so not in a state of Persecution when the secular Power sets it self to root out the Church and all Church-Powers and Ministrations Whereas these Powers were given to the Church bearing Christ's Cross and labouring under Persecutions and to continue in it always even to the end of the World under whatever circumstances as well when secularly Oppressed as when Protected Accordingly these spiritual Powers were held on by the Apostles when the secular Rulers declared against their Apostolical Authority and forbid them to Preach any more iâ— the Name of Jesus And by the Bishops and Clergy in all the succeeding Persecutions For all Persecutions of the Church were Persecutions of all Church Administrations and of Bishops and Priests in a more especial manner who were chief Actors and at the Head thereof Yea especiall Edicts and Prosecutions were made against them for being vested with these Authorities as the Title of St. Cyprian 's Proscription was for being Episcopus Christianorum or a Christian Bishop which Authorities therefore would no longer have belonged to them could a Persecuting Power have deprived or bereaved them thereof And this retaining their spiritual Powers will be allowed by their Adversaries who acknowledge that the deprivation of State is no Degradation to divest them of their Character or spiritual Powers conferr'd in Orders but only a debaring them of exercise thereof in their Dominions and in way of an incorporate Church under State Encouragements So that if they do exercise their Ministry there will be no want of Spiritual Powers to render their Acts Nullities or of no effect and validity before Christ. But only want of secular Benefices and enforcements to them and of submission as they alledge to the secular Power or of secular Obedience And having still their Episcopal and Ministerial Powers 't is next to be considered whether they stand bound to exercise and make use thereof 'T is not to be brought into this Question what is to be done herein on Worldly Arguments as they stand deprived of their Livelihoods and way of Maintenance how hard soever this may fall either upon themselves or their Families Which however it may abate or excuse especially to compassionate Natures yet is no justification of things that are otherwise unjustifiable on principles of Religion and Conscience But what is to be done on conscionable Arguments that are to rule their Determinations as Christians especially as Divines or that they may faithfully discharge their duty What is to be done by spiritually minded and mortified Men who are raised above this World and prefer God and Religion before themselves Nor is the Dispute Whether the Ministerial Powers be such a burthen that Men must be always pressing and obtruding the exercise thereof without any regard to the wants of the Place or the needs of the Church Necessity is laid upon me and woe be to me if I preach not the Gospel was spoke in the want of true Preachers when the Harvest was Great but the Labourers were Few It spoke a necessity introduced not merely by the Power of Orders but also by the circumstances of Times and Persons when the exercise thereof was necessary in want of Preachers for the use of the Church But in plenty of true Preachers there would not have been the same necessity nor would they have been bound to this exercise in place where there was no need of their Gifts but the same were exercised by others In this surplusage of Supplies for Church-uses and necessities the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets and their Powers must either be exercised or forborn and suspended as makes most for Order and Edification and the Peace of the Church But this exercise the deprived Bishops and Clergy are bound to in Duty and Conscience at such times If there is a need of their Ministrations then to provide for Religion and the Souls of Men or to prevent Men from being nursed up in destructive Ways as Immoral Practices and Immoral Worship and Devotions must be confessed to be To clear this it may not be amiss to consider First What Immoralities come in by a wrong payment of Allegiance to corrupt Religion and to endanger Souls Secondly What Provision good and faithful Pastors ought to make against such Dangers and Corruptions by the exercise of their Ministry First I shall briefly consider what Immoralities come in by a wrong Payment of Allegiance to corrupt Religion and to endanger Souls Whether this is actually the case of any Kingdom and the Allegiance required of them by their New Governors be directed and paid wrong I do not here discuss That makes another dispute viz. about the Right to the Crown contested betwixt the two Competitors in those Countries and the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of the New Oaths of Allegiance consequent thereupon which is exacted on such changes And this it is no part of the design of these Papers to argue or meddle with But when this really is the case in any Revolution as in this World God knows it is too often or among those Subjects who believe this is their case and that their Allegiance is call'd for to the Wrong against the Right Person Such as these are the Immoralities that will every-where corrupt Religion and endanger Souls whilst such wrong Payment lasts and which should be thought to do so among them viz. Then all that time whilst they are violently transferring their Allegiance from him to whom it still Remains rightfully due would Men in the general Practice of those Nations be wickedly disobeying and forceably resisting Gods Authority or the Father of the Fifth Commandment which extends to civil as well as natural Parents Then would they all that while be most openly and horribly breaking through all former Oaths of Allegiance Then would all who have promised and pay their Allegiance to drive out their ejected Prince out of any part of his Right or to keep him out thereof be actors of bare faced Iniquity and heinously unrighteous coveting and invading their Neighbours Goods And all force used against him or any other Persons for their adhering to his Cause would in Gods Account be oppression and unjust Violence all Spoils and Seisures of their Goods would be Thefts and Robberies and all shedding of their Blood all Cries and Clamours for it or rejoycing in it would be horrible Murders which not only they who acted but they who Wish'd or Prayed for or gave Thanks for when accomplished would be Guilty of All which are most dangerous and destructive ways and amount to a general Breach of Gods Commandments and to an open wast of Moral Honesty and Justice And all these would be the Dangers to Mens Souls in any Kingdom were the Translation of Allegiance such an unrighteous Perversion really and in it self Or they would be met with like Pastoral Provisions as if they were so Dangerous should the deprived Pastors believe and apprehend it to be such
not for Anti-christian Corruptions And had they really been what they thought as they were not but quite contrary it had been their duty to go on in their Pastoral Cures and Ministrations with Persecutions for all their deprivations And so we our selves should have thought at least we all seem as if we should if by Gods Providence the civil State had gone on to deprive our reformed Bishops for sticking to the worship and doctrines of the Reformation and had set up Popish Bishops in their Places Notwithstanding which I suppose both our faithful Prelates and People instead of silently acquiescing would have gone on ministring and communicating in the reformed worship and doctrine of this Church But whatever they thought of these things or how consonant or disagreeing soever their Actings were to their own Apprehensions in this case it suffices for justification of our Reformed Bishops advancement to their Sees without their being deprived by competent and lawful Synods which is objected as a thing most exceptionable therein and as seeming most to deviate from Ecclesiastical Rule that in reality they were not Orthodox And that for this want of Orthodoxy without any need of recourse to the Authority of mere State Deprivations to take off people from a spiritual Adherence and Communion with their Bishops the People before they could have a Synodical Deprivation were loose from them and at liberty to unite themselves to the Orthodox Reformers in their Room CHAP. IV. Of Deprivations by Synods in the foresaid Cases ANd thus I think it may sufficiently appear how the manifold obligations which are shewn above to lye on Faithful Bishops and Ministers not to suppress but to exercise their spiritual ministrations in the foresaid Cases are not set aside or barr'd by any inhibition or deprivation though of the most Lawful Civil State They will do it with more ease and worldly encouragement when the State tolerates and much more when it fortifies and furthers them therein But they are not at liberty to give it off but must go on exercising the same when it is more troublesome and when the State gain-says and puts them under persecution for so doing And thus it is where the State will Act apart and proceed without a Synod in depriving Bishops and in discharging the Ecclesiastical Communion and dependance of the people Spiritually related and united to them But Deprivation of Bishops who are Spiritual Powers is more ordinarily by a Synod of Bishops who are a Spiritual Judicature Great Reason there is for the Deprivation of Bishops to proceed in this course The Civil-State indeed comes in by Reason of Civil Accessions and Endowments which strengthen and encourage the spiritual ministrations But these Civil Accessions are but Accessaries and Appendages and their spiritual powers are the Principal in their Ministrations and in Church Communion and dependance on them And therefore the removing of their ministrations and of the Communion and dependance of the Church thereupon is never so fitly and fully attempted as by spiritual judicatures who being spiritual persons have more directly to do with Church Communion and spiritual powers And accordingly this has still been the course of the most Pious Princes who have reserved the deliberations about Religion and Church matters and the Depositions of Bishops which so closely affects Church Communion to Convocations and Synods of Bishops and â—lergy And when these proceed to sentence it more directly affects the concerned parties Church Communion and Church Governors being more directly under the Church-mens Cognizance and not only indirectly and by the by as it may ingage the deprived persons when not bound to it otherwise to yield and acquiesce in voluntary complyance for civil interests But suppose a Concurrence of both these powers and that the deprivation of the Rightful State is confirmed by Synodical Concurrence Yet I observe in the last place that this Deprivation by Synods is not sufficient to bar or discharge Bishops or Ministers from the foresaid Exercise of their Spiritual Ministrations in the above mention'd Cases Bishops and Metropolitanes are not more subject and dependant on Synods than Presbyters and people are on their Bishops Our Lord himself and his Holy Apostles having appointed Bishops in his Church and call'd for our subjection and obedience to them But this submission of Priests and people to their Bishops is with a Salvo to their Holy Religion and its Articles and Interests And if any Bishops go against the Truths or Laws of Christ or against the interests of Souls and of True Religion we are not to follow them or to depend on them therein To stick to any necessary Christian Doctrines Worship or Practices Christs Faithful people and Ministers must break even with their own Bishops holding even them Anathema as St. Paul directs when they would lead them contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostles as I noted before and shall shew more fully afterwards And so must they with any other Bishops or Number and Synods of Bishops in like Case All Exercise and Administration of Church Authority and Jurisdiction is tyed to Rules Not only to Rules of the Churches own making or Ecclesiastical Canons but above all and in the first place to the Rules laid down by Christ himself And all the validity of Church Acts in way of external judicature in Synods or otherwise is so far as they go by them or do nothing against them Thus it is in Decreeing Rites and Ceremonies or Determining Controversies of Faith wherein though the Church has Authority yet is it thus limited and has no Authority as our Church Declares to ordain any thing contrary to Gods word Even general Councils are bounded by this Limitation and things ordained by them say the Thirty Nine Articles again as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that are taken out of Holy Scriptures And thus it is also in Matter of Censures or Ecclesiastical Sentences judicially past therein upon persons whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks We in the Exercise of our Apostolical Power can do nothing against the Truth or in punishing and Censuring any for Faithful observance thereof but all our Power is for the Truth and to be exercised in its behalf by punishing and not sparing not those who stand to but those who defect from it 2 Cor. 13. 8. When the Church speaks to us in External Judicatures we must hear it as our Lord orders But we must hear it speaking under Christ never against him So that if it Excommunicates any for sticking firm to any part of his Holy Religion with whom for that very adherence sake he requires his Faithful Followers to hold Communion Or if it deprives or discharge any Ministers from Administring the same in any case where he has charged them to keep on that ministration Its power here is set up against him and its Acts have no Power to bind those who are concerned in them
offices and dutys as to their Rooms Spiritual doth appertain And Queen Elizabeths injunctions disclaim all challenging of any Authority and Power of Ministry of Divine Service in the Church by Vertue of the Supremacy And the 37th Article of Religion declares That thereby we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or of the Sacraments And the Statute of Queen Elizabeth says The Oath of Supremacy shall be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in the Queens Admonition annexed to her Injunctions They are the Ministers of God in their Dominions as St. Paul says But that is as Kings not as Priests So that the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters doth not imply the Power of the Keys which the King has not says Mr. Mason And by the Supremacy we do not attribute to the King the power of the Keys or Ecclesiastical Censures as Bishop Andrews observes We never gave our Kings the power of the Keys or any part of either the Key of Order or the Key of Jurisdiction purely spiritual says Bishop Bramhall And this bounding of their Claims and Pretences of Power is suitable to what we find among those Godly Jewish Kings and Christian Emperors to whom our Churches Articles and Canons about Supremacy refer As to the Jews it appertaineth not unto thee O Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the Priests that are consecrated thereto say the Priests to King Uzziah when he would assume to himself the Priests Office for which God miraculously smote him with a Leprosie upon the place 2 Chron. 26. 16 18 19 20. And the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him to serve and minister unto him and to burn incense says King Hezekiah to the Levites 2 Chron. 29. 11. And the like appears of the godly Christian Emperors who were told by their Holy Bishops and profess'd of themselves That they were no Priests and that their power of Empire did not swallow up the Sacerdotal powers God hath intrusted the Affairs of the Kingdom in your hands but those of the Church in ours And as we may not lawfully take upon us to act as Kings so neither have you Authority O Emperor to burn incense or usurp the Priests Office said the Great Hosius in his Epistle to the Emperor Constantius To you it appertains externally to punish but to us to judge and determine what is Heretical and impious say Elusius and Sylvanus and the other Bishops to the same Constantius The Royal Purple makes men Emperors but it doth not make them Priests says St. Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius As Christians and Godly Emperors they used their Imperial Power and Soveraignty about Church-Matters But that was not privative to deny the Pastors of the Church or to bereave them of their Power but Cumulative to add the Imperial Power which was of another kind to the Spiritual thereby to back their Acts and to make them bind the faster Thus when they sent Count Candidianus to the Great Council of Ephesus the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian declare in their Letter to the Council That it was to keep good Order and to see fair Debates but with Orders not to intermeddle in determining Questions of Faith and Ecclesiastical Matters which say they is lawful only for the Bishops And when the Emperor Marcian came in person at the passing the Definitions of the Great Council of Chalcedon it was not as he tells them in his Speech to the Council to make Demonstration of his own Power therein but to give greater firmness to what they had done in the Exercise of theirs Which he doth by Ratifying the same by secular Penalties as by Banishment of Citizens Disbanding of Souldiers and Deposition of Clery and by other Punishments after the Determinations of the Council had been read and the Bishops had owned and subscribed the same before him When the Imperial Purple came to confirm a Pastoral Act it gave a new Authority to that which had Authority in it self before or as Justinian speaks in his Confirmation of the Episcopal Sentence or Anathemaon Zoaras which says he having a validity from it self or Authenticalness of its own the Crown makes yet more valid or of more Authority by adding to it a secular Penalty The Episcopal or Spiritual Authority is by too many unjustly slighted and therefore the Secular Authority is both humbly call'd in and piously comes in to its help since those irreligious Contemners of the Spiritual Power will stand more in awe of the Secular Coming in by their Secular Authority to help and back the Church in those things wherein men would otherwise contemn the Authority of the Bishops as the Fathers express it in the Council of Carthage So that the Imperial Power even whilst employ'd about Church-Ministrations all the time supposes but doth not swallow up the Pastoral Powers nor doth its Ecclesiastical Supremacy lye nor was ever thought so to do either by our Church or by those Times whereto it refers in their being vested with or having a soveraign Disposal of the Powers of Orders But 2. Secondly it lyes 1. First In retaining their civil Power over all Persons whether Lay-men or Ecclesiasticks The Civil State was first in Being and men were Subjects of the State when Christianity came to be proposed to them and planted among them The Church is in the Common-wealth not the Common-wealth in the Church as Optatus says And when men became Members or Ministers of the Church they did not thereby cease to be Subjects of the State or owe ever the less Duty unto it Let every Soul be subject unto the Higher Power is meant of Ecclesiasticks as well as others It takes in all tho' an Apostle tho' an Evangelist tho' a Prophet or whosoever else as St. Chrysostom notes And therefore Princes may lay their civil Commands and inflict their civil Punishments upon Ecclesiasticks as well as upon their other Subjects They may put them under Fines or Imprisonments or banish them out of their Dominions or any parts thereof as Claudius did the Jews from Rome or as Domitian did St. John into Patmos where he wrote his Revelations and as Constantius and Valence did the Orthodox Bishops in the Arian Persecutions And true Pastors are bound to submit to this like as other Subjects are either from Heathen or Heretical Emperors and even in hard and unjust Cases as in the foresaid Instances And if any under sentence of Banishment inflicted on certain Persons not on the whole Cause return into his own Country without Leave of the civil Power if being caught he suffer for it he dies not as a Christian but as a Malefactor says St. Cyprian So that Bishops and Ministers are no exempt Persons but are to own their Kings as their civil Soveraigns and are as much bound to pay Obedience to their civil Laws and are