in every Epistle he so plainly enforces his Exhortation of obedience to the Bishop purely by vertue of the command of Christ. And thus have I cleared the Records of the Church from the defect of ambiguity grounded upon those four pretences That the Succession might be only of a different degree That it is not clear and convincing in all places That where it is clearest it it meant of a succession of Doctrine and not of Persons And lastly That if it were of Persons yet Presbyters are said to succeed the Apostles as well as Bishops By which last we have already cleared the next thing objected to shew the ambiguity of the Testimony of Antiquity which was the promiscuous use of the names Bishop and Presbyter after the distinction between their Office was brought in by the Church which I have already shewn to be false and that if it were true it utterly destroys their Argument of the Identity of a Bishop and a Presbyter in the Apostles times from the promiscuous use of the names But because new Instances are here brought to prove the same thing we must follow And first as for the passages cited out of Clemens Romanus he is confessed to have written before the distinction of the names and therefore is here cited to no purpose But the great and only Testimony is that of the Gallican Church who in their Epistle to Eleutherius Bishop of Rome give Irenaeus the title of Presbyter though he had been nine years Bishop of Lyons And this looks very big if it were true but it is a meer Chronological Blunder of Blondel against the clearest Testimony of all Antiquity For first the Martyrs of Lyons in their Epistle to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia speaking of their Bishop Pothinus they give give him that Title but in this Epistle to Eleutherius they or as Blondel will have it the Church of Lyons give Irenaeus only the Title of Presbyter and both Eusebius and St. Jerom affirm that he was no more at the writing of it To all which Blondel objects that they both place the Martyrdom of Pothinus and his Frenchmen immediately after that of Polycarp and the Asiaticks which was in the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius and therefore the other was about the same time so that when Irenaeus went to Rome with the Letter to Eleutherius which was in the seventeenth year of that Emperour he had been so long Bishop But to this it is easily answered that though the Relation of these two Martyrdoms immediately follow one another in Eusebius his Cronicon and St. Jeroms Translation yet it does not at all follow that they immediately followed in time Because these two Martyrdoms are all that they mention concerning the fourth Persecution which lasted the greatest part of the Reign of Marcus Aurelius so that though one were in the seventh the other might be in the seventeenth of that Emperour and therefore we ought to follow Eusebius his more accurate account in his History who there expresly places it in the seventeenth year and withal affirms that Irenaeus was then only Presbyter rather than from so weak a surmise from the nearness of the Stories in his Chronicon to bring confusion upon the whole History especially when it so fairly clears it self in that this Letter was directed to Eleutherius who succeeded in the Church of Rome in the sixteenth year of Marcus Aurelius and in the same year that he came to that See the Gallican Persecution began and therefore it was impossible that Irenaeus could be advanced to the Bishoprick before that time so that it is like the rest of Blondels stretches to infer from a remote guess that the Persecution was in the seventh year when it is evident from the clearest Story that it was not till the sixteenth or seventeeth And now this Chronological mistake being removed this Testimony is clearly evacuated and so this business is wholly ended The last thing alledged to prove the Ambiguity of the Testimony of the Ancients is that the Church did not own Episcopacy as a Divine Institution but Ecclesiastical But of this Argument I shall choose to discourse in the last place in answer to the sententiae Hieronymi because it is the only positive Argument that they produce in their own behalf And for that reason I refer it to the last place that when I have made it appear that they have nothing material to except against what they oppose I may then shew that they have as little to confirm what they assert and both together will prove more than enough to put an end to this controversie As for the other two things that remain to shew the incompetency of the Testimony of Antiquity viz. its Partiality and Repugnancy little or no answer will serve their turn For as for the Partiality all the proof that is material to our Argument is that the Fathers judged the practice of the Apostles by that of their own times And very good reason too because they conformed the practice of their own times to that of the Apostles But if our Adversaries would infer that the Fathers had no other ground of judging of the Practice of the Apostles but meerly by the prejudice of their own customs it is only a precarious Assertion and a direct impeaching them of a more than vulgar folly and ignorance But the Fathers here glanced at are St. Chrysostom and the Greek Commentators that follow him Thus who can imagine any force in Chrysostoms Argument that the Presbyters who laid hands on Timothy must needs be Bishops because none do Ordain in the Church but Bishops unless he makes this the medium of his Argument that whatever was the practice of the Church in his days was so in Apostolical times But there is no need of that poor medium to enforce his Argument the force of it lies in the universal practice of the Church for it was never heard of that meer Presbyters took upon them the Power of Ordination and therefore the meer exercise of that Power is a manifest proof that those that had it were somewhat more than Presbyters and even St. Hierom himself who will have them sometime though when he knows not to have shared with the Bishop in all other parts and branches of Jurisdiction excepts the Power of Ordination as peculiar to the Episcopal Order And there lies the force of St. Chrysostoms Argument in the practice of the Church in all Ages not in in the custom of his own And when he is vindicated it is not to much purpose to add any thing of the Greek Commentators because they all follow him and though they may sometimes fall short in their reasonings yet it is manifest that they believed Episcopacy to have been received by the Catholick Tradition of the Church and that is all the deposition they are capable to give in this cause The last thing objected is the repugnancy of the Testimony and this is proved from
And therefore in answer to it I will at present only return these few brief Considerations each whereof will be enough to satisfie men if they will be reasonable and altogether more than enough to silence them if they will not The first ill consequence then of this Opinion is only this that it charges our Saviour and his Apostles of not making sufficient provision for the lasting peace and settlement of the Church so that had not After-ages supplied their defects in such things as were absolutely necessary to the Government of it there had been no remedy for curing or avoiding eternal schisms and divisions for according to this account of the Original of the Episcopal superiority all the world were by sad experience convinced of its great necessity for the prevention of factions and confusions Now what a dishonourable reflection is this upon the Wisdom of our Saviour and his Apostles to institute a Society of men in the World without providing a competent Government to secure its continuance in peace and unity But then secondly whilst this Conceit explodes the claim founded upon Divine Right it is forced to grant a necessity founded upon natural Reason so that acccording to it Episcopal Government is made necessary by vertue of all those Laws of God and of Nature that provide for the Churches peace and the preservation of Society For if this were the ground of that universal agreement in the Institution of Bishops that St. Jerom speaks of in his toto Orbe decretum est viz. ut schismatum semina tollerentur and if there were no remedy for the prevention of this evil whilst the Government of the Church was administred by the whole Body of the Presbyters the consequence is unavoidable that though our Saviour or at least his Apostles had no more discretion that to leave all Church-Officers in an equality of Power yet the light of Nature and the Laws of Society made it necessary to establish a superiority of one Order above another Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate pendet cui si non exors quaedam ab omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in Ecclesiis efficientur schismata quot sacerdotes The security of the Churches peace depends upon the preheminence of the Bishops power which were it not supreme and paramount in reference to the other Clergy we should quickly have as many Schisms as Priests says St. Jerom Setting aside the Authority of the man the reason and experience of the Argument it self is unanswerable For in such a vast body of men as the Clergy it is obvious to every mans understanding that considering the passions of mankind there could be no possible agreement and by consequence no Government without a superiority of power in some above others Now this is another pretty handsome reflection upon the wisdom of our Saviour and his Apostles that they were so shamefully defective in their first settlement of the Church as shewed them to be so far from being directed by any divine and infallible Spirit that they fell short of the principles of common discretion For though any man of an ordinary understanding might easily discern how impossible it was to avoid Schisms while the Power of the Church resided in the whole Body of the Clergy partly by the bandying of the Presbyters one against another partly by the siding of the People with some against the rest partly by the too common use of the Power of Ordination in Presbyters by which they were more able to increase their own Party by ordaining those who would joyn with them and by this means perpetuate Schisms in the Church when I say these inconveniences were so obvious what a prodigious neglect or weakness must it be to leave the Church through all Ages in such a shattered and tottering condition insomuch that it must unavoidably have perished had not some that came after them invented better means to prevent or redress mischiefs than they had left them For upon this it was that the graver and wiser sort considering the abuses following the promiscuous use of this power of Ordination and withal having in their minds the excellent frame of the government of the Church under the Apostles and their Deputies for preventing future Schisms and Divisions among themselves unanimously agreed to chuse one out of their number who was best qualified for so great a trust and to devolve the exercise of the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction to him so that it seems we are more obliged to those wiser and graver sort than to the Apostles for their care in preventing Schisms and Divisions through all Ages of the Church But thirdly this conceit bottoms upon no better foundation than a bold and presumptuous conjecture And there is no dealing with such men as are able to blast the credit of all the most undoubted Records of ancient times with an imaginary and sinister suspicion for when we have pursued the Succession of Bishops through all Ages of the Church up to the very times next to the Apostles it requires somewhat a bold face to tell us that though this perhaps may be sufficiently evident from the practice of the Primitive Church and of the Apostles and their Deputies yet there was a dark interval between the death of the Apostles and the time of the most ancient Fathers in which it was abolished and a new Form of Government set up but that being found inconvenient it was thought good and agreed upon in all Churches to lay that aside and restore the old Apostolical superiority These are very hard conceits especially when they cannot so much as pretend to give us any the least probable account where and when and by whom this was done And this is pretty modest to bear up so confidently against all the current of Antiquity without so much as any pretences of ground or evidence to rely upon But so it hapned once upon a time in which toto Orbe decretum est though when that time was we have no more certain knowledg than we have in what degree of Latitude this totus Orbis lies Perhaps it was as Blondel will have it about the thirty fifth year after the death of St. John and what if he had been pleased to have said the fifteenth or sixty fifth year the guess had been altogether both as learned and as well grounded However is it not a pleasant thing to tell us boldly and at all adventure in toto Orbe decretum est without so much as telling us when or where or attempting to prove the matter of Fact especially when it is plainly impossible that so universal and remarkable a change should be so unanimously agreed upon and effected and that upon such great and urgent reasons without ever being so much as taken notice of Why may we not as well discredit any Record chuse what you please by pretending there once was or perhaps might have been an unknown time in which all mankind conspired
Christian Religion neither is nor can be of any Authority in any Common-Wealth otherwise than as it is owned and ratified by the Supream Secular Powers so that if Cromwel or any other Sovereign Prince be pleased to command his Subjects only to renounce their Saviour and their Christian Faith and declare themselves Jews or Mahumetans in that Case they are indispensably bound to Obedience in that it is not possible for the Christian or any other Law to have any binding force than what it receives from the Arbitrary Power of the Civil Magistrate And agreeable to that General Proposition the Philosopher is pleased to inform us that the whole Power of instructing the people in any Religion is derived from the Sovereign Prince That the Subjects of every Common-Wealth ought to receive every thing as the Law of God that the Civil-Laws declare to be so That by the Doctrine which the Sovereign commands to be taught we are to examine and try the Truths of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with Miracle or without shall at any time pretend to advance That Moses made the Scripture Canonical as civil Sovereign of the Common-wealth That our Saviour gave his Apostles power to Preach and Baptise in all parts of the World supposing they were not by their own lawful Sovereign forbidden That the new Testament had not the force of Law till it received it from the Authority of Constantine the Great That the civil Magistrate has originally in himself and by vertue of his Sovereign Supremacy a power of ordaining Priests and administring Sacraments That Christian Kings are the only Pastors of the Christian Church and that the faith of all their Subjects depends only upon their Authority And he is so entirely possessed with this notion of Kingly power that he allows no other Authority to God himself And thus when he appoints the punishment of death to false Prophets because they tempt the People to revolt from the Lord their God These words he tells us to revolt from the Lord your God are equivalent to revolt from your King for they had made God their King by Pact at the foot of Mount Sinai So that had they not obliged themselves by that Covenant it had been no sin to worship other Gods i. e. it is all one in itself to worship the true and to worship false Gods which is plainly to say there is none at all And as for the worship they paid to the God of Israel it was not due to him as Sovereign of the Universe but only as their King by Pact and so is no more than what every Subject owes to his Sovereign And therefore he in express terms defines the Kingdom of God to be a civil Kingdom and to this purpose he expounds the third Commandment That they should not take the name of God in vain that is that they should not speak rashly of their King nor dispute his Right nor the Commissions of Moses and Aaron his Lieutenants And this was the end of our Saviours coming into the World to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the old Covenant had been cut off by the Rebellion of the Israelites in the Election of Saul And the same account he gives of Christianity it self that it is only receiving our Saviour for King So that when St. Paul says to the Galatians That if himself or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel to them than he had preached let him be accursed That Gospel was that Christ was King so that all Preaching against the power of the King received in consequence to these words is by St. Paul accursed for his speech is addressed to those who by his Preaching had already received Jesus for the Christ that is to say for King of the Jews So that it seems we owe no other duty to our Saviour than if he had been only a temporal Messias seeing all that is due to him is only by vertue of that covenant whereby we receive him for our King Neither is this Kingdom of his present but is to be established upon the Earth after the general Resurrection and therefore by vertue of that Pact that the faithful make with him in Baptism they are only obliged to obey him for King whensoever he shall be pleased to take the Kingdom upon him Now barely to represent this Train of absurdities is more than enough to confute them in that they all resolve into this one gross Contradiction That for the ends of Government we are obliged to believe and obey the Christian Religion as the Law of God And for the same ends of Government we are to understand that we owe no other Obedience to it than as it is injoyn'd by the Law of man But though such manifest Trifles deserve not the civility of being confuted yet it is fit to let Mr. Hobbs his credulous Disciples and in all my Conversation I never met with a more ignorant or confident Credulity understand after what a childish rate their mighty Master of Demonstration proves these and indeed every thing else For he has but one way of proving all things First to define his own Opinion to be true and then by vertue of that Definition prove it to be so And for an undenyable proof of this we will take a review of all the foremention'd propositions where we shall find all his Mathematical Demonstrations to be nothing else but so many Positive and Dogmatical Tautologies Thus when he proves there can be no first Mover because he has already defined that nothing can move it self from whence it demonstratively follows that all motion must be Eternal for otherwise if we assert an Eternal first cause we run upon that desperate absurdity that somthing may move it self He had argued full as Mathematically that nothing can move it self because I say nothing can move it self So again when he proves that God is neither the Universe nor a part of it nor somthing beside he had argued as well had he said That there is no Being distinct from the Fabrick of the World because there is none So again those Books only can be Law in every Nation that are establisht for such by the Sovereign Authority because a Law as I have already defined it is nothing else than the Command of that man or Company of men that have the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth from whence says he it unavoidably follows that nothing can be a Law but what is Enacted by the Sovereign Power And so it would have followed as unavoidably if he had only said That the Sovereign only can make Law because the Sovereign only can make Law And yet upon this one mighty Demonstration are built all the other bold assertions that I have collected out of his Books that the Sovereign Prince is Sovereign Prophet too that he is sole Pastor to the People of his
superiority of order is made equivalent to a superiority of power for that from the time of our Saviours Resurrection is granted them by our Adversaries though it is denied their Successours Thus we enlarge or abate or evacuate that Commission that God himself has given them at our own meer will and pleasure If it be convenient for our cause to assert in one place that they were vested with no superiority of Power they shall be put off with an empty superiority of order separated from power If in another that Assertion seem not so convenient to our purpose they shall be presently advanced to an absolute supremacy over the other Pastors of the Church but then that must last only during their lives and as for their Successours we are pleased to degrade them from the Apostolical both Order and Authority and allow them nothing but an empty degree of I know not what but to say no more of the difference between Order and Degree As for the distinction between Order and Jurisdiction though in one place I affirm that the Apostles were a distinct Order from the other Clergy without any superiority of Jurisdiction yet in another if my cause require it there shall be but one order in the Christian Clergy and no difference but what is made by Jurisdiction and the Bishops themselves shall be equal to Presbyters in order by Divine Right and only superiour in jurisdiction by Ecclesiastical Constitution For so I read that for our better understanding of this we must consider a twofold power belonging to Church-Officers a Power of Order and a Power of Jurisdiction for in every Presbyter there are some things inseparably joyned to his Function and belonging to every one in his personal capacity both in actu primo and in actu secundo both as to the right and power to do it and the exercise and execution of that power such are preaching the Word visiting the Sick administring Sacraments c. but there are other things which every Presbyter has an aptitude and a Jus to in actu primo but the limitation and exercise of that Power does belong to the Church in common and belongs not to any one personally but by a further power of choice or delegation to it such is the power of visiting Churches taking care that particular Pastors discharge their duty such is the power of Ordination and Church-Censures and making Rules for Decency in the Church This is that we call the power of Jurisdiction Now this latter power though it belongs habitually and in actu primo to every Presbyter yet being about matters of publick and common concernment some further Authority in a Church constituted is necessary besides the power of Order and when this power either by consent of the Pastors of the Church or by the appointment of a Christian Magistrate or both is devolved to some particular Persons though quoad aptitudinem the power remain in every Presbyter yet quoad executionem it belongs to those who are so appointed Whatever truth there is in this the Assertion is plain that our Saviour appointed but one order in the Clergy and that the difference which has since been made by the consent of the Church consists in nothing else but Jurisdiction And this is very consistent with the former Assertion that there was no difference between the Apostles and the LXX beside distinction of order when now there is no more by divine appointment than one order in the Church And yet after all this their fluttering between Order and Power Degree and Order Power of Order and Power of Jurisdiction all superiority of Order so much as it is is so much superiority of Power Thus to take their own Instance of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Athens the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the President of the Assembly was so far superiour over his Colleagues in Power as he was in Order For whatsoever was peculiar to his Office gave him some more advantage in the Government of the Common-wealth than they had for the very power of calling and adjourning Assemblies presiding and moderating in them is no small degree of Power in a Republican Government But seeing the difference between a superiority of Order and Power is thought to be made out best by these parallel Instances of Commonwealths let us run the parallel with the Apostles and the LXX for if to be superiour only in Order is to be President in an Assembly or Prolocutor in a Convocation and if this were all the Office peculiar to the Apostles then when our Saviour appointed seventy Disciples and twelve Apostles he made twelve Prolocutors over a Convocation of seventy Seeing therefore that is too great a number of Speakers for so small an Assembly it is manifest that when he separated them for a distinct Office he intended something more by an Apostle than meerly a Chairman in a Presbytery and whatever it is it is either an higher power than others had or it is nothing at all Secondly This Succession is not so evident and convinced in all places as it ought to be to demonstrate the thing intended For it is not enough to shew a List of some Persons in the great Churches of Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria but it should be produced at Philippi Corinth and Caesarea c. This I perceive to be our Adversaries darling Objection being the only matter made use of to shift off several heads of Argument This was the proof of the defect of the Testimony of Antiquity as to places and is now here the only evidence of its ambiguity and by and by will be called in as the only instance of its Repugnancy But certainly their fondness to it is not grounded upon any great vertue that they see in it but they are only forced for want of more material Arguments to lay a mighty stress upon such poor pretences as in any other dispute they would be a shamed to own For first supposing the Succession cannot be shewn in all Churches is that any proof against the Succession that can And suppose I cannot produce a List of Bishops at Philippi Corinth and Caesarea shall I thence conclude against the Succession though I have very good History for it at Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria This is such an Inference as rather shews a mans good will to his Opinion than his Understanding But I have already proved that it is highly reasonable to conclude the customs of those Churches that are not known from those that are and apparently absurd to question the Records of those that are preserved for the uncertainty of those that are not But secondly What though we do not find in all Churches an accurate Catalogue of the succession of all Bishops do we find any Instance in any one ancient Church of any other form of Goverment If we can that were something to the Argument but that is not pretended in the Exception But otherwise because the exact
the difference of some accounts concerning the Succession of some Bishops But this has been objected two or three times already and as often answered and therefore at present I shall say no more to it than only granting the truth of the Premises to mind the Reader of the weakness of the conclusion that from the uncertainty of some Persons in the Succession infers an uncertainty of the form of Government it self And now am I come to our Adversaries only positive proof in their own behalf that is the Authority of St. Jerom for though they pretend to one or two Authors more yet still at the last push St. Hierom is the only man And the sum of all that is pretended from him is this That though the Apostles exercised a superiority over the other Pastors of the Church during their own lives yet immediately upon their decease having it seems provided no Successours in that Power that themselves enjoyed the Church was every where governed by the whole Body or Common-Council of Presbyters but this Form of Government being quickly found very apt to breed Schisms and Divisions it was for the better prevention of them agreed upon all the world over to chuse one Presbyter out of the rest and settle a Supremacy of Power upon him for the more effectual Government of the Church Antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent diceretur in populis Ego sum Pauli Ego Apollo Ego autem Cephae communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur Postquam verò unusquisque eos quos baptisaverat suos putabat esse non Christi in toto Orbe decretum est ut unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris ad quem omnis Ecclesiae cura pertineret ut schismatum semina tollerentur From whence it is inferred that though this Form of Government hapned to be set up in the after-ages of the Church yet it was not upon the account of any Divine Right or Apostolical Constitution but purely upon prudential motives and by the Churches discretion that might have instituted either that or any other alterable Form as it judged most tending to its own peace and settlement Before I come to answer the whole Argument I cannot but observe what disingenuous advantage these men make of the hasty expressions of that good Father let him in the heat and eagerness of dispute but drop an inconsiderate word that may reflect upon the Records or the Reputation of the ancient Church it immediately serves to justifie all their Innovations And thus I remember Monsieur Daillé in his shallow Book of the Use of the Fathers frequently makes good as he thinks his charge against them all only by impleading St. Hierom but though he is made use of to serve them at all turns yet in this Argument they devolve the whole credit of all the ancient Church upon his single Authority And is it not very strange that two or three hasty passages of this single Father not only against the concurrent Testimony of all the ancient Church but against his own express Opinion should be seized upon with so much zeal and greediness to give defiance to all the practice of Antiquity That is bold enough but it is much more so to force all the rest of the Fathers against their own Consciences and Declarations to subscribe to his Opinion as Blondel has done who having first placed St. Jerom in the front and flourished all his sayings with large Commentaries ranges all the rest of the Fathers under his Colours excepting only Ignatius though since he too has had the honour to be admitted into the service but he has drawn them into the Party by such a forced and presumptuous way of arguing that I know not a greater Instance of the power of Prejudice in a learned man I once thought to have taken him particularly to task but his trifling is so grosly palpable that there needs no more to expose it to any mans contempt than that he can endure the Penance of reading him over And how was it possible for any man to discourse after a wiser rate that undertakes to prove that Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Eusebius Chrysostom Theodoret Theophylact were Presbyterians It is just such another design as to go about to prove that Calvin Beza Blondel Salmasius Daillé and all the other Calvinian Fathers have been zealous Assertors of Episcopacy And yet this task too some men have undertaken and I suppose will make good by the same Topicks and doubt not but they will both gain belief together Now in answer to the great Authority of St. Jerom there are many things alledged and insisted upon by learned men some plead that it is contrary to his own express and declared Opinion and therefore is not to be taken for his setled and deliberate sense of the thing but only for an hasty and over-lavish expression Others endeavour to expound him to a good sense consistent with himself and the rest of the Fathers viz. that writing against some proud Deacons that would set themselves above Presbyters he tells them that it was much the same insolence as if they should go about to prefer themselves above the Bishop in that the distance was much the same they alone being reckoned in the Priesthood with the Bishop whereas the Deacons had no higher Office in the Church than to serve Tables and poor Widows So that the difference was the same as in the Levitical Priesthood the Bishop and the Presbyters being as Aaron and his Sons who alone were accounted into the Priestly Office whereas the Deacons had only the Office of Levites that were no better than Servants to the Priests And though Presbyters at that time exercised no Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Church yet they were formerly joyned with the Bishop himself in the Government of it and shared in all acts of Power and Discipline excepting only Ordination And for this reason because they were placed so near to the highest Order that they were capable by vertue of their own Order to exercise almost all the Offices of that it was not to be endured that such inferiour Ministers as the Deacons were should prefer themselves above them Quis patiatur ut mensarum viduarum minister supra eos se tumidus efferat ad quorum preces Christi Corpus sanguisque conficitur Though this probably was all the design of St. Jerom yet because he seems to have said more than he designed I shall not contend about his meaning but shall give my Adversaries the whole advantage of his Authority and let them make the best of it Neither shall I go about to overthrow it by the contrary Testimony of the Ancients for though that were easily done the cause does not require it but granting the Authority of St. Jeroms Opinion and that it was never contradicted by any ancient Writer I will demonstrate the falshood of the Opinion it self from its own absurdity
to put an abuse upon all their Posterity As to say in this case that there once was such a season in which all the world agreed though no body knows when or where to make an universal and perpetual alteration of the Form of Church-Government But to conclude grantting these men all that they contend for I would fain know what greater advantage any reasonable man can desire either to make good the title or to enhance the excellency of Episcopal Government than St. Hierom and Blondel give us viz. that it was practised by the Apostles but that upon their decease their Authority devolved upon the Body of Presbyters which Form of Government was every where found so incompetent and inconvenient that all Churches in the world were within the space of thirty five years or thereabouts convinced of the necessity of retrieving the old Apostolical Inequality as they ever intended to secure the peace and unity of the Church This is pretty well and advantage enough to satisfie any modest or reasonable man and therefore with it I shall rest contented Only I cannot but remarque the strange partiality of our Adversaries in this cause not only to set up this absurd suggestion of St. Jerom concerning the unknown time of an universal alteration of Church-Government and that not only without the Testimony of any Record for if there had been any then it had not been unknown but against the faith of all History and the most certain Tradition of the Church there being nothing more clear in Ecclesiastical Story than the succession of single Persons in the Government of the Church from the Apostles down to his own Age especially in the greatest and most eminent Churches such as Rome Jerusalem Antiochia and Alexandria so that there could have been no such universal change as St. Jerom dreams of when in these great Churches Episcopacy was established antecedently to any such supposed alteration But beside this they oppose the custom of one particular Church and that attested only by one Author to the known practice not only of all other Churches but of that particular Church it self Thus because the same St. Jerom says with the same hast and inconsideration that there was a custom in the Church of Alexandria from St. Mark down to Heraclas and Dionysius for the Presbyters of that Church in the vacancy of the See to chuse one out of their own number and from thence-forward call him their Bishop in the same manner as when an Army makes their own General or the Deacons may chuse one out of themselves and constitute him their Arch-deacon Now I say supposing this Story to be true is it not very severe by the singular practice of one Church to overthrow the Constitution of all other Churches For what if at Alexandria they had a peculiar or a corrupt custom does that impair or destroy the Catholick practice of the Christian Church It is possible not only for one particular Church to deviate in some circumstances from their Primitive Institution but that is no Argument against a certain right Yes but say they this custom was derived from St. Mark himself But that would require some better proof than the bare Assertion of St. Jerom For it is possible there might have been a preposterous practice in after-times which he to give the more Authority to it might in his lavish heat ascribe to the Founder of it But granting the truth of the whole Story what was this custom Was it for Presbyters to ordain their Bishop St. Jerom seems willing to say so but dares not and therefore expresses himself in odd ambiguous and general terms Unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant which signifies nothing certain but that he intends not Ordination is evident by the words that immediately follow Quid enim facit exceptâ ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat Which words upon whatsoever account they are added come in here very impertinently if he had by the Story spoke of Ordination At least out of these general words nothing more can be collected than their right or custom of electing their own Bishop as was the custom of Cathedral Churches afterwards Nay that too is more than is true or can be proved for St. Jerom does not say that the Bishop was chosen by the Presbyters but out of the Presbyters so that he does not give them so much as the right of Election but only appropriates to them the capacity of being elected and that was all the peculiar priviledge of the Presbyters of that Church that they alone were qualified to succeed in the See and if any one will from hence infer as Mr. Selden is pleased to do their power not only of Election but Ordination he may thank himself and not St. Jerom for his conclusion For there is not any the least ground for the inference beside the learned Gentlemans resolution to have it so and therefore when he gives us an account of several both Divines and Lawyers that understand no more by this passage than meerly capitular Election he confutes them with no other argument than only by saying positively that they are ipst Hieronymo adversissimi But alass wise men will not quit their own Opinions only to submit to the confidence of other mens Assertions and therefore he ought either to have proved more or to have said nothing Nay so far were they from having any power of Ordination that they had not that of Election when it is so very well known that the Patriarch of Alexandria was of old time chosen not by the Presbyters but by the People so that to ascribe their Election to the Presbyters is plainly to contradict the known custom of that Church But be that as it will too it is very strange as Mr. Selden himself observes that there are not to be found the least footsteps of this Alexandrian custom in any legitimate ancient Author but only St. Jerom. For if there had been any such custom in this Church of which we have as good and as many Records as of any other Church in the world it is scarce credible but that upon some occasion or other some Writer should have taken notice of it and therefore so universal a silence cannot but bring a very great suspicion upon the truth of St. Jeroms relation at least it is very unreasonable upon the single report of one hasty man concerning the peculiar custom of one Church to renounce as our Adversaries do the known practice of all the Churches in the world beside But to avoid this heavy Objection of singularity our learned Adversary has taken vast pains to find out a second Witness and then two Witnesses we know according to our Law can prove any thing and at length he has discovered an Arabian Author and with more than ordinary joy and transport immediately publishes the particular Story by it self with large and learned Notes upon it but
THE CASE OF THE Church of England Briefly and truly stated In the three first and fundamental PRINCIPLES Of a Christian Church I. The Obligation of Christianity by Divine Right II. The Jurisdiction of the Church by Divine Right III. The Institution of Episcopal Superiority by Divine Right By S. P. a Presbyter of the Church of England LONDON Printed for Henry Faithorne and John Kersey and sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner 1681. A Scheme of the general CONTENTS PART I. THree popular Principles destructive of the Church of England Page 1. The absurdity of Mr. Hobb's Principle that the Sovereign Power is the only founder of all Religion in every Commonwealth p. 7 Mr. Seldens account of the Jurisdiction of the Church to be meerly Civil p. 27 His account of Excommunication from Adam to Moses considered p. 37 The same from Moses to the Captivity and from the Captivity to the time of our Saviour p. 42 The same in our Saviours time and first as to its Usage p. 54 Secondly as to the Right which is proved to have been neither Judicial nor Imperial but purely Divine p. 62 Excommunication in the Christian Church proved to have been of Apostolical Antiquity p. 71 The Texts of Scripture upon which it is grounded carry in them true and proper Jurisdiction and appropriate its exercise to the Church p. 76 And that by Divine Institution not meer voluntary Confederacy p. 89 All Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction left entirely by the Christian Emperours to the Ecclesiastical State and that the Imperial Laws extant both in the Theodosian Code and Justinian are no new Laws but only the Canons of the Church ratified with temporal Penalties p. 91 PART II. AN account of the birth of the Opinion that there was no Form of Government setled in the Christian Church by Divine Institution Page 117 That our Saviour founded his Church in an imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers demonstrated this imparity proved to consist in a superiority of Power as well as Order and the Institution of it shewn to be of perpetual obligation p. 124 The Authority of the Apostolical Practice vindicated against divers exceptions The vanity and absurdity of the Objection from the ambiguity of the names Bishop and Presbyter The divine Obligation of Apostolical practice in this matter proved p. 135 The practice of the Primitive Church in the Ages next and immediately after the Apostles The pretence of the defect of the Records of the Church in the first Age falls as foul upon Christianity it self as the Form of Government p. 143 The Argument first from the defect as to places considered and confuted p. 148 Secondly front the defect as to Times and Persons p. 150 The constant Tradition of the Church proved first by the Testimony of St. Clement of Rome Secondly of Ignatius his Epistles demonstrated to be genuine p. 155 The same proved from the Apostolical Canons and the Canons proved to be of Primitive Antiquity p. 177 The Testimonies of the Ancients vindicated from the pretence of ambiguity and first in that they have not informed us whether the Succession were only of Order or of Power p. 183 Secondly In that it is not universal but whether it be or not it is sufficient in that there are no Records against it and the Records of all the chiefest Churches are clear for it p. 189 Thirdly In that this Succession is sometimes attributed to Presbyters this shewn to be apparently false and if it were true frivolous p. 203 That the ancient Church owned Episcopacy as of Divine Institution and not Ecclesiastical p. 213 St. Jeroms Authority throughly considered and turned upon himself so as to make this Objection out of him against it the strongest Argument to prove the Divine Institution of Episcopacy p. 216 The Custom of the Church of Alexandria of the Ordination of their Bishop by Presbyters refuted and the Story of Eutychius concerning it shewn to be false and foolish p. 231 If we take away the Divine Right of some Form of Church-Government it unavoidably resolves the Church into Independency and Confusion p. 243 The Government of the Church by Episcopacy as setled by Divine Right the only effectal Bulwork against Popery p. 252 A Postscript p. 263 PART I. WHEN I consider on one side with what triumph the Church of England was together with His Majesty restored with what Laws guarded with what Vigour asserted with what Zeal defended and on the other with what folly and peevishness opposed that none of its implacable Enemies have ever been able to discover any the least real Defects or Corruptions in its Constitution That by the confession of all wise men it approaches nearest of any Church in the World to the primitive Purity that it is free from all Impostures and Innovations that it does not abuse its Children with Pious Frauds and Arts of Gain nor sacrifise the Interests of Souls to its own Wealth and Grandeur that it asserts the Rights of Princes against all Priestly Usurpations that it does not enrage the People with Enthusiasm on one hand nor enslave them with Superstition on the other That its Doctrins are Pure Simple and Apostolical and its Discipline Easie Prudent and Merciful In a word that it is a Church that wants nothing but only that we would suffer her to be what she professes and desires to be When I say I considered all this with my self it could not but strike me with wonder and amazement that a Church so unanimously owned so powerfully protected so excellently constituted so approved by all wise and good men should in all this time be so far from obteining any true and effectual settlement that it should be almost stript naked of all the Rights and Priviledges of a Christian Church exposed to scorn and contempt deserted by its Friends trampled upon by its Enemies and truly reduced to the state of the Poor despised Church of England But then considering farther with my self what might be the grounds and occasions of such a wild and seemingly unaccountable Apostasie I quickly found three very prevailing Principles utterly inconsistent with the being of a Christian Church wherewith the generality of mens minds are possest and especially those that have of late appeared the most Zealous Patriots of the Church of England No wonder then if the building be so weak and tottering when it is erected upon such false and rotten Foundations so that whilst these treacherous Principles lie at the bottom of the Work it is plainly impossible to bring it to any sure and lasting settlement And t is these false and unhappy Principles that I shall now endeavour to represent and by plain reason to remove They are chiefly these three the first is that of Mr. Hobbs and his Followers that own the Church of England only because it is Establisht by the Law of England and allow no Authority either to that or any other Religion than as it is injoined by the Sovereign Power Though a Religion
confessed one first Mover that is a first and an Eternal Cause of all things which is that which men mean by the name of God Could any man think it possible that both these Demonstrations should drop from the Pen of the same infallible Philosopher or that the man that can demonstrate after this rate should be so confident as to boast of nothing lower than Mathematical Demonstration in all his Writings But though Mr. Hobbs be able to demonstrate Contradictions yet himself can hold but one side and that is always the wrong one For it is the only scope of all his Natural Philosophy to affirm I do not say to prove that there can be no other Cause or Principle in the Universe beside the meer Aggregate of Natural Causes By which Topick he plainly demonstrates there can be no such Being as a Deity For if there is either he is a Corporeal or an Incorporeal substance but an Incorporeal Substance is the same with an Incorporeal Body If Corporeal then either the world or a part of it for there can be nothing beside but it can be neither because by God is meant the Author of the World and therefore they who say the World or any part of it is God say it has no Cause and so that there is no God What Demonstration can be fuller and plainer than this that the Deity can be no Being distinct from the Universe nor the Universe itself nor any part of it and therefore is nothing But though it be demonstrable from the Nature of Things that there is no God yet he tells us the belief of a Deity is necessary upon the Authority of Revelation and out of reverence to the Publick Laws Though he has peremptorily determined that none can know the truth of a Revelation made to another but they to whom God himself has revealed it supernaturally so that no Revelation unless immediately made to my self can be of any use to me in this Enquiry And though he had not thus carefully prevented its proper efficacy yet when he comes to it we shall find him as much concerned to destroy the Grounds of believing any Revelation as here he is to take away the Proof of a Deity from the Nature of the Universe and as for his Reverence to the Publick Laws it is nothing else but his Declaration of Atheism repeted viz. that though I Thomas Hobbs have no ground to believe that there is any such Being as a Deity in the World nay though I am able to demonstrate the contrary to all the World yet for Fashion-sake and out of compliance with the Custom of my Country I care not though I say that there is one only I desire all people to do me the right as to observe that I only say so and not think me so mean a Philosopher as in good earnest to believe so And in the same manner that he has destroyed the Evidence of a Deity has he taken away the Obligation of all his Laws of Justice and Honesty by supposing such a State of Nature in which mankind being exempt from all Government may do whatever they please without the violation of any Law Which to suppose is to suppose no Deity for if there be a Deity there can be no supposition of any such State of Nature in which Mankind can be exempted from his Government And here too he demonstrates contradictions from the same Topick All men being by Nature of equal Power and therefore mutually fearing each other right reason dictates to every man to defend himself by force and hostility And yet because all other men are of equal power with himself and that state of Hostility is very unsafe and uncomfortable therefore the very same right Reason dictates to every man to seek the Friendship as much as in him lies of all men But though right Reasons Natural State of Peace be so Mathematically demonstrated yet in the supposition of its more Ancient State of War lyes the whole mystery of Mr. Hobbs his Morals and Politics which being founded upon the former supposition that there is no Governour of the World that alone for ever takes away the Obligation of all the Laws of Nature For though he afterwards in his contradictory way to himself would when men have entered into compacts bring them all under the Laws of Justice yet as he goes about to establish them he would have them bind without any Sanction that is without any power of binding For having no Obligation but by vertue of mutual Compact and this mutual Compact being entered into only for private Interest as every man for that reason may observe them so for the same Reason whenever he apprehends it beneficial to himself he is obliged as he will be true to his Fundamental Principle of Self-Interest to break them So that the Laws of Nature as he has founded them are but so many Artifices of Craft and mutual Hypocrisie whereby mankind pretend and profess faithful Obedience to the Rules of Justice and a sincere endeavour to procure the good and welfare of the Community yet every man resolves inwardly within himself that he will do neither but meerly when it tends to his private Advantage and so he can any way advance that what cares he what mischief he does either to the Private or Public Interest of all the men in the world beside An honorable account this of Mr. Hobbs his honesty But of his Notions of Natural Religion I shall not here discourse any farther finding it done more largely elsewhere and therefore I have here made this brief representation of it only that I might give at one view a complete account of the Hobbian Religion But our present business is to enquire into his Principles concerning the Church of England or rather the Christian Church the Church of England being nothing but that part of it that is planted in the Kingdom of England And here all his Notions of the Church are resolved into one Fundamental Principle that the Sovereign Power in every Common-Wealth is the sole Founder of all revealed Religion and that whatever pretences true or false may be made to Divine Revelation they can have no Obligatory Power unless they can obtain it from the Sovereign Authority and if they can then whether true or false they are of equal Force and Obligation to the Consciences of men Which is in express words to affirm that all revealed Religion is no Religion And yet he is every where so plain and peremptory in this rank assertion which concludes our Blessed Saviour a profligate Impostor that I can not but charge it as a reproach upon the Church of England that such open Blasphemy should be suffered so long to pass so freely without Censure or Punishment For having first been so impudent as to define all Religion to be nothing else than the allowance of some Public Tales from thence he proceeds in his Mathematical method to inform us that the
Kingdom that he has the only Power of ordaining Priests and interpreting Scripture That Moses and Constantine by vertue of their Kingly Power made the Scriptures Canonical and all the rest which is no more than to say That there can be no Law of God because there can be no Law beside the Law of man And therefore it is needless to pursue them singly only I cannot but observe that when he makes teaching any Doctrin against the Will of the Sovereign Prince to be a certain sign of a false Prophet he has obtain'd his design of insinuating that both Moses and our Saviour were manifest Impostors in that they both proceeded contrary to the Commands of the present Powers and that is the true Account of Mr. Hobbs his Religion That though they were indeed Impostors and Rebels to the State yet having had the Fortune to gain Authority in the World and being own'd by the Laws of Christendom they ought to be acknowledged by all men as Divine Persons as they pretended to be And as his honourable notion of mankind was that notwithstanding all their pretences to Justice and Honesty they were only a pack of dissembling Knaves so his notion of a Christian Church is nothing else than an association of Atheistical Hypocrites professing Christianity but not believing it He had better have said that there is no Church at all And so when he tells us that it is lawful for a good Christian to deny his Christian Faith when his Sovereign commands him he had better have expresly said that there is no such thing as a good Christian at all For the Reason he gives that profession with the Tongue is but an outward thing and no more than any other Gesture whereby we signifie our Obedience which may be honestly done so we hold firmly in the heart the Faith of Christ this Liberty if once allowed would authorize all the Villany in the world for Perjury it self is but an external thing and will by this means become lawful so a man believe in his heart the contrary to what he says with his mouth But when to this he adds that indeed such Persons as have a calling to Preach are obliged if called to it to suffer Martyrdom for their Religion but none other no more being required of private Christians but their own Faith He little considers that by this new kind of priviledge that he out of his great kindness grants the Clergy he has contradicted his whole design For if they may lawfully persist to death in Preaching the Gospel contrary to the Commands of the civil Sovereign then the case is plain that all Subjects are not bound to profess that Religion which the Sovereign enjoyns which once granted the whole cause of Leviathan is overthrown And as by this particular kindness to the Clergy he has run himself upon a flat Contradiction to his whole Design so has he renounced his Argument against Martyrdom For when he proves that a Christian may deny his Faith because profession is but an outward Ceremony it is no more in a Clergy-man and therefore as lawful and innocent in him as in any other However they are very much obliged to him for this singular kindness and civility to them especially at that time when they enjoyed this his priviledg so highly as they did at the time of publishing his Book All the Orthodox Clergy being then treated with a more barbarous cruelty than the ancient Christians were by any of the Heathen Persecutors great numbers of them being then stinking to death in the holes and bottoms of rotten Ships And therefore when the Clergy were in that woful Condition for him so impertinently to suggest as he does immediately after That no man is required to die for every Tenet that serves their Ambition or Profit to speak very gently this was not done like a Gentleman And Mr. Hobbs could not have taken a more unseasonable time to revile the Clergy than he did For whilst they were in Prosperity indowed with good Revenues and entrusted with great Power if he had fall'n upon them then Envy might have been some ground for his Malice But at that time when they were trampled upon by the very Scum of the People ruin'd and undone he could have no other Temptation to do it but meer Hatred and Malice to the Function it self But however though it be a foolish thing for any man to die for the Ambition or Profit of the Clergy yet it was a truly noble thing both of the Clergy and others to sacrifise their Lives and Fortunes in the Cause of their lawful Prince against Rebels and Traytors And it will be an eternal blemish upon Mr. Hobbs's Name and Memory that when beside the general duty of Loyalty he had received many particular Favours and Obligations from his Prince he should not only desert him himself but should publish this Book on purpose to persuade the whole Nation that it was so far from being any way bound to adhere to their lawful Prince that they were brought under an Obligation of Allegiance and Loyalty to the then brutish Usurper whom he flattered to so high a degree of Tyranny as to advise him to require of all men not only a Submission to his brutal Power but an Approbation of all his wicked Actions a thing so infinitely vile and dishonourable that it exceeded the wickedness of the Tyrant himself Now men of these irreligious Principles are so far from being fit Members of a Christian Church that they are not worthy to live in any humane Society in that they blow up the foundations of all Government as well as Religion For Loyalty or a sense of duty to lawful Governours is founded upon no other Principle than the Obligation of Conscience towards God So that those men that set Subjects loose from that turn them loose to Rebellion And therefore though the notion of a Deity be nothing else than an empty Doublet an Hat and a crooked Stick set up by Princes to scare fools to Obedience it concerns them to keep those men out of their Fields who go about to destroy the Reverence of their Scare-crow However these men are not to be admitted to any Disputes about Church-government who will not allow any such thing as a Church when the Dispute proceeds only upon that Supposition And therefore I shall leave them to enjoy the vanity of their own Conceits and proceed to the second Adversary who grants a Church founded by Divine Right but no right of Government within it self And as in the former we have seen the power of Ignorance joyn'd with Pride and Vanity so here may we see the Impotency of Learning joyn'd with Prejudice and Passion For this learned Gentleman has spared for no pains in this Argument he has ransackt all Authors and all Languages to serve his Cause he set aside many years for composing his Work and indeed seems to have made it the main design of his Life And
whatever first engaged him to undertake the Argument and it is usually reported that the Provocation was so very slight that I cannot but think it beneath the Spirit of so great a man he has prosecuted it with greater Zeal and Keenness than he expresses in other Writings Nay he cannot forbear upon all occasions digressing into this Subject insomuch that this is the main matter of his Preface to his Book de Anno Civili the Subject whereof one would think is remote enough from this Argument And yet after all his expence of Pains and Learning he has been so far from serving the purpose of his Design that he has directly opposed it And if he had only studied to furnish the Church with Arguments to justifie her Authority and Jurisdiction he could not have done her more service than he has done by this violent Attempt upon it This I know cannot but seem a very strange Charge against a Person of his Parts and Learning but therein I say appears the strength of Prejudice and Partiality that it puts men beside the use of their Natural Understandings and hires them to set their Wits on work only to serve a Cause or gratifie a Passion And when once a man has taken up a Falshood to defend the more Skill and Learning he spends upon it the worse it is for when an Errour is but slightly maintain'd the mistake may proceed from Inadvertency but when it is asserted with great Industry and long Study that discovers the man to be under a setled and habitual misunderstanding And when all is done every thing will be True or False as it is whether we will or no. And if the Power of the Church be setled upon Divine Right 't is not all the Wit nor all the Eloquence nor all the Learning in the World that can unsettle it the Winds may blow and the Waves may beat but they can never shake it because it is founded upon a Rock For a proof hereof I shall first give a brief Account of this learned Authors method of Discourse and then secondly in the same way of arguing by which he endeavours to destroy the Original power of the Church I shall undertake to make out a demonstrative proof of its Divine Authority Only I must premise that whereas he treats only of the Power of Excommunication that Dispute must involve in it all other Acts of Government in that they are all supposed by the Power of inflicting Punishment Now Mr. Seldens Account of the rise of Excommunication is briefly this that it was never establisht in the Jewish Church by any Divine Command that there was no use of it whilst they enjoyed the Civil Power among themselves and therefore that we meet with no Footsteps of it till after the Babylonian Captivity and that then and there it was first taken up among the Jews by Confederacy and mutual Compact For being then deprived of all judicial Power and zealous for the honour of their Nation they covenanted among themselves to punish all contumacious Offenders against their Laws and Customs by Excommunication Which consisted of two things First solemn Imprecation of the Divine vengeance Secondly Separation from their Converse that partly by the fear of the Wrath of God and partly by shame and modesty they might be brought to Repentance which as it was no proper Jurisdiction so it could take no effect not only against the will of the Sovereign Power but of every refractory Offender that might if he pleased despise their Sentence and in spite of it enjoy the liberty of his own Conversation And therefore to make the Sentence appear more terrible to the People they expressed it in the same forms of Speech in which Moses expressed Capital punishments which is the thing that gave the Occasion to learned men of mistaking as if the same Phrases had signified the same thing from the beginning though the only intention of the Jews was thereby to declare that they would no more own Excommunicate persons to be Members of their Society than if they had been cut off from it by a sentence of Death and that if it were in their Power they would not spare to do it according to the Law of Moses That this sentence related only to their Civil Liberties and was no abridgment of their freedom as to publick Worship and though the Offender upon whom it passed was said to be cast out of their Synagogue yet that is to be understood as it was their Court of Judicature not their place of Worship and so signifies Civil Out-lawry not Ecclesiastical Excommunication But though this Device was at first made use of in this case of necessity for want of more effectual Government yet having once obtained the Power of custom among them when they were restored to their Country and Civil State they reserved it among their Civil Penalties and used or omitted alter'd or abated its Exercise according to discretion as is wont to be done in all other Acts of humane Judicature That this was the State and Notion of the thing in the time of our Saviour and his Apostles who took it up in imitation of the Jews and therefore expressed it by the same forms of Speech so that in their Discourses it signified no other Separation than what it did among the Jews That thus the Use of it continued till the open breach between the Jews and Christians and then the Christian Church being wholly separated from the Jewish into a Society by it self they enter'd into such a Confederacy among themselves as the Jews did in the time of their Captivity of inflicting censures upon such as by their unchristian Practices should bring scandal upon the Church That this Power at first resided in the whole Congregation not in any particular Officer and that thus it continued till the Ambition of the Bishops wrested it into their own hands and for it pretended the Authority of our Saviour's Commission And so they enjoyed it till the time of Constantine the Great who taking the Church into his Care and Government reassumed this Power to himself as a natural Right of the Sovereign Prerogative and so it descended to all his Successors in the Empire who as appears by the Records of every Age varied its Use and exercise at their own pleasure And as Princes came into the Church this Right of course Escheated to them and was accordingly challenged by them as is largely proved by the History of Europe and particularly of our own Nation This is the short Account of his long Performance the sum whereof is That Excommunication had no Divine but meerly an humane Original and that it is no Ecclesiastical but a civil Punishment and therefore that it appertains not to the Church but to the civil Magistrate Now to Answer or rather Confute all this I need only to represent That the Christian Church is a Society founded upon the immediate Charter and Command of our Saviour
whereby he has obliged all the Members of it to the open profession of the Christian Faith and to Communicate in the Sacraments and all other Ordinances of publick Worship which Society is so far from having the least Dependence upon the Civil Power that it was at first Erected not only without the Allowance but against the Edicts and Decrees of all the Powers of the Earth and subsisted so apart from all Kingdoms and Common-wealths for above 300 years all which time though it borrowed no Force or Assistance from the Imperial Laws yet by vertue of our Saviours Divine Authority it obliged all Christians to embody together into a visible Society Which Obligation is not only distinct from but antecedent to all humane Laws that require the same thing And therefore in a Christian state men are not Christians by vertue of the Law of the Common-wealth but it is the Law of God that constitutes the Being and Formality of a Christian Church Now this being granted me which cannot be denyed without denying the foundations of the Christian Faith the whole cause of Erastianism is run upon a palpable Contradiction For if the Church be a Society founded upon Divine Right it must have at least as much Power of Government within it self as is necessary to its own Peace and Preservation otherwise it is no Society much less of any Divine Appointment And if it be indued with a Power of Government it must have a Power of inflicting penalties upon Offenders because without that the common sense of mankind will tell us that all Government is ineffectual And then as it is a Society so it is no civil Society as appears by our Saviours own Declaration that his Kingdom is not of this World and by the fundamental Principle of these men that for that very reason maintain it cannot be indued with any juridical Authority From all which viz. That it is a Society but no civil Society that every Society must have Government and all Government a Power of inflicting Penalties what can more demonstratively follow than That its Penalties are distinct from those that are inflicted by the civil Power and if so that then Excommunication in the Christian Church whatever it is must be something distinct from all civil Inflictions So that methinks Mr. Hobbs his Notion is much more Coherent with it self for whilst he allows the Church no Right of Society but what is granted it by the civil Government it is but reasonable that the Power upon whose Charter it subsists should retain to it self the Authority of governing it according to the Laws and Rights of its own â—â—stitution But to derive all its Rigâ—â— of Society from God and at the same time allow it no Power of Government but from the State is that gross Contradiction I charge them with in that Society without Government is no Society So that this one Notion That the Church is a spiritual Corporation distinct from the Common-wealth and antecedent to its being embodied to it prevents and anticipates all the Erastian Arguments because that alone plainly infers that it must be endued with a jurisdiction distinct from the civil Government And indeed the main Dispute depends upon this one Principle Whether the Church be a Society founded by Divine Institution if it be that alone vests it with a Power of Excommunication if it be not it is in vain to strugle against Conclusions when we have once own'd the Premises for then are we clearly return'd back to the Church of Leviathan that stands uponno other Foundation than that of humane Laws Now upon this immoveable Principle I joyn Issue with our learned Authour and shall wait upon him through all parts of his Discourse and through all Ages of the world as he has divided them into six Epochas 1 From Adam to Moses 2 From Moses to the Captivity 3 From the Captivity to our Saviour 4 From our Saviour to the end of the first Century 5 From the end of the first Century to the Reign of Constantine 6 From Constantine to our own Age of all which he has endeavour'd severally to prove that there was either no such thing as Excommunication in Use or if there were that it was a meer humane Invention First he undertakes to prove that there was no such punishment as Consistorian Excommunication in all the interval from the Creation to Moses For whereas it is the custom of some zealous men to fetch all things from the beginning of the World they have here it seems exemplified this matter in the Fall of Lucifer from Heaven in the expulsion of Adam from Paradise and in the banishment of Cain from the Society of mankind Now in answer to these he replies two things First that these punishments were not properly Excommunication Secondly that if they were examples are not enough to make a Divine Law I will freely grant him both and yet infer from hence what is enough to my purpose The necessity of Government to the preservation of Society and of inflicting penalties to the preservation of Government When it appears from hence that even God himself who is endued with infinite Wisdom and Power has no other moral way but this to govern the world And that is all that in this part of the Dispute can be material to our present Argument for the Dispute being divided into two parts Whether there be such a punishment as Excommunication and Whether the Power of inflicting it be appropriate to certain Officers of our Saviours appointment I suppose no man ever pretended to prove that our Saviour at the beginning of the World instituted an Apostolical order of men for the government of Religion so that here all the Controversie that can be is Whether there were not an absolute necessity of some jurisdiction in this as well as all other matters of humane life and for it we have our Authour 's full suffrage proving in his first and second Chapters that the sons of Noah and the Patriarchs who lived before the Law must have had their Courts of judicature tam circa Sacra quà m Profana from the nature and end of Society in that without this Power it must unavoidably fall into disorder and confusion Utrum aurem praefecturae fuerint illis tunc temporis juridicae tametsi nulla omnino restarent earundem in sacris literis alibive vestigia non magis esset dubitandum quà m utrùm in societatem vitae civilem coalescerent tunc ipsi atque animalia ut genus humanum reliquum essent politica rectèque ac honestè pro seculi persuasione vivendi rationem omnino inirent atque ut Dubia Lites Controversiae cum effectu civili i. e. judiciorum executione dirimerentur scelera ac delicta cohiberentur adeoque in Officiis contineretur quisque suis curaret And therefore he makes all Government to be establisht by the Law of Nature as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of all humane Society Which
if he would but have applyed to the case of the Christian Church it would have prevented the pains of all his ensuing Discourses for that being a Society of it self as founded upon Divine Right and Power of governing it self being necessary to Society what can be more evident from the nature of things themselves than that the Church must be endued with such a Power So that once supposing Society that alone infers Government and all the acts of it and to this purpose our Authour observes out of the Jewish Doctors if their Authority be to any purpose that whereas there were six Laws given by God to our first Parents to oblige all mankind the last was de Judiciis for as much as without that all the rest would have been ineffectual thus whereas Idolatry and Blasphemy which refer only to the Worship of God were forbidden by the two first they could never have had the force of Laws among mankind unless some Persons were indued with a power of judging of the nature of those Crimes and inflicting punishments in pursuance of their Sentence which he styles not only the Soul of Government but the noblest faculty of that Soul and the noblest act of that faculty And therefore when our Authour disputes whether the Christian Excommunication were taken from the Jews or the Heathen and leaves the case doubtful in that it was in Use among most nations civil and barbarous as well as the Jews as he proves by a vast collection out of the Records of the Greeks the Romans Arabians Germans Gauls Britans and others his most proper conclusion would have been That so universal a Practice could be derived from nothing less than the common sense of mankind The two next Periods are from Moses to the Captivity when the Jews enjoyed the civil jurisdiction of their own Common-wealth and from the Captivity to our Saviour when they were either wholy deprived of it or limited in its exercise according to the pleasure of the Princes to whom they were subject In the first interval he proves at large that they had no such punishment as Excommunication strictly so called but that all Officers whatsoever were punished with a loss or abatement of their civil Liberties But being deprived of the power of the Sword or the civil Government in the time of their Captivity they were forced having no more effectual way to punish Offenders against their Law by shame and dishonour As pregnant proofs both these of the necessity of Excommunication in the Christian Church as a modest man could well have desired For what can follow with greater clearness of Reason than that If the Jewish state had no Use of meer Excommunication whilst it was indued with a power of restraining vice by the civil Sword and that when it was deprived of this Power it was forced by the meer necessity of the thing to make Use of this punishment that therefore the Society of the Church having no Power of temporal coercion to punish offences against the Laws of the Society must be vested with some other power of punishment suitable to the nature and end of its Constitution Otherwise it would be a Society founded by God himself without sufficient means to govern that is preserve it self And if it have a Right or power of Discipline within it self that is the only thing that the Church demands and that our Authour denies But of these two long Periods the account as to our purpose is very short for as for the first it is granted on all hands That the Rights of Church and State were granted by the same Charter and the power of Government vested in the same Persons and therefore all their acts of jurisdiction carried in them according to the nature of the Society both a civil and Ecclesiastical Authority Whereas the Christian Church is of a quite different Constitution It is a Kingdom indeed but not of this world indued with no temporal power and instituted purely for spiritual ends and therefore its Government if it have any must be suitable to its Institution distinct from that of the civil State and enforced by such penalties as are peculiar to the Society the greatest whereof is to be cast out of it which answers to putting to death by the civil Sword So that the different constitution of these two Societies being consider'd it unavoidably follows Because the Jewish Magistrates had a compleat jurisdiction in all things that therefore the jurisdiction proper to the Church that has no civil Power must be meerly spiritual and if it have any jurisdiction proper to it self that is enough to our purpose against them who say it has none As for the second that Excommunication was taken up in the time of the Captivity meerly to supply the want of the civil Sword it is as clear an Instance as could have been produced of the necessity of this or the like punishment in all Society where there is no other coercive Power But here by the way though I do not doubt that this punishment was then first made Use of upon this ground yet I must confess that I am not satisfied of the Account that our Authour and other learned men give of it out of the Talmudical Writers For beside that they all writ when their Nation was debauched with Misnical and Talmudical Fables than which it is hard to invent any thing more absurd and silly they who were in comparison but very modern Writers had no other means of knowing what was done from the time of the Captivity but from the writings of the Prophets and the Histories of those times and therefore their Reports can have no Authority but as justified by those ancient Records And whereas Mr. Selden tells us for the Reputation of his own Learning Si cui hic dubium forsan occuâ—rat utrum corpori scriptoribus talmuaiâ—is hujusmodi in rebus quatenus historicae sunt id est quatenus in eis pro jure qualicunque Ebreis veteribus recognito atque usitato traâ—untur fides sit habenda eo scilicet quod corpus illud quo jam habetur contextum scriptoresque illi caeteri saeculorum sunt Templi urbisque excidio recentiorum is for san etiam dubitabit de Justiniani seu Triboniani fide dum Modestini Papiniani Florentini Alpheni Proculi Celsi ejusmodi aliorum qui trecentis aut circiter sunt Justiniano annis vetustiores sententias atque scita juris alibi non reperta He might have observed that these two cases were vastly different for there were certain Records and Reports of those famous Lawyers which were conveyed by writing from age to age as were the writings of other Authors Whereas there are no footsteps of any Monuments for the Rabinical Fable and as they have no ancient Authority so they discover themselves by their own foolishness to have been the inventions of a very barbarous and degenerate Age. so that our Authour if he would have found a parallel
all cases that came in upon the account of their new Persuasion that is to say all cases that concern the Christian Church So p. 207. Et qui annis proximius sequentibus è Gentilibus sine Judaismi Proselytismi Christi disciplinam amplexati sunt Judaeorum nihilominus nomine ita simul cum reliquis Judaeis paritâ—r veniebant eorumque diu juribus aliis non paucis ita utebantur ut non videatur omnino dubitandum quin inter jura illa etâ—am hoc de excommunicatione Judaica quantum ad species ejus seu gradus nam quantum ad causas necessum erat ut alitâ—r se res haberet quod nemo non videt pariter à cunctis ut ante pro re nata adhiberetur But if the causes for which Excommunication was inflicted in the Christian Church were as the Parenthesis informs us of a different nature from those for which it was inflicted among the Jews then without any farther dispute it is evident that the exercise of the Christian Excommunication was distinct from that of the Jews So lastly to mention no more p. 225. Nec disciplina illa apud eos alia quam Judaismus vere reformatus sen cum fide in Messiam seu Christum rite conjunctus Unde Judaei omnimodi quantum ad hanc rem in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credentes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non credentes tribui solebant We are here proving that there was no discipline in the Christian Church but what was in the Jewish state before Christianity but now it is the discipline of reform'd Judaism i. e. of Christianity But passing by these humble concessions or rather contradictions it is enough to our purpose that though all Christians were Jews all Jews were not Christians so that though the Christians enjoyed the same Rights in common with the Jews yet they must have some Rights peculiar to themselves as Christians Non aliter as our Author expresses it atque is qui Civis Romani aliusve Reipublicae seu sodalitii aliâ—ujus socius jura pristina retinet utcunque in persuasionem aliquam inter suos singularem pro libitu transeat In the same manner as a Citizen of Rome retains his former Rights notwithstanding he enters himself into any new Society to which ought to be added that the rights of the Society into which he enters himself are distinct from those wherewith he was antecedently vested as a Citizen of Rome And therefore all this long discourse is quite beside the purpose that because the Christians enjoyed the same priviledges with Jews that therefore they enjoyed none as Christians which is to say that there are no Christian Priviledges And so is that of the Edicts of the Roman Emperors who it seems knew nothing of the difference between Christians and Jews What then was there none because the enemies or strangers to the Church were unacquainted with its peculiar Constitutions And yet here too our Author is quite beside the purpose not only in matter of Right but in matter of Fact as to the Authorities he alledges the first and chiefest whereof is the Edict of the Emperour Claudius for the banishment of all Jews from Rome by vertue whereof says he Aquila who was a Christian was banisht too and very good reason because he that was a Christian was a Jew too and if he was banisht as a Jew it is no matter whether he were a Christian or not when the Edict was made against the whole nation of the Jews His other instance is out of Celsus who objects it both against the Christians and Jews that all that great difference they made about their Messias was about a very trifle But does Mr. Selden think that Celsus his Authority is sufficient to prove it so If he does then I must confess that Celsus and himself seem to have been much of the same opinion for he frequently tells us that the Christians and Jews were the same men only that those were believers these unbelievers as if the difference were as inconsiderable as Celsus made the coming of the Messias But if his Authority be not sufficient as I suppose no good Christian will grant it is especially in this case then it 's here alledged apparently to no purpose And whereas he adds that Origen answers that the Jews who believe in Jesus do not withstanding live according to the Laws of their Nation he ought to have added too that they live according to the Laws of their Messias For it was that great and sacred Law of the Gospel that made a vast difference between a Jew and a Christian which was so great that it was not greater between a Jew and a Gentile But however if there were any difference at all it spoils all our Authors discourse that proceeds upon this only principle that there was none which is so absurd that it has all along forced him upon the forementioned cowardly contradiction viz. That there was none but what was made by Christianity But suppose that the Christians exercised a Jurisdiction among themselves by vertue of the imperial Edicts to the Jews as he tells us what if they had never been authorised by any such Edicts would they have had no Authority to censure or Excommunicate scandalous Offenders Did St. Paul proceed against the incestuous Corinthian by the grant of Claudius to the Jews to govern themselves by their own Laws and Customs If he did not then he acted by vertue of some other Authority if he did then when any of the following Emperours reverst this Edict the Authority of St. Paul in this matter had ceased What then became of the Church when Nero presently after forbad the exercise of Christianity or any part of it in the Roman Empire was not then Excommunication in the Christian Church an unlawful thing No says our Author because this Decree was made against the Christian Church in particular and therefore did not deprive them of those priviledges that belonged to them in common with the Jews But however upon this principle it is manifest that it debarred them of this Power as peculiar to the Christian Church and then whatever Jurisdiction they exercised as Jews they had no right of exercising any Discipline in the name of the Lord Jesus as St. Paul commands the Corinthians And then all the Ecclesiastical Discipline that was executed in the times of their several Persecutions was open Rebellion against the State But beside what if he had been pleased to reverse all priviledges granted to the Jews then the power of Ecclesiastical Discipline must have ceased among Christians And lastly when he adds for his last reserve for keeping up a Discipline in the Church contrary to the commands of the civil Power the confederacy of the primitive Christians who obliged themselves by mutual compacts and covenants to submit to the Discipline of the Church he should have consider'd that all such confederations were upon his principles nothing less than conspiracies
against the Government For if the Church have no right of exercising any Discipline within it self but by the grant of the Empire then the grant of the Empire being reversed it has none at all And thus has he fairly brought this confederate Discipline of the primitive Church which he has contrived purely to avoid any Government founded upon Divine Right into down-right Rebellion And no wonder when all Confederacies against the Commands of the Sovereign Power can be no better unless when warranted by Divine Authority And now it is no wonder if after these Premises our Author begins his next Chapter with a Confession that it does not appear when the present form of Excommunication began in the Christian Church Quandonam primo discrepantia ejusmodi inter Christianae Judaicae seu vetustioris Excommunicationis effectus inciperet non quidem satis liquet Sed ante Origenis ac Tertulliani etiam Irenaei tempora juxta jam dicta effectum quoad Sacrorum communicatinis negationem inolevisse non dubitandum Though I should have thought it a sufficient proof that it descended from the Apostles when we find it in the Church immediately after them and find no beginning of its Institution especially when it could have no other because the Apostles challenging no Civil Authority they could have no other power but a cutting off from the Spiritual Priviledges of the Christian Church And here I cannot but remark it as the peculiar disingenuity of all the Adversaries both of the Government and Governours of the Church i. e. Excommunication and Episcopacy that they will allow their usage in all Ages of the Church but only that of the Apostles and because they imagine that in their time there are no demonstrative evidences of their Practice for that reason destroy their Reverence and neglect their Authority whereas had these men the common modesty of Mankind they would revere them for their so ancient and Catholick Practice and when with all their search they cannot discover any later beginning of them they would conclude it at least a very fair probability that they descended from Apostolical Prescription And in our present case one would wonder that when our Author has traced this usage both in the Eastern and Western Churches into the Age immediately after the Apostles without being able to discover any other time of its first Institution how any man should doubt of its Apostolical Antiquity What Records can be more evident than the Canons of the Apostles the Writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian that lived in the first Century after them and St. Cyprian in the second who do not only mention this Power of the Church as a thing then in common use but speak of it as an ancient Right derived from their Ancestors I shall give one Instance for all because our Author has the boldness to quote it and yet to overlook the Consequence and that is out of Irenaeus who expostulating with Victor Bishop of Rome about his rash Excommunication of the Asiatick Churches thus bespeaks him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never were any men Excommunicated after this rate Upon which our learned Author observes Excommunicationis usus qualiscunque ut ab anterioribus seculis illuc propagatus utrinque pariter tunc admittitur from hence it appears that on all sides the use of Excommunication was admitted as descending from the foregoing Ages after this could any man think it possible that when he had allowed this Testimony of Irenaeus who by his own computation flourished about Seventy years after St. John that he should ever doubt of its being an Apostolical practice Or could any man desire to reduce his Adversary to a greater absurdity than is here so frankly own'd that Irenaeus who lived in the age immediately after the Apostles should speak of this thing as the custom of former ages and yet that there should be no such custom in the Apostolical age And of the same nature is his discourse of the time when this power was first appropriated to the Christian Bishops which he confesses to be altogether unknown though he finds it in common use in the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian and that is time enough to give it right to Apostolick prescription especially when he does not so much as pretend to any Record that the Keys were ever in the Peoples hands Neither has he any ground for this Imagination but only his old conceit that among the Jews every man had this power and therefore among the Christians Whereas there is not the least ground of surmise that there was any such custom among the ancient Jews but that it was a meer off-spring of the Talmudical folly Or if there were yet it was too foolish to be admitted into the serious discipline of the Christian Church for of what use could it be when any man might Excommunicate whom he pleased and when he might be absolved from the heaviest sentence of the Court by any three persons that he could pack together such ridiculous trifling is at first view too absurd to be entertain'd in the Christian Church And as it does not appear that the People ever exercised this power de facto so neither does it that they could ever chalenge it de jure in that we do not find that our Saviour ever vested the Body of Believers in any Power of governing his Church but on the contrary that when ever he gives out his Commissions he ever addresses himself to particular Persons And thus are we faln upon the main Controversie where we ought to have begun and where we might have ended but he that pursues an Adversary must follow his motion otherwise certainly the matter of right ought to have been determin'd before the matter of Fact and therefore the first question ought not to have been whether the primitive Christians exercised any such Jurisdiction but whether they received any Commission from our Saviour for their Authority which if either proved or disproved would prevent the following dispute concerning the practice of the Church but seeing our Author is pleased to take this method we shall tread in his steps and thus he brings it in that when the Bishops had unwarrantably assumed this Power to themselves they justified their usurpation by pretended Patents made to themselves in several Texts of Scripture as the Power of the Keys and of binding and loosing and if any man hear not the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican And now to elude the true meaning of these and the like passages what infinite pains has been taken by our Author and other learned men I need not represent but whatever shifts men may invent their true meaning discovers and clears it self by this one plain and obvious consideration viz. That our Saviour had already set up his Kingdom or Society of his Church upon which supposition all these grants can signifie nothing less than a donation of Power Thus when he chooses Officers
under him and gives the Keys of his Kingdom into their hands what can that possibly signifie but their Power of Government in and over the Society especially when it was so familiar a thing in Scripture to express power by Keys and our Author himself has observed it and proved it by a multitude of Instances But then says he this Power of opening and shutting the Kingdom of Heaven is exercised by preaching the Doctrine of the Gospel by administring the Sacraments by admitting fit Persons into it by Baptism and by not admitting such as are unfit and by retaining such as are already admitted That is to say our Author will allow the Governors of the Church all other Acts of Jurisdiction but only this one of Excommunication notwithstanding that it is evidently implyed in them all Thus if the Governours of the Church be entrusted with a Power of Judging what Persons are fit to be admitted then certainly if they perform not those conditions upon which alone they are admitted it must be in the Power of those who let them in to turn them out So plainly does the Power of Baptism infer that of Excommunication and the Power of judging who are fit members of the Church infer both So that the Gentlemen of the Erastian persuasion would have been much more consistent with themselves when they would not give the Church all the Acts of Power if they would have given it none at all for they are inseparable And therefore the learned and pious Mr. Thorndike has very judiciously observed that the Leviathan has done like a Philosopher in making the question general that is general indeed though by so freely and generously declaring himself he has made his Resolution more subject to be contradicted But yet they that only dispute the Power of Excommunication as they are of the same opinion so are they pressed with greater difficulty only they express not so much of their meaning for they are nevertheless to give an account what Right the secular Power can have to appoint the Persons that shall either determine or execute matters of Religion to decide controversies of Faith to administer the Sacraments than if they resolved and maintain'd all this as expresly as the Leviathan hath done And in the same manner does the following Text explain it self If he hear not the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican if we will observe upon what subject our Saviour was then discoursing for though our Author to make the matter appear the more ambiguous has given us a large Critical account of the words that signifie Church in all Languages if instead of that he had only minded our Saviour's Discourse he must have seen that by the Church here could be understood nothing but the Christian Church this being one of the Laws whereby he would have the Subjects of his Kingdom to be govern'd But our Author tells us that the Notion of the Christian Church was not then understood it being a thing to come and it is not likely that our Saviour in a matter of familiar and daily use should direct them to such a means as no mortal man could possibly understand To which it is very easie to answer that all our Saviour's Discourses procede upon the supposition of the being of his Church He began at preaching the Kingdom of Heaven and all his Sermons and Instructions after that are but so many Laws and Institutions for its Government and therefore our Saviour's Words are so far from being doubtful or obscure that they were not capable of being applied to any other Society than that which he was now establishing in the World And whatsoever was the vulgar meaning of the word Ecclesia yet when used by our Saviour it can be applied to no other company of men but that of his Church and it was so far from being then a new word or a new notion to the Apostles that our Saviour had sometime before used the same Expression to St. Peter Upon this Rock I will build my Church which he promised him as a peculiar reward of his forward Faith Now it cannot be supposed that our Saviour would make his promises to his Friends and Servants in unintelligible Language and therefore it must be supposed that the Notion of the Christian Church was an intelligible thing But if this will not do our Author proceeds that this Text gives no jurisdiction to the Church but only directs private Christians how they shall behave themselves toward Offenders as if the Emperour should have made an Edict that if any Subject should not submit to the decree of his Prefect he should be accounted by his fellow Subjects as no member of the Common-wealth this gives the Prefect no new Power but only concerns the opinion of the People Very true but it supposes his old Power and so if our Saviour had antecedently vested his Church with this Power this was no new grant but only a supposition of a former one if he had not then this was their Patent when he refers his Subjects to their Judicature But whatever may be the Notion of the Church what is there says our Author in the following words Let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican that sounds like Excommunication either in the Jewish or Christian use of it Nothing at all in the Jewish for Heathens were never Excommunicate as having never been of the Society neither were Publicans put out of the Synagogue upon the account of their being Publicans But though Heathens were not Excommunicate Persons yet Excommunicate Persons were as Heathens and that is so plainly the meaning of the words that nothing but meer peevishness could have made the exception and it is the same as if our Saviour should have said of an Apostate let him be unto thee as an Infidel and our Author should have replied upon him How can that be When an Infidel is one that was never a Member of the Church and an Apostate once was And then as for the Publicans though they durst not at that time Excommunicate them for that reason for fear of the Romans yet it is notorious that they thought them worthy of it and that they were esteem'd as no better than scandalous Sinners Heathens and Idolaters But this supposed too it is no act says he of the Church but every private man who was hereby permitted to treat the Offender as a vile Person But this act of his supposes the power of Judicature in the Church for this advice relates to the known power of the Sanhedrin that were wont to Excommunicate refractory Offenders and thereby to put them into the state of Heathen Men And such it seems was to be the Authority of the Apostles who were the great Sanhedrin in the Christian Church as appears by the plain design of our Saviour's discourse when he refers all Christians to their Judicature and commands them that if any man be
obstinate against their Authority every man should look upon him as an Excommunicate Person and by the sentence of the Court reduced into the state of Idolaters But also by the words immediately following Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Which words plainly declare a Power of binding in the sentence of the Church and withall who the Church is viz. The Apostles or Governours of it to whom our Saviour addresses his speech and vests them and them alone with that Authority in which he had before enstated St. Peter and promises to ratifie not the opinion of the People but their acts of Judicature when the People appeal to their Authority But neither Secondly says our Author can these words relate to the Christian Excommunication for what punishment could there then be in being accounted of as an Heathen when a great number of the primitive Christians were Heathens or such as came into the Church without Circumcision What in our Saviours time did you not take a great deal of pains in the foregoing Chapter to prove not only that then but during all the time of the Apostles all Christians were Jews but now it will serve your turn the greatest part of them were Heathens But not to insist too much upon such weak pretences it is certain that in our Saviours time all that were not Jews by Circumcision were esteemed as Heathens i. e. Idolaters and vile Persons not fit to be admitted into their Church or Common-wealth and therefore it can be of no other Import in the Christian Church Our Saviour here accommodating as he does every where the known customs of the Synagogue to the Constitution of his Church so that considering the vulgar manner of speaking at that time I cannot understand if our Saviour had design'd to establish this Power in what other words he could have expressed himself with more plainness and less ambiguity even to the capacities of the People Of the Third Text Math. 18. 18. Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth c. Though it is answer'd already as appertaining to the second our Authors account is briefly this that the words of binding and loosing are either to be taken in their large sense of all manner of binding but then it seems very strange to express one act of it by such comprehensive words and it is like describing the Ocean by a drop of Water or the Universe by an Atom Or if they are taken in the peculiar sense of the Jewish Writers they then do not signifie any Jurisdiction but only declaring what is lawful what not or answering cases of Conscience To which I answer that in whatever sense the words are taken they will include in them the power of Excommunication In the larger sense they signifie Jurisdiction and all the parts branches and appendages of it and then the Power of inflicting penalties which as is well known and our Author has often observed gives force to all the rest is to be understood in the first place And therefore he might have spared his wonder that so large a word should be taken in so narrow a sense when that narrow sense necessarily infers all other things that it does or can signifie But however to prevent this vain objection for the time to come these words are not insisted upon as limited meerly to Excommunication but as a general donation of Power and therefore of this in particular which is so considerable a branch of it And that is it which we assert that seeing by the Power of the Keys the Scripture so often expresses greatness of Power therefore the Power that is exercised by vertue of them must carry with it the full force of obligation So that the words mutually explain each other for if by the Keys given in the Sixteenth verse is signified Authority then by binding and loosing by which the acts of them are expressed in the Eighteenth verse must be understood authoritative obligation for though the word binding simply put may not infer Authority yet binding by the Keys signifies the same thing as binding by Authority And this would have prevented our Authors other notion of which some learned men are so very fond of binding only by answering cases of Conscience because though binding alone may signifie only so much yet binding by the Keys must signifie more But it is notorious that the word it self no where in the old Testament signifies any other binding than by Legislative or judicial Obligation and whereas it is pretended that in the Talmudical Writers it signifies only an interpreting of Laws without jurisdiction it is so palpable a mistake that in them it can signifie nothing less than authoritative Obligation when it is so evident that their Rabbies equal'd their interpretations to the Law it self and bound them upon the Consciences of men by vertue of the Divine Authority and under penalty of the Divine displeasure But however if our Saviour constituted his Apostles to be only Doctors and Casuists yet he has annexed Authority to their Office by the promise made at their Instalment that whatever they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven for I am sure all binding there is Obligatory so that it seems if they are Casuists they are authoritative Casuists and that is the same thing as if they were endued with proper Jurisdiction And now having as I suppose sufficiently vindicated these Texts I cannot but remark it as some defect of Ingenuity in this learned Gentleman to have wholly omitted one Text more which he could not be ignorant to have been as commonly as any of the other insisted upon in this Argument and if he would have taken notice of it would have prevented his Evasions And that is St. John Chap. 20. v. 21 22 23. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you And when he had said this â—e breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Here our Saviour gives his Apostles the same Power that he had received from his Father and then for the discharge of it the same Ability wherewith himself acted and lastly declares to them wherein lay the Exercise of it and what were the Effects of it forgiving and retaining of Sins which answers to the power of Binding and Loosing in the other Gospel And this if attended to would have prevented that poor slender Notion that the power of Binding and Loosing signifies only the Office of Interpreting or declaring what is lawful what unlawful for to retain or remit Sins as the truly pious and learned Dr. Hammond observes will not be to declare one mans sins unlawful anothers lawful which it must do if this interpretation be applied to this place After all this it will be but superfluous industry to spend pains upon our Author's Conceit wherewith he concludes this Chapter viz. That the Authority of the Church
arises from meer consent or voluntary confederacy for beside as I have shewn that all such Confederacies are upon his principles downright Rebellion it is manifest that if our Saviour appointed Officers over his Church and vested them with a power of Government that then he has brought all the members of it under an Obligation to submit to their Authority antecedent to their own consents But though we had no such clear evidence of this Divine Institution yet I am sure we have not the least footsteps in Antiquity of this confederate Discipline He tells us indeed of Compacts and Covenants that the Primitive Christians are said to have made among themselves but he could have told us too that these Compacts were nothing else but the celebration of the Eucharist at which they were wont as all devout men do to renew their vows and resolutions of Obedience to the Laws of their Religion And this Confederacy we all know is founded upon a Divine Institution and not only this but all other Assemblies for the publick Worship of God To which all Christians are bound by an Obligation higher than meerly their own consent and such a Confederation we grant the Church still to be a company of men Covenanting among themselves to worship God according to the Ordinances and obey him according to the Laws of the Gospel But then they are bound by the Command of God both to take this Covenant and to keep it And this is all the confederacy I know of unless we must believe Celsus his Calumnies for he too is quoted upon this occasion in the Primitive Church so that whereas our Author every where compares the confederate discipline of the Christians with that of the Jews in their dispersions it is manifest that the Jews had no other engagement beside their own mutual consent whereas the Christians were particularly obliged to enter into their Confederacy by God himself and this difference is so manifest that I shall say no more of it And now having thus firmly establisht the Churches Power upon Divine Right that supersedes all farther enquiry into the practice of after-Ages For in matters that are determined by Law all Presidents are either nothing to the purpose or to no purpose if they are against the Command they are nothing to the purpose being only so many Violations of the Law If they are for it they are to no purpose because they derive all their goodness and authority from the Law it self and therefore can give it none Thus if the power of Excommunication be founded upon the Command of God the contrary practice of all the Princes in Christendom is of no weight against the Word of God if it be not the practice of all the Churches in the World can never establish a Divine Command So that the controversie concerning matters of fact from the Reign of Constantine to our own Times the matter of Law being already clear'd from our Saviour's Time carries in it more of Ostentation than Usefulness But because our Author has been pleased to prosecute it so largely and with so much learning and confidence we are obliged to follow him especially when it is so notorious even from his own relations that the whole practice of Christendom unless perhaps in some enormities of the worst and most barbarous Times runs directly cross to his design First then he presents us with many Instances out of the Imperial Law whereby the Emperors exercised this Authority themselves but to all this himself immediately gives a sufficient Answer without making any Reply viz. That such Excommunications were meerly declaratory whereby they only declared their detestation of such Persons or Doctrines or rather declared their assent to the Sentence already denounced by the Church for I do not find that they ever made any new Ecclesiastical Laws of their own but only adopted the Canons of Councils into the Laws of the Empire and added to the Anathema's of the Church what civil Penalties they deem'd most sutable to the Offence The Theodosian Code is an excellent collection of the Constitutions of sixteen Emperours ab Anno Dom. 312. or the first Year of Constantines Conversion ad Annum 438. when it was compiled by the command of Theodosius junior in all which I think I may safely challenge any man to assign one Law relating to Religion that was not antecedently determin'd by some Council Almost all the Laws of this nature are contain'd in the 16th Book under their several Titles De fide de haereticis de apostatis c. in all which whoever will be pleased to peruse them he will find that the several Emperors enacted nothing but meerly in pursuance of Ecclesiastical Canons adding for the most part to Excommunication in the Church the punishment of Outlawry in the State Thus for example Theodosius the Great in that famous Ecclesiastical Edict published by him in the second year of his Reign and the first of his Baptism and therefore stiled by the Interpreters of the Justinian Code filiam primogenitam only established the Nicene Faith Ut secundum Apostolicam disciplinam evangelicamque doctrinam Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti unam deitatem sub parili Majestate sub piâ Trinitate credamus And when the Year after he published another Edict to the same purpose he vouches his Law by the Authority of the Nicene Council as may be seen Tit. 5. de Haereticis Leg. 6. So that his design was not to make any new Law but only to abet an ancient Law of the Church with a civil Penalty as he concludes his Edict that Offenders against it should not only be obnoxious to the Divine Veneance denounced by the Council but should also be punished at the Emperors pleasure for that I suppose to be the meaning of Motûs nostri ultione plectendos But the most express Ratification of the Canons of the Church is that Edict of Theodosius the Younger to the Governour of the Eastern Illyricum Anno Domini 421. Omni innovatione cessante vetustatem Canones pristinos Ecclesiasticos qui nunc usque tenuerunt per omnes Illyrici Provincias servari praecipimus Tum si quid dubietatis emerserit id oporteat non absque scientiâ viri reverendissimi sacrosanctae legis Antistitis urbis Constantinopolitanae quae Romae veteris praerogativâ laetatur conventui sacerdotali sanctoque judicio reservari 'T is not material whether this Law refer to the Canons of the General Councils or to the particular Canons of that Province which is a Dispute among learned men For be it this or that it is manifest that the Emperor design'd to follow the Decrees of the Church and to refer Ecclesiastical Controversies to its own judgment and determination Having intimated this account of the Theodosian Code I need add nothing of the Justinian because it only repeats all the Laws of the former that were not obsolete as may be seen not only by comparing the Books themselves but
by that exact collation of their Titles and Constitutions that is prefixed to Gothofred's Edition of the Theodosian Code And as for his own Novels he frequently makes particular reference to the Canons of the Church challenging to himself a power of punishing Offences against the Ecclesiastical Canons by vertue of this one general Law which he declares to have been the sense of himself and his Predecessors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Canons of the Church ought to have the force of Laws And accordingly he begins his Laws concerning Ecclesiastical matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We enact that the Canons of the Church i. e. the four first general Councils shall be received into the number of our Laws And by that Edict alone if there had been no other they were all Constituted Laws of the Empire And according to this Principle he declares in the Preface to his 83 Novel that he only follows the ancient Canons and Constitutions of the Church And particularly in his 137 Novel where he endeavours the restitution of Ecclesiastical Discipline he only enjoyns the observation of the thirty sixth Apostolical Canon viz. That the Bishops of each Province meet twice a Year for the more effectual Government of the Church and this he professes to do not as Author but as Protector of the Ecclesiastical Laws and therefore in the Preface to this Novel he challenges to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of Legislation in reference to the Civil Laws but in reference to the Laws of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of Patronage or Protection This seems to have been the Constitution of the Church in those happiest and most flourishing Ages of it whereby it appears that the Emperours of those Times were so far from assuming the power of Excommunication to themselves that they would not so much as abet any matter of Religion with their civil Sanctions that was not determin'd beforehand by the Spiritual Power Whether they ever exceeded their own bounds I think not my self obliged to enquire they being lyable to that as well as to other mistakes and misearriages of Govenment Though I remember not any instances of that kind till the latter and degenerate ages of Christendom when barbarity was introduced by the incursions of the Goths and Vandals and other salvage Nations It is enough to my purpose that the Power of the Keys in the Church was acknowledged by the Christian Emperours from Constantine to Justinian and it is more than enough in that whether they own'd it or not it was setled by our Saviour upon the Apostles and their Successors to the end of the World But secondly Emperours Kings and Princes have limited the Ecclesiastical Order in the exercise of this Power and assign'd them either larger or narrower bounds of Jurisdiction as they judged most consistent with reasons of State by which they evidently declare what was their opinion of the censures of the Church for if they had supposed Church-officers to have acted by a Divine Authority they durst never have presumed to set bounds to the Power of God by their own arbitrary Decrees As if it were not possible for the Governours of the Church to go beyond their Commission and under pretence of a Divine Authority encroach upon that power that God has committed to Princes Which if they can do and some have done what affront is it to the Authority of God himself to restrain his Ministers within those bounds of Jurisdiction that he has prescribed to them Nay is not this very thing a very plain confession of a distinct Authority when to limit a power supposes it So that it is so far from being any Argument of their disowning the Divine Institution of an Ecclesiastical power that 't is a demonstrative and undoubted proof of their acknowledgment of it This being granted I shall not concern my self to enquire into the warrantableness of the several Precedents alledged though most of them relate only to the restraint of dilatory vexatious and uncanonical proceedings for my only business is to gain the suffrage of the Princes of Christendom to my Cause for which I am no ways bound to prove them free from all errours and miscarriages of Government so that if they might at any time bear too hard upon the power of the Church especially when the Church has given them too much reason so to do that is so far from being any prescription against its due exercise that it is a declaration of these Princes that have been most unkind to it that they own its Power provided it be kept within its due bounds But what the general sense of Christendom has been concerning the distinction of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers sufficiently appears by those great differences that have been raised about the bounds of their Jurisdiction And though the Christian Emperours have of later times been forced from time to time to struggle against the encroachments of the Bishops of Rome yet they never question'd that I know of the divine Right of their Episcopal Authority And therefore neither here shall I concern my self to examine the particular precedents pleaded by both Parties for the advancement of their respective Powers when it is certain that both Powers may and often have exceeded their just limits which yet is such an inconvenience that considering the passions and partialities of men is utterly unavoidable And we cannot expect that God should give such Laws as that it should not be in the Power of humane liberty to break them for then the Laws were given to no purpose it is enough that they are sufficient to guide those that will resign themselves to be govern'd with honesty and integrity and it is not in the power of Laws to effect more So that it is a very frivolous objection much insisted upon by some ill-minded men that seeing the competition of these two Powers has been occasion of creating so many mischiefs and inconveniences to Christendom it were better that one of them were removed which beside the bold way of arguing that because they think in their great wisdoms that God ought not that therefore he has not constituted two distinct Powers it is such an Objection that no constitution can possibly avoid for which way soever the Government of the World may be setled there is no remedy but that through the corruption and folly of mankind it may and often will be liable to abuses And particularly in this case there is no difficulty in discerning the bounds that God has set to these two Powers if men would be honest and upright and if they will not it is no fault of the Law that they will break it For Christianity is wholly founded upon the Doctrin of the Cross which obliges them in all cases either to obey or to suffer peaceably So that how great soever the Authority of Churchmen may be there is no danger of its interfering with or entrenching upon
the Prerogatives of Princes unless they misuse it and if they do as they go beyond their Commission so they deserve their punishment in this lâ—fe among the worst of Rebels and Traytors and are sure to have it in the next For as their Power is not only purely spiritual void of all temporal force and coercion so are they in the first place and above all things forbidden to use any violence or raise any disturbance against Government So that if any Prince think good to oppose them in the Execution of their Office and to punish them for so doing they are not to oppose him but only to sacrifice their lives in justification of their cause and submission to his will and for so doing they shall have their Reward But if they shall make use of any other Weapons whatsoever beside Prayers and Tears and Sufferings they then suffer deservedly as disturbers of the publick Peace And so much the more in that they have been so expresly forewarned by our Saviour that whosoever shall draw the Sword in his cause shall be sure to perish by it And as upon this principle he founded his Church so upon it his Apostles built it when in pure obedience to his command they preached the Gospel all the World over And if any Prince were pleased to countermand them they did not plead any exemption from the Government much less did they Libel it but only represented the Innocence and Justice of their Cause and if he were not satisfied declared their readiness to submit to his pleasure and the penalty of the Law And in this they enjoyed no other exemption from the Prerogative of Princes than what is or ought to be chalenged by every private Christian who is indispensably bound to make profession of his Christian Faith and if the Laws of his Country so require to seal it with his Blood This was the constitution of the Church and the practice of it in its first profession and is the constitution of the Church of England in its Reformation For whereas a foreign Italian Bishop had for a long time usurped wel-nigh all both secular and spiritual Power into his own hands and by an exorbitant abuse of it had enslaved the Prince and empoverished the people only to enrich himself and his own Courtiers they that were concern'd after long patience and much provocation at last resolved upon what motives concerns not us to resume their Rights The King that Power which was exercised by the Kings of Judah of old and by Christian Kings and Emperours in the primitive Church And the Bishops that Power wherewith they were as immediately entrusted by virtue of our Saviours general commission to the Apostolical Order as any other foreign Bishop or Bishops within their respective Diocesses whatsoever And to prevent all jealousie in the Prince lest they should play him the same game that his Holiness had done who in ordinc ad spiritualia had finely stript him of almost all his Temporal Jurisdiction by excepting all Ecclesiastical both Persons and Causes from his cognizance They therefore freelv declare him Supreme Governour first Over all Persons so that no Ecclesiastical Subject might as formerly appeal from his Tribunal And in all Causes so that every Subject whatsoever was bound to submit to his Decrees and Determinations so far forth as either to obey his Laws as long as he own'd and protected true Christianity as the Christian Bishops of old did to the Christian Emperours Or if he opposed it chearfully and peaceably to submit to their Penalties as they did to the Roman Persecutors And whereas from the Precedent of the Apostles in the first Council at Jerusalem the Governours of the Church in all Ages enjoyed a power of making Canons and Constitutions for Discipline and good Order yet by the example of the Primitive Church they submitted the exercise thereof to his sovereign Authority protesting in verbo sacerdotis as it is stated in that famous Act called The Submission of the Clergy That they will never from henceforth presume to attempt alledg claim or put in ure enact promulge or execute any new Canons Constitutions Ordinances provincial or other or by whatsoever other name they shall be call'd in the Convocation unless the King 's most royal Assent and License may to them be had to make promulge and execute the same and that his Majesty do give his Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf Whereby they do not pass away their power of making Ecclesiastical Canons but only give security to the Government that under that pretence they would not attempt any thing tending to the disturbance of the Kingdom or injurious to the Prerogative of the Crown Which in truth is such a submission as all the Clergy in the World ought in duty to make to their Sovereign at least in gratitude for his Protection and that without any abatement or diminution of their own Authority viz. The standing Laws of Christianity being secured to submit all other Matters to his sovereign Will and Pleasure Whereby as they would bring no damage to the Church in that this power is exercised meerly in matters of Order and Discipline if the Prince did not approve of their Constitutions it would be no difficult thing to provide for Decency some other way so they would bring great security to the State when the Prince was assured that under that pretence they would not as the Roman Clergy had done distuâ—b or undermine his Authority And as they parted not with their Spiritual Legiâ—lative Power so not with any other Power proper to their Function as the Power of preaching the Christian Religion administring the holy Sacraments and conferring holy Orders Neither did any Prince in the least ever claim or exercise any of them And because the Romanists in the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth made a mighty noise with this Objection as if by virtue of her Supremacy her Majesty had challenged a Spiritual or Ministerial Power in the Church the Queen has with great indignation disown'd any such Power and defied the Calumny And yet when she had made her disclaimour of any Spiritual Power in the Church she parted not with her Royal Supremacy over those that had it as we are particularly instructed by our Church in her 37th Article Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Title we understand the minds of some dangerous Folks to be offended we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or the Sacraments the which things the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers And lastly to mention
no more whereas the witty and learned Cardinal Perron run upon the same mistake and it is a mistake that they all wilfully run upon King James in his Reply le ts him know that though Christian Kings and Emperours never arrogated to themselves a power of being Sovereign Judges in matters and controversies of Faith yet for moderation of Synods for determinations and orders establisht in Councils and for discipline of the Church they have made a good and full use of their Imperial Authority And that for this very good reason that very much concerns all Princes that they might see and judg whether any thing were done to the prejudice of their Power or the disturbance of the Commonwealth And much more to the same purpose And therefore for further satisfaction I shall refer the Reader to the excellent Discourse it self It is enough that I have given a plain and easie account of the distinct powers of Church and State and shewn that whoever denies the distinction disowns Christianity that our Saviour has vested his Church with a Power peculiar to it self that the Church has in all Ages exercised it that the Christian Emperours never denied it and lastly that the Church of England and the Reformed Princes thereof have remarkably own'd it But Thirdly Constantine and his Successors took upon them the Title of Pontifex Maximus to which according to the Constitution of the Roman Empire appertain'd the supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdâ—ction By virtue of which Authority they granted to the Church among other Priviledges this power of Excommunication in the same manner as Claudius and other Heathen Emperours gave leave both to Jews and Christians to govern themselves by their own Laws and Customs And though the Emperour Gratian refused to wear the Pontifical Habit as a piece of Pagan Superstition yet it no where appears that he refused the Dignity it self And this Discourse our Author prosecutes with much Zeal and Learning But what do these men make of the Christian Church or rather of Christ himself that he should make no other provision for its Government than to leave it wholly to the superintendency of Heathen Priests This is such a wild conceit in it self that I must confess I could never have imagin'd any learned man could ever have made use of it against the Constitution of the Christian Church And yet this learned Gentleman is not only serious but vehement and confident in it he urges it over and over and though he repeats every thing that he says so that indeed one half of his Discourse is nothing but a Repetition of the other yet here he doubles his Repetitions and every where lays this Principle as the foundation of the practice of all After times But can any man believe that Constantine the Great took upon him the power of Government in the Christian Church if he really believed in Christ himself by virtue of a Power derived from the Usurpation of Julius Caesar Or that he could imagine that the Heathenish Priestly Power belong'd to him after his owning Christianity when by that the whole frame of the old Roman Religion was declared to be Idolatrous so that the Roman High Priest was nothing better than the supreme Head of Idolatry An Honour certainly which no Christian Emperour would be very fond of astuming to himself Julian indeed challenged both the Title and the Dignity as the greatest Ornament of his Imperial Crown but the Reason was because he was so vainly fond of the Pagan Religon But how any man of common sense that had renounced Paganism should yet own himself High Priest by virtue of that Religion that he had renounced seems too great a Contradiction for any man of common sense to believe But what if they accepted of the Title as our Author very well knows they did of Divinity it self or rather what if it were customarily given to them by others For I met with no other Monuments of it but some old Complemental Inscriptions so that it being a customary Title of Honour it might easily for a time pass in the crowd of the other Imperial Titles For it seems it continued not long being rejected by Gratian who lived about fifty Years after the Conversion of Constantine And though our learned Author affirms that the pious Emperour only refused the Vestment but not the Dignity it is very obvious to any man of much less understanding than himself that the Emperour could have no reason to refuse one but for the sake of the other for the Case is plain that there was no superstition in the Vestment but only upon the account of the Office and for that reason there was little if any use of the Title afterwards But lastly the Power of Judicature was first granted to the Bishops by the favour of the Christian Emperours and especially by an Edict of Constantine the Great whereby he grants the Bishops a full Power of hearing and determining all causes Civil as well as Ecclesiastical and withal declares their Decrees to be more firm and binding than the sentence of any other Judicature and from this great indulgence of the Emperour it is not to be doubted but that among other forensique penalties they made use of Excommunication Of the inference I shall give an account by and by but as for the Edict it self if it could do any service to our Authors design it at last proves supposititious as is fully proved by Gothofred in his excellent Edition of the Theodosian Code his reasons are too many to be here recited I will give but one for all viz. That this Law is contrary to all the Laws of the Roman Empire for though several Emperours do in their several Novels give the Bishops Power to decide causes by way of Arbitration or the consent of both parties which Power they enlarged or contracted as they pleased and to this all the other precedents produced by our Author relate yet that one party should have liberty of appeal from the civil Court at any time before judgment given without the consent of his Adversary is such a wild and extravagant priviledg as is inconsistent with all the rules of the Imperial Law And yet that is the only design of that Edict Quicunque itaque litem habens sive possessor sive petitor erit inter initia litis vel decursis temporum curriculis sive cum negotium peroratur sive cum jam coeperit promi sententia judicium eligit sacro-sanctae legis Antistitis ilico sine aliqua dubitatione etiamsi alia pars refragatur ad Episcopum cum sermone litigantium dirigatur Which I say is such an absurd liberty as would utterly destroy all the Power of the civil Magistrate if the humour or perversness of any man could so easily baulk their sentence But beside the absurdity of the Law it self there is no such Edict extant in the Justinian Code nor any mention of it in any ancient Writers of Ecclesiastical History For as for
to provoke them And with this honest resolution I now proceed to vindicate one of the most evident but most injured Truths in the World And in it I shall be much briefer than at first I intended for when we have lopt off all that is not directly pertinent to the Enquiry as we shall reduce the Debate to a narrow compass so may we easily bring it to a speedy issue And therefore I shall purposely pass over all those things that relate only to the occasional exercise and outward administration of Church-Authority And particularly that wide argument of Dispute whether the distribution of Provinces and Diocesses were through the Roman Empire framed by the division of the Civil Government For whether it were or were not that concerns not the question of the Institution of a Ruling Clergy but only the manner or fashion of administring their Power when reduced to Practice For the extent of their Jurisdiction is is but accidental to the supremacy of their Power and whether the Circuit of a Monarchs Government be little or great it is all one as to the nature of Monarchy So that it is not at all material how the bounds of Diocesses came to be assign'd how Churches extended themselves from great Cities into the adjacent Territories till they sometimes swell'd into Provinces and how Bishops came to be subject to Metropolitans and Metropolitans to Patriarchs all which and divers other particulars though they are very copiously insisted upon by Learned men in the present Question are yet altogether useless as to its Determination because they only concern the outward and accidental Exercise and have no reference to the essential Form of Church-Government So that the only thing concern'd in our present enquiry is as Mr. Selden has rightly stated it Utrùm ex ipsâ purâ putâ Origine seu primâ ac merâ nascentis Ecclesiae Christianae Disciplinâ Episcopalis seu Ordo sive Dignitas sive Gradus Presbyterali seu Sacerdotali superior vel alius aut ei neutiquam dispar seu idem fuerit habendus That is in short whether the Church were at first founded in a superiority and subordination of Ecclesiastical Officers to each other or a parity and equality of all among themselves so that if we can prove the preeminence and superiority of one Order above all others in the Government of the Church from the beginning of it we shall thereby make good all that is essential to that Power and Authority that we challenge as proper only to the Episcopal Order and Office And this we doubt not but to perform with clear and demonstrative evidence from these three Topicks I. Of our Saviour's own express Institution II. The practice of the Apostles in Conformity to it III. The practice of the Primitive Church in the Ages next and immediatly after the Apostles And First As to our Saviour's Institution it is manifest That he founded his Church in an imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers in that he did by his own immediate Appointment authorize and set apart two distinct Orders of men for Ecclesiastical Ministries the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples whose Office if it were the same to what purpose were they distinguish'd And why when a place was vacant in the Apostolate must one be substituted by Divine Designation to complete the Number Why should not one of the Seventy without any further Election have served the turn seeing he was qualified with an Identity of Office and Order Nay to what purpose should they be reckoned apart under different Names and in different Ranks if there were no difference intended in their employments and commissions And why were they not all comprehended in one number and ranged in one Catalogue If the Twelve were nothing more than the Seventy and the Seventy nothing less than the Twelve to what purpose do we hear so oft of the Twelve and the Seventy or of the Seventy two for of that the learned dispute and not rather of the Eighty two or Eighty four For do we think that our Saviour would distinguish the Officers of his Kingdom by meer Words and empty Titles And yet the Apostleship could be nothing more if it carried in it no superiority of Office above the Seventy Some inequality we must discover and that intended too by our blessed Saviour himself else shall we never be able to give our selves any imaginable Account of their Institution And now what clearer evidence can any man demand for a Divine Right of Superiority and Subordination of Church Officers than our Saviour's own express and particular Institution Yes say they but the Inequality between the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples consisted in a superiority of Order and Office not of Power and Jurisdiction Very good This grants all that we can desire or demand to prove the Supreme Authority of the Supreme Order because every Superiour Ecclesiastical Order as such is Authoritative and therefore an eminency of Order must not only infer but include a superiority of Power seeing the Order it self as such if it be any thing is the proper and immediate seat of Authority and all the Jurisdiction of the Bishop whatsoever it is is claim'd and exercised by vertue of his Order So that if the Apostles were the highest Order of Ecclesiasticks they were for that Reason alone though there were no other the highest Judicature And in the same degrees of proportion that they were advanced above others in dignity of Title they were so in supremacy of Power because their Dignity as such is nothing elie but so much Power in the Church of God devest them of that and they immediately return to the condition of Ordinary and Unconsecrated men And the Apostles themselves were no more than all other common Believers but by vertue of their Commission to rule and govern the Church reverse that and they are degraded from their Order as well as stript of their Jurisdiction So lamentably do these learned men entangle themselves by distinguishing so vainly in this case between a superiority of Order and Power when the one is not only the very Ground and Foundation but to speak in the language of the Schoolmen from whom these Metaphysical nothings are taken the very Formality of the other and the Apostolical Power is Formally and as such the very same with the Apostolical Office So little real difference is there in this distinction that it is not possible to frame one in Notion and Conception but whoever pretends to conceive one must of necessity conceive both or conceive nothing And therefore I would very fain know wherein consists this superiority of Order and Dignity without any superiority of Power For what do men mean by Power but a right to Govern and what by Order but a superiority of some as Rulers and a subordination of others as Ruled What then is the difference between an inequality of Order and Power when they both equally signifie Superiority and Subjection
And therefore these Persons that relie so much on this distinction would have done very well to have considered with themselves wherein consists the Essence of Order when separated from Power which if they had done they would soon have discerned that they had only deceived themselves with an idle and an empty Word However it were worth their while to define what it was that was peculiar to the Apostolical Order beside the Supreme Government of the Church especially when as it is acknowledged by all Parties the Apostles enjoyed during their own lives the supreme Power in the Government of the Church and that the Parity of Presbyters arose not till after their Deaths they having appointed no Successors in their Apostolical Supremacy From whence what can be more apparent than that their Office could not possibly consist in any thing less than a superiority of Power over all the other Pastors of the Church And now when our Saviour himself has thus expresly Establish'd the Government of his Church in an imparity of Order and Power what farther Prescript would men have for the continuance of his own Establishment That alone is sufficient to prescribe to all Ages and Nations and if any man shall dare to remonstrate to its Obligation he must have confidence enough to presume that he is indued with more Wisdom or entrusted with more Authority than our Saviour himself For otherwise he cannot but think that he is obliged in Conscience and Modesty too rather to esteem this Model than any one of his own or any others Contrivance Yes but though it be proved that the Apostles had superiority of Order and Jurisdiction over the other Pastors of the Church by an Act of Christ yet it must further be proved that it was Christ's intention that Superiority should continue in their Successors or it makes nothing to the purpose For a bare Divine Command say they is not sufficient to make a Law immutable unless there be likewise expressed that it is the Will of God that it should always continue No no you are too nice and shie of your Obedience in this particular Case and may upon the same ground set your selves loose from all the Laws of the Gospel that are not enjoyn'd with an express declaration of their being Immutable and thereby you have quit your selves of the greatest part of your Christian Duty For we shall find but very few Precepts either of our Saviour or his Apostles tied with this double Knot and it seems without that they are not strong enough to tie any man to Obedience Neither do I see how upon this Principle we can avoid that frivolous Objection of the Socinians against the perpetual necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism viz. That seeing it was Instituted by our Saviour only to pass men from Judaism and Gentilism to Christianity it is therefore now of no necessity among Christians unless our Saviour had declared that it was his Will and Intention that it should always continue in his Church Especially when this Ceremony was taken up from the practice of the Synagogue where when any man had once renounced Heathenism and entred himself into the Jewish Church it was never after repeated in any of his Posterity but they were all by vertue of their Fore-fathers Baptism esteem'd as born in a state of Holiness and Regeneracy But however this general Principle is so far from Truth and Sobriety that it is a plain thrusting our own Presumptions upon the Will of God which being once declared it binds us for ever till himself is pleased to reverse it his meer Institution is its own perpetual Obligation and whatever he commands no Power can take it off but that which bound it on And therefore it is a vain scrupulosity if I may call so sceptical a pretence by that name to require of him not only to fasten his Laws by enacting them but as it were to clinch them too by declaring their perpetuity In all other Cases but this it is supposed that whatever he commands he commands for ever till he declares the contrary for though his Positive Laws be revocable in themselves yet being revocable only by God himself and his own Power since he hath already in his Word fully revealed his Will unless therein he hath declared when their Obligation shall cease they continue Irreversible It therefore being once granted that the Apostles had a superiority of Jurisdiction by an Act of Christ it plainly follows that without any farther declaration of its perpetuity their Power is irreversible Especially when the Rule whereby we are left to judg of the mind and intention of the Law-giver is the Reason of the Law viz. That the Reason continuing the Law should remain in force though I cannot see of what use this should be to those who will give leave to demand no other reasons of any Divine Positive Laws beside the Will of the Law-giver For if that be the only reason of the Law then it is in vain to pretend to judg of it by any other But yet however I shall close with them upon their own Principle and to save farther trouble I would only put them to assign what particular Ground and Reason there was of establishing a Superiority and Subordination of Church-Officers then that is ceased for all succeeding Ages of the Church and till they can give themselves and us some competent satisfaction in this desire them to acquiesce in our Saviour's Institution But alas this was never so much as attempted and is manifestly impossible to be perform'd for that man no doubt would make wise work of it that should undertake to give the World a satisfactory Account of the particular Grounds and Reasons that should make an inequality of Power in Ecclesiastical Officers necessary in our Saviour's Days and needless ever since But if this cannot be done as it is certain at first view that it never can then certainly the meer Institution of our Saviour in a matter of so great moment to the Church is sufficient of it self to pass a perpetual and indispensible Obligation upon all Ages of it And now upon these Grounds that I have already obtain'd from our Saviour's express Institution I need not dispute with our Adversaries for that is one of their little shifts whether the Missions of the Apostles and the Seventy were only Temporary For whether they were or were not it is from thence evident what Model of Government our Saviour framed for his Church and that is all that is needful to my purpose And therefore I will freely grant that our Saviour's design in Life-time seems to have been not so much to found Churches himself as to have prepared and instructed his Disciples how to do it after his departure So that he rather made a Specimen of the Constitution of his Church than erected any standing Fabrick of it For the Foundations of it were to be laid in the evidence of his Resurrection from the dead
Apostles themselves but as to their immediate Successors whom they employed in the settlement of Churches and to whom they committed the Apostolical Power for their Government and these too he proves were stil'd Apostles such as Titus Timothy Epaphroditus Clemens Linus Marcus so that not only the Apostles but the Evangelists as they call'd them were distinguish'd from the other Clergy and endued with a superiority of Power over their respective Churches and hereby we gain the authority of Apostolical Practice not only for themselves but for their Companions and Successors which does not only extend our Argument but joyns together the practice of the Primitive Times of which we have certain Records with that of the Apostles and so prevents all their fond Dreams of an unknown Interval immediately after the death of the Apostles for if these Apostolical men supplied their Places it will be very easie to find out who supplied theirs Neither thirdly need I trouble my self with any long dispute concerning the Obligation of Apostolical Practice for whether or no meer Apostolical Practice be obligatory by vertue of their Example is very little material to our Enquiry for some things are too trifling or too transient in their own Natures to deserve to pass into prescription but it is enough in this case that what the Apostles did was in pursuance of our Saviour's Institution and that in a matter of perpetual concernment to the Church and they who require to the Obligation of such an Apostolical Practice an express Law to declare their intention that it should bind for ever are guilty of the same phantastick niceness as they that require the same for the perpetuity of every Divine Law and therefore have been consider'd already And for that reason I shall add nothing more to what I have already said as to this particular than to grant that whatever the Apostles either commanded or practised upon some particular temporary and occasional Cases was not sufficient to found any universal and unchangeable Obligation because the reason of the Precept was apparently transient and the goodness of the action casual But otherwise if there were any Prescript or Practice of theirs though it were not founded upon any Divine Institution that did not relate to peculiar Occasions and Circumstances but are or may be of equal usefulness to all Places Times and Persons that is a certain and undoubted evidence of their constant and unabolishable Obligation And therefore here I shall only put them to their former task to assign what particular ground and reason there was of establishing a Superiority and Subordination of Church-Officers in the times of the Apostles that is ceased in all succeeding Ages of the Church and till they can discharge this Task advise them not to depart rashly from so sacred and venerable a Prescription But that which improves the Argument both from our Saviour's Institution and the Apostles Practice into a complete Demonstration is the practice of the Primitive Churches in the Ages next and immediately succeeding the Apostles For if the Government of the Church were by our Saviour founded upon Divine Institution in an inequality of Church-Officers and if the first Governours of it thought themselves obliged to keep close to its Original Platform and if their immediate Successors conceived themselves as much obliged to observe the same as imposed upon them by the Command of Christ and deliver'd to them by the Example and Tradition of his Apostles that certainly may serve for a very competent proof of its necessity and perpetuity Now then as for the power and preheminence of the Episcopal Order it is attested by the best Monuments and Records of the first and most remote Antiquity and we find such early instances and evidences of it that unless it descended from the Apostles times we can never give any account in the World whence it derived its Original And this brings us upon the main sanctuary of our Adversaries viz. The defectiveness of Antiquity in reference to the shewing what certain Form the Apostles observed in settling the Government of Churches and here they run into a large common place of the deep silence of antiquity and the defectiveness of the Records of the Church in the interval next and immediately succeeding the Apostles But here in the first place I must desire them to consider that if this Objection be of any force against the certainty of Apostolical Tradition in this particular it will utterly overthrow all the testimony of the Ancients as to all other matters of Faith and particularly as to the certain Canon and Divine Authority of the Scriptures for if they are not as is pretended competent Witnesses of the practice of the Apostles because of their distance from the time of the Apostles neither for the same reason are their reports to be relied upon with any confidence as to the certainty of any of their Writings It is not to be expected that I should here reprent how false this exception is de facto and how unreasonable de jure either against the Constitutions or the Authentick Epistles of the Apostles it is enough that they stand and fall together so that whoever opposes the Divine and Apostolical Form of Church Government as delivered to us by the Primitive Church does upon his own principles defeat and reject all the proofs of the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures in that those sceptical grounds and pretences he is forced to urge against one fall as dangerously on both And this may serve to prevent and invalidate the force of their Argument without answering it when if they should deal as rigorously in any other case as they are pleased to do in this the most certain and undoubted Records cannot escape the severity of their censure Though our comfort is that neither of them are liable to such wild and wanton Objections in that as I shall shew the Tradition of the Church was always constant and uninterrupted and that there was no such Chasm as is pretended between the times of the Apostles and the next Christian Writers For to say nothing here of the Canon of the Scriptures though the men of that Age left us no formal Histories and Catalogues of the succession of Bishops in all their several Sees wherewith some men unreasonable enough upbraid us when it is so manifest that it was at that time too young for that care in that as yet there was scarce any succession Yet were they no less than Apostolical men that vouched the Apostolical Order and Jurisdiction of Bishops and this one would think enough to satisfie any modest or ingenious man of their Institution from the beginning When it is asserted or rather supposed by the very first Writers of the Church that were capable of attesting it So that whoever can withstand their Evidence is proof against all Evidence of matter of Fact and may if he please laugh at all the Tales and Legends that are told concerning the
an incomparable treasure of Ecclesiastical Antiquity And therefore omitting Daille's beloved Negative and internal Arguments which his Adversary has for ever routed with a prodigious force of reason and dexterity of learning I shall only give an account in short of the main rational point of the Controversie That is what antient Testimonies are to be alledged either for or against their Antiquity On the one side they are frequently owned and quoted by all the first general Councils and therefore must have been enacted in the Interval between the Apostles and the Council of Nice They are cited by many of the most ancient Fathers as Canons of the first and most early Antiquity And they are expresly referred to by the most famous Emperours in their Ecclesiastical Laws All which concurrent Testimony any moderate man would think sufficient to give Authority to any Writing and yet it is all over-ruled by a single Decree of Pope Gelasius supposed to be made Anno Domini 494. in which the Apostolical Canons are reckoned among the Apocryphal Books But first is it reasonable to set up the Opinion of one man against many that were more ancient and so much the more competent witnesses than himself Secondly it is uncertain whether any such Decree as is pretended were ever made by Gelasius in that we never hear any thing of it till at least three hundred years after his time Thirdly if there were any such Decree it is certain that this Passage concerning the Canons of the Apostles was foisted into it it not being found in any of the most ancient Copies and Hincmarus a Person of singular learning in his time that makes mention of this Decree of Gelasius as early as any Writer whatsoever expresly affirms that there was no mention of the Apostolical Canons in the whole Decree De his Apostolorum Canonibus penitus taâ—uit sed nec inter Apocrypha eos misit Where he expresly affirms that in the Decree these Canons were altogether omitted and ranged neither with the Orthodox nor with the Apocryphal Books This Testimony is given in with as peremptory terms as can be expressed and therefore Daillé for no other reason than to serve his cause quite inverts the Proposition and changes misit into omisit that is turns I into No. But men that can deal thus with their Authors need never trouble their heads with Testimonies of Antiquity for after this rate it is in their power to make any Author affirm or deny what they please But fourthly suppose Gelasius had made any such Decree how does that destroy the Antiquity of these Canons when he has condemned the Books of Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and Eusebius for Apocryphal And yet Tertullian lived three hundred years before the Decree and therefore why may not the Apostolical Canons be allowed their reputed Antiquity too notwithstanding that Sentence which only relates to the Authority his Holiness is pleased to allow them in the Roman Church and not at all to their Antiquity unless perhaps he designed to declare that they were not framed by the Apostles themselves as he might fancy from their Title not knowing that whatever was of prime Antiquity in the Church was by the first Writers of it stiled Apostolical as being supposed to descend from the Tradition of the Apostles themselves Fifthly will Monsieur Daillè allow this Decree of Gelasius sufficient to give any Book the Apocryphal stamp If he will then he must reject many of the best Fathers and in their stead admit the Acts of St. Sylvester the Invention of the Cross and the invention of St. John Baptists head for whilst the History of Eusebius together with the other Fathers is rejected such Fables as these are warranted by that barbarous and Gothish Decree And that is enough though there were nothing else to destroy the Authority of this mans censure his meer want of Judgment Now comparing this one pretended Testimony of Gelasius under all the disadvantages that I have represented with the express counter-testimony of so many Councils Fathers and Emperours if any man be resolved notwithstanding all to stick to it I will say no more than this that his Cause is much more beholden to him than he to his Cause And now having given this account of these Apostolical men that conversed with the Apostles themselves or immediately succeeded them in the Government of the Church if we descend to their Successours from Age to Age we are there overwhelmed with the croud of Witnesses But because they have been so often alledged and urged by learned men I should have wholly waved their citation had not our Adversaries made use of several shifts and artifices to evade their Authority And therefore though I shall not trouble the Reader with their direct Testimonies yet to shew the vanity of all our Adversaries pretences I shall endeavour to vindicate the credit of the Ancients against all their Exceptions And here the first pretence is the ambiguity of their Testimony which is endeavoured to be made out by these three things First That personal succession might be without such superiority of order Secondly That the names of Bishop and Presbyters were common after the distinction between them was introduced Thirdly That the Church did not own Episcopacy as a divine Institution but Ecclesiastical and those who seem to speak most of it do mean no more First then a succession there might be as to a different Degree and not as to a different Order Before we distinguished between Order and Power now between Order and Degree and by and by between the Power of Order and the Power of Jurisdiction But these distinctions are only the triflings of the Schoolmen whose proper faculty it is to divide every thing till they have reduced it to nothing For what does the degree of a Church-Officer signifie but such an order in the Church and what order is there without a power of Office according to its degree and therefore it is plain prevaricating with the evidence of things to impose these little subtilties upon the sense of Antiquity they good men meant plainly and honestly and when they give us an account of Apostolical Successions they were not aware of these scholastick distinctions and intended nothing else than a succession in the government of their several Churches Thus when Irenaeus gives us a Catalogue of twelve Bishops of Rome Successours to the Apostles in that See what did he mean but the supreme Governours of that Church when that was the only signification of the word Bishop in his time He never dream'd of their being stript of the Apostolical power and so only succeeding them in an empty Title in the meer name or the metaphysical notion of Bishops and they were no more if they had no more power than the rest of the Clergy But secondly This new distinction spoils the former evasion viz. That the Apostles were superiour in order not in power over the LXX but now a
the Bishops thereof to the number of twenty seven had been ordained in the City it self but that it seems proving a false Allegation he has given us no reason to believe him in his Tradition An Inference much like this that supposing two persons to contend for their rights and the Advocate of one of them shall in his plea alledge a false prescription his Adversary should thence conclude upon him that he had no reason to believe that there was any such Person in the world as his Client For this is the case The matter of the dispute was where the Bishops of Ephesus ought to be ordained according to the Canons At Ephesus says Leontius by constant Prescription No says the Council for many of them have been ordained at Constantinople Now is it not awkerd to infer from thence that the Council denies the certainty of the Succession it self when as the debate was grounded upon the supposition of it It being granted on both sidesas a thing undoubted that there was a succession of Bishops at Ephesus and the Controversie was only about the accustomed place of their Consecration Now from the variety of that to conclude that it is uncertain whether there were any such thing as Bishops at all is such a forced Argument as proves nothing but that we have a very great mind to our Conclusion I might proceed to the Succession in other Churches of which we have certain Records but I will not engage my self in too many particular Historical Disputes where I know it is easie if men will not be ingenuous to perplex any matter with little critical scruples and difficulties and therefore I will cast the whole of this Controversie upon this one Principle That though the Records of the Church were as defective as is pretended yet seeing all that are preserved make only for Episcopacy and that our Adversaries are notable to trace out one against it that is evidence more than enough of its universal practice and if that will not serve the turn it is to no purpose to trouble our selves on either side with any proof that may be had from the Testimony of Antiquity for if upon that account we have not any it is not possible either for them or us to have it in this or any other Controversie whatsoever Thirdly The Succession so much pleaded for by the Writers of the Primitive Church was not a Succession of Persons in Apostolical Power but a Succession in Apostolical Doctrine Whether any Persons succeeded in Apostolical Power has been already considered and therefore all that is here requisite to be enquired into is by what Persons the Apostolical Doctrine was conveyed And if it be pleaded by the Writers of the Church to have been done by Bishops as the Apostles Successours that proves the Succession of Persons as well as Doctrines But seeing this is to be done as our Adversaries instruct us by a view of the places produced to that purpose let us view them too The first is that of Irenaeus Quoniam valdè longum est in hoc tali volumine omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare successiones maximae antiquissimae omnibus cognitae à gloriosissimis duobus Apostolis Petro Paulo Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae eam quam habet ab Apostolis traditionem annunciatam hominibus fidem per successiones Episcoporum pervenientes usque ad nos indicantes confundimus omnes eos c. Where we see that whatever the Argument of Irenaeus was his design was to prove that the succession of the Apostles was conveyed down by the hands of the Bishops that were Successours to them in their several Sees So that it is evident that he designed to prove the Succession of the Doctrine by the Succession of the Doctors and therefore if he does not prove it he does more he supposes it and by the undoubted evidence of it demonstrates the truth of the Doctrine in that those Persons who were appointed by the Apostles to oversee and govern the Churches have conveyed the Apostles Doctrine down to us by their Successors And what fuller Testimony can there be of a Personal Succession of Bishops to the Apostles And yet Irenaeus does more than this he derives the Personal Succession from the Apostles down to his own time and they all succeeded the Apostles as they succeeded one another and as Linus was their Successour so was Eleutherius who sate at the same time that Irenaeus wrote and therefore if Linus was Successour to the Apostles so was Eleutherius and if Eleutherius was Bishop of Rome so was Linus So that it was one and the same thing to succeed in the Bishoprick and the Apostolical Authority And to the same purpose is the passage of Tertullian Edant origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis aut apostolicis viris habuerit Authorem Antecessorem Hoc modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habens Polycarpum à Joanne conlocatum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit proinde utique â—aeterae exhibent quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutos Apostolici seminis traduces habeant The whole design of which passage is to prescribe against the Hereticks by the Authority of the Apostolical Successours and that being expresly appropriated to single Bishops I hope I need not now dispute whether they succeeded them only in Degree and not Order or in Order only and not Jurisdiction all that I desire from this Testimony is that they succeeded them in their several Churches for though he instances only in the Church of Rome yet he declares himself able and ready to give the same account of all other Churches and by vertue of that warranted the truth of their Doctrine Than which I must confess I cannot understand what more can be desired to justifie their Succession in the Apostolical Authority Especially from Tertullian who was neither Thomist nor Scotist and so was utterly unacquainted with those fine distinctions of Degree Order and Jurisdiction but spoke like a plain and a blunt African when he called the Bishops in their several Diocesses the Apostles Successours And so all the Writers of the same Age understood by a Bishop one superiour to subject Presbyters for whatever was the signification of the word in the Apostles time it was now determined to this Order and so used in vulgar speech so that when we meet with it in their Writings we must understand it in the common sense And therefore by a Bishop we must mean the same thing from the Apostles downward and a Bishop in their time was superiour to Presbyters and the Apostles are granted to have been superiour to the other Pastors of the Church so that the Succession from first to last continued in superiority of Jurisdiction And now when this Succession is
confined my self to the discourses of men of sense and learning i. e. no Smectymnuans and have distinctly considered and I hope confuted all their material pretences against the Episcopal superiority in the Premises But as for Grammatical Criticisms and Historical Digressions they concern not us because they concern not our Enquiry And if learned men would but come up roundly and keep ingenuously to the main point of the Controversie they must rub their foreheads pretty hard to out-face the evidence of our cause But alas the custom of them all is to range up and down through the whole field or rather wood of Antiquity and pursue every thing little or great that starts within their view And they seem to make choice of this Subject rather from it to take occasion of shewing the variety of their Reading than with any design to make good the undertaking of their Title Page And it is very observable that among the many thousand Pages that have been of late years wasted in the Anti-episcopal cause it will be very hard to find half an hundred directly to the purpose And that of it self is Argument enough that they have but very little to say against it And what that is I have in the Premises fully represented for I protest that as I will answer it to Almighty God I know no other pretences that are at all pertinent or material besides those that I have considered But in the last place beside the direct and positive Argument that I have thus far pusued from ourSaviours own express Institution the undoubted practice of the Apostles and the most unquestionable Records of the Primitive Church I come to the last Topick propounded those enormous inconveniences that unavoidably result from the contrary Opinion I shall represent only two The first is this that if the Form of Government in the Christian Church be not setled by the Founder of it that then we are at a loss to know by whom it may or ought to be determined For the Society of the Church being founded upon an immediate Divine Right no Person can justly challenge any Authority in it as such unless by vertue of some Grant or Commission from the divine Founder of it If therefore those Commissions that were granted by our Saviour to his Apostles do not descend to some certain Order of men as their Successours in that Authority wherewith they were invested who shall challenge the exercise of it after their decease To this we never received any certain Answer but are only told in the general That the particular Form of Government in the Church is left wholly to the prudence of those in whose power and trust it is to see that the peace of the Church be secured on lasting foundations But then I would fain know who those are that are intrusted with this Power It would have been very well worth their pains to have determined the particular Persons expresly appointed by God to this Office Especially when it is laid down as a fundamental Principle that all things necessary to the Churches peace must be clearly revealed in the Word of God and if so then no one particular Form may be established in it by any Authority whatsoever because no one particular Form as is all along pleaded is prescribed by the Word of God and yet it is plainly necessary to the Churches peace if Government be so that it be governed by some one particular Form But yet however when we come to enquire after these Trustees to whose power it is left to see the peace of the Church secured on lasting foundations the answer is ever ambiguous and unconstant Sometimes it is the Civil Magistrate and sometimes the People But this very uncertainty where this Power is lodged is both in it self and according to the fundamental Notion of the Hypothesis that we oppose a manifest confutation of the whole design For if our Saviour have not determined to whom it appertains that is evidence enough that he never intended by this way to provide for the peace and settlement of his Church For if he had appointed such Feoffees in Trust as is imagined he would at least have left it certain who they were that he intended which not having done that is demonstration enough that it was never his intention to set any such pretended Guardians over his Church But be it where it will it is very strange that these Learned men should be so intent upon the fineness of their Model as never to consider the wild consequences of either way when reduced to practice For be it in the Civil Magistrate they would first have done very well according to their own Rule ro have searched for some Commission in the Word of God whereby our Saviour entrusted this power with him We find indeed Prophesies and Predictions that Princes should become Patrons and Protectors of his Church but that they should be vested with a Power of instituting and abolishing Church Orders and Offices at pleasure is such a wild conceit as will not find any the least countenance from the Word of God Secondly By what Authority was the Church governed from our Saviour to the Reign of Constantine when if he had appointed the Civil Magistrate Overseer of his Infant Church there was then none that cared to execute his Office Beside thirdly If Church-Officers derive their Authority in the Church from the meer appointment of the Civil Magistrate they are then only of Humane Institution and derive not their Power from any appointment of our Saviour and so are only Ministers of State and not of the Gospel But to put it into the power of any mortal man to alter the whole frame of Government in the Church as he pleases is the most improper way in the world to provide for its peace and settlement For by this means it will be ever in the power of any Common-wealth lawfully to overturn all manner of Ecclesiastical Order at pleasure If to day perhaps the Bishops either by chance or by vertue of some Grant from the Civil Government enjoy the Supreme Power in the Church it may with good Authority to morrow depose them and translate their Power to the Presbyters from the Presbyters to the Deacons from the Deacons to the People and from the People to the Pope and it would be very consistent no doubt with the wisdom of Christ in founding his Church and providing for the peace and settlement of it to leave its whole frame of Government thus at the Mercy of any mans Power or Will We have one example of this project put in practice upon Record in the Long Parliaments Midsummer-Model of Reformation when they vote June 12. 1641. that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction should be put into the hands of such Commissioners as their Worships should think fit In pursuance of which they vote June 21. that six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the
setling of Church-Government but July 9. that nine of the Laity and three or the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their monthly meetings for that purpose that five of the Commissioners shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places and that if any of the nine Commissioners should die or resign that five or more of them are to chuse another presently Thus far they proceeded under the Government of Midsummer-Moon but about the beginning of the Dog-days they vote that no Clergy-man shall be of the Commission and that the Committee shall be empowered to appoint five of the Clergy in every County under them to grant Ordinations Now all these Proceedings as ridiculous as they are and destructive of the very Being of a Church yet had the King joyned with his Parliament had upon this Principle been justifiable And so it will be in their power to vote up and down what Orders and Offices in the Church they please to day Episcopacy to morrow Presbytery next day Independency then a Committee and that of Lay-men too and if they please at last to abolish all Orders of the Clergy in that there are none by this Principle established by Divine Right these are excellent models of Church-Government and admirable methods of providing for the peace and settlement of it But if this trust be vested in the People beside that this too would require some proof out of the Word of God before it be granted and that it is liable to all the former inconveniences in that the putting the power of the Church into their hands makes the peace and settlement of it to depend upon the most giddy most ignorant and most uncertain thing in the world Besides all this I say this is so far from destroying any divine and unalterable Form of Church-Government that it sets up the Socinian model of Independency for F. Socinus was the first founder of it by Divine Right In that according to it all Societies of Christians are by our Saviour entrusted with a Power within themselves of electing of Church-Officers and governing Church-Affairs as they shall judge most conducible to Peace Order and Tranquillity which is the exact model of Independent Government Now this model if they will own it is not the Church of England that they plead for but Independency and if it is that they assert let them say so and not carry on the Cause of the Congregational Churches under the name of the Church of England but if they disavow it as they all do I shall only challenge them how to avoid it But to conclude this Argument in this one Principle do all the Enemies of the Church lay their ground-work that there is no known and setled Seat of Ecclesiastical Power and therefore that whoever happens to have its present possession seeing he never received it by any Commission from our Saviour he may without any offence against the standing Laws of Christianity be deposed from it The inconvenience whereof is so great that it seems to me a very forcible Argument from the nature and necessity of the thing it self for some certain divine establishment of Church-Government in that without it it is plainly impossible either to secure any peace or exercise any Authority in the Church because whoever obtains it has it not from any divine Commission and if no Commission then no Authority However I cannot but admire that those learned men who take away the divine right of some particular Form of Church-Government have not all this while been aware that they run us into all the exorbitancies and confusions of Independency in that when they have once removed the settlement by Divine Right they leave it do what they can entirely in the Peoples power to set up their own Form of Government Seeing then that unless the Christian Church be subject to Government it can be no more than a Rabble and a Riot Seeing unless the Government thereof be vested in some certain Order of men it must be for ever obnoxious to unavoidable disorders and confusions and seeing it was with particular care setled by our Saviour on his Apostles and conveyed by the Apostles to the Christian Bishops as their proper Successours I cannot see how the Divine and Apostolical Right of Episcopacy if the providence of God had designed to make it unquestionable could have been made more evident either from Common Reason or Catholick Tradition But secondly As the taking away of the divine and perpetual Right of Episcopacy does on one hand open a door for Independency so it does on the other for Popery For next to rescuing the Kings of England from the Usurpation of the Popes of Rome upon their Crowns under the pretence of an oblique or direct Supremacy over them and the reforming of many Superstitions both in Worship and Doctrine the main design of our endeavoured Reformation was to assert and retrieve the Rights of the Episcopal Order against his illegal encroachments For whereas the Original Government of the Catholick Church was vested in the Apostolical Order whereby as every Bishop had supreme ordinary Power within his own Diocess so a general Council of Bishops had supreme Power over the Universal Church So that whatever priviledges or preheminences were granted to the Bishops of particular Churches by Ecclefiastical Constitution yet their essential Power was equal and could no way exert it self as to the Catholick Church but in Council and so the Church was governed for many hundred years till the Bishop of Rome taking advantage of those peculiar priviledges and preheminences that were granted to his See as the seat of the Empire did by degrees assume to himself an absolute Sovereignty over all the Pastors of the Universal Church transferring all Ecclesiastical Government to the Court of Rome where it was managed by himself and his Officers with all the arts of Tyranny and Oppression And here first began the breach our reforming Bishops at first not disputing the preheminence of his See because that concerned not them which he had for a long time enjoyed in most other parts of the Western world and perhaps might still have done would he have been contented with it But alas they were no more fond even of the Title of Patriarch as great as it was than they are of their mock Title of Servus servorum Domini Nothing less would satiate their ambition than a sole and absolute Sovereignty over all and to this purpose they impudently applied all those promises that our Saviour made to his Apostles and their Successors of being for ever present with and assistant to them in the exercise of their Office to the Popes Person and they having once assumed this Power resolved to keep it and for many Ages reigned absolute Monarchs over the Christian World And here I say
the opposition of the times the worse they are the more they require our zeal to oppose and to reform them And it is never more seasonable to assert the Rights of the Christian Church than when they are most disowned Let us but do our duty and God will do his work and let us not betake our selves to tricks and shifts upon any pretences if any such there are of loss or danger the Church of Christ subsists upon no other Politicks than Courage and Integrity Let us then be true to those two fundamental Principles of Christianity and our Saviour has undertaken for the event that the Gates of Hell much less Rome or Geneva shall never be able to prevail against it POSTSCRIPT I Have thus far adventured to state the Case of the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law in the Church of England Thereby to declare what it is that we contend for in our Disputes against all sorts of Recusants and Dissenters For it is not at all material what we oppose but what we assert and there would be no harm in Errour were it not for its Contrariety to Truth So that before we defend the Church of England it is necessary to define the true state of its cause otherwise we contend about we know not what For as for the general Term of Protestancy it is an indefinite thing so that if all the men in England that are Enemies or no Friends to the Pope of Rome may be listed under that name we have some Protestants that believe there is a God and some that believe there is none some that believe they have a Saviour and a Soul to save and some that laugh at both there are Hobbian Protestants Muggletonian Protestants Socinian Protestants Quaker Protestants Rebel Protestants Protestants of 41 and Protestants of 48. All or most of which are as different as Popery it self from the true Protestancy of the Church of England And therefore it is necessary to stick close to that both as it is established by the Law of the Land and by the Law of Christ. For unless we limit it to the Law of the Land we may in time have a Church consisting of nothing but Protestants dissenting from the established Religion that is a Church not only without but against it self And unless we derive the Authority of that Religion that is by Law established from the antecedent Law of Christ we may quickly be as we are in a fair way to be a Reformed Church of Protestant Atheists that is a Church without Religion And therefore all must be built upon this one Boâ—â—om that the Church owned by the Law of England is the very same that was established by the Law of Christ. For unless we suppose that the Church was originally setled by our Saviour with divine Authority we deny his Supremacy over his own Church and unless we suppose that the supreme Government of the Kingdom has power to abett and ratifie our Saviours establishment by Civil Laws we deny his Majesties Supremacy over his Christian Subjects and therefore both together must be taken in to the right State and Constitution of the Church of England And that do what we can will involve the Leaders of our present Separation in the guilt both of Schism and Sedition of Schism in the Church in that they withdraw themselves and their obedience from those who are vested with a power to command them by vertue of a Divine Commission of Sedition in the State in that they needlesly and without any justifiable pretence violate the Laws of the Common-wealth Though the truth is their Dissension is somewhat worse For as they manage it it is not only Sedition but Rebellion in that they do not only disobey the Laws but disavow their obligation standing resolutely upon that one Principle that no Magistrate whatsoever has any power of establishing any thing relating to the Worship of God So that the Act of Uniformity is not so much faulty for the particular matters contained in it as for the unlawful and usurped Authority of it And when the King and Parliament enjoyned the Book of Common-Prayer to be used in all Churches they challenged a Power to which they had no right and invaded the Prerogative of God himself This is the first ground of the Separation as it is stated by the chief Ring-leaders of it and it is a plain renunciation of their Allegiance as well as Conformity I can with all the streinings of Charity make no better of it and should be heartily glad if I could see them without shufling and prevarication clear themselves of so pernicious a Principle To conclude methinks Religion has been long enough trifled with in this Kingdom and after so long and so sad experience of our folly it is time to return to some sense of discretion and sobriety Before the late barbarous War we had the Scepter of Jesus Christ and the divine right of Presbytery to advance but now after the murder of an hundred thousand men that Cause has proved so ridiculous as that it is grown ashamed of it self However the pretence was great and solemn but at this time the People are driven into the same excesses against the Church no body knows for what unless it be that some men among us are too proud or too peevish to recant their Follies And therefore I conjure them in the name of God to lay their hands upon their hearts and without passion seriously to consider what it is for which they renounce the Church in which they were baptised into the Communion of the Catholick Church tear and rend it into numberless pieces and factions scare multitudes of silly and well-meaning People out of it as they tender the salvation of their souls and put the whole Kingdom into perpetual tumults and combustions about Religion and when they have considered it I shall only bind it upon their Consciences so to answer it to themselves now as they hope to answer it to their Saviour at the last day As for the foreign Reformed Churches I have said nothing of them because they are altogether out of the compass of my Argument which is confined within the four Seas and concerns only those that either are or ought to be members of the Church of England But if in any thing any other Churches deviate from the Primitive Institution they must stand and fall to their own Master And God forbid we should be so uncharitable as to go about to un-church them or renounce brotherly communion with them or to think that our blessed Saviour should withdraw the promise of his Grace and Protection from them For if every defect from his Institution should forfeit the Rights of a Christian Church there never was as we may find by the Apostles account of the Churches in their times nor ever will be such a thing as a Church in the world For in this life it is not to be expected that any thing
should be absolutely perfect the very nature of Christianity supposes Imperfection and accepts of Integrity and as long as with sincere Affections men adhere to the Principles of the Christian Church they are within the promise of the grace of God Neither beside this does it appear that they in the least refuse communion with the Episcopal Church which is the main charge against our Separatists nay on the contrary it is too evident that they unanimously condemn our Diffenters for their Schismatical departure from it But being it seems accidentally cast into another Form of Government in the midst of State-tumults they continue in it either first through the power of prejudice and prepossession which are strong things and more or less to be allowed to all men Or secondly for want of opportunity to new-mould themselves after the platform of the Episcopal Churches which if they should attempt in Popish Countries it is easie to foresee with what fury it would be opposed Or else thirdly for want of due information of the Primitive Institution supposing that as our Saviour has founded the Society of his Church upon Divine Right so he has left it in the power of every particular Church to model it self as it shall judge most convenient to its own circumstances Or lastly out of that reverence they bare to the Authority of some learned men who at the beginning of the Reformation unfortunately hapned to mistake the true Form of the Primitive Government Or for whatever other reason it is we ought to be so charitable as to think that they are not convinced of the divine Institution of Episcopacy or if they are we ought to be so civil as to think that they would not refuse it and then as long as their mistake proceeds from want of information it were an unchristian thing to deny them our Charity much more Gods Grace and Mercy for though his Laws are perfect and unchangeable yet in the execution of them he condescends to the errors and weaknesses of his Creatures so that it is but a lamentable way of arguing against any divine Institution because such and such Churches have departed from it this were to set up their Authority not only above but against that of God himself However it is to be hoped that in a little time they may come to a right understanding of this thing for the controversie about it has not been till very lately throughly sifted in the Latine Tongue but now it is determined with that strange weight of Reason that they cannot but discern when they come impartially as in time they will to examine it on which side the truth stands I pray God to assist and direct them and us to a right understanding of things that all parts of his holy Catholick Church may daily grow more and more into Unity among themselves and more and more conform their holy Discipline to the purity of the Primitive Institution Amen FINIS Phys. c. 26. Leviatiâ— c. 12. Leviath c. 23. 14 c. 26. c. 35. c. 42. ib. p. 311. ibid. ibid. c. 43. c. 32. c. 35. c. 42. ibid. c. 3â— c. 42. Cap. 11. De jure nat Gent. l. 2. 2. Comment in Eutych p. 54. V. Scaliger de emendat temp 1â— Psal. 1. 1. Ps. 26. 4. p. 12â— P. 237. Epil B. 1. c. 12. Mat. 4. 17. Lib. 16. Tit. 2. L. 45. Nov. 6. c. 1. Nov. 131. c. 1. Praefat. in Eutych Diff. 1. cap. 1. Lib. 3. cap. 18. L. 3. c. 4. Part. 1. Cap. 2. Walo Messal p. 252. Diss. 2. c. 1. § 2. Lib. 2. Cap. 4. Animad In Eâ—â—o Chron. N. MMCXL Ep. l. 3. chap. 18. Apol. p. 23. V. Vales. Annot. in Euseb. hist. l. 5. Prooem cap. 4. Comment in Eutych p. 27. Prefat in Eutych p. 6. Dissert 3. cap. 10. Vindic. l. 1. c. 10. Pag. 38.
And therefore we do not find that the Apostles acted with a plenitude of Power till he had given them a new Commission after his Resurrection and it is remarkable that in St. Matthew 16. 19. he vests them with the power of Binding and Loosing in the Future Tense But in St. John 20. 23. after his Resurrection it is expressed in the Present Tense Then it was that he gave them that Authority which himself had exercised whilst he remain'd on Earth But then when immediately in pursuance of their new Commission the Apostles thought themselves obliged to choose one into their Order to supply the Vacancy made by the death of Judas What can be more evident than that they thought the Apostolical Office by our Saviour's Appointment distinct from and superiour to all other Offices in the Church So that it is manifest that the Form observed by the Apostles in the Planting and Governing of Churches was Model'd according to our Saviour's own Platform and after that it is not at all material to enquire whether he only drew the Model or erected the Building But whichsoever he did it is improved into an impregnable Demonstration from the undoubted Practice of the Apostles and from them the perpetual Tradition of the Catholick Church in that it is plain that they thought themselves obliged to stand to this Original Form of Church-Government For the Apostles we all know and all Parties grant during their days kept up the distinction and preeminence of their Order and from them the Bishops of the First Ages of the Church claim'd their Succession and every where challenged their Episcopal Authority from the Institution of Christ and the Example of his Apostles And now are we enter'd upon the second main Controversie viz. The Authority of the Apostolical Practice against which three things are usually alledged That neither can we have that certainty of Apostolical Practice which is necessary to constitute a Divine Right nor secondly is it probable that the Apostles did tie themselves to any one fixed Course in Modelling Churches nor thirdly if they did doth it necessarily follow that we must observe the same And the first of these is made out from the equivalency of the names Bishop and Presbyter secondly from the Ambiguity of some places of Scripture pleaded in behalf of different Forms of Government thirdly from the Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy of the Records of the succeeding Ages which should inform us what was the Apostolical Practice But as to the first I shall wholly wave the dispute of the signification of the words because it is altogether beside the purpose and if it were not our other Proofs are so pregnant as to render it altogether useless Neither indeed would this ever have been any matter of Dispute had not our Adversaries for want of better Arguments been forced to make use of such slender pretences But how impotently Salmasius and Blondel who were the main Founders of the Argument have argued from the Community of the Names the Identity of the Office any one that has the patience to read them over may satisfie himself As for my own part I cannot but admire to see Learned men persist so stubbornly in a palpable Impertinency when from the Equivalency of the words Bishop and Presbyter in the Apostles time they will infer no imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers notwithstanding it is so evident and granted by themselves that the Apostles enjoyed a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church which being once proved or granted and themselves never doubted of it to infer their beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Parity of the Clergy from the Equivocal signification of those two words is only to out-face their own Convictions and their Adversaries Demonstrations For if it be proved and themselves cannot deny it that there was an inequality of Offices from the Superiority of the Apostles it is a very Childish attempt to go about to prove that there was not because there were two Synonymous Terms whereby to express the whole Order of the Clergy But to persist in this trifling Inference as Salmasius has who when he was informed of its manifest weakness and absurdity would never renounce it but still repeated it in one Book after another without any improvement but of Passion and Confidence is one of the most woful Examples that I remember of a learned man's Trifling that has not the ingenuity to yield when he finds himself vanquish'd not only by his Adversary but his Argument Neither shall I trouble my self with other mens disputes about particular Texts of Scripture when it is manifest from the whole Current of Scripture that the Apostles exercised a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church and that is all that is requisite to the Argument from Apostolical Practice for as yet it is nothing to us whether they were Presbyters or Bishops that they set over particular Churches that shall be enquired into when we come to the Practice of the Primitive Church it is enough that they were subject to the Apostles for then by Apostolical Practice there was a Superiority and Subordination in Church-Government And therefore I cannot but wonder here too at the blindness of Walo Messalinus who in pursuance of his Verbal Argument produces this passage out of Theodoret and spends a great deal of the first part of his Book in declaiming upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the same men were call'd Presbyters and Bishops and those that we now call Bishops they then call'd Apostles but in process of time the name of Apostolate was appropriate to them who were truly and properly Apostles and the name of Bishop was applied to them who were formerly call'd Apostles Than which words beside that they contain the true state of the Question there is scarce a clearer passage in all Antiquity to confound his cause For what can be a plainer Reproof to their noise about the Equivalency of words than to be told that it is true that the words Bishop and Presbyter signified the same thing in the Apostles time but that those that we now call Bishops were then call'd Apostles who exercised the Episcopal Power over the other Clergy but that afterward in process of time they left the word Apostolate to those who were strictly and properly so call'd and stil'd all other Bishops who in former times were stiled Apostles What I say can be more peremptory against his Opinion that concludes from the equivalency of Names to the parity of Power than this that notwithstanding the words were equivalent yet the Episcopal Power was then in the Apostles whose successors in their supremacy came in after-times to be call'd Bishops And if so then is it evident that there was the same imparity of Church-Officers in the Apostles time as in succeeding Ages Nay our friend Walo is not content to make this out for us only as to the