the Law they did effectuate that some Ministers should have the title of this or that Bishopricke and the revenues were gathered in the name of this titulare or tulchan Bishop albeit hee had but little part e. g. Robert Montgomerie Minister at Sterline was called Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and so it can bee instanced in other Bishop-rickes and abbacies Now this kind of praelats pretended no right to any part of the Episcopall office either in ordination or jurisdiction when some of these men began to creep in to vote for the Church in Parliament without any Law of the State without any commission from the Church the generall assembly discharged them being Ministers to practise any more such illegall insolencies with this ordinance of the Church after a little debate King James at that time did shew his good satisfaction But the Warner heere jumps over nolesse then twenty seven years time from the assembly at Edinburgh 1579 The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen to that at Aberdeen 1605 then was King James by the English Bishops perswasion resolved to put down the generall assemblies of Scotland contrary to the Lawes and constant practise of that Church from the first reformation to that day The act of Parliament did bear that once at least a yeare the assembly should meet and after their busines was ended they should name time place for the next assembly When they had met in the yeare 1602 they were moved to adjourne without doing any thing for two whole yeares to 1604 when then they were conveened at the time and place agreed to by his Majestie they were content upon his Majesties desire without doing any thing againe to adjourne to the nixt yeare 1605 at Aberdeen when that dyet came his Majesties Commissioner offered them a Letter To the end they might be an Assembly and so in a Capacity to receave his Majesties Letter with the Commissioners good pleasure they sate downe they named their Moderator and Clark they received and read the Kings letter commanding them to rise which they obeyed without any farther action at all but naming a dyet for the nixt meeting according to the Lawes and constant practise of Scotland hereupon by the pernicious counsel of Arch-Bishop Banckroft at London the King was stirred up to bring sore trouble upon a number of gracious Ministers Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State This is the whole matter which to the Warner heir is so tragick an insolence that never any Parliament durst attempt the like See more of this in the Historicall vindication The nixt instance of our Presbiteryes usurpation upon the Magistrat is their abolition before any statute of Parliament thereupon of the Church festivals in their first book of discipline Ans Consider the grievousnesse of this crime in the intervall of Parliaments the great counsel of Scotland in the minority of the Prince entrusted by Parliament to rule the Kingdome did charge the Church to give them in wryte their judgement about matters Ecclesiasticall in obedience to this charge the Church did present the counsel with a wryte named since the first book of disciplin which the Lords of counsel did approve subscribe and ratify by an Act of State a part of the first head in that wryte was that Christmas Epiphany purification and other fond feasts of the virgin Mary as not warranted by the holy Scriptures should bee laid aside Was it any encroachment upon the Magistrate for the Church to give this advice to the privy counsell when earnestly they did crave it the people of Scotland ever since have shewed their ready obedience to that direction of the Church founded upon Scripture and backed from the beginning with an injunction of the state His third instance of the Church of Scotlands usurpation upon the Magistrat is The friends of Episcopacy thryves not in Scotland their abolition of Episcopacy in the assembly 1580 when the Law made it treason to impugne the authority of Bishops being the third estate of the Kingdome Ans The Warner seemes to have no more knowledge of the affairs of Scotland then of Japan or Utopia the Law hee speakes of was not in being some yeares after 1580 how ever all the generall assemblyes of Scotland are authorised by act of Parliament to determine finally without an appeale in all Ecclesiastick affaires in the named assembly Lundie the Kings Commissioner did sit and consent in his Majesties name to that act of abolition as in the nixt assembly 1581 the Kings Commissioner Caprinton did erect in his Majesties name the Presbiteryes in all the Land it is true three yeares thereafter a wicked Courtier Captaine James Stuart in a shadow of a closse and not summoned Parliament did procure an act to abolish Presbiteries and erect Bishops but for this and all the rest of his crimes that evill man was quickly rewarded by God before the world in a terrible destruction these acts of his Parliament the very nixt yeare were disclaimed by the King the Bishops were put downe and the Presbitry was set up again and never more removed to this day The Warners digression to the perpetuity of Bishops in Scotland to the acts of the Church and State for their restitution is but to shew his ignorance in the Scotes story what ever be the Episcopall boastings of other Nations yet it is evident that from the first entrance of Christian Religion into Scotland Presbiters alone without Bishops for some hundred yeares did governe that Church and after the reformation their was no Bishop in that Land but in tittle and benefice till the yeare 1610 when Bancroft did consecrat three Scotes Ministers all of them men of evill report whom that violent Commissioner the Earle of Dunbar in the corrupt and null assembly of Glasgow got authorised in some pairt of a Bishops office which part only and no more was ratified in a posterior Parliament Superintendents are no where the same with Bishops much lesse in Scotland where for a time only till the Churches were planted they were used as ambulatory Commissioners and visitors to preach the word and administer the Sacraments for the supply of vacant and unsetled congregations The fourth instance is the Churches obtruding the second book of discipline without the ratification of the State Ans The second book of disciplin why not al ratified in Parliament For the Ecclesiastick enjoining of a generall assemblyes decrees a particular ratification of Parliament is unnecessary generall acts of Parliament commanding obedience to the acts of the Church are a sufficient warrant from the State beside that second book of disciplin was much debated with the King and at last in the generall assembly 1590 his consent was obtained unto it for in that assembly where unanimously the subscription of the second book of disciplin by all the ministers of the Kingdome was decried his Majestie some time in person and
A REVIEW OF DOCTOR BRAMBLE Late Bishop of LONDENDERRY HIS FAIRE WARNING Against the Scotes Disciplin By R. B. G. Printed at DELF By Michiel Stael dwelling at the Turf-Market 1649. For the right Honourable the Noble and potent Lord JOHN Earle of Cassils Lord KENNEDY c. one of his MAJESTIES privie counsel and Lord Iustice generall of Scotland RIGHT HONORABLE MY long experience of your Lordships sinceer zeale to the truth of God and affection to the liberties of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland against all enemies whomsoever hath imboldened me to offer by your Lordships hand to the view of the publick my following answer to a very bitter enemy of that Church and Kingdome for their adhaerence to the sacred truth of God and their own just liberties At my first sight of his Book and many dayes thereafter I had no purpose at all to medle with him The Authors reasons of his wryting your Lordship knowes how unprovided men of my present condition must be either with leasure or accommodations or a minde suitable for wryting of books Also Doctor Bramble was so well knowne on the other side of the Sea the justice of the Parliament of England and Scotland having unanimously condemned him to stand upon the highest pinacle of infamy among the first of the unpardonable incendiaries and in the head of the most pernicious instruments of the late miseries in Britaine and Ireland and the evident falshood of his calumnies were so clearly confuted long ago in printed answers to the infamous Authors whence he had borrowed them I saw lastly the mans Spirit so extreame saucy and his pen so wespish and full of gall that I judged him unworthy of any answer But understanding his malions boldnes to put his Book in the hand of his Majesty of the Prince of Orange and al the eminent personages of this place who can reed English yea to send it abroad unto all the Universities of these Provinces with very high and insinuating commendations from the prime favourers of the Episcopall cause hearing also the threats of that faction to put this their Excellent and unanswerable peece both in Dutch Frensh and Latine that in the whole neighbouring World the reputation of the Scotes might thereby be wounded killed and buried without hope of recovery I found it necessary at the desire of diverse friends to send this my review after it hoping that all who shall be pleased to be at the paines of comparing the reply with the challenge may be induced to pronounce him not only a rash untimous malicious but also a very false accuser This much justice doe I expect from every judicious and aequitable comparer of our wrytes upon the hazard of their censure to fall upon my side The Praelats are unable by reason to defend Episcopacy His invectives against us are chiefly for three things our Discipline our Covenant our alleadged unkindnes to our late Soveraigne My apology for the first is that in disciplin we maintaine no considerable conclusion but what is avowed by all the Reformed Churches especially our Brethren of Holland and France as by the approbatory suffrages of the Universities of Leyden Vtrecht and others to the theorems whereupon our adversarie doth build his chief accusations may appeare If our practise had aberred from the common rule the crookednes of the one ought not to praejudge the straightnes of the other though what our adversary alleadgeth of these aberrations is nothing but his owne calumnious imputations the chiefe quarrel is our rule it selfe which all the reformed harmoniously defend with us to bee according to Scripture and the Episcopall declinations to bee beside and against the line of the word yea Antichristian If our Praelats had found the humour of disputing this maine cause to stir in their veines why did they not vent it in replyes to Didoclavius and Gersome Bucerus who for long thirty yeares have stood unanswered or if fresher meats had more pleased their tast why did not their stomacks venture on Salmasius or Hondels books against Episcopacy If verbal debates had liked them better then wryting why had none of them the courage to accept the conference with that incomparably most learned of all knights now living or in any bygone age Sir Claud Somayis who by a person of honour about the King did signify his readines to prove before his Majesty against any one or all his praelaticall divines that their Episcopacy had no warrant at all in the word of God or any good reason But our friends are much wiser then to be at the trouble and hazard of any such exercise Their stronged arguments are trucks of Court the artifices of the court are their old trade they know better how to watch the seasons and to distribute amongst themselves the howres of the Kings opportunities when privatly without contradiction they may instill in his tender mind their corrupt principles and instruct him in his cabine how safe it is for his conscience and how much for his honor rather to ruine himselfe his family and all his Kingdomes with his own hands then to desert the holy Church that is the Bishops and their followers then to joine with the rebellious Covenanters enemies to God to his Father to to Monarchy that the embracing of the Barbarous Irish the pardoning of all their monstruous murders the rewarding of their expected merits with a free liberty of Popery and accesse to all places of the highest trust though contrary to all the Lawes which England and Ireland has knowne this hundred yeares all this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honor and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in their chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare trick which hardly the inventions of all their praedecessors can pararel The Brothers unlu◠foot is 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did dryve him on to his fatal praecipice unles they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the cares of his Son in his later will and testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to follow him in that same way of ruine rather then to give over to serve the lusts of the praelaticall clergy They have gathered together his Majesties last papers and cut of them have made a book whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and devotion was among them by way of essayes as it were to frame the heart of the Son by the fingers of the dying Father to piety wisedome patience and every virtue but ever znone to let fall so much of their own ungracious dew as may irrigat the feeds of their praelaticall Errors and Church interest so farre
was wont to be all their exercise but we thought that all indifferently ingenuous men had long agoe been put from such impudence It was the late labour of the praelats by all their skill to disgrace preaching and praying without booke to cry up the Liturgy as the only service of God and to idolize it as a most heavenly and divine peece of write which yet is nought but a transcript of the superstitious breviary and idolatrous missall of Rome The Warner would doe well to consider and answer after seven yeares advisement Mr. Bailie his pararell of the service with the missall and Breviarie before hee presente the world with new paralels of the English liturgy with the directories of the Reformed Churches Is it so indeed that all preaching and praying without book is but a pratting of non-sence everlastingly why then continues the King and many well minded men to be deceived by our Doctors while they affirme that they are as much for preaching in their practise and opinion as the Presbyterians and for prayer without book also before and after sermon and in many other occasions it seemes these affirmations are nothing but grosse dissimulation in this time of their lownesse and affliction to decline the envy of people against them for their profane contempt of divine ordinances for wee may see heere their tenet to remaine what it was and themselves ready enough when their season shall be fitter to ring it out loud in the eares of the World that for divine service people needs no more but the reading of the liturgy Vide laâ—â—â—ium cap. 7. that sermons on week dayes and Sundayes afternoon must all be laid aside that on the Sabbath before noone Sermon is needlesse and from the mouths of the most Preachers very noxious that when some learned Schollars are pleased on some festivall dayes to have an oration it would be short and and according to the Court paterne without all Spirit and life for edification but by all meanes it must bee provided that no word of prayer either before or after be spoken except only a bidding to pray for many things even for the welfare of the soules departed and all this alone in the words of the Lords prayer If any shall dare to expresse the desires of his heart to God in privat or publick in any words of his own framing hee is a grosse Puritan who is bold to offer to God his own nonsence rather then the auncient and well advised prayers of the holy Church The Warner is heer also mistaken in his beleefe that ever the Church of Scotland had any Liturgy they had and have still some formes for helpe and direction but no ty ever in any of them by law or practise they doe not condemne the use of set formes for rules yea nor for use in beginners who are thereby endeavouring to attaine a readinesse to pray in their family out of their owne heart in the words which Gods spirit dytes to them but for Ministers to suppresse their most confortable and usefull gift of prayer by tying their mouth unto such formes which themselves or others have composed wee count it a wrong to the giver and to him who has received the gift and to the gift and to the Church for whose use that was bestowed In the nixt place the Warner makes the Presbytry injurious to parents Episcopall warrants for clandestin marriages rob Parents of their children by marying their children contrary to their consent and forcing them to give to the disobedient as large a portion as to any other of their obedient children and that it is no mervail the Scots should doe these things who have stripped the King the father of their country of his just rights Ans By the Warners rule all the actions of a nation where a Presbytry lodges must be charged on the back of the Presbytry II. The Parliament of Scotland denyes that they have stripped the King of his just rights while he was stirred up and keeped on by the praelaticall faction to courses destructive to himselfe and all his people after the shedding of much blood before the exercise of all parts of his royall government they only required for all satisfaction and security to religion and liberties the grant of some few most equitable demands The unhappy Praelats from the beginning of our troubles to this day finding our great demande to runne upon the abolition of their office did ever presse his Majestie to deny us that satisfaction and rather then Bishops should be laid aside they have concluded that the King himselfe and all his family and all his three Kingdomes shall perish yet with all patience the Scotes continue to supplicat and to offer not only their Kingdome but their lives and estats and all they have for his Majesties service upon the grant of their few and easy demands but no misery either of King or people can overcome the desperat obstinacy of Praelaticall hearts As for parents consent to the mariage of their children how tenderly it is provided for in Scotland it may be seen at length in the very place cited It was the Bishops who by their warrants for clandestine mariages and dispensations with mariages without warrant have spoiled many parents of their deare children with such abhominations the Presbytery was never acquainted all that is alleadged out of that place of our discipline is when a cruel parent or tutor abuses their authority over their children and against all reason for their owne evill ends perversely will crosse their children in their lawfull and every way honest desires of mariage that in that case the Magistrats and Ministers may be intreated by the grieved childe to deale with the unjust parent or tutor that by their mediation reason may be done I beleeve this advice is so full of equity that no Church nor State in the world will complaine of it but how ever it be this case is so rare in Scotland that I professe I never in my life did know nor did heare of any child before my dayes who did assay by the authoritative sentence of a Magistrate or Minister to force their parents consent to their marriage As for the Warners addition of the Ministers compelling parents to give portions to their children that the Church of Scotland haths any such canon or practise its an impudent lie but in the place alledged is a passage against the sparing of the life of adulterers contrary to the Law of God and for the excommunication of Adulterers when by the negligence of the Magistrat their life is spared this possibly may be the thorne in the side of some which makes them bite and spurne with the heele so furiously against the Authors and lovers of so severe a discipline The Presbyteries nixt injury is done to the Lawyers Synodes other Ecclesiastick Courts revoke their Sentences Ans No such matter ever was attempted in Scotland frequent prohibitions have been obtained by
alwayes by the chancelor his Commissioner was present and in the act for subscription Sess 10. Augusti 8. it is expresly said that not only all the Ministers but also all the Commissioners praesent did consent among which Commissioners the chancelor his Majesties Commissioner was chief But neither the King nor the Church could get it to passe the Parliament in regaird of the opposition which some States-men did make unto these parts thereof which touched on their owne interest of unjust advantage this was the only stick The next instance of the Churches encroachement is their usurpation of all the old rents of the clergy The Warners hipocrisy calling that a crime which himselfe counts a virtue as the Churches patrimony and their decerning in anassembly that nothing in the nixt Parliament should passe before the Church were fully restored to her rents Ans Consider heere the Warners hypocrisie and unjustice he challenges the Presbiterians for that which no praelate in the world did ever esteem a fault a meer declaration of their judgement that the Church had a just right to such rents as by law and long possession were theirs and not taken away from them by any lawfull meanes What if heere they had gone on with the most of the praelaticall party to advance that right to a jus divinum what if they had put themselves by a command from Court into the possession of that right without a processe as diverse of the Warners friends were begun lately to doe in all the three Kingdomes but all that he can here challenge the Scotes for is a meere declaration of their simple right with a supplication to the Regent his grace that hee would indeavour in the nixt Parliament to procure a ninth part of the Churches patrimony for the mantainance of the ministry and the poore of the country for all the rent that the Churches then could obtaine or did petition was but a third of the thirds of the benefices or tithes That ever any assembly in Scotland did make any other addresse to the Parliament for stipends then by way of humble supplication it is a great untruth The last instance is the erecting of Presbyteries through al the Kingdome by an act of the Church alone Ans I have showne already the untruth of this alleadgeance the proofe heere brought for it is grounded only upon an ambiguous word which the Warners ignorance in the Scotish disciplin and Presbitery though the maine subject of his booke permits him not to understand The Presbyteries were set up by the King after the assembly 1580 but the second booke of discipline of which alone the citation speaks how ever enjoind by many assemblies yet it could never be gotten ratified in any Parliament only because of these parts of it which did speake for the patrimony of the Church and oppugne the right of patronages How well the Warner hath proven the Presbiterian practises to be injurious to the Magistrate we have considered The Warner a grosse Erastian possibly he will bee more happy in his nixt undertaking in his demonstrations that their doctrinall principles doe trample on the Magistrats supremacy and Lawes their first principle hee takes out of the second book of disciplin Cap. 7. That no Magistrat nor any but Ecclesiastick persons may vote in Synods Ans Though I find nothing of this in the place cited yet there is nothing in it that crosseth either the Laws or the Kings supremacy for according to the acts of Parliament of Scotland both old and late and the constant practise of that Church the only members of Presbyteries are Ministers and ruling elders Is it the Warners minde to vent here his super-Erastianisme that all Ecclesiastick assemblies Classicall Provinciall nationall are but the arbitrary Courts of the Magistrat for to advise him in the execution of his inhaerent power about matters Ecclesiasticall and for this cause that it is in his arbitrement to give a decisive voyce in all Church assemblies to whom and how many so ever hee will Though this may bee the Warners minde as it hath been some of his friends yet the most of the praelaticall party will not man taine him heerein How ever such principles are contrary to the Lawes of Scotland to the professions also and practises of all the Princes and Magistrats that ever have lived there But the Warner heere may possibly glaunce at another principle of his good friends Praelatical principles impossibilitate alsolid peace betwixt the King and his Kingdoms who have been willing lately to vent before al Britaine in print their Elevating the supremacy of Soveraignes so far above Lawes that what ever people have obtained to bee established by never so many assemblies and Parliaments and confirmed with never so many great seales of ratification and peaceably injoyed by never so long a possession yet it is nothing but commendable wisedome and justice for the same Prince who made the first concessions or any of his successors when ever they find themselfes strong enough to cancell all and make void what ever Parliaments Assemblies royall ratifications and the longest possession made foolish people beleeve to be most firme and unquestionable To this purpose Bishop Maxwel from whom much of this warning is borrowed doth speak in his Sacro-Sancta regum Majestas Though this had been the Cabine divinity of our praelats yet what can be their intentions in speaking of it out in these times of confusion themselves must declare for the cleare consequente of such doctrine seemes to be a necessity either of such Warners perpetuall banishment from the Courts and eares of Soveraignes or else that subjects be kept up for ever in a strong jealousy and feare that they can never be secure of their liberties though never so well ratified by Lawes and promises of Princes any longer then the sword and power remaines in their owne hand to preserve what they have obtained Such Warners so long as they are possessed with such maximes of state are cleare everters of the first fundations of trust betwixt Soveraignes and subjects they take away all possibility of any solid peace of any confident setlement in any troubled state before both parties be totally ruined or one become so strong that they need no more to feare the others malcontentment in any time to come Our second challenged principle is that wee teach the whole power of convocating assemblies to be in the Church Erastian praelats evert the legall foundations of all government Ans The Warners citations prove not that we maintaine any such assertion our doctrin and constant practise hath been to ascribe to the King a power of calling Synods when and wheresoever he thought fit but that which the Warner seemes to point at is our tenet of an intrinsicall power in the Church to meet as for the word and Sacraments so for disciplin in this all who are Christians old and late the praelaticall and Popish party as well as others
the judicatories of the Church according to the generall rules which are clear also in the word for matters of that nature In this neither Papists nor the learndest of the Praelats find any fault with us yet our Warner must spend a whole Chapter upon it It is true as we observed before the elder Praelats of England in Edwards Elizabeths dayes as the Erastians now did mantaine that no particular Governement of the Church was jure divino and if this be the Warners mind it were ingenuity in him to speake it out loud and to endeavour to perswade his friends about the King of the truth of this tenet he was never imployed about a better and more seasonable service for if the discipline of the Church be but humano jure then Episcopacy is keeped up upon no conscience conscience being bottomed only upon a divine right so Episcopacy wanting that bottom may well be laid aside at this time by the King for any thing that concernes conscience since no command of God nor warrant from scripture tyes him to keep it up This truely seemes to be the maine ground whereupon the whole discourse of this Chapter is builded Is it tolerable that such truthes should be concealed by our Warners against their conscience when the speaking of them out might be so advantagious to the King and all his Kingdomes how ever wee with all the reformed Churches doe beleeve in our heart the divine right of Synods and Presbyteries and for no possible inconvenient can be forced to deny or passe from this part of truth yet the Warner heere joynes with the elder Praelats who till Warner Banckrofts advancement to the sea of Canterburry did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of divine right and by consequent affirmed it to be moveable and so lawfull to be laid aside by princes when so ever they found it expedient for their affaires to be quyte of it why does not the warner and his Brethren speake plainly their thoughts in his Majesties eares why do they longer dissemble their conscience only for the satisfaction of their ambition greed and revenge sundry of the Praelaticall divines come yet further to joyne fully with Erastus in denying not only Episcopacy and all other particular formes of Church government to be of divine institution but in avowing that no governement in the Church at all is to be imagined but such as is a part of the civill power of the Magistrat The Warner in the Chapter and in diverse other parts of his booke seemes to agree with this judgment and upon this ground if he had ingenuity he would offer his helping hand to untie the bonds of the Kings conscience if heere it were straytened by demonstrating from this his principle that very safely without any offence to God and nothing doubting for conscience sake his Majestie might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his dominions though not upon a divine right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royall right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts heere again upon the Presbyterie The praelaticall party were lately bent for Popery the usurpation of the temporall sword in what indirect relation so ever its probation in the former chapter was found so weake and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only wee marke that the Warner will have the Presbitery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Praelats especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this howre an answer that their principles unavoidably did bring backe the pope For a Patriarch over all the westerne Churches and among all the Patriarches of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flowes cleerly out of the fountaine of Episcopacy according to the avowed doctrine of the English praelats who yet are more liberall to the pope in granting him beside his spirituall super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporall jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other faire principalities within and without Italy There is no ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous ceremonies of Rome their images and altars and adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any recantation we have heard of avow them all even an adoration of and to the altar it selfe As for the doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in expresse tearmes a corporall presence of Christs body upon the Altar the Tridentine justification free-will finall apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbyterie is as absolute papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian position which the Warner heere offers not to dispute but to laugh at that Christ as King of his Church according to his royall office and Scepter hes appointed the office bearers and lawes of the house is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our adversaries whether English or Romish as their owne tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Lawes c. neither they nor wee doe acknowledge His declamations against the novelty of the Presbyterie in the ordinary stile of the Jesuites against Protestants The Praelats professe now a willingnes to abolish at least three parts of the former Episcopacy and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regarde our plea for the Praesbyterie is that it is scripturall if so it is auncient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that heer also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speake out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was wel warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirme that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantiall limbs was ever knowne in the World till the pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all acts of State and exercising the place of a high Thesaurer of a Chancelor or what ever civill charge the favour of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction with out any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himselfe in any part of his dioces but devolving the exercise of that power wholly upon his officials Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himselfe alone or with the fashionall
Ministers must not only want the confort of an assured and undoubted calling to the Ministry but may very well know and be assured that their calling and Ministry is null The words immediatly following are scraped out after their printing for what cause the author lest knoweth but the purpose in hand makes it probable that the deletted words did expresse more of his mind then it was safe in this time and place to speake out it was the late doctrine of Doctor Brambles prime friends that the want of Episcopall ordination did not only annull the calling of all the Ministers of France Holland Zwit-zerland and Germany but also did hinder all these societies to be true Churches for that popular Sophisme of the Jesuits our praelats did greedily swallow where are no true Sacraments there is no true Church and where is no true Ministry there are no true Sacraments and where no true ordination there is no true ministry and where no Bishops there is no true ordination and so in no reformed country but in England and Ireland where were true Bishops is any true Church When Episcopacy comes to this height of elevation that the want of it must annuall the Ministry yea null the Church and all the Reformed at one strock is it any mervaill that all of them doe concurre together for their own preservation to abolish this insolent abaddon and destroyer and notwithstanding all its ruine have yet no disconfort at all nor any the least doubt of their most lawfull ordination by the hands of the Presbytry After all this was writen is heer it stands The Praelats are so baselie injurious to all the reformed Churches that their selfes are ashamed of it another copie of the Warners book was brought to my hand wherin I found the deleted line stand printed in these distinct tearmes and put it to a dangerous question whither it be within the payle of the Church the deciphering of these words puts it beyond all peradventure that what I did conjecture of the Warner and his Brethrens minde of the state of all the reformed Churches was no mis-take but that they doe truely judge the want of Episcopall ordination to exclude all the Ministers of other Reformed Churches and their flocks also from the lines of the true Church This indeed is a most dangerous question for it stricks at the root of all If the Warner out of remorse of conscience had blotted out of his book that errour the repentance had been commendable But he hes left so much yet behind unscraped out as does shew his minde to continue what it was so that feare alone to provoke the reformed heere at this unseasonable time seemes to have been the cause of deleting these too cleare expressions of the praelaticall tenet against the very being and subsistence of all the Protestant Churches which want Episcopacy when these mē doe still stand upon the extreame pinacle of impudency and arrogance denying the Reformed to be true Churches and without scuple averring Rome as shee stands this day under the counsel of Trent to be a Church most true wherin there is an easy way of salvation from which all separation is needlesse and with which a re-union were much to be desired That gracious faction this day is willing enough to perswade or at least to rest content without any opposition that the King should of himselfe without and before a Parliament though contrary to many standing Lawes grant under his hand and seale a full liberty of Religion to the bloody Irish and to put in their hands both armes Castles and prime Places of trust in the State that the King should give assurance of his endeavour to get all these ratified in the nixt Parliament of England these men can heare with all moderation and patience but behold their furious impatience their whole art and industry is wakned when they heare of any appearance of the Kings inclination towards covenanting Protestants night and day they beate in his Majesties head that all the mischieves of the world does lurke in that miserable covenant that death and any misfortune that the ruine of all the Kingdomes ought much rather to bee imbraced by his Majestie then that prodigious Monster that very hell of the Covenant because forsooth it doth oblige in plane tearmes the taker to endeavour in his station the abolition of their great Goddesse praelacy The nixt hurt of Ministers from the Presbytry The generality of the Episcopal clergy have ever been covered with ignorance beggery and contempt is that by it they are brought to ignorance contempt and beggery Ans Whither Episcopacy or Presbytry is the fittest instrument to avert these evills let reason or experience teach men to judge The Presbyteriall discipline doth oblige to a great deale of severer tryalls in all sort of learning requisite in a divine before ordination then doth the Episcopall let either the rule or practise of Presbyterian and Episcopall ordination be compared or the weekly Exercises and monthly disputations in Latine upon the controverted heads be looked upon which the Presbytry exacts of every Minister after his ordination all the dayes of his life for experience let the French Dutch and Scots divines who have been or yet are be compared with the ordinary generation of the English Clergie and it will be found that the praelats have not great reason so superciliously to look downe with contempt upon their Brethrens learning I hope Cartwright Whitaker Perkins Reynolds Parker Ames and other Presbyterian English were inferior in learning to none of their opposits some of the English Bishops has not wanted good store of learning but the most of them I beleeve wil be content to leave of boasting in this subject what does the Warner speake to us of ignorance contempt and Beggery does not all the world know that albeit some few scarce one of twenty did brook good benefices yea plurality of them whereby to live in splendor at Court or where they listed in their non-residency neverthelesse it hath been much complained that the greatest parte of the priests who had the cure of soules thorow all the Kingdome of England were incomparably the most ignorant beggerly and contemptible clergy that ever have been seen in any of the reformed Churches neither did we ever heare of any great study in the Praelats to remeed these evils albeit some of them be provident enough for their owne families Doctor Bramble knowes who had the skill before they had sitten seven yeare in their charge to purchase above fifeteen hundred pounds a yeare for themselves and their heirs what somever The third evil which the Ptesbytery brings upon Ministers is that it makes them prat and pray nonsence everlastingly Ans The Praelats continue to hate preaching and prayer but to idolize a popish service It is indeed a great heartbrake unto ignorant lazy and unconsciencious Ministers to be put to the paines of preaching and prayer when a read service
English man can deny it but his owne conscience will give him thely Ans If the Warner with any seriousnesse hath weighed this part of his owne write and if his mind goe along with his pen I may without great presumption pronounce his judgment to be none of the most solide His following vapours being full of aire we let them evanish only while he mentioneth our charging the King with intentions of changing the Religion and government we answer that we have been most willing alwayes to ascribe to the King good intentions but withall we have long avowed that the praelaticall party have gone beyond intentions to manifest by printed declarations and publick actions their former designe to bring Tiranny upon the States and popery upon the Churches of all the three Kingdomes and that this very write of the Warners makes it evident that this same minde yet remaines within them without the least shew of repentance So long as the conscience of the court is mannaged by men of such principles it is not possible to free the hearts of the most understanding from a great deale of Jealousy and feare to have Religion and lawes still overturned by that factione But the Warner commands us The covenant is not for propagating of Religion by armes to speake to his Dilemma whither we think it lawfull or unlawfull for subjects to take armes against their prince meerly for Religion We answer that the reasons whereby he thinks to conclude against us on both sides are very poor if we shall say it is unlawfull then he makes us to condemne our selfes because our covenant testifies to the world that we have taken up armes meerly to alter Religion and that we beare no alleadgance to our King but in order to Religion which in plaine tearmes is to our owne humours and conceits Ans There be many untruthes here in few words first how much reality and truth the Warner and some of his fellowes beleeves to be in that thing which they call Religion their owne heart knowes but it can be no great charity in him to make the Religion of all covenanters to be nothing but their owne humours and conceits Secondly it is not true that Covenanters beare no alleadgance to the King but only in order to religion III. The Parliament of England denied that they took up armes against their King though to defend themselves against the popish praelaticall and malignant faction who were about to destroy them with armes IV. They have declared that their purpose was not at all to alter Religion but to purge it from the corruptions of Bishops and ceremonies that to long had been noxious unto them V. They have oft professed that their armes were taken for the defence of their just liberties whereof the preservation and reformation of Religion was but one The other horne of his Dilemma is as blunt in pushing as the former If we make it lawfull saith he to take up armes for Religion we then justify the independents and Anabaptists wee make way for any that will plant what ever they apprehend to be true Religion by force and to cut the throat of all Magistrats who are in a contrary opinion to them that it is a ridiculous partiality for any to priviledge their own Religion as truth and Gospell Ans The Warners black Atheisme Whether will these men goe at last the strength of this reason is blak atheisme that their is no realty of truth in any Religion that no man may be permitted to take his Religion for any thing more but his owne apprehension which without ridiculous folly he must not praeferre to any other mans apprehension of a contrary Religion this is much worse then the pagane Scepticisme which turned all reality of truth into a meer apprehension of truth wherein their was no certainty at all this not only turnes the most certaine truths even these divine ones of Religion into meer uncertaine conceptions but which is worse it wil have the most orthodoxe beleever so to think speake and act as if the opinions of Independents Anabaptists Turks Jews Pagans or grosse Atheists were as good true and solide as the beleefe of Moyses or Paul were of the truths revealed to them from heaven Secondly we say that subjects defence of their Religion and liberties established by Law against the violent usurpation of Papists Praelats or Malignants is not the planting of Religion by arms much lesse is it the cutting of the throats of al Magistrats who differ in any point of Religion a The Praelats condemne the defensive armes of the Dutch Frensh Protestants III. In the judgement of the praelaticall party the defensive armes of the Protestants in France Holland and Germany must be al 's much condemned as the offensive armes of the Anabaptists in Munster or of the sectaries this day in England Can these men dreame that the World for their pleasure will so farre divest themselves of all Religion and reason as to take from their hands so brutish and Atheisticall maximes b The Praelats decline the judgement of counsels He concluds with a wish of a generall counsel at least of all protestant Churches for to condemne all broatchers of seditious principles Ans All true covenanters goe before him in that desire being confident that he and his fellowes as they have declined al ready the most solemne assemblies of their owne countries upon assurance of their condemnation so their tergiversation would be al 's great if they were to answer to an oecumenick Synod c The Praelats overthrow the foundatiōs of Protestant Religion What I pray would the Warner say in a counsel of protestants for the practise of his party pointed at in his last words I meane their purging the Pope of Antichristianisme of purpose to make way for a reconciliation yea for a returne to Rome as this day it lyes under the wings of the Pope and Cardinals d The Praelats are stil peremptorie to destroy the King and all his Kingdoms if they may not be restored Also what could they answer in a Christian counsel unto this charge which is the drift of this whole Book that they are so farre from any remorse for all the blood and misery which their wickednes most has brought on the former King and all his Kingdomes these eleven yeares that rather then they had not the Covenant and generall assembly in Scotland destroyed as an Idoll and Antichrist they wil chuse yet still to imbroyle all in new calamities This King also and his whole Family the remainder of the blood and Estats in all the three Kingdomes must be hazarded for the sowing together of the torne mytres and the reerecting of the fallen chayres of Praelats If Bishops must lie still in their deserved ruines they perseveer in their peremptory resolution to have their burials sprinckled with the ashes of the royall Family and all the three Kingdomes FINIS ERRATA GOod Reader the Authors absence from the Presse the whole time of the impression and the Printers unacquaintance with the English language has occasioned not onely many mispunctations and literall faults but also diverse grosser Errata such as the following which thou art intreated to mend with thy Pen PAg. 4. lin 23. for had read hath pag. 9. lin 8. for Provincionall read Provinciall p. 11. l. 30 for whereby r. where p. 15. l. 19. for pairt r. part p. 20. l. 19 for can r. doth l. 30. for potestant r. Protestant pag. 22. l. 19. for these r. the. p. 23. l. ult for over r. or for trusted r. trustee p. 27. l. 4. for impatien t r. impatient l. 18. dele and. p. 28. in marg for commissarie r. commissaries l. 14. for and r. or l. 29. for chardge r. charge p. 31. l. 1. for chardges r. charges l. 25. for citation r. irritation p. 32. l. 10. for praecipies r. praecipices p. 35. in tit of chap. 7. for paritie r. part p. 36. l. 2. for scandals r. scandal p. 37. l. 2. for benefite r. benefice p. 38. l. 10. for nation r. souldier l. 11. for their souls r. his soule p. 48. c. 8. l. 4. dele Ans p. 49. l. 18. for Warner r. Doctor p. 51. l. 13. for the r. his p. 52. l. 16. for treasure r. Bishop p. 55. in tit of chap. 9. for their r. the. p. 56. l. 31. for Christ r. Christ his l. 32. for point blank to r. point blanck contrare to p. 59. l. 1. dele and. l. 1. for unpoureth r. vapoureth l. 17. for where r. heere p. 65. l. 5. for continues r. continue l. 6. for are r. is p. 66. l. 3. for to r. so l. 9. for warned r. warmed p. 67. l. 16. for in r. to p. 68. l. 5. for or r. which l. 16. for last r. nixt p. 70. l. 18. for lest r. best l. ult for null the Church and r. the verie being of p. 71. l. 1. for Reformed r. Reformed Churches p. 73. l. 23. for charge r. chaire p. 74. l. 6. for service r. service book l. 28. dele and. p. 75. l. 16. dele and to the gift p. 76. l. ult for haths r. hath p. 78. l. 24. for doszen r. dozen p. 82. l. 5. for inprints r. imprints p. 84. l. 9. for complanit r. complaint p. 85. l. 7. for aside ever r. aside for ever l. 16. for sinshews r. sinews