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A50915
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Of prelatical episcopacy, and vvhither it may be deduc'd from the apostolical times by vertue of those testimonies which are alledg'd to that purpose in some late treatises one whereof goes under the name of Iames, Arch-bishop of Armagh.
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Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing M2133; ESTC R23425
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13,884
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28
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salutes the Sub-Deacons Chaunters Porters and Exorcists as if these had bin Orders of the Church in his time those other Epistles lesse question'd are yet so interlarded with Corruptions as may justly indue us with a wholsome suspition of the rest As to the Trallians he writes that a Bishop hath power over all beyond all government and autority whatsoever Surely then no Pope can desire more then Ignatius attributes to every Bishop but what will become then of the Archbishops and Primates if every Bishop in Ignatius judgement be as supreme as a Pope To the Ephesians neare the very place from whence they fetch their proof for Episcopacy there stands a line that casts an ill hue upon all the Epistle Let no man erre saith he unlesse a man be within the rays or enclosure of the Altar he is depriv'd of the bread of life I say not but this may be stretch'd to a figurative construction but yet it has an ill look especially being follow'd beneath with the mention of I know not what sacrifices In the other Epistle to Smyrna wherein is written that they should follow their Bishop as Christ did his Father and the Presbytery as the Apostles not to speak of the insuâ—â—e and ill-layd comparison this cited place lyes upon the very brimme of a noted corruption which had they that quote this passage ventur'd to let us read all men would have readily seen what grain the testimony had bin of where it is said that it is not lawfull without a Bishop to baptize nor to offer nor to doe sacrifice What can our Church make of these phrases but scandalous and but a little further he plainly falls to contradict the Spirit of God in Salomon Judge by the words themselvs My Son saith he honour God the King but I say honour God and the Bishop as High-priest bearing the image of God according to his ruling and of Christ according to his Priesting and after him honour the King Excellent Ignatius can ye blame the Prelates for making much of this Epistle Certainly if this Epistle can serve you to set a Bishop above a Presbyter it may serve you next to set him above a King These and other like places in abundance through all those short Epistles must either be adulterat or else Ignatius was not Ignatius nor a Martyr but most adulterate and corrupt himselfe In the midst therfore of so many forgeries where shall we fixe to dare say this is Ignatius as for his stile who knows it so disfigur'd and interrupted as it is except they think that where they meet with any thing found and orthodoxal there they find Ignatius and then they beleeve him not for his own authority but for a truths sake which they derive from els where to what end then should they cite him as authentick for Episcopacie when they cannot know what is authentick in him but by the judgement which they brought with them not by any judgement which they might safely learne from him How can they bring satisfaction froÌ„ such an Author to whose very essence the Reader must be fain to contribute his own understanding Had God ever intended that we should have sought any part of usefull instruction froÌ„Ignatius doubtles he would not have so ill provided for our knowledge as to send him to our hands in this broken and disjoynted plight and if he intended no such thing we doe injuriously in thinking to tast better the pure Euangelick Manna by seasoning our mouths with the tainted scraps and fragments of an unknown table and searching among the verminous and polluted rags dropt overworn from the toyling shoulders of Time with these deformedly to quilt and interlace the intire the spotlesse and undecaying robe of Truth the daughter not of Time but of Heaven only bred up heer below in Christian hearts between two grave holy nurses the Doctrine and Discipline of the Gospel Next follows Irenaeus Bishop of Lions who is cited to affirm that Polycarpus was made Bishop of Smyrna by the Apostles and this it may seem none could better tell then he who had both seen and heard Polycarpus but when did he heare him himselfe confesses to Florinus when he was a Boy Whether that age in Irenaeus may not be liable to many mistakings and whether a Boy may be trusted to take an exact account of the manner of a Church constitution and upon what terms and within what limits and with what kind of Commission Polycarpus receiv'd his charge let a man consider ere he be 〈◊〉 It will not be deny'd that he might have seen Polycarpus in his youth a man of great eminence in the Church to whom the other Presbyters might give way for his vertue wisdome and the reverence of his age and so did Amcetus Bishop of Rome even in his own City give him a kind of priority inadministring the Sacrament as may be read in Eusebius but that we should hence conclude a distinct and superior order from the young observation of Irenaeus nothing yet alledg'd can warrant us unlesse we shall beleeve such as would face us down that Calvin and after him Beza were Bishops of Geneva because that in the unsetl'd state of the Church while things were not fully compos'd their worth and learning cast a greater share of businesse upon them and directed mens eyes principally towards them and yet these men were the dissolvers of Episcopacie We see the same necessity in state affaires Brutns that expell'd the Kings out of Rome was for the time forc't to be as it were a King himself till matters were set in order as in a free Common-wealth He that had seen Pericles lead the Athenians which way he listed haply would have said he had bin their Prince and yet he was but a powerfull and eloquent man in a Democratie and had no more at any time then a Temporary and elective sway which was in the will of the people when to abrogate And it is most likely that in the Church they which came after these Apostolick men being lesse in merit but bigger in ambition strove to invade those priviledges by intrusion and plea of right which Polycarpus and others like him possest from the voluntary surrender of men subdu'd by the excellencie of their heavenly gifts which because their Successors had not and so could neither have that autority it was their policy to divulge that the eminence which Polycarpus and his equalls enjoy'd was by right of constitution not by free wil of condiscending And yet thus farre Irenaeus makes against them as in that very place to call Polycarpus an Apostolicall Presbyter But what fidelity his relations had in generall we cannot sooner learn then by Eusebius who neer the end of his third Book speaking of Papias a very ancient writer one that had heard St. Iohn and was known to many that had seen and bin acquainted with others of the Apostles but being of a shallow wit and not understanding
sitting with a carnall and ambitious decree to give the second place of dignity to Constantinople from reason of State because it was new ROME and by like consequence doublesse of earthly priviledges annext to each other City was the BISHOP therof to take his place I may say againe therfore what hope can we have of such a Councell as beginning in the Spirit ended thus in the flesh Much rather should we attend to what Eusebius the ancientest writer extant of Church-history notwithstanding all the helps he had above these confesses in the 4. chap. of his 3. Book that it was no easie matter to tell who were those that were left Bishops of the Churches by the Apostles more then by what a man might gather from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul in which number he reckons Timothy for Bishop of Ephesus So as may plainly appeare that this tradition of Bishoping Timothy over Ephesus was but taken for granted out of that place in St. Paul which was only an intreating him to tarry at Ephesus to do somthing left him in charge Now if Eusebius a famous writer thought it so difficult to tell who were appointed Bishops by the Apostles much more may we think it difficult to Leontius an obscure Bishop speaking beyond his own Diocesse and certainly much more hard was it for either of them to determine what kind of Bishops those were if they had so little means to know who they were and much lesse reason have we to stand to their definitive sentence seeing they have bin so rash to raise up such lofty Bishops and Bishopricks out of places in Scripture meerly misunderstood Thus while we leave the Bible to gadde after these traditions of the ancients we heare the ancients themselvs confessing that what knowledge they had in this point was such as they had gather'd from the Bible Since therfore Antiquity it selfe hath turn'd over the controversie to that sovran Book which we had fondly straggl'd from we shall doe better not to detain this venerable apparition of Leontius any longer but dismisse him with his List of seven and twenty to sleep unmolested in his former obscurity Now for the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} it is more likely that Timothy never knew the word in that sense it was the vanity of those next succeeding times not to content themselves with the simplicity of Scripture phrase but must make a new Lexicon to name themselves by one will be call'd {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Antistes a word of precedence another would be term'd a Gnostick as Clemens a third Sacerdos or Priest and talks of Altars which was a plaine signe that their doctrine began to change for which they must change their expressions But that place of Justin Martyr serves rather to convince the Author then to make for him where the name {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the president or Pastor of the Brethren for to what end is he their President but to teach them cannot be limited to signifie a Prelaticall Bishop but rather communicates that Greek appellation to every ordinary Presbyter for there he tells what the Christians had wont to doe in their severall Congregations to read and expound to pray and administer all which he saies the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Antistes did Are these the Offices only of a Bishop or shall we think that every Congregation where these things were done which he attributes to this Antistes had a Bishop present among them unlesse they had as many Antistites as Presbyters which this place rather seems to imply and so we may inferre even from their own alledg'd authority that Antistes was nothing else but Presbyter As for that namelesse Treatise of Timothy's martyrdome only cited by Photius that liv'd almost 900. yeares after Christ it hansomely follows in that author the Martyrdome of the seven Sleepers that slept I tell you but what mine Author sayes three hundred seaventy and two years for so long they had bin shut up in a Cave without meat and were found living This Story of Timothy's Ephesian Bishopricke as it follows in order so may it for truth if it only subsist upon its own authority as it doth for Photius only saith he read it he does not averre it That other legendarie piece found among the lives of the Saints and sent us from the shop of the Jesuites at Lovain does but bear the name of Polyerates how truly who can tell and shall have some more weight with us when Polycrates can perswade us of that which he affirms in the same place of Eusebius 5. Book that St. John was a Priest and wore the golden brestplate and why should he convince us more with his traditions of Timothy's Episcopacie then he could convince Victor Bishop of Rome with his traditions concerning the Feast of Easter who not regarding his irrefragable instances of examples taken from Philip and his daughters that were Prophetesses or from Polycarpus no nor from St. Iohn himselfe Excommunicated both him and all the Asian Churches for celebrating their Easter judaically he may therfore goe back to the seaven Bishops his kinsmen and make his moane to them that we esteem his traditionall ware as lightly as Victor did Those of Theodoret Felix and Iohn of Antioch are autorities of later times and therfore not to be receiv'd for their Antiquities sake to give in evidence concerning an allegation wherin writers so much their Elders we see so easily miscarry What if they had told us that Peter who as they say left Ignatius Bishop of Antioch went afterwards to Rome and was Bishop there as this Ignatius and Irenaeus and all Antiquity with one mouth deliver there be never the lesse a number of learned and wise Protestants who have written and will maintain that Peters being at Rome as Bishop cannot stand with concordance of Scripture Now come the Epistles of Ignatius to shew us first that Onesimus was Bishop of Ephesus next to assert the difference of Bishop and Presbyter wherin I wonder that men teachers of the Protestant Religion make no more difficulty of imposing upon our belief a supposititious ofspring of some dozen Epistles whereof five are rejected as spurious containing in them Herefies and trifles which cannot agree in Chronologie with Ignatius entitling him Arch-Bishop of Antioch Theopolis which name of Theopolis that City had not till Iustinians time long after as Cedrenus mentions which argues both the barbarous time and the unskilfull fraud of him that foisted this Epistle upon Ignatius In the Epistle to those of Tarsus he condemns them for Ministers of Satan that say Christ is God above all To the Phillippians them that kept their Easter as the Asian Churches and Polycarpus did and them that fasted upon any Saturday or Sunday except one he counts as those that had slain the Lord To those of Antioch he