and when he had said this he breathed on them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted to them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained In these words Totius familiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aut principatus in ipsa clavium promissione ante promissus singulis concredebatur saith the learned Doctor Hammond Disser 3. page 150. and presently after page 151. His duodecim in terris Christi vicariis ejus mandato aut diplomate munitis eademque ratione a Christo Missis qua ille a patre mittebatur adeo omnis in Ecclesia authorit as in solidum in integrum commissa est ut non ea cuivis mortalium demptis pauculis c. recte tribui possit nisi quem Apostolorum aliquis in profectionibus aut Provinciis ipsorum aut immediate aut mediate in potestatis authoritatis suae participationem aut successionem admiserit Let us therefore a little view that text in St. John 1. there are who say that in those words no Apostolical power is given but only promised As the Father hath sent me even so send I you i.e. saith Grotius Brevi mittam praesens pro futuro In this Exposition he is not singular some antienter then himself by many years went that way before him his and their ground so to do was the speech of our Saviour John 16.7 I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you But I judge with Tolet that Christs very breathing on them makes it highly probable that he gave them present Commission and Authority to that place John 16.7 Cyril answers that Christ did anticipate his promise and that it was usual with him to give before hand some specimina of those things which he promised to do after his return into heaven Another observes that Christ doth not say if I depart I will give him unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you and that the spirit is not properly said to be sent but when he appears in some visible shape which he did not till Pentecost the Disciples did now receive the Holy Ghost yet they did not now receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To use Theophilacts phrase they received him not to all the intents and purposes unto which they were afterwards to receive him they were to wait at Jerusalem to receive the spirit in order to those extraordinary gifts of working Miracles speaking with Tongues c. But to whom is this Commission given surely to all the Apostles for though as we read in the following verses Thomas was absent at this apparition yet his absence notwithstanding the spirit might be Vid. Cyrillum and was given to him When the spirit of Moses was to be put on the seventy it came upon Eldad and Medad though they were in the Camp Num. 11. The greatest question to me is whether these words were spoken only to the eleven and not also to the seventy or at least some of the seventy because I find that the two Disciples that were going to Emaus told the joyful news of Christs Resurrection to the eleven and to them that were with them Luke 24.33 And as they thus spake Jesus stood in the midst of them and saith unto them Peace be unto you ver 35. Nor is there any thing in Saint John that can necessitate me to think otherwise yet nevertheless upon some other reasons I am content it should be supposed that this Commission was granted only to the eleven as also that Mat. 28.18 19. But what hence can be gained that will in the least prejudice Presbyterians I wot not the Apostles were all equal and for those forty daies that Christ continued with them it appears not that there were any Church-Officers besides them and therefore it cannot from any action of Christ be collected that there ought to be an inequality among the Ministers of the Gospel Doctor Hammond supposeth that Matthias was one of the seventy who was by the Apostles and Disciples or rather by God himself designed and chosen to come into the room of Judas and this he calls Exemplum Presbyterianorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pessiâ—â—â—â—â—â—inans page 153. But why he should so call it I know not for the Presbyterians do not say that there are not divers Orders in the Church but only that there are not divers orders of Ministers of the Gospel and that Matthias his being chosen from a private Disciple to be an Apostle should prove that there are divers orders of preaching Ministers would be strange Indeed should Presbyterians grant the Bishops do succeed Apostles and Presbyters do succeed the Seventy then Matthias his being chosen to be an Apostle supposing him to have been one of the Seventy might with some colour be urged but many Presbyterians there be who grant no such thing nor doth Dr. Hammond think that the Seventy were Presbyters by virtue of their Mission For he contends for the opinion of Epiphanius who makes seven of the seventy to be the men that were chosen Deacons and further adds that the rest were made Evangelists but that Evangelists and Deacons were much the same In idem plane recidit quantum ad 70 Discipulos attinet sive ad Evangelistarum sive ad Diaconatus gradum ascendisse eos dicamus page 159. Yet he thinks not meet to quit Christs making and Commissionating of the eleven Apostles till it have afforded him an argument for his Episcopacy which is briefly propounded in his answer to the London Ministers page 4. The power derived as from God the Father to Christ so from Christ to the Apostles was derived to them not as to a Common Councell of social Rulers but as so many several Planters and Governours of the Church each having all power committed to him and depending on no conjunction of any one or more Apostles for the exercise of it This is more largely deduced in his Latine book against Blondell Diss 3. c. 1 2 3 4. The Reverend Doctor hath no where put this argument into a syllogistical form nor will I venture to do it because I am not able to frame out of it any conclusion that will any way incommodate the Presbyterian plat-form of Government Be it so that a single Apostle had power over the Churches planted by him what is that to a single Bishops having power sole power of jurisdiction not only over the Churches in his Diocess but also over the Presbyters and Rectors of those Churches 2. How doth it appear that it was the mind of Christ that any single Apostle should put forth his power of Ordination without the conjunction of some other or others either Apostles or Apostolical persons or Presbyters in all the New Testament I cannot find they did so but I find many Instances and examples by which it appears that
either they might not do so or at least did not think meet so to do When Paul was Ordained if Ordained was it not by three When Timothy was it not by a Presbytery But I will not go about further to fit a shooe to a foot I know not only give me leave to tell you that there is one Hypothesis which I perceive the Doctor laies much stresse upon in that and other Discourses the which unless it be granted to him and Adversaries are not now adayes so kind as to grant much he can never be able to prove I 'le give you it in his own words Disser p. 147 148. speaking of the words of Christ to his Disciples Mat. 28.19 He thus expresseth himself Illud sine dubio non universorum ad omnes sed singulorum ad singulas mundi plagas ut ad totidem Provincias aut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 administrandas profectione praestandum erat c. Quod factum juxta videmus cum Act. 1. Matthias in traditoris Judae locum surrogandus eligendus proponatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simulque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 25. Sic ut verba ista non ad Judam defunctum sed ad Successorem ejus superstitem pertineant adeoque in praecedente 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conjungantur ut ad locum i. e. Provinciam propriam aut peculiarem aut singularem proficiscatur You see to gain some countenance to his Opinion from Scripture he is fain to make those words from which Judas fell to come in by way of Parenthesis and to refer the last words that he might go to his own place not to Judas the Son of Perdition but to Matthias or Barsabas one of which was now to be by the Lot falling on him chosen to make up the number But whom doth the Doctor follow in so doing Our English Translation No. His Friend Grotius Neither His words are significatur eventus scelera ipsius justo Dei judicio consecutus Proprium i.e. qui ipsi melius conveniebat quam Apostolica Functio And both he and Pricaeus make mention of a Greek Manuscript a very ancient one in which in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place which he deserved that is the Gallows or Hell it self I would fain know whether Provinces were divided to several Apostles by Christ or by agreement among the Apostles themselves If Christ designed each Apostle his distinct Province let it be shewn where and when If it be said that such Division was agreed upon among themselves I ask when Before their Masters Ascension or after 'T is not like 't was made before the Disciples then not being out of their Golden Dream of a temporal Kingdom as appears Acts 1.6 After the Ascention we find them all waiting at Jerusalem for the Promise of the Father and when they had received it Vâ—de hanc hypothesin solide proliae refutatam a doctissimo Stilling-fleet Irenici p. 233 234 235 236. they still at least for some time continued at Jerusalem Acts 8.1 When they removed common Prudence dictated to them not to go all one way nor do I think they did but they disposed of themselves as God in his Providence directed and offered opportunity But so far were they from parcelling out of the world among themselves that sometime passed ere they were convinced that it was their duty or so much as lawful to preach unto the Gentiles By this time I hope you see that if there be any ground for the Divine Right of Episcopacy it must be Apostolical practise and I shall easily grant that the Apostles being by their Commission intrusted with the Government of the Church of God whatever they did with an intent to oblige succeeding ages may well be accounted to be established Jure Divino But then I do with some confidence challenge all the Prelatists to shew me in Sacred Writ any one example of a Bishop having Presbyters under him and yet engrossing all power of Jurisdiction and Order to himself Yea I do challenge them to shew me any one Bishop that had under his Charge so many Souls as are in your Parishes of Stepney and Cripplegate I take the Apostles to be unfixed Officers and such were Timothy and Titus Dr. Hammond himself who hath deserved best of the Episcopal Cause Annot. on Acts Chap. 11 p. 407. hath these words Although this Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elders have been also extended to a 2d Order in the Church and is now only in use for them under the name of Presbyters yet in the Scripture times it belonged principally if not alone to Bishops there being no evidence that any of that second Order were then instituted though soon after before the writing of Ignatius his Epistles there were such instituted in all Churches Well then if there be no evidence that any such were instituted we shall think there were none such for de non existentibus non apparentibus eadem est ratio And if there were no Presbyters then there were no Bishops exercising Jurisdiction over Presbyters And 't is plain enough that every worshipping Congregation had its Bishop in the Apostles times But the Reverend Doctor in his Answer to the London Assemblers as he cals them p. 107. thus brings himself off John I know was an Apostle and John I believe ordained Presbyters and thence I doubt not to conclude the Apostolical Institution i. e. in effect the divine Right of the Order of Presbyters I also know that St. John was an Apostle but what should induce me to believe that he instituted a second sort of Presbyters who were only to preach and administer Sacraments but had no power either of Order or Jurisdiction Must I believe this with a Divine or humane Faith If with a divine Faith shew me some infallible Testimony for it If an humane Faith be the greatest and highest Faith a man can attain unto what a pitiful pickle are the poor Presbyters in that can only have some probable perswasion that their Order is Jure Divino Who would take upon him the Office of a Presbyter that can have no greater assurance that it was the mind of Christ that there should be any such Office in the Church Had Paul and Peter in their Provinces power to institute this second Order of Presbyters as well as St. John in his If they had not how was their power equal If they had why did they not put it forth It will not I suppose be said they wanted care but only that the number of Believers was not so increased during their abode in the earthly Tabernacle as to require such kind of Presbyters Well then they leaving the Churches by them planted to be governed by a Bishop and Deacons how will it be clearly and evidently proved that it was those Apostles intention that the Bishop who when they left him had power over the Deacons and people only
shall be able to convert us by railing by bitter jeers or Sarcasmes the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God We shall think the cause is but weak which must be supported by opprobrious language This good Reader is all the trouble that is thought meet to be given thee by way of Preface O pray for the peace of Jerusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR A Letter to a Friend tending to prove 1. That Valid Ordination ought not to be repeated 2. That ordination by Presbyters is valid SIR THat when you were invited to the constant preaching of the Word I perswaded you to be ordained is no matter of my repentance nor need it be any matter of your repentance that things standing as they then did you made choice to be ordained by meer Presbyters without a Bishop I had in my eye that of the Apostle How shall they preach except they be sent Rom. 10.15 that of the Prophet Jer. 23.21 I have not sent these Prophets yet they ran I have not spoken to them yet they prophesied v. 32. I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profit this people saith the Lord. Nor could I forget what holy zealous Luther hath in his Commentary on the Galathians Non satis est habere verbum puram doctrinam aportet etiam ut vocatio certa sit sine qua qui ingreditur ad mactandum perdendum venit nunquam enim fortunat Deus laborem eorum qui non sunt vocati quanquam quaedam salutaria afferunt tamen nihil aedificant You 't is like had in your thoughts the example of the Transmarine Reformed Churches and the judgement of our own Protestant Divines at home unanimously till of late determining Ordination by Presbyters to be valid But now it seems you begin to question whether you may not do that which will be a virtual and interpretative renouncing of your former Orders take a second Ordination from some Bishop and his Chaplains the grounds you go upon are 1. Because else it will not be possible to get any preferment in the Church 3. Because some that were voiced formerly to have more of the Presbyterian in them then you have already actually submitted to such a second Ordination To deal plainly with you either you are not the man that I have ever taken you to be or else you have alway had pectus praeparatum against all objections of this nature either you did not sit down and consider before hand what it would cost you to be a Minister of the Gospel or it is not possible that the two things you mention should weigh much with you Suppose the Anabaptistical Sectarian Phrensie should have so possessed the late Governours as that they would have collated no livings but on those who though baptized in infancy would afterwards take a second baptism at adult years Suppose also that some learned and seemingly godly men had yielded to Re-baptization would you forthwith have betaken your self to some pond or river and been dipped in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost If so then your Religion is very much at the mercy of your Superiours and we may thank the Parliament for your Orthodoxy I presume you will reply the case is different that you may with better conscience take a second Ordination then a second Baptisme But I pray you where lies the difference Is Baptisme an Ordinance of God so is Ordination Is Baptisme a Sacrament so is not Ordination in the strict sense but quid hoc ad Iphicli boves It might be a Sacrament and yet be iterable for the Lords Supper is in the most proper and strict notion a Sacrament and yet by the appointment of God it is to be received more then once by all that have opportunity That Ordination is not a Sacrament makes it not iterable because the end unto which it is by God appointed is sufficiently attained by one administration of it and the end of Ordination being once attained to receive it a second time would be to take an Ordinance of God in vain as I shall by and by have occasion to prove more largely For this is the method I intend to use with you 1. To shew that you ought not to take Ordination from the Bishop except your Ordination by Presbyters was a meer nullity and in natura rei invalid 2. To shew that your Ordination by Presbyters was not cannot be rationally accounted a meer nullity These two things done 't will not be difficult for you to gather my sense about the case of conscience by you propounded As to the first I must premise two or three postulata and they shall be such things as to save my self a labour I shall desire may be granted but if they should not be granted I should be able easily to prove them 1. I suppose that you are certain you were ordained by Presbyters for if there could be an invincible doubt whether you were de facto ordained or no I should then grant you might for sureness sake be ordained in an Hypothetical form si non ordinatus sis c. 2. I suppose that when you were ordained by Presbyters such a form of words was used as made you a Minister not of any particular but of the Catholick Church for had you been made Minister only of that particular Church unto which you were first called then your relation to that Church ceasing you ceased to be a Minister and so are returned to the condition of a private Christian and therefore you know that the rigid sort of Independents do judge that when their Pastor preacheth out of his own Congregation he preacheth only as a gifted Brother and charitativè not as a Church-Officer or authoritativè 3. I suppose that if you be ordained by a Bishop you are to be ordained in such a form of words as is used when men are made ex non Ministris Ministri ex non Clericis Clerici This I suppose because I have all along heard that as many as have been re-ordained by the Bishops have been by them looked upon and considered as Laicks being first made Deacons then Priests in the very self-same form and order that they are ordained who never had any Consecration to the Ministerial Office Were your former Ordination only to be compleated and confirmed I would not inject the least scruple into your mind because I know that though your Ordination by Presbyters was lawful and sufficient to make you a Minister yet it was perhaps not exactly legal and Canonical at least if there be any Law extant in England declaring those and those only that are ordained by Bishops to be lawfully ordained 't is but prudential to procure some instrument to ratifie that which pievish people will be apt to take exception against You know the late Parliament hath made an Act in and by which all whether ordained by Bishops or Presbyters are confirmed in their livings
in calling such persons to be ordained by a Bishop they did not call them to Reordination but to Ordination their former Ordination being not only irregular and non-Canonical but also null And had they not fled to this they must of necessity have been brought to repeat the Ordinations that during the distractions were made by Bishops they being not done without manifold irregularities as to time or place or some other such circumstances I prove thirdly that he who is ordained with a valid ordination ought not to be again reordained because by submitting to such reordination he doth take an Ordinance of God in vain You are not of the number of those who deny Ordination to be an Ordinance of God if you be I must turn you over to D. Seaman M. Lyford the London Ministers who have largely discussed that question and irrefragably proved that Ordination is so necessary that no man can ordinarily without breach of Gods Law enter the Ministry without it You will rather say that by being reordained a man doth not contract the guilt of taking an Ordinance of God in vain but if that be your answer I thus assault you To take an Ordinance of God either for no end or for no such end as God hath appointed it unto is to take an Ordinance of God in vain but to be reordained after preceding valid Ordination is to take an Ordinance of God either to no end or to no such end as he hath appointed it unto Ergo. If either Proposition need confirmation it is the minor but of the truth of that you will not long doubt if you will but a little consider what the end of Ordination is and that cannot better be gathered then from the definitions that are usually given of Ordination they are to this purpose Ordination is an act whereby in the Name of Christ meet persons are separate and set apart to the work and office of the Ministry Now I ask when you were ordained were you thus separate and set apart or not If you were not then you were not ordained if you were what use serves your reordination unto Perhaps you 'l say by that means you shall procure institution from the Bishops and be the more acceptable to the people But I pray you where do you find any I will not say precept but allowance of God to take Ordination to satisfie the humour of unreasonable men what example in Antiquity to incourage you to such a compliance Friend think on 't impartially was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostle speaks of conveyed to you by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery if it was not you have much to answer for taking upon you to command the people to recieve you as one of Christs Embassadors they might have told you that they were as much Embassadors as your self if it was do you think it would be any thing less then ludere sacris to submit to another examination and to have the Bishop and his Chaplains pray that you may now receive that gift I will conclude this first head of my discourse when I have first minded you that it is not long since through the iniquity of the times some Episcopally ordained were constrained to have their residence either in the Gallican or Belgick Churches where there is no Ordination but by Presbyters would these Divines have been content to be reordained after the mode of those Churches before they had been permitted to receive the double honour due to them as Ministers if they would not as I presume they would not why do they require that from others which they would not have been content others should have required of them If you should plead on their behalf that their Ordination was valid so is not Ordination by Presbyters that I shall prove to be false and Popish by and by If secondly you should alledge that our Prelatists would not require reordination from Divines ordained beyond the Seas because they were not in a capacity to receive Ordination from a Bishop but so were we that lived in England and therefore deserve to be looked upon and dealt with as Laicks till we have repented of our Schisme and Heresie and that there 's no better way to manifest our repentance then by humbling our selves and receiving orders from them Unto this allegation I have two things to say 1. Supposing but not granting that it was Schisme for our young Divines to take Orders from Presbyters when as with some little cost and trouble they might have received them from some Bishop I say that mens being Schismaticks doth not invalidate or make null either the Orders which they give or receive nor hath the Church of God ever been wont to punish Schisme by compelling the Schismatick to receive new Orders For this you may please to read Gisber Voetius Desper causa Papat lib. 2. sec 2. cap. 13 14. Nay nor do our Episcoparians call such as were ordained by Episcopal hands to reordination though sundry of them have fallen off from their Government and joyned in with Presbyterians which yet they must have done if Schisme do evacuate and annihilate their Orders if by being ordained by Presbyters we fell into Schisme repentance and the bloud of Christ must take off the guilt of that sin not reordination and paying fees to the Bishop or his Officers But secondly I am still so blind as not to see that it was any Schisme to be ordained by Presbyters for all Schisme is sin and all sin is a transgression of some good and righteous Law but there was no transgression of any good righteous Law in receiving orders from Presbyters for if so then either of a divine or humane Law not of a divine for there is not a Law of God requiring us not to be ordained by any but a Bishop not of humane Law For 1. I cannot find any Law of the Nation enacting that all Ordinations shall be made by a Bishop and his Presbyters and no otherwayes 2. If there had been any such Law it might be questioned whether it could oblige the conscience in such times of confusion as we were fallen into 3. If a man had been ordained by a Bishop in those daies he could not have got any Ordination every way argeeable to the Laws of the Land Our Bishops tell us that the Canons of 1603. are Law if they be so they themselves during the late distractions did transgress them with a witness What if I should further add that seeing our Bishops had clogged Ordination with Subscription to things unnecessary disputable to our apprehension sinful they are the Schismaticks who enjoyn such Subscriptions not we who refuse them Several weighty Arguments to prove this might be transcribed out of Mr. Hales his Tract of Schisme a Discourse so solid and yet become so scarce that if in stead of being re-ordained your self you would get that reprinted it would much oblige me But it is time to
him no further for what he brings out of the Canon of Constantinople is a huge Impertinence Let it be Schisme and Heresie which with the Fathers assembled in that Synod seem to be all one to divide from Canonical Bishops such are not they who are neither chosen by the Clergy nor by the People and to set up Conventicles contrary to theirs How will it hence follow that it is Heresie to hold that Presbytery and Episcopacy are the same Order To as little purpose or lesse is what follows out of the Council of Paris And concerning the Acephali p. 332 333. The Acephali were so called saith Isidore because the Head Chief and First of them could not be found That seems to be a mistake for Severus was the Head of them Let us therefore betake our selves to Nisephorus an Author certainly not very Reverend to see whether he can give us any better Information about them He tells lib. 18. c. 45. That these Acephali were a madder sort of Eutychians who maintained there was but one nature in Christ Never did I hear of any Presbyterian that was of that mind but it may be ther 's somthing in the Name that will touch them and all that follow Hierom. Acephali saith Nicephorus dicti sunt quod sub Episcopis non fuerint Proinde Episcopis Sacerdotibus apud eos defunctis neque Baptismus juxta solennem receptum Ecclesiae morem apud eos administratus neque oblatio aut res aliqua divinafacta Ministeriumve ecclesiasticum sicuti mos est celebratum est They would it seems have no Black-Coats as the late Phrase was What is this to them who would have Bishops willingly enough only deny that they are of a distinct superiour Order to Presbyters Object 2 The Second Objection is made from our English Church which seems to make Episcopacy and Presbytery different in Order For in the Preface of the Book Entituled The Form and Manner of Consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons It is said expressely That it is evident to all men diligently reading Holy Scriptures and ancient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church Bishops Priests Deacons It follows not long after And therefore to the intent these Orders should be continued and reverently used and esteemed in the Church of England it is requisite that no man not being at this present Bishop Priest or Deacon shall execute any of them except he be called tried examined and admitted according to the Form hereafter following In the body of the Book it self we find a Prayer in these words following Almighty God Giver of all good things who hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in thy Church mercifully behold this thy Servant now called to the Work and Ministry of a Bishop c. Answ This Objection seems to my Learned Friend Dr. Peter Heylin so very strong that he hath urged it in two several Treatises the one called Respondet Petrus p. 98 99. The other called Certamen Epistolare the particular Page I do not now remember But 1. In Dr. Hammonds Opinion it is so far from being evident to any one reading the Holy Scriptures that there were from the Apostles times these Orders of Ministers in the Church Bishops Priests and Deacons that he doth magno conatu endeavour to prove that from no Testimony of Scripture it can be proved that there were in the Apostles time any Priests or Presbyters in the notion in which the word Presbyter is now taken He thinks that in the Apostolical Writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth constantly signifie a Bishop and that all the Churches of which any mention is made in Scripture were gouerned only by Bishops and Deacons 2. The Doctor might have remembred what he pressed against Mr. Hickman That Apices Juris nihilponunt then would he not so confidently have urged passages in the Preface 3. At least he might have done well to consider that his so much magnified Objection is a stale one and hath received its Answer from Mr. Mason in the before-commended Treatise It most unhappily falls out that I have not the Book at hand but if my Memory fail me not more then ordinarily it doth the Author of the Necessity of Reformation gives you his full sense if not his very words That Book when it speaks of the making of Bishops calls that a Consecration not an Ordination as it doth when it speaks of making Deacons and Presbyters calling one the Manner and Form of Ordering Deacons the other the Form of Ordering Priests But when it speaks of the other it changeth this word Ordering and calls it the Form of Consecrating an Archbishop or Bishop which shews plainly that the Book of Ordination never means to make Bishops to be not only in Degree and Office of Prolocutor but in a distinct Order of Christ and his Apostles Institution superiour to a Presbyter Indeed the Preface doth not say these three Orders but only these Orders of Ministers and in the Prayer it is not said that the Bishop is called to the Order but to the Work and Ministry of a Bishop I had thought here to have concluded my first Argument But there is one Medium seems to me so considerable to prove that a Presbyter is of the same Order with a Bishop that I cannot omit it You know that it was required that a Bishop should be Ordained by three Bishops at least Yet Anastasius in the Life of Pope Pelagius tells us that he was Ordained An. Dom. 555. by two Bishops and one Presbyter who is by him called Andreas Ostiensis Doth it not hence manifestly appear that the Church at that time took a presbyter to be of the same Order with a Bishop and impowered in case of necessity to confer the very degree of Episcopacy At this Example the Learned Author of Episcopacy asserted is very angry and tels us p. 166. That Pelagius his taking in the Priest was but to cheat the Canon cozen himself into an impertinent Belief of a Canonical Ordination Pelagius might as well not have had three as not three Bishops and better because so they were Bishops the first Canon of the Apostles approves the Ordination if done by two But this is too slight a way of answering Antiquity We must not till we see better reason think that Pelagius and the two Bishops were so unworthy as to go about to put a cheat on the Canon or so wicked as to make use of an hand that being imposed signified no more then would the Imposition of a Lay hand Nor do I think that in those dayes it was counted an indifferent thing whether three concurred to the Ordination of a Bishop or no For the Council of Nice requires three at least and the consent of those that are absent signified by their Letter And Pope Damasus in his fifth Epistle to the Bishop of Numidia and other Orthodox Bishops hath these words quod Episcopi
non sint qui minus quam atribus Ordinati sunt ordinati Episcopis omnibus patet quoniam ut bene nostis prohibitum a sacris est partribus ut qui ab uâ—o vel a duobus sunt ordinati Episcopis nominentur Episcopi Si nomen non habent qualiter Officium habebunt And in the 16 Canon of the African Council at which were present no fewer then 217 Bishops it was decreed in haec verba forma antiqua servabitur ut non minus quam tres sufficiant qui fuerint a Metropolitano directi ad Episcopum Ordinandum And this usage they seem to have borrowed from the Synagogue for it was a fundamental Constitution among the Jews that Ordination of Presbyters by laying on of hands must be by three at least as may be seen Misna Gem. tit Sanhe cap. 1. By the way I desire you to take notice how our Episcopal Brethren deal with us in this controversie they call upon us to shew them an example of a Presbyter laying hands on a Bishop this case could not happen but in the defect and absence of Bishops for modesty will not permit a Presbyter to lay on hands Bishops sufficient to do the work being present and such defects of Bishops could be but very rare but once we find there chanced to be such a defect and then a Church of no mean denomination thought a Presbyter sufficient to do what a Bishop was to do Now when we bring this example they rail against it and say that it was done only in the want of a Bishop and it had better have been left undone My second argument to prove the validity of Ordination by Presbyters I 'le put into this form Either Ordination by Presbyters is valid or else something essential to Ordination is wanting in Ordination by Presbyters But nothing essential to Ordination is wanting in Ordination by Presbyters ergo c. The major is evident grounded on this plain Proposition that it is only some essential defect that can make a thing invalid or null he that wants either body or soul is no true man he that hath them is truly a man though he want many of the integral parts which concur to the integrity and perfection of a man The minor I thus prove if any thing essential to Ordination be wanting in Ordination by Presbyters it is either material formal final or efficient cause but neither of these is wanting ergo nothing essential is wanting Let the material formal final causes be what they will doubtless they may be found in Ordinations by Presbyters as well as in Ordinations by a Bishop only we are told there is not a due efficient cause for God hath appropriated Ordination to a Bishop and it cannot have its effect if performed by any other then him that hath attained Episcopal Dignity This being that foundation upon which the confidence of those who nullifie all Ordinations by Presbyters whether at home or abroad is built I shall take liberty to enquire 1. Whether if there were a Law of God appropriating Ordination ordinarily to a Bishop it would follow that all Ordinations without a Bishop are null 2. Whether there be any such Law of God appropriating Ordination to a Bishop As to the first I humbly conceive that if a Law could be produced appropriating Ordination ordinarily to a Bishop it would not follow that Ordination without a Bishop were alway invalid and null my reasons are 1. Because 't is generally agreed that Jus Divinum rituale cedit morali necessitas quod cogit defendit 2. I find that whereas by the Law the Priests were to kill the sacrifices yet at such a time when the Priests were too few the Levites did help them 2 Chron. 29.34 and neither God nor the King nor the people offended at their so doing 3. Baptisme is appropriated to the Ministers of the Gospel yet if at any time it were administred by a Midwife who neither was a Minister nor was capable of being made such such baptisme was not by us here in England judged a nullity yea 't is affirmed by sundry Schoolmen that if baptisme were administred by one Excommunicate it were valid and not to be repeated and either my notes do fail me or else this was the judgement of St. Augustine for Melancthon out of Austin ad Fortunatum tells us this story That two men were in a ship which was like to perish in a storm at Sea the one very godly but yet not baptized the other baptized but excommunicated there being no other Christian in the ship with them and they fearing they should be both cast away knew not what to do in that condition he that was not baptized desired baptisme by the hands of him that was excommunicate and he that was excommunicate desired absolution from the other whereupon the question was moved whether these acts were valid and good Austin answers they were and commends the actious I come now to enquire Whether there be any Law of God appropriating Ordination to a Bishop I say there is not if any say there is illi incumbit probatio he must proferre tabulas produce the place where such a Law is recorded For my part having read the Scriptures with my best eyes I could never find any such place nor could I ever meet with that Episcopal Divine who could direct me to such a place some have sent me to Tit. 1.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of late one hath ventured to tell us in print Mr. Sandcrof Ordination Sermon that this Text is as it were a kind of Magical glass in which an eye not blind with ignorance nor bleered with passion may see distinctly the face of the Primitive Church in that golden Age of the Apostles the platform of her Government the beautiful order of her Hierarchy the original and derivation of her chief Officers and their subordination both to one another and to Christ the great Bishop of our Souls in the last resort together with the manage and direction of the most important acts of Government both in point of Ordination and Jurisdiction too This learned mans phrasifying thus concerning his Text puts me in mind of that Impostor mentioned by Scultetus in his Annals who perswaded certain Noble men that he had adorned their Temple with very exquisite pictures but such as could be seen only by those who were begotten in lawful wedlock the Noble men lest they should be thought not lawfully begotten said that they very well saw that painting So here we are told of great matters that may be seen in this Text but only by those whose eyes are not blinded with ignorance nor bleered with passion and so men will be ready to say that they see these things lest their eyes should be judged under these sad distempers but I who have my conscience to bear me witness that I have often prayed for the eye-salve and Grace of the Spirit that my understanding may
neither be darkned with ignorance nor bleered with passion do ingenuously profess that I am not able from this Scripture to collect that the sole power either of Jurisdiction or Ordination doth reside in either Bishop or Archbishop For 1. It 's not improbable that Titus was left in Creet and acted there not as a fixed Bishop but as an extraordinary Officer an Evangelist 2. 'T is here said that Titus was left to ordain Elders but how as Paul had appointed him So that the question still emains how Paul had appointed him to ordain whether alone or with his Sym-presbyters Paul himself ordained not alone for ought appears for though he once spake of the gift that Timothy had received by the laying on of his hands yet elsewhere 't is called the gift received by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery If it should be said that this Presbytery was a company of Bishops who in that first age of the Church were called Presbyters there needs no other answer but that this is only said and not proved If it should be said that this Presbytery did only act associative and not authoritative which if I mistake not is the destinction and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the learned Bishop Prideaux in his Fasciculus I could easily reply that the terms are not opposite and that the gift and authority is plainly said to come by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery as well as by the laying on of the hands of the Apostle which answer will also serve to that evasion which is excogitated concerning the Canon of the fourth Council of Carthage Presbyter cum ordinatur Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenente etiamomnes Presbyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius teneant brought by Presbyterians to prove that there is an intrinsecal power of Ordination in Presbyters and that in the judgement of those who made that Canon the Bishop alone should not ordain Doctor Downham and another learned Doctor but lately dead would bear us in hand that this was only done for greater solemnity not as if the Presbyters had any power to confer orders but only to testifie their consent But can any one who is inquisitive after truth be thus satisfied Let any one instance be produced of any ones laying on of hands in Ordination only to testifie their consent The people did in the first and purest Ages testifie their consent as might be proved by six hundred testimonies yet were they never allowed to lay on hands in any Ordination of Presbyters or Deacons 3. I do much question whether if this example did every way fit and suit our Episcopal Ordinations it were sufficient to argue a Divine Right I know no party no interest no perswasion of men that count themselves obliged to conform to all Apostolical examples Object But Episcopacy is of Divine Right and if so what should be proper and peculiar to it if Ordination be not Answ In this objection you put me upon a new task which yet I will not decline and shall shew you First that our Prelatical brethren have not been able to prove Episcopacy to be of Divine Right Secondly give you my reasons why I conceive it is not of Divine Right 1. I say the Prelatists have not been able to prove its Divine Right to evince this I must examine the arguments brought by them Lately one preaching at St. Maries Oxon took an occasion where his Text offered him none to assert the Divine Right of Episcopacy in his Sermon he quoted a place out of the Old Testament in which the 72 Interpreters have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now quoth he had there been but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it had been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And some say that Elijah was Bishop of Samaria and we know that our Saviour was a Bishop and he made his Apostles Bishops and they made Timothy and Titus Bishops and therefore Episcopacy being founded on Old and New Testament I cannot but think it is Jure Divino for I cannot imagine that it was a Ceremony to be abolished at the coming of John Calvin Are you able to stand before this mighty argument doth not the reading of it cause a greater trepidation in you then ever was in the eighth sphere Well to cure you of your palpitation I shall tell you that the same Gentleman made Hernia to be a Feaver and yet Physitians notwithstanding are resolved to think it is bursted belliness and that Hercules brought the River Eridanus through the Augaean Stable and yet the unhappy School-boyes will say it was not the River Eridanus but the River Alpheus and therefore it is not impossible that the Gentleman might be out in his Divinity also and that he was so you will easily discern so soon as your fear is a little over I might put you upon too merry a pin if I should play upon all the weaknesses of this Theologasters argumentations and therefore I shall let it pass Take notice of those arguments which are brought to prove the Divine Right of Episcopacy by men of better learning and judgement having only premised this that a thing can be of Divine Right but one of these two wayes either by the Law of Nature or by some positive Law of God they that would go about to prove that either Prelacy or Presbytery or any other particular form of Church Government is determined by the Law of Nature would quickly bewray their weakness all the divine right that Hierarchy can pretend to must be founded upon some positive Law of God and must be either some Law under the Old Testament still obliging because not repealed or else some new Law made under the Gospel Our Prelatists love to have both these strings to their bow 1. They insist much on the inequality that was in the Tribe of Levi under the Old Law to prove that there should be still an inequality among Church-Governours under the Gospel the strength of which will soon be tryed if we first enquire what inequality there was in the Tribe of Levi it must be acknowledged that there was no universal equality in that Tribe the Priests doubtless were above the Levites being imployed in a neerer attendance upon Gods service 'T is also obvious that among the Priests there was a superiority Eleazer is by God placed over the Priests but then I judge as do most skilled in Jewish Antiquity whom I have met with that much if not all of this inequality which is so largely described Numb 3.4 did not belong to the Tribe of Levi as it was a Tribe consisting of persons called out for the service of God but as it was a Tribe Every one of the Tribes of the children of Israel had its chief father as may be seen Numb 34. The several families of the Tribe of Levi had their several heads and Eleazar was appointed to be the head
advantage the pretensions of those who ascribe a Jus Divinum to Episcopacy it must be proved that the in toto orbe decretum est doth refer to some Decree made by the Apostles and that the time of the Institution of Bishops was when it was said at Corinth I am of Paul c. Now that neither of these will ever be proved you will soon see if you read the Annotations of Blondel on the Text of Hierom. I pass now having only begged your pardon for my prolixity in this Second unto a Third Argument for proof of the validity of an Ordination by Presbyters it shall be drawn from the practice among the Jews and thus I form it If among the Jews any one that was ordained himself might ordain another then may Presbyters ordain Presbyters But among the Jews any one that was himself ordained might Ordain others Ergo. The Consequence of the Major is founded upon that which is acknowledged by most Learned men that the Government of the Church-Christian was formed after the Jewish Pattern Christ all along accommodating and lightly changing the Jewish Customes into Christian Institutions The Minor I prove there was among Jews as Dr. Lightfoot hath observed Harm p. 97. an Ordination with laying on of hands and without laying on of hands Maym. in Sanhed 4. How is Ordination to be for perpetuity Not that they lay on their hands on the head of the Elder but call him Rabbi and say behold thou art Ordained c. But there was also Ordination by the laying on of hands Take Ordination which way you will 't will never be proved that he who was himself in Office might not ordain another to the same Office For though we are told of a Constitution that none should ordain but those to whom leave was granted by Rabbi Hillel yet a principio non fuit sic To which purpose I shall only need to transcribe the words of P. Cunaeus one as well skilled in the Hebrew Rites and Customs as any that ever did write concerning them l. 1. de Rep. Heb. c. 12. Senatoria Dignitas quoniam amplissima erat nemini data sine legitimo actu est manuum enim impositione opus fuit quam Judaei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocant at Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dixerunt Ita Moses Josuae 70 Senatoribus manum imposuit qua solennitate peracta statim delapsus aetheriis sedibus Spiritus pectora eorum implevit hi porro in hunc modum initiati cum essent alios eadem lege auctoraverunt non tamen potuit is ritus extraterraem sanctam peragi quia vis ejus omnis conclusa Palestinae finibus erat Perinsigne est quod R. Maimonides tradidit in Halacha Sanh c. 4. Cum enimosim solennem hunc actum pro arbitrio suo omnes celebrarent quibus imposita semel manus fuerat coarctatum esse id jus a sapientibus esse ait constitutumque uti deinceps nemo illud usurparet nisi cui id concessisset divinus Senex R. Hillel is autem magni concilii princeps erat alterum sub se Praesidem habuit Sameam hominem truculentum ambitiosumque c. Tandem haec manuum impositio quae usitata diu fuerat recessavit recitatum tantum enim carmen quoddam conceptis verbis est The Learned Selden in his first Book de Synedr c. 14. takes notice of this and saith that St. Pauls creating of Presbyters was according to the Jewish custom of creating Elders that Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel as his disciple This Gamaliel was the Nephew of Hillel and Prince of the Sanhedrim at that time and therefore no doubt but he had created his Scholar Paul a Jewish Elder before he was a Christian and that afterwards when Paul became an Apostle knowing that the true Judaisme was by the appointment of God to be communicated to Gentiles as well as Jews and thinking that it was lawful to create Elders out of the Holy Land and that he and other Apostles were free from that new super-induced Law of not making Elders without the License of the Prince of the Sanhedrim and so the custom prevailed in creating Christian Elders that every one that was duly created himself might also duly create his own Disciples he did upon this account create or appoint Elders in every Church Acts 14.23 Dr. Hammond in his six Queries p. 344 345 346 347. mustereth up many Inconveniences which seemed to him necessarily to follow this Conjecture or Observation I cannot think my self obliged to defend Mr. Selden The Reverend Doctor granteth as much as I would wish viz. p. 349. That the Government of the Church was formed after the Jewish Pattern And p. 324. That Imposition of hands in Ordination so often mentioned in the New Testament is answerable to the laying on of hands used by the Jews when they did create Successors in any Power or communicate any part of their Power to others as assistants If all this be true why may not a Christian Presbyter ordain a Presbyter as well as a Jewish Elder ordain an Elder My Fourth Argument to prove the validity of Ordination by Presbyters shall be taken from the many Examples that do occurre in Antiquity of such Ordinations which were never reputed null and voyd I begin with that known place of Hierom in his Epistle to Evagrius Alexandriae Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclam Dionysium Episcopos Presbyteri semper unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant quomodo si exercitus Imperatorem faciat aut Diaconi eligant de se quem industrium noverint Archi-Diaconum vocent To this Testimony it is wont to be answered that only the Election is ascribed to Presbyters the Ordination might notwithstanding be performed by Bishops But the Question is not what might be done but was done And Eutychius published by Mr. Selden most plainly and expressely affirms that from the time of Mark the Founder of the Church of Alexandria unto Demetrius Bish of the same Church the several Patriarchs of the Church of Alexandria were chosen and ordained with Imposition of hands by the 12 Presbyters and that by special command from St. Mark himself To this the Learned Dissertator saith p. 177. Facilis est Responsio nullam hac in re Eutychio fidem deberi ut qui assertioni huic aperta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viam muniverit This is indeed an easie answer but a little too easie to be received by one who is awake to which nothing need be confronted save only this that some Credit is due in this matter to Eutychius And from him we shall go to those who speak concerning the Church of Scotland in her first Conversion Jo. Major in the Second Book of his History c. 2. writes that the Scots were instructed in the Faith by Priests Monks without bishops until the year of our L. 429. So as that that Church must needs
nothing remaines but that we commit our cause to God and till he see meet to plead it possesse our souls in Patience There are some Objections against the validity of a Presbyterian Ordination to be removed and then I shall exercise your Patience no longer 1. The first is grounded upon the Authority of two Fathers Hierom and Chrysostom Hieroms words are in his Epistle to Evagrius Quid enim facit Episcopus excepta Ordinatione quod non faciat Presbyter To answer this Testimony I might observe that they who produce it will not stick to it but are verily perswaded that there are many things besides Ordination which a Bishop may do that yet a Presbyter cannot do But I need not flee to so indirect an Answer For 1. Marsilius Patavinus in his Book which he cals Defensor Pacis takes the word Ordinatio to signifie quite another thing then the conferring of Holy Orders His words are these Ordinatio ibi non significat potestatem conferendi seu collationem sacrorum Ordinum sed Oeconomicam potestatem regulandi vel dirigendi Ecclesiae ritus atque personas quantum ad exercitium divini cultus in Templo unde ab antiquis Legumlatoribus vocantur Oeconomi reverendi 2. 'T is certain that somtimes the word Ordinatio doth signifie the external Rite or Ceremony used in Ordination viz. Imposition of hands if so it be taken here as why may it not I can grant that Ordination in many places was so managed it is freely confessed by Calvin Unum puta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vices sustinentem ut plurimum omnium nomine manus imposuisse 3. Grotius saith nothing hinders but that we may so interpret the place as that it shall mean no more then that Presbyters can ordain none in contempt of the Bishops 4. I finally answer that Hierom speaks not here of any Divine Law appropriating Ordination to Bishops but only of the Ecclesiastical custom that obtained in his age 't is as if he had said what is there now adaies done by a Bishop that a Presbyter may not do without Breach of Ecclesiastical Canons except only the business of Ordination He had before said that a principio non fuit sic originally the Presbyters might and did make the very Bishop himself The place of Chrys is in his 11 Hom. on 1 Tim. the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here again I might tell you that if this Saying of Chrysostomes must determine the Controversie our Prelatists must throw open that which they account the best part of their Enclosure they must acknowledge that the Presbyters have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they exceed the Presbyter in the Power of Order only not in the power of Jurisdiction 2. I could much weaken the Authority of Chrysostome as to the point of Ordination by acquainting you that it was one of the accusations made against that Father that he did engrosse Ordination to himself not taking in the assistance of his Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the words of his Charge in the Synod ad Quercum An. 403. But if these two Answers seem to you but shifts though why they should seem no more then shifts I wot not I reply thirdly that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word used by Chrysostom is ambiguous used by good authors in very different if not quite contrary significations as is noted among others by Suidas his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a Genitive case signifies to exceed or excell but with an Accusative to injure or do wrong Now if we should so render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here seeing it hath an Accusative case after it Bishops must from hence be concluded not lawfull possessors but usurpers of the power of sole Ordination If yet you are not satisfied I turn you over fourthly to Gersom Bucer who page 357 358. takes notice of this authority as placed by Bishop Downham in the margin of that Sermon which he took upon him to confute one of his answers is that Bishops are here made Superiour to Presbyters only by the voluntary election of their Sym-Presbyters or Colleagues not by any Divine Right he renders the words thus Sola-enim horum subaudi Presbyterorum electione ascenderunt atque hoc tantum plus quam Presbyteri videntur habere then the plain meaning is that the Presbyters for order sake do chuse some one to be their President and this is all that the Bishop hath above the Presbyters The second objection against the validity of Ordinations by Presbyters is taken also from Ecclesiastical Writers among whom we do find Ordinations by Presbyters pronounced null and void Of this nature there are three principally insisted upon the which before we particularly examine I shall crave leave to premise this one thing viz. that it is very manifest that Councels have pronounced some Ordinations null and void which yet could not be null in natura rei I instance only in the Councels of Chalcedon and Antioch pronouncing Ordinations though made by a Bishop to be void if the person ordained were ordained either without a title or in another Bishops Diocess yet such Ordinations are not nullities many examples of this nature are brought by the learned Blondell page 168 169. Now so it might be in the case of Ordinations by Presbyters and so it is by many averred that it was but let us hear the examples One Colythus a Presbyter took upon him being but a Presbyter to ordain Ischiras this Ischiras notwithstanding this Ordination was looked upon but as a Laick I answer there are so many dissimilitudes betwixt the Ordinations of Colythus and those Ordinations made by Presbyters which we contend for that from the condemning of his Ordinations no argument can be drawn to prove that ours ought to be condemned 1. Colythus acted not as a Presbyter but pretended himself to be a Bishop so do not our Presbyters 2. He acted alone whereas our Ordinations are not by one single person 3. He was an open declared Heretick 4. He that was ordained had no title he was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was not chosen by any Church but our Ordinations are not of sine-titular persons A second example is the case of Maximus who being no Bishop yet ordained Presbyters but all his Ordinations were by the Fathers assembled in Councel at Constantinople pronounced null Answ The story of Maximus is too large to be here recited see it in Blondell I say briefly that what was by the Synod determined against his Ordinations is not prejudicial to Ordinations made by Presbyters for as Blondell well if Presbyters had never so full power of Ordination yet had the Synod good reason to depose those who were ordained by Maximus because he was a Presbyter as well as a Bishop in the ayr never had he been ordained Presbyter either by Gregory or any other A third example is that of the blind Bishop who
did lay hands on one Presbyter and two Deacons but his Ordinations were pronounced invalid because not he but his Presbyters read the words of Ordination This was decreed saith Dr. J. Tay. Episcopacy asserted 182. by the first Councel of Sevill too hastily for it was done not by the first but second Councel of Sevill about the year 619. He that reads the Decree of those Fathers would think they were blinder then the deceased Bishop whom they condemned for what if the Presbyter did at the command of his Bishop read the words which the Bishop could not read doth this make the Ordination void by what Law either of God or man shall we say that the Judge with us doth not condemn the malefactor because he appoints the Clerk to read the sentence Be it as it will the Decree it self saith that the Presbyter in reading the words did only sin contra ecclesiasticum ordinem and we cannot think that an Ordination is presently void because all Ecclesiastical Rites are not observed in it Against these examples I might if it were needful bring the judgement of Leo Anno 452. in his Epistle to Rusticus Narbonensis but in this Master Stilling fleet hath prevented me page 380. The third objection against the validity of an Ordination by Presbyters is taken from the words of the Apostle Heb. 7.7 without contradiction the less is blessed of the better Answ This is so poor and pitiful an objection that I should never have named it had I not found it in the writings of some famous for learning When it is said that the less is blessed of the greater would they inferre that he who ordains must be greater then he who is ordained is before or after Ordination if he must be greater then he is after Ordination then a Bishop may not ordain a Bishop if they say he must be greater then the party is before his Ordination why so I hope a Presbyter ordaining a Presbyter is greater then the Presbyter ordained by him till he be actually ordained and so brought into the same order with him But I must come to that argument in which Dr. H. Ham. doth so triumph that he confesseth he was not acute enough to see what could be replied to it you will find it in his praemonition to the Reader before his Latin Dissertations he frames it into a Dilemna either Hierome had power to Ordain or he had not if he had why then doth he say Quid facit Episcopus excepta ordinatione quod non faciat Presbyter if he had not how come our Presbyters to have that power which he the Hyperaspistes of Presbyters had not I answer Hierome had power to Ordain taking in other Presbyters to his assistance what he meant by his Quid facit excepta Ordinatione I told you before But the same learned Doctor proceeds It shall suffice us to remember thee of one thing viz. that no Presbyter Ordained by Bishops here in the English Church had any power of Ordaining others bestowed on him and therefore can no more take any such power to himself then can a Deacon or a meer Laick Answ This profound Objection was as you know brought at a publick Act in Oxon. some years since and urged by a learned Doctor against one who maintained the validity of a Presbyterian Ordination it was then in the judgement of the hearers satisfactorily answered and so I doubt not but it will be now in your judgement I say those Bishops who Ordained Presbyters here in England did give them a power of Ordaining others whether they had any intention so to do I know not but this I say that he who maketh any one a Priest giveth him a Power of Ordaining and if when he is made a Priest he should through fear or ignorance promise not to Ordain if he should afterwards be convinced that as Priest he hath a power of Ordaining he ought to repent of his promise and it notwithstanding to joyn with his brethren in laying on of hands if either there be no Bishops or none that will ordain without imposing such subscriptions as contain in them matters very doubtful if not unlawful 2. The form of words used in ordaining a Presbyter in the Church of England is this Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou remittest c. did these words when used by our Lord Christ to his Disciples confer a power of Ordaining If they did not I then demand when and by what form of words was that power conferred on the Apostles If they did how come they not to convey a power of ordaining others unto the Presbyter in whose Ordination they are used If a man when he is made a Priest in the Church of England receive not a power of Ordaining others nor doth he receive it when he is consecrated Bishop for having read over the Form appointed for the consecrating of a Bishop I cannot find any words that give the Bishop a power of Ordaining except any one be so hypercritical as to imagine that Take the Holy Ghost impowers a person to Ordain and Receive the Holy Ghost doth not But why then do Presbyterians complain that the Bishops reserve the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction to themselves indulging to Presbyters only some inferiour Acts ab omni excusatione eos procul esse concludimus qui quas sibi neutiquam concessas conquerantur potestates sibi sic sacrilege arripiunt A. Presbyterians do not complain that they had such an Ordination as did not confer on them a power of Ordaining but they complain that they are not permitted the exercise of that power nor do they say that they have no power to suspend and excommunicate but that they are not suffered to put forth that power but only which the simplest Church-Warden may do to present scandalous offenders But it is further objected That when one is by the laying on of the hands of the Bishop advanced to the degree of a Presbyter an indeterminate and indefinite power is not by the Fathers of the Church committed to him but a power suis finibus fiquido dispuncta suis cancellis limitibus distincta dilucida actuum specialium ad quos admittitur enumeratione definita conclusa there is a particular enumeration of all the Acts unto which the power of a Presbyter doth extend among which there is no mention of creating of Presbyters and Deacons D. H.H. in his preface to his Dissertations Answ I answer that when one is made Presbyter an indefinite and indeterminate power is not given to him and that there is an enumeration of the particular acts about which a Presbyter is most conversant but deny that that enumeration was ever by the Church intended for a perfect enumeration 't is not said this thou hast power to do but nothing else if it were how comes a Presbyter to have power of voting in an Assembly or Convocation when he is called to it There is an enumeration of the
Acts of a Bishop among which there is no mention of ordaining Priests and Deacons may we thence conclude that the Bishop hath no power of conferring orders Obj. In our English Church before and after the Reformation it was alway held as an undoubted truth that Presbyters neither single nor in conjunction had any power of ordaining Deacons and Priests Id. ibid. Answ Strange confidence Was this ever held as an undoubted truth and that both before and after our Reformation What Confession of the Church of England saith so What one man eminent in our Reformation or before our Reformation said so Do not Usher Davenant Mason Field c. say Ordination by Presbyters is valid which it could not be if they had no power of ordaining For my part I shall as soon be brought to think there were no such men as Cranâ—â—er Peter Martyr Martin Bucer Jewel as to think that they judged that Presbyters had not power to make either Deacons or Presbyters I may now at last I hope conclude with the learned and industrious Gerhard Ex toto codice biblico ne apex quidem proferri potest quo demonstretur immutabili quadam necessitate ac ipsius Dei institutione potestatem ordinandi eo modo competere Episcopo ut si minister ab Episcopo ordinetur ejus vocatio ordinatio censeatur rata sin a Presbytero quod tunc irrita coranâ— Deo frustranea sit habenda Loc. Com. de Minis Eccles But methinks after all this I hear you say you are not satisfied because that when you talk with Episcopal men they constantly tell you that in receiving Ordination from Presbyters you go against the judgement of the Catholick Church for 1600 years and upward Let me ask you who are those Episcopal men that tell you so are they such as you can suppose to have read the most considerable books that were written in all ages of the Church For my part I have usually observed that those who thus boast of all Antiquity are very strangers to all Antiquity and never so much as saw the Fathers and Councels they so prate of If you are resolved to close with every one that saith he hath all the Fathers on his side you must presently turn Papist for who more pretends Antiquity for his opinions than doth the Papist But if you will not beleeve every one that pretends to have all Antiquity on his side then I hope you may think it reasonable to examine the Episcoparians pretences to Antiquity which if you will do you will find that prime Antiquity is no friend to such an Hierarchy as they now would obtrude upon us My advice to you is 1. That if it be possible and as much as in you lieth you would avoid all Disputations of this nature which I have but rarely observed to have any good success 2. If you cannot avoid Disputation then if it be possible confine your dispute to Scripture times Put him that contends for Episcopacy as earnestly as if the very being of the Church did depend upon it to prove the Divine Institution of it and assure your self that which cannot be proved out of the Scriptures is not necessary to the being of the Church 3. If you must needs enter into the lists about the Antiquity of your Opinion then my counsell is 1. Do not take every thing to be the saying of a Father which is quoted as such but forbear answering till you have time to examine whether that be indeed in the Fathers which is brought out of them For nothing is more common than for men in the heat of Disputation to lay the brats of their own brain at the Fathers doors 2. If you find that which is produced out of any Father to be indeed in him then enquire whether it were the intent of the Father to deliver his mind in that place concerning that matter for which his authority is urged For if we will gather the opinion of Fathers from passages let fall on the by we may easily make one Father contradict another yea every Father contradict himself 3. You must also enquire whether what a Father delivers be delivered by him as his own private opinion or as the opinion of the Church and if as the opinion of the Church whether only as the opinion of that part of the Church in which he lived or of the Universal Church If it be but his own private opinion and judgement you cannot think your self obliged to believe it except confirmed by strength of reason and evidence of Scripture If it be delivered as the opinion of the whole Church more reverence is to be given to it but then it is certain that the Fathers did humanum aliquid pati and sometimes affirm that to be Doctrine of the Church Universal which was far enough from being such These and many other directions are given to you by the Incomparable D'aillee in his learned Treatise of the Right use of the Fathers which Book is most heartily recommended to your reading as you are to the grace of God and guidance of his Spirit by Sir Your most affectionate friend and servant R. A. For his much respected Friend H. A. Minister as Postscript An Appendix VVHilst I was waiting for a fit Messenger to send you these Papers somthing fell out which is like to multiply your trouble viz. Mr. Humf. Book of Re-ordination came to my hands wherein he disputes Whether a Minister ordained by the Presbytery may take Ordination also by the Bishop and determines the question affir I was the more desirous to read over his Book because I find him in the very 2d Pag. intimating That since he had suffered himself to be re-ordained it hath pleased God to exercise his Spirit with many perplexities and that he doth not see what end the Lord had with him in his thoughts and workings of that nature unless it be that these throws as it were of his be for the delivery of somthing for one or other of his Brethrens satisfaction M. Humf. being a Scholar and having sought God often upon his knees for direction it would be somwhat unchristian to adhere to my former determination without so much as considering what he had written and printed against it And if I know any thing of my self I am able to say that I come to the examination of his Papers without the least prejudice against his Person or against his Tenent Nay I can safely say that I am hugely desirous to be his Proselyte But the eminent Mirandula hath taught me that which I also experimentally find nemo credit aliquid verum praecise quiavult credere illud esse verum non est enim in potentia hominis facere aliquid apparere intellectui suo verum quando ipse voluerit Though I would fain think it lawful to be re-ordained yet unless my Arguments to prove it unlawful be answered I shall never be able to change my mind This Learned Presbyter p. 3.
plainly tels us that repeating or doubling of Ordination is odd and uncouth in its first and naked consideration And p. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he affirms that he dare not justifie our Church-Rulers in the imposing of it by the way he may do well to consider whether his over-hasty submitting to re-ordination be not a virtual at least interpretative justification of those that require it But he faith also that he puts it in the number of such things as the necessity of convenience renders tolerable for the time p. 5. Notionally he suspects it is not good but morally he judgeth it an indifferent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good or bad though unequally as it is used I will not now enter into the dispute about things indifferent but will rather then quarrel grant this reverent Author and Dr. Sanderson that as there are indifferentia ad utrumlibet so there are indifferentia ad unum too that is things which though they be neither universally good nor absolutely evil yet being barely considered sway more or less rather the one way then the other There are some things which of themselves do notably and eminently incline unto evil rather then unto good so that if the Question were barely propounded to me whether they be evil I could not be blamed if I did indefinitely answer they are evil which things yet in some cases and circumstances may be lawful But for the present I must deny to this judicious Brother that the Re-ordination he perswades us to is such a thing as yet I think there is a moral evil in it and not only a notional phantastical or imaginary evil Here we might close and joyn issue but because he tells us that in his first Paper he only made scattered efferts and that he would more roundly and freely lay down his Opinion with a larger compass in the whole matter sect 2. we will attend his motion thither His four first Propositions I assent unto In his fifth p. 18. he distinguisheth between what Ordination is required to the setting apart a man to the Office of a Minister in the sight of God and what is requisite to the making him received as a Minister among men and give him Authority or full repute to exercise that Office in the Church or place where he shall be called He believes that Ordination by Presbyters sufficing but a little while ago to both sufficeth still to the former but seeing Ordination by a Bishop is necessary to the latter he thinks his being ordained by the Presbytery hinders not but he may be again ordained by the Bishop because he seeks not to be ordained by him to make him a Minister again but to have authority to use his Ministry and be received as such in Foro Ecclesiae Anglicanae For my part I readily acknowledge that he who is already a Minister may betake himself to a Bishop or to any one else whom the Magistrate shall appoint to procure a License to exercise his Ministry quietly but the question is Whether when I am made a Minister I may go and take another Ordination and that the very Ordination which the Church useth when those who before were no Ministers are made Ministers I encline to the Negative this Learned Casuist to the Affirmative In which Opinion he saith p. 19. he is a little justified because when he was ordained by the Presbytery the very words used at the point were Whom by the laying on of hands we set apart to the Office of the Ministry and in the Ordination by the Bishop they are Take Authority to preach the Word and minister the Sacraments in the Congregation where thou shalt be appointed that is in thy place Sure this can but a little justifie him in his Opinion for the words by him mentioned are not all the words that were used in his Ordination by the Bishop 'T was then also said Receive thou the Holy Ghost whose sins thou remittest they shall be remitted and whose thou retainest they shall be retained and several Prayers were used that did evidently imply him to be no Minister before He saith in the same place that the words used in Episcopal Ordination do confer the Ministerial power to the un-ordained but that hinders not but rather argues if they confer that the other too they may doubtless and actually do conferre one and can but the one only to such as are in his case All this sure makes much against him for if the Presbyterial Ordination leave him not capable of having any thing conferred upon him but only the free use of his Ministry in the English Church why will he submit to such a Form of Ordination as was purposely instituted to confer the very Ministry it self Why is the Right Reverend troubled to do that which is already done Why are such Prayers put up to God as manifestly suppose me to be no Minister when as I all the while suppose my self to be a Minister Let Mr. Humfrey but procure us to be ordained in such away as shall only license us to exercise that Ministerial Authority we already have and to be prayed for with such a Form of Prayer whose tendency shall only be to implore a Blessing upon us in the use of that Sacerdotal Function we have already received and then he need not doubt but we shall most readily and thankfully accept of it But till this be done let him not blame us if we keep our ground and chuse rather to lose the exercise of our Ministry for a season which yet is an affliction heavier then the Sands of the Sea then to take gradum Simeonis that I may allude to the Form of the Oath by which we are sworn when we are made Masters of Arts in the University Either I am mistaken or I have already suggested that which will help you to solve all Mr. Humfreys Arguments by which he laboureth to justified his submission to a Second Ordination Let 's try p. 21. He querieth What evil is there more in re-ordination then in second Marrying If it be required of me why may I not be ordained twice as well as once and thrice as well as twice if there be still reason sufficient Answ No Question if there be reason sufficient a man may be ordained every hour of the day but there cannot be reason sufficient for ordaining either a third or a second time to the same Office because the end of Ordination is attained by one Administration of it and the Church of Christ may do nothing in vain As for the Instance of second marrying by it is either understood marrying of a second wife when the first is dead and if so 't is strangely impertinent Or else a second solemnization of the former Marriage and then I say that no wise man that hath already been married in a lawful way will or ought to submit to such a Form of Marriage as supposeth him all the time before to have
though not instituted and inducted according to the letter of Laws in force before these most unhappy unnatural divisions In this Act Ministers rejoyce and plead it against those who disturb them yet do not think that they have been all this while Intruders and Usurpers Semblably would our Prelates so far consult either their own credit or the peace of the Church as to emit a general confirmation of all Ordinations by Presbyters provided that the persons so ordained be upon examination found sufficient such a confirmation would not only be submitted to but also most thankfully received for in so doing we should stop the mouths of gain-sayers and yet give no occasion to our friends to call into question the validity of any Ministerial Acts done by us all this while Nor would I in the least dislike it if our Bishops such of them as are holy and may be supposed to have any interest and favour at the Throne of Grace would when any are removed to a new charge call their Presbyters and pray for a blessing upon the endeavours of persons so removed yea and lay hands on them I am much mistaken or else such a practise may be warranted from Acts 13.2 3. As they ministred and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate now unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away You need not tell me that Chrysostome and some other Commentators of good esteem do understand this place of Ordination to an Ecclesiastical Office I know they do but yet seeing Paul was an Apostle before this time seeing he expresly affirmeth Gal. 1.1 that he was an Apostle not of men neither of man but by Jesus Christ seeing also 't is not said separate unto me for the office but for the work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereunto I have called I judge it most probable that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is there spoken of was not Ordinativa but Optativa Of this judgement is the learned Samuel Maresius in his Examen of some of the questions determined by our judicious Prideaux p. 32. So was Mr. Richard Vines in his excellent Sermon before the Parliament upon the day of humiliation for the growth of Errors Heresies c. p. 16. where you may find him also quoting Spalato lib. 2. de Rep. Eccl. cap. 2. parag 12. But this I say that he who hath once been ordained to the office and order of a Presbyter and knows himself so to be ought not by a second Ordination to be set apart to the same office This I prove to you 1. from the so called Canons of the Apostles Can. 67. Si quis Episcopus aut Presbyter aut Diaconus secundam ab aliquo Ordinationem susceperit deponitor tam ipse quam qui ipsum ordinavit About the Authority and Antiquity of these Canons I will not contend with you Dr. H.H. in his Reply to Dr. Owen p. 10. acknowledgeth that they were not written by the Apostles nor by Clemens at the appointment of the Apostles p. 12. and that his meaning in calling the second Canon genuine was only to intimate that it was not one of those 35 later Canons that were esteemed by learned men Novitii and Adulterate The truth is the opinion and esteem of the Latin and Greek Church hath been very differing and contrary concerning these Canons 'T is certain that the Synod assembled in Trullo Can. 2. speaks honourably of all the eighty five Canons for these are the words they use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John Damascen fears not to reckon them among and equal them with the divinely â—nspired books of the New Testament De fid Orth. lib. 4. c. 18. But a Synod at Rome about the year 494. decrees that these Canons as well the first fifty as the other thirty five are all spurious and to be reckoned among those writings quae ab Haereticis sive Schismaticis conscripta vel praedicata sunt quaeque nullatenus recipit Catholica Apostolica Romana Ecclesia Nor doth it signifie much that Dionysius Exignus who lived not long after that Roman Synod owneth fifty of those Apostolical Canons for he was as Mr. D' ailee hath noted p. 439. Homo ortu ac natu cultuque ac eruditione exterus and therefore was willing to set off those Canons the best he could to the Romanists yet seeing all these Canons are of some considerable Antiquity I thought it not amiss to quote one of them and let the Argument drawn thence fare as it will I argue secondly from the practise of our English Church If any one had received Ordination from the Papists though such an Ordination be very corrupt very superstitious yet because it was judged valid the party who had received it was on his Conversion looked upon as a Minister and admitted to exercise all offices ministerial without any new Ordination In like manner if any one in the Marian Persecution was ordained beyond the Seas I find not that it was required of him that he should be again ordained according to the form and mode used in the English Churches I could name you hundreds that were acknowledged as Ministers and suffered quietly to enjoy Ecclesiastical Benefices and to perform all sacerdotal offices meerly on the score of their Ordination by Presbyters beyond the Seas or in Scotland But lest I should be tedious I shall only mind you of one example related in the History of Scotland penned by A. Bishop Spotswood When some were to be ordained Bishops for Scotland at London-house Anno Dom. 1609. a question was moved by Lancelot Andrews Bishop of Ely touching the Consecration of the Scottish Bishops who as he said must first be ordained Presbyters as having received no Ordination from a Bishop the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Dr. Bancroft who was by maintained that thereof there was no necessity seeing where Bishops could not be had the Ordination given by Presbyters must be esteemed lawful This applauded to by the other Bishops Ely acquiesced and at the day and in the place appointed the three Scottish Bishops were Consecrated In which story I desire you to take notice that the ground of Bishop Andrews question whether they were not to be made Priests before they were consecrated Bishops was his supposition that having been ordained by meer Priests they were not Priests When it was once carried against him that the Ordination by Priests was valid and lawful he without scruple proceeded to the Consecration of them though never made Priests in the way that Priests are made in England I was also told that in the late conference before his Majesty when it was moved that they who had been ordained by Presbyters during the late distraction might not be compelled to take any other Ordination The Episcopal Divines refused to yield to that motion and being pressed with the judgement of Antiquity against Reordination they answered that
come to the Second Part of my Task which is to shew That Ordination by Presbyters is valid which I shall endeavour by these following Arguments 1. If Presbyters and Bishops be not different in Order then Ordination by Presbyters is valid But Presbyters and Bishops are not different in Order Ergo. The Consequence of the Major is founded on that Maxim so frequently used by the most Reverend Usher Ordinis est conferre Ordines Proposition so evident that it is acknowledged even by Dr. H. Ferne one of the greatest upholders of the lately declining Episcopacy in his Compendious Discourse Page 115 116 117 c. The Minor That Presbyters and Bishops are of the same and not a different Order shall be proved by as good Authority and Testimony as is produced or can be expected in a Controversie of this Nature viz. It shall be shewed that this was the general Sentiment 1. Of our Protestant Divines whether English or Transmarine 2. Of very Learned Famous Papists 3. Of Ancient Fathers living before some of the Controversies depending betwixt the Papal and Reformed Churches were in being In writing of the Judgment of such Divines as are commonly called Reformed and Protestant I might be large Indeed I scarce know one against me The Late Archbishop of Canterbury when he was to answer for his Degree did give this for one of his Questions An Episcopatus sit Ordo distinctus Affir But he was sufficiently checked for that Heterodoxy by Dr. Holland the Regius Professor as you may find in Mr. Prynnes History of him If you should be so curious as to ask whence Mr. Prynne had that Relation I can tell you he had it from Dr. Prideaux who was present at the Disputation I can further assure you that the Doctor of the Chair was so moved that he told his Wife when he came home that he had a Papist that day to answer under him in the Schooles Setting him aside and some violent Followers of his Protestants generally hold that a Presbyter and a Bishop do differ Gradu not Ordine I 'le not trouble you with Quotations from the Transmarine Divines lest you should say they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor yet will I transcribe any thing from Dr. Field or Dr. Whitaker or Dr. Rainolds because 't is yielded that these and several others held Episcopacy to be only some superiour Degree and Eminence Mr. Francis Mason renowned for his Defensio Ministerii Anglicani hath in a set Discourse maintained that Episcopacy and Presbytery are not distinct Orders and that therefore the Ordinations of the Churches beyond the Seas are good and valid Go we to the Times of King Edward the Sixth in which he Foundations of our Reformation were first laid You may gather from Mr. John Fox Vol. 2. Pag. 658. Edit London 1631. That that young Josiah by the Authority of his own Regal Lawes appointed certain of the most Grave and best Learned Bishops and other of his Realm to assemble together at his Castle of Windsor there to argue and entreat c. Much I have longed to meet with an Author from whom I might learn what was done at that Meeting but could not hear of any one hat had met with any thing that might give me or others satisfaction till of late casting mine eye cursorily upon a Piece Published by Mr. Edward Stilling fleet a very Judicious and Peaceable Divine I understood that by some singular Providence there came to his hands an Authentick M.S. of the Proceedings here From that we are assured that T. C. A. of C. afterwards Martyr gave it in as his Judgment That Bishops and Priests were at one time and were not two things but both one Office in the beginning of Christs Religion And from the same M.S. it further appears That the Bishop of Asaph Therleby Redman Cox all employed in that Convention were of the same Opinion that at first Bishops and Presbyters were the same Redman and Cox expressely citing with approbation the Judgment of Jerome Of the same Judgment undoubtedly were the Composers of that Tract called the Institution of a Christian man as may be seen in what they delivered about the then so called Sacrament of Orders In a word our Martyrs did so generally opine that Episcopacy was no superiour Order to Presbytery that Dr. Heylin in his Historia quinquarticular is Part 2. p. 17. doth on purpose caution us that we should not attribute too much to them or measure the Doctrine of our Church by them lest we should be forced to allow the parity or Identity rather of Bishops and Priests because John Lambert he might have named many others did so conceive In the Primitive Church saith he there were no more Officers in the Church of God then Bishops and Deacons that is to say Ministers as witnesseth beside Scripture St. Hierom in his Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul Whereas those whom we now call Priests were all one and no other but Bishops and the Bishops no other but Priests men ancient both in age and Learning so near as could be chosen nor were they instituted and chosen as they be now a dayes the Bishop and his Officer only opposing them whether they can construe a Collect But they were chosen also with the consent of the people amongst whom they were to have their Living as sheweth St. Cyprian But alack for pity such Elections are banished and new Fashions brought in By which saith the Doctor Truly if it may serve for a Rule our Bishops must be reduced to the Rank of Priests But falsely doth he add that then the right of Presentation must be put into the hands of the people to the destruction of all the Patrons in the Kingdom If I would produce all the Testimonies of the Learned among the Papists my Papers would swell to too great a Bulk D. Forbes the Scotchman who hath deserved well of the Hierarchy doth amply prove that it was the general Opinion of the Schoolmen that Episcopacy and Presbytery are the same Order See his Irenicum Lib. 2. Cap. 11. P. 154 155 156 157 158. You may also have recourse to Mr. Mason in the before commended Treatise concerning Ordination beyond the Seas by Presbyters This also did so much stick with Bishop Hall that he would not maintain Episcopacy to be a superiour Order though he were by Archbishop Laud much pressed so to do See the Letters that passed betwixt these two Prelates recorded by Mr. Prynne in Canterburies Doom Would you have me go higher yet to the Fathers that deserve more reverence then these Popish Schoolmen I might bring you Michael Medina a Pontifician Writer acknowledging that Chrysostome Jerome Ambrose were of the same mind with Aerius See him Lib. 1. De Sacrorum Hominum Origine Continentia Cap. 5. But because he is so severely chastised by Bellarmine for this concession c. 15. De Clericis I desire you to consider seriously and impartially to ponder what is
of these heads so that to prove any thing hence we must first suppose the Judicial Law to be in force which would gratifie the Anabaptists and some other Fanaticks more then we are aware of I demand would our brethren prove hence that as there was superiority and inferiority of offices under the Law so there may be or must be under the Gospel we 'll not contend for we can yield it to them without any detriment to the cause of the Presbyterians they have Presbyters and Deacons and the office of a Presbyter is by all thought to be above the office of a Deacon but I had thought they would from the Jewish pattern have endeavoured to prove the Bishops power of Jurisdiction and Ordination whence they will fetch that I wot not not I hope from the supereminent power of the High-Priest the type of Christ for then we shall bring in a Pope not from the superiority of the Priests over the Levites for the Priests had no Jurisdiction over the Levites they had the several heads of their families under whose jurisdiction they were as for any power of Ordination it could have no place the Levites coming to their honour without Ordination by succession besides in a case of necessity I proved before that a Levite might do the work of a Priest If our brethren will grant that a Presbyter may in such a case do the work of a Bishop we shall be neerer an agreement then as yet we are Thus have we without any great difficulty rid our hands of the argument drawn from the Old Testament Come we to enquire whether J. Ch. by any action of his did institute any such Hierarchy as is contended for that he did is thus argued by a learned Doctor Episco Asser p. 22 23. This office of the ordinary Apostleship or Episcopacy derives its fountain from a rock Christs own distinguishing the Apostolate from the function of Presbyters for when our blessed Saviour had gathered many Disciples who believed him at his first preaching Vocavit Discipulos suos elegit duodecem ex ipsis quos Apostolos nominavit saith S. Luke he called his Disciples Luke 10. and out of them he chose twelve and called them Apostles that was the first Election Posthaec autem designavit Dominus alios septuaginta duos that was his second Election the first were called Apostles the second were not and yet he sent them two by two We hear but of one Commission granted them which when they had performed and returned joyful at their power over devils we hear no more of them in the Gospel but that their names were written in heaven we are likely therefore to hear of them after the passion if they can but hold their own and so we do for after the passion the Apostles gathered them together and joyned them in Clerical Commission by virtue of Christs first Ordination of them for a new Ordination we find none before we find them doing Clerical Offices Ananias we read baptizing of Saul Philip the Evangelist we find preaching in Samaria and baptizing his Converts others also we find Presbyters at Jerusalem especially at the first Council for there was Judas sirnamed Justus and Silas and S. Mark and John a Presbyter not an Apostle as Eusebius reports him and Simeon Cleophas who tarried there till he was made Bishop of Jerusalem These and divers others are reckoned to be of the number of the 72 by Eusebius and Dorotheus Here are plainly two Offices of Ecclesiastical Ministers Apostles and Presbyters so the Scripture calls them these were distinct and not temporary but succeeded to and if so then here is clearly a divine institution of two Orders and yet Deacons neither of them Answ This is a marvellous discourse the tendency whereof I understand not I think that Christ did neither institute Bishops nor Presbyters in this first or second Mission Both these Missions seem only temporary and the 70 after their return remained in the nature of private Disciples till after the Resurrection they received a new Commission to preach and plant Churches and the twelve after this Mission must needs be but a kind of Probationers till Christ solemnly authorized them and gave them that plenitude of power which we find him not to do till after his Resurrection from the dead Mat. 28.18 Joh. 20.21 Of any power of jurisdiction or order that the twelve had over the seventy by virtue of their Mission there is not the least vola or vestigium in Scripture the seventy had their power immediately from Christ as had the twelve and their Commission was as full and large as was the Commission granted to the twelve as will soon appear by comparing Mat. 10. with Luke 10. I observe indeed from John 4.2 that Christs Disciples did baptize but see no necessity of restraining that phrase to the twelve who were called his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the Writers of the harmony of the Gospel do agree that this baptizing was before any Gospel Ministry was instituted yea before that Peter and Andrew James and John were called to be fishers of men that baptisme therefore might be administred by any of these that did usually accompany the Messias he appointing them so to do and so being chief in the action the learned Isaac Causabons words are considerable Etsi non Christus ipse sedejus Discipuli baptizabant Christi tamen non Discipulorum baptismus creditus est vocatus qua de re placet perelegantem Tertulliani locum proferre sic ille in libro de baptismo Sed ecce inquiunt venit Dominus non tinxit Legimus enim tamen is non tingebat sed Discipuli ejus quasi revera ipsum suis manibus tincturum Johannes praedicasset non utique sic intelligendum est sed simpliciter dictum more communi sicut est verbi gratia imperator proposuit edictum aut praefectus fustibus caecidit nunquid ipse proponit aut nunquid ipse caedit semper is dicitur facere cui praeministratur simile est quod Jurisconsulti tradunt videri eum facere qui per alium facit Besides Christ in his administrations did though in some things forsake yet in many if not in most things follow the Jewish mode and Mr. Lightfoot in his harmony of the New Testament page 18. tells us out of Maimony in Issure that to the Jewish baptisme it did suffice if there were but three though private persons present In a word we do not find that Christ before his Resurrection gave any order for the gathering of Gospel Churches and therefore gave not any power to his Apostles over them or any Officers belonging to them consider we therefore what he did when he was risen from the dead we find him appearing betwixt his Resurrection and Ascension seven times at the third time of his appearance he said to the Disciples John 20.21 As the Father sent me so send I you
should when the Churches necessity did require constitute Presbyters and have power over them This Intention must be manifested and declared from some passages in Scripture or else it will not by Protestants be looked on as a Law of Christ or as a thing of perpetual concernment to his Church For either the Scripture is a sufficient and full Record of Christs universal Laws or it hath not that Perfection which the Reformed in their Controversies with Catholicks do ascribe unto it But why do I stay so long about this The place produced out of Clemens Alexandrinus to prove that St. John in Asia instituted these secondary Presbyters proveth no such thing Read it and you will agree with me It is recorded in Eusebius l. 3. c. 23. after the Greek division In Mr. Hanmers English Translation 't is the 20 chap. As for the place in Epiphanius that so often occurs in Dr. Hammond of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1. 'T is a place very obscure and so unfit to build an Opinion on 2. It may seem to savour of the opinion of those who say there is no particular Form of Church-Government by divine right 3. It hath nothing in it peculiar to St. John It no more proves that St. John instituted second Presbyters then that St. Peter instituted such 4. I might tell you that as Ancient and Reverend Ecclesiastical Writers as Epiphanius when they have been ingaged have boasted of a false matter and talked of Records and Traditions where there were no such things You will now expect before I take my leave of the Arguments brought for Episcopacy that I should answer that brought from Succession For it is said that in all places Bishops did succeed the Apostles But this Argument I have alway accounted but slight such as will not weigh much with you if you consider 1. That the Question is not whether Bishops did succeed but whether Bishops exercising Jurisdiction over Presbyters 2. That the Catalogues that are brought of the Successors of the Apostles were made by conjecture and delivered down to us by men that lived at a great distance from the Apostolical times Read the ingenuous Confession of Eusebius l. 3. c. 4. If he so studious in searching into antiquity that he is by a Learned man of our own called the Father and Fountain of Ecclesiastical History was at such a loss in the matter of Succession at what a loss must they needs be that lived after him Lest this should seem a meer shift I will take notice of one Authority produced I think by almost every one who hath ingaged in the Episcopal Cause but most magnified by Dr. Jer. Taylor in his Episcopacy asserted These are his words p. 79 80. I shall transcribe no more testimomonies for this particular but that of the General Council of Calcedon in the case of Bassianus and Stephanus Leontius the Bishop of Magnesia spake it in full Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The splendid Name of the General Council of Calcedon made me curious to enquire into the very bottom of this Testimony I have so done and thus I find the matter to stand The Calcedonian Council was called by the Emperour Martian Anno 451. or 452. or 454. as some compute In it saith Dr. Prideaux Matters were mostly transacted by favouring Parties between Leo the first of Rome and Anatholius Patriarch of Constantinople Let that pass In the 11th Action of this Synod I find in Binius and Crabbe that Leontius did use the words that are quoted from him But what was this Leontius A man saith the L. Brooks in his Discourse of Episcopacy p. 66. whose Writings have not delivered him Famous to us for Learning nor his exemplary Holiness mentioned by others famous for Piety Surely not of Credit enough to sway our Faith in this Point because he is contradicted and convicted of falshood by Philip a Reverend Presbyter of the Church of Constantinople and by Aetius Archdeacon who instance in divers others besides Basilius that had been Ordained by the Bishop of Constantinople So that the General Council of Chalcedon proves to be the Testimony but of one man and of one who was either ignorant of the Truth or else did love Falshood In a word what is it in antiquity from whence out Episcopal Brethren will argue the Divine right of Episcopacy From the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We will grant that all along from the Apostles times there have been those in the Church who were called and might not unfitly be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bishops But we deny that those whom the Ancients did call Episcopos were Bishops in our sense i.e. We deny that they were looked on as having the sole power of Jurisdiction and Order Let the Prelatists prove that for 1500 years or for 800 years Presbyters have been looked upon as poor inferiour Creatures having only power to preach the Word and not to administer Discipline I for my part promise faithfully to yield the Cause and my heart would even leap for joy that I were so conquered For I do assure you it goes more against the hair with me to put forth one act of Discipline then to study twenty Sermons Are our Brethren offended with us that we argue from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture and will they argue from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ecclesiastical Writers That is not fair play But I shall now give you my Arguments to prove that Episcopacy is not of Divine Right and they shall be two The first I shall cast into the Form of a disjunctive Syllogisme thus If Episcopacy be of Divine Right then either the Romish or the English Episcopacy But neither the Romish nor the English Ergo none at all As for the Major it contains a sufficient enumeration For though there be Episcopacy of a different mode exercised in other places yet that Episcopacy which is established in the Roman Churches and the Reformed English Church doth most pretend to Divine Right You dodbtless will deny my Minor and say that our English Episcopacy is of Divine Right But I prove it is not thus If our English Episcopacy be of divine Right then either all the Circumstances and Appendages are of Divine Right or only the substance of it But neither Ergo. All the Circumstances or Appendages of it to be sure are not Jure Divine 1. their way of Election is not jure divino ther 's no Command of Christ for a Conge d'eslire I would not be thought to say that the Magistrates interposing in making of Church-Governours is against the Law of Christ I only say that ther 's no Law of Christ requiring that the Civil Magistrate should either make Bishops or require others to chuse I add that we have no Primitive Example of such a thing as a Conge d'eslire Rather we find that all Bishops were made and chosen not without the consent and suffrage of the Clergy
and all the people over whom he was to praeside and govern I confess I had thought as to the people this had been plain from the Epistle of Clemens ad Corinthios The words are these Pag. 57. Edit Junianae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But Dr. Hammond hath rendred the last words applaudante aut congratulante Ecclesiatota and saith upon the Phrase by way of Parenthesis Disser 5. p. 278. Nihil hic de acceptatione totius Ecclesiae sine qua Episcopos Diacones ab Apostolis Apostolicis viris constitutos non esse concludit D. Blondellus quasi qui ex Dei jussu approbatione constituebantur populi etiam acceptatione indigere putandi essent The Grammatical sense and meaning of this Parenthesis I think I understand but the Purport and Drift of it I cannot guess at The blessed Clemens saith that Church-Officers were made the whole Church applauding or consenting Is there nothing in this Phrase from whence Blondel might conclude that Bishops and Deacons were not then made without the Acceptation of the whole Church It may be I shall be able to find out the meaning of the Learned Doctor by his Reply to Dr. Owen In that thus he expresseth himself p. 86. Blondel made the peoples acceptation a sine qua non a necessary condition affirming that Bishops c. were never constituted by the Apostles and Apostolical men nisi unless they had this which I suppose makes the peoples acceptation praevious to the Apostles Act For if it followed after it can be of no moment the Act of the Apostles was compleat without it and stood valid without it and though it was most happy when it followed yet still this as any other consequent must be accidental to the Constitution of Bishops as that which advenit enti in actu existenti comes to it when it is is no way required to or constitutive of its Being 'T was no doubt the Opinion of Blondel that the Peoples consent was praevions but I do much question whether any such thing can be inferred from the word nisi used by him p. 11. of his Apology and I see not but that so much may be fairly inferred from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not say the phrase doth necessarily import so much for I might properly say that the King was Crowned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though the Consent of the City be not Conditio sine qua non of his Coronation But if either Law or Custom did require that the King should not be Crowned except the City of London did consent then if I should say that he was Crowned consentiente amni Civitate all would say and think my Meaning was that the Consent of the City was first asked and obtained before he was Crowned Now this is our Case we are sure from the 6. of the Acts the Apostles would not ordain any to the Office of Deacons till the Disciples had chosen them nor do we find that ever they did otherwise except happily where God himself made the Choyce therefore Clemens his Genitive put absolutely may well be thought to imply so much But I need not much contend about Clemens his Meaning Cyprian a very ancient Father and pious Martyr is plainer then that he can be eluded I 'le not transcribe all that he hath said to this purpose but yet enough to prove the Point out of that 68 Epistle sent to the Clergy and people of Spain in answer to a Question propounded to the African Churches Plebs obsequens Praeceptis Dominicis Deum metuens a peccatore praeposito separare se debet nec se ad sacrilegi Sacerdotis Sacrificia miscere quando ipsa maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi quod ipsum de Divina auctoritate descendere videmus ut Sacerdos plebe presente sub omnium oculis deligatur dignus atque idoneus publico judicio atque testimonio comprobetur sicut in Numeris Dominus Moisi praecipit dicens Apprehende Aaron fratrem tuum Eleazarum filium ejus impones eos in montem coram omni Synagoga exue Aaron stolam ejus indue Eleazarum filium ejus Aaron appositus moriatur illic And not long after Propter quod diligenter de traditione Divina Apostolica observatione observandum est tenendum quod apud nos quoque fere per Provincias universas tenetur ut ad Ordinationes rite celebrandas ad eam Plebem cui praepositus ordinatur Episcopi ejusdem Provinciae proximi quique conveniant Episcopus deligatur Plebe praesente quae singulorum vitam plenissime novit uniuscujusque actum de ejus conversatione perspexit quod ut apud vos factum videmus in Sabini Collegae nostri Ordinatione ut de universae fraternitatis suffragio de Episcoporum qui in praesentia convenerant quiq de eo ad vos Literas fecerant judicio episcopatus ei deferretur manus ei in locum Basilidis imponeretur How horribly Pamelius is put to it to reconcile the Papal Ordinations to the several expressions of St. Cyprian in this Epistle you may see in his Annotations and in the Replies of Simon Golartius to them which also will sufficiently fortifie you against the in this case I hope I may say it without offence trifling and weak Objections of the Author of Episcopacy asserted p. 273 274. 2. I suppose it will not be said that there is any Divine Law requiring that our Bishops should be Lords have Votes in the Upper House of Parliament and exercise Temporal Dominion and Jurisdiction in their Diocesses Rather it may be questioned whether any of these be so much as lawfull The Work of an ordinary Presbyter much more of an English Bishop requires the whole man Who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. 2.16 The Apostles put off from themselves the very burden of distributing to the necessities of the poor Acts 6.4 And Paul laies it down as a general Rule 2 Tim. 2.4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this Life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a Souldier Shall I plant two or three of the Canons called Apostolical against our Prelates medling with secular affairs Can. 6. vel 7. Episcopus aut Presbyter aut Diaconus nequaquam seculares cur as assumat sin aliter dejiciatur And the 82. vel 83. Episcopus aut Presbyter aut Diaconus qui militiae vacaverit simul utrumque retinere voluerit tam officium Romanum quam functionem sacerdotalem deponitor Quae enim Caesaris sunt Caesari quae Dei Deo Read also the 7th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon but especially the 66 Epistle of St. Cyprian in which you shall find the Holy Father puritanizing to purpose Hugo Grotius is but of yesterday yet because he is much magnified by our Prelatists I shall account it no lost labour to transcribe somthing
out of him upon the 12 of Luke 14. These are his words Si quis expendat quantum sit negotii sermonem divinum recte dispensare quod ut facerent ipsi Apostoli tanto instructi spiritu curam Pauperum aliis delegavere facile intelliget quosvis alios potius adhibendos componendis privatorum controversiis quam eos quos docendi munus occupat Est quidem horum imo horum praecipue discordias praecidere sed si in brevi admonitione fieri possit quomodo Onesimum Philemoni reconciliat Paulus non si causae ambages discutiendae magno temporis dispendio constabit res paucorum 3. Nor can it be thought that it is of divine right that Bishops should delegate their power of Jurisdiction to Chancellors Commissaries and other Lay-Officers Rather again 't is questionable whether this be not flatly against the Law of Christ To be sure 't is contrary to the practise Primitive as is acknowledged even by B. Downam one of the greatest sticklers for Episcopacy See his Defence of his Sermon L. 1. I believe therefore it will be said that only the substance of our Episcopacy is of Divine Right Well what is that One W. C. at the end of that Discourse Printed at Oxom called Confessions and Proofs of Protestant Divines that Episco c. hath these words If we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals we shall find it no more but this an appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocess Then belike if one be not of eminent sanctity and sufficiency he is no Bishop cui non convenit definitio c. But to let this pass one man 't is said must have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocess Well but how big must this Precinct or Diocess be Must it be the whole Christian world as the Pope saith or will it suffice that it consist of 2 or 3 Parish-Churches For this I am told by Mr. Sandcroft p. 21. That the Apostles preached the Gospel not only in Cities but in the Countries adjoyning yet planted Churches in Cities still and setled single persons their Successors there to govern both the cities Regions round about from whence a City a Church come to be equipollent terms even in the Apostolical Writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 14.23 the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 1.5 And yet further that they left the Churches of inferiour Cities and their Bishops in dependance upon the Metropolis which were the cheife according to the civill division and that the only true ground of the Superiority of one Church above another hath been rendred as manifest as any thing almost in Ecclesiastical Antiquity against all Adversaries both those of the hils and those of the Lake too by the Learned and well placed Labours of those excellent persons in both pages of the Dipticks whom I shall not need to name since their own works praise them in the gate And p. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the standing Rule and failes nor a City and a Bishop generally adequate one to another For as on the one side an Universal Bishop with the whole world for his Jurisdiction is a proud pretence too vast for Humanity to grasp so on the other side Rural Bishops too is a poor and mean design and not only retrives the Italian Episcopelli so scorned at Trent but worse p. 2.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non in vicis aut villis aut modica Civitate No Bishops there lest they grow contemptible so run the Canons of the Ancient Church both Greek and Latine and therefore the Twelfth Council of Toledo unmitred one Convildus formerly an Abbot in a little Village and dissolved the Bishoprick which Bamba the Gothick King had violently procured to be erected there and that by this Rule of the Church and the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of my Text which they actually plead in the Front of their Decree to justifie their Proceedings But with reverence to so Learned a man be it spoken much of this seems to be delivered with more Confidence then Truth And indeed before we can gather the Divine Right of any particular Form of Government from Apostolical Practise we must first prove the Universality of that Practise We must evince that not some few but all the Apostles did so practise Now I think it huge difficult if not impossible from any credible Records to make out what Order and Method was observed by all the Apostles in their planting of Churches it being but very little if any thing that is said by Historians concerning some of them 2. If we could prove universality of Practise we must also prove that such universal practise was not upon some grounds proper and peculiar to those Times in which the Apostles lived Well I for my part will take no advantage from either of these two Considerations but yet will give you my Reasons why I cannot look upon the Platform by him laid down as Apostolical 1. It savours strongly of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which were undoubtedly far from any one of Apostolical Spirit For seeing the Gospel was preached in Towns as well as Cities let us imagine that by preaching of the Gospel five hundred were converted in a Town but one hundred in a City would it not be a sinful accepting of persons to appoint the hundred Citizens a Bishop and to leave the five hundred without a Bishop It matters not whether this case did ever actually happen 't is plain it might have happened and we may argue a possibili And let any rational man say whether it be probable that this is an Apostolical Institution that Peterborough and Ely should have a Bishop resident in them Northampton Leicester Cambridge none 2. This model is destructive to Episcopacy it self for if this be an Apostolical Institution that there should be no Bishops but in Cities then if it should seem meet to any Christian Magistrate to have no Cities in all his Territories we must have no Bishops if he should see meet to make all Cities equal we must have no Archbishops or Metropolitanes We know that lately a certain thing that called it self the Supreme Authority of England did uncity Chester suppose this had been done by a lawful Authority so as that it could not have been recalled the Church of England would have been loath to have lost a Bishop yet she must if this be true that no City no Bishop Or what if our King by the advice of his Councel should make every market Town in England and Wales a City must our Bishops presently be multiplied according to that proportion 3. 'T is plain that in one City there was more Bishops then one plain from Scripture for S. Paul writes Phil. 1.1 To all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with
the Bishops and Deacons To this I know it is replyed that Philippi was a Metropolis and so in writing to the Bishops in the plural he would be understood of all the Bishops in inferiour Cities subject to that Metropolis But I affirm there is no ground for such a reply Philippi was not a Metropolis but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we learn from Theophilact But it is said this description belonged to it as anciently it was not as it was when the Apostle did write to them If once it were no Metropolis how can it be proved that it was such at the writing of this Apostolical Epistle forsooth from Acts 16.12 the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But this is too obscure and ambiguous a place to build an opinion upon the best Criticks not agreeing concerning the Syntax here used If any thing can hence be gathered that may prove Philippi a Metropolis it will be either its being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or its being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for its being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will not prove any thing of that nature for there is no necessity of rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief City it may as well signifie the first for scituation this way very learned men go particularly Zanchius in his Commentaries on the Philip. Against this it may be objected that not Philippi but Neapolis was the first City of Macedomia but perhaps Neapolis was not urbs but pagus perhaps it belonged rather to Thracia then Macedonia These two answers are hinted by Causabon but a more satisfactory answer is suggested by Zanchius I 'le transcribe his words though somewhat large that the doubt may be wholly removed Neapolis civitas est ad mare ex adverso Thraciae Inde venitur ad flumen quod Strymon vocatur ultra quod flumen est urbs Philippi Fluvius autem Strymon ut ait Plinius terminus est Macedoniae hoc est ejus partis quae Thraciam versus spectat ex quo fit ut prima cis Strymonem fluvium in continenti urbs Macedoniae sit ipsa urbs Philippi atque huc spectavit Lucas in Actis consentanee cum Plinio aliis Prophanis Scriptoribus loquens Coeterum licet terminus dividens Macedoniam a Thracia esset sit ille flavius Strymon tamen Neapolis quoque quae erat ultra fluvium ad Mare pertinebat ad Macedoniam confinium quoddam erat Macedoniae Thraciae hoc sibi voluerunt Prolomaeus Plinius alii cum inter urbes Macedoniae primo loco posuerunt Neapolim Philippi prima urbs est Macedoniae si verum terminum spectes fluvium sc Strymonem dividentem Macedoniam a Thracia non fuit autem simpliciter prima sed ipsa Neapolis fuit prima si quae etimm ultra Strymonem ad Macedoniam pertinentia complectaris But seeing it is called a Colony it must needs be a Metropolis I answer if it had been the only Colony in Macedonia we might have thought it probable that it was a Metropolis in the civil sense but it was not the only Colony as is evident from History Further the officers before whom Paul was brought ver 19 20. of this Chap. make it somewhat more then probable that the Proconsul of Macedonia had not his residence at Philippi and 't is evident that Thessalonica was the Metropolis of Macedonia in the civil sense Thessalonica Metropolis est utnorunt omnes Macedoniae so we find it was in the Ecclesiastical sense also some hundred of years passed ere Philippi had the honorary title of a Metropolitan Church Indeed I think I might have spared my self and you all this trouble for I believe it never came into your head to think that when the Apostle writes to the Church of Philippi he intended to write to a-any more then the Christians and Officers of that City of Philippi for had he intended it to all the other Churches that were in Macedonia then must the Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians be intended to all the Churches of Macedonia and so the learned Annotator fears not to assert that he may make the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of 1 Thes 5.12 be Bishops and yet not grant a plurality of Bishops in one City But do you try to carry on this notion throughout the whole Epistle and you will make strange work The Apostle 1 Chap. 1. salutes the Church of the Thessalonians commends their faith and charity and receiving the Word in much affliction so as that they were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia ver 7. and he meant in ver 1. by the Church of Thess all the Churches of Macedonia then he must in ver 7. say that the Christians of Macedonia were ensamples to the Christians of Macedonia If I would descend to Ecclesiastical History I would not thank any man to grant me 1. That there have been Bishops in Villages and Towns or at least in Cities not so populous not so wealthy as many Market Towns among us are Basilius Caesareae Cappadociae fuit Episcopus Gregorius autem Nazianzenae civitatis omnino vilissimae quae est posita vicina Caesareae Histo Tripar lib. 7. cap. 22. libro 9. cap. 3. we find one Maris made Bishop of Dolicha which was but a little City Of what a poor place Spiridion was Bishop may be seen lib. 1. cap. 10. and lib. 6. cap. 4. there 's a most famous history of Maioma continuing to have a Bishop even when it ceased to have any longer the priviledges of a City In Ireland S. Patrick is said to have setled 365 Bishopricks at the first plantation I scarce think there were then so many Cities 2. That there have been two Bishops in one City Vid. Possid in vita Aug. 3. That sometime there was but one Bishop to many Cities examples are too obvious and common to be produced We in England are not without some Presidents of this nature If Councels be produced against this you will remember that Councels mostly consisting of Bishops they may be looked on as parties forward enough to establish any thing that might make for their own pomp and grandure Lastly whereas it is so confidently affirmed that the Apostles did leave the Churches of inferiour Cities and their Bishops in dependance upon the Metropolis I do with some confidence reply that there is no sufficient proof for such an assertion I do not in my poor reading find that the proof of it from Scripture hath been much attempted only he whose diligence nothing is wont to escape argues by comparing Acts 16.1.4 with Acts 15.2 I shall give you his words as he himself hath Englished them to us Ans to D. Owen p. 195. According to the Image of the Civil Government among the Jews and the like again in their Temple the Apostles appear to have disposed of Churches every where and in all their plantations to have constituted a subordination and dependance of the