at Rome a Dove lighting upon his head the people crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tooke him presently and set him in the Bishops Throne And yet it cannot be said that therefore the people Ordained him Bishop So likewise the Presbyters of Alexandria seated one of their number in the Bishops Chair saith S. Hierome This installing must needs have the force of a nomination by the Presbyters and so sway and prejudice the consent of the Bishops assembled to the Ordination which regularly was to be done by a Synod of Bishops that their choice was never known to have been void before the time of Dionysius and Heraclas which was enough to ground S. Hierome an argument though ineffectuall But seeing Eusebius shews us that there were other Bishops in Aegypt seeing the life of S. Mark in Photius saith that he planted Churches in Pentapolis which seem to be those over which the authority of the Bishop of Alexandria is established by the Councell of Nice Can. IX I must not grant that they received their chief from the Presbyters of Alexandria without their own consent expressed by Imposition of Hands This is my opinion of the credit which we are to give to these two passages in point of Historicall truth But supposing not granting them both I cannot see what can be inferred from either of them prejudiciall to the Order of Bishops and the necessity thereof above Presbyters For seeing it is acknowledged that S. Mark Ordained a Bishop always to be Head of that Church and that by virtue of this Ordinance the Presbyters finde themselves obliged to proceed to create one which they did sooner at Alexandria then in other Churches after the vacancy saith Epiphanius Haer. LXIX 11. it is manifest that the authority of a Bishop is necessary to the validity of all Acts of the Church by S. Marks Ordinance when they acknowledge themselves necessitated to make one in the first place that the Acts thereof may be valid Again as to the Canon of Ancyra suppose Presbyters were Ordained by Presbyters upon Commission from the Bishop is this any prejudice to the Rule that nothing be done without the Bishop Or is it any advantage to them that would have no Bishops and so do all against the Bishop To my reason it seems necessary to distinguish between the solemnity which an Act is executed with and the Power and Authority by which it is done And that it cannot be prejudiciall to any Power to doe that by another which seemeth not fit to be immediately and personally executed by it The dependence of the Church being safe by the Commission acknowledged and the Unity of the Church by that dependence Some acts of the Primitive Church seem to require this distinction As the making of Presbyters by the Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops mentioned in the ancient Greek Canons Which by all likelihood were not properly Bishops because not Heads of a City Church which is the Apostolicall Rule for Episcopall Churches For the aforesaid Arabick Paraphrase of the Canon of Ancyra describes them thus Interpretatio ejus est Episcopi Villarum hoc est Vicarii Episcopi per Villas habitatas qua fuerint in universa operatione id est Diocesi The meaning of Country Bishops is that they are Bishops of Villages that is the Bishops Vicars in the best inhabited Villages of all the Diocese So it seems that they were set over the greater Villages or Bodies of Villages which in regard of some secular Right resort to some one Village lying within the Territory of some Episcopall City Therefore the Councell of Antiochia saith expresly Can. X. that they and the Countries which they govern are both subject to the Bishop of the City Whereupon it seems they were Ordained by that one Bishop and so not properly Bishops which are Ordained by a Synod or the Representatives of it and that this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Canon there mentions And this is the reason why they are called Vicarii Episcoporum Bishops Deputies in the ancient Translation of the Canons as you have seen So if the Canon of Ancyra enable them to Ordain Presbyters within their own precinct for that must be the meaning of it when it says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying part of the Territory of the City assigned to their peculiar care it seems to delegate this Power of the Bishop not to be exercised without Letters under his hand and seal as the Canon expresseth Again I suppose no man will deny that all Ordinations in Schism are meer nullities though made by persons rightly Ordained because against the Unity of the Church And yet we finde such Ordinations made valid by the meer Decree of the Church without Ordaining anew As the Meletians in Aegypt by the Councell of Nice in Epiphanius and the Ecclesiasticall Histories and as Pope Melchiades much commended for it by S. Augustine offered to receive all the Donatists in their own ranks besides divers others that might be produced Among which that expressed in the Canons Antioch XIII Apost XXXVI deserves to be remembred whereby Ordinations made in another Bishops Diocese are made void For the only reason why some things though they be ill done yet are to stand good is because the Power that doth them extendeth to them but is ill used So when the Power is usurped as in all Schism or when that is done which the Law makes void it can be to no effect Therefore when the act of Schism is made valid it is manifest that the Order of Bishop Presbyter is conferred in point of Right by the meer consent of the Church which by the precedent Ordination was conferred only in point of Fact being a meer nullity in point of Right Adde hereunto that of the Apostolicall Constitutions VIII 27. that a Bishop may be Ordained by one Bishop being inabled by an Order of the rest of the Province when they cannot assemble in case of persecution or the like For here the Power is derived from all though the solemnity be executed by one By the same reason it is that Confirmation in Aegypt was done by the Presbyters As the supposed S. Ambrose upon Eph. IV. agreeing with the Author of the Quaestions in Vet. Novum Testam Quaest CI. among S. Augustines Works witnesseth For that is it which the one of them means by consignant the other by consecrat because both limit their assertion that it was onely done in the absence of the Bishop Which cannot be supposed at Ordinations because they were regularly to be made at a Synod of Bishops For seeing it was done onely in the absence of the Bishop by consequence it was done by Order and Commission from the Bishop by which the custome was established And therefore cannot be prejudiciall to that Power by virtue whereof it was done as by authority derived from it And to my understanding this is the reason of that which we finde done Acts XIII 1 where
onely mark to discern what is the subject of Reformation and what not All Warre made upon the Title of Christianity is unjust and destructive to it Therefore Religion cannot be Reformed by force Of the present State of Christianity among us and the means that is left us to recover the Vnity of the Church THat which hath been said as it concerns the present case of this Church seems to be liable to one main Objection which is this That if the power of Bishops and Presbyters be such as hath been said by Divine Right that nothing can be done without them in their respective Churches it will follow that in case the State of the Church be corrupt by processe of time and their default especially so that the common good of the Church require Reformation by changing of Laws in force if they consent not it cannot be brought to passe without breach of Divine Right This may well seem to be the false light that hath misguided well affected persons to seek the Reformation presently pretended For seeing it is agreed upon among us that there was a time and a State of the Church which required Reformation and that if the Clergy of that time had been supported in that power which by the premises is challenged on behalfe of the Clergy this Reformation could not have been brought to passe It seems therefore to the most part of men that distinguish not between causes and pretenses that where Reformation is pretended there the power lawfully in force to the Society of the Church ought to cease that the Reformation may proceed either by Secular power or if that consent not by force of the People To strengthen this objection as to the Reformation of this Church it may further be said that though it is true that the Order of Bishops hath been propagated in this Church at and since the Reformation by Ordinations made according to the form of that Apostolicall Canon That a Bishop be Ordained by two or three Bishops yet if we judge of the Originall intent of that Canon by the generall practice of the Church it will appear that it is but the abridgement of the IV Canon of the Councell of Nice which requireth that all Bishops be Ordained by a Councell of the Bishops of the Province Which because it cannot always be had therefore it is provided that two or three may doe the work the rest consenting and authorizing the proceeding A thing which seems necessarily true by that which hath been said of the dependence of Churches consisting in this that the Act of part of the Church obliges the whole because that part which it concerns and the Unity of the whole which it produceth stands first obliged by it being done according to the Laws of the whole By which reason the Act of Ordination of a Bishop obliges the whole Church to take him for a Bishop because the Mother Church to which he belongs and the rest of Cathedrall Churches under the same do acknowledge it And this is that which the Ordinance of the Apostles hath provided to keep the Visible Communion of the whole Church in Unity To which it is requisite that a Christian communicate with the whole Church as a Christian a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon as such But when among the Bishops of any Province part consent to Ordinations part not the Unity of the Church cannot be preserved unlesse the consent of the whole follow the consent of the greater part And therefore though the Canon of Nice be no part of Divine Right yet seeing the precept of the Unity of the Church being the end which all the Positive Laws of Church Government aim at obligeth before any Positive precept of the Government thereof which we see are many ways dispensed with for preservation thereof and that it appears to be the generall custome of the Primitive Church to make Ordinations at those Provinciall Councels which by another Apostolicall Canon XXXVIII were to be held twice a year it seemeth that there can no valid Ordination be made where the greater number of the Bishops of the Province dissent Which is confirmed by the Ordination of Novatianus for Bishop of Rome which though done by three Bishops as the Letter of Cornelius to the Eastern Bishops recorded by Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 43. testifieth yet was the foundation of that great Schisme because Cornelius was Ordained on the other side by sixteen as we reade in S. Cyprian Now it is manifest that the Ordinations by which that Order is propagated in England at and since the Reformation were not made by consent of the greater part of Bishops of each Province but against their minde though they made no contrary Ordinations And by the same means it is manifest that all those Ecclesiasticall Laws by which the Reformation was established in England were not made by a consent capable to oblige the Church if we set aside the Secular Power that gave force unto that which was done contrary to that Rule wherein the Unity of the Church consisteth But in other parts the Reformation established was so far from being done by Bishops and Presbyters or any consent able to conclude the Church by the Constitution of the Church that the very Order of Bishops is laid aside and forgot if not worse that is detested among them Upon which precedent it sounds plansibly with the greatest part among us that the Unity of the whole being dissolved by the Reformation the Unity of the Reformation cannot be preserved but by dissolving the Order of Bishops among us Before I come to resolve this difficulty it will be requisite to examine what Privileges and Penalties the Secular Power is enabled to enforce Religion within a Christian State Because it hath been part of the dispute of this time that some Privileges of the Church are contrary to Christianity as also some Penalties upon matter of Conscience And the resolution of it will make way to my answer Now the resolution hereof must come from the ground laid from the beginning of this Discourse that Christianity importeth no temporall Privilege or advantage of this present World and therefore that Christianity enableth no man to advance and propagate his Christianity by force For as it is contrary to the nature thereof to bee forced seeing the Service of God which it requireth is not performed by any man that is not willing to doe it nor the Faith beleeved but by them that are willing to beleeve it So seeing it gives no man any privilege of this world which he cannot challenge by a lawfull title of Humane Right and that no title of Humane Right can enable any man to impose upon another that Faith which Humane reason reveals not therefore can no Humane power force any man to be a Christian by the utmost penalty of death which is that which force endeth in to them that submit not It is true the Law of Moses imposeth death for a penalty in
is a sin unto death saith the Apostle 1 John V. 16. I say not that ye pray for it This is commonly understood of denying Gods truth against that light which convinceth the conscience Which if it were true the Apostles precept could never come into practice seeing no man can know unlesse by Revelation against what light his Neighbour sinneth But the Novatians at the Councell of Nice as Socrates and Sozomenus both report Eccles Hist I. 7. I. 23. answering Constantine that they refused Penance onely to those that sinned the sin unto death doe give us to understand that S. John was understood by the Church not to command that Apostates be admitted to Penance And so also Tertullian in many places of his Book de Pudicit as cap. XIV argueth from this place that Penance was not to be granted to Adulterers Which sheweth that the Church understood the place in the same sense though it admitted not his consequence So also Origen in Mat. XVIII 18. Tract VII I was long doubtful of the truth of this Interpretation because the Apostle premising If any man see his brother sin a sin not unto death let him ask of God seems to speak of private Prayers of particular persons But the words of S. James V. 16. have cleared me of this doubt Confesse your sins one to another saith he and pray for one another that ye may be healed In which words I make no doubt but he speaketh of publique Penance For having premised that the Presbyters be sent for to the sick that they confesse their sins to the Presbyters that they pray for them anointing them with oil that their sins may be forgiven them to shew neverthelesse that according to the custome aforesaid in case they recovered they were to stand bound to Penance he addeth Confesse your sins to one another to signifie that this Confession and Penance remained due before the Church as we understand by the XII Canon of Nice that the practice was so long afterwards And this is proved by the precept of both Apostles to pray for one another For it is manifest that there were two means to obtain remission of sins in this case the Humiliation which the Church prescribed and the Penitent performed and the Prayers of the Church Which S. John prescribeth not to be granted to Apostates The very same is the meaning of the Apostle to the Hebrews VI. 6. when he pronounceth it unpossible that those that fall away be renued again to Repentance For as they that stood for Baptisme when they were catechized in Christianity were properly said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be instructed or dedicated to Repentance because of the Repentance from dead works which they professed so they that forfeited their Christianity by violating the contract of Baptisme are no lesse properly said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be renewed instructed and dedicated again to Repentance And the Apostles reason agrees For because the earth that receives rain and renders no fruit is near the curse therefore the Church will not easily beleeve that such a one shall lightly obtain of God the grace to become a sincere Christian And therefore the Apostle says not that it is unpossible that such a one should repent but that he should be instructed again to repentance to wit by the Church As the Novatians answered Constantine that they remitted such persons to God not prejudicing their salvation but not admitting them to the means of Reconciliation by the Church And herewith agreeth the example of Esau used by the Apostle again XII 17. saying that he found not place of Repentance alluding to that roome in the Church where Penitents were placed apart by themselves And again X. 26. the allusion which he maketh to the custome under the Law understood by the Hebrews to whom he writeth consisteth in this that as there was no sacrifice to be made for Apostates though for Ethnicks for this was the use of the Law as we understand by Moses Maimoni in the Title of Dressing Oblations cap. III. num 3 5. So the Christian Sacrifice of the Prayers of the Church was not to be offered for those that had renounced Christianity If it be thus you will ask What was the fault of the Novatians seeing they understood this Text right And my answer is that neverthelesse they are Hereticks extending the name of Hereticks to those whom now we call Schismaticks as I have shewed you in the little Discourse pag. 197. that it is often used For S. John as he commands not so he forbids not that they be admitted to Penance the other Apostle tels them it is impossible to let them know that they must not expect it But neither says that the Church could not give it When therefore the Church to preserve Unity was necessitated to grant it as we see by S. Cyprian the Novatians were no lesse Schismaticks in making separation upon the quarrell though perhaps the reason be not urged by their adversaries then if they had understood the Text amisse The Unity of the Church being of more moment then much understanding in the Scriptures And so perhaps S. Pauls words will belong to this purpose 1 Tim. 5. 19. as not onely the Socinians of late but Pacianus among the Ancients Paraen ad Poenitentiam and Matthaeus Galenus among modern Writers do expound them To wit that when he saith Lay hands suddenly on no men nor partake of other mens sins he leaves it to Timothies judgement whom to admit whom not to admit to Penance Because this Blessing with Imposition of hands was not the mark of Absolution but of admission to Penance as well as the ceremony of Ordinations And though this Text of the Apostle be understood in particular of Ordinations yet by the same reason which he allegeth it is to be extended to all Acts of the Church that are blessed by the Prayers of the Church with Imposition of Hands For if Timothy by Imposing hands upon those whom he Ordains become accessary to their sins if they be unfit to be Ordained by the same reason if he Impose Hands that is grant Penance unto them that are not fit for it he becomes accessory to the sins which they commit by being admitted to it Imposition of Hands being nothing else but a ceremony of that Benediction which signifieth that those Acts to which it is granted are allowed and authorized by the publique Power of the Church So Imposition of Hands in Confirmation is the admission of him that is confirmed to the communion of the Visible Church In Penance the restoring of him In Ordination to the exercise of this or that function in the Church Prayer over the sick which the Apostle commands James V. 14. and our Lord in the Gospel made with Imposition of Hands signified the admitting of the sick to Penance And it is said that in some Eastern Churches to this day mariages are blessed with Imposition of Hands in signification that the Church
which no publick thing could passe I do here willingly mention Ignatius because of the injustice of that exception that is made against him Surely had we none but the old Copy which for my part is freely confessed to be interpolated and mixed with passages of a later hand I would confidently appeal to the common sense of any man not fascinated with prejudice how that can be imagined to be always foisted in which is the perpetuall subject of all his Epistles Dwelling onely upon the avoiding of Heresy and Schism and the avoiding of Schism every where inculcated to consist in this that without the Bishop nothing be done and all with advice of the Presbyters But it seems to me a speciall act of Providence that the true Copy of these Epistles free from all such mixture is published during this dispute among us Which the L. Primate of Ireland having first smelt out by the Latine Translation which he published Isaak Vossius according as he presumed hath now found and published out of the Library at Florence farre enough from suspition of partiality in this cause Nor is the learned Blondell to be regarded presuming to stigmatize so clear a Record for forged It seemes that his Book was written before he saw this Copy and had he not condemned it in his Preface he must have suppressed and condemned his own work But when it appears that this Record is admitted as true and native of all that are able to judge of letters it must appear by consequence that he hath given sentence against his own Book In the mean time it is to be lamented that by the force of prejudice so learned a man had rather that the advantage of so many pregnant authorities of a companion of the Apostles against the Socinians should be lost to the Church then part with his own whether opinion or interesse condemned by the same evidence Certainly those weak exceptions from the style of Ignatius have more in them of will then of reason to all that have relished that simplicity of language which called by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be seen in the writings of Apostolicall persons Irenaeus Justine Clemens Romanus and after them Epiphanius and the Apostolicall Constitutions And he was very forward to finde exceptions that could imagine that Ignatius calleth the Order of Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he so qualifieth the Ordination of Damas Bishop of the Magnesians being a young man when he was ordained Bishop As for the mention of the Valentinians Heresie in them he hath been fully told again and again that the seeds of it are extant before Ignatius in the writings of the Apostles But as to my present purpose he that considers of what consequence the Unity of the Church is to the advancement of Christianity and of what consequence not only Ignatius but S. Cyprian S. Hierome and all men of judgement professe the Power of Bishops to be to the preservation of Unity in the Church will not begge the question with Blondell by condemning Ignatius his Epistles because the one half of the subject of them is this one Rule nothing to be done without the Bishop all things to be done by advice of the Presbyters That to the Philadelphians is remarkable above the rest where he affirmeth that having no intelligence from any man of the divisions that were among them the Holy Ghost revealing it to him said within him for the means of composing them Without the Bishop let nothing be done If it be said that this Rule is ineffectuall hindring rather then expediting the course of businesse The answer is that it is enough that thus much is determined by the Apostles the rest remaining to be further limited by humane right as the state of the Church shall require According to this Rule it is justly said that Baptism is not given but by a Bishop as it is given only by those whom the Order of any Church which was never put in force without the Bishop inableth to give it A thing manifestly seen by Confirmation What reason can we imagine that Philip the Deacon being inabled to doe miracles for the conversion of the Samaritanes was not inabled to give the Holy Ghost but the Apostles must come down to do it Was it not to shew that all graces of that kinde were subject to the graces of the Apostles in the Visible Church whereof they were then Chief Governours So that as then those that received the Holy Ghost were thereby demonstrated to be members of the Visible Church in which God evidenced his presence by that grace So was it always found requisite that Christians be acknowledged members of the Visible Church by the Prayers and Blessing of their Successors Which Order as it serves to demonstrate this Succession to all that are void of prejudice so had it been improved to this Apostolicall intent what time as all Christians began to be baptized in infancy renuing the contract of Christianity that is the promise of Baptism and the Chief Pastors acknowledgement of them for members of the Church upon that contract by blessing them with Imposition of Hands without doubt it had been and were the most effectuall mean to retain and retrive the ancient Discipline of Church When men might see themselves by their own solemne profession obliged to forfeit the communion of the Church by forfeiting the terms on which they were admitted to it If it can thus be said that Baptism is not given without the Bishop much more will the same be said of other acts of the Power of the Keys whereof that is the first Presbyters have an interesse in it limitable by Canonicall Right but as to the Visible Church that any man be excommunicate without a Bishop is against this Rule of the Apostles About Ordinations divers matters of fact are in vain alleged by Blondell and others from the ancient Records of the Church tending to degrade Bishops into the rank of Presbyters If the Gothes from the time of Valeriane to the Councell of Nice for some LXX years as he conjectureth out of Philostorgius II. 5. if the Scots before Palladius as Fordone III. 8. and John Maire II. 2. relate retained Christianity under Presbyters alone without Bishops they had not in that estate the power of governing their own Churches in themselves but depended on their neighbours that ordained them those Presbyters and the Government of the Church among them then must be as now among the Abassines where their one Bishop does nothing but Ordain them Presbyters as Godignus ubi supra relates And as the Catholick Christians of Antiochia lived for some XXXIV years after the banishment of Eustathius Theodoret Eccles Hist I. 21. But if the Gothes had Bishops before Vlfitas at the Councell of Nice as he shews out of the Ecclesiasticall Histories is any man so mad as to grant him who never endeavours to prove it that they were made by their own Presbyters
rather then by the neighbour Bishops of the Romane Empire from whence they received Christianity The Head of a Monastery in Aegypt being a Presbyter is said by Cassiane Collat. IV. 2. to have promoted a Monk whom he loved to the Priesthood Is not this done by recommending him to his Bishop for that purpose though he Ordained him not himself The Bishops of Durham and Lichfield are said by Bede Eccles Hist Angl. III. 3 5. to come from the Monastery of Hy governed by a Priest And it is true that the Monks of that Monastery having great reputation of holinesse swaied the Church there But withall Bede mentions expresly the Synod of the Province and therefore we need ask no further who Ordained them Bishops knowing that by the Primitive Rules of the Church it is the Act of a Synod Some seem to conceive this to be the meaning of the supposed S. Ambrose upon Eph. IV. 11. where he saith that at first the eldest of the Presbyters succeeded the Bishop but that afterwards the course was changed ut non Ordo sed meritum crearet Episcopum which they understand thus That his merit and not the Bench of Presbyters should make the Bishop thenceforth and therefore that formerly the Presbyters did it But this is nothing For it is plain that Ordo here signifies not the Bench of Presbyters but a mans Rank in it according to the time of his promotion to it These others of his slight Objections are easily wiped away But there are two which seem to most men to create some difficulty The one is the ninth Canon of the Councell of Ancyra which if the reading be true which he produces and Walo Messalinus presses intimates plain enough that City Presbyters might Ordain Presbyters at that time when it was made The other is the Antiquities of the Church of Alexandria published not long since out of Eutychius his History who was Patriarch there in his time and affirms that from S. Mark to Demetrius the Bishop there was not only chosen but Ordained by Imposition of the Hands of twelve Presbyters of that Church To the Canon of Ancyra I acknowledge that the reading which they follow is beside the Copies which they allege found in a very ancient written one of the Library at Oxford as well as in the old Latine Translation of Dionysius Exiguus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it be not lawfull for Country Bishops to Ordain Presbyters or Deacons Nor for the City Presbyters without leave granted from the Bishop by Letters in every Parish But I cannot grant this reading to be true which so many circumstances render questionable First in an Arabick Paraphrase now extant in the same Library there is nothing to be found of that clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly Isidore Mercators Translation which seems to be that which was anciently received in the Spanish Churches before Dionysius Exiguus wherewith that Copy agreed which Hervetus translated as also Fulgentius his Breviate Can. XCII and the Copy of Dionysius Exiguus which Pope Adriane the I. followed hath onely this Vicariis Episcoporum quos Graeci Chorepiscopos vocant non licere Presbyteros vel Diaconas Ordinare Sed nec Presbyteris civitatis sine Episcopi praecepto amplius aliquid imperare vel sine authoritate literarum ejus in unaquaque Parochiâ aliquid agere Thirdly can the reading of the last words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seem probable to reasonable persons what consequence of sense is there in saying unlesse license be granted by letters in every Parish Which is plain in this reading when it is said That the City Presbyters do nothing in the Parish that is in the Country or Diocese without authority by the Bishops letters Fourthly seeing this is that which is afterwards provided for by the Councel of Laodicea Ca. LVI in the same subject it seems very probable that this should be the provision which the Councell of Ancyra intended as all Ignatius his Epistles and other Canons Apost XL. Arelat XIX expresse it Though for my part I do not beleeve that we have the true reading of this Canon in any Copy that I have heard of or seen Because the Arabick Paraphrase aforesaid deduces the clause of the Country Bishops at large that it is not granted them Vt faciant Presbyteros neque Diaconos omnino neque in Villa neque in Vrbe absque mandato Episcopi Nisi rogatus fuerit Episcopus hac de re permiserit eis ut faciant eos necnon scripserit eis scriptum quod authoritatem dabit eis eadem de re Whereupon I do beleeve that the Canon is abridged and curtailed in all Copies and that the true intent of it consists in two clauses The first that Country Bishops Ordain neither Presbyters nor Deacons without leave under the Bishops hand The second that the City Presbyters do nothing in the Diocese without the like leave Though I undertake not to give you the words of mine own head As for Eutychius I cannot admit his relation to be Historicall truth having forfeited his credit in that part of it where he says that there were no Bishops in Aegypt beside him of Alexandria before Demetrius The contrary whereof appears by Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 1. where he says of Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That then lately Demetrius after Julian had undertook the Bishoprick of the Dioceses there For where there were Dioceses there were Bishops And if Demetrius after Julian governed the Dioceses of Aegypt because Bishop of Alexandria then were there other Episcopall Churches in that Province besides Alexandria before Demetrius Indeed if there had been no Bishops under Alexandria it could not reasonably be avoided that the Bishop should be Ordained by the Presbyters Otherwise forein Bishops that should be called to Ordain them a Bishop must by so doing purchase a Power over that Church which never any can be said to have had over those Capitall Churches of Antiochia Rome Alexandria or Constantinople But supposing that there were Bishops under him of Alexandria it is a greater inconvenience to grant that their Chief should be made without their consent which Ordination implies by the often quoted rule of S. Paul 1 Tim. V. 22. by the Presbyters of Alexandria And therefore when S. Hierome says Epist LXXXV that Bishops were set over the Presbyters by custome of the Church to avoid Schism because that Alexandriae à Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclam Dionysium Episcopos Presbyteri semper unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant At Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist till Heraclas and Dionysius were Bishops the Presbyters were wont to choose one of their number and placing him in a higher degree named him their Bishop I am not to grant that he intends by these words that he was Ordained also by the Presbyters For instance Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 29. relating that at the Ordination of Fabianus
the advancement of godlinesse otherwise such had not been Ordained by the Apostles and Governors of Gods ancient People For of this nature is the vailing of women at Divine Service of which S. Paul writes to the Corinthians the Kisse of Charity so often mentioned in the writings of the Apostles which the Constitutions of the Apostles II. 57. and Origen upon the last to the Romanes shew to have been practised before the Consecration and the receiving of the Eucharist to signifie the Charity in which they came to communicate the many Ceremonies of Baptism to which S. Paul alludes in divers places Col. II. 11 12. III. 9 10. Rom. VI. 4 5. to wit putting off old clothes drenching in water so as to seem to be buried in it putting on new clothes at their comming out Which being used in the Primitive Church by these passages of S. Paul we are sure were Instituted by the Apostles Of this nature are the gestures of Prayer which we reade in the Scripture that it was always the custome of Gods people to make sitting kneeling or groveling as the inward dejection of the minde required a greater or lesse degree of outward humiliation of the body to produce and maintain as well as to signifie it Thus our Lord stands up to reade the Law but sits down to Preach Luc. IV. 16 20. the one to shew reverence to the Giver of the Law the other authority over the Congregation which he taught as a Prophet And therefore I make no doubt but that in receiving the Book of the Law he used that reverence which was and is used in the Synagogue the like whereof by the Acts of the Primitive Martyrs we understand to have been used to the Book of the Gospels for in the examination of one of them you have Qui sunt libri quos adoratis legentes as we now stand up at the reading of the Gospel Of this nature are the ceremonies of the Jews publick Fasts quoted afore out of the Prophet Joel which it seems the Prophet Jonas taught the Ninevites at their Fast Jon. III. 5 6. which sure have no force to move God to compassion but as they move men to that humiliation which procures it of this nature is Imposition of hands used in the Scripture in Blessing that is in solemne Prayers for other Persons as in the Gospel over children and sick persons as in the Law Jacob lays hands on Josephs children Moses on Joshua and the LXX Presbyters the Prophets on such as they cured 2 Kings VI. 11. whereupon it was received by the Ordinance of the Apostles in Confirmation Penance and Ordinations as also it is said to be still used in some Eastern Churches at the Blessing of Mariages In fine the Frontlets and the Scrols which God appoints the Jews to set upon their Fore-heads and the Posts of their doores Exod. XIII 9. Deut. VI. 8. XI 17. for my part I make a great question whether he obligeth them thereby to use according to the letter as they do But that commanding the effect the remembrance of the Law he should be thought to forbid the means that is the sensible wearing of such marks that I count utterly incredible Seeing it was easie for them to use such marks and yet to think themselves never a whit the holier for them without the thing signified though in our Lords time they did so as we see by his reproofs in the Gospel and though by their writings Maimoni by name in the Title of Finages cap. III. and in the Title of Phylacteries ca. XI XII we see that still they do And thus upon the reasons advanced that is of determining that which the Law of God determines not follows the whole Power of the Church in deciding matters of Doctrine in determining the circumstances and ceremonies of Gods publick worship and of all the Ordinances of God for the maintenance and exercise of the same For in instituting Ceremonies significative not of Christ to come that indeed and that onely is Judaism but of the Faith and devotion which we desire to serve God with it is enough that this power may be exercised to the advancement of godlinesse if it be exercised otherwise then it ought it is still to be obeyed because the Unity of the Church is of great consequence to maintain though we attain not that advancement of godlinesse which the use of this Power ought to procure but does not And if any Power should be void because it is not used for the best or absolutely not well used then could no humane society subsist either Sacred or Civile Which must subsist in all things wherein it commands not the contrary of a more ancient Law which is Gods Law in our case From the premises it will not be difficult to resolve whether Councels be of Divine Right or not distinguishing between substance and circumstance between the purpose and effect of them and the manner of procuring it For if we speak of giving Law to the Society of the Church it is proved that whether you take it for a Power or a Duty a Right or a Charge or rather both seeing the one cannot be parted from the other the Church may and ought to proceed to determine what is not determined but determinable by consent of particular Churches that is by the consent of such persons which have Power to conclude the consent of their respective Churches Whereof we have shewed that none can ever be concluded without the consent of their respective Bishops But if we speak of the circumstance and manner of assembling in one place certain persons in behalf of their severall Churches with authority to prejudice and foresway and preingage the consent of the same We have a precedent or rather precedents without a precept in the Acts of the Apostles where the Apostles are assembled to Ordain a twelfth Apostle Acts I. 13. where they are assembled to institute the Order of Deacons Acts VI. 2 where Paul and Barnabas come from Antiochia and the Churches depending thereupon to the Apostles and Church of Jerusalem to take resolution in their differences Acts XV. 1 where Paul goes in to James to advise how to behave himself without offence to the Christian Jews at Jerusalem Acts XXI 18 for the premises being admitted all these meetings are justly and necessarily counted Synods or Councels both in regard of the Persons whereof they consisted the consent of divers Apostles being of as much authority to the Church as the resolution of a Synod and in regard of the matter determined at them concerning the whole Church in a high degree especially at that time And we have a Canon among those of the Apostles which appears very ancient by the Canons of Nice containing the same and turning Custome into Statute Law commanding that Synods be held in every Province twice a year But when Tertullian tels us that in the parts of Greece they held Councels ordinarily he constrains us
that is to say by the Power given the Church by God of ordering those things which were not determined by any Divine Precept and yet became determinable the case is the same and the reason is where it was For if the Church by the Power given it by God immediately be enabled to make it self a Society for the better maintenance and propagation of Christianity and have executed that Power by enabling every part of the Church to maintain it self in the Unity of the Whole by the same Power in order to and dependence upon the Whole then are all Christians bound by a Divine Precept of obeying the Governours of the Church before they can be bound to obey the Secular Powers in Church matters The one Power being constituted by the immediate revelation and appointment of God in matters concerning the Society of the Church the other constituted indeed by the Providence of God executed by man but enforced by the Law of Christianity to be obeyed in all things not excepted by the same whereof this is one And if the consent of the Christian world can be of any moment in a matter wherein the Clergy are parties indeed as they must needs be but must challenge their right at their utmost hazard it is not possible to give a more pregnant instance for the right of Excommunication in the Church then the troubles of Athanasius of Alexandria and Alexander of Constantinople for refusing to admit Arrius to communicate with the Church being cast out by the Councell of Nice the act whereof they could not void the good Emperour being seduced to think it necessary for the quiet of the Church And not onely by this particular but by all the proceedings of the first Christian Emperours in the affairs of the Church who had great advantage in discerning the true Interesse of the State and the Church not onely by the advise of those Bishops which had received it fresher from the source but by sensible knowledge of the whole right which they found the Church in possession of when they came to be members of it it is manifest that they never sought to bring to effect that which they were perswaded to be necessary for the establishment of Christianity whether truly or falsly as well as for the quiet of their Estates and People by the immediate act of their own Soveraign Power but by the act of those that were then held able to conclude the Church Imploying their Secular Power in consequence to the same to inforce such acts though not always valid to oblige the Church by temporall Penalties on them that refused as enemies to the publick Peace Seeing then that the Church is a Society Community Corporation or spirituall Commonwealth subsisting by the immediate revelation and appointment of God without dependence upon those Christian States wherein it is harboured as to the Right by which it subsisteth and the matter wherein it communicateth but depending upon them for the force which is necessarily requisite to maintain the whole People of all Christian States in the communion of their respective Churches and by them of the whole it followeth of necessity that it is endowed with Rights correspondent to those wherein the Soveraignty of States consisteth The Power of the Sword is the principall of those Rights into which the rest are resolved when they are enforced to have recourse unto it for the execution of that which becomes requisite to make them available And the Church hath the Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God which is used two manner of ways as the Sword is either to subdue strangers or to cut off malefactors Let no man imagine that any private person is enabled to propagate the Gospel and constitute new Churches of persons newly converted to Christianity without competent Commission from the Church To bring men to be Christians indeed is that which not onely any of the Clergy but any Christian may doe and is to doe when he findes himself able to act towards it without disadvantage to Christianity It is that which the Ecclesiasticall Histories informe us that Frumentius and Aedesius did in India and the captive maid in Iberia as well as those of the dispersion of Jerusalem in Phoenice and Cyprus and at Antiochia Acts XI 19 20. But the authority by which they became a Church they were to seek where it was before at Alexandria and Constantinople as well as those at Jerusalem Acts XI 22. Because in the Church the Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God is deposited and trusted with the Church for the propagation as well as the maintenance of it and though all Christians must needs understand themselves to be under an habituall trust or a commission dormant to perswade all that they can to the Christianity which they have themselves yet the expresse commission of the Church imports further the exercise of that Power which the Society thereof already useth towards them that by virtue of the said Commission shall be brought to be Christians At least it may import so much if we suppose it granted to such purpose The Sword of the Spirit is used within the Church to the punishment of malefactors upon two sorts of causes For if any man forfeit his Christianity either by denying the Faith upon profession whereof he was admitted to Christianity or by living contrary to the same the same Sword of the Spirit which pronounces him cut off from God cuts him off from the Church And in regard that it is part of Christianity to beleeve that God hath ordained a Church the consequence whereof is to oblige all Christians to maintain themselves in the Unity of the same which cannot be done by those that refuse to be concluded by it in all things not contrary to Gods Law the same Sword of the Spirit that subdues all men to be Christians upon condition to live members of the Church cuts them off from the Communion of the Church that will not live within compasse of the Unity of it The Power of the Sword being supposed in the Church Jurisdiction follows which consists not so much in judging as in executing the sentence Not that there is any such thing as Jurisdiction such as the Civile Laws of the Romanes and all other People understand which proceeds by constraint of outward force in the Church But because the Church being constituted of such as desire to continue Christians upon supposition of this will to continue a Christian he may be said to be constrained to hear the Church that cannot communicate with the Church unlesse he doe so as it requires Upon the same ground subsists the Right of Ordinations answerable to that part of Soveraignty in States which consists in creation of Magistrates and Officers for it is without doubt beside the intent of the Romane Laws to call the Soveraign a Magistrate Magistrates being generally Ministers of the Soveraign which creates a particular Power over the
to Baptize such as should submit to the Gospel And so to judge whether each man did so or not which they that were trusted with the Gospel were by consequence trusted to judge The effect of this trust is seen in the many Orders and Canons of the Primitive Church by which those that desired to be admitted into the Church by Baptisme are limited to the triall of severall years to examine their profession whether sincere or not And such as gained their living by such Trades as Christianity allowed not rejected untill they renounced them Not that my intent is to say that these Canons were limited by the Apostles But because it is an argument that always to judge who shall be admitted to Baptisme and who not is another manner of power then to baptize being the power of them that were able to settle such Canons Though it is plain by the Scriptures that those Rules had their beginning from the Apostles themselves For when S. Peter saith 1 Pet. III. 21. that the Baptisme which saveth us is not the laying down the filth of the flesh but the examination of a good conscience to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sheweth that the Interrogatories which the ancient Church used to propound to them that were to be baptized were then in use and established by the Apostles as the condition of a contract between the Church and them obliging themselves to live according to the Gospel as Disciples And the Apostle Heb. VI. 2. speaking of the foundation of repentance from dead works the doctrine of Baptisms and imposition of Hands manifestly shews the succeeding custome of the Church that they which sued for Baptisme should be catechized in the Doctrine of the Gospel and contract with the Church to forsake such courses of the world as stood not with it to be brought in by the Apostles This is it which is here called the doctrine of Baptisms in the plurall number not for that frantick reason which the distemper of this time hath brought forth because there are two Baptismes one of John by water another of Christ by the Spirit but because it was severally taught severall persons before they were admitted to their several Baptisms And therefore called also the Doctrine of Imposition of Hands because we understand by Clemens Alexandrinus Paedag. III. 11. and by the Apostolicall Constitutions VII 40. that when they came to the Church to be catechized and were catechized they were then dismissed by him that catechized them with Imposition of Hands that is with prayer for them that they might in due time become good Christians All visible marks of the power of the Church in judging whether a man were fit for Baptisme or not To which I will adde onely that of Eusebius De vitâ Constant IV. where speaking of the Baptisme of Constantine he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that confessing his sinnes hee was admitted to prayer with Imposition of hands If it be said that there were added to the Church three thousand in a day Acts II. 41. which could not be thus catechized and tried my answer is that two cases were always excepted from the Rule The first was in danger of death The second when by the eagernesse of those that desired Baptism the hand of God appeared extraordinary in the work of their conversion to Christianity Besides it is not said that they were baptized that day but that they were added to the Church that day Which is true though they onely professed themselves Disciples for the present passing neverthelesse their examination and instruction as the case required If therefore there be a power setled in the Church by God to judge who is fit to be admitted into it then is the same power inabled to refuse him that shall appear unfit then by the same reason to exclude him that proves himself unfit after he is admitted This is the next argument which I will ground upon the Discipline of Penance as it was anciently practised in the Church Which is opened by the observation advanced in the 127 p. of this little Discourse that those who contrary to this contract with the Church fell into sins destructive to Christianity were fain to sue to be admitted to Penance Which supposeth that till they had given satisfaction of their sincerity in Christianity they remained strangers to the Communion of the Church For it appeareth by the most ancient of Church Writers that for divers ages the greatest Sinners as Apostates Murtherers Adulterers were wholly excluded from Penance For though Tertullian was a Montanist when he cried out upon Zephyrinus Bishop of Rome for admitting Adulterers to Penance in his Book De Pudicitiâ yet it is manifest by his case that it had formerly been refused in the Church because the granting of it makes him a Montanist And S. Cyprian Epist ad Antonianum testifieth that divers African Bishops afore him had refused it maintaining communion neverthelesse with those that granted it Irenaeus also I. 9. saith of a certain woman that had been seduced and defiled by Marcus the Heretick that after she was brought to the sight of her sin by some Christians she spent all her days in bewalling it Therefore without recovering the communion of the Church again And he that shall but look upon the Canons of the Eliberitane Councell shall easily see many kindes of sins censured some of them not to be admitted to communion till the point others not at the point of death In this case and in this estate these onely who were excluded from being admitted to Penance were properly excommunicate neither could those that were admitted to Penance be absolutely counted so because in danger of death they were to receive the Communion though in case they recovered they stood bound to compleat their Penance And from hence afterwards also those that had once been admitted to Penance if they fell into the like sins again were not to be admitted to Penance the second time Concil Tolet. X. Can. XI Eliber Can. III. VII Ambros de Poenit. II. 10 11. Innoc. I. Ep. I. August Epist L. LIV. It is an easie thing to say that this Rigor was an infirmity in the Church of those times not understanding aright free Justification by Faith But as it is manifest that this rigor of discipline abated more and more age by age till that now it is come to nothing So if we goe upwards and compare the writings of the Apostles with the Originall practice of the Church it will appear that the rigor of it was brought in by them because it abated by degrees from age to age till at length it is almost quite lost that the Reformation of the Church consists in retaining it that we shall doe so much prejudice to Christianity as we shall by undue interpretation make Justification by Faith inconsistent with it And in fine it will appear that all Penance presupposeth Excommunication being onely some abatement of it There
our Lord saith Let him be to thee as a Heathen and a Publicane As for that which is said that the excommunicate among the Jews were not excluded either Temple or Synagogue therefore it was a secular punishment It is a mistake That which the Jews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not Excommunication no more then that which the Constitutions of the Apostles call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same being but a step to it like that which is now commonly called the lesse Excommunication And therefore he that was under this censure among the Jews was but in part removed from the communion as well of sacred as civill society For it hath been shewed very learnedly in the Book of the Power of the Keyes that hee stood as much removed from the one as from the other because that as well in the Synagogue as at home no man was to come within his four cubits But when the Talmud Doctors determine that the excommunicate dwell in a Cotage apart and have sustenance brought him such a one was past comming into the Temple or Synagogue And so I suppose was he that was put out of the Synagogue for acknowledging our Lord Christ to be a true Prophet John IX 35. For they which afterwards were wont to curse all his followers in their Synagogues as Justin Martyr Dial. cum Tryph. and Epiphanius Haer. XXX tell us that they did in their time are not like to endure in their society whether sacred or civill him that in their interpretation was fallen from Moses And thus is the Power of the Keys clearly grounded upon this Charter of the Gospel and all the Right of the Church upon it Onely one Objection yet remains which to me hath always seemed very difficult for it is manifest that our Lord speaketh here of matters of interesse between party and party when he saith If thy brother offend thee and it may justly seem strange that our Lord should give the Church power to excommunicate those that will not stand to the sentence of the Church in such matters But so it is The Jews in their dispersions were fain to have recourse to this penalty to inforce the Jurisdiction of their own Bodies lest if causes should be carried thence before Heathen Courts Gods name should be blasphemed and the Gentiles scandalized at his people saying See what peace and right there is among those that professe the true God! For the same causes our Lord here estateth the same Power upon the Church Whereof I cannot give a more sufficient and effectuall argument then by shewing that it was in use under the Apostles Though the place out of which I shall shew this is hitherto otherwise understood because men consider not that it is not against Christianity that there be severall seats for severall ranks and dignities of the world in the Church And therefore that it is not that which the Apostle findes fault with James II. 1. when he forbids them to have the Faith of God with respect of persons But the Synagogue which he speaketh of in the next words is to be understood of the Court where they judged the causes and differences between members of the Church For that the Jews were wont to keep Court in their Synagogues we learn not onely by the Talmud Doctors Maimoni by name in the Title of Oaths cap. IX where he speaketh particularly of the case of an Oath made in the Synagogue when the Court sate there but by that which we finde in the New Testament Mat. X. 17. XXIII 34. Mar. XIII 9. Acts XXII 19. XXVI 11. as wel as in Epiphanius Haer. XXX that they used to scourge in their Synagogues To wit where sentence was given there justice was executed Wherefore being converted to Christianity they held the same course as appears by the words of the Apostle that follow Doe ye not make a difference among your selves and are become Judges of evill thoughts and again If ye accept persons ye commit sin being reproved by the Law By what Law but by that which saith Thou shalt not accept persons in judgement Lev. XIX 15. For the execution of which Law it is expresly provided by the Jews Constitutions in Maimoni Sanedrin ca. XXI that when a poor man and a Rich plead together the Rich shall not be bid to sit down and the poor stand or sit in a worse place but both sit or both stand which you see is the particular for which the Apostle charges them to have the Faith of Christ with respect of persons That is to shew favour in the causes of Christians according to their persons The same course we may well presume was setled by the Apostles at Corinth by the blame S. Paul charges them with for going to Law before Infidels 1 Cor. VI. 1 2. For how should he blame them for doing that which they had not order before not to doe And therefore if our Lord in this place give the Church power to excommunicate those that stand not to the sentence of the Church much more those that violate the Christianity which they have professed And this is also here expressed when from the particular he goes to the generall saying Whatsoever ye binde on earth giving thereby the same power to the Church here which he gave to S. Peter Mat. XVI 19. and to the Apostles John XX. 22. And so we have here two Heads of the causes of Excommunication The first of such things as concern the conscience and salvation of particular Christians when they commit such sins as destroy Christianity The second of such as concern the community of the Church and the unity thereof in which not the act but the contumacy the not hearing of the Church makes them subject to this sentence It is not my purpose to say that these nice reasons are to be the Title upon which the right of the Church to this power standeth or falleth But that being in possession of it upon a Title as old as Christianity and demonstrable by the same evidence it cannot be ejected out of this possession by any thing in the Scripture when it is rightly understood One objection there is more in consequence to this last reason that if the Church have power to sentence civile causes of Christians and by Excommunication to inforce that sentence when States professe Christianity all civill Laws will cease and all Judicatories be resolved into one Consistory of the Church The answer to this I deferre till I come to shew the Right of the States that professe Christianity in Church matters where it will easily appear how this inconvenience ceaseth In the mean time the Soveraign power of the Church consisting in the Sword of Excommunication upon which the Society thereof is founded it is necessarily manifest that this power is not lost to the Church nor forfeit to the State that professes Christianity and undertakes the protection of the Church For the Church and civill Societies
Discourse p. 16. that whereas it is said Acts XIV 23. that Paul and Barnabas ordained Presbyters in every Church S. Paul saith that he left Titus in Crete to ordain Presbyters in every City Tit. I. 5. and again Acts XVI 4. As they passed by the Cities they delivered unto them the decrees determined by the Apostles and Presbyters at Jerusalem The Cities of which he had said before that they ordained Presbyters in every Church planted in those Cities as Titus in every City So nice as this evidence may seem to those that consider not the state of the whole Church when it shall appear to any man as to all that consider with their eyes open it must appear that always every where all congregations of Christians remaining in the Country adjoining to any City made one Church with the Christians of that City common sense will inforce that the Apostles designe was the modell from which this form was copied out in all parts of the Church To which purpose we are to consider in the next place an excellent Observation of that pious learned Prelate the L. Primate of Ireland published in a little Discourse of the Originall of Bishops upon the seven Churches of Asia to which S. Iohn is commanded to direct that Epistle contained in the II III Chapters of the Apocalypse The observation consists in this that the seven Cities wherein those seven Churches are said to be were seven chief Cities or Mother Cities of the Province of Asia whereby it is manifest that the chief Churches upon which inferiour Churches were to depend were planted in the chief Mother Cities to which the Countries about them resorted for Justice For certainly no man will offer such violence to his own common sense as to say that there were at the time of writing this Epistle but seven Congregations of Christians in that Province where S. Paul first and after him S. John had taken such pains And if more Congregations but onely seven Churches for what reason but because many Congregations make but one Church when they are under the City in which that Church is planted There hath been indeed an Objection made from the words of this Epistle when it is said at the end of the addresse to every particular Church He that hath eares to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches The addresse beginning always thus To the Church of Ephesus thus saith the Spirit To the Church of Smyrna thus saith the Spirit and so of the rest The objection pretendeth that by these words it appears that there were in Ephesus for example many Churches constituting the Presbytery of that City which is there called the Church of Ephesus For if this were so I would acknowledge that this argument were overthrown and that Churches were not convertible with Cities but that many Churches are here called the Church of Ephesus because the Seat of the Presbytery was at Ephesus according to the Presbyterian Design But this objection both carries with it an answer to discover the mistake upon which it is grounded and draws after in an effectuall argument to choke the opinion which it supports For is not S. John expresly commanded Apoc. I. 11. to write and send one letter to all those seven Churches And can any man be so senslesse as when it is said What the Spirit saith to the Churches to understand severall Churches of Ephesus Smyrna and the rest and not the seven Churches to which the one letter is directed And therefore the argument stands good that in these seven Cities there were but seven Churches and that the letter is directed to these Mother Churches planted in the Mother Cities because inferiour Cities receiving their Christianity from them were to depend upon them for the regulating of all things concerning the exercise of it As the Originall and Universall condition and State of the Church convinces Now the argument which this objection and the answer draws after it is this That in all the New Testament you shall never finde any mention of severall Churches in any City as Rome Ephesus Antiochia Jerusalem But when there is speech of any Province be it never so small you shall finde mention of a plurall number of Churches in it For of the Churches of Asia Syria Cilicia Macedonia Achaia Galatia Judaea and Samaria and of the Hebrews in their dispersions we finde expresse mention upon severall occasions Acts IX 31. VIII 5 40. XV. 41. 1 Cor. XVI 1. 2 Cor. VIII 2. 1 Thessal II. 14. Apoc. I. 11. II. 7 11 17 29. III. 6 13 22. Though Samaria among the rest were a Province of no great extent yet for example you have in that Province the City whereof Simon Magus was called Gittha saith Epiphan Haer. XXI now a Village but in those days a City saith he of which Acts VIII 5. And Philip went down to a City of Samaria not the City as we translate it and Caesarea which Ioseph shews us was in that Province XXI 7. Now tell me what reason can be given for this by any man that will pretend to understand either Scripture or any record of learning but that Churches are convertible with Cities For had there been many Churches within the City of Ephesus for example of parallel power and privilege making up one Classis or Presbytery or whatsoever new name can be given a new thing without the least syllable of example from the Apostles to Calvin must not these have been called the Churches not the Church of Ephesus I come now to a very expresse mark of this dependence during the time and in the actions of the Apostles and therefore by their Order acknowledged not onely by themselves but by all imploied by them in the planting of the Churches And it is the going of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem in behalf of the Churches of Syria and Cilicia troubled by some that taught at Antiochia from whence those Churches received their Christianity that Christians are to keep the Law of Moses Acts XIII 1. XV. 1. For were not Paul and Barnabas able to resolve this question at Antiochia Paul especially protesting That he received not the doctrine of the Gospel which he preached from man or by man Gal. I. 1. who is constrained both to the Galatians and elsewhere to oppose his calling as a Bulwark against all that laboured to bring Judaisme into the Church Surely in regard of the thing they were but in regard of authority to the Church they were not Barnabas was imploied by the Apostles to Antiochia who found Christians there but made them a Church by ordering their Assemblies Acts XI 20 24 25 26. And he it was that first brought Saul into that service by his authority from the Apostles Though afterwards both of them were extraordinarily imploied by the Holy Ghost to preach the Gospel and plant Churches Acts XIII 1. All this while the Church could not look upon Saul in the quality and
of Deut. XVII 18. the Jews need not tell us as they doe Maimoni by name Tit. de Syncdrio that they were not bound to observe that in their dispersions for how could there be Consistories for the Jews in all Cities all over the world but this they tell us withall in particular Arba Thurim in the same title Sub init that thereby they hold themselves bound to erect Consistories in the chief Cities of their dispersions In this condition what is the difference between the state of the Synagogue and the Church setting aside that essentiall difference between the Law and the Gospel by which Judaism was confined to one Nation but Christianity had a promise to be received by the Gentiles By reason whereof the Law ceased as it was proper to the Jews and Christians became obliged only to the perpetual Law of God besides a very few positive precepts of our Lord as of Baptism the Eucharist and the Power of the Keys by virtue whereof and by the generall Commission of the Apostles all Ordinances whereby they should regulate the Society of the Church were to be received as the Commandements of God Here is the reason for which it is probable that the Apostles in designing the Government of the Church should follow no other pattern then that which they saw in use by the Law in the Synagogue For the design in both being to maintain the Law of God and the unity of his people in his service saving the difference between them what form should they follow but that which the Law had taught their Fore-fathers But when the effect hereof appears in the first lines of this modell traced by the Apostles and filled up by their Successors it is manifest that these Laws were the pattern but the Order of the Apostles the Act which put it in being and force The Churches of Jerusalem Antiochia Rome and Alexandria no man can deny were planted by the Apostles in person and by their Deputies That they became afterwards Heads of the Churches that lay about them is no more then that which the Consistories planted at Jerusalem or Tiberias and in the chief Cities of the Jews dispersions were to the Synagogues underneath them by virtue of the Law This is therefore the Originall of the dependence of Churches upon the greatest Mother Churches And therefore it is no marvell that Jerusalem once the Mother City of Christianity became afterwards the seat of a Patriarch indeed in remembrance of that privilege but inferiour in dignity and nothing comparable in bounds to the rest because it was none of the greatest and most Capitall Cities The Rule of the Apostles design being this that the greatest Cities should be the Seats of the greatest Churches And that Constantinople when it came afterwards to be a Seat of the Empire was put in the next place to the Chief as it was no act of the Apostles so it is an argument of the Rule by which the rest had been ordered for the same reason As for the other Law of Deu. XVI 18. I know not what could be more agreeable to it then that Rule of the ancient Church which is to be seen not only in those few ancient Canons alledged in the discourse of the Primitive Government of Churches p. 67. but in innumerable passages of Church Writers that Cathedrall Churches and Cities be convertible that is both of the same extent Thus the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romanes is inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The presidence here expressed argueth the eminence of that Church above the rest of the Churches about it But Clemens directeth his Epistle from the Church of Rome to that of Corinth thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby we understand that the Country lying under the City belonged to the Church founded in the City and was therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying that which we now call the Diocese in opposition to the Mother Church That this is the reason of the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appears because Polycarp addresses his Epistle to the Philippians in this style 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if the Church of the Philippians dwelt near Philippi then the Country adjoining belonged to the Church of that City This reason therefore was well understood by him that writ the Epistle to the Antiochians in Ignatius his name granting it to be of an age much inferiour to his For he inscribeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Signifying thereby that all the Christians of Syria belonged to the Church of Antiochia for which reason Ignatius himself in his Epistle to the Romanes calls himself Bishop of Syria not of Antiochia because being Bishop of the Head City Church the Christians of Syria either belonged to his Church or to the Churches that were under it A thing so necessary to be beleeved that there are many marks in his Epistles to shew that the Churches also of Cilicia belonged to his charge as we saw they did by their foundation in the Apostles time and as the reason of the civile Government required those parts where Paul and Barnabas first preached having continued longest in the Dominion of the Kings of Syria and therefore continuing under the Government that resided at Antiochia And thus are the words of Clemens in his Epistle to the Corinthians fulfilled where he saith that the Apostles having preached the Gospel in Cities and Countries constituted Bishops and Ministers of those that should beleeve to wit according to the Cities and Countries adjoining to them Those marks come from the ancientest Records the Church hath after the writings of the Apostles Of the rest there would be no end if a man would allege them If any man object that it cannot be made to appear how this Rule was ever observed in the Church the extent of Cathedrall Churches being in some Countries so strait in other so large The answer is that it ceaseth not to be a Rule though the execution of it was very different in severall Countries either because not understood so well as it should have been or because the condition of some Countries was not appliable to it so as that of others For the East we have these words of Walafridus Strabo libs de Rebus Ecclesiasticis Fertur in Orientis partibus per singulas Vrbes Praefecturas singulas esse Episcoporum gubernationes Whereby we understand that Cathedrall Churches stood very much thicker in the Eastern parts then in the West For thereupon it became observable to Walafridus In Africk if we look but into the writings of S. Augustine we shall finde hundreds of Bishops resorting to one Councell In Ireland alone S. Patrick is said by Ninius at the first plantation of Christianity to have founded three hundreth threescore and five Bishopricks On the other side in England we see still how many Counties remain in one Diocese of Lincoln and yet if we look into Almain and those mighty foundations of Charles the Great we
may finde perhaps larger then it The Rule notwithstanding all this is the same that Cathedrall Churches be founded in Cities though Cities are diversly reckoned in severall Countries nay though perhaps some Countries where the Gospel comes have scarce any thing worth the name of Cities Where the Rule must be executed according to the discretion of men that have it in hand and the condition of times This we may generally observe that Churches were erected in greater number when they were erected without indowment established by temporall Law So that in one of the Africane Canons it is questionable whether a Bishop have many Presbyters under him Fewer still where they were founded by Princes professing Christianity upon temporall endowments And upon this consideration it will be no prejudice to this Rule that in Aegypt till the time of Demetrius there was no Cathedrall Church but that of Alexandria If it be fit to beleeve the late Antiquities of that Church published out of Eutychius because they seem to agree with that which S. Hierome reporteth of that Church As to this day if we beleeve the Jesuites whose relation you may see in Godignus de Rebus Abassinorum I. 32. there is but one for all Prester Johns Dominion or the County of the Abassines For though men would not or could not execute the Rule so as it took place in more civile Countries yet that such a Rule there was is easie to beleeve when we see Christianity suffer as it does in those Countries professing Christ by the neglect of it Before I leave this point I will touch one argument to the whole question drawn from common sense presupposing Historicall truth For they that place the chief power in Congregations or require at all severall Presbyteries for the government of severall Congregations are bound at least to shew us that Congregations were distinguished in the times of the Apostles if they will entitle their design to them Which I utterly deny that they were I doe beleeve the Presbyterians have convinced those of the Congregations that in S. Pauls time the Churches to whom he writes contained such numbers as could by no means assemble at once But severall Churches they could not make being not distinguished into severall Congregations but meeting together from time to time according to opportunity and order given About S. Cyprians time and not afore I finde mention of Congregations setled in the Country For in his XXVIII Epistle you have mention of one Gaius Presbyter Diddensis which was the name of some place near Carthage the Church whereof was under the cure of this Gaius and in the life of Pope Dionysius about this time it is said that he divided the Dioceses into Churches and in Epiphanius against the Manichees speaking of the beginning of them under Probus about this time there is mention of one Trypho Presbyter of Diodoris a Village as it seems by his relation there under Archelaus then Bishop of Caschara in Mesopotamia Likewise in an Epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria reported by Eusebius Eccles Hist VII 24. there is mention of the Presbyters and Teachers of the brethren in the Villages And those Churches of the Country called Mareotes hard by Alexandria which Socrates Eccles Hist I. 27. saith were Parishes of the Church of Alexandria in the time of Constantine must needs be thought to have been established long before that time whereof he writes there After this in the Canons of Ancyra and Neocaesarea and those writings that follow there is oftentimes difference made between City and country Presbyters In Cities this must needs have been begun long afore as we find mention of it at Rome in the life of Pope Cains where it is said that he divided the Titles and Coemiteries among the Presbyters and the distribution of the Wards of Alexandria and the Churches of them mentioned by Epiphanius Haer. LXVIII LXIX seems to have been made long before the time whereof he speaks But when Justin Martyr says expresly Apol. II. that in his time those out of the Country and those in the City assembled in one farre was it from distinguishing setled Congregations under the Apostles Which if it be true the position which I have hitherto proved must needs be admitted that the Christians remaining in severall Cities and the Territories of them were by the Apostles ordered to be divided into severall distinct Bodies and Societies which the Scripture calls Churches and are now known by the name of Cathedrall Churches and the Dioceses of them constituting one whole Church This being proved I shall not much thank any man to quit me the Position upon which the Congregations are grounded to wit the chiefe Power of the people in the Church Though it seems they are not yet agreed themselves what the Power of the people should be Morellus in the French Churches disputed downright that the State of Government in the Church ought to be democratick the people to be Soveraign Wherein by Bezaes Epistles it appears that he was supported by Ramus For the man whom Beza calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and describes by other circumlocutions who put the French Churches to the trouble of divers Synods to suppresse this Position as there it appears can be no other then Ramus Perhaps Ramus his credit in our Universities was the first means to bring this conceit in Religion among us For about the time that he was most cried up in them Brown and Barow published it Unlesse it be more probable to fetch it from the troubles of Francford For those that would take upon them to exercise the Power of the Keys in that estate because they were a Congregation that assembled together for the Service of God which power could not stand unlesse recourse might be had to Excommunication did by expresse consequence challenge the publick power of the Church to all Congregations which I have shewed to be otherwise And the contest there related between one of the people and one of the Pastors shews that they grounded themselves upon the Right of the people So true it is that I said afore that the Presbyterians have still held the stirrup to those of the Congregations to put themselves out of the saddle As now the Design of the Congregations is refined they will not have it said that they make the People chief in the Church For they give them power which they will have subject to that Authority which they place in the Pastors Elders which serves not the turn We have an instance against it in the State of Rome after they had driven away the Tarquins They placed Authority in the Senate and Power in the People and I suppose the successe of time shewed that which Bodine disputes against Polybius De Repub. II. 2. to be most true that the State was thereby made a Democraty So the Congregations challenging to themselves Right to make themselves Churches and by consequence whom they please Pastors must needs by
out of the Scriptures it will be easie to drive a worse Trade of Preaching then ever Priests did of private Masses The one tending only to feed themselves the other to turn the good order of the world which is the Harbour of the Church into publique confusion to feed themselves the profaning of Gods Ordinance being common to both And if the taking away of private Masses must be by turning the Eucharist out of doors saving twice or thrice a year for fashions sake it is but Lycurgus his Reformation to stock up the Vines for fear men be drunk with the wine The Church of England is clear in this businesse The Order whereof as it earnestly sighs and grones toward the restoring of publique Penance the onely mean established by the Apostles to maintain the Church in estate to communicate continually so it recommendeth the continuall celebration of the Eucharist at all the more solemne Assemblies of Lords days and Festivals As for the Sermon it is to be when it can be had and were it now abated when such Sermons cannot bee had as were fitting it is easie to undertake that there would be room enough left for the celebration of the Eucharist In the mean time the Reformers of this Age had they considered so well as it behoved them what they undertook should easily have found that the continuall celebration of the Eucharist at all the more solemne Assemblies of the Church and the Discipline of Penance to maintain the people in a disposition fit to communicate in it is such a point of Reformation in the Church that without restoring it all the rest is but meer noise and pretence if not mischief Now the reason why the celebration of the Eucharist is reserved to Presbyters alone in consequence to the premises is very reasonable and will be effectuall to shew that it is common to all Presbyters and therefore that there is no such thing as Lay Elders For seeing all agree that Presbyters have their share in the Power of the Keys though the Chief Interess in it be the Bishops according to the Doctrine of the Church and seeing the work of this Power is to admit to the Prayers of the Church as S. John sheweth when he describeth Excommunication by not praying for the sins of the excommunicate and seeing it appeareth by S. James that the Prayers of the Church for the sins of them whom the Church prayeth for are the Prayers of the Presbyters what can we conceive more reasonable and consequent to the premises then that the Power of the Keys is convertible with the Office of celebrating the Eucharist belonging to the Bishop and Presbyters by virtue of it For what can be more agreeable then that the Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is celebrated with be offered by those that are to discern who is to be admitted who excluded from the same This is the meaning of Josephus the Jew in Epiphanius against the Ebionites where being baptized by the Bishop of Tiberias at his parting he gives him money saying Offer for me for it is written Whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained Expressing thereby the sense of Primitive Christians who when they were admitted to the Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is offered to God with made account thereby that the Power of the Keys was passed and continually did passe upon them to the remission of sins Whereupon we see that it is an ordinary censure of the ancient Canons that he which did so or so his oblations be not received that is that he be out of the number of those for whom the Prayers of the Church are made which the Eucharist is offered with Therefore Ignatius thus prosecuteth the words last quoted He that is without the Sanctuary saith he comes short of the Bread of God For if the Prayer of one or two be so forcible with God what shall we think of the Prayer of the Bishop and the whole Church For the efficacy of the Prayers of the Church dependeth upon the Unity of the Church And the Power of the Keys is that which containeth that Unity It is therefore agreeable that those Prayers which are of this efficacy be the Prayers of them whom this Unity and the Power which preserves it is trusted with And for this reason though all Christians be Priests as the Scripture says 1 Pet. II. 5. Apoc. I. 6. by a far better title then Moses promises the Israelites Ex. XIX 6. The Sacrifice of Prayer being the act of the whole Church Yet notwithstanding it is by good right that Bishops and Presbyters are called Sacerdotes or Sacrificers in regard of the same Sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving for which all Christians are called Sacrificers That is to say by way of excellence because that which is the act of all is by ordinance of the Apostles passed upon the whole Church reserved to be executed and ministred by them whom that Power which preserveth that Unity which inforceth the Prayers of the Church is trusted with He that refuseth this reason as built upon consequences that convince not must by consequence acknowledge that the celebration of the Eucharist is peculiar to Presbyters meerly by universall and perpetuall practice of the Church derived from the Order setled by the Apostles Which whether those of the Presbyteries will admit I leave to themselves to advise For as for their pretense that the Ministery of both Sacraments is convertible with the Office of Preaching upon which they style their Pastors or Preaching Elders Ministers of the Word and Sacraments it appears to be as void of any ground from the Scriptures as it is wide from the originall and Universall practice of the Church The Ministery of the Word being the Office of Apostles and Evangelists according to the Scriptures The Ministery of Baptism and Preaching communicable to Deacons and possibly to Lay men onely the celebration of the Eucharist proper to the Power of the Keys in Bishops and Presbyters But putting all the reasons that here are advanced to compromise yet out of the premises we have two effectuall arguments to convince the nullity of Lay Elders The first from the manner of sitting in the Church In as much as it hath been shewed that the Order and custome of it is to be derived from the Apostles themselves as being in use in their time For if the manner of their sitting in the Church were so distinguished that all the Presbyters sate in one Rank in the uppermost Room with the Bishop in the midst that is in the Head of them his Seat advanced above theirs as S. Hierome witnesseth of the Bishops of Alexandria from S. Mark from which manner of sitting they are called by the Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Scriptures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Tertullian praesidentes how can common sense desire better evidence that there are but two qualities
generally distinguishable in the Church the one of Presbyters sometimes called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. V. 17. 1 Thess V. 14. sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. XIII 14 17. somtimes Episcopi 1 Tim. II. 2. Tit. I. 5 7. comprehending Bishop and Presbyters for the reasons alleged for to these the Deacons as their Ministers are to be referred the other of the People The same that in Tertullian are called Ordo Plebs in all ages of the Church since the Apostles the Clergy and People Secondly seeing it is manifest that the Power of the Keys is above the Office of Preaching to a Christian Church indeed equall to that of celebrating the Eucharist it followeth that it is against the Order declared by the Scripture that the Power of the Keys should be in any man that is not allowed to Preach and celebrate the Eucharist and therefore that by having the Power of the Keys a man is by Right qualified to doe it And truly I doe much marvell how this consequence can be refused as to the Office of Preaching when as S. Paul requires both of Timothy and Titus that the Presbyters which they ordain be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is fit to teach For no common sense can allow that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having the signification not from Preaching but from Governing is not to comprehend Governing Elders as well as Preachers Therefore the Scriptures make those Preachers whom the Presbyteries make Governing Elders Here follows a third argument drawn from that onely Text of the Apostle upon which their Lay Elders are grounded with any appearance 1 Tim. V. 17. Let the Elders that Rule well be counted worthy of double honour especially those that labour in the Word and Doctrine For by the Apostles Discourse it is manifest and so far as I perceive agreed on all hands that the word Honour here spoken of is maintenance S. Pauls instruction supposing the Order setled by the Apostles to be this that there should be in all Churches setled in Cities as aforesaid a common stock at the disposing of Bishop and Presbyters rising from the Oblations of the faithfull out of which first those that attended upon the Government of the Church and the Offices of Divine Service then those that could not attend the Service of God without maintenance from the Publique might finde subsistence For hereupon it is that S. Paul chargeth Timothy to honour widows indeed that were destitute of maintenance from their friends that they might abide in prayers and supplications as Anna the Prophetesse Luc. II. 36. and Iudith VIII 5. and the good women that waited at the Tabernacle Ex. XXXVIII 8. 1 Sam. II. 24. And when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shews that there was then a List of them called here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Church Writers afterwards Canon which whosoever was entred into received appointment from the Church 1 Tim. V. 5 9 16. Let it therefore be said no more that the distinction between Clergy and people is not found in the Scriptures For how can the Office be more expresly distinguished then by the appointment that is allowed for the execution of it And therefore when S. Peter charges the Presbyters 1 Pet. V. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he means not the people but he means the same which Clemens in Eusebius when he says that S. Iohn was wont to go abroad from Ephesus to forein Churches on purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to Ordain some Clergy man that should be signified by the Spirit For in both places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so S. Peters precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consists of two members not to domineer over the Clergy that were under them that is the Deacons Widows and Deaconesses and to be a Pattern to the Flock In this Discourse of S. Paul we have a further reason of difference between the Clergy and people from that Rule of life and conversation to which the Clergy was subject by the Primitive Discipline of the Church For if the Church allowed Widows an appointment in consideration of their daily attendance upon the Service of God much more are we bound to conceive that Presbyters whom the Apostle allows a double appointment are tied to double attendance on the same Service A thing which cannot be expected of those who are tied to the World and therefore Tertullian De Praescript cap. XLI condemneth the Hereticks because their fashion was to make secular men Presbyters Seeing then that the Apostle alloweth the same double appointment to the whole Order of Presbyters let them that set up Lay Elders ask their own Consciences whether they can be content to allow them the same maintenance from the Church as themselves receive otherwise let them not imagine that they can set them up by this Scripture For that some Presbyters should labour in Preaching though all are required to be apt to Preach is no inconvenience in that State when Congregations were not distinguished but the whole Office rested in the whole Order of the Clergy in relation to the whole Body of the People of a Church You see by S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV that one Assembly whereof he speaks there furnished with a great number of Prophets whether Presbyters or over and above them In the Records of the Church we find divers times a whole Bench of Presbyters presiding at one Assembly Is any man so unsatiable of Preaching as to think the Church unprovided of it unlesse all those Preached at all times Is it not enough that Timothy is required to count them especially worthy double honour that labour in it for by this means those that laboured not in it when and how Timothy finds it requisite must know that their maintenance must come harder from his hands For the last argument I must not forget the perpetuall practice of the Church though I name for the present but the words of Clemens Disciple to the Apostles who in his Epistle to the Corinthians to compose a difference among the Presbyters of that Church partly about the celebration of the Eucharist advises them to agree and take their turns in it If all the Presbyters might take their turns in it then all might celebrate the Eucharist if in that Church then in all Churches I know many Church Writers are quoted to prove Lay Elders For that also is grown a point of Learning to load the Margin with Texts of Scripture and allegations of Authors in hope no man will take the pains to compare them because if he do he shall easily finde them nothing to the purpose For instance My self have the honour to be alleged for one that approve Lay Elders even in that place of that very Discourse where I answer the best arguments that ever I heard made for them onely because I said then as now that we are not bound to think that all Presbyters
Paul and Barnabas being Ordained by the immediate act of the Holy Ghost to Preach to the Gentiles the solemnity thereof is performed by those in whom we cannot imagine the Power of sending them to rest In which opinion I am much confirmed by the practice of the Synagogue For though it is manifest that the custome of promoting Judges by Imposition of Hands came from the example of Moses and the Ordaining of the LXX Elders and Joshua yet we must beleeve their Records compiled by Maimoni â—â— de Synedrio cap. IV. when they tell us that in processe of time it was done without that solemnity by an Instrument or so and yet still called neverthelesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Imposition of Hands And now let them that demand what is that speciall Act which Bishops are able to do and Presbyters not take their choice If they be content that the Bishops acting with this Interesse that without him nothing be done be counted a speciall Act they have the speciall Act which they demand in all things that are done in the Church If they be not though it is easie enough to dispute it everlastingly yet I will not contend with them about it seeing it is enough that nothing is done without him to make him a fair step above his Presbyters And yet I conceive there is an Act to be named peculiar to Bishops which is to sit in a Councell Which consisting of the representatives of all Churches and not capable of all Presbyters and the Bishops right being that without him nothing be done in his Church it follows that by the right by which he is a Bishop he is a member of his Synod which no Priest can be but by Privilege seeing the whole Order cannot And this according to the Scriptures For by the premises the Apostles had place in the Councell at Jerusalem as Ordinary Governours of the Churches concerned in it which Churches had there no other representatives but Paul and Barnabas as Heads of the Churches which they had founded so lately Acts XIII XIV as it appeares when by them the Decree is delivered to execution in the Churches Acts XVI 4. As for the Presbyters mentioned in it the same evidence which assures us that they were Presbyters assures us also that they were Presbyters of the Church at Jerusalem and none else This I conceive the fittest to be thought the speciall Act of a Bishop For the unity of the whole Church arises from the Power deposited in each Church By virtue whereof he that communicates with any one Church in any rank of it communicates with all Churches in the same Which was in the Primitive Church the effect of the literae formatae or letters of mark by which this Unity of the Ancient Church was maintained in as much as he that travelled with such a testimony of his rank in any one Church by virtue of the same was received in all Churches where he came And therefore Synesius in the sentence of excommunication against Andronicus which by his fifty seventh Epistle he publisheth to the Churches addeth that if any Church contemning the sentence of his Church as a small and a poor one should receive Andronieus to communion without satisfaction given to him and his Church thereby it shall become guilty of Schism This holds as such Acts are not questioned by any greater part of the Church as not concerning the State of other Churches Which if they be then as no Church can be concluded but by the Act to which themselves concur whereby all Excommunications Ordinations as wel as making of Canons are the subject of Synods so the chief Power must needs be most seen in that Act which concludes all Churches concerned which is the Act of a Synod As concerning the objection that there is no precept in the Scripture that Bishops govern all Churches and that many things Ordained by the Apostles are abolished in the Church It is a question whether it come from lesse skill or proceed to worse consequence For unlesse we will betray the advantages of the Church to very many and perhaps to all Heresies and Schisms that ever were we must confesse that as there are precepts in the Scripture that oblige not so there are many things not set down in the Scripture in the form of precepts that oblige What can be delivered in a more expresse form of precept then that of Saint Paul That women pray with their heads covered men with theirs uncovered and yet where is it in force The same is to be said of the Decree of Jerusalem against eating things strangled and blood On the other side we finde by the Scriptures that the Apostles kept the Lords Day but do not find there that they commanded it to be kept As for the fourth Commandement I suppose it is one thing to rest on the day that God ceased his work and another on the day that he began it And if there be precepts in the Scripture that now oblige not why may not Secinus dispute that the precept of Baptism was temporary for them that had been enemies to the Faith afore And though I say not that he shall have the better hand for the truth cannot be contrary to the truth yet it shall not be possible for every Christian to discern whether he hath it or no unlesse there be some more sensible ballast then nice consequences from the Text of the Scripture If it be thus of Baptism much more of the Eucharist which as you saw is not used any more in the Church as it was instituted As for the Power of the Keys it is absolutely by this answer betraied to the Socinians who would have it peculiar to the Apostles For it is no where delivered as a Precept but onely as a Privilege What means is there then to end everlasting difficulties Surely the same that there is to understand all positive Laws that ever were For if the ancient interruption of the practice of any Law secure the Church that it was not given to all times and places sure that which is not mentioned as a Precept and yet has been always in practice without interruption as it was in force afore it was mentioned so was intended to oblige not by the mention but by the act that first established it evidenced by practice Which if it be so then is there no Power on earth able to abolish the Order of Bishops having been in force in all Churches ever since the Apostles I must not passe this place of limiting all Interests without a word or two of the Office of Deacons in the Church In regard of two extreme opinions one of Geneva that makes them meer Lay men collectors of Alms by necessary consequence because under their Lay Elders the other of some that would have them understood to be Presbyters as oft as S. Paul mentions but two Orders of Bishops and Deacons Phil. I. 1. 1 Tim. II. 9. But as
to oblige superiours to that integrity by making the proceedings manifest and so to preserve the Unity of the Church I say not that these times are capable of such satisfaction upon the like terms as them But from this practice under the Apostles I shall easily grant the people an Interesse in such things as may concern their particular Congregations of excepting against such proceedings as can appear to them to be against any Rule of the Scripture or of the whole Church For this Interesse it is upon which the people is demanded in the Church of England what they have to say against Ordinations and Mariages to be made And if their satisfaction in matter of Penance were to be returned it would be no more then the same reason inferres Especially because it hath been shewed that the prayers of the People or of the Church is one part of the means to take away sinne by the Keys of the Church the other being the Humiliation of the Penitent according to that Order and measure which the Bishop and Presbyters shall prescribe James V. 14 15. 2 Cor. XII 20 21. Mat. XVIII 21. 1 John V. 16. And if this Interesse were made effectuall by the Laws of Christian States and Kingdomes to the hindrance of such proceedings wherein the Power of the Church may be abused the Church shall have no cause to complain But that the Power should be taken from the Church because the Laws of the State are not so good as they might be is as unjust and pernicious a medicine as to put the Chief Power in the hands of the People For seeing it hath been demonstrated that as it was the custome to passe such Acts at the Assemblies of the whole Church so was it also to advise and resolve upon them at the Consistories of the Clergy it is manifest that the suffrage of the People often mentioned in Church Writers was not to resolve but to passe what was resolved afore because nothing appeared in barre to it For the Interesse of the People extending no further then their own Church and it being impossible that all the Christians within the Territories of Cities belonging to the respective Churches should all assemble at once it is manifest none of these matters could be resolved by number of Votes and therefore that the Power was not in the People but a Right to be satisfied of the right use of the Power by those that had it Which how it may be made effectuall to the benefit of the People in a Christian Church and State is not for me to determine But by virtue of this Right it is that as Justellus in his Notes upon the Greek and Africane Canons hath observed to us especially out of the Records of the Churches of Africk and of the West for divers Ages the Best of the People who as he shews were called Seniores Presbyteri Ecclesiarum were admitted to assist at the passing of the publique Acts of those Churches In all which as there is nothing to be found like the Power of the Keys which Lay Elders are created to manage So he that will consider the interesse in which it appears they did intervene comparing it with the intolerable trouble which the concurrence of the People was found to breed when the number of Christians was increased by the Emperours professing Christianity will easily judge that it was nothing else but the Interesse of the People which in succeeding ages was referred to some persons chosen out of them to manage in the publique Acts of the Church And this custome is sutable enough with the Office of Church-wardens in the Church of England if it had been established as well in the Mother and Cathedrall as in the Parish Churches CHAP. IV. Secular Persons as such have no Ecclesiasticall Power but may have Soveraign Power in Ecclesiasticall matters The Right of giving Laws to the Church and the Right of Tithes Oblations and all Consecrations how Originall how Accessory to the Church The Interesse of Secular Powers in all parts of the Power of the Church THese things thus determined and the whole Power of the Church thus limited in Bishops and Presbyters with reservation of the Interesse of the People specified it follows necessarily that no Secular person whatsoever endowed with Soveraign or subordinate Power in any State is thereby endowed with any part of this Ecclesiasticall Power hitherto described Because it hath been premised for a Principle here to be reassumed that no State by professing Christianity and the protection thereof can purchase to it self or defeat the Church of any part of the Right whereof it stands possessed by the Originall institution of our Lord and his Apostles and therefore no person indowed with any quality subsisting by the Constitution of any State can challenge any Right that subsisteth by the Constitution of the Church and therefore belongeth to some person qualified by the same For Ecclesiasticall Power I understand here to be onely that which subsisteth by the Constitution of the Church And therefore all by Divine Right to all that acknowledge no humane authority capable of founding the Church And therefore by Divine Right invested in the Persons of them that have received it mediately or immediately from the Apostles seeing it is no ways imaginable how any man can stand lawfully possessed of that Power which is effectually in some body else from whom he claimeth not And therefore not to be propagated but by the free act of them that so have it But I intend not hereby to exclude Secular Powers from their Right in Church matters But intend to distinguish between Ecclesiasticall Power and Power in Ecclesiasticall matters and these to distinguish by the originall from whence they both proceed because so we shall be best able to make an estimate of the effect which both of them are able to produce according to the saying observed afore that the water rises no higher then it descended afore For if by Ecclesiasticall Power we mean that which arises from the Constitution of the Church it is not possible that by any quality not depending on the same any man should be inabled to any act that doth But if Power in matters of Religion be a Power necessary to the subsistence of all States then have Christian States that Power in the disposing of Christianity which all States in generall have in the disposing of those things which concern that Religion which they suppose and professe And this to prove I will not be much beholding to the Records of Histories or to the opinions and reasons of Philosophers Seeing common sense alone is able to shew us that there is not any State professing any Religion that does not exercise an interesse in disposing of matters of Religion as they have relation to the publique peace tranquillity and happinesse of that people The Power of disposing in matters of Religion is one part and that a very considerable one of that publique
Power wherein Soveraignty consists which subordinate Powers enjoy not by any title but as derived from the Soveraign Wherefore having premised for a principle in the beginning that Christianity makes no alteration in the state of civile Societies but establishes all in the same Right whereof they stand possest when they come to imbrace Christianity I must inferre that the publique Powers of Christian States have as good Right to the disposing of matters of Christianity so that according to the institution of Christ nothing done by the Church may prove prejudiciall to the State as any Soveraign Power that is not Christian hath in the disposing of matters of that Religion which they professe For seeing it is part of the profession of Christianity to confirm and establish not to question or unsettle any thing which is done by civile Justice in any State whatsoever secular Powers shall doe towards maintaining the State of this world in tranquillity cannot be prejudiciall to Christianity rightly understood Neither can it be true Christianity which cannot stand with the course of true civile Justice It hath been effectually proved by Church Writers against the Gentiles that supposing them not to beleeve the Christian Faith notwithstanding they cannot with civile Justice persecute the Christians And all upon this score that Christianity containeth nothing prejudiciall to civile Society but all advantageous But though the Christian Religion be grounded upon truth indeed revealed from God yet Religion in generall is a morall virtue and part of the profession of all civile Nations In so much as that people which should professe to fear no God would thereby put themselves out of the protection of the Law of Nations and give all civile people a Right and Title to seek to subdue them for their good and to constrain them to that which the light of nature is able to demonstrate to be both true and due For how can any of them expect Faith and Troth in civile commerce from them that acknowledge no reason for it Or how can they be thought to acknowledge any reason for it that acknowledge no God to punish the contrary Or how can they be but enemies of mankinde from whom that cannot be expected But in Christianity there is that particularity which I declared afore that God hath declared his will and pleasure to be that it be received into the protection of all Kingdomes and Commonwealths Wherefore it is further the will of God that secular Powers that are Christian act in the protection of Christianity not onely as secular Powers but as Christians And by consequence that they hold themselves obliged to the maintenance of all parts of Christianity That is whatsoever is of Divine Right in the Profession and Exercise of it But it is very well said otherwise that this whole Right of secular Powers in Ecclesiasticall matters is not destructive but cumulative That is that it is not able to defeat or abolish any part of that Power which by the Constitution of the Church is setled upon Ecclesiastical persons but stands obliged to the maintenance and protection of it For seeing this Power in the persons endowed with it by the Constitution of the Church is a very considerable part of that Right which God hath established in his Church it follows necessarily that no Power ordained to the maintenance of all parts thereof can extinguish this And truly he that advises but with his own common sense shall easily perceive that Ecclesiasticall Power may be able to preserve Order and Discipline in the Church by it self so long as the World that is the State professes not Christianity as we see it was before the Romane Empire was Christian But when the State professes Christianity it cannot be imagined that persons qualified by the State will ever willingly submit to acknowledge and ratifie the Power of the Church in all the acts and proceedings thereof unlesse the coactive Power of the Soveraign inforce it All States therefore have Soveraign Power as well in matters of Christian Religion as in other points of Soveraignty That is they are able to do all acts of Soveraign Power in Church matters To give Laws as well concerning matters of Religion as civile affairs To exercise Jurisdiction about Ecclesiasticall causes To Command in the same which seems to be the most eminent act of Soveraignty seeing that giving of Laws and Jurisdiction are but particulars of that generall the one that is giving Laws in Generals the other that is Jurisdiction in particular causes And both of them tending to limit that Power of Command or Empire which otherwise is absolute in the disposition and will of the Soveraign And therefore the most civile people that ever was the Romanes have denominated Soveraignty by this act of Command Imperium or Empire But all these acts of Soveraign Power in Church matters being distinguished from the like acts of Ecclesiasticall Power not by their materiall but formall objects that is not by the Things Persons or Causes in which but by the reasons upon which and the intents to which they are exercised must needs leave the Powers of the Church intire to all purposes as it finds the same in those that have it by the constitutions of the Church Here are two Points of the Power of the Church to be setled before we go any further Not because of any affinity or dependence between them but because the reason is the same which causes the difficulty in both Whether there be an Originall Power in the Church to give Laws as to the Society of the Church Whether there be an Originall Right in the Church to Tithes Oblations First-fruits and generally to all consecrate things seems to most men more then disputable because the accessory acts of secular Powers which in all Christian States have made the Laws by which Christianity is exercised the Laws of those severall States have established the endowment of the Church upon it by that coactive Power which they onely in Chief are endowed with being most visible to common sense seem to have obscured the Originall Right of the Church in both particulars Over and besides all this those of the Congregations deny the Church all Power of giving Laws Rules Canons or however you please to call them to the Church For to this purpose they make all Congregations absolute and Soveraign that nothing be done in the Church without the consent of every member of it Not acknowledging so much as that Rule which all humane Society besides acknowledges the whole to be bound by the act of the greater part But requiring that every mans conscience be satisfied in every thing that the Church does unlesse some happily appear wilfull whom by way of penalty they neglect for that time As for those of the Presbyteries I cannot deny that they grant the Church this Power But it seems upon condition that it may rest in themselves For to the Laws of this Church in which they received
and professed Christianity they oppose the saying of the Apostle that it stands not with charity for the Church to injoin any thing which weak consciences may be offended at And that of our Lord that this would be will-worship and serving of God according to humane traditions which are all the arguments which those of the Congregations allege for their opinion so farre as I can learn It will be therefore worth the while to consider the cases which the Apostle decides upon that principle though I have done it in part already in my larger Discourse p. 309. for so long as the case is not understood in which the Apostle alleges it no marvell if it be brought to prove that which he never intended by it We know he resolves both the Romanes and the Corinthians by this sentence With the Corinthians the case was concerning the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which the Apostle manifestly distinguishes that it may be done two ways materially and formally materially when a man eats it as a creature of God giving him thanks for it which the Apostle therefore determines to be agreeable to Christianity 1 Cor. VIII 7. formally when a man eats it with conscience of the Idoll as a thing sacrificed to it as the Apostle expresses it that is with a religious respect to it which therefore he shews at large to be Idolatry 1 Cor. X. 7 14 Wherefore though things sacrificed to Idols be as free for Christians to eat as any men else yet in some cases and circumstances it so fell out that a Christian eating with a Gentile of their Sacrifices the remains whereof were the cheer which they feasted upon and their Feasts part of the Religion which they served their Idols with might be thought by a weak Christian to hold their Sacrificing as indifferent as their meat and he that thus thought be induced to eat them formally as things offered to Idols As eating them in the Temples of Idols or at a Feast made by a Gentile upon occasion of some Sacrifices 1 Cor. VIII 10. X. 27. In this case the Apostle determines that charity requires a Christian to forbear the use of his freedome when the use of it may occasion a weak Christian to fall into misprision of Idolatry But among the Romanes the case which S. Paul speaks to was between Christians converted from Jews and from Gentiles as appears by the particulars which he mentions to be scrupled at to wit days and meats kom XIV 2 5. and the offence likely thereby to come to passe this that Jewish Christians seeing the Heathenish eat things forbidden by the Law and perhaps among the rest things sacrificed to Idols forbidden not by the letter of the Law but by the interpretation and determination of it in force by the authority of the Synagogue or Consistory might imagine that Christians renounced the Law of God and by consequence the God of the Law and so out of zeal to the true God fall from Christianity and perish For this is manifestly the offence and stumbling which the Apostle speaks of Rom. XIV 13 15 20. as I have shewed out of Origen in the place afore quoted Here is then the sentence of the Apostle that when the use of those things wherein Christians are not limited by the Law of God becomes an occasion of falling into sin to those that understand not the reason of the freedome of Christians charity requires a Christian to forbear the use of this freedom From whence who so inferres that therefore no Ecclesiasticall Law can be of force when it meets with a weak conscience and therefore never because it may always meet with such will conclude the contrary of the Apostles meaning For when Christianity makes all things free to a Christian that are not limited by Gods Law it makes not the use of this freedome necessary to Christianity the Apostle saying expresly that the Kingdome of God is not meat and drink Rom. XIV 17. by consequence not the observing or not observing of days That is consists no more in not eating or not observing days then in eating in observing them So that as he that submits unto the Law of charity must forbear his freedome once and as often as the use of it ministreth offence so for the same reason must he always forbear the use of it whensoever the use of it comes to be restrained though not by Gods Law yet by the Law of the Church Because the greatest offence the greatest breach of charity is to call in question the Order established in the Church in the preservation whereof the Unity of the Church consisteth Whereunto thus much may be added that as the things that are determined by the Canons of the Church are not determined by Gods Law as to the species of the matter and subject of them yet as to the authority from whence the determination of them may proceed they may be said to be determined by Gods Law in as much as by Gods Law that authority is established by which those things are determinable which the good Order and Unity of the Church requires to be determined The evidence of which authority is as expresse in Gods Book as it can be in any Book inspired by God Those of the Congregations indeed betake themselves here to a Fort which they think cannot be approached when they say that what is written in the Scripture is revealed from above and therefore the Laws that are there recorded are no precedents to the Church to use the like right For it is manifest by the Scriptures of the Old Testament that there were many Laws Ordinances Constitutions or what you please to call them in force at that time which no Scripture can shew to have been commanded by revelation from God as the Law of God Daniel forbore the Kings meat because a portion of it was sacrificed to their Idols dedicating the whole to the honour of the same That is he forbore to eate things sacrificed to Idols materially Therefore that Order which we see was afterwards in force among the Jews was then in use and practice Not by the written Law of God therefore by the determination of those whom the Law gave Power to determine such matters The Prophet Joel reckons up many circumstances and ceremonies of the Jews publick Fasts and Humiliations Joel II. 15 16 17. which are so farre from being commanded by the law that the Jews Doctors confesse there is no further Order for any Fasts in the Law then that which they draw by a consequence far enough fetched out of Num. X. 9. where Order is given for making the Trumpets which they say and the Prophet supposes that their Fasts were proclaimed with Maimoni Tit. Taanith cap. I. In another Prophet Zac. VII 3. VIII 19. it appears that there were set Fasts which they were bound to solemnize every year on the fourth fifth seventh and tenth moneths As also it appears by the words of
though to an invisible purpose and the Power of giving Laws either to the whole or to severall parts of it of Divine Right But neither the whole nor the parts of it are necessarily convertible with any one State and yet the Church under severall States many times in extreme need of the use of that power which God hath given his Church to determine matters determinable Therefore this power cannot be vested in any of the States under which the Church is concerned but in those that have Power in behalf of the Churches respectively concerned The fourth argument is very copious from the exercise of this power in the Religion instituted by God among his ancient people of which nature there is nothing in the New Testament because in the times whereof it speaks Soveraign Powers were not Christian I have shewed in divers places of this Discourse that the High Consistory of the Jews at Jerusalem had power to determine all questions that became determinable in the matter of Laws given by God And yet there is great appearance that this Consistory it self was not constantly setled there according to Law till Josaphats time at least not the inferiour Consistories appointed by the Law of Deut. XVI 18. as the Chief by the Law of Deut. XVII 8 to be setled in the severall Cities For if so why should the Judges and Samuel ride circuit up and down the Country to minister justice according to the Law as we reade they did then Jud. V. 10. X. 4. XII 14. 1 Sam. VII 16. but not after Josaphats time And for this reason it seems Josaphat himself being to put this Law in force first sent Judges up and down the Cities 2 Chron. XVII 8 9. afterwards setled them according to the Law in the Cities of Juda as well as at Jerusalem 2 Chron. XIX 5 8. Besides Josephus in expresse terms rendring a reason of the disorder upon which the warre against Benjamin followed attributes it to this that the Consistories were not established according to Law Antiq. V. 2. And again Antiq. V. 5. he gives this for the cause why Eglon undertook to subdue the Israelites that they were in disorder and the Laws were not put in use And therefore it is justly to be presumed that the exact practice of this Law on which that of all the rest depended took not place till Josaphat applied the coactive power then in his hands to bring to effect that which God had established in point of Divine right The Consistory then by the Law is commanded to judge the People That is the Soveraign Power of the people is commanded to establish the Consistory Josaphat finds this command to take hold upon him as having the Power of that People in his hands So again God had commanded that Idolaters should be put to death and their Cities destroied the Consistory inquiring and sentencing as appears by the Jews Constitutions in Maimoni of Idolatry cap. IV. Deut. XIII 2 13 14. But suppose the disease grown too strong for the cure as we must needs suppose the Consistory unable to destroy an Idolatrous City when most Cities doe the like or to take away High Places when the Land is over-run with them then must the coactive Power of the Secular arm either restore the Law or be branded to posterity for not doing it as you see the Kings of Gods people are The Precept of building the Temple was given to the Body of the People therefore it takes hold upon David and the Powers under him his Princes his Officers and Commanders 1 Chro. XIII 2. XXVIII 1. In fine the Consistory by the Law was to determine matters undetermined in the Law whether in generall by giving Laws in questionable cases or in particular by sentencing causes But if the people slide back and cast away the yoke of the Law none but the Soveraign Power can reduce them under the Covenant of the Law to which they are born Therefore that Covenant is renued by Asa by Hezekiah by Josias by none but the King as first it was established by Moses King in Jesurun Deut. XXIX 1. XXXIII 5. 2 Chron. XV. 12 14. XXIX 10. XXXIV 31. And it is a very grosse mistake to imagine that the people renued it or any part of it without the consent of the Soveraign under Esdras and Nehemias Esd XI 1 Neh. X. 29 V. 12. For Esdras having obtained that Commission which we see Es VII 11 may well be thought thereby established in the quality of Head of the Consistory by the Soveraign Power as the Jews all report him But howsoever by that Commission we cannot doubt that he was inabled to swear them to the Law by which he was inabled to govern them in it his commission supposing a grant of full leave to live according to their Law But in Nehemias we must acknowledge a further power of Governor under the King of Persia as he cals himself expresly Neh. V. 14 15. which quality seems to me answerable to that of the Heads of the Captive Jews in Babylonia of whom we reade divers times in Josephus as well as in the Jews writings that they were Heads of their Nation in that Country having Heads of their Consistories under them at the same time as Esdras under Nehemias The proceedings then of Esdras and Nehemias as well as of the Kings of Juda prove no more then that which I said in the beginning of this Chapter that Soveraign Powers have Right to establish and restore all matters of Religion which can appear to be commanded by God For it is not in any common reason to imagine that by any Covenant of the Law renued by Esdras and Nehemias they conceived themselves inabled or obliged to maintain themselves by force in the profession and exercise of their Religion against their Soveraign in case he had not allowed it them Therefore of necessity that which they did was by Power derived by Commission from the Kings of Persia and so with reservation of their obedience to them who granting Nehemias and Esdras Power to govern the People in their Religion must needs be understood to grant them both the free profession and exercise of the same But having shewed that the Church hath Power by Divine Right to establish by a generall Act which you may call a Canon Constitution or Law all that Gods Law determineth not mediately and by consequence I conceive it remains proved by these particulars done under the Old Testament that the Church is to determine but the determinations of the Church to be maintained by the coactive Power of the Secular arm seeing they cannot come to effect in any Christian State otherwise Which also is immediately proved by some acts recorded in Scripture whereby that is limited which Gods Law had not determined It is said 1 Chro. XXV 1. That David and the Captains of the Militia divided the sonnes of Asaph Heman and Jeduthun to the service of God Here it were an
inconvenience to imagine that Commanders of Warre should meddle with ordering the Tribe of Levi and the service of the Temple It is not so We are to understand there by the Militia the Companies of Priests that waited on the Service of the Temple the Captains of whom with David divided the Singers as they did the Priests 1 Chron. XXIV 3 6 7. Though elsewhere 1 Chron. XXIII 6. David alone is mentioned to doe it as by whose Power a businesse concerning the state of a Tribe in Israel was put in effect and force So Hezekias and his Princes and all the Synagogue advised about holding the Passeover in the second moneth 2 Chron. XXX 2. that is he advised with the Consistory who are there as in Jer. XXVI 10 11. called the Princes for so the Jews Constitutions in Maimoni in the Title of comming into the Sanctuary ca. IV. teach us to understand it So David and his Princes gave the Gibeonites to wait upon the Levites whereupon they are called Nethinim that is Given Esd VIII 20. where by David and the Princes we must understand by the same reason David and the great Consistory of his time So also Maimoni in the Title Erubin subinit or rather the Talmud Doctors whose credit he followeth tell us that Solomon and his Consistory brought that Constitution into practice concerning what rooms meats may be removed into upon the Sabbath Herewith agrees the practice of Christian Emperors if we consider the style and character of some of their Laws in the Codes by which the rest may be estimated seeing it is not possible to confider all in this abridgement There you shall finde a Law by which the Canons of the Church are inforced and the Governors of Provinces tied to observe and execute them long before the Code of Canons was made by Justinian a Law of the Empire There you shall finde the Audiences of Bishops established and the sentences of them inforced by the Secular arm the authority of them having been in force in the Society of the Church from the beginning as hath been said There you shall finde Laws by which men are judged Hereticks and Schismaticks as they acknowledged the Faith determined by such and such Councels or not as they communicated with such such Bishops or not which what is it but to take the Act of the Church for a Law and to give force to it by the Secular arm Which what prejudice can it import to any Christian State upon the face of the earth For first such Assemblies of the Church at which publick matters are determinable cannot meet but by allowance of the State In particular though the Church hath Right to assemble Councels when that appears the best course for deciding matters in difference yet it cannot be said that the Church was ever able to assemble a generall Councell without the command of Christian Princes after the example of Constantine the Great And this is the State of Religion for the present in Christendome The Power of determining matters of Religion rests as always it did in the respective Churches to be tied by those determinations But the Power to assemble in freedome those judgements which may be capable to conclude the Church must rest in the free agreement of the Soveraignties in Christendome Secondly it hath been cautioned afore that all Soveraign Powers have right to see not only that nothing be done in prejudice to their Estates but also in prejudice to that which is necessary to the salvation of all Christians or that which was from the beginning established in the Church by our Lord and his Apostles Therefore when Councels are assembled neither can they proceed nor conclude so as to oblige the Secular Powers either of Christendome or of their respective Soveraignties but by satisfying them that the determinations which they desire to bring to effect are most agreeable to that which is determined by Divine Right as well as to the Peace of the State And so the objection ceases that by making the Church independent upon the State as to the matter of their Laws and determinations we make two Heads in one Body For seeing there is by this determination no manner of coactive Power in the Church but all in the State for Excommunication constrains but upon supposition that a man resolves to be a Christian there remains but one Head in the Civile Society of every State so absolute over the persons that make the Church that the independent power thereof in Church matters will enable it to do nothing against but suffer all things from the Soveraign And yet so absolute and depending on God alone in Church matters that if a Soveraign professing Christianity should not onely forbid the profession of that Faith or the exercise of those Ordinances which God hath required to be served with but even the exercise of that Ecclesiasticall Power which shall be necessary to preserve the Unity of the Church it must needs be necessary for those that are trusted with the Power of the Church not only to disobey the commands of the Soveraign but to use that Power which their quality in the Society of the Church gives them to provide for the subsistence thereof without the assistance of Secular Powers A thing manifestly supposed by all the Bishops of the Ancient Church in all those Actions wherein they refused to obey their Emperors seduced by Hereticks and to suffer their Churches to be regulated by them to the prejudice of Christianity Particularly in that memorable refusall of Athanasius of Alexandria and Alexander of Constantinople to admit the Heretick Arius to Communion at the instant command of Constantine the Great Which most Christian action whosoever justifies not besides the appearance of favour to such an Heresie he will lay the Church open to the same ruine whensoever the Soveraign Power is seduced by the like And such a difference falling out so that to particular persons it cannot be clear who is in the Right it will be requisite for Christians in a doubtfull case at their utmost perils to adhere to the Guides of the Church against their lawfull Soveraigns though to no further effect then to suffer for the exercise of Christianity and the maintenance of the Society of the Church in Unity Now what strength and force the exercise of the Keys which is the Jurisdiction of the Church necessarily requires from the Secular arm may appear in that this Power hath been and may be inforced by Soveraigns of contrary Religions The first mention of Excommunication among the Jews is as you have seen under Esdras who proceeded by Commission from the King of Persia In the Title of both Codes of Justinian and Theodosius De Judae is Coelicolis you have a Law of the Christian Emperors whereby the Excommunications of the Jews are enacted and enforced by forbidding inferiour powers to make them void And thus was the sentence of the Church against Paulus Samosatenus ratified
Christianity Therefore the words of our Lord That his Disciples should not be as the Gentiles among whom the great ones domineer over the rest and in so doing were called Gracious Lords Mat. XX. 25. Mar. X. 42 43. Luc. XXII 25 26. being spoken to his Disciples as Christians not as Apostles in commendation of humility and meeknesse a quality concerning all Christians cannot prove the Clergy forbidden secular imploiment but they must by the same reason inforce all Civile Power to be unlawfull among Christians as also in the Society of the Church all superiority of power as unlawfull as that which is here challenged on behalf of Bishops and Presbyters On the other side that which they are supposed to destroy they manifestly presuppose that is to say a Superiority of power among the Disciples of Christ by the names of greater and lesse competible with the quality of his Disciples And therefore concern not the lawfulnesse of power but the right use of it and so forbid no sort of Christians any power whereof any Christian is capable The words of S. Paul are more pertinent to this purpose 2 Tim. II. 4. for it is a comparison that he borroweth from the custome of the Romane Empire wherein Soldiers as they were exempted from being Tutors to mens persons or Curators to their estates so they were forbidden to be Proctors of other mens causes to undertake husbandry or merchandise Therefore when S. Paul saith to Timothy No man that goeth to the army intangleth himself in businesse of the world that he may please him that imprested him He raises indeed a particular exhortation to Timothy upon a generall ground of reason appearing in the Romane Laws that those of Timothies quality oblige not themselves to businesse inconsistent with it But can he be understood hereby to make that a Law to the Militia of the Church which was a Law to the Militia of the Empire Or can an exhortation drawn from a comparison be thought to create a generall Law to all of Timothies quality in generall or in particular further then the reason of the comparison will inferre in every particular case It is true that Soldiers were forbidden businesse of profit were exempted emploiments of publick service as was that of Tutors and Curators because thereby they became obliged to the Laws or to their own profit to the prejudice of their attendance upon their colours That is to say that for the great distance between Civile and Military emploiment in that State the Laws had rendred Soldiers uncapable of such qualities And so it is confessed that the Laws of the Church the Canons rendred the Clergy uncapable of the like during the distance between the Church and the State not yet Christian For so we find that in S. Cyprians time Clergy men were forbidden to be Tutors or Curators for the like reason because their obligation to the Laws in that estate would have excused them to the Church And because that by reason of the distance between the State of the Church at that time it could not tend to any publick good of the Society of the Church But in States that professe Christianity can it be said that the attendance of Clergy men upon the affairs of the Commonwealth cannot be to the publick good of the Church consisting of all the same persons onely in a distinct reason and quality whereof the Commonwealth consisteth To me it seems farre otherwise that in all publick Assemblies of States whether for making Laws or for Jurisdiction or for Counsell or for preservation of publick Peace to banish those from them whose quality and profession entitles them to the most exact knowledge and practice of Christianity is to banish the consideration of Christianity from the conclusions and effects of those Assemblies For though it be seen by experience that the Clergy come short of the holinesse and exact conversation in Christianity which they professe yet it will be always seen likewise that the people fail more and before them and that they are first corrupted by and with the people then corrupters of the people And as for the service of the Church which they cannot attend upon in the mean time supposing the Order here challenged to be instituted by the Apostles the inconvenience ceaseth For supposing all Cathedrall Churches to be Corporations trusted to provide for the government of all Congregations contained in them in Church matters and the Ministery of the Offices of Divine Service at the same whatsoever Clergy man shall by publick imploiment destitute his Congregation shall leave it to the care of the Church originally entrusted with it Which Churches being all Nurseries and Seminaries of Clergy designed for the Service of their respective Bodies may easily by the means thereof see all Offices discharged from time to time to all Congregations which they contain And this is that which I desired to say here in generall to this most difficult point of the Privileges and Penalties which Christianity may be established and enforced with by a State that professes it As for the particulars which upon those generall reasons may be disputed in point of lawfull or unlawfull as also for the point of expedience whereby that which in generall may be done ought or ought not to be done when the case is put I leave to them that are qualified and obliged to proceed in determining the same To come then to the great difficulty proposed it is to be acknowledged that the Power of the Church in the persons of them to whom it is derived by continuall succession is a Law ordained by the Apostles for the unity and edification of the Church So that no part of the Whole can stand obliged by any Act that is not done by the Councell and Synod of Bishops respective to that part of the Church which it pretendeth to oblige But withall it is to be acknowledged that there are abundance of other Laws given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles whether they concern matters of Faith or matter of Works whether immediately concerning the salvation of particular Christians or only the publick Order of the Church which proceeding from the same if not a greater power then the Succession of the Church are to be retained all and every one of them with the same Religion and conscience And with this limitation the distinction which the Church of Rome is usually answered with is to be admitted between succession of Persons and succession of Doctrine Not as if it were not a part of Christian doctrine that the Succession of the Apostles is to be obeyed as their Ordinance but because there are many other points of doctrine delivered the Church by our Lord and his Apostles all and every one of them equally to be regarded with it Again I have shewed that the Secular Power is bound to protect the Ecclesiasticall in determining all things which are not determined by our Lord and his Apostles and to give force
Clergy by the Jurisdiction of the Church For in regard that as it hath been said on divers occasions in this Discourse the Clergy is promoted upon supposition of some degree of proficience in Christianity over and above that upon supposition whereof men are admitted to be only Christians it followeth not that those who by their conversation render themselves unworthy of that degree which they hold in the Clergy doe by the same means render themselves unworthy of the Communion of the Church Therefore the punishment of a Clergy man may be competent by onely voiding his degree when another Christian cannot be competently punished but by putting him from the Church Whereby it appears that the Power of Ordaining as well as censuring persons Ordained is grounded upon the Power of the Keys as giving or taking away not the communion of the Church but a degree and quality above it which supposeth it Again upon the constitution of the Society of the Church follows the Power of making Canons Constitutions and Ordinances obliging the respective body thereof correspondent to the Legislative Power of Kingdomes and Common-wealths wherein the justice of them most appears though the strength of them is more seen in the Power of the Sword which gives all Laws force And so it is no more inconvenience to all these Canons the Laws of the Church then it is to call the Power of Excommunication the spirituall Sword of the Church Neither is it any more for the Church to have this Power then that which States ordinarily allow the meanest Corporations which they Privilege to wit to give Laws to their own Bodies for the maintenance and execution of the Laws originally given them by those who are enabled to institute them In fine in correspondence to the Exchequer of a State is the Title that God hath given his Church to the Oblations of the Faithfull their First-fruits and Tithes The right whereof he hath endowed the Church with leaving the seizure to the voluntary tender of those whō he calleth to be voluntary Christians And thus and by this correspondence with a State the parts of Ecclesiasticall Power are more clearly and more intelligibly distinguished in my opinion then by the ordinary terms of Jurisdiction and Order For first these terms being introduced by the Canonists and School Doctors seem to presuppose a coactive Jurisdiction in the Church upon the constitution and originall Title of the Church such as the Church of Rome challenges and the Decretall Epistles of the Popes presuppose whereby they challenge to themselves that Power by Divine Right which by the sufferance of Princes and States they did exercise intangling the Schools of Divines with as inextricable difficulties to make it good as Christian States with commotions to shake off the consequences thereof meerly for neglect of the principle here presupposed that Christianity importeth no right of this world and therefore that the coactive Power of the State remains where it was before it Secondly it seemeth that the Power of Order and Jurisdiction are not contradistinct but subordinate the Power of Order being the production and consequence of the Power of Jurisdiction if it be rightly understood For by the same reason which proveth here p. 199 that the power of consecrating the Eucharist belongeth to Presbyters upon the Power of the Keys and that all Benedictions with Imposition of Hands whether in Confirmation Ordination Penance Mariage or whatsoever else are marks of that Power which alloweth those acts which are blessed to be done in the Church as you have it here p. 23. by the same reason it follows that the ministery of all Ordinances of God deposited with the Church is a mark of that superiority which those that minister the same have in the Church And therefore if the Power of Order be in respect of Christs own Body as ordinarily they describe it it proceeds from the Power over his mysticall Body which is that of Jurisdiction as they make it Or if as others will have it the Power of Order consists in the ministery of such divine Ordinances as are the means to procure and increase Gods grace in the persons to whom they are ministerd the same reason takes place Because they are not to be ministred but by them whom the Church trusteth to do it to that true intent which it teacheth Wherefore it seemeth that the term of Jurisdiction ought to expresse the common source of all Ecclesiasticall Power which it doth not because that as Jurisdictiis but a part of Soveraignty in a State so the Power from which the metaphoricall jurisdiction of the Church floweth which I conceive cannot be better expressed then by calling it the Power of the Keys as the Gospel hath done produceth other branches of Ecclesiasticall Power correspondent to other parts of Soveraignty in a State as hereby you have seen CHAP. II. HAving thus determined whereupon the Power of the Keys is founded and wherein it consisteth it remained to proceed and declare what persons it is trusted with For seeing the persons of whom Christian States consist are the same of whom the Churches or parts of the whole Church that are contained in those States consist if there be no provision of Gods Law tying the Right of managing this Power and the productions and branches thereof to some qualities consequent to the constitution of the Church it will necessarily fall as an escheat to the State and we shall be tied to grant it Power to conferre those qualities by which it is managed and all this will be truly said to no purpose Here in the first place I must insist upon a point the truth whereof the Presbyteries and Congregations have equally divided between them and left it entire to the Church For those of the Congregations finding that the design of the Presbyteries had ordered a Presbytery for the government of every Congregation that assembles together for the common service of God had reason to inferre that all those Presbyteries ought to be endowed with the Power of the Keys as to their own Bodies To which assuming another demand that the chief Power in every Congregation was that of the People it followeth that all Congregations are independent and absolute not to be concluded by any Church or Synod representative of Churches above themselves On the other side the Presbyterians finding that no Unity can be preserved without dependence and desiring to preserve Unity among themselves though not with the Church have designed the Power of the Keys as to the act of Excommunication to rest in Representatives of the Presbyteries of Congregations which neverthelesse they call by the same name of Presbyteries or Classes the same being subject to Synods of Presbyteries and those to Nationall Assemblies Whereas there is never any mention in all the Scriptures of any Presbytery or Company College or Bench of Presbyters as likewise there is no mention of any Church but in a City No mention of more Churches then
one in the greatest City and the most populous for number of Christians that is mentioned in all the Scriptures Though no common reason can question but there were more Congregations considering that it cannot be thought that all the Christians contained in the greatest and most Christian of all those Cities could assemble together at once for the common service of God Upon these premises it is necessary to inferre that the Apostles Order was that which we see was the Rule of their practice that the severall Bodies of those that should be converted to Christianity within severall Cities and the Territories thereof should constitute severall Churches to be governed by the severall Presbyteries thereof constituted and regulated as shall be declared in the consequences Which being established it will not be difficult to inferre that the Power of the Keys and the consequences thereof are deposited in the said Churches that is trusted with them that are endowed with the Power of Governing those Churches To which if you adde this that the Churches of particular Cities were to depend upon the Churches of Mother Cities upon which particular Cities depended for the civile Government you have a reason and Rule of the whole frame of Church Government designed by the Apostles as generall as could be given to a Society that was to consist of severall Nations and Soveraignties without limits but not more generall then the Originall constitution of the whole Church derived from their design will evidence to be agreeable to those impressions and marks of it which are here produced out of the Scriptures This Position is liable to an Objection from those which the ancient Canons of the Greekish Councels call Chorepiscopi which we may translate Country Bishops because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifieth the Country in opposition to or in difference from the City For if Churches constituted in Cities have their severall Presbyteries the Heads whereof being Bishops are by consequent Governors in chief of their respective Churches how are Bishops constituted in the Country that is in any of the chief Villages under any City For by this means either we have a Church in a Village or a Bishop without a Church and so the practise of the Church not to be reconciled with that which I make the design of the Apostles if either be true The answer to this in generall must come from that which you have here afterwards p. 62. that the Rule is as generally expressed in these terms as any Rule generall to those cases that may fall out so divers For the generall intent and reason of it is to preserve the Unity of the Whole Church by the subordination and dependence of the parts thereof to and from other parts and so the Whole If some particular provision prove necessary some time and place to attain this end it is not to be thought that the generall Rule holds not therefore For the particular here in hand one thing I conceive may be questionable in point of Fact and matter of Historicall Truth concerning these Country Bishops which the Canons quoted p. 146. speak of For in the beginning of the XI Canon of Antiochia it is said that they received 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ordination of Bishops In the end of it it is provided that they be Ordained by the Bishop of the City to whom they are subject The first clause seems to intimate that they have the same Ordination with other Bishops which is by the Synod of the Province or those that represent the same Besides that we finde by the subscriptions of the Councels that they were called to Councels as if they received their trust immediately from the Synods of their Provinces By the second clause it seems they receive their authority immediately from the Bishop of the Province whereupon they are called Vicarii Episcoporum the Bishops Deputies as you see in the place afore named What my judgement is in this point you may have seen before p. 146. neither do I see cause to repent me of it For howsoever they were Ordained and from whomsoever they received their trust it is manifest by the Canons of Ancyra and Laodicea there quoted that they received it upon such terms as to be subordinate to the Bishop of the City which otherwise Bishops were not but immediately to the Synod of the Province and the Bishop of the Mother City Neither is it contrary to the ground of that generall Rule which I maintain that it should be within the Power of the Church contained in any Province that is to say the Synod of the same to Ordain that in regard some Village under some City of that Province grew considerable for the extent of it and the multitude of Christian souls contained in it therefore it should have a Bishop beside the Bishop of the City Alway provided that the dependence of Churches might be preserved wherein the Unity of the whole consisted But it is manifest that this dependence might be maintained two severall ways supposing a Bishop to be constituted in a Village First Ordaining him to be subordinate to the Bishop of the City Which is the case of those whom we speak of whose Power is tied up as you have seen by the said Canons of Ancyra and Laodicea But should they be left free from all dependence on the City Bishop then were they absolute Bishops and their Churches though in Villages and therefore lesse yet for their respective Power and right the same with other Churches constituted in Cities Which seems to be the case of the Churches of Africk where Bishops were so plentifull that every good Village must needs be the Seat of an Episcopall Church Neither doth this destroy the Rule which I maintain that Cities and Churches were originally convertible but argues that Villages in some Countries had that privilege which in others was proper to Cities To that which is said p. 53. of the difference between Prophesies and between Apostles and Prophets I adde this consideration That the Apostles of our Lord were necessarily Prophets because of the promise of the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth to remember them of our Lords Doctrine and to make them understand the Scriptures all which are contained in the thing signified by this word Prophesie though the originall thereof import onely foretelling things to come as it is manifest by S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV But all Prophets are not necessarily Apostles that is sent by God to declare their Commission to his people or to charge them with those things which God revealed to themselves I grant that the Prophets under the Old Testament were such by reason of that Law by which God appointeth them to be obeyed and therefore giveth a Rule how to discern between true and false Prophets Deut. XVIII 18. And hereupon it is that their writings are the Word of God and that Prophesie is said to have failed after those whose Writings we
under the Altar of Burnt Sacrifices but standing in the lower part of the Sanctuary beneath the Altar of Incense Unlesse we take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here for the Sanctuary as I shew that it is taken in the Apocalypse p. 115. and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The name of Ministers when it answers the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scriptures if it be put absolutely without any addition signifies the Rank and Office of those that are ever since called Deacons in the Church But many times it is put with the additions here mentioned p. 99. of Ministers of the Word Ministers of the Gospel of the New Testament of the Church which serve as circumlocutions and descriptions of the Office of Apostles to the whole Church or their Deputies and Commissioners the Evangelists as when S. Paul writes to the Colossians I. 23 25. that he was made a Minister of the Gospel or of the Church according to the dispensation of God which is given me towards you to fulfill the Word of God that is the Mystery that hath been hidden from generations and ages and now is manifested to his Saints It is here manifest that he cals himself a Minister of God or of the Church in regard of publishing the Gospel and planting the Church which belongs not to the Presbyters of Churches whose name and office is respective to their particular Churches And this notion of the word is almost always to be gathered by the text and consequence of those passages where it is found Therfore the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is absolutely put 1 Tim. III. 8 stands in relation to Bishops and Presbyters mentioned afore in the notion of Waiting upon them whereas when it is put with the addition here specified it stands in relation to God making as much difference between Ministers of the Word and barely Ministers as between executing the immediate commands of God as Apostles doe and executing the commands of Bishops in regard of whom mentioned afore they are called barely and without any addition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ministers in that place And so the VII at Jerusalem were first constituted to wait upon the Apostles by doing that Service which they did themselves at the first for the Church whereupon it was afterwards a custome in the Church that there should be VII Deacons in every Church as there were at Jerusalem Concil Neocaesar Can. XIV And therefore the Author of the Questions of the Old and New Testament in S. Augustines Works Q. CI. having observed that the Apostles call Presbyters their fellow Presbyters addeth Nunquid Ministros condiaconos suos diceret Apostolus Non utique quia multo inferiores sunt Et turpe est judicem dicere primicerium Would the Apostle call Deacons his fellow Deacons Surely no for they are much inferiour And it is absurd to call a Pronotary a Judge Where he makes the same difference between Presbyters and Deacons as Christian between Judges and Ministers of Courts and that according to the Originall custome of the Synagogue as well as of the Church as by and by it shall appeare Notwithstanding the Office of Bishops is called a Ministery very anciently by Pope Pius in his Epistle to Justus of Vienna as also the Office both of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons Concil Eliber Can. XIX but in another notion in opposition to the coactive power of the World as proceeding originally not by constraint but by consent and so they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek because their office is for the behoof of the people and in their stead But they cannot therefore be called Ministers of the People as Deacons are Ministers of Bishops and Presbyters because then they should be ruled by the people and execute that which they prescribe as the Apostles being Ministers of God in Preaching the Gospel are bound to execute his Commission and nothing else which the Clergy of Christian Churches may not doe That it may be beyond any Power upon earth to abolish the Order of Bishops out of the Church of England without abolishing the Church also as is said here p. 129. I prove Chap. V. to wit that no Secular Power can take away Ecclesiasticall Power from them that lawfully have it according to the institution of the Apostles though not by virtue of it To shew that in the judgement and practise of the Primitive Church all Power of baptizing was derived from the Bishop as is said here p. 136. we have but to remember the custome of the Church mentioned in so many Canons of sending the Chrism to all Parish Churches from the Mother Church once a year By which Ceremony it appeared that the Bishop trusted his authority of admitting to the Church by Baptism with the respective Pastors of the same And therefore it is not unreasonably judged that this custome of Chrisming was many times in stead of Confirmation to those Churches that used it Besides in that from the beginning no Ecclesiasticall office was to be ministred by any but the Bishop in his presence the dependence of all Ecclesiasticall authority whereby the same are ministred upon the Bishop is evidenced to us Thus in the passage of Eusebius concerning Origens Preaching before he was of the Clergy mentioned p. 106. it is further to be observed that the instances there alleged seem to shew that the Primitive Bishops did many times admit those that were of no degree in the Clergy to preach in their own presence Which that it was a further privilege then onely to preach may appear by that which is related out of the life of S. Augustine in the Primitive government of Churches p. 113. that he was imploied by the Bishop his predecessor to preach to the people in his presence and stead because he had seen it so practised in the East though in those parts it were not done In like manner it is manifest by many Records of the Church that none might Baptize Celebrate the Eucharist or reconcile the Penitent in the Bishops presence but himself for of Confirmation and Ordaining I need say nothing The fourth reason against the vulgar reading of the XIII Canon of the Councell at Ancyra p. 141. will be more clearly understood by setting down the effect of the LVI Canon of Laodicea which comming after that of Ancyra and taking Order that for the future there should be no Country Bishops made any more provides further that those which were already constituted should do nothing without the consent of the Bishop as likewise the Presbyters to doe nothing without the same Which being the provision which the latter Canon establisheth leaveth it very probable that the other going afore and intending to take order in the same particulars should consist of two clauses correspondent to the same That there were other Churches and Bishops
wherein he is thought so plainly to determine that Clergy men are uncapable of imploiment in Secular affairs whereof here p. 268. be it but to shew how mens trust is abused when they examine not such allegations I grant these are his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that to joyn Civile skill with the Priesthood is to spin two wools together that will not make one thred I grant he saith that the Aegyptians and Hebrews had once Priests for their Kings But that God parted them because his work was done with humane weaknesse But shall I count that to be against Gods Law in Synesius his opinion which he counts those Bishops happy that could goe through with which he himself declares that he was not desirous to lay aside from his own care which he desires a coadjutor to be joyned with him to assist him in The case was this It was a part of the Bishops Office as still it ought to be to intercede with the civile Powers for favour to all charitable causes For among the ancient People of God it was the Prophets Office who may well be called the Preachers of Christianity during that time as you see 2 Kings IV. 12. and therefore of duty belongs to the chief Doctors of it now In the Africane Canons it is divers times provided that it belong to the Bishops charge Synesius finding himselfe foiled in the execution hereof by Andronicus makes a proposition to his Church that he may have one to assist him in it that he might not be diverted from his Priestly Office for it intending notwithstanding to attend it himself as he should find opportunity so to doe Is this the proposition of one that thought it against Gods Law for a Bishop or Clergy man to doe it For certainly the coadjutor which he desires must be understood to be a Clergy man because it is the Interesse of the Church in which he is to act Whereupon the Church proceeds there to Excommunication because wronged in it by Andronicus So likewise S. Augustine may complain of the multitude of businesse which diverted him from more spirituall imploiment to end the sutes of Christians which then resorted to the Bishop But did S. Augustine think it against Gods Law that he should be exercised in it and yet continue in that exercise That is the point here questioned whether against Gods Law or according to it as for the point of expedience I dispute it not here though if Synesius be against that a man may very well say to his reasons that for any man to act in Secular matters towards an Interesse of power or profit is a thing inconsistent with the Priesthood which is to act towards the Interesse of Christianity And therefore God hath parted all such imploiment from the Government of his Church But that the Rulers of Christianity should act in the Interesse of Christianity and to the advantage thereof in Secular especially in publick affairs is that which all parties now declare to be well done when it is done by Law by doing it themselves without Law The distance between Civile and Military imploiment among the Romanes whereof p. 271. appears by the provision introduced by the Emperours in favour of Soldiers that their last Wils should be good though made without the Solemnities of Law Which the Laws themselves ff de Testam Milit. l. 1. Instit ead VI. declare was provided in regard to the simplenesse or innocence of Soldiers that is because of the ignorance in the Laws proceeding from that strict attendance upon their Colours to which Soldiers stood obliged all the time of their service which was with most of them the greatest part of their lives It is not my purpose to say that the Clergy are not to be so constant to the service of the Church as Soldiers to their Colours But that the service of the Church when the State is Christian requires not that distance from Civile businesse as the service of the Wars among the Romanes If the service of the Church consisted onely in Preaching it would be much otherwise But if the service of the Church consist in the maintenance and advancement of Christianity then neither can the Clergy understand wherein consists the Interesse of Christianity without understanding the affairs of the world wherein it is seen neither can they act towards the maintenance and advancement thereof without understanding it Wherefore though it appear not onely by S. Cyprian but by Can. Apost LXXX LXXXII and others that when States were not Christian the Clergy were forbidden Secular businesse yet when the State is Christian to forbid it were to forbid the means of maintaining Christianity in the dispatching of such businesse To that which is acknowledged p. 273. c. V. that no part of the Church can be concluded but by the Act of the Synod respective to it I adde further that the Act thereof cannot passe but by the greater part of it For unlesse the consent of the Whole follow the consent of the greater part in doing those Acts which must oblige the Church as in making Canons and Ordinations it cannot appear how the precept of the Apostles of obeying the present Rulers of the Church is neglected in any Schism that is effected by any part of them and by consequence there would be no such crime as that of Schisme in any such case As for example in the case of the Church of Corinth upon which the Epistle of Clemens was written and sent which he declares p. 62. when he says that it is much a shame for the profession of Christians that the ancient Church of Corinth should maintain a faction against the Presbyters for one or two persons to wit of the same rank of Presbyters as we must needs understand it When therefore both sides follow some of the Rulers of the Church how should Schism be incurred if by that precept the lesser part were not obliged to be concluded by the greater in things not determined by Gods Law So in the Ordination of Novatianus how shall it be taken for Schismaticall being done by three Bishops unlesse we grant that the lesser part is to be concluded by the greater under the pain of incurring the crime of Schism Thus that which is here propounded p. 249 250. proceedeth upon the same ground with that which followeth p. 314 315. which to confirm I adde here a memorable passage out of the said Epistle of Clemens whose Doctrine being received from the very mouthes of the Apostles must needs be accounted their own Thus then Clemens p. 54. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it must be read and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Apostles received the Gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ from God And so Christ was sent forth from God and the Apostles from Christ Thus both were orderly done by the will of God Having therefore received instructions and being assured by the resurrection of our Lord
to beleeve that in other parts of the Church they did not and when we reade of persecutions against the ordinary assemblies of the Church we must presume that as the persecution of Councells would have made greater desolation in the Church so must they needs be more subject to be persecuted And by Eusebius and the rest of the Ecclesiasticall Histories and by the communication of the Primitive Bishops Clemens Ignatius Polycarpus S. Cyprian and the rest as they follow still extant in their Epistles we understand that their personall Assemblies were supplied by their Formatae or letters of mark whereby the acts of some Churches the most eminent being approved by the rest after they were sent to them purchased the same force with the Acts of Councels Wherefore the holding of Councels is of Divine right so farre as it is manifest to common sense that it is a readier way to dispatch matters determinable though when it cannot be had not absolutely necessary But it is always necessary that seeing no Church can be concluded without the Bishop thereof the Bishops of all Churches concurre to the Acts that must oblige their Churches Not so their Presbyters because it is manifest that all Presbyters cannot concurre though upon particular occasion some may as the Presbyters of the Church where a Councell is held as at Jerusalem Acts XV. 6. which we finde therefore practised in divers Councels of the Church As to supply the place of their Bishops by deputation in their absence or perhaps as to propound matters of extraordinary consequence As for the whole People to be concluded by the Act of a Councell as all cannot always be present supposing the dependence of Churches so nothing hinders any part thereof to intercede in any thing contrary to Christianity that is of the substance thereof or of Divine right Therefore in the Order of holding Councels which is wont to be put before the Volumes of the Councels the people is allowed to be present as they were at Jerusalem Acts XV. 12 13 22. I come now to a nice Point of the Originall Right of the Church to Tithes First-fruits and Oblations For as it cannot be pretended that the same measure which the Law provideth is due under the Gospel so it is manifest that the quality of Priests and Levites to whom they were due is ceased as much as the Sacrifices which they were to attend and it is certain that they were maintained expresly in consideration of that attendance This difficulty must be resolved by the difference between the Law and the Gospel The Law expresly provideth onely for the Ceremoniall Service of God in the Temple by Sacrifices and Figures of good things to come But no man doubteth that there were always assemblies for the Service of God all over the Country for the opportunity whereof in time Synagogues were built where the Law was taught and publick Prayers offered to God This Office of Teaching the Law cannot be restrained to the Tribe of Levi. So farre as the Prophets and their Schools of Disciples furnished it not their Consistories which had the Authority to determine what was lawfull what unlawfull were consequently charged with this Office Now they consisted not onely of the Tribe of Levi but in the first place of the best of their Cities to whom were added as assistant some of that Tribe unlesse we speak of the Priests Cities in particular for credibly the Consistories of them consisted only of Priests For that Tribe being dispersed all over the Land to gather their revenue were by that means ready to attend on this Office of assisting in Judgement and Teaching the Law So saith Josephus Antiq. IV. 8. that the Consistories of particular Cities consisted of seven Chief of every City assisted each with two of the Tribe of Levi which with a President and his Deputy or Second such as we know the High Consistory at Jerusalem had makes up the number of XXIII which the Talmud Doctors say they consisted of Therefore it is a mistake of them that think the Scribes and Pharisees whom our Lord commands to obey had usurped the Office of the Priests and Levites For what hinders the Priests and Levites to be Scribes and Pharisees themselves though other Israelites were Scribes and Pharisees besides Priests and Levites Neither Pharisees nor Priests and Levites had this authority as Pharisees or as Priests and Levites but as members or assistants of the Consistories The reason because Gods Law whereby his worship was determined was also the Civile Law of that People because the Land of Canaan was promised them upon condition of living according to it therefore the Teaching of the Law must belong to them who by the Law were to Judge and Govern the People God stirring up Prophets from time to time to clear the true meaning thereof from humane corruptions So onely the Service of the Temple and only that Tribe which attended on the Service of the Temple was to be provided for the rest being provided for by the possession of the Land of Promise But when the service of God in Spirit and Truth was to be established in all places as well as at Jerusalem and the Church incorporated by God into one Society and Common-wealth for the exercise thereof what endowment God appointed this Corporation for the Exchequer of it is best judged by what appears to have been done in the Scriptures which cannot be attributed but to the authority of the Apostles the Governours of the Church at that time At Jerusalem the Contributions were so great in the beginning of Christianity that many offered their whole estates to maintain the community of the Church Was this to oblige all Christians ever after to destroy civile society by communion of goods As if there could be no other reason why Christians should strip themselves of their estates at that time The advancement of Christianity then in the shell required continuall attendance of the whole Church upon the Service of God This withdrawing the greater part of Disciples which were poor from the means of living required greater oblations of the rich The Scripture teaches us that the whole Church continued in the Service of God So that out of the common stock of the Church common entertainment was provided for rich and poor at which entertainment the Sacrament of the Eucharist was celebrated as it was instituted by our Lord at his last Supper This is that which is called Breaking of Bread Acts II. 42 46. XX. 7. and by the Apostle 1 Cor. XI 20. the Supper of the Lord not meaning thereby the Sacrament of the Eucharist but this common entertainment at which that Sacrament was celebrated which therefore is truly called the Sacrament of the Lords Supper not the Supper of the Lord for you see the Apostle complains that because the rich and the poor supped not together therefore they did not celebrate the Supper of the Lord. The same thing it is which S.