The Unreasonableness of Separation, Part 3 · Section 4
Sect. 4. I shall, to prevent all cavils, choose that very Church which Dr. O. mentions, and I find Mr. Cotton and others make their Appeals to, and that is the Church of Carthage in Saint Cyprian's time. Here Dr. O. finds the Community of members determining Church affairs; Cotton's way of Congregati…nal Churches cleared, p. 98, 99.but Mr. Cotton hath further discovered the judgment of the Elders, the Votes of the Congregation, and the Consent of neighbour Ministers; in short, he hath found there, the express and lively lineaments of the very Body of Congregational Discipline; and the same for substance wherein they walk (as he calls it) at this day. Hitherto then, there was no deviation from the unalterable Rules of Christ. Let us therefore impartially consider, what the Government of the Church of Carthage then was: concerning which these things may be observed.
1. That there was a great number of Presbyters belonging to the Church of Carthage, and therefore not probable to be one single Congregation. This appears from Saint Cyprian's Epistles to them in his retirement.Cyprian l. 5. Ep. 2. in the late Edit. Ep. 5. In one he gives them advice how to visit the Confessours in Prison, which he would have them to doe by turns, every one taking a Deacon with him because the change of Persons would be less invidious: and considering the number of Confessours and the frequent attendance upon them, the number of Presbyters and Deacons must be considerable. When he sent Numidicus to be placed among the Presbyters at Carthage, L. 4. 10. Ep. 35.he gives this reason of it, that he might adorn the plenty of his Presbyters with such worthy men, it being now impaired by the fall of some, during the persecution.L. 5. Ep. 3. In the case of Philumanus, Fortunatus and Favorinus, he declares he would give no judgment, cùm multi adhuc de Clero absentes sint, when many of his Clergy were absent. And in another Epistle he complains,Ep. 28. that a great number of his Clergy were absent, and the few that were remaining were hardly sufficient for their work. L. 3. Ep. 22. Ep. 24.At one time Felicissimus and five Presbyters more did break Communion with the Church at Carthage; and then he mentions Britius, Rogatianus and Numidicus, as the chief Presbyters remaining with them;Ep. 40. besides Deacons and inferiour Ministers. About the same time Cornelius Bishop of Rome mentions 46 Presbyters he had with him in that City. Euseb. l. 6. c. 35.And in Constantinople of old, saith Iustinian in his Novels, Phot. Nomo-Can. tit. 1. c. 30.were 60 Presbyters (for in one he saith, The custom was to determin the number, and in another, that 60 was to be the number at Constantinople.) Let any one now consider, whether these Churches that had so many Presbyters were single Congregations; and at Carthage, we have this evidence of the great numbers of Christians; that in the time of Persecution, although very many stood firm, yet the number of the lapsed was so great, L. 3. Ep. 5. Ep. 15.that Saint Cyprian saith, Every day thousands of Tickets were granted by the Martyrs and Confessours in their behalf for reconciliation to the Church: and in one of those Tickets sometimes might be comprehended twenty or thirty persons, L. 3. 15. Ep. 11.the form being Communicet ille cum suis. Is it then probable this Church at Carthage should consist of one single Congregation?
2. These Presbyters and the whole Church were under the particular care and Government of Saint Cyprian as their Bishop. Some of the Presbyters at Carthage took upon them to meddle in the affairs of Discipline,L. 3. Ep. 14. Ep. 10. without consulting their Bishop then in his retirement. Saint Cyprian tells them they neither considered Christ's Command, nor their own Place, nor the future Iudgment of God, nor the Bishop who was set over them, and had done that which was never done in foregoing times, to challenge those things to themselves, with the contempt and reproach of their Bishop, which was to receive Penitents to Communion without imposition of hands by the Bishop and his Clergy. Wherein, L. 3. Ep. 15. Ep. 11.he vindicates the Martyrs and Confessours in his following Epistle, saying, that such an affront to their Bishop was against their will: for they sent their Petitions to the Bishop, that their Causes might be heard when the Persecution was over. In another Epistle to the People of Carthage on the same occasion, L. 3. Ep. 10. Ep. 12.he complains of these Presbyters, that they did not Episcopo honorem Sacerdotii sui & Cathedrae reservare, reserve to the Bishop the honour which belonged to his Place: and therefore charges, that nothing further be done in this matter till his return,Ep. 21. when he might consult with his fellow-Bishops. Celerinus sends to Lucian a Confessour, to beg him for a Letter of Grace for their Sisters Numeria and Candida who had fallen. Lucian returns him answer, Ep. 22.that Paulus before his Martyrdom had given him Authority to grant such in his Name, and that all the Martyrs had agreed to such kindness to be shewed to the lapsed; but with this condition that the Cause was to be heard before the Bishop, and upon such Discipline as he should impose, they were to be received to Communion.Ep. 25. So that though Lucian was extreamly blamed for relaxing the Discipline of the Church; yet neither he nor the other Martyrs would pretend to doe any thing without the Bishop. Cyprian gives an account of all that had passed in this matter to Moses and Maximus two Roman Presbyters and Confessours;Ep. 26. they return him answer, that they were very glad he had not been wanting to his Office, especially in his severe reproving those who had obtained from Presbyters the Communion of the Church in his absence. In his Epistle to the Clergy of Carthage he mightily blames those who communicated with those persons who were reconciled to the Church meerly by Presbyters without him;Ep. 28. and threatens excommunication to any Presbyters or Deacons who should presume to doe it. The Roman Clergy in the vacancy of the See, take notice of the discretion of the Martyrs in remitting the lapsed to the Bishop,Ep. 30. as an argument of their great modesty, and that they did not think the Discipline of the Church belonged to them: and they declare their resolution, Ep. 31.to doe nothing in this matter, till they had a new Bishop. By which we see the Power of Discipline was not then supposed to be in the Congregation, or that they were the first subject of the Power of the Keys; but that it was in the Bishop as superiour to the Presbyters. And that they were then far from thinking it in the Power of the People, to appoint and ordain their own Officers,Ep. 33. Saint Cyprian sends word to the Church of Carthage, that he had taken one Aurelius into the Clergy; although his general custom was in Ordinations to consult them before, and to weigh together the manners and deserts of every one:Ep. 34. which is quite another thing from an inherent Right to appoint and constitute their own Church-officers: the same he doth soon after, concerning Celerinus and Numidicus.Ep. 35. When he could not go among them himself, by reason of the persecution, he appoints Caldonius and Fortunatus two Bishops,Ep. 38. and Rogatianus and Numidicus two Presbyters, to visit in his name; and to take care of the poor, and of the persons fit to be promoted to the Clergy. Who give an account in the next Epistle,Ep. 39. that they had excommunicated Felicissimus and his Brethren for their separation.
3. That Saint Cyprian did believe that this Authority which he had for governing the Church was not from the Power of the People, but from the Institution of Christ.Ep. 27. So upon the occasion of the Martyrs invading the Discipline of the Church, he produceth that saying of Christ to Saint Peter, Thou art Peter, &c. And whatsoever you shall bind, &c. From whence, saith he, by a constant succession of times, such a course hath been always observed in the Church, that the Church hath been still governed by Bishops, and every Act of the Church hath been under their care and conduct. Since this, saith he, is a Divine Institution, I wonder at the boldness of those who have written at that rate to me (concerning the lapsed) since the Church consists in the Bishop, the Clergy and the standing People. In his Epistle to Antonianus,Ep. 52. he speaks of the Agreement of the Bishops throughout the whole world:Ep. 55. and in that to Cornelius, that every Bishop hath a part of the flock committed to him, which he is to govern and to give an account thereof to God:Ep. 65. and that a Bishop in the Church is in the place of Christ; and that disobedience to him is the cause of schisms and disorders. To the same purpose he speaks in his Epistle to Rogatianus,Ep. 69. and to Pupianus; where he declares a Church to be a People united to a Bishop;Ep. 75. and to Stephanus, that they have succeeded the Apostles in a constant course.
Let the Reader now judge, whether these be the strokes and lineaments of the Congregational way; and whether Dr. O. had any reason to appeal to Saint Cyprian for the Democratical Government of the Church. But we have this advantage from this appeal, that they do not suppose any deviation then from the Primitive Institution, and what that was in Saint Cyprian's judgment any one may see; when he speaks of nothing peculiar to his own Church, but what was generally observed over the Christian world. And now let Dr. O. give an account, how a change so great, so sudden, so universal, should happen in the Christian world, in the Government of the Church; that when Christ had placed the Power in the People, the Bishops in so short a time should be every where settled, and allowed to have the chief management in Church-affairs, without any controul from the People: which to me is as strong an argument as a matter of this nature will bear, that the Power was at first lodged in them, and not in the People. For, as Mr. Noys of New-England well argues, It is not imaginable that Bishops should come by such Power, as is recorded in Ecclesiastical History, Moses and Aaron, p. 62.and that over all the world; and in a way of ambition, in such humbling times, without all manner of opposition for 300 years together, and immediately after the Apostles; had it been usurpation or innovation. When and where is innovation without opposition? Would not Elders, so many seeing and knowing men, at least some of them, have contended for Truth, wherein their own Liberties and Rights were so much interessed? Aërius his opposing of Bishops, so long after their rise and standing, is inconsiderable. The force of which reasoning, will sway more with an impartial and ingenuous mind, than all the difficulties I ever yet saw on the other side. So much for the account Dr. O. promises of the deviations of the Churches after the Apostles decease.