two warrantable Authorities from Irenaus and Tertullian (here noted in the * Margin) for it. Here was an early Occafion given indeed for his fingular Diftinction (if he could have warranted it) of a Supreme Bishop, amongst many other Apoftolical Bishops in the fame Church together. For without that, this great Catholick Teft to try the true Faith by, would have proved no Teft at all: For if more Bishops than one, of equal original Order and Apoftolical Inftitution too, were ordinarily in the fame particular Church together, (as our learned Author does affirm) then to prove the Orthodoxy of a Church's Faith, by the Succeffion of one particular Apoftolical Bishop in a Church, had no Confequence in it at all; because fome other of thofe Apoftolically ordained Bishops might poffibly be at the Head of an Heretical Congregation too, and then the Original Order and Succeffion of Thefe might have been as warrantable * Edant originem Ecclefiarum fuarum, evolvant ordinem Epifcoporum fuorum, ita per fucceffiones ab initio decurrentem, ut primus ille Epifcopus aliquem ex Apoftolis vel apoftolicis vi ris, qui tamen cum Apoftolis perfeveraverit, habuerit autorem antecefforem hoc enim modo Ecclefiæ Apoftolica cenfus fuos deferunt; ficut Smyrnæorum Ecclefia habens Polycarpum ab Johanne conlocatum refert, ficut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum; proinde atique cæteræ exhibent, quos ab Apoftolis in Epifcopatum conftitutos, Apoftolici femi nis traduces habeant. De Præfcript. adverf. Hæret. p. 78. Corp. 243. Edit. Rigalt. Lutet. 1641.] Ad eam traditionem quæ eft ab Apoftolis, quæ per fucceffiones Presbyterorum [or fucceffiones Epifcoporum, as it is in the next Chapter] in Ecclefiis cuftoditur, provocamus eos. Iren, Lib. 3. c. 2. rantable an Argument for Them, as the like could be for the other; and by that means, Herefy and the true Faith would have stood upon an equal Bottom with one another: This furely must have been the Cafe, according to our learned Author's modern Scheme, unless this cautious Epithet of Supreme had been exprefly annext to that particular Bishop, upon whom this Rule of Orthodox Succeffion did depend. And how Tertullian and Irenaeus could so indefinitely appeal to fuch an Epifcopal Succeffion as this, and fix no Mark of Distinction at all upon the Bishops they peculiarly meant, is not otherwife to be accounted for, but that no fuch Diftinction of Supreme and Subordinate or Affifting Bishops was ever known in their Time; and fo the Teft in general Terms was evident and plain enough to all the Chriftian World then. This Chapter clofes with one Remark more, which feems of fo indifferent a Nature, that one would be apt to pass it over; but because (like all the reft before) it is calculated for fome greater Ufes which will be made of it afterwards, it must not be overlook'd. The Remark is only this, (p. 14.) The Titles (fays he) of this Supreme Church-Officer are most of them reckon'd up in one Place by Cyprian, which are, *Bishop, Paftor, Prefident, Governor, Superintendent, fo he tranflates Antiftes] and Priest; and farther, ( fays he) This is he which in the Revelations is called the Angel of his Church, as Origen Epifcopus, Præpofitus, Paftor, Gubernator, Antiftes, Sacerdos. Cyp. Ep. 69. § 5. [or Ep. 66. p. 167. Edit. Oxon.] Origen thinks, which Appellations denote both his Authority and Office, his Power and Duty, &c. Now would not any common Reader be apt to think, that these are the appropriated Titles of his Supreme Church-Officer? and that whenever he met with them in S. Cyprian's Writings, or any other of fuch Primitive Antiquity as his, he must always understand that Supreme Church-Officer by them? elfe why so carefully noted here? But no fuch thing, 'tis quite the contrary; for in his 4th Chapter, from p. 64 to p. 68, he labours with much Reading and great Zeal to prove, that most of all thefe Supreme Titles were equally given, and did of Right belong, to any Presbyter whatsoever in the Chriftian Church. And what's the Meaning, would one think, of this extraordinary Way of arguing? why the Cafe is plain; All the Presbyters in any Church whatsoever are in that place to be owned for Primitive Bishops, without any farther Authority or Ordination for it than they had before; and amongst other great Reasons for that extraordinary Affertion, this is to be a confiderable one, that the fame Name is very familiarly used by the Ancients to exprefs them both by: So that having first poffefs'd his Reader here, that these fore-mentioned Titles are peculiarly Bifhops Titles, and then fhewing him there, that many of them are often attributed to Presbyters, the Inference will go smoothly down, that they are unquestionable Bishops too; and I will only add, that by this Argument they muft every one of them be Supreme Bishops alfo. For his Chief or Supreme Bishop was first fet apart by him to prefide prefide over the whole Church he had affigned for him, before he attributed these feveral Titles to him; and then if they are common to others afterwards, thofe others must be chief too, fo far as thofe Titles can make them Bifhops at all. And this is more (I think) than our Enquirer's own Scheme can allow them to be; and confequently, this Remark will not conclude the Thing for which it was defigned. By what has been faid, I hope it may ap pear with what Caution this first Chapter of the learned Enquiry should be read: If I have been thought long in it, 'tis because I found it true, that the whole Difcourfe would very much depend upon it. A right Notion of a Primitive Church is the very Groundwork that all is to be built upon; this was undertaken to be settled here; how well it is performed, I leave now to others to determine. TH CHA P. II. HE great Point to be cleared in the 2d Chapter is this, that as there was but one Bishop in a Church, (fays he) fo there was but one Church to a Bishop. This is Primitive Language indeed, and would be Primitive Truth too, if the fingular Notion of a particular Church before, had not turned a Catholick Maxim into an Equivocal Propofition; for by his Bishop's Church, we know he means a fingle Congregation. And from one Obfervation of his, which he here remarks to us, he would have us affured, that that the Primitive Fathers meant fo too. His Obfervation is this, That the ancient Dioceses are never faid to contain Churches in the Plural, but only a Church in the Singular; now what they contained in them (whether one or more of fuch Churches as his) his Quotations fay nothing of; but they fhew indeed, that a Bifhop's Church was ufually exprefs'd and named then in the Singular Number; and I will only add this Obfervation to it, That they were just fo express'd and named too in after Ages of the Church, as well as in the firft and earlieft of them all. In the 4th Century, under Conftantine the Great, 'tis notorious how the Churches multiply'd in the Number of their People and their Oratories too, yet the celebrated Diocese of Antioch is called no more than the fingle Church of Antioch ftill; for so that Emperor himself ftyles it in his Letter to Eufebins, where he applauds his Humility for not exchanging his leffer Diocese of Cafarea for it. Eufebius || calls the Mother-Diocese of Jerufalem no other wife than fo, in the fame Century, and about the fame Time. In later Ages you'll find the Language of the Church holds the fame ftill; for the Council of Carthage under Theodofius and Honorius, in the 5th Century, calls the extenfive Diocese of S. Au gustin, * See his Quotations in pag. 15 of the Enquiry. + Τῆς κατὰ ἢ Αντιοχείαν Ἐκκλησίας. Εufeb. in vit. Conftant. 1. 3. c. 6r. [[ Τῷ δ Ἐκκλησίας ἢ ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις Επισκόπῳ. Ibid. cap. 29. |