alone for Deaconship they make onely a kind of civil office for disposing of the alms of the Church So sufficient they account the Subordination of particular persons singly considered to the same persons as considered collectively in an Assembly without any distinction of Orders for Government And why the President of these Presbyteries though not of a distinct Order as most of the Schoolmen and many of the Episcopal Authors maintain especially those of the old Prelatists as your self have elsewhere observed may not upon the same terms maintain Discipline for my part I cannot understand The ground I believe of your mistake is that in the administration of our Prelatick Episcopacy you have observed some other Officers of prudential Ecclesiastical Constitution which are intrusted with Jurisdiction as Deans Archdeacons Vicars General Lay-chancellors c. which you mistake for Orders because they have different duties in the subordination of the policy of the Church But 1. I do not doubt but that you know better than I can tell you that even Diocesan Government as Diocesan may and has been actually administred without them in the primitive times Some of them being of civil constitution for administring the power of the Prince in the exteriour government of the Church as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may use the language of Constantine the Great and all of them of prudential use onely convenient not simply necessary even in the opinion of them that use them And 2. You cannot pretend that the addition of new Officers though possibly unlawful upon other accounts yet should make the Discipline of a populous precinct less but rather more maintainable For certainly in such a case the multitude of Officers is an advantage And let me intreat you to remember that this is the real question not Whether Diocesan Government be constituted by God but Whether Discipline be maintainable under it But 3. Suppose it as inconvenient as you please even for the maintainance of Discipline which I am not willing at present to digress to nay even unlawful to be introduced by Governours yet how can it be proved that it is lawful for Subjects to undertake its Reformation without and against the consent of Governours And how can they be excused even in such a case for refusing passive obedience for separating from them and joyning with Parties formed in opposition to them Which seems to be your case in separating from our Communion as Diocesan and communicating with such who have cast off their obedience and united themselves in a communion opposite to their original Superiours And 4. You may be pleased to consider that as we do not call all these prudential Offices Orders so there is no reason why we should do so in the Ecclesiastical notion of the word For not now to make use of that distinction betwixt Order and Jurisdiction which is generally followed by the Ancient and Modern Popish Schoolmen that Order is circa corpus Christi mysticum and Jurisdiction circa corpus Christi verum according whereunto these offices will differ in Jurisdiction not in Order It is plain that every rank of men in Ecclesiastical Assemblies are not by the Presbyterians themselves accounted distinct Orders as Scribes Moderators Lay-Elders c. But onely such as by a distinct solemn consecration have a distinct power given them for the dispensation of divine graces not to be deprived or repealed as to its original right though it may be restrained as to its actual execution In which sense it is plain that these Offices neither are nor suppose a distinction of Orders § XI BUT then for the second proposition supposed in your Answers That the Church has not power of constituting new Orders though I doubt not you understand what Conclusion may be inferred from the Doctrine of that ingenious person who has professedly disproved Dr. Stillingfleet's all divine unalterable right of any certain form of Church-government because I confess my self not to be of his mind yet if you mean by Orders all deputation even of Ecclesiastical persons to particular offices executive of their general power then I think you have no way disproved prudential Innovations in that kind Nay I doubt not but that it were easie to instance in all other Sects as well as the Presbyterians that have any face of Government unscriptural Officers The Scripture has not used the word and therefore cannot be pretended to have condemned Nor has the Church ever understood it in this sense when she has owned but three or two Holy Orders But if by Orders you mean the limited sense of the Church of that word then I confess they are not multipliable by the Church but conceive I have shewn the no-necessity of it in our Prelatick Diocesan Government § XII YOUR second disparity is That Kingly Power requireth not ad dispositionem materiae such persnal ability as the pastoral office doth That a child may be a King and that it may serve turn if he be but the Head of Power and give others commission to do all the rest of the governing work But it is not so with a Judge a Physician an Orator or a Bishop who is not subjectum capax of the essence of the office without personal aptitude This seems to me a plain mistake even in the judgment of those Nations which are governed by an hereditary Monarchy who do not suffer their Princes whilest children to intermeddle I do not say in the executive which belongs not to them as absolute Princes but in the decretory parts of their Government which is their Royalty but oblige them to perform all by Regents and Protectors till themselves come to the years of personal aptitude in the mean time reserving them onely the honour without the power of a King And this sense of the necessity of personal abilities as it appears from the Scripture which accounts those Nations miserable that are under such Princes and the nature of the Office it self which is as chargable with the miscarriages of their Subjects as Ecclesiasticks as is excellently discoursed by Socrates in Xenophon so the avoiding such defects in regard of personal Incapacity seems to be the reason of all those Nations who have made their Government elective and even of those which are hereditary who have excluded persons notoriously incapable or at least so judged by them as Fools in all places Women in France and even such as are judged fit in regard of natural endowments till they come to be so personally That children therefore are any where permitted the honour of Kings is not because that they think them sufficiently qualified or that they think it convenient to stand to the hazardous contingency of their future qualifications but that it is accounted a less evil so to be assured of their person than to expose themselves to the danger of Civil Wars and Seditions on that account if it were managed by popular election And accordingly those Nations
concerning the Reasons of Nonconformity mentioned in Mr. Baxter's Letter § 5. Contents of Letter II. Introduction § 1. Quest 1. Whether the Bishop be bound to discharge his whole duty in his own person Or Whether he may not take in the assistances of others That he may granted by Mr. Baxter Quest 2. waved by me § 2. Mr. Baxter's reasons do as solidly disprove a possibility of Secular Discipline under a Secular Monarch of a Precinct as large as a Diocese as of Diocesan Discipline § 3. Secular Monarchs as well responsible for the miscarriage of particular Subjects as Bishops and their charge is as great The Persons Crimes and Laws belonging to the care of the Secular Governour more numerous than they which belong to the Ecclesiastical § 4 5. So are the necessities to be provided for by the Secular Governour § 6 7 8. An Objection prevented § 9. Mr. Baxter's first answer refuted The Government of a Diocese may be administred without any more than three Orders § 10. The Church may for prudential reasons constitute new Officers though not Orders § 11. Mr. Baxter's second answer refuted Personal Capacity as requisite in a Prince as in a Bishop § 12. An Objection prevented § 13. Mr. Baxter's third fourth and fifth answers refuted § 14 15. His sixth answer rejected § 16. What I mean when I make the decretory power of Government proper to the Supreme and the Executive onely to be communicated to inferiour Governours § 17. The decretory power of Government does not necessarily include personal or particular Exploration § 18 19. His seventh answer considered Good men need Government as well as others Their mistakes more dangerous to Government than the mistakes of others § 20. Mr. Baxter's Objection in favour of me His first answer refuted § 21. His second answer refuted Declaration is no act of power § 22. The unbecomingness of Doctrines so disparaging to Ecclesiastical Authority to Mr. Baxter as a Curer of Church-divisions § 23. The first Reformers at length sensible of the necessity of Church Authority to Peace and Discipline § 24. Mr. Baxter's uncandid character of a Prelatick Christian § 25. The use of external coercion in Religion is not to make men onely dissemblers § 26 27 28. No Discipline to be expected without a coercive power somewhere § 29. The liberty desired by Mr. Baxter inconsistent with the Principles of the Ignatian Episcopacy so much recommended by himself on other occasions § 30. Inconsistent with the discipline of the Church described by Tertullian and Firmilian § 31. Inconsistent with that of S. Cyprian No reason why Mr. Baxter should desire to disown them from being parts of his Cure who do not observe Rules of Discipline § 32. My second Argument for the Possibility of Diocesan Discipline from the actual experience of former times § 33. The notion of a Church for no more than are capable of personal inspection of a single Presbyter not proved to be of Divine Institution from Acts 14. 23. § 34 35. His second and third answer refuted The distribution of particular Cures to particular Presbyters from whence it comes to pass that one Diocese includes many such Societies as are fitted for personal Communion is more convenient than their governing the same multitudes in common Very probably as ancient as they had settled places of Meeting How ancient in the Churches of Rome and Alexandria § 36. How vigorous notwithstanding discipline was at that very time at Alexandria § 37. His fourth answer refuted § 38. His fifth answer refuted § 39. His sixth answer refuted § 40. His seventh answer refuted The ancient Cities of the Roman Empire that had single Bishops more generally as great and populous as now § 41 42. The Ecclesiastical Government of those Cities proportioned to the Civil § 43. Whether our Diocesan Office be a driving men to sin § 44 45 46. His eighth answer refuted Great Cities then had great numbers of Christians Instanced in the Churches of Hierusalem Samaria Antioch Antiochia Pisidiae Thessalonica Beroea Ephesus § 47. These were Churches in all likelyhood designed by the Apostles themselves as precedents for others The multitudes of Christians every where in the Roman Empire in the time of Tertullian § 48. Instances of other Churches very numerous besides Rome and Alexandria Neocaesarea Carthage The passage of S. Cyprian concerning his Contribution explained § 49 50. The ancient numerousness of Christians proved from Pliny § 51. The possibility of their meeting in the same Assemblies § 52. Several ways how greater numbers might communicate from the same Altar than could ordinarily meet in the same Assemblies § 53. S. Patrick's Dioceses not equivalent to our modern Parishes § 54. My Argument from the numerousness of the Church of Rome in the time of Cornelius His answers refuted § 55. His endeavours to give an account how the Clergie then might have been numerous though their People had been few § 56. His first five answered § 57. His sixth § 58. His seventh § 59. His eighth § 60. His ninth § 61. His tenth § 62. No Instance of Mr. Baxter's notion of a Church of a Society under the Cure of one single Priest but onely in those two Churches of Rome and Alexandria so much disowned in this very matter by himself § 63. Ulphilas Bishop of the whole Nation of the Goths Whether an Arrian § 64. Frumentius Bishop of the Indians and Moses of the Arabians The Christians of both more numerous than our single Parishes § 65. His first answer refuted § 66. His second answer refuted § 67. A Conclusory Exhortation § 68. Contents of Letter III. Reasons of delaying this Answer § 1. Endeavours to prevent his displeasure § 2. Advices then against some Intimations of his of publishing our Letters § 3. My unwillingness to differ from him in any thing tolerable § 4. The Charge of SCHISM briefly stated against them § 5. A pathetical Application of all that had been said to Mr. Baxter § 6. ERRATA PAge 4. Line 9. after Baxter read has p. 12. l. ult dele Parenthesin p. 14. l. 27. tell p. 16. l 9. dele rather p. 17. l. 7. actual p. 42. marg Separat proved Schismat p. 59. l. 28. dele the note of Interrogation p. 60. l. 24. whither r. why then l. 26. officers marg Proleg p. 67. l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 76. l. 4. were p. 86. at the last Break I onely note Sect. XXXII p. 100. l. 27. difformity p. 102. l. 9. dele are touched p. 103. l. 11. prophaneness l. 18. l. 23. after Presbyters a Colon. p. 108. l. 6. knew p. 130. l. 9. kind Whole p. 145. l. 18 19. blot out of the Text Dr. Stilling fleet 's and put in the margin Dr. Stilling fleet 's Irenic p. 179. l. 17. either is actually p. 187. l. ult change the Parenthesis into a Comma p. 199. l. 9. believe it p. 201. l. 6. strangness p. 202. l. 16.
determining p. 211. l. 19 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 212. l. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 214. l. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 215. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 224. l. 9. maintained p. 228. l. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 236. l. 9 10. Cyzicenus p. 249. l. 25. a City p. 251. l. 14. contradistinction p. 252. Anastarius l. 18 19. Tatieus p. 253. l. 19. can p. 254. l. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 256. l. 26. maintenance p. 257. l. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 268. l. 19. you may p. 274. l. 9. dele is p. 275. l. 5. urbis quaesissetis quib l. 23. dele note Interrog l. 26. oppressed p. 276. l. 10. Presbyter marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 284. l. 5. credible l. 7. dele was p. 285. l. 14. credible p. 291. l. 19. dele one or p. 293. l. 1. ad l. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 296. l. 22. Bishop p. 308. l. 3. indispensable p. 310. l. 11. 46. p 313. l. 10. be p. 321. l. 8. their l. 20. Frumentius p. 322. l. 10. Homoeusians p. 323. l. 24. would p. 324. l. 15. more in Constantius's time especially p. 326. l. 13. Mavia l. 17. that though p. 327. l. 16. excuse a Separation for the want p. 331. l. 15. in case of an ext p. 332. l. 19. that l. 27. cases you would p. 334. l. 8. inquisitive A Reply to Mr. Baxter's pretended Confutation of my Book OF SCHISM Contents Mr. Baxter's disingenuous dealing with my Person A Defence of my self § 1 2. Why I am unwilling to recriminate § 3. An account of the Publication of these Letters § 4. His endeavours against me cannot in reason be called a Confutation as the word Confutation signifies either an Answer to my Proofs or a Disproof of my Answers § 5. Nor as it may signifie a Disproof of my principal Conclusion by proof of Truths inconsistent with it § 6. Nor as it may signifie a Disproof of what is said in defence of my Principal Conclusion though without particular application § 7. His invidious consequences concerning the multitude concerned in my Principles do not prove the Principles themselves false § 8. Not proving them false the unkindness of the application will be rather his than mine § 9. A defence of our English Succession from Aidan and Finan c. § 10. His Hypothesis concerning God's giving Ecclesiastical Power immediately drawn out into several Propositions § 11. This is the onely likely way of justifying our Adversaries Ordinations Their Similitudes will not do without it not that of a Husband over the Wife not that of the Power of a Corporation conveyed by Charter § 12 13 14. Two things premised before a particular Answer to that Hypothesis 1. That at least it must be granted that the reasoning of my former Book will hold on supposition that Ecclesiastical Power is given by God not immediately but by the interposition of the Ordeiners § 15. 2. That this Hypothesis is not agreeable to the Notions of any Party that owns any such thing as Ecclesiastical Power but onely of Enthusiasts who utterly deprive the Church of any such Power or of being a Political Society § 16 17. The mischievous consequences of this Hypothesis § 18. Authority does not necessarily result from true Qualifications It is not agreeable to the sentiments of Mankind to think so Not in Supreme Power § 19. Not in Subordinate God suits his Establishments in Government to the sentiments of Mankind § 20. It is not agreeable to the principles of Ecclesiastical Government in particular The Rights of God not alienable without a particular and express consent § 21. The Right of Forgiving offences least alienable of all other Rights § 22. Less alienable by a Governour which is the person God assumes here than by any other person § 23. This Hypothesis not agreeable to Authority The Scripture account of extraordinary Offices being grounded on Gifts not favourable to our Adversaries § 24. Much less pertinent to the Scripture account concerning ordinary Offices The Independency of gifted persons on the ordinary Governours expresly opposed in the Scripture § 25. The Scripture constantly supposes Man instrumental in giving ordinary Ecclesiastical Authority § 26 27. It is no dishonour to the Holy Ghost to suppose him given by Men instrumentally § 28. Want of Gifts does not invalidate Ecclesiastical Authority when once given § 29. Gifts for Preaching not essential to the Ministry § 30. Application to the forementioned Hypothesis § 31. Arguments of Mr. Baxter's s elf Conviction Conclusion § 32. § I MR. Baxter in a late Book of his bestowed one whole Chapter on the Confutation of my Schismatical Book so he is also pleased to call it of SCHISM I wish with all my heart he had confined himself to my Book and forborn unbecoming as well as undeserved Insinuations concerning my Person I mean particularly those Suggestions concerning Communion which most oblige me on the account of conscience to take notice of them and which notwithstanding can hardly be discussed without what I am otherwise so averse to some consequential Reflection on him He has indeed put me in hopes of some amends for it If he perform it it will be well for his own sake For my part I do not intend to depend on it I know how ordinary it is for the Nonconformists to asperse that same Religion which has been settled here by those Laws and Legislators who first excluded Popery with that same odious Name against which those Laws and Legislators were deservedly so zealous We know how very lately they have again been endeavouring it and even at a time when themselves pretended a cordial union among Protestants so very necessary I know particularly how Mr. Baxter has been guilty of it in his Book of the Grotian Religion I know how Moderation in the Disputes of Christendom is apt to be so miscalled by these who so much pretend themselves to Moderation What difference is there betwixt that which was decried as Grotianism in those excellent persons Bishop Bramhall and Doctor Pierce and that which is so much applauded as equal and candid dealing in Monsieur le Blanc Mr. Baxter himself and as many of that Party as have affected the praise of being Men of Healing Principles I know how the defence of Order and Discipline and Ecclesiastical Power is apt to be so miscalled by them And far be it from me that I should endeavour to purchase their good word or opinion by deserting such Causes as these let them call them by what odious names they please For others who are more equal Judges I think I have as much to say to clear my self from the imputation of Popery as Mr. Baxter himself has or can have I mention not my Education from the beginning in the Communion of the Church of England and never varying from it I mention not my Renunciation of Popery when I was made
For the reason produced by you seems to proceed from the nature of Government in general and therefore must proceed with the same force in Seculars as Ecclesiasticals there being no ingredient peculiarly relating to Religion much less to Christianity which might alter the case or argue a disparity For certainly Princes as well as Bishops are responsible for the miscarriage of their particular Subjects as far as they may be prevented by their moral diligence and yet you will not thence conclude that every particular must come under his immediate personal care and cognizance nor is it proved that the Bishop is otherwise obliged to such a care upon peculiar respects Besides that it is plainly against experience even in Ecclesiasticals for as it hath fallen out in some places where there were many Cities that the Bishops were proportionably multiplied as in Africa and Ireland so that it was not upon account of the impossibility of the managing the charge of much greater multitudes than the Inhabitants of those small Cities appears in that even in the very same places the greatness of no City was thought sufficient for multiplying the Bishops though it was for the inferiour Clergie I need not tell you how great Rome was in Decius his time under Cornelius and how full of Christians which required the united endeavours of 1000 Clergie as appears from the said Cornelius his Epistle to Fabius of Antioch in Eusebius yet was one Bishop thought sufficient for all nay the erecting another Altar in the same Church was thought to be formal Schism as appears from the Controversies betwixt Cornelius and Novatian and S. Cyprian and Felicissimus The same also might have been shewn in several other Cities exceeding numerous and abounding with Christians as Antioch Alexandria and Carthage c. which even in those earlier Ages when Discipline was at the greatest rigour were yet governed by single Bishops Nay whole Nations were sometimes governed by one onely as the Goths by Ulphilas and the Indians by Aedesius and the Arabians by Moses which is an Argument insisted on by some Presbyterians for shewing the probability of Ordinations by mere Presbyters Yet are there no Complaints of dissolution of Discipline in such places upon account of the greatness of their charge Which to me seem sufficient Convictions that the multitude of persons governed is not the reason of our present Neglects in that particular § IV WHEN I said that Ignatius his Epistles were question'd by the Presbyterians I never said nor intended it concerning all for I know of Vedelius his Apology for them much less did I lay it particularly to your charge so that if you had here forborn assuming to your self what was spoken of others many of whose Opinions I am confident you will not undertake to justifie there had been no occasion of this Exception That other Presbyterians and those by far the greatest number have denied them cannot be questioned § V AS for the Reasons of Nonconformity alleaged by you and your Brethren of the Savoy Conference in 1660 if I might without offence presume to interpose my own thoughts they are as followeth For the approving not onely submitting to such things as you disliked and that by an oath I am sure there are many Conformists themselves that understand no more to have been intended by the Church but an exterior submission not an internal approbation of the particulars And particularly I have been informed by a Letter from a very worthy credible person who pretends to have had it from the Bishop himself that Bishop Sanderson who was a Member of your Conference interposed those words in the Act of Parliament where it is required that Ministers declare their unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the Book of Common Prayer c. designedly that this Objection might be prevented The new Article of Faith inserted in our Rubrick I do not know nor can I now get the Book that past betwixt you at the Conference to know what you mean That Lay-chancellors were disused and that the Bishops did more consult their Presbyteries I could for my own part heartily wish But I cannot think these abuses momentous enough to warrant Schism and I know your self are for bearing with some things things that are not so well rather than the Church of God should be divided for them In brief I do not understand any of the six Particulars mentioned as the reasons that keep you off though you do indeed disapprove them both because you do not undertake to determine what they might be to others but onely what they are to persons of your mind though I confess this might be understood as a modest declining to judge of others and because you conceive piety the most likely means to unite us which could not be if we imposed any thing on you against your Consciences So that the onely one that may be presumed to have been thought sufficient by you to this purpose seems to have been another which because you intimate somewhat obscurely I do not know whether you would be willing that it should be taken notice of But however I suppose that it self does onely deprive us of your Clerical not your Laical Communion God give us all to discern the things that belong unto peace As for other Questions we may easily a wait our Lords pleasure who when he comes shall tell us all things and in the mean time preserve charity and be wise unto sobriety I hope Sir you will excuse my freedom and let me know whether I may in any thing be serviceable to you and above all things reserve a portion in your Prayers for Trin. Col. near Dublin Your unfeigned Wellwisher HENRY DODWELL LETTER II. The Contents Introduction § 1. Quest. 1. Whether the Bishop be bound to discharge his whole duty in his own person Or Whether he may not take in the assistance of others That he may granted by Mr. Baxter Quest. 2. waved by me § 2. Mr. Baxter's reasons do as solidly disprove a possibility of Secular Discipline under a Secular Monarch of a Precinct as large as a Diocese as of Diocesan Discipline § 3. Secular Monarchs as well responsible for the miscarriage of particular Subjects as Bishops and their charge is as great The Persons Crimes and Laws belonging to the care of the Secular Governour more numerous than they which belong to the Ecclesiastical § 4 5. So are the necessities to be provided for by the Secular Governour § 6 7 8. An Objection prevented § 9. Mr. Baxter's first answer refuted The Government of a Diocese may be administred without any more than three Orders § 10. The Church may for prudential reasons constitute new Officers though not Orders § 11. Mr. Baxter's second answer refuted Personal Capacity as requisite in a Prince as in a Bishop § 12. An Objection prevented § 13. Mr. Baxter's third fourth and fifth answers refuted § 14 15. His sixth answer rejected §
whether he be of a good repute or at least not scandalous with his Parishioners than for a Minister not onely to inform him self of those Quaere's concerning each of his flock whether they discharge their calling justly and conscienciously and what means may be used for their recovery in case of their default who are not so easily to be cast out of the Ministers care by Excommunication as scandalous Ministers are out of the Bishops by deprivation Besides his catechizings of the ignorant and his admonitions of the knowing and his resolutions of perplexed consciences and his awaiting fit opportunities and circumstances for rendering his persuasions more prevalent are most expensive of time and yet are not so absolutely necessary to be critically observed in Government where the publick Service may be promoted by other Instruments if persuasions prove unsuccesful as in private discourses where the personal advantage of the party concerned is principally intended § VIII BUT then if you would be pleased to consider further how few Parishes are so little peopled as to consist onely of 400 and how few Dioceses consist of so many Ministers that have proper and distinct Cures how that usually the most eminent men for Parts and Action are or should be chosen Bishops many of them upon personal regards able to perform the work of many ordinary Ministers and may well be presumed extraordinary considering the great advantage for choice from the disproportion of their number so few Bishops being to be chosen out of so many Ministers If you would consider further how untrue it is that the dispensation of discipline even as it is practised is managed by the Bishop alone who has his inferiour Officers for preparing things for his cognizance besides the direction of learned Lawyers for his assistance in point of counsel which is the main reason that may be pretended for proving the Government of many better than that which is Monarchical and for counsel in this kind the Clergie themselves are not qualified as Clergie-men but as Lawyers but would have much more of this assistance according to my Book where I have professed my self desirous that the Bishops would more communicate the great Affairs of Government with their Clergie which I confess I think more agreeable to the primitive Form If I say you had considered these things you would find Discipline much more practicable under a Diocesan than a Secular Monarchy And I wish you would consider whether your Arguments will not proceed with the same force I do not say onely against those numerous Parishes of 30000 or 50000 persons which is a greater number than I believe are in some of our Irish Dioceses especially if onely Protestants be accounted and yet you do not pretend a duty of separating from the communion of such Parishes as you do from our communion as Diocesan though certainly a Bishop with a multitude of Clergie more subject to him than ordinary Curates are to their principal Parsons is much more able for the Government of a Diocese than an ordinary Minister wanting such advantages is for the Government of such a Parish but against Provincial and National Classes also For it is as impossible for every particular Elder of even a Provincial Class which were often of larger extent than our Dioceses to inform himself particularly of every person and cause to be brought before him so as to be able to judge distinctly of their merit as for a Diocesan Bishop And I can perceive nothing that may with any plausibility be pretended there that may not with as much force be urged here § IX IF it be pretended that there is a multitude who have their distinct Governments in their respective precincts mutually independent on each other some of whom by advantage of their neighbourhood may have opportunity of informing themselves particularly of every cause belonging to their Jurisdiction The same may be pretended here the same number of Clergie being imployed under a Diocesan as under a Classical Government But it is withall clear that a much greater number of them will even in such Classes prove incapable of that advantage of personal information who yet would not be denied their decisive vote on the testimony of others And in all Polyarchical Governments the suffrages of the major part is as decretory as that of a single person in that which is Monarchical so that still the Government is managed without particular information If their multitude be urged for the security of their counsel that is had also here especially in the Hypothesis defended by me where Presbyters are joyned in Government with the Bishops But with this advantage in our case that the same security of counsel is here joyned with expediteness in its decision and execution and security from equal suffrages the want of which do oftentimes more prejudice polyarchical Societies than the security of their counsels do avail them And it is plainly as impossible if not more for any Class which can onely be convened occasionally to execute its own Decrees without Delegation as for the Bishop § X YOUR answers for shewing the disparity betwixt Civil and Ecclesiastical Government as many of them as are true for all are not do onely prove a disparity on other accounts which is not denied but not such a one as may hinder the governableness of the same multitude by an Ecclesiastical and that in foro exteriori which is the onely question I am concerned in at present which is acknowledged governable by a Secular Magistrate You have neither any thing of reason nor of any positive revelation of God which might make such a multitude less governable by reason of some liberties restrained in the Church but allowed in the Commonwealth Your 1. is that the standing of the Magistrates office is by the Law of Nature which therefore alloweth variety and mutations of inferiour Orders as there is cause But the standing of the Clergy is by supernatural institution our Book of Ordination telling us that there are three Orders c. Whence you conclude that men may not alter them or make more of the same kind The force of this Answer as far as I can apprehend it seems to consist in these two things 1. That the government of a Diocese cannot be administred without more than three Orders for those three you seem to allow from the Book of Ordination and 2. That it is not in the power of the Church to institute new Orders besides the three already established though it be in the power of the State to innovate as they please by reason of the disparity by you mentioned The former is so manifestly false as that if ever Discipline were observed ever since the government of the Church was Diocesan which is hard to deny since it has been Diocesan as far as Ecclesiastical History can inform us it was under these three Orders Nay the Presbyterians pretend their Classical Discipline to be maintainable by one Order
same mind or neglect the moral means of information which if you suppose the case evident you must presume such as would infallibly bring them to be so 3. Therefore what are the real thoughts of Governours and whether they have made use of the means of information with integrity and diligence none can for their own satisfaction which is principally to be taken notice of in order to the imputableness of sin judge of so well as themselves Nor 4. Can we better be assured of their sense herein than by their word unless it be by the evidence of the thing It is not therefore every proof that may seem satisfactory to our selves that may warrant our presumption of their sense unless it be such as is thought cognoscible by them and whose evidence is presumed inevitable upon a sincere examination And 5. It is not sufficient as to the matter in hand that it appear that some persons have indeed been made hypocrites for fear of this exterior coercion but it must further be shewn that its natural tendency is to do so or at least that it is its most usual consequent And 6. That it is an occasion of their hypocrisie by virtue of it self not of the disposition of the Subject For the sins that are derived from the disposition of the Subject they that give the immediate occasions are not responsible for Otherwise when the wicked turn Gods grace into wantonness and those things which should have been for their good into the occasions of falling and the word preached turns to be the savour of death unto death to its unworthy hearers and the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper to its unworthy receivers you might conclude God who gives those abused favours to be the proper occasion of the abusers sin And because there are some who will with less scruple grant of God that he is the designer of his creatures sins than they would grant it concerning any good men S. Paul had been the culpable occasion of the perjury of those conspirators who had sworn not to eat untill they had killed him onely by making use of just means for his own preservation And these you may easily believe to be the thoughts of Governours concerning those whom they are pleased to prosecute for their opinions That they do as seriously believe that the reasons which satisfie themselves are as sufficient to satisfie all others that use their moral diligence for finding satisfaction as the sufferers believe it concerning their own reasons that they are sufficient to satisfie their Governours and therefore that such dissenting hypocritical Subjects are as faulty in not using their diligence in the use of the means if they find not actual satisfaction as such Subjects believe the same concerning their Governours And 7. That this personal hypocrisie of such dissembling persons is a greater inconvenience to the publick than the toleration of their seditious behaviour For as it is certain that Governours no more than other good Christians may design any sin for any good whatsoever so it will not be easily disproved either by reason or authority of Casuists that they may design that from whence they know a sin will necessarily follow for the avoidal of a greater both inconvenience and sin such as is sedition in respect of hypocrisie For though it be unlawful to choose any evil where it may be avoided yet it is not so when two occurr whereof at least one is inevitable to make choice of the less before the greater And now upon these supposals it were easie to shew from these conditions of dissimulation that either there were no necessity that the sufferers under these coercive means must needs dissemble or if there were yet at least not such as would make it imputable as sin to Governours or if it were a sin to them absolutely yet not such under such a streightned election BUT I must avoid prolixity and therefore at present shall onely briefly make Application to the forementioned conditions of dissimulation 1. Therefore it is not necessary that every sufferer for his opinions must believe his cause to be good for there are bad as well as good of all much received opinions that maintain them not upon account of their truth but because they are themselves factiously disposed and love contradiction especially to Superiours a humour such people of the vulgar are usually too much addicted to or affect popularity or singularity or promise themselves some great advantages by publick Innovations and Disturbances or engage in a party out of kindness to their Friends that are concerned in it Much less 2. Is it necessary that every one who does indeed believe his own Opinion true must do it upon Motives so much as apparently conscientious For education and custom and the authority of a person respected or a vainglorious ostentation of his own Wit or the shame of being mistaken or convicted may at first incline many to defend Opinions fortuitously taken up and afterwards the love of their own arguments may delude many to believe what they have once asserted And God knows whether the vulgar of most Opinions be not acted thus whatever pretences they make of conscience for custom may go very far in making men abhor unusual innocent or commendable things as prophane and piacular as appeared in the Experiment of Darius Hystaspis in Herodotus who found the Scythian to pretend as much conscience for eating as the Grecian for burying his dead Relations And we have reason to believe if of too many whom we find the most zealous maintainers of opinions controverted and yet the most negligent practisers of such as are undoubted which certainly would not be if Gods sake or conscience or a sense of their own duty were the reasons inducing them to believe them Now these Deductions being made the number of conscientious Dissenters would I doubt be generally found the smaller And it is a general and just rule of publick proceedings not to forbear that which may generally do good though it may prove inconvenient and prejudicial in some rarer Instances Nor would these coercive means oblige these Dissenters upon Motives not conscientious to dissimulation or hypocrisie But even for those fewer truly conscientious Dissenters which would remain it is not necessary 3. That if they have been of a different Opinion they should persevere in it unalterably And as their minds may alter at any time so as well when they are prosecuted for their Opinions as otherwise in which case their conversion may be veracious And possibly the number even of good converts even upon such an occasion would be more if they did not some of them for fear of being censured as time-servers not allow the contrary Opinion the same favour of an equal hearing when it is countenanced by Authority as otherwise or at least not express their sentiments so freely and ingenuously not heeding that hereby instead of courage and constancy they onely choose their conquerour
I believe you cannot produce a precedent of that age where the word is taken for the other Clergie so that there are onely two other Senses that I can think of reducible to this purpose either for the Laity and that your self I believe will not think intelligible here that the power of remitting sins by Baptism or otherwise does agree to them or for the complex of both the Laity and the Body of the Clergie in contradistinction to the Bishop And to this his proof of the power of remitting sins given to the Apostles being also given to the Church in this contradistinct sense must have been impertinently urged from its being given to the Apostles seeing that the Church in the Apostles time must have been as contradistinct from the Apostles as the later Churches from their respective Bishops By the word Churches therefore are onely meant Orthodox Societies including Bishops as well as other members whence it will follow that the Church is onely therefore said to have this power because the Bishops have it and therefore that no Ecclesiastical Member can have it independently on them 3. Therefore that by the word Bishops to whom this power of remitting sins is given to which all other Ecclesiastical Power is consequent Presbyters are not included will appear probable if you consider 1. That though the word Presbyter and Sacerdos be attributed to Bishops properly so called yet at least in that age I believe you will hardly find that a simple Presbyter is called Episcopus Blondell himself I think will not furnish you with an Instance And 2. That these Bishops are such as are called Successors of the Apostles And that by these Successors of the Apostles single persons are understood in the language of that age appears in that when they prove Succession from the Apostles they do it by catalogues of single persons as those in Irenaeus Tertullian c. and that Bishops in the confined sense are so frequently said to be Successors of the Apostles which is not said of simple Presbyters See S. Cyprian ep 42 65 69. and the Author de Aleatoribus with many others usually produced in the Disputes concerning Episcopacy AND then for the sense of S. Cyprian he was as resolute in vindicating his own right as condescending in his practice He it is that asserts the unaccountableness of the Episcopal Office to any under God that makes the Church in the Bishop as well as the Bishop in the Church that charges the contempt of the Bishop as the original of all Schism and Heresie and parallels it with the Sin of Corah Dathan and Abiram that spares not even Presbyters themselves when presuming to act without his order but puts them in mind of his being their Superiour and charges them with rebellion when they took that liberty you desire of acting arbitrarily and independently Instances of all these kinds might have been produced if I were not afraid of being too tedeous These things may at present suffice to shew that the liberty you desire of admitting or rejecting whom you please from your own flock is not more unreasonable than dissonant from the practice of those Ages for which you profess a reverence Nor do I understand your design in the use of that liberty you desire If it be that you would have those whom you think unworthy of your flock excluded from your cure that is as improper as if a Physician should desire to be excused from visiting those who are most dangerously though not desperately sick Certainly the contrary would rather follow that as they need most so they should have most of your care It is our Saviours own saying that the whole need not a physician but the sick that is at least not comparatively and generally his greatest pains and favours were extended to those who had least deserved them Nor is their unwillingness to deal with you in affairs of this nature a sufficient reason to exempt them from your Cure for this unwillingness it self is a most considerable ingredient in their distemper and that which makes them most truly pitiable and it would be as great a piece of inhumanity for the spiritual as the corporal Physician to desert them on that pretence I am sure very different from the behaviour of Christ and his Apostles who found the World generally as much prejudiced against and unwilling to hear them concerning affairs of that nature as you can with any probability presume concerning a Christian Auditory If your meaning be not to be excused from the use of all other good means for their recovery but onely from admitting them to the blessed Sacrament which ought to be the privilege of such as are already deserving I pray consider 1. Whether though you deny them to be Christians yet their very Baptism and exterior profession of Christianity be not at least sufficient to entitle them to exterior privileges if on their own peril they will venture on them and that Sacramental privileges are but exteriour They are invited to the marriage feast and none may exclude them if they come though it is at their own hazard if they presume to do so without the marriage garment And 2. That this does at least hold till they be convicted and censured by their due Superiour and you know it is questioned whether you as a private Presbyter ought to have that power But 3. That you have a power of suspending refractory persons till you acquaint the Bishop and with him you have that power of convincing and persuading which seems as much as your self desire so that even upon this account you have no reason to complain MY second Argument was from experience even in Ecclesiasticals to which you answer that It 's hard then to know any thing and that you dispute all this while as if the question were Whether men in England speak English that therefore if you herein erre you profess your self incurable and allow me to despair of you If I had disputed from present experience in England I should have confessed your Answer proper that I had endeavour'd to conquer your sense and experience as you elsewhere express it But I wonder how you could understand me so considering that our present want of discipline was the reason of my desire of its revival whence you took the occasion of these Disputes My meaning was that in the primitive times when Bishops were indeed laborious and conscientious and were willing and desirous to do what they could do experience shewed that discipline was actually maintained under such a Diocesan Government and therefore I concluded that the multitude of persons governed was not the reason of our present neglects And what is it that is scrupled in this Discourse or need put you to those unequal resolutions of being uncurable Is it whether the number of Christians in Dioceses were equal then with what we have now This was proved in my former Letter Or that the
guilty permitted to escape without any great charge of partiality than what is ordinarily thought equitable in great multitudes by secular persons And that of those which remain it is not so requisite that all be tried at once and that one must hinder the procedure against the other But after all this you say We have talked but of a Phantasm for it is not one Bishop but one Layman a Chancellour that useth this decretory power of the Keys c. and that the Bishop rarely meddleth with it Still you forget that I did in my former Letter expresly decline this Controversie and intimated that our present question was not concerning the decorum of the person but the possibility of discipline under him and sure you will not deny that a Laymans abilities for Government may be as great as a Clergie-mans whence it will follow that discipline may as well be preserved under him that our question was concerning Diocesan Government as such that is as including under it the Cures of several Presbyters to which this office of Laychancellour is accidental The business of the Covenant I am unwilling to engage in because I do not know whether it can be done conveniently without offence Your Explication of my Information concerning the words consent to the use c. in the Act for Uniformity I verily believe to be true both because you say it and because it doth not deny but onely give a further account of some passages not mentioned by my worthy Author and because the word use is omitted in the Form it self though mentioned immediately before What the Reasons were that were urged by the House of Commons for proving them intolerable I know not nor have been informed by you yet I could conjecture several that were very apposite and expedient notwithstanding they might not intend to oblige to an internal assent in case exteriour peaceable acquiescency as it is usually understood by Conformists themselves and that they did not intend to exclude peaceable Conformists though otherwise not satisfied of the expedience of every single Imposition seems very credible because there is not the least intimation of so rigid an exposition as that is which is mentioned by you That you must never endeavour any alteration no not by a request or word All that is desired is that you would not while you are a private person endeavour any further than by request and words as indeed you cannot lawfully and justly do without encroaching on the offices of others which cannot be excused by the conceived justice of your cause That you would give leave when all is done to the persons requested by you to judge of the reasonableness of your requests not obliging them to act by yours but their own consciences which when all is done must be the measure of their own proceedings That in case of their dissent from you you neither raise parties against them nor encourage them that do by communicating with them That you would in such a case not easily conclude the error to be in your Superiours considering that your self are at least as fallible as they or if you did indeed think the cause so evident as might justly warrant your dissent as I confess thet there are some degrees of evidence to private persons sufficient to countervail any authority whatsoever yet that you would use no other means for prevailing against the conceived prejudices of Governours than such as would become the modesty of a private person powerful persuasions and hearty prayers That even in such cases they would give active obedience in things not sinful and passive in such as were This behaviour would salve the difficulties on both sides would both preserve the peace of the Church and the peace of a Dissenters conscience if invincibly persuaded would minister more comfort to him and satisfie him of his own sincerity in designing the glory of God when there were less suspicions of any ends of his own and his sufferings for the peace of the Church would be as glorious and rewardable if we may believe S. Cyprian as if they were for the faith of the Church IF I had been dealing with a person less zealous and industrious for this peace than you have approved your self by publick Monuments it had here been seasonable to have conjured you by all that is or can be dear to a Lover of God or of the honour of Religion by all your sacred or civil Interests by your respects either to the Church or Country of your birth and education which are not more prejudiced by any thing than our Ecclesiastical Divisions that you would be pleased to lay out those great Talents of Parts and Interest in the Peoples Affections wherewith God has so abundantly enriched you on the reconciliation of the people with themselves and with their Governours I am confident you would find that a more effectual course of promoting discipline for which you are so zealous than the unsettlement of the present and forcible Establishment of another Form of Government as much maligned as this when it has prevailed and has attempted the execution of discipline That you would consider it as your greatest security to be inquisitor and wary in a cause of so dangerous consequence if you should prove mistaken and your greatest honour to yield to truth and to relinquish any opinions how long maintained or how dear soever when they shall appear to be erroneous That you would be pleased in order thereunto to consider impartially what I confess has here been weakly represented not as an adversary to my cause but as a diligent enquirer after truth where ever it may be found as our most serious common interest That therefore you would excuse my failings in the impropriety of words and correct those that may be found in the disadvantage of my management and consider all not according to the unskilfulness of my proposal but the nature strength and evidence of the Arguments themselves as discoverable in order to your own satisfaction by your own more discerning judgment That you would beware of precipitancy in resolving and of tenaciousness in maintaining unsufficiently grounded resolutions in a question of so great consequence for catholick peace These I say and the like Topicks might have been urged and insisted on to another that had been less skilful or sincere but to you I believe it is sufficient to have intimated them rather as warnings what you may avoid than as instructions in what you need to be informed I shall therefore recommend the whole success to God who has often manifested strength out of the mouths of babes and sucklings and to your own ingenuous and pious industry and favourable judgment in an affair so nearly concerning the Churches peace and the good of Souls for which you are deservedly so zealous and conclude onely desiring the continuance of your prayers if I have already impetrated any portion in them for Trin. Coll. near Dublin
than could have been discharged by a single person even this himself acknowledges from Ignatius yet does not see how inconsistently with his own Hypothesis nor does he offer to give the least account of it I have observed that the multitude of Church-governours was proportionably as great then as now but that the allotting each Presbyter his particular Cure as it is now done by the distinction of Parishes is in truth a more convenient expedient for making the Government practicable I have shewn that his own decryed Instances of Rome and Alexandria are the onely Instances in all Antiquity of Churches fitted and confined to the management of single persons I have given an account how so great multitudes might notwithstanding communicate from the same Altar To all these things I find nothing here replied nor is it likely that he thought of them in a Book written so long before mine In short though he have indeed produced more Instances yet I see none but what are reducible to the same Topicks and are therefore already answered in generally speaking to those Topicks I find neither any new Arguments nor any further Improvements of old ones much less any satisfactory account of my Arguments or contrary Assertions So that if this be all he has to say I see no reason why I may not leave it to the Reader to judge between us These are my present thoughts on a cursory view of the design and management of his Book that part especially wherein I am more particularly concerned However I do not prejudge either the Reader or my self if upon a close perusal any thing do yet appear that may deserve a further examination more than I see yet any reason to expect I shall be thankful to him who will tell me what it is O that it would please God to awaken this good mans former zeal for solid peace and piety Those are things for which his Talents serve better than they do for Controversie How much rather would I serve him in the meanest offices that might be really subservient to these things than thus contend with him in these unedifying dividing Disputations FINIS A Catalogue of some Books sold by Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in S. Pauls Churchyard HErodoti Halicarnassaei Historiarum Libri IX Ejusdem Narratio de Vita Homeri excerpta â— Ctesiae libris Persicis Indicis Graeco-Lat Folio Francisci Suarez Tractatus de Legibus ac Deo Legistatore in X. Libros distributus utriusque fori hominibus non minus utilis quam necessarius Folio Herbert Thorndicus de Ratione as Jure finiendi controversias Ecclesiae Folio The Holy Court in five Tomes written in French by N. Caussin The fourth Edition Folio The Works of the most Reverend Father John Bramhall D. D. late Lord Archbishop of Armagh Primate and Metropolitan of all Ireland some of which were never before printed with the Life of the Author Folio The History and Vindication of the Loyal Formualry or Irish Remonstrance in several Treatises by F. Peter Walsh Folio A Collection of all the Statutes now in use in the Kingdom of Ireland with Notes in the Margin and a Continuation of the Statutes made in the Reign of the late King Charles 1. And likewise the Acts of Settlement and Explanation c. As also a necessary Table to the whole Work Folio Several Chirurgical Treatises by Richard Wiseman Serjeant Chirurgeon Folio The Primitive Origination of Mankind considered and examined according to the Light of Nature by Sir M. Hale Knight late Chief Justice of the Kings Bench. Folio Sir Richard Bakers Chronicle of England Folio Bishop Sandersons Sermons Folio Bentivolio and Vrania in six Books by N. Ingelo D. D. Folio Le Beaus Pledeur a Book of Entries containing Declarations Informations and other select and approved Pleadings with Special Verdicts and Demurrers in most Actions Real Personal and Mixt. Together with faithful References to the most authentick Law-books now extant and a more copious and useful Table than hath been printed in any Book of Entries The whole comprehending the Art and Method of good Pleading By Sir Humphry Winch sometimes one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. Folio Skinneri Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae seu Explicatio vocum Anglicarum Etymologica ex propriis fontibus in 5 distinctas classes digesta Folio Holyoaks last Dictionary in 3 parts 1. The English before the Latin 2. The Latin before the English 3. The proper names of Persons Places c. Folio Sixty one Sermons preach'd mostly on publick occasions by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsey and Châ—plain in ordinary to His Majesty Folio Dr. Edw. Brownes Travels illustrated with Figures Quarto The Controversial Letters or the grand Controversie concerning the pretended Authority of Popes and the true Soveraignty of Kings Quarto A true Widow a Comedy acted at the Duke Theatre written by Tho. Shadwell Quarto A Vindication of the Syncerity of the Protestant Religion in the point of Obedience to Soveraigns by P. Du Moulin D. D. Canon of Christ Church Canterbury The fourth Edition in which more light is given about the horrid Popish Plot whereby our late Sovereign K. Charles 1. was murder'd Quarto Phocaena or the Anatomy of a Porpess diffected at Gresham College with a preliminary Discourse concerning Anatomy and a Natural History of Animals by E. Tyson D. D. Quarto Dodwells Separation of Churches from Episcopal Government as practised by our present Nonconformists proved Schismatical from such Principles as are least controverted and do withall most popularly explain the sinfulness and mischief of Schism Quarto Two Letters of Advice 1. For the Susception of Holy Orders 2. For Study Theological especially such as are rational with a Catalogue of the Christian Writers and genuine Works that are extant of the first three Centuries Octavo Discourse concerning Sarchoniat honis Phoenician History Octavo Considerations of present concernment how far Romanists may be trusted by Princes of another Persuasion Octavo Two short Discourses against the Romanists 1. An account of the Fundamental Principle of Popery and of the Insufficiency of their Proofs for it 2. An Answer to six Quere's proposed to a Gentlewoman of the Church of Engl. FINIS * The true and onely way of Conc. part 3. chap. 9. * This I had written before I had seen the Admonion prefixed to his Church History where he pretends to make me the amends he had promised but still leaves it as a dispute what I really am to be determined not from his Testimony but from my Book We had at his own nomination referred the form of his Purgation to the excellent Dean of Canterbury to whom I had expresly given warning of such slippery forms from some tryal I had of him both in Discourse and in a Letter but he never consulted him By this it appears how little reason I had to depend on him However I am glad he has acquainted the Reader with the true reason of
Presbyters succeeding in order to the Episcopacy was in Alexandria where it seems observed as a special custom practised from the Apostles time to Heraclas who was Scholar to Origen as S. Hierom and Eutychius say it was and there ceased at S. Hierom seems to intimate then it would be very probable that this subdivision into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was introduced at least before that time of Heraclas because some reliques of that practice remained even in Arius his time whose place as Presbyter of Baucalis is made next to the Bishop So Gelasius Cyricenus speaking concerning Alexander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence also the relation in Nicephorus Calistus of the quarrel of Arius with one Baucalus being the first and second Presbyters of that Church of Alexandria which is given as an occasion of his Heresie a story very probably raised by occasion of his mistaking Baucalis the name of his Parish for the name of a Man who is made second because Arius was known to be the first For this Precedeny of Arius is no way probable to have been because of his longer standing in his office of Presbytery seeing Alexander is said expresly to have given him it who was the first that made him Presbyter for he was onely made Deacon by Achillas the Predecessor of Alexander Now Alexander himself is by Baronius thought to have succeeded Achillas in the Year 311 and if he be mistaken seems rather to erre in placing him too soon after Peter and the difference betwixt him and Arius arose about the Year 315 not above four years after too small a time to make him in course the senior Presbyter This Precedency therefore seems to be upon account of his Parish which at the first distribution had in all probability been allotted to that Presbyter who had been senior in due course of standing which therefore seems to have been introduced whilest that seniority was observed that is at least before the time of Heraclas AND how long before Heraclas his time this distinction might have been introduced you cannot tell yet I believe you will hardly say I am sure much more hardly prove that discipline failed there in the time of Heraclas or for a long time after After Heraclas how much the Church of Alexandria and himself particularly suffered for Christianity you have fully related by his Successor Dionysius in Eusebius in the time of Decius and Valerian and how severe they were in their Fasts appears from the Canonical Epistle of that same Dionysius to Basilides besides his other penitential Treatise now lost What the Alexandrians also suffered in the most bloudy Persecution of Dioclesian you may find in the same Eusebius and particularly in Thebais which by the Nicene Canon establishing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we find to have been influenced by the Alexandrian Discipline the number of Martyrs was so great as to denominate a famous Epocha which those Countries observe to this day called the Annus Martyrum or Dioclesiani Which severity is by so much the more remarkable because it followed an intervall of rest which usually corrupts that discipline which is onely voluntary and unseconded by good Laws I need not mention the Martyrdom of their Bishop S. Peter in this Persecution his very severe Canonical Epistle is sufficient to shew how rigorous discipline was then practised when in the heigth of persecution such severe Penances against lapsed persons were not judged unseasonable to be exercised on such persons over whom they had no coercive power but the obligation of the Penitents conscience I might have proceeded to have shewn the same severity still maintained in that City which you so particularly reflect on as unworthy to be made a precedent during the Prelacy of Alexander and the great Athanasius from the great Elogies given to those excellent Prelates by the Fathers and the courage shewn by them in ejecting and keeping out Arius and the very slight Exceptions urged by the Arians their Enemies against them especially in the several Synods convened in the cause of Athanasius But for evincing the general severity of the Lives of Christians that memorable Example of their great diligence in providing for those who had been formerly their severest Persecutors in the great Plague and Famine which immediately followed the Persecution of Dioclesian and venturing many of their own lives in the service when they had been deserted by their nearest Friends may be an illustrious evidence Besides the Controversie betwixt S. Pet. of Alexandria and Meletius the occasion of the Meletian Schism shews how generally the Alexandrians were affected to discipline For when S. Pet. though severe enough against lapsed persons as appears by his forementioned Epistle yet thought it a necessary Indulgence to admit Penitents to Communion during the Persecution even Priests as well as others that they might be the better animated to new occasions of sufferings Meletius opposed it and was followed by much the greater part of the Clergie Nor ought you to conclude that the like subdivision was not introduced into other Churches because we have no Records attesting it to have been so seeing there is so little extant of the Histories of those earlier Centuries much less any thing so minute and particular in describing the Customs of particular Churches as that it would be safe to argue negatively from their omission of a custom to conclude that there was none For my design it is sufficient that the ancient Dioceses had as many Presbyters besides other Clergie requisite to rule them in conjunction with the Bishop as are now thought sufficient since their distribution into particular Parishes besides the Chorepiscopi and the Clergie under them all subject to the Government of the City Bishop Which is enough to shew that the charge of a Diocese was as great then as now and much beyond what you would have it the abilities of a particular person without Parochial Subrulers 4. YOU say At Antioch the third Patriarchate Ignatius professeth that every Church had one Altar and one Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons Fellow-servants If you mean every Church at Antioch as if that or any other City in that time had more than one Bishop presiding over a Presbytery that is more than you will find in Ignatius or any Authentick Writer of that time But if you mean at Antioch as a Patriarchate that is within that circuit which was afterwards subject to the Bishop of Antioch as a Patriarch including the whole Oriental Diocese there were many Cities that had in them but one Altar with one Bishop and his Clergie that I have already granted probable but have withall shewn how little it will advantage your Cause or prejudice mine and I am not desirous to trouble you with Repetition The name of Fellow-servants I doubt you misunderstand it is indeed true if related to God that persons of all Orders in the Church are his Fellow-servants but if you
mean it as I doubt you do that they are Servants coequal among themselves that is clearly against the whole current of Ignatius his Epistles and against the supposition of their being distinct Orders and I believe against your own opinion concerning Priests and Deacons whom I think you will not say to be thus coequal But for what you add further as if you had it out of the same Ignatius though indeed you have not scored it as you did the former part That in this one Church the Bishop must enquire all by name even Servant Men and Maids and see that they absented not themselves from the Church whence you ask Why is not Ignatius confuted if he erred and refer me to Mr. Mede on the point I am confident that you will find no such thing in Ignatius or Mr. Mede that will need confuting For this inquiry by name need not have been performed by personal visitation of them but by Schedules delivered to him by his subordinate Clergie which if any of our Bishops would do I should be so far from offering to confute as that I should highly honour and reverence him for it BUT you say 5. That Alexandria and Rome by not multiplying Bishops as Churches or Converts needed it began the great sin and calamity which hath undone us and therefore are not to be our patern If you mean by Bishops your Parish Ministers as you seem to do who must have no greater charge than one particular person unassisted with a Presbytery may give a particular account of then sure you cannot but know that as they are by you thought singular in introducing this distinction of Altars in the same City so they must have been so in multiplying such a kind of Bishops that might attend them at least in more accurately proportioning them to the multitudes of Churches and Converts But if you mean a multitude of Parish Priests whom you would fain call Bishops independent on a principal President then it would concern you to prove 1. That Alexandria and Rome were herein singular which you will find impossible to be done And 2. That their guilt herein was not onely an occasion for occasions of evil cannot be proved evil and so unfit for being paterns but natural causes of that grand sin and calamity you so lament YOU answer or rather argue 6. That were Bishops necessarily to be distributed by Cities the Empires that have few or no Cities must have few or no Bishops and an Emperour might aliud agendo depose all the Bishops by disfranchising the Cities This does not shew the impossibility of a Bishops maintaining discipline in a City that is great and populous which is indeed our question but onely the inconvenience of scrupulously multiplying Bishops according to the multitude of Cities And that as it is not to our purpose so I know no Adversary you have in it For there are no humane Establishments whatsoever that can fit all circumstances yet are not such possible inconvenient cases thought sufficient to abrogate them though known and foreseen And therefore it were not in prudence a sufficient reason for the Church to alter her general rule of multiplying Bishops by Cities because the cases mentioned by you are but rare and improbable which kind are not taken notice of by humane Legislators They are rare for where will you find that Empire that hath few or no Cities at least in those civilized parts of the world they were then acquainted with They are improbable for the administration of justice among Subjects and the encouragement of traffick which are the Governours Interests do require such Privileges to be given to places not too distant from each other But if the inconveniences were greater than indeed they are and sufficient to persuade a deviation from such a general rule in such cases Yet 1. The Church never acknowledged any unalterable divine obligation to observe it but has always reserved a power to her self of deviating in such cases of which she might be satisfied that they were sufficiently momentous And 2. She has in such cases actually taken the liberty of exerting her own power as in those Nations which had but one Bishop though many Cities of which instances were already given and in those places where Cities too numerous and too little frequented against which she has made those express Canons that Bishops should not be placed over them nè vilesceret nomen Episcopi which those of your Persuasion do so often take notice of with offence BUT 7. You say Every Corporation Oppidum like our Market Towns was then truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if we will procure every such City with us to have a Bishop and the office of such Bishops to be to drive men from sin and not to it and to silence Blasphemers not faithful Preachers of the Gospel all our Controversies of Prelacy are then at an end But I fear though you had your desire that in analogy to Cities Bishops should be multiplied according to the number of Cities which Rule you lately seemed to dislike and that every Market Town should be accounted a City as you conceive it to have been practised among the Ancients and that Bishops discharged their duty as you have described it yet you would hardly suffer our Controversies to end so especially if you acted consequently to your own Principles For you know by the same rule that small Cities as you have described them must have distinct Bishops the greatest that are London it self for example must have but one together with the Villages about it and I doubt that would be found to be a charge as disproportionable to the abilities of a single man as some of our Country Dioceses especially here in Ireland Nay by Captain Grants Calculation London bears a greater proportion to all England than any single Diocese which is onely the 25th part Now according to your Principles our Communion quâ Diocesan that is if I understand you as exceeding the abilities of a single man is not to be embraced Therefore even in this case you must refuse to communicate with the Church of London And considering that in communicating with a particular you do communicate with all with whom that particular Church holds Communion for Communion with a particular Church is no where understood as a profession of union with her alone but also with all such whom she accounts orthodox members of the Catholick Church you must by the same sequel conceive your self obliged to decline the Communion of all particular Churches communicating with London Unless therefore you suppose a Schism of all other Churches from her you must make one from them and so be in the same condition wherein you are at present I confess you do not act consequently to this later Principle whilest you refuse not our Parish Communion which communicates with our Diocesan quà Diocesan and so I had much rather decline