who fucceed the Apostles by a substitute Ordination, He that heareth you, heareth me. So faith St. Athanafius (e) How can they be Bishops, if they have received their Ordination from Hereticks, even by their own Accufation? Lastly, to omit infinite Passages in Tertul. St. Aug. Optatus, &c. I shall bring one Witness, whom they often, (tho' very unjustly) claim, as a Favourer of their Cause, St. Jerome, (f) who speaking of Hilary the Deacon, Author of one of the Sects of the Luciferians, faith, Together with the Man his Sect is likewise perished, because a Deacon could not ordain a Clerk to fucceed after him. Now it is not a Church which hath no Priests. Were such Arguments as these Logical and efficacious in the third and fourth Century of Christianity, and are they of no Force now? When was it that they began to lose their Virtue? Did all the ancient Martyrs, Bishops, and Doctors of the Church, Champions of the Christian Religion, confound all the ancient Heresies, by demonftrating that the Authors of them had no personal, legitimate, nor doctrinal Succession, and shall we believe such a Succeffion now is not as neceffary as then, or that there is any Valid Ministry, where Regular, Successive, Ecclefiaftical Order is laid afide? Is this a pure Reformation, or is it not rather Novelty, Heresy, and Schifm? What Words can come more Home to our Cafe, than these of the holy Fathers? Well may we think they were guided by a very extraordinary Measure of the divine Spirit, who, by Prophetical Impulse, so many Ages ago, not only (e) In Synod. (f) In Dialog, contra Lucifer. con confuted the Heresies of their own Time, but left sufficient Testimonies against all such as should afterwards arise to the Disturbance of the Church; being dead, they yet speak by their pious and orthodox Writings, against all falfe Doctrine, Heresy, and Schifm; and they that participate of that divine Spirit which animates the Body of Christ, they hear their Voice, or rather the Voice of the chief Shepherd in them, the Voice behind them, (that is, in the Ages paft) calling from destructive Error, Novelty, and Separation, and faying, This is the Way, walk ye in it. And let it be here observed, that these fevere Denunciations of the Fathers were for the most Part against such as were Epifcopally ordained, but had received their Orders from, and joyned in Communion with Heretical and Schifmatical Bishops. The Arians, Novatians, Donatifts, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c. all had their Bishops and distinct Orders of Clergy. Aerius alone, (whom I mentioned before) was the only Person in all the large Tract of Time, and Extenfion of Christianity, from the Apostles to the fifteenth Century, that ever pretended that Presbyters could confer Orders, or that Bishop and Priest were the fame Order and Office. He had few Followers in this, as in other Heretical Opinions; it was not then fo easy, to perswade Men to run counter to the Custom and Order of all the Churches of Christ. Yet God be thanked, there are such Arguments on our Side, as amount to a Demonstration, that our Zeal for the Apoftolical Order of Epifcopacy is not a criminal Contention about a Thing indifferent (as the Latitudinarians, and Favourers of Occafional Conformity pretend) a Dispute about Words engendring Strife, but being zealously affected in a good good Cause, such as concerns the very Life and Soul of Religion. For if our Presbyterian Teachers will but fhew any from the Apostles down to the Days of Luther and Calvin, who held their Doctrine even in that one Particular, I dare oblige my felf to prove he was marked as a Heretick, and his Sect was called by his Name, to diftinguish it from the Houshold of Faith, over whom Chrift has appointed Stewards to give them their Meat in due Seafon. We own, many among the Presbyterian Teachers may be of competent Abilities, and alfo of good moral Lives; but this is not what can conftitute them Ministers, or give them Authority in the Church of Chrift; for in neither of these do they exceed the found Learning and pions Lives of the Orthodox Epifcopal Clergy; it is not Perfonal Qualification, but Sacerdotal Power; not the Preaching or Praying well, bur the having Authority to do fo, from such as received it fucceffively handed down from the Apostles, That we contend for; and this is so material, that without it, Succession in Doctrine signifies nothing. Miserable we are (faith a learned Divine of the Church of England) if he that now fits Archbishop of Canterbury, could not derive his Succession from St. Augustin, St. Augustin from St. Gregory, St. Gregory from St. Peter. Such Ordination have our Bishops as the Bishops in England, the same very Succeffion, as they agree in the fame very Do-Etrine, and all the Separation is equally finful in both Nations, only with this Aggravation, that here, they have proceeded to extirpate the ancient Church Government of Episcopacy, there; they are labouring to undermine it; in both they have fworn to destroy it. Nor is the Crime of Schifor less, or Presbyterian Religion more Orthodox, or the the Condition of fuch as adhere to it less dange rons, that they are the Established Church Government in Scotland. Were the Avians the Church, because they were favoured by Imperial Edits, and had Power to perfecute the Faithful by Form of Law, and Civil Process? Is a Church more a Church, when established by Law, than when fubfifting without, or against Law? Then the Church of Scotland is more a Church than the whole Catholick Church in the three first Centuries; then Chriftianity is Heresy in all Dominions that are not Christian, and true Religion must appear in as many different Shapes, as the different Fancies and Humours of several Nations will have it: What is in one Place Sound and Orthodox, will be esteemed Herefy and False Doctrine in another; and a Christian must as often shift his Religion, as he changes his Habitation. But if Chriftian Religion is the fame, and to remain unchanged in all the Variety of human Events, and the Church of Christ is Catholick, or Univerfal in Time and Place, then it will appear our Duty to adhere to that Form of Church Government, That Apoftolical Order which has ever been observed in the Church of Chrift. Chriftian Religion stands under the same Terms of Duty to God and Man as heretofore it did, we have as strict Obligation to Church Unity, and Obedience to those that are over us in the Lord, as had our first Fore-runners in the Faith; we are as forcibly bound to join in the fame publick Worship as they were, and all Separation will be as penal, and as certain a Prejudice to the Judgment of the Great Day, as it was esteemed in the primitive Church; and 'tis declared to be by the holy Fathers: For what St. Augustin faid to the Donatifßs, tis tis fit every Christian should serioufly confider. (a) Whoever shall be divided from the Church Ca tholick, how laudably foever he may think he doth live, for this very Wickedness, that he lives disjoined from the Unity of Christ, he shall not have Life, but the Wrath of God remains upon him. But whosoever within the Church lives well, other Mens Sins in it do no way prejudice him. I shall conclude all with the Rule of Vincentius Lyrinenfis, which I have before mentioned, according to which let those things be tried, viz. Whether Liturgy and Epifcopacy were not always every where, and by all held and approved; and that all Separation has ever been condemned in the Church of God. (b) 66 As holy and learned Men have taught me (faith "he) so I exhort others, that they interpret the " Divine and Canonical Scripture, according to "the Tradition of the Universal Church, according " to the Rules of Catholick Doctrine, in which "likewise they must of Neceffity follow UNIVERSALITY, ANTIQUITY, and CONSENT of the " Catholick and Apoftolick Church. And therefore, " if at any time a Part rebel against the Whole, Novelty against Antiquity, the Dissention of one or a few (feduced with Error) against the Con"sent of all, or the far greater Part of Catholicks; " in that Cafe, let them prefer the Integrity of "Univerfality before the Corruption of a Part; " and in Universality, let them also prefer the "Religion of Antiquity before profane Novelty: " And again, in Antiquity, let them prefer be"fore the Temerity of one or a few, the De"crees of a General Council, if any be; or if no (a) Epift. 152. (b) Adv. Hæref. Cap. 15. " fuch |