than the rest assert that it is founded on the Example and Institution of Christ or his Apostles § 3. This Discourse therefore shall weigh the Advantages alledged to flow from Episcopacy that it may appear if it have such Effects as they Promise As also inquire if the Hurt and Dammage does not preponderat all the Good they can pretend to be linked to their Hierarchy Neither shall we neglect to examine if what the most Learned of that Perswasion bring from Ecclesiastick Antiquity be subservient to their Cause Section II. The Aphorism No Bishop No King discuss'd A Chief Argument whereby they would prove the necessity of Prelacy they bring from the great Support which they say it affords to Monarchy Hence with them No Bishop No King is an axiomatick Aphorism which cannot be readily granted seeing to name no more the charges the Hierarchy stood the King and Kingdom made a dear Bargain Much was spent in their stated Revenues but more by their clandestine Exactions and other sinistrous means of draining the Country and places of their pretended Jurisdictions throw which there are Incorporations that even at this day groan under the Debts they then contracted And yet more by sustaining Standing-forces to be Janizaries to the Prelates and their Complices and persecute the sincerer part of Protestants for else there was then no use of such numbers Yet their Maxime may be thus far granted that Prelacy may much contribute to the introduction of a Despotick and Arbitrary Government And indeed the great Power they usurped and manifold Influences they had over both Cities and Country either to wheedle or menace them to elect such Members of Parliament as pleased them and to Cajole or awe these Parliament-men to speak in their own Dialect And the being of a good number of them prime Lords of the Articles whereby they had either the mediat or immediat Flection of the rest made them well nigh able to effect no less Which kind of Government no Wise and Paternal Prince will desire § 2. Moreover that Princes have no great reason to be fond of them is apparent from their great unfitness to manage Politick and State-Affairs There are two Ways whereby one may be fitted for being a Statesman either when Natural induements are extraordinary which I doubt if many of our Prelats could affirm of themselves Or else that of Education and continued Industry whereby to be fitted for State-imployments but so far were they from any thing of this that during their greener years they had quite other Studies and Imployments being designed for the Ministry and so were obliged to prosecute hard the Study of Divinity which I am sure will give any Man his handsfull of Work who makes earnest of it From this they are taken to feed some Flock which at least will give them no less exercise Now how these Men can be fit for managing State-affairs or how they can be well kept from falling into Solecisms therein whose skill is so small is not very discernable But though they were never so well fore-armed for such high State-imployments how find they leisure to exercise them Is not the Ruling and Governing so many Ministers and Churches which they alledge themselves to be entrusted with a Work heavy enough to exercise if not to bruise any one Man Or where have they found Warrant to relinquish the Ministry and turn themselves to Offices of State when offered or to undertake both together Do they not believe that either of them is heavy enough Know they not that not only the Apostle but also the ancient Canons and to name no others these which though not truly are called the Canons of the Apostles most clearly condemn this their Practice Let neither say they a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken upon him any secular Business otherways let him be cast out off his Office Hence we may learn if it be out of Conscience that these Men plead for Antiquity when they palpable contemn and trample what themselves count the most venerable Precepts thereof Moreover it 's observable how they so far as their Interest led them still studied the ruine of those to whom they owed their Being as Bishops Thus the Roman Prelats studied the Ruine of both the Eastern and Western Emperours Thus the Bishops of Scotland brought no small Vexation to both King and Nobility in the Reign of Alexander the III. And so Becket of Canterâ—ury and his Faction handled Henry the II of England But worse did their Successours treat Richard the II whom in his Absence they deprived of his Kingdom It 's vain to repone that these were Papists seeing the ambition of Prelats is well enough known of whatever Name they be Yea such also have been the Practices of Prelats who acknowledged no Pope as divers of the Greek Patriarks who helped not a little to Dethrone their Emperour And the English Bishops as Sir Francis Knols complains in a Letter to Secretary Cicil encroached not a little upon the Priviledges of the Crown kept Courts in their own Name and still give out that the Complex of their Office i. e. the civil part of it as well as the other without any Distinction was not from the King but from Jesus Christ. Which Encroachments are really Imperium in Imperio On which account this their usurped Power as being dangerous and of a Romish Original was abolished in the first Parliament of Edward the VI. The Substance of what Dr. Sanderson either insinuats or more clearly expresseth in Answer hereto is that this was a Corruption in Edward 's Reformation And that some other Courts in England as well as these of the Bishops are not kept in the King's Name But sure it 's not very credible that this was a Corruption seeing nothing else since Edward's Days hath been done during the succeeding Reigns for that Church's further Reformation but 't is an odd Paradox if we consider the Author for it was Mary who Abolished this Act of Edward and restored their Power when she brought back the rest of Popery And though other Courts as he says be not kept in the King's Name yet reason teacheth and former experience proves how dangerous it was to give Ecclesiasticks ought that looks like an Absolute power and worldly Grandure whereby like the Pope they may by his Artifices arrive at length to a real Independency And indeed B. Laud made large steps towards it who as Roger Coke relates copt with the King himself and maugre both his Will and Authority must visit Colledges not as his Commissioner but by his own Metropolitan right and plumed thus saith the Author in his own Feathers all black and white without one borrowed from Caesar whereby the more he assumes to himself the less he leaves to the King he now soars higher And notable here is Dr. Sanderson's disingenuity who always gives out that the Marian Act which he still compares with yea prefers to that of Edward was
of other Hierarchicks pleading the Cause of Episcopacy for while they manage it from Scripture-grounds you may perceive them to make so wide and incoherent Deductions so slender and pitifull Defences so wild and unbottom'd Distinctions as loudly proclaim that except they procure Auxuliaries from some other where they must also defert their Cause and leave the Field to their Adversaries But let them descend somewhat lower to Ecclesiastick Antiquities we shall find their confidence stronger for they then bring a multitude of great Names as so many arm'd Champions marshell'd in Rank and Order Among these there be some wherewith as with so many Elephants they threaten to make vast lanes among their Adversaries but there 's no great cause of terror for if they be but boldly confronted we shall then find them either like these Elephants Ctesias and Diodore fable to have been us'd by their fictitious Semiramis deceitfull Images and hobgoblings to strike a vain fear in their Enemies or like the African Elephants in Polybius which in stead of destroying the adverse Party frequently turn'd back dissipated and overthrew these who brought them to the Battel The greatest of these and whom they with most confidence produce is their Epistolick Ignatius who is to them as one of the Hee-goats and Rams before the Flock of whom they boast as if nothing should stand before him It shall not therefore be amiss if as we promis'd we look more narrowly into this their bold Assertion and examine if their Grounds be equal to their Confidence § 2. Ignatius as Eusebius relates was a Bishop or Pastor of Antioch and being brought to Rome in the time of Trajan the Emperour gloriously laid down his Life for the Cause of Christianity He is said to have written in his Journey to Rome several Epistles viz. To the Smyrneans to Polycarp to the Ephesians to the Magnesians to the Philadelphians to the Trallians and Romans all which are either mention'd or cited by Eusebius There are other Epistles also by Writers of a much later date ascribed to Ignatius but in the first seven only do our Adversaries place the weight of their Cause and therefore with them alone we shall be concerned § 3. Of these Epistles in the former Century first in Latine and then in Greek appeared at the first but two or three only afterward they amounted to fifteen all which they Father'd upon Ignatius these were greedily hugg'd by the Romanists and reason they had so to do most of these Epistles being fraughted with stuff that savour'd of the Romish Innovations and proclaim'd them several Centuries posteriour to Ignatius his Age and accordingly these Editions were scarce born while they were condemn'd and stigmatiz'd by the most learn'd of the Reform'd viz. Calvin the Magdeburgick Centuriators and afterwards by Whittaker Perkins Scultet Rivet and others as the issue of a quite other Parent than him of whom they boasted § 4. Notwithstanding hereof the Advocats for Prelacy such as Whitgift Bilson Dounam Heylyn Taylor and the rest of the Party lean'd on these Epistles as firm propes of their Caufe giving severals of 'em the Epithets of Learned and Pious without the least exception Thus for a long time were these Epistles condemn'd by many yet applauded by a few § 5. But at length the most learn'd and famous Dr. Vshher lighted on two Latine Manuscripts much differing from the former Editions and containing many passages cited by the Ancients that were wanting in the former And soon after Isaacus Vossius produc'd a Greek Coppy out of the Duke of Tuscanie's Library in many things agreeing with Vsher's Manuscripts These Coppies bred a wonderfull confidence in the minds of the Episcopal Party after which every one of them gave his loud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therewith pleas'd themselves as if the Controversie concerning Prelacy had been already determin'd by a Divine Oracle But in the mean while and by this very Action of imbracing and extolling this new Edition as the only genuine Coppy of Ignatius They publish'd to the World that they had all along while in conjunction with Romanists and in opposition to Protestants they so passionatly propugn'd the former Editions either been lamentably shallow in their knowledge of Ecclesiastick Antiquity notwithstanding their great boast thereof as if all Men beside were Dwerfs herein or which is little better exceedingly partial in favours of their Cause and Interest However maugre all such Impeachments they alter their Judgements as they see fit reject what they had but the other day warmly hugg'd and applaud their new Ignatius § 6. Yet also they were their alone herein for the most learn'd and these of the reform'd Churches who were most able to give Judgement concerning such Controversies as Blondel Salmasius and others continu'd in their former Sentiment believing that these new Copies did as really ly under just suspicion as the Old After divers Re-encounters amongst learn'd Men concerning these Epistles Dallaeus a learn'd French Minister wrote more largely and directly to evince them spurious but was oppos'd by Dr. Beverige and D. Pearson who wrote his Vindiciae Ignatianae a large and laborious Work to prove that these Epistles were the genuine product of Ignatius in which his Party triumphed not a little apprehending that this Matter was decided so as there was no more Dispute or Opposition to be feared But 't was not long till Daill's Defence was undertaken by Monsieur L'arroque another learn'd Pastor of the French Church and being again oppos'd by Pearson and Beverge wrote a second time concerning the same Subject § 7. But such Arts were us'd as suppress'd and stiffl'd the Work of this learn'd Author of which Book L'arroque's Son in his Life prefix'd to his Adversaria Sacra gives us this account He publish'd his Observations on Pearson's vindiciae Ignatianae and Beverige ' s Annotations which came to the light by this occasion John Daille being departed this Life two great Englishmen who had procur'd to themselves a perpetual Fame of whom the one lately deceas'd had the Name of the Bishop of Chester the other was adorn'd with the Title of Dr. but deserv'd a greater Dignity exploded what Daille had written concerning Ignatius his Epistles But L'arroque in favours of his deceas'd Friend undertook the Patrociny of this Hero and except Fame be altogether false has fortunatly defended his Judgement These Observations were again assaulted by the famous Beverige to whom our Author preparing an Answer which we have by us almost perfected thro' the Importunity of some Friends was suddenly turn'd another way This he did the more willingly both because he had done enough in favours of his dead Friend and also that he might make it appear that seeing while he was yet fresh he sounded a retreat he had unwillingly entred the Lists with the English Protestants Thus he and who these Friends were we are inform'd by another Author a Man of the Episcopal Perswasion and therefore may
they were invented justifi'd or maintain'd ought at once to be removed and so troden under the obedience of God's Word that continually this sentence should be present in thy Heart and ready in thy Mouth not that which appeareth in thine own Eye shalt thou do c. Deut. 12. Let not then the King and his proceedings whatsoever they be not agreeable to the Lord 's Holy Word be a snare to thy Conscience Let God's blessed Word alone be the Rule and Line to measure his Majestie 's Religion What it commandeth let it be obeyed what it commandeth not let that be execrable because it hath not the sanctification of God's Word under what Title or Name soever it be published Halt no longer on both parts Let not these Voices prevail in your Parliament This to our Judgement is good and godly this the People cannot well bear this repugneth not to God's Word And But let his holy and blessed Ordinances by Christ Jesus commanded to his Kirk be within thy limits and bounds so sure and established that if Prince King or Emperour would enterprize to change or disannull the same that he be the reputed Enemy of God Which horrible Crimes if ye will avoid in time coming then must ye I mean the Princes Rulers and People of the Realm by solemn Covenant renew the Oath betwixt God and you That benefice upon benefice be heaped upon no Man but that a suffient Charge with a competent Stipend be assigned to the Work-men for O how horrible was that confusion that one Man should be permitted to have two three four five six or seven Benefices who scarcely in the year did so often preach yea that a Man should have the Charge of them whose faces he never saw For the great Dominions and Charge of your proud Prelats impossible by one Man to be discharged are no part of Christ's true Ministry but are the maintainance of the Tyranny first invented and yet retain'd by the Roman Antichrist That diligent heed be taken that such to whom the Office of preaching is committed discharge and do their Duties for it is not nor will not be the chanting nor mummelling over of certain Psalters the reading of Chapters for matines evening Song or of homilies only be they never so godly that can feed the Souls of hungry Sheep What efficacy the living voice hath above the naked letter which is read the hungry and thirsty do feel to their comfort But the other maketh for Mr. Parson's purpose who retaining in his hand a number of Benefices and appointed such in his place as are altogether destitute of the Gift of Preaching but let all such Belly-gods be whipp'd out of God's Holy Temple Let none that be appointed to labour in Christ's Vineyard be intangl'd with Civil Affairs except it be when the Civil Magistratand the Minister of the Word assemble together for Execution of Discipline which is a thing easie to be done without withdrawing any Person from his Charge if that which was before express'd be observed For as touching their yearly coming to Parliament for matters of Religion it shall be superfluous vian if God's true Religion be once so established that after it never be called in controversie And as touching Execution of Discipline that must be done in every City and Shire where the Magistrats and Ministers are join'd together without any respect of Persons So that the Ministers albeit they lake the glorious Title of Lords and the Divelish Pomp which before appear'd in proud Prelats yet must they be so stout and so bold in God's Cause that if the King would usurp any other Authority in God's Religion than becometh a Member in Christ's Body that first he be admonished according to God's Word c. Read pray the rest of this Exhortation and you shall find that never was light more opposite to darkness than Knox is to their Ceremonies and Hierarchy and in a word their whole way whatsoever they contend for in opposition to the Church of Scotland Now suppose which yet he is far from doing that Knox allow'd them some umbrage of imparity should they not notwithstanding providing they closed with what he saith here and elsewhere really relinquish what they call the Church-of England's way and come over unto us Yea were they according to Knox's Exhortation stript of the hope their exorbitant Gain Ease and Grandour c they should soon also send packing their Plea for Imparity this being a meer shrowd and pretext to cover these Enormities from which Knox so warmly dehorts and whieh with less colour of modesty can be sustain'd Add hereto that seeing Knox so zealously requires express and positive Warrant in the Word of God for every thing in the Worship Government and Discipline of the Church and seeing hitherto none hath darred to averr that he was for the Divine Right of Prelacy yea even our Author himself adventures not plainly to assert so much but only labours to make Knox to account it Lawfull and Innocent and to speak nothing against it it must undeniably follow that he was for a Divine Right of Parity § 13. Did not Knox continues our Author write and bear the Letter sent by the Superintendents Ministers and Commissioners of the Church within the Realm of Scotland to their Brethren the Bishops and Pastors in England Anno 1566 Did not he in that same Title of that same Letter acknowledge that these Brethren Bishops and Pastors of England had renounc'd the Roman Antichrist and professed the Lord Jesus in sincerity And doth not the Letter all alongst allow of the Episcopal Power and Authority of these English Bishops But had never a Protestant to do with an Abbot Prior or some other such Popish Officers whose Offices he did not allow Might he not therefore speak or write to him in such Terms without which he should either not have been understood or his Letter or his Discourse been altogether uneffectual Altho' then it could be prov'd they had given Bishops the distinguishing Titles they assume by no good Logick could it be inferr'd that they accounted the Office as it is distinguish'd from any other Pastor Lawfull which yet can never be prov'd nor any thing concluded from the Letter save that they took Bishop and Pastor for synonymous Terms Moreover 't will no more follow that they count Episcopacy Lawfull than that they esteem so of the Surplice Corner-cap and Tippet which yet in the same Letter they make the Marks of the odious Beast They there indeed acknowledge the English to have renounc'd the Roman Antichrist but so as notwithstanding to have retain'd divers of his Abominations whereof they name none but only the most notorious of these which the then present English Controversies gave occasion to mention The rest of his Discourse on this Head leans on this that our Superintendents were really Diocesan Bishops of whom more anon And well may I deny 't were there no more than the Doctrine
lower Order of Church-Officers as Rom. 13. the Magistrate is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Minister of God But there is no such explicative word or particle in Clement to alter the common Signification thereof on which account we 're not lightly to resile therefrom But that which utterly overthrows the Jesuite's Cause is Clement's closs Conformity to the Apostle in his account of Church-Orders who 1 Tim. 1. 3. beyond all Scruple of any Party takes these words in the sense we plead for to Clement and makes not at all the word Deacon exegetick and explicative of the word Bishop but by it designs a distinct Order of Church-Officers from what is signifi'd by the other For doubtless Clement Paul's Fellow-Labourer took the words in the same signification and meaning wherein the Apostle had understood them And accordingly Clement for Confirmation hereof adduces the words of Isaiah 60. 17. which place as he then certainly found it in the Septuagint contains the words Bishops Deacons exactly as Paul expresseth distinguisheth Church-Officers and on this Ground Clement goes when he intimats that the Apostles in their Institution of Church-Officers had an eye to these words of the Prophet In vain therefore labours Petavius to disprove the Copy of Isaiah used by Clement and brings the Hebrew Hierome and others taking the word in a different signification for thus he hath not Salmasius or any other modern Defender of Presbytry but Clement himself whom he pretends to vindicate for his Adversary seeing we Dispute not concerning the Greek Copy Clement used but of the thing he inferr'd from these words of Isaiah according to the Copy he then cited Neither is it more to the Jesuite's advantage that the word Presbyter is several times found in Clement For seeing as is plain yea and the Jesuite himself not only grants but proves that it frequently there denotes not a degree of Age but a Church-Officer it must of necessity be a Term altogether Synonymous with the word Bishop For they themselves plead not for the Equipolency thereof with the word Deacon wherein Petavius himself shall afford us no small assistance who having but to no purpose seeing never Man denied it shewed that with Clement the word Presbyter is sometimes taken appellatively to denote old Age but no Church-Officer subjoins these remarkable words At other times Clement so uses the word Presbyter as thereby to signifie a certain Function and publick Office in the Ministry and a certain Dignity in the Church which he calls an Episcopacy or the Office of a Bishop From this plain Testimony of a Man in learning and love to Prelacy second to none that ever undertook its Defence it 's clear as the Light it self that with Clement the word Bishop and the word Presbyter when he takes it for a Church-Function are Terms altogether Synonymous For if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopacy or the Office of a Bishop be competent to Clement's Presbyter and things as they ought receive Denominations from Forms wherewith they 're cloathed then this Presbyter in the Judgement of Clement is really a Bishop and indeed this is superlatively clear to any who but with an open and unprepossess'd Mind reads the places of Clement we have already produced Howbeit the Testimony of such an Adversary gives no small additional Confirmation to the Truth thereof Yea the same Adversary in the same place acknowledges that even then the Title of Bishop was also common and in after times only appropriated to one And again It 's clear saith Petavius from this place that there was a Council or Ecclesiastick Senate ordain'd by the Apostles at Corinth whose Dignity and Office Clemens calls Episcopacy and the chiefest of the Clergy he names Presbyters as also from this which Clement afterward writes It 's base Beloved yea most base c. And he names the same Presbyters Pastors and Church-Governours of the Christian Sheepsold And now judge how the Jesuite after these Concessions could yet say that it follows not from hence that in Corinth or at other Cities there was no peculiar Bishop § 3. And here again we find D. M. at his old filching Trade transcribing Petavius his Perversions of Clement or bringing what is no more serviceable to either Cause or Credit as that Clement comprehends all the Jewish Clergy under the name of Priests and Levites Therefore Inferrs D. M. It follows not from Clement his naming only Bishops and Deacons that Bishops and Presbyters are not in Clement distinct Offices But D. M. should remember that Clement not only Dichotomizes but Trichotomizes the Jewish Clergy into three Parts But does he any where so divide the Christian Clergy He not only names the two Kinds of Offices but so names them as to identifie and take for one and the same Bishop and Presbyter which Petavius and D. M. and their Brethren by all means labour to make him distinguish But St. Clement saith D. M. exhorting the Corinthians to order sets before them the subordination under the Temple-Service how the High-Priest Priests and Levites were distinguish'd by their proper Service and immediatly recommends to them that every one of them should continue in his proper Order Now continues D. M. when we consider the primitive Method of reasoning from Jewish precedents St. Clement had never talked at this rate if the Jurisdiction of one over many Priests had been abolished under the New Testament But why does he mutter for it if he can bring ought for his purpose he must also Inferr from this passage of Clement that as there was a High-Priest over all the Jewish Church so there must be another High-Priest over all Christians And that all Christians must bring Oblations and Sacrifices to the Temple at Hierusalem for from these Topick does Clement exhort the Corinthians to Harmony Whether then D. M. be a Romanist or a Jew may be a Question for unquestionably his way of reasoning symbolizes with both of them The Truth is nothing can be inferr'd from this place of Clement but that as under the Old Testament every one whether Church-man or Laick was to abide in his own Order without raising Schism or Confusion so it ought to be under the New Testament St. Clement himself continues D. M. distinguishes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An express untruth and I challenge D. M. and his Complices to prove it Nor can it be adds D. M. an Objection of any weight that the first who were their Spiritual Governours are mention'd in the plural number since this was an Encyclical Epistle addressed to Corinth as the principal City and from thence transmitted to its dependencies c. By which words if he speaks sense he intimats that there were in the Apostolick age Metropolitan Cities in an Ecclesiastick sense whose Bishops according to the Civil Dignity of these Cities were Metropolitan and had their numbers of inferiour and dependent Bishops A most nauseous and