Nicene Creeds have so Interpreted Scripture but what if one should ask him How he is sure the Doctrines of the Creed are true Expositions of Scripture Either he must fall into the Circle or resolve his Faith into the Infallibility of the Church and Compilers of those Creeds and therein he turns his back upon the Church of England and all the Reformed in one of the Principal and most Important Points of Controversie the Resolution of Faith I will not suppose him so ignorant as to think that the Apostles were the Authors of that Creed that goes under their Name Bishop Pearson and Dr. Towerson will tell him the contrary and by the Confession of all Protestants These Creeds are but summary Collections of the most principal Doctrines of Faith put into that form by Fallible Men and are to be received no further and on no other account than as they are Consonant to the Word of God and therefore were never intended as a Standard or Rule of Faith or as an infallible Interpreter of that which is so I wonder how this Gentleman would have been infallibly assured of the Divinity of Christ if he had lived before these Symbols were extant I wonder how he is infallibly assured of the true sence of these Creeds I doubt he wants one Creed to give an Infallible Interpretation of another and so ad Infinitum but if he say the sence of these Creeds is very plain and obvious to any ordinary Capacity so is the Scripture too in all Fundamental Points and is sufficient Assurance of the Truth of them without the joint Security of Ancient Creeds and Churches Whether these odd Opinions are to be imputed to his inconsiderateness of which every Page affords us instances enough or rather to the Happy Illuminations of his great Rabbi Mr. Dodwell I will not determine but the latter is not improbable if we compare it with what that Amphibious Gentleman writes Separation of Churches p. 542. That the Power actually received by Ordained Ministers must not be measured by the true Sence of Scriptures but by that wherein the Ordainers understood them c. Many other Effata of the like Nature have proceeded from that great Oracle which would scarcely have been encouraged or so much as suffered in any Reformed Church besides our own but it was sufficient to make these things passable that they were levelled at the Dissenters and sent them all headlong into the Pit I think it may not be amiss to defend the Vindicator from the Imputation of Malice against the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury which this Gentleman very unfairly suggests the Passage aimed at is this To say that Bishops Vindic. p. 18. which are stated Pastors in an Organical Church are the Apostles Successors in their Apostolical Power is destructive to their own Notion of Church Government and would give the Bishop of Rome as great Power in England as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury when there is any All the Malice lies in this little Parenthesis when there is any and here the Citizen clamours upon him for reviling Gods High Priest Reply p. 18. and speaking evil of the Ruler of his People What Apology will the Vindicator now make Truely if it was my own Case I would desire no better than that of St. Paul under the same Accusation I wist not Brethren that he was the High Priest The late Arch-Bishop had been deprived by Law above half a Year before that Vindication was writ and the Metropolitane See was vacant a considerable time after this was Printed and yet it was a malicious Reviling of the Ruler of Gods People to say there was none I will not drive this too far I hope he can give a better Reason for calling the Deprived Prelate the Ruler of Gods People than I can for him If he was the Ruler still What becomes of the Authority of those that deprived him It had been more becoming this Gentleman to have answered that Argument wherein this Parenthesis had its Place than by falling foul upon so Innocent an Expression to expose those thoughts which Prudence would have concealed I know not of any thing else in his Reply that needs to be taken notice of but what will fall under the General Heads of this following Treatise wherein I have attempted at least to prove that our Congregations are not Schismatical or Unlawful though many of our Ministers were not Ordained by Diocesan Bishops though the Places we meet in be distinct from the Parish Churches and the Mode of our Worship in some things different from theirs And because I find the most Learned of our Adversaries condemn our Present Practice 1. As Inconsistent with Catholick Unity and Communion 2. As Guilty of Disobedience to Superiours Civil and Spiritual 3. And of Scandalous Indecencies and a Breach of good Rules and Order I shall examine the matter as carefully as I can under all these Particulars heartily Praying that whatever Censures I bring upon my self the Interests of Truth and Peace may be promoted ERRATA PAge 6. l. 38. r. retain'd p. 16. l. 13. r. consciousness p. 20. margent r. August p. 33. l. 38. r. Diaboli instinctu p. 37. l. 15. p. 38. l. 12. for rite r. right p. 117. l. 17. for Ananias r. Anianus Several lesser faults will occur which are referr'd to the Reader 's Candor and Emendation A Defence of the Vindication c. CHAP. 1. The true Notion of Catholick Unity distinguished into Political and Moral A Regular Ministry not Essential to this Unity The Judgment of the Fathers and others IT is the observation of an Ingenious Gentleman that the World has never been without some extraordinary word to fill mens mouths and furnish out Pamphlets and by which the Sentiments of men have been for the most part more absolutely governed than by the true reason of things for Reason concludes nothing without disquisition but the other like a kind of spell captivates and determines mens thoughts many times beyond the Relief of the most rational and convincing Arguments Amongst all the Charms of this nature which take place as the Interests and Designs of Parties or posture of Publick Affairs vary and direct I know of none that has been more unmercifully tortured and forced to speak things never intended by it than this of Unity It has been the Motto and Device of every Ascendant Party in the Militant Church to frighten the weak and timorous and chastise the more resolute opposers of Spiritual Usurpation and Tyranny The Papists for the good Service it has done them have preferr'd it to be the Seventh Note of their Church according to the Order in which their great Cardinal has marshall'd them and under the Umbrage thereof have raised the greatest Feuds and Divisions that ever infested the Christian World In their most bloody Persecutions barbarous and funest Tragedies they have still pretended to act by the Commission of Catholick Unity to advance her Interests
is the Assembly of all the Saints And again The City of the Lord is the Church of the Saints the Congregation of the Just St. Austin speaking of the visible or mixt Church De Bapt. Con. Donat. l. 7. c. 51. distinguishes it into two Nations Jerusalem and Babylon the Faithful and the Wicked the latter may be in the Visible Church but are not really of the Church and says The Rights of the Church belong only to the Faithful Amongst the Divines of the Reformed Churches the Incomparable Jurieu speaks as fully to the purpose as we can desire Pastoraâ— Lett. Vol. 1. p. 151. He describes the Unity of the Church by the Unity of the Spirit the Unity of Doctrine and the Unity of the Sacraments and exposes the Bishop of Meaux for making the Unity of the Ministry necessary to Salvation saying They must have lost their Senses that suffer themselves to be deluded with such Imaginations as if the Medicine must be given by such a hand or else it would not heal but poison them and adds Ah my Brethren open your Eyes upon this Folly and be ashamed thereof be sure every hand that gives you the true Doctrine is good in that respect the saving remedy of Truth heals from whomsoever it comes And the same Person reckoning up the Innovations of the Third Age mentions amongst the rest Cyprian's corrupt Idea of the Church thereby opening a Door to the most cruel Doctrine that ever was advanced of which he thus speaks He made a false Idea of the Unity of the Church which be encloses in one external Communion and because the Unity of one visible Head was not yet invented he imagined I know not what Unity of Episcopacy which all the Bishops did individually possess whereof nevertheless each administred but a part This inconsistent Imagination gave place afterwards for the substitution of one single Head to the end that a visible Head might be given to the Unity of the visible Communion which might be the Center thereof The Bishop of Meaux brags much of four or five Passages in Sr. Cyprian P. 149. that ancient Doctor goes so far as to say There can be no Martyr but in the Church that when a Man is separated from its Unity 't is in vain that he sheds his Blood for the Confession of Jesus Christ This Maxim in a large signification may be suffered for indeed there may be Hereticks who confessing the Name of Jesus Christ but on the other side ruining the Foundations of the Christian Religion may die for the Religion of Jesus Christ to no advantage But the Application which St. Cyprian makes thereof is one of those Faults over which wise Men ought to draw a Curtain he proceeds so far as to apply it to the Nevatians Now it must be known that the Novatians were good Christians a thousand times better than the Papists since they did not ruine any of the Foundations but retained and believed all the Christian Verities only they were something severe in Discipline and would not receive those that fell in times of Persecution to the Peace of the Church was not this a fine occasion to say as Cyprian did That a Novatian was no Christian O what temper are the Doctors of the Roman Church that make use of those Excesses which ought to be hid out of honour to those Great Men that fell into them It was Cyprian's Zeal for the Peace of the Church and the Harred he had for Schism that ran him into that Excess as to think or say P. 150 151. That out of I do not know what Exterior Unity of the Church a Man could not be saved and it was in this Age that Men begun to corrupt the Idea of the Church I have transcribed thus much out of the Letters of this Illustrious Divine because some noted Men amongst us lay much stress upon the Authority of Cyprian in this Notion or One Communion and One Episcopacy though they can make bold to censure him themselves in the case of Rebaptizing Ep. 68. Ed. Goulart p. 201. and the Peoples Duty of withdrawing from the Communion of a Debauched Bishop in which he is very Positive and I know not why they should deny us that Liberty they take themselves But it may be the Opinion of an Eminent Divine of the Church would go further with some People than either Scripture or Fathers or foreign Authors And is it not the common sence of that Church that has so often told the World there is none upon Earth so Learned and Wise as her self that without the Unity of Episcopacy there can be no true Church no Sacraments no Salvation I confess her Chieftains have been free enough of such kind of Language when it has been her Glory to tread upon the Necks of poor Dissenters but when the Tables were turned and she had to do with an Adversary that could make as great a Noise about Catholick Unity and Communion as her self she learned more Modesty and Discretion Though they all acquitted themselves well in their late Rencounters with the Papists yet I know none that have come off more cleverly than the Examiners of Bellarmine's Notes of the Church Upon the seventh Note the Union of the Members amongst themselves We have this Account of Church-Unity P. 164 165. There is the Unity of submitting to One Head the Lord Jesus There is the Unity of Professing the Common Faith that was once delivered to the Saints There is a Unity of Sacraments a Unity of Obedience to all the Laws and Institutions of Christ the Union of Christian Affection and Brotherly Kindness The Unity of Discipline and Government by retaining for substance the same Form that was left in the Church by the Aposties an Unity of Communion in the Worship and Service of God Now to speak clearly there ought to be all these Kinds and Instances of Unity in the Church but we see evidently they are not all thore I mean in every part and Member of the Church and therefore they are not all necessary to the being of a Church but some of them are and they are The Acknowledgment of One Lord the Profession of One Faith and Admission into the state of Christian Duties and Privileges by One Baptism And this is all that I can find absolutely necessary to the Being of a Church And if they be the same Persons that Vindicate the Discourse of the Notes they speak yet plainer thus Vindic. p. 20 22. In such a divided state of Christendom as this is meer External Unity and Communion cannot be the mark of a true Church All true Christian Churches are United in the most Essential things Ephes 4.5 6. They have one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and the Father of all and this makes them one Body animated by the same Holy Spirit which dwells in the whole Christian Church but still they are not One entire Communion
the World see his Talent in Controversie he should have taken up the true Question as it was laid before him VVhat is that which the Scripture calls Schism and should have proved in all those Instances where mention is made of it that there was not only Alienation of Affection but diversity of Communion and when he had done this it had been time enough to have boasted that he had answered Mr. H's Enquiry till then his Labour is impertinent and his Triumphs ridiculous But instead of observing this Proper and Necessary Method which by all the Laws of Argument he was bound to he ranges from the Point and Chimes upon those decantate terms Church Unity Communion Obedience Succession c. and is wonderfully pleased with the melodious Sound of words he does not understand for though he should from these Topicks prove the Practice of Dissenters to be sinful yet he cannot prove it to be that Sin which in Scripture is called Schism unless he can discover in it that Uncharitableness and want of Christian Affection which is the very thing called by that Name in sacred Writ This would be sufficient for the Defence of Mr. H's Enquiry without ever entring upon the Lawfulness or Fault of Nonconformity but since the Valiant Man has challenged us into that Field of Argument we have gone along with him into it and endeavoured to justifie our Practice not only from the Crime of Schism but any other of which it has been accused and how far we have succeeded in this Affair is with all possible respect referred to the Censure of the Learned and Moderate of both Perswasions The grand Impertinencies exposed in the Gentleman's first Paper he has endeavoured to defend in the latter but through the Common Misfortune of a Man that meddles with what he does not understand he is more bewildred and confounded than before and indeed of all things that ever set up for a Defence of so Learned a Party as the Episcopal I never saw any thing comparable to this for Stile and Argument unless it were the famous Works of Mrs. Eleanor James to which this Gentleman's Reply bears such a marvellous resemblance that a man would almost conclude it to be the issue of some Friendly Conference betwixt our Citizen and that renowned Heroine I wonder why he should be so much disturbed that the Vindicator has concealed his Name especially when he did not think fit to discover his own for T. W. Citizen of Chester is a Cypher so general as remits us to conjecture and common fame and leaves him room to escape if any such danger should happen as he portends concerning his adversary but what great matter is it who is meant by T. W. or what that mans name is that has adventured to encounter him it is not names but things that we have to examine and yet by his little contemptible menaces it is very apparent that he would gladly betake himself to their former way of Confuting Dissenters as that which was always found to be the most easie and effectual He Triumphs in the Effects of his former Paper one of which was few believed but that it was done by some Clergy-man who had prevailed with him to Print it in his Name That is to say they thought it beyond the longth of T. W. to write such a Book a shrewd sign that his Neighbours have no great Opinion of his Abilities if they thought such stuff was above him but as his Name is capable of giving little Reputation to another mans work so I dare say no Clergy man in Chester will grudge him the Honour of his own He would not be thought to have acted beneath himself in his Reply and therefore he magnifies the Stature of his Adversary and transforms the Vindicator into a Ship and by all means it must be one of the first Rate that was chosen to Attack and Fire all its Guns at his mighty Self so happy a thing it is to have Gazetts and News Letters always at hand where a man can never fail of being furnished with Admirable Metaphors but if we must needs speak in such Bombardick Language though the Vindicator was size enough for the Service assigned him yet there was no need of chusing a Man of War of the first Rate to engage a disabled Frigat Venus arta Mari. whose Mast and Tackling had suffered miserably in some hot Sea-fights heretofore But 't is no part of my design to vye with him in his Bantering Dialect I shall therefore apply my self in good earnest to the matter in Hand and in the Remainder of this Preface defend some lesser Passages in the Vindication which this Gentleman either does not understand or will not seem to do so and afterwards proceed to the more material parts of the Controversie In his first Paper he pretends to tell us of the Origination and first Existence of the Church which he dates only from the time of Pentecost mentioned Acts 2. The Vindicator thought there was Reason to find fault with that Account of the Matter not only because it excludes the Angels which but a few Lines before this Gentleman had told us were members of the Church but especially because it shuts out the Jewish Church as it stood in Old Testament Times but he has a Salvo ready such as it is and he that can content himself with such a one will never be at want for 〈…〉 â—oes The Church was never called Catholick before that 〈◊〉 â—ost the Wall of Partition not being broken down But if I mistake not he promised to shew us when the Church had its first Existence not when it acquired a new Title it 's an odd way of arguing The Church was first called Catholick at Pentecost therefore it had its first Existence then a miserable Consequence and yet as good as the Antecedent for it is not true that the Church was called Catholick at that time nor do we find it once so called in all the Scripture that I know of and the Wall of Partition was broken down at Christs Death when the Vail of the Temple was rent in sunder and if in spight of all Reason the Existence of a Church must needs commence with its acquest of a new Title he must still fix his Epocha much lower and yet I know not why the Name Catholick may not if men please be attributed to the Jewish Church which was before its Apostacy the whole and the true Visible Church of God upon Earth The Vindicator told him nothing could be proved from the bare Name of Bishops in Scripture-times to favour our English Prelacy till the Power of those Bishops the Extent of their Dioceses the Quality of their Under-Officers the Modes of their Worship and Terms of Communion be proved to be the same with ours or liable to the same Exceptions To this the Gentleman replies I cannot understand this last Sentence or liable to the same Exceptions unless he would make
it plainly speaks of that Extraordinary Mission of the Apostles to the Gentile World by them as Men infallibly inspired for that End were the great Doctrines of the Gospel delivered and the perpetual Rule of Faith laid down this they must by no means have presumed to do had they not been sent of God and yet without such a Gospel the World had never believed on Christ and this Apostolical Doctrine is still the great Instrument by which God converts Souls sometimes by reading of it themselves sometimes by hearing it from others whether duely ordained or no sometimes by bringing it to their Remembrance when they are neither reading nor hearing it though the usual way is by the Preaching of a faithful Ordained Ministry but to say that it is never done by other means cannot be proved by Scripture and is evidently contradicted by Experience I cannot but have a great value for the Judgment of Monsieur Claude in this particular and shall therefore transcribe his words in that learned Treatise before mentioned Histor Def. Part 4. p. 54. viz. It is the Church that produces the Ordinary Ministry and not the Ordinary Ministry that produces the Church The Church was the fruit of the Extraordinary Ministry of the Apostles and Evangelists That Ministry of theirs produc'd it at first and not only produc'd it but it has always made use of that means or that source for its Subsistence and we may truly say That it yet produces it and that it will produce it unto the End of the World For it is the Faith that makes and always will make the Church and it is the Ministry of the Apostles that makes and always will make the Faith It is their Voice that calls Christians together at this day it is their word that essembles them and their teaching that unites them It is certain that the Ministry of the Apostles was singular that is to say only tyed to their Persons without Succession without Communication or Propagation but it ought not to be thought that it was also transitory as that of other Men for it is perpetual in the Church Death has not shut their Mouths as it has others they speak they instruct they incessantly spread abroad Faith and Holiness among the Souls of Christians and there is not another Fountain from whence those Virtues can descend but from them If any demand of us what is the perpetual Voice that we ascribe unto them We answer That it is the Doctrine of the New Testament where they have set down all the Efficacy of their Ministry and the whole virtue of that Word which gave a Being to the Church there is their true Chair and Apostolick See there is the Center of Christian Unity there it is that they incessantly call Men and joyn them into a Society But as to the ordinary Ministry we cannot say the same thing of them it is not their Voice as distinct from that of the Apostles that begets the Faith that assembles Christians into a Society or that produces the Church They are no more but meer Dispensers of the words of the Apostles or external Instruments to make us the better understand their Voice to speak properly it is not the Voice of the ordinary Pastors that produces Faith where it was not before it is the word of the Apostles themselves They are no more but those External Guides that God has established in the Church to lead Men to the Scripture and even such Guides as cannot hinder us from going thither of our selves if we will Therefore there is a great difference betwixt these two sorts of Ministers the one preceded the Church the other follows it the one has an independent and sovereign Authority with Infallibility on its side the other is exposed to Vices Disorders Errors and humane Weaknesses inferior to and depending on the Church And indeed to affirm that no Man can be truly converted but by a Regular Ministry would involve the Minds of Men in endless Perplexities A Man must know all those things that belong to the due mission of the Preacher and must be assured that all those met in the person by whose Ministry he was helped to believe before he can know that he has true Faith this would keep persons in a dark and uncomfortable state all their days especially if a Line of uninterrupted Succession be necessary to a true Mission for then a Man must be able to prove that the Bishop that ordained his Converter was ordained by another Bishop and that by another and so up to the Apostles which because no man in the World can be morally assured of it is impossible for any Man to know that he has true Faith This is an insuperable difficulty on the one hand And on the other those Persons that know they have true Faith by the powerful effects of it upon their Hearts and Lives must conclude from hence that their Preachers were duely ordained and called otherwise they could nor have been instrumental in their Conversion and yet this would not be true for doubtless there are many honest Souls that fear God and work Righteousness amongst those Sects that have no Regular Ministry amongst them So that this Assertion would rob many Souls of the comfort of a true Faith because of the uncertainty of their Ministers Mission and it would confirm others in an irregular and unauthorized Ministry because of the cerainty of their Faith I hope by this time I may venture to conclude That the essential Unity of the Church consists in Gospel-Faith and Love hereby Men are made Saints and unired to Christ and Members of the Catholick Church Did I think the Chester Gentleman would not yet take it I would be so civil to him as to and some more Testimonies That of Clemens Alexandranus is apposite enough The ancient Catholick Church is but one only Church Strom. l. 7. and assembles in the Unity of one only Faith by the Will of one only God and Ministration of one only Lord all those who were before Predestanted to be just having known them before the Foundation of the World In Cant. Hom. 1. In Maten 16. De Ar◠Patr. l. 1. c. 3 In Psal 35. De coronà indilitis So likewise Origen The Church is the Society of the Saints and else where The Church which God builds consists in those who are upright and full of those Thoughts Words and Actions which lead to Blessedness St. Amtrose tells us The Assembly of the Righteous is God's Tabernacle and that the Saints are the Members of Jesus Christ Terrullian says Where there are Three there is a Church though they be Laicks for every one lives by his own Faith S. In Job c. 26. Jerome speaks to the same purpose saying The Church which is the Assembly of all Saints is the Pillar and Ground of Truth because she has in Jesus Christ an Eternal firmness In Cant. Hom. 1. and elsewhere The Church
the whole Christian Church should be and therefore a Church that divides it self from that Ecclesiastical Body to which it did once belong if it have just and necessary Reasons for what it does is wholly blameless nay commendable for it if it have not it sins according to the Nature and Aggravation of the Crime but still may be a Member of the Catholick Church and still enjoy all the Privileges of the Catholick Church the Communion of Saints and Promises of Everlasting Life which shews how the Holy Catholick Church in the Creed may be One Norwithstanding all those Divisions of Christendom which are caused by the Quarrels of Bishops and Disputes about Ecclesiastical Canons and Jurisdiction Thus have these Learned and Sober Gentlemen made up those defects which the Lord Verulam complained of in his day Advance of Learning l. 9. p. 472 473. he sets down amongst the Deficients and recommends us a wholesome and profitable work a Treatise touching his degrees of Unity in the City of God and he tells us It exceedingly imports the Peace of the Church to define what and of what Latitude those points are which discorporate Men from the Body of the Church and cast them out and quite Casheir them from the Communion and Fellowship of the Faithful The bounds of Christian Community are set down one Faith one Baptism and not one Rite one Opinion the Coat of our Saviour was entire without Seam but the Garment of the Church was of divers Colours In the mean time it is very likely he that makes mention of Peace shall receive that answer Jehu gave to the Messengers Is it Peace Jehu What hast thou to do with Peace Turn and follow me Peace is not the matter that many seek after but parties and siding To conclude this point Dr. Stilling-fleet Irenic p. 121. God will one day convince men that the Union of the Church lies more in the Unity of Faith and Affection than in the Uniformity of doubtful Rites and Ceremonies since the Unity of the Church consists in the true Catholick Faith and Christian Affection whereby Men are knit to Christ the Head and to one another None are out of the Unity of the Church but those that are destitute of these fundamental Graces and to affirm this of Protestant Dissenters in general is a piece of Diabolism which the Gospel abhors and Humanity it self will be ashamed of We must first prove that Men are without Faith before we can prove that they are without the Church and not with the Papists condemn them as void of Faith because out of the external Communion of their Church It is a very foolish and misleading method to prove our interest in the Faith by our interest in the Church as if we must first know the true Church and that we are in it before we can know the true Faith or that it is in us this way of arguing has been always condemned by Protestant Writers The Scripture Test for the trial of our Faith is a serious endeavour to perfect Holiness in the fear of God to be careful to maintain good works c. And indeed nothing but gross Heresie and known constant Immoralities can warrant us in saying that any who profess to be Christians are destitute of the Faith and whether Dissenters in England do not generally shew as much of the fear of God both in their Fumilies and common Conversation as their Neighbours must be left to the Consciences of all observing Men here and the righteous judgment of God hereafter And I hope they may modestly justifie their pretensions to Christian Love and Charity too I am sure their quiet and peaceable behaviour under so many years severe Persecution will plead more strongly for them than for those by whom they suffered such things all the World will take notice how unable those Gentlemen were to bear a very small share of those Severities themselves which they had for a long time so liberally inflicted upon others I am far from the thoughts of charging these things upon the Episcopal Party in general or even the Clergy themselves but all the Nation will bear witness 't is too true concerning those Bishops and others that were formerly most uneasie and troublesom to their Dissenting Brethren How odd a thing was it for this Gentleman to begin his Book with Panegyricks upon Peace when the avowed design is to justifie all those Violations thereof that have been the scandal of the Protestant Religion He tells us of a blessed Legacy left us by our dying Redeemer and why then should we not be suffered to enjoy it I am sure we should have been glad to have lived in the obscurest places and circumstances where we might have enjoyed that Sacred Bequest but there were a Generation of Men amongst us who having spent their own Legacies would needs deprive us of ours unless we would surrender the dearer Peace of our own minds I am afraid it is the conscienciousness of their former guilt that makes many of them so very suspicious and jealous of Dissenters as they are they can hardly believe that we have any Charity for them because they know how little they have discovered towards us And thus the remembrance of what is past pushes them on to farther abuses instead of producing fruits meet for Repentance whereas I do verily believe the generality of Dissenters can heartily forgive all that 's past and would be glad to see any ground of hope that the same men would not greedily embrace the first opportunity of acting over again their former excesses CHAP. II. Of Obedience to our Governours Spiritual and Civil That the Jurisdiction of our English Bishops is not Jure Divino but Presbyters have as much Power by the Law of God as they An Answer to the Gentleman's Allegations out of Antiquity The Judgment of the Fathers and Councils and School-men and our first Reformers and the Divines of the Transmarine Churches I Hope we have safely passed the Ordeal of Catholick Unity we now proceed to defend our selves from the dreadful Accusation of Disobedience to Superiors for though our Non-Conformity should not utterly exclude us from the Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church yet if it involve us in the guilt of Sedition contempt of our Lawful Governours and disobedience to their just Commands our Cause would be bad enough and we could by no means justifie it before God or the World The Indictment charges upon us a twofold Disobedience First Disobedience to our Spiritual Governours the Bishops And secondly To the Civil Magistrate likewise but we do verily believe our selves to be innocent and desire an impartial hearing of our just Defence which will proceed in this Method 1. We plead that Bishops have no Power by the Law of God but what Presbyters have as well as they 2. That the whole Jurisdiction of our English Bishops and Power of their Canons is derived from the Civil Magistrate and Laws
Societies off from the Unity of the Catholick Church and then the whole thread of his discourse is spoiled which every where makes Schism to be Separation from the Communion of the Catholick Church out of which he says truly there is no true Ministry nor Sacrament 2. If all Schismatical Societies are Unchurched then either they lose the Apostolical Succession and Power or else there may be Apostolical Power where there is no Church And it would be very strange to find a Power to Ordain and to Administer Sacraments in Societies where there can be no Ministry nor Sacraments Church Power without a Church a Right to Gevern the Church by Apostolical Succession and yet no Right to the Church or any of its Priviledges The power which is an adjunct without the Church which is its Subject These are mysteries which I am no more worthy to understand than that of Transubstantiation 3. If the Papal Churches through which this Power is conveyed be not Schismatical then he makes the Founders of his own Church so for he says There 's no way of holding Communion with the Universal Church Arch-Rebel p. 6. but by holding Communion with the Particular Churches we live amongst if they be not Schismatical Instead of speaking plainly to these things he asks us whether Re-ordination of those that come over from the Church of Rome to the Reformed was ever required We answer No and can give a good reason for it upon our Principles but it will be hard to do so upon his We do not think the validity of the Ministry depends upon such Line nor do we believe that either Schism or Heresie as such do utterly destroy their Church state indeed a renunciation of any of the fundamental Articles of our Faith would do it but every heresie will not We believe the Church of Rome to be both Schismatical and Heretical but do not therefore say their Church state is utterly lost though greatly corrupted for then it would be hard to allow their Ordinations especially if we thought Ordination so necessary and that the Validity thereof depended upon the Administrators as this Gentleman affirms Therefore where he says the Vindicator attempts to unchurch the Church of England because our Bishops derive their consecration from Rome he utterly mistakes himself the Vindicator spoke ad hominem and only shewed him what would be the consequence of his own arguing He tells us It is the Judgement of all Reformed Divines that formal Schism can never invalidate the power of formal and regular Ordination But if those Reformed Divines thought as be that formal Schism utterly excludes out of the Catholick Church they must needs acknowledge that where there is formal Schism there can be no such things as regular Ordination and 't is strange this Gentleman that makes Schism such an unchurching thing shall talk of a regular Ordination in a formal Schism one would think the regularity would have been spoiled if the Essence thereof should happily escape Dr. Sherlock Vindic. of Prot. Princ. p. 107 108. And yet some of our Doctor make this the very reason why the Dissenters Ordinations are Null because they ordain in a Schism granting that in case of necessity they may do it But as to the Reformed Divines if they allow the Ordination of Schismaticks to be valid it is either because they think the validity of the Orders does not depend upon the quallfications of the person conferring there or that Schism does not necessarily exclude a Person or People out of the Communion of the Catholick Church and here lies this Gentlemans Error he would tack the candid conclusion of the Reformed formed Churches to the unmerciful Premises of his own but they will by no means comport This Notion of the Necessity of an uninterrupted Line of Succession for the conveyance of Power like Water by Pipes and Conduits the Vindicator made bold to call a Whimsie which has exceedingly raised the Gentlemans Spleen A Whimsie says he that 's some Phantastick device or the Creature of an unst able unsettled Brain which being applied to Prelates that bear the Authority of Christ can be no less than Blasphemy But the Vindicator never charged this Whimsie upon the Prelates the greatest part of whom I dare say will not thank this man for hanging their Authority upon so slender a thread 't is his own Whimsie and so silly a one that we will never charge it on any that do not expresly own it and yet if a Man should venture to say of some Prelates that they are unstable and their Brains unsettled as namely the late Bishops of Oxford and Ely c. I know not how it can be proved Blasphemy nor will any man call it so that has not made an Idol of the Mitre or the Head that wears it unless these clamours proceed from the same Principle with those of the Ephesians who were as tender of their Diana as these men are of the Hierarchy and this Image of Succession that dropt down from Jupiter After all we have said against the Necessity of such a Line yet if this Gentleman or any for him will clear it we will have as much Benefit by it as himself having largely proved that Presbyters are the same with Bishops by the Law of God and therefore our Ordinations are as valid as theirs but we will never so far betray the Honour of the Church nor the Peace of mens Consciences as to make all depend upon that which is impossible to be proved and certainly if it be a thing of that consequence this Gentleman makes it the proof should be as strong and clear as that of the most essential Doctrines of our Religion and to say as Mr. Dodwel is forced at last that a Presumptive Title may serve is to unsay all and to confess that it is not the reality of such a Line on which the Power depends but the strong Conceit and Presumption of men which is the worst Basis that Episcopacy has ever yet been fixed upon 2. The second thing in our Plea is That the whole Jurisdiction of our English Bishops and the Power of their Canons is derived from the Civil Magistrate and Laws of the Land And this I think will follow from the former if this Prelatical Power be not from the Laws of God it must be from the Laws of the Land Here I expect some will reply Datur tertium there is the Jus Ecclesiasticum resulting from the Customs and Canons of the Church by which Bishops formerly laid claim to this Power even when there was no Christian Magistrate but this will be soon answered For 1. This Jus Ecclesiasticum has not the proper nature of a Law nor does it oblige by virtue of strict Authority we are not bound in Conscience by the Canons of Ancient Foreign Churches any farther than the matter of them brings the stamp of Scripture along with it Grot. de Impsum Potestat p. 168. The
and to make her glorious in the World when in the mean time Christianity it self has been rendred odious and contemptible Ridente Turce nec dolente Judaeo Turks Jews and Pagans have beheld her flames with pleasure and warmed themselves and said Aha thus we would have it It must not be denied but that Catholick Unity where it is so happy as to be understood acquaints us with something very sacred and venerable of which we cannot be too fond or tender it bears the Image of Divinity and if it were not in it self a most excellent thing the name of it could never be made so specious a pretence It has been often and confidently asserted that all the Dissenters in England have departed from the Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church This lies as a mighty prejudice in the minds of many both against our way Arch-Rebel p. 28. Reply p. 1. and persons too and their common Inference from hence is That we are out of a State of Salvation have no right to any of the Promises of the Gospel that all our Hopes are unwarrantable and groundless Fancies that we are contemners of the Peace and Unity which Christ has bequeathed to his Church and if they will demonstrate that our case is indeed such as they describe it we will not persist in it a day longer for we cannot be so fond of the Inconveniencies of Non-Conformity here as meerly for the sake thereof to purchase to our selves greater Miseries hereafter But that we may evince how void of Reason and Humanity the Sentence which they have past upon us is let us enquire wherein the Catholick Unity and Communion of the Church consists and then try whether none of our Dissenting Congregations be within the Verge of it By this Catholick Unity our Adversaries understand not that which is accidental may be present or absent without the destruction of the Subject which some Churches may have and other True Churches may be without for then it would not serve their purpose which is to conclude all that want this Unity to be in a State of Damnation and indeed it is the truest acceptation of the word to make it signifie Essential Universal Unity Uniformity in accidentals belonging more properly to the common place of order in this sense therefore we shall speak of it that we may come up as close to their thoughts as we can Nothing then belongs to the Catholick Unity of the Church but what belongs to the being of the Church that which makes it a Church makes it one Ens Unum being convertible and nothing can dissolve its Unity which does not destroy its Essence and certainly the being and the state of the Church must not be confounded Many things are required to the due and orderly state and form in which the Church ought to be and appear in the World and which may contribute to her stability beauty and enlargement which suppose her Essence but do not constitute it This Essential Catholick Unity whereof we speak may be distinguished into Political and Moral Political whereby all the True Members of the Church are united unto Christ the Head and that is by true Faith And Moral by which they are United one to another and that is by Christian Love which in some degree always follows the former those that have a mind to it may quarrel with the terms of this distinction but if I may but express my meaning by them I shall not be at all concerned about it 1. The Political Unity is that which does primarily necessarily and immediately constitute that Sacred Society the Church of God which was therefore by the Primitive Christians as well as our first Reformers frequently known by this short definition Catus fidelium the Congregation of the Faithful sometimes the Body of Christ the Temple of God Divin Instit l. 4. c. 13. and such like So Lactantius Ecclesia est verum Templum Dei quod non in parietibus est sed in corde fide hominum qui credunt in eum vocantur fideles The Church is the True Temple of God which does not consist in the bare Walls but in the Hearts and Faith of Men that believe on him and are called Faithful and before him Ignatius in the same sense calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Congregation Ep. ad Trall vid. Isidor Pelus Epist l. 2. Ep. 247. the Assembly of the Saints To the same purpose speak all those Fathers who affirm that the Church was built upon the Faith of Peter not upon his Person or Authority a great Cloud whereof the Illustrious Chamier has collected to our hand proving thereby that our Union with the Church De Oecumen Pont. l. 11. c. 4. is founded in our believing on Christ the True Foundation and Chief Corner Stone nothing therefore can dissolve this Union but what is inconsistent with True Faith in Christ And this agrees fully with the tenour of Holy Scripture which every where lays the Salvation of Men upon their believing Ephes 3.17.4.13 1 Pet. 2.6 Behold I lay in Zion a Chief Corner Stone elect precious and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded By this Faith Men are United to Christ and therefore cannot be divided from his Body which is the Church St. Paul calls the Church of God the House or Family of God and how a Man comes to be a Member of that Noble Family we are told Eph. 2.18 by the Spirit i. e. working of Faith we have access unto the Father and are no more Strangers and Forreigners but Fellow-Citizens of the Saints Gal. 6.10 and of the Houshold of God and therefore this Houshold of God is elsewhere called the Houshold of Faith In short nothing is more evident than that the Apostles received Men and Women into the Visible Church by Baptism upon the Profession of their Faith in Christ and thereby invested them in all the Sacred Priviledges of the New Covenant which belong only to the Church of God This Excellent Grace of Faith from whence our Union with Christ and his Body the Church doth flow is a very comprehensive thing it includes our solemn and hearty Choice of the Eternal God as our chiefest Happiness and hereby all the True Members of the Church are United in the Love and Service of One God and so distinguished from the Pagan World and in an humble affiance in One Mediator in whose hand alone they are brought back unto God and hereby are distinguished from Mahometans and those that call themselves Deists they are also United in the gracious Influences of One blessed Spirit and hereby are distinguished from all impenitent sensual persons who have grieved and quenched that Spirit And they are hereby United in One Rule of Faith Worship and Obedience not that they all understand this Rule alike or are fully conformed unto it but in this they agree that they all take it for their Rule
and endeavour an Universal Compliance with it and are distinguished hereby from all that reject this Law and set up any other in opposition to it This Faith likewise Unites them in One Baptism not that they all agree in the External Wasâ—â—â—â— and Modes of Administration but in that which the Apostle Peter makes to 〈◊〉 Substance of it not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a good Conscience towards God 1 Pet. 2.21 when a Mans Conscience returns a consenting Answer to the Gospel Proposals and by a solemn Self-dedication becomes Sacred to God he has then the Substance of that Ordinance This is the True Catholick Unity described in the 4th of Ephes 5 6. There is one Body and one Spirit even as you are called in one Hope of your Calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and the Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all 2. The Moral Unity by which the Members are knit one to another is that of Love This is the Unity of the Spirit which is to be held in the bond of Peace and will always flow from the other by a kind of Spiritual Sympathy and Sensation but it must be acknowledged this admits of various degrees and is subject to sinful Declensions Emulation Passion Interest Misunderstanding of Persons and Things may very much weaken the Bond of Amity but it must be habitually in every True Christian and he that has no brotherly kindness for those that appear to him True Believers can never know that he has passed from Death to Life Mistakes and Weakness may create Jealousie and too great Distances even amongst great and good Men. Paul and Barnabas from different apprehensions about the management of their Work proceed to a parting one from another And too many Brethren that have all the same Father and are all bound for the same home cannot forbear falling out by the way The Corruption of Nature both fullies mens Graces that they do not shine forth so clearly as otherwise they would and also darkens their sight that they cannot so well discern the Virtues of each other and where the Eye is dim and the Object clouded too no wonder if misapprehensions and uncharitable surmises arise and men mistake one another for Enemies and fall a quarrelling when perhaps a true Light would let them see they are all Friends But certainly as far as Believers understand one another they have Christian Affection one for another and if they knew more of the Truth of each others Christianity their Mutual Love would be greatly encreased And a shyness in some tempers and unwillingness to converse more freely and often together keep up mens prejudices and hinder their desired Union and yet they have still a fervent Love for the Church in general though their Affections be misplaced as to particular persons This Brotherly-kindness where it is prevalent will oblige the Members to have the same care one for another not envying but rejoycing at each others Heath Beauty and Improvement it would make them sensible of each others use ulness and service they would not think any part superfluous or tye it up from performing its duty towards the good of the whole the Eye would not say to the Hand I have no need of thee This would not permit them to reproach and despise each other for their blemishes and deformities but oblige them to cover the same with the greatest candour and civility and to bestow more abundant honour upon those parts that may be thought less honourable This is that great Law of Love which the King of the Church has given to all his Disciples as the Bond of Peace amongst themselves and the great Characteristick by which they shall be distinguished from others John 13.35 By this shall all men know that they are Christ's Disciples if they love one another Where the Soul is wholly destitute of this all pretences of Love to God or Faith in Christ are false and vain 1 John 4.20 For he that loves not his Brother whom he has seen how can he love God whom he has not seen And true Faith will work by Love I know this Account of Catholick Unity as consisting in Faith and Love will not meet with general approbation Many will reject it as to spiritual who have placed their hopes of Salvation in being of such a Party and in a Zealous Observation of the Rites and Ceremonies of that Communion in which they are these are too sensless to be argued with That can suppose the Son of God would be incarnate and crucified only to teach men a particular kind of dress and fashionable gestures and a form of words c. whilst their Souls are under the dominion of sin and they have not learned to live soberly righteously and godly in an Evil World Many will censure it as too narrow excluding from the Church all formal and insincere pretenders to Christianity but I suppose when we understand one another we shall not much differ about this it is certain in Foro Dei none but true Disciples are true Church-Members but in Foro Ecclesiae all that seem to be so must be so accounted When we say such a one is a Member of the Visible Church we mean he is visibly a Member of the Church that is he appears so to us and we are obliged to think so of him till he discovers the contrary but whether he be really so or no God only knows And most will condemn this Notion as too large and general including even those that have not a Regular Ministry amongst them nor are joyned to any particular Congregation duly organized And here indeed the main difficulty we have to encounter is about the Unity of the Ministry and how far that is essential to the Unity of the Catholick Church And I freely grant every True Member of the Church of Christ will give great deference to the Ministerial Office and whoever they be that will presume to ridicule the Function and despise its just Powers cannot in reason be thought to have the Faith and Charity of the Gospel But there must be a great difference made betwixt contemning the Ministry and questioning the Rights of this or that particular person to the Office or scrupling the Term oâ— Made of his Administrations or preferring another before him whose Qualifications and Conduct are more answerable to the great Ends of that Office But though I do verily believe it is essential to Catholick Church Unity that every Member love and honour the Ministerial Function yet I dare by no means affirm it to be equally necessary that every Person be under the Conduct of a Regular and duely called Ministry this indeed is requisite to the flourishing State of the Church and all are obliged to pray for it and endeavour it in their several Spheres of Activity but it is not absolutely Necessary to the Being of the
Church or the Salvation of her Members My Reasons are these 1st This would be to confound the Unity of the Church with its Order which must be distinguished here where we speak of Essential Unity that which belongs to the Order of the Church always supposes its Essence a thing must first be before it be capable of Order Thus the Excellent Monsieur Claude argues Histor Def. of the Reform Part 4. p. 57. To admit that to be a true Church where the Ministry is and deny that to be a true Church where the Ministry is not is a vain deceitful and illusory way of reasoning For the true Church naturally goes before the Ministry and does not depend upon the Ministry but the Ministry on the contrary depends upon it as in the Civil Society the Magistracy depends upon the Society and not the Society on the Magistracy In the Civil Society the first thing that must be thought on is That Nature made Men afterwards we conceive that she Assembled and United them together And lastly from that Union which could not subsist without Order Magistracy proceeded It is the same thing in a Religious Society The first thing that Grace did was to produce Faith in the hearts of Men after having made them believe she united them and formed a mutual Communion between them and because their Communion ought not to be without Order and good Government from thence the Ministry arose So that a Lawful Ministry is after the true Church and depending upon it And a great deal more to the same purpose 2dly This would make it utterly unlawful for the Laity to Reform the Church from idolatry or other Abuses unless the Clergy would joyn with them in it and so would condemn those Princes and Churches in Germany and elsewhere that Reformed without their Bishops yea against their Wills and repeated clamorous Prohibitions Either the Popish Bishops and Clergy were the regular Ministry of those Churches before the Reformation or no if they were not then there was no Regular Ministry amongst them and the Line of Succession failed and either they had no Churches or else their Churches reâ—ain'd their Beings without the Ministry But if the Popish Clergy were the Regular Ministry Then either those that Reformed without them were cut off from the Unity of the Catholick Church and Reformed themselves into Hell as the Papists speak or else they were still in the Unity of the Church though at present without a Regular Ministry Those that will needs thrust the Unity of the Episcopacy into the Desinition of the Catholick Church would do well to consider Every Nation was not so happy as England in having Bishops so willing to comply with their Rulers in a Secession from Rome or in having Rulers so Potent and resolved as ours were And yet God forbid any Protestant should say they ought to have delayed their Reformation till they had disgusted Princes and complying Bishops to lead them on Surely the lawfulness of our Departure from Rome does not depend upon such contingencies How few Bishops there were that gave the least countenance to Luther's Proceedings none can be ignorant that has read any thing of the History of that Reformation the Ministry they had was generally chosen by themselves out of the most learned of the Laicks some few of the Priests and Monks falling in the Nobles themselves sometimes devoted their Gifts to the Service of the Church as the Prince of Anhalt Du Plessis Sadeel and others they never insisted upon an uninterrupted Line but maintained That where the true Faith and Doctrine were there was the true Church Claudes Hist Def. Part 4. p. 58. and that it is the Call of the Church and the Approbation of the most competent Judges therein that makes a Lawful Call of Persons to that Office and that the Church has a full and entire Right to set up Ministers for its Government supposing it have the true Faith 3dly If there can be no true Church without a Regular Ministry what becomes of the Being of a Church when its Ministers are dead and banished and no other yet chosen By this Notion the Church must be dissolved and die with them and the Death of the Shepherd must be the Damnation of the Flock for if the Regular Ministry of each particular Church be the great Ligament by which that part is fastned to the whole it must needs follow that upon the Failure of the Ministry it falls off from the Body and consequently from Christ the Head If it be replied that such Societies remain in the Unity of the Church whilst they desire a true Ministry and endeavour to get one though at present they are without it That 's as much as we demand for then it is not essential to Catholick Unity that there be a Regular Ministry but that there be a desire of it and no doubt all true Christians have such desires and the great difference amongst them is which Ministry is most Regular and it is their apprehension of the greater Regularity of theirs than of others that makes each side of them prefer their own before others In short if we admit the absolute Necessity of such a Ministry under whose Conduct every Church must be what shall we say of those Scandalous Tumults and Contests that have happened about the Election of Bishops Vott de Dâ—sp Caus Pap. l. 2. § 2. Ch. 3. p. 143. one Party choosing this another that sometimes falling to downright blows and the stronger Side winning the day such things often happened in the earlier Ages of the Church and sometimes the Controversie was a long time undecided and yet far be it from us to think the Essence of those Churches was lost during those Contentions it is true some have invented a Metropolitan or Patriarch to whom those Churches remained United in the vacancy of the Episcopal Seer to save the Body from perishing and over these the Pope as the principal visible Head of Unity but I hope I need not prove that there may be Catholick Unity without these I expect to be assaulted with that Text Rom. 10.14 15. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they Preach unless they be sent by this sending I know many understand Regular Ordination to the Work of the Ministry and they would infer from hence that none can believe but by thâ— Preaching of a rightly Ordained Ministry which must therefore be necessary to the very being of the Church But it is certain the Word and Works of God never contradict one another and therefore this cannot be the sence of the place for we read of great Conversions made by the Preaching of those that were never so Ordained Ruffinus l. 1. c. 10. as those of the Abyssines by Frumentius and Edesius and the Roman Merchants and the Iberians by a Captive Maid as for this Text
but divide and separate from each other this we will grant is a very great Fault but yet if they Communicate in such things as make one Church their Quarrels and Divisions may hurt themselves but cannot destroy the Unity of the Church for the Church is one Body not meerly by the Agreement of Christians among themselves but by the Institution of Christ who has made all those that profess the same Faith and are united in the same Sacraments to belong to the same Body to be his own Body And therefore Christians are never Exhorted to be One Body for that they are if they be Christians as the Apostle expresly asserts but they are exhorted to live in Unity and Concord because they are One Body Eph. 4.1 2 3. And in the 25th Page Those who profess the true Faith of Christ without any corrupt Mixtures are Sound and Orthodox Churches other Churches are more or less pure according to the various Corruptions of their Faith And thus it is with respect to the Christian Sacraments and Worship too I hope this will be acknowledged very pertinent to our purpose but if we desire it he will yet speak more plainly for when his Adversary had said Succession of Doctrine without Succession of Office is a poor Plea He answers I must needs tell him it is a much better Plea than Succession of Doctrine for I am sure P. 53. there is not a safe Communion where there is not a Succession of Apostolical Doctrine but whether the want of a Succession of Bishops will in all Cases unchurch admits of a greater Dispute I am sure true Faith in Christ with a true Gospel Conversation will save Men and some Learned Romanists defend the old Definition of the Church Jo. Laun. Ep. Vol. 8. Ep. 13. that it is Coetus Fidelium the Company of the Faithful and will not admit Bishops or Pastors into the desinition of a Church I have e'en tired my self with these Quotations not for the sake of our Cause but out of Civility to the Citizen of Chester and Men of his Temper that by taking up a false Idea of Catholick Unity to the Exclusion of all those that have not Diocesan Episcopacy are animated by it to the greatest Severities against them concluding that those who shut themselves out of the Catholick Church are well enough served if they be cast out of Civil Saciety and denied the common Rights and Privileges of Mankind Let us now examine this Gentieman's Notions about the Unity of the Church which may give us a little diversion in our Journey He charges the Vindicator with mis-reporting his Description of Unity Reply p. 16. omitting that which was necessary to be added and if he did so he was very much to blame But let us turn to the places and try whether it be so or no. Those words out of which we must draw his Notion of Unity are these Though there be a Multiplication of Churches by the encrease of Believers yet no variation they are all one with that Church first mentioned in Jerusalem and all One with one another being all United into one Spiritual Society or Body under One head Jesus Christ Arch-Rebei p. 2. and are in all things the same with that first Church United in One Baptism and in One Faith all partake at the same Table and so all United in the visible external Worship and Service of God This Account of the Unity of the Church the Vindic thus Contract All Churches are One as United into One Body Vindic. p. 16. whereof Christ is the Head having the same Baptism the same Faith and the same Eucharist Now what has he omitted that belonged to this description of Unity why he should have added They are all One with that Church first mentioned at Jerusalem but that he left out and he should have added They are all one with one another and again They are in all things the same with that first Church but he omitted both these A very dangerous Omission But pray what do all these three Sentences amount to more than this single Assertion the Catholick Church is One Not one of them answers the Question wherein it is One it is no explanation of the Unity of the Church to say it is all One with the Primitive Church and all One with it self and the same with that first Church still the Question is wherein is the Church One wherein does the Unity of all true Churches consist For to say they are One because they are One and because they are the same and all One with one another is a most vain and ridiculous Tautology which the Vindicator was so civil as to pass by only fixing upon those words that tell us wherein they are One even as united into One Body under One Head having the same Baptism Faith and Eucharist and so united in the Worship of God the other Phrases barely assert the Unity these describe and explain it But this Gentleman knows not when he is well dealt with but will force us to expose him whether we will or no. The Vindicator having thus Collected out of his words a description of Unity as consisting in the same Lord and in the same Baptism Faith and Eucharist agrees to it with this Explanation that is the same for Substance for it does not appear that they all agreed in the Primitive Times in the same Circumstances and infers from hence that there may be Catholick Unity without Diocesan Episcopacy and Ceremonies neither of which he put into his Description The Gentleman's reply to this is very remarkable for thus it goes It is plain all that he drives at here is that there may be a true Church-Unity without Episcopacy which Doctrine is a meer Innovation c. But why did he not then insert the Unity of Episcopacy in his Description If he left it out it was not to be expected the Vindication should foist it in for him as he now would do himself but it is too late and to add it now is not a Defence of his former Paper but an Amendment rather such as it is but indeed rejected by the most Judicious of the Episcopal Writers as has been already evinced to which I will here add one citation more that I may either recover him out of his frenzy or leave him inexcusable 't is the Learned Author of The Summary of the late Controversies betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome P. 123. He very well distinguishes between External Ecclesiastical Communion and the Unity of the Church and says The Unity of the Catholick Church consists in One Faith and Worship and Charity that indeed such external Communion when occasion offers shews that we are all Disciples of the same common Lord and Saviour and own each other for Brethren But the Church may be the One Body of Christ without being One Ecclesiastical Body under One Governing Head which 't is impossible
Oecumenius who wrote above a thousand years after Christ nay the very Postscripts themselves prove that they are of much later date than the Epistles for in one of them Phrygia is called Pacatiana which was not the name of it till above three hundred years after Christ when it was conquered by one Pacatius a Roman General and after him called Pacatiana and in the Postscript to Titus it is said the Epistle was writ from Nicopolis which it could not be since in the Epistle it self Paul speaks of Nicopolis a place whither he designed to go and Winter and would have Titus come to him there come to me to Nicopolis for there not here I design to Winter these Postscripts therefore betray themselves by their own language And he should have told us what there is in the word Angel that will demonstrate a Diocesan Bishop but instead thereof tells us a long story out of Dr. Hammond which is worse than impertinent for it affirms that those Angels were not Diocesan Bishops but Metropolitanes or Arch-Bishops that had Bishops under them Vid. Dr. Sherlock Vindic. of Prot. Princ. p. 71. now our learned Church Men acknowledge that Metropolitanes are not of Divine but of Ecclesiastical Institution and have no proper Jurisdiction over Bishops and they generally desert Doctor Hammond in this Notion but this Gentleman had not considered so far but found a large Paragraph that would prove the largeness of those Churches and thought he had got a prize in short let them but acknowledge Presbyters to be Bishops as Dr. Hammond says they all were in Scripture Times Dr. Morrice of Diocesan Ep. scop p. 27. and let the Bishops be Metropolitans holding only by Ecclesiastical Institution without any proper Authority over the Presbyters and we shall not much differ from them Let us now see what evidence may be brought to prove that Presbyters are of the same Order with Bishops and have the same power as they And 1st It is no contemptible argument that Presbyters are frequently called Bishops in Scripture that the names are used promiscuously the greatest Patrons of the Prelacy acknowledge the Elders of the Church of Ephesus are so called Acts 20.28 The Ministers of the Church of Philippi are called Bishops and it is observable that the Syriack Version which is very antient has but one word for Presbyter and Bishop now if there be so material a disserence betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter as some men would make it is strange there should not be a distinct word to express it by if only such as are now owned to be Bishops were called Presbyters the argument would not be so strong for they might think to evade it by saying the lesser is included in the greater and they are Presbyters before they are Bishops but when even those who are acknowledged to be meer Presbyters are called Bishops it is very considerable for the lesser cannot include the greater it would sound very strange in England for a Presbyter to write himself Bishop and if the Apostles had known any thing of this mighty distinction upon which the Fate of so many Churches and Salvation of so many Souls is made to depend we cannot suppose they would have laid such a temptation before us to draw us into an opinion of the Identity of Order by the indifferent and promiscuous use of the Titles Dr. Morrice in his defence of Diocesan Episcopacy makes very little account of the Title of Bishops being given to Presbyters in the Church of Philippi Pag. 29 30. and is pleased to say This debate about the Bishops of Philippi had soon been at an end if our Author had thought fit to explain himself and told us what he meant by Bishops for were the Pastors of single Congregations respectively in Covenant Then there must have been several Congregations or Churches in the same City which Mr. Clarkson will not allow Or were those Bishope only Presbyters ruling the Church of Philippi with common and equal authority Then our Authour must give up the question and instead of making many Bishops must own that there was none at all there but onely Presbyters will he contend that there were no other Bishops than Presbyters That will be to abuse his Reader with the Ambiguity of a Word which he takes in one sence and the Church in another that many Presbyters might belong to one Congregation none ever denied but that many Bishops in the Allow'd and Ecclesiastical sence of the Word had the oversight of one City seems strange and incredible to the Antient Christians Chrysostom observing this expression of the Bishops of Philippi seems to be startled with it What many Bishops in one City By no means it cannot be what then They were not Bishops properly so called but Presbyters I have taken the more notice of this Paragraph Works of the Learned Augustin p. 25. because La Crose magnifies it as a terrible Dilemma though he has lamentably spoiled it in the Abridgment but taking it as the Dr. has laid it before us I see not how it can much weaken our Cause or fortifie his own We do really maintain that these Bishops were Presbyters ruling the Church of Philippi with common consent and whether this be the Ecclesiastical sence of the word or no we are not much concerned to enquire it is sufficient to our purpose that it is the true Scriptural sence and the only one too Communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesâ—e gubernabuntur Hieron 1. Tit. for we never find the word in all the New Testament signifying an Ecclesiastical Order of Men Superior to Presbyters we deny not but that this Name very early began to be appropriated to the Senior Presbyter in a Church or City who yet never pretended to be a distinct Order from the rest of his Colleagues of the Presbytery for a long time afterwards But as the word thus used is taken in an Ecclesiastical not Scriptural sence so the Dignity thereby expressed is of meer Ecclesiastical not Divine Institution And whereas Chrysostom says They were not Bishops properly so called he can mean no more by it but that they were not such Bishops as that word was made to signifie by common usage in his time and we grant they were not for the Distinction of Office and Degree not being known in Scripture the word could not be used in that distinguishing sence there Thus a Learned Canonist gives it as the Vogue of many Primitive Authors Lancel Instit Lag Can. l. 1. Tit. 21. p. 32. That Bishop and Presbyter were formerly the same and that Presbyter was the Name of the Persons Age Bishop of his Office but there being many of these in every Church they determined amongst themselves for the preventing of Schism that one should be Elected by themselves to be set over the rest and the Person so elected retained the Name of Bishop for Distinction sake the rest were only called Presbyters and in
that the Priests and Bishops be all one St. Austin saith what is the Bishop but the first Priest So saith St. Ambrose there is but one Consecration of a Priest and Bishop for both of them are Priests but the Bishop is the first Thus he The next I shall mention is Dr. Whitaker Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge Contr. Duraeum l. 6. § 19. de Eccl. Regim qu. 1. Cap. 1. de notis Eccles quaest 5. He repeats Sr. Jeromes words at large on 1 Titus and to Evagrius that Bishops and Presbyters were the same that the Primitive Churches were governed by the common consent of the Presbyters that this custom was not changed by the Apostles but afterwards by the Church and thus argues If the Apostles had changed the order as Sanders pretendeth what had it advantaged him to have so diligently collected Testimonies out of the Apostles to prove that they were sometimes the same He might easily have remembred that the Order was changed by the Apostles themselves after the Church was distracted with contentions if any such thing had been done and he enquires Wherefore then saith Jerome Before it was said I am of Paul c. He answers This might deceive Sanders but it is certain Jerome onely alludeth to that place of the Apostle to shew that Schisms were the Cause of changing the Order but this Remedy was almost worse than the Disease for as at first one Presbyter was set above the rest and made a Bishop afterwards one Bishop was preferred before the Rest and this custom at length produced the Pope with his Monarchy Resp ad decion rationem Campiani p. 51. and elsewhere he thus speaks of Aerius his Heresie And truly if to condemn Prayers for the Dead and to make Bishop and Presbyter equal be Heretical Nihil Catholicum esse potest nothing can be Orthodox and Catholick That passage in Mr. Tract of Schism p. 13. Hales of Eaton is as memorable as its Author They do but abuse themselves and others that would persuade us that Bishops by Christs institution have any superiority over men further than Reverence or that any is superior to another further than positive order agreed upon among Christians hath prescribed Nature and Religion agree in this that neither of them hath any hand in the Heraldry of Secundum sub supra all this comes from composition and agreement of Men among themselves wherefore this abuse of Christianity to make it Lacquey to Ambition is a Vice for which I have no extraordinary name of Ignominy and an ordinary one I will not give it lest you should take so transcendent a Vice to be but trivial The most Excellent Arch-bishop Usher both in his Writing and Discourse acknowledged these Orders to be the same that the difference was only in degree that Bishops ordained as Presbyters but regulated the Ordination as Bishops and would not endure to hear the Ordination of the Reformed Churches condemned In his Reduction of Episcopacy Printed by Dr. Bernard he proves both by the words of Paul of Tertullian P. 2 3. and the Order of the Church of England that Spiritual Jurisdiction belongs to the Common Council of Presbyters in which the Bishop is no more than President and page 6. has these words True it is that in our Church this kind of Presbyterial Government hath been long disused yet seeing it still professeth that every Pastor hath a right to rule the Church from whence the name of Rector was also first given to him and to administer the Discipline of Christ as well as to dispense the Doctrine and Sacraments and the restraint of the exercise of that Right proceedeth only from the Custom now received in the Realm no man can doubt but by another Law of the Land this hindrance may be well removed And to say the Truth this was the general opinion of the Church of England for many years after the Reformation and very few even of the Bishops themselves opposed it Till the Treaties about Marriage with Spain and France became the great occasion of corrupting the Court and Church and letting in a sort of Men who in pursuance of secret Articles were to effect an accommodation with Rome Vid. Dr. Heylin's Cyprianus Angl. Mr. Baxter against a Revolt to a Forreign Jurisd p. 25. alibi See also the late Bishop of Hereford's Naked Truth and therefore must settle the Jus Divinum of the Prelacy as the Council of Trent had done before them by taking the power of opposition and dissent out of the hands of the inferiour Clergy who generally abhorred the design from that time this new Doctrine has much grown upon the Nation and with a great deal of noise and confidence has been asserted by the main bulk of the Ecclesiasticks and yet some few of the most learned of them have declared against it I shall onely mention two both of eminent note and figure in the Church at this day I mean the Bishops of Worcester and Salisbury For the Bishop of Worcester I have cited his Irenicum so often already that it would be in vain to add any thing more the main design of that learned Tract especially the latter part of it is to prove that God has not by his Law settled any form of Church Government and he has for ever ruined the pretensions of Episcopacy to a Jus Divinum they say indeed he has retracted that Book but as long as he has not destroyed the reason of it we are well enough for it is upon the reason of the thing not the authority of his person how great soever that we depend and till that Book be undone as well as unsaid it will remain in full force and virtue for reason is always the same though Men and their Interests may vary The Bishop of Salisbury inferior to none in all the accomplishments of Gentleman Vindication of the Church of Scotland p. 306. States-Man and Divine spoke his thoughts freely at a time when Prelacy was in its Zenith thus At first every Bishop had but one Parish but afterwards when the numbers encreased that they could not conveniently meet in one place and when through the violence of persecution they durst not assemble in great multitudes the Bishops divided their charges into lesser Parishes and gave assignments to the Presbyters of particular Flocks which was done first in Rome in the beginning of the second Century c. And P. 310. I do not alledge a Bishop to be a distinct office from a Presbyter but a different degree of the same office c. P. 331. I acknowledge Bishop and Presbyter to be one and the same office and so plead for no new Office-bearer in the Church the first branch of their power is their authority to publish the Gospel to manage the worship and dispense the Sacraments and this is all that is of Divine Right in the Ministry in which Bishops and
Presbyters are equally sharers but besides this the Church claimeth a power of jurisdiction of making Rules for Discipline and applying and executing the same all which indeed is suitable to the common Laws of Socleties and the General Rules of Scripture but hath no positive warrant from any Scripture Precept Therefore as to the management of this Jurisdiction it is in the Churches power to cast it into what mould she will c. I believe I shall rather be censured for having said too much than not enough upon this Subject yet I will venture so much farther upon the Readers Patience who cannot be wearier of reading than I am of transcribing as to conclude this Chapter with the suffrages of three Famous Divines of the Gallican Churches that have all writ in our Day Let the learned le Blanc Thes Sedan de Grad distinc Minist p. 501. be first heard thus Quod spectat vero Discrimen Presbyteri Episcopi c. But as to the difference betwixt Bishop and Presbyter for as much as the Church of England is Governed by Bishops it is the more general opinion of the English that Episcopacy and Presbytery are distinct offices instituted by Christ with distinct powers but the rest of the Reformed as also they of the Augustane Confession do unanimously believe that there is no such distinction by Divine Right but that as the names in Scripture are synonymous and put for each other indifferently so the thing is wholly the same and that the superiority of Bishops above Presbyters which has now for many Ages obtained in the Church is onely of Positive and Ecclesiastical Right and has been introduced thereinto by degrees That even in the Apostles days a certain precedency of honour and place was given unto him who did excell his Colleagues either in Age or in the time of his Ordination so that he was as President or Moderator of the Presbytery and yet look'd upon as altogether of the same office and had no power or jurisdiction over his Colleagues and this Person did always perform those things which the Presidents or Moderators of our Synods now perform But in the following Age it so fell out that this Primacy was not conferr'd according to the Persons Age or time of entrance but a custom was introduced that one of the Presbyters should be chosen by the Votes of the whole Colledge who should continually preside after the same manner over the Presbytery and these after a while assumed to themselves the name of Bishops and by degrees gained more and more Prerogatives and brought their Colleagues into subjection to them till at length the matter grew up to that Tyranny which now obtains in the Church of Rome Moreover though all reformed Divines excepting those of the Church of England condemn that supream power which among the Papists Bishops usurp over Presbyters as Tyrannical and think that by the Law of God there is no distinction betwixt Bishop and Presbyter yet is there some dispute amongst them whether it be not expedient by Positive and Ecclesiastick riâ—â—â— to appoint some degrees amongst the Ministers of the Gospel by which some may be set above others provided such moderation be observed as that it may not degenerate into Tyranny the French and Dutch Churches and not a few in England it self think it dangerous and not sufficiently agreeable to the Laws of Christ to admit any such thing but the Judgment and Practice of the Churches in Germany and Poland is otherwise they have certain Bishops which they call Superintendents that preside in such certain districts over the rest of the Pastors with some Authority and Power but much short of that which the Popish Bishops claim The second I shall mention is Monsieur Jurieu Pastoral Letters let 14. who having spoken concerning the Monastick Life and Oecumenick Councils as two great Novelties which had very unhappy effects he adds Behold a third of them 't is the Original of the Hierarchy which hath given birth to the Antichristian Tyranny hereby is understood that subordination of Pastors which hath been seen in the Church for 1000 or 1200 years in this subordination are seen the lowest Orders in the lowest seats above these are seen the Priests above the Priests are the grand Vicars above the Grand Vicars are the Bishops above the Bishops are the Archbishops or Metropolitans above the Arch-bishops are the Primates above the Primates are the Exarchs above the Exarchs are the Patriarchs above all these appears a head which was insensibly framed and placed there this is that which is called the Pope All this is a new invention with respect to the Apostles who left in all the Churches Presbyters or Bishops to Preach the Word and Administer the Sacraments But the Bishop and Presbyter were not distinguished those which St. Paul calls Bishops he calls Presbyters in the the same place this is matter of fact which our Adversaries cannot deny Then he proceeds to tell us how this distinction was made and the account thereof agreeing very much of that of Le Blanc I shall not transcribe it The last I shall take notice of is the Renowned Monsieur Claude whose Name will be great in all the Churches as long as Piety and Learning have any esteem among Men his words are these As for those who are ordained by meer Presbyters can the Author of the Prejudices be ignorant Historical Defence of the Reform Part. 4. p. 95. that the distinction of Bishop and Priest as if they were two different offices is not only a thing they cannot prove out of Scripture but that which even contradicts the express words of Scripture where Bishop and Presbyter are names of one and the same office from whence it follows that Presbyters having by their first Institution a a rite to confer Ordination that Rite cannot be taken away from them by meer humane Rules can the author of the Prejudices be ignorant that St. Jerome Hilary and after them Hincmar wrote formerly concerning the Unity or as they speak the Identity of a Priest and Bishop in the beginning of the Church and about the first rise of that distinction which was afterwards made of them into different offices can he be ignorant that St. Austin himself writing to Jerome refers that distinction not to the first institution of the Ministry P. 97. but meerly to an Ecclesiastical use And elsewhere And to speak my thoughts freely it seems to me that this confident opinion of the absolute necessity of Episcopacy that goes so high as to own no Church or Call or Ministry or Sacraments or Salvation in the World where there are no Episcopal Ordinations although there should be the true Doctrine the true Faith and Piety there and which would make all Religion depend upon a formality and on such a formality as we have shewn to be of no other than Humane Institution that opinion I say cannot be lookt on otherwise than as
ignorant in saying that Timothy and Titus and Linus were made the Successors of the Apostles in their Apostolical Power whilst the Apostles were still living for in this case the Apostles might have outlived their Successors and if we believe some Historians they did so and if this be ignorance in the Vicar it can be no extraordinary piece of Wisdom and Illumination in the Citizen he confesses this is a mystery and so he says is all the Gospel but he must not take upon him to obtrude such stuff of his own upon the World because the Gospel is a mystery thanks be to God a man may easily discern betwixt the mysteries of the Gospel and those of T. W's making But if this Notion won't pass under the pretence of Mystery he will invent a reason for it which we have in these Words They could not have been said to be Successors of Apostolical Power if the Apostles whilst living had not conferr'd it upon them could the Apostles have ordained then after they were dead No truly no more than give Scripture Rules after they were dead but were all that the Apostles ordained their Successors in Apostolical Power then the Presbyters which they ordained must be so too He says The Apostle by ordaining them in his Life-time secured the Succession to them and the Government too in the Apostles absence But I wish he had told us how they could secure the Succession to them unless they could have secured them from dying before them and for securing the Government to them in the Apostles absence that was no more than what they did for the Presbyters but if they were invested in Apostolical Power they had enjoyed the Government as much in the Apostles Presence as in their Absence for the Apostles had all the same Power and had it alike whether together or asunder In short if it be really true that the Bishops must either be the Apostles Successors in Apostolical Power whilst the Apostles lived or they could never be so we must conclude they could never be so for whilst the Apostles lived they could not have Successors in their Office especially such as claimed their Power by such Succession The second Point is equally censurable viz. That he is no true Bishop that was not ordained by another Bishop and so upwards to the Apostles This the Vindicator told him was altogether unproved and that the Papists whose Interest it is to make men believe so confess there are insuperable difficulties about the Succession of Popes in the Roman See The Gentleman replies I never discoursed with any of that Church who did not zealously affirm the Succession that all established Catholick Churches do assert it and that in every Diocess it is as sacredly recorded as the Succession of Kings and Emperors to their Thrones and challenges his Adversary to prove the contrary Well I 'll be so civil to him as to tell him that which it seems he knew not before touching the uncertainty of this Line of Succession Eusebius himself notwithstanding the Conjectures that he makes concerning the Successors of the Apostles Eccles Hist lib. 3. cap. 4. after all ingenuously confesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But how many or who were the true Successors of the Apostles and thought sufficient to govern the Churches founded by them is hard to say excepting those which perhaps some one may gather out of the writings of St. Paul upon which a Learned Prelate says What becomes then of our unquestionable Line of Succession of the Bishops of several Churches and the large Diagramms made of the Apostolical Churches with every ones Name set down in his Order as if the Writer had been Clarencieux to the Apostles themselves Is it come to this at last that we have nothing certain but what we have in the Scriptures Are all the outcries of Apostolical Tradition of Personal Succession of Unquestionable Records resolved at last into Scripture it self by him from whom all these Pedigrees are fetched Then let Succession know its place and vail Bonnet to the Scriptures and withal let men take heed of over-reaching themselves when they would bring down so large a Catalogue of single Bishops from the first and purest times of the Church for it will be hard for others to believe them when Eusebius professeth it is so hard to find them There are two things to be done before a man can prove this uninterrupted Line first He must have a true Catalogue of the Names of all such Bishops as have filled the See and then he must be able to demonstrate that none of them came in after a Surreptitious manner without Episcopal Ordination the former is difficult but the latter much harder and yet without it the former will amount to no more than a Wild-goose row of hard Words and Names 1. It is extreamly Difficult to get a satisfactory Catalogue even in that See whose Bishops have made the greatest noise and figure in the World and if this Gentleman has any Friend that will consult Baronius for him I suppose he will forbear making challenges for the future Licet plerique sive vitio Scriptoris acciderit sive alia ex causa c. the learned Annalist shews Tom. 1. ad Ann. 69. Num. 41. that Optatus Milevitanus rehearsing the Catalogue of Roman Bishops down to his own times begins thus In the principal Chair sate first Peter then Linus succeeded to him Clemens to him Anacletus passing by Cletus as thinking him the same with Anacletus but on the other hand Epiphanius omitting Anacletus mentions Cletus speaking thus The Succession of the Bishops of Rome is in this Order Peter and Paul Linus Cletus Clemens Evaristus St. Austin following Optatus omits Cletus thinking him the same with Anacletus St. Jerom speaking of Clemens says he was the fourth Bishop of Rome from Peter that Linus was the Second and Cletus the Third although many of the Latines think that Clemens was the second of these Jarring accounts Baronius says Num. 48. Si in ordine tempore primorum Romanorum Pontificum quempiam errare contigerit in multos errores ferri omnino cogetur The Author of the Roman Ceremonial endeavours to reconcile these things by a fine Conjecture Lib. 1. cap. 2. Ipse Jesus primum denominatione Successorem constituit ea ratione c. Jesus Christ appointed his Successor by Name and after the same manner Peter also named Clemens but on this Condition that the Senate of the Roman Church would admit of him but they knowing that this way of naming ones Successor would in time be very Prejudicial to the Church would not accept of Clemens but chose Linus to hold the Pontificate after Peter but that afterward when both Linus and Cletus were dead Clemens was chosen by the Senate it self Of these Primitive times the great Scaliger thus speaks Prolog in Euseb Chron. Intervallum illud ab ultimo c. That interval of time
from the last Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles to the Middle of the Reign of Trajan in which Quadratus and Ignatius flourished might be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an obscure confused time in which nothing is delivered to us certainly concerning the Affairs of the Christians besides a few things that the Enemies of the Church touch upon by the way as Suetonius Tacitus Pliny c. Now to fill up this Chasme Eusebius has carelesly fetch'd things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the Hypotyposes of I know not what Clement for it is not Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and out of the Commentaries of Hegisippus a writer of no better Credit than the former These Perplexities the Learned Bishop of Worcester thus relates Irenic p. 322. Come we therefore to Rome and here the Succession is as muddy as the Tyber it self for Tertullian Ruffinus and others place Clemens next to Peter Irenaeus and Eusebius set Anacletus before him Epiphanius and Optatus both Anacletus and Cletus Augustine and Damasus make Anacletus Cletus and Linus all to precede him certainly if the Line of Succession fails us here where we most need it we have little cause to pin our Faith upon it as to the certainty of any particular form of Church Government which can be drawn from the help of the records of the Primitive Church And we do not â—â—â—ly meet with these Difficulties near the Head of the Line but many Ages lower The Series of Popes in the Roman See after the eighth Century is very much ruffled and confused as Onuphrius tells us Horum temporum Pontifices neque Praefat. act partem secund de Romano Pontif. perpetuum quendam habent Scriptorem c. The Bishops of those times have not any constant certain Writer and a great part of their Affairs are omitted whence it comes to pass that these times are so uncertain and obscure that we cannot tell in what Order the Names of divers Popes ought to be put and some new Popes have crept in which by Computation of the time can have no place in the Roll as Basilius one Agapetus and Dommus the second which are either the same with others under a different name or else were Schismaticks or perhaps were never in being but which of these to affirm is uncertain and doubtful and he tells us that as to John the 11th Leo the 16th Stephen the 8th Leo the 7th and Stephen the 9th He has not followed the common Opinion of Writers but of Luitprandus Ticinensis and says there is a foul mistake in the account of the Martins for there never were any such men as Martin the 2d and 3d. and in the Johns quanta bone Deus confusio exorta est ex veterum Historiarum ignorantia It seems our Learned Citizen never dreamed that Popish Writers should be so ingenuous as to confess these insuperable difficulties in the Succession for his part he never discours'd with any of them that did not zealously assert it and it may be so but certainly then he never discoursed with the wisest or honestest of them but had the good hap always to meet with men as bold and ignorant as himself But 2. Were these Catalogues of Names as clear and certain as they are otherwise yet unless it were equally certain that all of these were truly Bishops and had valid Consecration the Line of Succession is still unproved and how impossible is it to have this demonstrated with that clearness requisite unto a point upon which the Truth of our Churches and Salvation of our Souls is made to depend For it has been often observed that our Church Historians being left so much in the dark for the earliest Ages are forced to supply the defects of History with bold conjectures of their own and where-ever they met with the Apostles or Evangelists in any place presently they made them the Bishops of that place Irenic p. 302. so Philip is made Bishop of Trallis Ananias Bishop of Damascus Nicolaus Bishop of Samaria Barnabas Bishop of Millan Silas Bishop of Corinth Sylvanus Bishop of Thessalonica Crescens of Chalcedon Andreas of Byzantium and upon the same grounds Peter Bishop of Rome And through the loss of the Dyptychs of the Church which would have acquainted us with the time of the Primitive Martyrs Suffering called their Natalitia some have mistaken Martyrs for Bishops and the time of their Apotheosis for that of their Consecration and the Learned Junius reckons among these Anacletus Cletus and Clemens at Rome And how shall we prove that all the persons mentioned in the Lists had such Ordination as is made essential to Episcopacy it is not sufficient to say there were ancient Canons decreeing that no Bishop should be Consecrated but by three at the least this is arguing a jure ad factum which is no better than to argue a facto ad jus it is certain there were abundance of excellent Canons made and it is as certain they were very little regarded in that state of Apostacy and Antichristianism into which the Churches fell and lay for so long a time we know there are many examples of mens getting into the highest Church Preferments by Murther Simony Sorcery which by the Ancient Canons nullifie their Authority and Administrations It is certain there are many excellent Precepts in Scripture against judging hating and persecuting one another about Ceremonies but if any shall argue from hence there were never any such Practices every age will afford instances enough for their Confutation and if there has been so notorious a contempt of the Laws of Christ Why should we think it strange if the Canons of the Church have been despised too when they have stood in the way of mens Interest Every body knows Ecclesiastical Canons are meer Spiders Webs only to catch Flies whilst the greater sort of Vermine rush through The Council of Lateran decreed Electio facta per civilem Magistratum in sacris beneficiis vim nullam habeat and the Jus Orientale Lib. 3. Inter. 59. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conc. Carth. 4. and the seventh General Council as it is called determine Omnem Electionem quae fit à Magistratibus Episcopi vel Presbyteri vel Diaconi irritam esse and yet that de facto the Magistrates sometimes did elect will not be denied The second Council of Nice decreed that the Orders of all Symoniacal Bishops shall be null and void 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bernard con ad Eugen. l. 4. c. And yet Eugenius and others were notoriously guilty of it and therefore the late Examiner of the Notes of the Church says Notes of the Church p. 152. It is probable the Roman Church wants a Head and that there is now no true Pope nor has been for many Ages for that Church to be united to for by their own Confession a Pope Symoniacally chosen a Pope intruded by Violence a Heretick and therefore sure an
time a power of installing them themselves when it cannot be done otherwise since naturally that which we have a right to do by another we have a right to do by our selves Nay what if not onely Monsieur Claude but Monsieur Dodwell too that speaking head of our high-flown Clergy acknowledges such a right in particular Societies of chusing and investing their Officers No matter whether it be reconcileable with the other parts of his Scheme or no Dodwel Separat of Churches p. 102. P. 52. In his Separation of Churches he speaks to this purpose The Church with whom God has made the Covenant is a Body Politick though not a Civil one and God has designed all persons to enter into this Society It is sufficient for my purpose that the Ecclesiastical Power be no otherwise from God than that is of every supream Civil Magistrate it is not usual for Kings to be invested into their Offices by other Kings but by their Subjects yet when they are invested that doth not in the least prejudice the absoluteness of their Monarchy where the Fundamental Constitutions of the respective places allow it to them much less doth it give any power over them to the persons by whom they are invested If the power of Episcopacy be Divine all that men can do in the case is onely to determine the person not to confine his power no act can be presumed to be the act of the whole Body P. 509. but what has passed them in their publick Assemblies in which Body is the Right of Government As nothing but the Society it self can make a valid conveyance of its right so it is not conceivable how the Society can do it by any thing but its own Act And when ever a person is invested into the Supream Power P. 522. and the Society over which he is placed is independant on other Societies such a person can never be placed in his power if not by them who must after be his subjects unless by his Predecessor which no Society can depend upon for a constant Rule of Succession I am apt to think this must have been the way of making Bishops at first how absolute soever I conceive them to be when they are once made This seems best to agree with the absoluteness of particular Churches P. 523. before they had by compact united themselves under Metropolitans and Exarchs into Provincial and Diocesan Churches And this seems to have been fitted for the frequent persecutions of those earlier Ages when every Church was able to secure its own succession without depending on the uncertain opportunities of the meeting of the Bishops of the whole Province And the alteration of this practice the giving the Bishops of the Province an interest in the choice of every particular Colleague seems not to have been so much for want of power in the particular Churches to do it as for the security of compacts that they might be certain of such a Colleague as would observe them It is probable that it was in imitation of the Philosophers Successions that these Ecclesiastical Successions were framed and when the Philosophers failed to nominate their own Successors the Election was in the Schools These are his words and they are too plain to need a Comment If every particular Church had Originally a power within it self to chuse and invest its Bishop and the concurrence of other Bishops herein was not for want of Power in that particular Church but only for securing the agreement of Bishops amongst themselves We have done with the necessity of a continued Line of Episcopal Ordinations and there may be true mission without it quod erat probandum But 2dly Should we grant that there is a necessity of an uninterrupted Line and that this as he learnedly speaks is a sufficient proof that there is such a Line yet it must be considered this necessity will onely prove that there must be some Bishops and Churches that are in the Line but it will not prove that they are all so nor that it is the case of those amongst us for though we may suppose that God has had a true Ministry in all Ages and will have that will not demonstrate that he hath such in England and therefore to prove the Ministry of the English Churches true he must have some better Evidence than the necessity of such a Line which will onely prove it is somewhere not that it is amongst us and it is but small satisfaction to us to know that there is a true Ministry some where in the World but no man in the World can tell where it is By this Gentlemans way of reasoning the Papists pretend to prove the Infallibility of their Church first they suppose the necessity of an Infallible Judge and then take it for granted that this Judge is to be found amongst them and truly Arcades ambo The Vindicator put a question to him and we should be glad of a better answer than he has yet thought fit to give us He desired T. W. to tell him whether this Line of Succession might be continued in a Schismatical Church for if by Schism Men and Societies are cut off from the Catholick Church as this Man affirms such Schismatical Churches are indeed no Churches no parts of the Universal Church and so cannot be the Subjects of the Apostolical Power and if this Power cannot be derived through a Schismatical Church then must he grant either that the Church of England has not this Power or that the Papal Churches through which it runs are not Schismatical and if they be not his own Church must be so in separating from them for he holds separation to be utterly unlawful unless it be from a Schismatical Church His answer to this such as it is you have in the 23 page of his reply in these words I cannot understand his Logick in this if by Schism Men and Societies are cut off from the Universal Church then such Schismatical Churches are no Churches But is not the consequence as plain as can be if Schism cut Men and Societies off from the Universal Church then such Schismatical Societies are no Churches Can they be Churches and yet cut off from the Universal Church Can they be cut off by Schism and still united to it He that does not understand the Logick of this does not understand the Logick of Common Sense but has he nothing farther to reply Yes he says Churches they are though Schismatical while they retain the Apostolical Succession But the Question is whether Schismatical Churches can retain the Apostolical Succession Since by Schism he says they are cut off from the Catholick Church and so Unchurched these things will require a second reading and a more direct reply and that I may provoke him to do it I shall lay the case before him in these three points 1. If any Schismatical Societies may still remain Churches then Schism as such does not cut Men and
Learned Grotius has fully proved that there never was a Council truly called General excepting that of the Apostles at Jerusalem that Councils have no governing Power Non ideo convocari Synodum quòd in co pars sit imperii Yea that the Church has no Legislative Power by Divine Right That what was written in Synods for Order and Ornament are not called Laws but Canons and have either the force of advice only Burnets Abridement p. 139. or they oblige by way of agreement c. And our Reforming Bishops Cranmer Tonstal and others being required to give their opinions concerning the Authority of General Councils declared that this Authority did not flow from the number of the Bishops but from the matter of their decisions and this indeed is the only true notion of Ministerial Power it depends purely upon the matter of their Canons not the Authority of the Person so that they can never by their Authority make a thing indifferent to become a Duty Praeeant ipsi judicio directivo says Grotius they are Councils not Parliaments and only to shew men what is Sin and Duty not to make any thing Duty which was not so before Dr. Sherlock fairly acquits himself of the Suspicion of ascribing unto a Council of Bishops Vind. of Prot. Princ. p. 30. Vind. of the Def. of Dr. St. p. 162. any Power in matter of Faith or Manners or Catholick Unity and because in a former Treatise he had let fall an Expression that might seem to give them such a Power he by much strugling gets from under it and says he meant no more than a Power of Deposing Heretical Bishops but withal adds It does not follow that any Bishops or any Number of Bishops however assembled have such an Authority to declare Heresie as shall oblige all men to believe that to be Heresie which they decree to be so and therefore the effects of those Censures must of Necessity depond upon that Opinion which People have of them those who believe the Censure just will withdraw from the Communion of such a Bishop those who do not will still communicate with him and whether they do right or wrong their own Consciences must judge in this World and God will Judge in the next And elsewhere he thus speaks As for Ecclesiastical Causes nothing is a pure Ecclesiastical Cause but what concerns the Communion of the Church who shall be received into Communion or câ—st out or put under some less Censures c. Here we see it is not in the Power of Councils or Synods to take away any of that Power from Presbyters that God has given them this is none of the Ecclesiastical Causes belonging to them This is more directly asserted by the Author of the Summary of the Controversies betwixt the Church of England P. 119. and the Church of Rome what he says of the Episcopal Office will hold true of the Ministerial in General That a General Council has no Authority to give away those Rights and Powers which are inherent in every Church and inseparable from the Ministerial Office for it is not in Ecclesiastical as it is in Civil Rights Men may irrevocably grant away their own Civil Rights and Liberties but all the Authority in the Church cannot give away it self nor grant the whole entire Episcopacy with all the Rights and Powers of it to any one Bishop If Bishops or Presbyters will not exercise that Power which God has given them they are accountable to their Lord for it but they cannot give it away neither from themselves nor from their Successors for it is theirs only to use not to part with and therefore every Bishop or Presbyter may reassume such Rights though a General Council should give them away because the Grant is void in it self By ancient Ecclesiastical custom Arch-Bishops were set over Bishops Vind. Prot. Prin. p. 72. and yet Dr. Sherlock confesses they have not direct Authority and Jurisdiction over them and if Bishops have no Superiority over Presbyters but what is grounded upon this Ecclesiastical Right it will not amount to formal Authority But 2. No Power can be claimed by Ecclesiastical Right but what has been acquired according to the Rules of those Councils and Customs by which they claim if it be a jus Ecclesiasticum they must come by it more Ecclesiastico in that method which Ecclesiastical Canons have prescribed and nothing is more evident than that the Rules of the Primitive Churches gave all the Presbyters and the People too a voice in the Election of their Bishops the African Bishops in a Council where Cyprian Presided Cypr. Ep. 68. Concil Nic. Arab. Can. Sozom. l. 1. c. 23. determined that Plebs maximè habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi St. Ambrose Ep. 82. Electio vocatio quae sit à tota Ecclesia verè cartò est divina vocatio ad munus Episcopi That this was the Primitive Custom none will deny though some Question whether this be absolutely necessary or no and I will not say it is necessary where the Office stands upon a Divine Institution but certainly where it only stands upon the Plea of Ecclesiastical Right the Ecclesiastical Method is absolutely necessary to give that Right for our Bishops cannot pretend to stand upon the Foundation of those Canons which they do not observe in their entrance upon that Office since those Canons must needs bind them as much in their Acquisition of Power as the People in their Subjection to them The best Title therefore our Bishops have to shew for their Prelatical Jurisdiction is the Law of the Land Our learned Historians and Lawyers tell us that before William the Conquerors time there were no such Courts in England as we now call Courts Ecclesiastical or Spiritual only by the Laws of Ethelstane the Bishops were allowed to be present with the Sheriffs in their Tourne Courts Brompton de Leg. Ethels where all Ecclefiastical matters were heard and determined Sir Edward Cook says William the Conquerour was the first that by his Charter to the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln prohibited Sheriffs to intermeddle any more with Ecclesiastical Causes but leave them wholly to the Bishop 4. l. Institut c. 53. p. 259. and yet there appears no enrolment of any such Charter till the 2d of Rich. 2d And Cook himself mentions the Red Book of Henry the first de general placit Comitat. extant in the Office of the Kings Rememb in the Exchequer wherein 't is said of the Sheriffs Tourne Courts Ibi agantur primo debita Christianitatis jura secundo Regis placita postremo causae singulorum and he adds certain it is the Bishops Consistories were erected and Causes Ecclesiastical removed from the Tourne to the Consistory after the making of the said Red Book Nothing will set this matter in a better Light than our Acts of Parliament especially that of the 37. Hen 8. Entituled An
Decency and having no sacredness by institution may vary with the different customs and usages of Countries But as to National Churches since the usages and customs of the same Nation and Rules of Decency are the same the Bishops may agree upon an Uniformity of Rites for a National Church The summ is it is not the Command of Superiours but the Customs of a Country that make a thing Decent and therefore the same Rites may be commanded throughout a Nation because the Customs upon which Decency stands are the same 3. When we make Custom the Rule of Decency we do not mean This or that way of Worshiping of God is Decent because we are accustomed to Worship him so but on the contrary We use to Worship so because it is Decent that is agreeable to our custom of expressing Honour and Reverence in other cases Otherwise we should make the same thing the Rule of it self and say this Worship is Decent because it is customary and it has been our custom to Worship God thus because it is Decent which would be running the ring besides then might all the fopperies of the Roman Church set up for Decency because they are now become customary No actions or gestures in the Worship of God how long soever they have been used can plead Decency but those which are used in other cases as well as in Divine Service and therefore used in the service of God because agreeable to the general customs of Decency in other matters 4. Nothing is required of us by the Law of Decency but to preserve the Worship of God from all Indecencies It is impossible to prove that we are obliged by that Law to use this or that Ceremony in the Worship of God if it may be managed decently without them If the Omission of such Ceremonies do not render the service of God Indecent the Law of Decency is not broken As no man can be charged with a breach of the Law of Justice but he that has done some unjust thing or of the Laws of Charity but he that is uncharitable so none can be charged with breaking the Laws of Decency but he that Behaves himself Indecently in Divine Worship As there is no medium between Justice and Unjustice so there is none betwixt Decency and Undecency and when of two actions one is said to be more just the other must needs have something of injustice in it so when one thing is more decent the other must have something of indecency for these things being privately opposed admit of no medium in a capable subject There are some indeed tell us of certain transcendental heights of Justice Charity and Devotion which might be omitted without sin Miscell p. 275. thus Mr. Norris in his discourse of Heroick Piety How they can reconcile it with the 14th Article of the Church of England I cannot tell it is like such men will pretend to the same Eminencies of Decency too but so long as they acknowledge we may fall short of such acme's without Sin we are well enough the Nonconformists pretend not to such high Attainments they would be heartily glad could they come up to the Rule in any thing but are so far from pretending that they do not desire to exceed it nor do they grudge these Gentlemen that unweildy Glory of being wiser and better than God has commanded Now let us Examine the Practice of Dissenters in their worshipping of God and its agreeableness with the Rules of Decency The Chester Gentleman falls upon the Vindicator for saying We desire the Rules of the Gospel may be carefully look'd into and such a Model of Government and Worship taken from thence as may be likely to answer the great ends thereof that nothing may be imposed but either what is expresly commanded or has a natural and proper tendency to promote that which is so then would the Worship of God appear like it self Rational Grave and Majestical becoming reasonable Creatures to offer and a Being of perfect Simplicity and Spirituality to accept Nor would we as we are accused under pretence of Spirituality reject the natural Decorum of an Action in Divine Worship but only lay aside these Formalities that are over and above natural Decency which in Civil Converse are counted Foppish and daily grow out of repute betwixt man and man and are no where so improper as in the Service of God Now what harm is there in all this the Gentleman it seems has nothing to object against it but all the Question is Whether the Worship of God in our Conventicles be as agreeable to this Rule as their is in the Churches and no doubt he thinks the Case is half determined by the very Names Churches and Conventicles for is it imaginable that men should worship God as decently in a Conventicle as in the Church All the Club will say and swear too 't is impossible but what if our Assemblies are as much Churches as theirs and theirs as much Conventicles as ours 't is true enough for any thing he has yet produced to the contrary Of Schism Mr. Hales tells us that all pious Assemblies in times of Persecution and Corruption are the only lawful Congregations and the publick Assemblies though according to form of Law are indeed nothing but Riots and Conventicles if they be stained with Corruption and Superstition He charges the Dissenters with Indecency 1. In their Expressions 2. In their Gestures 3. In their Habits 1. In Expression because our Ministers use not a stated form of Prayer and therefore he accuses them of Rushing into the presence of God with the rash and sudden thoughts of one single Person with a Prayer newly Coined but whether Sterling or no is uncertain being never tried for the People know it not till it be out But must it needs follow that because we have not a form laid before us that our thoughts are therefore rash and sudden is he sure that we never use Premeditation both as to the general Method and Matter of Prayer And for the words if they be usually Scripture Phrase I hope they will pass for currant in a more equal Ballance than his Will this Gentleman say that all conceived Prayer is rash and irreverent Then I am sure he will condemn the most learned and pious Divines yea and Bishops too of the Church of England who in the Pulpit commonly use such Prayers and sometimes of a considerable length too which we may be sure they would not do if they thought it impossible for the People to joyn with them in it and if the Duty of Prayer may be performed rationally and gravely without a prescribed form this Objection vanishes into putrid Air. If this Gentleman would only say that He and his Companions cannot express themselves rationally and reverently in the presence of God without a prescribed form of Words we would not contradict them they best know what they can do but to say that without such
a form it is impossible to perform this Duty aright is as the Vindicator speaks little less than Lampoon upon the common sence of English men and I am sure it is contrary to the whole scope of that excellent Book of Bishop Wilkins called the Gift of Prayer for my part I thank God for the acquaintance I have had with some plain poor People that in their Prayers to God would express themselves in much more proper and pertinent Language than this Gentleman has yet attained to though he be the Author of at least two famous Books 2. In our Gestures that in Prayer they are confused and irreverent I know not what he intends by these Words We judge it our Duty either to kneel or stand in the time of Prayer either of which are postures of Adoration and to sit or loll we utterly disallow unless in case of bodily weakness and inability where they are excused by that Rule God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice I wonder how this Gentleman should come to know our postures better than we do our selves I suppose he has seldom appeared in our Assemblies unless it was in former days when he came attended by his Setters to break them up and then perhaps the Terror of such a One might put the People into postures odd and confused enough but if he pleases to come now when his Thunder-bolts are spent he may satisfie himself that our Gestures are almost as grave though not so genteel as his own But it seems the Dissenters sit and loll and are covered at the reading of the Psalms as for sitting I know not why it should be more irreverent at the reading of the Psalms than other parts of Scripture or than at the singing of the Psalms and at such times I am sure in Churches they generally sit And that we are usually covered either at the Reading or Preaching of the Word is not true and yet I know of no great Crime in it S. B. Esq The Providences of God observed p. 28. especially in Infirm and Aged Persons but I shall refer him to what a Learned Gentleman of the Church of England says in this Case his Words are Though the Act for enjoyning the Common Prayer forbids both Affirmatively and Negatively any other Method or Form of Service Rites and Ceremonies than is there directed some Churchmen are great Nonconformists in disobeying that Rule by several Additions in approach to Popery as in their second Service c. As also in being superabundant to Popery in endeavouring to make a Superstitious Fashion to sit bare during Sermon which is but a new thing in England and not known in any other Christian Church for though the Papists are bare in their Churches out of Service-time whom we endeavour to imitate in that Circumstance yet they are covered during Sermon wherein we outdo them and he tells us That the Minister of Finchly not long since caused one to be committed for being covered whilst he was in his Sermon who bringing his Action against the Justice for false Imprisonment recovered good Damages of him which though sufficient to prove the Churches Usurpation in this matter they do notwithstanding go on in it as a part of that new Popery formerly intended by Laud in his time But the Gentleman is chiefly scandalized at our Gesture in receiving the Sacrament Reply p. 46. wherein he says we sit like Clowns and Bumkins but who told him that we sit so Clownishly A man may sit very decently and handsomely and how does he know but we do so I hope meerly sitting is not the thing that makes a Bumkin for then this Gentleman is forced to be a Bumkin almost all the day long nor sitting in the Service of God for that he does too and why it should have such a peculiar Rustical quality at the Lords Supper rather than in other Ordinances I cannot imagine especially when for any thing that appears our Saviour used it in the very Institution of the Ordinance and the Apostles even when they received it from his immediate hand and though I am not of their minds that think this makes sitting necessary yet I am sure it will at least defend it from the scandal of an irreverent Posture 3. The Habit of our Ministers is not pleasing For says he He who administers in their Divine Service as they call it has no other habit than what is due to and becomes a Tradesman or any other Laick in the Congregation And here again we have Reason to complain that the matter of Fact is not truly represented for our Ministers are generally distinguished from others Tertul. de pallio p. 490. by the use of that very antient Garment the Goak of which Tertullian has writ a Treatise and prefers it before the Gown as a more modest humble Attire insomuch as that à Toga ad Pallium became a Proverb to express a Person growing humble from which Beatus Rhenanus argueth against the costly Wardrobe of the Prelates as not being à toga ad pallium but à pallio ad togam ad purpuram ad mundi pâ—mpam And what if Laicks wear Cloaks too so do Lawyers wear Gowns and the singing Men and Boys have their Surplices and yet I suppose they are not thereby advanced above the Condition of Lâ—icks why then is not our habit as grave though not as Majestical as theirs The Gentleman seems to be exceedingly enamoured of the Surplice and passionately cries out should the Church condescend to gratifie your humour to stript the Priest of his Habit the Emblem of Innocency and Colour of the Robes in St. Johns Vision I must Confess 't is Pitty the Priest should not be Innocent and Heavenly at least in Emblem and yet we find the learned men of his Church Vnreason of Separat Pres p. 83. Iren. p. 64. make but a very small account of this Visional Holy Garment The Bishop of Worcester says As for the Surplice in Parochial Churches it is not of that consequence as to bear a dispute one way or another and elsewhere I am sure it is contrary to the Primitive Practice to suspend and deprive Men of their Ministerial Functions De rebus Eccles cap. 24. for not Conforming in Habits Gestures and the like and Wulfridus Strabo expresly tells us there was no distinction of Habits used in the Primitive times Can. 14. and the Concil Gangrense condemned Eustathius Sebastenus for making a necessity of the Diversity of Habits and we find Justin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Preaching the Gospel in his Philosophers Habit and if after all this we must be condemn'd for irreverent Clowns and Bumkins it will be some comfort to us that we shall suffer in very good Company In short The most Learned Conformists that have largely writ in Vindication of these Ceremonies Protest Recâ—n p. 41. acknowledge there is nothing of real goodness in them nothing of Positive Order Decency or Reverence
the Body We cannot be joined to Christ our Head except we be glued with Concord and Charity one to another for he that is not of this Unity is not of the Church of Christ which is a Congregation or Unity together not a Division St. Paul saith that as long as Emulation or Envying Contention and Factions or Sects be amongst us we be carnal and walk according to the Fleshly Man And St. James saith if ye have bitter emulation or envying or contention in your hearts glory not of it for where contention is there is unstedfastness and all evil deeds c. Nothing is more evident than that the thing declaimed against in this Homily is Schism what else signifie the words cut and mangled divided rent and torn And as plain it is that this rending and tearing and cutting and mangling the Body of Christ is done by contention by the violation of concord and charity without which we cannot be joined to the Head nor one to another it is true it mentions Factions and Sects He speaks of contentious Sects but there may be Factions amongst those of the same external Communion and there are many Sects too in the Church of Rome where the external Communion is the same and so there were formerly amongst the Jews and at this day in the Church of England some are Arminians others Calvinists in points of Doctrine But both the Title of the Homily and the express words and general scope of it make the Rents and Schism in the Coat of Christ to consist principally in the want of Concord and Charity in Emulation envying and heart contentions Which I hope will justifie Mr H. from the censure of having advanced a wild and novel doctrine Now let us examine the Consequences which this Gentleman has drawn out of this Definition First of all From hence it will follow that he that was never truly admitted into the Christian Church may be guilty of Schism if he be called a Christian But before we can tell whether there be any absurdity in this we must desire him to explain himself and tell us what he means by a true admission into the Christian Church If by admission he means Baptism and by true admission Baptism after the form and mode prescribed by his Church I doubt not there are many may be justly called Christians that were never so admitted and if he will take upon him to assert that none can be guilty of Schism but who have been admitted according to their Canons he will fairly acquit a great number of Dissenters from that crime who though they have been Baptized yet not altogether according to their Rubrick As for Mr. H's Words they are plain enough Schism in the Scriptural Sence is only the fault of professed Christians and all professed Christians are visible Members of the Catholick Church 2. That Hereticks in fundamentals are no Schismaticks for Mr. H. sapposes that where there is a Schism both parties must agree in the Fundamentals of Religion Yes he does suppose so and very justly for those that deny fundamental Truths are without the Christian Faith without the Unity of the Church and where there is no such Union there can be no Schism which always supposes a previous Union As Treason always supposes that a Man be a Subject of the King and Member of the Common wealth If a Man never received the Fundamentals of Christianity he never was a Member of Christ's Body and therefore never a capable subject of that Christian Love and Brotherly kindness the violation whereof is the thing in Scripture called Schism if he has formerly professed the Faith and afterwards renounced it he has by so doing dissolved that principal Fundamental Union with the Christian Church upon which Brotherly Love is built and therefore after such Apostacy cannot be formally guilty of the breach of Christian Charity because he is indeed no Christian and so no capable Subject of such Charity and can no more properly be called a Schismatick than a Stone or Tree can be called blind or any other thing in which there is no capacity of Sight And if the Gentleman do not like this Notion he may if he pleases write a Book to convince the Grand Signior and the Great Mogul and Cham of Tartary See the Review p. 8. that they are all Schismaticks as were their Fathers Jannes and Jambres the Egyptian Sorcerers before them But he adds This is as much as to say the greater the fault the lesser the crime By no means for what if Hereticks be not Shismaticks are they therefore innocent Creatures What if Traytors Murderers Adulterers be not Schismaticks are they therefore Saints Heresie in Fundamentals is a greater crime than bare Schism and the less is merged in the greater And it seems very strange that the same Gentleman who but a line or two before thinks it absurd to call those Schismaticks who were never truely admitted into the Church should think it also absurd not to call those Schismaticks that either never embraced the Christian Faith or have since renounced it 3. The third inference is According to this Definition Alienation of Affection is Schism but Division or Alienation of Communion is not Here he ought to have told us what he means by Division or Alienation of Communion Communion with the same God and the same Mediator and in the same Essentials of Faith and Worship is necessary to the Being of Christianity and an Alienation here is something worse than Schism if he mean personal Communion in the Worship of God in the same place and after the same Mode 't is impossible this should be undivided if by Alienation of Communion be means withdrawing from that particular Church of which we have been members and joyning with another 't is no more but what is allowed to all upon the removal of their Habitations and may be lawful on many other accounts but if it be done without some good reason it is sinful if it be done out of Uncharitableness towards the Church we leave it is Schism now if he would be as plain with us as we desire to be with him there might be hopes of bringing the matter to some issue But the last Inference is most remarkable both for Phrase and Sence and I would desire the Author to review it No one can charge another with Schism except he be able to look into his Heart it is impossible to know according to this Description that People are Schismaticks if they profess themselves to be in Charity except we should enquire into the Secrets of their Hearts and on the contrary People may be the greatest Schismaticks under the outward Profession of Charity and yet no Body can accuse them with it But pray why is this last Sentence said to be on the contrary to the former it 's impossible to know that People are Schismaticks if they profess themselves to be in Charity and on the contrary People may
their own Sence there were no separate Meetings otherwise where-ever there is a Violation of Love and Charity amongst Christians there is a breach of Communion and his whole Book tends to prove it Will this Gentleman say that by these divisions are meant the rude and disorderly behaviour of some amongst them or rather the contests that those miscarriages caused If he speaks sence he must say the latter Forit is not usual to call the miscarriages of one sort divisions Besides these miscarriages tho' very great were chiefly about the Love Feasts which accompanied the Sacrament as the Gentleman himself acknowledges and therefore were not altogether so destructive of Communion as if they had been about the Sacrament it self But if that will not do he will try the old Salvo and these divisions must be into Sects and Parties that were Heretical But how can it then be said that these Divisions arose when they came together to these Feasts what did some of them turn Hereticks presently upon the Congress And become Orthodox again when they parted and so turn Hereticks anew when they came together the next time And certainly if they were Hereticks the Apostle would have charged the rest to have cast them out and not suffered them to Communicate with them at all and that had been a proper and likely way to have put an End to such Disorders But this he grounds upon the verse following For there must also be Heresies among you and blames Mr. H. for omitting it and would fain know what we have to say to it Why I 'll tell him in a few words This does not shew that the Divisions he reproves were Heresies but gives us the reason why he believed the report which he heard of their Divisions I hear there are Divisions or Schisms amongst you and I partly believe it for there must be also Heresies amongst you I need not wonder if there be Schisms amongst you for I know there will be Heresies also which are a great deal worse Thus it has been understood by very Learned Expositors and it seems the Natural import of the words and their connexion with the former and the Particle also makes it plain enough But after all if this Gentleman will in one place make Schism to be Heresie and in another a disorderly behaviour at the Communion Table or at the Feasts attending it he will advance an Idea of it much more Novel than Mr. H's and it will fairly acquit Dissenters from being Schismaticks for he can neither charge us with Heresie nor any such disorders at the Lords Supper The last place agitated is 1 Cor. 12.15 That there be no Schism in the Body Mr. H. acknowledges that Schism is that which breaks or slackens the Bond by which the Members are knit one to another Here the Gentleman presently claps hold and says that is done notoriously by Separation and breach of Communion yes no doubt Communion is broken by breach of Communion we won't dispute that but all Separation does not break Communion if we only separate in those things wherein Christian Communion does not consist the Bond is firm still therefore Mr. H. well added but this iâ— Bond not an Act of Uniformity in the same Ceremonies but of true Love and Charity the Gentleman replies nor is the obligation of that Bond taken away by an Act of Indulgence We grant it Sir it is sufficient for us that the Act of Indulgence takes away the Obligation of the Act of Uniformity we do not desire it should take away Mens Obligations to preserve the Unity of the Church which we question not is as Sacredly observed in our Assemblies as in yours He falsely charges Mr. H. with saying that true Love and Charity is the onely Bond by which Christians are knit together he does not say it is the onely Bond but certainly it is the Bond though not the onely one for they are United by Faith also but it is onely the breach of this Bond of Love which is properly called Schism He tells us the Apostle insists upon several other tyes and obligations whereby Christians are knit together and let us hear what they are They are incorporated into one Society or Body but is that a tye by which they are knit together or does it not rather shew us what they are when united together Their being animated by one Spirit and so having one Hope and being within the One Covenant of Grace are not so properly the Bond by which we are United but the effects of our Union to Christ by Faith and it 's that is properly the Bond or Uniting Grace on our part that joins us to the Head God in Christ and from this the other Grace of Christian Love results by which the Members are Morally united one to another How far the Unity of the Ministry is absolutely necessary to the Unity of Christs Body has been already discussed in the former part of this Treatise He concludes his Reflections upon the Enquiry with the same ingenuity which has all along appeared in him He acknowledges that Charity is a comprehensive Virtue and every Sin is a violation of it as Theft Murder Treason but as it would not be good Logick to make Uncharitableness serve for a definition of them all so neither in the case of Schism And we acknowledge it would not and where does he find that Mr. H. makes uncharitableness the Definition of Schism he makes it but part of the Definition the Genus onely and this Gentleman by his own pretty Colloquy makes it to be the Generical nature of all Sin but the Enquirer adds the Differentia taken from the subject those who agree in fundamentals and its object the smaller things of Religion and this with its Genus makes up the compleat Definition of that which Scripture calls Schism But the account which this Gentleman has given of it is so uncertain and various so far from a Definition that it falls short even of a bungling Description In one place he affirms where there is Schism there is a breach of Communion p. 9. in another there was a Schism amongst the Corinthians and yet they were in the same Communion p. 22. In one place it is Heresie p. 21. In another place Fornication p. 20. In another rude and disorderly tricks at their Love Feasts p. 29. In one place it is opposing their Orthodox Governours p. 26. In another place it is siding with them p. 25. and yet this is the Man that cannot endure any body should be thought a Conjurer in Logick and Divinity besides himself I hope the Enquiror is got safe out of this Gentlemans Hands I now proceed to do the Vindicator the same Justice in which I shall be brief because the merits of the Cause are discussed already and his little scurrilous Reflections are not worth our notice The Citizen of Chester presented his Adversary with a List of the Names of those that had done Wonders in
proving the Dissenters Schismaticks and the Vindicator repay'd him with another of those that have defended them from that Charge And adds whether these have not done as much to prove the Imposers Schismaticks as the former to prove the Dissenters such is referred not to the judgment of an interessed Party but of all the unbyass'd part of Mankind Our famous Surveyor asks Where shall we have a Council of such For those that have a Liturgy and Ceremonies and Bishops are certainly for us and those that are for none of these are all byassed against us But Sir the Question to be referr'd is not whether a Liturgy and Ceremonies and Bishops are lawful but whether such as ours be so and whether it be lawful to take those Oaths and make those Declarations that have been required of us and as there is no Church upon Earth requires the same things as this of our Nation so we have judges enough of this matter that are disinteressed without going to Pagans or Atheists for them and what their thoughts are has been already in part discovered He would help T.W. to prove that a Man who is not divested of all Christian Temper Humility and Consideration Review p. 34. may yet be in a desperate condition because it seems He may not have Grains enough of these Virtues to save him What! must we have a statical Divinity too If a Man has Christian Faith though it be but as a Grain of Mustard-seed it will be effectual to Salvation and I know not why the same may not be said of all other Graces he that has them not in the prevailing degree has them not at all that Man in whom Pride is Habitually prevalent has not the least Grain of Christian Humility The Gentleman therefore must find out some other Salvo against the next time The Vindicator took notice of a blunder in the Citizen in calling the same Person Sceptical a Slighter of our Religion Obstinate and Perverse c. And thought Sceptical and Obstinate did not jump well together This Gentleman endeavours to help him here too and says T.W. intended these as so many several Characters and did not intend to unite them all in one Person But it is certain he did he speaks in the singular number if thou be Sceptical I shall altogether glory in thy Scoffs c. These are all joined together no disjunctive particle betwixt them all lodged in one single Person in a distinct Paragraph as a third Man distinct both from the Church-man and Dissenter and this is so plain that Alderman himself as this Author calls him was too honest to deny it The Question concerning the ninth Article of the Creed and in what sence T. W. sets it up as a Standard of Controversie is fully manifested in the Preface to this Paper And 't is a very groundless suggestion that we have any design to lay it aside that we may impose whatever Notions we please upon the World we very well approve of the Creeds and have subscribed to them and to the Doctrine of the Church as laid down in the Articles and it were to be wished your own Ministers kept as close to those Articles in their Preaching as ours do The Vindicator has been already defended in the exceptions he took at T. W's date of the Origination of the Catholick Church This Gentlaman says he spoke of it under the denomination of Christian which is very false as those that read the passage will see however the Alderman is beholden to his brisk Champion for he 'll say any thing in the World to help him at a dead lift He puts the question Whether when our Saviour said upon this Rock I will build my Church he did not speak of it as yet unbuilt I answer if by unbuilt he means unfinished it is true for the Church Universal is a building in fieri and will not be compleated till the End of the World But if by unbuilt he means unbegun I say there is no reason so to understand the words of our Saviour for he has been building his Church upon the same Rock there spoken of from the Fall of Man but I am loth to spend time upon such quibbles if the Gentleman had mentioned the Christian Church or if he had not said a few Lines before that the Angels were the most glorious Members of the Church I dare say the Vindicator would not have taken notice of it Review p. 35. nor have blamed him no more than Tertullian and Jerome for speaking of the Christian Church in its infancy And though the Vindicator acknowledges the Apostles and Disciples were the Church he did not say the whole Church much less that the Church then had its first existence I hope when these Gentlemen call the Church of England the Church they do not mean the Church Universal I desire this Gentleman to give us some better proof than his bare Word that ever the Apostles imposed upon the Disciples things indifferent P. 36. especially because they tell us it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them not to do so And he must also prove that the Bishops are their Successors in the same plenitude of power till then he beats the Air but gains no Victory The Vindicator bewails the slow Progress the Gospel has made in the World and imputes it in part to the needless Ceremonies with which Men have encumbred it and want of Personal worth in the managers To this he replies The Divines of the Church of England are no way concerned in it No What! not when there is so much notorious Debauchery amongst us that insolently out-faces all the Letters and Orders whereby our Pious King and Queen have stirred up Magistrates and Ministers to do what they can for the suppression of it And yet these Gentlemen see no want of success of the Gospel in England but are for recommending to the Dissenters a Journey to China or Tartary Alass Man The design of the Gospel is not onely to give Nations another Title but to make the Inhabitants other Men and if you be not sensible that has made but a slow Progress in England in that which is its main design you 'll make but an ill Watch-man upon the Walls of your Church And if our Ministers should take such a journey as you are pleased to assign them it is not the first time that they have been forced to leave the dear and pleasant land of their Nativity and expose themselves to the fatigues of a tedious Voyage and all the dangers and hardships of a Pagan Wilderness that there at least they might enjoy that liberty of serving God according to his Word Vid. The Life of Mr. Elliot amongst the Barbarous Indians to whom they brought the Glorious Gospel and what toils they under-went and what success God was pleased to give them the whole World has seen and admired The Citizen acknowledged that in the Primitive times there was
this Gentleman had made Preaching the Gospel of Reconciliation one of them I am sure for that end he press'd that Text How can they preach except they be sent Does he mean the Sacraments why the Fathers of his own Church tell him all Antiquity allows the Baptism of Private Persons in Case of necessity and why not the other Sacrament too the Words of Tertullian are well known offers tingis he argues from that Text He hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and to his Father It is the Authority of the Church that hath put a difference between the Clergy and the Laity Tert. de Corona Militis de Baptism p. 602.603 Laices etiam jus est Sufficiat in necessitatibus and which hath established this sacred honour for the Body of the Clergy this is so true that where there is no Clergy-man to be had thou dost Celebrate thou dost Baptize and thou art to thy self a Priest now where there are three there is a Church though they be Laicks for every one lives by his own Faith and God is no respecter of Persons If therefore these Abyssines deprived themselves so long of the Sacraments they were needlesly scrupulous Ruffinus tells us that when Frumentius by the Providence of God was advanced to some Power in the Realm during the Kings Minority he carefully sought out such as were Christians among the Roman Merchants and exhorted them to meet together and pray which they did and when the Indians came amongst them they instructed them in the Christian Faith and all this was done before he took his Journey to Alexandria and tho' Valesius will needs be so nice as to distiuguish betwixt Oratories and Churches and betwixt Preaching and instructing I yet here was the great End of Churches and Bishops and Sermons happily attained viz. The Conversion and Instruction of Poor Souls a greater Seal of Mission than that of working Miracles wherewith 't is said Frumentius returned The Gentleman 's other instances prove no more but that in the sence of those times it was very desireable to have Ministerial Ordination and that they rather chose to be at a great deal of pains than to want it but it is not the desireableness but the necessity of it that the Vindicator denied and the Church of England you see will stand by him in it Nor was it his design to ridicule the Ceremony of laying on of Hands But that foolish conceit that by such contact there is a transition of power from one to another in a continued Line The Presbyterians themselves always use that Apostolical rite in their Ordinations tho' they do not think it necessary to the conveyance of Authority He charges the Vindicator with want of Sence or Integrity in reporting the Notion of a Patriarchal Right to Soveraignty But if he can explain that Notion any better 't would have been a very obliging thing to have done it I must confess I am as dull as the Vindicator in understanding it and cannot imagine how that Patriarchal Right should exist any where but in the Line of the Eldest Family in the World For if at any time you set up a Younger Brother it must be upon some other Title not the Patriarchal but either the express Nomination of God or Election or Conquest or the like But to claim the Regal Power by Patriarchal Right without pretending at least to the Line of Primogeniture is a thing I despair of ever understanding That this Patriarchal Right was ascribed to our Kings in the Late Reigns is too well known and will not be so easily forgotten by the Nation as it is denied by those that then filled Mens Ears with it E. of W. a Noble Peer pretty well known to T. W. once publickly Animadverted upon this Doctrine and the Authors of it and observed that such a right could be but in one Person in the World at once and no Person in the World could tell who that was What he mentions p. 56. concerning the Decency of Ceremonies has been obviated in the former part and there he may learn from the Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England that the Worship of God is never the better performed for them and therefore never the more decently and Bishop Sanderson condemns him for a Superstitious Fop that thinks otherwise this case is therefore adjudged already See the Review p. 57. If the Motion he makes of allowing the Bishops to be judges of Decency is to be so understood as that whatever the Clergy in Convocation Judge Fit and Decent must presently be submitted to and that the Pastors of Particular Churches or People how mean or half-witted soever must not make use of their discerning faculty this I confess is one way to end controversies by tying us all up to the Inspirations of the Canonical Tribe and this is that some of them have been long aiming at but surely 't is too far of the day to impose at this rate upon English Men. The Survey or endeavours to justifie their Excommunications by the old pretence of contempt and malice but these Men ought to be very certain that it is Malice and not real Scruple of Conscience against which they so severely proceed And they have no power to impose those things upon Men which they know thousands are dissatisfied in and they themselves acknowledge render their Duties not a whit more pleasing and acceptable to God That scandalous and disorderly Persons are to be disciplin'd according to the demerit of their Actions and Behaviour No Church or sober Christian that I know of will deny but that persons of Orthodox Judgment and Sober Conversation should be Excommunicated Fined Imprisoned Banished and Ruined because they dare not comply with such things as have been imposed in England is a practice not to be justified by any Rule in our Bibles or President in the Reformed Churches but is indeed contrary to Humanity it self To what he says about the Greek Churches p. 59. it is sufficient to reply If the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son be not an Article of Faith we desire to have a rule to distinguish what is de fide and what not in those Creeds But if it and the Greek Churches object against it then T. W. has excluded them unless he will say that ours is not the true Athanasian Creed and if it be not why must it be put into the Liturgy and Subscribed and Assented to under that denomination He endeavours to help his Alderman out about the same Table and tells us he meant something else by it than the same Table in Specie but since he has not told us what that more is we may suppose he wanted a handsome Salvo for he durst not say it must be the same numerically and it would be hard to find any thing betwixt those two kinds of Identity He tells us To have the same Prayers is to join with the Church
where we live in its Holy Devotions and so do Dissenters join with the Churches where they live which are as true Churches and their Devotions as Holy as if they were more large and splendid for any thing that yet appears to the contrary In the 60th Page he acknowledges that to have the Government of many Congregations is not essential to a Bishop nor to have Presbyters under him for Milles the Martyr had no Christian in his Diocess But it is Ordination that makes a Bishop If therefore our Ministers have all the Ordination that is necessary to a Bishop by the Word of God they are Bishops though they be but Pastors of single Congregations and now if this Gentleman cannot prove by plain Scripture that a Bishop must have a distinct Ordination from that of a Presbyter Ambrose in 1 Tim 3. Episcopi Presbyteri una Ordinatio est uterque enim est sacerdos to advance him into a Superior Office he has lost the Cause and here we hold it and expect plain and direct evidence to this very point when ever the Reviewing humour returns upon him And if the Pastors of single Congregations have all that is essential to Bishops then our Diocesans are a new Species of Bishops which St. Cyprian disowned in his Prefatory speech to the Council of Carthage And indeed it is liable to very just prejudices for when Bishops have taken away from the Pastors of Particular Churches these Rights and Powers which God hath given them and engrossed all to themselves and their Diocess is become too large for their Personal Inspection and Administration they are forced to set up Officers of humane institution to exercise those powers under them which they have ravished from Gospel Ministers that by numerous Dependencies and large Revenues they may gain that pre-eminence which some Men began betimes to contend for See Mr. Baxters treatise of Episcopacy never yet answered There is nothing more plainly shews these Mens contempt of Antiquity when it speaks not on their side than denying the Peoples power of Election Rational Defence p. 3. Sect. 6. p. 197. which is confirmed unto them by the Canons of divers Councils and Ample Testimony of the Fathers as Dr. Rule has proved And though we will not say such consent is essential to the Ministerial Power yet it is certainly necessary to the Pastoral Relation for the Bishops and Ministers could have no certain cure in such places where the Civil Magistrate does not interpose but by the Peoples consent This Gentleman tells us the consent of the Ministers and People of the Diocess is not necessary but it is left wholly to the discretion of the Church and I wonder what that Church is to whose discretion this is referr'd when the Ministers and People are left out will he say it is in the Power of the Bishops of other Diocesses to impose a Bishop upon any without the consent of Minister and People And must we by the Church understand the Bishops alone without Ministers and People as if they had nothing to do in those matters that are left to the Churches Discretion This lets us see what these Men drive at and how gladly they would enslave the whole World to the humours of a few and those not always the wisest or best of Men. That the Nomination of our English Bishops is vested in the King is very pleasing to Dissenters especially under the Government of one so Wise and Good as ours is But then we must say the Power they receive from the King and Laws is not properly Spiritual Power And we are willing to own them as having Humane Authority over us circa Sacra by the appointment of our Governours as far as by Law we are under their Jurisdiction And certainly many of them are too wise to pretend to any more since our Laws expresly condemn such pretensions as has been already proved by the very Letter of the Law in that case The Gentleman tells us The Vindicator shewed his Abilities in mentioning Ignatius who advises the Bishop to hold frequent assemblies and to enquire after all by their names not despising the Men Servants or Maid Servants and he would fain shew his Abilities in enervating so plain evidence and would impose upon us a great many Negatives and Peradventures which we must help him to prove We must prove That those Assemblies met only in one place that they were no more than ordinary Congregations that the Bishop had no body to assist him in the remoter parts of his charge that no man else acquainted him with the frailties and misdemeanours of particular These and a great many more such Negatives we must prove which we are no way obliged to do we insist upon the plain words of Ignatius and he must prove his peradventures himself or we shall take no notice of them The Author of the Enquiry into the Constitution c. of the Primitive Churches offers to prove that these Diocesses were no larger in the number of Church Members than our present Parishes But whether that be so or no I will not be positive For it is manifest enough the first step towards Prelacy was committing the Government of the Church to one which before was managed by several in common the next was to make that Church as large and great as could be By keeping new formed Congregations under their Jurisdiction and we have early instances of such Incroachments These Men take the Liberty of making words signifie any thing that serves their present purpose If Ireneus say the Presbyters are the Successors of the Apostles there Presbyter must signifie Bishop for fear of spoiling the Plea of Succession Review p. 65 66. If Tertullian say they never receive the Eucharist from any but the Presidents there President must not signifie the Bishop but the Presbyter for it seems in a Bench of Presbyters they are all Presidents though there be a Bishop in Cathedra amongst them Such Men will never be at a loss for something to say Though the Vindicator trusting perhaps to his memory mentioned the Sacrament of the Eucharist instead of Baptism yet it amounts to the same thing for if the Bishop was to take the Confessions of all that were to be Baptised his Diocess could not be of the same Model with ours which such a thing would be altogether impracticable This Gentleman wonders the Vindicator should be so nice in the Notion of Succession p. 19. And afterwards so loose as to make it no more but conformity to the Apostles Model in Government and Worship but the wonder will cease when he considers that in the former place he took Succession in the Sence T. W. used it as that which gives the Bishops their Title to Apostolical Power and here he takes it in the true Sence wherein the Fathers use it whose words will never prove that the Apostles left them their Apostolical Power but onely that ordinary Pastoral
from London to the Presbytery of Edenburgh Calder p. 474. after it was Revised by the King 's own Hand The words are Beloved Brethren after my hearty Commendations these Presents are to shew you that I received Two of your Letters One directed to His Majesty the other to my Self for my Perusal the same I read closed and three days before the Conference delivered into His Majesties Hand and received it back again after some short Speeches upon those words in your Letter the Gross Corruptions of this Church which were then expounded and I was assured all Corruptions dissonant from the Word of God or contrary thereunto should be amended The Twelfth of January was the day of Meeting at which time the Bishops were call'd upon and gravely desired to advise upon all the Corruptions of this Church in Doctrine Ceremonies and Discipline and as they would answer it to God in Conscience and to His Majesty upon their Obedience that they should return the Third day after which was Saturday Accordingly they returned to His Majesty and when the Matter was propounded to them as before they answered All was Well And when His Majesty with great fervency brought instances to the contrary they upon their Knees with great earnestness craved that nothing should be altered lest the Popish Recusants punished for Disobedience and the Puritans punished by Deprivation ab officio beneficio for Nonconformity should say they had just Cause to insult upon them as Men who had endeavoured to bind them to that which by their own Mouths now was confess'd to be Erroneous After five Hours Dispute had by His Majesty against them and his resolution for Reformation intimated to them they were dismissed for that day c. but it appears by the result their importunity overcame him at last Dr. Fuller observes That whereas before this Conference it was disputable whether the North where he long lived or the South whither he lately came would prevail most on the King's Judgment in Church Government now this Question was clearly decided I hope now the Vindicator may be allowed to have some Grains of Shame and Modesty common to Humane Nature though he ventured to say That the English Prelates flattered King James into an ill Opinion of the Puritans and the thing is not so plain or known a Contradiction as the Citizen pretends and for him to tell the World at this time a day of the famous Piety and Virtue of that Prince is ridiculous enough Alas the History of his Reign is too well known his Contending with Parliaments his Encouraging of Papists his Secret Articles upon the Treaties with Spain and France his greedy Desire of Arbitrary Power his Prostituting the Honours and Wasting the Treasures of the Nation after a most inglorious manner produced those ill Effects under which these Kingdoms have laboured and languished ever since till by the late happy Revolution our Antient Rights and privileges were raised out of the Grave recognised and settled upon their true Basis once more The Unhappy Government of K. Charles the First is now sufficiently Unveiled especially by Rushworth's Impartial Collections The Vindicator briefly hinted at those Irregular and Arbitrary Practices that forced the Parliament to take up Arms for the Defence of their Liberties and for rescuing the King out of the hands of those Councellors that had so fatally misled him T. W. calls this Notorious Calumny and says he could answer all the Instances particularly but he refers to the Rolls and Acts of Parliament The Vindicator is willing to joyn issue with him here and appeals to the several Petitions Remonstrances and Speeches made in Parliament as they stand upon Record in the Journals of both Houses and they are now made so publick that no Man but one who has no Reputation to lose would have offered to deny that which all the Nation that can read Books know to be true And I will also tell him that there is not one passage mentioned by the Vindicator concerning the Male Administration of that King but what he may find in the Supplement to Baker 's Chronicle a History never suspected for Disloyalty but evidently partial the other way The Vindicator renew'd the Challenge to Name four Persons in that Parliament Dr. Burnet tells us the Duke of Hamilton was dissatisfied with the Courses some of the Bishops had followed before the Troubles began and could not but impute their first rise to the Provocations that had been given by them Memoirs p. 408. that were not in full Communion with the Church of England when the War began It is true many of them that were for Episcopacy were highly offended at the Behaviour of some of the Bishops as appears by the Speeches of the Lords Falkland and Digby both great Royalists and for my part I desire no other Evidence of the intolerable Usurpations of the Laudensian Party than what those Noble Lords have given us which being now in so many Hands by the Publishing the third part of Rushworths Collections I will not transcribe The Nonconformists indeed generally joyned with the Parliament in that Cause which was doubtless as just and necessary when first undertaken as ever was carried upon the Point of a Sword But that it was without the least design upon the Kings Person their Solemn League and Covenant plainly proves and the many Declarations and Remonstrances which they afterwards made when they saw new designs laid and pursued In the Year 1648. When the Republican Faction was at the highest the Ministers called Presbyterian in and about London fearing that which afterwards happened boldly Published a Vindication of themselves and Exhortation to the People part of which I shall here Transcribe to let the World see how shamefully they have been abused about the Death of that King their Words are these To this Vindication we are compell'd at this time Vindicat. of the Minist Printed for T. Underhil Ann. 1648. Subscribed by C. Burgess D. D. W. Gouge D. D. E. Stanton D. D. T. Temple D. D. G. Walker E. Calamy B. D. J. Whitaker D. Câ—wdrey W. Spurstow L. Seaman D. D. Sim. Ashe T. Case N. Proffect T. Thorowgood E. Corbet H. Roborough A. Jackson J. Nalton T. Cawton C. Offspring Sa. Clark Io. Wall F. Roberts M. Haviland J. Sheffield W. Harrison W. Jenkin J. Viner E. Blackwel J. Cross J. Fuller W. Taylor P. Witham Fra. Peek Ch. 〈◊〉 J. Wallis T. Watson T. Bedford W. Wickins T. Manton D. D. Tho. Gouge W. Blackmore R. Mercer R. Robinson J. Glascock T. Whately J. Lloyde J. Wells B. Needler N. Staniforth S. Watkins J. Tice J. Stileman Jos Ball. J. Devereux P. Russel J. Kirby A. Barham because there are many who very confidently yet most unjustly charge us to have been formerly instrumental toward the taking away the Life of the King and because also there are others who in their Scurrilous Pasquils and Libels as well as with their Virulent Tongues represent us
to the World as a Bloody Seditious Sect and Traiterous Obstructors of what all the Godly People of the Kingdom do earnestly desire for the establishing of Religion and Peace in that we stick at the Execution of the King while yet we are as they falsly affirm content to have him Convicted and Condemned all which we must and do from our Hearts disclaim before the whole World For when we did first engage with the Parliament which we did not till called thereunto we did it with Loyal Hearts and Affections towards the King and his Posterity not intending the least hurt to his Person but to stop his Party from doing further hurt to the Kingdom not to bring his Majesty to Justice as some now speak but to put him into a better Capacity to do Justice to remove the wicked from before him that his Throne might be established in Righteousness not to Dethrone and Destroy him which we fear is the ready way to the Destruction of all his Kingdoms That which put any of us on at first to appear for the Parliament was the Propositions and Orders of the Lords and Commons in Parliament June 10. 1642. for bringing in of Money and Plate c. Wherein they assured us that whatsoever should be brought in thereupon should be employed upon no other occasion than to maintain The Protestant Religion The Kings Authority and His Person in his Royal Dignity the Free Course of Justice the Laws of the Land the Peace of the Kingdom and the Priviledges of Parliament against any force which shall oppose them As for the present actings at Westminster since the time that so many of the Members were by force secluded divers imprisoned and others thereupon withdrew from the House of Commons and there being not that Conjunction of the two Houses as heretofore we are wholly unsatisfied therein because we conceive them to be so far from being warranted by sufficient Authority as that in our Apprehensions they tend to an actual Alteration if not Subversion of that which the Honourable House of Commons in their Declaration of April 17. 1646. have taught us to call the Fundamental Constitution and Government of this Kingdom which they therein assure us if we understand them they would never alter Yea we hold our selves bound in Duty to God Religion the King Parliament and Kingdom to profess before God Angels and Men That we verily believe that which is so much feared to be now in Agitation the taking away the Life of the King in the present way of Trial is contrary to the Word of God the Principles of the Protestant Religion never yet stained with the least drop of the Blood of a King the Fundamental Constitution and Government of this Kingdom as also to the Oath of Allegiance the Protestation of May 5.1641 and the Solemn League and Covenant from all or any of which Engagements we know not any Power on Earth able to absolve us or others Therefore according to our Covenant we do in the Name of the great God to whom all must give a strict account warn and exhort all who either more immediately belong to our respective Charges or any way depend on our Ministry or to whom we have administred the said Covenant that we may not by our Silence suffer them to run into that provoking Sin of Perjury to keep close to the ways of God and the rules of Religion the Laws and their Vows in their constant maintaining the true Reformed Religion the Fundamental Constitution and Government of this Kingdom as also in preserving the Priviledges of both Houses of Parliament and the Union between the two Nations of England and Scotland to mourn bitterly for their own Sins the Sins of the City Army People and Kingdom and the miscarriages of the King himself which we cannot but acknowledge to be many and great in his Government that have cost the Kingdoms so dear and cast him down from his Excellency into a horrid pit of Misery almost beyond Example and to pray that God would give him effectual Repentance and sanctifie that bitter Cup of Divine displeasure that Divine Providence hath put into his hand and also that God would restrain the Violence of men that they may not dare to draw upon themselves and the Kingdom the Blood of their Soveraign c. This was back't with a Letter to the General and his Council of War to the same effect and yet all this has not been sufficient to defend them from the malicious slanders of men that either were then unborn or had not the Courage to run those hazards for the sake of their unfortunate Prince as they did The deplorable Death of this King has been made great use of in the Late Reigns to run down Dissenters and to justifie those unmerciful Laws that have been made and executed against them and to make it the better serve such designs they have made the highest Panegyricks upon that Prince and his extraordinary Piety and Devotion in which they have commonly taken their Text out of ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ a Book which next to the Bible excell'd all others in pure Seraphick strains but alas the grave Cheat is at length discovered and though some men are very angry there is no remedy for heat and ill Language will never retrieve its blasted Reputation only the best on 't is there is another of the same kind pourtraying his Unhappy Son in his Solitudes and Sufferings too and those that regret the Disparagement of the former may try whether they can support the Credit of the latter but the World I hope grows too wise to be enamoured of such Pageantry The Vindicator affirmed That it was by the Address and Interest of the Party called Presbyterian under God That King Charles the Second was restored and he adds the solemn Promises fair Words and great Assurances that were given them by the Church and Court Party upon the Treaty of Restoration are very well known and the speedy and bare-faced Violation of all is not to be parallell'd in Story which T. W. misreports as if the Vindicator had said that King Charles the Second was not to be parallell'd in Story tho' afterwards having cleared his Eyes he confesses these things are charged upon the Church and Court Party and how will be bring them off he says All is Fiction and Forgery for the King referr'd all to the Parliament and they re-established and Confirmed all things to the satisfaction of the Nation in General Well if we cannot prove these things to be true we will own the Forgery and submit to all the Reproaches this Gentleman can heap upon us I would feign know where the Fiction lies Were there no Promises made by the Court and Church Party or were they not broken It is strange we should be obliged to prove that such Promises were made when the Kings Declaration speaks it so plainly in these Words We do declare a Liberty to tender Consciences and
Atheist or an Infidel is no true Pope This c. Is to be supplied with Arch-Bishops Bishops and all other Orders Advertisement on the Hist of K. Charles p. 193. and many such there have been of one sort or other whose acts therefore in creating Cardinals c. Being invalid it is exceeding probable that the whole Succession has upon this account failed long ago c. I may add hereunto that it is the opinion of Dr. Heylin where there is no Dean and Chapter to elect and no Arch-Bishop to Consecrate there can be no regular Succession of Bishops now where there are so many junctures in which this Line may fail it would be very strange if in all that Series of Ordainers and Ordinations none of those things should happen which break in upon the Succession Nay farther when a Bishop has advanced by lawful paces to the Chair yet it is not impossible but he may lose this power again I know the Papists have invented the Chimaera of an indelible Character to support the other Chimaera of an uninterrupted Succession But Bishop Jewel affirms Apology c. 3. divis 7. That if the Bishop of Rome and I suppose it will hold of any other do not his Duty as he ought except he Administer the Sacraments except he instruct the People except he warn them and teach them he ought not to be called a Bishop or so much as an Elder for a Bishop as saith St. Augustin is a name of Labour and not of Honour and that man that seeketh to have the Pre-eminence and not to profit the People must know he is no Bishop Defence of Apâ—â— part 2. p. 135. And he vindicates this Saying against Harding from other of the Fathers Chrysostom Hom. 13. Multi Sacerdotes pauci Sacerdotes multi nomine pauci opere And St. Ambrose Nisi bonum opus amplectaris Episcopus esse non potes Lib. 4. Ep. 32. de dignit Sacerdot c. 4. And Gregory speaking in the name of wicked Prelates Sacer dotes nominamur non sumus And the Council of Valentia under Damasus c. 4. Quicunque sub ordinatione vel Diaconatus vel Presbyterii vel Episcopatus mortali crimine dixerint se esse pollutos à supra dictis ordinationibus submoveantur Whosoever he be whether of the Order of Deacon Presbyter or Bishop that is convicted of deadly Sin let him be removed from the said Orders Now can any man imagine that in a Line of above 1600 Years length running through Babylon it self there should be none of these who by their intolerable wickedness had nullified their Title Wo unto Mankind if their Salvation depend upon such a Supposition Thirdly The third Part of this Gentleman's Position is That those Churches Reply p. 18. or if they must not be so called those Societies that are not under the Government of such Bishops are out of the Communion of the Catholick Church have no Ministry nor Sacraments nor Salvation This cuts off at a blow the Church of Alexandria and damns all her Members for the First two Hundred Years Of the Government of that Church we have this remarkable Account from Entychius Patriarch there That the Evangelist Mark in the Ninth year of Claudius Caesar Eutychii Annal Pococks Edit p. 328. came unto the City of Alexandria and called the People to the Faith of Christ and as he was walking in the Street broke the Latchet of his Shoe and presently applied himself to one Ananias a Cobler to get it mended in the doing of it Ananias prick'd his Finger with the Aul after that dangerous manner as caused a great effusion of Blood and much Pain insomuch as that he murmured against Mark who said unto him If thou wilt believe on Jesus Christ thy Finger shall be healed and added In his Name let it be made whole and accordingly in the same moment it ceased bleeding and was well from this time Ananias believed and was baptized by Mark and made Patriarch of Alexandria and with him were appointed twelve Presbyters Hitrom Ep. ad Evagr. 85. that when the Patriarchate was vacant one of them should be chosen on whom the other Eleven should lay their hands and bless him and create him Patriarch and then should choose some worthy Person and constitute him a Presbyter in his room who was made Patriarch And this Custom continued till Alexander the Sixteenth Patriarch without interruption which was about 235 Years This Story St. Jerome likewise tells us and by it proves the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters and that Presbyters have not only Power to ordain those of the same degree with themselves but to consecrate Patriarchs too And this Assertion undoes all the Reformed Churches abroad that are governed by Presbyters To this the Gentleman replies That many very Learned and Pious Persons amongst them have declared their longing Desires for the Episcopacy but living in Popish Dominions cannot have any but those of the Popish Communion or in Republicks that will not admit of Episcopacy But are desires then of Episcopacy sufficient to bring a Man within Catholick Communion What then becomes of the Absolute necessity of Apostolical Succession if affectionate Desires after this Communion will free a Man from Schism Then surely Schism lies in the want of such Desires which comes nearer to Mr. H's Notion than this Gentleman I suppose was aware of but after all though 't is pity to put him out of a good humour since he happens so seldom into it if there be no Catholick Communion without Episcopacy and without such Communion our hopes for Salvation are but Fancies as this Gentleman tells us Desires after Episcopacy will not relieve Men it will only prove that they desire such Communion and to be in the way of Salvation but that at present they are not so And I wonder how it does appear that the Reformed Churches desire this Diocesan Episcopacy by what Publick Acts do they declare any such Desires What their Thoughts are concerning it we have already seen It may be indeed as the Honourable Mr. Feb. 9.40 Fines once replied in Parliament to this very thing there are some amongst them that desire Episcopacy that is the Dignities and Revenues of Bishops but that any desire Episcopacy as the fittest and best Government of the Church I do not believe for if they would have Bishops I know not what hindreth but they may they have Presbyteries and Synods and National Assemblies and Moderators therein and how easily might these be made Bishops Germany and Poland are Popish Countries and yet they have Superintendents or Bishops And why will not Republicks admit Episcopacy Is it because they have found it injurious to the Commonwealth Methinks that is no great Commendation of the Order or will they say it does not so well comport with that Form of Government That is a sign it is not of Divine Institution for as God will have Gospel-Churches in all Countries