belongs unto the Bishop and therefore he was to see that all the Presbyters did their duties assigned to them and that the ministerial acts not allotted to any special Presbyter were to be done by the Bishop himself or by him whom he would appoint to do them Hierom mentions one thing proper to a Bishop Epist ad Evagriâ—m what doth a Bishop saith he excepting Ordination which a Presbyter doth not do where he maketh ordination of Presbytery to be the proper work of a Bishop which the Presbyters were not to perform except perhaps in the Bishops place and by his commission in some cases of necessity as shall be shewed hereafter not that the Presbyters had no hand in Ordination but that the principal act in it Can. 3. was onely the Bishops For the fourth Council of Carthage saith Sed sola propter auctoritatem summo sacerdot o Clericorum ordinatio consecratio reservata est ne a multis Ecclesiae Disciplina vendicata concordiam solveret Scandala geneventur Isid de Eccl. offic c. 7. Can. 5. circa an 656. when a Presbyter is ordained the Bishop blessing him and holding his hand upon his head let the Presbyters also which be present lay their hands by the hand of the Bishop upon his head And it follows in the fourth Canon when a Deacon is ordained let the Bishop alone which blesseth him lay his hand upon his head because he is not consecrated to the Priesthood but to a Service Where we are to observe that the imposition of the hands of the Presbyters is a condition antecedent requisite to the consecration of a Presbyter and so proper to it that it may not be used in the ordination of a Deacon much less of any other inferior officer the blessing is the act in oâ—dination which is appropriated to the Bishop And therefore in the second Council of Hispâ—lis the Presbyters and Deacons consecrated by a Bishop who having sore eyes could not read were deposed from the degrees which they had ill gotten a presbyter having contrary to the order of the Church read the benediction The Bishop performed in the Church the chief offices of preaching and administration of the Communion if he pleased none other being to do either in his presence but by his call sometime to shew his power or out of envy idleness or disdain he neither would himself exhort the people nor require a presbyter to do it ad Nepotianum de vita clericorum Which great fault Hierom reproves in some Churches saith he is a bad custome that the Bishop being present the presbyters hold their peace as though the Bishop envied or disdained to hear them Some other things were in some sort appropriated to the Bishop but were not made so peculiar to him as ordination was nor were they all of them so ancient priviledges nor of that weight for confirmation was the chiefest of them Greg. Epist l. 3. Ep. 26. Conc. Carth. 3. c. 32. Pseudambros in Ep. ad Eph. c. 4. which in some cases and places presbyters might and did usually perform The making of the Chrism the signing of the baptized in the forehead with the sign of the Cross consecration of Virgins of the altar c. were ceremonies of less moment and some of them of a latter institution But notwithstanding that the Bishop had in some things a propriety and in all things Ecclesiastical a principality yet the presbyters had a subordinate power ordinary or extraordinary in the one and in the other for the Bishop could ordain no presbyter without the consent of the presbyters and the imâ—osition of their hands Cyprian affirmeth that the Clergy of Rome presided with Cornelius their Bishop Cyprian Ep. ad Cornelium The fourth Council of Carthage prohibits the Bishop to hear any mans cause without the presence of his Clergy and forbids him to give Can. 22. Can. 23. sell or change any thing belonging to the Church without consent and subscription of the Clergy And that there was not so great a distance between the Bishop and presbyters as hath of latter times been kept nor as is between a presbyter and a Deacon Can. 34. Can. 35. doth appear by some Canons of the same ancient Council which ordain that the Bishop sitting in any place suffer not a presbyter to stand and that the Bishop in the Church sit among the presbyters in a higher seat but in the house must know himself to be a College or companion of the presbyters Concerning the distance between a presbyter and Deacon the Canons of the Synod say that a Deacon is minister as well of the presbyter Vide Conc. Nicenum c. 14. Arelat 1. c. 21. as of the Bishop that a Deacon in the convention of the presbyters may speak onely when he is asked and that he is not to sit but when he is commanded by the presbyter Can. 37. Can. 39. Can. 40. Therefore it may seem that if after 300 years since the decease of the Apostles at which time the power of Bishops was much enlarged there was no more difference between a Bishop and a presbyter the difference was far lesse at that time between the Bishop and the Colledge of presbyters then the birth of popery hath made between them Esai c. 3. Hierom calls the Colledge of presbyters the Bishops Senate intimating thereby that the Bishop ought to hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes in the presence and with the advise and consent of his presbyters Hence it was that l. 3. Epist 22. long before the time of St. Hierome the holy Martyr Cyprian having with consent of the Clergy of the place where he then was being absent from his own City and presbyters ordained one a reader and another a subdeacon he excuseth himself by his Letters to the Presbyters of his own Cathedral saying that nothing new was done by him in their absence but what was begun in their Common Council was promoted by urgent necessity their Council therefore that was requisite in so small a matter was much more necessary in matters of greatest weight It is opportune here to consider the famous question Sect. 8. whether in the first twenty years of the Apostles preaching something more or less the whole care of the Church did in common belong to the Colledge of presbyters of every Church where no Apostle was present nor Evangelist nor any supplying the place of an Apostle or did the care and government of every Church except where some invincible hindrance withstood belong unto one as principal and head and to the presbyters onely as his Senate and Counsellors The Ancients vary in this point Contra haeres Aerii Epiphanius and some others affirm that the office of a Bishop was instituted by the Apostles distinct from the offices of the Apostles Evangelists prophets and presbyters Ultra sacerdotium non est gradus ordinis tamen intra hunc gradum
then they rather by custome then by the Lords disposition So Augustine writing to Hierome although saith he according to the names of honour which the use or custome of the Church hath kept a Bishop be greater then a presbyter yet Augustine a Bishop is in many things inferior to Hierome a presbyter So modestly and humbly doth the most pious and wise Bishop Augustine write unto the holy presbyter Hierome his elder in years and his inferior in dignity They that affirm Episcopacy to be instituted by a Council do not mean a Council taken in a proper sense but for the unanimous votes of the Churches decreeing the same thing upon the same grounds and reasons which are the principal things respected in a Council and it is truely said illud unumquodque dicitur quod est principalius in eo Fourthly it seems consequent to Hierom's above-cited discourse that it is not certain which some affirm that Bishops were set over the Churches before the time wherein St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to Timothy or his Epistle to Titus c. out of which Hierome proves the identity of Bishops and presbyters and the government of the Church by the Colledge of presbyters But of the exact time of the institution of Bishops it 's not much material to know seeing all agree it was made in the time of the Apostles By some of those places cited by him it 's likely he intended onely to prove the name Bishop to be common at that time as well to presbyters as to their superior Ecclesiastical officers But it might be thought that Hierome in this matter contradicts himself In cataloge Scriptorum Eccles in Jacobe because elsewhere he saith that James the brother of our Lord was statim quickly after our Lords passion ordained by the Apostles Bishop of Jerusalem and that he ruled that Church for 30 years until the seventh year of Nero unto this difficulty another may be added shewing a seeming contrariety in this learned Father's speeches concerning the institution of Bishops which is that here he affirmeth the Episcopacy to be an Ecclesiastical and so an humane constitution and in another place that it is an Apostolical tradition It is not hard to reconcile these seeming contrary expressions Epist ad Evagrium for first we must consider Episcopacy or government by one as chief among the presbyters to have been either extraordinary managed by one extraordinary person which was not by any ordinary rule of the Church to have a successour or ordinary in the hand of one person which by a Canon of the Church was to have a successour an Apostle present in any Church had power over the presbyters and the preheminence in all sacerdotal duties above them in that Church Of Apostles some were primary as the twelve other secondary and these were either indeed as well as in name A postles or onely because they were conversant with the Apostles and their helpers and many times left by them in some Churches or sent to them as their Vicegerents such were Timothy Titus Linus Clemens c. all these by their Apostolical function or by vertue of their Vicegerency had the principal rule in the Churches wherein they abode even then when in all other Churches the Colledge of the presbyters took the care of all having no Superior constantly resident over them Afterward when upon occasion of the presbyters abusing their power by reason of the Apostles absence to the be getting of Schismes the Churches by Apostolical consent agreed to give in every Church a principality to one presbyter above the rest which in some time after had the name of Bishop made proper to him and was made an ordinary officer in all Churches then the Apostles and their Vicegerents in the Churches of their residence had the power over the Colledge of presbyters not onely by their Apostleship or Vicegerency but also by the new decree and institution of an ordinary Episcopacy Now because it was thought fit by the Apostles that James should reside at Jerusalem and that not long after the ascension of our Saviour it might truly be said that he was then ordained that is constituted Bishop extraordinary in that place for some particular reasons taken from consideration of some particular condition of that place whose Episcopacy afterward was continued for the general reason of preventing Schismes and consequently of an extraordinary Episcopacy was made an ordinary Episcopacy which was to pass to successors The same proportionably must be said of the Episcopacy of St. Peter in Rome and Antioch of Timothy in Ephesus of Titus in Crete of Linus and Clemens in Rome and so of others all of which were first Bishops extraordinary and after the general decree they were also made as ordinary Bishops in the Churches where the decree found them extraordinary Bishops Hierom doth in many places speak as one that supposed Bishops to be above Presbyters before the making of that decree but his meaning was not that ordinary Bishops were before it for then he had contradicted himself but the extraordinary If the rest of the Fathers be so understood as it is not very improbable but that many of them may the seeming difference between him and some of them may be perhaps in the main reconciled Theodoret saith that Bishops in the life time of the Apostles were called Apostles the name of the extraordinary Bishops being also communicated to the ordinary Bishops who also had some appearance of being Vicegerents unto those twelve general Pastors of the universal Church while they lived as they were counted their successors after their decease As to the other seeming contrariety in St. Hierom's writings affirming the ordinary Episcopacy to be of Ecclesiastical and humane institution and also of Apostolical tradition it is easily answered First That the ordinary Episcopacy is not a primary tradition of the Apostles but of the Churches to whose decree the Apostolical approbation added no new sanction but ratified the authority of the Churches as prudently exercised in making that constitution Secondly that decree may be said to be of Apostolical tradition because their extraordinary Episcopacy and the extraordinary Episcopacy of their Vicegerents established by them were patterns which the Churches had an eye unto for their direction and encouragement in the framing of that decree hoping that the good of peace preserved where the extraordinary Episcopacy was placed would be best maintained in all Churches when the like government should be setled in all to continue by succession 3. Thirdly the ancient Fathers affirm many ecclesiastical observances to be of divine or Apostolical institution or tradition upon other grounds then may beget a certain belief of their being truely divine or Apostolical Augustine saith that whatsoever the universal Church holdeth and is not found in following Councils constituted but always retained is most rightly believed to be delivered by the Apostolick authority De bapt contra Donatist l. 2. c. 7.
to suspend their reception of the ancient Episcopacy but in very deed receiving in some hidden sort the substance of it secretly giving that Authority to the moderator of the Colledge of Presbyters which tantamounts the Authority of the ancient Bishops This was done by them in their Emergency out of the Gulfe of the Babylonish Idolatry and Haeresies when the state of persons and Circumstances would not permit them directly and manifestly to set up the ancient Episcopacy but covertly and cloathed with the apparel of Presbytery Because the appearing of it in its native cloathing seemed to threaten an extreme danger of returning again to Idolatrous Babylon Thus when two duties became inconsistent the keeping out of Idolatry and the open and manifest use of an Ordinance inferior to the maintenance of the purity of Gods worship they did as it was their duty so far forbear the open use of Episcopacy as seemed needfull that they might preserve the truth and sincerity of the worship of God I know many writers are of another mind but the intentions of Churches are better seen in the causes of their actions and the managing of them then in the letter of a Law or in the speculative opinions of private persons Some think the present condition of our Church to be almost the same with the state of those Churches when they first began their Reformation and therefore that we stand in need of the same cure under the habit of the Presbyterian Government Surely these are much deceived first in their opinion of our present state secondly in the sequele if our case were like theirs for when we were like them in departing from Babylon we were unlike them in many other respects and needed not the habit of Presbyters but fall to purge the ancient Episcopacy from as many of the foul excrescencies which the sins of men made to grow to it as the condition of that time would permit whereby our Church kept more uniformity with the primitive Churches and by the blessing of God upon our endevour obtained more measure of the Heavenly light and of the power of Godliness in peace and that for a longer time then any part of those Churches attained unto which were necessitated to shrowd themselves under another habit of Government This I say not any way to disparage any other Church of Christ whom I honour and pray for from my heart or to ascribe any thing to our own wisdome and providence but to honour and glorifie the grace of God for his great mercies to our Church and to defend her honour against the mistakes of some But now our condition is changed our sins have brought us to misery the light and glory of our Church is turned to darkness confusion and contempt from which notwithstanding our unworthiness Gods infinite mercy which hath most gratiously restored our Soveraign Lord the King unto his Kingdomes and Subjects will be pleased I trust to deliver us and to beautifie our Church with the primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy attended by his assessors and Senate the reverend grave wise learned and pious Colledg of Presbyters to govern the house of God after the best pattern of the primitive holy orders and discipline for the obtaining whereof God would have us assisted by His grace to contribute our endevours improved to the uttermost of Christian Wisdom and moderation to be crowned with his rich blessing And because this business is about things for the most part spirituall tending to the edification of Gods house it will no doubt please our gracious King and his great Councell not to proceed in this work without the advise and counsell of them whom Christ hath ordained under Himself Minister all builders of His House least the neglect of His Ordinance and Ministers cause the Lord to blast all other Counsells and endeavours how probable soever they may seem to be in the eye of the world Give unto Casar the things which are Caesars and let the Vicegerents of Christ enjoy the things belonging to them let all interests have their due part in this weighty work and then whatsoever Government be settled what form soever of Divine service what Rites soever and Ceremonies shall be established they will with all readiness and due submission be received and embraced by all the people and all the obedient Sons and Daughters of our dearest Mother the Church of England among whom if there shall be some whose judgments cannot acquiesce in some determinations of the higher powers they will wisely consider first that in the remote conclusions of Divine maximes all good men in this our infirmity will never agree and that nature teacheth us that in controversies the resolution of the major part must be obeyed without which debates would never be ended and St. Paul saith let the spirits of the Prophets be subject to the Prophets Secondly That God hath appointed the powers civil and Ecclesiasticall in his stead to determine Ecclesiasticall controversies and to make Ecclesiasticall Ordinances from whose judgment there is no appeal but only to God by prayer Thirdly That to preserve the peace of the Church and Charity the bond of perfectness is a duty to be preferred before the duty of publick teaching divulging or preaching many of those Divine Truths whose ignorance if not voluntary doth not exclude from Heaven when that teaching or publishing doth disturb the publick peace and consequently the keeping of the peace requireth abstinence in that case from such divulging or preaching And from these considerations good men will infer that it is good for them and that it is their duty both for the sake of Gods Authority for good order sake and for Charity and peace sake out of a Conscientious regard to the higher powers to acquiesce in their determinations and to desist from opposing their private opinion to the publick judgment and pursuing their private interest to the prejudice of publick peace and Charity For which Wisedome and moderation that they may be in all let all good men pray to the onely wise and most mercifull God the Author of Truth and peace An APENDIX THe manner of the Ordination of Bishops forgotten to be shewed by me in due place is declared by the fourth Councill of Carthage in these words Can. 2. When a Bishop is ordained lay and hold the book of the Evangelists upon his head and neck and one Bishop pronouncing the Benediction over him let the rest of the Bishops present touch his head with their hands The Church never accounted any to be capable of this Episcopall Ordination that was not first ordained a Presbyter the manner of whose Ordination was that the Bishop blessing him saying receive the Holy Ghost whosoever sins you shall remitt Concil earth Can 3. c. and laying his hand upon his head the Presbyters present lay their hands upon his head by the hand of the Bishop There was a (a) Tert. de praescript c. 41. Cyprian Epist ad
be Presbyters are the primary Successors of the Apostles and Bishops as Bishops that is as to their presidency are onely secondary Successors of the Apostles There is no great cause of doubt whether those words abovesaid used at this time in the ordination of Bishops or Presbyters Cum Ecclesia in ordinatione sacerdotum Christum imitata ritu perpetuo eisd verbis forma illa Accipite Spiritum Sanctum quorum remiseritis peccata c. Semper usa fuerit quis ambigat idem omnino quod Christum facere c. Vasq in 3. p. disp 239. c. 4. were together with imposition of hands therein used in and from the Primitive times because they are not expressely mentioned in any ancient Author for a thousand years and above for any thing I could learn for first the Fathers do often say that imposition of hands was used in those ordinations and ought to be used as also a benediction and prayers which prayers no question were accommodated in each ordination to the distinction made by the Apostles between Presbyters and Bishops and therefore the words Receive the Holy Ghost whosoevers sins ye remit c. might be used in the prayers of the Bishops ordination for an increase of the grace and power received by them in their Presbyterial ordination and omitted in the prayers of Presbyters ordination wherein they constitute the benediction because the fulness of the exercise of the power given by the ministery of those words and other parts of their ordination is something restrained by the constitution of Episcopacy The reason why those holy men did not set down in their writings the very words of benediction spoken at the imposition of hands In 2 Cor. hom 6. and the particular forms of prayers then used is declared by Chrysostome Nota patres concilia non consuevisse explicare totum ritum Sacramentorum non enim scribebant libros rituales sed solum attigisse unam partem essentialem ex qua caetera omnia intelligerentur Bellarm de Sacram Ord. l. 1. c. 9. who speaking of Bishops beginning the Act of ordination saith That such and such words were spoken which the initiated knew for it is not lawful saith he to detect all before the profane As for the forms of Ordination which were written between the years 700 and 1000 and the forms in Clements constitutions besides that they are of small credit they are imperfect and disagree among themselves In one form of Bishops consecration the book is not remembred to be held over the head of the person to be ordained in another form there is no mention of the imposition of hands In a form of the ordination of a Presbyter the Bishop and Presbyters holding their hands on the head of the ordained it is said det orationem super eum and let the Bishop pray above him then many sorts of prayers follow Whence we may gather that the prayer to be made over him differs from the other prayers and that under the word Prayer the words of benediction which are Receive the Holy Ghost Whosoever sins ye remit c. are comprehended For those words pronounced by the Bishop as the mouth of the Church are a virtual prayer the heavenly gift signified by them Manus impositiones verba sunt mystica quibus confirmatur ad opus electus accipiens auctoritatem teste conscientia sua ut audeat vice Domini sacrificium Deo offerre Ambros in Epist 2. ad Timoth. c. 4. Homo imponit manus Deus largitur gratiam homo imponit supplicem dexteram Deus benedicit potenti dextera Ambros de dignitate sacerd a Greg. Epist l. 7. Epist 63. and to be given in the use of them being begged of God in the preceding and also in the subsequent prayers And as they are pronounced by the Bishop supplying the place and instead of Christ they are Christs benediction and a signification of his operative will in giving the Holy Ghost unto some that 's Presbyters in their ordination to authorise them to do the external acts of binding and loosing c. and to accompany those acts duely exercised in the union and communion of the truely Catholick Church and unto others that is Bishops in their ordination to authorize and enable them for the eminent universal and presidential use and administration of the power of binding and loosing before received in their Presbyterial ordination and for the sole exercise of the power of ordination and to accompany their service duely performed in the union and communion of the true Church of Christ So the words of the institution of the Lords Supper are in themselves no prayers but considered as a part of the prayer preceding them called by Gregory the great the Canon which is not reputed to be ended before those words be prolated they are a virtual prayer being presented unto God in the supplication of the Church for the obtaining of an heavenly effect in the imitation of the act of Christ like unto that effect which was granted at the act of prolation of them by Christ himself Major Angel affirm that they saw some Pontificals which were both without the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. and also without imposition of hands Therefore those omissions are no sufficient arguments to prove that the foresaid words of benediction were not used in the Primitive times We may further prove them to be then in use by this that of all the integral parts of Presbyters ordination we find nothing proper to the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ad Amphilock Can. â—1 but onely those words of benediction for the Presbyters impose their hands as well as the Bishops the Presbyters and people fast and pray with the Bishop there 's nothing left but the prolation of the words of benediction in the name and place of Christ This is confirmed by the story of the purblind Bishop who having laid his hand to ordain a Presbyter and the Presbyters their hands used the eyes and mouth of a Presbyter to read and pronounce the benediction Cone Hispal 2. c. 5. It s not said that the Presbyter read the prayers although its most likely he read them but the benediction And why surely because the prayers were the common prayers of the whole Church and the benediction onely proper to the Bishop and therefore that ordination was rejected as unlawful and invalid a Presbyter and not a Bishop having prolated the benediction and the Bishops commission was of no value because prohibited by the Canons in force at that time Above 300 years before this Bishop in the time of Athanasius all the Presbyters and Ischyras among them which were ordained by Colythus a pretended Bishop were refused to be received by the Church in that degree Athanas in apolog 2. because Colythus was proved to be onely a Presbyter whose ordination in the judgment of the Church the constitution of the Apostles had made
Ex quibusque ergo Ecclesiis quae pia quae religiosa quae recta sunt elige haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone Every Church at least every Provincial Church composed their prayers or other parts of their divine Service as seemed most conducible to their edification and after altered the same or made a new form Vide Bern. Augiens de quibud rebus ad missam pertinent c. 2. Vide Sozom. hist l. 7. c. 19. or received a form used in another Church as they pleased Spain or some part of it received the Roman Liturgy And therefore if it should seem good to the Church of England to mend their Liturgy or compose a new one if need be more agreeable to the present time they should do therein no more then the most famous Churches have done before and which can be no disparaging of the wisdome and piety of the Composers of it which intended onely to make it as fit as could be for the state of the Church in their time which I believe they performed very exactly and not to frame and impose an unchangeable form which could never prove incongruous to any possible variety in the state of the Church for this is not in the power of any persons or Churches Howsoever Ceremonies and a form of Liturgy are no more necessary for Episcopal then a Presbyterian Government which may equally erre in defect or excess or quality of the rites and divine Service Now although both the forms of government and all Ecclesiastical rites be in their nature changeable Sect. 19. because of their dependance upon variable circumstances yet some have been less subject to change or abrogation then other either because they be of smal efficacy to hurt or profit or because the hurt done by them is hardly discerned or because the circumstances which are apt to make them noxious seldome happen or because they are believed to have the Apostles for their authors or approvers Of all other Episcopacy seems least subject to abrogation First because the Churches in all parts of the world were always firmly perswaded that the institution of Episcopacy had the Apostles hand and seal joyned with the mother Churches for the confirmation of it Secondly because many believed that the Apostles never permitted the Colledge of Presbyters to ordain Presbyters in the time that they ruled in the Churches this they received by tradition to which they easily gave their assent because they found not in the Acts of the Apostles or the Apostolical Epistles that sole Presbyters ordained any except perhaps by an immediate command of the Holy Ghost which is extraordinary but with a President either an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Vicegerent of an Apostle as Timothy Titus c. whence they thought it might be very probably collected that the Apostles would have given a principality of the exercise of the power of ordination unto one Presbytet onely in every Church so as without him the whole Colledge could not ordain and would have left the government to be exercised in common equally by all if the Colledge had not so grosly abused their ruling power whereby it was seen that the Colledge had need of a President both in the Government and the Ordination which was accordingly given them by the decree of the Church approved by the Apostles St. Hierome himself hath some passages which seem to favour this opinion â—i passim omnibus Presh esses concessum ordinare tot admitterentur ad ordines quod non servaretur ordo immo potius generaretur confusiâ— ideo dispositum est Dei consilie quod solis Episcopis ordinum dispensatio aliorum officiorum ut consecratio abbatum monialium ecclesiarum consimilium concedatur Bonevent in 4. d. 25. q. 1. and therefore the Churches never suffered a Presbyter or Chorâ—piscope to ordaine except he supplied the place of a Bishop when he could not be present and the Ordination could not be delayed Thirdly The Presbyterian Government was in use in the purest purity of the Churches beginning to spread abroad over the world by the preaching of the Apostles and yet in less then twenty years space Schismes grew out of it which caused the Churches to out it and to establish Episcopacy as the best antidote against Schisme and for the restauration and maintenance of the Churches peace Now if the Presbyterian Government was uneffectuall for the preserving of peace among the most godly and consequently the most addicted to peace who can expect it should be effectuall to restore union and peace and to preserve it in Churches too full of pollutions and staines very much degenerated from the holiness of the Apostolicall times It seems a desperate and preposterous course to use that as a soveraigne Antidote in our time which had the effect of a Poyson upon the Churches in the Aposties time A hurnt Child dreads the fire and should not the weaker members of the body dread the fire that burnt the strongest and best able to resist its force Seeing the remainder of naturall corruption in the most holy Churches drew the Poyson of Scisme from the Presbyterian forme of government we cannot without high presumption think that the far higher degrees of sin remaining in us will be idle suffer grace to make of it an Antidote against Schisme Mountebanks are seen sometime to heal by improper Medicines where the strength of nature and the concurrence of some other secret causes do performe the cure and not the nature of the Physick So may the Presbyterian government have in some place the credit of healing Schismes maintaining peace when in very truth those good effects proceed from the confluence of other causes and not from the aptness of that government to effect them For it seems incredible that it should have in it an aptness to keep us in peace that had in it an ineptitude to keep the most peaceably disposed Apostolick Christians in unity and peace Whence we may conclude that although the ancient Episcopacy be in its nature changeable as being of the Churches and by consequence of humane constitution yet morally and practically it may not be abrogated without dammage to the Church which will assuredly follow if some accidentall benigne influences of some other causes do not for some time hinder its birth I am very apt to believe that the Churches which seem to use the Presbyterian government never intended by any Law deserving the proper name of a Law to settle the primitive Presbytery in their Churches whence the sad Schismes arose in the primitive times much less to abrogate the ancient Episcopacy which in the judgment of the best Christians and of the Apostles is the healer of Schismes and the preserver of peace But that they intended as they had good reason to abrogate the corrupted Hierarchy with the multitude of its oppressing attendants and as necessity compelled them seemingly
invalid Serm. de extellent sacrorum Ord. Ivo Carnotensis speaking of the ordination of Presbyters and having said that the Bishop and Presbyters had laid their hands he adds and they invocate the Holy Ghost upon them which are ordained where he leaves nothing proper for the Bishop but the words of benediction prolated by him and onely by him as in the place of Christ The Bishop invocated in the name of the whole congregation and blessed in the name and place of our Saviour St. Ambrose writing to a Bishop whom he had ordained Epist l. 1. Epist 3. ad Episcopum Comensem saith the ordination which thou hast received by the imposition of my hands and benediction in the name of the Lord Jesus is not reprehended in Esa c. 58. Hierome saith that ordination is not fulfilled onely by imprecation of the voyce but also by imposition of hand Now because the benediction was and ought to be said while the Bishop and Presbyters in the ordination of these impose and hold their hands on the head of the person to be ordained the formal prayer going before the imposition and following after it and because it is the principal part of the ordination to which the imposition of hand is subservient as it is a vertual prayer St. August saith De baptis contra Donatist l. 3. c. 16. what is imposition of hand but a prayer over a man And as it is spoken by the Bishop in Christs stead delivering the Ecclesiastical power in Christs name Ambrose saith In Epist 1. ad Timoth. c. 4. that the imposition of hands are mystical words whereby the elect to the office of the sacred ministery receiving authority is confirmed for his work that he may be bold to offer Sacrifice to God in Christs steed Whereby we see that imposition of hand and the benediction are distinct parts of ordination yet so conjunct and the benediction so excelling the imposition of hand that the whole is reckoned nothing else but a benediction or prayer I confess that I did sometime begin to suspect that when the Roman Court had determined ordination to be a Sacrament properly so called as baptism and instituted by our Saviour they put in those words in the solemnity of ordination for the better confirmation and propagation of their new opinion but considering the reasons aforesaid and especially that the blessed Reformers of our Church have retained the same words and nothing doubting but that in so doing they did not favour the popish opinion but were perswaded they did therein follow their pattern which was the usage of the Primitive Church I rejected that conceit and suspition The first Author that I can remember to have read more expressely intimating the said words of benediction to be used in the ordination of Presbyters is our Country-man Alexander of Hale in these words Summ. part 4. q. 21. membr 4. the Keyes saith he are given with the sacerdotal order when it is said whose fins you remit c. and when a Bishop is consecrated another Key is not conferred upon him but the use of that first Key is extended Thus far he who flourished about the year 1240. In the words Whose sins ye remit c. remission must not be taken precisely for the taking away the guilt of sin or the reconciling of paenitents upon their private or publick repentance for sins committed after baptism but also for the taking away the power and raign of sin which is done by infused grace which having removed the spiritual darkness and death illuminates the soul and makes it alive to God Every part of the Presbyterial function tends to this last effect as well as to the former although one pastoral office may be more especially directed to the former and another in a more special manner to the latter effect The Fathers do often apply those words in St. John now frequently remembred and the like in Matth. ch 16. and chap. 18. to the act of reconciling Paenitents to God and the Church and much oftner then they do to any other kind of the ministerial loosing or remission and they had good reasons moving them so to do For first Haereticks began in the second Century to deny that Christ left any ministerial power in his Church for the remission of any great sin committed after baptism and this Heresie was revived by Novatian and Novatus in the third Century and quickned by the Donatists in the fourth Century Against which the Orthodox Pastors of the Church used those places of Scripture to prove that the power of reconciling such Penitents was given to the Church of Christ Secondly the zeal of the people in the Primitive Times and the encouragements of the Ministers and after the Canons of the Church inclined the people to make confession of their secret enormities to the Church or Pastors not because necessary to salvation but because it was found very profitable as the times and persons were then qualified and publick offendors were brought to publick repentance and this being duely performed were publickly reconciled to God and his Church These things being so frequent and solemn yet very irksome and grievous to flesh and blood it was very necessary for the Fathers of the Church to put the people dayly in mind of the benefit of those confessions and penitence and the necessity of both as to scandalous offences in order to a publick reconciliation which they could not otherwise do better then by making use of those places of Scripture for the Demonstration and proof of the peoples Duty and the certainty and comfort of their reconciliation None of those holy Pastors denyed the ministerial power of remission or loossing to be exercised in the other ministerial offices instituted as the means which God would bless if not abused for the begetting and increasing of saving grace Yea some of them have expressely taught that the preaching of the word baptism and consequently the Lords Supper are Keyes which open Heaven to some and shut Heaven against others and are the instruments of Gods power to loose some from the bonds of the guilt and power of sin and to bind those that refuse to be loosed by them For doth not the Lords Supper bind the unworthy receivers who eat and drink their own damnation and doth it not set at liberty and open Heaven to them who in eating and drinking according to the will of Christ eat and drink their own salvation but le ts hear what holy Hierome saith the Apostles do loose men saith he by the words of God In Esa c. 14. the testimony of the Scriptures and exhortation of vertues Epist ad Hedib q. 9. And again in another place the Apostles saith he in the first day of Christs resurrection received the grace of the Holy Ghost whereby they might remit sins and baptise and make sons of God and give the spirit of adoption to believers our Saviour himself saying
like successor of Peter's Church but to our hearts unspeakable grief we speak it the gold is become dimme the most fine gold is changed the holy City is become an harlot O that she would return to her first husband that we might return to her Ther 's Peter's chair where Peter's preaching is sincerely imitated that 's Peters Church which imitates her faith and holiness which when Rome shall do she shall recover her precedency of succession Thus Peter had a primacy among the Apostles but no superiority of command over them All pastors were in him first and secondarily in the rest of the Apostles De dignitate Sacerd. c. 2. Jo. 21. Peter saith Ambrose did not alone receive the sheep but received them with us and we received them with him Christ in the Apostles gave unto all Pastors the power of ordaining Pastors because he gave them the Keyes to be conveyed to successors But the power of appointing who among the Presbyters should exercise them and how and who among them should be governours of the use of the Keyes was not conveyed with the Keyes to all Pastors in the Apostolical ordination because it was peculiar to the extraordinary office of the Apostles either to leave that to the wisdome of the Church and ordinary Pastors to order or to settle it in one Presbyter assisted with the Colledge of Presbyters or otherwise as the Holy Ghost should guide them We may not think that our Saviour did give unto every Presbyter power to ordain preach administer the Sacraments excommunicate or absolve at his own will and pleasure without any appointment of a flock or calling him to account of his Stewardship c. for this is against the light of nature unless God had given unto every Presbyter wisdome and a will which could not erre in the orderly use of the Keyes as he gave unto the Apostles without which extraordinary grace the house of God in that case had been full of disorder and confusion which Christ would not permit If the power of disposing and governing the act of ordination and the exercise of the acts of binding and loosing had been given to the body of the Presbyters by our Saviour the Apostles and universal Church had never deprived the Colledge of that authority Wherefore as the first planting of the Christian Churches was proper to the Apostles so the constituting of the form of government and the governors of the exercise of the acts of ordination and the Keyes was committed onely to their trust And it was very congruous that Christ would not determine the form of the government of his Church and Pastors thereof before his ascention into heaven and the taking full possession of his government and Kingdome at the right hand of his Father The Apostles planted the Churches after this manner When God had blessed their ministery in Cities and considerable Towns and in the Country adjacent in the conversion of many to God they constituted one congregation or Church of all the converts in that City or good Town and the Country about it So ordering Ecclesiastical Corporations as might as much as could be best agree with the civil corporations and their division For the feeding of which Church they ordained Pastors and those many in every City-Church Ubi est Ecclesia nisi ubi virga gratia floret sacerdotalis Ambros de Isaac anima c. 7. Es Hier. contra Lucifer Ecclesia non est quoenon habet Sacerdotem in which they left the Colledge of Presbyters governors both of the Pastors individually considered and the whole flock yet with and under themselves or their vicegerents as presidents when either of them were present But within a short time when Christianity was much spread in several Nations and many City-Churches were grown populous so that they had many lesser Churches under them and the Apostles and their Vicegerents could be present but in very few in comparison of the far greater number which wanted their society the Colledges in these began to be divided among themselves and to divide the Churches which caused the Apostles guided thereto by the Spirit of Christ to consent to a change of the government which was by the Colledges bodies without a head and so apt to swerve in ruling populous Churches into a president in every Church chosen out of the Pastors together with the Colledge of the City and best Presbyters as his Senate and Counsellors And then both the Apostles and Evangelists or Apostolical helpers which were extraordinary Bishops become ordinary Bishops to be succeded by others And these last were like our Arch-bishops having many Bishops under them as Titus in Creet c. and the Apostles were like our Primates but of higher authority and having more Arch-bishops under them Here we may observe that the original occasion of Episcopacy doth very much commend it it being introduced to heal the evil of Schisme and by preventing it for time to come to secure the peace of the Church And it hath and will be the more acceptable to the Churches because it was instituted or confirmed by the Apostles at their desire Unto the imposition of hands benediction and prayers which were of the essence of the ordinations of Bishops and Presbyters many Ceremonies were in time added some sooner some later which served to make a clearer manifestation of the Ecclesiastical powers received in and by them which additional Ceremonies in time became occasions of foul mistakes Some making the additions to be the essence of the ordinations or part thereof other multiplying the ordination of the Apostles according to the diversity of kinds of the powers which they in very deed received but in one ordination although iterated for some special reasons When the Schoolmen began to write they found the Roman Court full of corrupt doctrine which they thought themselves bound to maintain mistaking miscalling the evil good and the good evil They found in the ordination of a Presbyter the Patene with Bread and the Cup with the Wine both unconsecrated to be delivered unto the party to be ordained with these words spoken by the Bishop Cont. Florent Sotus in 4. d. 24. Major Tho. in 4. d. 24. viz. Take power to offer c. which Ceremony added to that ordination about the year 700 as is probable some Schoolmen and also Pope Eugenius the fourth affirm to be the matter and forme of the consecration of a Presbyter making the imposition of hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. to belong onely to the solemnity thereof and not to be essential to it against the judgment of all antiquity Other maintain the delivery of the Patene with Bread Scotus in 4. d. 24. Vasq in 3. disp 239. Bellar. de sacramento ord i. 1. c. 9. and the Cup with wine in it together with the said words spoken by the Bishop to be one part of the ordination and the imposition of
be made to thrust another out of the Church but reading and prayers and preaching c. ought to be so proportioned to the time appointed for them and the strength of them that officiate that no necessity that may be prevented may compel to the omission of any divine ordinance that ought to be performed In the sixt Council of Constantinople at which time much corruption was crept into the Churches the Fathers present in it commanded that the Bishops and Presbyters should dayly preach Gan. 19. especially on the Lords day It is commanded by another Council that if a Presbyter cannot preach by reason of sickness Conc. Vasens Can. 4. sub Leone 1. that a homily or sermon of one of the ancient Fathers be read by the Deacon In another Council it s thus decreed that if the Bishop be not at home or is infirm or is not able for some other cause yet never let on the Lords days or Festivals any want to be of one which may preach the Word of God so as the vulgar people may understand Concil Maguntiac c. 25. circa an 813. The Primitive Bishops were preaching Bishops and usually preached every Lords day as we see in Justine Martyr and in Festival days in the principal fasting days in Lent as we find in Ambrose Chrysost Augustine and others But I must return to speak of the Ceremonies of the Church The Ceremony of standing and not kneeling in prayer on the Lords days and the days between Easter and Whitsontide was in use in the Apostles days and instituted by them Apud anthorem Christian resp resp 115. as Irenaeus the hearer of Polycarpus Auditor of the Apostle John doth testifie In the time of Tertullian about the year 200 many other Ceremonies are mentioned by him which we find not in any approved Author before him spoken of and are affirmed by him to descend from the Apostles as the signing of the forehead of the baptized with the sign of the Cross besides Tertull. de corona militis c. 3. the usual signing with the same sign upon sundry occasions the tasting after Baptism of milk and honey the use of having Suerties for Infants to be baptized De Bapt. c. 7. 18. the annointing of the baptised with oyl Offering for the faithful deceased which was thus the friends of the deceased offered bread and wine in their behalf for the use of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and the Priest by faith in prayer in the celebration of the Eucharist presented to God the Father the sacrifice of Christ once offered by him and which was in some manner present in the Sacrament beseeching him for that most holy and perfect sacrifice sake to take away the remainder of sin from the soul departed which was not taken away in this life both as to the guilt and inhaerency of it and to grant to the soul the promised present blessed rest and in the day of judgment to make the person partaker of the publick justification and possession of full faelicity Before the receiving of the Lords Supper they kissed one another with the holy kiss the sign of true love and peace which we are sure was used in the Apostles dayes and seems to argue strongly for the use of significant Ceremonies The Easter and Pentecost were the set and solemn times of the administration of the Sacrament of Baptism de bapt c. 18. I need not speak of Confirmation of the observation of the Feasts of Easter and Pentecost of the fast in the days of our Saviour's death and burial of the less perfect and voluntary fasts of Friday and Wednesday Tert. de jejun c. 2. which be in part before touched for my purpose is not to make an exact collection of the ancient rites but of such as may give some light to see whence those Ecclesiastical Ceremonies which have been and partly are used in our Church took their beginnings As concerning the gesture of the body used in the prayers of the Church de Orat. c. 12. it was kneeling or standing this last on the Lords dayes Tertul. l. 2. ad uxor c. 9. de Monogam 6.10 and in all the Pentecost For as Tertullian saith it is a most irreligious fact to pray to God sitting before him unless we upbraid Him that prayer hath wearied us Concerning Matrimony De Veland Virg. c. 11. de pudicitia c. 9. Ambros Ep. 70. Nazianz. Epist 57. in Tertullian's time they defired of the Bishops presbyters Deacons and Widows leave to marry they were married by a Bishop or presbyter the woman used a Vaile they joyned their right hands kissed and Tertullian doth also seem to intimate the use of a ring it is certain it was in use in Isidors time and before Isidor de Eccl. offic l. 2. c. 19. the Bridegroom saith he gave a Ring to the Bride which was put upon her fourth Finger We may gather from Tertullian De bapt c. 9. Apolog. contagent c. 30. that the Lords prayer was commonly used in the publick prayers of the Church for he calls it the legitime and ordinary prayer which saith he being laid as a foundation we may build upon it the petitions which our particular cases require He shews that our private prayers wherein we express to God our particular wants and desires must not be loud not altogether set formes but prompted to us without such monitor by our own hearts which alone can tell us our particular necessities When we pray saith Cyprian let the Father acknowledge the words of his Son Cypr. de orat Dom. And we do saith he the more effectually obtain what we ask in Christs name if we ask using his own prayer Hom. 42. ex 50. The Lords prayer saith Augustine is dayly said at the Altar of God in his Church The fourth Council of Tolet. Can. 9. called it a Quotidian a dayly prayer and commanded it to be said by the Clergy not onely on the Lords days but every day both in the publick and private duty Concerning prayer de orat dom Cyprian hath these remarkable words when we stand to prayer saith he our mind must be onely upon that it prayeth and therefore the Priest premising a preface before the prayer prepares the minds of the Brethren saying Lift up your hearts that the people answering We have unto the Lord may be admonished they ought to think on noâ—hing but the Lord By which words we learn two things First that in Cyprian's time which was 250 years after our Saviour's birth set forms of publick prayers were used in the Churches Secondly that the people had other answers besides Amen to make to the minister in the solemn prayers of the Church De bono perseverantiae c. 13. de Spir. lit c. 11. Augustine discovereth what followeth those words of the publick prayers mentioned by Cyprian the Priest said saith St. Augustine let us give thanks to
hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. to be an other part thereof and both these parts to constitute the whole essence of the ordination As if our Saviour had made the Apostles Presbyters by two distinct ordinations the one before his death and the other after his resurrection whereof the first if we will without reason believe them made them Priests the second gave them the power of binding and loosing and made them complete Presbyters As concerning the ordination of Bishops Divines saith Vasq do not well agree at what time they were ordained In 3. p. d. 242. c. 7. Some think that Christ ordained them when he said Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins ye remit c. this opinion is justly rejected by Vasques unless it may be made good that Bishops and Presbyters had one and the same ordination for all grant that Presbyters were ordained by those words Other imagine Peter alone to have been imediately ordained by our Saviour and the rest of the Apostles by Peter c. so Bellarmine and others but this assertion doth not please Vasques and we cannot be pleased with such figments Others doe conceive our Saviour to have ordained them Priests and Bishops when he said Do this in remembrance of me This opinion is as false as the last Some think them ordained in the day of Pentecost and Vasques himself thinks them to have been ordained when Christ said unto them Go teach all nations c. which is as groundless an opinion as any of the rest Whereas in truth when they were ordained Apostles they were made Presbyters having the pastoral powers which were to be transmitted to successors and were also made extraordinary Bishops having as essential to their extraordinary function of Apostleship an extraordinary presidency and superintendency over the use and exercise of all the pastoral offices but were not made Bishops which were to be succeeded until they themselves by confirming the prudent choice of the Churches had instituted Episcopacy The Schoolmen found the Laicks impower'd by commission from Rome c. to excommunicate Hence they distinguish between the power of the Order and the power of jurisdiction We gather from the holy Scriptures and the practice of the Primitive Church that excommunication was ordained to be a mean to bring a person guilty of some scandalous sin committed after Baptism to the degree of repentance and humiliation meet first to receive pardon of sin through faith in Christs blood Secondly to satisfie and edifie the Church by good example in proportion to the offence given and harme done by his bad example Thirdly to take away the evil propensity the skars and blots made in the Soul by the sin committed and to restore the offender to the degree of purity of Soul and consequently of communion with God and of Gods love to him which he enjoyed before his fall which are obtained when God is glorified and pleased by the humiliation in proportion to the dishonour done to God and the divine displeasure incurred by sin Fourthly to receive more strength to make the penitent able to stand and avoid the like fall in time to come In the first four Centuries after our Saviours birth a full absolution was not granted to any Penitent except in case of necessity until the Bishop and Presbyters judged his repentance and humiliation to have restored him to Gods grace and favour Cyprian ad clerum De Presbyteris qui temerè pacem lapsis dederant the good opinion of the Church and to his former spiritual strength in grace And therefore we may be assured that no man was excommunicated from the Church militant but in order to receive grace to restore him to and fit him for the Church triumphant and that it was the same Key which did shut the dores of both Churches against the offender and was to open the dores unto him having given sufficient testimony of a due humiliation The Catholick Church in the Primitive times did not divide excommunication into two distinct kinds that is into excommunication from the Church triumphant and excommunication from the Church militant the first proper to the Bishop and Presbyter and the other peculiar to the Bishops and his Committees Presbyters or lay this to be exercised by the power of Jurisdiction the former to be exercised by the power of order that is the power which Bishops and Presbyters received from Christ by their ordination Whereby we understand the power of jurisdiction in this sense as opposed to the power of order to be the gift neither of Christ nor of his Apostles If the Church gave this power it was a corrupt Church that gave it for by this ordinance of man the ordinance of Christ is made void The ordinance of man is exalted above the ordinance of Christ for the excommunication which is Christs ordinance may be executed by the Presbyter in subordination to the Bishop but without his Commission the humane excommunication is made peculiar to the Bishop the chief officer in the Church to be executed by himself or some other by his commission Much good do it to the Roman Bishops whose cheif Bishop first invented it our Bishops like it not it hath been too importunate to stick in part unto them but they will perfectly shake it off as soon as they can The excommunication which is Christs ordinance hath parts or members whereby it may be more or less full greater or lesser but it ought not to be coupled with a mate a brat of mans invention De paenitentia l. 1. c. 2. Munus Spiritu Sancti est officium Sacerdotis jus autem Spiritus Sarcti in solvend ligandisque criminibusest Ibi Deus par jus saith Ambrose solvendi esse voluit ligandi God would that there should be equally as a right of loosing so a right of binding And therefore he that hath not the right of loosing saith he neither hath he the right of binding And a little after he that hath saith he a right to loose he hath a right to bind And a little after the same Father saith that this right or power of loosing and binding is permitted onely to Priests that is Bishops and Presbyters and thence concludes that Hereticks which had no Priests could not challenge this power Then this Holy man sheweth the spring of the same power he that receiveth the Holy Ghost saith he receiveth the power both of loosing and of binding as it is written Receive the Holy Ghost Jo. 20. whose sius ye remit c. Therefore he that cannot loose sin hath not the Holy Ghost that is Si fictus est Praesbyter aut Episcopus Spiritus Sanctus Disciplinae effugiet fictum deest saluti ejus ministerium tamen ejus non deserit quo per eum salutem operatur aliorum Aug. contra epist Parmen l. 2. c. 11. as making him an able minister of the New Testament and of the spirit for the