are one Eph. 5. 31. because the Husband is the Head of the Wife v. 23. And so likewise of Christ and his Church that they are one Eph. 5. 31 32. because he is the Head of his Church v. 23. And one way whereby as St. Cyprian observes our Lord sets off the Uniting of his Sheep as one Flock is by uniting them under himself as the one Shepherd Joh. 10. 16. 'T is the joint-union and dependance on one Master of the Family which makes one House and on one General which makes one Army and on one KING which makes one Kingdom And so on one and the same Church-heads and Governours which makes one particular Church For the Apostle compares the Union of many Persons into one Church or Politick Society to the Union of many Members into one Natural Body 1 Cor. 12. Which Union is made by the adherence and dependance of the Members on the Natural Head For the several Members are no longer one Body nor one with each other after once they are cut off and parted from it As to the Unity we take a Body when the Apostle says there is one Body for that which is under one Head So that if there be but one Head there is but one Body saith St. Chrysostom The Union of the Church therefore as one particular Sâ—ciety which Schism breaks consists chiefly in keeping united to Church-Heads and Governours Church-Rulers are the Heads which make the several Parts one with another or as the Scripture sometimes speaks the Joynts and Ligaments which tye the respective Members and compact the whole Body together The whole Body of the Church saith St. Paul is fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every Joynt i. e. each Pastor or Church-Governour supplies Eph. 4. 16. And we are all the Body of Christ and Members in particular as he says again as we are under the same Governours which he has set over that Body having in the Church set as first Apostles so after them Governments viz. Bishops and Presbyters for the standing Governance and Administration thereof 1 Cor. 12. 27 28. More particularly the Heads of Union in any Church-societies are the BISHOPS in their respective Churches They are the Head of the Body of the Church as Presbyters and Deacons are as the Hands thereof as Zonaras observes on the 55 and 56 Canons of the Apostles For since the death of the Holy Apostles the Bishops are the chief spiritual Heads and the ordinary and standing Governours of Christ's Church They above all others are those Guides or Rulers whom the Members of the Church are call'd to remember and obey Heb. 13. 7. 17. The Angels of the Churches unto whom as the Heads thereof our Lord directs himself when he sends the several Letters to the Churches Rev. 2. 1 7 8 11 c. They stand to head the Members of Christ and to unite and compact them together under him the chief Bishop appearing at the Head of their respective Churches as his Deputies who represent his Person and supply his place acting in the Person of Christ as St. Paul or vice Christi in his place or stead as St. Cyprian whom we ought to respect as the Lord himself as St. Ignatius says So that for Church-members to keep the Union of any Church is to keep subject and dependant on him who is the lawful Bishop thereof Thus St. Ignatius makes mens return from Schism to the Unity of God to lye in their return to the subjection and consistory of their lawful Bishop They make the Church or one Body who hold on Communion and keep one with him and with those Presbyters and Deacons who adhere to him and officiate under him The Church saith St. Cyprian is a People united to their Bishop or a Flock adhering to their Shepherd Whence you may know the Bishop always to be in the Church and the Church to go along with the Bishop And they break off from the Unity of the Church who break off from him and they go to set up another Church if they go to set up another Bishop against him If any are no longer with the Bishop says the same St. Cyprian they are no longer of the Church And to consent to the setting up of another Bishop is the same as to consent to the setting up of another Church says he to those Confessors at Rome who had agreed to the setting up of Novatian against Cornelius Thus is the one Bishop at the head of his Clergy and People to unite and keep together a Christian Church all the Oblations whereof are to be in his Communion and with his Allowance as the one Altar among the Iews was to keep together the Jewish Church For they were to have but one Altar of Burnt-offering at Jerusalem whither all were to come for Sacrifice and were sorbid to set up an Altar any where else And because of his being set for the same purpose of Unity as that was therefore is the Bishop and his Communion call'd unum Altare the one Altar and making an Anti-Bishop is call'd setting up aliud Altare another Altar in the Ancient Language And therefore in pressing the great duty of Unity on the Ancient Christians the Fathers enjoyn them most strictly to stick to their Bishops This is done by St. Cyprian and before him by Ignatius that blessed Martyr and Contemporary of the Apostles Take care all of you says he to follow the Bishop wheresoever the Bishop appears to be there let the Multitude be with him Like as wheresoever Christ goes the Catholick Church goes too Let my part be with those says he again who keep subject to the Bishop yea let my Soul be pawn'd for theirs As many as are God's and Jesus Christ's keep with the Bishop says he in another place pressing them to Union and warning them against Schism And because the Church is to be but one therefore there is to be but one Bishop in a Church for the Members all to adhere to or for the Body to associate and unite with This was and ought to be the Ecclesiastical Rule as was affirmed by Cornelius saying there ought to be but one Bishop in a Catholick Church And as is also declared by the Great Council of Nice Now as the Union of any Churches lyes mainly in keeping united to the Bishops So Schism which is a breach of Union in those Churches will lye chiefly in breaking off unduly and dividing from them Especially in setting up of opposite Bishops or in making a second Bishop in a Church against a former Orthod x and Rightful Bishop yet living and claâ—ming which makes a most plain and consummate Schisin For in the same Church two opposite Bishops are two opposite Heads And two Heads will make two Bodies those who set up the New One against the Old as likewise all they who afterwards come over to
to spiritual Powers and to the Work of the Ministry in their own Churches For Ordination as well as Baptism is not only in respect to the Church of such a Place but to Christ's Church at large Limitations there are as to the Exercise of these Powers as may make for the preservation of Order and Union And in care of Unity and Peace Bishops and Priests of any Church must observe these in acting Episcopally or Sacerdotally whilst they converse in other Churches But having any where received a Lawful and Canonical Ordination they are to be owned as Ministers of Christ wheresoever they come and need no more to be Ordained than other Members need to be baeptised over again So that they are Schismaticks and break this Unity of the Body appointed to be kept up between all particular Churches and their Members who reject the Members or Canonical Ministers of any other Orthodox Churches As they do who Unchurch them or deny Communion to their Members unless they will submit to unrighteous Claims and Usurpations or joyn in unlawful Worship or erroneous Doctrines or who reject their Lawful and Canonical Ministers unless they will receive new Orders which are so many Breaches of that Brotherhood which Christ has Ordained among Churches and are the making of a Schism in the Catholick Church 2. All Orthodox Bishops and Churches are to refuse each others Schismaticks and Excommunicates as if they were their own Schismaticks or Excommunicates And upon their Reconciliation and Re-union to their own Churches to let them in and receive them again as if they had been immediately reconciled and re-united to themselves Which ways of mutually receiving or rejecting of priviledging or debarring Members make that Unity of Discipline which by Order of Christ and according to the Sense and Belief of the Primitive Fathers is one great way of compacting the vast number of Christian Societies into one Body or of keeping up the Unity of Christs Church All we Christians are incorporated or made one Body says Tertullian as by the Belief of the same Religion and the Covenant of Hope so by the Unity of Discipline And when any one Bishop or Church has done any thing We are all thought to have done the same by appearing associated and united in the same consent of consure and discipline say the Clergy of Rome to St. Cyprian 1. They are to refuse each others Schismaticks as if they were their own Schismaticks For as the holding on civil Communion with Traytors is judged Treason So is holding on spiritual Communion with Schismaticks judged Schism They must take part and keep one with the Church And so whilst the Breach lasts must disclaim and keep off from those separate Members who stand divided and broke off from it avoiding those that cause Divisions as St. Paul orders Rom. 16. 17. Accordingly St. Basil lets the Neocaesareans know when they seemed about to break and divide from him and from his Church of Caesarea that if any avoided or broke off from his Communion they would be broke off withal from the Universal Church which held Communion with him We ought not to have Communion in Prayers with any Heretick or Schismatick says the Council of Laodicea Nor ought they who are not of the Assemblies of one Church to be received or allowed to assemble in another Church says the Council of Antioch If he who is not to be received in one Church be received without commendatory Letters in another let both him who is Received and his Receivers be excommunicated say the Apostolical Canons Whosoever says St. Cyprian speaking of the Schism of Felicissimus who had schismatically broken off and divided from himself shall joyn himself to his Conspiracy and Faction may know that he can no longer communicate with us in the Church since he thereby voluntarily chuses rather to separate himself from the Church 2. They are to refuse each others Excommunicates as if they were their own Excommunicates For whatsoever is this way regularly bound in Earth our Lord declares shall be ratified or stand bound in Heaven Mat. 18. 18. Jo. 20 23. And if it is confirmed in Heaven it must stand good and not be thwarted or reversed by any of his Followers here on Earth When the Members among any Societies of Christians for their disorderly walking and not hearing of the Church are cast out thereof they are thrown not only out of the Church of that place but out of Christ's Church at large whereof all other Churches are Members or out of all Christian Churches into the state of Heathens and Publicans as our Lord says Mat. 18. 17. Accordingly Synesius Bishop of Ptolemais in his sentence of Excommunication denounced against Andronicus and Thoas and their Complices says Let no Temple of God be open to them but let every Religious Place or Chappel be shut against them And St. Basil bids the Neocaesareans take heed how they break communion with him because after once he should exclude them no other Catholick Churches which all owned him and held communion with him would any longer own or communicate with them Till they are regularly absolved and reconciled again all other Bishops and Sister-Churches are bound to refuse and repel such Excommunicates as they come to their knowledge Thus Synesius requires of all Sister-Churches and of all Christians to shun the communion of Andronicus and Thoas and their Adherents And 't is not lawful to communicate with Persons out of communion says the Council of Antioch If any either of Clergy or Laity is excommunicated by his own Bishop let none else receive him to communion till his own Bishop has received him again or a Synod has cleared him say the FATHERS of that Council again And concerning those either of the Clergy or Laity who are excluded from communion by the Bishops which are in every Province let the Sentence be valid according to the Canon which decrees That they who are cast out by some shall not be admitted by others says the Great Council of Nice Thus when any Persons or Churches are schismatically or by means of just Censure and Penalty out of Communion with one Orthodox Church by the Rules of Catholick Communion and Accord among Churches according to the mind of Christ and of the Primitive Church ought they to be out of the communion of all Orthodox Churches And if any either Christians or Churches will still hold on communion with such Persons by the foresaid Rules of Union and the Canons of the Catholick Church they are thereby made like unto them and turn makers of a Schism and are to lose the benefit of Communion themselves If any says Synesius in his Excommunicatory Sentence of Andronicus c. shall contemn our Church as being the Church of a small City receiving those whom it has cast out as if Observance were not due to it by reason of its Poverty Let
a Schism from other Catholick Bishops as if they made it from himself And if still he will Communicate and joyn himself to them he violates Unity and joyns in a Schism as any other Man would do who should do the same And being found in the Schism with them he would have been treated as they were and have fallen from the Communion of all other Orthodox and Catholick Bishops whose Rule was to refuse and shun the Communion of Schismaticks and of their adherents and partakers Communicating with men out of Communion he himself would be put out of Communion as the aforecited Councils say And thus it was with Marcianus Bishop of Arles when he fell to Communicate and joyn himself to Novatian who was set up as a Schismatical Anti-Bishop against Cornelius the Rightful and Canonical Bishop of Rome Thereby says St. Cyprian he himself became separate from our Communion and from the Fraternity of Catholick Bishops because Novatian was so to whom he joyned himself The Bishops met in Council in Africk answering him when he sought their Communion that not one of them could communicate with him since he had set up Altar against Altar at Rome and made a Schism from Cornelius who before was Legally Ordained the Bishop of that Church 4. Besides for surer maintenance of Union and to compact several Churches together into a closer dependance there are other Heads of Union among the Bishops themselves Such are Metropolitanes and Primates as Titus I conceive was left by St. Paul at Crete where he was to ordain Elders or Bishops in every City and Timothy at Ephesus where he is Directed how he shall exercise jurisdiction and receive accusations against Bishops which Metropolitanes and Primates are to Unite and incorporate many Bishops and their Dioceses into one Province or several Provinces by their Concurrence into one National Church And such an Head of Union the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury is among the Bishops in the English Church And the Ecclesiastical Union to be kept up among us is a Provincial yea a National Union We are to stand united by our Articles and Homilies Liturgy and Canons And these unite not only the Christians of each Diocess or District to their respective Bishops as so many Diocesan Churches but likewise the Bishops and People of all Diocesses into the Provinces of Canterbury and York and those two Provinces into one National Church Accordingly those Articles and Homilies Liturgy and Canons which are the Rules of keeping Unity among us are Provincial and National Acts pass'd by concurrence of Convocations of both Provinces where the Bishops and Clergy meet in Union with and dependance on their respective Metropolitanes who are the respective Heads thereof Now in care of Unity and the Communion of Saints the respective Bishops of each Province or Country are to keep dependant and united to their Metropolitanes The Bishops of every Nation ought to know him who is their Primate and to account him as their Head say the Apostolical Canons It behoves every Man to know his own proper measure say the Fathers in the Council of Constantinople and that neither a Presbyter contemn his own Bishop nor a Bishop contemn his own Metropolitane And bating the case of Heresie if any Bishop on pretence of other personal Crimes shall depart from the Communion of his Metropolitane before Synodical Sentence pass'd upon him he is guilty of Schism and though there is nothing else against him the Holy Synod decrees him to incur a Deposition And so strict was this dependance upon the Alexandrian Patriark or Metropolitane of Egypt binding them in all things to wait for his Sentence to do nothing without him nor beside or against his Approbation that on the deposition of their Metropolitane Dioscorus in the Council of Chaliedon the Egyptian Bishops pray they may not be compell'd to subscribe Pope Leo 's Epistles before they had a New Metropolitane to head them and accordingly their subscription was respitted by the Council till they should have got one And for maintenance of this Union of several Diocesses into one Province by a joynt-dependance of the several Bishops on their Metropolitane and adherence to him it has been the great Rule of the Catholick Church that none shall be made a Bishop of the Province without him In Consecration of Bishops the validity of all that is done shall be reserved to the Metropolitane says the great Council of Nice and if any one is Ordained a Bishop without his consent it determines and calls it a thing altogether manifest that he ought to be no Bishop It has likewise been another Rule thereof for the same purpose that no Synods for the common Concern of the Province be held without them The Metropolitanes being to summon the Bishops of the Province and it not being lawful for any to make Synods of themselves without them who have the Metropoles committed to them as the Council of Antioch declares Yea that no matters of common concern to the Church in any Country or Nation be transacted without him The Bishops of every Country and Nation being in duty bound to own him who is the chief among them c. and to do nothing that looks beyond their own Precincts or Diocesses or referring to the common state of the Church without his sentence as is Ordained in the Apostolical Canons and repeated in the Council of Antioch And the more firmly to secure this regard and dependance which for maintenance of this Provincial Union is due from Bishops to their Metroplitanes they make solemn Oath at their Ordination to pay all due Riverence and Obedience to him as in our own Office of Consecration And as there is this Provincial and National Union of Churches which is thus secured by the dependance of Bishops on their Meropolitanes so may there be National and Provincial Schisms or Breaches thereof And such there are when Bishops and their Clergy and People break off from their Metropolitane not falling or receding from his Ecclesiastical Authority over them and create to themselves an opposite Primate whom they set up against him For then they will make ordinations and hold Provincial or National Synods and dispatch matters of common or National concern without him so breaking all the Rules Provincial or National Union and dividing themselves from their Head as he is call'd in the Apostolical Canons And when once an Anti-Primate or Metropolitane is made the Head of a Schism it spreads it into all Dioceses which will own him and profess to bear Canonical Obedience and Subjection or adhere to him So that in such a Schism all Dioceses of the Province come in who do not disclaim the Schismatical Head and stand off from him 5. Lastly when there is not only a setting up of Schismatical and opposite Heads but moreover this is done in opposition to pure worship and Doctrine and to support unchristian
but none at all This Ordination of Novatian against Cornelius intail'd a great Division and Competition of opposite Heads upon the Church And the Novatians as may be seen in Sozomen could produce a Succession of Bishops set up to head their Party against the Catholick Bishops in the great Churches But yet excepting St. Cyprian and the Africanes whom St. Basil Notes to have strained the Effects of Schism too far and to have out-shot the Mark in these Points though these were Anti-Bishops the Catholick Church did not look upon them and the Priests Ordain'd by them as meer Lay-men or null their Ordinations Baptisms or other Church-ministrations For on their Return to the Catholick Church the great Council of Nice Decrees That such of them as should be found in the Clergy should be in the same Order and Degree as they had been Ordained to in their own Party And that * having received imposition of Hands or being Ordained before So according to their Degree they should remain in the Rank of the Clergy So that in any City or Town if there were none else in Orders they still should be the Bishops and Priests thereof But if at the Time of their Reconciliation there should be a Catholick Bishop or Priest living there that then the Catholick should have Preference and the Novatian should be content with the Title of a Bishop without the Administration or with a Presbyter or Chorepiscopus's Place that there may not be two Bishops in a City at once Yea and before such Return or Reconciliation to the Church in great straitness or want of opportunities for Worship otherwise the Catholicks resorted to their Churches to partake of Ministerial Offices from them as Sozomen reports they did in the Arian Persecution under Constantius The Other was the Schism of the Donatists begun by Men professing the same Faith by the setting up of Majorinus as and opposite or Anti-Bishop against Caecilian the true and Canonical Bishop of Carthage This Schism set Africk in a Flame and quickly multiplyed into a Number of Anti-Bishops and their Abettors to confront the regular Bishops of the African Churches The Case of these Anti Bishops came about the Year of Christ 314 to be determined by the Synod under Melchiades at Rome And there to heal the Division Melchiades and the Synod as St. Austin relates declared their readiness to send Communicatory Letters to them even to those that appeared to be of Majorinus 's Ordination And decreed that wherescever by reason of the Breach there were two Bishops he should be confirmed who was first Ordained and that for the other another Church or Bishoprick should be provided Which St. Austin applauds as an innocent and perfect a provident and pacifick Judgment And afterwards in the Council of Carthage under Aurelius about the Year of Christ 419. whereas St. Austin himself was present concerning the Reception of the Donatists into the Church 't is decreed That the Donatist Clergy on their return to the Church shall be received in their proper Honours or Degrees of Orders like as 't is manifest they have been received in Africk in Times foregoing And when any People or Diocess are converted from Donatism if at the time of their Conversion they have Donatist Bishops who come over with them without Controversie say they in another Canon they may have them still Besides these famous Instances of opposite or Anti-Bishops the same may likewise appear of others Flavianus from a Presbyter of that Church was set up as an Anti-Bishop and Ordained at Antioch against Paulinus who had for a good while lived a Bishop of the Orthodox in that Church and by Agreement with his Competitor Meletius sworn to by Flavianus himself was to hold it alone without any New Opposition after Meletius 's Death This Paulinus moreover after the setting up of Flavianus against him was owned for the Bishop of Antioch not only by the Bishops of Egypt of Arabia and Cyprus but also by the Bishop of Rome and the Occidentals who directed their Synodical Epistles to him and none to Flavianus as is related by Socrates and Sozomen But yet Flavianus's Ordination was not judged null the great Chrysostom himself having his Priests Orders from him as may be learn'd from Pallqdius and whilst he was one of his Presbyters preaching such excellent Homilies as we have of his to the People of Antioch And without any pretence of Nullity in his Ordination on account the Church was fill'd by Paulirus at the time thereof after the death of Paulinus and of his Successor Euagrius without any New Ordination he was admitted to Communion both by the Bishops of Alexandria and Rome who had rejected him as a Schismatical Bishop whilst Paulisus and Euagrius were alive In the Succession of Bishops in the Church of Rome there have been numerous Ordinations of opposite or Anti-bishops which have made no fewer than 27 Schisms And some of them of long continuance that by the Ordination of Clemens 7th as an Anti-bishop against Urban 6th being reckoned to have lasted Fifty Years But neither these Anti-bishops nor those Ordained by them have been thought to want the Powers of Orders nor to make any breach of the continued Series and Succession of Apostolical Ordination in that Church Nor is it judged to do so by our selves we concluding our own to be a right and uninterrupted Succession of Orders and not difowing it in good part at least to be derived from them In the Arian Persecution of Athanasius and the Orthodox Faith numerous were the unjust Deprivations of Orthodox Bishops as of Athanasius at Alexandria Paulus at Constantinople Liberius at Rome Asclepas at Gaza Lucius at Adrianople c. These Bishops being deposed for their adherence to the Truth there was a Nullity in their deprivations as I shewed before and notwithstanding those deprivations they still fill'd those Churches and were the true Bishops thereof and accordingly were communicated with and received as such by the Western Synods And that because the depositions were not really for other Faults which were falsly fixed upon their Persons but for their holding the Nicene Faith as the Sufferers pleaded and upon Examination the Synods and the Emperour Constans found But on their depositions Anti-bishops were set up against them and obtruded on their seeral Churches * as Gregory and afterwards George were against Athanasius at Alexandria and Eusebins of Niconiedia and after him Macedonius were against Paulus at Constantinople and Felix against Liberius at Rome and Quintianus against Asclepas at Gaza not to mention others in other places And yet these Anti-bishops being for the most part Hen â—â—ul as well as Schismatical Bishops were not held to want the Powers of others nor if any of them left their Heresies and returned to the Faith of the Church was there any new Ordination required of them or of
Thus it is when it sha Excommunicate any for adhereing to any necessary Christian Doctrines Worship or Practices For all who would hold to Christ must Neglect such Censures and though any Church or Synod throws such persons out of its Communion they are joyfully to well come and receive them into theirs For when our Lord Arthorizes and gives validity to Church Censures saying they shall be bound in Heaven and bidding us look on all who will not hear the Church as Heathâ—ns and Publicans He limits this validity to those censures which pass upon men not for any parts of righteousness but for real offences If thy Brother Trespass against thee and will not hear thee tell it unto the Church So that some real offence or Trespass must still be the ground of the process Mat. 18. 15. 17. It must be for not hearing the Church when it calls us to his Truths and Precepts not when it sets up to carry us from them For there if it use censures it acts of it self and not by his Commission It opens or shuts by an Erring Key and must not expect that what is so bound or loosed on earth shall be Ratifyed in Heaven By such perverse Censures the Church only deprives it self of the Communion of Faithful Christians but doth not deprive them of Communion with Christ or with one another The unjust Excommunications of the Jewish Sinhedrim when they cast Christs Disciples out of their Synagogues only estranged or cut off themselves says Photius but brought those Disciples so much nearer to their Lord and Master And so now says he when the imitators of the Jews Excommunicate the Followers of the Apostles they thereby only Conjoyn and Unite them the more to those Divine Apostles to whom they are more closely and exactly knit both in Faith and Life by the Communion of sufferings But they miserably cut off themselves both from their Doctrine and from our Orthodox Faith And therefore instead of bemoaning themselves under such Excommunications and seeking to have them take off by Complying with the Church our Blessed Saviour fortifies his â—râ—â— followers against them and bids them not only patiently to rest under tâ—em but triumphaâ—â—ly to re oyce therein They shall put you out â— the 〈◊〉 ues says he to â—â—em and Cautions them not be offended thereat when it should happen or not to fall off from him or his ways to recover the Liberty of the Sâ—nagogues again Joh. 16. 1. 2. When they shall seperate you from their company by Excommunications and Anathema's and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the Son of Mans sake rejoyce ye in that day and leap for joy for behold Great is your Reward in Heaven for in the like manner did their Fathers unto the Prophets Luk. 6. 22 23. And thus the Holy Apostles and Faithful Adherers to Gods Truth and Worship and good Christian Practices did in all times when for such Adherence they fell under the Anathema's of Synods or the Excommunication of Churches during the Papal or any other former or later Persecutions They joyfully received such sentences and always owned one another and held Communion in Adherence to Gods word and ways among themselves when they were cast out of the communion of such corrupt and Apostatizing Synods or Churches And 't is the same when it shall deprive or discharge any Faithful Bishops and Ministers from supporting such necessary Doctrines worship and practices by their Ministrations as Christ requires For then notwithstanding such deprivations and discharge by Churches and Synods CHRIST'S Faithful Ministers must hold on Ministring and his faithful People must hold on Communicating and Adhereing to them therein Thus as our LORD Notes their Fathers had Separated and cast out the Old Prophets from Prophesying in their Company or Assemblies Who still went on Preaching and Ministring the Word which they were sent out to publish And thus the Sanhedrim that great Synod of the Jewish Church discharged the Apostles from Ministring Christianity or Preaching any more in Christs Name who told them they could by no means desist thereupon but must hold on their Ministration being to Ovey God rather than men Act. 4. 18 19 20. Thus also several Synods Deprived Athanasius and the other Orthodox Bishops who were the stout Asserters and Maintainers of the Divinity of our Lord against the Arians Such was the Synod of Tyre And such also was the Synod of Antioch whose Deprivations of Athanasius and the other Orthodox Bishops were a Blow made at the Nicene Faith though their Canons being good and according to Primitive Usage were by Orthodox Councils afterwards taken into the Book of Ecclesiastical Canons out of which several of them are repeated verbatim in the great Council of Chalcedon and are there among the Canons of others Synods taken in to be Canons of the Universal Church And such likewise were the deprivations of other Synods assembled in that Cause afterwards Now under these Synodical deprivations the great Business of those suffering Bishops was to shew that whatever other Immoralities or Personal Crimes were pretended against them as several were most impudently pretended against all Ground and Reason yet in reality and truth their deprivations were for the Cause of the Faith or for their firmness in maintaining the Divinity and Consubstantiality of Christ with the Father This Athanasius and Paulus plead for themselves teaching That their Depositions were not for any other Cause but for the subversion of the Orthodox Faith as is related by Socrates and Sozomen And what they made appear to the Emperor Constans was That they suffered not for the Crimes or ill Lives they were accused of as the sentence of Deposition did contain but for their thinking and teaching differently from the Synods their Dâ—posers about the Faith And when it was once clear to any Persons or Churches that they were deprived for the cause of the Faith they were not hindred by any Authority of external Judicature in the Synods their deposers but readily received and communicated with them as Christs true Bishops still in those places For notwithstanding these Synodical Deprivations Athanasius was all the while own'd and adher'd to by the Faithful Aegyptians as Paulus also was by the Faithful Constantinopolitanes And when they came to Rome on their giving full satisfaction in this Point Julius the Bishop of Rome received them to Communion Hearing the Cause of each says Sozomen and finding them all to agree in the Nicene Faith which he saw undermined and struck at by their Deprivers he received them to Communion as being of the same Belief with himself This Reception of Athanasius and others who stood deprived by the Synods of Tyre and Antioch c. to his Communion was before the Synod of Rome wherein the Orientals should have justified their Proceedings had acquitted and received them For before the Synod was held at Rome in
him know that he thereby makes a Schism in the Church which Christ is for having kept one And whether he be Bishop Priest c. he shall be the same to us as Andronicus himself is If any shall communicate wîth one out of communion he himself shall be shut out of communion say the Apostolical Canons If any Bishop or Presbyter receive to communion those who are deservedly cast out of the Church for their crimes he shall be lyable to like Punishments says the Council of Carthage And if any Bishop Priest or other of the Clergy appear to communicate with Persons out of communion the shall also stand excommunicate himself as one who confounds the Canons and Order of the Church say the Fathers in the Synod of Antioch The Reason of all this is because Christians as I said and as the African Fathers observe though dispersed over the most distant Places and Countries are but one Society and though multiplyed into the greatest Number of Assemblies yet all these make but one Body We ought to signifie to each other what is acted in any of our Churches says Alexander Bishop of Alexandria in his Synodical Epistle to all Churches upon his Deposition of Arius and his Adherents that whether one Member or Church suffer or rejoyce all the other Members or Churches may suffer or rejoyce with it or give mutual support and confirm each others Acts and Sentences And this because the Catholick Church is but one Body and we are commanded in the Holy Scriptures to keep up therein the bond of Uaanimity and Peace And Synosius threatning the Receivers of those whom he and his Church had put under Excommunication taxes them therein as I have observed for making a Schism in the Church which Christ is for having kept one The several Orthodox and Regular Churches of Christendom are all Members one of another And from that Communion which ought to be among Members of the same Body what belongs to one belongs to all and what is broke off from one is broke off from all The Canon says Balsamon speaking of the 2d Canon of the Council of Antioch which forbids the communicating of other Churches with those who communicate not with their own Church says all Temples and Oratories wheresoever they are make but one Church And therefore if any Person is cast out of the Church and regularly shut out of the Temples and Oratories of the Orthodox in one Country he ought to be shut out of the Temples and Oratories of all and not to be received to communion by the Clergy of other Countries And like Regard all particular Churches are bound to have to each others Reconciliation and Re-union of Members as to their separation and exclusion of them As in binding so also in loosing our Lord ratifies the Acts of his Officers and Vice gerents in all Churches Whatsoever you shall loose or remit on Earth the same shall be loosed or remitted in Heaven Mat. 18. 18. Jo. 20. 23. And in relaxing or remitting censures as well as in laying of them upon Offenders among their respective Charges Orthodox Bishops act in the Person of Christ as St. Paul says 2 Cor. 2. 10. or as Judices vice Christi Judges that sit in Christs place as St. Cyprian notes of them Till their own Bishop has received them or a Synod has cleared them no other Bishop must receive them to communion says the Canon of Antioch before cited And after he has once received them into his Communion no other Bishops must reject them from theirs They are then re-united again to the Body and are Brethren and Members and as such must be admitted to the Communion of Saints by all other Orthodox Members of the same Body and Brotherhood in all places And thus again they are Schismaticks and break that Unity of one Body which Christ has appointed among all Churches who unduly receive and associate with any other Orthodox and Lawful Churches Schismaticks or Excommunicates If they would keep one with all Orthodox Churches as they must look upon all who are duly united to them as united to themselves so must they look upon all who are duly seperated and broke off from them as seperated and broke off from themselves And to do otherwise is to break this one Communion which is to bind all Orthodox Christians into one Body and to make a Schism in the Catholick Church And in further care and provision for the maintenance of this Catholick Accord and Communion among all Churches by the Ancient Rule of the Church all Orthodox Bishops and Churches were to keep up an Intercourse by communicatory Letters Since the Catholick Church is but one Body and we are commanded in Scripture to keep up the Bond of Unanimity and Peace therein the consequence hereof is that we write or signifie to each other what is transacted in any of our Churches that all the rest as Members may bear their part in the same says Alexander Bishop of Alexandria in his Synodical Epistle which I cited before And Siricius of Rome and together with him the whole World is united in one Communion and Society with us by the Intercourse of communicatory Letters says Optatus of the Church of Africk as it stood divided from the Donatists By these Letters an Account was given to other Churches of any Bishops Advancement when he was Ordained Bishop of his Church or of his own Faith to shew that he and his Church were Orthodox and so duly qualified for Union with other Orthodox Churches and fit to be owned as Members of the Body and admitted as Partners in the Communion of Saints And of their own Members or Ministers their Schismaticks or Excommunicates that among all who should come to them from thence other Churches might know whom they were to receive and whom they were to reject as either of the same or of a different Body with themselves And also of any other Church-Acts or Concerns wherein they could either claim the ratification or desired the concurrence or needed the aid council or support or could bear the burdens help the wants or congratulate the well-fare or prosperity of one another Now as to these communicatory Letters certifying each others Members or Ministers Schismaticks or Excommunicates c. the Catholick Rule of the Ancient Church was That no Strangers or Forreigners should be admitted to the Communion of any Church without them If they who came were Clergy-men they were to bring commendatory Letters testifying their Orders Or if Laity pacifical and communicatory declaring they were in Communion with their own Churches No Stranger or Forreigner shall be received without pacifical Letters say the Council of Antioch And no foreign Bishops Priests or Deacons shall be received without commendatory Letters say the Canons of the Apostles If there come any strange or unknown Clergy let them not by any means be any where received
gives discharge from them Accordingly this the Clergy of Rome put the granting or denying communion upon in their Answer to Marcion Telling him they could not receive him to communion in their Church without his Fathers consent and allowance because his Father the Bishop of Sinope who had cast him out of communion was of the same Faith with themselves And this discharge such defection gives upon the evidence of the Fact it self before synodical Cognizance or judicial sentence and declaration thereof As for other Crimes which concern only the Persons or conversation of Bishops not their Doctrine or Ministrations they give no discharge to the Clergy or People who are subject to them before the offending Bishops are regularly deprived for the same by judicial sentence And if before synodical sentence any Clergy or People break off from their Bishops or Bishops from their Metropolitanes or Metropolitanes from their Patriarks on pretence of them they make a Schism and are censured by the Church for so doing If any Presbyter or Deacon says the Council of Constantinople on pretence of Crimes meaning such personal Crimes shall dare to withdraw themselves from 〈◊〉 Communion of their Bishop or Bishops from their Metropolitane or Presbyters Bishops or Metropolitanes from their Patriack before Synodical cognizance and perfect condemnation past upon him He makes a Schism and shall incuâ— the penalty of deposition But as for Heresie or any damnable corruptions of Doctrine or Ministrations they give this discharge as soon as the Bishop c. is notoriously guilty of them before any Synod has sate or Sentence has pass'd upon him Thus St. Jerome expounds that Passage an Heretick is condemned of himself Tit. 3. 10. 11. Which says he is therefore said of Hereticks because when other Offenders as Fornicators Adulterers Murderers are not cast out but by the Sentence of the Bishop or Church censures Hereticks on the other hand pass sentence upon themselves on their own accord receding from the Church which recession seems to be a condemnation of their own conscience As many as attempt any tâ—inâ— against those Constitutions of the Fathers which concern the Faith thereby without more ado incur and bring on themselves the Censures coâ—tained in the Canons says Thalassius Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia in the Great Council of Chalcedon When an Offence is only against the Canons of the Church the Desence of the Divine Canons we know is proper only to the Bishops but the Desence of the right Faith belongs not only to them but to every Orthodox Christian say the Holy Monks against the Patriark Anthimus faln to the Heresie of the Eutychians in their Libâ—l in the Council of Constantinople under Agapetus and Mennas Though no Synod has before condemned him yet he that has prevaricated and deserted the Orthodox Faith as Acacius he says had done by communicating with the Eutychians has enough for which he ought to be deny'd communion As also any one who before being a Catholick shall fall to communicate with any Heresie is justly thought to be thereby removed from our Society says Pope Gelasius Though in case of other Crimes they may not do it before Synodical Sentence yet in case of any Heresie condemn'd by the Holy Synods or Fathers they may depart and separate from the Communion of their Prelate say the foresaid Canons of Constantinople when once he comes to preach it publickly and to teach it bare-fac'd in the Church And then to withdraw from him before Synodical cognizance is not to incur the foresaid Canonical pains but to shew themselves worthy of that Honour which belongs to the Orthodox 'T is not to condemn Bishops say they but Pseudo-Bishops their Teachers not to rend the Unity of 〈◊〉 Church by a Schism but to study to free it from Schisms and Divisions So that in these Cases when the Defection of Doctrine and Worship is apparent and plain to their eyes and ears the People and Clergy may judge for themselves and withdraw from the Communion of such Heretical or Erroneous Pastors And accordingly the Apostolical Rules to the People are without staying for the declaration of a Synod if any turn a bringer of false Doctrine contrary to what they had delivered without more ado to hold him as Anathema or as one Excommunicate Gal. 1. 8. 9. and not to bid him God speed 2 Jo. 10. 11. By such defections then from Christian Doctrine or Worship the Ligaments of Union are broken towards the Governours of any Church or between one Church and another and there accrues a Liberty without any Breach of the Unity of the Church 1. For People to break off from their own Local Guides or for People and Clergy to break off from their own Bishops Tho' they were Apostles or Angels from Heaven they are to be held then as Anathema as St. Paul says that is not as Heads of Unity and Church-communion but as Excommunicate Men. If they cause Divisions from the Doctrines we have learned he bids the Church mark and avoid them Ro. 16. 17. The Peoples duty of adhering to and following them is no longer than they continue to be followers of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. c. 4. 18. But if they break off from his Truth and turn False Prophets however they come dress'd up in soft Pretences or in Sheeps-cloathing he tells us to beware of them and to fly them as Wolves Mat. 7. 15 16. to look to them and avoid them as St. Paul cautions against the Judaizers Phil. 3. 2. If they become bringers of False Doctrine bid them not God speed nor receive them into your Houses saith St. John 2 Jo. 10. 11. Thus when John of Jerusalem fell to erre in Point of Faith Epiphanius writ to the Monks as St. Jerom says that till he gave satisfaction in Point of Faith none of them should communicate with him And Ierom himself asks him where it is required that they should come under his Communion before such satisfaction were given And tells him 't is because of their difference in point of Faith that they may not communicate with him A People says St. Cyprian that would fear God and obey his Precepts ought to separate it self from an erring Prelate Such Persons if Metropolitanes are no longer to have neither any Authority over the Bishops of their Provinces nor the Communion of the Church as is decreed in the General Council of Ephesus They are to leave their Guides when they fall to misguâ—â— them and to stand off from their Persons lest they be corrupted with their Tenets And this is no more than is needful for them even in point of Caution being their keeping out of the way of Temptations which our Lord directs us to for a general Guard of all Vertues And standing off thus from Heretical Leaders they will approve themselves in the midst of Heresies by being stedfast in the Truth 1.
Cyprian in this case Though holding it in Partnership we are several Bishops yet as there is but one Church so there is but one Episcopate says he again whereof every particular Bishop holds a part but holds it so as to stand obliged and answerable on occasion not only for his own particular proportion but as Partners in a Bond each of them pro Solido as the legal Phrase is or for the whole Sum. Thus Eleutherius told the Gallicane Bishops That for this very Cause Christ had committed to them the Universal Church that they should labour for all and not neglect to afford Help to any as their Needs should require And Simplicius of Rome told Acacius of Constantinople That to approve himself faithful in his Episcopate he must strive for Catholick Unity and the Decrees of the Fathers not only in that Church where he presided but wheresoever he could And Chrysostom says St. Eustathius Bishop of Antioch had well learned by the Grace of the Holy Ghost that a Bishop of the Church ought to take care not of that Church alone over which he is specially appointed but of the Universal Church through the World This general Care has appeared conspicuous in the Lives and Labors of Holy and Faithful Bishops as of Cyprian Alexander and Cyril of Alexandria Eustathius of Antioch and Chrysostom And of the Great Athanasius who took as much care of all other Churches as he did of his own as St. Basil says Nor ought they to be hinder'd from such Ministration and Reception of the Members of other Churches by any Canonical Rules for Unity in the Church For that Heresie or Defection from Christian Doctrine whether in Faith or Practice and from Christian Worship which sets aside the Obligations of Unity towards those defecting Bishops and Pastors must also of course therewith set aside those Canonical Rules which are for maintenance thereof So that the Ecclesiastical Rules of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. of Clergy and People doing nothing in Church-communion without the Allowance of their Bishop and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. of ones not officiating or ordaining anothers Subjects or intermâ—dling in anothers Diocess are no Rules nor of Force towards such Persons And accordingly at Arles when Marcianus their Bishop was faln to the Novatians Cyprian thought it behoved him and other Bishops to see the Needs of the Faithful there supplyed That they might no longer be left a Prey for Wolves without all hopes after the Novatian Rigour of the Churches Peace and Communion after once they had faln And under the Arian Hereticks the Great Athanasius when out of his own District held Ordinations in other Churches as he passed through them as Socrates reports Even the Great Council of Constantinople in that very Canon which forbids Bishops to intermeddle either in Ordinations or in other Ecclesiastical Administrations without their own Precincts yet makes an Exception of those Churches that are in Barbarous Nations for whose Relief they might do this As Eminent Preachers when they went among them might still confirm those they had gained to the Faith in other Provinces according to their Custom Which though against the Canons the Council still allow'd say Balsâ—mon and Zonoras upon the Canon for the necessity of the thing And thus also Presbyters and People may hold Assemblies independant on their own Defecting Bishops or on any others The Apostolical Canons allowing Priests to have Meetings separate from their Bishops when they do it as condemning them of Impiety in Doctrine or of Injustice in Administration as deposing them for the sake of Truth or of a good thing c. And the Council of Constantinople though it forbids Inferiours before Synodical Sentence to cast off the Communion of their Superiour on pretence of Criminal Causes as Fornication Symony or Transgression of the Canons as Balsamon comments yet allows it in case of Heresie condemn'd by former Synods or by the Holy Fathers so soon as he begins bare-faced to teach it in the Church And the Council of Carthage when it Condemns Presbyters for setting up separate Altars from their Bishops makes this Exception unless they have against him a just Expostulation And an Allegation of False Doctrine or leading the Church wrong is such a just Expostulation as Balsamon observes upon the Canon These Rules for preserving Order and Concord among Bishops and Churches are binding towards any Bishops who are in the Unity of the Church and are Orthodox But if either they are faln to set up Unchristian Worship or Doctrine or as I observed before are turned Schismaticks or set up as Anti-Bishops in Christ's Church They bind none towards such Bishops They are no longer Heads of Union and so cannot claim the Benefit of these Rules for Unity which by their Schism or Defection is at an end towards them Thus doth Heresie or a defection from necessary Doctrine or Worship discharge Church Members from their Spiritual and Canonical dependance and union with their defecting Bishops and Pastors Priests are no longer tyed to such erring Bishops nor the People to either in such Cases So that a defection to sinful Worship and damnable Doctrine bereaves Men of all ArguÌ„ments from Scripture or Canons for their Subjects to depend on them or to unite with them If therefore in any division of a Church it can truly be Objected to one side that they are saln from holy and true Worship and Doctrine it is not for them to plead the duty of Union or to tell People of their Obligations to unite with them If before they were the true Heads and the Regular and Canonical Bishops of those places yet would their falling into those Unchristian Errors strip them of those Claims The Union taught by Christ and the Holy Scriptures and directed by the Rules and Canons of the Church supposes Men Orthodox but is not to unite with such defectors Nor is any Charity which they can pretend to in seeking to keep all others united to themselves the Charity which he requires For that Charity which is the end of the Commandment must be out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned as St. Paul says 1 Tim. 1. 5. It must be out of a pure heart and a good conscience and so is only a seeking to have them one with us whilst we go together in keeping the Commandments or in the practice of good things not like the Charity or Love of Thieves and Murderers that associates and binds them together in the practice of ill things as St. Chrysostom notes And it must also be out of faith unfeigned and so is a seeking to unite them to our selves not in dangerous Errors but only in Orthodox and Christian Doctrines Whereas the pains that is taken to bring all over to them in the Breach of Gods Laws and embracing of Unchristian
the Church For when they fill'd all places they would be met with in all places and intermix in all dealings And then not to have any Company or Dealings with such they must needs go out of the World which St. Paul gives as one Reason of Relaxation and Allowance in this Case 1 Cor. 5. 10. So that continuing still to shun Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Communion with such Makers of Schisms especially for the setting up of a sinful Worship and Unchristian Doctrines and Practices is so far from being a defection from the Apostolical and Primitive Charity that it is a keeping up to it and is only a retaining of their first Love which ought in all times faithfully to be kept on in all true Churches Now as to the Persons whom this will affect and whose Communion by this Rule is to be shuned in such Cases it barrs this Communion with those who set up and make the Anti-Bishops or who side and take part with them 1. It affects the Electors who chose the Men and their Ordainers and Consecrators who laid hands on them For these give Heads to the New Bodies and create the Schism Others may seditiously call for it or come in to it when once 't is form'd but their part is to give it a Head which formally constitutes and sets it up so that they are Principals therein 2. And those who own subjection and dependance on these Anti-Bishops in opposition to their Old Ones and as Members unite and incorporate under them Thus it is among the Pastors by whom their Authority is received and who thereby all break off from the rightful Bishop to whom in all their Ministrations they ought to keep subject and dependant The Rule of Communion for Priests and Deacons towards their Bishop is to do all Publick Ministrations according to his Allowance and Consent Let the Presbyters or Deacons do nothing without the Consent of the Bishop say the Apostolical Canons and the Council of Laodicea afterwards for 't is the Bishop to whose Trust the Lords People is committed and from whom an Account of their Souls will be required And If any will be for having the Offices of the Church without the Concurrence of a fitting Presbyter who officiates according to the Bishops approbation and allowance let him be Anathema says the Council of Gangra And If any Clergy celebrate Divine Offices in private Oratories or baptize not according to the Mind and Allowance of the Bishop but besides or contrariant to it let them incur Deposition say the Council in Trullo and the Council of Constantinople The Church is settled upon the Bishops and every Act of the Church â—ught to be governed by them saith St. Cyprian Let none do any of those things which concern the Church or publick Service without the Bishop says St. Ignatins that Holy Martyr and Contemporary of the Apostles But let that he reputed a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by those who keep under him or which is administer'd with his Leave And that a due Baptism which is with his consent or approbation 'T is necessary says he that ye should do nothing without the Bishop like as also ye do The Spirit adds he in another place hath preached this saying Do nothing without the Bishop Love Unity fly Divisions And they who continue to call him Bishop but yet do all things without him I think are not men of good Conscience because they do not celebrate their solemn Assemblies according to Christs Precept And to like purpose Tertullian St. Jerome and others And this way of administring all Offices with his approbation and allowance St. Ignatius declares is the way for them to keep Unity with their Bishops For says he as our Lord doth nothing without his Father being united to him not acting without him either by himself or by his Apostles So neither do you any thing without your Bishop and his Presbyters But when the Priests and Deacons of a Diocess turn over from their rightful Bishop to the Anti-Bishop they live in a slagrant Breach of these Rules of Communion They do all their Ministrations then without their Bishop putting in some things into Divine offices and putting out others and observing Days and other things belonging to their Ministrations not only without but quite against his consent and approbation and altogether by the Authority and jurisdiction of another who is set up against him Which is to separate as far as they can from him who ought to be their Principle of Union and to minister in a state of full and Flaming Schism And thus it is also in the Assemblies over which those Rightful Bishops ought to Preside or in the Churches of their own Dâ—oceses If they would keep in the state of Unity they should keep united to their Rightful Bishops who are the Heads of Union to their several Flocks and should stick to them and the Clergy of their Communion for Divine Offices Where their Bishop appears there let the multitude be with them Like as where Jesus Christ goes there the Catholick Church goes too says St. Ignatius But if they break away from all Dependance on them and from all recourse to their ministrations to Depend on the Anti-Bishops and to resort to theirs that makes them all Schismaticks For all these Assemblies of People and Pastors make the Schismatical Bodys whereof the Anti-Bishops are the Heads As the Bishops set up for the Schismatical Heads So the Pastors and People who turn over to them and assemble under them come in to be their Schismatical Members They Form themselves into one Church by erecting an Ecclesiastical Union and Communion among themselves And this is a Schismatical Church as Consisting all of a Party of Members broke off from their True Heads or lawful Bishops 3. Further it may also affect other Bishops and Churches who will take their Part and Communicate with them For Catholick Unity is to be preserved in the Church i. e. Unity and Communion is to be kept up among all Churches And this is by Rules of Accord and Correspondence which give the same Church Acts or matters the same effects in all places Of which Rules I have before discoursed more at large And these Rules will keep up Catholick Unity and the Communion of Saints between all Bishops and Churches since this way they all Communicate or all in Common refuse to do it with the same Persons And therefore if any Bishop of one Church would side and have Communion with Anti-Bishops or with the Schismaticks or Hereticks of other Churches He thereby broke the Rules of Union as well as they and became involved in Schism like one of them For he was as much obliged as others in care of maintaining Unity to keep off from the Communion of such Schismaticks Yea in care of Catholick Unity and Communion to keep off from the Communion of those who make
those who had been Ordained by them Besides all this instead of Anti-bishops being absolutely null and in reality no Bishops to heal and compose the differences of a miserably harassed and divided Church on such Competitions it has been sometimes agreed that whichsoever of them were the Right on the death of either the Survivor should be owned and the Church should have no other Bishop and so all the Ordinations and Episcopal Acts therein should pass through his hands and stand on his Authority whilst he lived Thus it was at Antioch where the Church was divided into Two Parts 〈◊〉 for the cause of the Faith which was common to them both but of the Bishops as Socrates says some owning and adhering to Meleâ—ius and others to Paulinus For to heal and close this lamentable Schism it was agreed which Sozomen calls an admirable Counsel and expedient that on the death of either the survivor should hold the See alone for his Life without being confronted and opposed by the Ordination of any other Person To prevent which an Oath was exacted of all in that Church who seemed to stand fairest for the Episcopate and of Flavianus among the rest that on the death of either of the Bishops they would not be Ordain'd Bishop of Antioch whilst the other survived Which Agreement and Oath being afterwards broke by Flavianus when on the death of Meletius he was Ordained Bishop against Paulinus cost him so much trouble and difficulty as he found to get himself received for the Bishop thereof both in Egypt Arabia and Cyprus and at Rome and among the Western Bishops afterwards Thus though Men in a Schism did ill in Ordaining others yet were not those Ordinations null in themselves but really conferred the powers of Orders which the Persons might exercise if the Church pleased And when once the Persons were reconciled and had satisfied the Church for their Schism they have often been allow'd to officiate in Virtue of that Ordination without being Ordained over again by the greatest Councils and through the early and later Ages of the Church And this shews that their Ordinations were not null in themselves For if such Persons had never received any Spiritual powers in their Ordinations they had none to exercise And had the Church been of this perswasion it would never have admitted them to exercise those POWERS which it believed were never Conferred on them But though these Men even after they had faln into a Schism or others who were Ordained therein had Orders yet was it in the power of the Church to deny them the Ministerial Exercise of their Orders Men must have the Communion of the Church as well as Orders before they can exercise their Orders and minister to the Faithful in any Religious Assemblies And though their Schism doth not utterly devest or exclude them from the Powers of Orders yet it doth from the Communion of the Church without which the Faithful who are not to seek but to shun the Ministrations of Schismaticks and Excommunicate persons must not partake with them in any Exercise of Orders And to this Communion after once they have justly lost and faln from it they are to be restored again in Degree more or less and to be received to the Communion either only of Lay-members or else of Clergy and to officiate according to their former Honors as the Church pleaseth And as to this Admission and Allowance to exercise their Orders in its Communion the Church has acted variously according as it saw cause When Ordinations have been made against the Rules of Unity though the Offenders thereby received Orders yet in care of these Rules and to assert and keep up Discipline it has at some times denyed as well as at other times granted its Communion to them for their Exercise of the same Where it judged that Rigor expedient on their submission it would receive them to communicate as Lay-men But they should not be allow'd the Priviledges nor permitted to act and officiate as Bishops and Priests in her Communion nor should other Churches receive them and joyn with them as such till moreover satisfaction had been first given to those Rules of Unity in Ordinations which had been broken in theirs And this it has done not only in case of this great Rule of not Ordaining a Bishop into a full Church but also in case of other Rules which are of less Account than it is Thus of Ordination into a Church already vacant if it is made without the Metropolitanes consent the Council of Nice and afterwards the Council of Antioch Deâ—rce That the Church shall not receive such an one for a Bishop And of Ordinations at large without declaring the appropriate Church or Place wherein the Person Ordained is to officiate the Council of Chalcedon decrees that they shall be invalid Not to mention or insist also on the Council of Nice's rejecting of the Anti-bishops Ordained by the Schismatick Meletius till they were confirmed by a more holy imposition of hands as their Synodical Epistle says because there was an incapacity more than ordinary for giving Orders not only to Anti-bishops but to any others in his Case which because it may be of use in this Argument I shall give an Account of Meletius was Bishop of Lycus in Egypt under the See of Alexandria and as Epiphanius relates was next in dignity and power to Peter the Bishop of Alexandria himself And he with his Adherents broke off from the Unity of the Church and set up a Schism separating from Peter the Bishop of Alexandria and assembling for Prayers and other Divine Offices by themselves and Ordaining opposite Bishops Priests and Deacons for the erection of opposite Churches in several places as Eleutheropolis Gaza and Aelia as Epiphanius says And these separate erections of Churches and opposite Ordinations he made after he had been justly deposed by Peter in a Synod as we are assured by Athanasius who had the best Opportunities to understand the Truth of these Matters and the most cause to inquire into them and also by Socrates afterwards And that too among other Crimes for his having faln in the Persecution to deny the Faith and to sacrifice to Idols Which Crimes when any Bishop or Clergy were once convicted of by the great Rule of Church-Discipline they were never afterwards to exercise any Clerical Powers or to officiate as Bishops and Clergy but upon their Reconciliation were to be received only to Lay-Communion After such Falls says St. Cyprian 't is in vain for any to seek to usurp the Episcopacy since 't is manifest such Men can neither preside in the Church of Christ nor ought to offer Sacrifice to God Chiefly since it has been Decreed by Cornelius and by Us and by all the Bishops of the whole World concerning them that after such Offence they may be admitted to Penance and the Peace of the Church but must stand
says they have them if they will use them and the Acts of Orders are not Nullities which are done by them There is no Question now to be made saith he and it has been a thing discussed considered and established through the whole World that they who are broken off from the Unity of the Church do for all that retain both their Baptism and their Orders or Power of Baptizing When correcting the Error of their Schism they are received to the Unity and Peace of the Church if it seem needful or expedient to have them bear their former Offices their Prelates are not to be Ordain'd again but as their former Baptism so their former Ordination remains intire in them For their Fault lay in their Schism which is corrected by their being settled anem in the peace of Uâ—ity not in the holy institutions either of Bapism or Orders which wheresoever they are really are of validity Yea and when on such reception to the Communion of the Church it seems expedient not to admit them to the administration of their former Orders yet even there adds he is not the power of Orders withdrawn from them but remains still lodged in them Which also may appear from hence because on their Reconciliation they are not made to stand among the Penitents as other Offenders among the people are and there to receive penance and absolution by imposition of hands Which is omitted towards them not because it would be an injury to their persons Schism being as Criminal if not more Criminal in them than it is in others but because it would be an injury to their Orders which Orders therefore must be still inherent in them at that time to give them that Exemption For no person in Holy Orders as Bishops Priests and Deacons was lyable or ever made to do penance by the ancient Rules and Discipline of the Church And before them St. Cyprian and the Africanes of his Age together with Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocea carryed the effect of Schism so far as quite to set asi e all Ministerial Acts of Schismaticks And on that Account they equally null'd both their Ordinations and their Baptisms The powers of Baptizing and Ordaining and of doing other Ministerial Acts are powers of the Holy Ghost And by Schism in their Account the Schismaticks fell from the Grace of the Holy Ghost and having lost it themselves were no longer empowered to confer it on others either in Baptism or Ordination being thence forward as to these powers as meer Lay-men as St. Basil recites their Opinion But this St. Basil thinks was a straining things too far and others of Asia as he says were altogether of another Opinion So in his Canonical Epistle which was received into the Code of the Universal Church by the sixth Council in Trullo he admits those Ministerial Acts and Baptisms when done by Bishops or by others of their Ordination in a Schism Yea and even Cyprian and those Africanes who were for nulling these Acts and Baptisms of Scismaticks seem to have been for this only in regard to their own Communion or by denying Communion to them in their own Churches in way of asserting Discipline and Canons but not to have thought them naturally and essentially null in themselves And this I think is plain from hence Because though in care to keep up Discipline they null'd these Acts as to their own Communion in the case of any of their own Members Yet they declare that if any other Churches admit them they will not break Communion with them on account thereof We judge none nor will exclude any from our Communion who shall be of another Opinion says St. Cyprian at the Head of the Council of Carthage when they made this Determination And again in another Council when they writ to Stephen of Rome to concur with them in rejecting not only the Baptism but the Ordination of Men in Heresie or Schism and in receiving them when they returned to the Church only to Lay-communion They declare that if any of their Brethren who have imbihed another Opinion are still for sticking to their former Sentiments they are not forcing any nor for breaking Communion with those who are for preserving that Bond of Concord and Peace which ought to be upheld in the College of Bishops So that if any Persons of such Baptism or Ordination came to them with Communicatory Letters from any other Bishops they would admit them to all Acts whether of Lay or Clerical Communion in Carthage and Africk which they had been admitted to at home the denyal whereof as I shewed before had been to break Communion with other Churches which they disclaim And if they would admit them to communicate thus with them in their Churches they could not think either their Baptisms or Ordinations null in themselves For the Communion professed in the Creed is a Communion of Saints or Christians who are listed or made Christians by Baptism and Clergy-men by Ordinaetion and there is no admission of Un-baptized Persons to those Acts which are proper to the Faithful or of Un-ordained Persons to those Priviledges and Functions which are peculiar to the Clergy in the Church 〈◊〉 Christ. But against all this it may be Objected that there it to be but one Bishop at once in a Church as St. Cyprian alledges and as the great Council of Nice afterwards provides and that the Bishop in the Church is the Principle of Unity And that the admission of the Ordination of Anti-bishops will be against the Nature of the Spiritual Monarchy the Nature of Monarchy not admitting of two at once And as the Throne can hold but one so the Electors where the Monarchy goes by Election can chuse but one who being once chosen they can elect no more nor can confer the same powers on any other till the Throne becomes vacant again But as to the Bishops being the principle of Unity that respects the Peoples Duty of holding Communion with him his being the Principle of Unity to the Church binding the Church to depend on him and incorporate under him and to communicate with him And as to this the Members who are already subject to a rightful Bishop are not to admit of a second Bishop That is if such an one is set up they are not to unite themselves to him and turn over to his Communion as I think may sufficiently appear from what I have above discoursed on that Point but are to stand off from him as from one that makes a Schism And thus every Church as a Spiritual Monarchy is not to be possessed by two at once since all must adhere to one And though the second who is set up in opposition be a Bishop yet he is not their Bishop nor may any of them break off from their rightful Head to joyn in his Communion But though the Anti-bishop in any
of the respective Bishops and Pastors thereof All Orthodox Bishops and Churches keep this up 1. By Receiving each others Members as if they were their own Members 2. And in like sort by refusing each others Schismaticks And Excommunicates And admitting each others Reconciliation and Re-union of Members Of Communicatory Letters fox those Purposes CHAP. III. Of just Grounds to break off Communion Particularly of making impious and unlawful Things or unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments the Terms of their Communion JUst Ground to break off Communion from any Churches 1. When they put impious or unlawful Things into their Sacred Offices Reasons hereof Faith and Worship spoke of as the great Ligaments which Bind us to any Church 2. More still if they admit none to Communion in the good Parts unless they particularly concur in the corrupt ones too 2. A Second Ground is if they make unrighteous Usurpations the Condition of their Communion CHAP. IV. Heresie a just Ground to break off Communion CHrists first end was to Publish a Religion Next to Incorporate â—â— into a Church or Society for the Profession of it Christian Doctrine the Foundation of Church Society and Unity So we are not Bound to Associate or Unite with any longer than they keep to this Doctrine but are discharged by their Heresie And on the Evidence of the Fact it self before Synodical Sentence This Liberty 1. For the People and Clergy towards their own local Guides and Bishops 2. For Clergy and People of one Church towards those of another And on Defections from grand and necessary Doctrines of Practice as well as of Faith Chiefly when the Ministerial Defence of either is no longer allow'd in their Communion Being thus set loose from their own Erring Bishops and Clergy they are free to Unite with others who are Orthodox And those others are free to receive them Canonical Rules against intermedling in others Diocess c. no hindrance thereto Rules of Unity not pleadable by such Defectors for vniting with them The Guilt of making the Schism lies on the Defectors Should their Brethren come over that would not Cure but make the Breach from the Catholick Church wider CHAP. V. Of the Communion of good Christians or with whom they are to joyn in Divine Offices under a Schism THeir Obligations to stick to their Orthodox Rightful Bishops and to stand off from the Anti-Bishops and their Adherents in the foremention'd Cases As reta â—â—â—ing their Baptism they may own the Schismaticks as Brethren but as being in a Schism they must stand off from their Communion A great Sence of the Obligations to shuâ— the Communion of Schismeticks and corrupt Teachers in the first Times This was most when Charity was at the hight This will bar Communion 1. with the Electors and Ordainers of such Anti-Bishops 2. With their Clergy and People or the Assemblies of their Diocess 3. With other Bishops and Churches who take their part and communicate with them 4. With the Bishops of a Province who turn over to an Anti-Primate or opposite Metropolitane Of Provincial Union and the Rules for Maintenance thereof 5. When Curch Divisions are made for opposite Ways of Worship and Tenets Men will Unite with such as are of their own Mind and hold Communion with those who are for the same way of necessary Worship and Tenets with themselves CHAP. VI. Of Ordinations of Anti-Bishops which tho' always Schismatical are not always Nullities OF St. Cyprians saying the Anti-Bishop is not Secundus but Nullus That Anti-Bishops are real Bishops and their Ordinations are not Null in themselves but were admitted in the Novatians by the Council of Nice In the Donatists by the Roman and African Councils The same shown in several other Cases Tho' Men have Orders yet they cannot exercise the same in Assemblies of the Faithful without the Communion of the Church Such Offenders Received sometimes to Clerical sometimes only to Lay-Communion as the Church saw Cause The Case of the Anti-Bishops ordain'd by the Schismatick Meletius Ecclesiastical Laws and Discipline asserted or abated in such Receptions as was judged most expedent for the Church The Donatists made Schism to take away the Powers of Orders and are opposed therein by St. Austin How St. Cyprian and the Africanes of his Age seem to have done the same which St. Basil disliked in them Altho' their Nulling the Ministerial Acts of Schismaticks seems to be only in the Way of Asserting Discipline and Canons by denying Communion to them in their Churches not that they thought them Null in themselves How the Admission of Ordination of Anti-Bishops Consists with the Bishops being the Principle of Unity and is not against the Nature of the Spiritual Monarchy A Difference as to this between Secular and Spiritual Monarchies And of Local Limitations in conserring Orders CHAP. VII Of the Excusableness of the Peoples receiving Ministerial Offices from Men in Schism rather than live without any at all THis wants the Malignity of Schism The Excusableness thereof shewn 1. From the Nature and Importance of the things themselves Where of the great Importance of Publick VVorship or of Communion in Ministerial Offices 2. From the Abatements God himself has been willing to make on such Necessity in other like Duties 2. From the Practice of Gods People under the greatest Schisms This Necessity being thought to Legitimate it 1. Among the Ten Tribes whose Ministrations were all in a Shism 2. VVith the Schismatical Novatians in the height of the Arian Persecution 3. In the Schismatical Extirpation of Episcopacy among us in the great Rebellion 4. Under the Schism of Forreign Churches where the Protestants have no Bishops Of the Abatements the Church has made where it had great Reason in the Point of Shunning the Communion of Schismaticks and Excommunicate Persons especially before they were Sentenced by the Church The same Equitably Applicable to this Case How both a due Sence of the Criminallness of Schism and Exercise of publick VVorship is provided for by this Means CHAP. VIII Of Communicating in like Necessity where there are some Prayers Sinful in the Matter of them To concur or go along in any unrighteous Petition or Thanksgiving is most Unrighteous and Prophane Of mixt Prayers where the Mixtures are Idolatrous c. Or where some Immoral Petitions are added to a Service not exceptionable on any other Accounts Of Bearing such Immoral Mixtures whilst they do not particularly concur therein but express Dissent from the same and resorting still to the Assemblyes where they are used in Care of â—â—eping Peace and Union Of Bearing the same for the Necessity of having some Ministerial Offices in want of other Opportunityes Mere Presence at such Immoral Addâ—tions no interpretative Profession of Concurrence thereâ—n Chiefly if Dissent be shewn by some external Sign Of these Concessions of favour and ease All highly concern'd to take the Right way in the Points here Debated Unsofe should they take the wrong to trust to the Plea
and let in members by baptism and on just cause cast them out by excommunication and ordain others that shall hold on from time to time to do the same But in discharge of these mere spiritual powers they cannot claim the establish'd places wherein to assemble for these Ministrations nor any enforcement of Civil Laws to make men duly frequent them and to hinder all from disturbing them or from demeaning themselves disorderly or irreverently at them Nor can they claim any secular benefices for maintenance of those who Minister therein nor to have any Cognizance of Wills Tyths or other Temporal matters nor to have their Canons made Regal injunctions or their Rubricks made Parliamentary Laws and the breakers thereof punishable by Civil Magistrates in their estates or Persons nor their spiritual censures to bring men under civil incapacities or make them lyable to civil punishments or the like The state that gave these Civil Accessions to the Bishops and Pastors in their incorporation has call'd them back and taken them away in their deprivation So that now to stick to Christ they must quit the benefits of incorporation and the Favor of Princes And as men left to their naked spiritual powers which no rightful state can deprive them of be content to exercise their spiritual Ministrations in the foresaid cases not as in an endowed and secularly protected but as in a persecuted or secularly destitute Church And as the state has power over all these secular endowments of the spiritual ministration because it conferr'd them So has it 2. Over some other Powers which belong'd to the Church whilst it kept separate but which it gives up to the Civil State during the benefit of incorporation with it For some powers the Church may have no necessity to insist on either for the sake of Religion or of the Souls of Men. And such powers for the greater benefit of incorporation it may be free to part with Thus provided the substance of Religion were secured and kept up among men in all necessary points of Worship and Doctrine and the main of discipline were taken care for by Canons already allowed as it was on the submission of our Church and Clergy made under King Henry the eighth the Church might be free by Compromise to agree that it would exercise no Canons already made but such as were consistent with the Kings Prerogative and the Laws of the Land And that in Case of any others a stop should be put to the proceedings of the spiritual courts by secular Prohibitions And that the Bishops and Clergy should not meet to make more or Assemble in Synod or Convocation but when summon'd thither by the Kings writ Nor any of their agreements should be given out for Canons or Orders but what he allow'd to pass under his Ratification And that after they were passed in things Dispensable on just cause in any particular case he should have the chief power to Grant a Dispensation That all Bishops coming in to Govern this Church according to the foresaid Rules and Prescriptions should be of his Nomination And that the Advancement of all Ministers to beneficed and civilly fortifyed Cures and Administrations should be according to the Rights of Patronage establish'd by the Laws and such like These and such like powers are naturally resident in the Church it self in a separate state or when it stands-upon its own bottom and is not incorporated For as a society it must have power in it self to make needful and wholesome Rules of Government from time to time and to have its Bishops and Ministers meet together as they can that they may make them and to appoint persons who shall be entrusted with the Administration thereof And accordingly whilst the Church was kept separate from the State and persecuted by it these powers were exercised by the Church and by its Bishops and Pastors under all the Heathen Persecutions During which the Clergy under their Bishops and the Bishops under their Metropolitanes were convened and met in Synods and made Canons and decided Controversies and sentenced Criminals and fill'd up vacancies in Presbyteries or Bishopricks having a New Bishop elected by the Metropolitane and Bishops of the Province or sometimes by the Clergy and People of the Diocess and the like Indeed as good subjects of the state they are bound to keep all innocent state Laws and cannot by any devised Canons of their own cast off their Obligation or forbid themselves or the Church to pay a due civil obedience by observance thereof So that they have no power in any condition of making any Church Canons which require subjects to act against innocent state constitutions Nor may they Lawfully refuse when the state calls them to meet together in Synods or otherwise but as Good Subjects are obliged to pay a ready obedience and to appear upon its summons These are only proper expressions of civil subjection from which the Church can in no state or condition plead exemption But tho' they may not disobey the state summons yet when it meddles not therewith in a separate condition they have power to assemble themselves as they can and as need requires taking care to do it in such ways as will make it least jealous of them And when Assembled tho' they can make or inforce no Canons to defeat any innocent civil constitutions they have power in such separate state to make others which are consistent with them and to exercise the other now mention'd powers as I say the Church did in the primitive persecutions But when it became incorporate and was obliged by the favors and priviledges of the state the Church by agreements partly express and partly by Tacit and practical carryed in prescription and the practice of times gave up these and such like powers residing otherwise in it self to the Civil Magistrates who were thus obligingly become its Patrons and Nursing Fathers Since the Emperors became Christians the Affairs of the Church have Depended upon them and the greatest Councils have been held and still are held at their pleasure was the observation of Socrates in the Preface to his Fifth Book of the History of the Church These it parted with to the civil power for its Greater Honor. And also to secure it of its Good Behaviour being tyed thereby to a compliance in things which it was not bound to insist on for the sake of Religion and of a Good Conscience and to prevent all jarring and interfereing with that power in whose Favor and Society it found so great benefit seeking herein to keep up that Beneficial kindness and Correspondence which is between them And these it gave up to it by Degrees and more in some places and less in others Being put upon parting with less at first and with more afterwards especially after the Papal Usurpations in the Western Church grew so very troublesome and prejudicial to Princes and their Kingdoms in point of investitures Appeals c.
Episcopal Throne and giving the other Possession thereof and barbarously enforcing submission and adherence to them from the Clergy and People as was done by Philagrius Syrianus and Heraclius to omit others But these Stateinhibitions and deprivations coming on him his Adherents not for any other Crimes alledged which were shameless Falshoods and assumed meerly as pretences but in reality only for his being a stout Asserter of the Orthodox Faith he still went on preaching and ministring the same and for all these State-ejections was stuck to therein by the faithful Aegyptians and by the Orthodox in all other places And thus also our own Ancestors continued to do on the States turning upon them and under Forfeiture of Incorporation and all the Penalties of a Bloody Persecution forbidding them to go on administring the Word and Worship of God according to the Reformation thereof made by King Edward in Queen Maries time For being to administer this Word and Worship in duty to God and in care of Souls they set light by the Benefits of Incorporation and civil Advantages and paid no regard to State-deprivations or inhibitions but went on faithfully to administer the same though at the â—eril of their Lives I Grant the desire of keeping on the publick benefits of incorporation may many times be a Reason for Bishops and Ministers voluntarily to rest under State-deprivations and inhibitions when 't is a Case only of personal rights and priviledges Such deprivations and inhibitions often affect persons only and not things when on the deprivation of one the same Ministrations would be kept up by others As was done in the depositions of High-Priests so common in later times among the Jews and of Patriarks so ordinary at present among the Greeks and may happen in other places In all which there is only a change of persons but no change in ministrations the Church being lead on in the same necessary Worship Doctrine and Practice under both And here to prevent a breach with the state and to keep on the way of spiritual ministrations with the benefit of Secular Accessions the Bishops and Pastors of an incorporate Church where it is not like to do the Church more hurt by an utter loss of its liberty in these points than the incorporation desired will compensate may think there is more cause for the Churches sake to rest under state-deprivations They may esteem it their parts to quit their own particular interests to advance the Churches and believe that the keeping on the publick benefits of incorporation will abundantly compensate for the wrongful encroachment made by such deprivation on a private person But in Cases which concern not only the personal rights and priviledges of Pastors but the substance of Religion or the safety of Souls and where Christ requires they should exercise their ministrations as I have shewn he doth in the foresaid Cases They must not let them fall in regard to any inhibitions or deprivations even of their Lawful Princes They must here slight all worldly benefit of protection and be willing if need require to undergo a persecution And go on faithfully in their ministrations as their bounden duty requires and as in these Cases Gods Faithful Ministers have done in all times 2. Secondly what is so given up by the Church for abridgement of its own power in spiritual ministrations is only whilst it keeps united to the state and receives protection not when it is separated from it again or falls under persecution Its recessions as I noted were on consideration of State benefits and as a grateful return for them whilst it was suffer'd to enjoy them They are all upon the score of its union and so cease when the State breaks off and turns it up to it self again For being made separate it is no longer under any former tyes of incorporation but acts again with the powers of a separate condition And thus it is when instead of protecting the State puts any necessary points of Doctrine or Worship or part of their ministration under persecution When it separates its protection it separates it self It drives out the Church when it drives out any of those things which the Church must stick to at all perils and when instead of incorporating or civilly protecting the ministrations thereof it falls to incorporate and to protect the ministration of error and wickedness in their place It disfranchises pure Worship and Doctrine when it enfranchises errors and corruptions contrary to them And by turning to persecute the necessary ministrations of pure Religion it breaks it self from them and thence forward they are no longer one but become two again So that whatever regard and complyance the Bishops and Ministers of Christ may shew to such deprivations and inhibitions of the State whereinto they are incorporated whilst it inhibits no necessary Ministrations to Religion or to the Souls of Men but in discharging all those they injoy the priviledges and protection thereof Yet are they not to be discharged thereby from ministring to the same in all the foresaid or other like Cases nor to be debarr'd of any of their spiritual powers after once the state breaks with them and instead of yielding them the benefits of incorporation puts them under persecution But then they must exercise these ministrations only according to what they have Received from Christ and from the Canons of the Church so far as they do not interfere with any innocent State Laws which restrain them as Good Subjects Not with any Civil fortifications and State Accessions CHAP. II. Of the Kings Ecclesiastical Supremacy Received and Asserted by our Church ANd all this agrees well with the Ecclesiastical Supremacy own'd by our Church and claimed by our Princes conformable to what was ascribed to and claimed by the Godly Kings among the Jews and the Godly Emperors in the Primitive Church Whose Ecclesiastical Soveraignty lyes not in their being invested with or in their having a Soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders But in retaining their Civil Soveraignty over all persons whether Laymen or Ecclesiasticks And in the subordination of Ecclesiastical courts and causes which are content to act in subordination on the score of their secular mixtures as in beneficiary matters censures c. And for Cognizance of either of these either of persons or causes in barring all Foreign Appeals 1. First It lyes not I say in their being invested with or having a Soveraign Disposal of the powers of orders For these our Kings do not pretend to have in their power or to be powers subjected and inherent in themselves But to be proper and Peculiar to spiritual persons Thus King Henry the eighth when he asserts his own Regal Supremacy over the Church leaves all proper spiritual powers and Functions to spiritual persons and in the statute for restraint of Appeals declares the spiritualty sufficient and meet to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such
under the Cognizance of their civil Courts as others are And this civil Subjection of Ecclesiastical Persons against the Papal Exemptions thereof is the main thing in the Ecclesiastical Supremacy claimed by our Kings In the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and in the Canons of King James this Supremacy is called the highest Power under God whereto all Men within the same Realms by God's Law owe most Loyalty and Obedience afore and above all other Powers and Potentates in Earth Her Majesty say the Injunctions again thereby neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority than was lately used and was of antient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the soveraignty and rule over all manner of Persons born within her Dominions of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any superiority over them By Supremacy or chief Government says the 37th Article of Religion we give only that prerogative which we see to have been always given to all godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all States and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the Stubborn and Evil-doers And the Oath of Supremacy as King James the First declared only extended to the Kings Power of Judicature over all Persons as well Civil as Ecclesiastical excluding all foreign Powers and Potentates to be Iudges within his Dominions All which plainly make the Ecclesiastical Supremacy to lye mainly in having Bishops and Ministers or the Ecclesiastical State who were broke off from it by the Papal Exemption under the same common Obligation to the civil Soveraign with other Subjects or under the Tye of civil Subjection In vertue of this civil power over their Persons as his Subjects he can command them faithfully to discharge their Duties and Functions And that not only as Subjects in civil Matters but as Ministers in divine Offices For as he is the civil Soveraign the Temporal Magistrate is the Keeper of both Tables being to keep his Subjects in Godliness as well as in Honesty as St. Paul says And is to use the civil Sword for sins against Religion as well as for sins against the State and in his way to punish Ministers for Neglect or Abuse of their spiritual Functions as well as for Breach of the civil Peace Thus good Kings as Hezekiah and Josiah employed their temporal power to cut off corrupt administrations and to reform Abuses of Worship and Religious Offices in the Jewish Church As Constantine and other good Christian Kings and Emperors did afterwards in other Nations And the 37th Article of our Church declares That by his Supremacy the King with the civil Sword may restrain the stubborn and evil-doers whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks And on this Account Constantine calls himself the Minister of God for the Coercion and Punishment of wicked Bishops And at his Entertainment of the Bishops tells them That God has appointed them the Bishops of things within the Church and him the Bishop of things without it and that it belongs to him as Bishop of Bishops to see they discharge their duties and be pious Thus the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian say That God by setting them to reign had made them the Bond both of the piety and of the external welfare and security of those who are subject to them the connexion betwixt which two their study was to preserve inviolable And in this Kings saith St. Austin according as God commands them do serve the Lord as they are Kings when they enjoyn good things and prohibit evil things in their Kingdoms And that not only in Matters pertaining to humane society but also in Matters pertaining to our Holy Religion And thus by means of his civil Power over Spiritual Persons has the King the like Power over Spiritual Acts Functions viz. as he can require and by the civil Sword compel them whom Christ has empowered thereto in his Dominions to exercise the same I mean to exercise them according to the Rules of God's Word and of their own Spiritual Function his Power lying in calling them to do their duties not to any Neglect or Breach thereof As we see was observed not only by the Godly Jewish Kings but also by the Primitive Emperors whose civil Laws and Edicts in these Matters still followed the spiritual Rules and Duties and were a secular Enforcement to drive all Ecclesiasticks to keep them not to Transgress them Our Laws do not disdain to follow the Sacred and Divine Canons the civil power in these Matters enforcing that which the Church had first prescribed says the Emperor Justinian And accordingly in the Civil Law for Restraint of Excommunications we forbid our Bishops saith he to Excommunicate any without a just Cause be shewn for it We forbid all Bishops and Presbyters saith another Law to exclude any from the Communion before Proof of such a Cause for which this is commanded to be done by the Ecclesiastical Canons So by his Imperial Power over their Persons commanding their Ministrations and limitting them therein to their own Rules And thus the King like as the Jewish Kings and Primitive Emperors were is supreme in these spiritual Acts and Administrations as in his Dominions they are all to be sped and administer'd not by independant Forreigners but by his own Subjects or as having the supream earthly Command of Bishops and Priests who are bound in civil Obedience to him as their Temporal Soveraign to exercise them when he requires it And this way he can give Final Justice to all his Subjects in all spiritual as well as temporal Matters having Authority to command his Bishops and Clergy to do it in the one as well as his Judges and temporal Ministers to do it in the other And by this power of doing it by their Means or Ministrations is his Supremacy set off Thus in the Statute for the Restraint of Appeals the King is declared to be the one supream Head endowed with plenary Power and Authority to render Final Justice in all Causes because the spirituality or his Bishops and Clergy can administer and determine all that belongs to their spiritual Offices and the Judges and other his temporal Ministers can do the like for Tryal of Property and Conservation of civil Peace The Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters doth not imply the power of the Keys which he has not but he may command those who have them to use them rightly says Mr. Mason This Supremacy is preserved if he take care that those who have the power of Ecclesiastical Censures do exercise them says Dr. Burhil He has plenary power to render final Justice that is to receive the last Appeal of his own Subjects without any fear of any
Review from Rome or at Rome for all Matters Ecclesiastical and Temporal Ecclesiastical by his Bishops Temporal by his Judges says Bishop Bramhall So that the Legal Supremacy of our Kings in spiritual Matters lyes in their power of doing them all without any Interposition of Forreign Bishops who are none of their Subjects by their own Bishops and Clergy whom they can command and compel to do their duties therein as their civil Soveraigns And this way the civil Soveraignty doth not drown or swallow up the spiritual powers of Ecclesiasticks but supposes them all the while peculiarly and immediately vested therewith But only retains its own secular power over their Persons as well as others whereby it can oblige them to a due discharge of their sacred powers according to the Rules of their spiritual Functions as occasion requires It lyes moreover 2. Secondly In the Subordination of Ecclesiastical Courts and Causes wherein Ecclesiasticks are content to act subordinately on the score of their secular mixtures and jurisdictions as in Beneficiary Matters Censures and other things of that Cognizance To give more leisure and encouragement to the Ministers of Religion in attending their spiritual Administrations the civil State has endowed their spiritual Cures with temporal Benefices or Preferments And to beget a greater Regard and a more general and aweful Observance of Ecclesiastical Determinations the civil power as I before observed is annexed and mingled with the spiritual in these Causes and a Concurrence is therein made of Temporal and Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions The Matters cognizable there are not only mere spiritual but some of them of a temporal Nature Such are all Causes Testamentary or about Wills the Causes of Matrimony and Divorces and those about Right of Tythes Oblations and Obventions the Knowledge whereof by the goodness of Princes of this Realm says the Statute for Restraint of Appeals and by the Laws and Customs of the same appertaineth to the spiritual Jurisdiction of this Realm And the Canons and Rubricks which are to rule all Proceedings are not only the Prescriptions of Bishops and Priests but Royal and civil Injunctions Like as also the Antient Canons were by the piety of the Primitive Emperors We decree that the holy Ecclesiastical Canons either those passed in the four General Councils or those confirmed by them be in place of Laws says the Emperor Justinian Our own Laws will have the Divine Canons not to be of less force or effect than Laws and what the sacred Canons forbid that also do our Laws coerce and abolish says the Code And as it was in the case of those Antient Canons under those Emperors so in case of ours too under our Kings the Judgments and Sentences upon them rest not in mere spiritual but draw on temporal Effects and Incapacites which effect the Sufferers in their Persons and Estates as well as in their spiritual Concerns As subjecting them to a Writ of Imprisonment rendring them uncapable to commence or carry on a Suit at Law or the like Now for the favour of this State-Concurrence in all these Causes that under the Union of two such different Powers there may be no clashing the Church submits to act in subordination and the King in all these Causes and mixt Jurisdictions is supreme That is no Synod of Ecclesiasticks is to meet for making Canons or Constitutions but when by his Writ he convenes them Nor are any Agreements of theirs when assembled to be publish'd as Canons or Ordinances till he approves or ratifies them Nor any of those introduced formerly to be executed and put in use further than they consist with the Kings prerogative Royal and with the Laws Customs and Statutes of the Realm All which are provided for in the Statute of Submission And when Canons are thus made by his Ratification it submits also that in certain Cases which are declared by other Acts they may be relaxed by his Royal Dispensation and that as in making Canons so also in granting Dispensations from them he shall be supreme That no Persons shall be elected Bishops of beneficed and temporally endowed Churches but who have the Kings Letters missive as is provided in another Statute or who are of his Nomination That when Ecclesiasticks sit to judge in their Courts by those Laws all their Proceedings in that Judicature shall be subject to the Kings Prohibition to stop their further hearing of a Cause which by Allowance or Custom is of another Cognizance or to his Commission of Review upon Appeals made to him after they have given sentence So that in these Courts there is a subjection and subordination to the King both as to the Laws they proceed by which are the Kings Laws as not passing or being introduced without his Approbation or Sufferance and as to the Judgments there passed according to them And because of this subordination of the Bishops and Clergy in their pure spiritual Jurisdictions for the Civil Soveraigns addition of such Temporal or State Concurrence the King is declared supream in all these Causes Thus much is declared in the Passages already mention'd from the Statutes settling the Kings supremacy And thus 't is said in another Statute of the Review of the Institution of a Christian Man that King Henry 8th set it forth as supream Head of the Church of England because he call'd the Convocation together to frame and publish â—â— by his Consent And thus in his Declaration prefix'd to the 39 Articles of Religion King Charles the First sets forth his supremacy over the Church by this subordination of the Church-men and because in making any Canons or Constitutions they must have his License for their Assembling and their Orders and Agreements confirmed by his Approbation and executed all with subordination to the Laws and Customs of the Land for preservation whereof they are subject to the Temporal Prohibition And in respect of both these parts of civil power viz Both in having this civil command of spiritual persons and this civil power over spiritual causes by reason of such secular mixtures it lyes moreover in having the same 3. Thirdly in opposition and bar of all other earthly dependance especially of all Foreign jurisdiction and appeals He is the one Supream Head of all both Spiritual and Temporal next under God saith the Statute for Restraint of Appeals And the claim of Supremacy in the Queens injunctions is so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And the Thirty Seventh Article of Religion the first of King James the Firsts Canons and especially the Oath of Supremacy doth most fully disclaim and exclude all Foreign jurisdiction herein And the extending of the Kings Power of Judicature over all Persons Ecclesiasticks as well as others thereby is for excluding all Foreign Powers from being Judges in our Kings Dominions as we heard from King James's Apology for the Oath of Allegiance The Foreign jurisdiction and
Appeals particularly aimed at is that which was claimed here by the Popes of Rome They had wrested from the Crown the foresaid Soveraignty both over Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes For as to Ecclesiastical Persons they claimed an exemption for them as not answerable in Civil Courts but Cognizable only by themselves And as to Ecclesiastical Ministrations as back'd by secular benefices and Ecclesiastical Causes as mixt in the Ecclesiastical Courts with Civil Priviledges and Jurisdiction they disclaimed subordination to the Crown and asserted a supremacy to themselves therein For they made themselves supream here in investitures into benefices and preferments and to have the chief power by their Legates of calling our convecations of passing and ratifying all our Decrees Canons and Constitutions of granting dispensations from them of having their decrees take place of the Prerogatives of the Crown or of the Customs of the Realm of holding courts and of receiving Appeals from any of our spiritual courts and judicatures and the like All which civil powers over Ecclesiastical Persons and subordination of Ecclesiastical causes proceeding by the foresaid mixture of secular fortifications benefices and jurisdictions the statutes Articles injunctions and Canons of this Church and Realm about Supremacy abolish in the Popes and assert to the Crown to which they Anciently did and of right should belong So that this Soveraign Civil Power over all Ecclesiastical Persons as their subjects and this Subordination of all Ecclesiastical Causes to it because of the Concurrence and intermixture of the foresaid civil priviledges and juridictions therewith and that in opposition to the papal pretences in these points is the Ecclesiastical supremacy vested in the King by our Church and Laws The Popes spiritual Usurpation upon this Church was shaken off by asserting to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Brittish Churches Ancient and independant Primacy Which did Right to the King too it being against his Prerogative that any Foreigner who doth not own himself to be one of his Subjects should have any Power in his Dominions And his Civil Usurpation on the Crown in respect to Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes among its Subjects was thrown out by asserting of the Kings Supremacy But when the Supremacy speaks such a civil power over the persons of Ecclesiasticks as they are its subjects and such subordination of Ecclesiastical causes thereto as they are united to secular benefices and jurisdictions Yet at the same time as I have shewn doth it disclaim all pretence to meer spiritual powers or to the Soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders Of it self it can neither give nor recall them Nor stop the Ministrations thereof in any of those Cases where Christ requires them All it can do there is to withdraw its Civil incorporation from those who have these mere spiritual powers and are bound for the sake of Religion and of the Souls of Men to proceed in the exercise thereof But still that exercise and administration which hangs on anothers Commission will go on upon its own bottom and must be discharged as it can under the opposition instead of the former incorporation of state or under a civil Persecution And this continuance of such Ministrations in such Cases notwithstanding the deposition of state I think may fairly be concluded from the Concessions of those who have undertaken to plead for the Authority of state deprivations and to press them on the suffering Clergy at such times We are told by one from Mr. Mason that a state deposition of a Bishop is not by way of Degradation from his orders as if he had them not but of exclusion from the exercise thereof And that not absolutely as if he could exercise his office no where but after a sort that he should not do it as to their subjects nor in their dominions And by another that a state deprivation doth not concern the Character or Ecclesiastical Communion as an Ecclesiastical Deprivation doth but only concerns the exercise of his Episcopal Authority in any Diocess within the Dominions of that State or enjoying any Ecclesiastical Benefice in it Now since such state deprivation neither concerns the Character nor the Communion of the Church 't is plain he is a Bishop still notwithstanding their deprivation and such a Bishop as without any fault in Church Communion all good Christians may Communicate with And since his exercise of Episcopal Powers is thereby excluded only from the Dioceses and subjects of their dominions it is still the same it was as to all other places And what is the hinderance of exercising the same still in those dioceses and among that Kings Subjects One reason already cited is because he cannot exercise them in the incorporate way or in injoyment of any Ecclesiastical Benefice But besides another I conceive is suggested viz. Regard to state Authority or civil obedience Though neither the Faith nor the Communion of the Church is here concerned yet says the Learned Author last mention'd the Authority of the State is which obliges both the Clergy and Laity in these Cases So that although neither his powers are thereby vacated nor their dependance and communion with him is broken off on other accounts yet in Civil Obedience it seems by his account both Bishops and People on such state deprivation are bound to acquiesce But now if they are left in full Possession of their spiritual powers and of the communion of the Church 't is plain they cannot be debarr'd of their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases nor the people of their attendance on them in any regard to secular inhibitions or to shew Civil Obedience For we must never hear Kings against Christ or obey them when they bar us of doing what he bids us do And these Ministrations he requires and calls for in the aforesaid Cases as I have shewn and also for the peoples communion with and attendance on them And it matters not that they cannot Minister any longer in the incorporate way or under shelter of Civil Laws and enjoyment of benefices For true Ministers of Christ and of Souls must depise benefices and secular incorporations when they come in competition with his service and Minister his word and worship at their hazard and under persecutions Besides if as he owns such deprivation doth not affect the Communion of the Church it leaves the subjects of those dioceses still under the same Religious and Church Principles of dependance and communion with their Bishops as they were before it For though the state should not meddle therein the Church has Principles of this dependance and communion of its own Christ requires his Church should be one and that is by ahhereing to their Bishops whom he has made the Heads of Union And these it seems the deprivation of state doth not at all Cancel only the Authority of state as is said but not Church Communion being concerned therein So that such Bishops deprived by the state continue still to be Christs
suffering with patience under them when they punish and persecute them not for breaking but for faithfully performing of the same And this is to leave the civil power to be chief in all civil matters and to have several Prerogatives of Soveraignty in spiritual so long as they proceed with civil mixtures That is to be supream in all which it can call its own Though at the same time it is not to be held superior to Christ nor must be thought intrusted with the Supreme Disposal of the matters of Religion wherein men are empower'd of Christ by another sort of Commission And from all these 't is plain that it is no Revival of the abolished Papal Usurpations For these lay not in the Bishops asserting as is aforesaid of their own pure spiritual powers or of their own indefeasible obligations notwithstanding any state inhibitions and deprivations to exercise them for the service of Religion and the Church as Christ requires they should in the foremention'd and other like Cases For this is no more than has been done by the Holy Apostles and by all faithful Bishops and Ministers in all Ages But in their claiming an independancy on the state in the exercise of spiritual powers and Ministrations mixed and endowed with the borrowed adjuncts of secular benefices and jurisdictions And in their professing a dependance therein upon the Pope seeking to him for investitures and confirmations and making him the last judge by Appeals As also depending on him for conveneing Synods for passing and confirming Canons and granting dispensations from them and for other Matters which for their civil endowments of Churches were granted to Christian Princes and by incorporation accrued to the Crown And Lastly in their Challenging an Exemption of their persons from Civil Cognizance so as not to be answerable in Civil Courts and Coercible there by civil penalties even for state-matters and offences And the Retrenching of these Usurpations was the business of our Reformers But as for the independance of the Ecclesiasticks mere spiritual powers and their obligations to exercise them in any Case as may answer the Command of Jesus Christ and not the contrary inclination or inhibition of the Civil Magistrate they were as far from intending as from needing to Reform it Yea soon after they were most glorious Asserters thereof in all their Ministrations for the service of Souls and for the support of Truth which they discharged against the deprivations and inhibitions of the state as Confessors and Martyrs during all the persecutions of Queen Marys Reign 3. Thirdly Nor is this to mistake or to over-look the condition of an incorporate Church But only not to over-value the Civil Benefits of Incorporation and at the same time to under-value their Obligations to Christ to the Ministeries of Religion and to the Souls of Men. It is necessary that Pastors and People should keep obedient and true to Christ But it is not necessary that they should keep in the favour of Princes and continue a Church incorporate Nay it is necessary they should cheerfully take up the Cross and be content to be a Church persecuted when they can no longer enjoy the secular benefits of Incorporation without yielding to an irreligious and ill Ministration nor hold on Ministring to the necessary service of Souls and of pure Religion without incurring Persecution For then all Church-men of any Fidelity or Conscience must shew themselves Ministers of Christ not of Princes and Guides that watch for Souls not for Benefices and secular accessions And like their Great Master and all good and holy Bishops who were call'd by him as we all are to spiritual Ministeries under whatever Persecutions of Princes despise all state-favors and preferments in this world in comparison of fulfilling that Spiritual Ministry and most sacred Trust which they have received from the Lord and whereof one day they must give a most strict account And therefore it is a very ill-grounded reasoning which the aforesaid Author of the Vindication of their Majesties-Authority c. uses to Authorize the deprivation of suffering Bishops at such times for state-matters by a mere Act of State thinking it well proved if it is as certain aâ—d evident as that the Church is and must be incorporated into the State For in the aforesaid Cases for the service of Christ and the sake of Religion and of Souls the Church is bound to break with the State and to lay aside all thoughts of continuing incorporated and submit to be persecuted It is then call'd to bear Christs Cross for its stedfastness in his Service and Ministrations not to seek or court state-favors by ceasing to Minister what is good or consenting to Minister what is ill in complyance with Princes And if instead of being certain and evident it must 't is certain and evident the Church must not be any longer incorporate when it cannot purchase it but on these Terms Then in all the foresaid Cases there is an end of all Arguments to perswade acquiescence for the preservation of the incorporation of Churches in Christian Kingdoms But though this Principle of Faithfully exercising their pure spiritual Minstrations in the foresaid Cases without accepting any discharge thereof from mere state-deprivations excludes all over-rateing of civil incorporation or placing the Favor of Princes above the Favor of God and benefices and preferments above the interest of Religion and of Souls Yet doth it at the same time allow to an incorporate state all that really doth belong to it And therefore in these Ministrations after deprivation by a rightful state it claims nothing that came to Church-men by incorporation But it s Spiritual Ministrations Christs Church then discharges without the encouragement of state-benefices and preferments without claiming the convenience of the establish'd places for a free holding of its Religious Assemblies or the guard and assistance of any of the foremention'd Civil Laws jurisdictions or other secular mixtures and state accessions for the strengthning and furtherance of its exercise of any spiritual Functions And what more should they look at in this state of incorporation than to see that as they do not let fall any spiritual service which was not given up nor can be stopped thereby So when devested thereof that they do not challenge any worldly benefices powers or other endowments which are dependant thereupon And this is not to make the claims and exercise of Ecclesiastical Powers by Bishops and Pastors the same in all points at this day in an incorporate Church as they were by the Ancient Canons whilst the Church was separate from the state under the Gentile Persecutions It asserts them the same as to Ministring all that is necessary in Religion and in Care of Souls which the Pastors are as much empowerd and as much obliged to look to under incorporation as before it And to be the same also in other points given up and accruing to the State at the incorporation of the Church as
Naming of Bishops Conveneing them in Synods Ratifying of Canâ—ns Dispensing with them and the like after once a rightful state breaks the incorporation and puts the true Church from state-protection and endowments into a state of persecution For then the Church and State are divided again as they were in the days of the Ancient Canons and so they may be free as Bishops then were to exercise those powers by the Rule of those Canons as they can and as in prudence they shall see cause But whilst the protection and incorporation holds for the sake whereof it laid down its claim to those powers and suffer'd them to become the States-Prerogatives the Bishops and Ministers are not to pretend to them And so whilst the Church enjoys such incorporation our own Church by its Articles and Canons disclaims the exercise of these powers by it self and confirms them to the Crown as I formerly observed Thus are the Recognitions which Ecclesiasticks ought to make of the Supremacy of Princes and all the Regard they ought to bear to the incorporation of the Church fairly consistent with their Faithful discharge of their Spiritual Ministrations after the State has deprived them in the foresaid Cases They stand bound to Christ there to exercise the same by manifold obligations as I have shewn And no deprivations of Princes though they be Soveraign Governors of all their Subjects and have endowed and incorporated the Chuch can disable or discharge them from it And from this state of these matters it may be easy to clear and take off the Force of those instances which are brought of state-deprivations without the concurrence of Ecclesiastical Synods and to shew they are of no force in the foresaid Cases The instances chiefly insisted on are the Deposition of Abiathar by Solomon and the frequent sometimes Annual depositions of their High-Priests by the Romans when Judea fell into their Hands the depositions of the Patriarks of the Greek Church by the Turks and the deprivation of Queen Maries Popish Bishops by a commission of State pursuant to an Act of Parliament without a Synod at the beginning of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth 1. First as for Abiathar whom for conspiring with Adonijah Solomon is said to have thrust out from being Priest unto the Lord 1 King 2. 27. it doth not appear that Solomon did remove him from the dignity and office of High Priest but only from the exercise thereof For after this sentence was passed upon Abiathar and after Joab the General also his complice and conspirator had been sentenced and suffer'd death and Benajah was made General in his place 1 King 1. 28. 34 35 Abiathar is still reckon'd as Partner with Zadock in the High-Priest-hood 1 King 4. For so in the reckoning up of Solomons Officers when Benajah the Son of Jehojadah was over the Host 't is added and Zadock and Abiathar were the Priests v. 4. And as for the debarring him the Exercise of his High-Priests Office that was the natural and inseparable consequent of his Banishment from Jerusalem to Anathoth for his Life For the exercise of that Office was local and fixed to Jerusalem and the Temple In the Temple were all the Priests tyed to officiate whose Ministrations he was to direct and in that was the Holy of Holies whereinto once a year he himself in Person and he alone was to enter and offer the Blood of Expiation and there was the Mercy Seat before which he was to stand with the Urim and Thummim to consult God upon occasion The Exercise of which Ministrations with others required his Personal Residence and could not be discharged by him living in another place So that the banishing him from Jerusalem by mere natural consequent without need of spiritual Jurisdiction excluded him from the Exercise of the High-Priests-Office And this Banishment Solomon inflicted on him as his civil Soveraign for his Trayterous Conspiracy with Adonijah and on like Cause any other lawful Soveraign may do the same And without doubt he not only consented to this Amotion but was thankful for it and that instead of being sent to Anathoth he was not sent out of the World as by Law his Fact deserved So that Abiathar had nothing to contest in his Case nor any mind to do it being justly lyable to suffer so much more at the hand of the civil Power than it was pleased to inflict on him And then as for Zadock who held the High-Priesthood in his Room and whilst he was living that doth not appear to have been by a New Creation For before this extrusion of Abiathar he had been created Partner Vicar or Suffragan with him in the High-Priests Office in Davids time Thus in the reckoning up of Davids Officers they are put together as filling this place Sheva was Scribe and Zadock and Abiathar were the Priests 2 Sam. 20. 25. And hast thou not there with thee Zadock and Abiathar the Priests says David to Hushai when in his flight from Absalom he sent him back into the City to defeat the Council of Achitophel 2 Sam. 15. 35. chap. 17. 15. And in carrying back the Ark into the City David gives command to Zadock the Priest about it 2 Sam. 15. 25 27. and the Text adds Zadock therefore and Abiathar carryed the Ark of God again to Jerusalem joyning them as Partners in this great Act of the Pontifical Charge v. 29. He also commits to Zadock the Priest the anointing and proclamation of Solomon which was another Act thereof 1 King 1. 32 34 38 39. And this is plainly asserted by Josephus who says That Zadock was first created High-priest in the Reign of David And therefore on Abiathars exclusion by Solomon that Zadock only came in to have the High-priesthood and to act therein alone He was then Sagan or Suffragan and Vicar to Abiathar as Grotius and Vatablus conceive When Abiathar therefore by his Banishment for Life in just Punishment of his Treason was incapacitated for any further Exercise of his High-priests-office on such debarring of his Pontifical Exercise there was no new Ordination of another into his Place But Zadock who had been created his Partner in the Priesthood before on his Partners Loss of this Exercise was to exercise the whole himself So that the Authority of a Deprivation of State to unmake one and to make another to be a Bishop in their dominions during his Life is ill-fetch'd from this Instance For neither doth Abiathar plainly appear to have been despoyled of the Honour of the High-priesthood tho' by Banishment for Life he was of the Exercise thereof by Solomon Nor Zadock to have been first advanced and created High-Priest by him but to have been Ordained thereto by the spiritual Powers of the Sanhedrim to whom that Ordination and Investiture did belong in Davids Time Besides 2. Secondly in these alledged State-deprivations of the Jewish High-priests either of Abiathar by Solomon or after they
not for Anti-christian Corruptions And had they really been what they thought as they were not but quite contrary it had been their duty to go on in their Pastoral Cures and Ministrations with Persecutions for all their deprivations And so we our selves should have thought at least we all seem as if we should if by Gods Providence the civil State had gone on to deprive our reformed Bishops for sticking to the worship and doctrines of the Reformation and had set up Popish Bishops in their Places Notwithstanding which I suppose both our faithful Prelates and People instead of silently acquiescing would have gone on ministring and communicating in the reformed worship and doctrine of this Church But whatever they thought of these things or how consonant or disagreeing soever their Actings were to their own Apprehensions in this case it suffices for justification of our Reformed Bishops advancement to their Sees without their being deprived by competent and lawful Synods which is objected as a thing most exceptionable therein and as seeming most to deviate from Ecclesiastical Rule that in reality they were not Orthodox And that for this want of Orthodoxy without any need of recourse to the Authority of mere State Deprivations to take off people from a spiritual Adherence and Communion with their Bishops the People before they could have a Synodical Deprivation were loose from them and at liberty to unite themselves to the Orthodox Reformers in their Room CHAP. IV. Of Deprivations by Synods in the foresaid Cases ANd thus I think it may sufficiently appear how the manifold obligations which are shewn above to lye on Faithful Bishops and Ministers not to suppress but to exercise their spiritual ministrations in the foresaid Cases are not set aside or barr'd by any inhibition or deprivation though of the most Lawful Civil State They will do it with more ease and worldly encouragement when the State tolerates and much more when it fortifies and furthers them therein But they are not at liberty to give it off but must go on exercising the same when it is more troublesome and when the State gain-says and puts them under persecution for so doing And thus it is where the State will Act apart and proceed without a Synod in depriving Bishops and in discharging the Ecclesiastical Communion and dependance of the people Spiritually related and united to them But Deprivation of Bishops who are Spiritual Powers is more ordinarily by a Synod of Bishops who are a Spiritual Judicature Great Reason there is for the Deprivation of Bishops to proceed in this course The Civil-State indeed comes in by Reason of Civil Accessions and Endowments which strengthen and encourage the spiritual ministrations But these Civil Accessions are but Accessaries and Appendages and their spiritual powers are the Principal in their Ministrations and in Church Communion and dependance on them And therefore the removing of their ministrations and of the Communion and dependance of the Church thereupon is never so fitly and fully attempted as by spiritual judicatures who being spiritual persons have more directly to do with Church Communion and spiritual powers And accordingly this has still been the course of the most Pious Princes who have reserved the deliberations about Religion and Church matters and the Depositions of Bishops which so closely affects Church Communion to Convocations and Synods of Bishops and â—lergy And when these proceed to sentence it more directly affects the concerned parties Church Communion and Church Governors being more directly under the Church-mens Cognizance and not only indirectly and by the by as it may ingage the deprived persons when not bound to it otherwise to yield and acquiesce in voluntary complyance for civil interests But suppose a Concurrence of both these powers and that the deprivation of the Rightful State is confirmed by Synodical Concurrence Yet I observe in the last place that this Deprivation by Synods is not sufficient to bar or discharge Bishops or Ministers from the foresaid Exercise of their Spiritual Ministrations in the above mention'd Cases Bishops and Metropolitanes are not more subject and dependant on Synods than Presbyters and people are on their Bishops Our Lord himself and his Holy Apostles having appointed Bishops in his Church and call'd for our subjection and obedience to them But this submission of Priests and people to their Bishops is with a Salvo to their Holy Religion and its Articles and Interests And if any Bishops go against the Truths or Laws of Christ or against the interests of Souls and of True Religion we are not to follow them or to depend on them therein To stick to any necessary Christian Doctrines Worship or Practices Christs Faithful people and Ministers must break even with their own Bishops holding even them Anathema as St. Paul directs when they would lead them contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostles as I noted before and shall shew more fully afterwards And so must they with any other Bishops or Number and Synods of Bishops in like Case All Exercise and Administration of Church Authority and Jurisdiction is tyed to Rules Not only to Rules of the Churches own making or Ecclesiastical Canons but above all and in the first place to the Rules laid down by Christ himself And all the validity of Church Acts in way of external judicature in Synods or otherwise is so far as they go by them or do nothing against them Thus it is in Decreeing Rites and Ceremonies or Determining Controversies of Faith wherein though the Church has Authority yet is it thus limited and has no Authority as our Church Declares to ordain any thing contrary to Gods word Even general Councils are bounded by this Limitation and things ordained by them say the Thirty Nine Articles again as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that are taken out of Holy Scriptures And thus it is also in Matter of Censures or Ecclesiastical Sentences judicially past therein upon persons whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks We in the Exercise of our Apostolical Power can do nothing against the Truth or in punishing and Censuring any for Faithful observance thereof but all our Power is for the Truth and to be exercised in its behalf by punishing and not sparing not those who stand to but those who defect from it 2 Cor. 13. 8. When the Church speaks to us in External Judicatures we must hear it as our Lord orders But we must hear it speaking under Christ never against him So that if it Excommunicates any for sticking firm to any part of his Holy Religion with whom for that very adherence sake he requires his Faithful Followers to hold Communion Or if it deprives or discharge any Ministers from Administring the same in any case where he has charged them to keep on that ministration Its power here is set up against him and its Acts have no Power to bind those who are concerned in them
to officiate in another City without their own Bishops Letters commendatory says the Great Council of Chalcedon And the Granting of these Letters was reserved to the Bishops Without their own Bishops Letters commendatory is the Expression of the now cited Canon of Chalcedon And others under the Episcopal Order are restrained from granting them Even those Câ—untry Presbyters whom Balsamon on the Canon calls Protopapas and who as being in the Country where the Bishops were not usually at hand to write them had more pretence of granting them as Zonaras intimates And who else but the Bishops of the several Churches should be capable to grant these Letters For since the Church stands and is fixed upon the Bishops as St. Cyprian tells the Lapsi it is not for any without the Bishop to write Letters as they had done to himself in the Name of the Church But more especially was the Grant thereof reserved to the Primates and Metropolitanes who were to write and receive Synodical Letters and to keep up Communion between the Churches of several Provinces Thus St. Basil expresses his Communion with all Churches by all Churches sending communicatory Letters to him and receiving the same from him And on the Deposition of Marcianus at Arles St. Cyprian desires Stephen Bishop of Rome to signifie to him who was substituted in his place that he might know to whom he should send the Brethren and direct his communicatory Letters And this the Synod of Antioch gives us a Reason of their writing to Dyonisius of Rome and Maximus of Alexandria and to all other Bishops on their placing of Domnus in the See of Antioch upon the Deposition of Paulus Samosatenus Which say they We therefore signifie to you that you may write your communicatory Letters to him and receive the like from him So that none who were out of Communion with their own Bishops and Metropolitanes could be allowed to communicate any whereelse CHAP. III. Of just Grounds to break off Communion particularly of making impious and unlawful things or unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments the Terms of their Communion FRom what I have said in the Two preceding Chapters without inquiring further into any lower degrees and instances thereof I think it may competently appear what Schism is and who the Persons are that may justly be charged therewith either as breaking off from their own Church by unjustly throwing off and dividing from their own Orthodox and Lawful Bishops or as breaking off from other Churches by unjustly refusing Communion to their Members or by unjustly granting it to their Schismaticks or Excommunicates And more particularly that they are guilty of this great and dangerous Sin of Schism who unjustly turn Subjects or side with Anti-Bishops set up over them against their own Orthodox and Lawful Bishops Yea though such Defectors to the Anti-Bishops make the greatest Numbers or are set up by the civil State as the civilly establish'd or endowed Church And that all other Churches and their Members are guilty of the same who shall own and come in to them and admit them into their Communion and keep on Communion with them I say they are Schismaticks who by any of these ways shall break off from others unduly and without just Cause But some things are a just Ground to breako ff either Dependance and Subjection to our own Bishops or Communion with other Churches Some things as I come next to shew not being to be born nor otqers to be parted with for the Love of external Peace and Union And when these can be justly and duly alledged for standing off 't is always justifiable and commonly necessary to break Communions However to break off Resorting to their Assemblies though at the same we should still allow their Members to resort to ours For this later many times may be allowed longer where it can be done without scandal especially before the Church has proceeded judicially to censure and excommunicate the offending Parties as it was allow'd to the Romanists and accepted by them for several years in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths Reign and also to the Dissenters in later days And if there are such Pleas for breaking off either from any Persons or Churches there is no Breach of Gospel-Union nor Blame of Schism in such Cases And of these I shall now 2. In the Second Place give some Account That when we see any Persons or People breaking off either Subjection to their former Bishops or Ecclesiastical Concord and Fraternal Communion with other Churches we may understand where Schism is and where it is not to be charged and be more clear in several Matters of Importance in this Argument Now such just Ground there is for the Members of any Church to break off Communion either with their own Bishops or with other Churches when they can alledge either some things against the Terms of their Communion or others against their Persons and Doctrines 'T is a just Ground to break off from them if they make impious and unlawful things or unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments the Terms of their Communion Or though nothing of this can be alledged against the Terms if Heresie can be justly objected to their Persons These I say are just Grounds and give a Liberty to break off from the Communion of any Persons or Churches And I chuse rather to express it by this giving them a Liberty than by imposing on them a conscionable Necessity to do so For some Grounds give a Liberty to break Communion either with their own Bishops or with other Churches which do not in conscience necessitate Men as Unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments when they are made the condition thereof For though Men need not submit to them yet if they are pleased to do it they ordinarily may do so without Sin and suffer such Incroachments in then own Wrong Besides the Duty of uniting with any particular Persons or Churches is bound upon us by certain Things or Qualifications in those Persons or Churches which oblige us to their Communion and Dependance And as the Being and Presence of those Things and Qualifications binds it on so doth the Failure thereof unbind the same and set Men at Liberty to go off from them I say to go off from them not to go off from all and hold on communicating with none For when they are no longer bound to communicate with such particular Bishops or Churches yet are they still bound thereto with others or under a general obligation to Communion I mean when they have opportunity for the same which is presupposed to all obligation of actual Exercise and Discharge thereof by this like as it is by all other Affirmative Duties The Communion of Saints professed in the Creed obliges us to communicate as we have opportunity in all Christian Offices with all true Christians who still retain those Qualifications I spoke of Though it leaves us free to stand off from any others who have
removed from the Honour of the Priesthood and Clerical Orders Accordingly Basilides the Bishop after he had denyed and cursed Christ was very thankful as he says and looked upon it as a great Favour to him that he could be received to communicate as a Lay-man And likewise Trophimus the Bishop when he had sacrificed to Idols was admitted as he tells Antotianus only to communicate as a Lay-man not to usurp the Priests Office any more as some malicious persons had inform'd him which made Antonianus complain of the same to Cyprian as a Violation of this known Rule of Discipline And in Vertue of this being the known and received Rule of the Church the Donatists sought to invalidate and overthrow the Ordination of Caecilian against whom they had set up their Anti-bishop Majorinus at Carthage pretending that Caecilians Ordainers particularly Faelix of Aptisng had been Traditors in the precedeing Persecution or had faln from Christ and deliver'd up their Bibles to be burnt by their persecutors Which Charge had it been true as it was false would have been received and owned for a just Exception on both sides And the Catholicks would have rejected Caecilian till he could make out some better Ordination as well as the Council of Nice did these Egyptian Anti-bishops that had no better Ordainer than Meletius who stood guilty of the like Offence But it was rejected in Caecilians Case as being a malicious Forgery the Donatists thereby impudently laying their own Crimes on others hoping that would hinder men from inquiring after the same in themselves Indeed as Epiphanius relates this Matter Meletius made this Schism and Ordained these Anti-bishops not after he had sacrificed to Idols and had been Synodically condemned by Peter for the same but whilst he as well as Peter was a stout Confessor for the Faith against Idols and in his Zeal for the Discipline of the Church against Peters easiness in admitting the Lapsers who sought to them whilst they were together in Prison for the peace of the Church But Athanasius who was nearer to this Transaction and who after some others was chosen to suâ—ceed Peter in the same Church is more like to understand the Truth of this Affair than Epiphanius was Whom Baronius and Petavius look upon as mislead into this account by some false Acts or Histories of the Meletians who dealt injuriously with Peter and the Catholicks in Egypt like as the Donatists did with Caecilian and those Catholicks in Africk on whom they labour'd to fix the Crime of being Traditors whereof the Catholicks were free but they themselves were notoriously guilty Thus though their Orders were valid in themselves without which they could have been received at no time yet have they not always availed to Claim and obtain the Churches Communion without which the persons could not be received by the Faithful to exercise the same And this has been when the Church saw fit and expedient to insist upon the Rules of Unity in Ordinations and more vigorously to assert Ecclesiastical Law and Discipline And this it might assert or relax as it saw Cause Ecclesiastical Law and Discipline is not a Rule of indispensible Obligation to the Church but such as it may and oft-times has receded from on great reason and necessity What Rules the Church makes the Church may alter and go off from in particular Cases as need shall require and as may best serve those ends for which it made them Accordingly Rules of Discipline have not been one and the same in all Ages For to omit others the ancient Councils asserted the free Election of Bishops nominated here by the Prince to the Bishops of the Province And for bid the Translation of Bishops from poorer to richer Sees And the Attendance of Bishops about Courts of Princes the Council of Antioch confirmed afterwards at Chalcedon and in Trullo forbidding them to go to the Emperor without the approbation and Letters of the Metropolitane And excluded both Bishops and Clergy from intermealing and incumbring themselves with Secular Trusts and Administrations All which are otherwise in these latter Ages And such Rules of Discipline as have been observed more strictly have not had one equal and uniform Tenor of Observation but have been sometimes remitted and sometimes exacted and stood upon as the Church was driven thereto by prudential Reason Thus it has been with the Canons or Rules of Discipline about Ordinations Which as the Church has sometimes insisted on as I noted to vacate the Ordinations which any Bishops made against them I mean to deny the Persons its Communion without which whatever powers of Orders they had received they could not be received in any Assemblies of the Faithful to exercise the same So were they at other times relaxed and over-ruled by the necessities of the Church and the Persons on their reconciliation admitted to officiate in vertue of such Orders as I think may abundantly appear by the fore-cited instances And this very Reason is given for it by the African Fathers in the Synod of Carthage when they admit of the Ordinations of the Donatists which the Transmarine or Italian Synod had rejected telling Pope Anastasius that this Reception of them to the same Orders was for the great necessity of Africk for a †better provision for Catholick Unity and for the benefit and peace of the Church These instances and proofs I think may be sufficient to shew that Anti-bishops and others of their Ordination have Orders though being in a Schism the Faithful ought not to joyn with them in their use thereof Their Schism makes them Sinners in receiving and in using their Orders and shuts out others from communicating therewith But it doth not utterly destroy and null their Orders nor must it be said I conceive that by such sinful Ordination they receive nothing or that whatever they had formerly received they lose by falling into Schism so as that thenceforward they have no Orders nor are Bishops or Priests at all The Donatists indeed as St. Austin reports asserted this and taught that by breaking off from the Church though men did not lose the Baptism which they had received before yet they lost their Orders or the Authority and Power of Baptizing And on pretence thereof they re-baptized those who since the Breach had been baptized by any of the Catholick Clergy As to which he owns that whilst they continue in their Schism they sin in exercising their Orders They do not do right saith he in giving Baptism to others whilst they themselves are broken off from the Church And it is to their own destruction so long as they have not the Charity of Union The having Baptism themselves and confering it on others are both pernicious whilst they continue out of the Bond of Peace But though they ought not to use these powers till they have amended their Schism yet as he
unless their Clergy whom they can resort to for the same would receive Episcopal Ordination And since in the place where their Lot is faln they can not have Episcopal Communion they will be excused for wanting it Though worshipping God or communicating in Ministerial Offices is a natural duty yet the confining this to the communion of a Bishop is a positive Limitation And necessity though it can discharge no natural duties yet may sometimes excuse and supersede positives So that when they can not communicate in Ministerial Offices under Bishops they will be excused I hope for communicating in the same without them And as to the Clergy though I will not here discuss or determine their case yet is this necessity where it can be justly and fully pleaded thought by many to bid fair for excusing warranting them in Ministring without Episcopal Powers For at one time the Priest hood belonged to the First-born At first it was lodged in the Patriarks And thus we read of Abraham that he would command and instruct his Children and his House-hold after him in the true Religion Gen. 18. 18. And of him and Jacob and Job and other Patriarks offering Sacrifices And from the Patriarks it came to be vested in the First-born till the Levites among the Jews were appropriated and given to God in exchange for them Numb 3. 41. And this limiting it afterwards to one Tribe or Family as the Line of Aaron among the Jews or to men Episcopally called and Ordained as it is among the Christians were Limitations of positive institution And therefore necessity which supersedes or excuses the want of positives though it leave them still under the force of Naturals is thought to bid fair towards taking off the exactness of these latter Restraints and bearing men out in parting from them in those things where they can not avoid it so long as they still keep close to them in others where they can if they have this necessity honestly and fairly to plead for themselves Now if this necessity of Peoples communicating in Ministerial Offices will excuse their communicating with Ministers who have no Bishops I see not but it should do the same in point of communicating with Ministers who are broke off from their own Bishop For surely it is a more flagrant breach of Union to break off from Episcopacy it self than from any particular Bishop and a deeper Schism to cast off all Bishops than to cast off one And therefore that necessity of communicating in Ministerial Offices which is allow'd to legitimate and excuse the one will not be denyed to legitimate and excuse the other too 4. Besides this of Gods People having held and practised thus under the greatest Schisms of former times in further confirmation of this Liberty I observe Lastly how it has done the same to give Relief in some other compassionable cases about communion which have only like Plea for abatements as this case has For great purposes and what will be alleadged greater than preventing a total want of publick worship and Ministerial Offices the Church has abated in shunning the communion of Schismaticks especially before they are cut off by judicial Censures and of excommunicate persons For in abatement of this keeping off from their communion it has allow'd men to communicate with them at the beginning ere Schism yea or Heresie it self is fully formed and whilst it is capable of being prevented An Heretick St. Paul orders not to be rejected from communion before he has had a first and second Admonition So that till then in hopes of prevention they might Communicate with him And accordingly the Catholicks did for a good while Communicate with the Arians after the bursting out of that Heresy whilst by that forbearance and by the other parties seeking still in their definitions to come as near as they could to the truth they conceived hopes of remedy or cure thereof There being no breach of communion on account of their different judgements for some time but all Assembling together and joyning in the fame ministrations as Sozomen says Or after the Breach of Communion is made and different Churches are set up tho' we do not go to theirs it has allow'd them to come to our Assemblies in hopes to cure them Thus at the beginning of our Reformation after the division from their Church notwithstanding their Adherence to the Pope and all their Errors both in worship and Doctrines the Papists were allowed for several years under Queen Elizabeth to come to our Churches And the Dissenters from the Episcopal Communion among us are all Schismaticks but yet they have not been driven out thereof but allow'd to joyn with us in publick offices when they would come into our Churches as still they have been invited and encouraged to do if they were not under sentence of Excommunication from the Bishops Courts Yea though their offences were lyable to ipso Facto Excommunications by several Canons Such ipso Facto Excommunications being only sententia lata ab ipso jure a sentence pass'd by the Law which as the Canonists say needs sententiam latam a judiâ—e another sentence pass'd by the judge an ipso facto excommunication by any Canons not barring men from Communion till there be a declaratory sentence as Lyndwood notes Thus also they who in Heathen Persecutions fell to sacrifice to Idols were Segregated or shut out from Communion by the Primitive Canons And with men excluded it is made unlawful to Communicate by the Canons of the Apostles and others as I shew'd before And Gaius Diddensis and his Deacon were Suspended from Communion themselves for Communicating with Lapsers And yet in great need thereof and when there was hopes thereby to recover them when in prison the Egyptian Martyrs did in great Charity Communicate with them both at their Common Tables and in Prayers as Dionysius Alexandrinus reports In these and other Rules of Discipline where there are great Reasons for Favor and abatements the Church it self would have no want thereof In things that will not bear extremities or the Rigor of Law as the Fathers in the Council in Trullo and St. Basil also in his Canons say they are to Relax and make abatements according to Custom and the form received Thus on great reason have some equitable abatements of the Rigor of the foresaid Rules for shunning of Communion with men fall'n into Heresy or Schism or other depriving crime still been made in the Church and some reasonable liberties indulged in those cases It was thought reasonable to recede thus and to take these Liberties when put thereto to serve other peoples necessities must it not needs be to the full as much so when put thereto to serve our own It was allowable to serve the spiritual wants of the offenders Can it be less so to serve those of innocent men So that as it suits as I shew'd before with the reason