A SERMON Preached at the CONSECRATION Of the HONOURABLE Dr. HENRY COMPTON Lord Bishop of OXFORD IN LAMBETH-CHAPPEL On Sunday December 6. 1674. By WILLIAM JANE B.D. Student of Christ-Church and Chaplain to his Lordship LONDON Printed by W. Godbid and are to be sold by R. Littlebury at the Kings-Arms in Little-Britain 1675. To the Right Reverend Father in God HENRY LORD BISHOP of OXFORD My Lord ALthough I am too conscious of the manifold defects of this poor Discourse to lay any claim to your Lordships acceptance as the encouragement of its Publication yet I have had such great experience of your Lordships favour as to conceive some hopes that it may find the same shelter with its Author under your Lordships patronage and protection When I first received your Lordships command which engaged me upon this duty I esteemed it a great Honour than my own ambition could ever have aspired to It was happiness enough for me to bear any part how inconsiderable soever in that days Solemnity which in the judgement of all who have a real kindness for the Church was so signal an argument of Gods Care and Providence over it But since by my intire resignation of this weak performance as I was in duty bound to your Lordships Judgement it is no longer at my own disposal and that which I thought too mean to attend your Lordships CONSECRATION has been thought fit to live with the remembrance of it I have this further favour to request for it that I may be allowed to thrust it forth into the world under your Lordships Name I shall only add my unfeigned desires to the God of Heaven that as he has been pleased in this declining Age to raise up to his People such an able instrument of his Glory so he would go on to give success to your Lordships designs answerable to the expectation of your Country and the necessities of his Church Which shall ever be the daily Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships Most humbly devoted Chaplain WILLIAM JANE ACTS 20.28 Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood WE read in the 17th vers of this chap. that St. Paul sent from Miletas to Ephesus and called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Elders or Presbyters of the Church In this vers which contains a considerable part of his Visitation Sermon he tells them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops This seeming confusion of Names in this and other places of Scripture indiscriminately applied to the Pastors and Officers of the Church was the pretence of Aerius though Pride and Ambition were the reason to inferr a like communion in the dignity of Bishop and Presbyter and a total parity in their Office And though this is surely a very slender argument to any considering men to violate the unity of Christians and to cashier that form of Government which ad been received universally in the Church from the Apostles days unto their own upon a pretence that Antichrist begun betimes yet neither is it so slight and despicable but that it has exercised the greatest Wits in all Ages even those in which it cannot be pretended that Truth was twisted with design in endeavouring a probable solution of it For to omit the interpretation of some that such as were Presbyters when St. Paul sent for them he here consecrates Bishops by telling them that the Holy Ghost had made them so as being a groundless and arbitrary conjecture if we consult those Opinions which carry the greatest vogue and reputation in the World we shall scarce find one in which two have consented when we have excluded those from the number who do not pretend to deliver their own sense but professedly transcribe from others The immediate question wherein our Authors are divided is Whether Bishop and Presbyter were two distinct Orders at the time of the writing the Books of the New Testament or in a small space of time after the one were superadded to the other Those who defend the latter are further subdivided as far as the subject will admit For we are told on the one hand that the names of Bishop and Presbyter were once promiscuously given to the inferiour Order of the Clergy which were afterwards used with distinction when for the future preventing of Schism Episcopacy was introduced upon it◠which seems to be the Judgment of St. Hierome And with greater probability on the other that they were indifferent appellations of the higher Order of Church Officers to whom the name of Bishop became then appropriate when upon the increase of their charge by the multitude of their Proselites inferiour Presbyters were universally admitted in some measure to ease them of the burthen An opinion with infinite accuracy and variety of learning first cleared and defended by the Reverend Dr. Hammond They who have pitcht upon the defence of the former part of the main Question That both Orders were Coaeval and distinguished from one another by their Author at the Primitive institution of them are yet more divided in their explications For some tell us which Dr. Hammond admits for probable that the world Presbyter is the Scripture appellative of the inferiour Order of the Clergy whereas both were common to the Bishop in as much as both Offices designed by them were eminently vested in him St. Chrysostom on the contrary thinks it no inconvenience at all that the distinction of Offices should remain inviolate notwithstanding the confusion of names Whereas a third Opinion sufficiently distinguished from the other two asserts that Bishop and Presbyter were common denominations of the second Order of Priest-hood those whom we now stile Bishops being at that time called Apostles A Comment first suggested by Theodoret and since maintained by the Judicious Hooker in the days of our Forefathers and with a little variation by the learned Thorndike in our own I have not produced these Opinions to compare them with one another or to examin the several claims which each of them pretends to truth but only considering them jointly to make these few remarques upon them all And first our Assertors of the Presbyterian Hierarchy may do well to consider whose Cause it is which is with so great eagerness maintained by them No the Cause of God or of his Church but of a noted Heretick infamous upon the records of Epithanius St. Austin Philastrius and other Fathers of the Church for the point in question and consequently branded for the same by the Church it self whose Judgments those Fathers expressly testifie He who was notorious in his own time for the great disturber of the word is now set up by our pretended Disciplinarians for the great Champion of Truth Nor do they so much help themselves by saying that Arrianism was Aerius his Heresie and indeed Epiphanius calls him an Arrian altogether
our Church at His Majesties Restauration thought fit to change the place which this passage of Scripture formerly had in the Book of Ordination so I have here given some reason why that which was formerly a part of the Epistle for the Ordination of Priests may now be made the Text of a Sermon at the Consecration of a Bishop In which are comprised all the principal arguments which may enforce a Bishops vigilance and circumspection in the management of his Pastoral Charge and urge home the Caution of the Text Take heed therefore The Topicks to perswade a more than ordinary Care in any duty are generally four All which we meet with in this place 1. The excellency of the thing Cared for the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood 2. The Person Concernment in it arising from the peculiar trust reposed in him the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops 3. The danger of miscarriage in the following words For after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you 4. The possibility of preserving the thing Cared for which though not fully exprest is sufficiently implied in these Phrases of Taking heed to your selves of feeding the Church Of these briefly and in the their order as far as the greater business of the day will permit And first of the excellency of the thing Cared for The Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood Where we may observe a manifest point of Christian Doctrin by immediate consequence deducible from the words to wit the Divinity of our Savour A truth which offers it self to us with such uncontrollable clearness that the Socinian finding it staring him directly in the face to elude the evidence corrupts the Text reads Christi in stead of Dei which yet in the Syriack Edition whence he takes it seems rather an Exposition than a Version and thereby offers the same violence to the Temporal Word of God as he had done before to the Eternal And as some Barbarous Nations are said to have cut out the Tongues of their abused Captives lest they should disgrace them by publishing their wrongs and injuries having first robb'd Christ of his Divinity he finds himself obliged to rob the Church of the Scriptures which bear witness to the truth of it But this is consistent enough with his Principles For having so loosly settled the notion of a Church as to make an universal Apostacy commence from the very death of the Apostles he had no great reason to over-value the Blood of Christ which had procured such a short lived and uncertain benefit He might justly presume the price was not very great where the purchase was so little regarded But let Socinus go on with as much scorn as he pleases to slight the one and trample upon the other a true Catholick Bishop that knows it cost more to redeem a Soul will hence take an argument to infer that his watchfulness over his Flock ought to rise in some proportion to that esteem and value which his Lord and Master hath set upon it He will not forfeit or betray his trust for the sake of silver and gold and those other corruptible things which he well knows were utterly unable to redeem it But considering it as purchased by the blood of Christ he will judge it worthy to be preserved and cared for though with the expence or hazard of his own It was for the Churches sake that the Son of God came down from Heaven emptyed himself of his Glory exhausted a richer than all the world could afford besides For this end was the great Bishop of our Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the critical importance of the word Consecrated to his Episcopal Office by strong crying and tears by death and blood So costly and chargeable was his Consecration that he seems to decline and deprecate it with a Nolo Episcopari Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me And we may justly thinks his Father would have saved him if a meaner ransom could have saved the World This then Holy Fathers is that Sacred depositum which is committed to your Charge so often repeated in the Office of the Church for this Solemnity even the greatest gift that ever was poured forth upon the Sons of Men the precious blood of the Son of God the unsearchable riches of Christ It lies upon you therefore to testify that the blood of Christ was not spilt in vain and to accomplish that redemption which your Lord hath merited That neither through your miscarriage may Christ be defeated of his purchase which are the Souls of men nor the Church of her price and priviledge the merit of her Saviours Blood But I pass from the invaluable excellency of the thing cared for to the second motive of the Text even your own concernment in it arising from the consideration of the Person by whom you are intrusted The Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops As the gift of the Holy Ghost was the signal prerogative whereby the Church of Christ outvyed the luster of the Temple and which our Saviour at his departure thought and abundant compensation to his Disciples for the defect of his Corporal presence with them so amongst all the noble purposes for which he was then poured forth upon all Flesh there is no one thing represented in Scripture which he seems to have a more visible and immediate concern in than the erecting and authorizing a Ministry commissioning for Church Offices and enabling for the discharge This is that great Work which however meanly esteemed or scornfully treated in this World was in the estimation of our Saviour one of the choicest Largesses which at his Triumphant ascending far above all Heavens he thought fit to shed forth upon his Church And thence we find Matthew 28.28 that when after his ascension he tells his Disciples all power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth the first and great instance wherein he imparts it to his Followers is a Commission for the Ministry Go ye therefore and teach all nations And accordingly that triumphant Psalm which the sweet Singer of of Israel prepared to be Sung at the removal of the Ark whence God did use to deliver his Oracles from between the Cherubins the adumbration of our Saviours removal from Earth to Heaven is by the Apostle repeated and accommodated thereto Ephes 4.8 and completion verified in this that he gave some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers These were the Gifts he then received for men as a standing Testimony that though himself were departed the Lord God dwelt still among them No wonder therefore to find in the Text the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops since their very employment is one of his peculiar donatives as that of Timothy is expressly called his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in each of his Epistles It were an easie matter to extend this consideration beyond the Church of Ephesus
and to trace the interest of the Holy Ghost in constituting Church Governors from the first Foundation of Christianity to this day to find him not only once fitting Bezaleel and Aholiab with Skill and Wisdom for the Building a material Tabernacle But in every Age empowering and qualifying serviceable Persons for the Strength and Beauty of his Church This was the Commission which the great Bishop of our Souls produced for himself at his entrance upon his Pastoral Charge The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and hath anointed me to Preach the Gospel Luke 4.18 Nor was this merely personal to our Saviour as Baronius would have it who confines that Text to the first year of our Saviours Preaching but when he comes to Ordain a Succession we shall find this to be the Rite and Solemnity of the Consecration As my Father sent me so send I you Where if the similitude will not infer the Gift of the Holy Ghost the next words will express it And he breathed on them and said receive ye the Holy Ghost John 20.21 And after that he bids them tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from above Luke 24.49 which is Interpreted Acts I. endued with the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost must first say separate before Saul and Barnabas undertake the Charge Acts 13.2 Nor could the laying on of hands have made Timothy a Bishop unless Prophecy had gone before And lest these should seem choice and peculiar instances of an extraordinary deputation of some persons to whom God was pleased to vouchsafe extraordinary Revelations of himself and we know those who have hence inferred that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists not fixed and standing Officers of the Church as Walo Messalinus and others We have the full attestation of Clemens Romanus in his Epistle to the Corinthians of the Apostles practice of Ordaining Bishops out of those whom they had Converted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after they had first tryed and approved them by the Revelation of the Holy Ghost whom Clemens Alexandrinus also calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as the Holy Spirit had designed and signified to them Nay so clear is this truth of the Spirits superintendency in these great Solemnities through the ancient Monuments of the Church that Cardinal Baronius however a stiff Asserter of the Popes Incroachments both upon the right of Bishops and the Holy Ghosts prerogative in their delegation yet is forced by the evidence of truth to confess that as Christ breathed the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles in like manner have they transferred the same upon all their Successors to this day in as much as they must undoubtedly partake of the Spirit of Christ who minister in Christs stead in the Sacred Offices of his Church It is an opinion fastned upon Durandus that when God made the World he threw it out of his Hands and left all things in it ever since to act of themselves from those several principles of Life and Motion which he distributed among them at the Creation A like conceit have some endeavoured to introduce into the Church that the world Spirit in Holy Scripture is to be confined to that plentiful effusion of it upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost those miraculous Gifts and Graces which in the infancy of Christianity accompanied the Preaching of the Gospel Which Commission being personal to the Apostles by consequence expired withy them so that their Successors in the work of the Ministry for any concern the Holy Ghost has in them are left to shift for themselves or at most to subsist upon that stock of reputation which was at first gained in the World by the mighty Signs and Wonders of their inspired and gifted Predecessors But as the Schools from the common Principles of Reason have solidly maintained against the former that so precarious and dependent is the Creature as such both in its being and operation that should God subtract his influence and concurse whereby every moment he makes it and works with it all its operations are immediately suspended the whole Creation falls asunder and molders into its primitive Confusion so a like assertion if the Scripture were silent would common sense and experience suggest to us for a Confutation of the latter For so powerful are the batteries that are daily made by the Lusts of Men and the Malice of the Devil and so impotent and unarmed a thing is the Church of God considered in it self to withstand the assaults of either that not only the gates of Hell but the powers of the World would long ago have finally prevailed against it but that it was ever Founded upon the Rock of Ages and Supported by the Hand of Heaven The daily Sacrifice had long since ceased and the abomination of desolation been standing in the Holy Place And Christs Mystical Body had not so long survived his Natural did not the same Spirit which was at first breathed into it go on continually to actuate and enliven it Surely therefore now as well as then there is a heavenly Treasure in earthen Vessels and the continuance of the Ministration is from God and not from us He is God and not Man and therefore the Sons of Jacob are not consumed Bishops are the Stars in Christ's own right Hand and from this arises the utter impossibility for the Tayl of the Dragon to sweep them away for the force of Men to pluck them thence or for the powers of Darkness to extinguish them The Apostles then did not carry their Commissions with them to the other World which they knew were left them for a perpetuity of succession in this both for them and their Heirs for ever 'T was he told his Disciples who was never yet taxed with being worse than his word Behold I am with you to the end of the World He could not mean it doubtless of their persons who did not long survive him nor can the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notwithstanding some bold Criticisms upon the words refer to any other period of time than that wherein the Fabrick of the World shall be dissolved when Time it self shall be no more He is still therefore with their Successors as he was with them after his Ascension Vicariâ spiritûs presentiâ as Tertullian speaks though not in the various distributions and admirable virtue of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the extent of their Jurisdiction and extraordinary measure of their revelations yet in the effectual Administration of all those Ordinances which were to reside for ever in his Church in order to the salvation of the World Such are the Preaching of the Word Administration of the Sacraments Ordaining Ministers Ordering Church-discipline inflicting Censures and the power of the Keys All which as long as they are necessary for the edifying of the Body of Christ so long is the presence of the Holy Ghost necessary to authorize persons to dispence them Well therefore may we presume that our Veni Creator
need not fear Drowning as long as Christ is in the Ship And therefore let the Heathen rage and the Nations take Counsel together he that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision he can shatter their Councils blast their Designs defeat their Purposes and ruin their Confederacies And will never fail openly to demonstrate that his Church is founded upon a Rock too firm to be shaken by the combinations of men even upon the promise of God and the Graces of his Spirit things eternally invincible by the gates of Hell Nor has God ever left himself without witness of this peculiar presence in the greatest distresses of his Church Even at the first founding of it when in all humane probability it was so little enabled to stand out against the machinations of the World yet then did the Almighty reveal his arm and exert his Power and in spite of all the oppositions both of Earth and Hell made his own Counsel to stand and flourish 'T was he of old that upheld an Athanasius contra mundum and effectually rescued his Church from that deluge of Arrianism which to all appearance had swallowed it up and overwhelmed it Lastly to name no more but this Church of ours under those signal instances of his afflicting providence the sinking our gates destroying our palaces and slighting the strong holds of Sion when that dreadful storm had utterly sunk both the Government of our Church and our hopes of its recovery yet even then did the Spirit of God move upon the face of the waters 'till at length the dry land appeared and again reduced it to that beautiful order which has made it ever since the object of Malice and the mark of Envy Surely therefore he who had a favour for Sion when her Stones were in the dust has not left off his concern for it now it stands upon its pillars But rather on the contrary if the present methods o his Providence can give us any rule for a conjecture he seems to have some further work in hand for the establishment of his Church while he singles out persons of such worth and eminence for the undertaking But thirdly if the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops you are entrusted by one who will assuredly take an account of the Administration It appears in the Records of the ancient Church that they never brought a Bishop to publick penance Of which practice this seems to be one reason among others that since there was no spiritual power on Earth above him they reserved him to the future Judgement the tribunal of a Lord who alone was higher than he And therefore though a Religious Constantine thinks fit to cover the faults of his Bishops with his own Purple and the whole Christian World at this day were as forward to hide as they are on the contrary to reveal their Fathers nakedness Yet all these coverings signifie nothing to him who looks through them all to him who pondereth the heart and weigheth the spirits of men All things are naked and open before him with whom you have to do and will one day appear so before the World Angels and Men. Take heed therefore unto your selves and to the flock as those that must give an account And do thou O Lord give that success to their Labours that they may give it with joy and not with grief Let thy Urim and Thummim be still with thy holy ones that their Doctrine may be no other than that whereto thy Holy Spirit hath set his Seal and their Lives and Examples may be as Sacred as their Callings Put Courage into their Hearts and a Terrour upon their Faces that with all boldness they may speak thy word and maintain a constant resolution to withstand the Corruptions of the Times that so in the last day when the great Shepherd of the Sheep shall appear to make his final Visitation they may receive the Blessing which belongs to those whom the Lord when he cometh shall find so doing Well done good and faithful servant thou hast been faithful in a little enter now into the joy of thy Lord. Now to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost three Persons and one God be ascribed as is most due by us and by all the World all Power Glory Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS P. 13. l. 20. suppositious r. supposititious