propounding of the true doctrine in decision of controversies or of constitutions of expedient or necessary to aedification are acts of religion most proper to the Bishops and presbyters the first an act of the praedication of the gospel the other an act of ecclesiastical Government The embracing of the truth and ordinances seen to be profitable together with the confirming of them by his decree and sanction or addition where he seeth it needful of a reward or mulct is the part of a Christian Prince discerning upon due search the truth and the usefulnesse of the ordinances propounded unto him whose embracing is his act of subjection to Christ and confirmation and sanction an act of his Vicary authority To make laws bestowing civil gifts or priviledges on the Church and ordaining civil punishments for offences committed against Christian religion and Ecclesiastical Canons and constituting Courts for the cognizance of such causes and the execution of those Laws is the peculiar and proper work of a Christian King which he may well doe without the authority of Bishops and presbyters but which he may best doe with their grave advice and counsel In the unanimous Votes of the Kings Majesty the honourable Houses of Parliament and the venerable convocation all Powers and interests are fully satisfied whether in decision of controversies in religion Chrysost in 2. Cor. hom 18 c. Sect. 11. or making Ecclesiastical Canons or any the like Ecclesiastical matters because they are the conjunct Votes of all the concerned Before the civil Magistrate became Christian the Clergy and people according to their severall rights concurred personally in the elections of Bishops and Presbyters and this remained in use under many Christian Emperors and Kings untill for the avoyding of contention and schismes and many abuses which became familiar to popular elections in a corrupted state of the Church and for the encouragement of Princes Nobles and others to erect and endow Churches it seemed good to Kings in their Parliaments and with the convocation or Synod of the Bishops and Clergy to ordain that Kings should present to the Colledge of Presbyters meet persons to be chosen and made Bishops and meet Presbyters to the Bishop for such Churches as they had built and endowed and that all other persons should in like manner present to the Bishop a fit person for the Church which they had endowed Patrons did indeed in some places put in whom they pleased without the Bishops consent Vide Epist Alexandr 3. ad Episcopos Angliae and for some time of publick confusion this was very usually done in England but this custome was no law as some would have it because it was an unreasonable custome and destructive to the Church and therefore always contradicted in all Councils where occasion was given to mention it All humane laws have their mixture of some bad with many good And certain it is that our Ecclesiastical laws have many imperfections and their ambiguous halting between the papal Canon-law whence their interpretation hath been wont to be fetched and the laws of the Realm is not the least which hath been one of the principal occasions of some actings which made the Clergy much abhorred by many and brought infinite calamities upon the Civil and Ecclesiastical state The ancient pure Episcopal government is much changed and the beginning of its change was not of late dayes Sect. 12. for in the fourth Century the Bishops and Presbyters began to advance Arch-presbyters and Arch-deacons to some part of the exercise of the Ecclesiastical government Optat. advers Parmenian l. 1. The first Archdeacon we read of was Caecilianus who reproved Lucilla a rich and proud woman which being thereat vexed became afterward a zealous promotrix of the Schism of the Donatists The first Arch-presbyter Greg. Nazianz. in land Basil crat that I can remember to be mentioned by the ancients was Basile who being made Bishop offered that honour to his old friend Gregory after the Bishop of Nazianzum But these were at that time but in some Churches and acted onely in place of the Bishops and Presbyters and at their pleasure whereas their power in time increased and after some hundreds of years the Canons gave them an ordinary jurisdiction erected their Courts added new names of Ecclesiastical judges as Deans Chancellors Commissaries c. and filled them with numerous attendants which were mostly to live by the sins of the people If these had been Officers onely of the civil magistrate to execute the power which is proper to him over all persons and in all causes Ecclesiastical the Church could not in reason have been charged with their miscariages but because they exercised with the former acts of the power proper to Bishops and Presbyters and in which the civil magistrate had onely a superintendency over them all their misdoings were ascribed to the Bishops and the Clergy their Courts heard the causes of excommunication adjudg'd a person to excommunication and caused a Presbyter no judge in the cause to excommunicate the party whereas Christ by his Apostles made them judges in his place as well to hear the causes of the spiritual censures as to execute the same by the sentence of excommunication The spiritual censures are spiritual remedies and the Pastors of the Church are under Christ the Physicians how then can it be congruous to imploy one that is no Physician to search and take knowledge of the diseases of the Soul and leave orâ—y the application of the remedies to the Physicians in the hearing of the causes of spiritual censures pastoral acts are to be exercised as of teaching of redargution of sin and conviction which prepare the offendor for the due and profitable receiving of the spiritual Physick which acts are all wanting where a person that is no Pastor condemneth a sinner to be excommunicated by a Pastor There is another mischief that accompanies the mixture in one and the same person of the exercise of acts purely ministerial and acts proper to the civil magistrate in spiritual causes as it is in Arch-deacons and the like that is commutation of paenance as to take so much money a Cow a Horse and the like as it hath been used be it in pretence of giving it to the poor where suspension or excommunication was by the Apostolical ordinances to have been exercised If the power proper to the ministers the power proper to the magistrate were in distinct persons this too frequent abuse would be well avoyded For the sole spiritual power is not to medle with body or purse Cudgelling whipping imprisoning fining scandalous sinners were not at all in use before the times of Christian Emperours And as to the redemption of the wholesome severities which the paenitents were enjoyned willingly to exercise upon themselves it was not used until about the end of the fift Century I might mention other mischiefs as the intollerable abuse of excommunication for very small offences
twelfth successor of Peter Polycrates who was 65 years in the Lord when he wrote his Epistle unto Victor Bishop of Rome concerning the time of the celebration of the PÃ sche which was about the year of our Lord 197 whereby it appeareth that he began to flourish about 50 years after the death of John the Apostle if not much sooner if he was come to years of discretion before his Baptism Polycrates I say who was so near the times of the Apostles saith that he was the eighth Bishop of Ephesus Now it is acknowledged by all that in the time of Victor a Bishop had the preheminence over the Presbyters in every Church and therefore it is consequent that Polycrates by the seven Bishops preceding him in Ephesus meaneth not single Presbyters but such Bishops as were in the Church at the time of his writing that Epistle to Victor If the principality of the Ecclesiastical regiment had been in the Colledge of Presbyters until the death of the Apostles and after their decease the principality of that government was committed to one and not before surely Polycrates Irenaeus and Hegesippus had egregiously prevaticated in attributing the principality of one to some part of the time of the Apostles which they living with thousands who must have seen and consented to that change made after the Apostles decease if any such had been then first made could not be ignorant of But that these holy men were not unfaithful in their relation doth evidently appear by this namely that all the Fathers none contradicting agree with them affirming Bishops having in an ordinary way a superiority over Presbyters to have been ordained in the times of the Apostles Concerning Arch-bishops Sect 6. omitting the guesses of some ancient Doctors concerning the Archiepiscopacy of Mark Timothy and Titus we may find some intimation of their being in the end of the second century partly by the act of Victor Bishop of Rome in his attempt to excommunicate the Churches of the East and partly by a passage in Tertullian where he saith the Bishop of Bishops hath made a decree c. but certain it is that before the year of our Lord 250 wherein Cyprian Bishop of Carthage flourished l. de pudicitia c. 1. Arch-bishops were ordained in the Church For Cyprian writeth that there were many years and a long age since many Bishops convening under Agryppinus Bishop of Carthage decreed Epist ad Jubâ—in ad Cornel. l. 4. Epist 8. c. and in one of his Epistles to Cornelius Bishop of Rome he saith that his adversaries boasted saying that twenty five Bishops of Numidia would come to Carthage who would make unto themselves a Bishop there Among these Arch-bishops who were such indeed but not yet in name that we can find in any approved auctor of that age were some more eminent then other each of which had some Arch-bishops subordinate to them which in following times were called primates for in a province was one chief City under which were divers mother Cities which had lesser Cities under them In these were the Bishops in the Mother-cities were the Metropolitans or Arch-bishops in the first the Primates priviledges made some variations Of Primates and Metropolitans the Council of Nice saith it is manifest that if any be ordained without the will and conscience of the Metropolitane Bishop this great and holy Council hath decreed he ought not to be a Bishop And in another Canon the ancient manner or custome doth last in Egypt Lybia and Pentapolis that the Bishop of Alexandria have the power of all these for the Bishop of Rome hath a like custome in like manner also at Antioch and other provinces let the due honour proper to every Church be preserved to it These Primates and Arch-bishops had no power in things proper to the cognizance of a Bishop in his own Diocess but onely in those things whereof the Canons of the Church had committed to them the hearing and Judgement or which were of concernment to many Diocesses And this is it which Cyprian meaneth where he saith Epist ad Quintium none of us Bishops doth constitute himself to be a Bishop of Bishops or doth compell this Colledge by tyrannical terror to the necessity of obeying seeing every Bishop hath according to his own liberty and free will that he may not be judged by another Adrian the Emperour Apud Vopisum in Saturnino who reigned from the year of our Lord 117 to the year 135 writeth in a certain Epistle horrible untruths against Christians as that there was never a Presbyter of the Christians which was not a Mathematician a Southsayer c. that the very Patriarch when he came to Egypt was by some compelled to adore Serapis by others to adore Christ that they which said themselves to be Bishops of Christ were devoted to Serapis It seems this Emperour had taken notice that Christians had Ecclesiastical officers whereof some were-called Presbyters some called Bishops and perhaps that the Bishop of Alexandria was over all Egypt c. and Bishops thereof and therefore calls him by the name of a like civil Magistrate Patriarch which was afterward used by Christians in a like sense but too much hath been said to shew that it was ordained in the times of the Apostles that the principal authority in every Church should be in one Presbyter advanced above and over the rest unto whom in a short time after the name of Bishop was made proper This truth is so clear and written as it were with capital or uncial letters in the writings of all the ancients that he that runneth may read it in them In the next place it should be considered whether that Ordinance constituting Episcopacy made in the Apostolical times was not in proper sense an Apostolical constitution Sect. 7. and if so whether therefore it be unalterable But that this matter may be better understood it is convenient first to speak of the Authority and Power given to the Bishop what it was and how ample in those times De baptisme c. 17. Tertullian gives us some information in this point when he saith that the chief Priest which is the Bishop hath the right or power of giving Baptism then the Presbyters and Deacons but not without the authority of the Bishop for the preservation of the honour of the Church which remaining safe peace is safe maintained For the understanding of this we must consider that where the exercise of the power of preaching baptising c. in such place and among such persons was not by some ordinance of the Church determined to this or that particular Presbyter there it pertained to the Bishop to do it and not to any other without his leave yea the very Ordinances and Canons could not be made without his consent and authority as their principal author under Christ In Epist ad Titum c. 1. For as Hierom saith the whole care of the Church
translation it is not lawful say the Fathers of that Synod for the Choropiscopi Countrey or Village Bishops not for the Presbyters of the City to ordain Presbyters or Deacons unless that be committed to them by the Bishop being absent in another Diocess by his letters And therefore the Churches decree constituting Episcopacy abridged the Presbyters whether dividedly or conjunctly considered but onely in the exercise of their power Surely it must be beleeved that no ordination would be made by the Apostles excelling the ordination which our Saviour celebrated breathing upon his Apostles c. and giving them a comission to teach c. with promise to be with them unto the worlds end whereby the Presbyters were virtually ordained and comissionated astruly as the Bishops and therefore received thereby as much power as they in respect of the kind and nature which hinders not but that the exercise of some part of it might be taken from many of the persons ordained But some perhaps may say that Christ in that ordination ordained in the Apostles some as elder Brethren and others as the younger yet hence it will follow that the kind and nature of the ordination is the same in all as the nature of the Father is in all his Sons and that onely a principallity in the having and exercise of it belongs to the Bishops which is granted Others may say farther that Christ in ordaining the Apostles did virtually ordain some as the Sons of the Sons of the Apostles and others as their grand-children if this can be well proved it will indeed evince that the power of ordination as well as the exercise of it is proper to the Bishops but until it be made clear that this was the primary meaning and intention of Christ in that Act of ordination and not an effect onely of a consequent occasional providence of the Apostles and Churches it is probable that the power of ordination remaineth still in the presbyters restrained in the use by the canon of the Churches and Apostles The members of the Church which made the decree of Episcopacy and limited the use of the Eclesiastical power in the presbyters were the greater number of the presbyters themselves which remained in the unity of the mystical body with the greater part of the people and the Authors of it by way of approbation and confirmation were the holy Apostles The Apostles and Presbyters in the effecting of it exercised the ordinary Vicary Authority Basil constit mona c. 22. which they had as being by their ordination made the Vicegerents of the blessed Mediator Christ Jesus considered only as Mediator according to his own saying he that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me the saying of the Apostle we are Embâ—ssadors for Christ and we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God 2. Cor. 5.20 That authority when it is duely exercised ought to be obeyed And because presbyters may erre in the using of it a spirit of discerning noxious doctrines and constitutions is given to Christians to examine and trie Bas l. reg 72. c. 1. with command to reject the evil and receive the good which good if the major part refuse being by their Pastors propounded to them Aug. de temp serm 143. they may do it upon their peril as they will answer it to God unity and peace interceding and forbidding that no Ecclesiastical constraint or censure proceed against the civil higher power or the major part of the people It is therefore requisite that constitutions to be made laws in the Church be by the leave of the supreme magistrate if he be a Christian propounded to the people that their consent being given the ministerial authority may make them laws Ecclesiastically obliging if no higher authority hinder Before these Law-makers constituted Episcopacy every singular Presbyter was to act according to the directions and rules of the Presbyterian Colledge which was the Church Law-giver and superintendent of the execution having the supreme dignity under the Mediator and preheminence in all things properly Ecclesiastical What is spoken concerning the Colledge of Presbyters must be applied proportionably to the several bodies of them in the Diocesan provincial imperial or universal Church The decree constituting Episcopacy took from the Colledge its high dignity and preheminence and conferred it upon one and so divided the exercise of the Legislative power among the Bishop and the Colledge that the one might not duely use it without the other For although the dignity and precedency of the Bishop may give more weight to his vote yet is the Vicary authority which cannot be separated from Presbyters as long as they be Presbyters as truly exercised in their votes whether in deciding controversies of faith or making of Canons c. as it is in the Bishops vote Which is manifest as by many testimonies of antiquity so by the practise of our English Synods which are conformable in the substance to the best and most ancient constitution of Councils The superintendency which the Colledge had over the execution of all Ecclesiastical duties and ordinances was chiefly in the Bishop yet so as without his Presbyters he could not regularly hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes as before was shewed out of the fourth Council of Carthage and might be further demonstrated out of St. Cyprian and other ancient writers Every suprem civil power on earth as Gods Vicegerent Sect. 10. is bound to advance and preserve the true Religion so far as the light of nature can manifest it or divine revelation doth make it known unto him so that a King which hath embraced Christian Religion which alone is the true Religion is obliged to maintain it and to cause that the Christian duties be by all in their several stations and charges duely performed and therefore a Christian King is a law-giver above the Ecclesiastical Law-makers but so that he ought not to hinder the due exercise of their legislative power and make laws purely or properly Ecclesiastical without their concurrence in Counsel and consent but by his Laws and power partly to cause them to meet for the due exercise of their duty partly to maintain and strengthen their right proceedings in performance of their office and lastly if their Edicts be cosistant with the peace of the common-wealth and meet for the edification of the Church to perfect and make them full and complete laws by putting the hand and seal of his highest Vicary authority as Gods Vicegerent to the resolves of the subordinate Vicary authority of the Vicegerents of our blessed Mediator as Mediator God and man the Lord Jesus Christ God is a God of order and hath ordained that this unity and harmony between these two authorities should be firmly kept otherwise by a supine neglect of duty or by an exorbitant usurpation on either side the unity and peace both of Kingdome and Church are equally in danger of being broken The
that they are within but greedy and ravening Wolves Contra epist Parmen l. 2.13 c. 15. apud Theod balsam c. 5. Vide Baron annal an 389. sect 74. conc African temp Bonifac. caelestin c. 15. Conc. earth 5. c. 6. Greg. 3. epist 5. God deliver us from them and deliver them from the wickedness of their hearts and wayes but leaving these I proceed It is very pertinent to the matter in hand to speak of reordination but because this subject is two large I will onely say thus much that St. Aug. and the Council of Carthage and generally all antiquity are against reordination as well as against rebaptization both truely so called In cases of doubt whether one were truely baptised or truely ordained it was never accounted a rebaptization to baptise the one or reordination to ordain the other The ordination of a Presbyter by Presbyters without Commission from a Bishop was alwayes judged of dubious validity at the least Some so ordained in foreine Churches were not rejected by the Bishops of the Church of England I believe because they thought that to judge of the fact of another Church in matter of no greater moment would not tend to strengthen unity between the Churches but rather to diminish and weaken it Or it may be they did not admit them as certainly knowing them to be so ordained but as charitably believing they had been ordained by a Bishop for charity covereth the multitude of sins a doubtful ordination established in all the parts of it by the publick consent and authority of a Church is far more tolerable then the like ordination celebrated in all the parts of it without and against the legal consent and authority of the Church For in this last case many are doubtful of the validity of Baptism and the other divine ordinances administred by them that were so ordained But the Higher power partly hath and in convenient time will remove all such doubts to the full satisfaction of all good men I have already exceeded my intended brevity I will say no more but desire the candid reader to believe that I have not maintained Episcopacy to be an institution of Christ by the Apostles and not an institution of Christ in the Apostles as some hold induced by many fair probabilities out of a spirit of contradiction but because the sentence chosen by me seems to be subject to less difficulties and more agreeable to the ancient pastoral and Episcopal ordinations which be received and used in the Church of England and especially because it doth more incline and conduce to moderation Whatsoever I have herein written I humbly submit to the judgement and correction of my Superiors Neque enim Episcopi propter nos sumus sed propter eos quibus verbum Sacramentum Dominicum ministramus ac per hoc ut eorum sine scandalo gubernandorum sese necessitas tulerit ita vel esse vel non esse debemus quod non propter nos sed propter alios sumus Aug contra Crescon Grammatic l. 2. c. 11. FINIS Errata PAg. 4. line penult after of the Apostles add before our Saviours death p. 10. marg r. Jubain p. 14. marg r. in Esai p. 15. l. 12. r. dicit l. 22. r. dicit ib. r. consecratione l. 36. r. postea p. 26. l. 10. dele of exped p. 30. l. penult r. saith l. 27. r. enable them the. p 32. l. 13. r. whom l. 31. r. Walafridus p. 39. l. 31. r. Tungrens so in marg pro Vigrens r. Tungrens p 41. l. 27. r. within ten in marg r. natalem Domini Toletan the quotation ubi multorum is misplaced p. 42. l. 9 10. r. Paschal VVax candle p. 46. over against l. 24. r. in marg Greg. Nyssen contra Hunom Orat. 16. p. 47. ult r. Catechumens p. 51. in marg dele Paulinus in vita Ambros l. 10. marg r. c. 5. p. 53. in marg dele per Socrat. p. 54. in marg pro praecip r. princip p. 56. l. 8. r. Chorepiscope p. 59. for Minister all r. Ministeriall p. 62. l. 20. r. 70 discip in marg r. Dracontium Aug. in Psal 44. l. ult dele and. p. 63. l. 6. r. Brethren of the l. 13. dele whose Successors l. 14. r. succeede p. 69. marg r. paenit after r. profecti in pagum It may be that by reason of the Authours absence and some obscurity in the Copy a few other faults may have escaped undiscerned as misplacing some Authors cited in the Margent or in the Figures or in Pointing and the like which being small the goodness of the Reader will easily pardon
denote confirmation alone but any other perpetual ordinance of God wherein this ceremony was to be used by the authority of the Apostles exampled and practise They which say that this ceremony was to last no longer in use then God was pleased to continue the miraculous operations usual in the Apostolick times seem to impute inconsiderateness to the Apostle in reckoning that one of the fundamentals of Religion which was not to be perpetually continued in the militant Church but we are assured that the Apostle being moved by the Holy Ghost could not speak inconsiderately and that every fundamental of Christian Religion shall continue in Christs Church unto the end of the world as this ceremony both in confirmation and in ordinations of Pastors hath hitherto been alwayes used in the universal Church and without doubt will so continue unto the end of time Pastors are called in the Apostolical Epistles by two other names Sect. 4. that is Bishops and Presbyters the Apostleship contained in it self the pastoral offices and therefore an Apostle was also called a Bishop and Presbyter The first mention of Pastors by the name of Presbyters of Elders is in Acts 11.30 where the Church of Antioch is said to have sent relief by Barnabas and Saul unto the Elders of the Churches in Judaea in the time of the great dearth which was in the days of Claudius Caesar in the 15 Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we finde the controversie concerning the necessity of circumcision and keeping of the Law of Moses brought by Paul and Barnabas before the Apostles and Elders or Presbyters in the Church of Jerusalem to be by them determined We see in the chapter of the Acts how that Paul with some of the brethren went in unto James and all the elders were present whence we may observe that the Apostles did not discuss and end the controversie concerning circumcision and keeping of the Law without the presence of the Presbyters of the Church where they then were nor did James alone heat Paul but together with his Presbyters did both hear him and give him that seasonable Councel to purifie himself for the avoiding the offence of the beleiving Jews which were numerous in Jerusalem Here ariseth a question Sect. 5. whether St. James was head of the Presbyters of the Church of Jerusalem onely as he was an Apostle having his ordinary residence in that Church or also as having an ordinary authority over the Presbyters which was to be continued to successors over the succeding Presbyters it is certain that as an Apostle he was the head of the Presbyters having a superiority over them but as the Apostleship was not to pass to successors so neither was his authority to be conveyed to any in succession but to be terminated with his life it is more then probable that at that time he was their superior onely as an Apostle settled in that Church neither had we need to conceive him in any subsequent times to become their head in any other sense then this if the unanimous testimony of the ancient Doctors of the Church did not constrain us to be of another judgment unless we will reject the witness of the Catholick Church constantly persevered in from the beginining of the second Centuary after our Saviours birth unto this day For the Fathers do constantly affirm that St. James was for some time before his decease Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem not onely in the sense of the word Bishop common to an Apostle and every Presbyter but in the sense which soon after the time of Clemens Romanus was appropriated to it that is signifying such a Presbyter as had a superiority over all the rest of the Presbyters of the same Church to continue in him during life and to be transferred to some other after him Hegesippus an Historian Apud Euseb hiss l. 4. c. 21. Ibid. l. 3. c. 29. who flourished about the year 170 relateth that after the death of St. James Simon Cleopa being chosen Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem one Thebulis began to corrupt the Church with vain Doctrine because he was not made Bishop there And the same Historian writeth that Simon Cleopa lived Bishop of that place until the times of Trajane the Emperor under whose government Simon suffered Martyrdome and John the Apostle died by which testimony of an historian who lived within 60 years after the death of the Apostle St. John it plainly appeareth that Simon was not after the death of St. James brother of our Lord constituted onely a single Presbyter of that Church nor James before him head thereof only as an Apostle or an extraordinary governour but that both were ordinary rulers of the whole Church as well Presbyters as the other members thereof Clemens Alexandrinus Paedagog l. 3. c. ult Strom. 6. who lived before the year of our Lord 200 makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter saying that in the Scriptures some precepts pertain to Bishops some to Presbyters and some to Deacons and in another place that a Presbyter doing and teaching according to Gods will although he be not on earth honoured with the first chair shall sit on the 24 thrones judging the people and a little after he saith that here in the Church the provections or proficiencies of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be imitations of the angelical glory Tertullian who flourished in the year of our Lord 200 De Monogamia c. 11. mentions an use in his time of asking leave of the Bishop of the Presbyters and of the Deacons to marry Elsewhere he calls upon the Hereticks to shew the beginnings of their Churches and so to reckon the order of their Bishops running from the beginning by successions that the first Bishop have an Apostle or an Apostolical man for his auctor or antecessor as the Church of Smyrna relates Polycarpus to be placed there Bishop by John the Apostle and the Church of Rome reporteth Clement to have been ordained there by Peter the Apostle Adversus Valentin c. 4. In another place the same author saith that Valentinus because he was ingenious eloquent had hoped an Episcopacy De Baptismo c. 17. and being angry that another by prerogative of Martyrdome had obtained it he departed from the Church In another place he hath this observation viz. the emulation of Episcopacy is the mother of Schismes Adversus haeres l. 3. c. 3. apud Euseb l. 5. c. 18. I must not forget the testimony of Ireaaeus who affirmeth of himself that he was a hearer of Polycarpus who was not onely taught by the Apostles and conversed with many of them which saw the Lord but was also by the Apostles in Asia Advers haeres l. 3. c. 3. Edit Paris 1567. in which is the Church of Smyrna constituted a Bishop the same Irenaeus doth enumerate the Bishops of Rome which succeeded one another from Peter unto Eleutherius who was the
then they rather by custome then by the Lords disposition So Augustine writing to Hierome although saith he according to the names of honour which the use or custome of the Church hath kept a Bishop be greater then a presbyter yet Augustine a Bishop is in many things inferior to Hierome a presbyter So modestly and humbly doth the most pious and wise Bishop Augustine write unto the holy presbyter Hierome his elder in years and his inferior in dignity They that affirm Episcopacy to be instituted by a Council do not mean a Council taken in a proper sense but for the unanimous votes of the Churches decreeing the same thing upon the same grounds and reasons which are the principal things respected in a Council and it is truely said illud unumquodque dicitur quod est principalius in eo Fourthly it seems consequent to Hierom's above-cited discourse that it is not certain which some affirm that Bishops were set over the Churches before the time wherein St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to Timothy or his Epistle to Titus c. out of which Hierome proves the identity of Bishops and presbyters and the government of the Church by the Colledge of presbyters But of the exact time of the institution of Bishops it 's not much material to know seeing all agree it was made in the time of the Apostles By some of those places cited by him it 's likely he intended onely to prove the name Bishop to be common at that time as well to presbyters as to their superior Ecclesiastical officers But it might be thought that Hierome in this matter contradicts himself In cataloge Scriptorum Eccles in Jacobe because elsewhere he saith that James the brother of our Lord was statim quickly after our Lords passion ordained by the Apostles Bishop of Jerusalem and that he ruled that Church for 30 years until the seventh year of Nero unto this difficulty another may be added shewing a seeming contrariety in this learned Father's speeches concerning the institution of Bishops which is that here he affirmeth the Episcopacy to be an Ecclesiastical and so an humane constitution and in another place that it is an Apostolical tradition It is not hard to reconcile these seeming contrary expressions Epist ad Evagrium for first we must consider Episcopacy or government by one as chief among the presbyters to have been either extraordinary managed by one extraordinary person which was not by any ordinary rule of the Church to have a successour or ordinary in the hand of one person which by a Canon of the Church was to have a successour an Apostle present in any Church had power over the presbyters and the preheminence in all sacerdotal duties above them in that Church Of Apostles some were primary as the twelve other secondary and these were either indeed as well as in name A postles or onely because they were conversant with the Apostles and their helpers and many times left by them in some Churches or sent to them as their Vicegerents such were Timothy Titus Linus Clemens c. all these by their Apostolical function or by vertue of their Vicegerency had the principal rule in the Churches wherein they abode even then when in all other Churches the Colledge of the presbyters took the care of all having no Superior constantly resident over them Afterward when upon occasion of the presbyters abusing their power by reason of the Apostles absence to the be getting of Schismes the Churches by Apostolical consent agreed to give in every Church a principality to one presbyter above the rest which in some time after had the name of Bishop made proper to him and was made an ordinary officer in all Churches then the Apostles and their Vicegerents in the Churches of their residence had the power over the Colledge of presbyters not onely by their Apostleship or Vicegerency but also by the new decree and institution of an ordinary Episcopacy Now because it was thought fit by the Apostles that James should reside at Jerusalem and that not long after the ascension of our Saviour it might truly be said that he was then ordained that is constituted Bishop extraordinary in that place for some particular reasons taken from consideration of some particular condition of that place whose Episcopacy afterward was continued for the general reason of preventing Schismes and consequently of an extraordinary Episcopacy was made an ordinary Episcopacy which was to pass to successors The same proportionably must be said of the Episcopacy of St. Peter in Rome and Antioch of Timothy in Ephesus of Titus in Crete of Linus and Clemens in Rome and so of others all of which were first Bishops extraordinary and after the general decree they were also made as ordinary Bishops in the Churches where the decree found them extraordinary Bishops Hierom doth in many places speak as one that supposed Bishops to be above Presbyters before the making of that decree but his meaning was not that ordinary Bishops were before it for then he had contradicted himself but the extraordinary If the rest of the Fathers be so understood as it is not very improbable but that many of them may the seeming difference between him and some of them may be perhaps in the main reconciled Theodoret saith that Bishops in the life time of the Apostles were called Apostles the name of the extraordinary Bishops being also communicated to the ordinary Bishops who also had some appearance of being Vicegerents unto those twelve general Pastors of the universal Church while they lived as they were counted their successors after their decease As to the other seeming contrariety in St. Hierom's writings affirming the ordinary Episcopacy to be of Ecclesiastical and humane institution and also of Apostolical tradition it is easily answered First That the ordinary Episcopacy is not a primary tradition of the Apostles but of the Churches to whose decree the Apostolical approbation added no new sanction but ratified the authority of the Churches as prudently exercised in making that constitution Secondly that decree may be said to be of Apostolical tradition because their extraordinary Episcopacy and the extraordinary Episcopacy of their Vicegerents established by them were patterns which the Churches had an eye unto for their direction and encouragement in the framing of that decree hoping that the good of peace preserved where the extraordinary Episcopacy was placed would be best maintained in all Churches when the like government should be setled in all to continue by succession 3. Thirdly the ancient Fathers affirm many ecclesiastical observances to be of divine or Apostolical institution or tradition upon other grounds then may beget a certain belief of their being truely divine or Apostolical Augustine saith that whatsoever the universal Church holdeth and is not found in following Councils constituted but always retained is most rightly believed to be delivered by the Apostolick authority De bapt contra Donatist l. 2. c. 7.
l. 4. c. ult Hierom affirmeth that many things which are by tradition observed in the Churches have usurped to themselves the authority of a Divine law as in baptism to immerge the head thrice and then to tast the concord of milk and honey Adversus Luciferianos to signifie infancy and on the Lords day and in all the Pentecost not to pray kneeling nor to fast Constantine the great exhorteth all to embrace the decree of the Nicene Council concerning the set time of the celebration of the Feast of Easter as a gift of God and a Commandement sent down from heaven Euseb de vita Constantini l. 3. c. 18. Edit Basil 1570. for whatsoever is decreed in the holy Councils of Bishops that ought to be ascribed to the divine will Hierom in another place saith let every one judge the precepts of the ancients to be Apostolical laws Hierom. Ep. 28. It is not to be doubted saith Leo Bishop of Rome but that every Christian observance is of divine erudition and that whatsoever is received by the Church into a custome of devotion Serm. 2. de jejun Pentecost proceeded from the Apostolick tradition and the Doctrine of the holy Spirit The Fathers use very frequently to affirm some institutions or rites to be divine or Apostolical because they seemed a greeable to and their lawfulness demonstrable by the old Testament the Gospels or Apostolick Epistles So the Lent Fast is by them said to be of Apostolical and Divine tradition because it seems an imitation of the Fast of Elias and of Christ and Monachism is affirmed to be Apostolick because it hath an appearance of being an imitation of John the Baptist Amalar. Alcuin Pontifical Damas c. yet many ancient writers make Pope Telesphorus who flourished Forty years after the decease of St. John the Apostle to be the author of the Quadragesimal Fast although indeed it had a much later beginning and affirm Paul and Anthony to be the Fathers of Monachism So that many institutes were counted Apostolick because some example or reason of the Scripture did seem to warrant them Whence Hierom and others intimate Hierom. in vita Pauli that Episcopacy was instituted in imitation of Aaron and his Sons or of the Apostles and 70 Disciples affirming Bishops to be successors of aaron and the Apostles and Presbyters the successors of the Sons of Aaron and of the 70 Disciples Fourthly it is a certain truth acknowledged by all the learned that the Apostles were authors as well of local and temporary or universal and temporary ordinances rites or ceremonies as of universal and perpetual for they were inspired by the Holy Ghost infallibly to discern both what the present condition although variable of some or all the Churches required and what upon reasons arising from unvariable grounds and circumstances was needful to be observed in all the Churches of Christ Polycarpus a hearer of the Apostles and by St. John made Bishop of Smyrna celebrated the Pasche in the fourteenth moon and so did the rest of Asia and some of the East observing it the same time with the Jews moved thereto by the countenance and example of St. John the Apostle but Anicetus Bishop of Rome who flourished in the life time of Polycarpus and generally the Churches of the West kept the Feast at another time and on the Lords day induced thereto as they affirmed by the tradition and example of St. Peter the Apostle We cannot with reason and charity think that either Polycarpus with the Asians and East or Anicetus with the Western Churches Apud Euseb Iren. could be ignorant of the time when Peter in the West or John in Asia observed that Feast Polycarpus being an eye witness of what the Apostle St. John did and Anicetus being a hearer of the hearers of Clemens who was contemporary with the Apostle St. Peter or that they would considerately speak and perseveringly maintain an untruth imputing a fact to either Apostle which he had not done especially seeing the untruth on either side might have been confuted by a thousand witnesses wherefore we must judge this to be an evident example of a variable apostolick institution I might instance in part of the Apostles decree in the 15 chapter of the Acts of the Apostles of things strangled and blood but least I move scruples in weak consciences which they cannot easily be rid of I will only commend to the consideration of the judicious the judgment of some ancient writers quoted in the margent August contra Faustum l. 32. c. 13. Et tractcti contra graecos in biblioth patr to 4. pag. 1308. et 1318.1319.1320 There be many rites which the Fathers held to be Apostolical which in the times of the same Fathers were in many places altered or neglected as the three immersions in baptisme the repairing of neighbour Bishops to the people where a Bishop was wanting there to ordain one in the presence of the people not to fast in the dayes of Pentecost and some other which prove that according to the judgment of those Fathers the Apostles guided by divine inspiration made some decrees alterable and which were upon just reasons accordingly changed or disused and therefore if it were proved that the Apostles by divine motion were the primary Auctors of Episcopacy and not the Church yet if it cannot appeare to be a constitution built upon perpetuall reason and in its nature independing upon variable circumstances it may possibly be changed by the Church Here it may be demanded by what members of it self did the universal Church abrogate the Presbyterian and institute Episcopal Government and what power was taken from the Presbyters by that abrogation For answer to these demands we must distingnish between the power given to ministers to doe some things as to preach baptize ordain Pastors excomunicate absolve c. and secondly the free exercise of those acts and thirdly the regulation of the exercise of them as to the persons about whom time when the place where the manner decency c. To the regulation belong 1. The making of laws concerning the due exercise of the power agreeable to the divine laws and secondly the superintendents of the execution and thirdly the executors of them As for the power it doth not appear that any of that was taken from the Presbyters or their Colledge by the institution of Episcopacy if they were deprived of any part of it can 13. that must be the ordaining of Presbyters but the Council of Ancyra seems to demonstrate that the power of ordaining Pastors did and doth remain in them which they did exercise by the leave Et Synod Antioch c. 16. vide Vasque in 3. p. Disp 143. c. 4. and in the place of the Bishop which Could not at his pleasure give them but supposed the power continuing in them The words of the Council be these according to the Greek Original and not their vulgar
our Lord God to which the people answered it is meet and right so to do and then the Priest went no saying it is very meet right c. Out of Authors now extant who flourished in the three first Centuties no more that I can remember concerning the divine service of the Church and the Ceremonies pertinent to our purpose is mentioned then what hath been already touched But the holy writers of the fourth Century and downward do affirm both that many other rites have been used in the three first Centuries whereof some were instituted by the Apostles as they write others by some Bishops of Rome and that many more were added in the fourth Century One reason why the Ceremonies increased in the fourth Century may be this because then the Church more flourished in prosperity then any time before and it might be thought convenient that the external glory of the Church should be proportioned to the glory of the Empite now made Christian The use of singing Psalmes and Hymnes in the Churches Epist 119. may as St. Augustine saith be defended out of Scripture seeing of this we have so profitable instructions examples and precepts of Christ and his Apostles But the manner of singing was various l. â— c. 8. hist Socrates relateth that Ignatius having in a vision seen Angels singing Hymnes Anthemewise unto the praise of the Holy Trinity delivered that manner of singing Psalmes unto his own Church in Antioch which was generally received thence by the Greek Churches and then by the Latines and West first by Ambrose in the fourth Century and after by the rest of the Western Bishops The Rubrick in our Common-prayer Book before Te Deum laudamus we praise thee O God hath these words that the people may the better hear in such places where they do sing there shall the Lessons be sung in a plain tune after the manner of distinct reading and likewise the Epistle and Gospel This Rubrick puts me in mind of a place in St. Augustine's Confessions l. 10. c. 33. where he saith that it was often told him that Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria made the reader of the Psalm to sound with so mean bending or turning of the Voyce that he might be nearer a pronouncer then a singer Epist 119. And in another place he saith when the Brethren are met in the Church when is it not time of singing holy songs unless it be the time of reading or preaching or of prayer c. By which words it seemeth that the Chapters Epistle and Gospel were not sung in those dayes And in truth any manner of singing them seemeth incongruous The Fathers use to reprove the abuses which were too often found in singing Psalms in the Churches especially that they were many times more pleased with the sweetness of the voyce then the divine matter or when onely a few of the Church did sing that they so sung that few understood what they sung In Epist ad Ephes c. 5. Let the servant of the Lord saith Hierome so sing that the words which he reads may more please then the voyce of him singing It is no perfect singing nor pleasing to God when mens hearts do not sing unto the Lord as well as their voyces I will not speak of singing with Organs in the Churches not that I think that God refuseth to be heartily praised in and with the use of them but because they were not brought into the Churches until much later times The Doxology Glory be to the Father to the Son and to the Holy Ghost for ever c. is by St. Basile proved to be used from the Apostles times both out of Clemens Rom. Irenaeus Orig. Gregor Thaumaturg Dionysius Rom. Dionysius Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Basil de Sp. S. c. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. and the Evening-candle light thanksgiving which had been used time out of mind of man wherein they said We praise the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit of God But this Doxology with the addition as it was in the beginning c. was first a Epist Hier. ad Damasum Conc. Vasens c. 7. ordained to be said in the Divine Service of the Church after the Psalms by Damasus Bishop of Rome about the year of our Lord 370. He first commanded b Greg. l. 7. Epist 63. inter Ep. Hier. Aug. de temp serm 151. de can observant praeposit 23. Gregor l. 7. Epist 63. Conc. Vasens c. 5. Radulfs Vigres de can observant praeposit 23. Alleluia to be used in the Roman Church following therein the Liturgie of the Hierosolymitane and Greek Churches Kyrie eleison and Christe eleison Lord have mercy and Christ have mercy often repeated were in imitation of some greek Liturgies received into the Romane Divine Service-book by the authority of Pope Sylvester about the year 330 saith Radulphus Tugr which many years after were omitted and at last restored by Gregory the great The collection of the Episties and Gospels for the whole year into the form like that in present use is attributed to Hierom and by Pope Damasus commanded to be read in the Churches The Symbole or Creed composed in the first Council of Constantinople was by the same Pope Damasus ordained to be said or sung after the Gospel Rupert l. 2. c. 21. Strab. c. 22. It was received into the â—ivine Service in Spain by the command of the third Synoâ— of Tolet. The reasons brought to prove the Apostles or the Nicene Creed to have been said in the Liturgies of the fourth Century or before are of small weight and therefore I omit them How Damasus can truely be said to have enjoyned the singing or saying of the Creed and yet that it was not sung at Rome until about the year 1014 is easily answered if we conceive his command to be directed unto all other Churches subject unto him Berno de offic myssae c. 1. Vide Conc. tolet 3. c. 2. excepting Rome for that special reason which Berno relates Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the time of the celebration of the Lords Supper Hierom. l. 1. dial contra Pelag Chrysost in Matt. hom 83. Conc. Carthag 4. c. 41. Et vide respenss Leonis 3. ad missos caroli M. sub Conc. aquisgranens used the white garment which we call the Surplice whether it was in use before the fourth Century is not related by any approved author living in those times Prayers composed after the manner of our Litany are to be seen in the Liturgies of Chrysostome and Basile In their time * Chrys in Ep. ad Eph. hom 14 24. glory be to God on high c. and †Idem in Epist ad Coloss hom 3. holy holy holy Lord God of Sabboth were wont to be said in the Divine Service Chrysostome saith that the Bishop was wont often in the time of the publik worship of God to say to the people
him a very notorious defect in fulfilling his duty of which yet if there was any the least probable appearance of repentance he was not denied the necessary viaticum as the Council of Nice calls it The best men ready to depart to a better life desired and took this caelestial meat for their comfort and refreshment in their passage to God Some ministers are so strict and parsimonious in giving the Holy Sacrament that they deny the same unto a considerable part yea often to most part of their parish which before had been admitted to it without using the method prescribed by our Saviour in Matth. chap. 18. vers 15 16 17. Which text requires publick accusation and proof in the presence of the governours of the Church and their publick condemnation before the publick execution of so high a censure They are also so hard hearted to dying men earnestly desiring that soul-confirming most refreshing viaticum that although they cannot truely before God and men if put to it assure it that they remain in a state of sin inconsistent with any degree of saving grace as in case of denial they should be upon good grounds assured yet they can be so uncharitable and unmerciful as to deny it unto them These extreams on the one hand and on the other hand partly the not forgotten great abuse of the holy censures by Chancellors and Commissaries partly the late ejecting of the set publick formes of prayers out of the Churches and partly the general contempt of all the holy ordinances spread over the Kingdomes by the several Sects brought in and maintained by the Regicides to strengthen and perpetuate themselves if they could in their most impious usurpation and tyranny these I say have made the Communion of Saints in the publick prayers and the holy Sacraments to be of very small esteem with most insomuch that very many are brought to believe they may go to heaven notwithstanding the neglect of them for which most pestilent disease if seasonable and convenient medicine be not found out and wifely applied the Church of England will be uncapable of receiving any benefit by the meer Ecclesiastical Discipline and the onely restraint under God against the growing sad effects of irreligious profaness will lie in the sole power of the Regal auctority What gesture of body was used in those ancient times in receiving the holy Communion Sect. 17. whether standing or kneeling or at some times the one and at other times the other is not very clearly and expressely set down by the writers of that age that I can remember This onely is certain that they did not kneel in the receiving of it on the Lords days because it was against a Canon of the Church to adore God by bowing of the knee on those dayes It is probable that on other days except in the Pentecost they received kneeling Hieron in Esa c. 45. for St. Hierom saith that it was an Ecclesiastical Custome to bow the knee to Christ Idem in Epist ad Ephes c. 3. which we may understand to be in the receiving of that holy Sacrament as well as in the publick prayers notwithstanding that this holy Doctor saith in another place that every one that is subject unto Christ is said to bend his knee unto him and citing the words of St. Paul at the name of Jesus every knee shall be bowed addeth that the words do not pertain to the knees of the body but to the subjection of the mind and inclination of the soul and obsequiousness of the heart to God Which this most learned Father would never have said or written if the Custome of the Church had been in his time to kneel not onely unto Christ himself but also to his name Jesus or if he had thought that this place of the Apostle did signifie it to be every mans duty to make the name Jesus a co-object with Christ of his adoration by the bowing of the knee as some of the latter Schoolmen have taught In the time of St. Hierom and before the standing in receiving the Eucharist on the Lords day was accompanied with a low bowing of the body even nigh to a prostration for St. Augustine writing upon the 98 Psalm faith August in Ps 98. none eateth that flesh unless he first hath adored it And in the words following he speaketh of inclination and prostration to that earth that is the flesh of our Saviour not considered as apart from but as in and with the most blessed Divine person Cyrill Hierosol Catech. Mystagog 5. Cyrill of Jerusalem speaking of the Holy Communion saith take the body of Christ saying Amen and a little after come saith he to the Cup of his blood not extending thy hands but incurving them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in manner of adoring and worshiping saying Amen But now that the more urgent reasons which moved the Fathers of the Primitive Church not to use kneeling in adoring God on the Lords days are ceased it seems most convenient to kneel in taking the Holy Sacrament upon what day soever we receive it for the nearer Christ comes to us and the more he doth descend and condescend in coming to us yea and into us mystically in those external weak Elements the more should we descend humble and debase our selves by the inward bowing of our souls and the external bending of our knees in the receiving of him thereby testifying our own unworthiness of that Grace and commending the exceeding freeness of it In the Kingdome of Prester John they stand when they receive the holy Communion In giving the Sacrament the Bishop or Presbyter said Francisc Alvarus apud Cassandri liturg De Sacrament l. 4. c. 6. the body of the Lord and the receive said Amen saith Ambrose About the year 600 in the Sacramentary of Gregory the great it is said while the priest giveth the Lords body let him say The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thee to eternal life Amen And in giving the Cup let him say The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thee to eternal life In the mass of some Armenians in Russia the priest communicating faith Apud Cassand liturg By faith I believe in the most holy Trinity the Father Son and Holy Ghost By faith I eate thy quickning and saving body O Lord Jesus Christ let it be unto me to the absolution and remission of my sinnes And in drinking the Cup I drink by faith thy holy unmixed blood blotting out sins Apud Eundem O Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of my sins and of my Parents and of all the world Every Communicant of the Armernians in India goeth before the foot of the altar to receive It is provided in the Council of Laodic before the year 400 Can. 19. that only the ministers might go in to the altar and there take the Communion Can. 17. In the fourth Council of Tolet. it was appointed
to suspend their reception of the ancient Episcopacy but in very deed receiving in some hidden sort the substance of it secretly giving that Authority to the moderator of the Colledge of Presbyters which tantamounts the Authority of the ancient Bishops This was done by them in their Emergency out of the Gulfe of the Babylonish Idolatry and Haeresies when the state of persons and Circumstances would not permit them directly and manifestly to set up the ancient Episcopacy but covertly and cloathed with the apparel of Presbytery Because the appearing of it in its native cloathing seemed to threaten an extreme danger of returning again to Idolatrous Babylon Thus when two duties became inconsistent the keeping out of Idolatry and the open and manifest use of an Ordinance inferior to the maintenance of the purity of Gods worship they did as it was their duty so far forbear the open use of Episcopacy as seemed needfull that they might preserve the truth and sincerity of the worship of God I know many writers are of another mind but the intentions of Churches are better seen in the causes of their actions and the managing of them then in the letter of a Law or in the speculative opinions of private persons Some think the present condition of our Church to be almost the same with the state of those Churches when they first began their Reformation and therefore that we stand in need of the same cure under the habit of the Presbyterian Government Surely these are much deceived first in their opinion of our present state secondly in the sequele if our case were like theirs for when we were like them in departing from Babylon we were unlike them in many other respects and needed not the habit of Presbyters but fall to purge the ancient Episcopacy from as many of the foul excrescencies which the sins of men made to grow to it as the condition of that time would permit whereby our Church kept more uniformity with the primitive Churches and by the blessing of God upon our endevour obtained more measure of the Heavenly light and of the power of Godliness in peace and that for a longer time then any part of those Churches attained unto which were necessitated to shrowd themselves under another habit of Government This I say not any way to disparage any other Church of Christ whom I honour and pray for from my heart or to ascribe any thing to our own wisdome and providence but to honour and glorifie the grace of God for his great mercies to our Church and to defend her honour against the mistakes of some But now our condition is changed our sins have brought us to misery the light and glory of our Church is turned to darkness confusion and contempt from which notwithstanding our unworthiness Gods infinite mercy which hath most gratiously restored our Soveraign Lord the King unto his Kingdomes and Subjects will be pleased I trust to deliver us and to beautifie our Church with the primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy attended by his assessors and Senate the reverend grave wise learned and pious Colledg of Presbyters to govern the house of God after the best pattern of the primitive holy orders and discipline for the obtaining whereof God would have us assisted by His grace to contribute our endevours improved to the uttermost of Christian Wisdom and moderation to be crowned with his rich blessing And because this business is about things for the most part spirituall tending to the edification of Gods house it will no doubt please our gracious King and his great Councell not to proceed in this work without the advise and counsell of them whom Christ hath ordained under Himself Minister all builders of His House least the neglect of His Ordinance and Ministers cause the Lord to blast all other Counsells and endeavours how probable soever they may seem to be in the eye of the world Give unto Casar the things which are Caesars and let the Vicegerents of Christ enjoy the things belonging to them let all interests have their due part in this weighty work and then whatsoever Government be settled what form soever of Divine service what Rites soever and Ceremonies shall be established they will with all readiness and due submission be received and embraced by all the people and all the obedient Sons and Daughters of our dearest Mother the Church of England among whom if there shall be some whose judgments cannot acquiesce in some determinations of the higher powers they will wisely consider first that in the remote conclusions of Divine maximes all good men in this our infirmity will never agree and that nature teacheth us that in controversies the resolution of the major part must be obeyed without which debates would never be ended and St. Paul saith let the spirits of the Prophets be subject to the Prophets Secondly That God hath appointed the powers civil and Ecclesiasticall in his stead to determine Ecclesiasticall controversies and to make Ecclesiasticall Ordinances from whose judgment there is no appeal but only to God by prayer Thirdly That to preserve the peace of the Church and Charity the bond of perfectness is a duty to be preferred before the duty of publick teaching divulging or preaching many of those Divine Truths whose ignorance if not voluntary doth not exclude from Heaven when that teaching or publishing doth disturb the publick peace and consequently the keeping of the peace requireth abstinence in that case from such divulging or preaching And from these considerations good men will infer that it is good for them and that it is their duty both for the sake of Gods Authority for good order sake and for Charity and peace sake out of a Conscientious regard to the higher powers to acquiesce in their determinations and to desist from opposing their private opinion to the publick judgment and pursuing their private interest to the prejudice of publick peace and Charity For which Wisedome and moderation that they may be in all let all good men pray to the onely wise and most mercifull God the Author of Truth and peace An APENDIX THe manner of the Ordination of Bishops forgotten to be shewed by me in due place is declared by the fourth Councill of Carthage in these words Can. 2. When a Bishop is ordained lay and hold the book of the Evangelists upon his head and neck and one Bishop pronouncing the Benediction over him let the rest of the Bishops present touch his head with their hands The Church never accounted any to be capable of this Episcopall Ordination that was not first ordained a Presbyter the manner of whose Ordination was that the Bishop blessing him saying receive the Holy Ghost whosoever sins you shall remitt Concil earth Can 3. c. and laying his hand upon his head the Presbyters present lay their hands upon his head by the hand of the Bishop There was a (a) Tert. de praescript c. 41. Cyprian Epist ad
like successor of Peter's Church but to our hearts unspeakable grief we speak it the gold is become dimme the most fine gold is changed the holy City is become an harlot O that she would return to her first husband that we might return to her Ther 's Peter's chair where Peter's preaching is sincerely imitated that 's Peters Church which imitates her faith and holiness which when Rome shall do she shall recover her precedency of succession Thus Peter had a primacy among the Apostles but no superiority of command over them All pastors were in him first and secondarily in the rest of the Apostles De dignitate Sacerd. c. 2. Jo. 21. Peter saith Ambrose did not alone receive the sheep but received them with us and we received them with him Christ in the Apostles gave unto all Pastors the power of ordaining Pastors because he gave them the Keyes to be conveyed to successors But the power of appointing who among the Presbyters should exercise them and how and who among them should be governours of the use of the Keyes was not conveyed with the Keyes to all Pastors in the Apostolical ordination because it was peculiar to the extraordinary office of the Apostles either to leave that to the wisdome of the Church and ordinary Pastors to order or to settle it in one Presbyter assisted with the Colledge of Presbyters or otherwise as the Holy Ghost should guide them We may not think that our Saviour did give unto every Presbyter power to ordain preach administer the Sacraments excommunicate or absolve at his own will and pleasure without any appointment of a flock or calling him to account of his Stewardship c. for this is against the light of nature unless God had given unto every Presbyter wisdome and a will which could not erre in the orderly use of the Keyes as he gave unto the Apostles without which extraordinary grace the house of God in that case had been full of disorder and confusion which Christ would not permit If the power of disposing and governing the act of ordination and the exercise of the acts of binding and loosing had been given to the body of the Presbyters by our Saviour the Apostles and universal Church had never deprived the Colledge of that authority Wherefore as the first planting of the Christian Churches was proper to the Apostles so the constituting of the form of government and the governors of the exercise of the acts of ordination and the Keyes was committed onely to their trust And it was very congruous that Christ would not determine the form of the government of his Church and Pastors thereof before his ascention into heaven and the taking full possession of his government and Kingdome at the right hand of his Father The Apostles planted the Churches after this manner When God had blessed their ministery in Cities and considerable Towns and in the Country adjacent in the conversion of many to God they constituted one congregation or Church of all the converts in that City or good Town and the Country about it So ordering Ecclesiastical Corporations as might as much as could be best agree with the civil corporations and their division For the feeding of which Church they ordained Pastors and those many in every City-Church Ubi est Ecclesia nisi ubi virga gratia floret sacerdotalis Ambros de Isaac anima c. 7. Es Hier. contra Lucifer Ecclesia non est quoenon habet Sacerdotem in which they left the Colledge of Presbyters governors both of the Pastors individually considered and the whole flock yet with and under themselves or their vicegerents as presidents when either of them were present But within a short time when Christianity was much spread in several Nations and many City-Churches were grown populous so that they had many lesser Churches under them and the Apostles and their Vicegerents could be present but in very few in comparison of the far greater number which wanted their society the Colledges in these began to be divided among themselves and to divide the Churches which caused the Apostles guided thereto by the Spirit of Christ to consent to a change of the government which was by the Colledges bodies without a head and so apt to swerve in ruling populous Churches into a president in every Church chosen out of the Pastors together with the Colledge of the City and best Presbyters as his Senate and Counsellors And then both the Apostles and Evangelists or Apostolical helpers which were extraordinary Bishops become ordinary Bishops to be succeded by others And these last were like our Arch-bishops having many Bishops under them as Titus in Creet c. and the Apostles were like our Primates but of higher authority and having more Arch-bishops under them Here we may observe that the original occasion of Episcopacy doth very much commend it it being introduced to heal the evil of Schisme and by preventing it for time to come to secure the peace of the Church And it hath and will be the more acceptable to the Churches because it was instituted or confirmed by the Apostles at their desire Unto the imposition of hands benediction and prayers which were of the essence of the ordinations of Bishops and Presbyters many Ceremonies were in time added some sooner some later which served to make a clearer manifestation of the Ecclesiastical powers received in and by them which additional Ceremonies in time became occasions of foul mistakes Some making the additions to be the essence of the ordinations or part thereof other multiplying the ordination of the Apostles according to the diversity of kinds of the powers which they in very deed received but in one ordination although iterated for some special reasons When the Schoolmen began to write they found the Roman Court full of corrupt doctrine which they thought themselves bound to maintain mistaking miscalling the evil good and the good evil They found in the ordination of a Presbyter the Patene with Bread and the Cup with the Wine both unconsecrated to be delivered unto the party to be ordained with these words spoken by the Bishop Cont. Florent Sotus in 4. d. 24. Major Tho. in 4. d. 24. viz. Take power to offer c. which Ceremony added to that ordination about the year 700 as is probable some Schoolmen and also Pope Eugenius the fourth affirm to be the matter and forme of the consecration of a Presbyter making the imposition of hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. to belong onely to the solemnity thereof and not to be essential to it against the judgment of all antiquity Other maintain the delivery of the Patene with Bread Scotus in 4. d. 24. Vasq in 3. disp 239. Bellar. de sacramento ord i. 1. c. 9. and the Cup with wine in it together with the said words spoken by the Bishop to be one part of the ordination and the imposition of