in the Objection the several Acts are these That no one Canon of the Church have the force of a Law but what is appointed by such Inspector of the Canons as he shall name and appoint That no Appeals be made to Rome upon the Penalty and Danger contained and limited in the Act of Provision and Premunire made in the 16th year of King Richard II. That all the Canons not repugnant to the Laws of the Realm or to the Damage of the King's Prerogative Royal are to be used and executed as they were before the making this Act. That no license is to be required from the See of Rome for the Consecrating and Investiture of Bishops That 't is in the King alone to nominate and present them That the Pope has no Power in Spiritual Causes to give Licenses Dispensations Faculties Grants c. all this is to be done at home by our own Bishops and in our own Synods and Councils cap. 21. and this Provision is particularly made Sect. 19. ibid. provided that this Act or any thing or things herein contained shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your Grace your Nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline or vary from the Congregation of Christ's Church in any thing concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendom or in any other things declared in Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for yours and their Salvation but only to make an Ordinance by Policies necessary and convenient to repress Vice And for good conservation of this Realm in Peace Vnity and Tranquility from Ravine and Spoyl insuing much the old ancient Customes of this Realm in that behalf not minding to seek for any Relief Succor or Remedies for any worldly things and humane Laws in any case of necessity but within this Realm at the hands of your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realm which have and ought to have an Imperial Power and Autority in the same and not obliged in any worldly Causes to any Superior § VII IN the 26th year of his Reign cap. 1. when declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in Parliament as before recognized by the Clergy the Power he thereby is invested with is also declared viz. To visit redress reform order correct restrain and amend all such Errors Heresies Abuses Offences Contempts and Enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner of spiritual Autority or Jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed repressed order'd redressed corrected restrained or amended most to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of Virtue in Christ's Religion and for the conservation of Vnity Peace and Tranquility of this Realm cap. 14. he appoints the number of suffragan Bishops the Places of their residence and the Arch-Bishop is to consecrate them In the 28th year of his Reign cap. 10. The King may nominate such number of Bishops Sees for Bishops Cathedral Churches and endow them with such Possessions as he will In the 31th year cap. 14. he defends the Doctrine of Transubstantiation the Sacrament in but one kind enacts that all Hereticks be burnt and their Goods forfeited that no Priest may marry for Masses Auricular Confession c. in the 34 5. cap. 1. recourse must be had to the Catholick Apostolick Church for the decision of Controversies And therefore all Books of the Old and New Testament in English being of Tindal 's false Translation or comprising any matter of Christian Religion Articles of the Faith or Holy Scripture contrary to the Doctrine set forth sithence Anno Domini 1540. or to be set forth by the King shall be abolished no Printer or Book-seller shall utter any of the said Books no Persons shall play or interlude sing or rhime contrary to the said Doctrine no Person shall retain any English Books or Writings concerning Matter against the holy and blessed Sacrament of the Altar or for the maintenance of the Anabaptists or other Books abolished by the King's Proclamation There shall be no Annotations or Preambles in Bibles or new Testaments in English the Bible shall not be read in English in any Church no Women c. to read the New Testament in English nothing shall be taught contrary to the Kings Injunctions and if any spiritual Person preach teach or maintain any thing contrary to the King's Instructions or Determinations made or to be made and shall thereof be convict he shall for his first Offence recant for his second abjure and bear a fagot for the third he shall be adjudged an Heretick and be burnt and loose all his Goods and Chattels In the 37. year cap. 17. The full Power and Autority he hath by being Supreme Head of the Church of England is To correct punish and repress all manner of Heresies Errors Vices Sins Abuses Idolatries Hypocrises and Superstitions sprung and growing within the same and to exercise all other manner of Jurisdiction called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Sect. 1. and Sect. 3. 'tis farther added To whom by Holy Scriptures all Authority and Power is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of Causes Ecclesiastical and to correct Vice and Sin whatsoever and to all such Persons as his Majesty shall appoint thereunto And so far is all this from deriving to himself and exercising any thing of the Priest-hood that he is totidem verbis declared and reputed only a Lay-Man in the first Section of that Chapter nor do any one of these Instances here produced amount to any more than to the defending and guarding by Laws Truth and punishing and repressing Errors whether in Doctrines or in Manners at least such as are so reputed by the Church and State § VIII 'T IS true and easily observable that just upon the assuming to himself the Title of the supreme Head of the Church there was ground enough for suspition that the Church her self and all her Power was to be laid aside and whereas the reason and end of every particular Parliament before and of each of his till then is still said to be for the honor of God and holy Church and for the Common-Weale and Profit of this Realm 't is abated and said only for the honor of God and for the Common-Weale and Profit of this Realm the benefit of holy Church is in words at least left out and in the room of it is once added to the conservation of the true Doctrine of Christ's Religion As if the design was according to the Models now adayes framed and endeavour'd by private Persons to be set up That the care was to be only of Doctrines in which and in charity and love and abatements to one another the Essence of Church-Unity in general and each Christian with another consists But yet however this so hapned or upon what design either in himself or others 't is certain he abridged not the Church-Men of any one Instance of that Secular worldly Power as that of the supremacie derived unto them is called 25
are of or are esteemed in such the Church and then what astonishment must it be to good minded Men what even Epicurism to Evil that do now or shall hereafter read or hear the great and received Names of Tillotson and Stillingfleet these following Positions That all Church-Power as from Christ has ceased with Miracles and is to be accounted so to have done That Christ Jesus is not to be Preached if the Magistrate and Law forbid it That to pretend a Power to Preach as from Christ and not to go into Spain or Turky and there Preach is gross Hypocrisie That 't was the Sense of Bishop Cranmer c. and the Bottom and Principle on which he and the other Bishops proceeded on in the Reformation and was after made Law in the Kingdom That the King has a Power to Ordain Bishops to Baptize to Excommunicate and do all Pastoral Offices in his own Person or devolve it on others and this is not only from a mistaken M SS but by unfaithful Copying it out and representing it to the World and which brings more guilt occasioning it to be Printed thus Imperfect among the Records of the Church in Doctor Burnet's Church History and abusing the House of Commons to a Publick Approbation of it giving to the Church of Rome what their Emissaries have all along been still gibing us with and fathering upon us but till by you repelled with Scorn That it hath been the continued Judgment of our succeeding Bishops ever since That a Bishop's Power is not solitary and apart from that of a Presbyter with many more of the like Nature And for the severing these your private Opinions and particular Errors from the Doctrines of the Church of God and rescuing her from the great Scandal of them she must or may undergo I have engaged in that so laborious a Work began at our Saviour and his Apostles descended by the Bishops Doctors and Fathers of the Church Catholick the Church Historians Councils and Laws Imperial our own particular Church Canons Rubricks Book of Ordination our own Doctors and Writers in their times the Injunctions and Declarations of our Princes the Statute-Book of our Kingdom all which come in as one Evidence against them you have still time to do it and right your selves and satisfie the Church of God in your own Persons removing the reproach occasioned by you in an acknowledgment of the Error for my Book is not yet in the Press and which if you 'l engage to do I do here indent back again to expunge whatever concerns or but mentions you in it If not I must do you and the Church of God right and will but if upon this fair and Christian notice you shall not think meet to retract these your Assertions that I have animadverted upon yet I shall acquit my self to the World that I have done what my Conscience and sense of Duty and Obligation arising from my Profession has engaged me to I cannot think a concern for the Honour and Reputation of one or two Persons though seeming to be somewhat and Pillars ought to be esteem'd as that of the whole Church of God or that I ought to put their private concerns into the bottom with it I am Sir Your humble Servant Simon Lowth May 1. 1683. THE CONTENTS The Introduction THe Occasion of this Discourse Sect. 1. Not the Power and Offices of the Church but their Subject is what mostly exercises the Age Sect. 2. Whether the Power be originally in Believers in Common or in the Secular Prince in Particular or in a certain Definite Number of Believers the Bishops and Pastors of the Church Sect. 3. The Design of the Whole and its Three General Heads Sect. 4. CHAP. I. CHurch Power is not in the People either as a Body in General or as one Single Congregation Sect. 1. This Power must first evidence it self to be given from God e're executed on or derived to others Holiness in its Nature does not infer it The Priesthood not made Common before the Law under it or the Gospel Admit that first Right by Nature to all Things and Offices 't was to be sure afterwards limited and those that lay it open again must shew by what Autority they do it Otherwise Fanaticks in the sense of St. Jerome Sect. 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infers no such Power Sect. 3. The Peoples concurrency gives no Power even where their Votes are pretended to in the New Testament Sect. 4. Election and Vocation differ from Ordination in the Practice of our Saviour and first Ages of the Church still expressed by several words Sect. 5. The Votes of the People give no Power but yet are necessary because none is given without them both the People and Pastors are Christ's Vicars in the Case So Beza Blondel Sect. 6. Our Saviour's Practice and the Apostles are against them Sect. 7 8. That the People were not always at Elections Blondel allows He is contrary to himself Their Votes never reputed necessary and at last excluded quite by reason of the Riots and Disorders in them Sect. 9. The concurrency of 12 Centuries down from the Apostles amount to a Divine Right Blondel's failure of it His injury to his Friends In what case Apostolical Ecclesiastical Practice is not immutable The ill Consequences attending his Power given to the People His Malice to the Order of Bishops Disreputing Christianity it self 'T is unpardonable in the French Reformation imposing their present harder necessity for our pattern The Deacon and Presbyter under the Bishop but neither in Subordination to the People Sect. 10. And this they do in point of Episcopacy also And we must have no Bishops in England because they have none in France and which is promoted by the advantage of the Rebellion and Schism among us Blondel offer'd his Service before to the Bishops of England but then he Prints his Apologia pro Hieronymo Dedicates it to the Rump Parliament and Assembly-Men Is nauseous in his Flatteries of both Commends the Scotch Covenant Is rude upon Bishops Soliciting their Ruine This the Sense of the Divines on that side the Sea Salmasius raves just so The Independents murder'd the King The Bishops not the Authors of all Heresies as black-mouth'd Baxter Andrew Rivet and so does Dailee Ignatius suffers for it He and Marcian and Valentinius compared Their few Complements does not acquit them We only lose by our Charity towards them The disadvantage thereby from our own Members The late Replyer upon Bishop Pearson and Doctor Beveridge is the same The late Letters from Paris Sect. 11. The People are only Witnesses of the good lifes of the Ordained Blondel's own Collection and the Autority of Cyprian is all along against him The Church Canons Our Ordinations at home The nature of the thing it self Sect. 12 13. The People are not to choose or refuse their Pastor as Blondel rudely and unreasonably contends with his usual Malice against Bishops and our
If the Jesuit do let him look to it Christianity is not in fault An entring into or renewing the Covenant at the Font or Altar is no Encroachment on the but Justice of Peace in the Neighborhood Sect. 43. Excommunication and other Censures change no Mans Condition as to this World they have no force but in relation to known Duties Prudence is to rule in the Execution particular regard to be had to Princes Whatever is Coercive annexed is from the Prince Lay-Judges Chancellors c. when first granted by the Empire upon the Bishops Petition The same is Absolution neither innovate in Civil Affairs Sect. 44. Conciliary Acts invade no more than does the Gospel it self That Canons have had the precedency of the Law is by the savour of Princes a Council without local meeting Letters Missive Sect. 45. Ordaining others no more prejudicial to the Crown than the former acts This is Mr. Hobbe's Misapprehension Sect. 46. CHAP. V. THe grand Objection out of Mr. Hobbes If these two Powers command the same Person at the same time inconsistent Performances it arises from that false Principle that all Power is outward Sect. 1. This infers equally against the Laws of God and which may and do sometimes thus interfere are as difficultly reconcileable with the State Acts. No Church Laws oblige against Natural Duty The Laws of Religion considered at large in order to a clearer Solution Sect. 2. Mr. Hobbe's Rule will Answer all Consider what is and what is not necessary to Eternal Salvation Sect. 3. The same is the Rule of the Ancient Fathers Sect. 4. If Mr. Hobbes his Faith and Obedience be all that is Necessary 't is then easily determined because to obey only the Soveraign Sect. 5. Dr. Tillotson his Sermon of Love and Peace to his Yorkshire Countreymen not to be Vindicated from being herein of Hobbe's Judgment in what he Dissents from him No Church-Power since Miracles ceased according to Mr. Dean Sect. 6. The Gospel calls for Confession and Obedience in Opposition to though not in Contempt of Princes to the hazard of all So the best Christians the worst of Hereticks only Simon Magus Basilides c. did otherwise Sect. 7. For a full Answer the Laws of Religion are to be ranked under Three general Heads They are Arbitrary and Humane Arbitrary and Divine Necessary and Divine Sect. 8. Laws Arbitrary and Humane though never losing their Sanction yet cease in some Cases in the Execution As when the Empire gave Indulgencies beside the Canon Sect. 9. The Civil Injunction does not immediately oblige the Christian in these Cases The Church has her own Power never to be yielded up Ceremonies not the main thing Sect. 10. Not to be changed with our Clothes That Worship which is best not to be foregone only to yield to what is always Necessary The Case of the Asiaticks about Easter Sect. 11. Especially in our Church of England Sect. 12. Least of all are our Mutinies and Factions our even weakness a Ground for Change Sect. 13. Laws Arbitrary and Divine cease in some instances as to Practice the Advantage of Afflictions A good Christian always a good Subject the Empire still gave Rules and Limits in the Exercise of these Positive Duties Sect. 14. To submit and cease as to particular Practice upon the lawful Command of the Magistrate is not the Case in Doctor Tillotson's Sermon to give up the Institution to him If commanding a false Worship I am to withstand him 'T is no Hypocrisie though I go not into immediately and there Preach the same in Spain Mr. Dean's unheard of Notion of Hypocrisie in what Case the Magistrate is serviceable to promote the Faith Sect. 15. The last sort of Laws both Necessary and Divine are never to cease in any one Instance or under what Circumstances soever either as to their Right or Practice I am never to do any one Immorality always to own and profess the Cross of my Saviour Sect. 16. The great Goodness of God in giving such a Subordination of Duties that the end of each may be answer'd in enjoyning nothing absolutely necessary to Heaven but what is in our Power that no Contingencies of this World can take from us our Eternity a Reward we can never miss of without our own Faults Sect. 17. CHAP. VI. The Contents The last general of the Discourse Sect. 1. What the Autority of our particular Church and Kingdom is in this Controversie where not Apostolical and Primitive there not obliging Their Doctrine Laws and Practice all along on our side Sect. 2. The People are only Testimonies of the Manners of such as are to be Ordained in our Book of Ordination Sect. 3. No Autority in any but those of the Priesthood to Ordain Excommunicate c. as in our Rubricks Articles c. Sect. 4. Our Kings claim'd it not in their Acts Declarations c. in the days of Henry VIII in the Act of Submission He is declared a Lay-man nothing in Religion made Law but by him He defends Religion His Power as the Supreme Governor of the Church Is called Worldly and Secular Sect. 5 6 7 8. Of King Edward VI. That the Bishops were to use not their own as formerly but his Name and Seal in their Processes c. implies no such thing Sect. 9. Of Queen Elizabeth King James Sect. 10 11. The King and Church distinct Powers in our Statute Book Our Kings now have but the same Power the Empire of old and their Predecessors before the Reformation had If our Religion be Parliamentary that anciently was Imperial Sect. 12. Mr. Selden says the Parliament of England both can and has actually Excommunicated and the Bishops Power is derived only from them Sect. 13. The Acts of Parliament he produces V. VI. Edw. VI. Cap. IV. III. Jacobi Cap. V. infer it not Sect. 14. Nor do those of II. III. Edw. VI. Cap. 1. Elizabethae Cap. II. that the Prince limits Excommunications in the Execution is not against the Divine Right of them His Instances in the Rump Parliament Geneva The Parliament of Scotland III. Jacob. VI. Cap. XLV are all against him Sect. 15. Archbishop Whitgift is not proved to have Licensed Erastus his Works for the Press that they were found in his Study is no Argument he was an Erastian if Licensed by the Autority of the Nation no Evidence that his Doctrines were then owned Sect. 16. Our own Doctors of the same Opinion with us instances in two of them Sect. 17. Bishop Bilson St. Ambrose one of Doctor Tillotson's Hypocrites A private Liberty of Conscience not enough a false Religion to be declared against though by Autority abetted Mr. Dean gives advantage to the Papists Calumny That our Religion is only that of our Prince Sect. 18. Bishop Sanderson his particular Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy Sect. 19. Mr. Selden objects again that our own Doctors and Writers are all on the other side The particular Authors each reckon'd up He
what Principle flowing and 't is a Consideration so absolutely necessary for whoso engages in this or such-like Debates and their Resolutions that he must otherwise be at a loss and miss of the aim proposed To Virtue and Goodness in general there is in every Man an innate Power he has Faculties concreated and of his Constitution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens Alexandrinus in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this improveable by Industry and Care Notices and Experiences and God in course as he incourages and preserves whatever is his own gives more help The Art of a Physitian and Skill of a Divine are also attainable in the like way by a Progress of Study and continued Observations upon an hability or first stock within but this not equally given and ingraffed in each as is a Power to Goodness Wisdom Knowledge is not to all The Power of a Father over his Child is from God by virtue and force of the relation laid in the foundation of it because begetting him and by the general concourse of Providence the Power of a Husband over a Wife and a Master over a Servant is by the appointment of God upon a particular Covenant or Stipulation the Power of Government and Jurisdiction in the greater extent whether of a King in the State or a Priest in the Church enabling each to discharge the Publick Duties belonging to them comes quite different from each before 't is by no improvement of Nature or any thing within a Man concreated and a common concurse of Providence contributes not nor can common Notices or whatever particular Industry and Experience attain unto it no particular act of Man whether Moral or Natural is a foundation sufficient for these greater relations and higher instances of Power whether of his Person apart or by compact with others 't is as always lodged in several Persons or when it was once in one and the same so by discriminating marks distinct symbols in the conveyance and appropriation whereby to discern the one from the other the Secular Power by Descent or Votes or in some instances Conquest the Spiritual by the Deputations of the Bishop and the Acts and Offices are quite apart and different as is the design of this Discourse to make fully appear but in this they agree and are as one because immediate from God by a special concurse and devolution and so deposited into particular hands and Persons no Force no Virtue no Compositions or Overtures in any Action or Performance by any Person or Persons amounting to it they are both highest Powers in their kind and sphere and 't is something apart and solitary and which none else have which makes them so and consequently none else can give it them because supposed not to have it but only he who is transcendently the highest and eminently above all and does and can give to each Son of Man as he pleases And now since each of these Gifts and Offices and Powers are attain'd to convey'd and devolv'd in several courses methods and ways one and the same Symbol Compact or Act does not produce and evidence their existence in and to the World invest with the Power instate in the Possession enable and engage all men alike to the attainment the Duties and Offices of them hence the Consequence is as clear in the course and chain of things as it is in Matter of Fact the Practice and known every day's Experience of the World that they are not any but two much more all of them in any one degree of Necessity as to their coexistence they do not any ways include or infer each other one Virtue 't is true includes and infers another and all Virtues I speak of practical Virtues Bonum ex causa integrâ and Goodness is all of one chain and where true in any one instance is all together but yet this Goodness in the nature of it includes not Wisdom and Knowledge a Virtuous Man has not always the most Knowledge nor where this Knowledge is is it always Universal To be a Divine is not to be a Physitian or were it always Universal this infers no one branch of Power Solomon's poor Wise man had none at all and so it may be with the richest and wisest 't is too often so nor doth any instance of Autority and Power where existing infer all other instances of it To be the Husband of a Wife is not therefore to be the Father of a Child nor do Paternal and Despotick Government either necessarily go together to be a King indeed is usually to be all but to be a Priest is oft to be neither he is many times too poor to have Servants and his Marriage is by some judg'd unlawful at least by Church-Law forbidden and every one says he ought not to be a King to be sure he is not so because a Priest nor is the King a Priest either because a King they no more infer one another than do any of the former two or all of them nor is their co-existence otherways necessary than any of the other they indeed were once united in the Worlds Infancy and some Ages after both seated in the first born though by what special grant we know not the small account we have of those Ages hinders it only I cannot agree with Grotius De Imper. Sum. Potest in Sacris Cap. 2. Sect. 4. that it was assumed by themselves or that every man had a Natural right to it and the Elder in the Family limited it to himself but however it came there it was afterwards severed by God himself who took only the Tribe of Levi for his Service at the Altar and governed in State more by his own Person and therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself sometimes appearing and giving Laws sometimes immediately raising up one and sometimes another to go in and out before his People as from Moses and in the days of the Judges to King Saul And as I intimated before these things not throughly considered and digested these courses and bonds and limits of Offices and Gifts and Powers their Posts and Stages removed or taken down if once these Land-marks be displaced become promiscuous and common making inrodes on one another not only he will be at a loss that engages in the Debates and Resolutions in these cases but Mankind it self the Christian Part of the World to be sure can no more continue in Peace but with Invasions and Usurpations Disorders and Confusions here upon Earth than the earthy Globe it self can subsist or keep its Equilibrium should the Elements of which it is made lose their Native qualities and become blended together or should its two Poles unite and kiss each other and of this our own late Experience in our own particular Church and Kingdom gives Testimony in abundance when a pretence of Holiness or the reality of it was determined sufficient to invest in the Priesthood the same Plea was concluded as
good for the Crown it staid not at the Pulpit but went immediately to the Throne all manner of Dominion was bottom'd in Grace alone and their Saints were both the wisest upon Earth and had all Power were to Teach and to Rule and to possess the Earth All the links and contignations of Government were taken down or burst in sunder whether of the Father over his Child or Husband over his Wife or Master over his Servant or Sovereign over his Subjects or Priest over the People all were Christ's Freemen and to be Servants to none only the knack was found out at last that the King was to be a Priest when both King and Priest were first disabled and their Autority either in design or actually taken from them The Bible it self was then put into his hands with a Right to all Church-Offices when the Right to his Liege Subjects was denied him with a Power to make the Scriptures Canonical and to discharge all its Duties to lay limits by his Laws to Religion though a false one and it is not permitted openly to draw Men off from the Profession of it so Mr. Dean tells us in his Sermon when to govern his Subjects by Law is Tyranny and Usurpation So advantageously is this new Honor and higher Dignity that his entrance to the Priestly-Office placed on him and the consequence was only this both King and Priest was brought to a Morsel of Bread were brought to the Block the Saints in the Right of their Power cut off the Heads both of King Charles the First the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Father was against the Son and the Son against the Father as when the Sea-marks are removed the Walls Water-locks and Floodgates are broken down and pluckt up this greater present deluge of professed Atheism Prophaneness and Immorality is broken in upon us over-spread the face of our Earth in the natural course and consequence of it the Foundations are cast down and what can the Righteous do the Romanists will have their Pope to be a King because a Priest these will have their King to be a Priest and in effect no King and 't was only those that either first design'd or afterwards promoted the taking his Crown from his Head stuck this Feather in his Cap as in the late unnatural Rebellion § IV NOR are those more successful who found the Pleas to the Priesthood in the Unction of Kings or in that they are anointed at their solemner Inaugurations God Almighty meant nothing less when he said Cyrus Mine anointed nor do the outward Unctions of the Kings of Israel and Judah infer or prove any more the Priests were equally anointed as they and 't is no more to be concluded that a King by virtue of his anointing hath the Power of a Priest than that a Priest by his anointing hath the Power of a King which two Sacred offices every body knows were two quite different distinct things though in many things they united yet in several they did they might not it was Sacriledge on the one hand and Rebellion on the other to attempt it The Oyl that the Kings were anointed withal was made of the same Unguents that Moses had compounded to anoint both the Priests and the Holy Vessels and the Altar if we may believe De Marca in his second Preface to his Treatise De Concord c. and had its effects but as design'd and apply'd to each in particular and which suitably received thereby their several distinct Separations for differing uses had their peculiar respects and Services conferr'd upon them it did not imply all the Offices at once in the same either Thing or Person and it may be as well said that the Holy Vessels and Altar became Kings as that the Kings became Priests upon the alone general account of being anointed but admit it had been otherwise under the Jewish Policy and the King by his Unction had the full Extent and Latitude of Power and Offices conferr'd by the Ceremony of Oyl devolv'd and seated in him What is this to us in the Christian Church under another Head different Polity and several Dispensation or how doth it oblige us that our Kings must be Priests because the Kings of Israel were once so Surely no otherwise than it oblig'd the Jews that their first-born were to be either Kings or Priests or both because it was once so with their Ancestors and Predecessors and which is nothing at all unless to be a King originally and in its Nature included the Priesthood by a perpetual Force and Law never to be broken and which their own instances destroy and did not the design and frame of the Governments themselves forbid it for the Law of Moses is the foundation and direction of both Governments both Political and Ecclesiastical and which the Law of our Saviour is not Civil Power is it altogether and in every instance antecedent and independent to that Power which is from the Gospel the Law of Christ supposes it only adds by its Precepts of Justice and Virtue greater Awe and Reverence new Motives for Obedience and Subjection yet the particular very ill consequence could by no means be allow'd us to take and give Measures and Rules to the Powers and Offices of the Christian Church from the Pattern and Practice of the Jewish for then the Power and Extent of the Evangelical Priesthood must be such as Christianity will not bear nor any man in his wits claim for it the Power of the Priesthood among the Jews was mixed in some cases and the Priest and the Levite were in some instances civil Judges apart as betwixt stroke and stroke betwixt Plea and Plea c. Deut. 17. and the High-Priest in other Circumstances had no Jurisdiction at all but as elected a Member of the Sanedrim and which was at the choice of his Electors not by virtue of his Priesthood as such tell us that are skilled in their Customs and sure we are he was still to be consulted in the ordinary difficult Affairs of the Kingdom concerning Wars and Peace and gave his responses by Vrim and Thummim and which is so strenuously oppos'd as unfit for Christian Bishops and Church-men by those we have mostly to deal with in this point now under debate and which would be of worser consequence yet if apply'd unto Kings to have the Princes Power such only as had the Kings of Israel and Judah particularly according as is the Model we usually receive from these Men of their Government and is contended for as lapsed from Heaven for their Sanedrim is still described as an Autority foreign and independent from that of the Prince that could not question the King for his life but could lay lesser Punishments upon him if violating the Law And the great Selden himself is at a stand and leaves it to wiser heads than himself to determine whether the Sanedrim might whip their Kings or not De Syned lib. 2. cap. 9.
2. 5. or in what extent soever the Kings of Judah are proposed as Patterns to our Kings for the exercise of Power in the Christian Church in our Nine and thirty Articles and may authorize them in it to be sure they were never design'd Examples in this particular of Unction or whatever Power it was they were to have as from them our Church could not mean it should thus be derived Our Kings of England 't is plain owe no one instance of their Power to the Coronation it self much less to their being then anointed one but particular Ceremony in the Performance of it and all Jurisdictions and Rights they have as Kings they have before and are to enjoy their whole life-time Supposing they were neither anointed nor even Crown'd at all 't is all an high Ceremony Solemn and Magnificent Peculiar as is the Person and Power and Majesty of a Prince as is becoming a Crown Imperial when set on his Head and the anointing may be used as very lively significant and expressing that separation of his Person which was due and made and acknowledged before and really in him as has been the Custom by Oyl so to sever and set apart Persons and Things but that the thing it self is either commanded or expected by God or design'd and used by Man to any other end service or purpose I never could yet understand David Blondel in his Formula regnante Christo Pag. 119. tells us that the Unction or Custom of anointing Princes was not used among Christians till the year of our Lord 750. and the Consecration of their King Pippin and it was often repeated as twice four five times a year as he instances in several Princes and makes evident it is not look't upon as an initiating investing Ceremony whatever else use they appropriated to it though afterwards it was adjudged Sacriledge to iterate it by a growing Superstition and assum'd Opinion of it the famous Arch-Bishop of Paris De Marca in his Second Preface to his Book De Concord c. and in the Second Book Cap. 7. of the Treatise it self tells us of some in the Greek Church that were of the Opinion that the Prince had the Priestly Power by virtue of his Unction And it was defined in a Synod held at Constantinople in the year of our Lord Nine hundred and seventy that the anointing of the Emperor gives him the same Power to forgive Sins as has the Sacrament of Baptism and the Greeks out of the same Principle of flattery managed the same Opinion and gave their Emperor the same Power as hath the Patriarch but this as we are told depended mostly on a Faction then on foot as it was in it self precarious and Arbitrary so wee 'l leave it to its first bottom which is none at all nor needs it any farther Consideration § V NON est Respublica in Ecclesia sed Ecclesia in Republica 't is the saying of Optatus lib. 3. Contr. Parmen Donatist The Common-wealth is not in the Church but the Church in the Common-wealth under the Head and Government of the Powers of the World as to the Temporals and that instance of the Polity of it no Plea of Office and Deputation what Commission or Designation soever from God and Christ can or ever did exempt any one Man on Earth from it collate or invest therewithal a Power for Earth above it at least as binding Rules for continuance and a pattern for future Practice Our Saviour had it not who made me a Judge or a Divider and none can exercise it as from him but by Usurpation but the Common-wealth and the Church are no ways thus in Subordination and dependencies in another regard as the Church is a Body endow'd with Powers Spiritual thus they are different as the Soul and Body are in Man's Person in their distinct Orbs and Stations as are the Sun and the Moon in the Heavens have a quite diverse Orb and Powers Influences and Devolutions that are variant As the Church must be always in the World in that other sense subject to its governance to the accidents too oft the frowns and high displeasures of it till the World it self is no more So must the World be in the Church in this other sense if that World for whose Sins Christ died if coming to Heaven and Salvation be subject to its Head and Jurisdiction the World may not improperly be said to be as the Moon and the Church as the Sun receiving light and assistance splendor and glory and beauty from it thus influenced and increasing with the increase of God though the Metaphor needs not run any farther and as it has been stretcht too much by some and all this is demonstrable and will appear as evident as the Sun in its Zenith or at Noon day 't is wrote as with an Adamant a Pen of iron on a Rock on that Pillar the Church to be seen and read of all Men and to all Ages for evermore in the Original rise and succession of Church Power in all Transactions Records and Histories of it in the Matter of Fact as notorious to the common sense of Mankind as that one and two make three is to his reason and which is the only Rule in this case to be gone by I 'le begin with the Apostles and so come down to those Ages of the Church and Laws Imperial and Concessions whose Truth and Interest is believed by all to be such as not to engage them to be false in which all Parties agree and concenter § VI PVLCHERRIMA illa quae Ecclesia continet coagmentatio non ex Imperio Romano fluxit Christo monstrante sequentibus Apostolis Grot. in Animadvert Rivet ad Articul 7. That comeliness of Order and Degrees in the Church did not slow from the Roman Empire but from Christ Jesus the Apostles following and imitating of him and as he their chief great Master had not so neither had they his immediate Deputies and Successors their Power either from Man or the Will of Man they in no instance consulted with Flesh and Blood with any thing Humane and of the World in the first rise devolution and conveyance of it but still term themselves the Apostles and Ministers of Christ Jesus nor in the execution of this Power did they do otherwise they consulted only with themselves in the arduous difficult cases arising 't is to the Spirit of the Prophets the Prophets alone are to be subject they go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and Elders there Acts 15. and 't is Peter James and John consult together upon the like occasion Gal. 2. 't is they ordain Elders and give Laws in all Churches leave Timothy and Titus in Ephesus and Crete and appoint for decency and order they are brought before Kings but 't is mostly if not always to suffer they there take the advantages to assent and plead this their Right and Power distinct and separate to give Rules and Exhortations but
experienced the advantage of their Communion for a good while would be sensible of the loss be apprehensive of the sorrow and burden of it and that all Excommunications were not to take effect in the first times of the Church we have Origen for an example who when excommunicated by Demetrius with the assistance of other Bishops continued still a Presbyter and publickly associated as such And Vallesius annot in Euseb hist l. 6. c. 23. gives these two Reasons for it because his Sentence was denounced when absent and he had not legal Citations and it was not confirmed by the Bishop of Rome though to me a more probable reason may be given than either for the illegality of the proceeding and the no effect it had the ancient Canons of the Church still forbidding any one of the hieratical Order whether Bishop Presbyter or Deacon to be excommunicated Excommunication was the Punishment for the Laity the Clergies was Deposition nor were the Clergy subject to the other till removed from the Priesthood And certainly then much less can it be conceived in reason and as agreeable with the common courses of foresight and discretion that other things are managed in the Gospel with that this Ordinance should on such terms be instituted and put in execution as to reach Kings themselves and with less regard and consideration than to Persons in Holy Orders and be concluded more peremptorily and immediately to take effect upon them as if inconveniences and that over-ballance whatever the proposed advantage may be may not here be a consequent also Princes 't is true are equally subject to the Laws of Christ and his Church and they must come to Heaven in the same Path that the meanest of their Subjects do come in they are to be urg'd and taught publickly as are others and particularly in private and where due opportunity to be severely warned of but then upon a supposed failure to proceed to an open publick Exclusion this if in any one instance else ought first to be weigh'd and consider'd whether it be likely to have due effect to be for the good of the Church in general which his outward arm alone can protect and whether instead of reducing him as to his Person it may not much more harden him and especially since his Person falls under no farther Coercion than his engagements to Christianity lay upon him Examples of Kings are strangely influential and prevailing and whether a greater deluge of Prophaneness may not be let in by so doing or again whether the exposing him to shame and contumely would not withal expose his reputation to the contempt of his People and thus not only Religion and Morality but the outward Peace and Quiet of the Realm might be exposed to danger and the both Church and State be liable to inrodes and violence thereby we believe it to be what was appointed by God and supposed by our Saviour in the lay and frame of our Christianity that the Secular Power receive no abatement but on the contrary every of its Prerogatives be strengthen'd by its spreading over and reception in the World Since every other relation is to continue and be obliging so also must this of Kings which came into the World with the first is connate and coaevous with Paternity the Foundation was laid for both at once and Kings and Subjects are to remain so long as Fathers and Children the race of Mankind is on Earth continued and suitably to this first contrivance no sooner did the Empire come in to the Church and engage in Christianity but Emperors declared themselves and the Church joyfully receiv'd them for its Nursing Father and the Prince is the Supreme Governor there the Laws and Judicatures are the Kings and our Bishops give Citations in their own Names but by an antecedent Power derived from and by the Prince devolved unto them And the Bishops of old were so far from assuming to themselves any such outward Coercive Power as to make Citations of mens Persons to proceed by Court Process and Penal Mulcts that when they laid the Plot for Lay-Deputies Chancellors Commissaries Officials or whatever title they went under to sit in their Courts and give occasional Judgments for what private reasons I cannot tell but the pretended is this that it was less decent that they being Spiritual Persons should mingle themselves in Secular Affairs they could not constitute such their Deputies nor erect such an Order but by a special Grant and Seal from the Emperor a firm Argument that the Power was not originally theirs and they suitably supplicate him in order to it and he yields to their demand but gives a Caution that the Church be not dammaged thereby a thing in course to be suspected and perhaps the advantage the Church has since had that the Courts for her Justice are the Bishops and her Causes fall not immediately under a Secular Cognitor are so little and inconsiderable that though the first Piety and royal Indulgence is apparent yet the present benefit is hardly discernible at this day among us Vid. Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 2. l. 38. and the Story is to be seen at large in the Commentaries of Jacob Gothosâ—red upon that Law And can we now with any shew of Reason suppose that in the design of our Saviour and the execution of Church Power no regard is to be had to the Prince and that Proceedings are to be alike as upon other Persons and promiscuously though all so far under the same Circumstances as equally Members of the same Association for Heaven Those rules of Policy which were contrived complyed with and submitted to in the first planting the Gospel seem not consistent with such an after-practice a Presbyter was not to be Excommunicated till first deposed and yet then shall each single Presbyter Excommunicate his Prince I do not say till deposed as was by the ancient Canons the Presbyter to be and then Excommunicated for that is what no Power on Earth can do and the Church of God never pretended to it 't was what she always abhorred but that the Considerations must needs weigh more and be much rather cogent that the censure go not out against a Prince and greater inconveniences must hence follow whatever they were the ancient Church did apprehend to be a consequent to the other and the common foresight of things could not also allow it The single Corinthian was Excommunicated by St. Paul when the whole Body of them each one full of iniquity had not the like Animadversions from him and what may not be connived at in him who is more than ten thousand and by which there is less Security that the edge of the censure will not be more abated and dulled thereby in whom is all Strength and Power in whose hand it is to expose all to the malice and violence of the Enemy to reduce the Church so near to the first state under the Heathens and which condition though it is
has not made that the immutable term of Man's Salvation but what is in his own Power and of which if he fails 't is his own perverse will and choice that is debauch'd and betrays him to it the Carved works of the Temple may be beaten down the Church-Discipline be weakned and her Laws and Rules for Holiness become of less force her Towers and Bulwarks be taken away and the Secular Protection be withdrawn I may have neither tongue to speak nor hands to lift up in prayer nor feet to walk to the House of God there may be no Houses of God in our Land the Tyrant may pull out or cut off the one or pull down the other the daily Sacrifice my cease and the Priest-hood too as to particular Persons and when we say where Episcopal Power is not there is no Church we do not so mean that where it is not Men cannot go to Heaven these all may be supplyed by an upright heart and due intentions God accepts of a Man according to what he hath and not according to what he hath not The Sacraments are only generally necessary to Salvation and so of other duties in the same Order of Sanction God does not oblige us to the Tyranny of Impossible Commands to climb up to Heaven and go down into the Deep and fetch thence our Eternity ask of us ten thousand Rams or a thousand of Rivers of Oyl or those Cattel upon a thousand Hills for a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Clement argues to the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 't is our own Lust not others we are to answer for if not Subdued and Conquered he does not bind us to go to Heaven when we have no Legs Move without Faculties Act without Strength Live when Dead Men and with Paralytick Joynts Enfeebled by Irrecoverable Weakness to work out our own Salvation every Brick-bat will then make an Altar and Prayers are to be made every where with Holy Hands lift up or but Devout Hearts without Wrath and without Doubting nor is it by Subduing Kings and Conquering Worldly Powers we are to go to Heaven Faith Love Dependence upon God c. are among those acts of the Soul usually called Elicitae whose Practice depends on no outward Faculty and if some Virtues equally indispensable are otherways seated and among those Acts call'd Imperatae and to be perform'd by the outward Organs of the Body yet are they equally free from outward Force so seated in each ones Self and lodg'd in his Person that no Violence but from a Man 's own self can reach them those the only Enemies that are of his own House and 't is every ones own hand that draws his Sword and makes him a Rebel his alone Adulterous Eyes and Heart Promote and Actuate whatever of uncleanness is from him and 't is neither Person nor Object nor Quality any thing that comes cross or is of force from within or without himself whether Devil or Tyrant or Lust any one accident or contingency that can either dismember him from the Church or disunite him from his God deprive him of sufficient Means here or Eternal Life hereafter even the Tyrannies and Deaths here will but Advance the Crown and these lighter Afflictions work for us that more Eternal Weight of Glory and which Considerations are to be the great Support and Comfort of all Christians Should it so happen in the courses of Providence and Kings and Queens cease to be Nursing Fathers and Mothers unto us Should a Nero or a Domitian a Parliament of forty two a Cromwel or a Committee of Safety or what Association soever be set up against and Tyrannize over us plane volumus pati verùm eo modo quo Bellum miles nemo quippe libens Bellum patitur cum et trepidari periclitari necesse sit tamen praeliatur omnibus viribus et vincens in praelio gaudet qui de praelio querebatur quia Gloriam consequitur praedam they are the words of Tertullian Apol. c. 5. to those Scoffers of the Heathens in his days and whom Julian the Apostate after imitated telling the Christians Afflictions was their Advantage and to be Loved by them because their Martyrdom and Crown We must willingly suffer and engage as the Souldier does in War and 't is the expectation of Victory and that recompence of Reward makes us fight on and Rejoyce under that Banner which otherwise the present Difficulties and Dangers working on our fears would engage us to avoid and run from 't was the constancy and evenness of the Christians for the Truth and in Gods Service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together with their Gravity Sincerity their Freedom and Modesty of Conversation gain'd upon their Enemies both Greeks and Barbarians and silenced their baser Slanders and Calumnies against them thus together with the learned discourses and endeavours by Writing and which were not few the Church grew and multiplied as Eusebius tells us Hist l. 4. c. 7. These the Weapons of a Christian Warfare and the many Shields of the Mighty these the Spoyls and Trophies they contended for I know not how in fitter words to conclude this Chapter than in those of our Noble Historian Eusebius in his Preface to his fifth Book of his Church History giving an account of those many and Eminent Martyrs in the days of Antoninus Verus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Others making Historical Narrations have delivered in their Writings Victories in War and Trophies over their Enemies the great Actions of Captains and the Valour of Souldiers that had stained their hands in Blood and a thousand Battels for their Children their Country and their Fortunes but the History or the Narrative of the Divine Common-wealth and Enrollment which is of Heaven writes on Eternal Pillars those Peace Designing Battels in order to the Peace of the Soul or that are Spiritual Those that fight in these Battels for Truth rather than their Country for Religion rather than their Children The constancy of the Contenders for Piety and their Fortitude in their manifold Sufferings their Trophies against Devils and Victories obtain'd against the Invisible Powers or Enemies making publick their Crown for an Everlasting Remembrance CHAP. VI. Chap. 6. The Contents The last general of the Discourse Sect. 1. What the Autority of our particular Church and Kingdom is in this Controversie where not Apostolical and Primitive there not obliging Their Doctrine Laws and Practice all along on our side Sect. 2. The People are only Testimonies of the Manners of such as are to be Ordained in our Book of Ordination Sect. 3. No Autority in any but those of the Priesthood to Ordain Excommunicate c. as in our Rubricks Articles c. Sect. 4. Our Kings claim'd it not in their Acts Declarations c. in the days of Henry VIII in the Act of Submission He is declared a Lay-man nothing in Religion made Law but by him He defends Religion His
Constitutiones Ecclesiasticae 1597. ut homines idonei ad sacros ordines admittantur IT were needless Pains to insist on and § IV shew the particular judgment of our Church Whether this Power be in her Pastors alone exclusive to as the People so the Prince also the Rubricks in the Common-Prayer Book suppose and farther invest all Offices there in the Hieratical Order what ever relate to the Divine Worship and Service and which are by them alone to be perform'd the Prjest is still distinguished from the People or Laity nor is the Prince there considered but as of the Laity in attendance in Common with the other Worshippers and to be sure in the Book of Ordination 't is the Bishop lays on Hands and Consecrates he the origin and head of all Power derived whether to Bishop Presbyter or Deacon and in what degree soever of Power it is that is given That Person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the Vnity of the Church and excommunicate ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the Faithful as an Heathen and Publican until he be openly reconciled by Penance and received into the Church by a Judg that hath Autority thereunto as among the Articles of Religion 1562. Article 33. and this Judg is neither Chancellor Official nor Commissary c. but a Bishop or Presbyter the Arch-Deacon cannot do it if not a Presbyter and but in Deacon's Orders in these alone is the Power of both retaining and absolving in the Articuli pro clero 1584. and the libri quorundam Canonum c. and in the constitutiones Ecclesiasticae 1597. and all set out by Queen Elizabeth he that would once for all be satisfied what is the sense of our Church let him but once read over our seven and thirthieth Article of Religion together with the occasion of it and he must be convinced that her Judgment is on our side however 't is received whether as Orthodox or Erroneous by him Among other Articles agreed upon by the Bishops and other learned Godly Men in the Convocation held at London 1552. this was one The King of England is supreme Head in Earth next under Christ of the Church of England and Ireland Many bad Inferences were made and sinister Consequences affixed and particularly that the King was declared a Priest impower'd to administer in Divine Service In the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 1561. and till which time during the Reign of Queen Mary the Objection to be sure had been urged sufficiently and improved a Convocation being called and Articles agreed upon by the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the 37th Article and in answer to the Objection they more fully explain themselves in these Words and declare The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Causes do appertain and is not nor ought not to be subject to any foreign Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the Minds of some dangerous Folk to be offended We give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also 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 Scripture 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 restraining with the Civil Sword the stubborn and Evil doers AND this is all is laid claim to by our § V Princes themselves and that the Statute-book or any other claim of theirs entitles to and invests them withal in the late collection of Articles Canons c. made by Anthony Sparrow now Lord Bishop of Norwich I meet with nothing done by King Henry VIII save what is mentioned by King Edward VI. in the entrance to his Injunctions 1547. and which are there transcribed with his own additions the design and end of which is only to procure publick and general obedience to the Laws and Duties of true Religion and that every Man truely observe them as they will avoid his Displeasure and Penalties annexed All that Henry VIII got by the submission of the Clergy in the five and twentieth year of his reign cap. 19. was this as there set down in the Statute That the Clergy would not for the time to come assemble in convocation without the King 's Writ That they would not enact promulge or execute any new Canons Constitutions Ordinance provincial or other or by whatsoever Name they shall be called in Convocation unless the King 's Royal license be had his Assent and Consent in that behalf That all Canons Constitutions before made prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm or overmuch onerous to the Subject be abrogated and of no value all other standing in their full strength and power the King's Assent first had unto them The meaning of all which appears only to be this That nothing relating to Church-Affairs and Proceedings is to be made Law or to be proceeded for or against in any outward Court whatever in a forensick judicial way but by the leave and autority of the King without his Royal Assent first had and his hand set to it And this is that Title of the supreme Head of the Church of England which he hereupon assum'd to himself and which some little time afterwards confirm'd to him in full Parliament his Heirs and Successors the Power of the Church it self is not at all abated as purely such and from our Saviour only brought to a dependency upon the King which before was upon the Bishop of Rome and who had exercised here that headship and still claims it § VI AND that this was really all the King then aim'd at by the submission of the Clergy viz a Right and Supremacie of Inspection over all Persons in all Causes within his Realms and Dominions and that no Pleas of Religion or the service of Christ is to exempt them from the judicial Cognizance and Jurisdiction of their Prince this will appear more plain and evident by the several Proceedings and Acts concerning Church-Affairs made by this King in that 19 cap. and five and twentieth year of his Reign where the submission of the Clergy is turned into an Act and in the several Acts ensuing in all which it does not appear that he ever assumed to himself and exercised any other than such like external Power and Autority in spiritual Matters he intermedles not with any one Instance of Priestly Power as purely such but on the contrary cautions with Clauses and Preventions lest any such thing should be or be supposeable so
Henry VIII cap. 21. in the outward Courts and Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical neither did he in his Practice either in his own Person or the Persons of Church-Men by a Plea of deriving the Power unto them from himself take upon him any thing essential to the Priest-hood as to determine in Matters of Faith decide Controversies to offiociate at the Altar to ordain c. even to appoint Laws and Canons for discipline or Proceedings in that Convocation called and continued by his Power but as there first debated and determined framed into a Rule and in presiding over whom his headship so much consisted § IX WEE 'L go on from King Henry VIII to King Edward VI. and in the first year of his Reign cap. 2. Sect. 3. we meet with a notable alteration made in Words and though no more yet may make a shew as if he assumed a farther new Power to himself as supreme head of the Church which King Henry VIII did not do before him and whereas the Arch-Bishops Bishops and other spiritual Persons do use to make and send out their Summons Citations and Process in their own Names and with their own Seals it is enacted That they be made and sent out in the Name and with the Seal of the King c. but this relating only to the Courts Ecclesiastical as in the Words of the Statute and by which the King is own'd the Supreme by the Clegy as 't is also in the Statute worded and acknowledged nor can any Arch-Bishop Bishop c. summon any of the King's Subjects to any Place without his leave and not enabled by him the King may authorize them in what form he please whether of that of the Common-Law or in any other as in that of Majors in Corporations or Vice-Chancellors in the University or Court-Leets which latter was the form and is by this Act abolished and the first brought into its room and upon what reasons soever this Act was laid and passed in King Edward's days or repealed by Queen Mary as to be sure the two Parties the Puritan and the Papist thought they served themselves and particular Designs in it it was never re-enforced by any succeeding Parliaments nor attempted that I have met with in the days of either Queen Elizabeth or King James or King Charles the first or second The Prince was not thought to loose or gain any thing as to his Autority in Spirituals which way soever it went nor the Bishops to have any Plea of inroding the Errors by so using it as they now do in their own Names and with their own Seals as by the male-contented and puritanical Party in the days of King Charles the first it was objected they did and they libelled and traduced for it but are sufficiently vindicated therein by the reverend Father in God Robert Sanderson late Lord Bishop of Lincoln in a Treatise called Episcopacy as established by the Laws in England not prejudicial to regal Power And even in this very Statute of Edward VI. the Bishops are to use their own Seals and Names in all faculties dispensations collations institutions inductions letters of Orders c. and in limiting which also to his own Name and Seal the King's supremacy had been equally asserted nay more concern'd because peculiarly enlarged if that the thing was aimed at for the granting Letters of Orders is what is purely hieratical and solely Episcopal seated in the highest Order of the Priest-hood a peculiar embellishment to the Crown and the Bishops by acting in the other Instances in their own Names and by their own Seals must have in as his high a degree invaded a most singular and choice Prerogative of the Prince the right of Investiture admission into Temporals Institution and Induction into Benefices are Acts purely worldly and secular and originally in the Crown could an Objection be framed from the particular Form either ways and such its Circumstances as indeed and really cannot be § X I come next to Queen Elizabeth where we shall find that as she reassumed the Supremacie in the first year of her Reign alienated by Queen Mary and this by Act of Parliament cap. 1. in which is the Oath of Supremacy to be taken as in that Act ordered and limited and because a great many Cavils were made and sinister malicious Constructions The Queen her self in that very Year endeavors to rescue her Subjects and disentangle them from all such Jealousies and among her Injunctions 1559 for Peace and Order in the Church and State there is an admonition to simple Men deceived by Malitious The Words are these which though many I 'le here transcribe and in effect but the same with those of the Convocation 1562. on the very same occasion The Queens Majesty being informed That in certain Places of the Realm sundry of her Native Subjects being call'd to Ecclesiastical Ministry of the Church be by sinister Perswasion and perverse construction induced to find some Scruple in the form of an Oath which by an Act of the late Parliament is prescribed to be required of divers Persons for the recognition of their Allegiance to her Majesty which certainly was never meant nor by any equity of Words or good Sense can be there from gather'd would that all her loving Subjects should understand that nothing was is or shall be meant or intended by the same Oath than was acknowledged to be due to the most noble King of famous Memory King Henry VIII her Majesties Father or King Edward the VI. her Majesties Brother And farther her Majesty forbiddeth all manner her Subjects to give ear and credit to such perverse and malicious Persons which most sinisterly and maliciously labour to notifie to her loving Subjects how by word of the said Oath it may be collected that the King and Queens Possessors of the Crown may challenge Autority and Power of Ministry of divine Service in the Church wherein her said Subjects be much abused by such evil disposed Persons for certainly her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any Autority than that was challenged and lately used by the said noble Kings of famous Memory King Henry VIII and King Edward VI which is and was in Ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the Soveraignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countries of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal ever they be so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And if any Person that has conceived any other sense of the Form of the said Oath shall accept the same Oath with this interpretation sense or meaning her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf as her good and obedient Subjects and shall acquit them of all manner of Penalties contemn'd in the said Act against such as shall peremptorily and obstinately refuse to take the same Oath And because this is
Castelvetrus her second Husband as Mr. Selden suggests or by the Archbishop himself what is necessarily hence to be inferr'd I 'le here again give in the words of our always to be reverenced Mr. Herbert Thorndike of the Laws of the Church Cap. Vlt. Pag. 394. Neither is the Publishing Erastus his Book against Excommunication at London to be drawn into the like Consequence that those who allow'd and procur'd it allow'd the substance of what he maintain'd so long as a sufficient Reason is to be rendred for it otherwise for at such time as the Presbyterian Pretences were so hot under Queen Elizabeth it is no marvel if it was thought to shew England how they prevail'd at home first because he hath advanced such Arguments as are really effectual against them which are not yet nor never will be answered by them though void of the Positive Truth which ought to take place instead of their Mistakes and besides because at such times as Popes did what them listed in England it would have been to the purpose to shew the English how Machiavel observes they were hamper'd at home and for the like Reason when the Geneva Platform was cried up with such Zeal here it was not amiss to shew the World how it was esteem'd under their own Noses in the Cantons and the Palatinate § XVII I am now to shew the concurrency of our Doctors in the Church and who still go along with me and say the same thing that Church Power as such is not from the Civil Magistrate and his supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons infers it not an induction would be too numerous the Particulars being so many I 'le only instance in two the one is Thomas Bilson then Warden of Winchester and afterward Bishop there in his Book entituled The true difference between Christian Subjection and un-christian Rebellion perused and allowed by publick Autority and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth and for writing of which he had his Bishoprick the other is Robert Sanderson then the King's Professor at Oxford and after Bishop of Lincolne in his Book called Episcopacie as establed by Law in England not prejudicial to the Regal Power written in the time of the long Parliament by the special Command of King Charles the I. but not published by reason of the Iniquity and Confusion of the Times and since printed and dedicated to our present gracious Soveraign King Charles II. two Divines as they flourished in our Church at a great distance of time from one another so are they at as great distance for their Worth and Merit beyond the generality of the Divines of their times and by which as we have the advantage of their greater Autority as to themselves to which add That they acted herein as publick Persons by Autority appointed to write in the Name of the Church of England and in such Cases Men generally are more careful how they vent their own private Niceties and Conceptions so also have we a farther benefit hereby that this was and is the continued constant Doctrine of our Church and Church-Men from Queen Elizabeth to King Charles II. Bishop Bilson thus speaks part 2d pag. § XVIII 124. printed at Oxford It is one thing who may command for truth and another who shall direct unto truth We say Princes may command for Truth and punish the refusers this no Bishop may challenge but only the Prince that beareth the Sword no Prelate has Autority from Christ to compel private Men much less Princes but only to teach and instruct them these two Points we stand on pag. 125. 126. he tells the Jesuite the Prince is Supreme to establish those things Christ has commanded and so he all along shews it the design of the Oath of Supremacy against the pretended outward Jurisdiction of the Pope claiming as Christ's Vicar on Earth a coercive Power in order to spiritual things over the Persons of all Christians whatsoever whose Subjects soever and in whatsoever Causes even our Kings themselves And that it is no more thence to be inferr'd that Princes because supreme Governors over all Persons in all Causes are therefore supreme Judges of Faith Deciders of Controversies Interpreters of Scripture Appointers of Sacraments Devisers of Ceremonies and what not then if it should be inferr'd Princes are supreme Governors in all Corporal things and causes ergo they are supreme Guiders of Grammar Moderators of Logique Directors of Rhetorick Appointers of Musick Prescribers of Medicines Resolvers of all Doubts and Judges of all Matters incident any wayes to reason art or action We confess them to be supreme Governors of their Realms and Dominions and that in all Spiritual things and causes not of all Spiritual things and causes we make them not Governors of the Things themselves but of their Subjects we confess that her Highness is the only Governor of this Realm the Word Governor doth sever the Magistrate from the Minister and sheweth a manifest difference between their Office for Bishops be no Governors of Countries Princes be these bear the Sword to reward and punish those do not pag. 127. They have several Commissions which God signed those to dispense the Word and Sacraments these to prescribe by their Laws and punish by the Sword such as resist them within their Dominions pag. 128. That no Clergy-Man by God's Law can challenge an exemption from earthly Powers pag 129. Princes have full Power to forbid prevent and punish in all their Subjects be they Lay-Men Clerks or Bishops not only Murders Thefts Adulteries Perjuries and such like Breaches of the second table but also Schisms Heresies Idolatries and all other Offences against the first Table pertaining only to the Service of God and Matters of Religion pag. 130. as the Kings of Israel did who are the Christian Princes example pag. 132. and it is the duty of Christian Kings to compel from Heresies and Schisms to the confession of the truth consent of Prayer and Communion of the Lord's Table to compel Hereticks and Schismaticks to repress Schism and Heresie with their princely Power which they receive from above chiefly to maintain God's glory by the causing the Bands of Virtue to be preserved in the Church and the Rules of Faith observed pag. 133. this is the Prince's charge to see the Law of God fully executed his Son rightly served his Spouse safely nursed his House timely filled his Enemies duely punished and he tells the Jesuite if he grants this he will ask no more And these the causes and things that be Spiritual as well as Temporal the Princes power and charge doth reach unto or in the words of St. Austin that Princes may command that which is good and prohibit that which is evil within their Kingdoms not in Civil Affairs only but in Matters that concern divine Religion Cont. Crescon l. 3. c. 51. pag. 134. to page 145. and this or power of the like nature was what was claimed and used in causes Ecclesiastical which
Oath we make Princes the only supreme Governors of all Persons in all Causes as well spiritual as temporal utterly renouncing all foreign Jurisdictions Superiorities and Autorities upon which Words mark what an horrible Confusion of all Faith and Religion ensueth if Princes be the only Governors in Ecclesiastical Matters then in vain did the Holy Ghost appoint Pastors and Bishops to govern the Church if they be Supreme then they are superior to Christ himself and in effect Christ's Masters if in all Things and Causes spiritual than they may prescribe to the Priests and Bishops what to preach which way to worship and serve God how in what Form to minister the Sacraments and generally how Men shall be governed in Soul if all foreign Jurisdiction must be renounced then Christ and his Apostles because they were and are Forreigners have no Jurisdiction nor Autority over England But this is what only the ill Nature and Malice of our Adversaries would have us to believe and assert and give out to the World we do 't is what is and all along has been repell'd with scorn and indignation both by our Princes in their single Persons and in their Laws in Parliament and though some of our Divines have wished the Oath had been more cautiously Penn'd and think it lies more open to little obvious Inferences of this nature than it needs and which amuse the unwary less discerning Reader yet all own and defend it as to the substance and design and intent of it and which is throughly and sufficiently done by the learned Warden in this Treatise as appears by this Specimen or shorter account is now given of it and he that peruses the whole Treatise will find more and John Tillotson Doctor in Divinity and Dean of Canterbury is if not the only yet one professed conforming Divine in our Church that publickly from the both Pulpit and Press has given the Romanist so much ground really to believe we are such as they on purpose to abuse us and delude others give it out we are and complyes so far with their Objection and Calumny just now recited as by Philander drawn up against us gives so much of Force and Autority to it § XIX BISHOP Sanderson in his Treatise now mentioned has a different task from Bishop Bilson the one was to vindicate the Prince that he invades not the Church the other the Bishops or Church that from usurping on the Prince Bishop Sanderson among many other things urged by him and as his Subject requires is express in these Particulars pag. 121. That there is a supreme Ecclesiastical Power which by the Law of the Land is established and by the Doctrine of our Church acknowledged to be inherent in the Church pag. 23. That regal and Episcopal Power are two Powers of quite different kinds and such as considered purely in those things which are proper and assential to either have no mutual relation unto or dependance upon each other neither hath either of them to do with the other the one of them being purely spiritual and internal the other external and temporal albeit in regard of the Persons that are to exercise them or some accidental Circumstances appertaining to the exercise thereof it may happen the one to be some wayes helpful or prejudicial to the other pag. 41. that the derivation of any Power from God doth not necessarily infer the non-subjection of the Persons in whom that Power resideth to all other Men for doubtless the power that Fathers have over their Children Husbands over their Wives Masters over their Servants is from Heaven of God and not of Men yet are Parents Husbands Masters in the exercise of their several respective Powers subject to the Power Jurisdiction and Laws of their lawful Soveraigns pag. 44. The King doth not challenge to himself as belonging to him by virtue of his Supremacy Ecclesiastical the Power of ordaining Ministers excommunicating scandalous Offenders the power of Preaching adminstring Sacraments c. and yet doth the King by virtue of that Supremacy challenge a Power as belonging to him in the right of his Crown to make Laws concerning Preaching administring the Sacraments ordination of Ministers and other Acts belonging to the Function of a Priest pag. 69 70 71. it is the peculiar reason he gives in behalf of the Bishops for not using the King's Name in their Process c. in the Ecclesiastical Courts the occasion of the whole discourse and which cannot be given for the Judges of any other Courts from the different nature and kind of their several respective Jurisdictions which is That the Summons and other Proceedings and Acts in the Ecclesiastical Courts are for the most part in order to the Ecclesiastical Censures and Sentences of Excommunications c. the passing of which Sentences and others of the like kind being a part of the Power of the Keys which our Lord Jesus Christ thought sit to leave in the hands of the Apostles and their Successors and not in the hands of Lay-Men The Kings of England never challenged to belong to themselves but left the exercise of that Power entirely to the Bishops as the lawful Successors of the Apostles and Inheritors of their Power the regulating and ordering of that Power in sundry Circumstances concerning the outward exercise thereof in foro exteruo the Godly Kings of England have thought to belong unto them as in the Right of their Crown and have accordingly made Laws concerning the same even as they have done also concerning other Matters appertaining to Religion and the Worship of God but the substance of that Power and the Function thereof as they saw it altogether to be improper to their Office and Calling so they never pretended or laid any claim thereunto but on the contrary renounced all claim to any such Power or Autority And for Episcopacy it self the Bishop sets down his opinion in a Postscript to the Reader the words are these My opinion is That Episcopal Government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical Practice or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messiah our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ who being sent by his Heavenly Father to be The great Apostle Heb. 3.1 Bishop and Pastor 1 Pet. 2.25 of his Church and anointed to that Office immediately after his Baptism by John with Power and the Holy Ghost Acts 10.37 38. descending then upon him in a bodily shape Luk. 3.22 did afterwards before his Ascension into Heaven send and impower his holy Apostles giving them the Holy Ghost likewise as his Father had given him in like manner as his Father had before sent him Joh. 20.21 to exercise the same Apostolical Episcopal and Pastoral office for the Ordering and Governing of his Church until his coming again and so the same office to continue in them and their Successors unto the Worlds end Mat. 28.18.20 this I take to be so clear from these and other like Texts of
Priests to Correct and Punish them to whom the Priests are to pay Tribute and this all along from the Examples of the Kings of Israel from our Saviour from St. Peter this contrary to the practice of the Pope who claims these Powers and Advantages to himself and in his own Power Person executes them 't is the Princes Province assign'd him in the Scripture to Punish and Coerce to enforce Penance and Restitution and that evil-doers be cut off according to St. Paul to prohibit and smite such as refuse to serve God according to the Priests instruction as did Hezekiah to the Worshippers in the Groves and high places destroying them as did the King of Nineveh compelling the whole City to Repentance forbidding for the future by terrible Laws as did Nebucadnezzar thus Justinian the Emperor gave Laws in Religion concerning Faith and Hereticks Churches Bishops and Church-men Marriages c. and the same and only this Power have the Kings of England assum'd to themselves as he instances all along to the End of the Book particularly in the Church Laws made by several Kings in this Island as Canutus Etheldred Edgar Edmund Adelstan Ive Oswin Egfrid William the Conqueror in his Letters for the Endowment of Battle with its Priviledges and Immunities and which Mr. Selden makes use of to his purpose though no ways serving it for he only exempts the Church from Episcopal Visitation but neither in this or any other of their Letters Rules Laws and Injunctions given to the Church is any thing of Church-Power as such own'd claimed appropriated or but pretended to by virtue of the Crown or Regal Power given them of God but the two Powers are supposed distinct and disparates and so in particular King Edgar in that his severer correptive Monitory-Oration or Letter to the Clergy of England their faults appearing then very notorious he at length thus addresses himself unto them Ego Constantini vos Petri gladium habetis in manibus jungawus dexteras gladium gladio copulemus ut ejiciantur extra castra leprosi ut purgetur Sanctuarium Domini ministrent in Templo silii Levi. I have the Sword of Constantine you have the Sword of Peter in your hands let us joyn right hands together let us couple Sword with Sword that the Leprous may be cast out of the Tents and the Sanctuary of the Lord be Purged and the Sons of Levi minister in the Temple And a little farther applying himself to Dunstan the Archbishop he tells him Contempta sunt verba veniendum est ad verbera urguisti obsecrasti atque increpasti Admonitions will do no more good he must come to blows and thereunto directs him to joyn with himself Edwald Bishop of Winchester and Oswald Bishop of Worcester Vt Episcopali Censurâ regia Autoritate turpiter viventes de Ecclesia ejiciantur c. by the Episcopal Censure and Regal Autority the one assisting but neither usurping upon and destroying the other these evil Men be cast out of the Church and better placed in their rooms So unlucky is Mr. Selden in this first Quotation § XXII STEPHEN Bishop of Winchester in his Oration de vera Obedientiâ comes next but brings nothing more of advantage to his side and as it was Printed 1537. and but a year after the Opus eximium c. so does he as to the Substance copy after him and asserts Henry VIII Head of the Church i. e. all Christians within his Dominions as were the Kings of Israel over all the Jews i. e. to take care of their Morals and see that they do their Duty to God their Neighbour and themselves as Justinian gave Laws to the Church and the Causes of Heresies were agitated with the Caesars and Princes that were Christians and Laws made promulgated and enjoyn'd execution both by our Kings here in England and also by others elsewhere and particularly refers to that Oration of Edgar just now mentioned and adds farther out of it how Dunstan that most holy and excellent Archbishop of Canterbury submitted to this his Jurisdiction and most willingly embraced that word of the King Quâ se gladium gladio copulaturum edixit ut dissoluti Ecclesiae mores ad rectam vivendi normam aptarentur in which he engaged to joyn Sword to Sword in order to the reducing the Church to a just and due way of living meaning his Kingly Power to the Power of the Church assisting the Spiritual with the Temporal Arm for so the Bishop goes on and interprets these two Swords and instances in Excommunication as a branch of that which is in the Churches hands Altero gladio ad illud Pauli alludens quem verbi ministri docendo excommunicando exercent altero praeminentiam ostendens jure divino concessam cui omnes parere quotquot Principis ditioni subjecti Ecclesiam constituunt omnino debent By one Sword alluding to that of Paul which the Ministers of the Word exercise in Teaching and Excommunicating by the other shewing that Pre-eminence granted by God and to which all must obey that subjected to the Jurisdiction of a Prince constitute a Church within his Dominions and which two Powers though requiring different Obedience to divers Persons and Governors as to the Bishops and Ministers of the Word of God and to the King are not at all adverse to and against one another nor is any thing more detracted from or diminished thereby of the Obedience to the King than when a Wife obeys her Husband and a Servant his Master by the general Command of God and yet this is another of Mr. Selden's Autorities which with his usual forehead he brings for the sense of the Doctors of our Church in the days of Henry VIII and that the Church-Power is none at all but as derived from the Crown and the Prince can Excommunicate I wonder how he omitted the Oration of Richard Samson to this purpose and at the same time he being Dean of the Chappel to Henry VIII and which would have made a 〈◊〉 shew in his Margin which is the main thing he aims at it certainly came not to his hands and it would have serv'd his turn as well as any of the other there being in him not one word concerning the Power of the Church left by Christ and he only asserts the King Supreme Head of the Church of England the Church as made of so many Persons implying a Body politick too and they Subjects equally as Christians nor could any man think that is but ordinarily considering or designs not by Names and Attempts to deceive the unwary but credulous World and so is a Knave that the two Universities at that time or the eminenter of the Clergy at Court should assert the Supremacy upon other terms who in all Probability were a secretis of his intimate Council when designing for the Supremacy and to be sure could not be ignorant of the King 's Publick Declarations and the Statute in Parliament that
as it is an hard and measuring Cast whether they were more unwise more unjust or more unfortunate and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the Grace of God their share had not been as small in the subtilty of Serpents as in the innocency of Doves A pretty knick-knack of Speech-making every body must own it to be but as to the occasion and matter of it each line as evidently deserves a lash and is as lyable to it there appears only passion and prejudice rancor and malice in the height and truly scarce sense under some of the pretty cadencies and chiming Words but not one dram of that incomparable reason Mr. Dean magnifies him for and once saw in him but for him to own it here will not be at least convenient could he find it out as perhaps he may though another cannot All I shall say at present is and 't is as mostly relating to this present discourse how wonderfully the same Fate has still attended the Crown of England and the Church of England the King and the Bishops of it and the Power the Institution and Autority of both as from Heaven and not of Man is still if either of them decried and run again at once and by the same Person and ten to one it had not come into my mind had not a Man of his own complexion in Loyalty in the late life of Julian told it the world much to the honor of this great and loyal Lord as he thinks that the Doctrine of Dr. Manwaring's and Dr. Sibthorp's Sermons long before the War broke out was as ridiculous to him as it appears from this his Speech in 1641. was then the Autority and Actions of the Bishops and the divine Right of Kings as well as the divine Right of the Church independent to the People are both but Pulpit Law that is in his admired most ingenious Expression and which alone then confuted and still confutes Doctor Manwaring the prate and tattle of idle Church-men from the Pulpit and the both King and Church fell at once and together and which himself particularly experienced at Newbery when 't was too late to help what himself by Speech-making and Scoffings had promoted and Abner's Epitaph seems in this respect exactly fitted for him nor know I in what other terms his death could be lamented better had the Pulpit laws been more frequently made more encouraged and executed in teaching the Peoples dependency upon Kings and duties to them that unnatural Rebellion had never followed had not those worst of Principles publisht in Scotland by Buchanan de jure regni apud Scotos and Knox in his Appel and Church-history placing both Church and Crown in Subordination to the People come hither into England and by their Country man the Lord Falkland in the House of Commons incouraged and those now a-days mend the Matter bravely that rescue us from the People and put us under the Prince Herein enlarge his Prerogative beyond his Progenitors that he is uppermost in Religion are zealous for him to be a Priest but leave him as King in the hands he was before and below the People and thus in sight strike at both Monarchy and Religion at a blow as is the Priest so is the King to take their Measures and Protection from others a false Religion is to be obeyed if the Religion of a Nation lest affronting Magistracy and Law and every one may Petition and libel the Government that pleases the Bible is put into the King's hand and the Scepter taken out the King may excommunicate but he may not govern his People and both Prince and Priest are in a pretty Condition and the notorious contempt Church Power and Offices lye under at this day amongst us is an evident Testimony of the mock Addition they design and contend for to his Crown in that the Power Sacerdotal is with so much noise and bussle seated in him 't is only to ridicule both at once and with the same Argument render them contemptible nor can any in the course of things as well as in common Experience be found to give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's but he that gives to Christ the things that are Christ's No Bishop No King is and will be a Maxime still a first truth and not to be gain-sayed § XXV IT is to be confessed there are Passages in the Writings of some of the Principal of our Doctors in the days of Queen Elizabeth and King James as Arch-Bishop Whitgift Arch-Bishop Bancroft Bishop Bilson c. that lean too much to the Erastian Way or rather by an incuriousness of Expression do not give that account of Church Power nor state it so clearly as may be expected and 't is not impossible where a design to render them as of the Party Something of this nature has been observ'd already in Bishop Bilson and Arch-Bishop Bancroft and he that reads over the first Book de Politeia Ecclesiasticà cap. 1 2 3 4 5. c. wrote by Robert Parker and printed at Frankfort 1616. and only reads him will conclude them not only almost but altogether such he was a Man vehement and of extremity of Spirit and his business is in his whole three Books to set and continue our Church against her self oâ—e of her Members against another and all of them opposite to Christ Jesus exactly answering his Title de Politeia Ecclesiastica Christiani Hierarchica opposita and indeed most that have appear'd since him against the Government of the Church and with appearance of pertinency have not only sharpned but borrowed their Weapons from this shop of the Philistines it is their Magazine and Store-house as another Armory like that of David's in Israel wherein are Mille Clypei all sorts of Weapons for these Mighty and with which they have still made their Attempts even Batteries and Breaches upon us Our learned Doctor Pearson since Lord Bishop of Chester in his Vindiciae Epistolarum Ignatii in his first Chapter or Proeme there relates him to be though not the first setter on foot and contriver of that unworthy most shameful Design upon Ignatius's Epistles in representing them spurious and imposed on the World and that not one of them was wrote by that most Holy and Apostolical Martyr whose name they bear yet he was more bold and went farther in the Attempt than any one had done before him and with whose Conjectures Dailee's dissertation is stuffed and he may be said a principal Cause why it spread so far and has been so successful to the great disadvantage of our common Christianity from him or Dialee or both unless Blundel and Salmasius be added and which are much the same thing it is Doctor Stillingfleet translates what he has on this Subject in his Irenicum and who may have the honor to be the first that made it English for any other I have met with and tells us in the Mother-Tongue The story of Ignatius as
Church 'T is his Proposal is so fatal to Christianity Sect. 14. Lay-men no Judges in Matters of Faith and the Determinations of Indifferencies The first Council at Jerusalem No Lay-Elders Sect. 15. CHAP. II. THis Power is not in the Prince The Child Jesus is Anointed Lord and Christ with all Power given him in order to Heaven to continue in the Gospel-Priesthood to the end of the World Sect. 1. These two Powers have and may reside again in the same Person are both for the general good of Man Emperors how call'd Apli Epi. Sect. 2. Their particular Power necessarily infer not one another The Priest as such is no more a King than the King as such is a Priest than a good Man is always knowing or the Despotical and Regal Power go together The mixing these several distinct Gifts and Powers is the inlet to all disorder The King and Priest have been brought to a Morsel of Bread by it Sect. 3. Kings have no Plea to the Priesthood by their Vnction the Jewish Custom and Government no example to us if so the consequent would be ill in our Government Our Kings derive no one Right from their being Anointed Blondel's Account of this Vnction The Error and Flattery of some Greeks herein Sect. 4. The Church how in the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth how in the Church and both independent and self-existent Sect. 5. The Church founded only and subsisting in and by Christ and his Apostles Sect. 6. Proved from Clemens Romanus Ignatius Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Justin Martyr Athenagoras Minutius Foelix Sect. 7. A distinct Power is in the Church all along in Eusebius Eccl. Hist Socrates c. Opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Power of the Prince so called all along in those Writings Sect. 8. This was not from the present Necessity when the Empire was Heathen if so the Christians had understood and declared it The Apostles God himself had forewarn'd and preinformed the World of it It continued the same when Christian only with more advantages by the Princes Countenance and Protection Sect. 9 10. In Athanasius Hosius St. Jerome Austin Optatus Chrysostom Ambrose Sect. 11. In Eusebius History from Constantine and other Historians downward the Emperor and Bishop have alike their distinct Throne and Succession independent as plain as words and story can report it Sect. 12. And the same do the Ancient Councils all along separating themselves from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 13. This is not the Sense of the Bishops only in their own behalf and which is the Atheistical popular Plea and Objection the Cruelty of the French Reformers Sect. 14. The Emperors own and submit unto it as Constantine though misunderstood by Blondel Valentinianus Justinian Theodosius Leo c. Sect. 15 16. Blondel owns all this and yet does not understand it Sect. 17. All this farther appears from the Laws and Proceedings of the Empire and the Church as in the two Codes Novels and Constitutions from our Church Histories Photius Nomocanon Sect. 18. This farther appears from the Power of the Empire in Councils and particularly that so much talked of Instance in Theodosius Sect. 19. From their Power exercised on Hereticks Heresie is defined to be such by the Bishops Sect. 20. In Ordinations Sect. 21. Church-Censures Mr. Selden's Jus Caesareum relates only to the outward Exercise of the Jewish Worship and comes up exactly to our Model The state then of the Jews answers this of Christianity Sect. 22. The Christian Emperors never Excommunicated in their own Persons or by their own Power Mr. Selden says they did His Fergeries detected His ridiculous account of Holy Orders from Gamaliel He was a Rebel of 1642. Design'd a Cheat on the Crown when annexing to it the Priesthood Sect. 23. What the Empire made Law relating to Religion was first Canon or consented to by the Clergy Nothing the Empires alone but the Penalty So Honorius and Theodosius Valentinian and Marcian Zeno and Leo. Sect. 24 25. No need of present Miracles to Justifie this Power to Assert it does not affront Magistrates 'T is always to be own'd before them Dr. Tillotson's Sermon on this bottom Arianism was of old opposed against Constantius That this Power ceased when the Empire became Christian is a tattle It receiv'd many Advantages but no one Diminution thereby Sect 26. CHAP. III. CHurch-Power is a Specifick constituted by Christ in order to a Succession the erecting a new and lasting Government upon Earth a Community of divers Orders Offices Acts Stations every ways peculiar the Body of Christ Sect. 1. A Government to Rule and defend it self and Independent Sect. 2. The main Objection that it is against the Civil Power Common Sense and Experience confutes it The more a Christian the better Subject The Christians supported Constantine's Crown Sect. 3 4. They did not want Power to do otherwise nor consequently Integrity as is objected Sect. 5. To say they were Fools is more plausible to the Age but then the Empire must be so too who were equally ignorant of these destructive Consequences to their Government Sect. 6. The reason of the present Misunderstandings and that we do not see as the Ancients did because no Government own'd but that which is Temporal and outwardly Coercive Sect. 7. So 't was stated by an Anonymous Author 1641. All Power and Punishment was outward and bodily among the Jews and so it must be among Christians Sect. 8. So Mr. Selden allowing no Punishments but what are outwardly Coercive because none other as not under so nor before the Law Sect. 9. Erastus went the same way before him Sect. 10. And Salmasius and says the Apostles had no Power because without Whips and Axes Concludes against all Church-Power upon these terms and that he may surely take it from Bishops So does a French Reformer usually lose his Senses when running his Forehead against our Prelacy Sect. 11. Grotius is in this Error but oft corrects himself His Inconstancy is to be lamented He imputes it to his Education He fights with the very same Weapon against Church-Power in general the Jesuite does against the Supremacy in the Church of England Sect. 12. CHAP. IV. THe Objections answer'd Selden's Error that there are to be no other Punishments by Christ than was before and under the Law the Query is to be what Christ did actually constitute He mixes the Temporal Actions of the Apostles and those design'd for Perpetuity Adam and Cain might have more than a Temporal Punishment Sect. 1. The great Disparity betwixt the Jewish and Christian State considered no Inferences to be drawn from the one to the other but what is on our side Sect. 2. Theirs is the Letter ours the Spirit They Punish'd by Bodily Death we by Spiritual Sect. 3. If Government was judged so absolutely necessary by the dispersed Jews that they then framed one of their own for the present Necessity and whose Wisdom in so doing
perverts and abuses them all Sect. 20. The two Vniversities in their Opus Eximium c. in the Reign of Henry VIII 1534. altogether against him Sect. 21. Stephen Bishop of Winchester Orat. de vera Obedientia is of the same Mind and so is Richard Sampson Dean of the Chappel to Henry VIII in an Oration to this purpose Sect. 22. The Papers in the Cottonian Library seem the same with Dr. Stillingsleet's M. SS in his Irenicum Both he and Dr. Burnet unfaithful in the Printing of it Dr. Durell's account of it Archbishop Cranmer with the Bishops and Doctors engaged in our first Reformation were not Erastians from the account given of them in his Church History by Dr. Burnet Less Discretion in Printing such Papers nor is their Autority really to be any thing Sect. 23. Mr. Selden is shameless in quoting Bishop Andrews who determines all along against him Those Laws that Protect the Church must in course inspect their Actions The Bishop disswaded Grotius from Printing his Book De Imperio summarum Potestatum in Sacris Ha' y' any Work for a Cooper is indeed of Mr. Selden's side and the Lord Falkland His very ill Speech in the House of Commons 1641. His Pulpit Law and Derision of the Divine Right of Kings as well as of the Church He and such like Speech-makers Promoters of the late Rebellion affronts both to King and Priest design'd at once when the Crown is entitled to the Priesthood Sect. 24. Archbishop Bancroft Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson under the Suspition of Erastianism Accused as such by Robert Parker de Politeia Ecclesiastica a Malicious Schismatick made use of still against our Church by Dailee against Ignatius his Epistles by Doctor Stillingfleet in his Irenicum Our Bishops and Doctors are not against the Divine immutable Right of Bishops as Doctor Stillingfleet mistook out of Parker and reports them to be Satisfaction may justly be required of him for it Sect. 25. The Writings of the best Men how they may be mistaken as of Justin Martyr The first Council of Nice St. Jerome concerning Chastity and Episcopacy Bishop Cranmer and our first Reformers Bishop Whitgift Bancroft and Bilson The Point was at first only the Bishop of Rome's Supremacy A secular title only no Characteristical mark then betwixt the Protestant and Papist The Lay-Elders in their Consistory set up after this as Popes in his room These our Bishops warmth was exercised against whatever indiscretion in laying the Argument The Power of the Prince and the Priest are still contra-distinguished Kings are not Governors next and immediately under Christ as the Mediator The mistake of many in their Pulpit Prayer Our Kings and Church do not thence derive their Power nor so claim it in their Acts Statutes Declarations Articles c. in the forms of bidding Prayer by Queen Elizabeth and King James c. of ill consequence if they do Doctor Hammond's Autority Sect. 26. Particular Doctors not the Rule in Religion The several ways by which Error comes into the World Julian's Plot to destroy Christianity How Pelagius managed his Heresie by Rich and Potent Women by feigned Autorities of great Men. Liberius of Rome and Hosius comply with Arianism wearied with Persecutions Theodosius his Doctores Probabiles Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 1. l. l. 2 3. A Catalogue of some Books Printed for Benj. Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard Folio HErodoti Halicarnassei Historiarum Libri ix Gr. Lat. Suarez de Legibus ac Deo Legislatore Bishop Bramhall's Works Walsh's History of the Irish Remonstrance A Collection of all the Statutes of Ireland Wiseman's Chirurgical Treatises Baker's Chronicle of England with the Continuation Judge Winche's Book of Entries Skinneri Etymologieon Linguae Anglicanae M. T. Ciceronis Opera notis Gruteri cum Indicibus 2. Vol. Heylyn's Cosmography in Four Books Mathaei Paris Historia Bishop Sanderson's Sermons The Paralel or the New Specious Association an Old Rebellious Covenant A Vindication of the Loyal Abhorrers The Trials of the Lord Russell c. And of Algernon Sidney Braddon Speke John Hamden Esq Sir Sam. Bernardiston Titus Otes the Rioters at Guildhall Daniel's History of England with Trussell's Continuation Quarto A Brief Account of Ancient Church Government The true Widow a Comedy by T. Shadwell Dumoulin's Vindication of the Protestant Relegion Phocena or the Anatomy of a Porpess Wroe's Sermon at Preston Sept. 4. 1682. at the Funeral of Sir Roger Bradshaigh 1684. Allen's Sermon of Perjury Gregory's Works Dodwell of Schism Octavo Dodwell's two Letters of Advice Considerations of Concernment Reply to Mr. Baxter Discourse of One Priesthood and One Altar Descartes Metaphysicks English Evelyn of Navigation and Commerce Wetenhall of the Gifts and Offices in the Worship of God Catechism Langhornii Chronicon Regum Anglorum The French Gardiner The Country Parson's Advice Boyle's Noctiluca Dodwell's two Discourses against the Romanists 12 o. Aesopi Fabulae Gr. Lat. 12 o. The Author's distance from the Press has occasioned some Errors in the Printing especially in the Pointing which the Reader is desired to correct and the following Errata ERRATA PAg. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 83. l. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 109. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 191. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 262. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 267. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 268. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 277. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 288. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 304. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 378. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 43. in for ni p. 163. ausa for ausus put out non ibid. p. 181. line last Tit. 45. deest p. 253. conserisse for comperisse his for hi ibid. p. 258. Amoybeyms for Amoybeums p. 478. Dominum for Dominicam p. 500. Christiani for Christi pag. 28. une quarte to be put out p. 81. l. 12. Assent for assert p. 187. l. ult put out but to Princes something is more due then at other times p. 190. l. 8. put out which p. 231. l. 11. belief for unbelief p. 287. l. 18. Episcopale for Episcopate p. 380. l. 23. decided for derided p. 396. l. 6. so for to p. 440. l. 12. inroding the Errors for inroding the Crown p. 350. l. 18. titles for tithes OF THE SUBJECT OF Church Power In whom it Resides It s Force Extent and Execution that it Opposes not Civil Government in any one Instance of it The Introduction The Contents The Occasion
and left first by Christ to his Apostles and from them in Succession devolved on the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in whom it now remains who alone have the Power of its conveyance and on whomsoever it is they shall lay their hands together with the offices of Prayer or by any other outward Symbol overt Act or Testimony which they shall use to evidence the Deputation transfer it unto these shall receive this Power of the Holy Ghost be thorowly enabled for the transacting betwixt God and Man the things that belong to Man's Eternity § IV THE design of this present Discourse is to take away the two former and establish the latter to make it evident upon a just Enquiry and certain Demonstration That all Church-Power was designed by Christ and actually left by his Apostles only to Church-Officers the Order of the Gospel-Priesthood the Bishops Presbyters and Deacons to be separated on purpose and successively instated in such the Jurisdiction and Government by such of themselves that had before received and were fully invested with it and this like other Successions to continue and be so managed till the End cometh and the Kingdom be delivered up to the Father So that the general Heads I shall insist upon will be these Three 1. That this Power is not in the People or Christians in common 2. That it is not in the Prince or Secular Government 3. That it is in the Bishops and Pastors of the Church of Christ a Power and Offices peculiarly theirs as to the execution with its special force and Laws reaching to all that come to Heaven by Christ Jesus and as not derived from so no ways thwarting or interfering with the Civil Government And all this as suitable to the received Faith and Polity of the Church in the best Ages of it down from Christ and his Apostles to us ward so it agreeing with the particular Establishments of the Laws of our Kingdom made for the owning and defence of our Christianity and also with the Religion of the same received and professed in our Church since the Reformation CHAP. I. The Contents Church Power is not in the People either as a Body in General or as one Single Congregation Sect. 1. This Power must first evidence it self to be given from God e're executed on or derived to others Holiness in its Nature does not infer it The Priesthood not made Common before the Law under it or the Gospel Admit that first Right by Nature to all Things and Offices 't was to be sure afterwards limited and those that lay it open again must shew by what Autority they do it Otherwise Fanaticks in the sense of St. Jerome Sect. 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infers no such Power Sect. 3. The Peoples concurrency gives no Power even where their Notes are pretended to in the New Testament Sect. 4. Election and Vocation differ from Ordination in the Practice of our Saviour and first Ages of the Church still expressed by several words Sect. 5. The Votes of the People give no Power but yet are necessary because none is given without them both the People and Pastors are Christ's Vicars in the Case So Beza Blondel Sect. 6. Our Saviour's Practice and the Apostles are against them Sect. 7 8. That the People were not always at Elections Blondel allows He is contrary to himself Their Votes never reputed necessary and at last excluded quite Chap. 1. by reason of the Riots and Disorders in them Sect. 9. The concurrency of 12 Centuries down from the Apostles amount to a Divine Right Blondel's failure of it His injury to his Friends In what case Apostolical Ecclesiastical Practice is not immutable The ill Consequences attending his Power given to the People His Malice to the Order of Bishops Disreputing Christianity it self 'T is unpardonable in the French Reformation imposing their present harder necessity for our pattern The Deacon and Presbyter under the Bishop but neither in Subordination to the People Sect. 10. And this they do in point of Episcopacy also And we must have no Bishops in England because they have none in France and which is promoted by the advantage of the Rebellion and Schism among us Blondel offer'd his Service before to the Bishops of England but then he Prints his Apologia pro Hieronymo Dedicates it to the Rump Parliament and Assembly-Men Is nauseous in his Flatteries of both Commends the Scotch Covenant Is rude upon Bishops Soliciting their Ruine This the Sense of the Divines on that side the Sea Salmasius raves just so The Independents murder'd the King The Bishops not the Authors of all Heresies as black-mouth'd Baxter Andrew Rivet and so does Daulee Ignatius suffers for it He and Marcian and Valentinus compared Their few Complements does not acquit them We only lose by our Charity towards them The disadvantage thereby from our own Members The late Replyer upon Bishop Pearson and Doctor Beveridge is the same The late Letters from Paris Sect. 11. The People are only Witnesses of the good lifes of the Ordained Blondel's own Collection and the Autority of Cyprian is all along against him The Church Canons Our Ordinations at home The nature of the thing it self Sect. 12 13. The People are not to choose or refuse their Pastor as Blondel rudely and unreasonably contends with his usual Malice against Bishops and our Church 'T is his Proposal is so fatal to Christianity Sect. 14. Lay-men no Judges in Matters of Faith and the Determinations of Indifferencies The first Council at Jerusalem No Lay-Elders Sect. 15. § I THIS is not in the People and Believers in Common are not the Subject of Power Ecclesiastical The Power of the Keys is not seated in nor can it flow from or be devolved by them either as a Body in general or any one single Congregation in particular Their stretching or holding up the Hand their joynt-suffrages in the choosing numbring by the tale as by Stones Notes or Election deputing and assignation or whatever else in their own behalf they can make appear to be implied in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they lay great stress upon and wrest to their purpose are of no strength and validity at all of no more force to depute for the ministry to constitute in a new Order and Station to confer the Power of the Keys and place in that sacred Function then the common cry and rout of the Jews designing it devolved guilt on the head of our Saviour deposed him from his holy Offices took from him his Kingly Power when crying out with full throats We 'll have no King but Caesar we will not have this man to reign over us or their hands stretch'd forth in Prayer Isai 1. did bring a Blessing upon themselves when full of Blood but on the contrary hateful and abomination SUCH as pretend to this plead this Power § II for Deputation and that such only
and Complexion of these Men observed already because all the well-setled duly constituted Churches in Christendom do not dissolve and fall in pieces are not framed anew into the accidental necessitous Model of a private French Congregation And surely the contrary to all this is most true there can be nothing more fatal to Christianity than to have a Power of Substitution of the Clergy to their several Charges put into the hands of the People that the Power of Mission and Approbation of such as are to serve at the Altar be taken from the Clergy nothing can reflect more upon the Wisdom of our Saviour as the Law-giver and who has therefore gone quite another way and the Bishops and Pastors are made Guides Inspectors Rulers Teachers of not in Substitution and Deputation from the People nothing can go more cross and contradictory to the Nature of things as that the Sheep should approve of and appoint their Shepheard such as have wholly design'd themselves to the particular Study should be the worst Judges in the Science least know and be able to judge what Persons are sit to propagate and promote their own Profession and all this put into the hands of Novices and Ignaro's who are not who cannot be supposed to have any Skill for inspection into it no more and greater sign of his fastus indomabilis the worst sort of Pride and irrecoverable pertinacy than that such a sort should any ways desire or pretend such a Power or presume themselves sit for it no greater disrepute to Religion than that those which are really least to be esteemed in the Church should thus have Judgment and alone Judgment in the things of the highest concern a Power to canvass against and determine upon the eminentest Professors of it nothing but a degeneracy in Knowledge and Manners the profoundest Ignorance and deepest Immorality can attempt it the whole World must be stupid and sottish lay aside all Sense of relations and dependency be sunk down together below its Orb Suaeque in integrum restitutionis penitùs oblivisci the words of Blondel are proper here lose all Capacities of but remembring what is fit and decent be past all hopes of a restitution and amendment § XV AND surely then that Plea which is thus unreasonable groundless and every ways impertinent for the Power of the People in Eleâ—â—â—â—… and Substituting the Bishop or Presbytâ—â— in their several Stations for the discharâ—e of their Functions will render more contemptible yet another Plea many assume and urge for the Power in the People in the Decisions of Matters of Faith and Determinations and fixing Indifferencies in order to present Peace and Practice And where we know the Laity have Convened with the Clergy as in the first Council of Jerusalem and others since they were still bound up and limited Nor can they but with much less reason challenge any more here than in being present at Elections and Ordinations that upon the personal Hearing and View such as desire it may be satisfied of the justness of all Proceedings that no man should blame them in dispensing that Power they are intrusted with and others to submit unto 2 Cor. 2.20 and most precarious is that of admitting Lay-Elders and their Personal necessary concurrency in the Acts and Execution of Government in the Church certain particular Lay-Persons as sharers with the Pastors in the Jurisdiction the gifts of Knowledge Understanding c. are common to all i. e. none are denied them but such as deny them themselves by their own Negligence and Non-improvement or by a first defect in Nature have them not and a promiscuous admission into Debates and rational Decisions is allowable but Church-Power in the governing judiciary part of it is from without and whoever Claims it must evidence the Devolution and Deputation how they were first brought into the Church and in what Exigence Our Judicious Mr. Hooker relates at large that they have since been set up by Divine Immutable Right shews only what the Projects and Interests and Ambition of Men can wrest and pervert Scripture unto and where something of Mens own is lay'd and design'd for so Schismaticks and Hereticks are defin'd De tuo infers So Tertullian to Apelles Lib. de Carne Christi cap. 7. Marcion suum lib. 4. Advers Marcion cap. 7. Something like truth will be alledged in defence of it and surely there is as little for this as ever was urged in behalf of any Sect whatever the once Zealous Abettors of it in this Church and Kingdom could not themselves believe what they pleaded for with so much shew of Zeal and known Violence and their design was only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 't is said the Gentiles did against the Christians in Eusebius with clamorous Noises to make a shew of the want of something to make greater the Rupture they contended for Omnia pro tempore nihil pro veritate as Optatus has observ'd of their elder Brethren the Donatists Lib. 1. Cont. Parme. to serve not Truth but the present disorder by it and it has the Fate of other inordinate Teachings time makes them cease and wear out Nor is this Platform of Lay-Elders the Palladium they now contend for or in the Catalogue of those Grievances and Imperfections are complain'd of Surely there might be Governments and Helps in the Church and Elders which were no Lay-men and 't is no where said in Scripture they were and as certain it is again there 's no after-practice either Apostolical or of Ten succeeding Centuries in which the perpetual immutable Divine Right of it is to be bottomed as D. Blondel has pleaded for their right of Election and Substitution of such as serve at the Altar but with what Success has already appear'd Besides the ill effect of the Schism in general to the first raising of which and after Promotion it concurr'd This particular ill it occasioned and left among us that the Divines of those Ages in which the Aimers at this Platform of ruling Elders so much strove for it as in the days of Queen Elizabeth especially shew'd their greater just Zeal in exposing those their unreasonable Claims of their Consistories to Summon Kings and Arraign them at pleasure In Ordine ad Deum and in defending the Rights of the Civil Power and were less careful in stating the true Rights of the Christian Church as distinct from the Magistrates Power and which is now to be examined and discoursed in this following Chapter CHAP. II. Chap. 2. The Contents This Power is not in the Prince The Child Jesus is Anointed Lord and Christ with all Power given him in order to Heaven to continue in the Gospel-Priesthood to the end of the World Sect. 1. These two Powers have and may reside again in the same Person are both for the general good of Man Emperors how call'd Apli Epi. Sect. 2. Their particular Power necessarily infer not one another The Priest as such is no more a
King than the King as such is a Priest than a good Man is always knowing or the Despotical and Regal Power go together The mixing these several distinct Gifts and Powers is the inlet to all disorder The King and Priest have been brought to a Morsel of Bread by it Sect. 3. Kings have no Plea to the Priesthood by their Vnction the Jewish Custom and Government no example to us if so the consequent would be ill in our Government Our Kings derive no one Right from their being Anointed Blondel's Account of this Vnction The Error and Flattery of some Greeks herein Sect. 4. The Church how in the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth how in the Church and both independent and self-existent Sect. 5. The Church founded only and subsisting in and by Christ and his Apostles Sect. 6. Proved from Clemens Romanus Ignatius Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Justin Martyr Athenagoras Minutius Foelix Sect. 7. A distinct Power is in the Church all along in Eusebius Eccl. Hist Socrates c. Opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Power of the Prince so called all along in those Writings Sect. 8. This was not from the present Necessity when the Empire was Heathen if so the Christians had understood and declared it The Apostles God himself had forewarn'd and preinformed the World of it It continued the same when Christian only with more advantages by the Princes Countenance and Protection Sect. 9 10. In Athanasius Hosins St. Jerome Austin Optatus Chrysostom Ambrose Sect. 11. In Eusebius History from Constantine and other Historians downward the Emperor and Bishop have alike their distinct Throne and Succession independent as plain as words and story can report it Sect. 12. And the same do the Ancient Councils all along separating themselves from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 13. This is not the Sense of the Bishops only in their own behalf and which is the Atheistical popular Plea and Objection the Cruelty of the French Reformers Sect. 14. The Emperors own and submit unto it as Constantine though misunderstood by Blondel Valentinianus Justinian Theodosius Leo c. Sect. 15 16. Blondel owns all this and yet does not understand it Sect. 17. All this farther appears from the Laws and Proceedings of the Empire and the Church as in the two Codes Novels and Constitutions from our Church Histories Photius Nomocanon Sect. 18. This farther appears from the Power of the Empire in Councils and particularly that so much talked of Instance in Theodosius Sect. 19. From their Power exercised on Hereticks Heresie is defined to be such by the Bishops Sect. 20. In Ordinations Sect. 21. Church-Censures Mr. Selden's Jus Caesareum relates only to the outward Exercise of the Jewish Worship and comes up exactly to our Model The state then of the Jews answers this of Christianity Sect. 22. The Christian Emperors never Excommunicated in their own Persons or by their own Power Mr. Selden says they did His Forgeries detected His ridiculous account of Holy Orders from Gamaliel He was a Rebel of 1642. Design'd a Cheat on the Crown when annexing to it the Priesthood Sect. 23. What the Empire made Law relating to Religion was first Canon or consented to by the Clergy Nothing the Empires alone but the Penalty So Honorius and Theodosius Valentinian and Marcian Zeno and Leo. Sect. 24 25. No need of present Miracles to Justifie this Power to Assert it does not affront Magistrates 'T is always to be own'd before them Dr. Tillotson's Sermon on this bottom Arianism was of old opposed against Constantius That this Power ceased when the Empire became Christian is a tattle It receiv'd many Advantages but no one Diminution thereby Sect. 26. § I THIS Power of the Church or Power Ecclesiastical it is not in the Prince issues and flows not from the Secular Temporal Governor he is not the Subject of it he is in himself neither Bishop nor Pastor can neither officiate in the high Affairs of Salvation nor ordain substitute and depute others to do it 't is no Duty of his this way to Teach and Instruct the People the Holy Sacraments are not Administred nor can the Church Censures be executed by him Great and vast is the Power committed by God to Kings here on Earth peculiar is their Power and none else may have none else can Plead a title to it 't is the nearest to Infinite of any Devolution vouchsafed from the Heavens to Mankind and the most of his Image is Characterized and enstamped on their Persons communicated in the largest measure unto them and God hath own'd them all along as such in Scripture suitably severed and separated them from the rest of Mankind placed them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the higher places of the Earth next himself in the Honors and Dignities here above and beyond any other Order and Dignity of men whatever a Kingdom and Majesty and Glory and Honor by the most high God is given unto thee Dan. 5.18 but yet these are not the only Separates he has upon Earth his alone Anointed and that to Publick Offices and Services thus he had his Priests of old and whose Persons and Power was separate too Non est tuum O Ozia adolere Deo sed Sacerdotum 2 Chron. 26.18 It appertaineth not unto thee O Uzziah to burn incense to the Lord but to the Priests the Sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the Sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord thy God There is one Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of by God and by his right hand exalted the Holy Child Jesus whom he hath Anointed whom he raised from the Dead and made both Lord and Christ God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoke unto us by his Son whom he hath appointed Heir of all things too and who is also the Image of his Person who hath all Power in Heaven and Earth given unto him a Power to Teach and Baptize all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost a Power for the managery of the things not of the Men of the Earth but of their Souls and Persons for Heaven a Power above that of Angels but not to tread upon Thrones and Scepters of Princes contemn Dignities which Angels durst not do a Kingdom though not of this World yet a true one once given him of God and again to be delivered up by him to the Father who is the head of his Body the Church Colos 1.18 contrary to whom as we are not to set up and be beguiled by Angels so neither Kings nor Princes and not hold fast the head from which all the body by joynts and band having nourishment and knit together increase in the increase of God Col. 2.18 19. Nursing Fathers Kings and Queens are
to be of the Church but the Government it self is laid upon another upon the Shoulders of this Child and Son born and given unto us Isa 9.6 and which they are to nourish to protect and preserve with their Temporal Government and Scepters a Generative Procreative Power is not in them This Power given by the Father to the Son was in part and some instances of it finish'd in his own Person upon Earth in part and other instances he is now managing in Heaven what was to remain here among us after his Ascension was to be given to whomsoever the Son pleased this he deputed and committed to his Apostles some of which Power was to dye with their Persons was extraordinary and temporary only or at the most survived in some few only after them and during a small time what was designed and universally useful for all Mankind and for the lasting perpetual managing us in order to Heaven to continue to the end of the World and in the execution and discharge of which our Saviour has promised to be with us always unto the end of the World this was all transferred and devolved by the Apostles on their Successors in the Evangelical Priesthood the Bishops Presbyters and Deacons of the Church it was not demandated to Kings and Secular Powers which then and for some Hundred years after only Persecuted all that followed after that way and call'd upon that Name before whom they appeared only as Dlinquents if they came before them it was for a Mittimus to the Goal or as men appointed to be slain not for Commissions and Substitutions to Preach the Gospel and this is the state of the World at this day thus stand the Powers in it divided betwixt the King and the Priest each moving in his proper Sphere by virtue of his special particular Grant from Heaven and managing the two great Affairs of Heaven and Earth the Body and Soul both of so high a concern unto us THAT both these Powers have been residing § II at once in one and the same Subject and Person 't is most certain and so it may be again by a conflux of Providences or the immediate pleasure of him whose the Powers originally are and can give to the Sons of men as he pleases nothing but dissonant much more repugnant in it the King has been a Priest too not only with Power and Autority in order to Holy Things and Persons a due Behaviour and Discharge in and of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle speaks Lib. 3. Polit. cap. 10 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make them good Citizens and obedient to Laws 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to engage their Souls to Virtue by Rewards and Penalties cap. 13. but the Prince has had that Power which is purely and strictly Hieratical and of the Priestly Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle cap. 10. abovementioned Rex Anuis Rex idem Phoebique Sacerdos and that such as of the Priestly Order have had also the Secular Power conjoyned and annexed to it it is most certain in all manner of History for Evidence of which I 'le only refer such as can enquire to Mr. Selden's First Book De Synedriis cap. 15. Hugo Grotius is of Opinion that the Priesthood was seldom found without some Secular Power added unto it in his Treatise De Sum. Potest Imper. in Sacris Cap. 9. Sect. 4. 30. And the ancient Canons of the Church imply that it was much in Use for the Clergy to be engaged in the Affairs of the World as appears by their several Cautions and Commands against it the Circumstances of the then present Church and particular Reasons moving them to it So Can. Apost 81.84 Can. 11. Concil 1 2. Constantinop Can. 16.18 Concil Carthag The King and the Priest as they are of the same Original so are both designed for the same great End and Purpose for the Care and Promotion Protection and Preservation of the Honor of God his Worship and Service in the ways of Virtue and Holiness and Obedience to his Institutions for the benefit of Mankind both here and hereafter and suitably have their names promiscuously and in common in Ecclesiastical Writers Thus Constantine many times calls himself a Bishop and by other Greek Writers is he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to an Apostle Many of these are to be seen in Potrus de Marca de Concord Sacerd. Imperii l. 2. c. 10. Sect. 6 7. Valentinian and Marcian the Emperors are styled Inclyti Apostoli famous Apostles and Constantine's Animus Sacerdotalis is mention'd and applauded in a Publick Council Vid. Observat Notas in Paenitentiale Theodori Cant. Archiep. pag. 138. with several Compellations of the like Nature And which Considerations or rather undue Consideration of these gives some little gloss upon their Error who fix the full Power of the Priesthood in the Prince renders it somewhat more plausible than that of theirs who place it in the People but the Truth is no more in reality on the one side than on the other These are given partly by way of Complement Magnificent Title or higher Eulogies not unusual to the Eminencies of such Personages as they honored and protected Religion to transfer upon them the Honors that go along with it of what value in themselves it matters not so be the best it hath Or where it has nearer answer'd the thing it self Constantine himself has shew'd in what Nature and Instances in the Fourth Book of his Life wrote by Eusebius cap. 24. Vos speaking to the Bishops in iis quae intra Ecclesiam Episcopi estis Ego vero in iis quae extra geruntur And again Ibid. the Historian also speaks to the same purpose Episcopus quasi Episcoporum erat Constantinus Curam habuit ut sint pii both which amount but to thus much That Constantine's Episcopacy only consisted in his outward care of the Church and promotion of the Duties that belong unto her it reacheth not to the inward Power the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sacred Function or Office it self AND here now is the great Enquiry and § III this the main Case in Debate amongst us in this unhappy Age of ours Whether the Kingly and Priestly Offices and Charges immediately in their Natures and Constitutions imply and include each other Not that they agree in one design or more in some Externals but whether where the one is there the other as a necessary consequence is at the same time and by the same appointment existing and to which I am to answer in the Negative as to be a Priest has never inferr'd a Secular Power so nor to be a Prince the Spiritual For the full cleering of this point it will be necessary first to consider the Nature of Gifts Duties Offices and Power in general how far they include and infer one another how far each one in it self is attainable and from
of the Church every ways dishonour'd and displaced § IX I know it will be here reply'd and 't is so generally All this was when the Emperors were Heathens nay more Opposers and Persecutors of Christianity how could the Offices Managery and Concerns of Religion be intrusted with them who did who would not understand it who scorned and affronted it who to their power endeavour'd to suppress it by all manner of Cruelties executed on its Professors the Church then did as well as she could and exercised her own Prudence and Strength that Power and Jurisdiction which they agreed upon and assum'd by particular compact among themselves and which became an Escheat to the Crown when the Empire became Christian and Kings then executed it in their own Right as inherent to their Secular Power designed and appointed and expected from them by God Almighty And in Answer to which groundless Plea and Objection I shall add farther either the Bishops and Doctors and Confessors of the Christian Church understood this Case as thus stated That this Power was not really in themselves and their execution of it was but accidental forced under the present Circumstances and to return to such Governors in State as should become Christians as its proper Seat or Subject or they did not understand it To say they did not understand it is to implead and represent them to all Ages succeeding guilty of Ignorance gross and inexcusable to give that for certain Truth which some of our Reformers have made their Libel and Objection against these first and Holy Christians That they were more Zealous than Wise Pious but imprudent less discerning men and from whom Truth is not to be had nor expected and which is in effect to put a baffle upon our whole Christianity in general and to lay a ground for mistrust upon each of its particulars it must receive a great blow upon such Supposals when reflected upon and considered that those who alone propagated our Faith for Three hundred years together did not understand the Power and Autority they were invested with in order to it or the true tenor or state of it To say they did understand it then surely it had been stated by them a Model of it drew up and left at least for Posterity a thing so in course and most usual in other cases thus to give Specimens Schemes and Draughts of the Design and Purpose especially when to propose attempt and carry on something that is but new not before received much more when thwarting to the common Sentiments and Apprehensions of Mankind That no Men but such as the Christians were given out to be by their Opposers and Persecutors Mad-men and Fools the followers of a Carpenter and a few Fishermen can be supposed guilty of Certainly the occasion and meaning of that particular Power they then exercised in the Church different from the Secular nay when enjoyned and commanded the contrary by those Powers that they act and speak no more in that Name when Persecuted to Bonds and Imprisonment moreover unto Death for it had been declared and published to such those Governors a Manifesto or Remonstrance made of it to all Princes of the World certainly among the many Apologies that were made to the Empire in their own behalf this had had a share a room at least in some one of them That what Jurisdiction was then exercised by them the Pastors of the Church was only under the present Necessity a present contrivance of their own to keep their Followers and Adherents in some tolerable Peace and Order to awe and restrain as they could better an assumed Usurped Government than none at all that the real and whole Government was laid upon theirs the Magistrates shoulders alone would they but be pleased to come in to the Faith and sustain and execute it What a plausible even cogent Argument is here all along omitted to let the Powers of the World know what a considerable Portion of their Birth-right as Princes they neglect and disown abdicate and relinquish what a real damage and disadvantage they receive in not coming in to the Church what a principal Jewel would be added to their Crown in so doing So great and considerable a number as they which are Christians and which grow upon the World and increase daily Vestra omnia implevimus Vrbes Insulas Castella Municipia Conciliabula Castra ipsa Tribus Decurias Palatium Senatum Forum cui bello non idonei non prompti fuissemus etiam impares Copiis as Tertullian in his Apology cap. 37. Vast Multitudes every where of all sorts in all Places and Offices who as they professed all manner of Allegiance and Duty to them in Seculars so would they acquit resign into their hands their Power Spiritual nay it is really theirs already and the execution falls in course upon them an accession that must be advantageous cannot be accounted mean and inconsiderable to a Government Thus to be the Fountain and Head of all Rule and every Jurisdiction to invest or abdicate to oblige or punish so great so considerable a Sect as are the Christians to constitute and influence to depose and remove every way to govern at Pleasure their Bishops and Pastors who thus grow upon the World and influence all Men the Motive could never have been neglected the Argument must have had a great deal of room in their several Apologies and Embassies to the Empire in behalf of themselves and their Religion who spared nothing like an Argument that might but ingratiate and insinuate into their good favour and liking as 't is evident from such their Writings and yet there is not one word there of any such Pleadings or any thing like it but the quite contrary as it hath been already made to appear I 'le go on farther and assert that 't is very improbable if not our Saviour himself yet that the Apostles should not have done all this and thus stated the case down to the World and yet no man sets these two Powers of the Church and State more apart than does St. Paul and so leaves them To instance in no more at present he often exhorts That they obey Magistrates and that they also remember those that have rule over them who have spoken to them the Word of God and his Bishop has his distinct care over the Church of God 1 Tim. 3.5 has his things to set in order Tit. 1.5 a Power to Summon by Process to receive Accusations as in Court as upon a Seat of Judicature before witnesses 1 Tim. 5.19 20. though no Power to lay either Confinement or any other corporal outward Punishment on their Persons The Powers of the World becoming Christian it must needs make a great alteration as to its Worship and great was the advantage the Gospel received thereby but so great a translation of Power from one Body to another must in all likelihood have been forewarn'd of and declared by such as had a
foresight for that very purpose of all even Contingencies and much more of what was to come to pass in the future Ages of the Church and as the thing it self was so predivulg'd that Kings and Queens should be Nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Church and this seems reasonable and requisite to be done were it only to satisfie mens Minds in the revolution especially since all Revelations ended in their Persons and 't is only for such to believe and assent to after-translations and new appearances in the Affairs of Religion and not upon such notices aforehand as expect and depend upon new Discoveries and Periodical Illuminations whimsical and Enthusiastical Persons WHEN God was to constitute the Jewish § X Body engaged and stipulating according to the Law of Moses the present State and Necessities as well as other Occurrences foreseen hindring the perfection and full accomplishment of his designed Platform for some time the Wisdom and Mercy and Providence of God which is always present with himself and his own People and accompanies his designs foretold and declared what they were to expect in the particular instances the present narrower state of things and future ill humors of Men prohibiting the one and accidentally occasioning the other As when the Model and Shape of their Government was to be changed into that of Kings or a translation of Power from Person to Person as is the pretended case here it was declared long before by Moses Deut. 17.14 as when the Worship was to be transferr'd at first of necessity elsewhere as is again also here pretended that Church-Power was for a time in the Clergy to the place that God should choose to the Temple at that time not built Men are generally in love with old ways and call that old they have time out of mind been accustomed to Innovations are not relish'd without plain and a great Autority nothing but Prophecy or present notorious Miracles or a great assurance from those whom a known outward evidence makes appear and most manifest that 't was delivered down from Persons so assisted by God and as God's Wisdom and Goodness is always the same so neither certainly had his Mercy and Providence been shorter to this his Body of Christians than 't was to that of the Jews in the like case had there been any like it among Christians as indeed there was none the Government of the Church which is here in this Discourse asserted remaining one and the same and in the same succession of Persons when the Powers of the Earth were Christian as before when they were Heathen and the good Providence of God so ordered it that Constantine the Emperor's becoming Christian and his Succession the Church and Church-men received only new Courage and Strength the greatest additional advantages in such their Charges and Offices by the Imperial Countenance and Protection with all manner of supplies and abundance as to Places Utensils Revenues and Immunities Stately Churches being immediately erected with the greatest magnificence and elegancy of Structure the Furniture as rich and Endowments as large with a like Privilege as to Persons and Things Investitures every ways answerable and all assistance conferr'd and Provision for the time to come by setled Laws and most wholesome Constitutions to preserve and continue what was thus done and granted Serviant Reges terrae Christo etiam leges ferendo pro Christo as St. Augustine speaks in his 48 Epistle The Kings of the Earth serve the Church in making Laws to defend her and which Saying was occasioned by St. Augustine and more to that purpose in that Epistle by reason of the severer Imperial Laws and Penalties made against and inflicted upon that spawn of the Donatists those unruly Circumcellians who broke out into all manner of Outrages and Violence and though the Church had not long enjoyed this Peace but what is the woful effect of Ease and Plenty Divisions and Breaches arose and grew wide within her self carried on to great Ruptures and much was innovated and taught amiss in other Points yet as to this particular the Subject of Church-Power it was never questioned fell not under debate much less was it wrested out of the hands of Church-men did any one Emperor if not withal known Heretical either usurp it to himself or alienate it from the Bishops but all along acknowledge and confirm it to them and this will be as clear from the Aera or Date of their turning Christians as it has appear'd to have been from the first entrance of Christianity till then and that if we continue our Method and look into those times as we have done into the foregoing Ages THERE was no Man of the Age more § XI tenderly Conscientious in professing and paying his Obedience to the Emperor than was the holy Athanasius how solicitously and anxiously did he Vindicate himself when accused as an Enemy and Traducer of him when by his cruel and most malicious Adversaries which were many represented as Rebellious and Disobedient This will appear sufficiently from all such as have imployed their Pens in giving to the World an account of those Transactions by the Arians and Meletians managed and improv'd against him and which were numerous and particularly from his own Apology to Constantius of which he that will take a taste let him read the beginning of it only if he thinks much of his labour to go through with it he acknowledges the Power of the Empire in Religious things in assigning the Feasts of Dedication and their times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he acknowledges his Power over his Person and asks his Diploma or Letters of leave for the exercise of his Episcopal Function in his own Church of Alexandria and for the Convention of Synods Ibid. p. 682. 754. 761. Ed. Paris he asks the Emperor's Grant concerning the Publick Service and Churches in Alexandria as we have out of Sozomen Eccl. Hist l. 3. c. 20. but yet he puts a difference betwixt the Work of a Synod and that of the Empire and blames those that confound them or rather refer all to the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 730. he refuses to receive Arius into Communion upon his Heretical Terms and Principles though the Emperor do Command him though he threaten him if he do not and for refusing he causes him to be deposed by a Synod held at Tyre for that very purpose and of his own Convention and afterwards banish'd him and which he submits to but not to deliver up the Rights of the Church of God as Socrates tells us in his Ecclesiastical History Lib. 1. cap. 27 28.32.35 and he is so bold with Constantius as to six the mark of Antichrist upon him when he undertakes the Protection of a wicked Religion dissolving the received Orders of Christ and his Apostles creates of his own head new Constitutions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Athanasius Ep. ad Solit. Vit. agentes p. 845. 860. and reproves the Emperor
farther that he pretends to have the judicial Determination of Bishops but really manages and does all himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and evidently again distinguishes between the work of a Bishop and the work of an Emperor he goes on and is more daring and positive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when any such thing was heard of from the beginning of the World that the Judgment and Decision of the Church had its Autority and Measures from the Empire or was ever any such Determination known at all many Church Decisions have been made but never did the Presbyters perswade the Emperor to any such thing neither did the Prince intermeddle with the things of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. And all this is recorded by Athanasius of the Divine and most Excellent Hosius in that his Epistle Ad Solitarium c. Pag. 840 repeating there Hosius his Epistle to 〈◊〉 on the same occasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who drew up the Nicene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that was heard and submitted to by all his own words are these to the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Do not interpose thy self nor meddle with Ecclesiastical Affairs nor do you Command in these things but rather learn them of Vs to Thee God hath committed the Empire to Vs he hath deputed what is the Churches and as he that undermines the Government opposes the Ordinance of God so do thou take heed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest forcing to thy self the things which are of the Church you become liable to as great a guilt for it is written give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things which are Gods It is neither lawful for us to have the Government upon Earth nor hast thou the Power of Holy things O King St. Jerome speaks of the evil Bishops only the Character is upon them De Ecclesiae Principibus qui non dignè regunt oves Domini as of Princes in the Church with Power of Jurisdiction in themselves in his Comments on Jeremiah cap. 23. Sacerdos est Caput the Priest is the Head an Original devolving upon others Comment in 1 Cor. 12. and upon Romans 13. Apostolus in his quae recta sunt judicibus obediendum non in illis quae Religioni contraria sunt the things of Religion are not to be subjected to Kings nor any in Autority under them And to this purpose he says again in Isai 1. Apostolos à Christo constitutos Principes Ecclesiarum the Apostles were constituted by Christ Princes of the Churches And the same is said in his Preface to the Epistle to the Galatians and particularly on Psal 44. Fuere O Ecclesia Apostoli Patres tui quia ipsi te genuere c. The Apostles O Church were thy Fathers that begot thee now because they are gone out of the World you have in their room Bishops Sons which are created of thee and those are thy Fathers by whom thou art governed The Gospel being spread in all Parts of the World in which Princes of the Church i. e. Bishops are constituted This Holy Father assigning all Church-Power to and in it self and if it be suspected whether these Comments on the Psalms be St. Jerome's own I have yet here repeated this passage out of them as most fully appearing his sense to whoso pleases to consult his Works especially his Commentary St. Augustine's Opinion we have already in part spoke of and he that will undertake an Enquiry will find him all along of the same Opinion I 'le only instance in the differences occasion'd by the Donatists and what Power the Empire assum'd to it self in those great and many Controversies and their Decisions related by him which he tells us is only to make outward Laws in defence of what appears to be Truth and says he it falls out sometimes Reges cum in errore sunt pro ipso errore contra veritatem leges ferunt that they make Laws against Truth themselves being in Error and good Men are only prov'd thereby as evil Men by their good Laws are amended Tom. 7. l. 3. Cont. Crescon Gramat cap. 51. they command that which is Good and forbid that which is Evil Non solum quae pertinent ad humanam Societatem verùm etiam ad divinam Religionem in things which belong not only to Humane Society but to Divine Religion he has Power to enquire into debates and to provide for Truth and Peaco by the Bishops to assign the Persons Time and Place Vt superstitionem manifesta ratio confutaret that Reason may gain upon Superstition and Truth be made manifest Collat. 1. diei 3. cum Donatist Nor was Cecilianus purg'd and set free but by Judiciis Ecclesiasticis Imperialibus by the Ecclesiastical as by the Imperial Judgment and Determinations Ibid. nor will it appear that the Powers of the Empire have concern'd themselves any farther in those quarrels than by abetting or discouraging by outward Laws and Punishments what was represented as Truth unto them and which the Church alone hath not Power to do either to award at first or after mitigate but by Prayers and Arguments and therefore the Civil Laws and Indulgences have been sometimes severer and sometimes too indulgent as Accidents or Truth over-ruled as is to be seen in his Third and Fourth Books ad Cresconium and when these Laws went too hard upon these Donatists and pinched their Faction too sorely then they cried out of Persecution denied the Empire this Power in Divine things and that they were to stand at no humane Judicature as is the way of all such Factions when themselves only persecute and invade and whose Insolencies and Rapines are at large told us by St. Austin in his Forty eighth Epistle and by Optatus in his Treatise against Parmenius the Donatist Hence that of Donatus lib. 3. ibid. Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What has the Emperor to do with the Church whom Optatus there sharply upbraids as well as reproves for it tells Donatus of his Pride and unheard of insolency in so doing in lifting up himself above him who is second to God alone Cum supra Imperatorem non sit nisi solus Deus who sits as God in all forensick outward Judicatures and no man can withstand him but Church-Power is still supposed a quite differing thing I mean that which our Saviour left immediately to his Church it falls not under this head of things 't is derived in another stream as the design of his whole Book declares nor is Optatus for this or any other like Expression to be thought to refer all Church-Power into the Empire than those other Fathers did using much the same Expressions and which is above observed and he in particular returns the rise and devolution of the Bishops of Rome to St. Peter by whose Successors it was then in Siricius the Bishop in his days in his Second Book against Parmenius and so St.
Austin has done on the same occasion in his Hundred and sixty fifth Epistle and the breach of this Succession is the Charge and Crime of Schism they both object against the Donatists as guilty of a Church as well as a State-transgression and both on several accounts as two distinct Impieties are they proceeded against I 'le give but one instance out of St. Chrysostom and 't is so full there needs no more of those many others are producible 't is in his 86th Homily on St. John where he says Christ did invest his Apostles with Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a King sends forth his Praefects and Governors with a Power immediately from himself to imprison and release to bind and to loose to execute of themselves all Power and Jurisdiction so receiv'd and belonging to the Deputation And what was the Judgment of St. Ambrose the particular case alone betwixt him and the Emperor Theodosius makes abundantly appear occasioned by that cruel Massacre committed in Thessalonica by his at least connivance the Holy Bishop remov'd him from the Prayers and Altar durst not Communicate with him in those Holy Duties whose hands were so full of Blood not that St. Ambrose could impose these things by force and that his Person be so absented by any thing like a Coercive Power or did design or pretend to it and that Penance which he laid upon him and the Emperor accepted of upon his Re-entrance was it suited to his Imperial Power no ways abating of or detracting from his Majesty and Soveraignty it was to enact a Law that no Penal Decree or Edict that comes forth be executed till Thirty days after its first Sanction to avoid the fury of such Proceedings for the future No St. Ambrose upon the either Plea or Execution of this Power does not attempt his either Purple or Scepter to Depose him from his Crown or Absolve his Subjects of their Allegiance he only executes upon him his Pastoral Charge and which is in order to the World to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as he reverenced his Kingly Power so did he take care also not to transgress the Law of his God had the Emperor been less a Christian and return'd upon him with violence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could receive the stroke with Pleasure he did discharge his Duty as a Bishop and he was secure within he only lets the Emperor know that his Purple makes him a Prince not a Priest that it doth not exempt him from the Laws and Discipline of God's Church and for this he appeals to his own Education 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nourish'd up in the Divine Oracles and in which it was clear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what was the Priests and what the Princes peculiar Office and which were there notoriously distinguish'd all this was no Pragmatick newly started particular extravagant attempt in St. Ambrose but a commonly receiv'd and owned Right and Truth what the whole Age had been taught and bred up in And Theodosius in particular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knew it by his Education and which caused his displeasure to some who were willing to abate of their Church Right whether out of Court-flattery or for what other Reason for which on the contrary he so highly valued and honoured St. Ambrose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as who alone was worthy of the Name of a Bishop all which with more is to be read in our Church Histories particularly those of Sozomen lib. 7. cap. 25. and Theodoret lib. 5. cap. 18. and that which gave St. Ambrose a particular advantage in the asserting and execution of such his Power was that he had the Autority of Valentinian on his side for that good Emperor had own'd all this before and he Sang this Hymn at his Consecration St. Ambrose being then a lay Governor of that Province deputed to it by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave thanks to God and Christ that as he had committed the Power of Mens Bodies to him in that Province so from them he had now the Power of Souls by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there mentioned his Episcopal Character then conferr'd upon him Theodorit Eccl. Hist l. 4. cap. 7. § XII And he that begins again where we left off in Eusebius and goes along our first Church History to Constantine downward will find all along the same Church-Power continued and asserted and expressed in the same words too as is that of the Empire Nor can any man any more doubt that there was Ecclesiastical Power seated in some measure in every Order of the Church but primarily and chiefly in the Bishop then that there was a Civil Power placed by God first of all in the Empire and from him derived to his Praefects and inferiour Magistrates and Damasus Bishop of Rome had as real a Power in his Diocese and which can no more be questioned upon the score of those publick Records than that Valentinianus his Contemporary had a real Autority in the Empire of the World the Bishop is still represented in his Chair as the Emperor is upon his Throne or can be by words declared they are still called and acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Hist l. 10. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Vita Constantini lib. 2. c. 62. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum Presbyteris suis l. 3. c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 59. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Eustathio dicitur quòd Concilium Niceae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nimirum Antiochiae cum eodem tempore Capite dicit quod Constantinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sozomen l. 1. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacerdotes Vocat lib. 2. cap. 12. and he gives this account why the Bishops are Buried at Constantinople with the Emperors in the Church which is call'd The Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 2. cap. ult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 3. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Episcopis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Imperatore lib. 6. c. 4. Philip who held a Praefecture or some kind of Government under the Empire is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Constantinople and which implies his Mission and Deputation from and under the Emperor But this word is never applied to the Bishops or any one of them who are no Deputies of his receive nothing like a Commission nor have any derived Power from him they are not the King's Ministers or Vicegerents as are those in Temporals and they owe their Autority alone to Christ Jesus Cap. 9. And so again lib. 4. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when mentioning the Officers of the Crown under Deputation and all along in the History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Romae Sylvester 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antiochiae Vitalis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 post illum Phlagonius Theodorit lib. 1. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constantinopoleos
believe that every one that reads his Book is sworn to his Name and Words could possibly have produced them The Emperor only there takes care that Excommunication be according to the Church Canons suitably as Ecclesiastici hoc Canones fieri jubent in the Nomocanon the formal Power and Act is always supposed to be in and to be done by the Bishop or Priest if the Bishop or Presbyter Excommunicate otherwise than as the Canons enjoyn the Person so Excommunicated is to be absolved by another Bishop or Presbyter who has the inspection of them à Majore Sacerdote in the Novel and that Bishop or Presbyter that did the wrong is to be censured by the Bishop under whose Inspection or in whose district he is and lye under the Mulct at his Pleasure nor is there one word sounds that way that the Emperor did Excommunicate Nor can the Emperor with any more shew of reason be said to pass the formal Sentence of Excommunication by taking care and making Provision that it be done according to the Laws and Canons of the Church than he can be said to make Articles of Faith and determine in the high Points of the Trinity for which he appoints that the first Council at Nicea shall be the Rule and often enacts and resolves it shall be so explain'd and believed and professed accordingly as in that Council He may as well be said to make Creeds which he enjoyns to be done but by the Patriarchs and Bishops and the particular Faith to be professed by them or to Baptize for which Directions are given especially about Re-baptization and he judges him unfit for the Priesthood that does it Cod. Justinian l. 1. Tit. 6. Ne Baptismus iteretur he may no otherwise be said to Excommunicate than to obstruct Conversion or hinder Repentance and yet 't is the Imperial Edict against and Punishment upon Apostates Nè unquam in Pristinum statum revertentur nè flagitium morum obliterabitur Poenitentiâ Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 6. l. 1. that they are never to return to their ancient state that the vileness of their Manners be never blotted out by Repentance intimating only the greatness of the Sin and the height of his indignation against them or that he did publickly officiate in his own Person in the daily Sacrifices because he takes care for a just Performance of the publick Liturgies and Services and when he declares against Oaths and Blasphemies that the guilt is not antecedent and from another Sanction Novel 78. and to put an end to these like instances that he Ordains in Person and makes Priests by whom so many Laws and Rules and Limitations and Qualifications are set and appointed as is above to be seen But as for this last instance Mr. Selden has found out so handsom an expedient for the Original of Holy Orders otherways and thereby renders them so accidentally trifling inconsiderable a thing that he answers his aim evacuates and baffles so effectually all Church-Power and indeed upon his Hypothesis so inconsiderable a thing it is that a Church-man would not desire it upon such terms much less is it a Prerogative fit for a King a Jewel for the embellishing the Crown Imperial so that he needs not contend to have this in the Magistrate as he doth the Church Censures He tells us De Synedriis lib. 1. cap. 14. pag. 569 570 571. and lib. 2. cap. 7. pag. 313 314 c. That Holy Orders has no more in it than an imitation of that particular School wherein St. Paul was educated under Gamaliel where it was usual for one that had arrived to a degree of Eminence above others as that of a Doctor to appoint and send out others under and after him And so St. Paul did in the managery of his Apostleship But did our Saviour also take this great Example of Gamaliel's School in his Eye when he sent forth his Twelve and Seventy or was it from his particular Education in some such place he took his Autority and Platform or did the Holy Ghost do the lâ—ke when placing Overseers in that Church which Christ had Purchased with his own Blood was not as the Purchase that of his own Blood so the Power by which he gathered and established it that All Power in Heaven and Earth first given unto him peculiar and extraordinary or did St. Paul himself say it was from Gamaliel's School or from the Will of any Man or from the Will of God he received his Apostleship himself and thereby had a Power to depute others as Timothy and Titus And surely unless his bare fiction of Story and Eutopian Plot must go for Truth and without any search and enquiry there can be nought in it to engage any assent or adherency unto it it is so precarious a begg'd thing that only those that deserve to be begg'd themselves can believe it and Mr. Selden doubtless pleased himself mightily to think how many fools it would meet with and he was sure of others of as ill a mind and design with himself to tread under foot the Ministry when it was down that it rise no more especially at that time when he wrote at least laid the contrivance of those his Tracts De Synedriis when the Sword of the Libertine alone bore rule and he took the advantage of it Nor has any one reason to believe that he bore better Will to the King than to the Church for he was a Member of that Rebellious Parliament of Forty Two and continued actually amidst them and bore a special sway in their Traiterous Actings and however his Pretence was That all church-Church-Power as from Christ was an Imposture and invading the Prerogative of the Crown it was in reality only to serve his Parliamentary Designs to take away the chief Support of the Crown that Church which mostly upheld it and 't was a sadder Sight yet to see it not only the usual fate of common Subjects but the Case of the greatest Prince then in Europe to be first stript of his Crown and Kingly Power to be made and publish'd a Bankrupt in the State lost as to his worldly Imployments and then made a Priest to have only the Power and Benefit of his Clergy remaining in and confirm'd unto him § XXIV THE sum of all is this The Empire it self never made any thing Law that related to the Church but what was first made Canon by the Church it self and those Powers always took their Direction from Church-men either in full Council or from the Practice of particular Churches or eminent Bishops of the Christian World and superadded their own Sanctions put under it their Secular Arm adjoyn'd their Autority to support and stablish them all those Directions to the several Patriarchs Exarchs Primates and Metropolitans were only to see their own Results at Councils practiced all the Edicts Laws Novels and Constitutions were first Church-Law and then the Law of the Empire receiv'd into the World and imbodied
extraordinary Commissions have ceased which the Apostles and firsh Publishers of the Gospel had though by present Miracles not to be justified And this equally enabling and warranting the Church of God such as can evidence the Succession of Power in its own and appointed way as when Miracles were annexed to affront is an improper Speech but to Teach Declare and Protest against the Establish'd Religion of a Nation if a false one openly to draw Men off from the Profession of it in Contempt is again an ill Expression but in different ways and rules of Duty then those false ones of the Law and Magistrate though the Men of the World do Publish their dislike and threaten and punish and go on into a Law against them as they did when Christianity was first Taught and Church-Power first came down was setled and professed in the World though the Kings of the Earth stand up together and the Rulers take Council they rise up as one Man as did Herod and Pontius Pilate and all the Gentiles against the Child Jesus as it was then the Apostles so is it no less our Duty thus to speak before Kings and not be ashamed church-Church-Power came first into the World as not from the School of Gamaliel so nor from the Thrones of Kings and 't is independant and distant as in its rise so in its execution though embellish'd assisted and strengthened advantaged much by the outward favours of Princes their many Adjuncts and royal Appendages and which where conferr'd will equally embellish and add to their own Crowns to be sure in Heaven And upon these terms to suffer will be our Duty if what we profess be not received it will amount to Martyrdom If the King's wrath be the return and our Doctrine with our selves be cast out and if we do not this it will come too near the Traditores in the days of the Donatists or to those that offer'd at Heathen Shrines in the Persecutions before what will it be but to give up our Bibles and Profession upon the Summons of any prevailing Party to give up to be sure our Church-Power and which amounts to in effect the same nor can Christianity continue without it when upon Perswasion of the Arians first upon point as he thought of interest receiving his Father's Will from an Arian Priest and then by the Miletians joyning with them Constantius the Emperor engaged against the Faith of one Substance and great and rigorous Persecutions were its consequent Athanasius and his followers that adhered to the Nicene Faith in that Doctrine did not therefore in point of Conscience submit and say nothing with but silence give over and desert the Truth but the rather were more vigorous and active for it even to the greatest Calumnies and Distresses which through the malicious instigations of the Arians and Meletians as evil Men always unite against Truth the Emperor laid upon them And though Liberius of Rome and Hosius of Corduba this latter the ancientest Bishop then in the Christian World and who was one of the Council of Nice and Penned that Creed and Gregory Nazianzen and others even the whole World becoming Arians as St. Jerome complain'd by the height of Threats and succession of Miseries after sharp trials and resistancies did at length submit and subscribe to their Doctrines yet it cost them both repentance and tears as Gregory Nazianzen declares in particular in the Life of Athanasius And all this they did and thought themselves bound in Conscience to do not as extraordinarily Commissioned as the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel were as warranted and justified by Miracles but as commissionated in course by their Holy Orders instated with the same Autority though not in so open a shew and equally bound to render an account to God of such their trust and charge committed then and therewith unto them as the same Stewards of his Mysteries and this not upon the receipt of any new Revelation from Heaven but upon the score of their ordinary Ministry contending for the Faith once delivered to the Saints guided and directed by the Tradition of Faith delivered by the Apostles and conserv'd in the Church by a continued devolution and to which St. Athanasius and all the Catholick Bishops which strove against Arianism always referr'd themselves and is evident on all Occasions from Church History as Socrat. Eccl. Hist l. 2. c. 46. l. 3. c. 7. Athanasius ad Serapion ad Epictet Ep. that Faith into which when recommended to him and explain'd the Emperor Theodosius was Baptized Socrat. Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 6. upon which rule all the Councils proceeded in their Conciliary Acts and Determinations as Can. 13. Conc. Nic. 1. Can. 19. Conc. Hab. in Trullo Can. 2. Conc. 2. Nic. Athanas Orat. 1. Cont. Arios and they proceeding upon this bottom what they Decreed is to be receiv'd for Truth by all Christians is to be subscribed and assented to is to be taught before Kings when denying of it 't was this Theodosius himself acknowledged at his Death 't is reputed as the Law the Voice of God himself as St. Basil ad Diodorum among his Canons apud Pandect Can. Beverig and so by Constantine the Emperor in Socrates Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 9. Sozom. l. 1. cap. 20. 25. and in particular it will be expected that that common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that usual shift be omitted so usual among us when this known Power of the Church is urged That 't is accidental only in its Original introduced by the present necessity and upon a common consent and compact the Christians being then under Heathen Governors to whose Judicatures it was neither for their Safety nor Honor to Appeal and stand their Trial and Verdict and therefore they resolv'd it all into the chief Church-men and which Power Constantine becoming Christian and so the succeeding Emperors confirmed by his Royal Autority and continued of his own choice and motion unto them This is the common tattle of the wiser Men as they think and are generally so reputed reporting it to the World with much Confidence and yet upon no other ground than old Womens Stories are told and bottom'd at the farthest they 'l tell you that Mr. Selden and Mr. Hobs said so and every one is as secure of its Autority and Credit as if they had read it in the Gospel of our Saviour or in one of St. Paul's Epistles when 't is all as false as the Gospel it self is true Great and many were the Priviledges Royal Favours and Immunities that Constantine bestow'd upon the Church and Church-men he receiv'd them with both hands and with him in the Comedy could he have found a third he would have gave it them He annex'd to them Adjuncts and Appendages which their Lord and Master Christ Jesus did not could not would not do his Kingdom being not of this World nor was it his business to divide Inheritances and he had all the reason in the world
for it Christianus nulli Inimicus praesertim Imperatori as Tertullian a Christian is an Enemy to no Man especially the Emperor whom he acknowledges as a Man immediately under God that receives his Power only from God nor hath any Man a Power above and beyond him to Obey and Serve him is his Conscience his Religion and he expects his Heaven his eternal Salvation by it and indeed Christianity is the great truly rational permanent Support of Kingdoms and Bodies Politick What favour Constantine shew'd the Christians was his real particular Interest and perhaps he could not have retain'd his Empire had not the Christian Bishops been of his side without their Aid and Assistance and as by them his Crown might be fixed the more firm and secure on his Head who yet gave him not his Original Right unto it for that was his upon other terms than his Christianity he prosessed nor did they add one cubit to his Power in this sense Dominion is not founded in Grace so did they receive from him his outward aid and assistance for the more due and advantageous execution of that Power they had but not from him they had exercised before he was Emperor though perhaps with less success by a Donation antecedent to his by a Right from Christ Jesus thus the Empire became their Nursing-Father to support and encourage but did not could not give their Power as Church-men unto them As God gave to the Empire the Government of the World so he gave to the Bishops the Government of the Church and which they were to use for the Empires advantage but might not use it against him And all this Constantine well knew and was highly sensible of as were his Succession that was Christian still acknowledging Church-Power from another hand nor was it in the arm of Flesh by favour or frowns as to its Power purely from above to extinguish or enlarge it I 'le conclude this Section and Chapter with that of St. Austin Ep. 165. Quia Constantinus 〈◊〉 ausâ—… est de causa Episcopi judicare eam discutiendam finiendam Episcopis delegavit And again Ibid. Imperatores non si in errore essent quod absit pro errore suo contra veritatem leges darent per quas justi probarentur coronarentur non faciendo quod illis juberent quia Deus prohiberet Religion as such falls not under the Determination of the Prince and if he gives Laws against Truth the Just will be both Tried and Crown'd in disobeying him Chap. 3. CHAP. III. The Contents Church-Power is a Specifick constituted by Christ in order to a Succession the erecting a new and lasting Government upon Earth a Community of divers Orders Offices Acts Stations every ways peculiar the Body of Christ Sect. 1. A Government to Rule and defend it self and Independent Sect. 2. The main Objection That it is against the Civil Power Common Sense and Experience confutes it The more a Christian the better Subject The Christians supported Constantine's Crown Sect. 3 4. They did not want Power to do otherwise nor consequently Integrity as is objected Sect. 5. To say they were Fools is more plausible to the Age but then the Empire must be so too who were equally ignorant of these destructive Consequences to their Government Sect. 6. The reason of the present Misunderstandings and that we do not see as the Ancients did because no Government own'd but that which is Temporal and outwardly Coercive Sect. 7. So 't was stated by an Anonymous Author 1641. All Power and Punishment was outward and bodily among the Jews and so it must be among Christians Sect. 8. So Mr. Selden allowing no Punishments but what are outwardly Coercive because none other as not under so nor before the Law Sect. 9. Erastus went the same way before him Sect. 10. And Salmasius and says the Apostles had no Power because without Whips and Axes Concludes against all Church-Power upon these terms and that he may surely take it from Bishops So does a French Reformer usually lose his Senses when running his Forehead against our Prelacy Sect. 11. Grotius is in this Error but oft corrects himself His Inconstancy is to be lamented He imputes it to his Education He fights with the very same Weapon against Church-Power in general the Jesuite does against the Supremacy in the Church of England Sect. 12. IT returns then with more force and strength what was laid down in the § I beginning of the foregoing Chapter That Church-Power is a Specifick a Constitution of its own originally from Heaven deliver'd by Christ to his select Apostles Men chosen from all other fill'd with the Holy Ghost for the Service of Mankind in the propagating Christianity to speak before Kings every where and in all Circumstances to declare and publish it a Power limited to their Persons to be retain'd within themselves and as no Heads but their own receiv'd it so no Hands but their own could devolve and conveigh it to others only as their own Prudence saw fit was it derived and in what measures and degrees they pleased as the World came into the Church Believers were made the Harvest grew great and there needed more Labourers to be sent forth into it a Power I say received for the use of others the advantage of Mankind in the Successions of it not for one single Purpose and Action as were several Commissions and Delegations both before and under the Law and one at the entrance of the Gospel viz. That given to St. John Baptist but to erect a new and standing Government and this to continue till the World is no more and then only is the Kingdom to be delivered up to the Father whose is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen And St. Clemens Romanus in his Epistle to the Romans and which place we had occasion to use before tells us That the Apostles receiving Commands and imbued with a full certitude by the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed by the Word of God with all fulness of the Holy Ghost they went out declaring the coming of the Kingdom of God and Preaching through the Regions and Cities they constituted Bishops and Deacons in order to those that should believe knowing by our Lord Jesus Christ that Contentions would arise by reason of the Episcopacy or Power of the Ministry and therefore having a perfect fore-knowledge as they constituted the fore-mentioned Bishops so they afterwards gave them Rules for Ordinations that others Approved Men might succeed in the Places of such as should die and execute such their Offices the Consult and Design was laid for future Ages also A Power and Autority framing and fashioning Believers into a Body not an accidental casual concurrency of People only but a Community well and duly associated every part proportionably fitted and put together increasing with the increase of God in which all things are to be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Princes side laid by those that set the Controversie on foot and with shews to disenthrall and enlarge him WHAT is the reason of such our misunderstandings § VII that we cannot think and discern with the Ages before us is it that this Power has been abused in later Ages of the Church as by those of the Roman and Geneva Discipline who out of a Plea to one took both Swords invaded Kings and Kingdoms by it Let but the same Rule take place here as in the other Points of the Reformation and all will soon be well again Return to such the beginning those first and purer Ages of the Church to be ruled and governed by where the Platform is plain the Model easie for any Capacity and the Aberrations of some cannot in reason prejudice it But this will not do the ground of the Quarrel has really another bottom and their Reasons are another thing as must be obvious to him that is conversant with the Writings either of the Principal Authors of these new started Opinions or such as were accidentally only their occasion or after Abettors of them They cannot see nor assent to any Government as existing in the World but what is visible and sensible has its Operations and Effects upon outward Sense and its Organs upon the Person or Estate the Life or Bodily Action of Mankind and this to be presently inflicted Men they are that will allow no Corporations or Societies but those of this World for Buying and Selling for Trading and Trafficking for the Belly and the Back for outward Peace and Ease to Preserve themselves from one another at Home and Invasions from Abroad for the present Mess of Pottage good and gain on Earth nor can any other Power but such as this or in order to it be apprehended We have above observed That Herod the King was the first Man that suggested this great Error and that the Kingdom of our Saviour must supplant and abolish the Kingdoms of this World his Power and Caesar's could not stand together And this was managed by the Jews all along after who united with Herod to destroy our Saviour as an Usurper allowing and owning no King but Caesar upon that one Design and Principle And these Men we have now to deal with are every ways as blind as gross and carnal in this particular Point as were the Jews their Predecessors and the Veil of Moses is it so over their Faces that they are stark Blind either beyond or besides it The Jews of old did not with more Zeal and Industry contend for his Temporal Canaan and Promises Ordinances and Administrations or with greater Blindness rest himself in them or with greater Malice scorn and pursue such as said they saw beyond it then do these Men now adays deride those that say there is a Spiritual Kingdom which is our Saviour's a Power originally from Christ derived by Succession to his Body the Church to remain till the Restitution of all things that there is or can be any King but Caesar resolving all Power whatever into that which is Secular and rejecting all other as Opposite to the Dignity and Prerogative of Princes IT is not much to be marvelled at the § VIII Pamphlets that went about of this Nature in 1641. 'T was the Design of that time to unhinge and overthrow every thing well established and the Argument was less odious that began with the Church and its Power particularly I have by me a small Treatise which came forth in that year call'd The true Grounds of Ecclesiastical Regiment c. but the Title within is The Divine Right of Episcopacy refuted the more to ingage the Reader for Episcopacy was first to be taken away and he had the most advantage to do it it being the particular quarrel but the after-game was at all Church-Power in general and which he endeavours to erase upon this score as against the Soveraign Dignity of Kings for which he seems Zealous when to Dethrone Church-men but at last sets a Thousand more upon the Throne with him his Princes in Parliament as he calls them nay he sets them above the King and says though to Princes on their lawful Tribunals something is more due than at other times but to Princes something is more due than at other times but to Princes in Parliament there is most of all due all Power being not derived to the King without them and whose Ecclesiastical Power he there discourses And which I therefore here repeat to shew what was designed for our Kings by these Men when so much Pleading for a Power belonging to them which is the Church's and his chief Argument all along against Church-Power independent to Princes is that it is not like nor does it enter into any Rivality with that solid sensible coercive Power wherewith God has invested his true Lieutenants upon Earth and therefore is it but Imaginary and Improper That Power which is proper must include not only a Power of Commanding but also an effectual Virtue of forcing Obedience to its Commands and of subjecting and reducing such as shall not render themselves obedient that as among the Jews the Church and State was the same had the same Body the same Head the same Sword and that Head was Temporal and that Sword was Material and therefore 't is so with Christians nor have they any Sword or Head that is Spiritual Christians ought not to be so contrary to that excellent Discipline of the Jews which God himself ordered and to introduce I know not what Spiritual Rule in prejudice of Temporal Rule nor does he expect any Satisfaction from his Adversaries why there should be less Division betwixt Church and State among the Jews and less use of two several Swords and because Adultery was Punish'd with Death Christians ought not to be Excommunicated for it If God has given them sole Knowledge to Determine all Controversies and Power to Enact all Ecclesiastical Canons doubtless he has given them some binding Coercive force correspondent thereunto and if so why do they not expel all Dissention by it If their Virtue extend no further than to Exhortation why do they urge Commands upon us If they have a Commanding Power why do they not second it with due Compulsion it is plainly clear'd to us that Adultery by God's Law was Punish'd by the Temporal not Spiritual Sword and that the Abscissio animae amongst the Jews was only Corporal Punishment by Death the infliction whereof was only left to the Temporal Magistrate and that there was no difference observed between Crimes Spiritual and Crimes Temporal And therefore there ought to be none in the Church of Christ the form or essence of Law is that Coercive or Penal Virtue by which it binds all to its Obedience if Priests had any such Spiritual Sword doubtless it would have some sensible Efficacy and work to good Ends and Men would not nor could not choose but bow and submit themselves
Government nor Jurisdiction at all And the reason he backs it with is this Christ did not invest his Apostles with the Power of worldly and civil Magistrates when he sent them out to Preach If so he should have adjoyned to them so many Lictors and Apparitors furnished them with Whips and Axes and not having done it there is no Magistracy at all nothing of Power residing because able to engage none by Violence neither Corporal nor Pecuniary Mulcts can be inflicted by them And so in his Dissertation De Episcopis Presbyteris contra Petavium under the Name of Walo Messalinus he concludes Episcopacy to be Curatio only and which he distinguishes à Magistratu Potestate Imperio from all sorts of Government And says expresly That any Jurisdiction of one Clergy-man above another came from Constantine Cap. 6. and so Zealous is he to make Episcopacy but an Humane Disposition that he delivers it as his Opinion and takes a great deal of pains to prove it That the Presbyters themselves are no other than Lay-men have nothing of a Distinction or of a Power different from the Laity as the Priesthood of old had amongst the Jews That as Lay-men did Baptize as well as any and which is acknowledged so that Bishops and Presbyters do Administer the Sacraments of Christ 't is only as dedicated to it by the choice of the People and in whose absence Laicks may Consecrate all Believers and not only the Apostles receiving the Commission and Power at Christ's Institution and suitably was it done in every Family and after Supper for some Ages and the difference betwixt the Order Ecclesiastical and the People in common has nothing of Divine Institution That Ordination by Imposition of hands gives nothing at all of new Power only ranks them in such a Body and Order as First Second and Third And the Door-Keepers have as much a place and order in the Church as either Deacon Presbyter or Bishop the Bishop and Presbyter were only the more Honorable and Honest part of the People And thus he brings in his Lay-Elders to have an equal Right and Government in Church Matters with them by a Primitive Devolution and which Officers once were in every Church but now remains only in the Affrican though with the addition of the Order of Presbyters for which there is no footstep in the Primitive Apostolical Church And at last is angry with Petavius that he perstringes the Waldenses and Luther because they retained no Priesthood at all under the Gospel but believe that just and faithful Laicks may do all that is needful in the Church of God and discharge every Ecclesiastical Office receiving a Power by the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery that is the Senate not Ecclesiastical but Laick in which whether Petavius injures the Waldenses and Luther or not is not the matter now to be enquired after sure it is Salmasius adopts these their imputed Opinions and they are his And he thinks it the Mind of St. Peter too whom he cites Cap. 2. calling the Laicks that are faithful an Holy Priesthood to offer Spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus a Royal Priesthood Ibid. and all which Petavius the Jesuite makes no small advantage of to the Infamy of the Reformation Neither have I done Claudius Salmasius any injury in ranking him among those that deny all Church-Power as from Christ Jesus for he is worse than those I have mentioned before him he takes the civil assignation from the hands of the Prince and puts it into the People So that every Man may as well Ordain himself as in the days of Jeroboam And hence we cannot but take notice with what furious inconsiderate malicious purposes some Men have pursued Episcopacy and rather than have it stand they 'l fall themselves deny what is otherwise their Diana and great Delight the Divine Right of Presbytery take away all Church-Power for ever with it And indeed the Principles that these Men go upon are such when to throw down Episcopacy that they strike at our whole Christianity with the same blow as does his Friend David Blondel in particular and there cannot under their Guiding and Conduct be any such thing as either Truth or Heresie the one to be convincingly Vindicated or the other solidly confuted as might be easily made appear BUT what is mostly to be admired the § XII great Hugo Grotius goes along with them in part and can apprehend only a Power that is outward and compulsive and working by sensible force And whatsoever Power is erected in the Church independent to the Secular is an abating its Arm an Usurpation a sharing with the Prince in his Government De Imper. Sum. Potest in Sacris Sect. 3. cap. 1. cap. 5. Sect. 9. That there is no Empire by Divine Right granted to the Church The Ministry of the Empire is the Sword but the Weapons of the Church are not Carnal Cap. 4. Sect. 9. And again argues That there is no Jurisdiction belonging to the Church because none that is Coactive or Commanding Cap. 9. Sect. 3. with more to this purpose all along there As also in his Ordinum Holland Pietas c. Orat. Habit. in Senat. Amstelodam bona fides Sibrandi Lubberti c. and yet that this was not his constant lasting through digested opinion 't is again as certain he going quite t'other way and fully thwarting even in that very Discourse of his of the Power of the Supreme Magistrate in Holy Things and much oftner in his other Writings He will not allow the Pastors to be Vicars of those very Powers any otherwise then as Subjects and that besides their Pastoral charge they receive aliquid Imperii Jurisdictionis something of Empire and Jurisdiction Cap. 1. Sect. 3. cap. 4. Sect. 1. that Kings are the Object of this Power not only as the Gospel is tendred unto them in the way of Preaching but by the application of the use of the Keys Cap. 4. Sect. 3. Cap. 9. Sect. 18. That the Church is Coetus a Body and Association not only permitted but instituted by Divine Right and whatever naturally belongs to any other Body this belongs also to the Church Cap. 4. Sect. 9. That the Church destitute of the Protection of the outward Government doth not cease to be a Church Cap. 8.2 He asserts a Church-Power to exclude from their Congregations for either Heresie or Immorality and that distinct from the Magistrate who constrains for fear of Punishment Annot. in Mat. 13.41 which Annotations he proposes for the Pattern of all his other and if from any Writings of his we may hence conclude his maturated Judgment And again in his Annotations on St. Luke 6.22 he instances in two Branches of this Power Baptism and Excommunication And in St. Joh. 20.23 and when the Apostle only advises to shun Evil Men he concludes the Presbyterium or Association was not then setled at Rome otherwise he had order'd
him That he exalts the Church-Power above God and Christ and the Magistrate as all their Masters And indeed according to these Mens Notions to apply the Superlative to any Person or Thing is the height of Blasphemy For why God is not excepted And the most common Phrases of a most Mighty Prince a most Holy Place a most Wise Counsellor are all instances of it nor can any one Attribute of Gods be otherwise applyed to the Creature Whereas if the Word be understood and used as in common use it is to be and in complyance with things it must be suitable to the present Subject it is assign'd and limited to and the particular things it is conversant with as under such and such Heads and Orders all is easie and plain Thus God is the alone Supreme all Rule Governance and Autority being originally in him and eminently Christ is Supreme as Head of the Church to whom all Power is given of the Father for bringing Mankind to Heaven the Apostles and their Successors the Pastors of the Church were and are now Supreme on Earth in the same Power derived from Christ by the Apostles unto them The Prince is Supreme and hath all Power from God committed unto him as to Government relating to this World over all Things Persons and Causes to appropriate or alienate to Endow Limit Restrain Coerce or Compel as the alone Supreme Law-giver upon Earth and none may oppose and the great and gyant Objection that is only wrangling about and mistaking of words falls to the ground as it is in it self nothing CHAP. IV. Chap. 4. The Contents The Objections answer'd Selden's Error that there are to be no other Punishments by Christ than was before and under the Law the Query is to be what Christ did actually constitute He mixes the Temporal Actions of the Apostles and those design'd for Perpetuity Adam and Cain might have more than a Temporal Punishment Sect. 1. The great Disparity betwixt the Jewish and Christian State considered no Inferences to be drawn from the one to the other but what is on our side Sect. 2. Theirs is the Letter ours the Spirit They Punish'd by Bodily Death we by Spiritual Sect. 3. If Government was judged so absolutely necessary by the dispersed Jews that they then framed one of their own for the present Necessity and whose Wisdom in so doing Mr. Selden so much admires it must blemish our Saviour much to say he purposely call'd together a Church and design'd it none of its own to preserve it Sect. 4. The Jews Excommunication was not bodily Coercive and then there may be such a Punishment an Obligation to Obedience without force and that is not outward and this much more in the Christian Society Sect. 5. And this their Government abstracted from the Civil Magistrate is an Essay of Christ's Government so far of the same Nature to come into the World Sect. 6. The Christian Church might be both from Caesar and Christ as was the Jewish from God and Caesar and there is no thwarting The Jews and Christians distinct Sect. 7. In answer to his main Objection That all Government must be of this World Sect. 8. It is replied To assert Christ to have such a Kingdom is to thwart his design of coming into the World the whole course of his Actions and Government and those Ancients that expected him to come and Rule with them on Earth yet did not believe it to be accomplished till after the Resurrection Sect. 9. To say he therefore has no Power at all is as wide of Truth the way of Men in Error to run from one extreme to another and of Mr. Selden here Sect. 10. The Church is a Body of a differing Nature from others Sect. 11. With differing Organs and Members of its own in Subordination to one another Sect. 12. With different Offices and Duties Gifts and Endowments these either Common to all Believers or limited to particular Persons Sect. 13. As Christians in common they had one Faith into which Baptized and of which Confession was made the Apostles Creed and other Summaries of Faith and sound Doctrine Interrogatories in Baptism How Infants perform it Sect. 14. They had one and the same Laws and Rules for Obedience for which they Covenanted which is their Baptismal Vow the Abrenunciation of the World the Flesh and the Devil Sect. 15. One Common Worship and Service and Religious Performance to God in their Assemblies the particular Offices and Duties there the Priest and People officiate interchangeably as in Tertullian Justin Martyr c. Sect. 16. Common Duties and Services as to God so to one another in supplying one anothers Necessities as occasion Sect. 17. In the supply of such as attended at the Altar by a Common Purse deposited in the hands of the Bishop Sect. 18. Of the Poor and Indigent whose Treasurer was the Bishop Sect. 19. The Power Offices and Duties not promiscuous but limited to particular Persons are those of the Ministry distributed into the three standing Orders of Bishop Presbyter and Deacon and which make up that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Gospel Priesthood to remain to the Restitution Sect. 20. This Power and Jurisdiction though limited to and residing in these three yet it is not in each of them alike in the same degree force and virtue the Deacon is lowest the Presbyter next the Bishop the full Orders and Vppermost Supreme and including all Sect. 21. Against this Primacy of Bishops that of Metropolitans Exarchy Patriarchy and the Supremacy of Rome is objected Sect. 22. The Metropolitan c. is in some Cases above the Bishop but not in the Power of the Priesthood 't is the same Power enlarged No new Ordination in Order to it Sect. 23. The Vniversal Primacy of the Bishop of Rome is but Pretended not bottom'd on either the Scriptures or Fathers or Councils Sect. 24. 25 26. The Bishops Superiority or full Orders and Power in the Church is reassumed and farther asserted He with his Presbyter or Deacon or some one of them are to be in every Congregation for the Presbyter or Deacon or both to assemble the People and Officiate and not under him is Schism The several instances of this Power of the Priesthood Sect. 27. To Preside in the Assemblies Pray give Thanks for Teach and Govern there No Extempore Prayers in those Assemblies Sect. 28. To Administer the Sacraments the Consecration of the Lords Supper by Prayer and Thanksgiving and Attrectation of the Elements Baptism by Lay-Persons Rebaptizations on what terms in the Ancient Church Confirmation Sect. 29. To Vnite and Determine in Council The use of Councils and Obligation Their Autority Declarative Autoritative Sect. 30. To impose Discipline the several instances and degrees of it in the Ancient Church Indulgencies and Abatements Sect. 31. To Excommunicate or cast out of the Church a Power without which the Church as a Body cannot subsist a natural Consequent to Baptism Priests not excommunicated
Subject Ita tunc Deus supplebat id quod Magistratus Ecclesiae praestare debent tunc non Praestabant Grotius in 1 Cor. 4.21 Then God did supply what the Magistrates ought to have discharged and did not instancing in these very Punishments of Ananias and Saphira struck Dead of Elymas the Sorcerer struck Blind and of the Bodily Diseases sent out upon others Our Saviour Christ in his Life designed and contrived upon every occasion when any appearance that others should suspect him or when any apt opportunity to express and declare himself that he was neither to exempt himself from any instance of Subjection to his Governors nor exercise in any Case the Jurisdiction that was theirs and for this he Pays Tribute refuses to divide Inheritances nor did he invade any one private Person and we read of but one Colt that he commanded to be brought unto him to which as what was his Title we do not read so are we not told of any injury done by it nor of any Complaint made in the Streets on the occasion And his Death though pre-ordained in the fore determination of God for no one worldly end or design to serve no one Political Purpose but solely and altogether to satisfie for the Sins of Man to make compleat our Redemption yet it was ordered that the earthy Governors should have a Power given them from above for a legal Process and judicial Trial upon him he died in a course of Law and a Posture of Obedience to them And although it must be granted that some of the ancient Fathers and most eminent first Christians did Believe and Publish to the World that Christ should come again and reign upon Earth in his Person as Supreme Governor of all and his Saints with and by him in the independent full freedom use and advantage of the Goods of this World and of Sense that Jerusalem should be Rebuilt its Streets enlarged and inhabited by them So Justin Martyr Dialog cum Tryph. Jud. Irenaeus lib. 5. cont Heres c. 32. Tertul. lib. 3. cont Marcion c. 24. with Lactantius and others yet it amounted not to an Universal received Opinion of that Age. Justin Martyr acknowledges there were many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy and Pious in their Judgments which did not acknowledge it And Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History lib. 3. cap. 39. giving that slender account of its rise and original from Papias tells us that many but not all Ecclesiastical Writers led by a shew of the Antiquity assented unto it but yet this was not by any of them expected during this state of things on Earth and in the Regeneration Sed alio statu utpote post resurrectionem as Tertullian Tom. 4. inter fraâ—menta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr supra Ibid. Post Resurrectionem coram judicio terram possidebunt As Irenaeus Ibid. but not till after the Resurrection ante coelum before their Ascension into Heaven as Tertullian again Ibid. when all Rule and Autority and Power has had its just Time and Period upon Earth is put under foot alone by God it seeming just that in what condition they had laboured and been afflicted tried and proved by all manner of ways or Sufferings upon Earth they there receive the Reward and Fruit of such their Sufferings as Irenaeus ill argues in qua enim conditione laboraverunt sive afflicti sunt omnibus modis probati per sufferentiam justum est in eâ recipere fructus sufferentiae they cannot be conceived to have thoughts of either evading or invading the Civil Power which then was supposed to be none at all because after the Resurrection and of which during its time for continuance by God affixed they were the most Zealous Maintainers and Asserters as has been already shew'd So far do they erre from the Spirit of these first and eminent Christians who pretending to the same Millennium or reign upon Earth oppose and fight against their present Governors to hasten and effect it § X BUT then to argue on the other hand that because it was not the design of the Gospel to erect a Temporal Kingdom upon Earth Christ and his Apostles design'd and erected none at all they had really no Power no Autority committed unto them this is as wide from Truth this runs from one extreme to the other which indeed is the usual course of such as are designed for error Clemens Alexandrinus in his Admonition to the Gentiles observed it of old among them and that their Ignorance still led them into one of the two Extremes of either Ignorance or Superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either they Worshipped their many ridiculous beastlier Gods or else none at all denied the only true God On this score Evenemus Agrigentinus Nicanor Cyprius Diagoras Hippo Melius and Theodorus with some others were called Atheists Men that considered not the Truth only saw the Error of the then abominable Worships and Acknowledgments And the same is easily acknowledg'd throughout the whole Ecclesiastical Tradition how as Atheists before so Hereticks since have still run the same way and their Heresies by these courses been either started or maintained Thus that Pestilent Sect of the Arians united not only with the Miletian Scismaticks but with the Heathens too the more to oppose and make numerous their Party against the Catholicks as we have it in Sozomen Hist Eccles lib. 1. c. 15. Athanas Orat. 1. Cont. Arium and in his Apology Pag. 731. and his Epistle Ad Solitariam vitam agentes And the same did the Donatists after them who set open the Idol Temples that themselves might have liberty applauded and sided with Julian the Apostate and gave opportunity for the Publick Worship of the Devil that they might with full freedom serve their own particular Designs and their Malice and Revenge be gratified as St. Austin and Optatus at large declare Contra Petil. cap. 8. 92. Ep. 48. c. Contr. Parmen Donatist lib. 2. I might all along trace them down I 'le only make my farther instances in what comes more nearly up to the case in hand because there may be such a thing as Domination over the Clergy Therefore there is no real Power to be exercised over them because Diotrephes affected a Superiority where it belong'd not unto him therefore a Bishop and a Presbyter must be of equal Power The Church of God must not exercise Autority as do the Kings of the Gentiles therefore whatever the Power they execute is must be Tyranny and Usurpation The Church of Rome have notoriously exceeded their Commission Pretended to what they never had either from Christ or St. Peter as to depose Kings to acquit their Subjects of their Allegiance exercising Temporal outward Coercive Power as in their Charter by Religion Therefore the Church of God has no Charter at all is no Body or Corporation Autoritative and Juridical or as Mr. Selden and his Friends argue we read of no other Power in the
World before but what was sensible outward and coercive and all Gospel-Power must be such or none a Plea to what is otherwise is a Cheat and Imposture And in answer to which I must here repeat in part what I have said in the beginning of the Third Chapter of this Treatise upon another occasion § XI THAT the Church is a Body but of a quite differing Nature a various Design and Constitution for another purpose according to that eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord Eph. 3.11 a Body but the Body of Christ framed and fitted alone according to the fulness of the measure of his Stature his Body which is the Church Eph. 5.23 an Association of People incorporated and united under him their Head in one Spirit one Lord one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Eph. 4.4 5. growing up into him in all things who is the head even Christ Ephes 4.15 a Body that is to be visible subject to outward sense but 't is by an Holy Life and Religious Conversation that which Men are to see is their good works and glorifie their Father which is in Heaven and all grants to its Officers Power Means Ordinances are only in order hereunto the only change here design'd is the change of our vile Bodies that they may be like unto Christ's glorious Body according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself A Lordship there is but not over Kings and Scepters 't is Death and Sin Christ Jesus treads under his Feet only He is the Lord of the Sabbath invested with all Power in Heaven and Earth relating to God's Worship and Service his Adoration and Homage to appoint stablish and fix as he pleases for ever A BODY or Corporation with its different § XII Organs Parts and Members the Eye to see the Ear to hear and the Foot to walk with Parts more and less Honorable with diverse Gifts and Graces according to the measure of the Gift of Christ some to Govern others to Obey some to Preside others to Submit and be ruled by them Some of which Governors were to remain only for a time others to continue for ever as the Bishops Presbyters and Deacons Orders of Men instituted and invested by Christ not with an improper as some speak with abatement but with a true real Praefecture Power and Jurisdiction in the Church that sitting upon Twelve Thrones and Judging that Spiritual Grace and Investiture to be collated and so Promised in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the new Age or State beginning just after the Resurrection of Christ it is an Autoritative Paternal Power of Chastisements Discipline and Government to be exercised on all its Subjects each one that has given up his Name unto Christ that expects any benefit of the incorporation for the keeping them in some compass within the terms of a Peaceable Holy truly Christian Congregation As are the words of our Learned Doctor Hammond in his Treatise of The Power of the Keys Cap. 1. Sect. 1. § XIII AN Incorporation with differing Offices and Duties Powers and Capacities from any other in the World to be call'd out from others from the World or any Society in it and to unite in a diverse Association which has peculiar Laws and Rules even of Morality is not enough to specifie constitute and express the Church of Christ to signalize that Collection or Association which is Christian All believe and assent so far that there is such a Sect and Coalition of Persons as are called Christians in the World and is usually call'd a Church 't is Matter of Fact self-evident and not to be denied But this Body or Church is not known and acknowledged to have such means of Salvation such Power and Efficacy such Properties and Priviledges as the true Church of Christ implies and contains The name Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs to Prophane as well as Ecclesiastical Congregations whether in Athens Corinth Alexandria or Jerusalem as Origen argues against Celsus lib. 3. but all have not the Powers Operations alike The Church of God is a Society as with differing Members and Offices Services and Obligations So to differing Ends with differing Gifts and Endowments For the perfecting the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying the Body of Christ Ephes 4.12 the building and raising them to Heaven in the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God Sciendum est illam esse veram Ecclesiam in qua est Confessio Penitentia quae peccata vulnera quibus subjecta est imbecillitas carnis salubriter curat as Lactantius Lib. 4. Sect. Vlt. Vbi Ecclesia ibi Spiritus Dei ubi Spiritus Dei ibi Ecclesia omnis gratia So Irenaeus l. 3. c. 40. that is the true Church where Confession is and Repentance with wholsome means to cure those Wounds and Sins to which the weakness of the Flesh is subject where there is the Spirit of God and all Grace as in the Armory of David those many Shields of the Mighty Divine Assistances and Remedies for Eternity Catholicum nomen non ex Vniversitate gentium Sed ex Plenitudine Sacramentorum as St. Austin relates of the Donatists well replying Collat. cum Donatist Tertii Diei the fulness of the Sacraments not the bare Coalition of all the Nations in the World makes the true Catholick Church And St. Austin himself says the same Ep. 48. Vincentio fratri where there is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first and second cleansing and Purgation the one the Effect of Baptism the other of Repentance In Sozomen's Church History l. 1. c. 3. Now these different Powers and Duties as distant from all others in the World besides so being diverse also as to themselves and in respect of one another according to the several Gifts and Relations these are either common to the whole each Member of the Association every Believer or else they are limited and appropriate to particular distinct Orders and Offices in the Body What Duties and Offices are common and what appropriate I am now to declare and explain § XIV AS Christians in common all of one Body and under one Head so had they one common Faith which every one Professed to which each assented and gave up his understanding whole and entire and which was a first instance of their Union as an Incorporation a signal Badg or Mark by which as a watch-word they were known to one another and distinguished from the whole World besides Now this object of belief and to which they declared their Adhesion was indeed Jesus the Son of God or Christ and him Crucified as delivered by Christ and the Apostles down unto them but because these Rules must be many and Instructions numerous as they are to this day as given in the Scriptures and every good Christian
which they had Power to give by Will to their Executors or Relations as they had need and they saw cause This is plain out of the Fortieth Canon of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Goods of the Bishop are to be proper to himself and manifestly distinct from those of the Church and which are more peculiarly call'd the Lord's Goods That the Bishop may have Power at his Death to leave that part which is his own to whom he please and not under pretence of a title of Church Goods to have them entangled and lost especially if he have either a Wife or Children or Kindred or Houshold Servants These were not to be cut off and left in want by reason of the Church and occasion Curses upon the Bishop when he is dead And indeed how else had the Churches their Endowments and Provisions Temporal as Houses Gardens c. before the days of Constantine and which were by the Rules and Obligations of Christianity as their Freehold 't was Sacriledge the blackest Guilt to invade them and which Constantine only restored when preyed upon and spoiled by the Heathen Persecutors as Eusebius Hist Eccl. l. 10. c. 5. and we have the famous Case of this Nature in Paulus Samosetanus who when deposed for Heresie kept Possession of his Church-House till Aurelian the Emperor no Christian assisted the Catholicks and by force dispossessed him The heathen Power sometimes conniving at these Donations of the Christians and took not advantage of the Forfeitures their Laws gave them now and then countenancing them against Invaders but never by the Imperial Laws giving a full Settlement and Confirmation of them BUT then besides this another Portion § XIX was to be reserved by the Apostles and Bishops for the Necessities of the Poor and destitute People for the Bishops were not the Alms-Men themselves as they are now adays termed but the Treasurers and Trustees to receive and keep the like Provisions and dispose them at their Prudence thus the Goods were brought in and laid at the Apostles feet Acts 4.37 and the Complaint was made to the Apostles when the Grecian Widows were thought to be neglected and who determined that a new Order of Deacons should be constituted and appointed for this business the better and more impartial looking after the Poor Acts 6. and this continued course of Charity and Goodness is apparent in the succeeding Church-Practice Tertullian tells us they had Quoddam arcae genus a kind of Chest in which every Month or when they will or if they will and if they can every one puts in something and this to be expended not in Banquets and Gluttony but to sustain or bury such as died in Want Children destitute of Parents and the Maintenance of old Men such as suffer'd Shipwrack work'd in Metals were banished into Islands and such as were in Prison in the Thirty ninth Chapter of his Apology So also Justin Martyr who was earlier a little than he after the Holy Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Such as were rich and willing offered every Man what he pleased and it was deposited in the hand of the Bishop for the Relief of Orphans and Widows such as by Sickness or any other Accident were brought to want if in Bonds or Strangers and the care of all that were indigent in general was upon him St. Cyprian in his Book De Opere Elecmosynis will not allow him that is rich and abounding to keep the Lord's-Day at all if he passes by the Corban or Poor Man's Box Qui in Dominicum sine Sacrificio â—enâ—â— and comes into the Lord's House without a Sacrifice tying them up more strictly to that of St. Paul 1 Cor. 16.1 2. Now concerning the Collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galâ—tia even so do ye Vpon the first day of the Week let every one of you lay up in store as God hath prospered him And 't is the Injunction of the One and fortieth Canon of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We Command that the Bishop have Power of the Goods of the Church to assist by the Presbyters and Deacons such as are in want and to care for his own Necessities if he have any and for the Brethren that are sustain'd by Hospitality that there be nothing wanting among any of them And suitably in the Eighth Canon Conc. 4. Gen. held at Chalcedon Care is there taken That if the Bishop be translated out of one See into another that he carry nothing with him of the Goods of his former Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether of those belonged to the Martyrs or the Hospitals or the Entertainment of Strangers AND thus hath this Body or Association § XX its Duties and Offices in general and which every particular Member is concern'd in no one to be excepted as Occasion offers and Circumstances permit Now besides these there are Powers and Offices distinct and appropriated by Christ the Head and Fountain of what Power is devolved to particular Members such as never was design'd to be communicated in common and promiscuously neither can they without a ceasing of the Corporation its ruine and dissolution for if all the Body were the Head or the Eye where were the Foot it could not continue No Association can stand and preserve it self without special Officers and Governors invested with a solitary Power and Jurisdiction to keep and restrain every Member in those Bounds and Duties in the Confinement to and Performance of which the Association subsists all have their Stations and Services here some after this manner and some after that according to the measure of the Gift which is given and every one in their own order God is not the God of Confusion but of Peace as in all the Churches of the Saints a Power limited to Church-Officers only such as were at first thereunto called appointed and invested by Christ in his own Person or by his Succession Nor may any Member in common or barely as a Believer take unto himself this Honor and Function and the select Persons herein deputed were either the Apostles and Seventy appointed by our Saviour in Person or afterwards those Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers Eph. 4.11 with others then as occasion deputed according to the present reason of the Churches first Planting and Propagation by those more immediate Descents of the Holy Ghost And all which with the reason and design of them ceasing what Power was adjudged fit and useful to remain was afterwards devolved fixed and limited to the three Orders of Bishop Presbyter and Deacon and so to continue till the Power and the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father These three Orders I say still remain upon the Rolls of Antiquity in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hieratical Priestly Order and Catalogue as 't is in 15 and 18 Canons of the Apostles And in others of those Canons in opposition to the Readers
hereafter and he will suppose no Power to be but what is outwardly Coercive and for his two Reasons he gives they are no less apt and ill placed for that Duty and Obedience Christians are engaged in by St. Paul and suitably owe to their Doctors them that are set over them in the Lord reaches no farther than does their Commission which is only in order to Heaven and fear of Punishment in another World arises in a particular manner from their Rebellion and Disobedience to Princes this is one of the Sins is there to be Punished and for Church-mens being no less subject to Ambition and Ignorance than any other sort of men which he adds for another reason nothing in particular can justly be inferr'd from it because others are equally liable to them and which he does not deny CHAP. V. Chap. 5. The Contents The grand Objection out of Mr. Hobbes if these two Powers command the same Person at the same time inconsistent Performances it arises from that false Principle that all Power is outward Sect. 1. This infers equally against the Laws of God and which may and do sometimes thus interfere are as difficultly reconcileable with the State acts No Church Laws oblige against Natural Duty The Laws of Religion considered at large in order to a clearer solution Sect. 2. Mr. Hobbe's Rule will Answer all Consider what is and what is not necessary to Eternal Salvation Sect. 3. The same is the Rule of the Ancient Fathers Sect. 4. If Mr. Hobbes his Faith and Obedience be all that is Necessary 't is then easily determined because to obey only the Soveraign Sect. 5. Dr. Tillotson his Sermon of Love and Peace to his Yorkshire Countreymen not to be Vindicated from being herein of Hobbe's Judgment in what he Dissents from him No Church-Power since Miracles ceased according to Mr. Dean Sect. 6. The Gospel calls for Confession and Obedience in Opposition to though not in Contempt of Princes to the hazard of all So the best Christians the worst of Hereticks only Simon Magus Basilides c. did otherwise Sect. 7. For a full Answer the Laws of Religion are to be ranked under Three general Heads They are Arbitrary and Humane Arbitrary and Divine Necessary and Divine Sect. 8. Laws Arbitrary and Humane though never losing their Sanction yet cease in some Cases in the Execution As when the Empire gave Indulgencies beside the Canon Sect. 9. The Civil Injunction does not immediately oblige the Christian in these Cases The Church has her own Power never to be yielded up Ceremonies not the main thing Sect. 10. Not to be changed with our Clothes That Worship which is best not to be foregone only to yield to what is always Necessary The Case of the Asiaticks about Easter Sect. 11. Especially in our Church of England Sect. 12. Least of all are our Mutinies and Factions our even weakness a Ground for Change Sect. 13. Laws Arbitrary and Divine cease in some instances as to Practice the Advantage of Afflictions A good Christian always a good Subject the Empire still gave Rules and Limits in the Exercise of these Positive Duties Sect. 14. To submit and cease as to particular Practice upon the lawful Command of the Magistrate is not the Case in Doctor Tillotson's Sermon to give up the Institution to him If commanding a false Worship I am to withstand him 'T is no Hypocrisie though I go not into immediately and there Preach the same in Spain Mr Dean's unheard of Notion of Hypocrisie in what Case the Magistrate is serviceable to promote the Faith Sect. 15. The last sort of Laws both Necessary and Divine are never to cease in any one Instance or under what Circumstances soever either as to their Right or Practice I am never to do any one Immorality always to own and profess the Cross of my Saviour Sect. 16. The great Goodness of God in giving such a Subordination of Duties that the end of each may be answer'd in enjoyning nothing absolutely necessary to Heaven but what is in our Power that no Contingencies of this World can take from us our Eternity a Reward we can never miss of without our own Faults Sect. 17. THERE is but one thing now behind that § I seems to me to be considered as requisite for the cleering this Discourse and 't is in the case just now stated As suppose the Canons of the Church and the Laws of the State should really and actually stand in competition that they enjoyn and prohibit the same action at the same time or at least so as the designs of both cannot at once be served and complied with and which is easily to be supposed and must fall out where are two Soveraign independent Powers over one and the same Subjects This Mr. Hobbs aggravates as that Kingdom divided in it self and cannot stand it must necessarily distract a People and expose them to the greatest inconveniences 't is a dividing the Soveraign Power here is a Supremacy against Soveraignty Canons against Laws a Ghostly autority against the Civil two Kingdoms and each Subject to must obey two Masters who both will have the Commands observ'd as Law which is impossible This he places among his other effects of an imperfect institution is reckoned up and urged by him among the Infirmities of a Common-wealth nay more as what is against the Essence of it in the number of those things that weaken and tend to its dissolution Leviathan Part. 2 cap. 29. And all this as objected by Mr. Hobbs is easily answer'd and has been over and over again in this Discourse for it proceeds alone upon that false precarious supposition and pertinaciously resolv'd upon Principle of his and his other Friends above reckoned up as Erastus Selden Salmasius c. which have formerly perplexed the World therewith and still do in their Adherents That there is no Power but what is outwardly cogent upon mens Persons or Estates or Liberties working by sensible force and impressions no other Kingdom but what is of this World unless a Kingdom of Fairies in the dark as Hobbs ridicules it for thus he argues against Bellarmine and concludes his Enquiries all in vain whether the Power of the Pope of Rome ought to be Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical because all these Powers are Soveraign and Coercive and consequently none of them can belong to him as from Christ Part 3. c. 42. And hence he argues on in the next Section For if the Supreme King have not his Regal Power in this World by what autority can Obedience be required of his Officers with abundance of the same almost every where But yet because there appears some shew of objection in the thing it self and it may fall under some doubt with a less but conscientious considering Person whether it be likely and also consistent with obedience to and the ends of Government that two such Powers both obliging should be erected over one and the same
good Christian who is also a good Subject is to abate of what Duties and Performances he in some instances immediately owes to Religion and his Saviour in obedience to those Secular injunctions to which if not engaged to submit the Government cannot subsist and be managed as in these particular instances did a pretence to or the actual present exercise in religious Worship exempt and disingage Every one is born a Subject owes a duty to his Prince and the Government as soon as he is indebted for his Being to his Maker and an after-dedication of my Person by holy Orders does not cancel that first dependency my Saviour himself hither all along had his regard and he laid his Religion in relation to it and when in the Pulpit or which is more at the Altar in the midst of my Office am I to give up my Person to that Civil Power by my Christianity supposed and by the same God placed over me The severer Rules and Laws of the Sabbath were to give place to the saving the life of a Man in the design of Moses as our Saviour expounds him to the Pharisees and much more for the support of Kingdoms and Communities and so in all other Instances of this sort of Holiness called Relative and which is good only from the institution and positive appointment and no greater more notorious Cheats than those in Ordine ad Deum that manage and abet Disobedience by a Charter from Religion 't is that very Corban in the Gospel so severely chastised by Christ the saying it is a gift and robbing my Father and Mother That absence from Divine Service or religious Worship which is in it self a sin upon a single instance of Charity for the advantage and relief of the neighbour-hood and then surely of a whole Community is a duty on this score Christians fight their Battels on the Lord's-day the very Ass is to be pulled out of the Pit and how the reasons and ends of Government for its better managâ—ry and conservation did stiil over-rule in the Christian Church in each of these like religious Performances in the best and most flourishing Times of it and the Empire when Christian gave Laws Directions and Limitations as to the Collectae and Publick Assemblies in Ordinations Excommunications Absolutions c. for the more orderly administration of the Civil Affairs is already shew'd in this discourse and yet the things themselves are immediately from Christ that power is not from the Prince which warrants and makes effectual the Institutions and Offices of each of them AND if it be replied that this seems § XV to come too near to what the design of this discourse is laid against or to be sure was the occasion of it If the Magistrate and the Law are to silence and limit in the exercise and profession of these higher Instances of Christianity what is this less than to submit my Religion to their pleasure To which I answer the case is not at all the same this is only adjusting of Duties in order to a due performance a suspension upon a higher reason and duty intervening and both which are equally Christian or at the most a but concealing some truths upon present reasons and motives and which every one allows may be done Should the Prince command me not to say my Prayers at all as he did Daniel to preach or speak no more in Christ's Name as the Sanedrim did the Apostles that Ordinations and Censures be no more Church both Officers and Offices cease for ever or which is the case in Mr. Dean's Sermon should a false Religion be commanded in their rooms and be made the Religion of the Nation this is the case in which I am to speak before Kings and not be ashamed when my life is in my hand as 't is the expression of holy David with a great many more to that purpose in the hundred and nineteenth Psalm then I am not only to exercise what is my duty as a private Christian but to make what open Proselytes I can to that Religion which I am sure is in the right to draw off all I can from that which is false and imposed by the Magistrate and Law This is that confession with the Mouth call'd for all along in the sacred Epistles Confession at Matyrdome that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Clemens Strom. l. 4. p. 503. an eminent way to gain Mercy for our sins and 't is call'd by the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 § XI perfection as he there tells us pag. 480. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the highest act of Charity the greatest demonstration of love when expressed to Souls in the profession of a right and rescuing from a false Religion at so great a distance was it set from gross hypocrisie and which Mr. Dean demonstrates to be such in the next Paragraph of the Sermon I 'le go on so far with his Worship and Consent that where neither Miracles to justifie the extraordinary Commission as had the Apostles nor the providence of God makes way by the permission of the Magistrate the Proselytes are very like to be few and since the former is ceased altogether and never to be more expected the countenance and protection of the latter is what usual course and common Prudence directs to wait for upon any attempt for converting and reducing of Nations from a false Worship I find the Proposal and the Complaint recited and made both at once by our learned Doctor Hammond Serm. 10. in Joh. 7.48 Vol. 2. I 'le here use his own Words If we should plant Christianity in Turkey we must first invade and conquer them and then convince them of their Follies which about an hundred years ago Cleonard proposed to most Courts in Christendom and to that end himself studied Arabick that Princes would join their strength and Scholars their brains and all surprize them in their own Land and Language at once besiege the Turk and his Alcoran put him to the Sword and his Religion to the touch-stone first command him to Christianity with an high hand and then to shew him the reasonableness of the Command Thus also we may complain but not wonder that the reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom because the Forces and potent Abetters of Papacy secure them from being led captive to Christ as long as the Pope is invested so fast in his Chair and as long as the Rulers take part with him there shall be no doubt of the truth of their Religion unless it please God to back Arguments with steel and to raise up Kings and Emperors to be our Champions we may question but never confute his Supremacy Let us come with all the power and rhetorick of Paul and Barnabas all the demonstrations and reasons of the Spirit and yet as long as they have such Topicks against us as the autority of the Rulers and Pharisees we may dispute out our hearts and preach out our Lungs
Power as the Supreme Governor of the Church Is called Worldly and Secular Sect. 5 6 7 8. Of King Edward VI. That the Bishops were to use not their own as formerly but his Name and Seal in their Processes c. implies no such thing Sect. 9. Of Queen Elizabeth King James Sect. 10 11. The King and Church distinct Powers in our Statute Book Our Kings now have but the same Power the Empire of old and their Predecessors before the Reformation had If our Religion be Parliamentary that anciently was Imperial Sect. 12. Mr. Selden says the Parliament of England both can and has actually Excommunicated and the Bishops Power is derived only from them Sect. 13. The Acts of Parliament he produces V. VI. Edw. VI. Cap. IV. III. Jacobi Cap. V. infer it not Sect. 14. Nor do those of II. III. Edw. VI. Cap. 1. Elizabethae Cap. II. that the Prince limits Excommunications in the Execution is not against the Divine Right of them His Instances in the Rump Parliament Geneva The Parliament of Scotland III. Jacob. VI. Cap. XLV are all against him Sect. 15. Archbishop Whitgift is not proved to have Licensed Erastus his Works for the Press that they were found in his Study is no Argument he was an Erastian if Licensed by the Autority of the Nation no Evidence that his Doctrines were then owned Sect. 16. Our own Doctors of the same Opinion with us instances in two of them Sect. 17. Bishop Bilson St. Ambrose one of Doctor Tillotson's Hypocrites A private Liberty of Conscience not enough a false Religion to be declared against though by Autority abetted Mr. Dean gives advantage to the Papists Calumny That our Religion is only that of our Prince Sect. 18. Bishop Sanderson his particular Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy Sect. 19. Mr. Selden objects again that our own Doctors and Writers are all on the other side The particular Authors each reckon'd up He perverts and abuses them all Sect. 20. The two Vniversities in their Opus Eximium c. in the Reign of Henry VIII 1534. altogether against him Sect. 21. Stephen Bishop of Winchester Orat. de vera Obedientia is of the same Mind and so is Richard Sampson Dean of the Chappel to Henry VIII in an Oration to this purpose Sect. 22. The Papers in the Cottonian Library seems the same with Dr. Stillingfleet's M. SS in his Irenicum Both he and Dr. Burnet unfaithful in the Printing of it Dr. Durell's account of it Archbishop Cranmer with the Bishops and Doctors engaged in our first Reformation were not Erastians from the account given of them in his Church History by Dr. Burnet Less Discretion in Printing such Papers nor is their Autority really to be any thing Sect. 23. Mr. Selden is shameless in quoting Bishop Andrews who determines all along against him Those Laws that Protect the Church must in course inspect their Actions The Bishop disswaded Grotius from Printing his Book De Imperio summarum Potestatum in Sacris Ha' y' any Work for a Cooper is indeed of Mr. Selden's side and the Lord Falkland His very ill Speech in the House of Commons 1641. His Pulpit Law and Decision of the Divine Right of Kings as well as of the Church He and such like Speech-makers Promoters of the late Rebellion affronts both to King and Priest design'd at once when the Crown is entitled to the Priesthood Sect. 24. Archbishop Bancroft Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson under the Suspition of Erastianism Accused as such by Robert Parker de Politeia Ecclesiastica a Malicious Schismatick made use of still against our Church by Dailee against Ignatius his Epistles by Doctor Stillingfleet in his Irenicum Our Bishops and Doctors are not against the Divine immutable Right of Bishops as Doctor Stillingfleet mistook out of Parker and reports them to be Satisfaction may justly be required of him for it Sect. 25. The Writings of the best Men how they may be mistaken as of Justin Martyr The first Council of Nice St. Jerome concerning Chastity and Episcopacy Bishop Cranmer and our first Reformers Bishop Whitgift Bancroft and Bilson The Point was at first only the Bishop of Rome's Supremacy A secular title only no Characteristical mark then betwixt the Protestant and Papist The Lay-Elders in their Consistory set up after this as Popes in his room These our Bishops warmth was exercised against whatever indiscretion in laying the Argument The Power of the Prince and the Priest are still contra-distinguished Kings are not Governors next and immediately under Christ as the Mediator The mistake of many in their Pulpit Prayer Our Kings and Church do not thence derive their Power nor so claim it in their Acts Statutes Declarations Articles c. in the forms of bidding Prayer by Queen Elizabeth and King James c. of ill consequence if they do Doctor Hammond's Autority Sect. 26. Particular Doctors not the Rule in Religion The several ways by which Error comes into the World Julian's Plot to destroy Christianity How Pelagius managed his Heresie by Rich and Potent Women by feigned Autorities of great Men. Liberius of Rome and Hosius comply with Arianism wearied with Persecutions Theodosius his Doctores Probabiles Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 1. l. l. 2 3. THE last general of this Discourse now § I follows and I am to shew that what hath hitherto been said concerning Church Power as a Specifick and distinct from any thing in either the People or the Crown is agreeable with the particular Establishments by the Laws of our Kingdom made for the owning and defence of Christianity and by consequence with the Religion it self so own'd and professed in our Church since the Reformation AN undertaking I do not therefore engage § II in as if these Doctrines of our common Christianity receiv'd from the beginning and devolv'd all along downward in the first Ages as is already shew'd could obtain further Autority or expected an after Sanction and Establishment from us and e're fully assented to and received wanted force and obligation was to be abated of or abolished where not according to our particular ordering model and constitution framed and drawn up autorized and made publick Fifteen hundred years after this is absurd in the Proposal and must be worse in the Practice it runs as it ought to do contrary to our selves to the Plot and Design of this our Church in each of her Collections Articles Injunctions Canons Constitutions and Homilies appointed to be read in the Churches in the time of Q. Elizabeth And altogether to our purpose are the Homilies composed by the Bishops limiting Church-Power to the Priesthood and apparently distinguishing betwixt the Autority and Laws of the Church and State assigning different Ends and Effects unto each Part 2. Of the Sermon of Good Works This arrogancy God detested that Man should so advance his Laws to make them equal with God's Laws wherein the true honouring and worshipping of God standeth and to make his
more private her Majesty declares in Parliament this very same thing in her first year Cap. 1. Sect. 14. Provided also that the Oath expressed in the said Act made in the first year shall be taken and expounded in such Form as is set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Queens Majesties Injunctions Published in the first year of her Majesties Reign that is to say To confess and acknowledge in her Majesty her Heirs and Successors none other Autority than that was challenged and lately used by the noble King Henry VIII and King Edward the VI. as in the said Admonition more plainly may appear § XI KING James who is next comes up to the same Point and in his Proclamation before the Articles of Religion thus declares That We are the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and if any difference arise about the external Polity concerning Injunctions Canons or other Constitutions whatsoever thereunto belonging the Clergy in their Convocation is to order and settle them having first obtained leave under Our Broad Seal so to do We approving their said Ordinances and Constitutions provided that none be made contrary to the Laws and Customs of this Land That out of Our Princely Duty and Care the Churchmen may do the Work that is proper for them the Bishops and Clergy from time to time in Convocation have leave to do what is necessary to the settling the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church SO that I think no more need be said to § XII satisfie any reasonable Person that the King and the Church are two distinct Powers in the sense of the Statute Book or in Parliament Language nor do our Kings interpose in Religious Matters any otherways than to make Religion Law what the Church in Convocation determines and recommends as the Tradition of Faith as agreeing to the Holy Scriptures and the Collections of the Ancient Fathers and Holy Bishops therefrom and to the guarding it with Penalties to be inflicted on such as oppose and violate it just as the first Christian Emperors did Nor can our Religion since the Reformation be any otherwaies called a Parliament Religion then it might have been called so before where the same Secular Power is equally extended and executed as in case of the Lollards certain supposed Hereticks Subverting the Christian Faith the Law of God and the Church and Realm to the extirpating of them and taking care that they be punished by the Ordinaries II. Henry V. Cap. VIII and so before IV. Henry IV. Cap. XV. where the Laws are these None shall Preach without the License of the Diocesane of the same place None shall Preach or Write any Book contrary to the Catholick Faith or the Determination of the Holy Church None shall make any Conventicles of such Sects and wicked Doctrines nor shall favour such Preachers Every Ordinary may Convent before him and Imprison any Person suspected of Heresie An obstinate Heretick shall be burnt before the People And VI. Richard II. Cap. V. Commissions are directed to Sheriffs and others to apprehend such as be certified by the Prelates to be Preachers of Heresies their Fautors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in strong Prison until they justifie themselves according to the Laws of Holy Church And which is more remarkable in the II. and III. of this King Cap. VI. the choice or Pope Vrban is made Law and confirmed in Parliament and 't is by them Commanded that he be accepted and obey'd But does the Pope of Rome therefore return and owe his Autority to the Parliament of England how would they of Rome scorn such a thing if but insinuated and yet the Act of Parliament was in its design acceptable and advantageous to them they had the Civil Autority thereby to back and assist them as occasion and which might work that Submission to the present Election his Holinesse's Bulls could not do at least so readily and effectually That this Nation did always understand the outward Policy of the Church or Government of it in foro exteriori to depend upon the Prince a learned Gentleman late of the County of Kent Sir Roger Twisden Knight and Baronet has given a very satisfactory account to them that will receive any in his Historical Vindication of the Church of England in Point of Schism c. Cap. 5. practised by the best of Kings before the Conquest Ina Canutus Edward the Confessor whose Praises are upon Record in the Romanists account of them and the last a Canonized Saint and to which they were often supplicated by the most Holy Bishops Upon the same Grounds are we to laugh at their Folly or Madness or rather Malice when they taunt us with a Parliament-Religion which has only the benefit of the Government for its Protection and our Kings do but that Duty is laid upon them by St. Paul take care that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty Christianity it self ever since Constantine's time may be as well reproach'd that it was Imperial or which is in effect the same Parliamental Since the Empire was Christian and defended it nay while it was Heathen for some particular Emperors upon some occasions have adhered to and protected it and that it had no other bottom than Reasons of State and a worldly Complyance and the lewd Pen of Baxter in his Prophaner History of Bishops c. Cap. 1. Sect. 37. gives the same account of the Church's increase under Constantine on the score of Temporal Immunities That a Murderer that was to be hang'd if a Christian was but to be kept from the Sacrament and do some confessing Penance c. for those Governors then assum'd the same Power in Religious Matters as have done our Kings since the Reformation as must appear to him that compares the two Codes Novels and Constitutions at large or if hee 'l not take that pains the Abridgment is made above with our Statute Book both which only take care that the Religion receiv'd and own'd in the Church and by Churchmen be protected and every Man in his station do his Duty in order to it if the common words in the Statutes carry the usual common sense and are to be apprehended by him that is not a common Lawyer and which the Author of these Papers does not pretend to be § XIII ONLY Mr. Selden inrodes us here again and comes quite cross too against us he tells the World other things That Excommunication in particular and then they may as well do all the rest is what belongs to the Parliament and which has actually Excommunicated and the Bishops are impower'd only by Parliament to proceed in the like censures and but by a Derivation from both Houses he says in plain terms that all Power and Jurisdiction usually call'd Church Power and Jurisdiction is originally and immediately from the Secular and this he thinks he has demonstrated from several Acts of Parliament to this purpose
and because Erastus his Works were Licensed for the Press and Published by the Autority of the Kingdom in the Days of Queen Elizabeth and which would not have been done did not the same Autority receive and own and espouse and submit to his Doctrines and which are wholly levell'd against the Church-Power as independent and not derived from the Magistrate I 'le consider each § XIV THE Acts of Parliament he produces are V and VI Edw. VI. Cap. IV. That if any Person or Persons shall smite or lay any violent hands upon any other either in any Church or Church-yard or draw any Weapon then ipso facto every Person so offending shall be deem'd Excommunicate and be excluded from the Fellowship and Company of Christ's Congregation Sect. 2 3. and III James Cap. V. That every Popish Recusant that is or shall be Convict of Popish Recusancy shall stand and be reputed to all ends and purposes disabled as a Person Excommunicated by Sentence in the Ecclesiastical Court Which two Acts being put together by Mr. Selden De Syned lib. 1. c. 10. p. 320. as one and the same and suitably he backs that of King Edward with this of King James Simili modo ex latâ Lege c. 'T is all the reason in the World they should interpret one another Now King James says expresly That lawful and due Excommunication is when denounced and Excommunicated according to the Laws of this Realm That is by a Sentence in the Ecclesiastical Court and this by a Bishop or Presbyter in Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions by a Judge that hath Autority thereunto Article 33. and which to be sure in the Act it self being not done as by Law and by the acknowledged Laws of the Land in such the Statute the Parliament rendred uncapable of doing of it being not the Judges appointed Mr. Selden must in course be supposed so intolerably absurd in his Inference that the Secular Power Excommunicates that common sense is not able to endure him And the true intent and meaning of the Parliament can only be this That these Offenders though they be not Excommunicated and which the Parliament though the Higher Court of England have not Power to do being not Judges with Autority thereunto yet they shall have the usual Secular Punishments inflicted and which are usually laid upon such as are duly Excommunicated the imposing which is the Act of Parliament alone and which as they may remove so they may impose when they please without any respect to the Excommunication anteceding They shall be deemed as such So King Edward They shall stand and be reputed to all ends and purposes as such So King James The particular Punishment instanced in by King Edward is Exclusion from the Fellowship and Company of Christ's Congregation which indeed comes somewhat nearer to what always and immediately follows Excommunication it self in the first Institution and Primitive Practice Vt à Communione Orationis conventus omnis Sancti commercii relegetur Tertul. Apol. Cap. 39. where so much Power over Mens Persons is obtained as to be able to exclude them their Oratories and the Christians usually absented themselves and 't is agreeable with the Practice and Injunction Apostolical with such an one not to accompany 1 Cor. 5.11 but yet this is not of the first Nature and Essence of it because this may be where the Excommunication is not 't is supposeable to arise from a different Autority and Motive and so the Secular Arm if agreeable to its self it s own Power and Proceedings and in relation to which it is to be interpreted must be concluded to appoint and execute in this Statute and no otherwise As every Science so every Power is to be conceived of as on its own object and proper work and those Apostatizing dissenting Christians of old who laid this Punishment upon themselves and out of peevishness or whatever undue ground turn'd themselves out of Communion with the Church in her Prayers and Eucharist the Church proceeded notwithstanding to Excommunicate them her own censure as a Church-Act did judicially proceed against them See Can. 2. Conc. Antioch fusius suprà Cap. 4. Sect. 31. and since our Parliaments have so frequently declared the Practice and Inferences of the first Doctors and Holy Bishops from the Old and New Testament to be their rule in all their religious Proceedings they have so often hither limited and confined themselves every one of such their Proceedings must in course be interpreted in Subordination to and complyance with them they are not to be concluded where Words and Actions and things will bear any favourable Construction to run cross to and Head against them or if they do and no Friendly office can be done them and a better gloss is not to be put upon it 't is to be reputed as that particular Error from which they plead not an Exemption and the general Design will weigh down if coming in Competition But the Statute of King James instances in and confines to a Punishment that is not pleadable to be otherwise than Secular and Worldly nor can be interpreted of any immediate Spiritual consequence upon whom 't is inflicted The Punishment is to be disabled as to Suits at Law and which every Body knows the alone Laws of the Land and Power of Parliament can impose and which may be and is imposed upon sundry other occasions and not that of Excommunication only and so supposed in the Act. § XV WHAT he brings out of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth in their Acts for authorizing and making Law the Common-Prayer-Book ibid. p. 386. as ranked by themselves so are they of different Complexions nor does the Prince there attempt any thing but what as Supreme Governor in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil he is enabled to do as Mr. Selden there very well refers to such his Title for his Evidence that is to see that every one does his Duty in his Order and Station enabling and protecting him thereunto the Prince is thereby to be interpreted no more enabled by his own Power whether in his own Person or the Person of any other to discharge the Office of a Priest than he is supposed to have the Skill and Capacity of any Artist Mechanick or what other Tradesman whom he Empowers by his Letters Patents or any otherways in Law acquits or indemnifies in the managery and publick Profession of such his Art and Invention his Trade and Employment and no otherwise can the Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Officers be said there to be impower'd to proceed by censures against all such as will not come to Church II. III. Edw. VI. Cap. I. Sect. XII I Elizabethae Cap. II. Sect XVI nor do any of those many many instances which his usual intolerable Pains has heaped together in several Pages both before and after in that Chapter about the Prince or â—ecular Powers interposing limiting and restraining in Excommunications prove any thing at
he proves thoughout the Church Historians Fathers and Imperial Laws thus declaring assenting to and practising pag. 146. If by the Church you mean the Precepts and Promises Gifts and Graces of God preached in the Church and poured on the Church Princes must humbly obey them and reverently receive them as well as other private Men so that Prophets Apostles Evangelists and all other builders of Christ's Church as touching their Persons be subject to the Princes power Mary the word of God in their Mouths and Seals of grace in their hands because they are of God and not of themselves they be far above the Princes Calling and Regiment and in those Cases Kings and Queens if they will be saved must submit themselves to God's everlasting truth and testament as well as the meanest of their People and yet they are for all this Supreme and subject only to God as to outward Process either from the Pope or from any other Power And so pag. 147. he brings in those Passages of Tertullian Optatus and Chrysostom à Deo secundum solo Deo minorem parem super terram non habet c. the word Supreme was added to the Oath for that the Bishop of Rome taketh upon him to command and depose Princes as their lawful supreme Judg to exclude this wicked presumption we teach that Princes be supreme Rulers we mean subject to no superior Judg to give a reason of their doings but only to God pag. 164 165 166. it must be confessed he speaks not home as might be required when explaining how Kings as well as other Christians are comprized under the duty of obeying their Rulers and to be subject unto them c. surely there is a true real obedience due even from Princes to Church-Officers and their Power devolved from Christ and this learned Man seems here and in other places not to be rescued from that common prejudice and possession seized upon too many and all along continued upon casting of the Popes Superiority here in England that there can be no Church-Power at all universally obliging and requiring obedience but what implyes and infers corporal bodily subjection a change in Seculars 't is this puts him upon that great mistake that the Pastors of the Church are not influenced by the Kingly power of Christ and what is regal in him is given to the Civil Magistrate and who only succeed him in that Office perpetual Government of the Church cap. 10. and Arch-bishop Bancroft confounding these two Powers gives Beza and Cartwright as much advantage in that Particular as their Disciples and Followers can now really wish and because they say that Christ as a King prescribed the form of Ecclesiastical Government being a King the head of the Church doth administer his Kingdom per legitime vocatos pastores by Pastors lawfully called he runs them upon this absurdity that their Autority must be without any controul The Pastors must be all of them Emperors the Doctors Kings the Elders Dukes and the Deacons Lords of the Treasury c. survey of the holy pretended discipline c. cap 24. and yet after all 't is mostly Name◠and Titles that occasions this or the accidental pressing an argument as there will be occasion to consider anon and Bishop Bilson goes on and acknowledges all in effect only Bishops and Pastors are left out and tells us That the Church may be Superior and yet the Pope subject to Princes Princes be Supreme and the Church their Superior the Scriptures be superior to Princes and yet Princes supreme the Sacrament be likewise above them and yet that hindreth not their Supremacy Truth Grace Faith Prayer and other Ghostly Virtues be higher than all earthly States and all this notwithstanding Princes may be supreme Governors of their Countries and which though in over abating Terms and with too scrupulous a fear where no fear ought to be declares as fully as can be the thing it self viz. That Princes are to be subject to the Government in the Church settled by Christ in its Bishops and Pastors and which both as a Prophet a Priest and a King he derives unto them Church-Officers have a Power underived and independent to the Crown only 't is ill worded by the Warden Things Powers Gifts Virtues c. as standing and settled on Earth and not invested in Persons can really be of no force and command at all or rather and which at last will amount to the same will be what every one shall please to make them and the Prince will have as many Supremes as are pretenders to these Gifts of the Spirit and which will be enough as experience taught us this only then can be meant by these Circumlocutions and why it might not have been spoken in down-right terms I cannot imagine that the Bishops and Pastors of the Church with the Bible put into their hands as it is at their Ordination with full autority given for the Offices ministerial have a real Power and are truly Rulers in the Church have a Supremacy and Superiority peculiarly theirs and all that will come to Heaven must come under this Ministry or Government it 's jurisdiction and discipline be they Princes or Subjects on Earth or what ever worldly Government they are possessed of unless he 'l say every Man hath these Ghostly Virtues which can urge a Text of Scripture and which cannot be conceived of him and to this purpose he goes farther pag. 167 168. Though the Members of the Church be subject and obedient to Princes yet the things contained in the Church and bestowed on the Church by God himself I mean the light of his Word the working of his Sacraments the gifts of his Grace and fruits of his Spirit be far superior to all Princes The plain meaning of which can be but this Certain separate Persons invested by God beyond Christians at large with such Gifts and Graces the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and in which respect a good Emperor is within the Church and not above it as St. Ambrose is to this purpose here quoted by him pag. 171. You must distinguish the things proposed in the Church from the Persons that were Members of the Church the Persons both Lay-Men and Clerks by God's Law were the Princes Subjects the things comprized in the Church and by God himself committed to the Church because they were Gods could be subject to the Power and Will of no mortal Creature Pope nor Prince the Prince is above the Persons of the Church not above things in the Church pag. 173. 176. 178. you know we do not make the Prince Judg of Faith we confess Princes to be no Judges of Faith but we do not encourage Princes themselves to be Judges of Faith but only we wish them to discern betwixt truth and error which every private Man must do that is a Christian pag. 174 175 176. he approves of Ambrose's Answer to Valentinian that is was stout but lawful constant but
Scripture that if they shall be diligently compar'd together both between themselves and with the following Practice of all the Churches of Christ as well in the Apostles times as in the purest and Primitive time nearest thereunto there will be left a little cause why any man should doubt thereof § XX AND now I have done only Mr. Selden is once more to be encountred with who appears against all this and says that the Doctors of our Church are quite of a different Judgment and have declared the same to the World in their Writings De Syned l. 1. cap. 10. pag. 424 425. As the two Universities at once Published in the Reign of Henry VIII 1534. called Opus eximium de vera differentia Regiae Potestatis Ecclesiasticae quae sit ipsa veritas virtus utriusque Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester in an Oration de vera Obedientia Joannes Bekinsau de Supremo absoluto regis Imperio with abundance more which he tells us was to have been Printed in King Jame's days but the Printer was in the blame The Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library where an account is given of Henry VIII entrance upon the Reformation 1540. and the Question among others is Vtrùm Episcopus aut Presbyter possit Excommunicare ob quaenam delicta utrum ii soli possint jure divino whether the Bishop or the Presbyter can Excommunicate and for what Offences and whether they alone can do it by Divine Right and about which great Divines were distracted in their Opinions but the Bishop of Hereford St. David Westminster Dr. Day Curwin Laighton Cox Symons say that Lay-men may Excommunicate if they be appointed by the high Ruler or the King and all those Writings in every Bodies hands De primatu regio de potestate Papae Regiâ against Bellarmine Tortus Becan Eudemon Joannes Suarez c. in the time of King James and whose Authors were Bishop Andrews Bishop Buckeridge Dr. Collings Bishop Carlton c. and in which three first Mr. Selden instances a great appearance of Adversaries and considerable withal and did not Mr. Selden give in the Catalogue whose unfaithfulness and imposings I have so oft experienced in this kind would be much more terrible in reality than they at first look appear incouraged therefore by former success I 'le encounter him once more and undertake an Examination of so many of them as I have by me and it is very pardonable if I have not all we that live remote in the Countrey and but poor Vicars there have not the advantage of Sir Robert Cotton's Library cannot attend Auctions or but common Booksellers Shops and have not Money to imploy others especially for the obtaining such Authors as these most of which are out of Print and some very rarely to be had by any and I am the more encouraged to the search just now finding in that Book of Bishop Sanderson's I had so lately occasion to make use of some of these Authors made use of on the contrary side as those who by the occasion of the title of Supreme Head our Church being charged with giving to the Prince the Power Autority and Offices of the Priest openly disavow and disclaim it and I think I may as soon rely upon Bishop Sanderson's report as Mr. Selden's his skill as Divine and Integrity as a Christian can be no ways below him even in the Judgment of Mr. Selden's Friends THE Opus eximium de verâ differentiâ c. § XXXI comes first the work he says of the two Universities I do not know why the Universities are entitled to it but upon Mr. Selden's report for this time will grant it readily because the Autority how great soever is really on my side nor does it answer any thing at all of Mr. Selden's design in producing of it The first Part is De potestate Ecclesiasticâ and is wholly levelled at the Power of the Pope and discovers his Usurpations over the Christian both Kingdoms and Bishops that his pretended both Spiritual and Temporal Plea has no ground either on the Scriptures or Fathers for it is altogether begged and sandy I cannot so much commend the clearness of it when discoursing of Church-Power as in it self and purely in the Donation and which he allows and defends he appearing not to have the true Notion of Church-Laws and stumbles at that so usual block that all Laws must be outwardly Coercive or they cannot be call'd Laws and so can be only in the Prince whom he well enough proves to have alone that Power and what he allows the Church is to make Canons i. e. rules to be receiv'd only by those that are willing but not Laws which enforce with more to this purpose something too crudely and which the then present Age will plead something for Confirmant quidem praedicta potestatem Ecclesiasticam sed Dominum regant tribuunt autoritatem non jurisdictionem admonere hortari consolari deprecari docere praedicare Sacramenta ministrare cum charitate arguere increpare obsecrare certissimis Dei promissis spem in Deo augere gravibus Scripturarum comminationibus a vitiis deterrere eorum sit Proprium qui Apostolis succedunt quibus etiam dictum est quorum remiseritis peccata c. Leges autem poenae judicia coerciones sententiae caetera hujusmodi Caesarum Regum aliarum Potestatum but surely all these are Laws too and have real Penalties if our Saviour himself be a Law-giver and have Autority and do oblige the unwilling only they break in sunder the bonds of Duty on whose Truth these their Admonitions Increpations c. are to be founded by whose Virtue the Sacraments have their Influence and the Power of retaining is executed unless the Pains of Hell are only painted or have no force because not inflicted so soon as denounced there is a Dominion sure goes along with Christ's Kingdom too accompanying his Ordinances only 't is not by the Rules and with the Consequents of the other Jurisdictions of the World and on this account Men have been so unwary as not to discern it to speak against it or unwilling to speak plainly out concerning it a mistake has been observed in others and 't is here pretty aged but 't is most sure and certain this 't is most plain and conspicuous the whether Potestas or dominium autoritas or jurisdictio as they distinguish Power or Dominion Autority or Jurisdiction that is allow'd to be Ecclesiastical is no where in the Treatise attributed to Kings to those that have Secular Dominion this is only eorum qui Apostolis succedunt theirs that succeed the Apostles The second Part is De potestate Regiâ where first the Divine Right of Kings is asserted and then their Power in the Church or over-spiritual things where their Right of Investiture is declared from Gen. 47. and the Priests received their Benefices from them as also over the Power and Persons of the
or to attrectate any thing which is meerly of the Sacerdotal Power as are Leiturgies Sermons the Keys and Sacraments Kings six the Ark in its place those afterwards touch it whose care it is by the receiving the Office of their Ministry and though Solomon's dedication of the Temple implyes something extraordinary yet he denies it to reach to any thing in the Temple which is Sacerdotal sed neque in iis quae sunt pontisicalis muneris regi jus facimus We give the King a right to do no Office which is the Priests semel autem habe sententiam nostram it is a thing so often said by our Doctors that he is a weary ita coccyzare of the Cuckow tone and speaking it so over and over again nos non regi potestatem tribuimus quam habere voluit Osias solam illam quam Josias habuit we do not give to our King the Power of Osias as Tortus says we do but the Power alone of Josias all this and more is to be seen in Tortura Torti from pag. 363 to pag. 370. nor is there any thing more on his side in the responsio ad Bellarminum cap. 1. and to these he refers the Reader so shameless is he in his Quotations and he must first slatter himself into a belief that the pointing of his finger from the Margin is direction and autority enough and supersedes all farther Inquiry Nor is he less disingenuous in his dealings with the Bishop when he there says that he corrected Grotius de sum Potest in Sacr. c. for the Press when Andrews over-rul'd him that he printed it not and it was at last but a posthumous Work So that unless Arch-Bishop Whitgift be an Erastian because Mr. Selden once in his Library at Lambeth saw Erastus's Works neatly bound up in yellow Leather with this Motto in Gold upon the out-side of it Intus quam extra formosior as he tells us and 't is his chief Argument de Syned lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 437. he is like to go without a Doctor in the Church of England on his side for ought I know or as he knew either for he seldom misses a Name that bears but the likelyhood of an Autority hav ' y' any Work for a Cooper I remember makes it the serious part of that scandalous Libel to upbraid our Church and Church-men that the Prince makes them Bishops and Presbyters and their Religion is what the worldly Power pleases with a deal of stuff to that purpose I know not now where that Pamphlet is and 't is not worth searching after though the Author might be a Doctor for ought I know I am only sure he was not a Doctor of our Church Or unless the Lord Falkland turned Doctor as he might deserve it by the larger Character Mr. Dean of Canterbury gives of him joyn'd with Mr. Chillingworth as I remember in the Preface to his first Book of Sermons and then Mr. Selden is secure of one of his side and we of an adversary from within our selves though he impleads us in a different way owns it for our Judgment and states it very well abating some malicious Terms and ranks it among those abundance more Grievances of the Nation and the placing this together with those other is as great an honor he could have done us that we have evidently labour'd to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery equally absolute a blind obedience of the People upon the Clergy and the Clergy upon themselves and inveighs against them altogether according to the then zealous and modish way in that very ill Speech of his to the House of Commons 1641. I 'le repeat part of it as I find it transcribed and printed by a very good friend of his and one that seems to honor him as much as Doctor Tillotson does Mr. Speaker he is a great stranger in Israel who knows not that this Kingdom hath long laboured under many and great Oppressions both in Religion and Liberty and his Acquaintance here is not great or his Ingenuity less who doth not know and acknowledg that a great if not a principal Cause of both these hath been some Bishops and their Adherents Mr. Speaker a little will serve to find them to have been the destruction of Unity under pretence of Uniformity to have brought in Superstition and Scandal under the Titles of Reverence and Decency to have defiled our Churches to have slackned the stictness of that Union which was formerly betwixt us and those of our Religion beyond the Sea an Action as unpolitick as ungodly As Sir Thomas Moor says of the Casuists their business was not to keep Men from sinning but to inform them quà m prope ad peccatum sine peccato liceat accedere So it seemed their Work meaning the Prelates was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves into danger of being destroy'd by Law Mr. Speaker to go yet farther some of them have so industriously labour'd to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspicion that in gratitude they desire to return thither or at last to meet it half way Some have evidently labour'd to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery I mean not the out-side of it only and dress of it but equally absolute a blind Obedience of the People upon the Clergy and the Clergy upon themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the Water nay common fame is more than ordinarily false if none of them have found a way to reconcile the Opinions of Rome to the Preferments of England be so absolutely directly and cordial Papists that it is all 1500 l per Annum can do to keep them from confessing it We shall find them to have both kindled and blown the common fire of both Nations to have both sent and maintained that Book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero Vtinam nescirem literas and of which more than one Kingdom hath cause to wish that when he writ that he had rather burn'd a Library though of the value of Ptolemey's We shall find them to have been the first and principal Author of the Breach I will not say of but since the Pacification at Barwick we shall find them to have been almost sole Abetters of my Lord Strafford whilst he was practising upon another Kingdom that manner of Government he intended to settle in this where he committed so many so mighty and so manifest Enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governor in any Government since Verres left Sicily and after they had call'd him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England all things here being govern'd by a Juntillo and that Juntillo governed by him to have assisted him in giving such Counsels and the pursuing such Courses
be in part a great untruth and both Athanasius Synod Nicen. Cont. heres Arian decreta p. 277 278. Ed. paris et Ep. de Synod Arimini et Seleuciae p. 889. Ep. ad ubique Orthodoxos c. p. 943. and Theodorit Eccl. hist l. 1. c. 5. 12. refer them to the Writings of the eminent Bishops and Doctors who lived an hundred and twenty years before the Synod of Nice and then used this Word Consubstantial in explaining the Divinity of the Father and the Son and 't is what Sandius in effect confesses only he thinks it for the dishonor of the Cause that all the Hereticks that were in the Church before Arius were Homousians hist Enucleat l. 1. and which in truth is only this the worst of Hereticks did not arrive to that height of impudence as to deny so received an acknowledgment in the universal Church Yet what Athanasius replyes upon Arius himself Tom. 1. disputat cum Ario pag. 134. making the Objection is a better answer here that what was in the Council asserted and declared was alwaies in the Scriptures by way of consequence and occasion was not given the Church till the rise and spreading of that Heresie for that particular and precise explication Heresies and Novelties must be and 't is the work of Councils to detect and determine against them but there would be mad work in the Church should that go for Innovation which an upstart Heresie forces the Church in new Terms to state and declare against and explain themselves thereby it must be declamed against as defective in Autority and Precedents because former Doctors had not sagacity enough the very Apostles had not Spirit of Prophecy enough to anticipate the Fictions of every Brain so to word it before-hand that the particular Heresie in its Nicety must be antidated and pre-abide upon Record bassled and contradicted He that reads over St. Jerome lib. 1. Cont. Jovinianum will find him there so urging Chastity as if Marriage it self was a sin and which that Father never design'd as his Opinion and Dailee confesses that he only speaks comparatively and is so to be understood as do and are to be many more of the Fathers cap. 5. de usu patrum though he will not allow it him in other Cases and when to serve his own particular Design of him I mean as to his Judgment of Episcopacy and will have his Epistle ad Evagrium and his Comments on Titus to the same purpose to be absolute and with no regard to those great even just Provocatious from the Bishops in preferring the Deacon before the Presbyters who as he well argues are of so much more Power and higher Order in the Church as that a Bishop is oft call'd a Presbyter in Scripture and Antiquity when so injurious were the Bishops to the Presbyters and so partial to the Deacons and indulgent that the Deacons scorn'd the Presbyters Order qui ignorantes humilitatem status sui ultra Sacerdotes hoc est Presbyteros intumescunt 〈◊〉 putent si Presbyter ordinetur Their nearer attendance on the Bishops Person and familiarity with him with other advantages attending occasioned that they found it an Injury to be promoted to the Presbyters Order as he tells us Comment in Ezek. cap. 48. and which together with the great superciliousness and insulting pride of John Bishop of Jerusalem exercized over him and giving some disturbance to his Monastick ease in the holy Land Ep. 60 61. something raised his spleen and in vindicating his own Order he spared not some little flourishes or Arguments abating of the Episcopate if thereby these indecencies might cease What effects all this had at that time we read not and that it was afterwards lookt upon by the Church as his alone Passion and particular Provocation we have all the reason in the World to believe it all ceased with his Person to be sure if not with the Passion nor do we find any one follower he had or is his Autority ever used against the solitary appropriated Power of a Bishop above a Presbyter 'till of late in these parts of Christendom who thence take the rise for their Schism and 't is the ground they stand upon for the battery and abolishing the whole Order and with-drawing their obedience and which to be sure St. Jerome never did nor attempted and herein they are particularly unlucky they beat down Bishops by St. Jerome's Autority to bring in their Schism and 't is the main Argument they still urge against them in the height of these Divisions and Distractions are now on foot in Europe and then too when they contend that St. Jerome knew no other occasion or use of Bishops but ad tollenda Schismata because Schisms and Divisions cannot be kept out of the Church but by them So that St. Jerome's Autority if any thing in their present Case must be against them and if complying with him they must for the present expedience submit unto Bishops whom they 'l allow to have acknowledged this necessity and usefulness of them what ever reasons else he saw for their institution and continuance 'T is that which Doctor Durel pleads for Arch-Bishop Cranmer that admitting him guilty of Erastianism and he did resolve the Power of the Keys into the Prince as Doctor Stillingfleet says he was and did his present Circumstances will plead much for him and the other Doctors of his time if of the same mind then with him he had been educated in many Errors with which the Church the whole Age at that time abounded and though a Reformation was on foot no wonder if in some Instances he was in the wrong 't was then their work to abdicate the Bishop of Rome and case him of that Primacy and usurpation he had exercised over this Church and it might so happen that in giving to the King what was his he abated too much of the Power of the Priesthood and the Church and which was hers and not to be given to any other and yet even this Error did he see at last acknowledged it to Doctor Leighton submitted to and subscribed the truth against it as the Dean of Windsor tell us he read it in Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript and in his presence And there is enough to be pleaded of this nature in the behalf of those inconsiderable Offers are made against our three eminent Bishops Whitgift Bilson and Bancroft and which will so thoroughly acquit them of the but suspition of Erastianism that the Bill must in course be flung out that is drawn up against them every one knows that is conversant in those their Writings whence Parker's Objections are taken The Point under debate was mostly very near altogether in King Henry VIII day 's betwixt the King and the Pope whether was supreme in the forensick outward Ecclesiastical Courts and Proceedings on the Persons of Men within this his Majesties Kingdom the Pope had usurped it for some time the King reassumes it Religion
it self was not thought to be concerned 't was what was reputed only secular and the most eminent and very near all the Bishops were zealous Sticklers against the Pope or at least submitted to it then when zealous for the Roman Catholick Religion Doctrines and Worship and to which they adhered in King Edward's days and Queen Elizabeth's when the Reformation went on farther and was settled as now by Law in the Church The Supremacy was not then the Characteristical Mark though since to keep up the Parties it is so and which occasioned that warm Dialogue betwixt the Jesuite and Doctor Bilson of which I have given so large an account already the Doctor 's design being to vindicate our Church from the Opinions of Erastus urged in effect upon us by the Jesuite and that by asserting the Prince Supreme in all Causes over all Persons we give not to him any thing that is Church-Power enstated by Christ on the Apostles and by them derived to the Bishops their alone Successors herein this being thus settled and over-ruled against the Romanist another Enemy Man comes with his Tares and which are scattered in the seed-Plot and grow up together with it the Puritan starts up in the midst of us and the Point is That this Power of the Keys is in the Presbytery their Eldership made up of Lay-Men mostly call'd Lay-Elders and these for the greatest part as must be in abundance of Parishes Mechanicks and the meaner sort who have the Power of laying on of Hands Ordaining and Excommunicating nay more these inconsiderable Persons are not only invested with the Power of Bishops and Church-Men but with that Power and Supremacy is by us given to the Prince to Preside over and Govern all Persons and Causes by Process to Cite Summon and Convene before them to implead acquit or condemn amerce or punish even to confinement in their Consistories and no Cause or Person to be exempted if manageable in order to Religion they emulate and succeed the Pope himself and in the highest instances of his pretended Power and Soveraignty even to Summon and Censure Kings of whom Personal Attendance is required now against this it is these Worthies change and wield their Weapons accordingly as a good Fencer is ready at all against these New Popes as they call them and whoso please may read in Bishop Bancroft's Survey of the pretended holy Discipline cap. 22 23 24 25. and in his Book of Dangerous Positions and Proceedings published and practised within the Island of Britain under pretence for Reformation and for the Presbyterial Discipline In Bishop Bilson's Perpetual Government of Christ's Church Cap. 9 10. and Bishop Whitgift's Defence of the Answer to the Admonition Tract 17. pag. 627 628 629 630 c. against these it is their warmth and Argument is spent in Defence of the Rights of the King and Church in scorn and detestation of such those pretending Ignaro's Their words are these with a deal more to this purpose As though Christ's Soveraignty Kingdom and Lordship were no where acknowledged or to be found but where half a dozen Artisans Shoo-makers Tinkers and Taylors with their Preacher and Reader Eight or Nine Cherubins forsooth do rule the whole Parish So Bancroft Dangerous Positions c. l. 2. c. 2. That the King must submit to the Pastor and be content to be joyned in Commission with the basest sort of People if it please the Parish to appoint him and if over-ruled must be contented and the Prince loses all Autority in Ecclesiastical Matters and he must maintain and see executed such Laws Orders and Ceremonies as the Pastor with his Seniors shall make and decree So Bishop Whitgift ibid. p. 656 657. That the Church-warden and Syde-men in every Parish are the meetest Men that you can find to direct Princes in judging of Ecclesiastical Crimes and Causes a wretched state of the Church it must be that shall depend on such silly Governors as Husbandmen and Artisans Ploughmen and Craftsmen and we descend to the Cart for advice in Church-Government So Bishop Bilson Perpetual Government Cap. 10. and if thus in behalf of the Regal and Sacerdotal Power the Magistracy and the Ministry and which are the only Governors of the Church of Christ as they contend against these monstrous sort of People with their High-shoo'd feet and Clowns hands invading both the King and the Church be set as one man to oppose them and their distinct Powers not so nicely and distinctly stated at one time as they are and require an another and appear but as one Weapon that with present advantage it may be wellded against them this is to be imputed to the warmth and zeal of the Disputant whether as Aggressor or Defendant his settled particular judgment is to be fetch'd from his particular designed Decision and Determination in other Cases and when the naked Cause is alone and before him the immediate proper object of his Consideration and it must be confessed neither do I believe the great reason and choicer learning of that excellent Prelate were he now alive again could upon second thoughts extricate himself that Bishop Bilson's Argument against Lay-Elders Cap. 10. Pag. 148. and which Robert Parker so much twits him with is wide of a Conclusion and very ill laid it runs thus I cannot conceive how Lay-Elders should be Governors of Christ's Church and yet be neither Ministers nor Magistrates Christ being the Head and fulness of the Church which is his Body governeth the same as a Prophet a Priest and a King and after his Example all Government in the Church is either Prophetical Sacerdotal or Regal the Doctors have a Prophetical the Pastors a Sacerdotal and the Magistrates a Regal Power What fourth Regiment can we find for Lay-Elders All that can be said is this there appear'd an Argument against a Lay-Elder he was thought thus shut out from having any Place or Power as from Christ not considering the ill distribution of the offices of Christ in general and his bad-placed Successions and more especially the worser consequence that must attend a deriving the Magistrates Power from the Mediatorship and 't is what neither Whitgift nor Bancroft did Consider As a King Priest and Prophet he erected and settled his Church on Earth by virtue of that Commission and All Power given him of the Father Mat. 11. but he did not as such meddle with the Kingdoms on Earth as the Mediator he was himself a Subject and professed and practised Subjection and Obedience demanded only the Subjects right Protection by the Government he found established in the World by his Father But however the present Argument was wrong laid and whencesoever the Magistrates Power is derived 't is all along and by them all supposed and maintained quite different and apart from that of the Ministry or the Priesthood and they are asserted two quite diverse offices and their Powers do not reach to one another I 'le only now instance
in Bishop Bilson Cap. 9. pag. 113. As for Excommunication if you take it for removing the unruly from the Civil Society of the Faithful until they conform themselves to a more Christian sort of life this he takes to be the Power of a Christian Magistrate and he goes on and says I am not averse that the whole Church where he is wanting did and should concur in that action for thereby the sooner when all the Multitude joyn with the Pastor in one Mind to renounce all manner of conversing with such will the Parties be reduced to a better mind to see themselves rejected and exiled from all company but 't is the Pastors charge only to deliver or deny the Sacraments Pag. 114.147 but otherwise Lay-men that are no Magistrates may not challenge to intermeddle with the Pastors Function or over-rule them in their own Charge without manifest and violent intrusion on other mens Callings without the Word and Will of Christ who gave his Apostle the Holy Ghost to remit and retain Sins And so expresly again p. 149. If you joyn not Lay-Elders in those Sacred and Sacerdotal Actions with Pastors but make them Overseers and Moderators of those things which Pastors do this Power belongeth exactly to Christian Magistrates to see that Pastors do their Duty exactly according to the Will of Christ and not to abuse their Power to annoy his Church or the Members thereof neither is the case alike betwixt Pastors and Lay-Elders Pastors have their Power and Function distinguished from Princes by God himself insomuch that it were more than Presumption for Princes to execute those actions by themselves or by their Substitutes To Preach Baptize retain Sins impose Hands Princes have no Power the Prince of Princes even the Son of God hath severed it from their Callings and committed it to his Apostles and they by imposition of hands derived it to their Successors but to cause these actions to be orderly done according to Christ's Commandment and to prevent and redress abuses in the doers this is all that is left for Lay-Elders and this is all that we reserve for the Christian Magistrate and that no other Church-Power was then thought by any to belong to the Prince he was not at all considered as its Subject there was no such thing as a pretence then on foot 't is most plain Cap. 9. pag. 108. and among the many Conceits about the Power of the Keys and Subject this never entred into the heart oâ— any his words are these The Power of the Keys and right to impose Hands I mean to ordain Ministers and to Excommunicate Sinners are more controverted than the other two the Word and Sacraments and which were never questioned by reason that diverse Men have diverse Conceits of them some fasten them on the liking of the Multitude which they call the Church others commit them to the judgment of certain chosen Persons as well of the Laiety as of the Clergy whom they call the Presbytery Some attribute only but equally to all Pastors and Preachers and some especially reserve them to Men of the greatest gifts ripest years and highest calling among the Clergy But there 's none mentioned that they are in the Prince 'T is I know the usual Expression in the Pulpit Prayer and the King is placed next under Christ in these His Majestie 's Realms and Dominions and which as that Prayer it self has no good bottom that ever I could meet with for such the use of it a meer Arbitrary customary thing where did God ever make Christ his Deputy and the King Christ's as to the worldly Powers and Secular things of this life his Commission to our Saviour ran quite contrary and nothing less can be gathered from it this is to found right of Dominion in Grace with a Witness our Kings did not receive or rather reassume it upon these terms nor do they since acknowledge it as so derived King Henry VIII did not and there 's no such thing in any one Act or Statute in his days Doctor Burnet indeed in his Collection of Records gives us two instances wherein the Title of Supreme Head under Christ of the Church of England Supremum Ecclesiae Anglicanae sub Christo Caput The one in the Injunctions to the Clergy made by Cromwel Pag. 178. Num. 12. the other in the Commission by which Bonner held his Bishoprick of the King Pag. 184. Num. 14. but in his Addenda Pag. 305. Num. 1. in the Preamble to Articles about Religion set out by the Convocation and Published by the King's Autority 't is only and in Earth Supreme Head of the Church of England and which is of more Autority than the other because in Convocation It is once or twice used by King Edward before his Injunctions Articles c. and sometimes lest out but no mention of it but never used by Queen Elizabeth in any of hers or in her Proclamations nor is it commanded in her Form of bidding of Prayer nor in the Canons or Form of bidding Prayer in the days of King James 't is neither in the Oath of Supremacy or Allegiance and which is to be seen in the account we have of them by Anthony Sparrow now Lord Bishop of Norwich in his Collection of Canons Articles Injunctions c. and our Seven and thirtieth Article of Religion gives the Queens Majesty that only Prerogative was given all Godly Princes by God himself in Holy Scriptures that which had the Kings of Israel and Judah that which had the Kings of the Gentiles the King of Nineveh in the Prophecy of Jonah and which is an instance I find given by our Divines of the preceding Power in other Princes we contend for and have determined to be in ours and with which if the Prince be not invested he has no Government over his People a great part always will and all may when they will exempt their Persons and Actions from his cognizance and inspection upon pretence of their Faith and Religion but there is not a word of any one Derivation as from Christ nor as the Mediator doth he can he bestow any such Power upon them or are Kings thus under him or any ways then as Members of his Body and as Christians they are to submit to and receive his Laws in order to Heaven and these Laws are to be their Rule in their Government upon Earth which they are to obey and protect which indeed supports and exalts them as Righteousness does a Nation but 't is in and by that Autority they were invested in before Christ and they were indeed in a feeble piteous Case if no other Power to rule with than what the crucifyed Jesus can give them whose Kingdom was not of this World nor did he manage any thing by the Powers of it I know it is the least of the Designs of such that still use this Expression in their Prayers and Discourses and they have great Examples for it and of
only Regnante Christo and the Reign of the Empire is left out though it do no ways infer and prove that all Empire is originally in Christ both as to Spirituals and Seculars and that he that is his Succession the Church has the disposal of the Kingdoms of the World too Primarily and Originally in him as some zealous Parasites of the Roman Faith thence it seems have inferr'd and against whom the main Plot of D. Blondel in this his Book is laid and very well yet this it infers and evidently proves That our Saviour and his Succession the Church have been always supposed to have had a Kingdom in the World not to supplant and overturn to usurp and encroach upon but to bless that other of the World to render it Prosperous on Earth and by her holier Laws and Discipline to bring all to the Kingdom of Heaven when the Reign on Earth is at an end But this D. Blondel could not or would not see himself and therefore a thing too usual with him runs into the opposite extreme to his Adversaries is angry when this very Church-Power and its existence of which himself gives so evident a Demonstration is asserted solitary and not in the Empire as no ways flowing and included in its Constitution as the other will have no Empire but from and in the Church so hard a matter is it for some Men to contend for Truth and against the Church of Rome at once and as has above been observed but these Oversights if no worse are usual with him 't is like his ill luck in other cases § XVIII AND he that duly consults and considers the sundry Proceedings and Laws and judiciary Acts of the Empire about Church-Matters either as interspersed in our Church Histories or as Collected and United in the two Codes the Theodosian and Justinian in their several Laws Novels and Constitutions will readily grant all this and more that the Church and State the Worldly or Secular and Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Power were still consider'd reputed and proceeded on as quite distinct Bodies and Powers though both flowing from the same Original and Fountain yet as diverse as the Soul and Body with several Offices and Duties on each incumbent in different Channels convey'd and all aiming at the great and ultimate end the general advantage of Mankind and each individual both with their faces to the same Jerusalem but in several Paths and Determinations judiciary in order to it Hee 'l find that as the Church the Councils and Bishops were ever Conscientious and Industrious that they entrenched not on the Empire withheld not from it what was its due usurped not any thing was not their own paid all manner of Observances to Kings and Secular Governors in all manner of Duties as Prayers Thanksgiving Instructions Directions Admonitions Tribute Loyalty c. So again did the Empire preserve their Functions Persons and Estates give them Liberties Enfranchisements Protestations unless where Apostates as Julian where overmuch favouring Heresies as some time Constantius c. countenanced and provided for Truth and Holiness and sound Discipline according to the Rules Canons Directions Interpretations and Determinations given by the Bishops assembled in Council or occasionally otherways made and recommended unto them the Church still Petitioned and Supplicated the Empire when by the Affronts and Insolencies the greater Impieties and Obstinacies of the World the edge of their Spiritual Sword was dulled and blunted when Coercive outward Punishments alone could hope to prevail for Peace and Amendment of this we have several Instances upon Record as for the deposing Dioscorus in Evagrius his Ecclesiastical History l. 2. c. 4. in placing Proclus in the Episcopal Throne Socrat. Hist Eccl. lib. 7. cap. 4. which was immediately by Theodosius Maximinianus the defuncts Body being not yet laid in the Ground to prevent the Tumults of the People To this purpose we have the Case of one Cresconius a Bishop who left his own and invaded another's Church and upon a remand from the Council refusing to return the President of the Country is Petitioned and his Secular arm which alone has a Coercive Power over Mens Persons sends him back again according to the Constitutions Imperial Concil Carthag Can. 52. just such another Case as that of Paulus Samosetanus in the days of Aurelian the Emperor above-mentioned and the course of Proceedings we see is the same now as then both in Church and State as that Laws may be made to restrain such as were fled to the Church for refuge Can. 60. that the Riot and Excess be taken away on their Festivals which drew Men to Gentilism again by the obscener Practices and which were without shame and beyond Modesty Can. 65 66. that the Secular Power would come in eò quod Episcoporum autoritas incivitatibus contemnitur because the Power of the Bishops is contemn'd in the Cities Can. 70. ut Ecclesiae opem ferat to assist the Church against these Impieties so strenuous and prevailing Can. 78. as in the Case of the unrulier Donatists Can. 95 96. and the Thanks of the Bishops were given for their Ejection Can. 97. and the Emperor is Petitioned to grant Defensors to the Church Can. 10.109 and as the Church thus supplicated the Empire in these arduous Cases and when its assistance was wanting so on the other side did the Empire still advise with the Church when designing to make Religion the Municipal Law of the Empire to imbody it with the World under the same Sanctions either as to Punishments or Rewards to make it the Religion of the State also they still consulted antecedent Canons or present Bishops in Council or some Ecclesiastical Autority they created nothing anew gave the help of the World for Countenance Assistance and Confirmation to stablish what the Church had put its Sanction upon And those Emperors that designed to discountenance Christianity or set up some particular Heresie and stifle it in part or depose any great Church-men and some such there was they attempted it not but by the Clergy though of their own the Power as in themselves alone was not pretended to they had their own Synods and Bishops in order to it and what they did was done in their Names also and all this will readily appear to any one acquainted with the Canons of the Church and Laws of the Empire or if it seem too hard a task he 'l find it at least attempted to his hand and with Care and Industry reduced to a little room by Photius Patriarch of Constantinople in his Book therefore called the Nomo-Canon to shew the concurrency of the Laws and Canons the Canons still placed first as in course anteceding And in this sense only that of Socrates can be understood in the Proem to his Fifth Book of Ecclesiastical History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reges viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So soon as Kings began to be Christians the things of the Church were managed and accomplished
by them By which things what is there intended and what the Power came into the Empires hand by becoming Christian the next words of the Historian clears making the Instance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the greatest Synods were by their Appointment Summoned and still are so I 'le bring here some instances of the Power and Procedure of the Empire in Church Businesses to render all more conspicuous if possible § XIX AND the first shall be this of Calling Synods just now mentioned the giving leave to Church-men to meet and unite in one Body in a certain place of the Empire limited to them Publickly to enquire examine debate and determine in Religion in which Councils if the Emperor himself was not present in Person he deputed some chief Minister of State there to represent him Thus Constantine himself sat in Person in the Case of Cecilianus and the Donatists Miltiades and the Bishop of Rome and the Clergy debating it as St. Austin tells us lib. 1. cont Parmen Donatist and Flavius Marcellinus is deputed afterwards by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius in a Collation of that Nature as a Secular Cognitor and Supervisor 16. Cod. Theodos Lex 3. Tit. 11. they exercised a Power and Cognizance over all Persons in these Causes and Meetings they were then their Subjects as before and whom they commanded and though such Members were obliged at the Summons of the Bishops themselves and by consent among one another to be present at the Council to come in and appear there Can. 80. Concil Carthag yet the Emperor retain'd a Power above them and they might be absent altogether or depart after they had appeared if the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his Letters required it Concil Sardicens Can. 7. they had a Power over the very Causes themselves in these Conciliary Clerical Debates and Determinations and were Judges here If all that was determined seem'd not duly reported or adjusted every ways clear and plain unto them if scruples and doubts notwithstanding remain if new matter proposed and adjudged considerable by the adverse Parties De Clericis judicantibus Praesidet Imperator ipse prout malè vel benè Judicat 16. Cod. Theodos l. 42. Tit. 2. and which Law though instancing in some Immunities as to Publick Secular things yet holds in other Decisions So Constantine heard the Cause of Cecilianus and the Donatists a second time when the Bishops had heard it before and Myltiades of Rome was there as above in St. Austin And it was the suit of the Bishops in the Council of Chalcedon that it might be decreed by a Law that all things at Ephesus since the first Synod there of which St. Cyril of Alexandria was Chief should not retain any force implying it in his Power to revise and reconsider and he may reexamine the Actions of Councils Compend Act. Synod Chalced. apud Evagrium Eccl. Hist l. 2. cap. 18. And Petrus de Marca gives us several instances of the like nature of Appeals made to the Empire upon the results of Councils and he accepted them De Concord Sacerd. Imper. l. 7. c. 2. that the Emperor had directed and limited in what Points and how far to proceed calling Councils only for particular occasions as De Marca Ibid. lib. 6. c. 22. and all this the Security of the Empire required in the common course of things that no Men imbody or unite locally upon any Plea whatever or Pretence of what Business soever and not by his Warrant under his Oversight and Protection whose Designation and Commissions come not from him and all which Christianity supposes and declared for upon its admission into the World and Kingdoms imbracing of it it appoints every Man wherein he was called there to abide if a state of Honesty and Justice not of that filthiness sometimes reign'd among the Gentiles and many times had a Chief Place in what they called Religious Worship this Christianity was designed to rectifie and remove but continue to Caesar the things that are Caesar's adds new Obligations to Government and gives new Arguments for Obedience to it but cancels no one takes no one subject in any one instance from under his Jurisdiction nor can any Governor be secure upon other terms that has so many Persons so considerable as so many Professors are or at least may be with Power to associate in his Jurisdictions as they shall please and when and not in all instances relating to such their imbodying his Subjects or though if not able to meet without his Call yet when together and not under his Inspection and Jurisdiction not Govern'd by his Rules and Laws with a Power to canvass and unhinge to insinuate and propose and manage as they shall list and how long in Ordine ad Spiritualia if they judge it useful to Religion This is the same in effect as to meet at their Wills no Government can bear it can subsist on such conditions all must or may at the Pleasure or Piques of such the associated be undermined and ruined Again the Empire is engaged as to preserve the Laws of the Church then in being so that in making new ones those the old be not entrenched upon and affronted or that the repeals be upon equitable accounts and agreeable with the Catholick Faith certainly received with former Sanctions of either their Ancestry or their own and these we find the Rules and Directions given by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius to Flavianus Marcellinus their Secular Cognitor in the Debates about the Donatists Ea quae circa fidem Catholicam vel certa ordinavit antiquitas vel Parentum nostrorum autoritas Religiosa constituit vel nostra Serenitas roboravit Novella Superstitione remotâ inviolata custodire praecipimus suprà Cod. Theodos 16. Tit. 11. l. 3. and indeed it were an Imposition not to be indured in common Business betwixt one man and another when but a private Consent Confirmation and Autority is desired to deny liberty of Enquiring Demurring Discoursing or Debating or whatsoever may seem best to tend to Information as to particulars and then how insufferable if not allow'd the Prince when supplicated and call'd in by the Church to make Laws give the Royal Assent Stamp and Character and Protection to their Results and Determinations and which otherwise must want the edge and advantage of it and not upon a freedom to consider former Laws and Canons made and ratified with future inconveniences that may happen this were indeed to make Princes Lacqueys Hackneys or what vile and mean enough we can say to the Church to debase them into the order of Ideots or Pageants all true Church-men in their Offers and Proceedings have started at and abhorr'd it But then we are to note farther that when the Emperors appear'd in Councils whether themselves in Person or by their Proxies and Substitutes the most Politick and Prudent the more Acute and Ingenious as Theodosius or any other they acted there
in assuming of it he did not design to infringe and invade any Power of the Church and it least of all Vindicates Mr. Selden's innocency in urging them with whose Reputation it is as little consistent to say he is ignorant of the Statute Book being by Profession a common Lawyer § XXIII THE ancient Papers in the Cottonian Library seem to be the very same with that Manuscript of Doctor Stillingfleet's at least to be upon the same occasion and which the Doctor publish'd in part in his Irenicum and since it seems he thought it not publick enough there communicated it to his Friend Doctor Burnet and who has Printed it at large in the Third Book of his History of the Reformation of the Church of England and they seem to bear date about the same time according to the Computation given by John Durell since Dean of Windsor in his Ecclesiae Anglicanae Vindiciae Cap. 28. placing it in the Days of Henry 8th and so has Doctor Burnet since Correcting Doctor Stillingfleet's Mistake that it was in a Conference in the days of Edward VI. and entitling it to the Autority of the Reformation and though Doctor Stillingfleet only mistook in the time yet both he and Burnet have joyn'd together in that which is worse and have dealt unfaithfully in the transcribing of it if we may believe the Dean of Windsor's account who tells us in his forementioned Vindiciae out of the Manuscript it self which Dr. Stillingfleet gave him the opportunity to peruse that when Archbishop Cranmer had affirmed 1. That it was not only in the Power of a Bishop to create a Presbyter but in the Power of a Prince yea in the Power of the very People to create a Presbyter 2. That he who under the Gospel is designed a Bishop or Presbyter wants no Consecration that the Election and Designation is enough in order to it and Leighton a Doctor of Divinity gave his Opinion in these words 1. I suppose a Bishop according to Scripture to have Power from God as his Minister of creating a Presbyter though he ought not to promote any to the Office of a Presbyter or admit to any other Ecclesiastical Ministry in a Common-wealth unless the leave of the Prince be first had but that any other have Power according to Scripture I have neither read nor learned by Example 2. I suppose Consecration to be necessary as by imposition of hands for so we are taught by the Examples of the Apostles such says the Dean was Cranmer's Candor and so great his love of Truth he doubted not to yield to this Opinion of Leighton's and this is plain in Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript in which is to be seen Th. Cantuariensis set with his own hand below Leighton's Name in token of his Approbation of it and of which both the Doctors have given no account to the World being omitted in two Impressions Why Doctor Stillingfleet did leave out this passage in his Irenicum 'tis plain because it thwarts his particular design and he had lost the advantage of so considerable a Name and Autority as Cranmer's before his most false Assertion That Ordination is not appropriated to Bishops and for which in that Treatise he so contends it takes down somewhat of their Top-gallant As I remember somewhere in that Book he expresses their solitary Power he wondred no question with himself how at those years he could find out such a Book to present the World with and indeed well he might and when he had read so far as served his present turn went no farther otherwise he would have enquired also a little better into the time when this conference was and not obtruded it on the World as done by the Autority of our Reformation though 't is agreeable enough with the following Testimonies of the Bishops and Doctors of our Church in the same point of Episcopacy and which to say no worse of them are lame and imperfect as is here his account of the Manuscript But what should move Doctor Burnet to omit it I cannot imagine that it was not his purpose to leave Cranmer to Posterity as either an Erastian or Independent and of which he is justly to be suspected otherwise this is plain from his own account of him Lib. 3. Pag 289. where he tells us In Cranmer's Paper relating to this very Conference some singular Opinions of his about the Nature of Ecclesiastical Offices will be found but as they are delivered by him with all possible Modesty so they were not established as the Doctrine of the Church but laid aside as particular Conceits of his own and it seems that afterwards he changed his opinion and having said this why might he not have Printed out the whole Manuscript and which is but the very same thing only more satisfactory to the World and the Doctor had dealt more clear and ingenuous in the Matter nor is he quite to be acquitted from some little sinister end and clawing therein a thing not to the advantage of an Historian especially since he Printed out of another part of that Manuscript the Archbishops judgment so fully with Eight other Bishops concerning the Supremacy denying the Prince any Church-Power thereby and which is peculiar only to those that are chosen and sent by Christ Jesus as his Father sent him into the World and invested him with it and also in a Declaration of the Function and Divine Institution of Bishops and Priests Subscribed by him and the Archbishop of York and Eleven Bishops and Twenty Divines and Canonists declaring that the Power of the Keys and other Church Functions is formally distinct from the Power of the Sword Printed in his Addenda Num. 5. at the end of his History and indeed that Archbishop Cranmer did so alter his Judgment as the Dean of Windsor tells us he did in Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript there is Evidence sufficient from the alone Book of Ordination and the Preface to it which was composed and made publick by him and others to be sure some of them these very Bishops and Doctors mentioned there and by Mr. Selden in his Cottonian Manuscript it being done in the first year of King Edward's Reign and where the Orders of Ministers wholly depend on the Apostles and their Institution but when all is said and done that can be such particular Conferences as these if duly considered and in their Circumstances can avail little for or against either Party nor can Cranmer's Opinion or any other Doctors be reported with Justice out of any such their Papers The greatest advantage the Reformation had in the days of King Henry VIII was that every one had encouragement to think and liberty to offer and in Conferences some must act the adverse part and every thing must be stated and proposed and urged too and though the opportunity and curiosity of some did not do amiss in collecting and preserving such Discourses yet I cannot but think it less Discretion in Printing and
Publishing them and least of all to say no worse in urging them as the sense and judgment of our Reformers and not to be endured when in opposition to our received and established Church Articles Laws Rubricks and Book of Ordination which and which alone upon the full enquiry and debate each Proposal and Objection and which must be many answered and satisfaction given is to be concluded the sense of every particular Doctor and admit the Conference had been as Doctor Stillingfleet Mistook it appointed by King Edward and his Council and by Law in order to the Reformation and which was began in that King's days the Judgment of the Church of England was to have been reported not from the particular bandyings pro and con amongst them or the draught or draughts of any one or more men and which in their Season was useful nay necessary but from the joynt unanimous result of the whole and which we are sure as to that particular of Church-Power and its Subject ended and united in the Book of Ordination nor upon a general account can those Collections whether in the Cottonian or any Library be in any better repute among us than any other of all the Pamphlets Models of Church and State Government Attempts and Proposals the late unhappy Revolutions in our Kingdom gave occasion to and produced the Condition as to Religion being just such in King Henry VIII days as it was then and the Autorities an Hundred years hence if all shaked in a bag together will be much at one too every man contrived said proposed and wrote as his own either Fancy or Interest or Curiosity or sometimes Reason prompted and directed him and though they may make a Pleasant History with much of diversion yet little of the Sense and Autority of the Nation can be collected and urged from them I am now come to the last of Mr. Selden's § XXIV Friends and our supposed Adversaries those general Tracts De Primatu Regio de potestate Papae regiâ adversus Bellarminos Tortos Becanos Eudemon Joannes Suaresius c. mostly in the days of King James and which were wrote by Lancelot Bishop of Chichester John Collins and the Bishop of Rochester The two last I have not by me nor do I remember I ever saw nor is it of any concern whether I have Bishop Andrews either in order to the answering what is by Mr. Selden brought against him any one that has but heard of that once flourishing Prelate in this Church will easily grant him on our side and much more must he that has read and conversed with his Works find him so and indeed all that Mr. Selden brings out of him and the other two is really ours so far as he reports them to have asserted that the execution of all Ecclesiastical forensick Jurisdiction and by consquence that of Excommunication receives measures and is ruled by the King and his Laws as Head and Moderator and Governor of the Church and Realm and so it ought to be whereas with us the Prince and Realm is Christian and the Church-censures are backed and supported by his Penal Laws in course annexed to and following them the Prince cannot be supposed so void of foresight as to leave himself no Power of inspection in such Proceedings as thus to put his Power into another Man's hands and who is not accountable to him in the Execution Thus the King's Autority is capable of being used against himself and it must in course so happen to his best Subjects 't is that traiterous Position to be abhorr'd and 't is peculiarly provided that it be so and publickly too by the Laws of our Land in the Act for Vniformity of Publick Prayers and it is a great deal more horrible in Church-Affairs as more immediately entitling our Saviour therewith the great abhorrer of all and who we are sure renounced all Pleas in dividing and disposing in Seculars and did all the Power Bishops legally execute in this Kingdom or in others that are Christian belong to them as of Divine Right or was it any other ways so devolved and sixed upon them as thereby enabled in an Arbitrary way of Proceeding without the leave or against the Power of the King with no respect to the Laws and Customs of the Realm to put it in Execution the Bishop and the King thus Independent were also inconsistent any thing or person may and must be inroded and offer'd violence to when the Bishop will and the greatest worldly Punishments next under Capital whenever or upon what Grounds soever he is pleased to Excommunicate be necessarily inflicted this is Imperium cum Jove to erect an Empire within an Empire and no Governments thus divided and distributed can stand and I heartily wish such as upon these Considerations most readily detest it in the Bishop would make their Reflexions in other Persons and Cases also But if Mr. Selden mean as he must do if he continue on the design of his Book that Church-Power and Jurisdiction as such and coming from Christ naked and void of all outward Secular Additions and implies only the forfeiture as a Christian with no one worldly inconvenience no forfeitures of Personal outward Liberty or Estate that the execution and force of this depends on the Prince and Humane Pleasure to temperate restrain and abolish nor is it duly exercised other ways this is overthrown already throughout this Discourse and I 'le only add the Autority of Mr. Selden's mistaken Friend but our real one the great and most learned Bishop Andrews who all along in those very Pages to which Mr. Selden in his Margin refers asserts the quite contrary and the Power of the Prince and the Priest are declared by him two distinct things and not in Subordination he tells us how God instituted in Israel a Kingdom and a Church and which never coaluerunt in unum procul se habuit Imperium ab Ecclesiâ so came together by coalition as to make one but were still diverse and two things had different Works and Offices and thence concludes Conjungi debent Regnum Ecclesia confundi non debent they ought to be united but not confused together and he reckons up the several Offices and Duties of the Prince to take care of Religion in general to see that every Order do their Duties to reprove to correct and coerce in order to it Non licuisse tamen Davidi arcam contingere so Tortus objects upon him and to which he answers Nec regi quidem nostro licet nec ulli aut Sacra administrare aut attrectare quicquam quod potestatis sit mere Sacerdotalis ut sunt Leiturgiae conciones claves Sacramenta arcam figunt suo loco reges attingant post illi quos ea cura tangit ex suscepto munere Ministerii sui But it was not lawful for David to touch the Ark neither is it lawful for our King nor for any either to administer holy things