of the first rank afore-described must govern it statedly as present by himself and not absent by others Chap. 12. The just opening and understanding of the true nature of the Pastoral Office and Church Government would end these Controversies about Prelacy Chap. 13. That there is no need of such as our Diocesâ—nes for the Unity or the Government of the particular Ministers nor for the silencing of the unworthy Chap. 14. The true original of the warrantable sort of Episcopacy in particular Churches was the notorious disparity of abilities in the Pastors And tho original of that tyrannical Prelacy into which it did degenerate was the worldly Spirit in the Pastors and people which with the World came by prosperity into the Church Quaere Whether the thing cease not when the Reason of it ceaseth PART II. Chap. 1. THe clearing of the State of the Question Chap. 2. The first Argument against the aforedescribed Diocesanes that their form quantum in se destroyeth the particular Church form of Gods institution and setteth up a humane form in its stead Chap. 3. That the Primitive Episcopal Churches of the Holy Ghosts Institution were but such Congregations as I before described Proved by Scripture Chap. 4. The same proved by the Concessions of the most learned Defenders of Prelacy Chap. 5. The same proved by the full Testimony of Antiquity Chap. 6. The same further confirmed by the Ancients Chap. 7. More proof of the aforesaid Ancient Church limits from the Ancient Customs Chap. 8. That the Diocesanes cause the Error of the Separatists who avoid our Churches as false in their Constitution and would disable us to confute them Chap. 9. The second Argument from the deposition of the Primitive species of Bishops and the erecting of a humane inconsiâ—tent species in their stead A specifi k difference proved Chap. 10. Whether any form of Church Government be instituted by God as necessary or all be left to humane prudence and choice Chap. 11. Argument third from the destruction of the Order of Presbyters of divine Institution and the invention of a new Order of half Sub-presbyters in their stead Chap. 12. That God instituted such Presbyters as had the foresaid power of the Keyes in doctrine worship and discipline and no other proved by the Scriptures Chap. 13. The same confirmed by the Ancients Chap. 14. And by the Confessions of the greatest and learnedest Prelatists Chap. 15. Whether this Government belonging to the Presbyters be in foro Ecclesiastico exteriore or only in foro Conscientiae vel interiore Chap. 16. That the English Diocesane Government doth change this Office of a Presbyter of God's institution quantum in se into another of humane invention The difference opened Twenty instances of taking away the Presbyters power from them Chap. 17. That the great change of Government hitherto described the making of a new species of Churches Bishops and Presbyters and deposing the old was sinfully done and not according to the intent of the Apostles Chap. 18. Argument fourth from the impossibility of their performance of the Episcopal Office in a Diocesane Church And the certain exclusion and destruction of the perticular Church Government while one man only will undertake a work too great for many hundreds when their work is further opened in perticulars Chap 19. The same impossibility proved by experience 1. Of the ancient Church 2. Of the Foreign Churches 3. Of the Church of England 4. Of our selves Chap. 20. Objections against Parish discipline answered The need of it proved Chap. 21. The Magistrates sword 1. Is neither the strength of Church discipline 2. Nor will serve instead of it 3. Nor should be too much used to second and enforce it The mischeifs of enforcing men to Sacramental Communion opened in twenty instances Chap. 22. An Answer to the Objections 1. No Bishop no King 2. Of the Rebellions and Seditions of them that have been against Bishops Chah 23. Certain brief consectaries Chap. 24. Some Testinonies of Prelatists themselves of the late state of the Church of England its Bishops and Clergy lest we be thought to wrong them in our description of them and their fruits Chap. 25. The Ordination lately exercised by the Presbyters in England when the Bishops were put down by the Parliament is valid and Re ordination not to be required jure divino as supposing it null A TREATISE OF EPISCOPACY Confuting by SCRIPTURE REASON And the CHURCHES TESTIMONY That sort of Diocesan Churches Prelacy and Government which casteth out the Primitive Church-species Episcopacy Ministry and Discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by Corruption Usurpation Schismes and Persecution Meditated 1640 when the c. Oath was imposed Written 1671 and cast by Published 1680 by the Call of Mr. H. Dodwel and the Importunity of our Superiors who demand the Reasons of our Nonconformity The designe of this book is not to weaken the Church of England its Government Riches Honour or Unity But to strengthen and secure it 1. By the concord of all true Protestants who can never unite in the present Impositions 2. And by the necessary reformation of parish-Parish-Churches and those abuses which else will in all ages keep up a succession of Nonconformists As an Account why we dare not Covenant by Oath or Subscription never to endeavour any amending alteration of the Church Government by lawful meanes as Subjects nor make our selves the justifying vouchers for all the unknown persons in the Kingdom who vowed and swore it that none of them are obliged to such lawful endeavour by their vow By RICHARD BAXTER a Catholick Christian for love concord and peace of all true Christians and obedience to all lawful commands of Rulers but made called and used as a Nonconformist London Printed for Nevil Simmons at the three Cocks at the West end of Saint Pauls and Thomas Simmons at the Prince's Armes in Ludgate-street MDCLXXXI These Books following are printed for and sold by Nevil Simmons at the three Golden Cocks at the west end of St. Pauls A Christian Directory or sum of practical Theology and cases of Conscience directing Christians how to use their Knowledge and Faith how to improve all helps and meanes and to performe all duties how to overcome temptations and to escape or mortifie every sin in four parts 1. Christian Ethicks or private Duties 2. Christian Oeconomicks or Family Duties 3. Christian Ecclesiasticks or Church Duties 4. Christian Politicks or Duties to Our selves and Neighbours in Folio Catholick Theology Plain Pure Peaceable for Pacification in three Books 1. Pacifying Principles c. 2. Pacifying Praxis c. 3. Pacifying Disputations c. in Folio The Life of Faith in three Parts The first Sermon preached before his Majesty c. The Second Instructions for confirming believers in the Christian faith The third directions how to live by faith or how to exercise it in all occasions in Quarto Naked Popery or the naked Falshood of a book called the Catholick naked Truth
General Pastors And therefore it they say It is not the Presbyters but the Diocesane that is the cheif Pastor of your Parish Church I answer there is none above the Resident or incumbent Presbyters that take the particular charge and oversight The Bishop takes but the general charge as a general Officer in an Army If they do indeed take the particular Pastoral charge of every Soul which belongs to the Bishops infimi gradus then woe to that man that voluntary takes such a charge upon him and hath such a charge to answer for before the Lord. If they say that the Presbyters have the particular charge for teaching and Sacraments but the Bishops for ruling I answer 1. It is Government that we are speaking of if they are Bishops infimi gradus then there are no Bishops or Governours under them And if so then it is they that must perform and answer for Government of every particular Soul And then woe to them 2. Governing and teaching are acts of the same Office by Christs institution as appears in 1 Tim. 5 17. Acts 20. 28. c. And indeed they are much the same thing For Government in our Church sense is nothing but the explication of Gods Word and the application of it to particular Cases And this is Teaching Let them that would divide prove that Christ hath allowed a division If one man would be the general Schoolmaster of a whole Diocess only to oversee the particular School-masters and give them rules we might bear with them But if he will say to all the particular Schoolmasters you are but to teach and I only must govern all your Scholars when governing them is necessarily the act of him that is upon the place conjunct with teaching this man would need no words for the manifestation of the vanity of his ambition The same I may say of the Masters of every Science whose government is such as our Church Government is not Imperial but Doctoral yea of the Army or the Navy where the government is most imperial Now for the Argument 1. The consequence of the Major is undeniable because every such Society is essentially constituted of the Ruling and Ruled parts as every Common-wealth of the pars imperans and the pars subdita So every organized Church of the Pastor and the Flock 2. And for the Minor if they denyed both our Parish Churches and our City Churches that is those in Towns Corporate to be true Churches they then confess the shame and open the ulcer and leprosic of their way of governing that to build up one Diocesane Church which is not of Christs institution but destructive of his institution they destroy and pull down five hundred or a thousand Parish Churches and many City Churches If they will also feign a specifique difference of Churches as they do of Pastors and say that Parish Churches are Ecclesiae dociae but Diocesan Churches are only Ecclesiae gubernatae of which the Parish Churches are but parts I answer 1. The Scripture knoweth no such distinction of stated Churches All stated Churches for worship are to be governed Churches and the government is but guidance and therefore to be by them that are their Guides 2. I have before proved that every worshipping Church that had unum altare was to have a Bishop or Government by Presbyters at least Arg. III. That Ordination which is much better than the ordination of the Church of Rome or of any Diocesane Bishops of the same sort with theirs is valid The Ordination now questioned by some in England is much better then the Ordination of the Church of Rome or of any Diocesane Bishops of the same sort with theirs Ergo the Ordination now questioned by some in England is valid The Major will not be denied by those which we plead with because they hold the Ordination of the Church of Rome to be valid and their Priests not to be re-ordained The Minor I prove If the Ordination that hath no Reason of its validity alledged but that it is not done by Diocesane Bishops be much better than the Ordination of such as derive their power from a meer Usurper of Headship over the universal Church whose succession hath been oft interrupted and of such as profess themselves Pastors of a false Church as having a Head and form of divine Institution and that ordain into that false Church and cause the ordained to swear to be obedient to the Pope to swear to false Doctrine as Articles of Faith and ordain him to the Office of making a peice of Bread to be accounted no Bread but the Body of Christ which being Bread still is to be worshipped as God by himself and others to pass by the rest than the Ordination now questioned in England is much better than the Ordination of the Church of Rome But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent And for the other part of the Minor I further prove it If the Office and government of the Romish Bishops and of any Diocesanes of the same sort with them be destructive of that form of Episcopacy and Church Government which was instituted by Christ and used in the Primitive Church then the Ordination now questioned by some in England is much better than that which is done by such Diocesanes But the Office and Covernment of the Romish Bishops and of any Diocesanes of the same sort with them is destructive of that form of Episcopacy and Church Government which was instituted by Christ and used in the Primitive Church Ergo The Ordination now questioned by some in England is much better than that which is done by such Diocesanes The Reason of the consequence is because the Ordination of Presbyters now in question is not destructive of the Episcopacy and Government instituted by Christ and used in the Primitive Church Or if it were that 's the worst that can be said of it And therefore if other Ordination may be valid notwithstanding that fault so may it N. B. 1. I here suppose the Reader to understand what that Ordination is now questioned in England viz. Such as we affirm to be by Bishops not only as Presbyters as such are called Bishops but as the cheif Presbyters of particular Churches especially City Churches having Curates under them and also as the Presidents of Synods are called Bishops 2. Note that all I say hereafter about Diocesanes is to be understood only of those Bishops of a Diocess of many hundred or score Churches which are infimi gradus having no Bishops under them who are only Priests who are denied to have any proper Church Government And not at all of those Diocesane Bishops who are Arch-Bishops having many Bishops under them or under whom each Parish Pastor is Episcopus Gregis having the true Church Government of his particular Flock And thus because the Major is of great moment I shall handle it the more largely The Viciousnes of the Romish Ordinations appeareth thus 1.
great priviledge of Church-Communion and that giving it to the unwilling that had but rather endure it than a Prison is a great profanation of it and a cheat to poor souls and a horrid corrupting of Christ's Churches and Ordinances 68. If wilful Church-corruptions have made any places uncapable of a present conformity to Christ's Institutions their incapacity must not become the measure and rule of our Reformation But a true Conformity to the Institution must be intended and endeavoured though all cannot come up to it at the first 69. We do not hold that every Corruption in Number or Officers or Order nullifieth a Church or maketh all Communion with it unlawful as long as the essential constitution doth remain Yea though my own judgment is that every Church in Town or Country should have a Bishop yet if they would but set up one Bishop with his assistant Presbyters in every Corporation and Great Town with the neighbour Villages according to the antient practise from the middle of the third Century for many following so that true discipline might but be made possible to them that had a heart to practice it I should greatly rejoyce in such a Reformation much more if every Parish Pastor were restored to all the parts of his Office though he exercised all under the Government of Bishops 70. We hold the Parish Churches of England that have true Ministers that are not utterly uncapable through Ignorance Heresie Insufficiency or Wickedness to be true Churches of Christ But that is because we hold the particular Ministers to be true Bishops Episcopos Gregis etsi non Episcoporum and to have the power of the Keys over all their Flocks And that is because we hold that it is not in our Bishops power to deprive them of it though they would And because we hold that when Christ hath instituted and described the Office of a Pastor or Presbyter and the Ordainers ordain a man to that Office their power shall be judged of by Christs institution and not by the Ordainers will though he mistake or would maim and change it by his wrong description And that the Ordainer is but a Ministerial Invester delivering possession according to his Masters will and not his own And as long as Christ giveth to Pastors the power of the Keys and they themselves consent to receive and use them especially if the People also consent to the exercise of them it is not the Bishops will or words that can nullifie this power And if this Answer were not good I confess I were not able to Answer a Brownist who saith that we have no true Publick Churches of God's Institution Diocesan Churches being but Humane if they had Bishops in each Church under them and being sinful when they have none and Parochial Churches being Humane or null as having no Bishops of their own nor Pastors of Christ's Institution but half Pastors and therefore being but part of a Diocesan Church But all this is sufficiently answered by our foresaid Reasons which no high Prelatist can soundly answer 71. I do hold that those Parish Assemblies that have no Ministers but such as are uncapable either through notorious Ignorance or Heresie or utter Insufficiency as to the Essentials of their Office or by disclaiming themselves any Essential part of the Pastoral Office or by notorious Preaching against Godliness and opposing the Churches necessary good are indeed no true Churches of Christ but only are Analogically or Equivocally so called As you may call a Community of Christians that have no Pastor or Church which is no Organized or Political Society 72. But yet I think it not simply unlawful to joyn at any time with such an Assembly For I may joyn with a Christian Family or occasional Assembly though not as with a Church 73. We hold that all the Christians in the World in particular Churches or out do make up one Catholick or Universal Church which is Mystical and Invisible in that 1. the Faith of Mens minds is Invisible 2. and Christ is Invisible to us Mortals now he is in Heaven But it is also Visible 1. In respect of the Members and their outward Baptism and Profession 2. and because that Christ the Head was once Visible on Earth and is still Visible in Heaven to the Glorified part as the King is to his Courtiers when the rest of the Kingdom seeth him not and will Visibly appear again to all 74. We hold that this Universal Church is One in Christ alone and that it hath no other King or Head That he hath Instituted no Vicarious Head either Pope or General Council Nor is any mortal man or men capable of such an Office 75. We hold therefore that the Roman Pope and General Councils if they claim such an Headship is an Usurper of part of Christ's Prerogative which having usurped he hath used against Christ and his interest against the Soveraignty of Princes and against the true Unity Concord Peace and Holiness of the Churches 76. And we hold that it was the modelling of the Church to the Policy of the Roman Empire which gave the Pope the advantage for this usurpation And that the Roman Catholick Papal Church is a meeâ— Humane Form and an Imperial Church as much as the Archbishop of Canterbury as Superiour to the rest of England is of Man and that Body so united is a National Church And that the General Councils were never truly General as to all the Churches in the World but only as to the Roman Imperial Church None considerable ever coming to such Councils but those that were or had been in the Roman Empire or some very few that closely bordered on them Nor had the Roman Emperour who usually called or gave his Warrant for such Councils or Governed them any power over the Clergy of all the rest of the Christian World in Ethiopia the outer Armenia Persia India c. Nor did the Imperial Pope then exercise any power over them And we are perswaded that the power of the Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Constantinople and of the Metropolitaâ—â— Primates c. stood on the same foundation with the Primacy of the Pope and that one is no more of Divine right than the other But that the Papacy is the far more wicked Usurpation as pretending to more of Christ's Prerogative 77. We hold therefore that the Roman Church as such that is as pretending to be the Church-Catholick Headed by an Usurping Universal Bishop is no true Church of Christ but a Humane and traiterous Usurpation and conspiracy therefore by Protestants called Antichristian Though those that are true Christians among them are Parts of Christ's Catholick Church and those that are true Pastors among them may be the Guides of true particular Churches 78. We hold therefore that no Power on Earth Popes Council or Prince hath power to make Universal Laws to bind the whole Church of Christ on Earth because there is no Universal Head or
that were abroad among these new Converts or scatered Christians made them know that every Church should have a Bishop and that they might choose one of their own And few Presbyters being then Learned able men in Comparison of the Bishops by this advantage of presence among them many raw and schismatical Presbyters crept into the Peoples affections and perswaded them to choose them for their Bishops when they were chosen and ordained they encroached on the rest of the old Bishops Diocess and also refused to come to the Synods lest their failings should be known pretending that they must stay with their own People Now the Bishops that complained of this did not alledge 1. That no Bishop should be made but in a City 2. Nor that when Christians multiplyed they must not multiply Bishops accordingly but all be under their first Bishop only 3. Nor that a new Congregation had not as good right to have and chuse a Bishop of their own as the first City Congregation had But only to keep ignorant Schismatical Presbyters from deceiving the People for their own exaltation and from hindering Synodical Concord they Decreed that none in their Diocesses should have Bishops without the first Bishops consent And that being so Consecrated they should frequent Synods and should be Bishops only of that People that first chose them and not encroach on the rest of the Diocess And whereas he hence gathereth that the Country Churches ever from the beginning belonged to the City Bishops There were no such things as Appendant Country Churches from the beginning of the City Churches But it 's true that from the beginning of the Country Peoples Conversion when they were not enow to make Churches themselves they belonged to the City Churches as Members Even as now the Anabaptists and Independent Churches consist of the People of Market-Towns and the adjoyning Country Associated into one Assembly After that the Country Meetings were but as Oratories or Chappels And when they came to be enow to make dinstinct Churches of some good Bishops had the Wit and Grace to help them to Chorepiscopi Bishops of their own but most did choose rather to enlarge their own Possessions or Powers and set Subject Presbyters only over the People And that these new Bishopricks must be by the old Bishops consent is apparently a point of Order to avoid inconveniences if not of Usurpation For what power had the old Bishop to keep any Church of Christ without a Bishop of their own when it was for there good That he hath some countenance from Leo for the New Church-Form without Bishops I wonder not when Leo was one of the hottest that betimes maintained the Roman Primacy if not Universal Soveraignty And as the Care against placing Bishops in small places ne vilescat nomen Episcopi came in late so 1. It intimateth that it was otherwise done at least by some before 2. And it is but the Prelatical grandure which Constantine had pufft up which is then alledged as the Reason of this Restraint His Argument is That which was judged unlawful by the Canons of approved Councils and Decrees of Godly Bishops was never lawfully regularly and ordinarily practised But c. I deny the Major Kneeling at Prayer or Sacrament on the Lords day the Marriage of Priests the Reading of the Heathens Writings and abundance such-like were forbidden by such approved Councils especially a multitude of things depending on the new Imperial shape of the Churches which are now lawful and were lawful and ordinarily practised before Paul Kneeled and Prayed on the Lord's day Acts 20. c. Therefore the placing of Bishops in Country Parishes was not unlawful before because the Councils of Bishops afterward forbad it nor was it ever unlawful by Gods Law Methinks a Bishop that subscribeth to the 39 Articles of the Church of England which mentioneth General Councils erring even in matters of Faith should never have asserted that they cannot erre in matter of Government nor retract and alter that which was well practised before them His next Argument is this If there were any Parish Bishops then they were the Chorepiscopi But the Chorepiscopi were not such Ans 1. I deny the Major There were then many City Bishops that were but Parish Bishops or had but one Church as shall be further proved 2. Yet as to a great number it is granted that their Diocesses had many Churches at the time of Concil Eliber Sardic c. which he mentioneth But it followeth not that therefore it was so with any in the time of Ignatius or with many in Cyprian's time 3. If it were all granted de facto it will not follow that de jure it was well done and that the old Form was not sinfully changed 4. The Chorepiscopi themselves might have many Congregations under them like our Chapels and yet be Parish Bishops And it 's most probable that at first they had no more than one of our Country Parishes though afterwards they had many Churches under them as City Bishops had His next Argument is Churches endued with Power Ecclesiastical sufficient for the Government of themselves having also a Bishop and Presbytery had the power of Ordination But Country Parishes had not the Power of Ordination Ergo c. Ans 1. Government is Inferiour or Superiour They might have sufficient Inferiour power of Government though they had none of the Superiour power such as belongeth to Archbishops to whom Appeals were made As a Corporation that hath a Mayor and Assistants hath sufficient Inferiour power but not Regal nor such as Judges Lord Lieutenants c. have And if it were proved as some hold that only General or unfixed Ministers like the Apostles and Evangelists or Archbishops that were over many Churches had the power of Ordination and not the Inferiour Bishops of single Churches it would not follow that these Inferiour Bishops had not the power of Governing their own Churches with assisting Presbyters And if he will prove for us that every fixed Bishop hath the power of Ordination who hath but the Inferiour power of Governing his single Church by Admonitions Excommunications and Absolutions he will but do our work for us 2. I deny his Minor Propos If by Country Parishes he mean the Bishops of Country Parishes they had the Power of Ordination And all that he saith against it is only to prove that de facto they had not the Exercise of it in the times he mentioneth and that de jure humano it was not allowed them by Canons But 3. We grant so much of the Conclusion as that de facto few Country Parishes had a Bishop and Presbytery Because there were but few Country Parishes in the World till the third Century that were really Christian Churches or fixed Societies of Christians that had ordinary Church-communion together in the Sacrament or had an Altar But our Case is About single Churches now called Parish Churches and not about Country
contrary that needeth a Reply Cap. 5. he would prove the Angels to be Archbishops which if done would not touch our Cause who meddle not with Archbishops but onely prove that the full Pastoral or Episcopal Office or power of the Keys as over the Flock should be found in every particular Church that hath unum Altaere To prove Metropolitans again he tells us how that in Provinces we find Churches mentioned in the Plural number and in Cities onely a Church singularly not perceiving how hereby he overthrows his Cause when he can never prove that in Scripture many particular Churches are called A Church Diocesane or Metropolitan as united in one Bishop as our Diooesane and Metropolitan Churches now are Nay indeed though the Society be specified by the Government yet the Name sticketh in their teeth here in England and they seldom use the Title of the Church of Canterbury and York for the whole Province and they use to say the Diocese of Lincoln London Winchester Worcester Coventry and Litchfield c. rather than the Church of Lincoln London Coventry and Litchfield c. lest the Hearers would so hardly he seduced from the proper sense of the word Church as not to understand them His Proofs of the Civil or Jewish distinction of Metropolitans § 4 5 c. let them mind that think it pertinent But § 9. we have a great word that It may be proved by many examples that after this Image the Apostles took care every where to dispose of the Churches and constituted a subordination and dependence of the lesser on the more eminent Cities in all their Plantations Answ This is to some purpose if it be made good The first Instance is Acts 14. 26. 16. 4. and 15. 2 3 22 23 30. Not a word else out of Scripture And what 's here Why Paul and Barnabas are sent to Jerusalem from Antioch to the Apostles and Elders about the Question and were brought on their way by the Church and passed thorow Phenice and Samaria Chosen men are sent to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas Judas and Silas with Letters from the Apostles Elders and Brethren even to the Brethren of the Gentiles in Antioch Syria and Cilicia And when they came to Antioch they delivered the Letters and Paul and Timothy as they went thorow the Cities delivered them the Decrees to keep that were ordained by the Apostles and Elders that were at Jerusalem Doth not the Reader wonder where is the Proof And wonder he may for me unless this be it The Apostles and Elders were at Jerusalem when they wrote this Letter and thence sent it to Antioch Syria and Cilicia Ergo They established the Bishop of Jerusalem to be the Governour and Metropolitan of Antioch Syria and Cilicia The Apostle Paul went from Antioch to other Cities and delivered them these Decrees Ergo Antioch is the governing Metropolis of those Cities I think the major Propositions are Every City from which Apostles send their Letters to other Cities and every City from which an Apostle carrieth such Letters or Decrees to other Cities is by those Apostles made the Governing Metropolis of those other Cities What dull Heads are the Puritans to question such a Proposition as this But it is not given to all Men to be wise And we ignorant Persons are left in doubt Q. 1. Whether the Universal Headship or Papacy of the Bishop of Jerusalem be not of Apostolical Institution and that more than by one Apostle even by all of them that were then at Jerusalem Q. 2. Whether the Apostles did not this as they did other parts of Church-settlement by the Spirit of God and so whether it be not jure Divino yea by a more eminent Authority than the Scriptures which were written by parts by several single Men some Apostles and some Evangelists when this is said to be done by all together Q. 3. Whether Christ's Life Death Resurrection Ascension and sending the Apostles thence into all the World and not into the Roman Empire onely do not incomparably more evidently make Jerusalem the Universal Metropolis of the Earth and so set it above Rome which is but the Metropolis of one Empire Q. 4. Whether then an Universal Head of the Church or Vicar of Christ be not jure Divino and so a Jerusalem Papacy be not essential to the true Church and Religion Q. 5. Whether then all the Emperours Bishops and Churches that did set up Rome Alexandria Antioch and Constantinople above Jerusalem were not Traytors against the Universal Sovereign of the Church and guilty of Usurpation and gross Schism Q. 6. To what parpose this Sovereignty was given to Jerusalem which was never possess'd and exercised Q. 7. Whether Peter's being at Rome could alter this Church-Constitution and one Apostle could undo what all together had done Q. 8. Whether the Apostles carried this Metropolitical Prerogative with them from place to place where-ever they came And whether it did belong to the Men or the Place And whether to the Place whence they first set out or to every place where they came or to the place where they dyed Judge what is the proof of any of these Q. 9. When they were scattered which of their Seats was the Metropolitan to the rest or were they all equal Q. 10. If the Power followed the Civil Power of the Metropolitane Rulers whether Caesar did not more in constituting the Church-Order and giving power comparatively to the Metropolitanes than Christ and his Apostles Q. 11. Whether it was not in Caesar's power to unmake all the Church Metropolitans and Bishops at his pleasure by dissolving the Priviledges and Charters of Cities Q. 12. If it please any King or be the Custom of any Kingdom as it is in many parts of America that the Kingdom have no Cities or Metropolis whether it must have any Churches Bishops or Metropolitane Q. 13. Whether when Paul wrote his Letters from Corinth to Rome he thereby made the Bishop of Corinth the Governour of the Bishop and Diocess of Rome And whether little Cenchrea was over them also because Phoebe carried the Letter And did his writing from Philippi to Corinth subject Corinth to the Bishop of Philippi And did his writing from Rome to Galatia Ephesus Philippi the Colossians and from Athens to the Thessalonians and from Laodicea and Rome to Timothy and from Nicopolis to Titus and John's writing from Patmos to the Asian Metropolitanes produce the same effect Q. 14. If Paul's carrying the Letters from Antioch to other Cities proved Antioch the Governour of the rest whether when he returned from the other to Antioch again he made not the other the Governours of Antioch I am ashamed to prosecute this Fiction any further His following Citations from the Fathers I think unworthy of an Answer till it be proved 1. That these Fathers took the Metropolitane Order as such to be of Apostolical Institution and not in complyance with the Roman Government by meer humane
may end a Church by Wood and stone though the Country still have never so many Christians and when the City is gone the Church is gone 10. Yea it will be in the power of every king even of Heathens whether Christ shall have any Church or Bishop in his kingdoms or not Because he can un-city or dispriviledge all the Cities in his kingdom at his pleasure and consequently unchurch all the Churches 11. And by their way Christ hath setled as various Church forms as there be forms of Government in the world For all Dominions are not divided into Provinces under Prisidents c as the Roman Empire was In many Countries the Metropolis hath no superiority over the other City or the Country and so that will be of divine institution in one Country which will be a sin in others 12. Yea by this Rule many vast Countries must have no Bishops or Churches at all because they have no Cities as is known among the Americans and others must have but one Church and Bishop in a whole Country of many hundred Miles 13. And by their Rule all the Bishops of England are unbishoped and their Diocesan Churches are unchurched For 1. Some of them in Wales and Man have no Cities now called such 2. Others of them have many Cities not only Coventry and Lichfield Bath and Wells now called Cities but abundance of Corporations really Cities 3. And the Cities in England Scotland and Ireland have no Civil Government over all the Countries Corporations Villages of the Diocefe at all nor are they Seats of Presidents or Lieutenants that have such Rule so that our Dioceses are not modelled to the form of the Civil Government What subjection doth Hartfordshire Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire c. owe to the Town of Lincolne 14. By their model it is not Bishops and Metropolitans alone that are of divine right For if the Church Government must be modelled to the Civill the Imperial Churches must have had Officers to answer all the Proconsuls and Presects the Lieutenants the Vicars the Consular Presidents the Corrâ—ctors c. For who can prove that one sort or two oaly must by imitated and not others 15. They must by their rule set up in England an inconsistent or self destroying form For in many if not most Counties our Lord Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and Sherifs and most Justices dwell in Countrey mannors and Villages and not in Cities And so either Cities must not be the Seats of Bishops and Churches or else the Seat of Civil Government must not be the Seat of the Ecclesiastical If they say that Assizes and Sessions are kept in the County Towns I answer 1. So Church assemblies called Synods or Councils may be held in them and yet not be the Bishops Seat For they are not the Judges or Justices Seat because of Assizes and quarterly Sessions 2. The observation is not universally true Yea no Assizes or Sessions at all are therefore held in any Town because it is the County Town but because it is the convenientest place for meeting The choice of which is left to the Judges and Justices who sometimes choose the County-Town and sometimes another as they please As Bridgnorth in Shropshire Aleshury not Buckingham ordinarily in Buckinghamshire and so of others 3. And thâ—se County Towns are few of them either Cities or Bishops Seats As Buckingham Hartford Bedford Cambridge Huntington Warwick Darby Nottingham Sherwsbury Ipswich Colchester Lancaster Flint Denbigh Montgomery Merioneth Radnor Cardigan Carnarvon Pembrook Carmarthen Breeknock and divers others 16. This model of theirs is in most parts of the world or many quite contrary to the Interest of the Church and therefore forbidden by God in Nature and Scripture by that rule Let the end be preferred and the means which best serve it Let all things be done to edification For in most of the world the Rulers are enemies to Christianity and disposed to persecute the Pastors of the Church therefore they will least endure Ecclesiastical Courts and Bishops in their Imperial Cities and under their noses as we say Obj. The Romans did endure it Ans For all the ten persecutions the Romans gave ordinarily more liberty of Religion than most of the world doth at this day Bishops and Pastors are glad to keep out of the way of Infidel and Heathen Rulers And I think verily our most Zealous English Prelates would be loath if they had their language to go set up a Church and Bishops seat at Madrid Vienna Jngolsted yea at Florence Milan Ravenna Venice Lisbone Warsaw c. And if they must needs be in those Countries they would rather chose a more private and less offensive seat 17. I think that few Churches or Bishops in the world except the Italian if they are of the opinion now opposed by me The Greek Church is not For though for honor sake they retain the name of the ancient Seats yet they ordinarily dwell in Countrey Villages And so doth the Patriarck of Antioch himself often or at least Antioch is now no City of which he hath the name And Socrates and after him other Historians tell us that of old this practise varied as a thing indifferent in several Countries according to their several customes which had no Law of God for them and therefore were not accounted necessary 18. Our English Bishops have been for the most part of another mind till Dr. Hammond and others turned this way of late Not only Jeâ—el Bilson and many others have asserted that Patriarks Metropolitans and Primates and such like are of human right and mutable but few if any were found heretofore to contradict them And at this day many Bishops ordinarily dwell in their Country houses As the Bishop of Lincolne did at Bugden the Bishop of Coventree and Lichfield formerly at Eccleshall Castle the Bishop of Chester now at Wigan and so of others And I think that is the Bishops Seat where usually his dwelling is and not where a Lay-Chancellor keepes a Court or where a Dean and Chapter dwell who are no Bishops 19. There have as Dr. Hammond hath well proved been of old several Churches in one City one of Jews and one of Gentiles with their several Bishops and Clergy Therefore one City with its territories is not jure Divino the measure or boundaries of one only Church 20. If the Church Government must be modelled to the Civil then in every Monarchie or Empire there must be one Universal Pastor to rule all the rest as there is one King And in every Aristocracy there must be a Synod of Prelates in Church Supremacy and in every Democracy who or what But then the Papacy will be proved not only lawful but of Divine institution as the Head or Church Soveraign of the Roman Empire though not of all the world at Rome first and at Constantinople after And indeed I know no word of reason that can be given to draw an impartial man of Judgment to doubt
but that Metropolitans Primates Patriarcks and the Pope as Head of the Churches in the Empire stood all on the same ground and had the same Original as all Fathers Councells and History shew which truely proveth that as an Universal Papacy is a Treasonable Usurpation so an Imperial Papacy that is through the Roman Empire is but a human Creature and Metropolitans Patriarcks c. are the like and they that will feigne the one to be of Gods institution or necessary must say that the other is so to But after all this one consequence puts the world in hope that Diocesans may come in time to be reformed For seeling Kings may make and unmake Cities and consequently Bishop-pricks at their pleasure whenever it shall please his Majesty or any other wise and Holy Prince to declare every Corporation and Market Town to be a City we must needs have a Bishop in every one of them according to the principles of the Prelates themselves And then the Diocese will not be so great but a diligent Pastor may possibly sometimes see the greater number of his flock Obj. But they that do say that the Apoâ—les took this course do not say that it is so obligatory but that in cases of necessity we may do otherwise Ans 1. They alledge the very Law of nature for it that it must be so even in Heathen Empires ex natura rei as Dr. Hammond before cited 2. All meer positves give places to natural duties caeteris paribus in cases of true necessity we may break the rest of the Lords day we may omit the Lords Supper we may stay from the Church assemblies we may forbear to preach or pray or meditate or read So that the exception only of necessity will but equal this Diocesan model to other possitive ordinances which are indeed Divine Obj. What if we prove but the lawfulness of it though not the Duty Ans If you prove it not of Divine institution I have proved it to be sinful and shall do much more by all the evils which attend it And so much for these City Diocese and Metropolitans and modelling the Church Government to the state CHAP. VII The Definition and reasons of a Diocesan Church considered and overthrown I Have already shewed that we dispute not about aery notions nor Non-existence but about such Dioceses as we see and have and that by a Diocese we Non-conformists mean only a large circuit of ground with its inhabitants conteining many perticular Parishes And by a Diocesan Church we mean all the Christians within that circuit who have but one Bishop over them though they be of many Parish Churches yea few Presbyterians take the word so narrow as this For I think too many of them do with Rutherford distinguish between a worshipping Church and a Governed Church and sadling the horse for Prelacy to mount on do affirm that many about twelve usualy of these worshiping Churches like our Parishes may make but one Governed or Presbyterial Church But a Diocese in England containeth many hundred and some above a thousand Parishes as is said But the Diocesans Hammond and Downam define not a Diocese as we see it as conteining many Churches or holy assemblies but only as being the Church of one City with its territories Now the question is what it is that is the specifying difference by which a Diocesan Church is distinguished from others and constituted 1. Not that it is in a City For an Independent Church or a Presbyterian Church may be in a City When there is but one Church there or many Independent ones these are no other than those allow whom you take for your chief adversaries 2. Is it then the circuit of ground that is the boundary of these Churches either this ground is inhabited or not if not then earth and trees make their Churches If inhabited it is by Infidels or by Christians or both If by Infidels they are no members of any Christian Church and therefore not of a Diocesan Church Unless they will professe to have Churhes of Infidels If they be Christians either they are no more nor more distant than as that they may at least the main body of them come on the Lords daies to the City Church into one assembly or else they are enow to make more or many Church assemblies If the former than what differ they from a Parish Church or an Independent Church which is planted in a City When each of them are but one congregation where is the difference but in the arbitrary Name But if the City and territories have Christians enow for many Churches then either they are formed into many or not If they are they should by their own confession have many Bishops If not either Church Societies are Gods ordinance or not If not the City should have none If they are where hath God exempted the Country from the priviledge or duty any more than the City But if they should say that a Diocesan Church is one Church in a City and its territories consisting of Christians enow to make many of whom the most part take up with oratories for Churches this would suite our Notion of a Diocesan Church but not theirs For they say that it is not necessary that a Diocesan Church have more than one Congregation Therefore it must needs follow that their Diocesan Church must differ from our Parish or Congregational Churches only in potentiâ and not in actu or else earth or Infidels must be the differencing matter Unless they will say that the Order of Prelacy in it maketh the difference which is the office of a Pastor who is actually Governour but of one congregation but is in potentia to be the Governour of more when he can convert them and then is the Governour of them all in that territory when they are converted But if one congregation or many make not the difference a meer possibility in the Infidels of becoming Christians cannot make the difference because the Subjects of that possibility are no members of the Church at all Therefore the difference must be only in the office of the Bishop And if so then an Independent Church that hath a Bishop is a Diocesan Church And so an Independant and a Diocesan Church may be all one And then if a Bishop were but setled in a Parish Church in the City or Countrey it would make it a Diocesan Church And then when we have proved that the Country should have Churches and not meer Oratories and that every Church should have a Bishop and so that a Bishop is not to be appropriated to a City and its territories we have done all And that society which should have all Gods Church ordinances should have a Pastor necessary for the exercising of them all But every true Parish Church should have all Gods ordinances belonging to a single Church therefore they should have a Pastor at least to exercise them And a Pastor authorized to exercise all
probable sense For 1. If by the Altar they say is meant One Christ 2. or one Species of Altars these are before confuted and are palpably false He that is in another part of the World may come to an Altar of the same species which is nothing to the unity of a particular Church here spoken of 3. If they say It is called one Altar because under one Bishop this maketh not many to be one no more than many Temples And if tropically it were so meant it would be but a vain repetition One Bishop being mentioned besides And it is an Altar which the Bishop with his Presbytery is supposed to be present at which cannot be All in a Diocess called One. Partiality can give no other probable sense Object 1. One Church it is known had many Altars Answ Not then no nor long after except at Rome and Alexandria and then they were but as parts of Chappels and not of Churches Object 2. It is said also There is one Body of Christ and one Cup which cannot be meant literally Answ It is well called One agreeably to our present sence For 1. It is one and the same Bread though not one piece which is there present consecrated and divided to them all and one Cup or present quantity of Wine which is there distributed among them 2. And it is One body and blood or sacrificed Christ which is in every Church represented and offered by One Bishop at one Altar This doth but confirm our Exposition But what can be so plain as to convince the prejudiced and unwilling 2. Pag. 45. he willeth `` the Church to send a Deacon to Antioch as other neighbour Churches sent Bishops and some Presbyters and Deacons And can any man think that a Diocess met to chuse a Deacon to go on a visit or that it was a Diocesane Bishop that was sent by a Diocess yea that all these neighbour Churches that sent them were so many Diocesses VI. The next is the Epistle ad Trallesios Where he saith of the Bishop that came to him That he saw all the multitude in him that is the Assembly And as before he bids them Do nothing without the Bishop and be subject to the Presbytery and that as to the Counsel of God and Conjunction of Apostles adding For without these the Church is not called what can be plainer to shew that it was a Church that had a present Bishop and Council of Presbyters conjunct without whom the Church was not lawfully called together So that every Church had such 2. And pag. 50. he saith again Not inflated but being inseparable from God Jesus Christ and the Bishop and the Orders of the Apostles that is the Confess of Presbyters He that is within the Altar is clean and he that is without the Altar is not clean that is he that doth any thing in the Church without the Bishop Presbytery and Deacon is not clean in Conscience which plainly sheweth that every Church-Assembly had a guiding Bishop Presbytery and ministring Deacon 3. Pag. 52. he saith I salute you from Smyrna with the Churches of God which are present with me He had not then the presence of many Diocesses nor were Bishops alone used then to be called Churches Therefore they were Church-Assemblies which he visited and were with him and about him 4. Again he repeateth Be subject to the Bishop and Presbytery and love one another with an inseparable heart Which hath the sense aforesaid VII In the Epistle to the Romans the words of the Church presiding in locho chori Romanorum is much spoken of already by many The Epistles ascribed to him have much of the like kind as Epist ad Tarsenses pag. 80. Ad Antiochenos pag. 86 87 88. The Epist ad Heroum Diaconum calleth the Presbyters of Antioch Bishops who baptize sacrifice and impose hands So Epist ad Philippenses pag. 112. If after all this evidence from Ignatius any will wrangle let him wrangle what words can be plain enough for such And what a blind or blinding practice is it which too many Writers for Prelacy have used to pretend Ignatius to be for them who is so much and plain against them And to toss about the name of a Bishop and Presbytery as if all that was said for a Parochial Bishop and Presbytery that is in a Church associated for personal presential Communion were spoken for such a Diocesane Prelacy as putteth down and destroyeth all such Churches Bishops and Presbyteries And what falshood is it to perswade the World that we are against Episcopacy because we would have every Church to have a Bishop and would not have all the Churches in England except Diocesane to be unchurched and turned into Chappels or Oratories When yet we refuse not to submit to more general Overseers of many Churches to see that the Pastors do their duty and counsel and exhort them to it whether appointed hereto by the Magistrate or the consent and choice of many Churches IV. Justin Martyr's Testimony is trite but most plain and not to be evaded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Postea fratrum praeposito panis poculum offertur Postquam praepositus gratias egit totusque populus fausta omnia acclamavit qui inter nos Diaconi vocantur dant unicuique partem panis calicis diluti super quos facta est gratiarum actio atque etiam deferre sinunt absentibus Die solis urbanorum ac rusticanorum coetus fiunt ubi Apostolorum prophetarumque literae quoad fieri potest praeleguntur Cessantâ— Lectore Praepositus verba facit adhortatoria Posthaec consurgunt omnes preces offâ—rimus quibus finitis profertur panis vinum aqua Tum praepofitus quantum potest preces offert gratiarum actiones Plebs vero Amen accinâ—t Inde consecrata distribuuntur singulis absentibus mittuntur per Diaconos Ditiores si libeat pro sua quisque voluntate conferunt Collecta deponuntur apud praepositum Is subvenit pupillis viduis propter morbum aliamve necessitatem egentibus vinctis quoque peregrinis in summa curator fit omnium inopum Thus Justin Apolog. 2. Where he describeth the Church State and Worship which we desire as plainly as we can speak our selves Note here 1. That whether the Country-men and Citizens had several Churches or met in one City Church it sheweth that they were but single Congregations For every Church had a present Bishop For Doctor Hammond maintaineth that by the Praepositus here is meant the Bishop and so do others of them 2. This Bishop performed the Offices of the day every Lord's day praying preaching and administring the Lord's Supper c. 3. All the Alms of the Church was committed to the Bishop at present and therefore he had not many hundred or any other Churches under him where Presbyters did all receive the Alms. 4. He was the common Curator of all the Poor Orphans Sick c. which could not be for more than
King will make every Market Town a City it shall have a Bishop And if he will make but one or two cities in a Kingdom there shall be but one or two Bishops And if he will make one City Regent to others that Bishop shall be so Thus Rome Constantinople c. came by their Superiority But Hierome telleth us the contrary that the Bishop of Tanais or any small City like our least Corporations was of equal Church-Dignity with Rome or the greatest 24. The same Council Can. 78. repeateth that All the Illuminate that is Baptized must learn the Creed and every Friday say it to the Bishop and Presbyters I hope they did not go every Friday such a Journey as Lincoln York or Norwich Diocess no nor the least in England would have put them to nor that the Bishop heard as many thousands every Friday as some of ours by that Canon should have heard 25. Anno 693. at a Toletane Council King Egica writeth a Sermon for them and therein tells them that Every Parish that hath twelve Families must have their proper Governor not a Curate that is no Governor But if it be less it must be part of another's Charge 26. Anno 756. Pipin called a Council in France whos 's Can. 1. is that Every City must have a Bishop And as is beforesaid every Corporate Town was a City 27. In the Epitome of the old Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carolus Magnus published by Canisius the eighth Antioch Canon is Country Presbyters may not give Canonical Epistles but the Chorepiscopi By which it appeareth that the Chorepiscopi were Bishops as Petavius proveth in Epiphan Arrius And Can. 14 15. That No Bishop be above three Weeks in another City nor above two Weeks from his own Church Which intimateth that he had one single Church And Can. 19. That when a place wants a Bishop he that held them must not proudly hold them to himself and hinder them from one else he must lose that which he hath 28. The same Canons say Can. 94. If a Bishop six Months after Admonition of other Bishops neglect to make Catholicks of the people belonging to his Seat any other shall obtain them that shall deliver them from their Heresie So that 1. The Churches were not so big but that there might be divers in one Town 2. And converting the People is a better Title than Parish Bounds 29. It is there also decreed That no Bishop ordain or judge in another's Parish else it shall be void And they forbid Foreign Judgments because it is unmeet that he should be judged by Strangers who ought to have Judges of the same Province chosen by himself But our Diocesanes are Strangers to almost all the People and are not chosen by them See the rest Also another is that every Election of Bishops made by Magistrates be void yea all that use the Secular Magistrate to get a Church must be deposed and separated and all that joyn with him Also if any exact Money or for affection of his own drive any from the Ministry or segregate any of his Clergy or shut the Temple 30. A Council at Chalone under Carol. Magn. the Can. 15. condemneth Arch-Deacons that exercise Domination over Parish-Presbyters and take Fees of them as matter of Tyranny and not of Order and Rectitude And Can. 13. saith It is reported of some Brethren Bishops that they force them whom they are about to ordain to swear that they are worthy and will not do contrary to the Canons and will be obedient to the Bishop that ordaineth them and to the Church in which they are ordained Which Oath because it is very dangerous we all agree shall be forbidden By which it appeareth that 1. The Dioceses were not yet so large as to need such subordinate Governors as ours have Nor 2. Were Oaths of Canonical Obedience to the Bishop and Church yet thought lawful but forbidden as dangerous 31. A Council at Aquisgrane under Ludov. Pius wrote an excellent Treatise gathered out of the Fathers to teach Bishops the true nature of their Office which hath much to my present use but too long to be recited 32. Upon Ebbos Flight that deposed Lud. Pius the Arch-Bishoprick of Rhemes was void ten Years and ruled by two Presbyters Fulk and Hotho who were not then uncapable of governing the Flock but it is not like that they governed Neighbour Bishops 33. Canisius tells us of a Concilium Regiaticinum and Can. 6. is That the Arch-Presbyter examine every Master of a Family personally and take account of their Families and Lives and receive their Confessions And Can. 7. That a Presbyter in the absence of the Bishop may reconcile a Penitent by his Command c. Which shew that yet Dioceses were not at the largest 34. A Council at Papia Anno 855. order yet That the Clergy and People chuse the Bishops and yet that the Laity on pretence of their electing power trample not on the Arch-Presbyter and that Great Men's Chappels empty not Churches 35. Yea Pope Nicholas Tit. 8. c. 1. decreeth that no Bishops be ordained but by the Election or Consent of the Clergy and People When they became uncapable of the ancient Order yet they kept up the words of the old Canons 36. This is intimated in the old Canons repeated at a Roman Council Anno 868. That if Bishops excommunicate any wrongfully or for light Causes and not restore them the Neighbour Bishops shall take such to their Communion till the next Synod Which was the Bishop of the next Parish or Corporation and not one that dwelt in another County out of reach And Can. 72. Because the Bishops hindred by other business cannot go to all the Sick the Presbyters or any Christians may anoint them How big was the Diocess when this Canon was first made Who would give his business rather than Distance and Numbers and Impossibility as the reason why the Bishop of London Lincoln Norwich c. visit not all the Sick in their Dioceses 37. Anno 869 till 879. was held a Council called General at Constantinople The Can. 8. is Whereas it is reported that not only the Heretical and Usurpers but some Orthodox Patriarchs also for their own security have made men subscribe that is to be true to them the Synod judgeth that it shall be so no more save only that Men when they are made Bishops be required as usual to declare the soundness of their Faith He that violateth this Sanction let him be deprived of his Honour But these later instances only shew the Relicts of Primitive Purity and Simplicity more evidently proved in the three first Centuries 38. And he that will read the ancient Records of the Customs of Burying will thence perceive the extent of Churches Doctor Tillesly after cited affirmeth pag. 179. against Selden that The Right of Burial place did first belong to the Cathedral Churches And Parish Churches began so lately as now understood having no
Bishops and distinct from Cathedrals that they could not be there buried before they were built and in Being which saith Selden began in England seven hundred years after Christ here one and there one as a Patron erected it Selden of Tythes pag. 267. Yea in seven hundred he findeth but one of Earl Puch in Beda and in Anno 800. divers appropriate to Crowland and so after And it was the Character of a Parish Church to have Baptisterium Sepulturam pag. 262. So that before a Bishop's Church however called had but one place that had Baptisterium Sepulturam Yea long after that Parishes had very few Members in most places so long was it e'er the People were brought to Christianity And they were then as our Bishops make them now not proper Churches but Chappels of Ease Selden ibid. pag. 267. tells you that Ralph Nevil Bishop of Chichester and Chancellor of England requested of the King that the Church of Saint Peter in Chichester might be pulled down and laid to another Parish because it was poor having but two Parishioners Sure it was never built for two Persons But it 's like many were Heathens Or if not so then in the Years 700 and 800 they were so Though Master Thomas Jones hath well proved that the Brittish Churches were far extended before Gregory sent Austine and that our Bishops and Religion are derived from them Even at Tours in France in the days of Saint Martin notwithstanding all his Miracles the Christians were not so many as the Heathens at least till one publick Miracle towards his later time convinced some CHAP. VI. The same further confirmed by the Ancients I. EUsebius Demonstrat Evangel pag. 138. saith When he considered the Power of Christ's Word how it perswaded innumerable Congregations of Men and by those Ignoble and Rustick Disciples of Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 numerosissimae Ecclesiae were constituted not in certain unknown and obscure places but erected in the most famous Cities Rome Alexandria and Antioch through all Egypt and Lycia through Europe and Asia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Villages and Countries or Regions and all sorts of Nations By this it appeareth that Villages had Churches then II. Though of later date consider the History of Patrick's Plantation of Churches in Ireland who is said himself in his own time to have three hundred sixty five Churches and as many Bishops and three thousand Presbyters as Ninius reporteth Not only Thorndike taketh notice of this but a better Author Usher de Eccles Brit. Primord pa. 950. And Selden in his Comment on Eutychius Origines Alex. pag. 86. from Antoninus and Vincentius thus mentioneth it Certe tantum in orbe terrarum tunc temporis Episcoporum segetem mirari forsan desinet quisquis crediderit quod de B. Patricio Hibernensi Antoninus Vincentius tradunt Eum scilicet solum Ecclesias fundasse 365. totidemque Episcopos ordinasse praeter Presbyterorum 3000. Qua de re consulas plura apud praestantissimum virum Jacobum Usserium c. So that here was to every Church a Bishop and near ten Presbyters No Man will doubt but the Bishops themselves were taken out of the better sort of the Laity and the Presbyters of the second sort and all below many private Christians now among us And were there three hundred sixty five Cities think you in Ireland Yea or Corporations either It 's easie to conjecture what Churches these were III. All History Fathers and Councils consent that every City was to have a Bishop and Presbytery to govern and teach the Christians of that City and the Country people near it which is but a Parish or Presbyterian Church For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the old common use any big Town yea little Towns that were distinct from Country Farms and scattering Villages so that all our Corporations and Market Towns are Oppida and such Cities as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified Therefore even by this Rule we should have a Bishop to every such Town 1. Crete was called Hecatompolis as having an hundred Cities as Homer saith it had And what kind of Cities were those Which were to have an hundred Churches and Bishops in a small Island 2. Theocritus Idyl 13. de laudibus Ptolem. vers 82. saith that he had under his Government thirty three thousand three hundred and thirty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cities And if so they must be as small as our Boroughs if not some Villages certainly he had not above twice the number of Cities eminently so called that Stephanus Byzantinus could find in the whole World in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. He that will peruse and compare the Texts in the New Testament that use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above sixscore times and see Grotius on Luk. 7. 11. c. shall soon see that the word is there used for such Towns as I am mentioning if not less IV. Sozomen lib. 5. cap. 3. tells us that Majuma which was Navale Gazae being as part of its Suburbs or the adjoyning part but twenty Stadia distant was because it had many Christians honoured by Constantine with the name of a City and had a Bishop of their own And Julian in malice took from them the honour of being a City but they kept their Bishop for all that It had the same Magistrate with Gaza and the same Military Governors and the same Republick but was diversified only by their Church-State For saith he each had their own Bishop and their own Clergy and the Altars belonging to each Bishoprick were distinct And therefore afterward the Bishop of Gaza laboured to subject the Clergy of Majuma to himself saying that it was unmeet that one City should have two Bishops But a Council called for that purpose did confirm the Church-Right of Majuma V. Gregory Neocaesariensis called Thaumaturgus was by force made Bishop of that City where all the Christians were but seventeen at his Ordination such was the Bishop's Church And when he had preached and done Miracles there till his Persecution there is no mention of any Presbyter he had with him but of his Deacon Musonius that fled with him Though when he died he left but seventeen unconverted And when he had converted some at Comana a small Town near him he did not set a Presbyter over it and make it part of his own Diocess but appointed Alexander the Collier to be their Bishop and that over a Church who were no more than met and debated the Case of his Election and Reception See Greg. Nyssen in Orat. in Greg. Thaumat Basil de Spirit Sancto cap. 19. Breviar Roman die 15 Novemb. Menolog Graec. VI. Concil Nic. Oecum 1. Can. 13. decreeth that every one that before death desireth the Sacrament was to have it from the Bishop One Ed. in Crab saith Generaliter omni cuilibet in exitu posito poscenti sibi Communionis gratiam tribui Episcopus
vel ei etiam assentiente Sacerdotali ordine in media Ecclesia ordinet praesente populo Episcopo alloquente an etiam posset ei populus ferre testimonium Ordinatio autem non fiat clanculum Ecclesia enim pacem habente decet praesentibus sanctis ordinationes fieri in Ecclesia Undoubtedly as Balsamon noteth by Saints is meant fideles the People Here then you see that the Churches then were such where all the Clergy were present with the Bishop who ordained Ministers to a single Church where all the people could be present to be consulted XXXI In the Life of Fulgentius it is said that Plebs ipsius loci ubi fuerat Monasterium constitutum differre suam prorsus Electionem donec inveniret B. Fulgentium cogitabat where the Bishops resolved to ordain though the King forbad it them And though the King persecuted them for it it is added Repleta jam fuerat Provincia Bizacena novis Sacerdotibus pene vix paucarum plebium Cathedrae remanserant destitutae And the Phrase plebium Cathedrae doth signifie a Bishop's Seat in one Congregation of People One Plebs was one Congregation and had its proper Cathedram XXXII Sozomen after Socrates mentioning the diversity of Church Customs as aforesaid l. 7. c. 19. saith that at Alexandria the Arch-Deacon only readeth the Holy Scriptures in other places only the Deacons and in many Churches only the Priests and on solemn days the Bishops By which words it appeareth that then every Church was supposed to have a Bishop Priests and Deacons present in their publick Worship For the Bishop on his solemn days could not be reading in many Churches much less many hundred at once XXXIII Histor Tripartit l. 1. c. 19. out of Sozomen l. 1. c. 14. Edit Lat. Basil p. 1587. telleth us how Arius seeketh as from the Bithynian Synod to Paulinus of Tyre Euseb Caesar Patroph Scythopol ut una cum suis juberetur cum populo qui cum eo erat solennia Sacramenta Ecclesiae celebrare Esse dicens consuetudinem in Alexandria sicut etiam nunc ut uno existente super omnes Episcopo Presbyteri scorsim Ecclesias obtinerent populus in eis Câ—â—â—â—ctas solemniter celebraret Tunc illi una cum aliis Episcopis c. By this with what is said before out of Epiphanius it is undeniable that this gathering of Assemblies by the Presbyters in the same City and administring the Sacrament to them besides the Church where the Bishop was was taken to be Alexandria's singularity even as low as Sozomen's time And yet note that here is even at Alexandria no mention of many Churches in the Countries at a distance much less hundreds thus gathered but only of some few in that great City And if even in a great City and in Epiphan and in Sozomen's days a Presbyter's Church was an Alexandrian Rarity what need we more Historical Evidence of the Case of the Churches in those times XXXIV Ferrandus Diaconus in Epist de 5. Quaest saith to Fulgentius Sanctos Presbyteros Diaconos beatamque Congregationem which was his Church saluto And that you may again see what Congregation or Church that was In vita Fulgentii cap. 17. pag. 8. it is said that the Plebs sought and chose him and that in despight of Foelix the ambitious Deacon who sought the place and sought the life of Fulgentius Populus super suam Cathedram eum collocavit Celebrata sunt eodem die Divina solenniter Sacramenta de manibus Fulgentii Communicans omnis populus laetus discessit And if in the noble City of Ruspe so late as the days of Fulgentius the Bishop's Church-members were no more than could chuse him set him on his seat and all communicate that day at his hands it is easie by this to judge of most other Churches XXXV Concil Parisiens 1. in Caranz pag. 244. Can. 5. saith Nullus civibus invitis ordinetur Episcopus nisi quem Populi Clericorum Electio plenissima quaesierit voluntate Non principis imperio neque per quamlibet conditionem Metropolis voluntate Episcoporum Comprovincialium ingeratur Quod si per ordinationem Regiam honoris sui culmen pervadere aliquis nimia temeritate praesumpserit a Comprovincialibus loci ipsius Episcopis recipi nullatenus mereatur quem indebite assumptum agnoscunt Siquis de Comprovincialibus recipere eum contra indicta praesumpserit sit a fratribus omnibus segregatus ab ipsorum omnium Charitate remotus Here again you see how late all the Church was to chuse every Bishop plenissima voluntate and consequently how great the Church was And were this Canon obeyed all the people must separate from all the Bishops of England as here all are commanded to do from all those Bishops that do but receive one that is put in by the King and not by the free choice of all the Clergy and People of his Church Note that Crab Vol. 2. pag. 144. hath it contra Metropolis voluntatem But both that and Caranza's Reading who omitteth contra seem contrary to the scope and it 's most likely that it should be read Metropolis voluntate contra Episcoporum comprov scilicet voluntatem XXXVI Leo 1. P. Rom. Epist 89. pag. mihi 160. damning Saint Hillary Magisterially yet saith Expectarentur certe vota Civium testimonia populorum quaereretur honoratorum arbitrium Electio Clericorum quae in Sacerdotum solent ordinationibus ab his qui norunt patrum regulas custodiri ut Apostolicae authoritatis norma in omnibus servaretur qua praecipitur ut Sacerdos Ecclesiae praefuturus non solum attestatione fidelium c. Et postea Teneatur subscriptio Clericorum honoratorum testimonium ordinis consensus Plebis Qui praefuturus est omnibus ab omnibus eligatur And how great must that Diocess be where all the Laity must chuse and vote c. It 's true that Epist 87. c. 2. p. 158. he would not have little Congregations to have a Bishop to whom one Presbyter is enough and no wonder at that time that this great Bishop of Rome the first that notably contended for their undue Supremacy in the Empire was of that mind who also Epist 88. saith of the Chorepiscopi Qui juxta Can. Neocaesar sive secundum aliorum decreta patrum iidem sunt qui Presbyteri The falsehood of which being too plain Petavius in Epiphan ad Haeres 74. p. 278. judgeth that these words being in a Parenthesis are irreptitious And ibid. Epist 88. he saith that by the Can. all these things following are forbidden the Chorepisc and Presbyter Presbyterorum Diaconorum aut Virginum consecratio sicut constitutio Altaris ac benedictio vel unctio Siquidem nec erigere eis Altaria nec Ecclesias vel Altaria consecrare licet nec per impositiones manuum fidelibus baptizandis vel conversis ex haeresi Paracletum Spiritum Sanctum tradere nec Chrisma conficere nec Chrismate Baptizatorum frontes
signare nec publice quidem in Missa quemquam poenitentem reconciliare nec formâ—tas cuilibet Epistolas mittere By which it appeareth how big that Man's Diocess must be who besides all his other work must be present to sign every baptized person and reconcile every Penitent in every Congregation And it 's worth the noting what kind of works they be that the Bishop's Office is maintained for XXXVII From the great Church of Rome at its first Tide time let us look to the great Church of Constantinople even in the days of a better Bishop Chrysostom Besides that they had long but one Temple of which anon Chrysostom saith in 1 Thes 5. 12. Orat. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Et primum debet imperare praeesse volentibus lubentibus qui ei gratiam habent quod imperet p. 1472. p. 1473. Sacerdos in hoc suum contulit negotium Nulla est ei alia vita quam ut versetur in Ecclesia Qui Christum diligit cujusmodicunque sit Sacerdos eum diliget quod per eum sit veneranda assecutus Sacramenta And Doctor Hammond saith this Text speaketh only of Bishops 1 Thes 5. 12. Et ibid. Pro te precatur dono quod per Baptismum datur tibi inservit visitat hortatur monet media nocte si vocaveris venit And how many Parishes can a Bishop thus serve And how many score miles will they send and he go to visit the Sick at midnight And Chrysost in 1 Cor. 14. p. 653. saith Conveniebant olim omnes psallebant communiter Hoc nunc quoque facimus They had no separating Choristers sed tunc in omnibus erat una anima cor unum Nunc autem nec una quidem anima illam concordiam videris consensum sed ubique magnum est Bellum Pacem nunc quoque precatur pro omnibus is qui praeest Ecclesiae ut qui in domum ingreditur paternam sed hujus pacis nomen quidem est frequens res autem nusquam Tunc etiam domus erant Ecclesiae though called Conventicles Nunc autem Ecclesia est domus vel potius quavis domo deterior When Churches grew to be Dioceses they grew worse than when they were in houses But he that here is said praeesse Ecclesiae is he also that pronounceth Peace to them XXXVIII Gregory Nyssen speaking of the gathering of true Churches by preaching saith in Ecclesiast Hom. 1. p. mihi 93. He is the true Preacher who gathereth the dispersed into one Assembly and bringeth those together into one Congregation or Convention who by various Errors are variously seduced XXXIX He that readeth impartially Beda's Ecclesiastical History shall find that in England between six and seven hundred years after Christ they were but single Churches that had Bishops For indeed the famousest and holiest of them in the Kingdom of Northumberland were but Scots Presbyters and such as were sent by them without any Episcopal Ordination Aidan Finan c. And though they did Apostolically preach in many places to convert the Heathen Inhabitants yet their Churches of Christians were small yet presently the Roman Grandeur and Ceremoniousness here prevailed and so by degrees did their Church-form Yet saith Cambden Brit. ed. Frank. p. 100. When the Bishops at Rome had assigned several particular Churches to several Presbyters and had divided Parishes to them Honorius Arch-Bishop of Canterbury about the Year 636. first begun to distribute England into Parishes as is read in the Canterbury History But it 's plain in Beda if he did then begin it he went but a little way with that division The same Cambden also tells us that the Bishoprick of York devoured seven Bishopricks and the Bishoprick of Lincoln more c. Some Seats were but removed but many Bishopricks were dissolved and turned into one which yet were erected when Christians were fewer saith Isaackson Chronolog There was one at Wilton the See at Ramesbury one at Crediton one at St. Patrick's at Bodmin in Cornwall and after at St. Germains one at Selsey Island one at Dunwich one at Helmham and after at Thetford one at Sidnacester or Lindis one at Osney one at Hexham c. And at this day Landaff St. Asaph's Bangor St. David's are no Cities where we have Bishops Seats as notices of the old way XL. Isidorus Peleusiota lib. 1. Epist 149. to Bishop Tribonianus distinctly nameth the Bishop's Charge and the calamity if he be bad that will befall himself first and then the whole Church Himself for undertaking and not performing and the whole Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quod hujusmodi viro Sacerdotium indigne mandavit The whole Church then was no bigger than to chuse the Bishop and be under his present inspection as he intimateth And Epist 315. to Bishop Leontius If thou tookest on thee the care of the Church against thy Will and art constrained by the Suffrages and the Contentions and Hands of the People God will be thy helper But if by Money c. Lib. 3. Ep. 216. p. 342. He reckoneth up such and so much work as necessary for a Bishop as no man living can do for above one ordinary Parish And frequently he describeth the City and Congregation at Pelusium as the place where the wicked Bishop and his wicked Priests together destroyed the interest of true Religion XLI I conclude this with the words of Eusebius with the Collection of Papirius Massonus a Writer of the Popes Lives Fabianus ab iis electus est ad Episcopatum urbis Ac forte evenit ut in locum ubi convenerant Columba e sublimi volans capiti ejus insideret Id pro foelici signo accipientes magno consensu alacritate animorum ipsum elegerunt Haec Eusebius Hist l. 6. Ex quo loco collegimus Electionem Episcopi Romani non ad paucos sed ad omnes olim pertinuisse Pap. Masson in vita Fabiani fol. 18 col 2. And if all the whole People of the great Church of Rome were then no more than could meet in one Room to chuse their Bishop what were the rest of the Churches in the World and how many Congregations did they contain CHAP. VII More Proofs of the aforesaid Limits of Churches THe thing that we are proving is that every Bishop should have but one Church supposing him to be no Arch-Bishop and that this Church should be such and so great only as that there may be personal Communion in publick Worship and holy Conversation between the Members and not so great as that the Members have only a Heart-Communion and by Delegates or Synods of Officers As to our Historical Evidence of the matter of fact it runs thus 1. That in the first state of the Churches it cannot be proved that any one Church in all the World consisted of more stated Communicating Assemblies than one or of more Christians than our Parishes But though through Persecution they might be forced as an Independant Church
The Chorepiscopi which were at first placed in Country Churches where were many Christians do shew what extent the Churches were then of That these were really Bishops at first whatever the aforesaid Parenthesis in Leo or Damasus say most Writers for Episcopacy Papists and Protestants do now grant and therefore I may spare the labour of proving it And whereas it is said that they were but the Bishop's Deputies I answer even as Bishops are the Arch-Bishops Deputies that is they were under them but were really Bishops themselves For if a Bishop may depute one that is no Bishop to be his Deputy either a Presbyter also may depute one that is no Presbyter to administer the Sacraments or not If yea then Lay-men shall come in and all be levelled For a Deacon also may depute his Office If not then either a Bishop cannot do it or else the Presbyter's Office is much holier than the Bishop's And that these Chorepiscopi Country-Bishops were not such Rarities as to invalidate my Proof but very common besides what is before said is evident by the Subscriptions of many Councils where great store of Chorepiscopi are found And besides the names in our common Collections of the Councils how it was in the Egyptian and Neighbour Churches at least if not how it was at Nice you may see in the Arabick Subscriptions published by Selden in his Comment on Eutych Orig. Alex. pag. 93 94 95 c. Num. 29 31 55 64 68 119 122 128 131 179 193 215 237 241 278. There are seventeen named And the Canons made to curb and suppress them shew that they were ordinary before as Concil Laodic Can. 57. But they should rather have increased them that Bishops might have multiplied as Churches or Christians increased which was decreed here in England in the cap. 9. of the Council at Hertford per Theodor. Cantuar. referente Beda lib. 4. Hist Eccles cap. 5. II. The very name Ecclesia which was first used before Parochiâ— or Dioecesis and still continued to this day doth shew what the form of a Church then was especially if you withal consider that the name was communicated to the Temples or sacred Meeting-Places which are also ordinarily called Ecclesiae which no Man doubteth was in a secondary sense as derived from the People who were the Ecclesia in the primary sense And so even in our Tongue the word Church is used for both to this day as iâ— is in many other Languages Now it is certain that a part especially a small part a hundredth or a thousandth part of the Church is not the Church unless equivocally Why then should the Temple be so called from the Church when no Church at all but a Particle only of a Church doth meet there For that the word Church in our Question is not taken for any Community or Company of Christians but for a governed Society consisting of the governing and governed part I have before shewed But 1. A Church in its first and proper Notion being Coetus Evecatus An Assembly or Convention or Congregation as distinguished from the Universal Church which is so called because it is called out of the World to Christ the Head and with him shall make one glorious Society how are those twenty or an hundred Miles off any more a part of the Assembly where I live than those at the Antipodes may be If you fly to one Governor I answer 1. So the Pope claimeth a Government at the Antipodes 2. A Governor of many Assemblies may make them one Society as to Government but not one Assembly 2. And certainly when Temples were first named Churches it was not because those met there that were no Churches but only Members of Churches Nor is this Parish Church called a Church because some meet here that belong to the Church at Boston Lincoln or Grantham But to this day we cannot disuse our selves from saying the Church of Barnet the Church of St. Albans of Hatâ—ield c. yea in the same City we denominate the several Temples still several Churches Hesychius explaineth Ecclesia by no other words than these three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which all signifie the Meetings of the People and not Men that never see each other only because one Man ruleth them Mr. Mede in his Exercitat of Temples proveth largely that the places of Meeting are ordinarily by the Ancients called Churches even in several Centuries Euseb lib. 8. cap. 1. saith in every City they built spacious and ample Churches And Theophil Antiochen Autol. saith Sic Deus dedit mundo qui peccatorum tempestatibus naufragiis jactatur Synagogas quas Ecclesias sanctas nominamus in quibus veritatis doctrina fervet ad quas confugiunt veritatis studiosi quotquot salvari Deique judicium iram evitare volunt So Tertullian de Idololat cap. 7. pag. 171. Tota die ad hanc partem zelus fidei ingenuum Christianum ab Idolis in Ecclesiam venire de adversaria Officina in domum Dei venire c. The very Name there of a Church and the naming of a single Temple thence doth signifie our supposition III. To this I may add the Name and Primitive Sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it signifieth a Vicinity and Parochus Vicinus a Cohabitant or Neighbour as well as inquilinus and is used in all the ancient Church-Writers as noting both a Sojourner as Christians are in the World and a Neighbour so constantly in this later sense not excluding the former Else Men of several parts of the World might have been said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because inquilini had it not also and specially signified Vicinity To avoid tediousness of Citations I refer the unsatisfied Reader but to Gers Bucer against Downam and the Basil Lexicon of Henr. Pet. in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And though the custom of calling a Church by the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 continued when the Church was altered in magnitude to a large Diocess yet that is so far from proving that this was the first and old signification as that the word rather plainly leadeth us up to the thing and sense which first it signified And therefore to this day Etymology teacheth us more wit than in English to call a Diocess a Parish but only a Vicinity of Christians And when the a Vicinity is the English of the Word why should Strangers that we shall never see or have to do with any more than those in the uttermost part of the Land be called our Parishioners or Neighbours IV. Another clear Evidence of the truth in question is the Paucity of Churches or consecrated Meeting-Places for many hundred Years after Christ both before they were called Temples and after Not that occasional Meeting-places were few Houses Fields c. but appropriated consecrated places called Churches where there were Altars or ordinary Church-Communion in the Lord's Supper Or rather it is doubtful whether the name of
any Parish or Congregation belonging to them When find you Augustine teaching in any Church but one in Hippo as part of his charge Of Epiphanius I need not speak seeing it is confest that in Cyprus no City had two Churches in his days and that it was their custome to place Bishops in villages as Socrates Sozomen and Nicephorus agree So that the matter of fact is certain except four or five Churches if so many in all the world 400 years after Christ and except but two or three hundred years after Christ you will find no Bishop in any Church but one as part of his own Charge But the consequence inferred hence will be denied because the other Parishes might be taught by Subpresbyters without him Answ But I would ask 1. Whether all the rest of the Parishes were not the Bishops Charge yea part of his Church yea equally with the other part As to what Onuphrius and others say of the stations and the Bishops going from Church to Church 1. It was scarce any where but in Rome 2. It was of later times 3. It was only in the City 4. It was commonly the same auditors that followed him to several Churches And it 's true that other Bishops went to the memorials of the Martyrs oft and had as monuments more Churches than assemblies And it 's true that of later times certain Canons bind the Bishops to visit all their Parishes And the eldest oblige him to visit all the people which sheweth that yet his Docese was not great If he be the Bishop of the Church and the office of a Bishop be to guide the Church in Worship and by Discipline then he is bound to do this to all the Church indeed if you make but a meer Presbyter of him then as many may divide the work between them so each might know his proper part as things stood when Parishes or Chappels were divided But if a Bishop as such be the uniting head as the King of a Kingdom he must be equally related to the whole But if it were not equally who can believe that there was so great a difference in the parts of the same Church as that one parcel of them only should have right to their Bishops presence teaching worshipping and personal guidance and ten twenty an hundred a thousand other parcels have no right at all What! a Bishop of a whole Church not at all obliged to Teach or Guide in personal worshipping any part of that Church but one Some great change was made in Churches before men could arrive at such a conceit Even now among us a Bishop taketh himself by the constraining Law of man which is his Rule to visit his Diocese once in three years I do not mean one Church of fourty or an hundred in his Diocese much less to preach himself usually in those few Towns he comes to but to call his Curate Priests together and to set one of them to preach his Visitation Sermon But where find you this done by three Bishops in the world for 300 years after Christ unless that Archbishops visited the Bishops Churches under them Now they say there have been Bishops in England who have once in three years confirmed some children abroad throughout their Diocese I do not mean one of two hundred but where find you that then the Bishop went out of his City to do this 2. My next question therefore is Whether the Bishops of those times were not at least as conscionable and careful and laborious in their offices as any now are if not much more What! not a Gregory a Basil a Chrysostome an Augustine a Fulgentius a Hillary c. What! not they that preached almost daily They that write so strictly of the labours of the Ministery They that lived so austerely and favoured not the flesh that speak so tenderly of the worth of souls And would all these think you undertake to be Bishops of a whole Church and yet so leave the whole work upon others as never to come among them and teach them and examine them nor give them the Sacrament in all the Parishes of the Diocese save one This is not credible If you say that in Alexandria it was certainly so that distinct congregations were committed to the Presbyters I answer 1. Yet so as that they might any part of them as living in the same city come and hear the Bishop when they would 2. They might communicate with him per vices if they would 3. They were all bound to do so at the great festivals of the year 4. They were all personally governed by the discipline of the Bishop and Presbyters conjunct in Council But of this next XXI Another evidence is that the whole Plebs or people of the Bishops charge till Churches were setled under Presbyters far off in the countreys were bound by the Canons to come to the Cathedral Church and communicate with the Bishop at Easter Whitsuntide and some other such festivals even after they were distinguished into several Auditories and Communicating Assemblies under Presbyters which I have before proved from the particular Canons which certainly proveth that the Dioceses were no more than could assemble in one place XXII Another evidence is that Presbyters did but rarely preach in the two or three first ages except in Alexandria or in some few Churches which had got some extraordinary men Chrysostome's preaching at Antioch Augustin's at Hippo while they were but Presbyters are noted as unusual things And it is said of Augustine as forecited that it being not usual in other Churches for the Presbyters to preach in the Bishops presence the example of that Church by the humility of the honest Bishop who preferred his abler Presbyter before himself did lead many other Churches into the same practice Spalatensis and many others have given large proofs that the Bishops and not the Presbyters were the ordinary preachers in their Church * Filesacus saith De Episcop authorit cap. 15. Sect. 1. pag. 344. Episcopos consuevisse ex ambone verba facere refert Concil Lateran sub Martino Concil Trull c. 33. Permissum deinde Presbyteris quanquam non passim nec in quibuslibet ecclesiis Diaconis olim id concessum sed raro p. 351. ait Balsamon juris Graeco-Romani li. 2. cap. 9. in Alexii Comneni Bullis Populum docere solis est datum Episcopis magnae ecclâ—siae Doctores Patriarchae jure docent These were like our Canons as he shews at large and this was in later ages when a Bishop might teach per alium And p. 351 352. Concil Trull c. 64. docet ex Greg. Nazianz. solis Episcopis convenire concionari sanctas scripturas interpretari Presbyteris vero non nisi Episcoporum concessione Of the Bishops teaching see the numerous citations in Filesacus cap. 1. And if any be stumbled at the name Presbyteri Parochiani usual in the Councils and Fathers as if they were Countrey Presbyters who preached then in
Diocesane form is not But that the Congregational form is I have fully proved Therefore they have not the same Foundation 2. And as to the Relation of the Members of a Diocese to one another there is no mutual consent truly nor seemingly signified by them what ever some few may do who are not the Diocese it is certain that the Diocese as such do neither Explicitely nor Impliedly by word or deed express any such Church consent but rather the clean contrary For 1. Their Dwelling in the Diocese is no more a profession of consent than the Christians dwelling in Constantinople sheweth them to be Mahometans For their Ancestors there lived and they have no other dwelling 2. Their choosing a Parliament who consent is no proof of their consent 1. Because it is not past a sixth or tenth or twentieth part of the Members that choose Parliament men 2. Because they never intend to choose them for any such use as to be the choosers of their Religion or Church and to dispose of their Souls But only to regulate Church matters according to Gods word which when they go against they go beyond and against the peoples consent As in choosing Parliament men we do not trust them to choose husbands and wives and Masters and servants for all the people Nor can we commit that trust for the choice of our Religion or Church to others statedly which Gods Word and Nature have bound us to use our selves Or if such mischoose for us they disoblige us from accepting their choice I am sure the Papists think not that they choose Parliament men to choose a Church for them Nor would the Prelatists think so if the Parliament should prove Presbyterian Independent Anabaptists or Papists 3. The Diocese doth not signifie Consent to a Church relation by the Church-wardens or accused persons coming to the Chancellors or Bishops Courts For 1. It is but a small number comparatively that do so 2. They are compelled and are well known to come full sorely against their wills They are undone if they refuse And submission and patience are not subjection nor consent 3. They most commonly profess to come to these Courts in obedience to the King and as they are empowered by him and strengthened by his sword And not at all as Church-Pastors empowered by Christ For who taketh the Chancellor to be such 4. The appearance of the Clergy at the Bishops Visitation and their Conformity is no proof of the peoples consent For the Ministers are distinct persons and have a distinct interest and are no way empowered to signifie the peoples consent 5. Yea they shew their dissent 1. By being so backward to be made Church-wardens 2. So backward to take their Oaths 3. So backward to present 4. So backward to appear at their Courts 5. Doing it on a civil account as obeying the Kings Officers 6. So few of them ever coming to a Bishop to be instructed resolved yea or for the ceremony of Confirmation So that the people can never be proved to consent to a Diocesane Church State And if they had that is not the same as a consent to a Congregational or Parish Church State 3. The same I need not say over again as to the Diocesane Bishop Chancellor and Archdeacon They consent to the Parish Ministers where they are tolerable by word or daily attendance in Gods worship But I know England so well as that I know that as they never choose their Bishops or Chancellors but the King chooseth them and a Dean and a few Prebends pro forma consent so they are never called to express their consent nor do any considerable part of the Diocese usually consent indeed some never mind such matters others say the King may put in whom he will it is no act of theirs others had rather have a good one than a bad one but had rather yet have none at all especially of late since so many hundred Ministers are silenced And some would have Bishops to silence the Ministers and some are for them on a better account But it 's no considerable part of the Diocese that signifieth Consent And as for the formal demand to the standers by at the Consecration whether any of them have any thing against the Bishop it 's a ceremony fitter for a stage than to come here into an Argument 4. And as for the Bishops and Chancellors relation to the People when it wants the word of God and his consent and the peoples consent and hath but the Kings collation the Deans and Chapters formal consent and the Prelates and Conformist Ministers consent I may well conclude that here is not the same Fundamentum as is of the Parochial and Pastors Church relation IV. And where there is not the same Relate and Correlate there is not the same Relation But a Parochial Church and Pastor and a Diocesane Church and Pastor are not the same Relate and Correlate Ergo. If they be let them become Parochial Bishops and be still the same But what I have said of the difference of Ends and Foundations proveth this a Combination of Christians into one Church primi ordinis for personal Communion is not the same with a Combination of Congregations for Communion mental or by delegates only And so of the Bishops of these several Churches V. If a Congregational Church or Pastor be of the same species with our Diocesane Churches and Prelates then a Church that extendeth through all the Kingdom yea to many Kingdoms yea to the East and West Indies or Antipodes may be of the same species also and so its Pastor And so the Pope and his Church may be of the same as to the magnitude But the consequent is false Ergo so is the antecedent The consequence in the Major is evident because there is eadem ratio For their reason of denominating a Church One is because it hath One Bishop and by their Principles there may be one Bishop to a Province to a Kingdom to an Empire to the World When all the subordinate Bishopricks were taken down to make up this Diocesane Church of Lincoln which I live in the Church was One which before was many And if all the Bishops were taken down except the two Archbishops the two remaining Churches I confess would be of the same species with a Diocese Yea if there were but One Church and Bishop in the Land And why might not all Europe on these terms make one particular Church If you say Because they are not under one King I answer 1. That 's no reason A King is a Civil extrinsick Accidental head of a Church as a Church and not a Constitutive Head But a Bishop is an Intrinsecal Ecclesiastical Constitutive head without whom it is no Church unless equivocally 2. Ten Kings may agree to give way to One Bishop in all their Kingdoms as they have done to the Papcy 3. The Roman Empire was bigger than Europe Why then might not that have been one
shall there tell him whom to Baptize where there is no Bishop And the power of Baptizing is the first and greatest Key of the Church even the Key of admission And they that do among us deny a Presbyter the power of judging whom to Baptize and give the Lords Supper to do not give it to the Bishop who knoweth not of the persons But the Directive part they commit to a Convocation of Bishops and Presbyters and the Judicial partly to the Priest and partly to a Lay-Chancellor X. Epiphanius Haeres 75. saith The Apostles did not set all in full order at once And at first there was need of Presbyters and Deacons by whom both Ecclesiastical affairs may be administred Therefore where no man was found worthy of Episcopacy in that place no Bishop was set By which it appeareth that he thought that for some time some Churches were Governed without Bishops And if so it there belonged to the Presbyters office to govern Whereto we may add the opinion of many Episcopal men who think that during the Apostles times they were the only Bishops in most Churches themselves And if so Then in their long and frequent absence the Presbyters must be the governours XI That many Councils have had Presbyters yea many of them is past doubt Look but in the Councils subscriptions and you will see it A Synod of some Bishops and more Presbyters and Deacons gathered at Rome decreed the Excommunication of Novatianus and his adherents Euseb lib. 6. c. 43. Noetus was convented judged expelled by the Session of Presbyters Epiphan Haeres 47. c. 1. See a great number of instances of Councils held by Bishops with their Presbyters in Blondel de Episc sect 3. p. 202. Yea one was held at Rome praesidentibus cum Joanne 12 Presbyteris An. 964. vid. Blond p. 203 206 207. Yea they had places and votes in General Councils Not only ut aliorum procuratores as Victor and Vincentius in Nic. 1. but as the Pastors of their Churches and in their proper right I need not urge Selden's Arabick Catalogue in Eutych Alex. where there were two persons for divers particular places or Zonaras who saith There were Priests Deacons and Monks nor Athanasius a Deacon's presence Evenof late the Council of Basil is a sufficient proof XII The foresaid Canons of Carthage which are so full are inserted into the body of the Canon Law and in the Canons of Egbert Archbishop of York as Bishop Usher and others have observed XXIII Hierom's Communi Presbyterorum Concilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur seconded by Chrysostome and other Fathers is a trite but evident testimony XIV That Presbyters had the Power of Excommunications see fully proved by Calderwood Altar Damasc p. 273. XV. Basil's Anaphora Bibl. Pat. Tom. 6. p. 22. maketh every Church to have Archpresbyters Presbyters and Deacons making the Bishop to be but the Archpresbyter CHAP. XIV The Confessions of the greatest and Learnedest Prelatists 1. THe Church of England doth publickly notifie her judgment that Church Government Discipline and the power of the Keys is not a thing aliene from or above the Order of the Presbyters but belongeth to their office 1. In that they allow Presbyters to be members of Convocations and that as chosen by the Presbyters And whereas it is said that the Lower house of Convocation are but Advisers to the Upper I answer All together have but an advising power to the King and Parliament But in that sort of power the lower house hath its part as experience sheweth 2. There are many exempt Jurisdictions in England as the Kings Chappel The Deanry of Windsor and Wolverhampton Bridgenorth where six Parishes are governed by a Court held by a Presbyter and many more which shew that it is consistent with the Presbyters office 3. The Archdeacons who are no Bishops exercise some Government And so do their Officials under them The Objection from Deputation is answered 4. The Surrogates of the Bishops whether Vicar General Principal Official or Commissaries are allowed a certain part of government 5. They that give Lay-Chancellors the power of Judicial Excommunication and Absolution cannot think a Presbyter uncapable of it 6. A Presbyter proforma oft passeth the sentence of Excommunication and Absolution in the Chancellors Court when he hath judged it 7. A Presbyter in the Church must publish that Excommunication and Absolution 8. By allowing Presbyters to baptize and to deliver the Lords Supper and to keep some back for that time and to admit them again if they openly profess to repent and amend their naughty lives and to absolve the sick they intimate that the Power of the Keys belongeth to them though they contradict themselves otherwise by denying it them 9. And in Ordination the Presbyter is required to exercise discipline And the words of Act. 20. 28. were formerly used to them Take heed to your selves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers or Bishops to feed or Rule the Church of God Whence Bishop Usher gathereth that the Churches sence was that the Presbyters had a joynt power with the Bishop in Church Government And though lately Anno 1662. this be altered and those words left out yet it is not any such new change that can disprove this to have been the meaning of them that made the book of Ordination and that used it II. Archbishop Cranmer with the rest of the Commissioners appointed by King Edward the Sixth for the Reformation of Ecclesiastical Laws decreed the administring Discipline in every Parish by the Minister and certain Elders Labouring and intending by all means to bring in the ancient discipline Vid. Reform Leg. Eccles tit de Divinis Officiis cap. 10. And our Liturgy wisheth this Godly Discipline restored and substituteth the Curses till it can be done And the same Cranmer was the first of 46 who in the time of King Henry the Eighth affirmed in a book called The Bishops Book to be seen in Fox's Martyrology that the difference of Bishops was a device of the ancient Fathers and not mentioned in Scripture And of the opinion of Cranmer with others in this point his own papers published by Dr. Stillingfleet Irenic p. 390 391 c. are so full a proof that no more is needful III. Dr. Richard Cosins in his Tables sheweth how Church Discipline is partly exercised by Presbyters and by the Kings Commission may be much more And it is not aliene to their office IV. Hooker Eccles Pol. lib. 5. pleadeth against the Divine settlement of one form of Government And lib. 7. Sect. 7. p. 17 18. he sheweth at large that the Bishops with their Presbyters as a Consess governed the Churches And that in this respect It is most certain truth that the Churches Cathedral and the Bishops of them are as glasses wherein the face and very countenance of Apostolical antiquity remaineth yet to be seen notwithstanding the alterations which tract of time and course of the world hath
prescribed in Scripture professed that it was always his opinion And joyned with us in our proposals for Bishop Ushers Model Dr Stillingfleet in his Irenicon hath said so much against the Jus Divinum of our Prelacy as can never be answered I have talked with many of the Bishops and Episcopal Conformists my self of these matters and I do not remember that ever I spake to one accounted a Learned man that did not confess when driven to it that the Greatness of the Diocesses and the Chancellors Government by the Church Keyes were causes of so great a lapse of discipline as is to be groaned under And can shew us no probability it possibility of restoring it while it so stands And yet they would have us subscribe and swear never to endeavour any alteration of the Church Government not excepting in our place and calling by petition or otherwise no though the King commanded us Bishop Hall in his Mod. Offer doth confess the faultiness and desires reformation and in his excellent Peace-maker would take up even with a presidencie durante vita as sufficient to reconcile us Dr. Hammond himself oft complaineth of the lapse of discipline and the clergies and peoples vices thereupon The Liturgy wisheth the godly Discipline restored but doth it not as if in our case it could not be done Abundance of their Writers lament the scandals of clergy and people which have abounded of which I shall say somewhat more anon 2. And this is yet plainlier confessed by the Actual omission of discipline We need not to dispute whether that can or be ever like to be done by our Prelacy which is no where done and never was done no not by any one man of them not excepting the very best so that if they had not come neer the Erastian opinion in their hearts and thought this use of the Keyes to consist but in bare Teaching or the rest to be of no great need it had not been possible that they should have quieted their Consciences Or at least if they did not do it by saying I cannot help it It is not long of me As Bishop Goodman layeth it on the King in the case of Chancellours and most lay it on the Church-Wardens and Ministers for presenting no more But all must confess that little is done besides the troubling of Nonconformists It is not one of a thousand in a Diocesse I am confident that ever is brought under the excercise of Church discipline that ought to be Nor one of many thousand that should be so according to the ancient Canons of the Churches If I should give no other instance than the ordinarie neglect of all Gods publick worship Preaching Prayer and Sacraments in publick Churches or any other Religious Assemblies I do not think but ten thousand persons in this Diocesse and twenty thousand if not fourty in London Diocesse are guilty that were never questioned by the Church I may therefore argue thus That which never was done by any one Bishop in England being the confessed work of their office is naturally or Morally Impossible to be done or if it have a possibility it is as bad as none when it never was once reduced into act But the true exercise of Church discipline on all or the hundredth or many hundredth person that it is due to was never done by one Bishop in England that can by any credible History be proved since the deformation or reformation Ergo. The strength of the Major is plain 1. From the Bishops own mouths who use to praise themselves as the Wisest Learn dst and best of the Clergie and therefore fitter to be trusted with the Government of the Church than all or any of the Presbyters though but under then And they would take it heynously if we question their wisdom conscience or honesty and if they are all or most so good sure it is long of the state and constitution of their places and not long of their persons that their very proper work is made but a shaddow and a dream 2. But though this be but ad homines yet really we have had very worthy and excellent persons to be Bishops what a man was Jewell Arch-bishop Grindal had Godliness enough and resolution too to make him odiâ—s and favoured Lectures and Preaching c. Enough to bring him down if Cambden Godwin or Fuller are to be believed but never could do this work of discipline upon one of hundreds or thousands under him We had an excellent Arch-Bishop-Abbot afterwards good enough to be reproached by Heylin and to suffer what I need not mention but never able to do this work What Learned Judicious worthy men were his Brother Robert Abbot and after him Davenant Bishops of Salisbury And how good a man was peaceable Bishop Hall so Usher in Ireland Moron and many more But no such thing was done by any of them what should I say now of Bishop Reignolds and Bishop Wilkins Men Learned and extraordinary honest in these times But let any man enquire whether any such thing as the discipline in question is exercised on the thousandth Criminal in their Diocese Indeed we have heard in Bishop Reignolds Diocese of a great number censured for Nonconformity And it is his praise that it was not his doing but his Chancellours though heretofore Judge Advocate in Fairefaxes or Cromwells Army And to say now that it is long of Church-Wardens Chancellours c. Is but to say that the Church is corrupted the Episcopal discipline almost quite cast out and all the remedy is to say It is long of somebody Like the Physician whose Praise was that his patients dyed according to the rules of art or the nurse whose praise was that though most of the Children perished it was long of themselves or somebody else IV. But the fullest experience which so far satisfieth me that all the books in the world cannot change me in this is my own and the rest of my Brethren in the Ministry I have lived now through Gods wonderful mercy threescore years wanting lesse than four In all this time whilst the Bishops ruled I never heard one man or woman called openly to repentance for any sin nor one ever publikely confess or lament any sin Nor one that was excommunicate in any Country where I came except the Nonconformists Nor did I hear of any but one man to my remembrance who did formal penance for Fornication I doubt not but there have been more But the number may be conjectuâ—ed by this I lived under a great number of drunken and ignorant Curates that never preached and Schoolmasters my self and many more were round about us that were never troubled with discipline or cast out I never lived where drunkards and swearers were not common but never one of them underwent the Churches discipline But those that met to fast and pray and went to hear a Sermon two miles off when they had none at home But yet this is the last
and work upon them 4. That it maketh the Discipline or Government instituted by Christ in the very matter of it to become impossible and impracticable and so excludeth it under pretence that they are the only persons impowred for it and they set up a kind of secular Courts and Government in its stead and so are practically Erastians I shall conclude all with these Consectaries which follow what is already proved Cons. 1. Such Diocesane principles greatly strengthen the Brownists cause who deny us to have any Church or Ministry of divine institution as is before shewed And as for them that say No form of Church Government is of divine institution Ans 1. It is well that they are forced to except both the universal and the particular Churches and expound this only of Associations of Churches 2. It is well that yet they confess that the office of Pastors is of Divine institution who are made Church Governours by Christ 3. But it is scant well that yet they subscribe to the book of Ordination which asserteth the Divine right of three distinct orders if they do not believe it 4. And these also too much gratifie the Brownist who affirmeth that we have no Churches of Divine institution and thinketh that it is no fault to separate but from a Church of humane invention Cons 2. To say that no man High or Low is bound in his place and calling to endeavour a Reformation of such a Church-Government and so to justifie the neglecters and opposers of all such Reformation is to draw upon a mans self the guilt of so much pollution and of the ruin of such a multitude of souls as should make that Conscience smart and tremble which is not seared and past all feeling Cons 3. To swear or subscribe or say and declare that though millions should swear to endeavour such a reformation in their places and callings by lawful means there is no obligation lieth on any one of them from that Vow or Oath So to endeavour it is The Lord have Mercy on that Land City or Soul that is guilty of it Cons 4. All carnal interest and all carnal reason is on the Diocesanes side and all the lusts of the heart of man and consequently all the Devil can do Therefore while carnal Christians make a Religion of their lusts and interest and pride and covetousness and idleness are more predominant than the fear of God and the love of souls no wonder if the Diocesane cause prevail with such Cons 5. A truly sanctified heart knoweth the nature and worth of Grace and the nature and weight of the Pastoral Office and is devoted to God and the good of souls and contemneth the ease and pleasures of the flesh and the riches and the honours of this World and is the best argument in the World against such Diocesane Prelacy and must at least be weakened before it can subscribe never to endeavour to amend it Cons 6. No wonder if the most serious zealous practical sort of Christians are ordinarily against such Diocesanes Prelacy when it hath the described effects and that those among themselves Cons 7. No wonder if the principal work of such Diocesanes be to silence faithful preachers and persecute zealous Christians where they had espoused a cause so contrary to the interest of Godliness that all these are unreconcilable thereto Speak not of any other Prelacy Cons 8. Take but from such Prelacy the plumes which it hath stolen from Magistrates and Presbyters and it will be a naked thing and simply a name Cons 9. If Magistrates were not the Prelates Executioners or seconded them not by writs de excommunicato capiendo c. such Prelacy would give up as dead or aweary of it self Cons 10. The ill Mixtures of force and secular power corrupteth Church Discipline and depriveth it of its proper nature use and force maketh it another thing or undiscernable Cons 11. Though in cases of necessity civil Rulers may trust Church men with part of their power about religion it is far better out of necessity that they keep if wholly to themselves And let them thunder their excommunications without any power of the Sword Cons 12. Such Bishops and arch-Arch-Bishops as overthrow not the Churches officers and discipline of Christ must be submitted to by all peaceable men though we cannot prove them as such to be of Divine institution CHAP. XXIV Some testimonies of Prelatists of the late state of the Church of England lest we be supposed partial in our description of it 1. FOr the true understanding of the late state of the Church of England the Reader may find some light in the Lord Falklands Parliament Speeches and Sir Edward Dearings and in Heylins own History of the Sabbath with Pocklingtons Sunday no Sabbath and the Bishop of Lincolnes book of the Holy Table name and things and Dr. Heylens answer to him And the same Heylins History of Arch-Bishop Laud and from Mr. Thornedicks four last bookes II. To what common scorne all serious Godliness was brought by the rabble through the abuse of the name Puritane used by the Prelatists to make odious the Nonconformists is after shewed out of Bishop Downame and Mr. Robert Bolton who is large and frequent in it III. Bishop Halls Confession of the corruptions in the Church Governours and Government in his Modest offer and Peacemaker and his disclaiming those that deny it I have cited elsewhere IV. Williams Arch-Bishop of Yorke Morton Bishop of Durham with many other Episcopal Divines of greatest name and worth did assemble in Westminister and collected a Catalogue of things needing reformation in Discipline and worship which are to be seen in print V. A Prelatical Divine in a Treat called Englands faithful Reprover and Monitor thus speaketh to his prelates and Pastor pag. 60 61. c. And now with what depth of sorrow ought we to recount your past errours partly through neglect of duty partly through abuse of power were the faithful in your trust did ye diligently instruct the ignorant severely punish the disobedient Endeavour to reclaime those that walked disorderly and contrary to the Gospel That ye were violently bent against Action and Schisme against singularity and Non-conformity all confess a few excepted who thought nothing too much yea nothing enough in this kind how opposite soever to Christian mildness prudence and Conscience But in the mean time by reason of your Connivence or Supineness in the Episcopal office Ignorance and Superstition every where misled the people and caused them to wander in darkness not knowing whither they went Profaness like a rank pernicious weed overspread the field and Vineyard of the Lord And the prophane and vicious lives of those who stood up in defence of your Government occasionally gave increase and added strength to the opposite factious party who alledged this as one main ground of their separation from the Church that those who adhered to it were for the most part
2. c. 5. That were for seventy years after their conversion without a Bishop Vlphilas being the first 4. Columbanus was no Bishop but a Presbyter and Monk nor his Successours that yet Ruled even the Bishops as Beda noteth Hist. li 3. c. 4. 5. Hâ—here solet ipsa Insula Rectorem semper Abbatem Presbyterum cujus jure omnis provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitatâ— debeant esse subjecti juxta exemplum primi Doctoris illius Columbani qui non Episcopus sed Presbyter extitit Monachus And these Presbyters did not only ordaine as being the only Church Governours but they sent Preachers into England and ordained Bishops for England at King Oswalds request as Beda at large relateth Eccles Hist l. 3. c. 3. 5. 17. 21. 24 25. The Abbot and other Presbyters of the Island Hy sent Aydan ipsum esse dignum Episcopatu ipsum ad erudiendos incredulos indoctos mitti debere decernunt Sicque illum ordinantes ad praedicandum miserunt c. Successit vero ei in Episcopatu Finan ipse illo ab Hy Scotorum insula ac monasterio destinatus c. 17. cap. 25. Aydano Episcopo de hac vita sublato Finan pro illo gradum Episcopatus a Scotis ordinatus missus acceperat c. So cap â—4 c. You will find that the English had a Succession of Bishops by the Scotish Presbyters ordination And there is no mention in Beda of any dislike or scruple of the lawfulness of this course Segenius a Presbyter was Abbot of Hy cap. 5. when this was done And cap. 4. it appears that this was their ordinary custome though in respect to the Churches that were in the Empire it be said to be more inusitato that Presbyters did Govern Bishops but none questioned the validity of their ordinations And the Council at Herudford subjecteth Bishops in obedience to their Abbots And the first reformers or Protestants here called Lollords and Wicklifists held and practised ordination by mere Presbyters as Walsingham reports Hist Angl. An. 1â— 89. and so did Luther and the Protestants of other Nations as Pomeranus ordination in Denmark shews and Chytraeus Saxon Chron lib. 14. 15. 16. 17. 5. Leo Mag. Epist 92. cited by Gratian being consulted a rustico Narbonensi de Presbytero vel Diacono qui se Episcopos mentiti sunt de his quos ipsi clericos ordinârâ—nt answered Nulla ratio sâ—vit ut inter Episcopos habeantur qui nec a clericis sunt electi nec a plebibus expetiti c. yet thus resolveth of their ordination Siqui autèm Clerici ab ipsis Pseudo Episcopis in eis Ecclesus ordinati sunt quae ad proprios Episcopos pertinebant ordinatio eorum cum consensu judicio presidentium facta est potest â—ata haberi ita ut in ipsis Ecclesus perseverunt So that the mere consent of the proper Bishops can make valid such Presbyters ordination 6. Fâ—licissimus was ordained Deacon by Novatus one of Cyprians Presbyters Schismatically yet was not his ordination made Null by Cyprian but he was deposed for Mal-administration See Blondel p. 312. 113. 7. Firmilian in 75 Epist apud Cyprian Saith Necessariò apud nos fit ut per singulos annos seniores praepositi in unum conveniamus ad disponenda quae curae nostrae commissa sunt ut si quae graviora sunt communi consilio dirigantur This shews that communi consilio importeth a consenting Governing Power c. Omnis potestas gratia in Ecclesus constituta ubi praesident majores natu qui baptizandi manum imponeâ—â—â— ordinandi possidâ—nt Potestatem If any say It is only Bishops that Formilian speakes of I answer 1. He had a little before used the word Seniores the same in sense with Majores natu here as distinct from Praepositi to signifie either all Pastors in general or Presbyters in special 2. When he speakes of Majores natu in general they that will limit it to Bishops must prove it so limited and not barely affirme it 3. The conjunct acts of the office disprove that It was the same men that had the power of baptizing 8. The great Council of Nice the most reverend Authority next to the holy Scripture decreed thus concerning the Presbyters ordained by Melitius at Alexandria and in Egypt Hi autem qui Dei gratiâ nostris precibus adjuti ad nullum Schisma deflexisse comperti sint sed se intra Catholicae Apostolicae Ecclesiae fines ab erroris labe vacuos continuerint authoritatem habeant tum ministros ordinandi tum eos que clero digni fuerint nominandi tum denique omnia ex lege instituto Ecclesiastico libere exequendi If any say that the meaning is that these Presbyters shall ordain and Govern with the Bishops but not withoutthem I am of his mind that this must needs be the meaning of these words or else they could not be consonant with the Church Canons But this sheweth that ordination belongeth to the Presbyters office and consequently that it is no nullity though an irregulrity as to the Canons when it is done by them alone Socrat. lib. 5. 6. cap. 6. 9. It is the title of the twelfth Canon Concil An cyrani Quod non oportet Chorepiscopos ordinare nisi in agris villulis Now either these Chorepiscopi were of the order of Bishops or not If they were then it further appeareth how small the Churches were in the beginning that had Bishops even such as had but Vnum Altare as Ignatius saith when even in the Countrey Villages they had Bishops as well as in Cities notwithstanding that the Christians were but thinly scattered among the Heathens But if they were not Bishops then it is apparent that Presbyters did then ordain without Bishops and their ordination was valid And the Vafrities of the Prelates is disingenious in this that when they are pleading for Diocesan Churches as containing many fixed Congregations then they eagerly plead that the Chorepiscopi were of the order of Presbyters But when they plead against Presbyters ordination they would prove them Bishops Read Can. 10. Concilii Antiocheni 10. Even in the daies of ignorance and Roman Usurpation Bonifacius Mogunt alias Wilfred Epist 130 Auct Bib. Pat. To 2. p. 105. tells Pope Zachary as his answer intimateth that in Gente Boiariorum there was but one Bishop and that was one Vivilo which the Pope had ordained and that all the Prebyters that were ordained among them as far as could be sound were not ordained by Bishops though that ignorant usurping Pope requireth as it seemeth that they be reordained unless Benedictionem ordinationis should signifie only the blessing or confirmation of their former ordination which is not like For he saith Quia indicasti perrexisse te ad gentem Boiariorum inâ—enisse eos extra ordinem ecclesiasticum viventes dum Episcopos non habebant in Provincia nisi
unum nomine Vivilo quem nos ante tempus ordinavimus Presbyteros vero quos ibidem reperisti si incogniti fuerint viri illi à quibus sunt ordinati dubium est eos Episcopos fuisse an non qui eos ordinaverunt si bonae actionis cathoâ—ici viri sunt ipsi Presbyteri in ministerio Christi omnemque legem sanctam â—docti apti ab Episcopo suo benedictionem Presbyteratus suscipiant consâ—â—râ—ntur siâ— ministerio sacro fungantur 11. Of old it was the Custom of the Church that Presbyters joyn with the Bishops in Ordination Concil Carth. c. 3. All the Presbyters present must impose their hands on the head of the Presbyter to be ordained with the Bishop Which fully sheweth that it is an act belonging to their Office and therefore not null when done by them alone in certain cases and that it was but for order sake that they were not to do it without a Bishop who was then the Ruler of the Presbyters in that and other Actions And its worth noting That ib. Can. 4. The Bishop alone without any Presbyters was to lay hands on a Deacon though not on a Presbyter Because he was ordained non ad sacerdotium sed ad ministerium not to the Priesthood but to a Ministery or service which plainly intimateth what Arch-Bishop Usher said to me that Ad Ordinem pertinet ordinare quamvis ad Gradum Episcopalem ordinationes regere The Priesthood containeth a power to ordain Priests but the Episcopal Jurisdiction as such sufficeth to ordain a Deacon Or that the Bishop ordaineth Presbyters as he is a Presbyter his Prelacy giving him the government of the action but he ordaineth Deacons as a Ruler only Arg. II. Ordination by Bishops such as were in Scripture time is valid and lawful But the Ordinations in England now questioned were performed by Bishops such as were in Scripture times Ergo the late ordinations in England now questionedare valid and lawful The Major speaking de nomine officio is granted by all The Minor I prove thus 1. The Ordinations in England now questioned were many or most performed by the cheif particular Pastors of City Churches together with their Colleagues or fellow Presbyters that had Presbyters under them But the Cheif particular Pastors of City Churches having Presbyters under them were such Bishops as were in Scripture times Ergo the Ordinations in England now questioned were performed by Bishops such as were in Scripture times I must first here explain what I mean by a particular Pastor as in an Army or Navy a General Officer that taketh up the General care of all is distinct from the inferiour particular Captains that take a particular care of every Souldier or person under their command so in the Church in Scripture times there were 1. General Officers that took care of many Churches viz. a general care And 2. perticular Bishops and Presbyters that were fixed in every City or perticular Church that took a perticular care of every Soul in that Church It is only these last that I speak of that were Bishops infimi gradûs not such as the Apostles and Evangelists but such as are mentioned Acts 14. 23. and Acts 20. 28. Tit. 1. 5. c. Now for the Major it is notoriously known 1. That ordinarily some of our Ordainers were City Pastors 2. That they had Presbyters under them viz. one or more Curates that administred there with them or in Oratorics called Chappels in the Parish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Oppidum and our Boroughs and Towns Corporate are such Cities as are signified by that word And there are few of these but have more Presbyters than one of whom one is the Cheif and the rest ruled by him Besides that one was oft-times President of the Assembly chosen by the rest For instance if I had ever medled in Ordainings as I did not 1. I was my self a Pastor of a Church in a City or Burough 2. I had two or three Presbyters with me that were ruled by me so that I was statedly their Chief I was statedly chosen by the neighbourhood associated Pastors to be their Moderatour which was such a power as made Bishops at Alexandria before the Nicene Council Now that such were Bishops such as were in Scripture-times I prove 1. By the Confession of the Opponents Doctor Hammond and his followers maintain that there were no subject Presbyters instituted in Scripture times and consequently that a Bishop was but the single Pastour of a single ongregation having not so much as one Presbyter under him but one or more Deacons which granteth us more than now I plead for and that afterwards when Believers were encreased he assumed Presbyters in partem curae So that our Bishops which I plead for are of the stature of those after Scripture times in the Doctors sence Defacto this is granted 2. The Bishops in Scripture times were ordained in every City and in every Church Tit. 1 5. and Acts 13. 23. So are ours They had the particular Episcopacy over-sight rule and teaching of all the Flock committed to them Acts 20. 28. and if the Angel of the Church of Ephesus were one cheif he was but one of these and over these in the same Church and charge And so have our Parochial Pastours these very words Acts 20. 28. being read and applyed to them in their ordination They had the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven committed to them and so have ours If it be said that these are but things common to the Bishop with the Presbyter 1. What then is proper to a Bishop To say Ordination is but to beg the question And Ordination it self is not proper in the sense of our own Church that requireth that Ordination be performed as well by the laying on of the hands of the Presbyters as of the Bishop 2. They use themselves to make the governing or superiority over many Presbyters to be proper to a Bishop 3. Those to whom the description of Bishops in Scripture belongeth are truly and properly Bishops But the Description of Bishops in Scripture agreeth at least to the chief particular Pastors of City Churches having Presbyters under them Ergo such are truly and properly Bishops The Minor which only needeth proof is proved by an induction of the several Texts containing such descriptions as Acts 20. and 13. 23. 1 Tim. 3. and 5. 17. Tit. 1. 5. c. 1 Thes 5. 12. Hebr. 13. 7. 17 24. 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. and the rest 4. If our Parochial Churches or at least our City Churches those in each Town Corporate and Borough be true Churches then the cheif particular Pastors of them are true Bishops but they are true Churches Ergo. Still note 1. That I speak of Churches as governed Societies in sensu Politico and not as a Company of private Christians 2. That I speak only of particular Pastors or Bishops infimi gradus and not of Arch-Bishops and
Pastor be ready to give an account of his Ministry and to answer any thing that shall be alledged against him And that the vote of the Synod obligeth all against unnecessary singularity 10. We refuse not that one in every such Synod be the moderator and if as of old every City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Corporation had a Bishop so if but every Corporation or market Town or every circuit that hath as many Communicanâ—â— as can know one another by neighbourhood and some conversation and sometimes assembling like a great Parish with many Chappels had but so much power as is essential to a true particular Pastor and Church yea or but the power that a free Tutor Philosopher or Physician hath to manage his office by his skill and not as an Apothecary or meer executor of a strangers dictates we should quietly submit 11. And as we refuse not such Bishops even durante vita capacitate in every Church or City that is Corporation so if it please either the King or the Churches by his permission to give one grave and able man a general care of many Churches as even the Scots superintendents had at their reformation as Spotswood of Lothian c. not by violence to silence and oppress but by meer Pastoral power and only such as the Apostles themselves used to instruct junior Pastors to reprove admonish c. we resist not And so if Godly Diocesans will become Arch-bishops only of this sort and promote oâ—r work instead of hindering it we shall submit though we cannot Swear approbation it being a thing that Christian Ministers may doubt of and no Article of our Creed 12. And if the King do cumulate wealth and honour on them and give them their place in Parliaments to keep the Clergy from contempt yea or trust any of them under him as Magistrates with the Sword whether we like it or not we shall peaceably submit and obey them as Magistrates 13. And if for order sake these Diocesans should have a negative voice unless in cases of forfeiture or necessity in the ordination of Ministers to the Church universal not taking away the power of particular Churches to choose or at least freely consent or dissent as to the fixing of Pastors over themselves we would submit to all this for common peace Specially if the Magistrate only choose men to Benefices and Magistracies and none had the Pastoral power of the Keyes but by the Election of the Clergy and the peoples consent which was the judgment and practice of the universal Church from the beginning of Episcopacy till of late 14. And lastly we hold the Magistrate the only Governour by the Sword as well of Pastors as of Physicians and all others And though he may not take the work of our proper calling out of our hands no more than the Physicians yet he may by justice and discretion punish us for male-administration and drive us to our duty though not hinder us from it And we consent to do all under his Government Judge now whether we set up Popes or Tyrants By all this it is apparent that it is none of the designe of this Treatise to overthrow or weaken the Church of England but to strengthen and secure it against all its notorious dangers 1. By reforming those things which else undoubtedly will cause a succession of dissenters in all generations though all we the present Nonconformists are quickly like to be past troubling them or being troubled by them even of themselves many will turne upon the same reasons which have convinced us 2. By uniting all Protestants and turning their odious wrath and contentions into a reverence of their Pastors and into mutual Love and help This Treatise being hastened in three presses since Mr. Dodwel sent me his Letter that required it I have not time to gather the Printers Errata but must leave them to the discretion of the Reader Only for English Prelacy before the first Chapter and in many other places should be The described Prelacy I will end with the two following Testimonies One ad rem the other ad hominem The Lord pity his Ship that is endangered by the Pilots October 14. 1680 Richard Baxter Justin Martyr's Apolog. We had rather die for the confession of one Faith then either lie or deceive them that examine us Otherwise we might readily use that Common saying my Tongue is sworn my mind is unsworn vid. Rob. Abbot old way p. 51. Thorndike of forbearance of Penalties It is to no purpose to talk of reformation in the Church unto regular Government without restoring the Liberty of choosing Bishops and the Priviledge of Injoying them to the Synods Clergy and people of each Diocess So evident is the right of Synods Clergy and people in the making of this of whom they consist and by whom they are to be governed that I need make no other reason of the neglect of Episcopacy than the neglect of it THE CONTENTS PART I. Chap. 1. THe Reasons of this Writing Chap. 2. The English Diocesane Prelacy and Church Government truly described that it may be known what it is which we dissent from Chap. 3. Our judgement if the History of the ancient Church Government and of the rise of the Diocesane Prelacy Chap. 4. The judgement of those Non Conformists now silenced who 1660 addressed themselves to King Charles II. for the matter in Church-Government What they then offered and what those of the Authers mind now hold as to the Right of what is before but Historically related Chap. 5. Concerning the several Writers on this Controversie wherein there are sufficient animadversions on some and sufficient Confutations of the Cheif who have written for the Prelacy which we dissent from As 1. Whitgift 2. Faravia 3. Bilson 4. Hooker 5. Bishop Downams Defence 6. Bishop Hall 7. Petavius 8. Bish Andrews 9 Bish Usher in some passages 10. Of the Dispute at the Isle of Wight 11. John Forbes 12. The two Books of the Bohemian Discipline consented to 13. Grotius applauded 14. J. D. 15. M A. de Dom. Spalatensis considered and much of him approved 16. Doctor Hammond answered viz. his Annotations his Dissertat against Blondel c. who have written against Prelacy Chap. 6. It is not pleasing to God that Cities only should have Bishops and Churches with the Territories Chap. 7. The Definition and Reasons of a Diocesan Church considered and confuted Chap. 8. Whether the Infidel Territories or Citizens are part of a Diocesane Church Chap. 9. Whether converting a Diocess give right to their Converter to be their Bishop and Ruler Chap. 10. That a particular Church of the first or lowest order must consist of neighbour Christians associated for personal Communion in local presence in holy worship and Conversation and not of Strangers so remote as have only an internal heart Communion or an external Communion by the Mediation of others Chap. 11. That a Bishop or Pastor of a Particular Church
forbear pronouncing of all Traytors Murderers Adulterers Perjured Atheists c. that never profest Repentance at their Burial that God hath of his mercy taken to himself the soul of this our dear brother except the unbaptized c. aforesaid And note 1. that the Parish Priest hath no power to do these things either by himself or in conjunction with the Bishop or any other 2. And that there is not one Suffragan Bishop or Chorepiscopus in England under the 26 Bishops to do any part of their work in these 97025 Parishes CHAP. III. Our Judgment of the History of the Antient Church-Government and of the rise of the Diocesan Prelacy I Shall anon shew more fully that there are two things especially in which we think the very Species of our Diocesan Prelacy to be altered from the antient Episcopacy One is in the Extent of their Office as to their subject Charge a Bishop infimae speciei of the lowest species having then but One Church and now a Bishop infimae speciei having many hundred Churches made into one or nullified to make One 2. In the Work of their Office which was then purely Spiritual or Pastoral and is now mixt of Magistratical and Ministerial exercised by mixed Officers in Courts much like to Civil Judicatures The History of their rise I suppose is this 1. Christ made a difference among his Ministers himself while he chose twelve to be Apostles and special Witnesses oâ— his Doctrine Life and Resurrection and Ascension and to be the Founders of his Church and the Publishers of his Gospel abroad the World 2. As these Apostles preached the Gospel themselves and planted Churches so did many others as their helpers partly the seventy sent by Christ and partly called by the Apostles themselves And all these exercised indefinitely a preparing Ministry before particular Churches were gathered abroad the World and afterwards went on in gathering and calling more 3. Besides this preparing unfixed Ministration the same Apostles also placed by the peoples consent particular fixed Ministers over all the several Churches which they gathered 4. These fixed Ministers as such they named indifferently Bishops Elders Pastors and Teachers Whereas those of the same Office in general yet unfixed are called either by the General name of Christ's Ministers or Stewards of his Mysteries And in regard of their special works some were called Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists 5. These Apostles though unfixed and having an Indefinite charge yet went not all one way but as God's Spirit and prudence guided them they dispersed themselves into several parts of the World 6. But as they did many of them first stay long at Jerusalem so afterward in planting and setling Churches they sometimes stayed several months or years in one place and then went to another And so did the Evangelists or Indefinite Assistants whom they sent forth on the same work 7. While they stayed in these newly planted Churches they were themselves the chief Guides of the People And also of their fixed Bishops 8. This abode in settling the particular Churches and their particular Bishops or Elders occasioned Historians afterward to call both Apostles and Evangelists such as Timothy Titus Silas Silvanus Luke Apollo c. the Bishops of those Churches though they were not such as the fixed Bishops were who undertook a special Charge and care of one particular Church alone or above all other Churches 9. On this account the same Apostle is said to be the first Bishop of many Churches as Peter of Antioch and Rome Paul of Corinth Ephesus Philippi c. When indeed the Apostles were the particular fixed Bishops of no Churches but the Bishops equally of many as a sort of unfixed Episcopacy is included in Apostleship 10. On this account also it is that Timothy is said to be Bishop of Ephesus because he was left there for a time to settle that and other Churches of Asia near it as an Assistant of the Apostles And so Titus is called the Bishop of Crete because he staid in that Island which was said to have an hundred Cities on this work which belonged not to a particular Bishop but to the more indefinite Ministry 11. How many such fixed Bishops Elders Pastors or Teachers each particular Church must have the Apostles never determined by a Law But did de facto settle them according to the number of souls and store of qualified persons In some Churches it is possible there might be but one with Deacons In others it is evident that there were many as at Jerusalem Corinth c. 12. The particular Churches which were the charge of these fixed Bishops or Elders were Societies of Christians conjoyned for Personal Communion in God's Worship and mutual assistance in holy living And though for want of convenient room or liberty they did not always meet all in the same place yet were they ordinarily no more than could meet in one place when they had liberty and never more than could hold personal Communion if not at once yet at several times in publick worship As it is now in those places where one part of the Family goeth to Church one part of the day and another on the other part And those by-Meetings which any had that came not constantly to the publick Assemblies were but as our House-Meetings or Chapel-Meetings but never as another Church Nor were their Churches more numerous than our Parishes nor near so great 13. At the first they had no Consecrated nor Separated places for their Church-Meetings but Houses or Fields as necessity and opportunity directed them But as soon as they could even nature taught them to observe the same appointed and stated places for such Assemblies Which as soon as the Churches had peace and settlement they appropriated to those sacred uses only though they had not yet the shape or name of Temples 14. Though the Pastors of the Church were all of one Office now called Order being all subordinate Ministers of Christ in the Prophetical Priestly and Regal parts of his Office in the Power and Duty of Teaching Worshiping and Government yet was the disparity of Age Grace and Guifts to be observed among them and the younger Pastors as well as people owed a meet reverence and submission to the Elder and the weaker to the stronger who had notoriously more of God's Grace and Guifts So that in a Church where there were many Pastors it was not unlawful nor unnecessary to acknowledge this disparity and for the younger and weaker to submit much to the judgment of the elder and more able 15. While they kept only to the exercise of the meer Pastoral work of Teaching and Worshiping and that Government which belongeth hereunto they had little temptation comparatively to strive for a preeminence in Rule or for a Negative Voice But aliene or accidental work did further that as followeth 16. The Apostles did reprove those Worldly contentious and uncharitable Christians who went to Law before
Churches For they might be but single Parish Churches though they were in Cities only and the Country Members joyned with them in the Cities And his own Confession is page 35. that besides Rome and Alexandria that had many Churches in the City there is not the like evidence for multitude of Parishes in other Cities imediately after the Apostles times I suppose by his Citations he meaneth till the third Century And if this be granted us of all the great Cities of the World that they cannot be proved to have many Churches we have no great reason to look for many in the Country Villages His next Argument is Churches containing within their Circuit not only Cities with their Suburbs but also whole Countries subject to them were Diocesses But the Churches subject to the ancient Bishops in the Primitive Church contained c. Therefore they were Diocesses Ans Either this is his Description of a Diocess or we have none from him that I can find And let who will Dispute about the Names of Diocess and Parish for I will not And if by a Diocess he meaneth a Church consisting of all the Christians in City and Country associated for Personal holy Communion having One Altar and One Bishop this is that which we call a single Church or some a Parish-Church and if he call it a Diocess he may please himself But if he mean that in these Cities and whole Countries were several such Churches that had each an Altar and were fixed Societies for personal holy Communion not having any proper Bishop of their own but one Bishop in Common with whose Cathedral Church they did not and could not Communicate through Number or distance I deny his Minor proposed in this sense as to the two first Centuries though not as to the following Ages But if by Cities Suburbs and whole Countries subject he mean all the unconverted Infidels of that space for doubtless he calls not the soil or place the Church I deny the very subject There were no such Churches Infidels and Heathens make not Churches Though Hereticks made somewhat like them sicut vespa faciunt â—avos as Tertullian speaketh If the Diocesan Churches Disputed for be Churches of Pagans and Infidels we know no such things But if he mean that all the Heathens in that Circuit are the Bishops Charge in order to Conversion I answer 1. That maketh them no parts of the Church Therefore the Church is of never the larger extent for the soil or Infidel Inhabitants 2. The Apostles and other General Preachers like the Jesuits in the Indies may divide their Labourers by Provinces for the Peoples Convetsion before there be any Churches at all 3. This distribution is a meer prudential Ordering of an accident or circumstance and therefore not the Divine Institution of a Church Form or Species 4. Neither Scripture nor prudence so distributeth Circuits or Provinces to Preachers in order to conversion of Infidels as that other Preachers may not come and Preach there as freely as one that claimeth it as his Province For 1. Christ sent out his Apostles by two and two at first 2. Paul had Barnabas or some other Evangelist or General Preacher usually with him And Peter and Paul are both said to be at Rome at Antioch and other places And many Apostles were long together at Jerusalem even many years after Christ's Resurrection Christ that bid them go into all the World never commanded that one should not come where another was nor have power to Preach to Infidels in that Diocess And what is the Episcopal power over Infidels which is claimed It is not a power to Ordain or to Excommunicate them It can be no other than a power to Preach to them and Baptize them when converted And this is confessed to belong to Presbyters If the Bishops would divide the World into Diocesses and be the only Preachers in those Diocesses it would be no wonder if the World be unconverted It is not Bishops that are sent by the Papists themselves to convert the Indians But perhaps you may say that the Bishops rule those Presbyters that do it I answer 1. It 's an imperfect kind of Government which a Bishop in England can exercise over Presbyters that daily Preach as Mr. Eliat his helpers to the Natives in a Wilderness many thousand Miles from them 2. But if they do rule the Preachers that maketh not the Soil nor the Heathens to be any parts of their Church but the Preachers only Therefore a Diocess with them and a Church must be different things His first Reason therefore page 36. from the Circuit is vain His second page 37. that the City Bishops had a right from the beginning over many Churches that had no other Bishops and did not after usurp it he proveth not at all For the words of Men three or four hundred years after Christ alledging ancient custome are no proof When the 25 Can. Trull cited by himself maketh thirty years possession enough against all that would question their Title And abundance of things had Custome and Antiquity alledged for them so long after that were known Innovations His third Reason is from the Chorepiscopi as the Bishops suffragan which sheweth no more but that the City Bishops whether justly or by usurpation were at last really Archbishops or Rulers of Bishops But of this before His fourth Reason from Succession will be good when he that affirmeth that no Church was governed by the Parish Discipline hath proved that all many yea or any Bishops from the Apostles days had many Churches under them that had no Bishops of their own Till then he saith nothing As to his instance of the Scythians having but one Bishop the Reason was because it was but little of their Country at first that were made Christians or that were at all in the Roman Empire So that the Bishop was setled at Tomis in the borders of the Empire in the Maritine part of the Euxine Sea that thence he might have an influence on the rest of the Scythians over whom the Romans had no power and where there were many Cities indeed but few Christians as may be seen in Theodoret Tripart Nicephor and many others Of his other three or four instances I shall after speak Chap. 3. lib. 2. He pretends to prove that the seven Asian Churches were Diocesan and not Parochial and never defineth a Diocess and Parish which is lost labour His first Argument is Churches whose Circuit contained Cities and Countries adjoining were Diocesses But c. This is before answered Our Question is Whether they were as our Diocesan Churches such as had in these Cities and Countries many Altars and Churches without Bishops under them Trees and Houses and Fields and Heathen People make not Churches nor yet scattered Christians that were Members only of the City Church His proof of the Minor is 1. These Churches comprized all the Churches of Asia Ans If he mean that all the rest
they forsake him or refuse to use him and Excommunicateth a man when they avoid his communion and declare him unmeet for communion In all which the Church useth her own right but taketh not away another mans Then for the Canonical Enquiries after faults and impositions of Penence or delays of absolution he sheweth that both the Canons and Judgments by them being but prudential Determinations of Modes and Circumstances bound none but Consenters without the Magistrates Law except as the Law of Nature bound them to avoid offences He should add and as obedience in general is due to Church-guides of Christ's appointment And how the Magistrate may constrain the Pastors to their duty Chap. 10. He sheweth that there are two perpetual Functions in the Church Presbyters and Deacons I call them Presbyters saith he with all the Ancient Church who feed the Church with the Preaching of the Word the Sacraments and the Keys which by Divine Right are individual or inseparable Note that And § 27. He saith It is doubtful whether Pastors where no Bishops are and so are under none though over none are to be numbered with Bishops or meer Presbyters § 31. His counsel for the choice of Pastors is that as in Justinian's time none be forced on the People against their wills and yet a power reserv'd in the chief Rulers to rescind such elections as are made to the destruction of Church or Commonwealth Chap. 11. § 10. He sheweth that Bishops are not by Divine precept And § 1. That therefore the different Government of the Churches that have Bishops or that have none should be no hindrance to Unity And § 10 11. That some Cities had no Bishops and some more than one And that not only in the Apostles â—ays but after one City had several Bishops in iâ—â—tation of the jews who to every Synagogue had an Archisynagogus Page 357. He sheweth that there have been at Rome and elsewhere long vacancies of the Bishops See in which the Presbyters Governed the Church without a Bishop And saith that all the Ancients do confess that there is no act so proper to a Bishop but a Presbyter may do it except the right of Ordination Yet sheweth p. 358. that Presbyters ordained with Bishops and expoundeth the Canon thus that Presbyters should Ordain none contemning the Bishop And p. 359. He sheweth that where there is no Bishop Presbyters may Ordain as Altisiodorensis saith among the Schoolmen And questioneth again whether the Presbyters that have no Bishops over them be not rather Bishops than meer Presbyters citing Ambrose's words He that had no one above him was a Bishop what would he have said of our City and Corporation Pastors that have divers Chapels and Curates under them Or of our Presidents of Synods or such as the Pastor of the first Town that ever I was Preacher in Bridgnorth in Shropshire who had six Parishes in an exempt Jurisdiction four or five of them great ones and kept Court as ordinary like the Bishops being under none but the Archbishop And § 12. He sheweth that there was great cause for many Churches to lay by Episcopacy for a time And p. 360. he saith Certainly Christ gave the Keys to be exercised by the same men to whom he gave the power of Preaching and Baptizing That which God hath joyned let no man separate But then how should Satan have used the Churches as he hath done And he sheweth of meer ruling Elders as he had done of Bishops that they are not necessary but are lawful and that it may be proved from Scripture that they are not displeasing to God and that formerly the Laity joyned in Councils Only he puts these Cautions which I consent to 1. That they be not set up as by God's command 2. That they meddle no otherwise with the Pastoral Office or Excommunication than by way of Counsel 3. That none be chosen that are unfit 4. That they use no coactive power but what is given them by the Soveraign 5. That they know their power to be mutable as being not by Gods command but from man And Chap. 11. § 8. He delivereth his opinion of the Original of Episcopacy that it was not fetcht from the Temple pattern so much as from the Synagogues where as he said before every Synagogue had a chief Ruler 14. As for J. D. and many other lesser Writers Sir Thomas Aston c. who say but half the same with those forementioned it is not worth your time and labour to read any more Animadversions on them 15. But the great Learned M. Ant. de Dominis Spalatensis deserveth a more distinct consideration who in his very learned Books De Repub. Eccles doth copiously handle all the matter of Church-Government But let us consider what it is that he maintaineth In his lib. 5. c. 1. he maintaineth that the whole proper Ecclesiastical Power is meerly Spiritual In cap. 2. that no Power with true Prefecture Jurisdiction Coaction and Domination belongeth to the Church In c. 3. he sheweth that an improper Jurisdiction belongs to it Where he overthroweth the old Schoolmens Description of Power of Jurisdiction and sheweth also the vanity of the common distinction of Power of Order and of Jurisdiction and maintaineth 1. that Power of Jurisdiction followeth ab Ordine as Light from the Sun 2. That all the Power of the Keys which is exercised for Internal effects although about External Matters of Worship or Government belongeth directly to the Potestas Ordinis 3. That the Power of Jurisdiction as distinct from Order and reserved to the Bishops is but the power about the Ordering of External things which is used Principally and Directly for an External Effect that is Church order § 5. p. 35. 4. That it is foolish to separate power of Order from any power of Jurisdiction whatsoever that is properly Ecclesiastical it being wholly Spiritual 5. The Episcopal Jurisdiction not properly Ecclesiastical he maketh to consist in ordering Rites and Ceremonies and Circumstances and Temporals about the Church and about such Modal Determinations about particular persons and actions as are matters of humane prudence which have only a General Rule in Nature or Scripture 6. By which though he hold Episcopacy Jure Divino that it is but such things that he supposeth proper to the Bishop which the Magistrate may determine and make Laws for as Grotius and others prove at last and himself after and as Sir Roger Twisden hath Historically proved to have been used by the Kings of England Histor Def. Cap. 5. 7. That all Ecclesiastical power whatsoever is fully and perfectly conjunct with Order page 36. 8. That this plenitude of power is totally and equally in all Bishops and Presbyters lawfully Ordained and that it is a meer vanity to distinguish in such power of Order Plenitudinem potestatis a parte solicitudinis 9. That this equal power of the Bishop and Presbyter floweth from Ordination and is the Essential Ordinary Ministerial
Office of half-Presbyters began to be invented according to his own Computation That pag. 21. passim his supposition of the 24 Bishops of Judaea sitting about the Throne of James Bishop of Jerusalem and his other supposition of their being so ordinarily there And of the Bishops of Provinces in other Nations being so frequently many score if not hundred Miles off their people in the Metropolitane Cities when the people had no other Priest to Officiate doth tend to an Atheistical conceit that the Ordinary use of Sacred Assemblies and Communion is no very needful thing when in the best times by the best men in whole Countreys at once they were so much forborn Pag. 26. Again you have his full and plain Assertion That there were not in the space within compass of which all the Books of the new Testament were written any Presbyters in our modern Notion of them created in the Church though soon after certainly in Ignatius time which was above 50 years after the Rev. they were Pag. 60. He supposeth that whoever should settle Churches under a Heathen King among Heathens must accordinly make the Churches gathered subordinate to one another as the Cities in which they are gathered were though Heathen subordinate to one another of which more in due place Pag. 76 77. He saith that As Congregations and Parishes are Synonimous in their Style so I yield that Believers in great Cities were not at first divided into Parishes while the number of Christians in a City was so small that they might well assemble in the same place and so needed no Partitions or Divisions But what disadvantage is this to us who affirm that one Bishop not a Colledge of Presbyters presided in that one Congregation and that the Believers in the Regions and Villages about did belong to the care of that single Bishop or City Church A Bishop and his Deacon were sufficient at the first to sow their Plantations For what is a Diocess but a Church in a City with the Suburbs and Territories or Region belonging to it And this certainly might be and remain under the Government of a single Bishop Of any Church so bounded there may be a Bishop and that whole Church shall be his Diocess and so he a Diocesan Bishop though as yet this Church be not subdivided into more several Assemblies So that you see now what a Diocess is And that you may know that we contend not about Names while they call the Bishop of one Congreation a Diocesane we say nothing against him A Diocesan in our sense is such as we live under that have made one Church of many hundred or a thousand But Reader be not abused by words when it is visible Countreys that we talk of As every Market-Town or Corporation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City in the old sense so the Diocess of Lincoln which I live in at this reckoning hath three or fourscore Diocesses in it and the Diocess of Norwich about 50 Diocesses in it c. That is such Cities with the interjacent Villages Pag. 78. He saith When they add these Angels were Congregational not Diocesan they were every of them Angels of a Church in a City having authority over the Regions adjacent and pertaining to that City and so as CHURCH and CONGREGATION ARE ALL ONE AS IN ORDINARY USE IN ALL LANGUAGES THEY ARE Thus were Congregational and Diocesan also What follows of the paucity of Believers in the greatest Cities and their meeting in one place is willingly granted by us I must desire the Reader to remember all this when we come to use it in due place And you may modestly smile to observe how by this and the foregoing words the Dr. forgetfully hath cast out all the English Diocesans While he maketh it needful that the Cities be Ecclesiastically subordinate as they are Civilly and maketh it the very definition of a Diocesan Bishop to be a Bishop of a City with the Country or Suburbs belonging to it But in England no lesser Cities ordinarily at least nor Corporation-Towns are at all Subject to the great Cities Nor are any Considerable part of the Countrey Subject to them nor do the Liberties of Cities or Corporations reach far from the Walls or Towns So that by this Rule the Bishop of London York Norwich and Bristow would have indeed large Cities with narrow liberties But the rest would have Diocesses little bigger than we could allow to conscionable Faithful Pastors But he yet addeth more p. 79. he will do more for our cause than the Presbyterians themselves who in their disputes against the Independents-say that Jerusalem had more Christians belonging to the Church than could conveniently meet in one place But saith the Dr. This is contrary to the Evidence of the Text which saith expresty v. 44. that all the Believers were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meeting in one and the same place The like may be said of the other places Act. 4. 4. and 5. 14. For certainly as yet though the number of believers increased yet they were not distributed into several Congregations Will you yet have more p. 80 81. When the London Ministers say that the Believers of one City made but one Church in the Apostles days he answereth This observation I acknowledge to have perfect truth in it and not to be confutable in any part And therefore instead of rejecting I shall imbrace it and from thence conclude that there is no manner of incongruity in assigning of one Bishop to one Church and so one Bishop in the Church of Jerusalem because it is a Church not Churches BEING FORECED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHURCHES THERE WERE MORE BISHOPS I am almost in doubt by this whether the Dr. were not against the English Prelacy and he and I were not of a mind especially remembring that he said nothing against my disputations of Church Government written against himself when I lived near him Observe Reader 1. That even now he confessed that a Church and Congregation is all one 2. And here he confesseth that where there were more Churches there were more Bishops and his words Because it is a Church not Churches seem to import that de jure he supposeth it is no Church without a Bishop and that there should be no fewer Bishops than Churches And then I ask 1. Where and when do all the Christians in this Diocess of above an hundred miles long Congregate who meet but in above a thousand several Temples and never know one of a thousand of the Diocess 2. Doth not this grant to the Brownists that the Parish Churches are no Churches but onely parts of the Diocesane Church 3. And then if it be proved that the Diocesane Church form is but of humane invention what Church in England will they leave us that is of divine institution This is the unhappiness of overdoing to undo all and of aspiring too high to fall down into nothing And doth he not speak
Bilson but the generality of the Prelatists disclaime it and confess that it belongeth only to the King and Magistrates and that they receive it from the King if ever they exercise any sâ—â—h 4. What is it then is it to be the Kings Ecclesiastical Council to prepare such Canons as he shall enact Of Canons I shall say more anon But though Pastors may be the fittest to Council Kings yet that giveth them no power nor doth aptitude make an office nor is the King tyed to them but may advise whith whom he please And experienced present Pastors are usually fitter to give advice in the matters of Religion than they And even Civil impartial Noblemen have usually proved wiser sobâ—rer and more peaceable and happy Church Councellours than the interessed partial Clergy I am not of Erastus mind that all Church Government belongeth to the Magistrates I have lately published my judgment of that matter in certain Propositions to Ludov. Molinaeus But I grant to him and all sober impartial Divines do grant that all forceing Government by the Sword belongeth to Magistrates and Parents only and not to any Bishops as such It followeth therefore that no Bishops power extendeth to any other effect but only to work on the Consciences of Volunteers unless as the Magistrates or Parents may constraine them by penalties to submit to it Suppose therefore a while that the Magistrates force were withdrawn from your discipline and left it to itself you would then know better by experience wherein its strength consisted That man would then Rule the people most who did most effectually convince their reason aud prevaile with Conscience and further nothing would be done Are not our Bishops well aware of this Do they not themselves confess how little their Government would signifie above the Government of present Presbyters unless they could give clear convincing Reasons to the people which absent strangers are unlike to do What do you think your peculiar power would signifie in one year above a Presbyrers if the Magistrate left all at liberty in their Church obedience to their Pastors would not the present Pastors carry almost all with the best and soberest of the flocks Especially where Bishops make it their office to forbid the Pastors to do theirs and to keep them from Preaching the word of life Their holding fast the secular conjunct power and using it so much doth shew what they trust to they say themselves what would the Keys signifie without the Sword and the Pishops Government prevail where none are punished for despising it if the Bishop excommunicate a faithfull Preacher neither he nor his flock will much regardit but goe on in the service of the Lord. And perhaps some will excommunicate the Bishop and be even with him O! that the Magistrates would a few Years try what the Keys can do in England of themselves and valeant quantum valere possunt Not that I would wish him to leave off his own duty to punish sin but let it not be mixed with Church Offices so as that all that shall be imputed to the Bishops Keys which is effected only by the Magistrates Sword I deny not but the Magistrate may moderately drive men to hear Gods word and to do the immediate duties of their places But not to profess that they are Christians when they are not or that they consent to Church Communion when they do not Nor to take those Privileges which belong not to them No man hath right to Church Communion who had rather be excommunicated then repent of sin Therefore if Gods word and an excommunication will not bring him to profess Repentance he should not be either Rackt or Imprisoned to force him to say he doth repent when it is certain that he doth not indeed repent who will not profess it by easier means Nor hath that man right to absolutiaon and Church Communion who only prefereth it before a Goale The effects of the Church Keyes are talked of but are indeed unknown where secular force doth deterr men into lyeing professions of repentance and drive unwilling persons in to the Communion of the Church No unwilling person should have the Seal of pardon put into his hands Obj. But we cannot say they are unwilling who consent though moved by the penalty of the Law and Sword Ans Yes he is to be called unwilling who hath not the willingness which Christ maketh necessary He that is not willing to have Church Communion for it self and for Christ and his salvation is not willing of it at all indeed nor in Gods account For it is only freedome from a Prison that he is willing of and of Church Communion as a means to that and not as a means to the end that God appointed it As he that consenteth to be Baptized only to heal the Kings evil or to save his life is not to be Baptized nor taken for a Christian nor is it Baptism indeed but touching only which he consenteth to so is it in this case Obj. But how know you but them in hath righter ends together with these punishment brings many a man to reason and true repentance Ans You suppose your selves that the word and Keys will not prevail with him of themselves and therefore it is that you desire force your own Consciences tell you that it is but to avoid punishment that you suppose him to profess repentance Otherwise when your threats have brought him to repentance try what is the cause by remitting the penalty on his body and after freely leaving him to himself Obj. But some are like Children that will hear reason when their stubbornness is taken down Therefore it may also have better motives for ought you know Ans 1. Men that are dealt with in the matters of Salvation are not to be thus used as Fools and Children about common things but as men that must live and die as they choose 2. And God hath left us no such means to bring men into a right Choice in things of this nature Otherwise you might set Infidels on the Rack till they consent to be Baptized or send them to Prison and then say how know you but this as the Rod doth Children hath brought them to their witts But the Church of Christ never took this course nor never thus understood his will 3. The case is plain to men that will understand When God hath made mens free consent the Condition of their Salvation and the Profession of a free consent to be the Condition of Church Communion and what wise man would have lower that will not make the Church a swine stie It followeth that the Pastors must have the evidence of such a Profession of free and voluntary consent or else they must not receive such persons Now such a one that hath been long tried by the word and by the penalty of Excomunication it self and refuseth to profess Repentance but only professeth it when no other means will escape a Prison doth
and according to that word to declare them Impenitency openly Characterizing them to be persons unmeet for Christian Communion and such as till they repent are under the wrath of God and must expect his dreadful judgment and to command the Church in Christs name to withdraw from the Impenitent person and to have no Communion with him And all this is but the application of Gods word to his Conscience and the Churches If his seared Conscience deride it all we can do no more If he will forcibly intrude into the Communion of the Church against their wills it is like ones breaking into my house the Magistrate must restrain him as a violater of the peace as well as of the Churches liberties If the Magistrate will not the Church most remove from him If they cannot they must pronounce him morally absent as a forcible intruder and none of their Communion If the Church will not obey the Pastors sentence he hath no instrument but the same word to bring them to it Now all this being past denial let us come more particularly to enquire in all this what part there is essential to a Bishops office as such 1. Is it the making of Church Lawes or Canons About what 1. Either these Canons are but the Commanding of that which Gods Law made a duty before or of somewhat newly made a duty by themselves 2. Either they are Lawes or Commands to the Laity only or to the Presbyters or to the particular Bishops or all 1. If they do but urge the performing of some duty already made such by God in Scripture or Nature who ever doubted but Presbyters may do that even to teach and charge the people from God to obey his Laws And note that God daily maketh new duties by the Law of nature even providentially altering the Nature of things And so he maketh this or that to become Decent and Orderly and so a duty And maketh it my duty to speak this or that word to this or that person or to do this or that particular good work Even by varying occasions accidents and circumstances of things 2. But if these Canons make new duties which God hath not made 1. If it be to the Laity the Presbyters may do the like for they are Guides also of the Laity unless they are forbidden by a superior power If it be only to the Presbyters that will not reach our present case as shall be further shewed afterward 3. If it be to the Bishops themselves they cannot be Laws but meer agreements because one Bishop is not the proper Governour of another nor many of one nor the present in Council of the absent as such And here by the way it is worthy to be noted how much the Diocesanes contradict themselves in this claim of Government They say that they are of a distinct order and office from meer Presbyters because they have power to Govern them And yet they make 1. A Council of Bishops to have as high a governing power over particular Bishops of the same order 2. And an Arch-Bishop to be the Governour of Bishops 3. And a Primate or Patriarch to be the Governour of Arch-Bishops and yet not to be of a distinct Order or office but only of a distinct degree in the accidentals of the same order If Government prove a distinct Order or Office in one it will do so in the other And why may not the Magistrate make all the same Canons who ruleth them all But let us consider what these Canons may be 1. The Bishops make Canons how often Synods or Councils shall be held and when and where and when they shall be dissolved But 1. May not the King do the same And can that be proper to Bishops which the King may do Yea which all Emperours have formerly used 2. And is not this Cannon made to rule Bishops themselves who is it but Bishops or so much as them that you think should be called unto Councils And are the Bishops in Council of another order than themselves out of Council Need we an office of Bishops to rule Bishops of the same office 2. Canons are made about Temples Buildings Tithes Glebes Bells Pulpits Seats Tables Cups Fonts and other utensils And 1. who doubteth but the Magistrate may do all this yea that it belongeth to him to regulate such things as these 2. And who knoweth not that even Bishops are under these Canons also who are of the same order 3. And that Presbyters even in England are members of these Synods and so make Canons to rule the Bishops Ergo they are of a superior order to Bishops by your reasoning 3. Canons are made for the regulating of Ministers attire in the Church and out and for officiating garments as surplices c. And of these I say the same as of the former The King may do the same as Bishops may do and Bishops themselves are bound by them and Presbyters make them which three things prove that it is not the proper work of Bishops as a distinct order from meer Presbyters 4. Canons are made for worship Geâ—ures in what gesture to pray to receive the Sacrament to use the Creed c. And the same three answers serve to this also as to the case in hand 5. Canons are made for Holidaies publick Fasts and Thanksgivings and Lecture daies And the same three considerations fall in here 6. Canons are made for the ordering officers fees and such like in Bishops Courts And here all the same three things fall in 1. The King may do it 2. It is Bishops that are ruled 3. Presbyters also make the Canons therefore it is not jure divino the proper work of a distinct Order 7. Canons are made for the choice of what Translation of the Bible shall be used in all the Churches and what version or meetre of the singing Psalmes And of this also the three former things hold true 8. Canons are made to impose a Liturgie in what words Ministers shall speak to God and to the people And 1. This also the King may do and doth 2. And it obligeth Bishops 3. And Presbyters make it 9. Canons are made against Schismaticks new Discipline and constitutions non-subscribers unlicensed Preachers for the book of Articles of ordination for Catechizing Preaching Marrying Burying Christing and such like In all which each of the said three answers hold 10. Canons are made to keep Parents from open covenanting to God for their Children in Baptism that they shall not be urged to be present that God-fathers do that office and not they As also that none be baptized without the transient Image of a Cross and such like whether this be well or ill done the three former answers all hold in this 11. All the Canons that are for the restraint of sin as neglect of Church worship prophaning of it and other abuses have the same censure 12. The circumstantiating Canons how oft Bishops shall confirm and whom they shall
only Church of the same Species with a Diocese If they say that it is because one man is not capable of doing the work of a Bishop for so many Countreys I Answer Per se he cannot do it for the hundredth part of a Diocese Per alios he may do it for all Europe It is but appointing some who shall appoint others who shall appoint others and so to the end of the chapter to do it There is but one Abuna in Abassia to Ordain though numerous Bishops who have not the Generative faculty which Epiphanius makes to be the difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter that the one begets Fathers and the other but Sons Their Countrey was converted by an Eunuch It would be a notable dispute whether all the rest be true Bishops or not I think Yea the Prelatists must think Nay And yet Brierwood saith that Abassia after all its great diminutions is as big as Italy France Spain and Germany And doth not the Pope govern per alios yet far more and pretend to govern the whole Christian World while he sendeth one to Goa another to Mexico and Oviedo to Abassia would they but have received him Obj. But he hath other Bishops under him therefore he is not ejusdem speciei as a Diocese Answ But the Abuna hath no Ordainers under him And the Bishop hath Chancellors Deans Arch-deacons Surrogates Officials and sometimes in the days of old had Suffragans too under him Quest Was a Diocese then One Church or two And what if a Patriarch or Pope put down all Bishops under him and exercise his power only by other sorts of officers They that can demise grant let what parts they please of their own office may devise enow And seeing it would not alter the species what if it should please the King and Parliament to put down all the Bishops of England save One I hope the Bishops would not take that to be against the Canon of 1640. nor against the Oxford Oath of never endeavouring to Consent or Alter the Church Covernment if it could have been past to be taken by the Parliament Because the species is not altered And they tell us Nonconformists to draw us to Swear that they mean but the species I make no doubt but at the rates of our present Ordinations One Bishop or Abuna with Chaplains enow may Ordain Priests enow and too many of all conscience for all the Kings Dominions and may silence preachers enow and may set up Chancellors Surrogates and Arch-deacons enow to do the present work And it 's pity that the land should be troubled with so many when one would serve I confess I would either have more or fewer had I my wish And as for my Minor proposition let him that thinketh it wanteth proof when he hath considered what is beforesaid and how personal present Communion in all Gods Church-worship differeth from the Communion of associated Congregations by messengers c. think so still if he be able so egregiously to err But I must not so leave our Prelatists I know that it is the common trick of Sophisters when they cannot make good an ill cause to carry it into the dark or start a new controversie and then they are safe A Papist will wheel about into the wilderness or thickets of Church history and ask you what names you can give of your Religion in all Ages that one proposition of your Syllogism may contain much of a Horse load or a Cart load of Books and then I trow he hath done his work if women be the judges And others use to carry the question a rebus ad verba And so it is in the case in hand But it is not the name of a SPECIES that shall serve your turn We know how hard it is in Physicks to determine what it is that specifieth and much more in Morals Politicks and other Relatives But Let the Logical notion of a species lie at your mercy It shall suffice us that you may not make so great a change of the Church-orders and Government of Gods institution as to turn a thousand or hundred Churches into one and to deprive all Parishes or Churches Consociate for presential Communion of the priviledge of having a Bishop of their own to Teach Worship and Govern them presentially and per se As if all the Arch-bishops in the Ronan Empire had put down all the Bishops and called themselves the Bishops of the Churches Of which more anon CHAP. X. Whether any form of Church Government be instituted by God as necessary or all left to humane prudence Obj. BUt Doctor Stillingfleet hath invincibly proved that God hath made no one form of Church Government necessary but left the choice to humane prudence Answ I. If so Why should we all swear to this one form that we will never endeavour to alter it or as the caetera Oath never consent to the alteration of it when we know not but the King may alter it or command us to endeavour it Must there be such swearing to the perpetuating an alterable unnecessary thing II. The word Form signifieth either the essentials of Church policy or the Integrals or accidents which Christ himself hath setled Or else it signifieth only some mutable accidents or modes which God hath left to humane prudence Of the first we deny mans power to change them Of the later we grant it 1. It is undeniably of Divine institution that there be ordinary publick Assemblies for Gods solemn worship and the peoples edification 2. And that Ministers of that office which Christ hath instituted be the officiating Guides in these Assemblies 3. And that Cohabiting Christians be the ordinary stated bodies of these assemblies and not live loosely to go every day as they please from Church to Church but ordinarily when they can be setled members of some one Church To which cohabitation or vicinity is one dispositio materiae 4. And that each of these Churches have their proper fixed Pastors and should not take up with unfixed various passing Ministers unless in cases of necessary unsetledness 5. And that these setled Pastors should live among the People and watch over them personally and know them and be known of them in doctrine and ensample as to the main body of the flock 6. That these Relations and Communion be by mutual consent of the Pastors and the body of the flock 7. That these mutual Relations of Gods appointment and their own consent do constitute them a spiritual society of Divine institution 8. That this Communion must be as our Creed calleth it a Communion of Saints that is of men professing Christianity and Holiness and seeming such And must extend to a free Communication to each other for the supply of corporal necessities And to a mutual assistance of each other in holy living 9 That therefore there must be some to discern and judge whether the persons that would enter this Society and
me all nations baptizing them And Dr. H. thinketh that no Presbyter but Bishops baptized in Scripture time because there were then no other existent And it is too evident in Antiquity by what I before cited that no child or aged person was usually baptized without a Bishop when Bishops came up at least they used to anoint their nostrils c. with holy oyl And doubtless they that Baptized or admitted to baptism did examine them of their faith and resolutions before they took them into the Covenant and Vow of God And how many hundreds in a year can the Bishop do this for besides all his other work 6. It is by the English Canons and Rubrick the Bishops duty to confirm all that were baptized many think it is meant in Heb. 6. 1 2. Our Bishops take it for a proper part of their work And they that must confirm them according to our Liturgy must know their understanding and receive their profession of their faith and standing to their Baptismal Covenant which requireth some time and labour with each one for him that will not make a mockery of it Look into the Bills of London which tell you how many are born every week and thence conjecture how many hundreds in a year the Bishop hath in that Diocese to Confirm and consequently in other Dioceses proportionably Or if that will not inform you try over England where you come how many are though but cursorily as a hasty ceremony confirmedat all Whether it be one of many hundreds And set this to the rest of the Bishops work 7. It is the Bishops work to defend the truth against gainsayers to confute and stop the mouths of Hereticks and contradicters and confirm the troubled and wavering minded in the faith not by fire and sword nor by a quick prohibition of others to preach but by sober conferences and weight of evidence and by Epistles as Paul did when they are not at hand yea even to other Churches and as one that is gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing them that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. And shall the Bishop do this for many hundred Churches While he is defending the poor flock against Papists Quakers Arrians Socinians Infidels alas how numerous are the deceivers at Newark or Gainsborough or Boston what shall they all do between that and Barnet or the remotest part of Buckinghamshire II. The second part of the Bishops office is to be the peoples Priestly guides in Gods worship principally in the publick Assemblies and oft in private viz. 1. To confess the peoples sins and their own To be their own and the Churches mouth in prayer thanksgiving and the praises of the Lord. And in how many hundred Congregations at once will they do this 2. To consecrate and distribute the Sacrament of Communion and consequently to discern who are fit for it And in how many Churches at once will he do this 3. To bless the Congregation at the end of every meeting All these I have before proved that the ancient Bishops did and Dr. Hammond saith No other in Scripture times And what Ubiquitary shall do this 4. And in private it is the Bishop that must visit the sick that must be sent for by them all and must pray with them As Dr. H. at large proveth Annot. in Jam. 5. I have told you before how well and for how many he is able to do this in one of our Dioceses If that serve not turn I pray you if you are foreigners ask English men what number it is of sick men in a Diocese that are visited and prayed with by the Bishop Compare them with the Bills of Mortality in London and judge proportionably of the rest whether he visit one of many thousands of such as die to say nothing of all the sick that do recover 5. And it is the Bishops work to receive all the offerings first-fruits tythes and other maintenance of the Church as the Canons before cited say And see Dr. H. on Act. 2. c. and Act. 4. 33 34 35 c. 6. It was the Bishops work to take care of all the Poor Orphans Widows Strangers as the Canons cited shew And Dr. H. on 1 Cor. 12. 28. c. saith The supreme trust aâ—d charge was reserved to the Apostles and Bishops of the Church So in Can. 41. Apost A Bishop must have the care of the moneys so that by his power all be dispensed to the poor c. where he citeth Just Mart. and Polycarp for a particular care I have before told you that if the poor of every parish be not relieved till the Bishop take notice of them few of the poor in England would be any more for Bishops than for famine nakedness and death III. But the principal thing which I reckon impossible and is and must be destroyed by Diocesanes is the Government of all the particular Churches or Parishes in the Dioâ—â—se Where note 1. That I speak not of the Magistrates Government 2. Noâ— of that General Inspection by which an Archbishop or General Pastor overseeth the inferiour Bishops with their flocks as a general Officer doth the Regiments and Troops in his Army which have Colonels and Captains of their own But I speak of the particular Church Government of the Bishops of single Churches like that of Captains over their own troops or rather Schoolmasters in their several Schools And I the rather mention this because Bishops making it more proper to themselves than Teaching or Worship must hold were they consistent with themselves that they can less delegate it to others The exercise of the Keys are 1. For entrance by Baptism 2. By confirmation rightly understood as in a peculiar Treatise I have opened it 3. By Reproof Consolation Excommunication and Absolution of particular persons which I am now to speak of Where distinctly note I. What the work is Materially II. In what manner it must be done III. On how great a number of persons I. 1. To receive accusations and informations of all the great and perilous heresies crimes and scandals in the Diocese 2. To judge of the credibility of the witnesses hardly done by a stranger and of the validity of their proofs For Councils themselves have petitioned the Emperours that ungodly persons might not be witnesses who make so small a matter of other sins as that they may be supposed to make but little of false witnessing Else an Atheist or Infidel or man of no conscience as he never need to miss of Church preferment for want of conforming to mens wills so he may be master of the â—ame liberty and lives of all honest men at his pleasure and govern them that govern Church and State Therefore Bishops themselves must difference between witnesses And to say I know an honest man that knoweth an honest man that saith they are honest men is a poor
the rest They have freedome from warfare and immunity of all things Being excited by so great rewards many flock to this discipline of their own accord and many are sent by their parents and kindred They are reported to learn there abundance of Verses Therefore some continue at learning twenty years And they think it not lawful to commit them to writeing for in other publick matters and private accounts for the most part they use the Greek Letters It seemeth to me that they do this for two causes because they would not have their discipline or learning made common or brought to the Vulgar nor those that learn it neglect their memories by trusting to writings which befalls the most who by the help of writings remit both their diligence in learning and their memory This especially they perswade that souls die not but after death pass from some to others And by this they think that men are chiefly excited to virtue neglecting the fear of death Many things also they dispute and deliver to youth about the Stars and their motion of the magnitude of the world and of the earth of the nature of things of the force and power of the immortal Gods So far Caesar which I repeated as offering it to consideration whether the foresaid Prelacy for Grandure be not liker to these Druides than to christs Ministers who must be the servants of all And yet whether they are not far more negligent in the exercise of discipline And whether this Discipline which shameth sin by thus distinguishing the Godly and upright from the ungodly and wicked be not of the very light of nature and round much in Brittain before Christianity and therefore should not be hated and banished by Christian Bishops who pretend that their office is instituted for that very use and end CHAP. XXV The Ordination lately exercised by the Presbyteries in England is valid Ergo Reordination unnecessary THat valid ordination is not to be repeated is agreed on by Protestants and Papists It is one of the ancient Canons called the Apostles Can. 67. Siquis Episcopus aut Presbyter aut Diaconus secundam ab aliquo ordinationem acceperit deponitor tam ipse quam qui ipsum ordinaverit Arg. 1. The way of Ordination which was valid in the Primitive Church is valid now But the way of Ordination by meer Presbyters was valid in the Primitive Church Ergo it is valid now The Major needs no proof at least to the point in hand The Minor I prove 1. From Hieromes frequently cited words in his Epistle to Evagrius where he tells us that the Presbyters of Alexandria from the daies of Mark till Heraclas and Dionysius made or ordained their own Bishops Having shewed that Bishops and Presbyters were of one office he addeth Qwa autem postea unus elecius est qui caeteris praeponeretur in schismatis remedium factum est ne unusquisque ad se trabens Christi ecclesiam rumperet Nam Alexandria à Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclam Dionysium Episcopos Presbyteri semper unum exse electum in excelsori gradu collecatum Episcopum nominabant Quomodo si exercitus Imperater in faciat aut Diaconieligunt exse quem industrium noverint Archidiaconum vocent Where note 1. That Hierome undertaking to shew how Bishops were made at Alexandria mentioneth no other making of them but this by the Presbyters 2. That Presbyters made Bishops is brought by Hierome as an Argument to prove the Identity first and nearness after of their power 3. That he ascribeth to the Presbyters the Election the placing of him in a higher degree and the naming of him a Bishop 4. And that he distinguisheth the Presbyters making of a Bishop thus anciently from that which followed Heraclas and Dionysius which was by episcopal ordination or consecration Which observations are sufficient to answer all their objections that will perswade men that Hierome speaketh but of Election 2. This testimony is seconded by a more full one of Eutychius Patriark of Alexandria who out of the Records and Tradition of that Church in his Arabick Originalls thereof saith as followeth according to Seldens Translation in his Commentary pag. 29. 30. Constituit item Marâ—us â—â—â—â—geliâ—ta duodecem Presbyteros cum Hanania qui nempe manerent cum Patriarcha adeò ut cum vacaret Pratriarchâ—tus eligerent unum è duodecim Presbyteris cujus capiti reliqui undecim manus imponerent eumque benedicerent Patriarcham â—um crearent dein virum aliquem nisi quem eligerent eumque Presbyterum secum constituerint loco ejus qui sic facâ—us est Patriarcha uâ— iâ—à semper extarent duodecim Neque desâ—it Alexandriae institutum hoc de Presbyteris ut scilicet Patriarchas crearentur Presbyteris duodecim usque ad tempora Alexandri Patriarchae Alexandrini qui fuit ex numero illo 318. Is autem vetuit ne deinceps Patriarcham Presbyteri crearent decrevit ut mortuo Patriarchâ convenirâ—nt Episcopi qui Patriarcham ordinarent Decrevit item ut vacante Patriarchatu Eligerent sive ex quacunque regione sive ex duodecim illis Presbyteris sive aliis ut res ferebat virum aliquem eximium eumque Patriarcham crearent atque ità evanuit institutum illud antiquius quo creari solitus a Presbyteris Patriarcha successit in locum ejus decretum de Patriarchâ ab Episcopis creando Here you see in the most full expressions that the Presbyters Election imposition of hands and Benediction created their Bishop or Patriark and also chose and made or ordained another Presbyter in his roome and so ordained both Presbyters and Bishops 3. The Tradition or History of Scotland telleth us that their Churches were long governed by Presbyters without Bishops and therefore had no ordination but by Presbyters Hector Boâ—thius Histor Scot. li. 7. fol. 128. 6 Ante Palladium populi suffragiis ex Monacâ—is Culdaeis Pontifices assumerentur John Major de gestis Scotorum li. 2. cap. 2. Saith prioribus illis temporibus per sacerdotes monachos sine Episcopis Scoti in fide eruditi sunt Jahan Foâ—donus makes this the custome of the Primitive Church Scotichr li. 3. cap. 8. Ante Palladii adventum habebant Scoti fidei Doctores ac Sacramentorum Ministratores Presbyteros solummodo vel Monachos ritum sequentes Ecclesiae primitivae Which Bishop usher reciting de primordiis Eccles Brit. p 798. 799. 800. Saith Quod postremum ab iis accepâ—ssevidetur qui dixerunt ut Johan Semeca in glossa decreti Dist 93. cap. Legimu quod in prima primitiva Ecclesia commune erat officium Episcoporum sacerdotâ—m nomina erant communia officium commune sed in secunda primitiva câ—perunt distingui nomina officia So Balaeus Script Brit. Cent. 14. cap. 6. All which assure us that then only Presbyters could ordaine where there were no other the same we may say of the Gothick Churches according to Philostorgius Eclog. li.
In that they commonly profess to receive and hold the Ordainers office and power from the Pope The very office it selfe say the Italians being from him And the application and communication of it to the individual subject being from him say the Spaniards and French also But the Pope as such hath no power to make Bishops at all which I prove 1. Because the very office of a Pope as such is not of Christ yea is against Christ and his prerogative and Law and abhorred by him viz. An universal visible Vicar or Head of the Church on earth 2. Because on their own principles the Pope can have no power for want of uninterrupted succession of true Ordination nothing being more plain in Church History scarce than that such succession is long ago nulled by oft interruptions as I have proved elsewhere and as is by many Protestants proved 3. Because the Work that they ordain their Priest to is Idolatry even Bread worship besides Man worship and Image worship 4. Because all their Priests are in the Trent Oath sworn to this Idolatry and sworn to renounce all their Senses to that end and to renounce the Scripture sufficiency and to own the Papal Treasonable usurpation which all are contrary to the Office of Christs Ministers Yet are those that ordained at Rome received by our Prelates when they turn to us without reordination and their Orders are not taken by them to be null which I dispute not now Much less are the late Protestant English Ordinations null II. The Viciousness of such other Prelates Ordinations is proved by all that is said against their Calling it self before And further 1. Those Prelates that are chosen by Magistrates and not by other Bishops or the Presbyters of their Diocess or People what stale hypocritical pretext soever there may be of the contrary are by the Canons of the Universal Church no Prelates But such are those in question Ergo The Major to omit many other Canons I prove from Concil Nic. 2. Can. 3. in Bin To. 2. p. â—93 Omnem electionem quae fit a Magistratibus Episcopi vel Presbyteri vel Diaconi irritam manere ex Canone dicente si quis Episcopus secularibus Magistratibus usus per eos Ecclesiam obtinuerit deponatur segregetur emnes qui cum eâ— communicant Oportet enim eum qui est promovendus ad Episcopatum ab Episcopis eligi quemadmodum a sanctis Patribus Niceae decretum est in Can. qui dicet Episcopum oportet maxime quidem ab omnibus qui sunt in provincia constitui c. Argument IV. Orders conferred by such as are in orders and have the Power of Order equal with the highest Bishops is valid But the Orders lately conferred in England and Scotland by those called Presbyters were conferred by such as were in Orders and had the power of Order equal with the highest Bishop Ergo The Orders lately conferred in England and Scotland by those called Presbyters was valid As to the Major I remember Arch-Bish Usher told me himself that it was the argument by which he indeavoured to satisfie K. Charles I. 1. That Ordinis est ordinare a man that is in orders as to the sacred Priesthood may caeteris paribus confer Orders it being like Generation or univocal causation 2. That Hierom tells us the Alexandrian Presbyters did more for they made their Bishops And at this day among the Papists men of inferiour Order must with them ordain or consecrate or make their Pope And Bishops make Arch-Bishops How much more may men of the same Order confer what they have that is the Power of the Priesthood or Presbyterate As Abbots who are no Bishops have frequently done 2. And for the Minor Bishop Carleton hath these words in his Treatise of Jurisdiction pag. 7. The Power of Order by all Writers that I could see even of the Church of Rome is understood to be immediately from Christ given to all Bishops and Priests alike by their consecration wherein the Pope hath no priviledge above others Thus teaches Bonavent in 4. sent d. 17. q. 1. August Triumph li de potest Eccles qu. 1. a. 1. Joh. Gerson li. de pot Eccles Consid 1. Cardinal Cusau li. de conced Cathol 2. cap. 13. Cardinal Contarenus Tract de Eccles potest Pontif. Bellarm. lib. 4. de Rom. Pontif. cap. 22. In the Canons of Elfrick ad Wolfin Episc in Spelman p. 576. l. 17 Having shewed that there are seven Orders 1. Ostiarius 2. Lector 3. Exorcista 4. Acolythus 5. Subdiaconus 6. Diaconus 7. Presbyter though the Bishop for Unity sake have the priviledge of Ordination and Inspection yet he is there declared to be but of one and the same 7th Order with the Presbyter Haud pluris interest inter Missalem Presbyterum Episcopum quam quod Episcopus constitutus sit ad ordinationes conferendas ad visitandum seu inspiciendum curandumque ea quae ad Deum pertinent quod nimiae crederetur multitudini si omnis Presbyter hoc idem faceret Ambo siquidem unum tenent eundemque Ordinem quamvis dignior sit illa parâ— Episcopi This being the Doctrine of the Church of England even in the times of Popery we have little reason with the Preface to the book of Ordination to say that it is manifest in Gods word that they are distinct orders For as it is added Can. 18. Non est alius ordo constitutus in Ecclesiasticis ministriis humane and all taken in praeter memoratos septem istos c. Dion Petavius Theolog. Dâ—gmat To. 4. par 2. Tomi 3. Append. c. 2. p. 677 Alterum est quod nunquam iterare illam ordinationem licet ut cum ab haeresi ad Catholicam Ecclesiam revertuntur qui vere ordinati eis denuâ— manus impenitur And what ordination is valid among the Papists see in Johnsons answer to my Questions FINIS POSTCRIPT Promiscucus additions to the Chapter 4. of part second out of Mr. Gilbert Burnets bocke called The Vindication of the Church of Scotland c. PAg. 304. 305. Let me here send you to the Masters of Jewish Learning particularly to the eminently learned Dr. Lightfoot who will inform you that in every Synagogue there was one peculiarly charged with the worship called the Bishop of the Congregation the Angel of the Church or the Minister of the Synagogue And besides him there were three who had the Civil judicature who judged also about the receiving of proselites the imposition of hands c. And there were other three who gathered and distributed the almes Now the Christian Religion taking place as the Gospel was planted in Cities where it was chiefly Preached these formes and orders were reteined both names and things Pag. 306. These Presbyters were as the Bishops Children educated and formed by him being in all they did directed by him and accountable to him and were as Probationers for the Bishoprick one of them being alwaies chosen to succeed in the seat