lowdly against them And all this serves to convince our Apologist of unskilfulness in these matters who pronounces roundly that Mr. Gataker k p. 13. of his Book never had any Episcopal Ordination because he was Ordained by a Suffragan of one of those places mentioned in the Statute viz. the Suffragan of Colchester Suppose he were * As Mr. Clark tells us he was Collect. of Lives of ten Divines p. 131. he had notwithstanding Episcopal Ordination as I have demonstrated and as good as if he had been Ordained by the greatest Bishop in the World But he did not understand I see by this what those Suffragans were and contrary to what became an humble and modest man and the Title likewise of his Book wrote about things which he had not studied or considered Which made him also confound these with the Rural Deans alledging the Primate of Armaghs judgment concerning the power of Suffragans to prove it to be his Judgment that the Chorepiscopi or Rural Deans might lawfully ordain In which he hath done him a notorious injury for there is not such a word in his Book as that the Rural Deans may lawfully ordain But only that the number of Suffragans which was 26 might well be conformed to the number of the several Rural Deanries and supplying the place of those who in the Antient Church were called Chorepiscopi might every month assemble a Synod of the Rectors within the Precinct and conclude all matters brought before them by the major part of voices These are his words which do not signifie that Suffragans were the same with Rural Deans or Chorepiscopi but that there might be as many of the one as there are of the other and Suffragans do all that which those antient Officers did though they had power to do a great deal more For I have proved a plain distinction between them The Chorepiscopi were made by one single Bishop viz. the Bishop of the City to whom they belonged as the Council of Antioch tells us Can. 10. But the Suffragans being real Bishops were made as other Bishops are by three at the least according to the fourth Canon of the first Council at Nice And so they had power to Ordain Presbyters and joyn in the Consecration of other Bishops which the Chorepiscopi had not Nor did our Church ever acknowledge any such power residing in the Rural Deans or any meer Presbyters subject to the Jurisdiction of our Bishops to ordain Priests But as Hadrianus Saravia tells the Ministers of Guernsey l See Clavi Trabales p. 142. in his Letter to them As many Ministers as were naturally of the Country being not made Ministers of the Church by their Bishop or his Demissories nor any others according to the Order of the English Church were not true and lawful Ministers Where by Demissories I think he means the Suffragans of the Bishop of Winchester to whose jurisdiction they belonged Yes may some say our Bishops have sometimes declared otherwise For this Apologist m Pag. 13. out of Archbish Spotswood alledges the story of the three Scots Bishops who never had been ordained but by Presbyters and yet Bishop Bancrofts opinion was that they need not be ordained again which hath often been alledged heretofore by others particularly by the Lancashire Ministers of the first Classis at Manchester in whom he might have found a great deal more than this amounts unto For they fly to a Letter of the late Primate of Ireland with the Animadversions of Dr. Bernard upon it n The judgment of the late Archb. of Armagh c. 1658. in which this Story is cited and the judgment of many other learned Divines but nothing at all to the business For as the Gentlemen to whom the Lancashire Ministers wrote their Letter well observe o Excommunicatio excommunicata p. the Primate did not make void the Ordination by Presbyters but it was with a special restriction to such places where Bishops could not be had Which are the very words also of Archbishop Bancroft in the case of the Scottish Bishops As for the Ordinations made by our Presbyters the Primate declared himself against them in the very same Letter which they craftily concealed as you may read p. 112. of Dr. Bernards Book The words are these You may easily judge that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical Obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from being Schismatical Which I find cited again in another Book of of his called Clavi Trabales p. 56. And both in that and the former Book p Judgment of the Archb. p. 122 c. Clavi Tiab p. 55. he tells us the Primate thought their Ordination void upon another score Because at the imposition of hands they neither used those antient words Receive thou the Holy Ghost c. nor the next Be thou a faithful dispenser c. nor any other words to that sense at least there is no order or direction for it And they also wholly omitted those words at the solemn delivery of the Bible inro the hands of the person ordained Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God c. So that there being no express transmission of Ministerial Power he was wont to say that such Imposition of hands by some called the Seal of Ordination without a Commission annexed seemed to him to be as the putting of a Seal to a Blank And if a Bishop had been present and done no more than they did he thought the same quere might have been of the validity of such Ordinations As for other Reformed Churches their case is widely different from that of these men as he might have learnt from another Bishop whom he cites now and then to no purpose viz. Bishop Bramhall * Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 71 72. who rells you that he knew many learned persons among them who did passionately affect Episcopacy and some of them acknowledged to him that their Church would never be rightly settled till it was new moulded And others he tells you though they did not long for Episcopacy yet they approve it and want it only out of invincible necessity And that their principal learned men were of this mind appears from hence that Dr. Carlton afterward Bishop of Chichester protesting in open Synod which then sate at Dort that Christ instituted no parity but made twelve Apostles the chief and under them seventy Disciples that Bishops succeeded to the Twelve and Presbyters of inferiour rank to the Seventy and challenging the judgment of any learned men that could speak to the contrary Their answer was silence which was approbation enough And after saith he discoursing with divers of the best learned in the Synod and telling them how necessary Bishops were to suppress their Schisms then rising their answer was That they did much honour and reverence the good
that he should study rather how to give no account at all For he is grosly ignorant in other Learning as well as in this as appears by his discourse about Ordination by Presbyters which follows a little after The Friendly Debate gave him no occasion to mention any thing of this nature but he had a mind it seems to give us a taste of his skill in this great Question though it be so small that I know not how to excuse his boldness in medling with it He supposes that the Chorepiscopi which he makes the same with our Rural Deans may lawfully Ordain And next that Suffragans were but such Presbyters so that he who was Ordained by them had not Episcopal Ordination And then thirdly He would have you believe that Archbishop Vsher and other Learned men concurring in judgment with him were of this opinion Every one of which propositions are notoriously false as I will plainly shew you by demonstrating these three things 1. That those called Chorepiscopi Rural or Country Bishops never had the Power of Ordination being not of the Order of Bishops but Presbyters something advanced above the rest 2. On the other side that Suffragans had the power of Ordination being not meer Presbyters but Bishops as those in the City were And lastly That the late Primate saith nothing contrary to this For the first The Country Bishops saith the Council of Neocaesarea n About the year 314. Can. 13. were but of such a degree as the seventy Disciples and appointed after their Type to whom the Antients every body knows make Presbyters to be the Successors as Bishops are to the Apostles And therefore that Council calls them only Assistants to the Bishops in that part of their Diocess which was distant from the City But that they had only a part of the Episcopal Power committed to them not the whole we learn from the Council of Ancyra presently after Can. 13. which decreed that the Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops ought not to ordain either Ppesbyters or Deacons o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose he that pleases may find many authorities in Justellus his notes upon that place And in the Council of Antioch Can. 10. the same is decreed again that they should know their bounds or measures and appoint Readers Sub-Deacons and Catechists but not dare to proceed further nor to make a Priest or Deacon without the Bishop of the City to which both he and his Region were subject The same Canons were in the Roman Church as appears by the Body of the Decrees p v. part 1. Distinct 63. c. 4. The words of which being abbreviated by Sigebert he calls them Arch-Deacons But afterward the Council of Laodicea decreed Can. 57. that this sort of Officers should be abolished and no Bishops should be appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Villages and in the Countries and that they who had been already constituted should do nothing without the consent of the Bishop of the City But instead of them there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Visitors that should go about to find out what was amiss and correct mens manners In like manner we find in the Body of the Canon Law q Distinct 68. c. 5. a Decree of Pope Damasus to this purpose That the Chorepiscopi have been prohibited as well by that See as by the Bishops of the whole world One reason of which prohibition might be that they did not r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know their own bounds as the Council of Antioch determined but ventured to appoint Church Officers without the Bishops Consent Upon which occasion St. Basil wrote a particular Epistle to the Chorepiscopi requiring that no Minister ſ Epist 181. p. 959. Tom. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Readers and such Ministers as those Luke 4.10 whatsoever though of the lower rank should be made without him contrary to the Canons It is a sad thing saith he to see how the Canons of the Fathers are laid aside insomuch that it is to be feared all will come to Confusion The Antient Custom was this That there should be a strict inquiry made into the lives of those who were to be admitted to minister in the Church The care of this lay upon the Presbyters and Deacons who were to report it to the Chorepiscopi and they having received a good testimony of them certified it to the Bishop and so the Minister t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was admitted into Holy Orders But now you Country Bishops would make me stand for a Cypher and take all this Authority to your selves nay you permit the Presbyters and Deacons to put in whom they please according as Kindred or Affection inclines them without regard to their worth But let me saith he have a note of the Ministers of every Village and if any have been brought in by the Presbyters let them be cast out again among the common people And know that he shall be but a Lay-man whoever he is that is received into the Ministry without our consent By this it is apparent that Presbyters had not power so much as to make the lowest Officers in the Church and that the Chorepiscopi though above the rest of the Presbyters in Office yet were not so high as Bishops but were a middle sort of men between both An image of whom was remaining in the late Bohemian Church as I learn from Comenius who in his Book concerning the Discipline and Order among them tells us that beside the Seniors or Bishops u For they had Episcopal Ordination after they had been made Presbyters and Epicopal Jurisdiction and Succession from the Bishops of the Waldenses and Ministers or Presbyters they had certain Ecclesiastical Persons called Conseniors who were between the other two For they were chosen out of the Ministers presented by them to the Bishop and then solemnly ordained by him to the Office of Conseniors by a new imposition of hands But at the same time these Conseniors promised Obedience to the Bishop x Ratio Discipl Ord. Eccl. cap. 2. p. 37. as the Ministers when they were Ordained promised Obedience to them as well as to the Bishop z Ib. p. 33. Their Office therefore was among other things as we are told Chap. 1. page 23 24. to keep good Order to observe what was worthy of correction to inform the Bishop of it to provide fit persons for the Ministry to exercise Discipline with the Bishop and visit with him or without him if he required it to examine those that were to be ordained Ministers or Deacons to give them testimonials to the Bishop and in short To supply the place of the Bishop in businesses of lesser moment So it appears by the Book and by Comenius his Annotations upon that Chapter a page 92. Minoribus in negotiis Episcopi vices obirent Thus much may suffice for the Chorepiscopi who had not such
Churches long and resolutely maintained which he shows may be so managed as not to be Schism But he expresly determines a little after p. 23. that it is schism to separate from other Christians without sufficient ground in the participation of the same Sacraments or in the use of the same Divine Offices and Liturgies of the Church and publike Worship and Service of Almighty God or of the same common Rites Ceremonies c. The very same he declares elsewhere that they who break the unity of the Church for difference in in different rites are guilty of Schism d Replic to Bishop of Chalcedon p. 79 80. and that most of the Schisms in the Church of Christ have been about the Canons of the Church and not the substantials of Religion Among other instances he mentions the Schisms raised in our Church about a Surpless signe of the Cross c. If therefore this Apologist would have done like a man he should have shewn that we obtrude sinful Rites as a condition of Communion with us and so by this Bishops confession are guilty of making the Schism our selves And he should in order to this have clearly answered all that hath been said in defence of our Church and especially the Arguments of their Fore-fathers the old Nonconformists who proved against the Brownists that there was no such corruption in our Church as was a sufficient ground of separation from it Here was the very point if he durst have toucht it or come near it Which since he hath not done but spent his time in impertinent things I must leave him to the favourable censure of S. Austin mentioned somewhere by the same Bishop in another case They cannot do better in a bad cause but who constrained them to have a bad cause This was it which made him turn his back so often upon the Question and to make a Book which one cannot resemble more fitly then to a Winter-torrent which abounds with water when there is no need of it but in Summer when it should be useful it is dryed up They are the words of the fore-mentioned Bishop which I thought good to use since he doth so even when he doth not name him Such is this Apologie full of proofs where there is no controversie between us and where the water sticks indeed he is as mute as a fish There is no question for instance but we may use the words of Scripture by way of accommodation no body denies it and that which he cites to this purpose out of one of our Bishops I observed long before he told me of it p. 54 87. But then we ought to say that we use them so and not talk as if that were the genuine sense of the Divine Writ never acquainting the people with any other And you ought not to pretend to more then other men who can do this as well as your selves unless you had the very same spirit and power which the Apostles had Nor is it the Question whether mens affections are raised with Novelty and Variety p. 59. but whether those be the best affections which are raised by that means or those which are raised by serious consideration and laying to heart of the same things in the same words All that he alledges out of Mr. Hollingworth p. 56. is to no purpose for I have proved that the Non conformists pretend to more even the very same that Mr. Baily did in his Answer e Review chap. 12. p. 75. to Bishop Bramhal's Fair warning who would have the people endeavour to attain a readiness to pray in their family out of their own heart in the words which Gods Spirit dytes to them But as that Bishop said elsewhere this man doth not seek the Question in earnest but as he who sought for the Hare under the Leads because he must seek her as well where she was not as where she was Else he would not have askt the Question Whether Non conformist Ministers seek after Visions and Revelations p. 68. That is not the point but whether Mr. W. B. have not taught the people to do so He might have added if he had pleased Whether they have not pretended to them And an History in one of our Chronicles would have taught him to answer affirmatively For there was a Physician in Oxford one Rich Haidock of New-Colledg who pretended to preach in his sleep in such sort that though he was call'd upon a loud or stirr'd or pull'd by hands or feet he would make no shew of hearing or feeling His fame was spread abroad by the name of the sleeping Preacher so that he was brought to Court and one night his Majestie f See Sir Ri Baker in the 3d year of K. James being present to attend the event the Gentleman began to pray and then took a Text made his Division applyed it to his purpose which was to inveigh against the Pope the Cross in Baptism and the Canons then newly made And yet all this was a meer cheat as he confessed afterward to the King who pardoned him on condition that he should openly in all places acknowledge his offence because many saith the Historian were brought to believe that his nightly preaching was either by inspiration or by vision This may serve to requite his impertinent tale for which there was no occasion about a Ministers praying that they might have godly dreams Again they are not accused for being time-servers now as he supposes p. 89. but heretofore And in this that excellent person Bishop Sanderson with whom he may engage if he please now he is dead will bear me out that it is no false accusation I will recite his words and briefly prove the truth of them where it is needful Before the beginning of the Long Parliament and the unhappy divisions which followed thereupon there were few saith he either of the Ministers that scrupled to use the Cross or of the people that took offence at it g Preface to Clavi Trabales Aug. 10. 1661. Which words as to the Ministers on whom the people depended may be justified from the Registers of Subscription in which we finde the most eminent men of your way subscribed libenter ex animo freely heartily to the three Articles mentioned in the 36 Canon Among the rest Mr. Calamy whom our Apologist mentions with the titles of Discreet honest pious Mr. Calamy p. 92. Nov. 9. 1637. and Mr. Jenkyn Jan. 2. 1640. And if you look as far back as 1627 you will finde Mr. Hugh Peters himself subscribing to the very height As for the Archbishops Bishops he saith I acknowledg their Offices and Jurisdictions and cannot see but there would a fearful Ataxy follow without the present Government whereof I so approve that I have and willingly do submit to it and them and have and will press the same upon others h Subscription before the Bishop of London Aug. 17. the original wherof found