to Baptize such as should submit to the Gospel And so to judge whether each man did so or not which they that were trusted with the Gospel were by consequence trusted to judge The effect of this trust is seen in the many Orders and Canons of the Primitive Church by which those that desired to be admitted into the Church by Baptisme are limited to the triall of severall years to examine their profession whether sincere or not And such as gained their living by such Trades as Christianity allowed not rejected untill they renounced them Not that my intent is to say that these Canons were limited by the Apostles But because it is an argument that always to judge who shall be admitted to Baptisme and who not is another manner of power then to baptize being the power of them that were able to settle such Canons Though it is plain by the Scriptures that those Rules had their beginning from the Apostles themselves For when S. Peter saith 1 Pet. III. 21. that the Baptisme which saveth us is not the laying down the filth of the flesh but the examination of a good conscience to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sheweth that the Interrogatories which the ancient Church used to propound to them that were to be baptized were then in use and established by the Apostles as the condition of a contract between the Church and them obliging themselves to live according to the Gospel as Disciples And the Apostle Heb. VI. 2. speaking of the foundation of repentance from dead works the doctrine of Baptisms and imposition of Hands manifestly shews the succeeding custome of the Church that they which sued for Baptisme should be catechized in the Doctrine of the Gospel and contract with the Church to forsake such courses of the world as stood not with it to be brought in by the Apostles This is it which is here called the doctrine of Baptisms in the plurall number not for that frantick reason which the distemper of this time hath brought forth because there are two Baptismes one of John by water another of Christ by the Spirit but because it was severally taught severall persons before they were admitted to their several Baptisms And therefore called also the Doctrine of Imposition of Hands because we understand by Clemens Alexandrinus Paedag. III. 11. and by the Apostolicall Constitutions VII 40. that when they came to the Church to be catechized and were catechized they were then dismissed by him that catechized them with Imposition of Hands that is with prayer for them that they might in due time become good Christians All visible marks of the power of the Church in judging whether a man were fit for Baptisme or not To which I will adde onely that of Eusebius De vitâ Constant IV. where speaking of the Baptisme of Constantine he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that confessing his sinnes hee was admitted to prayer with Imposition of hands If it be said that there were added to the Church three thousand in a day Acts II. 41. which could not be thus catechized and tried my answer is that two cases were always excepted from the Rule The first was in danger of death The second when by the eagernesse of those that desired Baptism the hand of God appeared extraordinary in the work of their conversion to Christianity Besides it is not said that they were baptized that day but that they were added to the Church that day Which is true though they onely professed themselves Disciples for the present passing neverthelesse their examination and instruction as the case required If therefore there be a power setled in the Church by God to judge who is fit to be admitted into it then is the same power inabled to refuse him that shall appear unfit then by the same reason to exclude him that proves himself unfit after he is admitted This is the next argument which I will ground upon the Discipline of Penance as it was anciently practised in the Church Which is opened by the observation advanced in the 127 p. of this little Discourse that those who contrary to this contract with the Church fell into sins destructive to Christianity were fain to sue to be admitted to Penance Which supposeth that till they had given satisfaction of their sincerity in Christianity they remained strangers to the Communion of the Church For it appeareth by the most ancient of Church Writers that for divers ages the greatest Sinners as Apostates Murtherers Adulterers were wholly excluded from Penance For though Tertullian was a Montanist when he cried out upon Zephyrinus Bishop of Rome for admitting Adulterers to Penance in his Book De Pudicitiâ yet it is manifest by his case that it had formerly been refused in the Church because the granting of it makes him a Montanist And S. Cyprian Epist ad Antonianum testifieth that divers African Bishops afore him had refused it maintaining communion neverthelesse with those that granted it Irenaeus also I. 9. saith of a certain woman that had been seduced and defiled by Marcus the Heretick that after she was brought to the sight of her sin by some Christians she spent all her days in bewalling it Therefore without recovering the communion of the Church again And he that shall but look upon the Canons of the Eliberitane Councell shall easily see many kindes of sins censured some of them not to be admitted to communion till the point others not at the point of death In this case and in this estate these onely who were excluded from being admitted to Penance were properly excommunicate neither could those that were admitted to Penance be absolutely counted so because in danger of death they were to receive the Communion though in case they recovered they stood bound to compleat their Penance And from hence afterwards also those that had once been admitted to Penance if they fell into the like sins again were not to be admitted to Penance the second time Concil Tolet. X. Can. XI Eliber Can. III. VII Ambros de Poenit. II. 10 11. Innoc. I. Ep. I. August Epist L. LIV. It is an easie thing to say that this Rigor was an infirmity in the Church of those times not understanding aright free Justification by Faith But as it is manifest that this rigor of discipline abated more and more age by age till that now it is come to nothing So if we goe upwards and compare the writings of the Apostles with the Originall practice of the Church it will appear that the rigor of it was brought in by them because it abated by degrees from age to age till at length it is almost quite lost that the Reformation of the Church consists in retaining it that we shall doe so much prejudice to Christianity as we shall by undue interpretation make Justification by Faith inconsistent with it And in fine it will appear that all Penance presupposeth Excommunication being onely some abatement of it There
rather then by the neighbour Bishops of the Romane Empire from whence they received Christianity The Head of a Monastery in Aegypt being a Presbyter is said by Cassiane Collat. IV. 2. to have promoted a Monk whom he loved to the Priesthood Is not this done by recommending him to his Bishop for that purpose though he Ordained him not himself The Bishops of Durham and Lichfield are said by Bede Eccles Hist Angl. III. 3 5. to come from the Monastery of Hy governed by a Priest And it is true that the Monks of that Monastery having great reputation of holinesse swaied the Church there But withall Bede mentions expresly the Synod of the Province and therefore we need ask no further who Ordained them Bishops knowing that by the Primitive Rules of the Church it is the Act of a Synod Some seem to conceive this to be the meaning of the supposed S. Ambrose upon Eph. IV. 11. where he saith that at first the eldest of the Presbyters succeeded the Bishop but that afterwards the course was changed ut non Ordo sed meritum crearet Episcopum which they understand thus That his merit and not the Bench of Presbyters should make the Bishop thenceforth and therefore that formerly the Presbyters did it But this is nothing For it is plain that Ordo here signifies not the Bench of Presbyters but a mans Rank in it according to the time of his promotion to it These others of his slight Objections are easily wiped away But there are two which seem to most men to create some difficulty The one is the ninth Canon of the Councell of Ancyra which if the reading be true which he produces and Walo Messalinus presses intimates plain enough that City Presbyters might Ordain Presbyters at that time when it was made The other is the Antiquities of the Church of Alexandria published not long since out of Eutychius his History who was Patriarch there in his time and affirms that from S. Mark to Demetrius the Bishop there was not only chosen but Ordained by Imposition of the Hands of twelve Presbyters of that Church To the Canon of Ancyra I acknowledge that the reading which they follow is beside the Copies which they allege found in a very ancient written one of the Library at Oxford as well as in the old Latine Translation of Dionysius Exiguus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it be not lawfull for Country Bishops to Ordain Presbyters or Deacons Nor for the City Presbyters without leave granted from the Bishop by Letters in every Parish But I cannot grant this reading to be true which so many circumstances render questionable First in an Arabick Paraphrase now extant in the same Library there is nothing to be found of that clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly Isidore Mercators Translation which seems to be that which was anciently received in the Spanish Churches before Dionysius Exiguus wherewith that Copy agreed which Hervetus translated as also Fulgentius his Breviate Can. XCII and the Copy of Dionysius Exiguus which Pope Adriane the I. followed hath onely this Vicariis Episcoporum quos Graeci Chorepiscopos vocant non licere Presbyteros vel Diaconas Ordinare Sed nec Presbyteris civitatis sine Episcopi praecepto amplius aliquid imperare vel sine authoritate literarum ejus in unaquaque Parochiâ aliquid agere Thirdly can the reading of the last words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seem probable to reasonable persons what consequence of sense is there in saying unlesse license be granted by letters in every Parish Which is plain in this reading when it is said That the City Presbyters do nothing in the Parish that is in the Country or Diocese without authority by the Bishops letters Fourthly seeing this is that which is afterwards provided for by the Councel of Laodicea Ca. LVI in the same subject it seems very probable that this should be the provision which the Councell of Ancyra intended as all Ignatius his Epistles and other Canons Apost XL. Arelat XIX expresse it Though for my part I do not beleeve that we have the true reading of this Canon in any Copy that I have heard of or seen Because the Arabick Paraphrase aforesaid deduces the clause of the Country Bishops at large that it is not granted them Vt faciant Presbyteros neque Diaconos omnino neque in Villa neque in Vrbe absque mandato Episcopi Nisi rogatus fuerit Episcopus hac de re permiserit eis ut faciant eos necnon scripserit eis scriptum quod authoritatem dabit eis eadem de re Whereupon I do beleeve that the Canon is abridged and curtailed in all Copies and that the true intent of it consists in two clauses The first that Country Bishops Ordain neither Presbyters nor Deacons without leave under the Bishops hand The second that the City Presbyters do nothing in the Diocese without the like leave Though I undertake not to give you the words of mine own head As for Eutychius I cannot admit his relation to be Historicall truth having forfeited his credit in that part of it where he says that there were no Bishops in Aegypt beside him of Alexandria before Demetrius The contrary whereof appears by Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 1. where he says of Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That then lately Demetrius after Julian had undertook the Bishoprick of the Dioceses there For where there were Dioceses there were Bishops And if Demetrius after Julian governed the Dioceses of Aegypt because Bishop of Alexandria then were there other Episcopall Churches in that Province besides Alexandria before Demetrius Indeed if there had been no Bishops under Alexandria it could not reasonably be avoided that the Bishop should be Ordained by the Presbyters Otherwise forein Bishops that should be called to Ordain them a Bishop must by so doing purchase a Power over that Church which never any can be said to have had over those Capitall Churches of Antiochia Rome Alexandria or Constantinople But supposing that there were Bishops under him of Alexandria it is a greater inconvenience to grant that their Chief should be made without their consent which Ordination implies by the often quoted rule of S. Paul 1 Tim. V. 22. by the Presbyters of Alexandria And therefore when S. Hierome says Epist LXXXV that Bishops were set over the Presbyters by custome of the Church to avoid Schism because that Alexandriae à Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclam Dionysium Episcopos Presbyteri semper unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant At Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist till Heraclas and Dionysius were Bishops the Presbyters were wont to choose one of their number and placing him in a higher degree named him their Bishop I am not to grant that he intends by these words that he was Ordained also by the Presbyters For instance Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 29. relating that at the Ordination of Fabianus
by the Heathen Emperour Aureliane as you may see in Eusebius his Histories VII 30. For though the matter thereof were not evident to him that was no Christian yet the authority might be the support whereof concerned the Peace of the Empire And so it was evident in that case For there being a difference in the Church of Antiochia between the Bishop and some of the Clergy and People and the Synod there assembled having condemned and deposed the Bishop if this deposition were allowed by the Synod of the Church of Rome no man will deny that there was thereby sufficient ground for him that was no Christian to proceed and take away possession of the Church and Bishops house from him that by such authority was deposed And thus you see how true it is which I said that in Christian States the Power of the Church cannot be in force without the Soveraign because Excommunication which is the Sword thereof and the last execution of this spirituall Jurisdiction might be made void otherwise As for the prejudice which may come to a Christian State by a Jurisdiction not depending upon it in point of right but only in point of fact there seem to be two considerable difficulties made The first the Excommunication of the Soveraign Ormore generally thus that the Keys of the Church may then interpose in State matters The second in regard that I have shewed that by the words of our Lord this Power may take place in matters of interesse between party and party For if in any why not in all and if in all where shall the secular Power become that Power that is able to judge all causes being able to govern any State To the first the answer is evident that so farre as Excommunication concerns barely the Society of the Church any person capable of Soveraign Power is liable to it upon the same terms as other Christians are because comming into the communion of the Church upon the same condition as other Christians the failing of this condition must needs render the effect void But if we consider either the temporall force by which it comes to effect or the temporall penalties which attend on it to these which cannot proceed but by the will of the Soveraign it is not possible that he should be liable Thus I had rather distinguish then between the greater Excommunication and the lesse as some doe who conclude that the Soveraign cannot be subject to the greater but to the lesse For there is indeed but one Excommunication as there is but one Communion abstinence from the Eucharist being no permanent but a transient estate under which whosoever comes if he give not satisfaction to the Church becomes contumacious and so liable to the last sentence Let no man marvell at the good Emperour Theodosius giving satisfaction of his penitence to the holy Bishop S. Ambrose The reason was because Christianity then fresh from the Apostles was understood and uncorrupt It was understood that he held not his Empire by being of the Church nor that his subjects ought him any lesse obedience for not being of it He that taught him to be subject to God taught his people also to be subject to him for Gods sake as Christians always were to Heathen Emperours even Persecutors Which if it were received it is not imaginable that the Powers of the world could be prejudiced by any censure of the Church As for the objection that excommunicate persons are not to be conversed with by S. Pauls rule it is answered by all Divines that it ceases in such relations for example of Parents and children as are more ancient then the Society of the Church which it therefore presupposeth and so is to cease in things necessary to civile Society which Christianity as it presupposeth so it inforceth and not overthroweth In like manner it is to be said that all proceedings either of the Popes or of the Scottish Presbyteries in those cases which the burthen of Issachar mentions are the productions of the corruption or misunderstanding of Christianity For as Aristotle says that some things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so must we say that those things onely exclude from the Church which by the very nature and essence of them are inconsistent with Christianity being those things which a Christian renounces when he is admitted into the Church Now the affairs of States such as are Treaties and alliances with forein States reason of Government at home in Jurisdiction giving Laws and commands of State are such things as are not necessarily bad or good but may be the subject either of virtue or vice much lesse can it be manifest not only to the Body of Christians but even to the Guides of the Church when Governours forsake and when they cleave to their Christianity though it is certain that they doe either the one or the other always Wherefore for particular actions of the same kinde with those for which private persons are liable when they become notorious Princes also and publick Persons are subject to the censure of the Church But for publick Government the reason whereof must not be known the kinde thereof in the whole exrent being capable of good as well as bad it is nothing but the misunderstanding and corruption of Christianity that ingages the Church in them by the fault of those that by their quality in the Church seek to themselves some interesse in publick affairs which Christianity generally denies to be due And the same is to be said of them that make publick affairs the subject of their prayers and Preaching Which though it may be done to good purpose and in opposition to worse yet seeing Christianity requires not only that it may be so in the Church but also that it may not be otherwise as it must needs proceed from a decay of Christianity so it must needs tend to the utter ruine of it As for the drawing of Civile causes to the cognisance of Ecclesiasticall Judicatories by some things that have been said or done to the advancement of the Presbyteries in Scotland or here it appears there is cause of scruple But it is because the reason is overseen upon which our Lords saying proceeds For if the reason why our Lord will have the differences of Christians ended within the Church is that those that are without may not take notice of the offences that are among Christians this will not hinder Christians to plead before Christians and therefore will hinder no Jurisdiction of civile States as ceasing so farre as the State becomes Christian Wherefore it is not without cause that the Audiences of Bishops have been by the Laws of the Empire and other Christian States succeeding the same limited to such kinds of causes as seemed to stand most upon consideration of charity and so fittest to be sentenced by the Church But Matrimoniall causes seem to me necessarily to belong to this cognisance Because of that particular disposition which our Lord
onely mark to discern what is the subject of Reformation and what not All Warre made upon the Title of Christianity is unjust and destructive to it Therefore Religion cannot be Reformed by force Of the present State of Christianity among us and the means that is left us to recover the Vnity of the Church THat which hath been said as it concerns the present case of this Church seems to be liable to one main Objection which is this That if the power of Bishops and Presbyters be such as hath been said by Divine Right that nothing can be done without them in their respective Churches it will follow that in case the State of the Church be corrupt by processe of time and their default especially so that the common good of the Church require Reformation by changing of Laws in force if they consent not it cannot be brought to passe without breach of Divine Right This may well seem to be the false light that hath misguided well affected persons to seek the Reformation presently pretended For seeing it is agreed upon among us that there was a time and a State of the Church which required Reformation and that if the Clergy of that time had been supported in that power which by the premises is challenged on behalfe of the Clergy this Reformation could not have been brought to passe It seems therefore to the most part of men that distinguish not between causes and pretenses that where Reformation is pretended there the power lawfully in force to the Society of the Church ought to cease that the Reformation may proceed either by Secular power or if that consent not by force of the People To strengthen this objection as to the Reformation of this Church it may further be said that though it is true that the Order of Bishops hath been propagated in this Church at and since the Reformation by Ordinations made according to the form of that Apostolicall Canon That a Bishop be Ordained by two or three Bishops yet if we judge of the Originall intent of that Canon by the generall practice of the Church it will appear that it is but the abridgement of the IV Canon of the Councell of Nice which requireth that all Bishops be Ordained by a Councell of the Bishops of the Province Which because it cannot always be had therefore it is provided that two or three may doe the work the rest consenting and authorizing the proceeding A thing which seems necessarily true by that which hath been said of the dependence of Churches consisting in this that the Act of part of the Church obliges the whole because that part which it concerns and the Unity of the whole which it produceth stands first obliged by it being done according to the Laws of the whole By which reason the Act of Ordination of a Bishop obliges the whole Church to take him for a Bishop because the Mother Church to which he belongs and the rest of Cathedrall Churches under the same do acknowledge it And this is that which the Ordinance of the Apostles hath provided to keep the Visible Communion of the whole Church in Unity To which it is requisite that a Christian communicate with the whole Church as a Christian a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon as such But when among the Bishops of any Province part consent to Ordinations part not the Unity of the Church cannot be preserved unlesse the consent of the whole follow the consent of the greater part And therefore though the Canon of Nice be no part of Divine Right yet seeing the precept of the Unity of the Church being the end which all the Positive Laws of Church Government aim at obligeth before any Positive precept of the Government thereof which we see are many ways dispensed with for preservation thereof and that it appears to be the generall custome of the Primitive Church to make Ordinations at those Provinciall Councels which by another Apostolicall Canon XXXVIII were to be held twice a year it seemeth that there can no valid Ordination be made where the greater number of the Bishops of the Province dissent Which is confirmed by the Ordination of Novatianus for Bishop of Rome which though done by three Bishops as the Letter of Cornelius to the Eastern Bishops recorded by Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 43. testifieth yet was the foundation of that great Schisme because Cornelius was Ordained on the other side by sixteen as we reade in S. Cyprian Now it is manifest that the Ordinations by which that Order is propagated in England at and since the Reformation were not made by consent of the greater part of Bishops of each Province but against their minde though they made no contrary Ordinations And by the same means it is manifest that all those Ecclesiasticall Laws by which the Reformation was established in England were not made by a consent capable to oblige the Church if we set aside the Secular Power that gave force unto that which was done contrary to that Rule wherein the Unity of the Church consisteth But in other parts the Reformation established was so far from being done by Bishops and Presbyters or any consent able to conclude the Church by the Constitution of the Church that the very Order of Bishops is laid aside and forgot if not worse that is detested among them Upon which precedent it sounds plansibly with the greatest part among us that the Unity of the whole being dissolved by the Reformation the Unity of the Reformation cannot be preserved but by dissolving the Order of Bishops among us Before I come to resolve this difficulty it will be requisite to examine what Privileges and Penalties the Secular Power is enabled to enforce Religion within a Christian State Because it hath been part of the dispute of this time that some Privileges of the Church are contrary to Christianity as also some Penalties upon matter of Conscience And the resolution of it will make way to my answer Now the resolution hereof must come from the ground laid from the beginning of this Discourse that Christianity importeth no temporall Privilege or advantage of this present World and therefore that Christianity enableth no man to advance and propagate his Christianity by force For as it is contrary to the nature thereof to bee forced seeing the Service of God which it requireth is not performed by any man that is not willing to doe it nor the Faith beleeved but by them that are willing to beleeve it So seeing it gives no man any privilege of this world which he cannot challenge by a lawfull title of Humane Right and that no title of Humane Right can enable any man to impose upon another that Faith which Humane reason reveals not therefore can no Humane power force any man to be a Christian by the utmost penalty of death which is that which force endeth in to them that submit not It is true the Law of Moses imposeth death for a penalty in
or spirituall Commonwealth by the Power of doing it Now the Law which is the condition upon which men are admitted to communicate with the Church is nothing else but the profession of Christianity upon which the Apostles of our Lord were first enabled to constitute Churches by baptizing them whom they should win to be Disciples according to the Commission of our Lord Mat. XXVIII 19. those onely being Disciples which undertook Christianity and therefore were afterwards called Christians being first called Disciples even after their Baptism Now Christianity consisting not onely in beleeving whatsoever our Lord Christ revealed but in the acknowledgement of an obligation to doe whatsoever he commanded it follows that this Law of Christianity consists of all Precepts of things to be beleeved and things to be done which our Lord Christ hath declared to his Church And not in these alone in regard that our Lord hath commanded Christianity not onely to be beleeved but also to be professed at the utmost perill of life and estate Therefore I said that the Law which is the condition of communicating with the Church is the profession of Christianity which entitleth to Baptism This profession seeing it cannot be made but to Christians that know what Christianity is and thereby are able to judge of the profession made how agreeable to Christianity of the person making the profession how sincerely how cordially he does it it followeth that the Power of the Church is committed to them that are trusted to judge of the profession of Christianity every one according to the Interesse which he justly pretendeth in that judgement Therefore is this Power called the Power of the Keys because it openeth the doore to the Communion of all Ordinances of Divine Service in the Church when it findeth the profession both agreeable to Christianity and to the heart life of him that makes it and shuts the same when it findeth things otherwise Therefore is it called the Power of remitting and retaining sinnes because God hath promised the free grace of remission of sins to all that make true profession of Christianity The benefit of which promise as it is good to him that makes such profession by virtue of his own act as to God so by virtue of the act that admits of the same it is good as to the Church Though it cannot be good as to God unlesse it be good also as to the Church by reason of the command of God that every Christian be a member of the Church For if it were morally possible that any man should attain to the knowlege and submit to the obedience of Christianity in such an estate of life and such Society of this World wherein it were not morally possible for him to hold Communion with the Church or those who in behalfe of the Church by the Laws of it are enabled to admit him to the Communion of the same by Baptism I would make no scruple to think that man in the state of salvation without Baptism or the Church And the same is to be said of all those that cannot be admitted to the Communion of the Church without professing or doing something contrary to Christianity which is the case of all that stand excommunicate upon unjust causes so that their Christianity obligeth them to communicate with no part of the true Church For seeing the Unity of the Church requires that he that is excommunicate to one part of the Church be excommunicate to all the Church seeing the Unity of the Whole cannot be preserved unlesse the Whole make good each act of the part which it hath power to doe it follows that he who is excommunicate for an unjust cause cannot with his Christianity communicate with any part of the Church his title to heaven remaining entire But this case ceasing the remission of sins depends upon the Church by reason of the profession of Christianity which as God requires every Christian to make so he enables the Church to admit And this is the Argument for the Power of Excommunication which is drawn from the Power of admitting to Baptism evidenced by divers Scriptures and divers particulars in the Primitive practice of the Church agreeable to the same And truly it was enough to point at some particulars for he that would undertake to produce all that is to be had in the records of the Church to depose for this reason and this right of the Church might easily fill great Volumes with nothing else Neverthelesse I will here adde one particular more because it seems this reason of the right and interesse of the Church is evidently seen in it And it will not require many allegations seeing it is a known Rule of the ancient Church that Clinicks should not be admitted to the Clergy alleged by Cornelius of Rome to Fabius of Antiochia in Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 43. against Novatianus the Father of the Novatians to shew that he could not be Bishop of Rome in opposition to him being made Presbyter contrary to that Rule What was then the reason of this Rule and what were they that were called Clinicks It is very evident that there were very many in the Primitive times that beleeved Christianity but durst not professe it because it was no prejudice to beleeve it but to professe it so as to be baptized and come under the Discipline of the Church might be a matter of life and death in case of persecution Besides beleeving and not professing that is not pretending to Baptism they avoided the strictnesse of Ecclesiasticall Discipline What should the Church doe in the case of these men when they came to demand their Baptism undertaking the Rule of Christianity Surely as they could not utterly exclude them from the Church that had never offended or failed in that which they had undertook to it so of necessity they must stand at a greater distance to such persons as having their Christianity more in suspition then otherwise Wherefore in danger of death they were not to refuse them Baptism but in case they recovered again it was very reasonable that they which had attained their Baptism onely in consideration of the danger of death and must have given better triall of themselves otherwise before they were admitted should therefore stand so far suspected afterwards as not to be admitted to the Clergy which required a greater proficience in Christianity then that which qualified a man onely for Baptism These then are they which were called Clinici because they were baptized in bed as requiring their Baptism when they found themselves upon the bed of their sicknesse which might be that of their death And this is the reason of the Rule that they should not be admitted to the Clergy And by this reason the right and interesse of the Church is evident in admitting the profession of Christianity in those that thereby demanded to be admitted to Baptism In the next argument drawn from the Discipline of Penance it may be
thought that I make it a difficult task to prove the Power of Excommunication to belong to the Church when I premise to that purpose an assumption so hard to beleeve as this is that the Church by the discipline of the Apostles as well as by the practice and Rules of the Primitive times was not bound to re-admit to the Communion of the Church those that had fallen from their Christianity by sins most destructive to the same But it is to be considered that to the validity of this argument it is onely requisite to shew that those that had fallen were to sue to be admitted to Penance in the first place that upon satisfaction given of the sincerity of their resolution towards Christianity they might be readmitted to the Communion of the Church All which supposeth that before such satisfaction given they had forfeited the same And the argument being effectuall upon these terms must needs convince so much the more if it can further appear that in case of the most hainous offenses it was in the disposition of the Church to readmit them to Communion or not Adde then to the evidence hereof the example of Marcion Father of the Marcionites in the beginning of his Heresie in Epiphanius who being put out of the Church and denied Penance by his own Father a Bishop of great piety and zeal in Pontus because professing continence he had corrupted a Virgin and afterwards at Rome because of the Rule by which the whole Church subsisteth to make good the acts of all parts thereof within the Power of those parts unlesse voided by superiours fell hereupon to set up his Heresie And truly so rigid a position as that of the Novatians if it be considered aright could very hardly have found any fellows if it had been unheard of in the Church But though the Montanists were rejected at Rome as to the point of receiving Adulterers seeing yet the question remained concerning Apostates so doubtfull as to give Novatianus a party in it what can be more manifest then that they had the pretense of Apostolicall discipline and the Scriptures to set off their Schism with A thing still more evident because that from the relation of that which passed between Cornelius of Rome and Fabius of Antiochia in Eusebibius Eccles Hist VI. 43 44. it appeareth that the Church of Antiochia remained for a time in suspense whether to acknowledge Cornelius or Novatianus for the right Bishop Whereupon the Bishops of the East writing to Julius of Rome from a Councell held at Antiochia in Sozomenus Eccles Hist III. 8. doe reckon it as a motive to perswade him not to interpose in the cause of Athanasius deposed by the Councell held there afore that they also had formerly done the like in the case of Novatianus And by this eminent instance we learn how much the Unity of the Church is to be preferred before Discipline The name of Saints and the like in the Writings of the Apostles is convertible with that of Christians being given to all the members of those Churches to which they addresse their Epistles Though it be manifest by those very Epistles that as our Saviour had foretold so were those Churches nets that held both good and bad fish floors that had both corn and chaffe What property of speech is there then to make good the language of the Apostles Surely if the Church be a visible Society of men subsisting not by the nature of the persons but by institution and appointment of voluntary acts capable to qualifie them upon whom they passe then upon the constitution of members of the same there must needs accrue unto them qualities and denominations correspondent to the acts upon which they arise Now the profession of Christianity is not the proper and essentiall act of it because it may be feigned and fruitlesse but it is a sign to ground a reasonable presumption upon that the person is such as he is thereupon presumed to be But being admitted to the Communion of the Church upon this presumption he purchases thereupon a Right to be taken for such as those are to be so long as he continueth in the same Now if the discipline of Christianity could be held up together with the Unity of the Church then must it be understood that the Church is commanded to exact it of all members of the Church upon the same obligation as it is commanded all Christians for their souls health But though it be absolutely necessary to the salvation of Christians to live as Christians yet it is not so necessary for any Christian to procure that another Christian doe it therefore is the care of it commanded the Church or whosoever is to have that care on behalf of the Church so far as it may be usefull to procure the generall good of the Church And surely the effect and benefit of this discipline was invaluable both to those that passed through it and to the confirmation of the Church But when a person of eminence must be made desperate by refusing to readmit him to the Church which perhaps was the case with S. Paul towards the incestuous person at Corinth whom S. Chrysostome and Theodoret take to be a person qualified in that Church as I have shewed in the Apostolicall Form of Divine Service p. 119. and so capable to lead a party after him or when the multitude and equality of offenders takes away the benefit of example and teaches them to pardon themselves by making a Church of themselves otherwise which if S. Augustine had not said it we might have gathered to have been the case after the Persecution of Decius under Cornelius and S. Cyprian without doubt the losse of it is a mischief nothing comparable to that which would follow by dissolving the Unity of the Church And if so near the source of Christianity much were abated what shall we think must be abated when so much water is mingled with the wine of the Gospel by admitting good and bad to the mariage of the Lamb Neither is it my meaning to determine precisely how far the Church may or must abate yet thus much I will inferre for a consequence that as always there was a difference between the right of Communion with the Visible Church and invisible Communion with the Church of the first-born which is the right and title to life everlasting as between the profession and performance of Christianity so seeing the condition of Communion with the Church is still released and inlarged more and more to retain Unity in corrupt Christianity the condition of communion with God remaining always the same the Visible communion of the Church is always a presumption of invisible Christianity because always necessary to it though not sufficient alone and therefore though not always a reasonable presumption because so much difference between the condition of visible and invisible yet always a legall presumption effectually qualifying more Christians as to the Society of the
one in the greatest City and the most populous for number of Christians that is mentioned in all the Scriptures Though no common reason can question but there were more Congregations considering that it cannot be thought that all the Christians contained in the greatest and most Christian of all those Cities could assemble together at once for the common service of God Upon these premises it is necessary to inferre that the Apostles Order was that which we see was the Rule of their practice that the severall Bodies of those that should be converted to Christianity within severall Cities and the Territories thereof should constitute severall Churches to be governed by the severall Presbyteries thereof constituted and regulated as shall be declared in the consequences Which being established it will not be difficult to inferre that the Power of the Keys and the consequences thereof are deposited in the said Churches that is trusted with them that are endowed with the Power of Governing those Churches To which if you adde this that the Churches of particular Cities were to depend upon the Churches of Mother Cities upon which particular Cities depended for the civile Government you have a reason and Rule of the whole frame of Church Government designed by the Apostles as generall as could be given to a Society that was to consist of severall Nations and Soveraignties without limits but not more generall then the Originall constitution of the whole Church derived from their design will evidence to be agreeable to those impressions and marks of it which are here produced out of the Scriptures This Position is liable to an Objection from those which the ancient Canons of the Greekish Councels call Chorepiscopi which we may translate Country Bishops because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifieth the Country in opposition to or in difference from the City For if Churches constituted in Cities have their severall Presbyteries the Heads whereof being Bishops are by consequent Governors in chief of their respective Churches how are Bishops constituted in the Country that is in any of the chief Villages under any City For by this means either we have a Church in a Village or a Bishop without a Church and so the practise of the Church not to be reconciled with that which I make the design of the Apostles if either be true The answer to this in generall must come from that which you have here afterwards p. 62. that the Rule is as generally expressed in these terms as any Rule generall to those cases that may fall out so divers For the generall intent and reason of it is to preserve the Unity of the Whole Church by the subordination and dependence of the parts thereof to and from other parts and so the Whole If some particular provision prove necessary some time and place to attain this end it is not to be thought that the generall Rule holds not therefore For the particular here in hand one thing I conceive may be questionable in point of Fact and matter of Historicall Truth concerning these Country Bishops which the Canons quoted p. 146. speak of For in the beginning of the XI Canon of Antiochia it is said that they received 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ordination of Bishops In the end of it it is provided that they be Ordained by the Bishop of the City to whom they are subject The first clause seems to intimate that they have the same Ordination with other Bishops which is by the Synod of the Province or those that represent the same Besides that we finde by the subscriptions of the Councels that they were called to Councels as if they received their trust immediately from the Synods of their Provinces By the second clause it seems they receive their authority immediately from the Bishop of the Province whereupon they are called Vicarii Episcoporum the Bishops Deputies as you see in the place afore named What my judgement is in this point you may have seen before p. 146. neither do I see cause to repent me of it For howsoever they were Ordained and from whomsoever they received their trust it is manifest by the Canons of Ancyra and Laodicea there quoted that they received it upon such terms as to be subordinate to the Bishop of the City which otherwise Bishops were not but immediately to the Synod of the Province and the Bishop of the Mother City Neither is it contrary to the ground of that generall Rule which I maintain that it should be within the Power of the Church contained in any Province that is to say the Synod of the same to Ordain that in regard some Village under some City of that Province grew considerable for the extent of it and the multitude of Christian souls contained in it therefore it should have a Bishop beside the Bishop of the City Alway provided that the dependence of Churches might be preserved wherein the Unity of the whole consisted But it is manifest that this dependence might be maintained two severall ways supposing a Bishop to be constituted in a Village First Ordaining him to be subordinate to the Bishop of the City Which is the case of those whom we speak of whose Power is tied up as you have seen by the said Canons of Ancyra and Laodicea But should they be left free from all dependence on the City Bishop then were they absolute Bishops and their Churches though in Villages and therefore lesse yet for their respective Power and right the same with other Churches constituted in Cities Which seems to be the case of the Churches of Africk where Bishops were so plentifull that every good Village must needs be the Seat of an Episcopall Church Neither doth this destroy the Rule which I maintain that Cities and Churches were originally convertible but argues that Villages in some Countries had that privilege which in others was proper to Cities To that which is said p. 53. of the difference between Prophesies and between Apostles and Prophets I adde this consideration That the Apostles of our Lord were necessarily Prophets because of the promise of the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth to remember them of our Lords Doctrine and to make them understand the Scriptures all which are contained in the thing signified by this word Prophesie though the originall thereof import onely foretelling things to come as it is manifest by S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV But all Prophets are not necessarily Apostles that is sent by God to declare their Commission to his people or to charge them with those things which God revealed to themselves I grant that the Prophets under the Old Testament were such by reason of that Law by which God appointeth them to be obeyed and therefore giveth a Rule how to discern between true and false Prophets Deut. XVIII 18. And hereupon it is that their writings are the Word of God and that Prophesie is said to have failed after those whose Writings we
in rank after Rome which is here touched p. 59. And it is that of the power of Eusebius and of Nicomedia the City of his Bishoprick For because during the time of Diocletian Nicomedia was as it were the Seat of the Empire he having made it his main Residence with an intent to have it so continue thereupon saith the History Eusebius growing to great eminence in the Church undertook the support of Arius against Alexander of Alexandria If therefore the Bishop of Nicomedia had attained such authority in the Church by the ambulatory residence of the Empire there since the time of Diocletian well might the preeminence settle at Constantinople when Constantine had fixed the Seat of the Empire there and that by the virtue of the Rule given by the Apostles though the effect thereof come after the act of Constantine To that which I have said from p. 62. of the great difference that is to be found in the execution of the Apostles Rule that Churches should be planted in Cities or in the greatest Residences in severall Counties that is to be added which Sozomenus Eccles Hist VI. 20. hath recorded concerning that Province which he cals Scythia the Romanes Moesia Inferior in which at the time of the Emperour Valens there was but one Bishop of the Mother City Tomi the place of Ovids banishment For this is the same case with that which is related by Eutychius of Aegypt before Demetrius was Bishop of Alexandria that there was no more Bishops in it besides that one the same which Godignus relates of the Abassines that there is to this day but one Bishop in all that Dominion as you have it here p. 64. To all the reasons here produced for the Dependence of Churches adde the consideration of the Unity of the Church how it was commanded by God in point of right and how provided and maintained in point of Fact by the Church For if the Church be a Visible Society commanded to live in Unity then is the Unity thereof commanded to be Visible That is it is commanded that Christians preserve Unity with all Christians not onely in Faith and Love inwardly in the minde but also in the outward Communion of all those Ordinances wherein God hath appointed his Service under the Gospel to consist And this is manifest by the words of S. Paul to the Ephesians exhorting them to continue in Unity because they have one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of All Eph. IV. 4. For if these motives and reasons were proper to the Church of the Ephesians then might it very well be thought that Christians are obliged thereby onely to live in Unity with those of the same Church But since they are common to all Christians of all Churches never so remote it followeth that the Precept of upholding the Unity of the Church obligeth all Christians visibly to communicate with all Christians By which reason the same may be proved by all or most of those Scriptures which recommend or which onely mention the Unity of the Church But it is most peremptorily proved by that which hath been produced in the first Chapter to shew the condition upon which all men are to be admitted to the Communion of the Church which is the Profession of Christianity For seeing that is one and the same in all parts and Climates of the World as introduced by the same Power and derived from the same Fountain it follows that no Church hath any further to enquire about any mans right of communicating with the Church but whether his Profession be allowed by his own Church and whether that hold Communion with the Whole And truly because it is the same condition which entitles all men to the Communion of the Church all over the world that is to Professe the substance of Christianity therefore all Churches are to procure that there be nothing to hinder this Communion when that condition is performed and every person of those Churches in their severall qualities that nothing else be demanded But when some Churches or some parts of one and the same Church demand for the condition of communicating with others something more then was appointed for the condition of it from the beginning separation and Schism follows the cause whereof is commonly doubtfull because it appears not how farre severall Churches or parts of the same are to yeeld to the acts of others which would conclude the whole if they should yeeld when it appears not how the matter of them agrees with that condition of Communion with the Church that was delivered from the beginning But when both sides charge the blame on the contrary party they shew that they are both agreed that the blame must lie on one side and therefore that the unity of the Church is such as hath been said because Schism in the Church no more then War in civile Society can be just on both sides Now it is very manifest that in the Primitive Church this unity was actuated by intercourse of letters from Church to Church begun first and established by the Apostles themselves whose writings are almost all Epistles For by their Epistles as the matter of Christianity is more and more declared so the intercourse and correspondence of the Church is preserved in as much as it is manifest that their Epistles require nothing of the Churches to which but the same which they require of the Churches from which they write so that there must needs be correspondence between all that acknowledge the Apostles holding correspondence The same course was continued not onely by the Epistles of the Primitive Bishops which are a great part of their writings still remaining but a great deal more by the intercourse of their Formatae or letters of mark which every Christian that travelled into a strange Country taking with him from his own Church found not onely the Communion of the Church open to him wheresoever he came but also that assistance in his affairs which Christians are to expect from the charity of Christians And of this kinde the Epistle to the Romanes may be accounted because of the recommendation of Phoebe XVI 2. as of a Deaconesse in the Church of Cenchreae near Corinth The effect of this course is visible in all the proceedings of the Primitive Church whereof we have some memorable instances here afore related When by the result of a Councell such or such Bishops are removed from their Churches it is ordinarily signified to other Churches by the letters of the Councell with this warning That none of them from thenceforth write to the persons so sentenced nor receive letters from them as Bishops Marcion being put out of his Fathers Church of Pontus is refused to be admitted to Communion at Rome lest the unity of the Church should be dissolved if the act of a Church so far distant should not be made good by that of Rome being an act in the Power of that Church to doe Therefore
then common Presbyters CHAP. III. THat it is no new reason that here is rendred p. 91. why the name of Episcopus under the Apostles was common to those that are since distinctly called Bishops and Presbyters may appear by a passage in Amalarius de divinis Officiis quoted out of the supposed S. Ambrose upon the Epistles produced by Salmasius In Apparatu quia beatis Apostolis decedentibus illi qui post illos ordinati sunt ut praeessent Ecclesiis illis primis exaequari non poterant neque miraculorum testimonium par illis habere sed in multis aliis inferiores illis esse videbantur grave illis videbatur Apostolorum sibi vendicare nuncupationem Diviserunt ergo nomina ipsa iisdem Presbyterorum nomen reliquerunt alii verò Episcopi sunt nuncupati hique Ordinationis praediti potestate ita ut plenissimè iidem praepositos se Ecclesiarum esse cognoscerent This is manifestly the very reason that I insist upon For saith he because the blessed Apostles deceasing those that were ordained to be over Churches after them could not be equalled to those first nor attain to the like grace of miracles but appeared to be beneath them in many other things it seemed too much for them to challenge to themselves the name of Apostles Hereupon they divided the names and left them the name of Presbyters and the others were called Bishops and they endowed with the Power of Ordaining that they might know themselves to be set over the Churches in the fullest right I marvell what pleasure Salmasius had to allege this passage which if it be admitted is enough alone to overthrow all that he hath said in this point For first he supposeth as the received Doctrine of the Church that Bishops in their severall Churches succeeded the Apostles Secondly he answers all S. Hieromes reasons to prove that Bishops and Presbyters are all one because they are called by the same name in the Scriptures by giving another reason even that which you have here Lastly he saith that Bishops are set over their Churches plenissimè in the fullest right and that therefore Ordination was reserved to them which is to say that in all things they have a speciall Interesse but especially Ordination is their peculiar And with this reason agrees Theodoret when he says that at such time as the name of Bishops was common to Presbyters those who were called Bishops afterwards were called Apostles extending the name of Apostles to others besides the Apostles of Christ This is then a sufficient reason why the name of Bishops should be afterwards appropriated to that rank wherein they succeed the Apostles and Evangelists in their respective Churches because they could not be called by the same which their predecessors had born though formerly common both to Bishops and Presbyters And this is the meaning of those words of S. Augustine which seemed difficult in the Councell of Trent because the opinion which derived all the power of Bishops from the Pope was so strong there Etsi secundum honorum vocabula quae jam Ecclesiae usus obtinuit Episcopatus Presbyterio major sit in multis tamen Augustinus Episcopus Hieronyme Presbyters minor est Let not the humility of S. Augustine be drawn into consequence and the property of his words shall enforce no more then I say He knew well enough how stiffely S. Hierome had argued that a Bishop and a Priest is all one in the terms of divine Right because the name of Episcopus is attributed to Presbyters by the Apostles Is it to be presumed that S. Augustine acknowledges this to be his own opinion because it is plain he intends not to crosse S. Hierome in it having other differences with him afore On the contrary it hath been shewed by other passages of his writings that his opinion was otherwise To use therefore that civility which his meeknesse prompted him to condescend to S. Hierome with he granteth his premises neither refusing nor admitting the consequence saying Though according to the titles of honour which now have prevailed in the Church a Bishop be greater then a Presbyter notwithstanding in many things Jerome the Priest is greater then Augustine the Bishop Where by naming the titles of Honour which now have prevailed in the Church he insinuates the reason for which I here maintain that they were thus distinguished afterwards and therefore supposes the ground of it Otherwise he might as easily have granted S. Hieromes consequence and pleased him more And yet I conceive that when he says a Priest may be greater then a Bishop it may very well be admitted not onely as a condescension of humility but as an expression of truth not onely in respect of learning or other personall considerations but of authority in the Church by reason of the dependence of Churches here premised The state and government of Churches is very properly compared by Origen contra Celsum VII to the State of Greekish Commonalties the Bishop bearing the place of the Magistrate and the Bench of Presbyters of the Senate as I have hitherto compared them to the Jews Consistories and as Pope Pius in his Epistle to Justus of Vienna calls the Presbytery of the Church at Rome Pauperem Senatum Christi in Vrbe Româ The poore Senate of Christ in the City of Rome In this estate and condition the eminence of the Bishop above the Presbyters is visible though not by the humility of Pope Pius who perhaps comprises both Bishop and Presbyters in the same quality of a Senate yet by the comparison of Origen the eminence of the Magistrate above his Councell in all Commonalties being so visible as it is But when congregations come to be distinguished as well as Churches and a greater flock assigned to some Presbyters then to Bishops in other parts of the Church and those Presbyters to doe all Offices to their Flock which those Bishops did saving that they depended on the City Church whereas those Bishops depended onely on the Church of the Mother City and therefore had Power to make Ordinations within their own Churches which Presbyters never could doe what hinders in this case I say not S. Augustine for I suppose he names himself but for an instance being indeed Bishop of an eminent City to be lesse then S. Hierome but some Bishop to be lesse then some Priest even for his lawfull authority in the Church A consideration of great consequence to the right constitution of Councels especially the most Generall and for which there is not wanting a valuable reason intimated in the proceedings of divers of the ancient Councels of the Church that is that the Church cannot be reasonably concluded by number of present votes as the Councell of Trent imposes upon us but by the consideration of Christian Nations and Provinces of the Church represented in those Councels For as we see that in the ancient Councels a few Bishops were many times admitted to act in behalf of their
Provinces as having Commission to conclude them in which case they must needs be considerable according to the Provinces for which they stood So in all things which may concern the Whole not onely every mans rank of Bishop Presbyter or Deacon is to be considered but also the eminence of the Church in which he bears the same So that by this reason nothing hinders a Presbyter of some chief Church to be of more consideration to the Whole then a Bishop of some mean Church such as we spoke of in Africk And therefore it would be inconsequent that the determinations of Synods should passe indifferently by the Votes of Bishops unlesse we suppose that consideration is had of the chief Churches and this consideration answered in the eminence of that respect which the Bishops of those chief Churches enjoy inswaying the determinations of those Synods to which they concur And this consideration might perhaps have served to take off part of S. Hieromes displeasure against Bishops grounded upon the Power which their Deacons had by their means above Presbyters which he in regard of the great difference between the two degrees in generall thinks to be so great an inconvenience Epist LXXXV ad Euagrium For though it is most true in regard of the Presbyters and Deacons of the same Church that it was a disorder that Deacons in regard of their neernesse to the Bishops should take upon them above Presbyters yet if we compare the Deacon of a chief Church with the Presbyter of a small country Parish no man can say that he is of lesse consideration to the Whole Church in regard of his rank unlesse he mean to make Steven or Philip Titus or Timothy or any of those that waited on the Apostles in person and were properly their Deacons as I have said in assisting them to preach the Gospel where they came to be meaner persons in the Church then one of those Presbyters which Paul and Barnabas Titus or Timothy Ordained in the Churches of those Cities where they came To that which I say p. 92. to prove that the word Angel in the Epistle to the VII Churches Apoc. II III. being an obvious and proper metaphor to signifie a Bishop or Presbyter cannot therefore be used to signifie a College of Presbyters the word being no collective nor any construction inforcing it to be used for a collective in all that Epistle I adde here the comparison of two passages by which it may be gathered for what reason and in what consideration the Spirit speaketh to the Body of those Churches in the Epistle directed to the Angels of them and by consequence who those Angels are The first is that of S. Paul to Titus II. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid For is it S. Pauls purpose to command that onely Titus avoid those whom he should declare Hereticks Surely that would be to no great effect unlesse we understand that by virtue of this precept both Titus is enabled to charge the Churches under him to avoid them and they thereupon obliged to doe it The other is the Epistle under the name of Ignatius to Polycarpus wherein after such advise as he thought fit for Polycarpus without turning his speech from him to another person he proceeds to exhort his people with such instructions as he found to bee most requisite Which feems to be the reason why many count that Epistle counterfeit and none of Ignatius his own though for my part I confesse I am not yet perswaded to think so not onely because of the character both of the matter and language of it which seemeth to me to carry the stamp of Apostolicall upon it as the rest of Ignatius but also particularly because of the example of this Epistle of S. John to the VII Churches wherein it is plain he involves both Pastor and flock in the same praises reproofs advises and exhortations the reasons being the same in both because both sent to be read to the People in the Church as the Epistle to the Colossians and the Laodiceans Coloss IV. 15. and as the Epistle of Clemens to the Corinthians Eusebius says was wont to be read in that Church in his time Now if the instructions concerning the people be addressed to Titus and Polycarp is it not because of some eminence of authority in them by which they might be brought into effect among their people How much more that which is addressed unto the Angels of VII Churches being a style apt to signifie a person of eminent authority over others but never used to signifie a Body of persons much lesse with parallel authority among themselves It is commonly conceived that the Souls under the Altar which we reade of Apoc. VI. 10. were seen by S. John lying under the Altar of Burnt Sacrifices at the foot whereof the rest of the blood that was not sprinkled on the Altar was poured out and the blood being the life or Soul of living creatures in the language of the Scriptures that therefore the souls of those that were slain for the profession of Christianity are seen by S. John under the Altar Against this apprehension I allege p. 95. that it is not the Altar of burnt Sacrifices but the Altar of Incense within the Tabernacle but without the Vail which is represented in these Visions correspondent to the Primitive fashion of Churches where the Communion Table called also the Altar because of the Sacrifice of the Crosse represented upon it stood in the midst of that compasse which the Seats of the Bishop and Priests did enclose For though in the Temple the people prayed without the Sanctuary the Priest whose Office it was at the same time offering Incense with their Prayers yet in the Church where all the people are within the Sanctuary as Priests the XXIV Presbyters are described with golden Vials full of Incense which is the peoples prayers as David saith Let my prayer be set forth in thy presence as the Incense Apoc. V. 8. and besides the Angel puts Incense upon his Censer to the prayers of the Saints Apoc. VIII 3. therefore his fire is from the Altar of Incense within the Tabernacle though without the Vail Besides it is not imaginable how the souls of those that were slain could appear to S. John in Vision of Prophesie lying under the Altar of Burnt Sacrifices where the bloud of Sacrifices was poured out and that in such a multitude as we know there was of the Primitive Martyrs Especially seeing the circumstances of the Text inforces that they are the same Souls which first cry for vengeance and have long white Robes given them because they are not presently satisfied Apoc. VI. 9 10 11. and which are afterwards described standing and praising God in the white Robes that were given them afore Apoc. VII 9. And therefore when they are said to be seen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meaning is not that they were seen lying
Discourse p. 16. that whereas it is said Acts XIV 23. that Paul and Barnabas ordained Presbyters in every Church S. Paul saith that he left Titus in Crete to ordain Presbyters in every City Tit. I. 5. and again Acts XVI 4. As they passed by the Cities they delivered unto them the decrees determined by the Apostles and Presbyters at Jerusalem The Cities of which he had said before that they ordained Presbyters in every Church planted in those Cities as Titus in every City So nice as this evidence may seem to those that consider not the state of the whole Church when it shall appear to any man as to all that consider with their eyes open it must appear that always every where all congregations of Christians remaining in the Country adjoining to any City made one Church with the Christians of that City common sense will inforce that the Apostles designe was the modell from which this form was copied out in all parts of the Church To which purpose we are to consider in the next place an excellent Observation of that pious learned Prelate the L. Primate of Ireland published in a little Discourse of the Originall of Bishops upon the seven Churches of Asia to which S. Iohn is commanded to direct that Epistle contained in the II III Chapters of the Apocalypse The observation consists in this that the seven Cities wherein those seven Churches are said to be were seven chief Cities or Mother Cities of the Province of Asia whereby it is manifest that the chief Churches upon which inferiour Churches were to depend were planted in the chief Mother Cities to which the Countries about them resorted for Justice For certainly no man will offer such violence to his own common sense as to say that there were at the time of writing this Epistle but seven Congregations of Christians in that Province where S. Paul first and after him S. John had taken such pains And if more Congregations but onely seven Churches for what reason but because many Congregations make but one Church when they are under the City in which that Church is planted There hath been indeed an Objection made from the words of this Epistle when it is said at the end of the addresse to every particular Church He that hath eares to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches The addresse beginning always thus To the Church of Ephesus thus saith the Spirit To the Church of Smyrna thus saith the Spirit and so of the rest The objection pretendeth that by these words it appears that there were in Ephesus for example many Churches constituting the Presbytery of that City which is there called the Church of Ephesus For if this were so I would acknowledge that this argument were overthrown and that Churches were not convertible with Cities but that many Churches are here called the Church of Ephesus because the Seat of the Presbytery was at Ephesus according to the Presbyterian Design But this objection both carries with it an answer to discover the mistake upon which it is grounded and draws after in an effectuall argument to choke the opinion which it supports For is not S. John expresly commanded Apoc. I. 11. to write and send one letter to all those seven Churches And can any man be so senslesse as when it is said What the Spirit saith to the Churches to understand severall Churches of Ephesus Smyrna and the rest and not the seven Churches to which the one letter is directed And therefore the argument stands good that in these seven Cities there were but seven Churches and that the letter is directed to these Mother Churches planted in the Mother Cities because inferiour Cities receiving their Christianity from them were to depend upon them for the regulating of all things concerning the exercise of it As the Originall and Universall condition and State of the Church convinces Now the argument which this objection and the answer draws after it is this That in all the New Testament you shall never finde any mention of severall Churches in any City as Rome Ephesus Antiochia Jerusalem But when there is speech of any Province be it never so small you shall finde mention of a plurall number of Churches in it For of the Churches of Asia Syria Cilicia Macedonia Achaia Galatia Judaea and Samaria and of the Hebrews in their dispersions we finde expresse mention upon severall occasions Acts IX 31. VIII 5 40. XV. 41. 1 Cor. XVI 1. 2 Cor. VIII 2. 1 Thessal II. 14. Apoc. I. 11. II. 7 11 17 29. III. 6 13 22. Though Samaria among the rest were a Province of no great extent yet for example you have in that Province the City whereof Simon Magus was called Gittha saith Epiphan Haer. XXI now a Village but in those days a City saith he of which Acts VIII 5. And Philip went down to a City of Samaria not the City as we translate it and Caesarea which Ioseph shews us was in that Province XXI 7. Now tell me what reason can be given for this by any man that will pretend to understand either Scripture or any record of learning but that Churches are convertible with Cities For had there been many Churches within the City of Ephesus for example of parallel power and privilege making up one Classis or Presbytery or whatsoever new name can be given a new thing without the least syllable of example from the Apostles to Calvin must not these have been called the Churches not the Church of Ephesus I come now to a very expresse mark of this dependence during the time and in the actions of the Apostles and therefore by their Order acknowledged not onely by themselves but by all imploied by them in the planting of the Churches And it is the going of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem in behalf of the Churches of Syria and Cilicia troubled by some that taught at Antiochia from whence those Churches received their Christianity that Christians are to keep the Law of Moses Acts XIII 1. XV. 1. For were not Paul and Barnabas able to resolve this question at Antiochia Paul especially protesting That he received not the doctrine of the Gospel which he preached from man or by man Gal. I. 1. who is constrained both to the Galatians and elsewhere to oppose his calling as a Bulwark against all that laboured to bring Judaisme into the Church Surely in regard of the thing they were but in regard of authority to the Church they were not Barnabas was imploied by the Apostles to Antiochia who found Christians there but made them a Church by ordering their Assemblies Acts XI 20 24 25 26. And he it was that first brought Saul into that service by his authority from the Apostles Though afterwards both of them were extraordinarily imploied by the Holy Ghost to preach the Gospel and plant Churches Acts XIII 1. All this while the Church could not look upon Saul in the quality and
of Deut. XVII 18. the Jews need not tell us as they doe Maimoni by name Tit. de Syncdrio that they were not bound to observe that in their dispersions for how could there be Consistories for the Jews in all Cities all over the world but this they tell us withall in particular Arba Thurim in the same title Sub init that thereby they hold themselves bound to erect Consistories in the chief Cities of their dispersions In this condition what is the difference between the state of the Synagogue and the Church setting aside that essentiall difference between the Law and the Gospel by which Judaism was confined to one Nation but Christianity had a promise to be received by the Gentiles By reason whereof the Law ceased as it was proper to the Jews and Christians became obliged only to the perpetual Law of God besides a very few positive precepts of our Lord as of Baptism the Eucharist and the Power of the Keys by virtue whereof and by the generall Commission of the Apostles all Ordinances whereby they should regulate the Society of the Church were to be received as the Commandements of God Here is the reason for which it is probable that the Apostles in designing the Government of the Church should follow no other pattern then that which they saw in use by the Law in the Synagogue For the design in both being to maintain the Law of God and the unity of his people in his service saving the difference between them what form should they follow but that which the Law had taught their Fore-fathers But when the effect hereof appears in the first lines of this modell traced by the Apostles and filled up by their Successors it is manifest that these Laws were the pattern but the Order of the Apostles the Act which put it in being and force The Churches of Jerusalem Antiochia Rome and Alexandria no man can deny were planted by the Apostles in person and by their Deputies That they became afterwards Heads of the Churches that lay about them is no more then that which the Consistories planted at Jerusalem or Tiberias and in the chief Cities of the Jews dispersions were to the Synagogues underneath them by virtue of the Law This is therefore the Originall of the dependence of Churches upon the greatest Mother Churches And therefore it is no marvell that Jerusalem once the Mother City of Christianity became afterwards the seat of a Patriarch indeed in remembrance of that privilege but inferiour in dignity and nothing comparable in bounds to the rest because it was none of the greatest and most Capitall Cities The Rule of the Apostles design being this that the greatest Cities should be the Seats of the greatest Churches And that Constantinople when it came afterwards to be a Seat of the Empire was put in the next place to the Chief as it was no act of the Apostles so it is an argument of the Rule by which the rest had been ordered for the same reason As for the other Law of Deu. XVI 18. I know not what could be more agreeable to it then that Rule of the ancient Church which is to be seen not only in those few ancient Canons alledged in the discourse of the Primitive Government of Churches p. 67. but in innumerable passages of Church Writers that Cathedrall Churches and Cities be convertible that is both of the same extent Thus the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romanes is inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The presidence here expressed argueth the eminence of that Church above the rest of the Churches about it But Clemens directeth his Epistle from the Church of Rome to that of Corinth thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby we understand that the Country lying under the City belonged to the Church founded in the City and was therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying that which we now call the Diocese in opposition to the Mother Church That this is the reason of the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appears because Polycarp addresses his Epistle to the Philippians in this style 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if the Church of the Philippians dwelt near Philippi then the Country adjoining belonged to the Church of that City This reason therefore was well understood by him that writ the Epistle to the Antiochians in Ignatius his name granting it to be of an age much inferiour to his For he inscribeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Signifying thereby that all the Christians of Syria belonged to the Church of Antiochia for which reason Ignatius himself in his Epistle to the Romanes calls himself Bishop of Syria not of Antiochia because being Bishop of the Head City Church the Christians of Syria either belonged to his Church or to the Churches that were under it A thing so necessary to be beleeved that there are many marks in his Epistles to shew that the Churches also of Cilicia belonged to his charge as we saw they did by their foundation in the Apostles time and as the reason of the civile Government required those parts where Paul and Barnabas first preached having continued longest in the Dominion of the Kings of Syria and therefore continuing under the Government that resided at Antiochia And thus are the words of Clemens in his Epistle to the Corinthians fulfilled where he saith that the Apostles having preached the Gospel in Cities and Countries constituted Bishops and Ministers of those that should beleeve to wit according to the Cities and Countries adjoining to them Those marks come from the ancientest Records the Church hath after the writings of the Apostles Of the rest there would be no end if a man would allege them If any man object that it cannot be made to appear how this Rule was ever observed in the Church the extent of Cathedrall Churches being in some Countries so strait in other so large The answer is that it ceaseth not to be a Rule though the execution of it was very different in severall Countries either because not understood so well as it should have been or because the condition of some Countries was not appliable to it so as that of others For the East we have these words of Walafridus Strabo libs de Rebus Ecclesiasticis Fertur in Orientis partibus per singulas Vrbes Praefecturas singulas esse Episcoporum gubernationes Whereby we understand that Cathedrall Churches stood very much thicker in the Eastern parts then in the West For thereupon it became observable to Walafridus In Africk if we look but into the writings of S. Augustine we shall finde hundreds of Bishops resorting to one Councell In Ireland alone S. Patrick is said by Ninius at the first plantation of Christianity to have founded three hundreth threescore and five Bishopricks On the other side in England we see still how many Counties remain in one Diocese of Lincoln and yet if we look into Almain and those mighty foundations of Charles the Great we
may finde perhaps larger then it The Rule notwithstanding all this is the same that Cathedrall Churches be founded in Cities though Cities are diversly reckoned in severall Countries nay though perhaps some Countries where the Gospel comes have scarce any thing worth the name of Cities Where the Rule must be executed according to the discretion of men that have it in hand and the condition of times This we may generally observe that Churches were erected in greater number when they were erected without indowment established by temporall Law So that in one of the Africane Canons it is questionable whether a Bishop have many Presbyters under him Fewer still where they were founded by Princes professing Christianity upon temporall endowments And upon this consideration it will be no prejudice to this Rule that in Aegypt till the time of Demetrius there was no Cathedrall Church but that of Alexandria If it be fit to beleeve the late Antiquities of that Church published out of Eutychius because they seem to agree with that which S. Hierome reporteth of that Church As to this day if we beleeve the Jesuites whose relation you may see in Godignus de Rebus Abassinorum I. 32. there is but one for all Prester Johns Dominion or the County of the Abassines For though men would not or could not execute the Rule so as it took place in more civile Countries yet that such a Rule there was is easie to beleeve when we see Christianity suffer as it does in those Countries professing Christ by the neglect of it Before I leave this point I will touch one argument to the whole question drawn from common sense presupposing Historicall truth For they that place the chief power in Congregations or require at all severall Presbyteries for the government of severall Congregations are bound at least to shew us that Congregations were distinguished in the times of the Apostles if they will entitle their design to them Which I utterly deny that they were I doe beleeve the Presbyterians have convinced those of the Congregations that in S. Pauls time the Churches to whom he writes contained such numbers as could by no means assemble at once But severall Churches they could not make being not distinguished into severall Congregations but meeting together from time to time according to opportunity and order given About S. Cyprians time and not afore I finde mention of Congregations setled in the Country For in his XXVIII Epistle you have mention of one Gaius Presbyter Diddensis which was the name of some place near Carthage the Church whereof was under the cure of this Gaius and in the life of Pope Dionysius about this time it is said that he divided the Dioceses into Churches and in Epiphanius against the Manichees speaking of the beginning of them under Probus about this time there is mention of one Trypho Presbyter of Diodoris a Village as it seems by his relation there under Archelaus then Bishop of Caschara in Mesopotamia Likewise in an Epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria reported by Eusebius Eccles Hist VII 24. there is mention of the Presbyters and Teachers of the brethren in the Villages And those Churches of the Country called Mareotes hard by Alexandria which Socrates Eccles Hist I. 27. saith were Parishes of the Church of Alexandria in the time of Constantine must needs be thought to have been established long before that time whereof he writes there After this in the Canons of Ancyra and Neocaesarea and those writings that follow there is oftentimes difference made between City and country Presbyters In Cities this must needs have been begun long afore as we find mention of it at Rome in the life of Pope Cains where it is said that he divided the Titles and Coemiteries among the Presbyters and the distribution of the Wards of Alexandria and the Churches of them mentioned by Epiphanius Haer. LXVIII LXIX seems to have been made long before the time whereof he speaks But when Justin Martyr says expresly Apol. II. that in his time those out of the Country and those in the City assembled in one farre was it from distinguishing setled Congregations under the Apostles Which if it be true the position which I have hitherto proved must needs be admitted that the Christians remaining in severall Cities and the Territories of them were by the Apostles ordered to be divided into severall distinct Bodies and Societies which the Scripture calls Churches and are now known by the name of Cathedrall Churches and the Dioceses of them constituting one whole Church This being proved I shall not much thank any man to quit me the Position upon which the Congregations are grounded to wit the chiefe Power of the people in the Church Though it seems they are not yet agreed themselves what the Power of the people should be Morellus in the French Churches disputed downright that the State of Government in the Church ought to be democratick the people to be Soveraign Wherein by Bezaes Epistles it appears that he was supported by Ramus For the man whom Beza calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and describes by other circumlocutions who put the French Churches to the trouble of divers Synods to suppresse this Position as there it appears can be no other then Ramus Perhaps Ramus his credit in our Universities was the first means to bring this conceit in Religion among us For about the time that he was most cried up in them Brown and Barow published it Unlesse it be more probable to fetch it from the troubles of Francford For those that would take upon them to exercise the Power of the Keys in that estate because they were a Congregation that assembled together for the Service of God which power could not stand unlesse recourse might be had to Excommunication did by expresse consequence challenge the publick power of the Church to all Congregations which I have shewed to be otherwise And the contest there related between one of the people and one of the Pastors shews that they grounded themselves upon the Right of the people So true it is that I said afore that the Presbyterians have still held the stirrup to those of the Congregations to put themselves out of the saddle As now the Design of the Congregations is refined they will not have it said that they make the People chief in the Church For they give them power which they will have subject to that Authority which they place in the Pastors Elders which serves not the turn We have an instance against it in the State of Rome after they had driven away the Tarquins They placed Authority in the Senate and Power in the People and I suppose the successe of time shewed that which Bodine disputes against Polybius De Repub. II. 2. to be most true that the State was thereby made a Democraty So the Congregations challenging to themselves Right to make themselves Churches and by consequence whom they please Pastors must needs by
consequence reduce the Authority they pretend to what measure the people shall please whom by their proceedings they inable to make and unmake members and Pastors at their pleasure But I dispute not the consequence of their design before they declare what they are agreed upon in it Besides they conceive they have this Right in the Church because they are Saints as Anabaptists conceive that by the same title they have Right to the Goods of this world and as Christians conceive they have those Rights which they pretend to in the Visible Church by lawfull Ordination and Baptism And that they are Saints they seem to presume upon this ground that they have been admitted to such a Congregation upon Covenant to live in such Society for which they separate from the Church It shall be enough to levell the grounds and reasons from Scripture upon which they have parted from the Church under pretence of recovering the freedom of Saints before they are agreed wherein this freedom consists and how far it extends And truly that which I have hitherto proved seems to be a peremptory prescription against their pretence For if the Apostles ordered the Bodies of severall Churches to consist of the whole numbers of Christians contained in severall Cities and in the Territories of them which no common sense can possibly imagine that they could assemble all together at any time for the service of God it follows of necessity that the power of Governing those Churches was not deposited by the Apostles in the Body of the People whereof those Churches did or should consist For where the Power is in the People there the whole Body of the People must have means to Assemble to take Order in such things as concern the state of it Wherefore the Assemblies of the Church being only for Divine Service and at those Assemblies it being impossible that all the people of those Churches should meet common sense must pronounce that the Power of taking Order in the common affairs of Churches is not deposited by the Apostles in the Body of the People Another exception there is to all or most of the particulars which they alledge out of the scriptures far more peremptory then his For those things upon which they ground the right interess of the people in the Church were done under the Apostles that is not only in their time but also in concurrence with their Right and Power in the Government of the Church So that if we beleeve or if we prove the chief Power to have been then in the Apostles it cannot by the Scriptures which they produce be proved to remain in the People because their evidence cannot prove any greater Power or Right to be now in the People then belonged to them when the Scriptures they allege were said or done under the Apostles Now I suppose I shall not need to intreat any man to grant me that the Soveraign Power of the Church was then in the Apostles which their Commission will easily evince The name of an Apostle seemeth to have been borrowed by our Lord from the ordinary use of that people For in their Law it ordinarily signifieth a mans Proxy or Commissary deputed to some purpose And therefore the signification of it in the Scriptures is very large So that when we reade of Epaphroditus Apostle of the Philippians Phil. II. 25 30. or of Luke and Titus Apostles of the Churches 2 Cor. VIII 19 20 23. we are not to conceive by this name any thing like the Office of the Apostles of Christ For these later are plainly called Apostles of the Churches as deputed by them to carry their Contributions to Jerusalem And Epaphroditus of the Philippians as imploied by them to wait upon and furnish S. Paul with his necessary charges at Rome The power of Christs Apostles then must not be valued by the name of Apostle nor by the person of our Lord Christ that sends them for he might have sent other manner of men upon inferiour errands and all been Apostles But by the work which they are trusted with expressed in their Commission As my Father sent me Whos 's soever sins ye remit and Goe preach and teach all Nations For if God ordain his Church to be one Visible Society to serve him in the Profession of the Gospel and trust onely his Apostles and the Church with the Power of the Keys the root of all Ecclesiasticall Power as hath been said either the Church must challenge it against the Apostles which is not but by them or it must be understood to have been then in the Church because it was in the Apostles in whom it was before the Church which was founded by them whereupon the Office of the Apostles is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bishoprick before the Church was whereof they were Bishops to wit in Judas Acts I. 9. A meaning easie to be read in the number of them For the Church being the spirituall Israel as Israel according to the flesh coming of XII Patriarchs had always XII Princes of their Tribes and LXX Presbyters members of the great Consistory to govern them in the greatest matters concerning the State of the whole People under one King or Judge or under God when they had neither King nor Judge So did our Saviour appoint XII Patriarchs as it were of his spirituall People LXX Governours of another Rank both under the name of Apostles in whom should rest the whole Power of governing that People whereof himself in heaven remains always King A perfect evidence hereof is the deriving of other Power from them as theirs is derived from Christ We reade in the Scriptures of Euangelists and we reade of another sort of Apostles which if we understand not to be of the number of the LXX we must needs conceive to be so called because they were Apostles of the Apostles that is persons sent by the XII Apostles to assist them in the work committed to their trust which it is plain could not be executed by them in person alone And indeed those whom the Scripture cals false Apostles 2 Cor. XI 13. and that said they were Apostles and were not Apoc. II. 2. what can we imagine they were but such as pretended to be imploied by other Apostles perhaps by S. Peter to Corinth who had a hand in the founding of that Church as we learn by Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius Eccles Histor II. 25. agreeing with the beginning of S. Pauls first Epistle but intended indeed under their names and authorities to pull down that which was built by their fellow Apostles And in this sense perhaps S. Paul calls Andronicus and Junias eminent among the Apostles Rom. XVI 7. because it may be they were imploied by himself or by S. Peter about the Gospel at Rome And hereby we may take measure what Euangelists were For seeing it appears by the Scripture that they were the Apostles Scholars deputed by them and limited to such imploiment as
Preached during the Apostles times What reason then can any Reader have to presume that any of their dead witnesses make more for their purpose then I who am alive and stand to see my self alleged point blank against the position which I intended to prove because forsooth in their understanding the premises which I use stand not with the conclusion which I intended to prove But to speak plain English for the future if any man can shew by any writing of any Christian from the Apostles to this innovation any man indowed with the Power of the Keys that was not also qualified to Preach and to celebrate the Eucharist I am content to be of the Presbyteries the next morning though I am so well satisfied that it will never be shewed that I say confidently it will always be to morrow Now because the Power of the Keys that is the whole Power of the Church whereof that Power is the root and source is common to Bishop and Presbyters it is here demanded what Act we can shew peculiar to the Bishop by precept of Gods Word for which that Order may be said to be superiour to that of Presbyters A demand sutable to the definition of the Schoole wherein an Order is said to be a Power to doe some speciall Act But extremely wide of the Terms that have been held heretofore Have we been told all this while that the Presbyteries are the Throne and Scepter of Christ the force and Power of his Kingdome hath so much Christian blood been drawn for the Cause and now in stead of shewing that they are either commanded or consistent with the Word of God is it demanded that the Government in possession in the Church from the Apostles shew reason why it cannot be abolished though instituted by the Apostles Surely though this is possible to be shewed yet though it could not be shewed it might be beyond any Power on earth to abolish the Order of Bishops For my part I conceive I have shewed heretofore that the Power of every respective Church was deposited by the Apostles with the respective Bishop and Presbyters and that therefore in the ages next to the Apostles the advice and consent of the Presbyters did concurre with the Bishop in ordering of Ecclesiasticall matters whereas Congregations were not yet distinct but a Bishop and Presbyters over the common Body of each Church Over and above what hath been said the condemning of Marcion at Rome and of Noetus at Ephesus are expresly said by Epiphanius Haer. XLII num I II. Haer. LVII nu I. to have been done passed by the Act of the Presbyters of those Churches The difference between Alexander Bishop and Arius Presbyter of Alexandria is said to have risen at a meeting and debate of that Bishop and his Presbyters in the letter of Constantine to those two reported by Eusebius De Vitâ Constant II. cap. penult And Epiphanius Haer. LXIX num III. And which is of a later date the Excommunication of Andronicus in Synesius his fifty seventh Epistle I finde reported to have passed in the same sort And all this agreeable to the practice recorded in the Scriptures For when S. Paul instructeth Timothy saying 1 Tim. V. 19 20. Against a Presbyter receive not an accusation but under two or three witnesses Them that sin rebuke openly that the rest may fear Is it not easie to gather from hence that he commandeth such accusations to be brought and proved before Timothy with the rest of his Presbyters but the competent censure to be executed before the whole Congregation of the Church And is it not manifest that S. James first gives S. Paul audience in a Consistory of the Presbyters to advise what course to take before the Congregation be acquainted with the businesse Acts XXI 18 The same being the practice of S. Cyprians time when Cornelius of Rome writeth to him Epist XLVI placuit contrahi Presbyterium As also expressed in the Apostolicall Constitutions II. 47. by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consistories appointed there to be held every week for composing all differences against the Lords Day And therefore as for my part the learned Blondell might have spared all his exact diligence to shew that Presbyters did concurre with the Bishop in acts of this nature The cunning would be in proving the consequence that therefore Bishop and Presbyters are all one which all common sense disavows For be it granted which he insisteth upon so much that as the Commentary upon S. Pauls Epistles under S. Ambrose his Name relateth Eph. IV. 11. at the first the eldest of the Presbyters was wont to be taken into the place of the Bishop For it is probable that this course was kept in some places though his conjectures will not serve to prove that it was a generall Rule what will this inable him to inferre as for the power of the Bishop being once received into the first place who knows very well the gallant speech of Valentinian recorded by Ammianus lib. XXVI to the very Army that had chosen him Emperour and at the instant of his inauguration began to mutiny about retracting their choice that it was in their power to choose an Emperour before they had done it Intimating that being chosen it was not in their power to withdraw their obedience For by the same reason whatsover be the means that promoted the Bishop the measure of the power to which he was promoted must be taken from the Law given the Church by the Apostles expressed by the practice of it As there is no doubt but the Romane Emperors were advanced to an absolute Power though by the choice of their Souldiers It is not my purpose to say that the Power of the Bishop in the Church is such But it is my purpose to appeal to common sense and daily experience and to demand whether in those Societies or Bodies which consist of a standing Councell and a Head thereof indowed with the Privilege of a Negative the Power of the Head and of the severall members be one and the same If not then is there the same difference between the Bishop and the Presbyters by the Scriptures interpreted by the Originall practice of the Church The Instructions addressed to Timothy Titus I suppose obliged not them alone but all that were concerned to yeeld obedience to what thereby they are commanded to doe If any thing concerning the subject of those instructions could have passed without Timothy and Titus they were all a meer nullity For instance if by the Presbyters Votes Ordination might have been made without Timothy they might commit sin and the blame thereof lie on Timothies score to which S. Paul if he lay hands suddenly on any man makes him liable So the Angels of the seven Churches as they are commended for the good so are they charged with the sins of their Churches Which how can it be reasonable but for the eminent power in them without
to oblige superiours to that integrity by making the proceedings manifest and so to preserve the Unity of the Church I say not that these times are capable of such satisfaction upon the like terms as them But from this practice under the Apostles I shall easily grant the people an Interesse in such things as may concern their particular Congregations of excepting against such proceedings as can appear to them to be against any Rule of the Scripture or of the whole Church For this Interesse it is upon which the people is demanded in the Church of England what they have to say against Ordinations and Mariages to be made And if their satisfaction in matter of Penance were to be returned it would be no more then the same reason inferres Especially because it hath been shewed that the prayers of the People or of the Church is one part of the means to take away sinne by the Keys of the Church the other being the Humiliation of the Penitent according to that Order and measure which the Bishop and Presbyters shall prescribe James V. 14 15. 2 Cor. XII 20 21. Mat. XVIII 21. 1 John V. 16. And if this Interesse were made effectuall by the Laws of Christian States and Kingdomes to the hindrance of such proceedings wherein the Power of the Church may be abused the Church shall have no cause to complain But that the Power should be taken from the Church because the Laws of the State are not so good as they might be is as unjust and pernicious a medicine as to put the Chief Power in the hands of the People For seeing it hath been demonstrated that as it was the custome to passe such Acts at the Assemblies of the whole Church so was it also to advise and resolve upon them at the Consistories of the Clergy it is manifest that the suffrage of the People often mentioned in Church Writers was not to resolve but to passe what was resolved afore because nothing appeared in barre to it For the Interesse of the People extending no further then their own Church and it being impossible that all the Christians within the Territories of Cities belonging to the respective Churches should all assemble at once it is manifest none of these matters could be resolved by number of Votes and therefore that the Power was not in the People but a Right to be satisfied of the right use of the Power by those that had it Which how it may be made effectuall to the benefit of the People in a Christian Church and State is not for me to determine But by virtue of this Right it is that as Justellus in his Notes upon the Greek and Africane Canons hath observed to us especially out of the Records of the Churches of Africk and of the West for divers Ages the Best of the People who as he shews were called Seniores Presbyteri Ecclesiarum were admitted to assist at the passing of the publique Acts of those Churches In all which as there is nothing to be found like the Power of the Keys which Lay Elders are created to manage So he that will consider the interesse in which it appears they did intervene comparing it with the intolerable trouble which the concurrence of the People was found to breed when the number of Christians was increased by the Emperours professing Christianity will easily judge that it was nothing else but the Interesse of the People which in succeeding ages was referred to some persons chosen out of them to manage in the publique Acts of the Church And this custome is sutable enough with the Office of Church-wardens in the Church of England if it had been established as well in the Mother and Cathedrall as in the Parish Churches CHAP. IV. Secular Persons as such have no Ecclesiasticall Power but may have Soveraign Power in Ecclesiasticall matters The Right of giving Laws to the Church and the Right of Tithes Oblations and all Consecrations how Originall how Accessory to the Church The Interesse of Secular Powers in all parts of the Power of the Church THese things thus determined and the whole Power of the Church thus limited in Bishops and Presbyters with reservation of the Interesse of the People specified it follows necessarily that no Secular person whatsoever endowed with Soveraign or subordinate Power in any State is thereby endowed with any part of this Ecclesiasticall Power hitherto described Because it hath been premised for a Principle here to be reassumed that no State by professing Christianity and the protection thereof can purchase to it self or defeat the Church of any part of the Right whereof it stands possessed by the Originall institution of our Lord and his Apostles and therefore no person indowed with any quality subsisting by the Constitution of any State can challenge any Right that subsisteth by the Constitution of the Church and therefore belongeth to some person qualified by the same For Ecclesiasticall Power I understand here to be onely that which subsisteth by the Constitution of the Church And therefore all by Divine Right to all that acknowledge no humane authority capable of founding the Church And therefore by Divine Right invested in the Persons of them that have received it mediately or immediately from the Apostles seeing it is no ways imaginable how any man can stand lawfully possessed of that Power which is effectually in some body else from whom he claimeth not And therefore not to be propagated but by the free act of them that so have it But I intend not hereby to exclude Secular Powers from their Right in Church matters But intend to distinguish between Ecclesiasticall Power and Power in Ecclesiasticall matters and these to distinguish by the originall from whence they both proceed because so we shall be best able to make an estimate of the effect which both of them are able to produce according to the saying observed afore that the water rises no higher then it descended afore For if by Ecclesiasticall Power we mean that which arises from the Constitution of the Church it is not possible that by any quality not depending on the same any man should be inabled to any act that doth But if Power in matters of Religion be a Power necessary to the subsistence of all States then have Christian States that Power in the disposing of Christianity which all States in generall have in the disposing of those things which concern that Religion which they suppose and professe And this to prove I will not be much beholding to the Records of Histories or to the opinions and reasons of Philosophers Seeing common sense alone is able to shew us that there is not any State professing any Religion that does not exercise an interesse in disposing of matters of Religion as they have relation to the publique peace tranquillity and happinesse of that people The Power of disposing in matters of Religion is one part and that a very considerable one of that publique
that the same may be done in the Church Sixthly the same followeth from the dependence of Churches For if Congregations be made independent that no Christian may receive Law from man wherein he is not satisfied of the will of God then having proved that Congregations are not independent it follows that they are to receive Law in all things not contrary to the will of God Seventhly the exercise of this Power in all ages of the Church and the effects of it in great volumes of lawfull Canonicall decrees though it be a mark of contradiction to them that are resolved to hate that which hath been because it hath been yet to all whose senses are not maleficiated with prejudice it is the same evidence of this Power though not always of the right use of it by which Christianity it self stands recommended to us Lastly can those of the Congregations say that no publick act is done among them without the free and willing consent of all as satisfied in conscience that it is the will of God which is decreed Then are they not men For among all men there is difference of judgement If notwithstanding they are inforced to proceed why depart they from the Church For if those that place the Chiefe Power in Congregations cannot avoid to be tied by other mens acts why refuse they to be tied once for all by such generall acts as Laws are Which as they must needs be done by persons capable to judge what the common good of the Church requires which it is madnesse to imagine that members of Congregations can be so they have the force when they are once admitted to contain the whole body of the Church agreeing to them in Unity Whereas to acknowledge no such tends to create as many Religions as persons And now to the objection of wil-worship in the observation of humane constitutions the answer will not be difficult That sinne I doe truly beleeve to be of a very large extent as one of the extremes opposite to the Virtue of Religion understanding Religion to be all service of God with a good conscience Thus all the Idolatries of the Gentile all the superstitions of Judaism and Mahumetism are will-worships For man being convinced of his duty to serve God and neither knowing how to perform nor willing to render that service which he requires because inconsistent with his own inclinations it follows that by a voluntary commutation he tender God something which he is willing to part with in stead of his concupiscences Having condemnation both for neglecting to tender that which is due and for dishonouring God by thinking him to be bribed by his inventions to wink at his sins And therefore I do grant that the Constitutions which the Synagogue was by Gods Law enabled to make were capable to be made the matter of Superstition and will-worship as indeed in our Lords time they were made The reason because presuming to be justified by the works of the Law and the Law among them being not onely the written but that which was taught by word of mouth the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees which the Disciples of Christ shall never enter into the Kingdome of heaven unlesse they exceed consisted not only in the letter of the Ceremoniall and Judiciall precepts but in observing the determinations of their Consistories And accordingly I doe grant that the Rules Decrees and Constitutions of the Church are capable to be made the matter of the same sin and that they are made so visibly in divers customs and practises of the Church of Rome But is it a good reason to say that because humane Constitutions may be made the subject of superstition and will-worship therefore the Church hath no Power to make any therefore the members of the Church are not tied to obey any Or may there not be superstition and will-worship in abhorring as well as in observing humane Constitutions If S. Paul be in the right there may For if the Kingdome of God consist in righteousnesse and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost not in eating or not eating in observing or not observing days by the same reason it consists no more in not doing then in doing that which the Law of God determineth not Wherefore if any man imagine that he shall please God in not observing in refusing in opposing in destroying humane Constitutions regulating the publick order of the Church it is manifest that this is because he thinks he shall be the better Christian by forbearing that which God commands him not to forbear seeing he can finde in his heart to violate Unity and Charity that he may forbear it Here it may be demanded of me why I expresse no other ground of this Power in the Church then the indetermination of those things which Order and Unity requires to be determined in the Church For seeing matters of Faith are determined by Gods Word it seems to follow that the Church hath nothing to do to determine of matters of Doctrine in difference And seeing the Ceremonies of Divine Service besides the determining of that which the Scripture determineth not pretend further to advance and improve devotion in the publick Worship of God as I have discoursed more at large in the Apostolicall form of Divine Service ca. IX It seems if there be no other ground for the Legislative Power of the Church that the Church hath nothing to do to institute such Ceremonies To which I answer that it is one thing to make that matter of Faith which was not another to determine matter of Faith that is to determine what members of the Church shall do in acknowledging or not acknowledging that which is in question to be or not to be matter of Faith For if there be a Society of the Church then must there be in the Church a Power to determine what the members thereof shall acknowledge and professe when it comes in difference Which is not to qualifie the subject that is to make any thing matter of Faith or not but to determine that those which will not stand to the Act of the Whole that is of those persons that have right to conclude the Whole shall not be of it So the obligation that such Acts produce as it comes from the Word of God which the Church acknowledges is a duty of Faith but as it relates to the determination of the Church as a duty of charity obliging to concurre with the Church where it determineth not the contrary of that which the Word of God determineth Again when I say the Church hath Power to determine that which Gods Law determines not I must needs be understood to mean that which shall seem to make most for the advancement of godlinesse Now the Scripture shews by store of examples of Ceremonies in the Publick Service of God under the Church as well as under the Synagogue that the institution of significative Ceremonies in the Publick worship of God doth make for
Christianity Therefore the words of our Lord That his Disciples should not be as the Gentiles among whom the great ones domineer over the rest and in so doing were called Gracious Lords Mat. XX. 25. Mar. X. 42 43. Luc. XXII 25 26. being spoken to his Disciples as Christians not as Apostles in commendation of humility and meeknesse a quality concerning all Christians cannot prove the Clergy forbidden secular imploiment but they must by the same reason inforce all Civile Power to be unlawfull among Christians as also in the Society of the Church all superiority of power as unlawfull as that which is here challenged on behalf of Bishops and Presbyters On the other side that which they are supposed to destroy they manifestly presuppose that is to say a Superiority of power among the Disciples of Christ by the names of greater and lesse competible with the quality of his Disciples And therefore concern not the lawfulnesse of power but the right use of it and so forbid no sort of Christians any power whereof any Christian is capable The words of S. Paul are more pertinent to this purpose 2 Tim. II. 4. for it is a comparison that he borroweth from the custome of the Romane Empire wherein Soldiers as they were exempted from being Tutors to mens persons or Curators to their estates so they were forbidden to be Proctors of other mens causes to undertake husbandry or merchandise Therefore when S. Paul saith to Timothy No man that goeth to the army intangleth himself in businesse of the world that he may please him that imprested him He raises indeed a particular exhortation to Timothy upon a generall ground of reason appearing in the Romane Laws that those of Timothies quality oblige not themselves to businesse inconsistent with it But can he be understood hereby to make that a Law to the Militia of the Church which was a Law to the Militia of the Empire Or can an exhortation drawn from a comparison be thought to create a generall Law to all of Timothies quality in generall or in particular further then the reason of the comparison will inferre in every particular case It is true that Soldiers were forbidden businesse of profit were exempted emploiments of publick service as was that of Tutors and Curators because thereby they became obliged to the Laws or to their own profit to the prejudice of their attendance upon their colours That is to say that for the great distance between Civile and Military emploiment in that State the Laws had rendred Soldiers uncapable of such qualities And so it is confessed that the Laws of the Church the Canons rendred the Clergy uncapable of the like during the distance between the Church and the State not yet Christian For so we find that in S. Cyprians time Clergy men were forbidden to be Tutors or Curators for the like reason because their obligation to the Laws in that estate would have excused them to the Church And because that by reason of the distance between the State of the Church at that time it could not tend to any publick good of the Society of the Church But in States that professe Christianity can it be said that the attendance of Clergy men upon the affairs of the Commonwealth cannot be to the publick good of the Church consisting of all the same persons onely in a distinct reason and quality whereof the Commonwealth consisteth To me it seems farre otherwise that in all publick Assemblies of States whether for making Laws or for Jurisdiction or for Counsell or for preservation of publick Peace to banish those from them whose quality and profession entitles them to the most exact knowledge and practice of Christianity is to banish the consideration of Christianity from the conclusions and effects of those Assemblies For though it be seen by experience that the Clergy come short of the holinesse and exact conversation in Christianity which they professe yet it will be always seen likewise that the people fail more and before them and that they are first corrupted by and with the people then corrupters of the people And as for the service of the Church which they cannot attend upon in the mean time supposing the Order here challenged to be instituted by the Apostles the inconvenience ceaseth For supposing all Cathedrall Churches to be Corporations trusted to provide for the government of all Congregations contained in them in Church matters and the Ministery of the Offices of Divine Service at the same whatsoever Clergy man shall by publick imploiment destitute his Congregation shall leave it to the care of the Church originally entrusted with it Which Churches being all Nurseries and Seminaries of Clergy designed for the Service of their respective Bodies may easily by the means thereof see all Offices discharged from time to time to all Congregations which they contain And this is that which I desired to say here in generall to this most difficult point of the Privileges and Penalties which Christianity may be established and enforced with by a State that professes it As for the particulars which upon those generall reasons may be disputed in point of lawfull or unlawfull as also for the point of expedience whereby that which in generall may be done ought or ought not to be done when the case is put I leave to them that are qualified and obliged to proceed in determining the same To come then to the great difficulty proposed it is to be acknowledged that the Power of the Church in the persons of them to whom it is derived by continuall succession is a Law ordained by the Apostles for the unity and edification of the Church So that no part of the Whole can stand obliged by any Act that is not done by the Councell and Synod of Bishops respective to that part of the Church which it pretendeth to oblige But withall it is to be acknowledged that there are abundance of other Laws given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles whether they concern matters of Faith or matter of Works whether immediately concerning the salvation of particular Christians or only the publick Order of the Church which proceeding from the same if not a greater power then the Succession of the Church are to be retained all and every one of them with the same Religion and conscience And with this limitation the distinction which the Church of Rome is usually answered with is to be admitted between succession of Persons and succession of Doctrine Not as if it were not a part of Christian doctrine that the Succession of the Apostles is to be obeyed as their Ordinance but because there are many other points of doctrine delivered the Church by our Lord and his Apostles all and every one of them equally to be regarded with it Again I have shewed that the Secular Power is bound to protect the Ecclesiasticall in determining all things which are not determined by our Lord and his Apostles and to give force
of any man to beleeve them till they shewed him a reason to beleeve Indeed though there can no reason be given why matters of faith are true there may bee a reason given why they are credible Because many things are true the reason whereof mans understanding comprehends not yet God can shew him reason why he should beleeve Thus was the Law of Moses thus was the Gospel of Christ advanced to the world and received God having bestowed on them that advanced the one and the other a power to do works the greatnesse and strangenesse whereof might be able to prevail over the difficulty of those things which they propounded to be beleeved and obeyed For though it is no inconvenience that God should grant revelations to many persons to whom he granteth not the power of doing such works as may serve to convince the world that those revelations are sent by God yet that he should imploy any man to declare unto the world any thing that God requireth to be beleeved and obeyed without any means to make evidence of his Commission ordinary reason will shew to be too grosse an inconvenience This being the motive of Faith in generall the difficulty that remains will be how it becomes evident to the senses of all ages all places all persons of the world that can be obliged to receive the Faith being done and seen onely by those persons that were sent and to whom A difficulty endlesse to those that advise not as they should doe with their own common sense For it is manifest that we receive an infinite number of truths which never came under our own senses from the sense of others when we finde all those that have had the means to take sensible notice of them agree in the same Such are all things that are or are done in any distance from any mans senses whereof he cannot be informed but by Historicall faith For all that is related from them that have seen carries with it the credit of Historicall truth as far as common sense obliges to beleeve that all that relate can neither be deceived nor agree to deceive Whereupon that which all agree in becoms unquestionable because it is as easie to know what may be seen as it is unpossible that all that agree in a report should agree in a design to deceive The common notions in Euclide are unquestionable and is it more questionable that there is such a City as Rome or Constantinople such a Country as Persia and China to those that never were there Would Physitians and Astronomers build their studies or be suffered to build their practice upon experiments and observations related by particular persons did not common sense assure that men would not take the pains to abuse others onely to be laught at and detested themselves The question then being to suppose a question where there is none because there is a question what is the true answer whether the miracles recorded in the Scripture were done or not neither could they that first received them agree to deceive or be deceived but stood convict because they must have done violence to their own senses otherwise and being once admitted unquestionable to the worlds end they remain no otherwise For the effect of them continuing in that the Law or the Gospel is in force by virtue of them they remain as certain as he that sees a City builded a thousand years since knows that there were men alive at the building of it The Jews therefore are in the wrong when they argue for the Law against the Gospel that because there never was or indeed can ever be such an appearance of all them of one age to whom the Gospel is addressed as there was of the Israelites at the giving of the Law when all of that age that were to be tied by it were present at once to be witnesses that it was sent from God therefore no Law abrogating the same can by any means become credible For as for the love of this advantage against Christianity they deny that which the first sending of Moses expresly affirmeth Exod. IV. 5. that all the miracles which he was endowed with tended to win faith of the people that God sent him And will have all the credit of the Law to stand precisely upon the appearance and standing of Mount Sinai as they call it where they will have all the people of Israel to have been Prophets of Moses rank whom God spoke face to face with without any commotion or rapture of his or their senses So they consider not how the truth of this appearance of Mount Sinai is manifested to their posterity Seeing that by the same means as it becomes evident to those that live under other times the motives of Christianity may also be conveyed and evidenced to them that are not present at the doing of the works This for the evidence As for the sufficience of the motives to the Gospel in comparison of those of the Law the possibility thereof necessarily follows upon Gods omnipotence the actuality of it is sufficiently proved by the judgement of all Nations that have imbraced the Gospel in comparison of one that imbraced the Law Especially if we consider the predictions of the Law and the Prophets going before and the conversion of the Gentiles following upon the publication of the Gospel Which being reckoned among the miracles that render the Gospel to be beleeved doe necessarily bring all the motives of the Law to depose for the truth of the Gospel Thus much premised it will be possible to resolve in a few words the subject of voluminous disputes All men know how those of the Church of Rome would have us beleeve and receive the Scriptures upon the credit of the Church affirming them to come from God And consequently whatsoever the Church determines to be the true meaning of the Scriptures and the Word of God So that there can be no true faith in any man that disbeleeves any part of it Whether by the Church they mean the Pope or a Councell or whosoever they shall agree to have right to conclude the Church On the other side it were easie to say who they are that professe to beleeve the Scriptures upon the immediate dictate of the Spirit of God to their spirit that they come from God And though I cannot say that consequently they deny any man to have faith that beleeves not all that their Spirit dictates to be the meaning of Gods word because the dictates of severall Spirits are so contrary that this can be no Rule yet when the qualities of mens persons with the dictates of their Spirits are alledged in bar to the received doctrine of the Church it is manifest that men expect such light to be struck out of the darknesse and confusion of such dictates that the Church shall at length be convinced to beleeve and receive it And truly those that professe that they could not beleeve the Scriptures but
would be possible that War might be made upon the Title of Religion alone contrary to the Premises The learned Casaubon once called the Doctrine of Gregory the VII Pope when he undertook to deprive Christian Princes of their Estates because they stood Excommunicate Haeresim Hildebrandinam The Heresie of Pope Hildebrand And not without cause For seeing the foundation of Christianity consisteth in things to be done as well as things to be beleeved and that the summe of that which Christians professe to do consists in bearing Christs Crosse how shall he be other then an Heretick that renounceth the profession of Christs Crosse Or how can he be understood to professe Christs Crosse that holds any thing purchased by the Arms which are born upon the Title of Christianity For as all is his that conquers in lawfull Arms so cannot he be understood to renounce all for Christs Crosse that holds any thing by it which he is bound to maintain with the Title whereby he holds it Thus that Pope is not unjustly called an Heretick by some as Heresie imports a vice of a particular mans minde not a Sect in the Society of the Church seeing it cannot be said that this position is enjoined though suffered in the Church of Rome as it must be said of that Church the Society whereof and the Power which governeth that Society subsisteth by Arms grounded on Christianity Therefore supposing an Ecclesiasticall Power and by consequence a Church constituted by force used upon this ground it would be hard to clear it of Heresie the constitution whereof cannot stand with the profession of Christs Crosse But not to aggravate consequences seeing it is manifest that all errors in Religion overthrow the foundation by consequence but to shew what regret I have to say that which I must not conceal I will advance the onely possible expedient that I can imagine to restore the Unity of the Church among us For that of a Nationall Synod which is most obvious and plausible seems to me unpossible to be used lawfully and effectually both in our case I am not so faintly in love with the Cause which I expose my self to so much offense to maintain as to make a question how the Church of England were to be re-established if right might take place that is by re-estating the Synod thereof in full possession of that right which hereby I have proved that they are outed of onely by force But I speak now upon supposition that there is force on their side that refuse this right upon opinions contrary to the same and with an intent to advance a course by which it may be discerned how farre the Church of England may abate of the right which is denied onely by force for so good a purpose as to reconcile unto it those who may otherwise fall into Churches in name but Schisms indeed And in this case my reason is because those who chalenge the right of a Synod must proceed as authorized to judge between or rather to give Law to all parties Now being divided as we are between Right and force or the opinion of either or both it is not imaginable that either those that think themselves to have Right can or those that think themselves to have force will submit to receive sentence or Law from their adversaries unlesse we think them either no men to change their judgement when they come to have Power on their side or no Christians to acknowledge that to be Right which they are assured is not What remains then to restore peace when no party can yeeld Surely in all bodily diseases those parts and principles and elements of nature which remain untainted must be the means to recover the whole And in this distemper of the Church so much of Christianity as remains commonly acknowledged by all parties rightly husbanded may serve to reunite them in one upon better intelligence And the despair which any party ought to have of reducing the rest to themselves ought to perswade all to condescend to this good husbandry What remains then common to all parts beside the profession of Christianity the Scriptures to agree them about the meaning and consequences of them in matters questionable being that which remains in debate Could I say that all parts acknowledged that which the Church from the beginning every where hath received and used to be agreeable to the Scripture I should think the businesse half done But since it is otherwise we must have recourse to a more remote ground or principle which may serve for a reason to produce those consequences which follow from the said Rule in matters in debate seeing we pretend not to make a Rule without cause And this must be by examining the first motives of Christianity for what reasons we undertake the profession of it which being well rendred and shot home to the mark will not fail either to decide any thing in controversie or to shew that it concerns no mans Christianity that it be decided Now the onely means to bring forth and discharge these reasons to publick satisfaction is an open and free Conference for space of time or persons executed by persons advanced by the severall parties to improve what any man can bring forth to the clearing of any thing in debate and managed by persons chosen for their discretion to keep the debate from wandring till all be said to all points For seeing it must needs appear what are the terms of agreement when all reasons are spent it will be lawfull for those in whom rests the Succession of the Apostles and all claiming under them to consent to estate the Ecclesiasticall Power and the Ministery of Ecclesiasticall Offices upon persons to be agreed upon according to terms agreed And this consent as effectuall to reunite the Church as ever anciently Schisms were lawfully restored to the Church by admitting Bishops Presbyters Deacons and People to communicate in their own ranks and making good all acts done in Separation by subsequent consent not as to God but as to the Church which I have shewed afore was many times done As for those which have used this Power already they shall condescend no further by this agreement but to use that part of it which shall be limited them by the agreement upon an unquestionable title for the future But if our sins be still so powerfull as not to suffer a lawfull course to take place let me admonish those infinite numbers of Christian souls that sigh and groan after the Unity of the Church what means God shews them to discharge the conscience of good Christians to him while the temporall Laws of the State which ought to actuate it doe suspend their Office Which are in effect the persons of those in whom the Succession of the Apostles is vested and the Clergy claiming under them And that generall Law of Christianity for which those things which we insist upon cannot be quitted of sticking to all that
Clergy by the Jurisdiction of the Church For in regard that as it hath been said on divers occasions in this Discourse the Clergy is promoted upon supposition of some degree of proficience in Christianity over and above that upon supposition whereof men are admitted to be only Christians it followeth not that those who by their conversation render themselves unworthy of that degree which they hold in the Clergy doe by the same means render themselves unworthy of the Communion of the Church Therefore the punishment of a Clergy man may be competent by onely voiding his degree when another Christian cannot be competently punished but by putting him from the Church Whereby it appears that the Power of Ordaining as well as censuring persons Ordained is grounded upon the Power of the Keys as giving or taking away not the communion of the Church but a degree and quality above it which supposeth it Again upon the constitution of the Society of the Church follows the Power of making Canons Constitutions and Ordinances obliging the respective body thereof correspondent to the Legislative Power of Kingdomes and Common-wealths wherein the justice of them most appears though the strength of them is more seen in the Power of the Sword which gives all Laws force And so it is no more inconvenience to all these Canons the Laws of the Church then it is to call the Power of Excommunication the spirituall Sword of the Church Neither is it any more for the Church to have this Power then that which States ordinarily allow the meanest Corporations which they Privilege to wit to give Laws to their own Bodies for the maintenance and execution of the Laws originally given them by those who are enabled to institute them In fine in correspondence to the Exchequer of a State is the Title that God hath given his Church to the Oblations of the Faithfull their First-fruits and Tithes The right whereof he hath endowed the Church with leaving the seizure to the voluntary tender of those whō he calleth to be voluntary Christians And thus and by this correspondence with a State the parts of Ecclesiasticall Power are more clearly and more intelligibly distinguished in my opinion then by the ordinary terms of Jurisdiction and Order For first these terms being introduced by the Canonists and School Doctors seem to presuppose a coactive Jurisdiction in the Church upon the constitution and originall Title of the Church such as the Church of Rome challenges and the Decretall Epistles of the Popes presuppose whereby they challenge to themselves that Power by Divine Right which by the sufferance of Princes and States they did exercise intangling the Schools of Divines with as inextricable difficulties to make it good as Christian States with commotions to shake off the consequences thereof meerly for neglect of the principle here presupposed that Christianity importeth no right of this world and therefore that the coactive Power of the State remains where it was before it Secondly it seemeth that the Power of Order and Jurisdiction are not contradistinct but subordinate the Power of Order being the production and consequence of the Power of Jurisdiction if it be rightly understood For by the same reason which proveth here p. 199 that the power of consecrating the Eucharist belongeth to Presbyters upon the Power of the Keys and that all Benedictions with Imposition of Hands whether in Confirmation Ordination Penance Mariage or whatsoever else are marks of that Power which alloweth those acts which are blessed to be done in the Church as you have it here p. 23. by the same reason it follows that the ministery of all Ordinances of God deposited with the Church is a mark of that superiority which those that minister the same have in the Church And therefore if the Power of Order be in respect of Christs own Body as ordinarily they describe it it proceeds from the Power over his mysticall Body which is that of Jurisdiction as they make it Or if as others will have it the Power of Order consists in the ministery of such divine Ordinances as are the means to procure and increase Gods grace in the persons to whom they are ministerd the same reason takes place Because they are not to be ministred but by them whom the Church trusteth to do it to that true intent which it teacheth Wherefore it seemeth that the term of Jurisdiction ought to expresse the common source of all Ecclesiasticall Power which it doth not because that as Jurisdictiis but a part of Soveraignty in a State so the Power from which the metaphoricall jurisdiction of the Church floweth which I conceive cannot be better expressed then by calling it the Power of the Keys as the Gospel hath done produceth other branches of Ecclesiasticall Power correspondent to other parts of Soveraignty in a State as hereby you have seen CHAP. II. HAving thus determined whereupon the Power of the Keys is founded and wherein it consisteth it remained to proceed and declare what persons it is trusted with For seeing the persons of whom Christian States consist are the same of whom the Churches or parts of the whole Church that are contained in those States consist if there be no provision of Gods Law tying the Right of managing this Power and the productions and branches thereof to some qualities consequent to the constitution of the Church it will necessarily fall as an escheat to the State and we shall be tied to grant it Power to conferre those qualities by which it is managed and all this will be truly said to no purpose Here in the first place I must insist upon a point the truth whereof the Presbyteries and Congregations have equally divided between them and left it entire to the Church For those of the Congregations finding that the design of the Presbyteries had ordered a Presbytery for the government of every Congregation that assembles together for the common service of God had reason to inferre that all those Presbyteries ought to be endowed with the Power of the Keys as to their own Bodies To which assuming another demand that the chief Power in every Congregation was that of the People it followeth that all Congregations are independent and absolute not to be concluded by any Church or Synod representative of Churches above themselves On the other side the Presbyterians finding that no Unity can be preserved without dependence and desiring to preserve Unity among themselves though not with the Church have designed the Power of the Keys as to the act of Excommunication to rest in Representatives of the Presbyteries of Congregations which neverthelesse they call by the same name of Presbyteries or Classes the same being subject to Synods of Presbyteries and those to Nationall Assemblies Whereas there is never any mention in all the Scriptures of any Presbytery or Company College or Bench of Presbyters as likewise there is no mention of any Church but in a City No mention of more Churches then
blasphemers of your Goddesse By which instance we may be assured that Christianity obligeth us not to seek by scorn to bring any man out of love of a false Religion if they did it not to Idolaters And truly though the Israelites are commanded to destroy all monuments of Idolatry with all the scorn possible yet that is to be understood in the Land of Promise which God made them masters of upon that condition but under other Dominions it is provided by the second Commandement Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them not thou shalt not blaspheme them or shew despite against them Josephus indeed interpreteth that precept of the Law Thou shalt not curse Gods to mean that they are forbidden thereby to blaspheme the Gods of the Gentiles Wherein though it seems he flattereth the Romanes for you may have seen another sense thereof before yet this interpretation is presumption enough that they were not commanded by the Law to doe it I will not therefore condemne the Christians of the East for singing to Julians face as the Ecclesiasticall Histories tell us Their Idols are silver and gold and confoundâ—d be all they that worship carved images Because we know particularly that the Christians of his time were resolved to surfer for their Christianity rather then to defend themselves by force And therefore cannot interpret it to be done in scorn to him but to protest their resolution against Heathenism as also many zealous acts of the Primitive Martyrs must be interpreted But I will make this inference to prove that in point of right which you have seen was true de facto that because Christianity preserveth the estate of the world in the same terms and under the same Powers which it findeth therefore it enjoyneth no man to blaspheme the Religion of the lawfull Powers of the world because thereby themselves would be brought into contempt to the undermining of the obedience due to them And therefore this inference proceedeth not upon supposition of the truth of Christianity but upon a reason common to all civile Societies whether Christian or otherwise which Christianity prejudiceth not but maintaineth As for the second doubt it must also be resolved that those whom Christian States hold themselves not enabled to put out of the World or out of the State for professing any Religion those they cannot so punish for the exercise of that Religion which they professe For if it be so necessary for all men to professe and exercise some Religion that they should be out of the protection of the Law of Nations that should professe to have none and that to professe a Religion and not to live according to it is a bare profession that is a presumption that he hath none that doth so it follows that civility and the Law of Nations will inable all men to live after the Religion which they professe And therefore inable no State so to punish men for so doing In the mean time no State is hereby obliged to leave the exercise of other Religions beside that which it self professeth either free or Publick For I conceive the exercise of Religion is understood to be free in regard of those Penalties which are in the Power of every State to inflict on those that conform not to their own according to that which hath been said And to be publick is a further privilege though it necessarily import no more then Toleration containeth For the Christians before Constantine had not only Churches and those endowed with Lands and Revenues as it appeareth by Eusebius but those Lands and Revenues were the common goods of those Churches meerly because it was counted Sacrilege to spoile that Religion which was not counted Sacrilege And yet this was no more then Toleration for when the Soveraign Power would have Christianity goe for Sacrilege immediately they were spoiled of all under Diocletian That which is here resolved p. 259. that meerly a false opinion in matter of Religion is not to be punished with Banishment which is civile death to the State whereof a man is occasions a question concerning Athanasius banished to Triers by Constantine and the same Athanasius and many more by Constantius Valens and others wherein the injustice of the punishment lay whether the Power was onely abused or also usurped Whereunto it is to be answered that the sentence of Constantine upon Athanasius neither imported Banishment nor passed meerly in consideration of his opinion in Religion For seeing the place of abode to which he was confined was within the State whereof he was so that not changing Laws or Language for he must needs be understood over all the Romane Empire he could not be said to live among them that were barbarous to him or he to them barbarous he continued free of the State whereof he was afore though not in possession and use of that rank and estate which he bore in it As for the cause of this sentence it is manifest by the relation that it passed in consideration of the publick peace which seemed to suffer because Athanasius submitted not the trust which he had from the Church to the judgement of the Emperour in abandoning that which the Councell of Nice had done in deposing Arius But the ground of Constantius his sentence upon Liberius of Rome and Eusebius of Vercellae was meerly for acting according to their opinion in Religion Liberius for not condemning Athanasius in the common cause of the Church Eusebius for voting according to his judgement in the Councell at Millane As for the sentence upon Liberius it is the same with that upon Athanasius but that upon Eusebius being condemned to live in the deserts of Aegypt seems to have as much difference from it as there was between relegatio and deportatio among the Romanes the one being but a confinement to a strange people under the same State the other to no people but to some desert Iland or inhabitable place such as the deserts of Aegypt were which is to be removed from the Society of civile people Wherefore as it is no inconvenience to grant that Constantine used ill the Power that he had so that Constantius usurped that which he had not seeing we know that the Arians under him so persecuted the Catholick Christians as I have proved that no Soveraign Power can allow any Subject to be persecuted for Religions sake neither ever did the Catholicks persecute them again By the premises it may appear that the punishment which is commonly called by the term of Banishment may by the disposition of Soveraign Powers be so aggravated or so lightned by the circumstances that the right of inflicting it may be sometimes said to be abused sometimes usurped Therefore my position as the reason of it proceeds onely upon that which amounts to civile Death depriving a man of his right of continuing free of the State whereof he is I cannot here passe by that passage of Synesius Epist LVII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Jesus Christ and confirmed by the Word of God they went forth preaching that the kingdome of God was coming Preaching then through Countries and Cities they constituted the first-fruits of them overseers and ministers of those that should beleeve This he thus prosecutes p. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And our Apostles knew by our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife about the name of Bishop And for that cause perfectly foreknowing it they constituted the aforesaid and gave order for the future that when they should fall asleep other approved persons should succeed into their Ministery Those therefore that were constituted by them or afterwards by other approved persons we conceive to be unjustly put out of their Ministery The sense of these words is some what obscure by reason of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth here afterwards as in Acts XIII 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gentiles besought that these things might be spoken to them the Sabbath after And so Cappellus de Dieu upon that Text of the Acts have observed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the same signification by Iosephus But here the case is plain that it cannot be otherwise understood because of that which follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which must needs be those that were made afterwards Now the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so far as I can learn is no where read in all the Greek tongue but here so that we must take the signification either from the originall or from the consequence of the discourse The originall bears the sense which I conceive in translating it an Order well enough being the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the consequence of the Discourse necessarily requires it For what reason doth he expresse why those whom he speaks of should be thought unjustly removed but because the Apostles had appointed that those whom they constituted should be succeeded by others I grant that he allegeth other considerations aggravating the fault of the Corinthians in putting out their Governours that is their Bishop and Presbyters for one or two of the Presbyters But he hath said nothing by all this which I have here produced unlesse we grant that it was not in their power to doe it meerly in this consideration because they succeeded such as were constituted by the Apostles For the Apostles had done nothing in appointing that others should succeed them whom they constituted if this succession could be voided by any Power but that which appointed it From the distinction advanced p. 276. between those things that are commanded every Christian and those things that are commanded the Body of the Church perhaps a resolution may be deduced what is absolutely necessary to salvation and what not And also what is absolutely necessary to salvation to be known and what not The Book de Cive maintains this Position that there is but one Article of the Faith necessary to salvation which is that our Lord Jesus is the Messias But the sufficience of it is further declared to imply the receiving of Christ for a Doctor sent by God in all things without exception to be beleeved and obeyed which manifestly infers the profession of all Christianity and the sincerity of the same And upon these terms I see no reason how to deny that upon this condition the thief upon the Crosse is promised life everlasting and the Eunuch of Aethiopia admitted to Baptism that is to remission of sins and the title to life everlasting According to that which is said here p. 16. that in danger of death or when there appeared an ardent zeal to Christianity men were admitted to Baptism without regular triall to wit upon the free and zealous profession of Christianity So Philip is ordered by the Spirit to give Baptism on the like terms as the Church used to doe But this makes no alteration in the necessity of those things that are to be known and undertook by those that regularly come to Baptism which continue no lesse necessary to salvation though the obligation of knowing and acknowledging them cannot take place either at all in them that die immediately or in them that are thus baptized before their Baptism It may then with a great deal of reason be said that all that and onely that which is contained in the Covenant of Baptism is necessary to salvation among which is the Unity of the Church and the obligation of every Christian to contribute towards the preservation of it But otherwise what this Covenant containeth this is not the place to dispute Some of the particulars remembred p. 289. that are in the Scriptures and yet oblige not the Church deserve to be considered more at large That the Apostle speaks not barely of the Sacrament of the Eucharist 1 Cor. XI but of the celebration thereof at their Feasts of Love beside that which hath been said upon divers occasions in this Discourse appears further by this Glosse which I finde in the written Copy lately alleged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords Supper saith he is to dine in the Church Whereby it may appear that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is properly called the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but not properly the Supper of the Lord. There is nothing can be propounded in a more expresse form of Precept then the decree of forbearing things sacrificed to Idols by the Councell at Jerusalem And yet it is manifest that it was but locall For if it had obliged the Church of Rome S. Paul could not have given them another Rule not to condemne one another Jews and Gentiles for eating or not eating For that this case is comprised within that Rule it appeareth because S. Paul is afraid that Jewish Christians should fall away from Christianity as enjoyning to renounce the Law and by consequence the Author of it which was manifestly the scandall of those at Ierusalem But if it had obliged the Church of Corinth much lesse could S. Paul have given leave to eate things sacrificed to Idols materially as Gods creatures which you have seen that he doth That under the Apostles Baptism was drenching of all the body under water appears by S. Pauls Discourse Rom. VI. 3 4 5. for how should the death and Resurrection of our Lord Christ be represented by Baptism otherwise And so the exception that is taken against the Baptism of Novatianus is that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 43. Had water poured about him in bed because of his sicknesse So the solemnity of drenching was due though I shewed afore that the substance of the exception is grounded upon the weaknesse of his resolution to Christianity who would not undertake to professe it while persecution appeared For if that had not been the solemnity would not have been avoided The Vail of women in the Church which the Apostle requires 1 Cor. XI that it was to cover their faces though laid upon the head I