in their time but that such Reformation hath been perfect I cannot admit Asa took away Idolatry but his Reformation was not perfect for Jehosaphat removed the High places yet was not his Reformation perfect for it was Hezekiah that brake the Brasen Serpent and Josiah destroyed the Idol-Temples who therefore beareth this Elogie That like unto him there was no King before him It is too well known that the Reformation of K. Henry the VIII was most imperfect in the Essentials of Doctrine Worship and Government And although it proceeded by some degrees afterward yet the Government was never reformed the Head was changed Dominus non Dominium and the whole lims of the Antichristian Hierarchy retained upon what Snares and Temptations of Avarice and Ambition the great Enchanters of the Clergy I need not express It was a hard saying of Romanorum Malleus Grosthed of Lincoln That Reformation was not to be expected nisi in ore gladii cruentandi Yet this I may say that the Laodicean lukewarmness of Reformation here hath been matter of continued complaints to many of the Godly in this Kingdom occasion of more Schism and Separation than ever was heard of in any other Church and of unspeakable grief and sorrow to other Churches which God did bless with greater purity of Reformation The glory of this great work we hope is reserved for Your Majesty that to Your comfort and everlasting Fame the praise of godly Josiah may be made Yours which yet will be no dispraise to Your Royal Father or Edward the VI. or any other Religious Princes before You none of them having so fair an opportunity as is now by the supreme Providence put into Your Royal hands My soul trembleth to think and to foresee what may be the event if this opportunity be neglected I will neither use the words of Mordecai Esth 4. 14. nor what Savonarola told another Charles because I hope better things from Your Majesty 4. To the Argument brought by your Majesty which I believe none of your Doctors had they been all about You could more briefly and yet so fully and strongly have expressed That nothing was retained in this Church but according as it was deduced from the Apostles to the constant universal practice of the Primitive Church and that it was of such consequence as by the alteration of it we should deprive our selves of the lawfulness of Priesthood I think Your Majesty means a lawful Ministry and then how the Sacraments can be administred is easy to judge I humbly offer these considerations First What was not in the times of the Apostles cannot be deduced from them We say in Scotland It cannot be brought But that is not the Ben But not to insist now on a Liturgy and things of that kind there was no such Hierarchy no such difference betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter in the times of the Apostles and therefore it cannot thence be deduced for I conceive it to be as clear as if it were written with a Sun-beam that Presbyter and Bishop are to the Apostles one and the same thing no majority no inequality or difference of office power or degree betwixt the one and the other but a mere Identity in all 2. That the Apostles intending to set down the Offices and Officers of the Church and speaking so often of them and of their gifts and duties and that not upon occasion but of set purpose do neither express nor imply any such Pastor or Bishop as hath power over other Pastors although it be true that they have distinctly and particularly exprest the Office Gifts and Duties of the meanest Officers such as Deacons 3. That in the Ministery of the New Testament there is a comely beautiful and Divine Order and subordination one kind of Ministers both ordinary and extraordinary being placed in degree and dignity before another as the Apostles first the Evangelists Pastors Doctors c. in their own ranks but we cannot find in Offices of the same kind that one hath majority of power or priority of degree before another no Apostle above other Apostles unless in moral respects no Evangelist above other Evangelists or Deacon above other Deacons why then a Pastor above other Pastors In all other sorts of Ministers ordinary and extraordinary a Parity in their own kind only in the office of Pastor an Inequality 4. That the whole power and all the parts of the Ministry which are commonly called The power of Order and Jurisdiction are by the Apostles declared to be common to the Presbyter and Bishop and that Matt. 15. 16 17. the gradation in matter of Discipline or Church censures is from one to two or more and if he shall neglect them tell it to the Church he saith not tell it to the Bishop there is no place left to a retrogradation from more to one were he never so eminent If these considerations do not satisfie Your Majesty may have more or the same further cleared 5. Secondly I do humbly desire Your Majesty to take notice of the fallacy of that Argument from the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of the Fathers It is the Argument of the Papists for such Traditions as no Orthodox Divine will admit The Law and Testimony must be the Rule We can have no certain knowledge of the Practice universal of the Church for many years Eusebius the prime Historian confesseth so much the learned Josephus Scaliger testifieth that from the end of the Acts of the Apostles until a good time after no certainty can be had from Ecclesiastical Authors about Church matters It is true Diotrephes sought the preeminence in the Apostles times and the Mystery of iniquity did then begin to work and no doubt in after times some puffed up with Ambition and others overtaken with Weakness endeavoured alteration of Church-Government but that all the Learned and Godly of those times consented to such a Change as is talked of afterwards will never be proved 6. Thirdly I will never think that Your Majesty will deny the lawfulness of a Ministery and the due administration of the Sacraments in the Reformed Churches which have no Diocesan Bishops sith it is not only manifest by Scripture but a great many of the strongest Champions for Episcopacy do confess that Presbyters may ordain other Presbyters and that Baptism administred by a private Person wanting a publick Calling or by a Midwife and by a Presbyter although not ordained by a Bishop are not one and the same thing 7. Concerning the other Argument taken from Your Majesty's Coronation Oath I confess that both in the taking and keeping of an Oath so sacred a thing is it and so high a point of Religion much tenderness is required and far be it from us who deresi to observe our own Solemn Oath to press Your Majesty with the violation of Yours Yet Sir I will crave Your leave in all humbleness and sincerity to lay before Your Majesty's eyes this
my humble Opinion would be that they should draw the Minds Tongues and Pens of the Learned to dispute about other matter than the Power or Prerogative of Kings and Princes and in this kind Your Majesty hath suffered and lost more than will easily be restored to Your self or Your Posterity for a long time It is not denied but the prime Reforming power is in Kings and Princes quibus deficientibus it comes to the inferior Magistrate quibus deficientibus it descendeth to the Body of the People supposing that there is a necessity of Reformation and that by no means it can be obtained of their Superiors It is true that such a Reformation is more imperfect in respect of the Instruments and manner of Procedure yet for the most part more pure and perfect in relation to the effect and product And for this end did I cite the Examples of old of Reformation by Regal Authority of which none was perfect in the second way of perfection except that of Josiah Concerning the saying of Grosthed whom the Cardinals at Rome confest to be a more Godly man than any of themselves it was his Complaint and Prediction of what was likely to ensue not his desire or election if Reformation could have been obtained in the ordinary way I might bring two unpartial Witnesses Juel and Bilson both famous English Bishops to prove that the Tumults and Troubles raised in Scotland at the time of Reformation were to be imputed to the Papists opposing of the Reformation both of Doctrine and Discipline as an Heretical Innovation and not to be ascribed to the Nobility or People who under God were the Instruments of it intending and seeking nothing but the purging out of Errour and setling of the Truth 2. Concerning the Reformation of the Church of England I conceive whether it was begun or not in K. Henry the Eighth's time it was not finished by Q. Elizabeth the Father stirred the Humors of the diseased Church but neither the Son nor the Daughter although we have great reason to bless God for both did purge them out perfectly This Perfection is yet reserved for Your Majesty Where it is said that all this time I bring no Reasons for a further Change the fourth Section of my last Paper hath many hints of Reasons against Episcopal Government with an offer of more or clearing of those which Your Majesty hath not thought fit to take notice of And Learned men have observed many Defects in that Reformation As That the Government of the Church of England for about this is the Question now is not builded upon the foundation of Christ and the Apostles which they at least cannot deny who profess Church-Government to be mutable and ambulatory and such were the greater part of Archbishops and Bishops in England contenting themselves with the Constitutions of the Church and the authority and munificence of Princes till of late that some few have pleaded it to be Jure Divino That the English Reformation hath not perfectly purged out the Roman Leaven which is one of the reasons that have given ground to the comparing of this Church to the Church of Laodicea as being neither hot nor cold neither Popish nor Reformed but of a lukewarm temper betwixt the two That it hath depraved the Discipline of the Church by conforming of it to the Civil Policy That it hath added many Church-Offices higher and lower unto those instituted by the Son of God which is as unlawful as to take away Offices warranted by the Divine Institution and other the like which have moved some to apply this saying to the Church of England Multi ad perfectionem pervenirent nisi jam se pervenisse crederent 4. In my Answer to the first of Your Majesty 's many Arguments I brought a Breviate of some Reasons to prove that a Bishop and Presbyter are one and the same in Scripture from which by necessary Consequence I did infer the negative Therefore no difference in Scripture between a Bishop and a Presbyter the one name signifying Industriam Curiae Pastoralis the other Sapientiae Maturitatem saith Beda And whereas Your Majesty averrs the Presbyterian Government was never practised before Calvin's time Your Majesty knows the common Objection of the Papists against the Reformed Churches Where was your Church your Reformation your Doctrine before Luther's time One part of the common Answer is that it was from the beginning and is to be found in Scripture The same I affirm of Presbyterian Government And for the proving of this the Assembly of Divines at Westminster have made manifest that the Primitive Christian Church at Jerusalem was governed by a Presbytery while they shew 1. That the Church of Jerusalem consisted of more Congregations than one from the multitude of Believers from the many Apostles and other Preachers in that Church and from the diversity of Languages among the Believers 2. That all these Congregations were under one Presbyterial Government because they were for Government one Church Acts 11. 22 26. and because that Church was governed by Elders Acts 11. 30. which were Elders of that Church and did meet together for acts of Government And the Apostles themselves in that meeting Acts 15. acted not as Apostles but as Elders stating the Question debating it in the ordinary way of disputation and having by search of Scripture found the will of God they conclude It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us which in the judgment of the learned may be spoken by any Assembly upon like evidence of Scripture The like Presbyterian Government had place in the Churches of Corinth Ephesus Thessalonica c. in the times of the Apostles and after them for many years when one of the Presbytery was made Episcopus Praeses even then Communi Presbyterorum Consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur saith Jerome and Episcopos magis consuetudine quam Dispositionis Divinae veritate Presbyteris esse majores in commune debere Ecclesiam regere 5. Far be it from me to think such a thought as that Your Majesty did intend any Fallacy in Your other main Argument from Antiquity As we are to distinguish between Intentio operantis and Conditio operis so may we in this case consider the difference between Intentio Argumentantis and Conditio Argumenti And where Your Majesty argues That if Your opinion be not admitted we will be forced to give place to the Interpretation of private spirits which is contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostle Peter and will prove to be of dangerous consequence I humbly offer to be considered by Your Majesty what some of chief note among the Papists themselves have taught us That the Interpretation of Scriptures and the Spirits whence they proceed may be called private in a threefold sense 1. Ratione Personae if the Interpreter be of a private condition 2. Ratione Modi Medii when Persons although not private use not the publick means which are necessary for finding out the
as well as say it else you say little But that the conforming of the Church Discipline to the Civil Policy should be a depraving of it I absolutely deny for I aver that without it the Church can neither flourish nor be happy And for your last instance you shall do well to shew the prohibition of our Saviour against addition of more Officers in the Church than he named and yet in one sense I do not conceive that the Church of England hath added any for an Archbishop is only a distinction for Order of Government not a new Officer and so of the rest and of this kind I believe there are divers now in Scotland which you will not condemn as the Moderators of Assemblies and others 4. Where you find a Bishop and Presbyter in Scripture to be one and the same which I deny to be alwaies so it is in the Apostles time now I think to prove the Order of Bishops succeeded that of the Apostles and that the name was chiefly altered in reverence to those who were immediately chosen by our Saviour albeit in their time they caused divers to be called so as Barnabas and others so that I believe this Argument makes little for you As for your proof of the antiquity of Presbyterian Government it is well that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster can do more than Eusebius could and I shall believe when I see it for your former Paper affirms that those times were very dark for matter of fact and will be so still for Me if there be no clearer Arguments to prove it than those you mention for because there were divers Congregations in Jerusalem Ergo what are there not divers Parishes in one Diocess your two first I answer but as one Argument and because the Apostles met with those of the inferiour Orders for Acts of Government what then even so in these times do the Deans and Chapters and many times those of the inferiour Clergy assist the Bishops But I hope you will not pretend to say that there was an equality between the Apostles and other Presbyters which not being doth in My judgment quite invalidate these Arguments And if you can say no more for the Churches of Corinth Ephesus Thessalonica c. than you have for Jerusalem it will gain no ground on Me. As for Saint Jerome it is well known that he was no great Friend to Bishops as being none himself yet take him altogether and you will find that he makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter as your self confesses but the truth is he was angry with those who maintained Deacons to be equal to Presbyters 5. I am well satisfied with the explanation of your meaning concerning the word Fallacy though I think to have had reason for saying what I did but by your favour I do not conceive that you have answered the strength of my Argument for when you and I differ upon the interpretation of Scripture and I appeal to the practice of the Primitive Church and the universal consent of the Fathers to be Judge between us Methinks you should either find a fitter or submit to what I offer neither of which to My understanding you have yet done nor have you shewn how waving those Judges I appeal unto the mischief of the interpretation by private Spirits can be prevented Indeed if I cannot prove by Antiquity that Ordination and Jurisdiction belong to Bishops thereby clearly distinguishing them from other Presbyters I shall then begin to misdoubt many of my former Foundations as for Bishop Davenant he is none of those to whom I have appealed or will submit unto But for the exception you take to Fathers I take it to be a begging of the Question as likewise those great discoveries of secrets not known to former Ages I shall call new-invented fancies until particularly you shall prove the contrary and for your Roman Authors it is no great wonder for them to seek shifts whereby to maintain Novelties as well as the Puritans As for Church-ambition it doth not at all terminate in seeking to be Pope for I take it to be no point of humility to indeavour to be independent of Kings it being possible that Papacy in a multitude may be as dangerous as in one 6. As I am no Judge over the Reformed Churches so neither do I censure them for many things may be avowable upon necessity which otherwayes are unlawful but know once for all that I esteem nothing the better because it is done by such a particular Church though it were by the Church of England which I avow most to reverence but I esteem that Church most which comes nearest to the purity of the Primitive Doctrine and Discipline as I believe this doth Now concerning Ordination I bad you prove that Presbyters without a Bishop might lawfully ordain which yet I conceive you have not done for 2 Tim. 1. 6. it is evident that Saint Paul was at Timothie's ordination and albeit that all the Seventy had their power immediately from Christ yet it is as evident that our Saviour made a clear distinction between the twelve Apostles and the rest of the Disciples which is set down by three of the Evangelists whereof Saint Mark calls it an Ordination Mark 3. 15. and Saint Luke sayes And of them he chose Twelve c. Luk. 6. 13. only Saint Matthew doth but barely enumerate them by their name of distinction Mat. 10. 1. I suppose out of modesty himself being one and the other two being none are more particular For the Administration of Baptism giving but not granting what you say it makes more for Me than you but I will not engage upon new Questions not necessary for My purpose 7. For my Oath you do well not to enter upon those Questions you mention and you had done as well to have omitted your instance but out of discretion I desire you to collect your Answer out of the last Section and for your Argument though the intention of my Oath be for the good of the Church collective therefore can I be dispensed withal by others than the representative Body certainly no more than the People can dispense with Me for any Oaths I took in their favours without the two Houses of Parliament As for future Reformations I will only tell you that incommodum non solvit Argumentum 8. For the King my Father's opinion if it were not to spend time as I believe needlesly I could prove by living and written testimonies all and more than I have said of Him for His perswasion in these points which I now maintain and for your defensive War as I do acknowledge it a great sin for any King to oppress the Church so I hold it absolutely unlawful for Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to make War though defensive against their lawful Sovereign against which no less proofs will make Me yield but God's Word and let Me tell you that upon such points
and that these places of Scripture 1 Tim. v. 22. Tit. i. 5. 1 Tim. v. 19. Titus 3. 10. do prove that Timothy and Titus had power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons and to exercise censures over Presbyters and others and that the second and third Chapters of the Revelation do prove That the Angels of the Churches had power of governing of the Churches and exercising Censures But that either the Apostles or Timothy and Titus or the Angels of the Churches were Bishops as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters exercising Episcopal Government in that sense or that the Apostles did commit and derive to any particular persons as their Substitutes and Successors any such Episcopal Government or that this is proved in the least measure by the Scriptures alledged we do as fully deny And therefore do humbly deny also That Episcopal Government is therefore most consonant to the Word of God and of Apostolical institution or proved so to be by these Scriptures None of these were Bishops or practised Episcopal Government as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters Neither is such an Officer of the Church as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter to be found in the New Testament by which we humbly conceive that our Faith and Conscience touching this point ought to be concluded The Name Office and Work of Bishop and Presbyter being one and the same in all things and never in the least distinguisht as is clearly evident Tit. i. 5 7. For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain Presbyters in every City as I had appointed thee For a Bishop must be blameless In which place the Apostle his reasoning were altogether invalid and inconsequent if Presbyter and Bishop were not the same Office as well as they have the same Name The same is manifest Acts xx 17 28. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the Presbyters of the Church to whom he gave this charge verse 28. Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed and govern the Church of God Where we observe That the Apostle being to leave these Presbyters and never to see their faces more verse 28. doth charge them with the feeding and governing of the Church as being Bishops of the Holy Ghost's making But that the Holy Ghost did make any superior or higher kind of Bishops than these common Presbyters is not to be found in that or any other Text. And that under the mouth of two or three witnesses this assertion of ours may stand we add to what we have already said that in 1 Pet. v. 1 2. The Presbyters which are among you I exhort who am also a Presbyter Feed the flock of God which is among you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 performing the office of Bishops Where it appears plain to us that under the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in this place is expressed whatsoever work the Presbyters are to do Neither can Bishops so called as above Presbyters do more for the government and good of the Church otherwise than is there expresly enjoyned unto Presbyters By all which that hath been said the point is rendred to be most clear to the judgement of most men both ancient and of later times That there is no such Officer to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter neither doth the Scripture afford us the least notice of any qualification required in a Bishop that is not required in a Presbyter nor any Ordination to the Office of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter nor any work or duty charged upon a Bishop which Presbyters are not enjoyned to do nor any greater honour or dignity put upon them For that double honour which the Apostle speaks of 1 Tim. v. 17. as due to Presbyters that rule well is with a note of especially affixed to that Act or work of labouring in the word and Doctrine which is not that Act wherein Bishops have challenged a singularity or peculiar eminency above the Presbyters To that which Your Majesty doth conceive That Episcopal government was practised by the Apostles themselves we humbly answer That the Apostles as they were the highest Officers of the Church of Christ so they were extraordinary in respect of their commission gifts and Office and distinguisht from all other Officers 1 Cor. xii 28. God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers Ephes iv 11. Christ gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Where the Apostles are distinguished from Pastors and Teachers who are the ordinary Officers of the Church for Preaching the Word and Government That they had power and authority to ordain Church-Officers and to exercise Censures in all Churches we affirm and withal that no other Persons or Officers of the Church may challenge or assume to themselves such power in that respect alone because the Apostles practised it except such power belong unto them in common as well as to the Apostles by warrant of the Scripture For that Government which they practised was Apostolical according to the peculiar commission and authority which they had and no otherwise to be called Episcopal than as their Office was so comprehensive as they had power to do the work of any or all other Church-Officers in which respect they call themselves Presbyteri Diaconi but never Episcopi in distinct sense and therefore we humbly crave leave to say that to argue the Apostles to have practised Episcopal Goverment because they ordained other Officers and exercised Censures is as if we should argue a Justice of Peace to be a Constable because he doth that which a Constable doth in some particulars It 's manifest that the Office of Bishops and Presbyters was not distinct in the Apostles They did not act as Bishops in some Acts and as Presbyters in other Acts the distinction of Presbyters and Bishops being made by men in after-times And whereas Your Majesty doth conceive that the Episcopal Government was by the Apostles committed and derived to particular persons as their Substitutes or Successors therein as for ordaining Presbyters and Deacons giving rules concerning Christian discipline and exercising censures over Presbyters and others seeming by the alledged places of Scripture to instance in Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the Churches we humbly answer and first to that of Timothy and Titus We grant that Timothy and Titus had Authority and Power of ordaining Presbyters and Deacons and of exercising Censures over Presbyters and others though we cannot say they had this power as the Apostles Substitutes or Successors in Episcopal Government nor that they exercised the power they had as being Bishops in the sense of Your Majesty but as extraordinary Officers or Evangelists which Evangelists were an
for example had Authority to perform such Acts and Offices of Church-Government as his Majesty hath not yet found by any thing represented unto Him by you or any other from the Scripture that a single Presbyter ever had authority to perform which is enough to prove that the Community of Names in some places notwithstanding the Functions themselves are in other places by their proper work sufficiently distinguished But for the Name Episcopus or Bishop His Majesty hath long since learned from those that are skilful in the Greek tongue that it imports properly no more than an Overseer one that hath the charge or inspection of some thing committed unto him as hee that is set to watch a Beacon or to keep Sheep whence in the New Testament and in the Ecclesiastical use it is applied to such persons as have the Care and Inspection of the Churches of Christ committed unto them in Spiritualibus as both Bishops and Presbyters have in some sort but with this difference that mere Presbyters are Episcopi gregis only they have the oversight of the Flock in the duties of Preaching Administration of Sacraments Publick Prayer Exhorting Rebuking c. but Bishops are Episcopi gregis and Pastorum too having the oversight of the Flock and Pastors within their several Precincts in the acts of external Government so that the common work of both Functions is the Ministry of the Gospel but that which is peculiar to the Function of Bishops as distinguished from Presbyters is Church-Government It is not therefore to be wondred if it should happen in the New Testament the word Episcopus to be usually applied unto Presbyters who were indeed Overseers of the flock rather than unto Church-Governors who had then another Title of greater Eminency whereby to distinguish them from ordinary Presbyters to wit that of Apostles But when the government of Churches came into the hands of their Successors the names were by common usage which is the best Master of words very soon appropriated that of Episcopus to the Ecclesiastical Governor or Bishop of a Diocese and that of Presbyter to the ordinary Minister or Priest His Majesty had rather cause to wonder That upon such premises you should conclude with so much confidence as if the point were rendred most clear to the Judgment of most men both ancient and of latter times That there is no such Officer to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter whenas His Majesty remembreth to have seen cited by such Authors as He hath no reason to suspect both out of the ancient Fathers and Councils and out of sundry modern Writers even of those Reformed Churches that want Bishops great variety of Testimonies to the contrary His Majesty is not satisfied with your Answer concerning the Apostles exercise of Episcopal Government which you would put off by referring it to their extraordinary Calling Our Saviour himself was the first and chief Apostle and Bishop of our Souls sent by the Father and Anointed by the Holy Ghost to be both the Teacher and the Governour of his Church By that Mission he receiv'd Authority and by his Unction ability for those works which he performed in his own person whilst he lived upon the earth Before he left the world that the Church might not want Teaching and Governing to the worlds end he chose certain persons upon whom he conferred both these Powers whereby they became also Apostles and Bishops by making them partakers both of his Mission before his Ascension As my Father sent me so send I you and of his Vnction shortly after his Ascension when he poured upon them the Holy Ghost at Pentecost The Mission both for teaching and governing at least for the substance of it was ordinary and to continue to the end of the world Matt. xxviii 18 20. and therefore necessarily to descend and be by them transmitted to others as their Substitutes and Successors But the Vnction whereby they were enabled to both Offices or Functions by the effusion of the Holy Ghost in such a plenteous measure of Knowledg Tongues Miracles Prophecyings Healing Infallibility of Doctrine discerning of spirits and such like was indeed extraordinary in them and in some few others though in an inferiour measure as God saw it needful for the planting of the Churches and propagation of the Gospel in those Primitive times and in this which was indeed extraordinary in them they were not necessarily to have Successors But it seems very unreasonable to attribute the exercise of that Power whether of Teaching or Governing to an extraordinary calling which being of necessary and continual use in the Church must therefore of necessity be the work of a Function of ordinary and perpetual use Therefore the Acts of Governing of the Church were no more nor otherwise extraordinary in the Apostles than the Acts of Teaching the Church were that is to say both extraordinary for the manner of performance in respect of their more than ordinary abilities for the same and yet both ordinary for the substance of the Offices themselves and the works to be performed therein and in these two ordinary Offices their ordinary Successors are Presbyters and Bishops Presbyters qua Presbyters immediately succeeding them in the Office of Teaching and Bishops qua Bishops immediately in the Office of Governing The instances of Timothy and Titus you likewise endeavour to avoid by the pretension of an extraordinary calling But in this Answer besides the insufficiency thereof if all that is said therein could be proved His Majesty findeth very little satisfaction 1. First you say that Timothy and Titus were by Office Evangelists whereas of Titus the Scriptures no where affirm any such thing at all and by your own Rule your Authority without Scripture will beget if that but a humane Faith neither doth the Text clearly Prove that Timothy was so 2. Setting aside mens conjectures which can breed but an humane Faith neither you cannot make it appear by any Text of Scripture that the Office of an Evangelist is such as you have described it The work of an Evangelist which Saint Paul exhorteth Timothy to do seems by the Context 2 Tim iv 5. to be nothing but diligence in preaching the Word notwithstanding all impediments and oppositions 3. That which you so confidently affirm That Timothy and Titus acted as Evangelists is not onely denyed but clearly refuted by Scultetus Gerard and others yea even with scorn rejected of late as His Majesty is informed by some rigid Presbyterians as Gillespy Rutherford c. And that which you so confidently deny that Timothy and Titus were Bishops is not onely confirmed by the consentient testimony of all Antiquity even Jerome himself having recorded it that they were Bishops and that of St. Paul's ordination and acknowledged by very many late Divines but a Catalogue also of 27. Bishops of Ephesus lineally succeeding from Timothy our of good records is vouched by
Offices they are distinguisht by their Callings and Commissions though not by the work as all those that are named Eph. iv ii Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers are designed to one and the same general and common work the work of the Ministry ver 12. and yet they are not therefore all one for it 's said some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers A Dictator in Rome and an ordinary Tribune Moses and the subordinate Governors of Israel the Court of Parliament and of the Kings-Bench an Apostle and a Presbyter or Deacon may agree in some common work and yet no confusion of Offices follows thereupon To that which Your Majesty conceives that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places by us alledged to prove that the Name Office and Work of Bishops and Presbyters is one and the same in all things and not in the least distinguisht is That the word Bishop is used in them to signifie a Presbyter and the consequently the Office and Work mentioned in those places as the Office and Work of a Bishop are the Office of a Presbyter which is confessed on all sides we make this humble return That though there be no supposition so much as implied that the Office of a Bishop and a Presbyter are distinct in any thing for the names are mutually reciprocal yet we take Your Majesties Concession that in these times of the Church and places of Scripture there was no distinct Office of Bishops and Presbyters and consequently that the identity of the Office must stand until there can be found a clear distinction of division in the Scriptures And if we had argued the identity of Functions from the Community of names and some part of the work the Argument might have been justly termed a fallacy but we proved them the same Office from the same work per omnia being allowed so to do by the fulness of those two words used in the Acts and S. Peter his Epistle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the force of which words the Bishops claim their whole power of Government and Jurisdiction and we found no little weight added to our Argument from that in the Acts where the Apostle departing from the Ephesian Presbyters or Bishops as never to see their faces more commits as by a final charge the Government of that Church both over parricular Presbyters and people not to Timothy who then stood at his elbow but to the Presbyters under the name of Bishops made by the Holy Ghost whom we read to have set many Bishops over one Church not one over either one or many And the Apostles arguing from the same Qualification of a Presbyter and of a Bishop in order to Ordination or putting him into Office fully proves them to be two names of the same Order or Function the divers orders of Presbyter and Deacon being diversly characterised Upon these grounds we hope without fallacy we conceive it justly proved that a Bishop and a Presbyter are wholly the same That Timothy and Titus were single persons having authority of Government we acknowledge but deny that from thence any argument can be made unto either single Bishop or Presbyter for though a singie Presbyter by the power of his Order as they call it may preach the Word and dispense the Sacraments yet by that example of the Presbytery their Laying on of hands and that Rule of Telling the Church in matter of scandal it seems manifest that Ordination and Censures are not to be exercised by a single Presbyter neither hath Your Majesty hitherto proved either the names of Bishops and Presbyters or the Function to be in other places of Scripture at all distinguished You having wholly waved the notice or answer of that we did assert and do yet desire some demonstration of the contrary viz. That the Scripture doth not afford us the least notice of any Qualification any Ordination any work or duty any honour peculiary belonging to a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter the assignment of which or any of them unto a Bishop by the Scripture would put this Question near to an issue That God should intend a distinct and highest kind of Officer for Government in the Church and yet not express any qualification work or way of constituting and ordaining of him seems unto us improbable Concerning the signification of the word Episcopus importing an Overseer or one that hath a charge committed to him for instance of watching a Beacon or keeping sheep and the application of the name to such persons as have inspection of the Churches of Christ committed to them in spiritualibus we also give our suffrage but not to that distinction of Episcopus gregis and Episcopus pastorum gregis both because it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or point in question and also because Your Majesty having signified that Episcopus imports a keeper of sheep yet You have not said that it signifies also a keeper of shepherds As to that which is affirmed by Your Majesty that the peculiar of the Function of Bishops is Church-Government and that the reason why the word Episcopus is usually applied to Presbytery was because Church-Governors had then another title of greater eminency to wit that of Apostles until the Government of the Church came into the hands of their Successors and then the names were by common usage very soon appropriated that of Episcopus to Ecclesiastical Governors that of Presbyter to the ordinary Ministrrs This assertion Your Majesty is pleased to make without any demonstration for whom the Scripture calls Presbyters Rulers and Pastors and Teachers it calls Governors and commits to them the charge of feeding and inspection as we have proved and that without any mention of Church-Government peculiar to a Bishop We deny not but some of the Fathers have conceived the notion that Bishops were called Apostles till the names of Presbyter and Episcopus became appropriate which is either an allusion or conceit without Evidence of Scripture for while the Function was one the names were not divided when the Function was divided the name was divided also and indeed impropriate but we that look for the same warrant for the division of an Office as for the Constitution cannot find that this appropriation of names was made till afterwards or in process of time as Theodore one of the Fathers of this conceit affirms whose saying when it is run out of the pale of Scripture time we can no further follow From which premisses laid all together we did conclude the clearness of our assertion that in the Scriptures of the New Testament a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter in Qualification Ordination Office or Dignity is not found the contrary whereof though Your Majesty saith that You have seen confirmed by great variety of credible Testimony yet we believe those Testimonies are rather strong in asserting than in demonstrating the
incorporated into the Commonwealth whereupon there must of necessity follow a complication of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers the Jurisdiction of Bishops in the outward exercise of it was subordinate unto and limitable by the supreme Civil power and hath been and is at this day so acknowledged by the Bishops of this Realm Thirdly you seem to affirm in a Parenthesis as if nothing were confessed to have been extraordinary in the Apostles but their Gifts and Enablements only whereas His Majesty in that Paper hath in express words named as Extraordinaries also the Extent of their Charge and the Infallibility of their Doctrine without any meaning to exclude those not named as their immediate Calling and if there be any other of like reason Fourthly for the Claim to a jus Divinum His Majesty was willing to decline both the Term as being by reason of the different acception of it subject to misconstruction and the dispute whether by Christ or his Apostles Nevertheless altho His Majesty sees no cause to dislike their opinion who derive the Episcopal power originally from Christ himself without whose warrant the Apostles would not either have exercised it themselves or derived it to others Yet for that the practice in them is so clear and evident and the warrant from him exprest but in general Terms As my Father sent me so send I you and the like He chose rather as others have done to fix the claim of the power upon the practice as the more evidential way than upon the warrant which by reason of the generality of expression would bear more dispute As to the Definition of Episcopacy First whereas you except against it for that it is competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Government as well as Episcopal His Majesty thinketh you might have excepted more justly against it if it had been otherwise Secondly His Majesty believeth that even in the persons by you named Timothy Titus and the Angels the definition in all the parts of it is to be found viz. that they were all single persons that they had their several peculiar Charges and that within their several precincts they had authority over Presbyters as well as others Neither thirdly doth His Majesty think it needful that any word be added to the Genus in the definition or that the Scripture should any where put all the parts of the definition together It would be a hard matter to give such a definition of an Apostle or a Prophet or an Evangelist or a Presbyter or a Deacon or indeed almost of any thing as that the parts thereof should be found in any place of Scripture put altogether Fourthly His Majesty consenteth with you that the point in issue is not the Name or Work meerly but the Office and that it were a Fallacy to argue a particular Office from a General or Common work But judgeth withal that it can be no Fallacy to argue a Particular Office from such a work as is peculiar to that Office and is as it were the formalis ratio thereof and therefore no Fallacy from a work done by a single person which a single Presbyter hath no right to do to infer an Office in that person distinct from the Office of a Presbyter As to the Scriptures cited by you viz. Titus 1. Acts xx 11 Peter v. First when you say you take His Majesties Concession That in those times of the Church and places of Scripture there was no distinct Office of Bishops and Presbyters if you take it so truly you take it gratis His Majesty never gave it you and you mistake it too more ways than one for to speak properly His Majesty made no Concession at all It was rather a Preterition in order to the present business and to avoid unnecessary disputes which ought not to be interepreted as an acknowledgement of the Truth of your Expositions of those places For his own express words are Although His Majesty be not sure that the Proof will reach so far in each of those Places Which words plainly evidence that which you call His Majesties Concession to be indeed no Concession but to have been meant according to that form of Speech very usual in disputations Dato non Concesso But in that Concession such as it is His Majesty is not yet able to imagine what you could find whereon to ground those words That in those times of the Church there was no distinct c. there being not any thing in the whole passage that carrieth the least sound that way or that hath relation to any particular times of the Church Neither is the Concession such as you take it as it relateth to those places of Scripture What His Majesty said was confessed on all sides which are the words you take for a Concession was but this That supposing but not granting the word Bishop to be used in all those places to signifie a Presbyter the Office and Work in those places mentioned as the Office and Work of a Bishop are upon that supposal the Office and Work of a Presbyter which is so manifest a Truth that no man without admitting Contradictions can say the contrary But how wide or short that is from what you make to be His Majesties Concession your selves by comparing His words with yours may easily judge But your selves a little after make a Concession which His Majesty warned by your example how soon anothers meaning may be mistaken when his words are altered is willing to take in the same words you give it viz. When you say and you bring reasons also to prove it That it seemeth manifest that Ordination and Censures are not to be exercised by a single Presbyter Secondly you repeat your Arguments formerly drawn from those places and press the same from the force of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and from the Circumstances of the Text and otherwise adding withal that His Majesty hath waved the notice or answer of something by you alledged therein Hereunto His Majesty saith that He waved not any thing in your former Paper for any great difficulty He conceived of answering it but being desirous to contract His Answer and knowing to what frailties Arguments drawn from Names and Words and Conjectural Expositions of Scripture are subject He passed by such things as He deemed to be of least Consideration in order to the end of the whole Debate to wit the satisfaction of His Judgement and Conscience in the main business Otherwise His Majesty could have then told you That there are who by the like Conjectures grounded as seemeth to them upon some Probabilities in the Text interpret those places in the Acts and in St Peter of Bishops properly so called and in the restrained Ecclesiastical sense rather than of ordinary Presbyters That supposing them both meant of Ordinary Presbyters the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie to feed and oversee might not unfitly
Church-Government could have pretended to such institution it had been the most impossible thing in the world when there neither was any outward coercive power to inforce it nor could be any General Council to establish it to have introduced such a Form of Government so suddenly and quietly into all Christian Churches and not the Spirit of any one Presbyter for ought that appeareth for above Three Hundred years to have been provoked either through Zeal Ambition or other motive to stand up in the just defence of their own and the Churches liberty against such an Usurpation His Majesty believeth that whosoever shall consider the premisses together with the Scripture-evidences that are brought for that Government will see reason enough to conclude the same to have something of Divine Institution in it notwithstanding all the evasions aad objections that the subtil wit of man can devise to perswade the contrary And therefore His Majesty thinketh it fit plainly to tell you that such Conjectural Interpretations of Scripture as He hath yet met with in this Argument how handsomly soever set off are not Engines of strength enough to remove Him from that Judgment wherein He hath been setled from His Childhood and findeth so consonant to the Judgment of Antiquity and to the constant Practice of the Christian Church for so many hundred years which in a matter of this nature ought to weigh more than mere Conjectural Inferences from Scripture-Texts that are not so attested Which having now once told you His Majesty thinketh Himself discharged from the necessity of making so large and particular an Answer to every Allegation in the sequel of your Reply as hitherto He hath done As to the Apostles Mission and Succession To make His Answer the shorter to so long a discourse His Majesty declareth that His meaning was not by distinguishing the Mission and Vnction of the Apostles so to confine them as if they should relate precisely and exclusively the one to the Office the other to the Abilities but that they did more especially and eminently so relate For the Apostles after their last Mission Matth. xxviii 19 20. whereby they were further warranted to their Office and Work were yet to wait for that promised anointing Luke xxiv 49. Acts i. 4. the special effect whereof was the enduing them with Gifts of the Holy Ghost for the better and more effectual performing of that their Work and Office Nor was it His Majesties meaning to restrain the Extraordinaries in the Apostolical Office to those Gifts only for His Majesty afterwards in the same Paper mentioneth other Extraordinaries also as before is said but only to instance in those Gifts as one sort of Extraordinaries wherein the Apostles were to have no Successors But His Majesties full meaning was that the whole Apostolical Office setting aside all and only what was personal and extraordinary in them consisted in the work of Teaching and Governing which being both of necessary and perpetual use in the Church to the worlds end the Office therefore was also to continue and consequently the persons of the Apostles being mortal to be transmitted and derived to others in succession And that the Ordinary Successors of the Apostles immediately and into the whole Office both of Teaching and Governing are properly the Bishops the Presbyters succeeding them also but in part and into the Office of Teaching only and that mediately and subordinately to the Bishops by whom they are to be ordained and authorized thereunto which His Majesty taketh not to be as you call it a dissolving of the Apostolical Office Now the ground of what His Majesty hath said concerning the manner of Succession to the Apostles that it may appear not to have been said gratis is this The things which the Scriptures record to have been done by Christ or his Apostles or by others at their appointment are of three sorts some acts of Power merely extraordinary others acts of an ordinary power but of necessary and perpetual use othersome lastly and those not a few Occasional and Prudential fitted to the present condition of the Church in several times To the Apostles in matters of the first sort none pretend succession nor are either the Examples of what the Apostles themselves did or the directions that they gave to others what they should do in matters of the third sort to be drawn into consequence so far as to be made necessary Rules binding all succeeding Church-officers in all Times to perpetual observation So that there remain the things of the middle sort only which we may call Substantials into which the Apostles are to have ordinary and standing Successors But then the difficulty will be by what certain marks Extraordinaries Substantials and Prudentials may be known and distinguished each from other Evident it is the Scriptures do not afford any particular discriminating Characters whereby to discern them the Acts of all the three sorts being related in the like narrative forms and the directions of all the three sorts expressed in the like preceptive forms Recourse therefore must of necessity be had to those two more general Criterions the Laws of all human actions Reason and Common Usage Our own Reason will tell us that instructing the People of God in the Christian Faith exhorting them to Piety and good Works administring the Sacraments c. which belong to the Office of Teaching that Ordaining of Ministers Inspection over their Lives and Doctrines and other Administrations of Ecclesiastical Affairs belonging to the Office of Governing are matters of great importance and necessary concernment to the Church in all ages and times and therefore were to be concredited to standing Officers in a Line of succession and accordingly were judged and the continuance of them preserved in the constant usage of the Churches of Christ But that on the other side the decrees concerning Abstinence from Blood and Strangled Acts xv the Directions given for the ordering some things in the Church-Assemblies i Cor. xiv for making Provisions for the Poor i Cor. xvi 1. for the choice and maintenance of Widows i Tim. v. for the enoiling of the sick James v. 14. and other like were but Occasional Prudential and Temporary and were so esteemed by the Churches and the practice of them accordingly laid aside So for the Succession into the Apostolical Office we find in the Scriptures Evidence clear enough that the Apostles committed to others as namely to Timothy and Titus the Power both of Teaching and Governing the Churches And common Reason and Prudence dictating to us that it is good for the edifying of the Church that there should be many Teachers within a competent precinct but not so that there should be many Governours and the difference of Bishops and Presbyters to the purposes aforesaid having been by continual usage received and preserved in the Christian Church down from the Apostles to the present times His Majesty conceiveth the succession of Bishops to the Apostles into so
much of their Office as was ordinary and perpetual and such a distinction of Bishops and Presbyters as His Majesty hath formerly expressed needeth no further Confirmation from Scripture to such as are willing to make use of their Reason also which in interpreting Scripture upon all other occasions they are inforced to do nor any thing by you produced in this Paragraph any further Answer only that distinction of Eminently and Formally because you illustrate it by instancing in Himself His Majesty could not but take notice of which He either understandeth not or thinketh your Illustration thereof not to be very apposite for Actions and Operations flow from the Forms of things and demonstrate the same as Effects do their Causes The Apostles therefore acting in the ordinary exercise of Church-Government did act not Eminently only but Formally also as Bishops rather than Apostles As Concerning Timothy and Titus First Whether they were Evangelists or no His Majesty never meant to dispute Only because you often call for Scripture-proof His Majesty thought fit to admonish you that in your Answer you take two things for granted viz. that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists and that Evangelists were such Officers as you described neither of which if it should be denied you could clearly prove from Scripture alone without calling in the help of other Writers to attest it as in your Reply you have now done Master Hooker's neither have you indeed brought any thing in this Reply out of Scripture to prove either of both sufficient to convince him that were of a contrary mind Secondly you seem Sect. 12. to mistake that which was the Third Point in that part of His Majesties Paper which was not Whether Timothy and Titus were Evangelists or no concerning which His Majesty neither did nor doth contend but Whether in the Church-Government they exercised they acted as Evangelists as you affirm and so only as extraordinary Officers or not Zuinglius having said that the Name of a Bishop and Evangelist is the same thing proveth it from ii Tim. iv and concludeth Constat idem fuisse officium utriusque Bishop and Evangelist the same Office both Gerard saith the word Evangelist in that place is taken generally and not in the special sense that is to say for a Minister of the Gospel at large and the Context there indeed seemeth to import no more and not for an Evangelist by peculiar Office And Scultetus not only affirmeth that Saint Paul appointed Timothy and Titus to Ephesus and Crete not as Evangelists but as Church-Governours but saith further that the Epistles written to them both do evince it and also bringeth Reasons to prove it Upon what particular Reasons Gillespy c. reject the conceit of their acting as Evangelists His Majesty certainly knows not But if this be one of their Arguments as to their best remembrance from whom His Majesty had the Information it is That if whatsoever is alleged from the Scripture to have been done by the Apostles and by Timothy and Titus in point of Ordination Discipline and Government may be eluded by this that they acted therein as extraordinary Officers there will be no proof at all from Scripture of any power left in any ordinary Church-Officer to the purposes aforesaid His Majesty then recommendeth to your most sober thoughts to consider First how this Conceit of their acting as extraordinary Ministers only tends to the subversion of all Ministers as well as of the Bishops since upon this very ground especially the Socinians deny all Mission and Ordination of Ministers in the Church and Secondly if the contrary be proved by Gillespy c. by good Arguments that they acted as ordinary Officers in the Church then whether they have not thereby laid a better foundation for the claim of the Bishops viz. of Governing the Churches as single persons in Ordinary Office than either they or you are willing to acknowledg Thirdly His Majesty thinketh it a great liberty which you take in rendring the sense of His Reply as you have done viz. The Scriptures never call them Bishops but the Fathers do c. Whereas if you had followed His sense in that Paper you might rather have delivered thus The Scripture describeth them as Bishops and the Fathers call them so For that of yours The Scripture calls Timothy an Evangelist some of late have refuted it and rejected it with scorn you should have said rather The Scripture doth not any where affirm of Titus nor clearly prove of Timothy that they were by peculiar Office Evangelists but that in governing the Churches they acted as Evangelists or extraordinary Officers is by sundry late Writers the Evasion it self having been but of late time minted refuted and rejected For that of yours The Scripture relates their motion from Church to Church but some affirm them to be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete It should have been Neither doth their motion from Church to Church hinder but that they might afterward be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete neither doth their being Bishops of Ephesus and Crete hinder but that they might afterwards for propagation of the Gospel be by the Apostles appointment often imployed other-where For that of yours The Scripture makes distinction of Evangelists and Pastors but some say that Timothy and Titus were both It should have been The Scripture maketh no such distinction of Evangelists and Pastors but that the same persons might not only successively be both but even at the same time also be called by both Names Fourthly Tho you say You do not undervalue the Testimonies and Catalogues mentioned yet you endeavour which cometh not far short of undervaluing to lessen the reputation of both but too much Of those Testimonies by putting them off as if when they report Timothy and Titus and others to have been Bishops they speak but vulgarly or by way of allusion and not exactly as to the point in Debate But of Hierom upon whom you chiefly rely in this cause the contrary is evident who in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers wherein he was to deliver things Fide Historica and to describe the persons of such as are Registred in that Catalogue by their proper and known distinctive Titles and Styles expresly styleth Timothy Titus Mark Polycarp and others Bishops of such and such places and such on the other side as were but mere Presbyters Ecclesioe Antiochenoe or Alexandrinoe Presbyteri c. observing the difference so constantly and exactly throughout the whole Book that nothing can be more clear than that he understood the word Episcopus no otherwise than in the ordinary Ecclesiastical sense and as a Bishop is distinct from a Presbyter As for that passage you allege out of him by custome in the judgment of Learned men he must mean the practice of the Apostolick times and by Dominica dispositio the express Precept of Christ unless you will have himself contradict what himself hath written in sundry other places whose Testimonies
if time be unnecessarily lost 5. Now for the fallaciousness of my Argument to my knowledge it was never My practice nor do I confess to have begun now For if the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal consent of the Fathers be not a convincing Argument when the interpretation of Scripture is doubtful I know nothing For if this be not then of necessity the Interpretation of private Spirits must be admitted the which contradicts St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 20. is the Mother of all Sects and will if not prevented bring these Kingdoms into confusion And to say that an Argument is ill because the Papists use it or that such a thing is good because it is the Custom of some of the Reformed Churches cannot weigh with Me until you prove these to be infallible or that to maintain no Truth And how Diotrephes Ambition who directly opposed the Apostle St John can be an Argument against Episcopacy I do not understand 6. When I am made a Judge over the Reformed Churches then and not before will I censure their Actions as you must prove before I confess it that Presbyters without a Bishop may lawfully ordain other Presbyters And as for the Administration of Baptism as I think none will say that a Woman can lawfully or duely administer it though when done it be valid so none ought to do it but a lawful Presbyter whom you cannot deny but to be absolutely necessary for the Sacrament of the Eucharist 7. You make a learned succinct discourse of Oaths in general and their several Obligations to which I fully agree intending in the particular now in question to be guided by your own Rule which is when any Oath hath a special reference to the Benefit of those to whom I make the Promise if we have their desire or consent the Obligation ceaseth Now it must be known to whom this Oath hath reference and to whose benefit The Answer is clear Only to the Church of England as by the Record will be plainly made appear And you much mistake in alledging that the two Houses of Parliament especially as they are now constituted can have this Disobligatory power for besides that they are not named in it I am confident to make it clearly appear to you that this Church never did submit nor was subordinate to them and that it was only the King and Clergy who made the Reformation the Parliament merely serving to help to give the Civil Sanction All this being proved of which I make no question it must necessarily follow that it is only the Church of England in whose favour I took this Oath that can release Me from it wherefore when the Church of England being lawfully assembled shall declare that I am free then and not before I shall esteem My self so 8. To your last concerning the King My Father of Happy and Famous Memory both for his Piety and Learning I must tell you that I had the Happiness to know Him much better than you wherefore I desire you not to be too confident in the knowledge of His Opinions for I dare say should his Ghost now speak He would tell you that a bloody Reformation was never lawful as not warranted by God's Word and that Preces lachrymae sunt Arma Ecclesiae 9. To conclude having replied to all your Paper I cannot but observe to you that you have given Me no Answer to my last Quaere It may be you are as Chaucer says like the People of England What they not like they never understand but in earnest that question is so pertinent to the Purpose in hand that it will much serve for My satisfaction and besides it may be useful for other things C. R. Newcastle June 6. 1646. IV. Mr. Alexander Henderson's Second Paper For His MAJESTY SIR THE smaller the encouragements be in relation to the success which how small they are Your Majesty well knows the more apparent and I hope the more acceptable will my obedience be in that which in all humility I now go about at Your Majesty's command yet while I consider that the way of man is not in himself nor is it in man that walketh to direct his own steps and when I remember how many supplications with strong crying and tears have been openly and in secret offered up in Your Majesty's behalf unto God that heareth prayer I have no reason to despair of a blessed success 1. I have been averse from a disputation of Divines 1. For saving of time which the present exigence and extremity of affairs make more than ordinarily pretious While Archimedes at Syracuse was drawing his figures and circlings in the sand Marcellus interrupted his Demonstration 2. Because the common result of Disputes of this kind answerable to the prejudicate opinions of the Parties is rather Victory than Verity while tanquam tentativi Dialectici they study more to overcome their adverse Party than to be overcome of Truth although this be the most glorious Victory 3. When I was commanded to come hither no such thing was proposed to me nor expected by me I never judged so meanly of the Cause nor so highly of my self as to venture it upon such weakness Much more might be spoken to this purpose but I forbear 2. I will not further trouble Your Majesty with that which is contained in the second Section hoping that Your Majesty will no more insist upon Education Prescription of time c. which are sufficient to prevent Admiration but which Your Majesty acknowledges must give place to Reason and are no sure ground of resolution of our Faith in any point to be believed although it be true that the most part of men make these and the like to be the ground and rule of their Faith an Evidence that their Faith is not a Divine Faith but an humane Credulity 3. Concerning Reformation of Religion in the third Section I had need have a Preface to so thorny a Theme as your Majesty hath brought me upon 1. For the Reforming power it is conceived when a General Defection like a Deluge hath covered the whole face of the Church so that scarcely the tops of the Mountains do appear a General Council is necessary but because that can hardly be obtained several Kingdoms which we see was done at the time of the Reformation are to Reform themselves and that by the Authority of their Prince and Magistrates if the Prince or supreme Magistrate be unwilling then may the inferior Magistrate and the People being before rightly informed in the grounds of Religion lawfully Reform within their own sphere and if the light shine upon all or the major part they may after all other means assayed make a publick Reformation This before this time I never wrote or spoke yet the Maintainers of this Doctrine conceive that they are able to make it good But Sir were I worthy to give advice to Your Majesty or to the Kings and supreme Powers on Earth
Truth but follow their own Fancies 3. Ratione Finis when the Interpretation is not proposed as Authentical to bind others but is intended only for our own private satisfaction The first is not to be despised the second is to be exploded and is condemned by the Apostle Peter the third ought not to be censured But that Interpretation which is Authentical and of supreme Authority which every mans conscience is bound to yield unto is of an higher nature And although the General Council should resolve it and the Consent of the Fathers should be had unto it yet there must always be place left to the judgment of Discretion as Davenant late Bishop of Salisbury beside divers others hath learnedly made appear in his Book De Judice Controversiarum where also the Power of Kings in matter of Religion is solidly and unpartially determined Two words only I add One is that notwithstanding all that is pretended from Antiquity a Bishop having sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction will never be found in Prime Antiquity The other is that many of the Fathers did unwittingly bring forth that Antichrist which was conceived in the times of the Apostles and therefore are incompetent Judges in the Question of Hierarchy And upon the other part the Lights of the Christian Church at and since the beginning of the Reformation have discovered many secrets concerning the Antichrist and his Hierarchy which were not known to former Ages And divers of the Learned in the Roman Church have not feared to pronounce That whosoever denies the true and literal sense of many Texts of Scripture to have been found out in this last Age is unthankful to God who hath so plentifully poured forth his Spirit upon the Children of this Generation and ungrateful towards those men who with so great pains so happy success and so much benefit to God's Church have travailed therein This might be instanced in many places of Scripture I wind together Diotrephes and the Mystery of iniquity the one as an old example of Church-ambition which was also too palpable in the Apostles themselves and the other as a cover of Ambition afterwards discovered which two brought forth the great Mystery of the Papacy at last 6. Although Your Majesty be not made a Judge of the Reformed Churches yet You so far censure them and their actions as without Bishops in Your Judgment they cannot have a lawful Ministery nor a due Administration of the Sacraments Against which dangerous and destructive Opinion I did alledge what I supposed Your Majesty would not have denied 1. That Presbyters without a Bishop may ordain other Presbyters 2. That Baptism administred by such a Presbyter is another thing than Baptism administred by a private person or by a Midwife Of the first Your Majesty calls for proof I told before that in Scripture it is manifest 1 Tim. 4. 14. Neglect not the Gift that is in thee which was given thee by the Prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery so it is in the English Translation And the word Presbytery To often as it is used in the New Testament always signifies the Persons and not the Office And although the Offices of Bishop and Presbyter were distinct yet doth not the Presbyter derive his power of Order from the Bishop The Evangelists were inferiour to the Apostles yet had they their power not from the Apostles but from Christ The same I affirm of the Seventy Disciples who had their power immediately from Christ no less than the Apostles had theirs It may upon better reason be averred that the Bishops have their power from the Pope than that Presbyters have their power from the Prelats It is true Jerome saith Quid facit exceptâ ordinatione Episcopus quod non facit Presbyter But in the same place he proves from Sccipture that Episcopus and Presbyter are one and the same and therefore when he appropriates Ordination to the Bishop he speaketh of the degenerated custom of his time Secondly Concerning Baptism a private person may perform the external Action and Rites both of it and of the Eucharist yet is neither of the two a Sacrament or hath any efficacy unless it be done by him that is lawfully called thereunto or by a person made publick and cloathed with Authority by Ordination This Errour in the matter of Baptism is begot by another Errour of the Absolute Necessity of Baptism 7. To that which hath been said concerning Your Majesties Oath I shall add nothing not being willing to enter upon the Question of the subordination of the Church to the Civil Power whether the King or Parliament or both and to either of them in their own place Such an Headship as the Kings of England have claimed and such a Supremacy as the Two Houses of Parliament crave with the Appeals from the supreme Ecclesiastical Judicature to them as set over the Church in the same line of Subordination I do utterly disclaim upon such Reasons as give my self satisfaction although no man shall be more willing to submit to Civil powers each one in their own place and more unwilling to make any trouble than my self Only concerning the application of the Generals of an Oath to the particular case now in hand under favour I conceive not how the Clergy of the Church of England is or ought to be principally intended in Your Oath For although they were esteemed to be the Representative Church yet even that is for the benefit of the Church Collective Salus Populi being Suprema lex and to be principally intended Your Majesty knows it was so in the Church of Scotland where the like alteration was made And if nothing of this kind can be done without the consent of the Clergy what Reformation can be expected in France or Spain or Rome it self It is not to be expected that the Pope or Prelates will consent to their own ruine 8. I will not presume upon any secret knowledge of the Opinions held by the King Your Majesty's Father of famous Memory they being much better known to Your Majesty I did only produce what was profest by Him before the world And although Prayers and Tears be the Arms of the Church yet it is neither acceptable to God nor conducible for Kings and Princes to force the Church to put on these Arms. Nor could I ever hear a reason why a necessary Defensive War against unjust Violence is unlawful although it be joyned with Offence and Invasion which is intended for Defence but so that Arms are laid down when the Offensive War ceaseth by which it doth appear that the War on the other side was in the nature thereof Defensive 9. Concerning the forcing of Conscience which I pretermitted in my other Paper I am forced now but without forcing of my conscience to speak of it Our Conscience may be said to be forced either by our selves or by others By our selves 1. When we stop the ear of our Conscience
as these instances as well as comparisons are odious 9. Lastly You mistake the Quaere in My first Paper to which this pretends to answer for my Question was not concerning force of Arguments for I never doubted the lawfulness of it but force â—f Arms to which I conceive it says little or nothing unless after My example you â—â—â—er Me to the former Section that which it doth is merely the asking of the question after a fine discourse of the several ways of perswading rather than forcing of Conscience I close up this Paper desiring you to take notice that there is none of these Sections but I could have inlarged to many more lines some to whole pages yet I chose to be thus brief knowing you will understand more by a word than others by a long discourse trusting likewise to your ingenuity that Reason epitomized will weigh as much with you as if it were at large June 22. 1646. C. R. VI. Mr Alexander Henderson's Third Paper For His MAJESTY Concerning the Authority of the Fathers and Practice of the Church July 2. 1646. HAving in my former Papers pressed the steps of Your Majesty's Propositions and finding by Your Majesty's last Paper Controversies to be multiplied I believe beyond Your Majesty's intentions in the beginning as concerning The Reforming Power The Reformation of the Church of England The difference betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter The warrants of Presbyterian Government The Authority of Interpreting Scripture The taking and keeping of Publick Oaths The forcing of Conscience and many other inferiour and subordinate Questions which are Branches of those main Controversies all which in a satisfactory manner to determine in few words I leave to more presuming Spirits who either see no knots of Difficulties or can find a way rather to cut them asunder than to unloose them yet will I not use any Tergiversation nor do I decline to offer my humble Opinion with the Reasons thereof in their own time concerning each of them which in obedience to Your Majesty's Command I have begun to do already Only Sir by Your Majesty's favourable permission for the greater expedition and that the present velitations may be brought to some Issue I am bold to intreat that the Method may be a little altered and I may have leave now to begin at a Principle and that which should have been inter Praecognita I mean the Rule by which we are to proceed and to determine the present Controversy of Church-Policy without which we will be led into a labyrinth and want a thred to wind us out again In Your Majesty's First Paper the universal Custom of the Primitive Church is conceived to be the Rule in the Second Paper Section 5. the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of the Fathers is made a convincing Argument when the Interpretation of Scripture is doubtful in your Third Paper Sect. 5. the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of Fathers is made Judge And I know that nothing is more ordinary in this Question than to alledge Antiquity perpetual Succession universal Consent of the Fathers and the universal Practice of the Primitive Church according to the Rule of Augustine Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec à Concilio institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolica traditum rectissimè creditur There is in this Argument at the first view so much appearance of Reason that it may much work upon a modest mind yet being well examined and rightly weighed it will be found to be of no great weight for beside that the Minor will never be made good in the behalf of a Diocesan Bishop having sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction there being a multitude of Fathers who maintain that Bishop and Presbyter are of one and the same Order I shall humbly offer some few Considerations about the Major because it hath been an Inlet to many dangerous Errours and hath proved a mighty hinderance and obstruction to Reformation of Religion 1. I desire it may be considered that whiles some make two Rules for defining Controversies the Word of God and Antiquity which they will have to be received with equal veneration or as the Papists call them Canonical Authority and Catholical Tradition and others make Scripture to be the only Rule and Antiquity the authentick Interpreter the latter of the two seems to me to be the greater Errour because the first setteth up a parallel in the same degree with Scripture but this would create a Superiour in a higher degree above Scripture For the interpretation of the Fathers shall be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and accounted the very Cause and Reason for which we conceive and believe such a place of Scripture to have such a sense and thus men shall have dominion over our Faith against 2 Cor. 1. 24. Our faith shall stand in the wisdom of man and not in the power of God 1 Cor. 2. 5. and Scripture shall be of private interpretation For the Prophecy came not of old by the will of man 2 Pet. 1. 20 22. Nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit Homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit saith Tertullian 2. That Scripture cannot be Authentically interpreted but by Scripture is manifest from Scripture The Levites gave the sense of the Law by no other means but by Scripture it self Neh. 8. 8. Our Saviour for example to us gave the true sense of Scripture against the depravations of Satan by comparing Scripture with Scripture and not by alledging any Testimonies out of the Rabbins Matt. 4. And the Apostles in their Epistles used no other help but the diligent comparing of Prophetical writings like as the Apostle Peter will have us to compare the clearer light of the Apostles with the more obscure light of the Prophets 2 Pet. 1. 19. And when we betake our selves to the Fathers we have need to take heed that with the Papists we accuse not the Scriptures of Obscurity or Imperfection 3. The Fathers themselves as they are cited by Protestant Writers hold this Conclusion That Scripture is not to be interpreted but by Scripture it self To this purpose amongst many other Testimonies they bring the saying of Tertullian Surge Veritas ipsa Scripturas tuas interpretare quam Consuetudo non novit nam si nosset non esset if it knew Scripture it would be ashamed of it self and cease to be any more 4. That some Errours have been received and continued for a long time in the Church The Errour of Free-will beginning at Justin Martyr continued till the time of Reformation although it was rejected by Augustine as the Divine Right of Episcopacy was opposed by others The Errour about the Vision of God That the Souls of the Saints departed see not the face of God till the Judgment of the Great Day was held by universal Consent The same may be said of the Errour of the Millenaries and which more nearly
Office in the Church distinct from Pastors and Teachers Eph. iv 11. and that they were Evangelists it appears by their being sent up and down by the Apostles or taken along with them in company to several Churches as the necessity and occasion of the Churches did require The one of them being expresly called an Evangelist 1 Tim. iv 5. and neither of them being any where in Scripture called Bishop Neither were they fixed to Ephesus and Crete as Bishops in the Churches committed to them but removed from thence to other places and never for ought appears in Scripture returned to them again And it seems clear to us that neither their abode at Ephesus and Crete was for any long time nor so intended by the Apostle For he imploys them there upon occasional business and expresses himself in such manner I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine 1 Tim. i. 3. For this cause left I thee in Crete Tit. i. 5. as doth not carry the fixing or constituting of a Bishop in a place as perpetual Governour And it is as manifest that they were both of them called away from these places ii Tim. iv 9. Do thy diligence to come to me shortly Tit. iii. 12. Be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis So that they may as well be called Bishops of any other Cities or Churches where they had any considerable abode as they are pretended to have been of Ephesus and Crete as they are called by the Postscripts of these Epistles the credit of which Postscripts we cannot build upon in this point Secondly to that of the Angels of the Churches The Ministers of the Churches are called Stars and Angels which denominations are metaphorical and in a mystery Rev. i. 20. the mystery of the seven Stars Angels in respect of their Mission or sending Stars in respect of their Station and shining And it seems strange to us that to so many express Testimonies of Scripture an allegorical denomination or mystery should be opposed These Angels being no where called Bishops in vulgar acceptation nor the word Bishop used in any of John's writings who calls himself Presbyter nor any mention of superiority of one Presbyter to another but in Diotrephes affecting it And as to that which may be said that the Epistles are directed to one we answer that a number of persons are in the mysterious and prophetick writings expressed in singulars and we humbly conceive that being written in an Epistolary style for they are as Letters or Epistles to the Churches these writings are directed as Letters to collective Representative Bodies use to be that is to one but intended and meant to that Body in meeting assembled which that they were so intended is clear to us both because there were in Ephesus Bishops and Presbyters one and the same to whom the Apostle at his farewel commendeth the Government of the Church and by divers expressions in these Epistles as Rev. 11. 24. To you and to the rest in Thyatira by which distinction of you and the rest we conceive the particular Governours which were more than one and the people to be signified And so cannot consent that any singular person had majority over the rest or sole power of exercising Church-Censures and Government spoken of in these Chapters Having thus as we humbly conceive proved by pregnant places of Scripture compared together that the Apostles themselves did not institute or practice Episcopal Government nor commit and derive it to particular persons as their Substitutes or Successors therein we shall in farther discharge of our duty to and for the more clear and full satisfaction of Your Majesty in this point briefly declare into what Officers hands the ordinary and standing Offices of the Church were transmitted and derived by and from the Apostles The Apostles had no Successors in eundem gradum the Apostolical Office was not derived by Succession being instituted by Christ by extraordinary and special Commission But for the ordinary and standing use and service of the Church there were ordained only two Orders of Officers viz. Bishops and Deacons which the Apostle expresseth Phil. 1. 1. To all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the Bishops and Deacons and onely of them doth the Apostle give the due Characters of Officers 1 Tim. iii 2 8. From both which places of Scripture we conclude with ancient Expositors both Greek and Latine that Bishops are the same with Presbyters and besides Presbyters there is no mention of any other Order but that of Deacons Of both which Orders in the Apostles times there were in one City more than one as in Philippi and Ephesus And we humbly offer to Your Majesty as observable That though one Order might be superiour to another Order yet in the same Order of Officers there was not any one superior to others of the same Order No Apostle was above an Apostle no Evangelist above an Evangelist no Presbyter above a Presbyter no Deacon above a Deacon And so we conclude this part That since Church Officers are instituted and set in the Church by God or Christ Jesus and that Ordination by or in which the Office is conveyed is of no other Officers but of Presbyters and Deacons therefore there are no other Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Churches of Christ As for the Ages immediately succeeding the Apostles we answer first Our Faith reaches no farther than the Holy Scriptures No human testimony can beget any more than a human faith Secondly we answer That it is agreed upon by Learned men as well such as contend for Episcopacy as others that the times immediately succeeding the Apostles are very dark in respect of the History of the Church Thirdly That the most unquestionable Record of those times gives clear testimony to our assertion viz. The Epistle of Clemens to the Corinthians who reciting the Orders of Church-Officers expresly limits them to two Bishops and Deacons and them whom in one place he calls Bishops he always afterwards nameth Presbyters The Epistles of Ignatius pretend to the next Antiquity but are by some suspected as wholly spurious and proved by Vedelius to be so mixed that it is hard if not impossible to know what part of them are genuine Besides Bishop Vsher in his late observations on them chap. 18. pag. 138. confesses that of the twelve of his Epistles six are counterfeit the other six mixt and none of them in every respect to be accounted sincere and genuine Fourthly we grant That not long after the Apostles times Bishops in some superiority to Presbyters are by the Writers of those times reported to be in the Church but they were set up not as a Divine Institution but as an Ecclesiastical as afterwards both Arch-Bishops and Patriarchs were Which is clear by Doctor Reynolds his Epistle to Sir Francis Knowles wherein he shews out of
Bishop Jewel that Ambrose Chrysostome Jerome Augustine and many more holy Fathers together with the Apostle Paul agree that by the Word of God there is no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter and that Medina in the Council of Trent affirms not only the same Fathers but also another Jerome Theodoret Primasius Sedulius and Theophylact to be of the same judgment and that with them agree Oecumenius Anselme Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and another Anselme Gregory and Gratian and after them many others that it was inrolled in the Canon Law for sound and Catholick Doctrine and publickly taught by Learned men And adds That all who have laboured in the Reformation of the Church for these 500 years have taught that all Pastors be they intituled Bishops or Priests have equal authority and power by God's word The same way goes Lombard Master of the Sentences and Father of the School-men who speaking of Presbyters and Deacons saith The Primitive Church had those Orders only and that we have the Apostles precept for them alone With him agree many of the most eminent in that kind and generally all the Canonists To these we may add Sixtus Senensis who testifies for himself and many others and Cassander who was called by one of the German Emperors as one of singular ability and integrity to inform him and resolve his Conscience in questions of that nature who said It is agreed among all that in the Apostles times there was no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter For a conclusion we add that the Doctrine we have herein propounded to Your Majesty concerning the Identity of the Order of Bishops and Presbyters is no other than the Doctrine published by King Henry the 8. 1543. for all his Subjects to receive seen and allowed by the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal with the neather House of Parliament Of these two Orders only so saith the Book that is to say Priests and Deacons Scripture maketh express mention and how they were conferred of the Apostles by Prayer and Imposition of hands By all which it seems evident that the Order of Episcopacy as distinct from Presbytery is but an Ecclesiastical Institution and therefore not unalterable Lastly we answer That Episcopal Government which at first obtained in the Church did really and substantially differ from the Episcopal Goverment which the Honourable Houses of Parliament desire the abolition of The Bishop of those times was one presiding and joining with the Presbytery of his Church ruling with them and not without them either created and made by the Presbyters chusing out one among themselves as in Rome and Alexandria or chosen by the Church and confirmed by three or more of his Neighbours of like dignity within the same precinct lesser Towns and Villages had and might have have Bishops in them as well as populous and eminent Cities until the Council of Sardis decreed That Villages and small Cities should have no Bishops lest the name and authority of a Bishop might thereby come into contempt But of one claiming as his due and right to himself alone as a superior order or degree all power about Ordination of Presbyters and Deacons and all jurisdiction either to exercise himself or delegate to whom he will of the Laity or Clergy as they distinguish according to the Judgment and Practice of those in our times we read not till in the latter and corrupter Ages of the Church By all which it appears that the present Hierarchy the abolition whereof is desired by the Honourable Houses may accordingly be abolished and yet possibly the Bishops of those Primitive times be They are so far differing one from another In answer to that part of Your Majesties Paper wherein You require whether our Saviour and his Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty as they might totally alter or change the Church-Government at their pleasure we humbly conceive that there are Substantials belonging to Church-Government such as are appointed by Christ and his Apostles which are not in the Churches liberty to alter at pleasure But as for Arch-Bishops c. we hope it will appear unto Your Majesties Conscience that they are none of the Church-Governors appointed by our Saviour and his Apostles And we beseech Your Majesty to look rather to the Original of them than Succession Octob. 3. 1648. III. His MAJESTIES Answer to the Paper delivered to Him by the Divines attending the Parliament's Commissioners concerning Church-Government C. R. HIS Majesty upon perusal of your Answer to His Paper of the second of October 1648. findeth that you acknowledg the several Scriptures cited in the Margin to prove the things for which they are cited viz. That the Apostles in their own persons that Timothy and Titus by Authority derived from them and the Angels of the Churches had power of Church-Government and did or might actually exercise the same in all the three several branches in His Paper specified And so in effect you grant all that is desired For the Bishops challenge no more or other power to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office as it is distinct from that of Presbyters than what properly falleth under one of these three Ordination giving Rules and Censures But when you presently after deny the persons that exercised the power aforesaid to have been Bishops or to have exercised Episcopal Government in that sense as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters you do in effect deny the very same thing you had before granted For Episcopal Government in that sense being nothing else but the Government of the Churches within a certain Precinct commonly called a Diocese committed to one single person with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end since the substance of the thing it self in all the three forementioned particulars is found in the Scriptures unless you will strive about names and words which tendeth to no profit but to the puzling and subverting those which seek after truth you must also acknowledg that Episcopal Government in the sense aforesaid may be sufficiently proved from the Scriptures In that which you say next and for proof thereof insist upon three several Texts His Majesty conceiveth as to the present business that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places is this That the word Bishop is there used to signifie Presbyter and that consequently the Office and Work mentioned in those places as the Office and Work of a Bishop are the Office and Work of a Presbyter which is confest on all sides although His Majesty is not sure that the proof will reach so far in each of those places But from thence to infer an absolute Identity of the Functions of a Bishop and a Presbyter is a fallacy which his Majesty observeth to run in a manner quite along your whole Answer but it appears from the Scriptures by what you have granted that single persons as Timothy and Titus
Doctor Reynolds against Hart and by other Writers 4. You affirm but upon very weak proofs that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places Some that have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and orders of the several journeys and stations of Paul and Timothy have demonstrated the contrary concerning this particular 5. Whereas you say it is manifest from the 2. Tim. iv 9. and Tit. iii. 12. that they were called away from these places it doth no more conclude that they were not Bishops there or that they might as well be called Bishops of other Churches than it may be concluded from the attendance of the Divines at Westminster that they are no longer Parsons or Vicars of their several Parishes Lastly for the Postscripts of these Epistles though His Majesty lay no great weight upon them yet He holdeth them to be of great antiquity and therefore such as in question of fact where there appears no strong evidence to weaken their belief ought not to be lightly rejected Neither doth His Majesty lay any weight at all upon the Allegory or Mystery of the denomination in the next point concerning the Angels of the Churches as you mistake in your Answer thereunto wherein His Majesty finds as little satisfaction as in the last point before The strength of His Majesties instance lay in this That in the Judgement of all the Ancient and the best Modern Modern Writers and by many probabilities in the Text it self the Angels of the Seven Churches were personoe Singulares and such as had a Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches and that is in a word Bishops And you bring nothing of moment in your Answer to infirm this You say truly indeed That those Epistles were written in Epistolary style and so as Letters to collective or representative Bodies use to be directed to one but intended to the Body Which when you have proved you are so far from weakning that you rather strengthen the Argument to prove those Angels to have been single persons as when His Majesty sendeth a Message to His two Houses and directs it to the Speaker of the House of Peers His intending it to the whole House doth not hinder but that the Speaker to whom it is directed is one single person still Yet His Majesty cannot but observe in this as in some parts of your Answer how willing you are versari in generalibus and how unwillingly to speak out and to declare plainly and directly what your opinion is concerning those Angels who they were whether they were as the great Antagonist of Episcopacy Salmasius very peremptorily sit ergo hoc fixum c. affirmeth the whole Churches or so many individual Pastors of the gathered Churches in those Cities or the whole College of Presbyters in the respective Churches or the singular and individual Presidents of these Colleges for into so many several Opinions are those few divided among themselves who have divided themselves from the common and received judgement of the Christian Church In the following discourse you deny that the Apostles were to have any Successors in their Office and affirm that there were to be onely two Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Church wiz Presbyters and Deacons What His Majesty conceiveth concerning the Successors of the Apostles is in part already declared viz. That they have no Successors in eundem gradum in respect of those things that were extraordinary in them as namely the measure of their Gifts the extent of their Charge the infallibility of their Doctrine and which is sundry times mentioned as a special Character of an Apostle properly so called the having seen Christ in the flesh But in those things that were not extraordinary and such those things are to be judged which are necessary for the service of the Church in all times as the Office of Teaching and the power of Governing are they were to have and had Successors and therefore the Learned and Godly Fathers and Councils of old times did usually style Bishops the Successors of the Apostles without ever scrupling thereat And as to the standing Offices of the Church although in the places by you cited Phil. i. 1. i Tim. iii. 8. there be no mention of Bishops as distinct from Presbyters but of the two Orders only of Bishops or Presbyters and Deacons yet it is not thereby proved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides For there appear two other manifest reasons why that of Bishops might not be so proper to be mentioned in those places the one because in the Churches which the Apostles themselves planted they placed Presbyters under them for the Office of Teaching but took upon themselves the care and reserved in their own hands the power of Governing in those Churches for a longer or shorter time as they saw it expedient for the propagating of the Gospel before they set Bishops over them and so it may be probable that there was as yet no Bishop set over the Church of Philippi when Saint Paul writ his Epistle to them The other because in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus the persons to whom he wrote being themselves Bishops there was no need to write any thing concerning the choice or qualification of any other sort of Officers than such as belonged to their ordination or inspection which were Presbyters and Deacons only and not Bishops Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles 1. His Majesty believeth that altho Faith as it is an assent unto Truth supernatural or of Divine revelation reacheth no further than the Scriptures yet in matters of fact humane Testimonies may beget a Faith though humane yet certain and infallible as by the credit of Histories we have an infallible Faith that Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher and Cicero a Roman Orator 2. The darkness of those times in respect of the History of the Church is a very strong Argument for Episcopacy which notwithstanding the darkness of the times hath found so full and clear a proof by the unquestioned Catalogues extant in ancient Writers of the Bishops of sundry famous Cities as Jerusalem Antioch Alexandria Rome Ephesus c. in a continued succession from the Apostles as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like 3. In Clement's Testimony cited by you His Majesty conceiveth you make use of your old fallacy from the promiscuous use of the words to infer the indistinction of the things for who can doubt of Clement's Opinion concerning the distinct Offices of Bishops and Presbyters who either readeth his whole Epistle or considereth that he himself was a Bishop in that sense even by the confession of Videlius himself a man never yet suspected to favour Bishops who saith that after the death of Linus and Cletus Clemens solus Episcopi nomen retinuit quia jam invaluerat distinctio Episcopi Presbyteri And for Ignatius Epistles though some of late out of their partial
disaffection to Bishops have endeavoured to descredit the whole Volume of them by all possible means without any regard either of ingenuity or truth yet sundry of them are such as being attested by the Suffrages of Antiquity cannot with any forehead be denied to be his and there is scarce any of them which doth not give testimony to the Prelacy of a Bishop above a Presbyter Ignatius himself also was a Bishop of Antioch and a holy Martyr for the Faith of Christ 4. You grant that not long after the Apostles times Bishops are found in the Writers of those times as in some superiority to Presbyters but you might have added farther out of these Writers if you had pleased that there were some of them as James at Jerusalem Timothy at Ephesus Titus in Crete Mark at Alexandria Linus and Clement at Rome Polycarpus at Smyrna constituted and ordained Bishops of these places by the Apostles themselves and all of them reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office And His Majesty presumeth you could not be ignorant that all or most of the testimonies you recite of the ancient Fathers Writers of the middle ages Schoolmen and Canonists and the Book published under King Hen. the 8. do but either import the promiscuous and indifferent use of the names of Bishops and Presbyters whereof advantage ought not to be made to take away the difference of the things or else they relate to a School-point which in respect of the thing it self is but a very nicety disputed pro and con by curious questionists Vtrum Episcopatus sit or do vel gradus both sides in the mean time acknowledging the right of Church-government to be in the Bishops alone and not in the Presbyters as also that there may be produced either from the very same Writers or from others of as good authority or credit testimonies both for number and clearness far beyond those by you mentioned to assert the three different Degrees or Orders call them whether you will of Ecclesiastical Functions viz. the Bishop the Presbyter and the Deacon As to that which you add lastly concerning the difference between Primitive Episcopacy and the present Hierarchy albeit His Majesty doth not conceive that the accessions or additions granted by the favour of His Royal Progenitors for the enlarging of the Power or Privileges of Bishops have made or indeed can make the Government really and substantially to differ from what formerly it was no more than the addition of Arms or Ornaments can make a body really and substantially to differ from it self naked or devested of the same nor can think it either necessary or yet expedient that the elections of the Bishops or some other Circumstantials touching their Persons or Office should be in all respects the same under Christian Princes as it was when Christians lived among Pagans and under Persecution yet His Majesty so far approveth of your Answer in that behalf that he thinketh it well worthy the studies and endeavours of the Divines of both Opinions laying aside Emulation and private Interests to reduce Episcopacy and Presbytery into such a well-proportioned Form of Superiority and Subordination as may best resemble the Apostolical and Primitive times so far forth as the different condition of times and the exigences of all considerable circumstances will admit so as the power of Church-Government in the particular of Ordination which is meerly spiritual may remain Authoritative in the Bishop but that Power not to be exercised without the concurrence or assistance of his Presbytery as Timothy was ordained by the authority of St Paul ii Tim. i. 6. but with the concurrence or assistance of the Presbytery i Tim. iv 14. Other powers of Government which belong to Jurisdiction though they are in the Bishops as before is exprest yet the outward exercise of them may be ordered and disposed or limited by the Sovereign power to which by the Laws of the Land and the acknowledgement of the Clergy they are subodinate but His Majesty doubteth whether it be in your power to give Him any present assurance that in the desired Abolition of the present Hierarchy the utter abolishing of Episcopacy and consequently of the Primitive Episcopacy is neither included nor intended As to the last part of His Majesties Paper His Majesty would have been satisfied if you had been more particular in your Answer thereunto You tell Him in general that there are Substantials in Church-Government appointed by Christ c. but you neither say what those Substantials are nor in whose hands they are left whereas His Majesty expected that you should have declared your opinions clearly whether Christ or his Apostles left any certain Form of Government to be observed in all Christian Churches then whether the same binds all Churches to the perpetual observation thereof or whether they may upon occasion alter the same either in whole or in part likewise whether that certain Form of Government which Christ and his Apostles have appointed as perpetual and unalterable if they have appointed any such at all be the Episcopal or the Presbyterian or some other differing from them both And whereas in the conclusion you beseech His Majesty to look rather to the Original of Bishops than to their Succession His Majesty thinks it needful to look at both especially since their Succession is the best clue the most certain and ready way to find out their Original His Majesty having returned you this Answer doth profess that as whatsoever was of weight in yours shall have influence on Him so He doubts not but somewhat may appear to you in His which was not so clear to you before and if this Debate may have this end that it dispose others to the temper of accepting Reason as it shall Him of endeavouring to give satisfaction in all He can to His two Houses His Majesty believes though it hath taken up it hath not mis-spent His time Newport Octob. 6. IV. The Humble Answer of the Divines attending the Honourable Commissioners of Parliament at the Treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight to the Second Paper delivered to them by His Majesty Octob. 6. 1648. Delivered to His Majesty Octob. 17. May it please Your Majesty AS in our Paper of October the third in Answer to Your Majesties of October the second we did so now again we do acknowledg that the Scriptures cited in the Margin of Your Majesties Paper do prove that the Apostles in their own persons that Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the Churches had power respectively to do those things which are in those places of Scripture specified But as then so now also we humbly do deny that any of the persons or Officers fore-mentioned were Bishops as distinct from Presbyters or did exercise Episcopal Government in that sense or that this was in the least measure proved by the alledged Scriptures And therefore our Negative not being to the same point or state of the Question which
was affirmed we humbly conceive that we should not be interpreted to have in effect denied the very same thing which we had before granted or to have acknowledged that the several Scriptures do prove the thing for which they are cited by Your Majesty And if that which we granted were all that by the Scripture cited in Your Margin Your Majesty intended to prove it will follow that nothing hath yet been proved on Your Majesties part to make up that Conclusion which is pretended As then we stood upon the Negative to that Assertion so we now crave leave to represent to Your Majesty that Your Reply doth not infirm the Evidence given in maintenance thereof The reason given by Your Majesty in this Paper to support Your Assertion That the persons that exercised the power aforesaid were Bishops in distinct sense is taken from a description of Episcopal Government which is as Your Majesty saith nothing else but the Government of the Churches within a certain Precinct commonly called a Diocess committed to one single person with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end which Government so described being for substance of the thing it self in all the three forementioned particulars Ordaining giving rules of Discipline and Censures found in Scriptures except we will contend about names and words must be acknowledged in the sense aforesaid to be sufficiently proved from Scriptures And Your Majesty saith farther that the Bishops do not challenge more or other power to belong to them in respect of their Episcopal Office as it is distinct from that of Presbyters than what properly falls under one of those three We desire to speak both to the Bishops Challenge and to Your Majesties Description of Episcopal Government And first to their Challenge because it is first exprest in Your Majesties Reply The Challenge we undertake in two respects 1. In respect of the Power challenged 2. in respect of that ground or Tenure upon which the claim is laid The Power challenged consists of three particulars Ordaining giving Rules of Discipline and Censures No more no other in respect of their Episcopal Office We see not by what warrant this Writ of partition is taken forth by which the Apostolical Office is thus shared or divided the Governing part into the Bishops hands the Teaching and administring Sacraments into the Presbyters For besides that the Scripture makes no such inclosure or partition-wall it appears the challenge is grown to more than was pretended unto in the times of grown Episcopacy Jerome and Chrysostom do both acknowledg for their time that the Bishop and Presbyter differed only in the matter of Ordination and learned Doctor Bilson makes some abatement in the claim of three saying the things proper to Bishops which might not be common to Presbyters are singularity of Succeeding and superiority in Ordaining The Tenure or ground upon which the claim is made is Apostolical which with us is all one with Divine Institution And this as far as we have learned hath not been anciently openly or generally avowed in this Church of England either in time of Popery or of the first Reformation and whensoever the pretension hath been made it was not without the contradiction of learned and godly men The abettors of the challenge that they might resolve it at last into the Scripture did chuse the most plausible way of ascending by the scale of Succession going up the River to find the Head but when they came to Scriptures and found it like the head of Nile which cannot be found they shrouded it under the name and countenance of the Angels of the Churches and of Timothy and Titus Those that would carry it higher endeavoured to impe it into the Apostolical Office and so at last called it a Divine Institution not in force of any express precept but implicite practice of the Apostles and so the Apostolical Office excepting the gifts or enablements confest only extraordinary is brought down to be Episcopal and the Episcopal raised up to be Apostolical Whereupon it follows that the Highest Officers in the Church are put into a lower orb an extraordinary Office turned into an ordinary a distinct Office confounded with that which in the Scripture is not found a temporary and an extinct Office revived And indeed if the definitions of both be rightly made they are so incompetible to the same subject that he that will take both must lose that one aut Apostolus Episcopatum aut Apostolatum Episcopus For the Apostles though they did not in many things act aliud yet they acted alio nomine alio munere then Presbyters or Bishops do and if they were indeed Bishops and their Government properly Episcopal in distinct sense then it is not needful to go so far about to prove Episcopal government of Divine Institution because they practised it but to assert expresly that Christ instituted it immediately in them For Your Majesties Definition of Episcopal Government it is extracted out of the Bishops of later date than Scripture-times and doth not sute to that Meridian under which there were more Bishops than one in a Precinct or Church and it is as fully competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Government as Episcopal The parts of this definition materially and abstractly considered may be found in Scripture The Apostles Timothy and Titus were single persons but not limited to a Precinct The Government of the Angel was limited to a Precinct but not in single persons In several Offices not to be confounded the parts of this definition may be found but the aggregation of them all together into one ordinary Officer cannot be found And if that word ordinary and standing Government had made the Genus in your Majesties Definition as it ought to be we should crave leave to say it would be gratis dictum if not petitio principii for the Scripture doth not put all these parts together in a Bishop who never borrowed of Apostles Evangelists and Angels the matter of Governing and Ordaining and left the other of Teaching dispensing Sacraments and dealing only in foro interno to Presbyters until after-times By this that hath been said it is manifest enough that we contend not first de nomine about the Name of Episcopal Government which yet though names serve for distinction is not called or distinguished by the name in Scripture nor secondly de opere about the Work whether the work of Governing Ordering Preaching c. be of continuance in the Church which we clearly acknowledg But thirdly de munere about the Office it being a great fallacy to argue That the Apostles did the same work which Bishops or Presbyters are to do in ordinary Therefore they were of the same Office For as it is said of the liberal and learned Arts one and the same thing may be handled in divers of them and yet these Arts are distinguisht by formalis ratio of handling of them so we say of
call upon us to be particular though we cannot name the Angels nor are satisfied in our judgment that those whom some do undertake to name were intended by the name of Angels in those Epistles yet we say First that these Epistles were sent unto the Churches and that under the expression of this thou dost or this thou hast and the like the Churches are respectively intended for the Sins reproved the Repentance commanded the Punishments threatned ate to be referred to the Churches and not to the singular Angels only and yet we do not think that Salmasius did intend nor do we that in formal denomination the Angels and Candlesticks were the same Secondly The Angels of these Churches or Rulers were a Collective body which we endeavoured to prove by such probabilities as Your Majesty takes no notice of namely the instance of the Church of Ephesus where there were many Bishops to whom the charge of that Church was by St. Paul at his final departure from them committed as also by that expression Rev. xi 24. To you and to the rest in Thyatira Which distinction makes it very probable that the Angel is explained under that plurality to you The like to which many expressions may be found in these Epistles which to interpret according to the consentient Evidence of other Scriptures of the New Testament is not Safe only but Solid and Evidential Thirdly These Writings are directed as Epistolary Letters to Collective Bodies usually are that is to One but intended to the Body which Your Majesty illustrateth by Your sending a Message to Your Two Houses and directing it to the Speaker of the House of Peers which as it doth not hinder we confess but that the Speaker is one single Person so it doth not prove at all that the Speaker is always the same person or if he were that therefore because Your Message is directed to him he is the Governour or Ruler of the two Houses in the least And so Your Majesty hath given clear instance that tho these Letters be directed to the Angels yet that notwithstanding they might neither be Bishops nor yet perpetual Moderators For the several opinions specified in Your Majesties Paper three of them by easy and fair accommodation as we declared before are soon reduced and united amongst themselves and may be holden without recess from the received Judgment of the Christian Church by such as are far from meriting that Aspersion which is cast upon the Reformed Divines by Popish Writers that they have divided themselves from the Common and received Judgment of the Christian Church which Imputation we hope was not in Your Majesties intention to lay upon us until it be made clear that it is the common and received Judgment of the Christian Church that now is or of that in former Ages that the Angels of the Churches were Bishops having Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches In the following Discourse we did deny that the Apostles were to have any Successors in their Office and affirmed only Two Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Church viz. Presbyters and Deacons Concerning the former of which Your Majesty refers to what you had in part already declared That in those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles as namely the Measure of their Gifts c. They had no Successors in eundem gradum but in those things which were not extraordinary as the Office of Teaching and Power of Governing which are necessary for the Service of the Church in all times they were to have and had Successors Where Your Majesty delivers a Doctrine new to us namely that the Apostles had Successors into their Offices not into their Abilities For besides that Succession is not properly into Abilities but into Office we cannot say that one succeeds another in his Learning or Wit or Parts but into his Room and Function we conceive that the Office Apostolical was extraordinary in whole because their Mission and Commission was so and the service or work of Teaching and Governing being to continue in all times doth not render their Office Ordinary as the Office of Moses was not rendered Ordinary because many works of Government exercised by him were re-committed to the standing Elders of Israel And if they have Successors it must be either into their whole Office or into some parts Their Successors into the whole however differing from them in measure of Gifts and peculiar Qualifications must be called Apostles the same Office gives the same Denomination and then we shall confess that Bishops if they be their Successors in Office are of Divine Institution because the Apostolical Office was so If their Successors come into part of their Office only the Presbyters may as well be called their Successors as the Bishops and so indeed they are called by some of the ancient Fathers Irenoeus Origen Hierome and others Whereas in truth the Apostles have not properly Successors into Office but the ordinary Power of Teaching and Governing which is setled in the Church for continuance is instituted and settled in the hands of ordinary Officers by a New Warrant and Commission according to the rules of Ordination and Calling in the Word which the Bishop hath not yet produced for himself and without which he cannot challenge it upon the general allusive Speeches used by the Fathers without scruple And whereas Your Majesty numbers the extent of their work amongst those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles we could wish that You had declared whether it belong to their Mission or Vnction for we humbly conceive that their Authoritative Power to do their Work in all places of the World did properly belong to their Mission and consequently that their Office as well as their Abilities was extraordinary and so by Your Majesties own Concession not to be succeeded into by the Bishops As to the Orders of standing Officers of the Church Your Majesty doth reply That although in the places cited Phil. i. 1. i Tim. iii. 8. there be no mention but of the two Orders only of Bishops or Presbyters and Deacons yet it is not thereby proved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides Which we humbly conceive is justly proved not only because there are no other named but because there is no rule of Ordaining any third no Warrant or way of Mission and so Argument is as good as can be made a non causa ad non effectum for we do not yet apprehend that the Bishops pretending to the Apostolick Office do also pretend to the same manner of Mission nor do we know that those very many Divines that have asserted two Orders only have concluded it from any other grounds than the Scriptures cited There appear as your Majesty saith two other manifest Reasons why the Office of Bishops might not be so proper to be mentioned in those places And we humbly conceive there is a third more manifest than those two
viz. because it was not The one Reason given by Your Majesty is because in the Churches which the Apostles themselves planted they placed Presbyters under them for the Office of Teaching but reserved in their own hands the Power of Governing those Churches for a longer or shorter time before they set Bishops over them Which under Your Majesties favour is not so much a reason why Bishops are not mentioned to be in those places as that they indeed were not The variety of Reasons may we say or Conjectures rendred why Bishops were not set up at first as namely because fit men could not be so soon found out which is Epiphanius his reason or for remedy of Schism which is Jerome's reason or because the Apostles saw it not expedient which is Your Majesties reason doth shew that this Cause labours under a manifest weakness For the Apostles reserving in their own hands the power of Governing we grant it they could no more devest themselves of power of Governing than as Dr. Bilson saith they could lose their Apostleship had they set no Bishops in all Churches they had no more parted with their power of Governing than they did in setting up the Presbyters for we have proved that Presbyters being called Rulers Governors Bishops had the power of Governing in Ordinary committed to them as well as the Office of Teaching and that both the Keys as they are called being by our Saviour committed into one hand were not by the Apostle divided into two Nor do we see how the Apostle could reasonably commit the Government of the Church to the Presbyters of Ephesus Acts 20. and yet reserve the power of Governing viz. in Ordinary in his own hands who took his solemn leave of them as never to see their faces more As concerning that part of the power of Government which for distinction sake may be called Legislative and which is one of the three fore-mentioned things challenged by the Bishops viz. giving Rules the reserving of it in the Apostles hands hindred not but that in Your Majesties Judgment Timothy and Titus were Bishops of Ephesus and Crete to whom the Apostle gives Rules for Ordering and Governing of the Church Nor is there any more reason that the Apostles reserving that part of the Power of Governing which is called Executive in such cases and upon such occasions as they thought meet should hinder the setting up of Bishops if they had intended it and therefore the reserving of Power in their hands can be no greater reason why they did not set us Bishops at the first than that they never did And since by Your Majesties Concession the Presbyters were plac'd by the Apostles first in the Churches by them planted and that with Power of Governing as we prove by Scripture You must prove the super-institution of a Bishop over the Presbyters by the Apostles in some after-times or else we must conclude that the Bishop got both his Name and Power of Government out of the Presbyters hand as the Tree in the wall roots out the stones by little and little as it self grows As touching Philippi where Your Majesty saith it may be probable there was yet no Bishop it is certain there were many like them who were also at Ephesus to whom if only the Office of Teaching did belong they had the most laborious and honourable part that which was less honourable being reserved in the Apostles hands and the Churches left in the mean time without ordinary Government The other Reason given why only two Orders are mentioned in those places is because he wrote in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus to them that were Bishops so there was no need to write any thing concerning the Choice or Qualification of any other sort of Officers than such as belonged to their Ordination or Inspection which were Presbyters and Deacons only and no Bishops The former Reason why only two Orders are mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians was because there was yet no Bishop this latter Reason why the same two only are mentioned in these Epistles is because there was no Bishop to be Ordained We might own the reason for good if there may be found any rule for the Ordination of the other Order of Bishops in some other place of Scripture but if the Ordination cannot be found how should we find the Order And it is reasonable to think that the Apostle in the Chapter formerly alledged i Tim. iii. where he passes immediately from the Bishop to the Deacon would have distinctly exprest or at least hinted what sort of Bishops he meant whether the Bishop over Presbyters or the Presbyter-Bishop to have avoided the confusion of the Name and to have set as it were some matk of difference in the Escocheon of the Presbyter-Bishop if there had been some other Bishop of a higher house And whereas Your Majesty saith there was no need to write to them about a Bishop in a distinct sense who belonged not to their Ordination and Inspection we conceive that in Your Majesties judgment Bishops might then have Ordained Bishops like themselves for there was then no Canon forbidding one single Bishop to ordain another of his own rank and there being many Cities in Crete Titus might have found it expedient as those ancient Fathers that call him Arch-bishop think he did to have set up Bishops in some of those Cities So that this Reason fights against the Principles of those that hold Timothy and Titus to have been Bishops For our part we believe that these Rules belonged not to Timothy and Titus with strict limitation to Ephesus and Crete but respectively to all the places or Churches where they might come and to all that shall at any time have the Office of Ordaining and Governing as it is written in the same Chapter i Tim. iii. 14 15. These things I have written unto thee c. that thou mayest know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church And therefore if there had been any proper Character or Qualification of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter if any Ordination or Office we think the Apostle would have signified it but because he did not we conclude and the more strongly from the insufficiency of Your Majesties two Reasons that there are only two Orders of Officers and consequently that a Bishop is not superior to a Presbyter for we find not as we said in our Answer that one Officer is superior to another who is of the same Order Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles Your Majesty having in Your first Paper said that You could not in Conscience consent to Abolish Episcopal Government because You did conceive it to be of Apostolical Institution practised by the Apostles themselves and by them committed and derived to particular persons as their Successors and hath ever since till these last times been exercised by Bishops in all the Churches of Christ we thought it necessary in our Answer to
subjoyn to that we had said out of the Scriptures the Judgment of divers ancient Writers and Fathers by whom Bishops were not acknowledged as a Divine but as an Ecclesiastical Institution as that which might very much conduce both to the easing of Your Majesties Scruple to consider that howsoever Episcopal Government was generally current yet the superscription was not judged Divine by some of those that either were themselves Bishops or lived under that Government and to the vindication of the opinion which we hold from the prejudice of Novellisme or of Recess from the Judgment of all Antiquity We do as firmly believe as to matter of fact that Chrysostome and Austin were Bishops as that Aristotle was a Philosopher Cicero an Orator though we should rather call our Faith and belief thereof certain in matter of fact upon humane Testimonies uncontroll'd than infallible in respect of the Testimonies themselves But whereas Your Majesty saith That the darkness of the History of the Church in the times succeeding the Apostles is a strong Argument for Episcopacy which notwithstanding that darkness hath found so full proof by unquestioned Catalogues as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like we humbly conceive that those fore-mentioned times were dark to the Catalogue-makers who must derive the series of Succession from and through those Historical darknesses and so make up their of Catalogues very much from Traditions and Reports which can give no great Evidence because they agree not amongst themselves and that which is the great blemish of their Evidence is that the nearer they come to the Apostles times wherein they should be most of all clear to establish the Succession firm and clear at first the more doubtful uncertain and indeed contradictory to one another are the Testimonies Some say that Clemens was first Bishop of Rome after Peter some say the third and intricacies about the Order of Succession in Linus Anacletus Clemens and another called Cletus as some affirm are inextricable Some say that Titus was Bishop of Crete some say Arch-Bishop and some Bishop of Dalmatia Some say that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus and some say that John was Bishop of Ephesus at the sametime Some say that Polycarpus was the first Bishop of Smyrna another saith that he succeeded one Bucolus and another that Aristo was first Some say that Alexandria had but one Bishop and other Cites two and others that there was but one Bishop of one City at the same time And how should those Catalogues be unquestionable which must be made up out of Testimonies that fight one with another We confess that the Ancient Fathers Tertullian Irenoeus c. made use of Succession as an Argument against Hereticks or Innovators to prove that they had the traduces Apostolici seminis and that the Godly and Orthodox Fathers were on their side But that which we now have in hand is Succession in Office which according to the Catalogues resolves it self into some Apostle or Evangelist as the first Bishop of such a City or Place who as we conceive could not be Bishops of those places being of higher Office though according to the language of after-times they might by them that drew up the Catalogues be so called because they planted and founded or watered those Churches to which they are Entitled and had their greatest residence in them Or else the Catalogues are drawn from some eminent men that were of great veneration and reverence in the times and places where they lived and Presidents or Moderators of the Presbyteries whereof themselves were Members from whom to pretend the Succession of after Bishops is as if it should be said that Caesar was Successor to the Roman Consuls And we humbly conceive that there are some Rites and Ceremonies used continually in the Church of old which are asserted to be found in the Apostolical and Primitive times and yet have no colour of Divine Institution and which is Argument above all other the Fathers whose Names we exhibited to your Majesty in our Answer were doubtless acquainted with the Catalogues of Bishops who had been before them and yet did hold them to be of Ecclesiastical Institution And lest Your Majesty might reply That however the Testimonies and Catalogues may vary or be mistaken in the order or times or names of those persons that succeeded the Apostles yet all agree that there was a Succession of some persons and so though the credit of the Catalogues be infirmed yet the thing intended is confirmed thereby We grant that a Succession of men to feed and govern those Churches while they continued Churches cannot be denied and that the Apostles and Evangelists that planted and watered those Churches though extraordinary and temporary Officers were by Ecclesiastical Writers in compliance with the Language and usage of their own times called Bishops and so were other eminent men of chief note presiding in the Presbyteries of the Cities or Churches called by such Writers as wrote after the division or distinction of the names of Presbyters and Bishops But that those first and ancientest Presbyters were Bishops in proper sense according to Your Majesties description invested with power over Presbyters and people to whom as distinct from Presbyters did belong the power of Ordaining giving Rules ahd Censures we humbly conceive can never be proved by authentick or competent Testimonies And granting that Your Majesty should prove the Succession of Bishops from the Primitive times seriatim yet if these from whom You draw and through whom You derive it be found either more than Bishops as Apostles and extraordinary persons or less than Bishops as merely first Presbyters having not one of the three Essentials to Episcopal Government mentioned by Your Majesty in their own hand it will follow that all that Your Majesty hath proved by this Succession is the Homonymy and equivocal acceptation of the word Episcopus For Clemens his Testimony which Your Majesty conceiveth to be made use of as our old fallacy from the promiscuous use of the words to infer the indistinction of the things we refer our selves to himself in his Epistle now in all mens hands whose Testimony we think cannot be eluded but by the old Artifice of hiding the Bishop under the Presbyters name for they that have read his whole Epistle and have considered that himself is called a Bishop Clement's opinion concerning the distinct Offices of Bishops and Presbyters or rather not doubt of it if only his own Epistle may be impanel'd upon the Inquest Concerning Ignatius his Epistles Your Majesty is pleased to use some earnestness of expression charging some of late without any regard of ingenuity or truth out of their partial disaffection to Bishops to have endeavoured to discredit his Writings One of those cited by us cannot as we conceive be suspected of disaffection to Bishops and there are great Arguments drawn out of those Epistles themselves betraying their insincerity adulterate mixtures and interpolations so
that Ignatius cannot be distinctly known in Ignatius And if we take him in gross we make him the Patron as Baronius and the rest of the Popish Writers do of such rites and observations as the Church in his time cannot be thought to have owned He doth indeed give testimony to the Prelacy of a Bishop above a Presbyter that which may justly render him suspected is that he gives too much Honour saith he the Bishop as God's high Priest and after him you must honour the King He was indeed a holy Martyr and his writings have suffered Martyrdom as well as he Corruptions could not go current but under the credit of worthy Names That which Your Majesty saith in Your fourth Paragraph that we might have added if we had pleased That James Timothy Titus c. were constituted and ordained Bishops of the forementioned places respectively and that all the Bishops of those times were reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office we could not have added it without prejudice as we humbly conceive to the truth for the Apostles did not ordain any of themselves Bishops nor could they do it for even by Your Majesties Concession they were Bishops before viz. as they were Apostles nor could any Apostle his choice of a certain Region or place to exercise his function in whilst he pleased render him a Bishop any more than Paul was Bishop of the Gentiles Peter of the Circumcision Neither did the Apostles ordain the Evangelists Bishops of those places unto which they sent them nor were the Bishops of those times any more than as Your Majesty saith reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office they came after the Apostles in the Churches by them planted so might Presbyters do But that 's not properly succession at least not succession into Office and this we say with a Salvo to our Assertion That in those times there were no such Bishops distinct from Presbyters Neither do we understand whether the words Episcopal Office in this Section refer to the Bishops or Apostles for in reference to Apostles it insinuates a distinction of the Apostles Office into Apostolical and Episcopal or that the Office Apostolical was wholly Episcopal unto neither of which we can give our consent for reasons forementioned To the testimonies by us recited in proof of two only Orders Your Majesty answers first That the promiscuous use of the names of Bishops and Presbyters is imported That which Your Majesty not long ago called our old fallacy is now Your Answer only with this difference we under promiscuous names hold the same Office Your Majesty under promiscuous names supposes two which if as it is often asserted was but once proved we should take it for a determination of this Controversie Secondly that they relate to a School-point or a nicety utrum Episcopatus fit or do vel gradus both sides of the questionists or disputants in the mean time acknowledging the right of Church-government in the Bishops alone It is confest by us that that question as it is stated by Popish Authors is a curious nicety to which we have no eye or reference for though the same Officers may differ from and excel others of the same order in Gifts or Qualifications yet the Office it self is one and the same without difference or degrees as one Apostle or Presbyter is not superior to another in the degree of Office they that are of the same Order are of the same degree in respect of Office as having Power and Authority to the same Acts. Nor doth the Scripture warrant or allow any Superiority of one over another of the same Order and therefore the proving of two Orders only in the Church is a demonstration that Presbyters and Bishops are the same In which point the Scripture will counter-balance the testimonies of those that assert three degrees or orders though ten for one But for easing of Your Majesty of the trouble of producing testimonies against those cited by us we make this humble motion that the Regiments on both sides may be discharged out of the field and the Point disputed by Dint of holy Scripture Id verum quod primum Having passed through the Argumentative parts of Your Majesties Reply wherein we should account it a great happiness to have given Your Majesty any satisfaction in order whereunto You pleased to honour us with this employment we shall contract our selves in the remainder craving Your Majesties pardon if You shall conceive us to have been too much in the former and too little in that which follows We honour the pious intentions and munificence of Your Royal Progenitors and do acknowledge that Ornamental Accessions granted to the Person do not make any substantial change in the Office the real difference betwixt that Episcopal Government which first obtained in the Church and the present Hierarchy consists in ipso regimine modo regiminis which cannot be clearly demonstrated in particulars until it be agreed on both sides what that Episcopacy was then and what the Hierarchy is now and then it would appear whether these three forementioned Essentials of Episcopal Government were the same in both For the Power under Christian Princes and under Pagan is one and the same though the Exercise be not And we humbly receive Your Majesties pious Advertisement not unlike that of Constantine's stirring us up as men unbiassed with private interests to study the nearest Accommodation and best resemblance to the Apostolical and Primitive times But for Your Majesties Salvo to the Bishops sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and that distinction of Ordination Authoritative in the Bishop and Concomitant in the Presbytery which You seem to found upon these two Texts 11 Tim. i. 6. 1 Tim. IV. 14. and which is used by Dr. Bilson and other Defenders of Episcopacy in explication of that Canon of the fourth Council of Carthage which enjoyns the joynt imposition of the Bishops and Presbyters hands we shall give Your Majesty an accompt when we shall be called to the inquisition thereof Albeit that we do not for the present see but that this Proviso of Your Majesty renders our accommodation to the Apostolical and Primitive times whereunto You did exhort us unfeisible We notwithstanding do fully profess our acknowledgement of subordination of the outward exercise of Jurisdiction to the Sovereign power and our accomptableness to the Laws of the Land As for Your Majesties three Questions of great importance Whether there be a certain form of Government left by Christ and his Apostles to be observed by all Christian Churches Whether it bind perpetually or be upon occasion alterable in whole or in part Whether that certain form of Government be the Episcopal Presbyterian or some other differing from them hoth The whole Volume of Ecclesiastical Policy is contained in them and we hope that neither Your Majesty expected of us a particular Answer to them at this time nor will take offence at us if
we hold only to that which is the question in order to the Bill of Abolition For we humbly profess our readiness to serve Your Majesty in Answering these or any other questions within our proper cognisance according to the proportion of our mean abilities For Your Majesties Condescension in vouchsafing us the liberty and honour of examining Your learned Reply cloathed in such Excellency of Style and for Your exceeding Candour shewed to such men as we are and for the acceptation of our humble duty we render to Your Majesty most humble Thanks and shall pray That such a Pen in the hand of such Abilities may ever be employed in a Subject worthy of it That your Majesty would please to consider that in this point under debate Succession is not the best Clue and most certain and ready way to find out the Original for to go that way is to go the furthest way about yea to go backward and when You are at the Spring viz. the Scripture it self You go to the Rivers end that You may seek the Spring And that the Lord would guide Your Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament by the right hand of his Counsel and shew You a happy way of healing our unhappy Differences and of settling the Commonwealth of Jesus Christ which is the Church so as all the members thereof may live under You in all Godliness Peace and Honesty V. His MAJESTIES Final Answer concerning Episcopacy Nov. 1. MDCXLVIII WHat you have offered by way of Reply to His Majesties Second Paper of October 6. in yours of October 17. in order to the further satisfaction of His Conscience in the point of Episcopacy His Majesty heard when it was publickly read by you with diligent attention and hath since so far as His leisure would permit taken the same into his private and serious Consideration Wherein His Majesty not only acknowledgeth your great Pains and Endeavours to inform His Judgment acording to such perswasions as your selves have in the matter in debate but also taketh special notice of the Civility of your applications to Him both in the Body and Conclusion of your Reply yet He cannot but observe withall that in very many things you either mistake His meaning and purpose in that Paper or at least come not up fully enough thereunto in this Reply Which to have shown will sufficiently remonstrate your present Reply to be unsatisfactory in that behalf without making a particular Answer to every passage in it which to a Paper of that length would require more time than His Majesty can think fit amidst the present weighty affairs to allow unto a debate of this nature Especially since His Majesty hath often found mutual returns of long Answers and Replies to have rather multiplied disputes by starting new Questions than informed the Conscience by removing former Scruples As to the Scriptures cited in the Margin of His Majesties first Paper It being granted by you that those Scriptures did prove the Apostles and others being single Persons to have exercised respectively the several powers in the Paper specified which powers by your own confession in this Reply Sect. 7. a single Person who is but a mere Presbyter hath no right to exercise and it being withall evident that a Bishop in the Ecclesiastical sense and as distinct from a Presbyter layeth claim to no more than to a peculiar right in the exercise of some or all of the said Powers which a mere Presbyter hath not the Conclusion seemeth natural and evident that such a Power of Church-Government as we usually call Episcopal is sufficiently proved by those Scriptures As to the Bishops Challenge First when you speak of a Writ of partition you seem to take His Majesties words as if He had shared and cantoned out the Episcopal Office one part to the Bishops alone another to the Presbyters alone and you fall upon the same again afterwards Sect. 6. Whereas His Majesties meaning was and by His words appeareth so to have been that one part of the Office that of Teaching c. was to be common to both alike but the other part that of Governing Churches peculiar to the Bishop alone Secondly you infer from His Majesties words That the Bishops Challenge appeareth to be grown to more than was formerly pretended to Which inference His Majesties words by you truly cited if rightly understood will not bear For having proved from Scripture the power of Church-Government in all the three mentioned Particulars to have been exercised by the Apostles and others His Majesty said but this only That the Bishops challenge no more or other power to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office than what properly falleth under one of these three The Words are true for he that believeth they challenge not so much might safely say they challenge no more But the Inference is not good For he that saith they challenge no more doth not necessarily imply they challenge all that In the power of Ordination which is purely spiritual His Majesty conceiveth the Bishops challenge to have been much-what the same in all times of the Church and therefore it is that the matter of Ordination is most insisted on as the most constant and most evident difference between Bishops and Presbyters especially after the times of Constantine which His Majesty by your relating to Chrysostom and Hierom taketh to be the same you call the times of Grown Episcopacy But His Majesty seeth no necessity that the Bishops challenge to the power of Jurisdiction should be at all times as large as the exercise thereof appeareth at some times to have been the exercise thereof being variable according to the various conditions of the Church in different times And therefore His Majesty doth not believe that the Bishops under Christian Princes do challenge such an amplitude of Jurisdiction to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office precisely as was exercised in the Primitive times by Bishops before the days of Constantine The reason of the difference being evident That in those former times under Pagan Princes the Church was a distinct Body of it self divided from the Commonwealth and so was to be governed by its own Rules and Rulers the Bishops therefore of those times tho they had no outward coercive power over mens Persons or Estates yet inasmuch as every Christian man when he became a Member of the Church did ipso facto and by that his own voluntary act put himself under their Government they exercised a very large power of Jurisdiction in Spiritualibus in making Ecclesiastical Canons receiving Accusations conventing the Accused examining Witnesses judging of Crimes excluding such as they found guilty of scandalous offences from the Lord's Supper enjoyning Penances upon them casting them out of the Church receiving them again upon their Repentance c. And all this they exercised as well over Presbyters as others But after that the Church under Christian Princes began to be
in the behalf of Episcopal Superiority are so clear and frequent in his Writings that altho he of all the Ancients be least suspected to favour that Function overmuch yet the Bishops would not refuse to make him Arbitrator in the whole business As for the Catalogues there will be more convenient place to speak of them afterwards Fifthly your long Discourse concerning the several stations and removes of Timothy and Titus Sect. 13 14. and their being called away from Ephesus and Crete Sect. 15. His Majesty neither hath time to examine nor thinketh it much needful in respect of what He hath said already so to do It is sufficient to make His Majesty at least suspend His Assent to your Conjectures and Inferences First that He findeth other Learned men from the like Conjectures to have made other Inferences as namely that Timothy and Titus having accompanied Paul in many journeys postea tandem were by him constituted Bishops of Ephesus and Crete Secondly that supposing they were after the times of the several Epistles written to them sent by the Apostles to other places or did accompany them in some of their journeys even for a long time together it cannot be concluded thence that they were not then Bishops of those Churches or that the Government of those Churches was not committed to their peculiar charge If it be supposed withall which is but reasonable that their absence was commanded by the Apostle and that they left their Churches cum animo revertendi Thirdly that the places which you press again of i Tim. i. 3. and Titus i. 5. weigh so little to the purpose intended by you even in your own judgments for you say only They put fair to prove it that you cannot expect they should weigh so much in His as to need any further Answer save only that His Majesty knoweth not what great need or use there should be of leaving Timothy at Ephesus or Titus in Crete for ordaining Presbyters and Deacons with such directions and admonitions to them for their care therein if they were not sent thither as Bishops For either there were Colleges of Presbyters in those places before their coming thither or there were not if there were and that such Colleges had power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons without a Bishop then was there little need of sending Timothy and Titus so solemnly thither about the work if there were none then had Timothy and Titus power of sole Ordination which is a thing by you very much disliked Those inconveniences His Majesty thinketh it will be hard wholly to avoid upon your Principles That Discourse you conclude with this Observation That in the very same Epistle to Timothy out of which he is endeavoured to be proved a Bishop there is clear evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in Ordination and for their Ruling Yet His Majesty presumeth you cannot be ignorant that the evidence is not so clear in either particular but that in the former very many of the Latin Fathers especially and sundry later Writers as Calvin and others refer the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the remoter Substantive Grace or Gift and not that of Imposition of Hands and so understand it as meant of the Office of Presbytery or as we were wont to call it in English by derivation from that Greek word of Priesthood in Timothy himself and not of a Colledg or Company of Presbyters collectively imposing hands on him and that the Greek Fathers who take the word collectively do yet understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there a Company of Apostles or Bishops who laid hands on Timothy in his ordination to the Office of a Bishop as was ordinarily done by three joyning in that act in the Primitive and succeeding times and not of a College of mere Presbyters and that in the latter particular to wit that of Ruling the place whereon His Majesty conceiveth your Observation to be grounded hath been by the Adversaries of Episcopal Government generally and mainly insisted upon as the only clear proof for the establishing of Ruling-Lay-Elders which interpretation His Majesty knoweth not how far you will admit of As to the Angels of the Churches His Majesties purpose in naming these Angels in His first Paper sufficiently declared in His second required no more to be granted for the proving of what He intended but these Two Things only First That they were Personae singulares and then That they had a Superiority in their respective Churches as well over Presbyters as others which two being the Periphrasis or Definition of a Bishop His Majesty conceived it would follow of it self That they were Bishops That the Epistles directed to them in their respective Reproofs Precepts Threatnings and other the contents thereof did concern their fellow-fellow-Presbyters also and indeed the whole Churches which in your last you again remember His Majesty did then and doth still believe finding it agreeable both to the tenor of the Epistles themselves and to the consentient judgment of Interpreters Only His Majesty said and still doth That that hindreth not but that the Angels to whom the Epistles were directed were Personae singulares still This His Majesty illustrated by a Similitude which tho it do not hold in some other respects and namely those you observe for His Majesty never dreamt of a four-footed Similitude yet it perfectly illustrates the thing it was then intended for as is evident enough so that there needeth no more to be said about it That which you insist upon to prove the contrary from Revel xi 24. But I say to you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plurally and the rest in Thyatira is plainly of no force if those Copies in which the copulative conjunction is wanting be true for then the Reading would be this But I say to you the rest in Thyatira But following the ordinary Copies the difficulty is not great such manner of Apostrophes by changing the number or turning the speech to another person being very usual both in Prophetick Writings such as this Book of Revelation is and in Epistles of this nature written to one but with reference to many others therein concerned Beza expoundeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to you that is the Angel as President and his Collegues the other Presbyters and to the rest that is to the whole flock or people which manner of speaking might be illustrated by the like forms of speech to be used in a Letter written to a Corporation wherein the Mayor and Aldermen especially but yet the whole Town generally were concerned but directed to the Mayor alone or from a Lord containing some Orders for his own houshould especially and generally for the whole Township but by the Inscription directed to his Steward only or the like The Consent of ancient and later Writers was produced by His Majesty for the proof of the two things before named only but especially of the first viz. That the Angels were Personae singulares
for the latter viz. That they were superiour to Presbyters also had been confessed by your selves in your first Grant before but was not produced to prove the Conclusion it self immediately viz. That they were Bishops in distinct sense altho sundry of their Testimonies come up even to that also But to the first point That they were Single persons the concurrence is so general that His Majesty remembreth not to have heard of any one single Interpreter before Brightman that ever expounded them otherwise And yet the same man as His Majesty is informed in his whole Commentary upon the Revelation doth scarce if at all any where else save in these Seven Epistles expound the word Angel collectively but still of one single person or other insomuch as he maketh one Angel to be Gregory the Great another Queen Elizabeth another Cranmer another Chemnitius and the like But generally both the Fathers and Protestant Divines agree in this That the Angel was a Single person some affirming plainly and that in terminis he was the Bishop some naming the very persons of some of them as of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna and others some calling him the chief Pastor or Superintendent of that Church and those that speak least and were more or less disaffected to Bishops as Beza Doctor Reynolds the Geneva Notes and even Cartwright himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 President or chief among the Presbyters And this they do sundry of them not crudely delivering their Opinions only and then no more but they give Reasons for it and after examination of the several Opinions prefer this before the rest affirming That Doctissimi quique interpretes all the best learned Interpreters so understand it and that they cannot understand it otherwise vim nisi facere Textui velint unless they will offer violence to the Text. That which His Majesty said concerning the Subdivision of those that had divided themselves from the common received judgment of the Church was meant by His Majesty as to the Subdivision in respect of this particular of the Angels wherein they differ one from another as to the Division in respect of their dislike of Bishops wherein they all agree And truly His Majesty doth not yet see how either their Differences can be possibly reconciled in the former no accommodation in the world being able to make all the people of the whole Church nor yet a Colledg consisting of many Presbyters to be one Single person or their recess wholly excused in the latter their dissenting from the common and received Judgment and Practice of the Christian Church in the matter of Episcopacy and the evil consequents thereof having in His Majesties Opinion brought a greater reproach upon the Protestant Religion and given more advantage or colour at least to the Romish party to asperse the Reformed Churches in such sort as we see they do than their disagreement from the Church of Rome in any one controverted Point whatsoever besides hath done As to the Apostles Successors Here little is said the substance whereof hath not been Answered before His Majesty therefore briefly declares His meaning herein That the Apostles were to have no necessary Successors in any thing that was extraordinary either in their Mission or Unction That His Majesty spake not of Succession into Abilities otherwise than by instance mentioning other particulars withal which thing He thinketh needeth not to have been now the third time by you mentioned That in the Apostles Mission or Commission for His Majesty under the name of Mission comprehended both and consequently in the Apostolical Office as there was something extraordinary so there was something ordinary wherein they were to have Successors That Bishops are properly their Successors in the whole Apostolical Office so far as it was ordinary and to have Successors That therefore the Bishops Office may in regard of that Succession be said to be Apostolical That yet it doth not follow that they must needs be called Apostles taking the Denomination from the Office inasmuch as the Denomination of the Apostles peculiarly so called was not given them from the Office whereunto they were sent but as the word it self rather importeth from the immediateness of their Mission being sent immediately by Christ himself in respect whereof for distinction sake and in Honour to their Persons it was thought fitter by those that succeeded in common usage to abstain from that Denomination and to be styled rather by the Name of Bishops That if the Apostles had no Successors the Presbyters who are their Successors in part mediately and subordinately to the Bishops will be very hard set to prove the Warrant of their own Office and Mission which if not derived from the Apostles who only received power of Mission from Christ by a continued line of Succession His Majesty seeth not upon what other bottom it can stand As to the standing Officers of the Church You insisted upon Two Places of Scripture Phil. i. 1. and 1 Tim. iii. to prove that there were to be no more standing Officers in the Church than the two in those places mentioned viz. Presbyters who are there called Bishops and Deacons whereunto His Majesties Answer was That there might be other tho not mentioned in those places which Answer tho it were alone sufficient yet ex abundanti His Majesty shewed withall that supposing your interpretation of the word Bishop in both the places viz. to denote the Office of Presbyter only there might yet be given some probable conjectures which likewise supposed true might satisfie us why that of Bishop in the distinct sense should not be needful or proper to be named in those places His Majesties former Reason tho in Hypothesi and as applied to the Church of Philippi it be but conjectural yet upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical Histories and consideration of the Condition of those times as it is set forth in the Scriptures also it will appear in Thesi to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Apostles themselves first planted Churches That they were perpetual Governours and in chief of all the Churches whilst they lived That as the burthen grew greater by the propagation of the Gospel they assumed others in partem curae committing to their charge the peculiar oversight of the Churches in some principal Cities and the Towns and Villages adjacent as James at Jerusalem and others in other places sooner or later as they saw it expedient for the service of the Church That the persons so by them appointed to such peculiar charges did exercise the powers of Ordination and other Government under the Apostles and are therefore in the Church Stories called Bishops of those places in a distinct sense That in some places where the Apostles were themselves more frequently conversant they did for some while govern the Churches immediately by themselves before they set Bishops there and that after the Apostles times Bishops only were the ordinary Governours of the Churches of Christ And His
Majesty believeth it cannot be proved either from clear evidence of Scripture or credible testimonies of Antiquity that ever any Presbyter or Presbytery exercised the power either of Ordination at all without a Bishop or of that which they call Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in ordinary and by their own sole Authority or otherwise than as it was delegated unto them upon occasion and for the time by Apostles or Bishops For that place of Phil. 1. 1. in particular His Majesties purpose being not to interpret the place a work fitter for Divines but to manifest the inconsequence of the Argument whereby you would conclude but two standing Officers only because but two there named He gave this as one probable conjecture why there might be no Bishop in distinct sense there mentioned because possibly the Apostles had not as yet set any Bishop over that Church which His Majesty did not propose as the only no nor yet as the most probable conjecture for which cause He delivered it so cautiously saying only It might be probable but as that which for the present came first into His thoughts and was sufficient for His purpose without the least meaning thereby to prejudice other interpretations as namely of those Expositors who take the words with the Bishops and Deacons as belonging to the persons saluting and not to the persons saluted to this sense Paul and Timotheus the servants of Jesus Christ with the Bishops and Deacons to the Saints at Philippi c. or of those who affirm and that with great probability too that Epaphroditus was then actually Bishop of Philippi but not to be mentioned in the Inscription of the Epistle because he was not then at Philippi but with Saint Paul at Rome when that Epistle was written Any of which conjectures if they be true as there is none of them utterly improbable that place of Phil. 1. 1. will not do you much service in this Question In the Epistles to Timothy and Titus the Apostle directeth and admonisheth them as Bishops particularly concerning Ordination of Ministers that they do it advisedly and ordain none but such as are meetly qualified for the Service of the Church which Directions and Admonitions His Majesty believeth for the substance to belong to all Bishops of after-times as well as unto them But His Majesty seeth no necessity why in those Epistles there should be any particular directions given concerning the Ordination of Bishops at least unless it could be made appear that they were to ordain some such in those places nor perhaps if that could be made to appear inasmuch as in those Epistles there is not the least signification of any difference at all between Presbyters and Deacons in the manner of their Ordination both being to be performed by the Bishop and by Imposition of Hands and so both comprehended under that general Rule Lay hands suddenly on no man but only and that very little and scarce considerable as to the making of distinct Offices in the qualification of their persons The Ordination therefore of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons being to be performed in the same manner and the same Qualifications after a sort saving such differences as the importance of their several Offices make which is more in the degree than in the things being required in both it had been sufficient if in those Epistles there had been direction given concerning the Ordination and Qualification of but one sort of Church-Officers only as in the Epistle to Titus we see there are of Presbyters only and no mention made of Deacons in the whole Epistle whence it may be as well concluded That there was to be no other standing Officer in the Church of Crete but Presbyters only because Saint Paul giveth no directions to Titus concerning any other as it can be concluded That there were to be no other Officers in the Church of Ephesus but Presbyters and Deacons only because Saint Paul giveth no direction to Timothy concerning any other As to the Ages succeeding the Apostles Concerning the Judgment of Ecclesiastical Writers about the Divine Right of Episcopacy His Majesty conceiveth the difference to be more in their Expressions than in their Meaning some calling it Divine others Apostolical and some but not many Ecclesiastical But that the Superiority of Bishops above Presbyters began in the Apostles times and had its foundation in the Institution either of Christ himself or of his Apostles His Majesty hath not heard Aerius exceped that any till these latter Ages have denied For that which you touch upon concerning the word Infallible His Majesty supposeth you knew His meaning and He delighteth not to contend about words As for the Catalogues some uncertainties in a few a frailty which all human Histories are subject to His Majesty taketh to be insufficient to discredit all Differences there are in Historiographers in reciting the Succession of the Babylonian Persian and Macedonian Kings and of the Saxon Kings in England And we find far more inextricable intricacies in the Fasti Consulares the Catalogues of the Roman Consuls notwithstanding their great care in keeping of the publick Records and the exactness of the Roman Histories than are to be found in Epistcopal Catalogues those especially of the chiefest Cities as Jerusalem Rome Antioch Alexandria Ephesus c. Yet as all men believe there were Kings in those Countries and Consuls in Rome in those times so as you might well foresee would be answered the discrediting of the Catalogues of Bishops in respect of some uncertainties although His Majesty doubteth not but many of the differences you instance in may be fairly reconciled tendeth rather to the confirming of the thing it self That which you say in Answer hereunto that the Ecclesiastical Writers called them Bishops in compliance to the Language of their own Times after the names of Presbyters and Bishops were distinguished but that they were not indeed Bishops in the proper sense now in Question His Majesty who believeth the distinction of those names to have begun presently after the Apostles times if not rather whilst some of them were living doth consequently believe that as they were called so they were indeed Bishops in that proper sense It appeareth by Ignatius his Epistles every where how wide the difference was in his time between a Bishop and a mere Presbyter If Hierom only and some a little ancienter than he had applied the name Bishop to persons that lived some Ages before them there might have been the more colour to have attributed it to such a compliance as you speak of but that they received both the Name and the truth of their relations from unquestionable Testimonies and Records His Majesty thinketh it may be made good by many instances For example to instance in one only Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna who is thought to be the Angel of that Church in the Revelations Ignatius who was contemporary with him wrote one Epistle to him and sends salutation to him in another as
from the effects of blind Zeal and over-bold Devotion XVII Of the Differences between the KING and the Two Houses in point of CHURCH-GOVERNMENT TOuching the Government of the Church by Bishops the common Jealousie hath been that I am earnest and resolute to maintain it not so much out of Piety as Policy and reason of State Wherein so far indeed reason of State doth induce Me to approve that Government above any other as I find it impossible for a Prince to preserve the State in quiet unless he hath such an influence upon Church-men and they such a dependance on Him as may best restrain the seditious exorbitancies of Ministers tongues who with the Keys of Heaven have so far the Keys of the Peoples Hearts as they prevail much by their Oratory to let in or shut out both Peace and Loyalty So that I being as KING intrusted by God and the Laws with the good both of Church and State I see no reason I should give up or weaken by any change that power and influence which in right and reason I ought to have over both The removing Bishops out of the House of Peers of which I have elsewhere given an account was sufficient to take off any suspicion that I encline to them for any use to be made of their Votes in State-affairs Tho indeed I never thought any Bishop worthy to sit in that House who would not Vote according to his Conscience I must now in Charity be thought desirous to preserve that Government in its right constitution as a matter of Religion wherein both my Judgment is fully satisfied that it hath of all other the fullest Scripture grounds and also the constant Practice of all Christian Churches till of late years the Tumultuariness of people or the Factiousness and Pride of Presbyters or the Covetousness of some States and Princes gave occasion to some mens wits to invent new models and propose them under the specious titles of Christs Government Scepter and Kingdom the better to serve their turns to whom the change was beneficial They must give Me leave having none of their temptations to invite Me to alter the Government of Bishops that I may have a title to their Estates not to believe their pretended grounds to any new ways contrary to the full and constant testimony of all Histories sufficiently convincing unbiassed men that as the Primitive Churches were undoubtedly governed by the Apostles and their immediate Successors the first and best Bishops so it cannot in Reason or Charity be supposed that all Churches in the world should either be ignorant of the Rule by them prescribed or so soon deviate from their Divine and Holy Pattern That since the first Age for fifteen hundred years not one Example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were Whose constant and universal practice agreeing with so large and evident Scripture-Directions and Examples as are set down in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the setling of that Government not in the Persons only of Timothy and Titus but in the Succession the want of Government being that which the Church can no more dispense with in point of well-being than the want of the Word and Sacraments in point of being I wonder how men came to look with so envious an eye upon Bishops power and authority as to oversee both the Ecclesiastical use of them and Apostolical constitution which to Me seems no less evidently set forth as to the main scope and design of those Epistles for the setling of a peculiar Office Power and Authority in them as President-Bishops above others in point of Ordination Censures and other acts of Ecclesiastical Discipline than those shorter characters of the qualities and duties of Presbyter-Bishops and Deacons are described in some parts of the same Epistles who in the latitude and community of the name were then and may now not improperly be call'd Bishops as to the oversight and care of single Congregations committed to them by the Apostles or those Apostolical Bishops who as Timothy and Titus succeeded them in that ordinary power there assigned over larger divisions in which were many Presbyters The Humility of those first Bishops avoiding the eminent title of Apostles as a name in the Churches style appropriated from its common notion of a Messenger or one sent to that special Dignity which had extraordinary Call Mission Gifts and Power immediately from Christ they contented themselves with the ordinary titles of Bishops and Presbyters until use the great arbitrator of words and master of language finding reason to distinguish by a peculiar name those Persons whose Power and Office were indeed distinct from and above all other in the Church as succeeding the Apostles in the ordinary and constant power of governing the Churches the honour of whose name they moderately yet commendably declined all Christian Churches submitting to that special authority appropriated also the name of Bishop without any suspicion or reproach of arrogancy to those who were by Apostolical propagation rightly descended and invested into that highest and largest power of governing even the most pure and Primitive Churches which without all doubt had many such holy Bishops after the pattern of Timothy and Titus whose special power is not more clearly set down in those Epistles the chief grounds and limits of all Episcopal claim as from Divine Right than are the characters of these perilous times and those men that make them such who not enduring sound Doctrine and clear testimonies of all Churches practice are most perverse Disputers and proud Usurpers against true Episcopacy who if they be not Traitors and Boasters yet they seem to be very covetous heady high-minded inordinate and fierce lovers of themselves having much of the Form little of the power of Godliness Who by popular heaps of weak light and unlearned Teachers seek to over-lay and smother the pregnancy and authority of that power of Episcopal Government which beyond all equivocation and vulgar fallacy of names is most convincingly set forth both by Scripture and all after-Histories of the Church This I write rather like a Divine than a Prince that Posterity may see if ever these Papers be publick that I had fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical Examples whereon my Judgment was stated for Episcopal Government Nor was it any Policy of State or obstinacy of Will or partiality of Affection either to the men or their Function which fixed Me who cannot in point of worldly respects be so considerable to Me as to recompence the injuries and losses I and My dearest Relations with My Kingdoms have sustained and hazarded chiefly at first upon this quarrel And not only in Religion of which Scripture is the best rule and the Churches Universal Practice the best commentary but also in right Reason and the true nature of Government it cannot be thought
that an orderly Subordination among Presbyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and Civil Governments where Parity breeds Confusion and Faction I can no more believe that such Order is inconsistent with true Religion than good Features are with Beauty or Numbers with Harmony Nor is it likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the Principles of Schism and Division as other men for preventing and suppressing of which the Apostolical Wisdom which was divine after that Christians were multiplied to many Congregations and Presbyters with them appointed this way of Government which might best preserve Order and Union with Authority So that I conceive it was not the Favour of Princes or Ambition of Presbyters but the Wisdom and Piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and enjoyed in those times which were purest for Religion tho sharpest for Persecution Not that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt counsel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which are incident to any one man also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christians least of all Church-men besides it will be a means to take away that burthen and odium of affairs which may lie too heavy on one mans shoulders as indeed I think it formerly did on the Bishops here Nor can I see what can be more agreeable both to Reason and Religion than such a frame of Government which is Paternal not Magisterial and wherein not only the necessity of avoiding Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts which are prone to arise among equals in Power and Function but also the differences of some Ministers gifts and aptitudes for Government above others doth invite to employ them in reference to those Abilities wherein they are eminent Nor is this Judgment of Mine touching Episcopacy any pre-occupation of Opinion which will not admit any oppositions against it It is well known I have endeavoured to satisfie My self in what the chief Patrons for other ways can say against this or for theirs And I find as they have far less of Scripture grounds and of Reason so for Examples and Practice of the Church or testimonies of Histories they are wholly destitute wherein the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others As for those obtruded Examples of some late Reformed Churches for many retain Bishops still whom necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their Inconformity to all Antiquity I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholick example of all Ancient Churches which needed no Reformation and to those Churches at this day who governed by Bishops in all the Christian world are many more than Presbyterians or Independents can pretend to be All whom the Churches in My Three Kingdoms lately governed by Bishops would equalize I think if not exceed Nor is it any point of Wisdom or Charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian world except a handful of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government whom tho you may convince of their Errors in some points of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical so far that never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except those Aerians have strayed from the Unity and Conformity of the Church in that point ever having Bishops above Presbyters Besides the late general Approbation and Submission to this Government of Bishops by the Clergy as well as the Laity of these Kingdoms is a great confirmation of My Judgment and their Inconstancy is a great prejudice against their Novelty I cannot in charity so far doubt of their Learning or Integrity as if they understood not what heretofore they did or that they did conform contrary to their Consciences So that their facility and Levity is never to be excused who before ever the point of Church-government had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former Oaths and Practice against their obedience to the Laws in force and against My Consent have not only quite cried down the Government by Bishops but have approved and encouraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the Bishops and many other Church-men of all their due Authority and Revenues even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church-lands from any Eclesiastical uses So great a power hath the stream of Times and the prevalency of Parties over some mens Judgments of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given besides the Scots Army coming into England But the Folly of these men will at last punish it self and the Desertors of Episcopacy will appear the greatest Enemies to and Betrayers of their own Interest for Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joined to and crowned with Episcopacy All Ministers will find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as Plants do between being watered by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of Heaven The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor Carcass they are when parted from the influence of that Head to whose Supremacy they have been sworn A little Moderation might have prevented great mischiefs I am firm to Primitive Episcopacy not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of Times or indulgence of Laws or corruption of Manners have brough upon it It being a gross vulgar Error to impute to or revenge upon the Function the faults of Times or Persons which Seditious and popular Principle and Practice all wise men abhor For those Secular additaments and ornaments of Authority Civil Honour and Estate which My Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just Rewards of their Learning and Piety who are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthenings of their Authority in point of Respect and Observance which in peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governors by the measure of their Virtues so much as by that of their Estates poverty and meanness exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners which persecuting
Times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and best able to use them If at any time My Judgment of men failed My good Intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose Learning Gravity and Piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar Neglect which besides an innate principle of vicious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian Parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent Inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my Judgment touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratifie any design or Passion with the least perverting of Truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian World whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by Violence and infinite Indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their KING and Soveraign as some men have endeavoured to do against all these grounds of My Judgment to consent to their weak and divided Novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do that the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else they deny these most evident Truths That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and That Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their Persons since the use and Ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if Ignorance Superstition Avarice Revenge and other disorderly and disloyal Passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with Violence and Oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no less sin than Sacriledg or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furtheâ—more as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to my Judgment I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the Unlawfulness of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniate I could soon with Judgment break that Oath which erroneously was taken by Me. But being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn how can any man that wisheth not my Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined sins of Sacriledg and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those Crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods I have oft wondred how men pretending to Tenderness of Conscience and Reformation can at once tell Me that My Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such Violence tho contrary to all that Rational and Religious Freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me that I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of My Oath which binds Me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My Oath should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of our Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and Sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in my Soul abhor as many ways highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give my Consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-Government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms for it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this for what I think in my Judgment best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My Failing and Sin I can easily acknowledg it but that is no argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and succesful as to encourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgment to be biassed or forestalled with some Prejudice and wontedness of Opinion but I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the Manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least reputation for their new ways of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cried up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominion either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in My Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right
constitution The Abuses of which deserve to be extirpated as much as the use retained for I think it far better to hold to Primitive and Uniform Antiquity than to comply with divided Novelty A right Episcopacy would at once satisfie all just desires and interests of good Bishops humble Presbyters and sober People so as Church affairs should be managed neither with Tyranny Parity nor Popularity neither Bishops ejected nor Presbyters despised nor People oppressed And in this Integrity both of My Judgment and Conscience I hope God will preserve Me. For Thou O Lord knowest my Vprightness and Tenderness As Thou hast set Me to be a Defender of the Faith and a Protector of thy Church so suffer Me not by any violence to be over-born against My Conscience Arise O Lord maintain thine own Cause let not thy Church be deformed as to that Government which derived from thy Apostles hath been retained in purest and Primitive times till the Revenues of the Church became the object of secular Envy which seeks to rob it of all the encouragements of Learning and Religion Make Me as the good Samaritan compassionate and helpful to thy afflicted Church which some men have wounded and robbed others pass by without regard either to pity or relieve As My Power is from Thee so give Me grace to use it for Thee And though I am not suffered to be Master of my other Rights as a KING yet preserve Me in that liberty of Reason love of Religion and thy Churches welfare which are fixed in My Conscience as a Christian Preserve from Sacrilegious invasions those temporal Blessings which thy Providence hath bestowed on thy Church for thy Glory Forgive their Sins and Errors who have deserved thy just permission thus to let in the wild Boar and subtile Foxes to waste and deform thy Vineyard which thy right hand hath planted and the dew of Heaven so long watered to a happy and flourishing estate O let Me not bear the infamous brand to all posterity of being the first Christian KING in this Kingdom who should consent to the oppression of thy Church and the Fathers of it whose Errors I would rather with Constantine cover with silence and reform with meekness than expose their Persons and Sacred Functions to vulgar contempt Thou O Lord seest how much I have suffered with and for thy Church make no long tarrying O my God to deliver both Me and It from unreasonable men whose counsels have brought forth and continue such violent Confusions by a precipitant destroying the ancient boundaries of thy Churches Peace thereby letting in all manner of Errors Schisms and Disorders O thou God of Order and of Truth in thy good time abate the Malice asswage the Rage and confound all the mischievous Devices of Thine Mine and thy Churches Enemies That I and all that love thy Church may sing Praises to Thee and ever magnifie thy Salvation even before the Sons of men XVIII Vpon Uxbridg Treaty and other Offers made by the KING I Look upon the way of Treaties as a retiring from fighting like Beasts to arguing like Men whose strength should be more in their Understandings than in their Limbs And tho I could seldom get opportunities to Treat yet I never wanted either desire or disposition to it having greater confidence of my Reason than my Sword I was so wholly resolved to yield to the first that I thought neither My self nor others should need to use the second if once we rightly understood each other Nor did I ever think it a diminution of Me to prevent them with expresses of My Desires and even Importunities to Treat It being an office not only of Humanity rather to use Reason than Force but also of Christianity to seek peace and ensue it As I was very unwillingly compelled to defend My self with Arms so I very willingly embraced any thing tending to Peace The events of all War by the Sword being very dubious and of a Civil War uncomfortable the End hardly recompencing and late repairing the mischief of the Means Nor did any success I had ever enhaunce with Me the price of Peace as earnestly desired by Me as any man tho I was like to pay dearer for it than any man All that I sought to reserve was Mine Honour and My Conscience the one I could not part with as a KING the other as a Christian The Treaty at Vxbridg gave the fairest hopes of an happy Composure had others applied themselves to it with the same Moderation as I did I am confident the War had then ended I was willing to condescend as far as Reason Honour and Conscience would give Me leave nor were the remaining Differences so essential to my Peoples Happiness or of such consequence as in the least kind to have hindred My Subjects either Security or Prosperity for they better enjoyed both many years before ever those demands were made some of which to deny I think the greatest Justice to My self and Favor to my Subjects I see Jealousies are not so easily allayed as they are raised Some men are more afraid to retreat from violent Engagements than to engage what is wanting in Equity must be made up in Pertinacy Such as had little to enjoy in Peace or to lose in War studied to render the very name of Peace odious and suspected In Church affairs where I had least liberty of Prudence having so many strict ties of Conscience upon Me yet I was willing to condescend so far to the setling of them as might have given fair satisfaction to all men whom Faction Covetousness or Superstition had not engaged more than any true Zeal Charity or love of Reformation I was content to yield to all that might seem to advance true Piety I only sought to continue what was necessary in point of Order Maintenance and Authority to the Churches Government and what I am perswaded as I have elsewhere set down My thoughts more fully is most agreeable to the true Principles of all Government raised to its full stature and perfection as also to the primitive Apostolical Pattern and the practice of the Universal Church conform thereto From which wholly to recede without any probable reason urged or answered only to satisfie some mens wills and phantasies which yet agree not among themselves in any point but that of extirpating Episcopacy and fighting against Me must needs argue such a softness and infirmity of Mind in Me as will rather part with Gods Truth than Mans Peace and rather lose the Churches Honour than cross some mens Factious humors God knows and time will discover who were most to blame for the unsuccessfulness of that Treaty and who must bear the guilt of after-calamities I believe I am very excusable both before God and all unpassionate men who have seriously weighed those Transactions wherein I endeavoured no less the restauration of Peace to My People than the preservation of My own Crowns to My Posterity Some men have that
The Love of whom the Prince had received by the Eye and She of Him by the Ear. For having formerly received impressions from the relations of His Gallantry when she was told of His passing through Paris She answered as it is reported that if He went to Spain for a Wife He might have had one nearer hand and saved Himself a great part of the labour In the midst of these Preparations for War and Love An. 1625 King James died at Theobalds Sunday March 27. An. 1625. and Prince CHARLES was immediately proclaimed at the Court-Gate King of Great Britain France and Ireland and so throughout all the three Kingdoms with infinite Rejoycings The people expecting all the benefits of the happiest Government under Him whose private and youthful part of Life had been so spent that it had nothing in it to be excused and where the eager Inquisitors for matter of Reproach met with no satisfaction An argument of a solid Vertue that could hold out against all the Vices of Youth that are rendred more impetuous by Flatteries and Plenty which are continually resident in great Courts For had any Debauchery polluted His earlier Days it had been published by those who in scarcity of just Accusations did invent unimaginable Calumnies Nor could it have been hid for in a great Fortune nothing is concealed but Curiosity opens the Closets and Bed-chambers especially of Princes and discovers their closest Retirements exposing all their Actions to Fame and Censure Nor did the King deceive their hopes they being the happiest People under the Sun while he was undisturbed in the administration of Justice His first publick Act was the Celebrating His Father's Funeral whereat He Himself was Chief Mourner contrary to the Practice of His Royal Predecessors and not conformable to the Ceremonies of State Either preferring Piety to an unnatural Grandeur or urged by some secret Decree of Providence that in all the Ruines of His Family He should drink the greatest Draught of Tears or His Spirit presaging the Troubles of the Throne He would hallow the Ascent to it by a Pious Act of Grief When He had pay'd that Debt to His Deceased Father He next provided for Posterity and therefore hastened the coming over of His Dearest Consort whom the Duke of Chevereux had in His Name Espoused at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris and He receiving Her at Dover the next Day after Trinity-Sunday at Canterbury began his Conjugal Embraces A Lady of most excellent Endowments who assumed to Her self nothing in His Good Fortune but the Joy and in His Evil bore an equal share for She reverenced Him not His Greatness Thus having dispatched the Affairs of His Family He applies Himself to those of His Kingdoms which too much Felicity had made unmanageable by a moderate Government And He seemed not so much to ascend a Throne as enter upon a Theatre to wrestle with all the difficulties of a corrupted State whose long Peace had softned almost all the Nobless into Court-pleasures and made the Commons insolent by a great Plenty The Rites and Discipline of Religion had been blotted out by a long and uninterrupted Prosperity and Factions crept from the Church into the Senate which were made use of by those that endeavoured the alteration of Government and the Resolves of that Council were the Dictates of some heady Demagogues who fed the Vulgar with hopes of Novelty under the name of Liberty so that the King could not endure their Vices nor they His Vertues whence came all the Obstructions to His Designs for Glory and the Publick Good The Treasury had been exhausted to satiate the unquiet and greedy Scots and the People were taught not to supply it unless they were bribed with the blood of some Minister of State or some more advantages for Licentiousness Each of these single would have ennobled the Care of an Ordinary Prudence to have weathered out but when all these conspired with the Traiterous Projects of Men of unbounded and unlawful hopes they took from Him His Peace and that which the World calls Happiness but yet they made Him Great and affording Exercises for His most excellent Abilities rendred Him Glorious The different states of these Difficulties when like Clouds they were gathering together and when they descended in showres of Blood divide the King's Reign into two parts The first could not be esteemed days of Peace but an Immunity from Civil War The other was when He was concluded by that Fatal Necessity either to part with His Dignity and expose His Subjects to the Injuries of numerous Tyrants or else to exceed the calmer temper of His peaceful Soul and make use of those necessary Arms whereby he might hope to divert if possible the Ruine of Church and State which He saw in projection In the first part He had no Wars at home but what was in the Houses of Parliament which though their first Institution designed for the production of just Counsels and assistances of Government yet through the just Indignation of Heaven and the practices of some unquiet and seditious Persons became the Wombs wherein were first conceived and formed those monstrous Confusions which destroyed their own Liberty caused our Miseries and the King's Afflictions His first Parliament began June 18. At the opening of which the King acquainted them with the necessity of Supplies for the War with Spain which they importunately had through His Mediation engaged His Father in and made it as Hereditary to Him as the Crown His Eloquence gave powerful Reasons for speedy and large summs of Money did also audit to them the several disbursements relating both to the Army and Navy that He might remove all Jealousies of misimployment and give them notice how well He understood the Office He had newly entred upon and how to be a faithful Steward of the Publick Treasure But the Projectors of the alteration of Government brought into Debate two Petitions one for Religion the other for Grievances formed in King James's time which delayed the Succours and increased the Necessities which at last they answered but with two Subsidies too poor a stock to furnish an Army with yet was kindly accepted in expectation of more at the next Session For the Infection seising upon London the Parliament was adjourned till August when they were to meet at Oxford and at that time He passed such Acts as were presented to Him At the next Session he gave a complying and satisfactory answer to all their Petitions and expected a Retribution in larger Subsidies towards the Spanish War But in stead of these there were high and furious Debates of Grievances consultations to form and publish Remonstrances Accusations of the Duke of Buckingham Which the King esteeming as reproaches of His Government and assaults upon Monarchy dissolves that Assembly hoping to find one of a less cholerick complexion after His Coronation This inauspicious Meeting drew after it another Mischief the miscarriage of the Designs upon Spain For
provision of Arms and Powder out of England that the Court was extreamly corrupted and that the matters of Church and State were so out of frame as must tend to a Change There were no Witnesses and the Defendant denying what the Appellant affirmed the Tryal was thought must be by Duel In order to which the King grants a Commission for a Court-Marshal where though the presumptions of Ramsey's guilt were more heightned yet the King hinders any further process by Combat which is doubted whether it be lawful either thinking none so foolish as to strive for Empire which He found so full of Trouble or knowing that Magistracy being the sole Gift of Heaven it was vain to commit a Crime in hope of enjoying it or in fear of losing it which was the Principle upon which Excellent Princes have neglected the diligent Inquisition of Conspiracies and fatally continues Hamilton in that favour as did enable him afterwards more falsly to act that Treason of which he was then accused Some Tumults in Ireland shewed a defect in that Government which made the King send over as Deputy thither the Lord Wentworth An. 1632 a most accomplished Person in affairs of Rule of great Abilities equal to a Minister of State The King 's choice of him he soon justified by reducing that tumultuary people to such a condition of Peace and security as it had never been since its first annexion to this Crown and made it pay for the Charges of its own Government which before was deducted out of the English Treasury their Peace and Laws now opening accesses for Plenty This enjoyment of Peace and Plenty through all the King's Dominions made Him mindful of employing some fruits of it to the Honour of that God that caused it and not to let so great a Prosperity wholly corrupt the minds of men to a neglect of Religion which is usual He shewed his own Zeal for the Ornaments of it and spent part of His Treasure towards the repair of St Paul's Church and by His Example Admonitions and Commands drew many of His Subjects to a Contribution for it and had restored it to its primitive lustre and firmness adorned it to a magnificence equal with the Structure which is supposed the goodliest in the Christian World had not the Malice of His Enemies forced him to Arms mingled His Mortar with the blood of innocent people and sacrilegiously diverted all the Treasure and Materials gathered for this pious design to maintain an impious and unjust War and afterwards to dishonour His cares for Religion they barbarously made it a Stable for their Horse and Quarters for their unhallowed Foot Some reasons of State drew the King from London An. 1633 May 13. to receive the Imperial Crown of Scotland Himself professed that He had no great stomach to the Journey nor delight in the Nation being a race of men that under the Scheme of an honest animosity and specious plain-dealing were most perfidious A full Character of their great Movers Yet as He had been nobly treated all along His Journey by the English Nobility so was He there magnificently received and crowned at Edinburgh June 10th But the King soon found all those Caresses false For the Nobility and Laick Patrons could not concoct His Revocation though legal and innocent of such things as had been stoln from the Crown during His Father's Minority with a Commission for Surrendry of Superiorities and Tithes to be retaken from the King by the present Occupants who could as then pretend no other Title than the unjust usurpation of their Ancestors on such conditions as might bring some Profit to the Crown to which they justly belonged some Augmentation of the Clergy and far more ease and benefit to the common People whom by advantage of those illegal Tenures they oppressed with a most bitter Vassalage This Act of His Majesty being so full of equity and publick good those whose greatness was builded upon Injustice did not bare-facedly oppose it but endeavoured to hinder that and all the other designs of Peace and Order by opposing in the Parliament next after the Coronation the Act of Ratification of all those Laws which King James had made in that Nation for the better regulating the affairs of that Church both as to the Government and Worship of it This was highly opposed by such as were sensible of their diminution by a legal restitution of their unrighteous Possessions And although the King carried it by the major part of Voices yet to prevent their own fires with the publick Ruine they did most assiduously slander it among the People as the abetting of Popery and the betraying their Spiritual Liberty to the Romish yoke These Calumnies received more credit by the King's Order for a more decent and reverend Worship of God at His Royal Chappel at Edinburgh conformably to the English Usage Their noise grew lowder by the Concent of their party of Malecontents in England who also took advantage to diffuse their poison from the King's Book of Sports which King JAMES had in his time published in Lancashire and was now ratified by King CHARLES for a more universal Observance The Occasision of which was the Apostasie of many to Popery whose Doctrines and Practices are more indulgent to the licentious through the rigid Opinion of some Preachers who equall'd all Recreations on the Sabbath as they call'd it to the most prodigious transgressions On the contrary some of the ignorant Teachers had perverted many to down-right Judaisme by the consequence of so strict an Observance of the Sabbath And some over-busie Justices of Peace had suppressed all the ancient Feasts of the Dedications of Churches The King therefore intended by this Edict to obstruct the success of the Enemies on both sides and to free His People from the yoke of this Superstition But such is the weakness of Humane Prudence that the Remedies it applies to one Inconvenience are pregnant of another and whereas the Generality of men seldom do good but as necessitated by Law when Liberty is indulged all things are soon filled with Disorder and Confusion And so it happened in this that the Vulgar abusing the King's Liberty which was no more than is granted in other Protestant Churches and committing many undecencies made many well-temper'd Spirits too capable and credulous of those importunate Calumnies of the Faction that His Majesty was not well-affected to Religion The boldness of the Pickeroons An. 1634 Turks and Dunkirk-Pirates infesting our Coasts damaging our Traffique the Usurpation of the Holland Fishers on the King's Dominion in the Narrow Seas and His Right disputed in a Tract by the Learned Grotius call the King 's next Cares for His own Honour and the People's Safety But the Remedy appeared exceeding difficult the furnishing of a Navy for so honourable an undertaking being too heavy a burden for His Exchequer which although not emptied by any luxuriant Feasts nor profusely wasted on some prodigal and unthirsty Favourite
though my Sins are so many and grievous that I may rather expect the effects of thy Anger than so great a deliverance as to free Me from my present great Danger yet O Lord since thy Mercies are over all thy Works and Thou never failest to relieve all those who with humble and unfeigned Repentance come to Thee for succour it were to multiply not diminish my Transgressions to despair of thy heavenly favour wherefore I humbly desire thy Divine Majesty that Thou wilt not only pardon all my Sins but also free Me out of the hands and protect Me from the Malice of my cruel Enemies But if thy wrath against my hainous offences will not otherwise be satisfied than by suffering Me to fall under my present Afflictions thy Will be done yet with humble importunity I do and shall never leave to implore the assistance of thy Heavenly Spirit that My Cause as I am Thy Vicegerent may not suffer through My weakness or want of Courage O Lord so strengthen and enlighten all the Faculties of my Mind that with clearness I may shew forth thy Truth and manfully endure this bloody Trial that so my Sufferings here may not only glorifie Thee but likewise be a furtherance to My Salvation hereafter Grant this O merciful Father for His sake who suffered for Me even Jesus Christ the Righteous Amen KING CHARLES HIS MESSAGES FOR PEACE I. From CANTERBURY Jan. 20. MDCXLI II. For the Composing of all Differences HIS Majesty perceiving the manifold distractions which are now in this Kingdom which cannot but bring great inconveniencies and mischief to this whole Government in which as His Majesty is most chiefly interessed so He holds Himself by many reasons most obliged to do what in Him lies for the preventing thereof though He might justly expect as most proper for the duty of Subjects that Propositions for the remedies of these evils ought rather to come to Him than from Him yet His Fatherly care of all His People being such that He will rather lay by any particular respect of His Own Dignity than that any time should be lost for prevention of these threatning evils which cannot admit the delays of the ordinary proceedings in Parliament doth think fit to make this ensuing Proposition to both Houses of Parliament that they will with all speed fall into a serious consideration of all those particulars which they shall hold necessary as well for the upholding and maintaining of His Majesty's Just and Regal Authority and for the setling of His Revenue as for the present and future establishment of their Priviledges the free and quiet enjoying of their Estates and Fortunes the Liberties of their Persons the security of the true Religion now professed in the Church of England and the setling of Ceremonies in such a manner as may take away all just offence Which when they shall have digested and composed into one intire body that so His Majesty and themselves may be able to make the more clear Judgment of them it shall then appear by what His Majesty shall do how far he hath been from intending or designing any of those things which the too great Fears and Jealousies of some persons seem to apprehend and how ready He will be to equal and exceed the greatest examples of the most indulgent Princes in their Acts of Grace and Favour to their People So that if all the present Distractions which so apparently threaten the Ruine of this Kingdom do not by the blessing of Almighty God end in an happy and blessed Accommodation His Majesty will then be ready to call Heaven and Earth God and Man to witness that it hath not failed on His part From HUNTINGDON March 15. Upon His Removal to YORK In pursuance of the Former HIS Majesty being now on His remove to His City of York where He intends to make His Residence for some time thinks fit to send this Message to both Houses of Parliament That he doth very earnestly desire that they will use all possible industry in expediting the business of Ireland in which they shall find so chearful a concurrence by His Majesty that no inconvenience shall happen to that service by His absence He having all that Passion for the reducing of that Kingdom which He hath expressed in His former Messages and being unable by words to manifest more affection to it than He hath endeavoured to do by those Messages having likewise done all such Acts as he hath been moved unto by His Parliament therefore if the misfortunes and calamities of His poor Protestant Subjects shall grow upon them though His Majesty shall be deeply concerned in and sensible of their sufferings He shall wash His hands before all the World from the least imputation of slackness in that most necessary and pious work And that His Majesty may leave no way unattempted which may beget a good understanding between Him and His Parliament He thinks it necessary to declare That as He hath been so tender of the Priviledges of Parliament that He hath been ready and forward to retract any Act of His own which He hath been informed hath trencht upon their Priviledges so He expects an equal tenderness in them of His Majesty 's known and unquestionable Priviledges which are the Priviledges of the Kingdom amongst which He is assured it is a Fundamental one That His Subjects cannot be obliged to obey any Act Order or Injunction to which His Majesty hath not given His consent And therefore He thinks it necessary to publish That He expects and hereby requires Obedience from all His loving Subjects to the Laws established and that they presume not upon any pretence of Order or Ordinance to which His Majesty is no party concerning the Militia or any other thing to do or execute what is not warranted by those Laws His Majesty being resolved to keep the Laws Himself and to require Obedience to them from all His Subjects And His Majesty once more recommends to His Parliament the substance of His Message of the twentieth of January last that they compose and digest with all speed such Acts as they shall think fit for the present and future establishment of their Priviledges the free and quiet enjoying their Estates and Fortunes the Liberties of their Persons the security of the true Religion now professed in the Church of England the maintaining His Majesties Regal and Just Authority and setling His Revenue His Majesty being most desirous to take all fitting and just wayes which may beget a happy understanding between Him and His Parliament in which He conceives His greatest Power and Riches do consist III. From NOTTINGHAM Aug. 25. MDCXLII When He set up His Standard By the Earls of Southampton and Dorset Sir John Culpepper Knight Chancellour of the Exchequer and Sir W. Wedale Knight WE have with unspeakable grief of heart long beheld the distractions of this our Kingdom Our very Soul is full of anguish until We may find some remedy to
Advocate Rives and D. Duck. And afterward in a Letter of one of the Commissioners for the two Houses He sent inclosed this Note Nov. 2. C. R. The Bishop of Armagh the Bishop of Excester the Bishop of Rochester the Bishop of Worcester Dr. Ferne Dr. Morley XXXVIII From NEWPORT Sept. 29. MDCXLVIII Containing His Concessions HIS Majesty did use many earnest endeavours for a Personal Treaty which He hoped might have been obtained at Westminster between Him and His two Houses of Parliament immediately yet they having made choice of this way by you their Commissioners His Majesty did gladly and chearfully accept thereof in this place as a fit means to begin a Treaty for Peace which might put an end to His own sad condition and the Miseries of His Kingdom For an entrance whereunto His Majesty hath already expressed His consent to the First Proposition But finding you are limited by Instructions which you have no warrant to communicate unto Him and having cause by your Paper of the twentieth of this present to believe that you have no power to omit or alter any thing though He shall give you such reasons as may satisfie you so to do without transmitting the Papers to the two Houses at a far distance where His Majesties reasons expressions and offers upon debate cannot be fully represented and from whence their Answers cannot be returned without much waste of the time allotted for the Treaty here and having lately received another Paper concerning the Church containing in it self many particulars of great importance and referring to divers Ordinances Articles of Religion and other things eleven or twelve in number of great length and some of them very new and never before presented to His Majesty the due consideration whereof will take up much time and require His Majesties presence with His two Houses before a full resolution can well be had in matters of so high consequence To the end therefore that the good Work now in hand may by God's blessing proceed more speedily and effectually to an happy conclusion and that His two Houses of Parliament may at present have further security and an earnest of future satisfaction His Majesty upon consideration had of yours makes these Propositions following Concerning the Church His Majesty will consent that the calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster be confirmed for three years by Act of Parliament And will by Act of Parliament confirm for three years the Directory for the publick Worship of God in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales And will likewise confirm for three years by Act of Parliament the Form of Church-Government which ye have presented to Him to be used for the Churches of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales Provided that His Majesty and those of His Judgment or any others who cannot in Conscience submit thereunto be not in the mean time obliged to comply with the same Government or Form of Worship but have free practice of their own profession And that a free consultation and debate be had with the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in the mean time twenty of His Majesties nomination being added unto them whereby it may be determined by His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament how the said Church-Government and Form of Publick Worship after the said time may be setled or sooner if Differences may be agreed and how also Reformation of Religion may be setled within the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Dominion of Wales And the Articles of Christian Religion now delivered to Him may in like manner be then considered of and determined and care taken for the ease of tender Consciences And concerning the Bishops Lands and Revenues His Majesty considering that during these troublesom times divers of His Subjects have made contracts and purchaces and divers have disbursed great summs of moneys upon security and engagement of those Lands His Majesty for their satisfaction will consent to an Act or Acts of Parliament whereby legal estates for lives or for years at their choice not exceeding 99 years shall be made of those Lands towards the satisfaction of the said Purchasers Contractors and others to whom they are engaged at the old Rents or some other moderate Rent whereby they may receive satisfaction And in case such Leases shall not satisfie His Majesty will propound and consent to some other way for their further satisfaction Provided that the propriety and inheritance of those Lands may still remain and continue to the Church and Church-men respectively according to the pious intentions of the Donors and Founders thereof and the rent that shall be reserved to be for their maintenance His Majesty will give his Royal assent for the better observation of the Lord's day for suppressing of Innovations in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God and for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's Holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom and to an Act against enjoying pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual persons and Non-residency and to an Act for regulating and Reforming both Universities and the Colledges of Westminster Winchester and Eaton His Majesty will consent to an Act for the better discovery and speedy conviction of Popish Recusants as is desired in your Propositions and also to an Act for the education of the children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion As also to an Act for the true levying of the penalties against Papists to be levied and disposed in such manner as both Houses shall agree on and as is proposed on His Majesties behalf As also to an Act to prevent the practices of Papists against the State and for putting the Laws in Execution and for a stricter course to prevent hearing and saying of Mass But as to the Covenant His Majesty is not yet therein satisfied that He can either sign or swear it or consent to impose it on the Consciences of others nor doth He conceive it proper or useful at this time to be insisted on Touching the Militia His Majesty conceives that your Proposition demands a far larger power over the persons and estates of His Subjects than hath ever hitherto been warranted by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm Yet considering the present Distractions require more and trusting in His two Houses of Parliament that they will make no further use of the power therein mentioned after the present Distempers setled than shall be agreeable to the legal exercise thereof in times past or just necessity shall require His Majesty will consent to an Act of Parliament That the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England now assembled or hereafter to be assembled or such as they shall appoint during the space of ten years shall arm train and discipline or cause to be armed trained or disciplined all the Forces of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernesey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick
same effect by the blessing of God which was often found in His Sacred Touch when living The Malice of His Enemies ended not with His Life For when His Body was carried to Saint James's to be opened they directed their Empericks to search for such Symptomes as might disgrace His Person or His Posterity But herein they were prevented by an honest Intruder who gave a true account of His sound and excellent Temperament Being imbalmed and laid in a Coffin of Lead to be seen for some days by the People at length upon Wednesday the seventh of February it was delivered to four of His Servants Herbert Mildmay Preston and Joyner who with some others in mourning equipage attended the Herse that night to Windsore and placed it in the Room which was formerly the Kings Bed-chamber Next day it was removed into the Deans Hall which was hung with black and made dark and Lights were set burning round the Herse About three afternoon the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Harford the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey and the Bishop of London others that were sent to refusing that last Service to the best of Princes came thither with two Votes passed that Morning whereby the ordering of the King's Burial was committed to the Duke provided that the Expences thereof exceeded not five hundred pounds This Order they sheved to Colonel Whichcot the Governor of the Castle desiring that the Interrment might be in Saint George's Chappel and according to the form of the Common-Prayer The latter Request the Governour denied saying That it was improbable the Parliament would permit the use of what they had so solemnly abolished and therein destroy their own Act. The Lords replied That there was a difference betwixt destroying their own Act and dispensing with it and that no Power so binds its own hands as to disable it self in some cases But all prevailed not The Governour had caused an ordinary Grave to be digged in the body of the Church of Windsore for the Interment of the Corps which the Lords disdaining found means by the direction of an honest man one of the old Knights to use an artifice to discover a Vault in the middle of the Quire by the hollow sound they might perceive in knocking with a Staff upon that place that so it might seem to be their own accidental finding out and no person receive blame for the discovery This place they caused to be opened and entring saw one large Coffin of Lead in the middle of the Vanlt covered with a Velvet Pall and a lesser on one side supposed to be Henry the Eighth and His beloved Queen Jane Saint-Maure on the other side was room left for another probably intended for Queen Katherine Parre who survived Him where they thought fit to lay the King Hither the Herse was born by the Officers of the Garrison the four Lords bearing up the Corners of the Velvet Pall and the Bishop of London following And in this manner was this Great King upon Friday the ninth of February about three afternoon silently and without other Solemnity than of Sighs and Tears committed to the Earth the Velvet Pall being thrown into the Vault over the Coffin to which was fastened an Inscription in Lead of these words KING CHARLES 1648. CAROLI Primi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitaphium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SIstas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Nè forsan temeres sacros sepulchri Augusti Cineres Repôc est In Terrae Gremio Decor Stupórque Humani Generis Senex Infans Prudens scilicet Innocésque Princeps Regni Praesidium Ruina Regni Vitâ Praesidium Ruina Morte Quem Regem potiùs Patrémve dicam O Patrem priùs deinde Regem Regem quippe Suî Patrémque Regni Hic Donúmque Dei DeÃque Cura Quem Vitáque refert refértque Morte Ringente Satanâ Canente Coelo Diro in Pegmate Gloriae Theatro Et Christi Cruce Victor Securi Baptistae emicuit Ruina Felix Quâ Divum Carolus secutus Agnum Et postliminiò domum vocatus Primaevae Patriae fit Inquilinus Sic Lucis priùs Hesperus Cadentis Resplendet modò Phosphorus Reversae Hic Vindex Fidei sacer Vetustae Cui par est nihil nihil secundum Naturae Typus absolutioris Fortunae Domitor ferendo suae Qui quantum Calicis bibit tremendi Tatundem sibi Gloriae reportat Regum Maximus unicúsque Regum In quo Res minima est fuisse Regem Solus qui superâ locatus Arce Vel Vitâ poterit frui priore Quum sint Relliquiae Cadaver Umbra Tam sacri Capitis vel ipsa sacra Ipsis Eulogiis coinquinata Quiaeque ipsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prophanat Sistas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Tho. Pierce D. D. Coll. Magd. apud Oxon. Praeses An Elegy upon the Death of Our Dread Sovereign Lord King CHARLES the MARTYR COme come let 's Mourn all eyes that see this Day Melt into Showts and weep your selves away O that each private head could yield a Floud Of Tears whil'st Britain's Head streams out His Bloud Could we pay what His Sacred Drops might claim The World must needs be drowned once again Hands cannot write for Trembling let our Eye Supply the Quill and shed an Elegy Tongues cannot speak this Grief knows no such vent Nothing but Silence can be Eloquent Worlds are not here significant in This Our Sighs our Groans bear all the Emphasis Dread SIR What shall we say Hyperbole Is not a Figure when it speaks of Thee Thy Book is our best Language what to this Shall e're be added is Thy Meiosis Thy Name 's Text too hard for us no men Can write of it without Thy Parts and Pen. Thy Prisons Scorns Reproach and Poverty How could'st Thou bear Thou Meeker Moses how Was ever Lion bit with Whelps till now And did not roar Thou England's David how Did Shimei's Tongue not move Thee Where 's the Where is the King CHARLES is all Christian Man Rebell'd Thou mad'st Thy Passions to obey Hadst Thou regain'd Thy Throne of State by Power Thou hadst not then been more a Conqueror But Thou thine own Soul's Monarch art above Revenge and Anger Canst Thou tame Thy Love How could'st Thou bear Thy Queen's Divorce must She At once Thy Wife and yet Thy Widow be Where are Thy tender Babes once Princely bred Thy choicest Jewels are they Sequestred Where are Thy Nobles Lo in stead of these Base savage Villains and Thy Enemies Egyptian Plague 't was only Pharaoh's doom To see such Vermin in His Lodging-room What Guards are set what Watches do they keep They do not think Thee safe though lock'd in Sleep Would they confine Thy Dreams within to dwell Nor let Thy Fancy pass their Centinel Are Thy Devotions dangerous Or do Thy Prayers want a Guard These faulty too Varlets 't was only when they spake for You. But lo a Charge is Drawn a Day is set The silent LAMB is brought the Wolves are met Law is arraign'd of Treason Peace
which Penalties to be levied and disposed in such manner as both Houses shall agree on wherein to be provided that His Majesty shall have no loss IX That an Act be passed in Parliament whereby the practices of Papists against the State may be prevented and the Laws against them duly executed and a stricter course taken to prevent the saying or hearing of Mass in the Court or any other part of this Kingdom X. The like for the Kingdom of Scotland concerning the four last preceding Propositions in such manner as the Estates of Parliament there shall think fit XI That the King do give His Royal Assent To an Act for the due Observation of the Lords day And to the Bill for the suppression of Innovations in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God and for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom And to the Bill against the enjoying of Pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual Persons and non-Residency And to an Act to be framed and agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament for the reforming and regulating of both Universities of the Colleges of Westminster Winchester and Eaton And to an Act in like manner to be agreed upon for the suppression of Interludes and Stage-playes this Act to be perpetual And to an Act for the taking the Accompts of the Kingdom And to an Act to be made for relief of sick and maimed Souldiers and of poor Widows and Children of Soldiers And to such Act or Acts for raising of Moneys for the payment and satisfying of the publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom and other publick uses as shall hereafter be agreed on by both Houses of Parliament And to an Act or Acts of Parliament for taking away the Court of Wards and Liveries and all Wardships Liveries Primer seisins and Ouster le maines and all other charges incident or arising for or by reason of Wardship Livery Primer seisin or Ouster le main And for the taking away of all Tenures by Homage and all Fines Licences Seisures and Pardons for Alienation and all other charges incident thereunto and for turning of all Tenures by Knights service either of His Majesty or others or by Knights service or soccage in Capite of His Majesty into free and common Soccage and that His Majesty will please to accept in recompence hereof 100000 pounds per annum And give Assurance of His consenting in the Parliament of Scotland to an Act ratifying the Acts of Convention of the Estates of Scotland called by the Council and Conservatory of Peace and the Commissioners for the common Burthens and assembled the 22 day of June 1643. and several times continued since in such manner and with such additions and other Acts as the Estates convened in this present Parliament shall think convenient XII That an Act be passed in the Parliament of both Kingdoms respectively for confirmation of the Treaties passed betwixt the two Kingdom viz. the large Treaties the late Treaty for the coming of the Scots Army into England and the settling of the Garrison of Berwick of the 29. of November 1643. and the Treaty concerning Ireland of the 6. of August 1642. with all other Ordinances and Proceedings passed betwixt the two Kingdoms in pursuance of the said Treaties XIII That an Act of Parliament be passed to make void the Cessation of Ireland and all Treaties with the Rebels without consent of both Houses of Parliament and to settle the prosecution of the War of Ireland in both Houses of Parliament to be managed by the joynt advice of both Kingdoms and the King to assist and to do no Act to discountenance or molest them therein XIV That an Act be passed in the Parliament of both Kingdoms respectively for establishing the joynt Declaration of both Kingdoms bearing date the 30. of January 1643. in England and 1644. in Scotland with the Qualifications ensuing 1. That the Persons who shall expect no Pardon be only these following RUPERT and MAURICE Count Palatines of the Rhene James Earl of Derby John Earl of Bristol William Earl of Newcastle Francis Lord Cottington John Lord Pawlet George Lord Digby Edward Lord Littleton William Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Matthew Wren Bishop of Ely Sir Robert Heath Knight Doctor Bramhall Bishop of Dery Sir John Biron Knight William Widdrington Colonel George Goring Henry Jermin Esq Sir Ralph Hopton Sir Francis Doddington M. Endymion Porter Sir George Ratcliffe Sir Marmaduke Langdale Sir John Hotham Captain John Hotham his Son Sir Henr Vaughan Sir Francis Windebanke Sir Richard Greenvile Master Edward Hyde Sir John Marley Sir Nicholas Cole Sir Thomas Riddel Junior Colonel ..... Ware Sir John Strangwaies Sir John Culpeper Sir Richard Floyd John Bodvile Esq Mr. David Jenkins Sir George Strode Sir Alexander Carew Marquiss of Huntley Earl of Montross Earl of Niddisdale Earl of Traquaire Earl of Carnewath Viscount of Aubayne Lord Ogilby Lord Rae Lord Harris Lodwick Lindsey sometime Earl of Crawford Patrick Ruthen sometime Earl of Forth James King sometime Lord Ethyn Irving younger of Drunim Gordon younger of Gight Lesly of Auchintoule Sir Robert Spotswood of Dumipace Colonel John Cockram Master John Maxwel sometime pretended Bishop of Ross Master Walter Balcanquall and all such others as being processed by the Estates for Treason shall be condemned before the Act of Oblivion be passed 2. All Papists and Popish Recusants who have been now are or shall be actually in Arms or voluntarily assisting against the Parliaments or Estates of either Kingdom 3. All persons who have had any hand in the plotting designing or assisting the Rebellion in Ireland 4. That Humphry Bennet Esq Sir Edward Ford Sir John Penruddock Sir George Vaughan Sir John Weld Sir Robert Lee Sir John Pate John Ackland Edmund Windham Esquires Sir John Fitz-herbert Sir Edward Laurence Sir Ralph Dutton Henry Lingen Esq Sir William Russel of Worcestershire Thomas Lee of Adlington Esq Sir John Girlington Sir Paul Neale Sir William Thorold Sir Edward Hussey Sir Thomas Lyddel Senior Sir Philip Musgrave Sir John Digby of Nottingh Sir Henry Fletcher Sir Richard Minshal Laurence Halsteed John Denham Esquires Sir Edmund Fortescue Peter St. Hill Esq Sir Tho. Tildesly Sir Hen. Griffith Michael Wharton Esq Sir Hen. Spiller Sir George Benion Sir Edward Nicholas Sir Edward Walgrove Sir Edward Bishop Sir Robert Owsly Sir John Maney Lord Cholmely Sir Thomas Aston Sir Lewis Dives Sir Peter Osborn Samuel Thorneton Esq Sir John Lucas John Blomey Esq Sir Thomas Chedle Sir Nicholas Kemish and Hugh Lloyd Esq and all such of the Scotish Nation as have concurred in the Votes at Oxford against the Kingdom of Scotland and their Proceedings or have sworn or subscribed the Declaration against the Convention and Covenant and all such as have assisted the Rebellion in the North or the Invasion in the South of the said Kingdom of Scotland or the late Invasion made there by the Irish and their Adherents and that the
we have offered so weighty Doubts and Considerations to your Lordships in this days Debate concerning several parts in the Bill for abolishing of Episcopacy your Lordships having confined and limited our Debate to that individual Bill as it is now penn'd not the consideration of abolishing Episcopacy in general that your Lordships cannot expect a positive Answer from us now being after eleven a clock at night touching that Bill But we shall be ready by the next day assigned for the Treaty upon this Argument to deliver our Opinions to your Lordships the which we shall be then the better able to do when we have found by the progress in our other Debates how far a blessed and a happy Peace is like to be advanced by our endeavouring to give your Lordships satisfaction in this particular This being the last of the three first days assigned for the Treaty upon Religion that Subject was again taken up the 11 th of February being the first of the second three days appointed for Religion And their Commissioners delivered this Paper 11. Feb. HAving received no satisfaction in the first three days appointed to Treat upon the Propositions for Religion we do now desire your Lordships clear and full Answer to our former Demand on this Subject that no farther time may be lost in a matter which doth so much concern the Glory of God the Honour of the King and the Peace and Happiness of His Kingdoms The King's Commissioners Answer 11. Feb. VVE gave your Lordships as much satisfaction in the first three days appointed to Treat upon the Propositions for Religion as in so short a time and upon so little information from your Lordships could reasonably be expected in a matter of so great and high importance And as we have given your Lordships already many Reasons concerning the Injustice and Inconveniency which would follow upon passing the Bill for abolishing Episcopacy according to your first Proposition so we are now ready by Conference to satisfie your Lordships why we conceive that the said Bill is not for the Glory of God or the Honour of the King and consequently cannot be for the Peace and Happiness of His Kingdoms And if your Lordships Reasons shall convince us in those particulars we shall willingly consent to what you desire if otherwise we shall offer to your Lordships our Consent to such other Alterations as we conceive may better contribute to the Reformation intended and such as may stand with the Glory of God and in truth be for the Honour of the King and the Peace and Happiness of His Kingdoms Their Reply 11. Feb. VVE have received no satisfaction from your Lordships concerning the Propositions delivered in by us for Religion in the name of the Parliaments of both Kingdoms not have you made appear unto us any Injustice or Inconveniency in the passing of the Bill for abolishing of Episcopacy And as it cannot be denied but the settling of Religion is a matter which doth highly concern the Glory of God the Honour of the King and the Peace and Happiness of his Kingdoms so do we desire your Lordships will grant those Demands which have been made unto you by us to that end and we are ready by present Conference to receive what your Lordships will offer upon any of those Propositions and to return that which may give your Lordships just satisfaction The King's Commissioners Answer 11. Feb. YOUR Lordships having expressed in your Paper of the first of February that there are other things touching Religion to be propounded by your Lordships to us we presume that by this time you may be enabled by your Instructions to propose the same and therefore we desire to receive them from your Lordships Which we hope your Lordships will think very reasonable when you consider how incongruous a thing it will appear to most Men to consent to real and substantial Alterations in the matter of Religion without having a view of the whole Alterations intended when at the same time there is mention of other Alterations Their Answer thereunto 11. Feb. WE shall deliver in very speedily that which remains with us touching Religion to be propounded unto your Lordships But we do desire as before your Lordships Answers unto our Demands in the same order that we have proposed them not conceiving it reasonable there should be any time spent in Debates or Answers upon what we shall hereafter offer till we have received satisfaction in our former Propositions which we desire may be speedily done lest otherwise the Treaty be retarded and the Expectation of both Kingdoms altogether frustrated Notwithstanding this they delivered in this further Answer 11. Feb. IN Answer to your Lordships Paper this day delivered to us we desire that His Majesty do give His Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament for the due Observation of the Lords Day and to the Bill for suppressing of Innovations in Churches and Chapels in and about the Worship of God c. and for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's Holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom and to the Bill against enjoying of Pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual persons and non-Residency And we shall in due time give in to your Lordships our Demands concerning Papists contained in the sixth seventh eighth ninth and tenth Propositions and for His Majesty's Assenting to an Act to be framed and agreed upon in both Houses of Parliament for the regulating and reforming of both Universities of the Colleges of Westminster Winchester and Eaton and for the Education and Marriage of His Majesty's Children and the Children of His Heirs and Successors in the true Protestant Religion as in the 21 Proposition Some part of the 11th and most part of the 12th of February was spent in Argument by Divines touching Episcopacy and the Presbyterial Government Afterwards their Commissioners gave in this Paper 12. Feb. THere having now been several days spent in debate upon the Propositions for Religion and all Objections alledged to the contrary either from Conscience Law or Reason being fully answered and the time allotted for that so important a part of the Treaty almost elapsed we should be wanting to the Trust reposed in us if we should not press and Expect as we now do a clear and positive Answer to those Demands concerning Religion which we have offered unto your Lordships from the Parliaments of both Kingdoms as most necessary for the settling of a safe and well-grounded Peace in all His Majesty's Dominions The King's Commissioners Answer 12. Feb. WE deny that the Objections alledged by us against the passing the for abolishing Episcopacy from Conscience Law or Reason have been fully answered by your Lordships or that indeed we have received any satisfaction from your Lordships in these particulars We have received no Information from your Lordships to satisfie us that Episcopacy is or hath been an impediment to a perfect Reformation to the growth of Religion or that it
at Our Court at Tavestock the 8 th of September 1644. The Bill for Abolishing Episcopacy VVHereas the Government of the Church of England by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers depending upon the Hierarchy hath by long experience been found to be a great impediment to the perfect Reformation and growth of Religion and very prejudicial to the Civil State and Government of the Kingdom Be it therefore Enacted by the King 's most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That from and after the fifth day of November in the year of our Lord One Thousand Six Hundred Forty and Three there shall be no Arch-bishop Bishop Chancellor or Commissary of any Arch-Bishop or Bishop nor any Dean Sub-dean Dean and Chapter or Arch deacon nor any Chancellor Chaunter Treasurer Sub-treasurer Succentor or Sacrist of any Cathedral or Collegiate Church nor any Prebendary Canon Canon-Residentiary Petty-Canon Vicar-Choral Choristers old Vicars or new Vicars of or within any Cathedral or Collegiate Church or any other their Officers within this Church of England or Dominion of Wales and that from and afrer the said fifth day of November the Name Title Dignity Jurisdiction Office and Function of Arch bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Sub-deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons Canons and Prebendaries and all Chaunters Chancellors Treasurers Sub-treasurers Succentors and Sacrists and all Vicars-Choral and Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars and every of them and likewise the having using or exercising of any Power Jurisdiction Office or Authority by reason or colour of any such Name Title Dignity Office or Function within this Realm of England or Dominion of Wales shall thenceforth cease determine and become absolutely void and shall be abolished out of this Realm and the Dominion of Wales any Usage Law or Statute to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And that from and after the said fifth day of November no Person or Persons whatsoever by Virtue of any Letters-Patents Commission or other Authority derived from the King's Majesty His Heirs or Successors shall use or exercise any Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical within this Realm or Dominion of Wales but such and in such manner as shall be appointed and established by Act of Parliament And that all Counties Palatine Mannors Lordships Castles Granges Messuages Mills Lands Tenements Meadows Leasues Pastures Woods Rents Reversions Services Parks Annuities Franchises Liberties Priviledges Immunities Rights Rights of Action and of Entry Interests Titles of Entry Conditions Commons Courts-Leet and Courts-Baron and all other Possessions and Hereditaments whatsoever of what nature or quality soever they be or wheresoever they lie or be other than Impropriations Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Pensions Portions of Tithes Parsonages Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Collations Rights of Patronage and Presentation which now are or lately were of or belonging unto any Arch-bishop Bishop Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick or any of them or which they or any of them held or injoyed in right of their said Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick respectively shall by the Authority of Parliament be vested adjudged and deemed to be and shall be in the very real and actual possession and seisin of the King's Majesty His Heirs and Successors and He shall have hold possess and enjoy the same to Him His Heirs and Successors without any Entry or other Act whatsoever and that the King's Majesty His Heirs and Successors His and their Lessees Farmers and Tenants shall hold and enjoy the same discharged and acquitted of payment of Tithes as freely and in as large ample and beneficial means to all intents and purposes as any Arch-bishop or Bishop at any time or times within the space of two years last past held or enjoyed or of right ought to have held or enjoyed the same Provided nevertheless and be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all Leases Grants Gifts Letters-Patents Conveyances Assurances or Estates whatsoever hereafter to be made by the King's Majesty His Heirs or Successors of any the Mannors Lands Tenements Hereditaments which in or by this Act shall come or be limited or disposed of unto His Majesty His Heirs or Successors other than for the Term of One and Twenty years or Three Lives or some other Term of years determinable upon One Two or Three Lives and not above from the time as any such Lease or Grant shall be made or granted whereupon the accustomed yearly Rent or more shall be reserved and payable yearly during the said Term and whereof any former Lease is in being not to be expired surrendred or ended within three years after the making of any such new Lease shall be utterly void and of none effect to all intents constructions and purposes any clause or words of non obstante to be put in any such Patent Grant Conveyance or Assurance and any Law Usage Custom or any thing in this Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And be it further Enacted and Ordained That all Impropriations Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Portions of Tithes Parsonages Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Collations Rights of Patronage and Presentation which now are or lately were belonging unto any Arch-bishop or Bishop Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick and all Mannors Castles Lordships Granges Messuages Mills Lands Tenements Meadows Pastures Woods Rents Reversions Services Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Pensions Portions of Tithes Parsonages Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Rights of Patronage and Presentation Parks Annuities Franchises Liberties Priviledges Immunities Rights Rights of Action and of Entry Interests Titles of Entry Conditions Commons Courts-Leet and Courts-Baron and all other Possessions and Hereditaments whatsoever of what nature or quality soever they be or wheresoever they lie or be which now are or lately were of or belonging to any Sub-dean Dean Dean and Chapter Arch-deacon Chaunter Chancellor Treasurer Sub-treasurer Succentor Sacrist Prebendary Canon Canon-Residentiary Petty-Canon Vicars Choral Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars or any of them or any of the Officers of them or any of them which they held or enjoyed in right of their said Dignities Churches Corporations Offices or Places respectively shall by Authority of this present Parliament be vested adjudged and deemed to be and shall be in the very real and actual possession and seisin of Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Malbourne Esquire and they shall have hold possess and enjoy the same to them their Heirs and Assigns without any Entry or other Act whatsoever and that for themselves their Lessees Farmers and Tenants discharged and acquitted of payment of Tithes as freely and in as large ample and beneficial manner to all intents and purposes as any of the Persons or Corporations whose Offices or Places are taken away by this Act at
Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled shall be nominated assigned and appointed thereby authorizing and requiring them or any five or more of them and giving them full Power and Authority by the Oaths of good and lawful men as by all other good and lawful ways and means to enquire and find out what Mannors Castles Lordships Granges Messuages Lands Tenements Meadows Leasues Pastures Woods Rents Reversions Services Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Pensions Portions of Tithes Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Presentations Rights of Patronage Parks Annuities and other Possessions and Hereditaments whatsoever of what nature or quality soever they be lying and being within every such County or City not hereby limited or disposed of unto His Majesty do belong or appertain unto all every or any such Arch-bishop Bishop Dean Sub-dean Dean and Chapter Arch-deacon Chaunter Chancellor Treasurer Sub-Treasurer Succentor Sacrist Prebendary Canon Canon Residentiary Petty-Canon Vicar-Choral Chorister old Vicar or new Vicar in right of their said Dignities Churches Corporations Offices or Places respectively and what and how much of the same is in possession and the true yearly Value thereof and what and how much thereof is out in Lease and for what Estate and when and how determinable and what Rents Services and other Duties are reserved and payable during such Estate and also the true yearly Value of the same as they are now worth in possession as also what Rents Pensions or other Charges or other Sums of Money are issuing due or payable out of any the Mannors Lands or Premisses and to make an exact and particular Survey thereof and to take and direct and settle such course for the safe custody and keeping of all Charters Evidences Court-Rolls and Writings whatsoever belonging unto all or any the Persons Dignities Churches Corporations Offices and Places or concerning any the Mannors Lands Tenements Hereditaments or other Premisses before mentioned as in their discretion shall be thought meet and convenient and of all and singular their doings and proceedings herein fairly written and ingross'd in Parchment to make Return and Certificate into the Court of Chancery And to this further intent and purpose that speedy care and course may be taken for providing of a competent maintenance for supply and encouragement of Preaching Ministers in the several Parishes within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of VVales Be it likewise Ordained and Enacted That the same Commissioners and Persons authorized as above-said shall have full Power and Authority by the Oaths of good and lawful men as by all other good ways and lawful means to enquire and find out the true yearly Value of all Parsonages and Vicarages presentative and all other Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Benefices and Livings unto which any Cure of Souls is annexed lying and being within such Counties and Cities and of all such particularly to enquire and certifie into the Court of Chancery what each of them are truly and really worth by the year and who are the present Incumbents or Possessors of them and what and how many Chappels belonging unto Parish-Churches are within the limits of such Counties and Cities within which they are directed and authorized to enquire and how the several Churches and Chappels are supplied by Preaching Ministers that so course may be taken for providing both for Preaching and of maintenance where the same shall be found to be needful and necessary Provided always that this Act or any thing therein contained shall not extend to any Colledge Church Corporation Foundation or House of Learning in either of the Vniversities within this Kingdom And the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer and Peter Malbourne Esquires and the Survivors and Survivor of them or the greater part of them his and their Heirs and Assigns are hereby directed and authorized to give and allow unto such Officers as by them shall be thought fitting and necessary for keeping of Courts collecting of Rents Surveying of Lands and all other necessary imployments in and about the Premisses and unto the Commissioners authorized by this Act and such others as shall be necessarily imployed by them all such reasonable Fees Stipends Salaries and Sums of Money as in their discretion shall be thought just and convenient And the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer and Peter Malbourne Esquires the Survivors and Survivor of them his and their Heirs and Assigns of their several Receipts Imployments Actions and Proceedings shall give an accompt and be accomptable unto the Lords and Commons in Parliament or such Person or Persons as from time to time by both Houses of Parliament shall be nominated and appointed in such manner and with such Power Priviledge and Jurisdiction to hear and determine all matters concerning such Accompts as by both Houses of Parliament shall from time to time be thought necessary to be given them and not elsewhere nor otherwise Saving to all and every Person and Persons Bodies Politick and Corporate their Heirs and Successors and the Heirs and Successors of them and every of them other than such Person or Persons Bodies Politick and Corporate whose Offices Functions and Authorities are taken away and abolished by this Act as to any Estate Right Title or Interest which they or any of them claim to have or hold in right of their said Churches Dignities Functions Offices or Places and other then the Kings Majesty His Heirs and Successors as Patrons Founders or Donors and all and every other Person and Persons Bodies Politick and Corporate as may claim any thing as Patrons Founders or Donors all such Right Title Interest Possession Rents Charge-Rent Service Annuities Offices Pensions Portions Commons Fees Profits Claims and Demands either in Law or Equity whatsoever and all and singular such Leases for Years Life or Lives as were before the twentieth day of January in the year of our Lord One thousand six hundred forty two made unto them or any of them by any the Persons or Corporations above named acccording to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm and warranted by the same and all such Leases and Estates as having been heretofore made have been established or settled by any Judgement or Decree in any of the Courts at Westminster and have been accordingly enjoyed and all Duties and Profits whatsoever which they or any of them have or may claim or of right ought to have of in to or out of any the said Mannors Lands or Premisses whatsoever or any part or parcel thereof in such sort manner form and condition to all intents constructions and purposes as if this Act had never been made MDCXLIII IV. The Articles of the late Treaty of the Date Edenburgh the 29. of November 1643. Die Mercurii 3. Januarii 1643-44 Articles of the Treaty agreed upon betwixt the Commissioners of
Obedience to Our Commands We doubt not of your care in this wherein Our Service and the good of Our Protestant Subjects in Ireland is so much concerned From Newcastle June 11. 1646. The Propositions of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for a safe and well-grounded Peace Sent to His Majesty at Newcastle by the Right Honourable the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery the Earl of Suffolk Members of the House of Peers and Sir VValter Earle Sir John Hippesly Knights Robert Goodwyn Luke Robinson Esquires Members of the House of Commons Die Sabbathi 11. Julii 1646. The Propositions of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for a safe and well-grounded Peace May it please your Majesty WE the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England in the name and on the behalf of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland in the name and on the behalf of the Kingdom of Scotland do humbly present unto Your Majesty the humble Desires and Propositions for a safe and well-grounded Peace agreed upon by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively unto which we do pray Your Majesties Assent and that they and all such Bills as shall be tendred to Your Majesty in pursuance of them or any of them may be Established and Enacted for Statutes and Acts of Parliament by Your Majesties Royal Assent in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively I. WHereas both Houses of the Parliament of England have been necessitated to undertake a War in their just and lawful defence and afterwards both Kingdoms of England and Scotland joyned in solemn League and Covenant were engaged to prosecute the same That by Act of Parliament in each Kingdom respectively all Oaths Declarations and Proclamations heretofore had or hereafter to be had against both or either of the Houses of the Parliament of England the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland and the late Convention of Estates in Scotland or Committees flowing from the Parliament or Convention in Scotland or their Ordinances and Proceedings or against any for adhering unto them or for doing or executing any Office Place or Charge by any Authority derived from them and all Judgments Indictments Outlawries Attainders and Inquisitions in any the said Causes and all Grants thereupon made or had or to be made or had be declared null suppressed and forbidden And that this be publickly intimated in all Parish-Churches within His Majesties Dominions and all other places needful II. That His Majesty according to the laudable Example of His Royal Father of happy memory may be pleased to swear and sign the late solemn League and Covenant and that an Act of Parliament be passed in both Kingdoms respectively for enjoyning the taking thereof by all the Subjects of the Three Kingdoms and the Ordinances concerning the manner of taking the same in both Kingdoms be confirmed by Acts of Parliament respectively with such Penalties as by mutual advice of both Kingdoms shall be agreed upon III. That a Bill be passed for the utter abolishing and taking away of all Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans and Sub-deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Canons and Prebendaries and all Chaunters Chancellors Treasurers Subtreasurers Succentors and Sacrists and all Vicars Choral and Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars of any Cathedral or Collegiate Church and all other their under Officers out of the Church of England and Dominion of Wales and out of the Church of Ireland with such Alterations concerning the Estates of Prelates as shall agree with the Articles of the late Treaty of the Date at Edenburg 29. November 1643. and joynt Declaration of both Kingdoms IV. That the Ordinances concerning the Calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines be confirmed by Act of Parliament V. That Reformation of Religion according to the Covenant be settled by Act of Parliament in such manner as both Houses have agreed or shall agree upon after Consultation had with the Assembly of Divines VI. Forasmuch as both Kingdoms are mutually obliged by the same Covenant to endeavour the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in matters of Religion that such Unity and Uniformity in Religion according to the Covenant as after Consultation had with the Divines of both Kingdoms now assembled is or shall be joyntly agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament of England and by the Church and Kingdom of Scotland be confirmed by Acts of Parliament of both Kingdoms respectively VII That for the more effectual disabling Jesuits Priests Papists and Popish Recusants from disturbing the State and deluding the Laws and for the better discovering and speedy conviction of Recusants an Oath be established by Act of Parliament to be administred to them wherein they shall abjure and renounce the Popes Supremacy the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Purgatory Worshipping of the Consecrated Host Crucifixes and Images and all other Popish Superstitions and Errors and refusing the said Oath being tendred in such manner as shall be appointed by the said Act to be a sufficient Conviction of Recusancy VIII An Act of Parliament for Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion IX An Act for the true levy of the Penalties against them which Penalties to be levied and disposed in such manner as both Houses shall agree on wherein to be provided that His Majesty shall have no loss X. That an Act be passed in Parliament whereby the practices of Papists against the State may be prevented and the Laws against them duely executed and a stricter course taken to prevent the saying or hearing of Mass in the Court or any other part of this Kingdom XI The like for the Kingdom of Scotland concerning the four last preceding Propositions in such manner as the Estates of the Parliament there shall think fit XII That the King do give His Royal Assent to an Act for the due Observation of the Lords Day And to the Bill for the suppression of Innovations in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God c. And for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom And to the Bill against the enjoying of Pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual Persons and Non-Residency And to an Act to be framed and agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament for the reforming and regulating of both Universities of the Colledges of Westminster Winchester and Eaton And to such Act or Acts for raising of Moneys for the payment and satisfying of the Publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom and other Publick uses as shall hereafter be agreed on by both Houses of Parliament and that if the King do not give His Assent thereunto then it being done by both Houses of Parliament the same shall be as valid to all Intents and Purposes as if the Royal Assent had been given thereunto The like for the Kingdom of Scotland And that His Majesty give assurance of His consenting in the
and Consent of the said Lords and Commons or of such Committees or Council in the Intervals of Parliament as they shall appoint 3. That during the same space of ten years the said Lords and Commons may by Bill or Ordinance raise and dispose of what Moneys and for what Forces they shall from time to time find necessary as also for payment of the Publick Debts and Damages and for all other the Publick uses of the Kingdom 4. And to the end the temporary Security intended by the three particulars last precedent may be the better assured it may therefore be provided That no Subjects that have been in Hostility against the Parliament in the late War shall be capable of bearing any Office of Power or publick Trust in the Commonwealth during the space of five years without Consent of Parliament or of the Council of State or to sit as Members or Assistants of either House of Parliament until the second Biennial Parliament be past III. For the present form of disposing the Militia in order to the Peace and Safety of this Kingdom and the Service of Ireland 1. That there be Commissioners for the Admiralty a Vice-Admiral and Rere-Admiral now to be agreed on with power for the forming regulating appointing of Officers and providing for the Navy and for ordering the same to and in the ordinary Service of the Kingdom and that there be a sufficient provision and establishment for Pay and maintenance thereof 2. That there be a General for Command of the Land-Forces that are to be in pay both in England Ireland and Wales both for Field and Garrison 3. That there be Commissioners in the several Counties for the standing Militia of the respective Counties consisting of Trained Bands and Auxiliaries not in pay with power for the proportioning forming regulating training and disciplining of them 4. That there be a Council of State with power to superintend and direct the several and particular powers of the Militia last mentioned for the Peace and Safety of this Kingdom and of Ireland 5. That the same Council may have power as the King 's Privy Council for and in all Forreign Negotiations provided That the making of War or Peace with any other Kingdom or State shall not be without the Advice and Consent of Parliament 6. That the said power of the Council of State be put into the hands of trusty and able persons now to be agreed on and the same persons to continue in that power si bene se gesserint for a certain Term not exceeding seven years 7. That there be a sufficient establishment now provided for the Salary Forces both in England and Ireland the establishment to continue until two Months after the meeting of the first Biennial Parliament IV. That an Act be passed for disposing the great Offices for ten years by the Lords and Commons in Parliament or by such Committees as they shall appoint for that purpose in the Intervals with submission to the Approbation of the next Parliament and after ten years they to nominate three and the King out of that number to appoint one for the succession upon any vacancy V. That an Act be passed for restraining of any Peers made since the 21. day of May 1642. or to be hereafter made from having any power to sit or vote in Parliament without Consent of both Houses VI. That an Act be passed for recalling and making void all Declarations and other Proceedings against the Parliament or against any that have acted by or under their Authority in the late War or in relation to it and that the Ordinances for Indemnity may be confirmed VII That an Act be passed for making void all Grants c. under the Great Seal that was conveyed away from the Parliament since the time that it was so conveyed away except as in the Parliaments Propositions and for making those valid that have been or shall be passed under the Great Seal made by the Authority of both Houses of Parliament VIII That an Act be passed for Confirmation of the Treaties between the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland and for appointing Conservators of the Peace betwixt them IX That the Ordinance for taking away the Court of Wards and Liveries be confirmed by Act of Parliament Provided His Majesties Revenue be not damnified therein nor those that last held Offices in the same left without reparation some other way X. An Act to declare void the Cessation of Ireland c. and to leave the prosecution of that War to the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England XI An Act to be passed to take away all Coercive Power Authority and Jurisdiction of Bishops and all other Ecclesiastical Officers whatsoever extending to any Civil Penalties upon any and to repeal all Laws whereby the Civil Magistracy hath been or is bound upon any Ecclesiastical Censure to proceed ex officio unto any Civil Penalties against any persons so censured XII That there be a repeal of all Acts or Clauses in any Act enjoyning the use of the Book of Common Prayer and imposing any Penalties for neglect thereof as also of all Acts or Clauses in any Act imposing any penalty for not coming to Church or for Meetings elsewhere for Prayer or other Religious Duties Exercises or Ordinances and some other provision to be made for discovering of Papists and Popish Recusants and for disabling of them and of all Jusuites or Priests from disturbing the State XIII That the taking of the Covenant be not enforced upon any nor any penalties imposed upon the Refusors whereby men might be constrained to take it against their Judgments or Consciences but all Orders or Ordinances tending to that purpose to be repealed XIV That the things here before proposed being provided for settling and securing the Rights Liberties Peace and Safety of the Kingdom His Majesties Person His Queen and Royal Issue may be restored to a Condition of Safety Honour and Freedom in this Nation without diminution to their Personal Rights or further Limitation to the Exercise of the Regal Power than according to the particulars aforegoing XV. For the matter of Compositions 1. That a less number out of the Persons excepted in the two first Qualifications not exceeding five for the English being nominated particularly by the Parliament who together with the persons in the Irish Rebellion included in the third Qualification may be reserved to the future Judgment of the Parliament as they shall find cause all other excepted persons may be remitted from the Exception and admitted to Composition 2. That the Rates for all future Compositions may be lessened and limitted not to exceed the several proportions hereafter exprest respectively That is to say 1. For all persons formerly excepted not above a third part 2. For the late Members of Parliament under the first Branch of the fourth Qualification in the Propositions a fourth part 3. For other Members of Parliament in the second and third Branches of the
Peers pro tempore and William Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons My Lord and Mr. Speaker I Have received your Letter of the second of this Month containing the Names of those who are to Treat with Me and though they do not come at the time appointed I shall not wonder at first judging it too short in respect of My two Houses not of My self so that I did not imagine it could be kept as I then commanded Sir Peter Killegrew to tell you by word of Mouth and therefore it shall be far from Me to take Exceptions for their having elapsed the appointed time for God forbid that either my two Houses or I should carp at circumstances to give the least impediment to this Treaty much less to hinder the happy finishing of it I say this the rather because I know not how it is possible in this I shall wish to be deceived that in Forty days Treaty the many Distractions of these Kingdoms can be setled and if so it were more than strange that time enough should not be given for the perfecting of this most great and good Work which as I will not believe can be stuck on by the two Houses so I am sure it shall never be by Carisbrook 7. Sept. 1648. Your good Friend CHARLES R. I think fit to tell you because I believe in this Treaty there will be need of Civil Lawyers I have sent for My Advocate Rives and D. Duck. And afterward his Majesty desired the Persons named in this Note inclosed in a Letter of one of their Commissioners Novemb. 2. to be sent to Him C. R. The Bishop of Armagh the Bishop of Excester the Bishop of Rochester the Bishop of Worcester Dr. Fern Dr. Morley The Propositions of both Houses being the same which had been presented to his Majesty at Hampton-Court and little differing from those which had been largely discussed in the former Treaties at Oxford and Uxbridg for this reason as also because neither Party did publish the particulars of this Treaty we have thought fit to represent only what is Authentick and therefore shall add only His Majesties fair Offers in order to a Peace His MAJESTIES Propositions 29. Sept. 1648. HIS Majesty did use many earnest endeavours for a Personal Treaty which he hoped might have been obtained at Westminster between Him and His two Houses of Parliament immediately yet they having made choice of this way by you their Commissioners His Majesty did gladly and chearfully accept thereof in this place as a fit means to begin a Treaty for a Peace which might put an end to His own sad Condition and the Miseries of His Kingdom For an entrance whereunto His Majesty hath already expressed His Consent to the First Proposition But finding you are limited by Instructions which you have no Warrant to communicate unto Him and having cause by your Paper of the 20. of this present to believe that you have no power to omit or alter any thing though He shall give you such Reasons as may satisfie you so to do without transmitting the Papers to the two Houses at a far distance where His Majesties Reasons Expressions and Offers upon Debate cannot be fully represented and from whence their Answers cannot be returned without much wast of the time allotted for the Treaty here and having lately received another Paper concerning the Church containing in it self many particulars of great importance and referring to divers Ordinances Articles of Religion and other things eleven or twelve in number of great length and some of them very new and never before presented to His Majesty the due consideration whereof will take up much time and require His Majesties Presence with His two Houses before a full resolution can well be had in matters of so high consequence To the end therefore that the good work now in hand may by God's blessing proceed more speedily and effectually to an happy Conclusion and that His two Houses of Parliament may at present have further security and an earnest of future satisfaction His Majesty upon consideration had of yours makes these Propositions following Concerning the Church His Majesty will consent That the Calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster be confirmed for three years by Act of Parliament And will by Act of Parliament confirm for Three years the Directory for the Publick worship of God in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales And will likewise confirm for Three years by Act of Parliament the form of Church-Government which ye have presented to Him to be used for the Churches of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales Provided that His Majesty and those of His Judgement or any others who cannot in Conscience submit thereunto be not in the mean time obliged to comply with the same Government or form of Worship but have free practice of their own profession And that a free Consultation and debate be had with the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in the mean time Twenty of His Majesties Nomination being added unto them whereby it may be determined by His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament how the said Church-Government and form of Publick Worship after the said time may be setled or sooner if Differences may be agreed and how also Reformation of Religion may be setled within the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales And the Articles of Christian Religion now delivered to Him may in like manner be then considered of and determined and care taken for the ease of tender Consciences And concerning the Bishops Lands and Revenues His Majesty considering that during these troublesome times divers of His Subjects have made Contracts and Purchases and divers have disbursed great Sums of Money upon security and engagement of those Lands His Majesty for their satisfaction will consent to an Act or Acts of Parliament whereby legal Estates for Lives or for Years at their choice not exceeding ninety nine years shall be made of those Lands towards the satisfaction of the said Purchasers Contractors and others to whom they are engaged at the old Rents or some other moderate Rent whereby they may receive satisfaction And in case such Lease shall not satisfie His Majesty will propound and consent to some other way for their further satisfaction Provided that the Propriety and Inheritance of those Lands may still remain and continue to the Church and Church-men respectively according to the pious intentions of the Donors and Founders thereof And the rest that shall be reserved to be for their maintenance His Majesty will give His Royal Assent for the better observation of the Lords day for suppressing of Innovations in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God and for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's Holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom and to an Act against enjoying Pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual Persons and Non-residency and to an Act for Regulating and
this That they would not suffer themselves to be over-aw'd with the Tumults and their Patrons nor compelled to abet by their suffrages or presence the designs of those men who agitated Innovations and Ruin both in Church and State In this point I could not but approve their generous Constancy and Cautiousness further than this I did never allow any mans refractoriness against the Priviledges and Orders of the Houses to whom I wished nothing more than Safety Fulness and Freedom But the truth is some men and those not many despairing in fair and Parliamentary ways by free deliberations and Votes to gain the concurrence of the major part of Lords and Commons betook themselves by the desperate activity of factious Tumults to sift and terrifie away all those Members whom they saw to be of contrary minds to their purposes How oft was the business of the Bishops enjoying their Ancient places and undoubted Priviledges in the House of Peers carried for them by far the major part of Lords Yet after five repulses contrary to all Order and Custom it was by tumultuary instigations obtruded again and by a few carried when most of the Peers were forced to absent themselves In like manner was the Bill against Root and Branch brought on by tumultuary Clamours and schismatical Terrors which could never pass till both Houses were sufficiently thinned and over-awed To which Partiality while in all Reason Justice and Religion my Conscience forbids Me by consenting to make up their Votes to Acts of Parliament I must now be urged with an Army and constrained either to hazard My own and My Kingdoms ruine by My Defence or prostrate My Conscience to the blind obedience of those men whose zealous Superstition thinks or pretends they cannot do God and the Church a greater service than utterly to destroy that Primitive Apostolical and anciently-Universal Government of the Church by Bishops Which if other mens Judgments bind them to maintain or forbid them to consent to the abolishing of it Mine much more who besides the grounds I have in My Judgment have also a most strict and indispensable Oath upon my Conscience to preserve that Order and the Rights of the Church to which most Sacrilegious and abhorred Perjury most unbeseeming a Christian King should I ever by giving My Consent be betrayed I should account it infinitely greater Misery than any hath or can befal Me inasmuch as the least Sin hath more evil in it than the greatest Affliction Had I gratified their Anti-episcopal Faction at first in this point with My Consent and sacrificed the Ecclesiastical Government and Revenues to the fury of their Covetousness Ambition and Revenge I believe they would then have found no colourable necessity of raising an Army to fetch in and punish Delinquents That I consented to the Bill of putting the Bishops out of the House of Peers was done with a firm perswasion of their contentedness to suffer a present diminution in their Rights and Honour for My sake and the Common-weals which I was confident they would readily yield unto rather than occasion by the least obstruction on their part any danger to Me or to My Kingdom That I cannot add my consent for the total Extirpation of that Government which I have often offered to all fit Regulations hath so much further tie upon My Conscience as what I think Religious and Apostolical and so very Sacred and Divine is not to be dispensed with or destroyed when what is only of civil Favour and priviledg of Honour granted to men of that Order may with their Consent who are concerned in it be annulled This is the true state of those Obstructions pretended to be in point of Justice and Authority of Parliament when I call God to witness I knew none of such consequence as was worth speaking of to make a War being only such as Justice Reason and Religion had made in My own and other mens Consciences Afterwards indeed a great shew of Delinquents was made which were but consequences necessarily following upon Mine or others withdrawing from or defence against Violence but those could not be the first occasion of raising an Army against Me. Wherein I was so far from preventing them as they have declared often that they might seem to have the advantage and Justice of the defensive part and load Me with all the Envy and Injuries of first assaulting them that God knows I had not so much as any hopes of an Army in my thoughts Had the Tumults been honourably and effectually repressed by exemplary Justice and the Liberty of the Houses so vindicated that all Members of either House might with Honour and Freedom becoming such a Senate have come and discharged their Consciences I had obtained all that I designed by my withdrawing and had much more willingly and speedily returned than I retired this being my Necessity driving the other my Choice desiring But some men knew I was like to bring the same Judgment and Constancy which I carried with Me which would never fit their Designs and so while they invited Me to come and grievously complained of my Absence yet they could not but be pleased with it especially when they had found out that plausible and popular pretext of raising an Army to fetch in Delinquents when all that while they never punished the greatest and most intolerable Delinquency of the Tumults and their Exciters which drave My self and so many of both Houses from their places by most barbarous indignities which yet in all Reason and Honour they were as loath to have deserted as those others were willing they should that so they might have occasion to persecute them with the Injuries of an Army for not suffering more tamely the Injuries of the Tumults That this is the true state and first drift and design in raising an Army against Me is by the sequel so evident that all other pretences vanish For when they declared by Propositions or Treaties what they would have to appease them there was nothing of consequence offered to Me or demanded of Me as any original difference in any point of Law or order of Justice But among other lesser Innovations this chiefly was urged The Abolition of Episcopal and the Establishment of Presbyterian Government All other things at any time propounded were either impertinent as to any ground of a War or easily granted by Me and only to make up a number or else they were merely consequential and accessary after the War was by them unjustly begun I cannot hinder other mens thoughts whom the noise and shew of Piety and heat for Reformation and Religion might easily so fill with Prejudice that all equality and clearness of Judgment might be obstructed But this was and is as to my best observation the true state of affairs between us when they first raised an Army with this design either to stop my mouth or to force my Consent And in this truth as to my Conscience who was God knows
their known Rule and wonted Practice to comply with the Humours of those men who aim to subdue all to their own Will and Power under the disguises of Holy Combinations Which cords and withes will hold mens Consciences no longer than Force attends and twists them For every man soon grows his own Pope and easily absolves himself of those ties which not the commands of God's Word or the Laws of the Land but only the subtilty and terror of a Party casts upon him either superfluous and vain when they were sufficiently tied before or fraudulent and injurious if by such after-ligaments they find the Imposers really aiming to dissolve or suspend their former just and necessary Obligations Indeed such Illegal ways seldom or never intend the engaging men more to Duties but only to Parties therefore it is not regarded how they keep their Covenants in point of Piety pretended provided they adhere firmly to the Party and Design intended I see the Imposers of it are content to make their Covenant like Manna not that it came from Heaven as this did agreeable to every mans palate and relish who will but swallow it They admit any mens senses of it tho divers or contrary with any Salvo's Cautions and Reservations so as they cross not their chief Design which is laid against the Church and Me. It is enough if they get but the reputation of a seeming encrease to their Party So little do men remember that God is not mocked In such latitudes of sense I believe many that love Me and the Church well may have taken the Covenant who yet are not so fondly and superstitiously taken by it as now to act clearly against both all Piety and Loyalty who first yielded to it more to prevent that imminent Violence and Ruine which hung over their heads in case they wholy refused it than for any value of it or devotion to it Wherein the latitude of some general clauses may perhaps serve somewhat to relieve them as of Doing and endeavouring what lawfully they may in their Places and Callings and according to the Word of God For these indeed carry no man beyond those bounds of good Conscience which are certain and fixed either in Gods Laws as to the general or the Laws of the State and Kingdom as to the particular regulation and exercise of mens duties I would to God such as glory most in the name of Covenanters would keep themselves within those lawful bounds to which God hath called them surely it were the best way to expiate the rashness of taking it which must needs then appear when besides the want of a full and lawful Authority at first to enjoyn it it shall actually be carried on beyond and against those Ends which were in it specified and pretended I willingly forgive such mens taking the Covenant who keep it within such bounds of Piety Law and Loyalty as can never hurt either the Church My self or the Publick Peace against which no mans lawful Calling can engage him As for that Reformation of the Church which the Covenant pretends I cannot think it just or comely that by the partial Advice of a few Divines of so soft and servile tempers as disposed them to so sudden acting and compliance contrary to their former Judgments Profession and Practice such foul Scandals and Suspicions should be cast upon the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England as was never done that I have heard by any that deserved the name of Reformed Churches abroad nor by any men of Learning and Candor at home all whose Judgments I cannot but prefer before any mens now factiously engaged No man can be more forward than My self to carry on all due Reformations with mature Judgment and a good Conscience in what things I shall after impartial advice be by God's Word and right Reason convinced to be amiss I have offered more than ever the fullest freest and wisest Parliaments did desire But the sequel of some mens Actions makes it evident that the main Reformation intended is The abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues For no men have been more injuriously used as to their legal Rights than the Bishops and Church-men These as the fattest Deer must be destroyed the other Rascal-herd of Schisms Heresies c. being lean may enjoy the benefit of a Toleration Thus Naboth's Vineyard made him the only Blasphemer of his City and fit to dye Still I see while the breath of Religion fills the Sails Profit is the Compass by which Factious men steer their course in all seditious Commotions I thank God as no man lay more open to the Sacrilegious temptations of usurping the Churches Lands and Revenues which issuing chiefly from the Crown are held of it and legally can revert only to the Crown with My Consent so I have always had such a perfect abhorrence of it in my Soul that I never found the least inclination to such Sacrilegious Reformings yet no man hath a greater desire to have Bishops and all Church-men so reformed that they may best deserve and use not only what the pious Munificence of My Predecessors hath given to God and the Church but all other additions of Christian Bounty But no necessity shall ever I hope drive Me or Mine to invade or sell the Priests Lands which both Pharaoh's divinity and Joseph's true Piety abhorred to do So unjust I think it both in the eye of Reason and Religion to deprive the most Sacred Employment of all due encouragements and like that other hard-hearted Pharaoh to withdraw the Straw and encrease the Task so pursuing the oppressed Church as some have done to the Red sea of a Civil War where nothing but a Miracle can save either It or Him who esteems it his greatest Title to be called and his chiefest glory to be The Desender of the Church both in its true Faith and its just Fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledg and Apostasy I had rather live as My Predecessor Henry the Third sometime did on the Churches Alms than violently to take the bread out of Bishops and Ministers mouths The next work will be Jeroboam's Reformation consecrating the meanest of the People to be Priests in Israel to serve those Golden Calves who have enriched themselves with the Churches Patrimony and Dowry which how it thrived both with Prince Priests and People is well enough known And so it will be here when from the tuition of Kings and Queens which have been nursing Fathers and Mothers of this Church it shall be at their allowance who have already discovered what hard Fathers and Stepmothers they will be If the Poverty of Scotland might yet the Plenty of England cannot excuse the Envy and Rapine of the Churches Rights and Revenues I cannot so much as pray God to prevent those sad Consequences which will inevitably follow the Parity and Poverty of Ministers both in Church and State since I think it no less
Images they should form and set up If there had been as much of Christs Spirit for Meekness Wisdom and Charity in mens hearts as there was of his Name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs Rule it would certainly have obtained more of God's Blessing and produced more of Christs Glory the Churches good the Honour of Religion and the Unity of Christians Publick Reformers had need first act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to try on others for Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformation to such private Designs as must needs hinder the publick good I am sure the right methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of perturbing the Civil State nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornaments of true Religion for next to Fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdom may be set up without pulling down Mine nor will any men in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christ's Government will confirm Mine not overthrow it since as I own Mine from Him so I desire to Rule for his Glory and his Churches good Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or knew what it meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against Me and one another As good Ends cannot justifie evil Means so nor will evil Beginnings ever bring forth good Conclusions unless God by a miracle of Mercy create Light out of Darkness Order out of our Confusions and Peace out of our Passions Thou O Lord who only canst give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie suffer us not to be miserably deluded with Pharisaical washings in stead of Christian Reformings Our greatest Deformities are within make us the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our own Souls That we may in clearness of Judgment and Vprightness of heart be a means to reform what is indeed amiss in Church and State Create in us clean hearts O Lord and renew right spirits within-us that we may do all by thy directions to thy Glory and with thy Blessing Pity the Deformities which some rash and cruel Reformers have brought upon this Church and State quench the fires which Factions have kindled under the pretence of Reforming As thou hast shewed the world by their Divisions and Confusions what is the pravity of some mens Intentions and weakness of their Judgments so bring us at last more refined out of these fires by the methods of Christian and charitable Reformations wherein nothing of Ambition Revenge Covetousness or Sacrilege may have any influence upon their counsels whom thy Providence in just and lawful ways shall entrnst with so great good and now most necessary a work That I and My People may be so blest with inward Piety as may best teach us how to use the Blessing of outward Peace XXI Vpon His MAJESTIES Letters taken and divulged THE taking of My Letters was an opportunity which as the malice of Mine Enemies could hardly have expected so they knew not how with honour and civility to use it Nor do I think with sober and worthy minds any thing in them could tend so much to My Reproach as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers The greatest experiments of Virtue and Nobleness being discovered in the greatest advantages against an Enemy and the greatest Obligations being those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them And such I should have esteemed the concealing of My Papers The freedom and secrecy of which commands a Civility from all men not wholly barbarous nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them to publick view Yet since Providence will have it so I am content so much of My Heart which I study to approve to Gods Omniscience should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses I wish my Subjects had yet a clearer sight into My most retired Thoughts Where they might discover how they are divided between the Love and Care I have not more to preserve My own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and that extreme Grief to see them both deceived and destroyed Nor can any mens Malice be gratified further by My Letters than to see My Constancy to my Wife the Laws and Religion Bees will gather Honey where the Spider sucks Poyson That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies by all fair and just Correspondencies no man can blame who loves Me or the Commonwealth since My Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable or enjoy their Peace and Liberty while I am oppressed The World may see how some Mens design like Absolom's is by enormous Actions to widen differences and exasperate all Sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate Yet I thank God I can not only with Patience bear this as other Indignities but with Charity forgive them The Integrity of My Intentions is not jealous of any injury My Expressions can do them for although the confidence of Privacy may admit greater freedom in Writing such Letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet the Innocency of My chief Purposes cannot be so stained or mis-interpreted by them as not to let all men see that I wish nothing more than an happy composure of Differences with Justice and Honour not more to My own than My Peoples content who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them who by those My Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own and My Kingdoms Affairs so as becomes a Prince which Mine Enemies have always been very loth should be believed of Me as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the name of Evil Counsellors It 's probable some men will now look upon Me as My own Counsellor and having none else to quarrel with under that notion they will hereafter confine their anger to My self Altho I know they are very unwilling I should enjoy the liberty of My own Thoughts or follow the light of My own Conscience which they labour to bring into an absolute captivity to themselves not allowing Me to think their Counsels to be other than good for Me which have so long maintained a War against Me. The Victory they obtained that day when My Letters became their prize had been enough to have satiated the most ambitious thirst of Popular glory among the Vulgar with whom Prosperity gains the greatest esteem and applause as Adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and disrespect As if good fortune were always the shadow of Virtue and Justice and did not oftner attend Vicious and Injurious actions as to this world But
rather than exacting the rigor of the Laws there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny In these two points the preservation of established Religion and Laws I may without vanity turn the reproach of My Sufferings as to the worlds censure into the honour of a kind of Martyrdom as to the testimony of My own Conscience the Troublers of My Kingdoms having nothing else to object against Me but this That I prefer Religion and Laws establisht before those Alterations they propounded And so indeed I do and ever shall till I am convinced by better Arguments than what hitherto have been chiefly used towards Me Tumults Armies and Prisons I cannot yet learn that Lesson nor I hope ever will You That it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the Perturbation of the Laws in which is wrap'd up the publick Interest and the good of the Community How God will deal with Me as to the removal of these Pressures and Indignities which his Justice by the very unjust hands of some of My Subjects hath been pleased to lay upon Me I cannot tell nor am I much solicitous what Wrong I suffer from men while I retain in My Soul what I believe is right before God I have offered all for Reformation and Safety that in Reason Honour and Conscience I can reserving only what I cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to My own Soul the Church and My People and to You also as the next and undoubted Heir of My Kingdoms To which if the Divine Providence to whom no Difficulties are insuperable shall in his due time after My decease bring You as I hope he will My Counsel and Charge to You is that You seriously consider the former real or objected Miscarriages which might occasion My Troubles that You may avoid them Never repose so much upon any mans single Counsel Fidelity and Discretion in managing affairs of the first magnitude that is matters of Religion and Justice as to create in Your self or others a diffidence of Your own Judgment which is likely to be always more constant and impartial to the interests of Your Crown and Kingdom than any mans Next beware of exasperating any Factions by the crosness and asperity of some mens Passions Humors or private Opinions imployed by You grounded only upon the differences in lesser matters which are but the skirts and suburbs of Religion Wherein a charitable Connivence and Christian Toleration often dissipates their strength whom rougher opposition fortifies and puts the despised and oppressed Party into such Combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their Persecutors who are commonly assisted by that Vulgar commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion Provided the Differences amount not to an insolent opposition of Laws and Government or Religion established as to the essentials of them Such motions and minings are intolerable Always keep up solid Piety and those Fundamental Truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartial Favour and Justice Take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of Religion devour not all or the best incouragements of Learning Industry and Piety but with an equal eye and impartial hand distribute favours and rewards to all men as You find them for their real Goodness both in Abilities and Fidelity worthy and capable of them This will be sure to gain You the hearts of the best and the most too who tho they be not good themselves yet are glad to see the severer ways of Virtue at any time sweetned by temporal rewards I have You see conflicted with different and opposite Factions for so I must needs call and count all those that act not in any conformity to the Laws established in Church and State No sooner have they by force subdued what they counted their Common Enemy that is all those that adhered to the Laws and to Me and are secured from that fear but they are divided to so high a rivalty as sets them more at defiance against each other than against their first Antagonists Time will dissipate all Factions when once the rough horns of private mens covetous and ambitious designs shall discover themselves which were at first wrap'd up and hidden under the soft and smooth pretensions of Religion Reformation and Liberty As the Wolf is not less cruel so he will be more justly hated when he shall appear no better than a Wolf under Sheeps cloathing But as for the seduced Train of the Vulgar who in their simplicity follow those disguises My charge and counsel to You is That as You need no palliations for any designs as other men so that You study really to exceed in true and constant demonstrations of Goodness Piety and Virtue towards the People even all those men that make the greatest noise and ostentations of Religion so You shall neither fear any detection as they do who have but the face and mask of Goodness nor shall You frustrate the just expectations of Your People who cannot in reason promise themselves so much good from any Subjects Novelties as from the virtuous Constancy of their King When these mountains of congealed Factions shall by the Sunshine of God's Mercy and the splendor of Your Virtues be thawed and dissipated and the abused Vulgar shall have learned that none are greater Oppressors of their Estates Liberties and Consciences than those men that entitle themselves the Patrons and Vindicators of them only to usurp power over them let then no Passion betray You to any study of Revenge upon those whose own Sin and Folly will sufficiently punish them in due time But as soon as the forked arrow of factious Emulations is drawn out use all Princely arts and Clemency to heal the Wounds that the smart of the Cure may not equal the anguish of the Hurt I have offered Acts of Indemnity and Oblivion to so great a latitude as may include all that can but suspect themselves to be any way obnoxious to the Laws and which might serve to exclude all future Jealousies and Insecurities I would have You always propense to the same way whenever it shall be desired and accepted let it be granted not only as an Act of State-policy and Necessity but of Christian Charity and Choice It is all I have now left Me a power to forgive those that have deprived Me of all and I thank God I have a heart to do it and joy as much in this Grace which God hath given Me as in all my former enjoyments for this is a greater argument of God's love to Me than any Prosperity can be Be confident as I am that the most of all sides who have done amiss have done so not out of Malice but Mis-information or Mis-apprehension of things None will be more loyal and faithful to Me and You than those Subjects who sensible of their Errors and our Injuries will feel in their own Souls most vehement
Bishop of Smyrna Many years after Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons in France whose Writings were never yet called in question by any not only affirms him to have been constituted Bishop of Smyrna by the Apostles but saith That he himself when he was a Boy had seen him a very old man Tertullian next a very ancient Writer affirmeth That he was Bishop of Smyrna there placed by Saint John After cometh Eusebius who in his Ecclesiastical History not only Historically reporteth of his being Bishop there as he doth of other Bishops but citeth also for it the Testimonies both of Ignatius and Irenaeus which by the way giveth good credit to Ignatius his Epistles too Then Hierom also and others lastly attest the same And it cannot be doubted but Eusebius and Hierom had in their times the like certain Testimonies and Grounds for sundry others whom they report to have been Bishops which Testimonies and Records are not all come to our hands For the Testimonies of Clemens and Ignatius His Majesty saith First That tho it be not reasonable that the Testimony of one single Epistle should be so made the adequate measure of Clemens his Opinion as to exclude all other proof from his Example or otherwise yet His Majesty since Clemens was first named by you and the weight of the main cause lieth not much upon it is content also for that matter to refer Himself to that Epistle Secondly That His Majesty could not but use some earnestness of expression in the cause of Ignatius against some who have rejected the whole Volume of his Epistles but upon such Arguments as have more lessened the Reputation of their own Learning than the Authority of those Epistles in the opinion of moderate and judicious men And yet Blondellus a very Learned man tho he reject those Epistles confesseth notwithstanding the Ancient Fathers gave full Credence thereunto The Apostles you say did not ordain themselves Bishops of any particular places and yet the Bishops of some particular places are reported in the Catalogues to have been Sucoessors to such or such of the Apostles and even the Names of such Apostles are entred into the Catalogues To this His Majesty saith That the Apostles were formerly Bishops by virtue of their Mission from Christ as hath been already declared but did neither ordain themselves nor could be ordained of others Bishops of such or such particular Cities Although His Majesty knoweth not but that they might without prejudice to their Apostleship and by mutual consent make choice of their several quarters wherein to exercise that Function as well as Saint Peter and Saint Paul by consent went the one to the Circumcision the other to the Gentiles But such apportionments did not intitle them to be properly called Bishops of those places unless any of them by such agreement did fixedly reside in some City of which there is not in the History of the Church any clear unquestionable Example If James the Lord's Brother who was certainly Bishop of Jerusalem were not one of the twelve Apostles as the more general opinion is that he was not yet did the Churches of succeeding times for the greater honour of their Sees and the memory of so great Benefactors enter in the Head of the Lists or Catalogues of their Bishops the Names of such of the Apostles as had either first planted the Faith or placed Bishops or made any long abode and continuance or ended their days among them yet doth not the true Title of being Successors to the Apostles thereby accrue to the Bishops of those places more than to other Bishops but all Bishops are equally Successors to the Apostles in two other respects the one for that they derive their Ordination by a continued Line of Succession from the Apostles the other for that they succeed into the same Apostolical Power and Function which the Apostles as ordinary Pastors had Your motion to reduce this whole Dispute to Scripture alone were the more reasonable if the matter in question were properly a Point of Faith And yet even in points of Faith as the Doctrine of the Trinity the Canon of Scripture and sundry other the uniform judgment of the Church hath been ever held of very considerable regard But being a matter of Fact as before was said which the Scriptures do not deliver entirely and perspicuously in any one place together but obscurely and by parts so that the understanding thereof dependeth merely upon conjectural Interpretations and uncertain probabilities nor assure any certain distinguishing Characters whereby to discern what therein is extraordinary what prudential and what of necessary and perpetual Obligation there seemeth to His Majesty to be a necessity of admitting the subsequent Judgment and Practice of the Christian Churches into the Trial. As to the Three Questions proposed by His Majesty His Majesty resteth very much unsatisfied that you have now again wholly declined the answering of those three Questions so clearly proposed by Him which your selves also consess to be of great importance upon this only pretence That the whole Volume of Ecclesiastical Policy is contained in them Whereas His Majesty did neither expect nor require from you any large or Polemical Discourse concerning those Questions but yet did conceive you were in order to His Satisfaction in your own Undertaking in some sort obliged to have declared in few words what your Judgment was therein with the grounds thereof that so His Majesty might have taken the same into His further Consideration than which nothing could have more conduced to the informing of His Judgment and the satisfaction of His Conscience which His Majesty also further conceives you might have done with the tenth part of that pains you have hitherto bestowed to other purposes and therein have given full as much satisfaction to His desires as he expected and in all likelihood better satisfaction to His Judgment than He yet findeth or can hope to find from you so long as you hold off from declaring your Opinions concerning those Questions For certainly until one of these three things can be clearly evidenced unto His Majesty viz. Either that there is no certain Form of Church-Government at all prescribed in the Word or if there be that the Civil Power may change the same as they see cause or if it be unchangeable that it was not Episcopal but some other His Majesty thinks himself excuseable in the judgment of all reasonable men if He cannot as yet be induced to give his Assent to the utter Abolition of that Government in the Church which He found here setled to His hands which hath continued all over the Christian World from the times of the Apostles until this last Age and in this Realm ever since the first plantation of Christianity as well since the Reformation as before which hath been confirmed by so many Acts of Parliament approved as consonant to the holy Word of God in the Articles of our Religion and by all the Ministers of
the Church of England as well by their personal Subscriptions as otherwise so attested and declared and which Himself in His Judgment and Conscience hath for so many years been and yet is perswaded to be at least of Apostolical Institution and Practice Truly His Majesty cannot but wonder what should be the reason of your great shiness and unwillingness to discover your minds in a matter of so great and necessary consequence and for a final conclusion of this whole Dispute which His Majesty thinketh fit to shut up with this Paper He must plainly tell you That your endeavours to have given Him satisfaction in the Questions proposed would have added much in His opinion to the reputation of your Ingenuity in the whole undertaking it being not probable you should work much upon His Judgment whilst you are fearful to declare your own nor possible to relieve His Conscience but by a free discharge of yours Nevertheless His Majesty liketh well of your Prayer in the close of your Paper and thinketh you should do very well to joyn therewith your utmost possible endeavours towards the settling of Truth and a happy Peace in this unsettled Church and Kingdom THE END ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ THE POURTRAICTURE OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY IN HIS SOLITUDES and SUFFERINGS I. Vpon His MAJESTIES Calling this last PARLIAMENT THIS last Parliament I called not more by others advice and necessity of my Affairs than by my own choice and inclination who have always thought the right way of Parliaments most safe for my Crown as best pleasing to my People And altho I was not forgetful of those sparks which some mens distempers formerly studied to kindle in Parliaments which by forbearing to convene for some years I hoped to have extinguished yet resolving with My self to give all just satisfaction to modest and sober desires and to redress all publick Grievances in Church and State I hoped by my freedom and their moderation to prevent all misunderstandings and miscarriages in this In which as I feared affairs would meet with some Passion and Prejudice in other men so I resolved they should find least of them in My self not doubting but by the weight of Reason I should counterpoise the over-balancings of any Factions I was inded sorry to hear with what Partiality and Popular heat Elections were carried in many places yet hoping that the Gravity and Discretion of other Gentlemen would allay and fix the Commons to a due temperament guiding some mens well-meaning zeal by such rules of moderation as are best both to preserve and restore the health of all States and Kingdoms no man was better pleased with the convening of this Parliament than My self who knowing best the Largeness of my own Heart toward my Peoples good and just contentment pleased My self most in that good and firm understanding which would hence grow between Me and my People All Jealousies being laid aside My own and My Childrens Interests gave Me many obligations to seek and preserve the Love and welfare of my Subjects the only temporal Blessing that is left to the ambition of just Monarchs as their greatest Honour and Safety next Gods Protection I cared not to lessen My self in some things of my wonted Prerogative since I knew I could be no loser if I might gain but a recompence in my Subjects Affections I intended not only to oblige my Friends but mine Enemies also exceeding even the desires of those that were factiously discontented if they did but pretend to any modest and sober sense The Odium and offences which some mens Rigor or Remisness in Church and State had contracted upon my Government I resolved to have expiated by such Laws and regulations for the future as might not only rectify what was amiss in Practice but supply what was defective in the Constitution No man having a greater zeal to see Religion setled and preserved in Truth Unity and Order than My self whom it most concerns both in Piety and Policy as knowing that No flames of civil Dissentions are more dangerous than those which make Religious pretensions the grounds of Factions I resolved to reform what I should by free and full advice in Parliament be oonvinced of to be amiss and to grant whatever my Reason and Conscience told Me was fit to be desired I wish I had kept My self within those bounds and not suffered my own Judgment to have been overborn in some things more by others importunities than their Arguments My confidence had less betrayed My self and my Kingdomes to those advantages which some men sought for who wanted nothing but Power and Occasions to do mischief But our Sins being ripe there was no preventing of Gods Justice from reaping that Glory in our Calamities which we robb'd him of in our Prosperity For Thou O Lord hast made us see that Resolutions of future Reforming do not always satisfie thy Justice nor prevent thy Vengeance for former miscarriages Our Sins have overlaid our Hopes Thou hast taught us to depend on thy Mercies to forgive not on our purpose to amend When Thou hast vindicated thy Glory by thy Judgments and hast shewed us how unsafe it is to offend Thee upon presumptions afterwards to please Thee then I trust thy Mercies will restore those Blessings to us which we have so much abused as to force Thee to deprive us of them For want of timely Repentance of our sins Thou givest us cause to repent of those remedies we too late apply Yet I do not repent of my calling this last Parliament because O Lord I did it with an upright intention to thy Glory and my peoples good The Miseries which have ensued upon Me and My Kingdoms are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us and may be yet through thy mercy preparative of us to future Blessings and better hearts to enjoy them O Lord tho Thou hast deprived us of many former comforts yet grant Me and My people the benefit of our afflictions and thy chastisements that thy rod as well as thy staff may comfort us Then shall we dare to account them the strokes not of an Enemy but a Father when thou givest us those humble affections that measure of Patience in Repentance which becomes thy Children I shall have no cause to repent the Miseries this Parliament hath occasioned when by them thou hast brought Me and My people unfeignedly to repent of the Sins we have committed Thy Grace is infinitely better with our Sufferings than our Peace could be with our Sins O thou soveraign Goodness and Wisdom who over-rulest all our Counsels over-rule also all our hearts That the worse things we suffer by thy Justice the better we may be by thy Mercy As our Sins have turned our Antidotes into poyson so let thy Grace turn our poysons into Antidotes As the Sins of our Peace disposed us to this unhappy War so let this War prepare us for thy blessed Peace That although I have but troublesom Kingdoms here yet I may