapsis dederant the good opinion of the Church and to his former spiritual strength in grace And therefore we may be assured that no man was excommunicated from the Church militant but in order to receive grace to restore him to and fit him for the Church triumphant and that it was the same Key which did shut the dores of both Churches against the offender and was to open the dores unto him having given sufficient testimony of a due humiliation The Catholick Church in the Primitive times did not divide excommunication into two distinct kinds that is into excommunication from the Church triumphant and excommunication from the Church militant the first proper to the Bishop and Presbyter and the other peculiar to the Bishops and his Committees Presbyters or lay this to be exercised by the power of Jurisdiction the former to be exercised by the power of order that is the power which Bishops and Presbyters received from Christ by their ordination Whereby we understand the power of jurisdiction in this sense as opposed to the power of order to be the gift neither of Christ nor of his Apostles If the Church gave this power it was a corrupt Church that gave it for by this ordinance of man the ordinance of Christ is made void The ordinance of man is exalted above the ordinance of Christ for the excommunication which is Christs ordinance may be executed by the Presbyter in subordination to the Bishop but without his Commission the humane excommunication is made peculiar to the Bishop the chief officer in the Church to be executed by himself or some other by his commission Much good do it to the Roman Bishops whose cheif Bishop first invented it our Bishops like it not it hath been too importunate to stick in part unto them but they will perfectly shake it off as soon as they can The excommunication which is Christs ordinance hath parts or members whereby it may be more or less full greater or lesser but it ought not to be coupled with a mate a brat of mans invention De paenitentia l. 1. c. 2. Munus Spiritu Sancti est officium Sacerdotis jus autem Spiritus Sarcti in solvend ligandisque criminibusest Ibi Deus par jus saith Ambrose solvendi esse voluit ligandi God would that there should be equally as a right of loosing so a right of binding And therefore he that hath not the right of loosing saith he neither hath he the right of binding And a little after he that hath saith he a right to loose he hath a right to bind And a little after the same Father saith that this right or power of loosing and binding is permitted onely to Priests that is Bishops and Presbyters and thence concludes that Hereticks which had no Priests could not challenge this power Then this Holy man sheweth the spring of the same power he that receiveth the Holy Ghost saith he receiveth the power both of loosing and of binding as it is written Receive the Holy Ghost Jo. 20. whose sius ye remit c. Therefore he that cannot loose sin hath not the Holy Ghost that is Si fictus est Praesbyter aut Episcopus Spiritus Sanctus Disciplinae effugiet fictum deest saluti ejus ministerium tamen ejus non deserit quo per eum salutem operatur aliorum Aug. contra epist Parmen l. 2. c. 11. as making him an able minister of the New Testament and of the spirit for the
remission of sins Thus far Ambrose Whereby we see that the Holy Ghost gives unto Bishops and Presbyters the power of binding by excommunication and of loosing by absolution and that the Holy Ghost doth accompany their service to cure them that will not refuse to be healed Away then with the excommunication that hath not the Holy Spirit to warrant it nor the operation of the Holy Ghost to make it effectual to mans salvation Away with the lay excommunication that makes the Holy Ghost a servant to denounce it Away with Jeroboams Priests made of the lowest of the people which are not of the sons of Levi which have not received the Holy Ghost to make them able ministers of the new Testament not of the letter but of the Spirit It is the duty of the lay Christian magistrate to oversee facilitate and corroborate the due execution of the spiritual censure of excommunication performed by Bishops principally and Presbyters subordinately but if any ask whether he may not excommunicate either by himself or by a substitute although the answer is already given in the premises yet I say he may do so and if he have the gift may preach in publick and minister the holy Sacraments as lawfully as the 250 persons spoken of in the sixteenth chap. of Numbers took censer and offered incense 2 Chron. c. 27. and as lawfully as King Uzziah did the like And as to the curing of the Leprosy of the soul he may expect the like success as Naaman would have had as to the healing of the Leprosy of his body 2 King c. 5. if he had washed himself in any other river then Jordan wherein the Prophet commanded him to wash himself in order to his cleansing The Kings Proclamation prevaileth more with many to leave their scandalous vices and to live soberly then the Sermons of the best Bishops and Presbyters usually do with most men Will any therefore conclude that the Proclamation of the King is an effectual means for the infusion of Gods saving grace as well as the preaching of the Gospel by them that are lawfully called to that sacred work the Christian Magistrates power is versed about the externals of Christian virtues and reacheth onely accidentally and by Gods indulgence sometime to the souls of men and the life of virtues Whereas the ministerial power of the Gospel is primarily ordained to be a means alwayes effectual for the infusion of the soul and life of all saving Christian virtues if the operation of the Holy Ghost which doth constantly work with the ministery of the Gospel in all the offices thereof be not deliberately resisted Men are saved by means instituted and sanctified by the wisdome and power of God and not by means which onely the wisdome of man judgeth to be most probable to effect our eternal salvation We live by faith and not by sense The Independent congregations blame the reverend Bishops for some miscarriages about the heavy censure of excommunication and exclaim both against them and against Presbyters for being more zealous for ceremonies then for the due execution of our function in the maine offices thereof and for the power of godliness As for the abuse of excommunication the blame was to have been imputed unto others and not to the Bishops And to say the very truth in this matter of excommunication the Canons of our Church are defective and require amendment which perhaps some invincible hinderances would not permit to be done in times past As for the misplacing of the intention of our zeal First as being my self a Presbyter although one of the meanest I must answer for my self that although it may be no man will or can condemn me yet truely I cannot justifie my self before the judgment seat of Almighty God but must make my earnest supplication for mercy to my judge I fear least any soul miscarry or miscarried through my default that his blood should be required at my hands And therefore I tremble when I consider what account I am to give of my Stewardship And now having knowledge and experience of the most heavy weight of this sacred vocation and the great propensity of our nature strengthened by manifold temptations unto unfaithfulness therein if I were now to enter into it the conscience of my weakness and fear of miscarriage would cause me to decline it but being long since entred woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel and I will not be discouraged having the power and mercy of God in whom I trust to be my strength and comfort I desire all good men as charitably to censure us so to pray earnestly to God for us that the great afflictions which we have suffered may be sanctified to us that remembring the afflictions and miseries the Wormwood and the Gall our souls may be humbled in us and that the extraordinary deliverance and blessings may entirely ingage our hearts to serve the Lord with all diligence and faithfulness in the holy ministery and to feed the flock of God taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy Lucre a pestilence in the Church but of a ready mind neither being Lords over Gods Heritage so unbecoming the messengers of the Lamb of God who washed his Disciples feet but being examples to the flock of sobriety humility meekness Christian bounty to the poor c. it becomes not good men to censure us for using those Rites and Ceremonies which we are perswaded not to be prohibited by Gods Law and both they and we do surely know to be commanded to be used by mans Law duely made which is Gods ordinance to which we must be subject for conscience sake We pity the tender conscience which cannot without offence either obey or disobey that ordinance And where any of a good life is seen to have that tenderness without the malignity of pride and labour to propagate it and divide the Church the piety and discretion of the Bishop will use him gently instruct him pray for him waite patiently for his amendment and unlesse the example of the party is seen to corrupt the sound will hardly be drawn to go beyond a threatning because punishment to a man of that temper seems rather to be an addition of misery to him then wholesome Physick meet to cure him If any will attempt to be Authors of Combinations to extort by shew of multitudes and by tumults the alteration or abrogation of any part of the established laws Civil or Ecclesiastical they will thereby evidently manifest themselves to be but meer pretenders to a tender conscience and power of godliness for they that labour to extort a part if they prevaile must have the whole in their power And can they that attempt so great robbery love God and the power of Godliness By this cursed fruit we know these to be most vile Hypocrites Let no good people be deceived by their sheeps cloathing look upon this bitter fruit and you see
that they are within but greedy and ravening Wolves Contra epist Parmen l. 2.13 c. 15. apud Theod balsam c. 5. Vide Baron annal an 389. sect 74. conc African temp Bonifac. caelestin c. 15. Conc. earth 5. c. 6. Greg. 3. epist 5. God deliver us from them and deliver them from the wickedness of their hearts and wayes but leaving these I proceed It is very pertinent to the matter in hand to speak of reordination but because this subject is two large I will onely say thus much that St. Aug. and the Council of Carthage and generally all antiquity are against reordination as well as against rebaptization both truely so called In cases of doubt whether one were truely baptised or truely ordained it was never accounted a rebaptization to baptise the one or reordination to ordain the other The ordination of a Presbyter by Presbyters without Commission from a Bishop was alwayes judged of dubious validity at the least Some so ordained in foreine Churches were not rejected by the Bishops of the Church of England I believe because they thought that to judge of the fact of another Church in matter of no greater moment would not tend to strengthen unity between the Churches but rather to diminish and weaken it Or it may be they did not admit them as certainly knowing them to be so ordained but as charitably believing they had been ordained by a Bishop for charity covereth the multitude of sins a doubtful ordination established in all the parts of it by the publick consent and authority of a Church is far more tolerable then the like ordination celebrated in all the parts of it without and against the legal consent and authority of the Church For in this last case many are doubtful of the validity of Baptism and the other divine ordinances administred by them that were so ordained But the Higher power partly hath and in convenient time will remove all such doubts to the full satisfaction of all good men I have already exceeded my intended brevity I will say no more but desire the candid reader to believe that I have not maintained Episcopacy to be an institution of Christ by the Apostles and not an institution of Christ in the Apostles as some hold induced by many fair probabilities out of a spirit of contradiction but because the sentence chosen by me seems to be subject to less difficulties and more agreeable to the ancient pastoral and Episcopal ordinations which be received and used in the Church of England and especially because it doth more incline and conduce to moderation Whatsoever I have herein written I humbly submit to the judgement and correction of my Superiors Neque enim Episcopi propter nos sumus sed propter eos quibus verbum Sacramentum Dominicum ministramus ac per hoc ut eorum sine scandalo gubernandorum sese necessitas tulerit ita vel esse vel non esse debemus quod non propter nos sed propter alios sumus Aug contra Crescon Grammatic l. 2. c. 11. FINIS Errata PAg. 4. line penult after of the Apostles add before our Saviours death p. 10. marg r. Jubain p. 14. marg r. in Esai p. 15. l. 12. r. dicit l. 22. r. dicit ib. r. consecratione l. 36. r. postea p. 26. l. 10. dele of exped p. 30. l. penult r. saith l. 27. r. enable them the. p 32. l. 13. r. whom l. 31. r. Walafridus p. 39. l. 31. r. Tungrens so in marg pro Vigrens r. Tungrens p 41. l. 27. r. within ten in marg r. natalem Domini Toletan the quotation ubi multorum is misplaced p. 42. l. 9 10. r. Paschal VVax candle p. 46. over against l. 24. r. in marg Greg. Nyssen contra Hunom Orat. 16. p. 47. ult r. Catechumens p. 51. in marg dele Paulinus in vita Ambros l. 10. marg r. c. 5. p. 53. in marg dele per Socrat. p. 54. in marg pro praecip r. princip p. 56. l. 8. r. Chorepiscope p. 59. for Minister all r. Ministeriall p. 62. l. 20. r. 70 discip in marg r. Dracontium Aug. in Psal 44. l. ult dele and. p. 63. l. 6. r. Brethren of the l. 13. dele whose Successors l. 14. r. succeede p. 69. marg r. paenit after r. profecti in pagum It may be that by reason of the Authours absence and some obscurity in the Copy a few other faults may have escaped undiscerned as misplacing some Authors cited in the Margent or in the Figures or in Pointing and the like which being small the goodness of the Reader will easily pardon