XIV. The next thing which they upbraid us with, is the difference between that inequality of pastors which hath been of old, and which now is. For at length they grant, that “the superiority of bishops and of archbishops is somewhat ancient, but no such kind of superiority as ours have.” By the laws of our discipline a bishop may ordain without asking the people’s consent, a bishop may excommunicate and release alone, a bishop may imprison, a bishop may bear civil office in the realm, a bishop may be a counsellor of state; these things ancient bishops neither did nor might do. Be it granted that ordinarily neither in elections nor deprivations, neither in excommunicating nor in releasing the excommunicate, in none of the weighty affairs of government, bishops of old were wont to do any thing without consultation with their clergy and consent of the people under them. Be it granted that the same bishops did neither touch any man with corporal punishment, nor meddle with secular affairs and offices, the whole clergy of God being then tied by the strict and severe canons of the Church to use no other than ghostly power, to attend no other business than heavenly. Tarquinius was in the Roman commonwealth deservedly hated, of whose unorderly proceedings the history1 speaketh thus: “Hic regum primus traditum a prioribus morem de omnibus senatum consulendi solvit; domesticis consiliis rempub. administravit; bellum, pacem, fœdera, societates, per seipsum, cum quibus voluit, injussu populi ac senatus, fecit diremitque.” Against bishops the like is objected, “That they are invaders of other men’s rights, and by intolerable usurpation take upon them to do that alone, wherein ancient laws have appointed that others, not they only, should bear sway.”
Let the case of bishops be put, not in such sort as it is, but even as their very heaviest adversaries would devise it. Suppose that bishops at the first had encroached upon the Church; that by sleights and cunning practices they had appropriated ecclesiastical, as Augustus did imperial power; that they had taken the advantage of men’s inclinable affections, which did not suffer them for revenue’s2 sake to be suspected of ambition; that in the meanwhile their usurpation had gone forward by certain easy and unsensible degrees; that being not discerned in the growth, when it was thus far grown as we now see it hath proceeded, the world at length perceiving there was just cause of complaint, but no place of remedy left, had assented unto it by a general secret agreement to bear it now as a helpless evil; all this supposed for certain and true, yet surely a thing of this nature, as for the superior to do that alone unto which of right the consent of some other inferiors should have been required by them; though it had an indirect entrance at the first, must needs, through continuance of so many ages as this hath stood, be made now a thing more natural to the Church, than that it should be oppressed with the mention of contrary orders worn so many ages since quite and clean out of ure.
But with bishops the case is otherwise; for in doing that by themselves which others together with them have been accustomed to do, they do not any thing but that whereunto they have been upon just occasions authorized by orderly means. All things natural have in them naturally more or less the power of providing for their own safety: and as each particular man hath this power, so every politic society of men must needs have the same, that thereby the whole may provide for the good of all parts therein. For other benefit we have not any by sorting ourselves into politic societies, saving only that by this mean each part hath that relief which the virtue of the whole is able to yield it. The Church therefore being a politic society or body, cannot possibly want the power of providing for itself; and the chiefest part of that power consisteth in the authority of making laws. Now forasmuch as corporations are perpetual, the laws of the ancienter Church cannot choose but bind the latter, while they are in force. But we must note withal, that because the body of the Church continueth the same, it hath the same authority still, and may abrogate old laws, or make new, as need shall require. Wherefore vainly are the ancient canons and constitutions objected as laws, when once they are either let secretly to die by disusage, or are openly abrogated by contrary laws.
The ancient3 had cause to do no otherwise than they did; and yet so strictly they judged not themselves in conscience bound to observe those orders, but that in sundry cases they easily dispensed therewith, which I suppose they would never have done, had they esteemed them as things whereunto everlasting, immutable, and undispensable observation did belong. The bishop usually promoted none which were not first allowed as fit, by conference had with the rest of his clergy and with the people: notwithstanding, in the case of Aurelius4, St. Cyprian did otherwise. In matters of deliberation and counsel, for disposing of that which belongeth generally to the whole body of the Church, or which being more particular, is nevertheless of so great consequence, that it needeth the force of many judgments conferred; in such things the common saying must necessarily take place, “An eye cannot see that which eyes can5.” As for clerical ordinations, there are no such reasons alleged against the order which is, but that it may be esteemed as good in every respect as that which hath been; and in some considerations better; at leastwise (which is sufficient to our purpose) it may be held in the Church of Christ without transgressing any law, either ancient or late, divine or human, which we ought to observe and keep.