are one Eph. 5. 31. because the Husband is the Head of the Wife v. 23. And so likewise of Christ and his Church that they are one Eph. 5. 31 32. because he is the Head of his Church v. 23. And one way whereby as St. Cyprian observes our Lord sets off the Uniting of his Sheep as one Flock is by uniting them under himself as the one Shepherd Joh. 10. 16. 'T is the joint-union and dependance on one Master of the Family which makes one House and on one General which makes one Army and on one KING which makes one Kingdom And so on one and the same Church-heads and Governours which makes one particular Church For the Apostle compares the Union of many Persons into one Church or Politick Society to the Union of many Members into one Natural Body 1 Cor. 12. Which Union is made by the adherence and dependance of the Members on the Natural Head For the several Members are no longer one Body nor one with each other after once they are cut off and parted from it As to the Unity we take a Body when the Apostle says there is one Body for that which is under one Head So that if there be but one Head there is but one Body saith St. Chrysostom The Union of the Church therefore as one particular Sâ—ciety which Schism breaks consists chiefly in keeping united to Church-Heads and Governours Church-Rulers are the Heads which make the several Parts one with another or as the Scripture sometimes speaks the Joynts and Ligaments which tye the respective Members and compact the whole Body together The whole Body of the Church saith St. Paul is fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every Joynt i. e. each Pastor or Church-Governour supplies Eph. 4. 16. And we are all the Body of Christ and Members in particular as he says again as we are under the same Governours which he has set over that Body having in the Church set as first Apostles so after them Governments viz. Bishops and Presbyters for the standing Governance and Administration thereof 1 Cor. 12. 27 28. More particularly the Heads of Union in any Church-societies are the BISHOPS in their respective Churches They are the Head of the Body of the Church as Presbyters and Deacons are as the Hands thereof as Zonaras observes on the 55 and 56 Canons of the Apostles For since the death of the Holy Apostles the Bishops are the chief spiritual Heads and the ordinary and standing Governours of Christ's Church They above all others are those Guides or Rulers whom the Members of the Church are call'd to remember and obey Heb. 13. 7. 17. The Angels of the Churches unto whom as the Heads thereof our Lord directs himself when he sends the several Letters to the Churches Rev. 2. 1 7 8 11 c. They stand to head the Members of Christ and to unite and compact them together under him the chief Bishop appearing at the Head of their respective Churches as his Deputies who represent his Person and supply his place acting in the Person of Christ as St. Paul or vice Christi in his place or stead as St. Cyprian whom we ought to respect as the Lord himself as St. Ignatius says So that for Church-members to keep the Union of any Church is to keep subject and dependant on him who is the lawful Bishop thereof Thus St. Ignatius makes mens return from Schism to the Unity of God to lye in their return to the subjection and consistory of their lawful Bishop They make the Church or one Body who hold on Communion and keep one with him and with those Presbyters and Deacons who adhere to him and officiate under him The Church saith St. Cyprian is a People united to their Bishop or a Flock adhering to their Shepherd Whence you may know the Bishop always to be in the Church and the Church to go along with the Bishop And they break off from the Unity of the Church who break off from him and they go to set up another Church if they go to set up another Bishop against him If any are no longer with the Bishop says the same St. Cyprian they are no longer of the Church And to consent to the setting up of another Bishop is the same as to consent to the setting up of another Church says he to those Confessors at Rome who had agreed to the setting up of Novatian against Cornelius Thus is the one Bishop at the head of his Clergy and People to unite and keep together a Christian Church all the Oblations whereof are to be in his Communion and with his Allowance as the one Altar among the Iews was to keep together the Jewish Church For they were to have but one Altar of Burnt-offering at Jerusalem whither all were to come for Sacrifice and were sorbid to set up an Altar any where else And because of his being set for the same purpose of Unity as that was therefore is the Bishop and his Communion call'd unum Altare the one Altar and making an Anti-Bishop is call'd setting up aliud Altare another Altar in the Ancient Language And therefore in pressing the great duty of Unity on the Ancient Christians the Fathers enjoyn them most strictly to stick to their Bishops This is done by St. Cyprian and before him by Ignatius that blessed Martyr and Contemporary of the Apostles Take care all of you says he to follow the Bishop wheresoever the Bishop appears to be there let the Multitude be with him Like as wheresoever Christ goes the Catholick Church goes too Let my part be with those says he again who keep subject to the Bishop yea let my Soul be pawn'd for theirs As many as are God's and Jesus Christ's keep with the Bishop says he in another place pressing them to Union and warning them against Schism And because the Church is to be but one therefore there is to be but one Bishop in a Church for the Members all to adhere to or for the Body to associate and unite with This was and ought to be the Ecclesiastical Rule as was affirmed by Cornelius saying there ought to be but one Bishop in a Catholick Church And as is also declared by the Great Council of Nice Now as the Union of any Churches lyes mainly in keeping united to the Bishops So Schism which is a breach of Union in those Churches will lye chiefly in breaking off unduly and dividing from them Especially in setting up of opposite Bishops or in making a second Bishop in a Church against a former Orthod x and Rightful Bishop yet living and claâ—ming which makes a most plain and consummate Schisin For in the same Church two opposite Bishops are two opposite Heads And two Heads will make two Bodies those who set up the New One against the Old as likewise all they who afterwards come over to
gives discharge from them Accordingly this the Clergy of Rome put the granting or denying communion upon in their Answer to Marcion Telling him they could not receive him to communion in their Church without his Fathers consent and allowance because his Father the Bishop of Sinope who had cast him out of communion was of the same Faith with themselves And this discharge such defection gives upon the evidence of the Fact it self before synodical Cognizance or judicial sentence and declaration thereof As for other Crimes which concern only the Persons or conversation of Bishops not their Doctrine or Ministrations they give no discharge to the Clergy or People who are subject to them before the offending Bishops are regularly deprived for the same by judicial sentence And if before synodical sentence any Clergy or People break off from their Bishops or Bishops from their Metropolitanes or Metropolitanes from their Patriarks on pretence of them they make a Schism and are censured by the Church for so doing If any Presbyter or Deacon says the Council of Constantinople on pretence of Crimes meaning such personal Crimes shall dare to withdraw themselves from 〈◊〉 Communion of their Bishop or Bishops from their Metropolitane or Presbyters Bishops or Metropolitanes from their Patriack before Synodical cognizance and perfect condemnation past upon him He makes a Schism and shall incuâ— the penalty of deposition But as for Heresie or any damnable corruptions of Doctrine or Ministrations they give this discharge as soon as the Bishop c. is notoriously guilty of them before any Synod has sate or Sentence has pass'd upon him Thus St. Jerome expounds that Passage an Heretick is condemned of himself Tit. 3. 10. 11. Which says he is therefore said of Hereticks because when other Offenders as Fornicators Adulterers Murderers are not cast out but by the Sentence of the Bishop or Church censures Hereticks on the other hand pass sentence upon themselves on their own accord receding from the Church which recession seems to be a condemnation of their own conscience As many as attempt any tâ—inâ— against those Constitutions of the Fathers which concern the Faith thereby without more ado incur and bring on themselves the Censures coâ—tained in the Canons says Thalassius Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia in the Great Council of Chalcedon When an Offence is only against the Canons of the Church the Desence of the Divine Canons we know is proper only to the Bishops but the Desence of the right Faith belongs not only to them but to every Orthodox Christian say the Holy Monks against the Patriark Anthimus faln to the Heresie of the Eutychians in their Libâ—l in the Council of Constantinople under Agapetus and Mennas Though no Synod has before condemned him yet he that has prevaricated and deserted the Orthodox Faith as Acacius he says had done by communicating with the Eutychians has enough for which he ought to be deny'd communion As also any one who before being a Catholick shall fall to communicate with any Heresie is justly thought to be thereby removed from our Society says Pope Gelasius Though in case of other Crimes they may not do it before Synodical Sentence yet in case of any Heresie condemn'd by the Holy Synods or Fathers they may depart and separate from the Communion of their Prelate say the foresaid Canons of Constantinople when once he comes to preach it publickly and to teach it bare-fac'd in the Church And then to withdraw from him before Synodical cognizance is not to incur the foresaid Canonical pains but to shew themselves worthy of that Honour which belongs to the Orthodox 'T is not to condemn Bishops say they but Pseudo-Bishops their Teachers not to rend the Unity of 〈◊〉 Church by a Schism but to study to free it from Schisms and Divisions So that in these Cases when the Defection of Doctrine and Worship is apparent and plain to their eyes and ears the People and Clergy may judge for themselves and withdraw from the Communion of such Heretical or Erroneous Pastors And accordingly the Apostolical Rules to the People are without staying for the declaration of a Synod if any turn a bringer of false Doctrine contrary to what they had delivered without more ado to hold him as Anathema or as one Excommunicate Gal. 1. 8. 9. and not to bid him God speed 2 Jo. 10. 11. By such defections then from Christian Doctrine or Worship the Ligaments of Union are broken towards the Governours of any Church or between one Church and another and there accrues a Liberty without any Breach of the Unity of the Church 1. For People to break off from their own Local Guides or for People and Clergy to break off from their own Bishops Tho' they were Apostles or Angels from Heaven they are to be held then as Anathema as St. Paul says that is not as Heads of Unity and Church-communion but as Excommunicate Men. If they cause Divisions from the Doctrines we have learned he bids the Church mark and avoid them Ro. 16. 17. The Peoples duty of adhering to and following them is no longer than they continue to be followers of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. c. 4. 18. But if they break off from his Truth and turn False Prophets however they come dress'd up in soft Pretences or in Sheeps-cloathing he tells us to beware of them and to fly them as Wolves Mat. 7. 15 16. to look to them and avoid them as St. Paul cautions against the Judaizers Phil. 3. 2. If they become bringers of False Doctrine bid them not God speed nor receive them into your Houses saith St. John 2 Jo. 10. 11. Thus when John of Jerusalem fell to erre in Point of Faith Epiphanius writ to the Monks as St. Jerom says that till he gave satisfaction in Point of Faith none of them should communicate with him And Ierom himself asks him where it is required that they should come under his Communion before such satisfaction were given And tells him 't is because of their difference in point of Faith that they may not communicate with him A People says St. Cyprian that would fear God and obey his Precepts ought to separate it self from an erring Prelate Such Persons if Metropolitanes are no longer to have neither any Authority over the Bishops of their Provinces nor the Communion of the Church as is decreed in the General Council of Ephesus They are to leave their Guides when they fall to misguâ—â— them and to stand off from their Persons lest they be corrupted with their Tenets And this is no more than is needful for them even in point of Caution being their keeping out of the way of Temptations which our Lord directs us to for a general Guard of all Vertues And standing off thus from Heretical Leaders they will approve themselves in the midst of Heresies by being stedfast in the Truth 1.
those who had been Ordained by them Besides all this instead of anti-Anti-bishops being absolutely null and in reality no Bishops to heal and compose the differences of a miserably harassed and divided Church on such Competitions it has been sometimes agreed that whichsoever of them were the Right on the death of either the Survivor should be owned and the Church should have no other Bishop and so all the Ordinations and Episcopal Acts therein should pass through his hands and stand on his Authority whilst he lived Thus it was at Antioch where the Church was divided into Two Parts 〈◊〉 for the cause of the Faith which was common to them both but of the Bishops as Socrates says some owning and adhering to Meleâ—ius and others to Paulinus For to heal and close this lamentable Schism it was agreed which Sozomen calls an admirable Counsel and expedient that on the death of either the survivor should hold the See alone for his Life without being confronted and opposed by the Ordination of any other Person To prevent which an Oath was exacted of all in that Church who seemed to stand fairest for the Episcopate and of Flavianus among the rest that on the death of either of the Bishops they would not be Ordain'd Bishop of Antioch whilst the other survived Which Agreement and Oath being afterwards broke by Flavianus when on the death of Meletius he was Ordained Bishop against Paulinus cost him so much trouble and difficulty as he found to get himself received for the Bishop thereof both in Egypt Arabia and Cyprus and at Rome and among the Western Bishops afterwards Thus though Men in a Schism did ill in Ordaining others yet were not those Ordinations null in themselves but really conferred the powers of Orders which the Persons might exercise if the Church pleased And when once the Persons were reconciled and had satisfied the Church for their Schism they have often been allow'd to officiate in Virtue of that Ordination without being Ordained over again by the greatest Councils and through the early and later Ages of the Church And this shews that their Ordinations were not null in themselves For if such Persons had never received any Spiritual powers in their Ordinations they had none to exercise And had the Church been of this perswasion it would never have admitted them to exercise those POWERS which it believed were never Conferred on them But though these Men even after they had faln into a Schism or others who were Ordained therein had Orders yet was it in the power of the Church to deny them the Ministerial Exercise of their Orders Men must have the Communion of the Church as well as Orders before they can exercise their Orders and minister to the Faithful in any Religious Assemblies And though their Schism doth not utterly devest or exclude them from the Powers of Orders yet it doth from the Communion of the Church without which the Faithful who are not to seek but to shun the Ministrations of Schismaticks and Excommunicate persons must not partake with them in any Exercise of Orders And to this Communion after once they have justly lost and faln from it they are to be restored again in Degree more or less and to be received to the Communion either only of Lay-members or else of Clergy and to officiate according to their former Honors as the Church pleaseth And as to this Admission and Allowance to exercise their Orders in its Communion the Church has acted variously according as it saw cause When Ordinations have been made against the Rules of Unity though the Offenders thereby received Orders yet in care of these Rules and to assert and keep up Discipline it has at some times denyed as well as at other times granted its Communion to them for their Exercise of the same Where it judged that Rigor expedient on their submission it would receive them to communicate as Lay-men But they should not be allow'd the Priviledges nor permitted to act and officiate as Bishops and Priests in her Communion nor should other Churches receive them and joyn with them as such till moreover satisfaction had been first given to those Rules of Unity in Ordinations which had been broken in theirs And this it has done not only in case of this great Rule of not Ordaining a Bishop into a full Church but also in case of other Rules which are of less Account than it is Thus of Ordination into a Church already vacant if it is made without the Metropolitanes consent the Council of Nice and afterwards the Council of Antioch Deâ—rce That the Church shall not receive such an one for a Bishop And of Ordinations at large without declaring the appropriate Church or Place wherein the Person Ordained is to officiate the Council of Chalcedon decrees that they shall be invalid Not to mention or insist also on the Council of Nice's rejecting of the anti-Anti-bishops Ordained by the Schismatick Meletius till they were confirmed by a more holy imposition of hands as their Synodical Epistle says because there was an incapacity more than ordinary for giving Orders not only to Anti-bishops but to any others in his Case which because it may be of use in this Argument I shall give an Account of Meletius was Bishop of Lycus in Egypt under the See of Alexandria and as Epiphanius relates was next in dignity and power to Peter the Bishop of Alexandria himself And he with his Adherents broke off from the Unity of the Church and set up a Schism separating from Peter the Bishop of Alexandria and assembling for Prayers and other Divine Offices by themselves and Ordaining opposite Bishops Priests and Deacons for the erection of opposite Churches in several places as Eleutheropolis Gaza and Aelia as Epiphanius says And these separate erections of Churches and opposite Ordinations he made after he had been justly deposed by Peter in a Synod as we are assured by Athanasius who had the best Opportunities to understand the Truth of these Matters and the most cause to inquire into them and also by Socrates afterwards And that too among other Crimes for his having faln in the Persecution to deny the Faith and to sacrifice to Idols Which Crimes when any Bishop or Clergy were once convicted of by the great Rule of Church-Discipline they were never afterwards to exercise any Clerical Powers or to officiate as Bishops and Clergy but upon their Reconciliation were to be received only to Lay-Communion After such Falls says St. Cyprian 't is in vain for any to seek to usurp the Episcopacy since 't is manifest such Men can neither preside in the Church of Christ nor ought to offer Sacrifice to God Chiefly since it has been Decreed by Cornelius and by Us and by all the Bishops of the whole World concerning them that after such Offence they may be admitted to Penance and the Peace of the Church but must stand
state if supposed to pass on Bishops and Ministers would be no conscionable discharge from keepeng on their spiritual Ministrations against such immoralities as are set down in the aforesaid cases For Jesus Christ who gave them their Ministerial Powers requires them as his Ministers and as Pastors of his Church to exercise them for him and for the Souls of Men as I have shewn when those Cases happen And if the State forbids what he commands they are to hear or obey no state or Power on earth against him But must answer as the Apostles did to the Jewish Rulers in this Case whether it be lawful in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye Act. 4. 18. 19. 20. And thus it must needs be in men who are call'd to be his Ministers under persecuting States and to be Ministers of a Religion which is a Doctrine of the Cross and bids them expect and prepare to bear Crosses under oppressive powers as is plainly the Case of Gospel-Ministers For if they must be his Ministers and administer this Religion in persecutions they must hold on Ministring when the state where they live breaks with them and both most strictly forbids and most cruelly persecutes them for so doing And thus the First Ministers did who were to plant Christianity against all the Edicts and Oppositions of the Heathen or Jewish Magistrates And so did all the Faithful Bishops and pastors thereof who in all the succeeding persecutions of the Church stuck firm to their Ministrations against all the inhibitions and oppressive force of secular Rulers or else our holy Religion had perish'd long since and had never descended pure and perfect as it is to our days And so must all others do in any present or succeeding Tryals which as they always have done so always will seek to suppress Christs worship and Truth by suppressing the pastoral administrations thereof that by their Ministry it may not fail in the Church but be held on the same and continued down to the worlds end But this I say as to their pure spirtual Powers and Ministrations which they neither did nor could receive from the Civil State on which he never conferr'd it but which they hold independantly of Christ Jesus That is what spiritual powers they have received from Christ by imposition of Hands continued down from the Apostles for the feeding and governing of his Church by Administration of the Word of Prayers and Sacraments by leting into the Church and excluding out of it and for providing a constant succession of the same Ministrations by Empowering or Ordaining others These mere spiritual powers they must exercise as his Ministers without regard to any deprivation or inhibition of Worldly Princes For Earthly Kings cannot deprive them of these mere spiritual powers because they have them not from them but Minister therein not by theirs but by Christs Commission If Secular Princes gave them their Commissions to exercise their spiritual Authorities they might recall them If they were the fountain of these powers and could make or ordain Bishops they might have more plea to unmake and deprive them But not originally proceeding from them but from Christ himself by a way of his own prescribing in a succession of Apostolical imposition of Hands through all Ages of the Church They cannot be reversed by their deprivation Nor are the Bishops and Pastors to be debarr'd the exercise thereof in any Case where Christ requires it at their inhibition because they are Christs Servants more than theirs and must obey God rather than man But 3. Thirdly as for any Temporal accessions and enforcements of these mere spiritual Ministrations which the Church receives when once it is shone upon by earthly powers and made incorporate or free of the State These Accessions are borrowed Powers and the Gift of Princes and under the deposition of a Lawful state the Bishops and Ministers of Christ must not challenge or pretend to them As to these I observe 1. That the civil state hath Power over these Temporal Accessions secular endowments because it confer'd them When Kings and Queens turn Christians they come not in only as members to partake in these mere spiritual Ministrations but as Patrons by their secular power to back and Promote them They must shew themselves Nursing-Fathers and Nursing-Mothers as was foretold by the Prophet and serve the Lord as Kings that is by employing their Kingly Power to encourage and advance his service doing him those services which none can do but themselves as St. Austin tells them Thus to give encouragement and leisure for the Ministers to attend on these Ministrations without distraction the civil State endows them with benefices or worldly freeholds Honors and priviledges It also allots them publick and Authorized places for these Ministrations and makes Civil Laws requiring people duly to resort to them and punishing all disturbers of them and such as carry themselves indecently thereat It likewise adds a secular jurisdiction to the spiritual extending the spiritual jurisdiction to the Cognizance of Wills Marriages Benefices c. which are Civil matters and backing it by Temporal Accessions in the spiritual parts thereof making a mixture and Concurrence of Religious and civil powers in the spiritual Courts For thus the Ruâ—ricks it passes into Laws and the Canons also which are the Rules of exercising that jurisdiction it binds on the Subjects with the Kings Approbation and Ratification or with a Civil strengthing And the Spiritual censures or judgements according to these Rules it backs with civil penalties as imprisonment or with putting men under civil incapacities as to plead in an Action at Law or the like Now all these Temporal Helps and Accessions come not to the Bishops and Ministers immediately from Christ or as they are Ministers of Religion For His Kingdom is not of this world Nor was he whilst on earth any judge in civil matters Nor doth he confer any such worldly powers or grant any such commissions But all these secular benefices and fortifications in all the parts of the spiritual Ministry are the gifts of Princes They flow from their favour to the Church or from their taking upon them to be its Temporal Patrons or it's Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers And as the Bishops and Ministers of Christ hold them only by their commission So may they lose them by their recalling it So that although the state has no power either to give or to deprive the Ministers of Christ of their mere spiritual powers Yet has it a direct Authority to grant or deprive them of these Temporal Additionals And therefore the Bishops and Ministers of Christ in an incorporate Church when they are deprived by their Rightful Prince or by a Legal State must exercise their mere spiritual powers in the foresaid Cases without any of these civil effects or mixtures That is they can only Administer the Word and prayers and Sacraments
offices and dutys as to their Rooms Spiritual doth appertain And Queen Elizabeths injunctions disclaim all challenging of any Authority and Power of Ministry of Divine Service in the Church by Vertue of the Supremacy And the 37th Article of Religion declares That thereby we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or of the Sacraments And the Statute of Queen Elizabeth says The Oath of Supremacy shall be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in the Queens Admonition annexed to her Injunctions They are the Ministers of God in their Dominions as St. Paul says But that is as Kings not as Priests So that the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters doth not imply the Power of the Keys which the King has not says Mr. Mason And by the Supremacy we do not attribute to the King the power of the Keys or Ecclesiastical Censures as Bishop Andrews observes We never gave our Kings the power of the Keys or any part of either the Key of Order or the Key of Jurisdiction purely spiritual says Bishop Bramhall And this bounding of their Claims and Pretences of Power is suitable to what we find among those Godly Jewish Kings and Christian Emperors to whom our Churches Articles and Canons about Supremacy refer As to the Jews it appertaineth not unto thee O Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the Priests that are consecrated thereto say the Priests to King Uzziah when he would assume to himself the Priests Office for which God miraculously smote him with a Leprosie upon the place 2 Chron. 26. 16 18 19 20. And the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him to serve and minister unto him and to burn incense says King Hezekiah to the Levites 2 Chron. 29. 11. And the like appears of the godly Christian Emperors who were told by their Holy Bishops and profess'd of themselves That they were no Priests and that their power of Empire did not swallow up the Sacerdotal powers God hath intrusted the Affairs of the Kingdom in your hands but those of the Church in ours And as we may not lawfully take upon us to act as Kings so neither have you Authority O Emperor to burn incense or usurp the Priests Office said the Great Hosius in his Epistle to the Emperor Constantius To you it appertains externally to punish but to us to judge and determine what is Heretical and impious say Elusius and Sylvanus and the other Bishops to the same Constantius The Royal Purple makes men Emperors but it doth not make them Priests says St. Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius As Christians and Godly Emperors they used their Imperial Power and Soveraignty about Church-Matters But that was not privative to deny the Pastors of the Church or to bereave them of their Power but Cumulative to add the Imperial Power which was of another kind to the Spiritual thereby to back their Acts and to make them bind the faster Thus when they sent Count Candidianus to the Great Council of Ephesus the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian declare in their Letter to the Council That it was to keep good Order and to see fair Debates but with Orders not to intermeddle in determining Questions of Faith and Ecclesiastical Matters which say they is lawful only for the Bishops And when the Emperor Marcian came in person at the passing the Definitions of the Great Council of Chalcedon it was not as he tells them in his Speech to the Council to make Demonstration of his own Power therein but to give greater firmness to what they had done in the Exercise of theirs Which he doth by Ratifying the same by secular Penalties as by Banishment of Citizens Disbanding of Souldiers and Deposition of Clery and by other Punishments after the Determinations of the Council had been read and the Bishops had owned and subscribed the same before him When the Imperial Purple came to confirm a Pastoral Act it gave a new Authority to that which had Authority in it self before or as Justinian speaks in his Confirmation of the Episcopal Sentence or Anathemaon Zoaras which says he having a validity from it self or Authenticalness of its own the Crown makes yet more valid or of more Authority by adding to it a secular Penalty The Episcopal or Spiritual Authority is by too many unjustly slighted and therefore the Secular Authority is both humbly call'd in and piously comes in to its help since those irreligious Contemners of the Spiritual Power will stand more in awe of the Secular Coming in by their Secular Authority to help and back the Church in those things wherein men would otherwise contemn the Authority of the Bishops as the Fathers express it in the Council of Carthage So that the Imperial Power even whilst employ'd about Church-Ministrations all the time supposes but doth not swallow up the Pastoral Powers nor doth its Ecclesiastical Supremacy lye nor was ever thought so to do either by our Church or by those Times whereto it refers in their being vested with or having a soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders But 2. Secondly it lyes 1. First In retaining their civil Power over all Persons whether Lay-men or Ecclesiasticks The Civil State was first in Being and men were Subjects of the State when Christianity came to be proposed to them and planted among them The Church is in the Common-wealth not the Common-wealth in the Church as Optatus says And when men became Members or Ministers of the Church they did not thereby cease to be Subjects of the State or owe ever the less Duty unto it Let every Soul be subject unto the Higher Power is meant of Ecclesiasticks as well as others It takes in all tho' an Apostle tho' an Evangelist tho' a Prophet or whosoever else as St. Chrysostom notes And therefore Princes may lay their civil Commands and inflict their civil Punishments upon Ecclesiasticks as well as upon their other Subjects They may put them under Fines or Imprisonments or banish them out of their Dominions or any parts thereof as Claudius did the Jews from Rome or as Domitian did St. John into Patmos where he wrote his Revelations and as Constantius and Valence did the Orthodox Bishops in the Arian Persecutions And true Pastors are bound to submit to this like as other Subjects are either from Heathen or Heretical Emperors and even in hard and unjust Cases as in the foresaid Instances And if any under sentence of Banishment inflicted on certain Persons not on the whole Cause return into his own Country without Leave of the civil Power if being caught he suffer for it he dies not as a Christian but as a Malefactor says St. Cyprian So that Bishops and Ministers are no exempt Persons but are to own their Kings as their civil Soveraigns and are as much bound to pay Obedience to their civil Laws and are
came under Roman Subjection of the Chief-priests by the Roman Procurators who made such frequent Changes among them sometimes Annual as Josephus notes In all these State-deprivations of Jewish High-priests I say there was only a change of Persons but Matters of Religion went on in every thing the same and Men were taught the same doctrines and trained up in the same Practices and held on in the same Prayers Sacrifices Temple Synagogue-Service under both And where it doth not affect the state of Religion or the interest of Souls but only their own personal Claims and Priviledges God's faithful Ministers may be free as has been observed to secure Protection and civil benefits to the Church by not breaking with the State but acquiescing under its deprivations But what voluntary deference were thus payable to a deprivation of State in a case which doth not touch Religion or the Souls of Men must not be expected in other cases which do touch and damnisie and endanger both And thus it is in the fore-mentioned cases wherein I have been asserting the necessity of holding on their spiritual Ministrations and not yielding to be stop'd thereof by any State-deprivations 3. And this also clears the Instance of the submission of the Greeks on the frequent deprivations of their Patriarks by the Turkish Governours The Benefits of Incorporation which they propose to secure thereby are not the most tempting lying not so much in being priviledged and beneficed by the State as in not being persecuted but tolerated under it And their submission for keeping on this State benefit such as it is is not without detriment to the Church tho' their breaking with the State they fear would be more detrimental the Turks as learn'd Travellers inform us making the new Advancements for Money to be levied on the Church by the New Patriark to the countenance and growth of Great Corruption and to the bringing of the Church in debt But as to the course of Religious Ministrations they are the same under both Patriarks Religion or the Word and Prayers and Sacraments are administer'd alike without Alteration and the Souls under their Charge are fed with the same Doctrines both of Faith and good Life and are nursed up in the same Practices and serve God in the same Prayers and publick Offices in both cases And therefore those deposed Patriarks are not driven by insisting on their spiritual Powers and Ministrations to break this partial Incorporation such as it is for the support of pure Faith Worship and Practice or for the Interest of Religion and of Souls as I have shewn true and faithful Pastors are in the fore-mentioned cases 4. The Fourth and Last Instance is of Queen Maries Popish Bishops deposed by a Commission of the Queens Council without a competent and lawful Synod and principally for a State-crime viz. refusing the Oath of Supremacy which was made a cause of deprivation by a preceding Act of her Parliament under Queen Elizabeth And of our Reformed Bishops coming into their Sees upon such deprivation during the others Lives As to this Case of the Marian Bishops or of other Popish Bishops under Edward the sixth Two Things are to be Noted in their Removal and Ejection out of their Dioceses One is from the Temporalities the Benefices and Preferments thereof And these temporal endowments as I have observed are directly subject to the temporal Power So that the Act of Parliament and the Proceedings of the Council and the Commission of the lawful State took away all Claim to the Temporalities and deprived them of their Bishopricks as they were Temporal Free-holds The Other is from the spiritual adherence and dependance of the People upon them as on Heads of Church-Unity and Communion for Religious Ministrations And this there was no need for the State to deprive the Popish Bishops of for they had already deprived themselves of it by their own Corruptions both in Doctrines and Devotions Adulterations of Religion and corrupt Ministrations of the Word of Prayers and Sacraments break the Ligaments which tye on People to this adherence to any Bishops or Pastors yea though they were Apostles themselves Though we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have Preached unto you let him be Anathema or accursed saith St. Paul Gal. 1. 8. Or instead of sticking to his Communion break off from it and have no more Religious Commerce with such than was to be held with those whom the Synagogue or Church had Anathematized or cut off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he elsewhere uses it and in the Ecclesiastical Style speaking one excommunicate for so we Christians are wont to call a Sentence against the speakers of impious things says Sâ—crates When therefore any Bishops and Pastors instead of Heading Christian Truths appear at the Head of Unchristian Errors the People are discharged from their obligation and dependance upon them and are to unite themselves as they can to others who still keep firm to that necessary Gospel-Truth and Worship which they have forsaken as shall be shewn more fully afterwards And this was done by the Popish Bishops who fed the People with false Doctrines and polluted Prayers and Ministrations which left no need of any thing more to deprive them of the Peoples Communion and Dependance these Papal Corruptions of Religious Ministrations being enough to discharge and drive them away of themselves So that the Reformed Bishops when they were set at the Heads of those Diocesses call'd none away nor made them break off from any just and due spiritual dependance on their former Bishops whose own Heretical Doctrines and Corrupt Ministrations had made the People cease from depending any longer in Conscience upon them They wanted only to be lawfully empowered and regularly ordained themselves by Episcopal Imposition of Hands as all those reformed Bishops plainly were and the People were free from any Obligations to the Old Ones because of their Errors and corrupt and dangerous Ministrations both lawfully might unite themselves to them and were in duty bound so to do And thus coming to Head a People whose dependance was broke off from others by their spiritual corruptions and depravations of Religion they were no spiritual Intruders And coming into Benefices and Temporalities made vacant by the deprivation of a Lawful State they were guilty of no civil Usurpation and Injustice And this is enough to justifie the Advancement of those first Reformers Tho' where Bishops are Orthodox and deprived for their adherence to Truth and Righteousness both in their private Practice and publick Ministrations the People are still left spiritually to depend on them and are not to be taken off by any deprivation though of the most rightful state as in the above-mentioned Cases 'T is true as to the Popish Bishops themselves they thought otherwise of their own Worship and Doctrines and took them for Christian and Gospel-ways and Truths
and private Claims and mastering all private resentments as mortifyed and most publick spirited Men they can make an end thereof by letting fall their own pretensions And why will many good Minds and sincere Lovers of Peace say should they not do this for the Love of Peace and for Religions sake and the Churches Their Adversaries indeed can not have the face to ask it And others who may move better therein would be modest in pressing liberality on Losers and not go too far in urging them who have suffered so much already from the Invaders as if they had not taken enough from them to fall upon themselves and throw them what remains Yet they think it would be a noble Pitch in Vertue full of Glory and Goodness if of themselves they would prefer Publick-Weal before private Passions and Advantages and be full of Care for others when that needs to be shewn in caring least for themselves Which Heavenly-mindedness and publick-spiritedness and Mortification to private Interests God and the Church they conceive must needs take most kindly at their hands But as to this the suffering Bishops can not take this way of Cure by giving up their Claims where they are bound in duty to insist on them And that they are bound to do as I have already shewn at large in the forementioned Cases By their quitting there they would surrender the Souls of their Charge to become a Prey to Wolves and Seducers and to be trained up in wicked and corrupt Doctrines Prayers and Practices And this is not to be true to their Pastoral Trusts 'T is not faithfully to discharge their Cure of Souls but perfidiously to throw it off So that be they never so mortified and negligent of themselves and zealously studious of Unity and the Churches Peace yet in Fidelity to Christ and to the People whom he has entrusted to their Charge they must hold on their spiritual relation I conceive and diligently discharge it the best they can at such times and not desert but stick to the Church over which the Holy Ghost hath made them Overseers Besides the exercise of their spiritual Ministrations is loudly call'd for in such Cases and bound on them and the suffering Clergy their Brethren by all the Powers and Characters of the Ministerial Office as I think may fully appear from what I have said on that point before And not only the continuance of their former Relation as the true Bishops still of those places but this very exercise must in consequence keep up a schism in the Church at such times For this exercise of their Ministrations must be in separate Bodyes The state incorporateing and espousing the Anti-Bishops and their Adherents will give them the Publick Churches And Depriving and Persecuting the other and their Followers will also be sure to keep them out thereof So their Ministrations if they go on Ministring at all as 't is plain they ought must be in separate places and Assemblies Yea and by different ways of exercise the spiritual administrations of one being purely spiritual in the way of a destitute and persecuted but those of the other being mixt in the way of an incorporate and endowed Church And therefore in all the foremention'd cases where the suffering Bishops are still bound for the interest of Religion and of Souls to insist upon their Episcopal Claims and their Relation to their Churches and with their brethren of the other Clergy still to go on in a faithful discharge of their Ministrations this way of Cure can have no place But as the anti-Anti-Bishops by breaking off from them and from those Christian Principles and Practices whereto they stand firm have made the Schism so they alone by a Penitential return are capable to mend it It not admitting of Remedy in those Cases and under such state of things from any other hands And this may be sufficient as to the true and suffering Bishops and shew how little the Arguments from the desirableness and duty of Union will affect them in those cases When the Church is Rent by such a deplorable schism as the precedent discourse shews who make it so this I think is enough to shew who can mend it and to whom alone the lovers of peace and unity are to apply themselves for remedy at such times CHAP. II. Of the Schism of Particular Churches from other Sister-Churches by their rejecting of Fraternal Communion therewith BEsides this first way of Schism viz. of particular Members breaking off unjustly from the Unity of their own Church by throwing off their due Subordination and Subjection to their own Bishops There is a second as I observed above viz. of particular Churches breaking off unjustly from the Communion of other Sister-Churches And this is by rejecting Fraternal Communion with them denying to worship God in their Assemblies or to admit their Members to worship in ours or communicating with those who stand Excommunicated by them or have made a Schism from them Our Lord is not only for having the Christians of every Place of Country to keep Unity with their own particular Church but also as I noted before for having all particular Churches to keep up the Unity of one Body among themselves All his Sheep he has gathered into one Flâ—ck Joh. 10. 16. All the Assemblies both of Jews and Gentiles he has reconciled to God in one Body Eph. 2. 14 16. calling all his Followers to profess Christianity in one Body as St. Paul says Col. 3. 15. Accordingly Baptism which makes them all Christians lists or inrolls them all in one Corporation we being all baptised into one Body 1 Cor. 12. 13. And the Holy Eucharist which is the other Great Sacrament and solemn Undertaking of Christianity confederates them into one spiritual Corporation we being all made in that to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. and tho' many being one Body as partaking therein of one Bread 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. This Union of all Christians and Christian Congregations into one Society under Jesus Christ makes that Body the Church whereof he is the Head Col. 1. 18. which the Scripture sometimes expresses by one Temple Eph. 2. 21. or spiritual House 1 Pet. 2. 5. or one Family and Houshold Eph. 2. 19. c. 3. 15. as I observed above And which is that one Holy Catholick Church betwixt all the parts whereof the Communion of Saints is to be maintained as all Christians profess in the Creed This Union of all particular Churches as one Body under himself our Lord has appointed to be kept up by all the Members thereof as occasion is but chiefly by the Union and Accord of the Bishops and Pastors who are the respective Heads of those particular Churches This whole Church is made one Body by one Spirit Eph. 4. 4. so the Unity thereof is call'd the Unity of the Spirit v. 3. And one great means of the Spirits keeping up this Unity is by the Ministration of Pastors and
to officiate in another City without their own Bishops Letters commendatory says the Great Council of Chalcedon And the Granting of these Letters was reserved to the Bishops Without their own Bishops Letters commendatory is the Expression of the now cited Canon of Chalcedon And others under the Episcopal Order are restrained from granting them Even those Câ—untry Presbyters whom Balsamon on the Canon calls Protopapas and who as being in the Country where the Bishops were not usually at hand to write them had more pretence of granting them as Zonaras intimates And who else but the Bishops of the several Churches should be capable to grant these Letters For since the Church stands and is fixed upon the Bishops as St. Cyprian tells the Lapsi it is not for any without the Bishop to write Letters as they had done to himself in the Name of the Church But more especially was the Grant thereof reserved to the Primates and Metropolitanes who were to write and receive Synodical Letters and to keep up Communion between the Churches of several Provinces Thus St. Basil expresses his Communion with all Churches by all Churches sending communicatory Letters to him and receiving the same from him And on the Deposition of Marcianus at Arles St. Cyprian desires Stephen Bishop of Rome to signifie to him who was substituted in his place that he might know to whom he should send the Brethren and direct his communicatory Letters And this the Synod of Antioch gives us a Reason of their writing to Dyonisius of Rome and Maximus of Alexandria and to all other Bishops on their placing of Domnus in the See of Antioch upon the Deposition of Paulus Samosatenus Which say they We therefore signifie to you that you may write your communicatory Letters to him and receive the like from him So that none who were out of Communion with their own Bishops and Metropolitanes could be allowed to communicate any whereelse CHAP. III. Of just Grounds to break off Communion particularly of making impious and unlawful things or unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments the Terms of their Communion FRom what I have said in the Two preceding Chapters without inquiring further into any lower degrees and instances thereof I think it may competently appear what Schism is and who the Persons are that may justly be charged therewith either as breaking off from their own Church by unjustly throwing off and dividing from their own Orthodox and Lawful Bishops or as breaking off from other Churches by unjustly refusing Communion to their Members or by unjustly granting it to their Schismaticks or Excommunicates And more particularly that they are guilty of this great and dangerous Sin of Schism who unjustly turn Subjects or side with Anti-Bishops set up over them against their own Orthodox and Lawful Bishops Yea though such Defectors to the Anti-Bishops make the greatest Numbers or are set up by the civil State as the civilly establish'd or endowed Church And that all other Churches and their Members are guilty of the same who shall own and come in to them and admit them into their Communion and keep on Communion with them I say they are Schismaticks who by any of these ways shall break off from others unduly and without just Cause But some things are a just Ground to breako ff either Dependance and Subjection to our own Bishops or Communion with other Churches Some things as I come next to shew not being to be born nor otqers to be parted with for the Love of external Peace and Union And when these can be justly and duly alledged for standing off 't is always justifiable and commonly necessary to break Communions However to break off Resorting to their Assemblies though at the same we should still allow their Members to resort to ours For this later many times may be allowed longer where it can be done without scandal especially before the Church has proceeded judicially to censure and excommunicate the offending Parties as it was allow'd to the Romanists and accepted by them for several years in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths Reign and also to the Dissenters in later days And if there are such Pleas for breaking off either from any Persons or Churches there is no Breach of Gospel-Union nor Blame of Schism in such Cases And of these I shall now 2. In the Second Place give some Account That when we see any Persons or People breaking off either Subjection to their former Bishops or Ecclesiastical Concord and Fraternal Communion with other Churches we may understand where Schism is and where it is not to be charged and be more clear in several Matters of Importance in this Argument Now such just Ground there is for the Members of any Church to break off Communion either with their own Bishops or with other Churches when they can alledge either some things against the Terms of their Communion or others against their Persons and Doctrines 'T is a just Ground to break off from them if they make impious and unlawful things or unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments the Terms of their Communion Or though nothing of this can be alledged against the Terms if Heresie can be justly objected to their Persons These I say are just Grounds and give a Liberty to break off from the Communion of any Persons or Churches And I chuse rather to express it by this giving them a Liberty than by imposing on them a conscionable Necessity to do so For some Grounds give a Liberty to break Communion either with their own Bishops or with other Churches which do not in conscience necessitate Men as Unrighteous Usurpations and Incroachments when they are made the condition thereof For though Men need not submit to them yet if they are pleased to do it they ordinarily may do so without Sin and suffer such Incroachments in then own Wrong Besides the Duty of uniting with any particular Persons or Churches is bound upon us by certain Things or Qualifications in those Persons or Churches which oblige us to their Communion and Dependance And as the Being and Presence of those Things and Qualifications binds it on so doth the Failure thereof unbind the same and set Men at Liberty to go off from them I say to go off from them not to go off from all and hold on communicating with none For when they are no longer bound to communicate with such particular Bishops or Churches yet are they still bound thereto with others or under a general obligation to Communion I mean when they have opportunity for the same which is presupposed to all obligation of actual Exercise and Discharge thereof by this like as it is by all other Affirmative Duties The Communion of Saints professed in the Creed obliges us to communicate as we have opportunity in all Christian Offices with all true Christians who still retain those Qualifications I spoke of Though it leaves us free to stand off from any others who have
a Breach to maintain a Quarrel against Truth and Righteousness And in that they must go by themselves for none who will take any due care of their precious Souls ought to bear them company So there can be no Re-union till they return from their wicked and ungodly Schism to the way of Truth and Righteousness which they had forsaken CHAP. V. Of the Communion of good Christians or with whom they are to joyn in Divine Offices under a Schism HAving said thus much to shew on any division of Churches whilst faithful Pastors stand firm to their Ministrations in the fore-mentioned Cases who make the Schism and who can cure it I now proceed 3. In the Third place to Treat of the Communion of good Christians under a Schism and how they are to carry themselves towards Schismaticks As for their Communion 't is plain in division between Right and Wrong both as to the Church-Heads and Religious Doctrines and Worship they ought to take the right side As they who are at the Head of that are the Canonical and Rightful Bishops they are bound to communicate with them For the Rightful Bishops being the true Heads of Union the Members must keep true to their Head and hold Communion therewith And this they are ty'd to by all the Gospel-precepts about Union which require their being one or one Body or keeping the Bond of Peace in Churches For this Unity and Peace of Churches must bind them to keep united and at Peace with their Bishops who under Christ are the Governours and Spiritual Heads thereof And by that grand Vertue of Charity so often and earnestly required of the Members and that above all things that they may edifie or build up one another into a spiritual Society For this Charity which is the Bond to bind the Members together not only in private Affections but into one common Body or Church must bind them all to these Rightful Bishops who are the Heads and Rulers of that Body that by keeping united to those Bishops they may keep one Society and not be broken into several Societies And accordingly St. Cyprian presses that Charity which St. Paul makes so necessary to the acceptance of all other Vertues even Faith or Martyrdom it self as indispensably obliging all good Christians to keep in the Communion of their true and rightful Bishops as I observed before And as these true and rightful Bishops are at the Head of necessary Gospel-worship and Doctrines when their Opposers fall off from them good Christians are yet more bound to hold to their Communion They are tyed thereto then not only for the rightful Bishops but also for pure Worship and necessary Truths sake For true Christians must seek to communicate in these And that must be by communicating in the Ministrations of those Pastors which hold to them Besides these in any competition arê Christ's true Shepherds and trusty Watch-men and faithful Guides and uncorrupt Teachers and faithful Ministers because they are the Men who faithfully minister his Word and give his Warnings and dispense that Food which is to keep those Souls alive whom he has given them the Care of And all these are no idle Characters but speak answerable Obligations in the People as I have shewn before to attend on their Ministrations and unite themselves to them And this the Scripture requires in those Precepts which command us in glorifying God to have one mind and mouth to be perfectly joyn'd together in the same mind and judgment and speak the same things and the like For this speaking the same is speaking the same with those who speak right not with those who speak wrong And this Union of minds and judgments must be in uniting with men of Orthodox minds or that hold all necessary Christian Doctrines For if any fall off from these we must not be of one mind with them but of different minds I add moreover that Association and Union of Church-Members under Bishops is for visible Profession and Ministration of pure Worship and Doctrine And therefore they must unite with those Bishops who profess and administer the same Yea their care of their own Safety no less than the love of Truth will make them fly to such Pastors As the Saylors do to the next safe Port when their own is sanded or the Travellers to the next secure Inn when their old one is beset with Thieves as St. Cyprian observes in this Case And as they are thus to hold Communion and unite themselves to those rightful Bishops who keep to pure Worship and Doctrine So are they on the other hand to stand off from those who make the Schism to maintain a sinful Worship or corrupt Doctrine I do not say they are to look on these Schismaticks and Defectors as quite faln from the Relation and Title of Brethren A Schismatical or Excommunicate Christian is still a Christian not an Infidel or Heathen And whilst they continue Christians they retain though not so much Claim as others yet some Claim to Christian Brotherhood albeit they have lost their Claim to Communion Have no Company or Communion with the segregated Man saith St. Paul yet count him not as an Enemy but admonish him as a Brother 2 Thes. 3. 14. 15. And Optatus calls the Schismatical Donatists Brethren tho' they would not call the Catholicks so or be call'd so by them And says that they can not but be our Brethren though they are no good Brethren because we and they have one spiritual Nativity Their Baptism which is the Christians Birth being a valid Baptism though administred in a Schism and the Catholick Church as St. Austin says thereby generating Sons uâ—to God which Sons must be our Brethren For Brotherhood they looked on as consequent on Nativity and going along with it but Communion as going with spiritual society and conversation Though at other times by Brotherhood they understood not only the spiritual Nativity but also the spiritual society and communion of Brethren And then Hereticks and Schismaticks were shut out from that Name and Salutation But though as not having faln from their Baptism and Christianity they may on the score of their common Nativity still admit them to be Christian Brethren Yet as being schismatical and defecting Brethren they must reject and stand off from their Communion They must disown the erroneous and schismatical Bishops and Ministers disclaiming all Ecclesiastical Dependance upon them And hold off from their Religious Assemblies and not come to joyn in their Prayers and Sacraments and sacred Offices Church-communion lying mainly in joyning in these Assemblies and sacred Offices as Excommunication lyes in the excluding and debarring from the participation thereof They are to avoid them as they are Associates or Adherents of Anti-Bishops and makers of a Schism For the Scripture-direction is to mark those which cause Divisions and Offences and to avoid them Ro. 16. 17.
the Church For when they fill'd all places they would be met with in all places and intermix in all dealings And then not to have any Company or Dealings with such they must needs go out of the World which St. Paul gives as one Reason of Relaxation and Allowance in this Case 1 Cor. 5. 10. So that continuing still to shun Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Communion with such Makers of Schisms especially for the setting up of a sinful Worship and Unchristian Doctrines and Practices is so far from being a defection from the Apostolical and Primitive Charity that it is a keeping up to it and is only a retaining of their first Love which ought in all times faithfully to be kept on in all true Churches Now as to the Persons whom this will affect and whose Communion by this Rule is to be shuned in such Cases it barrs this Communion with those who set up and make the anti-Anti-Bishops or who side and take part with them 1. It affects the Electors who chose the Men and their Ordainers and Consecrators who laid hands on them For these give Heads to the New Bodies and create the Schism Others may seditiously call for it or come in to it when once 't is form'd but their part is to give it a Head which formally constitutes and sets it up so that they are Principals therein 2. And those who own subjection and dependance on these Anti-Bishops in opposition to their Old Ones and as Members unite and incorporate under them Thus it is among the Pastors by whom their Authority is received and who thereby all break off from the rightful Bishop to whom in all their Ministrations they ought to keep subject and dependant The Rule of Communion for Priests and Deacons towards their Bishop is to do all Publick Ministrations according to his Allowance and Consent Let the Presbyters or Deacons do nothing without the Consent of the Bishop say the Apostolical Canons and the Council of Laodicea afterwards for 't is the Bishop to whose Trust the Lords People is committed and from whom an Account of their Souls will be required And If any will be for having the Offices of the Church without the Concurrence of a fitting Presbyter who officiates according to the Bishops approbation and allowance let him be Anathema says the Council of Gangra And If any Clergy celebrate Divine Offices in private Oratories or baptize not according to the Mind and Allowance of the Bishop but besides or contrariant to it let them incur Deposition say the Council in Trullo and the Council of Constantinople The Church is settled upon the Bishops and every Act of the Church â—ught to be governed by them saith St. Cyprian Let none do any of those things which concern the Church or publick Service without the Bishop says St. Ignatins that Holy Martyr and Contemporary of the Apostles But let that he reputed a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by those who keep under him or which is administer'd with his Leave And that a due Baptism which is with his consent or approbation 'T is necessary says he that ye should do nothing without the Bishop like as also ye do The Spirit adds he in another place hath preached this saying Do nothing without the Bishop Love Unity fly Divisions And they who continue to call him Bishop but yet do all things without him I think are not men of good Conscience because they do not celebrate their solemn Assemblies according to Christs Precept And to like purpose Tertullian St. Jerome and others And this way of administring all Offices with his approbation and allowance St. Ignatius declares is the way for them to keep Unity with their Bishops For says he as our Lord doth nothing without his Father being united to him not acting without him either by himself or by his Apostles So neither do you any thing without your Bishop and his Presbyters But when the Priests and Deacons of a Diocess turn over from their rightful Bishop to the Anti-Bishop they live in a slagrant Breach of these Rules of Communion They do all their Ministrations then without their Bishop putting in some things into Divine offices and putting out others and observing Days and other things belonging to their Ministrations not only without but quite against his consent and approbation and altogether by the Authority and jurisdiction of another who is set up against him Which is to separate as far as they can from him who ought to be their Principle of Union and to minister in a state of full and Flaming Schism And thus it is also in the Assemblies over which those Rightful Bishops ought to Preside or in the Churches of their own Dâ—oceses If they would keep in the state of Unity they should keep united to their Rightful Bishops who are the Heads of Union to their several Flocks and should stick to them and the Clergy of their Communion for Divine Offices Where their Bishop appears there let the multitude be with them Like as where Jesus Christ goes there the Catholick Church goes too says St. Ignatius But if they break away from all Dependance on them and from all recourse to their ministrations to Depend on the Anti-Bishops and to resort to theirs that makes them all Schismaticks For all these Assemblies of People and Pastors make the Schismatical Bodys whereof the Anti-Bishops are the Heads As the Bishops set up for the Schismatical Heads So the Pastors and People who turn over to them and assemble under them come in to be their Schismatical Members They Form themselves into one Church by erecting an Ecclesiastical Union and Communion among themselves And this is a Schismatical Church as Consisting all of a Party of Members broke off from their True Heads or lawful Bishops 3. Further it may also affect other Bishops and Churches who will take their Part and Communicate with them For Catholick Unity is to be preserved in the Church i. e. Unity and Communion is to be kept up among all Churches And this is by Rules of Accord and Correspondence which give the same Church Acts or matters the same effects in all places Of which Rules I have before discoursed more at large And these Rules will keep up Catholick Unity and the Communion of Saints between all Bishops and Churches since this way they all Communicate or all in Common refuse to do it with the same Persons And therefore if any Bishop of one Church would side and have Communion with Anti-Bishops or with the Schismaticks or Hereticks of other Churches He thereby broke the Rules of Union as well as they and became involved in Schism like one of them For he was as much obliged as others in care of maintaining Unity to keep off from the Communion of such Schismaticks Yea in care of Catholick Unity and Communion to keep off from the Communion of those who make
Corruptions of both Then the way of worship and Tenets themselves are Formed into Parties Men are divided then in opinion and devotion and each way has a distinct body or society visibly to bear them up and profess them And when opposite Communions are thus set up for opposite Worship and Articles mens Communion must go according to their Opinion of the worship and Doctrine For in a breach made for these it will not be expected that men should Unite themselves to those of a contrary minde and keep off from those of the same minde but take part with those who agree with themselves We must Chuse the Church for the sake of the Religion and Unite to that as Christs True Church which sticks to the True Religion Church-Unity and Association always supposing and following True Christian worship and Doctrine but never tying any to go off and separate themselves from the same as I shew'd †before Such will be the effect of the preceding Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Rules for keeping the Unity of the Church and for avoiding Communion with the Schismatical breakers thereof and their Assemblies when a Schism is made by setting up Anti-Bishops to Head immoral or otherwise sinful worship Doctrines or Practices as in the foremention'd Cases The meeting or Communicating in a Schism has a Guilt and Criminalness of its own tho' the matter of all the Prayers were Good and the Preaching Orthodox which they were call'd to communicate in â—â— It alone were a Bar to Communion and would have the forecited Effects as I have shewn But 't is stronger when 't is set up for the Maintenance of Error and corrupt Devotion and when Men are 〈◊〉 into Schism to be drawn on to other Wickedness viz. to make 〈◊〉 of Moral Conscience and to prophane God by immoral-Prayers as they are in the above-named Cases CHAP. VI. Of Ordinations of Anti-Bishops which though always Schismatical are not always Nullities WHat I have said in the foregoing Chapter I think may be sufficient as to the Point of Communion with Anti-Bishops and then Adherents But I conceive it may not be amiss to add something further concerning their Orders since the validity or invalidity thereof â—â— of greatest Consequence and Importance to the Church at such Times One thing indeed is said by St. Cyprian about the Ordaining an opposite or Anti-Bishop against another in a Church already fill'd as when Novatiâ—n was set up at Rome against Cornelius viz. That the Anti-Bishop is no Bishop whence some conclude that in reality he has not the Episcopal Powers conferr'd on him Since after the first there cannot be a second Bishop says he or two Bishops at once in the same Church whosoever is Ordain'd after one is already in who ought to preside alone he is not really a second Bishop but no Bishop at all And if such opposite or Anti-Bishops receive or retain no Episcopal Powers 't is sure they can confer none And then they are really neither Bishops not Priests who are Ordained by them And so neither good Baptisms at least according to the Opinion of the Africanes nor good Sacraments which are of their administring As St. Cyprian and the Africanes answerable to this nulling of the Ordinations null also the Baptisms made by Schismaticks And then on every Ordination of Anti-Bishops against them there would be a new and indispensible Necessity for all the suffering and oppugned Bishops to insist upon their own Powers and Claims lest otherwise the Church should neither have Bishops nor Priests nor the People any valid Sacraments and Church Administrations For the Anti Bishops receiving no Power or Authority for these Administrations from their Ordainers their Ordination being null as he says They can not be impowered according to the Christian Rules of conferring Powers without a New Ordination The conferring of Orders or of Ministerial Powers is tyed by our Lord himself to a particular way viz. Imposition of hands by impowered Persons In point of Orders as of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist the effect is affixed to the Rite of God's Institution So that such Imposition of Hands must give them And if the former Imposition of Hands was null in these Competitions they can not have these Powers of Orders but by a New one The receding of the former Bishop or his ceasing to make any further Competition were they already vested with these Powers by their own Ordination would give the Anti-Bishops scope to exercise the same and to do it alone without any Rent or Division But such Recession is no Ordination nor gives them the Episcopal Powers if they had them not before Yea I add nor would any mere Allowance or after-Ratification of Synods confer the same as I conceive without such New and Valid Imposition of hands When Men pretend they have already received these Spiritual Powers meet Allowance admits of their Pretences But I see not how that alone should confer the Powers if before they wanted them Nor doth mere saying I allow thee to be a Bishop or a Priest without Words not only pre-supposing but actually and from that time conferring Authority upon the Persons seem enough to make them such Which in my Apprehension would make little of the Power of Orders and would be a very lax and cheap Salvo to make good the Usurpations which either now or at any time heretofore have been made by Sectaries upon the Priests Office Besides when they would empower Persons even Synods themselves or Bishops met there can not confer Orders as I say more than Sacraments by what way they please but are bound up as I apprehend to Divine Institutions and are not left to dispose of Ministerial or Episcopal Powers by way of Sentence or of Legislation but only by Imposition of Episcopal Hands But however it might be in the Opinion of St. Cyprian and the African Church of that Age the Africans carrying the effect of Schism farther than others to the Nulling of their Baptisms and Ordinations I think this nulling of all Ordinations of Opposite or Anti-Bishops or making them null in themselves is no Catholick Doctrine nor did the Church tye it self thereto or procede thereby in other Ages The two most Famous Schisms headed by opposite or Anti-Bishops in the Primitive Times and consisting of Men who retain'd the same Faith with the Catholick Church were those of the Novatians and Donaâ—ists But the Ordinations of Anti-Bishops were allow'd to make Men Bishops and Priests in both these Cases One was the Schism of the Novatians which I think presents us with the first setting up of Anti-Bishops in the Christian Church against other Bishops keeping to the same Faith that was profess'd by themselves and which is of the more Account in this Case because of this St. â—yprian himself speaks saying on Account of Novatian when he set up as an Anti-Bishop against Cornelius that the second Bishop is not really secundus but nullus not a second
a Bond each of them pro solide i. e. for the whole sum These local Limitations and Appropriations of Precincts to have every Bishop the Bishop of some place and to have but one Bishop at a time in a City or Place are great and necessary Rules 't is true of Order and Unity And all the Pastoral Powers are most highly served by having them to direct their Exercise and would be mightily disturbed and hindred of their end by the want thereof So that they are conscientiously and carefully to be observed and maintain'd in the Church But their Necessity is for Order and Unity not for the Being of Episcopacy And when there are two Bishops heading seperate Churches at once in a place that duplicity must only prove one to be a Schifmatick but doth not prove him as I think may sufficiently appear from what has been here discoursed to be no Bishop Nay while this separation of Churches could be without the Guilt of Schism as it was in the first standing off of the Jews from the Gentile Converts and as the blessed Apostles themselves allow'd it should be for a time till the Jews could be brought to see the Lawfulness of communicating with Gentiles which was contrary to all their former received Opinions I say whilst such separation was to be tolerated without imputation of Schism to suit the necessity of the Church during their prejudices 't is very likely there were two Bishops set up in the same place by the Holy Apostles themselves Thus in the City of Rome 't is probable that at first there were at once two Churches one of Jews and the other of Gentiles gather'd there by the two Great Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul Epiphanius says of both these Apostles that at Rome they were both the first Apostles and the first Bishops And sets down the Bishops in the first Succession of that Church double Of the Roman Bishops this says he is the succession Peter and Paul Linus and Cletus Clemens Euirdstus Alexander Xystus and so on And this is thought to be the best Reconciliation of those various accounts of the first Successors to the Holy Apostles in that Church And the like may reasonably be thought of other Churches where Jews and Gentiles lived intermixed Epiphanius noting it as a thing extraordinary and unusual in the Church of Alexandria which was a place much inhabited and resorted to by the Jews and where the first Church was planted by St. Mark who was made Bishop thereof by St. Peter the Apostle of the Jews that it had never at any time had two Bishops in the same City at once like other Cities So that what the having of two Bishops in the same City at once strikes at is the Duty of Church-Unity But where it could be tolerated without imputation of Schism and was not destructive of the required Unity as it was not in those first beginnings of the Church when God was pleased for a time to tolerate the former separation between Jews and Gentiles till the Jews had out-grown their Prejudices against communion with Gentiles it was not destructive of or inconsistent with the Being of Episcopacy Thus is not the opposite or Anti-bishops Ordination but only his Communion excluded by having but one Bishop in a Church at a time and by the rightful Bishops being the Principle of Church-Union Because another is their rightful Bishop he can not be the Bishop of that place or Diocess since they can not have two Bishops at once And because that other is their principle of Union they are not to communicate with him as I have shewn at large in the preceding Chapters But though he is not their Bishop nor is to have the communion of the Faithful by reason of his Schism yet he may be a Bishop and have the powers of Orders by imposition of Episcopal Hands in his own Ordination So that among such Anti-bishops and their adherents we are to lament the loss of Unity and Church communion but not of all Orders and Baptisms as if by such Schism they were rendered utterly uncapable either to baptize or ordain and so were like to have neither Priesthood nor Christianity left among them CHAP. VII Of the Excuseableness of the Peoples receiving Ministerial Offices from Men in a Schism rather than live without any at all BUT under such Divisions the rightful Bishops and Clergy supposing the sufferers to be in the right may be too few to give general opportunities for all those good Christians who would keep to them to communicate in Ministerial Offices And in vast numbers of places for the People to shun communion with the Clergy adhering to the Anti-bishops or taking part with them will be to have no communion at all in any Ministerial Offices since they can not have them from any others I do not say it will be so with the Clergy themselves whose part and place being to afford Ministerial Offices they need not want them unless they please and if they can have any though but one or two to joyn with them therein they may minister in an Holy Assembly who have Christ in the midst of them as he himself says But though they will not fall under this necessity nor have such ground to plead the favour of this Case yet the People often may And supposing the Schism what is to be done by the People in this case If they are careful to shun these Ministerial Offices from the hands of Schismaticks in places where they can have them from others may they not without imputation of overlooking the criminalness of Schism have recourse to them as a Make-shift especially if they profess and give out that they do it only on that account where they can have none else or rather than live without any at all I hope they may and that the necessity of having publick Worship and Ministerial Offices will excuse the faâ—iltiness and obliquity of having it at the hands of one communicating in a Schism or out of the Unity of the Church To perswade this I observe that Schism is breaking the one Body into Parties or making sedition in the Church And the spirit of Schism or the malignity of having to do with a Sedition or Party is as it is an owning or espâ—usal thereof and that in opposition to the true Body But when in mere necessity men who live among them have to do with such and profess they take up with them only because they are in want of others whom as they ought so they gladly would associate and joyn with such profess'd serving of their own necessity and disapproving of the others Party is not to own and espouse them And much less is it to take their part and stand by them against the true body since this coming near them at all is only for want thereof and before they appear to oppose the right they should be put into the