(II2, , to keep fome back forthat time, and to admit them again if they openlypro: fefs to repent.aùd amend their naughty lives, and to abfo'lve the Fick, they intimate that the Power of the Keys belongeth to them, though they contradia` them- felves otherwife bydenying it them. p. And in Ordination the Presbyter is required to exercife difcipline And the words of All. zo. z8. were formerly .ufed to them [Take heed toyour felvesand to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghofi bath madeyou Overfeers (or Bithops) tofeed (orRule) the Ghurch_ofGod : Whence Bithop Úfher gather- eth that the Churches fence was that the Presbyters had a joynt power with the Bithop In Church Government. And though latelyAnno r662.' this be altered,and thofe words left out, yet it is not any fuchnew change that can diC. prove this to have been the meaning ofthem that made the bookofOrdination, =I that ufed it. Ii. Archbilhop Cranmer with the reft of the Commiffioners appointed by King Edward the Sixth for the Reformation of Ecclefiafticai Laws, decreed the.:adminiftring Difcipline in every Parifh by the Minifter and certain Elders; Labouring and intending by all means to bring in the ancient difcipline. Vid. Reform. Leg. Ecclef. tit. de Divinis Ofciie cap. ro. And ourLiturgy witheth this Godly Difcipline reftored, and fub(tituteth theCuries till it can be done. And the fameCranmer was the firft of46 who in the timeof King Henry the Eighth affirmed (In ahook called The Bifhops Book, to be feen in ,Fox's Martyrology,)that the difference.ofBifhops was a deviceeof the ancient Fathers, and not mentioned in Scripture. And ofthe opinion ofCranmer,with others in this point, his own papers publithed by Dr. Stillingfleet Irenic.p. 39o,39t,earc. are fo full a proof, that nomore is needful. III. Dr. Richard Coftns in his Tables theweth how Church Difcipline is partly exercifedby Presbyters, and by the Kings Commillion máy be much: more. And it is not aliene totheir office. . IV. Hooker Pale: Pol. lib: 5.:pleadeth againfi the Divine . fettlement of one formof Government : And lib. 7. Self, 7. p.17, 18. he fheweth at large that the Bithops with their Presbyters as a Confcfs governed the Churches: And that in this refped, [It is ragfi certain .truth, that the Churches Cathedral and the Bifhops of them are as glafes wherein theface and very countenance ofApo- fiojical antiqùityremainethyet to befeen,notwithftandingthe alterations whichtrail of time and court . of the world bath brought. . And .much he hath elfe- where, which granteth that the.Presbyters are Church governours, , though not inequality with the Bithops. 'V. 'Dr. Field, lib. 5. c. 27. filming how the Apofiles £rift limiting and fixing ofPafiors to particular Churches, was a giving them Jurifdidtion, faith, [this a igning to menhaving the power of order, theperrons to whom they were to mintier holy things, and of whom.shey were to take. the'care, and the fübjeitsng of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=