set down Foedum incoeptu the foul attempts of ill men not to be imitated but to be eschewed by all Readers Yea but with the Relating of it he should have written a Sermon or Homily against it There are already publick Homilies in the Church written of purpose against all Seditions and Rebellions And to do this in every Narrative of a fact is the fault that Polybius findes with Philarchus for presenting his Readers with a passionate Tragedy in stead of plain and naked History Yea but saith the Doctour the History is false in matter of fact For the Altars were not stird by the people untill they had some Order and authority from those who had a power to do it If this be made good let the Writer defend himself for me I wash my hands of him Yes there is nothing can be more clearly prov'd For in the Letter to Bishop Ridley it is said that it was come to the Kings knowledge already that is before any Order given by the King or the Counsell for ought appeares in any Book or upon any Record that the Altars upon good and godly Considerations were taken down Were they taken down already before the King and Counsell heard thereof and upon Considerations onely Then surely not upon any Command of the King direction of the Counsell Canon of the Convocation Mandate of the Ordinary For where doth your Doctourship find any Commands of this nature call'd Considerations but upon the private apprehension of the People instructed by their Ministers that the form of a Table would more move the simple to the right use of the Lords Supper For so the King and Lords in their first reason do clearly expresse what is mean't by the good and godly Consideration set down by that King in his Letter Because the Doctour therefore is dispos'd to be merry and to make his Readers sport looking like a Water-man in a Wherry one way and pulling on his Proofs another way I will tell you what I conceive the Writer of the Letter might mean by these two Lines objected against although it be little materiall to the present Controversie 1. I perceive he relates in the first place to the Reformation of Altars beyond the Seas because he speaks of supreme Magistrates which the people began by way of fact before the Magistrates established the same by way of Law And this Luther complains of against Carolostadius that he chose rather to hew down then to dispute down Altars Although some others write that Carolostadius had herein the assent at least wise of the Magistrates then residing in the Castle of Wittemberg However Luther was enflam'd against him that he durst in the time of his absence in Pathmos presume upon so punctuall a Reformation Gerardus likewise finds no fault with the thing but with the manner of the Reformation which the Calvinists made in this particular of the Altar That they did it Securibus et bipennibus with Axes and Hammers and not with the power of the Magistrate instructed thereunto by the ecclesiasticall Synod So Iacobus Andreas gives Beza thankes that however he maintained the matter he did so clearly expresse his dislike of the manner of this Reformation done as Andreas saith argumentis à Fustibus rather with Arguments from Clubs and Staves then with Syllogismes fetch'd from the Word of God And thus this Reforming of Altars began in the Churches beyond the Seas Of the which we may say as the Romans did of Pompey the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was a faire and a happy daughter though brought forth by an ugly and odious Mother 2. And in the second place I do conceive that the Writer holds it a very easie matter to prove the same by way of Fact to have been observed in all the taking down and setting up of Altars practised here in England in these last Reformations K. Edward himself complains of this kind of people that did enterprise to runne before authoritie and declares how he with his uncle the Protector and Counsell divers times in the first and second yeare of his reigne did assay to stay innovations or new Rites in this kinde though not with that successe he wished Howbeit as it is there said he did not punish them but granted them a Parliament-pardon for these disorderly attempts because his Highnesse took it that they did it of a good zeal Where you have a clear exposition of those words we spake of even now good and godly Consideration And Q. Mary her self as forward as she was to set them up again yet could she not make such hast of her deformation in this kind but she was prevented by the superstition of her Zelotes who no doubt had likewise their Considerations The same may be said of Q. Elizabeth That before her Injunctions could get forth In many and sundry places of the Realm the Altars of the Churches were removed And much strife and contention did arise amongst her subjects about the removing of the Steps of the foresaid Altar And all out of private Considerations This irregular forwardness◠of the people the Writer of the Letter doth touch indeed though but in a word but doth no more approve of then I do of your stickling in this sort for Table-Altars in the Church upon pretence of the Pietie of the Times another Consideration up and down and running before the Declaration of your Prince and the Chief Governours of the Church in this your fancy and imagination This answers another Hubbub the Doctour makes that the Altars stood longer then for two years in K. Edwards time They stood three or foure yeares before the Kings Declaration but not one complete yeare before this godly Consideration had taken them to task And this Declaration is therefore in the Letter call'd a kind of Law because it was neither Act of Parliament nor a meere Act of Counsell but an Act of the King sitting in Counsell which if not in all things else without all question in all matters ecclesiasticall is a kind of Law And if it be more then a kind of Law the more it is for the advantage of the Writer and the more impudent is this Companion that in all this Section from the beginning to the end thereof hath set himself to thwart and oppose it His fifth Extravagancie is to impose upon the Writer of the Letter that he should averre the name of Altar to be onely used in the Liturgie of 1549. Whereas the Letter saith no more but that it is passim every-where there used without scrupulosity And whereas he taxeth the Writer for want of leisure to finde the word Boord once and the word Table once in that Liturgie I perceive plainly that he is more busie a great deal then the Writer who peradventure came not so late from his Horn-book as this Doctour did to minde the joyning together of Letters and
France For they ever held their Kings if not for the Head of their Church yet surely for the principall and most sound member thereof Which is the reason that the opening or Overture of their most ancient Councels under the first and second that is the Merovingian and Caroline line was ever by the power and authority and sometimes the presidencie of their Kings and Princes And my Authour quarrels very much the Monk Gratian for attributing to Isidore of Spain rather then to a Nationall Councell of France held in the yeare 829 that brave and excellent saying Principes seculi nonnunquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eandem potestatem disciplinam ecclesiasticam muniant God sometimes imparts secular power to Princes that live in the bosome of the Church that they might imploy this power in preserving ecclesiasticall discipline Saepe per regnum terrenum coeleste regnum proficit The Kingdome of Heaven doth many times take growth and encrease from these Kingdomes upon Earth Cognoscant principes seculi se Deo debere rationem propter Ecclesiam quam à Deo tuendam accipiunt And therefore the Great ones of the world must know that God will one day call them to an account for his Church so tenderly recommended unto them It is true indeed that these words are found in the sixth Councell of Paris lib. 2. c. 2. But it is as true that in my Book Isidore is set down in the Margent as ready to own them And both these will stand well enough considering that Isidore Scholar to Gregory the Great did flourish very neare 200 yeares before the Aera of that Councell and that that Councell by incorporating of these words unto the substance of their Canons doth put a greater lustre and authority upon them as the French Antiquary well observes And according to this doctrine are all those Capitulars or mixt Laws for matters of Church and Common-wealth of Charles the Great Ludovicus Pius Lewis the Grosse Pipine and others gathered by Lindenbrogius And a world of other Capitulaâ—s of the same nature intermingled with the Canons of the French Councells in the late edition of them by Sirmond the Jesuite In a word the very pure Acts and Constitutions of the Synods themselves were in those former times no further valid and binding then as they were confirmed by the Kings of France and entered duly upon the Records of their Palais or Westminster-Hall And yet under favour all Crowns Imperiall must give place in regard of this one flower of ecclesiasticall jurisdiction to the Crown of Great Britannie For as our Prince is recorded to be the first Christian King so is he intimated to be the first that ever exercised ecclesiasticall jurisdiction being directed by Eleutherius the Pope to fetch his Laws by the advice of his Counsell from the Book of God the old and new Testament wherewith to reclaim his subjects to the Faith and Law of Christ and to the holy Church And if Father Parsons shall damne this Letter as foisted and another obscure Papist suspect it to be corrupted let the Reader content himself with these proofs in the Margent of a farre more authenticall averment and authority Sure I am that according to this advice of Eleâ—therius the British Saxon Danish and first Norman Kings have governed their Churches and Church-men by Capitulars and mixed Digests composed as it were of Common and Canon Law and promulged with the advice of the Counsell of the Kingdome as we may see in those particulars set forth by Mr. Lambard Mr Selden D. Powell and others And I do not beleeve there can be shewed any Ecclesiasticall Canons for the Government of the Church of England untill long after the Conquest which were not either originally promulged or afterwards approved and allowed by either the Monarch or some King of the Heptarchy sitting and directing in the Nationall or Provinciall Synod For all the Collections that Lindwood comments upon are as Theophrastus speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but rough and rugged money of a more fresh and later coinage And yet in those usurping times I have seen a Transcript of a Record Anno 1157. 3º Henr. 2. wherein when the B. of Chichester oppos'd some late Canons against the Kings Exemption of the Abbey of Battles from the Episcopall Jurisdiction it is said that the King being angry and much moved therewith should reply Tu pro Papae authoritate ab hominibus concessa contra dignitatum Regalium authoritates mihi à Deo concessas calliditate argutâ niti praecogitas Do you Sr goe about by subtilties of wit to oppose the Popes authority which is but the favour or connivence of men against the authority of my Regall dignities being the Charters and donations of God himselfe And thereupon requires reason and justice against the Bishop for this foul insolencie And it hath been alwayes as the practice so the doctrine of this Kingdome that both in every part and in the whole Laws do not make Kings but Kings Laws which they alter and change from time to time as they see occasion for the good of themselves and their Subjects And to maintain that Kings have any part of their Authority by any positive Law of Nations as this Scribbler speaks of a Jurisdiction which either is or ought to be in the Crown by the ancient Laws of the Realm and is confirmed by 1º Elis. c. 1. is accounted by that great personage an assertion of a treasonable nature But when Sr Edward Coke or any other of our reverend Sages of the Law do speak of the ancient Laws of the Realm by which this Right in ecclesiasticall causes becomes a parcell of the Kings jurisdiction and united to his Imperiall Crown they do not mean any positive or Statute-law which creates him such a Right as if a man should bestow a new Fee-simple upon the Crown as this Scribbler instanceth or any Law which declares any such Right created by any former Law but the continuall practice Judgements Sentences or as this very Report calls it Exercise of the ancient Laws of the Realm which declareth and demonstrateth by the effect that the Kings of England have had these severall flowers of ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction stuck in their Imperiall Garlands by the finger of Almighty God from the very beginning of the Christian Monarchy within this Island For so our Sententiae Iudicum and Responsa prudentum have been termed time out of mind a main and principall part of the Common Law of England And therefore having cleared this point at large I shall easily yeeld to Dr Coal that the Kings Majesty may command a greater matter of this nature then that the holy Table should be placed where the Altar stood and be railed about for the greater decencie and that although the Statute of 1º Elis. c. 1.
utterly in hibite single Priests to do either the one or the other Whereupon not many yeares after about the time of Iustinian the Emperour Hormisda◠made an absolute decree to inhibite Priests to erect any Altars in this kinde under pain of deprivation as we read in Gratian and elsewhere Which places I do not for al that presse dogmatically as conceiving the Vicar would be so absurd to dogmatize any such matter as you perceiv◠the writer of the Letter seems to excuse him no◠was that the Errour of the Germane Priests bu◠I presse it only historically to let you see that if such a Rumour had been raised in the Church as we all know the Vicars behaviour did raise in the Neighbourhood 1100 yeares ago what severitie they would have used to chastise the insolencie And no marvell if you consider well what I shall now represent unto you That the very Romans themselves in the time of their Republick would never assent that a private man should presume to erect an Altar But that which I presse for doctrine is this That a single Priest quà talis in that formality and capacitie onely as he is a Priest hath no Key given him by God or man to open the doores of any externall jurisdiction He hath a Consistory within in foro Poenitentiae in the Conscience of his Parishioners and a key given him upon his Institution to enter into it But he hath no Consistory without in foro Causae in medling with ecclesiasticall Causes unlesse he borrow a key from his Ordinary For although they be the same keys yet one of them will not open all these wards the Consistory of outward jurisdiction being not to be opened by a Key alone but as you may observe in some great mens Gates by a Key and a staffe which they usually call a Crosier This I have ever conceived to be the ancient Doctrine in this kind opposed by none but professed Puritanes They tell us indeed that the Bishops power was the poysonous Egge out of which Antichrist was hatched that it is meere tyrannie because it takes all to the Bishop and his Officers and turnes the Vicars to Soliloquies and Meditations whereas the Minister holdeth all his authoritie unto the spirituall charge of the house of God even immediately from God himselfe without dependance from King or Bishop But all learned men of the Church of England that are truly judicious Divines do adhere to that former doctrin They allow the Schoolmens double power that of order and that of jurisdiction and the subdivision of this jurisdiction to the internall and externall appropriating this last to the Bishops only They say clearly that all consecrated persons have not the power of jurisdiction They aske you roundly Who shall judge what is most comely Shall every private man Or rather such as have chiefe care and Government in the Church And for the Minister whom you would have wholly imployed they conceive that generally he is a man though better able to speak yet little or no whit apter to judge then the rest and that to give him a domineering power in matters of this nature were to bring in as many petty Popes as there are Parishes and Congregations But the written Law and speaking Law of this Kingdome are above all testimonies that can be produced the one appointing the Bishop of the Diocese onely in the Affirmative and the other excluding the particular fancy of any humourous persons in the Negative from assigning out these matters of Conveniencie in Gods service And the reason why this private Vicar should not without farther directions call the holy Table an Altar is set downe in the Letter but not touched by you and is a stronger one then your Head-piece is capable of Because the Church in her Liturgie and Canons doth call it a Table onely It seemes by you we are bound onely to pray but not to speak the words of the Canons I have been otherwise taught by learned men That where we have a Law and Canon to direct us how to call a thing we ought not to hunt after reasons and conceits to give it another Appellation And that every word hath that operation in construction of Law that wee may draw our Argument from the words as from so many Topick places Which the Writer of the Letter seems to do in this passage The Rubrick and the Canons call it nothing but a Table and therefore do not you a poore Vicar in the Countrey call it an Altar The writer doth not deny but that the name hath been long in the Church in a Metaphoricall usurpation nor would he have blam'd the Vicar if he had in a Quotation from the Fathers or a discourse in the Pulpit nam'd it an Altar in this borrowed sense but to give the usuall call of an Altar unto that Church-utensill which the Law that alwayes speaks properly never calls otherwise then by the name of a Table is justly by him disliked and by this Gallant lamentably defended For I appeale to all indifferent men that pretend to any knowledge in Divinitie If the Reading-pew the Pulpit and any other place in the Church be not as properly an Altar for prayer praise thanksgiving memory of the Passion dedicating of our selves to Gods very service and the Churches Box or Bason for that Oblation for the poore which was used in the primitive times as is our holy Table howsoever situated or disposed Or if it be the Priest onely that can offer a Sacrifice which in these spirituall Sacrifices we utterly deny what one sacrifice doth he inferre out of the Collects read by the Priest at the Communion-Table which are not as easily deduced out of the Te Deum or Benedictus said in the Quire or Reading-pew◠Is there no praying praising acknowledging or thanksgiving commemorating of the Passion and consecrating of our selves to Gods service in these two hymnes And therefore if that be enough to make an Altar and that these judicious Rabbies mean not somewhat else then for fear of our gracious King they dare speak out this man must change the Motto of his book and say Habenius Altaria we have 10000 Altars Whereas no place in all the Church doth offer unto us the body and blood of Christ in the outward forms of bread and wine beside the holy Table onely And consequently if a Name be invented to divide and sever one particular thing from another or to help us to the knowledge of a particular thing or that a name be tha◠which the Law gives the thing or that a thing cannot have two distinct and proper however it may have twentie Metaphoricall names then surely a Table ought to be the distinct and proper and so the usuall an Altar but the translatitious and borrowed and so the more unusuall appellation of that holy
conceived should want a power to set the holy Table Altar-wise what can be said to that uniformity of publick order to which the piety of the times is so well enclined What say you to the good work which is now in hand Shall such a poore trifling piece of work as this discountenance these sublime intentions Non sinam non patiar non feram And thus our Coal sparkles and layes about him But surely these demonstrations were born in Thebes and not in Athens and being of the true Cadmean brood do kill and destroy one another suóque Marte cadunt subiti per mutua vulnera fratres For if the Vicar had power to transpose Tables and set up Altars without and contrary to the will of his Ordinary why should he not in the name of God demurre upon the Commands of his Superiour in matters of exteriour order and bid a Fico to your first Argument But if upon his first demurre in this kinde imperium intercidit the Empire Ecclesiasticall is at an end what shall become of the lusty blade that understood himself better then this extravagant Ordinary and of your second kinde of Argument Mary then if the Piety of the times the devotion of some judicious particulars and a good work as yet in Abeyance and pendant in the aire but ready yer long to fall upon our heads shall become the Square and Canon of our exteriour order in the Church Barbara celarent talke no more of Mood and Figure for I would not give a button for all your Syllogismes So that these Thebane Arguments that drew their first breath Vervecum in patria crassóque sub aëre are but a kinde of Sheeps head sodden in the wooll and will do the Writer of the Letter no harm at all being made of the tusks though of a Serpent indeed yet of a dead toothlesse Serpent First as touching the Reverend Ordinaries of this Land if there be any that dislike of their Callings or conceive of the same as not grounded upon Apostolicall and for all the essentiall parts thereof upon divine Right I would he were with Master Cotton in the New as unworthy of that most happy government which by the favour of God and the King all the Laitie and Clergie doe here enjoy in the old England But yet they never had or challenged unto themselves any such exorbitant power over their Clergie and over the Laws and Canons established especially over Acts of Parliaments as this Iudicious and learned Divine as he writes but indeed most injudicious and trifling Novice as he proves himselfe doth attribute unto them Did ever any Bishop covet to command his Clergie as a Generall doth his Armie in a drunken mutinie by Martiall Law And yet this is the very President he cites out of Tacitus No no Bishops have ever governed their Clergie by Canon Law and not by Cannon shot God hath appointed them to governe both the Priests and the People subjected unto them according to certaine divine and humane Lawes and that with a power of Moderation and not Domination saith a great Prelate of this Church Sitting in Synods they might heretofore judge of Canons but in their Chaires they are not to judge of Canons but according to Canons saith the Father of all the Canonists Otherwise why are the Appeals by Canon Law as ancient in the Church of God as the Canons themselves But because it is possible a Prelate may propose unto himselfe some peevish wrangling and waspish humour of his owne in stead of a Canon No ecclesiasticall Judge whatsoever is to guide himself by his own sense but by the authoritie of the Canons It is true indeed that our reverend Archbishops and Bishops shops here in England had a power in Synod to make Declaratories and Revocatories of their Common Law as they terme it to set penalties where they were wanting and aggravate them where they were deficient and to make Additaments to the constitutions of the Pope himselfe but still with this proviso that they do not overthrow the jus commune and crosse the generall Lawes of Gods Church But this power they had heretofore it being now quite taken away by King Henry the Eighth And that not for the reason some have given thereof because the state of the Clergie was then thought a suspected part to the Kingdome in their late homage to the Bishop of Rome for there were as great Royalists in those dayes as in any age sithence whatsoever but for the reasons I gave in the Chapter before that these Ecclesiastical Jurisdictiōs were the native Roses and Lilies of the Crown not first prickt in by Gardiner the Bishop but grafted and deeply rooted in the same by the first Gardener we read of from the very beginning So that the power of making and executing such Canons being ceased if the Ordinaries now command where there is no Law or former Canon in force it layes a burden and grievance upon the subject from which he may appeale as being a thing unjust and consequently of a nature whereunto obedience is no way due Nor do our reverend Bishops otherwise conceive it Whatsoever by the Laws of God the Prince or the Church is once constituted is no longer to be mooted upon but absolutely obeyed by all inferiours And what God the King and Church have directed is not to be put to deliberation but to execution And another learned man saith truly that we make not the power of the Bishops to be Princely but Fatherly and dirigible by the Lawes And Master Hooker gives the reason hereof When publike consent of the whole hath established any thing every mans judgement being thereunto compared is private howsoever his calling be to some kind of publike charge Now it is true as Dr. Coal noteth that in all doubts that may arise how to understand do and execute the things contained in our Liturgie a deciding power is left to the Bishop of the Diocese to take order by his discretion for the quieting of the same But it is as true that Coal dasheth out with an c. the main Proviso of this power So that the same Order be not contrary to any thing contained in this Booke And therefore it is untrue what he saith in the end of his Pamphlet That the Ordinary hath an Authoritie of his own as he is Ordinary to place the holy Table in one or other situation more than what is given him is case of doubt and diversity only by the foresaid Preface All which I have opened the more at large to shew the raw and indigested Crudities that this judicious Divine imposeth upon us not that I would advise any Clergy-man of what degree soever to oppose his Ordinary either in this or any other particular of so low a nature Far be it from me to do so That is a Doctrine nigro carbone notanda to
utensill So that the Writer of the Letter saith no more then this If you have occasion as the Fathers had to amplisie and enlarge the excellencie of those Christian duties prayer praise thanksgiving at the time of the Eucharist especially abnegation of our selves almes-deeds and Charitie and to shew unto your people that these are the onely incense now under the Gospel which God accepts in stead of those thousands of Rams and Odours of Arabia vanished with the Law then in Gods name Fas usum tibi nominis hujus you may use the name of Altar as the ancient Fathers do But when there is no such occasion offered and that you speak only with your Neighbours and Church-wardens about preparing or adorning the Church-Vtensils what need you then tumble in your tropes and roll in your Rhetorick when the words of the Canon do far better expresse the duties enjoyn'd them by the Canon As therefore you do not in common discourse call the Church as the Puritanes in France do the Temple the Bells the holy Trumpets the Quire the Sanctuary the Font Iordan your Surplice the holy garment and your Hood the Ephod although the ancient writers ordinarily do so So when the Rubrick and Canons do call this sacred Vtensill a Table and but a Table do not you to be noted only as a Divine of great Iudgement that is of whyms and singularity correcting Magnificat in the Articles of your Bishops and most Reverend Archbishops Visitation and in the very expression of the King himself call it an Altar And surely that Vicar that will not be taught to word it neither by the Law nor the Rubrick nor the Canon nor his Bishop nor his Archbishop nor the King himself qui tot imperat Legionibus is as they were wont to call a stout Priest a very Thomas a Becket and fitter a great deal to officiate at Bethlem neere Bishopsgate then at Jerusalem Nor had the Ordinary been the wisest man in the world if having proper Officers of his own to execute all his Mandates concerning the outward Vtensills of the Church he should have directed his Commandments to the Vicar or permitted him to command without him It is not the Ordinary but the Apostles themselves that have turnd the Parsons and Vicars from being Active in this kind to their diviner Meditations It is not reason we should leave the word of God to serve Tables The Greek word is a term of Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Erasmus translates a Plea the French keep to this day an Arrest or Iudgement in Law as Budaeus was taught to enterpret the word by Paulus Aemilius the French Historiographer The meaning therefore of the Text is this Let Dr Coal find as much fault as he wil that Priests are made dull Spectatours in these affairs yet shall he never find any Order Arrest or Iudgement in the Church of God that Priests should meddle with Tables Because from the time of this Arrest and sentence pronounc't by the Apostles the Deacons have ever dealt therin as Beza himself confesseth though he hopes for otherwise it would burst his heart that they were guided therein by the Minister the Elders But these Elders are no elder then Calvin and Beza And who guided the Deacons we must learn of the Elders indeed They were the Eye saith one The Eare saith another The Ministeriall servants of the Bishop saith the third Authority Clear it is that from this time that the Apostles here Jura ministerii sacris altaribus apti In septem statuêre viris from these first Deacons to our present Archdeacons in whose office the ancient power of the Deacons is united and concentred Incumbents have been excluded from medling with the utensills of the Church or ornaments of the Altar So that the very Altar it self with the Rail about it hath been termed in the ancient Councells The Diaconie as a place belonging next after the Bishop to the care and custodie of the Deacon only Nay so far were the Ancients froÌ„ making a parish-Priest a stickler in Vestry-affairs that a Councell saith clearly That the Priest can boast of nothing he hath in generall but his bare name not able to execute his very Office without the Authority and Ministery of the Deacon And to conclude this point with a president in this very particular It was the Deacons Office Portare mark well the word against anon to move and remove the Altar and all the implements belonging thereunto saith S. Augustine And if you object that some question hath been made whether that Book be S. Augustines I answer That he that made that question concludes withall That if it was not written by S. Augustine it was by an ancienter Author then S. Augustine and is evidence good enough for matter of fact though peradventure not every where for points of doctrine And as the Archdeacon is the Eye so the Churchwarden as slight an Opinion as you conceive of him is the Hand of the Bishop and the Archdeacon too to put all Mandates in execution that may concern the Vtensills of the Church I observe our Latine Canors in force by calling him Oeconâ—mus do put him beside the scorn this companion would throw upon him by making him relate to that ancient Ecclesiasticall Office famous in the Greek and Latine Councells It is true he moves now in a lesser Orb yet with the same influence he did before At the first they were as they are now Lay-men some Domesticks or kinsmen of the Bishops who managed all things belonging to the Church being then matters of good moment and consequence according to the direction of the Bishop But because all the state of the Church consisting in those times most-what in goods and chattels arising from the devotion of the people was thus transacted in hugger mugger inter partes propinquas by parties so neare allied in references one to another that it grew very suspicious there might be foule play in the businesse that famous Councell of Chalcedon ordered peremptorily That these Church-wardens from that time forward should be Clergie-men and more esloigned from the Bishops family Yet did some continue of opinion this Canon notwithstanding that Lay-men were capable of the Office so that in a very short revolution of time it reverted to the Laity for altogether Now here in England it hath been ever held an ancient Office and much countenanced as well by the Common as the Canon Law The Church-wardens being admitted in all ages to bring their Actions at Common Law for trespasses committed upon the Church-goods wherewith they were entrusted Now that Bishop were a wise piece indeed who being complained unto against a Vicar for removing the holy Table to a place every way inconvenient would referre the examination of the Complaint to the Vicar himself rather then to his own most
crosse or his profession as Bellarmine the Antididagma of Coleine Catharinus and Estius As you may see more at large in the learned Bishop Fourthly and lastly I do observe that all Antiquity besides these do not in the exposition of this Text reflect in any kind upon the materiall Altar Chrysostom expounds it of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the things professed here amongst us Oecumenitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tenets as it were of Christian men Peter Lombard of Christs body Aquinas of the Crosse Gorran of the Incarnation and Lyra of the Passion of our Saviour Not any one ancient Writer beside Sedulius that next his heart as it were and in his first exposition did ever touch upon this materiall Altar I do not except Oecumenius or Haymo mistaken herein by a learned Doctour And therefore good Doctour unlesse you mean to turn Jesuite leave off your cracking to your Novices of this place untill you be able to back it with better Authoritie then your poore conceptions For above all indeed S. Paul in his HABEMVS ALTARE is least of all for your materiall Altars And behold he hath not done yet with the Act of State but will needs have another bout with it For although the Law and the Sacrifices thereof be both abolished and consequently the form of these Altars should be abolished yet that doth not reach at their Altar which lyeth along the wall but at our Communion-Tables that are in the Body of the Church or Chancell as the Jewish Altars stood in the old time Vah quantum est sapere It is an excellent thing to be a judicious Divine But the King and the Lords do not say that the Jewish Altars are abolished for us to put other Altars in the body of the Church or Chancell or for you to fasten them all along the wall but that the form of such Altars should cease to be erected in any place whatsoever in the English Church And having a reasonable guesse how those old Altars under the Law came to be placed in the midst of the Priests Court and outward Temple to wit that it was so done by Gods appointment I pray you forget not to tell me in your next Book where God or his blessed Sonne or the Apostles or the Fathers after them or any Councell or any Canon-law or so much as a Popes Bull hath commanded any Christian Church to set their Altars all along the wall But I shall have occasion to tell you many things more then you know about that particular in the last Section For a full Answer to this Quillet I do reade in Antiquitie that the form and situation of the holy Table in the Christian Church was not exemplified from the Square Altars but from the long Table of the Shew-bread which stood in the Temple And if we can make good our fashion and situation according to this pattern we saw in the Mount we care not how Altars stood either in the Jewish or Popish Church our holy Tables being quite of another race and no descendants from any of them One Benjamin a Jew fell upon Isidorus Pelusiota a reverend Prelate as ancient very neare as S. Chrysostâ—m and charged him with the boldnesse of this new Oblation and Sacrifice of Bread as he term'd it invented by the Christian Church without any pattern or precedent from her Mother the Synagogue To whom the ancient Father returns this Answer That there were two Oblations in the Synagogue The one upon an Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the outward Court perform'd in bloud and steaming vapours and visible to all The other was upon a Table perform'd in Bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 within the Temple hid from the Vnderstanding of the old and reserved for the Faith of the new people And of those former saith he thou art one thy self that couldst not see the truth of this Mystery hid so long in the Law and revealed so clearly to us in the Gospel It will be long yer you will bring us so clear and ancient an extraction for the form and fashion of the Altars in Christianitie Yea but say you this Table was not made to eat upon The Figure indeed was not but the verity was that is the verity then hid but now revealed And yet David tâ—ough no Priest did eat of that which was upon it to let us know that omnes justi Sacerdotalem habent ordinem All we that are justified in Christ have a Priestly interest in this holy Bread saith Irenaeus Davids eating was a figure that the meat of the Priest should one day be improved to be the meat of the people Because all the children of the Church are perfect Priests By reason that we are anointed unto a holy Priesthood offering up our selves as spirituall Sacrifices to Almighty God This Type teaching us thus much that one day in the Body of Christ food should be provided for true Believers saith S. Ambrose most excellently So that there is just that difference between the Shew-bread and the Body of Christ in the Sacrament as there is between the shadow and the body the representation and the verity the patterns of future things and the things themselves prefigured by these patterns saith S. Hierome And so said Origen long before The Commemoration and Remembrance of the 12 Tribes by those 12 Loaves doth relate to those words of our Saviour Do this in remembrance of me And therefore if you mark well these mysteries of the Church you shal be enabled to observe the truth of the Gospell in the dark mysts and Riddles of the Law I will adde to these and other Testimonies of the most ancient Fathers which you shall by and by finde in the Margin the conceits of two Iewish Rabbins somewhat tending to our purpose Ezek. 4. 22. it is thus written And he said unto me This is the Table before the LORD Meaning without doubt the Altar of Incense The Question then grows why the Altar is here call'd a Table I have heard this given as a Reason of it saith R. Shelomo That at this day the Table performs what the Altar was wont to do R. Iohanan and R. Eliezer give the like reason That while the Temple stood the Altar of God but sithence the destruction thereof the Table of a man is become the place of Sacrifice and propitiation But I leave these Rabbies to Rabbi Coal's consideration whether he shall reject them for their conceipt of the Table or let them passe on for maintaining the Sacrifice However to conclude this point I finde the Iesuits themselves of Opinion that the Table of the Temple was the true Type and prefiguration of the Communion-Table And no great wonder they are of that conceipt considering that Hymne inserted in the Body of the Masse Sacerdotes sancti incensum et panem offerunt Domino That is The holy Priests from thence