1. OF all the Ill News you have sent me since the beginning of the late Revolution, none sits so close upon me, nor hath created such deep Thoughts of Heart within me, as the News of a new Primate, and a new Bishop; the old ones being li­ving, and neither canonically heard, nor judicially deprived: A Pro­ject utterly dissonant to all primitive Practice, to the antient Constitutions and Canons of the Church; and which, if not timely compromised, must necessarily beget, and perhaps unavoidably propagate a lasting Schism among us, ad natos natorum, & qui nascuntur ab ipsis.

2. The antient Cry was, [...]. one God, one Theodor. lib. 2. cap. 17. Hom. I [...]id. lib. 2. Christ, one Bishop; answerab le to that of the Poet, [...]. let there be but one King, one Supreme; intimating, that it will be as fatal to the Church to have Bishop against Bishop, as for the State to have opposite Kings: The one ever fills a Nation with Bloodshed and Devastation, the other the Church with Faction and Sedition: The former ruines the Peace, and disturbs the Quiet of the Common-wealth, disposing it to most certain Anarchy and Confusion; the other ever con­founds the Unity and Concord of Christians, till it turns the House of God into a Den of Thieves, and of a Bethel makes it a Bethaven: And if by either of these means we come once to be unsettled, and to have our corner Stone displaced, we m [...]y soon expect that Saying of our Saviour to be verified among us, that an House divided against it self cannot stand. Mark 3. 25. 1 Cor. 3. 4. This was the fate and sad condition of the Church of Corinth; some were fo [...] Paul, others for Apollos, and others again for Cephas; which at length caused s [...]ch a Division among them, that, had not the Apostle come in 1 Cor. 4. 21. with his superintending Authority, the Church it self had probably been overlaid and stifled in its Infancy.

3. There might indeed be many subordinate Ministers and Assistants in a Church; some [...]or bringing in new Converts, some for perfecting the o [...]d ones, all for the Work of the Ministery, and for the edifying of the Body of Christ; (Cornelius, Bp. of Rome, reckons up under him, in his time, no less than Euseb. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 35. Edit. Col. Allob. 1612. forty six Presbyters, besides seven Deacons, and [Page 6] many other ecclesiastical Officers; Epiphanius tells us, that at Alexandria [...], to every Church there was an appointed Haeres. 68. S. 4. Presbyter;) but Bishop there could be but one, to superintend and preside over the Church: And therefore St. Cyprian tells us in his Epistle ad Flo­rentium Puptanum, That a Church is P [...]ebs Sacerdoti adunata, & Pastori Ep. 66. suo grex adherens, a People united to their Bishop, and a Flock adhering to their Pastor; and that Heresies and Schisms therefore arise, quod Sacerdoti Ep. 59. Cornel. Edit. Oxon. Dei non obtemperatur, because the Bishop is disobeyed and not acknowledged to be the onely Bishop, and the onely Judge, for the time being, under Christ in the Church. Nay, Ignatius makes this union between a Bishop and his People so absolutely and indefeasably necessary to a Church, that he will not allow it to be a Church without it; [...], without these (says he) Bishops and their Clergy, there can be no Ad Fral. c. 3. Church of God, no Assembly of Saints, no Congregation of Christians: So doth the aforesaid St Cyprtan, Scire debes Episcopum in Ecclesia esse, & Ep. 66. ad Flor. Ecclesiam in Episcopo; you ought to know, saith he, that the Bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the Bishop; and that he who is not with the Bi­shop, is not in the Church. And again, at Ecclesia super Episcopos constitua­tur, That the Church was to be founded upon Bishops; divina lege fundatum, Ep. 33. lapsis. and was a Sanction at first by the divine Law; and by the various Series of Time, and successive Ordinations handed down to us. A Sanction design­ed by Christ from the beginning; for (saith St. Clemens) [...], the Apostles having beforehand fully lear­ned Ep. ad. Cor. 1. cap. 44. from Christ, that there would arise a Contention in the Church about the Episcopal Office, did thereupon constitute Bishops, [...], and for the future ordered the Rule of Succession for them, that when they themselves, or the Bishops constituted by them, should happen to dye, [...], other Persons of approved worth might be substituted in their places. Irenaeus confirms the same; for (says he) habemus annumer are eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis, & Successores eorum; we can name the very Men whom the Apo­stles Lib. 3. cap. 3. Basil. 1528. made Bishops in several Churches, and the Successors of them, down to our selve [...]; giving us thereby to know that the Office of Episcopacy was as truly of di [...]ine Institution as the Apostolate itself.

4. And as there must be one Bishop, to head and unite the several Chri­stians into one; so (if primitive Institution and Practice may umpire in the case) there ought to be but one single Bishop in one single Church, [...], There is, saith Ignatius, but one Flesh of our Lord Ep. ad Phila­delph. cap. 4. and Saviour Jesus Christ, one Bloud of his shed for us all, one Bread broken to us, one Cup distributed; [...], but one Altar to a Church, and one Bishop. Deus unus, & Christus unus; There is, saith St. Cyprian, but one God, one Christ, one Church, one Chair, Ep. 43. founded by our Lord; another Altar, besides that one Altar and Priesthood, cannot be erected. And again, Christ warneth and teacheth us in his De unitat. Eccles. Gospel, saying, there shall be one Flock, and one Sheepherd; and can any [Page 7] man think, aut multos Pastores, aut multos greges? there can be in one place either many Sheepherds, or many Flocks? The Bees, saith St. Je­rome, Ep. ad Rust. Mon. Edit. Basil 1565. have their King, the Cranes fly after one; there is one Emperour, one Judge of a Province; singuli Ecclesiarum Episcopi, one single Bishop to one single Church. Were there many Bishops of one City? saith St. Hom. 1 in Ep. ad Philip. Chrysostome, [...] by no means. God, saith St. Ambrose, singulis Ecclesiis singulos Episcopos, hath determined to 1 Cor. 12. every Church one proper Bishop. It cannot be, saith Theodoret, that many Bishops should be at one and the same time Pastors of one and the same Church. In 1 cap. ad Philip. Thus it was carefully provided against by the Fathers of the first Nicene Council, [...], That two Bishops should not be Can. 8. placed in one and the same City. The like determination was made in the Council of Constantinople, [...] Can. 16. [...], That no Bishop should be constituted in a Church where one that is alive, and had not voluntarily resigned, is presiding. And so it was also decreed by the fifth Aurelian Council, Nulli viventi Epi­scopo Can. 5. alius superponatur, aut superordinetur Episcopus; That no Bishop be or­dained or placed over the Head of another, whilst that other is living. The like in the Cabilon Council, ut duo in una Civitate penitus in uno tempore nec Can. 4. ordinentur nec habeantur Episcopi, That two Bishops are not to be ordained and placed together in one and the same City at one and the same time. To this Custome, and particularly to the aforesaid Canon of the Nicene Coun­cil, Pope Innocent had respect, when writing to the Clergy of Constantinople, he says, [...], Soz. l. 8. c. 26. Edit. Col. Allobr. We never knew any such thing to be acted by our Forefathers, but rather forbad, that any should have power [...], to ordain another into the Place of one that is living.

5. And this of one Bishop (and but of one Bishop in a place) was a Rule so generally known, and so universally received in those early days of Christianity, that Cornelius upbraids Novatus, (that Father of Puritanes and pretending Gospeller, as he calls him,) for being ignorant of it, Euseb. lib. 6. cap. 35. [...], that but one Bishop ought to be in one Catholick Church: As if it had been a Rule as necessary to be known and practiced for the well governing of the Church, and for keeping it in lasting Peace and Unity, as any one Canon throughout the Scrip­tures besides: And therefore St. Augustin (though it was his fortune to be ordained Bishop of Hippo whilst Valerius lived) would by no means suf­fer Eradius (and perhaps he at that time needed a Coadjutor no less than Valerius did) to be superordained upon him, because he then knew it to be an Act uncanonical; his Words are these: Scio quod scitis & vos, I full Ep. 166. Edit. Paris. 1531. well know what ye also know, that Eradius is a deserving Man, and eve­ry way qualified to be made a Bishop; sed nolo de illo fieri quod de me fac­tum est, but I would not have that done to him which was done to me; adhuc enim in corpore posito, for I was made a Bishop with him whilst he was living, and sate with him in the same See; quod ergo reprehendum est [Page 8] in me, nolo reprehendi in filio meo; what therefore was reprovable in me, I will not have to be blamed in Eradius my Son; erit Presbyter ut est, quando Deus voluerit facturus Ep [...]scopus; he shall continue a Presbyter in the station he is, and when God wi [...] (by taking me away) he shall be a Bishop. Whence we may observe, 1. That he looked upon his being consecra­ted Bishop whilst Valerius his Father and Predecessor lived, to be an act reprehensible in him, and altogether uncanonical. 2. That afterwards knowing the Canon he would not act contrary to it, by having Eradius superordained upon him, though his declining Age needed it, and both Clergy and People desired it. 3. That it was done at the Request of the Bishop of the Place, with the approbation of the Primate of the Province; and, as Possidonius relates the matter, non tam succedere, quam Consacer­dos accedere; not to dethrone the former, (as now a days its done,) but De vitâ, A [...]gust. cap. 8. to come into the Copartnership of the Bishoprick with him, and thereby to assist in his old Age, that the Affairs of the Church might not be suf­fered to run to Ruine by reason of his Infirmities and Inabilities: The onely Case perhaps wherein two Bishops may be allowed in one Church; yea, and not then neither, (as Gratian makes out the Matter,) unless the infirm one particularly requests it; the Church rather chusing to Caus. 7. q. 1. cap. 11. bear the Infirmity of o [...]d Age in a Bi [...]hop, than to force an Assistant upon him, lest thereby Opposition should arise betwixt them.

Now the Reason of all this was to prevent the Mischief of Schism, it being impossible to have two opposite Bishops in a Church, without disturb­ing the Order, and destroving the Ʋnity thereof: For if there be two op­posite Bishops, there must be two opposite Altars, and two opposite Communi­ons; each Bishop pretending a [...]ainst the other to be the true, catholick, and lawfull Bishop, to which the Flock ought to adhere. The first and true Bishop will doe what he can to keep the Flock from straying after the second and false one, who usurps upon him; and the Ʋsurper on the other hand will endeavour to the utmost to draw them after him, and drain the Congregations of him over whom he usurps.

7. Thus when that wicked and turbulent Novatianus, the Author and Founder of the Schism, was ordained Bp. of Rome over the head of Cor­nelius, canonically placed there before: He pretended to be the true and rightfull Bishop, and (to strengthen his own Interest) would admit of none, if formerly of Cornelius his Party, to communicate with him, un­less they would first solemnly swear to become ever after his. And there­fore holding both their hands together, with the bread in his, [...], Euseb. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 35. swear, says he, to me, that you will never forsake me, nor go back to Cornelius; and so delivering the Bread, the Communicant (instead of answering Amen, as the Custome was,) was forced to say, [...], I will never return to him. And as he was thus forward and active to be­gin a Schism at Rome, so he was no less sedulous to propagate it abroad; whereupon St. Cyprian (his Contemporary) reports it of him, That Ep. 55. Anto­niano. though there were Bishops already regularly ordained, and canonically [Page 9] constituted throughout all the Provinces, and the several Cities thereof, (venerable for Age, sound in Faith, approved in Trials and Perfecutions;) yet he, super eos creare alios Pseudoepiscopos ausus est, was so presumptuous and daring, as to create over them Bishops (False-bishops) of his own, as if he were able by the discord he endeavoured to foment to over-run the Church of Christ, and to tear in pieces its whole ecclesiastical Frame. And indeed such footing it took, that Socrates, speaking of the Sect, tells us, that in the time of Boniface l. which was full an hundred and fifty Lib. 7. c. 30. Edit. Col. Allobr. years after, [...], they mightily flourished at Rome, enjoyed many Churches, and had under them many great Congregations. Sozomen speaking of them says, That though other Sects were generally Lib. 2. cap. 30. short. liv'd, and soon decayed, yet [...], the Novatians, or they who had their rise from Novatus, because their Bishops were for the most part good Men, and they themselves held the Catholick Faith, [...], were numerous at first, and so continued to be.

8. Such a Mischief arose by Meletius of Lycus in Egypt, from whom the Meletian Faction took both its Name and Rise. He, quarrelling with Peter his Patriarch, the Bp. of Alexandria, for that he admitted the Lapsi, being then both in Prison together, and with them many other Bishops, Ecclesiasticks, and Confessors, (the same Quarrel that Novatianus fifty years before had with Cornelius,) took part against him; which Peter percei­ving, and willing to try how the rest stood affected, threw his Mantle cross the Prison, crying out, [...], they that are for Epiph. ad Haeres. lib. 2. T. 2, Haer. 68. me and my opinion, let them come hither, and they that are for Mele­tius let them go to him; which being done, [...], the com­pany, saith Epiphanius, was divided, and the greatest number of them Loc. cit. cap. 3. went to Meletius; and from thenceforth [...], they parted Companies, and in acts of divine Worship kept their sepa­rate Assemblies: Nay, as soon as ever released out of Prison he, where­ever he went, [...], ordai­ned Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons of his own, against the Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons constituted before by Peter, and thereupon erec­ted Churches for his own Faction; and so divided the Church, that each Party refused to communicate with the other; distinguishing their Assem­blies (as the aforesaid Author has it) by an Inscription over their Church doors; those who followed Peter taking to themselves the ancient name of [...], the Catholick Church; and those who went after Me­letius, [...], the Church of Martyrs. Nay, though many of both sides were afterwards condemned to the Mines, [...], they would not even there so much as com­municate or pray together: A breach of so ill consequence to the Church, that being brought before the Nicene Fathers, they disabled the Bishops which Meletius had made, till confirmed by a more holy and warranta­ble Ordination; and as for himself, they confined him to his own City, [...], allowing him no power for the future to elect Socr. l. 1. c. 6. [Page 10] or to lay hands on any; declaring him to be such an Offender in the Case, that [...], according to the rigour of Justice he deserved no Favour at all.

9. Such another Schism was that in Affrica, begun at Carthage by Ma­jorinus his being made Bishop there, whilst Caecilian, the preordained Bi­shop, Advers. Parm. lib. 1. p. 19. Aug, contra Parm. lib. 1. cap. 3. Paris. 1679. was living. The Promoters were few, (as Optatus observes,) two baffled Competitors, two or three sacrilegious Church-robbers, potens & factiosa Mulier, a rich, factious, and exasperated Woman: The A­betters not many more, (among whom Donatus, who gave name to the Faction,) all Traditors, and so uncapable of ordaining others, or con­tinuing in their own Orders. But though so despicable Infects at first, yet Cyp. Ep. 65. no sooner embodied and winged, but, like the Locusts in the Revelations, they soon overspread and covered the Land, filled all the Territories and places thereof; insomuch that in their Council at Bagaia you shall Aug. cont. Ep. Parm. l. 1. c. 4 Edit. Paris. 1531. Cont. Parm. lib. 1. p. 22. find no less than three hundred and odd Bishops of their brood: Nay, so nu­merous, that whereas formerly men were accustomed to blush and be a­shamed of their Actions, there were none at that time, saith Optatus, to do it, quia praeter paucos Catholicos peccaverunt universi; forasmuch as all were become Sinners, and all (a few Catholicks excepted) Apostates from the Ʋnity of the Church. A Schism that lasted near an hundred years; Aug. lib. 3. cont. Julianum. and might have continued much longer in the Church, had not the pars Donati (upon the death of Parmenian their Bishop) put two new ones, Primianus and Maximianus, together in the Chair at once, of whom Saint Augustine makes this Remark, that for any Worth or Excellency in them Ep. 162. (other than to head a Faction) Maximianus might have been Minimianus, and Primianus might have been Postremianus. However this Bishop upon Bishop so divided and subdivided the Party, that it broke their Ʋnity, and made as much Havock and Destruction in the Schismatical, as it had done Id. Ep. 50. before in the Catholick Church. Other Instances might be given, and al­ways producing the like effect; as at Antioch, when Paulinus was added Socr. l. 5. c. 2. to Meletius without his Consent; at The [...]d. sib. 2. cap. 17. Rome, when Foelix was put over the head of Liberius; at Sozom. l. 8. cap. 23. Constantinople, when Arsacius invaded the Throne of St. Chrysostome. In short, Ambition, Pride, and Interest will never want a Bishop for any See or any Church. Facite me Romanae urbis Episcopum, make me but Primate or Metropolitane of Rome, (saith Praetex­tatus, Hierom. ad Pameracb. adv error. Hierosol. po. 2. p. 165. that unbaptized Heathen,) and I will forthwith become a Chri­stian; and if once a Bish [...]p, he will soon have his Altar and Party; tho' assoon as ever he be in, he by his Separation and Schism will put himself out of the Church again, and turn as rank an Infidel perhaps as ever he was before.

10 Now this Ʋnity of Priesthood and Altar was first commanded un­der the Law, as the onely Preservative and Remedy against Schism in those days; and therefore God, to keep his People the Jews in one uni­form way of Worship throughout the Land, appointed but one Altar, one Place of Sacrifice, and one High Priest; insomuch that to set up ano­ther [Page 11] High Priest against the High Priest already established, though of the Seed of Aaron, as in the case of Manasses against Jaddus; or another Al­tar against the Altar of Jerusalem, though built according to the Pattern of the other, as in the case of Jeroboam, was to multiply Sin as well as Priests and Altars; because Ephraim, as it is in Hosea, hath made many Ch. 8. v. 11. Altars to Sin, Altars shall be to him for a Sin. Nay, by this very Strate­gem it was that Jeroboam kept up the Rent and Schism which he had made between Judah and Benjamin, and the other ten Tribes of Israel: For, saith he, If this People go up to doe Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jeru­salem, 1. Kings 12. 27. as of old, then shall the heart of this People turn again unto their Lord, even to Rehoboam, the King of Judah: Whereupon he made an House, set up an Altar, and thereunto consecrated Priests of his own; an action so infamous and criminal, that though God permitted him to keep the Kingdom to his dying day, yet he would scarce suffer his Name ever after to be mentioned, without an eternal Blot upon it, this is that Son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin: Yea, and so hatefull and provoking, that for that very cause, and that cause onely, the Lord rejected all the 2 Kings 17. 20, 21. Seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of Spoilers, untill he had cast them out of his sight. And to this St. Cy­prian alludes, when he would beat down the like Practices among Chri­stians; quam inseparabile Ʋnitatis Sacramentum, how inseparable the band of Unity is, and how without hope, says he, they pull down the wrath Cyp. Ep. 69. p. 182. Magno. of God upon them, who divide the Church, and by casting off their own Bishops, assume false ones to themselves, they may sufficiently be admo­nished from the Scissure made in Israel, by their making to themselves false Kings: God never ceased plaguing them till he sent them away Captives, and brought others into their room; and without doubt tanta Indignatio adversus illos qui Schisma faciunt, no less Calamity and Destru­ction will befall those who rend the Church, and by setting up new Bishops of their own, break the Unity of it.

11. Thus far then it is plain and evident, That in one Church or Di­ocess there can be but one Bishop at a time; and that if more happen to be placed therein, there will arise a Schism. Let us then once more, as the Prophet Jeremy adviseth, ask for the old Paths, and enquire for Ch. 6. v. 16. the old Way, and we shall find it altogether as evident and plain, that the first Bishop (if canonically placed in the See, was ever accounted the true and catholick, and the second the false and schismatical Bishop; and that the Church was ever adjuged to go along with those, who by a lawfull Ordination were first set up in it; and the Schism with those who were afterwards superinduced and clapt upon them. Videndum est, we are to observe, saith Optatus, who keeps Apostolical Succession, and who de­serts Ad. Parm. l. 1. p. 18. Edit. Paris. 1679. it; quis Cathedram sederit alteram, quae ante non fuit; who sits in a Chair that none sate in before, who it is that erects Altar against Altar; quis Ordinationem fecerit salvo altero ordinato, who ordains another when one was ordained before, who it is that falls under the Apostle's Saying, [Page 12] that many Antichrists should go forth, because they were not of us. And 1 John 2. 19. [...]p [...], ad Parm. l. 2. p. 35, 36. again, We must be sure to observe, qui prior Cathedra sederit, who the first is that was placed in the Chair; ut jam Schismaticus & Peccator, qui contra singularem Cathedram alteram collocaret, for he is the Schismatick and Sinner, who erects another Chair against that single Chair. Hence was the Novatian Schism laid at the door of Novatianus, Cornelius being in the Chair, and first Bishop of the place. Ecclesia una est, the Church, saith St. Cyprian, is one; and if it be with Cornelius, who succeeded Fabian, Ep 69. p. 181. Mag. and was first ordained, Novatian cannot be in the Church, neither is he to be accounted a Bishop thereof; Evangelica & Apostolica Traditione contem­pta, for in as much as he contemns the Evangelical and Apostolical Tra­dition, he succeeds none; à scipso ortus, but is self-begot, and self raised. Again, Cornelins factus est Episcopus de Dei & Christi ejus judicio, Corne­lius Ep. 55. p. 104. Antoniano. is made Bishop according to the appointment of God and his Christ; wherefore whosoever is made Bishop after him, foris fiat, must be without, and not of the Church; qui post unum qui solus esse debet, he that is made Bishop after one which must needs be alone, non jam secundus est ille, sed nullus, he is not a second, but no Bishop at all. The like was laid unto the Charge of Majorinus, who was by a set of Traditors ordained over the head of Caecilian of Carthage; Whereupon, saith Optatus, in Affrica sicut Advers. Parm. l. 1. p. 17. in caeteris Provinciis una erat Ecclesia, there was but one Church in Affrica, as in all other Provinces, till divided by the Ordainers of Majorinus: For till then conferta erat Ecclesia, the Church was thronged with People, the Page. 21, 22. Episcopal Chair crouded, the Altar remained in its proper place, where­at St. Cyprian, Lucian, and many other peaceable Bishops before had mi­nistred; but upon the unlawfull Ordination of Majorinus, exitum est fo­ras, there was a going forth, and Altar was set up against Altar: And so manifestum est, it is evident and clear, exiisse de Ecclesia & Ordinatores & Majorinum qui ordinatus est, that Majorinus and his Ordainers, and not Caecilian and his Followers, went out of the Church, and made the Schism: And therefore saith the same Optatus to Parmenian, one of the Successors to Majorinus, video te adhuc ignorare, I perceive thou art still ignorant, Lib. 1. p. 11. that the Schism was made first by your Leaders and Predecessors; quare harum originem rerum, look but into the first beginning of it, and you will find that Caecilian did not go out from Majorinus, but Majorinus from Caecilian; neither did Caecilian break the Succession by departing from the Chair of St. Cyprian, but Majorinus. And since so it was, it is evident vos Haeredes Traditorum & Schismaticorum, that You and Yours are the Offspring of Traditors and Schismaticks; and not Caecilian and his Party.

12. Nay, so far did this Priority of Ordination upon a due and legiti­mate Succession prevail, that it not onely null'd the Ordination of the su­per ordained, but thrust both him and his Ordainers as well out of the Ca­tholick, whose Rules they had broke, as out of the Particular Church, whose Chair they had invaded. Episcopatum tenere non posset, etiamsi Epis­copus Ep. 55. p. 112. Antoniano. prius factus, He cannot, saith St. Cyprian, hold a Bishoprick, though [Page 13] he really a Bishop himself, whosoever separates from the Unity of his Fellow Bishops, and thereby divides the Church; for in so separating he makes a Defection, and can no longer retain, nec Episcopi Potestatem nec Honorem, either the Power or the Honour of a Bishop. And again, Christ, Ep. 69. p. 182. Magno. saith he, insinuating to us his desire of Unity, farther adds, There shall be one Flock and one Sheepherd; and if one Flock, quomodo potest gregi an­numerare? how can he be accounted to be of that Flock who is not one of it? Aut Pastor haberi quomodo potest? Or how can he be a Sheepherd there, who (whilst the true Sheepherd is alive) succeeds none, but is self-crea­ted, and self set up; a perfect Enemy to divine Unity; not of the fold, in asmuch as none dwell there but who live in Unity and Concord? Nay, if he must be an Heathen man and a Publican who neglecteth to hear the Church, much more must they be so, qui falsa Altaria, illicita Sacerdotia; who feign to themselves false Altars, unlawful Priesthoods, unhallowed Sacrifices, corrupt and adulterous Titles.

13. It would almost amaze a man in these loose times to hear what hard language the holy Fathers bestow upon these unholy Persons, their Or­dinations, their Altars, and their Oblations. As for themselves, they are described to be Opt. l. [...]2. Peccatores, Schismatici, Cyp. Ep. 59. Adulteri, Extranei, Ibid. Pseudo­episcopi, Ep. 69. Fidei Praevaricatores, Ecclesiae Proditores, Dominicae Pacis ac divi­ne Ʋnitatis inimici, nemini succedentes, a seipso orti, nulli; Sinners Schis­maticks, Adulterers, Outliers, Mockbishops, Falsifiers of the Faith, Be­trayers of the Church, Enemies to divine Peace and Unity, succeeding none, from themselves proceeding, and in reality no Bishops at all; their Ordination Cyp. de unit. Eccl. contra Ordinationem Dei, Id. Ep. 4. 43. contra Dispositionem divi­nam, Ep. 45. contra Sacramentum semel traditum divinae Dispositionis & catholicae Ʋnitatis, Ep. 55. contra Dei Traditionem, Ep. 46. Opt. lib. 2. contra ecclesiasticam Dispositionem, contra evangelicam Pacem, contra Institutionis catholicae Ʋnitatem; contra­ry to divine Tradition and Appointment, ecclesiastical Sanction, evan­gelical Order, catholick Institution and Unity. Their Chair Cathedra Pestilentiae, a Chair of Pestilence, that first infects, then kills, and sends to Hell. Their Altars Cyp. Ep. 68, & 69. falsa & prophana, false and prophane. Their Sacrifices Ep. 68. sacrilega, irreligiose & illicite contra jus divinae Institutionis ob­lata; sacrilegious, unlawfull, and affrontive of the divine Institution, The Schism occasioned thereby Aug. Ep. 162. horrendum scelus, Cyp. de unit. Eccles. summum, malum, a most horrid Sin, the chiefest of Crimes; pejus quam quod admisisse lapsi, worse than the Sins of those that fell by offering to Idols; yea, and of so deep a stain, nec Sanguine abluitur, that it is not to be washed out with the Blood of Martyrs; neither will their unity of Faith, or their being Con­fessors for it, excuse them from so foul a Charge.

14. In vain do they pretend to the same Religion, to the same Symbol of Faith, to the same Profession; what if they continue the same way of Worship, the same Mysteries, the same Rituals, and the very same Form of Ordination? What if they be chosen by the Suffrage of the greatest part of the People, accepted by the Majority of the Clergy, consecrated [Page 14] by a sufficient number of Bishops? Yet this (all this) will not attone, much less expiate for the uncanonicalness of their superordination, or for the ir­regularity and injustice of their Ʋsurpation. Quod vero eundem quem & nos; what if they believe with us, saith St. Cyprian concerning the Novatian Ep. 69. p. 183. Magno. Schismaticks, in the same God the Father, in the same Son Christ Jesus, and in the same Holy Ghost? Nec hoc adjuvare tales potest, yet even this will not profit such Prevaricators as they: for Corah, Dathan and Abiram, worshiped one and the same God, according to one and the same Reli­gion and Law, as Aaron the High Priest did; tamen quia loci sui Ministeri­um, yet because they were disatisfied with their own Station, and would have usurped the Priesthood, and laid aside Aaron, necpotuerunt rata esse, & proficere Sacrificia, their Sacrifices were abhorred, and their Censor's made Memorials against them, that no Stranger (which is not of the Seed of Aaron) should ever after presume to offer Incense to the Lord. Possumus & nos dicere, we can say (saith Optatus to Parmenian and his Donatists) Pares credimus, We believe alike, and are sealed with the L. 3. p. 78. & L. 5. p. 99. same seal as you; We are no otherwise Baptized than you, no other­wise Ordained; We read the same Scriptures, say the same Prayers, have the same Ecclesiastical Discipline, the same Sacraments, the same Myste­ries; sed scissura facta, but there is a Scissure made by you, and that is your fault, and by you it must be amended, and made up. [...], Nothing (saith St. Chrysostom) divides the Church Hom. 2 in Ep. ad Eph. Edit. Paris. 1621. sooner than the love of Preheminence, and nothing provokes God more than to have his Church divided; [...], why do you there­fore say, there is still the same Faith; and they are no less Orthodox than we. But if so, why are they not with us? [...], there is but one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, and if they are right, we are wrong; but if we are right, they are wrong; [...]; do you think it sufficient they are Orthodox, whilst they overlook and pass by the right of Ordination, its Priority and Order? [...], we ought certainly as much and as earnestly to contend for the one as for the other: And not without good reason too; for if every one may be ordained and made a Bishop in the Church, in vain was the Altar ercted, the Congregation appropriated, and the Priests limited; every thing then must come to Ruine and Confusion.

15. And to no more purpose is the Eminency of their Learning, the Excel­lency of their Parts, their stout Defence of their Religion, or their Suf­ferings for it, pleadable in the Case: What if they have Wrote well, Preached well, Disputed well, Suffered well; been Banished, Impri­soned, Tormented? What if they have Converted some, Confirmed others, and (when the foundations of the Earth were shaken, and the Ark of God tottering) they were seemingly such that kept the one from being removed, and the other from falling. Quisquis ille est, & qua­liscun (que) est, Christianus non est, qui in Ecclesia Christi non est, whosoever, Ep. 55. p. 112. Antoniano. and how great soever he be, (saith St. Cyprian of Novatian,) if he be not [Page 15] in the Church, a Christian he cannot be; jactet se licet, for though he prides himself never so much for his Rhetorick and Eloquence, though (like Saul) he appear for his Piety and Parts taller by the head, than the rest of his Brethren, yet since he retains not Brotherly Charity and Ecclesiastical Ʋnity, quod prius fucrat, amisit, what soever he was before, he is now lost as to it all, and become no better than Salt that hath lost his savour. And thus the Apostle long before had decreed; Though I speak (saith he) with the Tongue of Men 1 Cor. 13. 1, 2, 3. and Angels, and have not Charity; though I understand all Mysteries, and all Knowledge, and have not Charity; nay, though I bestow my Goods upon the poor, and give my Body to be burnt, and have not Charity, I am (nay it profitteth me) nothing. Upon which words the aforesaid St. Cyprian thus discants, Cum Deo manere non possunt, they cannot be with God who hold not the Ʋnity of De Unit. Eccl. p. 114. his Church; for though they suffer themselves to be thrown into the Flames, though they expose their persons to Wild and Savage Beasts, non erit illi fidei Corona, sed poena perfidiae, they shall receive the demerit of their perfidity and unfaithfulness, but not the Crown due to their Faith; occidi talis, coronari non potest, such an one may indeed be slain, but he can­not be crowned; Martyrdom is always within the Church; esse Martyr Id. 113. non potest, qui in Ecclesia non est: Nay, it may be Martydom to suffer, rather than to divide the Church. Hence Dionysius writing to Novatus, Eusebii Hist. l. 6. [...]. tells him, [...], Thou shouldest have suffered any thing rather than divide the Church: Neither is that Martyrdom, which is suffered for not divulging the Church, of l [...]ss Glory than that which is suffered for not sacrificing to Devils; [...], nay, in my opinion, it is far greater; For in the one, Martyrdom is suffered for one Soul, in the other for the Ʋniver­sal Church.

16 Being thus far advanced, and finding it no unprecented Case to have Bishops set over the head of Bishops, it will be worth our pains to enquire how the Church resented th [...]m, what Communion they held with them, what Deference they paid them, what Honour they gave them. And I find,

17. That the whole College of Bishops, all the Christian World over (that went not out with them) ever rejected their Ordination; would nei­ther Communicate with, nor be Communicated by them; neither send to, nor receive Letters encyclical from them. Cum ad nos in Africam Legatos misisset, when Novatianus, that new made Bishop, sent into Africa to us to be received into our Fellowship; we (saith St. Cyprian) with the advices of many of our Colleagues, returned him this answer, se foris esse, Ep. 68. p. 177. Stephano. nec a quoquam nostrum sibi communicari; that he was gone out from us, and therefore could expect no longer to continue a Communion with us. Neither did Maximus his Presbyter, or Augendus his Deacon (that first brought the news of his Ordination) scape much better; for illicitae & contra Ecclesiam Catholicam factae Ordinationis pravitate commoti, being provoked with the irregularity of the Ordination, as being contrary Ep. 44. p. 85, 86. Cornelio. to the usuage of the Catholick Church, we forbad them (saith St. Cyprian) [Page 16] our Communion, and gave no other answer to their Embassy, than that laying aside all dissension and strife, they would consider what an Impie­ty it was to desert the Church their Mother; and how Episcopo semel facto, that after one Bishop was legally Constituted and Eustalled, another could by no means be superinduced, or put into the same Stall with him, Damasus (saith Optatus to Parmenian) succeeded Liberius, and Siricius Lib. 2. p. 36. (who is at present our Colleague and fellow Bishop) succeeded Dama­sus, cum quo nobis totus orbis commercio formatarum, in una Communionis Societate concerdat, with whom, as with us, the whole Christian World by their Communicatory Letters continue in Society and Concord together; a favour never afforded to the Donatists. I own, saith St. Augustine, that Ep. 62. p. 140. I do write ad nonnullos Donatistarum primarios, to certain of the chief Bi­shops and Leaders among the Donatists: But it is to shew them their Er­rors, privatas tantum qualibus vobis, uti etiam ad Paganos licet; however they are private Letters, and such as are lawfull to send to Pagans; non Communicatorias, not Letters Communicatory, quas jam olim propter suam perversitatem ab Ʋnitate Catholica quae toto orbe diffusa est, non accipiunt; which by reason of their long obstinacy and perverseness, are denied them all the World over.

18. And no more kind were the Laity to them; for they remonstrated against their Election, renounced their Precedency, would have nothing to do with their Altars, their Clergy, or their Oblations; nay, such an ab­horrency they had of them, that they would into Banishment, into Death, rather than into Communion with them. Hence we find St. Ambrose in his Funeral Oration upon Satyrus his Brother, approving and commending him for that he avoided the Luciferian Bishops, their Churches and their Assemblies; for though desirous of the Holy Sacrament, non it a avidus fuit, ut esset incautus, he was not, saith he, so desirous of it as not to be Orat. in Fun. Frat. Tom. 3. p. 19. Edit. Basil. 1567. careful from whose hands he took it; and therefore advocavit ad se Epis­copum, he calleth first the Bishop that was to administer it, and asked him, utrumnam cum Episcopis Catholicis conveniret, whether he was one of those that were in Communion with the Catholick Bishops? non enim pu­tavit fidem esse in Schismate; for he did not believe that a right Faith could be had in a wrong and Schismatical Profession. No less a Zeal may be observed in those more Honourable Ladies, and Worthy Matrons of Rome, when Liberius their Bishop was banished, and Felix put into his room, they, saith the Historian, perceiving the lukewarmness, or rather cowar­dice Theod. lib. 2. cap. 17. Edit. Col. Allob. of their Husbands in the case, dressed themselves as became their Quality, went to the Emperor, and besought him, [...], that he would take pity upon the City, and restore to them their Bishop again; or at least give them and others leave to follow him; ad­ding that though he had placed another over them, [...]; that neither they, nor any other of the Citizens would ever enter the Church whilst he was in it. And thus it was when Arsacius was thrust into the See of Constanti­nople [Page 17] in the place of St. Chrysostom; nay, so averse were the Citizens to, receive him that [...], tho' they met him in the Streets, they would not so much as vouchsafe to sa­lute Theod. lib. 5. cap 35. him. Neither were they more complying when Atticus was put upon them in the room of Arsacius; none of them would communicate with him. Nay, though an Edict was procured for the Expulsion and Confisca­tion of the Goods of all such Bishops, for the Deprivation of all such pub­lick Officers, and for the Banishment of all such Artificers and Tradesmen that would not communicate with him; yet none (saith Palladius) but the In vit. Chrys. c. 10. p. 95, 96. Edit. Lut. Par. 1680. poorer Bishops, [...], and those that were weaker in the Faith, went in unto them; whereas the others despising the World, and willing [...], to keep themselves upright, and their Consciences undefiled, [...], some of them fled to Rome, some of them to the Mountains, and some to foreign Monasteries; the People all the while that staid behind keeping up their Meetings in the open fields. And thus it happened again at Rome, in the time of the contention between Damasus and Ʋrsinus; the tu­mult Lib. 4. c. 24. (saith Socrates) was great, occasioned [...], not about Faith or Heresie, but whether of the two by right should be Bishop: And here I pretend not to determine the Priority of Ordination to either; and Praef. ad lib. precum, Edit. Oxon. 1678. yet I know that Marcellinus and Faustinus gives it to Ʋrsinus, as well as Socrates and others to Damasus; and perhaps if things were rightly weighed and duly examined, Ʋrsinus that lost it, might bid as fair for the Chair as Damasus, that got and possessed it. However the Ʋrsinians Loco citat. buoyed up themselves with the precedency of a seven days Ordination, would have nothing to do with the other; Nay, when Damasus had prevailed so far with the Emperor as to have Ʋrsinus banished, and his Clergy imprisoned, or sent after him, so that none were left to officiate among them; yet rather than go in to Damasus, Populus timens Deum, per coemiteria Martyrum stationes sine Clericis celebrabat, the People that feared God more than the Emperor, his Judges, or the new made Bishop, met at the Tombs of the Martyrs, and held on their stations without them.

19. Neither let the Apostatizing Clergy or the complying Laity, who run along with those disorderly Bishops, think that they, for their so doing, are under no Crime, or deserve no Censure: Abstinuimus commu­nicatione Felicissimum & Augendum, item Repostum de extorribus, Irenen Rutilorum, &. Paulam Sarcinatricem, Sophronium, & ipsum de extorribus So­liassum Budinarium; We have (saith Caldo [...]ius in a Letter to St. Cyprian) Ep. 42. p. 81. according to your Order, separated from our Communion Felicissimus and Augendus, Repostus the Exile, Irene the Radler, Paula the Pedler; as also Sophronius, and with him Soliassus the Mulettor. As for Felicissi­mus (saith St. Cyprian) he endeavours, cum Episcopo portionem plebis divi­dere, Ep. 41. Cyp. Cal. to share the People with his Bishop; that is, to divide the Sheep from the Shepherd, and the Children from the Father, and therefore de­cree [Page 18] him excommunicated: As for Augendus, nec Episcopum nec Ecclesiam cogitat, he neither hath regard to his Bishop nor the Church, but con­federates and combines with the other; and therefore let the same sen­tence pass upon him: & quisquis se conspirationi ejus adjuxerit, and as for the rest that go on in the Faction with them, let them also know, that they are not to communicate with us in the same Church. Now of these some were Clericks, as Felicissimus and Angendus; others Confessors, as Re­postus and Soliassus; others common Christians, as Irene, Paula, and perhaps Sophronius: from whence we may justly infer, that it is not the high Cal­ling of the Clergy, the meritorious sufferings of the Confessors, the Simpli­city and Plainness of the well-meaning Christian; no, nor the Trimming between both Parties, flattering the one, and holding Communion with the other, whilst they herd with the Out-liers, and be found in their Quarters, that will excuse them from the foul guilt of Schism, or the due Demerits of it. The Confessors at Rome were very sensible of this, vide­bamur quandam Communicationem cum Schismaticis & haeretico homine ha­buisse: We seemed, say they to Cornelius, to have held Communion Corn. ad Cyp. Ep. 45. with Novatian and his Schismatical followers, for we frequented their Assemblies, appeared amongst them in their Holy Offices of Religion, sincera tamen mens nostra semper in Ecclesia fuit; yet our Hearts and our Souls ever went along with the Church. We knew there was but one God, one Christ, one Holy Spirit, & unum Episcopum in Catholica Eccle­sia esse debere, and that there ought to be but one Bishop in a Church. How­ever nos imposturam passi sumus, we cannot but say, we were imposed upon, and do heartily pray, ut abolerentur, & de memoria tollerentur, that those things may be forgiven and forgotten, and we received again into Commu­nion with Cornelius our lawful Bishop. Such there were that could run with the Hare, and hunt with the Hounds, and such (without doubt) there will be amongst us; my Prayer is that their number may be but small, and (like the before-mentioned Confessors) they may soon see their Error and return.

20. But of all the Sinners in the pack, none more outrageously so, than the Ordainers and their Complices; those Bishops, I mean, that first dressed up the Ape, set him in the Chair, and bad God speed unto him: Hence, though Submission and Penance might reconcile the other Clergy, yet nothing less than utter Deprivation, and loss of their Sacerdotal Ho­nour could attone for such. Of the three Bishops, saith Cornelius in his Synodical Epistle to Fabian, that ordained Novatian, [...] Euseb. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 35. [...], one of them repented and returned unto the Church, and we received them into Communion; [...], but no farther did we receive him than to the Communion of the Laity; and as for the other two engaged with him in the Ordination, we deposed them, and ordained others in their room. And so it faired with Trophimus, one of those forward Bishops that received and congratulated Navatianus in his Election; susceptus est Trophimus, Trophimus upon [Page 19] his repentance was absolved and admitted; but after all so admitted, ut Laicus communicet, non quasi locum Sacerdotis usurpet, that he must thence­forth Cyp. 55. p. 105. communicate but as a Laick, and no longer as a Priest or Bishop. The severity of this Sentence came indeed afterwards to be more or less moderated, wherefore Melchiades Bishop of Rome, to whom the cause of the Donatists was referred, would have none but Donatus himself, quem totius mali principem invenerat, whom he found, as St. Austine records the matter, chief Author of all the mischief, to bear the burden alone; offering Ep. 162. fol. 141. cap. 3. the rest upon their return to the Ʋnity of the Church, the continuance of their Bishopricks, and his Letters Communicatory, though they had been or­dained by Majorinus or any others in the State of Schism: Ita ut quibuscun (que) locis duo essent Episcopi, quos dissentio geminasset; so that in all places where the Schism had caused two Bishops, the prior ordained was to be established, and the second removed to some other vacancy: But then this was Sanitatis recuperandae optio, with desire and design to heal the Breach and make up the Schism. Thus again was Firminus, Bishop of Istria, admitted by St. Gregory without a deposition: But then this was 300 years after the Greg. lib. 10. Indict. 5. c. 37. Edit. Paris. 1551. Schism first commenced, and at a time when it was grown inconsiderable, the knot being broken almost 200 years before, insomuch that some few scatterings onely were here and there remaining; however not without due caution for the future, for they were solemnly to swear, se nunquam ad Schisma reversuros, sed semper in unitate Ecolesiae Catholicae, & communio­ne Romani Pontificis per omnia mansuros, that they would never thence­forth depart from the Ʋnity of the Catholick Church, and, because more Greg. Iud. cad. cap. 31. particularly belonging to the jurisdiction of Rome, not from the Communi­on of the Roman See. Such an Oath was not long after, as Petrus de Marca, in his Book de Concord. Sacerdot. & Imp. informs us, given to Adalbertus be­fore L. 6. c. 3. n. 13. Edit. Paris. 1663. his Consecration, by Hinemarus his Metropolitan, Privilegio Metropolis Remorum Ecclesia, ac ejus Praesulis, secundum sacrosanctos Conciliorum Ca­nones, & Decreta Sedis Apostolicae, ex sacris Canonibus & Legibus promulgata, proscire, & posse, abs (que) dolo & simulatione, vel indebita & pertinaci contra­dictione me obediturum profiteor. I do promise from this time forward, to the best of my skill and power, without dissimulation and fraud, and all manner of wilfull contradiction, to be obedient to, and observant of, all the Rights and Priviledges of the Metropolitical Church of Rhemes, of the Arch-Bishop thereof, as they are established and set forth by the Holy Canons of the Church; and by the Decrees of the Apostolical See, there­with agreeing.

21. An Oath much like that still in being, and hitherto tendered by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to all his Suffragans, at the Consecration of them; and it were to be wished, that such as have been Consecrated by Form of Con­scr. of Bishops. him, or by any of his Antecessors, would seriously consider the obligation it lays on them; in reference to which, I make bold to propose two eminent instances,; the one of Ivo, the other of our English Bishops. Ivo Carnotensis, one of the Suffragans to the Arch-Bishop of Sena (as Petrus [Page 20] de Marca relates the matter) was desired by Hugo Bishop of Lyons and L. 6. c. 3. n. 14. Legate to the Roman Pontife, to assist him at the Consecration of the Bi­shop of Niverna, a Suffragan properly belonging to the said Arch-Bishop; without any consent or approbation had from him, or by whose appoint­ment according to the Canon of the Church, he ought only to be conse­crated: Ivo utterly refuses to give his assistance, answering, that if he should engage in such an Ordination, reus fieret violatae sponsionis, quam Se­di Metropolitanae fecerat, he should become guilty of the breach of his Oath, made at his own Ordination to his Metropolitan. The other instance shall be in our own Bishops, in the time of King William the Second; and I take it from the Author of a Discourse concerning the Illegality of the late Commission, and for which he quotes Eadmerus; the case thus: An­selm Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was complain'd of by the King to the Page 17. Parliament, with order to the Bishops his Suffragans to depose him, the Bishops sensible of what Oath they had taken at the time of their Ordi­nation (instead of proceeding to a Deprivation) declared, they could not deprive him to whom they had promised Obedience. These things I pro­pose to their considerations, and wish they would seriously apply them.

22. The nature of Schism being thus set forth, and laid at the doors of them that cause it; my next work shall be to show the Heinousness and Injustice of the present Schism; a Schism perhaps capable of as great or greater Aggravations than any that ever happen'd in the Church from the first rise of a Schism in it.

23. It is not the manner of the Romans (saith Festus concerning St. Paul) to condemn any Man before that he who is accused have the accu­sers Acts 25. 16. face to face, and have licence to answer for himself, concerning the crime laid against him; nor no more hath it been the manner of the Church: Videmus quae res coegit fieri Altare contra Altare, let us examin (saith St. Austin) what first caused the D [...]natists to raise their Altar; Si Hypop [...]al. cont. Donat. Tom. 7. f. 2. malus erat Sacerdos, deponendus erat ante, si non poterat deponi, tolerandus intra rete; if Cacilian had been a Traditor, or done any thing else against the Canons, meritting a Deposition, he ought to have been deposed before another Bishop had been put upon him; but if he were guilty of no such thing, he ought to have continued sole Bishop there; non judices consederunt, non Sacerdotes de more; There were no Bishops (as usual it was) to hear and judge the matter; no Accusers, no Witnesses, no Libel whereby his crime might have been made out; but instead thereof, fu­ror, dolus, tumultus, qui regnant in falsitate, nothing but Fury, Fraud, Tu­mult, which ever rule in a bad cause. Now-a-days (saith Pope Innocent, in reference to St. Chrysostom) [...], Sozom. lib. 8. cap. 26. The innocent Bishops in a very preposterous manner are thrust out of their Churches, for others to be put into their places, having nei­ther their crimes heard, nor they so much as summoned to desend them­selves: A proceeding so novel and unjust, that we never knew it practi­sed by our fore-Fathers, but rather forbad, [...] [Page 21] [...], for as much as he cannot be a Bishop that is put over another, unless he be deposed by due process of Law: And so it was determined by the Fathers in the Constantinopolitan Coun­cil, We hold it necessary (say they) for the avoiding of contentions, and In Temp. Soph. Can. 16. tumults in the Church, to decree, [...], That none be made a Bishop in a Church where another presides, and retains his Honour; for though he may be every way faulty, and justly deserve deposing, [...], yet after all, his Cause ought first to be heard, and his Crimes throughly examined; and if upon that he be deposed, [...], then may another, though he do survive, be ordained, and placed in his Chair. But to pass Judgment against any, without citing or hearing the Party ac­cused, is a procedure, saith St. Chrysostom, [...], without Pallad. de vita Chrys. p. 22. Precedent, and contrary to Law and Canon; never practised either by the Heathens or Barbarians in their Judicatories; [...], nay, the very Scythians and Sarmatans, the most uncivilized Nations of all, never were so unjust, cruel, or unreasonable.

24. Now the Judgment of these matters in the more early and purer days of Christianity, was altogether referred to Episcopal Audience; [...]. Apos. 74. We hold it necessary, saith the Canon, That Bishops should be conven'd and judg'd by Bishops; and so the Carthaginian Fathers decree, [...], Blast. Synt. tit. Δ in Can. 12. ex Edit. Beve­reg. That the faults of Bishops be discussed and determined by a Synod of Bishops; or if a full Synod cannot be had in time, and it appear necessary that the Criminal be try'd, [...], that then his Cause be referred to twelve of them at least. And so far did this Canon prevail, that because John Bishop of Amathus was deposed by fewer, his Deposition was declared, as Balsamon relates, [...], to be invalid and void. And for this end (that matters arising, and Controversies between Party and In praed. Can. ex Edit. Beve­reg. Party depending, might timely be decided) it was farther provided by the first Canons, [...], That year­ly Can. Apos. 37. Con. Nic. 5. Ant. 20. twice in a year such Episcopal Synods should be held; afterwards [...], by reason of the great fatigue expences and dangers they were put unto by their journeys, that they should be, [...], but once in the year. Can. 6, 8, 7, 6.

25 Neither did the Emperors by becoming Christians alter the case; for either they left the Judgment wholly to the Bishops, as was formerly done, or if they interposed, it was ever in conjunction with them; taking their advice, and oftentimes their directions from them. Thus when the Donatists petitioned Constantine the Great, to grant them an hearing of the case between them and the Caecilianists, he, quia non est ausus de cau­sa Episcopi judicare, because he did not think it proper for him to sit Aug. Ep. 166. Judge over Bishops in Episcopal matters, sent them to Melchiades, Bishop of Rome, and to three other Bishops from France, Rheticius, Marinus, [Page 22] and Maternus, to be judged by them: But no ways satisfied with their judgment, they desire a farther hearing, whereupon he, omnino cupien [...] tantam impudentiam cohibere, willing to restrain and suppress so great an A [...]. Ep. 162. insolency, dedit aliud Arelatense Concilium, granted them another Synod at Arles; adding that it was not for him, ut de judicio Episcoporum, qui Romae sederunt, ipse judicaret, to judge of the judgment passed by the Bishops at Rome: But not yet contented, because condemned as before, they appeal to Constantine himself, ut causam Constantinus audiret, that he would be pleased to take the judgment upon himself; and in some mea­sure he did, but (as Bishop Parker observes) it was not to judge, but to Rel. and Royal. Part 1 p. 299. expose the Schismaticks, or to suffer them to expose themselves: For that he would not meddle with the business at all, till he had the discovery of Ignatius his forgery in his pocket, to confound them with. And St. Au­stin by his charitable wish seems to insinuate something like it: Ʋtinam ut eis ipse cessit, ut de causa Episcopos judicaret; would to God, saith he, he had accepted their Appeal, and had judged the matter after the Bishops, Ep. 162. à sanctis Episcopis veniam petiturus, though he had excused himself after­wards for his so doing. An undertaking that he ever declined and protested against, quoties à me improbissimis additionibus suis sunt condigna responsione oppressi? How often, saith he, have they been repulsed by me? Co [...]st. Ep. Cath. int. gest. pur­gationis, vid. Optat. Which if they would but have considered, they would never have de­sired me to be their Judge. I say, and I say the truth, Sacerdotum judicium ita debet haberi, the judgment of Bishops ought as much to be regarded and followed, as if Christ himself had sat in judgment with them; neither was this the opinion of Constantine only, but of all his Christian Succes­sors. I shall instance in Valentinian only (though the same may be verified of Constantius, Valentinian the younger, Theodosius, Gratian, Arcadius, Honorius, Justinian, Martian, &c.) he was, saith Sozomen, a very Orthodox Hist. lib. c. 20. and devout Man, [...], and would not suffer any thing to be in­novated nor imposed upon the Bishops, that was any ways contradictory to the Laws and Canons of the Church: One of his Edicts, as it is given us by St. Ambrose, runs thus, In causa fidei, vel Ecclesiastici Ordinis, cum Lib. 5. Ep. 32. judicare debet, qui nec manere impar sit, nec jure dissimilis; they, and they only are to be deputed Judges over Ecclesiasticks who are of the same Order, and therefore to be presumed the most competent Judges because most knowing in those Affairs: Hoc est, Sacerdotes de Sacerdotibus voluit ju­dicare; that is, as St. Ambrose comments upon it, he would have Bishops to be the onely Judges of Bishops: An Authority, though partly Tempo­ral, yet of that nature, that instead of laying waste the Church, of sup­planting the Bishops, or of subverting the Canons, it became a real de­fence and patronage to them all; and no sooner experienced, but was as frankly and freely consented to, in reference to the succeeding Empe­rors. Placuit ut quicun (que) ab Imperatore, it seemeth good, say the Bishops in the Milevitan Council, that if any shall appeal to the Emperor to have Cen. 19. [Page 23] his Cause tried before Secular Judges, he be deprived, but if he appeal to have an Hearing thereof before a Synod of Bishops, it shall no ways displease. Thus did Pope Innocent address himself to Honorius, to have the Schism between St. Chrysostome and Arsacius ended: First he writes to Theophilus (that great Promoter of it) to challenge him to a Council, We cannot, saith he, either in Reason or Justice withdraw our selves from Chrysostom 's Pallad. de Vit. Chrys. c. 3. p. 24. Communion, and therefore if you dare abide by the Judgment you have made of his Deposition, [...], make your Appearance before the next Synod. And after that he, with the rest of the Italian Bi­shops, sends to Honorius, that he would write to his Brother Arcadius, Co Emperour with him, that a Council for that end might be convened, where both Eastern and Western Bishops might conveniently meet; which Honorius accordingly did, sending his Letters by five Bishops, two Presby­ters, and one Deacon, assuring him, That if either he or his Bishops could satisfie them that Chrysostome was duly and justly deposed, he (for his part) would withdraw all Communion from him; but if not, that he then hoped He would be prevailed with to desert their Communion, and their new made Patriarch. Whence it is obvious to infer, 1. That where two Bishops are placed at one time in a See, a Schism must necessarily ensue. 2. That Synods onely are the Deposers of Bishops, and the onely Judges of a Deposition. 3. That neither Emperour, Senate, Privy Council, or Se­cular Power whatsoever can do it, without making a Schism. 4 That till a Synod be called, and hath determined the Matter, the first must be ac­counted the lawful Bishop, and the second, with his Adherent, the Schismatick.

26. And as this was the Usage, Practice, and Custome of all foreign Churches; so it was one of those [...], those antient Customs that the English Church hath observed. Ego Constantini, vos Petri Gladium habetis in Manibus; I, saith K. Edgar, (as cited by Twisden,) wear the Sword of Vind. Chur. 2. p. 94. Constantine, and you of St. Peter: Now how far the first exercised his Authority in reference to the case before us, is already shewn; and if K. Edgar went no farther, we are sure there was no seizing upon Bi­shops, or of putting others into their Bishopricks, before they were heard and condemned by Bishops. Indeed the Author of the Discourse con­cerning the Illegality of the late Ecclesiastical Commission, tells us, That P. 11, 12. the Saxon Laws are a plain Evidence that Church Matters were in those times determined in the same Assemblies wherein the other Laws of the Kingdom were determined; and I am apt to think that in a great mea­sure they were: But then, as the learned Spelman observes, Episcopu [...] jura Gloss. Tit. Ge­mot. divina enuntiabat, Comes secularia, alter alteri auxilio; the Bishops declared and vindicated the Ecclesiastical Laws, and the Nobles the Secular, each sup­porting and assisting the other; the one according to the Canons of the Church, and the other according to the Municipal Laws of the Land. Nay, I cannot see, but in some cases their actings might be separate; sure I am that in the Synod held at Bacanceld, and in that other soon after held at Clovesho, for the restoring the Jurisdiction of the Metropolitical See of [Page 24] Canterbury to its Archibishop, of which it had been despoiled by K. Offa, & contra Canones & Apostolica Statuta in duas scissa Paroechias, and con­trary to all Canons and Constitutions Apostolical divided into two, and Spel. Conc. in Ep. Kenul. ad Leon. 3. in part given to Adulphus his Favourite, there was none of the Laity in them, no Earls, no great Men of the Nation; the one being held (as we see in Spelman,) Praesidente Kenulso Rege, by the King, Archbishop, Bishops, Conc. Brit. an. 709, 803. and Abbats, & multis aliis idoneis personis, and many other (not great Men, or Nobles, but) fitting persons; the other ab Athelardo Archiepiscopo, cum duodecim Episcopis & potiori Clero, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and twelve other Bishops, with the chiefest of their Clergy, as may ap­pear by their respective Subscriptions, and Spelman's Notes upon them; adding this severe and terrible Denunciation, (Hear oh Heavens, and give ear oh Earth!) Siquis, quod omnino absit, If any one, which God for­bid, shall at any time hereafter presume against the Apostolical Precepts, and this our Determination, Tunicam Christi scindere, & Ʋnitatem ejus Ec­clesiae dividere, to tear the seamless Coat of Christ, and thereby to di­vide the Ʋnity of the Church of Canterbury, sciat se esse aeternaliter dam­nandum, let him know that (if he repents him not of that his fault) he shall be eternally damned. But be it so or not, as the Authour avers; yet in this we shall not much dissent, that K. William I. having brought England under the power of his Sword, separated Judicatures, refer­ring, as it was in Constantine's days, Ecclesiastical Matters to Ecclesiastical Judges. Thus in a Council held at Winchester, he himself being present, with three Spelm. anno 1070. Legates from Rome, totius Cleri populus, the whole Synod of the Antiq. Brit. de S [...]igand. Clergy, after they had heard divers things objected against Sti­gand, then Archbishhp of Canterbury, eum Episcopatu & Ordinibus abdica­bant, deprived him both of his Archbishoprick and his Office: The Crimes were chiefly these, quod Archiepiscopatum, Roberto vivente, neque amoto, possidisset; because he had possessed himself of the Archbishoprick, Robert the Archbishop being alive, and not deposed, and had worn the Pall which he left behind him, being by Force most unjustly driven from thence: Crimes every way deserving Deposition, and (because done by a Synod) justly so punished; and if Crimes then, they are and must be so now, let Stigand and his Party think what they will. At the same time, and by the same Synod, was Agelmar, Bishop of the East Angles, depo­sed; Spelm. anno 1070. but whether so justly or no, I shall not determine: And a little af­ter Ʋlstan (the good Bp. of Worcester) was by a Synod held at Westminster under Lanfranc in like manner deposed; and (God wot) for Grounds in­considerable enough, quia Linguam gallicam non noverat, onely because Mat. Paris Hist. Ang. Edit. Lond. 1640. he did not understand the Norman Language; which methinks to me is much the same as if at this day Depositions were to proceed against our Bishops, because they do not understand the Lingua of the Dutch. And at this rate, for ought I can find, all future Affairs were managed, to K. Stephen's days; onely the Conquerour, nonnullos tam Episcopos quam Ab­bates, deposed several, both Bishops and Abbats, as Conquerors use to Spel. an. 1070. [Page 25] do) quos nec Concilia nec Leges Seculi damnabant, whom neither the Synods of Bishops, nor the Laws of the Land had pronounced guilty. And thus he did, not minding the Irregularity or Injustice of the Proceedings, sed ad confirmationem sui quod noviter acquisiverat Regni, but that he might settle and confirm himself in the Possession of that Kingdom which by his Arms he had newly acquired. In K. Stephan's days, if Dr. Brady be not Compl. Hist. p. 216. Edit. 1685. mistaken, the Canon Law and Lawyers were called into England; and no one need to doubt, whilst that lasted, and was esteemed good Law a­mong us, that either the Churches Rights, their Synods, or their Judica­tures were invaded. We read indeed of some Ibid. p. 213. that were imprisoned, of others P. 481. that were proscribed, of others P. 479. that had their Bishopricks seized and their Goods confiscated to the King's use; but of none, as I can find, deposed without a Synod. There was indeed an Attempt not long after, as Matthew Paris and Dr. Brady relate the matter, much of a like nature, against one Adomar, alias Athelmar, the King's Brother, elect of Winchester: He, say they, was not onely forced by the Nobles to quit Hist. Ang. p. 982. Comp. Hist. p. 635. the Kingdom, but the King himself was so far wrought upon, that he not onely seized his Temporalties, but judged his Bishoprick void; yea, and suffered Henry de Wenghan his Chancellour to be chosen in his stead: But then Adomar all this while was no more than elect, never consecrated Bishop; and though no more than so, yet the very Election of another seemed so irregular to Henry that was chosen, that he refused it, because it was litigiosa & incerta, litigious and uncertain: Neither would the King yield unto it, but with a Salvo to his Brother's Right; namely, Si Frater suus Athelmarus praeelectus, that if the praeelect his Brother had or should obtain his Consecration from the Pope, to whom he had applied himself, as it was customary in those days to do, ipsemet prae omnibus aliis fieret in eadem Ecclesia institutus, he should be first instituted. Nay, when the Communitas Angliae, the Comites, Proceres & Magnates, the Nobles Mat. Par. Ad­dit. p. 217. and the great Men of the Nation supplicated the Pope that he might be put from his Administration, they used his Non-consecration for an Argu­ment; Et certe, clementissime Pater, hoc satis credimus sine scandalo facien­dum, cum non sit in Episcopum consecratus; For this, most holy Father, we are well assured may be granted us, seeing he is not as yet consecrated; thereby intimating and conceding, that if he had not been consecrated, it could not by them, nor any other, without eminent Scandal, be desired, much less effected. And if we may believe the History of the Reformation, this lasted for Law amongst us, till Henry VIIIth's day; neither would Burnet, part 1. p. 330. he in any wise suffer an Eversion of it, nor so much as a Purgation, far­ther than of those Canons onely that were repugnant to the King's Pre­rogative Stat. 25. H. 8. c. 19. Royal, and the known Laws of the Land; as certainly those ancient Canons touching Synods and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction were not, as being in use (even in England) long before the Italian Bishop, or his en­croaching and usurping Canons were received.

[Page 26] 27. Neither did the Reformation innovate in this matter; for by a Pre­amble to a Statute, cited by Cosins, we are told, that the People of this Apol. Courts Eccl. part 1. ch. 14. Realm have bound themselves, by long Use and Custome, to the Obser­vance of certain Laws, besides those which were ordained in this Realm (meaning the Canon Laws) as to the accustomed Laws; and that such Laws were originally established, as Laws of the same by the Sufferance of Kings, and by the Consent and Customes of the People. And because some of those Laws were onerous to the King and his Subjects, Power was granted to the King by another Statute to nominate and assign two and 25 H. 8. c. 19. thirty Persons (whereof sixteen of the Clergy) to view, examine, and by the King's Signature to establish all such as they should think meet to be established, not being contrariant to the Laws of God, to the Laws and Customes of the Realm, or to the Damage and Hurt of the Preroga­tive; continuing however the aforesaid Laws and Canons in use and vi­gour, under the aforesaid Proviso and Restraint, till either the Review be made, or it be otherwise ordered and determined. This Cranmer of­ten pressed to have b [...]en done, saith the Historian, but he could never Hist. Ref. vol. 2. l. 3. p. 330. obtain it during that King's Reign, insomuch that all things remained as they were. In the 5th Year of K. Edw. VI. the Design was set on foot again, and the Act renewed, and accordingly (saith Heylin in his Eccle­sia Hist. Edw. 6. Edi [...]. 1670. restaurata) the King directed his Commission to Archbishop Cranmer, and others, and afterwards appointed a Sub Committee, consisting, saith the Author of the Preface to the Book called Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasti­carum, of two Bishops, two Divines, two Doctors of the Law, and two Com­mon Lawyers, to prepare the Work, and make it ready for the rest, that it might be dispatched with the more Expedition. By them, saith Hey­lin in the aforequoted place, the Work was undertaken and digested, fashio­ned according to the Method of the Roman Decretals, and called by the Name of Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. Nec dubium quin Parliamentari etiam Authoritate eaedem Sanctionis istae constabilitae, And no doubt, saith the same Prefacer, the Decrees had been established by Act of Parliament, and Praes. ad Ref. Leg Eccl. Edit. 1640. made the standing Law of the Land, if it had pleased God that the Life of the King had been continued but a little longer. However it was not so imperfect an Embryo, nor altogether so unshapen, but we may easily discern what Features it had, and of what Complexion it would have been; and more particularly as to the Case before us, Deprivation is declared to be an Ec­clesiastical Crime, inter poenas ecclesiasticis legibus constitutas, and liable to Tit. de Depr. c. 1. the Punishments assigned by the Ecclesiastical Laws; and thereupon it or­ders that a Bishop in amittendi status sui periculum venit, that falls under Cap. 2. the danger of being deprived, be referred to the Archbishop and two o­ther Bishops, deputed thereunto by the King, qui Judicium exercebunt, who shall have Power and Authority to hear and determine the said Cause. And in case of Appeals it is farther decreed, that they may be made from Tit. de Appel. c. 11. the inferior Courts to the Bishop, from the Bishop to the Archbishop, from the Archbishop to the King, quo cum fuerit causa devoluta, which [Page 27] if once brought thither, it is then to be transmitted, si gravis sit causa, if it be a matter of great concern, to a Provincial Synod; if of a less, to three or four Bishops, appointed thereunto to put a final End unto it; a Method purely antient and primitive: and if any other were practised whilst these Constitutions were framing, it was certainly contrary to the Designs of the Reformers, and perhaps no more justifiable than the Sacrilege, the filling of Ecclesiastical Places with Lay Persons, or the Bi­shops taking Commissions for the Exercise of their spiritual Offices was, and which I think no Clergyman that at this day wears a Cassock in En­gland will advocate for. However since the designed Book was never admitted, and no Review made thereof from that time to this, I cannot see but what Dr. Heylin hath asserted must hold good; to wit, That all Hist. Edw. 6. p. 19. the said Canons and Constitutions (so restrained and qualified as above) must still remain in force, as of old they did; and so we leave the Mat­ter for the present.

28. And indeed a State Deposition, whatsoever noise it makes in the World, or how much soever it pleases the Ears of some, is but a novel and wicked Invention. If Bishops, saith St. Clemens, be once constituted Ep. ad Cor. 1. c. 44. and approved of by the Church, and it appears that they have been faith­full in their Office, constant to their Ministration, and for the time past well thought of for their Episcopal Qualifications, [...], we cannot (if such as these be laid aside) but look upon it as a piece of great Injustice; neither will it be a small Crime in us, [...], if they continue piously and blame­lesly to offer up their Oblations for us, to turn them out of their Bishopricks. A thing never heard of in the Church for many Centuries of Years: But if at any time the Bishop became so irregular as that the Church would no longer endure him in his Office, they deposed as well as deprived him, and reduced the first Bishop into a Layman before they advanced the second to his See; and probably upon this very account, to prevent the Inconve­nience to which a State-Deprivation is subject, of having two Bishops pre­tending to one See at once. Nay, saith Chrysostome, [...], Pallad. p. 20. de Vit. Chrys. if such Proceedings prevail, and it once become lawfull to invade and usurp another's Bishoprick, [...], and to cast out what Bps. they please for their own Interest and Humor, [...], all things will speedily run to ruine, and the whole Christian World, [...], by the casting out of some, and the being cast out by others, be turned upside down. An Arian Con­stantius may then deprive all the Orthodox, and fill the Church with that Doctrine; Mahomet may pull down the Cross, and its Followers, and set up the Half-moon and his Musselmen in their stead. The long Parlia­ment must not be thought to have done amiss, when they cast off not some but the whole Order of Bishops; nor the Usurper Cromwell the C. L. Asses that were got into their room; a Matter of such fatal consequ [...]nce to the Church, that the divine Hosius, understanding that Constantius was [Page 28] putting it into practice against the Bishops that would not subscribe to his Arianism, (and in my opinion Socinianism and Aerianism are not much better,) steps in on the behalf of the deprived, giving the Emperour to know, that it belonged not to him to exercise such an Authority over the Church; [...], I beseech you, says he, leave off these At­temps Athan. Ep. ad solitar. Vit. Edit. Commet. 1600. of yours, and remember, that though you be an Emperour, you are not immortal; dread the Day of Judgment, and keep your self un­spotted against that day; [...], inter meddle not with Ecclesiastical Affairs, neither command us therein; but rather take your Direction from us: For God hath committed the Care of the Kingdom to you, and to us the Care of his Church; and as he who in­vades the Kingdom contradicts the divine Ordinance, so be you carefull that you draw not into your Jurisdiction the things of the Church, lest thereby you draw Guilt upon your self; Give, as it is written, unto Cae­far the things that belong unto Caesar, and unto God the things that belong un­to God, [...], for it is neither lawfull for us to meddle in the Affairs of the Empire, nor for you to meddle in the more sacred Affairs of the Church. A Power cer­tainly never designed by Christ, since it is so affrontive to his Institution, and so destructive to his Church: However I would fain know of these Latitudinarian Statesmen, who are so zealous to advance it among us, 1. Whether, since Christ's Kingdom is not of this World, the Kingdoms of the World must have such Power in and over it, as to deprive it and its Bishops of a Being and Existence in the World? 2. Whether a Lay-Power (purely such) can operate upon Spiritual Persons in Matters pure­ly spiritual, so far at least as by their secular Laws and Sanctions to dis­solve that spiritual Ʋnion that Christ hath made between them and their Church? And whether it be not as absurd in them to attempt it, and as great a Nullity in itself when effected, as if the States of England should make Laws and enact Penalties for the States of Holland? 3. Whe­ther if the State hath such a Power to deprive a Bishop of his Church, as they have put John upon William, they may not put William upon John again, and at length Jack Presbyter upon both, as already they have done in Scotland? 4. Whether the new made Bishops be not as much to be accounted State made, as the other State deprived? 5. Whether the deprived Bishops, remaining Bishops of the Catholick Church, as they are pleased to say they do, they do not remain Bishops in and of the Church of England, since that is a part of the Catholick Church? 6. Whether, if still Bishops in England, there be not two Bishops in a Church at a time, from whence Schism of course must arise?

29. Neither is this the onely aggravation of the present Schism, that Bishops of an indisputable Title (without being either previously heard, or judicially sentenced) are deprived; but that the Primate of all England is one of those Bishops. The Canon is alike against multiplying of Metro­politans in a Province, as of multiplying Bishops in a Diocess; Statutum [Page 29] est, it is ordained, saith Gratian, referring us to the twelfth Canon of the Council of Chalcedon, quod duo Metropolitani in una & eadem provin­cia Dist. 101. esse non d [...]bent, that two Metropolitans ought not to be had in one and the same Province; and therefore when Augustin the Monk, by Authori­ty from the Pope, would have thrust himself upon the British Bishops, they would not submit, saith Bede, to any of his orders, ne (que) illum pro Hist. l. 2. c. 2. Edit. Lova [...]. 1566. Archiepiscopo habiturum, nor receive him for their Archbishop, as having an Archbishop of their own. And Huntington relating the m [...]tter (as cited by Baziere) adds, that neither the Britains, nor the Irish would com­municate Hist. l. 36. Lib. Brit. Chur. with him, or with the English, that were governed by him, more than with Pagans; giving this for their reason, because he did seem to deal uncanonically by them, in constraining them to take him for their Archbishop, when they had an Archbishop before. And if we do but consider the high standing the Primate hath in the Church, and the reason of his being set there, which was (as Spalato speaks) ut unitas & de Repub. Ec. lib. 3. cap. 2. concordia inter Episcopos servaretur, that Ʋnity and Concord might be pre­served among the several Bishops of the Province; it must every way be held as reasonable to have but one Primate in a Province, as one Bi­shop in a Church. And hence it is that the Apostolical Canon enjoyns the Can. Apost. 34. Conc. Aut. Can. 9. the Bishops of every Nation or Province, [...], to have always a regard to him who is the chief among them, and to esteem him as their head; yea, and so far to be headed by him, as to come under his Precedency, by virtue whereof the whole Province becomes but one Church; the Deacons and Presbyters acting under their Bishop, the Bishops under their Metropolitans, and the Metropolitans under their Primate or Patriarch. And it is the breaking this Chain, and the going off from this Subordination that begets a Schism; but never proves it so fatal as when the Primate suffers in it. This holy Synod (say the Constantinoplitan Fathers) perceiving, [...] Temp. Apost. Can. 13. [...], that the Devil is busie through the fury of Schismaticks to divide the Church, doth for the prevention of the same, determine, that if any Presbyter or Deacon su­specting or knowing his Bishop to be faulty, shall presume to separate himself from him, and forbear naming of him in the Church's Prayers as it is customary to do, [...], before a Synodical Hearing, Examination and perfect Judgment shall be had in the case, he for so doing be de­posed, [...], and for the future deprived of all their Sacerdotal Honour, and the like. They decree to those Can. 14. Bishops that upon the same account [...] se­parate themselves from the Communion of their Metropolitan: And the Can. 15. like again, to those Metropolitanes that shall separate themselves from their Primate or Patriarch, thereby making a Schism, and breaking the Unity of the Church, [...] though guilty of no other fault, than such separation.

[Page 30] 30. The old Rule was, that nothing be done in the Church without him, meaning as it is a Provincial Church. And Balsamon in his Com­mentaries upon the aforesaid Apostolical Canon, which commands the Bi­shops Can. 34. of every Nation to observe the Primate, [...], and to transact nothing in the Church, of the more weighty affairs thereof without him, tells us, wherein these weighty affairs consist; and that they are [...], such as relate to Ecclesiastical Constitution, [...], and cannot otherwise be transacted by the respective Bishops in their respective Diocesses. And whence it is, that one of the chief Branches of his superintended Authority arises, and that is to call and convene all the Bishops of the Province into a Sy­nod, in order to have all such matters debated, stated, and provided for; that all Irregularities may be amended, and all Schisms prevented. Now we are told by the Council of Antioch, that that, and that only is a true and right Synod, [...], wherein the Metropolitan Can. 16. presides; and that it is not lawfull for any, [...], Can. 20. of their own heads, or by a separate Authority from him, to call Synods. Insomuch, that if the present Metropolitan be usurped upon, and not rightfully deposed, all Synods that are and shall be called, and all mat­ters that are or shall be debated therein, and determined thereby, must necessarily fall to the ground, and have no Virtue or Solidity in them. I am sensible a Man may bear up the Name, and hold the State of a Bi­shop, answerably habited, with his Pastoral Staff in his hand, and a Mitre upon his head, he may call a Synod, and have his Bishops and Clergy about him, bestowing his Prebendaries to some, his Archdeaconries to others; nay, reditus, census & capones, he may receive Rents, Services, Capons, &c. whilst his Regency holds: All this did the Episcopus Puero­rum, as he is described and deciphered by Mr. Gregory of Christ-Church, Oper. Posth. p. 117. Edit. 1665. and yet he was but a mock Bishop, and so he died without any farther Character of a Bishop upon him; notwithstanding he be buried in the Pontifical Ornaments of a Bishop, and had a Dragon under his feet, with a Motto as great and as proud as ever Bishop usurped, conculcabis Leonem & Draconem.

31. Another of his unquestionable Prerogatives and Priviledges, as he is Primate of the Province, an Office, according to Petrus, de Marca, of Lib. 6. c. 1. Part 3. Apostolical Tradition, and coaeval with Christianity it self, is, that no Bi­shop ought to be ordained, or taken for a Bishop within the Province, that is not ordained by him, or with his approbation and consent: Inso­much that if a thousand Bishops be made without his consent, and much more against it, they can be no Bishops. And this is evident from the first Nicene Council, [...], Can. 6. if any one be made a Bishop without the allowance and good liking of the Metropolitan, this great Council decrees [...], that such an one shall be no Bishop at all; and so it was decreed [Page 31] in the first Council at Antioch, [...], let no Man be Can. 19. ordained Bishop without the presence of the Metropolitan, or if any shall be made, [...], that his Ordination be null and in­valid, and that not only as to himself, but as to all others that shall be afterwards ordained: And this was the plea that Alexius made, when they would unjustly have deposed him from his Patriarchship, and which in probability prevented his deposition; stoutly answering (as Doctor Burnet relates the matter) ‘That if his Ordination was null, then all Regal. cap. 3. the Metropolitans whom he had ordained, and all the Bishops whom those Metropolitans had ordained during the eleven years of his Ad­ministration, ought to be likewise degraded:’ From whence it is evi­dent, that if the Ordination be at first null, it conveys and entails a nullity upon all its descent, and what a miserable confusion this will bring in eleven years time upon the Church of England, he that hath but half an eye may foresee. Nay, at this rate Archbishop John (totius Schismatis Primas & Metropolitanus) will neither be Primate nor Bishop, nor can it in the least justifie him from the Crime of Schism, that the present Power backs him in his Invasion and Ʋsurpation; [...], if any one (saith the Apostolical Canon) Can. 30. shall make use of any secular Power to thrust himself irregularly into the Possession of a Bishoprick; [...], let him be de­posed and excommunicated, together with all those that take part with him. The like i [...] decreed in the Council held at Paris, Si quis per ordi­nationem regiam, if any Bishop shall unduly and with two much haste ascend to the height of Episcopal Honour by the strength and interposi­tion of Regal Power, let him no ways be recieved or owned by the Bi­shops of the Prov [...]nce, or if contrary to the Canon, he shall be received by any of the Comprovincials, then let such be separated from the rest of his brethren.

32. I here foresee, that the instance of Abiathar will be produced against me, not only to overthrow the position of one Bishop in a Church, or of one Primate in a Province; but to shew, that is in the Power of Kings upon good reason, to depose any of them; nay, the highest of them all, that do or can Priest it in their Dominions. God (say they) app [...]inted but one High Priest at a time for the whole Jewish Church, n [...]ither do we read of any farther order given for the displa­cing of him, or for the putting of others upon him: And yet none can deny but that in King David's days there were two High Priests toge­ther, Zadock the Son of Ahitub, and Abiathar the Son of Ahimelech; 2 Sam. 15. 29. and this by the sole order and pleasure of the King: neither do we read that he was ever the farther from being the Man after God's own heart for his doing so. And it is as evident on the other hand, that So­lomon his Son deposed and degraded one of them; to wit, Abiathar, 1 Kings 2. 26. after he had continued in the Office full forty years; and that by no other Authority than his own. Both which actions plainly demon­strate, [Page 32] That if reasons of State so require, the King may either multi­ply Bishops upon a Church, or depose them; especially as to us in Eng­land, since we give the same Prerogative to our Kings, as was given by Art. 37. God to all Godly Princes in holy Scriptures: And this they think will be a sufficient plea and cause for what they are doing But to this I answer; and first, as to the being of two High Priests at once,

33. I think I may say, that it is the only instance to be met with in Scripture from the time that the Priesthood was setled upon Aaron and his Family, to the time that the Jews became Captives, and were carried out of the Land: And if it had been either convenient or necessa­ry, it would have been oftner practised; and if it had been oftner pra­ctised, we should have oftner heard of it. So that it being a particular case, it must have a particular reason and foundation proper and peculiar to it self upon which it stands, and without which it falls. Howbeit it was at a time when the High Priesthood was got into a wrong Chanel, and possessed by a Family which (according to the Law of Inheritance) had no present right unto it; I say no present right, a right it had at large, as b [...]ing of the Family of Ithamar, one of the Sons of Aaron, to Lev. 10. 7. whom (no less than the other) the Priesthood at first was given; but however not without a Precedency to Eleazar, as being the first born. And hence we read, that when Aaron was to be taken away by death, Numb. 20. 28. Moses was commanded to strip him of his Garments, the Garments of Holiness, which at his Consecration he had put upon him, and to put them upon Eleazar, signifying thereby the divesting Aaron of his Priesthood, Lev. 8. 7. to array and invest Eleazar with it. From him it was conveyed to Phineas his Son, to whom, and to whose Seed it was farther assured and Numb. 25. 13. granted to be an everlasting Priesthood; but so it happened at present, that the Posterity of Eleazar was put by, and the Posterity of Ithamar taken into their room; and so it had been, and continued for four Gene­rations, even from the time of Ely to this Abiathar's days; who having escaped the Massacre made at the command of Saul, upon Ahimelech his 1 Sam. 22. 18. Father and Family, fled unto David, and bringing the Ephod with him, 1 Sam. 23. 6. was constituted High Priest in the room of his deceased Father; and indeed in some measure meriting the same, for it was upon David's ac­count, and for entertaining him in his necessities, that his Father was put to death, and the whole Family (besides himself) destroyed. But 1 Sam. 22. 13. this appearing irregular to David, because against the right of Inheri­tance, and finding that the line of Eleazar was to be restored in his days, even before the Temple should be built and Israel be in its full Glory; he 1 Sam. 2. 32, 35. puts Zadock (the principal of the line at that time) into the Priesthood, and gives him the Precedency to Abiathar, as being regularly the Heir, and the person to whom by right thereof the Priesthood belonged; con­tinuing however Abiathar as a Copartner with him in it during life; the whole afterwards to devolve upon Zadock and his Posterity, as it was at first ordered. So that all this was but a Pious and Righteous design [Page 33] in David, to restore the Priesthood to its rightful owner, and not un­reasonably to divide the Church, but reasonably to make up the Breach that had been made in the Inheritance. A method commended by the Bishops of Sirmium to the Clergy of Rome upon their having two Bishops at a time, occasioned by the banishment of Liberius, and the Investiture of Felix during his banishment. Let them, say they, receive Liberius Soz. Hist. l. 4. cap. 14. their former Bishop, since he is permitted to return, and let Felix and he, [...], joyntly enjoy the Apostolical Throne, and do all things amicably and in con­junction together, that so the irregularity of the one, and the misfor­tune of the other may both be buried. Neither can it be blame worthy when two Bishops do arise, (which yet Sozomen in the place before quoted says, is in it self [...], a certain sign of Schism, and against the Rule of holy Church,) thus to make up the Feud, and reconcile the Division, persuading them like Zadock and Abia­thar to go hand in hand, and bear up the Ark together whilst both of 2 Sam. 15. 24, 29. them do live: Nay, so desirable a thing is Ʋnity and Amity in the case, that when Mel [...]tius and Paulinus, the two Bishops of Antioch, would not be persuaded to agree the matter among themselves, in their lives time, the chief of the Clergy [...], who were accounted the fittest to be made Bishops after them, Soz. l. 7. c. 3. Socr. l. 9. c. 4. or who had the greatest expectation of being so, bound themselves mu­tually by an Oath, that they would never so much as attempt to be Bi­shops in either of their rooms; or so much as accept if they were chosen; [...], as long as either Paulinus or Meletius should live, but that when either of them should die, the Bishoprick should remain entire to the Surviver of them; and from thenceforth continue undivided.

33. Neither will the other part of the Objection much affect us; that I mean of Solomon's deposing Abiathar. For it was in a case of High Treason, (driven perhaps thereunto, out of hopes that if Adonijah had prevailed against Solomon, he might have regained the Priesthood back unto his Family, which he could not but foresee was quite going from it.) A Crime of so high and malignant a nature, that the Church will not Advocate for it. Nay, though she be industrious to defend her Clergy under other Accusations, that they be not too much oppressed by Secular Powers; yet as to a Delinquent of this nature, she utterly throws him off, and exposes him to all the hardships he can meet with. In Matthew Blaster's Syntagma, Chapter de Episcopis ob Crimina sua judicatis, I find this Law or Canon, [...], Tit. Δ. cap. 8. [...], let none of the Lai­ty judge the Clergy, unless they be accused of Treason; intimating, that if accused of that, no Sacredness of Office, no Sublimity of Honour must either indemnifie, except or excuse them from punishment. And yet how far this Deposition wrought, is not to me altogether so plain: The Scripture [Page 34] saith no more concerning it, than that Solomon thrust out Abiathar from 1 Ki [...]gs 2. 27. being Priest unto the Lord; it neither shews how far he thrust him out, nor by what method he did it. Nihusius, as cited by Frischmuth, in his Treatise de Rege eligendo & deponendo, would have us believe it was ex Aula solum, S. 63. Edit. Jenae, 1653. only from appearing at Court, and exercising his Office in or about Je­rusalem, where the King had his abode; with liberty however to execute it in the Tabernacle at Gibeon, as Zadock before him had done, when he was Copartner with Abiathar; and this perhaps may be grounded on the 1 Chron. 16. 39. relation that Josephus makes of the matter, where he brings in Solomon thus speaking to Abiathar, [...], ‘the pains▪ saith he, that thou hast endured by accompany­ing Ant. l. 8. c. 1. my Father David, and attending and bearing the Ark with him, makes thee to escape from death; yet forasmuch as thou hast taken part with Adonijah, I so far condemn thee, [...], that thou depart hence, and see my face no more; [...], for since thou hast so offended me, it is not convenient that thou shouldst be in Honour with me.’ Carthu­sianus goes farther than Nihusius, and tells us, Abiatharem de integro, sin­gulari clementia Regis, pristino Officio restitutum, that he was by the special Frisch. Loc. cit. S. 64. clemency of the King wholly restored to his Office again. Gersomides brings him down to a much lower station, yet makes him however to be Loc. cit. Zadock's Substitute, when ever he was hindered by any defect from exe­cuting the Office of the High Priest himself; and such an one Josephus makes Ellem the Son of Joseph to be unto Matthias, in the time of his Ant. l. 17. c. 8. uncleanness. But be it as it will, most certain it is from Scripture; 1. That he had his life given him. 2. That he had liberty to retire unto his City, and to dwell quietly there. 3. That he had still the Name and the Title of High Priest continued to him: I will not (saith Solomon) 1 Kings 4. 4. at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the Ark of the Lord before David my Father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my Father was afflicted; it seems Gratitude to past Services, and a Veneration to the high dignity of Priesthood, was not then perished quite out of the Land, nondam terras Astraea. Neither are we less in the dark as to the manner how he was deposed: We read of no formal procedure in the case; all that is said about it, is, That Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest unto the Lord: And yet if we will credit Menochius, De rep. Heb. l. 1. c. 6. S 6. he will tell us, that among many other things to be transacted in the great Synedri­on, the punishing of the High Priest was one, and so saith the Tit. [...] c. 1. l. [...] Misna, [...] They judged not the High Priest, unless in the Sanedrim, or great Consistory; mean­ing, saith Selden out of Mamonides, De Synod. l. 3. c. 8. S. 1. [...] so far as Life is concerned. Nay, though in other Matters, not concerning Life, they might judge of him in other Courts, yet both l.. 3. c. 6. S. 1. Selden and De Jure Bel­li c. 3. S. 20. Grotius affirm that in that point, ne Regi quidem ipsi permitteretur, it was not lawfull for the King himself to take cognizance of him. Yea, the former of the two having reckoned up above an hundred and forty [Page 35] irregularities and defects in reference to his body (besides many more incident to his mind) which hindered him from being admitted at all in­to his Office, and rendered him after liable to be turned out, concludes notwithstanding dum sui juris Hebraei, that whilst the Jews were go­verned De Success. in Pontific. l. 2. c. 5, 6, 10. Lond. 1636. by their own Laws, the Legitimate Succession (where no impedi­ments prevented) ever took place, and that it was high injustice to reject or expell any, to whom the Priesthood belonged, unless some or more of those irregularities were really to be found upon him. The Crime in­deed of Abiathar being no less than a Crime of High Treason, could not but be animadverted upon: But then the Crime being Capital, and the High Priest the Criminal, we may well conclude, that before ever Solo­mon thrust him from the Priesthood, the Sanedrim had previously judged and passed their Sentence upon him. And so it fared with Joab (one of his fellow Criminals) for it is plain, if Josephus says true, That before Ant. l. 7, 8. c. 11. Edit. Gen. 1634. ever Solomon sent Bennajah to fall upon him, he first sent him to fetch him from the Altar, in order to bring him, [...], to the Seat of Judicature, there to purge himself, if he could. And if this formality was used towards Joab before ever the command was given to have him slain, it's probable the like was used towards Ado­nijah, the King's Brother, before he was slain; and the like also to Abia­thar, before he was thrust from the Priesthood. Nay, though it should be true, as some assert, That the Kings of Judah were more absolute in their Authority than the Kings of Israel, and did not always so for­mally proceed by way of Justice as the other did, and that this procee­ding against Abiathar might be one of those extraordinary instances of their power; yet this is certain, that they had th [...]ir standing Courts of Judicature all the Land over, for the right and full administration of Justice to all sorts and degrees of Men, the chiefest of all which, and to which the last Appeal was made, was ever at Jerusalem, as being most near unto the King. Thus Jehosaphat, having constituted Judges through­out all the fenced Cities of the Land, is said to have done the same at Jerusalem, setting Amariah the High Priest over all in the matters of the 2 Chron. 19. 11. Lord, and Zebadiuh, the Son of Ishmael, for all the King's matters, the Secular concerns to be transacted by the King, through the assi­stance of his Secular Judges, and the Ecclesiastical by the Ministery of his Ecclesiasticks. In like manner David having set out the form of the Temple, and given Solomon directions for the building and ordering of it, leaves him to his Priests and Levites to be farther advised: The courses, saith he, of the Priests and Levites shall be with thee for all the service of the House of God. And I dare say, this power, so fixed and 1 Chron. 28. 21. managed, cannot but be thought so just and reasonable, that as the Church of England hath all along granted it to their Kings, so there is not at this time one Church-Man of the old Foundation among us that will deny it them, but wish that it were so; are troubled that it is not so; nay, can say, By the waters of Babylon we sit down and weep, whilst we remember thee O Sion

[Page 36] 34. I confess there are not instances wanting in History, to shew, that it hath often been the practice of Emperors and Kings by their own Au­thority (and without concerning themselves at all with a Synod) to de­pose Bishops, and thrust them from their Bishopricks: But then this hath been (as Petrus de Marca observes) in apertissima Canonem violati, Lib. 4. cap. 6. Part 1. in such cases only where the Canons of the Church have been most notoriously and scandalously violated; so notoriously, that there needed no proof as to matter of fact, nor any thing farther to be done but to ap­ply the punishment. And of this he gives us two instances in reference to the case in hand: The one of Justinian the Emperor, and the other of Zeno; the first deposing Anthimus, for that, contrary to the Canon, he had deserted his own Church, and invaded the See of Constantinople; the latter for doing the same thing to Peter, surnamed Moggus, for that, contrary to the Canon, he had seized upon the Patriarchship of Alexan­dria, Timothy, the lawfull Bishop thereof, and under Banishment, being not yet dead. And referring us to the Acts of the Council held by Me­na at Constantiople; he farther tells us, That such violations, aut à Prin­cipe, Loco citat. aut a Synodo castigari posse, may be punished either by the Prince or by a Synod. But now for Emperors or Kings to take this power upon them, when there is no breach of Canon; nay, when it is contrary and contradictory to all Canon; and purely for their own Will and Pleasure, or because it may serve their Interest to have others in their Places▪ and Bishopricks, that may lick their spittle, and cry [...] to them in all their actions: This certainly must be pernicious and fatal to the Church, and can bode nothing less than an utter and speedy ruine to it. Of what dismal consequences this kind of dispositions have been, and what sad and deplorable mischiefs they have brought along with them to the most flourishing Churches in the World; I shall in a more par­ticular manner evidence, from the Jewish and Greek Churches, being provoked thereunto by some of the late Treatisers.

35. And because the Jewish Church offers it self first to our View, I shall consider it first, and shew what Success it met with whilst it was thus rid: Josephus tells us, that the first that ever executed this deposing Ant. l. 15. c. 3. Power was Antiochus, who depriving Onias, put Jason into his place; a fitting Priest for so wicked a Tyrant! For no sooner was he made so, Lib. de Mac. cap. 4. saith the same Author, but he forced all the People to Impiety, and to forsake Religion. Nay, such, saith the Author of the Book of Maccabees, was the height of Greek Fashions, and encrease of Heathenish Manners, through 2 Mac. cap. 4. 13, 14. the exceeding Prophaneness of Jason, that ungodly Wretch, that the Priests had no courage to serve any more at the Altar; but despising the Temple, and negle­cting the Sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawfull Allowance in the place of Exercise, not setting by the Honour of their Fathers, but liking the Glo­ry of the Grecians, by reason whereof sore Calamity came upon them. About three years after Menelaus had Jason laid aside, and himself put into the 2 Mac. 4. 24. Jos. Ant. l. 12. cap. 15. High Priesthood, though he was not [...], of the race [Page 37] of the High Priests: He, saith the Book of Maccabees, came with the King's Mandate, having nothing worthy of the High Priesthood, but having the fury 2 Mac. 4. 25. of a cruel Tyrant, and the rage of a savage Beast. And such an one he was; for he stole certain Vessels of Gold out of the Temple, caused Onias, the Ch. 4. v. 32. 2 Mac. 5. 15. deposed High Priest, to be slain, and was Guide to Antiochus when he went to the Temple to risle it of its holy Vessels. A wicked and impious man, saith Josephus, who for his ambitious Desire of Authority, had enforced Ant. l. 12. c. 15. our Nation to revolt from their Religion. He was slain, and succeeded by Alcimus, who also is said to have defiled himself wilfully in the time of their 2 Mac. 14. 3, &c. mingling with the Gentiles; and was the cause of all that Mischief that af­terwards happened to Judas, Razis, and the Temple. The next Instance shall be in Herod and his Successors, after he was by the Roman Emperor created King of the Jews. In the Roman Times (saith the Annotatour, Ham. in Luc. c. 3 2. quoting Josephus for it,) it is manif [...]st that the Roman Prefect did, ad libi­tum, when he would, and that sometimes once a year, put whom he please into the Pontificate, to officiate in Aaron 's Office, instead of the lineal Descendant from him. And this was, as Bp. Overall in his Convocation-Book suggests, Lib. 1. c. 34. to keep them from entring into Rebellion; suspecting that if the Priest­hood should have been held by Succession, or for term of Life, by the chief Persons of Aaron's Posterity, it might have grown dangerous unto their Government. The last Instance touching the Jews, shall be of the Zealots, not long before, and hastening on the Destruction of Jeru­salem, and of the Temple there: They, saith Josephus, not respecting De Bell. Jud. l. 4. c. 5. the Families out of which it was onely lawfull to chuse the High Priest, elected strange and base Persons to that sacred Dignity, and such as would be Par­takers of their Villanies and Impietie [...]; for they who not deserving it attained to such Dignity, were as it were obliged unto their Will in all things by whom they were so exalted: A Fact, says ne, contrary to the most firm Custom that was amongst the People, and onely a Device to get all Government into their hands. From all which we may remark and inferr, 1. That the Rea­son and End of such Actions is purely to serve the Interest of Government, and to have such Persons in the Head of the Priesthood that will own their Actions, and execute their Commands, though never so wicked and sin­ful. 2. That Religion is so far from gaining by it, that it is generally forced to give place to Atheism, Profaneness, Heathenism. 3. That it is a sad Prognostick and Forerunner of an utter Desolation to the Church, and shews that her Enemies (the Zealots on the one hand, and the Romans on the other) are either come or coming upon her, which makes me (with Faustinus) almost to wish, That since the high Dignities of the Church Libel. Prec. p. 21. Oxon. 1678. prove so tempting, and do so debauch the Priesthood, she had never been so richly endowed, sed ut apostolico more vivens, fidem integram invio­labiliter possideret, but that her Clergy living more after the Apostolick Manner, might the more inviolably hold the Apostolical Faith; and not for the love of Honour or Wealth be rempted to decline or withgo it.

[Page 38] 36. The like Instance of this Abomination of Desolation may be taken from the Greek Church. In Andronicus 's long Reign, saith the Author of the Burnet, c. 3. Edit. 1682. Regalia, many were put in and out, to the great Scandal of the Church; and he makes this Remark upon it, from the Historian which he quotes, That Niceph. Greg. lib. 7. Princes chuse such Men to that Charge, who may be their Slaves, and in all things obsequious to what they shall prescribe, and lie at their Feet, and not so much as have a Thought contrary to their Commands. I might have told you before from Josephus, that Onias had never been De Mac. c. 4. turned out of his Priesthood, at least Jason not put in, had it not been for an annual Payment of three thousand six hundreed and threescore Talents of Silver to Andronicus: And from the Book of Maccabees, That Me­nelaus 2 Mac. 4. 24. had never got over Jason's Head, had he not promised three hundred Talents more than what Jason gave. So bewitching are the Rewards of Divination, when proferred by Kings, that Balaam the Prophet (though perhaps his Conscience doth boggle at them at first, no less than his Ass afterwards did at the sight of the Angel, yet) rather than not be finge­ring of them, he will remove from Mountain to Mountain, from Hill to Hill, to try whether from some place or other he may not venture to curse Israel. Nay, I am apt to think, that if the chief Dignities of the Church come once to be sold by Inch of Candle, all the burning and shining Lights thereof will soon be turned out of their Candlesticks, for dim and stinking Snuffs to be put in their rooms; and of what ill consequence this may prove to a Church, without being a Prophet, or a Prophet's Son, we may easily guess. The forementioned Author of the Regalia informs us of the Mischiefs and Misery it hath brought upon the Greek Church: The Turks, saith he, having taken this matter into their Hands, have so ex­posed Ch. 3. p. 99. all unto Sale, (and I may add Interest,) and have found so many base minded and ambitious Churchmen, that are as ready to buy as they are to sell, that those Churches which were once the Glory of the World, are now become Dens of Thieves and Robbers; adding, that as those Mi­series are to be lamented in them, so we who hear of them, ought to re­member the words of our Saviour, If these things be done in the green Tree, what shall be done in the dry?

37. But what need I aggravate the Mischiefs that attend these Alte­rations, especially when continued and daily renewed? There are none so blind but may see them, none so hardy but must lament them, none so senseless but (as far as in them lies) will endeavour to prevent them: But (say some) what meaneth the Bleating of the Sheep, and the Lowing of the Oxen we hear? Why so much noise of Schisme? Why such break­ing of Communion? Why such running from our Churches? Must all be Schismaticks that take in with the new Bishops, and follow them? Is not this to make the Jewish Church schismatical, after the High Priesthood became annual; and the Greek Church too, as often as the Grand Seig­nior changes the Patriarch? Sure we are that our Saviour himself at that time communicated with the Jewish Church, which we presume he [Page 39] would not have done, if it had been schismatical; and no Man (for ought as we do know) blames the Patriarch who succeeds, nor yet the Church which receives him. And yet though it be so, I cannot see that either of these Cases run parallel to ours; for the Jews for many years before had been under the Roman Yoke, and so have the Greeks for many Centuries of years under the Turks; both despoiled of their Rights and Customs, and so far at Mercy, that it was well for the Jew that he could have any Priest, and for the Greeks that they have any Christianity: And were this our Condition, I should be glad to herd any where; nay though we had no Bishops, nay though we had no Priests, nay though we were onely Christians at large, rather than pay no publick Devotion: But whether this be an eligible thing; nay, whether we ought to hasten this upon us, and to cou [...]t it; nay, whether we be not bound (though we be forced to take up the Cross and follow) to resist it, I leave to all pious, sober Chri­stians, whose Gain is not their Godliness, to consider on. Bp Taylor from Fulgentius tells us, That when Frazamund, King of Bisac in Affrica, had Episcop. asser. made an Edict under pain of Death, that no more Bishops should be con­secrated, designing by that Device to have the Catholick Faith rooted out of his Dominions; the Bishops of the Province (no ways affrighted at the Edict) met together, and consecrated as many as were wanting, con­sidering that those who were worthy of a Mitre, need not fear to do their Duty, when by so doing they are sure to receive a Crown of Martyr­dom. And had the Greek Bishops been as resolute and daring, when these Invasions were at first made upon them, probably their Crown would have been more glorious, and their Religion at this day more flourishing. However, if I mistake not, the case of the Jews is very much misrepre­sented, and to no purpose produced: For though it was their Infelicity to be reduced almost to an annual Priesthood, yet it was always given (as Josephus relates the matter) to such, and to none but such, [...] Ant. l. 20. c. 18. [...], who were of the order of the Priests: And howbeit it was parti­cularly entail'd upon Phineas the Son of Eleazar, and his Posterity, as hath before been shewn, yet it is evident that the entail was conditional, and through the failures in their Persons or Office, it might be taken from them, as it was from Eleazar's Family, and given to Ithamar's; from Ithamar's given to Eleazar's again; and from the chiefest of each, [...], to the meanest in both, and yet the Priesthood valid, though the mutations and changes were never so many and frequent. And so Selden concludeth upon the matter; palam quidem est, si originem tantum sanguinis Sacerdotalis in Aarone spectes, idem esse Pontificale genus & Sa­cerdotale, it's evident, says he, that the fountain of blood in Aaron, from De success. in Pontif. c. 9. whence the Priestly Office first issued, was the very same that gave being to the Priests, as to the High Priests; insomuch that if the right of primo­geniture did not interpose, or came once to be neglected, there was not one of the Posterity of Aaron, but would be aeque capax Pontificiae digni­tatis ac muneris Sacerdotalis, altogether as capable of the Pontifical as of the [Page 40] Sacerdotal Office. Josephus indeed tells us, That it was an Ordinance of their Lib. 15. c. 3. Country, that if any person was once enstalled into the Office, he might not be dis­placed during his life; but in Scripture we read of no such thing; the original grant including no other limitation than that it go along with Aaron and his Posterity. Hence when the Priesthood was first given, saith God to Mo­ses. Exod. 29. 9. 30. 30. Thou shalt anoint Aaron and his Sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister to me in the Priests Office; and the Priests Office shall be theirs for a per­petual Office. And Josephus tells us, That it was a Law observed by their Ant. lib. 20. cap. 18. Ancestors, that no Man was to be admitted to the Priesthood, except he were of Aaron's Posterity; for albeit he were a King, if he were of another line, it was impossible for him to obtain the Priesthood. And thus it happened through all the mutations by Herod, or his Posterity, from the time he was created King over the Jews, untill the day that Titus destroyed the Temple. Now the original Charter requiring no more, but that the Priesthood should be in some or other of the Seed of Aaron, and since it was so in our Saviour's days, albeit it was made almost annual▪ I cannot see but that the Office was untainted, and the High Priest, as soon as created, to be accounted a good and lawful High Priest. So that though these frequent alterations may make the Jewish Nation un­happy, yet Schisinatical they could not; they might, and they did por­tend a speedy ruin to the Priesthood, and were for a judgment to them all, but a sin they were not; and if High Priests within the institution, I can see no reason, why our Saviour might not communicate with them as innocently, as he might have done with Eli, Eleazar, or with Aaron himself; and the Jews all the while continue free from Schism, though full of misery: But as for us, we have no such custom, neither we nor the Churches of Christ.

38. Thus discharging my self both of the Greek and Jewish Churches, I shall in the next place consider the case of the deprived Bishops in the be­ginning of the Reformation: A point (say our new Reformers) not to be touched upon, unless you design to expose the Reformation to the Roma­nists: For if a legal Prince, and much more if a Prince in conjunction with his Parliament, hath not power, upon grounds that seem to them just and warrantable, to deprive a Bishop, and to make a new choice; you can never justifie the proceedings either of K. Edward VI. or of Q. Elizabeth; there being little or nothing done in those days towards the depriving of the Bishops, for the bringing on of the Reformation, but what was done meerly by Secular Power. And if it was lawfull then by that power to deprive, it is lawfull now; or if not lawfull now, it was not lawfull then; and by consequence, the Deprivations then were not only uncanonical, but unjust and tyrannical; and so you destroy the building which your Ancestors reared, and what you and others have been supporting above these hundred and fifty years; at least you expose its nakedness to the scoffs and calumnies of an inveterate, insulting Ad­versary. And thus intrenching themselves, they conclude they are in­vulnerable; [Page 41] at least [...] beyond the reach of any Argument, that can be levelled against them: But how much they are mistaken in their confidence, and how little ground they have to think themselves unas­sailable, will sufficiently appear by bringing their respective Depriva­tions, both as to the matter and manner of them, to a due account; and in order thereunto as in order they come, and because the former will give light unto the latter,

39. I shall begin with the Deprivations in King Edward's days, in num­ber indeed six, as are ours now, and so far alike; but in all things else altogether unlike:

40. For had they been deprived on the first day they had been enstalled Bishops, no wrong had been done them; nay, had the King taken away their Temporalities the next moment that he gave them, no com­plaint could have been made. For if it be true, what the Reforming Historian saith, That they had taken out Commissions, as they had done before in the former Reign, to hold their Bishopricks only at the King's Burnet part 2. lib. 2. p. 6. Edit. 1681. pleasure, and to exercise them as his Delagates, in his Name and by his Authority; and of which he gives us a Copy from Bishop Bonner's, wherein he acknowledges the King to be fons & scaturigo, the Fountain of all Jurisdiction and Power, as well Ecclesiastical as Civil; and that he had it only of his Bounty, ei (que) quotiens ejus Majestati videbitur, liben­ter Coll. 14. p. 267. concedere, and would deliver it up again, when it should please him to call for it; it is evident, that when ever, or by whom soever the King was pleased to call back his Commission, whether faulty or not, they were eo facto, to be unbishop'd, and no less to be removed, than those State Officers and Ministers were who held their Places only duran­te bene placito, And to me it seems much the same thing, whether these his doings were founded on the Determinations of his Convocation, or on the Acts of his Parliaments; or whether executed by Delegates or not, his Royal pleasure only was sufficient, though signified by the meanest Page or Groom that belonged unto him: So that if Heath of Worcester, if Day of Chichester, if Tonstal of Duresme, and if Voisy of Exeter (provided he did not resign) were deprived by the Secular De­legates, and not by any Court consisting of Church-Men, as the Histo Part 2. lib. 1. p. 203. 216. rian asserts, it was no more than what their sordid compliance and their unpriestly condescensions justly deserved. Secondly,

41. There was nothing enjoyned to make them Criminals, but what had antecedently been ordered and determined in the Convocation be­fore ever the Parliament annexed their Penalties, themselves all the while sitting, acting, and enacting to both in Convocation and Parliament. Hence Fox p. 1189. Edit. 1610. we are told by the King's Message to the Rebels in Devonshire, that what ever was contained in the new Common Prayer Book (the non advancement of which, seems to be their original and fundamental crime) was by the Clergy agreed, yea, by the Bishops of the Realm devised, as well as by [...] Parliament established, and more fully by the Letter of the King [Page 42] and his Council to Bishop Bonner; that after great and serious Debating, and long Conference of the Bishops, and other grave and learned Men in the holy Scriptures, one uniform Order for Common▪Prayer, and admini­stration of the Sacraments, hath been, and is most godly set forth, not only by the full assent of the Nobility and Commons of the late Parlia­ment, but also by the like assent of the Bishops in the same Parliament; and of other the learned Men of this our Realm in their Synods and Convo­cations Provincial. So that here is no exception to be made against the Legality, Competency, or Sufficiency of the Powers subscribing; all being concerned that could, or any ways had right to prescribe to the Govern­ment. The Clergy in their Convocations, the Laity in their Parliaments, the King in both; all unanimously declaring for, and establishing the Book. Neither can any thing be objected against the Book prescrib'd: It's called by the King, a Devout and Christian Book; said by the Parliament, to be Fox p. 1235. St. Edw. 6. concluded upon by the Holy Ghost. Day of Chichester (one of the deprived) was one of the Composers of it; all of them Heyl. Edw. 6. p. 57. had their Votes for the establishing of it: Gardiner St. Edw. 6. 2, 3. c. 1. and Bonner K. Edw. 6. Journ. p. 16. promised Conformity to it, and the latter of them sent out his Fox p. 1186. Precept to have it published and used. Nay, so universally was it comply'd with, that, as their Friend Sanders tells us, Fox id. eodem. De Schis. Ang. l. 2. Ed. 1610. ne unus quidem videbatur in Regno toto, qui falsorum offi­ciorum ac rituum communione non fuisset contaminatus, That there was not one throughout the whole Kingdom (the Lady Mary excepted) that did not receive it, and joyn in Communion with it; so that methinks, though they could not themselves minister in the Service so prescribed, yet con­sidering the fulness, regularity and competency of the Prescription, they ought (as Christians) quietly to have acquiesced, and as Bishops to have yielded their Office unto others. Again,

43. Though what was enjoyned was legally established; though by taking out their Commissions their Deprivations were Arbitrary, and at the King's courtesie; though by Act of Parliament they were for their 2, 3 Edw. 6. cap. 2. disobedience ipso facto to be deprived of all their Spiritual Promotions; yet was not that punishment inflicted, till their Case were farther de­bated by persons appointed thereunto by the King, to whom both Church and State, the one in their Convocations, the other in their Parliaments, Annal. Brit. vit. Warbam. 25 Hen. 8. c. 21. & 2. 6. c. 1. had justly given the Supremacy: which shews that an ipso facto Depriva­tion, without a farther judgment and decision to ratifie and put it into execution, is irregular, and wants both Equity and Precedent. I have evi­denced it in four of the deprived already, who were thus dealt by; and as for the other two (I mean Bishop Bonner and Gardiner) the Pro­cedure will appear more Canonical, because in a great measure transact­ed by Men of their own Order, and the Sentence much more Authen­tick, because given by the Archbishop, their Metropolitane and Primate. Hence for the depriving of Bonner (which was the first of them all that felt the affliction) there were commissioned two Bishops, saith Master Page 1194. Fox; three, saith Edw. 6. p. 78. Edit. 1670. Dr. Heylin, whereof the Archbishop was one, Dr. May [Page 43] Dean of St. Pauls, and Secretary Smith Doctor of Laws. For Bishop Gardiner, the Archbishop and three other Bishops, one Judge, three Doctors of Laws, and two Masters of Chancery. Neither is the Com­mission Fox p. 1209. enervated, or in the least to be blamed, or esteemed less Primitive for having a mixture of Laity in it: For so Constanstine directed his Letter to Aelian, the Proconsul of Africa, to examine and hear the Cause Optat. cont. Parm. l. 1. p. 29. of Felix, Bishop of Aptung, the Ordainer of Caecilian; as also to Zenofi­lus, the Proconsul of Numidia, to enquire into the carriage of Silvanus, Gesta purg. ad Optat. Bishop of Cirta, one of the Ordainers of Majorinus, thereby to find out which of the two were Traditors; that the Controversy between the Caecilianists and the Donatists might be stated and ended: unde pulsa at (que) exter sa infamia cum ingenti laude, illo judicio recessit, by which Judgment of theirs (saith Optatus) the infamous aspersions that were cast upon Cont. Par. l. 1. p. 30. Caecilian and Felix by the Donatists were wiped off, to the eternal Honour of Caecilian and his adherents. And thus also for the better management of the Conference between the Catholick and the Donatists Bishops, Ho­norius the Emperor appointed Macellinus his Tribune, for a Judge in the case, before whom, saith Possidonius, the Donatists being convicted of De Vitâ Aug. their faults, sententia Cognitoris notati sunt, were by his Sentence declared guilty, and thereupon condemned. And thus might Tonstal of Duresme, as well as Bonner of London, or as Gardiner of Winchester, have had their Cause heard; had not Archbishop Gardiner refused to meddle, because Burnet, Part 2. lib. 1. p. 216. he was found to lye under a misprison of Treason: And so properly might Voisy of Exeter been tried, but for the same reason; for he also was found, saith Heylin, to have fomented the Rebellion of the Devonshire Edw. 6. p. 100 Men: And whether Day of Winchester was not in with them, and for that reason also not tried by Cranmer, to me it is doubtful; for the Hi­storian confesses he cannot tell us, whether his Deprivation arose from Reform. Par. 2. lib. 1. p. 203. the refusing to submit to the new Book, or his falling into other trans­gressions. However I cannot but observe, 1. That the aforesaid Bi­shops enjoyed their Bishopricks, notwithstanding an ipso facto Depriva­tion, till a farther process was made, aad a declaratory Sentence passed upon them. 2. That Bonner, who led the way unto the rest, was not deprived till four months or more after the Act of Deprivation took Fox 1209. place; Gardiner not till two years almost after Bonner; Voisy not till Heylin, p. 100. some months after the Sentence passed upon Gardiner; Day, Heath, Ton­stal, Burnet lib. 2. p. 203. 216. not till some months after him; so slowly was the Act at that time executed. 3. That as they enjoyed their Bishopricks till their Depri­vations, so in all probability they enjoyed the Profits and Revenues thereof; Gardiner's were not sequestered from him till within three Heyl. Edw. 6. p. 99. months of the time; yea, and then also his House and Servants were maintained out of his Bishoprick to the very instant that the declara­ry Fox p. 1218. Sentence was judiciously pronounced against him. This was the Case of the deprived Bishops then; and if this method had been taken in re­ference to our present Bishops, that is, had the matter for which they [Page 44] are deprived; been debated in a Convocation of the Clergy, and there concluded, that the Allegiance they had sworn might lawfully be transferred, without the Breach of Oath, or guilt of Perjury; had the Refusers of the said transferring been afterwards by a true and legal Parliament decreed to be deprived, and had they upon that been Legally and Canonically evicted of such a refusal, though no such time had been allowed them; nor no such favour granted, as in the interim to enjoy their Bishopricks and the Revenues of them; nay, though after all, the Sanctions of the one, and the Determinations of the other, had seemed to them unjust; there would not have been such cause (as there is) for a complaint: So that I think we may cry out of the Injustice, at least of the unprecedented Severity of the present Age, and yet neither blemish nor expose the Reformation.

44. Neither will they be assisted or screened by any thing that was done in Q. Elizabeth's Reign: For though according to Stow there were Ann. 2. Eliz. p. 182. Eliz. p. 36. Ed. Lond. 1615. thirteen or fourteen deprived of their Bishopricks▪ omnes qui tunc [...]ede­runt, praeter unum Antonium Landevensem; all, says Cambden, that were then Bishops, which he reckons to be sixteen in number, besides him of Landaff, yet will their Deprivations be found of a quite different nature to those that have been made in our days: And to make this out, four things are necessary to be observed:

45. First, That all matters of Ecclesiastical concern, were left at King Edward's death under a full and regular establishment, consented and agreed thereunto by the King in his Convocation, as well as by the King in his Parliament: And so it is asserted to be in the Answer to the Lady Mary's Letter, (as cited out of Master Fox by the Author of Church-Go­vernment, viz.) that the Reformation as touching the Common-Prayer Book, Part 5. p. 130. from the second year of his Reign, and as touching other Articles of Religion from the fifth, was Regular and Canonical, as being the Act of the Clergy: Thus was the Supemacy and Service Book established, as is before shewn; thus also were the Articles of Religion, and in them the Tit. Art. 1552. Art. 31. St. 5. 6 Edw. 6. cap. 12. Marriage of the Clergy agreed upon: own'd by the Parliament it self to have been so, in the Act for adjudging such Marriages lawfull, declaring therein, that the Learned Clergy of the Realm had determined the same by the Law of God in their Convocations, as well by the common assent, as by the subscription of their hands. 2. That no less Authori­ty ought to be allowed to null the establishment, than what was thought necessary by the standing Laws of the Land at first to make it; and therefore since it had its Birth and Rise from the King and Convocation, as well as from the King and Parliament, and more properly from the first, than from the latter; the Queen had not power of her self, no, nor by the Parliament, without the Convocation, to destroy it: And hence her own Clergy in Q. Elizabeth's days, foreseeing the ill effect of such Power, utterly disclaimed it, and in their Convocation declared against it, telling the Parliament, in hopes to keep their Possessions, but in the mean time forgetting the method whereby they came possessed, [Page 45] that the Authority to handle and define such things which belong to Heyl. Q. Eliz. p. 113. Faith in the Sacraments, and Discipline Ecclesiastical, hath hitherto ever belonged, and only ought to belong to the Pastor of the Church, whom the Holy Spirit hath placed in the Church, and not unto Lay-Men; no, though in Parliament (as then they were) assembled. 3. That the Power whereby Q. Mary acted for dissolving the Reformation, and for the laying aside the Bishops that asserted it, was a less Authority than that by which at first it was established: For no sooner was she come unto the Crown upon the death of K. Edw. VI. but, and before ever a Heyl. Hist. Q. Mary p. 22. Parliament was called, she purely and by her own Authority removed Bishop Ridley from London, Poinet from Winchester, Coverdale from Exe­ter, Scory from Chichester, and Hooper from the jurisdiction of Worcester, whereinto they had been regularly inthroned; and in their places rein­stalled Bonner, Voisy, Day and Heath, which in the Reign of K. Edw. as before shewn, had been legally and judicially dispossessed; and all this done, saith Heylin, without so much as any shew of legal process, the Hist. Q. Mary p. 22. conventing of the Person whom it did concern, or any satisfaction given to the Laws so strangely violated. Soon after she called a Parliament, in which, saith Mr. Fox, all Statutes made of Premunire in the time of Page 1333. King Henry VIII. as also other Laws and Statutes concerning Reli­gion decreed under K. Edw. VI. were dissolved: and thereupon, saith the Historian, seven Bishops were all turned out at a time, viz. the Arch­bishop B [...]rnet. vol. 2. p. 274. of York, the Bishops of St. Davids, Chester, and Bristol, for con­tracting Marriage, and thereby breaking their Vows, and defiling their Function; Taylor of Lincoln, Hooper of Worcester and Glocester, and Harley of Hereford, for Preaching and setting forth erroneous Doctrines, though the Marriages the one had contracted, and the Doctrines the other had Preached, were both consonant to the decrees of the Convocation, which even then remained unrepealed. 4. That Q. Elizabeth who suc­ceeded Q. Mary, reduced all to the first and legal Settlement, that was left by K. Edw. insomuch that if there were any irregularities in the pro­ceedings, or any defect of Power in compassing the same, there were the same in Q. Mary's. Did she by her Parliament restore the Reformation? It was by the same way and method that Q. M. pull'd it down. Had not she the concurrence of a Convocation? No more had Q. Mary. Were the Laws touching Religion made in Q. Mary's, repeal'd by Q. Elizabeth? So were the like Laws made in the days of Henry VIII. and Edw. VI. repealed by Q. Mary. In short, whatsoever false steps were taken, or whatever deviations were made, contrary to the usual methods and proceedings of our Ancestors, they were all begun and first attempted by Q. Mary, and no farther, nor no longer practised by Q. Elizabeth, than to undo what the other thereby had done; till she had put things into the same course they were in at the death of K. Edw. leaving for the Reform. justi­fied, c. 6. Edit. 1657. future, as Dr. Heylin observes, Church work to the disposing of Church-Men, who by their Place and Calling are to be adjudged most proper for it.

[Page 46] 46. These things being premised, I proceed to consider the Depri­vations that were made thereupon: Cambden gives us their number, and Eliz. p. 37. their Names; viz. Heath of York, Bonner of London, Tonstall of Durham, Thirlby of Ely, Bourn of Bath and Wells, Christopherson of Chichester, White of Winchester, Watson of Lincoln, Baines of Litchfield and Coventry, Ogle­thorp of Carlisle, Turbervile of Exeter, Pool of P [...]terborough, Scot of Chester, Pate of Worcester, and Goldwell of St. Asaph. I confess L. 3. ch. 12. Lond. 1625. Mason leaves out Christopherson, De Schis. l. 3. p. 335. Sanders Christopherson and Pate, Eliz. Hist. pt. 2. p. 114. Heylin Pate and Gold­well, adding Morgan of St. David's to the rest; but Cambden's Computa­tion being the highest, shall prevail: And yet I doubt not but by disco­vering the voluntary Cessions or interpretative Resignations of some, the illegal Titles of others, the uncanonical Ordinations of many, and the horrid Crimes of them all, so to charge them, as to bring them all under the Cen­sure of a just Deprivation, without ever being Patterns or Precedents to the deprived of our days.

47. And first I find in Cambden, that three of them, to wit, Pate, Scot, L [...]co citat. and Goldwell, solum sponte mutarunt, of their own accord gave up, and quitted the Land, and therewith their Churches and Cures; the first, according to Heylin, towards the beginning, the last towards the end of Hist. Q. Eliz. p. 114. May, the Oath not being tendred, nor Deprivation to any decreed, till near Stow Q. Eliz. p. 1082. two Months after; the Reason probably why Heylin leaves them out of his Catalogue of the deprived: And had not or might not others in their absence have been put into their places, their Bishopricks might have remained without Pastors till Death it self had taken them out of the World: A Mischief so great, and so injurious to Christianity, that the holy Fathers in the Constantinopolitane Council, taking it into their Consi­deration, have long ago ordered such to be deprived: If any Bishop, say they, to the great neglect of his Fl [...]ck, shall presume to absent himself from 1 & 2 Can. 16. his Bishoprick, by going into a foreign Nation, [...], and remain there above the space of six Months, without leave from his Metropolitane, and not commanded thither by his Prince, we decree him alienated from his Bishoprick, [...], and that another be placed in his room. Three more of them, viz. Bonner, Tonstal, and Heath, had been (as before was shewn) legally deprived in K. Edward's days; and therefore since all things were reduced to the old Standard, and resettled in the same way, and by the same Authority as they had been dissettled, it could not otherwise be ex­pected but that such who had formerly been deprived, should be sent back to the same state of Deprivation they had before been sentenced to. Bourn, Turbervile, and Christopherson were Intruders, and had possessed them­selves of the Bishopricks belonging to Barlow, Coverdale, and Scory, who had been legally invested in them in K. Edward's days, unjustly turned out in Q. Mary's, but alive in Q. Elizabeth's, to take Possession of their own again. Two more of them (as well as many of the former) were irregularly and uncanonically ordained; their Ordinations being celebrated [Page 47] and performed without their Metropolitane, his Leave, Presence, or Au­thority; he at the same time (though in Prison) alive, and undegraded; Burn Hist. vol. 2. p. 332, 257. The ecclesiastical Canons, as elsewhere hath been shewn, utterly con­demning and avoiding all such Ordinations that have not the [...] of their Metropolitane with them: These were Vide Catal. Episc. White and Baines. The four remaining are Thirlby, Watson, Oglethorp, and Pool: But if it was lawfull for Q. Mary to seize upon Taylor, Hooper, and Harley, because they had taken out Commissions from one or more of her Predecessors, to hold their Bishopricks during their good Behaviour, and to make it a ground of their Deprivation, (as certainly she did, if Dr. Burnet be in Hist. vol. 2. col. 12. p. 257. the right,) why was it not as lawfull for Q. Elizabeth to lay hold upon Thirlby, and on the same account seize his Bishoprick; since he had ta­ken out the like Commission in the preceding Reigns, both of Henry VIII. Id. vol. 2. p. 6. and Edward VI. being Heyl. Cat. of Bishops. Bp. of Westminster in both their Reigns, and no less misbehaving himself than the former had done. As for Watson, Ogle­thorp, and Pool, though they were consecrated after the Degradation of Cranmer, and probably by the Consent of their Metropolitane, Cardinal Poole being then Archbishop of Canterbury; yet were the several Bishop­ricks so filled with uncanonical Bishops, for the reason before mentioned, that it cannot be otherwise imagined than that their Ordainers, most or all of them, were of that illegitimate breed. Its certain, that of the seven who consecrated the Cardinal, Thirlby onely stood rectus in Curia; the Mas. de Minist. l. 2. 4, 17. other being either deprived, as were Heath and Bonner, or else were of the number of the ordained in the time of A. Bp. Cranmer, as were Pate, White, Griffen, and Goldwell, all of them Intruders, and upon that ac­count, as hath been shewn, uncanonical, and not qualified to make a good Ordination: Nay, considering how many such there were, (and many there must be, since no less than fifteen of them were consecrated in a Burnet, vol. 2. p. 276. Year,) neither Watson, nor Poole, nor any other Bishop afterwards no­minated, could probably be ordained without them.

48. But were it not thus, or had those Bishops been better entituled to their Bishopricks than it appears they had been; yet such was their Of­fence, so provoking their Crime, that a lesser Punishment could not reaso­nably be awarded against them. Dr. Burnet tells us, That to refuse the Hist. vol. 2. p. 386. Oath of Supremacy, (whereby the Papal Jurisdiction was first excluded the Land,) which was their fault, brought the Refusers of it into a Prae­munire; and to deny the said Superiority and Supremacy to be and to re­side in the Prince, was Treason. And Dr. Heylin tells us, That it hath Ref. just. pt. 2. S. 1. been, and still is the general and constant Judgment of the greatest Law­yers of this Kingdom, That the Vesting of the Supremacy in the Crown Im­perial of this Realm, was not introductory of any new Right or Power which was not in the Crown before, but declaratory of an old one, which had been antiently and originally inherent in it. Now though this Supremacy had been in Q. Mary's Reign revoked, disannulled, and delivered up unto 1 & 2 Ph. & M. c. 1. the Pope again, by her and her Parliament, and the several Laws and Sta­tutes [Page 48] ensorcing the same, repealed; yet both it and the Laws in Q. Eliza­beth's Reign by an equal Authority were restored and reinforced, though 1 Eliz. c. 1. not under the penalty of Praemunire or of Treason, as formerly, but ne­vertheless of Deprivation, to all such of the Spiritualty, Bishops or others, that should decline the owning or confirming of the same with their Oaths. And thus Mr. Cambden states the Matter, quotquot jurare abnuerunt, Bene­ficiis, Dignitatibus, & Episcopatibus exuuntur; as many, saith he, as re­fused Eliz. p. 36. to accept and take the said Oath, were deprived and turned out of their Dignities and Bishopricks. An Oath containing nothing in it Burnet's Hist. pt. 1. p. 182, & 240. Edit. 1681. but what had been determined in the greatest and most famous Monasteries of the Kingdom; concluded Fox, p. 965 Burn. part 1. p. 182. and agreed upon by the Ʋniversities; subscri­bed to Ant. Brit. p. 324. by all the Bishops, and others of the Clergy in their Convocation; penn'd by some of them; sworn Burnet, pt. 1. p. 18. unto by most or all of those very Bi­shops in some part or other of the Reigns of the two precedent Kings, and by them then in being, before ever there was a Law for the requiring a­ny such Oath, defended Ant. Brit. p. 330. both in Press and Pulpit, and with as little rea­son to be declined in this Queen's days, as in any of her Predecessors.

49. For though Oaths be not hastily to be given to every one that ei­ther takes or usurps the Throne, yet here was no possible Doubt or Scru­ple to be made against the Title of her Majesty, she being declared by the Parliament then sitting to be Cambd. Eliz. p. 1. veram legitimam (que); Haeredem, the true and rightfull Heir, de cujus certissimo in Successione jure cum nemo dubitare possit, nemo debeat; so true and rightfull, saith Arch Bp. Heath in the Hou [...]e of Ibid. Peers, that as no body can doubt of the Truth of her Succession, so no body ought; and so far forth recognized and owned by the present Bi­shops, Heyl. Hist. Ref. part 2. p. 102. that they all went to meet her, and presented themselves before her upon their knees, in testimony of their Loyalty and Affection: So that here was no calling her Title in question, no quarrelling the Au­thority either of her or her Parliament, no remonstrating to the Matter of the Oath, without condemning themselves; nothing but their own Per­verseness to pull this Deprivation upon them: A Deprivation I confess not so regular as it should have been, being executed altogether by a Lay Power; but yet as regular as the Case would bear; and not without a Commission neither, according to Stow and others, to examine and make out their Misdemeanours; the utmost that could possibly then be done, Stow, p. 1082. Holling. p. 182. How, p. 639. the whole Order of them, Kitchen of Landaff onely excepted, being at that time under one and the same Guilt, and lay alike open to one and the same Penalty: And had they not for that reason been displaced till there was a College of Bishops, or a Court of Episcopal Delegates to dis­place them, they must never for all their Disobedience, though never so wilfull and provoking, have been displaced, nor indeed have had their Crimes punished. But what is that to us; or wherein doth it concern the Bishops that are now deprived? Had any of them taken Commission to surrender upon Demand? Had they at any time before been deprived? Wanted they either due Titles, or canonical Ordination? Were they [...]r­dained [Page 49] without the presence or Approbation of their Metropolitane? Or was he himself ordained by such that were so ordained? Was the Oath for which they were deprived ever formally tendered to them? Or did it ever appear upon tender that they refused it? Was it of their own fra­ming? Or had they before either taken, written, or preach'd for it? Nay, was it not contrary to their former Preachings, Declarations, and Oaths? Was the Authority imposing it, either in reference to Prince or Parlia­ment, an unquestionable Authority? Were any delegated to make out the Disobedience? Or were there not Bishops enough? Nay, Might not a Con­vocation of the complying Clergy have been summoned to have judged and determined of the Case, whether Culprit or no? When these things are proved and made out against them; I cannot, nay I shall not but con­fess their Deprivations to be alike; but till then I must be allowed to cry out, O Tempora, O Mores! and with the Poet conclude, that

Carm. Hor. L. 3. Od. 6.

50. I am sensible that there are two grand Mistakes in the World, which minister to and hasten on these fatal Proceedings: Some think there is no such thing as Schism; others, that though there be such a thing, yet an Act of Parliament will authorize the Fact, and justifie all; insomuch that through the Midwifery of a Vote or two of theirs, God's Altar may be turn'd or overturn'd, Aaron and his Priests deposed, or for­ced to comply, and a new Erection, like that of Jeroboam's, though of the worst of Men, made as sacred and divine, as if it were done by [...] or a Voice from Heaven. And from thenceforth if the Man of God hap­pen, as his Duty binds him, to oppose or gainsay their Sanctions, so as their Mightinesses become disobliged; though he be sent of God, as Aa­ron was, though he ruleth well, and laboureth in Word and Doctrine; nay, though he be doing the Will and Work of his Master; yet a travelling Staff, and a pair of ill clouted Shoes, must pass for his double Reward. But how contrary this is to Practice, hath already been shewn; and how di­ametrically opposite to the genuine Constitutions of this Church and State, comes now to be demonstrated.

51. Populus de Republica non de Ecclesia in Parliamentis antiquitus tractare consuevit; Anciently, saith the Author of Antiquitates Britannicae, the People never meddled with Matters of religious Concern in their Parlia­ments, De vit. Cran. p. 339. but onely with Matters purely relating to the State. Nay, I find by the very Act of Submission it self, which was in the Year 1530. That it was customary till then for the Clergy, by virtue of the Autho­rity they had in themselves, without any Ratification or Confirmation from King or Parliament, to make Canons, declare Heresies, convict and cen­sure Criminals, and to decree and do all other Matters as seemed good to [Page 50] them, in relation to the Church and Clergy. A Power thought too great to be in the hands of the Clergy; whereupon (saith Heylin) The House of Commons aggrieved at the inequality and supereminency of the Power, Ref. just. part 1. S. 1. remonstrated and complained to the King, that the Clergy should be per­mitted to act Authoritatively and Supremely in the Convocation, and they in Parliament do nothing, but as it was confirmed and ratified by the Royal Assent. This in all probability hastened on the Submission; for the Clergy soon after being met in Convocation (as it is recorded in the aforesaid Book of Antiquities) promised the King in verbo sacerdotis, ne ullas deinceps De Vit. Warh. in Synodo ferrent Ecclesiasticas leges, that they would not henceforth enact or execute any Constitutions or Canons in their Synods or Convoca­tions, unless the King should cause their assembling, and by his Royal Assent approve and confirm their Canons: But then this only levels them with, and not puts them under the Parliament, it leaves indeed their Decrees and Sanctions to them to be farther guarded and secured, by the addition of their civil Penalties and Inflictions; but no ways subjects them to them, in reference to the Validity, Authenticalness, or prior Establish­ment of them. And this the learned Heylin hath elaborately and fully made out, as to the two first Reigns, both in reference to the points of Doctrine that were reformed, and to the forms of Worship that were then enjoyned, in his Book entitled, The way of the Reformation of the Church of England declared and justified; to whom for your farther satisfaction, I refer you and the Reader.

52. But not content to bring them down to their own level, their next design and work was to bring them under; and of this the aforemen­tioned Antiquary complains; Ecclesiasticarum legum potestate abdicata popu­lus in Parliamento cepit de rebus divinis inconsulto Clero sancire; the Sub­mission (says he) being made, the People in their Parliament (as if the In vitâ Cranm p. 339. Submission had been made to them) began to usurp upon the Church's Right, and without ever consulting the Clergy, to debate and agree such things as formerly were held peculiarly to the Clergy only. But these (saith Heylin) were only tentamenta, offers and undertakings only, and Lib. p. cit. no more. And that they were so, and no better, nor otherwise appro­ved of, during the whole Reign of Q. Elizabeth (under whom the Refor­mation received its full and perfect establishment) will sufficiently be evidenced from the Journals of the Paliaments in her days, handed down to us by Sir Simon D'Ewes: And I shall give them in the order they lye in.

When a Bill was presented to the House of Commons for Reformation of the Common Prayer Book, it was agreed upon by them, that a Petition Ann. 13. p. 167. should be made to her Majesty for her License to proceed in the Bill, be­fore it be farther dealt in; and to do otherwise (saith the Treasure) is to Page 166. meddle with matters of her Prerogative; and (as the Comptroller phrased it) to run before the Ball.

Mr. Strickland having pressed very earnestly the Reformation of the Book Page 176. of Common-Prayer and other Ceremonies, was called before her Majesty's [Page 51] Council, and commanded to forbear coming to the said House, and when Page 130. the said Articles of Religion were afterwards presented to her, she an­swered, That she would have them executed by the Bishops, by direction of her Highness's Regal Authority of Supremacy of the Church of Eng­land, and not to have the same dealt in by the Parliament.

The Lord Keeper in his Speech to the Parliament by her Majesty's Com­mand, Ann. 14. p. 193. thus utters himself, Because the proceedings of matters in Discipline and Doctrine do chiefly concern my Lords the Bishops, both for their Under­standing and Ecclesiastical Function; therefore the Queens Highness looketh, that they being called together in Parliament, should take the chifest care to confer and consult of these matters; and if in their conference, they find it behoofull to have any Temporal Acts made for the amending and reform­ing of any of these lacks, that then they will exhibit it here in Parliament to be considered upon, and so gladius gladium juvabit, as before time hath been used.

The Speaker declared to the House of Commons, That it was her Ma­jesty's pleasure, That from henceforth no Bills concerning Religion shall be Page 213. preferred or received into this House, unless the same should be first considered and liked by the Clergy.

Upon the presenting the Petition concerning the Reformation of the Discipline of the Church; her Highness answered, That her Majesty, be­fore Ann. 18. p. 257. the Parliament, had a care to provide in that case of her own dispo­sition; and that at the beginning of this Session she had conference there­in with some of the Bishops, and gave them in charge to see due Refor­mation thereof, wherein as her Majesty thinketh, they will have good consideration; and if that the Bishops should neglect or omit their Du­ties therein, then she by her Supreme Power and Authority would speedi­ly see such good Redress therein as might satisfie the expectation of her loving Subjects to their good contentation.

Mr. Wentworth moved in the House of Commons for a Publick Fast, and it was carried by fifty voices, which being told to the Queen, she sent Ann. 23. p. 284. a Message to the House, shewing That her Highness had great admiration of the rashnes [...] of the House, in committing such great and apparent Contempt of her express Command, to put in execution such an Innovation, without her privity or pleasure first known. Whereupon Mr. Vicechamberlain moved the House to make an humble Submission to her Majesty, acknowledging the said Offence and Contempt, and to crave Remission for the same, with a full purpose to forbear committing of the like: So by the Suffrage of the whole House Mr. Vicechamberlain carried their Submission to the Queen accordingly, which she accepted; but with a Monition, That they do not misreport the Cause of her Misliking, which was not for that they Page 285. desired Fasting and Prayer, but for the manner in presuming to indict a form of publick Fast, without her Order and Privity, which was to intrude upon her Authority Ecclesiastical.

Upon sundry Motions touching some Reformation in matters of Religion, contained in the Petitions exhibited to the House of Commons, it was re­solved Page 201. by the whole House, that Mr. Vicechamberlain, &c. by Order of this House, and in the Name of the whole House, should move the Lords of the Clergy to continue unto her Majesty the prosecution of the Purposes of Reformation; and also farther impart unto their Lordships the earnest desire of the House for the Redress of such other Griefs con­tained likewise in the said Petitions.

But not finding the thing done to their liking, they afterwards peti­tioned Page 303. the Queen, and received for an Answer, That as her Highness had the last Session committed the Charge and Consideration thereof un­to some of her Clergy, who had not performed the same; so she would soon commit the same unto such others of them, as with all convenient speed, without remisness or slackness, should see the same accomplished accordingly, in such sort as the same shall neither be delayed nor undone.

The Lords of the upper House being pressed to join with the House of Commons for redressing some of the aforementioned Grievances, answered, Ann. 27. p. 345. That they were present when her Majesty gave Commandment not to deal in the House of Commons with Matters concerning Religion, or the Church, without her Highness's Pleasure first known; and do take the same Commandment to extend as well to their Lordships as to the Com­mons; and therefore have resolved, That those of the Lords which are of her Majesty's privy Council, do first move her Highness to know her Majesty's Pleasure therein, before they proceed any farther in the Matter.

Mr. Leuknor, Hulston, Bainbridge, and Cope were sent unto the Tower Ann. 28. & 29. p. 412. for intermeddling with Matters touching the Church, which her High­ness had so often inhibited; and Motion being made by Sr. John Higham for the setting them at liberty, Mr. Vicechamberlain answered, That perhaps they might be committed for somewhat that concerned not the Business or Privilege of the House.

Mr. Davenport moved for some Reformation in Church matters; but Ann. 31. p. 438. this motion was check'd by Dr. Wolley, because contrary to the Inhibiti­on of the Queen.

The Ld. Keeper told the Speaker of the Commons, That their Privi­lege Ann. 35. p. 460. was not to speak what cometh into their Brains to utter; and that it was her Highness's Pleasure, That if he perceived any idle Heads to meddle with reforming the Church, by exhibiting Bills to that purpose, that he received them not untill they be reviewed and considered by those who it is fitter should consider of such things, and can better judge of them.

Mr. Speaker tells the Commons, That it was not her Majesty's Pleasure that the Commons should meddle in matters of State, or Causes Ecclesia­stical; Page 479. That she wondred that any should be of so high Commandment to attempt a thing so expresly contrary to that which she had forbidden; [Page 53] and that her express commandment to him was, that no Bill, touching the said matters of State or Reformation in Causes Ecclesiastical should be exhibited; charging him upon his Allegiance, That if any such Bill be exhibited, not to read it.

Mr. Morrice (an Attorney of the Dutchey of Lancaster) moved for reformation of Ecclesiastical proceedings; Mr. Dalton answerd, that Page 474. the Ecclesiastical Government was distinct from the Temporal; and that her Majesty had commanded them not to meddle in such matters. And Dr. Heylin tells us, that the proceedings of this Morrice so angered Pres. to. Hist. of Ref. the Queen, that she caused the person of the said Attorney to be seized upon, deprived him of his places in the Dutchey Court, disabled him practising as a common Lawyer, and finally shut him up in Tutbury-Castle, where he continued till his death. By which severity (says he) and keeping the like constant hand in the course of the Government, she held so great a curb on the Puritan Faction (the great disturber of the Ecclesiastical Settlement) that neither her Parliaments nor her Courts of Justice, were from thenceforth much troubled with them in all the rest of her Reign. So that now lay all these Premises together; how that no such Bills, touching Ecclesiastical Affairs, are to be received into the House of Commons without her Majesty's privity and pleasure, or unless previously considered and liked by the Clergy; that all proceedings ten­ding thereunto are avowed injuries to the Queen's Supremacy, and her Ecclesiastical Authority; that the Bishops and Clergy are fitter persons to consult about and order such matters than the Parliament; that the Ec­clesiastical Government is distinct from the Temporal; and the Penal­ties of the latter, are only to abet and enforce the Results of the former; that their attempts to gain a Superiour Jurisdiction have always been check'd and ended in disappointments; and that the persons so attemp­ting were some of them forbad the House, others turned out of their Offices, and others sent to the Tower, though at the same time actual Members of Parliament, without having their hard usage remonstrated against, or their persons remanded; that this was in the best of Reigns, and soon after the Reformation was compleated; nay, finally, that there was a present abrenunciation of all such Power made, and as absolute a submission as ever had been made by the Clergy in K. Henry VIII's days; and it will demonstratively appear, that the Parliament never had, or at least cannot now pretend to have any such Power, but that when they attempt to meddle and decree in such matters, they are perfectly out of their Sphere and Bounds, and so far forth too, that their Acts can be no otherwise accounted of than encroachments, and their Penalties little less than Oppression.

53. Mistaken too often they are in their own affairs, but never so much as when they arrogate to themselves the full command over Religion: A sad instance whereof we have in the late Rebellious Parliaments, whose Ordinances (though but of small continuance) proved far more bloody [Page 54] and undoing, than all the Canons that had been made since the beginning of the Reformation. Hence being Masters of the Sacerdotal, as well as Regal Power; they in the first place fell foul upon the Bishops (the Fathers and Governours of the Church) and not only took away the Lives of some, the Liberties of most, and the Estates of all; but, to the everlasting scan­dal of Christianity, they voted away Scobel Jun. 12. 1643. the whole Order of them, sacri­legiously declaring Oct. 9. 1646. their Government to be evil in it self, justly offensiv [...] and burthensome to the Kingdom, and a great impediment to the Reforma­tion; though a Government coeval with Christianity, universally received throughout the whole Christian World, and continued down to the seve­ral Provinces thereof (and in Britain as well as elsewhere) without the least contradiction, from the Apostles days unto our own. And in their room and stead set up a company of Schismatical Presbyters, supporting Aug. 29. 1648. them with a new Sect of Lay-Elders; the former never permitted in the Catholick Church, and the latter never heard of in the World, for the first fifteen hundred years after Christ. Thus advanced, they next quar­rel the Service Book, Jan. 3. 1644. vote it out of the Church, and force the Church-Wardens Aug. 23. 1646 to turn Traditors, and deliver them up to the Committees of the respective Counties to be destroyed; permitting the reading thereof soon after to be ranked Cromw. Let. to Judge Gat­ford's P [...]t. 1655. with the horrid crimes of holding or maintaining Blasphemous and Atheistical Opinions; of being guilty of Cursing, Swear­ing, and Perjury; of Adultery, Fornication, Drunkenness, and such other abominable Crimes; with order to the Justices of the Peace to be as care­full to suppress the reading of the same, as of Ale-houses, and the before­mentioned abominations; though a Book eminently ministering to the best Reformation that ever happened in the Church, composed by Pious and Orthodox Men, who stuck not to seal their Profession with their blood; the laying aside whereof in Q. Mary's Reign, was declared in the en­suing Reign by the united Wisdom of the Nation in their Parliament, to be to the great decay of the due Honour of God, and discomfort to the Eliz 1. cap. professors of the truth of Christ's Religion: And all this to trump up their beloved Directory, a Form of Worship plainly accusing the Primitive Church Direct. &c. its Pref. of indiscretion; and which may be abused by the ignorance or malice of every one that uses it; liable to Heresie and Blasphemy, as well as to ri­diculous Indecencies, Folly and Profaneness; an Office that never absolves Penitents, hath no Blessing, no Creed, no Hymns, no external Adoration, no Amen; and in truth a form of Prayer without a form, or so much as a Prayer in it, the Lord's Prayer it self being left to the Caprichio and Pleasure of him that officiates. Thus engaged they hurry on to the turning out all the Regular, Loyal, and Conformable Clergy of the Land, under the notion of scandalous delinquent Ministers; which upon Aug. 23. 1647. Fowlis Hist. of Pret St. l. 3. c. 1. trial, proved so constant and steady, that Zechary Crofton (one of the Chieftains of the Party) thought it matter enough to boast of, that among the ten thousand Clergy in the Church, they had gained six hun­dred of them (a poor pittance God wot) to comply and subscribe their [Page 55] Covenant: And then, rather than be without, whosoever would they consecrated; making the lowest of the People Priests of the high places. The Author of the Dissenters Sayings, represents us with a Page 8. Catalogue of some of them, and by them you may guess at the rest, Godly, Painful and Laborious Preachers, Fulcher the Egg-Man, Hobson the Taylor, Gree the Felt-maker, Spencer the Coachman, Potter the Smith, Durance the Wash-ball-maker, Debman the Cooper, Heath the Coller-maker, Rice the Tinker, and Field the Bodys-maker. Neither could much better upon the outing of the other be expected; since the two Ʋniversities, those Seminaries of the Church, designed for the supply of Hist. Oxon. Quaer. Cant. the vacancies thereof, were forced to run the same risque, and to un­dergo the same fate as the constituted Clergy of the Land had done. And no question, like Preachers like Doctrine! So leud, extravagant and vile, that many of themselves, being by experience made sensible there­of, thought sit to complain, and, when it was too late, seek for redress; you have, most noble Senators, saith Mr. Edwards, done worthily against Ep. Ded. part 1. Gang. Papists, Prelates, and scandalous Ministers; but what have you done against Heresy, Schism, Disorder? What against Seekers, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Brownists, Libertines, and other Sects? You have made a Reformation, but with the Reformation, have we not a Deformation, and worse things come upon us than before? You have put down the Book of Common-Prayer, you have cast off the Bishops, you have taken away Ceremonies, you have caused the Imagies to be broken down, of the Trinity, Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Apostles; and instead thereof there are those rose up among us, who throw away the Scripture, ri­dicule the Ministery, cast away the Sacraments, and overthrow the Tri­nity, deny Christ, undervalue the Virgin, and disown the Apostles. The Sects have been growing ever since the first year of your sitting, and have every year encreased more and more, and if Schism and Heresy, &c. be let alone, and rise proportionably for one year longer, we shall need no Enemy from without to undo us. Thus it fared with our oppressed Church in those days, till her King and Priests were despised, her solemn Feasts and Sabbaths forgotten, and the Sanctuary abhorred; and I am afraid thus it will prove again, if Erastus, his Demagogues and his Party, ever any more happen to dictate Religion to us.

64. And thus I have freely delivered my thoughts concerning this Sub­ject, insomuch that if you or others will but seriously reflect and consi­der what hath been offered thereon from authentick and undeniable Testimonies, you may readily perceive the reason why so many of us at present refuse the Communion of the new Bishops, and perform our Devotions separate by our selves, under the presidency of our old ones. The Communion it self was difficult (if at all tollerable) before the rent was made; for as Baalam said to the Messengers of Balak, How shall I Numb. 23. 8. curse whom God hath not cursed? Or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? How could we make him our Enemy, or pray that God would [Page 56] confound his devices, whom we durst not lift up our hands against, nor so much as curse, no not in our thoughts? How could we upon our bended knees, with our and eyes lifted up unto Heaven, go along with the Priest, and with a blessing to attend his Spirit, when our Consciences in the interim told us, that we must either say our Prayers backward, or play the part of the greatest Hypocrites in the World? ‘Certainly it is better (as King Charles the First said, when they would suffer him to have no other Chaplains to pray with him in his Solitudes, than what they [...]. ch. 24. put upon him) to seem undevout, and to hear no Mens Prayers, than to be forced to comply with those Petitions, to which the heart cannot consent, nor the tongue say Amen, without contradicting a Man's own Understanding, or belying his own Soul.’ Terms of Communion may happen to be so sinful and unjustifiable, that a good and devout Christian ought rather to absent than to joyn in with them; into this strait Gr [...] ­tius was brought, between the corruptions in the Roman, and the want of Orders in the Reformed Church, which made him to be Segrex, a Sepa­ratist Watson Pref. Lib. 5. Ep. 27. and Devotee by himself: And St. Ambrose was so incensed against the Bishops that took part with Maximus that had invaded the Empire, and put by Valentinian, that he did abstinere ab Episcopis, withdraw from them, and refused all Communion with them; and if it once comes to that pass, that we must either be alone, or so communicate, I think it much safer, to use the words of the before recited Martyr, to be con­demned [...]. ch. 24. to the woe of a Vae soli, than to that of Vae vobis Hypocritis, by seeming to pray what we do not approve; especially considering that of St. Cyprian, solus non est cui Christus in fuga comes, that he is never Ep. 58. Pleb. Thib. alone, nor without the benefit and blessing of publick Communion (if driven thence for Religion sake) who hath Christ along with him for his Companion; nec sine Deo, nor without God and the influences of his Spirit, be he were he will, if he do but keep himself free from the pol­lutions that defile the Temple of the Lord; whose Temple ye are, saith the Apostle, speaking of those who would have nothing to do with the Tem­porizing Gnosticks, their Doctrine and their Communion. This was the 1 Cor. 3. 16, 17. difficulty we laboured under then, and should we now any longer consent and communicate with them, seeing they have cut themselves off from their lawfull Bishops, and turned Subjects to those that have usurped their Thrones, we should unavoidably involve our selves in their Schism, and there lie as open to the punishment thereof, as they did who ran in unto Corah, and took part with his Confederacy to cast off Aaron, and set up a Priesthood against him. St. Cyprian highly commends the Presbyters and Deacons who refused to communicate with Gaius, a fellow and neigh­bouring Presbyter; because he was found to be present at the Prayers of the Lapsi; and tells them, that by so doing they did act uprightly, and Ep. 34. Presb. Diac. consonant to the Discipline of the Church. Nor is it enough to plead as the Confessors did at Rome, sincera mens nostra, we liked well of Cornelius Cornel. Cyp. Ep. 49. and always went along with him in our hearts, when at the same time [Page 57] they took in with Novatian, and became followers of him and his Schism; or as they in Athanasius's time did, who came to him (Nicodemus like, in the night) to beg pardon for their Apostacy, Nos animo Synaxin cum Atha­nasio, we are ever present with Athanasius, and at his Synaxes with our Souls, when upon all occasions they daily appeared in the Assemblies and Ep. ad solit: vit. Meetings of the Schismatical Gregory, his Bishops, and his Presbyters. Neither can any peace be expected to be given to such, unless the Schism be abjured. His ita gestis, these things being resolved on, saith Corne­lius, Ep. 49. Cyp. concerning the returning Confessors, Maximus, Ʋrbanus, Sidonius, Macarius, and many more, qui se eis adjunxerant, who had joyned them­selves to them in their Schism, in Presbyterium venerunt, came into the Conistory, and more earnestly beg'd that all their Schismatical complian­ces might be pardoned: And at the same rate Arsenius Bishop of Hyp­polita, with his Presbyters, Deacons, and Followers, submitted to Atha­nasius the Patriarch; we, say they, diligentes pacem & unanimitatem, ear­nestly Athan. Apo­log. 2. coveting the Peace and Unanimity of the Church, and willing ac­cording to the antient constitution to become obedient to the Ecclesiastical Canon, do in the presence of God solemnly promise, nos deinceps non com­municaturos cum Schismaticis, never henceforth to communicate with Schismaticks, nor with any one else to whom the peace of the Church is denied, be they Bishops, Presbyters, or Deacons, nor have any thing to do with them; neither send t [...] or receive Letters of pacification from them; but for the future wholly to give our selves up to the Church's Canons, and the direction of you our Metropolitane. And indeed, less than this cannot hope to speed, ecce incolumis & immaculata laudis integri­tas, behold, saith St. Cyprian, that's the unblemished and Praise-worthy Ep. 51. Cornel. repentance, that's the incorrupt and substantial return, à desertoribus & profugis recessisse, to desert the deserters, and to fly the fugitives; to bid adieu to the betrayers of the Faith, and the impugners of Catholick Unity. And certainly the sooner this is done the better; lest being once out of the Church, and no longer assisted by the Spirit of Grace that goes along with it; we be driven from Post to Pillar, from one point of the Compass to another, and go we shall (provided Poverty or Disgrace, Cross or Faggot be not in the way) till we have made Shipwreck of the Faith; and in the end finding our selves at the brink of the Precipice, and not able to return or go farther, we contentedly drop down and pe­rish. Thus it was with the Meletians, non est sperandum ut Antichristo Meletiani resistant, it's now no longer to be hoped (saith Athanasius) Ep. ad sol. vit. that the Meletians should oppose Antichrist, or resist his coming; for they have thrown off all care of truth, count it no sin to deny Christ, but (Camelian like) transform themselves into all shapes and colours, sem­per mercenarii, always at the lure and beck of those they live under, and throughout all, preserring Ease before Verity; till addicting themselves to Voluptuousness and Pleasure, they conclude with an ede bibe, let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die. The saddest fate that can befall Men [Page 58] in this World, and such an one that God inflicts on none, but the worst of sinners; and not on them neither, till he consigns them over (as lost) to everlasting desolation. So that whatever other punishment Heaven shall think fit to lay upon me, whilst I am in my journey; I heartily pray it may not be my doom, to be delivered up to an obdurate Heart, a repro­bate Mind, a careless Spirit, or a seared Conscience.

55. And here, kind Sir, I had thrown my Pen by, had not you sent me a late Treatise of Mr. Hody's, wherein he endeavours to prove from a Greek Manuscript out of the publick Library at Oxford, That there was never any separation from the new Bishop, though uncanonically introduced into the room of another, where there was not Heresy in the case. As for the Manuscript it self, I leave it to others to inspect and examine; however I cannot but in my own defence observe,

First, That all the instances therein produced, are of much later date than those produced by me; His not beginning till Mine do end: Most of them the results of the middle and corrupt Age of the Church; and there­fore of little or no force against the Practice of the more Primitive and purer Age thereof, to whom mine do pretend. Nay, were the Practices of those times to be urged and allowed for Precedents, I can see no reason why the Latine Church should not be permitted the priviledge of them, to prove the corruptions of their Doctrines, as well as the Greek Church, to prove the irregularity of their Disc [...]line. A thing (I am apt to think) Mr. Hody and his Party would have been shie some few years ago, to have consented to.

Secondly, That in all the instances touching the various Schisms pro­duced by me, there is no concern of Heresy in the case; and yet the post­ordained was always postponed, and as much rejected by the Church, as if he had been as deeply tainted with Heresy as ever Heretick could be. This Mr. Hody denies, but 'twill undeniably be made out by reflecting on, and calling back some of the former instances to a farther review. And because Novatianus was the first that I instanced in, and (for ought it appears to me) the first that ever made a Schism in the Church, I shall be­gin with him; and I suppose it will not be denied, but that if there had been any Heresy in the Master, it would have been followed and propagated by his Scholars with the Schism; nay, the longer the Schism lasted, the worse would the Heresy have been; and yet I find that in Constantine's days (which was near 100 years after the Shism began) when he set forth his Edict for the putting down the Meetings of Hereticks, the Novatians were not so much troubled about it, because as Sozomen relates the matter, [...], they held the same Lib. 2. c. 30. Doctrines as the Catholick Church did: And so it was in Theodosius's Reign near forty years after that. He admiring (saith Socrates) [...], the confent and harmony of the Nova­tians Lib. 5. c. 10. touching the Faith, though he had banished all sorts of Hereticks, yet decreed, that they should enjoy their own Assemblies, and have such liber­ty [Page 59] and priviledges as the other Churches of the same Opinion and Faith were wont to have. And when Atticus of Constantinople was some time after that moved to drive them out of the City, Do you not know, saith he, as the same Socrates relates, what grievous Persecutions and Trou­bles Lib. 7. c. 25. they endured with us for the Faith; adding, that though they had been of old divided from the Church, yet [...], they never attempted to introduce any Novelty as touching the Faith. The like we find verified of the Schismatical Donatists, whose Schism arose (as hath been shewn) by Majorinus his being uncanonically placed in the Chair of Caecilian, who was stated there before him. And therefore St. Austin being sent to by Boniface, one of the Emperor's Life-Guard, to give him an account of the Donatists Creed; hi plurimi se dicunt omnino credere quod Catholica credit Ecclesia, many of them (saiys he) do say, Ep. 50. that they perfectly believe concerning the Holy Trinity, as the Catholick Church believes; neither is there any difference between the one and the other, sed de sola communione infeliciter litigant, but only the Donatists per­versely separating themselves from the Church to break the Ʋnity of it, which is the sole cause of the contention between them. The same is granted by Optatus in his Book against Parmenian the Donatist; Et apud vos & apud nos una est Ecclesiastica conversatio, communes lectiones, eadem fides, ipsa fidei Sacramenta, eadem mysteria; there is, saith he, with you, Lib. 5. p. 99. and with us, one and the same Ecclesiastical Discipline, the same Scriptures, the same Rule of Faith, the same Administration of Sacraments, and the same Mysteries: And yet though so alike in all things else, purely because descended from Majorinus, who was Posterior to Caecilian, all kind of Com­munion was denied them. The same was verified of Meletius the Lyco­politan, and his Faction; for though he ordained and constituted Bishops in all places where ever he came, in opposition to the Bishops already placed, thereby disturbing the Church with his New and Schismatical Or­dinations; yet, says Epiphanius, he adhered notwithstanding to the Ca­tholick Adv. Haer. l. 2. Tom. 2. Haer. 18. Sect. 1. Church, and the avowed Faith thereof, [...], neither did he at any time af­terwards in the least swerve in the same. Nay, though he lived a long while after that he first set the Schism on foot; yet, saith my Author, [...], He all along stu­died Id. eod. S. 3. the good of the Church, and never taught any thing contrary to the Faith thereof. Thus it fared in the debate at Antioch between the fol­lowers of Meletius and the followers of Paulinus; they held their Sy­naxes apart, saith Theodorit, [...] Hist. l. 3. c. 4. [...], and yet both of them professed one and the same Faith, and firm­ly adhered to the Doctrine of the Nicene Fathers. Neither did the death of Meletius put an end to the Controversy, for no sooner was he gone, but his Party not accepting Paulinus, which had been Co-bishop with him, chose Flavianus into his room; and then the Church of Antioch was di­vided again, [...], not about the Faith, saith Hist. l. 5. c. 9. [Page 60] Socrates, but about their Bishops. Once more, and then most or all my instances (Chrysostom excepted, of which more anon) will be reviewed and made good, and that relates to Liberius and Felix: Liberius was banished, and Felix his Deacon was made Bishop in his stead; a Man, saith Sozomen, [...], Hist. l. 4. c. 10. always reported to be firm to the Nicene Faith, [...], and as to matters of Religion altogether blameless. And yet when Liberius was recalled from his banishment, Felix was forced to retire; nay, the People of Rome, though requ [...]sted thereunto by the Emperor, would not so much, according to Theodoret, as suffer him to Hist. l. 2. c. 17. remain Copartner with the other in the Bishoprick. From whence it was evident, let Mr. Hody say what he will to the contrary, that there is something more required in a new Bishop, than barely to be Orthodox in the Faith, and Catholick in his Belief; and that plainly is, if the Canons of the Church, which were of old looked upon in Sacredness and Au­thority next to the Evangelists, may umpire and determine; not to in­vade another Bishop's See, the See not being forfeited, made void, or va­cated by the Canons of the Church: A rule of such Catholick Authority in the Church, that the known Violaters of it were no less rejected from its Communion, than were the Violators of the most holy and sacred Evan­gels; and though otherwise never so deserving a Bishoprick, adjudged ever after altogether unfit to preside and govern in the Church. Nay, I cannot but in the third place observe, and still my eye is upon Mr. Hody,

Thirdly, That when Heresy prevailed, and made its Bishops and its Party, the Canon against Intrusion was no less pleaded against them to render them uncanonical, than was their Heresy. Hence we find Julius of Rome, after he was informed of the Invasion made by Gregory the Arian upon Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, complaining no less of the irregula­rity thereof, than as if there had been no Heresy at all in the case; [...]; where, saith he in answer to his Letter from Antioch, is there any such Ecclesiasti­cal Athan. Apol. 2. p. 201. Canon, or any such Apostolical Tradition: That a Man who is a Stranger or a Foreigner should be made Bishop at Antioch, and sent to Alexandria to be Bishop there, introduced not by the Clergy of the City, nor by the Bishops of the Province, but by a Guard of Russians and Souldiers, [...]. The whole Church at that same time being at peace within it self, and all the Bishops of the same in perfect Commu­nion and Concord with Athanasius, their lawfull and proper Bishop; con­sider, I pray you, if such a thing had been acted against any of you, [...]; Would you not have inveigh'd against it? Would you not have required satisfaction for so palpable a Breach of the Canons? Believe me, and I speak it, saith he, in the sincerity of my heart, and as in the presence of God [...], it is no rihghte­ous [Page 61] doing, not according to Equity, nor according to Canon. Nay, so in­censed were the Ecclesiasticks at this Invasion of his, that none of them would go unto him, [...] Athan. Ep. ad Orthod. p. 171. [...], except some that were Hereticks like himself, some that for their irregularities had been cast out of the Church, and some few that had play'd the Hypocrite out of fear; yea, and so enraged were the People against him, that being deprived of their lawfull Ministers so as to have none left either to baptize or to visit them in their sickness, [...], they rather chose to hazard themselves and their Children, than to have him and his Clergy to bless them: I confess this might arise in a great measure from their disgust to him, his dealings, and his Arianism; but withall something of it cannot but be ascribed to the aversion they had to this uncanonical Promotion; for being afterwards under a far worse usage by Count Syrianus, they applied them­selves to Maximus the Praefect, and other of the Magistrates, telling them, that if it were the Emperor's pleasure to have them persecuted, they Pope Alex. Ec. Sub. Athan. p. 240. were willing and ready to be Martyr'd; but if not, then they that would be pleased to intercede for them that they might enjoy the most Reverend Athanasius, whom God [...], according to the wonted succession of their forefathers, had set over them to be their Arch­bishop; and that no other, contrary to such succession, might be put upon them, [...], which rather (say they) than suffer, we have even unto death resisted. A zeal that attended the Primitive Christians from the very first to the last, and as hard to let go, as the Faith it self. And this in a manner is confess'd by Mr. Hody himself, at least by his Prefacer, Vide Pref. who tells us, that at the time the Manuscript was wrote, there was a Par­ty of Men, Friends to the deprived, says he, but perhaps more to the Discipline and Canons of the Church, who adhering to him, I suppose, because uncanonically deprived, gave out that the former was still their Genuine and Canonical Bishop, and that it was sinfull to have Communion with the new one. And this as he guesses, was in the end of the Twelfth or the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. It seems the Canon for one Bishop in a Church at a time, and the inconveniency of having more, un­less the first be Canonically deprived, even till then was retained in the minds of Men, and endeavoured after for the good of the Church (if pos­sible) to be received. Nay, I cannot but consider in the fourth place.

Fourthly, That if there be Heresy in the case, tho' rising from the more nice and speculative Doctrines of Christianity; the deprived Bishops are then, according to Mr. Hody, ‘to stand upon their Right, and the People to adhere to them.’ And if so, then certainly much more, when the practical Doctrines of Faith, Justice, and moral Honesty, and the Com­mandments that enjoyn them are concerned; which practical Doctrines and Commandments are as holy in themselves, as dear to God and the [Page 62] Church, as the more speculative Doctrines, the consubstantial Doctrine not excepted; and more than other nice Theories which occur in the Controversies concerning Eutychianism, Monothelitism, &c. the believing contrary to which is called Heresy. Insomuch that if a deprived Bishop in the Greek Church, must and would have stood out against an Eutychian or Monothelite Successor, and defended his Church against them; much more our deprived Bishops to stand out against their Successors, in de­fence of those moral Principles, in adherence to which they suffered De­privation. Doubtless a virtuous and good Life was as much intended and promoted by our Saviour in the establishment of his Kingdom amongst us, as a good Faith, or a right Belief; and his Apostles and Ministers, to whom and to whose Successors the care of the Church was committed, had it as much in charge to propagate the one as the other. Dr. Sherlock hath been heard to say, That he would as soon turn Arian as take the new Oath of Allegiance; of such concern he then thought the practical Doctrines to be: And well he might, when the Lawgiver himself hath expresly told us, That whosoever shall break one of the least of these Commandments, Matth. 5. 19. and teach men so to do, shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven; so far the least, say Interpreters, that when the enquiry shall be made for the breakers thereof, they shall not be found to have a Name there. I confess Bishops, the most unjustly deprived, have often ceded and acquiesced under their Deprivations; but then this they did, foreseeing that no hurt would accrue thereby to the interest of Christianity, either in the specula­tive or practical Doctrines thereof; they considered that the loss would on­ly be their own, [...], the Office of teaching, saith St. Chrysostom in a like case, neither Pallad. in vit. Chrys. p. 69. began from me, nor will it end in me. But if the Cause of God and of his Church thereby do suffer, if Justice, Faith, common Honesty, and whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is lovely, whatsoever is of good report, or praise worthy, be thrust out of the World, and all sorts of Immorality and Vice brought into their room; nay, pass for Virtue, or not be owned to be Sins: If Duty to Parents must cease, if Obedience to Magistrates must fail, if Oaths must be no security, nor any longer be counted Sa­cred; and if that unspotted Loyalty which hitherto hath attended and made the Church of England so famous and so beloved of Princes, must be deserted and abandoned, as false and erroneous; methinks this is such a blemish to Religion, and will prove so great a scandal to the Church, that it should make our deprived Bishops, though otherwise studious of Peace, to resume their Power, and not to suffer the Church, over which God hath made them Overseers, to be ruined by their Cessions; nay, not only to resume it themselves, but because they evidently see their Bishop­ricks supply'd by persons that already have, and upon any other occa­sion will be ready to betray it again in these and the like particulars, to take what care they can that these Doctrines and Principles be defended and propagated to Posterity. Doctrines certainly, the most likely of any [Page 63] we profess to cause a rebuilding of our Church; which if I live to see, and shall be thought fit to have a place in the building, I pray God it may not fall to my share to be set up for the Weather-Cock. And so I am come to St. Chrysostom's Case, which the Introduction to the Treatise tells us ought particularly to be considered, And here I cannot but observe,

Fifthly, That whatsoever advice St. Chrysostom gave either to his Clergy or People upon his parting with them, from whence Mr. Hody and his Pre­facer would infer a voluntary Resignation and Cession, it all issued from an apprehension of a sudden and violent death to befall him, as if he were forthwith to be made a Sacrifice, and taken out of the World. An ap­prehension with which he was warmly and confidently possessed; for (saith the Author of his Life, a Bishop then present) [...], Pallad. in vit. Chrys. p. 67. John being inspired by the Holy Ghost, said to his Friends, [...], pray for me my Brethren, for I am ready now to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand? and then follows the advice, let none of you desert your Church, [...], for I evidently foresee that I must leave the World. The like he enjoyned the devout Women upon the same account, [...], come hi­ther you my Daughters, and hearken to what I say; [...], all things I see are at an end with me; I have finished my course, and in all probability I shall see your face no more; one thing however I beg of you, that upon this my failure you would submit your selves no less to my Successor, if fairly set over you, than you have done to me. Neither were his fears altogether groundless, for it was every where re­ported [...], that he was to be beheaded; Nay, it was not long Id. p. 68. before, that his life was twice assaulted; once (saith Sozomen) by one Lib. 8. c. 21. that personated himself distracted; and at another time by a Servant of Elpidus, one of Chrysostom's mortal Enemies, who, if Palladius saith true, [...], was hired for [...]fty pieces of Gold Page 197. to dispatch him; and in the attempt slew four and wounded three. From whence it may rationally be presumed, that the advice here given in re­ference to a future Submission unto the Bishop that was to follow him, was purely and wholly ascribable to the perswasion he had of himself, he that was no better than a dead Man, willing thereupon to leave peace be­hind him, at least not to have the Church divided upon his account when he was dead and gone; without regard in the least had to an Intruder, either to approve his Intrusion, or to allow Communion with him. And that this is the true meaning of his advice, will farther appear from the after behaviour both of persons to whom the advice was given, and of him who gave the advice; as also of other Foreign Churches, who thought fit to concern themselves in the Affair for the good of the Church, and for the maintenance of the Discipline thereof. And hence I find,

First, That John was no sooner removed, and Arsacius put into his Bi­shoprick, but the People, (Populace and Rabble saith the Prefacer,) Bankers and chief Citizens, [...], persons of place and dignity, say the [Page 64] Edicts, as if no such Advice had been given them, or at least as if it were Pall. p. 96. never intended to take place during his Life, holding it not lawful, saith So­zomen, to communicate or pray with their new made Bishop, or with any Lib. 8. c. 23. in Communion with him, [...], separated themselves from them, and held their Assemblies apart by themselves; Nay, says Olympias, Pall. p. 89. who was one of the very Women to whom Chrysostome gave the Advice, be­ing first fairly sollicited, and afterwards by Threats menaced, to renounce John, and to communicate with Arsacius, [...], Tho' you should compel me never Soz. l. 8. c. 24. so much against Law and Right to come into his Communion, I will never consent to doe what no pious and good Christian can warrantably do. It seems to own an Intruder, in her opinion, during St. Chrysostom's being alive, was an unwarrantable Action, and unbecoming good and pious Christians, and yet she was a Pall. p. 150. Deaconess of the Church, regarded and beloved by Chry­sostom Id p. 30. for her good Deeds; present, as hath been said, when he gave the Advice, and upon that account as much to be presumed to be knowing to the Intent and Design of the Advice and Adviser, as either Mr. Hody or his Prefacer can be presumed to be.

Secondly, Neither was this the Humour of the People onely, but of the Bishops as well as of them: Hence Atticus, Successor to Arsacius in the Usurpation, Chrysostom being still alive, [...], perceiving, as Palladius relates the matter, that De vit. Chrys. p. 95. none of the oriental Bishops would communicate with him, and that the very People of the City where he was rejected his Communion, procured the like Prescript of Severity as Arsacius his Predecessor had done before Id. p. 26. him, which was either to communicate with him, or to be deposed from their Bishopricks, and to have their Estates and Goods confiscated. But how little this Edict prevailed, the Issue and Event thereof will shew: Some of them, saith Palladius, [...], for continuing their P. 193, 194. Communion with John, were imprisoned, and there dyed; some were sent into Banishment, of whom Palladius to whom the Advice was given was P. 66. one; some of them were beaten, and some slain: Nay, notwithstanding all the Severities that these Edicts occasioned, [...], the meetings of those that were Lovers of Chrysostom, or rather of those that were Lovers of God, were not at all lessoned, but as it is written, saith he, in Exodus, [...], P. 86. the more they slew, the more they grew. And cer­tainly if these or any other of the Bishops, to whom St. Chrysostom gave the Advice, had thought that he had designed it should have took place before his Death, or that it had been fitting it should, they would ne­ver have lost their Bishopricks, run such hazards, or undergone such Difficulties for him.

Thirdly, And that this and no other was the meaning of the Advice, will appear from the Advisers own Behaviour in the case, for being de­manded De vit. Chrys. p. 81. by the Emperour to leave his Church, Palladius tells us that he [Page 65] refused to do it; answering, [...], I received this Church from Christ, to take care of the Souls thereunto belonging, and I must not relinquish it; but the Care of the City is yours, and if I must be gone, force me thence by your Authority, [...], that I may have some Excuse at least from being absent from my Station. Nay, when driven away, so far was he from seeming to have given up, and from blaming others who adhered to him, that writing to the Bi­shops and Clergy at Chalcedon, who for his sake were there imprisoned, he commends them for their undaunted Behaviour in their Sufferings, and Chrys. Ep. 174. encourages them to be constant, and under all to concern themselves for the Good of the Church, and for the allaying that Storm that was risen in it, telling them, [...], that though their Care and Study might want Success, it would not want its Reward at the hand of God. And in another to them he not onely commends them but their Cause; [...], you, says he, for adhering to the Ep. [...], Tom. 4. p. 186. Laws and Constitutions of the Fathers, which others invade and contaminate, are made to suffer these things. The like Letters he wrote to the Bishops sent from the West to procure a Synod for the further hearing & more righ­teous determining his Cause, with all Thankfulness acknowledging their Id. Ep. 157. &c. pious Care and generous Charity, for undertaking so tedious and dangerous a Voyage upon his Account. The like also he wrote to the Bishops and Presbyters that attended them in their Journey; the like to many other Bi­shops Id. Ep. 161, 165, 166. by name; to all the Bishops throughout Macedonia, thanking them all, and every one in particular, for the mighty Care and Compassion they had for him, and telling them, that not only he, [...] P. 149, &c. [...], but all the Bishops throughout the East, together with the Clergy and Laity of the several Cities thereof, were mightily transported with their stout Behaviour, in reference to him and the Church's Concerns; the like Letter of Thanks he sent to Innocent, Bp. of Rome, one of the last, saith Dr. Cave, that ever he wrote, [...], thus englished by the aforesaid Dr. Cave, We cannot thank you enough for Vit. Chrys. p. 522. Chrys. Tom. 4. p. 684. that Kindness and Compassion you have shewed us, beyond the tenderest Bowels of a Father; for what in you lies you have taken care that all things be duly performed and rectified, and run in a proper Chanel, and neither the Laws be subjected to Contempt and Force, nor the Constitutions of the ancient Fa­thers violated: And though some have hindred your Designs from taking any effect, that they now seem incurably disordered, and uncapable of a Reforma­tion, yet I beseech you still endeavour to reclaimt hem, and not give the Affair over in Despair, considering of what mighty Importance it would be to bring it to an happy Issue; and indeed in some measure the whole World is interessed and concerned in this Matter. The Churches are wasted and brought low, the People dispersed, the Clergy subdued and trampled on, the Bishops banished, and the Ecclesiastical Canons trodden down: Once therefore and again I beseech you to use your utmost Care and Diligence, and the greater the Storm is, let your Study and Endeavour be so much the more. This methinks doth not look as if he had relinquished his Bishoprick, or that he ever designed [Page 66] whilst living, to give place to another; nay, I am apt to think, that if he would have relinquished, as Mr. Hody and his Prefacer would have him to have done, he needed not to have been banished, or sent out of the way for another to be put in.

4. Nay, I cannot find but that the foreign Bishops were as deeply con­cerned for his return and restauration to his Bishoprick, as either him­self or any of his own Bishops and Clergy were, not regarding his ad­vice, or at least not thinking it sit, or that ever it was designed to take place till he was dead and gone; [...], the design of the Roman Church (as it is in Palladius) was not to comm [...]i­cate p. 214, 215. with the Oriental Bishops, and more especially with Theophilus, the Au­thor of these Mischiefs, till God should please to give place to an Oecu­menic Council, that the sores and wounds which are made in the Church might be healed; for though John should sleep, yet truth (for which in quisition ought ever to be made) will awake. And I would, says he, fai [...] know [...]; Where is the Priesthood for the present to be found? where Religion? Nay, where common Humanity? or so much as our Sa­viour's commands (whilst the Church is under such disorder) can be met with? [...], the Bishops of Europe, saith Theodorit, so much detested the dealings and doings against John, that they withdrew themselves from the Commu­nion Hist. l. 5. c. 34. of all those that wrought that mischief against him, and with them all the Bishops of Illyrium did agree. Nay, [...], though that excellent Doctor was dead, the Western Bishops notwithstanding, were so far from renewing Communion with the Bi­shops of Egypt, of the East, of Bosphorus, and of Thrace, that they would not so much as have a correspondence with them, [...], till they had entered the Name of that Divine Man into the Dyptichs of the Bishops that were dead. And though Atticus (one of the Intruders) had often sent Ambassadors to them, and as often requested the Peace of the Church at their hands, yet they would never grant it till John was dead, nor then neither, untill he inserted his Name among the dead Bishops; which being done, [...], they from henceforth, saith the same Thodorit, received him into Communion; and without doubt, Ibid. thereby accepted and authenticated him, and his Ordinations, purging the Stream of Succession for the future; so as that it might run pure and clean down to Posterity, without taking their irregularities along with it. And if so, then the following instances of Maximian, Proclus, and the rest of Atticus his Successors, will do Mr. Hody no good.

But grant that all which Mr. Hody and his Prefacer ins [...]nuates was true, that Chrysostom relinquished, that Separation was contrary to his Spirit, that the good Man, seeing he was to be Deposed, advised and charged the Bishops his Friends to keep Communion with his Deposers, and [Page 67] not to rend and divide the Church for his sake; telling them and their adherents, that the Church could not be without a Bishop, though it might be without him; yet I pray you what would he or any other of the deprived Bishops have done under an Emperor which persecuted the Order and very Office of Bishops, and would suffer no Bishops at all in the Church. Put the case that the Emperor had deposed all the Bishops in one part of the Empire, and had set up Schismatical Presbyters, nay, Pseudopresbyters, who were and are professed Enemies to the Name and Order of Bishops, in their place; I am apt to think that John Chryso­stom would not have submitted to an unjust Deprivation at such a time, and by such an Emperor who had sacrificed the Order to his Interest in one part of the Empire, and had no principle to keep him from doing it in the other, when great and formidable numbers of all sorts, would desire the deprivation and deposing of the whole Order; certainly in such a case as this, he would never have receded, but continued his Order and Office, though a thousand deaths had attended him; methinks I hear him at the bare thoughts of it, using the words he did when he was ba­nished the City, [...]; will the Empress banish Ep. 125. me? let her banish me, the Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If she command that I be cut in pieces, let me be sawn asunder; the Prophet Esay was served so before me. Will she throw me into the Sea? I re­member it was the fate of Jonas; or into a fiery Furnace? I shall have the three Children for my fellow Sufferers. If she will cast me to wild Beasts, I think how Daniel went the same way to the Lions. If she command I should be stoned, let it be so; I have Stephen the Protomartyr on my side. Will she have my Head? Let her have it, John the Baptist lost his. Has she a mind to my Estate? Let her have it, naked came I out of my Mother's Womb, and naked shall I return thither: But as for my Office I will never forsake; neither shall my Order perish as long as I have a Tongue and Hands to propogate it. Thus I persuade my self his zeal would have in­flamed him; and how tamely soever he might otherwise have sat down when the Interest of the Church was not concerned; yet at such a time as this, he would have resumed his courage and his power, and never have suffered the Church to have been ruined for want of his assistance.

And so I have done with Mr. Hody, as far as I am concerned with him: But how he will come off for shamming the World with part of the Manuscript for the whole, I am not able to guess. Mr. B. in his Preface to the English Translation tells us, That there was a singular providence in the discovery of it at this juncture; and if there were so then I hope the Col­lection of Canons which both of them have concealed, may have as good a Title to that singular providence, and as much [...] in the discovery of it, as that part hath which they have thought fit to Print. It is written in the same hand, and follows immediately where the Printed Book concludes; and Mr. Hody, as I am informed, having been told of it, and asked the reason why he did not publish it, answered, That he [Page 68] believed it was not written by the same Author: But put the case he did be­lieve so, had it not however been much the more for his honour, and the interests of truth to have published it, and given his reasons to the lear­ned World why he did not believe it to be a part of the Manuscript, or that it was written by the Author of it. This had been fair dealing; but instead of that, both he and his Prefacer wholly concealed it, though the Canons carry much more venerable Antiquity and Authority with them, than the examples they have Printed, and are indeed of that Antiquity and Authority, which, to use the Prefacer's words of us, we profess to imitate and pretend to alledge. I shall here set them down as they are translated, into English from a Copy of the Original that was sent from Oxford; and when the learned Reader hath perused them, he will be shrewdly tempted to guess at the reason for which many learned Men suspect Mr. Hody hath concealed them.

From this Collection of Canons, which speaks of no Deposition or De­privation of Bishops but what is Synodical, an unprejudiced Reader will easily perceive, that the Author of the Manuscript, of which this Col­lection is the latter part, ought to be understood of the former, not of Secular, but of Ecclesiastical Deprivations by Synods, abusing their lawfull power, and unjustly depriving and deposing Bishops, whom they ought not to have deprived and deposed. And that the Author ought to be so understood, is farther evident from his citing the Synods explica­tion of their Canons, as well as the Canons themselves, with respect to which they tell us, that notwithstanding what is said in those Canons, the People and Priests may separate from their Bishops, or the Bishops from their Metropolitane, or the Metropolitane from the Patriarch before Sy­nodical condemnation; if they openly and publickly Preach any Heresie which is already condemned by the holy Synods; which strongly implies that he thought, that they were not upon any other account to forsake them, unless they were Synodically condemned; and that the unjust depo­sions he speaks of in his Treatise, are to be understood of unjust depositions by Synods, i. e. of unjust depositions by the proper and competent, but erring Judge.

As great as the decay of ancient Discipline was in the Greek Church, in the Age when Master B. thinks this Manuscript was written, Synodical depositions (though by most degenerate and corrupt Synods) was still the common practice of it, and Emperors still deprived Bishops by the old way of Synodical Authority, as is plain from the deposition of Arsenius, Patriarch of Constantinople, by the procurement of the usurping Michael Paleologus; of which I will here give a short account out of Nicephorus Gregoras, because it caused the greatest Schism that ever happened at Constantinople, but that upon the deposition of John Chrysostom; and also because it is very probable that this anonymous Treatise now published against us, was written upon the occasion of this Schism.

The Emperor Theodosius Lascaris, the second Son of Theodorus Ducas, Lib. 3. by Irene, Daughter of Theodorus Lascaris the first, dying in the 36th year of his Age, left John Lascaris his Son, a Minor of six years of Age, [Page 71] under the Tutorship of Muzalon and Arsenius, the Patriarch of Constan­tinople: But Muzalon, a Man of inferior Quality, perceiving he was en­vied by the Nobles and common People, offered to resign his Trust into the hands of the Nobles, convened for this purpose; but they refused to let him part with his Trust, and not long after, with the whole Army took an Oath to him, under the highest Imprecations to themselves and their Families, that without any Treachery they would maintain him in the Wardship of the young Prince, and reserve the Empire for him and his Posterity. But notwitstanding this Oath some of the Nobles six days after set upon Muzalon in the Church, and slew him and his two Brothers at the Altar, whither they had fled for Shelter. Upon this Ar­senius, very much perplexed, consults with the Nobles what was to be done for the Safety of the Prince, in which Consultation they chose Mi­chael Paleologus to take the Administration upon him, under the Title of Despot, during his Minority.

After this the chief among the Nobles declare him Emperour, which Lib. 6. troubled the good Patriarch exceedingly, who thereupon had thoughts of excommunicating the Usurper, and all his Adherents; but upon far­ther deliberation he thought it more advisable to give way, and bind both him and them by new Oaths to give Security to the Prince, both as to his Life, and Succession to the Throne, when he should come to Age.

Shortly after he had taken this security from them, he was forced at the instance of the Senate and Clergy to tie the Diadem upon the Head of Paleologus with his own hands; but when he did it, he made him swear again that he should recede from the Government, and lay by all the Regalia, to make way for the Prince when he came of Age. But after this, the good old Man seeing the Prince his Pupil despised, retired from his Church into a Monastery, and was succeeded by Nicephorus, Bishop of Ephesus; who died after he had enjoyed his dignity a year. Soon after this Paleologus being peaceably setled in Constantinople and the Govern­ment, calls back Arsenius, and makes him Patriarch again upon the va­cancy of Nicephorus: And not long after resolving to keep the Empire for himself, he persisted to marry the Sisters of the Prince to inferior persons, and without any regard to humanity, or his repeated Oaths, he puts out the Eyes of the Prince, and sent him to be safely kept in a remote Prison.

The Patriarch upon this excommunicates the Emperor Peleologus, who in a seeming humble manner desires to be absolved from the excommu­nication; but not being able to obtain absolution from the Patriarch, he calls a Synod to meet in the Palace, to try him for some pretended Crimes, which he pickt up here and there against him The Synod met, and the cowardly time serving Bishops strove which should be most forward in having their Patriarch ac [...]used, and accordingly they cited him to appear, and called for his accuse [...]s, but he refused to appear, upon this exception, [Page] that the Synod was indicted by the Emperor his open Adversary, w [...] in effect was also his Judge.

Upon his non appearing, he was deposed by the Synod for contumacy, and upon [...] Deposition banished by the perjured Emperor; and Germanus Bishop of Adrianople (the [...]per [...]r's old Friend) succeeded in his Throne. Upon this a great Schism arose in Const [...] [...] nople among the People, who looked upon Germanus as an Usurper, counting Arse [...]i [...] [...] be their [...], or true Patriarch after deposition, because he was [...] justly deposed; wherefore Germanus not being able to endure the affronts and reproac [...] [...] [...] the people, quitted the Throne, and was succeeded by Josephus a Monk, who d [...] [...] understand Greek, but absolved the perjured Emperor, and afterwards retired fro [...] [...] See into a Monastery; and during his administration, there was still a strong Part [...] [...] adhered to A [...]senius, and continued to do so in the time of Becus, who after the de [...] [...] [...] Lib. 5. Lib. 6. the Emperor, privately withdrew from his Station into a Monastery, and was succeede [...] [...] Josephus the Patriarch, whom before he had succeeded; but still the Schism conti [...] [...] [...] [...]ome being for Josephus, Arseniús being now dead, and others being against him, be [...] [...] [...] as they prttended, Arsenius had excommunicated him in his life time for invad [...] [...] [...] See while he was alive; and the Parties thus contesting one with another, Josephus [...] for peace sake, and partly because he was old and infirm, once more retired, and [...] succeeded by Gregorius Cyprius, who it seems understood the learned Greek well; but [...] ther was the Schism suddenly quieted in his time, though I suppose this famous Manusc [...] had been written under some of the Successors of Arsenius, to appease it; and I de [...] [...] Mr. Hody and Mr. B. his Voucher, to tell us how the People of Constantinople came to [...] pose so many Successors of Arsenius, if according to the Greek Manuscript, Neither t [...] justly deprived Bishop, nor the Church ever made a separation from his Successor, if he were [...] Heretick. What! Are they the first that did so? No, both these Gentlemen and t [...] Graeculus esuriens know better; but however as he thought it might serve a turn the [...] [...] write his Book, so they thought it might serve a turn now to Print it, and commend [...] an excellent Tract, though it is really a trifling piece, written with little skill, and le [...] [...] cerity, by an Author of little Antiquity and Authority, in a most ignorant and co [...] [...] Age, when it was counted a mighty thing in a Greek Clergy-man to understand the lear [...] Greek, and the Writings of their Fathers that was written in it; and when in [...] Greek Church it-self there was a great corruption in Doctrine, Worship and Discipline [...] well as in the Morals both of the Laity and Clergy; the latter whereof were of such [...] Spirits as to court and comply with every base Ʋsu [...]per to get Preferment, and [...] every thing to his and their Covetousness and Ambition, but their quarrels with the [...] and the Possessions of their Church.

Thus much I have thought fit to say in reference to the Baroccian Manu [...]cript, of [...] I was bound to take some notice in behalf of my own Book; which is taken out of best and purest Antiquity, that calls for much more deference and veneration fro [...] than the thing Collected by the Author of that Tract: And if our New Bishops hav [...] better Authorities than those they find in him to justifie and support them, The Go [...] Peace and Ʋnity be mercifull unto them, and give them Grace to consider, that numbers and str [...] [...] cannot alter the Primitive notion of Schism, nor change the sinfull and direfull nature thereo [...].

September 29. 1691.