Ecclesiastique Numb 11.16 Nay Godw. ant l. 5. c. 1. it is distinguished from it for in the Civil Consistory the Judges were called Elders in the spiritual priests Matth. 21.23 26.3 The chief Priests and Elders of the people are named as two distinct Consistories though Vossius Doctor Hammon Downham and Weames admit not this distinction 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament sometimes but rarely is taken in the same sense as in the Old But most commonly it is attributed to an Order of Ecclesiastiques whether in a higher or a lower Order and degree 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by the maintainers of the Congregational and Consistorial Church taken for a mixed company of Lay men and Ecclesiasticks to whose government they suppose the power of the Keys is committed and this they call the Presbyterial Church and if I am not deceived of this you speak in this place But against this I affirme that there never was any such Presbyterial Church before Calvin and to that purpose I here propose and hope to make good these Propositions against any opponent 1. That there must be government in the Church 2. That Christ instituted this government and Governours for it 3. That this government must be perpetual 4. That the Apostles were those Governours for the time and for perpetuity their Successors appointed by them 5. That their Successors were Bishops in Name and Office 6. That for the execution of this Office Christ gave to the Apostles the Keys and they to their Successors onely 7. That this power consisted in Ordination and Jurisdiction and therefore that they onely could ordaine and juridically proceed 8. That at first the Apostles and after the Bishops did both without a Presbytery 9. Yet that by the Apostles a Presbytery was instituted in some Churches who were Ecclesiastiques onely 10. That yet none of these Presbyters were Bishops but assistants onely being distinct from them 11. That this Presbytery without the Bishop could not use the Keys 12. That no Lay-man was of the Apostolical Presbytery nor no Lay-man after for 1500. years 13. That at first the people elected not any Church-Officer All these Propositions will require much time to be made good I shall now therefore omit the demonstration of them and go on to you fourth and fifth Proposition where I shall use some of them Proposition 4. Viz. That this prescribed Ministery must consist of Presbyters or Teaching and Ruling Elders THe subject of this Proposition is the prescribed Ministery and it hath two Attributes 1. The Presbyters 2. Teaching and Ruling Elders and both must be distinctly considered 1. The prescribed Ministery consists of Presbyters If by Presbyters you mean Presbyters in the second acception as it comprehends those of an higher and those of a subordinate degree this part of your proposition is most true and it shall be granted you But if you exclude the Bishop properly so called I absolutely deny it For the Apostles were Bishops Matthias elected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 1.20 There you have the Name and accordingly the Fathers of the Church called them Apostolos i. e. Episcopos Dominus Elegit Cyprian Epist 9. lib. 3. Cyprian They had the power of the Keys promised Matth. 16.19 Matth. 18.18 and actually estated on them John 20.23 In these texts you have the power which lay in jurisdiction and ordination In that was the office The Apostles were then in Name and Office Bishops This is performed in the second part I will give you a breviate of what I could say at large for the first Government of the Church I finde onely in Scripture mention of three Church-Officers Bishops Presbyters Deacons 1. The highest function which was Episcopal the Apostles reserved to themselves for some time and that for three reasons At first there were but few convicted Acts 14.27 1 Cor. 16. whence their labour was imployed in turning the first Key in opening the dore of faith that great and effectual dore and all the helps they could make either by Prophets Evangelists Coadjutors Pastors Doctors Planters Waterers to this purpose was little enough But none of these qua tales were Bishops 2. After the conversion of Jews and Gentiles yet in many Churches they yet setled not a Bishop first because a Presbyter fit for a Bishops office is not so easily found it is Saint Pauls rule that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan a Novice one newly come to the faith be not made a Bishop Secondly because while the Apostles remained in or near any place they reserved the power 1 Tim. 3.6 there being no need of Bishops The Apostles for that time supplying the wants of those Churches either with their presence letters or messengers as the cause required 3. And yet there is a third reason The Apostles suffered the Churches to make a trial what equality of many Governours would do but when they found the fruits thereof to be dissension and that every one would be master parity and plurality breeding dissension and confusion they committed the Church to one I shall set you down this in Hieromes words Hieron Com. in Epist ad Titum even in those very words which are produced against Bishops Idem est Presbyter quod Episcopus autequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent diceretur in populis Ego sum Pauli ego Apollo ego Cephae communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur Post quam vero unusquisque eos quos baptizabat suos putabat esse non Christi in toâ—o orbe decretum est ut unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur cateris ut Schismatum semina tollerentur Haec diximus ostendimâ—s eosdem fuisse Presbyteros Episcopos ut Episcopi noverint se magis consuetudine quam Dominicae dispositionis veritate Presbyteris esse majores in communi debere Ecclesiâ—m rege e. I have recited these words of Hierome at full because in them there be many thâ—ngs clearly for me and some other passages seemingly against me to which I will give light Note here then first the cause of the Bishops creation 1. The causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or occasion was factions and Schismes and the end that Schismes might be taken away so his words are cum diceretur ego Pauli c. ut schismata tollerentur Secondly The time when the Bishop was ordained old enough for it was in the Apostles dayes for then it was said ego Pauli ego Cephae c. 1 Cor. 1. a sufficient authority I suppose for the Bishops institution it must needs be granted Apostolical if it began then Thirdly this institution was Decretum and pray say who then could decree except the Apostles or durst decree without them Fourthly that this Decree was generally assented to for Decretum est toto orbe it must be then Apostolical and Oecumenical Fifthly now consider the words of the Decree ut unus de Presbyteris
that it is very probable that they were ordain'd at this meeting at Miletum except you judge that Saint John the Apostle setled them in those Churches before his banishment to Patmos for in those Churches they had the power when he wrote the Revelation Howbeâ—t it will serve my turn well enough if they were onely Pastours with a Presbytery for this will prove the government then of the Church to be Aristocratical 4. If we come to Rome there we finde Paul an Apostle and as all Church Records assure us Peter Bishop there needed none where they lived Rom. 16. Presbyters there were then many Junius Clemens Cleâ—us Andronicus Urbane Tripheus Perses Of these Cletus and Clemens were Bishops after the Apostles Martytdome and their Succesours so apparent that I need not recite them Euseb lib. 2. cap. 24. Hieron ad Evagr. Origen Ambrose 5. What should I speak that Mark was Bishop of Alexandria who died six years before Peter in whose Church there was a Presbytery of Titus appointed Bishop by Saint Paul and left to ordain in the Island Presbyters and to have jurisdiction Of Dionysius the Areopagite the first Bishop of Athens Of Archippus at Colosse Of Onesimus at Philippi Of Gaius at Thessalonica The Records were infinite that I could produce in this kinde You see I have not instanced in any but such who were Bishops viventibus videntibus approbantibus Apostolis that so the truth may be apparent I shall not therefore doubt to affirme that the government of the Apostolical Churches was by Bishops as such who had the chief power and that it was Aristocratical Neither can all the Arguments of the Presbyterians any whit enervate this for you see I grant and prove a Presbytery in these two onely lies the difference betwixt them and us First that they would have a Presbytery established by the Apostles without a Bishop which I shall never grant and I know they can never prove Secondly that the power of this Presbytery without a Bishop should be the most supreme in the Church and that to it without a Bishop the Keyes were delivered For this is it which I affirme that originally the whole power was in the Apostles and by them exercised where they setled no Bishop But to him where they fixed a Bishop they committed their power yet so that so long as they liv'd it was but in subordination and dependency on them for out of question they might have govern'd alone when therefore they gave any power to others it was onely delegated and they lost not any of their own in giving orders What therefore Bishops were to the Apostles that must needs all Presbyters ordain'd by the Bishops be to them voluntarily assumed they were in partem sollicitudinis reginimis and had their power by delegation to assist in acts deliberative and consiliary But by vertue of their order they had no jurisdiction in causes criminal For in the Scripture there is not any commission extant to meer Presbyters there is no institution of any power of Regiment in the Presbytery no constitution Apostolical that meer Presbyters should alone or without Bishops govern no example in Scripture of any censure inflicted by any meer Presbyters no specification of any power they had so to do But the contrary to this may well be collected because to Churches where Colledges of Presbyters were resident Bishops were sent by Apostolical ordination as Titus to Crete Timothy to Ephesus the seven Angels to the seven Churches with power of ordination excommunication and taking cognizance of causes and persons even of Presbyters themselves as is apparent in th Epistles to Timothy and Titus and in the Revelation And a more evident example cannot be given then in the Churches of Corinth and Thessalonica in both which were Presbyteries but as then no constituted Bishop In one of which was an incestuous person in the other disorderly persons why did not these Presbyters then cast them out It was for want of coercive power the Apostle as yet kept that power in his own hand and therefore adviseth the Thessalonians that if any man obey not his words 2 Thes 3.14 15 that they signifie that man by an Epistle to him they in the mean time should forbear his company and admonish but not count him as an enemy that is eject him by Church censure that they should leave to him in whose hand as yet the power was But at Corinth upon signification he gives order to the Presbytery to execute his sentence For I verily absent in body but present in spirit that is by my Apostolical power 1 Cor. 5.3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have already judged or determined the judgment you see was his the decretory sentence his as though I were present conce ning him that hath done this deed In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ when you are gathered together and my spirit that is my power with you with the power of our Lord Jesus â—hrist that is which power the Lo d Jesus Christ hath committed unto me that then you prono nce my sentence and deliver such a one to Satan This shewes clearly where the power was setled in the Apostle first In them secondly In him it was primative from him to them it was derivative All was to be done by his spirit And that this was so viz. that the Presbyters power was not absolute but dependent not prime but delegate there be two testimonies the one in Ignatius the other in Cyprian which seems to me to evince it Ignatius writes to his Church of Antiochia being then in prison in Rome and he gives his Presbyters there this advice that they rule the flock of Christ Ignat. ad Antioch untill God should declare who should be their Pastour His words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Presbyters were to feed or rule the flock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 untill God should shew and designe him qui principatum habiturus sit as Varlonius renders it who to be their chief Pastour Their government there was to last till then but when God had once designed him Cyprian Ep. 21. their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was at an end The other testimony is that in Cyprian in the case of Candida Numeria and Etecusa women that were accused to have fallen in the persecution and offered incense to Idols Of these the Presbyters in the exile of Cyprian the Bishop took the cognizance and were ready to passe a sentence upon them Cyprian interposeth and upon it causa audita perceperunt propositi eas tantisper sic esse to remain in the state they were Donec Episcopus constituatur untill the Bishop should be appointed Here again we see the verdict suspended till there were a Bishop intimating that the prime power of jurisdiction and censure was in him and that without him it might not be lawfully laid on Nor do I see what can be answered to these two fathers Hitherto
I have kept my self within the bounds of the Scriptures and out of them clearly demonstrated as I suppose that the first government of the Church was Aristocratical It was in the Apostles and the Bishops which they setled with their Presbyteries Now should I descend lower and shew the practice of the Church especially for the first three hundred years I should fill a volume here I could tell you of those famous Presbyteries of Alexandria in which Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Euseb lib. 6. Euseb l. 6. c. 43. Cypr. lib. 3. Ep. 6.10 14 17 18 19 21 22 24. Pantenus Hieroclas were the Presbyters of Rome in which under Cornelius and Stephen there were forty six Presbyters with many other Officers Of Carthage in which under Cyprian as appeares in many of his Epistles which he writ to them in his exile there were many Presbyters Of Smyrna Antioch Philippi Magnesia Trullis and Ephesus all whose Presbyteries are remembred by Ignatius in the Epistles he writ to those Churches This is so clear that it is written as it were with a Sunne beam and it were ignorance and impudence to deny it To which if those who so hotly contend for their Presbytery would adde but these two things which are as evident in Records as is the Presbytery it self First that none of these Presbyters were Lay-Elders and secondly that after the Apostles dayes there never was any Presbytery without a Bishop the contest were at an end One thing onely more I shall adde about these Presbyteries that they never were erected but in the greater Cities where the Patriarch Primate Metropolitane or Diocesan Bishop had their seats pardon me if I speak in the language of those Ancient times and therefore to distinguish them from the Presbyters dispersed in the lesse Villages and Towns Conc. Ancyr Can. 13. Can. Apollon Can. 37. they were call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Presbyters of the City or Metropolis and their institution was to help the Bishop in sacred actions and to advise him in all judicial and Ecclesiastical proceedings In ordination what they were to do 4. Concil Carthag cap. 3. is set out by the fourth Council of Carthage cap. 3. Presbyter cum ordinatur Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenete etiam omnis Presbyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius teneant 1. Concil Arel Can. 19. Apollon Canon Can 35. Concil Antioch Can. 9. A custome which was continued in our Church And for their jurisdiction that was limited by another Canon Presbyteri sine consensu Episcoporum nihil faciant The Ancyran Councel was before the Nicene and that of Arles under Constantine So ancient were these provisions about the Presbyters and their power But methinks it were worth enquiry how these Presbyteries that so long continued in the Church became in difuse for I will not say they were ever abolish'd in that I finde them in many Churches after the three hundredth year of Christ I shall deliver what I conceive to be most probable and I conjecture these to be the causes of it 1. Upon the general prevailing of Christianity Synods began to assemble and the Pastours of divers Churches in these meetings conferr'd and agreed upon such rules as they thought needful to be observed in all their Churches which they committed to the over-sight of the Bishops in their Diocesses and in case they were negligent the especial supervision and execution was laid upon the Metropolitane and if he were slack in doing what was enjoyn'd an appeal was permitted to the Patriarch This was the first occasion that gave Presbyteries leave to play by reason provincial Synods undertook the debating and resolving those doubts and ordered those difficulties which before troubled the Presbyteries And reason it was that the consultation and determination of Synods should be preferred before that of Presbyteries as Courts of greater Judgment higher power better experience and more indifferency 2. Another reason may be that when Emperours became Christian all those civil cases betwixt man and man which were to avoid the scandal that might arise by Law-suits among Christians if tryed under Heathen Judges debated and ended in these Presbyteries fell to be decided and adjudged in the Imperial Courts and men had reason to repair to that seat of justice which had a sword and power compulsory to force obstinatemen to do right to any injur'd party which the Church Court had not When the causes grew lesse the lesse respect was had to the Court and now the Presbytery having less to do weakned mouldred away by little and little of themselves 3. And yet I shall venture at a third reason Upon the great peace which the Church enjoy'd with the priviledges immunities and ample endowments granted by Christian Emperours Magnificent Temples and goodly fabriques were erected for the publick service of God some there were before but not so many nor yet so beautiful These commonly were built where the Bishops had their Seas and were therefore after call'd Cathedral Churches In them the Bishop at first with his Presbyters of the City made his residence and to his Court there kept the greater matters of the whole Diocesse or Province referr'd Found it was that in this Presbytery it was too easie a matter for the Bishop to bear so great a sway that matters were ended often as the man was by him friended The dignities in that Church were in his donation the dignified were his creatures were subject to him and many wayes might be displeased by him if he would seek revenge This being perceived brought a great neglect and contempt upon the Presbyters And the Bishop taking his advantage thereby made use of his power more than was fit And if you shall say that by this dore corruption entred into the Church I shall not deny it But then I shall rejoyn that it was not the institution not in that the Church became Cathedral Diocesan or Provincial not in that it was govern'd either by a Bishop a Metropolitane a Primate or a Patriarch with a Presbytery and so was Aristocratical but in that this just and regulated power was ill used It was not the constitution of the Church that was corrupt but the Church-men and then lay the load upon the right horse and fly not violently in the face of your Mother Cant. 6.4 For the constitution was holy good and wise God himself in the Canticles gives this testimony of his Church that she is terrible as an Army with Banners if an Army then she must be ordinata and the order in an Army is that there be a General a Major General Collonels Captains and Under-Officers Wisdome then taught the Church to order her self and yet she sate up no other orders then God had appointed viz. Bishops and Presbyters Deacons these onely she prudently marshall'd some she thought good to place in
5. That these Presbyters teaching and ruling Elders must be of the professing members own voluntary Election and regular Ordination 6. That their Office-extent reacheth from Christs ascension to the Creations dissolution This is granted in a right sense 7. And for all this you bring your proofs out of the Scripture Acts 6.5 Acts 14.23 c. This is the Analysis of the whole and I descend to examine it by the parts and shall open the Scriptures as I conceive they referre to the proposition Proposition 1. That the Church of the last and longest constitution was a Presbyterial or Combinational Church THat the Church you meane viz. the Church of Christ is to be last is easily granted but whether to be the longest or no is more than you or I or any man else can tell But to let this passe Hic opus est Oedipo for I conceive not well the sense of your proposition because you phrase it Presbyterial or Combinational since these two by the contending parties are made Disparata and then must really differ I know not therefore what to make of this Or whether it be here a Divisive or an Explanative particle If you make it Divisive then it seemes not to agree with your following words for you know that those of the Presbyterial Church though they will allow your professing members liberty to elect yet they stoutly and with open mouth decry their power to Ordaine and you allow the Church you speak of to do both If you make Or Expositive then it can but onely declare the sense of the former word Presbyterial and will be farre from your intent which is if I mistake not that all the professing members of a Church be combined in a Church Covenant which you know the Presbyterial Church will never admit For although Presbyters can be content to be in their own sense Covenanters yet they abominate to be in a Church-Combination and again though the Church combiners will joyne in a Church Covenant yet they will not yield to be Presbyterial Covenanters These Disparata then are not hansomely coupled in this place neither can I guesse at any other intent you have in it except it be to Umpire betwixt the two parties by finding out a Church that should be both Presbyterial and Combinational which hitherto the heat of zeale would never suffer the learnedest of both sides to do For the Presbyterians condemne your Combination by a Church Covenant as a Chimera a fancy a novelty a meere humane invention contrary to Christs Ordinance and destructive of all Church power And the Combiners on the other side judge as harshly of the Presbyterian Elderships in the whole reformed Churches as of the Prelacy nay and worse too if Bastwicks words be true which he hath in the Postscript of his second part page 6. viz. The Presbyterial government not suiting with the humour of the Independents they abhorre it and all such as endeavour to establish it and wish rather that the old trumpery were brought in again and professe they had rather have the government of Prelates That which follows I forbear that I offend not Thus Bastwick which if true 't is not possible that a Presbyterial and a Combinational Church should be all one as you seeme to make it And therefore you must forgo one of the termes and make it onely Presbyterial or onely Combinational if you will speak intelligibly in this question But I shall make the best sense I can of your words and in order speak to them both And first of the Presbyterial Church which you call also Combinational upon what ground I know not for I meet with neither of these Epithets fixed to the Church of Christ in the Scriptures nor in any antiquity The first of these is new and and the second naught for I never read of a Combination in a good sense Why can we not speak as good Christians have done before us and call it the Christian Catholick and Apostolical Church but must please our fancies with these new termes of Presbyterial or Combinational Act. 20.28 c. Col. 1.24 and 13. Act. 11.26 Ephes 2.20 I often read in the Scriptures of the Church of God and that this Church is the Body of Christ the kingdom of Christ to whom because it was united by faith it was called Christian And that this Church was built upon the foundation of the Prophets Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone Whence it was called Apostolike And again that this Church is Totum integrale Ames medulla lib. 1. c. 31. Sect 19. of which the parts quae totum integrant are all several and particular Churches diffused in all Nations in all places at all times whence it was called Catholick But of a Presbyterial or Combinational Church I hear not Good Sir consider how harsh it sounds to stile Christs Church the Presbyters Church and the number of the Professors that are united by faith to Christ to be combined in I know not what But now I shall take into consideration these termes severally and first I will begin with the last 1. A Combinational Church The first Author whom I meet with it is Amesius and he defines it to be Parochialis vel unius congregationis cujus membra inter se Combinantur lib. 1. c. 39. Sect 22. cap. 2. Sect. 4. there 's your word ordinarie conveniant in uno loco ad publicum religionis exercitium This your Synod at Cambridge in New England chose rather to call Congregational for the word Independent they like not though I see no cause of dislike if the particular Congregations must not depend one of another but remaine in full liberty as Ames delivers in the same chapter Sect. 20. 26 27. And thus you there define this Congregational Church to be a company of Saints by calling united into one body by a holy Covenant for the publick worship of God But I pray you tell me what needs this combination by a second Covenant would not the first in Baptisme have served if heeded and kept to have done all this and it seemed it did by the very text your Synod produces to prove it Acts 2.42 For the Penitents and beleevers pricked to the heart by Peters sermon gladly received the word and were baptized and continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayer c. where we read of their Baptisme and continuance in Church-fellowship and in the duty of that fellowship but that this is done by a combination a confederation or holy Covenant a Vow other than that made in their Baptisme we read not 2. And indeed it needs not for what is it that Professors can binde themselves unto by Covenant when they are admitted into the Congregation that they have not in their Baptisme bound themselves to before Whether you shall consider the Mystery the Form or the end 1. In Baptisme for the
Mystery there is an Indument and a stripping Rom. 13.14 Gal. 3.27 which the ancient Church reduced to two words Credo Abrenuncio In the first there is the putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ For as many as are baptized have put on Christ First as Lord acknowledging no other Master whose voice to hear whose doctrine to rely upon but onely his Secondly as Jesus assuring themselves that there is no other Name given under heaven whereby they may be saved Thirdly As Christ as well their anointed King submitting themselves to his will giving their names in to fight under his banner and swearing themselves his subjects As also their anointed Priest resting in his one sacrifice as the onely sufficient in his sole intercession as the onely powerful Secondly In the Abrenuncio or stripping part they renounce and forsake the Devil Gal. 5.20 and all his works the pompes and vanities of the wicked world the sinful lusts of the flesh among which are all Heresies and Schismes 2. For the forme it is by our Saviour appointed in the name of the three persons of the indivisible Trinity and so it is performed neither of Cephas the sirnamed Rock nor of Paul a great Apostle Mat. 28.19 1 Cor. 1.13 The reason wherof you may read in my exposition of the Church Catechisme page 172 173. 3. For the end they which are baptized are thereby made the sonnes of God by Adoption and Grace invested with an inheritance everlasting Gal. 3.26 Rev. 1.5 Mal. 1.11 Rom. 12.1 Col. 3.5 made Priests to God to offer and slay To offer that mundâ—m oblationem pure offering or living sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is their reasonable service viz. the cleane and unbloody sacrifice of prayers and thanksgiving and then to slay themselves mortifying their affections and lusts Yea but men may be minded of all this by a new Covenant and upon a second engagement made more watchful to keep their first vow Be it so for this also the Church had provided without this separating combination when she ordained that all baptized children when they could say their Catechism should be brought to the Bishop to be Confirmed which order were it in use and restored to its original purity the wrangle about the formality of a Church Covenant and collecting of members might be quieted and composed There being in Confirmation the substance of what is so much and so hotly contended for and that farre better grounded and bottomed than any new device can be as I shew you in my Catechisme page 6. Thirdly This Elogy you give to your Combinational Church that it is their opinion and practice quietly and cordially to subject their earthy erring and unruly wit to the heavenly infallible and uncontrolable will of Christ That so it should be I confesse and desire but how it is we see and feele ever since the Combination But what now is this but an opinion and onely commendable I thought it had been necessary de fide that it must be so and could not be otherwise For Opino is eutis vel non eâ—tis You shall have it in Amesius words Assensus ille qui praebetur veritati contingenti propter rationem pracipuè probabilem ab intellectu apprehensam Medulla 1. Thes de fidei divina unitate opinio vocatur The truth must be contingent and probable onely of which a man retaines an opinion it may be it may not be if no other reason can be produced for it but a Topical But that all men must subject their earthy will to the heavenly Will of Christ is so certain that it cannot be denyed by any good Christian Hereafter let it passe then for necessary and let it be a principle of faith which is more than opinion 2. But you go on and say This hath been the commendable practice of your Combinational Church But here you must give me leave to think for if I would say what I know I should fetch blood and perhaps pay for it too Your Combination was for the worship of God and that cultus naturalis institutus Amesius so divides it the principles of the first are faith hope charity the acts hearing of the Word and Prayer under which is an Oath Of the last Gods prescribed Will or his Word This is the Rule but what 's become of the practice I will not meddle with your faith which yet you know in many of your Combinational Churches is not sound nor in the Socinians nor Antimonians nor in the Brownists Familists nor the Anabaptists nor the Quakers nor the Singers These you le say are not of you but are gone out from you yet you cannot deny that these are Combinational Churches The practice then of all the Combinational Churches is not commendable in Gods worship in this respect Your hope may be great but I fear it may be presumption when the foundation of faith upon which it should be built is so uncertain and tottering As for the charity of your party in general I finde it dying rather â—uite dead charity teacheth a man to love his neighbour as himself charity to be just and to do to all men as he would all men do to him Amongst your Combinational Churches what 's become of this charity this justice Religiously observant a man may find divers of you of three of the Commandments of the first Table but of the third your practice shews you make little accompt and as for the second Table he who shall lay to heart your actions must needs conceive that you esteeme it but for a cypher I will no farther rake into this wound I wish you had not given me occaâ— on to do it when you affirmed that it was the commendable practice of your Combinational Church to subject their earthy erring and unruly will quietly and cordially to the heavenly infallible and uncontrolable will of Christ to which I finde their practice so contrary I pray presse me not for instances for I am resolved not to give theâ— you but if you are desirous to be satisfied of the opinions and practice of the Combinational Church I aime at be pleased to reade a book written by Robert Baily a Scot entitled A Disswasive from the Errours of the times Printed in London 1645. and published by Authority Where he makes a large Narrative of the opinions and practices of your Churches in New-England and whether he sayes true or no you can best judge because you were upon the place If true all is not gold that glisters 2 A Presbyterial Church THis is your other Epithet and I suppose you mean by it a Church to be governed by Presbyters The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is equivocal and therefore till it be distinguished nothing can be concluded from it 1. Presbyter in the Old Testament properly belongs to the Elders of the people either in a common notion or as members of the Sanhedrim not any body or persons peculiarly
electus superponeretur caeteris Rev. 2. 3. 1. It is Unus it is One not many that the care of the Church might especially belong to one Christ directs his message to the Angel individually of such or such a Church 2. He must be Electus of whom Hierome saith not of that more anon but I dare say considering the time of which Hierome speaks it was not without the consent of the Apostles if not by them 3. Note out of whom he was to be elected it was de Presbyteris and I shall prove unto you after that they were no Lay-men 4. Ut superponerentur caeteris He was to be super over the rest whether Clergy or Laity and that not onely in preheminence honour and dignity but in power of jurisdiction also for otherwise how could the end be obtained here aimed at how could Schisme be restrained and removed Thus far you see what makes for me and now I shall clear up what seemingly makes against me in this testimony 1. The fiâ—st words seeme against me For Hierome saith Idem est Presbyter quod Episcopus But he can meane no more than that the Bishop is sometimes called a Presbyter The Names then may be common that 's true but not the Office Now the Office consists in Ordination and Jurisdiction as I shall by and by make appear That Presbyter and Episcopus was Idem ordinatione and consequenly in Office Jerome could not meane except he should contradict himself Hieron ad Evagium Ordination he reserves to a Bishop and debarres a Presbyter from it Quid facit Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat exceptâ ordinatione Mark the mood is potential He may not do it He may not meddle with Ordination for that sure belongs to the Bishop in his own judgment In this power then the Identity lies not 2. He must then meane in Jurisdiction and that this is his meaning is apparent by those words Communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur which your side catch at too as making for the present Ruling Presbytery as indeed at the first sight they may but throughly lookt into nothing at all I will shew you where the mistake lies First in the word Presbytery for yours apply it to the whole Presbytery Lay and Clergy whereas Hierom as is manifest speaks onely of the Ecclesiastique for it is of the Presbytery that was before or when those Schismes reigned Secondly he saith gubernabantur in imperfecto and when was that in the Apostles dayes for then in a Church that had a Presbytery without a Bishop put case at Corinth or had a Presbytery with a Bishop over them as at Jerusalem Antioch Alexandria Ephesus it is most true Communi Presbyterorum consilio gubernabantur the Presbyters were admitted in partem sâ—llicitudinis It cannot be denied that the Apostles ordaining these Presbyters had power in themselves and might have governed durante vita alone retaining the power when then they gave any power to others it was deligated for I hope they lost none of their power in giving Orders Whence it will follow that the Presbyters when admitted in some acts of Jurisdiction with the Apostles cannot challenge a right of governing affixed to their Order qua Presbyteri because they did assist in subordination and dependencie That the Apostles assumed these Presbyters in acts deliberative and consiliary to assist first at Jerusalem Acts 15. was a meer voluntary act from which example that it was derived to other Churches will not be denied and hence the last clause of Jeromes words will be most clear Noverint episcopi se magis consuetudine Ecclesiae quam Dominicae dispositionis veritate Presbyteris esse majores in communi debere Ecclesiam regere For by the Commission Sicut misit me Pater given to the Apostles and in them to their successors onely they could not challenge it It may well proceeding from the voluntary act of the Apostles be called an Apostolical Tradition and Ordinance but in strict termes Dominica it was not nor Dominicae dispositionis veritas according to Jerome 2. But if this sense of Jeromes words like you not I shall yet offer you another At first as I said the Presbyters by delegation from the Apostles with common advice and equal care guided the Church under the Apostles but after Bishops were appointed the whole care by little and little was derived to one and so at last by custome Presbyters were utterly excluded from all advice and counsel and Bishops onely intermedled with the regiment of the Church This indeed grew onely by continuance of time and not by any Ordinance of Christ or his Apostles this Jerome dislik'd and to that purpose he fixes his Noverint Episcopi c. And that this is likeliest to be Jeromes meaning in that place his following words shew Imitantes Moysen qui cum haberet in potestate solus praesse populo Israel 70. elegit cum quibus populum judicaret The Bishops then ought to do as Moses did What to have Governours equal No but when they might rule alone to joyne with them others in the fellowship of their power and honour as Moses did Moses did not abrogate his superiority above others but took seventy Elders into part of his charge So Jerome would have them And thus much the King was content to grant and restore as you may read in his book cap. 17. about the middle I saith he am not against the managing of this precedencie and authority in one man by the joynt councel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore it c. You see of what Presbyters I am content the prescribed Ministery shall consist and what Presbytrry I shall allow you 2. Or Teaching and Ruling Elders HEre again your words are dark For if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elders you meane those in Orders I shall readily admit them to the Church ministry whether Teaching or Ruling But if you intend under these words to introduce into the Ministry either to teach or rule men that are not of the Clergy so you know we speak and so I must speak for distinction sake for else I cannot be understood in this question I absolutely deny it For there was never any Lay-man ex Officio admitted to teach ordinarily in Scripture called and sent he must be before he did undertake to preach So the Apostle intimates Rom. 10.15 How shall they preach except they be sent If any be gifted I shall allow him ex debito charitatis privately and charitably to make use of his talent to exhort to reprove to admonish but publikely to divide the Word of God and to teach I may not admit him For as a man must have inward endowments gifts and sufficiencie so he must have an outward calling before I shall call him a Teacher in the Church of God And I hear you are not against me in this 2. But about a Ruling Elder I fear you and I shall
to practice what you declaime I must professe I understand nothing But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I conceive what you may answer but I will not now reply to it 2. The other part of your Proposition is that these Presbyters and Ruling Elders be of the Professing Members Regular Ordination THat the Presbyters and Ruling Elders in the sense above given of them have a Regular Ordination is necessary but that they shall have this Ordination from or by the Professing Members I cannot yield That Ordination is an act of the Keys I suppose is an axiome that will be granted on all hands For otherwise your Professing Members can have no right to Ordain who make their claim to it because they are subjectum clavium Rutherfords plea for Presbytery Sect. 6. But that they are not so Rutherford and Bâ—res demonstrate whence it will necessarily follow that they cannot ordain Presbyters and Ruling Elders Before he proves the minor he thus distinguisheth The power of the Keys is given to the Church of believers two wayes First As to the end and object and thus we acknowledge the Keys may be given to the whole Church because it is the object upon which the power of the Keys is to be exercised for what have we to do to judge those that are without and then it was the end why Christ gave the Keys 1 Cor. 5. he gave some to be Apostles c. for the perfecting of the Saints c. Secondly The Keys may be said to be given to them who are the subject Ephes 4. that is to such in whom the power doth rest to use them and who have authority to weild them and in this sense the beleevers in the whole body is not the formal subject of the Keys neither may they authoritatively use them And this is demonstratively thus prov'd For that which is primum proprium subjectum cum suo accident reciprocatur The attribute agrees to it primò Rutherford p. 12. per se adaequatè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as rationale or risibile agrees to man all these wayes so that a man onely is the first and adequate subject of reason or laughter and consequently every individual man reasonable and risible To apply this to my purpose if the body of any visible Congregation be the adequate and proper subject of the Keys the power must of right belong to every individual of that Congregation so that every one hath a power to use them women young men and all for quod competit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 competit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but such a power I dare say you will not put into women and childrens hands Then you must not make the whole Church the subject of the Keys but that some Professing Members have the keys in their hands and that these onely have power to ordain Now let us enquire who these Ordainers must be You say your Presbyters and if I mistake not ruling Elders We say Bishops Austin in Psal 22. or at least Bishops with their Presbytery As Augustine said excellently in another case so say I in this Fratres sumus quarè litigamus non intestatus mortuus est pater fecit testamentum mortuus est tamâ—iu contenditur de haereditate mortuorum quamdiu testamentum profetatur in publicum cum testamentum prolatum fuerit in publicum tacent omnes ut tabulae aperiantur recitentur judex intentus audit advocati silent praecones silentium faciunt universus populus suspensus est ut legantur verba mortui non sentientis in monumento Iâ—c sine sensu jacet in monumento valent verba ejus Sedet Christus in caelo contradicitur ejus testamento Aperi legamus fratres sumus quare contendimus pl cetur amicus noster non sine testamento nos dimisit pater And for this Will the search will not be long nor the trouble much 't is extant John 20.21 As my Father sent me so send I you and presently he enstates them in the power of the Keyes Whose sinnes you remit they are remitteâ— c. John 20.23 Matth. 28.20 And this power was to be perpetual to remain and continue till his second coming for these are his last words Lo I am with you alway unto the end of the world With them personally he could not be for the Apostles are dead this promise then must be made good to them and their Successours They then questionlesse had the Keyes which consisted in Jurisdiction and Ordâ—nation of which I am now to speak And out of our Fathers testament I shall shew you how they used it Act. 8.14 17. Peter and John were sent down by the Apostles from Jerusalem to Samaria to lay their hands on them that should receive the Holy Ghost Philip preach'd and baptizd but he could not give the graces of the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands to make fit Pastours and Teachers for the work of the Ministry The like we finde of Paul and Barnabas in the fore-cited place Acts 14.23 who visited the Churches where they had preached and supplyed them with Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wh re it were absurd to say that this was done by lifting up of the hands of the people since it was the work of Paul and Barnabas alone And by the way Act. 10.41 though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth sometimes signifie extensio manuum yet alwayes it doth not so for Acts 10.41 we thus read That God shewed Christ openly after he was raised not tâ— all the people but unto Witnesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordain'd by God and I could shew you that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a hundred places of the Greek fatheâ—s and Councils But to let this passe I go on 2 Tim. 1.6 Tit. 1.5 Timothy was ordain'd by Saint Paul 2 Tim. 1.6 and Titus by him left in Crete to Ordaâ—n and therefore Ordain'd himself For nihil dat quod non habet All these Ordinations we finde in the Scriptures by the Apostles themselves 2. Now if you shall demand by whom these Ordinations were perform'd afterwards I shall answer you by their successours Yea but who were they I answer that it being a matter of fact and story later than the Scripture can reach to it cannot be fully satisfied or answered from thence any further than the persons of Timothy and Titus Epaphroditus c. and the several Angels of the seven Churches who by all the Ancients are acknowledged to be single persons that had power over all other in those Churches but will in the full latitude through the universal Church in those times be made clear by the next and best evidences we have viz. From the consent of the Greek and Latine fathers who generally resolve that Bishops were those Successours So writes Clemens Ignatius Iraeneus Tertullian Cyprian Theodoret Hilary Chrysostome who not Whose Testimonies shall be produced with a wet finger
And one part of their Offices in the Church was to Ordain This is manifest first in Timothy in the Church of Ephesus Acts 20. There were many Presbyters before Timothy was appointed their Bishop yet Saint Paul sent him of purpose to impose hands 1 Tim. 5.22 and say it was with the Presbytery yet it can never be proved that any of that Colledge was no more than a Professing Member You know how strongly all the Presbyterians pleade for the contrary and was this injunction onely personal and to end with Timothies life 1 Tim. 6.13 14 Not so neither For this charge he layes upon him in fearful words I charge thee in the fight of God who quickeneth all things and before Jesus Christ who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession that thou keep this Commandment without spot unrebukable till the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ 'T is agreed by all that Saint Paul in this Epistle especially sets an order for the Government of the Church 1 Tim. 5.22 among which that a Bishop lay not hands hastily upon any man is one This then was not Temporary but to last till the end of the world That they were to Ordaine is every whit as plaine in Titus for for that intent he was left in Crete Neither would the Church succeeding admit of any other but Bishops to that businesse for one thousand five hundred years Tit. 1.5 as I will prove unto you if you require it by unpregnable records Two evidences there are of it beyond exception First the condemning Aërius as an Heretique for opposing Episcopal power Secondly that if any one of an inferiour rank presumed to ordaine his act was reversed by the Church as unlawful and the ordained admitted no otherwise to the Communion than as a Lay-man As it befel Ischyras and those who were ordained by Maximus and another blind Bishop Athanas apol 2 Greg. Presb. in vita Nanz. Conc. Constant 2. cap. 4. Conc. Hisp 2. cap. 5. 7. and others in the Church story I beseech you now if you little regard the Fathers and Councils yet view the Scriptures with an unpartial eye and then if the Commission our Saviour gave his Apostles or the Apostles to their successors if the practice of the Apostles themselves or Apostolical men can any whit move consider whether the Presbyters or Ruling members ought to be of the professing members regular ordination Make it plaine that the power of the Keys is subjectivè formalitèr inhaesivè authoritativè in them and I yield you the whole cause Your sixth Proposition that their Office extent understanding by that the Ministry which Christ ordained in his Church must reach from Christs Ascention to the Creations dissolution I easily grant I shall therefore say nothing to that but come to examine your proofs out of Scripture And here I could have wished that you had applyed every text to that part of the Proposition you intended it For it had beene farre easier for me to have judged of the validity of it and more readily have shaped my answer whereas now I can but rove at it and therefore if I mistake you must thank your self The texts alleadged Acts 6.5 14.23 I suppose you referre these to the first part of the fifth proposition for election by Church-members and I have answered them already and shall therefore spare my labour The other if I be not mistaken are to prove your Teaching and Ruling Elders Rom. 12.7 8. 1 Cor. 12.8.28 Ephes 4.7.14 Rev. 4.6 5.6 19 4. But among these I finde not one text to prove your Presbyterial or Combinational Church nor your regular Ordination by professing members The Text then out of the Romans Corinthians Ephesians and the Revelations I am to examine and see how they will conclude what you intend Rom. 12.7 8. Or ministery let us wait on our ministery or he that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation he that giveth let him do it with simplicity he that sheweth mercy with chearfulnesse The words are Elliptical and therefore must be supplied from the former verses The Apostle being to deliver divers precepts first gives a signification of his power verse 3. Then he prescribes in general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To every one God as he pleaseth gives a measure of his gifts and therefore no man ought to arrogate to himself more than he ought for this were absurd as if in the body one part should assume and usurp the faculties of another for to that purpose he makes use of that comparison of a natural body vers 4 5. As then the parts of the natural body have their proper endowments so also have the several members of Christs several graces bestowed on them by God and these gifts must be employed for the benefit of the whole and the parts he thus infers verse 6. Having then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 freely and graciously bestowed he shewes how we must bestow them And then he reckons up these gifts these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First prophesie Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministery 3. Ability to teach 4. A faculty to exhort or comfort 5. A heart and power to give 6 Wisdome to govern 7. Bowels of mercie These are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Gratuito's those talents we have received from our Lord and they must be laid out for his honour for our brethrens good This I conceive to be the prime intention of the Apostle in this place for he expressely names gifts and not men But because these gifts must upon necessity be exercised by men therefore he intimates on whom they are bestowed more peculiarly not all gifts to one man neither is one man by God sitted alwayes for all gifts One man he calls to be a Prophet and gives him a gift to foretel things to come or to interpret the Scriptures let him then interpret according to the Analogy of faith not adde nor diminish nor alter at his pleasure To another he hath given a gift to teach let him aptly and in easie plaine intelligible words explaine the will of God and teach them he ought To a third he hath given an admirable faculty to stir up and move another to the actions of piety or else to be a Barnabas a sonne of consolation in raising and comforting an afflicted and oppressed soul let him use this exhortation exhibit this comfort as occasion is required To a fourth God hath been graciou and gifted him with wealth and riches of these he is to impart a portion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingenuously liberally freely simply without any doubting either in respect of persons or a regard to his own profit Upon another is bestowed a gift by which he s made a fit man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 10.17 to be over others you know that God took of Moses spirit and put it on the seventy Elders and he that hath this gift must use it with diligence
more eminent degree Will you then ask me what are Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs I readily answer gradus in Episcopatu all set in the chief places of the Army for the safe guard of the whole and for the better advantage to fight against the enemy Yea but who set them there Prudence and 't is nere the more to be disliked for that it was prudentially done for I must tell you that prudence is to bear a great sway in Church-Discipline The substance it may not alter neither hath it but in the circumstantials it hath a power and if Saints Pauls rule be observed 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done decently and in order all 's well What more decent among Church-governours then that some be superiours some subordinate how can order be better observed then making the Church like an Army Even among the twelve were there not chief Apostles They were all equal Apostolatu all equal in power yet some priority and precedency might be among them For Peter James and John are call'd Pâ—llars Gal. 2. Chrysost in loc Victor Antioch in Mar. cap. 9. Hieron ad Evagr Cyprian de simplicitate Praelatorum hi tres tanquam Coriphaei prÃmas inter Apostolos obtinebant Thus is it with their Successours the Bishops they are all pares potestate in the power he at Eugubium is as great as he at Rome he at Tanais equal with him of Alexandria for he is ejusdem meriti ejusdem sacerdotii that rule of Cyprian being undoubtedly true Episcopatus unus est cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur But yet for all this one Bishop may be set in a higher degree then another and one set over another and I shall make little doubt to make m words good out of the Scriptures for what was Titus and Timothy were they not more than ordinary Bishops Titus had the charge over the whole Isle of Crete Miraeus lib. 4. de Notitia Episc pag. 181. Chrysost Hâ—m 1. in Titum in which there were seven Bishops besides This was Pauls companion saith Chrysostome that was approved otherwise Paul would not have committed unto him all whole Island and the trial and judgment of so many Bishops To Timothy if we beleeve Theodoret and other Ancients was committed all Asia the lesse in which were questionlesse instituted by the Apostles many Bishops Of the last example there may be some scruple of the first there can be no doubt to any one that lists not to be contentious but the Ancient evident and constant course in the Primitive Church to admit of these degrees in Episcopacy and to have Primates and Metropolitanes for the calling and guiding of Synods in every Province is to me a pregnant proof that this order was either delivered or allowed by the Apostles and their Scholars oâ— found so needful in the first government of the Church that the whole Christian world till some of late fell from it ever since received and continued the same If you suppose it came from Rome you are much mistaken for it bore sway in all the Eastern Churches before the Romane Bishop was of any great note power or reputation or at least had any more precedency then any of the Eastern Patriarchs Socrates relates that the first Councel of Constantinople 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordain'd Patriarchs Socrat. lib. 5.8 may be the title was then given to those who were onely call'd Primates or Metropolitans before and bounds set to their jurisdictions which any man will judge that considerately reads that place in Socrates The truth is this The name of Patriarch I finde taken in a double sense largely or strictly Largely for a Primate of any Province that was under the chief Patriarch and so there are manâ— at this day Brexwoods enquiry of Religion and Languages as the Abannah the Patriarch of the Aethiopians or the Primate of Mosco who is the Patriarch of all Christians under the Muscovites Empire The Primates of Sic and Sebasha who are the Patriarchs of the Armenians The Primate of the Jacobites who hath his Patriarchal Church in the Monastery of Saphran near the City Merdin in Mesopotamiâ— The Primate of the Maronites who resides in Mount Libanuâ— The Patriarch of the Nestorians who hath his residence in Muzal or Mosal I could give in a list of many more of this kinde as well in Europe as in the Eastern Churches by which it appears that in a large sense the Prime Bishops set over one or more Provinces may be called Patriarchs Spalat lib. 3. c. 10. Sect. 43.44 And it is the judgment of a learned but unhappy man that were there more of this kinde erected in Europe who should have no dependence on Rome that it would be a ready way to restore peace and unity to the distracted Church and to shut out the confusion we groan under All which are under one or other of those Patriarchs of the Church as their jurisdictions were limited in the fiâ—st erection for that is the strict acception of the word 2. And three they were onely at first The fiâ—st at Rome the second at Alexandria the third at Antioch the first had the power in Europe and in the West the second in Africa and in the South the third in Asia and over the East Neither were their seats there placed as Baronius would perswade us because that the Apostles founded those Churches for were this reason good we should have more Patriarchates than these three there being more Churches planted by the Apostles than these neither were all the Churches they founded Patriarchates Hegesipp de excid Urb. Hieros lib. 3. c. 5. not Corinth not Ephesius not Philippi Smyrna the reason then is that which Hegesippus the younger hath given because these three Cities were the three Metropolies of the Empire and so the Church in the institution for the seats of their Patriarchs followed the secular power of the Roman Empire The dignity of the Cities gave them the dignity and priority of their Seas And it should seeme the erection of these three was very ancient in that when the Alexandrian Patriarch began to incroach upon his neighbours Concil Nic. can 6. the Nicene Council made this Decree Mos antiquus perduret in Aegypto Lybia Pentapoli ut Alexandrinus Episcopus horum omnium habeat potestatem quoniam quidem Episcopo Romano parilis mos est similitèr autem apud Antiochiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Canon it seemes even then 't was an old custome and the Council of Antioch in the like case though it names not the Churches Concil Antioch c. 9. yet provides to secure the rights 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 secundum antiquam consuetudinem à patribus nostris constitutam And again upon the unjust claime of the Patriarchs of Antioch over the Bishops of Cyprus the Ephesine Council decreed ut singulis provinciis pura inviolata manerent quae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Combinational was not in the erection of either because the combinational never was before either What was it precedent to Saint James his Cathedra in Jerusalem I marvail when it should begin His was then set up before the Apostles departed to preach to the whole world and under him it is not possible to conceive the Church could be Combinational Acts 1. 2. Acts 4.41 Acts 4.4 Acts 5.14 Acts 6.1 for upon necessity in that Church at that time there must be more than one Congregation for from 120. to 3120. to these were added 5000. which makes 8120. and yet more multitudes of men and women were added and still the number of disciples were multiplied And out of doubt the increase staid not here God adding to the Church dayly such as should be saved That so many thousands should meet together in any house to performe their Christian duties was impossible they must be divided into several Congregations Had these been Combinational then Saint James had been by the Apostles made Bishop of Jerusalem to little purpose for he could nor must not have taken the over-sight but of one of them the rest had been out of his jurisdiction which I suppose no wise man will ever think since the Apostles no question had the same charity and would have the same care of the rest as of that one and then would have set up as many chaires as there had been Congregations But of such we hear not of this one we do which is a sufficient evidence to me that all the Christians of that City at least if not of all Palestine were under his jurisdiction and subject to his Cathedra Out of which it will necessarily follow That the Cathedral Church was the prime institution not the Combinational and that therefore the Combinational Churches corruption was not the Cathedrals generation but rather the contrary which we have lived to see that the Combinationals generation is the Cathedrals corruption And what I have said in particular of the Church of Jerusalem is as true of all other Churches the Apostles planted and in others planted by their patterne Antioch Corinth Atheus Rome c. for the same reason holds in all these Cities where the multitudes of beleevers grew so numerous one Congregation could not hold them I aske now had the Apostles put case Peter or Paul there present had they jurisdiction over them all or had they not If they had then the Combination and Independency of Churches is at an end in the Primitive Church If they had not I wonder they should stay for divers years in one place having no more to do than to supervise one single Congregation besides that then there must be as many as there were Pastours in those Churches of equal power in their several Churches with the Apostles which he that can beleeve may digest any thing Ephesus was a great City Rev. 2.3 and had in it those who took upon them to say they were Apostles the Angel be it Bishop or Colledge of Presbyters is commended for trying them and finding them lyers if they were not of his own Congregation what had the Angel to do to try them if your Tenet be true he deserves no commendation at all but rather reproof for being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But that they were is more than ever you can prove I am apt to beleeve that if it had been so the Epistle had not been directed to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus but to the Angel of such or such a Congregation in Ephesus Verse 24. And the like may be said of the Churches of Pergamos and Thyatyra Verse 18. the last being reproved for suffering the woman Jezabel calling her self a Prophetesse to teach and seduce For if the Angel had not power over all the Congregations of that City say that this Jezabel had taught in another Combinational Church which is very possible and not in his the answer had been easie Jezabel is out of my reach out of my jurisdiction and therefore you have nothing against me for her misdemeanour This that I have said destroyes clearly the subject of your Proposition the Combinational Church and that being gone what you affirme of it will fall of it self I shall therefore hereafter desire you to lay your foundation deeper before you go about to build or to speak more properly to destroy any thing upon such a groundlesse supposition which you and I have reason to suspect were it onely but for this that all the Churches of the Christian world East West North South for these 1600 years and more have been of another constitution Were it Rome alone I should suspect but when all are otherwise none Combinational no not those who scarce ever heard of Rome and all Cathedral I cannot be perswaded that the love of Christ hath been so cold to his Catholique Church to suffer this Cathedral corruption as you call it so long so universally to over-spread her face It seemes to me contrary to his promise behold I am with you to the end of the world And so I end what I had to say to this Proposition I now come to the next in which you tell us what this corruption was viz. Proposition 2. A presumption to alter and to elevate the places and appellations of the Teacher Pastour Ruler and Deacon into those unscripture-like Titles of Lord-bishop Deane Chancellour Arch-deacon TO this I in the first place shall returne you the words of Zanchy Quid quod in Ecclesis etiam Protestantium non desunt reipsa Episcopi Archiepiscopi Zanchy append de fide Aphorism 11. quos mutatis bonis Gracis nominibus in male Latina convertimus vocant superintendentes generales superintendentes Sed ubi etiam neque illa vetera bona Graeca neque haec nova malè Latina nomina obtinent ibi tamen solent esse aliqui primarii penes quos est authoritas De nominibus ergo fuerit controversia verum eum de rebus convenit quid de nominibus altercamur This first 2. Next to your Distribution I say that perhaps by Teachers and Pastors you may intend two sorts of Ministers in the Church for so I know some distinguish that Pastours in Saint Paul were such as had not onely the office to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments but had also the Church and care of souls committed to them Teachers those who laboured in the Doctrine but received no charge of Sacraments or souls Some make the Teachers to be publike professors of Divinity and Governours of Ecclesiastical Schooles but Pastours to be the Ministers of particular Congregations which I will not deny but it may be true but I shall remember you that four of the Fathers Jerome Austin Chrysostome Theodoret were unacquainted with the nicetie for they thought the Apostle express'd what belong'd to the Pastoral office under two names that the Pastour was to be Doctour to remember he must
and from hence it was borrowed and brought into the Church that the chief of the Capitulum should be called Decan which I think is arch-Arch-Presbyter 3. I come now to your other two dislik'd Appellations Chancellours and Surrogates That the Bishop was at first the chief Judge in his Church I have before proved and then no dought he might appoint his subordinate Officials This being a confessed rule in the Law that when any cause is committed to any man he is also conceived to receive full authority in all matters belonging to that cause When the Emperours became Christian they judged it equal and pious to reserve some causes to be tried in the Christian Court in which they constituted the Bishop to be the Judge These causes were properly called Ecclesiastical such as were Blasphemy Apostacy Heresies Schismes Orders Admissions institution of Clerks Cooks Reports fol. 8. Rites of Matrimony Probates of Wills Divorces and such like To give audience to these the Bishop otherwise imployed could not alway be present and yet there was no reason that for his absence justice should not take its course And in some of these had he been present great skill in Civil Lawes is requisite that they be ended aright This gave occasion to the Bishop to appoint his Chancellour and Surrogate A Chancellour who had his name à Cancellis within which he was to sit a man brought up in the Civil Lawes and therefore fit to decide such causes that did depend upon those Lawes who being at first a meere Lay-man and therefore having no power of Exommunication therefore the Bishop thought fit to adjoyne a Surrogate to him that in case that high censure were to be passed this man being in Orders and therefore invested with power actu primo and by Commission with the Bishops power actu secundo sub Episcopo rogatus being demanded and an Officer under the Bishop Actu primo might pronounce the Sentence This was the original of their names and power Now prudential necessity first instituted them and prudence where Episcopal power is of force continues them If a Superiour shall be pleased to revoke some of these causes which were by him made of Ecclesiastical cognizance and cause the litigants to take their trial at Common or Civil Law Vide the book of Order of Excommunication in Scotl. Hist of Scot Amon 2. pag. 46. then in the Church I confesse there will be no use of the Chancellour And if the rest shall be tried by the Bishop and his Presbytery as they were at first neither will there need much a Surrogate But now if that rule of the Presbytery should prove to be true who do challenge cognisance of all causes whatsoever which are sins directly or by reduction then they have power if not to nullifie yet to give liberty to play all Courts and Judicatories besides their own and must bring in thither Sollicitours Atturneys Counsellours Procters c. which will be as un-Scripture-like names as Chancellours and Surrogates Cinod de off Eccl. Joannes Epis Citri in respon ad cabasil Naz. Testam 4. The fourth Appellation that offends you is the Arch-Deacon who was a very ancient officer in the Church and of great esteeme in the Greek Church Neither was he chosen to that place by the Patriarch but came to it by seniority the name then gave him no power but onely this prerogative to be chief of the Deacons of the Church as if you would say of the eldest standing In the Church of England he was more than a Deacon for he was a Presbyter and his office was to be present at all ordinations to enquire into the life the manners the abilities and sufficiency of him who was to be ordained and either to reject him if he saw occasion or to present him to the Bishop to be ordained to induct into any Benefice that man who was instituted by the Bishop to have the care of the houses of God were kept decent and in good repair lastly to take account of all who had to do with the poors money And this last was it which gave him the name of the chief Deacon Ambr. lib. 1. de off c. 41. Prudentius for when the charity of the Church was great and ample gifts were bestowed to the relief of the poorer Christians the Church stock was ample as appears by Lawrence the Martyr who was Deacon to Sixtus Bishop of Rome martyred under Valerian This being committed to the Deacons care that no fraud might be committed as it hapned too oft in money-matters the Church thought fit to set one of the Deacons over the rest who might call them to account as ours were to do the Church-wardens and Overseers of the poor to whom they gave the name of the Arch-Deacon Now speak impartially what harme was in all this What that may offend you Deacon cannot and Arch should not since you know it signifies no more but chief or prime as in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Patriarch And that you may carry some affection or at least not a loathing to it I pray call to memory that a worthy Martyr of our Church John Philpot adjudged to the fire and burnt in Queen Maryes dayes Fox Martyrol An. 1553. primo Mariae resigned up his soul in the flames being then Arch-Deacon of Winchester And that with him Master Cheiny and Master Elmour that refused to subscribe to the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Convocation-house were both Arch-Deacons 5. But now I return back again to that Appellation Lord-Bishop at which so many have stumbled and been scandalized that others before you have done it I have reason to attribute to envie an evil eye but in you I shal onely impute it to inconsideration Gen. 24. 1 Kings 18. 2 Kings 2. 2 Kings 4. 2 Kings 8. For you are mighty in the Scriptures and therefore might have known that the Hebrew Adoni or the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Latine Dominus which in the Spanish is Don in the French Sciur in English Sir is onely a name of civility courtesie respect reverence By this Rebecca calls Abrahams servant Drink my Lord. By this Obadiah the Prophet Art thou my Lord Elijah By this the children of the Prophets the inhabitants of Hiericho the Sunamite and Hazael the Prophet Elisha By this Mary the Gardner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord or Sir if thou have taken him hence with this civil respect the Greeks accost Philip John 20.15 John 12.21 1 Pet. 3.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir we would see Jesus In all which places the word imports onely a courteous and respectful compellation And St. Peter commends the woman that shall with this name endear her husband proposing the example of Sarah that obeyed Abraham and call'd him Lord. To a Bishop double honour respect reverence is due for he is comprised under the name of father in the Commandment and whom we
the Parish Parson being turned out of dores all the ill-favourednesse and unholinesse went out with him 3. Against this poor Parson you are very bitter arraigned he must be brought to the Bar to take his trial And him you endite for luke-warmnesse like he is to the Angel of Laodicea not hot nor cold and therefore condemned he is to lye under the lash and take his correction kindly 'T is manifest indeed that all luke-warme hypocritical Professours shall be spued out of Christs mouth for vomitum faciunt Deo To him they are as luke-warme water to the stomach that procures a vomit and if so 't is good counsel you give him or any other in his case to receive what ever correction shall be as a cordial of love administred unto him for preventing of what may follow But here I must put you to it to prove your enditement the punishment he is under will never do it careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putet This will prove him culpable and guilty and so I admit he was but whether he were hot or cold an hypocrite or otherwise is more than you can ever know For zeal and sincerity in Religion are qualities that lye very much inward and he that is cold in it may seem to be very zealous as did Jehu and he whose heart is not upright may pretend to be very sincere as did the Pharisees Now how can you passe your judgment in such a case And it seems you cannot for you confesse there may be hypocrites luke-warme men even in your Combinational Churches which if you knew you would cast out from among you and so would we do spue them out after Gods example Forbear therefore hereafter these harsh and uncharitable censures especially against a whole order of men For they must â—and and fall to their own Master Were they ignorant and scandalous so were these But now I remember it this is no signe of luke-warmnesse in the Parish Parson since they who were truly ignorant and scandal â— were for the most part kept in and those who were knowing and blamelesse were cast out 1. But now I pray tell me in what sense it is that you accuse them is it for being Parsons or for preaching or for preaching Parsons Take it in what qualification you will beware upon whom this blow will light and what a company of precious ones you will presently endite to be like the luke-warme Angel of Laodicea For how many of your Preachers are now become Parsons you know they have the fattest Benefices of this whole Country If plurality were an argument of the Parish Parsons luke-warmnesse it is theirs If non-residence an argument they are guilty of it If handling the flesh-hook too much none more guilty If neglect of Catechizing they cannot be excused If frequent preaching they exceed If forbearance of Sacramental administrations this by them is seldome done That I say not that in life and example they are no whit better In Gods name therefore since in luke-warmnesse they are so like the old odde head the Parish Parson let them lye down under the lash with him and with shame and confusion of face to themselves receive a sharp correction that they may prevent the spuing of their names out of Christs mouth as it is manifest by what is foretold Revel 3.19 One thing onely I may not forget that whereas the old odde head you mention did least harme this last Parish Parson you have imposed upon us does all the mischief 4. In your conclusion yet God be thanked you shew more charity to the Parish than to the Parson of it you say that the whole half-blind political body doth yet appear not to be utterly uncurable You do so load your sentences with strong words that they passe my capacity I know not what to make of this political body of a Parish for I never understood they were under any other policy then that of the Common-wealth or Church in which they lived nor that they were any Corporation at all I profess I understand not what you mean if you intend any thing besides this But whatsoever you intend by it this I finde that you affirme the whole was half-blind they have not yet then lost their sight altogether that little light they have may in good time make them see how they have been deluded and so free them from all the fallacies that have been put upon them which when it happens both you and I are in hope of their cure But that you say must not be expected so long as they remain in their present condition For in respect of its present posture and numerous abominations it is altogether unapprovable and I say the same too and upon the very self same ground because it rejects the Commandments of God that it may observe the traditions of men For what is the whole constitution of your Church but the tradition of men what 's your plea all this while but a tradition of men That a company collected under a Covenant without either Pastours or Elders is a true Church is a tradition of men That they may create elect ordain their Pastours and Elders is another tradition of men That the power of the Keys subjectively and authoritatively to invest and devest is in them is a third tradition of men That there must be lay-Lay-Presbyters which must be Ruling Elders in the Church is a fourth tradition of men That the erection of the Cathedral Parochial Provincial National Church was the corruption of the Combinational is another tradition of men That the Supreme power in any Nation is a violent head the Arch-Bishop a haughty horrible head the Diocesan an idle and addle head the Parish Parson an odde head is another of your traditions That there may be no set forms of prayer used in the Church no singing of Psalms in mixt Congregations That the Scripture may not be read in the Church except expounded That those Rites which you call but falsly Romish and Humane may not be used in the Church That Godfathers and Godmothers may not be used in Baptisme nor the children of those who are out of your Combinational Church baptized That those whom you usually call profane ignorant scandalous persons may not be admitted to the Sacrament That there must be an upper seat erected for the Elders to sit in their ranks as Aldermen upon the Bench in the Church That there must be Tables set up for the maintenance of the Ruling Elders All these are the traditions of men and doctrines of men and therefore I give this counsel to the whole half-blinde political body of the Parishes where you have prevailed most that while they are curable they tender their health and to beware of the Scribes and Pharisees who in vain worship God teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men and to beware lest any man spoile them through Philosophy or vain deceit through the tradition of men
of the City of God are the dispensations of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments Imposition of hands the application of the Power of the Keys with all the other accessories and circumstantials to these Were your words true then no Sermon must be begun or ended no prayer begun or ended and the like is to be said of all the rest nothing of them or about them begun transacted or ended but by their advice and decision Of which there is not one syllable that I beleeve and therefore for such a claim it behoved you to produce a very fair and clear Charter for else all those that bear no good will to your Discipline and Combination will endite you for incroachment and usurpation of anothers right Which aspersion you will never be able to get off by telling us barely on your word this is the Elders power Nor by affirming The words of the Letter THat the Reformed Church should have all her Elders for to stand and sit together in the face and full view of the whole Assembly The Reply I cannot think what you aime at here except at that place which in the Ancient Church was appointed for the Presbytery to sit together in For they had a place enclosed from all the Laity where the Lords Table was set the Bishops Chair and Presbyters seats being round about it This place Sozomen calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sacrary with us the Chancel which divided the Bishops and Presbyters from the people Cyprian would have this granted to Numidicus Sozomen lib. 7. cap. 24. Cypr. Ep. 35. Pammel editionis Concil Laod. Caâ— 56. Theod. l. 5. c. 18. Numidicus Presbyter ascribatur Presbyterorum Carthaginensium numero nobiscum sedeat in Clâ—ro The Councel of Laodicea calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason it was somewhat higher than the rest of the Church the Canon Law Presbyterium Into this place when Theodosius the Emperour would have entred to have received the Communion Saint Ambrose then busied at divine service sent him word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These places were in the Sacraries of the Church to be entred by those who were in orders only where they sate together with the Bishop there was not any place then for Lay-Elders And therefore si quid tale forsan vestras pervenerat aures you see it makes nothing at all for you till you will admit your Lay-Elders to be of the Clergy which I know you abhor I proceed to your proofs The words of the Letter ANd by so much the more seeing they are so plainly warranted and so punctually prescribed as they be to waite and to walk according to the patterne prescribed in the Mount witnesse Exod. 25.40 Acts 7.44 Heb. 8.5 The Reply Et cui non hic dictus Hylas there being not any one who pleads for change of Ecclesiastical Discipline or that hath been discontent with any custome or Ceremony of the Church who hath not made this Axiome the head Theoreme of their discourse and when well it might have gone a mile with them they have anger'd it forcing it to go twain The Anabaptist to prove his Antipaedobaptisme hath often in his mouth these words and every new light this Oggannition all must be done according to the pattern in the Mount and that we may take the more notice of it as a firme argument for your Elders seats and proceedings you have cited here three Scriptures one upon the neck of another for it all which as Joseph said of Pharaohs dreams are but one The occasion of these words are in Exodus 25. When God gave order to Moses for the erecting of the Tabernacle about which God left him not to his own choice but commanded him to frame it according to the pattern shewed him in the Mount This Tabernacle and order Saint Stephen mentions Acts 7. But Saint Paul Heb. 8.5 opens the mystery and applies it to wit that the Tabernacle of Moses was but a shadow and exemplar of heavenly things or of that Tabernacle which Christ had set up for his in heaven Here then are to be considered three distinct things the body it self the reality or truth of this shadow and that is the true Tabernacle of the Saints in heaven The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or type of it that was presented for a pattern to Moses in the Mount and the exemplar or picture or copy of it fair drawn by Moses in the Tabernacle which he is commanded to frame according to the pattern presented to his eyes when God was pleased to call him up to him into the Mountain which things he also after did Now I wonder what you or any body else can for your purpose collect from hence Moses was commanded to make the Tabernacle according to the pattern in the Mount therefore the Lay-Elders are plainly warranted and punctually prescribed to stand and sit together in the face and full view of the Assembly A strange thing it is that out of a particular pattern you should frame a general rule For before you shall be ever able to bring this rule home to your purpose prove you must that it was thus prescribed in the Mount which I know will be a very hard task Besides suppose you extend the rule further as I know you do to beat down that which you ordinarily call will-worship and the inventions of men Yet so it will not come home neither in that the Apostle applies it not to any such purpose but only what was done in the Mount was a shadow of things to come the Tabernacle on earth a representation of our being with God in heaven And to stretch it further is to deal by it as the Cobler doth with his leather that tugs it so far with his teeth till it crack again Farther yet if in that sense you intend it this Text had laid an injunction upon any it had certainly tyed up the Jewes the pattern in the Mount must certainly have restrained them from adding any thing even the least in the external worship of God which yet it did not For in the Church of the Jews it must be granted that the appointment of the houre for daily sacrifices the building of Synagogues throughout the Land to hear the Word of God and pray in when they came not up to Jerusalem the erecting of Pulpits and Chairs to teach in the order of Burials and Rites of Marriage the Musical Instruments invented by David the Ordinance for Priests to serve in their courses with others of the like nature being matters appertaining to the Church yet had not their pattern from the Mount nor are any way prescribed in the Law but were by the Churches discretion instituted and continued What shall we then think they did hereby adde to the Law and so displease God by what they did none yet so hardly perswaded of them the Truth is that Rule and Canon-Law which is written in all mens hearts and Saint Pauls reduced into
AN APOLOGY FOR THE Discipline OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH Intended especially for that of our MOTHER THE CHVRCH of ENGLAND In answer to the Admonitory Letter Lately published 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. Ephraim feeds on winde Hosea 12.1 By William Nicolson Archdeacon of Brecon LONDON Printed for Willim Leake at the Crown in Fleet-street betwixt the two Temple-gates 1659. THE COPY OF A LETTER Written by a Divine A Friend of the AUTHOUR SIR I Thank you for the favour you did me in imparting those papers to me composed by our learned friend in defence of the Ecclesiastical Government under which the Church of God hath liv'd ever since it was establish'd by the Preachings Apostolical I see and love his zeale and honour his learning but am most pleased with his method and order of argument for having prosperously defended and illustrated the Doctrine of the Church of England in his material and grave discourses upon the Church Catechism he does to very good purposes proceed to defend her Government that as it already appears that her Doctrine is Catholike so it may be demonstrated that the Government of the Church of England is no other than that of the Catholike Apostolike Church she by the same way being truly Christian and a Society of Christians by which all Christendome were put into life and society that is became collective and united bodies or Churches And indeed they are both of them very weighty and material considerations For more things are necessary to the being of a Church than to the being Christian First the Apostles preached Jesus Christ and him crucified and every day winning souls to Christ did adopt them into his Body and joyned them to that Head and there they had life and nourishment But until their multitudes were much encreased they were no Body Politick they were so many single persons till the Apostles according to their places of abode gathered them under one Pastor and they grew into Communion and were fastned to one another by the Masters of Assemblies This Government with the alteration onely of some unconcerning circumstances hath continued in the Church of God and the Church of England was baptized by it at the same time it was baptized into the faith of Christ onely of late some endeavours have been to rifle this Government and to dissolve her being a body Politick and almost reduc'd her onely to the being Christian which because it seemed also to be in some danger Being and Unity having so near relation to each other I suppose it very advisedly done of him first to do what he thought fit for the securing the Doctrine and then by the method Apostolical proceeding to the immuring of that Doctrine by the walls and towers of Government and I finde he hath done it well His arguments are grave and close not florid but pressing his observations choice his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and little by-discourses pleasant and full of instructions his refutation sharp and true his returnes pertinent and nothing trifling but his adversarie who because he speaks but weak things ministers not occasions worthy enough for this learned man to do his best But he hath made supply I perceive and by taking little occasions by the hand he hath advanced them to opportunities of handsome discoursings and to my sence hath to better more full and excellent purposes than any man before him confuted the new fashion of Congregational and gathered Churches which must now needs appear to be nothing but a drawing Schisme into Countenance and Method and giving a warranty to partialities it is a direct crumbling of the Church into minuits and little principles of being just as if the world were dissolved into Democritus his dreame of Atomes and minima naturalia Every man loves Government well-enough but few of the meaner sort love their Governours especially if they think themselves wise enough to governe for then they are too wise to be governed Now this Independant or Congregational way seemes to me the finest compendium of humouring and pleasing all those little fellowes that love not that endure not to be subject to their betters for by this meanes a little Kingdome and a royal Priesthood is provided for every one of them a Kingdom of Yvetot and some had rather be chief but in a garden of Cucumers and govern but ten or twenty absolutely so they do than be the fifth or the twentieth man in a Classis or inconsiderable under the Apostolical and long-experienced government by those Superiours which Christ by himself and by his Spirit and by his blessing and by his providence and by the favour of Princes hath made firme as heaven and earth never to be dissolved until the Divine Fabrick of the house of God it self be shaken I pray give my service to the good Man and I do heartily thank him for my share of the book by which I have already had some pleasure and some profit and hope for more when my little affairs will give me leave strictly to peruse every unobserved page in it When I onely heard of it I was confident he would do it very well and now I see it is so very well done and in that grave judicious manner if you had not told me I should have been confident it had been his Vox hominem sonat I pray God that he may finde encouragement according to the mertt of his labours and acceptance according to his good intentions and that his book may not receive its estimate according to the cheap and vast numbers of others but according to its own weight The strength that was put to this would have resisted a stronger adversary but it could not readily have supported a worthyer cause and because I beleeve it was done with as much charity as learning I hope it will have the blessings of God and of the Church and the peace of all good men I onely have this to adde further I wish that this worthy man would enter into no more warre but against the open enemies of mankinde that he would dispute for nothing but for the known Religion of Jesus Christ that he would contend for no interests but the known concernments of the Spirit in the matter of good life which is the life of Religion and my reason is not onely because I finde that he calls his adversary Brother and it is not so good that Brethren should contend but because men are wearied with disputes and the errors of this or any age after the first batteries and onsets by the Church are commonly best confuted by the plaine teaching of positive truths and the good lives and the wise governments of our Superiours and after all I believe that though he does manage this contest prudently and modestly yet the spiritual warre against direct impiety he would manage much more dexterously and prosperously and for his auxiliaries he would be more confident of the direct and proper aides of the Spirit of God This
provokes the appetite Reader it was the Authours purpose sometime to delight thee but most of all to edifie informe confirme thee which if it may be effected he hath his end For it is my hearty prayer that a period may be set to this wrangle and that we may all turn to the way of truth and peace Farewel W. N. A KEY to open the Debate about a Combinational Church and the power of the KEYES The first Part. THE chief point of the Controversie lies in this to know in whose hands the power of the Keys shall be or rather who shall be the Prime subject of the Keys Of this I finde three opinions Cotton Burton Goodwin Nye Assert the name Bayly p. 132. The first defended by the Independents or Combinationals A second defended by the Presbyterians and a third by the Prelates 1. The Combinational Churches are divided in this point for some seat power in the whole Congregation so soone as associated in Covenant even before they have any Officers Others after the Officers are chosen settle it in them alone A third even then conjunctim make the whole body the subject of the Keys Which of these or whether any of these is like to be true will appear if we consider these two or three things 1. That the Presbyters and Ruling-Elders cannot be the prime subject is apparent because that the Keys were seated in some before they were in them if you be constant to your own principles For how came they to be Elders and Rulers were they not created by the power of the Keys and who created them was it not they who did elect and ordaine The prime power then must be in the electors and ordaiâ—ers not in the elected and ordained whence it will follow inevitably that the Ruling Elders are not the prime subject of power for a power there is which precedes theirs 2. After Election and Ordination they viz. Ruling Elders cannot be so neither because it is your common Tenet that the Congregation may again upon displeasure resume the Key Depose Excommunicate cast out their own Elders which they could not do were they not the prime subject of the Keys and authority primarily in them 3. But if you shall say that conjunctim people and Elders together are the prime subject this cannot be neither Because before they are thus conjoyned the Electors and Ordainers had the true essence of a Church as you teach both for matter and forme though they had no Officer nor Elder and then must radically and originally be invested with this power in the first combination without any reflexion on this conjunction So that as they are an organical Church heightned by Rulers and Elders it makes them not the prime subject of the Keys for this you say they had before That the people divisim without the Elders and Rulers are not the prime subject of this authority I prove in this Tract demonstratively I onely here adde that the power of the Keys consists in binding loosing preaching administring Sacraments c. which till you can prove to be in the people originally I shall never yeeld the power to be originally in their hands The difficulties are so many and the subtleties so nice among you in this dispute that they have forced your finest heads Robinson Cotton Goodwin Norton to invent so many distinctions divisions subdivisions that a man must needs think himself in a maze that reads them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Schoolmen which you so much complaine of are exceeded by you And yet when all 's done by these you could never yet satisfie your own party and therefore expect not to settle others It shewes you are in a Labyrinth and would faine help your selves out by the small threads of these prettily invented distinctions In a word that there are very many knots and objections to which your Tenet is liable For you know that all distinctions were invented to give light to that which is very perplexed intricate dubious ambiguous and aeâ—uivocal 2. That this your assertion is mainly denied opposed battered and beat down by the Presbyterians I need not tell you or that they deny the the Congregation to be either conjunctim or divisim the prime subject of the Keys and settle it upon the Eldership primò immediate adaequatè Finalitèr objectivè they will grant you that the whole Church is the subject but autoritativè formalitèr they place it in the Guids or Presbyters without a Bishop And of this opinion Rutherford is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But he runs into the same inconvenience with your Rabbies For to make his thoughts good he hath so many nicities so many new-coined distinctions of power of the Church of I know not what that he is able to confound any Reader and indeed drives on the point till he becomes almost unintelligible Is not this think you a rare device in him and in yours to finde out a Truth and settle a conscience about Church-government 3. The Pâ—elates are opposite to both they deny the Congregation conjunctim or divisim to be the first subâ—ect of the Keys They deny the Presbyterian Eldership to be the prime subject of Church power And they place it under Christ in the Apostles and their successors and for this they plead our Saviours promise Matth. 16. and his donation John 20. They plead again the Apostolical practice extant in the Scriptures Acts 8.17 Acts 14.23 1 Tim. 4.14 1 Tim. 5.22 2 Tim. 1.6 Tit. 1.5 and again the perpetual practice of the Catholick Church ever since according to that of Jerome Decretuâ— est toto orâ—e ut unus è Presbyteris electus ceteris superponeretur which testimony I have at large afterwards cited and opened at full This is the state of the whole question and which of these is likelyest to be most true I shall leave it to the unbyassed Reader to judge after he hath read over this Treatise In nomine Domini October 29. 1656. ad honorem Iesu Christi ipsius Ecclesiae ad veritatis aram haec offero An answer to the Admonitory Letter The words are these SECT I. Reverend Sir THat the glorious God who is the giver of all grace as well as of every good and perfect gift would never be weary of conferring on you or of continuing in you or yet of encreasing by you those real and rich gifts and graces which he out of his good will and meere goodnesse was pleased to indue and adorne your precious soul withal for the due and daily use and exercise whereof his maine aime and uttermost end was his own service and your own solace to traine you up higher in holinesse and happinesse as I am hopefully perswaded in my very heart then most of your companions or acquaintance kindred or countrey and that at the least by the head and shoulders 1. An humble motion for you is one of those motions with
of Christ either really hath for the present or else earnestly longs and desires to have for the future both a name and a naile according to what is promised to the beleeving Gentiles and was performed to the beleeving Jews Isa 56.5 Ezra 9.8 such a naile was Eliakim the Type of Christ Isa 2. An hearty motion to you 22.23 Upon this you move me to spend sometimes a few of my morning thoughts maturely to peruse ponder and apply what is by you set before my eyes and propose to my consideration And I assure you I am not now to begin to do it for I could present you if I pleased with many animadversions on this subject many years since collected I am not such a stranger in Israel to be ignorant of these things which are obvious to any one that hath been conversant but meanly in the Scriptures however for your monition I thank you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SECT III. The Letter NExt you begin to enlarge upon your distinction and move first That some others especially such of yours whom it may more nearly concern to be well seene and skill'd therein may have made known unto their souls by your that is my self how and where you shall see cause and think fit that the firt visible Church c. This motion I embrace and it shall be perform'd But whom you note out by such of yours I know not If you meane those of my own Order I know many of them as well if not better seene and skill'd in these things already than my self so that this were operam oleum perdere however they shall have notice of it But if you meane of the common sort it hath been so often inculcated by me into them that to do it again is actum agere Yet by the way give me leave to intimate that I am not pleased with the phrase Such of yours for it seemes to me to be distinctive and among Protestants I never liked these pronowns Yours and Ours they border too near upon separation which I would not have amongst us who are all one in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.15 We may in some things think otherwise and yet belong to the same fold God in his good time will reveale the Truth away then with these termes of distance Yours and Ours Now I proceed with your words The Letter The first visible Church which was constituted by the wise Builder thereof was a Domestical Church being outwardly guided and governed by the first borne of the family who were types and shadowes of Christ Jesus in the several houses of professing Saints and did continue from Adam and Abels dayes to the time of Moses and Aarons pilgrimage in the wildernesse of Sin as doth plainly appear to all that do deliberately weigh both what is exprest and what is necessarily implyed in Gen. 4.4 compared with Exod. 12.7 Answer IN the substance I agree with you But I pray take it not ill that I cleare up some expressions that may be mistaken 1. You say the first visible Church is Domestical and did so continue from Adam to Moses That at first the discipline and government of the Church began and continued in certaine families cannot be doubted but that it so continued till Moses dayes is not easie to conceive because as families multiplied there must be a multiplication of these Chuâ—ches as there was of houses whence it will follow that every eldest sonne must be King and Priest in his own house and then what will become of the prerogative of the first-borne Gen. 27.29 who during life was to be Lord over his brethren Better therefore I conceive it is to say that this reglement was Paternal and that all the several families were to depend on him durante vitâ both for instruction and discipline For while the first father liv'd he was 1. a Prophet to teach 2. A Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sacrifice intercede to blesse and give thanks 3. A Prince to rule and punish Thus Adam as a common father guided the Church for nine hundred and thirty years Seth the sonne of Adam was his fathers assistant for five hundred years and taught his children who were then the Church to call on the name of the Lord Gen. 4. and continued that charge one hundred and twelve years after his fathers death Enosh did the like to Seth and all the heirs of the promise to the fathers God alwayes stirring up the spirits of some excellent men to preach in his Church while their fathers yet liv'd and guided the number of the faithfull as for example Enoch that prophesied three hundred years Gen. 5.22 2 Pet. 2.5 Gen. 5.27 first under Adam and after under Seth in whose dayes he was translated So Noah a preacher of righteousnesse began under Enoch and held on for six descents till the year the flood came the very year his grandfather Methusalem died I would call these then extraordinary and immediate Prophets raised up by God to instruct his Church during the time of their fathers principality and priesthood Noah after his grandfather Methusalems death govern'd the Church for three hundred and fifty years and left the reglement to Sem who succeeding his father in the Covenant and adopted into the dignity of the first-borne govern'd the Church one hundred fifty and two years after his father even till Abraham was dead Isaac dimme and Jacob fifty two years old and therefore might be the Melchizedech Gen. 14. Heb. 7. the Priest of the most high God The next that succeeded Sem was Jacob by Gods especial choise too Esau having sold his birth-right As for Abraham and Isaac they could not lay claime to theâ—e rights of primogeniture Sem being yet alive Call'd indeed Abraham was and promised to inherit it but possessed of he was not because Sem out-lived him he therefore is called a King and the Priest of the most high God In Jacob this primogeniture was estated among whose sonnes God divided the honours and dignities of Sem 1 Chron. 5.1 appointing the Scepter and seed to Judah the Priesthood to Levi the double portion to Joseph which never were again conjoyned in any but in Christ Jesus the onely Priest that ever succeeded according to the order of Melchizedech By whom the Church was after Jacobs and Josephs decease governed in Egypt is not so certaine but very probable it is that it was done by the fathers and heads of the twelve tribes over which I conceive Judah was the chief Gen. 49.8 according to the tenor of Jacobs blessing Thy fathers children shall bow down before thee The summe of this is that when the people of God increased and multiplyed into a Nation and diverse Nations for ought we know as before the flood they did and when after the flood they did the like it is not so proper to call it a Domestical Church that was so farre extended And if the instruction
differ for in your Presbyterial Churches you admit into that number those who are not of the Clergy Many of your Presbyters being meer Lay men Of the Texts you hope to prove it I shall consider anon And here about these Ruling Elders I shall deliver my mind 1. Negatively 2. Positively 1. Negatively That Ruling Elders in the Church were never Laicks Presbyters we read of and Presbyteries in the Apostolical writings but none Lay. This negative will be proved as all other negatives are that is by the contrary affirmative These Ruling Elders were alwayes of the Clergy and consequently no Laicks for you know dâ—ae contrariae propositiones non possunt simul esse verae I shall therefore shew you what I have to say of Ruling Elders 2. Positively The Keys Christ gave to his Apostles and they to their Successours and with them so much power as was ordinarily of permanence and perpetuity in the Church which power consisted in four particulars the Dispensation of the Word the Admâ—nistration of the Sacraments Imposition of hands and guiding of the Keys With the three fiâ—st I hear not that Ruling Elders of the Laity undertake to meddle and if they shall lay claim to the last they must shew when and where any such donation was made over unto them otherwise I shall call it an usurpation The contrary is clear in the promise Tibi dabo claves and in the performance sicut misit me pater sic mitto vos quorum peccata remiseritis c. Let it be shewed that any Laick here had any Key any power made over unto him or that the Apostles ever made any designation of it to a Lay hand and you shall for me carry the cause Well then to whom did they assigne it That is clear to me in the Scriptures to the Bishops that they ordain'd I shall instance onely in two Timothy and Titus the one at Ephesus the other at Crete ordained by Saint Paul though if you would believe Anciâ—nt Records I could name you many more James the brother of our Lord Bishop of Jerusalem Mark at Alexandria Clemens at Rome Euodius at Aâ—tioch Polycarp at Smyrna Dionysius at Athens Caius at Theâ—olonica Archippus at Colossi Epaphroditus at Philippi Antipas at â—ergamus Crescens in Galatia Sosipater at Iconium Erastus in Macedon Silas at Corinth with others all which if there be any credit to be given to Oâ—d Râ—cords were set by the Apostles themselves to be the Ruling Elders of the Church But perhaps you 'll say these were chief in their own Churches respectively but they had their Presbyteries and Presbyters to govern with them Well be it so for in some it is evident it was so Yet it lies upon you to prove that those Presbyters were Lay-Elders for otherwise I shall presume to the contrary because I finde it othâ—rwise in the Churches of Ephesus and Crete where Timothy and Titus were Bâ—shops and in all the Churches where I read of a Presbytery That it was thus at Ephesus is beyond all exception For Timothy was there ordained by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery 1 Tim. 4.14 I hope you will not say that Tâ—mothy was made the chief Pastour there by the imposition of any Lay-hands No man ever yet so interpreted that text as for the fathers they expound it of the Colledge of Presbyters which they say was of Prelates Heb. 7.7 Calv. Instit lib. 4. c. 6. 2 Tim. 1.6 because minor non ordinat majorem Calvin of the Office and that it was given by the laying on of Saint Pauls hands and he is resolve that Saint Paul alone did it because of that Exhortation Stir up the grace of God which is in thee by the laying on of my hands Take it in which sense you please here 's no place left at Ephesus for a Lay-Presbytery No nor yet in Crete for to that end was Titus left there to ordain Elders in every City and in the following words the Apostle tells what manner of persons they must be Tit. 1.5.7 who were to be ordain'd and what their office to be Bishops for a Bishop must be blamelesse these Elders then at Crete must be Bishops not then of the Laity And if you shall consider what these Elders were to do at Crete and Ephesus you will easily conceive that many of them fell not within a Lay-mans capacity If any man did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preach any other doctrine then that was sound the Ephesian Elder must prohibere 1 Tim. 1.4 2 Tim. 2.16 Tit. 1.9 if preach prophanely or babblingly he must cohibere restrain him At Crete the ordained Elder must have ability 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to convince the gain-sayers and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with force of Argument Tit. 1.10.13 For particulars if any preach otherwise than becomes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his mouth must be stopped they must be reproved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken up short Tit. 2.15 with all authority Say in good sooth whether you conceive these to be the Works of a Lay-man I wish all Clergy-men were ad haec idonci But I fear few are Lastly the rod power of excommunication was in the hand of Saint Pauls Elders which I shall never yield to be in your Lay Elders But were the Word of God in this point indifferent which for ought I see is yet very resolute against them the general consent of all antiquity that never to your sense expounded Saint Pauls words nor never mention d one Lay-Presbyter to govern the Church is to me a strong rampire against all these new devices And here did I list I could presse you down with a whole load of fathers and Councils but I spare you for I fear you would cast them off with some scorn The Catalogue you shall have if you desire it For my part I shall close up this point with the words of a wise learned man Bilson's preface to the Government of the Church I like not to raise up that Discipline from the dead which hath lien so long if it ever liv'd in silence by your own confession which no father ever witnessed no Council ever favour'd no Church ever followed since the Apostles times till this our age I can be forward in things that be good but not so foolish as to think that the Church of Christ never knew what belong'd to the government of her self till now of late and that the Sonne of God hath been spoiled of half of his Kingdome as you use to speak by his own servants and citizens for these one thousand five hundred years without remorse or remembrance of any man that ever so great a wrong was offered him You must shew me your Lay-Presbytery in some Ancient Writer or else I shall avouch plainly your Consistory as you presse it is a Novelty And yet I shall adde one thing more by way of Apology for I would not be a stumbling block
to you in the least That I have made use of the common distinction Lay and Clergy and Presbyters or Elders of both sorts I have been forc'd to it because I could not otherwise speak intelligibly and distinctly enough in this point And that in this I speak in the language of the Ancientest of the fathers so speaks Clemens in that famous Epistle to the Corinthians so cryed up by antiquity and lately set forth by Master Patrick Young Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. ad Cor. Ignat. ad Philip. ad Magnes Just Martyr Apolog 2. prope finem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Justine Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Canons attributed to the Apostles Si quis Clericus abscindens seipsum c. Can. 22. Laicus seipsum abscindens c. Can. 23. Tertull. de prescript In exhortat ad castitatem Tertullian Hodie Presbyter cras Laicus and again nisi Laici observent per quae Presbyteri allegantur I should trouble you to reckon up infinite variety of other testimonies down-ward By these it sufficiently appears that these two termes Presbyters and Laicks were opposite termes so that Presby ers were not Lay-men nor Lay-men Presbyters they were mâ—mbra dividentia and 't is a Logick rule that membra dividentia must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so disjoynd that they never interfeer which will not be so if Presbyters and Lay-men may be affirm'd of the same person What should I tell you that if you approve not this distinction of the Primitive Church you may read it plainly in the Prophets so that it is not profane nor strange Isaiah 24.2 It shall be as with the people so with the Priest Hosea 4.9 There shall be like people like Priest And also Jeremy divides the Church into Prophet Jerom. ad Nepotiaâ— Priest and People cap. 23.34 and cap. 26.7 As for the Clergy-men Jerome shall give you the reason of the name propterea vocantur Clerici vel quia sunt de sorte Domini vel quia ipse Dominus sors i. e. pars Clericorum either they are the Lords portion to do service in the Church of Christ or that the Lord is their portion and part that is to live on such things that are dedicated to the Lord. And thus have I stopped two gappes with one bush Proposition 5. That these Presbyters Teaching and Ruling Elders must be of the Professing Members own voluntary Election and regular Ordination Of the Presbyters Teaching and Ruling Elders as you call them I have spoken hitherto Now of that which you require in them which are 1. That they be of the Professing Members voluntary Election 2. That they have their Ordination frnm them and that it be Regular In neither of which I can assent to you 1. Of Election of Presbyters and Ruling Elders THe Debate about Elections of Church-Ministers cannot be better determin'd than by the Scriptures let us look then how it was ab initio I finde three sorts of Election mention'd in the New Testament By the Spirit by lots by voices 1. By the Spirit speaking in his own person were Paul and Barnabas called from Antioch to preach to the Gentiles By the Spirit speaking in the Prophets Acts 13.2 1 Tim. 4.14 was Timothy design'd Neglect not the grace which was given thee by prophesie with imposition of the hands of the Presbytery And again 1 Tim. 1.18 This commandment I commit to thee according to the Prophesies that went before of thee that is by direction of the Holy Ghost and not by voices as Oecuminius Theodoret Chrysostome Throphylact expounds the place For this kind of Election was usual in the Apostles times the Spirit of God directing them on whom they should lay their hands By that Spirit were Peter and John directed on whom they should lay their hands at Samaria And so was Paul at Epheses when he laid the foundation of that Church so that he might truly say Take heed to the flock Act. 20. whereof the Holy Ghost hath made you over-seers For it was the Holy Ghosts doing to notifie unto Paul the persons that should receive imposition of hands and to poure out his wonderful blessings on them to make them meet Pastours and Prophets whereto he had chosen them Yea this dured some time after Pauls death as Eusebius reports Euseb lib. 3. cap 23. ex Clem. Alex. even in the time of John the Apostle for after his return out of Patmos to Ephesus being requested he went to the Churches adjoining some were appointing Bishops some were setting whole Churches in Order some were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. d. Supplying the Clergy with such men as were signified or marked out for that purpose by the Spirit Or if you read it as Hanmer translates it choosing by lot then this was done to avoid ambition and contention however it was of those who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the mix'd multitude chose not whom they pleased 2. For secondly by lot I graunt it might be done and then Saint John followed the pattern in the Election of Matthias to the Apostolate Act. 1. which is the sole example that can be given in Scripture in this kind And in this the people could have no voice if you will weigh the circumstances of the Text. For first the company that were then present were onely one hundred and twenty of which eleven were Apostles seventy two disciples Ver. 15.14 divers women with Mary the mother of Jesus now if you deduct eighty three and the women out of one hundred and twenty what a small remnant will there be of the people left to vote Secondly it is recorded indefinitely they appointed two not determinately expressing who they were Ver. 23. and so it might be the Apostles alone or the Apostles and disciples together for ought any man can say to the contrary Thirdly make what can be made of it yet here is no more than presentation which falls very short of Election for it is written they presented the two Fourthly they committed the Election to God Shew whether of the two thou hast chosen Ver. 24. and so it was reason for the place to which one of them was to be advanced Gal. 1.1 17 18 c. was an Apostles place and an Apostle might not be chosen by men but by God alone And here to remove a mistake I shall intreat you to observe this distinction that the name of an Apostle hath a double acception 1. In a strict sense for an eye-witnesse of our Saviours actions life death and one immediately chosen and sent by God and so there were no more but twelve Whence saith Peter Act. 1.20 21. of these men that have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us Must one be ordained to be a
Witnesse 2. Or else the name of an Apostle is more largely extended for an instructed Witnesse and sent by the Apostles Phil. 2.25 who yet had that honorary name so Epaphroditus is called the Apostle of the Philippians Judas and Silas are so term'd Titus and others 2 Cor. 8.23 and James the brother of our Lord is call'd an Apostle Gal. 1.19 He was not Jacobus Alphei nor Jacobus Zebedei and therefore none of the twelve and 1 Cor. 15. this James is named as distinct from the twelve for there it is written that Christ appeared to the twelve then to five hundred brethren at once after to James In the first sense no man ever did ever could choose an Apostle for they had an immediate vocation and immediate mission In the last sense there is not a syllable in the Scripture of their Election by the people Perhaps for so it is recorded by Dorotheus that they were of the seventy but when they were advanc'd and authoriz'd to be Apostles that is Bishops in the latter sense the Apostles only elected them and imposed hands on them 3. Hitherto we hear not a word of any Election by the Professing Members to the work of the Ministry let us then come to the third way which was by voices and let us consider whether we can finde it that way It is most true that the Election of the seven Deacons was referr'd to the multitude and to this purpose your text is rightly cited Acts 6.5 But this proves not what you would inferre from it for by this choice the Deacons received not the charge of the Word and Sacraments but a care to see the Saints provided for and the collections and contributions faithfully and uprightly employ'd Hieron ad Evagrium Epiphan 4. Conc. Carth. cap. 4. they were only mensarum viduarum Ministri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consecrated to a service not to a priest-hood And among you for ought I know the Deacons have no other office than the care of the poor And then I pray what can this place make for the Election of the Presbyters and Ruling Elders by the people Are these no more but Deacons Officers of Tables and Widows That the people should Elect these there was great reason for they were to be Stewards and Dispensers of their Charity and therefore to stay the murmure that might arise of partiality in them and suspicion of any unjust dealing they advised the multitude to choose their own Almoners The Churches treasure was laid at the Apostles feet to be distributed as every one had need they left it Acts. 2. Acts 4. in all likelihood in the hands of converted Jewes to be distributed these regarded the Widows that were Jewes more than the Hellenists this caused the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the murmure To cease this the Apostle bespeaks the multitude to consider Acts 6.1 Ver. 3. Ver. 5. Ver. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of fit men for that service They did so and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they chose out seven and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they presented or set out these before the Apostles that 's all It was but a presentation so that it seems as yet it was in the Apostles power to admit or refuse even these But they accepted of their presentation and with prayer laid their hands on them for the Office which was at the highest a dispensation of money and no cure of souls No hurt then can be done to our tenet by this Election since as they who urge it confesse they were not in orders and therefore what hath this example to do for the Professours Election of Presbyters or Ruling Elders Yea but you 'll say the other text you cite Acts 14.23 Acts 14.23 will strike it dead but upon a serious view nothing lesse For thus we reade there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Ordaining them Elders in every Church This word is a participle and must agree with somewhat and if you look before it was Paul and Barnabas the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not to Elect but to Ordain of which more by and by The Ordainers were Apostles Paul and Barnabas the Ordain'd Presbyters here is not so much as a syllable of the people no mention of any act of theirs This then is so plain a perverting of the text that I hope no wise man will ever more object it The truth is the Apostles imposed hands to make Pastours and Prophets in the Churches as they travelled popular Elections they made none For your other texts I shall consider apart because they are not directly to this purpose Thus I hope I have made it appear that there is not any firm ground I had almost said any colour for Election of Presbyters or Ruling Elders by the Professing Members of the Church in the Scriptures Yea but did not then the People choose their Pastour in the primitive ages of the Church To gratifie you I confesse they did but this was after the Apostles dayes and then Scripture must not be urged for it It was not a priviledge that belongs to them of right but out of convenience and was deriv'd from the rules of Christian equity and society Hence it came to passe that the people when their desires were accomplished did quietly receive willingly maintain diligently hear and heartily love their Pastours And could the people have tempered their grief when their desires were cross'd their interest in Electing their Pastour had been better regarded and longer continued But experience of their Schismes Factions Tumults Uproars Murders if they might not have their wills caused both Ancient fathers and Councils to mislike that the people should bear the sway in these Elections and forced Christian Princes if not wholly to exclude them yet greatly to abridge them I could if I pleased give you in a long list of examples of both kinds both of whom when where and how long the custome of their Election continued and by whom and upon what occasions abridg'd But I spare you This in a word when they did Elect it was not by any Scripture-right and at most it was no more than a presentation and it lay in the power of those in Authority to refuse the presented which was sometimes done And the emergent mischiefs took it away which it never could have done had it been a command of God Now that it is possible that such mischiefs may arise and frequently do arise from popular Elections I appeal to your conscience who have been an eye-Witnesse of it in New-England One thing I shall adde more that you I mean your Combinational Churches in Old-England should of all other presse upon us popular Elections makes me wonder since 't is your practice to eject Pastours approved by their people and by the approvers from above to settle other over their Congregations Tell me I pray what vote hath the people in any of these If this be not to break your rule and
Levites that served the Priests 1 Chron. 24.18 31. ch 25.26 ch 27. The Musicians also were divided into as many and the Dore-keepers There were also of every course that served the King twenty four thousand Seeing then the whole Congregation of Levi and the people that served the King were divided by twenty four it might be a shadow and type of that number who were made Kings and Priests unto God to serve Christ under that number the whole people under this the whole company of the redeemed are contain'd Couper 3. And Couper saith the same that under this number the whole Church both Militant and Triumphant is contain'd though he make his allusion otherwise for he divides the twenty four into two halfs the first he makes to consist of the twelve Patriarchs from whon descended the Jews the other of the twelve Apostles who converted the Gentiles the Elders then of both Nations that is the professours in both were about the throne and he proves this sense out of the fifth Chapter Ver. 9. where the twenty foure Elders fell down before the Lamb Rev. 5.8.9 having harâ—s in their hands and they â—ang a new song saying Thou art worthy O Lord. For thou wast slain and thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation 10. and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests c. Beza 4. Beza conceives these Elders to be Prophets and Apostles Summus judex saith he comitatu honorificentissimo instructus Prophetarum Apostolorum tum veteris tum novae Ecclesiae Greg. lib. 4 in reg 1. ch 9. 5. Gregory expounds this of the Preachers of Gods holy Word being graves moribus sensu maturi 6. But most interpret this of the Saints departed out of this world Bullinger Traberâ—n Marlorat and now reigning with the Lord Jesus in heaven Indeed their number is without number chap. 7.9 But the set and certain number is put for the full and compleat number of the Saints under the Law and under the Gospel discending I say from the twelve Patriarchs or begotten by the twelve Apostles The Jewes and Gentiles with their twenty foure Elders are to sit upon twenty four seats cloathed with white rayment having on their heads crowns of gold I leave it now to your choice which sense to follow and it is evident if you will follow any of them that your Ruling Elders can never be fetch'd out of any of these Among the company I confesse they are in the Church Militant or Triumphant because they are professours but in a districtive notion to call them Elders and prove them so from these three texts is toto errare caelo that I say no worse Conclusio Parainetica All this while you have bestowed your labour in the building and erecting a Presbyterial or Combinational Church and having set it up as you supposed you have call'd me to view your goodly fabrique I with heed looked upon it searched into the foundation and considered the walls and columns and at last judg'd that it could not stand because the foundation was laid in the sand and the pillars and supporters over-weak the materials you have dugge out of your own fancy not out of the true Rock and cemented them together with mortar of your own making Whether this be so or not I leave it to them to judge who shall sadly weigh those stones you have collected and brought out of the quarry of Gods book to set out this your work You in the Acts finde an Election by the Church of Deacons will it thence follow that all future Elections for Presbyters must necessarily proceed by and from their votes and voices or that such Election is of the necessary constitution of a Church the Apostles to avoid an imputation that might be laid upon them in medling with many matters and that they might attend more seriously a greater businesse suffered it to be then so done and is it a good consequent that therefore it must be alwayes done Paul and Barnabas ordained Elders in every Church can any man thence rationally conclude that the Presbyters and Teaching and Ruling Elders must be of the Combinational Churches Regular Ordination What were Paul and Barnabas of the people or were they the Combinational Church A twisted cord will never draw and knit the premises and the conclusions together The Apostle to the Romans to the Corinthians gives a large Catalogue of the gifts and graces of the Spirit and must there therefore be so many functions in the Church He speaks of governments must they be of necessity in the hands of such governours as you suppose In the Revelation he mentions twenty foure Elders and will you thence deduce that they must be necessarily such Elders as you fancy in your brains Had all or any of these texts inforced your conclusions a wonder it is to me that none of the ancient fathers none of the reformed Churches a Barrow Cann Robinson Johnson Syons Prerogative voted by Bayly page 35. 36. Vide etiam eundem p. 104. 105 108 109 c. Bayly page 53 54 55. for you set them all by as well as the Church of Old England in this your device should out of these Mines digge such stones for the building In labours they were indefatigable for piety exemplar in judgment acute for learning very eminent in defence of Religion couragious great talents and measures of the Spirit they no question received content they were to hazard all life limbs goods preferments as many at this day do for the truth and can it be conceived that the Spirit of our good God would suffer them all to be blinded or hood-winked in this necessary of Church-government till you arose It is not yet full twenty six years since Robinson the first perswader of this way arrived at Plymouth in New England from him Mr. Cotton took it up and transmitted it thence to Mr. Thomas Goodwin who helped in this our land to propagate it you see then your Discipline hath not yet the third part of the full age of a man 'T is so youthful that as yet the beard is not well grown and will you then say that all parochial cathedral provincial national oecumenical Churches are degenerated from it you must adorne it with more gray haires and make it Apostolical which you can never do before any man will believe you Your indeavours I have frustrated by restoring the Scriptures you produce to their genuine sense about which I have not relyed wholly upon my own private spirit but upon the judgment of the learnedst gravest and most pious Divines new and old indeed upon the concurrent judgment of the whole Church Tantum veritati obstrâ—pit adulter sensus Tertullian quantum corruptor stilus And indeed I am possessed with such fear when I am to interpret the Word of God lest I should say thus saith the Lord when he
the primitive Church yet will never grant you that from thence the Church shall be denominated Presbyterial or that if it should vary from thence that therefore it had no more than the Sceleton fashion face of a true Church All these things should have been better cast up before you had been so positive The degeneration then you dream of is grounded upon a false supposition that there was at first such a Presbyterial or Combinational Church that was conjoyn'd in any Church-Covenant beside Baptisme that had the native power of the Keyes c. which you never shall be able to demonstrate The contrary to which Rutherford hath nervously prov'd more particularly in his seventh Chapter of his peaceable and temperate plea to whom I referre you The summe of whose discourse is that there were at Jerusalem Father f. cap. 7. Conclus 4. at Samaria at Ephesus at Rome at Galatia at Antioch Presbyteries which shall be granted but that these Presbyteries were not of one single Congregation From these then you can never prove that the following Church did degenerate because they were not The manner of this degeneration you make gradual and you give us in five steppes descending from the Parochial till it came to the oecumenical Romane as you call it But supposing a degeneration in the degrees you are mistaken for as I suppose the first should be last and the last first which will appear if we examine how the Church was govern'd from the Apostles times to this our unhappy age But first I will transcribe your whole discourse SECT II. The words of the Letter 1. THE first rise of the rottening of the Church was its falling from a pure poor Presbyterial Church which in respect of its primitive constitution was made up of living stones namely lively Members and laborious Ministers being firmly fastened and united to the Lord Jesus as their onely head by faith one to another by a fraternal Covenant of love according to the pattern that was proposed and prescribed in both Testaments Is 44.5 Jer. 50.5 Ezra 20.37 Zach. 11.7 10 14. 2 Cor. 8.5 Ephes 2.13 19 22. Col. 2.2 19. 1 Pet. 2.5 into an impure and unpolished parochial Church At that time when ceasing to elect and ordain a Teacher a Pastour a Ruler a Deacon and Diaconesse or a Widow in conformity to the heavenly Canon Rom. 12.7 and 15.4 and 16.1 compared with 1 Tim. 3.1 and Titus 1.5 6. it was well content to admit and accept of a Parson a Vicar a Warden an Over-seer of the poor and a Mid-wife By which wisdome of the flesh being no better then enmity against God within a short time after the dayes of the Apostles Christs spiritual house and growing as well as living Temple was turned and transformed into a carnal and dead Town or Apostatizing Parish The very beginning and breeding of which Parochial Church is seen to have been in the time of Polycarp and Irenaeus one of them being an Elder of the Church at Smyrna and a disciple of John the Evangelist and the other a Pastour at Lyons and a disciple of that Polycarp as any man may easily perceive that will peruse what is to be observed in Eusebius Ecclesiastical history 4. lib. c. 14.15 16. lib. 5. cap. 23.24 2. The second degree of the Combinational Churches corruptions was the Cathedral Churches generation which did presume to alter and to elevate the places and appellations of the Teacher Pastour Ruler and Deacon into those unscripture-like titles of Lord-Bishop Dean Chancellour and Arch-Deacon who ventur'd to usurp the power of excommunication against the Members and Ministers of many Congregations in their Synods and Councels contrary to what was practic'd in that Orthodoxe pattern Acts 15.24 which is laid down and left as well for the imitation as information of after-ages whose work it was by Scripture-proofs to confute soul subverting positions and to confirme Christian-doctrines without any manner of authority to censure any mans person being that that is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 The babe-age of which usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arius in the reigne of Constantius and Constance the sonnes of Constantine the Emperour as it is to be seen in Lib. 2. Socrat. Schol. c. 3. compared with the 32 cap. of 2 book Evagr. lib. 1. cap. 6. 3. The third degree of the Presbyterial Churches degeneracy was its climbing up to the stile of a Provincial Church whose Pastour was not afrai'd nor asham'd to assume the name and office of an Arch-Bishop and Metropolitane leaving the servile and subservient titles of Prebende Surrogate and Vicar-general as termes good enough to the inferiour Officers his underlings Of which proud and prophane Pest-house that Austin which was sent from Gregory the last of good Bishops and the first of evil Popes of Rome is reputed and recorded to have been the father and founder in this Land even then when he was stifly and stoutly oppos'd by the Monks of Bangor Anno Domini 596. and in the reign of King Ethelbert witnesse Fox Martyrol page 119. together with the rest of the Eng. Hist and Evangr lib. 2.8 4. The fourth famous degree of the Combinational Churches infamous defection was its notably naughty enlarging it self into a National Church when and whence without controversie arose that Jewish imitation and irregularly Religious observation of five frivolous and foundationlesse customes and traditions of which the first was of National times as the fifty yearly Festivals or holy working-dayes Cursed-Masse Candle-Masse c. The second was the National places as the Consecrated meeting houses Porches Chancels Church-yards The third was of National persons as the Universal Preachers Office-Priests Half-Priests and Diocesan Deacons The fourth was of National pious performances as stâ—nted Worship Quiristers singing of Psalmes with the Rubrique Postures And the fifth was of National payments or spiritual profits as offerings tithes and mortuaries the which faithlesse and fantastical fashions were the illegitimate off-spring of National Parliaments in this and the Neighbour-Nations Witnesse the publick Acts Statutes and other Ordinances in that behalf 5. The fifth and highest degree of Church-deformity is the oecumenical Church otherwise call'd Romane Catholique the which in the apprehension of I know not how many Kingdomes is the very best though in the judgment of Christ Jesus it is the very basest because the beastliest and the most blasphemous of all the bastard-bastard-Church constitutions that ever were till now Witnesse what is written Rev. 13.1 3 5 6. whose Pastor and other Presbyters the sinne-pardoning Pope Cardinals Abbots with others were owned and acknowledged for to be and that not a few if not of the summond Councels yet in several Synods in sundry Countries Insomuch that Churches abominable iniquities were so increas'd over their heads and their trayterous
right to govern the administration of discipline say these must be Democratical The Papalins are not more hot for one than they are zealous and contentious for the many-headed multitude But say in good sooth whether this can be likely Even the very Heathen Polititians have branded this kinde of government Plato Aristotle Lycurgus professe it is of the three the very worst and experience convinceth us it is the worst and shall any man imagine that Christ who so loved his Church that he bought it with his own blood would institute in it the worst kinde of government A discipline he left to it that 's confessed and would he leave the rod in the hands of the bellua multorum capitum credat Judaeus Apella non ego Besides popular government proceeds from vindicative justice 't is absurd in nature 't is absurd in policy But Christ was not angry when he gave the Keys then he was pleas'd then he was reconcil'd to the world he could not when he was thus affected with love give them to the people in anger The end he gave them was to purge his Church to keep out scandals to keep out Schismes Errours Heresies out of his Church but being in the peoples hands by this means they are let in and that not thinly but in whole swarms Deny if you can since the people have griped the Keyes whether Arianisme Atheisme Antinomianisme Montanisme Euthusiasme Anabaptisme Familisme Quakerisme Chiliasme Socinianisme I want breath to reckon the rest hath not polluted and to use your own word rottened the Church shall we say this government is from Christ which hath brought forth such effects The children betray the mother And now they are brought forth the Key you so much boast of in the peoples hand hath no power to shut them out of the Church out of your particular Church you perhaps may though I have good ground to doubt of that too especially if they grow numeâ—o is as they do of all Sects How I pray was it Arnhem Rotterdam Amsterdam New England what is this to purging of the whole Church I had thought the Keyes had been given for the benefit of the whole and not for the cleansing onely of one single Congregation Well keep your own as clean as you can without spot without wrinkle and let many of your sister-Combinationals remain defiled as they do then you may admonish councel grieve for them lament over presse your non-communion to them They 'll do as much for you as you do for them but power nor means you have none to mend them nor they you and so Christs Church by commssiion of the Keys unto single Congregations becomes remedilesse If a corrupt or negligent Presbytery do not censure their own Members all the Assemblies of the world may not attempt to censure any of them Bayly pag. 112. though most apparently they did corrupt a whole Nation with the grossest heresies or most scandalous vices What can make the house of God worse than a denne of thieves if this do not Well you may perhaps reply which is indeed all you can say for your selves This may be the conseqent but not the cause Be it so which for present I shall give you but never grant you even this were there no more should rouze you to look about whether your tenure of your Keyes be good and your claim and possession justifiable by clear evidence of Scripture Shew me the words there written toâ—idem syllabis and I will yield Shew such an evidence as others can sicut ne misiâ— pater sic mittovos and I will never question the peoples right any more Nay I will go lower shew me but one example of the peoples practice in this matter and I have done Mr. Cotton saw the inconvenience and with fine distinctions strugled what he could to withdraw the power from the people and I hope in good time God will open your eyes to see this errour and leave the Keyes in their hands to whom Christ bequeathed them 3. There is but one way left by which the Church can be govern'd and that is Aristocracy Which is no sooner named but all parties strive and eagerly contend that their title is good to it as the two women did for the childe The Presbyters put in for their right the Independents will have it in their Congregations but the Prelates will not suffer themselves to be so cheated out of their old inheritance but stoutly maintain their Church and that it is alone to be found among them With the first I am not to skirmish at this time were I then I should tell them that Aristocracy is not like to be found in their Country-Presbyteries The second are the men whose claim and title I am to shew invalid and though I have done it in part before yet I will more clear it here by an evident and demonstrative argument The first we know that opposed holy societies were Anabaptists the next who followed was John Mâ—rell who stood up for popular government of and in Independent Congregations whose opinion when we object to the Combinational brethren their common assertion is that they are far from Democracy and ready to forsake their tenet if that can be demonstrated Democracy then even in these mens eyes is no lovely and beautiful childe that at the very name they startle and fly from it tanquam pedibuâ— qui presserat anguem And now you shall see how I can make it appear that it is no false imputation and I beleeve I shall be able to do it Let us only cast our eyes upon the birth of this childe the Combinational Church and denyed it will not be that three seven twenty thirty more or lesse joyn'd together in a holy Covenant made this Church for the greatest number I have here named were at first ample Congregations These as Democritus his atoms which were onely similar parts falling together made up this body but by their own confession all this whâ—le it was homogeneouâ— one part equal every way like to another it was inorganiz'd having no distinction of parts nor head nor eyes nor hands Methinks I behold Aristotles materia prima nec quid nec quale nec quantum When they saw themselves Chaos like they thought it not good to remain thus mishapen and therefore they cast about how they might lick themselves into some form An Heterogeneoâ—s body they thought it necessary to be and to have Organs by which they might work and at last their fancies suggested how they might clap a head to this body and supply it with eyes and hands They agreed that actu primo they had power sufficient and authority in themselves viz. the power of the Keyes and therefore they might organize their own body at their pleasure upon this thus set to work they elected they ordain'd they chose a Pastour for their head and Elders for their eyes and other Church Officers for their hands and so out of a lump
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes Conc. cap. 8. from the beginning upward they had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to old prevailing custome You see I do not exspatiate beyond the bounds of the first three Oecumenical Councils all which confesse that these Metropolitans afterward Patriarchs were no late nor new device first authorized by the Council of Nice but their right and preheminence was even then an ancient usage and Canon of the Church even from the beginning Now if I may take liberty to conjecture I may strongly presume that the fathers of these three Councils had an eye to the constitution extant in the Apostolical Canons The Bishops of every Nation must know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chiefest the first Apost Can. can 35. the Primate and willeth him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as head among the Bishops of that Province who in the Africane Council is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These three were the three first and most ancient of the Patriarchs To whom the fi st Council of Constantinople erected that Bishop into a Patriarch and for the honour of that City being now called Nova Roma gave the Bishop the second place next after old Rome who remains a great Patriarch to this day and thus there became four As for the fifth it was of Jerusalem and it obtained the priviledge of a Patriarchate in the fifth general Council 1. Concil Constantinop can 5. G. Tyrius de bello sacro l. 14. c. 12. Nic. coue can 7 Thus the case stood Jerusalem being destroyed by Vespasian Caesarea was made the Metropolis and so is acknowledged in the Nicene Council and the Bishop Primate even to â—erusalem A great honour they are content should be yielded to the Jerusalem Bishop or Aeliae as he is there called according to the old custome yet manente metropolitanae civitatis propria dignitate meaning Caesarea In the Council of Chalcedon there was a trial past betwixt the Bishop of Antioch and Juvenal Bishop of Jerusalem about jurisdiction in which it was decreed that the Phaenicia's and Arabia should be given to the Patriarch of Antioch and all Palestina Concil Chalced. Act. 7. jure Metropolitico should be under Jerusalem and so Caesaria lost the Metropolitical right and Jerusalem was preferr'd which afterward in the fifth General Council as I said was advanc'd into the first Patriarchate And now if you shall aske me why I have so enlarged my self to discover the rise the antiquity the institution of these Patriarchs it was that you may see how the Church was govern'd at first There was no Monarchy in it no Democracy but an admirable Aristocracy it was like a well marshall'd army indeed it had the Primates after call'd Patriarchs as it were the Generals the Metropolitans as Major General the Bishops as Colonels The Bishops again with their Presbyteries as a Council of warre The Presbyters of the Câ—ty and Countrey as Captaines and under-officers the people as the souldiers under obedience but without command Never tell me this was a corruption for thus it was ab incunabulis Ecclesiae if credit may be given to all Church stories to Acts of Councils to Records to Fathers and thus it was not in one but in all Churches throughout the four quarters of the world And if you shall yet demand upon what ground of Scripture this Hierarchy was taken up Saint Paul shall informe you where he commands Let all things be done decently and in order Calvin being to set down the forme this very forme of government in the Primitive Church in the beginning premiseth these words Calvin instit cap. 8. Sect. 51 52 53 54. Tametsi multos Canones ediderunt illorum temporum Episcopi quibus plus viderentur exprimere quam sacris litterâ—s expressum erat ea tamen cautione totam suam oeconomiam composuerunt ad unicam illam Dei normam ut facilè videas nihil ferè in hac parte habuisse à Dei verbo alienum And again Sect. 54. Quod autem singulae provinciae unum habebant inter Episcopos Archiepiscopum quod item in Synodo Nicaena constituti sunt Patriarchae qui essent ordine dignitate Archiepiscopis superiores id ad disciplinae conservationem pertinebat By this means all inferiour Clergy were better kept in order informed in their duty contentions were composed which to use his words ex aequalitate nascerentur confusion was avoided dissentionum semina tollerentuâ— cum ad unum omnis sollicitude est delata which he hath out of Jerome Hieron ad Evagrium and if antiquity of the institution may satisfie Jerom derives it from the Evangelist Saint Mark. This form of Government the ancients call'd the Church Hierarchy and it is true that Calvin conceives the name improper but then I pray mark how with in four lines he shuts up his discourse Verum si omisso vocabulo rem intuemur reperiemuâ— veteres episcopos non aliam regendae Ecclesiae forman voluisse fingere ab ea quam dominus verbo suo praescripsit and he means that which I have set down Men are much mistaken Calvin Epist ad regem Polon pag. 140 141. edit Genev. an 1576. who conceive Calvin to have been an enemy to this ancient Church-government let them but reade his Epistle that he writes to the King of Poland about the Reformation of the Kingdome and they will tell me another tale for he there sets down to the King the order of the Primitive Church for a patterne where saith he there were Patriarchs and Primates and subordinate Bishops to tye the whole body together with the bond of concord And adviseth the King to establish Bishops in every Province and over them an Arch-Bishop and Primate of that Kingdome Calvin Instit lib. 4. c. 12. artic 6. and if the Popish Bishops were true Bishops he would allow them some authority not as much as they challenge but as much as he thinks would serve for the right governing of the Church Not so much as they challenge good reason for that for this would set up regnum in regno Independent for sooâ—h then they must be of any but the Pope which Princes have no reason to take well but if they shall be content to move within their proper Orbe of Church-government he is not against it Now with Calvin agrees that learned and judicious Zanchy his words are Non improbamus patres quod juxta variam tum verbi dispensandi tum regendae Ecclesiae rationem Zanch. de relig Christ cap. 25. Sect. 10 11. varios quoque ministrorum ordines multiplicarint quando iis liberum fuit sicut nobis quando constat id ab illis factum honestis de causis ad Ordinem ad Decorum ad aedificationem Ecclesia pro eo tempore pertinentibus And thus he begins the next paragraph Novimus enim Deum nostrum Deum esse Ordinis non confusionis Ecclesiam servari Ordine perdi
was the Cathedral Churches generation which did presume to alter and elevate the places and appellations of the Teacher Pastour Ruler and Deacon unto those unscripture-like titles of Lord-Bishop Dean Chancellor Surrogate Arch-Deacon who ventur'd to usurp the power of excommunication against the Members and Ministers of many Congregations in their Synods and Councils contrary to what was practic'd in that Orthodoxe pattern Acts 15.24 which is laid down and left as well for the imitation as information of after-ages whose work it was by Scripture-proofs to confute soul subverting positions and to confirme Christian doctrines without using any manner of authority to censure any mans person being that that is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 The babe-age of which usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arius in the reigne of Constantius and Constance the sonnes of Constantine the Emperour as it is to be seen in Socrat. Schol. Lib. 1. c. 3. compared with the 32 cap. lib. 2. and Evagr. lib. 1. cap. 6. Reply That I may return you a full answer I must take asunder into propositions what you here deliver You say 1. The Combinational Churches corruption was the Cathedral Churches generation 2. The corruption was by changing the places and appellations of Teachers c. into the titles of Lord Bishop Dean Chancellour Arch-Deacon 3. That they ventured to usurp the power of excommunication in their Synods and Councils 4. That this was contrary to the Orthodox pattern Acts 15. 5. Authority to censure any mans person is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 6. Alexander ab Alexandria began this against Arrius and Eusebius of Nicomedia so that it was an usurpation and a new age in the Church 1. Proposition That the Combinational Churches corruption was the Cathedral Churches generation IT is a rule in Philosophy Non entis non sunt accidentia that corruptio is mutatio entis ab esse ad non esse tale That which is corrupted then must have an entity for else it can never be corrupted Now your Combinational Church in the time you speak of was a non en◠there was no such thing and then it could not be corrupted nor any other Church rise from that corruption Which shall further appear if we shall distinguish of the terme Cathedral which I hinted at first for as among Logical notions there be termini primi and à primo orti so also it is in this the word Cathedral being taken in a primitive and in a derivative sense If you take it in the prime sense it denotes unto us those places or chief Cities where the Apostles for some time or Apostolical men by their appointment took up their residence for conversion of the people and reglement of the Church hence it is that we so often read of in the fathers Cathedra Jacobi which was at Jerusalem Cathedra Petri which was for seven years at Antioch after at Alexandria and last of all Cathedra Apostolorum Petri Pauli at Rome In those Churches where they staid for any long time and preach'd and planted Religion which were commonly the Metropolis of that Province or Country as Ephesus Corinth Philippi at their departure they left a Bishop with a Presbytery to govern and thence these Churches were call'd Ecclesiae Cathedrales This is the prime importance of the word But after as Christianity was extended and Bishops were seated and erected in divers Diocesses they began to build Churches in which at first the Bishop and the Presbyters did reside who were to over-see the Diocesse and because of their residence in this place the Church in imitation of the Apostles Chairs was call'd the Cathedral Church Neither was this Cathedral so new Euseb l. 2. c. 17. as most men suppose For I shall not stick to call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Egypt mentioned by Eusebius out of Philo the Jew a Cathedral it will seem so to any man that shall advisedly read that Chapter for he writes of their government of them to whom the Ecclesiastical Liturgies are committed Of their Deaconships of the presidency of Bishops placed above all To which that of Palladius will give much light for he saith Palladius in Histor Lausiaca that in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there were eight Presbyters and that so long as the chief over them liv'd none of the rest might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here the Scriptures were read prayers continued Hymnes and Canticles in every kind of Meeter sung to God penances transacted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the old Sabbath and every Lords day I cannot conceive but this might be a Cathedral even in this last sense I shall instance in another which was old Euseb l. 3. c. 23. even in Saint John's time the Apostle He commended the young man to the chief of all the Bishops can any man think he was lesse than a Metropolitane the man prov'd deboist ran from the Church and became a thief At his return John demanded of the Bishop his charge the Bishop sobbing and sighing said he is dead dead to God for he is become wicked and pernicious and to be short a Thief for he keeps this Mountain over against this Church together with his associates 't is more then probable this was a Material Church for how else could the hill be over against it and presently it is said that the Apostle hastened out of the Church Now I judge it to be Cathedral because he that was the chief of the Bishops had his residence in it Let it be also considered what Eusebius writes in his tenth book Euseb l. 10. c. 2. cap. 2. that in the beginning of Constantines reign that the Temples were again from the foundations erected to an unmeasurable height and received greater beauty than ever they enjoy'd before their destruction They were then before and were but now again erected And we of all other have least reason to doubt of this since Joseph of Arimathea erected a Church at Glastenbury as the best of our Historians record Gildas Spilman Cambden and Spilman hath in picture given us the extent and fashion and materials of it After divers other Cathedral Churches were erected in this Island by King Lucius if there be any truth in our Records at Landaff at London at Chester c. as you may read in Ephraim Pagetts Christianography part 3. page 1 c. Now take the Cathedral in which of these acceptions you please your assertion cannot have any truth in it Not in the first for then you make the Apostles the authours of this corruption since they were the erectors of these Cathedrals not in the last because they were erected after the Apostolical patterne The plain truth is that the corruption of
labour in doctrine as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which often signifies to rule And then your third word Rulers will come under that notion also and so Teachers Pastours and Rulers will not denote three distinct sorts of Church Officers which I have some reason to think you aime at but one and the same man qualified both to teach and to rule At Geneva Calvin and Beza were made both Pastours and Readers of Divinity being men so able to discharge both and yet no man did say that they did not content themselves with their pastoral votation or alledge against them He that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation For as I have often told you and have proved Lay-Ruling Elders except you mean Arbitratours there were never any in the Primitive Church The last word you use is Deacon Hieron ad Evagrium Epiph. lib. 1. Tom. 1. de adventu Christi in carnem And under that name are properly comprehended those who by the first institution were onely mensarum viduarum Ministri who if we beleeve Epiphanius were chose out of the seventy of which two of them did preach Stephen and Philip they were more than Deacons they were Evangelists and so Philip is stiled But he that shall heedfully consider Saint Pauls precepts and the conditions required by him in those that should be Deacons would easily collect that their Office was not onely a charge to look to the poor but that they were to attend the sacred services and Assemblies and even to be a step to the Ministry of the word I shall therefore willingly admit of the distinction that there were in the Primitive Church two sorts of Deacons One of the first institution who were to have a care of the poor and of a second kinde deputed by the Church who were to attend on the Church give unto eve y one present of the sanctified bread and wine to command the people silence attention Concil Ancyr Can. 2. Cypr. lib. 3. Epist 9 â—ust Apol. 2. Ignat. ad Heronem and devotion all which may be collected out of the Council of Ancyra Cyprian Justin Martyr and Ignatius who mentions his own Deac Heron at Antioch and Stephen to be the Deacon to Saint James at Jerusalem Thus much it was necessary to premise before we joyn'd issue now you charge us with presumption in removing the Landmarks that we have altered the places and appellations by bringing in of new names unscripture-like titles So belike it is not lawful to use any titles of honour or command but such as are used in Scripture The Jewes then belike offended when they used these unscripture-like titles of Reschignim Tsadikim Chasidim and so after the captivity they divided the people The Reschagnim were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wicked the Tsadikim their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their just men the Chasidim their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their good and holy men And yet Saint Paul serves himself of this distinction for questionlesse he alludes to it Rom. 5.6 7. amplifying the great love of Christ dying for us Scarcely for a righteous man will one dye yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to dye the gradation is this Some peradventure would dye for one of the Chasidim the good men scarcely for one of the Tsadikim for the just or righteous men But for Reschagnim or ungodly none would dye In this then appeared the love of Christ that when we were Reschagnim ungodly sinners Christ dyed for us A man is a Ruler of an Army and he shall not call some Majors some Colonells some Centurions Pentacurions Decurions c. because these are unscripture-like titles Nomen is rei notamen invented it was to denote the thing neither do I know which way it is possible to understand and distinguish but by names vox being rei conceptuum signum and therefore must necessarily be admitted if we will not confound our selves in the understanding of things But now to the names you mention Lord-Bishop Dean Chancellour Surrogate Arch-Deacon The end of two of these I finde in Scripture Bishop and Deacon but you 'll say the syllables Lord and Arch are unscripture-like I must confesse that I finde not Lord before Bishop in the Scripture nor Arch before Deacon but this will not prove that we have altered the places and appellations for what place have we altered either of Bishops or Deacons by calling one Lord-Bishop or the other Arch-Deacon Still the place and office is the same for the Lord-Bishop hath no other power than he had at first which is potestas clavium nor the Arch-Deacon any more than he had to be oculus Episcopi and see that all be well administred that concerns the poor and service of the Church To be offended with a title is to pick straws especially when the substance is observed For how have we alter'd the places when we have yet in our Church Bishops who are Pastours Teachers and besides these publick Professours of Divinity Doctours Catechizers whom Saint Paul saith Saint Ambrose meant by Teachers such as were in the Churches of Alexandria Clemens Pantonus Origen Hicroclas As for those other three appellations Dean Chancellour Surrogate no Scripture can be brought for them nor needs it it being lawful no question to give fit names to things though no text can be produced otherwise your parties were to seek who call him who is to preside in a Synod by the name of a Proloquutor and those that govern in your Combinational Churches Lay-Elders and are not these unscripture-like for I finde no such titles in the Scriptures As for the name of Deane it is ancient and it signifies no more than that Presbyter who was the chief in any Collegiate Church and was to have a care that the Statutes of the Church were observed being like the the Principal Warden or President of a College and you may as well be offended with any of these Appellations as with this with which yet it is evident many of your party are well pleased for they enjoy it and the honour and profits notwithstanding the names are not found in Scripture And should any man lay this objection against any of them I dare say he would answer him with a smile I am confident he would who being a prime man among you at this day enjoyeth a Deanery and doubtlesse hugs himself applaudÃt sibi ipsi domi Aha I am warme I have been at the fire That you like the name nere the worse it was fetcht from the Militia The Romane souldiers were when drawn to their winter quarters to lodge by companies and so many as lodged together being commonly ten were called Contubernales the chief over them was called Decenus or decurio Hadrian Junius being praeses manipuli dexinier en guerre Gall or the Corporal from the Italian word Caporale or Spanish Corporal We in Enlglish Corporal
in the Primitive Church And it is evident that they charged the execution of these Canons upon the Bishops first because they had power that to those who by humility and teares and patience Zonaras in Explic Can. 12. Conc. Nic. Alcimus Epist 16. Conc. Nic. Can. 5. Conc. Antioch cap. 20. and alms-deeds did demonstrate their conversion to be sincere and unfeined to remit the severity of the Canon So Alcimus to Victorius the Bishop Authoritatis vestrae est errantium compunctione perspectâ severitatis ordinem temperare And secondly because they ordained that in every Province twice ever year there should be a Synod that all the Bishops of the Province meeting together might in common examine such questions as are occurrent in every place and particularly to enquire si forte aliqua indignatione aut contentione aut qualibet commotione sui Episcopi excommunicati quidam sint This was the Church Ordinance set before the time you speak of which clearly makes against you and now I shall shew you de facto what was done before that time too In Asia there was held sundry Synods about the time of the Emperour Commodus Euseb l. 5. c. 16 19. in which Montanus was excommunicated and his Heresie condemned Victor about the same time held a Synod at Rome and excommunicated all the Easterne Bishops about the celebration of Easter Euseb l. 6.23 24 25. which Act of his though unjust yet it shewes the judgment of those times that such a thing upon a just occasion he might do and that it was no usurpation in a Bishop with his Council to censure any mans person Again under the Emperour Decius there was a Synod gathered together at Rome of 60. Euseb l. 6. c. 43. Bishops besides many Ministers nd Deacons whither also there came many Pastours of other Provinces where by uniforme consent of all it was decreed that Novatus together with such as swelled and consented to his unnatural opinion repugnant to brotherly love should be excommuicated and banished the Church And the same was confirmed by another Synod held at Antioch by Elenus Firmilian Yheoctistus I passe by here the several Censures passed in the Synod held at Carthage upon the Lapsi and Thurificati as may be seen in very many Epistles of Cyprian To give light to this there is not any example more evident than the Synod of Antioch held about sixty years before the Council of Nice where Paulus Samosatenus the Bishop of Antioch was deposed and condemned for Heresie Euseb l. 7. c. 30 The Epistle then written by the Bishops Presbyters c. to Dionysius Bishop of Rome and Maximus Bishop of Alexandria c. is yet extant wherein they write thus Wherefore necessity constraining us so to do we excommunicated the sworn adversary of God viz. Paulus Samosatenus and placed Donneus in his roome c. Farther yet there was a Council of 320. Caranza Platina Tom. 1. Conc. apud Binnium Bishops called together at Sinuessa in Italy where Marcellinus Bishop of Rome was condemnatus anathematizatus accepit Maranatha And all these instances I am able to give you before that yo name so that there it cannot be true which you say that the babe-age of this usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arius in the reign of Constantius and Constance c. In relation of which story you are not exact enough neither For I read not of any power that Alexander usurped over Eusebius nor any Censure he passed upon him he wrote indeed a letter to the brethren of the Churches that they should beware of Eusebius and his Arianisme because he was the patron and ringleader of the Apostates in his letter he sharply reproved him but he censured him not neither indeed could he because he belonged to the jurisdsction of another Patriarch But touching Arius and his adherents he summoned together a Council of many Bishops and deprived him and such as favoured his opinion Achillas Aeithales Carpomes a second Arius c. of the Priestly order And this he might do for they were under the jurisdiction of the Church of Alexandria But the Heresie being not so extinct and matters growing by the contenders to greater heat Constantine thought good to call the Nicene Council where the question was debated the Creed called the Nicene composed the clause of one substance ratified and the 318. Bishops except five subscribed unto it viz. Eusebius Theognis Maris Theonas Secundus These derided the clause Socrates lib. 1. cap. 8. and would not subscribe to the deposition of Arius For which cause the Council accursed Arius and all his adherents and forbade him Alexandria Moreover by the Emperours Edict Arius Eusebius Theognis were banished cap. 14. But Eusebius and Theognis recanted All this was done in the reigne of Constantine while he was alive it was that Alexander first then the Council proceeded against Arius and his adherents cap. 38. and under Constantine it was that that Arch-heretique came to that miserable end Yea and Alexander himself died also and Athanasius was chosen Bishop in his stead before Constantine died cap. 15. So that it cannot be possibly true which you say that Alexander of Alexandria did exercise or usurpe authority against Arius in the reigne of Constantius and Constance for while their father lived they were not Emperours Socrat. l. 2. c. 32 Well as you intimate and direct me I turne to the second book of Socrates cap. 82. but in the Gree. 40. and 41. chap. but there I finde no mention of Alexander nor Arius A Council at Seleucia we there read of called in Constantius's time and that there was hot disputes betwixt the Arians and the Orthodox but at last the Orthodox prevailed deposed Acacius the Arian and his complices and excommunicated divers others among which was Eusebius Socrates lib. ◠cap. 2. lib. 1. cap 23. 29. graec whether it was he of Nicomedia or no it appears not but in all probability it is the same man because after his recantation he relapsed to his Arianisme and was one of the persecutors of Athanasius However this makes against you for here we finde some Bishops deposed others excommunicated by a Council But this by the way In the last place you send me to Evagrius lib. 1. cap. 6. but to seek for what I know not for I pray look again and you shall not finde any thing of Alexander Arius Evagr. lib. 1. cap. 6. or Eusebius no nor their names in that chapter 't is wholly of another matter and nothing to your purpose and therefore I passe it by and set it for a cypher But were your opinion true that it were usurpation for Bishops assembled in a Council to censure any mans person consider I pray what an aspersion you lay upon the first four general
true in your sense yet one example will make no rule again a servant she might be and yet not such as you intend for if you will admit of Ignatius description of those servants and he was near the Apostles age and could best describe them I dare say you will not acknowledge your Deaconesses to be such his words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat. Ep. ad Antioch But to yield to you all you can ask Aretius gives you a reason why they may be spared You advise that these places be compared with 1 Tim. 3.1 I suppose it should be the 11. And then Expositours will tell you that Saint Paul speaks not all of Deaconesses but of the wives of Deacons and other Church men enjoyning that they be grave Matrons no Slaunderers but sober faithful in all things Your last place Tit. 1.5 6. makes clearly against you for if Titus were left in Crete to ordain then the Combinational Church was not to elect and ordain Pastours Teachers c. Here I can finde no Canon for that Logicians observe that those arguments have little force in them that mutatis mutandis may be returned for they are but like Tennis balls that are banded from hand to hand and serve onely for sport Will you have but patience then while I return your discourse The first rise of rottening the Church being it's falling from a poor pure Apostolical Church which in its primitive constitution was made up of living stones c. was at that time when ceasing to elect and ordain Bishops Presbyters Evangelists Teachers Catechizers in conformity to the heavenly Canon 1 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4. Titus 1.5 6. Ephes 4.11 2 Tim. 4.5 Gal. 6.6 it was well content to admit accept of Approvers Ruling Elders Lecturers Itinerants by which wisdome of the flesh being no better then enmity against God in this last age of the world long after the Apostles dayes Christs spiritual house and growing as well as spiritual Temple was turned and transformed into a carnal and dead Congregation an Apostatizing Combinational Church No question the argument thus returned will displease and yet there is as much strength in this as in the other This may make us both wary how we make use of such Cothurni reasons that as buskins may be drawn on either leg That which in the last place you alledge is 4. The very beginning and breeding of which Parochial Church is seen to have been in the time of Polycarp and Irenaeus WHat 's this I read a Parish Church of that antiquity Parsons Vicars Wardens Over-seers of the poor then What these while Saint John might be for ought we know yet alive For Polycarp you confesse was his Disciple and in it you say true for thus Irenaeus witnesseth Polycarpus non solum ab Apostolis edoctus Iren. lib. 3. c. 3. conversatus cum multis ex eis qui Dominum nostrum viderunt sed etiam ab Apostolis in Asia in eâ quae est Smyrnis Ecclesia constitutus Episcopus This is greater antiquity for a Parish Church in that sense you intend then I or any body else could ever finde before That which deceived you as I am apt to beleeve is the translation by Hanmer who renders the words of the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna unto the Parishes throughout Pontus Euseb l. 4. c. 15. not understanding that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek word is often taken and most usually in the eldest of the Greek Writers for regiones suburbicariae the neighbouring habitations before there was any distinction of Parishes Ephesus Smyrna Pergamus Laodicea were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in respect of secular jurisdiction so also in Ecclesiastical regiment when then the Smyrneans directed their letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they meant no other then those Churches which were under the Smyrnean jurisdiction But admit it were true in your sense what have you gained by it nay rather what have you not lost for to say your Combinational Church should fail in the Apostles or his Disciples time by the setting up of the Parochial will give such encouragement to the adverse party that they will not doubt to say That was well done which was then done especially when they cannot finde for sixteen hundred years any man that opened his mouth against it And the self-same answer will serve to your other instance of Irenaeus Of these two worthies you affirme that one of them was an Elder of the Church of Smyrna the other Pastour of Lyons And I pray why could you not as well have called them by other names I am sure your Authour Eusebius doth For of the last thus he saith Euseb l. 5. c. 5. that when Pothinus of the age of ninety years had ended his life Irenaeus succeeded him in the Bishoprick He was a Bishop then but if you take Pastour in that sense as it is almost taken in Church Records we agree But yet I must remember you that Lyons was a great City and somewhat more than a Parish as you mean As for Polycarp your Authour tells you that he was President of the Church of Smyrna and so Irenaeus calls him Episcopus ab Apostolis constitutus and under that title Ignatius writes to him Ignat. Epist ad Polycarp and in all probability he is that Angel of the Church of Smyrna to whom that Epistle was written Rev. 2. He was then capable of a higher title then of an ordinary Elder he had indeed in his Church many Elders even a whole Presbytery and therefore Ignatius gives this direction to those of Smyrna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem Epist ad Smyrn In this elegant gradation you see he makes a distinction of Laicks Deacons Presbyters and a Bishop and therefore Polycarp was more than a common Presbyter to whom he perswades all the Presbyters to be in subjection And which is yet more which makes clearly against your Combinational Churches for you grant there were Parishes at Smyrna in the close of his Epistle to Polycarp he perswades them to continue in the unity of God and the Bishop his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which unity had we remained we had not lived to see the Church so rent and overcome with so many Heresies as we behold and lament at this day I come to your third degree of corruption SECT V. The words of the Letter The third degree of the Presbyterial Churches degeneracy was its climbing up to the stile of a Provincial Church whose Pastour was not afrai'd nor asham'd to assume the name and office of an Arch-Bishop and Metropolitane leaving the servile and subservient titles of Prebende Surrogate and Vicar-general as termes good enough to the inferiour Officers his underlings Of which proud and prophane Pest-house that Austin who was sent from Gregory the last of the good Bishops and the first of the bad Popes of Rome is reputed and recorded to have
been the father and founder in this Land even then when he was stoutly and stifly oppos'd by the Monks of Bangor Anno Domini 596. and in the reign of King Ethelbert witnesse Fox his Martyrol page 119. together with the rest of our Eng. Hist and Evagr. lib. 2. c. 8. Reply Sect. 5. YOu so promiscuously use these termes Presbyterial and Combinational that I know not readily how to shape my answer for were I to deale with the Presbyterians I should reply one way but to you I must returne another answer You say here that the third degree of corruption was when it degenerated into the Provincial Church But this is not likely for when the Church became Cathedral and Parochial your Combinational Church vanished it was no more now what hath no existence cannot by degrees degenerate since degrees belong to qualities which have must have some subject to exist in Had you then said the Church by these degrees rottened it had been sense but to say that that which long before this was not did rot and degenerate is not intelligible But to omit this I shall now consider in what you place this Degeneration 1. This was when it climed to be stiled a Provincial Church 2. When the Pastour was not afraid nor ashamed to assume the name and office of Arch-bishop and Metropolitane 3. When he left the servile and subservient names or titles of Prebend Surrogate and Vicar-General to inferiour Officers 4. That of this proud and prophane Pest-house Austin sent from Gregory was the father and founder in this our Land This is the summe of what you deliver To which I returne you this answer with what brevity I can 1. The degeneration was when it climbed up to be a Provincial Church But what if this prove no Degeneration at all For every thing is said to degenerate when it is changrd to the worse whereas this change if there were any which I shall not easily grant you was into the better for by this the Church was better ordered and governed than it could be without it At first the Church was so small that an upper roome was able to containe it it enlarged in Cities then in Countries after into whole Provinces Governed it must be when small or great and governed it was by the Apostles while they lived and by those whom they appointed These Governours by them placed were seated in chief Cities as at Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Corinth c. And because they had the Provinces allotted to them the Churches were called Provincial This I have shewed before clearly in Titus who was set over Crete But it may be said the Provinces were not then converted how then could such Governours be set over them This is not material For as the Apostles might rightly be called the Governours of the whole world because Christ committed all Nations to their charge though at first a small Congregation did obey them actually So that Governour that was placad in any Metropolis or chief City by them though actually he had in his communion and subjection some few yet he had in Charge the conversion of the whole Countrey and being converted they were under his government and he was called their Metropolitane That you startle not at the word I have told you before that it was very ancient to be found in the Apostolical Canons in the Nicene Antiochian Conc. Ephes edictum post adventum episc Cypri and Ephesine Councils the words of this last Council being these It seemeth good to this sacred and Oecumenical Council to reserve unto every Province untouched and undiminished the rights which they have had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the first beginning every Metropolitan having liberty according to the old custome to take the copy of our Acts for his security I know well what you will cast in my teeth that this was the wisdome of the flesh and the wisdome of the flesh is enmity with God But first consider that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a custome of old and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a custome from the beginning and the period of that may be for what we know to the contrary set in the Apostles Secondly I deny it absolutely to be the wisdome of the flesh For there is flesh that is unregenerate and the wisdome of that flesh is enmity with God for ambition that is a corrupt quality residing in it will prompt it to desire honour covetousnesse to aime at wealth selfe-love to promote and serve its lusts But there is flesh again that is regenerate and borne anew which is contented to be guided by Gods Spirit instructing a man to obey Gods will revealed in his Word and this is not enmity with God I shall never think that Grace outs any man of his reason it may perfect heighten enlighten it but darken or dimme it it can never do Whatsoever therefore a man shall do by the light of reason raised by Grace to this pitch I shall not call it the wisdome of the flesh nor be perswaded it is enmity against God The first Fathers of the Church were men very eminent for the graces and gifts of the Spirit men who were signal for illuminated reason Even reason taught them that there must needs be confusion where there was no order where there was equality there could be no order and therefore in an equality it was not possible the Church should continue They saw that there was in one family but one Master in one Army but one General in one ship but one Pilot in one Bee-hive but one King reason taught them that there must be and experience that there was sub supra in all Societies and therefore that it must be so in the Societies of Gods people Thus farre nature But Reason improved by Grace taught them again that God would not be served according to mans inventions and therefore they must look that though Reason suggested this or that yet nothing must be done that was contrary to Gods will revealed in his Word They here then cast about to finde if they could any thing contrary to what reason dictated now this appeared not but rather the contrary for they found it written Let all things be done decently and in order all to edification and that this was a precept for the regulating of the Church And upon it it was established 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the beginning to this day that in all Provinces there should be one chief Bishop which from the mother City was called a Metropolitan to whom all the other Bishops should be subject and who to him should be accomptable for what was done through the whole Province This then was not the wisdome of the flesh but the wisdome of God who would have all things done in order If any man did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 teach other things than he taught or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 teach any new things and not according to the
Truth would ever have owned it been once stiled by it And so you see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. When he left the servile and subservient names of Prebend Surrogate Vicar General to inferiour Officers his underlings THese names or titles I never heard the Arch-Bishop or Metropolitane had therefore I know not how he could leave them Under him perhaps these were but for the Prebend he was no Officer The Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters first lived together and were maintained out of a common stock or treasury of the Church the Bishop allotted to every one his salary monthly which in Tertullian is called stipes in Cyprian sportula Tertull. Apol. c. 39. 42. and it was an honourable stipend or portion as appears by the words of Cyprian when he would have Clemens and Aurelius who were Confessors admitted into the Colledge of Presbyters that they might be honoured with this stipend Sciatis nos honorem Presbyteris illis jam d signasse Cypr. Ep. 34. Edit Pammel 27. 36. ut iisdem sportutis cum Presbyteris honorentur and in another Epistle he calls these menstrae divisiones agreeing with his Master Tertullian who saith these stipes were given menstruâ die Thus it was at first but afterward when Cathedral Churches were built these Presbyters were called Prebends and their salary Praebenda Spalatens lib. 2. cap. 9. Sect. 6. not that they had a separate part or portion of that Church revenue to themselves as afterwards it was thought fit sed quod cuique ex communi illius Ecclesiae reditu alimenta praebebantur Now this was the Original of Prebends neither was he any more a Church Officer then as a Presbyter which if you take in the old sense you have no reason to carp at 2. As for the Surrogate I do not finde that ever any Arch-Bishop had such an Officer I suppose that you should aime at Conc. Ancyr Can. 13. Neoces 13. Antioch 10. Conc. Sardic cap. 6 Laodic cap. 56. Socrat. Schol. lib. 5. cap. 21. Possidon in vita Aug. Aug. Ep. 110. Naucler Vol. 2. Generat p. 667. is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Rural Bishops who were brought into the Church to supply the Bishops place in absence or sicknesse who because they abused their power were disliked and timely abrogated Or if not these yet the suffragan Bishops or Coadjutors for such then were as it appears in the Church Records Agelius the Novatian Bishop being ready to dye first imposed hands on Sisimius to succeed him but upon the request of the people made choice of Marcian then of Sisimius the story is worth your reading in Socrates Austin was also made the Suffragan to Valerius in Hippo and afterward Austin himself took for his Coadjutor Eradius Thus you may see a Coadjutor was allowed but such a one as should be onely a Presbyter while the Bishop lived and therefore long after the time of Augustine when Zachary Bishop of Rome associated another Bishop as a Coadjutor to Boniface the Bishop of Mentz he confessed it to be a thing forbidden by the Canons and worthy reprehension but that upon his importunity of special favour he had yielded so much unto him that he might have such a Coadjutor whom with the advice of his brethren he might appoint to succeed him when he should dye Now if you do aime at these there could be no great errour in the institution if the Bishop either when he was in remotis agendis as the Lawyers speak or disabled by infirmity or age he made choice of some worthy person to be his Coadjutor no otherwise then the High Priests among the Jewes did of their Saganim For I read not of any expresse text of holy writ that could or did warrant them to do it 3. Thirdly the last name that doth displease is the Vicar General but neither was he properly any Church Officer A Judge he was in the Arch-Bishops Court for such matters as were reserved by Princes to the Christian judicature to visit for the Metropolitane the whole Province and and so came into the place of them whom the Laodicean Council calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caranza translates the word Visitatores but Meursius Circitatores Lustratores quorum munus esset circumire per omnes universae regionis Ecclesias Laodic Conc. Can. 57. Meursii Lexico mixobarb Balsam in Can. 57. Conc. Laodiceni inquirere de illarum statu And of these Balsamâ—â— upon the Canon of the Laodicean Council hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Commission to this purpose I finde given by Henry the eighth to Thomas Cromwel after Earle of Essex that great instrument of expulsion of the Popes power out of England by which authority he visited all the Abbies and Monasteries of the Land and finding in them foul enormities opened them in Parliament the next year in which he sate with the title of Vicegerent or Custos spiritualitatum this power was not much unlike a Vicar General And were it safe to utter my thoughts I should not stick to put you in minde of those who have lately done the same work under other names For what else I pray were the Propagators of the Gospel what else the Commissioners for scandalous and ignorant Ministers what else the Committee men under whom I am sure the Clergy felt a sharp visitation yea and sharper then that of the Custos spiritualitatum for then the ejected had a competency of maintenance allowed them for their lives which by these is not done Lastly if I should call your Approvers Vicar Generals too I should not much erre for have they not the care of all the Churches Modesty retains me or else I could say that some of your Pastours of Congregational Churches have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and been Informers or Agents to the prejudice of many an honest and laborious Minister But you say these Officers were Underlings how otherwise could it be if they were Officers for Officers must be under they were subservient so they must be also for indicitur ministratio whosoever will be great among you Mat. 20.26 let him be your Minister To be under was humility to be subservient their duty but if among them any were servile so slavish as to be at the Arch-Bishops or Metropolitans beck and to drudge for his ends this was basenesse and if you note the men they shall not be defended but condemned by me as well as you But while I go along with you in the pursuit of these I finde my self in some danger for I finde a Pest-house nigh in which plaguey people are used to be put and to this those you mention are sent for their pride and profanesse and I wish that all who are infected with the same Leprosie were placed there with them for then 't is possible we might meet with Corah Dathan and Abiram there as well as Moses
and heady animosities fall asunder and break into several fractions and subdivisions so that they by reciting a certain forme of words seem to meet as pieces of wood finely glued together which a little spittle or wet dissolves Then again it is uselesse to them who are bound already by a higher and more solemn Covenant for this is as it were to binde a man with wisps of straw that is already bound with chains of gold For every true and conscientious Christian knows and owns himself to have upon his conscience farre more strict and indissoluble ties not onely of nature and creation but of the Law and word of God yea and of Christian Covenant and Profession by his Baptismal vow besides that bond of the other Sacrament that I speak not of his vowes renewed by often promises in his prayers and repentant promises All which binds the consciences of all good Christians to all duties of piety and charity according to the relations wherein they stand to God and man farre more firmly than any external profession in a Church way can do An external I say for so it is and being meerly external it cannot ingredi rei essentiam make any man formally a Church member that which doth this is the call of God and not the profession of man And now having removed this rub out of my way I shall go on to give you a fourth argument for a National Church 4. That to whom the proper essential and inseparable notes of the Church belong is a Church but to a National Church these notes belong therefore a National Church is a Church The major is certain for it is nota proprii the minor I easily prove The essential notes of the Church as Junius hath excellently demonstrated against Bellarmine Jun. de Ecclesia cap. 16. Doctor Field of the Ch. lib. 2. cap. 2. Whites Orthodox cap. 3. Sect. 6. first the entire profession of these supernatural verities which God hath revealed in his Sonne Secondly the use of such holy Ceremonies and Sacraments as he hath instituted and appointed Thirdly an union and connexion of men in this profession and use of these Sacraments under lawful Pastours and guides appointed authorized and sanctified to direct and lead them in the happy wayes of eternal salvation Now do not these belong to a National Church is there not in it a profession of supernatural verities is not the Word of God publickly preached in it are not holy Rites and Sacraments administred according to Christs institution is there not a succession of lawful Guides and Pastours in it as I have elsewhere proved what then can hinder but there should be a National Church Whatsoever you can say against these notes I have so clearly as I conceive proved that I hold it superfluous to adde any more and therefore I come unto my third proof experience 3. Experience is that wisdome and knowledge of any thing that a man hath by the trial of particulars For when upon a sad examination he finds that so many Individuums agree in aliquo tertio he presently concludes that they all partake of the same nature Let us then take a view of several Churches and those most eminent at first and if it appear that those were National we may from hence easily inferre that the constitution of a Church may be National It is in all Church Histories most evident that as soon as the Gospel was first planted it spread from great Cities into the Neighbour Territories and adjacent Countries which Christians so converted though they exercised the acts of Religion in particular Congregations yet still continued in a fraternal subjection and filial submission to that Bishop and Presbytery which resided in the Mother City It is a foule mistake for men to conceive of the Church of Ephesus Smyrna Thyatyra c. of Corinth Antioch Jerusalem Rome c. as confined to that City whereas he who is acquainted with Histories profane and sacred must know that under these Cities were principalities and so the jurisdiction of that Church was extended to all Christians in that Territory Which to deny is to sleight all Records and to preferre his own single imagination before all antiquity Titus was Bishop of Crete an Island Timothy of Ephesus a Province Polycarp of Smyrna a Territory and what is true of these is as true of all the rest whence we may conclude that a Church may be National for if jurisdiction of one Bishop may extend over so great Cities as they were being then the chief of the world why not then to a Province why not to a Nation especially since by this way mutual peace truth and good order is best preserved This consideration caused the first small company of believers multiplyed from a Church in one family to a Church in many Congregations that could not meet together in one place yet as branches to continue still united to the root Christ Jesus and also to the main body and bulk of the Church by union to that part whence they descended and to which they related For reason taught them that they should be weaker and exposed to more danger if they should be disunited and rent from the body and quickly wither as boughs separated from the stock I need not minde you of that old Apologue of Menenius Agrippa that the head and feet quickly starved and windred away when they would not hear of any longer dependence upon the belly He that would be magnified for Simon Magus or magnus Simon the great and wise for his invention of rarities and Paradoxes in any art or science ought to furnish himself not with popular and specious but with solid and sound arguments if he intend to winne prudent and sober men to be of his judgment for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wise men will not be catch't with those sophisms with which it is easie to take the multitude After the flood there were but eight persons in the world they lived together in a family for some time and Noah as a Prince ruled them But they quickly encreased spread multiplyed grew into those Nations that now live and being dispersed over the earth they yet joyned in societies and for their mutual preservation thought it fit to be governed that way that we now behold Suppose now some great and wise Magus should in these words charme and bewitch the people Non sic fuit ab initio in Noahs dayes the ordering of the world was not as we see it now there were then no mighty Monarchs no surly Lords no Judges no Magistrates Who then spoke of National societies or civil confederations Oh 't was a brave world then when the government was domestical a golden age when no man ruled beyond his own doors but every one was a King at home Could we but contrive a way and live to see it so in our dayes 't would be no question a brave world again When Adam dugge and Eve span who was
These are the words of that Authour which I thought good to transcribe that you should not impute to me any Satyrical expressions let him who hath printed the passage answer for it Farther yet that I may a little allay your odiun and spleen to these Universal Preachers I pray tell me the meaning of those words of your New-Englands constitution delivered in these words Synod at Cambridge cap. 9. Sect. 6. Nor can constant residence at one Congregation be necessary for a Minister nor yet lawful if he be not a Minister to one Congregation onely but to the Church Universal because he may not attend to one part onely of the Church whereto he is a Minister but he is called to attend upon the whole flock I see that magna est veritas praevalebit that Truth when men are out of their heats shall have a fair testimony even from its enemies For what could be said more clearly by us for Universal Preachers than is here delivered And what is more consonant to our Saviours charge to Peter which Saint Paul ingeminates to the Pastours of Ephesus Feed the flock Joh. 21.15 16 17. Acts 20.28 over whom the Holy Ghost hath made you over-seers Every Minister is a Minister of Christ Jesus and ought to have a care of the whole Church though more particularly of that Congregation to which he is designed yet with this proviso that he remember that the whole is within his charge and that therefore he ought to promote the welfare of the Catholick so far forth as lies in his power 2. Office-Priests You delight in compounded words which the Greek elegantly but our language kindly bears not I must then take your compound asunder and aske you which of the words displease whether the Priests or their office The word Priest is derived some say from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then 't is the same with St. Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence you derive your Ruling Elders and will you catch up the Office Etymolog magn and not own the Name But others more probably from the French word Prebstre in which the letter b is quiescent as all know that know the language and then I hope you will not so much scorne the name hereafter since that Prebstre is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word so often used in Scripture you say for a Lay-Elder we for a Priest yea for that very Priest you jear at the Office-Priest For what is an Office but that duty which every one is bound to do and shall a man be mocked for doing his Office The Office of him who is sometime by us called the Priest sometime the Minister sometimes by other names and yet all 's but one and the same man is to preach the word to administer the Sacraments to make prayers and supplications to give thanks and make intercessions for all men which when he performs he does his Office and for the doing you ought not to condemn him If you or any other in your place shall not conscientiously performe these Offices I shall say he is unworthy to carry the name of a Presbyter which is all one as if I call'd him Priest But make the most and worst you can of it I tell you that there was to remain a Priest-hood under the New Testament not that of Aaron but that of Melchizedech For Christ was to be a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedech Heb. 10.10 Thom. part 3. 9. 48 art 3. Jewels reply Art 7. Sect. 9. Id. art 17. 14. Fulk in Matth. 26. Casaub exer 16. Sect. 43. Rom. 12.1 And an Analogy there is betwixt these two They had their bloody Sacrifices then and we have our Sacrifices now to offer For as Christ offer'd up himself once for all a full and all-sufficient Sacrifice for the sinne of the whole world so did he institute and command a Memory of this Sacrifice in a Sacrament even till his coming again For at and in the Eucharist we offer up unto God three Sacrifices One by the Minister only that 's the Commemorative Sacrifice of Christs death represented in bread broken and wine poured out Another by the Minister and people joyntly and that 's the Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for all the Benefits and Graces we receive by the blood of Christ The third by ever particular man for himself only and that 's the Sacrifice of every mans body and soul to serve God in both Then in this for ought I know to the contrary we all agree that though the propitiatory Sacrifice was made by Christ himself only yet that in the Eucharist there remains a sacrifice of Duty and a sacrifice of Praife and a sacrifice of Commemoration And therefore I see no reason but the name of Priest may be retain'd also who is to do the chiefest work in the offering of all these sacrifices 3. Half-Priests or Diocesan Deacons But you are not offended with the whole Priests only but with the half-priests also as you call them and you interpret your self by the Deacons whom in scorne you call Diocesan But I pray over what Diocesse were they ever set in what Diocesse imployed That the Bishop of the Diocesse ordained them and permitted them as Probationers sometimes to preach no otherwise than the Catechizers were allow'd in the Church of Alexandria or as Origen by the Bishops of Jerusalem and Caesarea this is certain Euseb lib. 6. c 20. but that they were Diocesan Deacons I never heard before I know what you drive at that the Deacons must only be viduarum mensarum Ministri as at first and must not meddle with the word But to this Mr. Hooker if you please to consult him will give you a full answer which is the same I formerly gave in its due place Hook Eccl pol. lib. 5. Sect. 78. Distribution of the Church stock and attendance on the divine service was the use for which the Deacons were first made but if the Church hath since extended their Ministery further then the circuit of their labour was first drawn we are not herein to think the order of Scripture violated except there appear some prohibition that had abridg'd the Church of that liberty Suppose we the office of teaching so repugnant to the Office of distributing that they cannot continue in one and the same person How was it with the Apostles before that Election How with the 70. out of which they were chosen It seems then that these duties are not so incompatible but they may be found in one man When the duties are such that they cannot be well discharg'd by one then it is good to make a division and substitute under officers as did Moses But when the same man is of ability to do what is laid upon him and to undergo somewhat more it can be no errour to lay a double Task upon him I proceed You say 4. The fourth was of National
am no Prophet nor the sonne of a Prophet yet thus much I dare be bold to fore-cast that when all hears and animosities being deposed men shall returne to an humble sober and Christian temper some forme or other for prayer will be judged necessary to be composed set forth enjoyned without which the dislocated parts of a Church will never kindly joyne The experience of the present distractions ever since a set forme as you in a Sarcasme call them stinted prayers hath been cast out of the Church will make men wiser for the future Let men in private use what forms they please and choose their own helps to which they may adde as occasion requires words suited to their present necessities But when they are to joyn with the Church the petitions being such as are more necessary for the whole Corps of Christians than for any one part fit it is that the mother be judge what is useful for her children and teach them what and how to aske Leave men to their own inventions and possible it is that the petition be not framed to the present exigent which the Church in all particulars hath taken care of Yet if this fall out another inconvenience there is that too often happens These extempore men dealing by their prayers as school-boyes do by their lessons or Musicians with their plain song Those the children vary into so many formula's for want of judgement till they come to non-sense and the unskilful artists run so far in their divisions and descants till they marre the plain-song And the like will happen to thi great service of God when it shall fall to the variations descants of inartificial swaines and heavie-headed Mechaniques The house of prayer will be a house of pratlin and Sion turned into Babel To conclude with the words of a wise man I never yet could see any reason why any Christian should abhorre or be forbidden to use the same forms of prayer since he prayes to the same God believes in the same Saviour professeth the same Truths reads the same Scriptures hath the same duties upon him and feels the same wants daily for the most part both inward and outward which are common to the whole Church When we desire the same things what hinders but we may use the same words except we measure our God to be like our own appetites and stomachs which are best pleased with fresh and fresh I go on 1. Quiristers and singing of Psalmes with all the Rubrick postures The Rubrick I have consulted and I meet not with any posture at all prescribed at the singing of any Hymne or Psalme But say it had some posture or other must be used and had it been the worse because prescribed I trow not For prescriptions in adiaphorous things doth not so alter their natures as to make them nought to prostrate the body in prayer to lift up the eyes and pure hands are actions of indifferency and do they become nought because God in his Word prescribes them God in his Word hath given the Church liberty to prescribe in these things Let all things be done decently and in order Say then the Church had prescribed by the Rubrick that a man should have stood have kneeled have sate have lift up his eyes and hands at the singing of this or that Psalme respectively she might have done it and the singing of the Psalme had been nere the more un-Christian had the Rubrick posture been observed You needed not therefore have girded at this and the rather because it was not But I see nothing can escape you not the poor boy the Quirister But happily you will say you take it in a larger sense and by it mean the whole Quire and so I think you do and therefore I shall shape my answer accordingly 2. Quiristers and singing of Psalmes Could I imagine that you were of the Anabaptists opinion who will not admit of singing of Psalms in the Church I should put you in minde of that which Saint Paul writes to the Ephesians and Colossians Be not drunk with wine wherein is excesse but be filled with the Spirit speaking to your selves in Hymns and Psalmes Eph. 5.18 19. Col. 3.16 Beza in loc and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Beza conceives that the Apostle alludes to that Musick then in use among the Jews who had their Mismorim their Tehillim their Schirim Be it then which you here object that these were taken up by Jewish imitation yet it follows not they were the worse for we have here Apostolical authority to make good the use let this then be cast in our teeth no more The Christian Psalmes were like the Jewish Mismorim Odes they were either Doctrinal or Ethical Hieron Chrysost written upon sundry matters or arguments exhortatory consolatory precaâ—ory deprecatory such as are many Psalms of David 2. The Hymns were like their Tehillim setting forth the praises of God for his greatnesse and goodnesse to the sonnes of men such were the Hymns of Moses Deborah Zachary Mary Simeon 3. The songs answered to their Schirum which were peculiar songs composed for general blessings praises they continued but in a more large and universal sense When any of these were expressed by voice and instrument together they were called properly Psalms when by voice alone without the concent of instruments they were named Hymns and songs Zanchy in loc This is the descant that the Learned have used in their Expositions of these words that we are hence to collect is that Musick hath its use in the service of God 1. By this the honour of God is more magnified and celebrated then it could be by a still and soft voice To speak of God doth well to whisper out his Name is commendable this is for those who have received primitias Spiritus but such who are filled with the Spirit they ought to go further as the Apostle exhorts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will magnifie his Name in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual songs and so make his praise to be glorious The concealment of Gods praise did never like him no nor the cold expression of it as if men would slip it over it hath been best pleasing to him when it hath been most made known And therefore he hath had in all Ages perpetual remembrances of what he hath done Chronicles Annals Books of Record These indeed speak out his noble Acts but it is for the most part to the Wise and Learned But let but one of these be conveyed into a song and it will quickly be upon the tongue of the unlearned you shall have the Maid at her wheele the Prentice in the shop warbling upon it and if any be skilful in Musick it will please him to sing to his Harp or Viol the wonderful works of God The praises of our God are conveyed into the soul with more delight are fastned with more affection are perpetuated
tollitur corruptione nisi rotati quam vocant interitum Ecclesia non tollit partialis corruptio sed infirmat Ecclesia Romana omnia habet corrupta sed non omnino haet non interitus est fed partialis corruptio ejus disendu est And therefore to your accusation it is fit for them to answer not for me who maintain none of their corruptions God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ grant by his eternal Spirit that Spirit of eternal Truth that all the deceits and fallacies of Satan being laid asidet we may daily grow up in Christ and his Church and in the truth of Christ and his Church and that we may confirme and establish one another more and more by unfeigned Charity and the bonds of peace to his glory and the common salvation of our selves and all Christians Amen A KEY to open the Debate about a Combinational Church and the power of the KEYES The Third Part. HItherto you have held forth the doctrine in your Letter now you come to the use and application and that you may be the better understood you have thought upon five heads and upon every one of these fastned either a bitter or a joculary Epithite one is vile and virulent another is violent a third is haughty and horrible the fourth is idle and addle and the last an odde head The Spaniard gives us this caution that he whose head is of glasse ought to take heed how he casts up stones into the aire left by chance they fall upon his own pate and crack his crown Before then you made your self so merry with these heads you should have considered whether some ridiculum caput could not have created to himself and others laughter at the invention of more heads in your Combinational Churches than yet you could finde in the Catholick and tell you that you are a Monster of many heads that the Presbyter is a vile and virulent head the Independent a violent the Anabaptist a haughty and horrible the Notioner an idle and addle the Quaker an odde head You perhaps will ask him how it will be proved I will answer for him on the same day when you prove your words true of these Churches you jest at 'T is but the imagination of your own head it is so and I know not anybody that is bound presently to fall down and worship it But I come to your Letter The words of the Letter MAy not any one to whose inwards the knowledge of these particulars is come ingenuously confesse that his very soul is clearly convinced of the mighty and wonderful corruptions which have crept into are cherisht within and contested about by many yea by too too many Christians of too too many Churches The Reply Those indeed who are convinced that they are mighty and wonderful corruptions in ingenuity can do no lesse but confesse it But it is not a bure relation or recital without any proof as you for the most part have done that will convince any ingenuous man You must set to work again and fortifie your words with plain Scripture or sound domonstration yea and remove those blocks I have cast in your way before you shall convince any one who is not of a weak and servile judgment If they crept in you must shew when and by whom which you have not done your bare affirmation being of no validity That they were cherished was well because no corruptions as I have shewed That too too many Christians and too too many Churches contest about them I am sorry for it Better it were we were at peace with our selves and imploy'd our forces against the common enemy to whose entrance by our dissensions we have opened too wide a gap I fear me we shall contest so long that his words will be verified who said at his death Venient Romani The words of the Letter ANd may not I though a stranger to my nearest friends because an Exile newly arrived in the Land of my Nativity safely appeal to any person either of conscience or common sense whither Christ Jesus our supreme Lord Protectour upon whose shoulder the government of the Churches is laid hath not of late years bo n a loud witnesse against every one of those five aforementioned kinds of deformed Churches and that in these very Countries which are counted and commonly call'd Christendome If so God forbid that there should be any Christian man and more especially any Clergy man so carnal or so carelesse in all those coasts as not to be both able and willing to conceive and to conclude himself to be called upon for to consider and lay to heart the great and grievous desolations which his hand hath made amongst the most and mightiest of the sonnes of men The Reply And here I shall with teares in my eyes Eccho back unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God forbid it should be otherwise Oh never let any Christian of what rank soever add that talent of lead to that sinne which hath so highly provoked our good God to pour out the vials of his wrath against this our Church and these three Nations that I mention not the other of Christendome as not to lay it to heart Conceive not there can be so much carnality or carelessenesse yet left in any person imbued with conscience and common sense who hath not considered what God hath done unto us in the fiercnesse of his wrath Mic. 2.3 Lam. 2.17 Dan. 19.14.12 Psal 79.1.2 3 4. We do acknowledge that Gods Word hath taken hold of us that the Lord hath devised a device against us and hath done that which he devised that he hath watched upon the evil and brought it upon us for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem O God the people are come into thine inheritance thy holy Temple have they defiled and made Jerusalem an heap of stones the dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat to the foules of the aire and the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the earth their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem and there was no man to bury them we are become a reproach to our neighbours a scorne and derision to them that are round about us Gods sinking the gates his destroying the walls his slighting the strong holds of Zion his polluting the Kingdome his swallowing the Palaces his cutting off the horne of Israel Gods hating our Feasts his abominating our Sabbaths his loathing our Solemnities Isa 1. Gods forgetting his footstoole his abhorring his Sanctuary his suffering men to break down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers Psal 74.6 Lam. 2.6 are all evidences to me that in the indignation of his anger he hath despised the King and the Priest Neither are we so carnal nor carelesse neither but to consider why this is done Justly justly we suffer For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works
cura commissa est A Law there was made by Solon that all Assemblies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch in Solone were unlawful that the highest authority did not cause to meet Among the Heathen Nebuchadnezzar makes a Law Darius a Decree the King of Nineveh sends forth a Proclamation for a Fast for a Religious service which certainly they had never done had it not been received that they were empowred And among the Romans there was no sooner an Emperour but he took upon him potestatem pontificiam In the Acts we read that the City of the Ephesians was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Mr. Selden teacheth us was an Office to take care of the whole worship and Temple of Diana Seld. not in Marmor Arundel Now this could not be done by any warrant from Scripture evident therefore it is that even by the light of nature seen it was that the supreme power is invested with anthority in Religious duties Care they ought to take that God be served as well as the people governed since they have been hitherto taken to be Custodes utriusque Tabulae 2. Thus it was while reason bare the sway But now let us look into the Scripture How is it written in the Law how read you There it was ordained that the King should have a book of the Law written by the Priests and the end was Deut. 17.18 19 20. that he might fear the Lord and keep it And in this Law there be many precepts that concern him as a man many as a Prince for as Austin Rex servit Deo aliter qua homo aliter qua Rex as a man by a holy Conversation as a Prince by making and executing holy constitutions Austin Ep. 50. As he is the Superiour he is there made the Guardian of Gods Law and the whole Law is committed to his charge By vertue of which Commission when the Kingdome and Priesthood were divided Moses the Civil Magistrate made use of his power over Aaron and reproved him for the golden Calf Joshua a Prince no Priest by the same authority circumcised the sonnes of Israel erected an Altar of stone caused the people to put away their strange gods and renewed the Covenant betwixt God and the people And what other Kings did you have heard before These Acts of these famous Kings performed in Ecclesiastical causes shews clearly what power Kings had under Moses Law And one thing more let me put you in mind of that when there was no King in Israel that was a supreme power for it was no more every man did that which was good in his own eyes and that good was extream bad as the story shews 3. Yea but it may be said that thus it was while the Judicials of Moses were in force but why so now Now the Superiours authority is confined to Civil Lawes Now the Kingdome is Christs and he must rule Indeed could we finde in the Gospel any restriction or rather revocation of what power had formerly belonged to Superiours this plea were considerable but since the rule is true that Evangelium non tollit precepta naturae legis sed perficit The Commission once granted to the Superiour by nature and the Moral Law must be good And be it that the Kingdome is Christs and all power in his hands yet this will be no impediment to what I contend for neither That Christ wants no Vicar on earth but as head of his Church doth govern it is a truth beyond exception But this is to be understood of the spiritual internal government not of that which is external because he must be serv'd with the body as well as with the Spirit in an outward forme of worship as well as an inward therefore he hath left superiours to look to that Their power extends not their accompt shall not be given for what is done within for they cannot see nor cannot judge what is done in that dark cell they have nothing to do with the secret affections of the heart with the sacred gifts of the Spirit with the stedfast trust of future things They are only to moderate and direct the outward actions of godlinesse and honesty and what may externally advance Christs Kingdome So that the question is not here of the internal and properly Spiritual but of the external government order and discipline of the Church which when the supreme power administers as it ought it sets up and no way pulls down the Kingdome of Christ These two are then well enough compatible that the Kingdome is Christs and yet the Superiour way make use of his power in Christs Kingdome A Prophesie there was that under the Gospel Kings should be nursing fathers and Queens nursing mothers to the Church Isa 49.23 Nourishment then they must give that ordain'd for babes that for men the Word and Sacraments they cannot give no more then Uzziah could burn incense or Saul burn Sacrifice no nor yet ordain any to do it The sustenance then which Christians are to receive from them must be that of external discipline and government Those that gave such food were call'd nursing fathers those that denyed it tyrants and persecutors without the favour and execution of this duty Christian Religion had never been so highly advanc'd and therefore the Apostle ordains that Christians pray for those in authority that we may live a quiet and a peaceable life in all godlinesse 1 Tim. 2. and honesty Godlinesse comprehends all duties of the first Table Honesty all duties of the second and where those who are in authority are careful both will be observed both shall be preserved because they know they have a charge of both Thus you see reason Law and Gospel have given a supremacy to those in power non solum in ijs quae pertinent ad humanam societatem verum etiam in ijs quae attinent ad religionem divinam I have enlarg'd my self on this subject beyond my intention least you should split upon that dangerous rock of Jesuitisme while out of a dislike of the British King you make him a violent head of the National Church for what you say of him is as true of all others and what is denyed of him is denyed of all others in that their claim and right is all alike and in case it be not just their violence and usurpation is all alike which to affirm is perfect Jesuitisme And wheresoever this doctrin is turn'd into practice it sets up regnum in regno and if it should be brought into this Common-wealth would reduce again what Henry the eight cast out though under another notion for every Eldership of a Combinational Church would be perfect Papacy absolute independent answerable to none to be guided by none in Church matters punishable by none but themselves to which if you will give a right name it is meere Popish power This is it which Superiours have wisely disclaimed and not admitted themselves like children to be
and therefore I hope when you write next you will shew more Christian love To conclude the Corporation of which the British King was head was as I have prov'd both Canonical as adhering to the Canon of the Scriptures and Spiritual as endow'd with the Gifts and Graces of the Spirit and so your reason hath no reason at all in it Well if this will not do it a second shall which is 2. Partly because of the said National Corporations inconsistence with the Scripture precepts Mat. 18.17 1 Cor. 14.23 which doth require its ordinary congregating in one place The words of the Letter A Wonderful demonstration ' The Church must be gather'd together in one place to the service of God as that place of the Corinths proves and must be assembled to exercise discipline as in that of Matthew therefore there may be no national Church therefore no head or governour in that Church Baculus in angulo 'T is as if you should argue thus such or such a County must meet together to elect a Burgesse to the Parliament or to see justice done at a Quarter Sessions or at an Assize therefore it is inconsistent that there should be a head over the Nation whereof they are parts Who sees not the absurdity of such an argument But now in particular to these places The first is Matth. 18. vers 17. And if he shall neglect to hear thee tell it to the Church which is so difficult that St. Austin saith of it dicant qui possunt si tamen probare possunt quae dicunt ego me ignorare profiteor And the reason is because the word Ecclesia is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a term of divers acceptions and from terms aequivocal nothing can be concluded till distinction be made But this I must tell you by the way that no man by Ecclesia understood the Combinational Church til you arose and therefore you can never conclude out of this place that a head of a National Church is inconsistent with Christs precept For the Pope Presbyter Praelate all acknowledge a National Church and a head of a National Church and yet never thought that they did transgresse Christs precept Your proof therefore cannot stand secure til you have everted the claim of every one of these no more then til he who pretends a right to a piece of Land which is in other mens possessions hath shew'd his own title to be only good and all the rest of no force Be not so hasty then with your inference for there 's not one of these who will not say you are an intruder It would fill a book to tell you what is written and what I have read upon this place Whether by the Church you are to understand a civil or an Ecclesiastical consistory or whether a mixt because our Saviour alludes out of question to the Jewish Sanedrim Beza Annot. in locum Rutherf cap. 8. Then whether by the Church again you are to understand the whole Congregation or the chief in that Congregation the Elders say the Presbyters only you as by Rutherfords disputes against you I guesse the whole body of believers or as the Prelates contend those to whom Christ gave the Keys meaning the Apostles and their successours Yet farther whether the wrong to be here tryed by the Church be only that which is private because of those words If thy brother trespasse against thee Lastly whether our Saviour speaks here of any Church censure at all because our Saviour saith not let him be excommunicate but sit tibi Let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican Among many interpretations of these words I shall propose one which I preferre above the rest as that which to me carrieth the fairest evidence with it The Jews were at this time conquered by the Romans under their power and judicatory yet they left unto the Jews so much power as to judge betwixt man and man according to the Law of Moses reserving strangers and Publicans to be tryed in the Romane Court. This being the state of the Jews when our Saviour spoke these words in private quarrels and actions Christ proposeth three degrees of proceeding The first by the Rule of charity If thy brother trespasse against thee tell him privately of the wrong offered thee betwixt thee and him alone and if this prevail not in charity go one step further call two or three Witnesses and rebuke him before them manifest the wrong if he hear thee thou hast wonne thy brother there ought to be an end of the debate This is the first direction 2. But say he be yet refractory then thou mayst proceed further even by the order of Moses Law then convent him before the Mosaical Magistrate the Triumvirate the 23. or the great Sanedrim the 71. Dic Ecclesiae 3. But if he will not hear them to which he is bound by Moses Law then take help from the Romane Soveraignty Let him be unto thee as a Heathen or Publican esteeme him for a brother Jew no longer but proceed against him in that Court where Heathens and Publicans were to take their trial This is the natural and genuine Exposition of these words the precept belongs to the state of the Jews at that time and cannot be applyed to the Christian Church except by the way of Accommadation For it is clear that the case Saint Peter put was of private wrong Master how often shall my brother sinne against me and I forgive him and the case is put of a private wrong if thy brother shall trespasse against thee c. Whereas those cases in which the Church ought to proceed must be notorious and scandalous in which it is not necessary that the two admonitions precede either that private or the other under Witnesses neither after sentence past by the Church is the man to be accompted in the state of a Heathen or Publican for Christ and his Church did never refuse to converse with either So that it as not proper to understand these words of the Christian Church which then was not That yet they may be referred thither I gain-say not but then that which will be collected from hence can be no more but this that in the Church of Christ there must be a Court erected And so there alwayes hath been that it be Combinational onely there is not any man who looks upon this place with an unpartial eye can ever say that in this place there is a precept for it He may with more reason conclude the contrary because the Church concerning whom the precept was given Dic Ecclesiae was the Jewish Church which is confessed at that time to have been National not Combinational In this place then you missed your mark As for the other That to 1 Cor. 14.23 I wonder what you can pick out of it for a Combinational Church much lesse a precept for it The words are If therefore the whole Church be gathred together in one place
house of prayer not preaching which took so well in the Elder times that all their Temples were called by the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oratories Prov. 15.18 29 Nay the Preacher himself Solomon I mean is so confident of a just mans prayer that it is Gods delight nay more he heareth or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is obedient if I may so say to it And it well may seem to be so for when all the preaching of Lot could prevaile no otherwise than to bring vexation to his righteous soul the prayers of Abraham might have saved Sodome if among so many thousands there might have been found but tenne just men By this I have said it is not my purpose to detract any thing from preaching but considering the age we live in that we should so far moderate our opinion of the Pulpit that we disdain not the Pue that we beware lest by magnifying preaching we bring not discredit and disadvantage upon necessary prayer Lastly whereas you say that this Pue justled out the Pulpit that was erected by the Primitive Christians I beleeve you would be very hard put to it to prove that then there was either Pue or Pulpit in any common use among them for how could it be when Temples and Churches were thinly erected the greatest part of Christians under the tenne bloody persecutions meeting where they could and sometimes in Caves and Grots to serve God The first Testimony that looks this way I read in Cyprian and yet that will make more for the Pue than the Pulpit Cypr. Ep. 34. Pamm edit since to the place of a Reader Cyprian had admitted Celerinus as he in that Epistle gives notice to the Clergy and people of Carthage Hunc illustrem quid aliud quam super Pulpitum id est super Tribunal Ecclesiae oportebat imponi ut loci altioris celsitate subnixus plebi universae pro honoris claritate conspicuus legat praecepta Evangelium Domini c. The Pulpit in this place he calls the Tribunal of the Church being a word borrowed from the Romane custome who were wont from some higher seat or raised place jus dicere Tribubus To this seat Celerinus was advanced and yet he was no more but to read the tenne Commandments for ought I know and the Gospel for Cyprians words are restrained Ut legat praecepta Evangelium Domini which office if he well performed then indeed he might be promoted higher for so it follows Viderit an sit ulterior gradus ad quem profici in Ecclesia possit Nihil est in quo confessor magis fratribus-prosit quam ut dum Evangelica lectio de ore ejus auditur quam ut lectoris fidem quisquis audierit invitetur jungendus in lectione Aurelio fuerat c. where you meet with another Reader that you have in the lesse contempt these taile of Readers as you have blasted them nor the Pue out of which they read for that may be the Pulpit as you see in Cyprian and yet the name nere the more profaned When these two became distinct you had best enquire for to me it appears not Late I beleeve both were brought into the Greek Church Walfridus Strabo de Rev. Eccl. cap. 6. Germanus in Hist Eccl. because they have no other word for a Pulpit but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is pure Latine derived ab ambiendo quia intrantem ambit cingit And it was first of stone as are many of our old Pulpits in the Ancientest of our Churches at this day But that 's not material You must shew that among the Primitive Christians the Ministerial Pulpit was before the Pue which for ought I see might be all one again that this Pue after it was brought in justled out the Pulpit which you know among us it did not for we were contented both should stand together and have their several uses Or say that all you charge us withal had been done the Pue set up in the Pulpits place will this prove that this had been a strong plea of a strange Apostasie from the practice of the Primitive Christians I have alwayes thought that Apostacy had lyen in doctrine or in manners in either of these when men degenerate they may in some sense be called Apostates but if they shall change a Pue into a Pulpit or a Pulpit into a Pue to lay to their charge Apostacy for this is what I never heard before and am confident I shall never hear again But you go on The words of the Letter SEeing that such Coope is not of a sufficient capacity to contain at once any more persons than one The Reply And this exception lyes as strong against your Ministerial Pulpit where your Preacher the Cock that crows there is as much cooped up as is the Reader in our Pue at once I know you will allow but one Cock in it and pity it is it should be of greater capacity to contain more Apolog. de cato gallo one being sufficient to disturb a house The words of the Letter WHereas it is of moral equity and consequently of perpetual observation that a rightly c. The Reply What 's this I read here moral equity and the consequent upon it perpetual observation If you would have studied for an Axiome to undo your own cause you could not have found out such another I wonder why we contend all this while about Rites Ceremonies indifferent things instituted for decency and order in the Church where the governours of the Church as is proved before out of your New Englands constitutions might ordain them to those ends Now it is but moral equity that in all lawful things we obey our Superiours and consequently of perpetual observation Talk no more then hereafter of a Surplice of Banes of a Ring of a Pue of a Pulpit and such trifles for equity and morality require that they be observed Arraign us for observation of Rites and Ceremonies moral equity is our Tutour and hath taught us to embrace them This I have seen to happen to all men that struggle against the truth to let fall at unawares some such words which will wound if not destroy that cause they seek most to defend Magna est veritas praevalebit Mr. Matthews THat a rightly Reformed Presbyterial Church should have all her Elders who are engaged by vertue of their Office to begin and end all the publick Ordinances and to transact all the open concernments of the City of God The Reply These words I understand not well because I know not your practice but if it be consonant to the sound of these lines I finde a very deep engagement lyes upon the Elders for what are they ex officio bound to begin and end all the publick Ordinances to transact all the open concernments of the City of God This is a very high charge and a large power for the Ordinances
precept Let all things be done decently and in order doth clear them from doing any thing in these and the like that was amisse neither do we finde that God or any Prophet ever reproved them for these Accessories taken up without a pattern in the Mount Seeing therefore Saint Pauls rule binds by the edicts of nature which the Jews observing as yet unwritten and thereby framing such church-Church-Orders as in their Law were not prescribed are notwithstanding in that respect unculpable It followeth that many things may be lawfully done in the Church so as they be not done against the Scripture although no Scripture do command them but the Church only following the light of reason judge them in discretion to be meet And in effect they who first opposed seemed to grant so much For this Cartwright gave forth that nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded in the Word if not by special precepts 1 Cor. 10.32 1 Cor. 14.40 1 Cor. 14.26 Rom. 14.6 7. yet by general rules which are nothing scandalous and offensive All things in order and seemlinesse All unto aedification All to the glory of God So then these Rules being observed all things in the Church may be appointed not only not against but by and according to the Word of God By this large concession for ought I see even that which they oppose may be according to the pattern in the Mount And if you had intended utterly to exclude the use of rectifyed reason and prudence in ordering any thing in Gods house why did you but now say that it is of moral equity and consequently of perpetual observation that a rightly Reformed Church should have all her Elders stand and sit together in the face and full view of the Assembly in reason and prudence I grant you may finde somewhat to perswade it but search as long as you will for a pattern in the Mount for it and it will not be found for what you in the following words alledge are but meer colours as I will make it plainly appear The words of the Letter ANd as in all other points so in this particular concerning the Elders Pulpit they are tyed and limited by their Commission to hold conformity with what is upon sacred Record as this is and that not only necessarily implyed but eminently expressed in several Scripture expressions as Nehem. 8.4 Eccles 12.11 1 Tim. 4.14 Rev. 4.6 5.6 19.4 The Reply To those Elders you speak of I finde no Commission granted upon sacred Record as I have formerly proved They who have received a Commission I grant are tyed and limited to hold conformity with that which is upon Record in all points but neither for those nor these do I finde any thing so eminently expressed about a Pulpit Oh but it seems this Elders Pulpit is a matter of great weight and moment that there should be such several Scripture expressions about it And indeed it would make any man wonder that God who gave an expresse order in the Mount about the Tabernacle and also a pattern for it should not then have given a special direction for the matter and form of this Pulpit also but have left it to the discretion of the Jews to erect it of their own heads after the captivity for then is the first time we hear of a Pulpit of wood and the sole in all the Scripture Nehem. 4.8 The words Nehem. 8.4 are And Ezra the Scribe stood on a Pulpit of wood which they had made for the purpose and beside him stood Mattithiah and Shemath and Anajah and Vehad and Helkiah and Maaseiah on his right hand and on his left Pedajah and Mishae and Malkiah and Hashum and Hashbadana Zechariah and Meshullam The Old Translatour reads thus Stetit autem Esdras Scriba super gradum aut turrim ligneam quam secerat ad loquendum Ver. 1. steterunt juxta eum c. Junius and Tremellius thus Stabat autem Ezra legis peritus in suggestu ligneo quem fecerant ad hanc rem c. In which passage I observe many things First That this meeting reading and interpreting the Law was in the street that was before the water-gate Secondly That here was built for Ezra this Chair of Wood which whether it were in strict terms a Pulpit or no is not apparent in that the Vulgar reads it gradus or turris Tremellius suggestus and so it might be a Gallery raised to that end or a little Turret ascended by steps for suggestus is locus editior unde ad populum fit concio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or if you will needs have it a Pulpit that you like it nere the better for that name Varro Glossar Hadri Junius Vitruv. this was at first locus scenae editior è quo tibicines Citharaedi musicá actione populum demulcebant Or as it is in Vitruvius Podij provectior pars seu pergula quaedam Thirdly That those who stood about this Pulpit on the right and left hand were all of the Tribe of Levi as is apparent in many places of this book Fourthly That this for ought we know was but once done and occasionally by the Jews immediately after the Captivity Now lay all this together and you shall see what it will amount to You may be yet to seek for your Elders Pulpit for ought you know for all this place except you will place them in a little Turret or Gallery for such you see it may be And about it the Levites were placed on the right hand and on the left and I know you will not allow your Elders to be of the Tribe of Levi. This Pulpit was erected in the street and will you take it well that your Consistory be erected there This was occasional whereas yours must be as you say of perpetual observation This was done by the Jews at that time and will you take out a Jewish pattern God forbid the Christians should imitate the Jews Remember what for this you before alledge against the National Church Lastly this was but a particular case ex particulari non est syllogizari To collect a necessity of observance for all future ages from one example of the Jewish Church is an argument of a very shallow and short discourse The second place you alledge is Ecclesiastes 12.11 Eccl. 12.11 The words of the Wise are as Goads and as nailes fastned by the Masters of Assemblies which are given from one Shepherd In the reading of which words you may see our Translatours were at a stand in that to make up their sense they put in the particles are by which Let us see then how others render them the Vulgar Verba sapientum sicut stimuli quasi clavi in altum defixi quae per Magistrorum consilium data sunt ab uno pastere Jun. Tremell thus Verba sapientum similia aculeis similia clavis infixis lectissima tradita Ã
such time as the Parochial Churches of the Nations become truly Presbyterial and so reformed in their essential parts consisting of visible Converts and an explicite Covenant which are the matter and form of a Church witnesse Jer. 50.5 Ezek. 20.37 Isa 44.3 Acts 2.47 Rom. 14.1.2 Cor. 8.5 9.13 And untill also they be refined in their integral parts which are the Organs and Officers thereof that as eyes mouth and hands are to see speak and act in their behalf untill they both desire and endeavour to be endowed first with a Teacher to dispense the word of knowledge and information to the judgment Secondly with a Pastour to dispence the word of wisdome and exhortation to the will and affections Thirdly with a Ruler to dispense the word of rebuke and admonition to the irregular in life and conversation And fourthly with Deacons and Widows to receive and dispense the weekly contribution that is belonging and also brought to the King of Saints from his subjects in Covenant toward the maintenance of the Table of the Lord the Tables of the Church Elders and the Tables of such of the fellow-members as be in lack And all this in obedience to what is enjoined in his revealed will namely in Rom. 12. 2 7 8. 16.1 1 Tim. 3.2 5 10. 5.10 20. Vntill I say that the Parochial Churches be thus qualifyed can you upon good grounds expect as to them either the manifestation of sure mercy or the enjoyment of solid peace knowing that Combinations are properly appertaining to vile and violent sinne-loving sinners as 't is shewed by the Oracles of God Psal 5.5 11.5 6. Rev. 12.10 22.15 And that Church-promises and Church-priviledges as well as Christs Consolations are peculiarly applicable to such Covenant-makers with God and men as through the strength of their surety are Covenant-keepers with both which Covenant-making and Covenant-keeping is expressed and perceived by a regular walking toward them who are without as well as them that are within according to what is written Isa 55.3 Gal. 6.16 1 Tim. 4.8 If you can tell any such tydings as a heavenly promise to unheavenly persons or a holy priviledge to the souls or seed of unholy parents that you would finde in your heart to give me some notice thereof and to acquaint me with any one of those good grounds of any lively hope that they will be everlastingly happy is the last of these motions which I make bold for to leave with you to consider of and meditate upon A heavenly motion for my self This motion is my heavenly motion for my self the granting of which will engage me yet further to be to remain and also acknowledge my self Your thankful Remembrancer In his nearest Approaches To the Throne of Grace From my lodging this 22. of the 8. Month. 1656. The Reply This is the recapitulation of the whole which I have shewed partly not subject to so harsh a censure partly built upon a weak foundation and therefore I shâ—ll need to say the lesse to it Yet because I may not leave you unsatisfied in the least I shall give you some short animadversions upon this also 1. You here set down your whole plat-form shaping it into the fashion of a natural body which hath essential and integral parts and till the Parochial be so qualifyed you afford it no mercy nor hope of solid peace Your constitution of a Church I allow of both in the essentials and the integrals for 't is a body and must be so composed and when organical if perfect it must be intire In the General then I shall agree with you but in the special assignation of your parts will lie the difference For what Church is there of what Sect soever that doth dissent in general terms from this assigned and necessary constitution that you may know that it is no special Character of your Combinational or as you call it here the Presbyterial Church The Brownists Barrowists Anabaptists Presbyters Socinians Episcopal men will allow you visible men for your matter a Covenant for the form and Church-Officers for the integral parts of your organical body And for your matter the Brownists Barrowists Anabaptists Socinians will agree with you that they must be visible Converts meaning thereby a company of faithful people every one whereof in the face of the whole Congregation hath given so clear tokens of true grace and regeneration as hath satisfyed the minds of all This is to be proved by you for Episcopal men with the Presbyters require no more of visible members than that they professe one Lord one Faith one Baptisme as I have proved before for all that carry the name of Christians whether in sincerity or otherwise they reckon in the bosome of the Church as in the type the Ark of Noah there were clean and unclean Beasts in the net good and bad fish Judas among the Apostles Ananias and Sapphyra Simon Magus Demas c. among the baptized In your form also the explicite Covenant the four fore-named will agree with you for your doctrine is that this company must be incorporate by Oath and Covenant to exercise all the parts of Christian Religion in one place under one Pastour to which they wll admit no more people then commodiously may with their ease convene in one meeting house This is endeavoured to be proved by you but how weakly I shall make it appear when I come to examine your texts you alledge for it The Presbyters though they like not your engagement yet came somewhat near to it in imposing their solemn League and Covenant upon the consciences of many tender souls who chose rather to be undone then to yield to their incroachment and how pleasing this was to God you may judge by the successe which is your own common argument Now for the Episcopal men they admit of a Covenant also but that is Baptisme which they say is the Sacrament of Admission into the Visible Church and this I have proved to be sufficient and another Covenant more than needs In the enumeration of your integral parts your Teacher your Pastour your Rulers your Deacons your Widows for the general I know not any man that will gain-say you and some of your Texts do well prove it But in the Misnomer of these and their absolute necessity there is not a full agreement For Mr. Cann at Amsterdam thought his Church sound enough when in his Church there was but one Pastour Bayly pag. 15. and could not agree till very lately of any other Officer and in the year 1645. they lived without an Eldership as they did before without a Pastour And first touching your Teachers and Pastours I have before shewed you that it is not necessary that they be distinct persons both the duties being possible to be performed by one man as it fell out at Geneva where Calvin and Beza men of great abilities thought they might and did supply both places both of Teacher
you the sole wise men were all men blinde till you arose Besides 't is not long since there was an Oath and a Covenant eagerly pressed and then the Covenanters served themselves with these Texts then they sounded in our ears these words of Jeremy Come let us joyne our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Then the people were terrifyed with the words of Ezekiel I will cause you to passe under the rod and will bring you into the bond of the Covenant Then the Covenant of Moses of Joshua of Asa of Josiah of Nehemiah in a word all places that mentioned a Covenant were pressed and urged to attest the necessity of that Oath What is now Gods Word become a ship-mans hose that it may be worn on either side what Presbyterians and Combinationals justifie their way from the same Texts this cannot be for if it serve one it will not serve the other if it serve to prove a National Covenant as that was it will never prove a Combinational since these two are disparata and admit no reconciliation no more then a National and Combinational Church can be one One of you 't is certain juggle with us and go about to impose upon us and the truth is you do both so as shall appear upon farther examination A custome it was among the Jews when they had revolted from God to Idols solemnly to renew their first Covenant with him and to take him to be their God renouncing all other and to be his people and observe his Laws which gave occasion to all the former practices In Jeremies time for their Idolatry especially the Jews were to be carried into Captivity but the Prophet in this Chapter and the next foretells the ruine of the Babylonians their severe Masters and their return which when it came to passe then saith he they shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward c. It then cannot be denyed but this Text must primarily be understood of the Jews and if ever it were literally fulfilled it was when in Nehemiahs dayes Nehem. 9.38 10.28 29. the Princes Levites Priests made and wrote and sealed the Covenant in which the people engaged wiih them and let me tell you that the Jews in the principal point ever after kept this Covenant and so it may well be called perpetual for after their return from Babel though they were divided into divers Sects to the corruption of sincere Religion and were guilty of many other abominations yet no man can charge them with the worship of strange gods Of the Jews then these words were spoken and in them verifyed and cannot be applyed to the Christian Church any other way but by the way of accommodation For say I shall allow you that the Jewish Church was the type of the Christian then the Christian must be the antitype and what then will you gain by it except the overthrow of your own cause for the antitype must every way resemble the type which in this it will not For this Covenant was voluntary Come say they let us joyne our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant You presse necessity upon mens consciences this explicite Covenant is the essential form of a Combinational Church so that no Covenant no Member of the Church to which Christ hath promised salvation The Covenant in which the Jews engaged was of the whole Nation yours is of a selected people in a Nation They the whole Corporation of them notwithstanding this Covenant continued to be a National Church went up to Jerusalem at their solemn Feasts separated not into private divisions and subdivisions You by your Covenant are enemies to all National Churches make it a distinctive note not of true and sincere worshippers from Idolatours but of those which professe the same faith with you from those of your Congregation that I say not you have as many Covenants as there be factions and fractions among you That every good Christian daily come up closer to his God by joyning in a perpetual Covenant and by renewing his vow made in his Baptisme to renounce to beleeve and obey I exceedingly approve But that this cannot be done except he enter a new Covenant in your Congregation or that he is bound to do it or can be no Member of a visible Church I shall never believe for mark what will follow upon it First there must be a dissolution made of all the reformed Churches of Christendome that there may be way made for this new erection for the Covenant sealed to their Members in Baptisme will not serve the turn till they have a new admission and matriculation by this seal and engagement Then again consider what countenance is hereby given to the whole order of Romane Votaries which to me seem very like to so many Combinational Churches in that every order have their particular statutes to the observation of which they tye all they take into their societies and upon the Vow and Covenant made they are admitted Only that in this they are a little more charitable than you are that they acknowledge such as are out of their fraternities for good Christians and Members of the Catholick Church But you judge those who are not of one or other of your Combinations to be Members of no Church And this is all you have gained by your Text of Jeremy I now come to that of the Prophet Ezekiel 20.37 where we thus read And I will cause you to passe under the rod and I will bring you into the Bond of the Covenant The full scope of this place is at ver 33. a promise made to the Jews that they should be gathered under the Gospel To this end God tells them that I will cause you to passe under the rod which whether it signifies a sharp affliction in which the Jews we know have had their share or else a trial by the rod as a Shepherd doth his flock as was used in decimation I cannot say if thls last then the sense is I will reject the bad and choose the good Jun. in loc Levit. 27.32 and will bring you into the Bond of the Covenant or as Junius reads it in exhibitionem foederis I will impart the Covenant of the Gospel unto you and all the blessings and promises of that Covenant as it is here amplifyed in the 45. ver Now let any man which is not swaid with prejudice judge whether any thing can be picked from hence that can countenance your assertion What is the Covenant that God hath made with his people in the Gospel of no longer extent than the Combinational Church Out of this Covenant I know none can be saved without your Combinational Covenant I know they may or else heaven before you rose would be very empty and the time since you rose being not long you have not sent many thither Monopolize not then thus the mercies of God to your selves and ingrosse not
the matter to their liking I have saith he already determined afore he wrote and before they read that part of his Epistle And what to do to joyne with them to deliver this trespasser to Satan No saith he I have already decreed to deliver him By what means what by their power and priviledge not so but by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ Then for ought we can finde in this place the Apostle though absent decreed to do the deed himself by the power of Christ and not by the consent and help of the Corinthians Certainly had this been a Priviledge of the Presbyterial Church Saint Paul would never have invaded it what an Apostle guilty of such presumption such usurpation Yea but the sentence was to be pronounced by them When ye are gathered together in my Spirit i. e. my power my authority then deliver True they were bound to do it but by what right their own or the Apostles by his certainly for it is In my spirit So all their power is delegate not native 't is derivative not primitive declarative not judiciary and consequently from this place no priviledge of the Presbyterial Church to censure any mans person can be deduced But rather the quite contrary in that the Apostle a single person judged and decreed without them I shall mind you what may well be concluded hence which is that the censure should not be past in a corner but in a full Assembly because the Apostle saith When ye are gathered together and if you shall complaine that it was otherwise I shall not stick to confesse that your complaint is just and I have and shall ever joyn with you in it But I shall adde what strength I can to your plea out of this chapter Some may say the authority was in the Presbyterial Church because the Apostle reprehends them verse 2. that they had not past censures on the peccant Ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed may be taken from you That I may give light to this dark place A custome was used in the Church when any was to be excommunicated to joyn in mourning This duty the Corinthians had neglected and he reproves them for it they were puffed up in an opinion of their own deeper wisdome they joyned not in mourning they complained not to Christ or his Apostle that a Censure might passe on such a one This was their fault for a course they should have taken that such a one should be taken away But by whom that 's the question Not by them to be sure For Taken away from you implies that it is by the power of another not by their act for no man can take any thing from himself He may put it away not take it the expression had been veen very imperfect if this had been the meaning And so for you nothing can be included hence But again it may be objected verse 7. Purge ye out the old leaven And again verse 12. Do ye not judge these who are within where purging and judging is laid upon vos and is therefore a Church-priviledge I answer that vos is no way exclusive of the Apostles power but rather includes it for sure he may judge them that are within the Church and doth it verse 3. Vos then hath reference to this third verse Vos you gathered together in my Spirit do you purge out the old leaven do you judge those who are within You to whom the Keys are given you to whom I have delegated my power being of the Presbytery not the Layity do you judge and purge This is the clear intent of the Apostle and so hath been given by all ancient Interpreters Whence it will follow that a Presbyterial priviledge to excommunicate can have no footing in this chapter As for that other place 2 Thess 3.15 it gives no countenance at all to the Presbyterial Church for Censure For the Apostle gives order onely about a disorderly person that he might be signified to him by a letter that if occasion required he might be censured yea in expresse termes forbids them to Censure him Matth. 18.17 For he saith Count him not as an enemy that is as an Heathen for so the word enemy probably signifies Rom. 11.28 Ephes 2.16 I must confesse ingenuously unto you if I would pick out an argument against the Presbyterial priviledge to censure I would make choise of this place for to what purpose would the Apostle have this unruly man noted by a letter if they had power to proceed against him Now why nor they nor the Church of Corinth had not power without the Apostle to Censure I have given you an account before and need not here repeat it You see you must produce stronger evidence for your priviledge than hitherto you have done before I can yield it And I am confident that better you cannot bring forth Since the power of Censures must be necessarily in some hands I shall leave them in theirs that they have beene for sixteen hundred years Primarily in Bishops by commission and delegation in Presbyters and therefore much more in both assembled in Councils so that it cannot be any presumption or usurpation of power if in them they use their authority to censure any mans person of which you assign the time to be Anno Dom. 320. or thereabout when Proposition 6. Alexander Patriarch of Alexandria began this usurpation against Arius and Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia in the reigne of Constantius and Constance JF there were no more to be said for it yet this were Antiquity sufficient that it was used in the Church before the Nicene Council about 1300. years ago This would be thought on 2. Next I could wish that you were better versed in the Records of the Church the histories of those first times and acts and proceedings of Councils for then I am perswaded you would never have pointed out Constantines dayes for the babe-age of that usurpation for clear it is that there then was no more done but what was ordered to be done and was done before Read but the Apostolical Canons Apost Can. 3.6 7 8 12 29. and in most of them you shall meet with these phrases Si quis Episcopus Presbyter Diaconus Laicus c. be found guilty of such or such an offence deponatur excommunicetur dejiciatur eijciatur abjiciatur communione privetur damnetur ab Ecclesia penitus abscindatur Again in the Council of Ancyra order is taken that some be deprived of the Sacrament for three some for four Conc. Ancyr c. 4 6 8. some for five some for fifteen years some a longer time all which space they should be reckoned among the penitents Basil Can. 58.77 to which order those two Canons in Basil give great light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again Can. 77. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zozomen lib. 7. cap. 17. For these were the four Classes of the Penitents