for a witness that the remedy bears date from the disease even from that time when it was said at Corinth which was surely in the Apostles days I am of Paul I am of Apollos I am of Cephas as appears in his Comment upon Titus Surely therefore St. Jerome never dreamt that Episcopacy was Antichristian nor ever designed to effect that from evidence of Scripture which has been since attempted by the power of the Sword Ignatius his advice for the subjection of Presbyters to their Bishop suited well enough with his Principles as indeed it did with those of all Christendom besides till at last mens interest led them on as to urge Presbytery from St. Jerome so to quote St. Paul for Rebellion 3. But thirdly from the consideration of this great variety of Opinions to salve this confusion of names it may perhaps be seasonable to enquire whether there be really found in Scripture such a Communion of names as is pretended I am conscious that herein I advance an Hypothesis against many great and justly venerable Names And therefore I shall only humbly propose a twofold distinction for the clearing those places of Scripture which concern the point in question The first is between the Universal Church and those particular Provinces wherein Churches were planted under their respective Rulers In the former respect I grant that the word Presbyter is indifferently applied to the Chief Governours of the Church and that they are the same persons who are in one place called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which word whether it were Translated into the Church from the Jewish Synagogue or else taken from Age which brings experience and consequently fits for Government was in those days rather an appellative of dignity than a distinctive character of an Office And therefore generally in the Acts of the Apostles while Jerusalem and Christendom were in a manner of the same extent the word Presbyter which in particular Churches was still a title of Honour had hear a more ample and undetermined signification But if any of our adversaries take advantage from this concession I desire him only to consider that the Apostles are oftner called by the name of Deacons than the chief Governours of the Church by the name of Presbyters As Deacons of God and of Christ 1 Thess 3.2 Deacons of the New Testament 2 Cor. 3.6 Deacons of the Gospel Ephes 3.7 Deacons of righteousness 2 Cor. 11.15 Deacons of the Church Col. 1.25 I confess that our Translation in these and other parallel places always read Ministers in stead of Deacons as is observed in thirty places in the vulgar Latin of St. Jerome yet it is the very same word which is rendred Deacons in the Epistles of Timothy and Titus Which containing Apostolical Directions for the management of Particular Churches de statu Ecclesiastia compositae as Tertullian speaks distinguish Church Orders by their Names and Titles as well as their Offices and Powers And therefore thought in respect of the Universal Church the principal Rulers are sometimes stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signify their Superiority over the Brethren sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to denote their immediate Ministration and attendance upon Christ the great Bishop of our Souls and Apostle of our profession Yet nothing will follow from hence but that in particular Churches they might be both limited and restrained the one to the second Order of Priests the other to the Attendants upon the Bishops So that this observation gives the same ground for Deacons to contest with Presbyters as it does for Presbyters with Bishops And thence because the Apostles and the Brethren are indifferently called Disciples they will by this way of arguing strengthen the pretence of the Independents and as 't is worded by a learned Writer hold the stirrop to the Congregations to throw themselves out of the Saddle But secondly If this Communion of names be pretended in particular Churches as at Philippi Ephesus and Creet I shall crave leave with Epiphanius to make another distinction o particular Churches from one another For he in his Refutation of Aerius his Argument drawn from the Communion of names objects to him his not understanding the Histories of the Primitive plantation of Churches asserting That at the first forming of them which could not be perfected in an instant there were in some places Bishops without Presbyters and in other Presbyters without Bishops which could be no inconvenience for a small space of time since those who planted them were sufficiently enabled to supply the defect of either He never observed this confusion of names which has been since pretended as neither did any that went before him but thought this one consideration to be valid enough to convince his adversary both of errour in Interpreting Scripture and of Ignorance in the Monuments of the Church But granting all that we have hitherto asserted and moreover that the objection from the plurallity of Bishops mentioned at Ephesus and Philippi be fully taken off upon this presumption that in the Apostles days there were more Bishops than one in a City 'till a more perfest Coalescence was at length made between the Jewish and the Gentile Converts yet notwithstanding it may be still demanded What is all this to the case before us For here in a particular Church the Church of Ephesus the same persons in the same Speech are called both Presbyters and Bishops To which I answer that if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denote the universal Church my first distinction holds good But if not I have the Testimony of Irenaeus an authority next to Apostolical to extend the word Church beyond the City of Ephesus and Bishops and Presbyters beyond one Order of the Clergy For so he writes in his Third Book and Fourteenth Chapter In Mileto enim Convocatis Episcopis presbyteris qui erant ab Epheso a reliquis proximis Civitatibus To which the late Vindicator of Monsieur Daillee seems to return an answer by giving Irenaeus the lye A Divi Lucae narratione seorsim abit But surely when St. Paul says vers 25 All you among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdom of God he seems to intimate a greater extent than the single City of Ephesus will amount to and consequently to give us some ground for a reconcilement between Irenaeus and St. Luke And therefore I shall make no other use of our Authors reply than to observe another instance of the hard fate of the Fathers of the Church however ancient and Apostolical when they cross mens Interests and Opinions For if we urge them with Ignatius he is spurious and suppositious and therefore to be rejected if with Irenaeus he is false and fabulous and so not to be believed I have thus far explained the difficulty arising from the phrase of the Text and therein justified my dissent from our English Translation in reading Bishops instead of Overseers And as the Reverend Fathers of
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
Spiritus is not said in vain at this great Solemnity nor can we possibly overlook that visible instance of his peculiar Presence in the Consecration of this day For though we live in an Age wherein not only the work of the Ministry is become the derision of Fools but even wise Men pretend to discern the dreadful symptoms of a departing Candlestick and a tottering Church yet it hath pleased him who perfecteth strength in weakness and is nearest at hand in the greatest exigents to raise up the Sons of Nobles to become the Princes of his People to stop the Mouths of the one and to refute the Prognosticks of the other He places over us in the same persons both a glory and a defence by the one to take off scandal by the other to strengthen the Church Blessed therefore be the Name of our great God in whose Hand are the Hearts of Kings that hath stirred up the heart of Ours to make this closer connexion between the Civil and Ecclesiastical interests and in the same choice effectually to provide for the perpetuity of the Church and for the establishment of his Throne We have thus seen that God has not failed hitherto to make good his promise to his Church that the Comforter shall abide with it for ever But since these instances have not proved so successful as to silence the Contradiction of foolish and unreasonable men I shall briefly consider some of the most plausible pretences that are made use of to shake the stability of the Church and turn the Holy Ghost out of his Office First then the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops and therefore not the Civil Magistrate It is an objection of the Romanists against the English Reformation that the power of Order hath ceased in our Church ever since the departure from the Church of Rome as being now utterly dissolved into the Kings deputation of Commissioners for the Administration of Ecclesiastical Affairs And though the scandal be abundantly refuted by the sacred Rites and Solemnities of this day yet we have had those among our selves who in stead of denying the charge as they justly might have pretended to justifie the Church by owning the accusation For we are told by the Disputers of this World that the Church is nothing else but a Christian Common-wealth and that all pretence of Divine authority and obligation upon Conscience abstracted from the power of the Sword is a meer Imposture and destructive to the State Thus by the old Stratagem of the Enemy of Man-kind is the Church as was once its Author traduced as an enemy to Caesar Though I hope the Case may be so plainly stated between both as to vindicate the Rights of the one without incurring the Jealousie of the other The contrary assertion to what we have laid down can be maintained only upon one of these three Grounds First that there was no right for Christians to associate together for the Worship of God according to the profession of Christianity antecedent to the Command or Allowance of the Civil power Or Secondly supposing a Society of Christians that there was no right of Rule or Government vested in the Officers and Pastors of it Or thirdly supposing a Church power that it escheated to the supream Magistrate when the Church became incorporate into the Civil state The first of these though perhaps the ultimate resolution of the other two resolves it self into Blasphemies beyond the confutation of the Pulpit We must thence pronounce all the Conventions of Christians even those assemblings of themselves together which the Apostle commands his Hebrews not to forsake to be so many unlawful Conventicles and not exempt the first Council at Jerusalem from the accusation which we are sure was managed by the presiding of the Holy Ghost We must affix the blackest note of Infamy upon the Apostles and the Primitive Christians and ascribe a right to the Heathen Magistrates which shall justify the persecution of Christianity We must arraign the Noble Army of Martyrs whose Heroical Courage we hitherto solemnize of foul self-Murther as well as folly in being prodigal of their Blood to no purpose running upon the Sword without a warrant and laying down their lives in the defence of a proposition when they had no obligation to profess it and so execute their Names and Memories as the Heathen did their persons by owning that they suffered deservedly But surely if we have not forfeited our Faith as well as our Charity we may conclude they had hard measure enough at their Persecutors tribunals and therefore may be dismist from ours The second pretence is somewhat more plausible That there is such a Society as a Church and Officers placed in it but such whose only business it is to teach and to declare the will of God without any rule or authority committed to them over those who shal1 receive it Against which we might reason with the Learned Grotius upon Luke 6.22 that there is no necessity of assigning a positive and express Precept in Holy Scripture for granting the Society of the Church established by God all those things are virtually commanded in it which are absolutely necessary to preserve it in its purity and its being Such is the power of Discipline and Government as is evident from the common notion of Societies in general and the peculiar nature of this But not contenting our selves toargue merely from natural Reason in a positive Institution of this kind as transcends the sublimest disquisitions and closest deductions of it if we consult the pattern in the Mount or the settlement of the Church in the New Testament which contains the Covenant of Grace whereupon it is founded we shall find in the Church as in the Ark which was the Type of it the rod of Aaron as well as the Tables of the Law and discover in it the manifest traces of a paternal and imperative though no coercive Jurisdiction We shall there find the Enacting of Laws as in the first Council at Jerusalem a promulgation of the Decrees that were made by the Apostle and Elders which was done by Paul and Barnabas through the Cities Acts 16.4 a Judiciary process against offenders I. Tim. 5.19 a punishment of the guilty as appears in the incestuous Corinthian and in the same instance the absolution of the Penitent and relaxation of the Censure We shall find there the persons with whom the management of these great affairs was intrusted dignified and distinguished by the Titles of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which import Rule and Authority whereto they were solemnly Sanctified and set apart by a visible and Sacred Rite of Imposition of hands All which if they are duly and impartially considered will sufficiently evidence that these things were something more than Pageantry and Show that there was a Government in the World subsisting upon a different claim from that of the Roman Empire that Christ sent forth his Apostles not only as Sheep among Wolves but
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