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
denote confirmation alone but any other perpetual ordinance of God wherein this ceremony was to be used by the authority of the Apostles exampled and practise They which say that this ceremony was to last no longer in use then God was pleased to continue the miraculous operations usual in the Apostolick times seem to impute inconsiderateness to the Apostle in reckoning that one of the fundamentals of Religion which was not to be perpetually continued in the militant Church but we are assured that the Apostle being moved by the Holy Ghost could not speak inconsiderately and that every fundamental of Christian Religion shall continue in Christs Church unto the end of the world as this ceremony both in confirmation and in ordinations of Pastors hath hitherto been alwayes used in the universal Church and without doubt will so continue unto the end of time Pastors are called in the Apostolical Epistles by two other names Sect. 4. that is Bishops and Presbyters the Apostleship contained in it self the pastoral offices and therefore an Apostle was also called a Bishop and Presbyter The first mention of Pastors by the name of Presbyters of Elders is in Acts 11.30 where the Church of Antioch is said to have sent relief by Barnabas and Saul unto the Elders of the Churches in Judaea in the time of the great dearth which was in the days of Claudius Caesar in the 15 Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we finde the controversie concerning the necessity of circumcision and keeping of the Law of Moses brought by Paul and Barnabas before the Apostles and Elders or Presbyters in the Church of Jerusalem to be by them determined We see in the chapter of the Acts how that Paul with some of the brethren went in unto James and all the elders were present whence we may observe that the Apostles did not discuss and end the controversie concerning circumcision and keeping of the Law without the presence of the Presbyters of the Church where they then were nor did James alone heat Paul but together with his Presbyters did both hear him and give him that seasonable Councel to purifie himself for the avoiding the offence of the beleiving Jews which were numerous in Jerusalem Here ariseth a question Sect. 5. whether St. James was head of the Presbyters of the Church of Jerusalem onely as he was an Apostle having his ordinary residence in that Church or also as having an ordinary authority over the Presbyters which was to be continued to successors over the succeding Presbyters it is certain that as an Apostle he was the head of the Presbyters having a superiority over them but as the Apostleship was not to pass to successors so neither was his authority to be conveyed to any in succession but to be terminated with his life it is more then probable that at that time he was their superior onely as an Apostle settled in that Church neither had we need to conceive him in any subsequent times to become their head in any other sense then this if the unanimous testimony of the ancient Doctors of the Church did not constrain us to be of another judgment unless we will reject the witness of the Catholick Church constantly persevered in from the beginining of the second Centuary after our Saviours birth unto this day For the Fathers do constantly affirm that St. James was for some time before his decease Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem not onely in the sense of the word Bishop common to an Apostle and every Presbyter but in the sense which soon after the time of Clemens Romanus was appropriated to it that is signifying such a Presbyter as had a superiority over all the rest of the Presbyters of the same Church to continue in him during life and to be transferred to some other after him Hegesippus an Historian Apud Euseb hiss l. 4. c. 21. Ibid. l. 3. c. 29. who flourished about the year 170 relateth that after the death of St. James Simon Cleopa being chosen Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem one Thebulis began to corrupt the Church with vain Doctrine because he was not made Bishop there And the same Historian writeth that Simon Cleopa lived Bishop of that place until the times of Trajane the Emperor under whose government Simon suffered Martyrdome and John the Apostle died by which testimony of an historian who lived within 60 years after the death of the Apostle St. John it plainly appeareth that Simon was not after the death of St. James brother of our Lord constituted onely a single Presbyter of that Church nor James before him head thereof only as an Apostle or an extraordinary governour but that both were ordinary rulers of the whole Church as well Presbyters as the other members thereof Clemens Alexandrinus Paedagog l. 3. c. ult Strom. 6. who lived before the year of our Lord 200 makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter saying that in the Scriptures some precepts pertain to Bishops some to Presbyters and some to Deacons and in another place that a Presbyter doing and teaching according to Gods will although he be not on earth honoured with the first chair shall sit on the 24 thrones judging the people and a little after he saith that here in the Church the provections or proficiencies of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be imitations of the angelical glory Tertullian who flourished in the year of our Lord 200 De Monogamia c. 11. mentions an use in his time of asking leave of the Bishop of the Presbyters and of the Deacons to marry Elsewhere he calls upon the Hereticks to shew the beginnings of their Churches and so to reckon the order of their Bishops running from the beginning by successions that the first Bishop have an Apostle or an Apostolical man for his auctor or antecessor as the Church of Smyrna relates Polycarpus to be placed there Bishop by John the Apostle and the Church of Rome reporteth Clement to have been ordained there by Peter the Apostle Adversus Valentin c. 4. In another place the same author saith that Valentinus because he was ingenious eloquent had hoped an Episcopacy De Baptismo c. 17. and being angry that another by prerogative of Martyrdome had obtained it he departed from the Church In another place he hath this observation viz. the emulation of Episcopacy is the mother of Schismes Adversus haeres l. 3. c. 3. apud Euseb l. 5. c. 18. I must not forget the testimony of Ireaaeus who affirmeth of himself that he was a hearer of Polycarpus who was not onely taught by the Apostles and conversed with many of them which saw the Lord but was also by the Apostles in Asia Advers haeres l. 3. c. 3. Edit Paris 1567. in which is the Church of Smyrna constituted a Bishop the same Irenaeus doth enumerate the Bishops of Rome which succeeded one another from Peter unto Eleutherius who was the
ordmem contingit esse distinctionem dignitatum officiorum quae tamen novum gradum vel ordinem non constituunt ut Archipresbyter Episcopus Archiepiscopus Patriarcha pontifex summus qui ultra sacerdotium non addunt ordinem nec gradum novum sed solum dignitatem officium ita Episcopatus prout concernit ordinem sacer dotti benè potest dici ordo sed prout distinguitur contra sacerdotium dicitur dignitatem quandam vel officium Episeopi annexum non est propriè nomen ordinis nec no vus character imprimitur nec nova potestas datur sed potestas data ampliatur unde sicut non recipit alias claves sic nec alium ordinem hoc sensit magister Hugo de S. Victore Magister sententiarum Bonavent in 4. dist 24. q. 3. Et postea non ita propriè dicitur aliquis ordinari cum promovetur in Episcopum sicut cum promovetur in sacerdotem sed magis propriè dicitur consecrari postea non datur ibi nova potestas sed solùm potestas ligandi solvendi ampliatur Solis sacerdotibus datur in ordine sacerdotali potestas clavium scilicet quantum ad solvendum ligandum quasi mediatoribus inter Deum subditos Si objiciatur quod magis couvenit potestatem clavium dart Episcopo in consecratione Episcopi dicendum quod nequaquam quia Episcopus non dicitur novum ordinem nec in consecrationem Episcopi datur novus ordo sed tantum ampliatur potestas Alex. Halens to 4. de potest clavium q. 20. m. 8. a. Probatum est scilicet disp 140. c. 1. inquit Vasques quod Hieronymus nullam constituat differentiam jure Divino inter Episcopatum Presbyterium sed censeat jure tantum ecclesiastico discrimen fuisse introductum In 3. p. disp 142. c. 8. Ego sanè inquit Vasques suspicor vehementer S. Thomam existimasse consecrationem cum qua confertur potestas Episcopajis jure humano esse introductam In 3. p. disp 143. c. 2. and that in all Churches where fit men for that office were found they were ordained and set over the presbyters and that the Senate of presbyters did alone govern onely in some Churches where no man was found fit to be made a Bishop Hierom and some other taught Episcopes solae ordinatione superiores esse Presbyteris Chrysost in 1. Ep. ad Timoth. hom 11. Postea unus est gradus S. Hierom in 1. Ep. ad Tim. c. 3. that the Apostles left at the first the whole care of every Church where none of them or their Vicegerents or Evangelists resided unto the body of the presbyters of each Church which exercised all Ecclesiastical powers in common until the presbyters began to divide the flock and to make of one Church many Independent Congregations For the avoiding of which inconvenience the Churches unanimously agreed to commit the principal care of every Church unto one presbyter without whose consent the rest of the presbyters were not allowed to exercise any part of their Ecclesiastical function In Ep. ad Tit. c. 1. vide gloss dist 23. c. legimus and to that advanced presbyter some ministerial acts and also the name of Bishop were after some time appropriated Before Sidings in Religion saith Hierom were made by the instinct of the Devil and that it was said among the people El Amalarium de Eccles offic l. 2. c. 13. Et Steph. Eduens Episcopum de sacramento altaris c. 9. I am of Paul I of Apollos c. the Churches were governed by the Common Council of the Presbyters but after that every Presbyter thought those whom he baptised to be his and not Christs it was decreed in all the world that one chosen out of the Presbyters should be set over the rest unto whom all the care of the Church should appertain and so the seeds of Schismes should be taken away A little after he affirmeth that at the first the care of the Church was equally divided among many and yet a little further having cited out of 1. Epist to Tim. and the Epist to Titus and the Epist to the Philipp c. these saith he were said that we might shew that the ancient Presbyters were the same with Bishops but by little and little that the plants of dissention might be plucked up In quos delinquentes nonnunquam Episcoporum Presbyterorum censura desaevit Hier. ad Demetriad all the sollicitude was delated to one Therefore as the Presbyters know themselves by the custome of the Church to be subject to him who is set over them so let Bishops know themselves to be greater then Presbyters more by custome then by the truth of Divine dispotision and ought in common to rule the Church imitating Moses who when he might have alone ruled the people yet chose other with whom he would judge them The words of this ancient Father need no explication for they say plainly that every Church meaning wherein no extraordinary minister resided Apostle or his Vicegerent was at the first governed by the Colledge of Presbyters and that their dividing one Church into many Independent Congregations Quare in Ecclesia baptizatus nisi per manus Episcopi accipiat Spiritum Sanctum id factum reperimus ad honorem potius sacerdotii quā ad legis necessitatem Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate ac veneratione consistit cui si non exors quaedam ab hominibus omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in Ecclesiis efficientur schismata quot sacerdotes Inde venit ut sine chrismate Episcopi jussione neque Presbyter neque Diaconus jus habeat baptizandi quod frequenter si tamen necessitas cogit scimus licere laicis Hier. contra Lucifer first that we can find in Corinth after in many other places put a necessity upon the Churches to provide a convenient remedy against so dangerous a disease which remedy was the committing of every Church to one chief minister to whom the rest were to be subordinate in the manner before specified Here observe 1. that according to St. Hierom every Bishop ought to rule the Church in common with the presbyters 2. that Hierom saith that the decree of making one chief in every Church was in all the world whereby he intimates this institution of Bishops to have its beginning after the planting of the Churches in most parts of the then known world 3. that he affirmeth that Paulatim by little and little or by degrees the care of every Church was committed to one which doth insinuate that the decree instituting a Bishop was not in a Synod of the Apostles or Churches but enacted in every Church first in some then in other and in a short time in all over all the world in such manner as a general custome is created and therefore he saith that the Presbyters are subject to the Bishop by the custome of the Church and the Bishop greater
translation it is not lawful say the Fathers of that Synod for the Choropiscopi Countrey or Village Bishops not for the Presbyters of the City to ordain Presbyters or Deacons unless that be committed to them by the Bishop being absent in another Diocess by his letters And therefore the Churches decree constituting Episcopacy abridged the Presbyters whether dividedly or conjunctly considered but onely in the exercise of their power Surely it must be beleeved that no ordination would be made by the Apostles excelling the ordination which our Saviour celebrated breathing upon his Apostles c. and giving them a comission to teach c. with promise to be with them unto the worlds end whereby the Presbyters were virtually ordained and comissionated astruly as the Bishops and therefore received thereby as much power as they in respect of the kind and nature which hinders not but that the exercise of some part of it might be taken from many of the persons ordained But some perhaps may say that Christ in that ordination ordained in the Apostles some as elder Brethren and others as the younger yet hence it will follow that the kind and nature of the ordination is the same in all as the nature of the Father is in all his Sons and that onely a principallity in the having and exercise of it belongs to the Bishops which is granted Others may say farther that Christ in ordaining the Apostles did virtually ordain some as the Sons of the Sons of the Apostles and others as their grand-children if this can be well proved it will indeed evince that the power of ordination as well as the exercise of it is proper to the Bishops but until it be made clear that this was the primary meaning and intention of Christ in that Act of ordination and not an effect onely of a consequent occasional providence of the Apostles and Churches it is probable that the power of ordination remaineth still in the presbyters restrained in the use by the canon of the Churches and Apostles The members of the Church which made the decree of Episcopacy and limited the use of the Eclesiastical power in the presbyters were the greater number of the presbyters themselves which remained in the unity of the mystical body with the greater part of the people and the Authors of it by way of approbation and confirmation were the holy Apostles The Apostles and Presbyters in the effecting of it exercised the ordinary Vicary Authority Basil constit mona c. 22. which they had as being by their ordination made the Vicegerents of the blessed Mediator Christ Jesus considered only as Mediator according to his own saying he that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me the saying of the Apostle we are Embâ—ssadors for Christ and we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God 2. Cor. 5.20 That authority when it is duely exercised ought to be obeyed And because presbyters may erre in the using of it a spirit of discerning noxious doctrines and constitutions is given to Christians to examine and trie Bas l. reg 72. c. 1. with command to reject the evil and receive the good which good if the major part refuse being by their Pastors propounded to them Aug. de temp serm 143. they may do it upon their peril as they will answer it to God unity and peace interceding and forbidding that no Ecclesiastical constraint or censure proceed against the civil higher power or the major part of the people It is therefore requisite that constitutions to be made laws in the Church be by the leave of the supreme magistrate if he be a Christian propounded to the people that their consent being given the ministerial authority may make them laws Ecclesiastically obliging if no higher authority hinder Before these Law-makers constituted Episcopacy every singular Presbyter was to act according to the directions and rules of the Presbyterian Colledge which was the Church Law-giver and superintendent of the execution having the supreme dignity under the Mediator and preheminence in all things properly Ecclesiastical What is spoken concerning the Colledge of Presbyters must be applied proportionably to the several bodies of them in the Diocesan provincial imperial or universal Church The decree constituting Episcopacy took from the Colledge its high dignity and preheminence and conferred it upon one and so divided the exercise of the Legislative power among the Bishop and the Colledge that the one might not duely use it without the other For although the dignity and precedency of the Bishop may give more weight to his vote yet is the Vicary authority which cannot be separated from Presbyters as long as they be Presbyters as truly exercised in their votes whether in deciding controversies of faith or making of Canons c. as it is in the Bishops vote Which is manifest as by many testimonies of antiquity so by the practise of our English Synods which are conformable in the substance to the best and most ancient constitution of Councils The superintendency which the Colledge had over the execution of all Ecclesiastical duties and ordinances was chiefly in the Bishop yet so as without his Presbyters he could not regularly hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes as before was shewed out of the fourth Council of Carthage and might be further demonstrated out of St. Cyprian and other ancient writers Every suprem civil power on earth as Gods Vicegerent Sect. 10. is bound to advance and preserve the true Religion so far as the light of nature can manifest it or divine revelation doth make it known unto him so that a King which hath embraced Christian Religion which alone is the true Religion is obliged to maintain it and to cause that the Christian duties be by all in their several stations and charges duely performed and therefore a Christian King is a law-giver above the Ecclesiastical Law-makers but so that he ought not to hinder the due exercise of their legislative power and make laws purely or properly Ecclesiastical without their concurrence in Counsel and consent but by his Laws and power partly to cause them to meet for the due exercise of their duty partly to maintain and strengthen their right proceedings in performance of their office and lastly if their Edicts be cosistant with the peace of the common-wealth and meet for the edification of the Church to perfect and make them full and complete laws by putting the hand and seal of his highest Vicary authority as Gods Vicegerent to the resolves of the subordinate Vicary authority of the Vicegerents of our blessed Mediator as Mediator God and man the Lord Jesus Christ God is a God of order and hath ordained that this unity and harmony between these two authorities should be firmly kept otherwise by a supine neglect of duty or by an exorbitant usurpation on either side the unity and peace both of Kingdome and Church are equally in danger of being broken The
that the priests and deacons should communicate before the altar the subordinate Clergy in the Quire the people without the Quire This Council drave the people far off from the railes of the altar Many more Rites and Ceremonies were used in the fourth Century which do not pertain to our purpose and very many more were afterward added especially in the Roman Church From what hath been said we may perceive that the Composers of our Divine Service book made choice of the best things out of the most ancient Liturgies of the Churches Sect. 18. which flourished long before the birth of Antichrist leaving many Ceremonies used in the primitive times not very convenient to the present state of our Churches retaining other that the garment of Christian religion with us might not altogether vary from the ancient form so far as it could without prejudice to the body of religion be fitted to us Tertullian saith that the solemnities and mysteries of Idols gained credit and reputation with men by the sumptuous rites and rich ornaments whereby they were set forth and adorned It is likely that the ancient Fathers when miracles began to cease saw it expedient for the removing of some of the obstructions to Christian faith to add to the divine Solemnities some agreeable Rites whereby the Christian Doctrine might be commended to the rectitude of humane judgment as not incredible or contemptible and it may be thereby be commended as credible and worthy of good regard The Schismaticks in Tertullian's time Tertull. de prescript baeret c. 41. as he saith named the decent Ceremonious Discipline of the Churches a bawd and counted the prostration of that Discipline by themselves to be Christian simplicity Whereas in very deed that prostration of edifying order and Ceremonies caused the confusion of the holy ordinances among them and sluttishness in the celebrations of the divine institutions as Tertullian noted in those Schismaticks and we see now a days in ours But on the other side we must remember that we may erre as in the defect so in the excess of Ceremonies or in the choice or in accounting and compelling others to own them for unchangeable Apostolick institutes or by too rigid pressing the use of every of them especially upon people of weak capacity humble peaceable and of a scrupulous conscience August Epist 119. Placuit Spiritui S. nihil aliud oneris imponere praeterquam quae necessario servare oportet At quidam haec nihil curantes omnem quidem fornicationem pro nihilo habent De Diebus autem feriis institutis perinde atque de anima ipsa decertant Dei mandata invertentes sibi ipsis leges ferentes per Socrat. hist l. 5. c. 21. Edit Basil 1570. Augustine was grieved to see the transgression of a Ceremony to be more severely reprehended then the transgression of Gods law his judgment was that the Ceremonies should not be many so as by them to press with servile burthens the Church of Christ which God would preserve free in the use onely of few Rites commended by manifest reasons Antiquity is venerable yet it may not ought not continue a Rite or Ceremony in any Church with whose edification and peace it is become inconsistent There be but few ordinances meerly Ecclesiastical which have not in some Churches become noxious or at least useless And there is a vicissitude of profit or detriment growing from them many times in the same Churches arising from notable changes in persons and circumstances Augustine thought that those observances which the whole Church kept and no diversity of manners had varied were ordained by the Apostle St. Paul Epist 110. This his thought holds forth a probability and no demonstration for he himself in some place grants that such universal and de facto unvaried rites might have been made by a general Council and we may add by custome Many Ceremonies were universal as many then believed and unvaried in Augustine's time which were in following times either altered or altogether disused Wherefore surely because they ceased to be useful or became hurtful And therefore if St. Paul was the author of them he gave them with consent of the Churches to be used so long as they saw them to continue serviceable or at least not hurtful to Christian religion It was difficult in the ancient times to know which rites descended from the Apostles and which not or which were universal in such an age by them that lived therein They many times said some Rites to be universal which were so onely in the part of the Christian world where they lived as in the Eastern or Western Churches Socrat. hist l. 5. c. 21. Et Sozom. l. 7. c. 18 19. It was before shewed that many things were said by the Fathers to be of divine or Apostolical institution which were not so indeed if we speak of divine or Apostolick institutes in a proper sense Sometime what was by one of the Fathers affirmed to be so was by some other ancient writers referred to a more recent author De offic Eccl. l. 1. c. 15. as to one Pope or other So some ascribe the Roman Liturgy to St. Peter as Isidore every part whereof is assigned to other authors by Gregory the great or Amalarius or Alcuinus or Strabus or some other which have writen of the Roman Service I find none to determine in particular what part of that Service was made by St. Peter Duran rationale div offic pricip l. 4. but onely a few affirming that he composed three prayers of it But if he had been the author of it as Isidore relates it is not to be doubted but that the Western Churches or most of them had used onely that Liturgy But the Church of Millaine had a proper Liturgy the Churches of Spaine had another proper to them Concil Milevit Can. 12. Et Carth. 3. Can. 23. Cur cum una sit fides fint Ecclesiarum consuetudines diversae altera consuetudo missarum in Romana Ecclesia atque altera in Galliarum Ecclesiis teneatur huic interrogationi Augustini Anglorum Episcopi sic resp Gregoriuâ— Papa 1. and the Africans had divers in divers Churches some of which had unawares put into their Liturgy some prayers composed by Hereticks which caused some African Councils to ordain that no prayers should be received into the Liturgy but such as were examined by Learned men or approved by a Council Novit fraternitas tua Romanae Ecclesiae consuetudinem in qua se meminit eruditam Sed mihi placet ut sive in Romana sive in Gallicana seu in qualibet Ecclesia aliquid invenisti quod plus emnipotenti Deo possit placere solicite eligas in Anglorum Ecclesia quae adhuc ad fidem nova est institutione praecipua quae de multis Ecclesiis colligere potuisii infundas Non enim pro locis res sed pro bonis rebus loca amanda sunt
Ex quibusque ergo Ecclesiis quae pia quae religiosa quae recta sunt elige haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone Every Church at least every Provincial Church composed their prayers or other parts of their divine Service as seemed most conducible to their edification and after altered the same or made a new form Vide Bern. Augiens de quibud rebus ad missam pertinent c. 2. Vide Sozom. hist l. 7. c. 19. or received a form used in another Church as they pleased Spain or some part of it received the Roman Liturgy And therefore if it should seem good to the Church of England to mend their Liturgy or compose a new one if need be more agreeable to the present time they should do therein no more then the most famous Churches have done before and which can be no disparaging of the wisdome and piety of the Composers of it which intended onely to make it as fit as could be for the state of the Church in their time which I believe they performed very exactly and not to frame and impose an unchangeable form which could never prove incongruous to any possible variety in the state of the Church for this is not in the power of any persons or Churches Howsoever Ceremonies and a form of Liturgy are no more necessary for Episcopal then a Presbyterian Government which may equally erre in defect or excess or quality of the rites and divine Service Now although both the forms of government and all Ecclesiastical rites be in their nature changeable Sect. 19. because of their dependance upon variable circumstances yet some have been less subject to change or abrogation then other either because they be of smal efficacy to hurt or profit or because the hurt done by them is hardly discerned or because the circumstances which are apt to make them noxious seldome happen or because they are believed to have the Apostles for their authors or approvers Of all other Episcopacy seems least subject to abrogation First because the Churches in all parts of the world were always firmly perswaded that the institution of Episcopacy had the Apostles hand and seal joyned with the mother Churches for the confirmation of it Secondly because many believed that the Apostles never permitted the Colledge of Presbyters to ordain Presbyters in the time that they ruled in the Churches this they received by tradition to which they easily gave their assent because they found not in the Acts of the Apostles or the Apostolical Epistles that sole Presbyters ordained any except perhaps by an immediate command of the Holy Ghost which is extraordinary but with a President either an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Vicegerent of an Apostle as Timothy Titus c. whence they thought it might be very probably collected that the Apostles would have given a principality of the exercise of the power of ordination unto one Presbytet onely in every Church so as without him the whole Colledge could not ordain and would have left the government to be exercised in common equally by all if the Colledge had not so grosly abused their ruling power whereby it was seen that the Colledge had need of a President both in the Government and the Ordination which was accordingly given them by the decree of the Church approved by the Apostles St. Hierome himself hath some passages which seem to favour this opinion â—i passim omnibus Presh esses concessum ordinare tot admitterentur ad ordines quod non servaretur ordo immo potius generaretur confusiâ— ideo dispositum est Dei consilie quod solis Episcopis ordinum dispensatio aliorum officiorum ut consecratio abbatum monialium ecclesiarum consimilium concedatur Bonevent in 4. d. 25. q. 1. and therefore the Churches never suffered a Presbyter or Chorâ—piscope to ordaine except he supplied the place of a Bishop when he could not be present and the Ordination could not be delayed Thirdly The Presbyterian Government was in use in the purest purity of the Churches beginning to spread abroad over the world by the preaching of the Apostles and yet in less then twenty years space Schismes grew out of it which caused the Churches to out it and to establish Episcopacy as the best antidote against Schisme and for the restauration and maintenance of the Churches peace Now if the Presbyterian Government was uneffectuall for the preserving of peace among the most godly and consequently the most addicted to peace who can expect it should be effectuall to restore union and peace and to preserve it in Churches too full of pollutions and staines very much degenerated from the holiness of the Apostolicall times It seems a desperate and preposterous course to use that as a soveraigne Antidote in our time which had the effect of a Poyson upon the Churches in the Aposties time A hurnt Child dreads the fire and should not the weaker members of the body dread the fire that burnt the strongest and best able to resist its force Seeing the remainder of naturall corruption in the most holy Churches drew the Poyson of Scisme from the Presbyterian forme of government we cannot without high presumption think that the far higher degrees of sin remaining in us will be idle suffer grace to make of it an Antidote against Schisme Mountebanks are seen sometime to heal by improper Medicines where the strength of nature and the concurrence of some other secret causes do performe the cure and not the nature of the Physick So may the Presbyterian government have in some place the credit of healing Schismes maintaining peace when in very truth those good effects proceed from the confluence of other causes and not from the aptness of that government to effect them For it seems incredible that it should have in it an aptness to keep us in peace that had in it an ineptitude to keep the most peaceably disposed Apostolick Christians in unity and peace Whence we may conclude that although the ancient Episcopacy be in its nature changeable as being of the Churches and by consequence of humane constitution yet morally and practically it may not be abrogated without dammage to the Church which will assuredly follow if some accidentall benigne influences of some other causes do not for some time hinder its birth I am very apt to believe that the Churches which seem to use the Presbyterian government never intended by any Law deserving the proper name of a Law to settle the primitive Presbytery in their Churches whence the sad Schismes arose in the primitive times much less to abrogate the ancient Episcopacy which in the judgment of the best Christians and of the Apostles is the healer of Schismes and the preserver of peace But that they intended as they had good reason to abrogate the corrupted Hierarchy with the multitude of its oppressing attendants and as necessity compelled them seemingly