1 Cor. 5. 12. and assistants, which seeing they have power from God to reject or "receive accusations," and to "judge those that are 1 Tim 5.19. within" and of the fellowship, it is an idle imagination that some have imagined, to hold "the Church" hath not her judg- Mat.18.17. ment-seat, and power to censure her disobedient children. It hath ever been holden good divinity that the Church from Christ received power to censure and separate wilful offenders. Both, with the heathen man's separation, who might not so much as enter into the Church door, (which is the greater Acts 21.28. censure); and with the publican's separation, (which is the less) who might enter and pray in "the temple," but was Lu. 18. 10. avoided in common conversation, and in the fellowship of the private table, and therefore much more of the altar. Of which twain, the former the Apostle calleth "cutting off;" Gal. 5. 12. the latter, "abstaining from." The Primitive Church calleth the former excommunicatos, the latter abstentos. So that, to fancy no government, is an imagination. A government there is. Touching the form of which government many imaginations have lately been bred, in these our days especially. At 2 Thess, 3. the writing of this verse, it is certain that the government of Acts 2 42. Christian people consisted in two degrees only-of both which our Saviour Christ Himself was the Author: 1. of the Lu. 9. 1; Twelve, 2. of the Seventy; both which were over the people, in things pertaining to God. 10. 1. These two were, one superior to another, and not equal. And that the Apostles established an equality in the Clergy, is, I take it, an imagination. No man could perish in the "gainsaying of Korah" under the Gospel, which St. Jude [Jude ver. il.] saith they may, if there were not a superiority in the Clergy; for Korah's mutiny was, because he might not be equal to Aaron, appointed his superior by God. Which very humour, Nu. 16. 10. observe it who will, hath brought forth most part of the heresies since the time of the Gospel; that Korah might not be Aaron's equal. Now of these two orders, the Apostles have ever been reckoned the superior to the other, till our times; as having, even under our Saviour Christ, a power to Lu. 9. 49. forbid others. And after, exercising the same power; Silas, one of the Seventy, receiving a commandment, evrov, from Acts 15.30. St. Paul an Apostle to come unto him. As the auditory had 1 Cor. 14. 32; 17. 15. SERM. their "room" by themselves, so among the persons ecclesiastical II. the Apostles had a higher seat, as may be gathered; and in the very place itself were distinguished. Now in the place of the Twelve, succeeded Bishops; and in the place of the Seventy, Presbyteri, Priests or Ministers, and that by the Lib. 3. c. 3. judgment of Irenæus, who lived immediately upon the Apostles' age, of Tertullian, of St. Augustine. And this, till of late, was thought the form of fellowship, and never other imagined. De Pre script. [32.] In Ps. 44. [82.] But not long since, some have fancied another, that should consist of Lay-elders, Pastors, and Doctors, and whether of Deacons too is not fully agreed yet. Which device is pressed now upon our Church, not as a form of more convenience than that it hath, but as one absolutely necessary, and of our Saviour Christ's own only institution, which maketh it the less [2 Pet. 3. sufferable. I know that by virtue of St. Peter's wrench before 16.] mentioned some places may be brought which may seem to give it colour, but that is if we allow those new glossed senses. But if we seek what senses the Primitive Church gave of them, not one of them but will suffer it to fall to the ground. And finding it a stranger to them, I know not how to term it but an imagination. To touch it briefly in a word. 4. 11, If we ask Scripture for it, and where we may find it, they pass by the two most evident places in appearance, the twelfth [1 Cor. 12 chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the twenty28; Eph. eighth verse, because there are no Pastors; and the fourth Rom. 12 chapter of Ephesians, the eleventh verse, because there are no 6, 7, 8.] Lay-elders; and lay it upon the twelfth chapter of Romans, the sixth, seventh, and eighth verses. And there, by a strange and unheard of exposition, they will find them all four; but not except that exposition be allowed them, nor if the ancient writers may be heard, what the true sense of it is. There is no Epistle on which so many of them have written. Six only I will name: Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ambrose, Hierome, Ecumenius; all which have entreated of it. Let their commentaries be looked on upon that place. Not one of them applieth it to the Church government—which by any likelihood cannot be imagined but they would, if it were the main place for it—or findeth those offices in those words, which they in good earnest tell us of, as that Alákovov in the seventh verse is not the deacon, but the distributer in the eighth verse is he; or that qui miseretur is Latin for a widow, or such like. 17. But if jointly they find them not, let us see how severally they warrant their offices. 1. Of Elders, some both preach and govern, some govern only; and there they imagine they have found their Lay-clder, by implication that there are 1 Tim. 5. Presbyteri that labour not in preaching. Hear St. Chrysostom on the first epistle of the Corinthians, the first chapter and seventeenth verse. You shall find a far other sense: Evangelizare, [Hom. 3.] saith he, perpaucorum est; baptizare autem cujuslibet, modo fungatur Sacerdotio. And a little after: Siquidem Presbyteris quidem qui simpliciores sunt hoc munus tradimus ut baptizent, verbum autem ut doceant non nisi Sapientioribus, hic sapientia est [éxei yóp [et] lubor. Quamobrem et alibi inquit: Qui bene præsunt Presby- πόνος καὶ ὁ teri, duplici honore digni sunt, maxime qui laborant in verbo, idpa's.] Whereby it is plain that in St. Chrysostom's time it was not reckoned meet that every one that ministered the Sacraments, should also preach. That the meaner sort dealt with the Baptizing, and they only that were of the more wise sort with the word. And to prove it should thus be, he citeth this their Scripture, as if in the Apostles' days the like had been thought wisdom. But as for lay-elders, he nor any that writeth on it can find in this verse; nor any such in all antiquity ever understood by the name of Presbyter. The elders preachers they divide into pastors and doctors, and these they sever in function, limiting the one to his exhortation only, the other to point of doctrine only. An imagination which none of the Fathers would ever acknowledge; search their writings. St. Chrysostom upon this verse (Ephesians 4. 11.) taketh them both for one, and maketh no difference. So St. Hierome in both his Commentaries upon that Epistle: Omnis enim pastor doctor est. But St. Augustine may serve for all, to shew how unknown this was then. Who being purposely written to by Paulinus to assign a difference between them, thus answereth: Pastores autem et Doctores, quos maxime ut discerneremus voluisti, eosdem puto esse, sicut et tibi visum est, ut non alios Pastores, alios Doctores intelligeremus, &c. Hos enim sicut unum aliquid duobus nominibus complexus est. ἐστιν ὁ Aug. Ep. 59. [al. 149, c. 11.] ad Paulinum. F SERM. Apol. 2. nem.] De 17.] Ser. 6. de lapsis. [Ed. Ba III. Lastly, for their deacons too: that they should be men of occupation and trade to deal with the Church-stock and care of the poor only, is also I doubt not an imagination; seeing all antiquity hath ever reckoned of that calling as of a step or degree to the ministry, out of the first of Timothy, the third chapter, and thirteenth verse. And that the Church's practice hath been always to employ them in other parts and functions besides that, is plain by Justin Martyr who lived in the Apostles' days, namely, to distribute the Communion; by Tertullian, to baptize; by Cyprian and divers others. So that to conclude, these are imaginations touching "the Apostles' fellowship," howsoever a great number of deceived people bow down to them and worship them. luz.p.189.] Imaginations touching the "breaking of bread;" which is Imagina- joined to that "fellowship" as the chiefest badge of that "fellowtions ship." For by it is gathered the Communion, as may be the gathered by conference with the twentieth chapter of the of bread." Acts, the seventh verse, and as the Syrian text translateth touching "breaking it. For that as by the other Sacrament in the verse immediately going before they are "received into the body of the Church," so by this they are made to "drink of the Spirit," 1 Cor. 12. and so perfected in the highest mystery of this society. 13. [Comp. Levit. 3. 3; 7.15.] Concerning which, as the Church of Rome hath her imaginations; first, in that she many times celebrateth this mystery sine fractione, 'without any breaking' at all. Whereas, as heretofore hath been shewed out of the tenth chapter of the first of Corinthians, the eighteenth verse, it is of the nature of an Eucharist or peace-offering; which was never offered but it was eaten, that both there might be a representation of the memory of that sacrifice, and together an application to each person by partaking it. And secondly, in that she hath indeed no "breaking of bread" at all. For it being broken ever after it is consecrated, there is with them no bread remaining to break; and the body of Christ is now impassible, and cannot be broken; so that they are fain to say they break accidents, and indeed they well know not what. Contrary to St. Luke here, who calleth it fractionem panis, and to St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. who saith, Panis quem frangimus. As these are their imaginations, so we want not ours. For many among us fancy only a Sacrament in this action, and look strange at the men 16. tion of a sacrifice; whereas we not only use it as a nourishment spiritual, as that it is too, but as a mean also to renew a "covenant" with God by virtue of that "sacrifice," as the Ps. 50. 5. Psalmist speaketh. So our Saviour Christ in the institution. telleth us, in the twenty-second chapter of Luke and twentieth verse, and the Apostle, in the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews and tenth verse. And the old writers use no less the word sacrifice than Sacrament, altar than table, offer than cat; but both indifferently, to shew there is both. And again too, that to a many with us it is indeed so fractio panis, as it is that only and nothing beside; whereas the "bread which we break is the partaking of Christ's" true 1 Cor. 10. "body"-and not of a sign, figure, or remembrance of it. For the Church hath ever believed a true fruition of the true body of Christ in that Sacrament. Further, as heretofore hath been made plain, it is an imagi 16. nation to think that this "breaking of bread" can be severed Acts 2. 46. from the other, which is Esay's breaking of "bread to the Isa. 58.7. needy." Whereby as in the former Christ communicateth Himself with us, so we in this latter communicate ourselves with our poor brethren, that so there may be a perfect communion. For both in the sacrifice which was the figure of it it was a matter of commandment, insomuch as the poorest Deut. 16. were not exempt from God's offerings; and our Saviour Lu. 21. 4. Christ's practice was, at this feast, to command somewhat "to Joh. 13. 29. be given to the poor." And last of all the agape or lovefeasts of the Christians for relief of the poor, do most plainly express that I mean. In place of which, when they after proved inconvenient, succeeded the Christian offertory. And lastly, whereas we continue in the doctrine and prayers of the Church, we do many times discontinue this action a whole year together. These long intermissions-so that if it be panis annuus, once a-year received, we think our duty discharged-are also, no doubt, a second imagination in our common practice. For sure we should continue also in this part and the frequenting of it, if not so often as the Primitive Church did-which either thrice in the week, or at the furthest once, did communicate-yet as often as the Church doth celebrate; which, I think, should do better to celebrate more often. And those exceptions which commonly we allege to 10. |