ordeining others It does not follow from the Notions of those times § VII Nor from the reason of the thing § VIII IX The Principles on which these Persons proceeded in making on◠Order of Episcopacy and Presbytery did not oblige them to believe that the Power of ordeining others was a right of simple Presbyters § X XI XII XIII XIV Answ. 4. They who then held this Opinion did in all likelihood neither intend nor think of any consequence from it prejudicial to the establishments then received § XV XVI p. 491. CHAP. XXIV This supposition That the Bishops had the right of Presiding over Ecclesiastical Assemblies sufficient for our purpose § I. 1. In regard of that Power which must be granted due to him even as President This proved by these degrees 1. Even by the Principles of Aristocratical Government no Power can be given but by the act of that Body wherein the right of Government is originally seated § II. 2. No act can be presumed to be the act of that Body but what has passed them in their publick Assemblies § III. 3. No Assemblies can dispose of the right of such Societies but such as are Lawful ones according to the constitutions of the Societies § IV V. 4. The Indiction of the Assembly by the President is a right consequent to the Office of a President as a President and a circumstance requisite to make the Assembly it self Lawful § VI VII 5. The Bishops have always been the Presidents of Ecclesiastical Assemblies even as high as our Adversaries themselves do grant the practice of Presiding Presbyters § VIII IX This invalidates the Orders of our Adversaries § X. This was a right which no Bishops how great Assertors soever of the Identity of their Order with that of Presbyters ever did renounce or could renounce without making their Government unpracticable § XI Though the Bishops had received their Power from their Election by men yet that would not suffice to make valid any acts of the same men without their consent after their Election § XII XIII This right of Presidency might hold though the whole right of their Power had been purely Humane § XIV But supposing that right Divine all that men can do can be only to determine the Person not to confine the Power The reasoning here used will proceed though Bishops had been made by Presbyters alone without the concurrence and consecration of other Bishops § XV. The Primitive Bishops seem indeed to have been made so by Presbyters without Bishops § XVI p. 508. CHAP. XXV 2. The Nullity of the same Ordinations proved even from the Principles of Aristocratical Government from the right which Episcopal Presbyteries ought to have in giving Orders as they are considered as Presbyteries § I II. This proved by these degrees Though a Presbyter when he is once made is a Presbyter in the Catholick Church yet the reason that makes him so is the correspondence of the whole Catholick Church with that particular one of which he was made a Member at his Ordination § III IV V VI. 2. Hence it follows that he who cannot validly make out his Authority in the particular Church in whith he pretends to have received his Orders cannot in reason expect that the Exercise of his Authority should be ratified in other Churches who cannot thus be satisfied that he has received them § VII 3. The Church by which the validity of the Orders of every particular Presbyter must expect to be tryed must not be a Church that derives its beginning from him but such a one as must be supposed settled and established before he could be capable of any pretensions to Orders Applied to single Presbyters § VIII To whole Presbyteries made up of over-voted single Presbyters § IX X XI 4. No Orders can be presumed to have been validly received in any particular Episcopal Church as Presbyterian without the prevailing suffrages of the Presbyteries § XII A smaller over voted number of Presbyters cannot validly dispose of the common rights of the whole Presbyteries § XIII XIV XV. The Power given in the Ordination of a Presbyter is a right of the Presbytery in common by the Principles of Aristocratical Government § XVI XVII XVIII XIX An Objection Answered § XX XXI XXII Another Objection Answered § XXIII XXIV Retorted § XXV The reason of the Retortion given § XXVI p. 525. CHAP. XXVI 2. The Episcopal Communion to which every one is obliged to joyn himself as he would secure the ordinary means of his own particular Salvation is the Episcopal Communion of the place wherein he lives whilest he lives in it § I. This proved against the several sorts of the Non-Conformists according to their several Principles § II. 1. As to the Presbyterians and those who acknowledg an Obligation of Government antecedently to the consent of particular Subjects And that by these degrees 1. That by the obligation of Government in general all those particulars must be obliging without which it cannot be practicable § III. 2. Many of the Presbyterians themselves do acknowledg the determination of particular circumstances and the Application of general rules to particular cases to belong to the Office of Ecclesiastical Governours § IV. 3. It is absolutely necessary for the practicableness of Government in general that every Subject know his Governour and him particularly to whom be in particular owes Obedience § V. 4. The means whereby every particular Person may be convinced to whom it is that he in particular owes Subjection must be such as may be presumed notorious to the whole Community and such whereof others may judg as well as the Person particularly concerned and by which they may judg as well concerning his Duty as their own § VI. 5. The Authority of these means must be from God § VII VIII Two Consequences inferred from hence 1. Positive That they must be under a Divine Obligation to own the Authority of these Jurisdictions whilest they live within them § IX 2. Negative That from this Divine Authority of Jurisdictions they must find themselves obliged to forbear all opposite Communions or Assemblies within those Jurisdictions § X XI XII Application made particularly to the Presbyterians § XIII 2. As to the Independents who deny all Ecclesiastical Authority antecedently to the voluntary obligation of particular Persons § XIV XV. That there is really a Power of Government in the Church § XVI That this Power is not derived from the Multitude § XVII XVIII p. 547. CHAP. XXVII 2. That the nature of this Obligation to submit to all unsinful conditions of the Episcopal Communion is such as will make them guilty of the sin of SCHISM who will rather suffer themselves to be separated than they will submit to such conditions The Notion of SCHISM as it is only a breach of correspondence not sufficient for my purpose § I. As it is a breach of a Body Politick it is Application to our Adversaries § II. That by the Principles
which he is known to believe as a condition necessary in his circumstances to his being a Bishop he must think himself obliged to intend This observation will prevent all the Arguments by which themselves are perswaded that the Power of Ordination ought to be given to every Presbyter which they think the Bishop ought to will also and therefore that he ought to be presumed to will it if he be presumed to will as he ought It is his actual good intention that we are concerned for at present And that must not be presumed from Principles disputed but from Principles already and notoriously granted by him § VIII 4. THEREFORE in this way of judging of the actual intention of those Bishops who ordeined the first Separatists there can be no more prudent and secure measure than to consider the Notions then prevailing concerning the power of Presbyters especially those which were fundamental to all the Canons that were then in force as the Rules of Practice of this power These are most likely to have been taken by them for the measures of their Conscience And indeed the Canons were introduced into practice by a universal consent either when they were made or when they were received And they who received power yet were obliged to those Canons as to the exercise of it and therefore if they were either perswaded of the truth of the prevailing Opinion or were true to the obligations they had taken for the observance of the Canons these we have reason to presume to have been the measures of their consciences and therefore we have also reason further to suppose their practices such as might agree with these on supposition that they acted conscientiously And though possibly some particular persons might have entertained singular Opinions yet it is not so secure to presume his conveyance of Orders to have been fitted to his singular Opinions not only because it is not so easie to presume that any particular Person did follow a singular Opinion when the generality were so agreed in another nor only in regard of that resignation of Judgment which in those Ages was thought excellent in point of conscience on which account many thought themselves obliged to follow the sentiments of their Superiors in contradiction to their own but also because the validity of Succession depends on the practice and sense of the Generality of all places and Ages but especially of all Ages And though a particular person might intend differently from the rest of his Brethren yet he could give no more than himself had received and what that was depended on the intention of his Ordeiner which again will be best presumed from the sense of the Generality Only the supreme power is that which can never be presumed to have been confined At least this is a presumption that the Bishops then acted according to the Opinions and Canons then generally received unless they expresly declared themselves to the contrary Their silence is so far from being an Argument of their being of another mind as that it is indeed a very strong presumption in this case if in any of their consent If they continued silent when it so much concerned them to speak their minds that people might know the power they intended to give the Persons ordeined by them they must expect that people would understand them according to the received Opinions and therefore we have reason to presume that they themselves were desirous to be so understood § IX BUT whatever were the sentiments of the primitive Church concerning the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters originally whatever also they thought concerning the fitness that the power of Ordination should be given to bare Presbyters yet it is notorious that the contrary Opinion and Practice prevailed in the Church universally when the first dividing Presbyters whoever they were were ordeined and for many hundred years before even very near the times of the Apostles if we may believe the concurrent suffrages of the most learned Antiquaries of our Adversaries They do not deny and indeed the matter of Fact is too notorious to be denied by men of any ingenuity that whether they ought to be so or not yet actually Bishops were then distinguished from Presbyters and distinguished in this very particular that the power of Ordination was reserved as a Prerogative of the Bishop and never communicated to simple Presbyters Nor was it only their practice to do so but their Judgment that they ought to do so on account of Conscience It is very notorious that at least a little before the Reformation Aerius and the Waldenses Vid. Alphons à Castr. adv Haeres verb. Episcop and Marsilius of Padua and Wiclef were condemned for Hereticks for asserting the Parity of Bishops and Presbyters And it is withal as notorious that every Bishop was then obliged to condemn all Heresies that is all those Doctrines which were then censured as Heretical by that Church by which they were admitted to be Bishops and how odious also the name of Heresie was then even on account of Conscience I mention even these because whatever their Doctrines were in other things and how far soever they might go to justifie a separation from them who taught those Doctrines yet our Protestants themselves do not pretend to any Succession in these Western parts where themselves received their Orders but what was conveyed to them even by such Bishops as these were nor do I use their Authority for proving the Truth of their Doctrine in their censure of this particular Heresie but only to clear what their actual intention was in the Orders given by them for which it is sufficient that they themselves thought them true whether they were mistaken or not in thinking so However this is so acknowledged to have been believed and practised in the Ages we are speaking of as that the very Presbyterians themselves do charge them with differing herein from the sense of the first times because the Bishops had and exercised a Superiority over Presbyters which they conceive they had not in the Apostolical times They therefore call them Humane Bishops in opposition to the Scripture Bishops whom they conceive not to have been distinct from Presbyters And could the Bishops be no Scripture-Bishops because they were distinct from Presbyters And were not their Presbyters as much distinct for the same reason from Scripture-Presbyters because they were distinct from Bishops If this consequence hold why do they challenge the power and priviledges of those Scripture-Presbyters when they are so different from them If it do not why do they asperse the sacred Order of Episcopacy in modern Ages with such a deviation from the Primitive Rule § X HOWEVER this being notorious that the Bishops of the later Ages did actually think they ought to be distinct and distinct in this very particular of Ordination how is it probable that they would give all that power to Presbyters that should leave no distinction between them that
his own Order that can perform the Ceremony to him because we suppose him to be supreme and there cannot be two such in one Society And if he must depend on the supreme powers of the neighbouring Societies for an investiture so that he could not be validly invested without them this would both be dangerous in suspicious times and would besides be very prejudicial to the liberty of the particular Society for which such a Governour were concerned § XVI AND therefore I for my part am so little solicitous for any consequence that may hence be inferred to the prejudice of my Cause as that I am apt to think that this must have been the way observed at first in the making of Bishops how absolute soever I conceive them to have been when they were once made and how invalid soever I think the actings of Presbyters would be which were done without his consent after his Consecration though they were those very Presbyters by whom he had been Consecrated And I wish our Adversaries had Authorities suitable to their confidence either better than conjectures or if no better yet more ancient than the time of St. Hierome whose contemporary he was who wrote the Commentaries under the name of St. Ambrose much more than the very exceptionable testimony and Age of Eutychius This seems best to agree with the absoluteness of particular Churches before they had by compacts united themselves under Metropolitans and Exarchs into Provincial and Diocesan Churches as the word Diocese was understood in the Eastern parts in the language of that Age. And this seems to have been fitted for the frequent Persecutions of those earlier Ages when every Church was able to secure its own Succession by its own power without depending on the uncertain opportunities of the meeting of the Bishops of the whole Province And the alteration of this practice the giving the Bishops of the Province an interest in the choice of every particular Colleague seems not to have been so much for want of power in the particular Churches to do it as for the security of the compacts that they might be certain of such a Colleague as would observe them whose Communicatory Letters they might therefore not scruple to receive when they had first by their own act satisfied themselves of the trustiness of his Person before his Consecration However the matter was I cannot but think that it was the interest of the neighbouring Bishops in the correspondence of every particular Bishop that first occasioned and procured their interest in his Election Nor can I tell how the Succession could have been so secure otherwise unless every Bishop had named and constituted his Successor in his Life time for which they had precedents in the Successions of the Philosophers in imitation whereof I have already observed how probable it is that these Ecclesiastical Successions were framed But then withall as that way was uncertain so when the Philosophers failed to nominate their own Successors then the Election was in the Schools But this would even then only warrant such acts of those Presbyteries which held correspondence with their own Bishops and with the Episcopal Communion but in these modern Ages it can only excuse those to whom the power was returned by the Bishops who had been peaceably possessed of it for many Centuries before This I note that it may not be drawn into a precedent now any further than it is fit and reasonable CHAP. XXV The Nullity of the same Ordinations proved from the right of Episcopal Presbyteries as Presbyteries THE CONTENTS 2. Even from the Principles of Aristocratical Government from the right which Episcopal Presbyteries ought to have in giving Orders as they are considered as Presbyteries § I II. This proved by these degrees 1. Though a Presbyter when he is once made is a Presbyter in the Catholick Church yet the reason that makes him so is that correspondence of the whole Catholick Church with that particular one of which he was made a Member at his Ordination § III IV V VI. 2. Hence it follows that he who cannot validly make out his Authority in the particular Church in which he pretends to have received his Orders cannot in reason expect that the exercise of his Authority should be ratified in other Churches who cannot thus be satisfied that he has received them § VII 3. The Church by which the validity of the Orders of every particular Presbyter must expect to be tryed must not be a Church that derives its beginning from him but such a one as must be supposed settled and established before he could be capable of any pretensions to Orders Applied to single Presbyters § VIII To whole Presbyteries made up of overvoted single Presbyters § IX X XI 4. No Orders can be presumed to have been validly received in any particular Episcopal Church as Presbyterian without the prevailing suffrages of the Presbyteries § XII A smaller over-voted number of Presbyters cannot validly dispose of the common rights of the whole Presbyteries § XIII XIV XV. The power given in the Ordination of a Presbyter is a right of the Presbytery in common by the Principles of Aristocratical Government § XVI XVII XVIII XIX An Objection answered § XX XXI XXII Another Objection answered § XXIII XXIV Retorted § XXV The reason of the Retortion given § XXVI § I BUT 2. There is also another just exception against the validity of our Adversaries Ordinations even from the right of Aristocratical Government and that is from the right of their Fellow-Presbyters as well as themselves If we should allow the right of Ordination to Presbyters as Presbyters as our Adversaries desire yet that will not justifie the validity of the Ordinations of single Presbyters no nor of a smaller part in opposition to the greater by which it is over-voted And our Adversaries cannot defend their Ordinations at present any better than by the single acts of particular Presbyters over-voted by the greater part of the Presbyteries of which they were originally Members Their first Ministers which began the separation were much the smaller part of the respective Presbyteries to which they were related And though they might if they had continued in the Communion of the Church have had their single votes in all the acts of Government and the disposal of all the Offices which by the practice then obteining were allowed to the whole Presbyteries yet they could never have obteined that the Offices disposed of by their single votes must have been validly disposed of and ratified by the rest by whom they were over-voted And sure they cannot expect to be gainers by their unpeaceableness that their single votes must be esteemed of greater value out of the Church than in it that they who could not have made Presbyters in the Church against the prevailing vote of their Brethren should be allowed to make as many as they please on condition they will divide from their Brethren and make themselves the Heads
had behaved themselves seditiously in their single capacities would not do so also when they were united and when their common interest still obliged them to do so when they might thereby so much better their disadvantages in their respective Presbyteries It is the humour of such Persons to unite against a common Adversary at least for a time how seditious soever they might be otherwise And certainly they might expect better condescensions from Persons as criminal as themselves who had themselves also many unreasonable things to be born with than from their more innocent equals who had Justice on their side much more than from their Superiors And what could any Ecclesiastical censures signifie if they who had been ejected singly might be thus allowed to confederate themselves into a Communion and a Presbytery independent on those from which they had been ejected Who would value Excommunication or Deprivation when they might so easily restore themselves into a condition as good as that from which they had been ejected and might at the same time so easily revenge themselves on those by whom they had been ejected by setting up another Government within their Jurisdiction whose acts must also be accounted as valid as their own These things shew that such a precedent of Presbyteries erected out of Persons over-voted in their particular Presbyteries would be injurious to the common interest of Government in general though the form were every where Presbyterian as well as to those particular Governours by whom they had been ejected and to those in whose Jurisdiction they were assembled And its being against the common interest of Government is as has been observed a great presumption that it is against Justice also § X BUT besides this presumption the same reasons of exception lye against the Justice of such a Presbytery as against the acts of single Presbyters I mention not the Canons that forbid all Churches to receive the Excommunicates of each other that put Communicants with them into the same condition with the Excommunicates themselves that deprive them all of the Communion of all those Churches who maintein a correspondence with each other in the observation of those Canons I mention not that common interest which at first induced the Governours of particular Churches to agree upon those Canons and obliges all even those that never received nor heard of those Canons yet to be determined by them in their practice on the same account as all even the most barbarous Nations are obliged by the Law of Nations though never explicitely received by them because these are as necessary for the common interest and correspondence of Ecclesiastical as the other are for those of Civil Societies Which consideration must extend the ratification of the censures of particular Churches to the Catholick Church as the Law of Nations is common to all Nations so that the Excommunicates of every particular Church must be so to the Catholick Church also And then sure it will be hard to understand how they who are de Jure out of the communion of all Churches can yet be in the Catholick Church or how they who have no right to be members of any Church can by their meeting together become a Church and become capable of Ecclesiastical Authority Which reason will in the consequence of it reach Schismaticks as well as Hereticks how little soever it be observed by our Brethren who are very little used to take in the rational rights of Government in general in their disputes concerning the Government of the Church § XI BUT besides the same reasons invalidate the acts of these Presbyteries which were urged against the acts of single Presbyters among them Whatever may be thought of such a Multitude of over-voted Presbyters in a Heathen Country where the right were primi occupantis yet where a Government is already possessed their encroaching on that must be as invalid as if they should take upon them to dispose of the goods of such Persons as were in actual possession whatever might be thought of what conveyances they might also make of goods that were under no propriety And the reason of these two cases is so exactly the same as the conveyances of power must in such a case be as invalid as the conveyance of property Besides according to the nature of Government which admits of no competition within its own Jurisdiction strangers how numerous soever immediately become Subjects by living in the Jurisdiction of another whatever they be in their own and that with this disadvantage also beyond the natural Subjects of the place that they can have no interest in so much of the Government as the Natives of the place may pretend to where the Government is Democratical And the acts of such Subjects how numerous soever must be invalid in matters of Government Now in this I believe our Adversaries will find themselves deeply concerned They who pretend to the most regular Ordination of them since the defection who were not immediately ordeined by Bishops can only say that the Presbyters by whom they were ordeined had received Episcopal Ordination and that they were ordeined by a full Presbytery of such Presbyters not of the greater part of the settled Presbytery of the place where they were ordeined or of any other but only of a Multitude of particular Presbyters from several parts who were over-voted in their several respective Presbyteries I believe they cannot give an instance in any place where the greater part of a settled Presbytery revolted from the Bishops to them I am sure they cannot justifie their ordinary successions by such Ordinations § XII AND 4. As the order of Presbytery which would be allowed in the Catholick Church must first appear to have been validly received in some particular Church and that particular Church must on the Principles now mentioned be some Episcopal Church as Presbyterian so no Orders can be presumed to have been validly received in such a Church without the prevailing suffrages of the Presbyteries Let none be surprized at my speaking of an Episcopal Church as Presbyterian I do it only that I may in dealing with our Adversaries accommodate my self to their Notions It is therefore certain that in the Ordination of Presbyters after the Episcopal way the Bishop does not lay on his own hands alone but has the assistance of several other Presbyters who are present to lay on their hands together with him On this account it is that several of our Adversaries who are sensible of their obligation in interest to do it do justifie the validity of those Orders they have received by Episcopal Ordination They consider the whole act only as the act of an Episcopal Presbytery and consider the Bishop himself in that act only as an ordinary Presbyter who cannot lose the power he has as a common Presbyter by being made a President of the whole Presbytery Yet in that act they consider him only as an ordinary Presbyter because they think it would
Damasus wherein he so extols the See of Rome seems to have recommended him to the counterfeiter of the Roman Council under the name of Gelasius not long before the time of Isidore Mercator as the Authority of that Council in Isidore's Collection might recommend him downwards as soon as that bundle of Forgeries had once prevailed universally All the use that I make at present of these insinuations is that if it be suspicious whether the men who then followed these Principles did embrace them out of a sincere sense of their Truth then they cannot be presumed to have been Principles of Conscience Which if they were not this is sufficient to shew that they are not fit measures of the Power that was actually given by the Bishops of that Age. § VI AND though they had been received more universally than it appears they were among the Multitude yet how is it likely that it was so received among the Bishops themselves Is it likely that they would be generally so partial to an Opinion so destructive of their common rights as Bishops Is it likely that they would be so partial when there was no evident prevailing consideration in point of Conscience that might induce them to it when it was a matter of dispute even among disinterested Persons and debated by Arguments and Authorities at least as considerable on their side as on the others If any particular Bishops had been so strangely partial against themselves and thought themselves obliged in Conscience to be so yet sure there is no reason to make use of it as a presumption to judg of the minds of them who had not otherwise declared their minds expresly and to judg of them universally And yet it has appeared that the whole use of this opinion for judging what Power was actually given is only as a presumption and even this presumption is useless concerning others than the Bishops None but they pretended to the Power of giving Orders at least not to the exercise of that Power And therefore whatever any else thought besides the Bishops is very impertinent to our present purpose because it can give us no assurance what was actually intended by the Bishops and it is only their intention by which we can in prudence judg what Power was actually given by them § VII BUT let us suppose that which in prudence can never be supposed that the Bishops of those Ages were universally of this opinion that their own Order was the same with that of Presbyters yet it does not thence follow that they must have given Presbyters the Power of Ordination It neither follows from the Notions of those times nor from the reason of the thing And sure we cannot better judg of a matter of this nature than by one of these two ways It does not follow from the Notions of those times For even they who thought them to be the same Order yet made them different degrees and that not only from the custom of the Church but by Divine Right also But it could not have appeared how they could distinguish them even in degree but by allowing something in practice to the Superior degree as a peculiar Prerogative and there was nothing thought so a So Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hâ—res lxxv 4 And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. And St. Chrysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 init Hom. ii in 1. ad Tim. p. 289. peculiar to the Episcopal degree as this power of Ordination This was the very particular excepted by St. Hierome b Quid enim facit exceptâ Ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat Ep. 85. ad Euagr. himself even where he most of all pleads for parity in other things I know there are of our Brethren who understand St. Hierome's words not of the original right of appropriating ordination to them as left to them by the Apostles but of a priviledg actually allowed them by the practice of the Church in that Age wherein he wrote which I shall not now dispute It suffices that he made no mention of Ordination among the instances of their parity nay that he expresly excepts this particular among his other proofs of the identity of their Office without telling expresly on what right it was that he made the exception which were very fair occasions to induce them to believe that he did not intend to give them the power of Ordination especially when it was withal notorious and confessed by himself that he lived in the Communion of a Church wherein Presbyters were debarred from the exercise of this Power It suffices that they who in that Age followed his Authority were not obliged by any of their designs in promoting his opinion to understand him of a parity in the power of Ordination nay never seem actually to have understood him so whatever other sense has been applied to him by those who have more subtilly considered him in our present Age. It is not St. Hierome's true opinion that I am now concerned for but that of those who might then have followed him If they never understood him of a parity between Bishops and Presbyters in the power of ordination If they did not really believe them equal in this particular if they actually believed that this distinction of degree was from the Apostles and that this power of ordination was the peculiar Prerogative of the Superior degree then certainly they who then followed St. Hierome might notwithstanding if they maintained these things also together with his opinion thinks themselves obliged never to give the power of ordination to the Presbyters that were then ordeined by them So far our Brethren are from any solid ground of a presumption that such a thing was ever intended for them § VIII AND as this consequence was far from being owned in the actual sense of those times so neither will it indeed follow from the opinion of these Persons that simple Presbyters had any right to a power of Ordination Though they believed Episcopacy to be the same Order with Presbytery yet their acknowledging a difference in degree was enough to hinder them from confounding the peculiar rights of the several degrees and this we see was taken for the peculiar right of Episcopacy Though they conceived no new Character to have been imprinted in the Consecration of a Bishop yet withal they confessed that the Character of his Presbytery was extended And why may not this extension extend his Power also at least to some Acts to which he had not Power before Nay certainly this very thing was intended by them that it should actually do so And if so then certainly this extended Power must have implied an addition of Power above what was in it before it was so extended Whence it will plainly follow that this Power of Ordination to which the Episcopal Character was extended was wanting in them whilest they were simple Presbyters that is before it was so extended And therefore they who were of
of a popular party § II THIS is not allowed in any Societies of the like nature Though the Aldermen of Corporations have a power together with the Mayors to dispose of the Offices belonging to their respective Corporations yet if the whole Table shall meet by themselves in separation from the Mayor and in opposition to him however they might over-vote him if he had been present and their assembly lawful yet what they should do in the Case we are now supposing would be a perfect Nullity and unobliging to the Corporation But if any single Alderman should separate from all his Brethren also and should of himself undertake to dispose of the things or Offices of the Corporation could any of our Brethren themselves approve them in it Could they think the Offices so disposed of by them validly disposed of Could they think the Corporation obliged to ratifie them And yet it is strange that they should not see how like this Case is to that of their own Predecessors The first Ministers they had ordeined in the separation were ordeined by such Presbyters as these and by such an act as this now mentioned And their whole Succession since that time has been mainteined generally on no better a Title This representation of their case may possibly affect some popular capacities better than the naked reasons But that the more judicious among them may see that my desire it to deal fairly and candidly with them and not to represent their cause more invidiously than it deserves or to take any advantage that may be taken from a false representation of it I shall endeavour to reduce the reason to a more close way of management under the following considerations which I shall intreat our Adversaries to consider impartially § III 1. THAT though a Presbyter when he is once made is a Presbyter in the Catholick Church yet the reason that makes him so is the correspondence of the whole Catholick Church with that particular one of which he was made a Member at his Ordination By his being a Presbyter in the Catholick Church when he is once made I do not mean that he may canonically exercise his Power in all particular Churches where he may have occasion to come without dependence on the respective Governours but that the exercise of his power in his own Church is to be ratified over the whole Catholick Church in general that they are to suppose the Sacraments administred by him to be validly administred and that therefore they are not to rebaptize Persons baptized by him when they come to live among them nor to refuse their Communion to such to whom he thinks fit to give it nor to receive to their Communion those who are excluded from his and that they are also so far to ratifie the Authority received in his own Church from those who had power to give it him as that if they think fit to permit him to exercise his power within their Jurisdiction they do it without pretending to give him a new Authority but only a new Licence and that where-ever he can exercise his Authority without Canonical injury as in Heathenish or Heretical Countries where no Canons do oblige ratifie all his acts of power the same way as if he had performed them within his own Canonical Jurisdiction This is more than is observed in civil Societies One Country is not bound to confirm the censures of another they are neither obliged to banish their exiles nor to receive their Countrimen to the same priviledges among themselves which they enjoyed in their own Country nor to receive their Magistrates to exercise power among themselves without a new Commission which may give them a new power which the Authority of their own Country was not able to give them § IV AND the reason why I level my discourse against the power that the Presbyters of our Adversaries may pretend to on account of their being Presbyters of the Catholick Church is because this is the only pretence that they can plausibly make for the validity of what they do Canonical Licence they cannot so much as pretend to for exercising their power within the Jurisdictions of others without their leave And it has already appeared that they can make out no Succession from the Apostles but what must originally have come from Episcopal Ordination That therefore they should expect that the exercise of a power received from the Bishops yet exercised within their Jurisdiction without the Licence of the Bishops nay contrary to their express prohibition should be counted valid how unlawful soever must be from the irrevocableness of the Authority at first received by them and the unconfinedness of the design of that power antecedently to those Canons by which it was afterwards made irregular in its practice Were it not for the nature of the unconfinedness of this power they could not pretend to any right to exercise it out of the Jurisdiction of him who gave it them nor even within that Jurisdiction without his leave And therefore if this will not do it they can have nothing that can defend their Vsurpations from being invalid as well as uncanonical § V AND that this correspondence of the Catholick Church with that particular one in which he was ordeined is the true reason why all other Churches are obliged to ratifie the acts of every particular Presbyter will appear if it be considered that by his Ordination in his own particular Church he can have no Jurisdiction given him over any other which is not under the Jurisdiction of that particular Church from which he has received his Orders And therefore the reason why they are obliged to confirm his censures cannot be any Authoritative deference they owe to him such as Subjects owe to even their fallible Superiors even in matters wherein they think them actually mistaken yet so to practise as if they thought them not mistaken but purely their own actual conviction concerning the reasonableness of the thing it self because they either know or presume it to be fit that his censure should be confirmed But this reason of the thing would not hold were it not that his Church and theirs are in those things the same and as they give the same advantages so they require the same qualifications which whoever is presumed to have in one cannot by them by whom he is presumed to have them be at the same time presumed to want them in the other In other Societies where the priviledges conferred are proper to the Society the qualifications are so too And therefore though one Society be really satisfied that a Subject has deserved well of another and that he has deservedly received his reward for his eminent deserts from that Authority which had power to give him it and therefore that he has a just title to a reward yet are they not obliged in any reason to give him the same honour in their own For the nature of these Societies are so little
must be a right of the Presbytery in common according to our Adversaries Principles who conceive Government to be a right common to them I do not know whether our Adversaries themselves will think it necessary for me to prove If the supreme visible Government of the Church be the right of such Presbyteries in common not of particular Presbyters singly considered I cannot conceive how such a Government can be practicable unless the valid investiture of subordinate Governours be also appropriated to them § XVII I AM not concerned whether they will here allow the power given at the Ordination of a Presbyter to be a proper power of Government It suffices at present that the power given to particular Presbyters is as properly a power of Government as that is of the whole Presbyteries The power of the whole Presbyteries is only an Aggregate resulting from the valid Succession of the particular Presbyters whereof it consists And the power of Administring the Sacraments which is given to particular Presbyters at their Ordination is that on which their power of Government is grounded That is the reason which obliges all private Persons to submit to the Presbyteries and to all their lawful impositions because God has put it in their power to exclude refractory Persons from the ordinary means of Salvation And as far as this power of administring the Sacraments is granted to particular Presbyters when they are ordeined Presbyters so far also it is put in their power to exclude private Persons from the Sacraments by refusing to perform their Office to them Only because this exclusion by a particular Presbyter does not hinder other Presbyters who have as great a power as himself who should exclude one from performing their duty to a Person so excluded and the exclusion does oblige the Person excluded to submission no further than as he cannot hope for the benefit of the Sacraments without the consent of his excluder therefore it can only be to the whole Presbytery that every Member of a Church can be obliged to submit because it is the Presbytery alone that can oblige all to ratifie their censures so that the Sacraments cannot at all be gotten without their consent They can â—â—lige their own Members to ratifie them by vertue of the Subjection which each of them owes to the whole Community And they can oblige all other Churches and Presbyteries to ratifie their censures by vertue of that correspondence which all Churches and Presbyteries are obliged to maintein with each other on account of their common interest But still this does not hinder but that the power of particular Presbyters must be of the same kind with the power of the whole Presbyteries though it be not of the same extent which on the Principles now mentioned is sufficient to appropriate the disposal of it to the common right of Government § XVIII AND as by the former Argument it has appeared that de facto no such power was actually designed for them by their first Ordeiners as is at present exercised by our Brethren in their separation so by this later Topick it appears that it does not de jure belong to them by vertue of any thing given them by the Episcopal Presbyteries though we consider them as our Brethren are willing to consider them in this act of Ordination only as Presbyteries or at the utmost only as Presbyteries with a President which cannot make any substantial difference much less can the honour of presiding lose the President any of that honour which belongs to him as a single Presbyter Which I therefore observe that our Brethren may see how unjustifiable their Ordinations are upon any terms Though this power had been designed for them by their Ordeiners or though their being made Presbyters by their Ordeiners did as they think confer this power upon them really how little soever it was designed for them yet neither of these pretences can be available if their acts were not valid acts of the Presbyteries If they were not they could not give what they did intend to give them because they could not confer a valid legal title to that which was not their own to give So far must they be in such a case as this from giving really more than they intended to give If they think it usurpation for the Bishops and the Presbyters who adhere to them to act in the name of the whole Presbyteries how much greater Vsurpation must it be for a smaller over-voted number of Presbyters to attempt the same without the Bishop Certainly his presence though only as a first Presbyter must add great Authority to the legitimating their Assemblies as that must also do to the validity of their actings in them § XIX NAY on the contrary as they cannot either by any precedent or any reason defend the validity of such acts of a smaller part of the Presbyters without the Bishops so I do not understand how they can avoid the owning the validity even of the acts of a smaller number of Presbyters in conjunction with the Bishops if they will consider their own interest in them The Presbyters who assisted the Bishops in the solemnities of ordeining their first Predecessors were much the smaller part of the Presbyteries As for the rest their consent was not so much as required neither by any express act of their own nor by any delegation of their power to those who were present nor presumed from their absence after a Canonical summons And yet if these acts were not valid our Brethren cannot possibly defend the validity of their own Ordinations But if they be I might then shew how impossible it is that the validity of such acts can be derived from the power of the Presbytery and how necessary it is that they be resolved into an absolute power of the Bishop and therefore how much they will be obliged to own the power of the Bishops that they may defend the validity of their own Orders And considering that the Bishops and Presbyters make up one Government it is impossible if he be absolute that they can be so too And therefore if he can validly dispose of the common right without their consent they cannot possibly dispose of it without his which will again invalidate the acts of those Presbyteries for which our Brethren are concerned And if this power of ordeining others was never given to our Brethren de facto and if withal the validity of the conveyance fail by which they may pretend to it de jure beside the intention of their Ordeiners I do not understand what more can be requisite for overthrowing the validity of their Ordinations § XX THAT which they are apt to object after all is that they are made Presbyters and were designed to be made so and to be made so in the Scripture Notion of that word and that Ordination is a right belonging to a Scripture Presbyter But why should they presume that their design was to make Presbyters in
§ I Separation of Churches FROM EPISCOPAL GOVERNMENT As practised by the present Non-Conformists PROVED SCHISMATICAL From such Principles as are least controverted and do withal most popularly explain The Sinfulness and Mischief OF SCHISM In this Treatise The Sin against the Holy Ghost the Sin unto Death and other difficult Scriptures are occasionally discoursed of and some useful Rules are given for EXPLICATION of SCRIPTVRE By HENRY DODWELL M.A. and sometimes Fellow of Trinity-College near Dublin in Ireland 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. Ep. ad Ephes. p. 20. Edit Voss. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Ep. ad Corinth §. 30. LONDON Printed for Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in S. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXIX THE PREFACE THE interests of those many parties which at present keep up the Divisions of Christendom are so highly concerned in the consequences of my present undertaking And the generality of men are so visibly partial in disputes wherein interest is concerned so much more inclinable to resent the severity of a conclusion that charges them with dangerous mistakes than to think how much indeed it is their interest rather to beware of errors that may prove dangerous than to stand out in the defence of what they have once undertaken to defend and how much it is therefore their interest to examine the premises with all possible accurateness and candor from whence such conclusions are deduced as that I cannot but expect some indications of the resentment of concerned Persons though I have endeavoured that the way of management might be as unoffensive as was possible Though my design be Peace yet that it self is enough to alarm the Spirits of many in the contentious Age we live in who when they are spoken to of peace will make them ready to battle And therefore I cannot but think my self concerned to foresee and prevent such prejudices as may hinder such who most need the informations given in the present Work either from reading them or from benefiting by them § II I MUST therefore warn my Reader in the first place that when he finds the Title promise him a Discourse concerning SCHISM he do not understand it in the same sense as it has been considered in so many modern discourses upon that Subject between us and the Romanists SCHISM not here considered as between Churches but as between particular Members and their own Churches I do not here consider the question of Schism between Churches but between Subjects separating from particular Churches and the Churches from which they separate This is all for which my present design does concern me and if my reasons prove that Subjects separating from their own particular Churches for unsinful Impositions are Schismaticks I shall perform what I intended But the same reasons will not prove a Church Schismatical for refusing impositions though unsinful from another Church For I suppose all Churches originally equal and that they have since submitted to prudential compacts which though they may oblige them as long as the reason of those compacts last and as far as the equity of those compacts may hold as to the true design of those that made them and as far as those compacts have meddled only with the alienable rights of particular Churches yet where any of these conditions fail there the particular Churches are at liberty to resume their antient rights And I suppose the power of judging when these condititions fail to be an unalienable right of particular Churches and not only to judg with the judgment of private discretion but such a judgment as may be an authentick measure of her own practice § III I DO not undertake to prove that these things are so in this discourse I only mention them that the Reader may understand on how different Principles these two questions are to be stated The Romanists can make no advantage of the Principles of this discourse to charge our Church with SCHISM and therefore how far it is from following that if the Non-Conformists be Schismaticks for separating from the Church of England therefore the Church of England must be Schismatical for refusing Communion with the Church of Rome and how far the reasons which I have here used for proving the Non-Conformists Schismatical are from being applicable to such a case of the Church of England I do not now insist upon those reasons which might have been produced to prove that the impositions of the Church of Rome are not unsinful no nor innocent of so high a degree of sin as might be greater than that of a particular Church's refusing correspondence with another The things which I have suggested plainly shew that the case will prove extremely different though we consider them barely as impositions not as sinful impositions And to let our Romish Adversaries know that I have already foreseen the use they would be likely to make of a discourse of this nature and how wary I have therefore been of using any reasons that might prove more than I intended or might hinder us from Principles sufficient for our own defence against them I shall desire them to consult my two short Discourses published with a design to prepare the way for this Work There they will find such principles of defence of our Church against them which will not clash with any thing said here which I verily believe true and which being supposed true I also conceive very sufficient to vindicate our Church from their imputation of SCHISM for our not communicating with them And I know not what they can desire more who will desire no more than what is equal § IV BUT as to the main mischief of SCHISM insisted on in this discourse the Nullity of Orders and Sacraments in the Persons guilty of separation and the consequent Sacriledg of those who shall presume in such a case to administer the Sacraments without sufficient Authority That they cannot charge us with even by their own Principles purely on the account of the separation They cannot deny but that Bishops even according to the design and practice of their own Church when we began our Reformation had all that power given them by them who made them Bishops which was requisite not only for mainteining a Church at present but also for mainteining a Succession in it through all succeeding generations They had the power not only of making other Priests who might administer the Sacraments during their own lives but also of making other Bishops who might convey this power to others Whoever they were that nominated the Persons whether the People or the Clergy or the Prince or the Pope yet still they were the Bishops who performed the office of Consecration which was that which was then thought immediately to confer the power It was then also believed that the Orders given and the Sacraments administred out of the Church by Persons duly Authorized by such as had power to authorize them were valid as to the substance of the things though
uncanonical as to the Persons who performed them This plainly appeared in their dealings with the Greeks and with all such established Churches They did not think it necessary to reordein their Clergy when they came over to them They cannot therefore for the same reason deny but that our first Bishops who were consecrated in their own Church had all that power given them at their Consecration which was requisite for the Succession since continued from them As for the pretended uncanonicalness of what they have done for mainteining this Succession besides what might have been said to shew the unobligingness of Canons in their case besides what might have been said to shew that they were performed canonically even by the then established Canons of their own Church besides that that is a pretence wherein they are too much parties to be our competent Judges However if all they said to this purpose were as true as they pretend it to be yet they can shew no such Canonical defect as themselves can by their own Principles judg sufficient to invalidate the whole performance § XIII AND for my part I cannot but look upon it as an Argument that God never intended to oblige particular Churches to as great a dependence on other Churches as that is wherein he has obliged Subjects to depend on their own Churches because by his contrivance of things it does not follow that separating Churches must be left as destitute of the ordinary means of salvation upon their separation from other Churches as it has appeared from our Principles that particular Subjects are upon their separation from their own Churches It rather appears that abating what obligations they have brought upon themselves by their own compacts God has made them equal when he has contrived no obligation in interest to make one yield rather than the other There is no way of judging who is in the right but by the intrinsick merit of the cause nor is there any presumption in favour of a particular Church to presume the cause right because it is hers So that there remains no way of deciding such differences but that which is necessary and very proper for those who are exactly equal And for my part I do really believe that the true original design of those compacts whereby particular Churches have voluntarily submitted to restrictions of their original power was only that every particular Church might have her censures confirmed in all other Churches in reference to those who were originally her own Subjects not to gain a power over any other Subjects but her own nor to submit to any other power any farther than was requisite to oblige her to observe the same equity to them which whatever it may do in that Community of Churches which may be enabled by such compacts to maintein a mutual correspondence yet cannot in any equity be so expounded as to make her absolutely subject to any particular Church of that Community § VI IN managing therefore this charge of SCHISM in the sense now explained I have indeed insisted on such Principles which may seem something strange and surprising to the Age we live in but certainly much more likely to give light to the Subject than any I know of promoted by any other The advantages of the particular way of management of this discourse and withal much more consonant to the sentiments of Catholick Antiquity To shew that they are more agreeable to the sense of Catholick Antiquity is to be the Subject of my Second Historical Part. That they are peculiarly fitted to give light to this Subject above any other Hypothesis hitherto promoted I have shewn in the last Chapter of this whither the Reader may have recourse who desires before his reading of the whole to have a short account of the peculiar advantages of these Principles Besides to facilitate his understanding of what is there said and withal to let him understand in short a Summary of the whole design and the accurateness of the way by which I have endeavoured to manage it I have prefixed a short account of it digested into the several Propositions whereof it consists and ranked in the natural order wherein they follow each other with references also to the Chapters where they are particularly proved And if any desire to know in short what Topicks are insisted on for their proofs those he may also find in the Contents of those Chapters immediately subjoined This way of ordering them will be of great use both for him who has not yet read the whole Discourse to know what he is to expect in it and for him who has to recollect what influence every particular discourse has upon the whole design Besides it will be a great ease to the Readers of different Principles Each of them does grant things which others deny But by these references every one may know where to find that particular Proposition discoursed which he particularly doubts of This may serve for those who are by all means willing to shorten their pains Otherwise I should rather intreat him who would be willing to bestow pains on a Subject of so great importance to him and so worthy of his pains rather to read the whole which will best qualifie him to judg of the particulars by reason of their connexion The reason will appear more solid and convincing when it is found to hold good in all the train of consequences than when it is applied only to one particular § VII AND the least that I hope the Reader will find from a candid perusal of what is here said is that the question is of much greater importance than it is commonly conceived to be The great Consequence of the present controversie And this is but very necessary for that multitude of well-meaning Persons among us who go indifferently to the Church or Conventicle according as they are affected to the Minister that officiates in either place I will not undertake to judg how far their good meaning may go to excuse them before God whilest they are inquisitive and desirous of conviction and cannot find it but it is certain it cannot alter the nature of the thing If the thing they do be a great sin it is never the less so because it is done with a good meaning though it may indeed be less imputed whilest they sincerely seek for information The Crucifixion of our Saviour was a great sin to the Jews though they did it ignorantly and St. Paul calls himself the chief of sinners for having persecuted the Church though he was conscious of having done it out of a Principle of zeal Now if there be such a sin as SCHISM possible to be committed I do not see how the breach on both sides can be excused from it Either we must be guilty of it for exercising our Authority over them if we have no just title to such Authority or they must be guilty of it for refusing their obedience if we have
Being by this concatenation of Spiritual Beings in the several parts of the World so that the several influences are to be taken for God's because it is from him that they originally proceed by which means also the contempt of them will also reflect on God himself How they are thus contrived that this may follow may be seen in Apuleius and in Philo's Explication of Jacob's Ladder Apul. de Deo Socratis Philo. Hierocl de Provident Fragm apud Phot. Biblioth num 251. And indeed there are who make the very Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be properly taken from the care of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 within us rather than from that whereby the World is governed in general But the passage of Seneca an Author of the Apostles Age is very considerable to our purpose where he tells us that a holy Spirit which he calls a God is in us and that he deals with us as we deal with him if we deal ill with exactly as the Psalmist with the perfect man thou shalt be perfect Psal. xviii 26 2 Sam. xxii 27 but with the froward thou shalt learn frowardness Besides this there is also another way according to the Platonical Hypothesis how this participation of the Spirit may intitle us to the special Providence of God And that is that as long as men were good God kept the Government of the World in his own hands but as they degenerated so he was thought to leave it to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he then took no further notice of it I might have shewn how this Notion seems also to have been taken up by the Primitive Christians See Hackw Apol. for Provid Act. xvii 30 Act. xiv 16 Luk. i. 68 78. that this was the reason why they thought the World to have decayed that for the time past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took no notice of the mannes of men but suffered them to walk on in their own ways that he had now looked down from Heaven and visited his People And possibly this might have been the reason why they expected the end of the World that is of that Iron Age of it and waited for a new heaven 2 Pet. iii. 13 and a new Earth wherein righteousness was to dwell For the Golden Age was immediately to succeed the Iron And the reason that made the Golden Age so happy was that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epinomid apu Euseb. Pr. Eu. L.xi. c. 16 as Plato calls him was to take the Government into his own hand And therefore seeing Christ whom they took for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had the Government of all things now committed to him by his Father it was very reasonable for them suddenly to expect those happy times which according to this Hypothesis were consequent to such a Government This seems to have bâ—â—n really the thoughts of the Author of the Sibylline Oracles and the Emperour Constantine in expounding the Eclogue of Virgil to this purpose And this must also make the sins committed under the Government of Christ to reflect upon him and would consequently concern him more particularly to take care to see them punished according to their desert § XVIII AND if the violation of particular Laws by this constitution of things be so great a sin and in which the Spirit is so concerned to see them punished who are guilty of that violation what shall we say of casting off the Legislative Power it self and disowning the Power which necessarily requires Subjection to Subordinate Governours as well as to the Supreme What of not only neglecting to perform the Conditions of it but casting off their Baptismal Covenant it self by which they were obliged to perform those Conditions What of dispossessing the Spirit of his interest in them not only by frequent grieving and provoking him in acting contrary to his Suggestions but also by a wilful neglect of those means which himself had appointed for continuing his possession of them These are certainly Crimes of the highest nature and most severely punishable by the Principles of Government And yet of these they were certainly guilty who in the Apostles times at least deserted the external Communion of the visible Church This will more particularly appear if we consider § XIX 4. That the whole Constitution even of the Government of the Church in that Age was Theocratical All the Officers of the Church were invested in their Office by the Holy Ghost himself He it was who qualified them for their Offices by his extraordinary supernatural gifts Eph. iv 11 He gave some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers And he it was who empowered them to exercise those Gifts by noting the very particular Persons who were to be empowered to them who had the Authority of committing that Power to them either by giving their Ordainers the Gift of discerning Spirits or by signifying his pleasure to them either by appointments as when he was consulted by Lots or without appointment by some sensible appearance relating to them as he did also afterwards in the Cases of Alexander Bishop of Hierusalem and Fabian of Rome It was he therefore that made the Bishops of the Church And so for all the Ecclesiastical Offices they were then generally performed by peculiar Inspirations 1 Cor. 14. their Praying their Prophesying their celebrating the office of the Eucharist their Spiritual Songs and Hymns their very Interpretation of what had been by others delivered in strange tongues In the very Prudential management of their affairs they had also particular directions from the Spirit Act. xiii 2.4 viii 29 x. 19 xi 28 29. xvi 6 7 10. xviii 9 xix 21 xx 23 xxi 4 11. xxvii 22 24. He usually told them where they should Preach and where they should not who were particularly to be chosen out for the employment he had for them and what should be the success of their undertaking And if in this regard it had been a fighting * Act. v. 38 against God for even the Pharisies themselves to venture to oppose themselves to the Apostles how could it have been less than a rebelling against the same God the Spirit for their own followers to have deserted them This I take notice of that none may think that the Author to the Hebrews should speak so severely against the desertors of their publick Assemblies And though indeed the extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit be now ceased nay and several also of those extraordinary qualifications which were necessary for that Age peculiarly and could not then be gotten by the Persons who wanted them for the discharge of their Office in the use of ordinary means yet as long as the Holy Ghost is the Governour of the Church that is indeed as long as Christ himself is so who governs by the Holy Ghost as the Shechinah of his Throne
by this Opinion as it was mainteined then if they did not think the peculiarity of this Power sufficient to constitute a distinct Order What matter is it whether they owned the word or no so long as they owned the thing which our Adversaries may possibly think more properly imported by the word Whatever the word do most properly signifie yet when we use it as we do now to judg of the meaning of those who used it we are to take it as they understood it how improperly soever they understood it And we have the rather reason to do so in this case because the word had no notorious sense antecedent to those Ages which they might be obliged to mean and which they might therefore be presumed to mean where they did not very expresly declare the contrary The terms of Ordo and Gradus as they were terms of Art were intirely introduced by themselves unmentioned in the Sacred Writers no nor as the constant language of the Church neither of the Catholick Church nor even of the Latine Church for many of the most ancient Ages And why might not they be allowed to impose their own signification on their own terms § XII IF our Adversaries say that the allowance of this Power only to Bishops will make them a distinct Order then they must confess that the Authors we are speaking of were of our mind in the thing and of theirs only in the use of the words which they will find will stand them in no stead for the present design of proving their Succession They must then say that those Authors make Episcopacy really a distinct Order with us though they were pleased to call it only a distinct Degree with them But if they grant that this Power is not sufficient to make them a distinct Order we shall not be very solicitous whether they use that word so long as they acknowledg this Power This Power of Government being appropriated to the Bishops will in the consequence appropriate the Power of Ordination to them not only as Ordination implies the giving of the Power of Government to inferior Governours but also as it is requisite for the ends of Government not to give simple Presbyters a Power of giving their Power to others for fear of that independence which would in course follow thereupon even in the exercise of that Power Whatever our Adversaries may think of this reasoning in it self yet certainly they cannot deny it to have been agreeable to the actual Notions of those times which is as much as I am concerned for at present § XIII AND if we would according to another Notion of those times found the Power over the Corpus Christi Mysticum on the power over the Corpus Christi verum yet even so there was room left for asserting the Power of Ordination to the Bishops alone For though the Power over the Corpus Christi verum was taken for the highest exercise of Power that was communicated to Mortals yet even in that exercise of Power there were several Degrees which might very probably incline them to acknowledg a distinction rather in Degree than in Order between the Persons distinguished by them and this distinction of Degrees was sufficient for appropriating the Power of Ordination to the Bishops alone Even in the exercise of that Power he who had a Power to give his Power to another must be supposed to have a greater degree of that same Power than he who had it only for his own Person and so that it must expire with his Life Whether this was a distinct Power or a distinct Degree of the same Power seems to have been the main dispute between them who disputed whether Episcopacy were a distinct Order or Degree from Presbytery Whoever was in the right it is sufficient for my purpose that they were both agreed in this that this Supreme whether we call it Power or only Degree of Power was appropriated to the Bishops so that it was never so much as given to ordinary Presbyters And what matter was it whether they called the Character of the Bishop a new one oâ— an extension of the old one which he had when he was made Presbyter These were also terms first brought into general use by themselves from the private use of St. Augustine and it was in their pleasure how they would use them It is sufficient for me that the Power of ordeining others was not grounded barely on the Character it self but on the Character as extended and therefore could not be validly challenged by them who had the Character alone given them without its extension § XIV AND though the Power of Jurisdiction over the Corpus Christi Mysticum for term of Life were grounded on the Power over the Corpus Christi verum for time of Life also so that he who had the Power over the Corpus Christi verum could oblige the Mystical Body to what terms he pleased and set up what Jurisdiction he pleased over them when they could not have the true Body without him yet so it self there was a right reservable to the Bishop over the true Body which might both oblige Priests to a dependence on the Bishop and the whole Church to a nearer and more necessâ—ry dependency on Episcopacy than on the Priesthood The Priests not having the exercise of their Power over the true Body but by appointment of the Bishop must oblige the Mystical Body to a greater dependence on the Bishop than on Priests in the exercise of this common Power For this will it put in the Power of the Bishop to deprive the Mystical Body of the true Body if he should forbid the Priests the exercise of their Power though against their consent and will withal put it out of the Power of the Priest to oblige the Mystical to any dependence on them in opposition to the Bishop by denying them the true Body when the Bishop requires them to give it because their presuming to refuse it in such a case must be an invasion of the Bishops right and must consequently infer a Nullity in what they do without right to do it But the Priests not having this Power given them of giving their Power to others this must in regard of this dependence of the Mystical Body on the true Body free the People from a dependence on the Priesthood which cannot secure them of the true Body in another generation And on the contrary the Bishops having this Power given them and to them alone this will oblige the Mystical Body to depend on them for a Succession because they alone can continue the administration of the true Body to them through all Ages of Succession § XV AND as these Doctrines are very reconcilable with that of making Episcopacy and Presbytery one Order on the Principles now mentioned so they were certainly the actual sense of those who followed that Doctrine in that Age. Most certainly they who were of this opinion could not
and therefore cannot agree to any but the President whose Authority alone can be antecedent to the meeting of the Assembly so that if it be the right of any it must be his because none besides him is capable of it And this is more certainly true of him who has a right to preside in Assemblies when they are convened by vertue of his general right to preside over the whole Society as well when Assemblies are not convened as when they are than of him who is chosen by the particular Assemblies for their particular occasions And he who has his Presidency not by vertue of any particular Election distinct from that whereby he received his Office if his Office be not arbitrary or confined within a certain time but given him for term of Life must have such a Presidency as I am speaking of Concerning such a President as this the Negative Argument will hold for which I am at present concerned not only that the Assemblies convened by him are in that regard lawful as they are convened by him but also that no Assemblies are lawful but what are called by him because there is no other way of making them lawful but the lawfulness of their Call nor any power to call them distinct from that of such a President § VIII 5. THE Bishop was not only in the more modern Ages of which I have been discoursing the President of their Ecclesiastical Assemblies and that not arbitrarily or by vertue of particular Elections but constant and for term of Life I say not only then but as high as our Adversaries themselves do grant the practice of presiding Presbyters Which as they among them who understand any thing of Antiquity do not deny to have been very early after the Apostles days so truly I do not understand how they can deny it to have been practised even then without destroying the very Historical Faith of the Primitive Church without weakening that testimony on which we receive the Canon of the New Testament in a matter as notorious to them as that Canon it self Not to mention the testimony of Ignatius though truly I think they who question it since the late excellent a In vindic Ignat cont Dallaeum defence of it performed with as great evidence as a matter of that Antiquity after the miscarriage of so many Primitive Records is capable of might as well have questioned several Books of the New Testament it self which notwithstanding they receive on lesser evidence I say not to mention this What can they say to the Angels in the Revelations What to the testimony of St. Irenaeus b Iren. L.iii. adv Haer. apud Eus. Hist. iv 14 concerning St. Polycarp who seems to have been one of them whom he makes to have been ordeined Bishop of Smyrna by the Apostles themselves What to the testimony of Clemens c Clem. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Eus. Hist. iii. 23 Alexandrinus who mentions Bishops among other Offices of the Church settled by St. John What to the testimony of Hegesippus d Eus. L.iii. Hist. Eccl. c. 20. who makes the Kinsmen of our Saviour to have been made Bishops from Domitians time to that of Trajan What to those who mention St. James e Eus. Hist. ii 1 to have been made Bishop of Hierusalem by the Apostles themselves What of the seven Polycrates f Eus. Hist. v. 24 mentions as Bishops in his own See before himself the first of which seems in all likelihood to have begun in the Apostles times Nay what to all those Catalogues of Bishops succeeding in the four Patriarchal Sees particularly the fifteen in g Eus. Hist. iv 5 Hierusalem from St. James to the destruction of the Jews under Adrian Nay what to the Succession of all the h Tertull. Praescr Iren. adv Haer. Apostolical Sees to which the Fathers of the second Century do so solemnly appeal to prove their own Doctrine Apostolical in opposition to the contrary pretences of the Hereticks § IX CAN they think them all to have been either wilful forgeries or general mistakes in a matter of Fact so near their own time without so much as any likely ground in History How will they then assure us that they were not mistaken in delivering to us the Books of the Apostles which were not more notorious to them than their Government And what could have been a more likely occasion of their mistake of the Bishops being the Governours of their respective Dioceses than this that they were at least the ordinary Presidents of their Ecclesiastical Assemblies They will not when they consider it find it so easie to avoid this Presidency of Bishops even in the Apostles times whatever they may think of their absolute Monarchy They will not find their Arguments concerning the confusion of the names of Bishops and Presbyters in those first times to proceed so firmly against this Though both these names had belonged to the same Office yet it does not follow but that one of that same rank might have been first and by his priviledg of being so might have had the power of their Ecclesiastical Assemblies though he had no further Jurisdiction over the particular Members of such Assemblies when they were once convened And without granting thus much at least they will not find it so easie as they may think before they try it to solve the Phaenomena now objected The most learned of our Adversaries do themselves grant as much as I am concerned to infer from them The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they account for these things amount to as much as I desire at present And * Speaking of the Offices of the first Presbyter in his first Period before the Year 136. he says they did publice in collectis sedulis universam fraternitatem hortamentis ad bonum Pietatis certamen fidaque charitatis obsequia excitare eandem precibus excitare ordinis consessus cogere c. Praef. ad Apol. pro S. Hieronym p. 6. Blondell does expresly grant that these earlier Bishops who lived before the deviation as he thinks it from the Rule of the Apostles had this power of calling the Ecclesiastical Assemblies § X BY all which it appears that though we judg of the rightful possessions of those times by a recourse to the Primitive establishment of the Apostles yet it will be impossible for our Adversaries to convict the Bishops of the Ages I am speaking of of usurping this right at least of presiding in the Ecclesiastical Assemblies and that even for term of Life And therefore if by this concession the Orders of our Adversaries may be convicted of a perfect Nullity it will then very nearly concern them to consider how they can clear themselves of the Sacriledg of such exercising such Orders how they can expect any blessing or comfort in such Administrations Now that this is so will appear clearly from the Principles now
interessed in common as that the very same performance which is eminently serviceable to one may for that very cause be as eminently disserviceable to the other as when they are in a state of hostility However it is certain that as their interests are very different so the means of serving those interests are very different also and therefore that there is no real consequence that he who has indeed obliged one Society must in doing so oblige all others also § VI BUT the benefits of the Sacraments are such as that he who has them in one Church cannot by him who supposes him to have them there be at the same time supposed to want them in another Regeneration and pardon of sins and a Mystical Vnion with Christ are the designed effects of the Sacraments And it is impossible that he who has these in any one Church can be presumed to want them in another by them who presume he already has them And as no Church can think it in her power to exclude from her Communion those very Persons whom she judges regenerated and pardoned and united to Christ so if she be convinced that these benefits are validly conferred by a Presbyter in another Church she must in reason be obliged to treat them as such in her own Now whether they be validly conferred or not that she is to try by his Ministry If his Ministry be a valid Ministry his Sacraments must be valid Sacraments and actually confer the benefits designed by them to Persons not unqualified to receive them And whether his Ministry be valid or no that is whether he be indeed a Legal Representative of God so as to oblige him to ratifie what is done by himself in his name this being an act of Authority and of Authority visibly administred by men however proceeding originally from God it must be judged the same way as is usually made use of in judging concerning acts of Humane Authority that is by considering the power by which he has received it And because by communicating with the Church of which such a Presbyter is a Member and from whence himself pretends to have received his Authority she plainly acknowledges that that Church has really a power to give him that Authority he pretends to therefore the only way to satisfie her self in this matter is to examine the truth of his pretences whether he has indeed received that Authority he pretends to from those Persons from whom he pretends to have received it Which way of tryal does plainly resolve her judgment in this matter into her correspondency with his Church By that she judges whether his Authority be good and whether he have actually received it § VII 2. THEREFORE Hence it follows that he who cannot validly make out his Authority in the particular Church in which he pretends to have received his Orders cannot in reason expect that the exercise of his Authority should be ratified in other Churches who cannot thus be satisfied that he has received them For their duty of correspondence being primarily with Churches and only secondarily with particular Persons as they relate to particular Churches which is particularly true in acts of Authority which cannot be supposed in any particular Person but by derivation from some Church or which is to the same purpose from some Ecclesiastical Person whose act is to be taken for the act of the Church it must follow that the tryal of the pretences of any particular Person to Authority must be by examining his reception of it from the Church And therefore if it cannot appear that he has received any such Authority as he pretends to from that Church wherein he pretends to have received it he is to be presumed not to have it at all and therefore all that he presumes to do on supposition of it must be null and invalid § VIII 3. THE Church by which the validity of the Orders of every particular Presbyter must expect to be tryed must not be a Church that derives its beginning from him but such a one as must be supposed settled and established before he could be capable of any pretensions to Orders For no other Church can be supposed proper to try him by because the Authority of no other Church can be presumed good antecedently to his being so All the Authority nay the very being of a Church set up by a particular Presbyter must it self depend on the Authority of the Person by whom it is set up If he be no Presbyter such a Congregation cannot be a Church in the sence we mean the word at present and therefore cannot be capable of any Ecclesiastical Authority Whence it will follow that he cannot by any act of such a Church derive Authority if he wanted it before because they can have no Authority but what he brought over to them If he brought none they have none to give him If they had any yet not such as were proper for this purpose both because it is hardly possible that it can be more notorious than that which was at least in time antecedent to it and because at least it cannot be such a Church as other Churches have held correspondence with antecedently to their correspondence with his particular Person and therefore whose Authority might have been presumed to have been granted by them on account of their correspondence with them And there will appear the less reason either that this way of tryal should be right or should be admitted by them because it is against the interests of all Government whatsoever and will justifie the practices of any seditious Person who can be so successful in his seditious practices as to gain himself the reputation of being the Head of a seditious party To be sure the party headed by him will give him all the Authority they are capable of giving him It is their interest to do so at least in the beginnings of disturbances and as it will oblige him to their interests so it will give him greater advantages for promoting those interests effectually And then what Government can think it self secure if it were so easie to justifie seditious practices How can we think that Governments should ever be favourable to Principles so pernicious to the rights of Government in general § IX NOR are these things only true concerning Churches erected by single Presbyters but concerning such also as had whole Presbyteries made up of multitudes of single Presbyters who had been over-voted in their several Presbyteries respectively Especially if they presumed to exercise their Government in the Jurisdiction of another This would also be a precedent as favourable to sedition and as destructive to Government as the other If fugitive over-voted Magistrates of several places may invade the Territories of a Third and there erect themselves into an absolute Senate independent on the Government of the place what security could there be for any Government For can we think that those same Persons who
belong to him as a Presbyter though he were not also a President of the Presbytery and therefore cannot take it for a Prerogative of his Office as President That it is therefore from some such a Presbytery as this that they must derive the validity of their Orders appears from the Principles already premised that no other Presbyteries can make out their Succession from the Apostles that particular Members of even these Presbyteries cannot do it alone in a separation from them that Multitudes of such particular Persons though meeting together cannot make up such a Church among them as were requisite to attest the Orders of Persons ordeined to the rest of the Catholick Church who maintein correspondence with them § XIII CONSIDERING therefore these Episcopal Presbyteries only as Presbyters and the Bishop himself as acting herein by no higher a power than that of an ordinary Presbyter yet even so no Orders can be valid but those which were conferred by the prevailing vote of even such a Presbytery at least those are invalid which are given by the votes of a smaller over voted part of them Even by the Principles of Aristocratical Government though it were doubtful whether the greater part might dispose a right common to them all without the consent of every particular yet it hardly can be doubtful whether a smaller part can dispose of such a common right though over-voted by a greater number of suffrages than their own Though it may be thought reasonable that some reserved cases of that nature wherein the whole Society were deeply concernâ—d should not pass without the unanimous suffrages of every individual Member yet as there is no Justice antecedently to compacts that any individuals should dispose of the rights of others though less considerable than themselves till by the general acts and compacts of all whereby Polyarchical Societies are most naturally settled such general rules are agreed on by which some particular Members may for peaces sake be allowed to dispose of the common rights of their Fellow-members without their express consent in the particular but by vertue of their general consent once given to such general rules so neither is there any reason in prudence that where unanimous consent cannot be had and it is therefore necessary that one part yield to the other the greater should be swayed by the smaller part The fundamental rule of all this publick justice is that where there is a necessity of a choice the publick be preferred before private interests that therefore it is very just to bear with injuries to private Persons when they cannot be avoided without injuries to the publick Which will in generosity oblige a smaller part to yield to a greater but can on no terms oblige the greater to yield to the smaller because indeed the interest of the greater part is more the publick interest than that of the smaller § XIV BESIDES the reason of all compacts of this kind of referring their differences to a publick decision is the presumed equality of the decision above what would be among the interessed Persons themselves and the power to execute what is resolved on beyond the resistance of those against whom the cause is decided And therefore if we should again suppose men free as they were before these compacts I am speaking of we have reason to presume that they would settle this power of deciding their differences in such hands where there might be presumed less danger of corruption and where there were the greatest power to execute their own decrees And both these reasons give the preference to these major votes above the smaller part It is to be presumed that it is not so easie to corrupt a greater as it is to corrupt a smaller part And when it is necessary that the decree be executed the power of the greater is greater than that of the smaller part where the particular Subjects of power are supposed equal as they are in our present case And though it be very possible in after cases that it may so fall out that the greatest right may sometimes belong to that side where there is the smallest power yet we have reason to believe that the only reason why it comes to be so is the unexpectedness of revolutions to which humane affairs are obnoxious which could not be so much as probably foreseen when the rules of such Societies were first agreed on Otherwise it is reasonable to presume that at the first constitution of those rules they would chuse the greatest power and interest for the fittest seat of Authority because they would by that be best secured of the execution of the Sentences given by them And therefore where we may presume the greater power lay at the passing of those compacts and where they who made those compacts had reason to see the greatest power would always be there we have also reason to presume that they would intend to place the greatest Authority § XV AND this is a reason which might in all probability induce them to resolve that the major vote should prevail through all succeeding generations because the major vote in the case I am speaking of must inseparably carry with it the greatest power And this is a reason that alike concerns all by whom the Government were at first settled whether it were by compacts of the Parties themselves who were to be governed or whether the Government were placed over them by a power who had a Jurisdiction over them antecedently to their own consent There is the same reason why such a power should decree that the smaller number of suffrages in opposition to a greater number should be null in Societies to be established by him as that the Parties themselves should at first agree that it should be so The reasons now mentioned proceed alike in both cases Which I therefore observe that our Adversaries may perceive that as to the case of which I am now speaking it will come to the same event whether the power of the Presbyteries do come from the consent of the particular Presbyters or whether it proceed immediately from the Divine institution Still it is to be presumed that things are to be decided by the vote of the greater part where nothing is otherwise expresly determined because this way of determination is so certainly for the publick interest for which we have as much reason to presume that God would be solicitous as that the Presbyters themselves would be so § XVI BY this it appears even from the Principles of Aristocratical Government how invalid as well as how irregular it must be for a smaller over-voted number of the Presbyters to undertake to dispose of the common rights of the whole Presbyteries whether as acting by themselves or as acting in Presbyteries made up of multitudes of such Presbyters as had been severally over-voted in the Presbyteries to which each of them did at first belong Now that the power given in the Ordination of a Presbyter
is there any reason for them to oppose God and the Church as they usually do on this and other occasions If the Church's Authority be received from God then what is done by her is to be presumed to come from him the same way as what is done by any mans Proxy is presumed to be his own act and as what is done by an inferior Magistrate by virtue of his Office is presumed to come from the supreme Which will especially hold as a presumption that is where there are no clearer proofs of the supreme Magistrates mind being contrary to that of the inferior than our Adversaries can pretend to for proving the inseparable union of these powers by Divine institution If they were then united by God because they were united by the men who represented God why are they not disunited by God now when men alike empowered by him have disunited them Why should they not oblige God in one case as well as the other especially when there is nothing in the Commission it self that implies confinement in one case rather than the other and when the whole reason of judging is taken only from the actual practice how is it possible that any actual practice can prescribe against the power that introduced it that it may not introduce a different practice as arbitrarily as it introduced this If there had been a distinct Authority for making the union of these two powers inseparable distinct from that which united them only in practice or if the same Authority of men which united them in practice had declared Gods pleasure to be that they should for ever be so united though they might reverse the Authority of their own practice yet it might not be in their power to evacuate their own Declarations because those are supposed to belong to an Authority greater than their own and antecedent to it and therefore may rationally be supposed such as may null all future acts that are contrary to it But such distinct Authority or distinct Declaration our Adversaries cannot pretend in our present case § XXV AND if they could prove this inseparable Vnion of these two powers by the Divine appointment our Adversaries would do well to consider whether it would be more for their interest or their disadvantage that is whether it will not rather follow that they are no Presbyters at all who have received Episcopal Ordination that they have no power of administring the Sacraments because it is certain that they have not received the power of Ordination than that they must have received the power of ordeining other Presbyters because they have received the power of administring the Sacraments The Negative consequence is as unavoidable from the inseparableness of these two powers as the Affirmative that is it is as certain that where one of those powers is certainly not given there nothing is given because it cannot be supposed to be given alone as that if one be given the other must be given also As therefore it is certain that the Ordeiners intended to reserve the power of Ordination from the Persons ordeined Presbyters by them so it will follow by this principle that if the whole power was not intended none was so And if what was not intended was not given and what was not given was not received and the power of Ordination was not received then neither could the power of administring the Sacraments be received also And if so then let them be called by what name they please yet really they will be no Presbyters at least not in the Scripture-sence if either of these powers be essential to such a Scripture-Presbyter And then in vain do they challenge the power of such Presbyters when they are not those Presbyters to whom those powers belong And certainly it is much more certain and prudent to argue from the nature of the power given to them that they are Presbyters in the Scripture-sence who have the power given them which is supposed to belong to Scripture-Presbyters and on the contrary that they are not Presbyters in the Scripture-sence who have not that power given them than that they must have the power because they have the name and that intended in the Scripture signification Names are imposed arbitrarily to signifie what men please and if they please by the name Presbyter to signifie him whom the Scriptures call so yet still it is to be supposed to signifie that sense which they understand to be the sence of Scripture though they be mistaken in the sense of it And it is certain that the name cannot alter the nature of the power which is given to them though the nature of that power may alter the justice of their title to the name If they have less power given them than should belong to Scripture-Presbyters it must certainly follow that the name would be given them improperly and certainly our Adversaries themselves cannot think it just that they who are improperly called Scripture-Presbyters should claim the priviledges of them who are called so properly § XXVI INDEED if the nature of the powers were mutually inseparable it would be reasonable to argue that where one was given both must be so or if at least on one side this inseparableness held it were just to conclude that the other power must be given if this be that from which that other is inseparable but not on the contrary that the separable power must be given because that power is given from which it is supposed to be separable And on this account there is indeed some colour of reason to presume that where a higher power is given the inferior is given also because usually the Inferior is included in the Superior though it be not always so But it will by no means follow that a Superior power must follow that which is Inferior because here can be no pretence either of inseparable connexion or of inclusion Now this is plainly the case here All that our Adversaries can directly prove to have been given to their first Predecessors who received their Orders in the Communion of the Church is only a power of administring the Sacraments in their own Persons But the power of giving this power to others is certainly a power of a higher nature than the power of administring in their own Persons If therefore both these powers be essential to a scripture-Scripture-Presbyter and they cannot prove that any more than one of them was given to their Predecessors neither by any express donation nor by any inseparable connexion with that which was expresly given it will clearly follow that they were not made Presbyters in that sence which our Adversaries understand to be the sence of the Scriptures and therefore that they cannot claim the priviledges which they conceive due to Scripture-Presbyters And for my part I do not understand a more prudent Rule for distinguishing when the negative way of arguing is seasonable from this Topick that neither power is given because it is
really intend that power of Government which he foresaw would follow from this power of the benefits of Ecclesiastical Communion for those on whom he was pleased to confer the power of these benefits And if he did intend any Government at all it must needs have been extremely unpolitick to have intrusted this power into the hands of any but of such whom he designed for Governours For it must have obliged the people to a greater dependence on such Persons than on their Governours themselves which must in case of any difference between them make such Persons too hard for their Governours And that must in the consequence destroy all coercive power over such Persons without which coercive power it is impossible to conceive how any Government can be practicable Which will withal let our Adversaries see how necessary it is that they who have the supreme visible power of these benefits be uncontroulable by any earthly power § VII 5. THEREFORE the power of these benefits of the Society of the Church as it is a Society appears plainly by the Principles of the precedent discourse to be confined to a certain order of men above others who must therefore consequently be understood to be invested with the proper power of governing all others who are by this contrivance of things obliged to depend on them It has appeared that the benefits of the Christian Society as a Society are remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost that the ordinary means of conveying these benefits are the Sacraments that the Sacraments themselves are of no efficacy unless they be validly administred that they are not validly administred unless the Person who administers them be lawfully Authorized to administer them that none can challenge any Authority for this purpose from God but they who have derived it from the Apostles nor any in these days from the Apostles but they who have derived it from them in a continual succession that none can pretend to this succession at least cannot maintein it to future generations out of the Episcopal Communion that a Person living in a particular Jurisdiction cannot expect this benefit of Episcopal Communion from any other Communion but that of the Ordinary of Jurisdiction wherein he lives whilest he lives in it Which will as properly and by the same parity of reason prove that the Ordinary of a particular Jurisdiction is the particular Governour to whom particular Persons are obliged to pay their particular obedience whilest they are within the Jurisdiction as it proves that Bishops are the Governours of the Church in general § VIII AND from hence all the other things necessary in this way for managing the charge of Schism do follow in course especially on the Principles already proved in this Discourse It follows 1. That all our Brethren who live in particular Diocesses are properly subject to the Ordinaries of those Diocesses If the Ordinaries be their Governours it is unavoidable by the Rules of Relation but that our Brethren must as properly be the Subjects of those Ordinaries And 2. That our Brethren must therefore owe their Ordinaries a duty not of reverence only but subjection Reverence may be due from those who are not Subjects But Subjection is the duty which properly regards Subjects as they are Subjects and is therefore as properly due to their Governours as Governours as God himself challenges honour as a Father and Fear as a Master Mal. i. 6 And it is as impossible to own any particular Governours for Governours without paying particular subjection to them as it is impossible to own any particular Person for our Father or Master without paying them the honour or fear which are respectively due to those Relations And 3. That this Subjection which is due to them will require that they should rather yield to their Governours than that they should expect that their Governours should yield to them nay that they are bound in duty to yield in all things that are lawful especially when upon a modest proposal of their reasons to the contrary their Governours profess themselves dissatisfied with those reasons and still require the same things from them as necessary for the publick If the matter of the things required in such a case as this be not sinful the disobedience must needs be so because it is injurious to the rights of Governours And therefore by the Rule of our Brethrens own casuistry they are to chuse it as the safest course rather to hazard the greatest inconveniences to themselves that may follow from the nature of the things required than to hazard the guilt of this sin against God by refusing the duty which he has imposed on them to their Superiors Though I have withal shewn that it were not every sin that would excuse them for the neglect of their duty to Governours but only such a sin as were greater or more evident than the sinfulness of such a neglect and that very few if any sins can be so However 4. Even in those cases wherein their Subjection does not oblige them to active obedience yet it does oblige them at least to passive And it has been shewn that this requires not only that they submit to the punishments inflicted on them by their Superiors but also that they do not joyn with any opposite Society And it has appeared from the sequels of these Principles of Vnity as applied to particular Jurisdictions that all Societies within the Jurisdiction must be opposite who do not own a dependence on the Governours of the Jurisdiction From all which put together it must follow that the separation of which our Adversaries are guilty notoriously is destructive of the Ecclesiastical Government of the respective Jurisdictions wherein they live and consequently Schismatical in respect of those particular Churches as Schism consists in a violation of the Churches Vnity and as the Vnity of those Churches does on these Principles appear to consist in a Vnity of Government § IX BUT our Brethren are not apt to apprehend any great danger in being thus cut off from the Vnity of particular Churches if they may still continue united to the Catholick Church For if this may be their case they may still enjoy all the benefits and comforts of the Christian Religion They may enjoy the benefits For as long as they are Members of the Catholick Church so long they are Members of Christ himself of his Mystical Body and by this means are in as near a capacity to receive all vital influences from him as the Members of the Natural Body are to receive the influences of the natural Life And so long they make up one Legal Person with him and so have a Legal Title to all that he has done and suffered for them on performance of conditions which is all the priviledg that we our selves do challenge on account of our being within the external Communion of the Church They may also enjoy all the comforts of the Christian