subject unto pastors in the apostles' own times? And is there any commandment that this subjection should cease with them? And that the pastors of the succeeding ages should be all equals? No, no, this strange and absurd conceit of equality amongst pastors (the mother of schism and of confusion) is but a dream newly brought forth, and seen never in the church before. v. 19. 4. Power of censure and ordination appeareth even by Scripture marvellous probable to have been derived from Christ to his church, without this surmised equality in them to whom he hath committed the same. For I would know whether Timothy and Titus were commanded by St. Paul to do any thing more than Christ hath authorized pastors to do? And to the one it is Scripture which saith, "Against a 1 Tim. presbyter receive thou no accusation, saving under two or three witnesses:" Scripture which likewise hath said to the other, "For this very cause left. I thee in Crete, that thou Tit. i. 5 shouldst redress the things that remain, and shouldst ordain presbyters in every city, as I appointed thee." In the former place the power of censure is spoken of, and the power of ordination in the latter. Will they say, that every pastor there was equal to Timothy and Titus in these things? If they do, the apostle himself is against it, who saith, that of their two very persons he had made choice, and appointed in those places them for performances of those duties; whereas, if the same had belonged unto others no less than to them, and not principally unto them above others, it had been fit for the apostle accordingly to have directed his letters concerning these things in general unto them all which had equal interest in them; even as it had been likewise fit to have written those epistles in St. John's Revelation, unto whole ecclesiastical senates, rather than only unto the angels of each church, had not some one been above the rest in authority to order the affairs of the church. Scripture, therefore, doth most probably make for the inequality of pastors, even in all ecclesiastical affairs, and by very express mention, as well in censures as ordinations. 5. In the Nicene council there are confirmed certain prerogatives and dignities belonging unto primates or archbishops, and of them it is said, that the ancient custom of the church had been to give them such pre-eminence, but no syllable whereby any man should conjecture that those fathers Tit. i. 5. John i. 25. Matt. xxi. 23. did not honour the superiority which bishops had over other pastors only upon ancient custom, and not as true apostolical, heavenly, and Divine ordinance. 6. Now, although we should leave the general-received persuasion held from the first beginning, that the apostles themselves left bishops invested with power above other pastors; although, I say, we would give over this opinion, and embrace that other conjecture which so many have thought good to follow, and which myself did sometimes judge a great deal more probable than now I do, merely that after the apostles were deceased, churches did agree amongst themselves, for preservation of peace and order, to make one presbyter in each city, chief over the rest, and to translate unto him that power by force and virtue whereof the apostles, while they were alive, did preserve and uphold order in the church, exercising spiritual jurisdiction, partly by themselves, and partly by evangelists, because they could not always every where themselves be present: this order taken by the church itself (for so let us suppose, that the apostles did neither by word nor deed appoint it) were notwithstanding more warrantable, than that it should give place and be abrogated, because the ministry of the gospel, and functions thereof, ought to be from heaven. There came chief priests and elders unto our Saviour Christ as he was teaching in the temple, and the question which they moved unto him was this, "By what authority dost thou these things, and who gave thee this authority?" their question he repelled with a counter demand, "The baptism of John, whence was it, from beaven, or of men?" Hereat they paused, secretly disputing within themselves, "If we should say, From heaven, he will ask, Wherefore did ye not then believe him? and if we say, Of men, we fear the people, for all hold John a prophet.” What is it now which hereupon these men would infer? That all functions ecclesiastical ought in such sort to be from heaven, as the function of John was? No such matter here contained. Nay, doth not the contrary rather appear most plainly by that which is here set down? For when our Saviour doth ask concerning the baptism, that is to say, the whole spiritual function of John, whether it were from heaven or of men, a They of Walden, En. Syl. hist. Boem. Marsilius defens. pac. Nicl. Thomas Wald. c. 1. lib. ii. c. 60. Calvin. Com. in 1. ad Tit. Bullenger, Decad. 1. Ser. 3. Juel. Def. apol. par. 2. c. 9. Di. 1. Fulk. answ. to the Test. he giveth clearly to understand that men give authority unto some, and some God himself from heaven doth authorize. Nor is it said, or in any sort signified, that none have lawful authority which have it not in such manner as John, from heaven. Again, when the priests and elders were loath to say, that John had his calling "from men," the reason was not because they thought that so John should not have any good or lawful calling, but because they saw that by this means they should somewhat embase the calling of John; whom all men knew to have been sent from God, according to the manner of prophets by a mere celestial vocation. So that out of the evidence here alleged, these things we may directly conclude, first that whoso doth exercise any kind of function in the church, he cannot lawfully so do, except authority be given him: secondly, that if authority be not given him from men, as the authority of teaching was given unto scribes and pharisees, it must be given him from heaven, as authority was given unto Christ, Elias, John Baptist, and the prophets. For these two only ways there are to have authority. But a strange conclusion it is, God himself did from heaven authorize John to bear witness of the light, to prepare a way for the promised Messiah, to publish the nearness of the kingdom of God, to preach repentance, and to baptize (for by this part, which was in the function of John most noted, all the rest are together signified); therefore the church of God hath no power upon new occurrences to appoint, to ordain an ecclesiastical function, as Moses did upon Jethro's advice devise a civil. All things we grant which are in the church ought to be of God. But, forasmuch as they may be two ways accounted such; one, if they be of his own institution, and not of ours; another, if they be of ours, and yet with his approbation; this latter way there is no impediment, but that the same thing which is of men, may be also justly and truly said to be of God, the same thing from heaven which is from earth. Of all good things God himself is author, and consequently an approver of them. The rule to discern when the actions of men are good, when they are such as they ought to be, is more ample and large than the law which God hath set particular down in his holy word; the Scripture is but a part of that rule, as hath been heretofore at large declared. If therefore all things be of God which are well done; and if all things be well done, which are according to the rule of well-doing; and Lib. i. if the rule of well-doing be more ample than the Scripture; what necessity is there, that every thing which is of God should be set down in Holy Scripture? True it is in things of some one kind, true it is, that what we are now of necessity for ever bound to believe or observe in the special mysteries of salvation, Scripture must needs give notice of it unto the world; yet true it cannot be, touching all things that are of God. Sufficient it is for the proof of lawfulness in any thing done, if we can shew that God approveth it. And of his approbation, the evidence is sufficient, if either himself have by revelation in his word warranted it, or we by some discourse of reason find it good of itself, and unrepugnant unto any of his revealed laws and ordinances. Wherefore, injurious we are unto God, the author and giver of human capacity, judgment, and wit, when, because of some things wherein he precisely forbiddeth men to use their own inventions, we take occasion to disauthorize and disgrace the works which he doth produce by the hand either of nature or of grace in them. We offer contumely, even unto him, when we scornfully reject what we list, without any other exception than this, "The brain of man hath devised it." Whether we look into the church or commonweal, as well in the one as in the other, both the ordination of officers, and the very institution of their offices, may be truly derived from God, and approved of him, although they be not always of him in such sort as those things are which are in Scripture. Doth not the apostle Rom. term the law of nature even as the evangelist doth the law of Scripture, dikaiwμa тov Oɛov, God's own righteous ordinance? The law of nature then being his law, that must needs be of him which it hath directed men unto. Great odds, I grant, there is between things devised by men, although agreeable with the law of nature, and things in Scripture set down by the finger of the Holy Ghost. Howbeit the dignity of these is no hinderance, but that those be also reverently accounted of in their place. Thus much they very well saw, who although not living themselves under this kind of church polity, yet being, through some experience, more moderate, grave, and circumspect in their judgment, have given hereof Confess. their sounder and better-advised sentence. "That which the holy fathers (saith Zanchius) have by common consent, without contradiction of Scripture, received; for my part, I neither will, nor dare with good conscience disallow." And i. 32. Luke i. 6. 169. The argu what more certain, than that the ordering of ecclesiastical persons, one in authority above another, was received into the church by the common consent of the Christian world? What am I, that I should take upon me to control the whole church of Christ in that which is so well known to have been lawfully, religiously, and to notable purpose, instituted? Calvin maketh mention even of primates that have authority Epist. 190. above bishops: "It was (saith he) the institution of the ancient church, to the end that the bishops might, by this bond of concord, continue the faster linked amongst themselves." And, lest any man should think that as well he might allow the papacy itself, to prevent this he addeth, "Aliud est moderatum gerere et honorem, quam totum terrarum orbem immenso imperio complecti." These things standing as they do, we may conclude, that albeit the offices which bishops execute had been committed unto them only by the church, and that the superiority which they have over other pastors were not first by Christ himself given to the apostles, and from them descended to others, but afterward in such consideration brought in and agreed upon, as is pretended; yet could not this be a just or lawful exception against it. XII. But they will say, "There was no necessity of insti- ments to tuting bishops; the church might have stood well enough without them; they are as those superfluous things, which cessity of instituting neither while they continue do good, nor do harm when they bishops in are removed, because there is not any profitable use where- the church. unto they should serve. For first, in the primitive church their pastors were all equal, the bishops of those days were the very same which pastors of parish churches at this day are with us, no one at commandment or controlment by any other's authority amongst them. The church therefore may stand and flourish without bishops: if they be necessary, wherefore were they not sooner instituted? 2. Again, if any such thing were needful for the church, Christ would have set it down in Scripture, as he did all kind of officers needful for Jewish regiment. He which prescribed unto the Jews so particularly the least thing pertinent unto their temple, would not have left so weighty offices undetermined of in Scripture, but that he knew the church could never have any profitable Ep. 3. use of them. 3. Furthermore, it is the judgment of Cyprian, that equality requireth every man's cause to be heard, where the fault he is charged with was committed. And the reason prove there was no ne lib. i. |