canon; because they supposed it reached no further but to that church, or at least was agreeable to the manners and customs of those places. St. Paul appointed, that they should lay aside, every first day of the week, something for the poor: but he that shall choose to do this upon his weekly fasting-day, does as well; he does the same thing in another circumstance. St. Paul gave in order to Timothy, that a bishop should not be a novice; meaning in age, or in Christianity, or both: and yet St. Timothy himself was but a novice, being chosen bishop at the age of twenty-five years, as the ecclesiastical histories report; and Theodosius chose Nectarius, being but newly converted; and the people chose St. Ambrose to be bishop before he was baptized, and the election was confirmed by Valentinian. Fabianus, Cyprian, Nicolaus, Severus, Tarasius, were all novices or new Christians, when they were chosen bishops; and yet the church made no scruple of that canon of the apostles, because to break it was more for the edification of the church. And I remember that Cassander, speaking of the intolerable evils that fell upon the church by the injunction of single life to priests and bishops, says 'This law ought to have been relaxed, although it had been an apostolical canon.' Thus also it happened in the canon concerning the college of widows; "Let not a widow be chosen, under threescore years;" and yet Justinian' suffered one of forty years old to be chosen, and had no scruple, and he had no reproof: but that was no great matter; for the whole institution itself is now laid aside, and other appointments are established. And which is most of all, that decretal of the apostles which was made in full council, the most œcumenical council that ever was in Christendom, made at the request of the churches of the gentiles, and the inquiry of the Jews, forbidding 'to eat things strangled,' is no where observed in the western. churches of Christendom; and St. Austin affirmed, that if any man in his time made a scruple of eating strangled birds, every man did laugh at him. But of this I have given a full account*.

5. Now if those canons apostolical, which are recorded in Scripture, and concerning which we are sure that they

q Consult. art. 23.

⚫ Lib. 32. contra Faustum Manich. cap. 13.

Novel. 123. cap. 12, 13.
Lib. 2. chap. 2. rule 2.

had apostolical authority, be, without scruple, laid aside in all Christendom, some every where, some in some places,― it is evident that it is the sense of the whole catholic church, that the canons of the apostles, for order and external measures of government, had a limited sphere of activity, and bind not beyond their reason and convenience,—that is, as every church shall find them fitted to its own measures; and therefore this is much more true in such things, which are but pretendedly apostolical, whose name is borrowed, whose story is uncertain, whose matter is dubious, whose records are not authentic: and therefore whatever else can be pretended to be apostolical, and is of this contingent nature and variable matter, is evidently subject to the present authority of every church or Christian kingdom which is supreme in its own dominion.

6. But besides the reasonableness of the thing, we see it practised in all places without dispute or question; that those things which are called canons apostolical, and either were not so, or not certainly so, are yet laid aside by those churches, who pretend to believe them to be so. The fifth canon of the apostles, in that collection which is called apostolical, appoints, that the first-fruits shall be sent home to the houses of bishops and priests,' and makes no question, but they divide them amongst the deacons and clerks; but I think, in the church of Rome, they pay no first-fruits; and what they do pay, the bishops and priests keep unto themselves. But this is nothing. The sixth canon commands, that a priest or a deacon should not, under pretence of religion, put away his wife:' now this is so far from being received in the church of Rome, that, for this very canon's sake, Baronius calls the collection apocryphal, and rejects them from being apostolical. The seventh canon forbids a bishop or presbyter to have any thing to do in secular affairs, under pain of deposition.' This would destroy much of the grandeur of the church of Rome, if it were received. And the tenth destroys one of their great corruptions in discipline and doctrine, for it is a perfect deletory of their private mass; it excommunicates those of the people, who come to churches and go away before they have received the communion, calling them disturbers of the church; now this at Rome would seem a strange thing. And yet all these are

within that number of fifty, which, Baronius says, were known to antiquity. But he that desires more instances in this affair, may consult the canons themselves, amongst which he will find very few observed at this day by any church in Christendom. The church of Rome" pretends to believe that the Wednesday and Friday fast were ordained by the apostles; and yet the Wednesday fast is not observed, except by particular order and custom, but in very few places. I shall give one instance more. The apostles commanded the feast of Easter to be celebrated upon the Sunday after the full moon, which should happen after the vernal equinox: so the western churches said. The eastern pretended another canon from St. John, to celebrate it after the manner of the Jews and though they were confident and zealous for that observation upon the apostolical warrant; yet the western bishops at first, and afterward the whole church did force the easterlings to change that rule, which they and their forefathers had avowed to all the world, to have received from St. John; and it is observable, that this was done upon the designs of peace and unity, not upon any pretence that St. John had never so given it in order to the Asian churches.

RULE XII.

All those Rituals, which were taught to the Church by the Apostles concerning Ministries, which were of divine Institution, do oblige all Christendom to their Observation.

1. I INSTANCE in the holy sacrament, first of all: concerning which the apostles delivered to the churches the essential manner of celebration, that is, the way of doing it according to Christ's commandment: for the words themselves, being large and indefinite, were spoken indeed only to the apostles, but yet they were representatives of all the whole ecclesiastical order in some things, and of the whole Christian church in other; and therefore what parts of duty and power and office did belong to each, the apostles must teach the church, or she could have no way of knowing without particular revelation.

" Reginald. Prax. fori Pœnit, lib. 4. cap. 12. seet. 3. p. 148. n. 133.

2. Thus the apostles taught the bishops and priests to consecrate the symbols of bread and wine, before they did communicate; not only because by Christ's example we were taught to give thanks before we eat, but because the apostles knew, that the symbols were consecrated to a mystery. And this was done from the beginning, and in all churches and in all ages of the church; by which we can conclude firmly in this rule, that the apostles did give a canon or rule to the churches to be observed always, and that the church did never believe she had authority or reason to recede from it. For in those rites, which are ministries of grace, no man must interpose any thing, that can alter any part of the institution, or make a change or variety in that, which is of divine appointment. For the effect in these things depends wholly upon the will of God, and we have nothing to discourse or argue; for we know nothing but the institution, nothing of the reason of the thing: and therefore we must, in these cases, with simplicity and obedience, apply ourselves to practice as we have received, for we have nothing else to guide us: memory and obedience, not discourse and argument, are here in season.

3. And in this we have an evident and apparent practice of the church handed to us by all hands that touch these mysteries; as who please may see in Justin Martyr', Irenæus, Origen, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nyssen de Vita Moysis, Optatus Milevitanus, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Austin, Theodoret, Gregorius Emissenus, Gregory the Great', DamascenTM, Remigius", Paschasius, and divers others, and absolutely in all the liturgies that ever were used in the church: so that the derivation of this canon from the apostles, is as evident as the obedience to it was universal. 4. But where the apostles did not interpose, there the

Apol. 2. ad Anton.

Lib. 8. contr. Celsum.

In Johan. lib. 10. cap. 13.

Lib. 2. contr. Par.

1 De Sacram. lib. 4. cap. 4.

y Lib. 4. ad Hær. cap. 34.
a Mystag. Catech. 3, 4.

c Lib. de Spir. S. cap. 27.

e In 2 Tim, hom. 2. serm. de Prodit. Jud.

Ep. 1. et 85. ad Evagrium, et in Sophon. cap. 3.

De Trinit. lib. 3. cap. 4. contra Faust. Manich. lib. 20. cap. 13. et serm. 28.

de Verbis Domini.

i Dial. 1.

1 Dial. lib. 4. cap. 58.

In 1 Cor. cap. 1.

Serm. 5. de Paschate.

m De Fide, lib. 4. c. 14.

⚫ Lib. de Corpore Domini.

churches have their liberty; and in those things also, which evidently were no part of the appointed liturgy or ministra tion, in those things, though it be certain the apostles did give rules of order and decency, yet because order is as variable as the tactics of an army, and decency is a relative term, and hath a transient and changeable sense, in all these things there is no prescription to the church, though we did know what the churches apostolical did practise, for they did it with liberty and therefore we are not bound; the churches are as free as ever; though the single persons in the churches can be bound, yet the churches always have liberty.

5. And indeed that is the best sign, that the apostles gave no perpetual order, in any instance, and that it is no part of the institution, or the ministry of grace, when the ancient churches, who were zealous for the honour apostolical, and accounted every thing excellent that derived from them, did differ in their practices. Thus the Greek and Latin churches did always differ in the sacramental bread, the Latins always consecrating in unleavened bread, which the Greeks refuse: if either one or other had been necessary, they should have been clearly taught it, and if they had, there is no reason to believe, but they would have kept the 'depositum,' there being no temptation to the contrary, and no difficulty in the thing, and no great labour to preserve; the daily use of the church would have had in it no variety; for no traditions are surer, or easier preserved, than the dɛɛroupyià ' the matters of liturgy,' and the rituals apostolical: which when we find that they were unitedly and consentingly kept by the ancient churches, we may well suppose the apostles to be the first principle of derivation, and that the thing itself was necessary and a part of the religion; but if at first they varied, they had no common principle, and therefore they had no necessity.

6. Thus that the bishop or priest should be the only minister of consecration, is an apostolical canon or rule, “ad quorum preces Christi corpus sanguisque conficitur," saith St. Jerome : and the continuation and descent of this particular, from the manners of the apostolical ministration, is evident in the fore-alleged testimonies. Now because, by this constant derivation, we can pursue the tract up to the

P Epist. 85.