The Disarmers Dexterities Examined, Chapter 5 · Section 9
SECT. IX.
Testimonies of the power of Kings in the Church vindicated, From Demetrius Chomatenus. foreign Constantine in an assembly of Bishops. His Ecclesiastick Lawes. foreign, and foreign. The Bishops and the Kings power. Constantine's titles, and oversight of Bishops. Leo Isaurus styling himself foreign. Socrates his testimony of the Churches dependance on Kings.
HIs sixt Section, after some of his wonted Discipline, to remind me of what I was competently assured, that I was far gone in his displeasure, is pleased to apply answer to my marginall testimonies concerning the power of Kings in the Church: And first, to that of Demetrius Chomatenus, Archbishop of Bulgarie, in his response to Constantinus Cabasila, Archbishop of Dyrrhachium, where he had no temptation to flatter Kings, yet affirms, foreign, the King is as it were the common directer and ruler of the Churches, both in title and reality: he answers, that this signifies rather he was not so, then was so, unlesse I can prove, that quasi, as it were, can beare the sense of revera, indeed and in reality; where to make short, and gratifie S. W. I shall undertake to prove what he thinks so impossible, both that foreign can, and in that place must, signifie revera, indeed, and in reality.
And 1 I premise that the rendring foreign by quasi in Latine, or, as it were, in English, cannot prejudice the notation of the word in Greek, particularly in the use of that Writer. foreign, saith Hesychius and Phavorinus, denotes foreign, and is in ordinary use the same with utpote, scilicet, videlicet, as, to wit, and so hath no intimation of a bare shew, or similitude, as that is opposed to reality. In the fifth line of that Response, foreign, it was not lawful for me—as knowing well— where sure he affirmes himself really to know, and not in resemblance, as that is opposed to truth. So within few lines after in the first page foreign, I have been in danger to preserve neither, as being slow (not onelyonly appearing to be so) in respect of obedience, and thus tis evidently in this place; the occasion of the Speech is conteined in the words immediately precedent, which I had occasion to recite even now, that the King hath power by his sole Edict to change some things in order to publick advantage, which the Canons of the Church have determined, foreign, saith that Bishop, his command or Edict hath power, and that foreign alone by it self. And the words themselves in the full period, of which I cited but the breviate, run thus, foreign— For the King, as both being, and being called the common directer and ruler of the Churches (evidently foreign in the notion of utpote) hath the presidence over the Synodicall determinations, and gives them the validity, regulates the Ecclesiastical orders, and gives law to the life and conversation of those that wait on the altar, and more to the same purpose in that place, which sure will abundantly reprove S. W. his foreign from the quasi as it were, which he thought would stand him in such stead, to avoid and retort the force of that first testimony.
The second testimony from the words of Constantine, he thinks hath brought in great pomp to his triumphs, but it will not prove so upon the review: For 1. the words I said were spoken in an assembly of Bishop; but I did not say, in a generall council of Bishops, nor meant I, nor foresaw that any, either the simplest reader, or learned as S. W. should ever mistake me so. We use [assembled together] Act 1.4. of Christ and his Apostles, when the Greek foreign signifies eating together, and the propriety is equall, and the word in frequent use, for being together in any common meeting, whatsoever the occasion of the assembly be, and therefore S. W. hath sure gained little by this: It was, I acknowledge most willingly, at a festival assembly of B…shops, that Constantine thus spake, yet I suppose that no more preiudice to the truth of his speech, or to the importance of it, than if it had been spoken in the very Council of Nice, or in any other the fullest, and solemnest assembly; and therefore it was no such rare foreign, to adde to S. W. his great successes, that either he found the place in Eusebius, which is vulgarly known, (and therefore could not, as he suggests, be prudently omitted by me) or to finde the Emperour and Bishops at di…ner, when he came, or that he was fain to seek to his Latine Eusebius to espy this, and make his reports of it.
2. Whereas S. W. resolves, that there never was testimony, nor can be imagined …n so little room more expresly witnessing that Kings ha…e nothing to do with Ecclesiastick affaires, than this of Constantine, which the D…ctor brings to prove the contrary] I desire this may be judged, 1. by the immediate antecedents, then by the words themselves in the Originall Greek, and not in his misrendring Latine Eusebius. The immediate antecedents in that*Euseb. de vit Con… Edit Rob S…ph …ol. 150. very page, tell us of many†foreign. lawes of his concerning the observation of the Lords day in all the Provinces concerning a set form of prayer to be used by all (foreign, and again, foreign) concerning the use of it by the Roman Souldiers in their vulgar, i. e foreign, Roman tongue, concerning h…l… d yes, or the feasts of Martyrs, and some other the like, which sure were exercises of power in Ecclesiastical affaires. Then for the words themselves, it matters little what the title of the chapter in the Latine edition is, when Eusebius neither wrote La…ine, nor, that we know of, affixt titles to his chapters. The words in the Greek might easily have been come to, Eusebius foreign, is not so great a rarity, and S. W was lately willing we should know he could read Greek: And there th…se are the words of Eusebius foreign, literally, he del vered this speech, that he was also an overseer, or Bishop, adding the very words in which he delivered himself; in that Writers hearing, foreign, literally thus (seeing paraphrases of obscure words must not be indured, when they sound to S. W. his disadvantage) ye are Bishops of the things within; the Church, or overseers of the Church, of the things within, but I am constitu…ed under God, Bishop, or overseer of the things without. Here 'twas neither my interest nor design to take the word foreign Church (as S. W suggests) for a material Church of stone, but for the Congregation, or assembly of Christians, ruled or administred by the Bishops in some things, by the Emperour in others. Matter of s…cred office of Funct…on, administration of Sacraments, ord nation, excommunication, and the like, which are the foreign the internal acts were peculiar to the Bishops of the Church; but the foreign matters of external order, such as were even now mentioned out of Demetrius Chomatenus, be… ng to the Christian Emperour: he is by God appointed to be the foreign, Bishop, or overseer, or administrator of such: and among these is particularly set down in the insuing relation, the inspection and care of the lives of Ecclesiastical persons, whi…h by his adjoyning exhortation, he exprest to be one part of his foreign, and certainly this is an evidence of the Empero…s power in Ecclesiastical matters and so in spiritual things in that notion of spiritual, for matters of external order in the Church, such is erecting or translating Metropoles, &c.) so is it the very thing that I was to con…lude from that, and the other testimonies: And so all that S W. hoped to have gained by a corrupt Lat ne copie, which, saith he, renders foreign, intra & extra ecclesiam Episcopi (which the particle foreign demonstrates to be a senselesse rendring) is visibly come to nothing, they were things of the Church that Constan…ine was Governour of, as well as those that the Bishops administred; all the d fference this, that the former were but foreign, external matters of order, &c of the Church, and Churchmen (whereas the Bishops inspection, or rule, belonged to other matters) to which agrees the sense of the Greek Church exprest in the Calendar of the Church of Constantinople, styling that Emperour foreign, and foreign, an Apostle among Kings, and equal… to an Apostle, not onelyonly in assisting the plantation of the Church in so eminent a manner, (which gave him the title of Rel gionis & fidei author, the author o… reli…ion and saith, in an*Gruter. p. 15…. old Marble) but in the governing it when it was planted.
What he farther addes out of the Latine copie, to render his interpretation more probable, and that all that was meant by his calling himself a Bishop, was, that it was his calling to exhort all his subjects to lead a pious life] is again a pitiful stratagem; for whereas his Latine hath, animum in omnes qui ejus suberant imperio intentum habuit, hortatus pro virili ut piam vitam excolerent, the Gree…k reads foreign— he overlookt or ruled, or tooke care of all his subjects (and the Clergy and Bishops themselves, if we may believe the Fathers, were of that number) and exhorted them most earnestly to follow a pious life, and as long as the Bishops did continue to do so, there was, I hope, no need of more than exhorting.
3. For the words of Leo Isaurus, that told the Pope he was foreign, as well as foreign. S. W. was able without an interpreter, to have understood the meaning of them, the very same that the Kings of England have assumed, not to be Priests in the strict notion of that word foreign, that had been very extravagant indeed, and that puts it out of question, that it was not meant by him, but to have power foreign in sacred or Ecclesiasticall matters, and not in civill onelyonly; and 'tis more reasonable and Christian, to say with J. C. in Goldastus, that Gregory II. was not so passionate a pretender to the inclosure and monopolie of all Eeclesiastical power, but that he could allow the Emperour his part of it, then with S. W. to pronounce an Emperour extravagant, Archheretick, infatuate, because he had unhappily incurred his displeasure, by saying what was not for S. W. his interest, to have believed from him.
Another [thirdly] now followes in answer to the testimony of Socrat. that from the time of the Emperors receiving the Faith, the affairs of the Church depended on them] & this is very sharply rebuked, and poore I, for the sake of it. 1. Because the word Supreme is not there to be found, and because the affairs of the head may depend on the armes and shoulders, and because I catch at a word, and think to deduce thence a full sentence.] But to all this the answer is brief; 1. That the Church, whose affaires are there spoken of, is not the head, but the body, and that on, or (foreign) from which the body depends, is still the head, though the head it self may in some sense depend on other parts of the body. 2. That 'tis plain the dependance here spoken of, is of the inferiours on the supreme, by that which here followes, as a proof of it in the next words, foreign, and the greatest Synods have been, and are convoked by their appointment, and that sure is an evidence of their supreme power, for neither the armes nor the shoulders were ever called to that office of convoking and indicting of Oecumenicall Councils, but onelyonly the supreme power, wheresoever that was placed.