autem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quo de causâ non solum in Israele verum postea in Ecclesia ex Judeis gentibus collectâ multos etiam diversos ministrorum ordines instituit and about twenty lines after addes these words Hac sone ratione quae etiam de Episcopis imo de quatuor Patriarchis ante ipsum etiam Concilium Nicaenum creatis constituta suerunt excusari defendique posse sentimus And that this learned man may give more light and strength to what he delivers in these two paragraphs in his observations upon these paragraphs he inserts a very sober and clear discourse out of Master Bucer de disciplina Clericali which is very well worth your reading The summe of it is what I have already set down and Bucers conclusion is Quia omnino necesse est ut singuli Clerici suos habeant proprios custodes curatores instauranda est ut Episcoporum ita Archidiaconorum aliorumque omnium quibuscunque censentur nominibus quibus portio aliqua commissa est custodiendi gubernandique Cleri authoritas potestas sed vigilantia animadversio ne quis omnino in hoc ordine sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the close of Bucers discourse not onely reciting but praysing and commending the constitution and custome of the old Church in the various distribution of the Ecclesiastical functions and degrees I have many years since heard a wise man affirme that a little insight into Natural Philosophy is apt to make a man an Atheist as a litttle knowledge in Physick creates an Emperick a little sight in the Law a petty fogger for it prides men with the confidence of knowledge and makes them pragmatical whereas a deep search in any art humbles the man brings him to the sight of his own mistakes and makes him sensible that truth as Plato was wont to say lay in the bottome of a deep well and without labour and a long rope it was not to be fetcht from thence Was it not so with Aristotle with Plato c whereas others upon the slight search of nature became Atheistical the last of these by his depth of enquiry became to acknowledge the prime cause of all things to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very little differing from that ineffable name by which God was made known to Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Paraenetic ad Hellenas Exod. 3.14 I am that I am And the other not being able to search why the Euripus should ebbe and flow seven times a day cryed out O eus entium This shews what a little skill in any science and what a profound knowledge will do The one will raise strange confidences and Chimeras in the brain the other will allay and settle them He who would be quieted and satisfied about Church-government I could advise him to search this point to the depth for otherwise he may be transported with strange fancies His little knowledge may swell him too much and make him over-confident to practise upon the Church and make experiences before he is throughly skilful Whereas if he will stay his pace and not venture and vent his drugges till he hath consulted the Ancients and seen what judgment his fore-fathers and those that liv'd nearest the Apostolical times gave of them I beleeve he will not be over-hasty to prescribe any new dose especially when he shall finde that the old was held safe and sufficient to preserve the health of the Church and to prevent incroaching diseases This course if you disdain and dislike you condemn the whole Church of Christ from the first encreasing and spreading thereof to this present age and preferre your own wisdome before all the Martyrs Confessours Fathers Princes Bishops that have lived dyed governed in the Church of God since the Apostles times How well the height of your conceits can endure to blemish and reproach so many religious and famous lights of Christendom I know not What all the old Fathers all the zealous first Reformers all blinde in comparison of your selves for my part I wish the Church of God in our dayes may have the grace for piety and prudence to follow their steps and not to make the world believe that all the servants of Christ before we liv'd favoured and furthered the pride of Anti-Christ till now in the fagge end of the world when the faith of most men and their love and charity are quench'd and decay'd some new lights arose to restore the Church to that perfection of discipline which the Apostles never mentioned the Ancient fathers and Councils never remembred the Universal Church of Christ before us never conceived nor our chief Reformers never imagined for they have as you have heard delineated and commended the old way of discipline But here befoâ—e I end my general answer I must remove one block which some have cast in my way For I have heard it objected that these Patriarchs were Independents which I confesse in some sense is true because one Patriarch was not to intermeddle in the jurisdiction of another the Canons of the Church having set out the extent of their Provinces and limited their power But this will make nothing for the present Independency of Combinational Churches for they had Churches many Metropolitan sees many Diocesses under their power and over-sight But these have but one single Congregation Those could call Synods through their whole Province and punish any Bishop or Church-man or other under them An Independent dependent Church can call no Synod nor punish nor reforme any member that is not of their own society or Combination Those were not so absolute neither but they were bound upon their elections to informe their fellow Patriarchs and by theit communicatory letters to give accompt of it and of their faith The Pastours of the Combinational Churches are not accomptable to any sister-Church Lastly put case as it sometimes fell out that Factions that Schismes that Heresies arose in their Patriarchates the Church was not left remedilesse for the Patriarch or Church being not able to quell compose or extirpate them a General Council was call'd to which they were all inferiour and to whose verdict they were bound to stand as is evident in the case of Nestorius Dioscorus c. who were depos'd by general Councils and their Heresies condemned and the like may be said of Arrius and Eutiches condemn'd in general Councils which shews that the general Council was the supreme judicature and that the Patriarchs had their dependence on it and so were not absolute Independents Now for the calling of these and other Councils they had their warrant and pattern from the Apostles Acts 15. who to redresse a contention then arose in the Church call'd that Synod to Jerusalem and composed it And indeed were there no other argument against Independent or Congregational Churches Rutherford peace plea. c. 7. Concl. 4. Bayly c. 10. as there be very many and very
Ecclesiastique Numb 11.16 Nay Godw. ant l. 5. c. 1. it is distinguished from it for in the Civil Consistory the Judges were called Elders in the spiritual priests Matth. 21.23 26.3 The chief Priests and Elders of the people are named as two distinct Consistories though Vossius Doctor Hammon Downham and Weames admit not this distinction 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament sometimes but rarely is taken in the same sense as in the Old But most commonly it is attributed to an Order of Ecclesiastiques whether in a higher or a lower Order and degree 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by the maintainers of the Congregational and Consistorial Church taken for a mixed company of Lay men and Ecclesiasticks to whose government they suppose the power of the Keys is committed and this they call the Presbyterial Church and if I am not deceived of this you speak in this place But against this I affirme that there never was any such Presbyterial Church before Calvin and to that purpose I here propose and hope to make good these Propositions against any opponent 1. That there must be government in the Church 2. That Christ instituted this government and Governours for it 3. That this government must be perpetual 4. That the Apostles were those Governours for the time and for perpetuity their Successors appointed by them 5. That their Successors were Bishops in Name and Office 6. That for the execution of this Office Christ gave to the Apostles the Keys and they to their Successors onely 7. That this power consisted in Ordination and Jurisdiction and therefore that they onely could ordaine and juridically proceed 8. That at first the Apostles and after the Bishops did both without a Presbytery 9. Yet that by the Apostles a Presbytery was instituted in some Churches who were Ecclesiastiques onely 10. That yet none of these Presbyters were Bishops but assistants onely being distinct from them 11. That this Presbytery without the Bishop could not use the Keys 12. That no Lay-man was of the Apostolical Presbytery nor no Lay-man after for 1500. years 13. That at first the people elected not any Church-Officer All these Propositions will require much time to be made good I shall now therefore omit the demonstration of them and go on to you fourth and fifth Proposition where I shall use some of them Proposition 4. Viz. That this prescribed Ministery must consist of Presbyters or Teaching and Ruling Elders THe subject of this Proposition is the prescribed Ministery and it hath two Attributes 1. The Presbyters 2. Teaching and Ruling Elders and both must be distinctly considered 1. The prescribed Ministery consists of Presbyters If by Presbyters you mean Presbyters in the second acception as it comprehends those of an higher and those of a subordinate degree this part of your proposition is most true and it shall be granted you But if you exclude the Bishop properly so called I absolutely deny it For the Apostles were Bishops Matthias elected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 1.20 There you have the Name and accordingly the Fathers of the Church called them Apostolos i. e. Episcopos Dominus Elegit Cyprian Epist 9. lib. 3. Cyprian They had the power of the Keys promised Matth. 16.19 Matth. 18.18 and actually estated on them John 20.23 In these texts you have the power which lay in jurisdiction and ordination In that was the office The Apostles were then in Name and Office Bishops This is performed in the second part I will give you a breviate of what I could say at large for the first Government of the Church I finde onely in Scripture mention of three Church-Officers Bishops Presbyters Deacons 1. The highest function which was Episcopal the Apostles reserved to themselves for some time and that for three reasons At first there were but few convicted Acts 14.27 1 Cor. 16. whence their labour was imployed in turning the first Key in opening the dore of faith that great and effectual dore and all the helps they could make either by Prophets Evangelists Coadjutors Pastors Doctors Planters Waterers to this purpose was little enough But none of these qua tales were Bishops 2. After the conversion of Jews and Gentiles yet in many Churches they yet setled not a Bishop first because a Presbyter fit for a Bishops office is not so easily found it is Saint Pauls rule that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan a Novice one newly come to the faith be not made a Bishop Secondly because while the Apostles remained in or near any place they reserved the power 1 Tim. 3.6 there being no need of Bishops The Apostles for that time supplying the wants of those Churches either with their presence letters or messengers as the cause required 3. And yet there is a third reason The Apostles suffered the Churches to make a trial what equality of many Governours would do but when they found the fruits thereof to be dissension and that every one would be master parity and plurality breeding dissension and confusion they committed the Church to one I shall set you down this in Hieromes words Hieron Com. in Epist ad Titum even in those very words which are produced against Bishops Idem est Presbyter quod Episcopus autequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent diceretur in populis Ego sum Pauli ego Apollo ego Cephae communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur Post quam vero unusquisque eos quos baptizabat suos putabat esse non Christi in toâ—o orbe decretum est ut unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur cateris ut Schismatum semina tollerentur Haec diximus ostendimâ—s eosdem fuisse Presbyteros Episcopos ut Episcopi noverint se magis consuetudine quam Dominicae dispositionis veritate Presbyteris esse majores in communi debere Ecclesiâ—m rege e. I have recited these words of Hierome at full because in them there be many thâ—ngs clearly for me and some other passages seemingly against me to which I will give light Note here then first the cause of the Bishops creation 1. The causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or occasion was factions and Schismes and the end that Schismes might be taken away so his words are cum diceretur ego Pauli c. ut schismata tollerentur Secondly The time when the Bishop was ordained old enough for it was in the Apostles dayes for then it was said ego Pauli ego Cephae c. 1 Cor. 1. a sufficient authority I suppose for the Bishops institution it must needs be granted Apostolical if it began then Thirdly this institution was Decretum and pray say who then could decree except the Apostles or durst decree without them Fourthly that this Decree was generally assented to for Decretum est toto orbe it must be then Apostolical and Oecumenical Fifthly now consider the words of the Decree ut unus de Presbyteris
And one part of their Offices in the Church was to Ordain This is manifest first in Timothy in the Church of Ephesus Acts 20. There were many Presbyters before Timothy was appointed their Bishop yet Saint Paul sent him of purpose to impose hands 1 Tim. 5.22 and say it was with the Presbytery yet it can never be proved that any of that Colledge was no more than a Professing Member You know how strongly all the Presbyterians pleade for the contrary and was this injunction onely personal and to end with Timothies life 1 Tim. 6.13 14 Not so neither For this charge he layes upon him in fearful words I charge thee in the fight of God who quickeneth all things and before Jesus Christ who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession that thou keep this Commandment without spot unrebukable till the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ 'T is agreed by all that Saint Paul in this Epistle especially sets an order for the Government of the Church 1 Tim. 5.22 among which that a Bishop lay not hands hastily upon any man is one This then was not Temporary but to last till the end of the world That they were to Ordaine is every whit as plaine in Titus for for that intent he was left in Crete Neither would the Church succeeding admit of any other but Bishops to that businesse for one thousand five hundred years Tit. 1.5 as I will prove unto you if you require it by unpregnable records Two evidences there are of it beyond exception First the condemning Aërius as an Heretique for opposing Episcopal power Secondly that if any one of an inferiour rank presumed to ordaine his act was reversed by the Church as unlawful and the ordained admitted no otherwise to the Communion than as a Lay-man As it befel Ischyras and those who were ordained by Maximus and another blind Bishop Athanas apol 2 Greg. Presb. in vita Nanz. Conc. Constant 2. cap. 4. Conc. Hisp 2. cap. 5. 7. and others in the Church story I beseech you now if you little regard the Fathers and Councils yet view the Scriptures with an unpartial eye and then if the Commission our Saviour gave his Apostles or the Apostles to their successors if the practice of the Apostles themselves or Apostolical men can any whit move consider whether the Presbyters or Ruling members ought to be of the professing members regular ordination Make it plaine that the power of the Keys is subjectivè formalitèr inhaesivè authoritativè in them and I yield you the whole cause Your sixth Proposition that their Office extent understanding by that the Ministry which Christ ordained in his Church must reach from Christs Ascention to the Creations dissolution I easily grant I shall therefore say nothing to that but come to examine your proofs out of Scripture And here I could have wished that you had applyed every text to that part of the Proposition you intended it For it had beene farre easier for me to have judged of the validity of it and more readily have shaped my answer whereas now I can but rove at it and therefore if I mistake you must thank your self The texts alleadged Acts 6.5 14.23 I suppose you referre these to the first part of the fifth proposition for election by Church-members and I have answered them already and shall therefore spare my labour The other if I be not mistaken are to prove your Teaching and Ruling Elders Rom. 12.7 8. 1 Cor. 12.8.28 Ephes 4.7.14 Rev. 4.6 5.6 19 4. But among these I finde not one text to prove your Presbyterial or Combinational Church nor your regular Ordination by professing members The Text then out of the Romans Corinthians Ephesians and the Revelations I am to examine and see how they will conclude what you intend Rom. 12.7 8. Or ministery let us wait on our ministery or he that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation he that giveth let him do it with simplicity he that sheweth mercy with chearfulnesse The words are Elliptical and therefore must be supplied from the former verses The Apostle being to deliver divers precepts first gives a signification of his power verse 3. Then he prescribes in general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To every one God as he pleaseth gives a measure of his gifts and therefore no man ought to arrogate to himself more than he ought for this were absurd as if in the body one part should assume and usurp the faculties of another for to that purpose he makes use of that comparison of a natural body vers 4 5. As then the parts of the natural body have their proper endowments so also have the several members of Christs several graces bestowed on them by God and these gifts must be employed for the benefit of the whole and the parts he thus infers verse 6. Having then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 freely and graciously bestowed he shewes how we must bestow them And then he reckons up these gifts these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First prophesie Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministery 3. Ability to teach 4. A faculty to exhort or comfort 5. A heart and power to give 6 Wisdome to govern 7. Bowels of mercie These are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Gratuito's those talents we have received from our Lord and they must be laid out for his honour for our brethrens good This I conceive to be the prime intention of the Apostle in this place for he expressely names gifts and not men But because these gifts must upon necessity be exercised by men therefore he intimates on whom they are bestowed more peculiarly not all gifts to one man neither is one man by God sitted alwayes for all gifts One man he calls to be a Prophet and gives him a gift to foretel things to come or to interpret the Scriptures let him then interpret according to the Analogy of faith not adde nor diminish nor alter at his pleasure To another he hath given a gift to teach let him aptly and in easie plaine intelligible words explaine the will of God and teach them he ought To a third he hath given an admirable faculty to stir up and move another to the actions of piety or else to be a Barnabas a sonne of consolation in raising and comforting an afflicted and oppressed soul let him use this exhortation exhibit this comfort as occasion is required To a fourth God hath been graciou and gifted him with wealth and riches of these he is to impart a portion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingenuously liberally freely simply without any doubting either in respect of persons or a regard to his own profit Upon another is bestowed a gift by which he s made a fit man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 10.17 to be over others you know that God took of Moses spirit and put it on the seventy Elders and he that hath this gift must use it with diligence
the primitive Church yet will never grant you that from thence the Church shall be denominated Presbyterial or that if it should vary from thence that therefore it had no more than the Sceleton fashion face of a true Church All these things should have been better cast up before you had been so positive The degeneration then you dream of is grounded upon a false supposition that there was at first such a Presbyterial or Combinational Church that was conjoyn'd in any Church-Covenant beside Baptisme that had the native power of the Keyes c. which you never shall be able to demonstrate The contrary to which Rutherford hath nervously prov'd more particularly in his seventh Chapter of his peaceable and temperate plea to whom I referre you The summe of whose discourse is that there were at Jerusalem Father f. cap. 7. Conclus 4. at Samaria at Ephesus at Rome at Galatia at Antioch Presbyteries which shall be granted but that these Presbyteries were not of one single Congregation From these then you can never prove that the following Church did degenerate because they were not The manner of this degeneration you make gradual and you give us in five steppes descending from the Parochial till it came to the oecumenical Romane as you call it But supposing a degeneration in the degrees you are mistaken for as I suppose the first should be last and the last first which will appear if we examine how the Church was govern'd from the Apostles times to this our unhappy age But first I will transcribe your whole discourse SECT II. The words of the Letter 1. THE first rise of the rottening of the Church was its falling from a pure poor Presbyterial Church which in respect of its primitive constitution was made up of living stones namely lively Members and laborious Ministers being firmly fastened and united to the Lord Jesus as their onely head by faith one to another by a fraternal Covenant of love according to the pattern that was proposed and prescribed in both Testaments Is 44.5 Jer. 50.5 Ezra 20.37 Zach. 11.7 10 14. 2 Cor. 8.5 Ephes 2.13 19 22. Col. 2.2 19. 1 Pet. 2.5 into an impure and unpolished parochial Church At that time when ceasing to elect and ordain a Teacher a Pastour a Ruler a Deacon and Diaconesse or a Widow in conformity to the heavenly Canon Rom. 12.7 and 15.4 and 16.1 compared with 1 Tim. 3.1 and Titus 1.5 6. it was well content to admit and accept of a Parson a Vicar a Warden an Over-seer of the poor and a Mid-wife By which wisdome of the flesh being no better then enmity against God within a short time after the dayes of the Apostles Christs spiritual house and growing as well as living Temple was turned and transformed into a carnal and dead Town or Apostatizing Parish The very beginning and breeding of which Parochial Church is seen to have been in the time of Polycarp and Irenaeus one of them being an Elder of the Church at Smyrna and a disciple of John the Evangelist and the other a Pastour at Lyons and a disciple of that Polycarp as any man may easily perceive that will peruse what is to be observed in Eusebius Ecclesiastical history 4. lib. c. 14.15 16. lib. 5. cap. 23.24 2. The second degree of the Combinational Churches corruptions was the Cathedral Churches generation which did presume to alter and to elevate the places and appellations of the Teacher Pastour Ruler and Deacon into those unscripture-like titles of lord-Lord-Bishop Dean Chancellour and Arch-Deacon who ventur'd to usurp the power of excommunication against the Members and Ministers of many Congregations in their Synods and Councels contrary to what was practic'd in that Orthodoxe pattern Acts 15.24 which is laid down and left as well for the imitation as information of after-ages whose work it was by Scripture-proofs to confute soul subverting positions and to confirme Christian-doctrines without any manner of authority to censure any mans person being that that is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 The babe-age of which usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arius in the reigne of Constantius and Constance the sonnes of Constantine the Emperour as it is to be seen in Lib. 2. Socrat. Schol. c. 3. compared with the 32 cap. of 2 book Evagr. lib. 1. cap. 6. 3. The third degree of the Presbyterial Churches degeneracy was its climbing up to the stile of a Provincial Church whose Pastour was not afrai'd nor asham'd to assume the name and office of an Arch-Bishop and Metropolitane leaving the servile and subservient titles of Prebende Surrogate and Vicar-general as termes good enough to the inferiour Officers his underlings Of which proud and prophane Pest-house that Austin which was sent from Gregory the last of good Bishops and the first of evil Popes of Rome is reputed and recorded to have been the father and founder in this Land even then when he was stifly and stoutly oppos'd by the Monks of Bangor Anno Domini 596. and in the reign of King Ethelbert witnesse Fox Martyrol page 119. together with the rest of the Eng. Hist and Evangr lib. 2.8 4. The fourth famous degree of the Combinational Churches infamous defection was its notably naughty enlarging it self into a National Church when and whence without controversie arose that Jewish imitation and irregularly Religious observation of five frivolous and foundationlesse customes and traditions of which the first was of National times as the fifty yearly Festivals or holy working-dayes Cursed-Masse Candle-Masse c. The second was the National places as the Consecrated meeting houses Porches Chancels Church-yards The third was of National persons as the Universal Preachers Office-Priests Half-Priests and Diocesan Deacons The fourth was of National pious performances as stâ—nted Worship Quiristers singing of Psalmes with the Rubrique Postures And the fifth was of National payments or spiritual profits as offerings tithes and mortuaries the which faithlesse and fantastical fashions were the illegitimate off-spring of National Parliaments in this and the Neighbour-Nations Witnesse the publick Acts Statutes and other Ordinances in that behalf 5. The fifth and highest degree of Church-deformity is the oecumenical Church otherwise call'd Romane Catholique the which in the apprehension of I know not how many Kingdomes is the very best though in the judgment of Christ Jesus it is the very basest because the beastliest and the most blasphemous of all the bastard-Church constitutions that ever were till now Witnesse what is written Rev. 13.1 3 5 6. whose Pastor and other Presbyters the sinne-pardoning Pope Cardinals Abbots with others were owned and acknowledged for to be and that not a few if not of the summond Councels yet in several Synods in sundry Countries Insomuch that Churches abominable iniquities were so increas'd over their heads and their trayterous
they became a man of a Homogeneous and Inorganical an heterogeneous and organical body At first they were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a people but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power and authority in themselves for why else did they all this And if this be not an act of Democracy I must professe I understand not the name nor definition of the word I shall take it kindly that any man will informe my ignorance Yea but it may be said that now in organizato corpore this Democracy is at an end for now it is a well shaped creature it hath a head it hath eyes it hath hands and all other parts in a goodly symmetry though I could ask what kind of Church was that of Mr. Canns at Amsterdam which for a time had no Pastour that liv'd a long time without Officers or Eldership yet I spare you Not so neither Answer to the thirty two Questions pag. 48. pag. 44. for the people for ought I can see as they had authority in actu primo to elect and ordain so they have authority in actu secundo to depose and excommunicate their Pastour and Elders and so to reduce themselves to what they were in puris naturalibus from an heterogeneous body to make themselves homogeneous from an organiz'd body to make themselves inorganiz'd and either to remain so if they please or to choose again And for ought I conceive Cottons Keyes Mr. Cotton intends no other by his new-coyned and applauded distinction of power and authority and power of liberty for whatever authority he gives to the Eldership he makes it vain and frustaneous without the consent of the people and notwithstanding all the obedience and subjection he puts upon the people yet he gives to them such a power of liberty that their concurrence with the Eldership in every act of power is not onely necessary but authoritativè In a word if the people have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 authority of institution and destitution as your parties say if you should tell me a thousand times over I shall never beleeve otherwise but your Combinational Church is governed by a Democracy I hope I have proved sufficiently what I undertook and now I returne to my purpose for I leave the destructive part and come to build And here I shall lay that in the foundation which none but Papists for ought I perceive will deny That our Saviour Christ left the Church Militant in the hands of the Apostles and their Successours and an Aristocratical government which I shall illustrate unto you by an induction of particulars 1. The first constitute Christian Church we read of in the world Isa 2.3 was that of Jerusalem for the Law was to come out of Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem There the Apostles and Disciples first preached so that Eve was not more properly term'd the Mother of all living then this Church by Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret. the Mother of all believing Churches From thence the Apostle being to depart for that they might execute our Saviors command to preach unto all Nations left the government of that Church unto James the brother of our Lord not the Apostle and ordained him then the first Bishop Euseb lib. 2.1 l. 1.19 Jerom Hegesip Ambr. Euseb 3.11 Hegesip 4.22 Jerom. in Isa 3. Ambr. in 1 Tim. Ignat. ad Trall Acts 21.18 Acts 15. Et post Martyrium Jacobi traditur saith Eusebius Apostolos commune concilium habuisse quem oporteret dignum successione Jacobi judicari omnesque uno concilio uno consensu Simeonem Cleophae filium decrevisse ut Episcopatus sedem susciperet And if I list I could give you in the Catalogue of the succeeding Bishops for the first six hundred years To him I doubt not but there was joyn'd a Presbytery which Jerome calls Senatus Ecclesiae some Collegium Presbyterorum Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he thus describes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they were those Elders present with James their Bishop to whom Saint Paul went in And if I shall name Judas and Silas for two of them I am partly assured that I am not mistaken because the Decree made by the Synod at Hierusalem was sent by them The government here then was Aristocratical 2. Acts 11.22 26 27 28. cap. 13.1 Origen in Luc. Hom. 6. Euseb 3. cap. 35 Ignat. ad Antiochen The next instance I shall give you for a constitute Church is at Antioch And in this City being the Metropolis of Syria Barnabas Paul and other Prophets and Teachers Simeon Lucius Manâ—en were sound and hither also Peter came Gal. 2.11 Of this Church Origen Jerome and Ignatius who best knew it for he conversed with the Apostles Socrat. lib. 6. cap. 8. make Saint Peter the first Bishop that Evodius succeeded is the testimony of Ignatius He saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignatius was the next himself from whom I can give you a clear succession to the terme I mention'd And those I mentioned Barnabas Simeon Lucius c. I shall not doubt to call the Presbytery of which almost in every Epistle Ignatius makes expresse mention as Counsellours Assistants and Co-assessours of the Bishop At Antioch then was an Aristocracy also 3. At Ephesus we meet again with a constituted Church where Timothy was made Bishop by Saint Paul The subscription of the second Epistle shews that he was the first Bishop there Euseb lib. 3. c. 4. and Eusebius who saw the Records of the Primitive Church affirmes the same That he was ordained by Saint Paul by the hands of the Presbytery Calvin conceives is beyond question Now if it be demandâ—d when Timothy was made Bishop it is most probable when Paul was at Miletum When the Apostles departed from any Church which they had planted in that then they appointed a Bishop For while they remain'd in or near the place there was no such need the Apostles supplying the wants of those Churches with their presence letters or messengers as the cause required But when they were finally to forgo those parts then they began to provide for the necessity and security of that Church by setling Episcopal power which in all probability was the reason that they so soon provided a Bishop for the Church of Jerusalem Saint Paul at this time was to take his leave of the Churches at Asia he saith it plainly in that Chapter Acts 20.25 that they should see his face no more most probable then it is that at this time he left Timothy to supply his place of Ephesus yea and that the six other Angels of the Churches were then by him ordain'd Think of these seven Angels of the Churches what you please I shall not doubt to esteem them single persons and Bishops and that upon stronger evidence then any can be brought to the contrary But that 's no discourse for this place I suppose
that it is very probable that they were ordain'd at this meeting at Miletum except you judge that Saint John the Apostle setled them in those Churches before his banishment to Patmos for in those Churches they had the power when he wrote the Revelation Howbeâ—t it will serve my turn well enough if they were onely Pastours with a Presbytery for this will prove the government then of the Church to be Aristocratical 4. If we come to Rome there we finde Paul an Apostle and as all Church Records assure us Peter Bishop there needed none where they lived Rom. 16. Presbyters there were then many Junius Clemens Cleâ—us Andronicus Urbane Tripheus Perses Of these Cletus and Clemens were Bishops after the Apostles Martytdome and their Succesours so apparent that I need not recite them Euseb lib. 2. cap. 24. Hieron ad Evagr. Origen Ambrose 5. What should I speak that Mark was Bishop of Alexandria who died six years before Peter in whose Church there was a Presbytery of Titus appointed Bishop by Saint Paul and left to ordain in the Island Presbyters and to have jurisdiction Of Dionysius the Areopagite the first Bishop of Athens Of Archippus at Colosse Of Onesimus at Philippi Of Gaius at Thessalonica The Records were infinite that I could produce in this kinde You see I have not instanced in any but such who were Bishops viventibus videntibus approbantibus Apostolis that so the truth may be apparent I shall not therefore doubt to affirme that the government of the Apostolical Churches was by Bishops as such who had the chief power and that it was Aristocratical Neither can all the Arguments of the Presbyterians any whit enervate this for you see I grant and prove a Presbytery in these two onely lies the difference betwixt them and us First that they would have a Presbytery established by the Apostles without a Bishop which I shall never grant and I know they can never prove Secondly that the power of this Presbytery without a Bishop should be the most supreme in the Church and that to it without a Bishop the Keyes were delivered For this is it which I affirme that originally the whole power was in the Apostles and by them exercised where they setled no Bishop But to him where they fixed a Bishop they committed their power yet so that so long as they liv'd it was but in subordination and dependency on them for out of question they might have govern'd alone when therefore they gave any power to others it was onely delegated and they lost not any of their own in giving orders What therefore Bishops were to the Apostles that must needs all Presbyters ordain'd by the Bishops be to them voluntarily assumed they were in partem sollicitudinis reginimis and had their power by delegation to assist in acts deliberative and consiliary But by vertue of their order they had no jurisdiction in causes criminal For in the Scripture there is not any commission extant to meer Presbyters there is no institution of any power of Regiment in the Presbytery no constitution Apostolical that meer Presbyters should alone or without Bishops govern no example in Scripture of any censure inflicted by any meer Presbyters no specification of any power they had so to do But the contrary to this may well be collected because to Churches where Colledges of Presbyters were resident Bishops were sent by Apostolical ordination as Titus to Crete Timothy to Ephesus the seven Angels to the seven Churches with power of ordination excommunication and taking cognizance of causes and persons even of Presbyters themselves as is apparent in th Epistles to Timothy and Titus and in the Revelation And a more evident example cannot be given then in the Churches of Corinth and Thessalonica in both which were Presbyteries but as then no constituted Bishop In one of which was an incestuous person in the other disorderly persons why did not these Presbyters then cast them out It was for want of coercive power the Apostle as yet kept that power in his own hand and therefore adviseth the Thessalonians that if any man obey not his words 2 Thes 3.14 15 that they signifie that man by an Epistle to him they in the mean time should forbear his company and admonish but not count him as an enemy that is eject him by Church censure that they should leave to him in whose hand as yet the power was But at Corinth upon signification he gives order to the Presbytery to execute his sentence For I verily absent in body but present in spirit that is by my Apostolical power 1 Cor. 5.3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have already judged or determined the judgment you see was his the decretory sentence his as though I were present conce ning him that hath done this deed In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ when you are gathered together and my spirit that is my power with you with the power of our Lord Jesus â—hrist that is which power the Lo d Jesus Christ hath committed unto me that then you prono nce my sentence and deliver such a one to Satan This shewes clearly where the power was setled in the Apostle first In them secondly In him it was primative from him to them it was derivative All was to be done by his spirit And that this was so viz. that the Presbyters power was not absolute but dependent not prime but delegate there be two testimonies the one in Ignatius the other in Cyprian which seems to me to evince it Ignatius writes to his Church of Antiochia being then in prison in Rome and he gives his Presbyters there this advice that they rule the flock of Christ Ignat. ad Antioch untill God should declare who should be their Pastour His words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Presbyters were to feed or rule the flock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 untill God should shew and designe him qui principatum habiturus sit as Varlonius renders it who to be their chief Pastour Their government there was to last till then but when God had once designed him Cyprian Ep. 21. their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was at an end The other testimony is that in Cyprian in the case of Candida Numeria and Etecusa women that were accused to have fallen in the persecution and offered incense to Idols Of these the Presbyters in the exile of Cyprian the Bishop took the cognizance and were ready to passe a sentence upon them Cyprian interposeth and upon it causa audita perceperunt propositi eas tantisper sic esse to remain in the state they were Donec Episcopus constituatur untill the Bishop should be appointed Here again we see the verdict suspended till there were a Bishop intimating that the prime power of jurisdiction and censure was in him and that without him it might not be lawfully laid on Nor do I see what can be answered to these two fathers Hitherto
I have kept my self within the bounds of the Scriptures and out of them clearly demonstrated as I suppose that the first government of the Church was Aristocratical It was in the Apostles and the Bishops which they setled with their Presbyteries Now should I descend lower and shew the practice of the Church especially for the first three hundred years I should fill a volume here I could tell you of those famous Presbyteries of Alexandria in which Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Euseb lib. 6. Euseb l. 6. c. 43. Cypr. lib. 3. Ep. 6.10 14 17 18 19 21 22 24. Pantenus Hieroclas were the Presbyters of Rome in which under Cornelius and Stephen there were forty six Presbyters with many other Officers Of Carthage in which under Cyprian as appeares in many of his Epistles which he writ to them in his exile there were many Presbyters Of Smyrna Antioch Philippi Magnesia Trullis and Ephesus all whose Presbyteries are remembred by Ignatius in the Epistles he writ to those Churches This is so clear that it is written as it were with a Sunne beam and it were ignorance and impudence to deny it To which if those who so hotly contend for their Presbytery would adde but these two things which are as evident in Records as is the Presbytery it self First that none of these Presbyters were Lay-Elders and secondly that after the Apostles dayes there never was any Presbytery without a Bishop the contest were at an end One thing onely more I shall adde about these Presbyteries that they never were erected but in the greater Cities where the Patriarch Primate Metropolitane or Diocesan Bishop had their seats pardon me if I speak in the language of those Ancient times and therefore to distinguish them from the Presbyters dispersed in the lesse Villages and Towns Conc. Ancyr Can. 13. Can. Apollon Can. 37. they were call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Presbyters of the City or Metropolis and their institution was to help the Bishop in sacred actions and to advise him in all judicial and Ecclesiastical proceedings In ordination what they were to do 4. Concil Carthag cap. 3. is set out by the fourth Council of Carthage cap. 3. Presbyter cum ordinatur Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenete etiam omnis Presbyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius teneant 1. Concil Arel Can. 19. Apollon Canon Can 35. Concil Antioch Can. 9. A custome which was continued in our Church And for their jurisdiction that was limited by another Canon Presbyteri sine consensu Episcoporum nihil faciant The Ancyran Councel was before the Nicene and that of Arles under Constantine So ancient were these provisions about the Presbyters and their power But methinks it were worth enquiry how these Presbyteries that so long continued in the Church became in difuse for I will not say they were ever abolish'd in that I finde them in many Churches after the three hundredth year of Christ I shall deliver what I conceive to be most probable and I conjecture these to be the causes of it 1. Upon the general prevailing of Christianity Synods began to assemble and the Pastours of divers Churches in these meetings conferr'd and agreed upon such rules as they thought needful to be observed in all their Churches which they committed to the over-sight of the Bishops in their Diocesses and in case they were negligent the especial supervision and execution was laid upon the Metropolitane and if he were slack in doing what was enjoyn'd an appeal was permitted to the Patriarch This was the first occasion that gave Presbyteries leave to play by reason provincial Synods undertook the debating and resolving those doubts and ordered those difficulties which before troubled the Presbyteries And reason it was that the consultation and determination of Synods should be preferred before that of Presbyteries as Courts of greater Judgment higher power better experience and more indifferency 2. Another reason may be that when Emperours became Christian all those civil cases betwixt man and man which were to avoid the scandal that might arise by Law-suits among Christians if tryed under Heathen Judges debated and ended in these Presbyteries fell to be decided and adjudged in the Imperial Courts and men had reason to repair to that seat of justice which had a sword and power compulsory to force obstinatemen to do right to any injur'd party which the Church Court had not When the causes grew lesse the lesse respect was had to the Court and now the Presbytery having less to do weakned mouldred away by little and little of themselves 3. And yet I shall venture at a third reason Upon the great peace which the Church enjoy'd with the priviledges immunities and ample endowments granted by Christian Emperours Magnificent Temples and goodly fabriques were erected for the publick service of God some there were before but not so many nor yet so beautiful These commonly were built where the Bishops had their Seas and were therefore after call'd Cathedral Churches In them the Bishop at first with his Presbyters of the City made his residence and to his Court there kept the greater matters of the whole Diocesse or Province referr'd Found it was that in this Presbytery it was too easie a matter for the Bishop to bear so great a sway that matters were ended often as the man was by him friended The dignities in that Church were in his donation the dignified were his creatures were subject to him and many wayes might be displeased by him if he would seek revenge This being perceived brought a great neglect and contempt upon the Presbyters And the Bishop taking his advantage thereby made use of his power more than was fit And if you shall say that by this dore corruption entred into the Church I shall not deny it But then I shall rejoyn that it was not the institution not in that the Church became Cathedral Diocesan or Provincial not in that it was govern'd either by a Bishop a Metropolitane a Primate or a Patriarch with a Presbytery and so was Aristocratical but in that this just and regulated power was ill used It was not the constitution of the Church that was corrupt but the Church-men and then lay the load upon the right horse and fly not violently in the face of your Mother Cant. 6.4 For the constitution was holy good and wise God himself in the Canticles gives this testimony of his Church that she is terrible as an Army with Banners if an Army then she must be ordinata and the order in an Army is that there be a General a Major General Collonels Captains and Under-Officers Wisdome then taught the Church to order her self and yet she sate up no other orders then God had appointed viz. Bishops and Presbyters Deacons these onely she prudently marshall'd some she thought good to place in
more eminent degree Will you then ask me what are Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs I readily answer gradus in Episcopatu all set in the chief places of the Army for the safe guard of the whole and for the better advantage to fight against the enemy Yea but who set them there Prudence and 't is nere the more to be disliked for that it was prudentially done for I must tell you that prudence is to bear a great sway in Church-Discipline The substance it may not alter neither hath it but in the circumstantials it hath a power and if Saints Pauls rule be observed 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done decently and in order all 's well What more decent among Church-governours then that some be superiours some subordinate how can order be better observed then making the Church like an Army Even among the twelve were there not chief Apostles They were all equal Apostolatu all equal in power yet some priority and precedency might be among them For Peter James and John are call'd Pâ—llars Gal. 2. Chrysost in loc Victor Antioch in Mar. cap. 9. Hieron ad Evagr Cyprian de simplicitate Praelatorum hi tres tanquam Coriphaei prÃmas inter Apostolos obtinebant Thus is it with their Successours the Bishops they are all pares potestate in the power he at Eugubium is as great as he at Rome he at Tanais equal with him of Alexandria for he is ejusdem meriti ejusdem sacerdotii that rule of Cyprian being undoubtedly true Episcopatus unus est cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur But yet for all this one Bishop may be set in a higher degree then another and one set over another and I shall make little doubt to make m words good out of the Scriptures for what was Titus and Timothy were they not more than ordinary Bishops Titus had the charge over the whole Isle of Crete Miraeus lib. 4. de Notitia Episc pag. 181. Chrysost Hâ—m 1. in Titum in which there were seven Bishops besides This was Pauls companion saith Chrysostome that was approved otherwise Paul would not have committed unto him all whole Island and the trial and judgment of so many Bishops To Timothy if we beleeve Theodoret and other Ancients was committed all Asia the lesse in which were questionlesse instituted by the Apostles many Bishops Of the last example there may be some scruple of the first there can be no doubt to any one that lists not to be contentious but the Ancient evident and constant course in the Primitive Church to admit of these degrees in Episcopacy and to have Primates and Metropolitanes for the calling and guiding of Synods in every Province is to me a pregnant proof that this order was either delivered or allowed by the Apostles and their Scholars oâ— found so needful in the first government of the Church that the whole Christian world till some of late fell from it ever since received and continued the same If you suppose it came from Rome you are much mistaken for it bore sway in all the Eastern Churches before the Romane Bishop was of any great note power or reputation or at least had any more precedency then any of the Eastern Patriarchs Socrates relates that the first Councel of Constantinople 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordain'd Patriarchs Socrat. lib. 5.8 may be the title was then given to those who were onely call'd Primates or Metropolitans before and bounds set to their jurisdictions which any man will judge that considerately reads that place in Socrates The truth is this The name of Patriarch I finde taken in a double sense largely or strictly Largely for a Primate of any Province that was under the chief Patriarch and so there are manâ— at this day Brexwoods enquiry of Religion and Languages as the Abannah the Patriarch of the Aethiopians or the Primate of Mosco who is the Patriarch of all Christians under the Muscovites Empire The Primates of Sic and Sebasha who are the Patriarchs of the Armenians The Primate of the Jacobites who hath his Patriarchal Church in the Monastery of Saphran near the City Merdin in Mesopotamiâ— The Primate of the Maronites who resides in Mount Libanuâ— The Patriarch of the Nestorians who hath his residence in Muzal or Mosal I could give in a list of many more of this kinde as well in Europe as in the Eastern Churches by which it appears that in a large sense the Prime Bishops set over one or more Provinces may be called Patriarchs Spalat lib. 3. c. 10. Sect. 43.44 And it is the judgment of a learned but unhappy man that were there more of this kinde erected in Europe who should have no dependence on Rome that it would be a ready way to restore peace and unity to the distracted Church and to shut out the confusion we groan under All which are under one or other of those Patriarchs of the Church as their jurisdictions were limited in the fiâ—st erection for that is the strict acception of the word 2. And three they were onely at first The fiâ—st at Rome the second at Alexandria the third at Antioch the first had the power in Europe and in the West the second in Africa and in the South the third in Asia and over the East Neither were their seats there placed as Baronius would perswade us because that the Apostles founded those Churches for were this reason good we should have more Patriarchates than these three there being more Churches planted by the Apostles than these neither were all the Churches they founded Patriarchates Hegesipp de excid Urb. Hieros lib. 3. c. 5. not Corinth not Ephesius not Philippi Smyrna the reason then is that which Hegesippus the younger hath given because these three Cities were the three Metropolies of the Empire and so the Church in the institution for the seats of their Patriarchs followed the secular power of the Roman Empire The dignity of the Cities gave them the dignity and priority of their Seas And it should seeme the erection of these three was very ancient in that when the Alexandrian Patriarch began to incroach upon his neighbours Concil Nic. can 6. the Nicene Council made this Decree Mos antiquus perduret in Aegypto Lybia Pentapoli ut Alexandrinus Episcopus horum omnium habeat potestatem quoniam quidem Episcopo Romano parilis mos est similitèr autem apud Antiochiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Canon it seemes even then 't was an old custome and the Council of Antioch in the like case though it names not the Churches Concil Antioch c. 9. yet provides to secure the rights 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 secundum antiquam consuetudinem à patribus nostris constitutam And again upon the unjust claime of the Patriarchs of Antioch over the Bishops of Cyprus the Ephesine Council decreed ut singulis provinciis pura inviolata manerent quae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
was the Cathedral Churches generation which did presume to alter and elevate the places and appellations of the Teacher Pastour Ruler and Deacon unto those unscripture-like titles of lord-Lord-Bishop Dean Chancellor Surrogate Arch-Deacon who ventur'd to usurp the power of excommunication against the Members and Ministers of many Congregations in their Synods and Councils contrary to what was practic'd in that Orthodoxe pattern Acts 15.24 which is laid down and left as well for the imitation as information of after-ages whose work it was by Scripture-proofs to confute soul subverting positions and to confirme Christian doctrines without using any manner of authority to censure any mans person being that that is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 The babe-age of which usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arius in the reigne of Constantius and Constance the sonnes of Constantine the Emperour as it is to be seen in Socrat. Schol. Lib. 1. c. 3. compared with the 32 cap. lib. 2. and Evagr. lib. 1. cap. 6. Reply That I may return you a full answer I must take asunder into propositions what you here deliver You say 1. The Combinational Churches corruption was the Cathedral Churches generation 2. The corruption was by changing the places and appellations of Teachers c. into the titles of Lord Bishop Dean Chancellour Arch-Deacon 3. That they ventured to usurp the power of excommunication in their Synods and Councils 4. That this was contrary to the Orthodox pattern Acts 15. 5. Authority to censure any mans person is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 6. Alexander ab Alexandria began this against Arrius and Eusebius of Nicomedia so that it was an usurpation and a new age in the Church 1. Proposition That the Combinational Churches corruption was the Cathedral Churches generation IT is a rule in Philosophy Non entis non sunt accidentia that corruptio is mutatio entis ab esse ad non esse tale That which is corrupted then must have an entity for else it can never be corrupted Now your Combinational Church in the time you speak of was a non en◠there was no such thing and then it could not be corrupted nor any other Church rise from that corruption Which shall further appear if we shall distinguish of the terme Cathedral which I hinted at first for as among Logical notions there be termini primi and à primo orti so also it is in this the word Cathedral being taken in a primitive and in a derivative sense If you take it in the prime sense it denotes unto us those places or chief Cities where the Apostles for some time or Apostolical men by their appointment took up their residence for conversion of the people and reglement of the Church hence it is that we so often read of in the fathers Cathedra Jacobi which was at Jerusalem Cathedra Petri which was for seven years at Antioch after at Alexandria and last of all Cathedra Apostolorum Petri Pauli at Rome In those Churches where they staid for any long time and preach'd and planted Religion which were commonly the Metropolis of that Province or Country as Ephesus Corinth Philippi at their departure they left a Bishop with a Presbytery to govern and thence these Churches were call'd Ecclesiae Cathedrales This is the prime importance of the word But after as Christianity was extended and Bishops were seated and erected in divers Diocesses they began to build Churches in which at first the Bishop and the Presbyters did reside who were to over-see the Diocesse and because of their residence in this place the Church in imitation of the Apostles Chairs was call'd the Cathedral Church Neither was this Cathedral so new Euseb l. 2. c. 17. as most men suppose For I shall not stick to call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Egypt mentioned by Eusebius out of Philo the Jew a Cathedral it will seem so to any man that shall advisedly read that Chapter for he writes of their government of them to whom the Ecclesiastical Liturgies are committed Of their Deaconships of the presidency of Bishops placed above all To which that of Palladius will give much light for he saith Palladius in Histor Lausiaca that in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there were eight Presbyters and that so long as the chief over them liv'd none of the rest might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here the Scriptures were read prayers continued Hymnes and Canticles in every kind of Meeter sung to God penances transacted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the old Sabbath and every Lords day I cannot conceive but this might be a Cathedral even in this last sense I shall instance in another which was old Euseb l. 3. c. 23. even in Saint John's time the Apostle He commended the young man to the chief of all the Bishops can any man think he was lesse than a Metropolitane the man prov'd deboist ran from the Church and became a thief At his return John demanded of the Bishop his charge the Bishop sobbing and sighing said he is dead dead to God for he is become wicked and pernicious and to be short a Thief for he keeps this Mountain over against this Church together with his associates 't is more then probable this was a Material Church for how else could the hill be over against it and presently it is said that the Apostle hastened out of the Church Now I judge it to be Cathedral because he that was the chief of the Bishops had his residence in it Let it be also considered what Eusebius writes in his tenth book Euseb l. 10. c. 2. cap. 2. that in the beginning of Constantines reign that the Temples were again from the foundations erected to an unmeasurable height and received greater beauty than ever they enjoy'd before their destruction They were then before and were but now again erected And we of all other have least reason to doubt of this since Joseph of Arimathea erected a Church at Glastenbury as the best of our Historians record Gildas Spilman Cambden and Spilman hath in picture given us the extent and fashion and materials of it After divers other Cathedral Churches were erected in this Island by King Lucius if there be any truth in our Records at Landaff at London at Chester c. as you may read in Ephraim Pagetts Christianography part 3. page 1 c. Now take the Cathedral in which of these acceptions you please your assertion cannot have any truth in it Not in the first for then you make the Apostles the authours of this corruption since they were the erectors of these Cathedrals not in the last because they were erected after the Apostolical patterne The plain truth is that the corruption of
such of your Pastours who have declin'd the name I list not to grate your eares with this harsh musick but lay your hand upon your heart and say whether the Masters of your Congregations be not the men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is my witnesse and you partly know that I never was guilty of the smoothing of any mans pride of favouring of any mans rigorous domineering Of honour I alwayes thought him most worthy who I saw did least affect it affectation of honour and desire of superiority I know our Saviour prohibits and on the contrary humility lowlinesse and meeknesse is that which he commands And yet I see no reason why it should grieve any godly minde to hear a Bishop call'd by that name with which Saint Peter will'd every woman to call her husband and Mary Magdalen call'd him who had but a spade in his hand They are not titles that can swell any man who hath not pride in his heart and that may leven as much and puffe up him that puffs at this title and bears other names as he that was once call'd Lord Bishop And so much of the titles you except against I come now to what you lay to their charge Proposition 3. Who ventured to usurp the power of excommunication in their Synods and Councils WHO is a Relative and it hath so many Antecedents that I know not whether you referre it to all the fore-going titles or to some in particular To all you should not for the Dean intermedled not with excommunications the Chancellour de facto did but should not so I grant you that was an usurpation and complain'd on and preach'd down by me as well as decryed by you The Surrogate and Arch-Deacon did but then it was not jure nativo but delegato for their commission they had from the Bishops I shall therefore more willingly conceive your thoughts reflect upon them and especially because you mention Synods and Councils which they alone at first had power to assemble But then to affirme that it was an usurped power in them to excommunicate in Synods and Councils seems to me a Paradox For I shall here ask whether the Bishops being not assembled in Synods or Councils had power to excommunicate or no If you say they had then it will seem strange that meeting in Synods and Councils they should lose this power This is as if you should say that Corporations meeting in Council should lose the power which every single Alderman had before he came thither or the people their rights and priviledges when assembled in Parliament which they had before Vis unita sortior and certainly what power any man hath to act singly and by himself when he meets with other Commissioners associated in that power he works more vigorously and his act is of the greater authority But if you shall say that the Bishops had no power of excommunication nor then nor before nor in Council nor out of it you plainly contradict the Scriptures which I shall evidence unto you by examining the Commission given the Apostles and their practice and what is true of the Apostles will be as true of the Bishops for I have before proved unto you they were their Successors and by them setled in some Churches And the ordinary power which was given to the Apostles was given to them for otherwise Christs promise cannot be verifyed behold I am with you signanter to the end of the world John 20. The Commission is extant As my Father sent me so send I you and then presently breathing on them he addes Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sinnes ye remit they are remitted whose sinnes ye retain they are retained Cyril lib. 12. in Joan. cap. 55. Cyprian de unit Ecclesiae Epist 73. ad Julian which words are understood by all the Ancient Doctours of authority as though he said that with the same power and authority my Father sent me into the world to gather and govern my Church I do also send you that is with all spiritual power necessary to your office and charge Now I ask whether the Apostles must be assembled in Council or not when they were to execute this authority if you say they must then you grant the question for then the sentence of excommunication may be passed in a Synod or Council If you should say they could not then a single Apostle could not excommunicate which I yet never heard affirmed all granting that they were pares potestate except the Papist who will have all Episcopal power and authority originally invested in Saint Peter and from him derived to others But this I conceive you will not say neither when I finde St. Paul assuming this power to himself 2 Cor. 13.10 Therefore I write these things being absent lest being present I should use sharpnesse according to the power the Lord hath given me What can be more plain power given by the Lord to me a single Apostle and therefore he tells them that heretofore had sinned Ver. 2. and to all other that if he came again he would not spare spare to lay his rod upon them For in the first Epistle he proposeth such a thing to them and wills them to consider of it quid vult is what will you 1 Cor. 4.21 shall I come unto you with a rod or in love or in the Spirit of meeknesse as who should say choose which you will Compare this with 2 Cor. 10.4 8 9 10 11. verses and you will easily conclude that a single Apostle had authority enough to lay his rod upon a scandalous contumacious offender This for the power now to the practice According to this power Saint Paul exercised judgment and gave sentence in a certain grievous case of incest among the said Corinthians in these words I absent in body but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present concerning him that hath done this deed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together 1 Cor. 5.3 4 5 and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan Who I pray was it that censured this man was it not the Apostle himself If I understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ego judicavi it must be so And the same Apostle writing to his Scholar Timothy makes mention of another sentence by him pronounced against Hymenaeus and Alexander two seditious and heretical men whom saith he I have delivered ego tradidi 1 Tim. 1 2◠to Satan i. e. excommunicated and cut off from the Church of God that they may learn not to blaspheme What should I tell you that the learned draw the words of Saint Peter to Simon Magus to this purpose Acts 8.21 Thou hast no part nor lot in this matter That Diotrephes cast some out of the Church it was his fault but for this Saint John when he came Joh. Ep. 3.10 threatens to remember
his deeds i. e. as all Expositors agree by his Apostolical power to proceed against him From the Apostles I descend lower First to the Angels of the Churches who were commended for not bearing with them that were evil and for trying them who said they were Apostles Revel 2.2.6.20 1 Tim. 5.19 20 21 22. Tit. 3.10 but found upon tryal lyars and again blamed when they neglected their duties They were neither worthy of praise nor yet blame-worthy had they not had authority in their hands Timothy is commanded to do the like at Ephesus Titus at Crete Yea but perhaps it may be replyed these directions were not given to Timothy and Titus as single Bishops but as chief of a Presbytery well then the conclusion will hence easily follow that a Bishop with his Presbytery may excommunicate If so then I pray tell me what usurpation it can be for Bishops assembled in a Synod or Council to do the like They being chief cannot want that authority which the Presbytery hath and why then should they not use it From an inferiour to a superiour power the argument follows strongly The Justices may punish such or such a Malefactour much more the Judges but much more the Superiour that empowred them The reason is the same The Bishop with the Presbytery may cast a scandalous person out of the Church therefore much more the Bishops themselves assembled in Councils because among them there is a subordination And what a lesser power may do that a higher may which is empowred to that end Thus have I wrestled with your assertion and foil'd it I come next to grapple with your reason and if that prove to be weak your affirmation will fall of it self You say Proposition 4. That this was contrary to what was practised in the Orthodox pattern Acts 15.24 which was laid down and left as well for the imitation as information of after-ages FIrst I thank you that you grant this Synod to be a pattern for after-ages to imitate and be informed by For first then we have from this a sufficient authority to call Synods and Councils Secondly a pattern to imitate in making Decrees that it be by way of deliberation declaration and decision Act. 15. ver 7. For the acts of this Council which the Presbyters and brethren used were disputative or in genere deliberativo they disputed Saint Peters act was declarative and when there had been much disputing Verse 12. Ver. 19. Peter rose up and said c. and the like was that of Barnabas and Paul But Saint James his act was decisive wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I judge or give sentence Thirdly There ought to be a President in a Council who is to moderate the whole action and to pronounce the sentence Fourthly That the Synodical decrees materially and Ecclesiastically are obligatory Ver. 22.23 Acts 16.4 Acts 21.25 and tye the absent as this did the Churches of Syria Cilicia yea and all the Churches of the Gentiles who had no Commissioners in that Synod as well as those of Jerusalem and Antioch Fifthly that the chief man of a Council is that you say by Scripture-proof to confute soul-subverting positions and to confirme Christian doctrines as it was in this But this was not the sole end for another there was viz. to cast out of the Church Disturbers and Hereticks as I shall by and by make good unto you and so your position of usurpation in Bishops of the rod will not prove true But this you say was contrary to the orthodox pattern how so I pray if a contrariety then it must be opposite and I have never yet heard that subordinate ends come under any species of opposition A man bindes his son Prentice his end is that he learn and be skilful in his profession but yet he hath a farther reach which is that he may get a livelyhood the first he intends lesse principally the last chiefly and can a man say now that these two ends are contrary or thwart one the other when indeed they are but subservient the one to the other and the like is to be said of all intermediate ends For that rule of the Civilians is most true finis principalis non tollit accessorium to apply this the chief end of the Apostolical Synod was to confute false positions and establish the truth suppose now that they had there pronounced an Anathema against those Jewish Christians who would be still zealous for circumcision and the observation of Moses Law after the publication of their decree had this been contrary and opposite to their first and prime intent you cannot say it Neither is it then contrary when a company of Bishops meet in a Synod or Council to illustrate and hold forth the truth and condemn heresies that they passe also a censure upon the Hereticks I can finde no contrariety or opposition in this Yea but you 'll say here 's no pattern for it Neither is it necessary it sufficeth that here is a pattern set to compasse the chief end of all Councils as for the accessories they may be regulated by prudence A Prince calls a Parliament in it there be good Laws established for the peace of his Territories and not one delinquent punished or censured Must this particular Session be such an absolute pattern to all following Parliaments that shall onely make good Laws and never call to question or passe sentence upon any offender I hope you will not say so neither can you say it in this case For I find the Apostles singly as I have proved and out of Council to have done it and therefore I doubt not that if being in Council assembled they had done it it had been no errour Yea but this you 'll say could not be done For it follows Proposition 5. To censure any mans person is the expresse priviledge of the Presbyterial Church 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 2 Thes 3.15 PRiviledges and Prerogatives are tender things and it behoves those who stand for them to produce infallible Records lest it appear their claim be louder than their right A Corporation struggles hard for a priviledge fees a Lawyer to plead their Charter he picks out some weak words in it that may look that way at last the Judge tells him that he hath betrayed his Clients cause for the words in the Charter carry no such meaning The like I must say to you A priviledge you plead for your Corps the Presbyterial Church the evidence you give for it is out of Gods great Charter 1 Cor. 5. 2 Thes 3. Now if you had studied to betray your case you could not I believe have lighted upon two more weake evidences For doth Saint Paul assert a priviledge of the Presbyterial Church in that place of the Corinths where he makes himself the Judge where he passeth censure himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have decreed or judged he asketh not their consents he prayeth not their aid he referreth not
in the Primitive Church And it is evident that they charged the execution of these Canons upon the Bishops first because they had power that to those who by humility and teares and patience Zonaras in Explic Can. 12. Conc. Nic. Alcimus Epist 16. Conc. Nic. Can. 5. Conc. Antioch cap. 20. and alms-deeds did demonstrate their conversion to be sincere and unfeined to remit the severity of the Canon So Alcimus to Victorius the Bishop Authoritatis vestrae est errantium compunctione perspectâ severitatis ordinem temperare And secondly because they ordained that in every Province twice ever year there should be a Synod that all the Bishops of the Province meeting together might in common examine such questions as are occurrent in every place and particularly to enquire si forte aliqua indignatione aut contentione aut qualibet commotione sui Episcopi excommunicati quidam sint This was the Church Ordinance set before the time you speak of which clearly makes against you and now I shall shew you de facto what was done before that time too In Asia there was held sundry Synods about the time of the Emperour Commodus Euseb l. 5. c. 16 19. in which Montanus was excommunicated and his Heresie condemned Victor about the same time held a Synod at Rome and excommunicated all the Easterne Bishops about the celebration of Easter Euseb l. 6.23 24 25. which Act of his though unjust yet it shewes the judgment of those times that such a thing upon a just occasion he might do and that it was no usurpation in a Bishop with his Council to censure any mans person Again under the Emperour Decius there was a Synod gathered together at Rome of 60. Euseb l. 6. c. 43. Bishops besides many Ministers nd Deacons whither also there came many Pastours of other Provinces where by uniforme consent of all it was decreed that Novatus together with such as swelled and consented to his unnatural opinion repugnant to brotherly love should be excommuicated and banished the Church And the same was confirmed by another Synod held at Antioch by Elenus Firmilian Yheoctistus I passe by here the several Censures passed in the Synod held at Carthage upon the Lapsi and Thurificati as may be seen in very many Epistles of Cyprian To give light to this there is not any example more evident than the Synod of Antioch held about sixty years before the Council of Nice where Paulus Samosatenus the Bishop of Antioch was deposed and condemned for Heresie Euseb l. 7. c. 30 The Epistle then written by the Bishops Presbyters c. to Dionysius Bishop of Rome and Maximus Bishop of Alexandria c. is yet extant wherein they write thus Wherefore necessity constraining us so to do we excommunicated the sworn adversary of God viz. Paulus Samosatenus and placed Donneus in his roome c. Farther yet there was a Council of 320. Caranza Platina Tom. 1. Conc. apud Binnium Bishops called together at Sinuessa in Italy where Marcellinus Bishop of Rome was condemnatus anathematizatus accepit Maranatha And all these instances I am able to give you before that yo name so that there it cannot be true which you say that the babe-age of this usurpation is made mention of as newly appearing in the world by what was exercised by Alexander of Alexandria against Eusebius of Nicomedia as well as against Arius in the reign of Constantius and Constance c. In relation of which story you are not exact enough neither For I read not of any power that Alexander usurped over Eusebius nor any Censure he passed upon him he wrote indeed a letter to the brethren of the Churches that they should beware of Eusebius and his Arianisme because he was the patron and ringleader of the Apostates in his letter he sharply reproved him but he censured him not neither indeed could he because he belonged to the jurisdsction of another Patriarch But touching Arius and his adherents he summoned together a Council of many Bishops and deprived him and such as favoured his opinion Achillas Aeithales Carpomes a second Arius c. of the Priestly order And this he might do for they were under the jurisdiction of the Church of Alexandria But the Heresie being not so extinct and matters growing by the contenders to greater heat Constantine thought good to call the Nicene Council where the question was debated the Creed called the Nicene composed the clause of one substance ratified and the 318. Bishops except five subscribed unto it viz. Eusebius Theognis Maris Theonas Secundus These derided the clause Socrates lib. 1. cap. 8. and would not subscribe to the deposition of Arius For which cause the Council accursed Arius and all his adherents and forbade him Alexandria Moreover by the Emperours Edict Arius Eusebius Theognis were banished cap. 14. But Eusebius and Theognis recanted All this was done in the reigne of Constantine while he was alive it was that Alexander first then the Council proceeded against Arius and his adherents cap. 38. and under Constantine it was that that Arch-heretique came to that miserable end Yea and Alexander himself died also and Athanasius was chosen Bishop in his stead before Constantine died cap. 15. So that it cannot be possibly true which you say that Alexander of Alexandria did exercise or usurpe authority against Arius in the reigne of Constantius and Constance for while their father lived they were not Emperours Socrat. l. 2. c. 32 Well as you intimate and direct me I turne to the second book of Socrates cap. 82. but in the Gree. 40. and 41. chap. but there I finde no mention of Alexander nor Arius A Council at Seleucia we there read of called in Constantius's time and that there was hot disputes betwixt the Arians and the Orthodox but at last the Orthodox prevailed deposed Acacius the Arian and his complices and excommunicated divers others among which was Eusebius Socrates lib. ◠cap. 2. lib. 1. cap 23. 29. graec whether it was he of Nicomedia or no it appears not but in all probability it is the same man because after his recantation he relapsed to his Arianisme and was one of the persecutors of Athanasius However this makes against you for here we finde some Bishops deposed others excommunicated by a Council But this by the way In the last place you send me to Evagrius lib. 1. cap. 6. but to seek for what I know not for I pray look again and you shall not finde any thing of Alexander Arius Evagr. lib. 1. cap. 6. or Eusebius no nor their names in that chapter 't is wholly of another matter and nothing to your purpose and therefore I passe it by and set it for a cypher But were your opinion true that it were usurpation for Bishops assembled in a Council to censure any mans person consider I pray what an aspersion you lay upon the first four general
consist of heterogeneous parts and so doth yours which if it should marre the constitution of a Church it must needs marre yours as well as others For I hope you will not say that all yours are Saints more than by calling and so are all Christians even those at Corinth and all 1 Cor. 16.2 Cap. 1.12 13. cap. 5.1 cap. 6.15 cap. 11.21 cap. 15.35 cap. 8.12 13. among whom yet were schismatical and contentious persons envying and strife incest and incest tolerated going to Law with their brethren Harlotry coming to the Lords Table drunk a denying of a fundamental point of saith the resurrection little charity to the weak brother Now then if Corinth were a Presbyterial Church certainly in the Primitive constitution it was not composed of living stones onely c. To conclude to the constitution of a Church there can be but two things required the materiale and the formale the matter are a people gathered and united called by the Word to live in a divine policy under Christ their head The forme that unites them to him is as you say rightly faith and charity That they be truly and indeed united to him requisite it is that their faith be lively working by love But that they be united to the body the visible Church which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is no more nor can be no more expected but that they make outwardly a profession of faith and fraternal love For whether either be true unfeigned and sincere or no we can never know and should we stay till those were manifest unto us it would be long enough before we should constitute our's or you your Church pray take this better into your consideration Now I proceed to that wh ch you more aime at viz. 2. That the rise of the rottening of the Church was its falling from a pure poor Presbyterial Church into an impure unpolished Parochial Church TO which I have this to say First that if this position be true then Amesius was mistaken Ames Med. l. 1. cap. 39. Sect. 22. who makes a Combinational Church all one with a Parochial He tells us there of a Church instituted by God and saith that it was not National Provincial nor Diocesan but Parochialis vel unius Congregationis cujus membra inter se combinantur ordinarie couveniunt in eodem loco ad publicum Religionis exercitium If you shall say that this kind of Parochial Church differs from ours at this day because it is combined in Covenant which ours is not I grant it but adde that such a Combination is not necessary For I know no other Covenant requisite but that in Baptisme to make a man a member of any Church as I formerly proved unto you Neither can you give any one instance of any such Covenant before your time was taken by any Parochial Church in Amesius sense Secondly I shall here again put you in minde of that I intimated at first about this word Parochia and give you farther light in it For Parochia hath a double acception eirher as it was at first Selden of tyths cap. 6. Sect. 3. or as it is used in our dayes At first the word Parochia denoted a whole Bishoprick which is but a greater Parish and signified no other than a Diocesse That in these there were Towns and Villages cannot be denyed for the proof of this we need but run over the names of Cities Towns c. of Judea mentioned in the Old and New Testament and all plantations will teach us that in processe of time it comes to be thus at first in greater Cities then in these Religion was planted Among these it cannot be well conceived that the whole hamlet was at once converted but it must be done by little and little till at last the whole Township received the faith Together then they met for the service of God and as the Jewes in their several Towns had to that purpose their Synagogues so Christians began to think of convenient places where they might meet to this purpose as you in New-England they built them Churches and so from meeting in private houses they met in these Where yet they entered not into a Combination to be an absolute and Independent Congregation but did depend on the chief Church where the Bishop was resident and this is evident by what I shall now say The Pastours of these Parishes were such as the Bishop appointed under him to have care of souls in them and those are they Conc. Neoces cap. 58. Conc. Antioch cap. 87. 89. whom the Old Greek Councils call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the Churches where they kept their cure the offerings of devout Christians were received All that was received in the Bishoprick was as a common treasury to be thus dispensed one part of it was allowed the maintenance of the Ministry another to the relief of the poor sick and strangers a third Conc. Antioch cap. 103 104. to the reparation of Churches the fourth part to the Bishop Thus it was many years before the Council of Nice that the Bishops Parochia extended far and that the whole was under his jurisdiction and consequently had not absolute power within themselves 2. But when the word Parish in that sense it is now used began it is not so easie to avouch yet for it we have these Records Damasus in pontific Euseb l. 2. c. 17. Epiphan Haeres 69. Euseb l. 6. c. 43. Evaristus who lived in Trajans time and succeeded Clemens divided Rome into seven Parishes assigning to every one a Presbyter And it may be easily collected out of Eusebius that it was thus at Alexandria and Epiphanius names many which bore these titles Theonae Serapionis Pierii Persiae Diseae Mendidii Amriani Baucalis c. For indeed necessity required it when the Christians grew to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Cornelius called the Christians and did implâ—re omnia Tertull. Apol. cap. 37. Then they were forced to divide Congregations and assigne several Presbyters to their cures yet in subordination to their Bishops as is evident in all Records of the Church This being so how is it possible that the rottening of the pure poor Presbyterial Church should be the rise of the Parochial when the Parochial in the first sense was the first Church that ever was in the world as I have before manifested In which sense it is that Cyril calls Saint James Cyril Catechis 16. primum hujus Parochiae meaning Jerusal Episcopum and in that signification it is very obvious to be read in the old Councils of both tongues as Filesacus hath observed you then argue ex non concessis For in the first sense the Parochial had the precedency and was older than your new device Your Combinational might corrupt and rotten it but that could never corrupt and rotten that which was not If you take it
Truth would ever have owned it been once stiled by it And so you see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. When he left the servile and subservient names of Prebend Surrogate Vicar General to inferiour Officers his underlings THese names or titles I never heard the Arch-Bishop or Metropolitane had therefore I know not how he could leave them Under him perhaps these were but for the Prebend he was no Officer The Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters first lived together and were maintained out of a common stock or treasury of the Church the Bishop allotted to every one his salary monthly which in Tertullian is called stipes in Cyprian sportula Tertull. Apol. c. 39. 42. and it was an honourable stipend or portion as appears by the words of Cyprian when he would have Clemens and Aurelius who were Confessors admitted into the Colledge of Presbyters that they might be honoured with this stipend Sciatis nos honorem Presbyteris illis jam d signasse Cypr. Ep. 34. Edit Pammel 27. 36. ut iisdem sportutis cum Presbyteris honorentur and in another Epistle he calls these menstrae divisiones agreeing with his Master Tertullian who saith these stipes were given menstruâ die Thus it was at first but afterward when Cathedral Churches were built these Presbyters were called Prebends and their salary Praebenda Spalatens lib. 2. cap. 9. Sect. 6. not that they had a separate part or portion of that Church revenue to themselves as afterwards it was thought fit sed quod cuique ex communi illius Ecclesiae reditu alimenta praebebantur Now this was the Original of Prebends neither was he any more a Church Officer then as a Presbyter which if you take in the old sense you have no reason to carp at 2. As for the Surrogate I do not finde that ever any Arch-Bishop had such an Officer I suppose that you should aime at Conc. Ancyr Can. 13. Neoces 13. Antioch 10. Conc. Sardic cap. 6 Laodic cap. 56. Socrat. Schol. lib. 5. cap. 21. Possidon in vita Aug. Aug. Ep. 110. Naucler Vol. 2. Generat p. 667. is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Rural Bishops who were brought into the Church to supply the Bishops place in absence or sicknesse who because they abused their power were disliked and timely abrogated Or if not these yet the suffragan Bishops or Coadjutors for such then were as it appears in the Church Records Agelius the Novatian Bishop being ready to dye first imposed hands on Sisimius to succeed him but upon the request of the people made choice of Marcian then of Sisimius the story is worth your reading in Socrates Austin was also made the Suffragan to Valerius in Hippo and afterward Austin himself took for his Coadjutor Eradius Thus you may see a Coadjutor was allowed but such a one as should be onely a Presbyter while the Bishop lived and therefore long after the time of Augustine when Zachary Bishop of Rome associated another Bishop as a Coadjutor to Boniface the Bishop of Mentz he confessed it to be a thing forbidden by the Canons and worthy reprehension but that upon his importunity of special favour he had yielded so much unto him that he might have such a Coadjutor whom with the advice of his brethren he might appoint to succeed him when he should dye Now if you do aime at these there could be no great errour in the institution if the Bishop either when he was in remotis agendis as the Lawyers speak or disabled by infirmity or age he made choice of some worthy person to be his Coadjutor no otherwise then the High Priests among the Jewes did of their Saganim For I read not of any expresse text of holy writ that could or did warrant them to do it 3. Thirdly the last name that doth displease is the Vicar General but neither was he properly any Church Officer A Judge he was in the Arch-Bishops Court for such matters as were reserved by Princes to the Christian judicature to visit for the Metropolitane the whole Province and and so came into the place of them whom the Laodicean Council calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caranza translates the word Visitatores but Meursius Circitatores Lustratores quorum munus esset circumire per omnes universae regionis Ecclesias Laodic Conc. Can. 57. Meursii Lexico mixobarb Balsam in Can. 57. Conc. Laodiceni inquirere de illarum statu And of these Balsamâ—â— upon the Canon of the Laodicean Council hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Commission to this purpose I finde given by Henry the eighth to Thomas Cromwel after Earle of Essex that great instrument of expulsion of the Popes power out of England by which authority he visited all the Abbies and Monasteries of the Land and finding in them foul enormities opened them in Parliament the next year in which he sate with the title of Vicegerent or Custos spiritualitatum this power was not much unlike a Vicar General And were it safe to utter my thoughts I should not stick to put you in minde of those who have lately done the same work under other names For what else I pray were the Propagators of the Gospel what else the Commissioners for scandalous and ignorant Ministers what else the Committee men under whom I am sure the Clergy felt a sharp visitation yea and sharper then that of the Custos spiritualitatum for then the ejected had a competency of maintenance allowed them for their lives which by these is not done Lastly if I should call your Approvers Vicar Generals too I should not much erre for have they not the care of all the Churches Modesty retains me or else I could say that some of your Pastours of Congregational Churches have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and been Informers or Agents to the prejudice of many an honest and laborious Minister But you say these Officers were Underlings how otherwise could it be if they were Officers for Officers must be under they were subservient so they must be also for indicitur ministratio whosoever will be great among you Mat. 20.26 let him be your Minister To be under was humility to be subservient their duty but if among them any were servile so slavish as to be at the Arch-Bishops or Metropolitans beck and to drudge for his ends this was basenesse and if you note the men they shall not be defended but condemned by me as well as you But while I go along with you in the pursuit of these I finde my self in some danger for I finde a Pest-house nigh in which plaguey people are used to be put and to this those you mention are sent for their pride and profanesse and I wish that all who are infected with the same Leprosie were placed there with them for then 't is possible we might meet with Corah Dathan and Abiram there as well as Moses
inward man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4.16 the faith hope obedience charity humility and patience of many by this fiery trial hath been made more conspicuous SECT 1. The words of the Letter Of the vile and virulent head the Pope 1. FIrstly hath not the long provoked Lord begun in this Island and in Ireland to pull down lowest that loose that lofty and lawlesse Church which the corrupt Clergie had lifted up highest namely the Oecumenical or Romane Catholick Church whereof the sinne-pardoning or rather soul-poysoning Pope was the Vile and Virulent head who was therefore and upon that account publickly declared and generally though not universally beleev'd to be a horrible Monster as well as a very abominable beast because of his ten hornes Witnesse what is written Revel 17.3.5 The Reply To what you say of the vile virulent head the Pope I assent and so did and do all Orthodox Divines of our English Church holding his claim to be Universal Bishop to be Anti-Christian profane proud foolish blasphemous by vertue whereof he doth ingrosse to himself full power and authority over all Christians in the world both Ecclesiastical and saecular the principal actions whereof are 1. To frame and set out for all Christians the rule of faith and good manners to point out the books of Canonical Scriptures and the traditionary word and to deliver the sense and interpretation thereof and to determine all controversies in religion with an unerring sentence 2. To prescribe and enact laws for the whole Church equally obliging the conscience to obedience with the divine Law 3. To exercise external power of directing and commanding and also of censure and correction of all Christians 4. To grant dispensations indulgences absolution from oaths and vows 5. To canonize Saints institute religious orders to deliver from Purgatory 6. To call and confirm general Councels 7. To dethrone and conculcate Kings c. All this we disclaim as well as you and you needed not have said that it begun in this Island and Ireland as if it begun with you for it begun more then one hundred years since assume not therefore that to your selves which was done to your hands to take down this head was the work of the National Church you so slight and had it not been done to your hands I doubt whether all the power you could make had ever been able to have done it And for this that head being of a revengeful nature hath ever since been plotting which way it might unroot us that unrooted it For the proof of this I shall acquaint you with what a friend acquainted me and others about five years since A good Protestant he is now but about 30. years before was as he confess'd reconciled to Rome by one Meredith an ancient and learned Jesuite for he was one of those that Dr. Featly had to deal with in France This man told him that in England they had been long and industrious about their work of conversion but it went on slowly and so would till they took a wiser course Two things there were that must be done before they should bring their businesse to a full effect They must first find a way to remove the Bishops and Ministers in whose room they must bring it so about that all should have liberty to preach Then secondly they must get down the Common Prayer book and suffer every man to use what prayer he list Thus much the man offer'd to make good upon his Oath before any Magistrate he should be call'd And now I pray tell me out of what shop do you think your work comes That generation are a sly subtle people as the devil they can transform themselves into an Angel of light If many printed books lye not there have been many among you and they know to insinuate their poyson under guilded pills Positions they have many like your's and beware least when you think you suck in the Truth you drink not poyson Verbum sat Sapienti They owe us a splene for casting off their head and they will never give over to seek a revenge We were the men that cut it off and take heed least unwittingly you set it not on again 'T is too true I speak it with grief they have won to their side in the time of our dissentions more proselites then they did in divers years before The Laws are now silent and any man may be now any thing so he be not an old Protestant of the Church of England that if he professe then there will be a quick eye upon him An Ordinance shall be sure to reach him which for ought I heard is but brutum fulmen to a Papist Boast not then of your taking down that same vile and virulent head the Pope when it is permitted to stand in more favour then a Protestant whose work hath been to take down that abominable beast with his ten horns as you call him SECT 2. The British King the Violent Head Mr. Matthews 2. SEcondly hath not Christ hid his face from and bent his brow against the National Church as being that very next naughtinesse Whereof the British King was although not an invincible yet a violent Head which was therefore lesse victorious and more vincible partly because the head not only of a very uncanonical but also of a very unspiritual corporation and partly because of the said national-corporations inconsistency with the Scripture precepts Matth. 18.17 1 Cor. 14.23 which doth require its ordinary congregating in one place seconded and aggravated by its notorious inconformity to the Scripture patterns Eph. 2.19.22 Philip. 2.15 Revel 5.9 where the Scripture Combinational Church is call'd not a whole nation but a holy City a growing Temple a Spiritual house or a sin-enlightning and a soul-enlivening Church gathered built framed cull'd and call'd out of and from a carnal and crooked nation which was both dark and darknesse it self witnesse what is written Ephes 5.8 The Reply That Christ hath hid his face from and bent his face against this National Church you have reason to lament and grieve and not to stand by and clap your hands at it Rather take up the Lamentation of David for Saul and Jonathan The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places how are the mighty fallen 2 Sam. 1.19.20 Tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon least the daughters of the Philistims rejoyce least the daughters of the uncircumcised Triumph c. Posterity will have cause to mourn when you and they shall be invaded and set upon by those uncircumcised Philistims of Rome who will smile at the armour wherein you trust and the speares you brandish against them as a dart of a bulrush 'T is not your Sophisms that will prevail with them nor your popular arguments that they will regard and they as smoke being vanished set upon you they will with armour of proof and so inviron you that
provokes the appetite Reader it was the Authours purpose sometime to delight thee but most of all to edifie informe confirme thee which if it may be effected he hath his end For it is my hearty prayer that a period may be set to this wrangle and that we may all turn to the way of truth and peace Farewel W. N. A KEY to open the Debate about a Combinational Church and the power of the KEYES The first Part. THE chief point of the Controversie lies in this to know in whose hands the power of the Keys shall be or rather who shall be the Prime subject of the Keys Of this I finde three opinions Cotton Burton Goodwin Nye Assert the name Bayly p. 132. The first defended by the Independents or Combinationals A second defended by the Presbyterians and a third by the Prelates 1. The Combinational Churches are divided in this point for some seat power in the whole Congregation so soone as associated in Covenant even before they have any Officers Others after the Officers are chosen settle it in them alone A third even then conjunctim make the whole body the subject of the Keys Which of these or whether any of these is like to be true will appear if we consider these two or three things 1. That the Presbyters and Ruling-Elders cannot be the prime subject is apparent because that the Keys were seated in some before they were in them if you be constant to your own principles For how came they to be Elders and Rulers were they not created by the power of the Keys and who created them was it not they who did elect and ordaine The prime power then must be in the electors and ordaiâ—ers not in the elected and ordained whence it will follow inevitably that the Ruling Elders are not the prime subject of power for a power there is which precedes theirs 2. After Election and Ordination they viz. Ruling Elders cannot be so neither because it is your common Tenet that the Congregation may again upon displeasure resume the Key Depose Excommunicate cast out their own Elders which they could not do were they not the prime subject of the Keys and authority primarily in them 3. But if you shall say that conjunctim people and Elders together are the prime subject this cannot be neither Because before they are thus conjoyned the Electors and Ordainers had the true essence of a Church as you teach both for matter and forme though they had no Officer nor Elder and then must radically and originally be invested with this power in the first combination without any reflexion on this conjunction So that as they are an organical Church heightned by Rulers and Elders it makes them not the prime subject of the Keys for this you say they had before That the people divisim without the Elders and Rulers are not the prime subject of this authority I prove in this Tract demonstratively I onely here adde that the power of the Keys consists in binding loosing preaching administring Sacraments c. which till you can prove to be in the people originally I shall never yeeld the power to be originally in their hands The difficulties are so many and the subtleties so nice among you in this dispute that they have forced your finest heads Robinson Cotton Goodwin Norton to invent so many distinctions divisions subdivisions that a man must needs think himself in a maze that reads them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Schoolmen which you so much complaine of are exceeded by you And yet when all 's done by these you could never yet satisfie your own party and therefore expect not to settle others It shewes you are in a Labyrinth and would faine help your selves out by the small threads of these prettily invented distinctions In a word that there are very many knots and objections to which your Tenet is liable For you know that all distinctions were invented to give light to that which is very perplexed intricate dubious ambiguous and aeâ—uivocal 2. That this your assertion is mainly denied opposed battered and beat down by the Presbyterians I need not tell you or that they deny the the Congregation to be either conjunctim or divisim the prime subject of the Keys and settle it upon the Eldership primò immediate adaequatè Finalitèr objectivè they will grant you that the whole Church is the subject but autoritativè formalitèr they place it in the Guids or Presbyters without a Bishop And of this opinion Rutherford is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But he runs into the same inconvenience with your Rabbies For to make his thoughts good he hath so many nicities so many new-coined distinctions of power of the Church of I know not what that he is able to confound any Reader and indeed drives on the point till he becomes almost unintelligible Is not this think you a rare device in him and in yours to finde out a Truth and settle a conscience about Church-government 3. The Pâ—elates are opposite to both they deny the Congregation conjunctim or divisim to be the first subâ—ect of the Keys They deny the Presbyterian Eldership to be the prime subject of Church power And they place it under Christ in the Apostles and their successors and for this they plead our Saviours promise Matth. 16. and his donation John 20. They plead again the Apostolical practice extant in the Scriptures Acts 8.17 Acts 14.23 1 Tim. 4.14 1 Tim. 5.22 2 Tim. 1.6 Tit. 1.5 and again the perpetual practice of the Catholick Church ever since according to that of Jerome Decretuâ— est toto orâ—e ut unus è Presbyteris electus ceteris superponeretur which testimony I have at large afterwards cited and opened at full This is the state of the whole question and which of these is likelyest to be most true I shall leave it to the unbyassed Reader to judge after he hath read over this Treatise In nomine Domini October 29. 1656. ad honorem Iesu Christi ipsius Ecclesiae ad veritatis aram haec offero An answer to the Admonitory Letter The words are these SECT I. Reverend Sir THat the glorious God who is the giver of all grace as well as of every good and perfect gift would never be weary of conferring on you or of continuing in you or yet of encreasing by you those real and rich gifts and graces which he out of his good will and meere goodnesse was pleased to indue and adorne your precious soul withal for the due and daily use and exercise whereof his maine aime and uttermost end was his own service and your own solace to traine you up higher in holinesse and happinesse as I am hopefully perswaded in my very heart then most of your companions or acquaintance kindred or countrey and that at the least by the head and shoulders 1. An humble motion for you is one of those motions with
electus superponeretur caeteris Rev. 2. 3. 1. It is Unus it is One not many that the care of the Church might especially belong to one Christ directs his message to the Angel individually of such or such a Church 2. He must be Electus of whom Hierome saith not of that more anon but I dare say considering the time of which Hierome speaks it was not without the consent of the Apostles if not by them 3. Note out of whom he was to be elected it was de Presbyteris and I shall prove unto you after that they were no Lay-men 4. Ut superponerentur caeteris He was to be super over the rest whether Clergy or Laity and that not onely in preheminence honour and dignity but in power of jurisdiction also for otherwise how could the end be obtained here aimed at how could Schisme be restrained and removed Thus far you see what makes for me and now I shall clear up what seemingly makes against me in this testimony 1. The fiâ—st words seeme against me For Hierome saith Idem est Presbyter quod Episcopus But he can meane no more than that the Bishop is sometimes called a Presbyter The Names then may be common that 's true but not the Office Now the Office consists in Ordination and Jurisdiction as I shall by and by make appear That Presbyter and Episcopus was Idem ordinatione and consequenly in Office Jerome could not meane except he should contradict himself Hieron ad Evagium Ordination he reserves to a Bishop and debarres a Presbyter from it Quid facit Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat exceptâ ordinatione Mark the mood is potential He may not do it He may not meddle with Ordination for that sure belongs to the Bishop in his own judgment In this power then the Identity lies not 2. He must then meane in Jurisdiction and that this is his meaning is apparent by those words Communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur which your side catch at too as making for the present Ruling Presbytery as indeed at the first sight they may but throughly lookt into nothing at all I will shew you where the mistake lies First in the word Presbytery for yours apply it to the whole Presbytery Lay and Clergy whereas Hierom as is manifest speaks onely of the Ecclesiastique for it is of the Presbytery that was before or when those Schismes reigned Secondly he saith gubernabantur in imperfecto and when was that in the Apostles dayes for then in a Church that had a Presbytery without a Bishop put case at Corinth or had a Presbytery with a Bishop over them as at Jerusalem Antioch Alexandria Ephesus it is most true Communi Presbyterorum consilio gubernabantur the Presbyters were admitted in partem sâ—llicitudinis It cannot be denied that the Apostles ordaining these Presbyters had power in themselves and might have governed durante vita alone retaining the power when then they gave any power to others it was deligated for I hope they lost none of their power in giving Orders Whence it will follow that the Presbyters when admitted in some acts of Jurisdiction with the Apostles cannot challenge a right of governing affixed to their Order qua Presbyteri because they did assist in subordination and dependencie That the Apostles assumed these Presbyters in acts deliberative and consiliary to assist first at Jerusalem Acts 15. was a meer voluntary act from which example that it was derived to other Churches will not be denied and hence the last clause of Jeromes words will be most clear Noverint episcopi se magis consuetudine Ecclesiae quam Dominicae dispositionis veritate Presbyteris esse majores in communi debere Ecclesiam regere For by the Commission Sicut misit me Pater given to the Apostles and in them to their successors onely they could not challenge it It may well proceeding from the voluntary act of the Apostles be called an Apostolical Tradition and Ordinance but in strict termes Dominica it was not nor Dominicae dispositionis veritas according to Jerome 2. But if this sense of Jeromes words like you not I shall yet offer you another At first as I said the Presbyters by delegation from the Apostles with common advice and equal care guided the Church under the Apostles but after Bishops were appointed the whole care by little and little was derived to one and so at last by custome Presbyters were utterly excluded from all advice and counsel and Bishops onely intermedled with the regiment of the Church This indeed grew onely by continuance of time and not by any Ordinance of Christ or his Apostles this Jerome dislik'd and to that purpose he fixes his Noverint Episcopi c. And that this is likeliest to be Jeromes meaning in that place his following words shew Imitantes Moysen qui cum haberet in potestate solus praesse populo Israel 70. elegit cum quibus populum judicaret The Bishops then ought to do as Moses did What to have Governours equal No but when they might rule alone to joyne with them others in the fellowship of their power and honour as Moses did Moses did not abrogate his superiority above others but took seventy Elders into part of his charge So Jerome would have them And thus much the King was content to grant and restore as you may read in his book cap. 17. about the middle I saith he am not against the managing of this precedencie and authority in one man by the joynt councel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore it c. You see of what Presbyters I am content the prescribed Ministery shall consist and what Presbytrry I shall allow you 2. Or Teaching and Ruling Elders HEre again your words are dark For if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elders you meane those in Orders I shall readily admit them to the Church ministry whether Teaching or Ruling But if you intend under these words to introduce into the Ministry either to teach or rule men that are not of the Clergy so you know we speak and so I must speak for distinction sake for else I cannot be understood in this question I absolutely deny it For there was never any Lay-man ex Officio admitted to teach ordinarily in Scripture called and sent he must be before he did undertake to preach So the Apostle intimates Rom. 10.15 How shall they preach except they be sent If any be gifted I shall allow him ex debito charitatis privately and charitably to make use of his talent to exhort to reprove to admonish but publikely to divide the Word of God and to teach I may not admit him For as a man must have inward endowments gifts and sufficiencie so he must have an outward calling before I shall call him a Teacher in the Church of God And I hear you are not against me in this 2. But about a Ruling Elder I fear you and I shall
labour in doctrine as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which often signifies to rule And then your third word Rulers will come under that notion also and so Teachers Pastours and Rulers will not denote three distinct sorts of Church Officers which I have some reason to think you aime at but one and the same man qualified both to teach and to rule At Geneva Calvin and Beza were made both Pastours and Readers of Divinity being men so able to discharge both and yet no man did say that they did not content themselves with their pastoral votation or alledge against them He that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation For as I have often told you and have proved Lay-Ruling Elders except you mean Arbitratours there were never any in the Primitive Church The last word you use is Deacon Hieron ad Evagrium Epiph. lib. 1. Tom. 1. de adventu Christi in carnem And under that name are properly comprehended those who by the first institution were onely mensarum viduarum Ministri who if we beleeve Epiphanius were chose out of the seventy of which two of them did preach Stephen and Philip they were more than Deacons they were Evangelists and so Philip is stiled But he that shall heedfully consider Saint Pauls precepts and the conditions required by him in those that should be Deacons would easily collect that their Office was not onely a charge to look to the poor but that they were to attend the sacred services and Assemblies and even to be a step to the Ministry of the word I shall therefore willingly admit of the distinction that there were in the Primitive Church two sorts of Deacons One of the first institution who were to have a care of the poor and of a second kinde deputed by the Church who were to attend on the Church give unto eve y one present of the sanctified bread and wine to command the people silence attention Concil Ancyr Can. 2. Cypr. lib. 3. Epist 9 â—ust Apol. 2. Ignat. ad Heronem and devotion all which may be collected out of the Council of Ancyra Cyprian Justin Martyr and Ignatius who mentions his own Deac Heron at Antioch and Stephen to be the Deacon to Saint James at Jerusalem Thus much it was necessary to premise before we joyn'd issue now you charge us with presumption in removing the Landmarks that we have altered the places and appellations by bringing in of new names unscripture-like titles So belike it is not lawful to use any titles of honour or command but such as are used in Scripture The Jewes then belike offended when they used these unscripture-like titles of Reschignim Tsadikim Chasidim and so after the captivity they divided the people The Reschagnim were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wicked the Tsadikim their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their just men the Chasidim their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their good and holy men And yet Saint Paul serves himself of this distinction for questionlesse he alludes to it Rom. 5.6 7. amplifying the great love of Christ dying for us Scarcely for a righteous man will one dye yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to dye the gradation is this Some peradventure would dye for one of the Chasidim the good men scarcely for one of the Tsadikim for the just or righteous men But for Reschagnim or ungodly none would dye In this then appeared the love of Christ that when we were Reschagnim ungodly sinners Christ dyed for us A man is a Ruler of an Army and he shall not call some Majors some Colonells some Centurions Pentacurions Decurions c. because these are unscripture-like titles Nomen is rei notamen invented it was to denote the thing neither do I know which way it is possible to understand and distinguish but by names vox being rei conceptuum signum and therefore must necessarily be admitted if we will not confound our selves in the understanding of things But now to the names you mention Lord-Bishop Dean Chancellour Surrogate Arch-Deacon The end of two of these I finde in Scripture Bishop and Deacon but you 'll say the syllables Lord and Arch are unscripture-like I must confesse that I finde not Lord before Bishop in the Scripture nor Arch before Deacon but this will not prove that we have altered the places and appellations for what place have we altered either of Bishops or Deacons by calling one lord-Lord-Bishop or the other Arch-Deacon Still the place and office is the same for the lord-Lord-Bishop hath no other power than he had at first which is potestas clavium nor the Arch-Deacon any more than he had to be oculus Episcopi and see that all be well administred that concerns the poor and service of the Church To be offended with a title is to pick straws especially when the substance is observed For how have we alter'd the places when we have yet in our Church Bishops who are Pastours Teachers and besides these publick Professours of Divinity Doctours Catechizers whom Saint Paul saith Saint Ambrose meant by Teachers such as were in the Churches of Alexandria Clemens Pantonus Origen Hicroclas As for those other three appellations Dean Chancellour Surrogate no Scripture can be brought for them nor needs it it being lawful no question to give fit names to things though no text can be produced otherwise your parties were to seek who call him who is to preside in a Synod by the name of a Proloquutor and those that govern in your Combinational Churches Lay-Elders and are not these unscripture-like for I finde no such titles in the Scriptures As for the name of Deane it is ancient and it signifies no more than that Presbyter who was the chief in any Collegiate Church and was to have a care that the Statutes of the Church were observed being like the the Principal Warden or President of a College and you may as well be offended with any of these Appellations as with this with which yet it is evident many of your party are well pleased for they enjoy it and the honour and profits notwithstanding the names are not found in Scripture And should any man lay this objection against any of them I dare say he would answer him with a smile I am confident he would who being a prime man among you at this day enjoyeth a Deanery and doubtlesse hugs himself applaudÃt sibi ipsi domi Aha I am warme I have been at the fire That you like the name nere the worse it was fetcht from the Militia The Romane souldiers were when drawn to their winter quarters to lodge by companies and so many as lodged together being commonly ten were called Contubernales the chief over them was called Decenus or decurio Hadrian Junius being praeses manipuli dexinier en guerre Gall or the Corporal from the Italian word Caporale or Spanish Corporal We in Enlglish Corporal
and from hence it was borrowed and brought into the Church that the chief of the Capitulum should be called Decan which I think is Arch-Presbyter 3. I come now to your other two dislik'd Appellations Chancellours and Surrogates That the Bishop was at first the chief Judge in his Church I have before proved and then no dought he might appoint his subordinate Officials This being a confessed rule in the Law that when any cause is committed to any man he is also conceived to receive full authority in all matters belonging to that cause When the Emperours became Christian they judged it equal and pious to reserve some causes to be tried in the Christian Court in which they constituted the Bishop to be the Judge These causes were properly called Ecclesiastical such as were Blasphemy Apostacy Heresies Schismes Orders Admissions institution of Clerks Cooks Reports fol. 8. Rites of Matrimony Probates of Wills Divorces and such like To give audience to these the Bishop otherwise imployed could not alway be present and yet there was no reason that for his absence justice should not take its course And in some of these had he been present great skill in Civil Lawes is requisite that they be ended aright This gave occasion to the Bishop to appoint his Chancellour and Surrogate A Chancellour who had his name à Cancellis within which he was to sit a man brought up in the Civil Lawes and therefore fit to decide such causes that did depend upon those Lawes who being at first a meere Lay-man and therefore having no power of Exommunication therefore the Bishop thought fit to adjoyne a Surrogate to him that in case that high censure were to be passed this man being in Orders and therefore invested with power actu primo and by Commission with the Bishops power actu secundo sub Episcopo rogatus being demanded and an Officer under the Bishop Actu primo might pronounce the Sentence This was the original of their names and power Now prudential necessity first instituted them and prudence where Episcopal power is of force continues them If a Superiour shall be pleased to revoke some of these causes which were by him made of Ecclesiastical cognizance and cause the litigants to take their trial at Common or Civil Law Vide the book of Order of Excommunication in Scotl. Hist of Scot Amon 2. pag. 46. then in the Church I confesse there will be no use of the Chancellour And if the rest shall be tried by the Bishop and his Presbytery as they were at first neither will there need much a Surrogate But now if that rule of the Presbytery should prove to be true who do challenge cognisance of all causes whatsoever which are sins directly or by reduction then they have power if not to nullifie yet to give liberty to play all Courts and Judicatories besides their own and must bring in thither Sollicitours Atturneys Counsellours Procters c. which will be as un-Scripture-like names as Chancellours and Surrogates Cinod de off Eccl. Joannes Epis Citri in respon ad cabasil Naz. Testam 4. The fourth Appellation that offends you is the Arch-Deacon who was a very ancient officer in the Church and of great esteeme in the Greek Church Neither was he chosen to that place by the Patriarch but came to it by seniority the name then gave him no power but onely this prerogative to be chief of the Deacons of the Church as if you would say of the eldest standing In the Church of England he was more than a Deacon for he was a Presbyter and his office was to be present at all ordinations to enquire into the life the manners the abilities and sufficiency of him who was to be ordained and either to reject him if he saw occasion or to present him to the Bishop to be ordained to induct into any Benefice that man who was instituted by the Bishop to have the care of the houses of God were kept decent and in good repair lastly to take account of all who had to do with the poors money And this last was it which gave him the name of the chief Deacon Ambr. lib. 1. de off c. 41. Prudentius for when the charity of the Church was great and ample gifts were bestowed to the relief of the poorer Christians the Church stock was ample as appears by Lawrence the Martyr who was Deacon to Sixtus Bishop of Rome martyred under Valerian This being committed to the Deacons care that no fraud might be committed as it hapned too oft in money-matters the Church thought fit to set one of the Deacons over the rest who might call them to account as ours were to do the Church-wardens and Overseers of the poor to whom they gave the name of the Arch-Deacon Now speak impartially what harme was in all this What that may offend you Deacon cannot and Arch should not since you know it signifies no more but chief or prime as in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Patriarch And that you may carry some affection or at least not a loathing to it I pray call to memory that a worthy Martyr of our Church John Philpot adjudged to the fire and burnt in Queen Maryes dayes Fox Martyrol An. 1553. primo Mariae resigned up his soul in the flames being then Arch-Deacon of Winchester And that with him Master Cheiny and Master Elmour that refused to subscribe to the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Convocation-house were both Arch-Deacons 5. But now I return back again to that Appellation Lord-Bishop at which so many have stumbled and been scandalized that others before you have done it I have reason to attribute to envie an evil eye but in you I shal onely impute it to inconsideration Gen. 24. 1 Kings 18. 2 Kings 2. 2 Kings 4. 2 Kings 8. For you are mighty in the Scriptures and therefore might have known that the Hebrew Adoni or the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Latine Dominus which in the Spanish is Don in the French Sciur in English Sir is onely a name of civility courtesie respect reverence By this Rebecca calls Abrahams servant Drink my Lord. By this Obadiah the Prophet Art thou my Lord Elijah By this the children of the Prophets the inhabitants of Hiericho the Sunamite and Hazael the Prophet Elisha By this Mary the Gardner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord or Sir if thou have taken him hence with this civil respect the Greeks accost Philip John 20.15 John 12.21 1 Pet. 3.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir we would see Jesus In all which places the word imports onely a courteous and respectful compellation And St. Peter commends the woman that shall with this name endear her husband proposing the example of Sarah that obeyed Abraham and call'd him Lord. To a Bishop double honour respect reverence is due for he is comprised under the name of father in the Commandment and whom we
the matter to their liking I have saith he already determined afore he wrote and before they read that part of his Epistle And what to do to joyne with them to deliver this trespasser to Satan No saith he I have already decreed to deliver him By what means what by their power and priviledge not so but by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ Then for ought we can finde in this place the Apostle though absent decreed to do the deed himself by the power of Christ and not by the consent and help of the Corinthians Certainly had this been a Priviledge of the Presbyterial Church Saint Paul would never have invaded it what an Apostle guilty of such presumption such usurpation Yea but the sentence was to be pronounced by them When ye are gathered together in my Spirit i. e. my power my authority then deliver True they were bound to do it but by what right their own or the Apostles by his certainly for it is In my spirit So all their power is delegate not native 't is derivative not primitive declarative not judiciary and consequently from this place no priviledge of the Presbyterial Church to censure any mans person can be deduced But rather the quite contrary in that the Apostle a single person judged and decreed without them I shall mind you what may well be concluded hence which is that the censure should not be past in a corner but in a full Assembly because the Apostle saith When ye are gathered together and if you shall complaine that it was otherwise I shall not stick to confesse that your complaint is just and I have and shall ever joyn with you in it But I shall adde what strength I can to your plea out of this chapter Some may say the authority was in the Presbyterial Church because the Apostle reprehends them verse 2. that they had not past censures on the peccant Ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed may be taken from you That I may give light to this dark place A custome was used in the Church when any was to be excommunicated to joyn in mourning This duty the Corinthians had neglected and he reproves them for it they were puffed up in an opinion of their own deeper wisdome they joyned not in mourning they complained not to Christ or his Apostle that a Censure might passe on such a one This was their fault for a course they should have taken that such a one should be taken away But by whom that 's the question Not by them to be sure For Taken away from you implies that it is by the power of another not by their act for no man can take any thing from himself He may put it away not take it the expression had been veen very imperfect if this had been the meaning And so for you nothing can be included hence But again it may be objected verse 7. Purge ye out the old leaven And again verse 12. Do ye not judge these who are within where purging and judging is laid upon vos and is therefore a Church-priviledge I answer that vos is no way exclusive of the Apostles power but rather includes it for sure he may judge them that are within the Church and doth it verse 3. Vos then hath reference to this third verse Vos you gathered together in my Spirit do you purge out the old leaven do you judge those who are within You to whom the Keys are given you to whom I have delegated my power being of the Presbytery not the Layity do you judge and purge This is the clear intent of the Apostle and so hath been given by all ancient Interpreters Whence it will follow that a Presbyterial priviledge to excommunicate can have no footing in this chapter As for that other place 2 Thess 3.15 it gives no countenance at all to the Presbyterial Church for Censure For the Apostle gives order onely about a disorderly person that he might be signified to him by a letter that if occasion required he might be censured yea in expresse termes forbids them to Censure him Matth. 18.17 For he saith Count him not as an enemy that is as an Heathen for so the word enemy probably signifies Rom. 11.28 Ephes 2.16 I must confesse ingenuously unto you if I would pick out an argument against the Presbyterial priviledge to censure I would make choise of this place for to what purpose would the Apostle have this unruly man noted by a letter if they had power to proceed against him Now why nor they nor the Church of Corinth had not power without the Apostle to Censure I have given you an account before and need not here repeat it You see you must produce stronger evidence for your priviledge than hitherto you have done before I can yield it And I am confident that better you cannot bring forth Since the power of Censures must be necessarily in some hands I shall leave them in theirs that they have beene for sixteen hundred years Primarily in Bishops by commission and delegation in Presbyters and therefore much more in both assembled in Councils so that it cannot be any presumption or usurpation of power if in them they use their authority to censure any mans person of which you assign the time to be Anno Dom. 320. or thereabout when Proposition 6. Alexander Patriarch of Alexandria began this usurpation against Arius and Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia in the reigne of Constantius and Constance JF there were no more to be said for it yet this were Antiquity sufficient that it was used in the Church before the Nicene Council about 1300. years ago This would be thought on 2. Next I could wish that you were better versed in the Records of the Church the histories of those first times and acts and proceedings of Councils for then I am perswaded you would never have pointed out Constantines dayes for the babe-age of that usurpation for clear it is that there then was no more done but what was ordered to be done and was done before Read but the Apostolical Canons Apost Can. 3.6 7 8 12 29. and in most of them you shall meet with these phrases Si quis Episcopus Presbyter Diaconus Laicus c. be found guilty of such or such an offence deponatur excommunicetur dejiciatur eijciatur abjiciatur communione privetur damnetur ab Ecclesia penitus abscindatur Again in the Council of Ancyra order is taken that some be deprived of the Sacrament for three some for four Conc. Ancyr c. 4 6 8. some for five some for fifteen years some a longer time all which space they should be reckoned among the penitents Basil Can. 58.77 to which order those two Canons in Basil give great light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again Can. 77. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zozomen lib. 7. cap. 17. For these were the four Classes of the Penitents
strong as you may read in Rutherford and Bayly out of him yet this one drawn from this Apostolike Synod I suppose were unanswerable No Synod can impose Decrees upon any Combinational Church That 's your own Maxime But this Synod did impose her Decrees upon those Churches which you say were Combinational This proposition is evident in the Scripture Acts 15. and verse 22 and 35. Therefore now if this Church of Antioch were subject to the authority of Synods what Church might plead a freedome from the like subjection and consequently none is Independent Thus have I as it were in a Table presented you with the plain face of Truth and sent it you bare and naked as Truth should be If the visage seem old the better 't is as I intended it that hinders not but she may be comely venerable amiable for he that will reverence and love truth he must do it because she is an Ancient Matron For Quod primum verum sed enim in omnibus veritas imaginem aniccedit pâ—stremo similitudo sucoedit Tertull. Praes c. 29. cap. 31. Ex ipso ordine manifestatur id esse Dominicum verum quod sit prius tradijtum id autem extraneum falsum quod sit posteriùs immissum A rule which that learned father often inculcates but nowhere more clearly then in this fourth book against Marcion where he hath these words by aggravation Tertull. l. 4. adversus Marcion c. 5. In summa si constat id verius quod prius id prius quod est ab initio ab initio quod ab Apostolis pariter utique constabit id ab Apostolis traditum quod apud Ecclesias Apostolicas fuerit sacrosanctum which Chapter is worth your reading for there the learned man refers the Original of Bishops to the Apostles intimates their succession which in many Churches he doth more clearly in the thirty second Chapter of his prescriptions This prime Truth I have here represented with her Ancient Officers about her the Bishops with a Presbytery of which in wisdome she thought fit to raise some higher not in Office but in Degree ne quid detrimenti Ecclesia capiat And this advancement was no new device neither for we read of Metropolitans and Primates before the Nicene Council as I have prov'd after of Patriarchs Yet all this while the Church remain'd a pure Virgin Thebulis being the fiâ—st that corrupted the Church Hegesipp apud Euseb l. 4 c. 21. Tertull. because he could not be a Bishop as did afterwards Valentinus and Marcion upon the same occasion and I had almost said Tertullian himself This certainly shewes that the Office of a Bishop even then was no contemptible dignity For certainly the rejection of such men from the over-sight of a Congregational Church could never work such men to so great discontent Of such parties they were the chief even after they had failed of their expected hopes No question they were of Diotrephes minde John Epi. 3.10 they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they desired to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Primates so old is that word in the Church to which because they could not be admitted they corrupted it with their doctrines Ambition is by Charron call'd the shirt of the soul Charron of wisdome being the first garment that it puts on and the last that it puts off for men while there be men will be of aspiring minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even a beggar will strive to be chief of his company and a tradesman to be Master over those of his own profession this cannot nor ever will be avoided Such thoughts have alwayes tickled Church-men Now to satisfie this desire God hath appointed higher places in his Church and so they be desired in a fair way and to lawful ends it is commendable 1 Tim. 3.1 ver 31. Conc. Afric Chalced. Sardic Naz. in Athanasij vitâ This is a true saying saith the Apostle If a man desire the office of a Bishop he desires a good work and again in the same Chapter they that have used the office of a Deacon well purchase unto themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a faire step to ascend to a higher degree as first to a Presbyter then to a Bishop And it is written of Athanasius that he ascended by all these steps till he became Patriarch of Alexandria then he was set upon the highest step and yet this advancement of his or any other cannot hinder the government of the Church for being Aristocratical but confirms it rather since in this eminence he was to guide the Church not according to his own pleasure but according to the prescribed Canons of Synods and Councils from which if he erred he was liable to answer to the supreme Court of an Oecumenical Assemblie I have you see laid the foundation of the Churches government in Aristocracy of which Monarchy and Democracy are the extremes If you can shew me any Church that hath deviated from the middle way I shall confesse it to be corrupt And for the first it is easie to instance viz. the Romane Church whose Patriarch affects a Monarchy and his Courtiers and learned Rabbies the Jesuites plead stifly for it But then you must not take that way you do to prove it for the erection of Cathedral Parochial Diocesan Provincial and National Churches through his Patriarchate will never do it Since these were from the beginning in other Patriarchates and in his too when no Monarchy was ever dream'd of or challeng'd That his challenge I acknowledge to be a corruption And if any Church shall affect Democracy I shall say it is corrupted also in that it observes not that Apostolical rule of government and discipline which was then used as I have demonstrated It is then a great mistake in you to make the Presbyterial or Combinational Church to be the sole pure and Apostolical Church and that all Churches that are fallen off from that government are corrupted This if you can confirme fairely and firmly by unanswerable arguments as you make shew of then you have reason to fasten your degeneration and corruption on Cathedrals Parishes Diocesses Provinces and Nations but if this can never be done as I am assured it cannot then I shall affirme that the casting the Church into Cathedrals Parishes c. was not errour since by that the discipline of the Church might be better administred and the Aristocratical government far advanced and furthered And so having express'd unto you my thoughts in the general I now come to examine what you lay to the Churches charge in particular in the discussion of which I hope you will give me leave to prosecute my own method and I shall begin with the Cathedral which you say was the second degree but I conceive it the first Of this your words are SECT III. The words of the Letter The second degree of the Combinational Churches corruption