Bishops we say there have been always, even as long as the Church of Christ itself hath been. The Apostles who planted it, did themselves rule as bishops over it; neither could they so well have kept things in order during their own times, but that episcopal authority was given them from above, to exercise far and wide over all other guides and pastors of God’s Church. The Church indeed for a time continued without bishops by restraint, every where established in Christian cities. But shall we thereby conclude that the Church hath no use of them, that without them it may stand and flourish? No, the cause wherefore they were so soon universally appointed was, for that it plainly appeared that without them the Church could not have continued long. It was by the special providence of God no doubt so disposed, that the evil whereof this did serve for remedy might first be felt, and so the reverend authority of bishops be made by so much the more effectual, when our general experience had taught men what it was for churches to want them. Good laws are never esteemed so good, nor acknowledged so necessary, as when precedent crimes are as seeds out of which they grow. Episcopal authority was even in a manner sanctified unto the Church of Christ by that little better [bitter?]⁵ experience which it first had of the pestilent evil of schisms. Again, when this very thing was proposed as a remedy, yet a more suspicious and fearful acceptance it must needs have found, if the selfsame provident wisdom of Almighty God had not also given beforehand sufficient trial thereof in the regiment of Jerusalem, a mother church, which having received the same order even at the first, was by it most peaceably governed, when other churches without it had trouble. So that by all means the necessary use of episcopal government is confirmed, yea strengthened it is and ratified, even by the not establishment thereof in all churches every where at the first.

(2.) When they further dispute⁶, “That if any such thing were needful, Christ would in Scripture have set down particular statutes and laws, appointing that bishops should be made, and prescribing in what order, even as the law doth for all kind of officers which were needful in the Jewish regiment;” might not a man that would bend his wit to maintain the fury of the Petrobrusian heretics⁷, in pulling down oratories, use the selfsame argument with as much countenance of reason? “If it were needful that we should assemble ourselves in churches, would that God which taught the Jews so exactly the frame of their sumptuous temple, leave us no particular instructions in writing, no not so much as which way to lay any one stone?” Surely such kind of argumentation doth not so strengthen the sinews of their cause, as weaken the credit of their judgment which are led therewith.

(3.) And whereas thirdly, in disproof [of]⁸ that use⁸ which episcopal authority hath in judgment of spiritual causes, they bring forth the verdict of Cyprian, who saith⁹, that “equity requireth every man’s cause to be heard, where the fault he was charged with was committed, forasmuch as there they may have both accusers and witnesses in the cause;” this argument grounding itself on principles no less true in civil than in ecclesiastical causes, unless it be qualified with some exceptions or limitations, overturneth the highest tribunal seats both in Church and commonwealth; it taketh utterly away all appeals; it secretly condemneth even the blessed Apostle himself¹⁰, as having transgressed the law of equity, by his appeal from the court of Judæa unto those higher which were in Rome. The generality of such kind of axioms deceiveth, unless it be construed with such cautions as the matter whereunto they are appliable doth require. An usual and ordinary transportation of causes out of Africa into Italy, out of one kingdom into another, as discontented persons list, which was the thing that Cyprian disalloweth, may be unequal and unmeet; and yet not therefore a thing unnecessary to have the courts erected in higher places, and judgment committed unto greater persons, to whom the meaner may bring their causes either by way of appeal or otherwise, to be determined according to the order of justice; which hath been always observed every where in civil states, and is no less requisite also for the state of the Church of God. The reasons which teach it to be expedient for the one, will shew it to be for the other at leastwise not unnecessary.

Inequality of pastors is an ordinance both divine and profitable: their exceptions against it in these two respects we have shewed to be altogether causeless, unreasonable, and unjust.

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Footnotes

1. “The bishop which Cyprian speaketh of, is nothing else but such as we call pastor, or as the common name with us is, parson, and his church whereof he is bishop is neither diocess nor province, but a congregation which met together in one place, and to be taught of one man.” T. C. lib. i. p. 99, 100. [76. ap. Whitg. Def. 360.] ↩

2. [“Judicio Dei ac plebis favore, ad officium Sacerdotii et Episcopatus gradum adhuc neophytus, et ut putabatur, novellus electus est … Humiliter ille secessit, antiquioribus cedens, et indignum se titulo tanti honoris existimans.” Pont. Vit. S. Cypr. § 5. p. cxxxvii. ed. Baluz.] ↩

3. [Ibid. § 6. cxxxviii. “Viderint pietatis antistites, seu quos ad officium boni operis instruxit ipsius ordinis disciplina, seu quos sacramenti religio communis ad obsequium exhibendæ religionis arctavit. Cyprianum de suo talem accepit cathedra, non fecit.”] ↩

4. “Etsi fratres pro dilectione sua cupidi sunt ad conveniendum et visitandum confessores bonos, quos illustravit jam gloriosis initiis divina dignatio, tamen caute hoc, et non glomeratim nec per multitudinem simul junctam, puto esse faciendum: ne ex hoc ipso invidia concitetur, et introeundi aditus denegetur, et cum insatiabiles multum [totum] volumus, totum perdamus: consulite ergo et providete ut cum temperamento hoc agi tutius possit; ita ut presbyteri quoque, qui illic apud confessores offerunt, singuli cum singulis diaconis per vices alternent, quia et mutatio personarum, et vicissitudo convenientium minuit invidiam.” Ep. 5. [4. p. 9. ed. Baluz.] ↩

5. g bitter, so edd. 1676, 1682. ↩

6. [As T. C. does, in reply to a paper of Jewel’s, ap. Whitg. Def. 428.] ↩

7. [About ad 1147. vid. Pet. Cluniacens. Epist. ap. Bibl. Patr. Colon. t. xii. pars 2. p. 206 H. “Templorum vel ecclesiarum fabricam fieri non debere, factas insuper subrui oportere, nec esse necessaria Christianis sacra loca ad orandum, quoniam æque in taberna et in ecclesia, in foro et in templo, ante altare vel ante stabulum invocatus Deus audit, et eos qui merentur exaudit.” Fleury, E. H. lxix. 24. t. xiv. 600.] ↩

8. h So edd. 1676, 1682. ↩ ↩²

9. Cypr. lib. i. Ep. 3. [al. 59. c. 10. vid. supr. c. xii. p. 215, note 1.] ↩

10. Acts xxv. 11. ↩