The Remains of John Corbet, Section 20
§ 20. The ſubordination of Churches of different kinds, conſidered.
AS touching the ſubordination of Churches to ſome other Church ſpecifically different from them, as of parochial or congregational Churches to a Dioceſan, Provincial, National Church; be it firſt obſerved, that the Dioceſan Church is not merely the incorporated ſociety of a Cathedral, nor any one parcular Church, beſides the Parochial Churches; nor is it materially divers from them jointly taken; nor the provincial church from the Dioceſan churches; nor the national church from the provincial churches jointly taken: But in their ſeveral ranks they differ formally, as being each of them one body politick conſtituted by the political compages of the churches included in each of them.
And let what was before obſerved be here reminded, that each congregational or parochial church, having its proper Presbyter or Elder inveſted with the power of the keys, is a political church, or ſuch as hath its government within it ſelf. And thereupon the divine warrant of ſuch a Dioceſan Church as is the loweſt that hath government within it ſelf, and conſequently that ſwallows hundreds of political churches that are of Chriſts inſtitution, was called in queſtion, and ſtill I deſire the Aſſerters of it to give ſome proof of its divine right.
Indeed the Poſtſcript of the Epiſtle to Titus mentions him as ordained the firſt biſhop of the Cretians. Of what authority that Poſtſcript is, I know not; but this is certain, that where there were Chriſtians, there were to be churches in every city of Crete, and there were reckoned a hundred cities in that no very large Iſland, and thoſe churches were political ſocieties within themſelves having their proper elders or biſhops. And upon ſuppoſition that the whole Iſland made but one larger church conſtituted by the political union of the ſaid particular churches in every city under Titus, it muſt be ſuch as is now called a provincial church under one Archbiſhop.
Now if the Dioceſan church be not looked upon as the Ioweſt political church, but as conſtituted by the political union of congregational or parochial churches, held alſo to be political, under an officer of another order, and the proper ſuperior of thoſe officers, under which the parochial churches immediately are, then let it be obſerved, that a church of this frame is not properly an Epiſcopal but an Archiepiſcopal Church. For the churches whereof it is compacted are properly Epiſcopal, being ſuch as have each of them their own biſhop, paſtor or elder. But the divine right of ſuch an Archiepiſcopal church, I leave to further inquiry.
As for a National church, I come now to inquire in what ſence it may or may not be granted. In a more general notion it is ſome part of the univerſal church diſtinguiſhed and ſevered from the reſt of that body, by the limits of a Nation, or of a civil ſtate; or in other terms, a nation of Chriſtian churches, or the Chriſtian churches of a Nation.
But there are more expreſs and ſpecial notions thereof reſpecting the frame of Eccleſiaſtical Polity, which are diſcrepant from each other: And about the being thereof in theſe ſpecial notions, mens judgments vary. Some own a national church in this ſence only: viz. a nation of churches, or the churches of a nation agreeing, at leaſt in the eſſentials of chriſtian Dectrine, divine Worſhip, and church-Government. Some own a national church in a ſtricter ſenſe, namely, the ſaid churches not only agreeing in the points aforeſaid, but politically united by the ſame common band of Eccleſiaſtical Government under one head perſonal or collective. And this ſtricter ſence hath a ſubdiviſion; for it may be underſtood of the churches united in a Civil Eccleſiaſtical polity, under a civil head or ſupream, or of the churches embodyed in the band of a polity purely Eccleſiaſtical under a ſpiritual head or ſupream.
I own the rightful being and divine warrant of a national church as united in one Civil Eccleſiaſtical polity under one civil head or ſupream, either perſonal as in a Monarchy, or collective as in a Republick. And in this ſence I aſſent to the National Church of England: viz. All the churches in England politically united under one Supream Civil Church-Governour, the Kings Majeſty.
Yet it is to be underſtood, that the partition of a church by the bounds of a nation or of a civil ſtate, is but extrinſecal or accidental to the church as ſuch; alſo that the union of the churches of a nation in the band of civil church-polity under a civil head, is but an extrinſecal, and not an intrinſecal union.
But I queſtion the divine warrant of a national church embodied in the band of one national polity purely Eccleſiaſtical under one ſpiritual head or ſupream, either Perſonal as a Primate or Patriarch, or collective as a conſiſtory of biſhops or elders intrinſecally belonging to it, and being a conſtitutive part of it: For I find no Canon or Precedent for it in Scripture, which is the adequate rule of divine right in the frame of churches, and of what intrinſecally belongs thereuntò, and I do not know any ſuch ſpiritual head of the Church of England: as for the Arch-biſhops of Canterbury and York, they at the moſt can be heads but of their reſpective provinces, and are not ſubordinate but coordinate to each other in point of Archiepiſcopal Government, however the caſe is between them in point of precedency.
Yet if the civil ſupream power ſhall conſtitute a perſon or perſons Eccleſiaſtical to be head of a national church, or the churches of a nation politically imbodied, I here offer nothing againſt it, or for it; But if there be ſuch a national conſtitution, being but humane, it is but extrinſecal and accidental to the church; and being derived from the civil ſupream, it is but a civil church-polity.