* in 2 Cor. hom 18. in Ep. ad Coloss hom 3. Peace be unto you and that the people answered And with thy spirit The same author relating how the people did in another part of the Service answer the minister saying Let us give thanks to our Lord God it is meet and right say the people so to do addeth †Chrysost in 2 Cor. hom 18. in 2. Epist ad Corinth hom 2. why should any marvel that the people should thus in the publick prayers speak with the Priest seeing they send up unto Heaven with the Cherubims and Caelestial powers those holy Hymnes one reason of this is in the same place intimated by Chrysostome which is to manifest unto the people that the prayers of the Church are not proper to the minister but theirs also by joyning with him in them which is more fully testified by their proper prolation of some part of them then onely by their presence and saying Amen Another reason may be the same which the same Father giveth of the Deacons exciting the people saying Let us pray and let us pray more fervently and the reason is because the Soul is wont to slumber in a long prayer Tâ—â— Fathers of the Council of Bracar require the Bishop or Prâ—â—â—yter to salute the people in due place in the Divine service saying the Lord be with you to which the people should answer and with thy Spirit which ceremony saith the Council all the East retained as delivered by the Apostles The Song of the three Children was generally received into the Liturgies of the Churches in this fourth Century Conc. toletam Ep. c. 13. It is a tradition that the Hymne Te Deum landamus c. We praise thee O God We acknowledge thee to be the Lord c. was comdosed by Ambrose and sung by Ambrose and Augustine after his Baptism Anastasius Bishop of Rome enjoyned all to stand at the reading of the Gospel after which followed the custome of standing at the reading of the Creed Hierome writing against Vigilantius affirmeth that in all the Churches of the East when the Gospel was to be read candles were lighted the sun shining not surely to drive away darkness but for a sign of gladness In the time of these last named Doctors the Feasts of Saints were more in number and celebrated with more solemnity then in former times Therein the Feast of our Saviours Nativity was generally observed and in the ancient Fathers sense said to be instituted by the Apostles whereas no approved Author of the former Centuries make mention of it Chrysostome in a sermon of his preached by him not long before the year 400 affirmeth Chrysost serm in natalem that Feast not to have come to the knowledge of the Churches among which he lived but ten within years before the preaching of that Sermon Tert. de idololatria c. 14. Vide Georgium in locum alios And many Learned men collect from Tertullian that in his time no other Feasts were commanded to be celebrated in the Churches that he knew of save onely the Lords day Easter and Pentecost I say not this out of any dislike of this holy Feast Ubi multorum strages jacet subtrahendum est aliquid severitati ut addatur amplius charitati vide conc Rom. 3. an 1099. or any other which we receive from those ancient times which without the adherent abuses I do heartily wish to be celebrated with due solemnity but by this example to shew that every thing had not a beginning in the Apostles time which is affirmed to be thence derived and descended by the testimony of some Fathers who were both in this matter and other things deceived by the counterfeited Canons and constitutions and other writings bearing the names of the Apostles 〈◊〉 Clemens Romanus or Dionysius Areopag whereof none â—â—re written before the year 300 yet being not well examined were received as genuine by Epiphanius and some other old Doctors of the Church We read in this fourth Century of divers consecrations and benedictions which we do not read to be used in the former times Sect. 16. as of consecrated Churches Altars Paschal Wax-candles c. and we find therein more regard and honour given to a Chrysost in Epist ad Rom. hom 32. relicks of Saints to the sign of the Cross to the b Nazianz in laudem Gorgoniae in laudem Basilii Altar or Communion Table the Bible and the c Chrysost in Eph. hom 3. In Epist ad Orthodox in apoleg 2. Vessels used in the Divine Service and the like then we can see to be given them in former ages yet piously without passing the bounds which in those things Christian religion had determined excepting perhaps in some particulars which humane frailty might extort from them Willingly to break the holy Communion Cup who can say but that it is a very great offence it was as it was said in Athanasius to do impiously against Christ to commit a sin then which none was greater Against the Carelesseness of these times in the administration of the Lords Supper August hom 26. ex 50. Et Cyrill Gatech Mystagog 5. the faying of Augustine is worthy of observation with what care or solicitude saith he do we observe when the body of Christ is ministred unto us that nothing of it fall to the ground from our hands It is likely that Tertullian spake before him to the same purpose we take it heavily saith he that any of our Cup or Bread fall to the ground Gregory Nazianz. treating of the Birth of our blessed Saviour saith Adore the Manger wherein he was laid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. orat in Christi nativitatem Hieron ad Marcellam ut commigret Hieros idem in Epitaph Paulae The cross and the sign were had in no less honour Without the sign of the Cross saith Augustine neither Baptism nor Confirmation nor the Lords Supper can be rightly as to the customes and Canons of the Church in those times performed The Cross was kissed people fell down before it d Paulinus l. 2. Epist 3. Chrysost in act hom 12. adored it yet Ambrose saith of Helene the mother of Constantine the great that she found the title of the Cross and adored the King Christ surely not the wood that is the errour of the Gentiles Minutius long before Ambrose said in the name of all Christians we do not worship the Cross We see then that in those days the Cross was adored by Christians and yet that it was not adored by them It was adored by an Ecclesiastical adoration which was wont to be exhibited to things or persons accounted excellent by reason of some dignity and notable usefulness in being occasions causes or instruments of some very singular benefit it was not adored by an adoration proper to God Aug contra Faustum Manich l. 20. c. 21. Super Genes quoest 60.
and branch no no he only taxeth the exorbitancy the abuse the ambition and not the holy function he expounds himself when in the same place he expresseth the prelacy which he wisheth outed to be the Tyrannie of Authority and preheminence it is that which caused many wife men to shun the function because in had company it is difficult to rule well which at all times is the work of an excelling faculty Greg. Niz in Apolog 1. In orat ad patrem Basilia praesente and it many times happens saith the same Father that grace it self begets Pride and then we know that the corruption of the best is the worst Secondly Hierome was not inferiour in learning eloquence and piety to any of the Ancients neither did any excell him in the knowledg of the antiquities of the Church And he that doth not look very narrowly into the works of Epiphanius may find him defective in this last Hierome's testimony concerning the originall of Episcopacy although in formall expressions it differs from Epiphanius's yet perhaps by the distinction of extraordinary and ordinary Episcopacy the difference in words may be brought into an unity in sense and if there be a difference in the sense between them Yet Hierome affords a more immediate direct and efficacious argument for Episcopacy and its contiruance then the other I am much deceived and have Crossed mine own resolution if I have not delivered the truth impartially as I found it in the holy old Doctors And although a lover of the Presbytery may dislike some passage of this little book singly considered and a lover of Episcopacy dislike some other passage in like sort apprehended yet I have good hope that when both have read the whole and layed before them the entire series of the discourse they may see good reason to like well in the whole what they disliked apart and by it self considered and will candidly acknowledg that every thing therein tends to the same good end which both profess to ayme at A Treatise of the Primitive Episcopacy Liturgies Rights c. IT having pleased God to choose for himself out of sinful men a peculiar people to set forth his glorious praises he never left the world destitute of heavenly institutions and Laws whereby men might be translated from the state of sin and misery to the state of holiness and Salvation and be made and preserved answerable in conversation to the blessed condition of their translation and change These willing and obedient people addicted to the Service of Almighty God were are and will be by him reputed his house Family and Kingdome which therefore cannot be imagined to be without order and rule without some certain persons set apart to teach the Divine Laws and execute other Divine institutions and with consent of the concerned to make Ecclesiastical Ordinances which times places and other circumstances require agreeable to the Divine and subservient to the due and most decent execution of them Of the number of these teachers and rulers of Gods house were Adam Noah Abraham and other heads of numerous Families unto the time of the giving of the Law by Moses after the Law partly fit persons of the tribe of Levi partly the Prophets partly men bred in the Schools of the Prophets and John the Baptist performed the Divine and Ecclesiastical functions unto the time of our Saviours Baptism after which time he himself the Builder and Master of the house and Family whose servants and under-officers all other rulets acknowledge themselves to be deriving from him not onely their authority but also all their abilities whereby they are made able in any measure to fulfill the holy offices he I say in his own person and in our nature was pleased to execute such parts of his own institutions as he saw convenient for himself to perform and to choose besides seventy Disciples twelve other men to be his Apostles and Ministers of the heavenly doctrine and annexed ceremonies It appeareth that it was the intention of our Saviour that the number of twelve Apostles should be his primary instruments in founding the Original Churches of Christ the Mothers of all other Churches to succeed unto the end of the world It was also his purpose to make them parents of all other Ministers which should succeed in an ordinary course which is hereby manifest because Christ promised to be with them unto the worlds end which cannot be verified of their persons and therefore is to be understood of them in the persons of their successors proceeding from them by successive ordination Basil constit Monast c. 22. Chrysost in Epist ad Coloss hom 3. and represented in their persons wherefore the ordination of the Apostles was in some sort the ordination of their successors and their mission to teach and baptize was a virtual or legal mission of the other There were three Editions of the covenant of grace the one from Adam to Abraham the second from him to our Saviour the third from our Saviour unto the end of the world In every of these the substance and kernel of the Covenant was and is the same the difference is in remarkable accidents and circumstances the Ministers of the heavenly Doctrine in the first and second preached Christ to come and had the Spirit accompanying the word and seals of the Covenant ministred by them as an incident annexed by Almighty God to their ordination but yet so as the spirit was ordinarily given in a lesser measure to the ministery of the first then or the second Edition The Apostles were in their call to the Apostleship before the death of our Saviour ordained ministers of the third Edition of the Covenant because Christ was now come in the flesh and had begun to publish the great Salvation and therefore they had a proportionable increase of the spirit added to their ministery for the working of repentance faith and holiness in men above the ordinary measure granted to the ministery of the second Edition Notwithstanding that the Ministers of the first and second Edition of the Covenant of grace Sect. 2. had a power of binding and loosing in having the spirit accompanying their office and service and that the Apostles in the mortal life of our Saviour had the same in a higher degree yet the promise made to the confession of St. Peter of giving unto him a power of binding and loosing with the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven was not in vaine as of a thing which he had already received for he had received the same onely in the measure and degree meet to be dispensed at that time and not in the ordinary fulness promised to the ministers of the new Testament fully confirmed by the death and resurrection of Christ and therefore our Saviour after his rising again from the dead bestowed upon them that promised fulness of the Spirit which was in ordinary to accompany their ministery of the word Chrysost
in 2 Cor. hom 6. Conc. Forojuliens an 791. c. 13. Athanas dicta interpret parabol S. Script sacraments and censures c. breathing upon them and saying receive ye the Holy Ghost whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained hence it is that the ministery of the new Testament fully confirmed is in an eminent way the ministery of the spirit and so called and hence it is that the Apostle saith that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds casting down reasonings and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ This measure of the Spirit going along and operating in the ministerial preaching prayer baptising blessing absolving c. was now very necessary as in other respects so in this that the world that had been so long captivated by Sathan and mightily habituated in all sinful ways Semen Sermonis Christi cum in animam audientis inciderit per gradus suos crescit-tam diu in ancipiti est quamdiu pariat quod concepit Hierom. in Epist ad Gal. c. 4. might be converted unto God and preserved in his grace Some will say why are not all hearers of the Gospel converted to which it is soon answered that the Holy Spirit worketh in all them that hear the Gospel preached to them yet gradually first that they may co-work and then that they may continue co-working until the work of saving faith be perfected in them He gives an eat able to hear to the hearers he gives ability to understand and gives ability in some degree to will the good and where the good is willed he hath given the will and the deed and where the Good we are enabled to understand and Will is not understood or Willed that comes from the natural corrupted freedome of mans will which the spirit doth not take away against our will because he will not destrey his own work namely that good natural freedome of will conferred upon man in his creation capable of being a subject of good or evil A person not ordained to the holy ministery may in time and place teach and exhort with a speech no less Orthodox wholesome and perswasive then any ordained minister of the Cospel can use and yet it must be acknowledged to be far inferior in its operation tending to true edification then the speech of a minister seeming less perswasive because this is alwayes accompanied with the spirit the other is not but supposeth some grace in the hearer which it stirreth or if it be accompanied with a quickning or healing grace it is of Gods mere indulgence and not by vertue of Gods ordinary constitution and promise and therefore the spirit going with the exhortation of the minister doth alwayes edifie or is resisted and so the word preached by him is a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish to the one the favour of death unto death and to the other the savour of life unto life The Apostles all this while had not received the gradual complement of the gifts ordained to be bestowed upon the ministers of the new Testament Sect. 3. it was meet that Christ should in our entire nature open heaven and enter into it before the fulness of the ordinary or extraordinary gifts subservient for the right using of the Keyes of Heaven should be granted to his Vicegerents upon earth Wherefore after his opening and possession of Heaven he gave those gifts unto men both extraordinary in the Apostles Evangelists and Prophets and ordinary in the Pastors and Doctors The first ordinary Pastors received their ordination from the Apostles of the Apostles we know no other ordination then Christs immediate calling of them to that office in which they were by the foresaid degrees perfected the Pastors received in the Apostles ordination their seminal or virtual ordination as was said to their function which received its perfection of degrees in the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles The Author of the Comments upon St. Paul's Epistles attributed to St. Ambrose saith that it was lawful at the first for Laicks and Deacons to preach in the Assemblies and Baptize yet of that his assertion he brings no sound proof Philip was ordained a Deacon and he baptised the Eunuch Ananias a Disciple baptised Saul after called Paul did Ananias do so onely in the capacity of a Disciple and the other onely in the capacity of a Deacon No surely for it appears that they had an immediate mission from God to teach and baptise which is equivalent to an ordination to the office of a Pastor either as to those acts onely and for that time only or as to the whole pastoral function to be constantly exercised If any examples be found in the Acts of the Apostles of any Laicks or Deacons performing pastoral offices whose ordination ordinary or extraordinary is not mentioned it s meeter to judge and beleive that they had either the ordinary call or the extraordinary according to the examples of Ananias and Philip when the contrary cannot be proved then to affirm that any lay-man might then at his pleasure exercise the acts of that sacred vocation Paul was no sooner a Christian but he was instantly by Christs immediate appointment made an Apostle Act. 9.15 20. cum Gal. 1.16 17 23. and without any other ordination preached the Gospel of Christ 1 Tim. 2.7 yet some years after he together with Barnabas were by the express command of the Holy Ghost ordained by certain Prophets and Doctors which then were at Antioch In which ordination two things are observable First that the Apostles were ordained by their inferiors in office but the extraordinary commission whereby this was done makes an exception confirming the rule which is that without all contradiction the less is blessed of the greater Heb. 7.7 The second thing to be considered in that ordination are the sacred ceremonies used in the ordination of Pastors to wit prayer which is the principal fasting to commend the prayer and imposition of hands as a visible demonstration of Gods blessing them and their ministery with the gift of the spirit to accompany their service to the loosing of men from the guilt and power of sin and setting of them at liberty to walk in the wayes of Gods commandements An ordination of Pastors celebrated without any one of these ceremonies cannot be accounted right and regular St. Paul with other who were Presbyters ordained Timothy by the joint imposition of his and their hands we find imposition of hands placed by the Apostle among the fundamentals of Christian Religion 1 Tim. 4.14 cum 2 Tim. 1.6 Heb. 6.1 2. and there although it followeth the immersions in the names of the blessed Trinity and therefore may seem to import confirmation yet it need not
our Lord God to which the people answered it is meet and right so to do and then the Priest went no saying it is very meet right c. Out of Authors now extant who flourished in the three first Centuties no more that I can remember concerning the divine service of the Church and the Ceremonies pertinent to our purpose is mentioned then what hath been already touched But the holy writers of the fourth Century and downward do affirm both that many other rites have been used in the three first Centuries whereof some were instituted by the Apostles as they write others by some Bishops of Rome and that many more were added in the fourth Century One reason why the Ceremonies increased in the fourth Century may be this because then the Church more flourished in prosperity then any time before and it might be thought convenient that the external glory of the Church should be proportioned to the glory of the Empite now made Christian The use of singing Psalmes and Hymnes in the Churches Epist 119. may as St. Augustine saith be defended out of Scripture seeing of this we have so profitable instructions examples and precepts of Christ and his Apostles But the manner of singing was various l. â— c. 8. hist Socrates relateth that Ignatius having in a vision seen Angels singing Hymnes Anthemewise unto the praise of the Holy Trinity delivered that manner of singing Psalmes unto his own Church in Antioch which was generally received thence by the Greek Churches and then by the Latines and West first by Ambrose in the fourth Century and after by the rest of the Western Bishops The Rubrick in our Common-prayer Book before Te Deum laudamus we praise thee O God hath these words that the people may the better hear in such places where they do sing there shall the Lessons be sung in a plain tune after the manner of distinct reading and likewise the Epistle and Gospel This Rubrick puts me in mind of a place in St. Augustine's Confessions l. 10. c. 33. where he saith that it was often told him that Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria made the reader of the Psalm to sound with so mean bending or turning of the Voyce that he might be nearer a pronouncer then a singer Epist 119. And in another place he saith when the Brethren are met in the Church when is it not time of singing holy songs unless it be the time of reading or preaching or of prayer c. By which words it seemeth that the Chapters Epistle and Gospel were not sung in those dayes And in truth any manner of singing them seemeth incongruous The Fathers use to reprove the abuses which were too often found in singing Psalms in the Churches especially that they were many times more pleased with the sweetness of the voyce then the divine matter or when onely a few of the Church did sing that they so sung that few understood what they sung In Epist ad Ephes c. 5. Let the servant of the Lord saith Hierome so sing that the words which he reads may more please then the voyce of him singing It is no perfect singing nor pleasing to God when mens hearts do not sing unto the Lord as well as their voyces I will not speak of singing with Organs in the Churches not that I think that God refuseth to be heartily praised in and with the use of them but because they were not brought into the Churches until much later times The Doxology Glory be to the Father to the Son and to the Holy Ghost for ever c. is by St. Basile proved to be used from the Apostles times both out of Clemens Rom. Irenaeus Orig. Gregor Thaumaturg Dionysius Rom. Dionysius Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Basil de Sp. S. c. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. and the Evening-candle light thanksgiving which had been used time out of mind of man wherein they said We praise the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit of God But this Doxology with the addition as it was in the beginning c. was first a Epist Hier. ad Damasum Conc. Vasens c. 7. ordained to be said in the Divine Service of the Church after the Psalms by Damasus Bishop of Rome about the year of our Lord 370. He first commanded b Greg. l. 7. Epist 63. inter Ep. Hier. Aug. de temp serm 151. de can observant praeposit 23. Gregor l. 7. Epist 63. Conc. Vasens c. 5. Radulfs Vigres de can observant praeposit 23. Alleluia to be used in the Roman Church following therein the Liturgie of the Hierosolymitane and Greek Churches Kyrie eleison and Christe eleison Lord have mercy and Christ have mercy often repeated were in imitation of some greek Liturgies received into the Romane Divine Service-book by the authority of Pope Sylvester about the year 330 saith Radulphus Tugr which many years after were omitted and at last restored by Gregory the great The collection of the Episties and Gospels for the whole year into the form like that in present use is attributed to Hierom and by Pope Damasus commanded to be read in the Churches The Symbole or Creed composed in the first Council of Constantinople was by the same Pope Damasus ordained to be said or sung after the Gospel Rupert l. 2. c. 21. Strab. c. 22. It was received into the â—ivine Service in Spain by the command of the third Synoâ— of Tolet. The reasons brought to prove the Apostles or the Nicene Creed to have been said in the Liturgies of the fourth Century or before are of small weight and therefore I omit them How Damasus can truely be said to have enjoyned the singing or saying of the Creed and yet that it was not sung at Rome until about the year 1014 is easily answered if we conceive his command to be directed unto all other Churches subject unto him Berno de offic myssae c. 1. Vide Conc. tolet 3. c. 2. excepting Rome for that special reason which Berno relates Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the time of the celebration of the Lords Supper Hierom. l. 1. dial contra Pelag Chrysost in Matt. hom 83. Conc. Carthag 4. c. 41. Et vide respenss Leonis 3. ad missos caroli M. sub Conc. aquisgranens used the white garment which we call the Surplice whether it was in use before the fourth Century is not related by any approved author living in those times Prayers composed after the manner of our Litany are to be seen in the Liturgies of Chrysostome and Basile In their time * Chrys in Ep. ad Eph. hom 14 24. glory be to God on high c. and †Idem in Epist ad Coloss hom 3. holy holy holy Lord God of Sabboth were wont to be said in the Divine Service Chrysostome saith that the Bishop was wont often in the time of the publik worship of God to say to the people