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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
B04373 The moderate Presbyterian. London, the third of April, 1662. 1662 (1662) Wing M2329A; ESTC R33722 1,433 1

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THE MODERATE PRESBYTERIAN London the third of April 1662. SIR THe time is now quiet for the matter of News from this place only that you may know that I am not unmindfull of my duty to you I have sent to you the Copy of an eminent Presbyterian's Answer made to a Queree proposed to him by another more rigid Presbyterian whether or not the re-ordaining of such Presbyterian Divines here as were afterwards to be consecrated Bishops be not scandalous to the Presbyterian reformed Churches abroad and a direct disclaiming of communion with them You will find the Answer milde enough which take as followeth SIR IT is well known to all those especially Divines of the Reformed Church with whom I have had the happiness to converse both at home and abroad that in my private opinion I was never too rigid in matter of Ecclesiastical Government either for Episcopacy or Presbyterianisme For as having spent the greatest part of my years in Forraign Countries under the latter it seemed smoother to me so the continual practice of the former in the Christian Church from the very foundation of it in the Apostles time made it alwayes seem venerable to me and to draw somewhat nearer even to the word of God Yet durst I never presume in my own minde that either the one or the other was absolutely Jure Divino but I ever thought that with a good conscience I might live under either of them One thing I know well that the word of God forbid doth all confusion in the Church ●nd commende●h Ecclesiasticall Government in general But to determine this or that kind of Government in particular I think there is a latitude left to the Supream Magistrate so that admitting neither Episcopacy nor Presbyterianisme in themselves simply considered to be Jure Divino Yet either of them being established Jure Humano or by the Authority of the Civil Magistrate must be recived by me and submitted unto as being in that case Jure Divino Seing that Jue Divinum in the word of God tyeth all Subjects to render active obedience to Jus Humanum and lawfull Authority in these things whereby the esteem of Religion and fundamentals of Faith are not shaken and such may Episcopacy and Presbyterianisme be conceived to be And whosoever resufeth to submit to either of them being established by Authority must be not only a Rebel to the Supream Power upon earth but to God himself also Now to answer your long question in few words let me intreat you to distinguish betwixt a Minister of the Gospel simpliciter quatalis and a Minister of the Gospel in potentia proxima to be a Bishop Albeit Presbyterian Ordination may make a qualified person a lawfull Minister of the Gospel yet in my weak judgment to put him in potentia proxima to be a Bishop Episcopal Ordination if not necessary ad esse yet requisita ad decorum ad bene esse Hence may be inferred that by the re-ordaining of or conferring Episcopal Ordination upon Presbyterian Divines to put them in a capacity to be Bishops as no scandal is justly given by the English Bishops to the Presbyterian Churches in Forraign Countries so I am confident as being throughly acquainted with the opinion in that point of many of the most learned and eminent amongst them that no occasion of scandal will be taken by them at the same far less that they will think that the Church of England which they ever held and still do hold as it was constituted in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles the first all of blessed memory to have been a glorious Orthodox Church doth thereby intend to disclaim communion with them their Maximes and Principles both of Divinity and Policy for they never esteemed bad Policy to be consistent with good Divinity being more consonant to these of the Church of England constitued as said is then to those according to which the Presbyterians in these Kingdoms have walked these three and twenty years by-gone But I forbear now to enter upon this point their new Doctrine and the woefull effects that have followed thereupon do sufficiently evidence the truth of it to the world