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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45214	A defence of the humble remonstrance, against the frivolous and false exceptions of Smectymnvvs wherein the right of leiturgie and episcopacie is clearly vindicated from the vaine cavils, and challenges of the answerers / by the author of the said humble remonstrance ; seconded (in way of appendance) with the judgement of the famous divine of the Palatinate, D. Abrahamvs Scvltetvs, late professor of divinitie in the University of Heidelberg, concerning the divine right of episcopacie, and the no-right of layeldership ; faithfully translated out of his Latine.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Scultetus, Abraham, 1566-1624. Determination of the question, concerning the divine right of episcopacie.	1641 (1641)	Wing H378; ESTC R9524	72,886	191

could not but bleed to see but withall desired to have had them lesse publique your charity accuseth mee of excusing them and blaming my humble motion of Constantines example professe to desire the blazoning of them to the World Whether of us shall give a better account of our charity to the God of peace I appeale to that great Tribunall In your next Section like ill-bred sonns you spit in the face of your mother A Mother too good for such sonnes The Church of England and tell us of Papists that dazle the eyes of poore people with the glorious name of the holy Mother the Church If they bee too fond of their Mother I am sure your Mother hath little cause to be fond of you Who can and dare compare her to those Aethiopian strumpets which were common to all commers For your whole undutifull carriage towards her take heed of the Ravens of the valley As if wee were no lesse strangers then you enemies to the Church of England you tell the World that wee know not who she is and that we wonder when wee are askt the question and run descant upon the two Archbishops Bishops Convocation Even what your luxuriant wit shall please and at last you make up your mouth with a merry jest telling your Reader that the Remonstrant out of his simplicity never heard nor thought of any more Churches of England then one Ridiculum caput Sit you merry Brethren but truly after all your sport still my simplicity tells mee there is but one Church of England There are many Churches in England but many Churches of England were never till now heard of You had need fetch it as farre as the Heptarchie And to shew how far you are from the objected simplicity yee tell us in the shutting up that England Scotland and Ireland are all one Church Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae But now take heed of Obelisks You professe you for your parts do acknowledge no Antiprelaticall Church I am glad to heare it nor I neither but I beseech you if you make and condemne a Prelaticall Church of England what shall bee the other part of the Contradistinction The Remonstrant tels you of further divisions and subdivisions which upon this ground you must necessarily make of the Church your deepe wisdomes take this as of his upbrading of the divisions in the Church in meer matter of Opinion and fly out into the censures of the Prelaticall party as the cause thereof and would have them say Mitte nos in Mare non erit tempestas The truth is the severalties of Sects and their separate Congregations about this Citie are many and lamentable I doe not upbraid but bewaile them The God of Heaven be Iudge where the fault rests and if it bee his holy will finde some speedy redresse but in the mean time one casts it upon faction another upon ungrounded rigour wheresoever it bee Woe bee to those by whom the offence commeth Lay you your hands on your hearts onwards and consider well Whether your fomenting of so unjust and deep dislikes of lawfull government have not been too much guilty of these wofull breaches As one that love that peace of the Church which you are willing to trouble I perswading an unity ask what bounders you set what distinction of Professors you make what grounds of Faith what new Creed what different Scriptures Baptisme means of salvation are held by that part which you mis-call the Prelaticall Church You answer according to your wonted Charity and Truth What bounds Those you say of the sixth Canon from the high and lofty Promontory of Archbishops to the Terra incognita of an c. Witty again Alas brethren if this bee all the Lists are too narrow Here are but four ranks of Dignities and few in each put if that inclusive c. reach far yet what will you make of all this Doe you exclude Bishops Deans Archdeacons c. from being members of the Church of England sure you dare not bee so shamefully unjust If therefore that they have an interest in the Prelacy cannot exclude them for their interest in the Church What becomes of your bounders This is fit work for your Obelisk What distinction you say worshiping to the East bowing to the Altar prostituting perhaps you meane prostrating themselvs in their approches into Churches and are these fit distinctions brethren whereupon to ground different churches if they difference men doe they difference Christians What new Creed you say Episcopacie by divine right is the first article of their Creed For shame brethren did ever man make this an article of faith who will thinke you worthy to have any faith given you in the rest of your assertions you adde absolute and blind obedience to all the commandements of Bishops Blush yet again Bretheren blush to affirme this when you well know that the words of the oath of Canonicall obedience run only In omnibus licitis honestis mandatis in all lawfull and honest commands You adde Election upon faith foreseene What nothing but grosse untruths Is this the doctrine of the Bishops of England have they not strongly confuted it in Papists in Arminians have they not cry'd it downe to the pit of Hell What means this wickedly false suggestion judge Reader if here bee not work for Obelisks What Scripture you say Apocrypha and Traditions unwritten Mark I beseech you unwritten Traditions are Scriptures first then Apocrypha and why I pray you is it more our Apocrypha then yours Are all our Bibles Prelaticall too Shortly all those Churches and houses and persons that have the Apocrypha in their Bibles belong to the Church Prelaticall what have wee lost by the match What Baptisme What Eucharist You tell us of the absolute necessity which some Popish fooles have ascribed to the one and of an Altar and table set Altarwise in the other What are these to the Church of England doth the errour of every addle head or the sight or posture of a Boord make a different Church What Christ You answere near to a blasphemy A Christ who hath given the same power of absolution to a Priest that himselfe hath This can be nothing but a slanderous fiction No Christian Divine ever held that a Priests power of absolution was any other then ministeriall Christs Soveraign and absolute If you know the man bring him forth that he may be stoned What Heaven you say such as is receptive of Drunkards Swearers Adulterers Brethren take heed of an Hel whiles you fain such an Heaven and feare lest your uncharitableness will no lesse bar you out of the true Heaven above then you bar Prelaticall sinners from their accesse thereinto but if you had rather goe on still in your owne way separate your selves from us that professe wee are one with you Charge upon us those doctrines and opinions which wee hate no whit lesse then your selves fasten upon the Church of England those

hereticke Brethren God speed you well with your Question As for the first which is edifying the Church by Word and Sacraments we make no difference your distance may we both hold it our worke and make it so and if any one have beene slack herein the fault is personall we neither defend nor excuse it The maine quarrell you grant to be in the second which is the power of Ordination impropriated as you enviously and untruly speake to our selves This you say was in former times in the hands of the Presbyters and undertake to prove it from 1 Tim. 4.14 Neglect not the gift which was given thee by Prophesie and by laying on the hands of Presbytery a place that hath received answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I wonder ye can so presse when Calvin himselfe as you well know in his learned Institutions even in his last and ripest judgement construes it quite otherwise taking it of the office and not of the men however elsewhere otherwise wherein he also followes the judgement of Ierome Primasius Anselme Haymo Liranus Erasmus and others as our learned Bishop Downam hath largely shewed To countenance this sense of yours you tel us you find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so taken in Scripture and cite Luc. 22.66 and Act. 22.5 Wherein you do meerly delude the reader you find indeed the Elders of the people so called but the Elders of the Church never to make good your own construction therefore you must maintaine that Lay-men did and must lay on hands in Ordination which Calvin himself utterly abominates Neither need we to give any other satisfaction to the point thē that which we have from S. Paul himselfe 1 Tim. 3.6 Stirre up the gift of God which is in thee by the imposition of my hands mine not others I aske then Was Timothy ordained more then once once surely S. Pauls hands were laid upon him when therefore the Presbyters Yes you say this was a joynt act of both else the Harmony of Scripture is not maintained Pardon me Brethren if I think Mr. Calvin was more skilled in the harmony of Scripture then our selves yet in his eare it sounded well that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be the Office to which Timothy was ordained by Paul and not a company of men that ordained him Yet give me leave to marvell how you can have the boldnesse to say This power is communicated to Presbyters when you know that not onely other Antiquity but even Hierome himself and that Councell of Aquisgrane which you cite doe still except Ordination which yet we doe not so appropriate as to lay our hands alone upon the head of any Presbyter The third part of our office consists in Ruling which though our Bishops you say assumed to themselves you will discover to have bin committed to and exercised by Presbyteriall hands For evidence whereof you cite Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the Rule over you for they watch for your souls Brethren what an injurious imputation is this Do we not give you the title of Rectores Ecclesiarum Doe we not in your institution commit to you regimen animarum Why will ye therefore bear your Readers in hand that we herein rob you of your right It is true that here is a just distinction to be made betwixt the government of soules in severall Congregations and the government of the Church consisting of many Congregations that task is yours this is the Bishops wherein their rule yet is not Lordly but brotherly or paternall your argument reacheth not home to this and yet you strain that place of 1 Thes 5.12 beyond the due breadth whiles you tenter it out to either a paritie or communitie of censure Injoy now what you have so victoriously purchased but give me leave to summe up my reckonings also Since then how ever the name was at first promiscuously used yet the Office of Bishops and Presbyters differed even by Apostolike Institution and the Acts pertaining thereto of Ordination and power of ordinary government and censures were in that very first age of the Church manifestly differenced therefore Bishops and Presbyters were not one SECT VI. THE practise of the Apostles is so farre from contradicting their rules which your brotherly charity would fasten upon my assertion as that it is a most cleare proof and illustration of it Their practise is irrefragable in the charge which they gave to Timothy and Titus as we shall prove in due place Now if to this we shall adde the unquestionable glosse of the more cleare practise of their immediate successors I know not what more light can be desired for the manifestation of this truth Whereto ye boldly answer If this gloss corrupt not the text we shall admit it implying therein too presumptuously that the universall practise of the whole Primitive Church succeeding the Apostles may prove a Burdeaux-glosse to marre the Text. Brethren goe you your owne way let me erre with such guides But ye are disposed to be liberall somewhat ye will grant us besides that which we grant you It is agreed that the name of Bishops and Presbyters were at first promiscuously used It is yeelded by you That in process of time some one was honoured with the name of Bishop and the rest were called Presbyters But what I beseech you was this process of time Here lies your either error or fraud We doe justly and confidently defend that this time had no processe at all it was in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the living Apostles which we shall plainly make good in the sequell It is also yeelded that this was not nomen inane but seconded with some kind of imparity What then is the difference All the question you say is of divine right and Apostolicall institution of this imparity Let me beseech the Reader to consider seriously of the state of this difference in the mistaking whereof I have not a little unjustly suffered And to remember how I have expressed it in my Remonstrance fetching the pedegree of Episcopacy from Apostolicall and therefore in that right Divine institution And interpreting my self not to understand by divine right any expresse Law of God requiring it upon the absolute necessity of the being of a Church but an institution of Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost warranting it where it is and requiring it where it may be had Now whether it may be thus Apostolicall or a meerly humane and Ecclesiasticall invention is the question in hand On your part you say stand Ierome and Ambrose Two stiffe champions indeed And surely I must needs confesse this is the onely countenance of your cause which yet hath been blanked more then once Ierome tels us you say right down in Tit. 1. Idē est ergo Presbyter c. Out of whose testimony you in summe collect That A Presbyter and a Bishop were originally one That the imparity was grounded upon Ecclesiasticall custome That before this priority the Church was governed by

In the meane time God blesse all good men from such charity and our sacred Monarchy from such friends The forme of the Episcopall Government of the Church hath contrarily been ever one and the same without any considerable variation and if it have anywhere invaded the Civil administration and yoked Monarchy it is the insolence of the persons not the fault of the Calling And if William Rufus a Prince noted for grosly irreligious oppressed by tyrannicall Popish Prelates did let fall this cholerick word that he would have the Jews confute them and that rather then faile England should turne Jewish on this condition Is this an argument for any Christian to use for the confuting of godly and loyall Protestant Bishops which are ready to be censured rather for too great observance of Soveraignty Let any but a Jew judge whether this be a fit instance for a Christian Any thing serves against Episcopacie The testimony of a Pope whom these men honour highly Pius 4. is also brought in as irrefragable against the Divine right of Bishops And what sayes Antichrist He tels the Spanish Ambassador that his Master suing for the Councels declaration of this truth knew not what he demanded for Bishops so declared would be exempted frō his Regall power and as independent as the Pope himselfe Tell me brethren Do ye like or beleeve this assertion because a Pope said it Or can ye blame him who would have all Episcopall Jurisdiction derived meerly from himselfe to be unwilling that their right should be yeelded to have the same grounds which he pretends for his owne And if there might be this danger in those Kingdomes where the Clergy challengeth an exemption from the power of all Secularity why is this enviously upbraided to those of ours who doe gladly professe notwithstanding the Apostolicall that is Divine right of their calling to hold their places and exercise of their Jurisdiction wholly from His Majesty Not lesse spitefull nor more true is your observation of the comparison made betweene the indeavours of alteration in our neighbour Church by our Episcopall faction and that which is now justly desired by the humble Petitioners to the honourable House It is a foule sclander to charge the name of Episcopacy with a faction for the fact imputed to some few Fie brethren are ye Presbyters of the Church of England and dare challenge Episcopacie of faction Had you spoken but such a word in the time of holy Cyprian whom you frequently cite as a patterne of good discipline what had become of you Neither is the wrong lesse to make application of that which was most justly charged upon the practises and combinations of libelling Separatists to humble and peaceable Petitioners the one railing down-right upon an established and holy Government whom I deservedly censured the other modestly suing for a reformation of the abuses of Government Surely whiles the worst are thus patronized by our indulgent answerers it is an hard question Whether the Libellers themselves or these their mis-zealous Advocates are more justly to be branded for Incendiaries SECT II. AFter this overflowing of your gall you descend to the two maine subjects of this quarrell Liturgy and Episcopacy I had truly said that our Liturgy hath been hither to esteemed sacred reverently used by holy Martyrs frequented by devout Protestants as that which hath been confirmed by Edicts of religious Princes and our owne Parliamentary Acts. And hath it so say you Whence then proceed so many Additions and Alterations that have changed the face and fabrick thereof Additions and Alterations What in the present Liturgie where or what tell me I beseech you brethren are they visible or are they not If not how come ye to see them if so why cannot we perhaps somewhere in stead of Priest there is Minister perhaps Absolution is interpreted by a Remission perhaps in private baptisme there is mention of a lawfull Minister perhaps in stead of Purification of women there is Thanksgiving And can ye know the Book when ye see it again after these Alterations these Additions Is it not now with this mis-altered Liturgie as with the disguised Dames mentioned of old by D. Hall whom you name I dare say for honors sake so mis-shapen by their monstrous fashions that their redivived Grandsires could not now know them Can ye but blush at this envious and groundlesse suggestion And why should not I speake of Martyrs as the Authors and users of this holy Liturgie why should not we glory in their name and Authority sleight you them as you please we blesse God for such Patrons of our good cause What a poore returne is this Whiles I tell you what our holy Martyrs did You tell me what one of our Bishops said As if we were bound to make good every word that falls from the mouth of every Bishop Even of the best man we may say as the Psalmist doth of Moses effutiit labiis he spake unadvisedly with his lips As for the words themselves If a Bishop have said that our Liturgy hath been so wisely and charitably framed as that the Devotion of it yeeldeth no cause of offence to a very Popes eare as onely aiming at an uncontroversory Piety I see not what hainous fault can herein be imputed to the speech or the Author Would you think it requisite that we should chide and quarrell when we speak to the God of Peace It is no little advantage therefore both to our cause and Piety that our Liturgie is taught to speak severall Languages both for use and example and thereby our Church hath gained much justification and honour As for that sharp censure of learned M r Calvins Tolerabiles ineptiae how ever it might well have been forborne by him In alienâ republicâ and by you to presse it upon our owne we honor the name of that noble instrument of Gods glory in his Church yet withall we fear not to say without any disparagement to his worth That our Liturgie both in the frame and survay of it passed the judgement of no lesse reverend heads then his owne Neither would you think it could become any of our greatest Divines to meddle with the wafers or Lords-day markets of his charge let every Church take care of their own affaires As for that unparalleld discourse of mine concerning the Antiquity of Liturgies Vnparalleld you say because no man that you have seene ever drew the line of Liturgie so high as I have done I must tell you that perhaps there may bee some things in the world that may have escaped your not-omniscient eies and perhaps this may bee one I cannot help your wonder but I shall justifie my own Assertion In the meane while ye doe almost yeeld the question ere you argue it If by Liturgie you say this Remonstrant understand an Order observed in Church assemblies of praying reading and expounding the Scriptures administration of Sacraments c. Such a Liturgie wee know and acknowledge both Iews

and Christians have used This yeelded what stick you at That there were prescribed and stinted formes composed by particular men in the Church and imposed upon the rest this will not down with you Wherein I cannot see how ye will avoid your own contradiction For I demand Is this order of praying and administration set or no If it be not set how is it an order and if it be a set order both for matter and form for you cannot I suppose under the name of an order intend a meere Table or Rabrick how can it be other then prescribed if the formes were meerly arbitrary to what use was the prescription of an Order and if they were not arbitrary certainly they were in some sort stinted and imposed But what a poore exception is this that they were composed by some particular men Was it ever heard that a whole Church together framed a forme of prayer Can one uniforme expression bee the originall act of many thousand braines and tongues Certainly some one or few must mold that which all shall both own and use It is a silly ostentation of Antiquity that these men bring against these prescribed formes of Liturgie Tertullian in his Apol. Chap. 30. sayes The Christians of those times did in their Assemblies pray for the Emperour Sine monitore quia de pectore that is not being urged by any superiour injunction but freely out of the loyall inclination of their owne hearts You mis-english it Without any prompter but their own hearts What is this to a prescribed forme Or if they will needs so take it why do they not as well argue That because our Ministers doe ordinarily in their Pulpits pray for the King in their own expressions therefore there is no forme of Liturgie injoyned As for their other testimony it is lesse to the purpose Who ever denied that some things are to be asked according to every mans occasion Doe we abridge this liberty by ordaining a publique forme And if the Lords Prayer be yeelded for an ordinary and stinted forme why not others Since the opposers of stinted forms do upon the same grounds decrie that also S. Austin sayes it is free to ask the same things that are desired in the Lords Prayer aliis atque aliis verbis in other wayes of expression who ever doubted of it Yet themselves will not dare to hold that in S. Austins time there was no publike Liturgy this is but to mock the Reader If Iustin Martyr said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom they somewhat guiltily translate The Instructer of the people prayed as they falsly turne it according to his ability It is true So doe ours and yet God bee thanked wee have a Liturgie and so had they Neither is this liberty of pouring out our selves in our prayers ever the more impeached by a publique forme since both those may and doe well stand together It is somewhat magisterially said by these men that Set and imposed formes were not introduced till the Arrian and Pelagian heresies did invade the Church And as Clerkly doe they immediately confute themselves by their owne testimonies cited out of the Councell of Laodicea which was before their limited time as being before the Nicene and betwixt that and the Neocesarean Nothing can be more full then the Canon of that ancient Synode That the same Liturgie of prayers should be alwaies used both in morning and evening Yet to mend the matter This say they was a forme of a mans owne prescribing Were it so wherein is that the better But how appears it By another Canon in a following Councell which was the third Councell of Carthage cap. 23. As if Carthage meant to tell what was before done at Laodicea And what say the Fathers at Carthage That in assisting at the Altar so are their words the Prayer should be directed to the Father quicunque sibi preces aliunde describit That is whosoever shall offer to make use of any other form then is prescribed should first conferre with his more learned brethren Plainly implying the contrary to that for which the Answerers alledge it That the usuall and allowed forme was not of his own composing and his own must not be at his own choise That of the Milevitane Councell is shuffled up by the Answerers not with too much fidelity for where they pretend the onely drift of the Councell to be That none should use set prayers but such as were approved of in the Synode The words of the Councell are full and affirmative Placuit ut preces It is ordered that the prayers or orisons which are allowed in the Synod c. shall be used or celebrated by all men nec aliae omnino dicantur and that no other shall be used in the Church then those c. approved in a Synod adding a sound reason ne fortè aliquid c. Lest perhaps something may be composed by them through ignorance or want of care contrary to the Faith Nothing can be more plain then that our Saviour prescribed to his Disciples besides the rules a direct form of Prayer whiles he saith Pray thus Much of which form I find cited as of ancient use out of the Seder Tephilloth of the Jews of Portugall the Antiquity wherof as not knowing how I might avow I expressed my selfe within three dayes of the first impression in the safe termes of the immediate edition which these men wil not be pleased to take notice of lest they should find their mouths to be stopt before-hand and so they should have lost their deare quarrell Howsoever that it may not seeme too strange that our Saviour should take up the formes and usages that had formerly obtained surely that he was pleased to make use in the Celebration of his last and heaven-by banquet of both the fashions and words which were usuall in the Jewish feasts Cassander hath well shewed in his Liturgica The set formes of prayer that were used at the Mincha and other the severall occasions of the Jewish sacrifices I find specified by learned Capellus in his Spicilegium to whom I referre the reader In the mean while since they make such wonder of a set forme used by Gods people ever since Moses his time I shall give them such a hint thereof as perhaps they have not heard of before In the Samaritane Chronicle now in the hands of the incomparable Primate of Ireland the Lord Archbishop of Armach by him procured out of the Library of the famously learned Ios Scaliger thus they shall find After relation of the death of Adrian the Emperour whom these Jewes curse with a Deus conterat ejus ossa which in their computation falls upon the yeare 4513. from Adam Quo tempore abstulit c. At which time say they he tooke away that most excellent book which was in their hands ever since the calme and peaceable times of the Israelites which contained those