called Of which sort were abundance of Christians towards each others Bishops in former ages and such are the Papists now towards you So that neither Papist nor Protestant that I ever knew silenced by you doth forbear upon Conscience of this your pretended authority at all And what a silencing power is that which scarce any man would be ever silenced by You cannot choose but know this to be true 2. And really should Magistrates themselves be so servile to you as to silence all Ministers by the Sword whom a Prelate judgeth to be silent while he knoweth not whether it be deservedly or not God forbid that Protestants like the Popes sheald make Kings to be their Executioners or hangmen A meer Executioner indeed is not bound to know or examine whether the sentence was just or not though in most cases to forbear if it be notoriously unjust but what a King or Magistrate doth he must do as a publick Judge and therefore must hear the cause himself and try whether he be really guilty or not and not only whether a Bishop judged him so Else Magistrates will either be involved in the bloody sin of persecution as oÌ„ft as a Prelate will but command them and so must be damned and help to damn others when Prelates please Or else it is no sin for a Magistrate to silence all the holyest Ministers of Christ to the damnation of thousands of ignorant untaught Souls so be it the Prelates do but bid him and he keep himself unacquainted with the cause And next they must obey the Counsel at Laterane sub Inoc. 3. And exterminate all subjects out of their Dominions though it be all that are there and must burn Holy-Christians to ashes because the Pope or Prelates bid them 3. I need not make also a particular application of this case to the people When they know nothing but wise and sound and holy in the Doctrine or life of their Pastors and God bids them know such as labour among them and are over them in the Lord and highly esteem them in Love for their work sake they will hardly be so debauched as to violate this command of God as oft as a Diocesan will but say I know some Heresie or Crime by your Teacher which you do not and therefore he must Preach no more and you must no more use his ministry Were I one of these people I would be bold to ask the Diocesan Sir what is the Heresie or Crime that he is guilty of If he refuse to tell me I would slight him as a Tyrant General Counsels told the people of the Heresies for which they did despose their Pastors If he told me what it was I would try it by Gods word If I were unable I would seek help If the Diocesan silenced my Teacher and ten neighbour Bishops wiser than he did tell me that it was for Truth and Duty and that the Heresie was the Bishops I would hear my Teacher and believe the other Bishops before him without taking them to be of a higher order The objections against this and what is before said shall be answered in the next Chapter You see when it is but opened how the Diocesans power vanisheth into the air CHAP. XIII That there is no need of such as our Diocesans for the Unity or the Government of the particular Ministers nor for the silencing of the unworthy IT stuck much in the minds of the Ancient Doctors and Christians that Episcopacy was necessary to avoid Schism and discord among the Ministers and the people and that it was introduced for that reason And I am so averse to singularity in Religion that I will not be he that shall gainsay it A double yea a treble Episcopacy though I cannot prove instituted of Christ yet will I not contradict because one sort I cannot disprove and the other two I take to be but a prudential humane determination of the Circomstances of one and the same sacred Ministerial office-worke 1. That which I cannot disprove as to a Divine Institution is a General Ministry over many Churches like the Scors Visiters at their Reformation who as Successors to the Apostles and Evangelists in the durable parts of their office were by a conjunction of Scripture evidence and Divine authority of office to perswade Pasâ—ors and people to their several duties and to have a chief hand in ordaining and removing Ministers 2. That which I will not contradict antiquity in is a Bishop in every particular Church to be as the chief Presbyter like the chief Justice on the bench or one of the Quorum as our Parish Ministers now are in respect to all their Curates of the Chappels under them 3. And I would not deny but at all Ministerial Synods one man may be Moderator either pro tempore or for continuance as there is cause These two last are but Prudential circumstances as Doctor Stiling fleet hath proved And in all these I like the Discipline of the Waldenses Bâ—â—emian and Polonian Churches But no Government of the Presbyters no concord no keeping out of Heresie requireth such as our Diocesans 1. Who put down all the Bishops of the particular Churches under them 2. And pretending Spiritual Power Govern by the force of the Magistrates Sword 3. And obtrude themselves on the people and Pastors without their consent and against their wills being by multitudes taken for the enemies of the Church 4. And visibly before the world introducing so many bad Ministers and silencing so many faithful ones as in this age they have done Without them we have all these means of concord following 1. We have a clear description of the duty of Ministers and people in Gods word 2. We have Ministers to Preach up all these duties by Office 3. The people are taught by Scripture what Ministers to choose 4. We find it natural to the people to before Learned and godly Ministers though many of them be bad themselves And though it be not so with them all yet the sober part do usually perswade the rest So that in London and else where those Parishes where the people choose had usually far worthier Pastors than the rest especially than those in the Bishops presentation 5. The people are obliged by God to marke those Ministers that cause division and contention and avoid them 6. The Ministers are bound to give notice to the people of false teachers and Schismaticks and to command them to avoid them And themselves to renounce Communion with them after the first and second admonition 7. These Ministers may have correspondence by Synods to keep up concord by agreement among themselves So we have over all a Christian King and Magistracy who are the rightful Governours of the Clergy as well as of all other subjects and may constrain the negligent to their duty and restrain the Heretical Schismatical and wicked from their sin And may not all this do much to keep up Concord 2. What our Diocesans really
shall by the people be appointed only let the Sheep-fold of Christ live in peace with the Presbyters appointed over it By which words it is evident that it was such a particular Ovile or Church where the Will of the people might be declared as a matter that bore much sway But who can think that this is spoken of many Congregations where the peoples Will could not easily be signified 6. And it is farther manifest in that it was but for the sake of one or two that the Church of Corinth moved this sedition against the Presbyters called also Bishops pag. 62. Now how many Congregations that Church consisted of where the interest of one or two was either so far concerned or so powerful it is easie to conjecture set all these together and judge impartially I add though out of season that it was none of the Apostles meaning that those whom they made Bishops of such single Churches without a subject Order of Presbyters should make such an Order of subject Presbyters and make themselves the Bishops of a Diocesane Church without any Bishops under them For pag. 57. he saith And our Apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ knew that contention would arise about the name of Episcopacy and for this cause being endued with perfect fore-knowledge they appointed them aforesaid and left the Courses or Orders of After-Ministers and Offices described that other approved men might succeed in the place of the deceased and might execute their Offices So that it was the same places and the same Offices which those ordained by the Apostles had in which others must succeed them which therefore were described by the Apostles and not into others To confirm my Exposition of Clemens note that Grotius himself Epist 182. ad Bignon giveth this as a reason to prove this Epistle of Clemens to be genuine Quod nusquam meminit exortis illius Episcoporum authoritatis quae Ecclesiae consuctudine post Marci mortem Alexandriae atque eo exemplo alibi introduci coepit sed plane ut Paulus Apostolus ostendit Ecclesias communi Presbyterorum qui iidem omnes Episcopi consilio fuisse gubernatas that is Because he no where maketh mention of that excelling authority of Bishops which began to be intrduoced at Alexandria by the custom of the Church after the death of Mark and in other places by that example But he plainly sheweth as the Apostle Paul doth that the Churches were governed by the Common Council of Presbyters who were also Bishops Note also as aforesaid that Doctor Hammond in Dissert granteth as to matter of fact that Clemens speaketh but of the Bishops of single Congregations whom he also calleth Presbyters there being no other in the Church of Corinth II. My next Witness is Pius Bishop of Rome in Epist Justo Episcopo in Biblioth Patr. Tom. 3. pag. 15. mentioning only Bishops and Deacons of which Doctor Hammond making the same Concession still granteth that hitherto Bishops had but single Churches Of this more anon III. My next and greatest Witness is Ignatius in whom to my admiration the Diocesanes so much confide as that quasi pro aris focis they contend for the authority of his Epistles I am as loth to lose him as they are therefore I will not meddle in Blondel's controversie against whom they say Doctor Pierson is now writing In his Epistle to the Philadelphians he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is to every Church one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbytery and the Deacons my fellow servants I am not able to devise apter words to express my sense in He saith not this of some one Church but of all nor yet as of an accident proper to those times of the Churches minority but as of the Notes of every Churches Individuation or Haecceity as they speak The Unity of the Church is characterised by One Altar and One Bishop with the Presbytery and Deacons If 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were out it would not alter the sense being plainly implied Bishop Downame's Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it signified Christ is so forced and contrary to the evidence of the Text that his own party quite forsake him in it and he needeth no confutation For who ever before dreamed that the Unity or Individuation of each particular Church consisted in having one Christ who is the common Head of all Churches One Christ to every Church and one Bishop would signifie that every Church must have one several Christ as well as one several Bishop Nor is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so used by the Ancients except when the Context sheweth that they speak by allusion of Christ Master Mede's plain and certain Exposition and Collection I gave you before the same with ours As for them that say that many Congregations might per vices come to one Altar to communicate I answer 1. Let them make Churches as big as can thus communicate and spare not though there be necessary Chappels or Oratories besides 2. But remember that every Church used to worship God publickly and to communicate at least every Lords day and that there was but One Altar to each Church and therefore but one Communicating Congregation Doctor Stillingfleet in his Schismatical Sermon is for my Exposition Object It is meant of one Species of Altars and not one Individual Answ Then it is meant also of one Species of Bishops in each Church and not of one Individual Object The practice of the Churches after sheweth that they took it not for a sin or Schism to have several Altars in a Church Answ I talk of nothing but matter of fact it was the note of One Church when those Epistles were written whether the Author was mistaken de jure or whether after Ages grew wiser or rather had fewer Bishops and more Altars for the sake of Carnal Interest I judge not The same Author Epist ad Smyrn saith Ubi utique apparet Episcopus ibi multitudo sit quemadmodum utique ubi est Christus Jesus illic Catholica Ecclesia as Usher's Lat. Trans or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnis exercitus coelestis And the Context sheweth that this multitudo or plebs is the Church which the Bishop overseeth Therefore ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia fuit and so every Church had a present Bishop So in Epist ad Magnes he bids them All unitedly or as one run together to one Temple of God as to one Altar to one Jesus Christ So that every Church had one Temple and one Altar to which as a note of their Union in Christ the whole Church must unanimously come So in Epist ad Trull he saith Et Episcopus typum Dei Patris omnium gerit Presbyteri vero sunt consessus quidam conjunctus Apostolorum coetus sine his Ecclesia Electa non est Nulla sine his Sanctorum Congregatio nulla Sanctorum Collectio Et postea Quid vero aliud Sacerdotium est vel Presbyterium quam sacer
change in their Church Orders Either it was part of the Apostolical Commission and work to settle Church Offices and orders for Government or not as to the species if Christ had not before done it or to settle it by revealing what Christ did command them either from Christ's mouth or the Spirits inspiration to â—â—tle the Catholick Church as Moses did the Jewish If it were none of their Commissioned Office work then it was none of John's And then it is done so as may be yet undone But if it were John's work it was Theirs And if theirs why did they not perform it Even while they had that promise Matth. 15. 20 21. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name c. And If two of you agree of a thing c. If you say that there was no need till they were all dead I answer It is a Fiction The greatest numerous Church at Jerusalem had more need of more than One to officiate among them and so had Ephesus Antioch Coritnb c. than most Churches else had in St. John's days And were all the Apostles so negligent and forgetful 2. What proof is there that St. John did make this change It is either by Scripture that it is proved or by History 1. Not by Scripture For 1. No Scripture mentioneth S. John's doing it 2. Dr. Hammond and his followers confess that it was not done as can be proved in Scripture times And Chronologers suppose that there was but a year or two between his death and the end of Scripture times that is the writing of his Apocalypse And is it probable that he began so great a Change the last year of his life 2. And History maketh no mention of it at all For I am ashamed to answer their nonconcluding reason from St. John's bringing a young prodigal to a Presbyter to be educated or his Ordaining Presbyters when it is no more than is said of the other Apostles Let them give us if they can any Satisfactory proof that S. John alone a year or two ere he died made this new species of Presbyters and Churches that we may believe it to be of God But blind presumptions we dare not trust 3. None of the Ancient Churches Councils or Doctors that ever I could find did ever hold that Subpresbyters were instituted by St. John alone and these changes made by him How then shall we think that men of yesterday can tell us without them and better than they and contrary to them the history of those times 4. By as good a course as this what humane corruption may not be defended and Scripture supposed insufficient to notifie Gods Church-institutions to us When there is nothing said in Scripture for them the Papists or others may say that S. John made this or that Change when all the rest were dead But why must we believe them 5. And the Church hath rejected this plea already long ago When Papias pleaded that he had the Millenary Doctrine from St. John himself and when the Eastern Churches pretended his Authority for their time of Easters observation here was incomparably a fairer shew of St. John's Authority than is produced by Dr. H. in the present case And yet both were over-ruled by the Consent of the Churches II. And that it cannot be proved to be the Apostles intentions that their establishment herein should be but temporary and left to the will of man to change I have largely proved in my Disput 1. of Church Government long ago I now only say 1. That which the Apostles did in execution of a Commission of Christ for which he promised and gave them his infallible Spirit was the work of Christ himself and the Spirit and not to be changed but by an Authority equal to that which did it But such was the setling of the species of Churches and Elders Ergo c. The Commission is before recited from Scripture and so is the promise and gift of the Spirit to perform it 2. Where there is full proof of a Divine Institution by the Apostles and no proof of a purpose that men should afterward change it or that this institution should be but for a time and then cease there that Institution is to be supposed to stand in force and the repeal cessation or allowed mutation to befeigned But there is full proof of a Divine institution by the Apostles that Preesbyters with the power of Government were placed over single Churches and no other saith Dr. H. And there is no proof brought us at all of either Repeal Cessation or Allowance for mutation Ergo c. They confess de facto all that we desire viz. 1. That there was then none but single Churches or Congregations under one Bishop 2. That there were no Subpresbyters Let them now prove the Allowance of a Change 3. That supposition is not to be granted which leaveth nothing sure in the Christian Churches and Religion But such is the supposition of a change of the Apostles Orders in these points Ergo. If the after times may change these Orders who can prove that they may not change all things else of supernatural institution As the Lords day Baptism the Lords Supper the Bible the Ministry yet remaining c. And if so nothing is sure Object Christ himself instituted these and therefore they may not be changed Answ 1. It was not Christ himself that wrote the Scripture but his servants by his Spirit 2. Christ himself did that mediately which his Apostles did by his Mandate and Spirit Matth. 28. 20. The Spirit was given them to bring all things to their remembrance which he had spoken to them And to cause them to Teach the Churches all things which Christ had commanded them And as Christ made the Sin against the Holy Ghost to be greater than that which was but directly against his humanity and as he promised his Disciples that by that Spirit they should do greater works than his so that which his Spirit in them did establish was of no less authority than if Christ had personally established it 4. By this rule the Prelates themselves may be yet taken down by as good authority as the Apostles other settlement was changed For if it was done by Humane Authority there is yet as great Humane power to make that further change Wherever they place it in Kings Bishops or Councils they may yet put down Bishops by as good authority as they put down what the Apostles set up and may set up more new orders still by as good authority as they set up these half-presbyters And so the Church shall change as the Moon 5. That which is accounted a reproach to all Governours is not without proof to be imputed to God and his inspired Apostles But to make oft and sudden changes of Government is accounted a reproach to all Governours Ergo For it is supposed that they wanted either foresight and wisdom to know what was to be
than could meet in one Assembly and had allowance to Communicate in their sub-assemblies yet were they appointed on certain great and solemn Festivals to Communicate all with the Bishops at the chief City Church which sheweth that the sub-assemblies then were few and small 39. Thus was the Apostles Order by degrees subverted and whereas they settled distinct Churches with their distinct Bishops no Bishop having two Churches under him that had not also their proper Bishop now One Church was made of many without many Bishops sub-Presbyters first in the same Church being introduced at last sub-Churches also were set up And when they should have done as we do with Bees let every new Swarm have a new Hive and should have multiplyed Bishops and Churches homogeneal as sufficient numbers of Converts came in instead of this the City Bishops kept all under them as if they had been still one Church yet not as Archbishops that have Bishops under them and kept their sub-Presbyters as their Curates to officiate in the several Churches that had all no Bishops but One. 40. The causes of this were apparently most of the same which are mentioned before for the making of sub-Presbyters Especially 1. The selfishness of the Bishops who were loth to let go any of the people from under their superiority Because it was more honour to rule many than one single Congregation and he was a greater man that had many sub-Presbyters and whole Assemblies at his command than he that had not And also many afforded greater maintenance than a few And 2. the same Reasons that made men at first set up one Presbyter as Bishop over the rest to avoid Divisions and to determine Arbitrations did now seem strong to them for the keeping up the Authority of the City Bishop over the sub-Assemblies round about them 3. And Cities only having been possessed of Bishops for many Years if not Ages before there were Christians enow to make up Country Churches both the Bishops and the City Inhabitants easily overlooking the Reason of it took this for their Prerogative and did plead Prescription As if Schools being planted only in Cities first the Cities and Schoolmasters should thence plead that none must be setled in Country Villages but what are ruled by the City School-Masters And thus the Cities being far the strongest and the Interest of the Citizens and Bishops in point of honour being conjunct and none being capable of a Country charge but such as the City Bishops at first Ordained to it because then there were no other Bishops without resistance it came to pass that both Churches and Presbyters were subjected to the City Bishops 4. And it greatly advanced this design that the Churches which were planted in the Roman Empire did seek to participate of all secular honour that belonged to the place of their Residence And as Dr. Hammond hath largely opened though not well justified did form themselves according to the Model of the Civil Government so that those Cities that had the Presidents or chief Civil Rulers and Judicatures in them did plead a right of having also the chief Bishops and Ecclesiastical Judicatures And thus not only Cities ruled the Country Villages but in time the distinct powers and pre-eminences of Archbishops Metropolitans Primates Patriarchs and the Roman chief Patriarch or Pope came up And the Pagan Common-wealth and Christian Church within the Roman Empire and the neighbouring parts that were influenced by them had a great resemblance 41. But that which most notably set up this exsort swelling and degenerate Prelacy was the mistaken zeal of Constantine together with his Policy and the ambition of Christians and Bishops that were gratified by it For 1. As Constantine perceived that it was the Christians that were his surest strength and when the Heathen Soldiers turned from one Emperour to another as they were tempted he knew that if he only did own the Christians they would unanimously own him and be constant to him so also his Judgment and Zeal for Christianity did concur with his Interest and Policy And as all the Secular and Military Rulers depended on him for honour and power throughout the Roman world he thought it not seemly to give the chief Christians who were the Bishops less honour than he did to the Heathens and to common men Nor did he think meet to deny to the Christian Churches such priviledges as might somewhat set them higher than his other subjects 2. And the Bishops and Christians coming from under long scorn and contempt and coming newly from under the cruel Persecution of Dioclesian and affrighted anew by Maxentius and Licenius they were not only glad to be now honoured and advanced but greatly lifted up with such a sudden wonderous change as to be brought from scorn and cruel torments to be set up above all others As we should have been had we been in their case and it 's like should no more have feared the ill consequents of too much exaltation than they did 3. And the Christian people thought that the exaltation of their Bishops was the honour and exaltation of their Religion it self as well as of their persons 42. Whereas as is aforesaid the Christians had commonly stated the power of Arbitrating all their Civil differences in the Bishop alone when the Apostle intimated that any Wise man among them as such was fit for that business it grew presently to be accounted a heynous crime or scandal for any Christians to go to Law before the Civil Magistrate And Constantine finding them in possession of this custom did by his Edict confirm it and enlarge it decreeing that all Bishops should be Judges of all the Christians causes by consent and that no Civil Judge or Magistrate should compel any Christian to his bar Insomuch that in Theodosius his days when one of Ambrose his Presbyters had a cause to be tryed he denyed himself to be a Christian that he might have it decided by the Civil Magistrate that was Christian also So that even Christian Magistrates might not judge unwilling Christians but the Bishops only Yet had not the Bishops then the power of the Sword but decided all as Arbitrators and enforced their Sentences with rigorous penances and Church-censures By which means 1. many the more turned Christians without the Faith and Holiness of Christians that they might both partake of the Christians honour and immunities and specially that they might be free from corporal penalties for their crimes And who would not do so if it were now our case 2. And by this means the rigorous penalties of the Church by penances were the more easily submitted to as being more easie than corporal pains and mulcts And when thus by the Laws and countenance of so great an Emperour the Bishops were made the Judges of all that were Christians at present and all that would turn Christians that desired it it is easie to understand 1. what a Lordship they must needs
teach them not to disdain the advice of their Presbyters but to use their Authority with so much the greater humility and moderation as a Sword which the Church hath power to take from them This is Mr. Hooker And page 14. He confesseth that according to the Custom of England and a Council at Carthage Presbyters may impose hands in Ordination with the Bishop though not without him So that by this they have the the power of Ordination to though he have a Negative Voice in it And indeed if all Ordination must be done by one of a Superiour Order who shall Ordain Bishops or Archbishops or Patriarchs or the Pope And page 18. He saith Most certain truth it is that Churches Cathedral and the Bishops of them are as glasses wherein the face and countenance of Apostolical antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen Which is it that we also affirm every City or Church having a Bishop and Presbytery of their own And whereas page 19. He saith If we prove that Bishops have lawfully of old ruled over other Ministers it is enough how few soever those Ministers have been how small soever the circuit of place which hath contained them If this be so we grant you enough when we grant Parochial Bishops But no where doth he more palpably yield our Cause than page 21 22. where to Cartwright's Objection that the Bishop that Cyprian speaketh of is nothing else but such as we call Pastor or as the common name is Parsons and his Church whereof he is Bishop is neither Diocess nor Province but a Congregation which met together in one place to be taught by one man He hath no better answer to this than to tell us that If it were true it is impertinent and that it is not true because Cyprian had many Presbyters under him so as they might have every day change for performance of their duty And he never once attempteth to prove that Cyprian had more Churches yea or Assemblies than One but only that he was over the Presbyters in one Church or Assembly and as an Archbishop was over Bishops The same thing which I submit to but nothing against the things that I assert against him A Parson may have divers Curates under him and not divers Churches much loss a thousand that have no other Bishop And whereas page 33. It is objected that many things are innovated in our Discipline as imposing Ministers on the People without their consent Bishops Excommunicating alone Imprisoning c. His answer is that the Church may change her customes And on that ground alloweth the Ordination of Presbyters alone because the Church can give them power For he goeth in Church-matters as he doth in point of Civil Government on his false supposition that all Power is Originally in the whole Body saying page 37. The whole Church visible being the true Original subject of all power it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than Bishops alone to Ordain Howbeit as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary ways What is more contrary than Saravia Tract de Obedient and Hooker in their Principles of Government From hence also page 38. He inferreth the no necessity of continued Succession of Bishops in every effectual Ordination And it is very observable which he granteth for it cannot be denied The Power of Orders I may lawfully receive without the asking consent of any multitude but the power I cannot exercise upon any certain People against their wills And page 38. He cannot deny but the ancient use was for the Bishops to excommunicate with the College of his Assistant Presbyters but he taunteth Beza for thinking that this may not be changed These are the men that build upon Antiquity and the Custom of the Universal Church And page 69. when the Canons for Bishops spare course of living are objected he saith that those Canons were made when Bishops lived of the same Purse which served as well for a number of others as for them and yet all at their disposing Intimating the old Course when every Church had its Bishop and inferiour Clergy But Innovation is lawful for our Prelacy And now he that can find any thing in Hooker against the points which I defend or for that Prelacy which I oppose any more worth the answering than this that I have recited let him rejoyce in the perfection of his eye-sight And if thus much be worthy to be confuted or such as this let them do it that have nothing else to do So ridiculous is the Challenge of one that glorieth to write a Book with the same Title of Ecoles Policy who insultingly provoketh us to write a full Confutation of Hooker who saith so little to the main point in Controversie our Diocesan Form of Prelacy and writeth his whole Book in a tedious Preaching stile where you may read many leaves for so much Argumentation as one Syllogism may contain that I think I might as wisely have challenged himself to conâ—â—ue Mr. Fâ—x's Book of Martyrs or Baronius his Annals almost or at least may say as Dr. John Burges doth of Mr. Parker another sort of Parker his Book of the Cross which Dr. Ames saith was never answered that if any will reduce that gawdy Treatise into Argument it being indeed almost all made up of the fruits of Reading History Sentences c. of purpose to confute them that said the Nonconformists were no Schollars he should quickly have an Answer to it So if any will reduce all that is in Mr. Hooker's 8 Books in tedious Discourses into Syllogism which is against what I maintain I believe it will not all fill up one half or quarter of a page and it shall God-willing be soon answered In the mean time the popular Principles of his First and Eighth Book subverting all true Government I have already confuted elsewhere in my Christian Directory 5. Bishop Downame hath said much more to the main Points in the defence of his Consecration Sermon and as much as I can expect to find in any But 1. as to the mode he is so contrary to Hooker that being a very expert Logician he wasteth so much of his Book about the Forms of Arguments and Answers that he obscureth the matter by it and ensnareth those Readers who do not carefully distinguish between Matter and Words and between the force of the reason and the form of a Syllogism And he so adorneth or defileth his Style with taunts insulting scorns and contemptuous reproaches that it is more sutable to the Scold sat Billings-gate than so learned and godly a Divine and occasioneth his Adversaries to say You have here a taste of the Prelatical Spirit 2. As to the matter of his first Book I am of his mind against meer ruling Elders He and Bilson have evinced what they hold in that But as to the points in which
As for Petavius I need not confute him for he granteth me most as to matter of Fact that I desire as I shall after further shew His Fundamental Assertion is That the two Offices of Bishops and Presbyters were both placed in the same person in the Apostles days at which Salmasius justly laugheth For what is that but to say that then there was no such person as a Subject Presbyter much less as our half-Presbyters And Salmasius justly congratulateth his concession that solo confensu hominum vitandi schismatis gratia unus enumero Episcoporum eorundemque Presbyterorum electus est qui praeesset caeteris Quod nemo dici prohibet Nam etsi Episcopalis ordo jure divino introductus est non eodem tamen illo jure decretum est ut unus in singulis civitatibus Ecclesiis esset Episcopus sed Ecclesiae authoritate conciliorumque sanctionibus viz. It was only by Mans consent and for the avoiding of Schism that one was chosen out of the number of Bishops who also were Presbyters to be above the rest This saying none forbiddeth For though the Episcopal Order was introduced by Divine Right yet was it not by the same right decreed that One should be a Bishop in each City and Church but by the authority of the Church and the sanctions of Councils Of this sober Jesuit more anon 8. The Learned Bishop Andrews in his Epistles to Pet. Molinaeus hath said somewhat but in his Scheme Printed at Oxford 1641. before the Treatises for Episcopacy much more But as to his Description of the Jewish Form we dare not thence gather that Christians may imitate them while we know that the cessation of the Jewish Policy and Law is so largely pleaded for by Paul and that Christ is the perfect Lawgiver to his Church and that we must not add or alter on pretence of supposed parity of reason And as to his Reasons for Diocesanes from the New Testament though the well ordering of them make them very taking yet when examined they are no other but what we have found and answered in others 9. The truly Learned Reverend and Godly Primate Usher in the same forementioned Collection of Treatises hath one of the Original of Bishops and Metropolitans and another of the Proconsular Asia But 1. The utmost which he pleadeth for is no more than we acquiesce in as that it was his Model or Reduction published since by Dr. Bernard which we humbly offered to his Majesty as the means of our common concord And he hath himself told me his Judgment that Bishops and Presbyters differ not as two Orders but in Degree And that Ordinis est Ordinare or that he that hath the Order hath intrinsical power to Ordain though he is regularly to do it under the Bishops oversight And therefore it is not invalid and null but only irregular or schismatical when it is done disobediently against the Bishop and so may be disabled in foro exteriore which Dr. Bernard also hath published of him and Dr. Mason in the same Treatise fullier proveth And he took Presbyters to be Governours of the Flocks and the Synods of Bishops to be but for Concord and not to have a proper Governing power over the particular Bishops as he hath himself expressed to me Him therefore that is for us we need not confute And yet I must confess that the great Argument which he and Bishop Andrews and Saravia and all others use from the title of Angel given to the Bishops Rev. 2. and 3. did never seem of any weight to me nor moved my understanding that way at all Believing that Tyconius his old Exposition mentioned by Austin is liker to be true and that indeed it is neither one Prelate nor all the Clergy but the whole Churches that is meant by the Angel of the Churches For the Prophecy coming by Vision the word Angel is mentioned in the Vision phrase and oft in that book is by all confessed to signifie collective Bodies and more than single Individuals As Usher de Babilone himself holdeth that by the false Prophet in the singular number is meant the Roman Clergy It would be more tedious than necessary to recite the instances in that Book I therefore who because of its obscurity am apt to be distrustful of almost all Arguments that are fetcht from the dark Prophecies of Daniel or the Revelations am little satisfied with this from the name Angel And who can believe them that say Timothy was then the Bishop of Ephesus and so excellent a person as that none was like minded as described by Paul and yet that Christ had this against him that he had lost his first love and must remember from whence he is fallen and repent and do his first works or be rejected Rev. 2. 4 5. And in a word that the Apostles who placed holy persons in the Ministry had set such over those eminent Churches as were neither hot nor cold and had the rest of the faults that are mentioned by Christ And the whole style of the Text doth easily prove this Exposition against theirs Rev. 2. 2 4 7. As the praises and dispraises there seem to referr to the whole Church so v. 7. what can be more express than Hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches And v. 10. Behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tryed and ye shall have tribulation ten days be thou faithful c. And again v. 11. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches which is repeated and spoken to every one of the seven v. 14 15. It is liker to be the whole Society than the Bishop that is reproved for having false Teachers and Hereticks among them and are called quickly to repent And v. 20. that suffered the Woman Jezebel to teach For the Bishops could not hinder false Teachers but by Excommunicating them and disswading the People from hearing them But the People could have done more even refused to hear them V. 23. And all the Churches shall know seemeth to intimate that this was written to the Church V. 24. Unto you I say and to the rest in Thyatira as many as have not this Doctrine and have not known the depth of Satan c. Was this spoken to the Bishop only Chap. 3. v. 1. Was it the Bishop of Sardis only that had a name to live and was dead and that was warned to be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die whose works were not perfect before God that must remember how he had received and heard that had a few Names in Sardis c. And so of the rest Obj. But it is said Chap. 1. v. 20. The seven Stars are the Angels of the seven Churches and the seven Candlesticks are the seven Churches Ans And what can a man gather hence to satisfie himself in this point whether the sense be
as we desire If any more be necessary he granteth it us § 11. where having feigned and not proved that the people of all the Province of Macedonia were said by Paul to be at Philippi he confesseth that then every City had a Bishop and none of those that we now call Presbyters And it is more this Bastard sort of Presbyters Office that we deny than the Bishops And granting this he grants us all even that then there was no such half Officers nor Bishops that had the rule of any Presbyters which he further proveth § 19 20 21. And by the way § 16 17. he giveth us two more Observations 1. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave precedency to some Churches Where I would learn whether the Holy Ghost still observed the order in converting men to begin at the highest Metropolis and descend by order to the lowest and so to the Villages Or whether our Doctor do not here contradict what he said before of the Apostles every where disposing of the Churches according to the Civil Metropolitical Order I doubt his memory here failed him 2. Philippi and Thessalonica being both in Macedonia and these Epistles being each written to all the Province we hence learn that the Epistle to the Thessalonians and that to the Philippians were written to the same men Whether each Epistle Rev. 2. 3. to the seven Churches of Asia was written to all Asia and so all the faults charged on all that are charged on any one I leave to your arbitrary belief For none of these are proved whatever proof is boasted of Cap. 11. he further gratifieth us in expounding 1 Tim. 3. in the same manner One Bishop with Deacons then serving for a whole Diocess that is for one Assembly not having such a thing as a half Presbyter subject to any Bishop Cap. 12. he is as liberal in expounding Tit. 1. By Elders in every City is meant a single Bishop that had no half Presbyter under him and whose Diocess had but one Assembly We are not so unreasonable as to quarrel with this liberality Cap. 13. And about Heb. 13. we are as much gratified in the Exposition of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which more afterwards And Cap. 14 and 15. he saith the same of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pastors and Teachers that they both are meant of none but Bishops And that Presbyters now adays are permitted and tyed to teach the people and instruct them from the Scriptures this apparently arose hence that Bishops in ordaining Presbyters gave them that power but not to be exercised till licensed by the Bishops Letters Of this detestable Opinion worse than the Italians in the Council of Trent that would have derived the Episcopal Power from the Pope I have said somewhat before and intend more in due place The Bishops do only ministerially give them possession Christ is the only Instituter of the Office by himself and his Spirit in his Apostles Can the Bishops any more chuse to deliver this possession by Ordination than to preach the Gospel Could they have made Presbyters that had no power to teach the people Is the Bishops liberality the original of the Office How much then is Christ beholden to Bishops that when a thousand Parishes are in some one of their Diocesses they will give leave to any Presbyter to teach any of the people and that when eighteen hundred of us were silenced in one day Aug. 24. 1662. that all the rest were not served so too Cap. 16. he exerciseth the same naked affirming Authority of the words Ministers of the word Luke 1. 2. and Stewards all are but Bishops And he asketh whether ever man heard of more Stewards than one in one house or of several bearers of one Key And he foresaw that we would tell him that Gods Catholick Church is one House of God and that at least all the Apostles were Stewards and Key-Bearers in that one Church and that by his Doctrine none but one of them should be Steward of Gods Mysteries or have the Keys And therefore he saith that Though the Apostles are called Stewards of the Mysteries of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. that is to be reckoned as pertaining to the many divided Families that is the many particular Churches distinct parts of the Universal Church which the Apostâ—â—s divided among themselves Answ Unless his etiam here be a self-contradicting cheat it will hence follow 1. That the Apostles are not Stewards of Gods Mysteries in gathering Churches but only to the Churches gathered 2. That in Baptizing and giving the Holy Ghost to such as yet entered not into a Particular Church they exâ—ercised not any of their said Stewardship or Power 3. That thay have no Power of the Keyes at all over any that are not Members of a Particular Church such as the Eunuch Act. 8. And many Merchants Embassadors Travellers and many thousands that want Pastors or opportunity or hearts yea and all Christians in the first Instant as meerly Baptized Persons seeing Baptisme entereth them only into the Universal Church and not into any particular as such 4. And that till the Apostles gathered particular Churches and distributed them they had no Stewardship nor use at least of the Keyes And what if it can never be provedthat ever the Apostles distributed the universal Church into Apostolical Provinces but only pro re nata distributed themselves in the World were they never Stewards then nor Key-bearers Verily if I believed such a distribution of the World into twelve or more Provinces by them I should question the power that altered that Constitution and set us up but four or five Patriarches And were the same Apostles no Stewards or Key-bearers out of their feigned several Provinces If we must be cilenced unless we subscribe to the Dictates of such self conceited Confident men who shall ever Preach that is not born under the same Planet with them Cap. 17. he proceedeth still to maintain our Cause that even in Justin Martyrs writings and others of that Age by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are meant the Bishops of the several Churches who had not one Presbyter under them but Deacons only and therefore had but single Congregations but did themselves alone with the Deacon perform all the publick Offices in the Church And that no equal Presbyter was placed with them offendeth us no more than that our Parish Ministers now are presented and instituted alone yea and have power to take Curates under them as their helpers Cap. 18. He proveth truly that the Names Sacerdos and Sacerdotium are usually by old Writers spoken of sole Bishops and Episcopacy By which we are the more confirmed in our Opinion that he that is not Episcopus gregis a Bishop over the Flock is not Sacerdos true Pastor but hath only a limb of the Ministerial Office being a thing of presumptuous Prelates institution Cap. 19. He surther strengtheneth us by
counted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine compared with 1 Cor. 9. 14. Gal. 6. 6. which shew that preaching the Gospel was their work as well as Ruling the Churches under them as 1 Cor. 12. 28. Eph. 4. 11 12. Rom. 12. 7 8. intimate Acts 20. 17 28. He sent to Ephesus and called the Elders of the Church Take heed to your selves and to all the flocks over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers or Bishops to feed or rule the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud v. 31. Therefore watch c. v. 35. So labouring ye ought to support the weak Acts 11. 30. They sent it to the Elders by the hands of Barnabas and Soul Acts 15. 2. 6. 22 23. To the Apostles and Elders And the Apostles and Elders came together to consider Then pleased it the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church The Apostles Elders and Brethren send greeting See v. 25 28. Acts. 6. 4. The decrees which were ordained of the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem Acts 2â— 18. The day following Paul went in with us unto James and all the Elders were present 1 â—im 4. 14. Neglect not the gift which is in thee which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery 1 Pet. 5. 1. The Elders which are among you â—exhort who also am an Elder Feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight or Episcopacy thereof not by constraint but willingly Neither as being Lords over Gods heritage but being ensamples to the flock And when the chief Shepherd shall appear 2 Joh. 1. The Elder to the Elect Lady Whether those Texts 1 Tim. 5. 1. Rebuke not an Elder v. 19. Receive not an accusation against an Elder speak of an Elder by Office or by Age is uncertain if it be by Office the other Texts describe them Jam. 5. 14. Is any man sick Let him call for the Elders of the Church All these Texts shew that every Church had Elders by the institution of the Holy Ghost That they were the Teachers Worshippers Rulers and were among the people present with their flock personally doing their Offices c. And the Scripture mentioneth no other that I can find And of this I have Dr. Hammonds full confession Annotat. in Act. 11. dissert before cited with all those whom he mentioneth of his party and mind And as for them of the contrary opinion they tell us that in Scripture times the Names Presbyter Bishop were common And that the word Bishops sometimes signified all the Presbyters the Bishops as Presbyters and the Subpresbyters as in Phil. 1. 1 2. And that the word Presbyters sometimes signifieth the Bishops only and sometime both conjunctly But they are none of them able to give us any one instance with proof of a Text which speaketh of Subject Presbyters I mean subject in Order or degree to Bishops of the single Churches and not subject to the Apostles and General officers And while we prove that God appointed such entire Presbyters as are here described and they cannot prove against Dr. Hammond or us that any one text speaketh of a lower order or rank I think we need no other Scripture evidence CHAP. XIII The same confirmed by the Ancients AS for Humane testimony the heap is so great brought in by Dav. Blondel that I have the less mind to say any more of it But shall only besides all that is said before on the by recite a few of those testimones which most convinced my own understanding in the reading of them in the Authors themselves leaving others to take what they see best out of Blondels store I. I know that somewhat may be said against what I shall first cite but I think not of sufficient force I begin with it though not first in time because first in Authority The 1. Concil Nicaen in their Epistle to the Church of Alexand. and all the Churches of Egypt Libya and Pentapolis thus decree concerning those that were Ordained by Meletius as Socrat. lib. 1. c. 6. translated by Grynaeus Hi autem qui Dei gratia vestris precibus adjuti ad nullum schisma deflexisse comperti sunt sed intra Catholicae Apostolicae Ecclesiae fines ab erroris labe vacuos se continuerint authoritatem habeant tum Ministros ordinandi tum eos qui clero digni fuerint nominandi tum denique omnia ex lege instituto Ecclesiastico libere exequendi Now ordaining Ministers and nominating men for the Clergy are acts which if any shew Presbyters to be Rulers in the Church Obj. 1. Perhaps it is Bishops ordained by Meletius that are here spoken of or Bishops with the Presbyters respectively Answ There is no more in the Text but this They decreed further touching such as were entred into holy Orders by his laying on of hands that they after confirmation with more mystical laying on of hands should be admitted into the fellowship of the Church with this condition that they should enjoy their dignity and degree of Ministry yet that they be inferiour to all the Pastors throughout every province and Church Moreover that they have no authority to elect the Ministers approved by their censures no not so much as to nominate them which are to execute the Ecclesiastical functions nor to intermeddle with any thing touching them that are within Alexanders jurisdiction without the consent of the Bishop of the Catholick Church And then they add as afore that those that fell not into Schism as they did shall have authority to Consecrate Ministers and nominate such as shall be thought worthy of the Clergy Now that it is Presbyters and not Bishops that are here spoken of appeareth 1. In that it is without any note of eminency said to be such as were entred into Holy Orders 2. In that it is such as so entred by the Laying on of Meletius's hands Wherereas a Bishop must be ordained by the hands of three Bishops And the Schism of one of the three would not have frustrated the Ordination if the other two stood firm in the Catholick Union 3. Because it is the priviledge of Presbyters that is denyed them Though they be not degraded they are to be below all other Pastors in every Church which cannot be that they shall be Bishops below all Presbyters 4. Because the consent of the Bishop of the Catholick Church where they shall come is necessary to their officiating But if it could have been proved that Bishops had been here included yet while Presbyters also are included it will not invalidate the testimony But indeed here is no such proof I confess that Nicephorus a less credible Author seemeth to apply it to Bishops Ordained by Meletius But no such thing can be gathered out of Sozomen either Tripart lib. 1. c. 18. where he describeth Meletius and his party or Tripart lib. 2.
he knoweth how little of it will be done And who will use his wit learning and zeal to plead his cause and his parts and office thus to serve his designs and gratifie him who considereth what it is to be a Bishop a Christian or a man CHAP. XVI That the English Diocesane Government doth change this office of a Presbyter of Gods institution into another quantum in se of humane invention I Come now to prove the Minor proposition of my Argument That the Diocesane Government deposeth the Office of Presbyters which God hath instituted as much as in them lieth By which limitation I mean that if we would judge of the Power and Obligation of Presbyters as the Prelatical constitution de facto doth describe it and not as God describeth it contrarily we must take it for another thing For the proof of this it must 1. be considered what is Essential to the office and 2. How somewhat Essential is taken from them I. And 1. we grant as before that no Action whatsoever as performed at the present or for some excepted season is Essential to the Pastoral office A man ceaseth not to be a Preacher or Pastor as soon as the Sermon is done and he is out of the Church When a man is asleep or in a journey he endeth not his office Nor yet when he is interrupted by business sickness or persecution Yea if he were so sick as to be sure never to exercise his office more he keepeth the Title with respect to what he hath already done 2. Yet Exercise as Intended and as the Relative end or Terminus of the Obligation and Authority is Essential to the Office For when it is a Relation which we question and that consisteth in Obligation and Authority there is no doubt but it is ad aliquid and is specified by the Action or Exercise to which men are Obliged and Authorized As a Judge a Souldier a Physician are And it being a Calling which we speak of and that durante vita capacitate it must be such Action as is intended to be Ordinary and Constant He that Consenteth not to do the work of a Minister and that for more than a trial or a present occasion and is not Obliged and Authorized to that work at least statedly as his intended ordinary course of life is no Minister of Christ which Paul well expresseth by that phrase Rom. 1. 1. Separated to the Gospel of God 3. As God in creating man made him in his own Image so did Christ in making Church Pastors Therefore he saith As my Father sent me so send I you And he that receiveth you receiveth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and him that sent me Luke 10. 16. And they are Embassadours to beseech men in his name and stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And Christ himself is called the Angel of the Covenant and the Apostle and high Priest of our Profession and the Great Prophet and the Bishop of our Souls and the good Shepherd and the great Shepherd or Pastor of the flock and the Minister of the Circumcision And he was a Preacher of the same word of life as we are And he administred the same Sacrament of Communion as we do Now as the Office of Christ had these three Essential parts viz. to be the Teacher the High Priest and the Ruler of the Church so hath not only the Apostles but every true Pastor in his place as is proved this threefold subserviency to Christ 1. They will confess themselves that He is no true Pastor who hath not Authority and Obligation which set together are called a Commission to be a Teacher of the Church For though some men may be so weak as that they can Teach but by Reading Catechizing Conference or very short defective immethodical Sermons And though where a Church hath Many the Ablest may be the usual publick Preachers and the rest be but his assistants Yet I never found any proof of Elders that were not Teachers by office as well as Rulers and had not Commission to Teach the flock according to their abilities and might not Preach as the need of the Church required it however the weaker may give place to the abler in the exercise of his office Because his office is an Obligation and Authority to exercise his Gifts as they are for the Churches greatest edification 2. And it will be confessed that he is no Minister or Pastor who is not Commissioned by Christ to be the Churches Guide in publick Worship in Prayer praise and Sacrament of Communion However where there are many all cannot officiate at once 3. Therefore all the doubt remaineth whether the power of the Keys for Church Covernment such as belongeth to Pastors be not as Essential as the rest I say the Commission the Authority and the Obligation though violence may much hinder the exercise And this I have proved before and must not stay to repeat it Only 1. God doth not distinguish when he giveth them the Keys and office Therefore we must not distinguish 2. The very signification of the words Keys Pastor Presbyter Overseer Steward c. do not only import this Guiding Ruling power but notably signifie it as most think more notably than the Worshipping part of their office 3. Dr. Hammond and all of his mind confess that in Scripture these words are applyed to no one person or office that had not the Governing as well as the Teaching and Worshipping power 4. The truth is the Teaching and Ruling and Worshipping power are inseparably twisted together Ruling is done not by the sword here but in a Teaching way by the Word As a Physician may 1. read a Lecture of health to his Patients 2. and give every one particular directions for his own cure and this last is called Governing them So when the same Pastor who Teacheth all generally by Sermons doth make his applications to mens persons and cases particularly it is Governing the Church as when a man is impenitent he doth Excommunicate him only by teaching him and the Church that such persons as are so impenitent are under the wrath of God and uncapable of Church Communion and therefore requiring the Church as from Christ to avoid that person and declaring him to be under the wrath of God till he repent and requiring him to forbear Communion with the Church And so in other acts of Government And as in Worshipping the Pastor delivereth the Sacrament of Communion so it must belong to him to Give it or Deny it 5. And indeed the ancient Churches had usually more Pastors than Assemblies by which means every Presbyter could not daily preach and officiate But yet they were so constant Assistants in the Government as hath occasioned so many to think that it was mere Ruling Elders who joyned with the Bishops in those times And Paul himself saying 1 Tim. 5. 17. The Elders that rule well are worthy of double
day 3. The remaining respects which the people had to the Prelates and their way was a hinderance to us that desired to meddle herein with none but consenters 4. A great number of Sectaries raised by the distastes of the Prelates wayes did also hinder us 5. Yet it was than possible and feasible to Ministers that were wise and willing to do so much as might very much attain the ends of discipline though not so much as they desired 6. But is this an Objection fit for the Prelatists to make or doth it not encrease their condemnation what would you say to a Physician a Pilot a Schoolmaster that should say It is not an hundred Physicians that can do what should be done for all the Patients in this City nor an hundred Pilots that can well govern all the Navy nor an hundred School masters that can well Govern all the Schools in the Diocess Therefore I will get them all turned out and I will be the only Physician with my Apothecaries the only Pilot with my Sâ—amâ—n the only Schoolmaster with my Monitors and Ushers my self for the work can be but left undone Such rule the Churches must have while God for our sins will suffer it The doing it per alios is oft enough answered before Obj. V. Many Parish Ministers are young and raw and unfit to govern Ans 1. They are unfit who make this Objection who bring and keep such in and cast so many hundred out that are better however ignorant malice slander them 2. This also may be said against their preaching much more For 3. They may Rule with others when they cannot preach by others 4. There may be appeals to the next Synod or Prelate if you will have it so Obj. VI. You would have a Priest to be a Pope in his Parish Ans I can call this Objection no better than gross Impudency For 1. It s a Contradiction A Pope is a Head of the Universal Church And so it is saying that we make every Minister a Head of the Universal Church to his Parish 2. We desire more Presbyters than One in a Church 3. We desire Appeals to the next Synod and is that to be a Pope 4. Is not one Minister as able to Rule a Parish without the help of assistants and Synods as one Prelate to Rule many hundred Parishes who likely is a worse man than the Minister Impudent pride will perhaps say no. CHAP. XXI The Magistrates Sword is neither the strength of Church discipline nor will serve instead of it nor should be too much used to second and enforce it THese three assertions I will prove distinctly 1. The Magistrates Sword is not the chief strength of true Church discipline I add this because this is the Prelatists last Objection that its true that the Keys are but brutum fulmen and a leaden sword without the Magistrates For almost all men will dispise it Who will come to our Courts if they may choose Who will regard our Excommunications Do not the people now despise them what then would they do if they had their wills when we have excommunicated the Schismaticks They will Excommunicate us again The greatest Prelatists who write to me and speak with me use these very words themselves To which I answer 1. If we prove that Christ hath instituted discipline and that for such noble ends as aforementioned it is little less than blasphemy thus to reproach it As if Christ had no more Power Wisdome or Goodness than to ordain so vain and unprofitable a means to such high and necessary ends 2. The objection doth but express a carnal mind which regardeth only carnal things and thinketh as basely of all others as if nothing moved them but the interest of the flesh And as if Gods favour or displeasure and the authority of his word and Ministers were of no force or regard even with the Church of Christ 3. The objection inviteth Kings to put down all Bishops except Preachers and Magistrates For why should they put the people to so great charge and trouble especially when they love the Prelates so little as to keep them up to wield a Leaden Sword and to brandish a brutum fulmen and to make a noise to no more purpose yea to rob the Magistrate of the honour of his proper work and to make the deluded people believe that those things are done by a brutum fulmen which really are done by the Civil power 4. This objection bitterly reproacheth all the ancient Churches and Bishops and all General and provincical Councils and all the Cannons and ancient discipline of the Churches As if they had troubled the world to no pupose and all their discipline had been vain 5. The objection is notoriously confuted in that the Discipline was more powerful and had better effect before Constantius time than afterwards and was much more strictly exercised against sin And that which so long did more without the Sword than afterward by it doth not receive its efficacy from the Sword 6. A naturarei there is as much of Divine Authority as much of the power of his Precepts Prohibitions Promises and threatnings as much of Heavenly inducement as much of the terrors of Hell as much of internal goodness of holyness and evil of sins as much of Soul interest in what the Minister propoundeth for mens conviction as there is when it is backt with the Magistrates Sword And if all these have no force Christianity must be a dream and able to do no good in the world which better beseemeth Julian Celsuâ— or Porphyry Symmachus or Eunapius to say than a Bishop 7. By this objection the Prelatists openly confess that their Churches consist of men so carnal as are not moved by Divine authority without the Sword And consequently what Pastors they have been to the Churches and how they have governed them and what they allow us to expect from their discipline for the time to come 8. By this Objection they condemn themselves and justifie the Nonconformists For why should we Swear that we will never endeavour any alteration of so brutish an Office as if the King and Parliament could not take down such an useless thing And why should so many hundred Ministers be forbidden to Preach Christ for not assenting consenting and Swearing to such a vaine and brutish power 9. By this they give up their cause to the Presbyterians and Independents Confessing that their discipline is uneffectual when as we that plead for another frame desire not the Magistrates Sword to interpose and desire to use discipline on none but Volunteers And either the discipline which we desire hath some efficacy or none If none what need they fear it or hinder it or silence so many hundred Ministers and write and strive and all to keep men from using such a brutum fulmen which can do no harme But if they confess that our discipline hath efficacy and theirs hath none what do they but directly
when vacant by the Bishops death Now all these lived together as in a little Colledge thus the Churches were planted and the Gospel disseminated through the world But at first every Bishop had but one Parish yet afterwards when the numbers of the Christians increased that they could not conveniently meet in one place and when through the violence of persecution they durst not assemble in great multitudes the Bishops divided their charges in lesser Parishes and gave assignments to the Presbyters of particular flocks which was done first in Rome in the begining of the 2d Century And things continued thus in a Parochial Government till toward the end of the 2d Century the Bishop being chiefly intrusted with the cure of Souls a share whereof was also committed to the Presbyters who were subject to him and particularly to be ordained by him nor could any ordination be without the Bishop who in ordaining was to carry along with him the concurrence of the Presbyters as in every other act of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction Pag. 308. 309. Corruptions broke in upon Church Officers especially after the 4th Centurie that the Empire became Christian Which as it brought much riches and splendor on Church employments so it let in great Swarmes of corrupt men on the Christian Assemblies And then the Election to Church offices which was formerly in the hands of the people was taken from them by reason of the tumults and disonders that were in these Elections which some time ended in blood and occasioned much Faction and Schism And Anâ—bitus became now such an universal sin among Churchmen that c. Pag. 310. I do not alledge a Bishop to be a distinct office from a Presbyter but a different degree in the same office c. Pag. 320. As for the sole power of ordination and Jurisdiction none among us claime it but willingly allow the Presbyters a concurence in both these Pag. 322. That whole frame of Metropolitans and Patriarks was taken from the division of the Roman Empire which made but one great National Church Pag. 331. I acknowledged Bishop and Presbyter to be one and the same office and so plead for no new office bearer in the Church The first branch of their power is their authority to publish the Gospell to manage the worship and dispence the Sacraments And this is all that is of Divine right in the Ministry in which Bishops and Presbyters are equal sharers but besides this the Church claimeth a power of Jurisdiction of making rules for discipline and applying and executing the same All which is indeed suitable to the common laws of societies and the general rules of Scripture but hath no positive warrant from any Scripture precept And all these Constitutions of Churches into Synods and the Canons of discipline taking their rise from the divisions of the world into the several provinces and beginning in the 2d and beginning of the 3d. Century do clearly shew they can be derived from no Divine original and so were a to their particular forme but of humane constitution Therefore as to the managment of this Jurisdiction it is in the Churches power to cast it into what mould she will But we ought to be much more determined by the Laws of the land In things necessary to be done by Divine precept since no power on earth can Council the authority of a Divine Law the Churches restraints are not to be considered Pag. 335. I acknowledge that without Scripture warrant no new offices may be instituted Pag. 337. I am not to annul these ordinations that pass by Presbyters where no Bishop can be had And this layes no claime to a new office but only to a higher degree of inspection in the same office whereby the exercise of some acts of jurisdiction are restrained to such a Method And this may be done either by the Churches free consent or by the Kings authority Pag. 348. In Augustines time it appears from the journal of a conference he had with the Donatists that there were about 500 Bishopricks in a small tract of ground Pag. 30. Observe the Bishops were to be ordained in the presence of the people where every one might propose his exceptions yet the popular Elections were not wholly taken away and at least the peoples consent was asked Pag. 41. Vossâ—is from all the manuscripts of Damasus his lives of the Popes shewes that S. Peter ordained both Linus and Gletus Bishops of Rome and after some enquiry into the matter he concludes that at first there were three Bishops in Rome at once Linus Cletus and Aneneletus in the next succession he placeth Cletus Anencltus and Clemens Pag. 48. Among the Jewes where ever there were an hundred and twenty of them together they did erect a Synagoguge Pag. 49. At a conference which Augustine and the Bishops of that Province had with the Donatists there were of Bishops 286 present and 120 absent and 60 Sees vacant And there were 279 of the Donatists Bishops Pag. 51. The Gothick Churches are said to be planted 70 years before Ulphilas their first Bishop came to them Pag. 50 He she weth the like of the Scots By the streine of Ignatius Epistles especially that to Smyrna it would appear that there was but one Church at least but one place where there was one Altar and Communion in each of these Parishes which was the Bishops whole charge Pag. 56. The enlarging of the Diocesses hath wholly altered the figure of Primitive Episcopacy That the Bishops were chosen by the people and by the Clergy and people and at last not obtruded without the peoples consent Father Paul Saript de Beneficiis oft tells you and I have fully proved by many Canons in my abstract of Church-history of Councils FINIS * Where Dr. Allestree was bred His next Neighbor a Cosins Tab. 3. b Cosins Tab. 4. c Cosins Tab. 5. d Cos Tab. 6. e Cos Tab. 2. f Cos Tab. 8. g Cos Tab. 2. Tab. 8. h Cos ibid. i Cos ibid. k Cos Tab. 2. l Act of Uniform That Parish Priests have no Governing power see Dr. Zouch as also that the King is the Ecclesiastical Supream m Cos Tab. 13. n Cos Tab. 11. Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5. ☞ Vid. Epist 2. Edict Anacleti de forma provinciali Metrapol c. Turrian pro Epist decr c. 24. De novitate hujus formae leg Blondel cont Decr. p. 1. 27. who giveth full testimony of it cont Anaclet Ep. 2. 41. Leg. Vitaâ— Ambros per Baron August li. de opera Monecheâ—â—â—n Invit Ambros per Baron Vit. Ambros per Baron Socrat l. 3. c. 15. Theodoret Eccles Hist l. 1. cap. 10. Leg. Valentiniani Valentus Legem seu Literas in Theodoreti Eccl. Hist l. 4. c. 7. Hestor Andaeanorum c. 9. Messalianorum c. 10. cum interpretatione D. Hookeri li. 7. p. 66. de Audio Euseb l. 8. c. 1. Dr. Hanmer's Translat p. 144 145. Socrat. l. 2. c. 3. Id. ib.
no Model of a Gospel Ministry nor proof of our Authority or obligation as instituted from the Instituted Ministry of the Mosaical Church Because the Law of Moses is abrogate and indeed did never bind the Gentiles as I have fullier proved in my Treat of the Lords day Nor is it safe to argue from parity of reason that we must now be or do as they did in point of pure institution while we so little know the total reason of God's institutions and when he himself hath taken them down and set up new ones we must not then plead our Reason against the alterations which God himself hath made 7. Therefore though Christ be now the Head and Fountain of Power both to Magistrates and Ministers yet he did not institute a new Office of Magistracy but add new Laws for them to rule by as part of their Rule of Government Because their Office was so much founded in Nature and so much of their work lay in ruling mankind according to their common Natural Law But a Ministry he did institute a-new as to the species and great essentials of the Office 8. Christ changing both the Instituted Mosaical Law and Priesthood did begin himself in his own person as the Great Prophet High Priest and King of his Church to exercise his Office in the Jewish Nation 9. Being not to continue corporally on earth nor his bodily presence being ubiquitary he designed that the Holy Ghost should be his Agent internally to carry on his work in the World And he appointed the Sacred Office of the Ministry that meet men might be his Agents externally in the Teaching and Governing of his Redeemed ones in a holy order and in conducting them in holy worship in a Ministerial subordination to his Prophetical Regal and Priestly Office 10. As he himself did Officiate among the Jews so he first placed this Ministerial Power in twelve chosen men and seventy Assistants with some relation to the twelve Tribes and seventy Elders of Israel to whom he sent them 11. During the time of Christ's abode among them in the flesh they were but as Pupils and Learners while they were Teachers and their Abilities Commissions Office and Work and so their success were all yet imperfect They were not yet authorized openly and commonly so much as to declare Christ to be the Messiah and Saviour but only to prepare men for that belief Because those works were not yet done which must be the Evidences of their Doctrine and the Instruments of mens Conviction viz. Christ's Death Resurrection Ascension and his sending the miraculous gift of the Holy Ghost 12. When Christ was risen before his Ascension he perfected their Commission both as to their Work and Province but appointed them to stay till the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them as the sealing and full delivery of it giving them full ability for their work before they set themselves about the solemn performance of it 13. Their Commission and Office was 1. to Teach men and make them Christians or Christ's Disciples 2. and then to Baptize them into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and so to take them into his Covenant and Church and 3. to Teach them as Covenanted and en-Churched persons to observe all his commands The first part of their work was to be exercised unlimitedly on all the World as far as they were able The second part on the new Converted Believers and their infant seed And the third part on the Baptized that were adult And he added the promise of his presence with them to the end 14. As he now enlarged their Commission to All the World as the object of the first part of their Office so he added one Paul by a voice from Heaven unto the number of the Apostles who was especially made an Apostle to the Gentiles to shew the rest that they were no more confined to the twelve Tribes of Israel 15. Because these Apostles were entrusted not only with a common Preaching of the Gospel but as Founders of the Churches to be the eye and ear witnesses of the life miracles resurrection and doctrine of Christ and to acquaint men certainly with the Laws of Christ therefore he promised them the extraordinary gift of the Holy Ghost to lead them infallibly into all truth and to bring all things to their remembrance which he had taught and given them in Charge and so to enable them to perform all their Commission which he gave them accordingly and so made them the Foundations of his Church and the infallible deliverers of his Will to the World by their preaching and practice first and afterwards by their Writings 16. Therefore since their miraculous reception of the Spirit all their Doctrines Writings and Establishments which were done in the Execution of their Commission are ascribed to the Holy Ghost It was the Holy Ghost that â—ndited the Sacred Scriptures and it was the Holy Ghost that settled the Churches and that wrought the Miracles and that bare witness of Christ and the Christian verity For the Apostles spake not of themselves but as the Holy Ghost inspired them 17. As others in that time were employed as their assistants in propagating the Christian Faith so had they also the same spirit though in several measures and gifts And so far as they had that spirit he was the seal of their doctrine But because it was the Apostles that had the promise of Infallibility we have greater assurance of the Infallibility of their writings than of others It being their approbation which is much of our assurance that the writings of their Assistants were infallible and the testimony which they give of the persons that wrote them viz. Mark and Luke 18. These Apostles with their many Assistants Prophets and Evangelists did by preaching holiness and miracles the effects of Divine Wisdome Goodness and Power convert multitudes and baptize them and did not only thus gather them into the Catholick Church to Christ but also settled them in a holy Order in particular Churches for personal communion among themselves in holy worship and holy living And they made such regular Church-communion a duty to all that could obtain it 19. By the authority of Christ and the Holy Ghost they ordained others to the sacred Office of the Ministry The same office with their own as to the common works of Preaching and Teaching the Gospel Worshiping and Guiding the Churches by holy Discipline which are the common essentials of the sacred Ministry But not the same in respect of their extraordinary endowments and works before described as eye and ear witnesses infallibly delivering the will of Christ 20. Though in the Nature of the Office all Christs Ministers have the Power before mentioned 1. to convert men to the Faith by preaching 2. to take them into the holy Covenant and Church by Baptism 3. to teach worship and rule in particular Churches or 1. to gather Churches by preaching and
serve to the being of a particular Church we might be of the same particular Church with men in the several parts of the World 32. Deacons are subordinate Officers or Ministers to Christs Ministers not essential to the Church but only Integral as needful to its well being in such Churches where the number and benefit of the People do require them 33. The necessity of these Individual or particular Churches is founded in the necessity of the foresaid publick worshiping of God and in the use of the mutual assistance of Christian Neighbours in the matters of salvation and in the need of the personal inspection and conduct of the Pastors over all the Flock 34. The difference between this personal Communion and the distant Communion by Letters or Delegates or meerly internal in Faith and Love is so great and notorious as must make those Societies specifically distinct which are associated for such distinct Ends. 35. Yet do we not hold that all true Churches do Assemble together in one place or that they consist of no more than can meet at once For whole Families seldom go all at once to the Assembly Therefore if one part go to day and another the next day they worship God publickly in personal Communion though not all at the same time 2. And many may be sick and many infants and many aged and the great distance of some may make a Chapel or subordinate Meeting often needful And yet 1. they may all come together in one place at several times for Church communion 2. And they may live so near that one may be capable of neighbourly converse with others and of admonishing exhorting and encouraging each other in their Christian Course 36. Where a Church is so small as to need but one Pastor Christ doth not require that they have more And One can neither be superiour or inferiour to himself 37. But it is most desirable that a Church be as numerous or great as will consist with that sort of Communion which is the end of the Society and consequently that they have many Pastors Because this tendeth to their strength and beauty and it is a joyful thing to worship God in full Assemblies 38. The work of a Bishop or Pastor of a single Church is to mention it more particularly to Teach the Church the meaning of the Scriptures especially of all the Articles of Faith and the things to be Desired in Prayer and the matters and order of Obedience to all the commands of Christ To instruct the Children in the Catechistical or Fundamental verities To Baptize to Pray in the Assembly to praise God to celebrate the Lords Supper to visit the Sick and pray for them To visit the several Families or personally instruct those ignorant ones that understand not publick Preaching as far as he hath opportunity To watch over the Conversations of the several Members and to receive informations concerning them To resolve the doubts of those that seek resolutions and to offer help to them that are so sensless as not to seek it when their need appeareth To comfort the sad and afflicted To reprove the scandalous To admonish the obstinate before all To censure and cast out the impenitent that continue to reject such admonition To absolve the penitent To take care of the Poor And to be exemplary in holiness sobriety justice and charity I pass by Marriage Burials and such other particular Offices And I meddle not here with Ordination or any thing that concerneth other Churches but only with the work of a Bishop or Pastor to the People of his proper Flock 39. The ablest Man among us for mind and body may find full and needful employment of this sort among an hundred persons especially such as our common Christians are But if he have five hundred or a thousand he hath so much to do as will constrain him to leave something undone which belongeth to his Office Therefore our Market Towns and large Country Parishes where there are ordinarily two three or four thousand in a Parish have need of many pastors to do that for which the Pastoral Office was ordained Much more our greatest City and Town Parishes that have ten thousand twenty thousand and some above thirty if not forty or fifty thousand in a Parish 40. The office of a Pastor containing the Power of the Keys as subordinate Ministerially to Christ in his Teaching Ruling and priestly work is not by man to be divided and part of it to be given to one sort and part to another though they that have the whole power may variously exercise it as there is cause But every Church must have such as have the whole power as far as concerneth the People of that Church 41. To divide the essential parts of the Sacred Office as to give one the power of Teaching only another of Worshiping only and another of Ruling only or any two of these without the third is to destroy it and change the species as much as in them lieth that do it And as no one is a man without his Animal Vital and Natural parts so no one is a true Pastor without the threefold power forementioned of Teaching Ruleing that Church by Pastoral means and Conducting them in publick Worship He may be a Pastor that is hindered from the exercise of some one of these or more but not he that hath not the Power in his Office Dividers therefore make new Church Offices and destroy the old 42. Churches headed by such a new sort of Officers specifically distinct from the old of Christ's Institution are Churches specifically differing from the Churches which Christ Instituted Because the Society is specified by the species of its Head or Governour 43. To make a new sort of Church-Heads or Rulers as their Constitutive parts is to make a new sort of Churches 44. The three forsaid Essential parts of the Pastoral Office are not to be exercised by any Lay-man nor by any man that hath not that Office Nor may the Pastors do that work per alios or delegate Lay-men or men of another Office to do it as in their stead For the Office is nothing but just Authority and Obligation to do that work And if they convey such Authority and Obligation to another they convey the Office to another And so he is no longer a Lay-man or of another Office only 45. Therefore though many Pastors of the same Office may in a great Church distribute the work among them yet none of them must do it only as the delegate of another not having himself from God the Office which containeth the power of doing it 46. But the Accidentals of the Pastoral Office may be committed to a Lay-man or one that is no Pastor As to summon Assemblies to keep Registers or the Church Books Goods Buildings with many the like And so some think that the Apostles instituting Deacons was but a communicating the Accidentals of their Office to other men Therefore if
Presbyter and so must be of a distinct Order from the Bishops that give him his second power And who giveth them theirs And if you rise to a Patriarch or Pope what Superiour of another Order giveth them their second Power 2. That institution or fixing a man before Ordained to a particular Flock doth not make him of another Order or Office nor is a new Ordination nor is he as oft Ordained and made of another Office as he changeth his Flock or receiveth a new License from the Bishop or the King from whom I had rather have it 3. That the People as well as the Bishop if not much more do give the Minister this opportunity for the exercise of his Office as the Patient chooseth his Physician And yet it is my Opinion that this will not prove that the People are his Governours much less that they give him a new Order or Office And of old the People chose their Bishops themselves It will be as much honour for you Learnedly to prove that there were no Kings in the World till Bishops made them as to confute D. Blondels Historical proof of the Peoples ancient choice of their Bishops 2. And as to a General License I will thank the King for it yea or any man that hath power to hinder me that he will give me leave to Preach and Exercise my Office But I do not think that every man that doth not hinder me when he can doth give me power And if a Bishop be so extraordinary good as not to silence nor hinder a Minister from Preaching Christ I do not think that this man is an Usurper in Preaching the Gospel for want of a License or second Power Nor yet in exercising the rest of his Office where he and the People do consent These things seem plain to us and they that whether by Learning or the Love of Riches and Honour and Domination are made wiser than we may suffer such Fools gladly while themselves are in re vel spe Rich Honourable and wise 3. And what is Ordination but a General Investiture in the power of performing the Ministerial Office And why may not the General Power or License be given at once as at twice I think Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and Administer the Holy Sacraments and the Discipline of the Church when thou art thereto lawfully called that is hast opportunity and fit Objects is a General License And a Man may presently Exercise this Office on Consenters Unless the sence be Take thee power when it shall be given thee 3. But if it be a Particular License that is here meant by the grant of second power I confess that there is somewhat considerable in it and that in old time the Bishop and his Clergy living together and meeting in the same Church the Presbyters like our Parish Curates now were in all the Worship of the day and in their privater Ministry to the People to be ruled by the Bishop and to Modifie and Circumstantiate all as he directed them And so may it be again But sure a Minister is not to travel an hundred miles to the Bishop to know whether he shall visit this sick man or give the Sacrament to the other and to know what Chapter he shall read and such like If it be not a General License that is meant it must needs suppose the Bishops presence 9. And seeing the Bishops may License a Presbyter to use the Keys the opening of this will help our understandings about the nature of the Bishops Office There is no act of Jurisdiction which they do not Ordinarily commit to others The sentence of Excommunication and Absolution is ordinarily decreed by a Lay-Chancellor And Spalatensis saith that Episcopal Jurisdiction may be done by a Lay Delegate The same sentence is Pronounced in Court by a Lay-Man or a meer Presbyter The same sentence is published in the Church by a Presbyter or Deacon And a Prince may give a License to exercise the Ministry to which we were Ordained I enquire then 1. Whether the granting of this Episcopal Power be a making that Man a Bishop that it 's granted to If so a Bishop a Presbyter and a Chancellor are all of one Office when thus impowred If not so then a Lay-man or one of another Office may have power to do the Work of the Bishops Office And what is the Office tell me if you can beside Authority and Obligation to do the Work A Lay-man and Presbyter may by the Bishop be Authorized and Obliged to do the Work of a Bishop and this ordinarily as an Office For so they do Ergo a Chancellor and a Presbyter may be made really a Bishop and yet in their esteem remain a Lay-man and a Presbyter still And is not that a Lay Office which a Lay-man may be Commissioned to do If a Lay-man were but Commissioned to do the Work of a Presbyter to Teach a Church ordinarily to Administer the Sacraments and to Excommunicate and Absolve in foro internae poenitentialis either it would make the Man a Presbyter or it would be a Nullity And if it be not so with the Bishops Office what is the Reason Is it not because it is not of Divine Specification and Institution but Humane and therefore mutable or such as Men may parcel out and commit to Lay-men by pieces as they please So much to Dr. Hammond's Appropriation of the Power of the Keys in that Treatise As to his Annotations I shall have occasion to recite them hereafter among those that give up the Diocesan Cause as opposed by us and therefore shall here pass them by His Dissertations against Blondel have a Premonition about Ordination which though most confident I shall manifest when I come to the point of Ordination to be most weak and indeed have done it before his death in my Disput of Ordin His first Preliminary Dissertation of Antichrist of the Mystery of Iniquity and of Diotrephes I will not be so needlesly tedious as to meddle with any further then to say that I will believe Dr. Hammond here and in his Annot. on 2 Thes 2. when I am fallen into so deep a sleep as to dream 1. That the famous Coming of Christ and our gathering together to him which is a great Article of the Christian Faith is but Titus his Destruction of Jerusalem and that the reward promised to all that love his appearing is meant to all that love the said Destruction of Jerusalem 2. And that this Destruction was not to be called nigh or at hand which fell out so few Years after 3. And that the Gentiles of remote Countries were so shaken in mind and moved about a Question of a few Years distance of the Destruction of the Jews more than about Christ's coming to the Common Judgment 4. And that the Gnosticks were indeed such terrible Persecutors of the Church who were dispersed Subjects when their Doctrine was but that they
contrary that needeth a Reply Cap. 5. he would prove the Angels to be Archbishops which if done would not touch our Cause who meddle not with Archbishops but onely prove that the full Pastoral or Episcopal Office or power of the Keys as over the Flock should be found in every particular Church that hath unum Altaere To prove Metropolitans again he tells us how that in Provinces we find Churches mentioned in the Plural number and in Cities onely a Church singularly not perceiving how hereby he overthrows his Cause when he can never prove that in Scripture many particular Churches are called A Church Diocesane or Metropolitan as united in one Bishop as our Diooesane and Metropolitan Churches now are Nay indeed though the Society be specified by the Government yet the Name sticketh in their teeth here in England and they seldom use the Title of the Church of Canterbury and York for the whole Province and they use to say the Diocese of Lincoln London Winchester Worcester Coventry and Litchfield c. rather than the Church of Lincoln London Coventry and Litchfield c. lest the Hearers would so hardly he seduced from the proper sense of the word Church as not to understand them His Proofs of the Civil or Jewish distinction of Metropolitans § 4 5 c. let them mind that think it pertinent But § 9. we have a great word that It may be proved by many examples that after this Image the Apostles took care every where to dispose of the Churches and constituted a subordination and dependence of the lesser on the more eminent Cities in all their Plantations Answ This is to some purpose if it be made good The first Instance is Acts 14. 26. 16. 4. and 15. 2 3 22 23 30. Not a word else out of Scripture And what 's here Why Paul and Barnabas are sent to Jerusalem from Antioch to the Apostles and Elders about the Question and were brought on their way by the Church and passed thorow Phenice and Samaria Chosen men are sent to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas Judas and Silas with Letters from the Apostles Elders and Brethren even to the Brethren of the Gentiles in Antioch Syria and Cilicia And when they came to Antioch they delivered the Letters and Paul and Timothy as they went thorow the Cities delivered them the Decrees to keep that were ordained by the Apostles and Elders that were at Jerusalem Doth not the Reader wonder where is the Proof And wonder he may for me unless this be it The Apostles and Elders were at Jerusalem when they wrote this Letter and thence sent it to Antioch Syria and Cilicia Ergo They established the Bishop of Jerusalem to be the Governour and Metropolitan of Antioch Syria and Cilicia The Apostle Paul went from Antioch to other Cities and delivered them these Decrees Ergo Antioch is the governing Metropolis of those Cities I think the major Propositions are Every City from which Apostles send their Letters to other Cities and every City from which an Apostle carrieth such Letters or Decrees to other Cities is by those Apostles made the Governing Metropolis of those other Cities What dull Heads are the Puritans to question such a Proposition as this But it is not given to all Men to be wise And we ignorant Persons are left in doubt Q. 1. Whether the Universal Headship or Papacy of the Bishop of Jerusalem be not of Apostolical Institution and that more than by one Apostle even by all of them that were then at Jerusalem Q. 2. Whether the Apostles did not this as they did other parts of Church-settlement by the Spirit of God and so whether it be not jure Divino yea by a more eminent Authority than the Scriptures which were written by parts by several single Men some Apostles and some Evangelists when this is said to be done by all together Q. 3. Whether Christ's Life Death Resurrection Ascension and sending the Apostles thence into all the World and not into the Roman Empire onely do not incomparably more evidently make Jerusalem the Universal Metropolis of the Earth and so set it above Rome which is but the Metropolis of one Empire Q. 4. Whether then an Universal Head of the Church or Vicar of Christ be not jure Divino and so a Jerusalem Papacy be not essential to the true Church and Religion Q. 5. Whether then all the Emperours Bishops and Churches that did set up Rome Alexandria Antioch and Constantinople above Jerusalem were not Traytors against the Universal Sovereign of the Church and guilty of Usurpation and gross Schism Q. 6. To what parpose this Sovereignty was given to Jerusalem which was never possess'd and exercised Q. 7. Whether Peter's being at Rome could alter this Church-Constitution and one Apostle could undo what all together had done Q. 8. Whether the Apostles carried this Metropolitical Prerogative with them from place to place where-ever they came And whether it did belong to the Men or the Place And whether to the Place whence they first set out or to every place where they came or to the place where they dyed Judge what is the proof of any of these Q. 9. When they were scattered which of their Seats was the Metropolitan to the rest or were they all equal Q. 10. If the Power followed the Civil Power of the Metropolitane Rulers whether Caesar did not more in constituting the Church-Order and giving power comparatively to the Metropolitanes than Christ and his Apostles Q. 11. Whether it was not in Caesar's power to unmake all the Church Metropolitans and Bishops at his pleasure by dissolving the Priviledges and Charters of Cities Q. 12. If it please any King or be the Custom of any Kingdom as it is in many parts of America that the Kingdom have no Cities or Metropolis whether it must have any Churches Bishops or Metropolitane Q. 13. Whether when Paul wrote his Letters from Corinth to Rome he thereby made the Bishop of Corinth the Governour of the Bishop and Diocess of Rome And whether little Cenchrea was over them also because Phoebe carried the Letter And did his writing from Philippi to Corinth subject Corinth to the Bishop of Philippi And did his writing from Rome to Galatia Ephesus Philippi the Colossians and from Athens to the Thessalonians and from Laodicea and Rome to Timothy and from Nicopolis to Titus and John's writing from Patmos to the Asian Metropolitanes produce the same effect Q. 14. If Paul's carrying the Letters from Antioch to other Cities proved Antioch the Governour of the rest whether when he returned from the other to Antioch again he made not the other the Governours of Antioch I am ashamed to prosecute this Fiction any further His following Citations from the Fathers I think unworthy of an Answer till it be proved 1. That these Fathers took the Metropolitane Order as such to be of Apostolical Institution and not in complyance with the Roman Government by meer humane
Office of half-Presbyters began to be invented according to his own Computation That pag. 21. passim his supposition of the 24 Bishops of Judaea sitting about the Throne of James Bishop of Jerusalem and his other supposition of their being so ordinarily there And of the Bishops of Provinces in other Nations being so frequently many score if not hundred Miles off their people in the Metropolitane Cities when the people had no other Priest to Officiate doth tend to an Atheistical conceit that the Ordinary use of Sacred Assemblies and Communion is no very needful thing when in the best times by the best men in whole Countreys at once they were so much forborn Pag. 26. Again you have his full and plain Assertion That there were not in the space within compass of which all the Books of the new Testament were written any Presbyters in our modern Notion of them created in the Church though soon after certainly in Ignatius time which was above 50 years after the Rev. they were Pag. 60. He supposeth that whoever should settle Churches under a Heathen King among Heathens must accordinly make the Churches gathered subordinate to one another as the Cities in which they are gathered were though Heathen subordinate to one another of which more in due place Pag. 76 77. He saith that As Congregations and Parishes are Synonimous in their Style so I yield that Believers in great Cities were not at first divided into Parishes while the number of Christians in a City was so small that they might well assemble in the same place and so needed no Partitions or Divisions But what disadvantage is this to us who affirm that one Bishop not a Colledge of Presbyters presided in that one Congregation and that the Believers in the Regions and Villages about did belong to the care of that single Bishop or City Church A Bishop and his Deacon were sufficient at the first to sow their Plantations For what is a Diocess but a Church in a City with the Suburbs and Territories or Region belonging to it And this certainly might be and remain under the Government of a single Bishop Of any Church so bounded there may be a Bishop and that whole Church shall be his Diocess and so he a Diocesan Bishop though as yet this Church be not subdivided into more several Assemblies So that you see now what a Diocess is And that you may know that we contend not about Names while they call the Bishop of one Congreation a Diocesane we say nothing against him A Diocesan in our sense is such as we live under that have made one Church of many hundred or a thousand But Reader be not abused by words when it is visible Countreys that we talk of As every Market-Town or Corporation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City in the old sense so the Diocess of Lincoln which I live in at this reckoning hath three or fourscore Diocesses in it and the Diocess of Norwich about 50 Diocesses in it c. That is such Cities with the interjacent Villages Pag. 78. He saith When they add these Angels were Congregational not Diocesan they were every of them Angels of a Church in a City having authority over the Regions adjacent and pertaining to that City and so as CHURCH and CONGREGATION ARE ALL ONE AS IN ORDINARY USE IN ALL LANGUAGES THEY ARE Thus were Congregational and Diocesan also What follows of the paucity of Believers in the greatest Cities and their meeting in one place is willingly granted by us I must desire the Reader to remember all this when we come to use it in due place And you may modestly smile to observe how by this and the foregoing words the Dr. forgetfully hath cast out all the English Diocesans While he maketh it needful that the Cities be Ecclesiastically subordinate as they are Civilly and maketh it the very definition of a Diocesan Bishop to be a Bishop of a City with the Country or Suburbs belonging to it But in England no lesser Cities ordinarily at least nor Corporation-Towns are at all Subject to the great Cities Nor are any Considerable part of the Countrey Subject to them nor do the Liberties of Cities or Corporations reach far from the Walls or Towns So that by this Rule the Bishop of London York Norwich and Bristow would have indeed large Cities with narrow liberties But the rest would have Diocesses little bigger than we could allow to conscionable Faithful Pastors But he yet addeth more p. 79. he will do more for our cause than the Presbyterians themselves who in their disputes against the Independents-say that Jerusalem had more Christians belonging to the Church than could conveniently meet in one place But saith the Dr. This is contrary to the Evidence of the Text which saith expresty v. 44. that all the Believers were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meeting in one and the same place The like may be said of the other places Act. 4. 4. and 5. 14. For certainly as yet though the number of believers increased yet they were not distributed into several Congregations Will you yet have more p. 80 81. When the London Ministers say that the Believers of one City made but one Church in the Apostles days he answereth This observation I acknowledge to have perfect truth in it and not to be confutable in any part And therefore instead of rejecting I shall imbrace it and from thence conclude that there is no manner of incongruity in assigning of one Bishop to one Church and so one Bishop in the Church of Jerusalem because it is a Church not Churches BEING FORECED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHURCHES THERE WERE MORE BISHOPS I am almost in doubt by this whether the Dr. were not against the English Prelacy and he and I were not of a mind especially remembring that he said nothing against my disputations of Church Government written against himself when I lived near him Observe Reader 1. That even now he confessed that a Church and Congregation is all one 2. And here he confesseth that where there were more Churches there were more Bishops and his words Because it is a Church not Churches seem to import that de jure he supposeth it is no Church without a Bishop and that there should be no fewer Bishops than Churches And then I ask 1. Where and when do all the Christians in this Diocess of above an hundred miles long Congregate who meet but in above a thousand several Temples and never know one of a thousand of the Diocess 2. Doth not this grant to the Brownists that the Parish Churches are no Churches but onely parts of the Diocesane Church 3. And then if it be proved that the Diocesane Church form is but of humane invention what Church in England will they leave us that is of divine institution This is the unhappiness of overdoing to undo all and of aspiring too high to fall down into nothing And doth he not speak
with the Conscience either of the Minister to be silent or of the people not to hear him or of the Magistrates to silence him by force Now to do this either he must prove to them from the word of God by argument that each of these are thus far obliged by God or else that God hath made him as Diocesan the Judge and they are bound to do it because he bids them do it For the first as is said it belongeth to every Minister even with office-authority to tell both Magistrates Minister and people their duty in the name of Christ Thus God hath commanded Adulterers Hereticks c. To forsake their sins or forbear the Ministery and commanded me to publish this in his name even to particular persons But thou art an Adulterer Heretick c. go c. Or God commandeth me to tell the people that it is their duty to avoid a Heretick and the Magistrate that it is his duty to silence him by force Therefore I require this of you in his name 2. But if the Diocesan claim a Superiour Nuntiative power as one more to be believed than the Minister this is 1. But to the doing of the same work which a Minister may do 2. And he must prove that Superiour credibility 3. But Ministerial conviction is efficacious according to the evidence that is brought to do the work If the hearer believe not that the Major is Gods word that an Heretick e. g. must give over Preaching Or if he deny the Minor but thou art an Heretick it is not a Bishops word that will convince him but a Minister that is better at proving it may do more Obj. but we will command him to be silent Ans And he will deride you and command you to be silent again Obj. Then we will convince the Magistrate of his duty to silence him by force Ans 1. That was not the way for 300 years after Christ And what was Episcopacy for till then 2. What if the Magistrates believe you not will you convince him by Scripture or by your Authority over the Magistrate It by Scripture a wiser Presbyter can do that better or as well If by authority of that anon Obj. But at least we will convince the people that it is their duty to forsake that Preacher Ans Again I say if you will do it by Scripture a Minister can do it as well And thus many Ministers now do silence the Diocesans and Conformists that is they perswade the people not to hear them or own them But if by authority it must come to this at last that you are made by God the Judges and this must be believed And remember still you silence no further than you perswade the Conscience to believe that God hath given you this authority And 1. I ask whether it be ever likely that you will silence any Hereticks false Teacher or Schismatick this way by making him take you for one authorized by God to forbid him to Preach For it must be in one of these three cases or all that you have this power 1. Either to silence him as a Heretick that is no Heretick or not proved such 2. Or to silence him as a Heretick that notoriously and provedly is a Heretick 3. Or to silence him as a Heretick in a doubtful case to others but judged Heresie c. by you 1. In the first case neither the injured person nor any that know that you injure him will or must obey you Else a malignant Prelate might silence all the holiest and worthiest Ministers of Christ and it would be at such mens mercy whether Christ should have Churches or the people should be Christians or be saved I am one of the 1800 that have been silenced by better authority than the Prelates alone and yet I think I am bound in Conscience to exercise the Ministry which I received whatever I suffer to the utmost of my opportunity And if the Sword streightened my opportunity no more than my Conscience of the Diocesans Prohibition I should be but very little hindered 2. In the 2d case of notorious Heresie all good Christians are bound by God to avoid such a man though you never silenced him yea though you licensed him yea though you commanded them to hear him And so Magistrates are bound to do their duty in restraining him Can you deny this Must the peoples Souls be poysoned and damned till the Bishop please to take away the poyson and to save them must the Magistrate let Hereticks alone till it please the Diocesan to judge them 2. And in this case no sober Christian will deny that a Presbyter ought to call upon people and Magistrates to do their duty as well as the Diocesans Yea and to command men in Christs name to avoid a notorious or proved heretick Obj. But a Presbyter cannot examine the case and so get proof Ans He may examine it as far as Reason with Ministerial authority will perswade the guilty or the witnesses to be examined And his care of the Church and the peoples Souls obligeth him so to do And a Prelate cannot bring men by sorce to examination or witnessing 3. But let his guilt be never so notorious to others is it like that the person himself will be silent through Conscience of obedience to a Prelate Consider 1. that if he will not obey a Minister that sheweth him the word of God it is unlikely that he will obey a Prelate that saith I have authority to silence you 2. A Heretick doth not know that he is a Heretick nor any erroneous person know that it is an errour which he believeth For it is a contradiction to err in judgment and to know it to be any errour And then 1. He knoweth that his office is durante vita and that he is bound not to cease it without cause 2. He knoweth that you have no power to silence Orthodox Preachers as Hereticks but those that are Hereticks indeed 3. He taketh himself for Orthodox and you for the Heretick 4. And all his followers are of his mind How then will you silence a Heretick without the Sword If you convince him of his errour you shall not need to silence him for he will leave his errour rather than his Ministry But if you convince him not of his errour you will hardly convince him that because of that errour he must be silent nor convince his followers that they must not hear him 3. All the question therefore that remaineth is whether in unknown doubtful cases you are the Judges of Heresie Errour Schisin and of mens unworthiness to Preach And here 1. I need not tell you that by this way you can never silence either the Arrians or any that deny your authority Of which sort you know are most that you silence in this age and Nation No nora Donatist a Novatian or any one that is for the office of Bishops but taketh you for no Bishop as being unduely
and as he that will know the nature and difference of fruits or animals must stay till they are come to their full growth and ripeness and not take them green and young so he that will judge either of Schism or of Church-tyranny Lust do 2. And whether the Quakers Ranters Familists and Munster monsters be not Schismaticks ripe and at full growth and therefore a young Schismatick is not â—o tell us what Schism is but should himself see what he will be when he is ripe And so whether Popery be not the Diocesane Prelacy full grown and ripe and whether they should not therefore see what they would come to if that which withoâ—deth in the several Kingdoms were taken out of the way as the Pope hath removed it in the Empire If the Diocesans Metropolitanes Patriarks and Pope as to his Primacy in the Empire did not all stand on the same humane foundation then are they not the things that I am speaking of Obj. But the late and present Schismes in England shew that it is the adversaries of Prelacy that are the causes Ans Very true for Prelacy maketh it self adversaries and so maketh some of the Schismaticks There are two sort of Schismatickâ— some Prelatists as the Papists the Novatians the Donatists and most of the old Schismaticks were and some Anti-prelatists And there are two sorts of Anti prelatists Some Catholick being for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Schismaticks And these last the Prelates make and then complain of them It is their state and practice hereafter described that driveth men to distast them and so precipitateth the injudicious into the Contrary extreme It is Prelacy that maketh almost all the Sects that be in England at this day When they see how the Spiritual Keys are secularly used by Laymen in their Courts when they see what Ministers and how many hundred of them are silenced and what Fellows in many places are set up in their stead they think they can never fly far enough from such Prelates To tell the world It is Schismaticks that we silence and they are obedient and Orthodox persons that we set up may signifie something in another land or age but it doth but increase the disaffâ—ction of those that are upon the place and know what kind of men the Prelates commend and who they discommend and silence A very Child when he is eating his â—pple will not cast it away because a Prelate saith it is a Crab nor when he tasteth a Crab will he eate it if a Prelate Swear it is a sweat apple Though he that doth but look on them may possibly believe him I believe they that thought that Prelacy was the only cure of our Schismes do know by this time by experience that by that time the Prelates had again ruled but seven years there were seven and seven against them for one that was so before And we that dwell among them do take those that dislike their course and waies to be the Generality of the most Religious and sober people of the land alwaies excepting the King and Parliament and those that must be still excepted CHAP. XIV The true Original of the warrantable Episcopacy in particular Churches was the notorious disparity of abilities in the Pastors And the original of that tyrannical Prelacy into which it did degenerate was the worldly Spirit in the Pastors and people which with the world came by prosperity into the Church Quaere Whether the thing cease not where the reason of it ceaseth GOd doth not carry on his work upon mens Souls by names and empty titles but by such real demonstrating evidences of his Power Wisdome and Goodness as are apt to work on the Reason of man And therefore he that would make his Apostles the Foundations or chief Pillars and Instruments in and of his Churches would accordingly endow them with proportionable abilities that in the Miracu'ous demonstrations of Power and the convincing demonstrations of Wisdome and the amiable holy demonstrations of goodness they might as far excelothers as they did in authority And nature it self teaceth us to difference men in our esteem and affection as they really differ in worth and loveliness And this Law of Nature is the Primary Law of God And the holy Scriptures plainly second it telling us oft of the diversity of Gods gifts in his Servants which all make for concord but not for equality of esteem and that there are greater and lesser in the Kingdom of God and that Gods gifts in all men must be honoured Math. 12. 1 Cor. 12. Eph. 4. Heb. 5. 10. 11. 12. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. And God that would have his various gifts variously esteemed did in all ages himself diversifie his Servants gifts All were not Apostles nor all Prophets nor all Evangelists And after their daies all the Ministers or Elders of the Churches were not men of Learning nor of so full acquaintance with the sacred Doctrine nor so grave prudent staied holy charitable or peaceable as some were usually when miraculous gifts did cease and very few Philosophers or men of learning turned Christians Any man may know that had not been told it by Church History that their Elders or Pastors were such as the better sort of our unlearned Christians are who can pray well and worship God sincerely and read the Scripture and in a plain familiar manner can teach the Catechistical points and perswade to duty and reprove vice But as for Sermons in a methodical accurate way as now used and defending the truth and opposing Heresies and stopping the mouths of gainsayers they must needs be far below the Learned But yet here and there a Philosopher was converted and of those that had no such Learning then called secular and the Learning of the Gentiles some few were far better Learned than others in the sacred Scriptures and the customes and Learning of the Jews And it was long before the Christians had Schools and Academies of their own That this was so appeareth 1. In the reason of the thing For no effect can exceed the total cause Therefore they that had not the inspirations prophetical or miraculous guists nor Academies and Schools of secular Learning nor so much as Riches and leisure but Poverty and persecution and worldly trouble and labour were not like to have more Learning than the holy Scriptures taught them 2. And this appeareth by the forecited Canons of Counsels which forbad Pastors ever almost three hundred years after Christ to read the Gentiles books By which the former custome of the Church may easily be perceived And also by abundance of reproaches which are cast upon some Hereticks in the Ancients writings for being too much skilled in Logick and other of the Gentiles Learning 3. And it appeareth by the parity of writers of the second and third Centuries 4. And also by the paucity of famous Divines that are mentioned in the Histories of those times 5. And above all by the
of Presbyter Which he proceedeth to shew that he thinks was done that there might be a store of Bishops prepared for all Countries Pag. 25. he thus far differs from Doctor Hammond but not from the truth as to hold that Plures in eadem Ecclesia velut Ephâ—sina Episcopi fuere There were many Bishops in one Church as in that of Ephesus Which he taketh for a particular Church and not a Province and saith that the simple manners of the Church would then bear this till Ambition had depraved men and Charity and Humility and the imitation of Christ waxed cold then came that which Hierome speaketh of that For a remedy of Schism one was chosen out of the company of Presbyters and set above the rest So Pag. 26. In eadem capita passim ambo conferebantur And p. 27. Hoc si ita est quid aliud restat nisi ut penes eosdem Nam plures una in Ecclesia fuisse tales iisdem ex locis argumentum ducitur tam nomen illud duplex quam conveniens nomini potestas authoritas utraque fuisse dicatur that is If this be so what else remaineth but that both the double name and the agreeable double power and authority be said to have been in the same persons for that there were many of them in one Church may be proved from the same places And Pag. 95 96 97 98 99. he sheweth out of Justin Martyr first That all things in the sacred Assemblies and Sacraments were done by the Bishop alone and that he was the Curator and Moderator both of the Sacraments to be administred and of teaching the people and of the Churches money The Bishop consecrated the Sacraments and by the Deacons administred them to the people He prayeth and preacheth He had the care of the Church-moneys and kept them with it he relieved the Orphans Widows Sick Prisoners Travellers c. And from Tertullian that the Christians received not the Sacrament from the hands of any but the Bishops Were there not then as many Bishops as Church-Assemblies And that they chiefly did baptize And p. 112. he citeth the Can. 7. 8. Concil Gangrensis which anathematizeth those that without the Bishops consent durst give or receive the Church Oblations c. And p. 141. out of Prosper de vita contempl c. 20. that a Bishop must excel in knowledge that he may instruct those that live under him And p. 144 145 147. he citeth Can. 3. Concil Arelat 3. an 813. That every Bishop in his own Parish do perfectly and studiously teach the Presbyters and all the people and not neglect to instruct them And Concil Turonens 3. Can. 4. Let every Bishop diligently study by sacred preaching to inform the flock committed to him what they must do and what they must avoid And Concil Rhemens 2. Can. 14. That Bishops preach the Word of God to all And Concil Cabilonens 3. Can. 1. That Bishops be diligent in reading and search the mysteries of Gods Word that they may shine by the brightness of Doctrine in the Church and cease not to satiate the souls subject to them by nutriment of Gods Words And p. 147. That in the formula by which the Kings of France committed Episcopacy to any it is said You shall study by daily Sermons to edifie or polish the people committed to you according to Canonical Institution And ibid. Can. 19. Concil Constant in Trullo The Church Presidents must every day but especially the Lords day teach all the Clergy and people the things that belong to piety gathering from the Scriptures the sentences and judgments of verity And p. 149. he citeth Concil Lateran sub Innoc. 3. c. 10. allowing Bishops to take helpers in preaching when business or sickness hindred them And p. 150 152 153. he mentioneth it as somewhat rare that at Alexandria Presbyters preached and at Antioch Chrysostom and at Hippo Augustine while Flavianus and Valerius were Bishops I do not cite all this now as to prove the sense of Antiquity but the sense of Petavius who plainly intimateth that the Churches were no larger of a long time than that a Bishop might preach to all the Clergy and People every Lords day and that in Scripture times all or near all the Presbyters were Bishops which is it that we contend for and consequently you may judge what the Churches were And though it still look much farther than Scripture times I will shew you what Petavius thought of the Magnitude of City-Churches even near four hundred years after Christ in Epiphanius's days in his Animadvers on Epiphan ad Haer. 69. p. 276. Singularem tunc temporis Alexandriae morem hunc fuisse vel saltem paucis in Ecclesiis usurpatum c. i. e. That this was a singular custom of Alexandria or at least used in few Churches you may hence conjecture because he so expresly mentioneth this custom as peculiar to the Alexandrian Church to wit that in the same City there should be many Titles to each of which should be assigned a proper Presbyter who should there perform the Church Offices But yet the same was formerly elsewhere instituted that is at Rome where the Presbyters did every one rule his own people being distributed by Titles that is setled Sub-Assemblies To them the Bishops on the Lords days sent Leaven or hallowed Bread in token of Communion See what a shift they were at first put to lest the several Assemblies should seem several Churches For it is not to be imagined that this was done to signifie that common Christian Communion which they had with all other Christian Churches but that nearest Communion which belongeth to those that are embodied under one Pastor or the same Pastor in Common that is one particular Church Even as if these divers Altars or Tables were at a distance in the same Church and the Bishop would signifie the Union of the several Companies in the same Society by sending some of the Bread which he had blessed to them all But Petavius proceedeth Non dubito majoribus duntaxat in urbibus c. I doubt not but that it was in the Greater Cities only that there were more than one Titles within the bounds or Liberties when within the same Walls they would not be contained and meet together and so had Presbyters put on the several Churches But in the smaller and less frequented Cities there was one only Church into which they all did come together Of which sort were the Cities of Cyprus And therefore Epiphanius noteth the custom of Alexandria as a thing strange to his Country-men and unusual Hence was the original of Parishes which word was transferred from the Country Churches to the City Churches And adding the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their Bishops or Curators setled in Rome by Servius Tullius he saith Quibus Christianorum in agris Paroeciae quam simillimae fuerunt Nam illic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To which the Parishes of the
Prelacy to be so made And were they Christians or no Christians that made the Diocesane Form If Christians were they orderly Christians or rebellious If orderly how happened it that they were of no Church themselves when the Apostles setled so much of Church Form and Order as I have before named If rebellious they were a dishonourable original of Diocesanes And if the Church Form be not of Divine institution then the Church it self is not For forma dat nomen esse And so the cause is given up to the Brownists by these Learned moderate men so far as that there is no Church in England of Divine institution Were it not that when in general they have said that no Church Form of Government is so Divine they again so far unsay it as to confess the Parith Churches or Congregations with their Pastors to be of Divine institution and of continued necessity All that is to be said by and for them is this That the Apostles were the makers of the English or Diocesane Form but not of that only but of the Presbyterian and Independent also and so made no one necessary but left all indifferent Or that they made one of these Forms as mutable allowing men to change it Answ But 1. I have proved what they made Let them prove that they made any other of a different sort not subordinate or supraordinate if they can 2. And let them prove the mutability of that which they made and their power to change it which they assert Till one of these is proved we are or should be in possession of that which was certainly first made I am bold to conclude this argument with the speech of a bold but a wise and holy man Joh. Chrysostome de Sacerdotio lib. 3. pag. mihi 48. cap. 15. And when some Bishops have obtained that prefecture of a Province not belonging to them and others of one FAR GREATER THAN THEIR OWN proper STRENGTH CAN BEAR THEY CERTAINLY BRING TO PASS THAT THE CHURCH OF GOD SEEMETH NOTHING TO DIFFER FROM AN EURIPUS or a confused turbulent changeling thing pag. 49. AND DO NOT THESE THINGS DESERVE GODS THUNDERBOLT A THOUSAND TIMES ARE THEY NOT WORTHY TO BE PUNISHED WITH THE FIRE OF HELL NOT THAT hell WHICH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES THREATEN TO US BUT EVEN OF ONE THAT IS FAR MORE GRIEVOUS Forgive the words my Lords They are not mine but Chrysostome's or if you will not forgive the citing of them I will bear it as he did the like Only I will abate you in my prognostication or sentence that far sorer hell fire than the Scripture threameth supposing this will be sharp enough even for the most dispersing silencing persecuting Prelate and imputing those words to honest Chrysostome's vehement Oratory And I 'le tell you what went next before these words And they do not only take in the unworthy into the Priesthood but they cast out the worthy For as if they had agreed both ways to spoil the Church of God and the first cause were not enough to kindle the wrath of God they add the second or worse to the former For I judge it equally pestilent to drive out the Profitable and to take in the unprofitable which certainly they do that the flock of Christ may from no part either find consolation or be able to take breath O what would this man have said had he lived now in England CHAP. XI Argument 3. From the destruction of the order of Presbyters of Divine Institution and the Invention of a new order of Sub-half-Presbyters in their stead ARGUMENT III. THe office of Presbyters instituted by the Holy Ghost containeth an Obligation and Authority to Guide by Doctrine Worship and Discipline the flocks committed to their care But the office of a Diocesane being one only Bishop over many score or hundred Congregations is destructive of that office of Presbyters which containeth an obligation and authority to Guide by Doctrine Worship and Discipline or the exercise of the Church keys the flocks committed to their care Therefore the office of such a Diocesane is destructive of the office of Presbyters instituted by the Holy Ghost The Major is thus proved by the Enumeration of the Acts which contain the general office and by the proof of the General power extending to those Acts viz. 1. They that had the Authority and Obligation to exercise the Church keys in the Scripture sence had the authority and obligation to Guide their flocks by Doctrine Worship and Discipline But the Presbyters of the Holy Ghosts institution had the authority and obligation to exercise the Church keys in the Scripture sence Ergo they had authority and obligation to Guide their flocks by Doctrine Worship and Discipline 2. Again The office which contained an Authority and Obligation to Teach Exhort Rebuke publickly and privately to judge of persons baptizable and to baptize them to Pray Praise God and administer the Lords Supper to the Church and to judge of them that are to receive it to watch over them privately and publickly to Excommunicate the obstinately impenitent and absolve the penitent doth contain authority and obligation to Guide that flock by Doctrine Worship and Discipline But such is the Office of Presbyters as instituted by the Holy Ghost Ergo c. Here note 1. That I am not now medling with the Questions Whether such Presbyters hold this power in subordination to any superiour Bishops nor whether there lie any appeal from them to a higher power in the Church 2. Nor am I now questioning Whether in Scripture sence Bishops and Presbyters are all one in Name or thing 3. But that which I maintain is 1. That there is no proof in Scripture that God ever instituted any order of Presbyters which had not the forementioned power of the keys 2. And that God did institute such an Order of Presbyters as had that power de nomine de re And 3. That the Diocesane Office destroyeth such and setteth up others in their stead What God instituted I will prove 1. Out of the Scripture records 2. Out of the History of the Church which long retained them in some degree CHAP. XII That God instituted such Presbyters as had the foresaid power of the Keys in Doctrine Worship and Discipline and no other proved by the Sacred Scriptures THat God instituted such Presbyters and no other I shall prove by the enumeration and perusal of all the Texts of Scripture which mention them viz. as instituted in the New Testament and now in force Act. 14. 23. When they had Ordained them Elders in every Church Compared with Tit. 1. 5. That thou shouldest Ordain Elders in every City as I had appointed thee 7. For a Bishop must be blameless as the steward of God And his power is described v. 11 13. Ch. 2. 1 7 15. and 3. 10. intimate it Compare this with 1 Tim. 3. 1 2 5 6. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Let the Elders that rule well be
that the Presbyters office which was instituted by God and used by the ancient Churches contained an obligation and Authority not only to Teach and Worship but also the rest of the Power of the Keys to Rule the Churches committed to their care not by the sword or force but by a pastoral perswasive power judging who is to be taken in and put out and what persons are fit objects for the respective exercises of their own Ministerial acts which was the thing I was engaged to make good CHAP. XV. Whether this Government belonging to the office of Presbyters be in foro Ecclesiae exteriore or only in foro Conscientiae interiore THe last shift that some Prelatists have is to distinguish between the forum internum Conscientiae poenitentiale and the forum externum Ecclesiasticum and to tell us that indeed Presbyters have the Power of the Keys in private or in the first sense but not in Publick or in the second Answ 1. Note that the question is not whether they have the sole power or the chief power or with what limitations it is fit for them to exercise it nor what appeals there should be from them But whether the power of the Keys be part of their office 2. That the question is not of the power of Governing the Church by the sword which belongeth to the King and is Extrinsick to the Pastoral office and to the being of the Church As protecting the Church punishing Church-offenders corporally c. For this is proper to the Magistrate and belongeth neither to Bishops nor Presbyters as such We claim no part with the Prelates in any such secular Government as their Courts use except when they come to Excommunication and Absolution At least no coercive power at all 3. All the question is of the power of the Keys of Admission Conduct and Exclusion of judging who shall have Sacraments and Church-Communion with our assemblies that is Who shall be pronounced fit or unfit for it by our selves And that this belongeth to Presbyters in foro publico Ecclesiae I prove 1. Because they are Publick officers or Pastors over that Church and therefore their power of the Keys is a publick Church power else they had none of the Keys as Pastors of that Church at all For the Keys are to Let in and put out They are the Church Keys and he that hath power only to speak secretly to a single person doth not thereby take in to the Church or put any out nor Guide them publickly A man that is a Minister at least may convince satisfie comfort any mans conscience in secret of what Church soever he be even as he is a member of the Universal Church But he that is a publick Officer and Governour of the Church may publickly Govern the Church But a Presbyter is a publick officer and Governour Ergo. 2. The rest of his office may be publickly performed Coram Ecclesia and not in secret only He may Preach to the Church Pray with the Church Praise God with them Give them the Sacrament Therefore by parity of Reason he may publickly exercise discipline unless any by-accident pro tempore forbid it 3. Else he must be made a meer Instrument of another and not a rational free Agent and Minister of Christ Yea perhaps more like to an Asse who may carry Bread and Wine to the Church or like a Parrot that may say what he is bid than a man who hath a discerning judgment what he is to do I must publickly baptize and publickly preach and pray and publickly give the Lords Body and Bloud And if I must be no Judge my self to whom I must do this then 1. Either I may and must do it to any one without offending God to whom the Bishop bids me do it And if so I may Excommunicate the faithful and curse Gods children and absolve the most notoriously wicked if the Bishop bid me And how come they to have more power than King Balak had over Balaam or than a Christian Emperour had over Chrysostom He that saith to the wicked Thou art righteous Nations shall curse him people shall abhor him Prov. 24. 24. Wo to them that call evil good and good evil But what if the Bishop bid them If I may not preach lies or heresies if the Bishop bid me then I may not lyingly curse the faithful nor bless the wicked if he bid me If I may not forbear preaching the Gospel meerly for the will of man when God calleth me to it much less may I speak slanders yea and lie in the name of God when men bid me The French Priest did wiselier than so that being bid from the Pope to Curse and Excommunicate the Emperour said I know not who it is that is in the right and who is in the wrong but I do Excommunicate him that is in the wrong whoever he be 2. Or else it will follow that I am bound to sin and damn my soul thereby whenever the Bishop will command me which is a contradiction 3. Or else it will follow that I am a beast that am not to judge or know what I do and therefore my acts are neither sin nor duty 4. If he have not the Keys to use publickly in foro Ecclesiae he hath no power of Excommunication and Restitution at all For to Excommunicater is publickly to notifie to the Church that this person is none of them nor to be communicated with and to charge them to avoid his company 5. The Bishops themselves put the Presbyters to proclaim or read the Excommunication and if this be any Ministerial or Pastoral act certainly it is in foro Ecclesiae 6. Most of the Acts before named as their concessions as to be in the Convocation c. are acts in foro publico 7. The full proofs before brought from Antiquity of Presbyters sitting in Councils Judging Excommunicating c. are of publick not private exercise of the Keys 8. They are the same Keys or Office power which Christ hath committed to the Pastors even the Guidance of his Church to feed his lambs And ubi Lex non distinguit non est distinguendum Where doth Christ or Scripture say You shall use the Keys of Church-power privately but not in the Church or publickly 9. All this striving against Power in the Ministers of Christ is but striving against their duty work and the ends and benefits of it He that hath no Power for publick discipline hath no obligation to use it and so he is to neglect it And this is it that the Devil would have to keep a thousand or many hundred Pastors in a Diocese from doing the publick work of Discipline And as if he could confine Preaching to Diocesans only And I verily believe they are better of the two at Preaching than at Discipline he knoweth that it is but few souls of many thousands that would be taught Even so when he can confine Church discipline to the Diocesanes
honour especially they that labour in the word and doctrine doth plainly imply that there were fewer who were thus Labourers in the word and doctrine than that Ruled well For indeed the following practices of the Churches expoundeth this Text when the Churches having few Learned or able Speakers he that could speak or preach best did preach ordinarily and was made Chief or Bishop and the rest helped him in Government and other offices and taught the people more privately and preached seldomer when the Bishop bid them and there was need Being yet of the same office Obj. Why then may they not now be forbidden publick Government in foro Ecclesiae exteriore Answ 1. Our question is not chiefly what part of the exercise of their proper office may be restrained on just occasion But what it is which truly belongeth to their office 2. It is one thing to forbid it them pro tempore and another statedly for this changeth the Office 3. It is one thing to forbid a man Preaching Praying or Exercise of Discipline in a Church where there are many and all cannot speak at once and his restraint is for the better doing of the work and the avoiding of confusion And another thing to forbid a single Pastor of a Parish Church with all his Curates to do it when there is no other there nor near the place that knoweth the people to do it but it must be undone 4. And indeed the case of Discipline in this differeth from Preaching and officiating in Worship Two men cannot do the later at once in the same Congregation without confusion and hinderance of Edification But ten men or twenty may consult and consent to the acts of Discipline So that by Reason Scripture and Antiquity it is clear that if any one part were more essential to the Presbyters office than the rest it would be the Authority and Obligation to Rule the flock by the word of God and exercise the Church Keys of Discipline II. Now that this power is here taken from them notwithstanding all the forecited Concessions or Confessions that it is due to them I prove I. I might premise that Ubi non est idem fundamentum non est eadem relatio At c. There is not the same foundation therefore not the same Relation For 1. Here is not the same Election no nor Consent I opened this before Though all Antiquity gave the Church the Election of her own Pastors yet we make not that necessary to the being of the office or relation to them So there be but Consent But we take Consent of the Church to be necessary to any mans Pastoral Relation to that Church though not to the Ministery in general as unfixed For seeing it is not possible to Exercise the office without the peoples Consent it cannot be assumed as over them without their Consent Because that which cannot be Exercised should not be undertaken to be exercised But with us commonly the Patron chooseth and the Bishop approveth instituteth and giveth him induction and so he is fully setled in title and possession in their way without any of the peoples knowledge or consent Obj. You choose Parliament men who make these laws and your Ancestours consented to Patrons power Therefore you consent Answ This seemeth a jest but that the business and execution make it a serious matter to us 1. It cannot be proved that all the Churches or people gave the Patrons that power 2. We never intended to consent that Parliaments should do what they list and dispose of our Souls or of that which is necessary to the saving of our Souls 3. Else you may as well say that we consent to be Baptized and to receive the Sacraments because the Parliament whom we chose consenteth to it And so we may baptize Infidels because their great grandfathers consented that all their posterity should be Christians And you need no discipline to keep men from the Sacrament if Noah consented that all his posterity should fear God and serve him and so be saved Many men are jested out of their saith and salvation but none are thus jested into it Sin is a mockery but so is not piety 4. Our forefathers had no power to represent us by such consenting If they could oblige us to Duty by their Authority they cannot be our substitutes for the performance of duty any more than for the possession of the reward 5. What God himself hath laid upon the Person or existent Church they cannot commit to another if they would themselves because the obligation was personal and they have not Gods consent for the transmutation We cannot serve God by proxy nor be happy by proxy Obj. But how unfit are the common people to choose their Pastors They are ignorant and partial and tumultuous Do the children beget their own father or the sheep choose their own shepherd Answ 1. No but wives choose their own husbands and Patients choose their own Physicians and Clients their own Advocates and servants their own masters c. Similitudes run not on four feet If all the Church of Christ besides the Prelates and their Curates be as brutish as sheep and as silly as infants in comparison of them then they have talkt reason in their similitude Else 2. Is it not notorious in England that no Congregations have had more Learned and holy Pastors than where the People have had their choice I desire London but to consider it nay they know it by great experience what men hath Aldermanbury had Mr. Calamy Dr. Stoughton Dr. Taylor and so before What men hath Blackfryers had Mr. Gibbons Dr. Gouge and many formerly So also Antholins Lincolns-Inn Greys-Inn the Temple c. But the truth is that is an excellent person to us who is an odious or contemptible person to the high Prelatists If he will preach as Heylin writeth and make the people believe that Presbyterians are Rebels and Disciplinarians are seditious brainsick fellows and strict living is hypocrisie and praying without book and much preaching is Fanaticism and that none are worthy to preach the Gospel who will not swear to be true to this Prelatical interest that drunkenness in a Conformable man is a tolerable infirmity and their ignorantest nonsence is fitter to save souls or Edifie the Church than the labours of a Learned Holy Nonconformist that Calvin was a Rogue and Cartwright Amesius and all such as they discontented factious Schismaticks unworthy to preach or to be endured This is a son of the Church and an excellent person with the men in question But it is the man that Learnedly and Judiciously openeth the word of life that closely and skilfully and seriously applyeth it that is an example of Holiness Sobriety Love Meekness Humility and Patience to the flock who spareth no labour or cost or suffering for the saving of mens souls who is for the wisdom which is first pure and then peaceable c. This is the Pastor that is excellent
unworthy to have Communion with any orderly well governed Congregation of believers because of their loose and scandalous manner of living which because they could not redresse they did pretend at least they were bound thus to shun and avoid as hateful to God and to good men Wherefore ye did not carefully seperate between the precious and the vile but consulting with flesh and blood what ye were to do in this case thought in humane Policy to break the power of one party by strengthening the hands of the other or not binding and restraining them with the Cords of Ecclesiasticall discipline Thus while you opposed Profaneness against Schism or did let that loose at this or secretly favoured and upheld it in hope to suppresse the later by the former the one grew too strong by the violence of opposition for your selves and both for the Church in order to peace and holiness As for your labour in the work of the Ministry how little it hath been for many years together it is even a shame to mention some of you wholly exempting your selves from this necessary burden of their calling for ease and pleasure Others supposing it a task and employment too low and inferiour for them The rest for the most part slightly or seldome bearing it with their shoulders and laying it aside presently as that which concerned other men and not themselves any longer than they listed And thus far had been pardonable with men had care been taken to see this work duely performed by the Clergy But alas there were not wanting of you who did not only wink at the wilful neglect of their inferirour bretheren in this point of Ministerial duty But did countenance and favour such as were most peccant therein judging them most averse from faction who were least conscious Of Preaching to the peole and fairest friends to the present Government who were loose enough God knoweth in their office and conversation Whence it came to pass that very many who were for you in the time of Tryal were ignorant and dissolute men dishonourable to your party and indeed to the Christian Religion which they did continually profane by their words and workes So unsuitable is humane policy with Evangelical simplicity and unsuccesful when it is used to support the regiment thereof And instead of sending forth meet Labourers into the Lords harvest fit Pastors into his flock you sent those that were idle Shephards loving to slumber given to sleep altogether like your selves careless of the Lords Heritage either unwilling if able or if willing unable or neither willing nor able rightly to divide the word of truth giving them their portion in due season As for those to whom God had given both ability and will to preach the word ye permitted them not the free use and exercise of their gifts but forbade them to teach the people as oft as they saw it convenient or necessary for their Edification And though you did at first commend to them the way of Catechizing the younger sort yet afterwards I know not upon what grounds or for what reason you so far limited and restrained the Minister in this pious and profitable practice that ye did in a manner take away the key of knowledge or make it useless for them so that they could not enter in thereby And pag. 69. of this I am assured that nothing was reformed afterward in your ordinations it being as free and indifferent for all who came as ever p. 70. 71. 72. The like excuse some frame for the gross corruptions of your prerogative Courts for commutations unjust partial and unreasonable Censures of Excommunication for unlawful to say no more suspension of the meaner sort from ordinances of Jesus Christ for non payment or rather disability of paying pecuniary mulcts and fees imposed on them and without Equity exacted of them by your prophane and greedy officers They pretend the power of the Chancellour to be distinct and separate from that of the Bishop in many points of spiritual Jurisdiction and so exempt from it and uncontroulable by it however proving illegal and exorbitant in the proceedings there of And surely it may seem strange to any considerate person that ye who did so much strain your authority for the introuducing of new Ceremonies into the Church of Christ savouring of superstition and begetting jealousies in mens minds of Popish innovations intended by you without prudence or Conscience and used it so rigorously for the enforcing of the old upon many ill affected to the observation of them absolutely requiring conformity to the Church Liturgy in every point of all men notwithstanding rebus sic stantibus profligata disciplina some former thereof were not appliable to divers persons would not extend it to the utmost measure for the rectifying those great abuses which had by insensible degrees crept in and corrupted the true Primitive discipline But Court employments State flattery and sinful Complyances with great persons were the main lets which hindred you from the due discharge of your office both in preaching the word and exercising the Rod of Christ according to his mind and will while ye thought in carnal reason such means as these most effectual for the acquiring and retaining of your greatness and despised those which the prudent simplicity of the Gospel did offer and commend unto you Wherefore it is no wonder if vice did reign there where flattery did abound and that in the chief Ministers and Messengers of truth if injustice and oppression did bear sway If men were secure in their sins where peace was proclaimed where a prophane Company heard nothing for the most part decried in the Pulpit but Faction from which perhaps alone they were free And what could be expected from the common people but blind ignorance love of pleasures more than God when ye their chief Leaders caused them to err not only through your negligence but also by your example And I would to God some of you had not proved false and deceitful to your brethren whom ye perverted from the way of truth and peace by your own departing from it continuing fast friends to the world ye were carnal your selves and walked as men shewing them the way to heaven with hearts and eyes fixed upon earth For who more immoderate in their care for the things of this life than you Who more eager in the pursuit of riches and honor more tenacious in withholding good from the owners thereof than your selves Who were more set upon the usual course of enriching above measure and raising your families on high If a dignity or office fell within the Compass of your Diocess who was presently judged of you more worthy to possess and manage it than a Son or a Nephew or a Kin'man or an Allie though they were many times altogether uncapable of the honor and trust to which ye preferred them in the house of God either they wanted ability of
parts requisite thereunto or had not as yet attained to maturity of years being not much past their nonage as we have known some of them to be or in all respects undeserving persons And yet men of age and experience eminent for learning and piety must stand unveiled before such as these to receive directions and commands from them to whom they were able and fit to give the same who through the just judgment of the Almighty have since been as much and more scorned than they do now scorn others every way their superiour but in place Here he citeth such like words also even from Bishop Andrews Gonc ad Cler. with his prediction of the fall of their order for their vicious lives So p. 6. To this specious design an open way seemed to be made by the great profaness and vicious living of the opposite party who while they were zealous for conformity to the ordinances of men and thought a main part of Christian duty to depend upon the observation of them did allow themselves carnal liberty inviolating the precepts and commandements of God And this they did as from the inbred corruption which is common to all men so likewise from a private spirit of opposition against the adversaries of their cause And p. 10 11. Speaking of advantages against the Bishops and their party saith he This perchance was not the meanest that they might thus check and shame the open prophaness gross impiety irreligion and sin of their professed adversaries The which to speak truth was so eminent oft times and notorious in many of them as might startle a meer natural Conscience to hear or behold it and cause therein an abhorrence from their courses so opposite as well to right reason as sanctifying grace much more in a mind inlightened though with the smallest ray of Evangelical truth For what could be more strange or hateful to men in whom was any spark remaining of common grace or moral virtue and who were not wholly possessed with Atheism and carried on with fullest bent to libertinism and ungodly practice than to hear those that professed themselves the followers of Christ scoffing at the purest acts of his worship blaspheming or prophaning his holy name by causless Oaths fearful imprecations direful execrations and such like speeches not to be expressed again without horror and amazement And not only so but glorying likewise in this their abominable wickedness and in other of like damnable nature in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine and strong drinks revellings wherein they thought it strange that others ran not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of them How much did this their apparent and overdaring impudence in sin commend and grace the seeming Saint-like conversation of their adversaries of some of them we cannot without manifest breach of charity judge of them otherwise than that they were simple harmless well meaning men who being offended and not without cause at the corruption of the times and scandalous lives of many in the sacred office of the Ministry And indeed their strict conformity in other respects to the precepts of the Gospel with their constancy in suffering for the defence of their cause did argue as much to moderate men and not possessed with prejudicate hatred of their opinion and persons For such as these could never be induced to entertain a good conceit of them no not in the least measure but judged their best actions to be counterfeit and false and thought their greatest suffering to proceed from pride and contumacy of spirit Now as it comes to pass between those that extreamly hate one another that they endeavour as much as in them lieth to be unlike each other in manner of life so it fared in this case And p. 27. 28. The slack hand of ecclesiastical discipline was another cause of the general ignorance and prophaness of these times which reached no further for the most part to the inferior Clergy how peccant soever otherwise than in disconformity to Episcopal orders Provincial or Synodical Constitutions touching external government Neither did it call people to a due account if any of their proficiency in the knowledge of Christ Jesus or censure them for non-proficiency therein yea scarcely for gross and scandalous crimes if they were persons known to be well affected to the present Government And of the change since in 1653 when Bishops were down he saith p. 29. I can speak it on my own knowledge that a Town of good note in the Western parts of the land not far distant from the Sea heretofore famed for all manner of riot and disorder by this course of late years hath been reduced to that order and discipline that it is a rare matter to see a man there at any time distempered with wine and strong drink or to hear a rash Oath proceed from any mans mouth no not when there is most frequent concourse of people thither from all the neighbouring parts Such changes through Gods mercy were not rare till Prelacy returned Reader I cite the words of this author so tediously because many would perswade those that knew not those times that none of this was true on either side And because the Author was a very high Prelatist writing openly against their adversaries 1653. VI. Dr. Gauden after Bishop of Worcester Hiera spist pag. 287. saith I neither approve or excuse the personal faults of any particular Bishops as to the exercise of their power and authority which ought not in weighty matters to be mannaged without the presence Council and suffrages of the Presbyters such as are fit for that assistance The want of this S. Ambrose S. Hierome and all sober men * justly reprove as unsafe for the Bishops and Presbyters and the whole Church For in multitude of Counsellors is safety and honor I am sure much good they might all have done as many of them did whom these touchy times were not worthy of And p 262. 263. They have taught me to esteem the ancient and Catholick Government of Godly Bishops as Moderators and Presidents among the Presbyters in any Diocess or Precincts in its just measure and constitution for power paternal duty exercised such as was in the persecuting purest and primitive times Just such we offered them in Bishop Ushers Model p. 263 I confess after the example of the best times and judgment of the most learned in all Churches I alwayes wished such moderation on all sides that a Primitive Episcopacy which imported the authority of one grave and worthy person chosen by the consent and assisted by the presence Counsel and suffrages of many Presbyters might have been restored or preserved in this Church And this not out of any factious design but for those weighty reasons which prevail with me Add to this what he saith in Hookers life of the late Bishops and remember that this man was one of the Keenest Writers against the adversaries of the Bishops in his
and entered Italy after that Ambrose had stopt him a while Theophilus Alexandr sendeth an Agent Presbyter with two Letters and a rich present one to Maximus and one to Theodosius ordering him to stay the issue of the Fight and give the Present with his Letter to him that proved the Conqueror But a Servant stole the Letters from the Priest and opened the whole business and caused the Priest to fly and hide himself 50. These contentions of the Bishops and corruption of manners so distasted the more Religious sort of the people that it occasioned the multiplying of separating Heresies and greatly encreased and confirmed others especially the Donatists and Novations because men thought them to be of better lives than the Orthodox 51. Yea by their very abuse of good and holy men they drove even the Orthodox often to separated Societies as thinking so bad Prelates unfit to be communicated with As in Constantinople their abuse ejection and banishment of Chrysostome caused great numbers of his faithful people to forsake the Church and meet only in separated Conventicles And though they differed in no point of Doctrine Worship or Discipline from the rest all that they could do by tyranny and threats would never bring them again to the Church but they were called Joannites and assembled by themselves till Atticus by wise and honest means first began the reconciliatiâ—â— by the publick inserting of Chrysostome's name among their honoured Bishops in the daily Liturgy of the Church and Proclus after wisely perfected it by fetching the bones of Chrysostome with honour from the place of his banishment into the Church But Theodoret Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 36. ascribeth it to that good Emperour Theodosius Junior It 's like a good Bishop and he consented For saith Socrates c. 40. Proclus behaved himself fairly towards all men perswading himself that it was far easier for him by fair means to allure men to the Church than by force to compel them to the Faith 52. The multitudes of Schismes and horrid enormities in the Church of Rome the grand corruption of Religion by them the shameful divisions between the Greek and Western Churches began so long ago and continued to this day with much more such evidence do tell the World that is willing to see what all this tended to as it's perfection 53. And having thus shewed how the Bishops of the Flock came to be Bishops of Bishops and how they grew from the Pastoral Office to a pompous denomination mostly secular and how the Bishops of single Churches did grow to be the Bishops of multitudes of Churches turned into one Diocesan Church of another species we shall leave it to those that are wise and impartial to judge whether a true Reformation must retrieve them and what Age and state of the Church must be our pattern to which we should endeavour to return and in what point it is that it is meet or possible for Christians unanimously to fix between the Apostolical institution and the height of Popery And what satisfying proof any man can give that in a line of 1500 Years that it is the right point that he hath chosen CHAP. IV. The Judgement of those Nonconformists now silenced who 1660. addressed themselves to King Charles the Second for Concord in the matter of Church-Government what they then offered and what those of the Authors mind now hold as to the Right of what is before Historically related AS I have delivered our Judgment about the History of Prelacy so shall I next freely and truly express my own Judgment and those that have concurred with me about the right of Church-Government it self supposing those 100 Propos ad Lud. Molinaeum which I have published about the Nature of Church-power and the extent of the Magistrates power in Church-matters For Truth hath great advantage when it appeareth 1. compact and entire 2. and in the open light Since the writing of this our judgment is more fully published in the Nonconformists first and second Plea for Peace Prop. 1. Since the Fall of Man as God hath given a Saviour to the World by whom he hath made a new Covenant with or for Mankind so hath he delivered all things into the Redeemer's hands and given him all power in Heaven and Earth making him the Administrator General and Head over all things to the Church 2. Some things are under Christ as Utensils viz Inanimates and Braites some are under him as meer enemies subdued as Devils some are under him as generally Redeemed and subjects de jure or quoad obligationem to be Ruled and used upon terms of Mercy And so are all Mankind in general till the day of life and grace is past some are under him as Visible Consenters and Professed subjects so are the Baptized and visible professors of Christianity And some are under him as sincere Heart-Covenanters Justified and Sanctified and to be Glorified by him 3. As Nature it self is now delivered up to Christ and the Law of Nature is now part of his Law and the Instrument of his Government both for the common good and order of the Redeemed World and also as sanctified to the special good and order of his Church Even so is the Office of Magistracy now under him and derived from him and dependant on him in both these forementioned respects Notwithstanding all the vain arguments which Mr. Brown a Scotch Divine Cont. Velthusium hath written to the contrary which need no confutation to an intelligent Reader 4. But the Office of the Sacred Ministry is much of Grace and Institution and less of Natural original than Magistracy For though it be of Natural obligation that one man teach another and that there be some fitter persons than the multitude to instruct the people and guide them in Gods Worship Yet that in specie there should be Preachers of the Gospel and Administrators of this instituted worship and Church-discipline this is it self of Christs Institution as the Doctrine worship and discipline which are their Office-work are of his Institution 5. And though a great part of a Christian Magistrates work be also Instituted viz. to promote Christs Instituted Doctrine Worship and Discipline yet so much also of his work is natural as that he may be called a Magistrate though he be not a Christian Magistrate while he executeth Gods Laws of Nature for the common good But he is at least less fitly called a Minister or Priest of God who shall only teach the Law of Nature and guide an Assembly in meer Natural Worship omitting all that is by Institution Or if any think otherwise it being but de nomine at least this is certain that the Christian or Evangelical Ministry is by Institution 6. Therefore though so far as the Mosaical Magistracy was founded in Nature or in any Revelation expounding the Law of Nature we may under the Gospel fetch proofs thence for the Christian Magistrates Authority and Obligation Yet can we fetch