XII. CHAP. of the faith, planted from mother-Churches, founded in mother-cities, from the time of the Apostles, it was but reason they should receive their pastors from the head of the diocese, where the charge of overseeing as well as planting them belonged. The right of presenting, then, yielded by the Church-to the people or to the patron, it concerns not in her regard-if it were to orders as well as to cures, was more than the people should have, in choosing out of those which Saul and Barnabas might nominate. But he that would have the people both name the persons, and choose out of those themselves named, neglecting imposition of hands, or enjoining it upon the choice, must first put the epistles to Timothy and Titus out of the Bible, lest, at the 190 first insight, that appear to belong to the office of men of their place, the account whereof lieth upon their charge. As for the constituting of Bishops, fit it is, in the first place, provision be made for the interest of the state, as well in ordering the choices, as in approving the persons chosen, that no man be established prejudicial to the commonwealth. But yet that course, in which the Christian emperors of ancient times interposed themselves to nominate the persons, being acknowledged to be beside the rule, did not destroy it in all, but balk it for the time. What the primitive form re the consti tution of Bishops. § 21. Now, if the people from the beginning had a due share of interest in giving consent to those which were to be quireth in ordained their presbyters, much more must we needs think that it was due and of right, that the votes of the presbyters and consent of the people should go before, in designing the 191 persons under whom and with whom they were to guide and be guided in spiritual matters. As for imposition of hands of neighbour-Bishops, with whom the unity of the Church was to be preserved by the ordained, it was not then the formality of a thing done, but the substance of the act, resting upon the account of them that did it by virtue of the Apostle's charge. And therefore, though it is not easy for me to judge how far it concerneth the Church to retain the primitive form, yet it Hæc synodus ex omnibus Episcopis provinciæ constare debebat vel saltem ex tribus præsentibus.... absentes consensum scripto dabant rebus gerendis, et tres illi cum Metropolitani auc toritate omnia agebant, qua cessante, omnia fuissent irrita, ut docet canon Nicanus iv. et vi. et canon xix. Antiochenus. Petr. de Marca, de Concor. Sacer. et Imper. lib. viii. cap. iii. 5. 192 is easy for indifferent persons to discern how much is required CHAP. to the retaining of it. XIII. CHAPTER XIII. THE RULE OF CENSURING PERSONS ORDAINED DIRECTED TO TIMOTHY ALONE. OF IT. of cen ordained to Timo SOMETHING would here be said, in the last place, of that The rule which dependeth upon these two last particulars, of penance suring and ordination; that is, the censure of offences, whether in persons doctrine or manners of persons ordained; because the Apostle directed seemeth to refer this to Timothy, that is, to the Bishop alone, thy alone. not mentioning any concurrence of his presbyters in it. For so we read, 1 Tim. v. 19, 20, "Against an elder receive not an accusation, but under two or three witnesses. Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may have fear." But having hitherto shewed that our Lord in the Gospel hath 193 appointed matters of particular offence to come before the consistory of Bishop and presbyters; that the Apostles themselves, in divers matters belonging to the government of the Church, used their assistance; that in the primitive times of the Church, even under the Apostles, matters of censure and ordination both were wont to pass by the presbyters, but in the assemblies of Christian people; let me refer this to all indifferent persons to judge, whether the same course of proceeding were in likelihood observed in the censure of presbyters. The Apostle's direction, regulating what information to admit, is directed to Timothy alone; for the meaning is not, that two or three should be present when it is put in, but that it should not be admitted, but-as the Syriac translateth it--" upon the mouth," that is, the word, of two or three witnesses. 194 § 2. But the censure of reproof is prescribed to pass in the The office congregation, when he saith, "them that sin," that is, them exercised that are found in fault, "rebuke before all, that others to the have fear;" no otherwise than the censure of the Apostle did of it. according may other parts CHAP. and was prescribed to do, 1 Cor. v. 4, 2 Cor. ii. 6; and there- must pass, as others of like nature, by him, with the pres- CHAPTER XIV. RETAINING THE PRIMITIVE FORM, BISHOPS CANNOT BE ABOLISHED. HOW AERIUS IS COUNTED A HERETIC. ALL DISPLEASURE AGAINST BISHOPS Retaining tive form, THAT which hath been said, being intended to represent the primi- the form delivered in Scripture by the agreement of historical Bishops truth and primitive practice, concerneth no more, as every abolished. man sees, than the government of mother-Churches con cannot be tained in mother cities; because that is all the Scripture hath expressed. But what influence and effect this ought to have in the present state of the Church, now that dioceses 196 XIV. are divided, churches built, and congregations assigned, is CHAP. not for a private person to particularize, unless he meant 197 to build churches-as some men do castles-in the air. Let it be enough to say thus much in general—which every man must think that believeth what hath been said to be truethat he that aimeth at the primitive form, and that which cometh nearest the institution of our Lord and His Apostles, must not think of destroying Bishops, but of restoring their presbyteries. Aërius is § 2. Were it but a human ordinance of yesterday, esta- How blished by due course of right, let me be bold to say, that counted if Aërius withdraw his submission to it, he must come within a heretic. Epiphanius' list of heretics"; not understanding an heretic in St. Augustine's sense-wherein Tertullian in his book de Præscript. went afore him-to be none but he that will not believe some point of doctrine necessary, as the means of "For most certain truth it is that Churches cathedral, and the Bishops of them are as glasses wherein the face and very countenance of Apostolical antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen, notwithstanding the alterations which tract of time and the course of the world hath brought. For defence and maintenance of them we are most earnestly bound to strive, even as the Jews were for their temple and the high-priest of God therein. The overthrow and ruin of the one, if ever the sacrilegious avarice of atheists should prevail so far, which God of His infinite mercy forbid, ought no otherwise to move us than the people of God were moved, when having beheld the sack and combustion of His sanctuary in most lamentable manner flaming before their eyes, they uttered from the bottom of their grieved spirits those voices of doleful supplication, Exsurge Domine et miserearis Sion: Servi tui diligunt lapides ejus, pulveris ejus miseret cos.'"-Hooker, bk. vii. ch. vii. 2. p. 224-5. ed. Keble. 1836. h "Are we to think that Aërius had wrong in being judged an heretic for holding this opinion? Surely if heresy be an error falsely fathered upon Scriptures, but indeed repugnant to the truth of the word of God, and by the consent of the Universal Church, in the councils, or in her contrary uniform practice throughout the whole world, declared to be such; and the opinion of Aërius in this point be a plain error of that nature, there Sunt enim hæretici, quod fatendum Hæc regula (symbolum Apostolorum) a Christo ut probabitur instituta, nullas habet apud nos quæstiones, nisi quas hæreses inferunt, et quæ hæreticos faciunt.-Tertull. adv. Hæret. cap. xiii. p. 333. ed. Pam. Rothom. 1662. CHAP. salvation, to be believed; but, according to the latitude of XIV. the word, taking all to be heretics that make sects, and 198 assemble themselves apart beside the Church of God lawfully settled. This sense is used in can. vi. Conc. Constantinop. 1', where they are counted heretics that hold the sound faith, ἀποσχίζοντας δὲ καὶ ἀντισυνάγοντας τοῖς κανονι Kоis ημîv 'ETTIOкÓTOLS, "but cut themselves off, and assemble in opposition to us the canonical Bishops." And this latitude. it seemeth Epiphanius comprised, because he reckoneth the Quartodecimani in the roll of hereticsm. These, when the position whereupon the separation is grounded is not of weight-setting their separation aside to separate them from the invisible Church, are since, according to the authors named afore, by a proper term called schismatics, though heretics in the proper sense separate no less than they do. And of this crime my earnest desire is, that those which have separated themselves from this Church of England upon this quarrel of government by Bishops, or the like unjust or insufficient causes, may stand acquitted; though how they will 199 acquit themselves of it, I cannot yet perceive. § 3. But if the rank of Bishops over their presbyters be not only a just human ordinance, but estated in possession of sixteen hundred years, without deceit or violence at the beginning, let me have leave to think it will be hard to shew a better title of human right for any estate upon the earth. How much more, when the possession is avouched to have been delivered from the hands and time of the Apostles, must it needs seem strange that the successors of their place should be destroyed by the sons of their faith? Be it pardonable for our neighbours and brethren of the reformed Churches" Qui sunt hæretici, nisi qui, relicta Dei Ecclesia, privatas elegerunt societates? de quibus Dominus dicit, Jer. ii. 13. Duo mala fecit populus meus, me dereliquerunt fontem aquæ vivæ, et foderunt sibi cisternas [cisternas] dissipatas quæ continere non valent aquas.—Isidori Hispalensis, lib. prim. sentent. cap. xvi. 7. tom. vi. p. 157. Rom. 1802. 1 Αἱρετικοὺς δὲ λέγομεν . καὶ τοὺς τὴν πίστιν μὲν τὴν ὑγιῆ προσποιουμένους ὁμολογεῖν: then follow the words in the text.-Concil. Constantinopol. i. A.D. 381. Labbei, tom. ii. col. 1127. ed. Venet. m These heretics agreed with the Catholic Church in all things, except that for which they are called heretics, namely, that they celebrated the feast of Easter not according to the rule of the Church, on Sunday, but according to the law of the Jews, on whatever day of the week the Passover might happen.-Epiph. Hæres. 50. tom. i. p. 419. ed. Colon. He uses the word in the popular sense of the day; in another place he speaks of these " Churches" thus |