VII.11. Their arguments in disgrace of regiment by Bishops, as being a mere invention of man, and not found in Scripture, answered.

XI. That inequality of pastors is a mere human invention, a thing not found in the word of God, they prove thus:

i. “All the places of Scripture where the word Bishop is used, or any other derived of that name, signify an oversight in respect of some particular congregation only, and never in regard of pastors committed unto his oversight. For which cause the names of bishops, and presbyters, or pastoral elders, are used indifferently, to signify one and the selfsame thing. Which so indifferent and common use of these words for one and the selfsame office, so constantly and perpetually in all places¹, declareth that the word Bishop in the Apostles’ writing importeth not a pastor of higher power and authority over other pastors.”

ii. “All pastors are called to their office by the same means of proceeding; the Scripture maketh no difference in the manner of their trial, election, ordination: which proveth their office and power to be by Scripture all one.”

iii. “The Apostles were all of equal power, and all pastors do alike succeed the Apostles in their ministry and power, the commission and authority whereby they succeed being in Scripture but one and the same that was committed to the Apostles, without any difference of committing to one pastor more, or to another less².”

iv. “The power of the censures and keys of the Church, and of ordaining and ordering ministers (in which two points especially this superiority is challenged), is not committed to any one pastor of the Church more than to another; but the same is committed as a thing to be carried equally in the guidance of the Church. Whereby it appeareth, that Scripture maketh all pastors, not only in the ministry of the word and sacraments, but also in all ecclesiastical jurisdiction and authority, equal.”

v. “The council of Nice³ doth attribute this difference, not unto any ordination of God, but to an ancient custom used in former times, which judgment is also followed afterwards by other councils: Concil. Antioch. cap. 9⁴.”

vi. Upon these premises, their summary collection and conclusion is, “That the ministry of the Gospel, and the functions thereof, ought to be from heaven and of God (John i. 23); that if they be of God, and from heaven, then are they set down in the word of God⁵; that if they be not in the word of God, (as by the premises it doth appear, they say, that our kind of bishops are not,) it followeth, they are invented by the brain of men, and are of the earth, and that consequently they can do no good in the Church of Christ, but harm.”

Our answer hereunto is, first, that their proofs are unavailable to shew that Scripture affordeth no evidence for the inequality of pastors: Secondly, that albeit the Scripture did no way insinuate the same to be God’s ordinance, and the Apostles to have brought it in, albeit the Church were acknowledged by all men to have been the first beginner thereof a long time after the Apostles were gone; yet is not the authority of bishops hereby disannulled, it is not hereby proved unfit or unprofitable for the Church.

First, that the word of God doth acknowledge no inequality of power amongst pastors of the Church, neither doth it appear by the signification of this word bishop, nor by the indifferent use thereof.

For concerning signification, first it is clearly untrue, that no other thing is thereby signified, but only an oversight in respect of a particular church and congregation. For, I beseech you, of what parish or particular congregation was Matthias bishop? his office Scripture doth term episcopal⁶: which being no other than was common unto all the Apostles of Christ, forasmuch as in that number there is not any to whom the oversight of many pastors did not belong by force and virtue of that office; it followeth that the very word doth sometimes even in Scripture signify an oversight, such as includeth charge over pastors themselves.

And if we look to the use of the word, being applied with reference unto some one church, as Ephesus, Philippi, and such like, albeit the guides of those churches be interchangeably in Scripture termed sometime bishops, sometime presbyters, to signify men having oversight and charge, without relation at all unto other than the Christian laity alone; yet this doth not hinder, but that Scripture may in some place have other names, whereby certain of those presbyters or bishops are noted to have the oversight and charge of pastors, as out of all peradventure they had whom St. John doth entitle angels⁷.

Secondly, as for those things which the Apostle hath set down concerning trial, election, and ordination of pastors, that he maketh no difference in the manner of their calling, this also is but a silly argument to prove their office and their power equal by the Scripture. The form of admitting each sort unto their offices, needed no particular instruction: there was no fear, but that such matters of course would easily enough be observed. The Apostle therefore toucheth those things wherein judgment, wisdom and conscience is required, he carefully admonisheth of what quality ecclesiastical persons should be, that their dealing might not be scandalous in the Church. And forasmuch as those things are general, we see that of deacons there are delivered in a manner the selfsame precepts which are given concerning pastors, so far as concerneth their trial, election, and ordination. Yet who doth hereby collect that Scripture maketh deacons and pastors equal?

If notwithstanding it be yet demanded, “Wherefore he which teacheth what kind of persons deacons and presbyters should be, hath nothing in particular about the quality of chief presbyters, whom we call bishops?” I answer briefly, that there it was no fit place for any such discourse to be made, inasmuch as the Apostle wrote unto Timothy and Titus, who having by commission episcopal authority, were to exercise the same in ordaining, not bishops (the apostles themselves yet living, and retaining that power in their own hands) but presbyters, such as the apostles at the first did create throughout all churches. Bishops by restraint (only James at Jerusalem excepted) were not yet in being.

Thirdly, about equality amongst the apostles there is by us no controversy moved. If in the rooms of the apostles, which were of equal authority, all pastors do by Scripture succeed alike, where shall we find a commission in Scripture which they speak of, which appointed all to succeed in the selfsame equality of power, except that commission which doth authorize to preach and baptize should be alleged, which maketh nothing to the purpose, for in such things all pastors are still equal. We must, I fear me, wait very long before any other will be shewed. For howsoever the Apostles were equals amongst themselves, all other pastors were not equals with the Apostles while they lived, neither are they any where appointed to be afterward each other’s equal. Apostles had, as we know, authority over all such as were no Apostles; by force of which their authority they might both command and judge. It was for the singular good and benefit of those disciples whom Christ left behind him, and of the pastors which were afterwards chosen; for the great good, I say, of all sorts, that the Apostles were in power above them. Every day brought forth somewhat wherein they saw by experience, how much it stood them in stead to be under controlment of those superiors and higher governors of God’s house. Was it a thing so behoveful that pastors should be 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.

Fourthly, 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 saith⁸, “Against a presbyter receive thou no accusation, saving under two or three witnesses;” Scripture which likewise hath said to the other⁹, “For this very cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest redress the things that remain, and shouldest 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.

Fifthly, 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 preeminence, but no syllable whereby any man should conjecture that those fathers did not honour [did honour?] the superiority which bishops had over other pastors only upon ancient custom, and not as a true apostolical, heavenly, and divine ordinance.

Sixthly, 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 should give over this opinion, and embrace that other conjecture which so many have thought good to follow¹⁰, 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 into 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 the functions thereof ought¹¹ 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 this¹², “By what authority doest 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 heaven, or of men?” Hereat they paused, secretly disputing within themselves, “If we shall 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,” he giveth clear 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 loth to say that John had his calling from men, the reason was not because they thought that so John should not have had 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 Messias, 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 if the rule of well-doing be more ample than the Scripture¹³: 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 term the law of nature¹⁴, even as the evangelist doth the law of Scripture¹⁵, δικαίωμα του̑ Θεου̑, 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 their sounder and better advised sentence. “That which the holy Fathers,” saith Zanchius¹⁶, “have by common consent without contradiction of Scripture received, for my part I neither will nor dare with good conscience disallow. And 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 making mention¹⁷ even of primates that have authority 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 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 afterwards in such consideration brought in and agreed upon as is pretended; yet could not this be a just or lawful exception against it.

---

← In what respects episcopal regiment is gains · Contents · Their arguments to prove there was no necess →

Footnotes

1. Titus i. 5; 1 Tim. iii. 5; Phil. i. 1; 1 Pet. v. 1, 2. [See this argument urged, T.C. i. 79. al. 103. ii. 515, &c. Comp. Calvin, Instit. iv. 3, 8.] ↩

2. [Marsilius of Padua, [a Franciscan canonist, who defended the claims of the Emperor, Louis of Bavaria, against Pope John XXII. † 1328.] Def. Pacis, pars ii. c. xvi. (vid. infra, § 8. note.) “Ostendemus, primum, Apostolorum neminem ad alios habuisse præeminentiam in essentiali dignitate sacerdotali… Ex quibus etiam per necessitatem deducemus, episcoporum sibi successorum neminem singulariter auctoritatem seu potestatem aliquam… in reliquos sibi coepiscopos seu compresbyteros habere.” p. 241.] ↩

3. [Can. 6, 7.] ↩

4. [Vid. supr. c. viii. 12. p. 199, note 1.] ↩

5. T. C. lib. i. p. 62, [al. 83. Whitgift’s Defence, 303.] “So that it appeareth that the ministry of the Gospel, and the functions thereof ought to be from heaven: from heaven, I say, and heavenly, because although it be executed by earthly men, and ministers are chosen also by men like unto themselves, yet because it is done by the word and institution of God, it may well be accounted to come from heaven and from God.” ↩

6. Acts i. 20. ↩

7. Rev. ii. 1. ↩

8. 1 Tim. v. 19. ↩

9. Tit. i. 5. ↩

10. They of Walden. Æn. Syl. [Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Pius II. 1458-1463] Hist. Bohem. [c. 35. (speaking of John Huss and his partisans in the university of Prague); “Proruperunt in blasphemias, et cum aliquibus ignavis fortasse ac vitiosis maledicere possent, in omnes latrare sacerdotes cœpere; et ab ecclesia Catholica recedentes, impiam Valdensium sectam atque insaniam amplexi sunt. Hujus pestiferæ et jampridem damnatæ factionis dogmata sunt, Romanum præsulem reliquis episcopis parem esse; inter sacerdotes nullum discrimen; presbyterum non dignitatem sed vitæ meritum efficere potiorem.” p. 141. ap. Dubravium, Rerum Bohem. Scriptores, Hanoviæ, 1602.] Marsilius Defens. Pac. [“Marsilii Menandrini Patavini, Defensor Pacis ad Imp. Ludovic. iv. adversus usurpatam Rom. Pontif. Jurisdict.” circ. ad 1324. [v. Fleury, H. E. l. 93. 19, 39.] Dictio seu Pars ii. c. xv. “Post Apostolorum tempora numero sacerdotum notabiliter aucto, ad scandalum et schisma evitandum elegerunt sacerdotes unum ex ipsis, qui alios dirigeret et ordinaret quantum ad ecclesiasticum officium et servitium exercendum, et oblata distribuendum, ac reliqua disponendum convenientiori modo… Hic ex posteriorum consuetudine retinuit sibi soli nomen episcopi… Jam dicta electio seu institutio per hominem sic electo nihil amplioris meriti seu sacerdotalis auctoritatis… . tribuit, sed solum ordinationis œconomicæ in domo Dei seu templo potestatem quandam, alios sacerdotes, diaconos, et officiales reliquos regulandi et ordinandi.” ap. Goldastum, Tract. de Monarch. S. Rom. Imp. t. ii. p. 240. Francof. 1621.] Nicl. [Wicl. ap.] Thom. Wald. [Thomas Netter, of Walden in Essex, † 1431, Provincial of the Carmelites: employed by Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V.] c. 1. lib. ii. art. 3. c. 60. [quoting Wicl. Trialog. lib. i. c. 10. for the following sentiment; “Unum audacter assero; quod in primitiva ecclesia ut tempore Pauli suffecerunt duo ordines clericorum, scil. sacerdos atque diaconus. Secundo dico quod in tempore Apostoli idem fuit presbyter ac episcopus … . Tunc enim non fuit inventa distinctio papæ, et cardinalium, patriarcharum, et archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, et archidiaconorum, officialium, et decanorum, cum cæteris officiariis … Certum videtur quod superbia Cæsarea hos gradus et ordines adinvenit. Si enim fuissent necessarii ecclesiæ, Christus et ejus Apostoli non in expressione eorum ac detentione (sic) officii reticerent.” p. 326. Venet. 1571. In the edition of Wicliffe, 1525, the passage occurs lib. iv. c. 15. fol. 124.] Calvin. Com. in 1. ad Tit. [v. 7. “Locus hic abunde docet, nullum esse presbyteri et episcopi discrimen: quia nunc secundo nomine promiscue appellat quos prius vocavit presbyteros… Hinc perspicere licet, quanto plus delatum hominum placitis fuerit quam decebat, quia abrogato Sp. Sancti sermone, usus hominum arbitrio inductus prævaluit. Mihi quidem non displicet quod statim ab ecclesiæ primordiis receptum fuit ut singula episcoporum collegia unum aliquem moderatorem habeant: verum nomen officii quod Deus in commune omnibus dederat in unum solum transferri, reliquis spoliatis, et injurium est et absurdum. Deinde sic pervertere Sp. Sancti linguam, ut nobis eædem voces aliter quam voluerit significent, nimis profanæ audaciæ est.” p. 537. ed. Genev. 1600.] Bullinger, (1504-1575.) Decad. v. Serm. 3. [p. 296. Tigur. 1577. “Non ita multis post mortem Apostolorum sæculis visa est in ecclesia longe alia hierarchia quam fuerat ab initio. Quamvis principia illa videantur tolerabiliora fuisse quam sint hodie istius ordinis omnia… In qualibet urbe et regione præstantissimus quisque cæteris præponebatur. Ejus functio erat superintendere presbyteris et universo gregi. Non habebat … in collegas vel presbyteros dominium, sed sicut consul in senatu partes habet interrogandi colligendique suffragia, leges item ac jura tuendi, ac curandi ne subnascantur inter senatores factiones; ita non aliud in ecclesia episcopo officium fuit: per cætera, communia habuit cum sacerdotibus. Nisi vero longius processisset consequentibus temporibus sacerdotum audacia, et episcoporum ambitio, ne verbo quidem reclamaremus.”] Juel. Def. Apol. part. 2. c. 9. di. 1. [Harding, in the course of an argument for tradition, had remarked, that “they which denied the distinction of a bishop and a priest were condemned of heresy.” (p. 196.) Jewel replies, (p. 202,) “What meant M. Harding here to come in with the difference between priests and bishops? Thinketh he that priests and bishops hold only by tradition? Or is it so horrible an heresy as he maketh it, to say that by the Scriptures of God a bishop and a priest are all one? Or knoweth he how far, and unto whom, he reacheth the name of an heretic?” He then proceeds to quote S. Chrysostom, S. Jerome, &c. and concludes, “All these and other mo holy Fathers, together with S. Paul the apostle, for thus saying, by M. Harding’s advice, must be holden for heretics.” ed. 1609.] Fulk. Answ. to the Test. Tit. 1. 5. [The Rhemish note on this verse is, “Though priests or bishops may be nominated and elected by the princes, people, or patrons of places, … yet they cannot be ordered and consecrated but by a bishop who was himself rightly ordered or consecrated before, as this Titus was by St. Paul… . . That the ordering of priests or imposition of hands to that purpose belongeth only to bishops… . . is plain by the apostolic practice set down in the Scriptures, viz. in the Acts and in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.” Fulke’s reply: “The people had their elections, moderated by the wisdom and gravity of the clergy, among whom, for order and seemly government, there was always one principal, to whom by long use of the church the name of bishop or superintendant hath been applied, which room Titus exercised in Crete, Timothy in Ephesus, and others in other places. Therefore although in the Scripture a bishop and an elder is of one authority in preaching of the word and administration of the sacraments, … yet in government by ancient use of speech he is only called a bishop, which is in the Scripture called προιστάμενος, προεστὼς, or ἡγούμενος, i. e. chief in government, to whom the ordination or consecration by imposition of hands was always principally committed. Not that imposition of hands belongeth only to him, for the rest of the elders that were present at ordination did lay on their hands, or else the bishop did lay on his hands in the name of the rest.” p. 718, 19. ed. 1633.] ↩

11. John i. 25. [ap. T. C. i. 62. al. 83.] ↩

12. Matt. xxi. 23. 25, 26. ↩

13. Lib. i. [c. 14.] ↩

14. Rom. i. 32. ↩

15. Luke i. 6. ↩

16. Confess. 169. [“Fides mea nititur cum primis et simpliciter verbo Dei, deinde nonnihil etiam communi totius veteris Catholicæ ecclesiæ consensu, si ille cum sacris literis non pugnet: credo enim quæ a piis Patribus in nomine Domini congregatis, communi omnium consensu, citra ullam sacrarum literarum contradictionem definita et recepta fuerunt, ea etiam (quanquam haud ejusdem cum sacris literis authoritatis) a Sp. Sancto esse. Hinc fit ut quæ sint ejusmodi, ea ego improbare nec velim nec audeam bona conscientia. Quid autem certius ex historiis, ex conciliis, et ex omnium Patrum scriptis, quam illos ministrorum ordines, de quibus diximus, communi totius Reip. Christianæ consensu in ecclesia constitutos receptosque fuisse? Quis autem ego sum, qui quod tota ecclesia approbavit improbem? Sed neque omnes nostri temporis docti viri improbare ausi sunt, quippe qui norunt et licuisse hæc ecclesiæ, et ex pietate atque ad optimos fines pro electorum ædificatione ea omnia fuisse perfecta et ordinata.” Quoted also by Bishop Cooper, Adm. 82, 83; by Saravia, De Divers. Min. Grad. c. 23; by Bancroft, Survey, &c. p. 108; and by Bridges, Def. of Gov. established, &c. p. 424. It was Zanchius’ deliberate opinion, in answer to an exception which Beza had taken to a clause in his (Zanchius’) draught of a Confession for theReformed Churches.] ↩

17. Epist. [ad Reg. Polon. (Non. Decemb. 1554.) p.] 190. [“Vetus quidem ecclesia patriarchias instituit, et singulis etiam provinciis quosdam attribuit primatus, ut hoc concordiæ vinculo melius inter se devincti manerent episcopi.” ed. Gen. 1617 = p. 140. ed. Gen. 1576.] ↩