a power as he ascribes to them and as the Suffragans I shall now shew you were invested withal who were of the Order of Bishops as much as any other Some have called them Titular Bishops ordained to assist and aid the Bishop of the Diocess in his Spiritual Function and think they had their name from this that by their Suffrages Ecclesiastical Causes were judged But the better to understand what they were you must know that all the Bishops of any Province were antiently called by the Metropolitan his Suffragans being to advise and assist him in the common Affairs of the Church So the word is often used in the Canon Law and in latter times in the Provincial Council of Salisburg b An. 1420 Cap de Officio Ordinarii The Archbishop Everard speaks to all the Bishops as his Suffragans being called together with him in partem solicitudinis into part of the care of the people under his charge Which are the words of our Linwood also who saith the Bishops are called Suffragans because they are bound to help and assist the Archbishop c Archiepiscopo suffragari assistere tenentur Annor in cap. de Constitutionibus But since those times they only have been called Suffragans who were indeed ordained Bishops but not possessed as yet of any See and thence called Titular Bishops which kind of Bishops are no stranger than those Ministers at Geneva whom they call Apostoli who preach in the Country Churches and administer the Sacraments but have no certain charge Yet in England I must tell you it was otherwise as appears by the Statute of 26 Hen. VIII chap. 14. where provision is made for Suffragans which had been accustomed to be had within this Realm as it tells us both in the beginning and the middle of it And it is enacted that the Towns of Thetford Ipswich Colchester Dover Guilford Southampton and twenty places more besides them should be taken and accepted for Sees of Bishops Suffragans to be made in this Realm c. For this end every Archbishop or Bishop being disposed to have them for the more speedy administration of Holy things had the liberty given them to name and elect two fit persons and present them to the King who thereupon had full power by the Act to give to which of those two he pleased the Stile Title and Name of Bishop of such of the Sees aforesaid as he thought most expedient and he was to be called Bishop Suffragan of the same See After which the King was to present him by his Letters Patents under the great Seal to the Archbishop of Canterbury or of York signifying his Name his Stile Title and Dignity of Bishoprick requiring him to Consecrate the said person so nominated and presented to the same Name Title Stile and Dignity of Bishop For which purpose either the Bishop that nominated him or the Suffragan himself was to provide two Bishops or Suffragans to consecrate him with the Archbishop and to bear their reasonable costs This Statute though repealed in the first and second of Philip and Mary d Chap. 8. yet was revived among sundry other in the first of Queen Elizabeth e See ch 1. And it is sufficiently manifest from thence that these persons had Episcopal Ordination being Consecrated by the Archbishop and two Bishops more as much as any other And therefore secondly had Episcocal Power and Authority as much as the Bishop of the Diocess though being dependent on him the Suffragan could not use or execute any Jurisdiction Power or Authority but by his Commission under his Seal as the Statute likewise provides Upon which score Mr. Mason calls them Secondary f De Minist Angl. l. 1. c. 3. Bishops and further observes truly that though in compare with others they may seem to have nothing but a Title because they had not their proper Diocesses to themselves yet if we speak absolutely they had both the Title and the thing signified by it For they had for their Episcopal Seat some great Town g Oppidum illustre lege Parliamentaria illis designatum appointed to them by the Act of Parliament in which and some certain adjacent places to which the Bishop of the Diocess limited them they exercised their Episcopal Function From whence also they borrowed the name of Suffragan of Bedford Suffragan of Colchester c. So that none of those who were Consecrated Bishops among us in England whether Primary or Secondary as his words are were meerly Titular but destinated all of them to the administration of a certain place according to the sixth Canon of the Council of Chalcedon Accordingly we find that such Suffragans being made acted like other Bishops in all things For the Register of the Consecration of Archbishop Parker tells us that at the time of it four Chairs were set for four Bishops one of which was John Hodgskin Suffragan Bishop of Bedford who assisted also in the Consecration of the Bishops of London Ely Lincoln and divers others which he could not have done had he not had Episcopal Power and consequently the Power of Ordaining Presbyters as well as of Consecrating Bishops And so much this Apologist might have learnt from him whom he calls a Learned Prelate if he had read his Books with care I mean Bishop Bramhall who writes thus of the Power of Suffragans h Romphaea Printed 1659. p. 93 The Office and the Benefice of a Bishop are two distinct things Ordination is an Act of the Key of Order and a Bishop uninthroned may Ordain as well as a Bishop inthroned The Ordination of Suffragan Bishops who had no peculiar Bishopricks was always admitted and reputed as good in the Catholick Church if the Suffragans had Episcopal Ordination as the Ordination of the greatest Bishops in the world Nay if he had but read their own Authors he would not have doubted that Suffragans were altogether to speak in their stile as bad as Bishops For the Admonition to the Parliament puts them among the Titles and Offices devised by Antichrist and declares that though they take upon them which is most horrible to rule Gods Church yet they are plainly by Christ forbidden and utterly with speed to be removed You may read more to the same purpose in the Preface as I find it cited in the Censure of the Pamphlet called Humble Motives for Association An. 1601. p. 23 25. In which year I find this a part of the Secular Priests complaint against the Jesuites that they would not be subordinate in any manner to the Ordinary Prelates of England as Bishops and Suffragans and that they withstood their endeavours to have Bishops or Suffragans i Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman p. 73. 87 90. By which you may see they were numbred among the Prelates to whom all Priests were to be subject which made those fiery Dissenters from our Church to declaim so
Church before the Reformed transmarine Churches Arminius before St. Austin who judge Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius who have more charity for those that deny the Deity of our Saviour than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy and who can with more patience bear a dispute against the very being of a Deity than about the taking away of a Ceremony c. This is the language not of the bold blades but of a modest Presbyterian of one that uses hard reasons and soft words if you will believe himself in the very leaf before-going q Preface p 9. Whatsoever charity they have for us their good words shall never be wanting to themselves They will call themselves humble and modest whatsoever they say or do Though they blush not to defend themselves by injuring any body nor fear to cast reproaches on whomsoever that for defence of the truth stand in their way For every part of this Charge is a vile slander and some of it is confuted you shall see by himself Which that I may demonstrate let me tell you In the first place that it is no Hectorism to assert the Divine Right of Episcopacy in the strictest sense This is no upstart opinion broached by some swaggering hot-brain'd men who love to rant and vapour beyond other Folk which is the proper quality of a Hector but hath been antiently believed in this Church from the very beginning of the Reformation and maintained by the soberest men in it I know they would have you to think otherwise and have endeavoured to perswade the World that it is a novel Doctrine advanced of later times by some proud and haughty Divines Mr. Robert Baily made bold to say that before Bishop Bancrofts time the Bishops did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of Divine Right r Reply to fair warning p. 49. Printed at Delf 1649 And the Letter to Dr. Samuel Turner Printed 1647. will not allow it to be so Antient but affirms p. 3. that it is an opinion but lately countenanced in England and that by some of the more Lordly Clergy He means I think Archbishop Laud as some since have explained it But both the one and the other of these talk'd at random out of their own imaginations not from Historical observation Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson as the Answer to that Letter suggests were both of a contrary perswasion And I can name a Divine of their Opinion elder than either and much reverenced even by the Presbyterians who was offered a Bishoprick also but refused it And that is Old Bernard Gilpin who left the World that very year in which Bishop Whitgift was advanced to the See of Canterbury 1583. For when Mr. Cartwrights book was newly come forth a certain Cambridge man who seemed a very great Scholar came to this famous Preacher and dealt very earnestly with him about the Discipline and Reformation of the Church But Mr. Gilpins answer was That he could not allow that any Humane invention should take place in the Church in stead of a Divine Institution How said the man do you think that this Form of Discipline is an Humane Invention I am said Mr. Gilpin altogether of that mind And as many as diligently turn over the Writings of the Fathers will be of my opinion O but the later men replied the Disciplinarian see many things which those antient Fathers saw not and the present Church seems better provided of many ingenious and industrious men At which Mr. Gilpin saith my Author Å¿ Life of Bernard Gilpin Edit 4. 1636. p. 106 107 c. seemed somewhat moved and answered I for my part do not hold the virtues of the later men to be compared to the Infirmities of the Fathers Which words he used on purpose because he perceived this young man had a strong conceit of I know not what rare virtues in himself which opinion the good old man was desirous to root out of him But there is an Authority ancienter than all these viz. The Form and Order of making and consecrating Bishops c. confirmed by Act of Parliament In which three things are considerable The very first words of the Preface are That it is evident to all men reading the holy Scriptures and antient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders in Christs Church Bishops Priests and Deacons Then secondly the Prayer after the Letany at the Consecration of a Bishop begins in this manner Almighty God giver of all good things which by thy holy Spirit hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in thy Church c. which must needs be understood of those before named And lastly the first question to the person to be Consecrated is Are you perswaded that you be called to this Ministration according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ To which the Answer is I am so perswaded Put now all these together and you will not be able to conceive as the Answer to the Letter t page 12 13. observes how these words should fall from any men not possessed with this Tenet that Episcopacy is of Divine Right in the strictest sense For if God by his holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church and we may find evidently by Scripture and antient Writers that there are three Orders whereof Bishops the highest and this is made the ground of praying for the Bishop to be Consecrated and he must profess he is perswaded that he is called to that Ministration according to Christs will then Episcopacy in the opinion of those who composed and confirmed this Book is in such a manner according to Christs Will that it is grounded in Scripture and appointed by the Spirit of God and all this hath not been said only of late nor countenanced only by some few and those of the more Lordly Clergy 2. For which cause no man ought to be disgraced with any odious name much less be called an Hector who is now of the same Perswasion The most illustrious persons that have been in our Church men far from that boisterous humour have declared themselves for this Doctrine and doubted not but they could maintain it I need instance in no more than two Bishop Andrews whose mind is well known from his three Letters to Peter du Moulin 1618. u Translated and Printed 1647. to which I refer you and the late Bishop Sanderson whom the best of you have spoken of with honour and reverence He declares his opinion to be that Episcopal Government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical Practice or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias our blessed Lord Christ x Postscript to Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power who being sent by his Father afterward sent his Apostles to execute the same Apostolical Episcopal Pastoral Office for the Ordering and Governing of his Church till his coming again and so the
declared when time was f Letter to his Legate in the Council of Trent See p. 646. Engl. Edit 1629. that the opinion which makes them hold by that Title is false and erroneous But not to leave the least speck of his dirt sticking on us which he blushes not to throw in our faces once more p. 34. you may know that the very same Bishop newly mentioned wipes it all off himself by clearing and excusing the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas from sinning against the Divine Right though they had no Bishops whom he thought to be of Divine Right in the strictest sense I said no such thing as his words are g Bishop Andrews Letter to du Moulin Ib. but only this that your Churches wanted something that is of Divine Right Wanted not by your fault but by the iniquity of the times for that your France had not your Kings so propitious at the Reformation of your Church as our England had In like manner the late Primate of Ireland Bishop Bramhall excuses those in the Reformed Churches who as I told you either had a desire or but an esteem of Episcopacy though they could not enjoy it And as for a third sort who were so far from either of those that they condemned it as an Antichristian Innovation and a rag of Popery whereby they became guilty he thought of most gross Schism materially he saith thus much may be alledged to mitigate their fault That they do it ignorantly h Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 71 72. as they have been mis-taught and mis-informed and I hope that many of them are free from obstinacy and hold the truth implicitely in the preparation of their minds because ready to receive it when God shall reveal it to them Nay Dr. Heylin himself whom this man thinks so fierce makes an Apology for their Ministers not being Ordained by Bishops at the first Reformation there being he thinks a necessity for it as you may read in his History of Episcopacy p. 164. And lastly a famous person now alive this Apologist cites afterward against his own self Master Thorndike I mean who he acknowledges i page 10. hath a charity for the Churches beyond the Seas though wanting Bishops whom he doubts not to be of Divine Right But he might have had recourse to a better place of his works for this purpose than that which he hath produced For he handles this question at large in his Book of the Rights of the Church k p. 194 198. where he excuses their necessity and concludes at last out of the abundance of his Charity that some excuse is to be made for those who have created this necessity to themselves by their own false perswasion Let this man therefore do open penance for his sin in laying such foul things to the charge of the men of the high Prelacy as he in scorn calls them p. 35. And let him forbear if he can to say hereafter That there is just cause to fear that some among us have a greater Charity for the Church of Rome than the Presbyterians l page 34. And to intimate that the high Conformists are warping from the Doctrine of the Church of England and lean more to that of Trent m p 80 81. For these are only old Calumnies now revived I wish it be not to serve the Good Old Cause We were told before the War that the Bishops were leaned toward Popery nay were driving fast toward Popery And no sooner was it begun but our neighbours were born in hand that we had a company of half Papish Bishops n Dialogue between an Englishman a Neatherlander written in Low-Dutch and translated into English 1643. p. 7. nay that they were altogether Papists one and the same brood with the Jesuits o p. 8. 16. and intended to bring Popery into England all which they affirmed was as clear as the bright noon-day p page 10. For to this end saith this impudent Libel they had stript all the Assemblies of their faithfullest Preachers and used many other means to banish wholly all saving knowledge out of the Kingdom that so they might the better draw the people to Popery From which considerations the Author desires the Lords and Inhabitants of the Vnited Netherlands q In the Dedicatory Epistle not to assist the King for if he prevailed the Government would be altered Religion suppressed the Bishops restored and put in force their Popish Canons And all this I must tell you was writ by a Presbyterian a modest Gentleman no doubt otherwise called a shameless lyar as appears by this passage p. 37. where he saith Our whole Nation is by the coming in of the Scots before the War yet more confirmed that they were led by Gods Spirit What was the woful issue of those suggestions we all know though there was nothing of truth in them as appeared by the stout opposition against the common enemy which some of those very men made who besides their other sufferings had layen as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever r See Bishop Sandersons preface to 1. Volume of Serm. Sect 17. And what they now intend that begin again to buzze the same tale in the peoples ears we are not so doltish as not to understand and when opportunity shall serve they will more openly declare Then you may hear the complaints renewed which he remembers out of Mr. Fuller his Church-History of Popery Arminianism Socinianism and what not You may hear an Accusation against a Minister as the same Historian tells us there was on his own knowledge Å¿ Book the 11. page 224. merely for using the Gloria Patri though in all things else he conformed to the Directory 6. In which case truly there might have been some colour to charge the Accusers as more zealous for their Directory than for our Saviours Deity But to impeach any of us as more concerned for the Divine Right of Bishops than for the Divine Nature of our Lord the great Bishop of our souls is a bold-fac'd calumny for which there is no pretence at all And yet he thinks he hath not said enough for he tells you further that these High Conformists or Hectors can with more patience hear a Dispute against the very being of a Deity than about the taking away of a Ceremony Which is the very highest strain of railing that the wit of a modest Presbyterian can invent But to what pitch the more impudent may reach who can tell They may say that these Conformists are perfect Atheists since they are already it seems such Fools as to bear more meekly with those who go about to Dethrone the object of all worship than with those who only pluck away a Ceremony of it Dull Asses how should their Ceremonies stand if the very sense of a Deity fall down If he can find me any such
Churches long and resolutely maintained which he shows may be so managed as not to be Schism But he expresly determines a little after p. 23. that it is schism to separate from other Christians without sufficient ground in the participation of the same Sacraments or in the use of the same Divine Offices and Liturgies of the Church and publike Worship and Service of Almighty God or of the same common Rites Ceremonies c. The very same he declares elsewhere that they who break the unity of the Church for difference in in different rites are guilty of Schism d Replic to Bishop of Chalcedon p. 79 80. and that most of the Schisms in the Church of Christ have been about the Canons of the Church and not the substantials of Religion Among other instances he mentions the Schisms raised in our Church about a Surpless signe of the Cross c. If therefore this Apologist would have done like a man he should have shewn that we obtrude sinful Rites as a condition of Communion with us and so by this Bishops confession are guilty of making the Schism our selves And he should in order to this have clearly answered all that hath been said in defence of our Church and especially the Arguments of their Fore-fathers the old Nonconformists who proved against the Brownists that there was no such corruption in our Church as was a sufficient ground of separation from it Here was the very point if he durst have toucht it or come near it Which since he hath not done but spent his time in impertinent things I must leave him to the favourable censure of S. Austin mentioned somewhere by the same Bishop in another case They cannot do better in a bad cause but who constrained them to have a bad cause This was it which made him turn his back so often upon the Question and to make a Book which one cannot resemble more fitly then to a Winter-torrent which abounds with water when there is no need of it but in Summer when it should be useful it is dryed up They are the words of the fore-mentioned Bishop which I thought good to use since he doth so even when he doth not name him Such is this Apologie full of proofs where there is no controversie between us and where the water sticks indeed he is as mute as a fish There is no question for instance but we may use the words of Scripture by way of accommodation no body denies it and that which he cites to this purpose out of one of our Bishops I observed long before he told me of it p. 54 87. But then we ought to say that we use them so and not talk as if that were the genuine sense of the Divine Writ never acquainting the people with any other And you ought not to pretend to more then other men who can do this as well as your selves unless you had the very same spirit and power which the Apostles had Nor is it the Question whether mens affections are raised with Novelty and Variety p. 59. but whether those be the best affections which are raised by that means or those which are raised by serious consideration and laying to heart of the same things in the same words All that he alledges out of Mr. Hollingworth p. 56. is to no purpose for I have proved that the Non conformists pretend to more even the very same that Mr. Baily did in his Answer e Review chap. 12. p. 75. to Bishop Bramhal's Fair warning who would have the people endeavour to attain a readiness to pray in their family out of their own heart in the words which Gods Spirit dytes to them But as that Bishop said elsewhere this man doth not seek the Question in earnest but as he who sought for the Hare under the Leads because he must seek her as well where she was not as where she was Else he would not have askt the Question Whether Non conformist Ministers seek after Visions and Revelations p. 68. That is not the point but whether Mr. W. B. have not taught the people to do so He might have added if he had pleased Whether they have not pretended to them And an History in one of our Chronicles would have taught him to answer affirmatively For there was a Physician in Oxford one Rich Haidock of New-Colledg who pretended to preach in his sleep in such sort that though he was call'd upon a loud or stirr'd or pull'd by hands or feet he would make no shew of hearing or feeling His fame was spread abroad by the name of the sleeping Preacher so that he was brought to Court and one night his Majestie f See Sir Ri Baker in the 3d year of K. James being present to attend the event the Gentleman began to pray and then took a Text made his Division applyed it to his purpose which was to inveigh against the Pope the Cross in Baptism and the Canons then newly made And yet all this was a meer cheat as he confessed afterward to the King who pardoned him on condition that he should openly in all places acknowledge his offence because many saith the Historian were brought to believe that his nightly preaching was either by inspiration or by vision This may serve to requite his impertinent tale for which there was no occasion about a Ministers praying that they might have godly dreams Again they are not accused for being time-servers now as he supposes p. 89. but heretofore And in this that excellent person Bishop Sanderson with whom he may engage if he please now he is dead will bear me out that it is no false accusation I will recite his words and briefly prove the truth of them where it is needful Before the beginning of the Long Parliament and the unhappy divisions which followed thereupon there were few saith he either of the Ministers that scrupled to use the Cross or of the people that took offence at it g Preface to Clavi Trabales Aug. 10. 1661. Which words as to the Ministers on whom the people depended may be justified from the Registers of Subscription in which we finde the most eminent men of your way subscribed libenter ex animo freely heartily to the three Articles mentioned in the 36 Canon Among the rest Mr. Calamy whom our Apologist mentions with the titles of Discreet honest pious Mr. Calamy p. 92. Nov. 9. 1637. and Mr. Jenkyn Jan. 2. 1640. And if you look as far back as 1627 you will finde Mr. Hugh Peters himself subscribing to the very height As for the Archbishops Bishops he saith I acknowledg their Offices and Jurisdictions and cannot see but there would a fearful Ataxy follow without the present Government whereof I so approve that I have and willingly do submit to it and them and have and will press the same upon others h Subscription before the Bishop of London Aug. 17. the original wherof found