of this Discourse Sect. 1. Not the Power and Offices of the Church but their Subject is what mostly exercises the Age Sect. 2. Whether the Power be originally in Believers in Common or in the Secular Prince in Particular or in a certain Definite Number of Believers the Bishops and Pastors of the Church Sect. 3. The Design of the Whole and its Three General Heads Sect. 4. VVHEN I first consider'd that of Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan § I Part 1. Cap. 12. Of Religion and which is in short to this purpose in several Paragraphs there That every one is free upon the ceasing or discontinuance of the Miracle to Supersede or Change his Religion once attested by that Miracle to be from God and upon which account it was receiv'd and own'd if the change of the Climate and his Governors his former Education and the present Custom of the Place he resides in requires and all that other Authority and Obligation from Heaven obliged only for that present instant in which the Miracle was wrought and evidenced I with less concern passed it by reflecting on the Person a Man affected with and designing Novelty and Singularity filled with a Conceit of his own worth and autority and opposing it to all the World beside And in particular in this Chapter declaring himself to be such an one that believes an extraordinary felicity a sufficient Testimony of a Divine Calling but going on in my Thoughts and finding by a sad Experience that it went further than the Scheme or Systeme that a great part of our Age is thereby brought into this Opinion and 't is contended for so frequently as their Faith that the Church is nothing at all but in the State its Powers and Offices though once in the Apostles and some of their Successors for some time is now gone with those Miracles that at that time abetted and avouched them nor is the Gospel it self to be Preached or divulged upon other terms or a fixed enjoyned false Religion opposed nay farther this very same to be the stated professed Opinions of some and those too our highest dignified Church-men and left upon Record as the judgment of the greatest part and some of them the most remarkable of our first Reformers that the Prince is invested with whatever belongs to a Church-man then was my heart hot within me and while I was thus musing the fire kindled and at the last I spake with my Tongue I then set my self upon a particular immediate enquiry into the Matter and attaining to a more perfect knowledge of that way I here represent it to my Fathers and Brethren of the Clergy to all good Christians whatever in this following Treatise and only state the plain case as I find delivered down from our Saviour by his Apostles the Bishops Fathers and Doctors of the Church Catholique the Church Historians Councils and Laws Imperial from our own particular Church Articles Canons Rubricks our Book of Ordination and Homilies appointed to be read in the Churches in the time of Q. Elizabeth from our own Doctors and Writers in Divinity in their several times and from the Injunctions and Declarations of our Princes and even the Common-Law and Statute Book of our Kingdom the Honor and Duty I owe to my Jesus to his Universal Church to this particular Church of England to my own Profession as a Divine and love to all Christians is what have engaged to it other advantages I have none nor are any proposed these Considerations alone are they which now makes the dumb Child speak looses the string of that Tongue that held its peace and said nothing and brings him into publick otherwise by an universal Concurrency of all things both Persons and Objects design'd for silence and obscurity § II NOW in order to this I have so much prepared and made ready to my hands that the thing in general is immediately denied by none and that there is a Church-Power to be alwayes upon Earth till the restitution of all things and the Heavens be no more that is certain peculiar Persons and Offices to be separated and discharged in and for the affairs of Souls and the guiding and governing the World in order to Heaven and Salvation is affirmed by all that believe a Heaven and Christ Jesus the Way the Truth and the Life in the Attainment That which has so much unhing'd and discompos'd the World of late is concerning the Subject in which it resides the particular Persons design'd and appointed by our Saviour for the conveyance and execution the due force just extent and consequences of it in whom this Power is to be found and to whom limited since none are extraordinarily by miraculous and sensible demonstrations from Heaven commissioned and marked out thereunto as the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel were And though Mr. Selden himself as our great Herbert Thorndike in his Principles of Christian Truth tells us usually said in his common Discourse That all Church Power is an Imposture yet his First Book De Synedriis designed and levelled against this Autority Upon this alone score because presumed in and limited to the Bishops and Pastors of the Church as the Successors of Christ and his Apostles makes it plain his quarrel is because so assumed and limited by them because transferr'd from the Prince or Civil Power in whose hands alone he believes it placed and in those in deputation by him and for which he contends all along in that Book with what Success may be seen hereafter and therein places the Imposture THERE are three distinct Orders of Men § III or at the least to be supposed distinct in which this Power is contended for to be seated each exclusive of one another by the several Assertors and Fautors of the distant Opinions and Parties among us The One places it in the People the multitude of Believers in common as the general first immediate subject of Power Ecclesiastical who by their concurrent Notes Elections and Assignations limit and fix it on particular Persons for the Execution so appointing consecrating and investing for the work of the Ministry to negotiate in the affairs of Souls and in order to their Salvation The Other subjects all in the Prince or Secular Power who is supposed in actu Primo virtually and by a first inherency to be Priest and People equally as Prince and by the Right of Soveraignty as chief Magistrate upon Earth is instructed for all Offices and Duties in relation to Heaven with a Power for Deputation and Devolution as the Harvest may be great or the Labourers few upon each occasion requiring and as he is pleased by his secular Hand to mark out the Person The Third place it not in the Multitude in general or in the Prince in special but in a certain indefinite number of Believers called and impower'd thereunto not by their Gifts and Abilities as Christians in common but by a particular signal Donation superadded given
from the Apostles and Bishops and succeeding Church-men and consequently we are thus to interpret those other places of this Father in his Works when speaking of the Emperor in these Expressions Illum commendo Deo Cui soli Subjicio Apol. adv Gentes cap. 33. quem sciens à Deo constitui lib. ad Scapulam Cap. 2. Colimus Imperatorem sic quomodo nobis licet ipsi expedit ut hominem à Deo secundum quicquid est à Deo consecutum solo Deo minorem sic enim omnibus major est dum solo vero Deo minor est Ibid. That the Emperor is subject to God alone as appointed by God that he is second to God less than God only that he is greater than all c. All these are to be understood in a limited sense suited to the present Subject he is then upon as to the Secular Government he being the fountain of all Temporals and God governs the World by him nor ought nor can any one say what does he as accountable to God alone who is alone above him But Church Power is of another Head or Species and 't is not derivable from him nor is he the less a Prince for want of it and it was it must be if rational and consistent with themselves the least in the thoughts of this or any other Father of the Church that has used these like Expressions to ascribe thereby Church Power unto him And therefore is it that in their Writings and Declarations and Apologies for their Loyalty and Obedience to the Empire as standing obliged in their Conscience and by their Christianity in all manner of Obedience to him yet it is with this reserve that they are withall to retain their Freedom and Rights as Christians and which they own and return to another fountain So Justin Martyr in his second Apology 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all joy and chearfulness we serve and obey you only the Worship of the alone true God we derive not from you So Tatianus in his Oration to the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the King Commands us to pay Tribute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Man wee 'l obey him in his Humane Laws Religion is still exempted So Athenagoras in his Embassy to the Emperor in behalf of the Christians declaring hee 'l refuse no Tortures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if they fail in these Duties in a greater or lesser instance of them And those excellent words of Minutius Foelix are much to this purpose Quà m Pulchrum spectaculum Deo cum Christianus cum dolore congreditur cum adversus minas supplicia tormenta componitur cum strepitum Mortis horrorem Carnificis arridens insultat cum libertatem suam adversus Reges ac Principes erigit Soli Deo cujus est cedit cum Triumphator Victor ipsi qui adversus se Sententiam dixit insultat How Pleasant a Spectacle is it to God when a Christian encounters with Sorrow when he is compos'd against Threatnings and Punishments and Torments when with Smiles he insults over the noise of Death and the horror of the Hangman when he erects his liberty against Kings and Princes and gives place only to that God whose he is when with Triumph and a Victor he has the better of him who gave Sentence against him EVSEBIVS all along in his Church History § VIII as he sets down the particular Succession of the Emperors and Bishops so he represents and places them upon their two distinct Thrones So 't is said of Simeon in respect of his Diocese and Church-Jurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was worthy of his Throne meaning his Episcopal Chair lib. 3. cap. 11. and of Justus his Successor in Jerusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was placed on the Throne of his Bishoprick cap. 35. when entring upon his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Office of a Bishop is expressed in general cap. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 't is varied lib. 5. cap. 9. that his Administration or acts of his Episcopal Charge and Office to be performed to his People and accordingly the execution is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words that imply full Power Autority in the Bishop if they imply it in the Prince which have no other words to declare it to us by and particularly the Empire of Trajan is expressed by the very same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that very Chapter And this Hugo Grotius has observed Rivet Apol. Discuss pag. 699. and given one reason of it Omne corpus Sociale jus hebet quaedam constituendi quibus obligentur membra hoc jus etiam Ecclesiae competere apparet Actorum 15. 28 Heb. 13.17 ob hoc jus Episcopatûs Imperii nomine appellantun every body by virtue of its Union and Association has a right to constitute such Rules as do oblige its Members that this right does belong to the Church is apparent from Acts 15.28 Heb. 19.17 and for this the Right and Power which is annexed to Episcopacy is call'd by the Name of an Empire and this very Empire Power and Jurisdiction we have executed by the Bishop in part upon Philip who held the Roman Government and was newly come over to the Christian Faith he enrolled him not but by the Rules and Laws of the Church but upon Confession of his Sins and passing through the Order of the Penitents and which was submitted to by him Euseb Eccles Hist lib. 6. cap. 34. and the case is farther clear'd by our Historian lib. 2. cap. 27 28 29 30. in the instance of Paulus Samosetanus as to the distinct Power in Church and State and the extent of each he was Convict of Heresie and his Bishops Orders taken away from him by the Jurisdiction and Power of the Bishops in Council united who alone did give them and who alone could take them from him and placed another in his Bishoprick in the Church of Antioch But when Paulus Samosetanus would not go out of his Church-House their Episcopal Power reached not so far as to dispossess him of his Temporals 't is the Business of Princes alone to inflict Banishment or such outward Punishment upon Hereticks and we have Theodosius a Bishop blamed for his Persecuting in such like manner the Sect of the Macedonians in the Seventh Book of Socrates his Church History cap. 3. Church Empire or Autority reaches not hither in any degree or instance for this they appealed to the proper Head or Fountain to Aurelian the Emperor who was then their Friend though he continued not so long they asked the assistance of the World and that his Secular Arm might relieve them this he granted and adjusted it to the present Bishop consecrated thereunto and thus was this notorious Heretick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Power of the Prince is still called whether exercised in the things of the Church or of the State by the Secular Arm and Autority turn'd out
farther that he pretends to have the judicial Determination of Bishops but really manages and does all himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and evidently again distinguishes between the work of a Bishop and the work of an Emperor he goes on and is more daring and positive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when any such thing was heard of from the beginning of the World that the Judgment and Decision of the Church had its Autority and Measures from the Empire or was ever any such Determination known at all many Church Decisions have been made but never did the Presbyters perswade the Emperor to any such thing neither did the Prince intermeddle with the things of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. And all this is recorded by Athanasius of the Divine and most Excellent Hosius in that his Epistle Ad Solitarium c. Pag. 840 repeating there Hosius his Epistle to 〈◊〉 on the same occasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who drew up the Nicene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that was heard and submitted to by all his own words are these to the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Do not interpose thy self nor meddle with Ecclesiastical Affairs nor do you Command in these things but rather learn them of Vs to Thee God hath committed the Empire to Vs he hath deputed what is the Churches and as he that undermines the Government opposes the Ordinance of God so do thou take heed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest forcing to thy self the things which are of the Church you become liable to as great a guilt for it is written give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things which are Gods It is neither lawful for us to have the Government upon Earth nor hast thou the Power of Holy things O King St. Jerome speaks of the evil Bishops only the Character is upon them De Ecclesiae Principibus qui non dignè regunt oves Domini as of Princes in the Church with Power of Jurisdiction in themselves in his Comments on Jeremiah cap. 23. Sacerdos est Caput the Priest is the Head an Original devolving upon others Comment in 1 Cor. 12. and upon Romans 13. Apostolus in his quae recta sunt judicibus obediendum non in illis quae Religioni contraria sunt the things of Religion are not to be subjected to Kings nor any in Autority under them And to this purpose he says again in Isai 1. Apostolos à Christo constitutos Principes Ecclesiarum the Apostles were constituted by Christ Princes of the Churches And the same is said in his Preface to the Epistle to the Galatians and particularly on Psal 44. Fuere O Ecclesia Apostoli Patres tui quia ipsi te genuere c. The Apostles O Church were thy Fathers that begot thee now because they are gone out of the World you have in their room Bishops Sons which are created of thee and those are thy Fathers by whom thou art governed The Gospel being spread in all Parts of the World in which Princes of the Church i. e. Bishops are constituted This Holy Father assigning all Church-Power to and in it self and if it be suspected whether these Comments on the Psalms be St. Jerome's own I have yet here repeated this passage out of them as most fully appearing his sense to whoso pleases to consult his Works especially his Commentary St. Augustine's Opinion we have already in part spoke of and he that will undertake an Enquiry will find him all along of the same Opinion I 'le only instance in the differences occasion'd by the Donatists and what Power the Empire assum'd to it self in those great and many Controversies and their Decisions related by him which he tells us is only to make outward Laws in defence of what appears to be Truth and says he it falls out sometimes Reges cum in errore sunt pro ipso errore contra veritatem leges ferunt that they make Laws against Truth themselves being in Error and good Men are only prov'd thereby as evil Men by their good Laws are amended Tom. 7. l. 3. Cont. Crescon Gramat cap. 51. they command that which is Good and forbid that which is Evil Non solum quae pertinent ad humanam Societatem verùm etiam ad divinam Religionem in things which belong not only to Humane Society but to Divine Religion he has Power to enquire into debates and to provide for Truth and Peaco by the Bishops to assign the Persons Time and Place Vt superstitionem manifesta ratio confutaret that Reason may gain upon Superstition and Truth be made manifest Collat. 1. diei 3. cum Donatist Nor was Cecilianus purg'd and set free but by Judiciis Ecclesiasticis Imperialibus by the Ecclesiastical as by the Imperial Judgment and Determinations Ibid. nor will it appear that the Powers of the Empire have concern'd themselves any farther in those quarrels than by abetting or discouraging by outward Laws and Punishments what was represented as Truth unto them and which the Church alone hath not Power to do either to award at first or after mitigate but by Prayers and Arguments and therefore the Civil Laws and Indulgences have been sometimes severer and sometimes too indulgent as Accidents or Truth over-ruled as is to be seen in his Third and Fourth Books ad Cresconium and when these Laws went too hard upon these Donatists and pinched their Faction too sorely then they cried out of Persecution denied the Empire this Power in Divine things and that they were to stand at no humane Judicature as is the way of all such Factions when themselves only persecute and invade and whose Insolencies and Rapines are at large told us by St. Austin in his Forty eighth Epistle and by Optatus in his Treatise against Parmenius the Donatist Hence that of Donatus lib. 3. ibid. Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia What has the Emperor to do with the Church whom Optatus there sharply upbraids as well as reproves for it tells Donatus of his Pride and unheard of insolency in so doing in lifting up himself above him who is second to God alone Cum supra Imperatorem non sit nisi solus Deus who sits as God in all forensick outward Judicatures and no man can withstand him but Church-Power is still supposed a quite differing thing I mean that which our Saviour left immediately to his Church it falls not under this head of things 't is derived in another stream as the design of his whole Book declares nor is Optatus for this or any other like Expression to be thought to refer all Church-Power into the Empire than those other Fathers did using much the same Expressions and which is above observed and he in particular returns the rise and devolution of the Bishops of Rome to St. Peter by whose Successors it was then in Siricius the Bishop in his days in his Second Book against Parmenius and so St.
Power as the Supreme Governor of the Church Is called Worldly and Secular Sect. 5 6 7 8. Of King Edward VI. That the Bishops were to use not their own as formerly but his Name and Seal in their Processes c. implies no such thing Sect. 9. Of Queen Elizabeth King James Sect. 10 11. The King and Church distinct Powers in our Statute Book Our Kings now have but the same Power the Empire of old and their Predecessors before the Reformation had If our Religion be Parliamentary that anciently was Imperial Sect. 12. Mr. Selden says the Parliament of England both can and has actually Excommunicated and the Bishops Power is derived only from them Sect. 13. The Acts of Parliament he produces V. VI. Edw. VI. Cap. IV. III. Jacobi Cap. V. infer it not Sect. 14. Nor do those of II. III. Edw. VI. Cap. 1. Elizabethae Cap. II. that the Prince limits Excommunications in the Execution is not against the Divine Right of them His Instances in the Rump Parliament Geneva The Parliament of Scotland III. Jacob. VI. Cap. XLV are all against him Sect. 15. Archbishop Whitgift is not proved to have Licensed Erastus his Works for the Press that they were found in his Study is no Argument he was an Erastian if Licensed by the Autority of the Nation no Evidence that his Doctrines were then owned Sect. 16. Our own Doctors of the same Opinion with us instances in two of them Sect. 17. Bishop Bilson St. Ambrose one of Doctor Tillotson's Hypocrites A private Liberty of Conscience not enough a false Religion to be declared against though by Autority abetted Mr. Dean gives advantage to the Papists Calumny That our Religion is only that of our Prince Sect. 18. Bishop Sanderson his particular Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy Sect. 19. Mr. Selden objects again that our own Doctors and Writers are all on the other side The particular Authors each reckon'd up He perverts and abuses them all Sect. 20. The two Vniversities in their Opus Eximium c. in the Reign of Henry VIII 1534. altogether against him Sect. 21. Stephen Bishop of Winchester Orat. de vera Obedientia is of the same Mind and so is Richard Sampson Dean of the Chappel to Henry VIII in an Oration to this purpose Sect. 22. The Papers in the Cottonian Library seems the same with Dr. Stillingfleet's M. SS in his Irenicum Both he and Dr. Burnet unfaithful in the Printing of it Dr. Durell's account of it Archbishop Cranmer with the Bishops and Doctors engaged in our first Reformation were not Erastians from the account given of them in his Church History by Dr. Burnet Less Discretion in Printing such Papers nor is their Autority really to be any thing Sect. 23. Mr. Selden is shameless in quoting Bishop Andrews who determines all along against him Those Laws that Protect the Church must in course inspect their Actions The Bishop disswaded Grotius from Printing his Book De Imperio summarum Potestatum in Sacris Ha' y' any Work for a Cooper is indeed of Mr. Selden's side and the Lord Falkland His very ill Speech in the House of Commons 1641. His Pulpit Law and Decision of the Divine Right of Kings as well as of the Church He and such like Speech-makers Promoters of the late Rebellion affronts both to King and Priest design'd at once when the Crown is entitled to the Priesthood Sect. 24. Archbishop Bancroft Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson under the Suspition of Erastianism Accused as such by Robert Parker de Politeia Ecclesiastica a Malicious Schismatick made use of still against our Church by Dailee against Ignatius his Epistles by Doctor Stillingfleet in his Irenicum Our Bishops and Doctors are not against the Divine immutable Right of Bishops as Doctor Stillingfleet mistook out of Parker and reports them to be Satisfaction may justly be required of him for it Sect. 25. The Writings of the best Men how they may be mistaken as of Justin Martyr The first Council of Nice St. Jerome concerning Chastity and Episcopacy Bishop Cranmer and our first Reformers Bishop Whitgift Bancroft and Bilson The Point was at first only the Bishop of Rome's Supremacy A secular title only no Characteristical mark then betwixt the Protestant and Papist The Lay-Elders in their Consistory set up after this as Popes in his room These our Bishops warmth was exercised against whatever indiscretion in laying the Argument The Power of the Prince and the Priest are still contra-distinguished Kings are not Governors next and immediately under Christ as the Mediator The mistake of many in their Pulpit Prayer Our Kings and Church do not thence derive their Power nor so claim it in their Acts Statutes Declarations Articles c. in the forms of bidding Prayer by Queen Elizabeth and King James c. of ill consequence if they do Doctor Hammond's Autority Sect. 26. Particular Doctors not the Rule in Religion The several ways by which Error comes into the World Julian's Plot to destroy Christianity How Pelagius managed his Heresie by Rich and Potent Women by feigned Autorities of great Men. Liberius of Rome and Hosius comply with Arianism wearied with Persecutions Theodosius his Doctores Probabiles Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 1. l. l. 2 3. THE last general of this Discourse now § I follows and I am to shew that what hath hitherto been said concerning Church Power as a Specifick and distinct from any thing in either the People or the Crown is agreeable with the particular Establishments by the Laws of our Kingdom made for the owning and defence of Christianity and by consequence with the Religion it self so own'd and professed in our Church since the Reformation AN undertaking I do not therefore engage § II in as if these Doctrines of our common Christianity receiv'd from the beginning and devolv'd all along downward in the first Ages as is already shew'd could obtain further Autority or expected an after Sanction and Establishment from us and e're fully assented to and received wanted force and obligation was to be abated of or abolished where not according to our particular ordering model and constitution framed and drawn up autorized and made publick Fifteen hundred years after this is absurd in the Proposal and must be worse in the Practice it runs as it ought to do contrary to our selves to the Plot and Design of this our Church in each of her Collections Articles Injunctions Canons Constitutions and Homilies appointed to be read in the Churches in the time of Q. Elizabeth And altogether to our purpose are the Homilies composed by the Bishops limiting Church-Power to the Priesthood and apparently distinguishing betwixt the Autority and Laws of the Church and State assigning different Ends and Effects unto each Part 2. Of the Sermon of Good Works This arrogancy God detested that Man should so advance his Laws to make them equal with God's Laws wherein the true honouring and worshipping of God standeth and to make his
Castelvetrus her second Husband as Mr. Selden suggests or by the Archbishop himself what is necessarily hence to be inferr'd I 'le here again give in the words of our always to be reverenced Mr. Herbert Thorndike of the Laws of the Church Cap. Vlt. Pag. 394. Neither is the Publishing Erastus his Book against Excommunication at London to be drawn into the like Consequence that those who allow'd and procur'd it allow'd the substance of what he maintain'd so long as a sufficient Reason is to be rendred for it otherwise for at such time as the Presbyterian Pretences were so hot under Queen Elizabeth it is no marvel if it was thought to shew England how they prevail'd at home first because he hath advanced such Arguments as are really effectual against them which are not yet nor never will be answered by them though void of the Positive Truth which ought to take place instead of their Mistakes and besides because at such times as Popes did what them listed in England it would have been to the purpose to shew the English how Machiavel observes they were hamper'd at home and for the like Reason when the Geneva Platform was cried up with such Zeal here it was not amiss to shew the World how it was esteem'd under their own Noses in the Cantons and the Palatinate § XVII I am now to shew the concurrency of our Doctors in the Church and who still go along with me and say the same thing that Church Power as such is not from the Civil Magistrate and his supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons infers it not an induction would be too numerous the Particulars being so many I 'le only instance in two the one is Thomas Bilson then Warden of Winchester and afterward Bishop there in his Book entituled The true difference between Christian Subjection and un-christian Rebellion perused and allowed by publick Autority and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth and for writing of which he had his Bishoprick the other is Robert Sanderson then the King's Professor at Oxford and after Bishop of Lincolne in his Book called Episcopacie as establed by Law in England not prejudicial to the Regal Power written in the time of the long Parliament by the special Command of King Charles the I. but not published by reason of the Iniquity and Confusion of the Times and since printed and dedicated to our present gracious Soveraign King Charles II. two Divines as they flourished in our Church at a great distance of time from one another so are they at as great distance for their Worth and Merit beyond the generality of the Divines of their times and by which as we have the advantage of their greater Autority as to themselves to which add That they acted herein as publick Persons by Autority appointed to write in the Name of the Church of England and in such Cases Men generally are more careful how they vent their own private Niceties and Conceptions so also have we a farther benefit hereby that this was and is the continued constant Doctrine of our Church and Church-Men from Queen Elizabeth to King Charles II. Bishop Bilson thus speaks part 2d pag. § XVIII 124. printed at Oxford It is one thing who may command for truth and another who shall direct unto truth We say Princes may command for Truth and punish the refusers this no Bishop may challenge but only the Prince that beareth the Sword no Prelate has Autority from Christ to compel private Men much less Princes but only to teach and instruct them these two Points we stand on pag. 125. 126. he tells the Jesuite the Prince is Supreme to establish those things Christ has commanded and so he all along shews it the design of the Oath of Supremacy against the pretended outward Jurisdiction of the Pope claiming as Christ's Vicar on Earth a coercive Power in order to spiritual things over the Persons of all Christians whatsoever whose Subjects soever and in whatsoever Causes even our Kings themselves And that it is no more thence to be inferr'd that Princes because supreme Governors over all Persons in all Causes are therefore supreme Judges of Faith Deciders of Controversies Interpreters of Scripture Appointers of Sacraments Devisers of Ceremonies and what not then if it should be inferr'd Princes are supreme Governors in all Corporal things and causes ergo they are supreme Guiders of Grammar Moderators of Logique Directors of Rhetorick Appointers of Musick Prescribers of Medicines Resolvers of all Doubts and Judges of all Matters incident any wayes to reason art or action We confess them to be supreme Governors of their Realms and Dominions and that in all Spiritual things and causes not of all Spiritual things and causes we make them not Governors of the Things themselves but of their Subjects we confess that her Highness is the only Governor of this Realm the Word Governor doth sever the Magistrate from the Minister and sheweth a manifest difference between their Office for Bishops be no Governors of Countries Princes be these bear the Sword to reward and punish those do not pag. 127. They have several Commissions which God signed those to dispense the Word and Sacraments these to prescribe by their Laws and punish by the Sword such as resist them within their Dominions pag. 128. That no Clergy-Man by God's Law can challenge an exemption from earthly Powers pag 129. Princes have full Power to forbid prevent and punish in all their Subjects be they Lay-Men Clerks or Bishops not only Murders Thefts Adulteries Perjuries and such like Breaches of the second table but also Schisms Heresies Idolatries and all other Offences against the first Table pertaining only to the Service of God and Matters of Religion pag. 130. as the Kings of Israel did who are the Christian Princes example pag. 132. and it is the duty of Christian Kings to compel from Heresies and Schisms to the confession of the truth consent of Prayer and Communion of the Lord's Table to compel Hereticks and Schismaticks to repress Schism and Heresie with their princely Power which they receive from above chiefly to maintain God's glory by the causing the Bands of Virtue to be preserved in the Church and the Rules of Faith observed pag. 133. this is the Prince's charge to see the Law of God fully executed his Son rightly served his Spouse safely nursed his House timely filled his Enemies duely punished and he tells the Jesuite if he grants this he will ask no more And these the causes and things that be Spiritual as well as Temporal the Princes power and charge doth reach unto or in the words of St. Austin that Princes may command that which is good and prohibit that which is evil within their Kingdoms not in Civil Affairs only but in Matters that concern divine Religion Cont. Crescon l. 3. c. 51. pag. 134. to page 145. and this or power of the like nature was what was claimed and used in causes Ecclesiastical which
he proves thoughout the Church Historians Fathers and Imperial Laws thus declaring assenting to and practising pag. 146. If by the Church you mean the Precepts and Promises Gifts and Graces of God preached in the Church and poured on the Church Princes must humbly obey them and reverently receive them as well as other private Men so that Prophets Apostles Evangelists and all other builders of Christ's Church as touching their Persons be subject to the Princes power Mary the word of God in their Mouths and Seals of grace in their hands because they are of God and not of themselves they be far above the Princes Calling and Regiment and in those Cases Kings and Queens if they will be saved must submit themselves to God's everlasting truth and testament as well as the meanest of their People and yet they are for all this Supreme and subject only to God as to outward Process either from the Pope or from any other Power And so pag. 147. he brings in those Passages of Tertullian Optatus and Chrysostom à Deo secundum solo Deo minorem parem super terram non habet c. the word Supreme was added to the Oath for that the Bishop of Rome taketh upon him to command and depose Princes as their lawful supreme Judg to exclude this wicked presumption we teach that Princes be supreme Rulers we mean subject to no superior Judg to give a reason of their doings but only to God pag. 164 165 166. it must be confessed he speaks not home as might be required when explaining how Kings as well as other Christians are comprized under the duty of obeying their Rulers and to be subject unto them c. surely there is a true real obedience due even from Princes to Church-Officers and their Power devolved from Christ and this learned Man seems here and in other places not to be rescued from that common prejudice and possession seized upon too many and all along continued upon casting of the Popes Superiority here in England that there can be no Church-Power at all universally obliging and requiring obedience but what implyes and infers corporal bodily subjection a change in Seculars 't is this puts him upon that great mistake that the Pastors of the Church are not influenced by the Kingly power of Christ and what is regal in him is given to the Civil Magistrate and who only succeed him in that Office perpetual Government of the Church cap. 10. and Arch-bishop Bancroft confounding these two Powers gives Beza and Cartwright as much advantage in that Particular as their Disciples and Followers can now really wish and because they say that Christ as a King prescribed the form of Ecclesiastical Government being a King the head of the Church doth administer his Kingdom per legitime vocatos pastores by Pastors lawfully called he runs them upon this absurdity that their Autority must be without any controul The Pastors must be all of them Emperors the Doctors Kings the Elders Dukes and the Deacons Lords of the Treasury c. survey of the holy pretended discipline c. cap 24. and yet after all 't is mostly Name◠and Titles that occasions this or the accidental pressing an argument as there will be occasion to consider anon and Bishop Bilson goes on and acknowledges all in effect only Bishops and Pastors are left out and tells us That the Church may be Superior and yet the Pope subject to Princes Princes be Supreme and the Church their Superior the Scriptures be superior to Princes and yet Princes supreme the Sacrament be likewise above them and yet that hindreth not their Supremacy Truth Grace Faith Prayer and other Ghostly Virtues be higher than all earthly States and all this notwithstanding Princes may be supreme Governors of their Countries and which though in over abating Terms and with too scrupulous a fear where no fear ought to be declares as fully as can be the thing it self viz. That Princes are to be subject to the Government in the Church settled by Christ in its Bishops and Pastors and which both as a Prophet a Priest and a King he derives unto them Church-Officers have a Power underived and independent to the Crown only 't is ill worded by the Warden Things Powers Gifts Virtues c. as standing and settled on Earth and not invested in Persons can really be of no force and command at all or rather and which at last will amount to the same will be what every one shall please to make them and the Prince will have as many Supremes as are pretenders to these Gifts of the Spirit and which will be enough as experience taught us this only then can be meant by these Circumlocutions and why it might not have been spoken in down-right terms I cannot imagine that the Bishops and Pastors of the Church with the Bible put into their hands as it is at their Ordination with full autority given for the Offices ministerial have a real Power and are truly Rulers in the Church have a Supremacy and Superiority peculiarly theirs and all that will come to Heaven must come under this Ministry or Government it 's jurisdiction and discipline be they Princes or Subjects on Earth or what ever worldly Government they are possessed of unless he 'l say every Man hath these Ghostly Virtues which can urge a Text of Scripture and which cannot be conceived of him and to this purpose he goes farther pag. 167 168. Though the Members of the Church be subject and obedient to Princes yet the things contained in the Church and bestowed on the Church by God himself I mean the light of his Word the working of his Sacraments the gifts of his Grace and fruits of his Spirit be far superior to all Princes The plain meaning of which can be but this Certain separate Persons invested by God beyond Christians at large with such Gifts and Graces the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and in which respect a good Emperor is within the Church and not above it as St. Ambrose is to this purpose here quoted by him pag. 171. You must distinguish the things proposed in the Church from the Persons that were Members of the Church the Persons both Lay-Men and Clerks by God's Law were the Princes Subjects the things comprized in the Church and by God himself committed to the Church because they were Gods could be subject to the Power and Will of no mortal Creature Pope nor Prince the Prince is above the Persons of the Church not above things in the Church pag. 173. 176. 178. you know we do not make the Prince Judg of Faith we confess Princes to be no Judges of Faith but we do not encourage Princes themselves to be Judges of Faith but only we wish them to discern betwixt truth and error which every private Man must do that is a Christian pag. 174 175 176. he approves of Ambrose's Answer to Valentinian that is was stout but lawful constant but
Oath we make Princes the only supreme Governors of all Persons in all Causes as well spiritual as temporal utterly renouncing all foreign Jurisdictions Superiorities and Autorities upon which Words mark what an horrible Confusion of all Faith and Religion ensueth if Princes be the only Governors in Ecclesiastical Matters then in vain did the Holy Ghost appoint Pastors and Bishops to govern the Church if they be Supreme then they are superior to Christ himself and in effect Christ's Masters if in all Things and Causes spiritual than they may prescribe to the Priests and Bishops what to preach which way to worship and serve God how in what Form to minister the Sacraments and generally how Men shall be governed in Soul if all foreign Jurisdiction must be renounced then Christ and his Apostles because they were and are Forreigners have no Jurisdiction nor Autority over England But this is what only the ill Nature and Malice of our Adversaries would have us to believe and assert and give out to the World we do 't is what is and all along has been repell'd with scorn and indignation both by our Princes in their single Persons and in their Laws in Parliament and though some of our Divines have wished the Oath had been more cautiously Penn'd and think it lies more open to little obvious Inferences of this nature than it needs and which amuse the unwary less discerning Reader yet all own and defend it as to the substance and design and intent of it and which is throughly and sufficiently done by the learned Warden in this Treatise as appears by this Specimen or shorter account is now given of it and he that peruses the whole Treatise will find more and John Tillotson Doctor in Divinity and Dean of Canterbury is if not the only yet one professed conforming Divine in our Church that publickly from the both Pulpit and Press has given the Romanist so much ground really to believe we are such as they on purpose to abuse us and delude others give it out we are and complyes so far with their Objection and Calumny just now recited as by Philander drawn up against us gives so much of Force and Autority to it § XIX BISHOP Sanderson in his Treatise now mentioned has a different task from Bishop Bilson the one was to vindicate the Prince that he invades not the Church the other the Bishops or Church that from usurping on the Prince Bishop Sanderson among many other things urged by him and as his Subject requires is express in these Particulars pag. 121. That there is a supreme Ecclesiastical Power which by the Law of the Land is established and by the Doctrine of our Church acknowledged to be inherent in the Church pag. 23. That regal and Episcopal Power are two Powers of quite different kinds and such as considered purely in those things which are proper and assential to either have no mutual relation unto or dependance upon each other neither hath either of them to do with the other the one of them being purely spiritual and internal the other external and temporal albeit in regard of the Persons that are to exercise them or some accidental Circumstances appertaining to the exercise thereof it may happen the one to be some wayes helpful or prejudicial to the other pag. 41. that the derivation of any Power from God doth not necessarily infer the non-subjection of the Persons in whom that Power resideth to all other Men for doubtless the power that Fathers have over their Children Husbands over their Wives Masters over their Servants is from Heaven of God and not of Men yet are Parents Husbands Masters in the exercise of their several respective Powers subject to the Power Jurisdiction and Laws of their lawful Soveraigns pag. 44. The King doth not challenge to himself as belonging to him by virtue of his Supremacy Ecclesiastical the Power of ordaining Ministers excommunicating scandalous Offenders the power of Preaching adminstring Sacraments c. and yet doth the King by virtue of that Supremacy challenge a Power as belonging to him in the right of his Crown to make Laws concerning Preaching administring the Sacraments ordination of Ministers and other Acts belonging to the Function of a Priest pag. 69 70 71. it is the peculiar reason he gives in behalf of the Bishops for not using the King's Name in their Process c. in the Ecclesiastical Courts the occasion of the whole discourse and which cannot be given for the Judges of any other Courts from the different nature and kind of their several respective Jurisdictions which is That the Summons and other Proceedings and Acts in the Ecclesiastical Courts are for the most part in order to the Ecclesiastical Censures and Sentences of Excommunications c. the passing of which Sentences and others of the like kind being a part of the Power of the Keys which our Lord Jesus Christ thought sit to leave in the hands of the Apostles and their Successors and not in the hands of Lay-Men The Kings of England never challenged to belong to themselves but left the exercise of that Power entirely to the Bishops as the lawful Successors of the Apostles and Inheritors of their Power the regulating and ordering of that Power in sundry Circumstances concerning the outward exercise thereof in foro exteruo the Godly Kings of England have thought to belong unto them as in the Right of their Crown and have accordingly made Laws concerning the same even as they have done also concerning other Matters appertaining to Religion and the Worship of God but the substance of that Power and the Function thereof as they saw it altogether to be improper to their Office and Calling so they never pretended or laid any claim thereunto but on the contrary renounced all claim to any such Power or Autority And for Episcopacy it self the Bishop sets down his opinion in a Postscript to the Reader the words are these My opinion is That Episcopal Government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical Practice or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messiah our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ who being sent by his Heavenly Father to be The great Apostle Heb. 3.1 Bishop and Pastor 1 Pet. 2.25 of his Church and anointed to that Office immediately after his Baptism by John with Power and the Holy Ghost Acts 10.37 38. descending then upon him in a bodily shape Luk. 3.22 did afterwards before his Ascension into Heaven send and impower his holy Apostles giving them the Holy Ghost likewise as his Father had given him in like manner as his Father had before sent him Joh. 20.21 to exercise the same Apostolical Episcopal and Pastoral office for the Ordering and Governing of his Church until his coming again and so the same office to continue in them and their Successors unto the Worlds end Mat. 28.18.20 this I take to be so clear from these and other like Texts of
Scripture that if they shall be diligently compar'd together both between themselves and with the following Practice of all the Churches of Christ as well in the Apostles times as in the purest and Primitive time nearest thereunto there will be left a little cause why any man should doubt thereof § XX AND now I have done only Mr. Selden is once more to be encountred with who appears against all this and says that the Doctors of our Church are quite of a different Judgment and have declared the same to the World in their Writings De Syned l. 1. cap. 10. pag. 424 425. As the two Universities at once Published in the Reign of Henry VIII 1534. called Opus eximium de vera differentia Regiae Potestatis Ecclesiasticae quae sit ipsa veritas virtus utriusque Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester in an Oration de vera Obedientia Joannes Bekinsau de Supremo absoluto regis Imperio with abundance more which he tells us was to have been Printed in King Jame's days but the Printer was in the blame The Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library where an account is given of Henry VIII entrance upon the Reformation 1540. and the Question among others is Vtrùm Episcopus aut Presbyter possit Excommunicare ob quaenam delicta utrum ii soli possint jure divino whether the Bishop or the Presbyter can Excommunicate and for what Offences and whether they alone can do it by Divine Right and about which great Divines were distracted in their Opinions but the Bishop of Hereford St. David Westminster Dr. Day Curwin Laighton Cox Symons say that Lay-men may Excommunicate if they be appointed by the high Ruler or the King and all those Writings in every Bodies hands De primatu regio de potestate Papae Regiâ against Bellarmine Tortus Becan Eudemon Joannes Suarez c. in the time of King James and whose Authors were Bishop Andrews Bishop Buckeridge Dr. Collings Bishop Carlton c. and in which three first Mr. Selden instances a great appearance of Adversaries and considerable withal and did not Mr. Selden give in the Catalogue whose unfaithfulness and imposings I have so oft experienced in this kind would be much more terrible in reality than they at first look appear incouraged therefore by former success I 'le encounter him once more and undertake an Examination of so many of them as I have by me and it is very pardonable if I have not all we that live remote in the Countrey and but poor Vicars there have not the advantage of Sir Robert Cotton's Library cannot attend Auctions or but common Booksellers Shops and have not Money to imploy others especially for the obtaining such Authors as these most of which are out of Print and some very rarely to be had by any and I am the more encouraged to the search just now finding in that Book of Bishop Sanderson's I had so lately occasion to make use of some of these Authors made use of on the contrary side as those who by the occasion of the title of Supreme Head our Church being charged with giving to the Prince the Power Autority and Offices of the Priest openly disavow and disclaim it and I think I may as soon rely upon Bishop Sanderson's report as Mr. Selden's his skill as Divine and Integrity as a Christian can be no ways below him even in the Judgment of Mr. Selden's Friends THE Opus eximium de verâ differentiâ c. § XXXI comes first the work he says of the two Universities I do not know why the Universities are entitled to it but upon Mr. Selden's report for this time will grant it readily because the Autority how great soever is really on my side nor does it answer any thing at all of Mr. Selden's design in producing of it The first Part is De potestate Ecclesiasticâ and is wholly levelled at the Power of the Pope and discovers his Usurpations over the Christian both Kingdoms and Bishops that his pretended both Spiritual and Temporal Plea has no ground either on the Scriptures or Fathers for it is altogether begged and sandy I cannot so much commend the clearness of it when discoursing of Church-Power as in it self and purely in the Donation and which he allows and defends he appearing not to have the true Notion of Church-Laws and stumbles at that so usual block that all Laws must be outwardly Coercive or they cannot be call'd Laws and so can be only in the Prince whom he well enough proves to have alone that Power and what he allows the Church is to make Canons i. e. rules to be receiv'd only by those that are willing but not Laws which enforce with more to this purpose something too crudely and which the then present Age will plead something for Confirmant quidem praedicta potestatem Ecclesiasticam sed Dominum regant tribuunt autoritatem non jurisdictionem admonere hortari consolari deprecari docere praedicare Sacramenta ministrare cum charitate arguere increpare obsecrare certissimis Dei promissis spem in Deo augere gravibus Scripturarum comminationibus a vitiis deterrere eorum sit Proprium qui Apostolis succedunt quibus etiam dictum est quorum remiseritis peccata c. Leges autem poenae judicia coerciones sententiae caetera hujusmodi Caesarum Regum aliarum Potestatum but surely all these are Laws too and have real Penalties if our Saviour himself be a Law-giver and have Autority and do oblige the unwilling only they break in sunder the bonds of Duty on whose Truth these their Admonitions Increpations c. are to be founded by whose Virtue the Sacraments have their Influence and the Power of retaining is executed unless the Pains of Hell are only painted or have no force because not inflicted so soon as denounced there is a Dominion sure goes along with Christ's Kingdom too accompanying his Ordinances only 't is not by the Rules and with the Consequents of the other Jurisdictions of the World and on this account Men have been so unwary as not to discern it to speak against it or unwilling to speak plainly out concerning it a mistake has been observed in others and 't is here pretty aged but 't is most sure and certain this 't is most plain and conspicuous the whether Potestas or dominium autoritas or jurisdictio as they distinguish Power or Dominion Autority or Jurisdiction that is allow'd to be Ecclesiastical is no where in the Treatise attributed to Kings to those that have Secular Dominion this is only eorum qui Apostolis succedunt theirs that succeed the Apostles The second Part is De potestate Regiâ where first the Divine Right of Kings is asserted and then their Power in the Church or over-spiritual things where their Right of Investiture is declared from Gen. 47. and the Priests received their Benefices from them as also over the Power and Persons of the
or to attrectate any thing which is meerly of the Sacerdotal Power as are Leiturgies Sermons the Keys and Sacraments Kings six the Ark in its place those afterwards touch it whose care it is by the receiving the Office of their Ministry and though Solomon's dedication of the Temple implyes something extraordinary yet he denies it to reach to any thing in the Temple which is Sacerdotal sed neque in iis quae sunt pontisicalis muneris regi jus facimus We give the King a right to do no Office which is the Priests semel autem habe sententiam nostram it is a thing so often said by our Doctors that he is a weary ita coccyzare of the Cuckow tone and speaking it so over and over again nos non regi potestatem tribuimus quam habere voluit Osias solam illam quam Josias habuit we do not give to our King the Power of Osias as Tortus says we do but the Power alone of Josias all this and more is to be seen in Tortura Torti from pag. 363 to pag. 370. nor is there any thing more on his side in the responsio ad Bellarminum cap. 1. and to these he refers the Reader so shameless is he in his Quotations and he must first slatter himself into a belief that the pointing of his finger from the Margin is direction and autority enough and supersedes all farther Inquiry Nor is he less disingenuous in his dealings with the Bishop when he there says that he corrected Grotius de sum Potest in Sacr. c. for the Press when Andrews over-rul'd him that he printed it not and it was at last but a posthumous Work So that unless Arch-Bishop Whitgift be an Erastian because Mr. Selden once in his Library at Lambeth saw Erastus's Works neatly bound up in yellow Leather with this Motto in Gold upon the out-side of it Intus quam extra formosior as he tells us and 't is his chief Argument de Syned lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 437. he is like to go without a Doctor in the Church of England on his side for ought I know or as he knew either for he seldom misses a Name that bears but the likelyhood of an Autority hav ' y' any Work for a Cooper I remember makes it the serious part of that scandalous Libel to upbraid our Church and Church-men that the Prince makes them Bishops and Presbyters and their Religion is what the worldly Power pleases with a deal of stuff to that purpose I know not now where that Pamphlet is and 't is not worth searching after though the Author might be a Doctor for ought I know I am only sure he was not a Doctor of our Church Or unless the Lord Falkland turned Doctor as he might deserve it by the larger Character Mr. Dean of Canterbury gives of him joyn'd with Mr. Chillingworth as I remember in the Preface to his first Book of Sermons and then Mr. Selden is secure of one of his side and we of an adversary from within our selves though he impleads us in a different way owns it for our Judgment and states it very well abating some malicious Terms and ranks it among those abundance more Grievances of the Nation and the placing this together with those other is as great an honor he could have done us that we have evidently labour'd to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery equally absolute a blind obedience of the People upon the Clergy and the Clergy upon themselves and inveighs against them altogether according to the then zealous and modish way in that very ill Speech of his to the House of Commons 1641. I 'le repeat part of it as I find it transcribed and printed by a very good friend of his and one that seems to honor him as much as Doctor Tillotson does Mr. Speaker he is a great stranger in Israel who knows not that this Kingdom hath long laboured under many and great Oppressions both in Religion and Liberty and his Acquaintance here is not great or his Ingenuity less who doth not know and acknowledg that a great if not a principal Cause of both these hath been some Bishops and their Adherents Mr. Speaker a little will serve to find them to have been the destruction of Unity under pretence of Uniformity to have brought in Superstition and Scandal under the Titles of Reverence and Decency to have defiled our Churches to have slackned the stictness of that Union which was formerly betwixt us and those of our Religion beyond the Sea an Action as unpolitick as ungodly As Sir Thomas Moor says of the Casuists their business was not to keep Men from sinning but to inform them quà m prope ad peccatum sine peccato liceat accedere So it seemed their Work meaning the Prelates was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves into danger of being destroy'd by Law Mr. Speaker to go yet farther some of them have so industriously labour'd to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspicion that in gratitude they desire to return thither or at last to meet it half way Some have evidently labour'd to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery I mean not the out-side of it only and dress of it but equally absolute a blind Obedience of the People upon the Clergy and the Clergy upon themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the Water nay common fame is more than ordinarily false if none of them have found a way to reconcile the Opinions of Rome to the Preferments of England be so absolutely directly and cordial Papists that it is all 1500 l per Annum can do to keep them from confessing it We shall find them to have both kindled and blown the common fire of both Nations to have both sent and maintained that Book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero Vtinam nescirem literas and of which more than one Kingdom hath cause to wish that when he writ that he had rather burn'd a Library though of the value of Ptolemey's We shall find them to have been the first and principal Author of the Breach I will not say of but since the Pacification at Barwick we shall find them to have been almost sole Abetters of my Lord Strafford whilst he was practising upon another Kingdom that manner of Government he intended to settle in this where he committed so many so mighty and so manifest Enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governor in any Government since Verres left Sicily and after they had call'd him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England all things here being govern'd by a Juntillo and that Juntillo governed by him to have assisted him in giving such Counsels and the pursuing such Courses
If the Jesuit do let him look to it Christianity is not in fault An entring into or renewing the Covenant at the Font or Altar is no Encroachment on the but Justice of Peace in the Neighborhood Sect. 43. Excommunication and other Censures change no Mans Condition as to this World they have no force but in relation to known Duties Prudence is to rule in the Execution particular regard to be had to Princes Whatever is Coercive annexed is from the Prince Lay-Judges Chancellors c. when first granted by the Empire upon the Bishops Petition The same is Absolution neither innovate in Civil Affairs Sect. 44. Conciliary Acts invade no more than does the Gospel it self That Canons have had the precedency of the Law is by the savour of Princes a Council without local meeting Letters Missive Sect. 45. Ordaining others no more prejudicial to the Crown than the former acts This is Mr. Hobbe's Misapprehension Sect. 46. CHAP. V. THe grand Objection out of Mr. Hobbes If these two Powers command the same Person at the same time inconsistent Performances it arises from that false Principle that all Power is outward Sect. 1. This infers equally against the Laws of God and which may and do sometimes thus interfere are as difficultly reconcileable with the State Acts. No Church Laws oblige against Natural Duty The Laws of Religion considered at large in order to a clearer Solution Sect. 2. Mr. Hobbe's Rule will Answer all Consider what is and what is not necessary to Eternal Salvation Sect. 3. The same is the Rule of the Ancient Fathers Sect. 4. If Mr. Hobbes his Faith and Obedience be all that is Necessary 't is then easily determined because to obey only the Soveraign Sect. 5. Dr. Tillotson his Sermon of Love and Peace to his Yorkshire Countreymen not to be Vindicated from being herein of Hobbe's Judgment in what he Dissents from him No Church-Power since Miracles ceased according to Mr. Dean Sect. 6. The Gospel calls for Confession and Obedience in Opposition to though not in Contempt of Princes to the hazard of all So the best Christians the worst of Hereticks only Simon Magus Basilides c. did otherwise Sect. 7. For a full Answer the Laws of Religion are to be ranked under Three general Heads They are Arbitrary and Humane Arbitrary and Divine Necessary and Divine Sect. 8. Laws Arbitrary and Humane though never losing their Sanction yet cease in some Cases in the Execution As when the Empire gave Indulgencies beside the Canon Sect. 9. The Civil Injunction does not immediately oblige the Christian in these Cases The Church has her own Power never to be yielded up Ceremonies not the main thing Sect. 10. Not to be changed with our Clothes That Worship which is best not to be foregone only to yield to what is always Necessary The Case of the Asiaticks about Easter Sect. 11. Especially in our Church of England Sect. 12. Least of all are our Mutinies and Factions our even weakness a Ground for Change Sect. 13. Laws Arbitrary and Divine cease in some instances as to Practice the Advantage of Afflictions A good Christian always a good Subject the Empire still gave Rules and Limits in the Exercise of these Positive Duties Sect. 14. To submit and cease as to particular Practice upon the lawful Command of the Magistrate is not the Case in Doctor Tillotson's Sermon to give up the Institution to him If commanding a false Worship I am to withstand him 'T is no Hypocrisie though I go not into immediately and there Preach the same in Spain Mr. Dean's unheard of Notion of Hypocrisie in what Case the Magistrate is serviceable to promote the Faith Sect. 15. The last sort of Laws both Necessary and Divine are never to cease in any one Instance or under what Circumstances soever either as to their Right or Practice I am never to do any one Immorality always to own and profess the Cross of my Saviour Sect. 16. The great Goodness of God in giving such a Subordination of Duties that the end of each may be answer'd in enjoyning nothing absolutely necessary to Heaven but what is in our Power that no Contingencies of this World can take from us our Eternity a Reward we can never miss of without our own Faults Sect. 17. CHAP. VI. The Contents The last general of the Discourse Sect. 1. What the Autority of our particular Church and Kingdom is in this Controversie where not Apostolical and Primitive there not obliging Their Doctrine Laws and Practice all along on our side Sect. 2. The People are only Testimonies of the Manners of such as are to be Ordained in our Book of Ordination Sect. 3. No Autority in any but those of the Priesthood to Ordain Excommunicate c. as in our Rubricks Articles c. Sect. 4. Our Kings claim'd it not in their Acts Declarations c. in the days of Henry VIII in the Act of Submission He is declared a Lay-man nothing in Religion made Law but by him He defends Religion His Power as the Supreme Governor of the Church Is called Worldly and Secular Sect. 5 6 7 8. Of King Edward VI. That the Bishops were to use not their own as formerly but his Name and Seal in their Processes c. implies no such thing Sect. 9. Of Queen Elizabeth King James Sect. 10 11. The King and Church distinct Powers in our Statute Book Our Kings now have but the same Power the Empire of old and their Predecessors before the Reformation had If our Religion be Parliamentary that anciently was Imperial Sect. 12. Mr. Selden says the Parliament of England both can and has actually Excommunicated and the Bishops Power is derived only from them Sect. 13. The Acts of Parliament he produces V. VI. Edw. VI. Cap. IV. III. Jacobi Cap. V. infer it not Sect. 14. Nor do those of II. III. Edw. VI. Cap. 1. Elizabethae Cap. II. that the Prince limits Excommunications in the Execution is not against the Divine Right of them His Instances in the Rump Parliament Geneva The Parliament of Scotland III. Jacob. VI. Cap. XLV are all against him Sect. 15. Archbishop Whitgift is not proved to have Licensed Erastus his Works for the Press that they were found in his Study is no Argument he was an Erastian if Licensed by the Autority of the Nation no Evidence that his Doctrines were then owned Sect. 16. Our own Doctors of the same Opinion with us instances in two of them Sect. 17. Bishop Bilson St. Ambrose one of Doctor Tillotson's Hypocrites A private Liberty of Conscience not enough a false Religion to be declared against though by Autority abetted Mr. Dean gives advantage to the Papists Calumny That our Religion is only that of our Prince Sect. 18. Bishop Sanderson his particular Judgment concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacy Sect. 19. Mr. Selden objects again that our own Doctors and Writers are all on the other side The particular Authors each reckon'd up He
perverts and abuses them all Sect. 20. The two Vniversities in their Opus Eximium c. in the Reign of Henry VIII 1534. altogether against him Sect. 21. Stephen Bishop of Winchester Orat. de vera Obedientia is of the same Mind and so is Richard Sampson Dean of the Chappel to Henry VIII in an Oration to this purpose Sect. 22. The Papers in the Cottonian Library seem the same with Dr. Stillingsleet's M. SS in his Irenicum Both he and Dr. Burnet unfaithful in the Printing of it Dr. Durell's account of it Archbishop Cranmer with the Bishops and Doctors engaged in our first Reformation were not Erastians from the account given of them in his Church History by Dr. Burnet Less Discretion in Printing such Papers nor is their Autority really to be any thing Sect. 23. Mr. Selden is shameless in quoting Bishop Andrews who determines all along against him Those Laws that Protect the Church must in course inspect their Actions The Bishop disswaded Grotius from Printing his Book De Imperio summarum Potestatum in Sacris Ha' y' any Work for a Cooper is indeed of Mr. Selden's side and the Lord Falkland His very ill Speech in the House of Commons 1641. His Pulpit Law and Derision of the Divine Right of Kings as well as of the Church He and such like Speech-makers Promoters of the late Rebellion affronts both to King and Priest design'd at once when the Crown is entitled to the Priesthood Sect. 24. Archbishop Bancroft Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson under the Suspition of Erastianism Accused as such by Robert Parker de Politeia Ecclesiastica a Malicious Schismatick made use of still against our Church by Dailee against Ignatius his Epistles by Doctor Stillingfleet in his Irenicum Our Bishops and Doctors are not against the Divine immutable Right of Bishops as Doctor Stillingfleet mistook out of Parker and reports them to be Satisfaction may justly be required of him for it Sect. 25. The Writings of the best Men how they may be mistaken as of Justin Martyr The first Council of Nice St. Jerome concerning Chastity and Episcopacy Bishop Cranmer and our first Reformers Bishop Whitgift Bancroft and Bilson The Point was at first only the Bishop of Rome's Supremacy A secular title only no Characteristical mark then betwixt the Protestant and Papist The Lay-Elders in their Consistory set up after this as Popes in his room These our Bishops warmth was exercised against whatever indiscretion in laying the Argument The Power of the Prince and the Priest are still contra-distinguished Kings are not Governors next and immediately under Christ as the Mediator The mistake of many in their Pulpit Prayer Our Kings and Church do not thence derive their Power nor so claim it in their Acts Statutes Declarations Articles c. in the forms of bidding Prayer by Queen Elizabeth and King James c. of ill consequence if they do Doctor Hammond's Autority Sect. 26. Particular Doctors not the Rule in Religion The several ways by which Error comes into the World Julian's Plot to destroy Christianity How Pelagius managed his Heresie by Rich and Potent Women by feigned Autorities of great Men. Liberius of Rome and Hosius comply with Arianism wearied with Persecutions Theodosius his Doctores Probabiles Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 1. l. l. 2 3. A Catalogue of some Books Printed for Benj. Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard Folio HErodoti Halicarnassei Historiarum Libri ix Gr. Lat. Suarez de Legibus ac Deo Legislatore Bishop Bramhall's Works Walsh's History of the Irish Remonstrance A Collection of all the Statutes of Ireland Wiseman's Chirurgical Treatises Baker's Chronicle of England with the Continuation Judge Winche's Book of Entries Skinneri Etymologieon Linguae Anglicanae M. T. Ciceronis Opera notis Gruteri cum Indicibus 2. Vol. Heylyn's Cosmography in Four Books Mathaei Paris Historia Bishop Sanderson's Sermons The Paralel or the New Specious Association an Old Rebellious Covenant A Vindication of the Loyal Abhorrers The Trials of the Lord Russell c. And of Algernon Sidney Braddon Speke John Hamden Esq Sir Sam. Bernardiston Titus Otes the Rioters at Guildhall Daniel's History of England with Trussell's Continuation Quarto A Brief Account of Ancient Church Government The true Widow a Comedy by T. Shadwell Dumoulin's Vindication of the Protestant Relegion Phocena or the Anatomy of a Porpess Wroe's Sermon at Preston Sept. 4. 1682. at the Funeral of Sir Roger Bradshaigh 1684. Allen's Sermon of Perjury Gregory's Works Dodwell of Schism Octavo Dodwell's two Letters of Advice Considerations of Concernment Reply to Mr. Baxter Discourse of One Priesthood and One Altar Descartes Metaphysicks English Evelyn of Navigation and Commerce Wetenhall of the Gifts and Offices in the Worship of God Catechism Langhornii Chronicon Regum Anglorum The French Gardiner The Country Parson's Advice Boyle's Noctiluca Dodwell's two Discourses against the Romanists 12 o. Aesopi Fabulae Gr. Lat. 12 o. The Author's distance from the Press has occasioned some Errors in the Printing especially in the Pointing which the Reader is desired to correct and the following Errata ERRATA PAg. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 83. l. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 109. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 191. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 262. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 267. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 268. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 277. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 288. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 304. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 378. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 43. in for ni p. 163. ausa for ausus put out non ibid. p. 181. line last Tit. 45. deest p. 253. conserisse for comperisse his for hi ibid. p. 258. Amoybeyms for Amoybeums p. 478. Dominum for Dominicam p. 500. Christiani for Christi pag. 28. une quarte to be put out p. 81. l. 12. Assent for assert p. 187. l. ult put out but to Princes something is more due then at other times p. 190. l. 8. put out which p. 231. l. 11. belief for unbelief p. 287. l. 18. Episcopale for Episcopate p. 380. l. 23. decided for derided p. 396. l. 6. so for to p. 440. l. 12. inroding the Errors for inroding the Crown p. 350. l. 18. titles for tithes OF THE SUBJECT OF Church Power In whom it Resides It s Force Extent and Execution that it Opposes not Civil Government in any one Instance of it The Introduction The Contents The Occasion
only Regnante Christo and the Reign of the Empire is left out though it do no ways infer and prove that all Empire is originally in Christ both as to Spirituals and Seculars and that he that is his Succession the Church has the disposal of the Kingdoms of the World too Primarily and Originally in him as some zealous Parasites of the Roman Faith thence it seems have inferr'd and against whom the main Plot of D. Blondel in this his Book is laid and very well yet this it infers and evidently proves That our Saviour and his Succession the Church have been always supposed to have had a Kingdom in the World not to supplant and overturn to usurp and encroach upon but to bless that other of the World to render it Prosperous on Earth and by her holier Laws and Discipline to bring all to the Kingdom of Heaven when the Reign on Earth is at an end But this D. Blondel could not or would not see himself and therefore a thing too usual with him runs into the opposite extreme to his Adversaries is angry when this very Church-Power and its existence of which himself gives so evident a Demonstration is asserted solitary and not in the Empire as no ways flowing and included in its Constitution as the other will have no Empire but from and in the Church so hard a matter is it for some Men to contend for Truth and against the Church of Rome at once and as has above been observed but these Oversights if no worse are usual with him 't is like his ill luck in other cases § XVIII AND he that duly consults and considers the sundry Proceedings and Laws and judiciary Acts of the Empire about Church-Matters either as interspersed in our Church Histories or as Collected and United in the two Codes the Theodosian and Justinian in their several Laws Novels and Constitutions will readily grant all this and more that the Church and State the Worldly or Secular and Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Power were still consider'd reputed and proceeded on as quite distinct Bodies and Powers though both flowing from the same Original and Fountain yet as diverse as the Soul and Body with several Offices and Duties on each incumbent in different Channels convey'd and all aiming at the great and ultimate end the general advantage of Mankind and each individual both with their faces to the same Jerusalem but in several Paths and Determinations judiciary in order to it Hee 'l find that as the Church the Councils and Bishops were ever Conscientious and Industrious that they entrenched not on the Empire withheld not from it what was its due usurped not any thing was not their own paid all manner of Observances to Kings and Secular Governors in all manner of Duties as Prayers Thanksgiving Instructions Directions Admonitions Tribute Loyalty c. So again did the Empire preserve their Functions Persons and Estates give them Liberties Enfranchisements Protestations unless where Apostates as Julian where overmuch favouring Heresies as some time Constantius c. countenanced and provided for Truth and Holiness and sound Discipline according to the Rules Canons Directions Interpretations and Determinations given by the Bishops assembled in Council or occasionally otherways made and recommended unto them the Church still Petitioned and Supplicated the Empire when by the Affronts and Insolencies the greater Impieties and Obstinacies of the World the edge of their Spiritual Sword was dulled and blunted when Coercive outward Punishments alone could hope to prevail for Peace and Amendment of this we have several Instances upon Record as for the deposing Dioscorus in Evagrius his Ecclesiastical History l. 2. c. 4. in placing Proclus in the Episcopal Throne Socrat. Hist Eccl. lib. 7. cap. 4. which was immediately by Theodosius Maximinianus the defuncts Body being not yet laid in the Ground to prevent the Tumults of the People To this purpose we have the Case of one Cresconius a Bishop who left his own and invaded another's Church and upon a remand from the Council refusing to return the President of the Country is Petitioned and his Secular arm which alone has a Coercive Power over Mens Persons sends him back again according to the Constitutions Imperial Concil Carthag Can. 52. just such another Case as that of Paulus Samosetanus in the days of Aurelian the Emperor above-mentioned and the course of Proceedings we see is the same now as then both in Church and State as that Laws may be made to restrain such as were fled to the Church for refuge Can. 60. that the Riot and Excess be taken away on their Festivals which drew Men to Gentilism again by the obscener Practices and which were without shame and beyond Modesty Can. 65 66. that the Secular Power would come in eò quod Episcoporum autoritas incivitatibus contemnitur because the Power of the Bishops is contemn'd in the Cities Can. 70. ut Ecclesiae opem ferat to assist the Church against these Impieties so strenuous and prevailing Can. 78. as in the Case of the unrulier Donatists Can. 95 96. and the Thanks of the Bishops were given for their Ejection Can. 97. and the Emperor is Petitioned to grant Defensors to the Church Can. 10.109 and as the Church thus supplicated the Empire in these arduous Cases and when its assistance was wanting so on the other side did the Empire still advise with the Church when designing to make Religion the Municipal Law of the Empire to imbody it with the World under the same Sanctions either as to Punishments or Rewards to make it the Religion of the State also they still consulted antecedent Canons or present Bishops in Council or some Ecclesiastical Autority they created nothing anew gave the help of the World for Countenance Assistance and Confirmation to stablish what the Church had put its Sanction upon And those Emperors that designed to discountenance Christianity or set up some particular Heresie and stifle it in part or depose any great Church-men and some such there was they attempted it not but by the Clergy though of their own the Power as in themselves alone was not pretended to they had their own Synods and Bishops in order to it and what they did was done in their Names also and all this will readily appear to any one acquainted with the Canons of the Church and Laws of the Empire or if it seem too hard a task he 'l find it at least attempted to his hand and with Care and Industry reduced to a little room by Photius Patriarch of Constantinople in his Book therefore called the Nomo-Canon to shew the concurrency of the Laws and Canons the Canons still placed first as in course anteceding And in this sense only that of Socrates can be understood in the Proem to his Fifth Book of Ecclesiastical History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reges viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So soon as Kings began to be Christians the things of the Church were managed and accomplished
by them By which things what is there intended and what the Power came into the Empires hand by becoming Christian the next words of the Historian clears making the Instance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the greatest Synods were by their Appointment Summoned and still are so I 'le bring here some instances of the Power and Procedure of the Empire in Church Businesses to render all more conspicuous if possible § XIX AND the first shall be this of Calling Synods just now mentioned the giving leave to Church-men to meet and unite in one Body in a certain place of the Empire limited to them Publickly to enquire examine debate and determine in Religion in which Councils if the Emperor himself was not present in Person he deputed some chief Minister of State there to represent him Thus Constantine himself sat in Person in the Case of Cecilianus and the Donatists Miltiades and the Bishop of Rome and the Clergy debating it as St. Austin tells us lib. 1. cont Parmen Donatist and Flavius Marcellinus is deputed afterwards by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius in a Collation of that Nature as a Secular Cognitor and Supervisor 16. Cod. Theodos Lex 3. Tit. 11. they exercised a Power and Cognizance over all Persons in these Causes and Meetings they were then their Subjects as before and whom they commanded and though such Members were obliged at the Summons of the Bishops themselves and by consent among one another to be present at the Council to come in and appear there Can. 80. Concil Carthag yet the Emperor retain'd a Power above them and they might be absent altogether or depart after they had appeared if the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his Letters required it Concil Sardicens Can. 7. they had a Power over the very Causes themselves in these Conciliary Clerical Debates and Determinations and were Judges here If all that was determined seem'd not duly reported or adjusted every ways clear and plain unto them if scruples and doubts notwithstanding remain if new matter proposed and adjudged considerable by the adverse Parties De Clericis judicantibus Praesidet Imperator ipse prout malè vel benè Judicat 16. Cod. Theodos l. 42. Tit. 2. and which Law though instancing in some Immunities as to Publick Secular things yet holds in other Decisions So Constantine heard the Cause of Cecilianus and the Donatists a second time when the Bishops had heard it before and Myltiades of Rome was there as above in St. Austin And it was the suit of the Bishops in the Council of Chalcedon that it might be decreed by a Law that all things at Ephesus since the first Synod there of which St. Cyril of Alexandria was Chief should not retain any force implying it in his Power to revise and reconsider and he may reexamine the Actions of Councils Compend Act. Synod Chalced. apud Evagrium Eccl. Hist l. 2. cap. 18. And Petrus de Marca gives us several instances of the like nature of Appeals made to the Empire upon the results of Councils and he accepted them De Concord Sacerd. Imper. l. 7. c. 2. that the Emperor had directed and limited in what Points and how far to proceed calling Councils only for particular occasions as De Marca Ibid. lib. 6. c. 22. and all this the Security of the Empire required in the common course of things that no Men imbody or unite locally upon any Plea whatever or Pretence of what Business soever and not by his Warrant under his Oversight and Protection whose Designation and Commissions come not from him and all which Christianity supposes and declared for upon its admission into the World and Kingdoms imbracing of it it appoints every Man wherein he was called there to abide if a state of Honesty and Justice not of that filthiness sometimes reign'd among the Gentiles and many times had a Chief Place in what they called Religious Worship this Christianity was designed to rectifie and remove but continue to Caesar the things that are Caesar's adds new Obligations to Government and gives new Arguments for Obedience to it but cancels no one takes no one subject in any one instance from under his Jurisdiction nor can any Governor be secure upon other terms that has so many Persons so considerable as so many Professors are or at least may be with Power to associate in his Jurisdictions as they shall please and when and not in all instances relating to such their imbodying his Subjects or though if not able to meet without his Call yet when together and not under his Inspection and Jurisdiction not Govern'd by his Rules and Laws with a Power to canvass and unhinge to insinuate and propose and manage as they shall list and how long in Ordine ad Spiritualia if they judge it useful to Religion This is the same in effect as to meet at their Wills no Government can bear it can subsist on such conditions all must or may at the Pleasure or Piques of such the associated be undermined and ruined Again the Empire is engaged as to preserve the Laws of the Church then in being so that in making new ones those the old be not entrenched upon and affronted or that the repeals be upon equitable accounts and agreeable with the Catholick Faith certainly received with former Sanctions of either their Ancestry or their own and these we find the Rules and Directions given by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius to Flavianus Marcellinus their Secular Cognitor in the Debates about the Donatists Ea quae circa fidem Catholicam vel certa ordinavit antiquitas vel Parentum nostrorum autoritas Religiosa constituit vel nostra Serenitas roboravit Novella Superstitione remotâ inviolata custodire praecipimus suprà Cod. Theodos 16. Tit. 11. l. 3. and indeed it were an Imposition not to be indured in common Business betwixt one man and another when but a private Consent Confirmation and Autority is desired to deny liberty of Enquiring Demurring Discoursing or Debating or whatsoever may seem best to tend to Information as to particulars and then how insufferable if not allow'd the Prince when supplicated and call'd in by the Church to make Laws give the Royal Assent Stamp and Character and Protection to their Results and Determinations and which otherwise must want the edge and advantage of it and not upon a freedom to consider former Laws and Canons made and ratified with future inconveniences that may happen this were indeed to make Princes Lacqueys Hackneys or what vile and mean enough we can say to the Church to debase them into the order of Ideots or Pageants all true Church-men in their Offers and Proceedings have started at and abhorr'd it But then we are to note farther that when the Emperors appear'd in Councils whether themselves in Person or by their Proxies and Substitutes the most Politick and Prudent the more Acute and Ingenious as Theodosius or any other they acted there
believe that every one that reads his Book is sworn to his Name and Words could possibly have produced them The Emperor only there takes care that Excommunication be according to the Church Canons suitably as Ecclesiastici hoc Canones fieri jubent in the Nomocanon the formal Power and Act is always supposed to be in and to be done by the Bishop or Priest if the Bishop or Presbyter Excommunicate otherwise than as the Canons enjoyn the Person so Excommunicated is to be absolved by another Bishop or Presbyter who has the inspection of them à Majore Sacerdote in the Novel and that Bishop or Presbyter that did the wrong is to be censured by the Bishop under whose Inspection or in whose district he is and lye under the Mulct at his Pleasure nor is there one word sounds that way that the Emperor did Excommunicate Nor can the Emperor with any more shew of reason be said to pass the formal Sentence of Excommunication by taking care and making Provision that it be done according to the Laws and Canons of the Church than he can be said to make Articles of Faith and determine in the high Points of the Trinity for which he appoints that the first Council at Nicea shall be the Rule and often enacts and resolves it shall be so explain'd and believed and professed accordingly as in that Council He may as well be said to make Creeds which he enjoyns to be done but by the Patriarchs and Bishops and the particular Faith to be professed by them or to Baptize for which Directions are given especially about Re-baptization and he judges him unfit for the Priesthood that does it Cod. Justinian l. 1. Tit. 6. Ne Baptismus iteretur he may no otherwise be said to Excommunicate than to obstruct Conversion or hinder Repentance and yet 't is the Imperial Edict against and Punishment upon Apostates Nè unquam in Pristinum statum revertentur nè flagitium morum obliterabitur Poenitentiâ Cod. 16. Theodos Tit. 6. l. 1. that they are never to return to their ancient state that the vileness of their Manners be never blotted out by Repentance intimating only the greatness of the Sin and the height of his indignation against them or that he did publickly officiate in his own Person in the daily Sacrifices because he takes care for a just Performance of the publick Liturgies and Services and when he declares against Oaths and Blasphemies that the guilt is not antecedent and from another Sanction Novel 78. and to put an end to these like instances that he Ordains in Person and makes Priests by whom so many Laws and Rules and Limitations and Qualifications are set and appointed as is above to be seen But as for this last instance Mr. Selden has found out so handsom an expedient for the Original of Holy Orders otherways and thereby renders them so accidentally trifling inconsiderable a thing that he answers his aim evacuates and baffles so effectually all Church-Power and indeed upon his Hypothesis so inconsiderable a thing it is that a Church-man would not desire it upon such terms much less is it a Prerogative fit for a King a Jewel for the embellishing the Crown Imperial so that he needs not contend to have this in the Magistrate as he doth the Church Censures He tells us De Synedriis lib. 1. cap. 14. pag. 569 570 571. and lib. 2. cap. 7. pag. 313 314 c. That Holy Orders has no more in it than an imitation of that particular School wherein St. Paul was educated under Gamaliel where it was usual for one that had arrived to a degree of Eminence above others as that of a Doctor to appoint and send out others under and after him And so St. Paul did in the managery of his Apostleship But did our Saviour also take this great Example of Gamaliel's School in his Eye when he sent forth his Twelve and Seventy or was it from his particular Education in some such place he took his Autority and Platform or did the Holy Ghost do the lâ—ke when placing Overseers in that Church which Christ had Purchased with his own Blood was not as the Purchase that of his own Blood so the Power by which he gathered and established it that All Power in Heaven and Earth first given unto him peculiar and extraordinary or did St. Paul himself say it was from Gamaliel's School or from the Will of any Man or from the Will of God he received his Apostleship himself and thereby had a Power to depute others as Timothy and Titus And surely unless his bare fiction of Story and Eutopian Plot must go for Truth and without any search and enquiry there can be nought in it to engage any assent or adherency unto it it is so precarious a begg'd thing that only those that deserve to be begg'd themselves can believe it and Mr. Selden doubtless pleased himself mightily to think how many fools it would meet with and he was sure of others of as ill a mind and design with himself to tread under foot the Ministry when it was down that it rise no more especially at that time when he wrote at least laid the contrivance of those his Tracts De Synedriis when the Sword of the Libertine alone bore rule and he took the advantage of it Nor has any one reason to believe that he bore better Will to the King than to the Church for he was a Member of that Rebellious Parliament of Forty Two and continued actually amidst them and bore a special sway in their Traiterous Actings and however his Pretence was That all Church-Power as from Christ was an Imposture and invading the Prerogative of the Crown it was in reality only to serve his Parliamentary Designs to take away the chief Support of the Crown that Church which mostly upheld it and 't was a sadder Sight yet to see it not only the usual fate of common Subjects but the Case of the greatest Prince then in Europe to be first stript of his Crown and Kingly Power to be made and publish'd a Bankrupt in the State lost as to his worldly Imployments and then made a Priest to have only the Power and Benefit of his Clergy remaining in and confirm'd unto him § XXIV THE sum of all is this The Empire it self never made any thing Law that related to the Church but what was first made Canon by the Church it self and those Powers always took their Direction from Church-men either in full Council or from the Practice of particular Churches or eminent Bishops of the Christian World and superadded their own Sanctions put under it their Secular Arm adjoyn'd their Autority to support and stablish them all those Directions to the several Patriarchs Exarchs Primates and Metropolitans were only to see their own Results at Councils practiced all the Edicts Laws Novels and Constitutions were first Church-Law and then the Law of the Empire receiv'd into the World and imbodied
with it and all the Injunctions Rules Directions and Limitations we there meet withal were Rule before only the outward Penal Coercive part which Power the Church never had never pretended to was conjoyned with them for the surer more due Execution even where the Empire was inclined to Heresie as sometimes it was their own Bishops and Councils were first call'd and consulted their Advice and Directions followed What was purely Secular the Emperor 's own and of himself was his Grace and Royal Favour in condescending and yielding to the Church's Determinations and the many Immunities he invested their Persons withal were all his own choice as it was to be a Christian no Power besides could none attempted to force it upon him none ever made Canons but Church-men that is Rules purely relating to the Church of God only the Prince has the outward Coercive Power by force and bodily present Penalties to constrain and compel their Execution Or where Princes assumed of their own devices as particular Extravagant Actions still have been and will be again nor do they amount to the breaking a general Rule the Church still so far opposed as to remonstrate upon the encroachment to assert their Supreme Power as from Christ although they suffer for it and after Emperors have altogether voided them This I have already made good in part and it will farther appear from the several Emperors Concessions Acknowledgments and Declarations to the World that none but bare open foreheads to any thing dare gainsay it HONORIVS and Theodosius the Emperors § XXV make Laws and imbody in the Empire what Canons they found made and if any farther Doubts arise they are to be reserved Sancto judicio for the Holy Judgment of the most Reverend Patriarch of Constantinople as Supreme in Religion and to the Convention of the Clergy Cod. Justinian l. 1. Tit. 2. Lex 6. and which he transcribed out of the Theodosian Cod. 16. Tit. l. 45. and by receiving into his own confirmed Valentinianus and Marcian make void all Pragmatick Sanctions which by Favour or Ambition were gained against the Ecclesiastical Canons 1. lib. Tit. 12. l. 1. Zeno calls it the state of Tyranny where there is Innovations against the Church and its setled Constitutions he calls the times wicked and those Laws and Constitutions impious and confirms all the Priviledges his Royal Predecessors had granted to Holy Church Lex 16. ibid. 'T is Decreed that all the Canons or Holy Ecclesiastical Rules made by the Four first General Councils obtain the force of a Law Novel 131. cap. 1. Nor can we think that the Christian Empire could do less when these very Canons are esteemed by them as the Holy Scriptures ibid. Novel 131. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God himself directing the Speakers of them As Leo the Emperor of the Canons in General Constitut 2. ad finem Novel and which Expressions though they might be over extravagant yet it shews to the World how the Emperors thought of the Autority and Canons of the Church what a Precedency they gave unto them Justinian openly speaks it and calls them Sacras Divinas Regulas Holy and Divine Laws Quas etiam nostrae sequi non dedignantur leges and that himself in framing his Laws does not disdain to follow them and which he Commands his Praefectus Praetorio to make known by Publication to the whole World Epilog ibid. and Novel 6. Epilog what he enjoyns all Patriarchs Metropolitans Bishops and Clergy under a civil Punishment if not observing it is only what Church-men had before appointed 't is all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by virtue and in observancy of the Sacred Canons foregoing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Judgment of the Empire concurs with that of the Church adding Nerves and Autority to its Predeterminations and what to the Church seemed most convenient Novel 42. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zeno Imperator Constitut 9. when the Patriarch of Constantinople required of the said Emperor Zeno that it might by the Law of the Empire be determined concerning the time of Baptizing Children and resolved him that he might do it without a formal Council which to call together to consult only about one Point might be inconvenient being directed as to the particular Matter the Emperor yielded to him but told withal the Patriarch Such things were to proceed from the Church and not originally from him and that in Holy Matters his Holiness ought to pass the Sanction Constitut 17. and if in these lesser things and Circumstantials much more in the weightiest Church-Matters as Abstentions Excommunications Depositions is the Church to be followed are her Determinations and Judicial Acts to precede and so they did Among all the Temporal Punishments upon Hereticks and Schismaticks none was inflicted till by the Councils and Bishops rejected the Clerk that is unfaithful in his Office the Bishop is commanded first to depose him and then follows the Secular Judgment as in the Theodosian Code supra ultimum Supplicium a farther Punishment succeeds and which Dionysius Gothofred interprets to be Death in his Notes upon Cod. Justinian lib. 1. Tit. lib. 3.3 though I cannot assent to him in that finding no Sanguinary Laws in those Cases with many more of the like Nature which we have already produced § XXVI AND now I think here is opportunity sufficient for Information to any one into whose hands these Papers shall come or that will receive it what the Church-Power is in it self and what the Power of the Empire in Religious Matters And particularly for Dr. Tillotson Dean of Canterbury who in his Sermon April 2. 1680. Pag. 11 12 on Joshua 24.15 has thus expressed himself And to speak freely in this Matter I cannot think till I be better informed which I am always ready to be that any Pretence of Conscience warrants any Man that is not extraordinarily Commissioned as the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel were and cannot justifie that Commission by Miracles as they did to Affront the Establisht Religion of a Nation though it be false and openly draw Men off from the Profession of it in Contempt of the Magistrate and Law all that Persons of a different Religion can in such a case reasonably Pretend to is to enjoy the Private and Exercise of their own Conscience and Religion for which they ought to be very thankful and to forbear the open making of Proselytes to their own Religion though they be never so sure that they are in the right till they have either an extraordinary Commission from God to that Purpose or the Providence of God make way for it by the Permission of the Magistrate That there has been always a Spiritual Ecclesiastical Power in the World as derived and received once by the Holy Ghost and not of Man so preserved and propagated devolved and continued from the same Fountain in order to the first great end for the support and continuance of the same Religion though the
Subject Ita tunc Deus supplebat id quod Magistratus Ecclesiae praestare debent tunc non Praestabant Grotius in 1 Cor. 4.21 Then God did supply what the Magistrates ought to have discharged and did not instancing in these very Punishments of Ananias and Saphira struck Dead of Elymas the Sorcerer struck Blind and of the Bodily Diseases sent out upon others Our Saviour Christ in his Life designed and contrived upon every occasion when any appearance that others should suspect him or when any apt opportunity to express and declare himself that he was neither to exempt himself from any instance of Subjection to his Governors nor exercise in any Case the Jurisdiction that was theirs and for this he Pays Tribute refuses to divide Inheritances nor did he invade any one private Person and we read of but one Colt that he commanded to be brought unto him to which as what was his Title we do not read so are we not told of any injury done by it nor of any Complaint made in the Streets on the occasion And his Death though pre-ordained in the fore determination of God for no one worldly end or design to serve no one Political Purpose but solely and altogether to satisfie for the Sins of Man to make compleat our Redemption yet it was ordered that the earthy Governors should have a Power given them from above for a legal Process and judicial Trial upon him he died in a course of Law and a Posture of Obedience to them And although it must be granted that some of the ancient Fathers and most eminent first Christians did Believe and Publish to the World that Christ should come again and reign upon Earth in his Person as Supreme Governor of all and his Saints with and by him in the independent full freedom use and advantage of the Goods of this World and of Sense that Jerusalem should be Rebuilt its Streets enlarged and inhabited by them So Justin Martyr Dialog cum Tryph. Jud. Irenaeus lib. 5. cont Heres c. 32. Tertul. lib. 3. cont Marcion c. 24. with Lactantius and others yet it amounted not to an Universal received Opinion of that Age. Justin Martyr acknowledges there were many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy and Pious in their Judgments which did not acknowledge it And Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History lib. 3. cap. 39. giving that slender account of its rise and original from Papias tells us that many but not all Ecclesiastical Writers led by a shew of the Antiquity assented unto it but yet this was not by any of them expected during this state of things on Earth and in the Regeneration Sed alio statu utpote post resurrectionem as Tertullian Tom. 4. inter fraâ—menta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr supra Ibid. Post Resurrectionem coram judicio terram possidebunt As Irenaeus Ibid. but not till after the Resurrection ante coelum before their Ascension into Heaven as Tertullian again Ibid. when all Rule and Autority and Power has had its just Time and Period upon Earth is put under foot alone by God it seeming just that in what condition they had laboured and been afflicted tried and proved by all manner of ways or Sufferings upon Earth they there receive the Reward and Fruit of such their Sufferings as Irenaeus ill argues in qua enim conditione laboraverunt sive afflicti sunt omnibus modis probati per sufferentiam justum est in eâ recipere fructus sufferentiae they cannot be conceived to have thoughts of either evading or invading the Civil Power which then was supposed to be none at all because after the Resurrection and of which during its time for continuance by God affixed they were the most Zealous Maintainers and Asserters as has been already shew'd So far do they erre from the Spirit of these first and eminent Christians who pretending to the same Millennium or reign upon Earth oppose and fight against their present Governors to hasten and effect it § X BUT then to argue on the other hand that because it was not the design of the Gospel to erect a Temporal Kingdom upon Earth Christ and his Apostles design'd and erected none at all they had really no Power no Autority committed unto them this is as wide from Truth this runs from one extreme to the other which indeed is the usual course of such as are designed for error Clemens Alexandrinus in his Admonition to the Gentiles observed it of old among them and that their Ignorance still led them into one of the two Extremes of either Ignorance or Superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either they Worshipped their many ridiculous beastlier Gods or else none at all denied the only true God On this score Evenemus Agrigentinus Nicanor Cyprius Diagoras Hippo Melius and Theodorus with some others were called Atheists Men that considered not the Truth only saw the Error of the then abominable Worships and Acknowledgments And the same is easily acknowledg'd throughout the whole Ecclesiastical Tradition how as Atheists before so Hereticks since have still run the same way and their Heresies by these courses been either started or maintained Thus that Pestilent Sect of the Arians united not only with the Miletian Scismaticks but with the Heathens too the more to oppose and make numerous their Party against the Catholicks as we have it in Sozomen Hist Eccles lib. 1. c. 15. Athanas Orat. 1. Cont. Arium and in his Apology Pag. 731. and his Epistle Ad Solitariam vitam agentes And the same did the Donatists after them who set open the Idol Temples that themselves might have liberty applauded and sided with Julian the Apostate and gave opportunity for the Publick Worship of the Devil that they might with full freedom serve their own particular Designs and their Malice and Revenge be gratified as St. Austin and Optatus at large declare Contra Petil. cap. 8. 92. Ep. 48. c. Contr. Parmen Donatist lib. 2. I might all along trace them down I 'le only make my farther instances in what comes more nearly up to the case in hand because there may be such a thing as Domination over the Clergy Therefore there is no real Power to be exercised over them because Diotrephes affected a Superiority where it belong'd not unto him therefore a Bishop and a Presbyter must be of equal Power The Church of God must not exercise Autority as do the Kings of the Gentiles therefore whatever the Power they execute is must be Tyranny and Usurpation The Church of Rome have notoriously exceeded their Commission Pretended to what they never had either from Christ or St. Peter as to depose Kings to acquit their Subjects of their Allegiance exercising Temporal outward Coercive Power as in their Charter by Religion Therefore the Church of God has no Charter at all is no Body or Corporation Autoritative and Juridical or as Mr. Selden and his Friends argue we read of no other Power in the
Psalmists Door-keepers all Ecclesiastical Officers but not in the same Catalogue So in St. Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these three of the Bishop Presbyter and Deacon are the whole Progression and several Orders and Ascents in the Church-Ministry These those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the degrees of the Priesthood as Zonaras in Can. 8. Apost Omnes gradus Sacerdotales as 't is in the same words in the last Canon of the first and second Council at Constantinople and which that Canon provides that every one must go through that becomes a Bishop The Bishop Presbyter and Deacon are opposed to the Laity and placed in the number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of such as preside in the Church Can. 1. Conc. Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these are fellow-workers in the Ministry as in the Council call'd against Paulus Samosetanus Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 7. c. 3. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Life of Constantine Lib. 2. Cap. 46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrat. Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 58. Conc. 6. in Trullo None in the Order of Lay-men may deliver to themselves of the Divine Mysteries or Administer in Holy things the Bishop Presbyter or Deacon being present where the Publick Offices of the Church are again limited to these three St. Jerome places them in Superioribus ordinibus Ecclesiae in the higher Order of the Church Comment in Ep. ad Tit. Cap. 2. in the same Language runs the Imperial Laws as are plain and obvious in the Theodosian Codes especially with the Notes and Commentaries of the Learned Jacob Gothfred the Bishop Presbyter and Deacon are the Sacerdotalis assumptio one or all of them 16. Cod. Tit. 5. Lex 5. 52. and are called Primi the First in respect of the Readers Door-keepers c. ibid. Tit. 2. l. 24. and as Gothofred explains it And the same is again l. 41. and he calls them Primi Clerici the first of the Clergy ibid. Tit. 8. l. 13. and Justinian after him speaks the same Novel 6. c. 1. and all this is expressed by our Judicious Mr. Hooker and call'd the Power of Orders Degrees of Order Ecclesiastical in which there are three Degrees Bishops Presbyters and Deacons distinguished from Services and Offices in the Church as Exorcists Readers c. in his Preface to his Ecclesiastical Polity at the end of the seventh Section and in his Fifth Book seventh and ninth Section § XXI THIS Power and Jurisdiction though confined to these three Orders yet is it not given to each alike and in the same degree of Autority whatever is in the Nature of the Church Priesthood is in one of them but every one has not all that is in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there were degrees one above another in the Priesthood to the highest of which every one was not suffered to arise in Justinian Novel 6. Cap. 6. our Saviour himself did not confer all Power alike upon all that he chose for his special Service nor did the Apostles or their Successors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hic dici videtur qui in Ecclesia sublimiorem caeteris consecutus gradum ut Apostoli erant consecuturi post eos Episcopi as Grotius in Lucae 22.26 the Ruler or greatest there mentioned by our Saviour seems to be such who had gain'd a higher more sublime degree in the Church such as the Apostles were to have and after them the Bishops In the Church are those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above-mentioned in Clemens Alexandrinus Progressions and Promotions from one Order to another as from Deacons to Presbyters and from Presbyters to Bishops Sacerdotes secundi in honore Ecclesiastici gradus Hieronimus Comment in Jerem. 13. the Presbyters are second in the Honor of Ecclesiastical degrees And so in Ezek. 48. and Sacerdos primus ordo in Sophoniam c. 3. the Bishop is the first Order Sacerdos being a word applied to the Bishop or Presbyter as occasion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 includes the whole of Church-Power as is above-noted and applied as occasion to each of the degrees Optatus in his first Book against the Donatists mentions besides Lay-men which have no Power in the Church or any one degree of the Priesthood Tertium Secundum Sacerdotium apices Principesque omnium Episcopos the Third and Second Priesthood and the top and chief of both the Bishops As Eusebius still expresses the Ministry in general by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is already at large observ'd So his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those of the second Throne or Order are Presbyters Eccl. Hist lib. 10. Cap. 39. the Presbyter is major Sacerdotio then the Deacon hath more of the Priesthood Hieronimus ad Evagrium Tom. 3. Presbyter Proximus gradu ab Episcopis Presbyter secundi ordinis Sacerdos a Presbyter is next in degree to a Bishop a Priest of the Second Order so all along in the Phrase of the Imperial Laws Cod. Theodos 5. Tit. 3. Cod. 12. Tit. 1. Lex 121. Cod. 16. Tit. 2. l. 7. Tit. 5. l. 9. Constantine the Holy Christian Emperor writes to Chrestus Bishop of Syracuse that he would take with him to a certain Synod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two of the second Throne or Order two Presbyters Euseb Eccl. Hist lib. 10. cap. 5. in a word this is the current voice and distribution of all Antiquity as might be shew'd more largely or were it the design of this Discourse to treat of the Three Orders particularly as the Bishop Presbyter and Deacon are Primi Clerici the first Clergy in respect of the Readers Singers c. for the word Clérus or Clergy is applied to all Ecclesiastical Officers in general as well Reader c. as Presbyter c. among the Ancient Writers so among the Primi Clerici those Three which are first Summus Sacerdos qui est Episcopus the Bishop is the First there as in Tertullian de Baptismo Cap. 17. his is Maximum Sacerdotium in Lactantius Lib. 4. Sect. Vlt. Sacerdotii Sublime fastigium So Cyprian Ep. 52. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 10. Conc. Sardicenf his Power is the greatest and topmost most full and comprehensive of all and all Power in Heaven and Earth now abiding in the Church and purely relating to Church Affairs and the bringing Souls to Heaven in the ordinary course and known appointments is it fixed and so far limited in the Person and Office of the Bishop by Christ and his Apostles as that from and only from him is this Power to be transferr'd and transmitted as is the Harvest and common Need in the particular devolution and distribution of it a great part of this is still given by the Bishop to the Presbyter an Order or Station in the Church for the Service of Souls invested with a large share of the Priestly Power at his Ordination or Deputation to it but comes short of the whole is limited to particular Instances and
Church of Christ all Christian Bishops by whomsoever Consecrated and his Arm is to rule them whosesoever's Hands were laid upon them and this solitary and by himself nor is any one a sharer with or out of subjection to him To which I shall reply that though the distinction in it self will with very much difficulty be admitted of and the ordaining and governing Parts will be very rarely found asunder Nor do I believe there can be an instance given of but one Bishop who at his Consecration had the Power of governing left out of the Office in which that other of Ordination together with this were not design'd at once and transmitted though the Objects have many times been changed either enlarged or limited as they have been both suspended altogether yet allowing the distinction it may possibly do Estius this present Kindness lookt upon as a Disputant and oppressed with an Argument giving him the opportunity of something like an Answer and with some shew he may escape that severity of words and blacker censure he there acknowledges to be passed by St. Gregory in several Occasional Epistles against whomsoever it is shall style himself Universal Bishop or Bishop of all Bishops That the very Name is Prophane Proud Sacrilegious Diabolical a Name of Blasphemy and the forerunner of Antichrist and all this Estius there tells us was occasion'd from this Holy Father by reason of the Patriarch of Constantinople's Ambition in that Nature declaring that as the Emperor did alone hold the Empire and all Inferior Governors were sent by him and held of him the Head and not to do it was Usurpation and Treason so did he alone hold the Episcopacy and all Holy Orders were to descend and flow from him and to receive them and not from him was to climb up the wrong way and by intrusion come in But then what more right he has on his side or better Autority than Bellarmine has on his or how he can prove a solitary peculiar Care and Government demandated to and in its special Constitution settled on St. Peter and by his Succession at Reme or which way soever else it was over the Universal Church or whole Gospel-Priesthood so as to constitute him and them its immutable perpetual Head to Govern though not to Ordain them and which was not in the rest of the Apostles Persons to be sure not in their Succession this does not readily appear the Scriptures are favourers of both alike and indeed give to neither any bottom at all Nor does any such thing appear in the best Antiquity or succeeding Matter of Fact in his behalf no ill Argument of ever a Divine Right were it on their side § XXV THE first instance we have from the Ancients of this Pretended Power is in Victor Bishop of Rome in the year One Hundred ninety four who threatned Excommunication against the Asiaticks because they complied not with him in the Observation of Easter The Succession of the Bishops of Rome is all along delivered down in Church-History from the beginning to this day each Bishop particularized under the Title of Romanae Vrbis Episcopus Antistes c. there 's no one note of Singularity affixed unto him and this is the first time we meet with any thing like a Superiority there practised and at the most he is but ranked with the other Metropolitans Now whether this was attempted by Victor purely out of Zeal for an Apostolical Custom and we have many examples of Eminent Bishops that have intermeddled without their own Districts or whether as supposing himself really invested with a Power for Inspection and Animadversion upon all other Christian Bishops certain it is this his Power was disown'd and rejected by an eminent Branch of the Church Catholick and as eminent Bishops as any She had the Autority and Practice of St. John is set up and Pleaded against that of St. Peter as what every way balances nor doth it any way submit unto it And Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons in France and none of the Quartodecimane but one who comply'd with Victor in the Observation of Easter yet asserts the Asiaticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Self-Autority nor is any Foreign Power to over-rule and controle them or the Peace of the Church to be broken on such occasions all which is to be seen in Eusebius Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 23 24. and if we descend some time lower we shall not find any thing really more advantageous to him Constantine the Great Complements indeed Eusebius of Caesarea and tells him he is worthy of the Episcopale or Government of the whole Church De Vita Constant apud Euseb l. 9. c. 6. but that such an extent of Power was then in the Person of any one Bishop is no where said nor is there any probability to suppose it 'T is true that some Privileges have belong'd to the Bishop of Rome and which have been claimed as their due in good times Julius is very angry with the Clergy of Antioch that they did not call him to a Synod and urges it as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Law of the Church that whatsoever is done without the Bishop of Rome is to be void Sozom. Eccl. Hist l. 3. c. 10. and in an Epistle of his to some whom he accuses of Contention and want of Charity not consulting the Peace of the Church in the cause of Athanasius he farther adds Are you ignorant that this is the Custom that we are first to be wrote to that what is just may hence be defined Inter. Athanas Opera Tom. 1. Ed. Paris Pag. 753. But then whatever this Privilege was that it did not arise from any Connatural Right to his See but Ecclesiastical Canon is most plain out of Socrates his Church History l. 2. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and he may not have so much for what Vallesius in his Annotations there can produce for it Which is the alone Autority of Ferrandus that is Christian Ammianus Marcellinus an Heathen an Historian that concerns himself as little with Christianity and Church Affairs as any one can be supposed to have done that attempted an History of the Times in which so much of the Church concerns its Power and Autority was Transacted as in the days of Constantius and Julian and whose times make up the best part of his Story The latter he studiously affects to represent to the World with what advantages he can both living and dying And for the Christian Religion he does not I am confident so much as name it Twenty times in all his Books and then accidentally and very slightly and the greatest advantage that he gives us is we have his Testimony that such a Sect call'd Christians was then in the World and for that particular passage quoted by Vallesius it makes if any thing against himself for he tells us That when Constantius the Emperor who is known to be Athanasius his great and mortal Enemy and mov'd every
stone to ruine him had procur'd the Sentence of a Synod against him licet Sciret impletam and which he knew was sufficient and cogent of it self yet he endeavour'd all he could thereby to render him lower and more contemptible to have it corroborated and confirm'd by that Autority Quâ potiuntur Aeternae Vrbis Episcopi which the Bishops of the Eternal City or of Rome did enjoy which Autority what it was is still in the dark for him there 's no mention of it in any one Degree and 't is mostly agreeable that he endeavour'd it as the more great and popular Bishops of the World by reason of that Vrbs aeterna as the City of Rome for its Pompous Magnificence is all along through that History call'd that eminent City the seat of their Residence Lib. 15. Pag. 75 76. Ed. Lugdun in Duodecimo nor does it from this whole History appear that there was then as not any distinct Power so nor any but Title affixed to the Bishops of Rome which other Christian Bishops had not The Bishops in general are called Christianae legis Antistites and Liberius of Rome has but the same Title or that of Episcopus Romanus and Vrbis aeternae Episcopi is what the whole Succession is call'd by Ibid. suprà Et lib. 20. Pag. 261. lib. 22. p. 329. AND now the whole of the Matter is driven § XXVI into this one Point or narrower room what the Power and Extent of this Church-Law or Canon Ecclesiastical was in what sense it was imposed own'd and receiv'd in the Church If universally and what was design'd for all Christendom and obliging let them produce the Rule it is not to be found in any thing yet we have consider'd and then reconcile it with the general Practice of the Church which appears another thing and to enlarge this Power whatever that above mentioned is as claim'd by the Bishop of Rome beyond a limited Exarchy or Primacy or that it any ways reaches to Antioch is to go beyond the whole Story Ecclesiastical in any tolerable Age of it 'T is to go beside the Acts of every General Council upon every occasion and all the Imperial Courses and Proceedings in point of Jurisdiction when the state came into the Church engaged for its Governance and Jurisdiction and turnâ—d their Canons into Laws There is nothing in any one Council whether General or Topical that either refers to determines actually or but implies any such thing unless what was foysted into the Canons of the first Council of Nice and recommended to the Council of Carthage for an Approbation with the rest of those Canons by Faustinus an Italian Bishop and Legate of Rome be since made Canonical Sure we are it was then detected and exploded for a Cheat by the Holy Bishops of that Council and who there and then disown'd the Superior Universal Power in the Bishop of Rome all which with the several Circumstances is to be seen in the opening of the Synod The See of Rome is still represented as but equal and in the same rank with the other Four great Churches of Christendom and its Bishop neither Presides in the Councils nor Over-rules in the Definitions of Christendom nor is the Autority any ways defective upon his absence or if convented without his License than upon the absence of or when not licensed by any other Bishop There is not an Instance of any one Reference or Appeal in Church-Affairs but still the either Patriarch Exarch Metropolitan Primate or Private Bishop is to accommodate and rectifie all as the alone Judges and Determiners under a Synod of Bishops or a Council and if new Canons be wanting 't is the Imperial Direction that the Bishop of Constantinople and the Convention of Priests be convened to consider of and to make them Cod. Justin l. 1. Tit. 2.6 Et Cod. Theodos 16. l. 45. Tit. 2. As for that of the Council of Sardica Can. 3. 4. and which seems to favour the Bishop of Rome in the right of hearing and adjusting Foreign Causes not to make any Reflexions on the Synod it self whatsoever it is 't is bottomed neither on Scriptures nor ancient Tradition or Custom but seems in particular Cases to be allow'd him for the honour of St. Peter nor can we believe it could run against the different Determinations of general Councils if so 't is to be of no Autority particularly the first of Nicea considering also that Hosius was President both at Nice and here I shall add it cannot be conceiv'd to run against it self whose Tenth Canon places the top and uppermost of all Church-Power in the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which is not consistent with a Superior Order in the Church fixed and immutable whether as to Jurisdiction and Ordination or Government only As Bellarmine and Estius are not agreed and those several Exempts we have an account of in Church Story 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and govern'd within themselves as Cyprus Bulgaria Iberia Anglia whatever they relate to and so called in respect of whether Patriarchacies Exarchies or this pretended Monarchy Universal or howsoever they came so to be they are Evidence sufficient against this claim of Rome and that every Church is not therefore Schismatical because disowning a dependency upon her especially if we reflect how strongly these Privileges are contended for in the Eighth Canon of the Council of Ephesus occasion'd by some Usurpations attempted upon Cyprus in particular and 't is there made Law that no inrode be made upon them And that which is farther considerable is that among all the Orders and Directions issued out to Church-men by the Empire for the executing the Canons and preserving the Discipline of the Church the Persons in Charge are the Bishops Metropolitan or Patriarch the Bishop under the Metropolitan the Metropolitan under the Patriarch and the Patriarch is always last and uppermost and 't is very strange to reflect that if there was an Order above these a Power Universal residing in any one Person with a care over all the Churches in Christendom so setled by Laws Ecclesiastical and Superior to all the afore-mentioned Orders in Jurisdiction and Government and this Person and Power should still be overlook't and disregarded no one Direction and Application made unto him in the Affairs so immediately his of his Charge and Inspection and this too in the days of Justinian especially since whatever was done by the Empire was in Prosecution of what was Church-Law and Canon before according to the Appointments and Decisions of it And that this is all so 't is most manifest in our Church Story Acts of Councils and particularly the Proceedings Imperial in the two Codes and the Novels Vid. Cod. Justinian lib. 1. Tit. 3.43.2 Novel 5. Epilog Novel 6. Cap. 3. Epilog alibi saepius Not that the Empire was shye in giving the See of Rome any Power or Title was its due as it must be acknowledg'd very great things were
I would as soon cut out my Tongue as speak or cut off my Hands as subscribe for the abolishing or ceasing of it and that upon any other terms than the omitting God's Worship altogether or that my Religion it self is not retainable with it He that values God's Worship it self must in a due Proportion value that which comes so near to it or at least he apprehends so to do which is so congruous so decent and so advantageous to and in the Performance of it And as my Religion in general is to be preferr'd before all things so is that which seems most apt and best answering with and proportion'd to its discharge to be next in my thoughts and designs to retain and continue and in the next degree would I become its Advocate These Proposals then of Moderation and from these Persons break and are inconsistent in themselves there is a repugnancy in the terms and then surely not allowable with a thorow considering Person If I believe the Service Book in the Church of England the best and aptest Instrument of God's Publick Worship I am no more to forego and give it over than I can satisfie my self that the Blind and the Lame and wither'd in the Flock was acceptable to God of old then I may devote my Body to his Service under the Gospel and leave out the best Member of it that I have or give but half of my self unto him and the worser part too my Body without my Spirit the life and soul of it The Controversie about the precise Day on which Easter was to be kept was high amongst the ancient Bishops and yet the more considering of them all the while counted for it in the order of those things which in their first Nature are indifferent and it might be kept on this day or on that no peremptory fixation of God's supervening nor does indeed the limiting and fixing it to any time conduce so much to the ends of Devotion and the Service and Honour of God as many other instances now under debate do only Victor Bishop of Rome incited whether by Zeal or Ambition went too high limiting Church Communion to one set time for the observancy and did to be sure threaten Non-Communion with the Asiaticks upon their dissent from the Western Churches in it but yet the first indifferency and original immutability of the thing it self was not concluded by them a ground sufficient to lay aside or alter that Custom when whatever it was in the Bishop of Rome because below an antecedent Command in the Gospel whether Zeal or Ambition demanded it none farther from imposing on other Churches what was the alone particular Practice of their own or from censuring what was differing from them and none again more strenuous in defending and maintaining their own way and time they did not recede from what so great and contiguous a tradition of most holy Bishops and Autority even Apostolical had devolved they had immediately receiv'd from and transmitted to one another and all along in an unalterable Practice upheld and maintain'd and recommended and Rome's Universal Power had not then gain'd so much in the Church as to over-rule and constrain them all which is to be seen at large in the account given of it by Eusebius Hist lib. 5. cap. 23 24. I do not say that Apostolical Practice it § XII self in the like instances is immutable and always obliging for the present case of keeping Easter contradicts Apostolical Practice was on both sides and several other Actions and Synodical Determinations by the Apostles do not now oblige Christendom being occasional Decisions and Canons But this I say where the concern is not only the same but higher as in the Publick Service of God in our Church and which more neerly relates to God in his Worship and with equal heat its abolishment is endeavour'd as was the time of keeping Easter after the manner of the Jews by the Bishop of Rome when equally bottom'd on the same both Autority and Antiquity even to Apostolical for so the Asiaticks pleaded the Autority of St. Philip and St. John and the Malice and Industry of our Opposers cannot gainsay us I 'le add where every thing concurs to the procuring Reverence Piety and Devotion and in which case Calvin himself contends for Ceremonies in the Church of Christ when Christ is so illustrated by them Ergonè inquies nihil Ceremoniarum debitur ad juvandam â—orum imperitiam id ego non dico omnino enim utile illis esse sentio id modo contendo ut modus ille adhibeatur qui Christum illusâ—ret non obscuret Institut l. 4. c. 10. Sect. 14. and for us to abate of these Rites to change or lay aside our either times or ways of Worship because perhaps a Neighbouring Church is differing and requires or perhaps and which is worse demands it of us as the Church of Rome did of the Church of Asia this hath no Precedent of Example no rule of Religion to enforce us to submit to or comply with we have a President of as famous Apostolical a Church as the Primitive Story acquaints us with that is against it and that Church which so urges and requires of us savours too much of the present Usurpations of Rome not improbably first attempted in Victor their once Bishop § XIII AND much less is that Church to submit when the unruliness and disobedience of her own Members attempt the alteration when private Pets and open Ambition in order to engrossing Superiority and Rule in themselves stimulate thereunto as in our late pretended Reformations and which is at this day only without Arms but with the same virulency of Spirit carried on in our Streets when at the best the Infirmities but raâ—her the impetuousness and madness of the People promotes it this no reason can indure and yet it is the great and popular Plea for the nulling our Laws Ecclesiastical now among us when the rule bends to the obliquity the right Line warps and complies with that which is crooked both become disorder'd and perverse together and which is the misery of all no standard supposed to remain to reduce them When the Laws of the Church submit to that Extravagancy they are design'd to prevent or remedy and the only reason why they are to be no more is because every Man may and must do what seemeth him good in his own eyes their Will and Lusts and Passions must reign and give Laws this is the height of Anarchy and Confusion or farther and for which there is something more of shew and pretence because Pity may be a Motive to give up all to the weak and infirm that is to those of the least understanding and discernment for St. Paul has no other sense of a weak Brother or a weak Conscience then that which is more ignorant what is this but to place the Discretion and Government of the Church in the hands of Ideots and half
Christian when he refused to give up his Church to the Arians denied the Emperor's power over truth and to determine in Doctrines The Emperor might force him out if he pleased neither might he resist the force his Weapons being only Prayers and Tears but the truth must not yield up to him and he give his consent or seem to do it by his own departure that the Arian Doctrine be there preached this was not then thought an Affront to the Magistrate and Law nor had St. Ambrose a Commission immediate from Heaven and abetted with Miracles or was he judged a hypocrite in so doing because he did not go and preach the Cause against Arius amongst the Goths and Vandals who subscribed to his Creed at their receiving Christianity though Mr. Dean of Canterbury tells us he that pleads Conscience and preaches it in England and does not go and preach it also in Turkey is guilty of gross hypocrisie pag. 203 213. We do not make them Judges and Deciders of Truth but Receivers and Establishers of it we say Princes be only Governors that is higher Powers ordain'd of God and bearing the Sword with lawful and publick Autority to command for truth to prohibit and with the Sword punish Errors and all other Ecclesiastical Disorders as well as Temporal within their Realms that as all their Subjects Bishops and others must obey them commanding what is good in Matters of Religion and endure them with patience when they take part with Error So they their Swords and Scopters be not subject to the Popes Tribunal neither hath he by the Law of God or by the Canons of the Church any Power or Pre-eminence to reverse their Doings nor depose their Persons and for this Cause we confess Princes within their Territories to be supreme that is not under the Popes jurisdiction neither to be commanded nor displaced at his pleasure pag. 215 216. There be two Parts of our Assertion The first avouching that Princes may command for Truth and abolish Error The next that Princes be Supreme i. e. not subject to the Popes judicial Process to be cited suspended deposed at his beck The Word Supreme ever was and is defended by us to make Princes free from the wrongful and usurped Jurisdiction which the Pope claimeth over them pag. 217. 219. Bishops have their Autority to preach and administer the Sacraments not from the Prince but Christ himself only the Prince giveth them publick liberty without let or disturbance to do what Christ hath commanded them he no more conferreth that Power and Function than he conferreth Life and Breath when he permitteth to live and breath when he does not destroy the life of his Subjects That Princes may prescribe what Faith they list what Service of God they please what form of Administring the Sacraments they think best is no part of our thoughts nor point of our Doctrine for external Power and Autority to compel and punish which is the Point we stand upon God hath preferr'd the Prince before the Priest pag. 223. touching the Regiment of their own Persons and Lives Princes owe the very same Reverence and Obedience to the Word and Sacraments that every private Man doth and if any Prince would be baptized or approach the Lord's Table with manifest shew of unbelief or irrepentance the Minister is bound freely to speak or rather to lay down his life at the Princes feet than to let the King of Kings to be provoked the Mysteries to be defiled his own Soul and the Princes endanger'd for lack of oft and earnest Admonition pag. 226. by Governors we do not mean Moderators Prescribers Directors Inventers or Authors of these things but Rulers or Magistrates bearing the Sword to permit and defend that which Christ himself first appointed and ordained and with lawful force to disturb the Despisers of his lawful Will and Testament Now what inconvenience is this if we say that Princes as publick Magistrates may give freedom protection and assistance to the preaching of the Word ministring of the Sacraments and right using of the Keys and not fetch license from Rome pag. 236. Princes have no right to call and confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them liberty for their preaching and security for their Persons and if Princes refuse so to do God's Labourers must go forward with that which is commanded them from Heaven not by disturbing Princes from their Thrones nor invading their Realms but by mildly submitting themselves to the Powers on Earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict A private liberty and exercise of their own Conscience and Religion was not then thought enough if the Religion of a Nation be false and though autority do abet it nor would the Autority in Queen Elizabeth's days have own'd that Person asserting and maintaining of it though not stubbornly irreligious but only wanting information in so notoriously a known case of practice pag. 238. In all spiritual Things and Causes Princes only bear the Sword i. e. have publick Autority to receive establish and defend all Points and Parts of Christian Doctrine and Discipline within their Realms and without their help tho the Faith and Canons of Christ's Church may be privately professed and observed of such as be willing yet they cannot be generally planted or settled in any Kingdom nor urged by publick Laws and external Punishments on such as refuse but by their consents that bear the Sword This is that we say refel it if you can pag. 252. to devise new Rites and Ceremonies for the Church is not the Princes vocation but to receive and allow such as the Scripture and Canons commend and such as the Bishops and Pastors on the Place shall advise not infringing the Scripture or Canons and so for all other Ecclesiastical Things and Causes Princes be neither the Devisers nor Directors of them but the Confirmers and Establishers of that which is good and Displacers and Revengers of that which is Evil which power we say they have in all things be they Spiritual Ecclesiastical or Temporal the Abuse of Excommunication in the Priest and contempt of it in the People Princes may punish excommunicate they may not for so much of the Keys are no part of their Charge pag. 256. The Prince is in Ecclesiastical Discipline to receive and stablish such Rules and Orders as the Scripture and Canons shall decide to be needful and healthful for the Church of God in their Kingdoms It is the Objection indeed and undue consequence the Church of Rome makes against us and the Oath of Supremacy and which is urged by Philander in this Dialogue betwixt him and Theophilus or betwixt the Christian and the Jesuite pag. 124 125. That we will have our Faith and Salvation to hang on the Princes Will and Laws that there can be imagined no nearer way to Religion than to believe what our temporal Lord and Master list in the
as it is an hard and measuring Cast whether they were more unwise more unjust or more unfortunate and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the Grace of God their share had not been as small in the subtilty of Serpents as in the innocency of Doves A pretty knick-knack of Speech-making every body must own it to be but as to the occasion and matter of it each line as evidently deserves a lash and is as lyable to it there appears only passion and prejudice rancor and malice in the height and truly scarce sense under some of the pretty cadencies and chiming Words but not one dram of that incomparable reason Mr. Dean magnifies him for and once saw in him but for him to own it here will not be at least convenient could he find it out as perhaps he may though another cannot All I shall say at present is and 't is as mostly relating to this present discourse how wonderfully the same Fate has still attended the Crown of England and the Church of England the King and the Bishops of it and the Power the Institution and Autority of both as from Heaven and not of Man is still if either of them decried and run again at once and by the same Person and ten to one it had not come into my mind had not a Man of his own complexion in Loyalty in the late life of Julian told it the world much to the honor of this great and loyal Lord as he thinks that the Doctrine of Dr. Manwaring's and Dr. Sibthorp's Sermons long before the War broke out was as ridiculous to him as it appears from this his Speech in 1641. was then the Autority and Actions of the Bishops and the divine Right of Kings as well as the divine Right of the Church independent to the People are both but Pulpit Law that is in his admired most ingenious Expression and which alone then confuted and still confutes Doctor Manwaring the prate and tattle of idle Church-men from the Pulpit and the both King and Church fell at once and together and which himself particularly experienced at Newbery when 't was too late to help what himself by Speech-making and Scoffings had promoted and Abner's Epitaph seems in this respect exactly fitted for him nor know I in what other terms his death could be lamented better had the Pulpit laws been more frequently made more encouraged and executed in teaching the Peoples dependency upon Kings and duties to them that unnatural Rebellion had never followed had not those worst of Principles publisht in Scotland by Buchanan de jure regni apud Scotos and Knox in his Appel and Church-history placing both Church and Crown in Subordination to the People come hither into England and by their Country man the Lord Falkland in the House of Commons incouraged and those now a-days mend the Matter bravely that rescue us from the People and put us under the Prince Herein enlarge his Prerogative beyond his Progenitors that he is uppermost in Religion are zealous for him to be a Priest but leave him as King in the hands he was before and below the People and thus in sight strike at both Monarchy and Religion at a blow as is the Priest so is the King to take their Measures and Protection from others a false Religion is to be obeyed if the Religion of a Nation lest affronting Magistracy and Law and every one may Petition and libel the Government that pleases the Bible is put into the King's hand and the Scepter taken out the King may excommunicate but he may not govern his People and both Prince and Priest are in a pretty Condition and the notorious contempt Church Power and Offices lye under at this day amongst us is an evident Testimony of the mock Addition they design and contend for to his Crown in that the Power Sacerdotal is with so much noise and bussle seated in him 't is only to ridicule both at once and with the same Argument render them contemptible nor can any in the course of things as well as in common Experience be found to give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's but he that gives to Christ the things that are Christ's No Bishop No King is and will be a Maxime still a first truth and not to be gain-sayed § XXV IT is to be confessed there are Passages in the Writings of some of the Principal of our Doctors in the days of Queen Elizabeth and King James as Arch-Bishop Whitgift Arch-Bishop Bancroft Bishop Bilson c. that lean too much to the Erastian Way or rather by an incuriousness of Expression do not give that account of Church Power nor state it so clearly as may be expected and 't is not impossible where a design to render them as of the Party Something of this nature has been observ'd already in Bishop Bilson and Arch-Bishop Bancroft and he that reads over the first Book de Politeia Ecclesiasticà cap. 1 2 3 4 5. c. wrote by Robert Parker and printed at Frankfort 1616. and only reads him will conclude them not only almost but altogether such he was a Man vehement and of extremity of Spirit and his business is in his whole three Books to set and continue our Church against her self oâ—e of her Members against another and all of them opposite to Christ Jesus exactly answering his Title de Politeia Ecclesiastica Christiani Hierarchica opposita and indeed most that have appear'd since him against the Government of the Church and with appearance of pertinency have not only sharpned but borrowed their Weapons from this shop of the Philistines it is their Magazine and Store-house as another Armory like that of David's in Israel wherein are Mille Clypei all sorts of Weapons for these Mighty and with which they have still made their Attempts even Batteries and Breaches upon us Our learned Doctor Pearson since Lord Bishop of Chester in his Vindiciae Epistolarum Ignatii in his first Chapter or Proeme there relates him to be though not the first setter on foot and contriver of that unworthy most shameful Design upon Ignatius's Epistles in representing them spurious and imposed on the World and that not one of them was wrote by that most Holy and Apostolical Martyr whose name they bear yet he was more bold and went farther in the Attempt than any one had done before him and with whose Conjectures Dailee's dissertation is stuffed and he may be said a principal Cause why it spread so far and has been so successful to the great disadvantage of our common Christianity from him or Dialee or both unless Blundel and Salmasius be added and which are much the same thing it is Doctor Stillingfleet translates what he has on this Subject in his Irenicum and who may have the honor to be the first that made it English for any other I have met with and tells us in the Mother-Tongue The story of Ignatius as
be in part a great untruth and both Athanasius Synod Nicen. Cont. heres Arian decreta p. 277 278. Ed. paris et Ep. de Synod Arimini et Seleuciae p. 889. Ep. ad ubique Orthodoxos c. p. 943. and Theodorit Eccl. hist l. 1. c. 5. 12. refer them to the Writings of the eminent Bishops and Doctors who lived an hundred and twenty years before the Synod of Nice and then used this Word Consubstantial in explaining the Divinity of the Father and the Son and 't is what Sandius in effect confesses only he thinks it for the dishonor of the Cause that all the Hereticks that were in the Church before Arius were Homousians hist Enucleat l. 1. and which in truth is only this the worst of Hereticks did not arrive to that height of impudence as to deny so received an acknowledgment in the universal Church Yet what Athanasius replyes upon Arius himself Tom. 1. disputat cum Ario pag. 134. making the Objection is a better answer here that what was in the Council asserted and declared was alwaies in the Scriptures by way of consequence and occasion was not given the Church till the rise and spreading of that Heresie for that particular and precise explication Heresies and Novelties must be and 't is the work of Councils to detect and determine against them but there would be mad work in the Church should that go for Innovation which an upstart Heresie forces the Church in new Terms to state and declare against and explain themselves thereby it must be declamed against as defective in Autority and Precedents because former Doctors had not sagacity enough the very Apostles had not Spirit of Prophecy enough to anticipate the Fictions of every Brain so to word it before-hand that the particular Heresie in its Nicety must be antidated and pre-abide upon Record bassled and contradicted He that reads over St. Jerome lib. 1. Cont. Jovinianum will find him there so urging Chastity as if Marriage it self was a sin and which that Father never design'd as his Opinion and Dailee confesses that he only speaks comparatively and is so to be understood as do and are to be many more of the Fathers cap. 5. de usu patrum though he will not allow it him in other Cases and when to serve his own particular Design of him I mean as to his Judgment of Episcopacy and will have his Epistle ad Evagrium and his Comments on Titus to the same purpose to be absolute and with no regard to those great even just Provocatious from the Bishops in preferring the Deacon before the Presbyters who as he well argues are of so much more Power and higher Order in the Church as that a Bishop is oft call'd a Presbyter in Scripture and Antiquity when so injurious were the Bishops to the Presbyters and so partial to the Deacons and indulgent that the Deacons scorn'd the Presbyters Order qui ignorantes humilitatem status sui ultra Sacerdotes hoc est Presbyteros intumescunt 〈◊〉 putent si Presbyter ordinetur Their nearer attendance on the Bishops Person and familiarity with him with other advantages attending occasioned that they found it an Injury to be promoted to the Presbyters Order as he tells us Comment in Ezek. cap. 48. and which together with the great superciliousness and insulting pride of John Bishop of Jerusalem exercized over him and giving some disturbance to his Monastick ease in the holy Land Ep. 60 61. something raised his spleen and in vindicating his own Order he spared not some little flourishes or Arguments abating of the Episcopate if thereby these indecencies might cease What effects all this had at that time we read not and that it was afterwards lookt upon by the Church as his alone Passion and particular Provocation we have all the reason in the World to believe it all ceased with his Person to be sure if not with the Passion nor do we find any one follower he had or is his Autority ever used against the solitary appropriated Power of a Bishop above a Presbyter 'till of late in these parts of Christendom who thence take the rise for their Schism and 't is the ground they stand upon for the battery and abolishing the whole Order and with-drawing their obedience and which to be sure St. Jerome never did nor attempted and herein they are particularly unlucky they beat down Bishops by St. Jerome's Autority to bring in their Schism and 't is the main Argument they still urge against them in the height of these Divisions and Distractions are now on foot in Europe and then too when they contend that St. Jerome knew no other occasion or use of Bishops but ad tollenda Schismata because Schisms and Divisions cannot be kept out of the Church but by them So that St. Jerome's Autority if any thing in their present Case must be against them and if complying with him they must for the present expedience submit unto Bishops whom they 'l allow to have acknowledged this necessity and usefulness of them what ever reasons else he saw for their institution and continuance 'T is that which Doctor Durel pleads for Arch-Bishop Cranmer that admitting him guilty of Erastianism and he did resolve the Power of the Keys into the Prince as Doctor Stillingfleet says he was and did his present Circumstances will plead much for him and the other Doctors of his time if of the same mind then with him he had been educated in many Errors with which the Church the whole Age at that time abounded and though a Reformation was on foot no wonder if in some Instances he was in the wrong 't was then their work to abdicate the Bishop of Rome and case him of that Primacy and usurpation he had exercised over this Church and it might so happen that in giving to the King what was his he abated too much of the Power of the Priesthood and the Church and which was hers and not to be given to any other and yet even this Error did he see at last acknowledged it to Doctor Leighton submitted to and subscribed the truth against it as the Dean of Windsor tell us he read it in Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript and in his presence And there is enough to be pleaded of this nature in the behalf of those inconsiderable Offers are made against our three eminent Bishops Whitgift Bilson and Bancroft and which will so thoroughly acquit them of the but suspition of Erastianism that the Bill must in course be flung out that is drawn up against them every one knows that is conversant in those their Writings whence Parker's Objections are taken The Point under debate was mostly very near altogether in King Henry VIII day 's betwixt the King and the Pope whether was supreme in the forensick outward Ecclesiastical Courts and Proceedings on the Persons of Men within this his Majesties Kingdom the Pope had usurped it for some time the King reassumes it Religion
are of or are esteemed in such the Church and then what astonishment must it be to good minded Men what even Epicurism to Evil that do now or shall hereafter read or hear the great and received Names of Tillotson and Stillingfleet these following Positions That all Church-Power as from Christ has ceased with Miracles and is to be accounted so to have done That Christ Jesus is not to be Preached if the Magistrate and Law forbid it That to pretend a Power to Preach as from Christ and not to go into Spain or Turky and there Preach is gross Hypocrisie That 't was the Sense of Bishop Cranmer c. and the Bottom and Principle on which he and the other Bishops proceeded on in the Reformation and was after made Law in the Kingdom That the King has a Power to Ordain Bishops to Baptize to Excommunicate and do all Pastoral Offices in his own Person or devolve it on others and this is not only from a mistaken M SS but by unfaithful Copying it out and representing it to the World and which brings more guilt occasioning it to be Printed thus Imperfect among the Records of the Church in Doctor Burnet's Church History and abusing the House of Commons to a Publick Approbation of it giving to the Church of Rome what their Emissaries have all along been still gibing us with and fathering upon us but till by you repelled with Scorn That it hath been the continued Judgment of our succeeding Bishops ever since That a Bishop's Power is not solitary and apart from that of a Presbyter with many more of the like Nature And for the severing these your private Opinions and particular Errors from the Doctrines of the Church of God and rescuing her from the great Scandal of them she must or may undergo I have engaged in that so laborious a Work began at our Saviour and his Apostles descended by the Bishops Doctors and Fathers of the Church Catholick the Church Historians Councils and Laws Imperial our own particular Church Canons Rubricks Book of Ordination our own Doctors and Writers in their times the Injunctions and Declarations of our Princes the Statute-Book of our Kingdom all which come in as one Evidence against them you have still time to do it and right your selves and satisfie the Church of God in your own Persons removing the reproach occasioned by you in an acknowledgment of the Error for my Book is not yet in the Press and which if you 'l engage to do I do here indent back again to expunge whatever concerns or but mentions you in it If not I must do you and the Church of God right and will but if upon this fair and Christian notice you shall not think meet to retract these your Assertions that I have animadverted upon yet I shall acquit my self to the World that I have done what my Conscience and sense of Duty and Obligation arising from my Profession has engaged me to I cannot think a concern for the Honour and Reputation of one or two Persons though seeming to be somewhat and Pillars ought to be esteem'd as that of the whole Church of God or that I ought to put their private concerns into the bottom with it I am Sir Your humble Servant Simon Lowth May 1. 1683. THE CONTENTS The Introduction THe Occasion of this Discourse Sect. 1. Not the Power and Offices of the Church but their Subject is what mostly exercises the Age Sect. 2. Whether the Power be originally in Believers in Common or in the Secular Prince in Particular or in a certain Definite Number of Believers the Bishops and Pastors of the Church Sect. 3. The Design of the Whole and its Three General Heads Sect. 4. CHAP. I. CHurch Power is not in the People either as a Body in General or as one Single Congregation Sect. 1. This Power must first evidence it self to be given from God e're executed on or derived to others Holiness in its Nature does not infer it The Priesthood not made Common before the Law under it or the Gospel Admit that first Right by Nature to all Things and Offices 't was to be sure afterwards limited and those that lay it open again must shew by what Autority they do it Otherwise Fanaticks in the sense of St. Jerome Sect. 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infers no such Power Sect. 3. The Peoples concurrency gives no Power even where their Votes are pretended to in the New Testament Sect. 4. Election and Vocation differ from Ordination in the Practice of our Saviour and first Ages of the Church still expressed by several words Sect. 5. The Votes of the People give no Power but yet are necessary because none is given without them both the People and Pastors are Christ's Vicars in the Case So Beza Blondel Sect. 6. Our Saviour's Practice and the Apostles are against them Sect. 7 8. That the People were not always at Elections Blondel allows He is contrary to himself Their Votes never reputed necessary and at last excluded quite by reason of the Riots and Disorders in them Sect. 9. The concurrency of 12 Centuries down from the Apostles amount to a Divine Right Blondel's failure of it His injury to his Friends In what case Apostolical Ecclesiastical Practice is not immutable The ill Consequences attending his Power given to the People His Malice to the Order of Bishops Disreputing Christianity it self 'T is unpardonable in the French Reformation imposing their present harder necessity for our pattern The Deacon and Presbyter under the Bishop but neither in Subordination to the People Sect. 10. And this they do in point of Episcopacy also And we must have no Bishops in England because they have none in France and which is promoted by the advantage of the Rebellion and Schism among us Blondel offer'd his Service before to the Bishops of England but then he Prints his Apologia pro Hieronymo Dedicates it to the Rump Parliament and Assembly-Men Is nauseous in his Flatteries of both Commends the Scotch Covenant Is rude upon Bishops Soliciting their Ruine This the Sense of the Divines on that side the Sea Salmasius raves just so The Independents murder'd the King The Bishops not the Authors of all Heresies as black-mouth'd Baxter Andrew Rivet and so does Dailee Ignatius suffers for it He and Marcian and Valentinius compared Their few Complements does not acquit them We only lose by our Charity towards them The disadvantage thereby from our own Members The late Replyer upon Bishop Pearson and Doctor Beveridge is the same The late Letters from Paris Sect. 11. The People are only Witnesses of the good lifes of the Ordained Blondel's own Collection and the Autority of Cyprian is all along against him The Church Canons Our Ordinations at home The nature of the thing it self Sect. 12 13. The People are not to choose or refuse their Pastor as Blondel rudely and unreasonably contends with his usual Malice against Bishops and our
and left first by Christ to his Apostles and from them in Succession devolved on the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in whom it now remains who alone have the Power of its conveyance and on whomsoever it is they shall lay their hands together with the offices of Prayer or by any other outward Symbol overt Act or Testimony which they shall use to evidence the Deputation transfer it unto these shall receive this Power of the Holy Ghost be thorowly enabled for the transacting betwixt God and Man the things that belong to Man's Eternity § IV THE design of this present Discourse is to take away the two former and establish the latter to make it evident upon a just Enquiry and certain Demonstration That all Church-Power was designed by Christ and actually left by his Apostles only to Church-Officers the Order of the Gospel-Priesthood the Bishops Presbyters and Deacons to be separated on purpose and successively instated in such the Jurisdiction and Government by such of themselves that had before received and were fully invested with it and this like other Successions to continue and be so managed till the End cometh and the Kingdom be delivered up to the Father So that the general Heads I shall insist upon will be these Three 1. That this Power is not in the People or Christians in common 2. That it is not in the Prince or Secular Government 3. That it is in the Bishops and Pastors of the Church of Christ a Power and Offices peculiarly theirs as to the execution with its special force and Laws reaching to all that come to Heaven by Christ Jesus and as not derived from so no ways thwarting or interfering with the Civil Government And all this as suitable to the received Faith and Polity of the Church in the best Ages of it down from Christ and his Apostles to us ward so it agreeing with the particular Establishments of the Laws of our Kingdom made for the owning and defence of our Christianity and also with the Religion of the same received and professed in our Church since the Reformation CHAP. I. The Contents Church Power is not in the People either as a Body in General or as one Single Congregation Sect. 1. This Power must first evidence it self to be given from God e're executed on or derived to others Holiness in its Nature does not infer it The Priesthood not made Common before the Law under it or the Gospel Admit that first Right by Nature to all Things and Offices 't was to be sure afterwards limited and those that lay it open again must shew by what Autority they do it Otherwise Fanaticks in the sense of St. Jerome Sect. 2. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infers no such Power Sect. 3. The Peoples concurrency gives no Power even where their Notes are pretended to in the New Testament Sect. 4. Election and Vocation differ from Ordination in the Practice of our Saviour and first Ages of the Church still expressed by several words Sect. 5. The Votes of the People give no Power but yet are necessary because none is given without them both the People and Pastors are Christ's Vicars in the Case So Beza Blondel Sect. 6. Our Saviour's Practice and the Apostles are against them Sect. 7 8. That the People were not always at Elections Blondel allows He is contrary to himself Their Votes never reputed necessary and at last excluded quite Chap. 1. by reason of the Riots and Disorders in them Sect. 9. The concurrency of 12 Centuries down from the Apostles amount to a Divine Right Blondel's failure of it His injury to his Friends In what case Apostolical Ecclesiastical Practice is not immutable The ill Consequences attending his Power given to the People His Malice to the Order of Bishops Disreputing Christianity it self 'T is unpardonable in the French Reformation imposing their present harder necessity for our pattern The Deacon and Presbyter under the Bishop but neither in Subordination to the People Sect. 10. And this they do in point of Episcopacy also And we must have no Bishops in England because they have none in France and which is promoted by the advantage of the Rebellion and Schism among us Blondel offer'd his Service before to the Bishops of England but then he Prints his Apologia pro Hieronymo Dedicates it to the Rump Parliament and Assembly-Men Is nauseous in his Flatteries of both Commends the Scotch Covenant Is rude upon Bishops Soliciting their Ruine This the Sense of the Divines on that side the Sea Salmasius raves just so The Independents murder'd the King The Bishops not the Authors of all Heresies as black-mouth'd Baxter Andrew Rivet and so does Daulee Ignatius suffers for it He and Marcian and Valentinus compared Their few Complements does not acquit them We only lose by our Charity towards them The disadvantage thereby from our own Members The late Replyer upon Bishop Pearson and Doctor Beveridge is the same The late Letters from Paris Sect. 11. The People are only Witnesses of the good lifes of the Ordained Blondel's own Collection and the Autority of Cyprian is all along against him The Church Canons Our Ordinations at home The nature of the thing it self Sect. 12 13. The People are not to choose or refuse their Pastor as Blondel rudely and unreasonably contends with his usual Malice against Bishops and our Church 'T is his Proposal is so fatal to Christianity Sect. 14. Lay-men no Judges in Matters of Faith and the Determinations of Indifferencies The first Council at Jerusalem No Lay-Elders Sect. 15. § I THIS is not in the People and Believers in Common are not the Subject of Power Ecclesiastical The Power of the Keys is not seated in nor can it flow from or be devolved by them either as a Body in general or any one single Congregation in particular Their stretching or holding up the Hand their joynt-suffrages in the choosing numbring by the tale as by Stones Notes or Election deputing and assignation or whatever else in their own behalf they can make appear to be implied in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they lay great stress upon and wrest to their purpose are of no strength and validity at all of no more force to depute for the ministry to constitute in a new Order and Station to confer the Power of the Keys and place in that sacred Function then the common cry and rout of the Jews designing it devolved guilt on the head of our Saviour deposed him from his holy Offices took from him his Kingly Power when crying out with full throats We 'll have no King but Caesar we will not have this man to reign over us or their hands stretch'd forth in Prayer Isai 1. did bring a Blessing upon themselves when full of Blood but on the contrary hateful and abomination SUCH as pretend to this plead this Power § II for Deputation and that such only
good for the Crown it staid not at the Pulpit but went immediately to the Throne all manner of Dominion was bottom'd in Grace alone and their Saints were both the wisest upon Earth and had all Power were to Teach and to Rule and to possess the Earth All the links and contignations of Government were taken down or burst in sunder whether of the Father over his Child or Husband over his Wife or Master over his Servant or Sovereign over his Subjects or Priest over the People all were Christ's Freemen and to be Servants to none only the knack was found out at last that the King was to be a Priest when both King and Priest were first disabled and their Autority either in design or actually taken from them The Bible it self was then put into his hands with a Right to all Church-Offices when the Right to his Liege Subjects was denied him with a Power to make the Scriptures Canonical and to discharge all its Duties to lay limits by his Laws to Religion though a false one and it is not permitted openly to draw Men off from the Profession of it so Mr. Dean tells us in his Sermon when to govern his Subjects by Law is Tyranny and Usurpation So advantageously is this new Honor and higher Dignity that his entrance to the Priestly-Office placed on him and the consequence was only this both King and Priest was brought to a Morsel of Bread were brought to the Block the Saints in the Right of their Power cut off the Heads both of King Charles the First the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Father was against the Son and the Son against the Father as when the Sea-marks are removed the Walls Water-locks and Floodgates are broken down and pluckt up this greater present deluge of professed Atheism Prophaneness and Immorality is broken in upon us over-spread the face of our Earth in the natural course and consequence of it the Foundations are cast down and what can the Righteous do the Romanists will have their Pope to be a King because a Priest these will have their King to be a Priest and in effect no King and 't was only those that either first design'd or afterwards promoted the taking his Crown from his Head stuck this Feather in his Cap as in the late unnatural Rebellion § IV NOR are those more successful who found the Pleas to the Priesthood in the Unction of Kings or in that they are anointed at their solemner Inaugurations God Almighty meant nothing less when he said Cyrus Mine anointed nor do the outward Unctions of the Kings of Israel and Judah infer or prove any more the Priests were equally anointed as they and 't is no more to be concluded that a King by virtue of his anointing hath the Power of a Priest than that a Priest by his anointing hath the Power of a King which two Sacred offices every body knows were two quite different distinct things though in many things they united yet in several they did they might not it was Sacriledge on the one hand and Rebellion on the other to attempt it The Oyl that the Kings were anointed withal was made of the same Unguents that Moses had compounded to anoint both the Priests and the Holy Vessels and the Altar if we may believe De Marca in his second Preface to his Treatise De Concord c. and had its effects but as design'd and apply'd to each in particular and which suitably received thereby their several distinct Separations for differing uses had their peculiar respects and Services conferr'd upon them it did not imply all the Offices at once in the same either Thing or Person and it may be as well said that the Holy Vessels and Altar became Kings as that the Kings became Priests upon the alone general account of being anointed but admit it had been otherwise under the Jewish Policy and the King by his Unction had the full Extent and Latitude of Power and Offices conferr'd by the Ceremony of Oyl devolv'd and seated in him What is this to us in the Christian Church under another Head different Polity and several Dispensation or how doth it oblige us that our Kings must be Priests because the Kings of Israel were once so Surely no otherwise than it oblig'd the Jews that their first-born were to be either Kings or Priests or both because it was once so with their Ancestors and Predecessors and which is nothing at all unless to be a King originally and in its Nature included the Priesthood by a perpetual Force and Law never to be broken and which their own instances destroy and did not the design and frame of the Governments themselves forbid it for the Law of Moses is the foundation and direction of both Governments both Political and Ecclesiastical and which the Law of our Saviour is not Civil Power is it altogether and in every instance antecedent and independent to that Power which is from the Gospel the Law of Christ supposes it only adds by its Precepts of Justice and Virtue greater Awe and Reverence new Motives for Obedience and Subjection yet the particular very ill consequence could by no means be allow'd us to take and give Measures and Rules to the Powers and Offices of the Christian Church from the Pattern and Practice of the Jewish for then the Power and Extent of the Evangelical Priesthood must be such as Christianity will not bear nor any man in his wits claim for it the Power of the Priesthood among the Jews was mixed in some cases and the Priest and the Levite were in some instances civil Judges apart as betwixt stroke and stroke betwixt Plea and Plea c. Deut. 17. and the High-Priest in other Circumstances had no Jurisdiction at all but as elected a Member of the Sanedrim and which was at the choice of his Electors not by virtue of his Priesthood as such tell us that are skilled in their Customs and sure we are he was still to be consulted in the ordinary difficult Affairs of the Kingdom concerning Wars and Peace and gave his responses by Vrim and Thummim and which is so strenuously oppos'd as unfit for Christian Bishops and Church-men by those we have mostly to deal with in this point now under debate and which would be of worser consequence yet if apply'd unto Kings to have the Princes Power such only as had the Kings of Israel and Judah particularly according as is the Model we usually receive from these Men of their Government and is contended for as lapsed from Heaven for their Sanedrim is still described as an Autority foreign and independent from that of the Prince that could not question the King for his life but could lay lesser Punishments upon him if violating the Law And the great Selden himself is at a stand and leaves it to wiser heads than himself to determine whether the Sanedrim might whip their Kings or not De Syned lib. 2. cap. 9.
Austin has done on the same occasion in his Hundred and sixty fifth Epistle and the breach of this Succession is the Charge and Crime of Schism they both object against the Donatists as guilty of a Church as well as a State-transgression and both on several accounts as two distinct Impieties are they proceeded against I 'le give but one instance out of St. Chrysostom and 't is so full there needs no more of those many others are producible 't is in his 86th Homily on St. John where he says Christ did invest his Apostles with Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a King sends forth his Praefects and Governors with a Power immediately from himself to imprison and release to bind and to loose to execute of themselves all Power and Jurisdiction so receiv'd and belonging to the Deputation And what was the Judgment of St. Ambrose the particular case alone betwixt him and the Emperor Theodosius makes abundantly appear occasioned by that cruel Massacre committed in Thessalonica by his at least connivance the Holy Bishop remov'd him from the Prayers and Altar durst not Communicate with him in those Holy Duties whose hands were so full of Blood not that St. Ambrose could impose these things by force and that his Person be so absented by any thing like a Coercive Power or did design or pretend to it and that Penance which he laid upon him and the Emperor accepted of upon his Re-entrance was it suited to his Imperial Power no ways abating of or detracting from his Majesty and Soveraignty it was to enact a Law that no Penal Decree or Edict that comes forth be executed till Thirty days after its first Sanction to avoid the fury of such Proceedings for the future No St. Ambrose upon the either Plea or Execution of this Power does not attempt his either Purple or Scepter to Depose him from his Crown or Absolve his Subjects of their Allegiance he only executes upon him his Pastoral Charge and which is in order to the World to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as he reverenced his Kingly Power so did he take care also not to transgress the Law of his God had the Emperor been less a Christian and return'd upon him with violence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could receive the stroke with Pleasure he did discharge his Duty as a Bishop and he was secure within he only lets the Emperor know that his Purple makes him a Prince not a Priest that it doth not exempt him from the Laws and Discipline of God's Church and for this he appeals to his own Education 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nourish'd up in the Divine Oracles and in which it was clear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what was the Priests and what the Princes peculiar Office and which were there notoriously distinguish'd all this was no Pragmatick newly started particular extravagant attempt in St. Ambrose but a commonly receiv'd and owned Right and Truth what the whole Age had been taught and bred up in And Theodosius in particular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knew it by his Education and which caused his displeasure to some who were willing to abate of their Church Right whether out of Court-flattery or for what other Reason for which on the contrary he so highly valued and honoured St. Ambrose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as who alone was worthy of the Name of a Bishop all which with more is to be read in our Church Histories particularly those of Sozomen lib. 7. cap. 25. and Theodoret lib. 5. cap. 18. and that which gave St. Ambrose a particular advantage in the asserting and execution of such his Power was that he had the Autority of Valentinian on his side for that good Emperor had own'd all this before and he Sang this Hymn at his Consecration St. Ambrose being then a lay Governor of that Province deputed to it by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave thanks to God and Christ that as he had committed the Power of Mens Bodies to him in that Province so from them he had now the Power of Souls by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there mentioned his Episcopal Character then conferr'd upon him Theodorit Eccl. Hist l. 4. cap. 7. § XII And he that begins again where we left off in Eusebius and goes along our first Church History to Constantine downward will find all along the same Church-Power continued and asserted and expressed in the same words too as is that of the Empire Nor can any man any more doubt that there was Ecclesiastical Power seated in some measure in every Order of the Church but primarily and chiefly in the Bishop then that there was a Civil Power placed by God first of all in the Empire and from him derived to his Praefects and inferiour Magistrates and Damasus Bishop of Rome had as real a Power in his Diocese and which can no more be questioned upon the score of those publick Records than that Valentinianus his Contemporary had a real Autority in the Empire of the World the Bishop is still represented in his Chair as the Emperor is upon his Throne or can be by words declared they are still called and acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Hist l. 10. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Vita Constantini lib. 2. c. 62. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum Presbyteris suis l. 3. c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 59. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Eustathio dicitur quòd Concilium Niceae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nimirum Antiochiae cum eodem tempore Capite dicit quod Constantinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sozomen l. 1. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacerdotes Vocat lib. 2. cap. 12. and he gives this account why the Bishops are Buried at Constantinople with the Emperors in the Church which is call'd The Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 2. cap. ult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 3. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Episcopis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Imperatore lib. 6. c. 4. Philip who held a Praefecture or some kind of Government under the Empire is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Constantinople and which implies his Mission and Deputation from and under the Emperor But this word is never applied to the Bishops or any one of them who are no Deputies of his receive nothing like a Commission nor have any derived Power from him they are not the King's Ministers or Vicegerents as are those in Temporals and they owe their Autority alone to Christ Jesus Cap. 9. And so again lib. 4. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when mentioning the Officers of the Crown under Deputation and all along in the History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Romae Sylvester 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antiochiae Vitalis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 post illum Phlagonius Theodorit lib. 1. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constantinopoleos
and in these Church Debates only upon the forementioned ends and purposes to secure the common Reputation both of Men and Governors and to see that former Sanctions be not violated to judge as to Matter of Fact and what was Law and Canon before and that nothing destructive be admitted and imbodied into the Empire and which many times was deputed to the Bishops themselves as we have instance in the Comments of Jacob Gothofred in extravagans de judicio Episcopali ad finem Cod. Theodos l. 1. and to be sure the Empire never determined but by the Clergy in any thing else and the Enquiry was only this an Ordinavit Antiquitas that nothing thwarring was introduced and imposed Nor can Theodosius himself be supposed to have done any more from the Relation made of him by Socrates Hist Eccles l. 5. c. 10. or by Sozomen l. 7. c. 17. where he is engaged in Points of Faith and which is so much insisted on by those that resolve all Power into the Prince in the determining and composing all differences arising in Points of Religion Vid. Grotium bona fides Lubberâ—i 48. alibi Theodosius was an acute Man and pursued his own Satisfaction in those Points or Articles he made Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all he did upon his search was this he concurr'd in the same Opinion with the Bishops receiv'd their Reasons offer'd and allow'd of the Grounds they proceeded on and imbodied in the Empire the Decrees of the Council call'd by him at Constantinople upon the occasion of the Arians and other Business in the Eighth Chapter of that Book of Socrates And so again in Sozomen he gives out his Rescripts for equal Honor to be given to the Persons in the Trinity and declares those Hereticks which do it not and enjoyns Theophilus to follow the Nicene Faith for which the antecedent Church Canon is the rule lib. 7. cap. 4 5. 9. THE Laws of the Empire against Hereticks § XX are many and for the Rule of Faith and its Unity and against their meetings in the exercise of their Fancies they are turned out of the Publick Churches and expell'd the Cities and whatever favour hath been obtained for a Penal-mitigation by bribed Courtiers misrepresenting for such it seems there always was and will be the Grant is to be actually void the Houses they meet in are Confiscated they that have frequented them are Punished an Hundred Pounds and such as continue at them Fifty no Man is to read their Books they are all to be burned none is to Petition in their behalf their last Testaments are voided they are not permitted to Buy or Sell or Trade as do other Men all their Gifts Endowments and Revenues settled on their Sects are transferr'd to the Churches use Such of them as set up Schools and Teach are to be animadverted upon Vltimo Supplicio to be sure by a Punishment greater than others and they that learn of them are to Pay Ten Pounds No Lay-man that is an Heretick is to have or exercise any Government lest they be vexatious to the Bishops and Christians all the Moderators Governors and Under-Officers in Provinces that neglect to execute these Laws or permit them to be violated are to have a Mulct of Ten Pounds laid upon them No Civil or Military Power is to assist them in erecting their quasi Ecclesias falsly called Churches Speluncas fidei suae under the Punishment of Twenty Pounds of Gold He that entertains a Conventicle in his House if vilis of the Plebeians he is to be beaten with Clubs if an Ingenuous Person his Punishment is Ten Pounds and if they go from their Conventicles to Mutinies and Sedition 't is present Death and to such as frequent them t is Proscription of Goods with many more Penalties assigned Some greater and some less as was the temper of the Law-Maker and the apprehended Guilt as greater or less the Heresie of more or less danger in Church or State even to some as the Manichees their Children were not to inherit but then who and what these Hereticks and Heresies were what made a Conventicle or Schismatical Meeting what constituted this Rule of Faith and Unity this was not the work of the Empire nor did it pretend to be Judge and Decide She believed as did the Church determine whose Traditions and Confessions received Strength and Autority thereby the Civil Arm and Power concurring but the Catholique Faith is the Rule and Praedicationem Sacerdotum the Instructions of the Priests the Director Nor is any one condemned by the Law but such as are Strangers to and neglect the Church who are first condemned by her and 't is what Antiquity has ordained appoints and constitutes That Faith which St. Peter the Apostle Preached at Rome and which was then follow'd there by Damasus the present Bishop and Peter Bishop of Alexandria Nectarius of Constantinople Pelagius of Laodicea Diodonis of Tarsis Amphilochius of Iconium Optimus of Antioch c. Men led by the Apostolical Evangelical Discipline and Doctrine farther taught and recommended in the Four first Councils Determinantibus Sacerdotibus the Bishops there determining and the Exposition of Synods by the Imperial Autority and Laws called together Sacram Communionem in Ecclesia Catholica non percipientes à Deo amabilibus Episcopis Haereticos justè vocamus Justinian Novel 109. Praefat. The Heresie in its own Nature consists here when they unite and hold Communion out of the Catholick Church not receiving of it from God's beloved Bishops and so Schism is defined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 31. Apost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 6. Concil Gen. Constantinop when they despise and make Assemblies contrary to their Bishops So also Can. 31. Concil 6. in Trullo Can. 10. Concil Carthag and more expresly yet Can. 10. Concil Antioch and which we have occasionally made use of before if any Presbyter or Deacon separate from the Church contemning his own Bishop and makes a Private Congregation or Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in that 10th Canon Concil Carthag all which concerning Schism and Heresie and Conventicles with a great deal more may be seen at large and in every particular by whoso is conversant in the Canons and Church Proceedings and Determinations or which may be of more Autority with him at least not so lyable to Scorn and contempt to whoso pleases to read Cod. Justinian Tit. 1 2 3 4 5 c. Theodos 16 Tit. 1. l. 28. and in the several Titles and Laws with the various Novels and Constitutions treating expresly on these Subjects § XXI THERE are as many Laws and Directions Imperial concerning Ordinations the Person to be Separate and Consecrated to the Ministry of what Order soever whether Bishops Presbyters or Deacons perhaps many more as indeed they are very numerous giving Rules for Elections for the better discharge of their Duties providing against Symony for the daily Sacrifices and Ministerial Offices in the Liturgy and
for it Christianus nulli Inimicus praesertim Imperatori as Tertullian a Christian is an Enemy to no Man especially the Emperor whom he acknowledges as a Man immediately under God that receives his Power only from God nor hath any Man a Power above and beyond him to Obey and Serve him is his Conscience his Religion and he expects his Heaven his eternal Salvation by it and indeed Christianity is the great truly rational permanent Support of Kingdoms and Bodies Politick What favour Constantine shew'd the Christians was his real particular Interest and perhaps he could not have retain'd his Empire had not the Christian Bishops been of his side without their Aid and Assistance and as by them his Crown might be fixed the more firm and secure on his Head who yet gave him not his Original Right unto it for that was his upon other terms than his Christianity he prosessed nor did they add one cubit to his Power in this sense Dominion is not founded in Grace so did they receive from him his outward aid and assistance for the more due and advantageous execution of that Power they had but not from him they had exercised before he was Emperor though perhaps with less success by a Donation antecedent to his by a Right from Christ Jesus thus the Empire became their Nursing-Father to support and encourage but did not could not give their Power as Church-men unto them As God gave to the Empire the Government of the World so he gave to the Bishops the Government of the Church and which they were to use for the Empires advantage but might not use it against him And all this Constantine well knew and was highly sensible of as were his Succession that was Christian still acknowledging Church-Power from another hand nor was it in the arm of Flesh by favour or frowns as to its Power purely from above to extinguish or enlarge it I 'le conclude this Section and Chapter with that of St. Austin Ep. 165. Quia Constantinus 〈◊〉 ausâ—… est de causa Episcopi judicare eam discutiendam finiendam Episcopis delegavit And again Ibid. Imperatores non si in errore essent quod absit pro errore suo contra veritatem leges darent per quas justi probarentur coronarentur non faciendo quod illis juberent quia Deus prohiberet Religion as such falls not under the Determination of the Prince and if he gives Laws against Truth the Just will be both Tried and Crown'd in disobeying him Chap. 3. CHAP. III. The Contents Church-Power is a Specifick constituted by Christ in order to a Succession the erecting a new and lasting Government upon Earth a Community of divers Orders Offices Acts Stations every ways peculiar the Body of Christ Sect. 1. A Government to Rule and defend it self and Independent Sect. 2. The main Objection That it is against the Civil Power Common Sense and Experience confutes it The more a Christian the better Subject The Christians supported Constantine's Crown Sect. 3 4. They did not want Power to do otherwise nor consequently Integrity as is objected Sect. 5. To say they were Fools is more plausible to the Age but then the Empire must be so too who were equally ignorant of these destructive Consequences to their Government Sect. 6. The reason of the present Misunderstandings and that we do not see as the Ancients did because no Government own'd but that which is Temporal and outwardly Coercive Sect. 7. So 't was stated by an Anonymous Author 1641. All Power and Punishment was outward and bodily among the Jews and so it must be among Christians Sect. 8. So Mr. Selden allowing no Punishments but what are outwardly Coercive because none other as not under so nor before the Law Sect. 9. Erastus went the same way before him Sect. 10. And Salmasius and says the Apostles had no Power because without Whips and Axes Concludes against all Church-Power upon these terms and that he may surely take it from Bishops So does a French Reformer usually lose his Senses when running his Forehead against our Prelacy Sect. 11. Grotius is in this Error but oft corrects himself His Inconstancy is to be lamented He imputes it to his Education He fights with the very same Weapon against Church-Power in general the Jesuite does against the Supremacy in the Church of England Sect. 12. IT returns then with more force and strength what was laid down in the § I beginning of the foregoing Chapter That Church-Power is a Specifick a Constitution of its own originally from Heaven deliver'd by Christ to his select Apostles Men chosen from all other fill'd with the Holy Ghost for the Service of Mankind in the propagating Christianity to speak before Kings every where and in all Circumstances to declare and publish it a Power limited to their Persons to be retain'd within themselves and as no Heads but their own receiv'd it so no Hands but their own could devolve and conveigh it to others only as their own Prudence saw fit was it derived and in what measures and degrees they pleased as the World came into the Church Believers were made the Harvest grew great and there needed more Labourers to be sent forth into it a Power I say received for the use of others the advantage of Mankind in the Successions of it not for one single Purpose and Action as were several Commissions and Delegations both before and under the Law and one at the entrance of the Gospel viz. That given to St. John Baptist but to erect a new and standing Government and this to continue till the World is no more and then only is the Kingdom to be delivered up to the Father whose is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen And St. Clemens Romanus in his Epistle to the Romans and which place we had occasion to use before tells us That the Apostles receiving Commands and imbued with a full certitude by the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed by the Word of God with all fulness of the Holy Ghost they went out declaring the coming of the Kingdom of God and Preaching through the Regions and Cities they constituted Bishops and Deacons in order to those that should believe knowing by our Lord Jesus Christ that Contentions would arise by reason of the Episcopacy or Power of the Ministry and therefore having a perfect fore-knowledge as they constituted the fore-mentioned Bishops so they afterwards gave them Rules for Ordinations that others Approved Men might succeed in the Places of such as should die and execute such their Offices the Consult and Design was laid for future Ages also A Power and Autority framing and fashioning Believers into a Body not an accidental casual concurrency of People only but a Community well and duly associated every part proportionably fitted and put together increasing with the increase of God in which all things are to be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Civil Power or that Power of the State to erect an Autority against it because not of and under it that Prince cannot be said to be Supreme if a differing Power within him To be Supreme is to be above all there must be no Power apart from his who is the Supreme if so he is not Supreme This they urge with a great deal more to the same purpose and is the Stone that the great Hugo Grotius stumbles at in the entrance to his Treatise De jure Summarum Potestatum in Sacris and which occasions so many more falls he has all along in that Discourse it being stuffed with inconsistencies to it self throughout and no wonder when bottomed on so false a Principle that the Power of our Saviour is an Usurpation on the State nor does one absurdity go alone A Suspition upon Church-Government that has not the Honor to be new 't is as old as our Saviour in the Flesh and Herod we know started it against him so soon as Born in the World and his Title as King was known unto him for this he sought to kill him when an Infant and the little Children in Bethlehem were barbarously Murdered hoping the Babe Jesus might have died in the croud distrusting if he escaped he would have supplanted him of his Kingdom Nor did his Apostles after him escape the Suspition and Censure and yet our Saviour all along his life-time upon Earth and notoriously at his death still clear'd himself of the Aspersion asserting and maintaining his Power and Kingdom delivered him of the Father that All Power in Heaven and Earth and so did his Apostles too retain and exercise the same Power and with the same Innocency Nor do I doubt but to Vindicate his Body the Succeeding Church still claiming the like Power and that to every rational considering Person to each one that with Herod has not a design and believes it his interest to kill our Saviour to blot out his Power and Name and Memory on Earth § IV AND indeed to pass by the particular Answers to the Objection which will follow in course upon our Procedure the Objection must fall of it self to any one of common sense that exercises not his Enquiries more about Tricks and Phrases to wheedle delude and carry on his own particular Plot and Party then about that which is notorious Matter of Fact certain Truths and realities One thing I know that whereas I was blind I now see a Man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and said unto me Go to the Pool of Siloam and wash And I went and washed and I received sight He put clay upon mine eyes and I washed and do see This was the Answer of the Man that was born Blind and cured by our Saviour John 9.11.15.25 and this great notoriety to common sense baffled all the Malice and Purposes superseded all their trifling Enquiries designed to obscure the Power and Miracle of our Saviour's working that mighty Cure upon him as whether it was done on the Sabbath Day the Person was a Sinner c. and the same common sense and notoriety of Matter of Fact will be our Evidence and Avoucher in this our particular Case also and is the alone Answer we need to give in able indeed to baffle whatever the Skill of an Objector can lay or whatever inconsistencies the wit of Man may urge against us Can any even a Pharisaical race of Men ill-natur'd and Perverse give out and believe That that Body of Christians their Bishops and Governors should Assert and Maintain a Kingdom and Jurisdiction upon Earth destructive to that of the Empire or Secular by whose breath they in their Persons professed to subsist for whose Persons and Government and the Prosperity of both they always Pray'd and in the first place as by whose Influences they were to live Godly lives in all Godliness and Honesty whose Battels they fought whom they Honoured with all the titles of Power and Majesty and Magnificence whom but to think Evil of to Curse in their Hearts in their Bed-Chambers much more openly to Defame and speak Evil of was their Sin and Irreligion whom they acknowledged upon Earth as under God alone and to God alone accountable for all their Actions and Designs nor could any Man say what doest thou And all this they still Remonstrated and Publish'd to the World under the deepest sense of Religion and Zeal with the most solemn Protestations as in all their Apologies Defences and Writings does appear who made it a term of their Communion to Serve Support and Assist the Emperor to shew themselves Faithful and Just and Conscientious towards him equally as to serve their God and Saviour as to say their Prayers for themselves and live Righteously and Soberly in the World and the contrary was a just occasion for their Censures an Intermination upon the Offender who too often died under their Tyranny came peaceably to the Stake neither accusing nor reviling as under the stroke of God himself sealing with their Blood such their Obedience Nor in all our first Church-Story do we find the Catholick Christian engaged in any thing like a Plot or Council against his Governor his either Person or Power much less an open Rebel against him when either an Heathen or Heretick and his professed Persecutor for an Heretick has been no less Cruel than an Heathen and when to make up the Charge by their Malice as in the particular case of Athanasius accused as designing against the Empire by the Arians and Meletians to be accused was his great trouble to be under the Suspition of so foul a Crime being otherways able to acquit himself and so he did and indeed so generally received a Truth was it that a Christian could not be a Rebel or attempt any thing upon the Empire So much was it concluded of the Essence of his Profession that when his Enemies thought effectually to blemish and make him appear no Christian they libell'd him as a Rebel the more and the better a Christian the more did his Prince confide in him and 't is very well urg'd by our Adversaries that Constantine did look upon them as his great Support and Preservers nor could the Empire in all Probability have been continued to him without their Aid and Fidelity and for which his Favours and Temporalities were deservedly large unto them but this is their Error when they tell the World that all Church-Power was then and is still continued upon this score and by the alone favour of Princes IF it be said that all this was the effect § V alone of common Prudence and usual Wisdom they thus provided for their interest the Security in general of their both Religion and Persons and which all Wise Men do in the first place take care of they were wanting both of Power and Opportunity to do otherwise and had it not been so the Hypocrisie had ceased they had both appeared and
much below that of a Bishop Presbyterorum ordinem Patres Ecclesiae generare non valentem per regenerationis lavacrum Ecclesiae filios non Patres aut Doctores genuisse as D. Blondel himself in his Apology pro Hieronimo Pag. 311. quotes Epiphanius Haeres 75.4 the Presbyter though not able to beget or constitute Fathers or Bishops or Doctors in the Church can he yet by Baptism beget Sons create to the Adoption of Children he can Baptize but he cannot give Power and enable others to do it and which the Bishop can And a share of this Power is also given to the Deacon but a much less than that to the Presbyter and yet is he more than a Lay-man there is something 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Priestly Function enstated on him Can. 1.2 Conc. Ancyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 10. Conc. Naeocesar he hath an Order there Concionatur in Populos Diaconus gradus in Ecclesia cui Obediendum assurgamus Diacono he Preaches to the People 't is a Church degree to whom Service and Respect is to be paid As St. Jerome Comment in Ezek. c. 48. in Micah c. 7. a Person above all Men not to be suspected to give the Deacon more than his due as will appear to whoso has read over that his smart Epistle to Evagrius reproving the insolency of some Deacons that set themselves above Presbyters And indeed had they been design'd only to serve Tables little reason can be given why they had so Solemn an Ordination and Separation at their first Institution Acts 6. and so distinct are these Orders and their Powers so peremptorily limited and consined in the Intent Prayer and whole Performance at their Ordination That 't is equally an Usurpation for a Deacon to undertake the Office of a Presbyter or a Presbyter the Office of a Bishop without a distinct Ordination or a farther Commission granted as for a Lay-man as such to intrude into any one and more of them without Ordination at all 't is in either or all of them the Sin of Vzzah and the Bethshemites a Robbery and Invasion 'T is not my sense alone they are the words and determination of our great and profound Dr. Thomas Jackson in the second Volume of his Works Cap. 6. p. 377. according to the last Edition I find two great Cases upon Church Story concerning the Ordinations made by Ischyras and Colluthus the former had no Orders at all the other was only a Presbyter and they were both null'd and declared void alike and those ordained by the Presbyter equally as by the Lay-man were reduced to and reputed in the Laick Order So Athanas Apol. pag. 732. Ed. Paris Ibid. p. 784. Socrates Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 27. § XXII THERE are some Objections which readily arise and present themselves against this Primacy of Bishops in the Christian Church as thus asserted the first and immediate Subject of Church-Power the chief Fountain and Head next under Christ from whence all instances of Church-Autority are devolved and derived to particular Offices and Members of it I shall omit that Plea of those who contend that the Presbyter is really equal with the Bishop that the Bishop is not invested with a true and distinct Power above him and the whole Priesthood or Power of the Ministry is in every Presbyter by his Orders in Actu Primo and habitually radically and intrinsecally in which very words their sense is very stoutly stated in the late Irenicum p. 197. 276. only limited in the Execution for present convenience because what is the sense of Antiquity and our particular Church in part I have but just now declared and who give it in the Negative and the distinct Power of the Bishop above the Presbyter is notorious and I may have occasion hereafter in this Discourse to instance farther in the sense of Antiquity about it it falling again in the way I shall only insist upon what either the whole Church of God has allow'd and assented to and practised giving and fixing a Precedency to certain Church-Officers beyond these of Bishops as Patriarchs Exarchs for some time to be sure but to Metropolitans Primates Arch-Bishops or whatever the Titles were into which an Enquiry is not now to be made all frequent in Church-Story and their Prerogative and Jurisdiction above and apart is there as frequent also or else what a great part of the visible Church so numerous as next to an Universal have still for some Hundreds of years together with great ostentation and clamor both of Argument and Autority contended to be in the Pope or Bishop of Rome in particular as Superior to not only all other Bishops in Christendom but even these Patriarchs and all other Metropolitanes too be sure and to this immediately enstated and invested by Christ in the Person of St. Peter with a first and absolute Power as Universal Governor and Bishop of the believing World whence even all and every even Bishop himself must derive what Autority he has or can duly receive and legally execute to whom each Metropolitan and Patriarch is an Homager and Subject in Dependency and Subordination unto and all this inseparably annexed to St. Peter's Chair and to descend through all Ages in the Succession till time be no more and to the restitution of all things What was the sense of the Church as to the Nature Reason and Designment of the former and what the no Ground and Foundation of the latter I shall endeavour to declare and evince not in that extent the Subjects require for that is the work of Volumes But with that brevity seems requisite to the clearing and better managery of this particular Discourse § XXIII AND first as to the single Solitary Power residing in one Person above and beyond that of a Bishop whether Patriarch Exarch Metropolitan Primate Arch-Bishop or whatever Title it went under as it needs not so would it be too long and excursive now to enquire as when the Name Patriarch came first into the Church how it differs from that of a Metropolitan when the change of Names as to these two or any other and which Ecclesiastical Men discourse Certain it is that the Power was there very early and the Bishops themselves were under Canonical Obedience to their Primate they were in some instances inferior to governed and ruled by them and as certain it is again this their Prerogative and Presidency flowed not from any thing conferr'd in their Orders the Power given to a Bishop is the utmost is or ever shall be in that Holy Rite or Sacrament collated nor is there any thing in Holy Orders beyond it And when the Patriarch Metropolitan or Primate was constituted or whoever that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Primae sedis Episcopus was mentioned so often in the Council of Carthage we do not read in the ancient Church Rituals or any Practice apart from them of any farther new or solemn Ordination that was
debet Roma Carthaginem precedere That Rome ought to have the Precedency of Carthage by reason of its greatness Ep. 49. and upon this occasion first contending which should be the greatest City great Controversies once arose betwixt the Bishops of Rome and Ravennas as we are told by Dionysius Gothofred in his Comments on the Eleventh Novel and whose Pleas of Autority and Jurisdiction not only over the Bishop of Ravennas but all the Bishops of the Christian World as the Universal Bishop of Christendom we are now to enquire into § XXIV WHAT is Pretended by those of the Roman Faith in the maintenance of this their universal Primacy seems to come short of that Evidence is required to settle an Article of Faith to fix an Order in the Church a continued Power and Successive Constitution immutable and for ever And all that can with any ground be challenged for the Bishop of Rome as what was in the best Ages of the Church will hardly amount to any more than an occasional particular Presidency or first Chair and which others have sometimes had no singular solitary Special Power connate and inhering but only such as by occasion of Business and particular Emergencies interposing and of meerly Ecclesiastical humane assignation for them to claim and urge it as the Successors of St. Peter seems very begging and places more in the Conclusion than appears in the Premises for it is no where evident either from St. Peter's Commission in general or from any other special Donation apart or at other times made by our Saviour that this particular Power beyond and above the other Apostles was deputed and made over unto him There appears no difference in their Call in general either in Words or Offices when first leaving all and enjoyn'd to follow him Nor was it otherwise in their after-Influences and Instructions they were all alike breathed upon at once receiv'd the same Autority to retain and remit Sins the Holy Ghost fell equally upon them all at once at the Feast of Pentecost there universally and visibly on their Heads in the face of all Nations and each one went out a Theopneust Independent and self-autoritative to Preach and constitute Churches they were only liable to be advised and directed and reprov'd by one another if occasion Vnde Petrus à suo posteriori Apostolo salubri admonitione correctus as St. Austin lib. 3. Cont. Gaudentium and St. Peter had a great share of the latter Nor was there any one of them more notoriously withstood to the face than he was in the Business of the Gentiles Cardinal Bellarmine solves all indeed would a single apposite reply and distinction do it a nicer exact stating the Question serve the turn and in which his accuracy must always be allowed Nor is there any Man in such cases that goes beyond him Caeteros Apostolos parem cum Petro potestatem accepisse sed ut legati extraordinarii Petrus ut Ordinarius Caput Successionis Controvers 3. Gen. de Rom. Pontif. Tom. 1. l. 1. c. 13. The rest of the Apostles received equal Power with Peter but as Embassadors Extraordinary Peter as Ordinary and the Head of the Succession theirs was only for the present Service during their Natural lifes or till recall'd by that same Autority that they received it from his to abide with his Person and descend in the Succession and from whence each influence and supply each instance of Church-Autority is to be derived throughout all Ages for evermore So that St. Peter's Power was more than the rest in regard only to the abode and during use of it But the bottom here is altogether sandy nor does he produce any thing that is Evidence for such the Privilege either to his Person or Succession Thou art Peter upon this Rock will I build my Church And the Confession preceding Thou art Christ the Son of the living God feed my Sheep His first Call if he had it and his being left to Posterity with his Name in the head of them cannot any one or all of them imply any thing like it to a rational considering Person These were occurring Discourses particular Applications and accidental such as in course must be supposed to fall in and to be where a constant Converse and so known a Design as was then on foot amongst them and the Contingencies of the World cannot be otherwise conceived of or adjusted That same is now the Confession of every Christian and to be sure was then of all the Apostles at least e're their Commissions were fully delivered and their Power deputed unto them The second Call might be as full and extensive as the first nor does the Precedency imply in its Nature any thing otherwise One branch or instance of the Church was first founded on St. Peter's personal Preaching and other Administrations and Church-Offices in which he officiated Acts 2. and the other Apostles in the same Way and Duties and Power did found and constitute others St. Paul had his Apostleship equally evidenced nor were its seals less notorious our Saviour might as particularly urge the Care of the Church to others as he did to St. Peter and we ought to believe nothing less then that he did that they all see to their Duty in feeding and governing of it He might have a differing Confidence in one above another as we are sure his love was unequal and that something might happen extraordinary in Discourse by Acknowledgment and Approbation all this may easily be allowed but that a Commission and Power more lasting a special Headship and Charge is hereby granted and seated for ever is hence to be inferr'd and in consequence follows none that understands a Syllogism or enquires into but obvious Inferences can submit unto it And therefore Estius abates a little in his Treatise on the Sentences Lib. 4. Dist 47. Sect. 9. and says Verè est Vniversalis Episcopus c. that the Bishop of Rome is truly an Universal Bishop if he be call'd Universal Bishop who has the care of the whole Church but if you understand a Universal Bishop Qui solus omnium Provinciarum Civitatum Episcopus sit sic ut alii non Episcopi sint sed unius Episcopi seu Pontificis sunt Vicarii who is Bishop alone of all Provinces and Cities so as others are not Bishops but Vicars of this one Bishop or High Priest then it is plainly to be denied that the Bishop of Rome is an Universal Bishop He seems to distinguish betwixt the Power of giving of Holy Orders and the Power of governing the Church the former he will not allow the Bishop of Rome to be singular in and apart from other Bishops Caput Successionis as Bellarmine will have him to be the alone Head and Fountain of Priestly Succession as if illegal and wanting when not derived from his Chair the latter he peremptorily affixes upon him and believes him alone invested with a Power Universal for the governing the
Priesthood is one and the same in all and this shall not be called the chief Priest and that a Priest less Perfect but all are equally Priests all equally Bishops as who all have equally receiv'd the Gift of the Holy Spirit the Metropolitan Bishop as having the first Chair with addition shall be called Bishop Metropolitan or which seems mostly apposite for a present Conclusion if any thing can be more than that which is already brought in the sense of those three Bishops Can 8. Conc. Gen. Ephes Whatsoever is nominated contrary to the Ecclesiastical Laws and the Canons of the Holy Fathers and which toucheth the common liberty of Christians is to be renounced and rejected § XXVII I shall now therefore resume what I have already laid down and prov'd at large that those of the Bishop are the full Orders every one instance of Power design'd for the standing lasting use of the Church is in his and consequently is he uppermost in the Church can there be no one branch or design of Power above and beyond him this his Power in some instances of it hath been by consent and for weighty Reasons moving intermitted and suspended in the execution as to the Persons of particular Bishops where the Church increased and multiplied into various Bishopricks and occasions grew and causes arose betwixt one and the other or sometimes arose in one alone and within it self which could not be heard and determined but by different Persons thus Metropolitans were constituted but with no new Power which was not in Episcopacy nor was there any new Consecration only so much devolved upon one for the occasional business An occasion of which we have in part set down by Hosius in the entrance of the Council of Carthage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. if by chance an angry Bishop though such an one ought not to be is over-sharp against a Presbyter or Deacon or over-sudden care is to be taken for better satisfaction and he may appeal to a neighbour-Bishop who is not to deny him audience And that Bishop who first gave Sentence whether right or wrong is to bear the Examination and his Animadversions to be either confirmed or corrected as occasion or else the Bishop derives so much of this Power to the two Orders below him as the Presbyter and Deacon whose Power is more solemnly conveigh'd by laying on of Hands and Prayer and then conferr'd so fixing a Character indelible save only by that Power which devolved it and upon a succeeding Guilt and which for themselves to lay down and desert is Sacriledge and these sent out by the Bishop as is the Harvest great or small so more or less in number in subjection to and dependency upon him So that the standing Church Officers are these the Metropolitan which is only a Bishop with larger Jurisdiction and with the execution of a Power the Bishop has not and the naked Bishop with his Presbyter and Deacon in the ordinary course of officiating in order to Salvation and which three or some one or more of them as is the occasional Service are still to be present and in their spheres and courses according to their several proper Provinces and Offices as already described and particularized to attend and officiate in each Holy Assembly in every Congregation that is Publick and Christian where the Worship and Service of God is so performed as by the rules of the Gospel is order'd and appointed Thus Tertullian among the many absurdities of his time reckons up this Laicis munia sacerdotalia injunâ—unt the Lay-men undertake the Priestly office De Praescript cap. 41. the 〈…〉 the People united Sacerdoti suo to their Priest and a Flock with their Pastor Cypr. lib. 4. Ep. 9. that is no Church quae non habet Sacerdotem which has no Priest as St. Jerom. adv Luciferianos And he that reads over St. Austin's Sermon super gestis cum Emerito Donatist Episcopo Col. 631. will there find a great many Divine Services and all without acceptance and advantage because thus extra Ecclesiam without the Church no one belonging to the Priesthood there officiating for them The Church of God is either Episcopatus unus Episcoporum multorum concordi numerositate dâ—ffusus as St. Cyprian again speaks Ep. 52. that one Episcopacy diffused and overspreading the World in the Union and Concord of its numerous Bishops and these either make a general Council or are under their several Metropolitans and are the Church representative or else it is in Episcopo clero omnibus stantibus constituta as Cyprian again Ep. 27. Cum Episcopis Presbyteris Diaconis stantibus Ep. 31. in the Bishop and Clergy the Presbyter Deacon and Laity the latter expressed by the stantes the People standing without in the time of officiating according to the ancient Ecclesiastical Custom And so also Optatus lib. 1. adv Parmen Donatist speaks of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons and turbam fidelium the Believers in general Si tantummodo Christianus es hoc est non Apostolus Tertul. adv Marc. cap. 2. such as were Christians at large and not Publick Officers nor of the Priesthood and this as Members of a particular Church Parish or Congregation or however as relating to the publick Service of God to be discharged by all Christians and which cannot duly be perform'd without the Bishop in Person or in his Proxies by his Power lodged in the Presbyter or Deacon Thus he is called a Schismatick that erects an Altar without the consent of the Bishop Can. 3. Apost even though the Confession of Faith is otherwise sound If thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if thus dividing from and meeting against his Autority Can. 6. Conc. gen Constantinop the very Clergy themselves are not to administer in their Oratories without license had of the Bishop Can. 31. Conc. 6. in Trullo And to the same purpose is Schism again desined a recession from the Bishop erecting an Altar against an Altar Can. 13 14 15. Conc. 1 2. Constantin Can. 57. Conc. Carthag and Can. 6. Conc. Gangrens as the Church is there defined a Congregation of the Faithful with their Bishop so is it there peremptorily determined that the Anathema or Curse is due to those that privately and apart from these do convene and congregate themselves Nor is it Schism only but Heresie also so reputed by the imperial Constitution Sacram Communionem in Ecclesia Catholica non percipientes à Deo amabilibus Episcopis Hereticos justè vocamus We justly call them Hereticks that do not receive Communion in the Catholick Church from the Bishops which are beloved of God for as such they were then look'd upon and that more eminently than others in the then Christian account and it was the Bishop's common Epithete Deo amabiles Episcopi however the opinion and style of them is now alter'd Justinian Novel 109. Praefat. And now these Church-Officers being thus set out and enumerated what their peculiar
and because Erastus his Works were Licensed for the Press and Published by the Autority of the Kingdom in the Days of Queen Elizabeth and which would not have been done did not the same Autority receive and own and espouse and submit to his Doctrines and which are wholly levell'd against the Church-Power as independent and not derived from the Magistrate I 'le consider each § XIV THE Acts of Parliament he produces are V and VI Edw. VI. Cap. IV. That if any Person or Persons shall smite or lay any violent hands upon any other either in any Church or Church-yard or draw any Weapon then ipso facto every Person so offending shall be deem'd Excommunicate and be excluded from the Fellowship and Company of Christ's Congregation Sect. 2 3. and III James Cap. V. That every Popish Recusant that is or shall be Convict of Popish Recusancy shall stand and be reputed to all ends and purposes disabled as a Person Excommunicated by Sentence in the Ecclesiastical Court Which two Acts being put together by Mr. Selden De Syned lib. 1. c. 10. p. 320. as one and the same and suitably he backs that of King Edward with this of King James Simili modo ex latâ Lege c. 'T is all the reason in the World they should interpret one another Now King James says expresly That lawful and due Excommunication is when denounced and Excommunicated according to the Laws of this Realm That is by a Sentence in the Ecclesiastical Court and this by a Bishop or Presbyter in Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions by a Judge that hath Autority thereunto Article 33. and which to be sure in the Act it self being not done as by Law and by the acknowledged Laws of the Land in such the Statute the Parliament rendred uncapable of doing of it being not the Judges appointed Mr. Selden must in course be supposed so intolerably absurd in his Inference that the Secular Power Excommunicates that common sense is not able to endure him And the true intent and meaning of the Parliament can only be this That these Offenders though they be not Excommunicated and which the Parliament though the Higher Court of England have not Power to do being not Judges with Autority thereunto yet they shall have the usual Secular Punishments inflicted and which are usually laid upon such as are duly Excommunicated the imposing which is the Act of Parliament alone and which as they may remove so they may impose when they please without any respect to the Excommunication anteceding They shall be deemed as such So King Edward They shall stand and be reputed to all ends and purposes as such So King James The particular Punishment instanced in by King Edward is Exclusion from the Fellowship and Company of Christ's Congregation which indeed comes somewhat nearer to what always and immediately follows Excommunication it self in the first Institution and Primitive Practice Vt à Communione Orationis conventus omnis Sancti commercii relegetur Tertul. Apol. Cap. 39. where so much Power over Mens Persons is obtained as to be able to exclude them their Oratories and the Christians usually absented themselves and 't is agreeable with the Practice and Injunction Apostolical with such an one not to accompany 1 Cor. 5.11 but yet this is not of the first Nature and Essence of it because this may be where the Excommunication is not 't is supposeable to arise from a different Autority and Motive and so the Secular Arm if agreeable to its self it s own Power and Proceedings and in relation to which it is to be interpreted must be concluded to appoint and execute in this Statute and no otherwise As every Science so every Power is to be conceived of as on its own object and proper work and those Apostatizing dissenting Christians of old who laid this Punishment upon themselves and out of peevishness or whatever undue ground turn'd themselves out of Communion with the Church in her Prayers and Eucharist the Church proceeded notwithstanding to Excommunicate them her own censure as a Church-Act did judicially proceed against them See Can. 2. Conc. Antioch fusius suprà Cap. 4. Sect. 31. and since our Parliaments have so frequently declared the Practice and Inferences of the first Doctors and Holy Bishops from the Old and New Testament to be their rule in all their religious Proceedings they have so often hither limited and confined themselves every one of such their Proceedings must in course be interpreted in Subordination to and complyance with them they are not to be concluded where Words and Actions and things will bear any favourable Construction to run cross to and Head against them or if they do and no Friendly office can be done them and a better gloss is not to be put upon it 't is to be reputed as that particular Error from which they plead not an Exemption and the general Design will weigh down if coming in Competition But the Statute of King James instances in and confines to a Punishment that is not pleadable to be otherwise than Secular and Worldly nor can be interpreted of any immediate Spiritual consequence upon whom 't is inflicted The Punishment is to be disabled as to Suits at Law and which every Body knows the alone Laws of the Land and Power of Parliament can impose and which may be and is imposed upon sundry other occasions and not that of Excommunication only and so supposed in the Act. § XV WHAT he brings out of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth in their Acts for authorizing and making Law the Common-Prayer-Book ibid. p. 386. as ranked by themselves so are they of different Complexions nor does the Prince there attempt any thing but what as Supreme Governor in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil he is enabled to do as Mr. Selden there very well refers to such his Title for his Evidence that is to see that every one does his Duty in his Order and Station enabling and protecting him thereunto the Prince is thereby to be interpreted no more enabled by his own Power whether in his own Person or the Person of any other to discharge the Office of a Priest than he is supposed to have the Skill and Capacity of any Artist Mechanick or what other Tradesman whom he Empowers by his Letters Patents or any otherways in Law acquits or indemnifies in the managery and publick Profession of such his Art and Invention his Trade and Employment and no otherwise can the Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Officers be said there to be impower'd to proceed by censures against all such as will not come to Church II. III. Edw. VI. Cap. I. Sect. XII I Elizabethae Cap. II. Sect XVI nor do any of those many many instances which his usual intolerable Pains has heaped together in several Pages both before and after in that Chapter about the Prince or â—ecular Powers interposing limiting and restraining in Excommunications prove any thing at
Priests to Correct and Punish them to whom the Priests are to pay Tribute and this all along from the Examples of the Kings of Israel from our Saviour from St. Peter this contrary to the practice of the Pope who claims these Powers and Advantages to himself and in his own Power Person executes them 't is the Princes Province assign'd him in the Scripture to Punish and Coerce to enforce Penance and Restitution and that evil-doers be cut off according to St. Paul to prohibit and smite such as refuse to serve God according to the Priests instruction as did Hezekiah to the Worshippers in the Groves and high places destroying them as did the King of Nineveh compelling the whole City to Repentance forbidding for the future by terrible Laws as did Nebucadnezzar thus Justinian the Emperor gave Laws in Religion concerning Faith and Hereticks Churches Bishops and Church-men Marriages c. and the same and only this Power have the Kings of England assum'd to themselves as he instances all along to the End of the Book particularly in the Church Laws made by several Kings in this Island as Canutus Etheldred Edgar Edmund Adelstan Ive Oswin Egfrid William the Conqueror in his Letters for the Endowment of Battle with its Priviledges and Immunities and which Mr. Selden makes use of to his purpose though no ways serving it for he only exempts the Church from Episcopal Visitation but neither in this or any other of their Letters Rules Laws and Injunctions given to the Church is any thing of Church-Power as such own'd claimed appropriated or but pretended to by virtue of the Crown or Regal Power given them of God but the two Powers are supposed distinct and disparates and so in particular King Edgar in that his severer correptive Monitory-Oration or Letter to the Clergy of England their faults appearing then very notorious he at length thus addresses himself unto them Ego Constantini vos Petri gladium habetis in manibus jungawus dexteras gladium gladio copulemus ut ejiciantur extra castra leprosi ut purgetur Sanctuarium Domini ministrent in Templo silii Levi. I have the Sword of Constantine you have the Sword of Peter in your hands let us joyn right hands together let us couple Sword with Sword that the Leprous may be cast out of the Tents and the Sanctuary of the Lord be Purged and the Sons of Levi minister in the Temple And a little farther applying himself to Dunstan the Archbishop he tells him Contempta sunt verba veniendum est ad verbera urguisti obsecrasti atque increpasti Admonitions will do no more good he must come to blows and thereunto directs him to joyn with himself Edwald Bishop of Winchester and Oswald Bishop of Worcester Vt Episcopali Censurâ regia Autoritate turpiter viventes de Ecclesia ejiciantur c. by the Episcopal Censure and Regal Autority the one assisting but neither usurping upon and destroying the other these evil Men be cast out of the Church and better placed in their rooms So unlucky is Mr. Selden in this first Quotation § XXII STEPHEN Bishop of Winchester in his Oration de vera Obedientiâ comes next but brings nothing more of advantage to his side and as it was Printed 1537. and but a year after the Opus eximium c. so does he as to the Substance copy after him and asserts Henry VIII Head of the Church i. e. all Christians within his Dominions as were the Kings of Israel over all the Jews i. e. to take care of their Morals and see that they do their Duty to God their Neighbour and themselves as Justinian gave Laws to the Church and the Causes of Heresies were agitated with the Caesars and Princes that were Christians and Laws made promulgated and enjoyn'd execution both by our Kings here in England and also by others elsewhere and particularly refers to that Oration of Edgar just now mentioned and adds farther out of it how Dunstan that most holy and excellent Archbishop of Canterbury submitted to this his Jurisdiction and most willingly embraced that word of the King Quâ se gladium gladio copulaturum edixit ut dissoluti Ecclesiae mores ad rectam vivendi normam aptarentur in which he engaged to joyn Sword to Sword in order to the reducing the Church to a just and due way of living meaning his Kingly Power to the Power of the Church assisting the Spiritual with the Temporal Arm for so the Bishop goes on and interprets these two Swords and instances in Excommunication as a branch of that which is in the Churches hands Altero gladio ad illud Pauli alludens quem verbi ministri docendo excommunicando exercent altero praeminentiam ostendens jure divino concessam cui omnes parere quotquot Principis ditioni subjecti Ecclesiam constituunt omnino debent By one Sword alluding to that of Paul which the Ministers of the Word exercise in Teaching and Excommunicating by the other shewing that Pre-eminence granted by God and to which all must obey that subjected to the Jurisdiction of a Prince constitute a Church within his Dominions and which two Powers though requiring different Obedience to divers Persons and Governors as to the Bishops and Ministers of the Word of God and to the King are not at all adverse to and against one another nor is any thing more detracted from or diminished thereby of the Obedience to the King than when a Wife obeys her Husband and a Servant his Master by the general Command of God and yet this is another of Mr. Selden's Autorities which with his usual forehead he brings for the sense of the Doctors of our Church in the days of Henry VIII and that the Church-Power is none at all but as derived from the Crown and the Prince can Excommunicate I wonder how he omitted the Oration of Richard Samson to this purpose and at the same time he being Dean of the Chappel to Henry VIII and which would have made a 〈◊〉 shew in his Margin which is the main thing he aims at it certainly came not to his hands and it would have serv'd his turn as well as any of the other there being in him not one word concerning the Power of the Church left by Christ and he only asserts the King Supreme Head of the Church of England the Church as made of so many Persons implying a Body politick too and they Subjects equally as Christians nor could any man think that is but ordinarily considering or designs not by Names and Attempts to deceive the unwary but credulous World and so is a Knave that the two Universities at that time or the eminenter of the Clergy at Court should assert the Supremacy upon other terms who in all Probability were a secretis of his intimate Council when designing for the Supremacy and to be sure could not be ignorant of the King 's Publick Declarations and the Statute in Parliament that
Publishing them and least of all to say no worse in urging them as the sense and judgment of our Reformers and not to be endured when in opposition to our received and established Church Articles Laws Rubricks and Book of Ordination which and which alone upon the full enquiry and debate each Proposal and Objection and which must be many answered and satisfaction given is to be concluded the sense of every particular Doctor and admit the Conference had been as Doctor Stillingfleet Mistook it appointed by King Edward and his Council and by Law in order to the Reformation and which was began in that King's days the Judgment of the Church of England was to have been reported not from the particular bandyings pro and con amongst them or the draught or draughts of any one or more men and which in their Season was useful nay necessary but from the joynt unanimous result of the whole and which we are sure as to that particular of Church-Power and its Subject ended and united in the Book of Ordination nor upon a general account can those Collections whether in the Cottonian or any Library be in any better repute among us than any other of all the Pamphlets Models of Church and State Government Attempts and Proposals the late unhappy Revolutions in our Kingdom gave occasion to and produced the Condition as to Religion being just such in King Henry VIII days as it was then and the Autorities an Hundred years hence if all shaked in a bag together will be much at one too every man contrived said proposed and wrote as his own either Fancy or Interest or Curiosity or sometimes Reason prompted and directed him and though they may make a Pleasant History with much of diversion yet little of the Sense and Autority of the Nation can be collected and urged from them I am now come to the last of Mr. Selden's § XXIV Friends and our supposed Adversaries those general Tracts De Primatu Regio de potestate Papae regiâ adversus Bellarminos Tortos Becanos Eudemon Joannes Suaresius c. mostly in the days of King James and which were wrote by Lancelot Bishop of Chichester John Collins and the Bishop of Rochester The two last I have not by me nor do I remember I ever saw nor is it of any concern whether I have Bishop Andrews either in order to the answering what is by Mr. Selden brought against him any one that has but heard of that once flourishing Prelate in this Church will easily grant him on our side and much more must he that has read and conversed with his Works find him so and indeed all that Mr. Selden brings out of him and the other two is really ours so far as he reports them to have asserted that the execution of all Ecclesiastical forensick Jurisdiction and by consquence that of Excommunication receives measures and is ruled by the King and his Laws as Head and Moderator and Governor of the Church and Realm and so it ought to be whereas with us the Prince and Realm is Christian and the Church-censures are backed and supported by his Penal Laws in course annexed to and following them the Prince cannot be supposed so void of foresight as to leave himself no Power of inspection in such Proceedings as thus to put his Power into another Man's hands and who is not accountable to him in the Execution Thus the King's Autority is capable of being used against himself and it must in course so happen to his best Subjects 't is that traiterous Position to be abhorr'd and 't is peculiarly provided that it be so and publickly too by the Laws of our Land in the Act for Vniformity of Publick Prayers and it is a great deal more horrible in Church-Affairs as more immediately entitling our Saviour therewith the great abhorrer of all and who we are sure renounced all Pleas in dividing and disposing in Seculars and did all the Power Bishops legally execute in this Kingdom or in others that are Christian belong to them as of Divine Right or was it any other ways so devolved and sixed upon them as thereby enabled in an Arbitrary way of Proceeding without the leave or against the Power of the King with no respect to the Laws and Customs of the Realm to put it in Execution the Bishop and the King thus Independent were also inconsistent any thing or person may and must be inroded and offer'd violence to when the Bishop will and the greatest worldly Punishments next under Capital whenever or upon what Grounds soever he is pleased to Excommunicate be necessarily inflicted this is Imperium cum Jove to erect an Empire within an Empire and no Governments thus divided and distributed can stand and I heartily wish such as upon these Considerations most readily detest it in the Bishop would make their Reflexions in other Persons and Cases also But if Mr. Selden mean as he must do if he continue on the design of his Book that Church-Power and Jurisdiction as such and coming from Christ naked and void of all outward Secular Additions and implies only the forfeiture as a Christian with no one worldly inconvenience no forfeitures of Personal outward Liberty or Estate that the execution and force of this depends on the Prince and Humane Pleasure to temperate restrain and abolish nor is it duly exercised other ways this is overthrown already throughout this Discourse and I 'le only add the Autority of Mr. Selden's mistaken Friend but our real one the great and most learned Bishop Andrews who all along in those very Pages to which Mr. Selden in his Margin refers asserts the quite contrary and the Power of the Prince and the Priest are declared by him two distinct things and not in Subordination he tells us how God instituted in Israel a Kingdom and a Church and which never coaluerunt in unum procul se habuit Imperium ab Ecclesiâ so came together by coalition as to make one but were still diverse and two things had different Works and Offices and thence concludes Conjungi debent Regnum Ecclesia confundi non debent they ought to be united but not confused together and he reckons up the several Offices and Duties of the Prince to take care of Religion in general to see that every Order do their Duties to reprove to correct and coerce in order to it Non licuisse tamen Davidi arcam contingere so Tortus objects upon him and to which he answers Nec regi quidem nostro licet nec ulli aut Sacra administrare aut attrectare quicquam quod potestatis sit mere Sacerdotalis ut sunt Leiturgiae conciones claves Sacramenta arcam figunt suo loco reges attingant post illi quos ea cura tangit ex suscepto munere Ministerii sui But it was not lawful for David to touch the Ark neither is it lawful for our King nor for any either to administer holy things
those who abominate the natural and direct consequences are thence to be drawn where the Civil Power is return'd into the Mediator but it throughly answers their Expectations who contend to have their Prince a Priest too and would delight more to see him in his Rochet and at the Altar Blessing and Consecrating than on his Throne and with his Scepter sweying and governing his People and for which latter they believe themselves equally capacitated and enabled as he and their belief on these Grounds is well bottomed for Christ when ascending up on high gave no other Gifts to Men than what either enabled to the work of the Ministry and which alone were for peculiar Persons or what made Christians good and virtuous men only and which were to all promiscuous and common And had our Church in her Article given to Kings that only Prerogative they saw given to Aristotles Prince and which is extended to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also as is above shew'd to the things of Religion it had been the same though less popular and perswading I shall only add the Autority of Doctor Hammond in his Practical Catechism Lib. 2. Sect. 11. that Christ in his Sermon on the Mount medled not with the Fifth Commandment Though he were as God the King of all Kings and might have changed and disposed of their Dominions as he pleased yet he was not pleased to make any Alteration but to continue and settle all in that course wherein it formerly had been placed by God himself What he added to Moses in this Matter was only greater reverence and aw to the Father or Magistrate or Civil Power he left the Woman taken in Adultery and other Offenders to the ordinary legal course and would not upon any importunity usurp or take upon him any thing in that Matter and more considerate Papists as he goes on and tells us discerning this and yet unwilling to devest the Pope of his so long usurped Power have found it necessary to pretend another tenure for him and therefore style the Pope not the Vicar of Christ for that would give him no Power so much as of a Civil Judge but the Vicar of God whom he hath set up to be the Vicegerent of all the World The whole Discourse might not unfitly be here transcribed only 't is as it ought to be in every bodies hands BUT what if these Doctors were in the design § XXVII against us as we do not resolve our Faith into one Doctor or Bishop at Rome So neither do we into three or twice so many at home of what Order and Autority soever and which adds in it self just nothing to the Skill of a Divine nor is the Tradition of Truth broken by it And indeed there are so many Accidents in the World and with so great force upon Mankind so often influencing and over-ruling that Christianity in its particular Articles and sometimes the highest of them would be but in a bad Condition were it responsible for what every particular Doctor has said or wrote and which comes not up unto them whether out of a tenderness of Disposition a mistaken Zeal for Union and to reconcile Moderation and Comprehension a keeping present Peace or a design of working more effectually for the future or whether through a fear and impotency of Nature averse to and unable for Struglings wearied out by daily Provocations or a foresight of some Calamities foreseen and approaching and every one is not an Athanasius always undaunted or real misapprehension in the understanding or which is a thing very frequent upon the rise of an Heresie to set up for a middle way and which is as injurious to gratifie either lust in general or that itch of Ambition in particular and to become the Head of a Party whether out of peevishness or revenge or to magnifie their own Parts and Eloquence lead by the Autority of Names or by self-interest blinded by one or more of which ways errors and differences in Religion are either occasioned or started managed and pursued No sooner was his Master Justin Martyr dead but Tatianus grew Proud and puffed up with an opinion of being uppermost in the School turn'd Heretick Iren. adv Haeres cap. 31. l. 1. Basilides was a Master of luxury and was to do something extraordinary to disguise it as St. Jerone Tom. 3. l. 2. adv Jovinian and so was Marcion as Tertullian Prescript Cap. 51. and Lactantius tells us of several others who affecting the highest Order in the Church studying Honour and Greatness and sailing of it made a Secession from the Church not enduring Subjection Lib. 4. Sect. ult and so did Valentinus because he lost a Bishoprick Tertul. adv Valent. cap. 4. as did Aerius Novatius c. and Theodorit describes Hereticks in general ambitioni vanae gloriae mancipatos Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 2. and Sozomen complains of a worser effect they have yet in God's Church Nonnullos in vias medias adigunt Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 1. occasion the setting up somewhat like Truth which is not Truth when they write Irenicums and set up for Reconcilers make a hotch-potch of Truth and Falshood together a sure way to elude and baffle Truth and insinuate Error the abatement being still on Truth 's side and the Error is brought to become tolerable and which would not in plain terms have been endured but thus gets ground onward and so much of Truth is destroyed and erased to give place to the Falshood This was the most devilish Plot of Julian the Apostate by which he baffled Christianity he mixed his Paganism with it complied in many instances of its Performances that the less discerning might be the easier carried over to it a very ill consequence of Error mostly ruining Truth and mostly to be abominated the Ape is the more deformed because like a Man and is not one Tertullian turn'd Montanist in disdain of the Pride of the greater Clergy at Rome as inter fragmenta Tertull. and Hieron Catalog Script Ecclesiast no one stands fairer in the Church Story for Piety and Morals than Pelagius and he and his Scholars Julianus Celestius c. seduced many by it designed and perverted it to that alone purpose even Men of great Fame and Learning became thereby inclined to them as Sixtus at Rome John of Jerusalem Cyril in Egypt and Sulpitius Severus in France And particularly the Rich and Potent Women whom he strangely insinuated into by all manner of Flatteries Hypocrisies and Delusions and which generally are the Engines Hereticks have work'd by as in Church Story and for which Austin and Jerome sufficiently shrape him as an account is given at large by Joannes Garnerus the late Publisher of the Works of Marius Mercator Dissert 4. De Subscript c. Cap. 3. who was or who could be more stout and couragious for the Nicene Faith than was Liberius Bishop of Rome and which appeared in his behaviour all along particularly in his
of the Church every ways dishonour'd and displaced § IX I know it will be here reply'd and 't is so generally All this was when the Emperors were Heathens nay more Opposers and Persecutors of Christianity how could the Offices Managery and Concerns of Religion be intrusted with them who did who would not understand it who scorned and affronted it who to their power endeavour'd to suppress it by all manner of Cruelties executed on its Professors the Church then did as well as she could and exercised her own Prudence and Strength that Power and Jurisdiction which they agreed upon and assum'd by particular compact among themselves and which became an Escheat to the Crown when the Empire became Christian and Kings then executed it in their own Right as inherent to their Secular Power designed and appointed and expected from them by God Almighty And in Answer to which groundless Plea and Objection I shall add farther either the Bishops and Doctors and Confessors of the Christian Church understood this Case as thus stated That this Power was not really in themselves and their execution of it was but accidental forced under the present Circumstances and to return to such Governors in State as should become Christians as its proper Seat or Subject or they did not understand it To say they did not understand it is to implead and represent them to all Ages succeeding guilty of Ignorance gross and inexcusable to give that for certain Truth which some of our Reformers have made their Libel and Objection against these first and Holy Christians That they were more Zealous than Wise Pious but imprudent less discerning men and from whom Truth is not to be had nor expected and which is in effect to put a baffle upon our whole Christianity in general and to lay a ground for mistrust upon each of its particulars it must receive a great blow upon such Supposals when reflected upon and considered that those who alone propagated our Faith for Three hundred years together did not understand the Power and Autority they were invested with in order to it or the true tenor or state of it To say they did understand it then surely it had been stated by them a Model of it drew up and left at least for Posterity a thing so in course and most usual in other cases thus to give Specimens Schemes and Draughts of the Design and Purpose especially when to propose attempt and carry on something that is but new not before received much more when thwarting to the common Sentiments and Apprehensions of Mankind That no Men but such as the Christians were given out to be by their Opposers and Persecutors Mad-men and Fools the followers of a Carpenter and a few Fishermen can be supposed guilty of Certainly the occasion and meaning of that particular Power they then exercised in the Church different from the Secular nay when enjoyned and commanded the contrary by those Powers that they act and speak no more in that Name when Persecuted to Bonds and Imprisonment moreover unto Death for it had been declared and published to such those Governors a Manifesto or Remonstrance made of it to all Princes of the World certainly among the many Apologies that were made to the Empire in their own behalf this had had a share a room at least in some one of them That what Jurisdiction was then exercised by them the Pastors of the Church was only under the present Necessity a present contrivance of their own to keep their Followers and Adherents in some tolerable Peace and Order to awe and restrain as they could better an assumed Usurped Government than none at all that the real and whole Government was laid upon theirs the Magistrates shoulders alone would they but be pleased to come in to the Faith and sustain and execute it What a plausible even cogent Argument is here all along omitted to let the Powers of the World know what a considerable Portion of their Birth-right as Princes they neglect and disown abdicate and relinquish what a real damage and disadvantage they receive in not coming in to the Church what a principal Jewel would be added to their Crown in so doing So great and considerable a number as they which are Christians and which grow upon the World and increase daily Vestra omnia implevimus Vrbes Insulas Castella Municipia Conciliabula Castra ipsa Tribus Decurias Palatium Senatum Forum cui bello non idonei non prompti fuissemus etiam impares Copiis as Tertullian in his Apology cap. 37. Vast Multitudes every where of all sorts in all Places and Offices who as they professed all manner of Allegiance and Duty to them in Seculars so would they acquit resign into their hands their Power Spiritual nay it is really theirs already and the execution falls in course upon them an accession that must be advantageous cannot be accounted mean and inconsiderable to a Government Thus to be the Fountain and Head of all Rule and every Jurisdiction to invest or abdicate to oblige or punish so great so considerable a Sect as are the Christians to constitute and influence to depose and remove every way to govern at Pleasure their Bishops and Pastors who thus grow upon the World and influence all Men the Motive could never have been neglected the Argument must have had a great deal of room in their several Apologies and Embassies to the Empire in behalf of themselves and their Religion who spared nothing like an Argument that might but ingratiate and insinuate into their good favour and liking as 't is evident from such their Writings and yet there is not one word there of any such Pleadings or any thing like it but the quite contrary as it hath been already made to appear I 'le go on farther and assert that 't is very improbable if not our Saviour himself yet that the Apostles should not have done all this and thus stated the case down to the World and yet no man sets these two Powers of the Church and State more apart than does St. Paul and so leaves them To instance in no more at present he often exhorts That they obey Magistrates and that they also remember those that have rule over them who have spoken to them the Word of God and his Bishop has his distinct care over the Church of God 1 Tim. 3.5 has his things to set in order Tit. 1.5 a Power to Summon by Process to receive Accusations as in Court as upon a Seat of Judicature before witnesses 1 Tim. 5.19 20. though no Power to lay either Confinement or any other corporal outward Punishment on their Persons The Powers of the World becoming Christian it must needs make a great alteration as to its Worship and great was the advantage the Gospel received thereby but so great a translation of Power from one Body to another must in all likelihood have been forewarn'd of and declared by such as had a