The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…

§ 36. What man doth prudently set up, man may prudently alter as there is cause. Greg. Nazianzen earnestly wisheth that there were no difference of Place or seats among the Pastors of the Church. And therefore he neither thought their Government of each other to be of Divine right, nor of prudential necessity or use: Else he would have been against it. And the whole Greek Church did, and still doth take the seats of preeminence to be but of mans appointment, or else they would never have changed them, and set Constantinople so high as they did: And the Council of Calcedon expressly determineth, that Rome was by the fathers made the chief seat because it was the seat of the Emperor; which was mutable.

§ 36. What man doth prudently set up, man may prudently alter as there is cause. Greg. Nazianzen earnestly wisheth that there were no difference of Place or seats among the Pastors of the Church. And therefore he neither thought their Government of each other to be of Divine right, nor of prudential necessity or use: Else he would have been against it. And the whole Greek Church did, and still doth take the seats of preeminence to be but of mans appointment, or else they would never have changed them, and set Constantinople so high as they did: And the Council of Calcedon expresly determineth, that Rome was by the fathers made the chief seat because it was the seat of the Emperour; which was mutable.

§ 37. The Councils in those days were about Popes or Patriarchs, and could depose them: And yet it is most evident to any man considerately reading such history, that all the Councils, called before Christian Emperors gave them more power and conjoined their authority, did meet only for acts of Agreement and not of Regiment over each other: Many such synods are mentioned by Eusebius: And the Right Reverend Arch-bishop Usher declared his judgment so in general that Councils had but an agreeing power, and not a Regent power over the particular Bishops. ⟨p. 266⟩Yet these two things must be supposed, 1. That the Pastors in a synod are still Rectors of their flocks, and their Canons to them may be more authoritative than a single Pastors words: 2. That Gods Law bindeth us to keep love and concord, and the Agreements of Councils may determine of the matter in alterable points; and so even absent and present Bishops may, concordiae gratiâ, be obliged by Gods Law to keep such canons as are made for concord, and so they may be the matter of our duty. But seeing the Church for 300 years, judged Councils to have no proper Governing power over particular Pastors; and Bishops, or Patriarchs singly had ever less power than Councils, it followeth that then a Churches Government of disparity and supraordinate Bishops like the civil, or like the Jews, was not then taken to be of divine right, nor then of any right at all.