Ordained whereas it is Christ that communicates the Pastoral Power and Authority by his Charter of the Gospel the Power is deriv'd from Christ not from the Ordainers As the Major of a City has his Authority from the Charter granted by the King and not from the Recorder who invests him in his Office And yet neither is this true that an inferiour Officer may not invest one of a superiour Order in his Office else what have the Bishops to do at the Coronation of Kings unless you will make the Regal to be an Inferior Office to that of the Bishop which if you do you may next pretend to an absolving and deposing Power too But you tell us again That we do not find in Scripture That to mere Presbyters any such Authority was ever committed nor are there any Footsteps of it in Antiquity And we tell you That we find not in Scripture nor in Antiquity that this Authority was ever committed to any other than Presbyters But if you insist That they must not be mere Presbyters we Reply 1. How do you prove that either Simeon that was called Niger or Lucius of Cyrene or Manaen who were commanded from Heaven Act. 13.1 2. to ordain Paul and Barnabas were any of them at that time more than mere Presbyters as to Matter of Office 2. Where do you find in all the Books of the New Testament not only that a mere Bishop but that any one single Person whether Bishop or Evangelist or Apostle or any other besides our Lord Jesus Christ himself did ever celebrate this Ordinance of Ordination without the assistance of some others more or less of the Presbytery If you instance in Paul's ordaining Timothy with his own Hands will that prove that it was with his own Hands alone especially while he tells us so expresly in words at length and not in figures That it was done by the Hands of the Presbytery 3. We will propose you a Case which is possible tho' we hope will never be real Suppose the Churches of Christ should be reduc'd to a very few and the Bishops of these few should all turn Hereticks or Persecutors of the Orthodox and cast them out of their Communion the Presbyters retaining their Integrity These Presbyters by your Doctrin cannot ordain so much as a Presbyter to continue a Succession much less can they create a Bishop to do it Must the whole Church then be extinct for lack of a Bishop to Head them Or would you expect to have one rais'd from the Dead or sent back out of Heaven to do it 4. As for Antiquity There is nothing more clear than that in the Primitive Churches the Bishops and their Presbyters alway acted in Conjunction in all Acts of Church Discipline both of Excommunication Restauration Confirmation and Ordination And in the Banishment or Absence of their Bishops the Presbyters alone without the presence of any other Bishop did by his order and allowance which he could not have done had it not been a thing in it self lawful execute all that the Bishop was to have done in Person among them Nay St. Jerom will tell you that the Presbyters have Power to Ordain a Bishop over them and invest him with his Episcopal Authority as they did at Alexandria Sir There was a Time within the Memory of Man that Our Bishops were banished from their Clergy in England and what was the Whole Church of England then extinct and cut off from the Head Christ Doth eternal Salvation go and come with Lawn-Sleeves Yet once more you tell us That the Office which Timothy had was given him by Prophecy 1 Tim. 4.14 Or according to the Prophesies which went before of him 1 Tim. 1.18 His Ordination therefore must have been an extraordinary Thing and not to be drawn into Precedent except in parallel Cases But our Pastors you suppose do not pretend that they are mark'd out by Prophecy 1. We answer These Prophesies whatever they were concerning Timothy respected his Person and not the manner of his Ordination 2. It is very probable that the Apostles had a more than ordinary Direction relating to the choice of Ministers or Church-Officers many times in their Days Acts 20.28 It is there said That the Elders of the Church of Ephesus were made Overseers of their Flocks by the Holy Ghost i. e. as some think their Choice and Nomination was by Direction of the Holy Spirit of God And Clemens Romanus says That the Apostles in those Days ordained Bishops or Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Discerning by the Spirit and having a perfect Knowledge whom they should Ordain But what is all this to the way of Ordaining by Presbyters is an extraordinary Thing and not to be drawn into Precedent It 's probable that it had been foretold by some one or other that Timothy would be a faithful and eminent Minister of Christ who but you would have concluded from thence That his Ordination by Presbyters was an extraordinary Case 3. May you not as pertinently argue That none of the Ordinations done by the Imposition of the Hands of the Apostles are to be drawn into Precedent because these were extraordinary Cases the Apostles being extraordinary Persons who had an extraordinary and immediate Mission from Christ himself nor do we know of any Bishops that now pretend to be marked out by an immediate Call from Christ or any Prophecy of their extraordinary Vsefulness that have gone before of ' em But Sir Before you had given your self and us all this Trouble to so little purpose you had done much better to have sate down and considered how you could have answered Mr. John Owen's ten Arguments from Scripture and Antiquity Owen's Plea for Scripture Ordination proving Ordination by Presbyters without Bishops to be valid to which to save Labour of Transcribing we refer those that are willing to see much more on this Subject III. The Declamation which you make against popular Ordination we are not at all concern'd in but join with you in our hearty Wishes that they that are would deeply consider it Now to conclude this your third Section Having read out our Indictment in all the Articles of it and examin'd it after your manner you come to sum up the Evidence or what you call Evident and bring in the Bill against us that we have in all these Respects exceeded the Novatians Donatists and Meletians But before you proceed to your Damnatory Sentence we hope your Charity will take into Consideration what we have already so briefly offer'd in our own Defence and what we have yet further to plead for our selves as your following Discourse shall give us Occasion Your fourth Section in which you pretend to blow us wholly up Sect. 4. and to beat us out of all our Fasinesses and not to leave us a Rag to cover our Nakedness with is a Collection of just half a dozen of some little Things which you have pickt up some-where behind
Service of your Hypothesis and on the Judgment and Practice of the Faithful in the purest Ages alias the most Popish Ages so that you presume your Inference is clear That all those who have separated without just Cause from the outward Communion of that Church with which they ought or with which you will say they ought to hold Communion and so persisting in that Separation tho' otherwise never so Orthodox or Holy have hereby so cut themselves off from the Body of the Vniversal Church that they can do nothing that can qualify themselves or others for Communion with it So that by this your Rule of Catholick Vnity in outward Communion all those Persons and Churches that herein agree not with you are not of the Body nor united to the Head and then must necessarily be in a state of Damnation Woe be then to all those poor Churches that are to your Constitution and way of Government and Worship Strangers But by the way give us leave to ask you How it comes to pass that Baptism and Ordination received in the Church of Rome are accounted valid in your Church of England and yet Ordination in any Protestant Church that 's not of your Constitution accounted Null Or for what politick Reason is their Baptism allowed and their Ordination only Condemn'd Is it because the Church of Rome never separated from you nor you from it as all the other Protestant Churches have done Who must therefore be all abandon'd by you as Harlots that deserve to be ston'd while Rome is own'd for your Sister or your Mother and of the same Catholick Body with you Either own the Relation or renounce the Title of Protestant Will you say that these Churches were never in Communion with you and therefore did not go out from you Suppose this were true of the main Body of them that they were never in particular outward Communion with the Church of England tho' before the Reformation they were in the same Church with you and many of those and of their Children who were once actually in particular Communion with you went out from you on the same Account as we do yet supposing it otherwise How little will this help Them more than Vs as to the Oneness of the outward Communion of the universal Church in the Sense that you take it and urge it on Vs And now that we are upon Enquiries with you Pray be not offended if we ask you once more What think you of our first Protestant Reformers Before they actually separated from the Church of Rome were they not Members of that Church and in outward Communion with it If not how could they be said to separate from it But if they were let us ask you again was that Church of which they were then Members a true Church of Christ or not If not then that Church and all the Members of it was not united to the Head and consequently was no Church nor by your Rule of Catholick Vnity could do any thing to qualify themselves or others for Communion with any part of the Catholick Church and from whom then did your Church of England or any of the Reformed derive their Succession and Authority from the Apostles But if it was a true Church how could they according to your Notion of Catholick Vnity separate from it without involving themselves in the guilt of Schism with which you now charge us May we not hence conclude that to separate from a true Church of Christ that retains the Essentials of a Church is not always Schismatical nor a Solution of Catholick Vnity Will you tell us that these had a Warrant by a Call from Heaven to justify their Separation Rev. 18.4 2 Cor. 6.17 But on what Reason was this Call grounded Come out of her my People that ye be not Partakers of her Sins And doth not the same Call reach Vs as far as the Reason is the same Tho' the Sins of the Church of Rome were greater than those of the present Church of England yet what is Sin is Sin still and will by your own Concessions so far justify our Separation and on no other Account do we desire or pretend to justify it The Separatists condemn'd in Scripture and with whom you would sort Vs and so represent us to the World were Men of very ill Character as to their Morals Persons given up to Sensuality walking after their own ungodly Lusts tho' veild under a Form of Religion yet by their corrupt Lives they were visibly to be discern'd Now let the impartial part of the World judge whether this be so much our Character as the Character of those by whom we are thus Censur'd That the Fathers and Bishops of the first Ages were very jealous of the Union of their Churches and an intire Obedience to their Ecclesiastical Rulers very Passionately and sometimes Hyperbolically declaiming against Separation or setting up Pastors without the Approbation of their own Bishops is not to be denyed and for which they had some prudential Reasons The Christian Church was then in its Infancy and therefore requir'd a stricter Hand of Government over it for the preservation of its Unity in Communion the Faithful were not so well settl'd and experienced in their Way their Dangers were many ways extraordinary not only from the Heathen Persecutors but from the Jewish Bigots which were in so many Places dispers'd among them and had so troublesome and ensnaring an Influence on the young Gentile Converts Besides the many false and seditious Teachers which the Devil had Sown as his Tares almost every where among them the Orthodox Presbyters too few and generally too weak to deal with so many so potent and so subtil Enemies or to be entrusted with the Conduct of the Church without the Counsel and Direction of its prime Guides and Governours Besides the Honour and Satisfaction of Sovereign Rule and Dictatorship is what was ever very pleasing to Nature So that all these things consider'd we have no reason to wonder at the Heat of their Spirits in this Case And indeed the Church had then very great Reason to bless God for this their Zeal and most religiously to observe them in it especially while they had no cause to dissent or divide themselves on the account of any Heresies they Taught them or any disputable unscriptural Impositions that were required as the Conditions of their Communion with them There were no such Things exacted of Them as have been of Vs and our Teachers which made their Obedience easy and indisputable And you may observe that the great Reason of their Care to preserve the Unity of the Churches outward Communion was not to uphold a few unnecessary Ceremonies but to preserve the Purity of its spiritual Worship and Doctrin which was infinitely more valuable and consequential a circumstantial variety of the external Forms of Church-Administrations would have done the Church no more harm than the variety which we see in every Species
say in behalf of our Ministers must be referr'd to your Third and most consequential Article of our Indictment as its more proper Place and which we are now next to enter on and it runs thus III. That the Pastors we have chosen have no lawful Call to the Ministry This indeed if it could be prov'd were enough to convict both Vs and Them for Schismaticks Those Dissenters that think themselves unconcern'd in this Matter we are not now to answer for nor are we concern'd in what you say of them And as for the Philadelphians we know not what they are expecting but might we once see the Church of England reform'd according to the Scriptures we would expect a better Clergy than most of them now are I. The Ministers whom we profess to own and to follow you confess to have had some of them Episcopal Ordinations and others only Presbyterial Of the former you are willing to allow for the Honour of your own Church not only the validity of their Ordination but an eminency of Personal Abilities but in the exercise of their Abilities you fancy that they are some of those of whom Ignatius says they serve the Devil and your great Reason is not that they are Men of debauched and scandalous Conversation or of false and corrupt Doctrin but because they refuse to obey their Ordinary as you say they solemnly promis'd to do that is you think they have broken their Oath of Canonical Obedience To this we answer for them that if any of 'em have inconsiderately enslav'd themselves and betray'd the Liberties of the Church by an Oath or Promise to any Man Ordinary or Extraordinary to obey them any further than the Apostle requir'd to be obey'd by the Churches 1 Cor. 11.1 viz. as far as he himself obey'd or followed Christ we think 't is time for them to repent of such an Oath And whereas you tell us They can't expect a blessing on their Work while they continue in the Breach of such an Engagement We have as great Reason to think they can't expect a Blessing in keeping it at least being now perswaded of the Evil of it But yet our Charity obliges us to believe that they took that Oath in no larger Sense than is consistent with the Rules of the Gospel and are sure that it is no otherwise binding to ' em And this we hope you will not call a new or strange Doctrin in the Christian Churches Neither is this to degrade all Bishops or to abrogate their Office or overthrow their Chairs as you with so ill Design suggest but to reduce them to that Scripture-Foundation on which alone they may be more gloriously and firmly Established We cannot but remark with how light a Touch you pass by the Foreign Protestant Churches as one that is afraid of burning his Fingers pretending to have nothing to do with them on a Supposition which you are willing to allow that you may so rid your Hands of 'em that their Call to the Pastoral Office was extraordinary for which you quote something out of Calvin and Beza tho' little to your Purpose In what Sense these Churches understand the extraordinariness of their Call they themselves are best able to inform you Did they ever any of them pretend to be rapt up into the third Heavens where Paul once was there to receive a new Call and Commission differing from what Christ and his first Apostles delivered to and left with the Churches By what Angel or Bathkol or Vision do they say this Extraordinary Call was given them When and on whom was it that the Holy Spirit came down in the Form of Cloven Tongues to Seal them a Commission to go out and Preach another Gospel and to lay a new Foundation of the Gospel Ministry Can you bring us any Tidings of any thing like this out of their Writings or if you could would you not easily answer it by Gal 1.8 But how far are they from such vain Dreams as these Mons Turretin will tell you in what Sense they take their Call to have been Extraordinary Turretin de Necessâ—ria Secessione 〈◊〉 Eccles Rom. p. 228. Si Ordinarium dicitur quod Ordini primitus divinitus instituto est Consentaneum potest dici nostra Vocatio Ordinaria sed si equivoce pro eo sumiâ—ur quod inveterata consuetudine qualiscunque illa sit publice est acceptum extraordinaria dicenda erit quia plurimum abfuit ab ea Consuetudine More qui in Ecclesia Romana inoleverat If Ordinary be taken for that which is agreeable to the Order of Primitive and Divine Institution then our Call is Ordinary but if it be taken equivocally for that which is by long Custom of any kind commonly receiv'd then may it be call'd Extraordinary because so very different from that use and manner which had so long obtain'd in the Church of Rome You see now in what Sense they take their Call to be Extraordinary The Deliverance of the Church out of Mystical Egypt and Babylon was indeed an Extraordinary Deliverance but their Call to the Ministry was the Ordinary Call of the Gospel that Spirit of Wisdom Faith Patience Zeal Self denyal by which they were divinely influenced in their Reformation was Extraordinary and it had been better for the Church of England if her's had not been in this respect too Ordinary In the same Sense as the Reformation of Johosaphat Hezekiah and Josiah was Extraordinary in comparison of that of some other Good Kings who are noted for sparing the High Places so may the Call of these Foreign Churches be said to be Extraordinary M. Claud History of the Reformation Part 4. p. 86. 89. but that they acted by the ordinary Rule of the Holy Scriptures and the Practice of the Primitive Church they constantly affirm O Sir How poor an Escape have you endeavour'd to make this way that you may seem to be a little more Courteous to Foreigners than to your own Country-Men how pitiful a Go by is this and as foreign to Calvin's Sense as these Churches are to Your's What a strain will it cost you now to deliver your self from the Hornes of this Dilemma either to acquit Vs of what you have charg'd us with or condemn all the Protestant Churches in the World that are not of your Constitution and Communion And Excommunicate us all as Heathens and Hereticks that have no Gospel-Ministry nor Ordinances among them as the Church of Rome doth whom you hereby justify in all their Persecutions and barbarous Severities against them which looks very ill in a Protestant especially at such a Time as this But that our Ministers have not taken upon them the sacred Function in a new Way that was never approv'd in ancient Times shall be prov'd as you demand by a sight of their Patent and Commission if you have Eyes to read it in its proper Place II. Next you prepare to bring on your Tryal against a