by that exact collation of their Titles and Constitutions that is prefixed to Gothofred's Edition of the Theodosian Code And as for his own Novels he frequently makes particular reference to the Canons of the Church challenging to himself a power of punishing Offences against the Ecclesiastical Canons by vertue of this one general Law which he declares to have been the sense of himself and his Predecessors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Canons of the Church ought to have the force of Laws And accordingly he begins his Laws concerning Ecclesiastical matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We enact that the Canons of the Church i. e. the four first general Councils shall be received into the number of our Laws And by that Edict alone if there had been no other they were all Constituted Laws of the Empire And according to this Principle he declares in the Preface to his 83 Novel that he only follows the ancient Canons and Constitutions of the Church And particularly in his 137 Novel where he endeavours the restitution of Ecclesiastical Discipline he only enjoyns the observation of the thirty sixth Apostolical Canon viz. That the Bishops of each Province meet twice a Year for the more effectual Government of the Church and this he professes to do not as Author but as Protector of the Ecclesiastical Laws and therefore in the Preface to this Novel he challenges to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of Legislation in reference to the Civil Laws but in reference to the Laws of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of Patronage or Protection This seems to have been the Constitution of the Church in those happiest and most flourishing Ages of it whereby it appears that the Emperours of those Times were so far from assuming the power of Excommunication to themselves that they would not so much as abet any matter of Religion with their civil Sanctions that was not determin'd beforehand by the Spiritual Power Whether they ever exceeded their own bounds I think not my self obliged to enquire they being lyable to that as well as to other mistakes and misearriages of Govenment Though I remember not any instances of that kind till the latter and degenerate ages of Christendom when barbarity was introduced by the incursions of the Goths and Vandals and other salvage Nations It is enough to my purpose that the Power of the Keys in the Church was acknowledged by the Christian Emperours from Constantine to Justinian and it is more than enough in that whether they own'd it or not it was setled by our Saviour upon the Apostles and their Successors to the end of the World But secondly Emperours Kings and Princes have limited the Ecclesiastical Order in the exercise of this Power and assign'd them either larger or narrower bounds of Jurisdiction as they judged most consistent with reasons of State by which they evidently declare what was their opinion of the censures of the Church for if they had supposed Church-officers to have acted by a Divine Authority they durst never have presumed to set bounds to the Power of God by their own arbitrary Decrees As if it were not possible for the Governours of the Church to go beyond their Commission and under pretence of a Divine Authority encroach upon that power that God has committed to Princes Which if they can do and some have done what affront is it to the Authority of God himself to restrain his Ministers within those bounds of Jurisdiction that he has prescribed to them Nay is not this very thing a very plain confession of a distinct Authority when to limit a power supposes it So that it is so far from being any Argument of their disowning the Divine Institution of an Ecclesiastical power that 't is a demonstrative and undoubted proof of their acknowledgment of it This being granted I shall not concern my self to enquire into the warrantableness of the several Precedents alledged though most of them relate only to the restraint of dilatory vexatious and uncanonical proceedings for my only business is to gain the suffrage of the Princes of Christendom to my Cause for which I am no ways bound to prove them free from all errours and miscarriages of Government so that if they might at any time bear too hard upon the power of the Church especially when the Church has given them too much reason so to do that is so far from being any prescription against its due exercise that it is a declaration of these Princes that have been most unkind to it that they own its Power provided it be kept within its due bounds But what the general sense of Christendom has been concerning the distinction of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers sufficiently appears by those great differences that have been raised about the bounds of their Jurisdiction And though the Christian Emperours have of later times been forced from time to time to struggle against the encroachments of the Bishops of Rome yet they never question'd that I know of the divine Right of their Episcopal Authority And therefore neither here shall I concern my self to examine the particular precedents pleaded by both Parties for the advancement of their respective Powers when it is certain that both Powers may and often have exceeded their just limits which yet is such an inconvenience that considering the passions and partialities of men is utterly unavoidable And we cannot expect that God should give such Laws as that it should not be in the Power of humane liberty to break them for then the Laws were given to no purpose it is enough that they are sufficient to guide those that will resign themselves to be govern'd with honesty and integrity and it is not in the power of Laws to effect more So that it is a very frivolous objection much insisted upon by some ill-minded men that seeing the competition of these two Powers has been occasion of creating so many mischiefs and inconveniences to Christendom it were better that one of them were removed which beside the bold way of arguing that because they think in their great wisdoms that God ought not that therefore he has not constituted two distinct Powers it is such an Objection that no constitution can possibly avoid for which way soever the Government of the World may be setled there is no remedy but that through the corruption and folly of mankind it may and often will be liable to abuses And particularly in this case there is no difficulty in discerning the bounds that God has set to these two Powers if men would be honest and upright and if they will not it is no fault of the Law that they will break it For Christianity is wholly founded upon the Doctrin of the Cross which obliges them in all cases either to obey or to suffer peaceably So that how great soever the Authority of Churchmen may be there is no danger of its interfering with or entrenching upon
succession of Persons in any Bishoprick has not been preserved with that care and diligence that it ought or might have been to conclude that therefore there was no certainty of the Episcopal form of Government is the same thing as to conclude that there never was any ancient Monarchy in the world because in all their Histories there are some flaws or defects or disagreements as to the names of Persons in the succession But we think it enough that where we find an established Monarchy though we meet with some intervals of History in which the Princes names that then reigned are uncertain or forgotten and meet with no Records that the Government was at that time changed into a Common-wealth to conclude that the Monarchy was all along preserved And that is the case of Episcopal Government in the Church in that in all times and places where and when Records have been preserved we find the same Form practised and therefore ought to conclude that the same was observed in those short intervals of time if we suppose there were any such in which they were lost Though I do not find that the Register of particular Persons is so defective as is pretended but that in most Churches their very names are accurately enough recorded Thus first for the Church of Jerusalem in which we find a succession of fifteen Bishops before its destruction attested by the best and most ancient Writers of the validity of whose Testimony we have no reason to doubt For it is no Objection that so many Bishops should be crouded into so narrow a Room that many of them could not have had above two years time to rule in the Church When almost all that time the Jews were in Rebellion against the Romans continually provoking them by their Insurrections to the utmost severity both against Jews and Christians for as yet the Romans understood no difference nor were they broken into any open division among themselves all these Bishops being as formally circumcised as any of the most zealous Retainers to the Jewish Religion So that it is no more wonder that so many Bishops should succeed in so short a time than that such an incredible number of Jews should perish by the Sword But secondly It is less material to enquire as Scaliger does where the Seat of the Bishops of Jerusalem was from the time of the destruction of the City by Titus till the time of Adrian For what if he had no Palace was he no Bishop Or what if we cannot tell where he assembled his Flock was there no Church Perhaps it was in a Cockloft at Pella but because we cannot tell where it was was it no where And therefore to return the Quere Was there then a Church of Jerusalem If there was whether Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent or all together I would fain know where it was and if you cannot tell me conclude as you do that there was no Church at all And so he has answered his own little Objection himself that the Church follows the Bishop and is not confined to stone Walls and therefore that the Church of Jerusalem was then at Pella though there was no such place as Jerusalem as at this day the Patriarchal Seat of Antioch is at Meredin in Mesopotamia and that of Alexandria at Grand Cairo As for the succession at Antioch I find not the least ground to doubt of its truth for I think it no objection that though it be clear it is not certain whether they succeeded St. Peter or St. Paul for be it either or both or neither it is all one so it be any that is enough that there was a succession though we did not know the particular Founder of the Church in whom it began and whoever of the Apostles it was whether one or more they had Apostolical Authority over it and whoever succeeded them succeeded in the same form of Government As for the Church of Rome all the difficulty is about the succession of Linus and Clemens being both reckoned in the first place but the conjecture is very probable that Clemens succeeded St. Peter in the Church of the Jews as Linus did St. Paul in the Church of the Gentiles and that surviving both Linus and Cletus that succeeded him till the union of the two Churches he governed both For whatever ground there is for the conjecture that there were separate Churches of Christian Jews and Gentiles in other Cities there is a very probable foundation for it at Rome in the Apostolical History Acts xxviii where St. Paul expresly declares to the Jews that from thenceforth he would preach only to the Gentiles and so in all probability gathered a distinct Church of them by themselves And therefore it is observable that in that famous passage of Irenaeus in which he derives the succession of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter and Paul down to Eleutherius his Cotemporary that he speaks not of the Church of Rome in the single number but Ecclesiae Petro Paulo Romae fundatae canstitutae as if they had been several Churches And to this purpose it is a pretty observation of Mr. Thorndike that St. Pauls being buried in the Way to Ostia and St. Peters in the Vatican as we understand by Caius in Eusebius seems to point them out Heads the one of the Jewish Christians the other of the Gentiles in that the Vatican was then the Jury of Rome and notorious for the Residence of Jews But though these first Records could not be fully made out we have no reason to doubt of the History but rather to suspect some mistake in after-times or the omission of some circumstance that might if it had been recorded have removed the difficulty For it is very hard that when Irenaeus to mention no more gives us a Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter down to the time when himself was at Rome and who lived not at a greater distance from St. Peter than we do from the first Archbishop in Queen Elizabeths Reign that we should suspect the whole truth of his Relation because we cannot give an account of all the particular circumstances of the Succession This I say is too hard dealing with any ancient Records though the conclusion is much harder that because we have no certainty of all the Persons that succeeded in Church-Government and of the particular manner of their Succession that therefore we have no certainty of the particular Form of it notwithstanding we have no Record of any form but one As for the Church of Alexandria there the Succession is acknowledged to be clearest as indeed it is unquestionable only it is imputed to the choice of Presbyters but of that in its proper place the evidence of personal Succession is enough and all that is pertinent to our present debate And the succession of Ephesus might have been as unquestionable but that one Leontius pleads at the Council of Calcedon that all
confined my self to the discourses of men of sense and learning i. e. no Smectymnuans and have distinctly considered and I hope confuted all their material pretences against the Episcopal superiority in the Premises But as for Grammatical Criticisms and Historical Digressions they concern not us because they concern not our Enquiry And if learned men would but come up roundly and keep ingenuously to the main point of the Controversie they must rub their foreheads pretty hard to out-face the evidence of our cause But alas the custom of them all is to range up and down through the whole field or rather wood of Antiquity and pursue every thing little or great that starts within their view And they seem to make choice of this Subject rather from it to take occasion of shewing the variety of their Reading than with any design to make good the undertaking of their Title Page And it is very observable that among the many thousand Pages that have been of late years wasted in the Anti-episcopal cause it will be very hard to find half an hundred directly to the purpose And that of it self is Argument enough that they have but very little to say against it And what that is I have in the Premises fully represented for I protest that as I will answer it to Almighty God I know no other pretences that are at all pertinent or material besides those that I have considered But in the last place beside the direct and positive Argument that I have thus far pusued from ourSaviours own express Institution the undoubted practice of the Apostles and the most unquestionable Records of the Primitive Church I come to the last Topick propounded those enormous inconveniences that unavoidably result from the contrary Opinion I shall represent only two The first is this that if the Form of Government in the Christian Church be not setled by the Founder of it that then we are at a loss to know by whom it may or ought to be determined For the Society of the Church being founded upon an immediate Divine Right no Person can justly challenge any Authority in it as such unless by vertue of some Grant or Commission from the divine Founder of it If therefore those Commissions that were granted by our Saviour to his Apostles do not descend to some certain Order of men as their Successours in that Authority wherewith they were invested who shall challenge the exercise of it after their decease To this we never received any certain Answer but are only told in the general That the particular Form of Government in the Church is left wholly to the prudence of those in whose power and trust it is to see that the peace of the Church be secured on lasting foundations But then I would fain know who those are that are intrusted with this Power It would have been very well worth their pains to have determined the particular Persons expresly appointed by God to this Office Especially when it is laid down as a fundamental Principle that all things necessary to the Churches peace must be clearly revealed in the Word of God and if so then no one particular Form may be established in it by any Authority whatsoever because no one particular Form as is all along pleaded is prescribed by the Word of God and yet it is plainly necessary to the Churches peace if Government be so that it be governed by some one particular Form But yet however when we come to enquire after these Trustees to whose power it is left to see the peace of the Church secured on lasting foundations the answer is ever ambiguous and unconstant Sometimes it is the Civil Magistrate and sometimes the People But this very uncertainty where this Power is lodged is both in it self and according to the fundamental Notion of the Hypothesis that we oppose a manifest confutation of the whole design For if our Saviour have not determined to whom it appertains that is evidence enough that he never intended by this way to provide for the peace and settlement of his Church For if he had appointed such Feoffees in Trust as is imagined he would at least have left it certain who they were that he intended which not having done that is demonstration enough that it was never his intention to set any such pretended Guardians over his Church But be it where it will it is very strange that these Learned men should be so intent upon the fineness of their Model as never to consider the wild consequences of either way when reduced to practice For be it in the Civil Magistrate they would first have done very well according to their own Rule ro have searched for some Commission in the Word of God whereby our Saviour entrusted this power with him We find indeed Prophesies and Predictions that Princes should become Patrons and Protectors of his Church but that they should be vested with a Power of instituting and abolishing Church Orders and Offices at pleasure is such a wild conceit as will not find any the least countenance from the Word of God Secondly By what Authority was the Church governed from our Saviour to the Reign of Constantine when if he had appointed the Civil Magistrate Overseer of his Infant Church there was then none that cared to execute his Office Beside thirdly If Church-Officers derive their Authority in the Church from the meer appointment of the Civil Magistrate they are then only of Humane Institution and derive not their Power from any appointment of our Saviour and so are only Ministers of State and not of the Gospel But to put it into the power of any mortal man to alter the whole frame of Government in the Church as he pleases is the most improper way in the world to provide for its peace and settlement For by this means it will be ever in the power of any Common-wealth lawfully to overturn all manner of Ecclesiastical Order at pleasure If to day perhaps the Bishops either by chance or by vertue of some Grant from the Civil Government enjoy the Supreme Power in the Church it may with good Authority to morrow depose them and translate their Power to the Presbyters from the Presbyters to the Deacons from the Deacons to the People and from the People to the Pope and it would be very consistent no doubt with the wisdom of Christ in founding his Church and providing for the peace and settlement of it to leave its whole frame of Government thus at the Mercy of any mans Power or Will We have one example of this project put in practice upon Record in the Long Parliaments Midsummer-Model of Reformation when they vote June 12. 1641. that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction should be put into the hands of such Commissioners as their Worships should think fit In pursuance of which they vote June 21. that six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the
against the Government For if the Church have no right of exercising any Discipline within it self but by the grant of the Empire then the grant of the Empire being reversed it has none at all And thus has he fairly brought this confederate Discipline of the primitive Church which he has contrived purely to avoid any Government founded upon Divine Right into down-right Rebellion And no wonder when all Confederacies against the Commands of the Sovereign Power can be no better unless when warranted by Divine Authority And now it is no wonder if after these Premises our Author begins his next Chapter with a Confession that it does not appear when the present form of Excommunication began in the Christian Church Quandonam primo discrepantia ejusmodi inter Christianae Judaicae seu vetustioris Excommunicationis effectus inciperet non quidem satis liquet Sed ante Origenis ac Tertulliani etiam Irenaei tempora juxta jam dicta effectum quoad Sacrorum communicatinis negationem inolevisse non dubitandum Though I should have thought it a sufficient proof that it descended from the Apostles when we find it in the Church immediately after them and find no beginning of its Institution especially when it could have no other because the Apostles challenging no Civil Authority they could have no other power but a cutting off from the Spiritual Priviledges of the Christian Church And here I cannot but remark it as the peculiar disingenuity of all the Adversaries both of the Government and Governours of the Church i. e. Excommunication and Episcopacy that they will allow their usage in all Ages of the Church but only that of the Apostles and because they imagine that in their time there are no demonstrative evidences of their Practice for that reason destroy their Reverence and neglect their Authority whereas had these men the common modesty of Mankind they would revere them for their so ancient and Catholick Practice and when with all their search they cannot discover any later beginning of them they would conclude it at least a very fair probability that they descended from Apostolical Prescription And in our present case one would wonder that when our Author has traced this usage both in the Eastern and Western Churches into the Age immediately after the Apostles without being able to discover any other time of its first Institution how any man should doubt of its Apostolical Antiquity What Records can be more evident than the Canons of the Apostles the Writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian that lived in the first Century after them and St. Cyprian in the second who do not only mention this Power of the Church as a thing then in common use but speak of it as an ancient Right derived from their Ancestors I shall give one Instance for all because our Author has the boldness to quote it and yet to overlook the Consequence and that is out of Irenaeus who expostulating with Victor Bishop of Rome about his rash Excommunication of the Asiatick Churches thus bespeaks him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never were any men Excommunicated after this rate Upon which our learned Author observes Excommunicationis usus qualiscunque ut ab anterioribus seculis illuc propagatus utrinque pariter tunc admittitur from hence it appears that on all sides the use of Excommunication was admitted as descending from the foregoing Ages after this could any man think it possible that when he had allowed this Testimony of Irenaeus who by his own computation flourished about Seventy years after St. John that he should ever doubt of its being an Apostolical practice Or could any man desire to reduce his Adversary to a greater absurdity than is here so frankly own'd that Irenaeus who lived in the age immediately after the Apostles should speak of this thing as the custom of former ages and yet that there should be no such custom in the Apostolical age And of the same nature is his discourse of the time when this power was first appropriated to the Christian Bishops which he confesses to be altogether unknown though he finds it in common use in the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian and that is time enough to give it right to Apostolick prescription especially when he does not so much as pretend to any Record that the Keys were ever in the Peoples hands Neither has he any ground for this Imagination but only his old conceit that among the Jews every man had this power and therefore among the Christians Whereas there is not the least ground of surmise that there was any such custom among the ancient Jews but that it was a meer off-spring of the Talmudical folly Or if there were yet it was too foolish to be admitted into the serious discipline of the Christian Church for of what use could it be when any man might Excommunicate whom he pleased and when he might be absolved from the heaviest sentence of the Court by any three persons that he could pack together such ridiculous trifling is at first view too absurd to be entertain'd in the Christian Church And as it does not appear that the People ever exercised this power de facto so neither does it that they could ever chalenge it de jure in that we do not find that our Saviour ever vested the Body of Believers in any Power of governing his Church but on the contrary that when ever he gives out his Commissions he ever addresses himself to particular Persons And thus are we faln upon the main Controversie where we ought to have begun and where we might have ended but he that pursues an Adversary must follow his motion otherwise certainly the matter of right ought to have been determin'd before the matter of Fact and therefore the first question ought not to have been whether the primitive Christians exercised any such Jurisdiction but whether they received any Commission from our Saviour for their Authority which if either proved or disproved would prevent the following dispute concerning the practice of the Church but seeing our Author is pleased to take this method we shall tread in his steps and thus he brings it in that when the Bishops had unwarrantably assumed this Power to themselves they justified their usurpation by pretended Patents made to themselves in several Texts of Scripture as the Power of the Keys and of binding and loosing and if any man hear not the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican And now to elude the true meaning of these and the like passages what infinite pains has been taken by our Author and other learned men I need not represent but whatever shifts men may invent their true meaning discovers and clears it self by this one plain and obvious consideration viz. That our Saviour had already set up his Kingdom or Society of his Church upon which supposition all these grants can signifie nothing less than a donation of Power Thus when he chooses Officers
obstinate against their Authority every man should look upon him as an Excommunicate Person and by the sentence of the Court reduced into the state of Idolaters But also by the words immediately following Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Which words plainly declare a Power of binding in the sentence of the Church and withall who the Church is viz. The Apostles or Governours of it to whom our Saviour addresses his speech and vests them and them alone with that Authority in which he had before enstated St. Peter and promises to ratifie not the opinion of the People but their acts of Judicature when the People appeal to their Authority But neither Secondly says our Author can these words relate to the Christian Excommunication for what punishment could there then be in being accounted of as an Heathen when a great number of the primitive Christians were Heathens or such as came into the Church without Circumcision What in our Saviours time did you not take a great deal of pains in the foregoing Chapter to prove not only that then but during all the time of the Apostles all Christians were Jews but now it will serve your turn the greatest part of them were Heathens But not to insist too much upon such weak pretences it is certain that in our Saviours time all that were not Jews by Circumcision were esteemed as Heathens i. e. Idolaters and vile Persons not fit to be admitted into their Church or Common-wealth and therefore it can be of no other Import in the Christian Church Our Saviour here accommodating as he does every where the known customs of the Synagogue to the Constitution of his Church so that considering the vulgar manner of speaking at that time I cannot understand if our Saviour had design'd to establish this Power in what other words he could have expressed himself with more plainness and less ambiguity even to the capacities of the People Of the Third Text Math. 18. 18. Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth c. Though it is answer'd already as appertaining to the second our Authors account is briefly this that the words of binding and loosing are either to be taken in their large sense of all manner of binding but then it seems very strange to express one act of it by such comprehensive words and it is like describing the Ocean by a drop of Water or the Universe by an Atom Or if they are taken in the peculiar sense of the Jewish Writers they then do not signifie any Jurisdiction but only declaring what is lawful what not or answering cases of Conscience To which I answer that in whatever sense the words are taken they will include in them the power of Excommunication In the larger sense they signifie Jurisdiction and all the parts branches and appendages of it and then the Power of inflicting penalties which as is well known and our Author has often observed gives force to all the rest is to be understood in the first place And therefore he might have spared his wonder that so large a word should be taken in so narrow a sense when that narrow sense necessarily infers all other things that it does or can signifie But however to prevent this vain objection for the time to come these words are not insisted upon as limited meerly to Excommunication but as a general donation of Power and therefore of this in particular which is so considerable a branch of it And that is it which we assert that seeing by the Power of the Keys the Scripture so often expresses greatness of Power therefore the Power that is exercised by vertue of them must carry with it the full force of obligation So that the words mutually explain each other for if by the Keys given in the Sixteenth verse is signified Authority then by binding and loosing by which the acts of them are expressed in the Eighteenth verse must be understood authoritative obligation for though the word binding simply put may not infer Authority yet binding by the Keys signifies the same thing as binding by Authority And this would have prevented our Authors other notion of which some learned men are so very fond of binding only by answering cases of Conscience because though binding alone may signifie only so much yet binding by the Keys must signifie more But it is notorious that the word it self no where in the old Testament signifies any other binding than by Legislative or judicial Obligation and whereas it is pretended that in the Talmudical Writers it signifies only an interpreting of Laws without jurisdiction it is so palpable a mistake that in them it can signifie nothing less than authoritative Obligation when it is so evident that their Rabbies equal'd their interpretations to the Law it self and bound them upon the Consciences of men by vertue of the Divine Authority and under penalty of the Divine displeasure But however if our Saviour constituted his Apostles to be only Doctors and Casuists yet he has annexed Authority to their Office by the promise made at their Instalment that whatever they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven for I am sure all binding there is Obligatory so that it seems if they are Casuists they are authoritative Casuists and that is the same thing as if they were endued with proper Jurisdiction And now having as I suppose sufficiently vindicated these Texts I cannot but remark it as some defect of Ingenuity in this learned Gentleman to have wholly omitted one Text more which he could not be ignorant to have been as commonly as any of the other insisted upon in this Argument and if he would have taken notice of it would have prevented his Evasions And that is St. John Chap. 20. v. 21 22 23. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you And when he had said this â—e breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Here our Saviour gives his Apostles the same Power that he had received from his Father and then for the discharge of it the same Ability wherewith himself acted and lastly declares to them wherein lay the Exercise of it and what were the Effects of it forgiving and retaining of Sins which answers to the power of Binding and Loosing in the other Gospel And this if attended to would have prevented that poor slender Notion that the power of Binding and Loosing signifies only the Office of Interpreting or declaring what is lawful what unlawful for to retain or remit Sins as the truly pious and learned Dr. Hammond observes will not be to declare one mans sins unlawful anothers lawful which it must do if this interpretation be applied to this place After all this it will be but superfluous industry to spend pains upon our Author's Conceit wherewith he concludes this Chapter viz. That the Authority of the Church
the Prerogatives of Princes unless they misuse it and if they do as they go beyond their Commission so they deserve their punishment in this lâ—fe among the worst of Rebels and Traytors and are sure to have it in the next For as their Power is not only purely spiritual void of all temporal force and coercion so are they in the first place and above all things forbidden to use any violence or raise any disturbance against Government So that if any Prince think good to oppose them in the Execution of their Office and to punish them for so doing they are not to oppose him but only to sacrifice their lives in justification of their cause and submission to his will and for so doing they shall have their Reward But if they shall make use of any other Weapons whatsoever beside Prayers and Tears and Sufferings they then suffer deservedly as disturbers of the publick Peace And so much the more in that they have been so expresly forewarned by our Saviour that whosoever shall draw the Sword in his cause shall be sure to perish by it And as upon this principle he founded his Church so upon it his Apostles built it when in pure obedience to his command they preached the Gospel all the World over And if any Prince were pleased to countermand them they did not plead any exemption from the Government much less did they Libel it but only represented the Innocence and Justice of their Cause and if he were not satisfied declared their readiness to submit to his pleasure and the penalty of the Law And in this they enjoyed no other exemption from the Prerogative of Princes than what is or ought to be chalenged by every private Christian who is indispensably bound to make profession of his Christian Faith and if the Laws of his Country so require to seal it with his Blood This was the constitution of the Church and the practice of it in its first profession and is the constitution of the Church of England in its Reformation For whereas a foreign Italian Bishop had for a long time usurped wel-nigh all both secular and spiritual Power into his own hands and by an exorbitant abuse of it had enslaved the Prince and empoverished the people only to enrich himself and his own Courtiers they that were concern'd after long patience and much provocation at last resolved upon what motives concerns not us to resume their Rights The King that Power which was exercised by the Kings of Judah of old and by Christian Kings and Emperours in the primitive Church And the Bishops that Power wherewith they were as immediately entrusted by virtue of our Saviours general commission to the Apostolical Order as any other foreign Bishop or Bishops within their respective Diocesses whatsoever And to prevent all jealousie in the Prince lest they should play him the same game that his Holiness had done who in ordinc ad spiritualia had finely stript him of almost all his Temporal Jurisdiction by excepting all Ecclesiastical both Persons and Causes from his cognizance They therefore freelv declare him Supreme Governour first Over all Persons so that no Ecclesiastical Subject might as formerly appeal from his Tribunal And in all Causes so that every Subject whatsoever was bound to submit to his Decrees and Determinations so far forth as either to obey his Laws as long as he own'd and protected true Christianity as the Christian Bishops of old did to the Christian Emperours Or if he opposed it chearfully and peaceably to submit to their Penalties as they did to the Roman Persecutors And whereas from the Precedent of the Apostles in the first Council at Jerusalem the Governours of the Church in all Ages enjoyed a power of making Canons and Constitutions for Discipline and good Order yet by the example of the Primitive Church they submitted the exercise thereof to his sovereign Authority protesting in verbo sacerdotis as it is stated in that famous Act called The Submission of the Clergy That they will never from henceforth presume to attempt alledg claim or put in ure enact promulge or execute any new Canons Constitutions Ordinances provincial or other or by whatsoever other name they shall be call'd in the Convocation unless the King 's most royal Assent and License may to them be had to make promulge and execute the same and that his Majesty do give his Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf Whereby they do not pass away their power of making Ecclesiastical Canons but only give security to the Government that under that pretence they would not attempt any thing tending to the disturbance of the Kingdom or injurious to the Prerogative of the Crown Which in truth is such a submission as all the Clergy in the World ought in duty to make to their Sovereign at least in gratitude for his Protection and that without any abatement or diminution of their own Authority viz. The standing Laws of Christianity being secured to submit all other Matters to his sovereign Will and Pleasure Whereby as they would bring no damage to the Church in that this power is exercised meerly in matters of Order and Discipline if the Prince did not approve of their Constitutions it would be no difficult thing to provide for Decency some other way so they would bring great security to the State when the Prince was assured that under that pretence they would not as the Roman Clergy had done distuâ—b or undermine his Authority And as they parted not with their Spiritual Legiâ—lative Power so not with any other Power proper to their Function as the Power of preaching the Christian Religion administring the holy Sacraments and conferring holy Orders Neither did any Prince in the least ever claim or exercise any of them And because the Romanists in the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth made a mighty noise with this Objection as if by virtue of her Supremacy her Majesty had challenged a Spiritual or Ministerial Power in the Church the Queen has with great indignation disown'd any such Power and defied the Calumny And yet when she had made her disclaimour of any Spiritual Power in the Church she parted not with her Royal Supremacy over those that had it as we are particularly instructed by our Church in her 37th Article Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Title we understand the minds of some dangerous Folks to be offended we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or the Sacraments the which things the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers And lastly to mention
to provoke them And with this honest resolution I now proceed to vindicate one of the most evident but most injured Truths in the World And in it I shall be much briefer than at first I intended for when we have lopt off all that is not directly pertinent to the Enquiry as we shall reduce the Debate to a narrow compass so may we easily bring it to a speedy issue And therefore I shall purposely pass over all those things that relate only to the occasional exercise and outward administration of Church-Authority And particularly that wide argument of Dispute whether the distribution of Provinces and Diocesses were through the Roman Empire framed by the division of the Civil Government For whether it were or were not that concerns not the question of the Institution of a Ruling Clergy but only the manner or fashion of administring their Power when reduced to Practice For the extent of their Jurisdiction is is but accidental to the supremacy of their Power and whether the Circuit of a Monarchs Government be little or great it is all one as to the nature of Monarchy So that it is not at all material how the bounds of Diocesses came to be assign'd how Churches extended themselves from great Cities into the adjacent Territories till they sometimes swell'd into Provinces and how Bishops came to be subject to Metropolitans and Metropolitans to Patriarchs all which and divers other particulars though they are very copiously insisted upon by Learned men in the present Question are yet altogether useless as to its Determination because they only concern the outward and accidental Exercise and have no reference to the essential Form of Church-Government So that the only thing concern'd in our present enquiry is as Mr. Selden has rightly stated it Utrùm ex ipsâ purâ putâ Origine seu primâ ac merâ nascentis Ecclesiae Christianae Disciplinâ Episcopalis seu Ordo sive Dignitas sive Gradus Presbyterali seu Sacerdotali superior vel alius aut ei neutiquam dispar seu idem fuerit habendus That is in short whether the Church were at first founded in a superiority and subordination of Ecclesiastical Officers to each other or a parity and equality of all among themselves so that if we can prove the preeminence and superiority of one Order above all others in the Government of the Church from the beginning of it we shall thereby make good all that is essential to that Power and Authority that we challenge as proper only to the Episcopal Order and Office And this we doubt not but to perform with clear and demonstrative evidence from these three Topicks I. Of our Saviour's own express Institution II. The practice of the Apostles in Conformity to it III. The practice of the Primitive Church in the Ages next and immediatly after the Apostles And First As to our Saviour's Institution it is manifest That he founded his Church in an imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers in that he did by his own immediate Appointment authorize and set apart two distinct Orders of men for Ecclesiastical Ministries the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples whose Office if it were the same to what purpose were they distinguish'd And why when a place was vacant in the Apostolate must one be substituted by Divine Designation to complete the Number Why should not one of the Seventy without any further Election have served the turn seeing he was qualified with an Identity of Office and Order Nay to what purpose should they be reckoned apart under different Names and in different Ranks if there were no difference intended in their employments and commissions And why were they not all comprehended in one number and ranged in one Catalogue If the Twelve were nothing more than the Seventy and the Seventy nothing less than the Twelve to what purpose do we hear so oft of the Twelve and the Seventy or of the Seventy two for of that the learned dispute and not rather of the Eighty two or Eighty four For do we think that our Saviour would distinguish the Officers of his Kingdom by meer Words and empty Titles And yet the Apostleship could be nothing more if it carried in it no superiority of Office above the Seventy Some inequality we must discover and that intended too by our blessed Saviour himself else shall we never be able to give our selves any imaginable Account of their Institution And now what clearer evidence can any man demand for a Divine Right of Superiority and Subordination of Church Officers than our Saviour's own express and particular Institution Yes say they but the Inequality between the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples consisted in a superiority of Order and Office not of Power and Jurisdiction Very good This grants all that we can desire or demand to prove the Supreme Authority of the Supreme Order because every Superiour Ecclesiastical Order as such is Authoritative and therefore an eminency of Order must not only infer but include a superiority of Power seeing the Order it self as such if it be any thing is the proper and immediate seat of Authority and all the Jurisdiction of the Bishop whatsoever it is is claim'd and exercised by vertue of his Order So that if the Apostles were the highest Order of Ecclesiasticks they were for that Reason alone though there were no other the highest Judicature And in the same degrees of proportion that they were advanced above others in dignity of Title they were so in supremacy of Power because their Dignity as such is nothing elie but so much Power in the Church of God devest them of that and they immediately return to the condition of Ordinary and Unconsecrated men And the Apostles themselves were no more than all other common Believers but by vertue of their Commission to rule and govern the Church reverse that and they are degraded from their Order as well as stript of their Jurisdiction So lamentably do these learned men entangle themselves by distinguishing so vainly in this case between a superiority of Order and Power when the one is not only the very Ground and Foundation but to speak in the language of the Schoolmen from whom these Metaphysical nothings are taken the very Formality of the other and the Apostolical Power is Formally and as such the very same with the Apostolical Office So little real difference is there in this distinction that it is not possible to frame one in Notion and Conception but whoever pretends to conceive one must of necessity conceive both or conceive nothing And therefore I would very fain know wherein consists this superiority of Order and Dignity without any superiority of Power For what do men mean by Power but a right to Govern and what by Order but a superiority of some as Rulers and a subordination of others as Ruled What then is the difference between an inequality of Order and Power when they both equally signifie Superiority and Subjection
And therefore we do not find that the Apostles acted with a plenitude of Power till he had given them a new Commission after his Resurrection and it is remarkable that in St. Matthew 16. 19. he vests them with the power of Binding and Loosing in the Future Tense But in St. John 20. 23. after his Resurrection it is expressed in the Present Tense Then it was that he gave them that Authority which himself had exercised whilst he remain'd on Earth But then when immediately in pursuance of their new Commission the Apostles thought themselves obliged to choose one into their Order to supply the Vacancy made by the death of Judas What can be more evident than that they thought the Apostolical Office by our Saviour's Appointment distinct from and superiour to all other Offices in the Church So that it is manifest that the Form observed by the Apostles in the Planting and Governing of Churches was Model'd according to our Saviour's own Platform and after that it is not at all material to enquire whether he only drew the Model or erected the Building But whichsoever he did it is improved into an impregnable Demonstration from the undoubted Practice of the Apostles and from them the perpetual Tradition of the Catholick Church in that it is plain that they thought themselves obliged to stand to this Original Form of Church-Government For the Apostles we all know and all Parties grant during their days kept up the distinction and preeminence of their Order and from them the Bishops of the First Ages of the Church claim'd their Succession and every where challenged their Episcopal Authority from the Institution of Christ and the Example of his Apostles And now are we enter'd upon the second main Controversie viz. The Authority of the Apostolical Practice against which three things are usually alledged That neither can we have that certainty of Apostolical Practice which is necessary to constitute a Divine Right nor secondly is it probable that the Apostles did tie themselves to any one fixed Course in Modelling Churches nor thirdly if they did doth it necessarily follow that we must observe the same And the first of these is made out from the equivalency of the names Bishop and Presbyter secondly from the Ambiguity of some places of Scripture pleaded in behalf of different Forms of Government thirdly from the Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy of the Records of the succeeding Ages which should inform us what was the Apostolical Practice But as to the first I shall wholly wave the dispute of the signification of the words because it is altogether beside the purpose and if it were not our other Proofs are so pregnant as to render it altogether useless Neither indeed would this ever have been any matter of Dispute had not our Adversaries for want of better Arguments been forced to make use of such slender pretences But how impotently Salmasius and Blondel who were the main Founders of the Argument have argued from the Community of the Names the Identity of the Office any one that has the patience to read them over may satisfie himself As for my own part I cannot but admire to see Learned men persist so stubbornly in a palpable Impertinency when from the Equivalency of the words Bishop and Presbyter in the Apostles time they will infer no imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers notwithstanding it is so evident and granted by themselves that the Apostles enjoyed a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church which being once proved or granted and themselves never doubted of it to infer their beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Parity of the Clergy from the Equivocal signification of those two words is only to out-face their own Convictions and their Adversaries Demonstrations For if it be proved and themselves cannot deny it that there was an inequality of Offices from the Superiority of the Apostles it is a very Childish attempt to go about to prove that there was not because there were two Synonymous Terms whereby to express the whole Order of the Clergy But to persist in this trifling Inference as Salmasius has who when he was informed of its manifest weakness and absurdity would never renounce it but still repeated it in one Book after another without any improvement but of Passion and Confidence is one of the most woful Examples that I remember of a learned man's Trifling that has not the ingenuity to yield when he finds himself vanquish'd not only by his Adversary but his Argument Neither shall I trouble my self with other mens disputes about particular Texts of Scripture when it is manifest from the whole Current of Scripture that the Apostles exercised a superiority of Power over the other Pastors of the Church and that is all that is requisite to the Argument from Apostolical Practice for as yet it is nothing to us whether they were Presbyters or Bishops that they set over particular Churches that shall be enquired into when we come to the Practice of the Primitive Church it is enough that they were subject to the Apostles for then by Apostolical Practice there was a Superiority and Subordination in Church-Government And therefore I cannot but wonder here too at the blindness of Walo Messalinus who in pursuance of his Verbal Argument produces this passage out of Theodoret and spends a great deal of the first part of his Book in declaiming upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the same men were call'd Presbyters and Bishops and those that we now call Bishops they then call'd Apostles but in process of time the name of Apostolate was appropriate to them who were truly and properly Apostles and the name of Bishop was applied to them who were formerly call'd Apostles Than which words beside that they contain the true state of the Question there is scarce a clearer passage in all Antiquity to confound his cause For what can be a plainer Reproof to their noise about the Equivalency of words than to be told that it is true that the words Bishop and Presbyter signified the same thing in the Apostles time but that those that we now call Bishops were then call'd Apostles who exercised the Episcopal Power over the other Clergy but that afterward in process of time they left the word Apostolate to those who were strictly and properly so call'd and stil'd all other Bishops who in former times were stiled Apostles What I say can be more peremptory against his Opinion that concludes from the equivalency of Names to the parity of Power than this that notwithstanding the words were equivalent yet the Episcopal Power was then in the Apostles whose successors in their supremacy came in after-times to be call'd Bishops And if so then is it evident that there was the same imparity of Church-Officers in the Apostles time as in succeeding Ages Nay our friend Walo is not content to make this out for us only as to the
Apostles themselves but as to their immediate Successors whom they employed in the settlement of Churches and to whom they committed the Apostolical Power for their Government and these too he proves were stil'd Apostles such as Titus Timothy Epaphroditus Clemens Linus Marcus so that not only the Apostles but the Evangelists as they call'd them were distinguish'd from the other Clergy and endued with a superiority of Power over their respective Churches and hereby we gain the authority of Apostolical Practice not only for themselves but for their Companions and Successors which does not only extend our Argument but joyns together the practice of the Primitive Times of which we have certain Records with that of the Apostles and so prevents all their fond Dreams of an unknown Interval immediately after the death of the Apostles for if these Apostolical men supplied their Places it will be very easie to find out who supplied theirs Neither thirdly need I trouble my self with any long dispute concerning the Obligation of Apostolical Practice for whether or no meer Apostolical Practice be obligatory by vertue of their Example is very little material to our Enquiry for some things are too trifling or too transient in their own Natures to deserve to pass into prescription but it is enough in this case that what the Apostles did was in pursuance of our Saviour's Institution and that in a matter of perpetual concernment to the Church and they who require to the Obligation of such an Apostolical Practice an express Law to declare their intention that it should bind for ever are guilty of the same phantastick niceness as they that require the same for the perpetuity of every Divine Law and therefore have been consider'd already And for that reason I shall add nothing more to what I have already said as to this particular than to grant that whatever the Apostles either commanded or practised upon some particular temporary and occasional Cases was not sufficient to found any universal and unchangeable Obligation because the reason of the Precept was apparently transient and the goodness of the action casual But otherwise if there were any Prescript or Practice of theirs though it were not founded upon any Divine Institution that did not relate to peculiar Occasions and Circumstances but are or may be of equal usefulness to all Places Times and Persons that is a certain and undoubted evidence of their constant and unabolishable Obligation And therefore here I shall only put them to their former task to assign what particular ground and reason there was of establishing a Superiority and Subordination of Church-Officers in the times of the Apostles that is ceased in all succeeding Ages of the Church and till they can discharge this Task advise them not to depart rashly from so sacred and venerable a Prescription But that which improves the Argument both from our Saviour's Institution and the Apostles Practice into a complete Demonstration is the practice of the Primitive Churches in the Ages next and immediately succeeding the Apostles For if the Government of the Church were by our Saviour founded upon Divine Institution in an inequality of Church-Officers and if the first Governours of it thought themselves obliged to keep close to its Original Platform and if their immediate Successors conceived themselves as much obliged to observe the same as imposed upon them by the Command of Christ and deliver'd to them by the Example and Tradition of his Apostles that certainly may serve for a very competent proof of its necessity and perpetuity Now then as for the power and preheminence of the Episcopal Order it is attested by the best Monuments and Records of the first and most remote Antiquity and we find such early instances and evidences of it that unless it descended from the Apostles times we can never give any account in the World whence it derived its Original And this brings us upon the main sanctuary of our Adversaries viz. The defectiveness of Antiquity in reference to the shewing what certain Form the Apostles observed in settling the Government of Churches and here they run into a large common place of the deep silence of antiquity and the defectiveness of the Records of the Church in the interval next and immediately succeeding the Apostles But here in the first place I must desire them to consider that if this Objection be of any force against the certainty of Apostolical Tradition in this particular it will utterly overthrow all the testimony of the Ancients as to all other matters of Faith and particularly as to the certain Canon and Divine Authority of the Scriptures for if they are not as is pretended competent Witnesses of the practice of the Apostles because of their distance from the time of the Apostles neither for the same reason are their reports to be relied upon with any confidence as to the certainty of any of their Writings It is not to be expected that I should here reprent how false this exception is de facto and how unreasonable de jure either against the Constitutions or the Authentick Epistles of the Apostles it is enough that they stand and fall together so that whoever opposes the Divine and Apostolical Form of Church Government as delivered to us by the Primitive Church does upon his own principles defeat and reject all the proofs of the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures in that those sceptical grounds and pretences he is forced to urge against one fall as dangerously on both And this may serve to prevent and invalidate the force of their Argument without answering it when if they should deal as rigorously in any other case as they are pleased to do in this the most certain and undoubted Records cannot escape the severity of their censure Though our comfort is that neither of them are liable to such wild and wanton Objections in that as I shall shew the Tradition of the Church was always constant and uninterrupted and that there was no such Chasm as is pretended between the times of the Apostles and the next Christian Writers For to say nothing here of the Canon of the Scriptures though the men of that Age left us no formal Histories and Catalogues of the succession of Bishops in all their several Sees wherewith some men unreasonable enough upbraid us when it is so manifest that it was at that time too young for that care in that as yet there was scarce any succession Yet were they no less than Apostolical men that vouched the Apostolical Order and Jurisdiction of Bishops and this one would think enough to satisfie any modest or ingenious man of their Institution from the beginning When it is asserted or rather supposed by the very first Writers of the Church that were capable of attesting it So that whoever can withstand their Evidence is proof against all Evidence of matter of Fact and may if he please laugh at all the Tales and Legends that are told concerning the
great conceit that these Epistles appeared not till two hundred Years after Ignatius whereas by his own confession Origen writ within one hundred and forty Years Thirdly It cuts off the great pretence that Eusebius was the Founder of this mistake whereas it hereby appears that if it were one he only followed his Predecessors in it But the main of the Controversie here is the second thing Whether those Books ascribed to Origen in which Ignatius is quoted are really his or not Daillé says No but his learned Adversary has with no less than evidence of Demonstration proved they were though if he had not done it St. Jerom has done it long since who plainly tells us that himself translated them out of Origen's Greek into Latine And now after these I need add nothing of the Testimony of Eusebius and those that follow him for if he be mistaken their Authority is of no use if he be not it is of little necessity but that he is not is demonstrated from these more ancient Testimonies Though if any man desire more Witnesses I shall refer him to my learned Author who has summon'd them out of every Age from that in which the Epistles themselves were writen down to that next our own But to all the Testimonies of the Ancients what do our Adversaries oppose irst Salmasius opposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople by which says he the Authentick and spurious Books of the Church were distinguish'd and among many others the Epistles of Ignatius are censured for Apocryphal Books But to this it is replied by the Pious the Reverend and the Learned Dr. Hammond that the opinion of one Author especially of later date for Nicephorus lived not before the ninth Century was not of weight and authority enough to oppose to the consent of so many ancient Writers Secondly That the word Apocryphal which is used by Nicephorus does not always signifie Spurious but it is very often used by Ecclesiastical Writers as opposed to Canonical and so is given to Books whose Authors were never question'd only to seclude them from the Canon of the Scripture To the first it is replied by Daillé and that I must say with impertinency enough that the authority of Nicephorus is at least equal to Dr. Hammonds as if the Dispute were between them two whereas the Dispute was between Walo and the Doctor who when he had produced the Testimonies of the Fathers of all former Ages could not but think it very hard that the opinion of one late Writer should be opposed to all their Authority To the second he replies That it is true that the word Apocryphal is oftentimes opposed to Canonical yet it is very frequently too used by Ecclesiastical Writers as equivalent to Spurious and Counterfeit and that therefore the Doctor in vain takes refuge in the Ambiguity of the word But certainly it is the manifest design of these men to tire out their Adversaries with verbose Trifles For who could have expected this Answer that when Walo had argued from the word Apocryphal as if it only signified Spurious and that when to the Argument the Doctor had answer'd that it no ways follows because it as often signified not Canonical who I say after this would have expected that his Adversary should upbraid him with taking Refuge in the ambiguity of the word when the Ambiguity of the word alone was not only a full answer to but a clear confutation of the Argument But he replies secondly That some of the Books joyn'd with it are confessed by all to be Supposititious and therefore as they were censur'd for that reason so must the Ignatian Epistles But this is manifestly false and though if it were true it follows like all the rest For the Censure has no regard to their Author but whether Spurious or Genuine to their Authority and only designs to shut them out from creeping in among the Canonical Scriptures For that was the only danger it aim'd to prevent least the Books that either were or pretended to be of Apostolical Antiquity should creep into the Canon And it is plain from the Decree it self that Nicephorus intended nothing else than to determine the Canonical Books of Scripture and prevent all others that came nearest to them in Age from obtaining sacred Authority But says Daillé Pope Gelasius when he defines what Books are Apocryphal he does not confine it meerly to the Canonical Scriptures but to all other Ecclesiastical Writers not allowed of and therefore this must be the meaning of Nicephorus That is to say that because Gelasius in his Decree determines what Ecclesiastical Books of what kind soever are to be reputed Orthodox what Heterodox that therefore Nicephorus when he distinguishes the Canonical Books of the New Testament from the Apocryphal does not mean as himself declares but must be understood in the sense of Gelasius And yet when all is done there is no such Testimony but the whole Story is a meer Dream of their own who catch at any shadow that may seem to serve their turn For sirst it is certain That Nicephorus was not the Author of the Stichometria Secondly That the Author of it whoever he was did not pass this censure upon Ignatius his Epistles For we find in it only the name of Ignatius without any mention of his Epistles Which indeed cannot in Daillé's sense be call'd Apocryphal because they were never esteem'd Canonical For that is the true Original of the distinction that whereas there were some Books written by the Followers of the Apostles as Clemens Barnabas and Hermas left these by reason of their nearness to the Canonical Books should in process of time be reckoned with them the Church was careful to range them in a Classis by themselves And whereas there were many other Books that pretended to be dictated by the Apostles and written by their Disciples lest they should gain the Authority they pretended to it concern'd the Church to give them the Apocryphal Mark. Seeing therefore Ignatius Epistles were never upon either of these accounts in any probability of being accounted Canonical it would have been a needless Caution to refer them to the Apocryphal Catalogue And though to Ignatii Daillé after his usual way of making bold with his Quotations adds Omnia It is probable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be added as it is in another Index of Apocryphal Books in the Oxford Library It being the custom of some idle men of those times to make Institutions of Divinity and then fasten them upon Apostles and Apostolical men out of which as our learned Author with great probability conjectures was afterward made that Collection which goes under the name of Apostolical Constitutions Now these spurious pieces pretending to Canonical Authority it was very requisite to prevent and discover the Imposture But whatever probability may be in this Conjecture of which we stand in no need I am
superiority of order is made equivalent to a superiority of power for that from the time of our Saviours Resurrection is granted them by our Adversaries though it is denied their Successours Thus we enlarge or abate or evacuate that Commission that God himself has given them at our own meer will and pleasure If it be convenient for our cause to assert in one place that they were vested with no superiority of Power they shall be put off with an empty superiority of order separated from power If in another that Assertion seem not so convenient to our purpose they shall be presently advanced to an absolute supremacy over the other Pastors of the Church but then that must last only during their lives and as for their Successours we are pleased to degrade them from the Apostolical both Order and Authority and allow them nothing but an empty degree of I know not what but to say no more of the difference between Order and Degree As for the distinction between Order and Jurisdiction though in one place I affirm that the Apostles were a distinct Order from the other Clergy without any superiority of Jurisdiction yet in another if my cause require it there shall be but one order in the Christian Clergy and no difference but what is made by Jurisdiction and the Bishops themselves shall be equal to Presbyters in order by Divine Right and only superiour in jurisdiction by Ecclesiastical Constitution For so I read that for our better understanding of this we must consider a twofold power belonging to Church-Officers a Power of Order and a Power of Jurisdiction for in every Presbyter there are some things inseparably joyned to his Function and belonging to every one in his personal capacity both in actu primo and in actu secundo both as to the right and power to do it and the exercise and execution of that power such are preaching the Word visiting the Sick administring Sacraments c. but there are other things which every Presbyter has an aptitude and a Jus to in actu primo but the limitation and exercise of that Power does belong to the Church in common and belongs not to any one personally but by a further power of choice or delegation to it such is the power of visiting Churches taking care that particular Pastors discharge their duty such is the power of Ordination and Church-Censures and making Rules for Decency in the Church This is that we call the power of Jurisdiction Now this latter power though it belongs habitually and in actu primo to every Presbyter yet being about matters of publick and common concernment some further Authority in a Church constituted is necessary besides the power of Order and when this power either by consent of the Pastors of the Church or by the appointment of a Christian Magistrate or both is devolved to some particular Persons though quoad aptitudinem the power remain in every Presbyter yet quoad executionem it belongs to those who are so appointed Whatever truth there is in this the Assertion is plain that our Saviour appointed but one order in the Clergy and that the difference which has since been made by the consent of the Church consists in nothing else but Jurisdiction And this is very consistent with the former Assertion that there was no difference between the Apostles and the LXX beside distinction of order when now there is no more by divine appointment than one order in the Church And yet after all this their fluttering between Order and Power Degree and Order Power of Order and Power of Jurisdiction all superiority of Order so much as it is is so much superiority of Power Thus to take their own Instance of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Athens the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the President of the Assembly was so far superiour over his Colleagues in Power as he was in Order For whatsoever was peculiar to his Office gave him some more advantage in the Government of the Common-wealth than they had for the very power of calling and adjourning Assemblies presiding and moderating in them is no small degree of Power in a Republican Government But seeing the difference between a superiority of Order and Power is thought to be made out best by these parallel Instances of Commonwealths let us run the parallel with the Apostles and the LXX for if to be superiour only in Order is to be President in an Assembly or Prolocutor in a Convocation and if this were all the Office peculiar to the Apostles then when our Saviour appointed seventy Disciples and twelve Apostles he made twelve Prolocutors over a Convocation of seventy Seeing therefore that is too great a number of Speakers for so small an Assembly it is manifest that when he separated them for a distinct Office he intended something more by an Apostle than meerly a Chairman in a Presbytery and whatever it is it is either an higher power than others had or it is nothing at all Secondly This Succession is not so evident and convinced in all places as it ought to be to demonstrate the thing intended For it is not enough to shew a List of some Persons in the great Churches of Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria but it should be produced at Philippi Corinth and Caesarea c. This I perceive to be our Adversaries darling Objection being the only matter made use of to shift off several heads of Argument This was the proof of the defect of the Testimony of Antiquity as to places and is now here the only evidence of its ambiguity and by and by will be called in as the only instance of its Repugnancy But certainly their fondness to it is not grounded upon any great vertue that they see in it but they are only forced for want of more material Arguments to lay a mighty stress upon such poor pretences as in any other dispute they would be a shamed to own For first supposing the Succession cannot be shewn in all Churches is that any proof against the Succession that can And suppose I cannot produce a List of Bishops at Philippi Corinth and Caesarea shall I thence conclude against the Succession though I have very good History for it at Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria This is such an Inference as rather shews a mans good will to his Opinion than his Understanding But I have already proved that it is highly reasonable to conclude the customs of those Churches that are not known from those that are and apparently absurd to question the Records of those that are preserved for the uncertainty of those that are not But secondly What though we do not find in all Churches an accurate Catalogue of the succession of all Bishops do we find any Instance in any one ancient Church of any other form of Goverment If we can that were something to the Argument but that is not pretended in the Exception But otherwise because the exact
setling of Church-Government but July 9. that nine of the Laity and three or the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their monthly meetings for that purpose that five of the Commissioners shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places and that if any of the nine Commissioners should die or resign that five or more of them are to chuse another presently Thus far they proceeded under the Government of Midsummer-Moon but about the beginning of the Dog-days they vote that no Clergy-man shall be of the Commission and that the Committee shall be empowered to appoint five of the Clergy in every County under them to grant Ordinations Now all these Proceedings as ridiculous as they are and destructive of the very Being of a Church yet had the King joyned with his Parliament had upon this Principle been justifiable And so it will be in their power to vote up and down what Orders and Offices in the Church they please to day Episcopacy to morrow Presbytery next day Independency then a Committee and that of Lay-men too and if they please at last to abolish all Orders of the Clergy in that there are none by this Principle established by Divine Right these are excellent models of Church-Government and admirable methods of providing for the peace and settlement of it But if this trust be vested in the People beside that this too would require some proof out of the Word of God before it be granted and that it is liable to all the former inconveniences in that the putting the power of the Church into their hands makes the peace and settlement of it to depend upon the most giddy most ignorant and most uncertain thing in the world Besides all this I say this is so far from destroying any divine and unalterable Form of Church-Government that it sets up the Socinian model of Independency for F. Socinus was the first founder of it by Divine Right In that according to it all Societies of Christians are by our Saviour entrusted with a Power within themselves of electing of Church-Officers and governing Church-Affairs as they shall judge most conducible to Peace Order and Tranquillity which is the exact model of Independent Government Now this model if they will own it is not the Church of England that they plead for but Independency and if it is that they assert let them say so and not carry on the Cause of the Congregational Churches under the name of the Church of England but if they disavow it as they all do I shall only challenge them how to avoid it But to conclude this Argument in this one Principle do all the Enemies of the Church lay their ground-work that there is no known and setled Seat of Ecclesiastical Power and therefore that whoever happens to have its present possession seeing he never received it by any Commission from our Saviour he may without any offence against the standing Laws of Christianity be deposed from it The inconvenience whereof is so great that it seems to me a very forcible Argument from the nature and necessity of the thing it self for some certain divine establishment of Church-Government in that without it it is plainly impossible either to secure any peace or exercise any Authority in the Church because whoever obtains it has it not from any divine Commission and if no Commission then no Authority However I cannot but admire that those learned men who take away the divine right of some particular Form of Church-Government have not all this while been aware that they run us into all the exorbitancies and confusions of Independency in that when they have once removed the settlement by Divine Right they leave it do what they can entirely in the Peoples power to set up their own Form of Government Seeing then that unless the Christian Church be subject to Government it can be no more than a Rabble and a Riot Seeing unless the Government thereof be vested in some certain Order of men it must be for ever obnoxious to unavoidable disorders and confusions and seeing it was with particular care setled by our Saviour on his Apostles and conveyed by the Apostles to the Christian Bishops as their proper Successours I cannot see how the Divine and Apostolical Right of Episcopacy if the providence of God had designed to make it unquestionable could have been made more evident either from Common Reason or Catholick Tradition But secondly As the taking away of the divine and perpetual Right of Episcopacy does on one hand open a door for Independency so it does on the other for Popery For next to rescuing the Kings of England from the Usurpation of the Popes of Rome upon their Crowns under the pretence of an oblique or direct Supremacy over them and the reforming of many Superstitions both in Worship and Doctrine the main design of our endeavoured Reformation was to assert and retrieve the Rights of the Episcopal Order against his illegal encroachments For whereas the Original Government of the Catholick Church was vested in the Apostolical Order whereby as every Bishop had supreme ordinary Power within his own Diocess so a general Council of Bishops had supreme Power over the Universal Church So that whatever priviledges or preheminences were granted to the Bishops of particular Churches by Ecclefiastical Constitution yet their essential Power was equal and could no way exert it self as to the Catholick Church but in Council and so the Church was governed for many hundred years till the Bishop of Rome taking advantage of those peculiar priviledges and preheminences that were granted to his See as the seat of the Empire did by degrees assume to himself an absolute Sovereignty over all the Pastors of the Universal Church transferring all Ecclesiastical Government to the Court of Rome where it was managed by himself and his Officers with all the arts of Tyranny and Oppression And here first began the breach our reforming Bishops at first not disputing the preheminence of his See because that concerned not them which he had for a long time enjoyed in most other parts of the Western world and perhaps might still have done would he have been contented with it But alas they were no more fond even of the Title of Patriarch as great as it was than they are of their mock Title of Servus servorum Domini Nothing less would satiate their ambition than a sole and absolute Sovereignty over all and to this purpose they impudently applied all those promises that our Saviour made to his Apostles and their Successors of being for ever present with and assistant to them in the exercise of their Office to the Popes Person and they having once assumed this Power resolved to keep it and for many Ages reigned absolute Monarchs over the Christian World And here I say
Christian Religion neither is nor can be of any Authority in any Common-Wealth otherwise than as it is owned and ratified by the Supream Secular Powers so that if Cromwel or any other Sovereign Prince be pleased to command his Subjects only to renounce their Saviour and their Christian Faith and declare themselves Jews or Mahumetans in that Case they are indispensably bound to Obedience in that it is not possible for the Christian or any other Law to have any binding force than what it receives from the Arbitrary Power of the Civil Magistrate And agreeable to that General Proposition the Philosopher is pleased to inform us that the whole Power of instructing the people in any Religion is derived from the Sovereign Prince That the Subjects of every Common-Wealth ought to receive every thing as the Law of God that the Civil-Laws declare to be so That by the Doctrine which the Sovereign commands to be taught we are to examine and try the Truths of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with Miracle or without shall at any time pretend to advance That Moses made the Scripture Canonical as civil Sovereign of the Common-wealth That our Saviour gave his Apostles power to Preach and Baptise in all parts of the World supposing they were not by their own lawful Sovereign forbidden That the new Testament had not the force of Law till it received it from the Authority of Constantine the Great That the civil Magistrate has originally in himself and by vertue of his Sovereign Supremacy a power of ordaining Priests and administring Sacraments That Christian Kings are the only Pastors of the Christian Church and that the faith of all their Subjects depends only upon their Authority And he is so entirely possessed with this notion of Kingly power that he allows no other Authority to God himself And thus when he appoints the punishment of death to false Prophets because they tempt the People to revolt from the Lord their God These words he tells us to revolt from the Lord your God are equivalent to revolt from your King for they had made God their King by Pact at the foot of Mount Sinai So that had they not obliged themselves by that Covenant it had been no sin to worship other Gods i. e. it is all one in itself to worship the true and to worship false Gods which is plainly to say there is none at all And as for the worship they paid to the God of Israel it was not due to him as Sovereign of the Universe but only as their King by Pact and so is no more than what every Subject owes to his Sovereign And therefore he in express terms defines the Kingdom of God to be a civil Kingdom and to this purpose he expounds the third Commandment That they should not take the name of God in vain that is that they should not speak rashly of their King nor dispute his Right nor the Commissions of Moses and Aaron his Lieutenants And this was the end of our Saviours coming into the World to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the old Covenant had been cut off by the Rebellion of the Israelites in the Election of Saul And the same account he gives of Christianity it self that it is only receiving our Saviour for King So that when St. Paul says to the Galatians That if himself or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel to them than he had preached let him be accursed That Gospel was that Christ was King so that all Preaching against the power of the King received in consequence to these words is by St. Paul accursed for his speech is addressed to those who by his Preaching had already received Jesus for the Christ that is to say for King of the Jews So that it seems we owe no other duty to our Saviour than if he had been only a temporal Messias seeing all that is due to him is only by vertue of that covenant whereby we receive him for our King Neither is this Kingdom of his present but is to be established upon the Earth after the general Resurrection and therefore by vertue of that Pact that the faithful make with him in Baptism they are only obliged to obey him for King whensoever he shall be pleased to take the Kingdom upon him Now barely to represent this Train of absurdities is more than enough to confute them in that they all resolve into this one gross Contradiction That for the ends of Government we are obliged to believe and obey the Christian Religion as the Law of God And for the same ends of Government we are to understand that we owe no other Obedience to it than as it is injoyn'd by the Law of man But though such manifest Trifles deserve not the civility of being confuted yet it is fit to let Mr. Hobbs his credulous Disciples and in all my Conversation I never met with a more ignorant or confident Credulity understand after what a childish rate their mighty Master of Demonstration proves these and indeed every thing else For he has but one way of proving all things First to define his own Opinion to be true and then by vertue of that Definition prove it to be so And for an undenyable proof of this we will take a review of all the foremention'd propositions where we shall find all his Mathematical Demonstrations to be nothing else but so many Positive and Dogmatical Tautologies Thus when he proves there can be no first Mover because he has already defined that nothing can move it self from whence it demonstratively follows that all motion must be Eternal for otherwise if we assert an Eternal first cause we run upon that desperate absurdity that somthing may move it self He had argued full as Mathematically that nothing can move it self because I say nothing can move it self So again when he proves that God is neither the Universe nor a part of it nor somthing beside he had argued as well had he said That there is no Being distinct from the Fabrick of the World because there is none So again those Books only can be Law in every Nation that are establisht for such by the Sovereign Authority because a Law as I have already defined it is nothing else than the Command of that man or Company of men that have the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth from whence says he it unavoidably follows that nothing can be a Law but what is Enacted by the Sovereign Power And so it would have followed as unavoidably if he had only said That the Sovereign only can make Law because the Sovereign only can make Law And yet upon this one mighty Demonstration are built all the other bold assertions that I have collected out of his Books that the Sovereign Prince is Sovereign Prophet too that he is sole Pastor to the People of his
under him and gives the Keys of his Kingdom into their hands what can that possibly signifie but their Power of Government in and over the Society especially when it was so familiar a thing in Scripture to express power by Keys and our Author himself has observed it and proved it by a multitude of Instances But then says he this Power of opening and shutting the Kingdom of Heaven is exercised by preaching the Doctrine of the Gospel by administring the Sacraments by admitting fit Persons into it by Baptism and by not admitting such as are unfit and by retaining such as are already admitted That is to say our Author will allow the Governors of the Church all other Acts of Jurisdiction but only this one of Excommunication notwithstanding that it is evidently implyed in them all Thus if the Governours of the Church be entrusted with a Power of Judging what Persons are fit to be admitted then certainly if they perform not those conditions upon which alone they are admitted it must be in the Power of those who let them in to turn them out So plainly does the Power of Baptism infer that of Excommunication and the Power of judging who are fit members of the Church infer both So that the Gentlemen of the Erastian persuasion would have been much more consistent with themselves when they would not give the Church all the Acts of Power if they would have given it none at all for they are inseparable And therefore the learned and pious Mr. Thorndike has very judiciously observed that the Leviathan has done like a Philosopher in making the question general that is general indeed though by so freely and generously declaring himself he has made his Resolution more subject to be contradicted But yet they that only dispute the Power of Excommunication as they are of the same opinion so are they pressed with greater difficulty only they express not so much of their meaning for they are nevertheless to give an account what Right the secular Power can have to appoint the Persons that shall either determine or execute matters of Religion to decide controversies of Faith to administer the Sacraments than if they resolved and maintain'd all this as expresly as the Leviathan hath done And in the same manner does the following Text explain it self If he hear not the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican if we will observe upon what subject our Saviour was then discoursing for though our Author to make the matter appear the more ambiguous has given us a large Critical account of the words that signifie Church in all Languages if instead of that he had only minded our Saviour's Discourse he must have seen that by the Church here could be understood nothing but the Christian Church this being one of the Laws whereby he would have the Subjects of his Kingdom to be govern'd But our Author tells us that the Notion of the Christian Church was not then understood it being a thing to come and it is not likely that our Saviour in a matter of familiar and daily use should direct them to such a means as no mortal man could possibly understand To which it is very easie to answer that all our Saviour's Discourses procede upon the supposition of the being of his Church He began at preaching the Kingdom of Heaven and all his Sermons and Instructions after that are but so many Laws and Institutions for its Government and therefore our Saviour's Words are so far from being doubtful or obscure that they were not capable of being applied to any other Society than that which he was now establishing in the World And whatsoever was the vulgar meaning of the word Ecclesia yet when used by our Saviour it can be applied to no other company of men but that of his Church and it was so far from being then a new word or a new notion to the Apostles that our Saviour had sometime before used the same Expression to St. Peter Upon this Rock I will build my Church which he promised him as a peculiar reward of his forward Faith Now it cannot be supposed that our Saviour would make his promises to his Friends and Servants in unintelligible Language and therefore it must be supposed that the Notion of the Christian Church was an intelligible thing But if this will not do our Author proceeds that this Text gives no jurisdiction to the Church but only directs private Christians how they shall behave themselves toward Offenders as if the Emperour should have made an Edict that if any Subject should not submit to the decree of his Prefect he should be accounted by his fellow Subjects as no member of the Common-wealth this gives the Prefect no new Power but only concerns the opinion of the People Very true but it supposes his old Power and so if our Saviour had antecedently vested his Church with this Power this was no new grant but only a supposition of a former one if he had not then this was their Patent when he refers his Subjects to their Judicature But whatever may be the Notion of the Church what is there says our Author in the following words Let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican that sounds like Excommunication either in the Jewish or Christian use of it Nothing at all in the Jewish for Heathens were never Excommunicate as having never been of the Society neither were Publicans put out of the Synagogue upon the account of their being Publicans But though Heathens were not Excommunicate Persons yet Excommunicate Persons were as Heathens and that is so plainly the meaning of the words that nothing but meer peevishness could have made the exception and it is the same as if our Saviour should have said of an Apostate let him be unto thee as an Infidel and our Author should have replied upon him How can that be When an Infidel is one that was never a Member of the Church and an Apostate once was And then as for the Publicans though they durst not at that time Excommunicate them for that reason for fear of the Romans yet it is notorious that they thought them worthy of it and that they were esteem'd as no better than scandalous Sinners Heathens and Idolaters But this supposed too it is no act says he of the Church but every private man who was hereby permitted to treat the Offender as a vile Person But this act of his supposes the power of Judicature in the Church for this advice relates to the known power of the Sanhedrin that were wont to Excommunicate refractory Offenders and thereby to put them into the state of Heathen Men And such it seems was to be the Authority of the Apostles who were the great Sanhedrin in the Christian Church as appears by the plain design of our Saviour's discourse when he refers all Christians to their Judicature and commands them that if any man be
to the Reader to judge whether he could desire or contrive more evidence for the authority of any Book than is produced for the Epistles of Ignatius St. Polycarp then who was his particular Friend and Fellow-pupil under St. John and St. Irenaeus who was Disciple to Polycarp give in full and clear testimony to the Martyrs Epistles Polycarp sent a Copy of them to the Church of Philippi as appears both by his own Epistle still extant and by Eusebius his Quotation out of it and that at a time when it was vulgarly known and commonly read in the Churches of Asia Polycarp's Epistle was never call'd in question by any good Author was immediately attested by Irenaeus read with Veneration in the Churches of Asia even to the very time of Eusebius and St. Hierom. So that I know not what more undoubted or publick Testimony Monsieur Daillé could demand for his satisfaction and indeed it is hard to conceive what more effectual evidence could have been provided to secure their Authority For when St. Polycarp's Epistle was so universally known it was impossible to corrupt it And yet in this wild Supposition is Monsieur Daillé forced at last to shelter himself he allows his Epistle it self to be of undoubted Credit and the greatest part of it to have been written by Polycarp but that a certain Impostor a little before the time of Eusebius had foisted in that Paragraph in which this passage concerning Ignatius his Epistles is found which Eusebius meeting with he took it to be of the same credit with the rest of the Epistle Which is all so very ungrounded and precarious that with the same liberty he might deny or destroy the validity of any ancient Record whatsoever but beside this the Epistle was so publick so exposed to the view of all men so known to the Learned and Unlearned that it were as easie to poison the Sea as for a private man to corrupt it Or if he would attempt to do it how was it possible for Eusebius and all the World beside to be deluded by so bold an Imposture Does not Eusebius himself inform us that it was read in the Churches of Asia at the time of his writing Did he not then know what was read there and therefore if this passage were not read could he be so stupid as to be imposed upon by one single private man against the authority of all the publick Books or if he were could all the Fathers whom Daillé will have to have followed his Dance be so prodigiously blind and careless as in a thing so known and common to be deceived by him and that no man if we may believe him should discover the mistake till Nicephorus who lived five hundred Years after him But granting the Testimony to be true he denies it to be effectual because Polycarp only says that Ignatius wrote Epistles but no where affirms that those we have are the true ones So that it seems unless St. Polycarp had written particularly against Mounsier Dailâ—é himself and declared that those very Epistles that he opposes with so much zeal were written by his Friend the Martyr it was not possible for him to give sufficient testimony to their truth And yet that could not have been a more ample proof than this amounts to For he declares not only that Ignatius wrote certain Epistles but that himself made a Collection of them and this Collection was seen by Eusebius and others of the Ancients Now when we consider the Reputation of the Martyr both for his acquaintance with the Apostles his eminent dignity in the Church the gallantry of his Martyrdom when we consider the time and occasion of his writing which was at the approach of his Death and as it were his dying Exhortation to the Churches when we consider how they were recommended by Polycarp whose Epistle was publickly read in their Assemblies is it any way credible that these true Epistles should all perish before the time of Eusebius and other counterfeit ones rise up in their room and among all those learned men that then were very inquisitive after Ancient and Apostolical Tradition none should ever discern or discover it Nay that Eusebius a man so throughly versed in all Ecclesiastical Antiquities so conversant with the choicest Libraries should be so grosly and so easily cheated by a double Imposture contrived in his own time as to take the new invented Epistles of Ignatius for the old authentick Writings of that holy Martyr and then to vouch it by a forg'd Passage foisted into Polycarp against the authority of all the vulgar Books So many hard Suppositions one would think were enough to shame any modest man out of his Opinion The second Witness to these Epistles is St. Irenaeus whose testimony is no more to be doubted of than the former being extant both in Eusebius and those pieces of Irenaeus that are preserved down to our times though most of his works are perish'd But to this Monsieur Daillé answers that Irenaeus cautiously expresses his Quotation of the holy Martyr by Dixit and not Scripsit and thence conjectures that he quotes it only as a Saying or Apothegm and not as a Citation out of his Writings But 1. There is no Record of any such Saying as this neither in that particular Quotation that is preserved could we know whom Irenaeus means did we not find the same sentence in Ignatius his Epistle to the Romans so that it is a vain and a frivolous thing to forsake that and to fetch the business from unknown and unheard of Reports And. 2. This is the very form of all Irenaeus his Quotations who never uses the word Scripsit but always Dixit But then why does he not cite some Testimony against the Hereticks out of Ignatius in whom there were so many apposite to his purpose I answer for the same reason that he does not cite other as pertinent Authors as Ignatius For out of all the Ecclesiastical Writers that lived before him he has in his surviving Works but four Quotations of which that out of Ignatius is one Neither would this way of disputing have been at all pertinent in the days of Irenaeus when the Hereticks against whom he wrote allowed no Authority to the ancient Doctors of the Church but always recurred to certain wild Apocryphal Books of their own and therefore it had been but a vain thing for Irenaeus to have prest them with this Topick The next Witness is Origen who quotes him by name but against this Testimony we have these two Exceptions First That it is at too great a distance from the time of Ignatius Secondly That those Writings in which he is quoted are none of Origens First As to the first we would grant the force of the Objection if this had been the first Testimony in the cause but following Polycarp and Irenaeus it proves the constant opinion of Learned men before Eusebius and his Impostor Secondly It overthrows Daillé's
an incomparable treasure of Ecclesiastical Antiquity And therefore omitting Daille's beloved Negative and internal Arguments which his Adversary has for ever routed with a prodigious force of reason and dexterity of learning I shall only give an account in short of the main rational point of the Controversie That is what antient Testimonies are to be alledged either for or against their Antiquity On the one side they are frequently owned and quoted by all the first general Councils and therefore must have been enacted in the Interval between the Apostles and the Council of Nice They are cited by many of the most ancient Fathers as Canons of the first and most early Antiquity And they are expresly referred to by the most famous Emperours in their Ecclesiastical Laws All which concurrent Testimony any moderate man would think sufficient to give Authority to any Writing and yet it is all over-ruled by a single Decree of Pope Gelasius supposed to be made Anno Domini 494. in which the Apostolical Canons are reckoned among the Apocryphal Books But first is it reasonable to set up the Opinion of one man against many that were more ancient and so much the more competent witnesses than himself Secondly it is uncertain whether any such Decree as is pretended were ever made by Gelasius in that we never hear any thing of it till at least three hundred years after his time Thirdly if there were any such Decree it is certain that this Passage concerning the Canons of the Apostles was foisted into it it not being found in any of the most ancient Copies and Hincmarus a Person of singular learning in his time that makes mention of this Decree of Gelasius as early as any Writer whatsoever expresly affirms that there was no mention of the Apostolical Canons in the whole Decree De his Apostolorum Canonibus penitus taâ—uit sed nec inter Apocrypha eos misit Where he expresly affirms that in the Decree these Canons were altogether omitted and ranged neither with the Orthodox nor with the Apocryphal Books This Testimony is given in with as peremptory terms as can be expressed and therefore Daillé for no other reason than to serve his cause quite inverts the Proposition and changes misit into omisit that is turns I into No. But men that can deal thus with their Authors need never trouble their heads with Testimonies of Antiquity for after this rate it is in their power to make any Author affirm or deny what they please But fourthly suppose Gelasius had made any such Decree how does that destroy the Antiquity of these Canons when he has condemned the Books of Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and Eusebius for Apocryphal And yet Tertullian lived three hundred years before the Decree and therefore why may not the Apostolical Canons be allowed their reputed Antiquity too notwithstanding that Sentence which only relates to the Authority his Holiness is pleased to allow them in the Roman Church and not at all to their Antiquity unless perhaps he designed to declare that they were not framed by the Apostles themselves as he might fancy from their Title not knowing that whatever was of prime Antiquity in the Church was by the first Writers of it stiled Apostolical as being supposed to descend from the Tradition of the Apostles themselves Fifthly will Monsieur Daillè allow this Decree of Gelasius sufficient to give any Book the Apocryphal stamp If he will then he must reject many of the best Fathers and in their stead admit the Acts of St. Sylvester the Invention of the Cross and the invention of St. John Baptists head for whilst the History of Eusebius together with the other Fathers is rejected such Fables as these are warranted by that barbarous and Gothish Decree And that is enough though there were nothing else to destroy the Authority of this mans censure his meer want of Judgment Now comparing this one pretended Testimony of Gelasius under all the disadvantages that I have represented with the express counter-testimony of so many Councils Fathers and Emperours if any man be resolved notwithstanding all to stick to it I will say no more than this that his Cause is much more beholden to him than he to his Cause And now having given this account of these Apostolical men that conversed with the Apostles themselves or immediately succeeded them in the Government of the Church if we descend to their Successours from Age to Age we are there overwhelmed with the croud of Witnesses But because they have been so often alledged and urged by learned men I should have wholly waved their citation had not our Adversaries made use of several shifts and artifices to evade their Authority And therefore though I shall not trouble the Reader with their direct Testimonies yet to shew the vanity of all our Adversaries pretences I shall endeavour to vindicate the credit of the Ancients against all their Exceptions And here the first pretence is the ambiguity of their Testimony which is endeavoured to be made out by these three things First That personal succession might be without such superiority of order Secondly That the names of Bishop and Presbyters were common after the distinction between them was introduced Thirdly That the Church did not own Episcopacy as a divine Institution but Ecclesiastical and those who seem to speak most of it do mean no more First then a succession there might be as to a different Degree and not as to a different Order Before we distinguished between Order and Power now between Order and Degree and by and by between the Power of Order and the Power of Jurisdiction But these distinctions are only the triflings of the Schoolmen whose proper faculty it is to divide every thing till they have reduced it to nothing For what does the degree of a Church-Officer signifie but such an order in the Church and what order is there without a power of Office according to its degree and therefore it is plain prevaricating with the evidence of things to impose these little subtilties upon the sense of Antiquity they good men meant plainly and honestly and when they give us an account of Apostolical Successions they were not aware of these scholastick distinctions and intended nothing else than a succession in the government of their several Churches Thus when Irenaeus gives us a Catalogue of twelve Bishops of Rome Successours to the Apostles in that See what did he mean but the supreme Governours of that Church when that was the only signification of the word Bishop in his time He never dream'd of their being stript of the Apostolical power and so only succeeding them in an empty Title in the meer name or the metaphysical notion of Bishops and they were no more if they had no more power than the rest of the Clergy But secondly This new distinction spoils the former evasion viz. That the Apostles were superiour in order not in power over the LXX but now a
the Bishops thereof to the number of twenty seven had been ordained in the City it self but that it seems proving a false Allegation he has given us no reason to believe him in his Tradition An Inference much like this that supposing two persons to contend for their rights and the Advocate of one of them shall in his plea alledge a false prescription his Adversary should thence conclude upon him that he had no reason to believe that there was any such Person in the world as his Client For this is the case The matter of the dispute was where the Bishops of Ephesus ought to be ordained according to the Canons At Ephesus says Leontius by constant Prescription No says the Council for many of them have been ordained at Constantinople Now is it not awkerd to infer from thence that the Council denies the certainty of the Succession it self when as the debate was grounded upon the supposition of it It being granted on both sidesas a thing undoubted that there was a succession of Bishops at Ephesus and the Controversie was only about the accustomed place of their Consecration Now from the variety of that to conclude that it is uncertain whether there were any such thing as Bishops at all is such a forced Argument as proves nothing but that we have a very great mind to our Conclusion I might proceed to the Succession in other Churches of which we have certain Records but I will not engage my self in too many particular Historical Disputes where I know it is easie if men will not be ingenuous to perplex any matter with little critical scruples and difficulties and therefore I will cast the whole of this Controversie upon this one Principle That though the Records of the Church were as defective as is pretended yet seeing all that are preserved make only for Episcopacy and that our Adversaries are notable to trace out one against it that is evidence more than enough of its universal practice and if that will not serve the turn it is to no purpose to trouble our selves on either side with any proof that may be had from the Testimony of Antiquity for if upon that account we have not any it is not possible either for them or us to have it in this or any other Controversie whatsoever Thirdly The Succession so much pleaded for by the Writers of the Primitive Church was not a Succession of Persons in Apostolical Power but a Succession in Apostolical Doctrine Whether any Persons succeeded in Apostolical Power has been already considered and therefore all that is here requisite to be enquired into is by what Persons the Apostolical Doctrine was conveyed And if it be pleaded by the Writers of the Church to have been done by Bishops as the Apostles Successours that proves the Succession of Persons as well as Doctrines But seeing this is to be done as our Adversaries instruct us by a view of the places produced to that purpose let us view them too The first is that of Irenaeus Quoniam valdè longum est in hoc tali volumine omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare successiones maximae antiquissimae omnibus cognitae à gloriosissimis duobus Apostolis Petro Paulo Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae eam quam habet ab Apostolis traditionem annunciatam hominibus fidem per successiones Episcoporum pervenientes usque ad nos indicantes confundimus omnes eos c. Where we see that whatever the Argument of Irenaeus was his design was to prove that the succession of the Apostles was conveyed down by the hands of the Bishops that were Successours to them in their several Sees So that it is evident that he designed to prove the Succession of the Doctrine by the Succession of the Doctors and therefore if he does not prove it he does more he supposes it and by the undoubted evidence of it demonstrates the truth of the Doctrine in that those Persons who were appointed by the Apostles to oversee and govern the Churches have conveyed the Apostles Doctrine down to us by their Successors And what fuller Testimony can there be of a Personal Succession of Bishops to the Apostles And yet Irenaeus does more than this he derives the Personal Succession from the Apostles down to his own time and they all succeeded the Apostles as they succeeded one another and as Linus was their Successour so was Eleutherius who sate at the same time that Irenaeus wrote and therefore if Linus was Successour to the Apostles so was Eleutherius and if Eleutherius was Bishop of Rome so was Linus So that it was one and the same thing to succeed in the Bishoprick and the Apostolical Authority And to the same purpose is the passage of Tertullian Edant origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis aut apostolicis viris habuerit Authorem Antecessorem Hoc modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habens Polycarpum à Joanne conlocatum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit proinde utique â—aeterae exhibent quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutos Apostolici seminis traduces habeant The whole design of which passage is to prescribe against the Hereticks by the Authority of the Apostolical Successours and that being expresly appropriated to single Bishops I hope I need not now dispute whether they succeeded them only in Degree and not Order or in Order only and not Jurisdiction all that I desire from this Testimony is that they succeeded them in their several Churches for though he instances only in the Church of Rome yet he declares himself able and ready to give the same account of all other Churches and by vertue of that warranted the truth of their Doctrine Than which I must confess I cannot understand what more can be desired to justifie their Succession in the Apostolical Authority Especially from Tertullian who was neither Thomist nor Scotist and so was utterly unacquainted with those fine distinctions of Degree Order and Jurisdiction but spoke like a plain and a blunt African when he called the Bishops in their several Diocesses the Apostles Successours And so all the Writers of the same Age understood by a Bishop one superiour to subject Presbyters for whatever was the signification of the word in the Apostles time it was now determined to this Order and so used in vulgar speech so that when we meet with it in their Writings we must understand it in the common sense And therefore by a Bishop we must mean the same thing from the Apostles downward and a Bishop in their time was superiour to Presbyters and the Apostles are granted to have been superiour to the other Pastors of the Church so that the Succession from first to last continued in superiority of Jurisdiction And now when this Succession is
to put an abuse upon all their Posterity As to say in this case that there once was such a season in which all the world agreed though no body knows when or where to make an universal and perpetual alteration of the Form of Church-Government But to conclude grantting these men all that they contend for I would fain know what greater advantage any reasonable man can desire either to make good the title or to enhance the excellency of Episcopal Government than St. Hierom and Blondel give us viz. that it was practised by the Apostles but that upon their decease their Authority devolved upon the Body of Presbyters which Form of Government was every where found so incompetent and inconvenient that all Churches in the world were within the space of thirty five years or thereabouts convinced of the necessity of retrieving the old Apostolical Inequality as they ever intended to secure the peace and unity of the Church This is pretty well and advantage enough to satisfie any modest or reasonable man and therefore with it I shall rest contented Only I cannot but remarque the strange partiality of our Adversaries in this cause not only to set up this absurd suggestion of St. Jerom concerning the unknown time of an universal alteration of Church-Government and that not only without the Testimony of any Record for if there had been any then it had not been unknown but against the faith of all History and the most certain Tradition of the Church there being nothing more clear in Ecclesiastical Story than the succession of single Persons in the Government of the Church from the Apostles down to his own Age especially in the greatest and most eminent Churches such as Rome Jerusalem Antiochia and Alexandria so that there could have been no such universal change as St. Jerom dreams of when in these great Churches Episcopacy was established antecedently to any such supposed alteration But beside this they oppose the custom of one particular Church and that attested only by one Author to the known practice not only of all other Churches but of that particular Church it self Thus because the same St. Jerom says with the same hast and inconsideration that there was a custom in the Church of Alexandria from St. Mark down to Heraclas and Dionysius for the Presbyters of that Church in the vacancy of the See to chuse one out of their own number and from thence-forward call him their Bishop in the same manner as when an Army makes their own General or the Deacons may chuse one out of themselves and constitute him their Arch-deacon Now I say supposing this Story to be true is it not very severe by the singular practice of one Church to overthrow the Constitution of all other Churches For what if at Alexandria they had a peculiar or a corrupt custom does that impair or destroy the Catholick practice of the Christian Church It is possible not only for one particular Church to deviate in some circumstances from their Primitive Institution but that is no Argument against a certain right Yes but say they this custom was derived from St. Mark himself But that would require some better proof than the bare Assertion of St. Jerom For it is possible there might have been a preposterous practice in after-times which he to give the more Authority to it might in his lavish heat ascribe to the Founder of it But granting the truth of the whole Story what was this custom Was it for Presbyters to ordain their Bishop St. Jerom seems willing to say so but dares not and therefore expresses himself in odd ambiguous and general terms Unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant which signifies nothing certain but that he intends not Ordination is evident by the words that immediately follow Quid enim facit exceptâ ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat Which words upon whatsoever account they are added come in here very impertinently if he had by the Story spoke of Ordination At least out of these general words nothing more can be collected than their right or custom of electing their own Bishop as was the custom of Cathedral Churches afterwards Nay that too is more than is true or can be proved for St. Jerom does not say that the Bishop was chosen by the Presbyters but out of the Presbyters so that he does not give them so much as the right of Election but only appropriates to them the capacity of being elected and that was all the peculiar priviledge of the Presbyters of that Church that they alone were qualified to succeed in the See and if any one will from hence infer as Mr. Selden is pleased to do their power not only of Election but Ordination he may thank himself and not St. Jerom for his conclusion For there is not any the least ground for the inference beside the learned Gentlemans resolution to have it so and therefore when he gives us an account of several both Divines and Lawyers that understand no more by this passage than meerly capitular Election he confutes them with no other argument than only by saying positively that they are ipst Hieronymo adversissimi But alass wise men will not quit their own Opinions only to submit to the confidence of other mens Assertions and therefore he ought either to have proved more or to have said nothing Nay so far were they from having any power of Ordination that they had not that of Election when it is so very well known that the Patriarch of Alexandria was of old time chosen not by the Presbyters but by the People so that to ascribe their Election to the Presbyters is plainly to contradict the known custom of that Church But be that as it will too it is very strange as Mr. Selden himself observes that there are not to be found the least footsteps of this Alexandrian custom in any legitimate ancient Author but only St. Jerom. For if there had been any such custom in this Church of which we have as good and as many Records as of any other Church in the world it is scarce credible but that upon some occasion or other some Writer should have taken notice of it and therefore so universal a silence cannot but bring a very great suspicion upon the truth of St. Jeroms relation at least it is very unreasonable upon the single report of one hasty man concerning the peculiar custom of one Church to renounce as our Adversaries do the known practice of all the Churches in the world beside But to avoid this heavy Objection of singularity our learned Adversary has taken vast pains to find out a second Witness and then two Witnesses we know according to our Law can prove any thing and at length he has discovered an Arabian Author and with more than ordinary joy and transport immediately publishes the particular Story by it self with large and learned Notes upon it but