divide and separate from Church-society so it is an offence on the other side to continue communion when it is a duty to withdraw it For the resolving this knotty and intricate Question I shall lay down some things by way of premisall and come closely to the resolution of it First Every Christian is under an obligation to joyn in Church-society with others because it is his duty to professe himself a Christian and to own his Religion publickly and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel which cannot be without society with some Church or other Every Christian as such is bound to look upon himself as the member of a body viz. the visible Church of Christ and how can he be known to be a member who is not united with other parts of the body There is then an obligation upon all Christianâ— to engage in a religious Society with others for partaking of the Ordinances of the Gospel It hath been a case disputed by some particularly by Grotius the supposed Author of a little Tract An semper sit communicandum per symbolu when he designed the Syncretism with the Church of Rome whether in a time when Churches are divided it be a Christians duty to communicate with any of those parties which divide the Church and not rather to suspend communion from all of them A case not hard to be decided for either the person questioning it doth suppose the Churches divided to remain true Churches but some to be more pure then others in which case by vertue of his generall obligation to communion he is bound to adhere to that Church which appears most to retain its Evangelicall purity Or else he must suppose one to be a true Church and the other not in which the case is clearer that he is bound to communicate with the true Church or he must judge them alike impure which is a case hard to be found but supposing it is so either he hath joyned formerly with one of them or he is now to choose which to joyn with if he be joyned already with that Church and sees no other but as impure as that he is bound to declare against the impurity of the Church and to continue his communion with it if he be to choose communion he may so long suspend till he be satisfied which Church comes nearest to the primitive constitution and no longer And therefore I know not whether Chrysostomes act were to be commended who after being made a Deacon in the Church of Antioch by Meletius upon his death because Flavianus came in irregularly as Bishop of the Church would neither communicate with him nor with Paulinus another Bishop at that time in the City nor with the Meletians but for three years time withdrew himself from communion with any of them Much lesse were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Haesitantes as the Latins called them to be commended who after the determination of the Council of Chalcedou against Entyches because of great differences remaining in Egypt and the Eastern Churches followed Zenoes Henoticum and would communicate neither with the Orthodox Churches nor Eutychians But I see not what censure Jâ—â—ome could in â—urr who going into the Diocesse of Antioeh and finding the Churches there under great divisions there being besides the Arian Bishop three others in the Church of Antioch Meletius Paulinus and Vitalis did so long suspend communion with any of them till he had satisfied himself about the occasion of the Schism and the innocency of the persons and Churches engaged in it But if he had withdrawn longer he had offended against his obligation to joyn in Church-society with others for participation of Gospel-Ordinances which is the necessary duty of every Christian. Secondly Every Christian actually joyned in Church-society with others is so long bound to maintain society with them till his communion with them becomes sin For nothing else can justifie withdrawing from such a Society but the unlawfulness of continuing any longer in it Supposing a Church then to remain true as to its constitution and essentials but there be many corruptions crept into that Church whether is it the duty of a Christian to withdraw from that Church because of those corruptions and to gather new Churches only for purer administration or to joyn with them only for that end This as far as I understand it is the state of the Controversie between our Parochiall Churches and the Congregationall The resolution of this great Question must depend on this Whether is it a sin to communicate with Churches true as to essentialls but supposed corrupt in the exercise of discipline For Parochiall Churches are not denyed to have the essentialls of true Churches by any sober Congregational men For there is in them the true Word of God preached the true Sacraments administred and an implicite Covenant between Pastor and People in their joyning together All that is pleaded then is corruption and defect in the exercise and administration of Church order and Discipline Now that it is lawfull for Christians to joyn with Churches so defective is not only acknowledged by Reverend Mr. Norton in his answer to Apollius but largely and fully proved For which he layes down five Propositions which deserve to be seriously considered by all which make that a plea for withdrawing from society with other Churches First A Believer may lawfully joyn himself in communion with such a Church where he cannot enjoy all the Ordinances of God aâ— in the Jewish Church in our Saviours time which refused the Gospel of Christ and the baptism of Iohn and yet our Saviour bids us hear the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Chair which hearing saith he doth imply conjunctionem Ecclesiae Iudaicae a joyning with the Iewish Church and so with Churches rejecting an article of faith in the Church of Corinth the doctrine of the Reâ—â—â—rection in the Churches of Galatia the doctrine of Ju 〈…〉 ion by faith but the Apostle no-where requires separation on that account from them Secondly A Believer may lawfully joyn in communion with such a Church in which some corruption in the worship of God is tolerated without Reformation As the offering on High-places from Solomon to Hezâ—kiah in the Church of Iuda observation of Circumcâ—sion and the necessity of keeping the Ceremonial Law in the Churches of Galaâ—ia Thirdly A Believer may lawfully joyn himself in communion with such a Church in which such are admitted to Sacraments who give no evident signs of grace but seem to be Lovers of this World which he proves because it is every ones main duty to examine himself and because anothers sin is no hurt to him and therefore cannot keep him from his duty and then by mens coming unworthily non polluitur communio licet minuitur consolatio the communion iâ— not defiled though the comfort of it be diminished He brings instance from the Church of Corinth among whom were many
avoiding of her errours and not partaking of her sins is Thence we read in Scripture of rejecting such as are hereticks and withdrawing from their society which will as well hold to Churches as to persons and so much the more as the corruption is more dangerous and the relation nearer of a member to a Church then of one man to another And from the reason of that command we read in Ecclesiasticall History that when Eulalius Euphronius and Placentius were constituted Bishops of Antioch being Arrians many both of the Clergy and people who resolved to adhere to the true faith withdrew from the publike meetings and had private Assemblies of their own And after when Leontius was made Bishop of Antioch who favour'd the Arrians Flavianus and Diodorus not only publikely reproved him for deserting the Orthodox faith but withdrew the people from communion with him and undertook the charge of them themselves So when Foelix was made Bishop of Rome none of the Church of Rome would enter into the Church while he was there And Vincentius Lyrinensis tells us a remarkable story of Photinus Bishop of Syrmium in Pannonia a man of great abilities and same who suddenly turned from the true faith and though his people both loved and admired him yet when they discerned his errours Quem antea quasi arietem gregis sequebantur eundem deinceps veluti lupum fugere coeperunt Whom they followed before as the leader of the flock they now run away from as a devouring woolf This is the first thing which makes separation and withdrawment of communion lawfull and necessary viz. corruption of Doctrine The second is Corruption of practice I speak not of practice as relating to the civil conversation of men but as it takes in the Agenda of Religion When Idolatrous customs and superstitious practices are not only crept into a Church but are the prescribed devotion of it Such as the adoration of the Eucharist chiefly insisted on by Mr. Daillé in his Apology as a cause of separation from the Church of Rome invocation of Saints and Angels worshipping Images and others of a like nature used among the Papists which are of themselves sufficient to make our separation from them necessary But then thirdly as an accession to these two is the publike owning and professing them and requiring them as necessary conditions of communion from all the members of their Church which makes our withdrawing from them unavoidably necessary as long as we judge them to be such corruptions as indeed they are For men not to forsake the belief of errours supposing them to be such is impossible and not to forsake the practice and profession of them upon such belief were the highest hypocrisie and to do so and not to forsake the communion of that Church where these are owned is apparently contradictious as Mr. Chilling worth well observes seeing the condition of communion with it is that we must professe to believe all the doctrines of that Church not only not to be errours but to be certain and necessary truths So that on this account to believe there are any errours in the Church of Rome is actually and ipso facto to forsake the communion of that Church because the condition of its communion is the belief that there are none And so that learned and rationall Author there fully proves that those who require unlawfull and unnecessary conditions of communion must take the imputation of Schism upon themselves by making separation from them just and necessary In this case when corruptions in opinion or practice are thus required as conditions of communion it is impossible for one to communicate with such a Church without sin both materially as the things are unlawfull which he joyns with them in and formally as he judgeth them so This is the first Proposition The second is Where a Church retains the purity of doctrine in its publick profession but hath a mixture of some corruptions as to practice which are only tolerated and not imposed it is not lawfull to withdraw communion from such a Church much lesse to run into totall separation from it For here is no just and lawfull cause given of withdrawing here is no owned corruption of doctrine or practice nor any thing required as a condition of communion but what is in its self necessary and therefore there can be no plea but only pollution from such a communion which cannot be to any who do not own any such supposed corruptions in the Church Men may communicate with a Church and not communicate with the abuses of a Church for the ground of his communicating is its being a Church and not a corrupt or defective Church And that men are not themselves guilty by partaking with those who are guilty of corruptions in a Church might be easily and largely proved both from the Church of the Jews in the case of Elies sons and the Christian Churches of Asâ—â— and Corinth where we read of many corruptions reproved yet nothing spoken of the duty of the members of those Churches to separate from them which would have been had it been a sin to communicate with those Churches when such corruptions were in it Besides what reason is there that one mans sins should defile another more then anothers graces sanctifie another and why corruption in another should defile him more then in himself and so keep him from communicating with himself and what security any one can have in the most refined Churches but that there is some scandalous or at least unworthy person among them and whether then it is not his duty to try and examine all himself particularly with whom he communicates and why his presence at one Ordinance should defile it more then at another and why at any more then in wordly converse and so turn at last to make men Anchorets as it hath done some Many other reasons might be produced against this which I forbear it being fully spoke to by others And so I come to the Third Proposition which is Where any Church retaining the purity of doctrine doth require the owning of and conforming to any unlawfull or suspected practice men may lawfully deny conformity to and communion with that Church in such things without incurring the guilt of Schism I say not men may proceed to positive Schism as it is call'd that is erecting of new Churches which from Cyprian is call'd erigere Altare contra Altare but only that withdrawing communion from a Church in unlawfull or suspected things doth not lay men under the guilt of Schism which because I know it may meet with some opposition from those men who will sooner call men Schismaticks then prove them so I shall offer this reason for it to consideration If our separation from the Church of Rome was therefore lawfull because she required unlawfull things as conditions of her communion then where-ever such things are required by any Church non-communion
sufficient for Communion with a Church which are sufficient for eternal salvation And certainly those things are sufficient for that which are laid down as the necessary duties of Christianity by our Lord and Saviour in his Word What ground can there be why Christians should not stand upon the same terms now which they did in the time of Christ and his Apostles Was not Religion sufficiently guarded and fenced in them Was there ever more true and cordial Reverence in the Worship of God What Charter hath Christ given the Church to bind men up to more then himself hath done or to exclude those from her Society who may be admitted into Heaven Will Christ ever thank men at the great day for keeping such out from Communion with his Church whom he will vouchsafe not onely Crowns of Glory to but it may be aureolae too if there be any such things there The grand Commission the Apostles were sent out with was onely to teach what Christ had commanded them Not the least intimation of any Power given them to impose or require any thing beyond what himself had spoken to them or they were directed to by the immediate guidance of the Spirit of God It is not Whether the things commanded and required be lawfull or no It is not Whether indifferencies may be determined or no It is not How far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian liberty which I now inquire after of those things in the Treatise its self but Whether they do consult for the Churches peace and unity who suspend it upon such things How far either the example of our Saviour or his Apostles doth warrant such rigorous impositions We never read the Apostles making Lawes but of things supposed necessary When the Councel of Apostles met at Ierusalem for deciding a Case that disturbed the Churches peace we see they would lay no other burden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides these necessary things Acts 15. 29. It was not enough with them that the things would be necessary when they had required them but they looked on an antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state which was the onely ground of their imposing those commands upon the Gentile-Christians There were after this great diversities of practice and varieties of Observations among Christians but the Holy Ghost never thought those things fit to be made matters of Lawes to which all parties should conform All that the Apostles required as to these was mutuall forbearance and condescension towards each other in them The Apostles valued not indifferencies at all and those things it is evident they accounted such which whether men did them or not was not of concernment to Salvation And what reason is there why men should be so strictly tied up to such things which they may do or let alone and yet be very good Christians still Without all Controversie the main in-let of all the Distractions Confusions and Divisions of the Christian World hath been by adding other conditions of Church-Communion then Christ hath done Had the Church of Rome never taken upon her to add to the Rule of Faith nor imposed Idolatrous and superstitious practises all the injury she had done her self had been to have avoyded that fearful Schisme which she hath caused throughout the Christian World Would there ever be the less peace and unity in a Church if a diversity were allowed as to practices supposed indifferent yea there would be so much more as there was a mutual forbearance and condiscension as to such things The Unity of the Church is an Unity of love and affection and not a bare uniformity of practice or opinion This latter is extreamly desireable in a Church but as long as there are several ranks and sizes of men in it very hardly attainable because of the different perswasions of mens minds as to the lawfulness of the things required and it is no commendation for a Christian to have only the civility of Procrustes to commensurate all other men to the bed of his own humour and opinion There is nothing the Primitive Church deserves greater imitation by us in then in that admirable temper moderation and condescension which was used in it towards all the members of it It was never thought worth the while to make any standing Laws for Rites and Customs that had no other Original but Tradition much less to suspend men her his communion for not observing them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Sozomen tells us They judged it and that very justly a foolish and frivolous thing for those that agree in the weighty matters of Religion to separate from one anothers communion for the sake of some petty Customs and Observations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Churches agreeing in the same Faith often differ in their Rites and Customes And that not only in different Churches but in different places belonging to the same Church for as he tells us many Cities and Villages in Egypt not onely differed from the Customes of the Mother-Church of Alexandria but from all other Churches besides in their publick Assemblies on the Evenings of the Sabbath and receiving the Eucharist after dinner This admirable temper in the Primitive Church might be largely cleared from that liberty they allowed freely to dissenters from them in matters of practice and opinion as might be cleared from Cyprian Austine Ierome and others but that would exceed the bounds of a Preface The first who brake this Order in the Church were the Arrians Donatists and Circumcellians while the true Church was still known by his pristine Moderation and sweetness of deportment towards all its members The same we hope may remain as the most infallible evidence of the conformity of our Church of England to the Primitive not so much in using the same rites that were in use then as in not imposing them but leaving men to be won by the observing the true decency and order of Churches whereby those who act upon a true Principle of Christian ingenuity may be sooner drawn to a complyance in all lawfull things then by force and rigorous impositions which make men suspect the weight of the thing it self when such force is used to make it enter In the mean time what cause have we to rejoyce that Almighty God hath been pleased to restore us a Prince of that excellent Prudence and Moderation who hath so lately given assurance to the World of his great indulgence towards all that have any pretence from Conscience to differ with their Brethren The onely thing then seeming to retard our peace is the Controversie about Church-Government an unhappy Controversie to us in England if ever there were any in the World And the more unhappy in that our contentions about it have been so great and yet so few of the multitudes engaged in it that have truly understood the matter they have so eagerly contended about For the state of the controversie as it concerns
us lyes not here as it is generally mistaken What Form of Government comes the nearest to Apostolical practice but Whether any one individual form be founded so upon Divine Right that all Ages and Churches are bound unalterably to observe it The clearing up of which by an impartial inquiry into all the grounds produced for it being of so great tendency to an accommodation of our present differences was the only motive which induced me to observe Aristotles wild Politicks of exposing this deformed conception to the entertainment of the wide World And certainly they who have espoused the most the interest of a jus divinum cannot yet but say that if the opinion I maintain be true it doth exceedingly conduce to a present settlement of the differences that are among us For then all parties may retain their different opinions concerning the Primitive form and yet agree and pitch upon a form compounded of all together as the most suitable to the state and condition of the Church of God among us That so the peoples interest be secured by consent and suffrage which is the pretence of the congregational way the due power of Presbyteries asserted by their joynt-concurrence with the Bishop as is laid down in that excellent model of the late incomparable Primate of Armagh and the just honour and dignity of the Bishop asserted as a very laudable and ancient constitution for preserving the Peace and Unity of the Church of God So the Learned Is. Casaubon describes the Polity of the Primitive Church Episcopi in singulis Ecclesiis constituti cum suis Prebyteriis propriam sibi quisque peculiari cura universam omnes in commune curantes admirabilis cujusdam Aristocraâ—iae speciem referebant My main design throughout this whole â—reatise is to shew that there can be no argument drawn from any pretence of a Divine Right that may hinder men from consenting and yielding to such a form of Government in the Church as may bear the greatest correspondency to the Primitive Church and be most advantagiously conduceable to the peace unity and settlement of our divided Church I plead not at all for any abuses or corruptions incident to the best form of Government through the corruption of men and times Nay I dare not harbour so low apprehensions of persons enjoying so great dignity and honour in the Church that they will in any wise be unwilling of themselves to reduce the Form of Church Government among us to its Primitive state and order by retrenching all Exorbitances of Power and restoring those Presbyteries which no law hath forbidden but onely through disuse have been laid aside Whereby they will give to the world that rare example of self-denial and the highest Christian prudence as may raise an honourable opinion of them even among those who have hitherto the most slighted so ancient and venerable an Order in the Church of God and thereby become the repairers of those otherwise irreparable breaches in the Church of God I conclude with the words of a late learned pious and moderate Prelate in his Via media I have done and now I make no other account but that it will fall out with me as it doth commonly with him that offers to part a fray both parts will perhaps drive at me for wishing them no worse than peace My ambition of the publike tranquillity shall willingly carry me through this hazzard let both beat me so their quarrel may cease I shall rejoyce in those blows and scars which I shall take for the Churches safety The Contents of the Chapters PART I. CHAP. I. THings necessary for the Churches peace must be clearly revealed The Form of Government not so as appears by the remaining controversie about it An evidence thence that Christ never intended any one Form as the only means to peace in the Church The Nature of a divine Right discussed Right in general either makes things lawful or else due For the former a non-prohibition sufficient the latter an express command Duty supposeth Legislation and promulgation The Question stated Nothing binds unalterably but by vertue of a standing Law and that two fold The Law of Nature and positive Lawes of God Three wayes to know when Positive Lawes are unalterable The Divine right arising from Scripture-examples divine acts and divine approbation considered p. 1. CHAP. II. SIX Hypotheses laid down as the basis of the following Discourse 1. The irreversible Obligation of the Law of Nature either by humane or divine positive Lawes in things immediately flowing from it 2. Things agreeable to the Law of nature may be lawfully practised in the Church of God inlarged into five subservient Propositions 3. Divine positive Lawes conâ—erning the manner of the thing whose substance is determined by the Law of nature must be obeyed by vertue of the obligation of the natural Law 4. Things undetermined both by the natural and positive laws of God may be lawfully determin'd by the supream authority in the Church of God The Magistrates power in matters of Religion largely asserted and cleared The nature of Indifferency in actions stated Matters of Christian liberty are subject to restraints largely proved Proposals for accommodation as to matters of Indifferency 5. What is thus determined by lawful authority doth bind the Consciences of men subject to that authority to obedience to those determinations 6. Things thus determined by lawful authority are not thereby made unalterable but may be revoked limited and changed by the same authority p. 27 CHAP. III. HOW far Church Government is founded upon the Law of nature Two things in it founded thereon 1. That there must be a Society of men for the Worship of God 2. That this Society be governed in the most convenient manner A Society for Worship manifested Gen 4. 26. considered The Sons of God and the sons of men who Societies for worship among Heathens evidenced by three things 1. Solemnity of Sacrifices sacrificing how far natural The antiquity of the Feast of first-fruits largely discovered 2. The Original of Festivals for the honour of their Deities 3. The sâ—crecy and solemnity of their mysteries This further proved from mans sociable nature the improvement of it by Religion the honour redounding to God by such a Society for his Worship p. 72 CHAP. IV. THE second thing the Law of Nature dictates that this Society be maintained and governed in the most convenient manner A further inquiry what particular Orders for Government in the Church come from the Law of Nature Six laid down and evidenced to be from thence First a distinction of some persons and their superiority over others both in power and order cleared to be from the Law of Nature The power and application of the power distinguished this latter not from any Law of Nature binding but permissive therefore may be restrained Peoples right of chosing Pastors considered Order distinguished from the form and manner of Government the former Natural the other not The
second is that the persons imployed in the Service of God should have respect answerable to their imployment which appears from their Relation to God as his Servants from the persons imployed in this work before positive Laws Masters of Families the first Priests The Priesthood of the first-born before the Law discussed The Arguments for it answered The Conjunction of Civil and Sacred Authothority largely shewed among Egyptians Grecians Romans and others The ground of Separation of them afterwards from Plutarch and others p. 85 CHAP. V. THE third thing dictated by the Law of Nature is the solemnity of all things to be performed in this Society which lyes in the gravity of all Rites and Ceremonies in the composed temper of mind Gods Worship rational His Spirit destroyes not the use of Reason The Enthusiastick spirit discovered The circumstantiating of fit times and place for Worship The seventh day on what account so much spoken of by Heathens The Romans Holy dayes Cessation of labour upon them The solemnity of Ceremonies used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 silence in devotions Exclusion of unfit persons Solemnity of Discipline Excommunication among the Iewes by the sound of a Trumpet among Christians by a Bell. p. 93 CHAP. VI. THE fourth thing dictated by the Law of Nature that there must be a way to end controversies arising which tend to break the peace of the Society The nature of Schisme considered The Churches Power as to Opinions explained When separation from a Church may be lawful Not till communion becomes sin Which is when corruptions are required as conditions of Communion Not lawful to erect new Churches upon supposition of corruption in a Church The ratio of a fundamental article explained it implyes both necessity and sufficiency in order to salvation Liberty of judgement and authority distinguished The latter must be parted with in religious Societies as to private persons What way the Light of nature directs to for ending Controversies First in an equality of power that the less number yield to the greater on what Law of Nature that is founded Secondly In a subordination of power that there must be a liberty of Appeals Appeals defined Independency of particular Congregations considered Elective Synods The Case paralleld between Civill and Church-Government Where Appeals finally lodge The power of calling Synods and confirming their Acts in the Magistrate p. 104. CHAP. VII THE fifth thing dictated by the Law of Nature That all that are admitted into this Society must consent to be governed by the Lawes and Rules of it Civil Societies founded upon mutual Consent express in their first entrance implicite in others born under Societies actually formed Consent as to a Church necessary the manner of Consent determined by Christ by Baptism and Profession Implicite consent supposed in all Baptized explicite declared by challenging the Priviledges and observing the Duties of the Covenant Explicite by express owning the Gospel when adult very useful for recovering the credit of Christia nity The Discipline of the primitive Church cleared from Origen Iustin Martyr Pliny Tertullian The necessary reâ—â—â—â—â—â—es of Church membership whether Positive signs of Grace nothing required by the Gospel beyand reality of profession Exâ—â—â—â—â—tâ— Coâ—â—â—â—â—â— how far necessary not the formal Constitution of a Church proved by severâ—â— arguments p. 132. CHAP. VIII THE last thing dictated by the Law of Nature is that every offender against the Lawes of this Society is bound to give an account of his actions to the Governours of it and submit to the censures inflicted upon him by them The original of penalties in Societies The nature of them according to the nature and ends of Societies The penalty of the Church no civil mulct because its Lawes and ends are different from civil Societies The practice of the Dâ—uâ—ds and Câ—rceâ—ae in e 〈…〉 n. Among the Iewes whether a meer civil or sacr 〈…〉 y. The latter proved by six Arguments Cherem Col Bo what Objections answered The original of the mistake shewed The first part concluded p. 141 PART II. CHAP. I. THE other ground of divine Right considered viz. Gods positive Lawes which imply a certain knowledge of Gods intention to bind men perpetuaâ—ly As to which the arguments drawn from Tradition and the practice of the Church in after ages proved invalid by several arguments In order to a right stating the Question some Concessions laid down First That there must be some form of Government in the Church is of divine right The notion of a Church explained whether it belongs only to particular Congregations which are manifested not to be of Gods primary intention but for our necessity Evidence for National Churches under the Gospel A National Church-Government necessary p. 150 CHAP. II. THE second Concession is That Church Government must be administred by officers of Divine appointment To that end the continuance of a Gospel Ministry fully cleared from all those arguments by which positive Laws are proved immutable The reason of its appointment continues the dream of a â—aeculum Spiritus sancti discussed first broached by the Mendicant Friers upon the rising of the Waldenses now embraced by Enthusiasts It s occasion and unreasonableness shewed Gods declaring the perpetuity of a Gospel Ministry Matth. 28. 20. explained A Novel interpretation largely refuted The world to come What A Ministry necessary for the Churches continuance Ephes. 4 12. explained and vindicated p. 158 CHAP. III. THE Question fully stated Not what Form of Government comes the nearest to the Primitive practice but whether any be absolutely determined Several things propounded for resolving the Question What the Form of Church-Government was under the Law How far Christians are bound to observe that Neither the necessity of a superiour Order of Church-Officers nor the unlawfulness can be proved from thence p. 170 CHAP. IV. WHether Christ hath determined the Form of Government by any positive Laws Arguments of the necessity why Christ must determine it largely answered as First Christs faithfulness compared with Moses answered and retorted and thence proved that Christ did not institute any Form of Government in the Church because he gave no such Law for it as Moses did And we have nothing but general Rules which are appliable to several Forms of Government The Office of Timothy and Titus What it proves in order to this question the lawfulness of Episcopacy shewed thence but not the necessity A particular form how far necessary as Christ was Governour of his Church the Similitudes the Church is set out by prove not the thing in question Nor the difference between civil and Church-Government nor Christ setting Officers in his Church nor the inconvenience of the Churches power in appointing new Officers Every Minister hath a power respecting the Church in common which the Church may determine and fix the bounds of Episcopacy thence proved lawful The argument from the Scriptures perfection answered p. 175 CHAP. V. WHether any of Christs actions have determined the Form of
Forraign Churches Calvin and Beza both approving Episcopacy and Diocesan Churches Salmatius c. 3 Those who judge Episcopacy to be the Primitive Form yet look not on it as necessary Bishop Iewel Fulk Field Bishop Downam Bishop Bancroft Bishop Morton Bishop Andrews Saravia Francis Mason and others The Conclusion hence laid in Order to Peace Principles conducing thereto 1. Prudence must be used in Church-Government at last confessed by all parties Independents in elective Synods and Church Covenants admission of Members number in Congregations Presbyterians in Classes and Synods Lay-Elders c. Episcopal in Diocesses Causes Rites c. 2. That Prudence best which comes nearest Primitive practice A Presidency for life over an Ecclesiastical Senate shewed to be that Form in order to it Presbyteries to be restored Diocesses lessened Provincial Synods kept twice a year The reasonableness and easiness of accommodation shewed The whole concluded p. 383. 384. A Weapon-Salve for the Churches Wounds OR The Divine Right of particular Forms of Government in the Church of God discussed and examined according to the Principles of the Law of Nature the Positive Laws of God the Practice of the Apostles and the Primitive Church and the Judgement of Reformed Divines PART I. CHAP. I. Things necessary for the Churches Peace must be clearly revealed The Form of Church-Government not so as appears by the remaining Controversie about it An Evidence thence that Christ never intended any one Form as the only means to Peace in the Church The Nature of a Divine Right discussed Right in general either makes things Lawful or else Due For the former a Non-prohibition sufficient the later an Express Command Duty supposeth Legislation and Promulgation The Question stated Nothing binds unalterably but by virtue of a standing Law and that two-fold The Law of Nature and Positive Laws of God Three ways to know when Positive Laws are unalterable The Divine Right arising from Scripture-Examples Divine Acts and Divine Approbation considered HE that imposeth any matter of Opinion upon the belief of others without giving Evidence of Reason for it proportionable to the confidence of his Assertion must either suppose the thing propounded to carry such unquestionable Credentials of Truth and Reason with it that none who know what they mean can deny it entertainment or else that his own understanding hath attained to so great perfection as to have authority sufficient to oblige all others to follow it This latter cannot be presumed among any who have asserted the freedom of their own understandings from the dictates of an Infallible Chair but if any should forget themselves so far as to think so there needs no other argument to prove them not to be Infallible in their Assertions then this one Assertion that they are infallible it being an undoubted Evidence that they are actually deceived who know so little the measure of their own understandings The former can never be pretended in any thing which is a matter of Controversie among men who have not wholly forgot they are Reasonable Creatures by their bringing probable arguments for the maintaining one part of an opinion as well as another In which case though the Arguments brought be not convincing for the necessary entertaining either part to an unbiassed understanding yet the difference of their Opinions is Argument sufficient that the thing contended for is not so clear as both parties would make it to be on their own side and if it be not a thing of necessity to salvation it gives men ground to think that a final decision of the matter in controversie was never intended as a necessary means for the Peace and Unity of the Church of God For we cannot with any shew of reason imagine that our Supreme Law giver and Saviour who hath made it a necessary duty in all true members of his Church to endeavour after the Peace and Unity of it should suspend the performance of that duty upon a matter of Opinion which when men have used their utmost endeavors to satisfie themselves about they yet find that those very grounds which they are most inclinable to build their Judgements upon are either wholly rejected by others as wise and able as themselves or else it may be they erect a far different Fabrick upon the very same foundations It is no ways consistent with the Wisdom of Christ in founding his Church and providing for the Peace and Settlement of it to leave it at the mercy of mens private judgments and apprehensions of things than which nothing more uncertain and thereby make it to depend upon a condition never like to be attained in this world which is the agreement and Uniformity of mens Opinions For as long as mens faces differ their judgements will And until there be an Intellectus Averroisticus the same understanding in all persons we have little ground to hope for such an Universal Harmony in the Intellectual World and yet even then the Soul might pass a different judgement upon the colours of things according to the different tincture of the several Optick-Glasses in particular bodies which it takes a prospect of things through Reason and Experience then give us little hopes of any peace in the Church if the unity of mens judgements be supposed the condition of it the next inquiry then is how the Peace of the Church shall be attained or preserved when men are under such different perswasions especially if they respect the means in order to a Peace and Settlement For the ways to Peace like the fertile soils of Greece have been oft-times the occasion of the greatest quarrels And no sickness is so dangerous as that when men are sick of their remedy and nauseate that most which tends to their recovery But while Physitians quarrel about the Method of Cure the Patient languisheth under their hands and when men increase Contentions in the behalf of Peace while they seem to Court it they destroy it The only way left for the Churches Settlement and Peace under such variety of apprehensions concerning the Means and Method in order to it is to pitch upon such a foundation if possible to be found out whereon the different Parties retaining their private apprehensions may yet be agreed to carry on the same work in common in order to the Peace and Tranquillity of the Church of God Which cannot be by leaving all absolutely to follow their own ways for that were to build a Babel instead of Salem Confusion instead of Peace it must be then by convincing men that neither of those ways to peace and order which they contend about is necessary by way of Divine Command though some be as a means to an end but which particular way or form it must be is wholly left to the prudence of those in whose Power and Trust it is to see the Peace of the Church be secured on lasting Foundations How neerly this concerns the present Debate about the Government of the Church any one
vacuae observationis superstitioni deputanda as superstitious which are done sine ulliâ—s Dominici aâ—t Apostolici praecepti autoritate without the Warrant of Divine Command Although even here we may say too that it is not meerly the want of a Divine Precept which makes any part of Divine Worship uncommanded by God unlawful but the General Prohibition that nothing should be done in the immediate Worship of God but what we have a Divine Command for However in matters of meer Deceâ—cy and Order in the Church of God or in any other civil action of the lives of men it is enough to make things lawful if they are not forbidden But against this that a Non-prohibition is warrant enough to make any thing lawful this Objection will be soon leavied that it is an Argument ab authoritate negativè and therefore is of no force To which I answer that the Rule if taken without limitation upon which this Objection is founded is not true for although an Argument ab authoritate negativè as to matter of Fact avails not yet the Negative from Authority as to matter of Law and Command is of great force and strength I grant the Argument holds not here we do not read that ever Christ or his Apostles did such a thing therefore it is not to be done but this we read of no Law or Precept commanding us to do it therefore it is not unlawful not to do it and we read of no Prohibition forbidding us to do it therefore it may be lawfully done this holds true and good and that upon this two-fold Reason First From Gods Intention in making known his Will which was not to record every particular fact done by himself or Christ or his Apostles but it was to lay down those general and standing Laws whereby his Church in all Ages should be guided and ruled And in order to a perpetual obligation upon the Consciences there must be a sufficient promulgation of those Laws which must bind men Thus in the case of Infant-Baptism it is a very weak unconcluding Argument to say that Infants must not be baptized because we never read that Christ or his Apostles did it for this is a Negative in matter of Fact but on the other side it is an Evidence that Infants are not to be excluded from Baptism because there is no Divine Law which doth prohibit their admission into the Church by it for this is the Negative of a Law and if it had been Christs intention to have excluded any from admission into the Church who were admitted before as Insants were there must have been some positive Law whereby such an Intention of Christ should have been expressed For nothing can make that unlawful which was a duty before but a direct and express Prohibition from the Legislator himself who alone hath power to reâ—cind as well as to make Laws And therefore Antipaedobaptists must instead of requiring a Positive Command for baptizing Infants themselves produce an express Prohibition excluding them or there can be no appearance of Reason given why the Gospel should exclude any from those priviledges which the Law admitted them to Secondly I argue from the intention and end of Laws which is to circumscribe and restrain the Natural Liberty of man by binding him to the observation of some particular Precepts And therefore where there is not a particular Command and Prohibition it is in Nature and Reason supposed that men are left to their Natural freedom as is plain in Positive Humane Laws wherein men by compact and agreement for their mutual good in Societies were willing to restrain themselves from those things which should prejudice the good of the Community this being the ground of mens first inclosing their Rights and common Priviledges it must be supposed that what is not so inclosed is left common to all as their just Right and Priviledge still So it is in Divine Positive Laws God intending to bring some of Mankind to happiness by conditions of his own appointing hath laid down many Positive Precepts binding men to the practise of those things as duties which are commanded by him But where we find no Command for performance we cannot look upon that as an immediate duty because of the necessary relation between Duty and Law and so where we find no Prohibition there we can have no ground to think that men are debarred from the liberty of doing things not forbidden For as we say of Exceptions as to General Laws and Rules that an Exception expressed firmat regulam in non exceptis makes the Rule stronger in things not expressed as excepted so it is as to Divine Prohibitions as to the Positives that those Prohibitions we read in Scripture make other things not-prohibited to be therefore lawful because not expresly forbidden As Gods forbidding Adam to taste of the fruit of one Tree did give him a liberty to taste of all the rest Indeed had not God at all revealed his Will and Laws to us by his Word there might have been some Plea why men should have waited for particular Revelations to dictate the goodness or evil of particular actions not determined by the law of nature but since God hath revealed his will there can be no reason given why those things should not be lawful to do which God hath not thought fit to forbid men the doing of Further we are to observe that in these things which are thus undetermined in reference to an obligation to duty but left to our natural liberty as things lawful the contrary to that which is thus lawful is not thereby made unlawful But both parts are left in mens power to do or not to do them as is evident in all those things which carry a general equity with them and are therefore consonant to the Law of Nature but have no particular obligation as not flowing immediately from any dictate of the natural Law Thus community of goods is lawful by the law and principles of nature yet every man hath a lawful right to his goods by dominion and propriety And in a state of Community it was the right of every man to impropriate upon a just equality supposing a preceding compact and mutual agreement Whence it is that some of the School-men say that although the Law of Nature be immutable as to its precepts and prohibitions yet not as to its demonstrations as they call them as Do as you would be done to binds always indispensably but that in a state of nature all things are common to all This is true but it binds not men to the necessary observance of it These which they call Demonstrations are only such things as are agreeable to nature but not particularly commanded by any indispensable precept of it Thus likewise it is agreeable to nature that the next of the kindred should be heir to him who dies intestate but he may lawfully wave his interest if he please Now to apply this to
power is alwayes to be understood in all Laws to be reserved to God where he hath not himself declared that he will not use it which is done either by the annexing an Oath on a Promise which the Apostle calls the two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie For though God be free to promise yet when he hath promised his own nature and faithfulness binds him to performance in which sense I understand those who say God in making promises is bound only to himself and not to men that is that the ground of performance ariseth from Gods faithfulness For else if we respect the right coming by the promise that must immediately respect the person to whom it is made and in respect of which we commonly say that the promiser is bound to performance But the case is otherwise in penal Laws which thoughâ— never so strict do imply a power of relaxation in the Legislator because penall Laws do only constitute the debstum poenae and bind the sinner over to punishment but do not bind the Legislator to an actual execution upon the debt Which is the ground that the person of a Mediator was admittable in the place of faln man because it was a penal Law and therefore relaxable But because the debt of punishment is immediately contracted upon the breach of the Law therefore satisfaction was necessary to God as Law-giver either by the person himself or another for him because it was not consistent with the holiness of Gods nature and his wisdom as Governor to relax an established Law without valuable consideration Now for the third kind of Gods Laws besides promissory and penall viz such as are meerly positive respecting duties which become such by vertue of an express command these though they be revocable in themselves yet being revocable only by God himself and his own power since he hath already in his Word fully revealed his Will unlesse therein he hath declared when their obligation shall cease they continue irreversible This is the case as to the Sacraments of the New Testament which being commands meerly positive yet Christ commanding Christians as Christians to observe them and not as Christians of the first and second Ages of the Church his mind can be no otherwise interpreted concerning them then that he did intend immutably to bind all Christians to the observance of them For al though the Socinians say that Baptism was only a Rite instituted by Christ for the passing men from Judaism and Gentilism to Christianity yet we are not bound to look upon all as reason that comes from those who professe themselves the admirers of it For Christs Command nowhere implying such a limitation and an outward visible profession of Christianity being a duty now and the Covenant entred into by that Rite of initiation as obligatory as ever we have no reason to think that Christs command doth not reach us now especially the promise being made to as many as God shall call and consequently the same duty required which was then in order to the obtaining of the same ends A third way to discern the immutability of positive Laws is when the things commanded in particular are necessary to the being succession and continuance of such a Society of men professing the Gospel as is instituted and approved by Christ himself For Christ must be supposed to have the power himself to order what Society he please and appoint what Orders he please to be observed by them what Rites and Ceremonies to be used in admission of Members into his Church in their continuing in it in the way means manner of ejection out of it in the preserving the succession of his Church and the administration of Ordinances of his appointment These being thus necessary for the maintaining and upholding this Society they are thereby of a nature as unalterable as the duty of observing what Christ hath commanded is How much these things concern the resolution of the Question proposed will appear afterwards Thus we have gained a resolution of the second thing whereon an unalterable Divine Right is founded viz either upon the dictates of the Law of Nature concurring with the rules of the written word or upon express positive Laws of God whose reason is immutable or which God hath declared shall continue as necessary to the being of the Church The next thing is to examine the other pretences which are brought for a Divine Right which are either Scripture examples or Divine acts or Divine approbation For Scripture-examples First I take it for granted on all hands that all Scripture examples do not bind us to follow them such are the Mediatory acts of Christ the Heroical acts of extraordinary persons all accidentall and occasionall actions Example doth not bind us as an example for then all examples are to be followed and so we shall of necessity go quà itur non quà eundum walk by the most examples and not by rule There is then no obligatory force in example it self Secondly there must be then some rule fixed to know when examples bind and when not for otherwise there can be no discrimination put between examples which we are to follow and which to avoid This rule must be either immediately obligatory making it a duty to follow such examples or else directive declaring what examples are to be â—ollowed And yet even this latter doth imply as well as the former that the following these examples thus declared is become a duty There can be no duty without a Law making it to be a duty and consequently it is the Law making it to be a duty to follow such example which gives a Divine Right to those examples and not barely the examples themselves We are bound to follow Christs example not barely because he did such and such things for many things he did we are not bound to follow him in but because he himself hath by a command made it our duty to follow him in his humility patience self-denyal c. and in whatever things are set out in Scripture for our imitation When men speak then with so much confidence that Scripture-examples do bind us unalterably they either mean that the example it self makes it a duty which I have shewn already to be absurd or else that the morall nature of the action done in that example or else the Law making it our duty to follow the example though in its self it be of no morall nature If the former of these two then it is the morality of the action binds us without its being incarnate in the example For the example in actions not morall binds not at all and therefore the example binds only by vertue of the morality of it and consequently it is the morality of the action which binds and not the example If the latter the rule making it our duty then it it is more apparent that it is not the example which
for the internal acts of Worship for he can neither add to that Rule nor dissolve the obligation of it nor yet can he force the consciences of men the chief seat of Religion it being both contrary to the nature of Religion its self which is a matter of the greatest freedom and internal liberty and it being quite out of the reach of the Magistrates Laws which respect only external actions as their proper object for the obligation of any Law can extend no further then the jurisdiction and authority of the Legislator which among men is only to the outward actions But then if we consider Religion as it is publikely owned and professed by a Nation the supreme Magistrate is bound by vertue of his office and authority not only to defend and protect it but to restrain men from acting any thing publikely tending to the subversion of it So that the plea for liberty of conscience as it tends to restrain the Magistrates power iâ— both irrationall and impertinent because liberty of conscience is the liberty of mens judgements which the Magistrate cannot deprive them of For men may hold what opinions they will in their minds the Law takes no cognizance of them but it is the liberty of practice and venting and broaching those opinions which the Magistrates power extends to the restraint of And he that hath the care of the publike good may give liberty to and restrain liberty from men as they act in order to the promoting of that good And as a liberty of all opinions tends manifestly to the subverting a Nations peace and to the embroyling it into continual confusions a Magistrate cannot discharge his office unlesse he hath power to restrain such a liberty Therefore we find plainly in Scripture that God imputes the increase and impunity of Idolatry as well as other vices to the want of a lawful Magistracy Iudges 17. 5 6. where the account given of Micahs Idolatry was because there was no King in Israel which implies it to be the care and duty of Magistrates to punish and restrain whatever tends to the opposing and subverting the true Religion Besides I cannot find any reason pleaded against the Magistrates power now which would not have held under David Solomon Asa Iehosophat Hezekias Iosias or other Kings of the Jews who asserted the publike profession to the extirpation to what opposed it For the plea of Conscience taken for mens judgements going contrary to what is publikely owned as Religion it is indifferently calculated for all Meridians and will serve for a Religion of any elevation Nay stiff and contumacious Infidels or Idolaters may plead as highly though not so truly as any that it goes against their judgements or their conscience to own that Religion which is established by authority If it be lawfull then to restrain such notwithstanding this pretence why not others whose doctrine and principles the Magistrate judgeth to tend in their degree though not so highly to the dishonouring God and subverting the profession entertained in a Nation For a mans own certainty and confidence that he is in the right can have no influence upon the Magistrate judging otherwise only if it be true it wil afford him the greater comfort and patience under his restraint which was the case of the primitive Christians under persecutions The Magistrate then is bound to defend protect and maintain the Religion he owns as true and that by vertue of his office as he is Custos utriusque tabulae The maintainer of the honour of Gods Laws which cannot be if he suffer those of the first Table to be broken without any notice taken of them Were it not for this power of Magistrates under the Gospel how could that promise be ever made good that Kings shall be nursing Fathers to the Church of God unlesse they mean such Nursing Fathers as Astyages was to Cyrus or Amulius to Romulus and Remus who exposed their nurslings to the Fury of wild Beasts to be devoured by them For so must a Magistrate do the Church unlesse he secure it from the incursion of Hereticks and the inundation of Seducers But so much for that which is more largely asserted and proved by others The Magistrate then hath power concerning Religion as owned in a Nation Secondly We must distinguish between an external and objective power about matters of Religion and an internal formal power which some call an Imperative and Elicitive power others a power of Order and a power of Jurisdiction others potestas Ecclesiastica and potestas circa Ecclesiastica or in the old distinction of Constantine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power of things within and without the Church the sense of all is the same though the terms differ The internal formal Elicitive power of Order concerning things in the Church lies in authoritative exercise of the Ministerial Function in preaching the Word and administration of Sacraments but the external objective Imperative power of Jurisdiction concerning the matters of the Church lies in a due care and provision for the defence protection and propagation of Religion The former is only proper to the Ministry the latter to the Supreme Magistracy For though the Magistrate hath so much power about Religion yet he is not to usurp the Ministerial Function nor to do any proper acts belonging to it To which the instance of Uzzias is pertinently applied But then this takes nothing off from the Magistrates power for it belongs not to the Magistrate imperata facere but imperare facienda as Grotius truly observes not to do the things commanded but to command the things to be done From this distinction we may easily understand and resolve that so much vexed and intricate Question concerning the mutual subordination of the Civil and Ecclesiastical power For as Peter Martyr well observes these two powers are some wayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are conversant several wayes about the same thing but the Functions of both of them must be distinguished For the Pastors of the Church are not to administer Justice but it is their duty to declare how Justice should be rightly administred without partiality or oppression So on the other side the Magistrate must not preach the Gospel nor administer Sacraments but however must take care that these be duly done by â—hose to whose Function it belongs But for a clearer making it appear these things are to be considered both in a Magistrate and Minister of the Gospel In a Magistrate the Power it self and the Person bearing that Power The power it self of the Magistrate is no ways subordinate to the Power of the Ministry Indeed if we consider both Powers in reference to their objects and ends there may be an inferiority of Dignity as Chamier calls it in the civil power to the other considered abstractly but considering it concretely as lodged in the persons there is an inferiority of Subjection in the Ecclesiastical to the Civil But still the person
two We distinguish then between a power declarative of the obligation of former Laws and a power authoritative determining a New Obligation between the office of counselling and advising what is fit to be done and a power determining what shall be done between the Magistrates duty of consulting in order to the doing it and his deriving his authority for the doing it These things premised I say First that the power of declaring the obligation of former Laws and of consulting and advising the Magistrate for setling of New Laws for the Policy of the Church belongs to the Pastors and Governours of the Church of God This belongs to them as they are commanded to teach what Christ hath commanded them but no authority thereby given to make new Laws to bind the Church but rather a tying them up to the commands of Christ already laid down in his Word For a power to bind mens consciences to their determinations lodged in the Officers of the Church must be derived either from a Law of God giving them this right or else only from the consent of parties For any Law of God there is none produced with any probability of reason but that Obey those that are over you in the Lord. But that implies no more then submitting to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Gospel and to those whom Christ hath constituted as Pastors of his Church wherein the Law of Christ doth require obedience to them that is in looking upon them and owning them in their relation to them as Pastors But that gives them no authority to make any new Laws or Constitutions binding mens consciences any more then a Command from the Supreme authority that inferiour Magistrates should be obeyed doth imply any power in them to make new Laws to bind them But thus far I acknowledge a binding power in Ecclesiastical Constitutions though they neither bind by virtue of the matter nor of the authority commanding there being no legislative power lodged in the Church yet in respect of the circumstances and the end they should be obey'd unlesse I judge the thing unlawfull that is commanded rather then manifest open contempt of the Pastors of the Church or being a scandall to others by it But as to the other power arising from mutual compact and consent of Parties I acknowledge a power to bind all included under that compact not by vertue of any Supream binding power in them but from the free consent of the parties submitting which is most agreeable to the Nature of Church-power being not coactive but directive and such was the confederate discipline of the primitive Church before they had any Christian Magistrate And thence the decrees of Councils were call'd Canons and not Laws Secondly Though it be the Magistrates duty to consult with the Pastors of the Church to know what is most agreeable to the Word of God for the settlement of the Church yet the Magistrate doth not derive his authority in commanding things from their sentence decree and judgement but doth by vertue of his own power cause the obligation of men to what is so determin'd by his own enacting what shall be done in the Church The great use of Synods and Assemblies of Pastors of Churches is to be as the Council of the Church unto the King in matters belonging to the Church as the Parliament is for matters of civil concernment And as the King for the settling civil Laws doth take advice of such persons who are most versed in matters of Law so by proportion of reason in matters concerning the Church they are the fittest Council who have been the most versed in matters immediately belonging to the Church In the management of which affairs as much if not more prudence experience judgement moderation is requisite as in the greatest affairs of State For we have found by dolefull experience that if a fire once catch the Church and Aarons Bells ring backward what a Combustion the whole State is suddenly put into and how hardly the Churches Instruments for quenching such fires lachrymae preces Ecclesiae do attain their end The least peg serued up too high in the Church soon causeth a great deal of discord in the State and quickly puts mens spirits out of Tune Whereas many irregularities may happen in the State and men live in quietnesse and peace But if Phaâ—tons dâ—ive the Chariot of the Sun the World wil be soon on fire I mean such in the Church whose brains like the Unicorns run out into the length of the Horn Such who have more fury then zeal and yet more zeal then knowledge or Moderation Persons therefore whose calling â—temper office and experience hath best acquainted them with the State-actions Policy of the primitive Church and the incomparable Prudence and Moderation then Used are fittest to debate consult deliberate and determine about the safest expedients for repairing breaches in a divided broken distracted Church But yet I say when such men thus assembled have gravely and maturely advised and deliberated what is best and fitted to te done the force strength and obligation of the things so determin'd doth depend upon the power and authority of the Civil Magistrate for taking the Church as incorporated into the civill state as Ecclesia est in republicâ non respublica in Ecclesia according to that known speech of Optatus Milivetanus so though the object of these constitutions and the persons determining them and the matter of them be Ecclesiasticall yet the force and ground of the obligation of them is wholly civill So Peter Martyr expresly Nam quod ad potestatem Ecclesiasticam attinet satis est civilis Magistratus is enim â—urare debet ut omnes officium faciant But for the judgement of the reformed Divines about this see Vedelius de Episcopatis Constant. M Officium Magistratus Christiani annexed to Grotius de Imper. c. I therefore proceed to lay down the reason of it First That whereby we are bound either to obedience or penalty upon disobedience is the ground of the obligation but it is upon the account of the Magistrates power that we are either bound to obedience or to submit to penalties upon disobedience For it is upon the account of our general obligation to the Magistrate that we are bound to obey any particular Laws or Constitutions Because it is not the particular determinations made by the civil Magistrate which do immediately bind Conscience but the general Law of Scripture requires it as a duty from us to obey the Magistrate in all things lawfull Obedience to the Magistrate is due immediately from Conscience but obedience to the Laws of the Magistrate comes not directly from Conscience but by vertue of the general obligation And therefore disobedience to the Magistrates Laws is an immediate sin against Conscience because it is against the general obligation but obedience to particular Laws ariseth not immediately from the obligation of Conscience to
them in particular but to the Magistrate in general So that in things left lawfull and undetermin'd by the Word where there ariseth no obligation from the matter it must arise from our subjection and relation to the Magistrate and what is the ground of obedience is the cause of the obligation Secondly He hath only the power of obligations who hath the power of making Sanctions to those Laws By Sanctions I mean here in the sense of the civil Law eas legum partes quibus poenas constituimus adversus eos qui contra leges fecerint those parts of the Law which determine the punishments of the violaters of it Now it is evident that he only hath power to oblige who hath power to punish upon disobedience And it is as evident that none hath power to punish but the civill Magistrate I speak of legall penalties which are annexed to such Laws as concern the Church Now there being no coercive or coactive power belonging to the Church as such all the force of such Laws as respect the outward Polity of the Church must be derived from the civill Magistrate Thirdly He who can null and declare all other obligations void done without his power hath the only power to oblige For whatsoever destroys a former obligation must of necessity imply a power to oblige because I am bound to obey him in the abstaining from that I was formerly obliged to But this power belongs to the Magistrate For suppose in some indifferent Rites and Ceremonies the Church representative that is the Governors of it pro tempore do prescribe them to be observed by all the Supreme power fâ—rbids the doing of those things if this doth not null the former supposed obligation I must inevitably run upon these absurdities First that there are two supreme powers in a Nation at the same time Secondly that a man may lie under two different Obligations as to the same thing he is bound to do it by one power and not to do it by the other Thirdly the same action may be a duty and a sin a duty in obeying the one power a sin in disobeying the other Therefore there can be but one power to oblige which is that of the Supreme Magistrate Having thus far asserted the Magistrates due power and Authority as to matters of Religion we proceed to examine the extent of this power in determining things left at liberty by the Word of God in order to the Peace and Government of the Church For our clear and distinct proceeding I shall ascend by these three steps First to shew that there are some things left undetermined by the Word Secondly that these things are capable of positive Determinations and Restraint Thirdly that there are some bounds and limits to be observed in the stating and determining these things First That there are some things left undetermined by the Word By Determining here I do not mean determining whether things be lawful or no for so there is no Ritâ— or Ceremony whatsoever but is determined by the Scripture in that sense or may be gathered from the application of particular actions to the general Rules of Scripture but by Determining I mean whether all things concerning the Churches Polity and Order be determined as Duties or no viz. that this we are bound to observe and the other not As for instance what time manner method gesture habit be used in preaching the Word whether Baptism must be by dipping or sprinkling at what day time place the Child shall be baptized and other things of a like Nature with these Those who assert any of these as duties must produce necessarily the Command making them to be so For Duty and Command have a necessary respect and relation to one another If no Command be brought it necessarily follows that they are left at liberty So as to the Lords Supper Calvin saith whether the Communicants take the Bread themselves or receive it being given them whether they should give the Cup into the hands of the Deacon or to their next Neighbour whether the Bread be leavened or not the Wine red or white nihil refert it matters not Haec indifferentia sunt in Ecclesiae libertate posita they are matters of indifferency and are left to the Churches liberty But this matter of Indifferency is not yet so clear as it is generally thought to be we shall therefore bare the ground a little by some necessary distinctions to see where the root of indifferency lies Which we shall the rather do because it is strongly asserted by an Honourable person that there is no Indifferency in the things themselves which are still either unlawful or necessary if lawful at this time in these circumstances but all indifferency lies in the darkness and shortness of our understandings which may make some things seem so to us But that Honourable person clearly runs upon a double mistake First that Indifferency is a medium participationis of both extremes and not only negationis viz. that as intermediate colours partake both of black and white and yet are neither so in morality between good and bad there is an intermediate entity which is neither but indifferent to either Whereas the Nature of Indifferency lies not in any thing intermediate between good and bad but in some thing undetermined by Divine Laws as to the necessity of it so that if we speak as to the extremes of it it is something lying between a necessary duty and an intrinsecal evil The other mistake is that throughout that Discourse he takes Indifferency as Circumstantiated in Individual actions and as the morality of the action is determined by its Circumstances whereas the proper notion of Indifferency lies in the Nature of the action considered in its self abstractly and so these things are implyed in an indifferent action First absolute undetermination as to the general nature of the act by a Divine Law that God hath left it free for men to do it or no. Secondly that one part hath not more propension to the Rule then the other for if the doing of it comes nearer to the rule then the omission or on the contrary this action is not wholly indifferent Thirdly that neither part hath any repugnancy to the Rule for that which hath so is so far from being indifferent that it becomes unlawful So that an indifferent action is therein like the Iron accosted by two Loadstones on either side of equal virtue and so hovers in medio inclining to neither but supposing any degree of virtue added to the one above the other it then inclines towards it or as the Magnetical Needle about the Azores keeps its self directly parallel to the Axis of the world without variation because it is supposed then to be at an equal distance from the two Great Magnets the Continents of Europe and America But no sooner is it removed from thence but it hath its variations So indifferency taken in
though it were lawful not to do them before that Command The truth of the Proposition appears because Lawful Authority may command any thing that may be lawfully done Because nothing can exempt from obedience to a lawful Magistrate but the unlawfulness of the thing commanded and therefore nothing can debar the Magistrate from commanding these things for nothing can hinder him from Commanding but what may hinder the Subject from Obedience I grant in many cases it may be lawful to obey when it is very inconvenient for the Magistrate to command but inconveniency and unlawfulness are two things nay and in some cases a man may lawfully obey when he is unlawfully commanded but then the matter of the Command it self is unlawful As in executing an unjust Sentence granting that a Princes Servants may lawfully do it especially when they know it not yet in that case the ground of their lawful obedience is the ground of the Magistrates lawful Command which is the supposed Justice of the Execution But that which makes the Magistrates Command unlawful is the intrinsecal evil of the thing its self So for unlawful Wars though the Subjects may lawfully obey yet the Prince sins in commanding not but that he hath right to command so far as they are bound to obey which is only in things lawful but that which in this case alters the matter is the Princes knowing his cause to be unjust So that however the Proposition holds in things not manifestly unjust But however this be it is hereby granted that the things may be lawfully done when they are restrained by the Magistrates Command and by that it appears that liberty may be restrained else it could not be lawful to act under that restraint not as it respects the things themselves but under that formality as they are the restraint of that which ought to be left free The Restraint however then is lawful as to the persons acting under Authority who are the Subjects of this liberty though it were granted unlawfull as to the authority doing it Which former is sufficient for my purpose viz. that Christian liberty as to the subjects of it may be lawfully restrained Secondly A lesser duty ceaseth to be a duty when it hinders from the performance of greater but the preserving Christian liberty is a lesser duty which may hinder the peace of the Church which is a greater therefore in that case it may be restrained The Major is granted by Divines and Casuists when duties stand in competition the lesser ceaseth to bind as is evident in that God will have mercy rather then sacrifice Positives yield to morals and naturals Thence the obligation of an Oath ceaseth when it hinders from a natural duty as the Corban among the Jews from relief of Parents And therefore Grotius saith that an Oath taken concerning a thing lawfull if it doth hinder majus bonum morale the obligation of that Oath ceaseth Now that preserving-liberty is a lesser duty then the looking after the peace of the Church is evident because the one is only a matter of liberty and left undetermin'd by the Word and the other a matter of necessity and absolutely and expresly required of all as a duty as much as possibly lyes in them to endeavour after Thirdly If an occasional offence of weaker Brethren may be a ground for restraining Christian liberty then much more may commands from lawfull authority do it but the offence of weaker Brethren may restrain Christian liberty as to the exercise of it as appears by the Apostles discourse Rom. 14. 21. The reason of the consequence lies here that a case of meer offence which is here pleaded towards weak Brethren cannot have that obligation upon Conscience which a known duty of obeying lawfull Authority in things in themselves lawfull hath Nay further insisting only on the Law of scandall I would fain know whether it be a greater offence and scandall to Christians consciences to infringe the lawfull authority of the Magistrate and to deny obedience to his commands in things undetermin'd by the Law of God or else to offend the Consciences that is go against the judgements of some well-meaning but less-knowing Christians Or thus whether in the matter of scandall it be a greater offence to go against the judgements of the weaker and more ignorant or the more knowing and able when the one have only their own weak apprehension to byasse them the other are backed by and grounded upon an established Law And whether it be not a greater scandall to Religion to disobey a Christian Magistrate then it is to offend some private Christians Let these things be examined and then let us see whether the argument will not hold à majori if the Law of scandall as to private Christians may restrain liberty then may a command from the Magistrate do it Fourthly I argue thus If the nature of Christian-liberty may be preserved under the restraint of the exercise of it then it is not against the nature of Christian-liberty to have the exercise restrained but the former is true and therefore the latter Now that the nature of Christian-liberty may be preserved under the restraint of its exercise I prove by these arguments First Because the nature of Christian-liberty is founded upon the freedom of judgement and not the freedom of practice The case is the same in moral and natural liberty as in Christian. Now we say truly that the radical liberty of the soul is preserved though it be determined to a particular action For the liberty of the Will lying in the power of determining its self either way as it is generally thought the actuall determination of the Will doth not take away the internal power in the soul and in that respect there may be a potentia faciendi where there is not possibilit as effectûs a power of doing when there is no possibility the thing should be done when the event is otherwise determined by a divine decree as in breaking the bones of Christ upon the Crosse. So it is in reference to Christian liberty though the exercise of it be restrained yet the liberty remains because Christian-liberty lyes in the freedom of judgement that is in judging those things to be free which are so so that if any thing that is in its self free be done by a man with an opinion of the necessity of doing it antecedent to the Law commanding it or without any Law prescribing it thereby his Christian liberty is destroyed but if it be done with an opinion of the freedom and indifferency of the thing it self but only with a consequential necessity of doing it supposing the Magistrates command he retains the power of his Christian-liberty still though under the restraint of the exercise of it And therefore it would be well observed that the opinion of the necessity of any one thing undetermined by Scripture destroys Christian-liberty more then a Magistrates command doth And by this
lesser matter if wilfully taken up and obstinately maintained is call'd Here sit which two are seldom seen out of each others company and when they are together are like the blind and same man in the Fable the one lent the other eyes and the other lent him feet one to find out what they desired the other to run away with it when they had it The Heretick he useth his eyes to spy out some cause or pretence of deserting Communion the Schismatick he helps him with his legâ— to run away from it but between them both they rob the Church of its peace and unity But in order to the making clear what the Churches power is in reference to these we are to take notice of these things First That the Church hath no direct immediate power over mens opinions So that a matter of meer different opinion lyes not properly within the cognizance of any Church power the reason of it is this because the end of power lodged in the Church is to preserve the peace and unity of its self now a meer different opinion doth not violate the bonds of Society for Opinionum diâ—er sitas opinantium unitas non sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men may preserve communion under different apprehensions So long then as diversity of opinion tends not to the breaking the quiet and tranquillity of the Church of God a man may safely enjoy his own private apprehensions as to any danger of molestation from Church Governours That is so long as a man keeps his opinion to himself and hath the power of being his own Counsellor It is not the difference of opinion formally considered when it is divulged abroad that is punishable but the tendency to Schism which lyes in the divâ—lging of it and drawing others away from the received Truths For the opinion its self is an internall act of the mind and therefore is punishable by no externall power as that of the Magistrate or Church is as no internall action is under the jurisdiction or authority of a Magistrate any further then as necessarily conjoyned with the outward action or as it hath a direct influence upon it The case of blasphemy which is a thing of the highest nature in this kind is not punishable by men as blasphemy implyes low and undervaluing thoughts of God but as being a thing divulged else no formal blaspemy it tends apparently to the dishonour of God and consequently to the breaking in pieces all such Societies whose great foundation is the belief of the Majesty and glory of God So Idolatry under the Law was punished as it was immediately destructive of that obedience which men did owe to the true God And under the Gospel it is not meer difference of opinion judgement and apprehension which layes men open to the Censures of that power which moderates and rules a religious Society but the endeavour by difference of opinion to alienate mens spirits one from another and thereby to break the Society into fractions and divisions is that which makes men liable to restraint and punishment From whence it follows that where the peace and unity of the Church may be preserved and yet men keep up different apprehensions of things there is nothing deserving any severe animadversion from the Rulers of that Society For a power corrective and vindictive must suppose something acted contrary to the Laws and Rules of the Society and the end of committing that power into the hands of Governours now here is nothing of that nature for the Laws of mutual Society are observed and the end of Church-Government is to see nè quid Ecclesia detrimenti capiat lest the Church as a Society be any wayes prejudiced which cannot be while men maintain that love affection and communion which becomes the members of such a Society The unity then required in the Church is not an unity of judgement and apprehension among the members of it which though it be their duty to endeavour after yet it is no further attainable by mens endeavours then perfection is and Unio Christianorum in this sense is one of the Jewels belonging to the Crown of Heaven There is no necessity then of inquiring after an infallible Judge of Controversies unlesse we had some promise and assurance from Christ that the members of his Church should never differ in their judgements from one another and then what need of an infallible Judge and if Christ had appointed an infallible Judg he would infallibly have discovered it to the minds of all sober men or else his infallibility could never attain its end For while I question whether my Judge be infallible or no I cannot infallibly assent to any of his determinations And where there is no ground for an infallible Judge for any to pretend to it is the worst of supposable errours because it renders all others incurable by that apprehension and takes away all possibility of repentance while men are under that perswasion The Unity then of the Church is that of Communion and not that of Apprehension and different opinions are no further lyable to censures then as men by the broaching of them do endeavour to disturb the peace of the Church of God That then which seems most lyable to censures in a Church is Schism as being immediately destructive of that communion which should be maintained in a religious Society But as to this too we must observe something further and not to think and judge every thing to deserve the name which is by many call'd Schism it being well observed by a very learned and judicious Divine that Heresie and Schism as they are commonly used are two Theologicall scare-crows with which they who use to uphold a party in Religion use to fright away such as making enquiry into it are ready to relinquish and oppose it if it appear either erroneous or suspitious For as Plutarch reports of a Painter who having unskilfully painted a Cock chased away all Cocks and Hens that so the imperfection of his Art might not appear by comparison with nature so men willing for ends to admit of no fancy but their own endeavour to hinder an enquiry into it by way of comparison of somewhat with it peradventure truer that so the deformity of their own might not appear Thus he Schism then as it imports a separation from communion with a Church-society is not a thing intrinsecally and formally evil in it self but is capable of the differences of good and evil according to the grounds reasons ends and circumstances inducing to such a separation The withdrawing from Society is but the materiality of Schism the formality of it must be fetched from the grounds on which that is built It is therefore a subject which deserve a strict inquiry what things those are which may make a withdrawing from a religious Society to which a man is joyned to be lawfull For as it is a great sin on the one hand unnecessarily to
with that Church in those things will be lawfull too and where non-communion is lawfull there can be no Schism in it Whatever difference will be thought of as to the things imposed by the Church of Rome and others will be soon answered by the proportionable difference between bare non-conformity and totall and positive separation What was in its self lawfull and necessary then how comes it to be unlawfull and unnecessary now Did that justifie our withdrawing from them because they required things unlawfull as conditions of communion and will not the same justifie other mens non-conformity in things supposed by them unlawfull If it be said here that the Popes power was an usurpation which is not in lawfull Governours of Churches it is soon replyed That the Popes usurpation mainly lyes in imposing things upon mens consciences as necessary which are doubtfull or unlawfull and where-ever the same thing is done there is an usurpation of the same nature though not in so high a degree and it may be as lawfull to withdraw communion from one as well as the other If it be said that men are bound to be ruled by their Governours in determining what things are lawfull and what not To this it is answered first no true Protestant can swear blind obedience to Church-Governours in all things It is the highest usurpation to rob men of the liberty of their judgements That which we plead for against the Papists is that all men have eyes in their heads as well as the Pope that every one hath a judicium privata discretionis which is the rule of practice as to himself and though we freely allow a ministeriall power under Christ in the Government of the Church yet that extends not to an obligation upon men to go against the dictates of their own reason and conscience Their power is only directive and declarative and in matters of duty can bind no more then reason and evidence brought from Scripture by them doth A man hath not the power over his own understanding much lâ—sse can others have it Nullus credit aliquid esse verum quia vult credere id esse verum non est enim in potestate hominis facere aliquid apparere intellectui suo verum quando voluerit Either therefore men are bound to obey Church-Governours in all things absolutely without any restriction or limitation which if it be not usurpation and dominion over others faith in them and the worst of implicite faith in others it is hard to define what either of them is or else if they be bound to obey only in lawfull things I then enquire who must be judge what things are lawfull in this case what not if the Governours still then the power will be absolute again for to be sure whatever they command they will say is lawfull either in it self or as they command it if every private person must judge what is lawfull and what not which is commanded as when all is said every man will be his owd judge in this case in things concerning his own welfare then he is no further bound to obey then he judgeth the thing to be lawfull which is commanded The plea of an erroneous conscience takes not off the obligation to follow the dictates of it for as he is bound to lay it down supposing it erroneous so he is bound not to go against it while it is not laid down But then again if men are bound to submit to Governours in the determination of lawfull things what plea could our Reformers have to withdraw themselves from the Popes yoke it might have still held true Boves arabant Asina Pascebantur simul which is Aquinas his argument for the submission of inferiours in the Church to their superiours for did not the Pope plead to be a lawfull Governour and if men are bound to submit to the determination of Church-Governours as to the lawfulnesse of things they were bound to believe him in that as well as other things and so separation from that Church was unlawfull then So that let men turn and wind themselves which way they will by the very same arguments that any will prove separation from the Church of Rome lawfull because she required unlawfull things as conditions of her communion it will be proved lawfull not to conform to any suspected or unlawfull practice required by any Church-Governours upon the same terms if the thing so required be after serious and â—ober inquiry judged unwarrantable by a mans own conscience And withall it would be further considered whether when our best Writers against the Papists do lay the imputation oâ— Schism not on those who withdraw communion but on them for requiring such conditions of communion whereby they did rather eject men out of their communion than the others separate from them they do not by the same arguments lay the imputation of Schism on all who require such conditions of communion and take it wholly off from those who refuse to conform for conscience sake To this I shall subjoyn the judgement of as learned and judicious a Divine as most our Nation hath bred in his excellent though little Tract concerning Schism In those Schisms saith he which concern fact nothing can be a just cause of refusing communion but only to require the execution of some unlawfull or suspected act for not only in reason but in Religion too that Maxim admits of no release Cantissimi cujusque praeceptum Quod dubitas nè feceris And after instanceth in the Schism about Image-worship determin'd by the second Council of Nice in which he pronounceth the Schismatical party to be the Synod its self and that on these grounds First because it is acknowledged by all that it is a thing unnecessary Secondly it is by most suspected Thirdly it is by many held utterly unlawfull Can then saith he the enjoyning of such a thing be ought else but abuse Or can the refusall of communion here be thought any other thing then duty Here or upon the like occasion to separate may peradventure bring personal trouble or danger against which it concerns any honest man to have pectus praeparatum further harm it cannot do so that in these cases you cannot be to seek what to think or what you have to do And afterwards propounds it as a remedy to prevent Schism to have all Liturgies and publike forms of service so framed as that they admit not of particular and private fancies but contain only such things in which all Christians do agree For saith he consider of all the Liturgies that are and ever have been and remove from them whatever is scandalous to any party and leave nothing but what all agree on and the evil shall be that the publike service and honour of God shall no wayes suffer Whereas to load our publike forms with the private fancies upon which we differ is the most soveraign way to perpetuate Schism unto the Worlds end Prayer Confession
were not such particular Organized Churches but they were as the first matter of many congregations to be propagated out of them which after made one Society consisting of those several congregations imbodyed together and ruled by one common Government As in a Colledge every Tutor hath his own Pupils wich he rules and if we suppose but one Tutor at first in the Colledge with his Pupils all the power both common to the Society and peculiar to his Flock is joyned together but when there are many more Tutors having Pupils under their charge all these for their better ordering as a Society must be governed by the common Government of the Colledge to which the particular Government of every Tutor is and must be subordinate But this will be more fully made appear in the Original of Civil Government It is far more evident that all Civil power lay at first in Adam and his Family and afterwards in particular Families than that all Church-power lay in particular congregations at first We may then with as good Reason say that there is no lawfull civil Government now but that of particular Families and that no Nationall Government hath any right or power over particular Families because Families had once all civil Power within themselves as because it â—â— supposed that all Church-power lay first in particular congregations therefore there must be no Church-power above them nor that particular congregations are subject to such Government as is requisite for the Regulating of the Society in common as comprehending in it many particular congregations Let them shew then how any Government in the State is lawfull when Families had the first power and by what right now those Families are subordinate to the civill Magistrate and what necessity there is for it and by the very same Reasons will we shew the lawfulness of Government in the Church over many Congregations and that those are by the same right and upon the same necessity to subordinate themselves to the Government of the Church considereâ—â—â— a Society taking in many particular Congregations The Parallel runs on further and clearer still For as the heads of the severall Families after the Flood had the command over all dwelling under their Roofs while they remained in one Family and when that increased into more there power was extended over them too which was the first Original of Monarchy in the World So the Planters of the first Churches that while the Church was but one Congregation had power over it when this Congregation was multiplyed into more their Power equally extended over them all And as afterwards several heads of Families upon their increase did constitute distinct Civil Governments wherein were subordinate Officers but those Governments themselves were co-ordinate one with another So in the Church so many Congregations as make up one Provincial or National Society as succession and prudence doth order the bounds of them do make up several particular Churches enjoying their Officers ruling them but subordinare to the Governours of the Church in common Which Society National or Provincial is subordinate to none beyond its self but enjoyes a free Power within its self of ordering things for its own Government as it judgeth most convenient and agreeable to the Rules of Scripture The summe then of what I say concerning subordination of Officers and Powers in the Society of the Church is this That by the light and Law of Nature it appears that no individuall company or Congregation hath an absolute independent power within its self but that for the redressing grievances happening in them appeals are 〈…〉 to the parties aggrieved and a subordination of that particu 〈…〉 Congregation to the Government of the Society in common 〈…〉 at the right of Appealing and Originall of Subordination is from Nature the particular manner and form of subordinate and superiour Courts is to be fetched from positive Lawes the limitation of Appeals extent of jurisdiction the binding power of Sentence so far as concerns external Unity in the Church is to be fetched from the power of the Magistrate and civil Sanctions and Constitutions The Churches power as to Divine Law being onely directive and declarative but being confirmed by a civil Sanction is juridicall and obligatory Concerning the Magistrates power to call confirm alter repeal the Decrees of Synods see Grotius Chamier Whitaker Casaubon Mornay and others who fully and largely handle it To whom having nothing to add I will take nothing at all from them As for that time when the Church was without Magistrates ruling in it in those things left undetermined by the Rule of the Word they acted out of Principles of Christian Prudence agreeable to the Rules of Scripture and from the Principles of the Law of nature One of which we come in the next place to speak to So much for the Churches Power considered as a Society for ending controversies arising within its self tending to break the Peace and Unity of it CHAP. VII The fifth thing dictated by the Law of Nature That all that are admitted into this Society must consent to be governed by the Lawes and Rules of it Civil Societies founded upon mutual consent express in the first entrance implicite in others born under societies actually formed Consent as to a Church necessary the manner of Consent determined by Christ by Baptism and Profession Implicite Consent supposed in all baptized explicite declared by challenging the priviledges and observing the duties of the Covenant Explicite by express owning the Gospel when adult very usefull for recovering the credit of Christianity The Discipline of the Primitive Church cleared from Origen Iustin Martyr Pliny Tertullian The necessary requisites of Church Membership whether positive signs of Grace Explicite Covenant how far necessary not the formal Constitution of a Church * proved by several Arguments THe Law of Nature dictates That all who are admitted into this Society must consent to be governed by the Laws and Rules of that Society according to its Constitution For none can be looked upon as a Member of a Society but such a one as submits to the Rules and Laws of the Society as constituted at the time of his entrance into it That all civil Societies are founded upon voluntary consent and agreement of parties and do depend upon Contracts and Covenants made between them is evident to any that consider that men are not bound by the Law of Nature to associate themselves with any but whom they shall judge fit that Dominion and Propriety was introduced by free consent of men and so there must be Laws and Bonds fit agreement made and submission acknowledged to those Lawes else Men might plead their Naturall Right and Freedom still which would be destructive to the very Nature of these Societies When men then did first part with their natural Liberties two things were necessary in the most express terms to be declared First a free and voluntary consent to part with
And we find by Pliny that when the hetaeriae were forbidden he brought the Christians in under that Law the ground of those Societies was onely a mutual compact and agreement among the persons of it Such as among the Essens of the Jewes and the Schools of Philosophers among the Greeks Iosephus mentions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who were admitted into the Society of the Essens And so in all other Societies which subsist onely from mutuall confederation in a Common-wealth Thus I acknowledge it to be in Christianity that there must be such a supposed contract or voluntary consent in the persons engaged in such Societies But with this observable difference that although there must be a consent in both yet the one is wholly free as to any pre-engagement or obligation to it as well as to the act its self but in religious societies though the Act of consent be free yet there is an antecedent Obligation upon men binding them to this voluntary consent The want of the understanding this Difference is the very Foundation of that Opinion men call Erastianism For the followers of Erastus when they finde that Christians did act ex confoederatâ disciplinâ they presently conclude all Church-power lay onely in mutuall consent It is granted Church-power doth suppose consent but then all Christians are under an Obligation from the Nature of Christianity to express this consent and to submit to all censures Legally inflicted About the hetaeriae and Societies among the Romans we may take notice of the Law of Twelve Tables So in the collection of Lud. Charondus Sodalibus qui ejusdem Collegii sunt jus cotundi habent potestas esto pactionis quam volent inter se ineunda dum nè quid ex publicâ lege corrumpant Ex Caio c. 4. D. de Collec corp I confesse when persons are entred into a visible Church-So ciety by Baptism if they will own that profession they were baptized into and are not guilty either of plain ignorance of it or manifest scandall and demand as their right the other Ordinances of the Gospel I see not by what power they may be excluded If we fix not in a serious visible prosession as the ground of giving right but require positive evidences of grace in every one to be admitted to Ordinances as the only thing giving right for my part setting aside the many inconveniences besides which attend that in reference to the persons to be admitted I see not how with a safe and good conscience Ordinances can be administred by any My reason is this Every one especially a Minister in that case ought to proceed upon certain grounds that the person admitted hath right to the Ordinance to be administred but if positive signs of grace be required a mans conscience cannot proceed upon any certainty without infallible knowledge of anothers spiritual state which I suppose none will pretend to My meaning is that which gives right must be something evident to the person admitting into it if it be his duty to enquire after it but if only positive signs of grace be looked on as giving right the ground of right can never be so evident to another person as to proceed with a good conscience i. e. with a full perswasion of another right to the administration of any Ordinance to him If it be said that these are required only as tokens of a true visible profession and it is that which gives the right I reply Our knowledge of and assent to the conclusion can be no stronger nor more certain then to the premisses from whenâ—â— it is inferred if therefore true profession gives right and our knowledge of that proceeds upon our knowledge of the work of grace we are left at the same uncertainty we were at before But if we say that an outward profession of the Gospel where there is nothing rendring men uncapable of owning it which is ignorance nor declaring they do not own it which is sâ—andall is that which gives a visible right to the Ordinances of the Church as visible we have something to fix our selves upon and to bottom a perswasion of the right of persons to Ordinances Christ when he instituted Churches did institute them as visible Societies that is to have marks whereby to be known and distinguished as other Societies in the world are now that which puts a difference between this and other Societies is an open profession of Christianity which profession is looked upon as the outward expression of the internal consent of the soul to the Doctrine and Laws of the Gospel Which outward evidence of consent where there is nothing evidently and directly oppugning it is that which the Church of God in admission of visible members is to proceed upon I nowhere find that ever Christ or his Apostles in making disciples or admitting to Church-membership did exact any more then a professed willingnesse to adhere to the Doctrine which they preached nor that they refused any who did declare their desire to joyn with them An owning Christianity is all we read of antecedent to admission of Church-members And if any thing else be further required as necessary we must either say the Word of God is defective in institutions of necessity to the Church which I suppose the assertors of it will not be so inconsistent to their own principles as to do or else must produce where any thing further is required by the Word of God By this we may see what to answer those who require an explicite Covenant from all members of the Church as that which gives the form and being to a Church If they mean only in the first constitution of a visible Church an expresse owning of the Gospel-covenant there is none will deny that to be necessary to make one a member of the visible Church of Christ. If they further mean that there must be a real confederation between those who joyn together in Gospel-Ordinances in order to their being a Church I know none will question it that know what it is that makes a Society to be so which is such a real confederation with one another If they mean further that though Christians be bound by vertue of their Gospel-covenant to joyn with some Church Society yet not being determined by Scripture to what particular Church they should joyn therefore for Christians better understanding what their mutuall duty is to one another and who that Pastor is to whom they owe the relation of member that there should be some significant declaration either by words or actions of their willingnesse to joyn with such a particular Society in Gospel-Ordinances I shall grant this to be necessary too But if beyond this their meaning be that a formal explicite covenant be absolutely necessary to make any one a member of a Church I see no reason for it For 1. If there may be a real confederation without this then this is not necessary but there
the continuance of a Gospel Ministry fully cleared from all those Arguments by which positive Lawes are proved immutable The reason of the appointment of it continues the dream of a seculum Spiritûs Sancti discussed first broached by the Mâ—ndicant Friers It s occasion and unreasonableness shewed Gods declaring the perpetuity of a Gospel Ministry Matth. 28. 19. explained A novell Interpretation largely refuted The world to come what A Ministry necessary for the Churches continuance Ephes. 4. 12. explained and vindicated SEcondly That the Government of the Church ought to be Administred by Officers of Divine appointment is another thing I will yield to be of Divine Right but the Church here I take not in that latitude which I did in the former Concession but I take it chiefly here for the Members of the Church as distinct from Officers as it is taken in Acts 15. 22. So that my meaning is that there must be a standing perpetuall Ministry in the Church of God whose care and imployment must be to oversee and Govern the People of God and to administer Gospel-Ordinances among them and this is of Divine and perpetuall Right That Officers were appointed by Christ in the Church for these ends at first is evident from the direct affirmation of Scripture God hath set in the Church first Apostles secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers c. 1 Corinth 12. 28. Eph. 4. 8 11. and other places to the same purpose This being then a thing acknowledged that they were at first of Divine Institution and so were appointed by a Divine positive Law which herein determines and restrains the Law of Nature which doth not prescribe the certain qualifications of the persons to govern this Society nor the instalment or admission of them into this employment viz by Ordination The only enquiry then left is Whether a standing Gospel-ministry be such a positive Law as is to remain perpetually in the Church or no which I shall make appear by those things which I laid down in the entrance of this Treatise as the Notes whereby to know when positive Laws are unalterable The first was when the same reason of the command continues still and what reason is there why Christ should appoint Officers to rule his Church then which will not hold now Did the people of God need Ministers then to be as Stars as they are call'd in Scripture to lead them unto Christ and do they not as well need them now Had people need of guides then when the doctrine of the Gospel was confirmed to them by miracles and have they not much more now Must there be some then to oppose gainsayers and must they have an absolute liberty of prophecying now when it is foretold what times of seduction the last shall be Must there be some then to rule over their charge as they that must give an account and is not the same required still Were there some then to reprove rebuke exhort to preach in season out of season and is there not the same necessity of these things still Was it not enough then that there were so many in all Churches that had extraordinary gifts of tongues prophecying praying interpretation of tongues but besides those there were some Pastors by office whose duty it was to give attendance to reading to be wholly in these things and now when these extraordinary gifts are ceased is not there a much greater necessity then there was then for some to be set apart and wholly designed for this work Were Ordinances only then administred by those whom Christ commissioned and such as derived their authority from them and what reason is there that men should arrogate and take this imployment upon themselves now If Christ had so pleased could he not have left it wholly at liberty for all believers to have gone about preaching the Gospel or why did he make choice of 12. Apostles chiefly for that work were it not his Will to have some particularly to dispense the Gospel and if Christ did then separate some for that work what Reason is there why that Office should be thrown common now which Christ himself inclosed by his own appointment There can be no possible Reason imagined why a Gospel-Ministry should not continue still unless it be that Fanatick pretence of a Seculum Spiritus Sancti a Dispensation of the Spirit which shall evacuate the use of all means of Instruction and the use of all Gospel-Ordinances which pretence is not so Novell as most imagine it to be for setting aside the Montanistical spirit in the Primitive Times which acted upon Principles much of the same Nature with these we now speak of The first rise of this Ignis fatuus was from the bogs of Popery viz. from the Orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans about the middle of the twelfth Century For no sooner did the Pauperes de Lugduno or the Waldenses appear making use of the Word of God to confute the whole Army of Popish Traditions but they finding themselves worsted at every turn while they disputed that ground found out a Stratagem whereby to recover their own Credit and to beat their adversaries quite out of the field Which was that the Gospel which they adhered to so much was now out of date and instead of that they broached another Gospel out of the Writings of the Abbot Ioachim and Cyrils visions which they blasphemously named Evangelium Spiritus Sancti Evangelium Novum and Evangelium Aeternum as Gulielmus de Sancto Amore their great Antagonist relates in his Book de periculis noviss temporum purposely designed against the Impostures of the Mendicant Friers who then like Locusts rose in multitudes with their shaven crowns out of the bottomless pit This Gospel of the Spirit they so much magnified above the Gospel of Christ that the same Author relates these words of theirs concerning it Quod comparatum ad Evangelium Christi tanto plus perfectionis ac dignitatis habet quantum Sol ad Lunam comparatus aut ad nucleum testa that it exceeded it as much as the kernell doth the shell or the Light of the Sun doth that of the Moon We see then from what quarter of the World this new Light began to rise but so much for this digression To the thing it self If there be such a dispensation of the Spirit which takes away the use of Ministry and Ordinances it did either commence from the time of the effusion of the Spirit upon the Apostles or some time since Not then for even of those who had the most large portion of the Spirit poured upon them we read that they continued in all Gospel ordinances Acts 2. 42 and among the chief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Apostles Ministry it may be better rendred than in the Apostles Doctrine And which is most observable the Prophecy of Ioel about the Spirit is then said to be fulfilled Acts 2. 17.
of the Governours acting in it but that care which Paul had over all the Churches would have prompted him especially being assisted and guided by an infallible Spirit in the penning those Epistles to have laid down some certain Rules for the acting of the Pastors of the Churches after the departure of Timothy and Titus Considering especially that the Epistles then written by him were to be of standing perpetual use in the Church of God and by which the Churches in after-ages were to be guided as well as those that were then in being The Apostle in both Epistles takes care for a succession of Pastors in those Churches Timothy is charged to commit the things he had heard of Paul to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others Had it not been as requisite to have charged him to have committed his power of Government to men fit for that had the Apostles looked on the form of Government to be as necessary as the office of preaching Paul saith he left Titus in Creete on purpose to settle the Churches and ordain Presbyters in every City had it not been as necessary to have shewed in what order the Churches must be setled and what power did belong to those Presbyters and how they should act in the governing their Churches had he thought the constitution of the Churches did depend upon the form of their acting We see here then that St. Paul doth not expresse any thing necessarily inferring any one constant form to be used in the Church of God And whence can we inferr any necessity of it but from the Scriptures laying it down as a duty that such a form and no other there must be used in the Church of God For all that we can see then by Pauls direction for Church-Government when if ever this should have been expressed it was left to the Christian wisdome and prudence of the Churches of Ephesus and Creet to consult and determine in what manner the government of their Churches should be provided for upon the departure of Timothy and Titus from them But here it will be soon replyed That though nothing be expressed in Pauls Epistles to Timothy and Titus yet Pauls appointing Timothy and Titus over those Churches did determine the form of Government and they were entrusted with a power to provide for future Governours after them To this â—answer First The superiority which Timothy and Titus had over those Churches doth not prove that form of Government necessary in all Churches I dispute not whether they were Evangelists or no or acted as such in that Superiority of that afterwards it is evident they might be so there being no convincing argument to the contrary And the bare possibility of the truth of the Negative destroys the necessity of the Affirmative of a Proposition As Si posibile est hominem non esse animal then that Proposition is false Necesse est hominem esse animal For Necesse est esse and Non possibile est non esse being â—quipollents on the one side and Possibile est non esse Et non necesse est esse being â—quipollents on the other Possibile est non esse must be contradictory to Necesse est esse as Non possibile est non esse is to Non necesse est esse So that if only the possibility of their acting as Evangelists that is by an extraordinary Commission be evicted which I know none will deny the necessity of their acting as fixed Bishops is destroyed and consequently the necessity of the continuance of their office too which depends upon the former For if they acted not as Bishops nothing can be drawn from their example necessarily inforcing the continuance of the Superiority which they enjoyed But though nothing can be inferred from hence as to the necessity of that office to continue in the Church which Timothy and Titus were invested in yet from the Superiority of that power which they enjoyed over those Churches whether as Evangelists or as fixed Bishops These two things may be inferred First That the superiority of some Church-Officers over others is not contrary to the Rule of the Gospel for all parties acknowledge the superiority of their power above the Presbyters of the several Cityes only the continuance of this power â—â— disputed by many But if they had any such power at all it is enough for my present design viz. that such a superiority is not contrary to the Gospel-Rule or that the nature of the Government of the Church doth not imply a necessary equality among the Governours of it Secondly Hence I infer that it is not repugnant to the constitution of Churches in Apostolical times for men to have power over more than one particular Congregation For such a power Timothy and Titus had which had it been contrary to the nature of the regiment of Churches we should never have read of in the first planted Churches So that if those popular arguments of a necessary relation between a Pastor and particular people of personal knowledge care and inspection did destroy the lawfulnesse of extending that care and charge to many particular Congregations they would likewise overthrow the nature end and design of the office which Timothy and Titus acted in which had a relation to a multitude of particular and Congregational Churches Whether their power was extraordinary or no I now dispute not but whether such a power be repugnant to the Gospel or no which from their practice is evident that it is not But then others who would make this office necessary urge further that Timothy or Titus might ordain and appoint others to succeed them in their places and care over all those Churches under their charge To which I answer First What they might do is not the question but what they did as they might do it so they might not do it if no other evidence be brought to prove it for Quod possibile est esse possibile â—st non esse Secondly Neither what they did is the whole question but what they did with an opinion of the necessity of doing it whether they were bound to do it or no and if so whether by any Law extant in Scripture and given them by Paul in his Epistles or some private command and particular instructions when he deputed them to their several charges If the former that Law and command must be produced which will hardly be if we embrace only the received Canon of the Scripture If the latter we must then fetch some standing Rule and Law from unwritten Traditions for no other evidence can be given of the Instructions by word of mouth given by Paul to Timothy and Titus at the taking their charges upon them But yet Thirdly Were it only the matter of fact that was disputed that would hold a Controversie still viz. Whether any did succeed Timothy and Titus in their Offices but this I shall leave to its proper place to be discussed when
exercise of this power is not any unlawfulnesse in the thing but the preserving of order and conveniency in the Church of God This being premised I say Secondly That the officers of the Church may in a peculiar manner attribute a larger and more extensive power to some particular persons for the more convenient exercise of their common power We have seen already that their power extends to the care of the Churches in common that the restraint of this power is a matter of order and decency in the Church of God Now in matters of common concernment without all question it is not unlawful when the Church judgeth it most for Edification to grant to some the executive part of that power which is Originally and Fundamentally common to them all For our better understanding of this we must consider a twofold power belonging to Church-Officers a power of Order and a power of jurisdiction for in every Presbyter there are some things inseparably joyned to his Function and belonging to every one in his personal capacity both in actu primo and in actu secundo both as to the right and power to do it and the exercise and execution of that power such are preaching the Word visiting the sick administring Sacraments c. But there are other things which every Presbyter hath an aptitude and a jus to in actu primo but the limitation and exercise of that power doth belong to the Church in common and belong not to any one personally but by a further power of choice or delegation to it such is the power of visiting Churches taking care that particular Pastors discharge their duty such is the power of ordination and Church censures and making Rules for decency in the Church this is that we call the power of jurisdiction Now this latter power though it belongs habitually and in actu primo to every Presbyter yet being about matters of publike and common concernment some further Authority in a Church constituted is necessary besides the power of order and when this power either by consent of the Pastors of the Church or by the appointment of a Christian Magistrate or both is devolved to some particular persons though quoad aptitudinem the power remain in every Presbyter yet quoad executionem it belongs to those who are so appointed And therefore Camero determins that Ordinatio non fit à pastore quatenus pastor est sed quatenus ad tempus singularem authoritatem obtinet i. e. That Ordination doth not belong to the Power of Order but to the Power of Jurisdiction and therefore is subject to Positive restraints by Prudential Determinations By this we may understand how lawfull the Exercise of an Episcopal Power may be in the Church of God supposing an equality in all Church-Officers as to the Power of Order And how incongruously they speak who supposing an equality in the Presbyters of Churches at first do cry out that the Church takes upon her the Office of Christ if she delegates any to a more peculiar Exercise of the power of Jurisdiction The last thing pleaded why an immutable Form of Church-Government must be laid down in Scripture is from the perfection and sufficiency of the Scriptures because otherwise the Scriptures would be condemned of imperfection But this will receive an easie dispatch For First The Controversie about the perfection of the Scriptures is not concerning an essential or integral Perfection but a perfection ratione finis effectuum in order to its end now the end of it is to be an adaequate Rule of Faith and Manners and sufficient to bring men to salvation which it is sufficiently acknowledged to be if all things necessary to be believed or practised be contained in the Word of God now that which we assert not to be fully laid down in Scripture is not pleaded to be any wayes necessary nor to be a matter of Faith but something left to the Churches Liberty but here it is said by some that this is adding to the Law of God which destroyes the Scriptures perfection therefore I answer Secondly Whatever is done with an Opinion of the necessity of doing it destroyes the Scriptures perfection if it be not contained in it for that were to make it an imperfect Rule and in this sense every additio perficiens is additio corrumpens because it takes away from the perfection of the Rule which it is added to and thus Popish Traditions are destructive of the Scriptures sufficiency But the doing of any thing not positively determined in Scripture not looking upon it as a thing we are bound to do from the necessity of the thing and observing the general Rules of Scripture in the doing it is far from destroying the perfection or sufficiency of the Word of God Thirdly All essentials of Church-Government are contained clearly in Scripture The essentials of Church-Government are such as are necessary to the preservation of such a Society as the Church is Now all these things have been not only granted but proved to be contained in Scripture but whatever is not so necessary in its self can only become necessary by vertue of Gods express command and what is not so commanded is accidental and circumstantial and a matter of Christian liberty and such we assert the Form of Church-Government to be It is not our work to enquire why God hath determined some things that might seem more circumstantial than this and left other things at liberty but whether God hath determined these things or no. Which determination being once cleared makes the thing so commanded necessary as to our observance of it but if no such thing be made appear the thing remains a matter of liberty and so the Scriptures perfection as to necessaries in order to Salvation is no wayes impeached by it So much now for the necessity of Christs determining the particular form of Government We now proceed to the consideration of Christs Actions whether by them the form of Church-Government is determined or no CHAP. V. Whether any of Christs Actions have determined the Form of Government All Power in Christs hands for Governing his Church What order Christ took in order thereto when he was in the World Calling Apostles the first action respecting outward Government The Name and Office of Apostles cleared An equality among them proved during our Saviours life Peter not made Monarch of the Church by Christ. The Apostles Power over the seventy Disciples considered with the nature and quality of their Office Matth. 20. 25 26 27. largely discussed and explained It makes not all inequality in Church Officers unlawful by the difference of Apostles and Pastors of Churches Matth. 18. 15. How far that determins the Form of Church-Government No evidence of any exact Order for Church-Government from thence Matth. 16. 15 16 17 18. considered how far that concerns the Government of the Church HAving considered and answered the Arguments which are brought why Christ must
from whom they derived their power and by whose authority they acted And these were the most suitable to them as making it appear that a Divine presence went along with them and therefore they could not salsifie to the world in what they Declared unto them which was the best way for them to evidence the Truth of their Doctrine because it was not to be discovered by the Evidence of the things themselves but it depended upon the Testimony of the Authour and therefore the onely way to confirm the truth of the Doctrine was to confirm the credibility of the Authour which was best done by doing something above what the power of nature could reach unto And this was the prerogative of the Apostles in their first mission above Iohn the Baptist For of him it is said that he did no miracle Fourthly we observe that the Apostles in this mission were invested in no power over the Church nor in any Superiority of Order one over another The first is evident because Christ did not now send them abroad to gather Churches but onely to call persons to the Doctrine of the Messias and while Christ was in the World among them he retained all Church power and authority in his own hand When this temporary mission expired the Apostles lived as private persons still under Christs Tutorage and we never read them acting in the least as Church-Officers all that while Which may appear from this one argument because all the time of our Saviours being in the World he never made a total separation from the Iewish Church but frequented with his Disciples the Temple worship and Service to the last although he super-added many Gospel Observations to those of the Law And therefore when no Churches were gathered the Apostles could have no Church power over them All that can be pleaded then in order to Church-Government from the consideration of the Form of Government as setled by our Saviour must be either from a supposed inequality among the Apostles themselves or their superiority over the LXX Disciples or from some Rules laid down by Christ in order to the Government of his Church of which two are the most insisted on Matthew 20. 25. Matth. 18. 17. Of these in their Order The first argument drawn for an established form of Government in the Church from the state of the Apostles under Christ is from a supposed inequality among the Apostles and the superiority of one as Monarch of the Church which is the Papists Plea from Saint Peter as the chief and head of the Apostles Whose loud Exclamations for Saint Peters authority aâ—â— much of the same nature with those of Demetrius the Silver-Smith at Ephesus with his fellow craftsmen who cried up Great is Diana of the Ephesians not from the honor they bore to her as Diana but from the gain which came to them from her worship at Ephesus But I dispute not now the entail of Saint Peters power what ever it was to the Roman Bishop but I onely inquire into the Pleas drawn for his authority from the Scriptures which are written in so small a character that without the spectacles of an implicite Faith they will scarce appear legible to the Eyes of men For what though Christ changed Saint Peters name must it therefore follow that Christ baptized him Monarch of his Church Were not Iohn and Iames called by Christ Boanerges and yet who thinks that those sons of Thunder must therefore overturn all other power but their own Christ gave them new names to shew his own authority over them and not their authority over others to be as Monitors of their Duty and not as Instruments to convey power So Chrysostome speaks of the very name Peter given to Simon it was to shew him his duty of being fixed and stable in the Faith of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this name might be as a string upon his finger a continual remembrancer of his duty And likewise I conceive as an incouragement to him after his fall that he should recover his former stability again else it should seem strange that he alone of the Apostles should have his name from firmness and stability who fell the soonest and the foulest of any of the Apostles unlesse it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which would be worse Divinity then Rhetorick The change then of St Peters name imports no such Universall Power neither from the change nor from the name But why then hath Saint Peter the honour to be named first of all the Apostles First it seems to be implyed as an honour given to Peter above the rest But doth all honour carry an Universal power along with it there may be order certainly among equals and there may be first second and third c. where there is no imparity and jurisdiction in the first over all the rest Primacy of Order as among equals I know none will deny Saint Peter A Primacy of Power as over Inferiours I know none will grant but such as have subdued their Reason to their Passion and Interest Nay a further Order then of mâ—er place may without danger be attributed to him A Primacy in Order of Time as being of the first called and it may be the first who adhered to Christ in Order of Age of which Ierome aetati delatum quia Petrus senior erat speaking of Peter and Iohn nay yet higher some Order of Dignity too in regard of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greek Fathers speak so much of the servency and heat of his spirit whence by Eusebius he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Prolocutor among the Apostles who was therefore most forward to inquire most ready to answer which Chrysostome elegantly calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alluding to the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are frequently given to Peter by the Fathers which import no more then praesultor in choreâ he that that led the dance among the Disciples but his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies no Superiority of Power For Dyonys Haliarnass calls Appius Claâ—dius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas all know that the Decemviri had an equality of power among themselves Neither doth his being as the mouth of the Disciples imply his power For Aaron was a mouth to Moses but Moses was Aarons Master Neither yet doth this Primacy of Order alwayes hold in reference to Peter For although generally he is named first of the Aposties as Matthew 10. 2. Mark 3. 16. Acts 1. 13. Mark 1. 36. Luk 8. 45. Acts 2. 14. 37. Yet in other places of Scripture we finde other Apostles set in Order before him as Iames Galat. 2. 9. Paul and Apollos and others 1 Cor. 3. 22. 1 Cor. 1. 12. 9. 5. No Argument then can be drawn hence if it would hold but onely a Primacy of Order and yet even that fails too in the Scriptures changing of the Order so often
Precept of Christ But with you it shall not be so But however an inequality of Power and Order for the Churches good is not thereby prohibited Which is sufficient for my purpose The next place to be considered is that in Matthew 18. 15 16 17. If thy brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a Publican It seems a very strange thing to consider that this one place hath been pressed by all parties to serve under them for the maintenance of their own particular form of Government so that as the Iews fable of the Manna it hath had a different taste according to the diversity of the palats of men Those that are for a Congregational Church being the first receptacle of Church power set this place in the front of their arguments Those who plead for Standing Presbyteries Lay-Elders subordination of Courts fetch all these out of this place Those that are for a Power of Church Discipline to be only lodged in a higher Order of Chur 〈…〉 Officers succeeding the Apostles derive the succession of that power from this place nay lest quidlibet should not be proved èquolibet the Papists despair not of proving the constant visibility of the Church the subordination of all to the Pope the infallibility of general Councils all out of this place Methinks then it might be argument enough of the incompetency of this place to determine any one particular form when it is with equal confidence on all sides brought to prove so many especially if it be made appear that the general Rule laid down in these words may be observed under a diversity of forms of Government For whether by the Church we mean the community of the faithful in a particular Congregation or the standing Officers of such a Church or a Consistorial Court or Synodical Assembly or higher Church-Officers it is still the duty of men in case of offences to tell the Church for redresse of grievances or vindication of the person himself that he hath discharged his duty This place then determines not what this Church is nor what the form of it◠Government should be when the sense of it holds good and true under such diversity of forms But we shall further enquire what influence this place can have upon the modelling the Government in the Church of God Fo◠Chamier tells us the prima Politia Ecclesiasticae origo is to be found in these words it will be then worth our enquiry to see what foundation for Church government can be drawn out of these words In which the variety of Expositions like a multitude of Physitians to a distempered Patient have left it worse then they found it I mean more difficult and obscure We shall therefore endeavour to lay aside all pre-conceptions by other mens judgements and opinions and see what innate Light there is in the Text it self to direct us to the full sense and meaning of it Two things the great difficulty of the place lyes in What the offences are here spoken of What the Church is which must b◠spoken to For the First I conceive it evident to any unprejudicated mind that the matter our Saviour speaks of is a matter of private offence and injury and not a matter of scandal as such considered in a Church-Society which I make appear thus First From the parallel place to this Luke 17. 3. 〈…〉 y Brother trespasse against thee rebuke him and if he repent forgive him This can be nothing else but a matter of private injury because it is in the power of every private person to forgive it which it was not in his power to do were it a matter of scandal to the whole Church unlesse we make it among Christians as it was among the Jews that every private person might excommunicate another and to release him afterward Secondly It manifestly appears from St. Peters words next after this Paragraph Matth. 18. 20. Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him till seven times c. Christ answers him till seventy times seven that is as often as he doth it And thence Christ brings the parable of the King forgiving his Servants v. 23. Thirdly Were it meant of any scandalous sin committed with the privacy of any particular person as many understand trespassing against thee that is te conscio then this inconvenience must necessarily follow that matters of scandal must be brought to the Churches cognizance when there can be no way to decide them that is when one offends and only one person knows it here will be a single affirmation on one side and denyal on the other side and so there can be no way to decide it the matter here spoken of then is somewhat only relating to the offence or injury of some particular person and not a matter of scandal to the whole Church The Question then as propounded to be spoken to by our Saviour is What is to be done in case of private offences between man and man and not in case of secret sins against God and scandalous to the Church Now to this our Saviour layes down his answer gradually first there must be private admonition if that succeed not admonition before witnesses if not that telling the Church if not that neither reputing him as a Heathen and Publican Now in this answer we must conceive our Saviour speaks as to an ordinary case so in a way easie to be understood by all that heard him and therefore he must speak in allusion to what was at that time among the Jews in such cases which is freely acknowledged both by Calvin and Beza upon the place Nam certè tanquam de Iudais haec dici apparet saltem ex eo quod addit Sit tibi sicut Ethnicus Publicanus We must then see what the custom was among the Jews in such cases and how far our Saviour doth either approve the custome received or appoint new The Law was very strict in case of offences for every man in any wise to rebuke his Neighbour and not to suffer sin upon him Arguendo argues our old Translation renders it Thou shalt plainly rebuke thy Neighbour Now this piece of necessary Discipline our Saviour endeavours to recover among them which it seems was grown much out of use with them For Rabbi Chanina as Mr. Selden observes gave this as one reason of the destruction of Ierusalem because they left off reproving one another Non excisa fuissent Hierosolyma nisi quoniam alter alterum non coarguebat Our Saviour
mean such Differences as respect persons and not things which our Saviour layes down these Rules for the ending of And therefore I cannot but wonder to see some men insist so much on that place against such an Exposition of this Luke 12. 14. where Christ saith Who made me a Iudge and a Divider among you For doth it any wayes follow Because Christ would not take upon him to be a temporal Judge among the Jewes therefore he should take no course for the ending differences among his Disciples and the taking away all animosities from among them Nay on the contrary doth not our Saviour very often designedly speak to this very purpose to root out all bitterness malice envy and rancour from mens spirits and to perswade them to forgive injuries even to pray for persecutours and by any means to be reconciled to their Brethren Which he makes to be a Duty of so great necessity that if a man had brought his gift to the Altar and remembred his brother had ought against him he bids him leave his gift there and go be reconciled to his Brother and then offer up the Gift We see hereby how suitable it was to our Saviours Doctrine and Design to lay down Rules for the ending of any differences arising among his Disciples and this being now cleared to be the state of the Case it will not be difficult to resolve what is meant by telling the Church Which I make not to be any appeal to a juridical court acting authoritatively over the persons brought before it but the third and highest step of Charity in a man towards a person that hath offended him viz. That when neither private admonition nor before two or three witnesses would serve to reclaim the offendor then to call a select company together which is the Natural importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and before them all to lay open the cause of the breach and difference between them and to refer it to their Arbitration to compose and end it Which Sense of the place I humbly conceive to have the least force in it and in every part of it to be most genuine and natural and fully agreeable to the received practice among the Jewes which the Author of the Book Musar cited by Drusius fully acquaints us with whose words I shall Transcribe as being a plain Paraphrase on these of our Saviour Qui arguit socium suum debet primum hoc facere placide inter se ipsum solum verbis mollibus ita ut non pudefaciat eum Si resipiscit bene est sin debet eum acritèr arguere pudefacere inter se ipsum Si non resipiscit debet adhibere socios ipsumque coram illis pudore afficere si nec modo quicquam proficit debet eum pudefacere coram multis ejusque delictum publicare Nam certe detegendi sunt hypocritae That which this Authour calls pudefacere eum coram multis is that which our Saviour means when he bids him tell the Church or the Congregation as our Old Translation renders it This the Jews called reproving of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before a multitude as the Vulg. Latin though falsly renders that place Lâ—viticus 19. 17. publicè argue eum and to this the Apostle may allude when he speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Corinth 2. 6. censure of many and the reproof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before all 1 Tim. 5. 20. which was to be in matters of publike scandal upon Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jewes call them but in case the offendor should still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 slight this overture of Reconciliation before the company selected for hearing the Case then saith our Saviour look upon him as an obstinate refractory creature and have no more to do with him then with a Heathen and a Publican by which terms the most wilful obstinate sinners were set out among the Jewes and by which our Saviour means a mans withdrawing himself as much as in him lies from all familiar society with such a person And thus saith Christ Whatsoever you bind in Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven v. 18. that is If after all your endeavours of Reconciliation the offender will hearken to no agreement it is an evidence and token that mars sin is bound upon him that is shall not be pardoned so long as he continues impenitent but if he repent of his offence and you be reconciled as the offence is removed on Earth thereby so the sin is loosed in Heaven that is forgiven The guilt of sin that binds it being an Obligation to punishment and so the pardon of sin that looseth as it cancels that Obligation And so Grotius observes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is called retaining in one place is binding in another and what is loosing in one place is remitting in the other But now although I assert this to be the true proper genuine meaning of this difficult place yet I deny not but that this place hath influence upon Church-Government but I say the influence it hath is onely by way of Accommodation and by Analogy deduced from it According to which these things I conceive have Foundation in these words First gradual appeals from the Method here laid down by our Saviour Secondly Church censures and the Duty of submitting to Church-authority For although before any Church Power was actually set up as when our Saviour spake these words then there was none yet after that Church-Government was fixed and set up it must in Reason be supposed that all matters of the Nature of scandals to the Church must be decided there Thirdly The lawfulness of the Use of excommunication in Christian Churches for if every particular person might withdraw from the Society of such a one as continues refractory in his Offences then much more may a whole Society and the Officers of it declare such a one to be avoided both in religious and familiar civil Society which is the formal Nature of Excommunication Herein we see the wisdom of our Saviour who in speaking to a particular case hath laid down such general Rules as are of perpetual use in the Church of God for accommodating differences arising therein Thus have we hitherto cleared that our Saviour hath determined no more of Church-Govern-ment then what is appliable to a diversity of particular Forms and so hath not by any Law or practice of his own determined the necessity of any one form CHAP. VI. The next thing pleaded for determining the Form of Government is Apostolical practice two things inquired into concerning that What it was How far it binds The Apostles invested with the power and authority of Governing the whole Church of Christ by their Commission Io. 20. 21. Matth.
that there was a peculiar Government belonging to the Synagogue distinct from the civil Judicatures Having thus far proceeded in clearing that there was a peculiar Form of Government in the Synagogue we now inquire what that was and by what Law and Rule it was observed The Government of the Synagogue either relates to the Publick Service of God in it or the publick Rule of it as a society As for the Service of God to be performed in it as there were many parts of it so there were many Officers peculiarly appointed for it The main part of publick service lay in the Reading and Expounding the Scriptures For both the known place of Philo will give us light for understanding them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coming to their Holy places called Synagogues they sit down in convenient order acâ—â—â—ding to their several Forms ready to hear the young under 〈…〉 der then one taketh the Book and readeth another of those best skilled comes after and expounds it For so Grotius reads it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Eusebius We see two several Offices here the one of the Reader in the Synagogue the other of him that did interpret what was read Great difference I find among Learned men about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Synagogue some by him understand the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called sometimes in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so make him the under Reader in the Synagogue and hence I suppose it is and not from looking to the poor which was the Office of the Parnasim that the Office of Deacons in the Primitive Church is supposed to be answerable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Jewes for the Deacons Office in the Church was the publick Reading of the Scriptures And hence Epiphanius parallels the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Jewes to the Bishop Presbyters and Deacons among the Christians But others make the Office of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be of a higher nature not to be taken for the Reader himself for that was no office but upon every Sabbath day seven were call'd out to do that work as Buxtorf tells us first a Priest then a Levite and after any five of the people and these had every one their set-parts in every Section to read which are still marked by the numbers in some Bibles But the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was he that did call out every one of these in their order to read and did observe their reading whether they did it exactly or no. So Buxtorf speaking of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hic maximè oratione sive precibus cantu Ecclesiâ— praeibat praeerat lectioni legali docens quod quomodo legendum similibus quae ad sacra pertinebant So that according to him the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Superintendent of all the publick service thence others make him parallel to him they call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel of the Church Legatus Ecclesiae L'Empereur renders it as though the name were imposed on him as acting in the name of the Church which could only be in offering up publick prayers but he was Angelus Dei as he was inspector Ecclesiae because the Angels are supposed to be more immediately present in and Supervisors over the publick place and duties of worship see 1 Cor. 11. 10. this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by L'Empereur often rendred Concionator Synagogae as though it belonged to him to expound the meaning of what was read in the Synagogue but he that did that was call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to enquire thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the enquirer or disputer of this world thence R. Moses Haddarsan but it is in vain to seek for several Offices from several Names nay it seems not evident that there was any set-Officers in the Jewish Church for expounding Scriptures in all Synagogues or at least not so fixed but that any one that enjoyed any repute for Religion or knowledge in the Law was allowed a free liberty of speaking for the instruction of the people as we see in Christ and his Apostles for the Rulers of the Synagogue sent to Paul and Barnabas after the reading of the Law that if they had any word of exhortation they should speak on From hence it is evident there were more then one who had rule over the Synagogues they being call'd Rulers here It seems very probable that in every City where there were ten wise men as there were supposed to be in every place where there was a Synagogue that they did all jointly concurr for the ruling the affairs of the Synagogue But what the distinct Offices of all these were it is hard to make out but all joyning together seem to make the Consistory or Bench as some call it which did unanimously moderate the affairs of the Synagogue whose manner of sitting in the Synagogues is thus described by Mr. Thorndike out of Maimonides whose words are these How sit the people in the Synagogue The Elders sit with their faces towards the people and their backs towards the Heâ—all the place where they lay the Copy of the Law and all the people sit rank before rank the face of every rank towards the back of the rank before it so the faces of all the people are towards the Sanctuary and towards the Elders and towards the Ark and when the Minister of the Synagogue standeth up to prayer he standeth on the ground before the Ark with his face to the Sanctuary as the rest of the people Several things are observable to our purpose in this Testimony of Maimonides First That there were so many Elders in the Synagogue as to make a Bench or Consistory and therefore had a place by themselves as the Governours of the Synagogue And the truth is after their dispersion we shall find little Government among them but what was in their Synagogues unlesse it was where they had liberty for erecting Schools of Learning Besides this Colledge of Presbyters we here see the publick Minister of the Synagogue the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Episcopus congregationis the Superintendent over the Congregation whose peculiar office it was to pray for and to blesse the people We are here further to take notice of the form of their sitting in the Synagogues The Presbyters sat together upon a Bench by themselves with their faces towards the people which was in an Hemicycle the form wherein all the Courts of Judicature among them sat which is fully described by Mr. Selden and Mr. Thorndike in the places above-cited This was afterwards the form wherein the Bishops and Presbyters used to sit in the primitive Church as the last named learned Author largely observes and proves Besides this Colledge of Presbyters there seems to be one particularly
it transplanted into the Church There are yet some things remaining as to Ordination wherein the Church did imitate the Synagogue which will admit of a quick dispatch as the number of the persons which under the Synagogue were alwaies to be at least three This being a fundamental constitution among the Jews as appears by their writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordination of Presbyters by laying on of hands must be done by three at the least To the same purpose Maimonides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They did not ordain any by imposition of hands into a power of judicature without the number of three Which number Peter Galatinus and Postellus conceive necessary to be all ordained themselves but Master Selden thinks it was sufficient if there were but one of that number so ordained who was to be as principal in the action whose opinion is favoured by Maimonides who adds to the words last cited out of him Of which Three one at the least must be ordained himself Let us now see the Parallel in the Church of God The first solemn Ordination of Elders under the Gospel which some think to be set down as a Pattern for the Church to follow is that we read of Acts 13. 1 2 3. Which was performed by three for we read in the first verse that there were in the Church at Antioch five Prophets and Teachers Barnabas Simeon Lucius Manaen and Saul of these five the Holy-Ghost said that two must be separated for the work whereto God had called them which were Barnabas and Saul there remain onely the other three Simeon Lucius and Manaen to lay their hands on them and ordain them to their work Accordingly those who tell us that Iames was ordained Bishop of Ierusalem do mention the three Apostles who concurred in the ordaining of him But most remarkable for this purpose is the Canon of the Nicene Council wherein this number is set down as the regular number for the Ordination of Bishops without which it was not accounted Canonical The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Ordination of a Bishop should if possible be performed by all the Bishops of the Province which if it cannot easily be done either through some urgent necessity or the tediousness of the way three Bishops at least must be there for the doing it which may be sufficient for the Ordination if those that are absent do express their consent and by Letters approve of the doing of it To the same purpose Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Canons injoyn all the Bishops of the Province to be present at the Ordination of one and forbid the Ordination of any without three being present at it Thus we see how the Constitution of the Synagogue was exactly observed in the Church as to the number of the persons concurring to a regular Ordination The last thing as to Ordination bearing Analogy to the Synagogue is the effect of this Ordination upon the person It was the Custom of the Jews to speak of all that were legally Ordained among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Divine Presence or Schecinah rested upon them which sometimes they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Spirit supposed to be in a peculiar manner present after this solemn Separation of them from others in the world and Dedication of them unto God Answerable to this may that of our Saviour be when he gives his Apostles authority to preach the Gospel he doth it in that Form of words Receive ye the Holy Ghost and then gives them the power of binding and loosing usually conveyed in the Jewish Ordinations Whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained So that as under the Law they by their Ordination received a moral Faculty or Right to exercise that power they were Ordained to so under the Gospel all who are Ordained according to Gospel Rules have a right authority and power conveyed thereby for the dispensing of the Word and Sacraments Which right and power must not be conceived to be an internal indelible Character as the Papists groundlesly conceive but a moral legal Right according to the Lawes of Christ because the persons Ordaining do not act in it in a natural but a moral Capacity and so the effect must be moral and not physical which they must suppose it to be who make it a Character and that indelible Thus much may serve to clear how Ordination in all its circumstances was derived from the Jewish Synagogue The other thing remaining to be spoken to as to the correspondence of the Church with the Synagogue in its constitution is what order the Apostles did settle in the several Churches of their Plantation for the Ruling and Ordering the Affairs of them Before I come to speak so much to it as will be pertinent to our present purpose and design we may take notice of the same name for Church-Rulers under the Gospel which there was under the Synagogue viz. that of Presbyters The name Presbyter as the Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it Originally import Age yet by way of connotation it hath been looked on as a name both of Dignity and Power Because Wisdome was supposed to dwell with a multitude of years therefore persons of age and experience were commonly chosen to places of honour and trust and thence the name importing age doth likewise cary dignity along with it Thence we read in the time of Moses how often the Elders were gathered together Thence Eliezer is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 24. 2. which the Greek renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Seignior Domo the chief Officer in his house and so we read Gen. 50. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Elders of the Land of Egypt So the Elders of Mâ—dian the Elders of Israel the Elders of the Cities so among the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their Council of State and among the Latines Senatus and our Saxon Aldermen in all importing both age and honour and power together But among the Jewes in the times of the Apostles it is most evident that the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imported not only dignity but power the Presbyters among the Jewes having a power both of judgeing and teaching given them by their Semicha or Ordination Now under the Gospel the Apostles retaining the name and the manner of Ordination but not conferring that judiciary power by it which was in use among the Jewes to shew the difference between the Law and the Gospel it was requisite some other name should be given to the Governours of the Church which should qualifie the importance of the word Presbyters to a sense proper to a Gospel State Which was the Original of giving the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Governours of the Church under the Gospel A name importing Duty more then Honour and not a
any particular Form of Church-Government setled in the Apostles times which can be drawn from the help of the Records of the Primitive Church which must be first cleared of all Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Confusion before the thing we inquire for can be extracted out of them Having thus far shewed that we have no absolute certainty of what Form of Government was setled by the Apostles in the several Churches of their Plantation The next Consideration which follows to be spoken to is that the Apostles in probability did not observe any one fixed course of setling the Government of Churches but setled it according to the several circumstances of places and persons which they had to deal with This will be ex abundanti as to the thing by me designed which would be sufficiently cleared without this and therefore I lay it not as the Foundation of my Thesis but onely as a Doctrine of Probability which may serve to reconcile the Controversies on foot about Church-Government For if this be made appear then it may be both granted that the Apostles did settle the Government in the Church in a Colledg of Presbyters and in a Bishop and Deacons too according to the diversity of places and the variety of circumstances It is easie to observe that as to Rites and Customes in the Church the Original of most mens mistakes is Concluding that to be the general Practice of the Church which they meet with in some places whereas that is most true which Firmiliam tells us In plurimis Provinciis multa pro locorum nominum l. hominum diversitate variantur nec tamen propter hoc ab Ecclesiae Catholicae pace atque unitate discossum est Those Rites varied in divers places retaining still the Unity of the Faith so as to matter of Government mens mistakes do arise from an universal conclusion deduced out of particular premises and what they think was done in one place they conclude must be done in all Whereas these are the grounds inducing me probably to conclude that they observed not the same course in all places Which when an impartial Reader hath soberly considered with what hath gone before I am in hopes the Novelty of this Opinion may not prejudicate its entertainment with him My grounds are these First From the different state condition and quantity of the Churches planted by the Apostles Secondly From the multitude of unfixed Officers in the Church then which acted with authority over the Church where they were resident Thirdly from the different customes observed in several Churches as to their Government after the Apostles decease I begin with the first The different State Condition and Quantity of the Churches planted by the Apostles For which we are to consider these things First That God did not give the Apostles alike success of their labours in all places Secondly That a small number of believers did not require the same number which a great Church did to teach and govern them Thirdly That the Apostles did settle Church-Officers according to the probability of increase of believers and in order thereto in some great places First That God did not give the Apostles equal success to their labours in all places After God called them to be Fishers of men it was not every draught which filled their Net with whole shoals of Fishes sometimes they might toyle all Night still and catch nothing or very little It was not every Sermon of Peters which converted three thousand the whole world might at that rate soon have become Christian although there had been but few Preachers besides the Apostles God gave them strange success at first to encourage them the better to meet with difficulties afterwards In 〈…〉 es God told them he had much people in others we read but of few that believed At Corinth Paul Plants and Apollos Waters and God gives an abundant increase but at Athens where if moral dispositions had fitted men for Grace and the improvements of Nature we might have expected the greatest number of Converts yet here we read of many mocking and others delaying and but of very few believing Dionysius and Damaris and some others with them The Plantations of the Apostles were very different not from the Nature of the soile they had to deal with but from the different influence of the Divine Spirit upon their Endeavours in severall places We cannot think that the Church at Cenchrea for so it is called was as well stockt with Believers as that at Corinth Nay the Churches generally in the Apostles times were not so filled with Numbers as men are apt to imagine them to be I can as soon hope to find in Apostolical times Diocesan Churches as Classical and Provincial yet this doth not much advantage the Principles of the Congregational men as I have already demonstrated Yet I do not think that all Churches in the Apostles times were but one Congregation but as there was in Cities many Synagogues so there might be many Churches out of those Synagogues enjoying their former liberties and priviledges And they that will shew me where five thousand Jewes and more did ordinarily meet in one of their Synagogues for publike worship may gain something upon me in order to believing the Church of Ierusalem to be but one Congregation and yet not perswade me till they have made it appear that the Christians then had as publike solemn set meetings as the Jews had which he that understands the state of the Churches at that time will hardly yield to the belief of I confess I cannot see any rule in Scripture laid down for distributing Congregations but this necessity would put them upon and therefore it were needless to prescribe them and very little if any reason can I see on the other side why where there were so much people as to make distinct Congregations they must make distinct Churches from one another but of that largely in the next chapter All Churches then we see were not of an equal extent The second premisal Reason will grant viz. that a small Church did not require the same number of Officers to rule it which a great one did For the duty of Officers lying in Reference to the People where the People was but few one constant setled Officer with Deacons under him might with as much ease discharge the work as in a numerous Church the joynt help of many Officers was necessary to carry it on The same reason which tells us that a large flock of Sheep consisting of many thousands doth call for many Shepherds to attend them doth likewise tell us that a small flock may be governed with the care of one single Shepherd watching continually over them The third premisall was that in great Cities the Apostles did not onely respect the present guidance of those that were converted but established such as might be useful for the converting and bringing in of others to the Faith who were
for so at first the Presbyters were called among whom this was the course of governing Churches that as one withdrew another took his place This opinion of his he takes occasion to speak of in several other places Upon Rom. 16. Adhuc rectores Ecclesiae paucis erant in locis Governours of Churches were as yet set up but in few places And upon 1 Cor. 1. Propterea Ecclesiae scribit quia adhuc singulis Ecclesiis rectores non erant instituti And on 1 Cor. 11. Convenientibus Presbyteris quia adhâ—o rectores Ecclesiis non omnibus locis erant constituti By all which it is most evident that this both learned and antient Author cited with no small respect by St. Austin doth not conceive that the Apostle did observe any setled form in the governing of Churches but actâ—d according to principles of prudence according to the necessities and occasions of the several Churches by them planted So that where there were small Churches one Pastor with Deacons might suffice in greater Churches some were governed by Presbyters acting in common Council others though very few at first had Rectors placed over them for superintending the affairs of the Church Secondly In Churches consisting of a multitude of believers or where there was a probability of great increase by preaching the Gospel the Apostles did settle a Colledge of Presbyters whose office was partly to govern the Church already formed and partly to labour in the Converting more So that in all great Cities where either the work was already great by the number of believers in order to the discharging of Pastoral duties to them or where it was great in reference to the number they laboured in converting of it seems most consonant to reason and Scripture that the work should be carried on by the joint assistance of many associated in the same work For is it any ways probable that the Apostles should ordain Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens speaks of such as should believe and not ordain persons in order to the making them believe They have either a very low opinion of the work of a Gospel-Bishop or very little consideration of the zeal activity and diligence which was then used in preaching reproving exhorting in season out of season that think one single person was able to undergo it all Discipline was a great deal more strict theâ— Preaching more diligent men more apprehensive of the weight of their function than for any to undertake such a care and charge of souls that it was impossible for them ever to know observe or watch over so as to give an account for them Besides while we suppose this one person imployed in the duties of his flock what leisure or time could such a one have to preach to the Gentiles and unbelieving Jews in order to their Conversion The Apostles did not certainly aym at the setting up the honour of any one person making the Office of the Church a matter of State and Dignity more then employment but they chose men for their activity in preaching the Gospel and for their usefulness in labouring to add continually to the Church Men that were imployed in the Church then did not consult for their â—ase or honour and thought it not enough for them to sit still and bâ—d others work but they were of Pauls mind Necessity was laid upon them yea Woe was unto them if they preached not the Gospel Publick prayers were not then looked on as the more principal end of Christian assemblies then preaching nor consequenâ—ly that it was the more principal office of the Stewardâ— of the Mysteries of God to read the publick prayers of the Church then to preach in season and out of season And is it not great pitty two such excellent and necessary duties should ever be set at variance much less one so preferred before the other that the one must be esteemed as Sarah and the other almost undergo the hardship of Hagar to be looked on as the Bond-woman of the Synagogue and be turned out of doors Praying and preaching are the Iackin and Boaz of the Temple like Rachel and Leah both which built up the house of Israel but though Rachel be fair and beautifull yet Leah is the more fruitful though prayer be lovely and amiable in the sight of God when it comes from a heart seriously affected with what it speaks yet preaching tends more to the turning mens souls from sin unto God Were the Apostles commissioned by Christ to go pray or preach and what is it wherein the Ministers of the Gospel succeed the Apostles Is it in the office of Praying or preaching Was Paul sent not to baptize but to preach the Gospel and shall we think those who succeed Paul in his office of preaching are to look upon any thing else as more their work then that Are Ministers in their ordination sent forth to be readers of publick Prayers or to be Dispensers of Gods holy Word Are they ordained wholly to this and shall this be the lesse principal part of their work I but the reason is unanswerable that praying is the more principal end of Christian-assemblies then preaching For the one is the End and the other the Means If by End be meant the ultimate end of all Christian duties that cannot be Prayer for that is a means it self in order to that but the chief end is the fitting souls for eternal prayses if then this unanswerable reason hold good the principal end of Christian assemblies must be only prayses of God and not prayers If by the End be meant the immediate end of preaching as that it referrs to that cannot be for the immediate end of preaching if the Apostle may be judge is instruction and edification in the faith Rather preaching is the end of praying in as much as the blessings conveyed by preaching are the things which men pray for But this is but one of those unhappy consequences which follows mens judging of the service of God rather by the practices of the Church when it came to enjoy ease and plenty than by the wayes and practices of the first and purest Apostolical times when the Apostles who were best able to judge of their own duty looked upon themselves as most concerned in the preaching of the Gospel But to this it is commonly said that there was great reason for it then because the world was to be converted to Christianity and therefore preaching was the more necessary work at that time but when a Nation is converted to the faith that necessity ceaseth It is granted that the preaching of the Gospel in regard of its universal extent was more necessary then which was the foundation of Christs instituting the Apostolical Office with an unlimited commission but if we take Preaching as referring to particular Congregations there is the same necessity now that there was then People need as much instruction as ever and so much the more in that they are
Hilary but this that one speakâ— of the Custome of some Churches and the other of others In some as at Alexandria the Presbyters might choose their Bishop in other places it might be as Hilary saith that when the first withdrew another succeeded him Not by a monethly or Annual rotation of Presidents as some have imagined but by a Presidency for life of one upon whose death another succeeded in his room For the former Opinion hath not any Evidence at all for it in Scripture or Antiquity or in the place brought to prove it For according to this Opinion Timothy must have but his course in the rotation of Elders at Ephesus which seems very incongruous to the Office of Timothy I conclude thâ—n that in all probability the Apostles tyed not themselves up to one certain course but in some Churches setled more or fewer Officers as they saw cause and in others governed themselves during life and that at their death they did not determine any form is probably argued from the different customes of several Churches afterwards The third Consideration touching Apostolical practice is concerning the Obligatory force of it in reference to us which I lay down in these terms That a meer Apostolical practice being supposed is not sufficient of its self for the founding an unalterable and perpetual right for that Form of Government in the Church which is supposed to be founded on that practice This is a Proposition I am sure will not be yielded without proving it and therefore I shall endeavour to doe it by a fourfold argument First because many things were done by the Apostles without any intention of obliging any who succeeded them afterwards to do the same As for instance the twelve Apostles going abroad so unprovided as they did when Christ sent them forth at first which would argue no great wisedome or reason in that man that should draw that practice into consequence now Of the like nature was Pauls preaching 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to some Churches receiving no maintenance at all from some Churches as that at Corinth Which instance is a manifest evidence of the monstrous weakness of Discourse in those who would make that example of Paul Obligatory to all Ministers of the Gospel now And while they would by this argument take away their Lands and Tythes instead of them they give them Plaustra convitiorum whole loads of the most reproachful Speeches that ever were given to any but Christ and his Apostles For my part I think the Ministers of the Gospel would want one of the Badges of Honour belonging to their Office were they not thus reproachfully used It is part of the State which belongs to the true Ministers of the Gospel to be followed by such blackmouthed Lacqueyes who by their virulent Speeches are so farre their Friends as to keep them from that Curse which our Saviour pronounceth Wo be unto you when all men speak well of you But let us see how much wooll there is after all this cry too little to cloath the backs of Ministers if such persons might be their Tythe-men but it is well they are so little befriended yea so much opposed by the great Apostle in that singular practice of his For doth he say It was unlawful for him to receive a maintenance from the Churches he preached to Nay doth he not set himself to prove not onely the lawfulness of Ministers taking it but the duty of peoples giving it 1 Cor. 9. from the seventh to the fâ—â—teenth verse giving many pregnant arguments to that purpose Doth he not say that all the Apostles besides him and Barnabas did forbear working and consequenâ—ly had all their necessities supplyed by the Churches Nay doâ—h not Paul himself say that he robbed other Churches taking wages of them to do service to them What Paul turned hireling and in the plainest terms take Wages of Churches Yet so it is and his forbearing it at Corinth was apt to be interpreted as an argument that he did not love them 2 Cor. 11. 11. So far were they from looking upon Paul as a hireling in doing it Paul is strong and earnest in asserting his right he might have done it at Corinth as well as elsewhere But from some prudent considerations of his own mentioned 2 Cor. 11. 12. he forboâ—e the exercise of his right among them although at the same time he received maintenance from other places As for any Divine right of a particular way of maintenance I am of the same Opinion as to that which I am in reference to particular Forms of Church-Government and those that are of another Opinion I would not wish them so much injury as to want their maintenance till they prove it But then I say these things are clear in themselves and I think sufficient grounds for conscience as to the duty of paying on the one side and the lawfulness of receiving it on the other First that a maintenance in general be given to Gospel Ministers is of Divine right else the Labourer were not worthy of his hire nor could that be true which Paul saith that our Lord hath ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Secondly A maintenance in general being due Lawful authority may determine the particular way of raising it the equity of which way may be best derived from what was the most ancient practâ—ce of the World in dedicating things to God and was approved by God himself among his own people the Jews So that the way of maintenance by Tythes is the most just and equitable way Thirdly It being in the Magistrates power to determine the way of maintenance what is so determined doth bind the Consciences of all subject to that power to an obedience to it for conscience sake In as much as all men are bound thus to obey the Magistrate in all things established by him as Laws and the very same reasons any can plead for disobedience as to this may equally serve for disobedience to any other Lawes made by the Supreme Magistrate This I suppose is the clearest Resolution of that other more vexed then intricate Controversie about the right of Tythes which I have here spoken of by occasion of the mention of the Apostles practice and because it is resolved upon the same principles with the subject I am upon Meer Apostolical practice we see doth not bind because the Apostles did many things without intention of binding others Secondly the Apostles did many things upon particular Occasions Emergencies and circumstances which things so done cannot bind by vertue of their doing them any further then a parity of reason doth conclude the same things to be done in the same circumstances Thus Pauls Coelibate is far from binding the Church it being no universal practice of the Apostles by a Law but onely a thing taken up by him upon some particular grounds not of perpetual and universal concernment So community of
Coactive nor meerly Arbitrary viz. such a one as immediately results from Divine Institution and doth suppose consent to submit to it as a necessary Duty in all the members of this Society This Power it is evident is not meerly Arbitrary either in the Governours or Members for the Governours derive their Power or right of Governing from the institution of Christ and are to be regulated by his Laws in the execution of it and the Members though their consent be necessarily supposed yet that consent is a Duty in them and that duty doth imply their submission to the Rulers of this Society neither can this power be called Coactive in the â—ense it is commonly taken for coactive power and external force are necessary correlates to each other but we suppose no such thing as a power of outward force to be given to the Church as such for that properly belongs to a Common-wealth But the power which I suppose to be lodged in the Church is such a power as depends upon a Law of a Superiour giving right to Govern to particular persons over such a Society and making it the Duty of all Members of it to submit unto it upon no other penalties then the exclusion of them from the priviledges which that Society enjoyes So that supposing such a Society as the Church is to be of Divine Institution and that Christ hath appointed Officers to rule it it necessarily follows that those Officerâ— must derive their power i. e. their right of Governing this Society not meerly from consent and confederation of parties but from that Divine Institution on which the Society depends The â—â—ht of understanding the right notion of power in the sense here â—â—â— down is certainly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Erastianism and that which hath given occasion to so many to question any such thing as Power in the Church especially when the more zealous then judicious defenders of it have rather chosen to hang it upon some doubtfull places of Scripture then on the very Naturâ— and Constitution of the Christian Church as a Society instituted by Iesus Christ. This being then the nature of power in general it is I suppose clear that an outward coactive force is not necessary in order to it for if some may have a Right to Govern and others may be obliged to obedience to those persons antecedently to any Civil Constitution then such persons have a just power to inflict censures upon such as transgress the Rules of the Society without any outward force It is here very impertinent to dispute what effects such censures can have upon wilful persons without a Coactive power If I can prove that there is a right to inflict them in Church-Officers and an Obligation to submit to them in all Offenders I am not to trouble my self with the event of such things as depend upon Divine Institutions I know it is the great Objection of the followers of Erastus that Church censures are inflicted upon persons unwilling to receive them and therefore must imply external and coactive force which is repugnant to the nature of a Church But this admits according to the Principles here established of a very easie solution for I deny not that Church Power goes upon consent but then it 's very plain here was an antecedent consent to submit to censures in the very entrance into this Society which is sufficient to denominate it a voluntary act of the persons undergoing it and my reason is this every person entring into a Society parts with his own freedom and liberty as to matters concerning the governing of it and professeth submission to the Rules and Orders of it now a man having parted with his freedom already cannot reassume it when he please for then he is under an Obligation to stand to the Covenants made at his entrance and consâ—quently his undergoing what shall be laid upon him by the Lawes of this Society must be supposed to be voluntary as depending upon his consent at first entrance which in all Societies must be supposed to hold still else there would follow nothing but confusion in all Societies in the World if every man were at liberty to break his Covenants when any thing comes to lye upon him according to the Rules of the Society which he out of some private design would be unwilling to undergo Thus much may serve to settle aright the Notion of Power the want of understanding which hath caused all the confusion of this Controversie The next thing is In what Notion we are to consider the Church which is made the subject of this Power As to which we are to consider This Power either as to its right or in actu primo or as to its exercise or in actu secundo Now if we take this Power as to the fundamental Right of it then it belongs to that Universal Church of Christ which subsists as a visible Society by vertue of that Law of Christ which makes an owning the Profession of Christianity the Duty of all Church members If we consider this Power in the exercise of it then it being impossible that the Universall Church should perform the executive part of this power relating to offences I suppose it lodged in that particular Society of Christians which are united together in one body in the community of the sâ—me Government but yet so as that the administration of this Power doth not belong to the body of the Society considered complexly but to those Officers in it whose care and charge it is to have a peculiar oversight and inspection over the Church and to redress all disorders in it Thus the visive faculty is fundamentally lodged in the Soul yet all exterior acts of sight are performed by the Eyes which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overseers of the Body as the other are of the Church so that the exercise and administration of this power belongs to the speciall Officers and Governours of the Church none else being capable of exercising this Power of the Church as such but they on whom it is settled by the Founder of the Church it 's self This Society of the Church may be again considered either as subsisting without any influence from the Civil Power or as it is owned by and incorporated into a Christian State I therefore demand Whether it be absolutely necessary for the subsistence of this Christian Society to be upheld by the Civil Power or no And certainly none who consider the first and purest Ages of the Christian Church can give any entertainment to the Affirmative because then the Church flourished in it's greatest purity not onely when not upheld but when most violently opposed by the Civil Power If so then it 's being united with the Civil State is onely accidental as to the constitution a Church and if this be onely accidental then it must be supposed furnished with every thing requisite to it 's well ordering accidentally to
themselves members of it Whereas were the Church and Commonwealth really and formally the same all obligation to Church society would arise meerly from the Legislative Power of the Common wealth But now there being a Divine Law binding in conscience whose obligation cannot bee superseded by any Humane Law it is plain and evident where are such vastly different obligations there are different Powers and in this sense I know no incongruity in admitting imperium in imperio if by it wee understand no external coactive power but an internal power laying obligation on conscience distinct from the power lodged in a Commonwealth considered as such An outward coactive power was alwayes disowned by Christ but certainly not an internal Power over conscience to oblige all his Disciples to what Duties hee thought fit Secondly I argue from those Officers whose rights to govern this Society are founded on that Charter whereby the Society it self subsists Now I would willingly know why when our Saviour disowned all outward power in the World yet hee should constitute a Society and appoint Officers in it did hee not intend a peculiar distinct Society from the other Societies of the world And therefore the argument frequently used against Church-power because it hath no outward force with it by the constitution of Christ is a strong argument to me of the peculiarity of a Christian society from a Commonwealth because Christ so instituted it as not to have it ruled at first by any outward force or power When Christ saith his Kingdome was not of this world he implies that he had a Society that was governed by his Laws in the world yet distinct from all mundane Societies had not our Saviour intended his Church to have been a peculiar Society distinct from a Commonwealth it is hard to conceive why our Saviour should interdict the Apostles the use of a civil coactive power Or why instead of sending abroad Apostles to preach the Gospel hee did not employ the Governours of Commonwealths to have inforced Christianity by Laws and temporal edicts and the several Magistrates to have impowred several persons under them to preach the Gospel in their several Territories And can any thing bee more plain by our Saviours taking a contrary course than that hee intended a Church society to bee distinct from civil and the power belonging to it as well as the Officers to bee of a different nature from that which is settled in a Commonwealth I here suppose that Christ hath by a positive Law established the Government of his Church upon Officers of his own appointment which I have largely prove â—â—sewhere and therefore suppose it now Thirdly I arguâ—â—â—om the peculiar rights belonging to these Societies For if every one born in the Commonwealth have not thereby a right to the priviledges of the Church nor every one by being of the Church any right to the benefits of the Commonwealth it must necessarily follow that these are distinct from one another If any one by being of the Common-wealth hath right to Church-priviledges then every one born in a Common-wealth may challenge a right to the Lords Supper without Baptism or open professing Christianity which I cannot think any will be very ready to grant Now there being by Divine appointment the several rights of Baptism and the Lords Supper as peculiar badges of the Church as a visible Society it is evident Christ did intend it a Society distinct from the Common wealth Fourthly I argue from the different ends of these societies A Common-wealth is constituted for civil ends and the Church for spiritual for ends are to be judged by the primary constitution but now it is plain the end of civil society is for preservation of mens rights as men therefore Magistracy is called by St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this Christian society doth not respect men under the connotation of men but as Christians The answer given to this is very short and insufficient when it is said that every man in a Commonwealth is to act upon spiritual accounts and ends For there is a great deal of difference between Christianities having an influence upon mens actings in a Commonwealth and making a society the same with a Commonwealth To argue therefore from one to another is a shortness of discourse I cannot but wonder at unless it could be proved that Christianity aymed at nothing else but regulating men in the affairs of a Commonwealth which is a task I suppose will not be undertaken Lastly I argue from the peculiar offences against this society which are or â—ay bee distinct from those against a Commonwealth I deny not but most times they are the same but frequently they differ and when they are the same yet the consideration of them is different in the Church and Common wealth for which I shall suppose the six arguments produced in the last chapter of the first part to stand good which will strongly hold to exâ—â—â—â—unication in the Christian Church though there produce 〈…〉 ly for the Iewish I would fain know what is to bee done in many offences known to bee against the Laws of Christ and which tend to the dishonour of the Christian society which the civil and Municipal Laws either do not or may not take cognizance of Thus much may serve as I think to make evident that the Church in its own nature is a peculiar society distinct from a Commonwealth which was the first proposition to bee proved The second is That the power of the Church over it's members in case of offences doth not arise meerly from confederation and consent though it doth suppose it This Church power may be considered two wayes Either first as it implyes the right in some of inflicting censures Or secondly as it implyes in others the duty of submitting to censures inflicted now as to both these I shall prove that their original is higher than meer confederation 1. As to the right of inflicting censures on these accounts First What ever society doth subsist by vertue of a divine constitution doth by vertue thereof derive all power for it's preservation in peace unity and purity but it is plain that a power of censuring offenders is necessary for the Churches preservation in peace and purity and it is already proved that the Church hath its Charter from Christ and therefore from him it hath a power to inflict punishments on Offenders suitable to the Nature of the Society they are of I am very prone to think that the ground of all the mistakes on this subject have risen from hence that some imprudently enough have fixt the original of this Power on some ambiguous places of Scripture which may and it may bee ought to bee taken in a different sense and their adversaries finding those places weak and insufficient proofs of such a power have from thence rejected any such kind of power at all But certainly if wee should reject every truth that is weakly
Holy Ghost hath made them Over-seers 3. I argue that Church-Power ariseth not meerly from consent because the Church may exercise her Power on such who have not actually confederated with her which is in admitting members into the Church For if the Church-Officers have power to judge whether persons are fit to be admitted they have power to exclude from admission such whom they judge unfit and so their power is exercised on those who are not confederated To this it may be answered That the consent to be judged gives the Church power over the person suing for admission I grant it doth as to that particular person but the Right in generall of judging concerning Admission doth argue an antecedent power to an actual confederation For I will suppose that Christ should now appoint some Officers to found a Church and gather a Society of Christians together where there hath been none before I now ask Whether these Officers have power to admit any into the Church or no This I suppose cannot be denied for to what end else were they appointed If it be granted they have power to admit persons and thereby make a Church then they had power antecedently to any confederation for the Confederation was subsequent to their Admission and therefore they who had power to admit could not derive their power from confederation This Argument to me puts the case out of dispute that all Church-power cannot arise from meer confederation And that which further evidenceth that the Power of the Church doth not arise from meer consent is that Deed of Gift whereby our Blessed Saviour did confer the Power of the Keyes on the Apostle Peter as the representative in that action of the whole Colledge of the Apostles and Governours of the Church of which power all the Apostles were actually infeoffed John 20. 23. By which Power of the Keyes is certainly meant some Administration in the Church which doth respect it as a visible Society in which Sense the Church is so frequently called as in that place the Kingdome of Heaven and in all probability the Administration intended here by the Power of the Keyes is that we are now discoursing of viz. the Power of Admission into the Church of Christ in order to the pardon of the sins of all penitent Believers and the shutting out of such who were manifestly unworthy of so holy a communion So that the power of the Keyes doâ—h not primarily respect exclusion out of the Church and receiving into it again upon Absolution but it chiefly respects the power of Admission into the Church though by way of connotation and Analogy of Reason it will carry the other along with it For if the Apostles as Governours of the Church were invested with a power of judging of mens fitness for Admission into the Church as members of it it stands to the highest Reason that they should have thereby likewise a power conveyed to them of excluding such as are unworthy after their Admission to maintain communion with the Church So that this interprâ—tation of the Power of the Keyes is far from invalidating the Power of the Church as to its censuring Offenders all that it pretends to is onely giving a more natural and genuine Sense of the Power of the Keyes which will appear so to be if we consider these things 1. That this Power was given to Saint Peter before any Christian Church was actually formed which as I have elsewhere made manifest was not done till after Christs Resurrection when Christ had given the Aposâ—les their commission to go to Preach and baptize c. Matth. 28. 19. Is it not therefore farr more rational that the Power of the Keyes here given should respect the founding of a Church and admission into it than ejection out of it before it was in being and receiving into it again And this we find likewise remarkably fulfilled in the Person of the Apostle Peter who opened the door of admission into the Christian Church both to Iewes and Gentiles To the Iewes by his Sermon at Pentecost when about 3000. Souls were brought into the Church of Christ. To the Gentiles as is most evident in the story of Corneliuâ— Acts 10. 28. who was the first-fruits of the Gentiles So that if we should yield so far to the great Inhancers of Saint Petesâ— Power that something was intended peculiar to his person in the Keyes given him by our Saviour we hereby see how rationally it may be understood without the least advantage to the extravagant pretensions of Saint Peters pretended Successours 2. The pardon of sin in Scripture is most annexed to Baptism and Admission into the Church and thence it seems evident that the loosing of sin should be by admitting into the Church by Baptism in the same Sense by which Baptism is said to save us and it is called the washing of Regeneration respecting the Spiritual advantages which come by Admission into the Church of Christ and so they are said to have their sins bound upon them who continue refractory in their sins aâ— Simon Magus is said to be in the bond of iniquity 3. The Metaphor of the Keyes refers most to Admission into the House and excluding out of it rather than ejecting any out of it and re-admitting them Thus when Eliakim is said to have the Keyes of the House of David it was in regard of his Power to open and shut upon whom he pleased And thus Cyprian as our learned Mr. Thorndike observes understands the power of binding and loosing in this sense in his Epistle to Iubaianus where speaking of the Remission of sins in Baptism he brings these very words of our Saviour to Peter as the evidence of it That what he should loose on Earth should be loosed in Heaven and concludes with this Sentence Unde intelligimus non nisi in Ecclesiâ praeposit is in Evangeliâ—â lege ac Dominicâ ordinatione fundatis licere baptizare remissam peccatorum dare for is autem nec ligari aliquid posse nec solvi ubi non sit qui ligare possit aut solvere That which I now infer from this Discourse is that the power of the Church doâ—h not arise from meer consent and confederation both because this power doth respect those who have not actually consented to it and because it is settled upon the Governours of the Church by Divine Institution Thus it appears that the right of inflicting censures doth not result meerly â—â—â— confoederatd Disciplind which was the thing to be proved The lâ—ke evidence may be given for the duty of submitting to penalties or Church-censures in the members of the Church which that it ariseth not from meer consent of parties will appear on these accounts 1. Every person who enters this Society is bound to consent before he doth it because of the Obligation lying upon Conscience to an open profâ—ssion of Christianity presently upon conviction of the
understanding of the truth and certainty of Christian Religion For when once the mind of any rational man is so far wrought upon by the influence of the Divine Spirit as to discover the most rational and undoubted evidences which there are of the truth of Christianity he is presently obliged to profess Christ openly to worship him solemnly to assemble with others for instruction and participation of Gospel Ordinances and thence it follows that there is an antecedent Obligation upon Conscience to associate with others and consequently to consent to be governed by the Rulers of the Society which he enters into So that this submission to the power of Church Officers in the exercise of Discipline upon Offenders is implyed in the very conditions of Christianity and the solemn professing and undertaking of it 2. It were impossible any Society should be upheld if it be not laid by the founder of the Society as the necessary Duty of all members to undergo the penalties which shall be inflicted by those who have the care of governing that Society so they be not contrary to the Laws Nature and Constitution of it Else there would be no provision made for preventing divisions and confusions which will happen upon any breach made upon the Laws of the Society Now this Obligation to submission to censures doth speak something antecedentaly to the confederation although the expression of it lies in the confederation its self By this I hope we have made it evident that it is nothing else but a mistake in those otherwise Learned persons who make the power of censures in the Christian Church to be nothing else but a Lex confederata Disciplinae whereas this power hath been made appear to be deâ—ived from a higher Original than the meer Arbitrary consent of the several members of the Church associating together And how farre the examples of the Synagogues under the Law are from reaching that of Christian Churches in reference to this because in these the power is conveyed by the Founder of the Society and not left to any arbitrary constitutions as it was among the Iews in their Synagogues It cannot be denied but consent is supposed and confederation necessary in order to Church power but that is rather in regard of the exercise then the original of it For although I affirm the original of thiâ— power to be of Divine Institution yet in order to the exercise of it in reference to particular persons who are not mentioned in the Charter of the power its self it is necessary that the persons on whom it is exerted should declare their consent and submission either by words or actions to the Rules and Orders of this Society Having now proved that the Power of the Church doth not arise from meer consent of parties the next grand Inquiry is concerning the extent of this power Whether it doth reach so far as to Excommunication For some men who will not seem wholly to deny all power in the Church over Offenders nor that the Church doth subsist by Divine Institution yet do wholly deny any such power as that of Excommunication and seem rather to say that Church-Officers may far more congrâ—ously to their Office inflict any other mulct upon Offenders then exclude them from participation of Communion with others in the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel In order therefore to the clearing of this I come to the third Proposition That the power which Christ hath given to the Officers of his Church doth extend to the exclusion of contumacious Offenders from the priviledges which this Society enjoyes In these terms I rather choose to fix it then in those crude expressions wherein Erastus and some of his followers would state the question and some of their imprudent adversaries have accepted it viz. Whether Church Officers have power to exclude any from the Eucharist ob moralem impuritatem And the reasons why I wave those terms are 1. I must confess my self yet unsatisfied as to any convincing Argument whereby it can be proved that any were denyed admission to the Lords Supper who were admitted to all other parts of Church-Society and owned as members in them I cannot yet see any particular Reason drawn from the Nature of the Lords-Supper above all other parts of Divine worship which should confine the censures of the Church meerly to that Ordinance and so to make the Eucharist bear the same Office in the Body of the Church which our new Anatomists tell us the parenchyme of the Liver doth in the natural Body viz. to be colâ—â—â— sanguinis to serve as a kind of strainer to separate the more gross and faeculent parts of the Blood from the more pure and spirituous so the Lord's Supper to strain out the more impure members of the Church from the more Holy and Spiritual My judgement then is that Excommunication relates immediately to the cutting a person off from Communion with the Churches visible Society constituted upon the ends it is but because Communion iâ— not visibly discerned but in Administration and Participation of Gospel Ordinances therefore Exclusion doth chiefly referre to these and because the Lords Supper is one of the highest privilledges which the Church enjoyes therefore it stands to reason that censures should begin there And in that sense suspension from the Lords Supper of persons apparently unworthy may be embraced as a prudent lawful and convenient abatement of the greater penalty of Excommunication and so to stand on the same general grounds that the other doth for Qui pâ—test majus potest etiam minus which will hold as well in moral as natural power iâ— there be no prohibition to the contrary nor peculiar Reason as to the one more then to the oâ—her 2. I dislike the terms ob moralem impuritatem on this account Because I suppose they were taken up by Erastus and from him by others as the Controversie was managed concerning Excommunication among the Iâ—wes viz. whether it were â—meerly because of Ceremonial or else likewise because of moral impurity As to which I must ingenuously acknowledge Erastus hath very much the advantage of his adversaries clearly proving that no persons under the Law were excluded the Temple Worship because of moral impurity But then withall I think he hath gained little advantage to his cause by the great and successfull pains he hath taken in the proving of that My reason is because the Temple-Worship or the sacrifices under the Law were in some sense propitiatory as they were the adumbrations of that grand Sacrifice which was to be offered up for the appeasing of Gods wrath viz. The Blood of Christ therefore to have excluded any from participation of them had been to exclude them from the visible way of obtaining pardon of sin which was not to be had without shedding of Blood as the Apostle tells us and from testifying their Faith towards God and Repentance from dead works But now under the Gospel those
which are the dishonour of the Society 1 Corinth 4. 1. the spreading of such corruptions further if they pass uncensured 1 Corinth 5. 6. and amendment of the person 1 Cor. 5. 5. Upon these pillars the power of censures rests it self in the Church of God which are the main grounds of penalties in all Societies whatsoever viz. the preservation of the honour of them and preventing of further mischief and doing good to the offending party And that which seems to add a great deal oâ— weight to this instance is that the Apostle checks the Corinthians that before the exercise of the Apostolical Rod they were not of themselves sensible of so great a dishonour to the Church as that was and had not used some means for the removing such a person from their Society And ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that hee that hath done this deed may be taken away from among you 1 Corinth 5. 2. Therein implying that whether there had been such a thing in the Church or no as the Apostolical Rod it had been the duty of a Christian Society to have done their endeavour in order to the removing such a person from their number But further I cannot understand how it should bee a duty in Christians to withdraw from every brother who walketh disorderly and Church-Officers not to have power to pronounce such a person to be withdrawn from which amounts to excommunication It is not to mee at all material whether they did immediately relate to Civil or Sacred converse concerning which there is so much dispute for in which soever we place it if Church-officers have a power to pronounce such a person to be withdrawn from they have a power of excommunication so we consider this penalty as inflicted on the person in his relation to the Society as a Christian and wiâ—hall how neerly conjoyned their civil and spiritual eating were together 1 Corinth 11. 20 21. and how strongly the argument will hold from Civil to Sacred viz. à remotione unius ad remotionem alterius not from any fancied pollution in Sacris from the company of wicked men but from the dishonour reflecting on the Society from such unworthy persons parâ—aking of the hâ—ghest priviledges of it Thus from these three Hypotheses this Corollary follows that where any persons in a Church do by their open and contumacious offences declare to the world that they are far from being the persons they were supposed to be in their admission into the Church there is a power resident in the Pastors of the Church to debar such persons from the priviledges of it and consequently from Communion in the Lords Supper 1. Because this expresseth the nearest union and closest confederation as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Grecians Commonwealths did 2. Because this hath been alwayes looked on with greatest veneration in the Church of God and therefore it is least of all fit those persons should be admitted to the highest priviledges of the Church which are unworthy of the lowest of them There remain only some few Objections which are levelled against this opinion concerning the power of excommunication which from the Question being thus stated and proved will be soon removed The first is that this excommunication is an outward punishment and therefore belongs not to Church officers but to the Magistrate 2. Because it neither is nor ever was in the power of any Church officer to debar any offending member from publick worship because any Heathens may come to it 3. It cannot lye as to exclusion from the Lords Supper because Christ is offered as spiritual food as well in the Word Preached as in the Sacrament To these I answer 1. I do not well understand what the Objectors mean by an outward punishment for there can be no punishment belonging to a visible Society such as the Church is here considered to be but it must be visible i. e. outward or a thing to be taken notice of in the World and in this sense I deny that all visible punishment belongs only to the Magistrate but if by outward be meanâ— forcible punishment then I grant that all coactive power belongs to the Magistrate but I deny that excommunication formally considered is a forcible punishment 1. Because every person at his entrance into this Society is supposed to declare his submission to the rules of the Society and therefore whatever he after undergoes by way of penalty in this Society doth depend upon that consent 2. A person stands excommunicate legally and de jure who is declared authoritatively to be no member of the Society though he may be present at the acts of it as a defranchised person may be at those of a Corporation 3. A person falling into those offences which merit excommunication is supposed in so doing voluntarily to renounce his interest in those priviledges the enjoyment of which doth depend upon abstaining from those offences which he wilfully falls into especially if contumacy be joyned with them a 〈…〉 is before excommunication for then nothing is done forcibly towards him for he first relinquisheth his right before the Church-Governor declares him excluded the Society So that the offender doth meritoriously excommunicate himself the Pastor doth it formally by declaring that he hath made himself no member by his offences and contumacy joyned with them To the second I answer That I do not place the formality of excommunication in exclusion from hearing the Word but in debarring the person from hearing tanquam pars Ecclesiae as a member of the Church and so his hearing may be well joyned with that of Heathens and Infidels and not of members of the Church To the third I answer That exclusion from the Lords Supper is not on the accounts mentioned in the Objection but because it is one of the chiefest priviledges of the Church as it is a visible Society Having thus cleared and asserted the power of Excommunication in a Christian church there remains only one enquiry more which is Whether this power doth remain formally in the Church after its being incorporated into the Common wealth or else doth it then escheate wholly into the Civil Power The resolution of which question mainly depends on another spoken to already viz. Whether this power was only a kind of Widows estate which belonged to it only during its separation from the Civil Power or was the Church absolutely infeoffed of it as its perpetual Right belonging to it in all conditions whatsoever it should be in Now that must appear by the Tenure of it and the grounds on which it was conveyed which having been proved already to be perpetual and universal it from thence appears that no accession to the Church can invalidate its former title But then as in case of marriage the right of disposal and well management of the estate coming by the wife belongs to the husband so after the Church is married into the Common-wealth the
right of supream management of this power in an external way doth fall into the Magistrates hands Which may consist in these following things 1. A right of prescribing Laws for the due management of Church-censures 2. A right of bounding the manner of proceeding in câ—â—â—â—â—res that in a seâ—â—led Christian-state matters of so great weight bee not left to the arbitrary pleasure of any Church-Officers nor such censures inflicted but upon an evident conviction of such great offences which tend to the dishonour of the Christian-church and that in order to the amendment of the offenders life 3. The right of adding temporal and civil sanctions to Church-censures and so enforcing the spiritual weapons of the Church with the more keen and sharp ones of the Civil State Thus I assert the force and efficacy of all Church censures in foro humano to flow from the Civil power and that there is no proper effect following any of them as to Civil Rights but from the Magistrates sanction 4 To the Magistrate belongs the right of appeals in case of unjust censures not that the Magistrate can repeal a just censure in the Church as to its spiritual effectâ— but he may suspend the temporal effect of it in which case it is the duty of Pastors to discharge their office and acquiesce But this power of the Magistrate in the supream ordering of Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Causes I have fully asserted and cleared already From which it follows That as to any outward effects of the power of excommunication the person of the Supream Magistrate must be exempted both because the force of these censures doth flow from him in a Christian State and that there otherwise would be a progress in infinitum to know whether the censure of the Magistrate were just or no. I conclude then that though the Magistrate hath the main care of ordering things in the Church yet the Magistrates power in the Church being cumulative and not privative the Church and her Officers retain the fundamental right of inflicting censures on offenders Which was the thing to be proved Dedit Deus his quoque Finem Books sold by Henry Mortlocke at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard near the little North door A Rational Account of the grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord Arch bishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer by T. C. By Edward Stilling fleet Origines Sacrae or A Rational account of the grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and the matters therein contained by the same Author in 4o. Bainâ— upon the Ephesians Trapp on the Proverbs Ecclesiastes Canticles with the Major Prophets being his third Volume of Annotations on the whole Bible Greenhill upon Ezekiel Hall upon Anos Brooks on the Necessity Excellency Rarity and Beauty of Holiness Knowledge and Practice or A plain Discourse of the Chief things necessary to be Known Believed and Practised in order to Salvation by Samuel Cradock Scheciâ—ah or A Demonstration of the Divine Presence in Places of Religious Worship By Iohn Stillingfleet A Treatise of Divine Meditation by Iohn Ball published by Mr. Simeon Ash. The Morall Philosophy of the Stoicks turned out of French into English by Charles Cotton Esq An Improvement of the Sea upon the 9 Nauâ—icall Verses of the 107. Psalm Wherein among other things you have A full and delightfull Description of all those many various and multitudinous Objects which are beheld through the Lords Creation both on Sea in Sea and on Land viz. All sorts and kinds of Fish Fowl and Beasts whether Wild or Tâ—me all sorts of Trees and Fruits all sorts of People Cities Towns and Countreys by Daniel Pell Baxters Call c. Hist. Eccl. l. 7. c. 19. § 1. §. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ethic l. 5. c. 6 Grot. de jure bâ—lli pac lib. 1. cap. 1. Sect. 4. Lâ—ss de justit jure l. 2. c. 2. Dub. 1. Etymol Philol. voc jus Etymol l. 5. cap. 3. Ethic. l. 5. cap. 2. Mat. 15 9. Isa. 29. 11. Tertull. de Orat. cap. 12 v. Herald digress lib. 2. cap. 2. in Tertull. Alex. Alensis part 3. q. 27. m. 3. §. 3. Rom. 4. 8. §. 4. Ethic. l. 5. cap. 10. V. Selden de jure Nat. apud Ebâ—ae lib. 1. c. 7 8. Mol. de just Iur. p. 1 disp 3. Alphons de leg pur l. 2. c. 14. §. 5. Exercit. Eccles. advers Baâ— exer 16. sect 43. Sâ—id de jure Nat. apud Ebr. l. 1. cap. 10. Colloq â—um Tryph. Judâ—o Origin lib. 16. cap. 10. V. Gâ—ot in Luc. 1. 6. Maimon de fundam legis cap. 9. sect 1. Abarb. de Capit. fidei cap. 8. p. 29. Ed. Vorstii Gal. 3. 24. §. 6. Gen. 22. Deut. 5. 15 Act 15. 29. Oraâ— â—â—â—â— Caeâ—iu §. 7. Heb. 6. 1â— Catech. Racov cap. 4. Acts 3. 38. § 8â— Matth. 11. 21. 1 John 2. 6. 1 Peâ— 2â— 22. Gen. 2. 2. Matth. 16. 19. 18. 18. § 1. Hypoth 1. Grot. de jure bellâ— c. lib 1. câ—p 1. s. 10. Prâ—sat in Cod. Canon Eccl. Aâ—ric p. 14. Less de just jure l. 2. c. 19. dâ—b 3. n. 12. Suarez de leg lib. 2 cap. 9. sect 6. Orig. lib. 3. C. Celsum p. 154. ed. Coâ— â— C. Celsum l. 5. p. 147. § 2. Covarr c. 10. de tesiâ—mâ—n 11â— Hobs de civ cap. 1 s. 11. Ann. §. 3. Prop. 3. Paulus l. 1. D. de â—urtis Vâ—pian lib. Post. D. de verb sig V. Grot. de jure belli c. lib. 2. cap. 4 sect 8. §. 4. Judg. 6. 18 1 Sam. 7. 1 4. 16. 9. 10. 3. 2 Sam. 15. 18 c. Exerciâ— in Gen. 42. Isa. 66. 3. Gen. 4 3 4. Heb. 1â— 4. §. 5. Isa. 49. 23. Euseb. vit Constant. l. 4. c. 24. De Imp. sum Potest cap. 2. l. 1. In Iud. c. 19. Panstrat Cath. Tom. 2. l 15. cap. 6. In loc To. 3. Ed. Aeâ—on p. 189. Ed. 1607. De Episcop Const. Magn. § 7. Aristot. Ethic. lib. 6. c. 6. Matth. 28. 18. Heb. 13. 17. V. Peâ—â— Maâ—tyr in 1 Sam. 14. Whitaker â— cont 4. q. 7. Cameron de Eccles. p. 386. To. 1. op Lib. 2. c. Parmen â—a 1 Sam. 8. Loc. Com. Class 4. c. 5â— sect 11. Papin l. 41 D. de poenis Hotâ—oman Com. v. juris v sanct Cicero ad Arâ—ic l. 3. ep 23. §. 8. Institut l. 4. cap. 17. s. 43. cap. 15. s. 19. Nature of Episc. chap. 5. V. Forbes Iren. lib. 1. cap. 13. Rom 14. 23. §. 9. Grat. de jure belli pacis lib. 2. cap 13. sect 7. §. 10. Gal. 5. 1. D. Sanderson de oblig cons. prael 6. s. 5. Gal. 5. 2. Acts 16. 3. Gal. 4. 9 10 11. Coloss. 2. 16 18 19. Rom. 14. 3 6 21. 1 Cor. 10. 24. Controv. 4. quaest 7. cap. 2. In 1 Sam. 14. Aug. eâ— 118. ad Ianuar. §. 11. Gal. 5. 2.