Tradition be our rule to interpret Scripture by An excellent way to find out the truth doubtless to bend the Rule to the crooked Stick to make the Judge stand to the Opinion of his Lacquey what Sense he shall pass upon the Cause in question to make Scripture to stand Cap in Hand to Tradition to know whether it may have leave to speak or no. Are all the great out-crys of Apostolical Tradition of personal Succession of unquestionable Records resolved at last into Scripture it self by him from whom these long Pedegrees are fetcht Then let Succession know its place and learn to veil Bonnet to the Scriptures and withal Let Men take heed of over-reaching themselves when they would bring down so large a Catalogue of single Bishops from the first and purest times of the Church For if Eusebius professeth it so hard to find them well might Scaliger then complain that the Interval from the last Chapter of the Acts to the middle of Trajan in which time Quadratus and Ignatius began to flourish was tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Varro speaks a meer Chaos of time filled up with rude conceptions of Papias Hermes and others who like Hannibal when they could not find a way through would make one either by force or fraud Rare embellishments of stile and choice Oratory all along When others plead for a Succession of Persons in Apostolical Power out of Irenaeus and Tertullian you shuffle them of and say That those Fathers are to be interpreted of Succession in that Apostolical Doctrine which was so eminent and notorious at Rome Smyrna Corinth Philippi and Ephesus Now you deny the truth of Succession as to Doctrines also but you are in an high strain of Oratory which is a kind of natural Enthusiasm or worse and your indisposition plainly appears in that you give such grave advice to these traditional Doctors that they place not Succession before the Scriptures You can only mean that they deduce it not from Felix or Pontius Pilate Annas and Caiaphas the High-Priests or the Jewish Sanhedrim And have not Scaliger and you finely combined together in giving a Character of the times immediately after the Apostles as filled only with fraud and force And for this reason alone Lest an unquestionable Succession of Bishops from the Apostles should appear and their Divine Right become thereby undeniable vid. Iren. p. 2. c. 6. § 15 16 17. Besides it hence plainly appears what your purpose was in writing this Treatise in that you have sided all along with the foreign Divines and used their Arguments against the Divine Right of Episcopacy It is the common policy when Men design to devest any Person or Order of that superior power which they cannot well bear or rather desire to have enstated on themselves first to set up for a level and the Project works mightily Thus we know the thing aimed at in the beginning of the great Rebellion here in England was That the King Lords and Commons were three equal States And when by this stratagem they had wrested the King's Prerogative out of his hands they then soon made themselves uppermost assumed and appropriated that very power they had so violently contended against as what ought not to be fixed except in the three Estates in conjunction So here your sham is That all forms of Government are equally practicable no one being of Divine Right in that nature as to exclude another but any one may be established as Persons Times and Places accord thereunto But then your Eisotericks or that which you effectually recommend to your particular Friends and Confidents is The perpetual fixation of the Presbyter as by Divine Right unalterable and having hereby lowered the Bishops top-sail in your own expression and removed from him all that which hath been heretofore appropriated to his Order asserting him to be an accidental humane creation only in this Stirrup the Presbyter sets his foot and ascends as the Assembly-men did at Westminster You invest him with the full power of Order and Jurisdiction and accordingly thus determine Part II. c. 4. § 12. That every Presbyter from Christ and perpetually fixed Cap. 2. hath the whole Ministry derived unto him in actu primo habitualiter viz. The Power of Preaching the Word Visiting the Sick Administring the Sacraments of Visiting Churches Taking care that particular Pastors do their duty of Ordination and Church Censures and making Rules for Decency in the Church The severest Asserter of Episcopal Power cannot invest his Bishop in more And the same in effect you say over again That every Presbyter whom you call a fixed Officer in the Church hath a radical intrinsecal Power of Order in himself And further That every one being himself advanced into the Authority of a Church Governor hath an internal Power of conferring the same upon Persons fit for it and accordingly every one did exercise this Power in the Churches first State and Period or In the first Primitive Church before the Jurisdiction of Presbyters was restrain'd by mutual consent by way of accumulation upon one Person of a power more than he had not by a deprivation of themselves of that inherent Power which they enjoy'd It would be very strange that any Officers of a Religious Society should be upon that account Out-lawed of those natural Liberties which are the results and products of the free actings pag. 252. To which you add That whole Churches and Nations were without Bishops for several Years together some of which had only Presbyters at their first Planting and in those Churches where Episcopal Government was setled Ordination by Presbyters was look'd upon as valid notwithstanding which could not be unless their Ordainers had an intrinsecal Power of Ordination or had they not been a fixed Order under no prohibition by Scripture Part II. c. 6. § 13. pag. 273 275. cap. 7. § 6 7. In all which I say whatever you have pretended against the divine perpetual Right of any one individual Government that the Bishop might fall with more gentleness and plausibility You set up a fixed lasting Government in the Church by Presbyters as unalterable as the Ministry it self in whom you place the whole Power of the Ministry never to be alienated or lost by any authority or under any accident they receiving this Power with their Ordination in actu primo habitualiter radicaliter intrinsically and their execution of it is effectual at any time and in any place even to Ordination it self and the Church hath approved and accepted of it as when Paphnutius tho' but a Presbyter Ordain'd Abbot Daniel and Colluthus Ischyras c. pag. 379. And hereby you give to many of the principal Patrons of the Presbyterian Parity as Calvin Beza Chamier Gersom Bucer Du Moulin even Salmasius Blondel and Daillée what they desire and contend for they having all along allowed of our Hierarchy upon your terms And all the advantage the Church of England receives by the Irenicum
particulars As That the Church hath no declarative Power in matters of Faith or supposing any Article obscure to us or inverted and involved by Hereticks so that the matter of it hath not been explicitly acknowledged in all Ages of the Church anteceeding when the present Church gives the true meaning of it according to the tradition of Faith evidencing thereby the Sense of the Article or which is the same the sense of Scripture on which the Article is founded and engages the assent of all Christians thereunto That hereby she creates a new Article of Faith pag. 75 945. as if there were no mean betwixt the Power of the single Church of Rome who resolves all her actings into her own immediate Authority and the true Power of the Catholick Church of God which determines antecedent truths that were tho' less known or misinterpreted from the beginning and when the reason of her decree is not from her own Authority but the Tradition of Faith delivering the sense of the Holy Ghost down unto us That the Church representing and the Church diffusive are all one nothing can make the Church teaching and representative but the belief of what is necessary to Salvation Pag. 86 87. I thought a distant Power by Ordination had constituted the Pastors of the Church You go on at the same confused rate Pag. 251 252. I 'll only write out your words at large and let the Reader judge of them That which being supposed a Church is and being distroyed it ceaseth to be is the formal constitution of it but thus it is as to the Church The belief of Fundamentals makes it a Church and the not believing them makes it cease to be a Christian Church I speak of an essential not an organical Church And I know not who those persons are who out of those places Luk. 10.16 Matth. 28.19 20. Joh. 14.16 do infer the perpetuity of an organical Church nor if they did doth it thence follow they must suppose an infallible assistance beyond an essential 't is strange that nothing should be found betwixt these two in your own sense of them to constitute Pastors of Christ's own sending to make it an organical Church for I cannot imagine what necessity can be supposed of infallibility in order to that which may be sufficiently constituted without it The perpetuity of the Church doth rather argue the infallibility of the promise than of the Church Supposing then that the promises by you insisted on should be so far extended as to imply a perpetuity of a Christian Church what doth that argue but only this that to make it appear that promise is infallibly true there shall always be a Succession of Christians in the World Suppose I grant that the being of a Christian Church doth suppose the assistance of God's Spirit is there no assistance but what is infallible If not no one can be a Christian without infallibility for we speak of no other assistance but what is necessary to make Men Christians for what makes them such severally take them conjunctly makes them a Church But if you besides what assistance is requisite to make Men Christians do suppose somewhat more to make them a Church I pray name what it is And whatever it be it will not be own'd by such who infer a Perpetuity But if in order to that no more be meant as no more can be meant than what is necessary to make Men Christians then infallibility will grow so cheap and common I add and Church-Power and Offices together with it it will not be worth challenging by you for your Church neither will a Ministry be worth challenging by us either But this is agreeable enough with the Title you still give the Archbishop in this Treatise and as if he had no other Prelation but what is derived from his Majesty and is purely Secular you call him his Lordship only I much question Whether it might not have discomposed the Calm that most exemplary Prelate died in upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill if he could then have been aware that he should have had such a Vindicator I cannot here but repeat it again tho' it be so very Offensive How gladly I should see the Church of Rome opposed and our common Christianity not struck at with the same blow and hand Surely the due Power of God's Church might have been vindicated and Rome's Usurpations rejected without this intermingling all as one both Priest and People as you have done here most Scandalously And at the same rate you dispute also against the Monarchical Government of the Church and an infallible judge Pag. 464. because Christ no where that we read of took care that we should be freed from all kind of Controversies and we no where find such a State of Christian Church described or promised where Men shall be of one mind only that peace and brotherly love continue is all that Christians are bound to and that every Man have the same Vnderstanding Which Arguments conclude as forcibly against any other Government even that of our Saviour himself and his Apostles were they upon Earth again and in the same circumstances as when here before Nay you have used these very Arguments against all manner of Government in your Irenicum And farther Pag. 172. you infer Because it is not in the Power of the Church of Rome judicially and authoritatively to determine what Books belong to the Canon of Scripture and what not Therefore the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And thereby take away all judicial Power from the Church to oblige her Members or Subjects by for their assent and submission to her Acts and Decrees upon a due search of matter of Fact and full evidence of the Truth and Certainty of those Articles Rules and Canons enjoin'd and commanded And thus you particularly affront the Practice of our own Church she having made it Law that only such a certain number of Books of the Old and New Testament be accounted and received as Canonical and withal requiring Subscription thereunto as a judge upon a Bench to be sure by all that are admitted by her into holy Orders And as you have before concluded That whatever Power can be supposed by Christ to be promised and derived to his Church from Matt. 28.19 20. c. is that which each private Christian partakes of So again Pag. 516. you say That whatever Power can be supposed in a General Council must be first in the Church diffusive and from thence be derived to the Council Which in effect is thus That the Bishops of Christendom who by right are only to sit in Council and such Presbyters as have sat and acted there did it only as their Substitutes and by virtue of their deputation receive their Power either from the Presbyters and Deacons or which is worse from the Laity
I there said of them appearingly capable of an exception was That in laying their Argument they did not consider that so ill-natured a Man as Parker might at some time or other have advantage against them And I am so far from acknowledging it a fault that I accuse them of more inconsiderateness of the same nature you may make it their fault if you can in that they did not foresee also That such a Book as the Irenicum would come into the world taking occasion from their writings and by their authority to degrade and depose them expresly making them a party against themselves and the institution of their Episcopal Order and with as much perverseness and ill nature as ever Robert Parker acted against them And now you see my crime it is well if the offence does not lye the other way in that I made Parker appear a defamer the familiarities one that I know once had with his writings taking them for his own gives a shrewd suspicion of it Yes but I lay to their charge the bringing in a new sort of Henrician Heresie which is as new to me as the name it goes under Henrician Heresie I am at a loss to find who this Henricius or Henricianus the Author of an old Heresie is I have consulted all my Books as Epiphanius St. Austin with others of the Ancients that wrote of Hereticks as Irenaeus Tertullian and particularly the Notes of Pamelius upon Tertullian's Prescriptions against Hereticks where the Catalogue of them is explained and am still as ignorant as when I first set out Who can this Haeresiarcha be I consider'd a little farther and the word appearing Novel I consulted my modern Authors down to Edward's Gangraena but neither fell nor fall appear'd here either At last reading Dr. Stillingfleet's Answer to Mr. Cressey's Epistle Apologetical pag. 406. I found the Man but in great obscurity among the mouldy Papers in the Cottonian Library And truly Sir tho' I will not presume to offer to you any advice of my own yet I will venture to recommend the advice which an excellent Friend of yours gave to me as he supposed in the like case and because I appear'd to him unintelligible it is your Advocate Dr. Burnet's in his Letter that he was pleased once to write to me pag. 7. You had best to do as another Emperor did write of your self and illustrate your Epistle with Annotations That which comes next is a flight of your wit upon the Vicar of Cosmus Blene and the Vicar at Rome but falls as much short of it as Cosmus Blene and Rome are distant from one another But more ill nature accompanies it without which some have no wit at all and you insinuate that to attack you is to be a Papist or at least to be their Friend as certainly as the Devil is known by his cloven foot for so Dr. Burnet speaks out in his last Letter and farther adds That we equally degrade Kings from their Ecclesiastical Supremacy and at length will make them Reign at the mercy of the Church and at the Pope's courtesie The Doctor was in a heat during the whole time of his Epistolizing and did not consider immediate consequences for he brings Mr. Dean of St. Paul's as evidently into the praemunire as he does me and accuses him of the same Popery who has declared himself to be of my judgment and that the Church is a distinct Society And further That I have not produced one considerable Argument which he had not made use of to that purpose in a Discourse published above Twenty years since But if the Doctor and the Dean have no better Arguments to prove us Papists as we are very well assured they have not we may better bear the charge I 'll add Or than these which are farther produced in the following part of the Paragraph tho' once thought to be very good ones 'till my great humility in writing my self Vicar of Cosmus Blene better inform'd you As Because I proceed so like a judge in Controversies and after an imperious manner summon by a kind of Citation c. It seems then that every judge of Controversies is a Pope and each Citation is a Bull from Rome or else that my private Letter begging a more full information from your own hand for that was all which I desired of you in my Letter is of the same nature as a Summons or Citation from the Courts Ecclesiastical and you suspected lest an Answer to it had been a declining your Diocesan's Authority and Jurisdiction One of these or all you must be interpreted to mean if you mean any thing and choose whether you please it is pure Irenicum all over or the very Weapon-salve Doctrine and Argumentation Thus Men usually run into the contrary extream thinking thereby to atone for the first Error And you who have before asserted your Bishop to be really void of Power or a mere name without Authority now enlarge his Power as much too far and make it a breach of Canonical Obedience to Write or Answer a Private Letter without his knowledge and Licence However notwithstanding the danger of Popery for you will certainly say again That I proceed like a judge of Controversies and summon you after an imperious manner by a kind of Citation and you may as well say so now as before I 'll venture to ask you Two Questions more 1. Where the crime really lyes in proceeding like a judge of Controversies does not every one that writes of Controversies become a judge of them he ought to be so or else he ought not to write about them And if you had laid your calumny here That I am not fit to write Controversies but undertake to be a judge when I am not qualified for one and proved it you had done something more than every Traducer can do Your Objection seems co-incident with Dr. Burnet's in his rude Letter which he sent me December 20. 1684. Because I published my Book after a course of studies upon full thoughts and a thorow consideration or that I did not Print it as he does Manuscripts without fear or wit or as he did his Letters in their defence with such rash heady precipitancie that he is forced to retract in one what he wrote in another and each contradicts the other as will appear in due place 2. Admit that I had sent you a summons by citation to Answer such Questions as I should demand of you supposing you in great Errors and the Church of God had received great damages by your publication of them you of all Men ought to have taken the least exceptions against me for it who in your Irenicum have enstated me as a Presbyter and by virtue of my Orders in full power for the doing of it as to superintend inspect preside over and govern the Churches and from the best authority and precedents Ecclesiastical So that if I had transgressed since Dr. Stillingfleet led me
to it he need not have been so very harsh and severe upon me for it Especially since the utmost of my crime can amount no higher than that it was done unclassically I 'll only repeat your own Words for my authority Irenic pag. 355. That they viz. the Presbyters concurred in governing the Church and not only by their Council but Authority appears from the general sence of the Church of God even when Episcopacy was at the highest Nazianzen speaking of the Office of Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he knew not whether to call it Ministry or Superintendency the lofty Superintendant of Cosmus Blene And those who are made Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being ruled they ascend to be Rulers themselves And their power by him is in several places called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are called by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysostom gives this as a reason of St. Paul's passing over from Bishops to Deacons without naming Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because there is no great matter of difference betwixt a Bishop and Presbyters For those likewise have the instruction and charge of the Church committed unto them With more to this purpose produced by you to shew that the Presbyter's power is every way equal to the Bishop's even to summon and censure the disobedient And consequently upon your own terms the lofty Superintendent of Cosmus Blene went not beyond his commission if it were true as you scandalize him that he did actually Summon and Cite you in order to a recantation of your Error as publickly as the error scandal and offence given by it The next Character you affix upon me is not so easily to be born or pardon'd This accuser of his Brethren because the character which is given to the Devil Rev. xij 10. and you repeat it over again as my accuser calls it I have made a very strict examination of my self in that performance and cannot find that I have given any occasion why you should expose me to mankind under so odious a Character I am so confident of my Innocency that in order to my Vindication I 'll here also tell the naked Story and make my Enemies my Judges Sixteen years after the first publication of your Irenicum for which as you say well many Men made allowance considering the scepticalness and injudiciousness of Youth and the prejudices of Education the Manuscript that is there and the most Scandalous part of it made more Scandalous by your declaring it to be the Sense of our Church was reprinted with your order in Doctor Burnet's History of the Reformation as an authentick Record and with the Approbation of both Houses of Parliament by the undue procurement of your Party affixed unto it which by the way you have declared to be the Mouth of the Church of England And this was done without any caution or alteration excepting for the worse because concealing Cranmer's probable at least Retractation And about this time also Mr. Dean of Canterbury Preached before the Court and afterward Printed Doctrines to the same purpose or rather more offensive Hereupon I apprehended a farther design than many were aware off and not without Reason For what appearingly adds more to the confirmation of these Doctrines as the Sense of our Church than the approbation of both Houses of Parliament and the popular names of Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet and all this might make a greater impression upon me than on some others because I had for many years applied my Studies to search after the Rights of the Church and that Power which our Saviour had vested her withal and appointed to be continued till his coming again Especially I being not in the number of those Subscribers who believe themselves no ways obliged to defend what they have assented and consented unto I therefore revised my Collections and digested them in that order according to which they have since been Printed where as I make some reflections upon you so I always refer to your own Words and Sense to vouch them And yet when my Papers came to London all the Objections that I found to be made against them by some Learned Men into whose hands they lighted were occasion'd by reason of your self and Doctor Tillotson on whom I seemed in their Eyes to reflect over-severely Hereupon I wrote a private Letter to you since Printed before my Book the summ of which is to tell you the ground of that Charge I had laid against you and that I conceiv'd Posterity would be concerned by reason of your Writings in this Cause not in my Writings as you are pleased to misreport me if no Publick acknowledgment of the error be made by you further adding and desiring that you would inform me wherein I had wrongfully accused you engaging upon due notice that I would expunge whatever was in my Papers relating that way To this you vouchsafed me no Answer unless Scorn and Contempt enough of which came abroad every day are to be reputed one or the Epistle Dedicatory published two years after which is only a Defamatory Libel And now I appeal to the whole World Whether there is any thing in all this on my part that is Diabolical or that may fix upon me the Character of ACCVSER in Capital Letters As also how unjustly you have farther slander'd me with the Epithets of Implacable Whom no recantation will do good Vntractable c. or wherein any publick scandal or offence is given by me If the Scandal and offence be laid here and some have so laid it as exposing our own Members to the scorn of the common Adversary especially in these divided times Or if it be farther pleaded That since our Church is well known to have neither published nor countenanced any such Doctrines in her Articles Homilies Canons Rubricks c. it had been much better and safer to have passed over and concealed some few tho' heterodox Opinions of one or more particular Doctors which cannot be supposed to influence and debauch mankind against the judgment of a whole Church to the contrary To this I answer Those always have been observed as the worst of Hereticks that arise among our selves and within the Bowels of a particular Church and they have the greatest advantage to delude and seduce St. Paul therefore gives Directions for severe proceedings against those that are within 1 Cor. 5. and by the parity of Reason the Rule is to extend to other offenders than those there mention'd by him And as to my own particular I do here produce these following instances whereby it will appear that other Writers have taken the same course and method before me 1. And Dr. Stillingfleet shall be the first in his General Preface to an Answer to several late Treatises c. The learned Doctor having at large discovered several corruptions among the Romanists and more particularly in the point of Repentance they endeavor to clear the honour of their Church and
Church of England was burning and thereby had cut off all hope of a Reconciliation your Plot then it seems was not like to have Success and that the Bishop of Exon had not duly consulted the Reputation of Joseph Hall. And tho' it is really sad to consider That such eminent Professors are thus rudely treated yet there is some pleasure in reflecting with what sort of Arguments our Episcopacy was encountred in 1641. and the multitude thereby incensed and enraged against it and to me there is something peculiar in it because that your Advocate Dr. Burnet and your self have treated and opposed me at the same rate and upon the same occasion viz. Because I wrote as Bishop Hall did all the other concurring with him in defence of the Divine Right of Church-Power and Episcopacy How frequently do you upbraid me also in the same manner As that I am wanting of Prudence and common Discretion That few read my Book It can hurt no body but the Bookseller and my self but mostly the Bookseller because you have not heard that the Chancery ever gave Equity against an Author for an unsaleable Book That I and my Book are under great neglect That I discharge my spleen on two such eminent Men whose Works as well as their Persons will be had in honour long after both I and my Book shall be forgotten That I am indeed proud of assaulting two such eminent Men. My stile is unintelligible barbarous whose embellishments are not to be envied It is indeed hairy all over And so rough is the shag that it will not submit to the Discipline of a Comb. It is overgrown with Hair. In short I write neither True English nor Good Sense I do not produce one considerable Argument which you had not made use of to that purpose in a Discourse published above twenty years since But the Malice and Rage of Philadelphus doth not rest here in that he hath thus revileâ—â—he Persons of so many of our most eminent Church men and represented them in their Offices as Tyrants and Usurpers over their fellow Brethren the Pastors of the Church but he goes on raving and running mad upon them as dangerous in respect of the State also to Kings and Secular Governours out of whose hands the Scepter will be wrested by them with the first opportunity as they have already snatch'd the Government of the Church from their fellow Presbyters so that the Kings of England are in danger by reason of the Episcopal Power here among us The Horse is already equipped and the Rider hath one foot in the stirrup And for proof of which he produces the very same impertinent Prophecy of Padre Paulo which you thought so considerable that it is in effect translated in the Irenicum and urged for the same purpose and withal to let the World know that it was the Opinion of wiser heads than your own That the Episcopacy in England was dangerous to the Monarchy of it as a step to that Pride and Ambition which at length would get the upper hand of it And all the difference betwixt you and him seems to be but this He had more discretion than to put his right Name to it I will here transcribe the whole Prophecy as it is placed in the Wast-page of his Book and leave it to others to judge how far thereby you have served the Church of England or rather Faction and Sedition and Schism and the Opposer of it tho' you pretend quite otherwise in your Epistle Dedicatory Anglis ego timeo Episcoporum magna illa potestas licet sub Rege prorsus mihi suspecta est ubi vel Regem facilem nacti fuerint vel magni spiritus Archiepiscopum habuerint Regia autoritas pessundabitur Episcopi ad absolutam Dominationem aspirabunt Ego equum ephippiatum in Anglia videre videor ascensurum propediem equitem antiquum divino Verum omma Divinae Providentiae subsunt But there is no wind that blows not some profit and I have hereby another advantage as to my own particular for nothing is more certain than that I did not take all those considerable Arguments which you allow to be in my Book out of the Irenicum it being my design and business there for several Sections to make it evident That Kings are in no danger by the Episcopal Power but on the contrary Episcopacy and Monarchy are every ways compitable and consistent they strengthen and support one another and were own'd so to be and to do by the Empire it self Dr. Burnet seems the honestest Man of the three because speaking out his mind and plainly unless he speak your sense too in that Paragraph and that he may easily be supposed to have done to be sure you approve of it in the Epistle Dedicatory and 't is very likely he was but your Journey-man for in his last Letter he tells us whose the Horse is thus fatal to our Troy and who equipped him and the particular Place and Person that our Bishops are riding whip and spur unto As for the Zeal that all this sort of Men pretend for the Crown the Book that is the foundation of this stir is a good indication of it There is another Sect besides Presbytery that has first wholly degraded Kings from their Ecclesiastical Supremacy and after that point was gain'd made them Reign at the mercy of the Church and at the Pope's courtesie It were too bold to attempt both at once and it is ingeniously enough done to seem to yield up the one wholly till the other is gain'd Pure Irenaeus Philadelphus who together with Doctor Burnet and the Rector of Sutton are the Triumvirate in the cause But as long as Archbishop Laud Bishop Montacute Bishop Andrews and Bishop Hall ride along with us we are well enough there is no true Church of England man will be ashamed of their company but will repute it his greatest honour and triumph And as to that which the Doctor adds here viz. That I fall so evidently under a Praemunire as he hears an honourable person has observed That I owe my not being questioned for it to his Majesty's Clemency I could Cap it with that I heard an honourable person observe upon him That for Six Pence Barbara a noted Scold in the neighborhood would answer my Book better than he hath done But I am not now inclined to so much mirth Tho' it may not be in raillery to consider what black guilt and worser malignancy Dr. Burnet's Crimes were made up of which Charles the Merciful could not forgive but banished him his Royal Palaces of Whitehal and St. James's many years since and a little before his death by his own Royal Edict silenced him at the Rolls and since England is become too hot for him But what can be expected from Men of this complexion who answer Books made up of matter of Fact and Argument with only Revilings and personal Defamations Or indeed from your self in particular when
your account of it being only this That by the hand of Providence it happily came to your hands which account is very scandalous Providence being the Sanctuary for every Impostor is placed in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England with the time and year when the Conference was held and hath the Character as well it may upon your terms of an Authentique Writing and hereby Dr. Burnet is equally dishonoured as an Historian with your self as a Divine of the Church of England And first that your own reputation as a Divine of the Church of England must be shrewdly called in question hereby is most manifest because this Manuscript upon your alone authority and with the Character of stupendae eruditionis theologum is made use of by the most rigid and rude of the Presbyterian Party to prove That our first Reformers did not believe a Bishop and a Presbyter to be two distinct Orders but that it is in the power and at the pleasure of the Prince to Govern by Bishops and Presbyters or by Presbyters without them And they farther hereupon assert That our own Divines were generally of the same Opinion during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth tho' Bancroft and Laud have since maintained the contrary and asserted Bishops to be by Divine Right and a distinct Order This is to be seen in Mr. Hickman's Apologia pro ejectis in Anglia ministris vulgò Non-conformistis but a particular of this passage in it is given by the Reverend Dean of Windsor Dr. Durell in his Ecclesiae Anglicanae Vindiciae cap. 28. I might add because the Erastian Party is hereby much confirmed and strengthned Now can any Man think that a true Son of the Church of England who by his relation to her alone must be supposed to believe that the Power of the Prince is quite another thing from the Power of the Church as also the Power of a Bishop from the Power of a Presbyter would willingly and under such circumstances as these have given this great advantage to the Adversary that you so manifestly have done by reprinting this Manuscript and with the approbation of the two Houses of Parliament and not add one Note in the Margent disowning the evil consequents have been drawn from it Is it not rather a yielding to them and complying with the objection giving new Strength and Sinews unto it Or is it not a thankful acceptance of the honour that was done you by the Presbyterians in the Quotation And I fear you were over-tickled with that higher Eulogy and wonderful commendation they bestow'd upon you Sure I am you could not have served them and their design more advantageously I must confess I was startled at the first reading of it Again the reputation of Dr. Burnet is equally at the Stake also as an Historian The grounds and reasons produced by the Dean of Windsor in his forementioned Vindiciae cap. 28. upon which he suspects the Manuscript to be a fraud and not the writings and determinations of Cranmer and those others whose names it bears seems to me very considerable they amount indeed to a demonstration his words are these Nam quifactum c. For how comes it to pass that these things in that Manuscript were altogether unknown to John Fox that most diligent compiler of the Acts and Monuments of Cranmer and the other Martyrs a Man over much addicted to the Faction of the Puritans and the other most diligent writers of the Church of England Whence is it that Cartwright and other ancienter Puritans heard nothing of them And they are to be believed to have heard nothing since they have made no mention of them How happens it that no one Historiographer of that time hath remembred so memorable a thing as was that Conference of so many illustrious Men concerning the affairs of so great moment For if we may believe the Manuscript there was enquiry of many and the principal heads of Religion as of the Rights of the higher Powers about holy things and those most eminent Men and learned Prelates did there dispute of them all I 'll add how came Mr. Hobbs not to find it out He was a Man well acquainted with English Story and the concurrence of Arch-Bishop Cranmer and so many of our first Reformers in his Scheme of Government which I have shew'd to be the same with this in the Manuscript would have been very pleasing unto him He did not hate our Church and Divines so much but that he was glad on each occasion to serve himself of them and did so Surely a wise Man would have consider'd these things some way or other the Doctor wanted full thoughts and a thorough consideration here to be sure and it shall go for part of his punishment for that he hath so much despised them in others Surely no one would have gone to the Press without laying these things together and their consequences but he who looks upon himself as the very Pillar of Truth which will bear out any inscription it is entituled withal and his own Authority as sufficient to make credible whatever he shall think fit to recommend to Mankind And this his Arbitrary Precarious Self-authoritative way of writing History and Record-making is so much the more culpable in the Doctor because he hath particularly blamed Peter Heylin a Man much better and honester than himself upon the like as he supposed occasion His words in his Preface after many severer Animadversions upon him are these In one thing he is not to be excused that he never vouched any Authority for what he writ which is not to be forgiven any who write of Transactions beyond their own time and deliver new things not known before so that upon what grounds he wrote the greatest part of his Book we can only conjecture For surely it is much safer and a great deal less disingenuous to produce no Authority but leave Men to their own conjectures than to produce and vouch that Authority which is false and hath no bottom at all except that of one single Doctor or in his own Language a Sceptical injudicious Youth who vouches Providence for it by which he can only mean that the Manuscript came to his hands immediately from Heaven for no humane hand reacht it unto him All Historians all Men of what sort soever that can be conceived to have been concerned in things relating that way being altogether silent about it And I shall hereafter no more believe him in whatever it is that he delivers unless I see the originals with mine own Eyes or have them vouched by a better Authority than his own than I believed the late Dialogue between him and the Groaning-Board The old malicious Fable of the Nag's-Head-Ordination by which the Emissaries of Rome defamed our Church one way as you have by your Manuscript another carries much more likelihood of truth and credibility in it For our Bishops and Divines had a meeting at the
LICENSED July 19. 1686. A LETTER TO Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. c. In ANSWER to the Epistle Dedicatory before his SERMON Preached at a Publick Ordination at St. Peter's Cornhil March 15. 1684 / 5. TOGETHER WITH Some Reflections upon certain LETTERS which Dr. Burnet wrote on the same occasion By SIMON LOWTH Vicar of Cosmus Blene in the Diocess of Canterbury Sed non idcirco frater charissime relinquenda est Ecclesiastica disciplina aut sacerdotalis solvenda est censura quoniam convitiis infestamur aut erroribus quatimur B. Cyprianus Ep. 55. ad Cornelium Impp. Honorius Theodos A. A. Anthemio P. F. P. Hirenarcharum vocabula quae adsimulata provincialium tutela quietis ac pacis per singula territoria haud sinunt stare concordiam radicitùs amputanda sunt Cesset igitur genus perniciosum reipublicae Cesset rescriptorum Hirenarchas circiter inconsulta simplicitas celsitudinis tuae sedes provinciarum defendenda suscipiat pacis hujusmodi locupletioribus commissura praesidia 12. Cod. Theodos Tit. 14. LONDON Printed by J. L. and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall in Amen-Corner MDCLXXXVII A LETTER TO Dr. Stillingfleet In ANSWER to his Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to his SERMON Preached at a Publick Ordination in the Church of St. Peter's Cornhil March 15. 1684 / 5 Reverend Sir HAVING perused your angry Epistle I am now abundantly satisfied that after all the clamorous Objections and riotous Noises against my Book of Church-Power raised and kept up by Men of your Party and Complexion and all the endeavours of such Champions as your self and that renowned Hero the famous Dr. Burnett you have been able to say nothing in reply to it besides personal remarks and accusations I might add choice Epithets and embellishments of Wit that might have become a Tripas Exercise in the Sophister's Schools but by no means the Gravity of an old exercised Master of Polemicks If you can reap any satisfaction from loading me with the general Titles of a Plagiary ridiculous fool malicious unskillful maker of Controversies a barbarous and rude Disputer with his Brethren an accuser of his Brethren an implacable man uncharitable unjust slanderer proud void of prudence and common discretion the usual Complements you are pleased to bestow upon me you may be happy in the enjoyment of your humor though it hath not an Irenical Complexion But I that design nothing but the pursuit of Truth and Honesty shall only endeavour in an easie method and plain words to come to the true state of the Controversie between us and my reply you may be pleased to take in this order First I shall presume to make some return to those little Pleas and Excuses that you give in for your self and those Accusations of any weight that you are pleased to bring in against me and withal take the liberty to reflect a little upon the Treatment I have received from your Friend and Advocate Dr. Burnett upon the same occasion For I foresee that opportunity will be offer'd Secondly I shall make it appear That the account you give of your Irenicum is not fair nor true and that you conceal your Crime in the very confession of it The whole design and plot being meerly laid against the Re-establishment of the Church of England Thirdly I shall enquire more particularly how far you have recall'd and recanted the principal Errors of it and particularly the Imposture of your Manuscript not doubting to make it appear That you still owe a publick Recantation for it not to the poor Vicar of Cosmus Blene but to the Church of England First I shall consider herein the little pleas you make use of for your self and your trifling Accusations against me together with your Characters of me and also take the liberty of some Reflections upon Dr. Burnet And here your failure is so evident and notorious at the very entrance and your conclusion so inconsequential that it plainly appears you began your Epistle in a passion and without a due consideration of those things which in course follow upon one another Otherwise how could you say to your most Reverend Diocesan That as you have the satisfaction of doing your duty in obeying his Lordship's command for Printing the Sermon you Preached at his last solemn Ordination so you hope others will have so much at least in Reading of it as to be convinced how unjustly you have been not long since represented to the world as an enemy to the very being of Churches in general and to the constitution of this Church in particular Pray how does it follow because you Preached sound and orthodox Divinity at that one time that you had never Preached or Printed any thing Erroneous or Heretical before Or what connexion is there in this such a one is now a sound Divine and therefore he was so always Had you in that Sermon made it appear that my Accusation was not True or that I had said you would never retract those unsound tenents that I accused you of then you might have depended with some tolerable assurance upon the Reader 's conviction of the injustice I had done you But since so it is that you neither attempted to clear your self concerning those things I accused you of neither did I say you would never retract them to infer injustice on my part because some years after that I had accused you you Preached a Sermon which was Orthodox in those points wherein I said you were once defective is a conclusion he alone can be guilty of whose common perceptions are choaked with Choler No Man could suspect that Dr. Stillingfleet made it had not the following part of the Epistle been of his Composure also consisting mostly of the like undecencies I said you were guilty of such Doctrines at the time when I Printed my Book but I did not say you would never retract them It was part of my design in writing that Book to inform you better and that you might come to a sense of those Errors which I apprehended at that time you were not sensible of I told you I judged a retractation necessary and that you ought to make one which was my crime in that I spake so plainly and boldly to you and no Man rejoyces more or thanks you more than I do for what you have performed of that nature in your Sermon You argue on at the same rate and say That my Calumny as you are pleased to call it is groundless and ridiculous because you have since proved the Church a distinct Society and vindicated her power in general and the particular constitution of this Church Now this supposes the truth of my accusation and that you once had asserted the contrary only I am so disingenuous that I take no notice of your retractation but still urge that first Error against you and this is the full of all that you can be interpreted to plead for your self The conclusion indeed seems larger
Reformation had been a more apt and proper Epithete Furthermore I will appeal to the whole World whether it be not more pardonable to imitate a King in his laudable Actions and Policies performable by him as a Man than to resemble him to so base and abject a person as a Postillion is known to be The Doctor very well knows that this is one rule always to be observed in taking a Metaphor That it be not from any thing filthy or sordid especially when the Translation is to Kings and it is very much to his disrepute that he who values himself at so great a rate for his stile and oratory should so grosly fail in the common and known rule of a Similitude And yet I will not be over rash and impute all to his mistake The intimacy that he says he had with Mr. William Petit Councellor of the Inner-Temple and that he had his Assistance and Directions as to the Laws and Customs of this Nation in writing his History of the Reformation give some suspicion that he might have no very high thoughts of our Kings Mr. Petit's late Printed Book indicates too much of his Temper and his choice of Doctor Burnet for the digesting and publishing his Collections argue too much of Doctor Bunnet's also and there 's no question to be made but that they consulted together as in order to the composing of the History of the Reformation of the Church so for the writing of that History of the Reformation of Kings which Mr. Petit a little after published under the Title of The Ancient Rights of the Commons of England c. in the Preface to which he delivers this as an undoubted and authentique story Apud Britannos populus magna ex parte principatum tenet pag. 4. and pag. 6. De minoribus rebus principes consultant de majoribus omnes Among the Britains the People have the Government for the most part The Princes consult concerning the lesser things but All concerning the greater And further says That Parliaments were instituted to hear and determine the Complaints and the wrongful Acts of the King the Queen and their Children Now all this very well agrees with the Metaphor of the Postillion and we may also hence conclude That it was not from the Doctor 's principles of Government but some other particular interest which is easily discerned that he publickly declared at the King's-Bench in Westminster-Hall He did not believe that part of the late most hellish Plot against the Person and Dignities of our late Sovereign King Charles II. of blessed Memory which was laid for seizing his Person and giving him only some due Chastisement Your disingenuity to your Superiors in the Church is as great as your injustice to King Charles the First of which an higher instance cannot be given than to represent them as Patrons to your Errors because they have been civil to your Person There is I see great care to be taken of treating some Men with common kindness And the arguing seems more particularly unbecoming those of your Complexion or Moderation whose temperamentum ad pondus or just mixture consists in this viz. To indulge every Man in his particular judgment and treat him with a fair converse when retaining quite different sentiments from him And I am very confident that your self will take it very ill from that Man which shall call you Phanatick because you have trimmed for them and drawn up a scheme of comprehension and had so frequent meetings with them at Doctor Burton's Chamber Besides the grand Case at the King's Bench-Bar at Westminster-Hall last Summer has made it fully appear That a Man may be under a heavy guilt and yet such be the circumstances as to persons and things that his Superiors cannot with prudence call him to an account and retribute to him his condign punishment nay farther so hard may the necessity be as to enforce from them a civil treat and with more especial kindness You plead That before the Church was re-established you received Episcopal Orders from an excellent Bishop of this Church which may be true and I question not but that it is But it is no proof that you were then an Episcopal Divine Several in those days took that prudent way upon this consideration because tho' some denied a Presbyter to be a Bishop yet all own'd a Bishop to be a Presbyter and consequently must accept of your Ordination The divine appropriated Right of the Bishop and singular Power enstated on him by Christ might not be considered by you in that action And in the last place you are very unjust to me in adding to all your other Calumnies this one viz. That I am therefore so severe unto you and enhaunse your supposed crime because an Offender my self as if it were some atonement for my own miscarriages to be always finding fault with my Brethren And tho' this Scandal be of less concern to the publick than those other which you laid upon the Royal Martyr and your Church Governors yet it is every way as groundless and false Whatever my other failings have been yet I dare appeal to and do provoke my greatest Enemies to produce one instance wherein I have declined or warped from any one publick duty interpretable to be incumbent upon me as a Subject or a Church-man But those Men that answer Books by Reproaches and purge themselves by Recriminations must be allowed to make use of all the Topicks that are within that compass and to improve their design by the general advantages it tenders to them A method used by your predecessor Dr. Burnet who after this manner discharges his Gall upon me You are pleased to acquaint the world That you received Episcopal Orders in the late Confusion and think it sufficient to vouch your early Zeal for our Church and Episcopacy I can say more That in the year 1658 I was made a Deacon by that most worthy Father and reverend Prelate Brian then Lord Bishop of Sarum and within that year had the further Power of the Priesthood conferr'd upon me And by virtue of this power I served the Church in the daily Ministrations according to the Rubricks and Law established but not protected among us the secular Power being disenabled to do it by reason of that most horrid Rebellion which was then prosperous I served the Church when she was not able to reward me when without a prospect of it and have had the honour to attend Mr. Peter Gunning at Exeter Chapel with the Chalice One that then look'd the Tyrant in the face 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Strom. 4. p. 480. and whom the Church of God in antient times would have placed among her most renowned Martyrs tho' he died in his Bed full of years and honour but the other day being Lord Bishop of Ely. And thus I have answered those little pleas you have given in for your self and wiped off those Calumnies that you laid upon me
and finished my first part Secondly I shall make it appear that the account you give of your Irenicum is not fair nor true and that you conceal your crime as much as in you lies in the representation the Design and Plot of it being mostly laid if not altogether against the Church of England And this I undertake to make good in these following Particulars 1. The main subject of your present debate you say is this Whether any one particular Form of Church-Government be setled upon an unalterable divine Right by Virtue whereof all Churches are bound to observe that individual Form or Whether it be left to the prudence of every particular Church to agree upon that Form of Government which it judgeth most conduceable within it self to attain the end of Government the Peace Order Tranquillity Setlement of the Church as is to be seen in the latter end of your Preface and Part 1. c. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 4. The first you determine in the Negative the second in the Affirmative the issue of both is this That God by his own Laws hath given Men a Power and Liberty to determine the particular Form of Church-Government among them you had done well if you had produced this Law of God and what the express words of it are none other being sufficient for a lasting divine institution by your own Rules but this is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That tho' one Form of Government be agreeable to the word it doth not follow that another is not or because one is lawful another is unlawful but one Form may be more agreeable to some parts places people and time than others are That the case is the same as to Church Government whether by many joyn'd together in an equality or by subordination of some persons unto others as it is to dipping or sprinkling in Baptism whether thrice or once As to attending the Lords Table whether at Supper time or in the Morning fasting or after meat You add whether kneeling or sitting or leaning and as to preaching the word you mean doubtless Whether by an Hour-glass or not Vid. Part I. Cap. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 3. § 2. p. 9 10. Part. II. Cap. 4. § 2. c. And hence it is as plain and obvious as words and consequences can make it That by the Law of God enstating Mankind with this perpetual indefectible Power the Independant Congregational Form of Government is equally to be received as the Presbyterian and Classical and either of them as the Episcopal and the Papal hath as firm a bottom as any of them all any one of them ought to be called and really is the Church of England and of God within this Dominion if the Pastors or the Magistrate or when these are knockt o' th' head the People or any one prevailing interest or faction shall appoint and setle it among us So that now you are for a Toleration of several Forms of Government by the Authority of the Church of England And it is plain whence our Sects had it when with so much confidence they said upon each occasion having obtained an indulgence from his late Majesty That they were the Church of England they meant according to Dr. Stilling fleet 's Irenicum And indeed according to this Principle of yours Richard Baxter's Conventicle in St. Martin's Parish in the Fields was once as much of the Church of England as Dr. Stilling fleet 's Church in St. Andrew's Holborn Neither is this the only Case that they use your Authority in thereby to rend in pieces this Church and I did not speak improperly nor without reason when I called that Treatise an unlucky Book This issue is plainly and clearly set down by Mr. Hobbs in his Leviathan Part III. Cap. 42. pag. 299 300. and upon your very Principles to whom you had an Ear no doubt From this consolidation of the Rights Politick and Ecclesiastick in Christian Sovereigns it is evident they have all manner of Power over their Subjects that can be given to Man for the Government of Mens external Actions both in Policy and Religion and may make such Laws as themselves shall judge fittest for the Government of their own Subjects both as they are the Common-Wealth and as they are the Church For both Church and State are the same Men which is your very notion as will appear anon If they please therefore they may as many Christian Kings now do commit the Government of their Subjects in matters of Religion to the Pope but then the Pope is in that point subordinate to them and exercises that charge in anothers Dominion jure civili in the right of the civil Sovereign not jure divino in God's right and may therefore be discharged of that office when the Sovereign for the good of his Subjects shall think it necessary They may also if they please commit the care of Religion to one supreme Pastor or to an Assembly of Pastors and give them what power over the Church or over one another they think most convenient and what Titles of Honour as of Bishops Archbishops Priests or Presbyters they will and these Rights are incident to all Severeigns whether Monarchs or Assemblies For they that are representants of a Christian People are representants of the Church for a Church and a Commonwealth of Christian People are the same thing The inconsistences and most pernicious insufferable consequents of this Principle are abundantly represented to the World by a most judicious Hand in the Case of the Church of England Part III. more particularly pag. 246 247 c. 2. You deny Episcopacy in particular or a Disparity of Power in the Ministry to be by the Laws of Christ always binding and immutable wherein you oppose to be sure the Church of England And further the overthrowing the immutable Right of Episcopacy seems to be the main thing you aim at throughout the whole Discourse tho' you pretend more for the management of which you all along mingle Fire and Water together urging any thing that will give a varnish or make a shew of Argument in order to it tho' really destructive to the common Christianity we all profess but either lightly touch or designedly pass by the most credible motives even demonstrations to the contrary even those which have been own'd for such by your self in the like cases This will appear to him that weighs these following Considerations To avoid this prelatical Power or Superiority of our Bishops you tell us That tho' it be proved that the Apostles had a Superiority of Order and Jurisdiction over the Pastors of the Church by an Act of Christ yet it must be farther proved That it was Christ's intention that Superiority should continue in their Successors or it makes nothing to the purpose Part I. Cap. 1. § 8. pag. 25. Where you do not consider That tho' it be proved that St. Peter and the other Apostles had by an Act of Christ the power of the
is You make Bishops for her as the Common-wealth-men make Kings by Accumulation not Deprivation in your Expressions just now mention'd and consequently retaining the Power entire to themselves they unmake them again when they please or to express it farther in your own words which are the aptest I have met withal When Persons and Circumstances Prudence and Discretion or the Interest of the Government requires it And so the Bishop like those inferior Officers of old as Sub-Deacons Acolouthi Door-keepers c. may be outed as the Perpetual Presbyter shall see occasion Mr. Prolocutor to the Assembly-men at Westminster never spake more bravely to the point And to fix all this surely on the less wary and inconsiderate Reader as a Nail driven by the Masters of our Assembly also you bring in several of our own Bishops for evidence against themselves and their Order in the days of Edward VI. and our whole Church establish'd by Law in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth As is to be seen in your Manuscripts and those other Citations throughout your last Chapter And when you had with so much ease and scorn rejected the Doctrines of all the Primitive Bishops in the case it was no small piece of confidence to think to carry your Cause by the testimony whether true or false of our own Prelates of the last Age. But you are not content to overthrow their Order unless you may fix such a Scandal upon their Persons as the Betrayers of it And indeed your stating this case of the mutability of Episcopacy can be only a design to fool and baffle it and thereby render it a very Babel or Idol in the language of its madder Adversaries and in the conception of every one else so trivially accidental a thing that it cannot be really contended for upon a Church account every accident giving occasion though Prudence will always be pretended for its abolition And it is observable That there are not any of your judgment that conclude themselves under an obligation to adhere unto it any longer than it supports and serves them by the advantage of the secular Power As the Church is that Tree in the Psalmist so Episcopacy is one of its bearing Boughs in which you can be content to sit and sing so long as you fill your Pockets but when the gathering time is over it is to be cut down as that which cumbereth the ground And you plead the same express directions for it our Saviour once gave concerning the Fig-tree in the Gospel I 'll state it together with the Presbyterian and Episcopal Hypotheses thereby to make it obvious upon the naked prospect The Presbyterian asserts That each Presbyter hath the whole Power of the Ministry and is enabled to discharge every Church-Office and that a restraint or enlargement is sinful The Episcoparian asserts That this Power is placed in the Bishop and Presbyter but unequally And that the Bishop hath some instances of it peculiar to his Order as Prerogatives and Incommunicable which if laid aside will be Sacrilege in him as also if assumed by the Presbyter You assert all that in the Presbyter and lose all that from the Bishop that the Presbyter desires and contends for only here is the difference You allow the Presbytery upon some occasions and in some instances of their Office to make a Deputy with a reserved Power to recal the Deputation at pleasure or upon each suspicion of his undue behaviour And this is the honour and service you do the Church of England These the Dissenters you tell us you design'd to gain upon and that your design did not want success both here and in a neighbouring Kingdom If you mean our Northern Neighbours I hope Episcopacy is setled there upon better grounds if it be not some of the thanks for it are due to you If you mean our Neighbours in the South they came over indeed but it is with their own Presbyterian Orders which they still adhere to as their commission from Christ The Episcopal Ordination which they receive here only enabling them for the Loaves to which they could have no right otherways by the Laws of our Kingdom And accordingly D. Blondel first offer'd his assistance to Archbishop Laud to write in defence of our Episcopacy whilst it was uppermost but upon the ensuing Rebellion he deserted it nay he turn'd his weapons against it Witness his Apologia pro Hieronymo which he Dedicated to the Rebellious Parliament and Schismatical Assembly at Westminster owning thereby the Vsurpation of the Regal Power in one and of the Episcopal in the other Salmasius did in effect the same and within the space of four Years both applauds and condemns Episcopacy and the Rump Parliament for removing it according to his present subject and design and John Milton the worst of Men takes from thence a just occasion to harangue and vilifie him in the Preface to his worst of Books Entituled Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio And the reasons for it are plain as themselves state the case the Bishop's Consecration being only an humane Rite performed at his Deputation and Enlargment to the execution of that Power which he had before when he was made a Presbyter by virtue of which there is no farther power conferr'd but only a Church Blessing with Imposition of Hands a legally qualifying him for possession according to the particular custom of that Kingdom in which he is to exercise his Episcopal Function And lastly for our own Country-men it may be wished some of them have not on this score also received Episcopal Ordination and then they may be bound to thank you because they kept their Benefices thereby and had farther accession of Church Dignities upon his late Majesty's blessed return But I cannot think it is for this that your Superiors in the Church have for so long a time been pleased to treat you with that kindness you seem to boast of Sure I am all the kindness you have done hereby to the Church of England and her Bishops may be put in their Eyes and they see never the worse for it Tho' I will not say so of the unkindness she hath received from you Besides it will farther appear with what affection and byass you wrote this Treatise if we consider your different behaviour to the Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England and the Presbyterians Independents even Anabaptists and Quakers upon each occasion It is but a little to reflect upon those slender civilities which you shew all along to that great and eminent Divine Dr. Henry Hammond one that was every ways great and considerable provoking reverence and respect from his Adversaries that were in any measure civilized Such was his Learning Integrity Courage in those perillous times he lived in the Ark it self rested peculiarly upon his Shoulders But I say your unhandsom behaviour to him may easier be passed by because he was but one single Doctor in our Church you seem to treat him with
or Believers in common The Presbyters indeed make the lower House of Convocation in our Church of England but the reason of that is from a particular Law in our Kingdom which imbodies no Canons giving to them the Secular protection but such as pass the Votes of all the inferior Clergy of the Nation represented by the Presbyters that sit there as well as the Votes of the upper Clergy or Bishops Such Stuff have you put together and yet there is worse for you add The utmost then can be supposed in this case is That the parts of the Church may voluntarily consent to accept the decrees of such a Council and by that voluntary act or by the Supreme Authority enjoining it such decrees may become Obligatory As pure Irenicum as any in the World. I 'll add but one instance more by which it will farther appear how you run against or at least evade the true Power of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church vested in them by Christ for the obliging the whole and it is that of Schism which in prosecution of your foregoing notion you assert pag. 290. to be a violation of that Communion which Christians are obliged to upon the acknowledgment of the truth of Christian Religion or upon owning Christianity the way to true Happiness Quisquis ille est qualiscunque est Christianus non est qui in Ecclesia Christi non est Cypr. de Novato Ep. 52. Inde enim schismata haereses oboriuntur dum Episcopus qui unus est Ecclesiae preest superba quorundam praesumptione contemnitur Et homo dignatione Dei honoratus indignus hominibus judicatur Idem Ep. 171. Et non attendisti inter schismaticos haereticos quam magna distantia sit inde est quod ignoras quae sit sancta Ecclesia omnia miscuisti Optat. cont Parmen Donatist lib. 1. Catholicum facit simplex verus intellectus singulare verum sacramentum unitas animorum Schisma verò sparso coagulo pacis generatur deserta matre Catholica impii filii dum foras exeunt se separant à radice matris Ecclesiae invidiae falcibus amputati errando rebelles abscedunt nec possunt novum aliquid aut aliud agere quam quod jamdudum apud suam matrem didicerunt Haeretici veritatis exules sacri symboli desertores c. de se nosci voluerunt ideo falsum habent Baptisma Vobis vero Schismaticis quamvis in Catholica non sitis haec negari non possunt quia nobiscum vera communia traxistis Sacramenta ibid. the very Schism in the days of St. Paul at Corinth For if he that cometh Preacheth another Jesus whom we have not Preached or if ye receive another Spirit which ye have not received or another Gospel which ye have not accepted ye might well bear with him 2 Cor. 11.4 Immanes non habentes Dei dilectionem suam utilitatem potius considerantes quam unitatem Ecclesiae propter modicas quaslibet causas magnum gloriosum corpus Christi conscindunt dividunt quantum in ipsis est interficiunt pacem loquentes bellum operantes vere liquantes culicem camelum diglutientes Nulla enim ab iis tanta fieri potest correptio quanta est Schismatis corruptio Irenaeus l. 4. c. 62. Sed crimine Schismatis à quo immanissimo Sacrilegio nemo vestrum se dicere potest immunem quamdiu non communicat unitati omnium gentium Aug. l. 2. Cont. Petil. Donatist c. 96. Quid ergò prodest homini vel sana fides vel sanum fortasse solum fidei Sacramentum Vbi letali vulnere Schismatis perempta est sanitas charitatis per cujus solius peremptionem etiam illa integra trabuntur ad mortem Idem l. 1. de Baptismo contra Donatist c. 8. Nobiscum enim estis in Baptismo in Symbolo in caeteris dominicis Sacramentis in Spiritu autem unitatis in ipsa denique Catholica Ecclesia nobiscum non estis Ep 48. Vincentio Quisquis ab hac Ecclesia Catholica fuerit separatus quantumlibet laudabiliter se vivere existimet hoc solo scelere quod à Christi unitate disjunctus est non habebit vitam sed ira Dei manet supra eum Ep. 152. And so in the Apostles Canons Can 31. The Schismatick is he that altare aliud erigit nolente Episcopo Can. 6. Conc. Constant 2. Gen. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called Schismaticks tho' of a sound Faith. Schisma est recessio à proprio Episcopo Can. 13. Conc. 1 2 Constantinop And to the same effect Can. 10. Conc Carthag 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contra proprium Episcopum I 'll add but this one Authority more and it is St. Basil ad Amphiloc Can. 1. Haereses quidem eos qui omnino abrupti sunt in ipsa fide sunt abalienati Schismata autem propter aliquas Ecclesiasticas causas medicabiles questiones inter se dissident Schisma autem est de penitentia dissentire ab iis qui sunt ex Ecclesia Haereses autem ut Manichaeorum Valentinorum Marcionistarum c. statim enim de ipsa in deum fide est dissentio herein contradicting all the ancient Fathers Doctors and Teachers of the Church of God and the whole current of Theology who still speak of Schism as a breach of the Laws and Canons Ecclesiastical of which those are guilty who receive and own the Foundation or the Scriptures as the indispensable Rule of Faith and Manners but recede from their Pastors or Bishop that break the outward peace when owning the same Articles of Faith and for little things make divisions And in this respect it is that St. Austin lays such blame upon the Donatists telling them That a true Faith will avail them nothing nay that they are worse than Idolaters Dr. Hammond in his Book of Schism considers it also in this Ecclesiastical notion and therefore concludes us to be no Schismaticks not because retaining your essentials or being of a Church consisting in a belief in Christ and walking in him but because keeping those due Subordinations in which our Christianity placed us in respect of our Church-Governors whether to the Deacon or Presbyter or Bishop Metropolitan Exarch or Patriarch as also that due co-ordination as fellow Christians without breaches of Charity made upon one another And to what end you should give this notion of it differing both from the Church of God and our own Doctors is not conceiveable only that you designed thereby to gratifie and comply with those amongst us whose Maxime is That to strike a Schismatick is to hit a Saint That Schism in this Church-Sense of it is a meer Chimera invented only by Church-men to keep the People in Dependence and Subjection unto them that Vnity does not consist in Vniformity but in owning the general Truths of the Gospel and obeying them or believing in Christ and walking
in him to which every Man may attain by his personal Capacity antecedent to the being of a Church and Church-Governors Or in the words of Mr. Hales made your own by citing of them in your Irenicum pag. 108. Schism is but a Theological Scar-crow set up by such as hold a Party in Religion And by consequence the Church of England is upon the same terms in respect of the Church of Rome as the Dissenters are in respect of the Church of England The Impositions of both are alike Anti-Christian which is again the very Doctrine of the Irenicum Your Answer to several Treatises c. is the next of your Writings that I have pitcht upon whence to inform my self and others of your particular Judgment in these points of Church-Power and its Obligation And that which I hence report will be so much more satisfactory because in your Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical c. you refer him hither from pag 260. to pag. 291. as those Pages in which you maintain as much Authority in the Church of England as ever the Church of England challenged to her self But here you have left the Church in the same condition you had placed her in before and altogether without Power to make her Declarations Law whether in Council or out of it and the Office assigned by you to her Pastors is to Teach Instruct Propose and Recommend engaging them in Toil and Labour enough in order to the search of Truth but they are no where vested with an Authority to oblige the whole Body of Christians or the Church diffusive Each Private Man is left at Liberty to receive or reject according to his Eye-sight and as he apprehends the Reasons Motives Tradition Context Criticism or inward Revelation of that which is delivered And you say withal That the ancient Church did not pretend to more Authority as is to be seen in the Pages foregoing As for that branch of Authority you assign her in making Rules and Canons about matters of Order and Decency in the Church it is no more than in effect you had said before in your Irenicum and accordingly you refer to it in the point in the Preface to the Vnreasonableness of Separation where notwithstanding you contend with all might and main sometimes against the Laws themselves as Anti-Christian sometimes against the execution of them that they be not imposed upon doubtful Consciences as I have already shew'd And you have since been engaged for a Toleration or Non-execution of Church-Laws in the said Preface pag. 83 84 85. then when you had Preached but a little before against Separation and this is the last and all the account that I can give of you in this affair He that is most favourable to you must yield that you are wavering and unfixed in your Judgment And did you really believe that there is an advantage on the side of Authority which ought to over-rule the Practice of such who are the Members of that Church where the Authority is exercised as you speak you would also be so kind to Dissenters as to urge with more constancy upon them their duty in obeying as a Private Man you ought to propose nothing less unto them Tho' I cannot see why we should less doubt of your good will to them and their Cause when you drew up those Terms and Articles of Toleration than of Coleman's kindness to the Papists when he drew up his Declaration for Dissolving the Long Parliament in order to a Toleration also And it will be difficult to determine which of the two was more presumptuous I know what course the Ancient Church would have taken with a Private Presbyter who after a full debate in Council seconded with a Church Sanction and confirmed by the Imperial Constitution should have dared to have made Proposals or draw up Rules and Limitations and make them publick in opposition thereunto and yet this was not your first attempt of this nature your good will to Comprehension Latitudinarian Principles hath all along been manifest and notorious Those many Meetings which you and your Church of England and Mr. Baxter and his Church of England had were not so private but that some took notice of them where you made Proposals for altering the Church Government setled and confirmed by all that is sacred in Church and State. And the reason is plain why those Men afterwards dealt so severely with you of which you complain in the above-mentioned Preface upon that Sermon which was Preached before my Lord Mayor because after your healing Condescensions in private you appear'd a Revolter and Apostate and they were to deal with you as one that had broken his Faith. If some other had Preached that Sermon they might possibly have born with him he acting according to his principles when you were not to be endured tu Brute their Friend with whom they took sweet Council together concerning the House of God. I add farther 1. That in your Treatise of the Vnreasonableness of Separation you no where that I could take notice of have pressed Christians to Obedience as they are a Corporation imbodied under Governors and Laws of their own which is the original and fundamental Obligation to submission and conformity arising from the nature of that Kingdom which Christ erected by the promulgation of the Gospel of which Kingdom every true Christian is a Subject I do not deny but that your performance is competently well done upon your principles and so far as it reacheth You have abundantly set forth the reasonableness of our Book of Common-Prayer in the Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies and urged Obedience thereunto from the destructive consequences that must inevitably follow in that Church or Society of Christians which retains not an Vniformity of Worship and more especially this reasonable one that we have in our Church of England But all is left still as matter of Dispute like the Corporation it self as Arbitrary and at the pleasure of its Subjects to retain or reject them and he that sees not with your Eyes by your own principles hath no Obligation for Obedience and Conformity to any one Rubrick Law or Injunction therein contained And it is observable in your Epistle Dedicatory that you beg pardon indeed of your Superiors for going beyond your bounds in your projects of accommodation But it is not for any one reason relating to them as your Governors or because you have been injurious thereby to their Power and Government in the Church of God which you in so doing had inroaded and invaded But because forsooth the Dissenters would not come up to you and their untractableness rendred your Project useless admit you had jump'd together and united in the project What then Why you had never begged their pardon And it was success not design was wanting by your own confession The very case of Coleman Besides is not this a delicate Apology for your self After
you have Mountebank'd and Quack'd for full Five and twenty Years and find your Patient worse and worse under your hands and that you are unable to work a Cure you then return him to the Church and her Laws of Discipline for a just Habit and Temperature The College of Physicians I am sure would not think themselves beholden to such an Empirick 2. The reason which you give for that great tenderness you shew'd to Dissenters when writing the Irenicum Preface pag. 84. or that plenary Toleration all Men ought to have is because the Laws were not then Established and return it upon them that they have not very well requited you for the tenderness and pity you had for them and the concernment you expressed to have brought them in upon easier terms than were since required But pray was not the Church of England the same under the Rump Parliament and Cromwel and the Committee of Safety as it now is And what had you to do to enlarge or limit her terms then more than now It was then a Pragmatick Encroachment and so it is now I do not believe that Bishop of this Church from whom you say you received in those days Episcopal Orders gave you any such Directions I am sure you received no such Authority at your Ordination by him When the Empire frowns upon the Church or Anarchy relaxates the due Exercise of her Worship and Discipline Church-men and every good Christian are to consider what is most necessary to be practised And some directions are given in the case by the Author of the Discourse of Church-Power c. cap. 5. But none are to think themselves acquitted of their Obedience to Church-Laws during the Suspension or Interregnum much less that they are Authorized to prescribe easier terms and acquit the first Obligation Besides this Answer and Practice is no ways agreeing with him who hath told us That the Church is a peculiar Society in its own Nature distinct from the Commonwealth subsisting by Powers of its own apart from it subjected in the hands of its own Officers by a Charter from Christ never to be divorced but remaining formally in the Church after its being incorporated into the Commonwealth For how can this Church be disestablished by any confusions in the State or lose this Power All that can be said in your behalf is this and I am resolved to say what is to be said for you That according to this reason you do not believe the Power that is enstated on the Officers in this Body and Association for governing the whole to extend to Acts and Laws restraining their Liberties in these cases or that the Church is a Body subsisting by her own Laws but assert the Legislative Power in the Secular Hand which being at that time so much lessened in this Church and Kingdom you thereby amongst the rest of the Arbitrary Subjects became at liberty to act apart and did so conceiving that no Law as a Church-man or in Episcopal Orders did enjoin you the contrary And hence it 's plain why in the Appendix to the Irenicum where we have also the above-mentioned Definition of a Church you say That you have slit the Hair betwixt the Church and State adjusting to each that Power which belongs to them when you name only Excommunication and Administration of the Sacraments as her Rites And hence it is as evident also as any thing can be That I did not Steal my considerable Arguments out of this Appendix which I used in behalf of that other instance of the Power of the Church viz. to govern her own Body by her own Laws the asserting whereof makes up the Body of my Discourse And it farther appears That that was not one of those points concerning which you saw reason to alter your Judgment in Twenty Years time As in the Preface to the Vnreasonableness c. 3. In that Preface pag. 53. upon the clamors of Dissenters by reason of your Sermon against Separation and that you Preached not for Abatements and Alterations and taking away Ceremonies and Subscriptions and leaving them full Liberty to do what they pleased by which you might have gained their good Opinion and have been thought to have Preach'd a very seasonable Sermon Or in plain English because you did not make Proposals for Toleration as you did a little after To all this you suggest supposing my private Opinion were never so much for some Abatements to be made that might tend to strengthen and unite Protestants and were consistent with our Nations setlement had it been seasonable to have spoken of the alteration of Laws before Magistrates and Judges who are tied up to the Laws in being What the Power of Magistrates and Judges is relating to Church-Laws I have shew'd at large elsewhere and that according to the constitution of the Empire when Christian and the Statute Book of our Kingdom since the Reformation And I do allow your Plea to be just and good Christian Magistrates always were and still are Preservers and Executors of Church-Laws the Church owes her support in a great measure unto them And it is impious as well as unseasonable for a private Man but much more for a Man in the Pulpit to make Proposals for Nullities and Repeals of those Laws and Enfranchisements which the Religious favour of the Prince hath granted God's Church and the Zeal and Vigilance of good Magistrates take care to preserve entire and serviceable unto her But yet this is not all the guilt that is contracted or undecency that is committed by such attempts There is a Church-Power which you have defined to be distinct from the State and remaining in the Church after its Incorporation into the Commonwealth And no other reason can be given why your doing the same before these Magistrates and Judges had not been alike unseasonable or why you pleaded not the equal regard which you ought to have to them also only that you in reality are still of your Irenicum judgment viz. That the other Magistrates are the Church and all Power to make Church-Laws or execute them relating to outward decency and order is invested in them and that there is no Legislative Power enstated by Christ on his Officers You who could tell your Story and defame me to your Bishop whom I honour as one that is vested with the utmost of Power that our Saviour was pleased to have continued in his Church till his coming again and do owe an Obedience in special unto him and all that are of that Sacred and Superior Order in God's Church in your Epistle Dedicatory might have consider'd also that he was your Diocesan or that Spiritual Magistrate to whom you owe a more immediate Subjection and in respect of whom an attempt to alter Establish'd Laws had been equally unseasonable Neither did the absence of his Person at the Guild-Hall Chapel render him less awful and tremendous unto you 4. When you come to the Discourse
it self Pag. 134. you seem at least too unwary in your Expression asserting That if the whole Nation in Parliament consent to the passing a Law for removal of Pastors and putting in of others this is sufficient for the satisfaction of that People to whom they are appointed as Pastors by virtue of that Power or for the making them true Pastors I yield that the right of Investiture is originally in the Secular hand and by consequence the right of deprivation upon the breach of those terms on which the Investiture is made Thus Abiathar was removed and Zadok put in his room But the question is supposing Zadok had not been of the Priestly Line Whether Solomon's placing him in the High-Priest's Chair did by virtue of his Kingly Power alone create him High-Priest and the People were thereupon bound to own and submit to his Ministry Or to bring an instance nearer home supposing an Act of Parliament appoint a certain Person to be Minister in such a Parish when he is really no Minister because without Ordination from a Bishop Whether by virtue of that Law he is made a true Minister and ought to be received as such by that People to whom by Act of Parliament he is sent No understanding Christian will own him as his Minister upon such terms We have a great instance of this nature in the Church of Scotland about Fourteen Years since The Secular Power commanded Dr. Burnet Archbishop of St. Andrews to admit into particular Churches and in the relation of Ministers certain Men that had no Episcopal Orders and by consequence were not of the Gospel Priesthood the most excellent and exemplary Prelate refused for this reason Because the Prince may promote to what temporal Possessions he please but he cannot promote to the Authority which is Spiritual as to the former he must be submitted to but not as to the latter And his Lordship was a great example of the last case for denying their Institution he was Suspended from his Bishoprick and sustained it with a due resignation tho' the Government upon second thoughts restored him with greater honour and estimation in which he died But as to the more immediate question and which occasioned this Section you ought to have urged That the consent of the People did not constitute a Minister neither was it any necessary qualification in order to it as Mr. Baxter and his Combination pretended But instead of doing this you reply That an Act of Parliament is sufficient to constitute him such which savours too much of the old Vessel I confess the consequents would be really evil in the Government both of Church and State if he be an Usurper in a Parish to whom the People do not consent the disorders thereby must become intolerable and the consequents would be as noxious on the other hand if the Parliament had the Power of qualifying for it For then the Ministry will be quite swallowed up in the State and every Usurper be his Religion what it will may alter the Priesthood or as in the days of Jeroboam make Priests of whom he please But thus it fares with your Arguments and it is their usual fault That they prove too much You take away Infallibility and the Ministry at once in other places and maintain here the Secular Power to the destruction of the Spiritual I 'll receive him in Seculars whom my Prince is pleased to set over me but none in Spirituals who hath not an Authority which the Secular hand cannot derive unto him 5. But that which crowns all is Pag. 300. when you scatter those mists which some pretend to have before their Eyes that they cannot clearly see what we mean by the Church of England and tell us it is so called because it was received by the common consent of the whole Nation in Parliament Surely if now we be not a Parliament Church we never were in the opinion of any nor ever shall be Should any Man ask me what the Church of England is I would tell him It is that due Succession of Authority Doctrine Worship and Discipline which are now made Law in the Kingdom of England but if that Law ceaseth to own and protest them I should not thereby think it to become less the Church of England For certain there was a Church of England when there was no Parliaments in England according to those who carry their aera or date to the highest pitch And we say There was the very Church of England that now is and neither Parliament nor Pope had appeared in our Coast Besides What if the Parliament of England pass a Bill of Abjuration against the present Church as they did the other day against the Crown of England The Rump Parliament did it Why then your definition of the Church of England is much at the same as Socrates defined a Man Homo est Animal bipes implume A Man is a living Creature with two Feet and without Feathers Diogenes's Jackdaw was as good a Man when he had pluckt his Feathers off The being of the Church of England does not depend upon any such outward advantages or upon the Votes of the People whether in Parliament or out of it We thankfully own the outward advantages she has had and now enjoys by Parliaments but we own withal her separate Being abstracted from them the Church of God here in England is antecedent to them all One while I was willing to think That this Book was wrote by you at a time when the general design was on Foot for enlarging the Privileges of Parliaments or rather of the House of Commons by the Men of Shaftsbury and you might think your self engaged to cast in something and if so you add that which is very considerable making the Being of the Church of England to depend upon their owning and acceptance of it The Kingdom must have Parliaments once a Year at least only for this for otherwise we may have no Church once a Year But then again this seems not to be the reason because I find you to have been of the same Judgment some years before and you reckon up this among the Encroachments and Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome and spoil thereby a good cause viz. That Acts of Parliament were no certain indications of the Judgment of the Church or the generality of the People in that time Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical c. pag. 448. I must therefore conclude that you were somewhat discomposed neither is this the only unwary expression you have let fall within the distance of one or two Pages For you there mix the Pastors and People together as of the same Church diffusive You say farther That to assert in every Church a constitutive regent part as essential to it is the same as the Pope's universal Pastorship And again That the Acts of the Convocation are to be allow'd and enacted by the King and the three States of the Kingdom Flatly against the King's Prerogative in making Church-Laws by the Convocation alone As also your term National Church is as incongruous as any National Congregational Classical are Relatives and give life to one another 6. It doth not appear why you Reprinted that scandalous Manuscript which so immediately opposeth all Church-Power in the utmost latitude of it and by the Authority of so many of our most eminent Reformers Nay farther with an artifice to conceal Archbishop Cranmer's Retraction unless it be to give all the seeming Authority you could to the Doctrines there asserted There is not one Note in the Margent by which it appears that you had then altered your first conceptions of it as Printed in the Irenicum Nay you have own'd and justified it in part in your Epistle to my Lord of London or if there be any alteration made it is least there might be occasion to suspect that Cranmer had deserted you 3. And in the last place you have made no satisfaction at all to the Church of God for that Irenicum Doctrine which equals the Presbyter with the Bishop There is not any thing like amends for it in all your writings that I have met with It is true you often speak of Episcopacy as the most ancient Government derivable from the Apostles But you have not any where asserted it in the number of those Institutions and Practices Apostolical which are perpetual and immutable And until you say this all you can say besides is to no purpose The Bishop is notwithstanding at the mercy of your Prince or your Presbyters when their prudence sees fit to degrade and depose him There is no more Obligation to continue the distinct order of Bishops than that order of Widows in the Epistle to Timothy And thus Sir I have shew'd that you have not made due satisfaction for those errors in your Irenicum concerning the Power of the Church in general and the constitution of our Church in particular of which I accused you in my Letter dated May 1. 1682. I have also shew'd more at large the grounds of my Accusation I beg only this Favour of you That if you think fit to return an Answer you will do it in a Scholar-like way i. e. by Argument and Matter of Fact not Raylings and Nick-names it is really below your quality in the Church to Act Andrew Marvel It was thought by J. O. to be a thing below him And therefore we know on whom he set that Buffoon when his case was much at one with yours and he wanted argument Besides tho' Dr. Burnet was pleased to assign me the Province yet I am not at leasure to catch Flies But if you keep to these terms I shall certainly make a reply and you will thereby oblige Novemb. 6. 1685. Reverend Sir Your Humble Servant SIMON LOWTH FINIS