could a custome have prevailed with all of them whom we have to Constantines time yet it might enter and steale upon them through humaine frailtie as these errours in doctrine did upon many otherwise godly and faithfull Martyrs the rather because the alteration was so little at the first and Aristocraticall government was still continued Thirdly say they had wittingly and willingly done it through the world they had not cospired because they might haue deemed such power in the Church and themselves to doe nothing but what they might with Christs good liking for the edification of it How many of the chiefe Patrons of this cause are at this day of this iudgement that if it were but an Apostolical institution as Apostolical is cōtradistinguished to divine they might change it But if the Apostles did enact this order as Legats and Embassadors of Christ then is it not theirs but Christs own institution What an Embassador speaketh as an Embassadour it is principally from him that sent him but if they who were Legates did not bearing the person of Legats but of ordinary Ecclesiasticall governours decree this then it is certaine Church governours may alter it without treasonable conspiring against Christ As for those proofes that Bishops have been throughout all Churches from the beginning they are weak For first the Councell of Nice useth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not simpliciter but secundum quid in order happily to that time wherein the custome began which was better known to them then to us the phrase is so used Act. 15.8 in respect of some things which had not continued many years They cannot meane the Apostles times for then Metropolitans should haue actuallie been from the Apostles time Secondlie the phrase of the Councell of Ephesus is likewise aequivocall for they have reference to the fathers of Nice or at least the decrees of the fathers who went before the Councell of Nice For those words being added definitiones Nicenae fidei seeme to explaine the former Canones Apostolorum It is plaine the decree of the Councell doth ascribe this thing onely to ancient custome no lesse then that of Nice Constantinople and Chalcedon and therefore cannot rise to the authoritie of sacred Scriptures Let him shew in all antiquitie where sacred scriptures are called Canons of the Apostles Finally if this phrase note rules given by the Apostles then the Apostles themselves did set out the bounds of Cyprus and Antioch As for the authoritie of Cyprian he doth testifie what was Communiter in his time Bishops ordained in cities not universaliter as if there were no citie but had some Secondly he speaketh of Bishops who had their Churches included in Cities not more then might meet together in one to any common deliberations They had no Diocesan Churches nor were Bishops who had majoritie of rule over their Presbyters nor sole power of ordination As for the Catalogue of succession it is pompae aptior quam pugnae Rome can recite their successours But because it hath had Bishops Ergo Oecumenicall Bishops is no consequence All who are named Bishops in the Catalogue were not of one cut and in that sence we controvert Touching that which doth improve their being constituted by any Councell it is very weak For though wee read of no generall Councell yet there might be and the report not come to us Secondly we have shewed that the Councell of Nice doth not prove this that Bishops were every where from the beginning the phrase of from the beginning beeing there respectively not absolutely used Neither doth Ierom ever contrary this for he doth not use those words in proprietie but by way of allusion otherwise if hee did think the Apostle had published this decree when the first to the Corinths was written how can he cite testimonies long after written to prove that Bishops were not instituted in the Apostles time but that they were ordained by the Church iure Ecclesiastico when the time served for it The sixt Argument Such as even at this day are in the reformed Churches such ministers are of Christs institution But ministers hauing singularitie of preheminence and power above others are amongst them as the Superintendents in Germanie Ergo. Answ The assumption is utterly denied For Superintendents in Germany are nothing like our Bishops they are of the same degree with other ministers they are onely Presidents while the Synod lasteth when it is dissolved their prerogative ceaseth they have no prerogative over their fellow Ministers they are subject to the Presbyteries Zepp lib. 2. cap. 10. pag. 324. The Synod ended they returne to the care of their particular Churches The seventh Argument If it were necessarie that while the Apostles lived there should be such Ministers as had preheminence and maioritie of power above others much more after their departure But they thought it necessarie and therefore appointed Timothy and Titus and other Apostolicke men furnished with such power Ergo much more after their departure Answ The assumption is denied and formerly disproved for they appointed no such Apostolick men with Episcopal power in which they should be succeeded The eighth Argument Such Ministers as were in the Apostles times not contradicted by them were lawfull For they would not have held their peace had they known unlawfull Ministers to have crept into the Churches But there were before Iohns death in many Churches a succession of Diocesan Bishops as in Rome Linus Clemens at Ierusalem Iames Simeon at Antioch Evodius at Alexandria S. Mark Anianus Abilius Ergo Diocesan Bishops be lawfull Answer The Assumption is denied for these Bishops were but Presbyters Pastors of one congregation ordinarily meeting governing with common consent of their Presbyteries If they were affecting our Bishops majoritie they were in Diotrophes sufficientlie contradicted The ninth Argument Those who have been ever held of a higher order then Presbyters they are before Presbyters in preheminence and maioritie of rule But Bishops have been held in a higher order by all antiquitie Ergo. The assumption is manifest In the Councell of Nice Ancyra Sardica Antioch ministers are distinguished into three orders Jgnatius Clemens in his Epistle to Iames Dionys Areopag de Coelest Hierom. cap. 5. Tertull. de fuga in persecutione de Baptismo Ignatius doth often testifie it No wonder when the scripture it selfe doth call one of these a step to another 1. Timoth. 3.13 Cyprian Lib. 4. Ep. 2. Counc Ephes Cap. 1.2.6 Yea the Councell of Chalcedon counteth it sacriledge to reduce a Bishop to the degree of a Presbyter This Hierome himselfe confirmeth saying That from Marke to Heraclas and Dionysius the Presbyters did set a Bishop over them in higher degree Answer The Proposition is not true in regard of maioritie of rule For no Apostle had such power over the meanest Deacon in any of the Churches But to the Assumption wee answer by distinction An order is reputed higher either because intrinsecallie it hath a higher vertue or because it hath
a higher degree of dignitie and honour Now wee deny that ever antiquitie did take the Bishop above his Presbyters to bee in a higher order then a Presbyter further then a higher order doth signifie an order of higher dignitie and honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Councell of Sardica speaketh Which is further proved becavse the fathers did not hold a Bishop to differ from a Presbyter as Presbyter from a Deacon For these differ genere proximo Noverint Diaconi se ad ministerium non ad sacerdotium vocari But a Bishop differeth from a Presbyter as from one who hath the power of Priesthood no lesse then himselfe and therefore the difference betwixt these must bee circumstantiall not so essentiall as betwixt the other Thus Bishops and Archbishops are divers orders of Bishops not that one exceedeth the other as a power of higher vertue but of higher dignitie then then the other More plainly There may be a fourefold difference in gradu 1. in potestate gradus 2. in Exercitio 3. in Dignitate 4. in amplitudine Jurisdictionis The first difference is not betweene a Bishop and a Presbyter according to the common tenent of antiquitie or the Schoole but only is maintained by such as hold the Character of a Priest and Bishop inwardlie diverse one from the other For as a Bishop differeth not in power and degree from an Archbishop Because nothing an Archbishop can doe as confirming consecrating Bishops c. but a Bishop can doe also So neither doth a Presbyter from a Bishop Obiect But the Priest cannot ordaine a Presbyter and confirme as the Bishop doth and therefore differeth potestate gradus To this I answer that these authours meane not this difference in power de fundamentali remota potestate sed ampliata immediata et iam actu horum effectuum productiva as if Presbyters had not a remote and fundamentall power to doe those things but that they haue not before they be ordained bishops their power so enlarged as to produce these effects actuallie As a boy hath the generative facultie while he is a child which he hath when he is a man but yet it is not in a child free from all impediment that it can actually beget the like But this is too much to grant For the power sacramentall in the Priest is an actuall power which hee is able to performe and execute nothing defectiue in regard of them further then they be with-held from the exercise of it For that cause which standeth in compleat actualitie to greater more noble effects hath an inferior lesser of the same kind under it also unlesse the application of the matter be intercepted Thus a presbyter he hath a sacramental power standing in ful actualitie to higher sacramental actions therfore cannot but have these inferior of confirmation and orders in his power further then they are excepted kept from bein applied to him And therfore power sacramentall cannot bee in a Presbyter as the generative facultie is in a child for this is inchoate onely and imperfect such as cannot produce that effect The power of the Priest is compleat Secondlie I say these are no sacramentall actions Thirdlie were they yet as much may bee said to prove an Archbishop a distinct order from a Bishop as to prove a Presbyter and Bishop differing in order For it is proper to him out of power to generate a Bishop other Bishops laying on hands no otherwise then Presbyters are said to doe where they ioyne with their Bishops If that rule stand not maior ad minori nor yet equalis ab equali I marvel how Bishops can beget Bishops equal yea superior to them as in coÌ„secrating the Lord Archbishop yet a presbyter may not ordain a presbyter It doth not stand with their Episcopall majoritie that the rule every one may give that which be hath should hold here in the exercise of their power Those who are in one order may differ jure â—…o or humane Aaron differed from the Priests not in power sacramentall for they might all offer incence and make intercession But the solumne intercession in the holy of holies God did except and appropriate to the high Priest the type of Christ Priests would haue reached to this power of intercession in the holy place or any act of like kinde but that God did not permit that this should come under them or they intermeddle in it Thus by humane law the Bishop is greater in exercise then the Priest For though God hath not excepted any thing from the one free to the other yet commonly confirmation ordination absolution by imposing hands in receiving Penitents consecrating Churches and Virgines haue been referred to the Bishop for the honour of Priesthood rather then any necessity of law as Ierome speaketh Finally in dignity those may differ many wayes who in degree are equall which is granted by our adversaries in this cause Yea they say in amplitude of jurisdiction as in which it is apparant an Archbishop exceedeth another But were it manifest that God did giue Bishops Pastorall power through their Diocesse and an Archbishop through his Province though but when he visiteth this would make one differ in order from the other as in this regard Euangelists differred from ordinary Pastors But that jurisdiction is in one more then another is not established nor hath apparencie in any Scripture To the proofes therefore I answer briefly the one may be a step to the other while they differ in degrees of dignities though essentially they are but one and the same order In this regard it may be sacriledge to reduce one from the greater to the lesser if he haue not deserved it As for that of Ierom it is most plain he did meane no further order but onely in respect of some dignities wherewith they invested their Bishop or first Presbyter as that they did mount him up in a higher seate the rest sitting lower about him and gaue him this preheminence to sit first as a Consul in the Senate and moderate the carriage of things amongst them this Celsiori gradu being nothing but his honourable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not importing sole authoritie For by a Canon of the Councill of Laodicea we finde that the Bishop had this priviledge to sit first though Presbyters did together with him enter and sit as Iudges of equall commission For though Deacons stood Presbyters did alwaies sit in circuitu Episcopi 10 Argument If Bishops be that which Aaron and the Apostles were and Presbyters be that which the Priests and the 72 Disciples were then the one are aboue the other in preheminence and power But they are so See Ierom to Nepotian Ergo. Answer If Bishops c. and Presbyters be that which the sonnes of Aaron and the 72 were then there are different orders c. To these may be added a third That which Moses and the 70 Seniors were that are
But a new spirituall officer may be instituted by a sacrament Answ If God would so have collated the grace of spirituall callings but hee hath appointed no such thing The Apostles and 72. were not instituted by a sacrament or imposition of Christs hands Now the greater the grace was which was given the more need of a sacrament whereby it should bee given Obiect They were extraordinarie Answ They might have had some ambulatorie sacrament for the time Againe imposition of hands was used in giving extraordinary graces Act. 8. Secondly were it a sacrament it should conferre the grace of office as well as grace sanctifying the person to use it holily But we see that this it could not do As for Paul and Barnabas the Church did separate them at the command of God and lay hands on them and pray for them but they were alreadie before this immediatlie chosen by God to the grace of their office It could be nothing then but a a gesture accompanied with praier seeking grace in their behalfe For the sacramentall collating of grace sanctifying all callings we have in these two sacraments of Christs institution Thirdly there are many kindes of imposition of hands in the old and new testament yet cannot it be proved that it is any where a proper sacrament It is then a rite a gesture a ceremony signifying a thing or person separate presented to God praied for to God Thus Antiquitie did think of it as a gesture of one by praier to God seeking a blessing on every one chosen to this or that place of ministery So Ecclesiasticallie it was used in baptising in consecrating in reconciling penetents as well as ordaining but never granted as a sacrament in those other cases by grant of all It is then a rite or gesture of one praying Tertul. de bapt sheweth this saying Manus imponitur per benedictionem advocans invitans spiritum sanctum Ierom also contra Luciferanos Non abnuo hanc esse Ecclesiae consuetudinem ut Episcopus manum impositurus excurrat ad invocationem spiritus sancti Amb. de dignit sacerdot Sacerdos imponit supplicem dextram August Quid aliud est manus impositio quam oratio c. The Greeke Churches haue ever given Orders by a forme of praier conceived with imposition of hands Hence it is that they imposed hands even on Deaconesses where it could not bee otherwise considered then a deprecative gesture Neither is it like the African Fathers ever thought it a sacrament which no other had vertue and power to minister but the Bishop For then they would never haue admitted Presbyters to use the same rite with them For so they had suffered them to prophane a sacrament wherein they had no power to intermeddle Obiect If one say they did lay on hands with them but the Bishops imposition was properlie Consecrative and sacramentall their 's Deprecative onelie Answer Besides that this is spoken without foundation how absurd is it that the verie selfe-same sacramentall rite should bee a sacrament in one ministers hand and no sacrament performed by another Yea when the Bishop doth it to a Presbyter or Deacon then a sacrament when to a Subdeacon and other inferiour officers then none let any iudge Austin did account no other of imposition of hands then a praier over a man accompanied with that gesture Secondlie they doe not thinke that the Bishop ordaineth by divine right it being excepted to him as a minister of higher sacramentall power but that he onelie doth ordain quoad signum ritum extrinsecum by the Churches commission though the right of ordaining bee in all the Presbyterie also As in a Colledge the societie have right to choose a fellow and to ordain him also though the master doth alone lay on hands and give admission Thus Ierom speaketh of confirmation that it was reserved to the Bishop for honour sake rather then any necessitie of Gods law Whence by analogie and proportion it followeth they think not ordination or those other Episcopall roialties to have been reserved to him by divine right Beside there are more ancient proofes for Canonicall appropriating confirmation then for this imposition of hands Cornelius speaketh thus of Novatus hee wanted those things which hee should have had after Baptisme according to the Canon the sealing of our Lord from a Bishop Euseb Lib. 6. cap. 25. So Cyprian to Iul. Neverthelesse Ierom iudgeth this also to have been yeelded them for honour sake And wee know that in the Bishops absence Presbyters through the East did Consignare through Grecia through Armenia Neither would Gregorie the great haue allowed Presbyters in the Greek Churches to have confirmed had hee iudged it otherwise then Canonicallie to belong to the Bishops That therefore which is not properly a sacramentall action and that which is not appropriate to a Bishop further then Presbyters have committed it to him that cannot make him in higher degree of ministerie then Presbyters are Thirdly in reconciling penitents the Presbyters did it in case of the Bishops absence as is to bee gathered from the third Councell of Carthage 32. And who thinkes blessing so appropriate to a Bishop that Presbyters may not solemnlie blesse in the name of the Lord though antiquitie reserved this to him These therefore were kept to him not as actes exceeding the Presbyters power of order but for the supposed honor of him the Church For as Ambrose sayth Vt omnes eadem possent irrationale vulgaris res vilisque videretur It pleaseth antiquitie therefore to set up one who should quoad exercitium doe manie things alone not because that Presbyters could not but it seemed in their eyes more to the honour of the Church that some one should be interessed in them Fourthlie Amalarius in a certaine booke sacred orders doth confute the doctrine of an uncertain authour who taught that one Bishop onelie was to lay hands on a Deacon because he was consecrated not to Priesthood but to ministerie and service Nunquid scriptor libelti doctior sanctior Apostolis quiposuerunt plures manus super Diaconos quando consecrabantur propterea sotus Episcopus manus ponat super Diaconum acsisolus possit precari virtutem gratiarum quam plures Apostoli precabantur Optimū est bonos duces sequi qui certaverunt usque ad plenam victoriam Whence it is plaine hee did know no further thing in imposition then praier which the more impose is the more forcible The fourteenth Argument Those who had jurisdiction over Presbyters assisting them and Presbyters affixed to Cures they had a superioritie of power over other ministers But Bishops had so Ergo c. The Assumption is manifest Ignatius describeth the Bishop from this that he should be the governour of the Presbyterie and whole Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ierom and Austin on the 44. Psal call them the Princes of the Church by whom shee is governed The assumption is proved particularly Those who had
directive power aboue others and corrective they had majoritie of rule But Bishops had Ergo. The assumption proved First for directive power the Presbyters were to doe nothing without them Igna. ad Mag. ad Smyr They might not minister the sacrament of the supper but under the Bishop Clem. Epist 1. ad Iacob Tert. Lib. de bapt Can. Apost 38. Con. Carthag 4.38 Con. Car. 2. Can. 9. Con. Gan. 16. Conc. Ant. Can. 5. Secondly that they had corrective power it is proved Apoc. 2. 3. The Angel of Ephesus did not suffer fals Apostles is commended for it the Angel of Thyatira is reproved for suffering the like Therfore they had power over other ministers Cyp. lib. 3. Ep. 9. telleth telleth Rogatian he had power to have censured his Deacon Ierom. adversus Vigilantium marvelleth that the Bishop where Vigilantius was did not breake the unprofitable vessell Epiphanius sayth Bishops governed the Presbyters themselves they the people The Presbyters affixed to places churches were subject to the Bishops for when they were vacant the Bishop did supplie them Againe the Presbyters had their power from him and therefore were under him and they were subiect io the censure of the Bishop Those of his Clergie were under him for hee might promote them they might not goe from one Diocesse to another without him not travell to the Citie but by his leave The Bishop was their iudge and might excommunicate them Cypr. lib. 1. Epist 3. Concil Carth. 4. ca. 50. Conc. Chal. ca 9. Conc. Nice ca. 4. Conc. Ant. ca. 4. ibid. ca. 6. ca. 12. Cart. 2. cap. 7. Conc. Afric ca. 29. Conc. Ephes ca. 5. Con. Chal. ca. 23. The examples of Alexander and Chrysostome prove this All Presbyters were counted acephali headlesse that lived not in subjection to a Bishop The Pastors of parishes were either subject to Bishops or they had associats in Parishes ioyned with them or they ruled alone But they had not associats neither did they rule alone Ergo they were subject to the authoritie and jurisdiction of the Bishop Answer The proposition of the first Syllogisme it must bee thus framed Those who had power of iurisdiction in themselves without the concurrence of other Presbyters as fellow judges they were greater in maioritie of rule Thus Bishops had not iurisdiction True it is they were called governours and Princes of their Churches because they were more eminent ministers though they had not Monarchicall power in Churches but Consull-like authoritie and therefore when they affected this Monarchie what sayd Ierom Noverint se sacerdotes esse non dominos noverint se non ad Principatum vocatos sed ad servitium totius Ecclesiae Sic Origen in Esa hom 7. To the proofe of the Assumption Wee deny that they had this directive power over all Presbyters Secondly that they had it over any by humane constitution infallible Presbyters were in great difference Those who are called proprij sacerdotes Rectores Seniores Minorum Ecclesiarum praepositi the Bishop had not nor challenged not that directive power over them which hee did over those who were numbred amongst his Clerickes who were helpes to him in the Liturgie in Chappell 's and parishes which did depend on him as their proper teacher though they could not so ordinarilie goe out to him The first had power within their Churches to teach administer excommunicate were counted brethren to the Bishops and called Episcopi or Coepiscopi even of the Auncient But the Presbyters which were part of their Clergie they had this directiue power over them the Canons Ecclesiasticall allowing the same But I take these latter to have been but a corruption of governing presbyters who came to bee made a humane ministery 1. by having singular actes permitted 2. by being consecrate to this so doing ex officio what they were imploied in by the Bishop But sure these are but helps to liturgie according to the Canons Preaching did not agree to them further then it could be delegated or permitted Finally we read that by law it was permitted them that it was taken away from them again by the Bishops that it was stinted and limited sometime as to the opening of the Lords praier the Creed and 10 commandements as it is plain to him that is any thing conversant in the ancient Secondlie let us account them as ministers of the word given by God to his church then I say they could not have any direction but such as the Apostles had amongst Evangelists and this power is given to the Bishops onelie by canon swerving from the first ordinance of Christ for it maketh a minister of the word become as a cypher without power of his consecration as Ierom speaketh being so interpreted by Bilson himself These decrees were as justifiable as that which forbiddeth any to baptise who hath not gotten chrisme from the Bishop Con. Carth. 4. ca. 36. unlesse the phrases doe note onelie a precedence of order in the Bishop aboue presbyters requiring presence and assent as of a fellow and chiefe member not otherwise To the proof of the second part of the former assumption 1. we denie this majoritie of corrective power to have been in the Apostles themselves they had only a ministry executiue inflicting that which Christs corrective power imposed Secondly we deny that this ministeriall power of censuring was singularly exercised by any Apostle or Evanglist where Churches were constituted Neither is the writing to one aboue others an argument that he had the power to doe all alone without concurrence of others To that of Cyprian against Rogatian we deny that Cyprian meaneth he would haue done it alone or that he and his Presbyterie could have done it without the consent of Bishops neighbouring but that he might in regular manner have been bold to have done it because he might be sure quod nos collegae tui omnes id râ—tum haberemut Cyprian was of iudgement that he himself might do nothing without the consent of his Presbyters unlesse he should violate his dutie by running a course which stood not with the honour of his brethren It was not modestie in him but due observancie such as he did owe unto his brethren Neither did Cyprian ever ordinarilie any thing alone He received some the people and the brethren contradicting lib. 1. ep 3. but not till he had perswaded them and brought them to be willing Thou seest saith he what pains I have to perswade the brethren to patience So againe I hardly perswade the people yea even wring it froÌ„ them that such should be received Neither did he take upon him to ordaine Presbyters alone but propounded made request for them confessing that further then God did extraordinarilie prevent both him and them they had the right of suffrage no lesse then himselfe as by these epistles may appeare l. 1. ep 20. l. 2. ep 5. l. 4. ep 10. Ierom though grandiloquent sometimes did never thinke a Bishop could lawfully without
his Presbyteries concurrence excommunicate If he were as Moses yet hee would haue these as the seventie Againe Ierom doth write expreslie of all in generall Et nos senatum babemus coetum Presbyterorum sine quorum consilio nihil agi à quoquam licet sicut Romani habuerun senatum cujus consilio cuncta gerebantur Epiphanius saith Bishops governed Presbyters but it doth not follow that therfore they did it alone without concurrence of their com-Presbyters As for the fixed Presbyters the proofes are more unsufficient The Bishop supplyed them therefore they were under him For colleges supply Churches yet haue they no jurisdiction over them Secondly the canons did provide ne plebi invitae Presbyter obtruderetur Thirdly we distinguish majoritie of rule from some jurisdiction We grant the Bishop had such a jurisdiction as concerned the Church so farre as it was in societie with others such as an Arch-bishop hath over a Province but this did stand with the Rectors power of jurisdiction within his own Church Fourthly though they had power by his ministeriall interposition yet this doth not proue them dependant on him For Bishops haue their power from others ordaining them to whom notwithstanding they are not subject in their Churches In case of delinquencie they were subject to the Bishop with the Presbyterie yet so that they could not be proceeded against till consent of many other Bishops did ratifie the sentence Thus in Cyprians judgement Bishops themselves delinquent turning wolves as Samosatenus Liberius c. are subiect to their Churches Presbyters to be deposed and relinquished by them As for those that were part of his Clerks it is true they were in greater measure subject to him absolutely in a manner for their direction but for his corrective power hee could not without consent of his Presbyters and fellow Bishops do any thing The Bishop indeed is onely named many times but it is a common Synecdoche familiar to the fathers who put the primarie member of the Church for the representative Church as Augustine sayth Petrum propter Apostolatus simplicitatem figuram Ecclesiae gessisse See concil Sardicen c. 17. conc Carth. 4. c. 2.3 Tol. 4. c. 4. Socr. l. 1. 3. Soz. l. 1. c. 14. As for such examples as Alexanders it is strange that any will bring it when hee did it not without a Synod of many Bishops yea without his Clergie as sitting in judgement with him Chrysostoms fact fact is not to be iustified for it was altogether irregular savouring of the impetuous nature to which is he was inclined though in regard of his end and unworthinesse of his Presbyters it may be excused yet it is not to be imitated As for those headlesse Clerkes it maketh nothing for the Bishops maioritie of rule over all Churches and Presbyters in them For first it seemeth to be spoken of those that lived under the conduct of the Bishop a collegiat life together Eodem refectorio dormitorio utebantur Canonicè viventes ab Episcopo instruebantur Now when all such Clerkes did live then as members of a Colledge under a maister it is no wonder if they bee called headlesse who did belong to no Bishop Secondly say it were alike of all Presbyters which will never be proved for all Presbyters in the Diocesse were not belonging to the Bishops Clerks say it were yee will it not follow that those who were under some were subject to his authoritie of rule For there is a head in regard of presidencie of order as well as of power Bishops were to finde out by Canon the chiefe Bishop of their province and to associate themselves with him So Bishops doe now live ranged under their Archbishops as heads Priests therefore as well as Clerkes did live under some iurisdiction of the Bishops but such as did permit them coercive power in their owne Churches such as made the Bishop a head in regard of dignitie and not of any power vvhereby he might sway all at his pleasure Thirdlie if the Bishops degenerate to challenge Monarchie or tyrannie it is better bee without such heads then to have them as we are more happie in being withdrawen from the headship of the Bishop of Rome then if he still were head over us To the last insinuation proving that Bishops had the government of those Churches which presbyters had because neither presbyters alone had it nor with assistents I answer they had as well the power of government as of teaching and though they had not such assistants as are the presbyters of a cathedral church yet they might have some as a deacon or other person sufficient in such small Churches When the Apostles planted a Bishop and Deacon onely how did this Bishop excommunicate When the fathers of Africa did give a Bishop unto those now multiplied who had enioyed but a Presbyter what assistants did they give him what assistants had the Chorepisâ—opi who yet had government of their churches The fifteenth Argument That which the orthodoxe churches ever condemned as heresie the contrarie of that is truth But in Aerius they have condemned the deniall of superioritie in one minister above others Ergo the contrarie is truth Answer To the proposition we denie that it must needs be presently true the contrarie wherof is generallie condemned for heresie As the representative catholick church may propound an errour so she may condemne a particular truth and yet remain a catholick church To the assumption we deny that the Church condemned in Aerius every deniall of superioritie but that onely which Aerius run into Now his opinion I take to have been this 1. He did with Ierom denie superioritie of anie kind as due by Christs ordinance for this opinion was never counted heresie it was Ieroms plainlie 2. He did not denie the fact that Bishops were superiour in their actuall admistration he could not be so mad If he had all that a Bishop had actuallie how could he have affected to be a Bishop as a further honour Denial of superioritie such as consisteth in a further power of order then a Presbyter hath and in a kinglie monarchical majoritie of rule this deniall is not here condemned for all the fathers may be broughs as witnesses against this superioritie in the Church What then was condemned in him A denial of all superioritie in one minister before another though it were but of honor and dignitie and secondlie the denying of this in schismaticall manner so as to forsake communion with the Church wherin it is For in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it seemeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there ought to be none Howsoever he is to be conceived as apposing practicallie the difference of honour dignitie which was in the Church by Ecclesiastical institution What is this to us Denial of superioritie ia regard of honor dignitie joined with schisme was condemned Ergo deniall of superioritie in power of order and
ordained some to be helps and assistants to othersome It is sayd that God hath ordained powers helps governours 1. Cor. 12.8 and were not the Euangelists assistants to the Apostles doing that to which they directed them To this I answer that the helps God hath put in his Church respect the calling of Deacons and such as ministred to the infirme ones As for Euangelists they were companions and assistants to the Apostles but it was in order to the work of God in their hands which they were to serue not in order to their persons as if they had been subjected to them in any servile inferioritie Obserue how Paul speaketh of them 2. Cor. 8.23 Titus was his companion and helper towards them Phil. 2.25 Epaphroditus was his brother and helper in his work and fellow souldier 1. Thess 3.2 Timothie was his coadjutor in the Gospell of Christ 2. Tim. 4.11 Marke was helpefull in the Ministerie The truth is this was servitus non personalis sed realis the Euangelists did serue the work the Apostles had in hand without being servants to their persons When brickelayers worke some mixe lime and make mortar some beare up tile and mortar some sit on the house and there lay that which is brought them These are all fellow servants yet the one doth serve to set forward the work of the other But were they not left to the direction of the Apostles wholly in exercise of their calling I answer as Christ gaue some to be Euangelists so he made them know from himselfe what belonged to their office and what was the administration to which he called them Hee did not therefore wholly leaue them to the direction of any There is a double direction one potestativa which is made from majoritie of rule ex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other socialis such as one servant having fit knowledge of his maisters will and ripe experience may giue to another The latter kinde of direction it was not the former by which the Euangelists were directed Which though commonly Paul used yet not so universally but that they went sometime of their owne accords hither and thither as may bee gathered 2. Cor. 8.16.17 and 2.7.14.15 The fift Argument That which the Apostles had not over Prophets Evangelists Presbyters nor Deacons themselves that power which the Church hath not over any member the Bishop hath not over other ministers But they had not over any inferior officers any majoritie of directive or corrective power neither hath the Church it selfe any such power Ergo. The assumption is proved For majoritie of directive and corrective power is a Lord-like and Regall power now there is no such power in the Church or in the Apostles or in any but onely in that one Lord all other power being but a declarative and executive ministerie to signifie and execute what Christ out of majoritie of power would have signified and put in execution The sixth Argument That which doth breed an Antichristian usurpation never was of Christs institution But Bishops Maioritie of power in regard of order and jurisdiction doth so Ergo. That which maketh the Bishop a head as doth influere derive the power of externall government to other his assistents that doth breed an Antichristian usurpation But to claime the whole power of jurisdiction through a Diocesan Church doth so for he must needs substitute helpers to him because it is more then by himselfe he can performe But this is it which maketh Antichrist he doth take upon him to bee head of the whole Church from whom is derived this power of external government and the Bishop doth no lesse in his Diocesan Church that which he usurpeth differing in degree onely and extension not in kind from that which the Pope arrogateth If it bee said that his power is Antichristian because it is universall it is not so For were the power lawfull the universalitie could not make it Antichristian The Apostles had an universalitie of authoritie yet no Antichrists because it did not make them heads deriving to others from their fulnesse it was not prince-like majoritie of power but steward like and ministeriall onely If one doe usurpe a kingly power in Kent onelie he were an Anti-king to our soveraigne no lesse for kind then if he proclaimed himselfe King of England Scotland and Ireland There is but one Lord and manie ministrations Neither doth this make the Popes power papall because it is not under a Synod for the best of the Papists hold and it is the most common tenent that he is subject to an oecumenicall Councell Secondlie though he be subject yet that doth not hinder but bee may usurpe a kinglie government for a King may haue a kinglie power and yet confesse himselfe accountable to all his people collectively considered Neither doth this make the Bishops lawfull in one Church because one may manage it and the Popes unlawfull because none is sufficient to sway such a power through the whole Church for then all the power the Pope doth challenge is not per se but per accidens unlawfull by reason of mans unsufficiencie who cannot weild so great a matter The seventh Argument Those ministers who are made by one patent in the same words have equall authoritie but all ministers of the word are made by the same patent in the same words Receiue the holy Ghost whose sins ye forgive c. Ergo. The proposition is denied because the sence of the words is to be understood according as the persons give leave to whom they are spoken These words spoken to Apostles they gave them larger power then to a Bishop and so spoken to a Presbyter they give him lesse power then to a Bishop Answer If the Scripture had distinguished of Presbyters Pastorall feeding with the word and made them divers degrees as it hath made Apostles and Evangelists then wee would grant the exception but the Scripture doth not know this division of Pastors and Doctors into chiefe and assistent but speaketh of them as of Apostles and Evangelists who were among themselves equall in degree Wherefore as no Apostle received by these words greater power then another so no Pastor or Teacher but must receive the same power as who are among themselves of the same degree Secondlie were they different degrees yet it should give the Presbyter for kind though not of so ample extent as the Bishop hath as it giveth the Bishop the same power for kinde which the Apostles had though not so universall but contracted to particular churches Now to come unto some conclusions or assertions which may lend light unto the deciding of this question Conclus 1. Let this be the first No minister of the word hath any power but ministeriall in the Church Power is naturall or morall Morall is Civill or Ecclesiastical Civill is either Lord-like and ruling or ministeriall and servile So Ecclesiasticall taken largelie for all power subjectivelie in or objectiuelie about the Church is either Lord-like
corrective power inflicteth on their fellow servants in other degrees Thus Pastors signifie Gods will to governing Presbyters and Deacons what he would have them to doe in their places Thus the Apostles might informe all orders under them Concl. 7. This power ministeriall tending to execute the pleasure of Christs corrective power was committed to some in extraordinary degrees personally and singularly and might be so in some cases exercised by them I mean singularitie without concurrence of any others This without doubt was in the Apostles and Euangelists and it was needfull it should bee so first because it might be behovefull there to excommunicate where as yet Churches were not risen to their perfect frame secondly because there might be some persons not setled as fixed dwellers in any Church whom yet to be cast forth was very behovefull Againe some Evangelists might incurre censure as Demas in such sort as no ordinary Churches power could reach to them Concl. 8. That ordinarily this power is not given to any one singularly by himselfe to exercise the same but with the companie of others constituting a representative Church which is the poynt next to bee shewed Yea where Churches were constituted the Apostles did not offer to exercise their power without the ministeriall concurrence of the Churches as in the storie of the Corinthians is manifest THE THIRD QVESTION Whether Christ did immediatly commit ordinarie power Ecclesiasticall and the exercise of it to any one singular person or to a vnited multitude of Presbyters THough this question is so coincident with the former that the grounds hath in a sort been discussed yet for some new considerations which may bee super-added wee will briefly handle it in the Method premised First it is argued for the affirmative Argum. 1. That which is committed to the Church is committed to the principal member of the Church But exercise of iurisdiction was comitted to the Church Mat. 18.17 Ergo. Either to the whole Church or to a Church in the Church or to some one eminent member in the Church But it was not committed to bee exercised by the whole Church or to any Church in the Church Ergo to one who is in effect as the church having all the authority of it Secondly if one person may be representativly a Church when jurisdiction is promised then one person may be representatiuly a church when jurisdiction and power of exercising is committed But one singular person Peter signified the Church when the promise of iurisdiction is made Ergo. Cyprian to Iubaia sayth that the Bishop is in the Church and the Church so in the Bishop that they cannot bee severed Finally as the kingdome of England may bee put for the King in whom is all the power of the kingdome So the Church for the chiefe governour in whom is the power of it The second Argument That which the Churches had not given them when they were constituted that was not promised to them as their immediat right But they had not coercive power given them when they were constituted Ergo Christ did not commit it to the Churches or Presbyters For then the Apostles would not have withheld it from these But they did For the Apostles kept it with themselves As in the incestuous Corinthian is manifest whom Paul by his iudgement was faine to excommunicate And the Thessalonians are bid to note the inordinate and signifie them as not having power within themselves to censure them And so Paul alone excommunicated Hymenaeus and Alexander The third Argument That which Paul committed to some prime men in Churches and their successours that was not committed to Presbyteries but singular persons But in power of ordination and iurisdiction he did so For to Timothy in Ephesus and to Titus in Crete he commended the power and exercise of it Ergo. The fourth Argument That order which was most fit for exercising power of iurisdiction that Christ did ordain But the order of one chiefe governour is fitter for execution then the order of a united multitude Ergo. The fift Argument If all authoritie and power of exercise be in the Church originally then the Pastors derive their power from the Church But this is not true Ergo it was not committed to the Church That authoritie which the Church never had she cannot convey But the Pastorall authoritie of word and Sacraments never was in the Church essentially taken Ergo it cannot be derived from her Againe Pastours should discharge their office in the name of the Church did they receive their power from the Church The sixth Argument If the power of iurisdiction and execution bee committed from Christ to the Church then hath the Church supreame power Then may a particular Church depose her Bishop the sheepe censure the shepheard children their fathers which is absurd On the other side it is argued Argum. 1. That which Christ doth presuppose as being in many and to be exercised by many that never was committed by Christ to one and the execution of any one But Math. 18. Christ doth manifestly suppose the power of iurisdiction to be in many and that exercitativè so as by them being many is it to be exercised Ergo. Now this is plain in the place Where first marke that Christ doth presuppose the authoritie of every particular Church taken indistinctly For it is such a Church as any brother offended may presently complaine to Therefore no universall or provinciall or Diocesan Church gathered in a Councell Secondly it is not any particular Church that he doth send all Christians to for then all Christians in the world should come to one perticular Church were it possible He doth therefore presuppose indistinctly the very particular Churh where the brother offending and offended are members And if they be not both of one church the plaintife must make his denuntiation to the Church where the defendant is quia forum sequitur reum Thirdly as Christ doth speak it of any ordinarie particular Church indistinctly so he doth by the name of Church not understand essentially all the congregation For then Christ should give not some but all the members of the Church to be governors of it Fourthly Christ speaketh it of such a Church to whom wee may ordinarily and orderlie complaine now this we cannot to the whole multitude Fiftly this Church he speaketh of he doth presuppose it as the ordinarie executioner of all discipline and censure But the multitude have not this execution ordinarie as all but Morelius and such Democritall spirits doe affirme And the reason ratifying the sentence of the Church doth shew that often the number of it is but small For where two or three are gathered together in my name Whereas the Church or congregations essentiallie taken for teachers and people are incomparably great Neither doth Christ meane by Church the chiefe Pastor who is virtuallie as the whole Church For first the word Church doth ever signifie a company and never is found to note out one
themselues to a Bishop and Cathedrall Consistorie and so make one But the 24 Churches of Geneva and the territories belonging to it doe subject themselues to the government of one Presbyterie and so make one For so farre as two meete in a third they are one in it Ergo. The third principall Argument is from reason If Citie Churches onely and not the Churches of Villages and Countrie Townes had Bishops Presbyters and Deacons placed in them then were those Citie Churches Diocesan Churches But Citie Churches onely had these Ergo Citie Churches were Diocesan distinguished from Parishionall Churches The Assumption is proved first by Scripture Titus 1.5 Act. 14.23 Secondly this is proved by Ecclesiasticall Storie They who are given to labour the conversion of the Regions rather then tend those already converted they were not given to a Parishionall Church But the Presbyters planted by the Apostles were so Ergo. They who were set in a Church before Parishes were could not be given to a Parishionall Church But such were the Presbyters of the Apostles institution Ergo. For it is plaine in the practise of all ages from the first division that no Church but the mother Church had a Presbyterie and a Bishop but Presbyters onely Nay it was ever by Councels condemned and by the judgement of the ancient forbidden that in Townes or Villages any but a Presbyter should be planted 3 This is also proved by reason for it was no more possible to haue Bishops Presbyters in everie Parish then to haue a Maior and Aldermen such as we haue in London in every Town 2 If everie Parish had a Presbyter then had they power of ordination and furnishing themselues with a Minister when now they were destitute But they were alwaies in this case dependant on the Citie Ergo there was then a Diocesan Church having governement of others Presbyters could not ordeyne sede vacante though they did at first as in the Church of Alexandria Let any shew for 400 yeares a Parishionall Church with a Presbyterie in it Now we must muster those forces which oppose these Diocesan Churches allowing onely such Churches to be instituted of Christ which may meet in one Congregation ordinarily The word which without some modification super-added doth signifie onely such a company as called forth may assembly Politically that word being alone doth signifie such a Church as may to holy purposes ordinarily meete in one But the word Church which Christ and his Apostles did institute is used indefinitely and signifieth no more Ergo. Vbi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum 2 The Scripture speaketh of the Churches in a Kingdome or Province alwaies in the plurall number without any note of difference as equall one with the other Ergo it doth not know Provinciall Nationall or Diocesan Churches Let a reason be given why it should never speak in the singular number had they bene a singular Church Secondly let us come to examples the Churches the Apostles planted were such as might and did congregate First that of Hierusalem though there were in it toward 500 Synagogues yet the Christian Church was but one and such as did congregate into one place ordinarily after the accesse of 5000 to it Act. 2.46 5.12 6.1 15.25 21.22 25.22 For their ordinarie meeting as it is Act. 2.46 daily could not be a Panegericall meeting Againe if they might meet Synodically why might they not meete then in daily course though the universall meeting of a Church is not so fitly called Synodicall And though they are said to be millions of beleevers yet that was by accident of a circumstance happily the Passeover We must not judge the greatnesse of a water by that it is when now it is up and swelleth by accident of some inundations They had not a setled state there by which they did get the right of being set members Yea it is likely they were and continued but one congregation For 40 yeares after they were not so great a multitude but that Pâ—lla like to the Zohar of Lot a little Towne could receiue them But more of this in the answer to the objection Secondly so the Church of Antiochia was but one church Act. 14.27 they are said to haue gathered the Church together Ob. That is the Ministers or representatiue Church Ans 1 For Ministers onely the Church is never used 2 By analogie Act. 11. Peter gave account before the whole Church even the Church of the faithfull Ergo. 3. They made relation to that Church which had sent the forth with prayer imposition of hands this Church stood of all those who assembled to the publicke service and worship of God 4. The people of the Church of Antioch were gathered together to consider of decrees sent them by the Apostles from Hierusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly the church of Corinth was one congregation which did for the service of God or exercise of Discipline meet together 1. Cor. 5.4 1. Cor. 14.25 ver 26. 1. Cor. 11.17 ver 23. in uno eodem loco That whole church which was guiltie of a sinner uncast forth could not bee a Diocesan church neither can the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comming together ever be shewed to signifie any thing else besides one particular Assembly Fourthly the church of Ephesus was but one flocke First it is likely that it was of no other forme then the other Secondly it was but one flock that flock which Presbyters might jointly feed was but one They had no Diocesan Pastour If Presbyters onely then none but Parishionall Churches in and about Ephesus There may be many flocks but God ordained none but such as may wholy meete with those who haue the care of feeding and governing of them Peter indeed 1. Pet. 5.2 calleth all those he writeth to one flocke but that is in regard either of the mysticall estate of the faithfull or in respect of the common nature which is in all churches one and the same but properly and in externall adunation one flock is but one congregation Thirdly Parishes according to the adverse opinion were not then divided Neither doth the long and fruitfull labours of the Apostles argue that there should be Parish churches in Diocesan wise added but a greater number of sister churches But when it is said that all Asia did heare the meaning is that from hand to hand it did runne through Asia so as Churches were planted every where even where Paul came not as at Colosse There might be many churches in Asia and many converted by Peter and others fruitfull labour without subordination of churches Examples Ecclesiasticall 1 Ignatius exhorteth the church of the Ephesians though numbersome to meete together often in one place Epist to the Ephesians and to the Philippians where the Bishop is let the people be gathered to him as where Christ is there is the whole host of heaven He calleth his church of Antioch a Synagogue of God which
the Messiah and therefore were neerer to the kingdome of God then the common Heathen The state of this Church was such that it was to send out light to all other a common nurserie to the world Finally the time being now the beginning of planting that heavenly Kingdome seeing beginnings of things are difficult no wonder if the Lord did reveale his arme more extraordinarily It doth not therefore follow from this particular to the so great encreasing of these churches in tract of time Nay if these other Churches had enjoyed like increase in their beginnings it would not follow as thus Those Churches which within a few yeares had thus many in them how numbersome were they many yeares after Because the growing of things hath a Period set after which even those things which a great while encreased doe decrease and goe downeward as it was in Ierusalem Not to mention that we deny the assumption But though the Argument is but Topicall and can but breed an opinion onely yet the testimonies seeme irrefragable Tertullian testifying that halfe the Citizens in Rome was Christians And Cornelius that there was besides himselfe and 45 Presbyters a numbersome Clergie I answer That Tertullians speech seemeth to be somewhat Hyperbolicall for who can beleeue that more then halfe the Citie and world after a sort were Christians But he speaketh this and truely in some regard because they were so potent through the world that if they would haue made head they might haue troubled happily their persecutors Or else hee might say they were halfe of them Christians not because there were so many members of the Church but because there were so many who did beare some favour to their cause and were it as safe as otherwise would not stick to turne to them But Tertullian knew no Churches which did not meet having prayers exhortations and ministering all kindes of Censures If therefore there were more Churches in Rome in his time it will make little for Diocesan Churches Touching Cornelius we answer It is not unlike but auditories were divided and tended by Presbyteries Cornelius keeping the Cathedrall Church and being sole Bishop of them but we deny that these made a Diocesan Church For first the Cathedrall and Parochiall Churches were all within the Citie in which regard hee is said Officium Episcopi implevisse in civitate Romae Neither was his Church as ample as the Province which that of Foelicissimus sufficiently teacheth Secondly we say that these Parochiall churches were to the mother church as chappels of case are to these churches in metrocomüs they had communion with the mother church going to the same for Sacraments and hearing the Word and the Bishop did goe out to them and preach amongst them For some of them were not such as had liberty of Baptizing and therefore could not be severed from communion with the head Church Now to answer further it is beyond 200 yeares for which our defence is taken For there is reason why people which had bene held together for 200 years as a Congregation might now 50 years after be exceedingly encreased The Ecclesiasticall storie noteth a most remarkeable increase of the faith now in the time of Iulian before Cornelius Neither must we thinke that an Emperour as Philippus favouring the faith did not bring on multitudes to the like profession Secondly we say there is nothing in this of Cornelius which may not well stand that the Church of Rome though now much increased did not keep together as one Church For the whole people are said to haue prayed and communicated with the repentant Bishop who had ordeyned Novatus and we see how Cornelius doth amplifie Nouatus his pertinacie From hence that none of the numerous Clergie nor yet of the people very great and innumerable could turne him or recall him which argueth that the Church was not so aboundant but that all the members of it had union and communion for the mutuall edifying and restoring one of another And I would faine know whether the seven Deacons seven Subdeacons 42 Acolouthes whether those exorcistes Lectors Porters about 52 are so many as might not be taken up in a Congregation of fifteene or twentie thousand Surely the time might well require them when many were to bee sent forth to doe some part of ministerie more privately Not to name the errour of the Church in superfluous multiplications of their Presbyters to vilifying of them as they were superfluous in the point of their Deacons There were 60 in the church of Sophia for the help of the Liturgie True it is the Congregation could not but be exceeding great and might well be called in a manner innumerable though it were but of a twentie thousand people But because of that which is reported touching division by Euaristus Hyginus Dionisius and Marcellinus though there is no authenticke authour for it neither is it likely in Hospinianus judgement Let it be yeelded that there were some Parochiall divisions they were not many and within the Citie and were but as Chappels of ease to the cathedrall or mother Church Concerning the objection from the Churches of Delgia or the low Countries we deny the proposition for we cannot reason thus If many Masters and distinct formes of Schollers in one free Schoole be but one Schoole then many Masters and company of Schollers severed in many Schooles are but one Schoole Secondly they haue communion in the communitie of their Teachers though not in the same individuall word tended by them But it is one thing when sheep feed together in one common Pasture though they bite not on the same individuall grasse Another thing when now they are tended in diverse sheepe gates Not to urge that in the Sacraments and Discipline they may communicate as one Congregation Touching the objection from Geneua I answer to the proposition by distinction Those who subject themselues to a Presbyteri◠as not having power of governing themselues within themselues as being under it by subordination these may in effect as well be subject to a Consistorie But thus the twenty foure Churches of Genevae doe not They or haue power of governing themselues but for greater edification voluntarily confederate not to use nor exercise their power but with mutuall communication one asking the counsell and consent of the other in that common Presbyterie Secondly it is one thing for Churches to subject themselues to a Bishop and Consistorie wherein they shall haue no power of suffrage Another thing to communicate with such a Presbyterie wherein themselues are members and Iudges with others Thirdly say they had no power nor vvere no members in that Presbyterie yet it is one thing to submit thēselues to the government of Aristocracie another to the Bishops Monarchicall government For vvhile his Presbyters are but as counsellours to a King though he consulteth vvith them he alone governeth Geneva made this consociation not as if the Prime Churches were imperfect and to make one Church by
the Bishops and Presbyters First for the proposition it is not true for first of Aaron and his sonnes they were not orders different essentially in their power but onely in degree of dignitie wherein the high Priest was aboue others For every Priests power would haue reached to that act which was reserved to the high Priest onely Besides when the high Priest was deceased or removed the other Priests did consecrate the successour as Sadock Finally the one had for substance the same consecration that the other neither had the high Priest any maiorite of directiue or correctiue power over others So the Apostles and 72 will not be found different in order and therefore those who resemble these cannot be concluded to be of divers orders For the Apostles and 72 differ no more then ordinary messengers who are imployed in a set course and extraordinary sent by occasion onely They were both messengers the Apostles habitu and abidingly the other in act onely and after a transitorie manner Againe had Aaron and his sonnes been divers orders differing essentially in the inward power of them yet is not the proposition true but with addition in this wise Those who are identically and formally that which Aaron and the Apostles were and that which his sonnes and the 72 were they differ in degree essentially not those who were this analogically by reason of some imperfect resemblance For things may be said to be those things wherewith they haue but imperfect similitude In this sense onely the proposition is true Now to come to the assumption First touching Aaron wee deny any Bishop is as Aaron by divine Institution or by perfect similitude answering to him But because Aaron was the first and high Priest others inferiour so it hath pleased the Church to imitate this pollicie and make the Bishop as it were Primum Presbyterum or Antistitem in primo ordine Presbyters in secundo Whence Bishops may be said to be that which Aaron was through the Churches ordination which she framed looking to this patterne of government which God himselfe had set out in the old Testament The fathers call them Aaron and his sonnes onely for some common analogie which through the ordinance of the Church arose betwixt the Bishop and Presbyters and them and conceiue them to be so by humane accommodation not by divine institution But that they were so properly succeeding them as orders of Ministerie typified by them by Gods owne appointment this the fathers never thought Christs priesthood no mans was properly typified in Aaron So touching the other part of the assumption That Bishops and Presbyters are what Apostles and the 72 were The fathers many of them insist in this proportion that as the Apostles and 72 were teachers the one in a higher the other in an inferiour order so Bishops and Presbyters were by the Churches ordinance This is the fathers phrase to call them Apostles who in any manner resemble the Apostles to call them as Ambrose Prophets Euangelists Pastors Doctors who resemble these and come in some common analogie neerest them Moses and the 70 Seniors who in any sort resembled them Now the assumption granted in this sense maketh not against us For they might be said these if there were but diverse degrees of dignity amongst them though for power of order by Gods institution they were all one But some streyne it further and take it that Christ instituting those two orders did in so doing institute Bishops and Presbyters the one wherof succeeded the Apostles the other the 72 and that thus the Fathers take it To which I answer First in generall this analogie of Apostles and 72 is not generally affected by them all Ignatius ad Smyrnenses dicit Apostolis Presbyteros successisse Diaconos 72 discipulis Clem. lib. 2. Const cap. 30. saith That Bishops answer to God the Father Presbyters to Christ Deacons to the Apostles Ierom doth manifestly make Presbyters whom hee also calleth by name of Bishops in that Epistle where hee maintaineth the Presbyters dignity successours to the Apostles The like hath Cyprian Apostolos id est Episcopos prepositos that is ordinis ratione prepositos minorum Ecclesiarum as Austin speaketh else it should bee all one with the former when hee maketh the Presbyter as well as the Bishop to be ordained in the Apostles Finally these Fathers who take the 72 to haue beene Apostles as well as the other could not imagine this proportion of diverse orders set up in them Secondly if Christ in these instituted those other it must bee one of these waies First hee did make these not onely Apostles but Bishops and so the 72 not onely his messengers for the time but Presbyters also Or secondly else hee did ordaine these as he did raine Manna noting and prefiguring as by a type a further thing which hee would worke viz. that he would institute Bishops and Presbyters for Teachers ordinary in his Church but both these are gatis spoken without any foundation or reason For the first we haue shewed that the Apostles could not bee Bishops ordinarily nor yet the calling of these seventie two which was to goe through all Cities Evangelizing stand with Presbyters Presbyters being given to Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there fixed Neither can the latter be true for then Christ should haue giuen a Sacrament when he ordained his Apostles and sent forth his 72. Secondly the type or the shadow is lesse then the thing typified the substance of it But the giving Apostles was a greater thing then giving ordinary Pastors Ergo. Thirdly I say that Christ did never ordaine that any should succeed the Apostles or the 72 in regard of their order There is a double succession in gradum or in Caput as the jurists distinguish In gradum eundem as when one brother dying another brother doth succeed him in the inheritance In caput as when one not of the same degree and line doth come after another as when a brother dying another doth inherite after him not a brother but a cosin to him Thus the Apostles haue no successors succeeding them in gradum but such onely as follow them being of other degrees and in another line as it were in which sort euery Pastor doth succeed them But then they are said to succeed them because they follow them and after a sort resemble them not because they hold the places which the Apostles did properly Apostolo in quantum est Apostolus non succeditur Legato quatenus est Legatus non succeditur Fourthly that the Presbyters doe as persons of a diverse order succeed the Apostles no lesse fully then any other First they must needs succeed them who are spoken to in them whose duties are laid downe in that which the Apostles received in commandement But the Presbyters were spoken to both in the Keyes in the Supper in the commandement of teaching and baptizing Ergo Presbyters must needs succeed the Apostles Secondly those whom the Apostles did
institute in the Churches which they had planted for their further building them up they were their next successors But the Apostles did commend the Churches to the care of Presbyters who might build them up whom they had now converted Ergo these were their successors most proper and immediate Thirdly these to whom now taking their farewels they resigned the Churches these were their successours But this they did to Presbyters Paul now never to see Ephesus more Act. 20 Peter neere death 1. Pet. 5.2 Ergo. Fourthly if one Pastor or Minister doe more properly resemble an Apostle then another it is because hee hath some power Apostolique more fully conveyed to him then to another But this was not done Ergo. The assumption is manifest for First their power of teaching and ministring the Sacraments doth as fully and properly belong to the Presbyter as to any unlesse we count Preaching not necessarily connexed to a Presbyters office but a Bishops or at least that a more rudimentall preaching belongs to a Presbyter the more full and exact teaching being appropriate to the Bishop which are both too absurd Secondly for government the Apostles did no more giue the power of government to one then to another Obj. This is denyed for the Apostles are said to haue kept the power of ordination and the coerciue power in their own hands to haue committed these in the end onely to Apostolique men as Timothy Titus who were their successors succeeding them in it Ans A notable fiction for it is most plain by Scripture that ordination power of deciding controversies excommunication were given to Presbyters and not kept up from them they should otherwise haue provided ill for the Churches which they left to their care Secondly if the Apostles did commit some ordinary power of government to some men aboue others in which regard they should be their successours then the Apostles did not onely enjoy as Legates power over the Churches but as ordinarie Ministers For what power they enjoyed as Legates this they could not aliis Legare Power as ordinary Pastors in any Nations or Churches they never reserved and therefore did never substitute others to themselues in that which they never exercised nor enjoyed And it is to be noted that this opinion of Episcopall succession from the Apostles is grounded on this that the Apostles were not onely Apostles but Bishops in Provinces and particular Churches For the Papists themselues urged with this that the Apostles haue none succeeding them they doe consider a double respect in the Apostles the one of Legates so Peter nor any other could haue a successour The other of Bishops Oecumenicall in Peter of Bishops National or Diocesan as in some other Thus onely considered they grant them to haue other Bishops succeeding them For the Apostolick power precisely considered was Privilegium personale simul cum persona extinctum Now we haue proved that this ground is false and therefore that succeding the Apostles more appropriate to Bishops then other Ministers grounded upon it is false also Lastly the Presbyters cannot be said successors of the 72. For first in all that is spoken to the 72 the full dutie and office of a Presbyter is not laid downe Secondly it doth not appeare that they had any ordinarie power of preaching or baptizing and ministering the other Sacrament For they are sent to Evangelize to preach the Gospell but whether from power of ordinarie office or from commission and delegation onely for this present occasion it is doubtful Thirdly it is not read that tney ever baptized or had the power of administring the Supper given to them Yea that they had neither ministerie of Word or Sacraments ex officio ordinario seemeth hence plaine That the Apostles did choose them to the Deacons care which was so cumbersome that themselues could not tend the ministery of the Word with it much lesse then could these not having such extraordinarie gifts as the Apostles had Fourthly if they were set Ministers then were they Euangelists in destination For the act enjoyned them is from Citie to Citie without limitation to Euangelize and after we reade of some as Phillip that he was an Euangelist the same is in Ecclesiasticall storie testified of some others Thus we Presbyters should succeed Euangelists those Apostolique men whom the Apostles constituted Bishops and by consequence be the true successours of the Apostles These Euangelists succeeded them by all grant we succeed these Finally Armachanus doth take these 72 to haue been ordinary disciples in his 7 Book Armenicarum quaest cap. 7. 11 Argument Those who receiue a new ordination are in a higher degree in a new administration and a new order But Bishops doe so Ergo. Answer The proposition is denyed for it is sufficient to a new ordination that they are called to exercise the Pastorall function in a new Church where before they had nothing to doe Secondly I answer by distinction a new order by reason of new degrees of dignity this may be granted but that therefore it is a new order that is having further ministeriall power in regard of the Sacraments and jurisdiction given it of God is not true Hath not an Archbishop a distinct ordination or consecration from a Bishop yet is hee not of any order essentially differing The truth is ordination if it be looked into is but a canonicall solemnity which doth not collate that power Episcopall to the now chosen but onely more solemnly and orderly promotes him to the exercise of it 12 Argument Those Ministers whereof there may bee but one onely during life in a Church they are in sigularity of preheminence aboue others But there may be but one Bishop though there may be many other Presbyters one Timothie one Titus one Archippus one Epaphroditus Ergo. For proofe of the assumption See Cornelius as Eusebius relateth his sentence lib. 6. cap. 43. Conc. Nice cap. 8. Conc. Calced cap. 4. Possidonius in vita Augustine Ierom. Phil. 1. ver 1. Chrysost Amb. Theod. Oecumen And such was Bishops preheminence that Presbyters Deacons and other Clerkes are said to bee the Bishops Clerks Answer I answer to the Assumption That there may be said to bee but one Bishop in order to other Coadjutors and Associates with in the same Church It may be said there must be but one Bishop in order to all the other Churches of the Cities Secondly this may be affirmed as standing by Canon or as divine institution Now the assumption is true onely by Law Ecclesiasticall For the Scripture is said to haue placed Presbyters who did Superintendere Act. 20. and that there were Bishops at Philippi True it is the Scripture doth not distinguish how manie of the one sort nor how many of the other because no doubt for the number of the Congregations a single Presbyter labouring in the Word or two the one coadjutor to the other might be placed Secondly it is testified by Epiphanius that ordinarilie all Cities but
Alexandria had two Thirdly Ierom on 1. Tim. 3. doth saie that now indeed there may be but one Bishop meaning Canonicallie making a difference twixt the present time and time Apostolique Fourthlie Austin did not know it was unlawfull Yea he did onelie in regard of the decree of Nice account it so Ep. 110. neither did Church or people ever except against the contrary but as a point against Canon which might in some cases be dispensed with as the storie of Narcissus and Alexander and Liberius and Foelix doth more then manifest For though the people of Rome cried out one God one Christ one Bishop yet they yeelded at their Emperours suite wheras had it been a thing they had all thought to haue been against Christs institution they would not haue done Vide Soz. lib. 4. cap. 14. Fiftly Ieroms peerelesse power is nothing but Consul-like presidence aboue others for this he pleaded for writing against Iovinian lib. 1. amongst the Apostles themselues that schisme might be avoided Wherfore we yeeld the conclusion in this sense that the Bishop jure humano hath a singularity of preheminence before others as by Ecclesiasticall law there might be but one onely Archbishop 13 Argument Those who had peerelesse power aboue others in ordination and jurisdiction they were such as had preheminence and majority of rule over others But the former is due to Bishops Vnlesse this singularitie of power were yeelded there would be as many schismes as Priests Ergo. The assumption proved Those who haue a peculiar power of ordination aboue others they are in preheminence and power before others But Bishops haue Ergo they are in c. The assumption proved That which was not in the Presbyters of Ephesus and Crete before Timothy and Titus were sent but in the Apostles and after in Timothy and Titus and their successours that is a peculiar of Bishops But ordination was not in the Presbyters c. Ergo. The assumption proved That which these were sent to doe Presbyters had not power to doe It was therefore in them and such as succeeded them the Bishops of Ephesus and Crete Againe the Scriptures Councels Fathers speake of the ordeyner as one Ergo it was the peculiar right of the Bishop and the Bishop onely Hee onely by Canon was punishable for irregularitie in ordination And Epiphanius maketh this the proper power of a Bishop to beget fathers by ordination as tho Presbyters doth sonnes by Baptisme And Ierom doth except ordination as the Bishops peculiar wherein hee is most unequall to them Answer I answer the Proposition of the first Sillogisme by distinction Those who haue peerelesse power in regard of the simple right to ordeine viz. in regard of exercising the act and sole performing the rite of it those who haue a right to these things originally from Christ and his Apostles which no others haue they are aboue others in degree Againe peerelesse power in a Bishop over Presbyters may be said in comparison to them distributiuely or collectiuely considered Hee that hath peerelesse power given him which no one of the other hath is not presently of a greater degree nor hath not majoritie of rule amongst others as a Consul in the Senate But if he haue a peerelesse power such as they all collectiuely considered cannot controule then the Proposition is true but the Assumption will then be found to halt To the proofe of the assumption The Proposition is true of power in order to the thing it selfe not to ministring the rite and executing the act which may be reserved for honour sake to one by those who otherwise haue equall power with him That Bishops haue this power in order the thing it selfe agreeing to them Viproprii officii not by commission from others we deny The assumption is wholly denyed As for the proofe of it First we that deny that Euangelists had not power to ordeyne as well as Apostles Secondly that Presbyters had not this power in a Church planted as well as they Euery one as fellow servants might conspire in the same ordination The Euangelists power did not derogate from the Apostles the Presbyters from neither of them But power of imposing hands solitarily whereas yet Churches were not constituted this may happily be appropriated to the Apostles and Euangelists whose office it was to labour in erecting the frame of churches Secondly the assumption is false in denying that it was in the power of Presbyters to lay on hands contrarie to that in Timothie The grace given thee by laying on of the hands of the Presbytery Thirdly it is false in presupposing others then Presbyters to haue been Timothy and Titus their successors To the proofe of this assumption The proposition is not true For it might be convenient that the same thing should be done by Euangelists and by ordinary Pastors each concurring in their severall orders to the same service of Christ the Lord. Secondly I answer to the assumption That Presbyters were to bee placed in Churches framed where there were Presbyters or where there were as yet none In the first Churches they are bid ordaine if any need further but salvo jure Ecclesia not without the concurrence of others In the latter Churches which were to be constituted they may be conceived sa Evangelists with sole power of setting Presbyters forth by this rite of imposition of hands Wee hold Apostles might doe it Evangelists might and the Presbyteries also Yea Presbyters in Alexandria when now their first Presbyter was deceased did ordaine the following For the Canon of three Bishops and Metropolitans added by the Nicene Councell was not knowne yet Neverthelesse it grew timely to be restrained to Bishops the performing I meane of the outward rite and signe but onely by Canon as Consignation was also for which there is as ancient testimonies as this that it was appropriat to the Bish We grant therfore that antiquitie doth sometime speak of the ordainer as one In the Churches of Affrica one did not lay on hands yet in some other churches the rite was by one administred And it is to be noted by the way that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in some Canons is not opposed to the Coordaining of Presbyters but to the number of Three or many Bishops required in the ordination of a Bishop They might therfore by their canons be punishable because regularly and canonically the executing of it was committed to thē This is all that Epiphanius or Ieroms excepta ordinatione can prove But these two conclusions we would see proved out of Scriptures and Fathers First that ordination is an action of power of order a power sacramental which a Presbyter hath not Secondly that by vertue of this power the Bishop doth ordaine and not by Ecclesiasticall right or commission from the Church Certainlie the act of promoting a minister of the Church is rather an act of iurisdiction then order As it belongeth to policie and government to call new Magistrates where they are wanting Obiect
kinglie majoritie of rule keeping the bond of loue was condemned The assumption therefore if it assume not of this last deniall then can it not conclude against us Ergo it is a truth that some Ministers may be aboue othersome in order honor and dignity But they understand not by order such an order onely as is distinct because some degree of dignitie is appropriate to it which is not to other Though this argument therefore touch us not yet to speake a little further about it this opinion of Aerius is not to be handled too severely neither our authors D. Whitakerus D. Reinolds Danaeus to be blamed who doe in some sort excuse him For Bishops were grown such that many good persons were offended at them as the Audiani Yea it was so ordinarie that Ierome distinguisheth schisme from heresie because the one conteined assertions against the faith the other severed from the Church by reason of dissenting from Bishops See him on Tit. 3.10 Neither is it plain that he was an Arrian Epiphanius reporteth it but no other though writing of this subject and storie of these time Sure it is Eustathius was a strong Arian whom Aerius did oppose Neither is it strange for Bishops to fasten on those which dissent from them in this point of their freehold any thing whereof there is but ungrounded suspicion Are not we traduced as Donatists Anabaptists Puritanes As for his opinion they thought it rather schismatical then hereticall therfore happily called it heresie because it included errour in their understanding which with schismaticall pertinacie was made heresie Neither is it likely that Epiphanius doth otherwise count it heresie nor Austin following him For though Austine was aged yet he was so humble that hee saith Augustinus senex à puero nondum anniculo paratus sum edoceri Neither was it prejudice to his worth for to follow men more ancient then himselfe who in likelyhood should know this matter also better As for his calling it heresie it is certaine he would not haue this in rigour streined For he doth protest in his preface unto that book of heresies that none to his thought can in a regular definition comprehend what that is which maketh this or that to be heresie Though therefore he doubted not of this that Aerius was in errour such as all Catholickes should decline yet it doth not argue that he thought this errour in rigour and formall propriety to haue been heresie Thus much for this last Argument On the contrarie side I propound these Arguments following to be seriously considered Argument 1. Those whom the Apostles placed as chiefe in their first constituting of Churches and left as their successours in their last farewels which they gaue to the Churches they had none superiour to them in the Churches But they first placed Presbyters feeding with the Word and governing and to those in their last departings they commended the Churches Ergo. The assumption is denied they did not place them as the chiefe ordinary Pastors in those Churches but placed them to teach and governe in fore interno with a reference of subordination to a more eminent Pastor which when now they were growen to a just multitude should be given to them The Apostles had all power of order and jurisdiction they gaue to Presbyters power of order power to teach minister sacraments and so gather together a great number of those who were yet to be converted but kept the coerciue power in their own hands meaning when now by the Presbyters labour the Churches were grown to a greater multitude meaning I say then to set over them some more eminent Pastors Apostolicall men to whom they would commit the power of government that so they might rule over both the Presbyters and their Churches and to these with their successours not to the Presbyters were the Churches recommended All which is an audacious fiction without any warrant of Scripture or shew of good reason For it is confessed that Presbyters were placed at the first constitution as the Pastors and Teachers of the Churches Now if the Apostles had done this with reference to a further and more eminent Pastor and Governour they would haue intimated somewhere this their intention but this they doe not yea the contrary purpose is by them declared For Peter so biddeth his Presbyters feed their flocks as that he doth insinuate them subject to no other but Christ the Arch-shepheard of them all Againe the Apostles could not make the Presbyters Pastors without power of government There may be governours without pastorall power but not a Pastor without power of governing For the power of the Pedum or shepheards staffe doth intrinsecally follow the Pastorall office What likelyhood is there that those who were set as parents to beget children should not be trusted with power of the rod wherewith children now begotten are to be nurtured and kept in awe beseeming them If it be said every one fit for the office of a Teacher was not fit for a Governour I answer hee that is fit to be a Pastor teaching and governing in foro interno is much more fit to be a Governour externally hee vvho is fit for the greater is fit for the lesser It vvas a greater and more Apostolicall vvorke to labour conversion and bring the Churches a handfull in the planting as some thinke to become numbersome in people then it is to govern them being converted And it is absurd to think that those who were fit to gather a Church and bring it to fulnesse from small beginnings should not be fit to governe it but stand in need to haue some one sent who might rule them and the Churches they had collected Secondly these Presbyters vvere as themthemselues confesse qualified vvith the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost and chosen by speciall designation so that to impute insufficiencie unto them is harsh and injurious to God as well as to man Finally by the twentie of the Acts and the first Epistle of Peter ch 5. it is plaine they doe in their last farewels commit the Churches unto the Presbyters not suggesting any thing of a further Pastor to bee sent vvho should supply their roomes vvhich yet they would not haue forgotten being a thing of so great consolation had it been intended by them Argument 2. Those vvho haue the name and office of Bishops common to them they haue no superiour Pastors over them But the Presbyters Pastorall haue that name and office attributed to them For first they are sayd to governe in generall Secondly there is nothing found belonging to the power of the keyes in foro externo but the Scripture doth ascribe it to them power of suffrage in councell Act. 15. power of excommunication which is manifest to haue been in the Church of Corinth when it had no Bishop power of ordination 1. Tim. 4. If any say that this their power was but by commission in them and that they were subordinate to the
Apostles in exercise of it being to reteine it onely untill such time as more eminent Pastors should be given I answer all this is spoken gratis without any foundation and therefore no more easily vouched then rejected The Presbyters so had this power that they did commit it to the Bishops as we shall shew after and therefore it must haue been in them not by extraordinary commission but by ordinarie office Secondly they were subject in exercise to none but Christ and the Holy Ghost who onely had out of authoritie trusted them with it If the Apostles and they did concurre in doing one and the same thing they did it as inferiour to the Apostles and servants of a lower order not with any subjection to them as heads of derivation serving Christ their onely Lord no lesse immediately then the Apostles themselues Argument 3. That which is found in all other orders of Ministers instituted by Christ may be presumed likewise in the order of Pastors and Doctors but in all other orders there were none that had singularity of preheminence and majority of power aboue other No Apostle Prophet Euangelist had this rule one over another If the proposition bee denyed upon supposall of a different reason because that though paritie in a few extraordinarie Ministers might bee admitted without disorder yet in a multitude of ordinarie Ministers it could not but breed schisme and confusion and therfore as the order of Priesthood was divided into a high Priest and other secondary ones so is it fit that the Presbyters of the new Testament should be divided some being in the first and some in the second ranke To this I answer the paritie is the more dangerous by how much the places are supereminent Secondly though Pastors should be equall yet this would not bring parity into the Ministers of the Church some whereof should be in degree inferiour to other the governing Elders to the Pastors and the Deacons to them Thirdly if every Church being an Ecclesiasticall body should haue governours every way equall there were no feare of confusion seeing Aristocracie especially where God ordaineth it is a forme of government sufficient to preserue order But every Church might then doe what ever it would within it selfe Not so neither for it is subject to the censure of other Churches synodically assembled and to the civill Magistrate who in case of delinquencie hath directiue and correctiue power over it Parity doth not so much indanger the Church by schisme as imparity doth by tyrannie subject it As for the distinction of Priests we grant it but as man could not haue made that distinction had not God ordained it in time of the old Testament no more can we under the new Howbeit that distinction of Priests did bring in no such difference in order and majority of rule as our Bishops now challenge Argument 4. If some be inferiour unto othersome in degree of power it must be in regard of their power to teach or their power to govern or in the application of this power to their persons or in regard of the people whom they teach and governe or finally in regard the exercise of their power is at the direction of another But no Pastor or Teacher dependeth on any other but Christ for any of these Ergo. The proposition standeth on a sufficient enumeration the assumption may be proved in the severall parts of it The former branch is thus cleared First the power we haue is the same essentially with theirs yea every way the same Secondly wee haue it as immediately from Christ as they I shew them both thus The power of order is the power which inableth us to preach and deliver the whole counsell of God and to minister all Sacraments sealing Gods covenant Now unlesse we will with the Papists say that preaching is no necessary annexum to the Presbyters office or that his power is a rudimentall limited power as to open the creed Lords prayer and commandements onely or that he hath not the full power sacramentall there being other sacraments of ordination and confirmation which we may not minister all which are grosse we must yeeld their power of order to be the same Yea were these sacraments properly they are both grounded in the power a Presbyter hath Ordination in doe this in remembrance of me confirmation in power to baptize The power being the same it is happily in one immediately and in the other by derivation from him Nothing lesse All grant that Christ doth immediately giue it even as the inward grace of every Sacrament commeth principally from him The Church did she giue this power might make the sacrament and preaching which one doth in order no sacrament no preaching The Pope doth not if we follow the common tenent callenge so much as to giue the power of order to any Bishop or Priest whatsoever If you say the Presbyter is ordained by the Bishop that is nothing so is the Bishop by other Bishops from whom notwithstanding he receiveth not this power We will take this as granted of all though the truth is all doe not maintaine it from right grounds But it will be said the Presbyter is inferiour in jurisdiction and can haue none but what is derived to him from the Bishop who hath the fulnesse of it within his Diocesan Church But this is false and grounded on many false presumptions As first that Ministers of the Word are not properly and fully Pastors for to make a Pastor and giue him no help against the Wolfe is to furnish him forth imperfectly Secondly it presupposeth the power of jurisdiction to be given originally and fontally to one person of the Church and so to others whereas Christ hath committed it originaliter exercitative to the representatiue Church that they might Aristocratically administer it Thirdly this presupposeth the plenitude of regiment to be in the Bishop and from him to be derived to other which maketh him a head of virtuall influence that in his Church which the Pope doth challenge in regard of all Bishops For his headship and spirituall soveraigntie standeth according to Bellarmine in this that the government of all in fore externo is committed to him Not to mention how Bishops while they were Bishops gloried of their chaire and teaching as the slower of their garland preferring it farre before government but when they were fallen from their spirituall felicitie and infected with secular smoke then they recommended the labour of teaching to the Presbyters then their jurisdiction and consistorie did carie all the credite everie office in the Church being counted a dignitie as it had more or lesse jurisdiction annexed as those are more or lesse honourable in the Common-wealth which haue civill authoritie in lesse or greater measure conjoyned The truth is it cannot be shewed that God ever made Pastor without this jurisdiction for whether it do agree to men as they are Pastors or as they are Prelats in the Church it cannot
be avoided but that the Pastor should haue it because though everie Praesul or Praelatus be not a Pastor yet everie Pastor is Praelatus in order to that Church where he is the proper and ordinarie Pastor Yea when censure is the most sharp spirituall medicine it were ill with everie Church if he who is resident alwaies among them as their spirituall Phisition should not haue power in administring it Thirdly I say no Minister hath majoritie of power in applying the power of order or jurisdiction to this or that person In the application there is a Ministerie of the Church interposed but so that Christ onely is the cause with power not onely why Presbyters are in the Church but why Thomas or Iohn is chosen to and bestowed on this or that place A Maister onely doth out of power take everie servant into his house so God in his God did those Aarons sonns with the Levites and Christ the 70 not mediately leaving it to the arbitrement of any to set out those that should stand before him God doth ever onely in regard of authoritie applie all power Ecclesiasticall to everie particular person his sole authoritie doth it though sometime as in ordinarie callings the ministerie of others doth concurre The Church is in setting out or ordaining this or that man as the Colledge is in choosing when shee taketh the man whom the statute of her founder doth most manifestly describe or where the Kings mandate doth strictly injoyne it would otherwise bring an imperiall power into the Church For though many Kings cannot hinder but that there shall be such and such officers and places of governement as are in their Kingdom yet while they are free at their pleasure to depute this or that man to the places vacant they haue a Kingly jurisdiction in them Briefly God doth ever apply the power Ecclesiasticall unto the person sometime alone by himselfe as in the Apostles and then he doth it tam immediatione suppositi quam virtutis sometime the ministerie of man concurring extraordinarily as when God extraordinarilie directeth a person to goe and call one to this or that place as he did Samuel to annoint Saul Or else ordinarily when God doth by his Writ and Spirit guide men to take any to this or that place in his Church which he doth partly by his written statutes and partly by his Spirit and thus he doth make the application onely immedatione virtutis not suppositi Ob. But yet Bishops haue the Churches the care of them wholly committed to them though therfore Ministers haue equall power to them yet they cannot without their leaue haue any place within their Churches and therefore are inferiour in as much as the people with whom they exercise their power of order and jurisdiction are assigned to them by the Bishop the proper Pastor of them This is an errour likewise For God doth make no Minister to whom hee doth not assigne a flock which hee may attend God calleth Ministers not to a facultie of honour which doth qualifie them with power to ministeriall actions if any giue them persons among whom they may exercise their power received as the Emperours did make Chartularios judices who had a power to judge causes if any would subject himselfe to them Or as the Count Palatine hath ordinarie Iudges who are habitu tantum judices having none under them amongst whom they may exercise jurisdiction Or as the university giveth the degree of a Doctor in Physick without any patients among whom hee may practise But Gods Ministerie is the calling of a man to an actuall administration Goe teach and the power of order is nothing by the way but a relatiue respect founded in this that I am called to such an actuall administration Now there cannot be an act commanded without the subject about which it is occupied otherwise God should giue them a facultie of feeding and leaue them depending on others for sheep to feed God should make them but remote potentiall Ministers and the Bishop actuall Thirdly the Holy Ghost is said to haue set the Presbyters over their flock A man taking a steward or other servant into his house doth giue him a power of doing something to his familie and never thinketh of taking servants further then the necessitie of his houshold doth require so is it with God in his Church which is his house fore the exigency of his people so require he doth not cal any to the function of Ministerie Again this is enough to ground the authoritie which Antichrist assumeth For some make his soveraignetie to stand onely in this not that he giveth order or power of jurisdiction but that he giveth to all Pastors Bishops the moytie of sheep on whom this their power is exercised Christ having given him the care of all his sheep feed my sheep so Vasquez Thus if a Bishop challenge all the sheep in a Diocesan flock to be his that he hath power to assigne the severall flocks under him he doth usurp an Antichristian authoritie Finally if the Churches be the Bishops through the Diocesse Ministers then are under them in their Churches but as a curate is whom a Parson giveth leaue to help within his Church Yea they should loose their right in their Churches when the Bishop dyeth as a Curate doth when the Parson of this or that Church whom he assisted is once departed To conclude they are not dependant one Minister I meane on another in the exercise and use of their calling A servant that hath any place doth know from his Maister what belongeth to it The Priests and Levites had set downe what belonged to their places as well as the high Priest what belonged to his Againe God hath described the Presbyters office as amply as any other A Legate dependeth on none for instructions but on him that sendeth him now everie Minister is an Embassadour of Christ By their reason a Minister should be accountant to man for what he did in his Ministerie if his exercising of it did depend on man Then also should ministers mediatly only serue God in as much as they haue done this or that to which the Bishop did direct them Moreover should the Bishop bid him not preach at all preach rarely teach onely such and such things or come and liue from his charge he should not sin in obeying him But man cannot limit that power of ministerie which he cannot giue It is not with Gods servants in his Church as with civill servants in the Common-wealth for here some servants are aboue others whom they command as they will such as are called servi ordinarii or praepositi some are under others to doe this or that commanded by them commonly called servi vicarii but in the Church all servants serue their Maister Christ neither having any that they can command nor being under any but Christ so as to be commanded by them But it may be objected that God hath
person Secondlie the Bishop may be the person offending or offended and the Church to which he must bring the matter must be other then himselfe Thirdlie the gradation doth shew it First by thy selfe Then shew a witnes or two Then to the Church as the sinne increaseth the number of those by whom it is to be rebuked and censured increaseth also If one say though the Church signifie one governour yet the gradation holdeth for to tell it to the governour in open Court is more then to tell it to twentie Wee grant that this is true and were the word Church taken here to note some eminent governour it might be brought in as a further degree though one onely were enforced But how can Peter be complainaint if Peter the Praeful onely be the iudge to whom the thing must be denounced Fourthlie the church in the Corinthians which Paul stirreth up to censure the incestuous person was not any one but many Their rebuke upon which it is like hee repented was a rebuke of many 2. Cor. 2.6 Fiftly if the church had been one he would not have subjoined for what ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven Sixtly if the church did not note an assembly how could he assure them from hence that God would do what they â—…ed on because he was with the least assemblies gathered in his name Vnlesse the Church meant were an assemblie this argument could not be so correspondent Where two or two or three are assembled in Gods name God is in the midst of them to doe that they agree on But where the Church is binding or loosing there are some assembled in the name of Christ Ergo. Lastly the church in the old Testament never noteth the high Priest virtuallie but an assemblie of Priests sitting together as iudges in the causes of God Wherefore as Christ doth indistinctlie presuppose everie particular Church So he doth here onely presuppose the joynt authoritie joynt execution of a representative Church a Presbyterie of Elders who were Pastors and Governours Argum. 4. Wee argue from the practise of the Churches That power which is not in one nor to be exercised by one but in many and to be exercised by many in the Church of the Corinthians that power with the exercise of it was committed by Christ to many not to one But the power of Ecclesiasticall censure was in many and to be performed by many assembled Ergo. The proposition is plaine For Paul would not have called for nor have liked any constitution or exercise of power Ecclesiasticall other then Christ had ordained The assertion is denied by some but it is a plain truth by many invincible arguments For first Paul doth rebuke them that they had not set themselves to cast him forth Now as Ambrose saith on the place Si autem quis potestatem non habet quem scit reum abjicere aut probare non valet immunis est Secondlie Paul doth wish them assembled together with himselfe in the name and vertue of Christ that they might deliver him up to Sathan For he doth not call on them to restrain him him as already excommunicated but to purge him out as an infectuous leaven yet amongst them Thirdlie Paul doth tell them that they had power to judge those within those who were called brethren and lived otherwise Fourthly Paul doth tell them that they did a rebuke or mulct of many writing to them that they would not proceed 2. Cor. 2.6 Lastly Paul doth attribute power to them to forgive him and to receive him to the peace of the church Which would not have been in them had they not had the power to excommunicate Such as have no power to bind have no power to loose So it might be proved by the Church of the Thessalonians 2. Thess 3.14 If any man walk inorninatly note him that others may refraine him Noting being not a signification by letter which doth wrest the word against all copies and the current of al Greek interpreters but judicially to note him that all may avoyd him that is excomunicate him Finallie the churches of Asia as it is plain had power of government within themselves Argum. 3. That power which the Apostles did not exercise in the Churches nor Evangelists but with concurrence of the Churches and Presbyteries that power is much lesse to be exercised by any ordinary Pastour but by manie But they did not ordaine nor lay on hands alone they did not determine questions by the power of the keyes alone but with cocurrence of the Presbyters of the Church Ergo much lesse may any ordinarie minister doe it alone Timothy received grace by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Presbyterie For that Persons must bee understood here is apparant by the like place when it is said by the laying on of my hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 noteth a person and so here a Presbyterie Secondly to take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie the order of Priesthood is against all Lexicous and the nature of the Greeke termination Thirdly Timothy neuer received that order of a Presbyter as before we have proved Fourthly it cannot signifie as Greeke Expositers take it a company of Bishops For neither was that Canon of 3 Bishops and the Metropolitan or all the Bishops in a Province in the Apostles time neither were these who are now called Bishops then called Presbyters as they say but Apostles men that had received Apostolick grace Angels c. Finally it is very absurd to think of coÌ„panies of other Presbyters in Churches then Paul planted but hee placed Presbyteries of such Presbyters as are now distinguished from Bishops which is the grant of our adversaries Not to mention how Armachanus doth censure the other as an interpretation from ones privat sence besides testimonie of Scripture Thus the Apostles did not offer alone to determine the question Act. 15. but had the joynt suffrages of the Presbyterie with them Not because they could not alone haue infallibly answered but because it was a thing to be determined by many all who had received power of the keyes doing it ex officio and others from discretion and dutie of confession the truth Yea the Bishops called primi Presbyteri had no ordination at the first which the Presbyterie did not give them Whence have Bishops of other Churches power to minister the sacrament to the Bishop of this Church But Timothy and Titus are sayd to have ordained ministers As Consuls and Dictators are sayd to have created Consuls because they called Senates propounded and together with others did it No otherwise doe Iesuits themselves understand it Salmeron on the first of Titus c. And it is manifest by Ecclesiasticall writings of all sorts that Presbyters had right of suffrage not onely in their owne Presbyteries but in Provinciall Synods and therfore in Oecumenicall Synods which doth arise from a combination of the other to which their mindes went in the instruction of
base regardlessnesse of pietie and learning yet he never so much as consulted with himselfe of denying his sinceritie by pleasing the Bishops of whom and their courses he was wont to say They are a generation of the earth earthly and savour not the waies of God Which saying of his they and some Doctors of Cambridge have since made good in that they could not indure that the place from whence they thrust him should be supplyed by other honest men though they were conformable but with absolute authoritie at length forbad it alledging that Puritanes were made by that lecture whereas the truth is that one lecture hath done more good to the Church of God in England then all the doctors of Cambridge though I doe not deny but some of them have wrought a good worke By this one instance of which kind I would there were not a hundred in our land it may easily appeare to the understanding Reader that there is as much agreement betwixt our Bishops in their managing of Religion except some two or three which went out of their elements when they ventered on those places and those powerfull Preachers who haue bene the chiefe meanes of revealing Gods arme unto salvation as there is betwixt the light which commeth down from heaven and that thick mist which ariseth from the lowest pit But we need not seeke for demonstrations of the spirit which worketh in our Hierarchie from this opposition look but at the fruits of it where it hath all fulnesse of consent as in Cathedrall Pallaces or Parishes of Bishops and Archbishops residence such as Lambeth is where all their canons are in force and haue their full sway without contradiction nay come neerer unto them and take a view of their families even to them that wayt in their chambers and see what godlinesse there is to be found Haue there not more of God and his Kingdome appeared in some one Congregation of those Ministers which they haue silenced for unconformity then in all the Bishops families that are now in England Was there ever any of them that could endure such a Parish as Lambeth is if they had such power of reforming it as the Archbishops haue To returne therfore unto our Authour whilst he lived a private life being thus strucken with the Bishops Planet he had time to apply his able wit and judgement unto the discussing of many questions which if the Prelates had not forced such leasure upon him it may be he would haue passed by with others And among the rest by Gods providence hee vvas directed to these Ecclesiasticall Controversies which concerne our Diocesan state in England wherein as in all other questions which he dealt in he hath shewed such distinct and pearcing understanding together with evidence of truth as cannot but give good satisfaction to him that in these things seeketh light He might in deed have chosen other particular corruptions to have vvritten on if it had bene his purpose either to haue taught men vvhat they daily see and feele or to haue laboured about the branches and leaue the root untouched But it vvas no delight unto him for to proue that vvhich no man doubted of as that the common course and practise of our Prelates their courts their urging of subscriptions with humane superstitious ceremonies are presumptuous insolencies against God and his Church or preposterously to beginne at the end of the streame for to cleanse the vvater He chose rather to search the fountaine of all that foulnesse vvhervvith our Churches are soiled vvhich he judged to be found in the constitutions here in this Treatise examined And if these fevv questions be vvell considered it vvill appeare that a multitude of pernicious abuses doe depend on those positions vvhich in them are confuted One fundamentall abuse in our Ecclesiasticall oppression is in the disposing of charges or placing of Ministers over Congregations It is called usually bestovving of Benefices or Livings in an earthy phrase vvhich savoureth of the base corruption commonly practised For Congregations ought not to be bestovved on Ministers but Ministers on Congregations the benefit or benefice of the minister is not so much to be regarded as of the Congregation It is the calling and charge which every Minister should looke at not his living and benefice Now these Benefices are bestowed ordinarily by the Patron whether Popish prophane or religious all is one and the Bishop without any regard of the peoples call or consent so as no lawfull mariage is made no servant placed against all Scripture Councels and ancient examples Whereby it commeth ordinarily to passe that Lawyers must determine of Ministers callings after long suits and great charges as if Congregations and Farmes were held by one title and right And sometime it is found that the Minister is a continuall plague unto his people living in contention spight and hatred with them as many law-suits doe too too plainely witnesse What is the reason Because Parishes are esteemed as no Churches that ever were ordeined by Christ or recived any power and priviledges from him but as mans creatures and by man to be ordered as it pleaseth him Another practise of like nature with the former is that the Minister being called to one Congregation becommeth a Pluralist by taking another or more livings in spight of that Congregation to which hee was first and is still personally tied And after all this he may be a non-resident abiding or preaching at none of his many livings Nay he may chop and change sell and buy like a marchant so he doe it closely which is such an abomination as Rome and Trent condemneth and hell it selfe will scarse defend What is the ground Because forsooth Christ hath not appointed Parishes their officers and offices and therfore no man is bound further in this kinde then mens Lawes canons customes and injunctions doe prescribe unto them For a grave Doctor of Cambridge answered one that questioned him for his grosse non-residencie viz. that Parishes were divided by a Pope insinuating as it seemeth that he accounted it a point of Poperie for to tie Ministers unto their particular charges A third grosse corruption is that the officers in Congregations Ministers Church-wardens c. are made servants to the Bishops Chancellours Archdeacons c. being as it were their promotors informers and executioners in all matters of jurisdiction and government for to bring in money into their purses for performance also of which service to them the Church-wardens upon every occasion are enforced to take such corporall oathes as not one of them doth ever keep What other ground of this beside the fore-mentioned that particular Congregations are no spirituall incorporations and therefore must have no officers for government within themselves Now all these confusions with many other of the same kinde how they are condemned in the very foundation of them M. Baines heere sheweth in the first question by maintaining the divine constitution of a particular Church
Downam avoucheth that nothing can be more pregnant then it to prove that Bishops were superiour to Presbyters in power of ordination But heare what this ancient Writer saith Ordinatio non significat ibi potestatem conferendi ceu collationem sacrorum ordinum sed oeconomicam potestatem regulandi vel dirigendi Ecclesiae ritus atque personas quantum ad exercitium divini cultus in templo unde ab antiquis legumlatoribus vocantur Oeconomi reverendi It would be overlong to declare all the use which may bee made of this Treatise which being it selfe so short forbiddeth prolixitie in the Preface If the Authour had lived to haue accomplished his purpose in perfecting of this worke he would it may be have added such considerations as these or at least he would haue left all so cleare that any attentive Reader might easily have concluded them from his premisses For supply of that defect these practicall observations are noted which with the dispute it selfe I leave to be pondered by the conscionable Reader THE FIRST QVESTION IS WHETHER CHRIST DID INSTITVTE OR THE APOSTLES frame any Diocesan forme of Churches or Parishionall onely FOR determining this Question we will first set down the Arguments which affirme it Secondly those which deny Thirdly lay down some responsiue conclusions and answer the objections made against that part we take to be the truth Those who affirme the frame of Diocesan Churches vouch their Arguments partly from Scripture partly from presidents or instances sacred and Ecclesiasticall Finally from the congruitie it hath with reason that so they should be continued The first objection is taken from comparing those two Scriptures Titus 1.5 Act. 14.23 Ordaine Elders Citie by Citie They ordained Elders Church by Church Hence it is thus argued They who ordained that a Citie with the Suburbs and region about it should make but one Church they ordeined a Diocesan Church But the Apostles who use these phrases as aequipollent To ordaine Presbyters in every Citie and to ordaine them in every Church appointed that a Citie with the suburbes and region about it should make but one Church Ergo the Apostles constituted a Diocesan Church The reason of the proposition is because Christians converted in a Citie with the suburbes villages and countries about it could not be so few as to make but a Parishionall Church The Assumption is cleere for these phrases are used as ad aequate and being so used needs it must be that the Apostles framed Cities subburbs and regions into one Church 2 They argue from examples Sacred and Ecclesiasticall Sacred are taken out of the old and new Testament Ecclesiasticall from the Primitiue times and from Paternes in our owne times yea euen from such Churches is we hold reformed as those in Belgia and Geneva To beginne with the Church of the Iewes in the old Testament whence they reason thus That which many particular Synagogues were then because they were all but one Common wealth and had all but one profession that may many Christian Churches now be upon the like grounds But they then though many Synagogues yet because they were all but one Kingdom and had all but one profession were all one nationall Church Ergo upon like grounds many Churches with us in a Nation or Citie may be one Nationall or Diocesan Church Secondly the Church of Ierusalem in the New-testament is objected 1 That which the Apostles intended should be a head Church to all Christians in Iudea that was a Diocesan Church But this they did by the Church of Ierusalem Ergo 2. That which was more numbersome then could meet Parishionally was no parishionall but Diocesan Church But that Church was such First by growing to 3000 then 5000 Act. 2.41 4.4 then to haue millions in it Act. 21.20 Ergo the Church of Ierusalem was not a Parishionall but a Diocesan Church Thirdly the Church of Corinth is objected to haue bene a Metropolitan Church He who writing to the Church of Corinth doth write to all the Saints in Achaia with it doth imply that they were all subordinate to that Church But this doth Paul 1. Cor. 2.1 Ergo. Secondly He who saluteth jointly the Corinthians and Achaians and calleth the Church of Corinth by the name of Achaia and names it with preheminence before the rest of Achaia doth imply that the Church of Corinth was the Metropolitan Church to which all Achaia was subject But the Apostle doth this 2 Cor. 9.2 11.11.8.9.10 Ergo. Fourthly that which was the mother Citie of all Macedonia the Church in that Citie must be if not a Metropolitan yet a Diocesan Church But Philipi was so Ergo. The fifth is from the Churches of Asia which are thus proved at least to haue bene Diocesan 1 Those seven Churches which conteyned all other Churches in Asia strictly taken whether in Citie or Countrey those seven were for their circuit Metropolitan or Diocesan Churches But those seven did conteine all other in Asia Ergo. 2 He who writing to all Churches in Asia writeth by name but to these seven he doth imply that all the rest were conteyned in these But Christ writing to the seven writeth to all Churches in Asia not to name that two of these were Metropolitan Cities viz. Philadelphia Pergamus seates Diocesan at least 3 He who maketh the singular Church he writeth to to be a multitude of Churches not one onely as the bodie is not one member onely he doth make that one Church to which he writeth in singular to be a Diocesan Church But Christ in his Epiphonematicall conclusion to every Church which he had spoken to in singular doth speak of the same as of a multitude Let him that hath cares heare what the Spirit saith to the Churches Ergo Thus leaving Sacred examples we come to Ecclesiasticall First in regard of those ancient Churches Rome Alexandria It is impossible they should be a Parishionall Congregation 200 years after Christ For if the multitude of Christians did in Hierusalem so increase within a little time that they exceeded the proproportion of one Congregation how much more likely is it that Christians in Rome and Alexandria did so increase in 200 years that they could not keep in one particular Assembly But the first is true Ergo also the latter Which is yet further confirmed by that which Tertullian and Cornelius testifie of their times To come from these to our moderne reformed Churches these proue a Diocesan Church That respect which many congregations distinct may haue now assembled in one place that they may have severed in many places For the unitie of the place is but extrinsicke to the unitie of the congregation But many distinct congregations gathered in one Citie Church may make we say one Church as they doe in the Netherlands Ergo distinct congregations severed in diverse places may make one Church It many Churches which may subject themselves to the govornment of one Presbyterie may so make one they may subject
distinguish the assumption and consider a Diocesan as she is in her parts or as she is a totum standing of her parts now collected together and say she may and doth meete and communicate and edifie her selfe in the first respect I answer this is nothing and doth proue her to be nothing as she is a Diocesan Church quia quid quid est agit secundum quod est If therefore a Diocesan Church were a reall Church she must haue the effect of such a Church to wit assembling as she is Diocesan The Synagogues through Israel met Sabboth by Sabboth but were no Nationall Church in this regard that is to say as it is a Nationall Church it had her Nationall reall meetings I reason thirdly from the subject 3 That Church which doth per se essentially require locall bounds of place that must have locall limits set forth of God But a Diocesan Church doth so Ergo. Whence I thus inferre He who institutes a Diocesan Church must needs set out the locall bounds of this Church But God hath not set out any local bounds of the Church in the New Testament Ergo he hath not instituted any Diocesan Church The proposition is certain for this doth enter in the definition of a Diocesan Church as also of a Nationall And therefore God instituting the Nationall Church of the Iewes did as in a map set forth the limits of that nation So also if he had instituted Diocesan and Provinciall Churches he would have appointed locall bounds if not particularlie described yet known and certain But God hath not done this For the Church of the New Testament is not thus tied to places it being so with the power of teaching and the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction that it doth respicere subditos onelie per se not terminos locales Civill jurisdiction doth respicere solum primarilie the subiects on it in the second place As for that commandement of appoynting Presbyters Citie by Citie it is too weake a sparr for this building Again that Church which may be said to be in a Citie is not Diocesan But the Churches which the Apostles planted are sayd to be in Cities Ergo. If one say to the proposition they may because the head Church is in the Citie Answer The Churches the Apostles planted are taken for the multitude of Saints vnited into such a body Ecclesiasticall But the multitude of Saints through a Diocesse cannot be said to be in a Citie Ergo The soule may be said to be in the head though it be in other parts and God in heaven God because of his most infinite and indivisible nature And so the soule because it is indivisible and is as all of it in every part not as a thing placed in a place containing it but as a forme in that which is informed by it But in things which have quantitie and are part out of another there is not the like reason 4 From the adjuncts That Church which hath no time set wherin to assemble is no Church I suppose the ground above that nothing but union of a Diocese in worship can make a Diocesan church But this Church hath no time Ordinarie it cannot have extraordinarie solemnities God hath not commanded Ergo there is no such Church For if it be a reall Diocesan Church it must haue a reall action according to that nature of which it is The action formall of a Church indefinite is to meet and communicate in worship Of a Nationall Church is to meet nationally and communicate in worship If then it must meet it must have some time set down ordinarie or extraordinarie But God hath done neither The Churches which the Apostles planted were in their times most perfect and flourishing But Diocesan Churches were not for in those times they were but in seminali infolded not explicated as the adversaries confesse 4 That which maketh Gods dispensation incongruous to his ministers is absurd But a Diocesan frame of Church doth so Ergo. That which maketh God give his extraordinary gifts to ministers of churches in the Apostles times when now they had but one congregation and give ordinary gifts onely when now they had 800 churches under them is absurd But this doth the Diocesan frame Ergo. 5 The churches through out which a Presbyter might do the office of a teaching Presbyter and a Deacon the office of a Deacon were not Diocesan But every Presbyter might minister in the word and sacraments throughout the Church to which he was called so might a Deacon tend to the poore of the whole church whereof he was a Deacon Ergo these were not Diocesan The reason of the proposition is No Presbyter can through many congregations performe ordinarie ministerie In which regard the Canon law forbiddeth that Presbyters should have many Churches C. 10. q. 3. Vna plures Ecclesâ—e vni nequaquam committantur Presbytero quia solus per Ecclesias nec officium valet persolvere nec rebus earum necessariam curans impendere 6 If God had planted Diocesan churches that is ordeined that all within citie suburbs and regions should make but one Diocesan Church then may not two Diocesses be vnited into one Church or another Church and Bishop be set within the circuit of a Diocesan church But neither of these are so The judgement of the African fathers shew the one and the Canon law doth shew the other p. 2. c. 16.41 Ergo. 7 If God appointed the frame of the church Diocesan standing of one chiefe church others vnited in subjection then can there not be the perfection of a church in one congregation But where there may be a sufficient multitude deserving a proper Pastor or Bishop requiring a number of Ptesbyters and Deacons to minister unto them there may be the perfection of a church But in some one congregation may bee such a multitude Ergo. 8 Those churches which may lawfullie have Bishops are such churches as God instituted But churches in Towns populous Villages have had may have their Bishops Ergo. This is proved by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every populous Towne such as our market townes and others yea by a synecdoche villages for there they taught as wel as in Cities There were Synagogues as well as in Cities They excepted against them afterward in vnconformitie to Law The testimonie of Zozomen sheweth what kinde of congreations were they of which Epiphanius testifieth And the fathers of Africa did not require that a Diocesan multitude but a sufficient multitude not through every part for then they should have had to doe in Citie churches but in that part of the Diocesse where a Presbyter onely had served the turne should have their Bishop If Diocesan churches and provinciall churches be Gods frame then we had no Churches in Brittaine of Gods frame before that Austin was sent by Gregorie the great But here were churches from before Tertullian after the frame God requireth at least in their judgements Ergo. Now to come to open the
this union but because though they were intire Churches and had the power of Churches yet they needed this support in exercising of it and that by this meanes the Ministers and Seniors of it might haue communion But what are all the 24 churches of Geneva to one of our Diocesan Churches Now to answer the reasons The first of them hath no part true the proposition is denyed For these churches which had such Presbyters and Deacons as the Apostles instituted were Parishionall that is so conjoyned that they might and did meete in one Congregation The Doctor did consider the slendernesse of some of our Parishes and the numbersome Clergie of some Cathedrall Churchâ—… but did not consider there may be Presbyteries much lesser and congregations ampler and fuller and yet none so bigge as should require that multitude he imagineth nor made so little as might not haue Presbyters and Deacons What though such Maior and Aldermen as are in London cannot bee had in every Town yet such a Towne as Cambridge may haue such a Maior and Aldermen as Cambridge affoords and the meanest market Town may haue though not in degree yet in kinde like Governnours So is it in Presbyters and other Officers the multitude of Presbyters falling forth per accidens not that a Bishop is ever to haue a like numbersome Presbyterie but because the Church is so numbersome that actions liturgicall require more copious assistance so wealthy that it can well maintaine them And beside because of that Collegiate reason which was in them rather then Ecclesiastical which the fathers had in their Presbyteries for the nursing of plants which might be transplanted for supply of vacant Churches which was a point that the Apostles in planting Churches no what intended To come to the assumption But citie Churches onely had a Bishop with Presbyters and Deacons Answer First not to stand upon this that S. Paul set no Bishops with Presbyters but Presbyters onely and they say Bishops were given when the Presbyters had brought the Church to be more numbersome the assumption is false that Citie Churches onely had them For the Scripture saith they planted them Church by Church that is through every Church Then every Church had her Governours with in her selfe we must use as ample interpretations as may be Contrarily the sense which arrogateth this to one from the rest we cannot without evidence receiue it in ambitiosis restricta interpretatio adhibenda est Ecclesia doth not signifie any Church without difference Parishionall Diocesan or Provinciall but onely a company orderly assembling not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such a company therefore as congregate decently to sacred purposes is a Church by translation Besides the indefinite is equivalent to the universall as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now their interpretation beggeth every thing without any ground For when Presbyters may be taken but three wayes divisim conjunctim and divisim and conjunction divisim one Presbyter in one another in another conjunctim diverse Presbyters in every Church neither of these will serue their turne the latter onely being true for Scripture making two kinds of Presbyters without which the Church cannot bee governed it is sure it did giue of both kinds to every Church they planted Now they seeing some Churches in our times to haue many and some one conster it both waies Collectiue many Presbyters and Singularly one here and one there and because many Presbyters cannot be thus placed in our frame of Churches imagine the Church to containe Parochiall and Diocesan Churches But they will not seeme to speake without reason the Scripture say they placed Citie by Citie Presbyters and therefore in such Churches as occupied Citie Suburbes and Countrey which Parishionall ones doe not But may not a Church of one Congregation be in a citie without occupying limits of citie suburbes and countrey and if Presbyters be placed in such a Church may they not be said to be placed in Cities Indeed if the Presbyters placed in Cities were given to all the people within such bounds the case were other but the citie is not literally thus to be understood but metonymically for the Church in the Citie Neither was the church in the citie all within such bounds for the Saints of a place and Church of a place are all one in the Apostles phrase of speech As for that which is objected from Ecclesiasticall historie it is true that in processe of time the Bishop onely had a company of Presbyters Before Churches kept in one Congregation and had all their Presbyters Churches should so haue afterward bene divided that all should haue been alike for kind though in circumstantial excellencie some were before other What a grosse thing is it to imagine that the first frame the Apostles did erect was not for posteritie to imitate A fitter example then to take out of the custome of Metropoles who sending out there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Colonies doe use to reserue some cases in civill jurisdiction over them which the state of later Churches did expresse THE SECOND QVESTION WHETHER CHRIST ORDAINED by himselfe or by his Apostles any ordinary Pastors as our Bishops having both precedencie of order and maioritie of power above others WEE will follow the same method First setting down the arguments for it with answers to them Secondly the arguments against it Thirdly lay downe conclusions The arguments for it are First taken from Scripture secondly from practise of the Churches thirdly from reason evincing the necessitie of it The first Argument Those whom the Holy Ghost instituted they are of Christs ordaining But the Holy Ghost is sayd to have placed Bishops Act 20. Ergo Bishops are of Christs ordeining Answer We deny the assumption viz. That those Presbytere of Ephesus were Diocesan Bishops It is most plaine they were such who did Communi consilio tend the feeding and government of the Church such Bishops whereof there might be more then one in one congregation The common glosse referreth to this place that of Ierom that at first Presbyters did by common councell governe the Churches Yea D. Downam doth count Ephesus as yet to haue had no Bishop who was sent unto them after Pauls being at Rome as he thinketh And others defending the Hierarchie who thinke him to have spoken to Bishops doe judge that these words belong not to Presbyters but are spoken in regard of others together then present with them to wit of Timothy Sosipater Tychicus who say they were three Bishops indeed but that he speaketh of these who indeed were in company is quite besides the text The second Argument Such Pastors as the seven Angels Christ ordained But such were Diocesan Bishops Ergo. The assumption proved Those who were of singular preheminencie amongst other Pastors and had corrective power over all others in their Churches they were Diocesan Bishops
But the Angels were singular persons in every Church having Ecclesiasticall preheminencie and superioritie of power Ergo they were Diocesan Bishops The assumption is proved Those who were shadowed by seven singular Starres were seven singular persons But the Angels were so Ergo. Againe Those to whom onely Christ did write who onely bare the praise dispraise threatning in regard of what was in the Church amisse or otherwise they had Majoritie of power above others But these Angels are written to onely they are onely praised dispraised threatned Ergo. c. Answ 1. In the two first syllogismes the assumption is denyed Secondly in the first Prosyllogisme the consequence of the proposition is denied That they must needs be seven singular persons For seven singular starres may signifie seven Vnites whether singular or aggregative seven pluralities of persons who are so united as if they were one And it is frequent in Scripture to note by a unity a united multitude Thirdly the consequence of the proposition of the last prosyllogisme is denyed For though we should suppose singular persons written to yet a preheminencie in order and greater authoritie without majoritie of power is reason enough why they should be written to singularly and blamed or praised above other Thus the master of a Colledge though he have no negative voyce might be written to blamed for the misdemeanors of his colledg not that hee hath a power overruling all but because such is his dignitie that did he doe his endevour in dealing with and perswading others there is no disorder which he might not see redressed Fourthly againe the assumption may bee denyed That they are onely written to For though they are onely named yet the whole Churches are written to in them the supereminent member of the Church by a Synecdoche put for the whole Church For it was the custome in the Apostles times and long after that not any singular persons but the whole Churches were written unto as in Pauls Epistles is manifest and in many examples Ecclesiasticall And that this was done by Christ here the Epiphonemaes testifie Let every one heare what the spirit speaketh to the Churches The third Argument Those whom the Apostles ordained were of Apostolicall instituon But they ordained Bishops Ergo. The assumption is proved by induction First they ordained Iames Bishop of Ierusalem presently after Christs ascention Ergo they ordained Bishops This is testified by Eusebius lib. 2. Histo cap. 1. out of Clement and Hegesippus yea that the Church he sate in was reserved to his time lib. 7. cap. 19. 32. This our own authour Ierom testifieth Catalog Script Epiph. ad haer 66. Chrysost in Act. 3. 33. Ambros in Galath 1.9 Dorotheus in Synopsis Aug. contra Cris lib. 2. cap. 37. the generall Councell of Const in Trull cap. 32. For though hee could not receive power of order yet they might give him power of jurisdiction and assigne him his Church So that though he were an Apostle yet having a singular assignation and staying here till death he might iustly be called the Bishop as indeed he was If he were not the Pastor whom had they for their Pastor Secondly those ordinary Pastors who were called Apostles of Churches in comparison of other Bishops and Presbyters they were in order and maioritie of power before other But Epaphroditus was the Apostle of the Philippians though they had other called Bishops Chap. 1.14 Ergo. The assumption that he is so called as their eminent Pastor is manifest by authorities Ierom. in Phil. 2. Theod. and Chrysost on the same place Neither is it like this sacred appropriate name should bee given to any in regard of meere sending hither or thither Yea this that he was sent did argue him there Bishop for when the Churches had to send any where they did usually intreat their Bishops Thirdly Archippus they instituted at Colosse Ergo. Fourthly Timothy and Titus were instituted Bishops the one of Ephesus the other of Crete Ergo. The Antecedent is proved thus That which is presupposed in their Epistles is true But it is presupposed that they were Bishops in these Churches Ergo The assumption proved Those whom the Epistles presuppose to have had Episcopall authoritie given them to bee exercised in those Churches they are presupposed to have been ordained Bishops there But the Epistles presuppose them to have had Episcopall authoritie given them to bee exercised in those Churches Ergo. The assumption proved 1. If the Epistles written to Timothy and Titus be the paternes of the Episcopall function informing them and in them all Bishops then they were Bishops But they are so Ergo. 2 Againe whosoever prescribing to Timothy and Titus their duties as governours in these Churches doth prescribe the very dutie of Bishops he doth presuppose them Bishops But Paul doth so For what is the office of a Bishop beside teaching but to ordaine and governe and governe with singularitie of preheminence and maioritie of power in comparison of other Now these are the things which they have in charge Tit. 1.5 1. Tim. 5.22 1. Tim. 1.3.11 2. Tim. 2.16 Ergo. 3 Those things which were written to informe not onely Timothy and Titus but in them all their successours who were Diocesan Bishops those were written to Diocesan Bishops But these were so Ergo to Diocesan Bishops Now that Diocesan Bishops were their successours is proved 1. Either they or Presbyters or Congregations Not the latter 2. Againe Those who did succeed them were their successours But Diocesan Bishops did Ergo. The assumption is manifest by authorities In Ephesus from Timothy to Stephanus in the Councell of Chalcedon And in Crete though no one is read to have succeeded yet there were Bishops Diocesan And we read of Philip Bishop of Gortina the Metropolis 4. Those who were ordinarily resident and lived and died at these Churches were were there Bishops But Timothy was bid abide here Titus to stay to correct all things and they lived and died here For Timothy it is testified by Hegisippus and Clement and Eusebius out of them whom who so refuse to beleeve deserve themselues no beliefe Ergo they were there Bishops Againe Ierom. in Cat. Isidorus de vita morte Sanct. Antoninus par 1. Tit. 6. cap. 28. Niceph. lib. 10. Cap. 11. these doe depose that they lived and died there Further to prove them Bishops 5. Their function was Evangelisticall and extraordinarie or ordinarie not the first that was to end For their function as assigned to these Churches and consisting especially in ordaining and iurisdiction was not to end Ergo. Assumption proved That function which was necessarie to the beeing of the Church was not to end But the function they had as being assigned to certaine Churches is necessarie to the beeing of the Church Ergo. c. 6 Finally that which Antiquitie testifieth agreeing with Scripture is true But they testifie that they were Bishops which the subscriptions of the Epistles also affirme Ergo. Eusebius Lib. 5.
Cap. 4. Dyonis Arcepag Doroth. in Synopsi Ambrose proem in 1. Tim. 1. Ierom. 1. Tim. 1.14 2. Tim. 4. in Catalo Chrysostom in Philip. 1. Epiph. in Haer. 5. Primas prefat in 1. Tim. 1.1 Theod. praefat in Tit. Oecum Sedulius 1. Timoth. 1. as it is sayd in the book of histories Greg. Lib. 2. Cap. 12. Theoph. in Ephes 4. Niceph. lib. 2. Cap. 34. Answer We deny the assumption of the first Syllogisme with all the instances brought to proue it First for Iames we deny he was ordained Bishop or that it can be proued from antiquitie that he was more then other Apostles That which Eusebius reporteth is grounded on Clement whom we know to be a forged magnifier of Romish orders and in this story he doth seeme to imply that Christ should haue ordeyned Peter Iohn and James the greater Bishops Seeing he maketh these to haue ordeyned Iames after they had got of Christ the supreme degree of dignitie which these forged deceitfull Epistles of Anacletus do plainly affirme Secondly as the ground is suspected so the phrase of the Fathers Calling him the Bishop of that Church doth not imply that he was a Bishop properly so called The fathers use the words of Apostoli and Episcopi amply not in their strict formall proprietie Ierom on the first to the Galathians and in his Epistle to Damasus affirmeth that the Prophets and Iohn the Bishop might be called Apostles So many fathers call Phillip an Apostle Clem. 5. Const cap. 7. Euseb lib. 3. cap. ult Tertul. de Bapt. cap. 8. and others In like manner they call the Apostles Bishops not in proprietie of speech but because they did such things as Bishops doe and in remaining here or there made resemblance of them Thus Peter Paul Iohn Barnabas and all the rest are by the Ancients called Bishops Obj. This is granted true touching others but not in this instance of Iames because it is so likely and agreeable to Scripture as well as all other Story that when all the rest of the Apostles departed out of Ierusalem he did still abide with them even to death Answere though this bee but very conjecturall yet it nothing bettereth the cause here It followeth not Hee did abide with this Church Ergo he was the proper Bishop of this Church For not abiding in one Church doth make a Bishop but he must so abide in it that he must from the power of his office onely be bound to teach that Church secondly to teach it as an ordinary Pastor of it thirdly to governe it with a power of jurisdiction limited onely to that Church But Iames was bound to the rest of the Circumcision by his office as they should from all the world resort thither Secondly he did not teach but as an Embassadour extraordinarily sent from Christ and infallibly led by his Spirit into all truth Ergo not as an ordinary Bishop Thirdly as the rest in what Provinces soever they rested had not their jurisdiction diminished but had power occasionally as well where they were not as where they were so it was with Iames. This might happily make the phrase to be more founded out of Iames that he did in this circumstance of residing more neerly expresse an ordinary Pastor then any other It is plaine Antiquitie did hold them all Bishops and gather them so to be a Priori Posteriori the Author de quaest vet nov test cap. 97. Nemo ignorat Episcopos salvatorem Ecclesijs in◅ituisse priusquam ascenderet imponens manus Apostolis ordinavit eos in Episcopos Neither did they thinke them Bishops because they received a limited jurisdiction of any Church but because they were enabled to doe all those things which none but Bishops could regularly doe Oecum cap. 22. in Act. It is to be noted sayth he that Paul and Barnabas had the dignitie of Bishops for they did not make Bishops onely but Presbyters also Now wee must conster the ancient as taking them onely eminentlie and virtuallie to have been bishops or els we must judge them to have been of this mind That the Apostles had both as extraordinary legats most ample power of teaching and governing suting thereto as also the ordinary office of Bishops and Pastors with power of teaching and governing such as doe essentially and ministerially agree to them which indeed D. Downam himselfe confuteth as Popish and not without reason though while he doth strive to have Iames both an Apostle and a Bishop properly himselfe doth confirme it not a little Wherefore it will not be unprofitable to shew some reasons why the Apostles neither were nor might be in both these callings First That which might make us doubt of all their teaching and writing is to be hissed forth as a most dangerous assertion But to make Iames so any of them haue both these offices in proprietie might make us doubt Ergo. The assumptiō proved thus That which doth set them in office of teaching liable to errour when they teach from one office as well as infallibly directed with a rule of infallible discerning when they teach from the other that doth make us subject to doubting in all they teach and write But this opinion doth so Ergo. The proposition is for ought I see of necessarie truth the assumption no lesse true For if there bee any rule to direct Iames infalliblie as he was formally the ordinarie bishop of Ierusalem let us heare it if there were none may not I question whether all his teaching and writing were not subject to errour For if he taught them as an ordinary bishop and did write his Epistle so then certainly it might erre If he did not teach them so then did he not that he was ordained to neither was he properly an ordinarie Pastor but taught as an extraordinary Embassadour from Christ Secondly Those offices which cannot bee exercised by one but the one must expell the other were never by God conjoyned in one person But these doe so Ergo. The assumption is manifest Because it is plain non can be called to teach as a legat extraordinarie with infallible assistance and unlimited jurisdiction but he is made uncapable of being bound to one Church teaching as an ordinarie person with jurisdiction limited to that one Church Againe one can no sooner be called to doe this but at least the exercise of the other is suspended Thirdly that which is to no end is not to be thought to be ordained of God But to give one an ordinarie authoritie whereby to doe this or that in a Church who had a higher and more excellent power of office whereby to doe those same things in the same Church is to no end Ergo. Object But it will be denied that any other power of order or to teach and administer sacraments was given then that hee had as an Apostle but onely jurisdiction or right to this Church as his Church Answer To this I reply first that if hee had no new
power of order he could not be an ordinarie Bishop properlie and formally so called Secondly I say power of governing ordinarie was not needfull for him who had power as an Apostle in any Church where hee should come Obiect But it was not in vaine that by assignation hee should have right to reside in this Church as his Church Answer If by the mutuall agreement in which they were guided by the spirit it was thought meet that Iames should abide in Ierusalem there tending both the Church of the Iewes and the whole circumcision as they by occasion resorted thither then by vertue of his Apostleship hee had no lesse right to tend those of the circumcision by residing here then the other had right to doe the same in the Provinces through which they walked But they did think it meet that he should there tend that Church and with that Church all the Circumcision as they occasionally resorted thereto Ergo. For though hee was assigned to reside there yet his Apostolicke Pastorall care was as Iohns and Peters towards the whole multitude of the dispersed Iewes Galath 2. Now if it were assigned to him for his abode as hee was an Apostolicke Pastor what did hee need assignation under any other title Nay he could not have it otherwise assigned unlesse wee make him to sustaine another person viz. of an ordinary Pastor which he could not be who did receive no such power of order as ordinarie Pastors have Fourthly That calling which hee could not exercise without beeing much abased that hee never was ordained unto as a poynt of honour for him But hee could not exercise the calling of an ordinarie Bishop but hee must bee abased Hee must bee bound by office to meddle with authoritie and jurisdiction but in one Church hee must teach as an ordinarie man liable to errour Ergo hee was neuer ordained to bee a Bishop properlie If it bee sacriledgee to reduce a Bishop to the degree of a Presbyter what is it to bring an Apostle to the degree of a Bishop True it is hee might have been assigned to reside constantly in that Church without travelling and bee no whit abased but then he must keepe there as Pastor of it with Apostolicall authoritie caring not for that Church but the whole number of the Iewes which he might doe without travelling Because who so keeped in that Church hee did not need to goe forth as the rest for the Iewes from all parts come to him But he could not make his abide in it as an ordinarie teacher and governour without becomming many degrees lower then hee was For to live without going forth in the mother Church of all the world as an ordinary pastor was much lesse honour then ro travaile as Peter one while into Assyria another while through Pontus Galatia Bithynia as an Apostle Even as to sit at home in worshipfull privat place is lesse honourable then to goe abroad as Lord Embassadour hither or thither Honour and ease are seldome bed-fellowes Neither was Iames his honour in this circumstance of the â—est but in having such an honorable place wherein to exercise his Apostolicke calling As for that question who was their ordinarie Pastor it is easily answered Their Presbyters such as Linus or Clement in Rome such as Ephesus and other Churches had Iames was their Pastor also but with extraordinary authoritie What needed they an ordinarie Bishop which grew needfull as the favourers of the Hierarchie say to supply the absence of Apostles when now they were to decease What needed then here an ordinary Bishop where the Apostles were joyntly to keepe twelve yeares together and one to reside during his life according to the current of the story Thus much about the first instance To the second instance of Epaphroditus and the argument drawen from it First we deny the proposition For had some ordinarie Pastors been so stiled it might imply but a preheminencie of dignitie in them above other wherefore unlesse this bee interserted it is unsound viz. Those ordinarie Pastors who are called Apostles in comparison of others because the Apostles did give to them power of ordination jurisdiction and peerelesse preheminencie which they did not give to others they are above others Secondly the assumption is false altogether First that Epaphroditus was an ordinarie Pastor secondly that hee was called an Apostle in comparison of inferiour Pastors of that Church Obj. But the iudgment of Ierom Theodoret Chrysostom is that he was Answ the common judgement is that he was an egregious teacher of theirs but further then this many of the testimonies doe not depose Now so he might be for he was an Evangelist and one who had visited and laboured among them and therefore might be called their teacher yea an egregious teacher or Doctor of them Nay S. Ambrose doth plainly insinuate that hee was an Evangelist for he sayth hee was made their Apostle by the Apostle while he sent him to exhort them and because he was a good man he was desired of the people Where he maketh him sent not for perpetuall residence amongst them but for the transient exhorting of them and maketh him so desired of the Philippians because hee was a good man not because he was their ordinarie Pastor Ieroms testimonie on this place doth not evince For the name of Apostles and Doctors is largely taken and as appliable to one who as an Evangelist did instruct them as to any other Theod. doth plainly take him to have been as their ordinarie bishop but no otherwise then Timothy and Titus and other Evangelists are sayd to have been bishops which how true it is in the next argument shall bee discussed For even Theodoret doth take him to have been such an Apostolick person as Timothy and Titus were Now these were as truely called bishops as the Apostles themselves Neither is the rule of Theodoret to be admitted for it is unlike that the name of Apostle should be communicated then with ordinarie Pastors where now there was danger of confounding those eminent ministers of Christ with others and when now the Apostles were deceased that then it should cease to be ascribed to them Againe how shall we know that a bishop is to be placed in a citie that hee must be a person thus and thus according to Pauls Canons qualified all is voided and made not to belong to a bishop For those who are called bishops were Presbyters and no bishops bishops being then to be understood onely under the name of Apostles Angels Thirdly antiquitie doth testifie that this was an honour to bishops when this name was Ecclesiastically appropriated to them But if they ever had been termed by the name of Apostles before this had been a debasing of them Neither is there reason why they should be called Apostles In jurisdiction Apostolical the Apostles were not succeeded Iurisdiction Episcopal they never exercised nor had and therefore could not be succeeded in it The Apostles gave to Presbyters
that which Christ gave them out of his power even the power of ordinary government They are bid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed as well by government as doctrine They are bid not to play the Lords over the flock What feare of tyrannie where there is no power of government But lay authorities aside consider the thing from the text it selfe First Paul seemeth but occasionallie to send him he having purposed to have sent Timothy who as yet could not bee employed I thought it necessarie to send Epaphroditus to you Secondly hee doth implie that Epaphroditus had not returned to them but that he sent him and that therefore he was not the ordinary Bishop of it It is like hee was but sent till Timothy might be dispatched to them Neither is it any thing probable he should be called an Apostle as their ordinarie and eminent Pastor In the Scriptures none are said to be Apostles further then they are in habitude to some sending them Now this is undoubted the Philippians had sent him to Paul It is then most probabl when he is called their Apostle it is in regard he was sent by them which the Apostle pointeth at in the next words who hath ministred to me the things needfull which you sent by him Object But it is unlikely that this word appropriated to the Twelue should be used of those sent civily Not so for while the persons sending are signified they are sufficiently contradistinguished it being the Priviledge of the Apostles that they were the Apostles of Christ Iesus not simply that they were Apostles Secondly Iohn 13. It is made common to all that are sent For though Christ meane it of himselfe yet he implies it by a discourse a genere ad speciem Thirdly we see the like phrase 2. Cor. 8. the Apostles of the Churches For Chrysostome there understandeth those whom the Churches had sent for that present That doth not hinder they were sent by Paul to the Churches therefore the Churches might not send them with their contributions Neither is this an argument that he was their Bishop because their Church sent him for they sent Apostles themselues and Evangelists also more ordinarily it being their office to goe from Church to Church for the edification of them For the instance of Archippus I finde it not urged Now to come to the last instances of Timotheus and Titus First we deny the Antecedent that they were instituted Bishops by Paul And in the first prosillogisme we deny the Assumption that the Epistles doe presuppose so much And to the prosillogism tending to proue this assertion denyed we answer first to the proposition by distinguishing the Episcopall authoritie which is considered both in regard of that which is materiall and in regard of the formall reason which doth agree to it The Propsition is true understanding it of authority in both these regards those who are presupposed to haue had authority Episcopall given them both for the substance of it and the formall reason which doth agree to it in an ordinary Bishop they are presupposed Bishops but this is denyed For they are presupposed to haue and exercise power Episcopall for the materiall of it as Apostles had also but not to haue and exercise in that manner and formallitie which doth agree to a Bishop but which doth agree to an Euangelist and therefore they are bidden to doe the worke of an Euangelist to exercise all that power they did exercise as Euangelists There is nothing that Paul writeth to Timothy to doe in Ephesus or to Titus Crete which himselfe present in person might not and would not haue done If we should reason then thus He who did exercise Episcopall power in these churches he is presupposed to haue been Bishop in them This proposition is not true but with limitation He who exercised Episcopall power after that formall manner which doth agree to the office of a Bishop he was Bishop but not he who exerciseth the power secundum aliam rationem modum viz. after such a manner as doth agree to an Apostle To the second maine proofe wee denie the proposition If patternes for Bishops then written to Bishops The reason is Apostles Euangelists ordinarie Pastors haue many things common in their administration Hence is it that the example of the one may be a patterne to another though they are not identically and formally of one calling Councels haue enjoyned all Presbyters to be well seene in these Epistles as being patternes for them Vide Aug. De doctrin Christ. cap. 16. lib. 4. To the third reason Who so prescribing them their duties doth propose the verie duties of Bishops hee doeth take them to haue beene Bishops The Proposition is not true without a double limitation If the Apostle should propose such duties of Bishops as they in later times usurped he doth not therfore presuppose them Bishops because these are duties of Euangelists agreeing to Bishops onely by usurpation Againe should he propose those duties which say they the word doth ascribe and appropriate to Bishops yet if he doe not prescribe them as well in regard of matter as forme exercised by them it will not follow that he doth take them for Bishops nor that Paul doth propose the verie duties of Bishops both in substance and manner of performance Secondly wee deny him to propose for substance the duties of Bishops For hee doth not bid him ordaine as having a further sacramentall power then other Ministers nor governe with power directiue and correctiue over others This exceedeth the bounds of all ministeriall power Thirdly Timothie is not bid to lay on hands or doe any other act when now churches were constituted but with concurrence of those churches salvo uniuscujusque Ecclesiae jure the Apostles did not otherwise For though Paul wrote to him alone that was because he was occupied not onely in Churches perfectly framed but also in the erecting framing of others Secondly because they were in degree and dignity aboue all other ordinary governours of the Church which their Consul-like preheminence was sufficient why they should be written to alone To the fourth reason Those things which were written to informe not onely Timothy and Titus but all their successours who were Diocesan Bishops those were written to Diocesan Bishops But these were so Ergo The Proposition is not true because it presupposeth that nothing written to any persons can informe Diocesan Bishops unlesse the persons to whom it is written be formally in that selfe same order For if one Apostle should write to another touching the duty Apostolique it might informe any Doctor or Pastor whatsoever Secondly we deny Diocesan Bishops are de jure successours As for the equivocal Catalogue which maketh all who are read Bishops to haue been Diocesan we shall speake of them hereafter The Bishops between Timothy and Stephanus in the time of the Chalcedom Councell were not all of one cut and there are no
Titus that Paul did not put upon them But to haue brought them from the honour of serving the Gospell as Collaterall companions of the Apostles to be ordinary Pastors had abased them Ergo this to be ordinary Pastors Paul did not put upon them Obj. The assumption is denyed it was no abasement For before they were but Presbyters and afterward by imposition of hands were made Bishops why should they receiue imposition of hands and a new ordination if they did not receiue an ordinarie calling we meane if they were not admitted into ordinary functions by imposition of hands I answer This denyall with all whereon it is builded is grosse For to bring them from a Superiour order to an Inferiour is to abase them But the Euangelists office was superiour to Pastors Ergo. The assumption proved First Every office is so much the greater by how much the power of it is of ampler extent and lesse restrained But the Euangelists power of teaching and governing was illimitted Ergo. The assumption proved Where ever an Apostle did that part of Gods worke which belonged to an Apostle there an Euangelist might doe that which belonged to him But that part of Gods work which belonged to an Apostle he might doe any where without limitation Ergo. Secondly Every Minister by how much â—e doth more approximate to the highest by so much he is higher But the companions coadjutors of the Apostles were neerer then ordinarie Pastors Ergo. Who are next the King in his Kingdome but those who are Regis Comites The Euangelists were Comites of these Ecclesiasticall Cheiftaines Chrysostome doth expresly say on Ephes 4. That the Euangelists in an ambulatorie course spreading the Gospell were aboue any Bishop or Pastor which resteth in a certain Church Wherefore to make them Presbyters is a weake conceite For every Presbyter properly so called was constituted in a certain Church to doe the work of the Lord in a certaine Church But Euangelists were not but to doe the worke of the Lord in any Church as they should be occasioned Ergo they were no Presbyters properly so called Now for their ordination Timothie received none as the Doctor conceiveth but what hee had from the hand of the Apostle and Presbyters when now he was taken of Paul to be his companion For no doubt but the Church which gaue him a good testimony did by her Presbyters concurre with Paul in his promoting to that office Obj. What could they lay on hands with the Apostles which Philip could not and could they enter one into an extraordinary office Ans They did lay on hands with the Apostles as it is expresly read both of the Apostles and them It is one thing to use precatorie imposition another to use miraculous imposition such as the Apostles did whereby the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were conferred In the first Presbyters haue power Neither is it certaine that Phillip could not haue imposed hands and given the Holy Ghost For though he could he might choose in wisedom for their greater confirmation and edification to let that bee done by persons more eminent Finally imposition of hands may be used in promoting and setting one forth to an extraordinarie office For every extraordinarie office is not attended with immediate vocation from God As the calling of Evangelists though extraordinarie was in this unlike the calling of Apostles and Prophets Secondly men called immediatly may be promoted to the more fruitfull exercise of their immediate and extraordinarie callings by imposition of hands from their inferiours as Paul and Barnabas were Howsoever it is plaine that Timothie by imposition of hands was ordained to no calling but the calling of an Evangelist For that calling he was ordained to which he is called on by Paul to exercise and fully execute But hee is called on by him to doe the work of an Evangelist Ergo that calling he was ordained to That work which exceedeth the calling of an ordinarie Bishop was not put upon an ordinarie Bishop But Titus his work did so for it was to plant Presbyters towne by towne through a Nation Ergo. For the ordinarie plantation and erecting of Churches to their due frame exceedeth the calling of an ordinarie Bishop But this was Titus his worke Ergo. Bishops are given to particular Churches when now they are framed that they may keepe them winde and wether tight they are not to lay foundations or to exedifie some imperfect beginnings But say Titus had been a Bishop he is no warrant for ordinarie Bishops but for Primates whose authoritie did reach through whole Ilands Nay if the Doctors rule out of Theodoret were good it would serve for a Bishop of the pluralitie cut For it is sayd he placed Presbyters citie by citie or town by towne who are in name onely Bishops but not that hee placed Angels or Apostles in any part of it He therefore was the sole Bishop of them the test were but Presbyters such as had the name not the office and government of Bishops Finally were it granted that they were ordinarie Bishops and written to doe the things that Bishops doe yet would it not bee a ground for their majoritie of power in matter sacramentall and jurisdiction as is aboue excepted The fifth Argument The Ministers which the Church had generally and perpetually the first 300. yeares after Christ and his Apostles and was not ordained by any generall Councell were undoubtedly of Apostolicall institution But the Church ever had Diocesan Bishops in singularitie of preheminence during life and in maioritie of power of ordination and jurisdiction above others and these not instituted by generall Councels Ergo. The proposition is plain both by Austin de Bapt. contra Donat. lib. 4. Epist 118. and by Tertul. Constaâ— id ab Apostolis traditum quod apud Ecclesias Apostolorum fuit sacrosanctum For who can thinke that all the Churches generally would conspire to abolish the order of Christ planted by the Apostles and set up other ministers then Christ had ordained The assumption is plaine for if the Church had Metropolitans anciently and from the beginning as the Councell of Nice testifieth much more Bishops For Diocesan Bishops must be before them they rising of combination of Cities and Diocies And the councell of Ephesus testifieth the government of those Bishops of Cyprus to haue been ever from the beginning according to the custom of old received Yea that the attempt of the Bishop of Antioch was against the Canons of the Apostles Again Cyprian doth testifie that long before his time Bishops were placed in all provinces and Cities besides the succession of Bishops from the Apostles times for they prove their originall to haue been in the Apostles times Neither were they instituted by any generall Councell For long before the first generall Councell we read Metropolitans to have been ordained in the Churches Yea Ierom himselfe is of opinion that no Councell of after times but the Apostles themselues did ordaine
and Regall such as is in Christ or it is ministeriall and servile such as is in the Church and the principall members of it The power therfore of the Apostles themselves and Evangelists is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 20. 1. Tim. 4. yea such a service as doth make the ministers having it so servants that they are no way Lords Many ministers one Lord we preach Christ ourselves your servants for Iesus sake S. Paul maketh his power steward-like not regall Now as that is regall power which doth any thing from the authoritie one hath in himselfe or from ones pleasure so that is ministeriall power which doth nothing but eying the will and power of him that is principall a power which signifieth or executeth this or that ex mero altâ—rius obsequio Conclus 2. This ministeriall power is no supernaturall vertue or qualitie inherent in the foule but a relative respect founded on this that I am called by God to this or that actuall admimnistration in his Church For it is not a power simply whereby a man is made able to doe some supernaturall act which he could not before in any manner performe but it is respectively sayd a power in as much as it doth inable him to doe those acts in the Church of God lawfully and ex officio vvith vvhich before hee might not intermedle The power of a Deacon Pastor Evangelist Apostle belong to one predicament in regard of that which is the genus or common nature of them the power of the Church cannot be other Naturall and civill power doth vvith vertue and efficacie reach those effects and ends to vvhich they are designed because they are proportioned to them and exceed not their activitie but Ecclesiastical power cannot thus concurre to the end and effects for which it is ordained because they are such as the omnipotencie of God onely can produce as the converting or creating grace in the heart of a sinner to vvhich no supernaturall vertue in man can by any reall though instrumentarie efficacie conduce any thing Conclus 3. God hath not given ministeriall power to any vvhich himselfe is not personally to discharge nor in further plenitude then that by himselfe it may be performed The reason is because God cannot give one the charge of doing more then a mans proper industry can atchieve but hee must withall put it in a mans power to take others and to impart with them power of teaâ—hing and governing so farre as may supply that defect which is in his strength to performe it alone Hee that will have the end will have that vvithout vvhich the end cannot be attained If God vvould have any one an universall pastor to all the Churches of the vvorld hee must needs allow him power to substitute Pastors here and there deriving unto them power both to teach and governe so far as may supply his absence in the Pastorall care If I will have one keep my flocks vvhich goe in 20 sheep-gates if I commit them them to one I must needs together give him leave to assume unto himselfe such as may be under-sheepheards to him Thus if God giue a Bishop the plenitude of Pastorall care and government over all the Parashionall Churches through a Diocesse hee must needs together allovv him this povver of being a head of internall influence even a head virtually communicating vvith others part of pastorall power vvhether teaching or government Thus should none but Bishops be ex officio servants in Pastorall cure to God all others should bee immediatly and formally servants to the Bishop and doe everie thing in the name of the Bishop being immediatly onely and in a remote sense the servants of God as in the former comparison of one servant receiving from his master the care of all the flockes he is the masters servant to vvhom the master committeth the trust from vvhom he onely looketh to see it performed but those whom this sheepheard taketh to himselfe for his aide they come under his dominion and are servants to him If it be sayd that God doth not thus make the Bishop Pastor but that he will likewise that there be parish Pastors under him and helpes of government To this I answer if God will have them then either after his own designement or else leaving it to the Bishops arbitrement if hee leave it to the Bishops arbitrement then the objection before is in force God will looke for the cure from him onely he shall take according to his judgement such as may help him If God will have them after his own designment then he giveth the Bishop no more Pastorall power then he can discharge himselfe others having their right in all the Bishop cannot execute as well as the Bishop and as immediatly from Christ Some write as if the Apostles had the plenitude of all Pastorall power that from them it might be derived to the Church it being seen through nature that inferiour things receive iufluence from the superiour But they misconceive the matter they had only a power to serve the Church with the personall service of their Apostleship The Pastorall power of Evangelists or of ordinarie Pastors and teachers they never had For as Christ gave the one order so the two other also for the gathering of the Saints and exaedifying of the body of Christ and no person in any ranke had any power to do this or that in the Church further then himselfe might performe in person The steward in a house hath ful power of a steward but not the power of all other officers as Clark of the kitchin Butler Chamberlaine c. So in these divers orders of servants in Gods house his Church If the Apostles had had the fulnesse of Pastorall cure they should then have ordained others Evangelists and Pastors not onely by ministeriall mediation of their persons calling them but also by mediation of vertue Conclus 4. One ministeriall power may bee in degree of dignitie aboue another For the power of one may be about more noble acts then the power of another or in the same kind the power of one may be more extended and the power of another more contracted Thus the Deacons had for the object of their power and care not so excellent a thing as that of Pastors Evangelists and Apostles Thus the power of ordinarie Pastors was not so universall as the Apostles even as in the orders of servants domesticall some are implied about lesser some about greater and more honorable subjects Concl. 5. No order of Ministers or servants can have majoritie of directive and corrective power over those who are in inferiour order of ministerie and service The reason is because this exceedeth the bounds of ministeriall power and is a participation of that despoticall power which is appropriate to the master of the familie Concl. 6. Servants in one degree may have power to signifie their masters direction and to execute ministerially what their master out of his
Bishops received from their Churches And Atbanasius yet a Deacon is read to have been at the Councell of Nice and to have had right of suffrage in it Finally the Presbyteries did a long time execute joyntly all actions of Church government as is before declared Other arguments we shall touch in answer of these which have been objected Now to come to the conclusions let this be first Conclus 1. Extraordinarie power was committed to some singular persons so that in some case they might singularly exercise it without concurrence of other This I speak in regard of Apostles and Evangelists whose power in many things could not have concurrence of particular Churches which in the former question is sufficiently declared Conclus 2. That ordinarie power and the execution thereof was not committed to any singular governors whereof there was to be one onely in each Church This is against the Iesuits who make account the most of them â—hat as all civill power of government is given to kings to be executed by them within their common-wealth so Ecclesiasticall power say they is given to the Pope and to Bishops in their particular Churches to be executed by them and derived from them to the whole Church Conclus 3. Ordinarie power with the execution thereof was not given to the communitie of the Church or to the whole multitude of the faithfull so that they were the immediate and first receptacle receiving it from Christ and virtually deriving it to others This I set downe against the Divines of Constance our prime Divines as Luther and Melancthon and the Sorbonists who doe maintaine it at this day Yea this seemeth to have been Tertullians errour for in his booke de pudicitia he maketh Christ to haue left all Christians with like power but the Church for her honor did dispose it as we see The proportion of a pollitick body and naturall deceived them while they will apply all that is in these to Christs mysticall body not remembring that analogon is not in omni simile for then should should it be the same with the analogatum True it is all civill power is in the body politicke the collections of subjects then in a King from them And all the power of hearing seeing they are in the whole man which doth produce them effectually though formally and instrumentally they are in the care and eye But the reason of this is because these powers are naturall and what ever is naturall doth first agree to the communitie or totum and afterward to a particular person and part but all that is in this body cannot hold in Christs mysticall body In a politick body power is first in the communitie in the King from them but all Ecclesiasticall power is first in our King before any in the Church from him But to whom should he first commit this power but to his Queene Answ Considering this power is not any Lordly power but a power of doing service to the Church for Christ his sake Therfore it is fit it should be committed to some persons and not to the whole communitie which are the Queen of Christ For it is not fit a King should commit power to his Queene to serve herselfe properly but to haue persons who in regard of this relation should stand distinguished from her Secondly in naturall bodies the power of seeing is first immediatly in the man from the man in the eye and particular members In the mysticall body the faith of a beleever is not first immediatly in all then in the beleever but first of all and immediatly in the personall beleever for whose good it serveth more properly then for the whole every man being to live by his own faith The power of Priesthood was not first in the Church of Israell so derived to the Priest but immediatly from Christ seated in Aaron and his sonnes Obiect Yea they were given the Church intuitu eiusdem tanquam finis totius Answ I but this is not enough that power may be sayd to be immediatly received by the Church as the first receptacle of it and from it derived to others as the power of seeing is not onely given intuitu hominis as the end of it and the totum to whom it agreeth but is in homine as the first subiect from whom it commeth to the eye But the power even of ordinary ministers is not in the Church For as all are sayd not to have been Apostles so not to have been Doctors But if the power of ordinarie teaching had been given to every beleever all should have been made Doctors though not to continue so in exercising the power Secondly were the power in the Church the Church should not onely call them but make them out of vertue and power received into her selfe then should the Church have a true Lordlike power in regard of her ministers Besides there are many in the communitie of Christians uncapable of this power regularly as women and children This conclusion in my judgment Victoria Soto others deny with greater strength of reason then the contrary is maintained Conclus 4. Fourthly ordinary power of ministeriall government is committed with the execution of it to the Senat or Presbyterie of the Church If any faile in any office the Church hath not power of supplying that but a ministery of calling one whom Christ hath described that from Christ he may have power of office given him in the place vacant Conclus 5. Lastly though the communitie have not power given her yet such estate by Christ her husband is put on her that all power is to be executed in such manner as standeth with respect to her excellencie Hence it is that the governours are in many things of greater moment to take the consent of the people with them Not that they have ioynt power of the keyes with them but because they sustaine the person of the spouse of Christ and therefore cannot be otherwise dealt with without open dishonor in such things which belong in common to the whole congregation Now to answer the arguments first propounded The Proposition of the first Syllogisme is denyed That what was committed to the Church was committed to some principall member And we deny the second part of the next Syllogisme proving this part denyed For the power and execution was committed to a Church in a Church Which is so farre from absurditie that he is absurd who doth not see it in Civill and Sacred Doe we not see in Parliament a representatiue Common-wealth within our Common-wealth having the greatest authority Not to mention that a Church within a Church should not be strange to them who imagine many Parishionall Churches within one Diocesan Church To the proofes which prevent as it were an objection shewing that the Church Math. 18.17 may be put for one chiefe Governour The proposition is denyed Jf that Peter one Governour may be in type and figure the Church to whom the jurisdiction is promised
then the Church receiving and executing it may be one A most false Proposition whose contrary is true The reason is because the Church typified by Peter is properly and really a Church not figuratiuely and improperly for then Peter should haue bene a figure or type of a type or figuratiue Church The figure therfore and type being of the Church which is properly taken and the Church properly and really taken being a company assembled hence it is that Math. 18.17 the Church cannot signifie one for one is but figuratiuely and improperly a Church There is not the same reason of the figure and the thing that is figured Nay hence an Argument may be retorted proving that by that Church whereof Peter was a figure is not meant one chiefe Governour Peter as one man or Governour was properly and really a virtuall Church and chiefe Governour But Peter as one man and Governour was in figure onely the Church Math. 18. Ergo that Church Math. 18. is not a virtuall Church noting forth one chiefe Governour onely As for Cyprians speech it doth nothing but shew the conjunction of Pastor and people by mutuall loue which is so streight that the one cannot be schismatically left out but the other is forsaken also Otherwise I thinke it cannot be shewed to the time of Innocentius 3. that the Bishop was counted the Church or this dreame of a virtuall Church once imagined The Clerkes of the Church of Placentia did in their oath of canonicall obedience sweare thus That they would obey the Church of Placentia and the Lord their Bishop Where the Chapiter doth carrie the name of the Church from the Bishop Yea even in those times preposed or set before him when the Pope was lifted up aboue generall Councels then it is like was the first nativity of these virtuall Churches As for a Kingdom I doubt not but it may be put for a King figuratiuely but the Church typified by Peter must needs be a Church properly And it will never be proved that any one Governour was set up in a Church proportionable to a King in a Common-wealth in whom is all civill power wherby the whole Kingdom is administred To the second Argument from the Apostles fact in the Church of Corinth who judicially absent sentenced his excommunication I haue decreed or judged leaving nothing to the Church but out of their obedience to decline him as in the 2. Epist 2. he saith For this cause I haue written to you that I may prooue whether you will in all things be obedient What Arguments are these He that judgeth one to be excommunicated he leaveth no place for the Presbyters and Church of Corinth judicially to excommunicate Thus I might reason Act. 15.17 from Iames 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He who doth judicially sentence a thing he leaveth no place to other Apostles and Presbyters to giue sentence The truth is the Apostle might haue judged him to be excommunicate and an Euangelist if present might haue judged him also to be excommunicate and yet place left for the Churches judgement also These are subordinate one to the other Here it may be objected that if place be left for the Churches judgement after the Apostles sentence then the Church is free not to excommunicate where the Apostles haue and the same man should be excommunicate and not excommunicate Ans Suppose the Apostles could excommunicate Clave errante without cause it is true But the Apostles sentence being just shee is not free in as much as she cannot lawfully but doe that which lyeth on her when now it is especially shewed her and by example she is provoked Yea where she should see just cause of excommunicating she is not though none call on her free not to excommunicate Neverthelesse though she is not free so as she can lawfully not excommunicate yet she is free speaking of freedome absolutely and simply and if she should not excommunicate him he should remaine not excommunicable but excommunicate by chiefe judgement yet it should not be executed by the sinister favour of a particular Church As say Sauls sentence had been just and the peoples favour had been unjust Ionathan had been under condemnation but execution had been prevented by the peoples headstrong affection towards him Ob. So they who obeyed Paul they did not judicially excommunicate Ans As though one may not exercise power or government by manner of obedience to the exhortation of a superiour Touching the place in the Thessalonians those that read Note him by an Epistle doe goe against the consent of all Greek Interpreters And the context doth shew that it is a judiciary noting one such as caused him to be avoided by others and tended to breed shame in him As for Paules excommunicating Hymenaeus and Alexander It will not follow That which he did alone an ordinary Pastor may doe alone Secondly it is not like he did it alone but as he cast out the Corinthian though the whole proceeding be not noted Though Paul saith I delivered them So he saith grace was given Timothy by imposition of his hands 2. Tim. 1.6 when yet the Presbyterie ioyned 1. Tim. 4.14 Thirdly it may be they were no fixed members in any constituted Church The third argument of Timothy and Titus hath been sufficiently discussed To the fourth That one is fitter for execution then many To which we may adde that though the Bishops be but as Consuls in a Senat or Vice-chancellors in a universitie having when they sit with others no more power then the rest Yet these have execution of many things committed to them The assertion viz. That many are lesse fit for execution we deny That order is fittest which God instituted But he doth commit the keyes to the Church to many that they might exercise the authoritie of them when that mean is most fit which God will most blesse and his blessing doth follow his own order this is the fitttest Secondly in the Apostles times and in the times after almost foure hundred yeares expired Presbyters did continue with Bishops in governing and executing what ever was decreed Thirdly this depravation from the first order one to execute for a Diocesan one for a Provinciall the decrees of a Diocesan and Provinciall drew on a necessitie of one to execute the decrees of the Oecumenicall Church or Pope Fourthly Let them shew where God divided the power of making lawes for government of any Church from the power to execute them Regularly they who have the greater committed have the lesser also Fiftly we see even in civill governments many parts by ioynt Councell and action are as happily governed as others are by a singular governour Truely that the Affrican Fathers write to Celestine is true It is unlikely that God will be present with one insspiring him with his spirit and not be present with many who are in his name and with his warrant assembled As for those comparisons they hold not in all they hold in that
which the Consull doth in calling the assembly propounding things c. Yet the Consuls never took the power to censure their fellowes without the concurrence of their fellow Senators nor to withdraw themselves from being subiect to the censure of the rest of the Senate To the fift argument to the proposition by distinction if they have all power both of ministeriall application and instituting others out of vertue and authoritie then Pastours derive But this is denyed She hath no power but of Ministerie and no plenitude but so farre as they in their own persons can discharge It presupposeth therefore we affirme in our question what we doe not But to let the proposition passe because of some derivation it is true If she have but all power of Ministeriall application then Bishops derive from her But they doe not We say they doe And whereas it is objected that which the Church never had she cannot convey it I answer that which the Church never had she cannot virvirtually convey it but she may as ministering to him who hath the power and vertue of deriving it Nothing can give that which it hath not either formally or virtually unlesse it give it as an instrument to one who hath it A man not having a peny of his own may give an hundred pounds if the king make him his Almoner A Steward may give all offices in his masters house as ministerially executing his masters pleasure Thus the Church deriveth as taking the person whom Christ describeth and out of power will haue placed in this or that office in his Church This answereth to the last suggestion For if the Church did virtually and out of power make an officer it is true as wee see with those whom the King maketh in the common-wealth But if she doe it in Steward-like manner ministring to the sole Lord and master of his house then is not he so taken in to doe in his name but in his masters name As a Butler taken in by a servant doth execute his office not in master Stewards name but in his masters who onely out of power did conferre it on him The last obiection I answer That the particular Church may depose their Bishop What member soever in the Church is the offending person may be complained of to the Church The Church of Philippi if it had power to see that Archippus doe his dutie then it had power to reprove and censure him not doing it If the Church have power by election to choose one their Bishop and so power of instituting him then of destituting also Instituere destituere ejusdem est potestatis But hee is given the onely iudge in Christs roome and though they elect him yet as you haue sayd and truly they have not the power of that authoritie in them to which he is elected No more then the Electors of the Emperour haue in them power of the imperiall dignitie Answer Wee say therefore that as the Church hath onely ministeriall power of application that is as they cannot out of power call a Pastour but onely call one whom Christ poynteth out and to whom Christ out of power giveth the place of Pastour So she cannot censure or depose but onely ministerially executing the censure of Christ who will have such a one turned out or otherwise censured But the Bishop never was sole judge though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he may be said so Christ instituted a Presbyterie in which all had equall power of iudgement Cyprian Ep. 68 in the case of Basilides Martialis doth shew that the Church had power as of choosing worthy so of refusing unworthy Hee speaketh of an ordinarie power as by choosing is manifest not extraordinarie and in case of necessitie And Mr. Field maintaineth that Liberius was lawfully deposed by the Church of Rome Surely I marvell men of learning will deny it when no reason evinceth the Pope though a generall Pastour subiect to the censure of a Church Oecumenicall but the same proveth a Diocesan Bishop subiect to the censure of the particular Church Vnlesse they will say with some Schoolmen Soto viz. That the Pope is but the vicar of Christ in the generall Church but the Bishop is both the vicar of Christ and also representeth the generall Church in his Diocesse whence he cannot be proceeded against by the Church that is a particular As if to be a vicar of Christ were a lesser matter then to represent the Church Secondlie I marvell how hee commeth to represent the generall Church with whom in his calling the Church Oecumenicall hath nothing to doe To that which is obiected touching Fathers Pastours the similitudes hold not in all things Natural parents are no wayes children nor in state of subiection to their children but spirituall fathers are so fathers that in some respect they are children to the whole Church So sheepheards are no wayes sheep but ministers are in regard of the whole Church Secondly Parents and Sheepheards are absolutelie parents and sheepheards bee they good or evill but spirituall Parents and Pastors are no longer so then they doe accordingly behave themselves Besides are not civil Kings Parents and Pastors of their people yet if they be not absolute Monarches it was never esteemed as absurd to say that their people had power in some cases to depose them If their owne Churches have no power over them it will be hard to shew wherein others haue such power of iurisdiction over persons who belong not to their owne churches But Lord Bishops must take state on them and not subiect themselves unto any triall but by their Peeresonely which is by a Councell of Bishops FINIS ERRATA PAg. 1. lin 15. read constitute for continued pag. 3. lin 1. five of these were Metropol l. 2. two Diocesan at least Philadelphia and Thyatira l. 25. citie for citie Church pag. 5. l. 30. read Bishop for Pastor pag. 7. l. 2. Cypr. lib. 4. epist l. 34. In the nationall pag. 11. l. 2. Synagogues in villages as well as in cities l. 16. were at the first constitute pag. 17. l. 31. nay any constant government at all Pag. 18. l. 16. Philadelphia and Thyatira pag. 22. l. 36. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 24. l. 28. not to the Presbyters of Ephesus pag. 28. l. 10. Iohn the baptist pag. 35. l. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 37. l. 33. and in like sence others a primate pag. 51. grat is The rest of the literall faults and wants may be easily supplied by the understanding Reader
in one Congregation In which question he maintaineth against his adversaries a course not unlike to that which Armachanus in the daies of King Edward the third contended for against the begging Friers in his booke called The Defence of Curates For when those Friers incroached upon the priviledges of Parochiall Ministers he withstood them upon these grounds Ecclesia Parochialis juxta verba Mosis Deut. 12. est locus electus a Deo in quo debemus accipere cuncta quae praecipit Dominus ex Sacramentis Parochus est ordinarius Parochiani est persona a Deo praecepta vel mandato Deâ— ad illud ministerium explendum electa Which if they be granted our adversaries cause may goe a begging with the fore said Friers Another sort of corruptions there are which though they depend upon the same ground with the former yet immediately flow out of the Hierarchie What is more dissonant from the revealed will of Christ in the Gospell even also from the state of the Primitive Church then that the Church and Kingdome of Christ should be managed as the Kingdomes of the world by a Lordly authoritie with externall pompe commanding power contentious courts of judgement furnished with chancellours officials commissaries advocates proctors paritors and such like humane devises Yet all this doth necessarily follow upon the admitting of such Bishops as ours are in England who not onely are Lords over the flock but doe professe so much in the highest degree when they tell us plainely that their Lawes or Canons doe binde mens consciences For herein wee are like to the people of Israel who would not have God for their immediate King but would have such Kings as other Nations Even so the Papists and we after them refuse to have Christ an immediate King in the immediate government of the Church but must have Lordly Rulers with state in Ecclesiasticall affaires such as the world hath in civill What a miserable pickle are the most of our Ministers in when they are urged to give an account of their calling To a Papist in deed they can give a shifting ansvver that they have ordination from Bishops which Bishops were ordained by other Bishops and they or their ordeyners by Popish Bishops this in part may stop the mouth of a Papist but let a Protestant which doubteth of these matters move the question and what then will they say If they flie to popish Bishops as they are popish then let them goe no longer masked under the name of Protestants If they alledge succession by them from the Apostles then to say nothing of the appropriating of this succession unto the Popes chaire in whose name and by vvhole authority our English Bishops did all things in times past then I say they must take a great time for the satisfying of a poore man concerning this question and for the justifying of their station For untill that out of good records they can shew perpetuall succession from the Apostles unto their Diocesan which ordained them and untill they can make the poore man which doubteth perceiue the truth and certaintie of those records which I wisse they will doe at leasure they can never make that succession appeare If they flie to the Kings authoritie the King himselfe will forsake them and denie that hee taketh upon him to make or call Ministers If to the present Bishops and Arch-bishops alas they are as farre to seeke as themselues and much further The proper cause of all this misery is the lifting up of a lordly Prelacie upon the ruines of the Churches liberties How intollerable a bondage is it that a Minister being called to a charge may not preach to his people except he hath a licence from the Bishop or Arch-bishop Cannot receiue the best of his Congregation to communion if he be censured in the spirituall Courts though it be but for not paying of sixe pence which they required of him in any name be the man otherwise never so innocent nor keep one from the communion that is not presented in those Courts or being presented is for money absolved though he be never so scandalous and must often times if he will hold his place against his conscience put back those from communion with Christ whom Christ doth call unto it as good Christians if they will not kneele and receive those that Christ putteth backe at the command of a mortall man What a burthen are poore Ministers pressed with in that many hundreds of them depend upon one Bitshop and his Officers they must hurrie up to the spirituall Court upon every occasion there to stand with cap in hand not onely before a Bishop but before his Chancellour to be railed on many times at his pleasure to be censured suspended deprived for not observing some of those Canons which were of purpose framed for snares when far more ancient and honest canons are every day broken by these Iudges themselues for lucre sake as in the making of Vtopian Ministers who haue no people to minister unto in their holding of commendams in their taking of money even to extortion for orders and institutions in their symonie as well by giving as by taking and in all their idle covetous and ambitious pompe For all these and such like abuses we are beholding to the Lordlinesse of our Hierarchie which in the root of it is heere overthrowen by M. Bayne in the conclusions of the second and third Question About which he hath the very same controversie that Marsilius Patavinus in part undertooke long since about the time of Edward the second against the Pope For he in his booke called Defensor pacis layeth the same grounds that here are maintained Some of his words though they be large I will here set down for the Readers information Potestas clavium sive solvendi ligandi est essentialis insparabilis Presbytero inquantum Presbyter est In hac authoritate Episcopus a sacerdote non differt teste Hieronymo imo verius Apostoiâ— cuius etiam est aperta sententia Inquit enim Hieronymus super Mat. 16. Habent quidem eandem judiciariam potestatem alii Apostoli habet omnes Ecclesia in Presbyteris Episcopis praeponens in hoc Presbyteros quoniam authoritas haec debetur Presbytero in quantum Presbyter primo secundum quod ipsum Haec nomina Presbyter Episcopus in primitiva Ecelesia fuerunt synomina quamvis a diversis proprietatibus eidem imposita fuerint Presbyter ab aetate nomen impositum est quasi senior Episcopus vero a dignitate ceu cura super alios quasi superintendens Many things are there discoursed to the same purpose dict 2. c. 15. It were too long to recite all Yet one thing is worthy to be observed how he interpreteth a phrase of Ierome so much alledged and built upon by the Patrones of our Hierarchie Ierome sayth ad Evagr. that a Bishop doth nothing excepting ordination which a Presbyter may not doe Of this testimonie D.