VOL. XL 4
50 A PREFACE TO THE READER.
the New Testament no " church" of one denomination beyond a single con- gregation ; and where tliere are more, they are always called " churches." How evidently this is destructive to any diocesan or metropolitieal officer, who hath no churcli left liim thereby of Christ's institution to be related to, another opportunity will manifest. For the present, let us see what use our doctor makes of this observation.
Sect. 3, says he, " Judea, and the rest of the places where churches are mentioned, are the names of provLuees s^raiyjuv, quatenus ese rrupoi- xiocis et bior/.r,(Siai, contradistinguntur." If the doctor takes these words in an ecclesiastical sense, he begs that which will, upon such unworthy terms, never be granted him ; but if no more be intended but that Judea, Ga- latia, and the like names of countries, were provinces wherein were many churches, Smyrna, Ephesus, of towns and cities wherein there was but one, we grant it with him.
And how much that concession of ours is to his advantage hath been intimated. And this seems to be his intendment by his following words: " Provinciarum inquam in quibus plurimaj civitates, singula) singularum ecclesiarum sedes, comprehendebantur, ideoque ecclesipe in pliu"ali istius sive istius pi-ovincia; dicenda;." Well, what then? "Cum tamen unaqua?- que civitas, cum territorio sibi adjuncto (Xi5go;!) ab episcopo suo adminis- trata, singularis ecelesia dicenda sit; ideoque quod -/mt ixxKrioiav, factum dicitur, Acts xiv. 23; naTo. croX/v, fieri jubetur, Tit. i. 5." That in every city there was a singular church in those provinces (I speak of those where any number were converted to the faith) I grant ; for the annexed terri- tories let the doctor take care, there being one church at Corinth and another at Cenchrea : so that every single city had its own single church, Avith its bishops in it, as at Philippi. The passage mentioned by the doc- tor concerning the Epistle of Dionysius to the Church at Gortyna in Ci'cte is very little to his purpose ; neither doth he call Philip, the bishop of that church, the bishop of all the other churches in Crete, as the doctor inti- mates, but the bishop of them to whom especially and eminently he wrote.
Sect 4, application is made of the fore-mentioned observation, sect. 2, and the intei'pretation given of it, sect. 3, in these words : " His sic posi- tis, illud statim sequitur ut (in imperii cognitione) in provincia qualibet, cum plures urbes sint, una tamen primaria, et principalis censenda erat, ^jjT-^oVo?./; ideo dicta, cui itidem inferiores reliqua} civitates subjicicbantur, ut civitatibus regionos, sic et inter ecclesias et cathedras episcopalcs unam semper primariam et metropoliticam fuisse."
In this section the doctor hath most ingenuously and truly given us the rise and occasion of his diocesan and metropolitieal prelates. From the aims of men to accommodate ecclesiastical or church affairs to the state and condition of the civil government, and distributions of provinces, metro- politan cities, and cliief towns, within the several dependencies (the neigh- bouring villages being cast in as things of no great esteem to the lot of the next considerable town and seat of judicature), did the hierarchy which ho so sedulously contendeth for arise. What advantages were atforded to tlie work by the paucity of believers in the villages and less towns (from v.-hicli at length the whole body of heathenish idolaters were denominated Pagans); the first ])lanting of churches in tlie greater cities; the eminence of the officers of the first churches in those cities; the weakness of many rural bisliops; tlie multiplying and groA^'ing (in numbers, and persons of gifts, abilities, and consideraljle fortunes and employments in this world,) in the metropolitan cities, witli their fame thereby ; the tradition of the abode of some one or other of the aj>ostle3 in such citieif and churches;
A PREFACE TO THE READER. 51
the eminent accommodation for the administration of civil jurisdiction and other affairs, wliich appeared in that subordination and dependency whereinto tlie provinces, chief cities, and territories in the Roman empire were cast; with what opportunities Satan got by these means to introduce the ways, state, pomp, words, phrases, terms of honour of the workl into the churches, insensibly getting ground upon them, and prevailing to their declension from the naked simplicity and purity wherein they were first planted, — some other occasion may give advantage for us to manifest. For the present it may suffice that it is granted that the magnific hierarchy of the church arose from the accommodation of its state and condition [to that] of the Eoman empire and provinces ; and this, in the instances of after-ages that might be produced, will easily be made yet farther evident in those shameful, or, indeed, rather shameless, contests which fell out among the bishops of the third century and downward about precedency, titles of honour, extent of jurisdiction, ecclesiastical subjection to or exemption from one another. The considerableness of their cities, in the civil state of the Roman empire, where they did reside was still the most prevalent and cogent argument in their brawls. The most notable brush that in all antiquity we find given to the great leviathan of Rome, who sported him- self in those " gatherings together of the waters of people, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," or the " general councils," as they are called, was from an argument taken from the seat of the empire being fixed at Constantinople, making it become new Rome, so that the bishop of the church there was to enjoy equal privileges with him whoso lot was fallen in the old imperial city. But our doctor adds, —