have a due and moderate regard of our own reputation as men but much more as Ministers of Christ seeing the doctrine of Christ which we preach or write is usually dishonoured in the Ministers dishonour and the edification of the souls of them that hear us or read our writings is greatly hindered by it 7. While Noblemen Knights Gentlemen conformable Clergy men and many others of all Ranks are possessed with these thoughts of us that we are persons who hypocritically pretend to Godliness while indeed we are so humoursome that we will forbear our Ministry and our Maintenance and suffer any thing and divide the Church rather than yield to indifferent things this is a scandal a grievous scandal either given or taken and tendeth to wrong their souls that are scandalized And if we give them this scandal it is our heinous sin But if they take it by misinformation we are obliged to do our part to heal it Souls are precious and scandal doth endanger them even to distast Religion it self for the sakes of such as they take us to be And we must not stand by and see men perish if we can do any thing to save them 8. The sufferings of many of the Ministers are very great that have not bread for their children nor cloaths to cover them and are ashamed to make known their wants And if with all this we suffer the burden of unreproved calumny to lie on them and keep them not to the necessary comfort which conscience should find in sufferings with innocency we shall be guilty of uncharitableness our selves 9. It is part of our Honouring the King and Parliament and other Magistrates not to despise or slight their censures And the judgment which they have publickly passed on us in an Act of Confinement which imposeth the Oath for Prelacy is so hard and grievous that if we are guilty it is fit we should be made the common reproach of men And if we are not as Non-conformists it is our duty to rectifie the judgment of our superiours where they are misinformed And as Augustine saith that no good Christian should be patient under an imputation of Heresie so I may say that no good Subject should be senslesly patient under an imputation of disloyalty and sedition That better beseemeth the anarchical and truly disloyal and seditious who take it for no crime 10. And we know how pleasantly the Papists insult to hear us stigmatized for Villains and seditious Persons by our brethren and what use they will make of it at present and in future History to the Service of their malice and injury to the truth which we ought not silently still to suffer while we see how hereby they do already multiply 11. And how unlikely soever it be it is not impossible that our Superiours that at once deposed and silenced about 1800. Ministers of Christ when they see what Reasons we have for our Non-conformity may be moved to restore those that yet survive And then how many thousand souls would have the joy and benefit 12. Lastly Truth and the just information of Posterity is a thing exceedingly desirable to ingenuous minds It is a great trouble to think that the Ages to come should be injured by false History Therefore we must do our best that they may but truly know our Case and then let them judge of the Persons and Actions of this our Age as they shall find Cause when Truth is opened to-them Upon all these Reasons though to my own great labour and to the greater contradiction of my natural love of silent quietness and to the probable incurring of mens displeasure I take it to be my duty to give my Superlours Neighbours and Posterity a true Account of the Reasons which have moved my self and others of my mind to refuse to Subscribe and Swear to the present English Diocesan Prelacy Committing my Life and Liberty to the pleasure of God in obedience to whom I have both refused to Conform and written these Reasons of my Non-conformity CHAP. II. The English Diocesan Prelacy and Church-Government truly described that it may be known what it is which we disown IT being not Episcopacy in General but the Popish and the English Species of Prelacy which our Judgments cannot approve and which we cannot swear to as approvers it is necessary that we tell strangers what this Prelacy is that the subject of our Controversie be not unknown or misunderstood But the subject is so large that the very naming of the parts of our Ecclesiastical Government in Tables by Dr. Ri. Cosins maketh up a Volume in 16 Tables and many hundred branches Which being written in Latin I must refer the Foreign Reader to it Not at all for the understanding of our Practice but only of our Rule or Laws with our Church-Constitution seeing it would take up a considerable Volume to open but one half of his Scheme All that I shall now do is to give you this brief Intimation That in England there are 26 or 27 Bishopricks of which two are Archbishops In all these set together there was when Speed numbred them nine thousand seven hundred twenty five Parish Churches but now many more In the Diocess that I live in Lincoln there is above a 1000 or 1100. In very many of these Parishes besides the Parish-Churches there are Chapels that have Curates in some Parishes one Chapel in some two in some three if not more In these Parishes the number of Inhabitants is various as they are greater or lesser The greatest about London such as Stepny Giles-Cripplegate Sepulchres Martins c. have some about 50000 persons some say much more some about 30000 some about 20000 c. But ordinarily in Cities and Market-Towns through the Country the number is about 2000 or 3000 or 4000 or 5000 at the most except Plimouth and some few great Parishes that have far more And in Villages in some 2000 in some 1000 in some small ones 500 or 300 or in some very small ones fewer There are in England 641 Market-Towns saith Speed which are of the greater sort of Parishes and such as in old times were called Cities though now a few have got that title at least a great number of them are equal and some much greater and richer than some that now are named Cities The Diocess that I live in is about six-score Miles in length By all this you may conjecture how many hundred thousand souls are in some Diocesses and at what a distance from each other and what personal Communion it is that they are capable of I my self who have travelled over most of England never saw the face or heard the name of one Person I think of many thousands in the Diocess that I live in Nor have we any other Communion with the rest of the Diocess even with above a thousand Parishes in it than we have with the People of any other Church or Diocess in the land about us save that One
gather from Epiphanius And after him all sorts and Sects of Christians still owned it Even the Donatists and Novatians who had their Bishops as well as others 28. In Scripture times we read not of any meer fixed Bishops of particular Churches who Ordained either Bishops or Presbyters but only Apostles and their unfixed Assistants who had an equal charge of many Churches Not that the Office of the Indefinite unfixed Ministry was not the same with the Office of the fixed Bishops in specie For both had power to do all the Ministerial work as they had a call and opportunity to exercise it But because it being the employment of the Indefinite or unfixed Ministers to Gather and plant Churches before they could be Governed the Ordination of Elders over them was part of the planting of them and so fell to their lot as part of their constituting work 29. How it came to pass that the Itinerant or Indefinite exercise of the Ministry for planting Churches so quickly almost ceased after the Apostles days is a matter worthy to be enquired after For whereas some think that de jure obligatione it ceased with the Apostles as being their proper work that cannot be true 1. Because many others were employed in the same work in the Apostles days 2. Because it is Christ's own description of that Ministry to whom he promiseth his presence to the end of the Age or World Mat. 28. 19 20. 3. Because to this day there is still lamentable necessity of such Five parts in six of the World being yet Infidels 30. It is most probable that this service abated and withered gradually by the sloth and selfishness of Pastors And that it was the purpose of the Apostles that the fixed Bishops should do their part of both these works that is Both to preach for the Converting of all the Infidel Countries near them and also Govern their particular Churches yet not but that some others might be deputed to the Gathering of Churches alone And then these Bishops finding so much work at home and finding that the Itinerant work among Infidels was very difficult by reason of Labour Danger and their want of Apostolical gifts hereupon they spared themselves and too much neglected the Itinerant work Yet I must confess that such Evangelists did not yet wholly cease Eusebius Hist lib. 5. cap. 9. saith Pantaenus is said to have shewed such a willing mind towards the publishing of the Doctrine of Christ that he became a Preacher of the Gospel to the Eastern Gentiles and was sent as far as India For there were I say there were then many Evangelists prepared for this purpose to promote and plant the Heavenly Word with Godly Zeal after the manner of the Apostles 31. It was the ordinary custome of the Apostles to preach and plant Churches first in Cities and not in Country Villages Because in Cities there were 1. the greatest number of Auditors and 2. the greatest number of Converts And so there only were found a sufficient number to constitute a Church Not that this was done through any preeminence of the City or ignobility of Villages but for the competent numbers sake And had there been persons enow for a Church in Villages they would have placed Churches and Pastors there also as at Cenchrea it seems they did 32. When there was a Church of Christians in the City and a few Converts in the Country Villages that joyned with them they all made up but one full Assembly or Church fit for personal Communion for a long time after the Apostles days the main body of the people being still Infidels so that the Christian Churches stood among the Infidels as thin as the Churches of the Anabaptists Separatists and Independants did among us here in England in the days when they had greatest Liberty and countenance 33. Though at first the Bishops being men of the same Office with the other Presbyters were not to do a work distinct and of any other kind than the Presbyters might do but only Lead them and Preside among them in the same work as their Conductors as I said before of a chief Justice c. Yet afterward the Bishop for the honour of his calling appropriating certain actions to himself alone the Presbyters not exercising those acts in time the not exercising them seemed to signifie a want of Office or power to exercise them and so subject Presbyters who were never made by the Apostles that can be proved nor by their command were like a distinct Order or Species of Church-Officers and grew from syn-Presbyters or assessours of the same Office in specie to be as much subjects to the Bishops as the Deacons were to the Presbyters 34. All this while the Bishop with his fellow Elders and Deacons dwelt together in the same City and often in the same House and met in the same Church the Bishop sitting in the midst on a higher seat and the Presbyters on each hand him in a semi-circle and the Deacons standing And the Presbyters Preaching and otherwise officiating as the Bishop appointed who ruled the action And the Converts of the Villages came to this City Church as Members of it and joyned with the rest In the days of the Author of the Epistles ascribed to Ignatius every Church had but One Altar and One Bishop with his Fellow Elders and Deacons as the note of its Unity or Individuation For so many people as had personal Communion at One Altar with the Bishop or Elders were the constitutive parts of the Churches 35. Thus it continued also in the days of Justin Tertullian and Cyprian no Bishop having more than one Church or Altar without any other formed self-communicating Church under him but only Oratories in City or Country 36. The first that brake this Order were Alexandria and Rome where Converts soon multiplyed to a greater number than could meet in one place or Communicate at one Altar wherefore sub-assemblies with their particular Presbyters were there first formed who Communicated distinctly by themselves Though there is no proof that they Communicated there in the Sacrament of a long time after that they met for Preaching and Prayer Yet even in Rome and Alexandria the only places that had more than one stated Assembly for 200 years or more there were not so many Christians then as in the Parish that I now live in See more of my Proof in the beginning of my Church History abridged whos 's first and second Chapters belogn specially to this Treatise and therefore I must refer the Reader to them 37. Even in Epiphanius time about 370 years after Christ it is noted by him as a singularity in Alexandria that they had distinct Assemblies besides the Bishops whereupon Petavius himself largely giveth us notice that in those days except in a few very great Cities there was but one Church-assembly in a Bishops charge 38. After that in Cities or Country Villages the Converts multiplyed into more
than could meet in one Assembly and had allowance to Communicate in their sub-assemblies yet were they appointed on certain great and solemn Festivals to Communicate all with the Bishops at the chief City Church which sheweth that the sub-assemblies then were few and small 39. Thus was the Apostles Order by degrees subverted and whereas they settled distinct Churches with their distinct Bishops no Bishop having two Churches under him that had not also their proper Bishop now One Church was made of many without many Bishops sub-Presbyters first in the same Church being introduced at last sub-Churches also were set up And when they should have done as we do with Bees let every new Swarm have a new Hive and should have multiplyed Bishops and Churches homogeneal as sufficient numbers of Converts came in instead of this the City Bishops kept all under them as if they had been still one Church yet not as Archbishops that have Bishops under them and kept their sub-Presbyters as their Curates to officiate in the several Churches that had all no Bishops but One. 40. The causes of this were apparently most of the same which are mentioned before for the making of sub-Presbyters Especially 1. The selfishness of the Bishops who were loth to let go any of the people from under their superiority Because it was more honour to rule many than one single Congregation and he was a greater man that had many sub-Presbyters and whole Assemblies at his command than he that had not And also many afforded greater maintenance than a few And 2. the same Reasons that made men at first set up one Presbyter as Bishop over the rest to avoid Divisions and to determine Arbitrations did now seem strong to them for the keeping up the Authority of the City Bishop over the sub-Assemblies round about them 3. And Cities only having been possessed of Bishops for many Years if not Ages before there were Christians enow to make up Country Churches both the Bishops and the City Inhabitants easily overlooking the Reason of it took this for their Prerogative and did plead Prescription As if Schools being planted only in Cities first the Cities and Schoolmasters should thence plead that none must be setled in Country Villages but what are ruled by the City School-Masters And thus the Cities being far the strongest and the Interest of the Citizens and Bishops in point of honour being conjunct and none being capable of a Country charge but such as the City Bishops at first Ordained to it because then there were no other Bishops without resistance it came to pass that both Churches and Presbyters were subjected to the City Bishops 4. And it greatly advanced this design that the Churches which were planted in the Roman Empire did seek to participate of all secular honour that belonged to the place of their Residence And as Dr. Hammond hath largely opened though not well justified did form themselves according to the Model of the Civil Government so that those Cities that had the Presidents or chief Civil Rulers and Judicatures in them did plead a right of having also the chief Bishops and Ecclesiastical Judicatures And thus not only Cities ruled the Country Villages but in time the distinct powers and pre-eminences of Archbishops Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs and the Roman chief Patriarch or Pope came up And the Pagan Common-wealth and Christian Church within the Roman Empire and the neighbouring parts that were influenced by them had a great resemblance 41. But that which most notably set up this exsort swelling and degenerate Prelacy was the mistaken zeal of Constantine together with his Policy and the ambition of Christians and Bishops that were gratified by it For 1. As Constantine perceived that it was the Christians that were his surest strength and when the Heathen Soldiers turned from one Emperour to another as they were tempted he knew that if he only did own the Christians they would unanimously own him and be constant to him so also his Judgment and Zeal for Christianity did concur with his Interest and Policy And as all the Secular and Military Rulers depended on him for honour and power throughout the Roman world he thought it not seemly to give the chief Christians who were the Bishops less honour than he did to the Heathens and to common men Nor did he think meet to deny to the Christian Churches such priviledges as might somewhat set them higher than his other subjects 2. And the Bishops and Christians coming from under long scorn and contempt and coming newly from under the cruel Persecution of Dioclesian and affrighted anew by Maxentius and Licenius they were not only glad to be now honoured and advanced but greatly lifted up with such a sudden wonderous change as to be brought from scorn and cruel torments to be set up above all others As we should have been had we been in their case and it 's like should no more have feared the ill consequents of too much exaltation than they did 3. And the Christian people thought that the exaltation of their Bishops was the honour and exaltation of their Religion it self as well as of their persons 42. Whereas as is aforesaid the Christians had commonly stated the power of Arbitrating all their Civil differences in the Bishop alone when the Apostle intimated that any Wise man among them as such was fit for that business it grew presently to be accounted a heynous crime or scandal for any Christians to go to Law before the Civil Magistrate And Constantine finding them in possession of this custom did by his Edict confirm it and enlarge it decreeing that all Bishops should be Judges of all the Christians causes by consent and that no Civil Judge or Magistrate should compel any Christian to his bar Insomuch that in Theodosius his days when one of Ambrose his Presbyters had a cause to be tryed he denyed himself to be a Christian that he might have it decided by the Civil Magistrate that was Christian also So that even Christian Magistrates might not judge unwilling Christians but the Bishops only Yet had not the Bishops then the power of the Sword but decided all as Arbitrators and enforced their Sentences with rigorous penances and Church-censures By which means 1. many the more turned Christians without the Faith and Holiness of Christians that they might both partake of the Christians honour and immunities and specially that they might be free from corporal penalties for their crimes And who would not do so if it were now our case 2. And by this means the rigorous penalties of the Church by penances were the more easily submitted to as being more easie than corporal pains and mulcts And when thus by the Laws and countenance of so great an Emperour the Bishops were made the Judges of all that were Christians at present and all that would turn Christians that desired it it is easie to understand 1. what a Lordship they must needs
have as to the kind of power 2. How their Office must degenerate from purely spiritual into secular or mixt 3. And how numerous their Flocks and large their Provinces would soon be And here you must note these things 1. That the Bishop of every Church was made Judge of these causes not alone by himself but with his Presbyters or Clergy who judged with him 2. That yet this power was not then taken to be any essential or integral part at all of the Pastoral Office but an Accidental work which Lay-men might do as well as Pastors and that it was committed to the Bishop only as the best able for Arbitration because of his abilities and interest and that as a matter of meer convenience and also for the honour of his place 3. That therefore this Judging power for ending strife and differences might be alienated from the Clergy and done by Lay-men where there was cause 4. And that the Bishop had so much more power than the Presbyters that he could commit it from them to Lay-men All this that one instance of Silvanus in Socrates lib. 7. cap. 37. and in Hanmer cap. 36. whose words were thus Silvanus also no less expressed in his other acts and dealings the good motion of his Godly mind For when he perceived that the Clergy respected nothing but gain in deciding the Controversies of their Clients O woful Clergy he thenceforth suffered none of the Clergy to be judge but took the supplications and requests of suiters and appointed One of the Laity whom for certain he knew to be a just and godly man and gave him the hearing of their causes and so ended quietly all contentions and quarrels And the likeliest way it was You see here 1. that when Princes will needs make the Clergy Magistrates to honour them the wise and good men of the Clergy will return such power to the Laity as usually fitter for it 2. And that it is no wonder that when Law-business is cast upon the Clergy if they grow worse than Lawyers in covetousness and injustice 3. And yet this was not a making Lay-men to be Chancellors that had the power of the Keys For Silvanus did only appoint Lay-men to do Lay-mens work to arbitrate differences but not to excommunicate nor to judge men to excommunication as they do now 4. And this was not a making of Ecclesiastical Elders that were not Pastors and therefore it is no countenance for such but it was a prudent casting back that work on the Laity which good Emperours had in imprudent piety cast upon the Clergy that each might do his proper work 5. But this was but one good Bishop that was so wise and honest and therefore it proved no general reformation This Judicial power went so far and took up so much of the Clergies time that the Synod Taraconens was after this put to Decree Can. 4. that the Clergy should not judge Causes on the Lords day and Can. 10. that no Bishop or Clergy-man should take rewards or bribes for Judgments And the Canons so deterred Christians from seeking Justice from the Civil Judicatures that they had few but Heathens to be Judges of Yea the Christians thought so hardly of the Judges themselves for punishing men by the Sword when the Bishops even for murder it self did punish them but with Penance that they doubted sometime whether those Christians that exercised Magistracy or Civil Judgment after Baptisme were not therefore to be taken for sinners as is visible in Innocent 1. his Epist to Epist 3. to Exuper Tholesan cap. 3. in Crab. Tom. 1. p. 459. And before in Silvester's Concil Rom. apud Crab Vol. 1. p. 280. Can. 16. it is Decreed Nemo Clericus vel Diaconus aut Presbyter propter causam suam quamlibet intret in curia quum omnis curia à cruore dicitur immolatio simulachrorum est Quod siquis Clericus in curiam introicrit anathema suscipiat nunquam rediens ad matrem Ecclesiam A Communione autem non privatur propter tempus turbidum And Constantine is said to be a Subscriber with 284 Bishops 45 Presbyters and 5 Deacons And in former Counc sub Silvest Nullum Clericum ante judicem stare licet I know that Duarenus and Grotius describe not the Bishops power as so large as the Canonists do But Duarenus confesseth that Theodosius made a Law that lites omnes controversiae forenses ad judicium Ecclesiae remitterentur si alter uter litigatorum id postularet That all strifes and controversies forensick should be remitted to the judgment of the Church if either of the contenders required it And that Charles the Great renewed and confirmed the same Law Duar. lib. 1. p. 8. And Grotius de Imper. sum pol. p. 236. saith This Jurisdiction by consent the Bishops received from Constantine with so great power that it was not lawful further to handle any business which the Bishops sentence had decided that is saith he remotâ appellatione And he there sheweth that three sorts of Jurisdiction were by the Emperours given to the Bishops 1. Jure ordinario and so they judged of all matters of Religion and which the Canons reached which went very far in heinous crimes 2. Ex consensu pâ—rtium when the parties chose the Bishop for their Judge Vid. Concil Chalced. c. 9. 3. Ex delegatione which yet went further And even to the Jews such kind of power had been granted But of this whole matter of the Rise of such Prelacy their Courts and power Pardre Paulus hath spoken so well and truly in his Histor Concil Trident. pag. 330 331 c. that I would intreat the Reader to turn to it and peruse it as that which plainly speaketh our judgment of the History now in question Read also his History of Benefices 43. The countenance of the Emperour with these honours and immunities having brought the World into the Church or filled the Churches with Carnal temporizers the numbers were now so great that quickly the great Cities had many Parish Churches and the Country Villages about had some so that now about 400 or 500 Years after Christ most Bishops of great Cities had more Churches than one even several sub Assemblies and Altars as dependant on their Mother Church 44. Yet were their Diocesses which at first were called Parishes somewhat bounded by the Canon and Edicts which decreed that every City where there were Christians enow to make a Church should have a Bishop of their own and that no Bishop except two who bordered one on Scithia a rude unconverted Countrey and the other on the like case of which more in due place 45. And then every oppidum or populous Town like our Market-Towns and Corporations was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City and not only a few among many that have that name by priviledge as it is in England now So that even at this height of Prelacy about 500 600 or 700 Years after Christ they
baptizing 2. and then to teach and guide them Yet all are not called equally to the exercise of all these parts But some were by the Apostles and the Holy Ghost indefinitely employed in an unfixed course in converting men and gathering Churches yet officiating also in gathered Churches where they came And others were fixed in the stated relation of Pastors to particular gathered Churches to teach and rule them and worship among them yet so as also to Preach for the conversion of unbelievers as far as they had ability and opportunity 21. The unfixed Officers were called Ministers in General and Stewards of God's Mysteries and Evangelists But the fixed Officers were also especially called Bishops Pastors and Elders Though sometime â—arely the other also had such Titles because of their doing the same work transiently in the Churches where they came 22. They that were unfixed Preachers or Evangelists had not that special and particular Charge of all the souls in particular Churches and in some one Church above all the rest as fixed Bishops or Pastors have But they had a greater Obligation than these Bishops to preach to Infidels because it was their ordinary chief work 23. The Pastors of particular Churches had such a Charge of those particular Flocks above all other Flocks materially as that they were not obliged equally to do the same for others as they did for them Though yet when they had a particular call they might transiently or occasionally perform the work of the Pastoral Office to other Churches 24. This relation to their particular Flock was not such as disobliged them from their higher regard of the Universal Church For our relation to that is stricter and more indissoluble than to any particular Church And we must always finally prefer the Church Universal though materially we are to labour in our particular Churches principally and sometimes only because by such Order the Church Universal is best edified 25. The Apostles usually but not only planted Churches in great Cities rather than in Country Villages 26. This was not that hereby they might oblige others to confine Churches to Cities only nor because they had any special honour for a City but because they were the places of greatest â—â—â—â—course and had best opportunity for Assemblies and most materials to work upon 27. Neither the Apostles nor others for some Ages after Christ did divide the Countries about such Cities and assign part of theâ— to be the Diocess of one Bishop and the other part to the Bishop of the next adjoyning City Nor was there any bounding of Parishes or Diocess nor any determination to which Bishop such and such ground or Villages of unconverted Infidels did belong Only as natural prudence guided them and the spirit of God they so dispersed themselves that none might hinder another in his work but as most tended to the propagation and orderly governing of the Churches 28. Therefore no City Bishop had such a Particular Charge of the souls of all the individual Infidels either in his City or the Country round about him which some feign to have been his Diocess as he had of the souls of the Church which he was Pastor of Though he was bound to do all that he could to convert all as he had opportunity he stood not in any Pastoral relation to this or that individual Infidel as he did to all the individual Christians of his charge Ignatius requireth the Bishop to know all his Flock by name and enquire after them even the servants but not so of all Infidels in his City or Circuit 29. No man was therefore the Pastor of any Christians in a particular Church relation meerly because he converted them Nor was there ever any Law made by Christ or his Apostles that all should be members of that particular Church whose Overseer did convert them much less that at a distance they should be the members of his Episcopal charge though in another Church 30. The Apostles setled in every particular Church one or more with the Pastoral power of the Keys to teach and govern that Church and to lead them in publick worship And every such Body should still have one or more Pastors with such power And no Pastor or Bishop should have more particular Churches under his special immediate Charge than one unless as an Archbishop who hath Bishops in those particular Churches under him 31. A particular Church of Christ's Institution by his Apostles is A sacrrd Society consisting of one or more Pastors and a capable number of Christian Neighbours consociate by Christs appointment and their own consent for personal communion in God's publick worship and in holy living In this definition 1. The Genus is a sacred Society so called 1. to distinguish it from a meer community or unbodied company of Christians 2. and to distinguish it from Civil and prophane Societies For the Genus is subalternate and the species of a superiour Genus 2. The constitutive parts are Pastor and People 3. I say Pastors as distinguishing it from all other societies as headed by other Officers or Rulers As Kingdoms by Kings Colleges by their Governours Schools by School-masters Families by Parents c. For Societies are specified by their Governours 4. I say one or more because it is the Office in some person that is the constitutive part the number being indifferent as to the Beings though not as to the well being of the Society 5. The People being the other material part of the Society I call them Christians that is Baptized Professing Christians to distinguish them from all Infidels who are uncapable to be members 6. I call them Neighbours because the Proximity must be such as rendereth them capable of the Ends of the Society For at an uncapable distance they cannot have Church-communion 7. I put in a capable number because too few or too many may be utterly uncapable of the Ends One or two are uncapable defectively such multitudes as can have no Church communion are uncapable through excess of which more after 8. The form is the Relative Union of Pastor and People in reference to the Ends Which I mean in the word Consociate 9. The foundation or prime efficient is Christ's Institution 10. The Condition sine qua non is their mutual consent 11. The end or terminus is their Communion 12. The matter of this Communion is both God's publickworship and a holy life which distinguisheth them from such as associate for civil ends or any other besides these 13. The proper species of this holy Communion is that it be Personal By which I mean such as Pastor and People may ordinarily exercise in presence to distinguish it from that sort of Communion 1. which we have only in spirit in faith judgment and affection with Christians in all parts of the World And 2. from that external Communion which several Churches hold together by Messengers Delegates or Letters For if that kind of distant Communion would
definitely to signifie these Churches Congregate into a Synod or Consistory But I believe his word of neither place One is Mat. 18. 17. Tell the Church c. If I say that tell the Church signifieth tell the Society containing Pastors and Christians though it is the Pastors that you must immediately speak to and the offender must hear I give as good proof of my exposition as he doth of his If I speak to a man and hear a man though it be only his ears that hear me and his tongue that speaketh to me yet by the word man I mean not only ears and tongue If the King send a Command to a Corporation to expel a seditious member though the Mayor or Aldermen only do it Authoritatively and the People but executively yet the word Corporation doth not therefore signifie the Officers only The other Text is Act. 15. 22. But I will not believe him that the whole Church signifieth the Synod only For though they only decreed it I think the rest consented and approved it and are meant in the word the whole Church I grant him that Rom. 16. 1. the word signifieth the Church of a Village or Town But he will never prove that it is not meant of a Church of the same Species as City Churches were And as to the House or Family Churches which he mentioneth Rom. 16. 5. 1 Cor. 16. 19. Col. 4. 15. Phil. 2. Dr. Hammond expoundeth Col. 4 15. of the Church that did meet in his house and so some do all the rest But that we stand not for nor doth it concern us But when he addeth a multitude of Texts as using the word Church indefinitely not defining the place Society of a Nation or City quantity c. most of the instances brought are of Churches definite as to place and of the same Species as the Apostles Instituted though when the Church of such a place is said to do a thing it 's no determination what number of the members did it His first instance is Acts 4. 31. and next Acts 15. 3 9 c. The Churches had rest through all Judaea and Gallile and Samaria Acts 15. 3. Speaks of the Church of Antioch which v. 27. it 's said they gathered together v. 4. mentioneth the Church at Jerusalem v. 11. mentioneth the Churches of Syria and Cilicia Acts 18. 22. Speaketh of the Church at Caesarea Rom. 16. 16. Speaks of the Churches where Paul lately travelled v. 23. Gaius was the Host of a definite whole Church at Corinth And when 1 Cor. 4. 17. he speaketh of his teaching in every Church it is an Universal enunciation but of Churches of a certain or definite species and so of the rest Then p. 5. he telleth us what is truly and properly a Church on Earth and saith Every company of men professing the true faith of Christ is both truly a Church and a true Church Ans. Yes As Canis caelestis is truly a Dog and a true Dog but not properly but equivocally A Church in its most famous signification is a Society constituted of the Pastor and Flock as a School of the Schoolmaster and Schollars And an accidental meeting of Christians in a Market or Ship is no more properly called a Church than School-boys meeting in such places are a School No nor occasionally praying together neither So p. 5. He concludeth that the Christian People of one City and Country adjoyning whether Province or Diocess are one Church yea of any Nation or part of the World not because under one Spiritual Government or Priest-hood but because one People or Commonwealth ruled by the same Laws professing the same Religion All this is de nomine only But are we not likely to dispute well when we never agree of the Subject or terms of the Question We have no mind to contend about Names Let him call the World or a Corporation or Kingdom or Ecclesiam Malignantium by the name of a Church if he will so that we first agree what Church we dispute of We talk not of any accidental meeting or Community but a Society before defined constituted of the pars gubernans and pars subdita And of this sort we know of Divine Institution an Universal Church Headed by Christ and particular Churches headed under him by their Bishops or Pastors A Church without a Head in Fair Ship or Temple we talk not of Nor yet of a Church that hath but an Accidental Extrinsick and not an Essential Constitutive Head to them as they are Churches of Christ's Institution Whether it be the Emperour of Germany or of Constantinople Mahometan Christian Papist or Protestant we believe that every Soveraign is so the Head that is the Ruler of the Church that is of the Christians in his Dominions We denominate â formâ Bishop Downame may denominate whence he please à materiâ or ab accidente c. and say They are one Church that are under one Prince Law of one Religion Do with your Equivocals what you will But forget not that it is a Pastoral particular Church of the Holy Ghost's Institution that we Dispute about Otherwise I deny not Diocesan or Patriarchal Churches nor deny that the Papal Kingdom is a Church of a certain species right or wrong And forget not his Concession p. 6. and we need no more Indeed at the very first conversion of Cities the whole number of the People converted being sometimes not much greater than the number of the Presbyters placed among them were able to make but a small Congregation But those Churches were in Constituting they were not fully Constituted till their number being increased they had their Bishop or Pastor their Presbyters and Deacons without which Ignatius saith there was no Church c. Of wâ—â—â—h after He next Cap. 1. laboureth much to prove that the words Ecclesia Paraecia and Diocaesis of old were of the sâ—â—e signification About words we have no mind to strive But all the proofs that he brings of the extent of a Church to more than one Congregation or Altar are fetcht from later times when indeed Churches were transformed into Societies much different from those before them He citeth Concil Carth. 2. c. 5. 3. 42 43 c. that places that had no Bishops before should not receive Bishops without the consent of the Bishop whom they were before under Indeed by these Canons we see much of the state of the Church in those times and partly how the Case was altered Every Church had a Bishop of its own Those Churches were almost all first planted in Cities The multitudes were Heathens but the City Christians with those in the Country near them were enow to make a Church or Congregation In time so many were Converted in the Country Villages that they were allowed Assemblies like our Chappels at home And some of them had Country Bishops set over them And in many places greater Towns which they then called Cities were anew converted The Presbyters
Churches For they might be but single Parish Churches though they were in Cities only and the Country Members joyned with them in the Cities And his own Confession is page 35. that besides Rome and Alexandria that had many Churches in the City there is not the like evidence for multitude of Parishes in other Cities imediately after the Apostles times I suppose by his Citations he meaneth till the third Century And if this be granted us of all the great Cities of the World that they cannot be proved to have many Churches we have no great reason to look for many in the Country Villages His next Argument is Churches containing within their Circuit not only Cities with their Suburbs but also whole Countries subject to them were Diocesses But the Churches subject to the ancient Bishops in the Primitive Church contained c. Therefore they were Diocesses Ans Either this is his Description of a Diocess or we have none from him that I can find And let who will Dispute about the Names of Diocess and Parish for I will not And if by a Diocess he meaneth a Church consisting of all the Christians in City and Country associated for Personal holy Communion having One Altar and One Bishop this is that which we call a single Church or some a Parish-Church and if he call it a Diocess he may please himself But if he mean that in these Cities and whole Countries were several such Churches that had each an Altar and were fixed Societies for personal holy Communion not having any proper Bishop of their own but one Bishop in Common with whose Cathedral Church they did not and could not Communicate through Number or distance I deny his Minor proposed in this sense as to the two first Centuries though not as to the following Ages But if by Cities Suburbs and whole Countries subject he mean all the unconverted Infidels of that space for doubtless he calls not the soil or place the Church I deny the very subject There were no such Churches Infidels and Heathens make not Churches Though Hereticks made somewhat like them sicut vespa faciunt â—avos as Tertullian speaketh If the Diocesan Churches Disputed for be Churches of Pagans and Infidels we know no such things But if he mean that all the Heathens in that Circuit are the Bishops Charge in order to Conversion I answer 1. That maketh them no parts of the Church Therefore the Church is of never the larger extent for the soil or Infidel Inhabitants 2. The Apostles and other General Preachers like the Jesuits in the Indies may divide their Labourers by Provinces for the Peoples Convetsion before there be any Churches at all 3. This distribution is a meer prudential Ordering of an accident or circumstance and therefore not the Divine Institution of a Church Form or Species 4. Neither Scripture nor prudence so distributeth Circuits or Provinces to Preachers in order to conversion of Infidels as that other Preachers may not come and Preach there as freely as one that claimeth it as his Province For 1. Christ sent out his Apostles by two and two at first 2. Paul had Barnabas or some other Evangelist or General Preacher usually with him And Peter and Paul are both said to be at Rome at Antioch and other places And many Apostles were long together at Jerusalem even many years after Christ's Resurrection Christ that bid them go into all the World never commanded that one should not come where another was nor have power to Preach to Infidels in that Diocess And what is the Episcopal power over Infidels which is claimed It is not a power to Ordain or to Excommunicate them It can be no other than a power to Preach to them and Baptize them when converted And this is confessed to belong to Presbyters If the Bishops would divide the World into Diocesses and be the only Preachers in those Diocesses it would be no wonder if the World be unconverted It is not Bishops that are sent by the Papists themselves to convert the Indians But perhaps you may say that the Bishops rule those Presbyters that do it I answer 1. It 's an imperfect kind of Government which a Bishop in England can exercise over Presbyters that daily Preach as Mr. Eliat his helpers to the Natives in a Wilderness many thousand Miles from them 2. But if they do rule the Preachers that maketh not the Soil nor the Heathens to be any parts of their Church but the Preachers only Therefore a Diocess with them and a Church must be different things His first Reason therefore page 36. from the Circuit is vain His second page 37. that the City Bishops had a right from the beginning over many Churches that had no other Bishops and did not after usurp it he proveth not at all For the words of Men three or four hundred years after Christ alledging ancient custome are no proof When the 25 Can. Trull cited by himself maketh thirty years possession enough against all that would question their Title And abundance of things had Custome and Antiquity alledged for them so long after that were known Innovations His third Reason is from the Chorepiscopi as the Bishops suffragan which sheweth no more but that the City Bishops whether justly or by usurpation were at last really Archbishops or Rulers of Bishops But of this before His fourth Reason from Succession will be good when he that affirmeth that no Church was governed by the Parish Discipline hath proved that all many yea or any Bishops from the Apostles days had many Churches under them that had no Bishops of their own Till then he saith nothing As to his instance of the Scythians having but one Bishop the Reason was because it was but little of their Country at first that were made Christians or that were at all in the Roman Empire So that the Bishop was setled at Tomis in the borders of the Empire in the Maritine part of the Euxine Sea that thence he might have an influence on the rest of the Scythians over whom the Romans had no power and where there were many Cities indeed but few Christians as may be seen in Theodoret Tripart Nicephor and many others Of his other three or four instances I shall after speak Chap. 3. lib. 2. He pretends to prove that the seven Asian Churches were Diocesan and not Parochial and never defineth a Diocess and Parish which is lost labour His first Argument is Churches whose Circuit contained Cities and Countries adjoining were Diocesses But c. This is before answered Our Question is Whether they were as our Diocesan Churches such as had in these Cities and Countries many Altars and Churches without Bishops under them Trees and Houses and Fields and Heathen People make not Churches nor yet scattered Christians that were Members only of the City Church His proof of the Minor is 1. These Churches comprized all the Churches of Asia Ans If he mean that all the rest
for Chronology and History A few leaves of whose over-large Collections Dr. Hammond hath Answered as you have heard and given his reason for going no further because Blond extendeth the Ministerial Parity but to 140. But to us it is not so inconsiderable to see by what degres the Prelacy rose and to see it proved so copiously that even in after Ages the species extent and of Churches and the Order or Species of Presbyters were not altered notwithstanding accidental alterations And therefore I shall undertake to bring proofenough of what I now plead for from times much lower than 140 such as I think the impartal will rest satisfied in though interest and preconceived Idea's are seldom satisfied or conqueredly a Confutation CHAP. VI. That it is not of Gods institution nor is pleasing to him that there be no Churches and Bishops but in Cities or that a City with its territories or Country adjacent be the bounds of each Church SOme late most esteemed defenders of Diocesanes especially Dr. Hammond lay so great a stress upon the supposition that the Apostles setled the Churches in the Metropolitane and Diocesane order and that they did partly in imitation of the Jewish policy and partly as a thing necessary by the nature of the thing that even in Heathen Kingdomes when Churches are gathered in any Cities they must have a difference of Church power over each other as they find the Cities to have a civil power as you heard before from Dr. H. that I think it meet here breifly to prove 1. That it was not of the Apostles purpose to have Churches and Bishops placed only in Cities and not in Villages 2. Nor that Church power should thus follow the civil 3. Nor that a City with its territories should be the measure of the habitation of each Churches members The licet in some cases I deny not but the oportet is the question yea and the licet in other cases The two first are proved together by these reasons following 1. Christ himself our grand examplar did not only preach and convert Christians in Cities but in Country villages where he held assemblies and preacht and prayed yea in mountains and in Ships And though he planted no particular Churches with fixed Bishops there yet that was because he did so no where He performed all offices in the Country which he did in the Cities except that which was appropriated to Jerusalem by the Law and the institution of his last supper which could be done but in one place 2. There is no Law of God direct or indirect which maketh it a duty to settle Churches and Bishops in Cities only and forbiddeth the setling them in Country villages This is most evident to him that will search the Scripture and but try the pretended proofs of the late Prelatists for the vanity of their pretensions will easily appear They have not so fair a pretense in the New Testament for asserting such a Law as the Pop hath for his supermacy in Peter feed my sheep And where there is no Law there is no obligation on us unto duty and no sin in omission If they say that the Apostles did plant Churches only in Cities comprehending their territories I answer 1. They prove that they planted them in Cities but the silence of the Scriptures proveth not the Negative that they planted none in Villages 2. Nor have they a word of proof that each Church contained all Christians in the Cities with all the interjacent Villages 3. Much less that they must contain all such when all the Countries were converted and the Christians were enow for many Churches 4. Nor can they ever prove that the Apostles planting Churches only in Cities was intended as a Law to restrain men from planting them any where else Any more than their not converting the Villages or the generality of the Cities will prove that they must not be converted by any other Or than that their setting up no Christian Magistrates or converting no Princes will prove that there must be no such thing Whoever extended the obligation of Apostolical example to such Negatives as to do nothing which they did not 5. The reason is most apparent why they preached first in Cities because there is no such fishing as in the Sea They had there the frequentest fullest audirories And so they planted their first Churches there because they had most converts there And it is known that Judea a barren mountainous Coutrey of it self had been so harressed with Wars that there was little safety and quiet expected in Countrey Villages and the Roman Empire had been free from the same plague by such short intervals that as many people as could got into the Cities for all that know by experience what War is do know the misery of poor Country people who are at every wicked Soldiers mercy It was therefore among poor scattered labourers a hard thing to get a considerable auditory which maketh Mr. Eliots and his helpers work go on so heavily among the scattered Americans who have no Cities or great Towns because they can rarely speak to any considerable numbers Now to gather from hence either that Villages must have no Churches or no Bishops is an impiety next to a concluding that they must not be assembled taught or worship God 3. The reasons are vain and null which are pretended for such a modelling of Churches to the form of the civil Government and thus confining them to Cities For 1. There is no need that one Bishop be the Governour of another at all 2. And therefore no need that the Bishop of a Metropolis govern the Bishop of a lesser City or he the Bishop of a Village 1. God hath not given one Bishop power over another as meer Bishops As Cyprian saith in his Carth. Council none of us are Bishops of Bishops but Colleagues Dr. Hammond himself saith that the Bishops are the Apostles Successors and the Apostles were equal in power and Independent Annot. in 1 Tim. 3. c. p 732. Jesus Christ dispensing them all the particular Churches of the whole world by himself and administring them severally not by any one Oeconomus but by the several Bishops as inferiour heads of unity to the severalbodies so constituted by the several Apostles in their plantations each of them having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a several distinct commission from Christ immediately and subordinate to none but the supreme donor or plenipotentiary Indeed if it be not Bishops but Archbishops or Bishops of Bishops which are the Apostles Successors in order over the Bishops as they are supposed to be over the Priests then such an order of Arch-Bishops is of divine right But not as Metropolitanes or for the Cities sake but as general Officers to take care of many Churches succeeding the Apostles 2. And that Apostolical succession is not the foundation of the Metropolitan or City power is plain 1. Because if the Bishop or Arch-Bishop be the immediate successors of
now may do to meet by parcels in several Houses sometimes in a danger yet their ordinary Meetings when they were free was all together in one place And Unum Altare was the note of their Individuation with Unus Episcopus when Bishops grew in fashion in the eminent sense 2. That the first that broke this Order and had divers Assemblies and Altars under one Bishop were Alexandria and Rome and no other Church can be proved to have done so for about three hundred Years after Christ or near nor most Churches till four hundred yea five hundred Years after 3. That when they departed from this Church temperament they proceeded by these degrees 1. They set up some Oratories or Chappels as are in our Parishes which had only Prayers and Teachings without an Altar Oblations or Sacraments in the City Suburbs or Country Villages near the People coming for Sacramental Communion to the Bishop's Church 2. Afterward these Chappels were turned into Communicating Churches But so as that at first the Bishop's Presbyters who lived sometimes in the same House with him and always near him in the same City and were his Colleagues did preach and officiate to them indifferently that is he whom the Bishop sent and after that a particular Presbyter was assigned to teach a particular Congregation yet so as that more of the Bishop's Presbyters commonly had no such Congregations but the most of them still attended the Bishop in his Church and sate with him on each hand in a high raised Seat and whilst he did usually preach and administer the Sacrament they did but attend him and do nothing or but some by assisting Acts as Lay-Elders do in the Presbyterian Churches principally employed in personal oversight and in joyning in Government with the Bishop And those same Presbyters who had Congregations joyned with the rest in their Weekly Work and made up the Consessus or College of Presbyters 3. And next that and in some places at the same time Communicating Congregations were gathered in the Country Villages so far off the City as that it was found meet to leave a Presbyter Resident among them but under the Government of the City Bishop and Presbytery of whom he was one when he came among them And all this while the Churches were but like our greater Parishes which have divers Chappels where there is liberty of Communicating 4. After this when the Countries were more converted there were more Country Parish-Congregations set up till they attained the form of a Presbyterian Church differing only in the Bishop that is a certain number of the Neighbour Country Parishes in one Consistory but with a Bishop did govern all these Parishes as one Church that is It was many Worshipping Churches as sis eight or ten or twelve joyning to make up one governed Church But at the same time many Pastors and People being convinced of the Church-form which they had before been under and of their own necessity and privileges did require the same Order among themselves as was in City Churches and so had their proper Bishops who were called Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops But these Country-Bishops living among the poorer and smaller number of Christians had not so many Presbyters to attend them as the City-Bishops had So that some Country Congregations had Bishops and some had none And the Churches being chiefly governed by the Synods who met for obliging Concord to avoid Divisions these Synods being made up of the City-Bishops at first they there carried it by Vote to make all the Country-Bishops under them and responsible to them Which they the rather and the easilier consented to because many obscure and unworthy Fellows did insinuate into the esteem of the Country-Christians who had no Bishops near them to advise them better and so became the Corrupters of Doctrine and the Masters of Sects and Heresies By this time one part of the Country Churches had Bishops of their own and the other had none but only Presbyters under the City-Bishops and Presbytery But yet it was but few Neighbour-Parishes like our Market-Towns and the Villages between them that were thus under the City-Bishop For every such Town was then called a City in the larger sense as it signifieth Oppidum and most such Towns had City-privileges too which was no more than to be Corporations and not to have a Nominal Eminency as now some small places have above greater as Bath rather than Plimouth Ipswich Shrewsbury c. Next to this the Emperors being Christians and desiring without force to draw all the People from Heathenism to Christianity they thought it the best way to advance the Christians in worldly respects which ever win on common minds And so they endued the Churches and Bishops with such Honours and Powers heretofore described as were like to the Honour and Power of the Civil Governors in their kind And the Bishops being thus lifted up did first enlarge their own Dioceses as far as they could and advance their Power and the World came unchanged into the Church both in Cities and Villages where the Christians were before so few that many think the Heathens were called Pagani in distinction from the Citizens who were Christian And then the Bishops put down the Chorepiscopi as presuming too much to imitate their Power And next to that lest every Corporation or Market-Town having a Bishop their Dioceses should not be great enough and ne vilesceret nomen Episcopi lest a Bishop's Name should not be honoured enough but become cheap by reason of the number and of the smallness of his Church they first ordered that no such small Cities or other places as had People enough for but one Presbyter should have a Bishop and afterward by degrees put down many smaller Bishops Churches and joyned them to their own And so proceeded by the advantage of Civil Alterations on Cities Names and Privileges to bring themselves to the state that they are in wherein one Bishop infimi ordinis that is no Arch-Bishop hath many hundred or above a thousand Churches and multitudes of Cities called now but Corporations Burroughs or Market-Towns I have repeated so much of the History lest the Reader forget what it is that I am proving and that he may note that if I prove now that in later Ages they kept but the Vestigia or Reliques of the former to prove how it was before their times and if I prove but a Church of Presbyterian Magnitude to have so long continued it sufficeth against that which we now call a Diocess And that we do not play with Names nor by a Diocesane Church mean the same thing with a Parochial or Presbyterian but we mean such as our Dioceses now are where a Bishop alone with a Lay-Chancellor's Court or with some small help of an Arch-Deacon Surrogate or Dean and Chapter without all the Parish-Ministers besides doth rule a multitude of distant Congregations who have no proper Bishop under him And now I proceed I.
great priviledge of Church-Communion and that giving it to the unwilling that had but rather endure it than a Prison is a great profanation of it and a cheat to poor souls and a horrid corrupting of Christ's Churches and Ordinances 68. If wilful Church-corruptions have made any places uncapable of a present conformity to Christ's Institutions their incapacity must not become the measure and rule of our Reformation But a true Conformity to the Institution must be intended and endeavoured though all cannot come up to it at the first 69. We do not hold that every Corruption in Number or Officers or Order nullifieth a Church or maketh all Communion with it unlawful as long as the essential constitution doth remain Yea though my own judgment is that every Church in Town or Country should have a Bishop yet if they would but set up one Bishop with his assistant Presbyters in every Corporation and Great Town with the neighbour Villages according to the antient practise from the middle of the third Century for many following so that true discipline might but be made possible to them that had a heart to practice it I should greatly rejoyce in such a Reformation much more if every Parish Pastor were restored to all the parts of his Office though he exercised all under the Government of Bishops 70. We hold the Parish Churches of England that have true Ministers that are not utterly uncapable through Ignorance Heresie Insufficiency or Wickedness to be true Churches of Christ But that is because we hold the particular Ministers to be true Bishops Episcopos Gregis etsi non Episcoporum and to have the power of the Keys over all their Flocks And that is because we hold that it is not in our Bishops power to deprive them of it though they would And because we hold that when Christ hath instituted and described the Office of a Pastor or Presbyter and the Ordainers ordain a man to that Office their power shall be judged of by Christs institution and not by the Ordainers will though he mistake or would maim and change it by his wrong description And that the Ordainer is but a Ministerial Invester delivering possession according to his Masters will and not his own And as long as Christ giveth to Pastors the power of the Keys and they themselves consent to receive and use them especially if the People also consent to the exercise of them it is not the Bishops will or words that can nullifie this power And if this Answer were not good I confess I were not able to Answer a Brownist who saith that we have no true Publick Churches of God's Institution Diocesan Churches being but Humane if they had Bishops in each Church under them and being sinful when they have none and Parochial Churches being Humane or null as having no Bishops of their own nor Pastors of Christ's Institution but half Pastors and therefore being but part of a Diocesan Church But all this is sufficiently answered by our foresaid Reasons which no high Prelatist can soundly answer 71. I do hold that those Parish Assemblies that have no Ministers but such as are uncapable either through notorious Ignorance or Heresie or utter Insufficiency as to the Essentials of their Office or by disclaiming themselves any Essential part of the Pastoral Office or by notorious Preaching against Godliness and opposing the Churches necessary good are indeed no true Churches of Christ but only are Analogically or Equivocally so called As you may call a Community of Christians that have no Pastor or Church which is no Organized or Political Society 72. But yet I think it not simply unlawful to joyn at any time with such an Assembly For I may joyn with a Christian Family or occasional Assembly though not as with a Church 73. We hold that all the Christians in the World in particular Churches or out do make up one Catholick or Universal Church which is Mystical and Invisible in that 1. the Faith of Mens minds is Invisible 2. and Christ is Invisible to us Mortals now he is in Heaven But it is also Visible 1. In respect of the Members and their outward Baptism and Profession 2. and because that Christ the Head was once Visible on Earth and is still Visible in Heaven to the Glorified part as the King is to his Courtiers when the rest of the Kingdom seeth him not and will Visibly appear again to all 74. We hold that this Universal Church is One in Christ alone and that it hath no other King or Head That he hath Instituted no Vicarious Head either Pope or General Council Nor is any mortal man or men capable of such an Office 75. We hold therefore that the Roman Pope and General Councils if they claim such an Headship is an Usurper of part of Christ's Prerogative which having usurped he hath used against Christ and his interest against the Soveraignty of Princes and against the true Unity Concord Peace and Holiness of the Churches 76. And we hold that it was the modelling of the Church to the Policy of the Roman Empire which gave the Pope the advantage for this usurpation And that the Roman Catholick Papal Church is a meeâ— Humane Form and an Imperial Church as much as the Archbishop of Canterbury as Superiour to the rest of England is of Man and that Body so united is a National Church And that the General Councils were never truly General as to all the Churches in the World but only as to the Roman Imperial Church None considerable ever coming to such Councils but those that were or had been in the Roman Empire or some very few that closely bordered on them Nor had the Roman Emperour who usually called or gave his Warrant for such Councils or Governed them any power over the Clergy of all the rest of the Christian World in Ethiopia the outer Armenia Persia India c. Nor did the Imperial Pope then exercise any power over them And we are perswaded that the power of the Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Constantinople and of the Metropolitaâ—â— Primates c. stood on the same foundation with the Primacy of the Pope and that one is no more of Divine right than the other But that the Papacy is the far more wicked Usurpation as pretending to more of Christ's Prerogative 77. We hold therefore that the Roman Church as such that is as pretending to be the Church-Catholick Headed by an Usurping Universal Bishop is no true Church of Christ but a Humane and traiterous Usurpation and conspiracy therefore by Protestants called Antichristian Though those that are true Christians among them are Parts of Christ's Catholick Church and those that are true Pastors among them may be the Guides of true particular Churches 78. We hold therefore that no Power on Earth Popes Council or Prince hath power to make Universal Laws to bind the whole Church of Christ on Earth because there is no Universal Head or
of the Churches of Asia had no Bishops but Parish Presbyters under these seven Bishops he should prove it and confute Dr. Hammond that is so contrary to him had he then lived Till then we take it as a contemptible incredible assertion that Asia had but seven Bishops and yet a multitude of Churches If he mean only that these seven were Archbishops his impertinency is too palbable Particularly he saith The Church of Ephesus Smyrna c. Contained a great City and the Country belonging to it c. Ans We talk of Churches under Churches and he talketh only of Cities and Countries Again I say Let him take his Diocess of Infidels Houses and Ground we know no such Churches Page 46. He saith Cenchrea was subject to the Church of Corinth and never had a Bishop of their own But not a syllable of proof It is not a Family Church which we speak of therefore he need not here have mentioned that But a Church associated for ordinary Communion in God's publick worship which cannot be celebrated without a Pastor Let him prove that Cenchrea was such a Church and yet had no Bishop In § 6. p. 49. He would prove that the Circuit of a Church was in the Intention of the Apostles or first Founders the same from the beginning befor◠the division of Churches as after Which I shall in due place disprove His reasons are 1. Because the whole Church since the Apostles days hath so understood the intention of the Apostles Ans 1. This is not proved 2. I shall anone prove the contrary that the Apostles had no intention that Churches should be defined by the limits of the place and Country nor did they themselves ever appoint any such bounds to any one Church and say so far it shall extend Nor did they ever take any but Christians in any Circuits for Members of the Church And I shall prove that all Churches were but such as I described single Churches with their Bishops at the first and that some Villages had Bishops four or five hundred years after And his own Reason that Churches followed the Civil Form proveth the mutability of their bounds seeing the Civil Forms were mutable His next Reason is because that division of Churches which was 300 or 400 Years after Christ with their Limits and Circuits were ordinarily the same which had been from the beginning as divers Councils testifie Ans Those Councils mean no more than that it had been an old or setled Custome as many Learned men have proved And if they could be proved to mean that from the Apostolical plantations the bounds of all the Diocess were set I marvel that any man could believe them But they say no such thing as were it not tedious to the Reader an examination of each particular would shew Else no new Churches and Bishops must be setled in the World but those that the Apostles converted in any Cities between or near them For the unconverted Cities in the inter-spaces were as much those Bishops Diocesses as the Villages of equal distance And then the making of new Cities would have made one a Bishop of many Cities contrary to the Canons His third Reason is that the Distribution of the Churches usually followed the division of the Common wealth Ans 1. If so as is said they must be various and mutable All the World was not divided just as the Roman Empire was And the Imperial divisions had great changes 2. I think it lost labour to dispute with him that holdeth this assimilating the Church to the Civil Form was of Divine Apostolical Institution If any can think so let him give us his proof that the Church Constitution must vary as Monarchical Aristocratical and Democratical States do As Empires and free Cities do And that from the King to the Constable we must have a correspondent Officer And that the Papacy as Capital in the Roman Empire was of Gods Institution And that an Emperour King or popular State may change the Form of the Churches as oft as they may the Form of their subordinate Governments Are not these small Reasons to prove that when the Apostles planted Bishops in all single Churches they intended that those Bishops should be the sole Bishops of many hundred Churches when they should be raised in the Circuit of ground which now is called their Diocesses But more of this in due place But next he appealeth to mens consciences Whether it be not unlikely that there was but one Congregation belonging to these famous Cities towards the end of the Apostles days Of which more afterward In Chap. 4. p. 69. He argueth The Presbyteries ordained by the Apostles were appointed for Diocesses and not to Parishes Therefore the Churches endued with the power of Ecclesiastical Government were not Parishes but Diocesses Ans Our Question is Whether they were single Churches as before defined or only One Diocesan Church made up of many such single Churches 1. If by Presbyteries be meant many Presbyters a College or Consessus I deny the Consequence because every Church that had Government had not such a Presbytery But one Bishop or Pastor did serve for some of the lesser Churches and yet that one had Governing power 2. I deny the Major It was single Churches that had then many Elders set over them 3. Reader it seemeth to me no small disparagement to the Diocesan Cause that the grand Patrons of it so extreamly differ among themselves Dr. Hammond holdeth that in all the Scripture times no one Church had any Presbyters at all save only one single Bishop This Bishop Downame seemeth to hold that every Governed Church had a Presbytery And no one and every one extreamly differ Yet either of them would have censure him that had gain-sayed them His proof of the Antecedent is this They who were appointed to whole Cities and Countries to labour so far as they were able the conversion of all that belonged to God were appointed to Diocesses not to Parishes But c. Ans Is not here frustration instead of edification to the Reader for want of defining a Diocess and a Parish I thought we had talkt of a Diocesan Church and here is a Diocess described which may be a single Church or no Church at all as the Bishop pleaseth Here is not so much as any Christians much less Congregations of them mentioned as the Bishops Flock But many an Apostle Evangelist and Converting Preacher hath been set over Cities and Countries to labour mens Conversion as far as they were able before they had converted any or at least enow to make a Church and after that before they had converted more than one Assembly The Jesuits in the Indies thus laboured in several Provinces before they were Bishops of those Provinces or called them Provincial Churches But now we perceive what he meaneth by a Diocess even a space of Ground containing Inhabitants to be converted if we can I will shorten my Answer to the
Office of half-Presbyters began to be invented according to his own Computation That pag. 21. passim his supposition of the 24 Bishops of Judaea sitting about the Throne of James Bishop of Jerusalem and his other supposition of their being so ordinarily there And of the Bishops of Provinces in other Nations being so frequently many score if not hundred Miles off their people in the Metropolitane Cities when the people had no other Priest to Officiate doth tend to an Atheistical conceit that the Ordinary use of Sacred Assemblies and Communion is no very needful thing when in the best times by the best men in whole Countreys at once they were so much forborn Pag. 26. Again you have his full and plain Assertion That there were not in the space within compass of which all the Books of the new Testament were written any Presbyters in our modern Notion of them created in the Church though soon after certainly in Ignatius time which was above 50 years after the Rev. they were Pag. 60. He supposeth that whoever should settle Churches under a Heathen King among Heathens must accordinly make the Churches gathered subordinate to one another as the Cities in which they are gathered were though Heathen subordinate to one another of which more in due place Pag. 76 77. He saith that As Congregations and Parishes are Synonimous in their Style so I yield that Believers in great Cities were not at first divided into Parishes while the number of Christians in a City was so small that they might well assemble in the same place and so needed no Partitions or Divisions But what disadvantage is this to us who affirm that one Bishop not a Colledge of Presbyters presided in that one Congregation and that the Believers in the Regions and Villages about did belong to the care of that single Bishop or City Church A Bishop and his Deacon were sufficient at the first to sow their Plantations For what is a Diocess but a Church in a City with the Suburbs and Territories or Region belonging to it And this certainly might be and remain under the Government of a single Bishop Of any Church so bounded there may be a Bishop and that whole Church shall be his Diocess and so he a Diocesan Bishop though as yet this Church be not subdivided into more several Assemblies So that you see now what a Diocess is And that you may know that we contend not about Names while they call the Bishop of one Congreation a Diocesane we say nothing against him A Diocesan in our sense is such as we live under that have made one Church of many hundred or a thousand But Reader be not abused by words when it is visible Countreys that we talk of As every Market-Town or Corporation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City in the old sense so the Diocess of Lincoln which I live in at this reckoning hath three or fourscore Diocesses in it and the Diocess of Norwich about 50 Diocesses in it c. That is such Cities with the interjacent Villages Pag. 78. He saith When they add these Angels were Congregational not Diocesan they were every of them Angels of a Church in a City having authority over the Regions adjacent and pertaining to that City and so as CHURCH and CONGREGATION ARE ALL ONE AS IN ORDINARY USE IN ALL LANGUAGES THEY ARE Thus were Congregational and Diocesan also What follows of the paucity of Believers in the greatest Cities and their meeting in one place is willingly granted by us I must desire the Reader to remember all this when we come to use it in due place And you may modestly smile to observe how by this and the foregoing words the Dr. forgetfully hath cast out all the English Diocesans While he maketh it needful that the Cities be Ecclesiastically subordinate as they are Civilly and maketh it the very definition of a Diocesan Bishop to be a Bishop of a City with the Country or Suburbs belonging to it But in England no lesser Cities ordinarily at least nor Corporation-Towns are at all Subject to the great Cities Nor are any Considerable part of the Countrey Subject to them nor do the Liberties of Cities or Corporations reach far from the Walls or Towns So that by this Rule the Bishop of London York Norwich and Bristow would have indeed large Cities with narrow liberties But the rest would have Diocesses little bigger than we could allow to conscionable Faithful Pastors But he yet addeth more p. 79. he will do more for our cause than the Presbyterians themselves who in their disputes against the Independents-say that Jerusalem had more Christians belonging to the Church than could conveniently meet in one place But saith the Dr. This is contrary to the Evidence of the Text which saith expresty v. 44. that all the Believers were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meeting in one and the same place The like may be said of the other places Act. 4. 4. and 5. 14. For certainly as yet though the number of believers increased yet they were not distributed into several Congregations Will you yet have more p. 80 81. When the London Ministers say that the Believers of one City made but one Church in the Apostles days he answereth This observation I acknowledge to have perfect truth in it and not to be confutable in any part And therefore instead of rejecting I shall imbrace it and from thence conclude that there is no manner of incongruity in assigning of one Bishop to one Church and so one Bishop in the Church of Jerusalem because it is a Church not Churches BEING FORECED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHURCHES THERE WERE MORE BISHOPS I am almost in doubt by this whether the Dr. were not against the English Prelacy and he and I were not of a mind especially remembring that he said nothing against my disputations of Church Government written against himself when I lived near him Observe Reader 1. That even now he confessed that a Church and Congregation is all one 2. And here he confesseth that where there were more Churches there were more Bishops and his words Because it is a Church not Churches seem to import that de jure he supposeth it is no Church without a Bishop and that there should be no fewer Bishops than Churches And then I ask 1. Where and when do all the Christians in this Diocess of above an hundred miles long Congregate who meet but in above a thousand several Temples and never know one of a thousand of the Diocess 2. Doth not this grant to the Brownists that the Parish Churches are no Churches but onely parts of the Diocesane Church 3. And then if it be proved that the Diocesane Church form is but of humane invention what Church in England will they leave us that is of divine institution This is the unhappiness of overdoing to undo all and of aspiring too high to fall down into nothing And doth he not speak
the Apostles there must be but just 13 or 14 in the whole world if they succeed them fully in the accidentals of their office But if not than their residence in Cities will not prove that they must succeed them in that accident any more than in the number 2. Because as is shewed the Apostles tyed not themselves to Cities only and what they did in preferring Cities was occasional as is said before 3. Nor is there the least proof beyond an ostentation of vain words and confidence that ever the Apostles setled Churches according to the civil form and put the Bishops of lesser Cities under the Metropolitans No more than that among themselves that Apostle was Ruler of the rest who had the Metropolis for his Seat The Papists themselves not pretending that Peter was Ruler of the rest because Rome was his Seat but that Rome must have the ruling Universal Bishop because it was the Seat of Peter And if the Metropolis made not one Apostle Ruler of the rest why should it do so by their successors And I never heard any attempt to prove that Mathew Bartholomew Lebbeus James the Apostle Thomas Philip and every one of the Apostles had a distinct independent Metropolis for his Episcopal Seat 4. Indeed it s but vain words of them that pretend that the Apostles fixed themselves in any Seat at all but it is certain by their Office and by History that they oft removed from place to place in order to call as much of the world as they were capable and were somtimes in Metropoles and sometimes in other places and though the ancients make them the first Bishops of Churches they do not say that they were Bishops of any particular Churches only exclusively to all others But the same Apostle that Planted ten or twenty Churches was the first Bishop of them all pro tempore setling fixed Bishops to succeed them 5. And whoever dreamed that Mark who was no Apostle was the Ruler of other Apostles at least that came into his Province because Alexandria was the second Metropolis 4. This pretended forming of the Churches as aforesaid is contrary to the Ends of Church institution and Communion which are the publick worshipping of God and personal Communion of Parochians or Cohabitants in that worship Sacraments and holy living in mutual assistance Whereas in a great part of the world Country Villages are so far from any Cities that if they must travel to them for this publick Communion they must spend all the Lords day in travaile and yet miss their Ends and come too late Nor can Women Children and aged ones possibly do it at all But if they are to have no such personal Communion with the City Churches but have it ordinarily among themselves then whatever men may say that strive about the Name they are not of that particular City Church as such but are of another Church at home which must have a BishopÌ„ because it is a Church 5. Their Civil and City or Diocesan frame contradicteth the plain institution or Law of Christ and of his Spirit For 1. Math. 28. 19. 20. it is the very Commission of the Apostles and their successors with whom Christ will be to the end of the world to Teach or Disciple all Nations and then to Baptizc them and so gather them into the Church Universal and then Teach them as Disciples all his Laws which includeth Congregating them in perticular Churches where they must be so taught Now as it is all Nations even the whole Countryes and not the Cities only that must be Discipled or convicted and Baptized so it is the whole Nations Villages and all of Baptized persons that must thus be Congregated into particular Churches and taught 2. To which add Act. 14. 23. the positive exemplary and so obliging ordinary practice of the Apostles They ordained them Elders in every Church so that 1. It is Gods will that Villages have Churches 2. And it is Gods will that every Church have a Bishop at least therefore it is Gods will that every Village have a Bishop which have a Church or that some Villages have Bishops And though every City be mentioned Tit. 1. 5. that only sheweth that de facto then and there Village Churches were rare or none but not de jure they must not be gathered nor doth he say ordain Elders in Cities only much less give them Rule according to the City power And as Ceuchrea had a Church which was no City so Act. 14. 23. will prove that they should have a Bishop For every Church is to have a Bishop And Ceuchrea was not a family-Church and so the name not used equivocally And Bishop Downams assertion that it was a Church with a mean Presbyter under the Bishop of Corinth is a naked unproved saying that deserveth no credit and is contradicted by Doctor Hammond who saith there was there no meer Presbyter in being 6. Had this form been setled as they Pretend in Cities only and Diocesses there would have been uncertainty and contentions what places should have Bishops and Churches and what places should have none For it is uncertain and litigious what place is to be taken for a City and what not For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifieth any great Town and some times strictly Towns incorprate and sometimes more strictly eminent Corporations now called Cities with us here in England And how great would the difficulty have been to determine when a Town was big enough to pass for a City or when it had privileges enow for that title If it be said that the account and name then and thus used was the directory they will then make Gods Church to depend for being upon a Name with heathen people If they will call Ceucbrea a City it shall have a Church otherwise it shall have none But there was no such controversie in those times 7. According to their model Churches shall be mutable and dissolvible at the will of the Magistrate yea of every Heathen Magistrate For if he will but change the priviledges and title of a Town and make it no City it must have no Church or Bishop And if he will remove the privileges and title the Church and Bishop must remove And if he will endow a big Village or Town with City privileges and name a Church and Bishop must be then made anew But who can believe that Christ thus modled his Churches in his institution 8. Yea after their model an infidel or Christian King aâ—iud agenâ— that never thinketh on it or intendeth it shall change the Churches and destroy them If by war a City be turned into no City or if the King for other reasons un-un-city it or if change of Government put it into another Princes power that shall for his convenience un city it the Church in City and Country is at an end though there remain people enow to constitute a Church 9. Yea a fire or an Earthquake by this Rule
may end a Church by Wood and stone though the Country still have never so many Christians and when the City is gone the Church is gone 10. Yea it will be in the power of every king even of Heathens whether Christ shall have any Church or Bishop in his kingdoms or not Because he can un-city or dispriviledge all the Cities in his kingdom at his pleasure and consequently unchurch all the Churches 11. And by their way Christ hath setled as various Church forms as there be forms of Government in the world For all Dominions are not divided into Provinces under Prisidents c as the Roman Empire was In many Countries the Metropolis hath no superiority over the other City or the Country and so that will be of divine institution in one Country which will be a sin in others 12. Yea by this Rule many vast Countries must have no Bishops or Churches at all because they have no Cities as is known among the Americans and others must have but one Church and Bishop in a whole Country of many hundred Miles 13. And by their Rule all the Bishops of England are unbishoped and their Diocesan Churches are unchurched For 1. Some of them in Wales and Man have no Cities now called such 2. Others of them have many Cities not only Coventry and Lichfield Bath and Wells now called Cities but abundance of Corporations really Cities 3. And the Cities in England Scotland and Ireland have no Civil Government over all the Countries Corporations Villages of the Diocefe at all nor are they Seats of Presidents or Lieutenants that have such Rule so that our Dioceses are not modelled to the form of the Civil Government What subjection doth Hartfordshire Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire c. owe to the Town of Lincolne 14. By their model it is not Bishops and Metropolitans alone that are of divine right For if the Church Government must be modelled to the Civill the Imperial Churches must have had Officers to answer all the Proconsuls and Presects the Lieutenants the Vicars the Consular Presidents the Corrâ—ctors c. For who can prove that one sort or two oaly must by imitated and not others 15. They must by their rule set up in England an inconsistent or self destroying form For in many if not most Counties our Lord Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and Sherifs and most Justices dwell in Countrey mannors and Villages and not in Cities And so either Cities must not be the Seats of Bishops and Churches or else the Seat of Civil Government must not be the Seat of the Ecclesiastical If they say that Assizes and Sessions are kept in the County Towns I answer 1. So Church assemblies called Synods or Councils may be held in them and yet not be the Bishops Seat For they are not the Judges or Justices Seat because of Assizes and quarterly Sessions 2. The observation is not universally true Yea no Assizes or Sessions at all are therefore held in any Town because it is the County Town but because it is the convenientest place for meeting The choice of which is left to the Judges and Justices who sometimes choose the County-Town and sometimes another as they please As Bridgnorth in Shropshire Aleshury not Buckingham ordinarily in Buckinghamshire and so of others 3. And thâ—se County Towns are few of them either Cities or Bishops Seats As Buckingham Hartford Bedford Cambridge Huntington Warwick Darby Nottingham Sherwsbury Ipswich Colchester Lancaster Flint Denbigh Montgomery Merioneth Radnor Cardigan Carnarvon Pembrook Carmarthen Breeknock and divers others 16. This model of theirs is in most parts of the world or many quite contrary to the Interest of the Church and therefore forbidden by God in Nature and Scripture by that rule Let the end be preferred and the means which best serve it Let all things be done to edification For in most of the world the Rulers are enemies to Christianity and disposed to persecute the Pastors of the Church therefore they will least endure Ecclesiastical Courts and Bishops in their Imperial Cities and under their noses as we say Obj. The Romans did endure it Ans For all the ten persecutions the Romans gave ordinarily more liberty of Religion than most of the world doth at this day Bishops and Pastors are glad to keep out of the way of Infidel and Heathen Rulers And I think verily our most Zealous English Prelates would be loath if they had their language to go set up a Church and Bishops seat at Madrid Vienna Jngolsted yea at Florence Milan Ravenna Venice Lisbone Warsaw c. And if they must needs be in those Countries they would rather chose a more private and less offensive seat 17. I think that few Churches or Bishops in the world except the Italian if they are of the opinion now opposed by me The Greek Church is not For though for honor sake they retain the name of the ancient Seats yet they ordinarily dwell in Countrey Villages And so doth the Patriarck of Antioch himself often or at least Antioch is now no City of which he hath the name And Socrates and after him other Historians tell us that of old this practise varied as a thing indifferent in several Countries according to their several customes which had no Law of God for them and therefore were not accounted necessary 18. Our English Bishops have been for the most part of another mind till Dr. Hammond and others turned this way of late Not only Jeâ—el Bilson and many others have asserted that Patriarks Metropolitans and Primates and such like are of human right and mutable but few if any were found heretofore to contradict them And at this day many Bishops ordinarily dwell in their Country houses As the Bishop of Lincolne did at Bugden the Bishop of Coventree and Lichfield formerly at Eccleshall Castle the Bishop of Chester now at Wigan and so of others And I think that is the Bishops Seat where usually his dwelling is and not where a Lay-Chancellor keepes a Court or where a Dean and Chapter dwell who are no Bishops 19. There have as Dr. Hammond hath well proved been of old several Churches in one City one of Jews and one of Gentiles with their several Bishops and Clergy Therefore one City with its territories is not jure Divino the measure or boundaries of one only Church 20. If the Church Government must be modelled to the Civil then in every Monarchie or Empire there must be one Universal Pastor to rule all the rest as there is one King And in every Aristocracy there must be a Synod of Prelates in Church Supremacy and in every Democracy who or what But then the Papacy will be proved not only lawful but of Divine institution as the Head or Church Soveraign of the Roman Empire though not of all the world at Rome first and at Constantinople after And indeed I know no word of reason that can be given to draw an impartial man of Judgment to doubt
affirmamus So that it is a Bishop of one Assembly or Church which Doctor Hammond will have the question stated about 2. And such a Church or Assembly as great Cities a while had divers of and so divers Bishops 3. And this was after the Scripture times for they had divers Bishops with a divers Clergy 4. But that in Scripture times the Order of Sub-Presbyters cannot be proved instituted 5. And in his Annotations he expoundeth all the Texts of the New Testament of Bishops that mention Presbyters 6. But in his Answer to the London Ministers not daring yet to hold that they were of Humane and not of Divine Institution he holds that they were instituted in the end of St. John's days after all the Scripture was written which was about two or three years before his death and so were of Divine Institution though all the rest of the Apostles were dead Before I apply this I will subjoyn his words of more numerous Witnesses to our opinion with himself for he saith 8. Doctor Hammond of the rest Vindication against London Minsters pag. 104. And though I might truly say that for those more minute considerations or conjectures wherein this Doctor differs from some others he hath the suffrages of many of the learnedst men of this Church at this day and as far as he knoweth of all that embrace the same Cause with him I purposely pass by such Bishops as Cranmer Jewel c. and such conformable Divines as Doctor Whitaker Fulke c. as being not high enough to be valued by those that I have now to do with As Jewel Art 4. p. 171. sheweth that every Church must have one Bishop and but one and out of Cyprian that the Fraternitas universa was to chuse him Et â—piscopus delegatur plebe praesente de universae fraternitatis suffragio Episcopatus ei Sabino deferretur And mentioneth the Rescript of Honorius the Emperor to Boniface that If two Bishops through division and contention happen to be chosen we will that neither of them be allowed as Bishop but that he only remain in the Apostolick Seat whom out of the number of the Clergy Godly discretion and the consent of the whole Brotherhood shall chuse by a new Election How big yet was the Church even then Now all this being asserted 1. It is evident that they hold that in Scripture times no Church consisted of more than one ordinary stated worshipping Assembly 2. And that every such Assembly had a Bishop For if there were no Presbyters there could be no Assembly but where a Bishop was present for the Lords days were then used for publick Worship and the people could not do that without a Minister for they had Communion in the Lords Supper every Lords day And therefore they must have a Bishop or have no such Worship And Doctor Hammond departeth from Petavius in holding that no Church had more Bishops than one So that de facto he granteth all that I desire 1. That the Churches were but so many Assemblies having each a Bishop 2. And that no Sub-Presbyters were instituted in Scripture times And by what right the change was made we shall enquire anon CHAP. V. The same proved by the full Testimony of Antiquity THat the particular Churches infimae speciei vel ordinis of which combined Associated Churches were constituted were no larger than is before described and had but Unum Altare I shall prove Historically from Antiquity I. And Order requireth that I begin with Clemens Romanus But let the Reader still remember that while I cite him and others oft cited heretofore by many I do it not to the same end as they who thence prove that Bishops and Presbyters were then the same but to prove the Churches to be but such single Congregations as are fore-described Ep. ad Cor. pag. 54 55. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Per regiones igitur urbes verbum praedicantes primitias eorum spiritu probantes Episcopos Diaconos eorum qui credituri erant constituerunt Here are these concurrent evidences to our purpose 1. In that he speaketh only of Bishops and Deacons and neither here nor elsewhere one syllable of any other Presbyters but Bishops it is apparent that in those times there were no Subject-Presbyters distinct from Bishops in being Nor could Doctor Hammond any other way answer Blondel here but by confessing and maintaining this and so expounding Clemens as speaking of Bishops only before other Presbyters were in the Church And if so then there could be none but Churches of single Assemblies then or such as one man could officiate in because there was then no more to do it 2. In that Cities and Countries are made the Seats of these Bishops for though some would make them to be mentioned only as the places where the Apostles preached the obvious plain sense of the words is connexive of preaching and constituting Bishops by preaching they made believers in Cities and Countries and over those believers they placed Bishops and Deacons which implieth it to be in the same places And whereas some would strain the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie Provinces and not Country Villages it must then as distinct from Cities have meant many Cities and so have stled Bishops and Arch-Bishops intimating Subject-Presbyters under them But here is no such word or intimation Yea when the Countries are made first the Place of the Apostles preaching as they confess let any impartial man judge whether this be like to be the sense They preached in Provinces that is in the Cities of Provinces and in Cities And if there were Country Churches and Bishops seâ—ied by the Apostle's its easie to see that each particular Church-Assembly had a Bishop when even the City Churches themselves were no bigger than Petavius and others mention 3. Ad hominem Though I believe that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eorum qui credituri erant be intended only to signifie the subsequence of believing to their preaching yet waving that to them that suppose it to intend the subsequence of believing to making Bishops it must needs imply that the Churches then consisted but of few and were yet to be filled up But whether one Bishop to have many Churches is a question which must be otherwise and aliunde decided 4. The magnitude of the Churches is plainly intimated when he saith p. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Constitutos itaque ab illis vel deinceps ab aliis viris celebribus cum consensu universae Ecclesiae qui inculpate ovili Christi inservierunt c. If the Bishops were chosen by the Consent of all the Church it was no greater a Church than would and did meet to signifie their consent and not such as our Diocesses now are 5. Also the same is intimated by pag. 69. If it be for me that Contention Sedition and Schisms arise I will depart I will be gone whither you will and will do what
common custom of the Churches in Africa and all other Countries Now I leave it to the consideration of sober minds how many Churches or Congregations could do all this Whether it was many hundred Churches that never saw the person nor one another that were to meet in one Church or place to do all this Or rather the Inhabitants of a Vicinity using to assemble for Communion when even our Greater Parishes now are more than can thus meet and do all this 2. Note also that when Cyprian imposeth it on the same people that chuse their Bishop also to separate from one that is wicked and not communicate with him in the Sacrament it is most evident to him that is willing to understand that this Bishop was to be the Teacher of all the people of that Church and was to administer the Sacrament to them in the Congregation and they had ordinary communion with him For how else should they be called on to separate from him in the Sacrifice as it 's called Doth he command a thousand or a hundred distant Churches to separate from the Sacrifices of that Bishop who never had local Communion with him unless perhaps once in their lives as with a stranger The Impartial can hardly read these words and not understand them Two Objections are here made 1. Obj. All the People is put for all present which is a part Answ By such interpretations let God or Man say what they will it will signifie but what the Reader please The Context and many concurrent expressions shew that though business or sickness might hinder some Individuals it was the main body of the Congregation which is called Plebs Universa or else it will be nonsense 2. Object But if the same were the custom till the days of Charles and Lodovick then it could not be all the people for then it 's known that the Dioceses were larger Therefore it must be but all that belonged to the Cathedral Answ 1. Even till their days Christianity had not been received by the whole Cities or Parishes in the greatest part of the Empire but according to the liberty then given when none were forced to be Christians the Christians were but few in many great Countries It was long ere they were the greater number of the Inhabitants in France and Flanders longer in England and longer in Germany and Hungary and Poland and longer in Sweden and Denmark c. 2. That it was no Cathedral Society distinct from other Congregations under the same Bishop in Cyprian's time is most evident There being no such distinction intimated but contrarily all the Bishops Church or Flock is spoken to And how should one part of the Church come to have a right to chuse and refuse the Bishop more than all the rest And in all ordinary Dioceses it was so long after But it is true that at Rome Alexandria and the greater Churches where the custom was continued and yet the multitude of the people was so great that they could not half meet in one place those that were forwardest crowded together and oft committed Riots and Murders as at the Election of Damasus and others till by this the custom was changed to avoid such tumults and those that would not be in the Crowd stayed at home And the nearest Neighbours commonly were they that met Object But do not we see that a whole County can meet to chuse Parliament Men Answ 1 No It is only the Freeholders who are comparatively but a small part of the County 2. It is in a Field or Streets and not in a Church 3. It is commonly to judge of their Suffrages by comparing by the eye the magnitude of the distinct Companies when they separate or else by taking their Votes Man by Man in a long time and not to do all in their hearing and by their Counsel as in this Case 4. I have been at great Assemblies for such Elections of Parliament in the Fields and I never saw more together than have heard me preach in one Assembly nor half so many as some London Parishes do contain much less as a Diocess There is a great deal more in Cyprian to prove the thing in question Epist 3 6 10 11 13 14 26 27 28 31 33 40. which would be tedious to the Reader should I recite it A primordio Episcopatus mei statuerim nihil sine consilio vestro sine consensu plebis meae privata sententia gerere Prohibeantur offerre acturi apud nos apud confessores ipsos apud plebem universam causam suam Haec singulorum tractanda sit limanda plenius ratio non tantum cum Collegis meis sed cum plebe ipsa universa Vix plebi persuadeo immo extorqueo ut tales patiantur admitti Secundum vestra divina suffragia Conjurati scelerati de Ecclesia sponte se pellerent By these and many such passages it is evident that even the famous Church of Carthage under that famous Bishop was no greater than that all Church Affairs might be treated of in the hearing of all the Laity and managed by their consent and the Quality of each Presbyter and Communicant and their faults fell under the Cognizance of the whole Church not as Governors but as interessed for their own welfare as the words declare VII And here I think I may seasonably cite the Constitutions called Apostolical which if not written by Clement were certainly for the most part of them very ancient as being before Athanasius who mentioneth them And the Learned and Sober Albaspinaeus Observ Lib. 1. p. 38. saith De constitutionibus istis nemini dubium esse debet quin probus iuxta antiquus liber sit certoque affirmare possum trecentis primis eo ecclesiam Graecam tanquam rituali Pontificali usam esse Quique eas attente legerit eadem de illis quae de canonibus judicabit additas viz. decursu temporum primis novas quemadmodum novae leges constitutiones in regimine Ecclesiae novis occasionibus enatis factae sunt that though they were not written by Clement or the Apostles yet they were that Summary of Apostolical or Christian Discipline which the Greek Churches much used for the first three hundred years and that Additions were made by degrees But I cite them for nothing but the History wherein they are of great account to acquaint us with the state of the Church in those times Lib. 2. cap. 18. It is said that Omnium Episcopus curam habeat eorum qui non peccarunt ut non peccent eorum qui in peccatis sunt ut peccasse poeniteat ait enim Dominus Videte ne contemnatis unum ex pusillis istis Item poenitentibus condonare oportet peccata Quocirca curam omnium suscipe tanquam rationem de pluribus redditurus Ac sanos quidem conserva lapsos vero mone qui in jejunio premens leva in remissione eum qui
Bishops and distinct from Cathedrals that they could not be there buried before they were built and in Being which saith Selden began in England seven hundred years after Christ here one and there one as a Patron erected it Selden of Tythes pag. 267. Yea in seven hundred he findeth but one of Earl Puch in Beda and in Anno 800. divers appropriate to Crowland and so after And it was the Character of a Parish Church to have Baptisterium Sepulturam pag. 262. So that before a Bishop's Church however called had but one place that had Baptisterium Sepulturam Yea long after that Parishes had very few Members in most places so long was it e'er the People were brought to Christianity And they were then as our Bishops make them now not proper Churches but Chappels of Ease Selden ibid. pag. 267. tells you that Ralph Nevil Bishop of Chichester and Chancellor of England requested of the King that the Church of Saint Peter in Chichester might be pulled down and laid to another Parish because it was poor having but two Parishioners Sure it was never built for two Persons But it 's like many were Heathens Or if not so then in the Years 700 and 800 they were so Though Master Thomas Jones hath well proved that the Brittish Churches were far extended before Gregory sent Austine and that our Bishops and Religion are derived from them Even at Tours in France in the days of Saint Martin notwithstanding all his Miracles the Christians were not so many as the Heathens at least till one publick Miracle towards his later time convinced some CHAP. VI. The same further confirmed by the Ancients I. EUsebius Demonstrat Evangel pag. 138. saith When he considered the Power of Christ's Word how it perswaded innumerable Congregations of Men and by those Ignoble and Rustick Disciples of Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 numerosissimae Ecclesiae were constituted not in certain unknown and obscure places but erected in the most famous Cities Rome Alexandria and Antioch through all Egypt and Lycia through Europe and Asia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Villages and Countries or Regions and all sorts of Nations By this it appeareth that Villages had Churches then II. Though of later date consider the History of Patrick's Plantation of Churches in Ireland who is said himself in his own time to have three hundred sixty five Churches and as many Bishops and three thousand Presbyters as Ninius reporteth Not only Thorndike taketh notice of this but a better Author Usher de Eccles Brit. Primord pa. 950. And Selden in his Comment on Eutychius Origines Alex. pag. 86. from Antoninus and Vincentius thus mentioneth it Certe tantum in orbe terrarum tunc temporis Episcoporum segetem mirari forsan desinet quisquis crediderit quod de B. Patricio Hibernensi Antoninus Vincentius tradunt Eum scilicet solum Ecclesias fundasse 365. totidemque Episcopos ordinasse praeter Presbyterorum 3000. Qua de re consulas plura apud praestantissimum virum Jacobum Usserium c. So that here was to every Church a Bishop and near ten Presbyters No Man will doubt but the Bishops themselves were taken out of the better sort of the Laity and the Presbyters of the second sort and all below many private Christians now among us And were there three hundred sixty five Cities think you in Ireland Yea or Corporations either It 's easie to conjecture what Churches these were III. All History Fathers and Councils consent that every City was to have a Bishop and Presbytery to govern and teach the Christians of that City and the Country people near it which is but a Parish or Presbyterian Church For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the old common use any big Town yea little Towns that were distinct from Country Farms and scattering Villages so that all our Corporations and Market Towns are Oppida and such Cities as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified Therefore even by this Rule we should have a Bishop to every such Town 1. Crete was called Hecatompolis as having an hundred Cities as Homer saith it had And what kind of Cities were those Which were to have an hundred Churches and Bishops in a small Island 2. Theocritus Idyl 13. de laudibus Ptolem. vers 82. saith that he had under his Government thirty three thousand three hundred and thirty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cities And if so they must be as small as our Boroughs if not some Villages certainly he had not above twice the number of Cities eminently so called that Stephanus Byzantinus could find in the whole World in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. He that will peruse and compare the Texts in the New Testament that use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above sixscore times and see Grotius on Luk. 7. 11. c. shall soon see that the word is there used for such Towns as I am mentioning if not less IV. Sozomen lib. 5. cap. 3. tells us that Majuma which was Navale Gazae being as part of its Suburbs or the adjoyning part but twenty Stadia distant was because it had many Christians honoured by Constantine with the name of a City and had a Bishop of their own And Julian in malice took from them the honour of being a City but they kept their Bishop for all that It had the same Magistrate with Gaza and the same Military Governors and the same Republick but was diversified only by their Church-State For saith he each had their own Bishop and their own Clergy and the Altars belonging to each Bishoprick were distinct And therefore afterward the Bishop of Gaza laboured to subject the Clergy of Majuma to himself saying that it was unmeet that one City should have two Bishops But a Council called for that purpose did confirm the Church-Right of Majuma V. Gregory Neocaesariensis called Thaumaturgus was by force made Bishop of that City where all the Christians were but seventeen at his Ordination such was the Bishop's Church And when he had preached and done Miracles there till his Persecution there is no mention of any Presbyter he had with him but of his Deacon Musonius that fled with him Though when he died he left but seventeen unconverted And when he had converted some at Comana a small Town near him he did not set a Presbyter over it and make it part of his own Diocess but appointed Alexander the Collier to be their Bishop and that over a Church who were no more than met and debated the Case of his Election and Reception See Greg. Nyssen in Orat. in Greg. Thaumat Basil de Spirit Sancto cap. 19. Breviar Roman die 15 Novemb. Menolog Graec. VI. Concil Nic. Oecum 1. Can. 13. decreeth that every one that before death desireth the Sacrament was to have it from the Bishop One Ed. in Crab saith Generaliter omni cuilibet in exitu posito poscenti sibi Communionis gratiam tribui Episcopus
we differ he indeed saith much to little purpose and finally giveth away his Cause or as he merrily telleth his Adversary pag. 62. l. 3. 6. 47. he useth it as Sir Christopher Blunt's head was used after his apprension first healed and then cut off For 1. in his lib. 3. Where he speaketh of the power of Ordination he not only confesseth that it is in Presbyters with the Bishops and that the Bishops have but a superiority of power therein but is angry with his Adversary for supposing the contrary saying ch 3. p. 68. But where good Sir do I say they must have the sole power in Ordination which you have so oft objected and now again repeat make you no conscience of publishing untruths Cannot Bishops be superiour to other Ministers in the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction which is the thing which I maintain unless they have the sole power so p. 64 c. Therefore he granteth that extraordinarily in case of necessity Presbyters may Ordain that is without a Bishop page 69. and page 108. he giveth this reason for the validity of their Ordination Because Imposition of hands in Confirmation of the Baptized and Reconciliation of Penitents were reserved to Bishops as well as Ordination and yet in the absence of Bishops may be done by Presbyters And that the Papists themselves grant that the Pope may license a Presbyter to Ordain Presbyters If therefore saith he by the Popes license a Presbyter may Ordain Presbyters much better may a Company of Presbyters to whom in the want of a Bishop the Charge of the Church is divolved be authorized thereto by necessity And if all this be so no doubt but the Power of Ordination is in Presbyters as such though they are not to exercise it alone nor without or against the Bishop And so formerly they were not to Preach or Baptize nor Congregate the Church without him For why cannot a Lay-man Ordain with the Bishop but because he hath no such authority And Cap. 5. as to the power of Jurisdiction he saith the same p. 110. 111. I deny not Presbyters which have charge of souls to have Jurisdiction both severally in their Parishes and jointly in Provincial Synods And I have confessed before that Presbyters have with and under the Bishops exercised some Jurisdiction I grant that Godly Bishops before they had the countenance and assistance of Christian Magistracy and direction of Christian Laws used in all matters of moment to consult with their Clergy This was practised by Cyprian Ambrose also in 1 Tim. 5. 1. teacheth that there was a time when nothing was done without the advice of the Presbyters which therefore by Ignatius are called the Counsellors and Co-assessors of the Bishops Which course if it were used still as it would ease the Bishops burden very much so would it nothing detract from their superiority in Governing And page 115. The thing which I was to prove if it had been needful was that whereas Presbyters did Govern each one the People of a Parish and that privately the Bishop Governeth the People of the whole Diocess and that publickly So that both Ordination and Jurisdiction belong to the Presbyters Office though in the exercise of it they must be governed themselves Is not this the very sum of Archbishop Usher's Model of Primitive Episcopacy which we offered his Majesty and the Bishops at first for Concord and the Bishops would not once take it into their Consideration nor so much as vouchsafe to talk of it or bring it under any deliberation When alas we poor undertrodden Persons not only desired to be low our selves but yielded to submit to all their heights their Lordships Parliament dignities grandure and to let them alone with their real sole Ordination and Jurisdiction over us poor Presbyters and to have taken as much care of the People as they would so we could but have obtained any tolerable degree of Government to be setled in each particular Church either in all the Presbyters or in one Bishop and not have had all the particular Churches deprived of Bishops and all the Pastoral Jurisdiction But our great Controversie is handled by Bishop Downame in his second Book wherein he laboureth to prove that the Bishops Church or rather Charge was not a Parish but a Diocess And first page 4. he giveth us a scheme of the Scripture acception of the word Church as preparatory to his design In which there are many Texts cited not only without any shew of proof that they speak of what he affirmeth them to speak but contrary to the plain scope of the places And he tells us that the word Church is used in Scripture for the Church Militant Congregated in an Universal or Occumenical Synod And offereth us not one Text for instance which he doth though injuriously for all the rest Nor is there any that so speaketh He tells us that the word is used particularly to signifie the Church of a Nation in the singular number but could name no such place as to any Church since Christ but only the Jewish Church Acts 7. 38. And he saith it is used to signifie particularly and definitely the Church of a Nation in the plural number And is not this a strange kind of Allegation The Scripture speaketh of the Churches in a Nation Therefore it useth the word for the Church of a Nation in the plural number Is one Church and many all one with him Would he have applauded that man that would have said that such an Author useth the word College for the College of an University in the plural number because he named the College in an University and this to prove that an University is one College Had it not been better said The New Testament never useth the word Church for all the Churches in one Nation since Christ definitely but ever calleth them plurally Churches Therefore to call them all One National Church is not to imitate the Scripture His first Instance is Rom. 6. 4. All the Churches of the Gentiles A sad proof of a National Church What Nation is it that the word Gentiles signifieth No doubt the Gentile Churches were in Gentile Nations But that doth not prove that the Christians in any Nation are ever called in Scripture since the Jews Nation One Church but Churches His next instance is 1 Cor. 16. 1. The Churches of Galatia And the rest are all such v. 19. 2 Cor. 8. 1. Gal. 1. 2. 22. The Churches of Asia Macedonia Judaea But I hope he intended no more than to tell you that the Christians of several Nations are never called a Church but Churches as having any sort of Union than National He giveth many instances when the word Church is used definitely to signifie the Church of a City and Country adjoyning But to prove it used to signifie several Churches in City and Country adjoyning but one only Two Texts he alledgeth to prove that the word Church is used
that were abroad among these new Converts or scatered Christians made them know that every Church should have a Bishop and that they might choose one of their own And few Presbyters being then Learned able men in Comparison of the Bishops by this advantage of presence among them many raw and schismatical Presbyters crept into the Peoples affections and perswaded them to choose them for their Bishops when they were chosen and ordained they encroached on the rest of the old Bishops Diocess and also refused to come to the Synods lest their failings should be known pretending that they must stay with their own People Now the Bishops that complained of this did not alledge 1. That no Bishop should be made but in a City 2. Nor that when Christians multiplyed they must not multiply Bishops accordingly but all be under their first Bishop only 3. Nor that a new Congregation had not as good right to have and chuse a Bishop of their own as the first City Congregation had But only to keep ignorant Schismatical Presbyters from deceiving the People for their own exaltation and from hindering Synodical Concord they Decreed that none in their Diocesses should have Bishops without the first Bishops consent And that being so Consecrated they should frequent Synods and should be Bishops only of that People that first chose them and not encroach on the rest of the Diocess And whereas he hence gathereth that the Country Churches ever from the beginning belonged to the City Bishops There were no such things as Appendant Country Churches from the beginning of the City Churches But it 's true that from the beginning of the Country Peoples Conversion when they were not enow to make Churches themselves they belonged to the City Churches as Members Even as now the Anabaptists and Independent Churches consist of the People of Market-Towns and the adjoyning Country Associated into one Assembly After that the Country Meetings were but as Oratories or Chappels And when they came to be enow to make dinstinct Churches of some good Bishops had the Wit and Grace to help them to Chorepiscopi Bishops of their own but most did choose rather to enlarge their own Possessions or Powers and set Subject Presbyters only over the People And that these new Bishopricks must be by the old Bishops consent is apparently a point of Order to avoid inconveniences if not of Usurpation For what power had the old Bishop to keep any Church of Christ without a Bishop of their own when it was for there good That he hath some countenance from Leo for the New Church-Form without Bishops I wonder not when Leo was one of the hottest that betimes maintained the Roman Primacy if not Universal Soveraignty And as the Care against placing Bishops in small places ne vilescat nomen Episcopi came in late so 1. It intimateth that it was otherwise done at least by some before 2. And it is but the Prelatical grandure which Constantine had pufft up which is then alledged as the Reason of this Restraint His Argument is That which was judged unlawful by the Canons of approved Councils and Decrees of Godly Bishops was never lawfully regularly and ordinarily practised But c. I deny the Major Kneeling at Prayer or Sacrament on the Lords day the Marriage of Priests the Reading of the Heathens Writings and abundance such-like were forbidden by such approved Councils especially a multitude of things depending on the new Imperial shape of the Churches which are now lawful and were lawful and ordinarily practised before Paul Kneeled and Prayed on the Lord's day Acts 20. c. Therefore the placing of Bishops in Country Parishes was not unlawful before because the Councils of Bishops afterward forbad it nor was it ever unlawful by Gods Law Methinks a Bishop that subscribeth to the 39 Articles of the Church of England which mentioneth General Councils erring even in matters of Faith should never have asserted that they cannot erre in matter of Government nor retract and alter that which was well practised before them His next Argument is this If there were any Parish Bishops then they were the Chorepiscopi But the Chorepiscopi were not such Ans 1. I deny the Major There were then many City Bishops that were but Parish Bishops or had but one Church as shall be further proved 2. Yet as to a great number it is granted that their Diocesses had many Churches at the time of Concil Eliber Sardic c. which he mentioneth But it followeth not that therefore it was so with any in the time of Ignatius or with many in Cyprian's time 3. If it were all granted de facto it will not follow that de jure it was well done and that the old Form was not sinfully changed 4. The Chorepiscopi themselves might have many Congregations under them like our Chapels and yet be Parish Bishops And it 's most probable that at first they had no more than one of our Country Parishes though afterwards they had many Churches under them as City Bishops had His next Argument is Churches endued with Power Ecclesiastical sufficient for the Government of themselves having also a Bishop and Presbytery had the power of Ordination But Country Parishes had not the Power of Ordination Ergo c. Ans 1. Government is Inferiour or Superiour They might have sufficient Inferiour power of Government though they had none of the Superiour power such as belongeth to Archbishops to whom Appeals were made As a Corporation that hath a Mayor and Assistants hath sufficient Inferiour power but not Regal nor such as Judges Lord Lieutenants c. have And if it were proved as some hold that only General or unfixed Ministers like the Apostles and Evangelists or Archbishops that were over many Churches had the power of Ordination and not the Inferiour Bishops of single Churches it would not follow that these Inferiour Bishops had not the power of Governing their own Churches with assisting Presbyters And if he will prove for us that every fixed Bishop hath the power of Ordination who hath but the Inferiour power of Governing his single Church by Admonitions Excommunications and Absolutions he will but do our work for us 2. I deny his Minor Propos If by Country Parishes he mean the Bishops of Country Parishes they had the Power of Ordination And all that he saith against it is only to prove that de facto they had not the Exercise of it in the times he mentioneth and that de jure humano it was not allowed them by Canons But 3. We grant so much of the Conclusion as that de facto few Country Parishes had a Bishop and Presbytery Because there were but few Country Parishes in the World till the third Century that were really Christian Churches or fixed Societies of Christians that had ordinary Church-communion together in the Sacrament or had an Altar But our Case is About single Churches now called Parish Churches and not about Country
rest of his Reasonings for such Diocesan Churches I will put a few Questions more pertinent than his Queries p. 67. about the state of such Diocesan Churches Q. 1. Whether the Apostles were not by this description Bishops of all the World as their Diocesses And whether therefore it follow that there were no Bishops under them in particular Churches Q. 2. Whether Apostles and Evangelists did not go from City to City sometime staying some Months or Years at one and then passing to another And whether this made all the interjacent Countries their Diocesses changing their Bishops as oft as they thus changed their Habitations Q. 3. Whether more than one such Apostle or Evangelist were not both at once and successively in the same place to labour the conversion of all they could And whether therefore there were many Bishops to a Diocess Q. 4. Where we shall find the proof that the Apostles or Evangelists set the bounds of Diocesses And whether this description of his own do make Diocesses bounded by circuit or space of Ground or by the Abilities of the Bishop to endeavour conversion Q. 5. When the Apostles forbad any other to labour mens conversion in their Cities or Countries where they or others had been before them And did not one plant and another water and usually more than one at once Q. 6. Whether Mat. 28. 19 20. Discipling or Preaching to convert men and then baptizing them be not the way of gathering Churches and therefore proveth that before conversion they are no Churches and are not Christians only members of the Church And are those Diocesan Churches that are no Churches Q. 7. If one be setled in a single Congregation in the City with a purpose to endeavour the conversion of the Country is not a Diocesan Church there the same as a single Congregation though the Diocess be larger Q. 8. If when Congregations multiplyed Bishops were not multiplyed but one would keep many Churches under himself alone doth it prove that this was well done because it was done and that God consented to this change His next Reason is because Churches were not then divided into Parishes Which in due place I shall prove to be a sufficient Reason against him Churches were Societies constituted of Pastors and their Christian Congregations as afore defined And his inference is vain that Presbyteries were not settled in Parishes because the Churches were not yet divided into Parishes For they were Parishes that is single Churches without dividing The space of Ground called Parishes was not then marked out Nor was a Diocesan Church like ours that hath no subordinate Bishops divided into Parishes for there were no such Diocesan Churches to be so divided But the Universal Church and the Apostolical Provinces were made up or constituted of Parishes I mean of particular Churches as greater numbers are of unites and as Villages are of Houses But to say that Churches were not divided into Parishes in the sence in question is all one as to say Churches were not divided into Churches Our Controversie is like this Whether all the Families in the Town should have but One common Master And he that affirmeth it should argue thus Masters were not at first appointed to Families but to Villages For Villages were not at first divided into Families when there were none but single Houses erected True but Families were Families before there were Villages to be divided As Villages were not made before Houses and then divided into Houses nor Cities before Streets and afterwards divided into Streets nor Kingdoms before Cities and Corporations and then divided into Corporations or inferiour Societies Nor Academies before Colleges and then divided into Colleges so neither were Provincial or Diocesan Churches made before single Churches and after divided into them but were made by the coalition of many single Churches which should not have been changed for that use in specie by altering the species of their Pastors and depriving them of their Proper Bishops In his 5th Chap. He pretendeth to confute the Asseâ—tion that for the first 200 years the City Churches were but single Congregations Here we use to except only Alexandria and Rome in all the World And we confidently extend the time to 150 years and very probably to 200 and moreover say that till the fourth Century most or very many Churches were no other if not long after in many Kingdoms All his talk p. 80. against shallow giddy Heads that see no further than their Nose end because it was denied that Pastors were set in single Congregations to convert also the Infidels about I have nothing to do with For I assert that as all Ministers are bound to endeavour the conversion of such if they have opportunity not wanting power so those are most bound to it that have best opportunity which is the Neighbour Bishops But till men are converted they are no parts of the Church no nor of that particular Church eo nomine because converted by that Bishop as shall be proved without some further consent and ground The rest about the largeness of the Church of Jerusalem c. shall be considered in due place In his Chap. 6. p. 104. I desire it may be noted that he saith I do not deny but that at the first and namely in the time of the Apostle Paul the most of the Churches so soon after their conversion did not each of them exceed the proportion of a populous Congregation And p. 114. that Metropolitans he thinks were intended by the Apostles or at least suadente naturâ necessitate flagitante as Beza saith And I suppose a Diocesan Church will find no better ground than a Metropolitan viz. Humane Prudence or I think intended In chap. 7. He pretendeth to prove that in the Apostles times Parishes began to be distinguished under one only Bishop c. But what 's the proof Rome and Alexandria are all the Instances But 1. his proof that Evaristus divided Parishes about An. 100 is worth nothing as having no sufficient evidence but fabulous reports 2. He allegeth Eusebius l. 2. â— 15. saying of St. Mark that he is said first to have constituted the Churches of Alexandria But this is no proof 1. Because Eusebius's following words out of Philo do make it most probable that by the Churches of Alexandria he meant the Churches in and about Alexandria which proveth not many in the City it self 2. If he had planted many Churches in the City it is no proof that he varied from the practice of the other Apostles who as Act. 14. 23. placed Elders that is saith Dr. Hammond Bishops in every Church Or that the Elders of each Church had not the true Pastoral or Episcopal power of Governing the Flock which is all that we plead for And if it had been proved that Mark had been over them it followeth not that he was not over them as an Archbishop but as a meer Bishop only 3. Grotius and Dr.
two or three thousand Souls without much help or many sad unavoidable Omissions the Qâ—estion shall be whether the Bishop may not undertake to Teach and oversee many hundreds or a thousand Parishes and Catechise Pray with and Exhort a thousand times more than any Parish Minister doth or is able to do And to do all this without ever coming into those Parishes or ever seeing the Faces or hearing the names of one of a multitude of the People or ever speaking one word to them but summoning thâ—m by Apparitors to a Lay-Chancellors Court to be Excommunicated first and after imprisoned while they live if they do not what the Chancellor bids them O what is mans understanding when a Carnal interest hath there clothed it self with a Sacred name Cap. 3. He telleth us of the Power of the Keys commited to the Apostles and by them to the Bishops as their Successors But whether all the Bishops Ordained by them and living with them and some dying before them it 's like were their Successors and whether all true Pastors were not such Bishops as had the Power of the Keys and whether by those Keys be meant the Government of the Flocks or also of the Governors themselves and of what extent the Churches under each Bishop was and to what end and use are the things in Question which he here saith nothing to Cap. 4. He proveth by strong affirmation that the Apostles were by Christ's last Commission Mat. 28. 19 20. to be the Bishops of their several assigned certain Provinces But confidence goeth not for proof with us He tells us of the name of Episcopacy Acts 1. 29. We never questioned whether the Apostles had the Oversight of the Church but we hold 1. That the World was the first Object of their Office from whence they were to gather Churches 2. That the Place Course or Circuit of their Travels and Ministry was not of any Divine Institution but left to their prudent choice by the Common Rules of Nature doing all things in Order and to Edifying and sometime directed in their motions by the present inspiration of the Holy-Ghost 3. That more than one Apostle was oft in the same Cities and Countries none claiming it as his peculiar Province nor denying the right of others to be there And where one was this Year another was the next 4. That when an Apostle planted a Church in any City and settled Bishops over the People they themselves were called by many of the Ancients the first Bishops of those Cities in which sence one Man had many Bishopricks 5. That the Apostles were Itinerant unfixed Bishops and not fixed Bishops such as they themselves confined to any one limited Church or Province Nor can it be proved out of all Antiquity that any one of all the Apostles was confined to any one limited Province much less what that Province was but only that their Ability Opportunity Time and Prudence limited every Man and directed him as the End required 6. And that if the Apostles had fixed themselves in particular limited Provinces they had disobeyed their Commission which was to go Preach the Gospel to all the World And no Man did ever yet so dote as to pretend that they divided the whole World into twelve Provinces and there fixed themselves And such twelve Provinces as they had been capable of overseeing would have been but a little of the World And it was but a little part comparatively that they Preacht the Gospel to Most Kingdoms of the World they never saw And those which they came into were so great and many that they Preached but to a few of the People Yet this was not their culpable Omission because they were limited by Natural Impotency and so by Impossibilities of doing more But had it been by a Voluntary setling themselves in twelve Provinces to the neglect of all the rest the Case had been otherwise But whilst they did their best for the whole World themselves and Ordained others to do the rest they performed their Office There needeth no more to be said as to those Ancients that name the Apostles Bishops Nor is their Episcopacy if proved any thing to our Case as shall be manifested Cap. 5. He thought he had proved that Power in the Church is given by the Apostles to the Bishops only Whereas with Spalatensis and most Christians we hold it given to Christ's Ministers as such and therefore to them all though in an Eminency the Apostles only had it And 1. Whereas he denyeth the Power of the 70 because they were not Apostles but Disciples We Answer 1. That Evangelists and other Ministers that were not Apostles had the Power of the Keys 2. That to deny that the 70 were at least Temporary Apostles limited to the Jews and had the power of Preaching and working Miracles would be to deny the letter of the Text. And the Apostles themselves could not Govern Churches till they were gathered 2. And yet if neither they nor John Baptist in Baptizing did exercise any power of the Keys which he can never prove it is nothing to our Case 3. When will he prove that the Evangelists and the Itinerant Assistants of the Apostles had not the power of the Keys When themselves commonly say that the higher Orders contain the powers of the lower And are the Bishops higher than the Evangelists 4. Nay when will he prove that ever any Presbyter was Ordained by the Apostles or by any others as they appointed without the power of the Keys It would weary one that loveth not confusion and lost lalabour to read long Discourses of the Power of the Keys or Government which distinguish not the Government of the Laity or Flocks from the Government of the Ministers themselves and that abuse the Church by feigning an Office of Presbyters that are not Presbyters and proving that Church-Governors are not Church-Governors For what is the Office of the Presbyter or Pastor essentially but a Stated Power and obligation to Teach and Govern the People and Worship as their mouth and guide Cap. 6. He seemeth by denying the Evangelists the power of the Keys and of Church-teaching and making them meer Preachers to the Insidels to favour the Independants Opinion who think the Laymen sent forth are to do that work But 1. Mat. 28. 19 20. Christ maketh such Officers as must Preach and Baptize and gather Churches among the Infidels before they govern them to be them that he will be with to the end of the World And the same men had the Power of teaching the Churches when they were gathered as is there expressed 2. Call them by what name you will such Itenirants were usual in the Apostles daies as Silas Apollo and many more 3. It was not the twelve Apostles only that Converted the World but such other Ministers that were called thus to labour by them or by the Spirit immediately Joseph of Arimathea is said by many to have preached here and in other
Countries 4. What man will dream that when these went abroad the World to convert men they were the fixed Bishops of particular Churches first which they thus forsook 5. Who will believe that Joseph Silas Apollo Luke Mark Nathaniel Philip or any other when they had converted any City or Countrey had no power after to teach them as a Church or give them the Lords Supper no nor to Baptize them first nor to ordain them Bishops and settle them in order but must either have an Apostle or a City Bishop to come thither after them to do it Such Fancies are obtruded on the Church because the one Ministerial or Priestly Office is first dismembred and then new Officers feigned to be made up of the several Limbs Cap. 7. As he rob'd the Evangelists of the Power of the Keys he would now rob all the meer Presbyters of it and all without shew of Scripture proof from such words of Canons or Ancients as say the Presbyters shall do nothing without the Bishops 1. As if the Presbyters were no Rulers of the Flocks because the Bishops are Rulers of the Presbyters As if a Judge or a Justice were no Governour because he is under the King 2. O Cruel Bishops that will undertake to do that for the Souls of many hundred Parishes which many hundred Ministers are too little for that the Souls of men and their own together may be damn'd by the Omission of it If the power of the Keys be appointed for mens Salvation they perfidiously betray them that thrust out the many hundreds that should do it pretending that it belongeth to one man among the many hundred that cannot do it But of the Bishops great undertaking I must say more anon Cap. 8. Of the Chorepiscopi there is little that concerneth us saving that he cometh near to grant us all that we desire while that § 15 he saith that Learned men believe that in the Church of one Region of old there was but one Altar so that lgnatius rightly conjoyneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And all Schismaticks were said to set up Altar against Altar As Cypr. de Unit. Eccle. Ep. 40. 72 73 This is the sum of all that we plead for And § 29. he mentioneth the Chorepiscopis as immitating the 70 when yet he had denied the 70 to have the power of the Keys which he supposeth the Chorepiscopi to have under the Bishops Of Clemens words in due place Cap. 9. About the sence of a Canon variously read And Cap. 10. Whether Eutychius Alexandrinus erred in one thing and therefore were not to be believed in another are little pertinent to our business In his 4th Dissert the Cap. 1. is but Proem but Cap. 2. he tells us that the Apostles as Bishops Governed the Churches which they had planted without the mediation of a Colledge of Presbyters all ways and he bringeth not a word to prove it but 1 Cor. 3. 6. You have not many Fathers in Christ I have begotten you by the Gospel c. 4. 15 16. I have planted and c. 9. 19 21. I will come to you will ye that I come with the Rod and c. 5 3 4. I as absent in Body but present in Spirit have judged This is all And will not the impartial Reader wonder at humane frailty how easily men believe what they would have to be true and what an evident Nothing will go for undenyable proof Let the Reader Note 1. That the question is not whether an Apostle after that he had planted a Church remain still an Apostle to them as well as others and have the Apostolical eminency of Power which is greater than any meer Bishop had 2. But first Whether the Apostles had any fixed Provinces or Cities undertaken as their special charge in which no other Apostle had Apostolical Power And 2. Whether there were not fixed Bishops setled by them in all the Churches which they planted 3. And whether it was not so in the Church of Corinth ' in particular Yea whether they had not more Bishops or Presbyters than one For by Unius which here he applyeth to Paul he meaneth Unicus Paul only or else he abuseth his Reader and himself And 1. He that will follow Paul in his Travels will find that he went the same way that some other Apostles went viz. John and Peter and therefore that they must have the same Diocesses or have their Diocesses notably intermixt John was in Asia as well as Paul and no man can prove that he was the Second Bishop of Ephesus or Asia as Paul's successor only when he was dead Nor will the Romans be willing to grant that Peter was Bishop of no more at Rome but the Jews only as this Dr. elsewhere intimateth lest that prove not that the Gentile Church of Rome was founded by Peter but by Paul alone 2. What proof hath he that besides Peter and John there were not many other Apostles per vices in the same Cities where Paul had been And that when they did come thither they had not Apostolical Power there 3. Doth not the Text expresly say that Paul and Barnabas long travelled together And doth it any where intimate that Paul was the Governour of Barnabas or the sole Bishop of the Churches planted by them both together Sure the people that would have worshipped Barnabas as Jupiter and Paul but as Mercury did see no Sign of such a Prelacy in Paul And the Apostles seem so to have ordered the matter by going by Couples as Christ sometimes sent two and two before him as if they had done it purposely to prevent these Monarchical conceits Peter and John were together at the healing of the Criple and the successful preaching that followed thereupon Sometime Paul and Barnabas are together sometime Paul and Silas and Barnabas and Mark Paul and Sosthenes are the inscribed Names who send the first Epistle to the Corinthians and Paul and Timothy the second And in the Text alledged it is said One saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo and c. 1. 12. Every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas And Paul baptized none of them save Crispus and Gaius and the houshold of Stephanus By which it appeareth that Peter was among them as well as Paul and if Peter had been only the Bishop of the Jews here also Apollos would not have been brought in as a third in a way of equality And the Controversie would have been otherwise decided by Paul by telling the Jews that Peter was their sole Bishop and the Gentiles that Paul was theirs and all of them that Apollos was but their Subject But he goeth quite another way to work preferring none nor dividing Dioceses but levelling Ministers as being but the helpers of their Faith And though they had Apostolical preeminence above Apollos yet Peter and Paul are not said to have a proper Episcopacy over him And
than one or two Churches 6. And what was the cause of this one or two like to touch the Bishops of the other Churches And what Cognisance was all Achaia like to have of the cause of one or two distant persons so as for them to rise up against their own Bishops 7. If it was not all nor many Pastors that were thus turned out as Clemens words import why should all Achaia be called seditious and blamed for it 8. Doth not the common Law of Charity and Justice forbid us to extend those words of reproof to a whole Province which cannot be proved to extend farther than to a single Church and principally toucht but one or two 9. I have before proved that Paul by the Saints at Corinth meaneth but one Church Therefore it 's like that Clemens doth so too 10. The Bishops and Deacons that Clemens speaketh of were set up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cum consensu totius Ecclesiae or as the Dr. will needs have it applaudente aut congratulante tota Ecclesia indeed with the good liking Pleasure or Approbation of the whole Church And shall we be perswaded that all the Cities and Countrey of Achaia were that whole Church which approved or consented to these particular Pastors that were put out Or that had Cognisance of them or acquaintance with them 11. He expresly saith pag. 62. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Church of Corinth for the sake of one or two moved Sedition against the Presbyters And why doth he never say it was the Church of Achaia 12. p. 63. He supposeth the Person Emulating to be a Believer of power in explaining Doctrine wise in judging of Speeches c. And would have the concern'd Person say p. 69. If the Sedition be for me and the Contention and Schisms I will remove I will be gone wither you will and will do what the People pre-determine of or command only let the Flock of Christ with the Presbyters set over them live in peace And is it like that the Flock that this Person must say so to was all Achaia 13. And p. 73. He requireth those that begun the Sedition to be obediently Subject to the Presbyters and not to their Bishop onely And is it like to be the Bishops of other Churches through all Achaia that this one or two is required to Obey and be in Subjection to I have given my Reasons to prove that these Presbyters were in the One Church of Corinth Compare his if you can find them to the contrary and Judge Impartially as you see cause Cap. 8. Hath nothing that concerneth us but the recitall of his grand Concession lest we should think that in Clemens days the great Bishop of Corinth or any in Achaia had any more Church-assemblies than one to whom he could do all the Pastoral Offices himself he thus concludeth § 9. Indeed mention is found only of Bishops with Deacons constituted in each City sometimes under the Title of Bishops sometimes of Presbyters there being no token or foot-step at all appearing of such as we now call Presbyters c. To which I wholly agree though not that there was but one Presbyter in Corinth Cap. 9. He is offended much with Blondel for reproaching Hermas and yet using his Testimony As if a Hereticks or an Infidels Testimony might not be used in point of History And § 14. he again cometh to his supposition of Bishops without Subject Presbyters as if it served his turn more than ours Cap. 10. About Pius words hath nothing that I find the cause concerned in Cap. 11. Is of little moment to us both parties have little that is cogent but velitations about dubious words Cap. 12. Is but about the sense of the word applyed to Ireneuâ— which Dr. H. taketh here and by many after to mean a Bishop and wonders that Blondel pleadeth for a parity of order from a common Name But it is not so much without reason as he maketh it For if Bishops and Presbyters were in the first times called by one Name and the highest Person in the Church then was ordinarily known by the name Presbyter and the appropriating of Bishop to one sort and Presbyter to another came afterwards in by such insensible degrees that no man can tell when it was it sounds very probable that it was the true Episcopal Power or the same Office and Order that was first commonly possessed by them to whom the name was Common And so much of Dr. Hammond's Dissertations wherein I must desire the Reader to note 1. That I meddle not with other mens Causes nor particularly with the question Whether one man in each Church had of old a guiding superiority over the rest of the Presbyters Nor yet whether the Apostles had such successors in the General care of many Churches such as Visiters or Arch-Bishops but only 1. Whether every Presbyter were not Essentially a Bishop or Governour of the Flock having the power of Keys as they call it in foro interiore exteriore both for resolving Consciences and for Church-order 2. Whether every particular Church which ordinarily communicated together in the Lords Supper and had unum Altare had not one or more such Bishops 3. Whether it was not a sinful corrupting change to bring in another Species of Presbyters and so to depose all the particular Churches and Bishops and set up a Dioâ—esane Bishop inâ—â—â—is ordinis with half Churches and half-Priests under him in their stead 2. And note That as it concerned me not to speak to all that the Doctor hath said so I have carefully chosen out all that I thought pertinent and of a seeming weight as to the cause which I mannage and have past by nothing in the whole Book which I thought an understanding Reader needeth an answer to There is yet the same Authors Vindication of his Dissertations to be considered But I find nothing new in them to be answered by me nor that I am concerned for the Cause in hand any further than to give you these few Observations 1. That again p. 5. he saith That by observing the paucity of Believers in many Cities in the first Plantations which made it unnecessary that there should by the Apostles be ordained any more than a Bishop and Deacon one or more in each City and that this was accordingly done by them at the first is approved by the most undenyable ancient Records 2. That p. 7. he again well averreth that the Jewish and Gentile Congregations occasioned several Churches and Bishops in the same Cities And p. 14. 15. That Timothy was placed by Paul Bishop of the Gentiles at Ephesus and S. John and another after him Bishop of the Jews Pag. 16. He thinketh that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus or Angel when Rev. 2. was wrote Pag. 17. From Epiphanius he reckoneth above 50 years from the Revelation of John Rev. 2. to the writing of Ignatius's Epistles By which we may Calculate the time when the
much to the same purpose p. 87. One City with the Territories adjoyning to it being ruled by one single Bishop was to be called a singular Church And therefore that which is said to be done in every Church Act. 14. 23. is said to be done in every City Tit. 1. 5. Tâ—e sum of which observation is only this that one City with the Territories adjoyning to it never makes above one Church in the Scripture Style And yet he largely proveth the contrary that there was one Church and Bishop of Jewish Christians and one of Gentiles whereas a Province or Countrey or Nations consists of many Cities and so of many Episcopal Sees or Churches The like he hath again p. 90 § 53. But whereas p. 88. â—e would Prove that a Province or Nation of many Churches may be called one Church because the Churches in all the World are so called in our Creed and in the Scripture I answer That he can never prove that many Churches are ever in Scripture called one save only the Universal Church which is but one being Headed by one Head even Christ The Universal Church as he said before of a Church compared to Persons is One Collective body as a Political Society related to Christ or constituted of Christ and all Christians And a particular Church is one as constituted of the Ministerial Pastors and People But find any Text of Scripture that calleth the Churches of a Nation or Province one Church in all the new Testament if you can In pag. 103. he giveth Reasons for his singularity in interpreting so many Texts of Scripture and sheweth that as the Fathers differ from each other as Tirinus sheweth so we may also differ from them and I know not of any Expositor that ever wrote that hath more need of this Apology than Grotius and he And I mislike not his Reasons But then how unsavoury is it for the same person to expect that we should in reverence to one expository word in Irenaeus and another in Epiphanius forsake the common sense of the Fathers where they do agree or that we must bow to every ancient Canon But I would not have him thought more singular than he is lest when I have answered him the Prelatists forsake him and say that they are still unanswered therefore I crave the Readers special observation of his words p. 104 105. I might truly say that for those minute considerations and conjectures wheren this Doctor diffâ—rs from some others who have written before him as to the manner of interpreting some few Texts he hath the Suffrages of many of the learnedst men of this Church at this day and as far as he knows OF ALL that embrace the same cause with him Of which I only say that if he do but minutely differ from others and not at all from the most I hope my confutation of him will not be impertinent as to the rest But if he lay the very stress of his cause upon novel Expositions of almost every Text which mentioneth Bishops Presbyters Pastors and quite cross the way of almost all save Petavius that ever went before him then think whether that cause stand on so firm ground as some perswade which needeth such new foundations or ways of support at this Age in the judgement of such learned men as these Pag. 119 120 121. He proveth that Diocesane Bishops are the only Elders of the Church which James adviseth the sick to send for supposing the City Churches even of Jerusalem to be yet no bigger than that one Bishop and a Deacon who yet was not this Visiter of the sick might do all the Ministerial work Where I confess he quite outgoeth me in extenuating the Churches in S. James's time If the Church of Jerusalem had seven Deacons I will not belive him pardon the incivility that they had but one Presbyter And pardon me a greater boldness in saying if he had tryed but as much as I have done what it is to do all the Pastoral work for one Parish of 2 or 3000 Persons in publick and private he could not possibly have been of this Opinion Nor do I think it likely that when it is a singular Person that James bids send for the Elders of the Church but that it implyeth that the Church where he was had more Elders than one I confess that if it had been spoken either to Persons plurally or of Churches plurally the phrase might well have signified the single Elders of the several Churches But to say to each sick man singularly Let him send for the Elders of the Church singularly in common use of speech signifieth that there were many Elders for that man to send for in the Church And whereas he asketh whether a sick man must send for the Colledge of Presbyters I answer that a sick man may well send for the Presbyters or Ministers either one after another as there is occasion or more than one at once if need require for his Resolution If we say to a sick man in London send for the Physicians of the City and let them advise you c. it signifieth that the City hath more Physicians than one and that he may advise with one or more at once oâ— per vices as he findeth Cause and no man would speak so to him if London had but one Physician and Norwich another and York another c. And when p. 121. he supposeth the Objection that they have a mean opinion of visiting the sick because they say it is not the Bishops work which he well maketh it to be methinks this should suit with no English Ears who will quickly understand that they speak de facto of our Bishops to whom a sick man may send an hundred or fifty or twenty Miles to desire him to come presently and pray with him if his disease be a Phrensie which depriveth him of his Wits and all about him be as mad And the Bishop with us may be said to visit the sick of his Diocess as a man may be said to weed a Field that plucketh up a weed or two where he goeth or to build a City because he knockt up a Naâ—l or two in his own House Pag. 120. It is observable which he saith Indeed if it were not the Bishops work to visit the sick how could it be â—y the Bishop when other parts of his Office became his full Employment commited to the Presbyter For 1. he could not commit that to others if he first had it not in himself And 2. This was the only Reason of ordaining inferior Officers in the Church that part of the Bishops taâ—k might be performed by them Ans Either he believed that the Office of a Subject Presbyter or Order as they call it was instituted by God and setled in the Church as necessary by his Spirit and Law or not If he do then Qu. 1. Whether the work of these Presbyters after the institution be not the work of their own
but that Metropolitans Primates Patriarcks and the Pope as Head of the Churches in the Empire stood all on the same ground and had the same Original as all Fathers Councells and History shew which truely proveth that as an Universal Papacy is a Treasonable Usurpation so an Imperial Papacy that is through the Roman Empire is but a human Creature and Metropolitans Patriarcks c. are the like and they that will feigne the one to be of Gods institution or necessary must say that the other is so to But after all this one consequence puts the world in hope that Diocesans may come in time to be reformed For seeling Kings may make and unmake Cities and consequently Bishop-pricks at their pleasure whenever it shall please his Majesty or any other wise and Holy Prince to declare every Corporation and Market Town to be a City we must needs have a Bishop in every one of them according to the principles of the Prelates themselves And then the Diocese will not be so great but a diligent Pastor may possibly sometimes see the greater number of his flock Obj. But they that do say that the Apoâ—les took this course do not say that it is so obligatory but that in cases of necessity we may do otherwise Ans 1. They alledge the very Law of nature for it that it must be so even in Heathen Empires ex natura rei as Dr. Hammond before cited 2. All meer positves give places to natural duties caeteris paribus in cases of true necessity we may break the rest of the Lords day we may omit the Lords Supper we may stay from the Church assemblies we may forbear to preach or pray or meditate or read So that the exception only of necessity will but equal this Diocesan model to other possitive ordinances which are indeed Divine Obj. What if we prove but the lawfulness of it though not the Duty Ans If you prove it not of Divine institution I have proved it to be sinful and shall do much more by all the evils which attend it And so much for these City Diocese and Metropolitans and modelling the Church Government to the state CHAP. VII The Definition and reasons of a Diocesan Church considered and overthrown I Have already shewed that we dispute not about aery notions nor Non-existence but about such Dioceses as we see and have and that by a Diocese we Non-conformists mean only a large circuit of ground with its inhabitants conteining many perticular Parishes And by a Diocesan Church we mean all the Christians within that circuit who have but one Bishop over them though they be of many Parish Churches yea few Presbyterians take the word so narrow as this For I think too many of them do with Rutherford distinguish between a worshipping Church and a Governed Church and sadling the horse for Prelacy to mount on do affirm that many about twelve usualy of these worshiping Churches like our Parishes may make but one Governed or Presbyterial Church But a Diocese in England containeth many hundred and some above a thousand Parishes as is said But the Diocesans Hammond and Downam define not a Diocese as we see it as conteining many Churches or holy assemblies but only as being the Church of one City with its territories Now the question is what it is that is the specifying difference by which a Diocesan Church is distinguished from others and constituted 1. Not that it is in a City For an Independent Church or a Presbyterian Church may be in a City When there is but one Church there or many Independent ones these are no other than those allow whom you take for your chief adversaries 2. Is it then the circuit of ground that is the boundary of these Churches either this ground is inhabited or not if not then earth and trees make their Churches If inhabited it is by Infidels or by Christians or both If by Infidels they are no members of any Christian Church and therefore not of a Diocesan Church Unless they will professe to have Churhes of Infidels If they be Christians either they are no more nor more distant than as that they may at least the main body of them come on the Lords daies to the City Church into one assembly or else they are enow to make more or many Church assemblies If the former than what differ they from a Parish Church or an Independent Church which is planted in a City When each of them are but one congregation where is the difference but in the arbitrary Name But if the City and territories have Christians enow for many Churches then either they are formed into many or not If they are they should by their own confession have many Bishops If not either Church Societies are Gods ordinance or not If not the City should have none If they are where hath God exempted the Country from the priviledge or duty any more than the City But if they should say that a Diocesan Church is one Church in a City and its territories consisting of Christians enow to make many of whom the most part take up with oratories for Churches this would suite our Notion of a Diocesan Church but not theirs For they say that it is not necessary that a Diocesan Church have more than one Congregation Therefore it must needs follow that their Diocesan Church must differ from our Parish or Congregational Churches only in potentiâ and not in actu or else earth or Infidels must be the differencing matter Unless they will say that the Order of Prelacy in it maketh the difference which is the office of a Pastor who is actually Governour but of one congregation but is in potentia to be the Governour of more when he can convert them and then is the Governour of them all in that territory when they are converted But if one congregation or many make not the difference a meer possibility in the Infidels of becoming Christians cannot make the difference because the Subjects of that possibility are no members of the Church at all Therefore the difference must be only in the office of the Bishop And if so then an Independent Church that hath a Bishop is a Diocesan Church And so an Independant and a Diocesan Church may be all one And then if a Bishop were but setled in a Parish Church in the City or Countrey it would make it a Diocesan Church And then when we have proved that the Country should have Churches and not meer Oratories and that every Church should have a Bishop and so that a Bishop is not to be appropriated to a City and its territories we have done all And that society which should have all Gods Church ordinances should have a Pastor necessary for the exercising of them all But every true Parish Church should have all Gods ordinances belonging to a single Church therefore they should have a Pastor at least to exercise them And a Pastor authorized to exercise all
particular Church ordinances of Christs is a true Bishop But every true particular Church should have such a Pastor Therefore they should have a Bishop By the Church ordinances I mean 1. Teaching 2. Ministerial Worship in Prayer Praise and Sacraments 3. Discipline secret and publick in that Church And let them remember that they that instead of proof do but crudely affirme that Cities only may be Bishops Seats do but beg the question But because he that puts us hardest to it Downame doth lay so much on these two differences of a Diocesan Church from a Parochial 1. That a Diocese conteineth the City and territories though at first it have but one Congregation 2. That converting the rest of the City and territories giveth the Bishop a right to Govern them all I will further distinctly consider of both these CHAP. VIII Whether the Infidel Territories or Citizens do make part of a Diocesane Church 1. WE distinguish between a Diocese and a Diocesane Church 1. The word Diocese first was of civil signification and so we have nothing to do with it 2. It may signifie a Country of Infidels whom a Minister of Christ endeavoureth to convert And so it is no Church of it self nor no part of a Church if a Church be in it as is past all question And so we deny not but that 1. Every Minister should convert as many Infidels as he can 2. That he that is resident on the place as Pastor of a Cohabiting Church hath better opportunity than a stranger usually to convert the neighbour infidels And therefore hath more obligation to endeavour it because men must divide and order their work as their opportunities do invite and guide them 3. But yet that God set no man his Ministerial Charge by the measure of ground And therefore that if such a City-Bishop have a smaller number of Infidels in his territories than will take up his time and labour besides the care of his Church he ought not to confine his labour to them nor neglect other territories that need his help but may must and should go further in his endeavours as Augustine and other later Bishops among the Saxons notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the Brittains and as Wilfred alias Boniface among the Germans c. And if any other Minister come among the Infidels in the Territories of a City that hath a Church while they have need of such help the Bishop were a beast if he should forbid him on pretense that it is his Diocess where another hath nothing to do But as unoccupied Countries belong to any occupant so an Infidel Country belongeth to any preacher that hath opportunity to convert them And if a Diocesane prohibit such preaching he is to be neglected or reprehended but not obeyed Yet I deny not but prudence may direct preachers as it would do occupants in the aforesaid case to distribute their labours so as one may not hinder but help another But that is not a Law of propriety otherwise than as mutual consent obligeth And it is but the determination of circumstances and that not about any part of a Church and therefore nothing to the constitution of a Church And as is shewed as Christ sent his Disciples out by two and two so the Apostles oft went two together or an Apostle and an Evangelist which shewed that no one claimed the Diocess But still were it otherwise Infidels are not of the Church CHAP. IX Whether converting a Diocese give right to the Converter to be their Bishop or Governour 1 WE deny not but that Converts owe a peculiar love and respect to those as their fathers in Christ which did convert them which Paul claimeth of the Corinthians 2. And we deny not but caeteris paribus that man being as fit a man as others and his abode being nearer and his Church being not full but capable of them this advantage should encline his converts to choose him rather than another for their Pastor But yet converting them as such giveth him not a right to govern them as their Pastor nor necessitateth them to choose him As I prove 1. Because a Lay man as Frumentius and Edesius and Origen c. may convert men who are not Pastors to them or any 2. Because Conversion and Baptism as such is but mens admission into the Universal Church as in the Eunuchs case Act. 8. is manifest and not into any particular Church It uniteth them to Christ but not to any particular Pastor For they Baptize not into their own name 3. Because when two or three go together as Paul and Barnabas Silas Timothy Luke c. it is to be supposed that one converteth not all but one some and another some and therefore if converting gave right there must be many Bishops and Churches in a place 4. Because when a Church is settled a strange preacher that cometh after yea one that hath a charge elsewhere may convert many neighbours that were not Converted and yet it will not follow that he must come and set up another Church there for that nor that they must remove their dwelling to follow him 5. Because a man may and abundance of excellent preachers have done it convert many souls in many Countries where they go at great distances from each other But he cannot be the Bishop of so many people or Churches so far dispersed 6. Because it would make it uncertain who it is that hath any where the Episcopal power For Conversion is 1. a secret work known only to the person converted 2. And it is an obscure and usually a gradual work not done at once but by such degrees that the convert seldome knoweth himself who it was that converted him Though he may know that one mans ministry so far convinced him and another so far and so on It will be hard to say just when it came to a conversion And if you say it is he that perswaded him to be baptized that may be a lay man or long after his Conversion Princes in some Countries force or perswade thousands to be baptized If you say that it is he that Baptized him than Paul should be Pastor but to few of the Corinthians who thanked God that he baptized none of them but Stephanus houshold Gaius and Crispus as being not sent to baptize but to preach the Gospel 7. Because else many persons should be necessitated to choose a bad or very weak man if not a heretick for their Bishop when they may have far better and ablermen For it hath been known that a bad Minister and a heretical Minister much more a very weak Minister hath converted men But God doth not allow such converts therefore to cast their Souls under the danger and disadvantage of such a ones Ministry or oversights when much fitter may be had 8. Because both nature and Scripture example direct men to another course that is 1. To be members of the Church where they are cohabitants if there
of Presbyter Which he proceedeth to shew that he thinks was done that there might be a store of Bishops prepared for all Countries Pag. 25. he thus far differs from Doctor Hammond but not from the truth as to hold that Plures in eadem Ecclesia velut Ephâ—sina Episcopi fuere There were many Bishops in one Church as in that of Ephesus Which he taketh for a particular Church and not a Province and saith that the simple manners of the Church would then bear this till Ambition had depraved men and Charity and Humility and the imitation of Christ waxed cold then came that which Hierome speaketh of that For a remedy of Schism one was chosen out of the company of Presbyters and set above the rest So Pag. 26. In eadem capita passim ambo conferebantur And p. 27. Hoc si ita est quid aliud restat nisi ut penes eosdem Nam plures una in Ecclesia fuisse tales iisdem ex locis argumentum ducitur tam nomen illud duplex quam conveniens nomini potestas authoritas utraque fuisse dicatur that is If this be so what else remaineth but that both the double name and the agreeable double power and authority be said to have been in the same persons for that there were many of them in one Church may be proved from the same places And Pag. 95 96 97 98 99. he sheweth out of Justin Martyr first That all things in the sacred Assemblies and Sacraments were done by the Bishop alone and that he was the Curator and Moderator both of the Sacraments to be administred and of teaching the people and of the Churches money The Bishop consecrated the Sacraments and by the Deacons administred them to the people He prayeth and preacheth He had the care of the Church-moneys and kept them with it he relieved the Orphans Widows Sick Prisoners Travellers c. And from Tertullian that the Christians received not the Sacrament from the hands of any but the Bishops Were there not then as many Bishops as Church-Assemblies And that they chiefly did baptize And p. 112. he citeth the Can. 7. 8. Concil Gangrensis which anathematizeth those that without the Bishops consent durst give or receive the Church Oblations c. And p. 141. out of Prosper de vita contempl c. 20. that a Bishop must excel in knowledge that he may instruct those that live under him And p. 144 145 147. he citeth Can. 3. Concil Arelat 3. an 813. That every Bishop in his own Parish do perfectly and studiously teach the Presbyters and all the people and not neglect to instruct them And Concil Turonens 3. Can. 4. Let every Bishop diligently study by sacred preaching to inform the flock committed to him what they must do and what they must avoid And Concil Rhemens 2. Can. 14. That Bishops preach the Word of God to all And Concil Cabilonens 3. Can. 1. That Bishops be diligent in reading and search the mysteries of Gods Word that they may shine by the brightness of Doctrine in the Church and cease not to satiate the souls subject to them by nutriment of Gods Words And p. 147. That in the formula by which the Kings of France committed Episcopacy to any it is said You shall study by daily Sermons to edifie or polish the people committed to you according to Canonical Institution And ibid. Can. 19. Concil Constant in Trullo The Church Presidents must every day but especially the Lords day teach all the Clergy and people the things that belong to piety gathering from the Scriptures the sentences and judgments of verity And p. 149. he citeth Concil Lateran sub Innoc. 3. c. 10. allowing Bishops to take helpers in preaching when business or sickness hindred them And p. 150 152 153. he mentioneth it as somewhat rare that at Alexandria Presbyters preached and at Antioch Chrysostom and at Hippo Augustine while Flavianus and Valerius were Bishops I do not cite all this now as to prove the sense of Antiquity but the sense of Petavius who plainly intimateth that the Churches were no larger of a long time than that a Bishop might preach to all the Clergy and People every Lords day and that in Scripture times all or near all the Presbyters were Bishops which is it that we contend for and consequently you may judge what the Churches were And though it still look much farther than Scripture times I will shew you what Petavius thought of the Magnitude of City-Churches even near four hundred years after Christ in Epiphanius's days in his Animadvers on Epiphan ad Haer. 69. p. 276. Singularem tunc temporis Alexandriae morem hunc fuisse vel saltem paucis in Ecclesiis usurpatum c. i. e. That this was a singular custom of Alexandria or at least used in few Churches you may hence conjecture because he so expresly mentioneth this custom as peculiar to the Alexandrian Church to wit that in the same City there should be many Titles to each of which should be assigned a proper Presbyter who should there perform the Church Offices But yet the same was formerly elsewhere instituted that is at Rome where the Presbyters did every one rule his own people being distributed by Titles that is setled Sub-Assemblies To them the Bishops on the Lords days sent Leaven or hallowed Bread in token of Communion See what a shift they were at first put to lest the several Assemblies should seem several Churches For it is not to be imagined that this was done to signifie that common Christian Communion which they had with all other Christian Churches but that nearest Communion which belongeth to those that are embodied under one Pastor or the same Pastor in Common that is one particular Church Even as if these divers Altars or Tables were at a distance in the same Church and the Bishop would signifie the Union of the several Companies in the same Society by sending some of the Bread which he had blessed to them all But Petavius proceedeth Non dubito majoribus duntaxat in urbibus c. I doubt not but that it was in the Greater Cities only that there were more than one Titles within the bounds or Liberties when within the same Walls they would not be contained and meet together and so had Presbyters put on the several Churches But in the smaller and less frequented Cities there was one only Church into which they all did come together Of which sort were the Cities of Cyprus And therefore Epiphanius noteth the custom of Alexandria as a thing strange to his Country-men and unusual Hence was the original of Parishes which word was transferred from the Country Churches to the City Churches And adding the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their Bishops or Curators setled in Rome by Servius Tullius he saith Quibus Christianorum in agris Paroeciae quam simillimae fuerunt Nam illic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To which the Parishes of the
Christians in the Countries were most like For there also were Bishops or rather Chorepiscopi rural Bishops placed of old which some Latine interpretations of the Canons call the Vicars of the Bishops but others far more rightly than they the Country or Village Bishops of which more after So that you see in Petavius opinion even when Epiphanius wrote the ordinary Cities of the World had but one Assembly in each City and Suburbs And only some extraordinary Cities of which only Alexandria could be named by Epiphanius and Rome also by Petavius and no more by any other Author had divers setled Titles under their several Presbyters And even those Titles in those two Cities were but Chappels like our Parish Chappels received consecrated Bread from the Bishops Church lest they should think that they were a distinct body of themselves Yea and that the Villages that had Assemblies had their proper Bishops And so I dismiss Petavius with thanks for his free Concession 2. My next Witness is Bishop Downame the strongest that hath written against Parish Bishops for Diocesanes who lib. 1. cap. 1. before recited saith Indeed at the very first Conversion of Cities the whole number of the people converted being somewhere not much greater than the number of Presbyters placed among them were able to make but a small Congregation And cap. 6. pag. 104. At the first and namely the time of the Apostle Paul the most of the Churches so soon after their Conversion did not each of them exceed the proportion of a populous Congregation Though this reach not so low as Petavius Concession it is as much as I need to the present business 3. My third Witness shall be that learned moderate man Mr. Joseph Mede who in his discourse of Churches pag. 48 49 50. saith Nay more than this it should seem that in those first times before Diocesses were divided into those lesser and subordinate Churches which we now call Parishes and Presbyters assigned to them they had not only one Altar to a Church or Dominicum but one Altar to a Church taking Church for the Company or Corporation of the faithful united under one Bishop or Paster and that was in the City or place where the Bishop had his See and Residence Like as the Jews had but one Altar and Temple for the whole Nation united under one High Priest And yet as the Jews had their Synagogues so perhaps might they have more Oratories than one though their Altar were but one there namely where the Bishop was Die solis saith Justin Martyr omnium qui vel in oppidis vel ruâ—i degunt in eundem locum Conventus fit Namely as he there tells us to celebrate and participate the holy Eucharist Why was this but because they had not many places to celebrate it in And unless this were so whence came it else that a Schismatical Bishop was said Constituere or collocare aliud altare And that a Bishop and an Altar are made correlatives See St. Cyprian Epist 40 72 73. de unit Eccles c. So that Mr. Mede granteth that every Church that had a Bishop had no more people than communicated at one Altar To which purpose he goeth on further to Ignatius Testimony of which anon 4. Bishop Bilson's Testimony Perp. Gov. cap. 13. pag. 256. See afterward 5. Grotius is large in his endeavours to prove that not only every City had a Bishop but also every stated Assembly of which there were divers in one and the same City and that the Government was not suited to the Temple way but to the Synagogues and as every Synagogue had its chief Ruler of which there were many in a City so had every Church in a City its Bishop and that only the Church of Alexandria had the custom of having but one Bishop in the whole City Thus he de Imper. Sum. Pot. p. 355 356 357. And in his Annot. in 1 Tim. 5. 17. Sed notandum est una urbe sicut plures Synagogas ita plures fuisse Ecclesias id est conventus Christianorum cuique Ecclesiae fuisse suum praesidem qui populum alloqueretur Presbyteros ordinaret Alexandriae tantum eum fuisse morem ut unus esset in tota urbe praeses qui ad docendum Presbyteros Per urbem distribueret docet nos Sozomenus l. 1. c. 14. Epiphanius c. Thus Grotius thought that of old every stated Assembly had a Bishop that had power of Ordination I confess I interpret not Zozomen nor Epiphanius as Grotius doth nor believe I that he can bring us frequent proof of two Churches with Bishops in one City much less many unless in Doctor Hammond's instance before and after mentioned But the rest I accept 6. I may take it for a full Concession from Bishop Jeremy Tailor which is before cited though in few words Praef. Treat of Repent I am sure we cannot give account of souls of which we have no notice And I am sure a full Parish is as many as a more able and diligent man than ever I was can take such notice of as to do the Pastors Office to them 7. But the last and greatest Champion for Diocesanes is Doctor Hammond his Concessions are mentioned before but now are purposely to be cited But remember still that we are yet speaking but of the matter of Fact In his Annot. in Act. 11. 30. he saith Although this Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elders have been also extended to a second Order in the Church and now is only in use for them under the name of Presbyters yet in the Scripture times it belonged principally if not alone to Bishops there being no evidence that any of the second order were then instituted though soon after before the writing of Ignatius Epistles there were such instituted in all Churches Though so suddain a change be unlikely I pass it by In his Dissert p. 208 209 211. cap. 10. sect 19 20 21. 11. sect 2. c. he saith Prius non usquequaque verum esse quod pro concesso sumitur in una civitate non fuisse plures Episcopos Quamvis enim in una Ecclesia aut coetu plures simul Episcopi nunquam fuerint nihil tamen obstare quin in eadem civitate duo aliquando disterminati coetus fuerint a duobus Apostolis ad fidem adducti c. as I have before more largely cited him Yea Dissert Epist Sect. 30 31. he will have the question stated only of a Bishop in singulari Ecclesia in singulari coetu The controversie is not Quibus demum nominibus cogniti fuerint Ecclesiarum rectores sed an ad unum in singulari Ecclesia an ad plures potestas ista devenerit Nos ad unum singularem praefectum quem ex famosiore Ecclesiae usu Episcopum vulgo dicimus potestatem istam in singulari coetu ex Christi Apostolorum institutione nunquam non pertinuisse
and one Bishop XIII In a Roman Council sub Silvest it 's said Ab omni Ecclesia eligatur consecrandus Episcopus nullo de membris Ecclesiae intercedente omni Ecclesia conveniente nulli Episcopo liceat sine cuncta Ecclesia a novissimo gradu usque ad primum ordinare Neophytum Silvester Papa dixit A nobis incipientes moderamine lenitatis judicare commonemus ut nulli Episcopo liceat quemlibet gradum Clerici ordinare aut consecrare nisi cum omni adunata Ecclesia si placet dixerunt Episcopi placet What can be more fully said Let the Bishop to be ordained be chosen by all the Church no one of the Members of the Church being wanting and all the Church meeting together Let it be lawful for no Bishop without the whole Church to ordain Not to ordain or consecrate any degree of Clergy-Man but with the whole Church together in one And how great then were the Churches when even at Rome and all about it The whole Church united and every member could meet together at every Ordination and Consecration I scarce know how a testimony can be plainer XIV The Concil Sardic which first began to befriend the Grandeur of the Roman Bishop was it that first forbad Bishops to be ordained in small Villages yet note that even there it was not absolutely forbidden to all Villages but only to such Villages and small Cities where one Presbyter was enough But they allowed a Bishop to the Cities Quae Episcopos habuerunt siqua tam populosa est Civitas vel Locus mark Locus as distinct from Civitas qui mereatur habere Episcopum So that if there were but people enough for more than one Presbyter they allowed them a Bishop And Can. 14. It is decreed that As no Lay-man must be above three Weeks from Church so no Bishop from his own Church at another place Whereas if a Bishop have many Churches or many hundred or a thousand he could be but at one in a Year or two or three or more if he did nothing but travel from parish to Parish Only in the next Canon those that have Farms or Lands in the Country are dispensed with for three Weeks to be absent from their own Churches so they go to another XV. In the Epistle of the 1. Concil Nic. ad Eccles Aegypt in Crab. pag. 262. T. 1. Presbyters were to be made Solummodo sivideantur digni populus eos elegerit condecernente simul designante maxime Alexandriae Civitatis Episcopo Still the people that had the choice were no more than could meet to chuse And even in the Arabick Canons ascribed to this Council by some of late it 's said Can. 72. Sic Episcopi Sacerdotes si Civitates suas Altaria propter alia majora relinquerent male facerent which shews that each City even then had but one Altar or Meeting for Sacramental Communion though when these were written there were other Churches in Villages that had Altars And in Pisan Can. 57. Archi-presbyter in absentia Episcopi honoretur tanquam Episcopus quia est loco ejus sit caput Sacerdotum qui sub potestate ejus sunt in Ecclesia The Bishop then was but such a Head of Priests in the same Church as an Arch-Presbyter might be in his absence And Cap. 9. The Vote of the whole Diocess without the Arch-bishop shall not serve to chuse a Bishop though all gathered together XVI The Concil Vasense granted leave for Presbyters to preach and Deacons to read Homilies in Country Parishes which sheweth both that Bishops were the ordinary Preachers to their whole Flocks before and that these Parishes were yet but new and perhaps but Chappels that yet had not Altars and the Lord's Supper XVII Binnius in Concil Ephes 1. To. 2. cap. 20. saith Dalmatius told the Emperor that there were six thousand Bishops under the Metropolitan sent to the Council that were against Nestorius And there was a great number on the other side with Johan Antiochen who cast out Cyril and Memnon How great think you were these Bishops Dioceses XVIII Concil Carth. 3. cap. 39. 40. in Crab some would have had many twelve Bishops at each Bishop's Ordination but Aurelius desired it might be but three because Crebro pene per diem Dominicum ordinationes habemus they had Ordinations almost every Lord's day and Tripoli had but five Bishops How big were these Dioceses where the Bishops could meet almost every Lord's day for Ordinations and five under Tripoly was an exceeding small number And cap. 40. If a Bishop were accused at his Ordination the Cause was to be tried In eadem plebe cui ordinandus est And surely it was not to be in many hundred Congregations at once or per vices XIX Concil Antioch before this Can. 5. pag. 321. in Crab Siquis Presbyter aut Diaconus Episcopum proprium contemnens se ab Ecclesia segregaverit seorsum colligens Altare constituit vel in secunda edit privatim apud se collectis populis Altare erigere ausus fuerit c. This sheweth 1. That the Presbyters then joyned with the Bishop in the same Church 2. And that then each Church had but one Altar and to erect another Altar elsewhere was to set up another Church Can. 8. Presbyteri qui sunt in agris Canonicas Epistolas dare non possunt Chorepiscopi autem dare possunt This sheweth that then the Country Villages had Chorepiscopos with Presbyters Can. 10 Qui in vicis vel possissionibus Chorepiscopi nominantur quamvis manus impositionem Episcoporum perceperint ut Episcopi consecrati sint tamen Sanctae Synodo placuit ut modum proprium recognoscant ut gubernent sibi subjectas Ecclesias earumque moderamine curaque contenti sint This sheweth that then the Churches in Villages had their Bishops though under the City Bishops Can. 16. A Bishop that put himself into a vacant Church without the consent of a perfect Council where must be the Metropolitane must be cast out etsi cunctus populus quem diripuit eum habere delegerit which sheweth that the whole people were no more than could meet to chuse him Can. 17 18 21. imply the same Episcopus ab alia Parochia non migret ad aliam nec sponte sua insiliens nec vi coactus a populo nec ab Episcopis necessitate compulsus Maneat autem in Ecclesia quam primitus adeo sortitus est A Church and a Parish are here the same and no greater than that the people could be the compellers which implieth their concurrence which could not be in a Diocess of many hundred Churches but in one only Can. 23. The Goods of the Church are faithfully to be kept which also are to be dispensed by the Judgment and Power of the Bishop to whom is committed the people and the souls that are congregated in the Church and it 's manifest what things belong to the Church with the
5. UPon the Review finding some considerable Evidences from Councils before omitted some shall be here added 1. The Roman Clergy called a Council at Rome Bin. pag. 158. c. saith that in the Interregnum they had the charge of the Universal Church and Cyprian wrote to them as the Governors of the Church of Rome when they had been a year or two without a Bishop And their Actions were not null 2. A Carthage Council with Cyprian condemn even a dead man called Victor because by his Will he left one Faustinus a Presbyter the Guardian of his Sons and so called him off his Sacred Work to mind Secular things Did this favour of Bishop's Secular Power Magistracy or Domination 3. How came the Carthage Councils to have so many hundreds in so narrow a room or space of Land but that every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corporation or big Town had a Bishop Anno 308. at a Carthage Council the very Donatists had two hundred and seventy Bishops And at Arles two hundred Bishops heard the Donatists Cause 4. The Laodicean Council decreed Can. 46. that the Baptized should learn the Creed and on Friday repeat it to the Bishops or Presbyters which implieth that a Bishop was present with every Church And Cap. 57. It is ordained that thenceforth Bishops should not be ordained in small Villages and Hamlets but Visiters should be appointed them But such Bishops as had heretofore been there ordained should do nothing without the Conscience of the City Bishop Which implieth 1. That every big Town had a Bishop 2. And Villages before 5. Epiphanius Haer. 68. pag. 717. c. saith That Peter separated from Meletius in the same room and as Meletius went to the Mines he made new Bishops and gathered new Churches so that in several Cities there were two Bishops and Churches Which implieth that they were Congregations for Personal Communion 6. The Nicene Council cap. 8. alloweth Rural Bishops then in use whom Petavius proveth to have been true Bishops 7. Greg. Nazianz. pag. 528. c. sheweth how Churches were enlarged and changed when the strife began between Mea Tua Antiqua Nova Nobilior Ignobilior Multitudine Opulentior aut Tenuior 8. After Lucifer Calaritanus ordained Paulinus Antioch had long two Bishops half being his Flock and half cleaving to Meletius 9. Nazianzen had in the great City of Constantinople but one of the small Churches the Arians having the greater till Theodosius gave him the greater And those Hearers he was Bishop over 10. A Council at Capua ordered that both the Bishops Flocks in Antioch under Evagrius and Flavian should live together in Love and Peace 11. Many Cities tolerated Novatian Bishops and Churches among them and oft many other Dissenters Which sheweth that but part of the City were one Church 12. The Council at Carthage called the last by Binius decreed that Reconciliation of Penitents as well as Chrisme and consecrating Virgins is to be done only by the Bishops except in great necessity For how many Parishes can a Bishop do all this and all the rest of his Office And when Christians were multiplied they that desired a Bishop where was none before might have one But else aliud Altare is again forbidden to be set up 13. Another Carthage Council decreeth Can. 15. That the Bishop have but vile or cheap Houshold-stuff and a poor Table and Diet and seek Authority or Dignity by his Faith and desert of Life Can. 19. That he contend not for transitory things though provoked Can. 23. That he hear no Cause but in the presence of his Presbyters else it shall be void that is sentenced without them unless confirmed by their presence Note this being a constant work required a constant presence and it is not a selected Chapter of Presbyters that is named And must those of many hundred Parishes dwell in the City or travel thither for daily Causes of Offenders c. Can. 28 30. Bishops unjust Sentence void and Judgment against the absent 14. A Council at Agathum Can. 3. saith If Bishops wrongfully excommunicate one any other Bishop shall receive him Which implieth that the wronged person lived within reach of a Neighbour Bishop's Parish For it doth not bind him to remove his Dwelling And leave to go daily twenty or forty Miles to Church is a small kindness And I have already cited Can. 63. If any Citizens on the great Solemnities Easter the Lord's Nativity or Whitsuntide shall neglect to meet where the Bishops are seeing they are set in the Cities for Benediction and Communion let them for three Years be deprived of the Communion of the Church So that even when Churches were enlarged yet you see how great a part of them met in one place 15. Divers Canons give the Bishop a third or fourth part of all the Church Profits And if those Churches had been as big as our Dioceses it would have been too much of all Conscience 16. A Synod at Carpentoracte decreed that the Bishop of the City shall not take all the Country Parish Maintenance to himself Which implieth as the former that his Country Parish was small 17. A Council at Orleance Anno 540. decree Can. 3. about ordaining a Bishop that Qui praeponendus est omnibus ab omnibus eligatur The Dioceses yet were not so large but that All met to chuse 18. So Concil Byzazen saith it must be By the Election of all 19. Another at Orleance Anno 545. saith No Citizen must celebrate Easter out of the City because they must keep the principal Festivities in the presence of the Bishop where the holy Assembly must be kept But if any have a necessity to go abroad let him ask leave of the Bishop Here is but one City Assembly and Individuals must be known to the Bishop and ask his leave to go abroad And Can. 5. saith A Bishop must be ordained in his own Church which he is to oversee Which implieth that he had but one Church and Country Chappels 20. Another Orleance Council hath the like deposing all Bishops that come not in by common consent And requiring them both in their Cities and Territories to relieve the Poor from the Church-House Let us have such Dioceses as the Bishop can do this for and we consent 21. A Synod at Paris Can. 8. says Let no Man be ordained a Bishop against the Will of the Citizens nor any but whom the Election of the People and Clerks shall seek with plenary Will None shall be put in by the Command of the Prince c. 22. King Clodoveus called a Synod at Cabilone which Can. 10. decreeth That all Ordination of Bishops be null that was otherwise made than by the Election of the Comprovincials the Clerks and the Citizens 23. The Const Trul. Can. 38. sheweth how the unhappy changes were made decreeing That whatever alteration the Imperial Power shall make on any City the Ecclesiastical Order shall follow it And so if the
King will make every Market Town a City it shall have a Bishop And if he will make but one or two cities in a Kingdom there shall be but one or two Bishops And if he will make one City Regent to others that Bishop shall be so Thus Rome Constantinople c. came by their Superiority But Hierome telleth us the contrary that the Bishop of Tanais or any small City like our least Corporations was of equal Church-Dignity with Rome or the greatest 24. The same Council Can. 78. repeateth that All the Illuminate that is Baptized must learn the Creed and every Friday say it to the Bishop and Presbyters I hope they did not go every Friday such a Journey as Lincoln York or Norwich Diocess no nor the least in England would have put them to nor that the Bishop heard as many thousands every Friday as some of ours by that Canon should have heard 25. Anno 693. at a Toletane Council King Egica writeth a Sermon for them and therein tells them that Every Parish that hath twelve Families must have their proper Governor not a Curate that is no Governor But if it be less it must be part of another's Charge 26. Anno 756. Pipin called a Council in France whos 's Can. 1. is that Every City must have a Bishop And as is beforesaid every Corporate Town was a City 27. In the Epitome of the old Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carolus Magnus published by Canisius the eighth Antioch Canon is Country Presbyters may not give Canonical Epistles but the Chorepiscopi By which it appeareth that the Chorepiscopi were Bishops as Petavius proveth in Epiphan Arrius And Can. 14 15. That No Bishop be above three Weeks in another City nor above two Weeks from his own Church Which intimateth that he had one single Church And Can. 19. That when a place wants a Bishop he that held them must not proudly hold them to himself and hinder them from one else he must lose that which he hath 28. The same Canons say Can. 94. If a Bishop six Months after Admonition of other Bishops neglect to make Catholicks of the people belonging to his Seat any other shall obtain them that shall deliver them from their Heresie So that 1. The Churches were not so big but that there might be divers in one Town 2. And converting the People is a better Title than Parish Bounds 29. It is there also decreed That no Bishop ordain or judge in another's Parish else it shall be void And they forbid Foreign Judgments because it is unmeet that he should be judged by Strangers who ought to have Judges of the same Province chosen by himself But our Diocesanes are Strangers to almost all the People and are not chosen by them See the rest Also another is that every Election of Bishops made by Magistrates be void yea all that use the Secular Magistrate to get a Church must be deposed and separated and all that joyn with him Also if any exact Money or for affection of his own drive any from the Ministry or segregate any of his Clergy or shut the Temple 30. A Council at Chalone under Carol. Magn. the Can. 15. condemneth Arch-Deacons that exercise Domination over Parish-Presbyters and take Fees of them as matter of Tyranny and not of Order and Rectitude And Can. 13. saith It is reported of some Brethren Bishops that they force them whom they are about to ordain to swear that they are worthy and will not do contrary to the Canons and will be obedient to the Bishop that ordaineth them and to the Church in which they are ordained Which Oath because it is very dangerous we all agree shall be forbidden By which it appeareth that 1. The Dioceses were not yet so large as to need such subordinate Governors as ours have Nor 2. Were Oaths of Canonical Obedience to the Bishop and Church yet thought lawful but forbidden as dangerous 31. A Council at Aquisgrane under Ludov. Pius wrote an excellent Treatise gathered out of the Fathers to teach Bishops the true nature of their Office which hath much to my present use but too long to be recited 32. Upon Ebbos Flight that deposed Lud. Pius the Arch-Bishoprick of Rhemes was void ten Years and ruled by two Presbyters Fulk and Hotho who were not then uncapable of governing the Flock but it is not like that they governed Neighbour Bishops 33. Canisius tells us of a Concilium Regiaticinum and Can. 6. is That the Arch-Presbyter examine every Master of a Family personally and take account of their Families and Lives and receive their Confessions And Can. 7. That a Presbyter in the absence of the Bishop may reconcile a Penitent by his Command c. Which shew that yet Dioceses were not at the largest 34. A Council at Papia Anno 855. order yet That the Clergy and People chuse the Bishops and yet that the Laity on pretence of their electing power trample not on the Arch-Presbyter and that Great Men's Chappels empty not Churches 35. Yea Pope Nicholas Tit. 8. c. 1. decreeth that no Bishops be ordained but by the Election or Consent of the Clergy and People When they became uncapable of the ancient Order yet they kept up the words of the old Canons 36. This is intimated in the old Canons repeated at a Roman Council Anno 868. That if Bishops excommunicate any wrongfully or for light Causes and not restore them the Neighbour Bishops shall take such to their Communion till the next Synod Which was the Bishop of the next Parish or Corporation and not one that dwelt in another County out of reach And Can. 72. Because the Bishops hindred by other business cannot go to all the Sick the Presbyters or any Christians may anoint them How big was the Diocess when this Canon was first made Who would give his business rather than Distance and Numbers and Impossibility as the reason why the Bishop of London Lincoln Norwich c. visit not all the Sick in their Dioceses 37. Anno 869 till 879. was held a Council called General at Constantinople The Can. 8. is Whereas it is reported that not only the Heretical and Usurpers but some Orthodox Patriarchs also for their own security have made men subscribe that is to be true to them the Synod judgeth that it shall be so no more save only that Men when they are made Bishops be required as usual to declare the soundness of their Faith He that violateth this Sanction let him be deprived of his Honour But these later instances only shew the Relicts of Primitive Purity and Simplicity more evidently proved in the three first Centuries 38. And he that will read the ancient Records of the Customs of Burying will thence perceive the extent of Churches Doctor Tillesly after cited affirmeth pag. 179. against Selden that The Right of Burial place did first belong to the Cathedral Churches And Parish Churches began so lately as now understood having no
probabiliter ex oblatione dare debebit The other Ed. saith Et cura probatio sit Episcopi We are content that the Diocess be as great as the Bishop will perform this for to examine all such dying men and give them the Sacrament or send it them after his distinct Examination VII Gregor Nazianz. Epist 22. pag. 786. To. 1. perswading the Church of Caesarea to chuse Basil for their Bishop sendeth his Letters to the Presbyters the Monks the Magistrates and the whole Laity And though I doubt not but by that time there were Country Congregations by this the magnitude of the City Church may be gathered where the whole Laity could be consulted and could chuse And Basil made this Gregory his chief friend Bishop of Sasimis a small poor dirty Town And yet Gregory himself it seems had in some near Village a Chorepiscopus with Presbyters and Deacons as in Glycerius his Case appeareth Epist Greg. 205. pag. 900 901. And Nazianzum where he plaid the Bishop under his Father two Bishops at once one in Title the other in Practice without Title was but a small Town VIII Basil an Arch-Bishop was so much against enlarging Dioceses and taking in many Churches to one Bishop that he taketh the advantage of the difference between him and Anthymius to make many Bishops more in his Diocess over small places yea it seemeth some places were so small as that they never before had any Pastors at all as appeareth by Gregory Nazianzene Epist 28. IX Theodoret tells us lib. 4. cap. 20. Hist Eccles that even in the great Alexandria the Presbyters and Deacons were all but nineteen when Lucius came to banish them to Heliopolis a City of Phoenicia which City had not one Christian in it By which it appeareth that even then under Christian Emperors Christianity was not received by the multitude when some Cities had not a Christian X. Theodor. ib. l. 4. c. 16. saith that when Eulogius and Protogenes the Presbyters of Edessa were banished to Antionone in Thebais they found the most of the people Heathens and but few of the Church yet had that little number a Bishop of their own XI Id. l. 4. c. 20. In Peter Bishop of Alexandria's Epistle wherein he sheweth such actions then done by the Soldiers in scorn of the Godly proclaiming Turpitude not to be named under the name of scornful Preaching as have been done by others lately among us it 's said of Lucius Qui partes lupi nequitia improbe factis agere impense studebat quique Episcopatum non consensu Episcoporum Oâ—thodoxorum in unum convenientium non suffragiis vere Clericorum non postulatione Populi ut sacri Ecclesiae Canones praescribunt So that great Patriarch himself was chosen Postulatione Populi as shewing the custom of all the Churches which beginning when the people were but one Congregation continued as it could in some degree when they came like a Presbyterian Church for even then it was no otherwise to have many Congregations XII Id. c 22. saith that Valens found the Orthodox even in the great Patriarchal City of Antioch in possession but of one Church which good Jevinian the Emperor had given them of which he dispossessed them And when they met afterwards to worship God at a Hill near the City Valens sent to disturb them thence And Cap. 23. Flavianus and Diodorus Presbyters Meletius the Bishop being banished led them to a River side where they congregated till they were thence also driven by the Emperor And Flavianus when he could not preach collected Mâ—tter Reasons and holy Sentences as Sermon-Notes for others to preach in the Gyâ—nasâ—â—â— Bellicum where they resolved to meet whatever came on it Then Aphraates a Monk taught them and when Valens told him that Monks must pray in private and not preach in publick Aphraates told the Emperor that he had set the House of God our Father on fire and troubled the Church and therefore he was called to its publick help to shew how far they obeyed a silencing Emperor By all which it appeareth that even then the Orthodox Patriarchal Church of Antioch was but one Assembly which met in one only place at once XIII Id. l. 4. c. 29. When Terenâ—ius the Emperor's victorious General being Orthodox was bid by the Emperor to ask what he would of him as a Reward he asked but One Church for the Orthodox and was denied it which intimateth their numbers XIV Dolicha where Eusebius made Maris Bishop was parvum Oppidum a little Town and infected with Arianism where an Arian Woman killed Eusebius with a Tile when he went to ordain Maris Bishop Theodor. lib. 5. cap. 4. XV. Euseb Eccles Hist l. 5. c. 16. tells us that Apollonius saith of Alexander a Montanist Bishop that the Congregation whereof he was Pastor because he was a Thief would not admit him By which it appeareth that his Church was but one Congregation And l. 7. c. 29. The Synod of Antioch say of Dionysius Alexandr that he wrote not to the person of Paulus Samosatenus but to the whole Congregation that is his Church And they say He licensed the Bishops and Ministers of the adjoyning Villages and Cities to preach to the People Which sheweth what Dioceses and Churches then were XVI Socrates l. 1. c. 8. tells us that Spiridion was at the same time a Bishop and a Shepherd And whether his Parish was one Church or many hundred you may easily judge when so holy a Man could spare time all the Week to keep his sheep XVII When Constans the Emperor affrighted Constantius to restore Athanasius Constantius craved of Athanasius that the Arrians in Alexandria might have one Church to themselves Athanasius told him It was in his power to command and execute but craved also a request of him which was that in all Cities there might also be one Church granted for them that communicated not with the Arrians But the Eastern Arrian Bishops hearing that put off the decision of both the Requests By which a willing person may conjecture at the quantity of the Episcopal Churches in those times XVIII Even in Ambrose's days the great Church of Milan was no greater than could meet in one Temple to chuse a Bishop And Ambrose was chosen by them Socrat. l. 4. c. 25. And Baronius in Vita Ambrosii ex Paulino saith pag. 9. Quod solitus erat circa Baptizandos solus implere quinque postea Episcopi tempore quo decessit vix implerent What then was all the rest of his work and how many Churches could he thus oversee And the Arrians for whom the Emperor made all that stir with Ambrose were so few in Milan that when the Emperor would have had one Church for them and could not get it by fair means or force Ambrose thus jesteth at the Empress and the Arrian Gothes Quibus ut olim plaustrum sedes erat it a nunc plaustrum Ecclesia est Quocunque foemina illa processerit secum
arbitrabatur And cap. 25. Cum ipso semper Clerici una etiam domo mensa sumptibusque communibus alebantur vestiebantur Yea he ordered just how many Cups in a day his Clergy-men with him should drink and if any sware an Oath he lost one of his Cups Through God's Mercy sober Godly Ministers now need no such Law By this it evidently appeareth that the Church which he and his Presbyters ruled was not many hundred but one Congregation or City-Church There being no mention of any Country Presbyters that he had elsewhere as far as I remember And when Augustine was dying the People with one consent accepted of his choice of Eradius to be his Successor Epist 110. pag. 195. To recite all that is in Austin's Works intimating these Church-limits would be tedious XX Epiphanius's Testimony I have before mentioned as produced by Petavius that there were few Cities if any besides Alexandria in those Countries that had more than one Congregation and particularly none of his own And Doctor Hammond trusteth to him and Irenaeus to prove that the Apostles setled single Bishops in single Congregations in many places without any Sub-Presbyters XXI Socrates l. 5. c. 21. saith The Church of Antioch in Syria is situate contrary to other Churches for the Altar stands not to the East but to the West Which Speech implieth that besides Chappels if any there was but one Church that was notable in Antioch while he calleth it The Church at Antioch without distinction from any other there XXII Socrates l. 7. c. 3. tells us a notable story of Theodosius Bishop of Synada who went to Constantinople for Power to persecute Agapetus the Macedonian Bishop in that City But while he was absent Agapetus turned Orthodox and his Church and the Orthodox Church joyned together and made Agapetus Bishop and excluded Theodosius who made his Complaint of it to Atticus the Patriarch of Constantinople a wise and peaceable Man who desired Theodosius to live quietly in private because it was for the Churches good May such causes oft have such decisions and Lordly troublesome Prelates such success By which story you may guess how many Congregations both Parties made in Synada XXIII Socrates l. 7. c. 26. tells us that Sisinnius was chosen Bishop of Constantinople by the Laity against the Clergy And cap. 28. Sisinnius sent Proclus to be Bishop of Cyziâ—um but the People chose Dalmatius and refused him And this custom of the People's Choice must needs rise at first from hence that the whole Church being but one Congregation was present For what Right can any one Church in a Diocess have to chuse a Bishop for all the rest any more than the many hundred that are far off and uncapable to chuse XXIV Sozomen's Testimony even so late is very observable lib. 7. cap. 15. who mentioning the differences of the East and West about Easter and inferring that the Churches should not break Communion for such Customs saith Frivolum enim merito quidem judicarunt consuetudinis gratia a se mutuo segregari eos qui in praecipuis Religionis capitibus consentirent Neque enim easdem traditiones per omnia similes in omnibus Ecclesiis quamvis inter se consentientes reperire posses And he instanceth in this Etenim per Scythiam cum sint Civitates multae unum dâ—ntaxat hae omnes Episcopum habent I told you the reason of this Rarity before Apud alias vero nationes reperias ubi Pagis Episcopi ordinantur Sicut apud Arabes Cyprios ego comperi He speaketh of his own knowledge No wonder then if Epiphanius be to be interpreted as Petavius doth when in Cyprus not only the Cities had but one Church but also the Villages had Bishops To these he addeth the Novatians and the Phrygian Montanists And let none think their instances inconsiderable For the Montanists were for high Prelacy even for Patriarchs as in Tertullian appeareth And the Novatians were for Bishops and had many very Godly Bishops and were tolerated by the Emperors even in Constantinople as good People and Orthodox in the Faith And Novatus was martyred in Valerian's Persecution as Socrates l. 4. c. 23. saith XXV Even Clemens Roman or whoever he was that wrote in his name Epist 3. sheweth that Teaching the People is the Bishop's Office and concludeth in Crab p. 45. Audire Episcopum attentius oportet ab ipso suscipere doctrinam fidei Monita autem vitae a Presbyteris inquire a Diaconis vero ordinem Disciplinae By which Partition of Offices it is evident that the Bishop only and not the Presbyters then used to preach to the Church and that the Presbyters though ejusdem ordinis and not Lay-Elders used to instruct the People personally and give them Monita vitae and that they were all in one Church together and not in several distant Churches XXVI Paul himself telleth us that Cenchrea had a Church and the Scripture saith They ordained Elders in every Church And though Downame without any proof obtrude upon us that it was under the Bishop of Corinth and had a Presbyter of his to teach them yet of what Authority soever in other respects the Constitutions called Clements or the Apostles be they are of more than his in this where lib. 7. cap. 46. in that old Liturgy Lucius is said to be Bishop of Cenchrea ordained by the Apostles XXVII Gennadius de viris illustr l. 1. c. 10. saith that Asclepius was Vici non grandis Episcopus Bishop of a Village not great XXVIII Saith Cartwright Four or five of the Towns which were Seats of the Bishops of the Concil Carthag which Cyprian mentioneth are so inconsiderable that they are not found in the Geographical Tables XXIX And faith Altare Damascen p. 294. Oppidum trium Tabernarum Velitris vicinum was a Bishop's Seat for all the nearness and smallness of the Towns And Gregor lib. 2. Epist 35. laid the Relicts of the wasted Church to the Bishoprick of Veliterno Castrum Lumanum had a Bishop till Gregory joyned it to Benevatus Bishop of Micenas and so had many Castra ordinarily Remigius did appoint a Bishop within his own Diocess when he found that the number of persons needed it Viz. apud Laudunum clavatum Castrum suae Dioeceseos Of Spiridion the Bishop of Trimithantis I spake before XXX Theoph. Alexand. Epist Pasch 3. in Bibl. Pat. To. 3. concludeth thus Pro defunctis Episcopis in locis singulorum constituti In urbe Nichio pro Theopempto Theodosius In Terenuthide Aisinthius In oppido Geras pro Eudaemone Pirozus In Achaeis pro Apolline Musaeus In Athrivide pro Isidoro Athanasius In Cleopatride Offellus In Oppido Lato pro Timotheo Apelles And the nearness and smallness of some of these sheweth the Dioceses small The same Theoph. Alex. saith Epist Canon Can. 6. De iis qui ordinandi sunt haec erit forma ut quicquid est Sacerdotalis ordinis consentiat eligat tunc Episcopus examinet
vel ei etiam assentiente Sacerdotali ordine in media Ecclesia ordinet praesente populo Episcopo alloquente an etiam posset ei populus ferre testimonium Ordinatio autem non fiat clanculum Ecclesia enim pacem habente decet praesentibus sanctis ordinationes fieri in Ecclesia Undoubtedly as Balsamon noteth by Saints is meant fideles the People Here then you see that the Churches then were such where all the Clergy were present with the Bishop who ordained Ministers to a single Church where all the people could be present to be consulted XXXI In the Life of Fulgentius it is said that Plebs ipsius loci ubi fuerat Monasterium constitutum differre suam prorsus Electionem donec inveniret B. Fulgentium cogitabat where the Bishops resolved to ordain though the King forbad it them And though the King persecuted them for it it is added Repleta jam fuerat Provincia Bizacena novis Sacerdotibus pene vix paucarum plebium Cathedrae remanserant destitutae And the Phrase plebium Cathedrae doth signifie a Bishop's Seat in one Congregation of People One Plebs was one Congregation and had its proper Cathedram XXXII Sozomen after Socrates mentioning the diversity of Church Customs as aforesaid l. 7. c. 19. saith that at Alexandria the Arch-Deacon only readeth the Holy Scriptures in other places only the Deacons and in many Churches only the Priests and on solemn days the Bishops By which words it appeareth that then every Church was supposed to have a Bishop Priests and Deacons present in their publick Worship For the Bishop on his solemn days could not be reading in many Churches much less many hundred at once XXXIII Histor Tripartit l. 1. c. 19. out of Sozomen l. 1. c. 14. Edit Lat. Basil p. 1587. telleth us how Arius seeketh as from the Bithynian Synod to Paulinus of Tyre Euseb Caesar Patroph Scythopol ut una cum suis juberetur cum populo qui cum eo erat solennia Sacramenta Ecclesiae celebrare Esse dicens consuetudinem in Alexandria sicut etiam nunc ut uno existente super omnes Episcopo Presbyteri scorsim Ecclesias obtinerent populus in eis Câ—â—â—â—ctas solemniter celebraret Tunc illi una cum aliis Episcopis c. By this with what is said before out of Epiphanius it is undeniable that this gathering of Assemblies by the Presbyters in the same City and administring the Sacrament to them besides the Church where the Bishop was was taken to be Alexandria's singularity even as low as Sozomen's time And yet note that here is even at Alexandria no mention of many Churches in the Countries at a distance much less hundreds thus gathered but only of some few in that great City And if even in a great City and in Epiphan and in Sozomen's days a Presbyter's Church was an Alexandrian Rarity what need we more Historical Evidence of the Case of the Churches in those times XXXIV Ferrandus Diaconus in Epist de 5. Quaest saith to Fulgentius Sanctos Presbyteros Diaconos beatamque Congregationem which was his Church saluto And that you may again see what Congregation or Church that was In vita Fulgentii cap. 17. pag. 8. it is said that the Plebs sought and chose him and that in despight of Foelix the ambitious Deacon who sought the place and sought the life of Fulgentius Populus super suam Cathedram eum collocavit Celebrata sunt eodem die Divina solenniter Sacramenta de manibus Fulgentii Communicans omnis populus laetus discessit And if in the noble City of Ruspe so late as the days of Fulgentius the Bishop's Church-members were no more than could chuse him set him on his seat and all communicate that day at his hands it is easie by this to judge of most other Churches XXXV Concil Parisiens 1. in Caranz pag. 244. Can. 5. saith Nullus civibus invitis ordinetur Episcopus nisi quem Populi Clericorum Electio plenissima quaesierit voluntate Non principis imperio neque per quamlibet conditionem Metropolis voluntate Episcoporum Comprovincialium ingeratur Quod si per ordinationem Regiam honoris sui culmen pervadere aliquis nimia temeritate praesumpserit a Comprovincialibus loci ipsius Episcopis recipi nullatenus mereatur quem indebite assumptum agnoscunt Siquis de Comprovincialibus recipere eum contra indicta praesumpserit sit a fratribus omnibus segregatus ab ipsorum omnium Charitate remotus Here again you see how late all the Church was to chuse every Bishop plenissima voluntate and consequently how great the Church was And were this Canon obeyed all the people must separate from all the Bishops of England as here all are commanded to do from all those Bishops that do but receive one that is put in by the King and not by the free choice of all the Clergy and People of his Church Note that Crab Vol. 2. pag. 144. hath it contra Metropolis voluntatem But both that and Caranza's Reading who omitteth contra seem contrary to the scope and it 's most likely that it should be read Metropolis voluntate contra Episcoporum comprov scilicet voluntatem XXXVI Leo 1. P. Rom. Epist 89. pag. mihi 160. damning Saint Hillary Magisterially yet saith Expectarentur certe vota Civium testimonia populorum quaereretur honoratorum arbitrium Electio Clericorum quae in Sacerdotum solent ordinationibus ab his qui norunt patrum regulas custodiri ut Apostolicae authoritatis norma in omnibus servaretur qua praecipitur ut Sacerdos Ecclesiae praefuturus non solum attestatione fidelium c. Et postea Teneatur subscriptio Clericorum honoratorum testimonium ordinis consensus Plebis Qui praefuturus est omnibus ab omnibus eligatur And how great must that Diocess be where all the Laity must chuse and vote c. It 's true that Epist 87. c. 2. p. 158. he would not have little Congregations to have a Bishop to whom one Presbyter is enough and no wonder at that time that this great Bishop of Rome the first that notably contended for their undue Supremacy in the Empire was of that mind who also Epist 88. saith of the Chorepiscopi Qui juxta Can. Neocaesar sive secundum aliorum decreta patrum iidem sunt qui Presbyteri The falsehood of which being too plain Petavius in Epiphan ad Haeres 74. p. 278. judgeth that these words being in a Parenthesis are irreptitious And ibid. Epist 88. he saith that by the Can. all these things following are forbidden the Chorepisc and Presbyter Presbyterorum Diaconorum aut Virginum consecratio sicut constitutio Altaris ac benedictio vel unctio Siquidem nec erigere eis Altaria nec Ecclesias vel Altaria consecrare licet nec per impositiones manuum fidelibus baptizandis vel conversis ex haeresi Paracletum Spiritum Sanctum tradere nec Chrisma conficere nec Chrismate Baptizatorum frontes
may add as to the former Evidences To. 5. Serm. 52. pag. 705. when he had shewed that in the Church there must be no division he expoundeth it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Qui seipsum ab hoc conventu sejunxerit So that the Assembly was the Church and not a thousandth part of the Church only See more of the Churches feasting together in Baronius ad an 57. pag. ed. Plant. 543. to spare me more labour about this VI. Another Evidence of the Limits of the ancient Churches is that which I oft mentioned in the particular Testimonies that every where all the People either chose or expresly consented to their Bishops and they were ordained over them in their sight And this no more could do than could meet in one place and one part of a Church hath no more right to it than all the rest The Consequence is evident And for them that say that it was only the Parishioners of the Cathedral Church that voted I answer Now Cathedrals have no Parishes and heretofore the Cathedral Parish was the whole Church The Testimonies fully prove that it was All the Church or People that were the Bishop's Flock And for some hundreds of Years there were no Parishes in his Diocess but one and therefore no such distinction Pamelius's heap of Testimonies and many more for the matter of fact I have already cited And however some talk now to justifie the contrary course of our times it is so clear and full in Antiquity that the People chose their Bishops at first principally and after secondarily after the Clergy having a Negative Voice with them and their Consent and Testimony ever necessary even for eight hundred Years at least that it would be a needless thing to cite any more Testimonies of it to any versed in the Ancients Papists and Protestants are agreed de facto that so it was See Cyprian lib. 4. Epist 2. of Cornelius lib. 1. Epist 2. of Sabinus and lib. 1. Epist 4. Euseb Hist lib. 6. cap. 29. tells us that Fabian by the People was chosen to succeed Anterus And Cyprian saith it was Traditione Apostolica vid. Socrat. lib. 4. cap. 14. lib. 2. cap. 6. lib. 7. cap. 35. Sozomen lib. 6. cap. 24. lib. 8. cap. 2. of Chrysostom lib. 6. cap. 13. vid. Augustin Epist 110. Theodoret Hist lib. 1. cap. 9. in Epist Concil Nicaeni ad Alexandr The Bloodshed at the Choice of Damasus was one of the first occasions of laying by that custom at Rome And yet though they met not so tumultuously they must consent Leo's Testimony I gave you before with many more Theodor. lib. 5. cap. 9. of Nectarius sheweth that Bishops were then chosen Plebe praesente universa fraternitate as Cyprian speaketh of Sabinus So the Concil Parisien even an 559. But for more plentiful proof of this see M. A. Spalatens de Rep. Eccles lib. 1. cap. 22. n. 10. lib 6. cap. 7. lib. 3. cap. 3 n. 12. c. Blondel de Jure plebis more copiously and de Epis Presbyt Bilson perpet Govern cap. 15. lib. of Christian Subjection oft And it is to be noted that when the People's Confusion had made them seem uncapable any longer to chuse 1. This was long of the Prelates themselves who by that time had so far enlarged their Churches that the People were neither capable of doing their ancient Work and Duty nor yet of being ruled by the Clergy aright 2. And when the People were restrained from the Choice by Meetings and Vote the Magistrates in their stead did undertake the Power 3. And when it fell out of the People's hands into Great Mens the Proud and Covetous who could best seek and make Friends did get the Bishopricks whereupon the Churches were presently changed corrupted and undone 4. And the sense of this moved the few good Bishops that were left to make Canons against this Power and Choice of Princes and great Men decreeing that all Bishops obtruded by them on the Churches should be as none but be avoided and all avoided that did not avoid them And the Roman and Patriarchal party cunningly joyned with these honest Reformers to get the Choice out of the Magistrate's hands that they might get it into their own and so Christ's Church was abused among ambitious Usurpers The Decrees against Magistrates Choice of Bishops you may see Can. Apost 31. Decret 17. q. 7. c. siquis Episc Sept. Synod c. 3. Decret 16. q. 7. Oct. Synod c. 12. Act. 1. c. 22. Decret 16. q. 7. Nicol. 1. Epist 10. Epist 64. with more which you may find cited by Spalatens lib. 6. cap. 7. pag. 675 676 677. And it is to be noted that though still the Clergy had a Negative or first Choice yet when they procured Charles the Great who was to rise by the Papal help to resign and renounce the Magistrates Election he restored the Church to its Ancient Liberties as far as enlarged Dioceses and ambitious Clergy-men would permit it His words are these Sacrorum Canonum non ignari ut in Dei nomine Sancta Ecclesia suo liberius potiretur honore assensum ordini Ecclesiastico praebuimus ut scilicet Episcopi per Electionem CLERI POPULI secundum statuta Canonum de PROPRIA DIOECESI remota personarum munerum acceptione ob vitae meritum sapientiae donum eligantur ut exemplo verbis sibi subjectis usquequaque prodesse valeant Vid. Baron To. 11. n. 26. Decret Dist 63. c Sacrorum Where note that 1. he includeth the People of the whole Diocess 2. And doth this as according to the sacred Canons So that for Men to dream that only the Parishioners of a Cathedral Church which had no proper Parish or the Citizens only were to chuse is to feign that which is contrary to notorious Evidence of Law and Fact as well as of the reason of the thing For where all are the Bishops Flock and chuse as his Flock there all the Flock must chuse and a parcel can claim no privilege above all the rest VII The next Evidence is this In the first Age it is very fairly proved by Doctor Hammond that there were by the Apostles more Bishops and Churches than one in many Cities themselves And if one City had more than one Church and Bishop then much more many distant places in Towns and Countries That one City had more than one he sheweth by the distinction of Jews and Gentiles Churches As Peter was appointed chiefly for the Jews and Paul chiefly for the Gentiles so he sheweth it very probable that at Rome Antioch and other places they had several Churches And thus he reconcileth the great differences about Linus Clemens and Cletus or Anacletus And especially on this reason that they had not the same Language And indeed when in great Cities there are Christians of divers Languages it is necessary that they be of divers Congregations
other Churches I have before cited a Canon which gave leave to Presbyters to preach in the countrey villages intimating it was rare heretofore 2. Filesacus saith ibid. p. 562 563. Sed ut quod res est libere eloquar illo aevo anteriore cum Parochiae vox vulgo etiam pro Dioecesi usurpatur that is for all the Bishops Charge credo Presbyteros Parochianos dictos fuisse non aliter ac siquis Dioecesanos pronunciaret hoc est In hac Parochia seu Dioecesi ordinatos titulatos But surely whilst Presbyters rarely preached there were either Churches that had no preaching which cannot be proved or else few Assemblies that had not Bishops Obj. But then you make Lay Elders of the Presbyters Ans They were the abler sort of Christians ordained to the same Ministerial or Sacerdotal Office as all true Ministers are But few of them being Learned men and able to make long Sermons were imployed only as the Bishops assistants as elders are among the Presbyterians who if they would but ordain those Elders and let them have power over the word and Sacraments though only to exercise it under the Bishops or chief Pastors guidance when there was cause they would come nearest to the ancient use XXIII And it seemeth to me an evidence that the Churches then were usually but as narrow as I assert that the Presbyters were to abide with the Bishop and attend him in his City Church For if you suppose them able to Teach or guide a flock themselves as some were such as Augustine Macarius Ephrem Syrus Tertullian c. it is scarce credible to me that the Bishop would suffer such worthy persons to sit among his Auditors when there were many countrey congregations that needed their help For that the Church was so supplied with Preachers as that besides all these Presbyters in the Bishops Church there were enow for all the rest of the countrey Parishes as now is contrary to all the intimations of Church-History And therefore when we read of so many Presbyters with the Bishop before we read of many or scarce any elsewhere surely there were no people that needed them XXIV And yet though great Cities had many with the Bishop I may add that the paucity of Presbyters under the generality of Bishops sheweth that their Dioceses then were but like Parish Churches with their Chappels Or else Aurelius and the other Bishops in the Carthage Council needed not have been in doubt whether those Bishops that had but one or two Presbyters should have one taken from them to make a Bishop of which was yet affirmatively decreed because there may be more found fit to make Presbyters of where it 's hard to find any fit to be Bishops I will speak it in the words of the learned Bishop Bilsons Perpet Govern c. 13. p. 256. In greater Churches they had great numbers of Presbyters In smaller they had often two somewhere one and sometimes none And yet for all this defect of Presbyters the Bishops then did not refrain to impose hands without them The number of Presbyters in many places were two in a Church as Ambrose writeth on 1 Tim. 3. sometimes but one In the third Council Carthag when it was agreed that the Primate of that City might take the Presbyters of every Diocese and Ordain them Bishops for such places as desired them though the Bishop under whom the Presbyter before lived were unwilling to spare him Posthumianus a Bishop demanded what if a Bishop have but one only Presbyter must that one be taken from him Aurelius the Bishop of Carthage answered One Bishop may Ordain many Presbyters but a Presbyter fit for a Bishoprick is not easily found wherefore if a man have but one only Presbyter and fit for the room of a Bishop he ought to yield that one to be Ordained Posthumianus replied Then if another Bishop have a number of Clerks that others store should relieve him Aurelius answered Surely as you helped another Church so he that hath many Clerks shall be driven to spare you one of them to be ordained by you A Diocese such as is intimated here we do not strive against XXIV Another evidence is that when ever we read of persecution turning the Christians out of their Churches you ever find them gathered into one Congregation when they could have leisure and place to meet in and usually a Bishop with them unless he were banished imprisoned or martyred and then some Presbyter supplied the place or unless they were scattered into many little parcels And you find no talk of the persecution of multitudes of Countrey Presbyters afar off but of the Bishop with his City Presbyters and Church To which add that it was One Church still which rejected obtruded Bishops and refused to obey the Emperour who imposed them All this is manifest in Gregory Neocaesar his flight with Musonius and the state of his Church In the Case of Basil and of Lucius the obtruded Bishop at Alexandria and in the Case of Antioch before described and of Rome it self It 's tedious to cite numerous testimonies in a well known case If Alexandria was in such a case or near it I hope you will doubt of no other Churches And that with this you may see what Conventicles the Christians kept when the Emperours forbad them and how resolutely the Bishops preached when the Emperours silenced them I will recite the words of Baronius himself and in him of Dionysius Alexandr apud Euseb lib. 7. c. 10. c. 17. and Cyprian ep 5. c. in Baron ad an 57. p. 542. that those who cry out against Preaching and Conventicles when they are but strong enough to drive others out of the Temples may better understand themselves Siquando c. If at any time so vehement a persecution did arise that the Christians by the Emperours edicts were utterly excluded from the Churches and assemblies notwithstanding little regarding such things they forbore not to come together in One in holy assemblies whithersoever there was opportunity This Dionys Alexand. Bishop witnesseth writing to Germanus when he mentioneth the Edicts of Valerian forbidding the Assemblies But we by Gods assistance have not abstained from our accustomed Assemblies celebrated among our selves Yea I my self did drive on certain brethren to keep the assemblies diligently as if I had converst among them And he writeth the same also to Hierax when he was banished When we were persecuted by all and put to death we celebrated the Feast with joyful minds and any place appointed us for several sorts of sufferings as the woods the desert solitudes the tossed ships the common Innes the horrid prison did seem fit to us in which we might keep our solemn Assemblies with the greatest joy That they held their Assemblies and offered sacrifice usually when it was permitted them in the prisons Cyprian witnesseth But the Acts of the holy Martyrs do fullier signifie it especially those most faithful
the true Church or godly people while the Walls were adorned as if Christ had come from Heaven more for Walls than Souls c. of which before In a word nothing is more evident than that true Discipline was shut out at the times and in the degrees as Diocesses were enlarged and that in Aâ—rick and other places where the Churches or Diocesses were more small and numerous discipline was best preserved II. The second sort of experience is that of almost all the Reformed Churches who have found the Pastoral work and Discipline particularly to be so great as that less than all the Parish Ministers concurring could not perform it 1. Those Churches which with Calvin set up Presbytery exclude no Pastor from the Governing part but took in Elders of the people to help them because experience had told them that all the Ministers were too few what then would one Bishop and Chancellour or Vicar have been able to do 2. The Lutherans who set up superintendants commonly so set them over the Pastors as not to take away the true Pastoral power of governing their particular flocks as finding by experience that the old way of Prelacy would not do it And usually they join Magistrates with them as they also in the Palatinate did And it is such an oderate supriority which is exercised in Hungary Transilvania and in Poland till the Papists rooted them out thence 3. The Helvetian Divines exercise a certain measure of power in keeping the unfit from the Sacrament but not what they judge to be the Churches duty because the Magistrate never would consent That the Pastors are for it as needful to the right ordering of the Churches you may see in Polani Syntag. at large and in most of their Divines of Basil Bern Zurich c. I will now only cite the honest hearty words of Musculus above 100 years ago because he was a man most clear and candid and that did mancipate his judgment neither to Luther Calvin nor any party as such but took liberty to differ from them all as in the points of Redemption perseverance c. At Bern in his Loci Commun ed. 1567. p. 421 He proveth Bishops and Presbyters and Doctors and Pastors to be all one And p. 422. that in the Apostolick Primitive Church they governed the Church in common being subject to no head or president But after the Apostles daies as Hierome saith to avoid schism but as he thinketh more out of a desire of Majority one got the name and presidency of a Bishop But saith he whether this counsel did profit the Church or not by which such Bishops were introduced as Hierome saith by custome rather than by truth of divine disposition to be above the Presbyters it hath been better manifested to after ages than when this custome was first brought in which we must thank for all the insolency wealth and tyranny of the Principal and Equestral Bishops yea for the corruption of all the Churches which if Hierome had seen undoubtedly he would have known that it was the devise not of the Spirit of God to take away schisms as was pretended but of Satan himself to lay waste and destroy the ancient Ministers for feeding the Lords flock whereby it might come to pass that the Church might have not true Pastors Doctors Presbyters and Bishops but under the masks of those names idle-bellies and magnisick Princes who will not only not themselves feed the people of God with sound Apostolick Doctrine but also take care by most wicked violence that it be done by no one else By this devise of Satan it is brought to pass that instead of Bishops the Churches have potent Lords and Princes for the most chosen out of the order of Nobles and great men who being upheld by their own and their kindreds power may domineer over the flock of God as they list And p. 423. The office appointed to the Bishops that came after the Apostles times was to preach to the people to adminster the sacred things to prescribe repentance to take the care of the clergy and the people both in City and Country to ordain to visit to take care that the goods of the Church be rightly kept and dispensed and to take the patronage of Church-matters with Princes And if the Bishops had but staid here it had been better with the Church Or if the Prelates and Pastors of our times would return to these Canonical Rules there might be hope that the Eccleasiastical State and order might possibly be reformed and the controversies of these times might be ended by the word of God Hence it is plain that the office of true Presbyters and Bishops in the Church of Christ is to feed the Lords flock with sound Doctrine and to be truly Pastors and Teachers But now the false Bishops pretend a Pastoral Cure when going to the Assembly-Offices they are as they take it Episcopally cloathed They put on a white stole longer than ordinary with a girdle not such as John Baptist wore c. The maskd Pastor thus dressed doth not feed the flock of God but performeth the Church service in such a gesture Ceremony and dralect that all the matters of the Church may be nothing else than certaine vaine and pompous shewes so that if one of the Apostles were there he would never so much as dreame that this were the Episcopal feeding of the Lords flock Thus the Bishop doing once or twice a year doth Suffciently performe his Office what ever he do the rest of the time The ordination of Ministers and other things accounted Ecclesiastical he committeth partly to his suffiragane and partly to his Vicar or Chancellor The office of Teaching he committeth to some Doctor or Monk so sworne as that he shall not dare to speake a word or hisse besides what is prescribed him in the formes of Lawes Thus far I confess he speakes of the Popish Bishops But who would believe he meant not ours that had seen them And how little do they differ Well you shall next hear him speak of Protestant Bishops Pag. 425 Let us now come to other Ministers Pastors and Bishops divers from these who do nothing in the Church of Christ but Preach and teach They have certaine daies of the weeke on which they Preach And that is well They Preach only out of the holy Scriptures And that well too But this is not well that very many of them speak formally and coldly and not from the heart so that what Seneca somewhere saith agreeth to them Animum non faciunt quia animum non habent They make not men hearty or serious because they are not so themselves And that of the Roman Orator thou wouldst never talk thus if thou speakest from the heart Nor do they accommodate the word of God to the Hearers by pertinent and profitable distribution but they think they have well performed their office if they have any how spoken out the hour In the
2. c. 5. That were for seventy years after their conversion without a Bishop Vlphilas being the first 4. Columbanus was no Bishop but a Presbyter and Monk nor his Successours that yet Ruled even the Bishops as Beda noteth Hist. li 3. c. 4. 5. Hâ—here solet ipsa Insula Rectorem semper Abbatem Presbyterum cujus jure omnis provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitatâ— debeant esse subjecti juxta exemplum primi Doctoris illius Columbani qui non Episcopus sed Presbyter extitit Monachus And these Presbyters did not only ordaine as being the only Church Governours but they sent Preachers into England and ordained Bishops for England at King Oswalds request as Beda at large relateth Eccles Hist l. 3. c. 3. 5. 17. 21. 24 25. The Abbot and other Presbyters of the Island Hy sent Aydan ipsum esse dignum Episcopatu ipsum ad erudiendos incredulos indoctos mitti debere decernunt Sicque illum ordinantes ad praedicandum miserunt c. Successit vero ei in Episcopatu Finan ipse illo ab Hy Scotorum insula ac monasterio destinatus c. 17. cap. 25. Aydano Episcopo de hac vita sublato Finan pro illo gradum Episcopatus a Scotis ordinatus missus acceperat c. So cap â—4 c. You will find that the English had a Succession of Bishops by the Scotish Presbyters ordination And there is no mention in Beda of any dislike or scruple of the lawfulness of this course Segenius a Presbyter was Abbot of Hy cap. 5. when this was done And cap. 4. it appears that this was their ordinary custome though in respect to the Churches that were in the Empire it be said to be more inusitato that Presbyters did Govern Bishops but none questioned the validity of their ordinations And the Council at Herudford subjecteth Bishops in obedience to their Abbots And the first reformers or Protestants here called Lollords and Wicklifists held and practised ordination by mere Presbyters as Walsingham reports Hist Angl. An. 1â— 89. and so did Luther and the Protestants of other Nations as Pomeranus ordination in Denmark shews and Chytraeus Saxon Chron lib. 14. 15. 16. 17. 5. Leo Mag. Epist 92. cited by Gratian being consulted a rustico Narbonensi de Presbytero vel Diacono qui se Episcopos mentiti sunt de his quos ipsi clericos ordinârâ—nt answered Nulla ratio sâ—vit ut inter Episcopos habeantur qui nec a clericis sunt electi nec a plebibus expetiti c. yet thus resolveth of their ordination Siqui autèm Clerici ab ipsis Pseudo Episcopis in eis Ecclesus ordinati sunt quae ad proprios Episcopos pertinebant ordinatio eorum cum consensu judicio presidentium facta est potest â—ata haberi ita ut in ipsis Ecclesus perseverunt So that the mere consent of the proper Bishops can make valid such Presbyters ordination 6. Fâ—licissimus was ordained Deacon by Novatus one of Cyprians Presbyters Schismatically yet was not his ordination made Null by Cyprian but he was deposed for Mal-administration See Blondel p. 312. 113. 7. Firmilian in 75 Epist apud Cyprian Saith Necessariò apud nos fit ut per singulos annos seniores praepositi in unum conveniamus ad disponenda quae curae nostrae commissa sunt ut si quae graviora sunt communi consilio dirigantur This shews that communi consilio importeth a consenting Governing Power c. Omnis potestas gratia in Ecclesus constituta ubi praesident majores natu qui baptizandi manum imponeâ—â—â— ordinandi possidâ—nt Potestatem If any say It is only Bishops that Formilian speakes of I answer 1. He had a little before used the word Seniores the same in sense with Majores natu here as distinct from Praepositi to signifie either all Pastors in general or Presbyters in special 2. When he speakes of Majores natu in general they that will limit it to Bishops must prove it so limited and not barely affirme it 3. The conjunct acts of the office disprove that It was the same men that had the power of baptizing 8. The great Council of Nice the most reverend Authority next to the holy Scripture decreed thus concerning the Presbyters ordained by Melitius at Alexandria and in Egypt Hi autem qui Dei gratiâ nostris precibus adjuti ad nullum Schisma deflexisse comperti sint sed se intra Catholicae Apostolicae Ecclesiae fines ab erroris labe vacuos continuerint authoritatem habeant tum ministros ordinandi tum eos que clero digni fuerint nominandi tum denique omnia ex lege instituto Ecclesiastico libere exequendi If any say that the meaning is that these Presbyters shall ordain and Govern with the Bishops but not withoutthem I am of his mind that this must needs be the meaning of these words or else they could not be consonant with the Church Canons But this sheweth that ordination belongeth to the Presbyters office and consequently that it is no nullity though an irregulrity as to the Canons when it is done by them alone Socrat. lib. 5. 6. cap. 6. 9. It is the title of the twelfth Canon Concil An cyrani Quod non oportet Chorepiscopos ordinare nisi in agris villulis Now either these Chorepiscopi were of the order of Bishops or not If they were then it further appeareth how small the Churches were in the beginning that had Bishops even such as had but Vnum Altare as Ignatius saith when even in the Countrey Villages they had Bishops as well as in Cities notwithstanding that the Christians were but thinly scattered among the Heathens But if they were not Bishops then it is apparent that Presbyters did then ordain without Bishops and their ordination was valid And the Vafrities of the Prelates is disingenious in this that when they are pleading for Diocesan Churches as containing many fixed Congregations then they eagerly plead that the Chorepiscopi were of the order of Presbyters But when they plead against Presbyters ordination they would prove them Bishops Read Can. 10. Concilii Antiocheni 10. Even in the daies of ignorance and Roman Usurpation Bonifacius Mogunt alias Wilfred Epist 130 Auct Bib. Pat. To 2. p. 105. tells Pope Zachary as his answer intimateth that in Gente Boiariorum there was but one Bishop and that was one Vivilo which the Pope had ordained and that all the Prebyters that were ordained among them as far as could be sound were not ordained by Bishops though that ignorant usurping Pope requireth as it seemeth that they be reordained unless Benedictionem ordinationis should signifie only the blessing or confirmation of their former ordination which is not like For he saith Quia indicasti perrexisse te ad gentem Boiariorum inâ—enisse eos extra ordinem ecclesiasticum viventes dum Episcopos non habebant in Provincia nisi
any Parish or Congregation belonging to them When find you Augustine teaching in any Church but one in Hippo as part of his charge Of Epiphanius I need not speak seeing it is confest that in Cyprus no City had two Churches in his days and that it was their custome to place Bishops in villages as Socrates Sozomen and Nicephorus agree So that the matter of fact is certain except four or five Churches if so many in all the world 400 years after Christ and except but two or three hundred years after Christ you will find no Bishop in any Church but one as part of his own Charge But the consequence inferred hence will be denied because the other Parishes might be taught by Subpresbyters without him Answ But I would ask 1. Whether all the rest of the Parishes were not the Bishops Charge yea part of his Church yea equally with the other part As to what Onuphrius and others say of the stations and the Bishops going from Church to Church 1. It was scarce any where but in Rome 2. It was of later times 3. It was only in the City 4. It was commonly the same auditors that followed him to several Churches And it 's true that other Bishops went to the memorials of the Martyrs oft and had as monuments more Churches than assemblies And it 's true that of later times certain Canons bind the Bishops to visit all their Parishes And the eldest oblige him to visit all the people which sheweth that yet his Docese was not great If he be the Bishop of the Church and the office of a Bishop be to guide the Church in Worship and by Discipline then he is bound to do this to all the Church indeed if you make but a meer Presbyter of him then as many may divide the work between them so each might know his proper part as things stood when Parishes or Chappels were divided But if a Bishop as such be the uniting head as the King of a Kingdom he must be equally related to the whole But if it were not equally who can believe that there was so great a difference in the parts of the same Church as that one parcel of them only should have right to their Bishops presence teaching worshipping and personal guidance and ten twenty an hundred a thousand other parcels have no right at all What! a Bishop of a whole Church not at all obliged to Teach or Guide in personal worshipping any part of that Church but one Some great change was made in Churches before men could arrive at such a conceit Even now among us a Bishop taketh himself by the constraining Law of man which is his Rule to visit his Diocese once in three years I do not mean one Church of fourty or an hundred in his Diocese much less to preach himself usually in those few Towns he comes to but to call his Curate Priests together and to set one of them to preach his Visitation Sermon But where find you this done by three Bishops in the world for 300 years after Christ unless that Archbishops visited the Bishops Churches under them Now they say there have been Bishops in England who have once in three years confirmed some children abroad throughout their Diocese I do not mean one of two hundred but where find you that then the Bishop went out of his City to do this 2. My next question therefore is Whether the Bishops of those times were not at least as conscionable and careful and laborious in their offices as any now are if not much more What! not a Gregory a Basil a Chrysostome an Augustine a Fulgentius a Hillary c. What! not they that preached almost daily They that write so strictly of the labours of the Ministery They that lived so austerely and favoured not the flesh that speak so tenderly of the worth of souls And would all these think you undertake to be Bishops of a whole Church and yet so leave the whole work upon others as never to come among them and teach them and examine them nor give them the Sacrament in all the Parishes of the Diocese save one This is not credible If you say that in Alexandria it was certainly so that distinct congregations were committed to the Presbyters I answer 1. Yet so as that they might any part of them as living in the same city come and hear the Bishop when they would 2. They might communicate with him per vices if they would 3. They were all bound to do so at the great festivals of the year 4. They were all personally governed by the discipline of the Bishop and Presbyters conjunct in Council But of this next XXI Another evidence is that the whole Plebs or people of the Bishops charge till Churches were setled under Presbyters far off in the countreys were bound by the Canons to come to the Cathedral Church and communicate with the Bishop at Easter Whitsuntide and some other such festivals even after they were distinguished into several Auditories and Communicating Assemblies under Presbyters which I have before proved from the particular Canons which certainly proveth that the Dioceses were no more than could assemble in one place XXII Another evidence is that Presbyters did but rarely preach in the two or three first ages except in Alexandria or in some few Churches which had got some extraordinary men Chrysostome's preaching at Antioch Augustin's at Hippo while they were but Presbyters are noted as unusual things And it is said of Augustine as forecited that it being not usual in other Churches for the Presbyters to preach in the Bishops presence the example of that Church by the humility of the honest Bishop who preferred his abler Presbyter before himself did lead many other Churches into the same practice Spalatensis and many others have given large proofs that the Bishops and not the Presbyters were the ordinary preachers in their Church * Filesacus saith De Episcop authorit cap. 15. Sect. 1. pag. 344. Episcopos consuevisse ex ambone verba facere refert Concil Lateran sub Martino Concil Trull c. 33. Permissum deinde Presbyteris quanquam non passim nec in quibuslibet ecclesiis Diaconis olim id concessum sed raro p. 351. ait Balsamon juris Graeco-Romani li. 2. cap. 9. in Alexii Comneni Bullis Populum docere solis est datum Episcopis magnae ecclâ—siae Doctores Patriarchae jure docent These were like our Canons as he shews at large and this was in later ages when a Bishop might teach per alium And p. 351 352. Concil Trull c. 64. docet ex Greg. Nazianz. solis Episcopis convenire concionari sanctas scripturas interpretari Presbyteris vero non nisi Episcoporum concessione Of the Bishops teaching see the numerous citations in Filesacus cap. 1. And if any be stumbled at the name Presbyteri Parochiani usual in the Councils and Fathers as if they were Countrey Presbyters who preached then in