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
in 2 Cor. hom 6. Conc. Forojuliens an 791. c. 13. Athanas dicta interpret parabol S. Script sacraments and censures c. breathing upon them and saying receive ye the Holy Ghost whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained hence it is that the ministery of the new Testament fully confirmed is in an eminent way the ministery of the spirit and so called and hence it is that the Apostle saith that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds casting down reasonings and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ This measure of the Spirit going along and operating in the ministerial preaching prayer baptising blessing absolving c. was now very necessary as in other respects so in this that the world that had been so long captivated by Sathan and mightily habituated in all sinful ways Semen Sermonis Christi cum in animam audientis inciderit per gradus suos crescit-tam diu in ancipiti est quamdiu pariat quod concepit Hierom. in Epist ad Gal. c. 4. might be converted unto God and preserved in his grace Some will say why are not all hearers of the Gospel converted to which it is soon answered that the Holy Spirit worketh in all them that hear the Gospel preached to them yet gradually first that they may co-work and then that they may continue co-working until the work of saving faith be perfected in them He gives an eat able to hear to the hearers he gives ability to understand and gives ability in some degree to will the good and where the good is willed he hath given the will and the deed and where the Good we are enabled to understand and Will is not understood or Willed that comes from the natural corrupted freedome of mans will which the spirit doth not take away against our will because he will not destrey his own work namely that good natural freedome of will conferred upon man in his creation capable of being a subject of good or evil A person not ordained to the holy ministery may in time and place teach and exhort with a speech no less Orthodox wholesome and perswasive then any ordained minister of the Cospel can use and yet it must be acknowledged to be far inferior in its operation tending to true edification then the speech of a minister seeming less perswasive because this is alwayes accompanied with the spirit the other is not but supposeth some grace in the hearer which it stirreth or if it be accompanied with a quickning or healing grace it is of Gods mere indulgence and not by vertue of Gods ordinary constitution and promise and therefore the spirit going with the exhortation of the minister doth alwayes edifie or is resisted and so the word preached by him is a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish to the one the favour of death unto death and to the other the savour of life unto life The Apostles all this while had not received the gradual complement of the gifts ordained to be bestowed upon the ministers of the new Testament Sect. 3. it was meet that Christ should in our entire nature open heaven and enter into it before the fulness of the ordinary or extraordinary gifts subservient for the right using of the Keyes of Heaven should be granted to his Vicegerents upon earth Wherefore after his opening and possession of Heaven he gave those gifts unto men both extraordinary in the Apostles Evangelists and Prophets and ordinary in the Pastors and Doctors The first ordinary Pastors received their ordination from the Apostles of the Apostles we know no other ordination then Christs immediate calling of them to that office in which they were by the foresaid degrees perfected the Pastors received in the Apostles ordination their seminal or virtual ordination as was said to their function which received its perfection of degrees in the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles The Author of the Comments upon St. Paul's Epistles attributed to St. Ambrose saith that it was lawful at the first for Laicks and Deacons to preach in the Assemblies and Baptize yet of that his assertion he brings no sound proof Philip was ordained a Deacon and he baptised the Eunuch Ananias a Disciple baptised Saul after called Paul did Ananias do so onely in the capacity of a Disciple and the other onely in the capacity of a Deacon No surely for it appears that they had an immediate mission from God to teach and baptise which is equivalent to an ordination to the office of a Pastor either as to those acts onely and for that time only or as to the whole pastoral function to be constantly exercised If any examples be found in the Acts of the Apostles of any Laicks or Deacons performing pastoral offices whose ordination ordinary or extraordinary is not mentioned it s meeter to judge and beleive that they had either the ordinary call or the extraordinary according to the examples of Ananias and Philip when the contrary cannot be proved then to affirm that any lay-man might then at his pleasure exercise the acts of that sacred vocation Paul was no sooner a Christian but he was instantly by Christs immediate appointment made an Apostle Act. 9.15 20. cum Gal. 1.16 17 23. and without any other ordination preached the Gospel of Christ 1 Tim. 2.7 yet some years after he together with Barnabas were by the express command of the Holy Ghost ordained by certain Prophets and Doctors which then were at Antioch In which ordination two things are observable First that the Apostles were ordained by their inferiors in office but the extraordinary commission whereby this was done makes an exception confirming the rule which is that without all contradiction the less is blessed of the greater Heb. 7.7 The second thing to be considered in that ordination are the sacred ceremonies used in the ordination of Pastors to wit prayer which is the principal fasting to commend the prayer and imposition of hands as a visible demonstration of Gods blessing them and their ministery with the gift of the spirit to accompany their service to the loosing of men from the guilt and power of sin and setting of them at liberty to walk in the wayes of Gods commandements An ordination of Pastors celebrated without any one of these ceremonies cannot be accounted right and regular St. Paul with other who were Presbyters ordained Timothy by the joint imposition of his and their hands we find imposition of hands placed by the Apostle among the fundamentals of Christian Religion 1 Tim. 4.14 cum 2 Tim. 1.6 Heb. 6.1 2. and there although it followeth the immersions in the names of the blessed Trinity and therefore may seem to import confirmation yet it need not
and branch no no he only taxeth the exorbitancy the abuse the ambition and not the holy function he expounds himself when in the same place he expresseth the prelacy which he wisheth outed to be the Tyrannie of Authority and preheminence it is that which caused many wife men to shun the function because in had company it is difficult to rule well which at all times is the work of an excelling faculty Greg. Niz in Apolog 1. In orat ad patrem Basilia praesente and it many times happens saith the same Father that grace it self begets Pride and then we know that the corruption of the best is the worst Secondly Hierome was not inferiour in learning eloquence and piety to any of the Ancients neither did any excell him in the knowledg of the antiquities of the Church And he that doth not look very narrowly into the works of Epiphanius may find him defective in this last Hierome's testimony concerning the originall of Episcopacy although in formall expressions it differs from Epiphanius's yet perhaps by the distinction of extraordinary and ordinary Episcopacy the difference in words may be brought into an unity in sense and if there be a difference in the sense between them Yet Hierome affords a more immediate direct and efficacious argument for Episcopacy and its contiruance then the other I am much deceived and have Crossed mine own resolution if I have not delivered the truth impartially as I found it in the holy old Doctors And although a lover of the Presbytery may dislike some passage of this little book singly considered and a lover of Episcopacy dislike some other passage in like sort apprehended yet I have good hope that when both have read the whole and layed before them the entire series of the discourse they may see good reason to like well in the whole what they disliked apart and by it self considered and will candidly acknowledg that every thing therein tends to the same good end which both profess to ayme at A Treatise of the Primitive Episcopacy Liturgies Rights c. IT having pleased God to choose for himself out of sinful men a peculiar people to set forth his glorious praises he never left the world destitute of heavenly institutions and Laws whereby men might be translated from the state of sin and misery to the state of holiness and Salvation and be made and preserved answerable in conversation to the blessed condition of their translation and change These willing and obedient people addicted to the Service of Almighty God were are and will be by him reputed his house Family and Kingdome which therefore cannot be imagined to be without order and rule without some certain persons set apart to teach the Divine Laws and execute other Divine institutions and with consent of the concerned to make Ecclesiastical Ordinances which times places and other circumstances require agreeable to the Divine and subservient to the due and most decent execution of them Of the number of these teachers and rulers of Gods house were Adam Noah Abraham and other heads of numerous Families unto the time of the giving of the Law by Moses after the Law partly fit persons of the tribe of Levi partly the Prophets partly men bred in the Schools of the Prophets and John the Baptist performed the Divine and Ecclesiastical functions unto the time of our Saviours Baptism after which time he himself the Builder and Master of the house and Family whose servants and under-officers all other rulets acknowledge themselves to be deriving from him not onely their authority but also all their abilities whereby they are made able in any measure to fulfill the holy offices he I say in his own person and in our nature was pleased to execute such parts of his own institutions as he saw convenient for himself to perform and to choose besides seventy Disciples twelve other men to be his Apostles and Ministers of the heavenly doctrine and annexed ceremonies It appeareth that it was the intention of our Saviour that the number of twelve Apostles should be his primary instruments in founding the Original Churches of Christ the Mothers of all other Churches to succeed unto the end of the world It was also his purpose to make them parents of all other Ministers which should succeed in an ordinary course which is hereby manifest because Christ promised to be with them unto the worlds end which cannot be verified of their persons and therefore is to be understood of them in the persons of their successors proceeding from them by successive ordination Basil constit Monast c. 22. Chrysost in Epist ad Coloss hom 3. and represented in their persons wherefore the ordination of the Apostles was in some sort the ordination of their successors and their mission to teach and baptize was a virtual or legal mission of the other There were three Editions of the covenant of grace the one from Adam to Abraham the second from him to our Saviour the third from our Saviour unto the end of the world In every of these the substance and kernel of the Covenant was and is the same the difference is in remarkable accidents and circumstances the Ministers of the heavenly Doctrine in the first and second preached Christ to come and had the Spirit accompanying the word and seals of the Covenant ministred by them as an incident annexed by Almighty God to their ordination but yet so as the spirit was ordinarily given in a lesser measure to the ministery of the first then or the second Edition The Apostles were in their call to the Apostleship before the death of our Saviour ordained ministers of the third Edition of the Covenant because Christ was now come in the flesh and had begun to publish the great Salvation and therefore they had a proportionable increase of the spirit added to their ministery for the working of repentance faith and holiness in men above the ordinary measure granted to the ministery of the second Edition Notwithstanding that the Ministers of the first and second Edition of the Covenant of grace Sect. 2. had a power of binding and loosing in having the spirit accompanying their office and service and that the Apostles in the mortal life of our Saviour had the same in a higher degree yet the promise made to the confession of St. Peter of giving unto him a power of binding and loosing with the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven was not in vaine as of a thing which he had already received for he had received the same onely in the measure and degree meet to be dispensed at that time and not in the ordinary fulness promised to the ministers of the new Testament fully confirmed by the death and resurrection of Christ and therefore our Saviour after his rising again from the dead bestowed upon them that promised fulness of the Spirit which was in ordinary to accompany their ministery of the word Chrysost
Whosoevers sins ye remit they shall be remitted Thus far Hierome The powers promised unto St. Peter in Matth. ch 16. and the powers given unto the Apostles when our Saviour breathed upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost c. and the powers mentioned in the 18 chap. of St. Matthew supposed before given or to be in a special manner given in time to come are one and the same powers Chrysost de sacerdotio l. 3. Ambros l. 1. deâ—â—aenit c. 1. 6. Hier. ad Heliod de vita solit Athanas serm in illud pâ—â—ofecti in pagum c. Cypr. de simplicit Praelat and so taken to be by the Doctors of the Primitive Church which they do unanimously acknowledge to be given unto the Apostles both in right and possession as to the essential parts of the powers before Christs death although there is some seeming variety among them concerning the punct of time before his death wherein Christ gave them declaratively unto them and the immediate subject to whom they were given Considering their sayings concerning this matter and comparing them together and so expounding them that they may agree with the Scriptures and among themselves these following assertions may be gathered from them First They do not deny the said powers to have been given as to their essentials unto the Apostles when he called them to the Apostleship and gave them the name of Apostles For they could not think that Christ gave them the name of the office without the office it self And it appears that the Apostles preached and baptised before the promise of them was made unto Peter They received with the name of Apostles the powers to minister all the doctrine and means of salvation which Christ intended in due time to deliver unto them Act. 1.24 25. Act. 26.16 And therefore when the Sacrament of the Eucharist was instituted they needed not a new ordination but onely a signification of Christs pleasure that they should use the power before given them in the administration of this ordinance which is but an extention of the power to a new object Secondly they agree Chrysost in Joh. hom 85. Cyprian de simplicit Praelatoruus Aug. de Trinitate civitate Dei c. 4. quaest ex vet Novi Testam c. 93. that all the Apostles received those powers when our Saviour breathed upon them c. and that this was a solemn ordination of them giving them more grace to accompany their ministery then they had in their first call and less solemn ordination or in the subsequent manifestation thereof before his death This is the more proper ordination of the ministers of the new testament the full original and seminal tradition of the ministerial powers whereby all future ordinations of the like kind are sanctified and for these causes our Saviour iterated their ordination to the pastoral extraordinary and ordinary offices and the rather least his death might be thought to have made void their first more secret and covert ordination Some late writers think that Christ lest his ascension into heaven might seem to have nullified the second ordination did ordain the Apostles the third time in the day of Pentecost Hier. epist ad Hedib q. 9. but it s more likely that he did then onely complete their ordination in the measure of extraordinary and ordinary gifts of the spirit enabling them and in them the succeeding Pastors for the better execution of their pastoral functions Thirdly the fathers agree also in this that Christ gave equal power and authority unto all the Apostles and made them all ministerial rocks and fundations Cyprian de simplicit Praelat gave unto them the Keyes of the heavenly Kingdome and gave them with the Keyes in their hands unto the Church Aug. de verbis Domini serm 11. de doct Christ l. 1. c. 18. for whose aedification onely they and their successors were to use them The eyes are not more the bodies then Pastors and their Keyes are the Churches and as the body cannot see but by the eyes so the Church cannot enter into heaven by any other member under Christ of the mystical body without the service of the Pastors opening with their Keyes the gates of heaven for her As the Apostles were ministerial rocks so was Peters confession an instrumental rock and in a second place the confession and preaching of the rest of the Apostles were so too by the means of which rocks the Church is built upon the foundation of foundations the principal rock our Lord Jesus Christ Hilar. in Math. Can. 11. Matth. 16. Yet Peters confession was not without a great reward He had the first promise of the Keyes to be given unto him after Christ's resurrection with the more abundant measure of the grace of the Holy Ghost which he then received with the rest of the Apostles yet so that he was the first in order which received them before the rest He had a name given him by our Saviour from the principal rock Ambros serm 89. Cyprian de habiiu virgin He was made the first in order and head of the Apostles the first ministerial rock and his preaching was made the first instrumental rock He was made the first preacher to and convertor of the Jews and Gentiles Joh. 10. Ambros ser 47. De Petro vide Aug. retract l. 1. c. 21. Ambros de incarn Dom. sacramento Cypr. nbi sup ad Antonianum the Apostle and Pastor of the first Christian Church after Christs ascension which was the mother of all other Churches And because it was believed that he had his choycest and longest residence in Rome wherein by his ministery the Gospel was first planted that Church was counted the Princess of Churches the mother of Churches as he was accounted and called the Prince of the Apostles All these priviledges did serve to shew the unity of the Church and the unity of the holy ministery and ministers thereof and to commend unto all the sons of the Church the preservation of unity in doctrine worship Discipline and charity There be many particular Churches of Christ yet all but one Church as Peters Church was one there be many Bishops and Presbyters yet as Peter was alone the Apostle of the first Church which represented all the succeeding Churches Basil constitut Monast c. 22. so the many ministers of the Gospel are one in Peter and the ministery one in him And as the Churches and ministers were one in their fountains and roots so they ought to preserve the like unity among themselves the ministers imitating the faithfulness of Peter and the flock imitating the obedience and holiness of the Church of Peter If Rome had persisted in and contented her self with the doctrine of St. Peter and not added thereto Idolatry superstitions and haeresies we would gladly have owned and honoured her Bishops as the prime successors of Peter and the Church of Rome as the