Antonianum Hier. ad Heliodorum Conc. Sardicens c. 13. Canon in use in the second Century when it was made it is not known which required that every one that would be an Ecclesiasticall Officer should begin with and for some set time officiate in the lowest Office and so by degrees ascend to the Episcopacy if the Church did desire his advancement Yet we find that some laicks yea some unbaptised persons have been by the Clergy and people chosen Bishops as Ambrose Nectarius and other Paulinus in vita Ambrosij Niceph. Callist Eccl. hist l. 12. c. 12. who leaping over the inferiour offices and the time wherein they should have given proofe of their faithfulness and industry in the order of Presbytery have been Baptised made Presbyters and then Bishops within few dayes and some it may be took these two last orders in the same houre But this was very rare and by dispensation or was liable to an Ecclesiasticall censure When any under the degree of a Presbyter was by the ignorance or perversness of some Bishops ordained a Bishop nothing done by him was esteemed valid but what his former degree did warrant or a Laick might in necessity do untill he was made a Presbyter Bellarmine saith truly that it is impossible that one should be ordained a Bishop fit to officiate which was not before a Presbyter or did not take both orders together For saith he Episcopacy includes Presbytery in its essence and a Bishop no Presbyter is a figment De Sacramento Ordinis l. 1. c. 5. a Bishop being nothing else but the first or chief Presbyter Whence he doth rightly infer that the Ordination of a Bishop compared with the Ordination of a Presbyter is being in it self precisely considered inferior to it as being of no efficacy as to acts meerly Ecclesiasticall and which the civil Magistrate cannot execute Here some doubts are raised which by divers are diversely resolved As whether Christ did ordaine the Apostles in the first place Presbyters and after that Bishops and if so when was this done or if it be said that Christ made them Apostles Presbyters and Bishops in one and the same Ordination how can it be proved that Christ gave the Apostles the powers now proper to Bishops not only as they were extraordinary Officers but also as they were to have successors and not rather that Christ reserved those powers as they were to be conveyed by succession to be given in a more convenient time it is generally acknowledged that Presbyters were vertually ordained when the Apostles were ordained If Christ made the Apostles both Presbyters and Bishops in one Ordination how durst the Church alter our Saviours Ordinance as to ordain them by two actuall Ordinations whom He Himself had ordained in one virtuall Ordination to say that our blessed Saviour ordained the Apostles first Presbyters and afterwards Bishops is to affirm that which the Evangelists do not mention To Preach Baptise administer the Lords Supper to feed the Sheep to bind and loose all these offices appear by clear Testimonies of the holy Scriptures and the consent of the Catholick Church to belong to Presbyters and therefore it may not be reasonably thought that any of those places of the Evangelists which promise those powers or intimate them to be given or require the execution of them conveigh an Episcopacy to the Apostles supposed before ordained Presbyters Some say that St. Cyprian and some other of the Fathers affirm Christ in ordaining the Apostles to have ordained Bishops and that Bishops are the Apostles successors and Presbyters the successors of the 70 Disciples To these Objections the answers are ready and easie Ad Drâ—â—contiam in Ps 44. First Athanasius saith that Christ by his Apostles constituted and ordained Bishops and Augustine saith that the Church conceived Bishops neither of them writeth that Bishops were vertually ordained in the Apostles Ordination neither is this expresly said in any ancient Author In Epist 1. ad Timoth c. 3. Secondly Ambrose the contemporary or elder then the true Ambrose saith that the Ordination of a Presbyter and Bishop is one and the same this may seem strange for in his and the preceding times they were distinct but his following words declare his meaning when he gives this reason namely Cyprian ad florentium c. Epist because both Presbyter and Bishop are Sacerdotes Priests which shews that in saying that the Ordination of a Presbyter and Bishop is the same he meant quatenus Sacerdotes as they were Priests or Presbyters their ordination was the same So the other auncient Doctors which say that Christ in speaking some things to the Apostles as He that heareth you heareth me Basil constit monast c. 22. c. 〈◊〉 spake in and by them to Bishops or that in them Christ ordained Bishops did mean That our Saviour spake in and by the Apostles to Bishops not as Bishops but as they were Sacerdotes Priests and Presbyters and only consequently and remotely by the means of a subsequent Ordinance as they were Bishops that is Presbyters having a presidency over their Brethren when the Pastors of that primitive Church say that Bishops are Successors of the Apostles and Presbyters successors of the 70 Disciples their meaning was That having respect to the Distinction which the Apostles made between one Presbyter and the rest by exalting one in every Church to a presidency over the rest The President Presbyter which is the Bishop succeeds the Apostles whose Successors and the subject Presbyters succeeded the 70 Disciples in some likeness of superiority and inferiority The Fathers could not mean That the Presbyters were ordained in the Ordination of the 70. For First None of them had any good ground to affirm That the 70 either had so ample an ordinary power if they had any ordinary power as the Presbytery have or that the power they received was rather the power of an Office to continue in them Ad Rodolphum Archiepiscopum Senonens in apparandarum rerum addend post tom 7. Concil then a power only to do some acts for a certain time after which the power was to leave them although Pope Nicholas the first affirms That the 70 Disciples had the Offices of Bishops and could ordain Presbyters Secondly The Form of Ordination both in our Church and in the Roman pontificial doth manifestly shew That Presbyters were virtually ordained in the Ordination of the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection when he said Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whosesoever sins ye remit c. the which entire words are used in Presbyters Ordination and only one member of the words are used in the ordination of bishops that is Receive the Holy Ghost which words do not serve to conveigh unto them all power to remit c. which they had received in their Ordination to Presbytery but they serve to give them the power of Presidency whereby the Bishop is constituted and therefore Presbyters and Bishops as they
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
denote confirmation alone but any other perpetual ordinance of God wherein this ceremony was to be used by the authority of the Apostles exampled and practise They which say that this ceremony was to last no longer in use then God was pleased to continue the miraculous operations usual in the Apostolick times seem to impute inconsiderateness to the Apostle in reckoning that one of the fundamentals of Religion which was not to be perpetually continued in the militant Church but we are assured that the Apostle being moved by the Holy Ghost could not speak inconsiderately and that every fundamental of Christian Religion shall continue in Christs Church unto the end of the world as this ceremony both in confirmation and in ordinations of Pastors hath hitherto been alwayes used in the universal Church and without doubt will so continue unto the end of time Pastors are called in the Apostolical Epistles by two other names Sect. 4. that is Bishops and Presbyters the Apostleship contained in it self the pastoral offices and therefore an Apostle was also called a Bishop and Presbyter The first mention of Pastors by the name of Presbyters of Elders is in Acts 11.30 where the Church of Antioch is said to have sent relief by Barnabas and Saul unto the Elders of the Churches in Judaea in the time of the great dearth which was in the days of Claudius Caesar in the 15 Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we finde the controversie concerning the necessity of circumcision and keeping of the Law of Moses brought by Paul and Barnabas before the Apostles and Elders or Presbyters in the Church of Jerusalem to be by them determined We see in the chapter of the Acts how that Paul with some of the brethren went in unto James and all the elders were present whence we may observe that the Apostles did not discuss and end the controversie concerning circumcision and keeping of the Law without the presence of the Presbyters of the Church where they then were nor did James alone heat Paul but together with his Presbyters did both hear him and give him that seasonable Councel to purifie himself for the avoiding the offence of the beleiving Jews which were numerous in Jerusalem Here ariseth a question Sect. 5. whether St. James was head of the Presbyters of the Church of Jerusalem onely as he was an Apostle having his ordinary residence in that Church or also as having an ordinary authority over the Presbyters which was to be continued to successors over the succeding Presbyters it is certain that as an Apostle he was the head of the Presbyters having a superiority over them but as the Apostleship was not to pass to successors so neither was his authority to be conveyed to any in succession but to be terminated with his life it is more then probable that at that time he was their superior onely as an Apostle settled in that Church neither had we need to conceive him in any subsequent times to become their head in any other sense then this if the unanimous testimony of the ancient Doctors of the Church did not constrain us to be of another judgment unless we will reject the witness of the Catholick Church constantly persevered in from the beginining of the second Centuary after our Saviours birth unto this day For the Fathers do constantly affirm that St. James was for some time before his decease Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem not onely in the sense of the word Bishop common to an Apostle and every Presbyter but in the sense which soon after the time of Clemens Romanus was appropriated to it that is signifying such a Presbyter as had a superiority over all the rest of the Presbyters of the same Church to continue in him during life and to be transferred to some other after him Hegesippus an Historian Apud Euseb hiss l. 4. c. 21. Ibid. l. 3. c. 29. who flourished about the year 170 relateth that after the death of St. James Simon Cleopa being chosen Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem one Thebulis began to corrupt the Church with vain Doctrine because he was not made Bishop there And the same Historian writeth that Simon Cleopa lived Bishop of that place until the times of Trajane the Emperor under whose government Simon suffered Martyrdome and John the Apostle died by which testimony of an historian who lived within 60 years after the death of the Apostle St. John it plainly appeareth that Simon was not after the death of St. James brother of our Lord constituted onely a single Presbyter of that Church nor James before him head thereof only as an Apostle or an extraordinary governour but that both were ordinary rulers of the whole Church as well Presbyters as the other members thereof Clemens Alexandrinus Paedagog l. 3. c. ult Strom. 6. who lived before the year of our Lord 200 makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter saying that in the Scriptures some precepts pertain to Bishops some to Presbyters and some to Deacons and in another place that a Presbyter doing and teaching according to Gods will although he be not on earth honoured with the first chair shall sit on the 24 thrones judging the people and a little after he saith that here in the Church the provections or proficiencies of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be imitations of the angelical glory Tertullian who flourished in the year of our Lord 200 De Monogamia c. 11. mentions an use in his time of asking leave of the Bishop of the Presbyters and of the Deacons to marry Elsewhere he calls upon the Hereticks to shew the beginnings of their Churches and so to reckon the order of their Bishops running from the beginning by successions that the first Bishop have an Apostle or an Apostolical man for his auctor or antecessor as the Church of Smyrna relates Polycarpus to be placed there Bishop by John the Apostle and the Church of Rome reporteth Clement to have been ordained there by Peter the Apostle Adversus Valentin c. 4. In another place the same author saith that Valentinus because he was ingenious eloquent had hoped an Episcopacy De Baptismo c. 17. and being angry that another by prerogative of Martyrdome had obtained it he departed from the Church In another place he hath this observation viz. the emulation of Episcopacy is the mother of Schismes Adversus haeres l. 3. c. 3. apud Euseb l. 5. c. 18. I must not forget the testimony of Ireaaeus who affirmeth of himself that he was a hearer of Polycarpus who was not onely taught by the Apostles and conversed with many of them which saw the Lord but was also by the Apostles in Asia Advers haeres l. 3. c. 3. Edit Paris 1567. in which is the Church of Smyrna constituted a Bishop the same Irenaeus doth enumerate the Bishops of Rome which succeeded one another from Peter unto Eleutherius who was the
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
of old condemned in the Canons of the Church under pretence of contumacy or the like But I am weary of raking in this puddle Concil Aurelian 5. c. 2. Leo. Epist 87. where the many dependences upon those Courts seemed to require exorbitances that every one might have a tolerable livelyhood If the excrescencies which the corruptions of the times made to adhere to the primitive Episcopacy were cut off and the spiritual jurisdiction restored to the Bishop and Presbyters it is not to be doubted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. munus baptizandi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost in 1 Cor. hom 3. but that our brethren who dislike the Episcopacy in its present constitution and the more because they took an oath whether well or ill I let go to endevour the abrogation of it would be abundantly satisfied with the Apostolical Episcopacy where one was ordained for the union strengthening of the jurisdiction of Presbyters for the defence of which Episcopacy they had taken a former oath in the solemn Protestation which as taken lawfully and in lawful things maketh all contrary oaths unlawful to be after either taken or kept Although the Apostles ordained no governing Elders besides the Bishop and preaching Elders yet the primitive Episcopacy will well bear that some lay Elders be joyned to the Presbytery and in every parish where fit persons may be had to help the Bishop and Presbyters in the inspection of manners in the instruction of the ignorant in brotherly admonitions and teproofs and in giving notice to the Bishops and Presbyters of the scandalous offences to be proceeded against in an Ecclesiastical order and also to represent the people and vote for them where their consent is requisite Here I desire it may be noted that when I spake of Presbyters which were the Senate of the ancient Bishops Conc. Neocaesar cum Ep. 7. Zachariae papae ad Bonifac. c. 4. c. 15. Et Concil Meldens an 845. c. 54. I understood not all and every one subject unto the Bishop but the more ancient grave pious learned discreet and moderate of them for such were the City Presbyters in the old times which alone usually and mostly were the Bishops assessors in the spiritual judicature and which therefore in some places and specially in Rome obtained the name of Cardinal Presbyters Some dislike the civil honour wherewith godly Kings have dignified our reverend Prelates Sect. 13. truely if the taking of it had made them less able to fulfil the office of preaching the Gospel or did widen the distance between them and the Presbyters or made them less accessible by or condescending to their flock or ecclipsed the veneration due to their CoÌ„-presbyters or involved them in civil affaires which all the ancient Canons forbid the addition of that honour were not to be liked but it is evident enough to the eye of every impartial judgement and the lives of many most holy Bishops have made it good that if any of these evils happen'd from the receiving of that dignity as too often hath been seen it proceeded from the evil of the person and not from the innocent honour which wâ—s conferred upon them by pious Princes out of their love to Châ—â—â—â— and his Ambassadors the better to preserve them from the contempt of the wicked who regard no goodness besides the civil and worldly and to enable the better to maintain the great interest which in civil things belongs to the Ecclesiastical estate and that the great Council of a Christian Kingdom should not sit without giving the Ambassadors of Christ an honourable place and priviledge among them that in them Christ might be seen to be the more present and their ready spiritual Council might prevent some proceedings not well agreeing with the interest of religion and the laws of Christ which without them might more easily happen But what was done in a heat may be undone in a milder temper Irenaeus who was born within very few years after the decease of the Apostles saith that the Church nourished such presbyters of whom the Prophet saith I will give thy Princes in peace and thy Bishops in righteousness where this ancient Father doth shew that Bishops be princes And so doth Hierom upon the place the prophet saith he calleth the future princes of the Church Bishops Esa 60.17 Secund. 70. interpret It is then very congruous that the Christian Kings set over these Ecclesiastical princes and by their ministery made partakers of the caelestial dignities should in a certain way of retribution dignifie them with some eminent degree of civil honour which cannot be well supported without some proportionable revenue The Holy Scripture tells us that it is a more blessed thing to give then to receive Surely God would have every of the presbyters of the Church enabled for that blessed work of giving over and above a convenient maintenance for Wife and Children which the Apostle supposeth to be in their families for whom they are bound to provide or in the judgment of the same Apostle to be deemed to have denied the faith and to be worse then infidels And if every Presbyter ought to be thus provided for if possible then the elder Brethren should have a double portion besides the proportion which their civil dignity doth require and where any of the rest are indued with more excellent ministerial gifts it 's very convenient they should have a larger measure of the matter and instruments requisite for the fuâ—l exercise of their more excelling vertues What the revenue of the reverend Bishops is I do not know but I have good reasons to assure me that it is not excessive at which any would grudg or envy except the sacrilegious truckers which would have the reverend Clergy live upon their leavings and scraps Certain it is that the maintenance of many hundreds of Pâ—â—sbyters is so small that they can scarse feed and cloath their Families so that when they die many Hospitals might be filled with their poor Wives and Children And if no better provision be made for the poor Cures and Vicarages it were an eminent work of charity to erect and endow Hospitals proper to poor Ministers Wives and Children This starving of Christs Ambassadours is the shame and great sin of the Kingdome But now it is the hope and expectation of all good men that his sacred Majesty and the most honourable houses of parliament will provide a remedy for this miserable disease of the Church for it 's onely an act of parliament that can surely sweetly and fully cure it There be not a few who complain against the canonical oath Sect. 14. concerning which I can find no mention until about the year 813. wherein the Fathers of the second Council of Cabilon say it is spoken of certain of our brethren that they compel them whom they are to ordain to swear that they will do nothing
between the one adoration and the other and the beholding the same acts of worship to be done to God and a sacred thing doth puzzle the ignorant and unwary that either his zeal is as much to the creatures adoration as to the Creators or mingles in his mind both the adorations whereby the best is debased and corrupted Some may say may we not bow to God and kneel to him at the altar without danger It is soon answered That without doubt we may and must do so and in so doing our mind doth not intend the altar as the object of our bowing The danger is in bowing to the altar for then we make it the object to which we bow It may be demanded if the Magistrate make the naming of the name Jesus the name of the Saviour of the world to be a sign when in the divine service we must bow to the person of the Lord Jesus God and man and not to the name Jesus may we not without danger so do I answer first That it is our duty to bow our hearts and also in convenient time and place to bow our bodies to the man Jesus Christ in the unity of the divine person And this is intended in Philip. 2. Secondly to bow our bodies at the naming of the name of Jesus is no duty that we are bound unto It is indifferent then to bow or not to bow as it is at the naming of the name of Christ Thirdly if the magistrate command us either at the naming of the name Jesus or at the naming of the name Christ in the divine service to worship Christ God and man by bowing unto him and not intending the name Jesus or Christ as an object of our bowing it is our duty to obey our Superiours command Fourthly from the bowing at the name the vulgar easily fall to the bowing to the name These adorations of the Cross c. inward and outward may not be counted divine or properly and of their own nature religious because no rule of true religion doth require them but they are properly Ecclesiastical because the Churches did sometime create them and as things Ecclesiastical and things any way made pertinent to religion are counted religious things so may these adorations be accidentally called religious There is not that kind and degree of excellency in the Cross Communion-Table or name Jesus or in any such sacred thing which may in proper sense merit and require that mental regard from us which should of right be testified by those acts of worship Neither do we find that the Churches acknowledged any obligation upon them to make any Canon requiring those adorations but onely as circumstances then were a congruity to command their use under which command and judgement of the Church individual persons were to acknowledge those sacred things worthy those honours Wherefore if it please our Superiors to continue the use of these Ceremonies which are so easily abused it will be very necessary to state and determine the right use of them and to point at the dangers to be avoided and to command that the cautions be at set times read in the Churches that none may erre for want of knowledge or by forgetfulness The discreet followers of the holy ancient Fathers of the Church are worthy commendation but their apes are ridiculous To sow the foul raggs of some late slovenly School-men to the comely garment of our Church as the misinterpreters of the text in Philip. 2. have attempted is an act disgraceful to the authors derogating from the honour and dignity of our dear Mother and introductory of unwarrantable adorations being pretended to be commanded by Almighty God For if it be once obtained that the adoration used to the name Jesus is of divine institution it will by the necessity of like reason follow that the bowing to the cross and the Communion-Table and especially to the holy bread and wine is a duty which of divine right doth belong unto them But it is time to proceed to speak of some other Ecclesiasticall Customes of the fourth Century Sect. 17. whereof one was derived from former times Chrysost in 2 Cor. hom 2. that in the Churches no Our Father was said in the prayers so long as the Catechumen and Penicents for whom special prayers were made were permitted to stay in the Church Concil Leodicen can 19. Et Chrysost in Eph. hom 3. Aug. de temp ser 38. Amalar. de Offic missae c. 19. Vide concil Valentin c. 1. After their departure out of the Church began the second divine Service and prayers proper to the faithful among which was the Lords Prayer most of the rest were subservient to the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper When that Sacrament was to be administred which was then usually every Lords day they offered bread and wine for the use of the Sacrament instead of which we have offerings for the poor and the Bishop or Presbyter went from the Pulpit or place where he prayed for the penitents or his seat to the Communion-Table where it is to be noted that he had not so long and difficult a journey to go as in most parochial Churches the minister hath to pass from his reading Pew or Pulpit through a throng of people to the holy Table and therefore there is good reason to spare him that labour in the days wherein is no Communion Persons excommunicated were nor received into Communion of any Prayers in the Church Conc. Ancyram can 6. 25. Conc. Nicen. 6.11 no not with the Catechumens until they had humbled themselves before the Bishop and earnestly besought that they might be made partakers of his councel concerning what was needful to be done by them to the perfecting of meet repentance in them and whereby they might give sufficient proof thereof for the satisfaction of the Church offended by their transgressions promising to follow his counsel and to perform the enjoyned pennance Upon this serious petition and promise the Bishops and Presbyters enjoyned such works of unfained humiliation to be done by them as they thought most agreeable for their case and condition and praying for them admitted them to the number and order of the Penitents When these had fulfilled the enjoyned works of humiliation to be performed by them in that order then they were admitted to the Communion of the prayers proper to the faithful and after the works of repentance which were commanded to be done by them in that rank they were admitted to the Lords Supper wherein was the perfection of Communion Conc. Nicen. c. 12. If any Penitent in the course of humiliation was in an eminent and iminent danger of death it was alway provided by the Fathers of the Church that perfect Communion with the Church of God without which Church is no salvation should be granted him in the participation of the body and blood of our blessed Saviour except the governours of the Church had observed in