that of Thuanus before his History and the Preface of Casaubon in his Edition of Polybius 'T WILL no doubt be expected that I should add the order which is observed and practised in the Independant Churches to their confession which ought to follow but as they profess a perfect harmony among themselves so likewise they do not believe this same absolute necessity as to that which concerns discipline for excepting some few Apostolical and perpetual Rules which admit no change according to times and places concerning the equality of Pastors that choice that every Church is to make of its Pastor in which Monsieur Mestrezat and Monsieur Claude make the true ordination to consist the solemn benediction of that Pastor by fasting and prayers and the refusal they make of their Ministries and of their Members which some call Excommunication and deposition excepting I say these acts their order is to do all things decently and in order in the Church as Saint Paul requires But they are governed as all other Societies and as they explain themselves in the first Chapter of their confession of faith Article VII in these words There are some circumstances in the Government of the Church and in divine Worship which are common with all the actions of men which are practised in all societies and which might â—o be regulated by natural light and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word of God which are always to be observed THIS is all the discipline which the Independâ—nts practise then Government is that of well order d Râ—publicks that cannot possibly be too exact for the regulating of manners but which have but very few Lawes for that of Polity they are far from that Maxim in pâ—ssima republicà pluri ne leges BUT how â—ise soever their carriage and government be how sound and Orthodox their Doctrine and how exact and scrupulous their â—ives yet they cannot escape the tyrâ—â—ny of those little sincere judgements which the most learned and grave persons have made of them so that it need be no surprize at all if the Doctors of Rome how illuminated soever and sincere they have seem'd to be have had for so many Ages and have still to this day so great an Aversion for our Religion how holy soever it is and have passed judgments so little favourable of it as to draw from our Morals consequences that are as far from purity and truth as they are from our intention This I say need be no surprize at all to us since that Amyrauld Daillé and so many others of their gown have not passed any less sinister judgment of a generation of men as holy as any in the World I mean of the Independants no more than of their carriage government and Doctrine AS to their carriage and Government whether in private or in the Church I do not believe there are any better regulated more Wise more Prudent more Illuminated nor more Religious As to their Doctrine their Confession of Faith shall Witness what it is since that of all those that have appeared in the World of that Nature it is a peice the most Perfect Pure and Orthodox And in which it may well nigh be said the Christian Religion may be found compleat though there should onely be remaining that single piece in all the Booksellers Shops in the World CHAP. X. Of the Wise and Prudent carriage of the Independants and of their way to get further off the Church of Rome than any other and to condemn all the wayes of Reconciliation with it and the Churches that hold any Communion with Rome that the indeavour to come near it is damnable and pernicious as is sufficiently seen in the present posture of the affairs of England THOSE who shall approve of the wise conduct of the Congregational Churches in the composing of a Confession that hath so much conformity with the purest Churches of Jesus Christ will be easily perswaded that neither Wisdome nor Prudence have been wanting to them when with that conformity of Faith that there is between them and the Churches that are at greatest distance from Popery they have preserved to themselves their liberty as to matter of discipline to do their business a part independantly one on the other and on all other Authority beside that of Jesus Christ without making use of that way of Reconciliation which hath been practised in all Ages by the means of conferences and Synods which have rather sharp'ned and exasperated spirits and perpetuated quarrels than any ways appeased and hushed them and whereof all the advantage that can be hoped is at most to make such an accord as it may be dissembles or disguises or else suppresses the truth THIS is no more than what appeared in the Colloquy of Poissy where the greatest defenders of Transubstantiation and those who combated and opposed it as a vile Monster of Rome concurred together upon the Article of the real presence in the Eucharist And this is what appear'd also in the Overture of Reconciliation which was made in the year 1578. in the Synod of Saincte Foy with the Lutherans by the means of a formulary or president of such a profession of Faith as should be general and common with all Churches as they proposed to draw up but that Overture could only tend to a Reconciliation as difficult as that of finding a Medium between Transubstantiation and the Opinion of our Churches which is contrary to it Certainly our Churches were never able to draw back from the purity of our Doctrine nor from the sincerity with which they express it without being at the same time guilty of great prevarication And moreover the Lutherans would never have yielded to go off from their ingagement to Luther and his Consubstantiation If both had complied and met at half way it would have been a most wretched peace quae as Saint Austin speaks fit dispenaio veritatis THE present posture of the Affairs of England is a very clear and convincing proof that the Indeavour of those Reconcilers how good soever their designs were is ruinous both to Church and State There has been an attempt for above this last Age to get into a Neighbourhood and Vicinity with Rome thinking to sweeten the spirits and tempers of those of its communion to draw them over to ours or at at least to make but one Communion of two In the beginning of the Reformation there were several of the Ceremonies retained and fifty years afterwards others of them were introduced they have attempted to bring in Images and so to pass from thence to worshipping of them Every where the Altars are new set up on purpose no doubt to make there the Sacrifice of the Mass to Smoak which is apparent by the bowings and cringings to those Altars or at least to the places where they are set or as some will have it be to the East The Ordination of Romish Pastors is held for good and for that
to obey him reasonably without making use of our iwn illumination to know it and to judge whither it be just and reasonable to obey him in all things If he would not have a humane Judgement submit to that which discovers it's Infallibility with so much dazling and lustre unless reason lead one to it by an Argument à fortiori would he approve of the conduct of the Independants as reasonable when they refuse to submit to a Judgement that is humane and fallible BUT the true Constitution of Synods according to them when they look upon them as the Assemblies of the Ministers of Jesus Christ of Divines and of faithful people and the true use they make of them and which ought to be made of them is to ask and receive from them advice and counsel as one expects and as one ought to receive it from wise and experienced men and not by way of command and impulse That is all the Authority that the great Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Mr. Baxter gives them when they consider them as such And also the Oecumenical Synods which were held under Constantine and Martian had no more before those Emperours gave to their conclusions the force and prevalence of Canons and the Sanction of Imperial Laws THEY take the Apostolical Synod for the model of the Authority of all Synods at least of that which they would attribute to themselves and although it was the onley Synod that was guided by the spirit of Infallibility and its Authority was much more eminent otherwise than that of all the Synodal Assemblies in the succeeding Ages yet it never went as the others have done since to throw out Anathema's at the heads of those who refuse to be obedient to them but it only concludes with this exhortation if you keep these Canons you will do well THEY speak of the nature of the Church of the power and calling of Pastors and of their Ordination and according to the good maxims of Monsieur Mestrozat Monsieur Pajon and Monsieur Claude and their Doctors were the first who have established the true nature of Schism AS to what respects the Power the Authority and the Jurisdiction of Pastors they acknowledge no other in the Church than that which is confined in every particular Church and which goes not beyond perswasion or at the farthest a declaration that it makes that it no longer owns such and such either for the Pastors or Members of its Society And this is what is done by a natural right and not in shooting out the thunderclaps of Excommunication or deposition against them for Excommunication is not a business that is much disputed of among them The hereticks and the wicked being condemned by their own confession have no need to be excommunicated because they are excommunicated of themselves as the Bishop Godean tells us in his Paraphrase upon the eleventh Verse of the third Chapter of the Epistile to Titus A man that is an Heretick after the first and second Admonition reject knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself and it is what he says after Saint Jerome If any one of their Assemblies practise Excommunication it is that of the Ancient Christians it is not a privation from the holy Supper but an ejection of the body out of the Assembly no longer to be reckoned any of their Members CHAP. VI. An Answer to those who say that the Congregational way is Incompatible with the Civil power and that it deprives the Magistrate of the Right he hath to the Government of the Church that it is Introductory of Irreligion Ignorance and Schism in the Church THE four and twentieth Chapter of their confession of faith condemns those who speak of them as of persons that despise Superiour Powers For it is easiy to demonstrate that their way is so far from being as Monsieur Daille believed pernitious and such as troubles the peace of the world or which over-throws the Governments of it and the authority both of Soveraigns and their states that on the contrary there is no way in the world which contributes more to the strength'ning of Empires Especially of Monarchies and which ought lesse disquiet the Crowned heads for fear least they should cause by it any commotions in the State than theirs For as they do not set up and establish any Ecclesiastical tribunal independant on the Magistrate which draws along with it the two thirds of the most considerable persons of the State especially those who are most nice and Scrupulous in Religion it is impossible that there should be any troubles made by leagues and confederations in that manner as may be in all the Presbyterian Churches of a Nation and as those practise it when they forme to themselves as oft times they have done an Assembly of their deputies ALL the world knowes that these general and National Assemblies of the Clergy have been formidable to Kings and Parliaments because they are as an Altar and a Soveraign Ecclesiastical power opposed to a Soveraign and civil power of which there have been seen pernitious effects in Scotland and which France would have found if the reformed Religion had prevailed over the Romish And I am very much persuaded that nothing so much diverted Henry the fourth from the thoughts he might have had to establish the Reformed Religion in France as the apprehension he had that his actions being somewhat free might be too far lookt into and examined by the Synods and the Consistories and that his person should be brought under their Jurisdiction AS therefore the Independants do condemn these Maxims and these practises which are absolutely contrary to theirs how ill intended soever they were or might be it is no more possible for them to set up in a Kingdom a Soveraign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction than for all the Companies of Merchants and Tradesmen or for all the Families of France to erect a Tribunal and a Merchandizing or Oecumenical Power which may be equal with that of the Civil State IN a word as the Congregational Churches do neither receive Ordinances nor Commandments from their Synods but only counsells and advice and that they cannot assemble in a body by their deputies they give a great advantage unto Magistrates to possess an intire and perfect Soveraignty and to take for their Motto Divide Impera For those who deprive their Synods of all Authority and who do not attribute to themselves any other power than that of persuasion are the most remote of all from framing to themselves either an Empire or one to be chief over them 'T IS true their weakness is their subscribing to that Maxim of Cicero libr. de Officiis Vt tutela sic procuratio Reipublicae ad utilitatem eorum qui commissi sunt non ad eorum quibus commissa est gerunda est and to that of Salvian libr. de Providentia Infinitam Regiae Majestatis potestatem isti agnoscunt qui infinitam divini Numinis
differ one from the other in discipline but that retain and keep all the same foundation and ground of faith and who have for that point a great union and a strict correspondence with other Churches And this being so no more is there any Schism when the Congregationals are Independant on other Churches and on their Synods but when their Churches are so among themselves 4. THERE is no Schism among several particular Churches that agree in one and the fame faith and discipline as are those of Metz and Sedan but do their own business apart independantly not only on one another but likewise on the Synods 'T is with Independant Churches or with several other particular Churches as with several families or Neighbourhoods or those that are pretty distant the one from the other who may all be good friends and live in good Intelligence together without any thing of Schism or rupture between them and yet every one does their own particular business by themselves 5. THE Congregational men are no more guilty of Schism when they form to themselves Congregations distinct from Parishes contrary to the command of the Magistrate 't is a disobedience not to a National Church which Jesus Christ hath not instituted much less invested with either Jurisdiction or power to make Laws in matters of Religion but to the Magistrate whom to disobey is not Schism but a crime of laesoe Majestaetis or rebellion but yet it ceases to be that too when it acts only from this principle of obeying God rather than men NOW this clearing up of the Nature of Schism which strongly establishes the Independancy of the Churches and makes it altogether reasonable does not destroy the Confederation of the Churches into one body even under a national Synod when for the mutual preservation of these Churches against a common Enemy that persecutes them they are constrained to make but one body of State or of Churches such as is the Confederation of our Churches in France But then that necessity does not destroy the natural liberty of every particular Church to be Independant 't is a Confederation established with prudence in that manner as was that of the Cities of Achaida and as is at this day that of the Low-Countries and of the Swizers the conjunction of which into one body and under one and the same jurisdiction does not divest any Town or Province of their natural freedome and liberty to be Independant on one another THERE is however this temper and menage to be observed in this Religious Confederation that it ought to be made not by vertue of the Power of binding and loosing and of the Keys of the Kingdome of heaven which it is pretended that God hath committed to Pastors or Synods but by vertue of a confederated discipline which is in the place of a Magistrate Also the Councel of Monsieur Amyraule should be observed and it is the same that the Cities of Achaia observed before viz. that nothing should pass in the general Assembly but what has been first reviewed and approved of by every particular Church AND this is that wherein the prudence of our first Reformers in France have been wanting when they sat up a discipline by vertue of an Ecclesiastical power distinct from that of the Magistrate and from that which has its operation upon the heart by the Ministry of the word and of a power fastened to the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven and to that of binding and loosing by vertue of which power they depose and excommunicate that is to say as Monsieur Claude says they deliver up a person to the Devil but they also deliver him to him in the name and Authority of Jesus Christ that so the people may not imagine this power to be that of the Magistrate or of the confederate discipline but of Jesus Christ the Mediatour and King of his Church and by vertue of the power that he exercises over it and of which the Pastors and Ministers are the depositers AS to those who blame as much the separation of the Independants as that of the Donatists the Novatians and Luciferians it is ill grounded the vice of the Donatists was in that they owned no other Church of Jesus Christ in the World than theirs for they rebaptized those who came from the Catholick Church to them the Independants are far from these thoughts and practices they do as those who having a particular care of their health withdraw into a better place and sounder Air but yet they do not think but that they may do very well in places where the Air is not so good BEFORE I go to another Chapter I shall take notice that the result of the thoughts and of the practises of the Congregationals their Churches and their Pastors do come to these two Maxims 1. THAT to establish peace and true Religion in the World and among Christians we must go back to the Materia prima of the Congregational Churches which is that every person and every Society hath the liberty to deliberate and consult about the choice of a Religion and of the way to serve God and to take upon that point the counsel of wise and sincere persons provided that that counsel tends not to Irreligion and to some Establishment of such maxims which shock the natural Notions concerning the existence of a God his Providence the Immortality of the soul the necessity of a Divine Worship provided also that the manner which every person and every Church hath chosen to govern it self by doth not trouble the State in which one lives unless that trouble happen by accident in the manner that Jesus Christ sayes of the Gospel which excites troubles and brings Wars and contentions into the World 2. THAT this maxim of a national Church in every Territory with an uniformity of Doctrine and discipline distinct from the civil Tribunals in jurisdiction and officers hath introduced the Pope into the World that it hath been it is and it will be the cause that there never will be a Church in the World in its true purity unless Almighty God reserves some among the Congregational Churches CHAP. VII That the Congregational way has been practised in all Ages of the World I Could easily shew that for above this four thousand years before Jesus Christ and even during the height of Popery and in the bosome of the Church of Rome God hath alwayes reserved some true Worshippers of Jesus Christ by the way of Congregational Assemblies there were an infinite number of them in the Roman Empire during the persecution that was set on foot by the Arrians and when as St. Jerome sayes all the World were Arrians BUT to come more particularly to the thing they have had Independant Churches in all times and in all places before the Law and under the Law in the time of Jesus Christ and of the Apostles and after the Apostles there were of them in the time of Exos the Son of
commend what I do not approve in the bottome of my heart since I do not joyn my self to it They will say likewise that I have had no other design than to gain my own Sentiments credit with which they say I am most fondly in Love in adjusting them to those of the Independants and because I condemn Ecclesiastical power and Excommunication which I have undertook to possess the World with the belief of that so they should banish the use of it To which I answer that though I should joyn my self to their Assemblies it would be no argument that I should approve of all the things they did and all they believed as they cannot conclude by my not joyning to their Congregations that I have not the Congregational way in greater and higher esteem than any other As I am a Frenchman and by the grace of God of the reformed Church I joyn to the Church of my own Nation to which I am so much the more strongly invited by the holiness of the Doctrines and lives of our excellent Pastors Monsieur Mussard and Monsieur Primerose and because they administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the same manner as Jesus Christ did it with his Disciples not having any thing to give me offence in their conduct unless that they are not absolutely undeceived of the practise of our Pastors in France of excommunicating in the Name and Authority of Jesus Christ and of interposing the same sacred Name and the same sacred Authority to excommunicate as St. Paul made use of to deliver the Incestuous person over to Satan though they cannot find this Authority of excommunicating in all the Bible nor justifie it unless they elude that harshness of expression by this way of sweetning that their only intention is to declare that those sinners of whom they make the number take the Lord's Supper to their Condemnation if they do not repent before-hand AS for other accusations although I believe that of all Establishments of Religion that of the Independant Churches is the most Apostolical yet I do not believe it is infallible and I cannot approve of all they say nor all they practise concerning discipline nor concerning the use of the Ecclesiastical power and excommunication though this usage be not in all the same nor in all the Churches because some among them do retain it jure societatis vi virtute paoti federis eniti However it is both of them make use of Ecclesiastical power and excommunication very innocently for they do not set up a National Tribunal Independant on the Magistrate and they Attribute to their Synods no other Authority than that of perswasion both from wise and experienced persons Moreover from the manner that they express themselves in the VII Article of the first Chapter of their Confession of Faith one may conclude that beside the Jurisdiction which works upon hearts by the word they acknowledge no other than that which is taken by a natural right and that wisdom and prudence has not been wanting to them by their having in a joynt consent agreed in one and the same Doctrine because it is of divine and perpetual right but in not having established any thing determinatively to be a perpetual rule upon an Arbitrary and changeable matter and of humane right as is the discipline of the Churches and the Authority of the Pastors in their conduct and government BUT although they should have retained some usage of the Ecclesiastical power and excommunication which are so many Reliques of Rome that have accomplished the Mystery of iniquity and brought the Pope into the world they would be no less priviledged than St. Paul and the other Apostles who after they had received the holy Ghost in greater measure than all the holy men that had been before them yet they alwayes retained some leven of affection to the Mosaical Ceremonies If the Christians that came from Paganisme have alwayes kept some pollution of it it ought not to be any great surprise to see the purest Churches in the World yet not throughly cleansed from all the Impurities of Rome FOR these considerations I feed my self with the hopes that the Ministers of the Independant Churches who are too much illuminated long to remain in the belief and use of this illusion of Ecclesiastical power which hath brought Episcopacy that is the first step of Ascention to the papacy and after that Excommunication and Infallibility and that they would put in practise instead of excommunication that denuntiation which S. Paul recommended to his Disciple and son Timothy it is that in case any disorderly or wicked person of the Congregation cannot be perswaded to change his opinion and life and voluntarily to leave the Communion of the Church it should be published aloud in the face of the Church and the faithful should be exhorted to shun his company and in case that he persevere in such refractoriness he ought to be expelled by force as well from the Table of the Lord as from the Church And this is what may be practised by a natural right de jure societatis without any need of making such expulsion of credit by the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven and by the power of binding and loosing In short I hope they will be perswaded by this consideration that the benefit which comes by the Ecclesiastical power and Excommunication will never recompence the pernitious effects that they have produced NOW I believe that these three considerations that I am a Physician that I am a Frenchman and that I do not joyn to any one certain Congregational Assembly as a Member of it will give more Authority and credit to the relation I have made of their government and conduct and make it less the suspected than if I were of their Number of their Nation and a Divine by Profession For if I were qualified in three wayes I could not speak as a person disinteressed but as having a personal inclination to the way I should have espoused And that is the weakness of all those who plead for their own cause as we learn from S. Austin and Optatus Milevitanus who were of this opinion that a sincere Pagan or Heathen whether a Physitian a Sophister a Philosopher or belonging to the Magistracy were more competent Judges in matters of Divinity and differences among Christians than persons of the Priesthood and Sacerdotal function AS S. Paul could not elect a more disinteressed person to gain the Christian Religion credit in the minds of men and to write his Gospel as he calls it and the Acts of the Apostles than S. Luke the Physitian to whom the world is more obliged than to a thousand S. Chrysostomes and S. Austins and to all the persons of the Sacred Order without so much as excepting the very Apostles themselves I believe that the same Judgment ought to be made of me and that my quality of a Physitian ought to give stronger
in his Catechisme yet it is most certain that from the second age they were distinguished in names and offices that the first Priest or Bishop attended more peculiarly upon preaching in publique and the Priests and Deacons upon the functions of lesser consequence as alms-giving c. from whence it is that we read so often of the first Bishops of Rome that such a one created so many Priests so many Deacons and that Hyggen in the year 141. created fifteen Priests fifteen Deacons and six Bishops That Eleutherius in the year 184 ordained 12 Priests 8 Deacons and 15 Bishops not to serve in the Church of Rome but in other places where the Bishop who had ordained them was to attend upon the preaching in publick and the Priests and Deacons upon the other functions of the holy Ministry for their Ministry was less fixt they went to break bread from house to house they instructed they comforted they confirmed Christians and those whom they called Fideles in the profession of the Christian Religion and in the Practise of Piety and drew over Jews and Gentiles to them and they baptized them adding every day some or other to the Church of Jesus Christ to be saved In a word they formed almost as many independant Churches as there were families but which then did not constitute a Communion distinct from that of the same Fideles in the greater and more numerous Assemblies and where they assisted not only at the hâ—aring of the word but also at the participation of the holy supper and all the sacred Ceremonies as Mounsieur le Sueur tells us I must needs make one observation here which will be of no mean consequence as to what I have said about the diversity of the names of Bishop Priest Elder Sacerdote and Deacon in the same Ministry against those who would fain perswade us that not only this Intendance of a Bishop over the Priests but also the prerogative that they attribute to themselves of having alone the Authority and the right to ordain Pastors is of divine right and by the Institution of the Apostles I must needs observe I say that since the words and the Offices have been distinguished Christian Antiquity never thought this Intendance and Prerogative to be of divine right because it was in the liberty of a Bishop to abandon the order or office of Bishop without quitting the office of Priest or of Minister of Jesus Christ and indeed without being able to do it unless he were constrained to it by the sentence of deposition They did deprive themselves then of an humane arbitrary and Mutable order unto which they were called by men but they could not divest themselves of that which they had received from Jesus Christ That was the Judgment of the Councel of Ancyra in the year 314. which having deposed some persons from the Episcopacy lest them in the Presbytry This is what the sixth Oecumenical Councel did Canon twenty which deposed a Bishop but did not take from him the Presbytry so that if there was then an Indelible Caracter it was not that of Bishop but that of Tresbyter and this is the farther confirmed and more strongly by this consideration that as it was an Usurpation or at least a Right purely humane when one of the Members of the Presbytry who was called Bishop attributed to himself alone the right and the office of Preaching in publick and not of communicating it to others but only as far as he pleased The same Judgment ought to be made of this Intendance over Priests and this prerogative to ordain and to conclude that neither Episcopacy nor the power to ordaine nor that to preach in publick which one person reserved peculiarly to himself were of Christ's Institution THIS is if I am not mistaken an observation which has not as yet by any been thought on but which is the unravelling of all the difficulties that those great men Mounsieur Daille the Father Mounsieur Larroque c. On one side and Mounsieur Pearson Bishop of Chester on the other have formed concerning either the Establishment or the overthrow of Episcopacy And here now is the Resolution of the words of Saint Jerome which have put so many people on the rack and have spent both so much pretious time and paper Quid facit Episcopus quod non facit presbyter exceptâ— ordinatione Which words Marsillius de Padoüa understands of the power that the Bishop reserved alone to himself by a right purely humane to regulate the Affairs of the Church because it would be a thing altogether absurd to make Saint Jerome say that Jesus Christ had in all things equalled the Priest to the Bishop except the power to ordain And now also you may see by all these declarations and discoveries a very strong establishment of the Congregational way But I now will return from this digression to pursue the subject I left off for it THE conduct and Government of the Christians under the time of Persecution and before that of Constantine differ'd very much from the manner which was observed when the Emperours were Christians and when they assembled together both more publickly and in greater numbers enjoying their full liberty As a Rigorous discipline under those Christian Emperours could not be practised but upon a small number in great Towns as Rome Antioch Alexandria Canstantinople c. Most of the persons who could not be distinguished one from another in the Crowd and Multitude and on whom they could lay nothing by way of reproach either entred into no discipline and were neither Poenitentes nor Catechumeni or else they passed for those who were called fideles and whom they never so much as question'd whether they were baptized or not For Saint Ambrose who was looked upon as a very good man and one of the fideles that frequented the Religious Assemblies both in publick and private was neither in orders nor baptized when the people of Milan took him and carried him away as a holy body to be a Bishop Will they say that after he was a Bishop he passed through all the degrees of discipline or penitence and that he was a Catechumen and afterwards a fidelis which name was given only to those who were called Lay or Secular persons And the example of Constantine the great who was baptized at the very point and moment of his death and that of Satyrus the brother of Ambrose and of Valentinian whom that Father so highly commends and who died before they were baptized are a very strong proof and argument for that which I here maintain NOW those of the faithful who were so rather in reality than the name did not under those Christian Emperours quit their good custome of converting their houses and their families into so many little Churches they performed there the same exercises of Piety both during their repasts and out of them BUT I must here make one remark by the way upon the passage of
XIV Remarks upon the Fault that some may find in the Title of this discourse I Will finish these conderations by the discussion and explication of the Title of this discourse to which some have excepted because they find there is not one Ecclesiastical Government even of those which differ most from one another that do not pretend to this Conformity as indeed they have either more or less for there is not one of them no not even of those that are the farthest off from the Doctrines and Government of the Ancient Christians and that have but very little agreement one with the other there is not one I say but what hath in something a conformity with them Every way of Government boasts of their retaining this conformity with the Ancient Christians I my self pretend to this glory in favour of the Congregational way Not long since a Learned Minister of Roüen published a Book intituled the Conformity of the discipline of the Churches of France to that of the Ancient Christians Beside though the discipline of the Church of England hath not any agreement with that of the Churches of France and it is impossible that two disciplines so disagreeing to each other should have both of them much conformity to the discipline of the Ancient Christians yet it hath so happened that a Famous Divine in his preface to his English Translation of the Novelty of Popery maintains very zealously the same thing in favour of the Discipline of the Church of England as Monsieur Larroque has done in favour of those of France If I were sayes he to speak to Frenchmen I would indeavour to convince them fully that we retain in England more of the Primitive and Apostolick Government than all the other Churches in the world Dr. Floyd and Dr. Tillotson say the same thing But I believe that this conformity is much what like to that which is between Jesus Christ and St. Francis For I do openly maintain that of all the Establishments of Religion That of the Church of England is widest from the discipline and practise of the Ancient Christians But he is not the only person hath spoke after this manner England is full of Books upon the subject of the Conformity of its Hierarchy and of its Episcopal Government to that of the Ancient Christians The Bishops Bilson Andrews Hall Morton and Pearson find it in Clemens Romanus and in Ignatius some of the Doctors of Rome meet with it in Denis the Areopagite but unless this Conformity be restrained to the times of the Apostles to which I find more footsteps in the Congregational way than in any other I believe we are all in an error as to what concerns our conformity to the Doctrine Discipline and Life of the Ancient Christians Above all the disagreement is found in the life which was heretofore much more exact and exemplary than in these last times it is the Devotion of our days is but cold and languishing in comparison of theirs It was in that that their glory did consist whereas ours is in having a greater knowledg and a more full and ample illumination into the mysteries of Faith than the first Christians had also to be better versed at this day in the knowledg of the Apostolical conduct of the nature and Government of the Church of its Authority and of that of its Pastors who were the Christians that immediately succeeded the Apostles I will finish where I began and that shall be by the force of those prejudices wherewith all Christians as well Protestants as Papists are anticipated and prepossest when they generally imagine that the Primitive Church was more Orthodox and pure in Doctrine than that of the following Ages because of their nearness with the times of the Apostles but I am as much perswaded of the contary as of any thing in the world 'T is said that God never built a Temple near to which the enemy of our Salvation has not built a Chappel but than it was a Chappel both greater and more spacious than the temple it self For during the time whilest God built a little Temple wherein he had circumscribed the twelve Apostles and a small flock of faithful people who conformed themselves to the purity their Doctrine and the holiness of their lives a number incomparably greater of false Apostles false Doctors and false Brethren separated from them For even in the first three hundred years of Christianity all or the most part of sincere persons and also of Fathers had a great deal of false allay mixt among their gold This is what we learn from Eutychius who lived in the first Ages of Christianity from whom we have the History of the Church in Arabyck published by Mr. Selden and Mr. Pocock and whom they recommend for an Author of an irreprochable fidelity There he tells us that Constantine the Great sent to all the Churches of his Empire Letters to let them understand that they were to make choice of the most Religious Bishops and those that were most learned in the Mysteries of the Christian Faith and that they then immediately set themselves to obey the Orders of the Emperour and that two thousand and forty eight Bishops came to the Town of Nice whereof near two thousand how pious and sincere soever otherwise they were were either most ignorant or most erronious in the knowledg of the Christian Religion For they were either Manichees or Murcionites or Montanists or Valentinians or Samosatenians or Arrians and in that great number of Bishops there were but three hundred and eighteen who had an affection for and ingaged themselves to the Orthodox Faith which was that of Alexander Bishop of Alexandria THIS Relation according to Eutychius is much more probable than after that manner as it is reported by Eusebius by Socrates by Baronius and by Monsieur Claude For what likelihood is there that that number of Bishops convoked from all places of Europe a great part of Africa and also of Asia Phaenicia Greece Maceaonia Thessalia Palestine Arabia Pamphilia Bythinia Capadocia Thrace Cilicia Pontus Persia and Scythia should amount but to three hundred and eighteen Bishops There is also less likelihood that those three hundred and eighteen Bishops should appear so sharp and so divided among themselves as to put out Libels of accusation one against another and that during their Session they made a cruel War within themselves These Accusations might be true as to the other Bishops who were as much divided in affections as in Judgments but not of these three hundred and eighteen who because they were all Orthodox and Children of peace and well united in their affections such as were Alexander Spiridion and Paphnutius were chosen by Constantine and Alexander out of the multitude of Hereticks Factious and contentious persons Beside the unanimity of these three hundred and eighteen Bishops in the composing of the Faith of the Council having but four Bishops that refused subscribing to it plainly shews