one Church and therefore that Titus may be a Bishop of the Cretians all the Churches of Crete must be Consolitated into one else among all the Churches in Crete I would fain know which was the Church of the Cretians where Titus resided If Titus was Bishop over all the Churches in Crete he was a Bishop of Bishops and at least a Metropolitan which indeed would be most in favour of the Hierarchy could it be Evidenced But this could not be the settlement that was made in Crete For it would be strange that the Apostle should appoint a Hierarchy in Crete that should differ from the form of Government setled upon the Continent by himself and Barnabas who constituted Elders in every Church without appointing that we read of any Superiour Bishop or Metropolitan that should have a General Care and Inspection over the several Churches For my part I could not see how Titus should understand his Commission which was to ordain Elders in every City to carry any other Intention with reference to Crete than the very same words do when they are used to signifie what Paul himself who gave him this Commission had done upon the Continent where he and Barnabas ordained Elders in every Church And therefore as Paul and Barnabas established single Congregations only and Organized them with Elders and then left them to govern themselves by their own Intrinsick powers So in the like manner Titus established Churches in every City and Organized them with Elders which having done it is very probable that he returned again unto S. Paul to give an account of his Commission Thus Titus his business in Crete has the very Idea and Signature of that of an Evangelist or a Secundary Apostle without the least Mark of an ordinary Bishop nor is there any hint in all the Authentick Scriptures of his being ordained Bishop of Crete or indeed of any place else And the like must be said of Timothy with reference to Ephesus who was sent to the Church there as a Visitor only with Apostolical Authority and so as S. Paul's Delegate Nor it Titus his ordaining of Elders a good Argument for sole Ordination for the word Tit. 1. 5. is the same that is used in Acts 6. 3. in the matter of the Deacons who were appointed by the Apostles not one of the Apostles but all and chosen by the People And one might well admire that the same word which is Translated appointed in one place should be rendred ordained in another but that Titus is said to ordain and not to appoint only that it might look as if there were a plain Text for sole Ordination But what if Timothy and Titus had a power of sole Jurisdiction and a power too of making Canons for the Government of the Church which latter yet is an Authority that every Bishop will not pretend unto after their Example The Church then was in a State of Separation from Secular Government and among Heathen just as the Jews are now among Christians so that all it could do at that time was to perswade it could not compel And therefore it will not follow now that the Church is protected and not only protected by but Incorporated into the State that the Officers of it must have the same powers and Exercise them in the same manner as before or as Mr. Selden expresses it That England must be Governed as Ephesus or Crete It is certain that Kings would gain but little by the Bargain not to say they must depart with their Sovereignty to Incorporate the Christian Religion should this be admitted that Church-Authority Church-Power must be still the same after such Incorporation as before For a separate National Jurisdiction Exercised by one or many is a Solecism in State especially if it claim by the Title of Iure divino a Title that renders it Independent upon as well as unboundable and uncontroulable by all that is human Such a Jurisdiction would weaken that of Kings and other States All their Subjects would be but half Subjects and many none at all and it is no more nor less but that very same thing that heretofore was found so inconvenient and burden some under the Papacy and that made the best and wisest and greatest of our Kings so uneasie A Clergy imbodied within it self and independent on the State is in a Condition of being made a powerful Faction upon any Occasion and easie to be practised upon as being united under one or a few Heads who can presently convey the Malignity to all their Subordinates and these to the People So that I lay it down as a Maxim that nothing can be of greater danger to any Government than a National Hierarchy that does not depend upon it or is not in the Measures and Interests of it Fresh Experience has learned us this I know not with what Design it was said by Padre Paulo Sarpio of Venice but his Words are very remarkable as I find them cited from an Epistle of his to a Counsellor of Paris in the Year 1609. I am afraid says he in the behalf of the English of that great power of Bishops though under a King I have it in Suspicion when they shall meet with a King of that goodness as they will think it easie to work upon him or shall have any Archbishop of an high Spirit the Royal Authority shall be wounded and Bishops will aspire to an Absolute Domination Methinks I see a Horse Sadled in England and I guess that the old Rider will get on his Back But all these things depend on the Divine Providence Thus he very prudently as to the main though perhaps with some mistake as to his Conjecture For my part I think it but reason that such Persons as have the Benefit of Human Laws should in so much be guided by them and that the Sword which owns no other Edge but what the Magistrate gives it should not be used but by his Direction As indeed the practice in England has always been For as Mr. Selden observes Whatever Bishops do otherwise than the Law permits Westminster-Hall can controul or send them to absolve c. He also says very well That nothing has lost the Pope so much in his Supremacy as not acknowledging what Princes gave him 't is a scorn says he on the Civil Power and an unthankfulness in the Priest But adds he the Church runs to Iure divino lest if these should acknowledge what they have by positive Laws it might be as well taken from them as given to them Ay This excellent Person goes further so much further as to tell us That a Bishop as a Bishop had never any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England for as soon as he was Electus Confirmatus that is after the Three Proclamations in Bow-Church he might Exercise Jurisdiction before he was Consecrated and yet till then that he was Consecrated he was no Bishop neither could he give Orders Besides says he Suffragans were
Sentiment of that Excellent Person will be much confirmed if we consider Church Policy but in one Important Instance the calling of Bishops for this as it has received frequent Alteration and been very different in different times and Countries so it was All upon prudential regards In Cyprian's time as in that of the Apostles it was as it were Iussu populi Authoritate Senatus by Choice of the People and appointment of other Bishops How it is now All know and in the intermediate times it has not always been after one manner but various according unto various times and occasions In short the business of Pastors and Teachers who are permanent and standing Officers in the Church of Christ is to feed the Flock by preaching and administring the Sacraments and on occasion to denounce Eternal Torments the true Spiritual Censure And this will be their business to the Worlds endâ— But for External Rule and Jurisdiction this being but accidental to their Office and arising only from the particular Circumstance in which the Church was while separate from the State now that the Magistrate is Christian it doth entirely devolve upon him the Christian Magistrate is the Ruling Presbyter and whom he appoints as Overseers of the Poor may be called the Deacons It is certain that in our English Constitution not to speak of the French and that of other Foreign Kingdoms however some may talk of Iure divino all Government or Jurisdiction the Spiritual as they call it as well as the Temporal is derived from the King who in this sense is supream Ordinary Bishop and Governour in all Causes and therefore in all Courts and Jurisdictions This is evident both as to the Legislative part of the Government and to the strictly Jurisdictive for as my Author tells me out of the British Councils All the Church Laws in the time of the Saxons were made in the Micklemote And indeed it were easie to evince that most of the Ancient Synods and Councils in England as well as in other Countries were meer Parliaments As for the Consistory Court which every Archbishop and the Bishop of the Diocess hath as holden before his Chancellor or Commissary this seems not to have been divided from the Hundred or County Court before a Mandate was given to that purpose by William the Conqueror the Exemplification of which Mandate is in Mr. Dugdale in his Appendix ad Hist. Eccles. Cathol St. Pauli f. 196. Before the Normans entrance says Mr. Dugdale from Sir H. Spelman the Bishops sate in the Hundred Court with the Lord of the Hundred as he did in the County Court with the Earls in the Sheriffs Turn with the Sheriff But to set out the matter by more Authentick Records In the Statute of Provisors it is affirmed That the Church of England was founded in the State of Prelacy by Edward the First Grand-father to Edward the Third and his Progenitors And in 25th of Henry the Eighth Chap. 19. in the Submission of the Clergy these acknowledge as they say according to Truth That the Convocation of the same Clergy is always hath been and ought to be Assembled only by the King 's Writ and farther promise in Verbo Sacerdoâ—is that they will never from henceforth presume to attempt alledge claim or put in ure enact promulge or exact any new Canons Constitutions Ordinances Provincial or other or by whatsoever name they shall be called in the Convocation unless the King 's most Royal Assent and Licence may to them be had to make promulge and exact the same and that his Majesty do give his most Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf And it was then enacted That the King should at his pleasure assign and nominate 32 Persons of his Subjects whereof 16. to be of the Clergy and 16 of the Temporality of the upper and lower House of Parliament who should have Power and Authority to view search and examine the Canons Constitutions and Ordinances Provincial and Synodal heretofore made and with his Majesty's Assent under his Great Seal to continue such as they judge worthy to be kept and to abolish and abrogate the residue which they shall Judge and Deem worthy to be abolished It was also provided in the same Act That no Canons Constitutions or Ordinances shall be made or put in Execution within this Realm by Authority of the Convocation of the Clergy which shall be contrary to the King's Prerogative Royal or to the Customs Laws or Statutes of this Realm there the Ecclesiastical Legislation is subjected to the King And enacted That it shall be lawful for any Party grieved in any of the Courts of the Archbishops of this Realm to appeal to the King's Majesty in the Court of Chancery upon which Appeal a Commission is to be directed under the Great Seal to Persons named by the King his Heirs or Successors which Commissioners have full power to hear and finally determine upon such Appeal And here the Jurisdiction of the Church is acknowledged to be originally in the King and derived from him for there the Sovereign Supream Power lodges where the last appeal the last Resort is Add that in the first Year of Edward VI. in an Act entituled An Act for Election of Bishops it was enacted That none but the King by his Letters Patents shall collate to any Archbishoprick or Bishoprick It was also declared That the use of Archbishops and Bishops and other Spiritual Persons to make and send out Summons in their own names was contrary to the form and order of the Summons and Process of the Common Law used in this Realm seeing that All Authority of Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal is derived and deducted from the King's Majesty as Supream Head of these Churches and Realms of England and Ireland and so Justly acknowledged by the Clergy of the said Realms It was therefore enacted That all Courts Ecclesiastical within the said Two Realms be kept by no other Power or Authority either Foreign or within this Realm but by the Authority of the King's Majesty and that all Summons and Citations and other Process Ecclesiastical be made in the name and with the Style of the King as it is in his Writs Original and Judicial at the Common Law And it is further enacted That all manner of Persons that have the Excercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction shall have the King's Arms in their Seals of Office c. This Act was passed in a Parliament of the Profession of the Church of England in 1 Eward 6th and though it were repealed by one of another Character in 1 Mariae yet this repealing Statue being again repealed in 1st of Iames 1. 25. it seems plain that that of the first Year of Edward the Sixth is revived But supposing it is not yet in that case though the Constitutive part remain void the Declarative will still stand good as shewing the Common Law Nor doth the late Act of 13 Car. 2. ch 12. that restored
seems evident by comparing that Text with the 24. Chapter of the same Evangelist Ver 2 14 and 24. The meaning of Mat. 1. 29. is That Ioseph did not know his Wife till she had brought forth her First-born and that it will not follow that he knew her afterward And in this sense of until I make it parallel with Mat. 28. 20. So that when Christ says He would be with his Apostles until the end of the Jewish World he is plain he would be with them so long but doth not imply by that until that he would be with them no longer Without the favour that we commonly allow to popular Expressions what is said Mat. 28. 20. will not hold in the usual sense that is given it as to the Apostles Successors and with that favour I see no strength in any Arguments against mine which carries it in the Letter unto the Apostles If the Apostles must not be understood to stand Personally and only for themselves in that Commission Mat. 28. they must be understood to stand in it Representatively for the whole Church or Body of Christian People in that same manner as they stood for them in the Istitution of the Lord's Supper when it was said to them Do this in remembrance of me these words being said to them not as they were Ministers but as Communicants Take ye eat ye take drink do this in remembrance of me For else there is no Canon of Communion for the Common People or Laity Now I pray tell me which of these Notions did the Apostles stand in when they received that Commission Mat. 28. was it given to them as they stood Personally for so many single Men or as they represented the whole Community and Body of Christians in One of these Two they must necessarily stand For the Apostles Collectively and all together as a Body are never taken but in one or the other sense they no where representing only the Ministers or Pastors so that by the Letter of the Commission which is directed to the Body of the Apostles either all Christians are impowered to Baptize and Preach which I suppose you will not say or else only the Apostles I acknowledge that Cyprian though he calls the Presbyters his Compresbyters yet never calls them his Colleagues He does not call them fellow Bishops tho he calls them fellow Presbyters because tho every Bishop was a Presbyter yet every Presbyter was not a Bishop in the appropriate sense of that word However tho he does not say of Presbyters in so many words that they are the Colleagues of a Bishop yet he comes very near it when he tells them they are Compresidents with him which he does L. 1. Ep. 3. when writing to Cornelius that was a Bishop he has this Expression Florentissimâ— CLEROTECVM PRAESIDENTI To the most flourishing Clergy that presides together with thee And in truth one must have read but little in S Cyprian to be ignorant that in his time the Presbyters or Clergy were joyned with the Bishop in Acts of Jurisdiction and that not only the Clergy but even the People too had a great share therein as well as the Bishops And this as in other matters so even in those that related unto Bishops themselves No 〈◊〉 than all this is implyed in that Expostulation of Cyprianâ— An ad hoc frater Carissime deponenda Ecclesiae Catholicae Dignitas plebs intâ—s positae fidelis atque in corrupta MAIESTAS Sacerdotalis queque AVTHORITAS ac potestas Iudicare vellâ— se dicant de Ecclesiae praeposito exâ—â—â— Ecclesiam constituti What most dear Brother is the dignity of a or the Catholick Church the faithful and uncorrupt Majesty of the People that is in it and also Auhority and Power of the Priesthood to be brought to this that such must talk of Judging concerning a Bishop of the Church who themselves are out of the Church To conclude That Alterations have been often made in the Church both as to Government and Discipline is so great and plain a truth that none that knows the History can doubt of it some of these came in early by several steps and others afterwards upon occasions that could not be foreseen Some things in the Church are Fundamental and of an Immutable nature But there are 〈◊〉 that relate to Government Discipline and Administration which depending upon the variable Circumstances of Times Places and Occasions are and must be left to Christian Prudence The Grounds I go upon in my Scheme in which I have set out the principal Alterations that have been made are owned by the Church of England as to one Instance and the Reason of that one will hold in more when in its Canons and Constitutions agreed An. Dom. 1640. Can. 1. It says The power to call and dissolve Councils both National and Provincial is the true right of all Christian Kings within their own Realms and Teritories And when in the first times of Christ's Church Prelates used this power 't was therefore only because in those days they had no Christian Kings But it is time to end your trouble and therefore I will add no more but to own my self June 8th 1690. SIR Your Humble Servant Basil in Rom. in Plat. 32. alibi Ignat. in Epist. ad Smyrn alibi Clem. Epist. ad Corinth Clem. Ep. ad Corinth Cipryan Ep. l. 3. Ep. 9. Clem â—bi supra Hierom. Com. in Ep. 1. ad Cor. Lips tract de Magist. Vet. Pop. Rom. c. 2. Clem. epist. ad Corinth Dan. Com. in August de haeres c. 53. Spotiswood Hist. b. 1. f. 4. Dan. comâ—men ad August de aeres Grâ—â— Epist. 154. ad Gall. Cyp. Ep. l. 1. ep 4. vid. ep l. 1. ep ep 3. 9. l. 4. ep 2. Cypr. Epist. l. 3. Ep. 10. Cypr. Ep. l. 1. Ep. 4. Bact Lex c. Rab. advoc 〈◊〉 Mark 5. 22. Acts 13. 15. Nil l. de Papa primatu Riensid's Conf. with Harâ— f. 230 231. Vid. Buâ—t Lexis Rab. ad voc Nidui Selden de jur uat gent. l. 4. â— 9. Theod. Motech 〈◊〉 R m. p. 61. Lud. Molin in Paraen c. 13. Vid. Cypria ep l. 3. ep 11. Loz com reip Rom. l. 1. f. 141 c. Ios. Scal. ep l. 4. ep 345. Barlaem de Papae princip c. 5. See Dr. Burnel's Abridgment of the Hist. of the Reformation B. l. f. 107. And his Hist. of the Rights of Princes Spain Glâ—ssat ad v. c. bomag Vid. Albert. Craâ—zia metrop l. 1. c. 25 30. l. 2. c. 2 19. 21. 1. 3. c. 1 5 c. 〈◊〉 schel bist 〈◊〉 l. 1. â— 20. Vid. Buat Lexie Rab. ad voc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Chron. 19. 8 c. Socrat. in Proem l. 5. Hist. Ecel Nath. Bacon Histor. Disccurs Part. 1. â— 1. See Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire in the Preface Vb. Emâ— in descr reip Athen. Plut. in vit Pâ—oc