Christian Religion neither is nor can be of any Authority in any Common-Wealth otherwise than as it is owned and ratified by the Supream Secular Powers so that if Cromwel or any other Sovereign Prince be pleased to command his Subjects only to renounce their Saviour and their Christian Faith and declare themselves Jews or Mahumetans in that Case they are indispensably bound to Obedience in that it is not possible for the Christian or any other Law to have any binding force than what it receives from the Arbitrary Power of the Civil Magistrate And agreeable to that General Proposition the Philosopher is pleased to inform us that the whole Power of instructing the people in any Religion is derived from the Sovereign Prince That the Subjects of every Common-Wealth ought to receive every thing as the Law of God that the Civil-Laws declare to be so That by the Doctrine which the Sovereign commands to be taught we are to examine and try the Truths of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with Miracle or without shall at any time pretend to advance That Moses made the Scripture Canonical as civil Sovereign of the Common-wealth That our Saviour gave his Apostles power to Preach and Baptise in all parts of the World supposing they were not by their own lawful Sovereign forbidden That the new Testament had not the force of Law till it received it from the Authority of Constantine the Great That the civil Magistrate has originally in himself and by vertue of his Sovereign Supremacy a power of ordaining Priests and administring Sacraments That Christian Kings are the only Pastors of the Christian Church and that the faith of all their Subjects depends only upon their Authority And he is so entirely possessed with this notion of Kingly power that he allows no other Authority to God himself And thus when he appoints the punishment of death to false Prophets because they tempt the People to revolt from the Lord their God These words he tells us to revolt from the Lord your God are equivalent to revolt from your King for they had made God their King by Pact at the foot of Mount Sinai So that had they not obliged themselves by that Covenant it had been no sin to worship other Gods i. e. it is all one in itself to worship the true and to worship false Gods which is plainly to say there is none at all And as for the worship they paid to the God of Israel it was not due to him as Sovereign of the Universe but only as their King by Pact and so is no more than what every Subject owes to his Sovereign And therefore he in express terms defines the Kingdom of God to be a civil Kingdom and to this purpose he expounds the third Commandment That they should not take the name of God in vain that is that they should not speak rashly of their King nor dispute his Right nor the Commissions of Moses and Aaron his Lieutenants And this was the end of our Saviours coming into the World to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the old Covenant had been cut off by the Rebellion of the Israelites in the Election of Saul And the same account he gives of Christianity it self that it is only receiving our Saviour for King So that when St. Paul says to the Galatians That if himself or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel to them than he had preached let him be accursed That Gospel was that Christ was King so that all Preaching against the power of the King received in consequence to these words is by St. Paul accursed for his speech is addressed to those who by his Preaching had already received Jesus for the Christ that is to say for King of the Jews So that it seems we owe no other duty to our Saviour than if he had been only a temporal Messias seeing all that is due to him is only by vertue of that covenant whereby we receive him for our King Neither is this Kingdom of his present but is to be established upon the Earth after the general Resurrection and therefore by vertue of that Pact that the faithful make with him in Baptism they are only obliged to obey him for King whensoever he shall be pleased to take the Kingdom upon him Now barely to represent this Train of absurdities is more than enough to confute them in that they all resolve into this one gross Contradiction That for the ends of Government we are obliged to believe and obey the Christian Religion as the Law of God And for the same ends of Government we are to understand that we owe no other Obedience to it than as it is injoyn'd by the Law of man But though such manifest Trifles deserve not the civility of being confuted yet it is fit to let Mr. Hobbs his credulous Disciples and in all my Conversation I never met with a more ignorant or confident Credulity understand after what a childish rate their mighty Master of Demonstration proves these and indeed every thing else For he has but one way of proving all things First to define his own Opinion to be true and then by vertue of that Definition prove it to be so And for an undenyable proof of this we will take a review of all the foremention'd propositions where we shall find all his Mathematical Demonstrations to be nothing else but so many Positive and Dogmatical Tautologies Thus when he proves there can be no first Mover because he has already defined that nothing can move it self from whence it demonstratively follows that all motion must be Eternal for otherwise if we assert an Eternal first cause we run upon that desperate absurdity that somthing may move it self He had argued full as Mathematically that nothing can move it self because I say nothing can move it self So again when he proves that God is neither the Universe nor a part of it nor somthing beside he had argued as well had he said That there is no Being distinct from the Fabrick of the World because there is none So again those Books only can be Law in every Nation that are establisht for such by the Sovereign Authority because a Law as I have already defined it is nothing else than the Command of that man or Company of men that have the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth from whence says he it unavoidably follows that nothing can be a Law but what is Enacted by the Sovereign Power And so it would have followed as unavoidably if he had only said That the Sovereign only can make Law because the Sovereign only can make Law And yet upon this one mighty Demonstration are built all the other bold assertions that I have collected out of his Books that the Sovereign Prince is Sovereign Prophet too that he is sole Pastor to the People of his
by that exact collation of their Titles and Constitutions that is prefixed to Gothofred's Edition of the Theodosian Code And as for his own Novels he frequently makes particular reference to the Canons of the Church challenging to himself a power of punishing Offences against the Ecclesiastical Canons by vertue of this one general Law which he declares to have been the sense of himself and his Predecessors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Canons of the Church ought to have the force of Laws And accordingly he begins his Laws concerning Ecclesiastical matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We enact that the Canons of the Church i. e. the four first general Councils shall be received into the number of our Laws And by that Edict alone if there had been no other they were all Constituted Laws of the Empire And according to this Principle he declares in the Preface to his 83 Novel that he only follows the ancient Canons and Constitutions of the Church And particularly in his 137 Novel where he endeavours the restitution of Ecclesiastical Discipline he only enjoyns the observation of the thirty sixth Apostolical Canon viz. That the Bishops of each Province meet twice a Year for the more effectual Government of the Church and this he professes to do not as Author but as Protector of the Ecclesiastical Laws and therefore in the Preface to this Novel he challenges to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of Legislation in reference to the Civil Laws but in reference to the Laws of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of Patronage or Protection This seems to have been the Constitution of the Church in those happiest and most flourishing Ages of it whereby it appears that the Emperours of those Times were so far from assuming the power of Excommunication to themselves that they would not so much as abet any matter of Religion with their civil Sanctions that was not determin'd beforehand by the Spiritual Power Whether they ever exceeded their own bounds I think not my self obliged to enquire they being lyable to that as well as to other mistakes and misearriages of Govenment Though I remember not any instances of that kind till the latter and degenerate ages of Christendom when barbarity was introduced by the incursions of the Goths and Vandals and other salvage Nations It is enough to my purpose that the Power of the Keys in the Church was acknowledged by the Christian Emperours from Constantine to Justinian and it is more than enough in that whether they own'd it or not it was setled by our Saviour upon the Apostles and their Successors to the end of the World But secondly Emperours Kings and Princes have limited the Ecclesiastical Order in the exercise of this Power and assign'd them either larger or narrower bounds of Jurisdiction as they judged most consistent with reasons of State by which they evidently declare what was their opinion of the censures of the Church for if they had supposed Church-officers to have acted by a Divine Authority they durst never have presumed to set bounds to the Power of God by their own arbitrary Decrees As if it were not possible for the Governours of the Church to go beyond their Commission and under pretence of a Divine Authority encroach upon that power that God has committed to Princes Which if they can do and some have done what affront is it to the Authority of God himself to restrain his Ministers within those bounds of Jurisdiction that he has prescribed to them Nay is not this very thing a very plain confession of a distinct Authority when to limit a power supposes it So that it is so far from being any Argument of their disowning the Divine Institution of an Ecclesiastical power that 't is a demonstrative and undoubted proof of their acknowledgment of it This being granted I shall not concern my self to enquire into the warrantableness of the several Precedents alledged though most of them relate only to the restraint of dilatory vexatious and uncanonical proceedings for my only business is to gain the suffrage of the Princes of Christendom to my Cause for which I am no ways bound to prove them free from all errours and miscarriages of Government so that if they might at any time bear too hard upon the power of the Church especially when the Church has given them too much reason so to do that is so far from being any prescription against its due exercise that it is a declaration of these Princes that have been most unkind to it that they own its Power provided it be kept within its due bounds But what the general sense of Christendom has been concerning the distinction of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers sufficiently appears by those great differences that have been raised about the bounds of their Jurisdiction And though the Christian Emperours have of later times been forced from time to time to struggle against the encroachments of the Bishops of Rome yet they never question'd that I know of the divine Right of their Episcopal Authority And therefore neither here shall I concern my self to examine the particular precedents pleaded by both Parties for the advancement of their respective Powers when it is certain that both Powers may and often have exceeded their just limits which yet is such an inconvenience that considering the passions and partialities of men is utterly unavoidable And we cannot expect that God should give such Laws as that it should not be in the Power of humane liberty to break them for then the Laws were given to no purpose it is enough that they are sufficient to guide those that will resign themselves to be govern'd with honesty and integrity and it is not in the power of Laws to effect more So that it is a very frivolous objection much insisted upon by some ill-minded men that seeing the competition of these two Powers has been occasion of creating so many mischiefs and inconveniences to Christendom it were better that one of them were removed which beside the bold way of arguing that because they think in their great wisdoms that God ought not that therefore he has not constituted two distinct Powers it is such an Objection that no constitution can possibly avoid for which way soever the Government of the World may be setled there is no remedy but that through the corruption and folly of mankind it may and often will be liable to abuses And particularly in this case there is no difficulty in discerning the bounds that God has set to these two Powers if men would be honest and upright and if they will not it is no fault of the Law that they will break it For Christianity is wholly founded upon the Doctrin of the Cross which obliges them in all cases either to obey or to suffer peaceably So that how great soever the Authority of Churchmen may be there is no danger of its interfering with or entrenching upon
no more whereas the witty and learned Cardinal Perron run upon the same mistake and it is a mistake that they all wilfully run upon King James in his Reply le ts him know that though Christian Kings and Emperours never arrogated to themselves a power of being Sovereign Judges in matters and controversies of Faith yet for moderation of Synods for determinations and orders establisht in Councils and for discipline of the Church they have made a good and full use of their Imperial Authority And that for this very good reason that very much concerns all Princes that they might see and judg whether any thing were done to the prejudice of their Power or the disturbance of the Commonwealth And much more to the same purpose And therefore for further satisfaction I shall refer the Reader to the excellent Discourse it self It is enough that I have given a plain and easie account of the distinct powers of Church and State and shewn that whoever denies the distinction disowns Christianity that our Saviour has vested his Church with a Power peculiar to it self that the Church has in all Ages exercised it that the Christian Emperours never denied it and lastly that the Church of England and the Reformed Princes thereof have remarkably own'd it But Thirdly Constantine and his Successors took upon them the Title of Pontifex Maximus to which according to the Constitution of the Roman Empire appertain'd the supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdâ—ction By virtue of which Authority they granted to the Church among other Priviledges this power of Excommunication in the same manner as Claudius and other Heathen Emperours gave leave both to Jews and Christians to govern themselves by their own Laws and Customs And though the Emperour Gratian refused to wear the Pontifical Habit as a piece of Pagan Superstition yet it no where appears that he refused the Dignity it self And this Discourse our Author prosecutes with much Zeal and Learning But what do these men make of the Christian Church or rather of Christ himself that he should make no other provision for its Government than to leave it wholly to the superintendency of Heathen Priests This is such a wild conceit in it self that I must confess I could never have imagin'd any learned man could ever have made use of it against the Constitution of the Christian Church And yet this learned Gentleman is not only serious but vehement and confident in it he urges it over and over and though he repeats every thing that he says so that indeed one half of his Discourse is nothing but a Repetition of the other yet here he doubles his Repetitions and every where lays this Principle as the foundation of the practice of all After times But can any man believe that Constantine the Great took upon him the power of Government in the Christian Church if he really believed in Christ himself by virtue of a Power derived from the Usurpation of Julius Caesar Or that he could imagine that the Heathenish Priestly Power belong'd to him after his owning Christianity when by that the whole frame of the old Roman Religion was declared to be Idolatrous so that the Roman High Priest was nothing better than the supreme Head of Idolatry An Honour certainly which no Christian Emperour would be very fond of astuming to himself Julian indeed challenged both the Title and the Dignity as the greatest Ornament of his Imperial Crown but the Reason was because he was so vainly fond of the Pagan Religon But how any man of common sense that had renounced Paganism should yet own himself High Priest by virtue of that Religion that he had renounced seems too great a Contradiction for any man of common sense to believe But what if they accepted of the Title as our Author very well knows they did of Divinity it self or rather what if it were customarily given to them by others For I met with no other Monuments of it but some old Complemental Inscriptions so that it being a customary Title of Honour it might easily for a time pass in the crowd of the other Imperial Titles For it seems it continued not long being rejected by Gratian who lived about fifty Years after the Conversion of Constantine And though our learned Author affirms that the pious Emperour only refused the Vestment but not the Dignity it is very obvious to any man of much less understanding than himself that the Emperour could have no reason to refuse one but for the sake of the other for the Case is plain that there was no superstition in the Vestment but only upon the account of the Office and for that reason there was little if any use of the Title afterwards But lastly the Power of Judicature was first granted to the Bishops by the favour of the Christian Emperours and especially by an Edict of Constantine the Great whereby he grants the Bishops a full Power of hearing and determining all causes Civil as well as Ecclesiastical and withal declares their Decrees to be more firm and binding than the sentence of any other Judicature and from this great indulgence of the Emperour it is not to be doubted but that among other forensique penalties they made use of Excommunication Of the inference I shall give an account by and by but as for the Edict it self if it could do any service to our Authors design it at last proves supposititious as is fully proved by Gothofred in his excellent Edition of the Theodosian Code his reasons are too many to be here recited I will give but one for all viz. That this Law is contrary to all the Laws of the Roman Empire for though several Emperours do in their several Novels give the Bishops Power to decide causes by way of Arbitration or the consent of both parties which Power they enlarged or contracted as they pleased and to this all the other precedents produced by our Author relate yet that one party should have liberty of appeal from the civil Court at any time before judgment given without the consent of his Adversary is such a wild and extravagant priviledg as is inconsistent with all the rules of the Imperial Law And yet that is the only design of that Edict Quicunque itaque litem habens sive possessor sive petitor erit inter initia litis vel decursis temporum curriculis sive cum negotium peroratur sive cum jam coeperit promi sententia judicium eligit sacro-sanctae legis Antistitis ilico sine aliqua dubitatione etiamsi alia pars refragatur ad Episcopum cum sermone litigantium dirigatur Which I say is such an absurd liberty as would utterly destroy all the Power of the civil Magistrate if the humour or perversness of any man could so easily baulk their sentence But beside the absurdity of the Law it self there is no such Edict extant in the Justinian Code nor any mention of it in any ancient Writers of Ecclesiastical History For as for
to provoke them And with this honest resolution I now proceed to vindicate one of the most evident but most injured Truths in the World And in it I shall be much briefer than at first I intended for when we have lopt off all that is not directly pertinent to the Enquiry as we shall reduce the Debate to a narrow compass so may we easily bring it to a speedy issue And therefore I shall purposely pass over all those things that relate only to the occasional exercise and outward administration of Church-Authority And particularly that wide argument of Dispute whether the distribution of Provinces and Diocesses were through the Roman Empire framed by the division of the Civil Government For whether it were or were not that concerns not the question of the Institution of a Ruling Clergy but only the manner or fashion of administring their Power when reduced to Practice For the extent of their Jurisdiction is is but accidental to the supremacy of their Power and whether the Circuit of a Monarchs Government be little or great it is all one as to the nature of Monarchy So that it is not at all material how the bounds of Diocesses came to be assign'd how Churches extended themselves from great Cities into the adjacent Territories till they sometimes swell'd into Provinces and how Bishops came to be subject to Metropolitans and Metropolitans to Patriarchs all which and divers other particulars though they are very copiously insisted upon by Learned men in the present Question are yet altogether useless as to its Determination because they only concern the outward and accidental Exercise and have no reference to the essential Form of Church-Government So that the only thing concern'd in our present enquiry is as Mr. Selden has rightly stated it Utrùm ex ipsâ purâ putâ Origine seu primâ ac merâ nascentis Ecclesiae Christianae Disciplinâ Episcopalis seu Ordo sive Dignitas sive Gradus Presbyterali seu Sacerdotali superior vel alius aut ei neutiquam dispar seu idem fuerit habendus That is in short whether the Church were at first founded in a superiority and subordination of Ecclesiastical Officers to each other or a parity and equality of all among themselves so that if we can prove the preeminence and superiority of one Order above all others in the Government of the Church from the beginning of it we shall thereby make good all that is essential to that Power and Authority that we challenge as proper only to the Episcopal Order and Office And this we doubt not but to perform with clear and demonstrative evidence from these three Topicks I. Of our Saviour's own express Institution II. The practice of the Apostles in Conformity to it III. The practice of the Primitive Church in the Ages next and immediatly after the Apostles And First As to our Saviour's Institution it is manifest That he founded his Church in an imparity of Ecclesiastical Officers in that he did by his own immediate Appointment authorize and set apart two distinct Orders of men for Ecclesiastical Ministries the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples whose Office if it were the same to what purpose were they distinguish'd And why when a place was vacant in the Apostolate must one be substituted by Divine Designation to complete the Number Why should not one of the Seventy without any further Election have served the turn seeing he was qualified with an Identity of Office and Order Nay to what purpose should they be reckoned apart under different Names and in different Ranks if there were no difference intended in their employments and commissions And why were they not all comprehended in one number and ranged in one Catalogue If the Twelve were nothing more than the Seventy and the Seventy nothing less than the Twelve to what purpose do we hear so oft of the Twelve and the Seventy or of the Seventy two for of that the learned dispute and not rather of the Eighty two or Eighty four For do we think that our Saviour would distinguish the Officers of his Kingdom by meer Words and empty Titles And yet the Apostleship could be nothing more if it carried in it no superiority of Office above the Seventy Some inequality we must discover and that intended too by our blessed Saviour himself else shall we never be able to give our selves any imaginable Account of their Institution And now what clearer evidence can any man demand for a Divine Right of Superiority and Subordination of Church Officers than our Saviour's own express and particular Institution Yes say they but the Inequality between the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples consisted in a superiority of Order and Office not of Power and Jurisdiction Very good This grants all that we can desire or demand to prove the Supreme Authority of the Supreme Order because every Superiour Ecclesiastical Order as such is Authoritative and therefore an eminency of Order must not only infer but include a superiority of Power seeing the Order it self as such if it be any thing is the proper and immediate seat of Authority and all the Jurisdiction of the Bishop whatsoever it is is claim'd and exercised by vertue of his Order So that if the Apostles were the highest Order of Ecclesiasticks they were for that Reason alone though there were no other the highest Judicature And in the same degrees of proportion that they were advanced above others in dignity of Title they were so in supremacy of Power because their Dignity as such is nothing elie but so much Power in the Church of God devest them of that and they immediately return to the condition of Ordinary and Unconsecrated men And the Apostles themselves were no more than all other common Believers but by vertue of their Commission to rule and govern the Church reverse that and they are degraded from their Order as well as stript of their Jurisdiction So lamentably do these learned men entangle themselves by distinguishing so vainly in this case between a superiority of Order and Power when the one is not only the very Ground and Foundation but to speak in the language of the Schoolmen from whom these Metaphysical nothings are taken the very Formality of the other and the Apostolical Power is Formally and as such the very same with the Apostolical Office So little real difference is there in this distinction that it is not possible to frame one in Notion and Conception but whoever pretends to conceive one must of necessity conceive both or conceive nothing And therefore I would very fain know wherein consists this superiority of Order and Dignity without any superiority of Power For what do men mean by Power but a right to Govern and what by Order but a superiority of some as Rulers and a subordination of others as Ruled What then is the difference between an inequality of Order and Power when they both equally signifie Superiority and Subjection
the opposition of the times the worse they are the more they require our zeal to oppose and to reform them And it is never more seasonable to assert the Rights of the Christian Church than when they are most disowned Let us but do our duty and God will do his work and let us not betake our selves to tricks and shifts upon any pretences if any such there are of loss or danger the Church of Christ subsists upon no other Politicks than Courage and Integrity Let us then be true to those two fundamental Principles of Christianity and our Saviour has undertaken for the event that the Gates of Hell much less Rome or Geneva shall never be able to prevail against it POSTSCRIPT I Have thus far adventured to state the Case of the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law in the Church of England Thereby to declare what it is that we contend for in our Disputes against all sorts of Recusants and Dissenters For it is not at all material what we oppose but what we assert and there would be no harm in Errour were it not for its Contrariety to Truth So that before we defend the Church of England it is necessary to define the true state of its cause otherwise we contend about we know not what For as for the general Term of Protestancy it is an indefinite thing so that if all the men in England that are Enemies or no Friends to the Pope of Rome may be listed under that name we have some Protestants that believe there is a God and some that believe there is none some that believe they have a Saviour and a Soul to save and some that laugh at both there are Hobbian Protestants Muggletonian Protestants Socinian Protestants Quaker Protestants Rebel Protestants Protestants of 41 and Protestants of 48. All or most of which are as different as Popery it self from the true Protestancy of the Church of England And therefore it is necessary to stick close to that both as it is established by the Law of the Land and by the Law of Christ. For unless we limit it to the Law of the Land we may in time have a Church consisting of nothing but Protestants dissenting from the established Religion that is a Church not only without but against it self And unless we derive the Authority of that Religion that is by Law established from the antecedent Law of Christ we may quickly be as we are in a fair way to be a Reformed Church of Protestant Atheists that is a Church without Religion And therefore all must be built upon this one Boâ—â—om that the Church owned by the Law of England is the very same that was established by the Law of Christ. For unless we suppose that the Church was originally setled by our Saviour with divine Authority we deny his Supremacy over his own Church and unless we suppose that the supreme Government of the Kingdom has power to abett and ratifie our Saviours establishment by Civil Laws we deny his Majesties Supremacy over his Christian Subjects and therefore both together must be taken in to the right State and Constitution of the Church of England And that do what we can will involve the Leaders of our present Separation in the guilt both of Schism and Sedition of Schism in the Church in that they withdraw themselves and their obedience from those who are vested with a power to command them by vertue of a Divine Commission of Sedition in the State in that they needlesly and without any justifiable pretence violate the Laws of the Common-wealth Though the truth is their Dissension is somewhat worse For as they manage it it is not only Sedition but Rebellion in that they do not only disobey the Laws but disavow their obligation standing resolutely upon that one Principle that no Magistrate whatsoever has any power of establishing any thing relating to the Worship of God So that the Act of Uniformity is not so much faulty for the particular matters contained in it as for the unlawful and usurped Authority of it And when the King and Parliament enjoyned the Book of Common-Prayer to be used in all Churches they challenged a Power to which they had no right and invaded the Prerogative of God himself This is the first ground of the Separation as it is stated by the chief Ring-leaders of it and it is a plain renunciation of their Allegiance as well as Conformity I can with all the streinings of Charity make no better of it and should be heartily glad if I could see them without shufling and prevarication clear themselves of so pernicious a Principle To conclude methinks Religion has been long enough trifled with in this Kingdom and after so long and so sad experience of our folly it is time to return to some sense of discretion and sobriety Before the late barbarous War we had the Scepter of Jesus Christ and the divine right of Presbytery to advance but now after the murder of an hundred thousand men that Cause has proved so ridiculous as that it is grown ashamed of it self However the pretence was great and solemn but at this time the People are driven into the same excesses against the Church no body knows for what unless it be that some men among us are too proud or too peevish to recant their Follies And therefore I conjure them in the name of God to lay their hands upon their hearts and without passion seriously to consider what it is for which they renounce the Church in which they were baptised into the Communion of the Catholick Church tear and rend it into numberless pieces and factions scare multitudes of silly and well-meaning People out of it as they tender the salvation of their souls and put the whole Kingdom into perpetual tumults and combustions about Religion and when they have considered it I shall only bind it upon their Consciences so to answer it to themselves now as they hope to answer it to their Saviour at the last day As for the foreign Reformed Churches I have said nothing of them because they are altogether out of the compass of my Argument which is confined within the four Seas and concerns only those that either are or ought to be members of the Church of England But if in any thing any other Churches deviate from the Primitive Institution they must stand and fall to their own Master And God forbid we should be so uncharitable as to go about to un-church them or renounce brotherly communion with them or to think that our blessed Saviour should withdraw the promise of his Grace and Protection from them For if every defect from his Institution should forfeit the Rights of a Christian Church there never was as we may find by the Apostles account of the Churches in their times nor ever will be such a thing as a Church in the world For in this life it is not to be expected that any thing
case ought not to have compared the Talmudical Traditions to the Digests of Justinian but to some of the old British History not to mention the Monk of Viterbo who give us large Accounts of the exploits of their Country and the succession of their Princes from Adam to Brute without any assistance of former Records And this I take to be the case of the Talmudical Doctors in whose Reports there is nothing creditable concerning the ancient Jewish Church farther than as it is confirm'd by the ancient Writers And therefore I find no reason to accommodate their forms or customs of Excommunication to the old Jews because I find no Records of them older than themselves And for this reason I suspect it to be a great mistake in Grotius and the learned men that follow him who whatever they find in the Talmudical Writers concerning Excommunication immediately apply it to some text of Scripture as if it were originally taken thence Of which though it is not much material to my purpose I shall give a brief Account The Talmudists then had their degrees of Excommunication some say three Mr. Selden says but two neither was it inflicted only by the Court of Judicature but by any single Person and that either upon another or upon himself and that either waking or sleeping For if any man pronounced himself or his neighbour Excommunicate it was as binding as the Decree of the great Sanhedrim or if he only dream't that he was Excommunicate either by the Court or any private Person it was as effectual as if it had been done with all the formalities of Law And as any man had power to Excommunicate himself so had any Rabbi to absolve himself and if a man were Excommunicate by the great Sanhedrim he might be absolved by any three men whatsoever with divers other ridiculous Formalities which discover themselves to be meer inventions of the Talmudical Age when all sense of Religion was run into idle and useless Pageantry And therefore passing by all the rest as absurd enough of it self I can find no Traces of their several degrees of Excommunication more ancient than themselves and therefore I suspect them not to have been in Use in the ancient Jewish Discipline And though Grotius interpret several texts of Scripture by them it is manifest that he brings his Interpretation along with him from the Rabinical Writers without finding any ground for it in the Text it self as will best appear by particulars Thus that Text Ezra 10. 8. That whosoever would not come within three days according to the counsel of the Princes and the Elders all his substance should be forfeited and himself separated from the Congregation of those that had been carried away seems not to have any reference to the power of Excommunication but only an exercise of that absolute Authority that Ezra had received from the Persian King Chap. 7. 26. That whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of the King let judgment be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto Death or to Banishment or to confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment Now the Proclamation in the 10. Chap. being in pursuance of this Authority can signifie nothing but first an exclusion from the priviledges granted by Artaxerxes to the Jews which as things then stood amounted to nothing less than Banishment and then Secondly a confiscation of their Estates and because the Estates to be confiscated were to be devoted to the service of Religion the thing is expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies Consecration as well Destruction For whereas it properly and originally imports nothing but utter Ruin yet because in most cases where the People were design'd to final Destruction the Goods were reserved and dedicated to the service of God thence the same word came to signifie Destruction and Consecration Neither does that Text of Nehemiah sound any more to the purpose c. 13. 25. And I contended with them and cursed them c. which seem to signifie nothing more than as Grotius himself expresses it Nehemiam gravibus verbis etiam cum ir ae divinae comminatione usum in istos legirupas chiding with them severely and threatning them with the wrath of God Much less is that of Daniel to this purpose Chap. 12. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt i. e. says Grotius of these latter sort erunt alij in Nidui alij in Cherem For supposing with him that this passage ought to be understood of the punishment of those who under the persecution of Antiochus had Apostatised from the worship of the true God yet there is no imaginable foundation were not mens minds prepossest with Talmudical Conceits to understand it of these forms of Excommunication especially that of Nidui which was not separation but only a keeping the distance of four paces from others was certainly a very small punishment for the greatest of sins among them i. e. Idolatry And lastly to mention no more that of St. John the 9. and 22. seems least of all to the purpose That the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ he should be put out of the Synagogue Which Grotius expounds of Nidui because says he the second degree of Excommunication was not inflicted upon the followers of Jesus till after the Resurrection But it looks very uncouth that the great Sanhedrin who looked upon our Saviour as an enemy to Moses and their Religion an Impostor an Apostate a Samaritan which was much worse than an Heathen should deter the People from being seduced by him with no greater penalty than of keeping four paces distance from their Neighbours however when those that were under it were notwithstanding admitted into the Synagogue keeping their due dist ance they could not be said to be cast out of it In short when there are no footsteps of the Talmudical degrees of Excommunication neither in the Scripture nor Josephus nor in the practice of the Essenes nor in any ancient Record we have no reason to believe it was then in use but on the contrary that it was not because otherwise so obvious a thing could not have escaped their notice The truth is the plainest account we have of this thing is from the Scriptures of the New Testament as I shall shew when I come to that head particularly from their custom of casting out of the Synagogue which signifies discommoning Offenders and is commonly expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cashire out of the Society of which we have an eminent instance in the third Book of Maccabees where the Egyptian Jews excommunicated those that under the Tyranny of Ptolomy Philopator had sacrifised to Idols accounting them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as no better than enemies to their Nation This was the simple
the Prerogatives of Princes unless they misuse it and if they do as they go beyond their Commission so they deserve their punishment in this lâ—fe among the worst of Rebels and Traytors and are sure to have it in the next For as their Power is not only purely spiritual void of all temporal force and coercion so are they in the first place and above all things forbidden to use any violence or raise any disturbance against Government So that if any Prince think good to oppose them in the Execution of their Office and to punish them for so doing they are not to oppose him but only to sacrifice their lives in justification of their cause and submission to his will and for so doing they shall have their Reward But if they shall make use of any other Weapons whatsoever beside Prayers and Tears and Sufferings they then suffer deservedly as disturbers of the publick Peace And so much the more in that they have been so expresly forewarned by our Saviour that whosoever shall draw the Sword in his cause shall be sure to perish by it And as upon this principle he founded his Church so upon it his Apostles built it when in pure obedience to his command they preached the Gospel all the World over And if any Prince were pleased to countermand them they did not plead any exemption from the Government much less did they Libel it but only represented the Innocence and Justice of their Cause and if he were not satisfied declared their readiness to submit to his pleasure and the penalty of the Law And in this they enjoyed no other exemption from the Prerogative of Princes than what is or ought to be chalenged by every private Christian who is indispensably bound to make profession of his Christian Faith and if the Laws of his Country so require to seal it with his Blood This was the constitution of the Church and the practice of it in its first profession and is the constitution of the Church of England in its Reformation For whereas a foreign Italian Bishop had for a long time usurped wel-nigh all both secular and spiritual Power into his own hands and by an exorbitant abuse of it had enslaved the Prince and empoverished the people only to enrich himself and his own Courtiers they that were concern'd after long patience and much provocation at last resolved upon what motives concerns not us to resume their Rights The King that Power which was exercised by the Kings of Judah of old and by Christian Kings and Emperours in the primitive Church And the Bishops that Power wherewith they were as immediately entrusted by virtue of our Saviours general commission to the Apostolical Order as any other foreign Bishop or Bishops within their respective Diocesses whatsoever And to prevent all jealousie in the Prince lest they should play him the same game that his Holiness had done who in ordinc ad spiritualia had finely stript him of almost all his Temporal Jurisdiction by excepting all Ecclesiastical both Persons and Causes from his cognizance They therefore freelv declare him Supreme Governour first Over all Persons so that no Ecclesiastical Subject might as formerly appeal from his Tribunal And in all Causes so that every Subject whatsoever was bound to submit to his Decrees and Determinations so far forth as either to obey his Laws as long as he own'd and protected true Christianity as the Christian Bishops of old did to the Christian Emperours Or if he opposed it chearfully and peaceably to submit to their Penalties as they did to the Roman Persecutors And whereas from the Precedent of the Apostles in the first Council at Jerusalem the Governours of the Church in all Ages enjoyed a power of making Canons and Constitutions for Discipline and good Order yet by the example of the Primitive Church they submitted the exercise thereof to his sovereign Authority protesting in verbo sacerdotis as it is stated in that famous Act called The Submission of the Clergy That they will never from henceforth presume to attempt alledg claim or put in ure enact promulge or execute any new Canons Constitutions Ordinances provincial or other or by whatsoever other name they shall be call'd in the Convocation unless the King 's most royal Assent and License may to them be had to make promulge and execute the same and that his Majesty do give his Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf Whereby they do not pass away their power of making Ecclesiastical Canons but only give security to the Government that under that pretence they would not attempt any thing tending to the disturbance of the Kingdom or injurious to the Prerogative of the Crown Which in truth is such a submission as all the Clergy in the World ought in duty to make to their Sovereign at least in gratitude for his Protection and that without any abatement or diminution of their own Authority viz. The standing Laws of Christianity being secured to submit all other Matters to his sovereign Will and Pleasure Whereby as they would bring no damage to the Church in that this power is exercised meerly in matters of Order and Discipline if the Prince did not approve of their Constitutions it would be no difficult thing to provide for Decency some other way so they would bring great security to the State when the Prince was assured that under that pretence they would not as the Roman Clergy had done distuâ—b or undermine his Authority And as they parted not with their Spiritual Legiâ—lative Power so not with any other Power proper to their Function as the Power of preaching the Christian Religion administring the holy Sacraments and conferring holy Orders Neither did any Prince in the least ever claim or exercise any of them And because the Romanists in the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth made a mighty noise with this Objection as if by virtue of her Supremacy her Majesty had challenged a Spiritual or Ministerial Power in the Church the Queen has with great indignation disown'd any such Power and defied the Calumny And yet when she had made her disclaimour of any Spiritual Power in the Church she parted not with her Royal Supremacy over those that had it as we are particularly instructed by our Church in her 37th Article Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Title we understand the minds of some dangerous Folks to be offended we give not our Princes the ministring either of God's Word or the Sacraments the which things the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers And lastly to mention
sure there is as little modesty as reason in Salmasius his Argument when he opposes the single authority of Nicephorus to the concurrent Testimony of the Ancients But much less in Daillès defence especially when we consider with what state and confidence he ushers it in Ecce Auctores habemus multis ante nos seculis denatos ab omni contra Hierarchiam suspicione semotos qui omnia Ignatii scripta rotunde ac sine ullâ haesitatione ad Apocrypha relegarunt in stichometriâ Georgio Sincello in libro antiquissimo praefixâ For what confidence can be more enormous than that when these Epistles have been attested by some of the best of the ancient Writers ters to pretend to destroy their Authority by a multitude of Writers and yet produce but one and he at the distance of seven hundred Years But the last aggravation of his confidence is when he professes that he produces the authority of this Stichometria not to prove his own Opinion but only to remove the prejudice of its Novelty and yet cite no other Authors in its behalf For all the rest of his Proofs are drawn from Negative Authority in which he is no more happy than in his many one positive Testimony For when he argues that these Epistles were unknown to every Writer that does not quote them methinks it is an hard condition that he imposes upon all Authors to cite all the Books that they read But says he because of that great authority that Ignatius had in the Christian Church when any Christian Writers had any fair occasion for it it is very likely that they would have appeal'd to his Authority which because they have not done we may justly presume that there were no such Writings extant in their time This is the whole force of his Negative Argument and yet when he comes to particulars he is so unhappy as only to produce those Authors whose custom it is to avoid this kind of Quotations as we have already shewn concerning Irenaeus And so for Clemens Alexandrinus who though he is a great quoter of Heathen and Heretical Writers yet no where cites Ecclesiastical Authors unless such as he supposed to belong to the sacred Canon And so for Tertullian who too is frequent in the Testimonies of Heathens or Hereticks but scarce ever mentions any Ecclesiastical Writers and when he does it is not to prove or confute any Doctrine by their Authority And this in the last place is the case of Epiphanius who makes no mention of a great number of Ecclesiastical Writers that lived before him and when he does it in his Book of Heresies it is only in an Historical way either to spare his own pains or to justifie the truth of his own Relations out of other Histories but never as Daillé requires of him to prove the truth of his Opinion I mention no more of his Negative men who make a great shew in the Contents of his Chapter in that they are alledged altogether impertinently to his purpose because all those Passages which he imagines they were obliged to have quoted belong not to the ancient Copies of Eusebius but are taken out of the late Interpolations And now comparing the Testimonies on both sides we may very safely turn any honest man loose to judg of the Authority of these Epistles and that being once establisht we can neither have nor desire a more ample Testimony than they give us of the Primitive Practice of Episcopal Superiority The holy Martyr every where founding the Peace and Security of the Church against Schisms and Heresies upon the Bishops supreme Authority which he as our Adversaries fancy magnifies so highly though not more than the other Orders of the Church in their respective Function that they think that alone the main objection against the truth of his Epistles Though in truth setting aside all Testimonies the Argument and Spirit of them are no small proof of their genuine Antiquity Being composed of two Arguments peculiar to the first Writers of the Church a vehement zeal for Unity and a passionate sense of Immortality They were possest with a serious belief of the reality of our Saviour's Promises and therefore they lived in this World purely in order to the Rewards of the World to come And how earnestly the Author of these Epistles thirsted after it no good Christian can read without great pleasure and being affected with some workings of the same Passion And as for his way of securing Peace and Unity in all Churches by obedience to the Bishops and under them to the Presbyters and Deacons for his fundamental Rule was that nothing was to be done without the Bishop he derives it from our Saviour's Commission and Promise to the Apostles and their Successors for ever when he constituted them Pastors of his Flock and promised to be perpetually assistant to them by his Divine Providence in the execution of their Office And therefore he does not refer the Government of the Church to them for the greater Wisdom greater Learning or any other natural Advantages of the men themselves but only upon the account of our Saviour's express Institution who had sent them as his Father had sent him and had therefore engaged himself to be present with them to the end of the world so that upon that security to follow the Bishop was to follow Christ because he had undertaken to be the Bishops Guide And this being the state of the case between Ignatius and his Adversaries their Objections will not reflect upon his discretion but our Saviours Integrity and when the cause is brought to that Ignatius is secure and if any man be pleased to raise any further controversie it is only between our Saviour and the Leviathan And there I am content to leave it The next proof of the Primitive and Apostolical Practice of Episcopacy that we meet with among the Ancients is in the Apostolical Canons i. e. a Collection of the Decrees of Synods and Councils between the time of the Apostles and the Council of Nice so that they may not improperly be stiled the Code of the Canons of the Primitive Church And now concerning them the case of the Controversie is much the same with that of Ignatius Epistles for the Testimony that they give in to the Episcopal superiority is so full and plain that it is undeniable And therefore there is no avoiding them but by impeaching their Antiquity and Authority and as the state of the controversie is the same so is the success too for it has been thoroughly disputed between the said Monsieur Daillè and a very learned Divine of our own Church and that with the very same inequality of reason too I shall not give any large account of the engagement because the Books are so lately published and may be so easily perused and therefore I shall rather refer to the Authors themselves especially because I am not a little zealous to recommend one of them as