A PREFACE TO THE READER. 39
tried those who were to be appointed bishops, so obtaining and receiving a perfect foreknowledge, or knowledge of them before their admission into office. This also expresses revelation ('^^oyvc^joiv uKripoTig), upon trial it Avas revealed unto them ! and so must any thing else be allowed to be that our doctor will have to be so, now he is asserting to that purpose. But had the iXXoyi'Moi avo^sg who appointed bishops and deacons after the apostles* time, had they also this special revelation ? or may they not be said doxi,'j,daai ru Uviv/xari ; If not, how will you look upon them under the notion of iXXoyiixuv avbooyj who neglected so great a duty ? If they did, let us know when this way of constituting church officers by immediate revelation ceased, and what was afterward taken up in the room thereof, and who they were that first proceeded on another account, and on what authority they did so. There is a generation of men in the world which will thank the doctor for this insinuation, and will tie knots upon it that will trouble him to loose.
Before we return, let us look but a little farther, and we shall have a little more light given us into what was the condition and power of the people in the church in the days- of Clemens. Speaking of them who occasioned the division and schism in the church of Corinth, or them about whose exaltation into office, or dejection from it, that sad differ- ence fell out, he gives them this advice : T/'s oZv iv hi^ii yiwah; ; r/; i'j- CTv'i.u.yyjioc ; Ttg 'TriTrXr/ouiMsvog dyd'rrrji ; si'rrdrw E/' hi ifil ffTddic, xa/ i^is, y.cc! GyieiJja-a, ixynpui, U7rii,u.i oZ lav ^ovXrjffdi, xui •^roiu to. 'noosra.deofiiva i-h rov 'TTA-'/jdovg' (Loyav to <7roi/u!>viov roZ Xpistou ii^rjVivsru, fjbird rm xaQz6-aiJjh(/iv T^iaC-j- Tsswv. It seems the crX^^oc, the multitude, or tlie people, were not such poor, inconsiderable things as they are reported to be, when he advises them to stop and stay the sedition, by yielding obedience to the things by them appointed and commanded. If it w'ere in itself evil, disorderly, and not according to the mind of Christ, that the people should order and appoint things in the church, it had been simply evil for Clemeus to have advised any to yield obedience unto things by them so a^jpolnted. Where is now Ignatius' v-Trordaffiad- tuj s-Triazo'Trw and %<ww's l-TtteytoTroZ, etc.? Even those who are contending about rule and government in the church are advised to stand to the determination of the peoj^le, and to cry, Ta •xaoG-aGGoiiiva i/-o rou "XAridovg <7:otovfj,ev. This is also insisted on by Blondellus, who thence argues " potestatem plebis circa sacra." Dissert, v. cap. vlii. sect. 4, " Ad verba Iikc," salth our doctor, " prodigll instar est quod notandum duxit Dav. Blondellus potestatem plebis circa sacra (de qua tandem integram dissertationem elucubravit) artificlis quibuscunque asserturus. HIc (Inqult) nos monet Clemens fideles etiam de episcopatu aut presbyterio contendentes, non ab episcopi singulari xa/ v-ioi^ovTog nutu, sed a multltudinis prseceptis pependisse." But let not our doctor be angry, nor cry out so fast of prodigies ; a little time will manifest that many things may not be prodigious, which yet are contrary to sundry of his conceptions and apprehensions. I cannot but acknowledge him to be provoked ; but withal must say, that I have found very commonly that reasons ushered in by such loud clamours have, on examination, proved to Lave stood In need of some such noises as might fright men from the con- sideration of them. What is in the next sections set up to shield the chil- dren of episcopacy from being affrighted with this prodigy may perhaps be of more efficacy thereunto than the exclamations before mentioned ; he therefore proceeds, sect. 5. " Certe," saith he, " si serlo rem ageret Dav. Blondellus de presbyteris suis (non de episcopis nostris) actum plane et triumphatum erit, nee enim ab universo aliquo presbyterorum collegio,
40 A PREFACE TO THE READER.
quod ille tarn aflfllctim ardet, sed a mult'itudinis solius arbitrio, tuin con- tenclentes de cpiscopo, turn fideles omnes Corinthios pepenJisse a^quc con- cludendum erit." If any man in tlie world hath manifested more des- perate aflection towards presbytery than this doctor hath done towards e]iiscopacy, for my part solus habeto. But thougli neither Clemens nor Blondellus sjieaks any one word about the ordering of things " multitu- dinis solius arbitrio," yet hero is that said by them both Avhich is sufficiently destructive, not only to the episcopacy the doctor contends for, as a thing wholly inconsistent with the power and liberty here granted the people, but of any such presbytery also as shall undertake the ordering and dis- posing of things in the church of God without the consent and concurrent suffrage of the people. Such a presbytery, it seems, Blondellus does not defend. But yet neither the doctor's outcry as at a prodigy, nor this retor- tion upon presbytery is any answer to the testimony of Clemens, nor, indeed, is there the least possible reflection upon an orderly gospel presby- tery in any church and over it by what Clemens here professeth to be the power of the people; all the appearance of any such thing is from the term " solius," foisted into the discourse of Blondellus by the doctor, in his tak- ing of it up to retort at. Clemens in the very next words secures us from any thought that all things depended " a multitudinis solius arbitrio." His very next words are, Movov to 'jroifLviov rov Xs/gtol/ E/^^jveusrw, /xsra ruiv xa&zsrafiivoiv 'rrosaZuriouv. Our doctors and masters (having stuffed their imaginations with the shape and lineament of that hierarchical fabric which the craft, policy, subtlety, avarice, pride, and ambition, of many ages successively had formed and framed according to the pattern they saw in the mount of the world and the governments therein), upon the first heaving of a church, a flock of Christ, walking in orderly subjec- tion to their own elders, concurring with them and consenting to them in their rule and government, instantly, as men amazed, cry out, " A prodigy ! " It is not imaginable into what ridiculous, contemptible miscarriages, pride, prejudice, and self- fulness, do oftentimes betray men, otherwise of good abi- lities in their ways and very commendable industry.