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A50915
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Of prelatical episcopacy, and vvhither it may be deduc'd from the apostolical times by vertue of those testimonies which are alledg'd to that purpose in some late treatises one whereof goes under the name of Iames, Arch-bishop of Armagh.
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Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing M2133; ESTC R23425
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13,884
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28
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sitting with a carnall and ambitious decree to give the second place of dignity to Constantinople from reason of State because it was new ROME and by like consequence doublesse of earthly priviledges annext to each other City was the BISHOP therof to take his place I may say againe therfore what hope can we have of such a Councell as beginning in the Spirit ended thus in the flesh Much rather should we attend to what Eusebius the ancientest writer extant of Church-history notwithstanding all the helps he had above these confesses in the 4. chap. of his 3. Book that it was no easie matter to tell who were those that were left Bishops of the Churches by the Apostles more then by what a man might gather from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul in which number he reckons Timothy for Bishop of Ephesus So as may plainly appeare that this tradition of Bishoping Timothy over Ephesus was but taken for granted out of that place in St. Paul which was only an intreating him to tarry at Ephesus to do somthing left him in charge Now if Eusebius a famous writer thought it so difficult to tell who were appointed Bishops by the Apostles much more may we think it difficult to Leontius an obscure Bishop speaking beyond his own Diocesse and certainly much more hard was it for either of them to determine what kind of Bishops those were if they had so little means to know who they were and much lesse reason have we to stand to their definitive sentence seeing they have bin so rash to raise up such lofty Bishops and Bishopricks out of places in Scripture meerly misunderstood Thus while we leave the Bible to gadde after these traditions of the ancients we heare the ancients themselvs confessing that what knowledge they had in this point was such as they had gather'd from the Bible Since therfore Antiquity it selfe hath turn'd over the controversie to that sovran Book which we had fondly straggl'd from we shall doe better not to detain this venerable apparition of Leontius any longer but dismisse him with his List of seven and twenty to sleep unmolested in his former obscurity Now for the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} it is more likely that Timothy never knew the word in that sense it was the vanity of those next succeeding times not to content themselves with the simplicity of Scripture phrase but must make a new Lexicon to name themselves by one will be call'd {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Antistes a word of precedence another would be term'd a Gnostick as Clemens a third Sacerdos or Priest and talks of Altars which was a plaine signe that their doctrine began to change for which they must change their expressions But that place of Justin Martyr serves rather to convince the Author then to make for him where the name {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the president or Pastor of the Brethren for to what end is he their President but to teach them cannot be limited to signifie a Prelaticall Bishop but rather communicates that Greek appellation to every ordinary Presbyter for there he tells what the Christians had wont to doe in their severall Congregations to read and expound to pray and administer all which he saies the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Antistes did Are these the Offices only of a Bishop or shall we think that every Congregation where these things were done which he attributes to this Antistes had a Bishop present among them unlesse they had as many Antistites as Presbyters which this place rather seems to imply and so we may inferre even from their own alledg'd authority that Antistes was nothing else but Presbyter As for that namelesse Treatise of Timothy's martyrdome only cited by Photius that liv'd almost 900. yeares after Christ it hansomely follows in that author the Martyrdome of the seven Sleepers that slept I tell you but what mine Author sayes three hundred seaventy and two years for so long they had bin shut up in a Cave without meat and were found living This Story of Timothy's Ephesian Bishopricke as it follows in order so may it for truth if it only subsist upon its own authority as it doth for Photius only saith he read it he does not averre it That other legendarie piece found among the lives of the Saints and sent us from the shop of the Jesuites at Lovain does but bear the name of Polyerates how truly who can tell and shall have some more weight with us when Polycrates can perswade us of that which he affirms in the same place of Eusebius 5. Book that St. John was a Priest and wore the golden brestplate and why should he convince us more with his traditions of Timothy's Episcopacie then he could convince Victor Bishop of Rome with his traditions concerning the Feast of Easter who not regarding his irrefragable instances of examples taken from Philip and his daughters that were Prophetesses or from Polycarpus no nor from St. Iohn himselfe Excommunicated both him and all the Asian Churches for celebrating their Easter judaically he may therfore goe back to the seaven Bishops his kinsmen and make his moane to them that we esteem his traditionall ware as lightly as Victor did Those of Theodoret Felix and Iohn of Antioch are autorities of later times and therfore not to be receiv'd for their Antiquities sake to give in evidence concerning an allegation wherin writers so much their Elders we see so easily miscarry What if they had told us that Peter who as they say left Ignatius Bishop of Antioch went afterwards to Rome and was Bishop there as this Ignatius and Irenaeus and all Antiquity with one mouth deliver there be never the lesse a number of learned and wise Protestants who have written and will maintain that Peters being at Rome as Bishop cannot stand with concordance of Scripture Now come the Epistles of Ignatius to shew us first that Onesimus was Bishop of Ephesus next to assert the difference of Bishop and Presbyter wherin I wonder that men teachers of the Protestant Religion make no more difficulty of imposing upon our belief a supposititious ofspring of some dozen Epistles whereof five are rejected as spurious containing in them Herefies and trifles which cannot agree in Chronologie with Ignatius entitling him Arch-Bishop of Antioch Theopolis which name of Theopolis that City had not till Iustinians time long after as Cedrenus mentions which argues both the barbarous time and the unskilfull fraud of him that foisted this Epistle upon Ignatius In the Epistle to those of Tarsus he condemns them for Ministers of Satan that say Christ is God above all To the Phillippians them that kept their Easter as the Asian Churches and Polycarpus did and them that fasted upon any Saturday or Sunday except one he counts as those that had slain the Lord To those of Antioch he
those traditions which he receiv'd fill'd his writings with many new doctrines and fabulous conceits he tells us there that divers Ecclesiasticall men and Irenaeus among the rest while they lookt at his antiquity became infected with his errors Now if Irenaeus were so rash as to take unexamin'd opinions from an Author of so small capacity when he was a man we should be more rash our selves to rely upon those observations which he made when he was a Boy And this may be a sufficient reason to us why we need no longer muse at the spreading of many idle traditions so soon after the Apostles whilst such as this Papias had the throwing them about and the inconsiderate zeal of the next age that heeded more the person then the Doctrine had the gathering them up Where ever a man who had bin any away conversant with the Apostles was to be found thether slew all the inquisitive eares the exercise of right instructing was chang'd into the curiosity of impertinent fabling where the mind was to be edified with solid Doctrine there the fancy was sooth'd with solemne stories with lesse fervency was studied what Saint Paul or Saint Iohn had written then was listen'd to one that could say here hee taught here he stood this was his stature and thus he went habited and O happy this house that harbour'd him and that cold stone whereon he rested this Village wherein he wrought such a miracle and that pavement bedew'd with the warme effusion of his last blood that sprouted up into eternall Roses to crowne his Martyrdome Thus while all their thoughts were powr'd out upon circumstances and the gazing after such men as had sate at table with the Apostles many of which Christ hath profest yea thoughthey had cast out Divells in his name he will not know at the last day by this meanes they lost their time and truanted in the fundamentall grounds of saving knowledge as was seene shortly by their writings Lastly for Ireneus wee have cause to thinke him lesse judicious in his reports from hand to hand of what the Apostles did when we find him so negligent in keeping the faith which they writ as to say in his third Booke against Heresies that the obedience of Mary was the cause of salvation to her selfe and all mankind and in his fift Booke that as Eve was seduc't to fly God so the Virgin Mary was perswaded to obey God that the Virgin Mary might be made the Advocate of the Virgin Eve Thus if Irenaeus for his neerenesse to the Apostles must be the Patron of Episcopacy to us it is no marvell though he be the Patron of Idolatry to the Papist for the same cause To the Epistle of those brethren of Smyrna that write the Martyrdome of Polycarpus and stile him an Apostolicall and propheticall Doctor and Bishop of the Church in Smirna I could be content to give some credit for the great honour and affection which I see those brethren beare him and not undeservedly if it be true which they there say that he was a Prophet and had a voyce from Heaven to comfort him at his death which they could heare but the rest could not for the noise and tumult that was in the place and besides if his body were so pretious to the Christians that hee was never wont to pull off his shooes for one or other that still strove to have the office that they might come to touch his feet yet a light scruple or two I would gladly be resolv'd in if Polycarpus who as they say was a Prophet that never faild in what he foretold had declar'd to his friends that he knew by vision hee should die no other death then burning how it came to passe that the fire when it came to proofe would not doe his worke but starting off like a full saile from the mast did but reflect a golden light upon his unviolated limbes exhaling such a sweet odour as if all the incense of Arabia had bin burning in so much that when the bill-men saw that the fire was overaw'd and could not doe the deed one of them steps to him and stabs him with a sword at which wound such abundance of bloud gusht forth as quencht the fire By all this relation it appeares not how the fire was guilty of his death and then how can his prophesie bee fulfill'd Next how the standers by could be so soone weary of such a glorious sight and such a fragrant smell as to hasten the executioner to put out the fire with the Martyrs blood unlesse perhaps they thought as in all perfumes that the Smoake would bee more odorous then the flame Yet these good brethren say he was Bishop of Smyrna No man questions it if Bishop and Presbyter were anciently all one and how does it appeare by any thing in this testimony that they were not If among his other high titles of propheticall Apostolicall and most admired of those times he bee also stil'd Bishop of the Church of Smirna in a kind of speech which the Rhetoricians call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} for his excellence sake as being the most famous of all the Smyrnian Presbyters it cannot bee prov'd neither from this nor that other place of Irenaeus that hee was therefore in distinct and monarchicall order above the other Presbyters it is more probable that if the whole Presbytery had beene as renowned as he they would have term'd every one of them severally Bishop of Smyrna Hence it is that wee read sometimes of two Bishops in one place and had all the Presbyters there beene of like worth we might perhaps have read of twenty Tertullian accosts us next for Polycrates hath had his answer whose testimony state but the question right is of no more force to deduce Episcopacy then the two former He saies that the Church of Smirna had Polycarpus plac't there by Iohn and the Church of Rome Clement ordain'd by Peter and so the rest of the Churches did shew what Bishops they had receiv'd by the appointmēt of the Apostles None of this will be contradicted for we have it out of the Scripture that Bishops or Presbyters which were the same were left by the Apostles in every Church and they might perhaps give some speciall charge to Clement or Polycarpus or Linus and put some speciall trust in them for the experience they had of their faith and constancy it remaines yet to be evinc't out of this and the like places which will never be that the word Bishop is otherwise taken then in the language of Saint Paul and the Acts for an order above Presbyters We grant them Bishops we grant them worthy men we grant them plac't in severall Churches by the Apostles we grant that Irenaeus and Tertul affirme this but that they were plac't in a superiour Order above the Presbytery shew from all these words why we should grant 'T is not enough to say the Ap left this man