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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46639	Nazianzeni querela et votum justum, The fundamentals of the hierarchy examin'd and disprov'd wherein the choicest arguments and defences of ... A.M. ... the author of An enquiry into the new opinions (chiefly) propagated by the Presbyterians in Scotland, the author of The fundamental charter of presbytry, examin'd & disprov'd, and ... the plea they bring from Ignatius's epistles more narrowly discuss'd.../ by William Jameson.	Jameson, William, fl. 1689-1720.	1697 (1697)	Wing J443; ESTC R11355	225,830	269

than the rest assert that it is founded on the Example and Institution of Christ or his Apostles § 3. This Discourse therefore shall weigh the Advantages alledged to flow from Episcopacy that it may appear if it have such Effects as they Promise As also inquire if the Hurt and Dammage does not preponderat all the Good they can pretend to be linked to their Hierarchy Neither shall we neglect to examine if what the most Learned of that Perswasion bring from Ecclesiastick Antiquity be subservient to their Cause Section II. The Aphorism No Bishop No King discuss'd A Chief Argument whereby they would prove the necessity of Prelacy they bring from the great Support which they say it affords to Monarchy Hence with them No Bishop No King is an axiomatick Aphorism which cannot be readily granted seeing to name no more the charges the Hierarchy stood the King and Kingdom made a dear Bargain Much was spent in their stated Revenues but more by their clandestine Exactions and other sinistrous means of draining the Country and places of their pretended Jurisdictions throw which there are Incorporations that even at this day groan under the Debts they then contracted And yet more by sustaining Standing-forces to be Janizaries to the Prelates and their Complices and persecute the sincerer part of Protestants for else there was then no use of such numbers Yet their Maxime may be thus far granted that Prelacy may much contribute to the introduction of a Despotick and Arbitrary Government And indeed the great Power they usurped and manifold Influences they had over both Cities and Country either to wheedle or menace them to elect such Members of Parliament as pleased them and to Cajole or awe these Parliament-men to speak in their own Dialect And the being of a good number of them prime Lords of the Articles whereby they had either the mediat or immediat Flection of the rest made them well nigh able to effect no less Which kind of Government no Wise and Paternal Prince will desire § 2. Moreover that Princes have no great reason to be fond of them is apparent from their great unfitness to manage Politick and State-Affairs There are two Ways whereby one may be fitted for being a Statesman either when Natural induements are extraordinary which I doubt if many of our Prelats could affirm of themselves Or else that of Education and continued Industry whereby to be fitted for State-imployments but so far were they from any thing of this that during their greener years they had quite other Studies and Imployments being designed for the Ministry and so were obliged to prosecute hard the Study of Divinity which I am sure will give any Man his handsfull of Work who makes earnest of it From this they are taken to feed some Flock which at least will give them no less exercise Now how these Men can be fit for managing State-affairs or how they can be well kept from falling into Solecisms therein whose skill is so small is not very discernable But though they were never so well fore-armed for such high State-imployments how find they leisure to exercise them Is not the Ruling and Governing so many Ministers and Churches which they alledge themselves to be entrusted with a Work heavy enough to exercise if not to bruise any one Man Or where have they found Warrant to relinquish the Ministry and turn themselves to Offices of State when offered or to undertake both together Do they not believe that either of them is heavy enough Know they not that not only the Apostle but also the ancient Canons and to name no others these which though not truly are called the Canons of the Apostles most clearly condemn this their Practice Let neither say they a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken upon him any secular Business otherways let him be cast out off his Office Hence we may learn if it be out of Conscience that these Men plead for Antiquity when they palpable contemn and trample what themselves count the most venerable Precepts thereof Moreover it 's observable how they so far as their Interest led them still studied the ruine of those to whom they owed their Being as Bishops Thus the Roman Prelats studied the Ruine of both the Eastern and Western Emperours Thus the Bishops of Scotland brought no small Vexation to both King and Nobility in the Reign of Alexander the III. And so Becket of Canter●ury and his Faction handled Henry the II of England But worse did their Successours treat Richard the II whom in his Absence they deprived of his Kingdom It 's vain to repone that these were Papists seeing the ambition of Prelats is well enough known of whatever Name they be Yea such also have been the Practices of Prelats who acknowledged no Pope as divers of the Greek Patriarks who helped not a little to Dethrone their Emperour And the English Bishops as Sir Francis Knols complains in a Letter to Secretary Cicil encroached not a little upon the Priviledges of the Crown kept Courts in their own Name and still give out that the Complex of their Office i. e. the civil part of it as well as the other without any Distinction was not from the King but from Jesus Christ. Which Encroachments are really Imperium in Imperio On which account this their usurped Power as being dangerous and of a Romish Original was abolished in the first Parliament of Edward the VI. The Substance of what Dr. Sanderson either insinuats or more clearly expresseth in Answer hereto is that this was a Corruption in Edward 's Reformation And that some other Courts in England as well as these of the Bishops are not kept in the King's Name But sure it 's not very credible that this was a Corruption seeing nothing else since Edward's Days hath been done during the succeeding Reigns for that Church's further Reformation but 't is an odd Paradox if we consider the Author for it was Mary who Abolished this Act of Edward and restored their Power when she brought back the rest of Popery And though other Courts as he says be not kept in the King's Name yet reason teacheth and former experience proves how dangerous it was to give Ecclesiasticks ought that looks like an Absolute power and worldly Grandure whereby like the Pope they may by his Artifices arrive at length to a real Independency And indeed B. Laud made large steps towards it who as Roger Coke relates copt with the King himself and maugre both his Will and Authority must visit Colledges not as his Commissioner but by his own Metropolitan right and plumed thus saith the Author in his own Feathers all black and white without one borrowed from Caesar whereby the more he assumes to himself the less he leaves to the King he now soars higher And notable here is Dr. Sanderson's disingenuity who always gives out that the Marian Act which he still compares with yea prefers to that of Edward was

only from these titular Bishops and Rent-gatherers to the Courtiers supported with all the might Wit and Artifice of an awfull gripping politick Regent and no few other potentand subtile Courtiers driving their own ends as has already appeared and is most evident from the best accounts now extant of these Affairs and this is the undoubted Cause why the six Collocutors at the Assembly in August 1575. think it not expedient presently to answer directly to the Question of the Function of Bishops But he who stilleth the noise of the Seas the noise of their waves having restrain'd these impetuous Tempests how cordially did our Church proceed to the utter extirpation of Prelacy Forsamekle they are the words of the Assembly holden at Dundee Anno 1580. July 12. Sess. 4. as the Office of a Bishop as it is now used and commonly taken within this Realme hath no sure warrant authority or good ground out of the Book and Scriptures of God but brought in by the folly and corruption of mens invention to the great overthrow of the true Kirk of God the whole Assembly of the Kirk in one voice after liberty given to all Men to reason in the matter none opponing themself in defence of the said pretended Office findeth and declareth the samine pretended Office used and termed as is above said unlawfull in the self as having neither fundament ground nor warrant in the word of God c. And in all this our Church as she clearly here expresses did nothing save what she was oblig'd to do by her own Principle in the first Book of Discipline which affirms that all thing necessary for the instruction of the Church is contain'd in the Books of the Old and New Testament And that whatsoever is without express commandment of God's Word is to be repress'd as damnable to Salvation Our Reformers therefore except our Adversaries say which even impudence it self dare not say that they believ'd the Hierarchy to be founded on the express command of God's Word were bound by this their Principle to oppose it as a manifest corruption and according to this Principle whensoever Prelacy by force of the secular arm and fraud of serpentine policy and as one well words it by terrors and allurements crosses and commodities banishment and benefices for by other means it could never be admitted overwhelm'd this Land and discover'd the Hypocrisie or Gallio-like Disposition of many all the true Lovers of our Reformation still then had in greater or lesser measure as their love was to this truly Protestant yea truly Catholick and Christian Principle of our Reformers their Feasts turned into Mourning their Songs into Lamentation their Tears for Meat and their Harps hang'd on the Willows And now suppose that our Reformers in that unstable condition of our Church and very first rudiments of Protestancy had in some of their Doings or Saying afforded some colour or appearance either for the scruples of the curious or the quirks and cavils of the captious does not pray this most unanimous most clear and every way most unexceptionable Act of our most full and free Generall Assembly that consisted for the far greater part of the very same Men who were the Actors and Promoters of our first Reformation most fully open our Remormers their minds shew their ultimat tendency and scope and finally for ever determine the present Controversie § 8. He hath more to say of John Knox I return therefore to attend him His next Plea is with Calderwood about Beza's Letter to Knox where he denies that Beza wrote being inform'd by Knox of the Courts intention to bring in Bishops and adds that if any thing of Knox ' s Sentiments can be collected from Beza ' s Letter it seems rather he was for Prelacy than for Presbytry For Beza saith he seems clearly to import that Knox needed to be caution'd against Prelacy Beza's Words are But I would have you my dear Knox and the other Brethren to Remember that which is before your eyes that as Bishops brought foorth the Papacy so false Bishops the relicts of Popery shall bring in Epicurism to the World They that desire the Churches good and safety let them take heed of this Pest and seeing ye have put that Plague to flight timously I heartily pray you that Ye never admit it again albeit it seem plausible with the pretence or colour of keeping unily which pretence deceiv'd the ancient Fathers yea even many of the best of ' em Where Beza without giving any proof thereof clearly supposes as a thing believed by Knox no less than by himself that the Bishops whom some were then labouring to introduce into Scotland were false Bishops the relicts of Popery which had already been once driv'n out of Scotland and on this supposition as any Orators use to do from Principles common to themselves and these to whom they are speaking he admonish'd him and the rest to beware of this Plague Certain it is then if we believe Beza that he knew if by a Letter from Knox or otherwise concerns not the matter in hand that Knox judg'd the Bishops then to be introduc'd to be no others than were the Popish Bishops whom Knox and his fellow Reformers had lately expuls'd Scotland and both sorts of Bishops to be equally false and Anti-christian And now consider this Letter of Beza written near the same time with that of Knox to the Assembly and the disinterested shall soon perceive that the former explains the latter and sufficiently shews what Knox meant by the Tyranny mention'd therein Moreover whosoever finds so much against Episcopacy in Beza even tho' it had been spoken by him without any relation or respect to Knox and remembers how universal and firm Concord was between these excellent Persons Qui duo corporibus mentibus unus erant will easily conclude that Knox bore but small kindness to Prelacy § 9. He comes next to prove Knox was not for Parity Had he been saith he so perswaded how seasonable had it been for him to have spoken out so mnch when he was brought before King Edward ' s Council The Question was then put to him whether he thought that no Christian might serve in the Ecclesiastical Ministration according to the Rites and Laws of the Realm of England Yet he answer'd nothing but that no Minister in England had Authority to separate the Lepers from the whole which was a chief part of his Office Plainly founding all the unlawfulness of being a Pastor of the Church of England not only the unlawfulness of the Hierarchy which he spoke not one word about but on the Kings retaining the chief Power of Ecclesiastical Discipline As if Knox had judg'd nothing in the Church of England unlawfull but the King 's retaining the Ecclesiastical Discipline in his own hand which all Men even Episcopals no less than Presbyterians know to be an arch and palpable untruth Does not as for example our Assembly Anno 1566.